Archive for August, 2014

Transcontinental Remixes and Rarities

Tuesday, August 26th, 2014

Summer is almost over! Yay! Summer sucks. Summer especially sucks in Tokyo, when it’s been like 32c-35c (89-95f) EVERY GODDAMN DAY since July 1st. If you could bottle all the perspiration I’ve sweated out over the past two months then you’d have solved California’s water crisis.

And with that lovely mental picture in all your heads, here is some music.

Lene Lovich
Wonderland (New York Dance Mix Radio Edit)
Wonderland (London Dance Mix)
Wonderland (London Dance Mix Radio Edit)
Don’t ask for my opinion of Lene Lovich, I don’t even know how to pronounce her name. All I know about her is that she was on Stiff Records, so I of course own some of her stuff.

Sheena & The Rokkets
You May Dream
Radio Junk
Rocket Factory
Sheena & The Rokkets were yet another in a long line of Yellow Magic Orchestra protege acts that gained some degree of notoriety in their native Japan during the late 70s and early 80s.

Of all the YMO-associates they’re probably the most different – eschewing the cold, Kraftwerk-inspired aesthetic of their label mates for a far more new wave/punk rock style reminiscent of early Blondie. If you told me they played CBGB’s I wouldn’t be surprised (oh wait, they did).

Even though the group didn’t sound a lot like YMO, the synth-pop pioneers are all over their 1979 debut album Vacuum Pack. All three members of YMO are credited keyboard players on the LP, and each of them wrote a song for the album as well, which are the three I’m sharing tonight. “You May Dream” was written Haruomi Hosono; Yukihiro Takahashi wrote the upbeat and utterly amazing “Radio Junk” (which YMO would perform live) and Sakamoto-san composed the all-keyboards album closer “Rocket Factory.” It sounds absolutely nothing like anything else on the album, and I feel hesitant to even call it a Sheena & The Rokkets track, as it’s obviously a Sakamoto joint through and through.

I may share more Sheena & The Rokkets later, I really dig these guys.

Luscious Jackson
Ladyfingers (Refrigerator Box Remix)
Ladyfingers (Guaranteed Every Time Remix)
Ladyfingers (BD’s Smooth Finger Remix)
Ladyfingers (Smackit Remix)
I’m really glad that me moving to another country hasn’t stopped me from buying completely inessential singles from bands that I wasn’t that big a fan of in the first place.

I’m fairly certain that at least one of these remixes samples “Atomic Dog” though, so there’s that.

Posted in Lene Lovich, Luscious Jackson, remixes | 3 Comments »

Reality vs Remixes

Wednesday, August 20th, 2014

Boy, the world is just a horrible shitty place full of horrible people that do shitty things to each other for no reason other than to be horrible and shitty. Sigh.

No. FUCK THAT. Hey overwhelming anxiety and depression, go to hell. I have obscure remixes of marginally successful songs from over a decade ago – so you can just go to hell with that bullshit.

I’m actually going to be writing something over at Mostly-Retro in the next few days about all the horribleness going on in the world (specifically Missouri, which has gotten even more horrible than it usually is), and how music is failing the world at the moment.

But until then, hey! I went to a big giant huge music festival in Japan last weekend and wrote about it! Check that out!

Franz Ferdinand
Do You Want To (Unknown Remix)
Do You Want To (Unknown Remix 2)
Mysterious remixes! Found these on a white label 12″ single that I bought for about 100 yen (a buck). Totally bootleg for sure, but definitely better than some legit remixes of Franz Ferdinand songs that I’ve heard in the past, I can tell you that much. I know nothing about these, so if anyone has any clue as to who the hell did these (probably no one of note, but you never know), please holler.

Muse
New Born (Paul Oakenfold’s Perfecto Remix)
Sunburn (Timo Maas’ Sunstroke Remix)
Sunburn (Timo Maas’ Breakz Again Mix)
Whenever I hear “New Born” I think of a murderous lesbian with a concrete saw. So when I hear this dance remix by Paul Oakenfold I just think of a murderous lesbian with a concrete saw at a rave. Thanks movies, you always ruin everything.

