Dasypus Novemcinctus All Up In Your Grill!

The Hornsby Bend Biosolids Management Plant on the outskirts of town is also home to the Hornsby Bend Bird Observatory. We went out there today in search of a good walk. There are an incredible number of bird species out there even now, in "winter." I like birds as much as the next guy does. This is not what I am excited about today.

There is the sewage treatment plant, with its attached collect ponds brimming with...well, filth. Definitely different, and interesting, and smelly. It is not a super thrill for me.

No, the thing that got me was this. In all my years, I have only seen a living armadillo once. Until this afternoon.

I've seen scores of dead armadillos. I've also seen a bunch that are alive for just a second, before that minivan, or that Accord, or that whatever squashes the living shit out of 'em. I don't count those times, because you can't really get to know what a critter is like if it's always dead right after you spot it.

It turns out armadillos are pretty cute. I saw at least 5 living 'dillos this afternoon, during our stinky nature hike. They'll walk right up on you, as they seem to have poor eyesight, and their hearing is only so-so at best. Even their sense of smell is meh, so they just stand there in front of you, sensing that something is screwy, but not quite able to put it all together. The minute they do figure it out...voom! They totally jump and scamper the hell away, with their little shell a-flappin' in the wind. It's very funny to see. It fills my heart with blood, just thinking about it.

Today was a day for the armadillo! It is one of my new favorite animules. I love the little rabid, leprosy vectors. They make me glad to carry a camera around with me, at least.

Here are the tunes for the armadillos, past and present. One day, you will win your holy war against the tires, axles and bumpers of America's cars. Until then, I salute you!

-[Hamburger Martyr]-

Killdozer : Hamburger Martyr
No Means No : Manic Depression
Stickmen with Rayguns : Scavenger of Death
Art of Noise : Into Batttle
Enemy Soil : Hypocrisy
Scratch Acid : Flying Houses
Men's Recovery Project : Restraining Order
Goblin : Suspiria
Bauhaus : Double Dare
Da Toddlers : Toddlin' Sickness
Monster X : Got the Guts?
Thrones : MNMNTN
Sick Things : Paranoia
Dwarves : Let's Get Pregnant
Beguiled : The Screaming Rummy
Reagan Youth : Degenerated
Didjits : Beast Le Brutal
Skinny Puppy : To a Baser Nature
People Like Us : Nobody Loves U
Killdozer : Big Song of Love
Unsane : HLL
Stretcheads : Groin Death
Cherubs : Wornout Balls
Heresy : In Silence
Damned : Neat Neat Neat

"They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wit's end."

Whoah!

I've got this tasty compilation that is just itching like crazy to be downloaded by someone out there. This is music from somewhere else. Many of the song titles are en Español. A majority of the tracks on here are instrumental, all are pleasant to listen to. Do not tarry. You must have this now, to help you dance and sway. OK?

{Old Farts IV}

Los Weelers: Yerba Verde
Juan El Matematico: La Hey Del Hielo
Harry Breuer & His Quintet: Minute Merengue
Medallions: Blowin' Through Yokohama Part 2
Alma Llanera: No Vuelvas A Querrer
Carlos Montoya: La Rosa
Dick Schory's Percussion Enesemble: Typee
Los Beatnicks: Que Paso con Jon
Rudy Ventura: Ojos Negros, Cielo Azul
Pachengueanda: Do Gozami Charanga
Dirty Three: Sometimes I Just Don't Want to Know
Tipsy: Nude on the Moon
Criterions: Island Fever
Ivan Ward & the Swingsters: Congo Slide
Ralf & Florian: Ananas Symphonie
Dick Hyman: Under Paris Skies
Banda Tarapaca: Caballeros Cruzados
Lester Williams: I'm So Glad
Ruth Welcome: Memories are Made of This
Dick Dale & the Del-Tones: Tidal Wave
Kazbek Orchestra: Pojezd Istambowa
Mariachi of Acapulco: La Negra
Riz Ortolani: Cargo Cult
Mel Blanc: Son of a...

