You know what time it's getting to be...

Starting off, here are three Christmas Eve tunes.

1. Leadbelly - Christmas Is A-Coming
2. Stan Freberg - The Night Before Christmas
3. The Beatles - Third Christmas Record

And here we have 74 minutes of Christmas Day soundwaves. With a few exceptions, I've tried to avoid songs that have absorbed any hint of overplayed-Muzak stench.

On the one hand, this means that there's no appearance of Paul McCartney's "Wonderful Christmas Time" (which I still haven't come to hate), but on the other hand, you won't hear Yoko honking her way through "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)".

1. El Vez - Brown Christmas
2. Juan García Esquivel - Sun Valley Ski Run
   I came to associate this song with the Cool Cool Mountain level in Super Mario 64. (And I also associate this song with this GoldenEye 007 level... but I guess that's neither here nor there.)
3. The Sisterhood - Christmas Treat, Peppermint
   Pretty versatile items, those peppermint candies.
4. Kimi and Ritz - Merry Christmas Baby
   Featuring a pre-Rocky Horror Richard O'Brien.
5. Elvis Presley - Blue Christmas
   Couldn't help it.
6. Bathing Beauty - Christmas Tears
   This is just absolutely devastating. It comes to us via WFMU.
7. Freddie King - Christmas Tears
   Not the same teardrops.
8. Rosalie Sorrels - Party Crasher's Carol
   Enough with the maudlin lacrymosity, already!
9. Komeda - Top Star
   In the late 90's, there was a fantastic FTP site called Gameraweb, which turned me on to so many amazing musicians. You have no idea how good it was. Gameraweb vanished one day and I never found out what happened to it, but I never forgot it. This next song was one of the first Gameraweb downloads I snagged, and it's the first Komeda song I heard. Instant love. Thanks, Gameraweb, wherever you've gone.
10. The Ramones - Merry Christmas (I Don't Want To Fight Tonight)
11. Sifl and Olly - Laser Eyes
    Er, well, they mention Christmas lights... Apropos of nothing, I'm convinced I knew the real-life Chester.
12. RUN-DMC - Christmas In Hollis
13. National Lampoon - Kung Fu Christmas
    Features the talents of Christopher Guest, Brian Doyle Murray, and pre-SNL Bill Murray and Gilda Radner.
14. James Brown - Let's Make This Christmas Mean Something This Year
15. Solomon Burke - Presents For Christmas
16. Louis Armstrong - Christmas Night In Harlem
17. Gene Autry - When Santa Claus Gets Your Letter
18. James Brown - Santa Claus Go Straight To The GhettoYet another charming track from the hardest working defendant in show business
    
19. The Sonics - Santa Claus
20. Toni Stante - ¿Mamacita, Dónde Está Santa Claus?
21. El Vez - Pancho Claus
    Musically speaking, this is a pretty straight-ahead cover of Lalo Guerrero's 1956's tune, but it's got a wilder, post-punk spirit than the original.
22. Mojo Nixon and Skid Roper - Son of Santa

NSFW - Selections which present an appalling lack of holiday spirit

For those of you that have been caught in retail-drone work or gift-gathering torture, I put together an antithesis of X-Mas Muzak. Most of the selections would be considered objectionable by the family-values crowd, so be judicious in your choice of listening environment.

Total playtime: 1 hour, 35 minutes

It's a bit chill, all right.

Good food, good eats...

Yes, here they are — fifty(!) songs that, if perhaps not particularly suited to the type of Thanksgiving that you celebrate, then are at least tangentially related to getting one's grub on. Good God, let's eat!

There are leftovers, by the by.

Big bucket of Halloween goodies

I didn't plan on offering much on this topic, but as it turns out, I have for you people 2.75 hours of Halloween music, two full-length movies and four trailers for movies that you might consider Netflixing.

Finally, some Van Halen!

I don't know how I managed to overlook this performance of Reggie Watts covering that that Van Halen song. But here we go.




I've been sitting on Diamond Dave's "Tokyo Story" while waiting for an appropriate spot to put this. Thanks, Reg!




And I guess this goes here, because Diamond Dave.

