R.I.P. George Carlin

Comedy legend George Carlin died of heart failure at the age of 71 at an LA hospital at around 6 pm (Pacific Time) Sunday after being admitted earlier in the afternoon with reported chest pains. Carlin was a comedic genius (arguably one of the best ever if not THE BEST EVER) and will be truly missed.

R.I.P George Carlin
1937-2008

New Girl Talk!/ Album Review

This Morning, Greg Gillis aka Girl Talk released his fourth album, Feed The Animals over the internet (on the Illegal Art label). This comes a little over a week after the finished completion of the album. This time, however, Gillis is using the Radiohead "Name Your Own Price" model.
With Feed The Animals, Gillis truly establishes himself as America's premier mashup artist, putting the likes of The Hood Internet and 2 Many DJs to shame. Gillis throws together hundreds of sound clips from some of the most popular pop songs of the last few years and mixes them with some certified classics (such as "ABC", "Bohemian Rhapsody", "Come On Eileen", and "Wanna Be Startin' Something"). However, it would be remiss to think of Gillis' work as simply the creation of mindless pop sampling - what he does on Animals (and his other albums) is arrange numerous relatively simple pop songs into a complex avant-garde collage of fun. No other man in the industry is able to make songs you hate so much (ex: "Crank Dat Soulja Boy" or Avril Lavigne's "Girlfriend") so damn enjoyable. Girl Talk is advancing the art of the sample and taking it to new heights. In the past sampling was used rather simply: take a cool break in a James Brown song and loop it and start rapping over it. Although the likes of the Beastie Boys pushed it a little farther, it must be said that Gillis is doing entirely brand new things and is the new undisputed king of the Sample.

Rating: 9/10

DOWNLOAD: Feed The Animals

Vampire Weekend Show Review

I don't know what it is about Vampire Weekend. They clearly aren't the most talented group of musicians out there. They aren't all that original of songwriters (they sound exactly like Paul Simon or Peter Gabriel would if they started making music after Radiohead). Yet they are undeniably catchy and I can't help but love them for it. On Saturday, I (along with the rest of New York City's under-25 hipster population)braved the rain in Central Park to watch them play through all of their studio material released to date, as well as a cover of Tom Petty's "Don't Come Around Here No More" with an unusually subdued Andrew W.K. on guest guitar.
Despite a great though lightning-abbreviated set by Toronto's Born Ruffians and a completely shitfaced set by Kid Sister, Vampire Weekend was clearly the highlight of the afternoon. They managed to get a rather pretentious New York crowd jumping, dancing, and singing along rather enthusiastically - all despite a pretty big storm.
Some deride these guys as nothing more than frat rock, but although they are far from lyrical geniuses, they can provide a plenty good time.

Youtube Video: Vampire Weekend and Andrew WK - Don't Come Around Here No More

R. Kelly Found Not Guilty

Apparently that piss was digital. R. Kelly was found not guilty by a jury on 14 counts of child pornography. In other news, O.J. Simpson is still looking for the real killer and Michael Jackson never touched little kids.

In all seriousness, R. Kelly was actually found not guilty today by a Chicago jury.

DOWNLOAD: The Hood Internet - R. Kelly vs. Broken Social Scene - I'm A Flirt (Shoreline) (Zshare)

Obama Wins Democratic Nomination!!

Last night, Barack Obama officially won the Democratic Primary and will become the Democratic nominee for president in November. Congratulations to Obama, and consider this the official Flochango presidential endorsement.

Album Review: Weezer (The Red Album)

Do you remember when a new Weezer album used to be something worth getting excited about. Well, that time is long passed. I don't know what it is, but it seems as if Rivers Cuomo forgot how to write good music. I probably don't need to remind you how great he once was a crafting perfect pop songs about how miserable of an individual he was. Weezer's first two albums The Blue Album and Pinkerton are absolutely classics and among the two best albums of the 90's. Pinkerton, to this day, remains one of my absolute favorite albums of all time and not just the 90's. If he had stopped right here (when the band went on their first hiatus), Weezer would probably be mentioned alongside bands like Joy Division and Neutral Milk Hotel as the best bands ever to release only two albums. Unfortunately, Rivers and co. reunited and have been bombarding the public with utter shit ever since that (although The Green Album was okay, just not nearly as good as their first two albums).

