Zack, Zack, He's a hiatus maniac!

Finally...  Wait.  I am stopping right there.  When bullshitting with friends about a Zack De LaRocha side project (side project now being funny because of the time spent away by him from any project) I have started many a statement with those words.  Finally.  There has always been murmurs on the vine that Zack is doing music.  He's in Mexico. He's a political representative for the Zapatistas. He's a phantom.  Did Rage Against the Machine really exist? I saw Zack in a Krispy Cream in L.A.  He was battlin' for a chocolate Glaze. I heard Zack doesn't like doughnuts.  He probably only eats churros. BLAH BLAH BLAH.  Gimme a break.  Those are the kind of rumors that fly around a sixteen year old music gossip convo.  

Point Being is that the man has now officially teamed up with ANTI records, a label that ex band mate, Tom Morello, and The Night Watchmen also used for distribution, and non other than one of the sauciest Latin flavors the Mars Volta had brandished as the sole reason I listened to them, Jon Theodore.   

This isn't just a rumor.  They have a picture together.  

 And like all those other grainy snaps of Zack with huge dreads and bitchin' mexican beard from the Zapata politico days, it is in black and white.  It emanates that eerie classified vibe that I always got from seeing a shot like this from Circus when i was a youngen.  Hopefully there won't be a bitch out and more reclusion by the once great front man and his new beat behemoth if something goes hay-wire in the corporate structure.

I now have been sporting cane for four hours, time to call the doctor.  

Jockin Sasha

Norway and the ice people seem to have one thing in common: a lot of damn good music comes from the place and surrounding areas.  Meshuggah, Sigur Ros, any black metal, refused...Bjork.  NOW I am not saying my geogrphy is great but hey.  Most of them are just coming from, to take a line from Steve-o in SLC Punk, in my mind just some big fukkin' American state.  Point is that some of these Norweegs come up with some great stylized stuff.  And this Ida Maria is no different.  In a bad way the group reeks of bif naked but that could be Ida's alcohol swabbed vocals which, guiltily, break this listeners ears right down.  It's too Brody Dalle NOT to like it.  It's catchy mid 90s rips like this that makes me still listen to Superdrag.

KEEP KICKING IT WEEGANS!

  

Okinawa looks great about now.

So the weather here in Kashiwa today is phenomenal.  I went for a bike ride on Julius.  Ride the river 08 is what it was.  So in response to todays orgasmically summer weather i say, "GO LISTEN TO HIGHER PLACES AND GET OUTSIDE!"

This TOOwwn is jumping like a Ghost Town (12" v.)

After a long break I have been inspired to write in tha blog again.  Dan Friel, hailing from Brooklyn NY, has busted my snobby attitude toward all things keyboard.  A instrument that hasn't had a heyday like it has in the past five years since Steely Dan.  On his myspace it says he uses things i played with when i was a kid: joysticks, rc remotes, and haphazard guitar pedals. 

Frankly, the kid is younger than me and just "knows what's up"  He has the current indie zeitgeist by the throat and is yanking it back and forth, to and fro, with delicate momentum in the form of ambient and winding electronic fuzz.  If computers ever did gain the ability to think and reason, and get fat, destroy politics, create an army of uninspired ironic robots who's heavy rotation wardrobe was composed of worn shirts from the 70's and a shitty mustache than this is most definitely the music they'd waste their computer time with.  Alas, this digital wizardry comes from a human heart.  The textures he lays down are constant and by themselves would drive your cat up the walls, but he manages to bend them and stack them, flattening the furry edges, all while wrapping one or two smooth aluminum choruses around it.  The songs are catchy.  The ryhtms simple and redundant (and thank god.) Any attempt at throwing math on this shit would just confuse and muddy well composed melody.  For Desert Song it sounds like he samples the Emergency broadcast system, slows it down a few bpms and makes it sound good.

There is also something completely American about this type of music.  Most of the bending melodies of his literally seem to be made as if he is just twisting a nob up and down after starting the song by pressing a button.  He simultaneously has made what would seem to be the laziest music ever to preform but one of the most difficult to compose.  

Dan, you the man.