It's nearly over. It's nearly over. It's nearly fucking over.

Never forget (amongst other mistakes):

Lil Wayne - Georgia... Bush

one more for today...

Last week...

London Posse - Money Mad

...but shit, any excuse.

coupla things to listen to

So, back in the day there was a label called Drive-Thru Records that practically defined late-90s/early-noughties pop-punk with bands like New Found Glory, The Movielife, Allister and The Starting Line. Now, most of the big bands of that era have moved onto surprisingly different things: The Movielife split off into I Am The Avalanche and Nightmare Of You; Allister split up (and surprisingly, ex-bassist Eric Mueller writes for the pretty great Can You See The Sunset); New Found Glory went through label troubles and mediocre albums before suddenly becoming cool again and recording a comedy hardcore album. The Starting Line fizzled out as Drive-Thru became less and less relevant before going on hiatus (read: splitting up) last year. One of the results of this break is Person L, who sound nothing like you'd expect a side project from The Starting Line would. This is pretty far removed from pop-punk and closer to, say, Jupiter-era Cave In? Let me know how you feel about it. Person L's new album is apparantly out in February, and you can hear live renditions from the upcoming new songs on their myspace.

Person L - Help Yourself

Last night, I saw a couple of my friends live - they play in We, The Last Men if you're interested in checking them out - and was pleasantly surprised by the other band on the bill. They're called Empires, they're from Glasgow and last night they were earning descriptions like "Editors doing post-hardcore" or "Morrissey fronting American Football". Live, they do sound a lot heavier and you do get to hear that Kinsella Bros. influence peaking at random points, but you may not get that from the songs on their myspace. No worries - they're good songs. Check them out here, then hassle them to play your town.

Empires - Statues

And last for today, Alcest. They've got a new album coming soon on Prophecy Productions, which will be amazing if it follows in the same vein of 2007's Souvenirs d'un autre monde. To get you psyched, put seven minutes aside and listen to this. It's more gorgeous than a very gorgeous thing.

Alcest - Printemps Emeraude

If you guys don't know, I abandoned Heinlein's Stranger In A Strange Land for Roberto Bolano's 2666. Very good decision - fuck Heinlein.

more catchy tunes about dying alone

Bomb the Music Industry! is the brainchild of Jeff Rosenstock, formerly of the Arrogant Sons of Bitches (who once recorded a live album of Radiohead covers), and they are great. Like, really really good. And in the need to bring another Radiohead comparison around, Rosenstock's record label, Quote Unquote, was working that whole pay-what-you-like-for-the-album angle way before In Rainbows. Rosenstock hasn't just used Quote Unquote to merely release new BTMI! stuff - the label's roster includes Chotto Ghetto, We Versus The Shark and Cheap Girls, who have all released pretty interesting stuff for the label.

After a pretty quiet 2008 (unless you count the frankly puzzling accusations of copyright infringement), the label has just released a sampler for what they've got coming out in 2009, which means newies by O Pioneers!!, Matt Kurz, Shinobu and, of course, BTMI! If you've never listened to Rosenstock's band, here's the crash course: they are depressing yet joyous, have four million members (look at their myspace page just to see what I mean) and sound a bit like Mitch Clem's record collection getting swallowed alive by an iBook. They're great, they're touring the UK at the end of this month, and their new album, Scrambles, is available online from Quote Unquote on January 22nd, with a physical format out later this year from Asian Man Records.

Bomb The Music Industry! - Fresh Attitude, Young Body

BTMI! official website
Quote Unquote Records
Asian Man Records

the tardy list

End of year lists are like egos. Everyone's got one. And they're normally bigger than you think. Hence, in image form:

Hyperlinked to fuck - enjoy! (Sorry for the botched image job. The songs are def worth it)

a bit tardy with this one but...

Twas calm before the storm.

BRAINTAX - Retail

Braintax on Wikipedia
Low Life Records on Myspace

sci-fi watch: the introduction

So, the other day (Feliz Navidad, one and all!) I found myself in the posession of two spangly new things to read, Art Spiegelman's Maus and Roberto Bolano's 2666. I'm dying to start on them, except one thing is holding me down - fucking Robert Heinlein and fucking Stranger In A Strange Land.