"There's No Justice, There's Just Us!"

Ahhh. Finally, a quiet moment alone with the computer.

It looks like many of my favorite music blogs have got some kind of holiday funtime music posts on them. Myself, being several days late and many dollars short, will forgo this opportunity to do the same. I have shot my xmas wad and no longer care to dwell on it, except to say this. I feel very strongly that after suffering under the constant barrage of lousy xmas music for the last three months or so, everyone needs a palate cleanser.

Earlier today I pulled this compilation out from under my car seat.

"Oh boy!" I said, to no one in particular. "I've missed this one!"

Then I turned it over. "Yikes!" Scratch City.

I feel exceptionally lucky (I really like this comp) in that, even though the disc that I pulled this music from was in terrible, terrible shape, there are no skips or rotten spots. Lucky for you too, I guess.

I put this together on October 4th, 2003. The day after the tragedy. Never forget! It's my tribute, because Wire made a song called "Ex-Lion Tamer", and because that's all it takes to name a comp. I am very lazy.

Tiger-inflicted arterial blood geysers of joy, right this way!

~:Ex-Lion Tamer:~

crash
Leadbelly - Hesitation Blues
Country Teasers - Mosquito
Dawson - Infamous Toughies/Infinite Toffees
Joy Division - Passover (live)
The Clash - What's My Name
X - Hate City
Motards - Spare Change
Wire - Ex-Lion Tamer
Dils - Class War
The Buttocks - Deutsche raus aus Deutschland
Appendix - Envy
Thee Headcoats - Paedophile
Mystery Dates - World War 3 (is calling me)
Angry Samoans - Lights Out
Amdi Petersen's Arme' - Anarkie/Hierarki
Avengers - Car Crash
Agnostic Front - Blind Justice
Bad Brains - Pay to Cum
SS Ultrabrutal - Bomben Splitten
Radio Birdman - You Gonna Miss Me
Necros - Be a Man
Steelpole Bathtub - Hey Bo Diddley
Misfits - Hellhound
Exploding White Mice - Sea of Justice
Eater - I Don't Need It
Thee Headcoats - What's My Name
Flat Duo Jets - Love Has Its Joke Sometimes
crashout

Pop Sputter.

Today, I am going to use my tiny platform to advance the agenda of another of my longtime favorite bands, the Severed Heads. I saw them live once (in 1990), with the right kind of eyes. They very nearly melted my fragile mind with their mild manners and their over-the-top video synthesizer.

The name makes them seem like a death metal band or something. They are decidedly not.

"Richard decided we would become Severed Heads, his tongue firmly in his cheek. A tactless, idiotic name. We would be 'industrial', as that was the flavour of the month. So we set about being industrial each day after school. There were plenty of models - Throbbing Gristle, Cabaret Voltaire, The Normal et al. We admired and mocked them equally. "

Much of what they have created over the years is short-circuited pop music. Twinkly, charming little electric pop shards that are good at making the Krotpong happy. You get where I'm going with this, right? I made this comp...etc.

I have to tell you... this is some weird stuff. Trippy and bright electronics, minor chords, tape loops, drum machines, variable speeds, phase shifting, stuttering oddness... it's all mixed up together and pumped out. Pop music sausage! The noisy sometimes threatens to overwhelm the pretty parts, though it never quite does. It's a little bit (!) techno, but they are very nice about it.

Have a listen! Where is the tracklist? Why, it's in the comments!

Sunday Morning Coming Down.

In these last, chaotic days leading up to the new year, the people need a tonic for the terrible stress induced by this relentless holiday triumvirate. It's supposed to be a tranquil time, not a tremendous torrent of tapir turds.

My least favorite aspect of this season is the sensation of time slip-slip-slipping away. There is always so much to do, and never enough time in the world to do it all. Cooking and cleaning, shopping and shipping, traveling and treeing, planning and partying. There is so much stuff to do (still!) that my mind, it boggles.