Anyway, the new Weezer album sucks. And by that I mean it is absolutely terrible. The best song on it is "Pork and Beans", which would have probably been the worst song on The Green Album even. The rest of the album is forgettable and cliche at best and horrid and vomit-endusing at worst. The songs that Rivers doesn't sing come across like something that nickelback or staind would put out; but despite this, the worst song is actually one sung by Rivers - "Heart Songs". "Heart Songs" is nothing but Rivers running off the musicians that influenced him (from Gordon Lightfoot to Nirvana - with everyone in between including Debbie Gibson, Will Smith, and Slayer) set to completely bland music. The worst part though is the chorus, which sounds like something a middle-aged hippie third-grade music teacher would write for a song. It goes, "These are the songs, these are my heart songs, they never feel wrong ..." and so on. And just to show that that isn't an isolated example of shitty songwriting, the next song has the chorus, "Everybody get dangerous, everybody get dangerous. Boo Yah!".

My theory is that not only is Rivers Cuomo too content with life to write good music but that he's trying waaaay too hard to make his music overly-complicated, when he's best at writing simple, pissed-off pop songs. I won't even get into how awful "The Greatest Man Who Ever Lived" is. I'll just suffice to say that it sounds like he tried to make a "Bohemian Rhapsody" for the twenty-first century and wound up with an imitation of recent Green Day music (which isn't a good thing).

Don't waste your money on this.
Rating: 1/10

R.I.P. Bo Diddley

R.I.P. Bo Diddley

Download: Bo Diddley - Who Do You Love (Zshare)
Download: Bo Diddley - Bo Diddley (Zshare)

Sigur Ros Rebuttal

Apparently Sigur Ros fans take any criticism of their beloved Icelanders very seriously. I must admit that I am not the most knowledgeable individual about the band, so perhaps my previous comments were slightly overly harsh. I own two of their albums: ( ) and Agaetis Byrjun. On one of those two albums [ ( ) ], all of the songs ARE, in fact, in "hopelandic". From Sigur-ros.co.uk's faq section:

on von, ágætis byrjun and takk, jónsi sang most songs in icelandic but a few of the songs were sung in 'hopelandic'. all of the vocals ( ) are however in hopelandic. hopelandic (vonlenska in icelandic) is the 'invented language' in which jónsi sings before lyrics are written to the vocals. it's of course not an actual language by definition (no vocabulary, grammar, etc.), it's rather a form of gibberish vocals that fits to the music and acts as another instrument. jónsi likens it with what singers sometimes do when they've decided on the melody but haven't written the lyrics yet. many languages were considered to be used on ( ), including english, but they decided on hopelandic. hopelandic (vonlenska) got its name from first song which jónsi sang it on, hope (von). tracks 7-9 on takk are in hopelandic.

Furthermore, I find it somewhat amusing that I would get such harsh comments about a band that I don't even particularly dislike all that much. I mean, their okay but it's just not my cup of tea, mind you. And no I haven't been living in a bubble, and I never accused Icelandic of being a made up language. Also, I am not some ignorant asshole who refuses to listen to music in other languages. If you look a couple of posts down, you will see that I discuss a Belle & Sebastian cover of an Os Mutantes song. Os Mutantes are Brazilian and hence sing their songs in Portuguese which I also do not understand. I enjoy Os Mutantes. One really cool album that I downloaded this year, called Cambodian Rocks is a compilation of Cambodian garage bands. I don't speak Cambodian, yet I enjoy the music on that album.
I probably won't be discussing Sigur Ros a whole lot more on this blog, so you can all chill.

Download: Sigur Ros - Gobbledigook (mp3)

Holy Shit, Fuck Buttons Is Awesome!!!

I had heard discussions of this band for a while now, but holy fuck buttons! they really have a pretty interesting sound. I just checked them out and got their new CD "Street Horrrsing" because they'll be playing McCarren Pool with Liars and Team Robespierre of July20th. I really hope I can make that show now. Fuck Buttons is I guess technically a noise band but the stuff they do is occasionally somewhat catchy and poppy and at times bright (unlike most noise bands that are really dark most of the time). It's cool, check it out.

