Knuckledragger

Late last night I heard that Michael Kandel AKA Tranqullity Bass died. He had just turned 48, IIRC. Michael was a pioneer of the trip hop sound, releasing some ground breaking 12"s in the early 90s. He enjoyed some reasonably large success in '97 with his Let The Freak Flag Fly album. I remember seeing the video for We All Want To Be Free on MTV's AMP that summer.

Shit got real in the Whole Foods Twin Peaks parking lot.

I'm a big fan of trackballs, and in my jaded opinion the above model is not the right Kensington to buy. The Slingblade Slimblade is the model you want. It's twice as expensive, but why skimp on french fried taters? This is Head Case, after all. Alright then, mmhmm.

William Gillette, late 1800's. Abandoned House off of Route 1 in Iceland Marin County, California.

Monkey selfie. The Half Dome viewed from Washburn Point in Yosemite National Park.

Test Tone @ Home live right now: http://mixlr.com/illuminator/chat

*fap* *fap* *fap* Abiqua, Oregon. Click for slightly larger.

WRT that form factor: Nice waveforms, though:

Yokohama city, Japan.

Vince from Totem Acoustic standing with a bunch of prototypes.

Test Tone @ Home live right now: http://mixlr.com/illuminator/chat

Cadillac dealership in 1921. Kirk Douglas and his wife, Anne Buydens, at the premiere of "Spartacus" at the McVicker's Theater in Chicago- 13 October, 1960. Stars behind an old North Carolina factory, 30 sec. The Matterhorn ascent. Stein's Pillar, Oregon. Click for slightly larger.

Russ Gabriel's modular. Daytona Beach, 1957. Cabulco volcano eruption, Chile by Jorge Nauto.

Had silence for the first 5 minutes (thx, mixlr). It appears to me working now.

Test Tone @ Home live right now: http://mixlr.com/illuminator/chat

Factoria Circular. Click for slightly larger.

Joan Collins. Campbell-Railton-Rolls Royce Blue Bird (1935). Three Sisters Wilderness, OR. Click for slightly larger.

Well, fuck it, then. Guess I'll stick to having a hairy wrist.

Game(boy Advance) of Thrones. Dawn Richard, late 50s. King of Wings - It still stands! San Juan Badlands, USA by John Fowler.

Test Tone @ Home live right now: http://mixlr.com/illuminator/chat

In my above post I mentioned Aspen. Anyone who listened to the entirety of last week's Test Tone heard me talk over the song that got me into Bevan Smith's work. "This Is Why Only Teenagers Can Really Love Music" sums his output up pretty well. A fairly lengthy track with a weird, pretentious title. It's minimal (dubby) techno, a genre which is more often boring and pretentious that it isn't. All of this said, the song is bloody brilliant. When Bevan is/was good, he is the absolute master of doing a great deal with very little. He evokes so much emotion out of a few drum hits, some frosty ambience and some fairly simple melodies. This Is Why Only Teenagers Can Really Love Music is probably not his best work, but it's certainly up there. I liked it enough to pay obscene amounts for his entire catalog (it averaged out to $25 a CD), shipped from the other corner of the globe (New Zealand). That was a dozen or so years ago, when the Information Age was a lot less information-y.

The Yardbirds - Roger the Engineer (40th anniversary edition blah blah). For Your Love might be the song everyone knows, but I maintain that Over Under Sideways Down is the real gem here. It's the most jangly proto-punk rock thing ever. Also, I got to know Heart Full of Soul first via the Chris Isaak cover. Chris did a faithful rendition and made it his own song, but having heard the original it's pretty clear to me which version is the better one. Jeff Beck was pretty much the coolest thing ever when this album came out.

It will be tough for me to contribute to this thread because ...I have too many suggestions. For over 13 years, I have been listening to SomaFM's Groove Salad. Via GS, I discovered the brilliant minimalism of Aspen, the atmosphere of All India Radio [EDIT: URL got munched] (my most listened-to artist on last.fm, with over 5000 plays), the synth pop of 2raumwohnung and a legion of others. This was the song I heard on Groove Salad that got me in to 2raumwohnung. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jofp9zDbTF0

Once a Beatle - When Ringo was ill with tonsillitis, he substituted on drums for 8 concerts & lived a superstar's life for 10 days. But Ringo has returned... Now Jimmie Nicol sits alone in the Melbourne airport, waiting for the plane that will take him back to obscurity (15 June 1964)