It will all be done (or done with) eventually. In just a couple of weeks, even! Then we all start making our way back around the big circle, just to do it all over again (in the same last-minute fashion we did it last year), until we're dead.

In order to soothe the savaged soul I have selected a special series of songs, both silly and somber, from the always scintillating Handsome Family. One loverly track, from each of their records currently in my possession. Quiet and sweet, these tunes could take you away for a little while, and return you unharmed.

You've got a few minutes... Come on, do it!

Forward into Soft Darkness.

I stopped on my bike to take this picture from the I-35 overpass. It was 4:00 am and maybe a little foggy. It's not a fantastic picture or anything, but fog is creepy and weird. I am creepy and weird. Therefore, the picture must be taken.


This is a picture of the singer for Forward, a hardcore band from Japan. They are incredibly wonderful live. If you ever have an opportunity to see them, do so.

Between many of the songs in their live set, the singer would saunter up to the edge of the stage and grunt out "I don't speak any English... Fuck you!" Sheer poetry, coupled with the jams being kicked out, motherfucker. It was a beautiful evening.

Here I have posted their 2004 album, Burn Down the Corrupted Justice. This is some fearsome hardcore, well produced and totally catchy, performed at the height of the band's superpowers. Extra points if you break something while you listen to this.

Mark'll Sink Us.

I love the Fall. I caught some of their videos on Night Flight somewhere around 1987, and my mind was horribly blown by this weird "new" music. I've been a fan ever since.

After all these years of fandom, I have only been able to to see them play twice, in Austin. I was lucky in that they were great both times (they are not a very consistent live unit).

The second time I saw them, frontman Mark E. Smith was recovering from a broken hip, and remained seated at a table on the stage throughout the short set. It was brief, but lively. After the show in Houston (the night after the Austin show), Mark canceled the rest of the tour, leaving only this statement:

"The Group / New

York Agency
+ Tour
Manager
are too
lazy to
play.
50% refund
to all ticket
holders. M.E. Smith"

One thing is for certain, Mark E. Smith is a colossal dick.

As for you, I have a recording of this second Austin show. Which I will share with you... now. Tracklist is in the comments section.

A Record that I Love.

Hi. Let's talk about some Puff Tube, ok?

First off, there is hardly any information on Puff Tube. No Wikipedia page. No Myspace. The Google is fairly useless. I think there is a member of Prisonshake in there, somewhere. Their single came out in 1991. Here is a tidbit, a trifle, a totally tiny taste from the old, cached Scat records site:

"Between 1989 and 1992 six issues of Seven magazine were published, each with a 45. This is the only issue there are still copies of, which is good because it's the best of the lot. Reading my old reviews makes me cringe, but there's a lot of good art in here (loose postcards, napkins, comics), Mike DeCapite's fiction, a piece on Cle label-collective St. Valentine's, and the Emergency Peanut double 7" by the mighty Puff Tube, who are every bit as ridiculous as their name. Hours of entertainment!"

Amazingly, there are still copies of this left for sale on the internet, at rock-bottom prices, just look. So cheap! If you have a turntable... Well, it just makes sense to own this.

As for the music, the words "sublimely retarded "come to mind. It's the wacky band a manic cartoon character might form, just to harass a hapless adversary. A kind of mutant Kick-Ass Rock and Roll, writ small. With toy instruments. Recorded in a room filled with helium and nitrous oxide. It jumps all over the place, bopping and squeaking. And just like that... it's over. Poof! Where did it go? I miss it already!

20 minutes 41 seconds of pure audio joy, served up fresh and hot, just for you! Track list is in the comments.

Eyes That Follow.

This is a recording that I made of this Japanese band, the Crude. They were one of the golden performances at the Chaos in Tejas IV (a local hardcore festival). I had no preconceived notions about them, only what I had heard from a couple of comp trax. I just figured that they would play some hardcore.

