Slash, of the erstwhile Guns n’ Roses (whom I listened to religiously in junior high), and whom I’ve been told is now a neighbor here in our Lower East Side complex, is coming out with an autobiography shortly, a portion of which has been published by the Guardian. Some kwality snips below:

Izzy [Stradlin, Guns N'Roses' rhythm guitarist] made a call and we went over to a friend of a friend who we’ll call ‘Bill’. We’d gotten a taste of smack again in Australia, so the craving was there by the time we got home. Besides, after two years of touring, subconsciously, we both felt that we deserved it. Anyway, Bill had a taste for drugs and always had plenty of every variety; he was also very generous. When you start to get famous at all, a few typical things start happening: in Hollywood, if you’re out at a bar, everyone wants to buy you a drink, you can get into any club; whether you like it or not, you are suddenly a figure on the nightlife circuit. When that started happening to us, there was nothing less interesting that I could have imagined doing with my time. That Hollywood scene was the same old shit, and the more recognisable I was, the less I liked it. The amount of ‘dudes’ who wanted to ‘party with me’ had quadrupled, so I became entirely insular; looking back, it makes complete sense to me that I allowed myself to slip into a seductive heroin comfort zone. I didn’t want to go to strip clubs or look for hot chicks or otherwise exercise my newly found status. All I wanted to do was hang out at Bill’s and do drugs. It turned out to be the start of a long and nightmarish obsession with heroin that lasted from 1989 through 1991….

Soon I started speedballing heavily and really enjoyed the unique brand of hallucinatory paranoia that comes with it. No one had taught me to speedball; I just thought it would be like a narcotic Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. Coke and heroin were two great tastes that I knew would go great together. The rush of the coke would send me up and then the dope would kick in and the trip would take a wonderful turn; and the two would weave in and out of each other from there on out. I’d always end up shooting all of the heroin before I’d mowed through the coke, so usually I’d get wired to the point of an impending heart attack. At the end of those nights, I was also often left with the distinct feeling that I was being watched, so I started to think that walking around my house armed to the teeth was a good idea.

There are shades of Hunter S. Thompson (R.I.P.) in Slash’s retelling, in all its maniacal, drug-fueled outrageousness. But the difference therein is that Slash is all about the matter-of-fact; so remarkable is the complete abscence of rockstar pretension. While Thompson’s prose feverishly incarnated his establishment-crashing hijinks and mind-bending freakouts, Slash’s writing is cucumber-cool; in relief against the deadpan delivery, the contours of his hallucinations (which were every bit as far-gone as the Doctor’s) are all the more exaggerated. The madness seeps off the page and contaminates your banal reality …Makes for a highly entertaining read.

 

I had come across this animation before, but infosthetics recently posted on it so it got foregrounded for me again. It’s a charming Maya visualization of John Coltrane’s short jazz sketch, Giant Steps, rendered and animated using an appropriate architecture metaphor. Writes the author of the piece, Michal Levy:

Coltrane made a major break through with his album “Giant Steps” in the year 1959. It was the first time in the history of Jazz music that someone based his music on symmetrical patterns, which stemmed from a mathematical division of the musical scale.

The structural approach of John Coltrane to music is associated with architectural thinking. The musical theme defines a space and the musical improvisation is like someone drifting in that imaginary space.

Hi-res flash version can be view on Levy’s site here.

 

Infosthetics also linked to a more diagrammatic illustration of the Giant Step’s tonal structure here.

Thom Yorke, tortured lead of Radiohead, recently released the hauntingly beautiful album ‘The Eraser,’ his first ’solo’ effort (solo in rabbit ears because Yorke prefers not to think of it as one, so sez he in this interview in the Guardian).

NPR also has a recorded interview with Yorke that is streamable from the site. It’s worth a listen. For those who have followed Radiohead over the years, you may find his engaging manner unexpected; where is the pained, rueful and temperamental Yorke we witnessed in the 1999 doc Meeting People Is Easy? He is articulate and exudes quiet, easy circumspection …

In my latest hiatus several animations / music vids / motion graphics pieces have accumulated in my craw. Without further ado …

Australian artist Paul Robertson made this outrageous animation (drawn GIF-style — i.e., frame by frame – in ImageReady over the course of several, no doubt carpal-tunnel stricken, months) evocatively titled ‘Pirate Baby’s Cabana Battle Street Fight 2006,’ in the spirit of the old school horizontal fighting scrollers such as Double Dragon or Bad Dudes. Though things in Double Dragon nor Bad Dudes certainly never got this hectic …

Watch the video here.