Three small strays

Here are Joanna Newsom and Bill Callahan, with... some other folks, covering Melanie's Ring The Living Bell (which has become much more captivating than I can remember any Melanie songs ever being for me).




I was recently introduced to this Tame Impala tune...




...and soon found this.

I just wanted some geeky 80's synth tunes

And then it turned into this whole thing.




There's a Part 2? Well, okay, sure -- let's give it a listen. Or pageview. Whatever.




Sticking with the New Traditionalists-era synths, but dialing down the visual complexity...




Bringing visual complexity levels back up to critical capacity...




I'm not a crazed fan of the animation in this one, but the music has a nice Lemon Jelly chill to it.  Turn your speakers down first -- the test pattern tone at the beginning is a bit insistent.

My dad introduced me to Tonio K.

Er, well, okay -- he didn't introduce me to the man, you understand. But he did introduce me to this album.




Weird Al has mentioned that Tonio K's one of his heroes. You can hear the influence here:



That's not the official video. But it's dead on message.


Here's a couple more peas in that particular pod.

A fistful of Devo

Here they are in concert in 1973 at Kent State. They aren't doing the kind of scumbag techno-blues in evidence on the "Hardcore Devo" albums, but they're getting close.




I keep meaning to get acquainted with the Jihad Jerry stuff, but it hasn't happened yet.




Here's Devo and Neil Young.





And, uh... the word "Devo" is in the title of this one.

Dream instructions

I woke one recent morning with the understanding that this video was of vital viewing importance. WHAT COULD IT MEAN?!!




Anyway. Har Mar Superstar. I found out about him via Sklarbro Country. Haven't checked out Nocturnal Emotions yet, but I like this and this and (heh heh) this.




Yeah! It's about time someone brought Eric Clapton down a peg or two.




I once heard this a long time ago on WNCW, and finally rediscovered it a few weeks ago. (Mind you, I could say the same thing about a particular Type O Negative song which I really rather enjoyed back then, but now it kinda just sounds like an under-enthusiastic X-Cops cover band led by a mildly-sedated vampire with Down syndrome.)




And here's this. What really sells it for me is the subtle caricaturistic inaccuracy that was a hallmark of the true Hostess fruit pie comics ads. For those of you wishing to see more of this guy's work, but would like to avoid typing, here's the link.

TURBO DISTURBO SPEDAAMO

Well, tomorrow marks the official beginning of fall. Such little time left for heatstroke hallucinations. And so I gather together the summer's creepiest audio-visual finds, and offer them up to those of you interested in such things. For those weak sisters in the audience with an aversion to the combination of Karo syrup and red food dye, I'd advise you to skip this post and maybe try something safe, soothing and non-confrontational.

Skull Thunder graffix

Ah, the wonders of Photoshop. Here's a handful of unsolicited graphics work I've done.




The following works were done in a spirit of experimentation. This next one is based on  the Minimize filter. When I was nearly done with it, I realized that there was at least one method that could bypass the regions that developed into rectangular forms, but by then I was ready to be done with it.




It took a mad amount of tweaking minor details to get this next result.




And look! Video! It's a silent thirty second loop, so I suppose you could put on some music and trance out. There's an HD version, but the fine details are smeared into Technicolor mud. What can you do?




I adore this effect. Not an easy thing to accomplish.




Hey, more video! Like Heavy Metal Omelette, it's a silent thirty second loop, and available in a higher-definition version -- but unlike Omelette, the fine details are the point, and yet here they are, lightly stomped into artifact grunge. But, hell, it's free, so why complain?

Not bad for a month's worth of work

Here's a collection of artworks that I finished just a few days ago.

About a year ago, I had an idea for a computer-aided 3D modeling project, but I just couldn't get a program to cooperate, and I gave up.  But near the end of this past July, I decided to jump back into the project, and with a little Google Fu, I finally found a tutorial that explained how precision Dynamesh subtraction was supposed to work. Huzzah!

And with that knowledge at hand, I got it goin' on. Here's the result:

Pretty fine. And because I do so love my variations, there's this jade overdose...

...and a sloppy-paint version.

Now, obviously, I could go on at some length at how I accomplished all this... and I did!

Curious?