Because I'm a massive Lost geek, I decided a way to kill time between seasons would be to join The Lost Bookclub on Livejournal, which finally gave me an opportunity to read Watership Down (which is great) but also introduced me to Robert Heinlein's seemingly endless novel. Stranger in a Strange Land is about a man born on Mars by the name of Valentine Michael Smith, who is brought to Earth then imprisoned by the US government. However, they didn't count on a journalist by the name of Ben Caxton and his girlfriend Gillian Boardman, a nurse. Caxton is abducted due to his anti-government writings, Gillian captures Michael and runs to Caxton's friend, "Jubal E. Harshaw, LL.B., M.D., Sc.D., bon vivant, gourmet, sybarite, popular author extraordinary, neo-pessimist philosopher, devout agnostic, professional clown, amateur subversive, and parasite by choice." And it's around this point that the enjoyable novel falls apart as we are privy to page after page after page of Jubal talking about everything he can think of in relation to the Martian in his midst. It's the kind of talky-wannabe-philosophical bullshit that pisses me off when I read - do we really expect smart people to talk like that? And at such great length? Just because they're smart? (Oh, and he's blatantly an unlovable misogynist: "As I was saying, a woman who can't cook is a waste of skin. If I don't start having some service around here I'm going to swap all of you for a dog and shoot the dog. What's the dessert, Miriam?") Here's a rough example of how a Jubal/Gill/whoever-is-in-his-vicinity-enough-to-listen conversation:

JUBAL: You see, this is the problem. Bon vivant.
NOT JUBAL: But, but, I disagree!
JUBAL: You are an imbecile because [four pages of explaining why he is so smart, briefly and rarely in relation to the point he has to make and usually in reference to some kind of religious deity so you know he's smarter than you]. Altruistically.
NOT JUBAL: Ah, I am a fool all along!
JUBAL: I hate women!

So, now I hate this book. There is no sense of drama whatsoever - the US government's search for Michael is halted by basically how big Jubal Harshaw's brain is, which also brings back Ben Caxton, who the plot (and previous main character, Gillian) has forgotten. So, there's no threat - as a matter of fact, everyone sits down and has a press conference before retiring to a tea party or such bullshit (cue Jubal ranting on for twenty-seven or so pages). Then, because it was the Sixties at the time, a mature exploration of sexual politics!

"As they merged, grokking together, Mike said softly and triumphantly: 'Thou art God.'
Her answer was not in words. Then, as their grokking made them ever closer and Mike felt himself almost to ready to discorporate, her voice called him back: 'Oh!... Oh! Thou art God!'
'We grok God.'"

Or not. y'see, Valentine Michael Smith becomes a hunk, basically fucking every woman he can due to his quest to "grok", which the book coined as a Martian term for sharing the same line of reality with someone else. He doesn't fuck guys, though, because he doesn't grok them (grokking hurts my brain) and goes about dodging their advances by looking - no shit - less adrogynous. And that's before Gillian says "Nine times out of ten, if a girl gets raped, it's at least partly her own fault". Fuck you, Robert Heinlein.

So, you'd think I'd be throwing this book away yet? No. I'm sorry, I've spent too much time reading it to just chuck it away, even if I know how it ends (Michael gets shot, haha spoiler) and I know I'll hate the end. I've been reading it for ages - it's time to destroy this book. Of course, there's also the claim that this is the best book in the entire sci-fi genre. Whaaaaaat? People, throw me your recommendations already: give me your sci-fi favourites and, hell, I'll read 'em. They can't be worse than Heinlein's, y'grok?

FRENCH MIAMI - Science Fiction
(found via The Bay Bridged)

Okay, this is what Stranger in a Strange Land (probably) influenced:

• the word "grok" to be used by nerds
• that really lame episode of Lost where Jack had an affair with Bai Ling's crazy tattooist chick
• Iron Maiden, maybe
• Jubal Harshaw seems like a less-hilarious and more dispicable version of The Architect, pre-Wachowskis
• the Church of All Worlds, who will never reawaken Gaia with a website like this
• Junichi Oguro's minimalist IDM project, Grok (amongst many others)

So, don't buy me any Heinlein stuff in the near future. Ahem.

GROK - Firewire

-DA.XOXO

French Miami on Myspace

Grok on Myspace