Wednesday, January 30, 2008

New Brutalism

It's been an interesting month here at Drinks-After-Work. There hasn't been much blogging goin' on, that's fer sure. I've been on holiday for about a month and there's been no damn time, you know? There's been a hell of a lot going on which I'll cover off in another post, shortly, if I can find a dignified way of doing so. But suffice it to say that I've spent most of that time getting drunk, and the rest of the time sleeping.

Otherwise I've spent a lot of time looking at pictures of Brutalist architecture, inspired in part by Robyn (also see pic here).




...

I thought we'd better have a song, so here's one* from Chris Whitley:

Chris Whitley - New Machine (3.80 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; play using the handy little embedded player below)




It's off Din of Ecstasy from 1995, and his most-hated album/least well-regarded on Allmusic.com out of about a dozen efforts. For example, here's the Allmusic review:
On his second album, Whitley abandons the atmospheric acoustic blues-rock of his debut for a hard-hitting, grungy guitar attack. Appropriately, the songs are all about losers and hard times -- it's a dark, bleak album, twisting through its songs with a grim determination. The problem is, it doesn't always work. Whitley's lyrics are still rooted in the folk-blues storytelling tradition, while his music follows the rules of contemporary hard rock, complete with start-stop dynamics and thick layers of distortion. However, he can't write riffs that equal the best of Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden, nor does he have melodies to rival theirs. His music works best a lyrical level and the musical approach on Din of Ecstasy obscures his lyrics, making the record a muddled affair.

See, aside from the first two sentences which are correct, that's complete and utter bullshit. It's a sensationally, exceedingly-cool record, and at some point I'm going to write about it a bit more.




And why does Allmusic.com have such trouble with awesome albums about being/getting fucked up?


* Anyone get the connection?

...

There's also probably gonna be a few minor changes to DAW, too. In my 4th year, at well over 500 posts now, I'm approaching 40,000 reads and I decided to have a wee overhaul, both to the layout and to the content. Some of the changes are immediate -- for example the "tag-cloud" in the left side-bar (I can't have a real tag cloud because *cough* Blogger is a *cough* ass), and the broken archives navigation (sorry about that) -- and others will be coming as I find time to get them sorted out.

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

New Stumps cassette album "Exigence" released

The Stumps Exigence C60 (Lady Garden, via Scumbag Relations, 2008).

Co-Stump Antony Milton wrote:
So the new Stumps album is out. It has amazing cover artwork by Yunico Uchiyma. This is some of my favourite Stumps stuff yet. Its basically a collection of the best of the stuff that we haven't been able to use on record or CD due to excessive digital distortion or whatever. On cassette this just doesn't seem to matter so much.. But yeah- I fully recommend this one- its the perfect blend of our more ambient studio stuff and the pull out the jams rock excess of the live shows...

Label-guy Eric once wrote:
cassettes of mind melting calibre with artwork by always crazy psychedelic artists
...
this stuff ripped my mind apart.

epic and heavy heavy heavy. listening for the second time right now...seems a little more peaceful than the first listen which blasted me waaaay out !!

I love the change at the 13 minute mark on the A side. Reminds me a lot of Landfall at first before everything gets incinerated... Harsh as I've ever heard you guys!

puh

fully engulfed!

We should have copies soon but otherwise you can get it from Scumbag Tapes.

In the meantime you can listen to a couple of the tracks here.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Bea Arthur Porn Party

I wonder if Bea Arthur (TV's The Golden Girls, etc.) ever indulges in vanity googling (as well as every fucking one else).

I wonder if she's come across this, yet:
Intestinal Disgorge - Bea Arthur Porn Party (1.06 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; play using the handy little embedded player below)







Intestinal Disgorge is a porn/gore-grind band from Texas, USA. This track is from their album A Cock Work Whore Binge. (Get it?)

I found them here.



You might be tempted to dismiss them as a bunch of fucking sick monkeys, but I'm quite enchanted with the fresh viewpoint they bring to the increasingly commercial and transactionalised area of inter-gender power relationships.

"Women Lie Alot"

You have to give them a few props, though, cos the cute* baldy in the front row is wearing a t-shirt for Judas Iscariot, probably the best-ever non-Scandinavian black metal outfit.

*serial-killer cute

....

I did another one of those radio shows. Here's the playlist:

David Bowie -- Black Country Rock from The Man Who Sold The World
Can -- Thief from Delay '68
Ghost -- Escaped and Lost Down in Medina from Hypnotic Underworld
Black Sabbath -- Under the Sun from Volume 4
Roxy Music -- Beauty Queen from For Your Pleasure
Polyphonic Spree -- Section B (It's the Sun) from The Beginning Stages Of...
Labradford -- Midrange from Labradford
Signer -- Building Memories Without You from Low Light Dreams
Velvet Cacoon -- Genevieve pt. 1 from Genevieve
Snapper -- Buddy from Snapper EP
Sting -- Russians from Dream of the Blue Turtles
Chris Bell -- Speed of Sound from I Am The Cosmos
Sneaky Feelings -- Waiting for Touchdown from Send You
The Terminals -- Uncoffined from Uncoffined
Bailterspace -- New Man from Nelsh EP
Stranglers -- Get a Grip from Rattus Norvegicus
Clean -- Billy Two from Compilation
Captain Beefheart -- I'm Gonna Booglarise You Baby from The Spotlight Kid
Big Star -- Thank You Friends from Third/Sister Lovers
Johnny Thunders -- Born To Lose from some compilation/reissue
Darkthrone -- Slottet I Det Fierne from Transilvanian Hunger
Jean-Paul Satre Experience -- Flex from J.P.S.E. EP
Only Ones -- Another Girl, Another Planet from The Only Ones
Thom Yorke -- Analyse from The Eraser
Radiohead -- Bodysnatchers from In Rainbows
Robert Forster -- Danger in the Past from Danger in the Past
Phil Davison -- Memorial from Songs for the Dead of Gandamek

Monday, January 07, 2008

Dance, dance, dance, dance, to the radio

Just a wee heads up: I'll be presenting the very first Wellingtonista Radio Show on The VBC tonight. The VBC is the student owned and operated/community LPFM radio station broadcasting on 88.3FM, based at the Kelburn Campus of Victoria University of Wellington, in New Zealand.



I've had little luck picking up their signal on my radio -- which is odd given that I live quite close to the transmitter (I think I'm in the shadow of a hill) -- but the streaming feed (http://202.50.176.139:8000/listen.pls) works just fine. The show will go from 7 - 9 pm, NZDT (GMT+13). The studio line is +64 4 463 9994 if you feel like ringing up and abusing/encouraging me.

Things is in they infancy, but expect the show to grow and grow and take on a life and form of its own over the early weeks of the year, with contributions from many of the Wellingtonista's writers.