Leonard Cohen - Austin City Limits 1988

My dad and I saw this performance on a local PBS affiliate in 1998, and were much impressed. I apologize for the lousy video quality, but the only source I can find for this fantastic show is an MPEG of a nth-generation VCR bootleg of a television broadcast. But the small venue brings an appropriate intimacy that's missing in larger venues.

Happy birthday to me!

And to celebrate, here are a small collection of thematically-unrelated tunes! Hooray!

And just a bit more...
















Great! Now, with all that out of the way, I'm on my way to get some freebie birfday boy meals. Can't wait!

Songs I made up that I wish were real

A while back, I started compiling a list of songs and musicians that didn't really exist. I'm never going to actually compose or record any of these, so if anyone wants to steal an idea or two, go for it. I promise I won't sue.


"Woo Woo Ice Cream Spaceman" by Meat Theatre
"Ear Commercial" by Philip Coppertease & Terrance Nickelbread
"Blood On The Sheets Of Mississippi" by Ass Pilot Vindu
"Heartworm Highways" by Vic Tazer & Eliyon Cyanide
"The Lactating Word Of God" by Gadmar Sudric MacInroe
"Where's The Fire, Officer?" by Shadows Reflect Sea
"Bad Daughter Outcome" by Davio Sambala
"Take Me To The Clinic, Take Me To The Liquor Store" by Fleshpants
"Hungry Weapons" by The Ho Bag Military Orchestra
"Spanked By Syphilis (Loved Every Minute)" by MC Joe Biden

"Hunchin' On The Bus" by Dr. Phibes & The Vibes
"Fell In Love With A Wino" by Priestess Molly Priest
"Animal Dog" by Black Salad Crime Spree
"Nekkid In The Soup Isle" by Jim Barryfellow Hanks, Sr.
"Dick In A Toaster" by Minnie Pearl
"Nasty Sweaty Date With A Purty Little Badger In A Lemon Yellow Dress" by Amy Grant & Vince Gill
"Parsimonious Belch In The Corridors Of Shame" by The Heavy Bucket Boys
"Sometimes I Wish We Were Ugly" by Raella Morganthalia Jones
"Flashback Nutrition" by Escalator Tree
"Word-Slived The Janitor" by Axe Marriage

"Sequel Opportunity Sex Offender" by Cornball Holocaust
"Hooligan Tools" by Wife Biter
"Seen And Not Hard" by Teo MacGuffin & The Fleshworkers
"What Happened To Today (Can Happen To Yesterday Too)" by Prince Oleo Pudenda
"Discharges Of Many Colors" by Swamp Pudding
"Leopard's Running Dilemma" by State Of When
"Flawed and Declawed" by Cackling Jim & The Rimjobs
"My Son Is A Dead Man" by Percy Sledge
"Lonesome and Satisfied" by Durbius Williams
"Samptomoetic Monomataneous Enamorapatics Within Clitoritical Metacoaxicoetics ≠ I ♥ U" by Britney Spears

"Wash Your Animal" by Ladyboy George
"Kung Fu Rapist" by Miasmariah Carey
"Dialing For Diapers" by Overkill Switch
"Torn From The Headlines of Tomorrow" by Goat Lube
"The Scars Above Us" by Piano Shoulders
"Orbus Telado Daix (Autophobia)" by Dakata Katak
"Krautus Blatavatski Gets The News" by Dowager Hammer
"You'll Pay For That Trailer, Norman" by Heavy Math Owl
"Machine Made Of Drool Cups" by Dropship Lollipop
"Taste Of Mexico Knife" by Randall Potts & The Gutshots

Songs I wrote but did nothing with

Casting these upon the waters. If anyone wants 'em,they can have 'em.

This first one is unquestionably the best of the bunch. I imagined it as a Chuck Berry ditty.