At first, they noodled... and noodled. Over ten minutes' worth! I thought to myself, "Oh, maybe they're a prog band now. I should throw this trash can on stage. What could be more hardcore than being a total dick at a show? Perhaps it's finally my turn to be that guy, the guy that fucks up the show for everyone. Yeah. It's my turn to get some! Yeah! Look out you pigs, here's me!" I was gearing myself up for my big moment. My big, sweaty, shining moment. I had my hand on the trash can and was dragging it across the floor, ready to hurl it with all of my glorious strength. When all of a sudden, they started to play so fast, and so crazy that I just had to stop and watch them spill their guts out.

After a while, I forgot all about that trash can.

The recording is appropriatlely noisy and ruff. It is one track. Don't worry, it's pretty short. Tracklist? Please. Even if I did know it, I probably wouldn't tell you.

"I am a Giant Dork..."

Hi! I'm also dirty bootlegger scum!

Another reason I love technology is the Olympus Digital Voice Recorder WS-300M. It's a tiny thing. Rectangular, about the size of a brick cellphone. Thinner, lighter (about 4 ounces with aaa battery), easy to hide. Add a Sony ECM-717, a stereo mini-microphone about the size of a tablespoon of butter sliced off the old butterstick, with a slender three foot cord to attach everything together, and you have a modern primitive bootlegging/surveillance rig. It's small enough to sneak into the odd show or two, and large enough to get you instantly killed by the mafia.

This here is a decent quality live recording that I made of those lovable little scamps, the Country Teasers. They were captured alive, at Emo's in Austin, in 2004. As for post-production, I artlessly chopped the audio file up into 12 segments, with an intro of me gabbing at various people while the band does a last minute tune up, for an unlucky 13 tracks in all.

The recording is very noisy, but appealingly so. Their records are pretty lo-fi and raw as it is, so the shitty sound is actually to their benefit. Even with the roughness, it still sounds better than many of the audience recordings I have heard over the years.

One of the crowd voices on this is Martina, from Prague, who once tried to pull my mailbox out of the wall during a party.

Me: Why are you doing that?
Martina: (with her hands still on the mailbox) I don't know.
Me: Well, stop it.
Martina: Ok. (lets go of mailbox)

There are other voices in the crowd that a few of you may recognize. I let you make your guesses...

Country Teasers Live at Emo's, 2004.

Babbler
Deaths
Good Looking Boys or Women
Hairy Wine II
Hitlers and Churchills
Man V. Cock
Mosquito
Please Ban Music
Points of View
Spiderman in the Flesh
Success
TODTLL
White Patches

Splinter Edit.

The mix I am putting up today is from an ancient mixtape that I made when I had a cheap mixer, two turntables and a cd player. Think 1995 or 1996. I digitized it and edited it down in 2003, if I remember correctly. The tracklist is your guess is as good as mine. I recognize about 25% of it. Louis Armstrong is on it (the track is a little wobbly). Steve Fisk figures pretty heavily into it. Étant Donnés are representing. Appendix is on there as one of the few actual songs. Entre Vifs shows up somewhere. Ryuchi Sakamoto has a supporting role. There is a Prince Far-I dub track. Groucho Marx is there for just a second. Hey, there's the Fall. There is some classical music... Everything else is either something that sounds familiar (but I have no idea what it could be) , or a complete mystery.

It's a sound collage. Listening to it now, well, I still really like it. It's very odd, this mix. Some of the distortion you hear was caused intentionally by me, because my equipment was horrid and easily fuck-withable. Think of it as a bonus. A rare, weird something that is exclusive to this mix.

This is one of the few actual mixtapes I made that survived all the years of total and complete neglect that I dished out. I leave it here for you.

Wretched Excess.

"I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him;
The evil that men do lives after them,
The good is oft interred with their bones,
So let it be with Caesar ..."

I have just now returned from a lovely wedding in Las Vegas, Nevada. I had never been out there before, so it was all fresh and new to me. I had a great, and very interesting, time. I'd like to state for the record that I am no gambler. I did play some of the games. I won. I lost. I won. I lost.

