All posts by G. Gordon Gritty

CD Review, Entertainment, Music

CD Review: Horehound

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Band: Dead Weather
Label: Third Man Records
Release: 2009

1. “60 Feet Tall” – 8.5
2. “Hang You From The Heavens” – 8.7
3. “I Cut Like A Buffalo” – 7.5
4. “So Far From Your Weapon” – 7.7
5. “Treat Me Like Your Mother” – 8.3
6. “Rocking Horse” – 7.5
7. “New Pony” – 8.3
8. “Bone House” – 9.2
9. “3 Birds” – 7.4
10. “No Hassle Night” – 8.5
11. “Will There Be Enough Water” – 7.6

Comments: Sweet licks — bass, guitar, etc. I do like the direction of many of the instrumentals, but often times these sounds are too processed for my liking. Their blues-rock style borders garage crossover, but is seemingly heavier than that. I get a weird Rage Against the Machine vibe; apparently others do too. PJ Harvey meets RATM meets Cold War Kids meets Downbeat 5. The good news is that this album possesses a ton of positive energy and is generally fun no matter which way you spin it. Most fun? Probably “Bone House.” The amount of noise (pop) is reminiscent of Sonic Youth. Filler alert for “3 Birds.” Overall, I’m not going to be coming back to this album for my fix of blues-rock, but for a one time deal it’s a solid listen.

Final Grade: 8.1

CD Review, Entertainment, Music

Classic CD Review: The VU & Nico

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Title: The Velvet Underground & Nico
Band: Velvet Underground
Release: 1967
Label: Verve

1. “Sunday Morning” – A+
2. “I’m Waiting For The Man” – A-
3. “Femme Fatale” – A+
4. “Venus In Furs” – A+
5. “Run Run Run” – A
6. “All Tomorrow’s Parties” – A
7. “Heroin” – A+
8. “There She Goes Again” – A+
9. “I’ll Be Your Mirror” – A-
10. “The Black Angel’s Death Song” – A-
11. “European Son” – B

Comments: What can I say about this album that hasn’t already been said? Well, “I’m Waiting For The Man” is kind of lackluster compared to the crackly, but excellent 1969 Live version. A change-up comes with the noise classic “Run Run Run,” which has to have had a tremendous influence on many bands. I liken 3:37-on to Black Lips’ “Juvenile” with in terms of vocal structure and quick guitar progressions. “ATP” is an experimental-pop follow-up. It’s an awesome tune, no doubt, but not amongst the greatest on here. I like the noisy doo-wop of “There She Goes Again.” It’s fun. I’m not so impressed by the last three songs, but that’s okay.

Grade: A

Culture Jamming, economics, Politics

Opposing Bernanke

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Jim DeMint’s Website
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina), chairman of the Senate Steering Committee, announced this morning that he will oppose the nomination of Ben Bernanke to serve a second term as the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. Senator DeMint made the announcement after Bernanke’s confirmation hearing before the Senate Banking Committee, and pledged to object to floor consideration of the nomination until the Senate votes on S. 604, the Federal Reserve Sunshine Act of 2009.

“Ben Bernanke is an intelligent and well-intended public servant, but the fact is the Fed has failed the American people during his tenure as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board and I cannot support his nomination for a second term,” said Senator DeMint. “Americans want a new Fed chairman who is willing to provide transparency into the Fed’s actions, who is willing to accept responsibility for the Fed’s mistakes, and who is willing to support true monetary reform that guarantees the soundness of our money.

Bernanke is constantly ignoring sound money. For that, he should not be get another term.

business, Health/Science, News

$4.1 Billion For Thin-Film Solar

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Since its founding in 2002, Nanosolar has raised a lot of money – half a billion dollars to date – and made a lot of noise about upending the solar industry, but the Silicon Valley start-up has been a bit vague on specifics about why it’s the next big green thing.

On Wednesday, Nanosolar pulled back the curtain on its thin-film photovoltaic cell technology — which it claims is more efficient and less expensive than that of industry leader First Solar — and announced that it has secured $4.1 billion in orders for its solar panels.

Martin Roscheisen, Nanosolar’s chief executive, said customers included solar power plant developers like NextLight, AES Solar and Beck Energy of Germany.

