And scariest of all…

Video: The Whip, “Trash”

Thanx to MikeP…

Video: The Arcade Fire “No Cars Go”

Video: B-52′s “Legal [...]]]> Next to “Roam”, this is probably my fave B-52′s song*. Don’t think the grocers’ apostrophe doesn’t drive me nuts — they fixed it last year, with the release of Funplex — but self-identification is to be respected. The literal representation of the instruments cracks me up and, Cindy, you ARE my goddess!

Video: B-52′s “Legal Tender”

*No, wait, it’s “52 Girls”. No, it’s “Deadbeat Club”. Wevs.

I like them. A lot. They’re fun, they’re fresh, they have [...]]]> You either dig Toronto’s Hidden Cameras or you do not dig them. You either find them hopelessly mannered and naïve or you do not. You either find their music refreshing in a DIY/low-art-gay-churchy kinda way or you find it predictable in a samey-same kinda way.

I like them. A lot. They’re fun, they’re fresh, they have an expansive theatricality and they inevitably find their way onto my iPod within days of release of new material. Like their latest song, “In the Na,” released a couple of weeks ago as a tease for the upcoming Origin:Orphan album release next month.

I won’t deny I have a thing for head Camera Joel Gibb and that was cemented when I met him when he was wearing naught but a wrestling singlet and I was in boxers, dress socks and black wingtips at a friend’s party. He wouldn’t remember that, I’m sure. But, anyway, that’s none of your beeswax.

Hidden Cameras’ live shows are ridiculously fun. They don’t make it to Vancouver nearly as often as they should, though. Like, the last time was 2006? And on my very street? Dear Joel: change that, okay?

Video: Hidden Cameras “In the Na”

And, indeed, Paloma Faith has all of the above. [...]]]> Not normally a big fan of sultry or poppy songstresses, I’ll cut some slack to those whose pipes are infused with disarming sass (Lily Allen) or an abundance of style without that vocal showoffiness which makes most of the shit played in nonheterosexual venues unlistenable.

And, indeed, Paloma Faith has all of the above. Girl can work a beehive, too. Her new single, “New York” arrives with a couple of disappointing remixes — Tom Middleton’s pedestrian and Cutmore’s too-anthemy efforts — but I’m kind of stuck on the original. Maybe you will be, too:

Video: Paloma Faith, “New York”

Hat-Tip to Fritz over at AlbumArtExchange.

Video: Thomas Dolby [...]]]> Twenty-five years after its release, Thomas Dolby’s The Flat Earth is still as haunting (and remarkable) as ever. I’ve been listening to all of his back-catalogue for a few days now and it’s as fresh as the first time I heard it, so long ago. From a live performance in Chicago, 2006:

Video: Thomas Dolby performing “The Flat Earth”

Video: Phoenix, “Love Like a Sunset” (35east)

Never put your hand on a man, except in dancing and in taking his arm if he is usher at a wedding or your partner for dinner or supper. Don’t allow anyone to paw you. Don’t hang on anyone for support, and don’t stand or walk with your chest held [...]]]> From “A Few Don’ts for Débutants”:

Never put your hand on a man, except in dancing and in taking his arm if he is usher at a wedding or your partner for dinner or supper. Don’t allow anyone to paw you. Don’t hang on anyone for support, and don’t stand or walk with your chest held in, and your hips forward, in imitation of a reversed letter S.^[1]

Thus spake Emily Post and, as it turns out, Malcolm McLaren. I can’t say I’m a huge fan of Malcolm McLaren the person — a man who makes Madonna’s cynical appropriation of the vogueing phenomenon from destitute ghetto queers seem almost amateurish, and whose cynical mishandling of the poor sods comprising the non-Lydon part of The Sex Pistols propelled him to much-undeserved acclaim — but… damn, he did have a knack for throwing together projects that syncopated into my soul. I mean, if I had one.

I can’t possibly count the number of late nights spent gyrating with my ex, Wiener, to McLaren’s Waltz Darling album, or any of the numerous remixes it unspooled from the digital domain directly to our spinal columns, OR the incalculable pharmacœpia consumed while doing so. It’s not just nostalgia that keeps me enjoying the title track but… dancing to a particularly fierce remix at Sound Factory, twenty years ago? That memory still makes me want to kick it. Darling. D-d-d-darling.

Video: Malcolm McLaren “Waltz Darling”

Memo to Girl Talk: There’s new, 2009 gold in these songs, and you’re just the man to mine it, baby.

^[1]I’m happy to report that I disobeyed Ms. Post at every possible opportunity.

In the days following my break-up with Toronto, the city streets seem no less cold, no less ugly and no less mean.