Thirty bucks in the hole was where it stood at the airport. Not too shabby for having gone to something like 12 casinos. Vegas is a giant money vacuum.

I have long been fascinated by the concept of Las Vegas, from its humble beginnings as an organized criminal venture, sanctioned by the State of Nevada, on up through the Fear and Loathing of Hunter S. Thompson (which I read again while I was there). I knew that the Vegas of yore was long gone years ago, but I had no idea how gone it really was.

Real gone.

If a casino gets too old or run down on the Strip, well, goodbye. Knock it down and scrape the earth until no trace remains. In its place will be built a super behemoth casino, nicer and more opulent than any casino ever built. Ever! In the end , even if they make it a Super Nice Class Sextuple AAA Palatial Gambling Center, it's still a casino. All the games are the same as every other casino on the Strip. Gambling, food, drink, and titty, that's what you get.

Clark County, Nevada really offers nothing to the casual tourist but the chance to (rarely) strike it rich. And to buy shit. And hookers. And that's pretty much it. There are some thrills to be had, I guess, if any of that stuff is your bag. But doesn't offer anything really tangible, just greed and gluttony for the dead-eyed potato people (Hey, it just happens. You play video poker for an hour or three, see if you don't end up looking a little zombified). It's the world's largest sin shopping mall, and it's far more obnoxious than you could ever imagine. I mean, I had no idea...

Honestly, I was entertained by just about everything presented to me. To the point of total exhaustion, which is where I am, currently. I spent a lot of my time just watching everyone. It's an intriguing microcosm of like-minded individuals milling around, doing the vice thing. They were the happy, sad, pretty, ugly, young, old, totally wasted humans of every hue, shape and size, and they were all cuttin' it loose, Vegas style. It's amazing.

If you have never been, you should go at least once, just to see it all unfold in front of you. If you have been there you already know what it's all about. I can't tell you nothin'.

The linky for today is a lecture by Hunter Thompson at Boulder University back in 1977, in all his mumbly glory. Pictures from the trip are here if'n you want a look-see.

Word Violence.

It's not just music that makes me a better person. It takes comedy as well. Occasionally, I need a little black humor to supplement my protein-rich diet of grinding thrash and soul-devouring noise, just to keep my balance. It's like bran in audio form. Bran for the soul. Hmm. This isn't looking too good. Let's start again...

Sometimes, there is the funny. Almost all comedians have to be funny, otherwise they're just "storytellers," or "poets," or "performance artists," or "terrible." Being funny puts the food on the comic's table, the "bread and butter," as it were. I'm sure even some of the more horribly offensive comics want to entertain and retain their audiences, when all is said and done. To maintain the balance of being controversial without being too controversial. It can be a fine line. I mean, who would want to actively drive their audiences away? Not a sane, career-oriented individual, certainly.

With that in mind, at the other end of this link is a performance by Bill Hicks. This show has many of his standard bits, and includes some I have never heard before. Which is nice, if you're a fan. There are also a lot of hecklers, and he hurls some pretty horrific abuse on them. Hicks really goes off the deep end several times, coming off more frightening than funny. Here is what Wikipedia had to say about it:

In a gig in Chicago during 1989, later released as the bootleg "I'm Sorry, Folks", resulted in Hicks screaming possibly his most infamous quote, "Hitler had the right idea, he was just an underachiever" to a heckler shouting "Free Bird" over and over. Hicks followed this remark with a misanthropic tirade calling for unbiased genocide against the whole of humanity, suggesting that it was not an anti-Semitic comment but rather an expression of his disgust with humanity in general. Hicks often veered between hope and love for the human race and utter hopelessness. He would often unsarcastically refer to humans as "God's perfect and holy children" while in the same performance suggesting that humans were turds.

I have actually seen a terrible quality video of this blistering verbal show of force. It is brutal and ugly. Also, very very funny. If you ever have a chance to watch it, you should.

