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#Against

I did a quick search for the word 'Against' today in iTunes - looking for a song that I'd rather not explain. Strictly research, I can assure you.

It seems that with the exception of U2 and Phil Collins, it's a word exclusively used by the disaffected bands youth. Grrr.

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26th Feb 2010 - Add Comment - Tweet

Trailer Park: Get Him To The Greek

Trailer up for Get Him To The Greek, a pseudo-sequel to the amusing Forgetting Sarah Marshall and featuring Jonah Hill being sent to chaperone rock star Russell Brand from London to a gig in NYC in 72 hours. Or something. Actually could be quite funny.

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25th Feb 2010 - Add Comment - Tweet

Drowned in Sound on Spotify

Nice Spotify playlist up from Drowned in Sound with a curated list of some new music, featuring Phoenix, Midlake, Gorillaz and more. Spotify are launching the playlist as a regular monthly feature.

Listen direct here.

P.S: We still have a bunch of Spotify invites available if anyone wants one.

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#Music

25th Feb 2010 - 3 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Re-activated

The Minutemen's first incarnation is getting a dust-off, with Water Under The Bridge records releasing a 12" of tracks from an early session by The Reactionaries - the first band for D. Boon, Mike Watt and Geogre Hurley - with Martin Tamburovich on vocals.

From Joe Carducci:

The Minutemen Were Reactionaries

For most of the music world – or rather the much smaller rock world – of the early 1980s, the Minutemen seemed to arrive fully formed, as if from some other planet. Questions must have immediately crossed minds: Where are these guys from? What drugs are they on? Are they carbon-based life forms?

Those reactions were understandable, as it was the 45-song, double 33 rpm Double Nickels On The Dime (SST 028) that introduced the band to most folks outside of Los Angeles. If I remember right, the initial sales jumped from the five thousand range for Buzz Or Howl Under The Influence Of Heat (SST 016), to fifteen thousand for Double Nickels. (Of course all those releases sold far more after the day.)

D. Boon, Mike Watt and George Hurley were always deflecting the effusiveness of fans in clubs, or in interviews – it was part of their charm. But think about it, the Minutemen were telling kids that they could pick up instruments and do the same! Nobody who saw them live believed that for a second.

I was at Systematic Record Distribution and got their first record, Paranoid Time (SST 002), from the label and ordered it for distribution to shops around the country. It was hard enough for me to discern how great they were from that and their early follow-up records and compilation tracks. To my ear, I don’t think I really heard what they were capable of until they were playing the Anti-Club regularly in 1983-84. There was just so much music packed into their short, fast tunes. And at each gig a few older, simpler tunes were replaced by new, even more masterful tunes. At their first San Francisco gig at the Mabuhay, Dirk Dirksen (who ran and MC’ed the club), strolled out on stage to introduce them and the first thing he saw was a four-foot long set-list taped to D.’s mic-stand and Dirk said, “What is this, the history of music?!” It was! When we recorded the long tail of the song “More Spiel” for Project: Mersh (SST 034) I joked to D. that he had just laid down a six-minute history of the guitar solo. At SST, hearing guitarists Greg Ginn, Joe Baiza and Curt Kirkwood all the time, it was easy to underestimate how great a guitar player D. was. That radical reformation the Reactionaries performed on themselves to become the Minutemen encouraged that, because it elevated Mike and George to co-lead players.

But their world-historical, musical summation had a history as well. And that was their late-seventies band, the Reactionaries. Mike and D. had known each other since junior high. They met Martin Tamburovich and George Hurley at San Pedro high, although they wouldn’t claim they knew George because in Watt’s words, “he was a happening cat,” whereas D., Mike, and Martin were on the not-so-happening end of the high school social spectrum. As George tells it: “For a long time Mike would ask me to play music with him. He wanted to jam out, but I really wasn’t into it ‘cause I was a Surfer then and he was sort of a geek. I don’t know, we were kids. Finally, I agreed to it.” This kind of transgression of school social hierarchy is common when music brings young kids together in their first band. It’s an under-appreciated aspect of the power of music.