Download: Fuck Buttons - Okay, Let's Talk About Magic (Zshare)

New Sigur Ros: "Gobbledigook"

I don't know what it is about music from Iceland, but in general I just don't get it. Call me uncool or whatnot for not being huge on Bjork or Sigur Ros or even Mum, but none of them really do much for me. Anyway, Sigur Ros has a new album coming out called "Með Suð Í Eyrum Við Spilum Endalaust" which apparently is Icelandic or "Vonlenska" (the make-believe language that Sigur Ros invented) or something for "With A Buzz In Our Ear We Play Endlessly". I'm sorry but that just sounds like the definition of pretentiousness - creating your own language and having all of your songs be in that fake language. Well, so Sigur Ros has a new CD coming out on June 23rd (with ONE SONG ON IT IN ENGLISH!!!) and the first song from it is called "Gobbledigook" - which I thought was pretty much the names of all their songs. For the record, I have never had any issue with the actual music Sigur Ros makes, which tends to be very beautiful and occasionally great. It's just that the lyrics sound like something out of an elf's song in Lord of the Rings. Gobbledigook is no exception. If the song had actual lyrics I'm sure it would be very good. But I can't get past the Gobbledigookness of it. Perhaps you'll like it more than I did.


Download: Sigur Ros - Gobbledigook (mp3)

Belle & Sebastian Cover of Os Mutantes' A Minha Menina

I found this belle and sebastian cover of os mustante's a minha menina over at You Ain't No Picasso and its pretty cool. You wouldn't exactly expect belle & sebastian to cover a song like this but it actually works (they play a very straight cover). also, it's a live track but good audio quality and the crowd isn't really all that annoying.

Download: Belle & Sebastian - Minha Menina (mp3)

Recipe For a Hipster Dance Party

I'm still a little too hung over for it right now (yes even at almost 6pm), but if you want some funky tunes to dance to, here ya go.

Download: Best Fwends - M.Y.S.E.L.F. (XXXchange Remix) (Zshare)

Download: Peter Bjorn and John - Let's Call It Off (Girl Talk Remix) (Zshare)

Download: Hercules and Love Affair - Hercules' Theme (Zshare)

Q: what's a party without prince?
A: a bad one

Download: Prince - Black Sweat (Zshare)

Download: Simian Mobile Disco - Tits and Acid (Zshare)

and because I would find it absolutely hilarious to watch someone dance to this like it was a timbaland song or something:

Download: ???Guess You'll Have to Click Here To See What It Is??? (Zshare)

Free Shows in NYC This Summer

Here's a list of all the free shows in new york this summer that interested me in some way. In a perfect world I would be able to attend all of them, but obvi I have a work schedule and such. Keep in mind all of these are free (I'm a cheap bastard). I put the shows that I absolutely wouldn't want to miss in bold. I'll update this list as I become aware of new shows.

Sunday, May 25th 2:30pm at Cake Shop
Olive Juice Independent Music Festival Day 2:
2:30 pm - Major Matt Mason USA
3:00 pm - Elizabeth Devlin
3:30 pm - Dan Costello
4:00 pm - Preston Spurlock
4:30 pm - Erin Regan
5:00 pm - Brook Pridemore
5:30 pm - Dibs
6:00 pm - The Best
6:30 pm - Jeffrey Lewis
[From Brooklyn Vegan]


Friday, May 30th 7pm at South Street Seaport Wire

Friday, June 6th at the Whitney Museum
The Berg Sans Nipple performing selections from Kevin Volans' White Man Sleeps and John Adams' Book of Alleged Dances

Tuesday, June 10th 9pm at Music Hall of Williamsburg
The XYZ Affair and Action Painters (18+)

Friday, June 13th at the Whitney Museum
A Sunny Day In Glasgow performing Ingram Marshall's Entrada and John Adams' Shaker Loops, for seven strings

Saturday, June 14th 4pm to 730pm at Central Park SummerStage
Vampire Weekend, Kid Sister, Born Ruffians
Download: Vampire Weekend - Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa (Zshare)

Thursday, June 19th 7pm at Prospect Park
Medeski Martin and Wood

Thursday, June 19th 9pm at Studio B
Crystal Castles and Woodlands (21+)

Friday, June 20th 8pm to 10pm at Central Park SummerStage
Comedy Central Park Featuring: Stephen Lynch, Mike Birbigia, Julian McCullough

Friday, June 20th at the Whitney Museum
Prefuse 73 performing Chen Yi's Sound of Five for string quintet

Wednesday, June 25th 7pm at Madison Square Park
Raul Midon

Thursday, June 26th at 23rd st and the east river (Stuyvesant Cove Park)
CitySol 2008
Care Bears on Fire and A-Ok Collective


Friday, June 27th 7pm at South Street Seaport (Fulton St and South St, Pier 17) A Place To Bury Strangers and King Khan & the Shrines

Download: King Khan - Torture.mp3 (MP3)

Friday, June 27th 7pm at Prospect Park
Cold War Kids and Elvis Perkins

Friday, June 27th at the Whitney Museum
Times New Viking performing selections from the string quartets of Jefferson Friedman