Posted in Franz Ferdinand, Muse, remixes | No Comments »

Mythical Lands And Angry Giants

Monday, August 11th, 2014

This weekend I will be at Summer Sonic in Tokyo! I plan on seeing Babymetal, Suicidal Tendencies, Pharcyde, De La Soul, Akiko Yano, Boom Boom Satellites, and at the end of the last day MOTHERFUCKING KRAFTWERK.

So if you happen to be attending Summer Sonic and see me, come up and say hi. I’ll be easy to spot, I’m the insanely tall white dude. For reference, check out these eight YouTube videos where you can see the back of my head. 

Klaxons
Atlantis to Interzone (Nightmoves Remix)
Atlantis To Interzone (Digitalism’s Klix Klax R-R-Remix)
Atlantis To Interzone (Dave P and Adam Sparkles’ Festival Remix Extended Break)
This song simultaneously references the mythical city of Atlantis and the acid trip freakout works of William S. Burroughs, which must have been the Klaxons way of saying “we all have liberal arts degrees and do drugs.”

Rollins Band
Illumination (Illuminator Remix Edit)
Henry Rollins scares me. So Henry, if you’re out there and you find this post and you don’t like that I’m sharing this song, please tell me and I’ll delete them. You won’t need to fly to Tokyo and pound the living shit out of me.

I may be a big guy but I’m fragile.

 

Posted in Henry Rollins, Klaxons, remixes | 1 Comment »

Let’s Get Hopped Up On Goofballs And Listen to Trippy Music

Monday, August 4th, 2014

I did it! I updated my blog for five days a week every week for a whole month! Now I can finally go back to barely updating this thing.

Just kidding, don’t worry. Part of the reason for that exercise was for me to finally motivate my lazy ass into writing a bit about music again. I can’t believe I’ve in Japan for eight months now, and I just now am finally getting back into the groove of writing on a somewhat consistent basis. To be perfectly honest, a lot of that has less to do with me moving halfway across the world, and more to do with me having a full-time leave-my-house office job for the first time in eight years or so. That was way more a culture shock than moving to a foreign land let me tell you.

So my plan, barring another damn illness or mental breakdown, is to go back to my regular schedule of updating this site at least twice a week, and Mostly-Retro, the review site with no purpose nor readers (sob) at least once a week. Let’s see if that sticks.

Now lets get fucked up and go to a rave.

Klaxons
Gravity’s Rainbow (Van She Remix)
Gravity’s Rainbow (Nightmoves Remix)
Gravity’s Rainbow (To My Boy Remix)
Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the second through fourth greatest remixes of “Gravity’s Rainbow.” In case you were wondering, the greatest remix of this tune is the Soulwax Remix, which I am not including in tonight’s post because you can buy it on just about every digital music marketplace. And you fucking should buy it. That remix does shit that I’ve never heard any other remix do to a song. If I could frame that remix I would.

These are great too, but they’re the Gregg Allman to the Duane Allman of the Soulwax remix.

Oh, by the way, I reviewed that new Allman Brothers release over at Mostly-Retro, so go check that out.

Yes, I just segued a blog post about the Klaxons into a plug for an Allman Brothers review. I’m a great writer.

Spiritualized
Come Together (Richard Fearless Mix)
Come Together (Two Lone Swordsmen Mix)
I remember one time seeing an album by Spiritualized forerunner Spacemen 3 entitled Taking Drugs To Make Music To Take Drugs To. I feel that the sentiment of that title has continued to reverberate through all the reverb-filled music that Jason Pierce (former Spacemen 3 frontman and the man behind Spiritualized) has made ever since. The original version of “Come Together” is a fabulously trippy tune, and these remixes keep the acid freakout going, with distortion effects and random audio sample abound. Be careful with these ones, the might trigger a bad trip big time.

OH GOD THE ZOMBIE ELEPHANTS ARE BACK.

Posted in Klaxons, remixes, Spiritualized | No Comments »