Abattoir Party

Hey young lovers, you can take it from me,
if you're ever in Chicago there's a place you oughtta see
It's a place in the stockyards where the kids all go
cause they wanna boogie-woogie at the rock-n-roll show

Abattoir party, nice 'n' smooth
Abattoir party, Dr. Temple approves
Abattoir party, neat as a pin
Labor laws ain't strong enough to let the workers join in

See the little girl in the hairnet hat?
Utility grade meat don't shake like that
She does the Smithfield Shuffle and the Slaughterhouse Slide
FDA regulations don't cover hips that wide

Abattoir party, join the crowd
Abattoir party, inspectors ain't allowed
Abattoir party, it's the place you wanna be
If you bring your own hammer then they'll let you in for free

Upton Sinclair was a good old man
He went to the party with a pen in his hand
He intended to write about the conditions in the place
but he got a bit distracted by the booty in his face

Abattoir party, round the world
Abattoir party, grab a girl
Abattoir party, lose your blues
And get a little red on your dancin' shoes


The next two are nearly word salads, except that there were no intended meanings.

Batman The Rest Of The Time

Batman was the king of the jungle
He taught us how to walk the line
He was drowsy but responsive in his pointy little hat
and he made his Batmobile out of Thunderbird wine

"Solving a crime, bitch
I'm solving a crime"

Batman had hisself a saucy British butler
who collected crystal vinegar toes
He was wise in the ways of the world of the gays
and you never had to ask him where the tater juice grows

The Joker sits at home with nothing to do
Give him a call, bitch
Give him a call

He had a little trouble with a big ol' girl
She had a monkey monkey on her spine
She was feeling kind of wooden when she spilled her baby's puddin'
In the center of the Gotham City highway line

Robin's had it up to here with being called a queer
"Get you hands off my ass, Bruce
I'm calling Social Services this time and I mean it"


Animal Dog

elevator's bite
power vane and smile
the jawbone starts on spaceman parts
you're an animal dog

tears made of iron
headaches of steel
lawsuits and roses
you're an animal dog

rip off the helmet
assemble a tree
shout at the train
about an animal dog

talk to god on a TV set
convince a monkey to die
climb on the surface
of an animal dog

coat it in fire
kill it with paint
memorial gutters on harridan's cloak
you're an animal dog

Those summer feelings...

I just wanted to hear some rock tunes, but I didn't realize there was an over-arching theme to these songs I picked until I had them all in a visible pile. So don't go making assumptions about the theme. It's just accidental.

Anyway. This:




And on the opposite side of the relationship-song axis...




There's an official video for this next song, but it features a remix that I don't particularly care for. So I'm sticking with the static-image link.

And now we step away from the rock-and-roll room...

Drag it outta bed. Time for coffee and the news

Or maybe it's late, and you're heading to bed...

No one had put this version of "Hobo's Lullaby" up on YouTube yet, so I did it myself, just for y'all.

Oh, hey! Real boring writer-type gripes! Feel free to pass right by!

Here I am, a week after having posted the vacation report, which I thought was pretty hot stuff when I put the last period in place.

But with a week to ponder the work I've done, I must tearfully come to terms with the fact that it is, in fact, only first-draft quality, and not the finalized literary gem I thought it was. Some sections need expanding and/or clarification, which I didn't immediately recognize.

And there are some stories that hadn't been told -- such as Pryor's alien visitations, and my measured response to the "dark humor=KKK sympathizing" argument, and the events that transpired the first night I was in the hospital...


But I told someone I was going to post it that Saturday, and busted ass trying to make that deadline, only to miss it by a day. And so, in all probability, she took a horrified glance at the other posts I'd put up, containing what I call entertainment, and she fled, never to have read the hobbled masterpiece in which she played a part.

Ah, well. Such is life.


So, anyway, I don't know how I'm going to go about doing the revisions.  There's not enough missing material to justify forcing the reader to revisit a large amount of familiar text -- brilliant as it is. Maybe I'll post the revisions as stand-alone chapters, separate from the original text. I dunno. We'll see.

The writing project is done.

I just finalized a long-ass work of non-fiction entitled My Summer Vacation. I'd scheduled it to be nestled within a protective cushion of posts intended to build up anticipation and then later sooth the frazzled nerves of the reader. But complications arose, and the cushions were deployed long before the Summer Vacation post was completed, and all of that careful design planning was undone.

Anyway, you can scroll down to see my intended design, or you can disregard all my efforts and just start reading. I won't judge you.


Also, for whatever it's worth... This morning, I was catching up on some of the things I've missed, and saw this post from Warren Ellis. So I gave it a shot and pasted in the text of the Summer Vacation post. And apparently...