The typical Nanosolar farm will be between 2 and 20 megawatts in size, Mr. Roscheisen said in an e-mail message from Germany, where he was attending the opening of Nanosolar’s new factory near Berlin. “This is a sweet spot in terms of ease of permitting and distributed deployment without having to tax the transmission infrastructure.”

Yeah, so I don’t really know much about it, but it sounds interesting.

Entertainment

Quote of the Day

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Mark Sultan On People That Go To KK+BBQ Shows:

Sure, there’s the jock with the 8-foot thick Mohawk on his head, wearing some shitty Billabong shirt and head-butting a girl because he can’t get it up, and he’s looking in the mirror and hating himself because he’s secretly gay and all his friends hate him. Sure, that guy is there, and I hate him. He sucks. He’s the worst faker in the world. And he’s mouthing along to songs that we’re not even playing because he’s just trying to look like someone else that likes the music and he’s there for the wrong reasons. But that guy is going to disappear, because the music doesn’t mean anything to him. The people that do love the music will always come to the show, and it will always have a special place in their hearts.

Entertainment, Music

Recommended Listens

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If you are a fan of far out garage/noise/punk then you ought to head over to the blog Teenage Lobotomy and download their Mix Volume 2. Most of the songs on the Mix are by unknowns, at least to me anyway.

Acid Eater‘s “Top of Spot” is straight up noise-punk. Rat Traps‘ “Tennessee Rock ‘N Roll” is precisely the type of song that I am influenced by. It’s lo-fi garage pop to the max. AH Kraken‘s “Axe Vertical” shouldn’t claim to be anything except a really lo-fi cut of a repetitive psychedelic riff. Nice Face‘s extremely quick “Beater” reminds me of good old Thee Oh Sees and No Bunny. Watch out for FNU Ronnies‘ “Meat” because it’s crackly, noisy, and threatening to your personal security. Human Eye‘s “Rare Little Creature” is a manifestation of the band’s alien punk attitude, which doesn’t actually tell you too much about their sound, but that’s fine. It’s got keyboards like the Spooks do, but HE is more notorious. “Mental Shark Bite” by Final Solutions isn’t too awesome, but it gets the job done much like a band called  Scouflaws does. The Spaceshits, yes Mark Sultan/King Khan Spaceshits, were hailed as one of the best garage bands north of the border and I can see that as fact even though the recording of “Bacon Grease” is exactly that. The Homosexual Police Officers (okay…Fag Cop… for short) sound like a Black Lips side project, but no no they aren’t. Their “Skull Splits” is a glass shattering, mumbling, noise tune that gives their mom a kiss, but fucks your sister too. Check out the evolving beats on the spoken word garage popper “The Nihilist” by TV Ghost, an In The Red groupie. Wolfdowners‘ “Tooshie Bagel” doesn’t really present anything new and exciting to the table, unfortunately. Francis Harold and the Holograms is a damn mouthful and so is their song “Glitter Girlz,” which is a bit too hardcore for me. Lamps “Rototiller” is buried so deep in the grave of garage punk that you’d be a hero to dig this Electric Eels-esque shit up. Homostupids (are they homo or what’s up?) “Beneath the Blackman” is a Circle Jerks B-Side or something. Well, it could have been. Monoshock is an acid trip gone bad, or at least that’s what they said about songs like “Mexican Dentistry” from these ’90s ‘cisco psych-punks.

Just listening to this Mix reminds me that I know near- nothing about the type of music I like.

Entertainment, News

2010 LP/EP Releases

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Will 2010 be better than 2009 in terms of releases? It’s tough to say at this point, obviously. What I do know is that 2009 saw debut albums from many great bands (Pains of Being Pure at Heart and Uninhabitable Mansions, to name two), not to mention a wealth of awesome LPs from bands who’ve been around the circuit for a while (Black Lips and Arctic Monkeys, to name two). Here are some LP/EP that I will definitely get around to reviewing next year:

January
[12] Vampire Weekend (Contra LP)
[18] Cold War Kids (Behave Yourself  EP)
[19] Spoon (Transference LP)
[26] Moonface (Dreamland EP)
[26] Magnetic Fields (Realism LP)

February
[9] Yeasayer (Odd Blood LP)

May
[?] Arcade Fire (?)
[?] MGMT (Congratulations LP)
[?] Walkmen (?)

Q3-Q4 Release Date
– Bon Iver
– Interpol
– Panda Bear
– Radiohead
– The Shins
– The Strokes
– Wolf Parade