[via BoingBoing]

Better in concept than upon execution perhaps, but still impressive. Lorenzo Fonda (an Italian animator with a seriously irritating portfolio site) attached static frames to dominos, and tracked them as they fell, forming the animation. Well, that was the idea anyway.

Watch the video here.

[via Motionographer]

I came across a link to the Swedish motion graphics house Pistachios a little while ago. Some freshness surely is to be found; take a look here.

The smart and ballsy British director Michael Winterbottom (who directed 24 Hour Party People, Code 46, and the art-porn dealio 9 Songs) directed this video for the Boards of Canada track ‘Davyan Cowboy.’ There is no Maya / After Effects / Flame pyrotechnics here; Winterbottom goes for the timeless and the sublime through the splicing-together of old film stock. In the first half we watch a aerial dive from a hot air balloon that looks like it’s floating somewhere in the upper stratosphere; and we end up surfing in the azure Jaws of an endless North Shore summer … 

Grok the video here.

[thanks Mira!]

UPDATE: Thanks to the latest issue RES (July/August 2006, Vol.9, No.4), I now know that this video was put together by Melissa Olson, not Winterbottom. Terribly sorry about the mix up …

LA motion graphics house Bl:nd directed this music video for Gnarls Barkley, aka the recent collaboration between R&B guy Cee-Lo and rising producer Dangermouse (of Grey Album and The Mouse and the Mask fame).

The song is called ‘Crazy.’ Accordingly, Bl:nd conjures hallucinatory formations out of Rorschach inkblots over the course of the track, often in brilliantly unexpected ways. The idea is strong, and the fluidity of the animation / compositing work is unbelievable. The video nails it on so many levels. The track, too, is buttah …

Watch the video here.

[via Coolhunting]

This was a high resolution motion series of bumpers that Psyop created for MTV’s new HD music video station. A discussion of the creative and production process, as well as hi-res stills from the video, in this article in Dexigner. 

View the video here.

Diesel’s new Spring/Summer 2006 campaign, made by Barcelona shop Vasava, breaks all aesthetic restraint and goes for broke. While one might better appreciate the rigor that Psyop and Bl:nd employ above, it is still easy on the eyes.

View the piece here.

[via Motionographer]

I generally try to avoid reading movie reviews before I see the movie in question, but anticipation of the release of Block Party, a documentary involving two of my favorite artist/entertainers, comedian Dave Chappelle and director Michel Gondry, became overwhelming, and so I indulged in a little bit of pregnostication.

I first read Stephanie Zacharek’s piece in Salon, and it seemed to me a little overcooked. A sample quote:

While the rest of us are busy carving up the country — red state, blue state; urban, suburban; sophisticated, rustic; them, us — in ‘Dave Chappelle’s Block Party,’ there’s room for only one America, but it’s one big enough to include everybody.

While I love Salon, and have nothing but disdain and contempt for the state of our politics in 2006, I have been somewhat saddened by the heavily politicized air the webzine has taken on since its more genteel, arts and literary editorial origins in the late 90s. Salon is fighting the good fight, but I miss the frivolous decadence of, say, its ’Masterpiece’ series, one of which elaborated on Seinfeld as ’one of the most complex and troubling art works of our time.’ Sigh …

The mention of the insidious and tired red state / blue state trope in Zacharek’s review seemed unwelcome, jarring, limp-wristed, a little too simplistically and cloyingly topical. But it’s a sign of how the malady of the times has infected and desensitized us all that I only became simpatico with Zacharek while watching the film, thinking: Jesus, what a lovely, beautiful, joyous, exuberant movie … With belated clarity came the realization that it wasn’t that Zacharek was placing the film within a ‘red/blue’ framework (the mention of which must have triggered some kind of involuntary gag response in me), but that she was arguing precisely the opposite; that historicized frames simply cannot contain the bursting spirit and abundant soulfulness of this film.