Thankfully the Reactionaries recorded a practice in their attempt to get gigs so we have these 10 songs to contemplate. What you can hear are the rudiments of the Minutemen’s sound, only unlike most bands, they only got rid of stuff as they improved. D. is already a good guitar player with his trebly sound in place. Mike and George play more standard-rock bass and drums parts, and Martin sounds like he belongs on the mic, though the quality of the lyrics varies widely. Chuck Dukowski saw them and reports, “Martin was a cool singer and I liked his style.” They were just out of high school and though they already had their obsessive interests, the lyrics (by Mike, Martin, and friends outside the band) show an awkward adaptation to the punk style as they understood it. Like a lot of lyrics by seventies punk bands, television is of particular concern – punks who were determined to create a music scene thought watching TV was a fate co-equal to Death.

In February of 1979, Chuck and Greg Ginn were flyering a Clash, Bo Diddley, Dils show at the Santa Monica Civic when they met D. and Mike. The flyer was for what would be the second Black Flag gig and it was going to be in San Pedro. D. and Mike were amazed to learn of a gig in Pedro and Chuck hadn’t known there was a punk band there, so he put the Reactionaries on the bill. It was their first gig; they played with Black Flag, the Descendents (their debut too), the Alley Cats, the Plugz and an impromptu mini-set by the Last. A world-historical night, however many paid at the door.

The Reactionaries played only two more gigs, opening for the Suburban Lawns at their practice pad in Long Beach. They made a pass at getting a gig at the Other Masque up in Hollywood, but the band was falling apart. Mike’s description of D.’s loss of interest in the Reactionaries is interesting. Apparently D. didn’t offer his songs to the Reactionaries and then found them another guitarist (Todd Apperson) so he could quit. They broke up around mid-1979. George found a band in Hollywood called Hey Taxi! and is on their 45. Though soon enough, D. and Mike regroup and eventually pull George back into their new, improved mess after their new drummer (Frank Tonche) walked offstage and quit during their second gig. At the Minutemen’s first gig (May 1980), Greg asked them to do a record for SST.

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24th Feb 2010 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Gordon Brown: Angry Sim Version

Taiwan's Apple Daily get round the "footage? what footage? problem again 

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#CurrentAffairs

24th Feb 2010 - Add Comment - Tweet

Nu Wu

A partially reformed Wu-Tang clan are making a come back this year, with new release Wu-Massacre.

The album is primarily a collaboration between Method Man, Raekwon and Ghostface Killah - with appearances from Inspectah Deck and Cappadonna, and production from RZA and Mathematics.

Suspected street date: March 30th.

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24th Feb 2010 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Haruki Murakami: Schlaf

not sure what this is, but it looks like a trailer for a German graphic novel translation of a Murakami story - or maybe it's just an illustrated version? either way, if you know more, let us know!

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#Books&Comics

23rd Feb 2010 - Add Comment - Tweet

New DeLillo De-Dissoed

The AV Club aren't too impressed with Don's new book Point Omega

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22nd Feb 2010 - Add Comment - Tweet

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T Shirt War!

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19th Feb 2010 - Add Comment - Tweet

Ukraine's Got Talent Winner

Kseniya Simonova's illuminated sand art, showing the second world war from the perspective of Ukraine civilians. take that Subo!

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19th Feb 2010 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Shaun White Olympic Gold!

he's literally quite good! nice rundown of his skills/ways to pay the bills here. didn't see him on the slopes during the recent chimpolympics mind you...

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#Heroes

18th Feb 2010 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

R.I.P. Alexander McQueen

Sad news

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11th Feb 2010 - Add Comment - Tweet

Play Video

Confused Yardbirds

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8th Feb 2010 - Add Comment - Tweet

Mr Clucks

Mr Clucks

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#TV

6th Feb 2010 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

The Worst Film Ever?

It's Batman & Robin apparently.

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4th Feb 2010 - Add Comment - Tweet

Is Indie Dead?

v good essay on the state of the alternative nation over at Paste

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4th Feb 2010 - Add Comment - Tweet

How To Catch An iPhone Thief

brilliant/slightly terrifying tale of revenge from some tech-savvy dude who had his iPhone nicked. good ad for mobile.me too

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#IPhone
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#Websites

3rd Feb 2010 - Add Comment - Tweet

Everything That's Happened on Lost So Far, Just from Memory

Forget the fancy Lost timeline, or cheat-sheet catch ups like Lost In 10 Minutes. If you're a true fan you should be recallng the entire show from memory. Gawker tried it out.

The final season of Lost kicks off with a double episode on Sky1 this Friday at 9pm.

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3rd Feb 2010 - Add Comment - Tweet

Lost In Ten Minutes

full version of the Reduced Shakespeare Company's Lost in Ten Minutes

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#TV

3rd Feb 2010 - Add Comment - Tweet