DO U LIKE BLOG HOUSE ON VINYL?

Our favorite DJ/producer CFCF has a 7" single on Acephale. You can buy it off the Myspace.

A Side: YOU HEAR COLOURS [brand new]
B Side: INVITATION TO LOVE [so rad]

Bonus mp3 scene:
How Bizzare (CFCF RMX) - OMC
Raining Patters (VACATION RMX) - CFCF

HOLY SHIT

Was anyone at this show?

Rave Scene Spying / No Longer A Rave Virgin

Last night I was the first time I'd ever been to a club night specifically designed to cater to the raver/electronic-music-pretty-exclusively audience. I'm still not completely sure who these rave people are, but based on last night I can tell you this:

1) They are very intoxicated (one fell on me and another fell on my friend).
2) They are usually between the ages of 15 and 50. And frequently they are those ages.
3) They know how to have a good time and are about five times friendlier than the crowd I'm used to from rock shows, indie dance stuff, and, well, college.

The event was part of Seattle's Decibel Festival. LA Riots, Recess, 33HZ [coke-tacular retro disco live band!], Blondzie played.

Tiny Vipers

Recently, our friend Tiny Vipers stopped by the Public Access Media Studios to play a couple songs for our cameras. Check it out here, also read a little more about her over at the Sub Pop site. Enjoy...

YOUTH, SEX, GUNS, AND VOTES // PUBLIC ACCESS GETS APOLITICAL

I'm currently bracing my self for a few months of people I barley know - or don't know at all - telling me how important it is to vote. Though I vote in every election, I fail to see the utility of encouraging anyone, especially those who may or may not be disinterested, to vote.

P. Diddy famously said "Vote or die!" during the last presidential election cycle. South Park did the best commentary on that particular MTV ad campaign in their 119th, electoral episode entitled "Douche and Turd." Many South Park residents died (shot to death), or were banished for not voting for either fecal matter or an irrelevant feminine hygiene product. Such is politics. Of course, the youth vote was as inconsequential as ever in 2004. In the end, John Kerry failed to woo the TRL crowd with his after-school-special meets special-K (the drug not the cereal) vocal delivery.

But seriously, vote or become subject to a world in which people who masturbate to this Photoshop job control the government.


Actually, that might be pretty funny, so do whatever you want. Whatever comes naturally.

[Editors update: the url for this photo keeps being removed/changed. Fishy? I just uploaded my own copy. Be sure to watch the debate this week in which Palin will attempt compare Canada and North Korea as equivalent realms of foreign policy. Both very comunist. Both very cold in the winter. Both the birthplace of hilarious comedians. Both attempting to recapture and silence Avril Lavigne]

*****

BONUS! Decapitated Palin on fake Vogue cover. Not alluring. Someone please Photoshop her face onto John McCain's semi-nude body. That would bring in the youth vote.

Japanther

I saw Japanther last night at a not-at-all-seedy place in Seattle called the Vera Project. Though I've come to expect great things from the NYC drum and bass combo, I never really expected them to be fun at an all-ages venue, with a small crowd, on the stage.

At every other Japanther show I've been to the band sets up on the floor, with their massive cabs on either side. Inevitably, things get so rowdy, so fucking frantic and joyous, that the two Japanthers get stepped on, their amps fall down, and everything happily goes to shit.

However, last night Ian and Matt played a show for a few timid teens and alternative dads in which they stayed on the stage. Stranger Newspaper columnist Casey Catherwood warned me to expect this new stage procedure and like him, I have to amit, I was uncomfortable with the idea. Much to my great disbelief, Japanther managed to stir up a tepid, uncomfortable crowd into something very nearly approaching hysterics. For whatever reason, maybe the better-than-average PA mix, the band managed to be just as compelling in arena-rock mode.

Love was made, friends were there, and the music was loud enough to make me forget the impending economic apocalypse. And this, my friends is what pop punk is all about.

Girl Talk Interview

Our buddy Girl Talk took the time to answer some questions about stealing, borrowing, sampling and copycats... have a look

THE DEAD SCIENCE AT NEUMOS

Much has been said about the show on Sunday at Neumos in Seattle. I love Talbot Tagora and I have massive respect for the virtuosic playing of Past Lives, but the Dead Science really stole the show in exactly the way I hoped and expected. Sleek, anachronistic vocal melodies crept deep into my heart. Ominous broken-family theatrics and mythalogical allusions to "the American underground," which (for one glorious moment) I imagined encompassing everything from David Lynch, to Sonic Youth, to the DIY zines, complety won me over.

Also, a few years ago I saw my first poorly-attended, underground, all-ages show in Seattle at Ballard's the Paradox, featuring the Dead Science. Life changing.

BATTLES FAMILY BEERS

My sister, Ian, and I at Sasquatch music festival.

"Do you guys want a beer or something?" Ian Williams asks us. This he does right before starting a video interview by a local paper. The DV interview largely consists of the band praising television and recreational persription drug use over Seattle sight seeing. My sister and I stand backstage out of the way, leering at the camera guy's uncompromsing 80's haircut.

