Dark Woods Casino Pantry for May 13th, 2008

Icky Boyfriends - "Pay N'Pak" - A Love Obscene - (Menlo Park)
Half Japanese - "Thing with a Hook" - Loud and Horrible - (Drag City)
The Centimeters - "Dracula Gary" - Presents the Facts of Destiny - (WIN)
Cabaret Voltaire - "Speed Kills" - Zero Degrees East, a Mix by Fast Asleep Club

Blue Sabbath Black Cheer - "Boutranger Moor"
Tim Hecker - "Celestina" - Mirages - (Kranky)

Matmos - "Cloudhoppers" - Supreme Balloon - (Matador)
Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers - "I Want You to Be My Girl" - The Best of - (Rhino)
Assumarks Derfla - "The Crawfish" - The Shing-A-Ling Ain't the Thing, a mix by Mr. Fine Wine
Larry Williams - "Short Fat Fannie" - Specialty Records Greatest Hits - (Specialty)
The 5 Royales - "The Real Thing"
Sylvan - "We Don't Belong" - Dreambabes Volume Three - (RPM)
Bobby Bland - "I've Just Got to Forget You" - Two Steps from the Blues - (MCA)

Ralf Wehowsky - "Atmosphere" - Beziehung - (Table of the Elements)
Alan Licht and Aki Onda - "Tick Tock" - Everydays - (Family Vineyard)
Acid Mothers Temple and the Melting Paradise U.F.O - "In E" - In C - (Squealer)
Jad Fair and Naofumi Ishimaru - "Godzilla Invades Mars" - Half Monster - (Misc. Music)

Don't forget that a lot of the songs I play on here are secret messages, clandestine transmissions. I am trying to tell you something.

awwww

Has anyone else noticed the lettering on the new Matmos album, Supreme Balloon?





This tribute reminded me of one the things I like so much about Drew Daniel's work, especially with The Soft Pink Truth, but also with Matmos. He flaunts his influences in a joyful way, and pays tribute to them through his music, both conceptually and by experimentation with the form he is alluding to. He is a super-fan and scholar - critically dissecting genres, trends and pop and experimental music formulas. His work reminds me of an academic essay written in glee. The ideas or statements behind the album concept are as compelling as the music within.

Also, Supreme Balloon is fantastic. The Tomita allusion is more then just that - it is all over the music.

Dark Woods Casino Party for 4/22/08

Van Shipley - "Gharki Murgi" - Bollywood Steel Guitar - (Sublime Frequencies)
unknown artists - "Dance Hall Twist" - from the film The Creeping Terror
Billy Stewart - "Sitting in the Park" - Twentieth Century Masters

Doris Troy - "Whatcha Gonna Do About It?" - The Girls Got Soul - (Kent)
St. Gun Khin May - "Shan Village" - Victrola Favorites - (Dust-to-Digital)
Rod McKuen - "Eros" - Queer Noises: From the Closet to the Charts - (Trikont)
P.S. I Love You - "Spell" - Into the Woods and What We Saw There
Sixes - "Wroughten Wretch" - Cursed Beast - (Troniks)

Steven R. Smith - "A Celebration" - Tableland - (Emperor Jones)
Loachfillet - untitled
Vertonen - "Face Grab with Chlorine" - Stations - (C.I.P)
Robert Tomasi - "When I Let You Down"
Sylvester - "Over and Over (12" Disco Mix)"

Laura Lee - "Women's Love Rights" - Go Girl! Soul Sisters Tell it Like It Is - (Rhino)
Bo Diddley - "Ride on Josephine" - Bo Diddley is a Gunslinger
Ivor Cutler - "An Old Oak Tree" - Dandruff
unknown artist - "Gaw Gawng Jing Pe Play" - Ehtnic Minority Music of Southern Laos - (Sublime Frequencies)
Strategy - "untitled" - Music for Lamping - (Audio Dregs)
Evangelista - "Winds of St. Anne" - Hello, Voyager - (Constellation)
Wolf Eyes - "Human Animal" - Human Animal - (Sub Pop)

He Doesn't Even Know I Exist - A Compendium to the Boy Down the Street

1. "Johnny Angel" by Shelley Fabares
2. "Terry" by Twinkle
3. "He Cried" by the Shangri-Las and Luv'd Ones
4. "The Rider" by the Pussycats
5. "Dressed in Black" by the Pussycats
6. "Leader of the Pack" by the Shangri-Las
7. "Johnny Thunders" by the Kinks
8. "Johnny Are You Queer?" by Josie Cotton
9. "Johnny Loves Me" by Glenda Collins
10. "Beatnik Boy" by Talulah Gosh
11. "Heaven in a Black Leather Jacket" by The 6ths