Perfect, then, for listening to Roxy Music’s blistering “In Every Dream Home A Heartache”, performed back in the day (1973!), back when I was totally hot for Bryan Ferry — okay, let’s not [...]]]> It’s weird.

In the days following my break-up with Toronto, the city streets seem no less cold, no less ugly and no less mean.

Perfect, then, for listening to Roxy Music’s blistering “In Every Dream Home A Heartache”, performed back in the day (1973!), back when I was totally hot for Bryan Ferry — okay, let’s not forget the hotter-than-Ferry hotness of Phil Manzanera — and, hey, who’s that freak with the feathers? Oh, just Brian Eno, shortly thereafter to become my lifelong hero and artiste sans comparaison.

One of the best break-up songs ever. I blew up your body, but you blew my mind:

Video: Roxy Music’s “In Every Dream Home a Heartache”

Hey, did I ever tell you I was a DJ? Oh, not the glamorous kind of DJ that elicits a slavish devotion from crystal-addled partiers, the other kind of DJ: a radio DJ.

When I was coming of age in Calgary, Alberta, there was a small and relentlessly cool downtown art [...]]]> (Intro: 12 September 1983)

Hey, did I ever tell you I was a DJ? Oh, not the glamorous kind of DJ that elicits a slavish devotion from crystal-addled partiers, the other kind of DJ: a radio DJ.

When I was coming of age in Calgary, Alberta, there was a small and relentlessly cool downtown art gallery gallery called Off Centre Centre. And in the back of Off Centre Centre, in a room no bigger than a walk-in closet, was a tiny cable radio station. The cable distinction was notable because, at the time, broadcasting through the cable system (and not over the air) meant that silly things like Canadian Content Regulations needn’t be observed. So that meant if the DJs didn’t feel like playing Canadian music, they simply… didn’t.

And what better name for a radio station in the back of a gallery called Off Centre Centre than “Radio Radio”?

Radio Radio Most Played for May-June 1983

For up to three hours every Monday evening, for three years, I played the music that was turning me on at that precise moment, even if “turning me on at that precise moment” meant three back-to-back remixes of Pete Shelley’s “Homosapien”. Every show started with “you’re listening to 2D on Radio Radio one oh four point five, broadcasting live on your cable FM on a Monday night in the city of the dead”, a not so sly shout-out to Ultravox (the Brian Eno-era Ultravox, not that New Romantic stuff).

Radio Radio DJs’ Top 5s

You can see my 2D “5″ at the top, right, in the image above. We didn’t get paid for our shows. Oh, no, in fact we threw $25 each into the kitty to pay for the privilege of spinning on the undergroundest radio station in the (most-defiantly) least-cultured city in Canada. I’m trying to remember if I picked anyone up on the streets of Monday Evening Downtown Toronto and took them to the back room to make out. I’m gonna go with “probably”.

In digging through (and rinsing off) the dirt of my past, I managed to find this record of that time as well as some tapes from my show. Here’s the playlist for 12 September 1983:

2D Playlist for 12 September 1983

\n Turn It UP: (Consolidated: “Message to the People“)

And then I downloaded the spectacularly fun — and solid argument for remix culture — RiP: [...]]]> I was never much a fan of mash-ups, thinking them kind of… gimmicky? And over the years I’ve acquired a rather large collection of music remixes but, for the most part, found them more a diversion than main course eatin’.

And then I downloaded the spectacularly fun — and solid argument for remix culture — RiP: A Remix Manifesto. Oddly, despite its Canadian roots, you can only download it from Amerika (see aforementioned link), though in Canada you can pretend you’re all piratey an’ shit, and download it via torrents and whatnot, but that would be wrong and bad and wrong and wrong (but not illegal (yet) in Canada). It’s a great doc and made me donate. You should, too.

Anyway, the remix artiste featured in RiP: A Remix Manifesto is Girl Talk — or Gregg Gillis, as he’s known to his parents — and his charismatic persona, combined with a brilliant and dense collection of samples, will both impress and draw skepticism from purists and faux-hipsters. I suggest that you try to work through your skepticism. This is fun, this is hot, this is terrific. Remember when The Party was important? I know you do.

Play this shit at a party and you’ll totally get laid, guaranteed.

From Girl Talk’s latest release, Feed the Animals:

Video: Girl Talk, “In Step”
(props to BunnyGreenhouse for his video mash-up)

Don’t get me wrong — Girl Talk sounds dangerously close to those dreadful “Stars on 45″ atrocities from 30 years ago, but the twist here is that he’s not replicating the hooks from famous songs, he’s incorporating the original material from a staggeringly wide array of genresto form a crazy-quilt that evokes both nostalgia and respect for his ear for the beat. It’s like sticking your head in a stream of pop radio signals from the past half-century. Fun.