Saturday, June 28th at 23rd st and the east river (Stuyvesant Cove Park)
Citysol 2008
Dirty Projectors, Ecstatic Sunshine, No Surrender and Shilpa Ray

Saturday, June 28th 2pm at East River Park btw Grand and Jackson Sts
Titus Andronicus, Orbits, Emperor X, Blood City

Sunday, June 29th 2pm at McCarren Pool
The Hold Steady, The Loved Ones, J Roddy and the Business


Friday, July 4th at Battery Park Sonic Youth and the Feelies Free w/ tickets available June 12th at noon
Download: Sonic Youth - Death Valley 69 (with Lydia Lunch) (Zshare)

Sunday, July 6th 2pm at McCarren Pool
Ronnie Spector and the Rabbit Factory Soul Review

Thursday, July 1oth 7pm at Castle Clinton National Monument, Battery Park
St. Vincent
Free w/ tickets available at 5pm

Friday, July 11th 7:30pm at Prospect Park
Brazilian Girls


Friday, July 11th 7pm at South Street Seaport No Age, Abe Vigoda, Telepathe
Download: No Age - Teen Creeps (Zshare)

Saturday, July 12th 7:30pm at Prospect Park
Beth Orton

Saturday, July 12th at Outdoor Venue TBA
Oneida, High Places, Titus Andronicus, Abe Vigoda, more TBA

Sunday, July 13th 2pm at McCarren Pool
??The Breeders?? [Headliner TBA], Matt & Kim, The Whip

Thurday, July 17th 7pm at Castle Clinton National Monument, Battery Park
Ted Leo/ Pharmacists
Free w/ tickets available at 5pm

Thursday, July 17th 7pm at East River Park btw Grand and Jackson Sts
Fiery Furnaces

Friday, July 18th 7pm at Prospect Park
Deerhoof with the Metropolis Ensemble performing an arrangement of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring


Saturday, July 19th Noon to 9pm at Coney Island
Siren Music Festival:
Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks, Broken Social Scene, The Helio Sequence, Beach House, Times New Viking, Jaguar Love, The Dodos, Annuals, Film School, Parts & Labor, Dragons of Zynth, These Are Powers, and More TBA

Sunday, July 20th 2pm at McCarren Pool
Liars, Fuck Buttons and Team Robespierre, Andrew WK (DJ Set)

Download: Liars - Plaster Casts of Everything (Zshare)

Sunday, July 20th 3pm to 6pm at Central Park SummerStage
Santogold, Diplo, A-Trak

Thursday, July 24th 7pm at Castle Clinton National Monument, Battery Park
Akron/Family
Free w/ tickets available at 5pm

Thursday, July 24th 7pm at East River Park btw Grand and Jackson Sts
KRS-One

Friday, July 25th 7pm at South Street Seaport
Atlas Sound

Saturday, July 26th at Prospect Park
Ghostland Observatory

Sunday, July 27th 2pm at McCarren Pool
MGMT, Black Moth Super Rainbow, Ting Tings

Download: MGMT - Time To Pretend (Zshare)

Thursday, July 31st 6pm at Pier 54 @ W. 14th St
Flogging Molly and O'Death

Sunday, August 3rd 2pm at McCarren Pool
Black Lips, Deerhunter, (TBA), and Tall Firs

Sunday, August 3rd 3pm to 6pm at Central Park SummerStage
Jamie Lidell

Friday, August 8th 7pm at South Street Seaport
TBA

Sunday, August 10th 2pm at McCarren Pool
TBA

Thursday, August 14th 7pm to 930pm at Central Park SummerStage
Los Lonely Boys and Los Lobos

Thursday, August 14th 6pm at Pier 54 @ W. 14th St
Blonde Redhead

Friday, August 15th 7pm at South Street Seaport
Dirty Projectors and White Williams

Download: Dirty Projectors - No More (Black Flag Cover) (Zshare)

Saturday, August 16th 3pm to 7pm at Central Park SummerStage, Rumsey Playfield
Battles, Black Dice and Gang Gang Dance

Sunday, August 17th 3pm to 630pm at Central Park SummerStage
Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings

Sunday, August 17th 2pm at McCarren Pool
Aesop Rock, Panther, and Special Guests

Friday, August 22nd 7pm at South Street Seaport
TBA

Sunday, August 24th 2pm at McCarren Pool
TBA

Friday, August 29th 7pm at South Street Seaport
TBA

initial post

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