I write like
Vladimir Nabokov

I Write Like. Analyze your writing!

Well. okay, I guess.

A bit of sweetness and light before the heavy business

Shit's gonna get real heavy a couple of posts down, so I'm going to start us off with some comedy, which will get darker in increments until we're all in the same mindset.

First off is Ms. Katie Lee, with a song very dear to my heart.




Next up is the somewhat unfairly vilified Gloria Balsam. Widely regarded as one of the worst singers ever to be recorded, she was fearless in putting everything she had into those notes. And for that, I have an unbounded respect for her. It doesn't hurt that she's backed by some impeccable late-70's production values.




Okay, yeah, I realize that Ms. Balsam isn't everyone's acquired cup of tea. If you need some earwash, go listen to some Judy Henske or Nina Simone, and come back when you feel better. We'll wait for you.


Everybody back? Great. Here we go with the Diabolical Biz Markie and some white dudes, tearing Elton John's classic into unintelligible shreds.




And here we have Van Morrison, proving that contractually-obligated albums are crapshoots at best, and creepy medical tracts at worst.




Next in the sequence, Crispin Glover does an incredibly unhinged cover of that beloved Nancy Sinatra gem.




 Frank Zappa did some appropriately wackadoo love songs in his time. Here's one.

There's an incredible Beatles/Stones/Doors/Hendrix song about the wonders of artificial cheez spread, but I can't get the thing to embed. Here's the link.

NSFW - Musically-deficient dark humor

With absolutely no apologies whatsoever to Wanda in 5 South.




Hannibal Buress, y'all. If you don't know about him, get on that. He not only wrote for 30 Rock, but also appeared on a few episodes. This routine is pretty good, but the rest of the show is tremendous.

My New Bedlam bro Will was talking about a Chappelle Show skit, but I thought he was talking about this.

Kyle Kinane's another name you should know. Here's his latest show in its entirety. It's about forty minutes long, but that's likely not the longest time you're going to be spending on this blog today. This takes a little while to really get going, but at least stay long enough for the pancakes.




It took me a while to really warm to Louis CK, but he's well worth checking into. I don't think he's the second coming of George Carlin, exactly, but he's damn close. This next clip comes from his Beacon Theater show.






Billy Bob Neck has some cogent points to make about Gomer Pyle, but for my money he's never been more on the nose than with this scathing critique on the very real dangers posed by FIFA.

NSFW - MY SUMMER VACATION

A warning before beginning: this factual post is going to document some heavy, largely tragic topics – suicide attempts, frank anatomical descriptions, psych-ward life and pitch-black morbid humor – you know, laugh-riot feel-good stuff like that. If you're prone to being triggered by reading about such things, proceed with caution – or don't read at all.

I've renamed all the players and institutions in this drama. If you recognize yourself and wish to be identified by your real name (what the fuck's the matter with you, anyway?!), let me know and I'll make the necessary changes (no, really –what the fuck's the matter with you?!), but otherwise, I've chosen to err on the side of pseudonymity. And while I'm being ridiculously open and honest about what I put myself through, I'm not going to betray the trust of the friends I met in 5 South. Their stories are their own, and frankly, those tales are none of your fucking business.

Also, there are going to be lots of parenthetical asides in this post, but rather than use parentheses...

...they're going to be formatted like this.

The long tragicomedy begins after the break.

Considering I've got more than 500 playlists in iTunes...

...one might ask if I put any thought into crafting a soundtrack for my last days.

Shore did!

Stumbling
 Katie Lee - The Will To Fail
 Nobuo Uematsu - You Can Hear The Cry Of The Planet
 Big Mama Thornton - Life Goes On
 Bonnie Raitt - Guilty
 The Doors - A Feast Of Friends
 Fury in the Slaughterhouse - Every Generation's Got Its Own Disease
 The Bonzo Dog Band - Straight From My Heart
 Tom Waits - Innocent When You Dream (Barroom)
 Charlie Musselwhite - Everybody Loves Me
 Ween - Sorry Charlie
 Black Box Recorder - Child Psychology
 Mojave 3 - When You're Drifting
 Webb Wilder - Original Mixed-Up Kid
 The Jayhawks - Blue
 Tom Petty - Saving Grace
 Phil Ochs - Gas Station Women
 Mojo Nixon - Promised Land Tonight
 Faith No More - I Started A Joke
 De La Soul - Fallin'
 Gnarls Barkley - A Little Better
 Baby Huey - Hard Times
 Netherfriends - Full of It (remix)
 N.A.S.A. - Way Down