Dark Woods Casino Party - 4/8/08

The Homosexuals - "Vociferous Slam" - Astral Glamour - (Hyped2Death)
The Banana Splits - "I Enjoy Being a Boy (In Love with You)"
Shirelles - "Dedicated to the One I Love - The Doo-Wop Box Set - (Rhino)
The Weird Weeds - "Sorry Rain" - I Miss This - (Auto Bus)
..the sounds of North American Frogs...
Hans-Joachim Roedelius - "Wenn Der Sudwind Weht"
Yellow Swans - "To Valleys of Beatiful Arson" - Ambient Not Not Ambient - (Audio Dregs)

P-Model - untitled - Landsale
Dave E. and the Marriage Counselors - "Searching Through Sears"
Television Personalities - "She's Only the Grocer's Daughter" - Yes Darling, But Is it Art?
Hungry March Band - "Whole Hog" - Portable Soundtracks for Temporary Utopias
Edward H. Defis - "Y Penderfy"
Strategy - "Lower Macleay" - Music for Lamping - (Audio Dregs)

Claudio Mingardi - "Star (Medley w/Starman)"
Hercules and Love Affair - "Blind"
Oval - "Polygon Med Pak" - The Corners of the Mouth - (Bubble Core)
Maria Smyrnea - "The Grass Widow" - Victrola Favorites Volume 2
Bill Carlisle's Kentucky Boys - "Unclouded Sky" - Prayers from Hell - White Gospel and Sinners Blues

Christina Carter - "Solitude" - Christina Carter/Pocahaunted LP - (Not Not Fun)
Sun Ra and His Intergalactic Solar Arkestra - "Mysterious Crystal" - Space is the Place - (Evidence)
Lord Beginner - "Jamaica Hurricane" - London is the Place for Me
Eric Ostrowski - "Finding Entrances" - Magnificent Forest

Beloved Bands I Just Can't Get Into - An Incomplete List

Negativland - So many of my friends love them, but I just don't get it. I think some of the stuff is funny, such as "Piece of Pie", but overall, I much prefer People Like Us.
Sonic Youth - Granted, I listened to a lot of Daydream Nation years ago, and some of Sister, but as a whole, I can't dig it, although I am a fan of Thurston Moore's experimental excursions. Maybe one day I will see the light?
Animal Collective - They have some pleasant enough songs, but it has never done it for me..my apologies to my boyfriend.
The Decemberists - I guess this isn't surprising considering my complete drift away from "indie rock" in the last few years.
Glass Candy - I wouldn't call them "beloved", but it seems like I would like them a lot given my love of the kind of music they're emulating.
Bjork - I liked some of her music as a teenager, but even then it never blew me away. I've never been able to fully connect with her music.

Bands Whom I Used to Love, but Have Since Broken Up With:

Cat Power - I loooooved Moon Pix when I was 17, and I listened to a lot of You Are Free when I was 20/21, but since then, I can't love her music the way I used to.
A Lot of the K Records arsenal, including Mirah and Microphones - Maybe it is just because that I don't listen to much of this kind of music anymore, but as much as I'll always have a place in my heart for K Records music. It isn't bad music at all, I just don't feel compelled to listen to it anymore. Something tells me I'll come back to it years from now. This is also true for the music of The Mountain Goats, who I used to adore to pieces, but somehow it isn't like it used to be.

serious synth fetish

I-F's Mixed Up in the Hague is one of the most important discs I have ever encountered. It is a mix of electro and disco of the Italo variety. It very neatly sums up why I find synthesizers and vocoders so sexy and gorgeous. When people speak of Italo disco, they often refer to its space-like quality, and this is entirely accurate. This idea is succinctly summed in Peter Richard's song from the I-Robots italo disco comp: "walking in the neon, the lonely galaxy".

When I was a teenager, I had an inkling that I liked a certain kind of dance music that would be perfect for traversing a highway at night, lights glowing intermittently within the darkness. Certain techno music on the Seattle dance station was suggestive of what I would come to love, or 80's synth-pop such as Depeche Mode and Pet Shop Boys would also allude to it. It would take a while until I discovered just the right ingredients to make the perfect synth-pop concoction.

The music with Mixed Up in the Hague is suggestive of romance and danger, but mostly of the loneliness of space. At this moment in my life, this disc makes me sublimely happy. I can think of nothing that is as perfect. The transition between Alexander Robotnick and Mr. Flagio is especially tops. For some good reading on the essentials of Italo disco-kind of music, see an article from Woebot.