Sarcasmo's Last.fm Journal

Warning: MC5 may be hazardous to your hearing.

Tue, 26 May 2009 01:50:40 +0000

MC5 was a little rock band from Michigan that melted the country's face for eight years, starting in 1964. They were huge, and in a way that was incredibly before its time. It's an example of the origins of the honest core of honest rock.

Caution: Listening to MC5 makes everything else in the world sound a little less cool for an indeterminate time afterward.

Disclaimer: Last warning ahead: Warning Motor City Is Burning

Bonus fun fact: The album Kick Out the Jams has a duration equal to the time it takes to grill two hot dogs and a 1/4lb. hamburger to absolute perfection.

Playlist: Depth of Sobriety

Sat, 11 Apr 2009 10:45:57 +0000

Haven't made a cd in a while. Here we go:

20 tracks in playlist, average track length: 3:49
Playlist length: 1 hour 16 minutes 35 seconds

1. Pitchshifter - Stop Talking (So Loud) (4:21)
2. Frank Zappa - My Guitar Wants To Kill Your Mama (3:32)
3. Exhorder - Into the Void (6:06)
4. Tool - Sober (5:04)
5. Kyuss - I'm Not (4:39)
6. Lamb of God - 11th Hour (3:43)
7. Converge - Black Cloud (3:12)
8. The Dillinger Escape Plan - Setting Fire to Sleeping Giants (3:27)
9. Meshuggah - Inside What's Within Behind (4:30)
10. Type O Negative - I Don't Wanna Be Me (5:08)
11. The Ramones - Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue (1:37)
12. Deftones - Nosebleed (4:26)
13. Butthole Surfers - Goofy's Concern (3:03)
14. Nirvana - Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge On Seattle (4:11)
15. The Cure - Plastic Passion (2:14)
16. XTC - Making Plans for Nigel (4:13)
17. Pixies - Vamos (4:18)
18. The B-52's - Party Out of Bounds (3:21)
19. The Frogs - I Feel So Good I Could Croak (2:27)
20. Isis - Maritime (3:03)

A Quick Note on Drums and Basses.

Sat, 2 Aug 2008 08:58:11 +0000

Fuck Pendulum. They have traded you in for CASH MONEY.

Do not worry. Spor will make it better. He's like the matrix and shit it's ridiculous bullet dodger ear pornography seriously listen free online.

I mean goddamn seriously even the fucking rollers and clownsteppers don't change sides what the fuck YOU GUYS.

p.s. i meant to say this a while back.

Playlist: Acting Cool (Guide to the Breaks)

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 06:04:32 +0000

The only way to enter summer of 2008 is with fat beats and quadruple entendres:

17 tracks in playlist, average track length: 4:36
Playlist length: 1 hour 18 minutes 15 seconds.

1. Kurtis Blow - Rappin' Blow (Part 2) (4:42)
2. The Herbaliser - A Little Groove (3:45)
3. DJ Shadow - The Number Song (4:38)
4. Luke Vibert - Cash'n'Carry Acid (4:23)
5. Beastie Boys - Groove Holmes (2:31)
6. Blockhead - Breathe And Start (4:22)
7. DJ Shadow - Changeling (<7:51)
8. Daedelus - Pursed Lips Reply (3:03)
9. Blockhead - Insomniac Olympics (5:06)
10. Daedelus - Adventress (2:57)
11. Kryptic Minds & Leon Switch - Skyline (6:26)
12. Cyantific - Neon Skyline (5:12)
13. High Contrast - If We Ever (5:07)
14. Photek - Ni Ten Ichi Ryu (Teebee mix) (5:04)
15. DJ Shadow - Organ Donor (1:57)
16. Zapp & Roger - In The Mix (3:28)
17. Kurtis Blow - The Breaks (7:43)

We refuse to go into this new ordeal (last two years was huge movies; this year it's the specific demographic crowds) without gigantic beats and a seriously introspective onlook.

Normally I wouldn't use multiple tracks from one artist so much, but this one sort of came to me in a vision so I had no choice.

How many ways can the phrases in the title be interpreted?

It is beta time.

Mon, 2 Jun 2008 07:50:36 +0000

I subscribed to last.fm again after refusing to subscribe for a number of years because they changed the subscription method. The previous setup let you donate any amount over a dollar per month for something like up to a year. It was a steal for poor people at $12 a year.

Since then it has become $36 a year. There was a system in between in which you couldn't pay monthly, but it was still $3 per month for a 6 or 12 month period, I think.

I can understand an increase, but I would be interested in knowing how many folks that paid less than $3 a month stopped subscribing entirely when the system changed, and if the difference was worth the loss? I would also like to know how many people came back on board when it became possible to pay monthly again.

The beta is sort of cool; it's just a really bright fucking page with a boring left side nav and way too many features. It seems like the site may be making a turn towards the radio and away from information hoarding; there's not enough stats on the home page.

The obviously best part of subscribing is being able to listen to your loved tracks radio. If you listen to as much unholy avalanching tsunamis of noise as I do, you will have a station that will play hundreds of songs you really like, and totally forgot marking as loved. Also tag stations.