Collapse
 Beck - Goin' Nowhere Fast
 Pearls Before Swine - I Shall Be Released
 Nina Nastasia - Wakes
 Alice In Chains - Rotten Apple
 Cocorosie - Werewolf
 Grateful Dead - Brokedown Palace
 John Prine - Rocky Mountain Time
 Kinky Friedman - God Bless John Wayne
 Pearl Jam - Crazy Mary
 Shawn Lee's Ping Pong Orchestra - Kiss The Sky
 Deep Puddle Dynamics - The Candle
 Flotation Toy Warning - Donald Pleasance
 Kanye West - Runaway
 Pink Floyd - Childhood's End
 The Builders And The Butchers - Short Way Home
 Tom Waits - Lucky Day
 Jose Gonzalez - Down The Line
 Cults - Most Wanted
 The Greenhornes - There Is An End

Going
 Supertramp - Goodbye Stranger
 Neil Hamburger - Thinkin' It Over
 Barnes & Barnes - When You Die
 Kinky Friedman - Hobo's Lullaby
 Ween - Wash Me Down
 The Angels Of Light - My Suicide
 The Kleptones - Exit
 Gravediggaz - 1-800 Suicide
 Notorious B.I.G. - Suicidal Thoughts
 Insane Clown Posse - Suicide Hotline

Gone
 Sarah Brightman & Andrea Bocelli - Time To Say Goodbye
 The Monkees - Porpoise Song
 Alice In Chains - Don't Follow
 The Builders and the Butchers - All Away
 Pixies - Wave Of Mutilation (UK Surf Version)
 Supergrass - Time to Go
 Pere Ubu - Goodbye
 The Kleptones - Last Words (A Tribute)
 R.E.M. - It's The End Of The World As We Know

Well, that was pretty damn heavy...

...so here are some tunes to help chill us all out.

Give and Take

As has happened so often before, there's more taking than giving, for which I apologize.

Techno ZZZ's v1.01

Allow these next few selections to tug you to sleepytime.

Traveling

I need to get out of the house. The only difficulty is deciding on mode of transportation...

So maybe terrestrial travel is too tame for you

Try these, then.




I resisted getting into the excellent Love and Rockets comics for the longest time. If I'd never accidentally started in on those Penny Century comics, why, I'd never have known about this:

Catastrophic hull breaches!

Oh, goodness. Honky jazz has compromised the life-support modules. Abandon ship!




Must be the oxygen deprivation talking, but I kinda like these Microsoft Songsmith remixes.

Star Wars stuff

Oh, given the last few posts, I may as well.




The following vids start out okay and take a quick nose-dive.

NSFW - Aggression warning!

Summer fast approaches, and with hot weather comes short tempers. Immerse yourself in this week's selections so as to perhaps immunize yourself against harsh words and flying fists.




Most of these next selections make lulzy use of found video. I was especially joyful to discover the first vid. I'd been trying to find the name of some giant earth mover I'd seen pictures of, with no luck. Then this appeared. Yay!

Hey, howsabout some pseudo-metal?

I mean, as long as we're in an aggro mindset and all...




Okay, okay. Here's some real heavy metal.

Shinobi showdown!

Dance therapy

So maybe things got a tad out of hand. Harsh words were spoken, houses were burnt, communities were destroyed... but all those lingering resentments can be expressed and cast away through the medium of motion we call gettin' down. Dance it off!




Let's shut this down.

A handful of randoms

First off, some Smiths.








Then some Germans...






And then...

Dead color

Contemplate that these films may have outlasted the cameras, the fabrics, the furniture and the people.

Atomic cocktail

That there above image comes from an issue of Mickey Rat. The next video is somehow related.




The process is somewhat reversed in the next song, which comes from a soundtrack inspired by Daniel Clowes' Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron. I really want to like the CD, but this is the only song that kinda does it for me.