Try to imagine one of the most hyped, yet still completly rad, progressive-rock musicians in the world offering you free beer. And then, imagine not being in the least bit nervous or even excited. This is what being related to Ian Williams is like.

I guess we are distant cousins. Perhaps he is my uncle? Regardless, he is related by marriage to my dad's paternal cousin, who went - or at least tried to go - to Woodstock and was stopped on the highway by the national guard. On the other hand, it woulden't be cool to be related to Ian unless, well, Ian was cool. The knowledge of our relationship came last winter just as Battles was begining to get recoginition in the states, after being one of those bands that is "big in Japan." We started emailing and eventually ended up outside of Neumos in Seattle, chatting about family matters.

As we sipped out beers backstage at Bumbershoot last week, Ian waxed poetic on rock and roll fame.

"You have to leave before you can come back and make it big," says Ian. Battles played in New York at Pianos and Northsix (what is now the Music Hall at Williamsburg, newly owned by the Bowery Ballroom/Mercury Lounge people), but they really picked up critical buzz after touring Japan on the dollar of a Japanese club promoter.

We talked for a while about remixes. I was curious about his process, but he was pretty dismissive and seemed to regard them as a largly promotional tool. I coulden't really argue. He did mention a remix he did (using the alias I Will) of a band from the UK who he said reminded him of Beat Happening. I said "proto grunge" and he agreed. I assume the band he was trying to remember was London's Television Personalies. Pretty fucking dope sounds. They remind me of the super-young (I originally knew them as freshmen in high school) Seattle punk band Seahouse.

I ONLY LISTEN TO BLOG HOUSE

What has been happening in the clubs these last few years? Answer: the urban middle class white kids have discovered disco, using the internet.

The term blog house first appeared in 2006 as the increasing popularity of music blogs met the pop disco phenomenon Justice. As 2007 rolled by, sites like Missingtoof, Valerie, 20 Jazz Funk Greats, Discobelle, Panda Tones, Disco Dust, Floukids, and Big Stereo began to dominate the way DJs, music journalists, and regular fans hear and obtain new music.

At the same time, the music blog universe (blogville) was blessed with a new white hot center. Effectively becoming as a sever-less Napster for a new era of promotion and/or thievery, the music blog aggregator site The Hype Machine, which files music from blogs into a searchable format. Hype Machine holds a large responsibility for the success of these websites.

Separating the music style of blog house, and the means of producing, marketing, and consuming the blog house is tenuous at best. The amalgamation of underground—and increasingly above ground dance culture that came to a head in 2007—obscures the origins of the term, while creating a complex web of culture rooted in a 1980s music revival, cheaper production techniques (increasingly software and computer based), ease of disturbing recordings online, stable cocaine prices, and of course, the young, energized music blog community.

The phenomenal scale of these new developments in youth culture may ultimately be attributed to an influx of Echo Boomers (children of Baby Boomers) into colleges, art schools, and urban centers across the world.

Most music blogs offer very little in terms of analysis. The essential act of creating a post involves choosing an artist or theme, selecting songs to make available for download, and deciding what image will look most appealing. For this reason, the music must provide the vast majority of entertaining content.

The music is generally linked to a number of bands and producers who came to prominence around the time Justice hit the mainstream: Crystal Castles, Simian Mobile Disco, Moulinex, the Knife, Annorak, CSS, Girl Talk, Cut Copy, Hot Chip, M.I.A., Boys Noise, Ladyhawk, and PNAU. Soulwax, Fred Falke, and Daft Punk are bands from the shorter list of hugely influential acts that existed before Justice, but are still consistently played in clubs.

I’ve interviewed five major players in the National blog-based electronic music scene, each with varying degrees of approval or disapproval of the blog house label.
Carles of Hipster Runoff has name a brand for himself blogging about alternative and hipster culture from Austin Texas.

Infamous for his dark, brooding originals and vintage-sounding remixes, CFCF is a Montreal-based producer whose real name is Mike Silver.

Pictureplane is a performance-art-based dance music project based in Denver Colorado and frequently appearing at the DIY venue Rinoceropolis.

Party Time 2000, an enigmatic and poppy dance music producer from Chicago makes some of the snappiest hipster dance remixes on Myspace.

Lastly, Keen House is a brand new L.A. project that exemplifies the ghostly, cynical edge of blog house in 2008.

PUBLIC ACCESS: What does blog house sound like?

P2K: 4/4 [beats], usually. I think a lot of it sounds the same, unfortunately. I think it's a great
way for talent to bubble out of the masses though. Infinity kids playing with infinity copies of Ableton live and one of us is going to write Shakespeare eventually.

Pictureplane: People emulating justice. Trend hopping. A certain sound came out
(distorted bass lines, "club banger" stuff) it became popular with kids who had never heard dance music before, so everyone started to make it. It already seems very tired. I don’t think anyone will be talking about blog house in a few years.