From BoingBoing: 

Video explains the world’s most important 6-sec drum loop. This fascinating, brilliant 20-minute video narrates the history of the “Amen Break,” a six-second drum sample from the b-side of a chart-topping single from 1969. This sample was used extensively in early hiphop and sample-based music, and became the basis for drum-and-bass and jungle music — a six-second clip that spawned several entire subcultures. Nate Harrison’s 2004 video is a meditation on the ownership of culture, the nature of art and creativity, and the history of a remarkable music clip.

The historical exposition of the Amen Break’s evolution into the musical forms of hip hop, breaks, and drum ‘n’ bass is satisfying unto itself, but then Harrison brilliantly uses this to make a case against overzealous copyright laws which, he argues, ultimately stifle creative innovation. (the Steven Wright-style delivery is hypnotic, too)

 

The Fabric Live series (the label run by the London megaclub Fabric) came out with a mix by Diplo lately, and if you dig the over-the-top, twisted Miami-Bass / Favela Funk sound, then this album is your calling. It’s about as gnarly and frogger-bassy as it gets, which is perfect in a recorded medium, as imho this type of thing is best appreciated in a thoughtfully engineered production rather than during a live set, which can get monotonous and aggro and messy real fast. I boogied through Diplo’s full line-up when he played at Rothko last summer (Sasha Frère-Jones, who wrote a review of this particular show in the New Yorker, was on the premises. Unfortunately, for all the fanboys and closet hipster celebrity whores present, the same could not be said of Diplo’s GF M.I.A.), but I lasted about five tracks into DJ Marlboro’s subsequent set — a blur of beats and gangster-Portuguese samples – before I left with my ears ringing and my tail between my legs. Boo-hoo for me. I may be too thin-skinned for the ghettos of Rio, but I find the stuff enjoyable enough sitting at my desk, in a well-lit, climate-controlled environment, listening contentedly through a pair of ergonomically designed headphones. At a reasonable volume, of course.

The other mix that I can’t stop revisiting is Tom ‘Jedi’ Middleton’s Essential Mix from May 2005, called The Star Wars Special. Not because, mind you, that he decided to throw in some Star Wars samples, which he always does (because he’s an unreconstructed Star Wars freak), but because he managed to work in practically the entire first Star Wars movie (that’s Episode IV for the heads) in the first six minutes of the mix alone. That would be psychotic if it wasn’t done so well, and you can appreciate the added element of mystery because you really can’t tell whether the Star Wars’ elements are a sincere (if disturbing) homage to his child-like obsession, or simply function as a bottomless reserve of ready-made inspiration which he’s been able to productively tap for pop culture irony over an incredibly long and successful time. 

The jury is hung over intentions, but the Jedi’s mixing and sampling skills are undeniably beyond ill. And his musical tastes, which I’ve always appreciated, also seem to have evolved. When I first came across his stuff circa 2002, most of his dj and remix work had a downtempo, ethereal quality, as if you crossed the higher-register, clitoral-envy of trance with the laid-back tempo and soul of deep house. His music was often quite beautiful, though it could sometimes border on the saccharine. The Star Wars mix, on the other hand, could never be called saccharine; it is straight up dirty, funky, electro acid-squiggly, a real ass-stomping thumper of a 2-hour, nearly 50-track set. It works it. And then it drops some Luke Skywalker sample just to spazz out your inner 10-year-old.

Sadly I have no link for this MP3 that I’ve managed (hopefully) to pique your interest with. As a blog without links is like the Lower East Side without Shabbas, I bow my head and beseech your forgiveness – though really you should remit annoyed correspondence to the mgmt at BBC Radio1, namely Pete Tong at the Essential Mix, and ask him why, if he’s going to the bother of putting them on the Internets, these mixes aren’t archived and fully accessible on-line (and while you’re at it tell Pete that the Radio1 site’s organization is total bollocks) – I will link to a torrent file [do a right-click 'save as' or you'll get ascii goobledegook] which will hook you up with the entire roster of Essential Mixes recorded in 2005. That’s nine gigs of tunes, kids (which includes the aforementioned Star Wars Special!). (56k suckers, if you are still out there, need not apply.)