NSFW - So I was trying to find a track by Dishwasher...

...which is a project by Martin Cesar of Think About Life.

Searching Google for "Dishwasher" did not result in successful hits. So I refined my search to "Dishwasher 2006 CD" and discovered that this exists:

So... there's that. But I was eventually able to find this...



...and this...




...and, finally, the song I was looking for in the first place.



You can buy a Dishwasher CD here.

Time for adverts!

Meanwhile, in the retail outlets...




If you see someone in need of help and you do nothing, you're a putz. However, if you see someone in need of help and you pull a microphone out of your pants and holler into it, congratulations! You're a rock star!

Charming, harmless animations

Don't bother looking for this one on teevee. Nickelodeon took a look and rejected it. Fine tastemakers, there.

Some Judy Henske stuff here

The songs in the next two vids seem to have been lifted whole from her self-titled 1963 live album.

This video seems to disappear and reappear on YouTube.



And, hey -- I haven't seen this one yet!




And while we're in the (sort of) in the genre anyway...




Porter Wagoner had it down, folks. If you only know Dolly Parton from that "9-To-5" Nashvegas era, you need to seek out the late 60's and early 70's albums she did with Porter at the boards. Woah!

Yeah, dig that hep cat

You know who Neil Innes is, right?  Guy from Bonzo Dog Band and The Rutles? This is from Rutland Weekend Television, a short-lived Brit TV show he did with Eric Idle of the Pythons. The album version's better, so you should get up on that.




Here's a bittersweet bit of Rutles:

Perhaps I should occasionally attempt an appearance of thoughtfulness?

Documentaries

Greg Ginn apparently doesn't want you to see this 1986 documentary of Black Flag's last tour. So, y'know, respect his feeeeelings, y'all.

Here are three docs on DIY culture. Enjoy

A small assortment of Situationists

I didn't realize how important primary-color subtitles on black-and-white videos were, until they were taken away. Anyway, here's more on Society of the Spectacle and Can Dialectics Break Bricks?, and here are additional pictures and words.

NSFW - Manual of Evasion

From Rudy Rucker's website: "In 1994 Portuguese filmmaker Edgar Pera made a wonderful dadaistic movie called “Manual of Evasion” featuring me [Rucker], Terence McKenna, and Robert Anton Wilson. My character was called the Lord of Chaos."





And here's a proto-Subgenius vid thingy, dimly related on a conceptual level.

Spedaamo Archives

Spedaamo Corflanctal Teledormonobono Flengette Analysis Report started out as a repository for hallucinatory animated works, but I occasionally added particularly eye-catching non-psychedelia. It's much easier now to segregate animations by type, so nowadays, the Spedaamo posts are strictly visual psychedelia I've found (and remembered about) online.For impressionable minds and molecular-level dumbasses, allow the first vid to assuage your discomfort at finding a large cache of colorized, flashing pixels on a computer screen.



I don't know of any way to combine YouTube and Vimeo clips into one playlist, so the Vimeo vids are hiding after the jump.

Super-creepy animated weirdness

Here's a one-day batch of bad-acid visuals. They start out relatively mild and get progressively freakier.




Also:

A CHALLENGER APPEARS

...with an eye towards dethroning Daniel Johnston. Read a bit more about Paul Bourre here.




Discovered this via some George R. R. Martin novel. Rather creepy.

NSFW - Comedy stuffs

There are far too many post-Bill Hicks comedians who borrowed his over-the-top sex obscenities and cussin' about Republicans, without really searching for and finding their own voice. Watch how Doug Stanhope does it. I liked Bill Hicks and all, but choked with rage as he was, his arguments always seemed disjointed and sort of out-of-focus. The measured, structured stand-up shown here is where I hoped he'd get to someday.



Here's a bit of Chris Morris

Starts out bad and gets worse quick, so if you're not into excruciatingly dark humor, pass this by. I'm not sure I could say that "Gun" is the creepiest thing I've heard from Chris Morris, but the dissociative nature of that monolgue give me some big-time creepy-crawlies.



I like books. Not everyone does.

NSFW - Laddies 'n' gennlemens, here's Irish silliness

First in English...



...then in... derp I dunno -- Mexican or something?