As for the audio portion, if you decide to listen to this at work, I suggest the use of headphones. To say that the language was salty would be a gross understatement.

"I think the obvious question everyone has is who takes loaded weapons into a Toys "R" Us?"

Do you know when I first heard Chri$tma$ music while I was out this year? It was two days before Halloween. That...is too early. Normally, I do a pretty decent job of not putting myself around it too much, but this year it appears harder to escape from. Perhaps its omnipresence is due to the economy, which is fairly shitty from what I can discern. They certainly want each and every citizen to "deck the halls" with gizmos and cheap Chinese garbage in 2008... more than ever, it seems.

If I'm not hearing music, I'm hearing news... mostly about how "Black Friday" is going to (not) save us from financial ruin. Which is awesome. Now this is pure speculation on my part, but maybe some of the pressure put on consumers to stave off old man recession is making them a little tense. Sure, there is always some holiday violence, it's the American way. But a homicide? In a toy store? Two homicides! And a trampling death... People are serious this year, I guess.

If this time of year is getting you down in the dumps, I have a musical salve for your embittered soul. Almost every track here is an ass-shaker in one way or another, and all of them are freshly ripped from vinyl. It's the International Jazz Funk Prog Monster, gone on some kind of ennui mud-hole stomping tour. There isn't a carol in sight, so you may grab this without fear of jingling bells, eight tiny reindeer, or Santa.

[The Golden Bullet]

The Kazbek Orchestra - Ukrainian Folk Medley
Michael Liggins - Loaded to the Gills
James Brown - Think ( Live at the Apollo)
Can - I'm So Green
Coro A. Toscanini di Torino - Noi Vo Gliamo L'Uguaganza
Soul Diggers - Soul Dig Part 1
The 7 Sounds - The Sound of Soul
Green Milk from Planet Orange - Demagog
Harry Breuer & his Quartet - Minute Merengue
Manitas de Plata - Jova
Touré Kunda - Ne Nam' #1
Roosevelt Mathews with Billy Ball & the Upsetters - Tighten Up Tighter
Thee Headcoats - No Such Number
Kashmere Stage Band - Scorpio
Art Ensemble of Chicago - Odwalla/Theme (Live)
Erroll Garner - Bonnie Boy
Banda Tarapaca - Ay! Sargento y Cancion a Los Bonias Guindas
Pretty Boy - Bip Bop Bip
Rex Garvin and the Mighty Cravers - Emulsified
Faust - Du Weißt Schon
Funkadelic - Super Stupid

"I'd take a Bromo, but I can't stand the noise."

Look out! Old Beefeye is here, chopping up some choice musical chunks for you. Inner ear massage is the order of the day, with a veritable smörgåsbord of seriously sick songs, and savage, searing sounds. Check the tracklist if you have the doubts. The mere act of listening to this compilation ought to be enough to blast the old brown dinner out of your clogged, post-Thanksgiving guts. Don't be a'feared, help is here!

{throbthrobthrobthrobthrob}

zbignew karkowski
abcess: throbbing black werebeast
feedtime: small talk
floor: chelsea/pigs
black flag: fix me
amdi petersens arme`: enborger af samfundet
appi
nihilist: pinhead thought process
black randy and the metrosquad : i wanna be a nark
d.o.a.: no god no war
fuckface: raped shattered exiled
country teasers: devil on my back
buzzcocks: harmony in my head
night kings: night kings theme
pink lincolns: cotton mather
bauhaus : dark entries
the cramps: love me (live at cbgb's, halloween1978)
toast: code dread
skewbald: grand union
artimus pyle: paint it black
redrum: spreading the gospel
seein' red: nazi tuig
bitch magnet: big pining
the rip-offs: how do I feel
Lt. caramel
stack: six pack
tragedy: life?
crimpshrine : wake up
appendix : kateus
a mouse orchestra: a lump in your throat pt1