MIA directed Rye Rye. At top is the final, the other is unedited dance footage. If you ask Desert Eagles he prefers the Ye directed Drake video.

-studioplus updates!

The Pharcyde - Bobby Evans Mix

This is the second mixtape I made for Delicious Vinyl. Realizing early on while digging through The Pharcyde’s catalog that I wanted to share as much as possible, any material that I could find was included, remixes, b-sides, even ancient VHS footage (Ice-T tour!), and cassette tape pre-masters. I really wanted to showcase the groups entire output during their historic Delicious Vinyl years.

“Plenty of versions of stuff you know and a few unheard bits for any Pharcyde fans. The switches between versions keeps the energy up on this 40 tracker, spanning the straight hip hop of the original line, this has remixes from Jay Dee, Da Beatminerz, Hot Chip & Kenny Dope to name a few. An official Delicious Vinyl mix, this is both a great introduction to the uninitiated, a killer mix for hip hop heads and an essential piece for fans. Enjoy.”

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Jacob Ciocci (Paper Rad) and Fortress of Amplitude - Video Screening and Performance

Wednesday, July 1, 7pm FREE
Family
436 N. Fairfax Ave.

Jacob Ciocci will present a new 20-minute mix of original videos and animations, and perform ‘I Let My Nightmares Go’ featuring video and dance moves that grapple with mental demons, web 2.0, G.O.D., 21st-century breakdown, real lies and fake truths, cartoon violence, and awareness bracelets.

David Wightman will perform as Fortress of Amplitude, a guitar wielding minstrel from another time and place. Accompanied by a blast beat playing drum machine, He will execute a musical composition focusing on fantasy, repetition and ecstacy.

Jacob Ciocci is a founding member of the east coast art collective Paper Rad. His work is concerned with the relationships between popular culture, technology and notions of transcendence. In his paintings, comics, performances, net art and videos, contemporary and recently forgotten cultural symbols confront one another inside a frenzied cartoon universe that is simultaneously celebratory and critical.

David Wightman lives in San Diego, California where he is a PhD candidate in music composition at UCSD. There he teaches a course on the music, history and culture of Heavy Metal.

paperrad.org
myspace.com/fortressofamplitude

An introduction to Jonny Olson by Dean via noagela.blogspot.com

I met this kid named Jonny Olsen when i was in high school. He skated for this cool skate shop in the valley called Oneeighteen (Paul Rodriguez rode for them too, when he was like 12). We would hang out and skate and go see bands play, then I moved out of my parents house with some friends to Hollywood, and he would come and stay with us and just hang out. I started a job at a vegan thai restaurant called Vegan Express (which was the FIRST of all the vegan thai places in Los Angeles, all the other places stole the same basic recipes, I used to have bands play there and well, that is a whole other story) and soon after I got Jonny a job there too. Jonny fell in love with Thai culture through the restaurant, I mean everything about it, the food, the clothes, the language, the girls and the music, especially the music. He went one year to visit and came back with a wooden flute type instrument called a Khaen and played it literally every minute of every day when he wasn’t working or sleeping. Then he moved to Thailand to study the instrument and was gone for about two years. He came back and was pretty much a pro, he recorded a record out there, started a project called Master BAJ (Bad Ass Jonny) and soon he went back to live in Thailand and then Laos. In the last two years or so Jonny has become a huge success in Thailand and Laos and performs for thousands of people over there, he is a Pop Star.

[Above] are some of his videos that are very unique and crazy and mind blowing and just, i don’t really know how to describe them, you just have to see them, this is beyond next level heaviness, beyond beyond even!

Mika Miko - I Got A Lot (New New New)

A fantastic video directed by Lana Kim and Randy Randall. The vinyl version of Mika Miko’s latest record “We Be Xuxa” is currently sold out but a colored vinyl reup is coming soon. CD’s are available, check with PPM often.

Shhh, a quick picture I took when they were setting up for the shoot.

I don’t usually read memoirs.  It’s not for any particular reason other than preference.  But, my reason for reading and recommending this one by Haruki Murakami is personal.  I picked it up during the last stretch of writing for a new Brother Reade album and was pleasantly surprised to find and excess of inspiration regarding seeing a project through.  If you are doing something that you can’t conceptualize finishing and ‘marathon as metaphor’ could help, this is a short little book with robust insights into the meditative rhythm brought about by large, difficult tasks.

Telepathe - Bells - Bobby Evans Remix feat. Jams F. Kennedy

A friend of mine just sent over this Daddy Cool video saying how its his favorite right now. I had to look them up cause I had never heard of them. I had heard of “Daddy Cool” by 70s Pop / Disco German star Boney M. though. Then I found out that 1950s Doo Wop group The Rays also had a song called “Daddy Cool” and that Daddy Cool named their band after it. Finally, Placebo and Peaches have both done covers of Boney M’s “Daddy Cool”.

So there you go, I guess we have a Daddy Cool shootout.

Brother Reade book list followers, you are about to be inundated with recommendations  of various and sundry works by Salman Rushdie.  I will make certain confessions up front:

1. This is one of my favorite writers.  His voice is completely current and relevant today but is also richly informed by timeless and classic storytelling conventions.  To be contemporary and not fear cliches of form is a fearless and admirable feat.  We are all obsessed with the new, while Mr. Rushdie repeatedly rearticulates our present with its valuable (and sadly dissociated) past.  These days we could use a little of this sort of perspective.