Also obvious: You constantly hit the Love button while listening to loved tracks radio. Post-irony.

Power-Pill - Pac-Man

Mon, 19 May 2008 06:10:01 +0000

I suppose it is fairly obvious here that if you know who Power-Pill is, you know this is the soundtrack of a madman playing Pac-Man.

This is Selected Ambient Works 85-92 territory, as it came out the same year as Aphex Twin's psuedonym's twin's twin's single Pac-Man.

The Pac-Man EP is five disgustingly tactful slightly acidic smart techno riffs upon the Pac-Man theme theme. It's the fundamental electronic music you miss, mostly perfect somehow despite the theme.

(Side note: years later there is drum and bass work with Pac-Man also; see Ed Rush & Optical and! RAM Trilogy's face melters).

It's hot shit. Find it. Hear it. Play Pac-Man while you listen to it, and then have epiphanies about obesity and super powers.

Playlist: Not a Great Situation

Sat, 3 May 2008 13:35:53 +0000

I made a mix cd for April:

1. The Last Vegas - Grave situation (3:23)
2. Talking Heads - Life During Wartime (alt) (4:07)
3. XTC- Burning With Optimism's Flames (4:15)
4. Gang of Four - Not Great Men (3:03)
5. The Frogs - Fuck Off (2:27)
6. Black NASA - I Don't Have to Hide (2:48)
7. Mudhoney- Suck You Dry (2:32)
8. XTC- Don't Lose Your Temper (2:32)
9. Fu Manchu - Asphalt Risin' (4:02)
10. Astroqueen- The Sonic Ride (5:11)
11. High Contrast - Eternal Optimist (5:34)
12. Valient Thorr - Sticks and Stones (3:36)
13. Spiritual Beggars - Wonderful World (4:01)
14. Weezer - Holiday (3:24)
15. Buddy Holly - That'll Be The Day (2:17)
16. Django Reinhardt - Runnin' Wild (2:55)

Average track length: 3:30.
Playlist length: 56 minutes 7 seconds.

This cd was mostly focused on how much our lives suck right now and what we do to fight/cope. I'm trying to escape fuzzrock purgatory also right now.

Aphex Twin - Z Twig (Disc 2 Track 5).

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 06:44:30 +0000

The other night I was lying there trying to sleep and this song was playing. First I was convinced it would best be suited as a soundtrack for a touristless Meramec Caverns. Then I decided possibly it was a lost recording from someone stranded on an iceberg in a canyon in the blue-ice Alaskan mountains. Then I figured maybe it was most useful over rolling credits in something that was short in duration but positive, patient, and at the same time giant in demeanor. Echoey.

Turns out it's actually now (part of) the soundtrack to
Grand Theft Auto IV. I was way off, but I am interested in whether the inclusion of it into a soundtrack like this will increase the exposure of the album, which I sort of regard as too genuinely avant-garde for most people.

Playlist: Bird Scenarios

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 09:16:52 +0000

Made a cd for adoxograph for March 2008:

1. Corrosion of Conformity - Albatross (5:21)
2. Nirvana - Serve The Servants (3:37)
3. Motorhead - White Line Fever (2:37)
4. Sonic Youth - Swimsuit Issue (2:59)
5. Nirvana - Here She Comes Now (5:00)
6. Melvins - Queen (2:50)
7. Melvins - Skweetis (1:01)
8. The Dillinger Escape Plan - Setting Fire to Sleeping Giants (3:27)
9. Norma Jean - Face:Face (3:30)
10. Curl Up and Die - If This Band Thing Doesn't Pan Out We're Joining The Army (2:47)
11. Extol - Gloriana (3:25)
12. Converge - Distance and Meaning (4:22)
13. Iggy & the Stooges - Your Pretty Face Is Going to Hell (4:54)
14. Nirvana - Come as You Are (Boom Box Version) (4:10)
15. The Frogs - White Guy (2:11)
16. The Flaming Lips - The Ceiling Is Bendin' (3:45)
17. Melvins - Zodiac (4:14)
18. Sonic Youth - Orange Rolls, Angel's Spit (4:19)
19. Spiritual Beggars - On Dark Rivers (5:36)
20. Fu Manchu - The Falcon Has Landed (5:11)

20 tracks in playlist, average track length: 3:45
Playlist length: 1 hour 15 minutes 16 seconds.

This is as much a notation of the sound of the moment for me as well as the last month's general feelings. Note that I have essentially no ability to comprehend lyrics, so when I say sound I mean literally the music and that's usually all.

Necrophagist - Seven.

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 07:40:47 +0000

This one's easy.

Obviously this guy is safely housed inside a giant, ancient chamber of impenetrable ice. There's nothing to worry about, so he whiles away the days creating philosophies concerning anything especially fatalist that comes to mind, and then carves them on soft spots on the inside walls of ice with a dremel.

Meanwhile, an endless army has been pounding on the outside of the ice fortress for centuries with fully automatic artillery and guns of all sort, taking breaks only to reload. Also they shoot big nails.