I never would have guessed that I'd enjoy hearing that 90's NKOTB sound -- but life is full of surprises, innit?




Not quite as great as The Rubberbandits...

NSFW - Emily Youcis.

Music is involved, somehow.



This, too.

NSFW - Not for the easily offended homophobe

My goodness, no.

NSFW - To enjoy this Sonseed discussion...

...it helps if you're not a fundamentalist.

Matthew: I'm all over that chick with those HOTT glasses.
Jamie: takin it downtown..imma knock em off.
Matthew: Gonna be knockin' dem boots. Those patent leather spinster boots.
Jamie: sonseed gets down on it.
Jamie: he is like a mountie, he always gets his man,hell zap you any way he can...zap.
Jamie: zap.
Matthew: Wait a minute -- that patent leather spinster boots chick's a dude? Yo, that shit ain't right, yo. I was gonna be all up IN THAT SHIT. But he's got a bug zapper on his junk? Yo, I ain't fallin' for THAT shit again!
Jamie: those are words to the song..ill bet shes all woman...all woman.
Matthew: Never noticed the words. Just the boots. And those succulent jowls.
Jamie: ugh.
Matthew: Sounds like you threw in the towel. JOWLS FOR THE WIN!!!
Jamie: i was definitely using a towel.
Matthew: If there wasn't a medical-grade toilet plunger involved, I don't wanna hear about it.
Jamie: the plunger is old news..ive moved on to the scrubber.
Matthew: Scrubbers ain't bad, but you get the real kicks from custom-built cheese graters.
Jamie: ive lost two ounces of taint this year!!!
Matthew: Yeah, that necrotic bowel cancer topical ointment is a swell location-specific weight-loss method. Did you get yours from the special packet in the Weight Watchers® Smart Ones® frozen entree too?
Jamie: i bought mine from a guy downtown...he even applied it for me.
Jamie: he did make me look him in the eyes...and call him by name...thats costly enough.
Matthew: What, for no extra charge?! The agency I use usually at least adds a gratuity to cover the egg-beater technician's fees.
Matthew: Good to see that Asheville's tourist-based service industry is there to anticipate the needs of the world-weary traveler. Time was when you couldn't find an ass-ointment masseuse on every corner in town. Thankfully, developers were there to lead us out of such appalling barbarism.
Jamie: true that sir, i love this new age when i can be molested by a total stranger in public without feeling invaded.
Matthew: I'm especially appreciative that they've taken to heart the lessons of the local hospitality industry. Service techs in A'ville have developed that charming mix of proper servility and menacing psychotic rambling that I've come to rely on, while still retaining that unique Asheville flair.
Jamie: we do have standards.
Matthew: And tourist dollars.
Jamie: and needs..oh the needs...





Now, to enjoy this, it helps if you're not a fundamentalist, and don't have to puke at the mere sight of anything resembling Tenacious D.

Okay, okay -- last this become an unmitigated hatefest...

And thus we come to the end of the Blogger line

No more artsy videos left on this blog. Anywhere. So why not create some art of your own? Here are links to some click-and-drag finger candy.

Scribbler 2 - - Silk - - Flame Painter

Dust - - Biolab - - Magic Effect

Fluid Fire Simulation 3 - - Sand Game

Keep in mind while you doodle on those windows that it's all infinitely less permanent than anything ever assembled by a three-year-old kid. Have fun!

Older music posts can be found at the abandoned Facebook page. I don't maintain or view it anymore, so your comments will go unanswered. Sorry about that, I guess.

And you can check this stuff out, if you so desire.

• Did you know that Liquid Television is still a thing? It sure is!
• RPG-playing porn stars.
• Gabor Csupo has a channel on YouTube.
• Profoundly irreverent b-movie reviews, from the archly cynical fellow responsible for the Rudy Schwartz Project.
• If you ever need a decent overview of the blues, you can find some killer playlists here.
• If you're a reader who likes podcasts, you need to know about The Bat Segundo Show. Get goin'. Here's a trio of Bat Segundo interviews that I've particularly enjoyed.enjoyedenjoyedenjoyedenjoyed
  China Mieville on Un Lun Dun, Alison Bechdel on Are You My Mother? and Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez on a bunch of stuff.