2. I read him all the time, everytime he puts out any book.  I do this entirely unskeptically, wholly receptive before turning the first page.  I am also aware that telling people about Salman Rushdie is a bit like telling people about Pink Floyd.  I know you probably know of him, but I’ve read three of his novels in the last two weeks and thought his work merited a lil mention on here.  I am sure i could be introducing you to works that are far more terse, obscure, and up-and-coming.  And I will, bear with me.  But not now.

3.  There is a slight connection between this post and the trending topic #iranelection on twitter (and in real life).  I don’t know exactly what it is, but Mr. Rushdie has–as most of you know–found little favor with the clerical elite of that country, and as a result has paid a dear price for airing dissent. I should mention, that the fatwa issued to Rushdie was wholly founded on a misreading of his work “The Satanic Verses”, a book that really deserves a life outside of the controversy it caused.  I think that time will be on his side.

This makes for a timely segue (no souljaboy-o):

Imagine you have been declared an enemy of Islam because of your last novel.  What do you follow it up with?  You could play the part, spew venom all over your declared enemies with satire after vitriolic satire.  If you weren’t assasinated, you could probably cash in.  If you were, then your people could at least cash in.  But perhaps you didn’t take the bait.  You took the high road (which is often called the high road only because it is the “not low” road).  Instead of executing the all-too-easy role of the seditious and decadent “modern” novelist, you decided to write a frank story about love, loss, family, and the importance of narrative–of “stories that aren’t even true”–to family and human cultural history.  If you did that I would think it was a boss move, and I would write about it on my blog.

Haroun and the Sea of Stories is for me, not only a touching children’s story, but also is a perfect example of how not to become the monster you are made out to be.  Too often when engaging an adversary do we become what it is about them that we oppose.  In Haroun and the Sea of Stories, Rushdie delivered (from a brand new exile) a story that exceeds even the most justifiable of selfish impulses, and will last longer than his life and his fatwa (may he live to be 1001).

Purchase here

Bobby Evans - Freak-A-Zoid Robotz Video + Them Jeans Remix

I’m pleased to debut the video for “Freak-A-Zoid Robotz” directed by Marcus Herring.

“Freak-A-Zoid Robotz” is the lead track and theme song from Delicious Vinyl’s critically lauded RMXXOLOGY album. The song itself is inspired by a truly obscure cut from deep in the Delicious Vinyl catalog: an electro-bass number called “The Fine Line Between Hyper And Stupid” that appeared on the b-side of Tone-Loc’s 1990 single “I Got It Going On”.

Hang on to your glasses from Captain EO cause a 3-D version will be out soon.

Freak-A-Zoid Robotz is available now in digital and Vinyl “12.

Also, Them Jeans put together a killer space disco version for the video release. Make sure to download it here for FREE. *Link has been re upped

Freak-A-Zoid Robotz (Them Jeans Remix) @320k

Emynd - The Club Champ EP

Another fine release from Philly’s Emynd.

“The Club Champ EP” is Emynd’s newest digital-only EP of exclusive Club and Dance anthems that showcase his forward thinking approach of uniquely combining his vast influences, infusing songs with elements of Hip-Hop, House, Baltimore Club, and New Orleans Bounce. On the title track “The Club Champ,” Emynd digs deep into his Hip Hop breakbeat background, producing an energetic Bmore influenced banger that thumps with heavy organs and smashing kick drums. While Scott Matelic’s remix of the track adds various twists and turns that recontextualize the vibe effortlessly, premier New Orleans producer Peacachoo’s Bounce remix completely deconstructs the song, transforming it into an entirely new Bounce anthem that’ll rattle the bassbins from the Bayou to Bass Music parties everywhere. Rounding out the release are the tumbling “Triggerman” bells on “Hot Down Here,” the NY House influenced “Okay! What’s Up!” and “Hold It Down 2009” — a track originally featured exclusively on the Do It To It Volume 2 Vinyl release alongside work from heavyweights Nadastrom, Bird Peterson, and Tittsworth. (”Hold it Down 2009″ is Emynd’s updated re-working of the classic 2 Bad Mice song “Hold It Down”) Already supported by some of the biggest DJs in the world from Diplo to Sinden to Dave Nada, it’s another sure fire, champion sound release!

You can listen to the entire record at Crossfaded Bacon before you cop it on iTunes.

Club Champ (Scott Matelic’s Slam Remix) @320

Hold It Down 2009 @ 320

“I was in Vegas a couple weeks ago to shoot Glasvegas playing at the Viva Las Vegas wedding chapel. Across the street there was a Marilyn statue and a blue pool underneath a couple empty swings in front of a gentleman’s club. About an hour later, someone turned to me and said, “hey look, there’s someone on the swing.” I crossed the street and asked the girl if I could take her picture. She told her friend she’d call her right back, looked at me and said “Five bucks”. I told her I didn’t have $5, I was a photographer working across the street and just wanted to take a picture of her. “Where are you gonna put em?” I gave her my website, she put it into her phone and said “you’re lucky, I never let anyone take a picture for free.” She started to pose on the swing and I asked her to just stay like she was and to call her friend back. I shot four frames and said thanks. Then she said. “And by the way, I’m not a fuckin’ stripper, so don’t say that I am on your website.” so I promised. She’s not a stripper. ” - Aaron Farley