PUBLIC ACCESS: What does blog house means to you?
Keen House: To me blog house is pretty much a grass roots type of movement. I think it involves the type of electronic music that is just around the corner of being accepted as a legit genre or trend in dance music. Right know it even seems to be split into a couple of blog house sub genres like the more banging type of stuff, grime, 80s revival and 90s rave oriented tracks. I think it's really exciting to see what new kind of genre will evolve out of this pool of different influences.

HRO: Blog house is a label for people who don't consider labels to be authentic. It is a very
exclusive, yet all-inclusive term.

P2K: Blog house = 20 year old kids plus Ableton live & a pocketful of dreams.

CFCF: It hurts my ears. I don't like to hear it in most cases.

Pictureplane: Blog house is just a term. A simplistic phrase designed to put a name to
something that cannot be defined by one phrase. It’s stupid really.

PUBLIC ACCESS: What are important blogs to the blog house phenomenon? Hipster Runoff (HRO)? 20 Jazz Funk Greats?

CFCF: I like 20jfg. They are neat and have good music. And I like lovefingers a
lot.

Keen House: Valerie, Discodust, Indiekrush, Trash Menagerie are really great.

P2K: HRO = classic, HYPEM (is that a cop-out)?

Pictureplane: Ghettobassquake.blogspot.com and a few others.

One music blog in particular that eventually crossed over into general alternative-cultural commentary, Hipster Runoff, has come to define the genre with now classic post “WTF is Blog House?” I spent a little extra time with Carles of Hipster Runoff:

PUBLIC ACCESS: What made you decide to write about blog house?

HRO: No one even knows what blog house means, and no one will ever know what it means.
Even the bloggers who have 'blog house blogs' don't even really know what to say. It's just electro music / post-post modern pop music for a highly selective audience.

PUBLIC ACCESS: Will blog house be remembered as a passing phase or a term that defines a
new era of music and culture?

HRO: I don't think many people even read music blogs when blog house was in its prime. Now
we are sort of in a post-blog house where there are so many different things being blogged (since there are so many blogs) that it is tough to pin down any direct evidence of evolution. It's just a lot of remixes, and a lot of crappy stuff showing up on Hype Machine. But blog house never 'meant' anything, so it's okay.

PUBLIC ACCESS: What do young, unknown bands have to gain by positioning themselves in
the blog house genre? What do they have to loose?

HRO: Being associated with blogs, whether you are a blogger, a musician, or a self-proclaimed
Blog House band, is a battle to overcome the long tail of the internet. While the internet has given more people an outlet to be heard, the chances of being heard are still slim, and even if you are heard by 1000 people, it doesn't even really matter. [illustration:] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Long_Tail

PUBLIC ACCESS: Besides HRO, what blogs are critical to the genre? If you had to read just
one music blog, what would it be?

HRO: I feel like most of the stuff blogged about on Big Stereo or Missing Toof from 2k6.5-
2k7.5 is probably the blog house golden age. I only started copying these electroblogs a year ago since I wanted to be perceived as being 'relevant.'

PUBLIC ACCESS: What is the musical alt-culture opposite of blog house? The Fleet Foxes?

HRO: I think the opposite of blog house is pre-blog era indie rock. Sort of when there were a
few 'indie labels' (Matador, Saddlecreek, Subpop) that controlled the content flow & consumer perception of what was relevant. Back then, these labels were a place for people feel like they were actively searching for music. Listening to music from blogs means that you want new music more than any one else.

PUBLIC ACCESS: What are the wider cultural implications and trends that involve, or arise
from, blog house?

HRO: Not that many people will remember Blog House on a wide cultural level, but mildly
alternative people who used the internet too much between 2006-2010 will kind of remember it because they used the Hype Machine to find tracks. Blog house is more representative of a time when the music industry was changing, and there was an economy of decent-enough creative/talented musicians who were able to reach the people who knew how to utilize technology to get new music.

Image credit goes to HRO's post on blog house

SKETCH OBAMA BLOG SCENE

I heard he played the Moog on the rare 80s dance 12" "Harvard Law Review Hustle."
Obama, founding member of the band Thursday and socially inept resident of Zack Braff's suburban New Jersy.
Uh...
Actually, the Marvin Gaye comparison is totally fine with me. What's Going On is an amazing concept album about blackness in the 70s. However, I almost left out the Star Wars photo completely. Too much Sam Jackson/Jar Jar baggage.

>>>>>>>>>BONUS NUG OF SONGS ABOUT OBAMA!!!
I recommend the Jamaican dub track by Coco Tea (video here).

ALTERNATIVE BABY SCENE

I attended a very large music festival this weekend. I was shocked to see so many very young children jamming out with their aging hipster-parents! Seriously? This is not a public park. It costs forty dollars-a-person to re-kindle your indie youth while endangering your child's hearing.

Do alternative babies want to see their alternative dads get faded and join the Stone Temple Pilot mosh pit? Should there be festival-day-care (right next to the beer garden)?