FISTFULAYEN

It’s Friday night, Julie’s in the desert, Lucinda is asleep, Zoe’s at her mom’s, and the Topspin team is in IRC building killer software (yes, on a Friday night — ever wonder why big companies can’t compete with startups? you’re getting warm), but I’ve been needing to write about a few albums I’ve been wearing out for a bit, so here goes. If you don’t own these, buy ‘em:

Imaad Wasif with Two Part Beast - Strange Hexes
If you were into Lowercase or Alaska! then you already know who Imaad Wasif is (I was an Alaska! fan thanks to Pat D) but if not this is a fine place to start. Dig melody + heavy a la Dinosaur Jr, Sebadoh, or Built to Spill? Well this doesn’t sound *like* any of those but it is melody + rock. Solid. The whole album is so good it was really hard to pick just one song to feature here. Just go buy the whole thing. Seriously. Oh btw, he’s opening the short-notice Raconteurs show on Sunday at the Henry Fonda Theatre here in LA. And Zoe and I missed seeing him in a jewelry store two weeks ago. We went but it was a school night and he went on later than we were hoping. Shucks.
Play Imaad Wasif with Two Part Beast - Seventh Sign
Buy MP3s from Amazon

Thao - We Brave Bee Stings and All
My friend Brendan told me about this one, said he had been listening to it all weekend and couldn’t stop. I get why. It’s addictive. You’ll definitely say it sounds like Cat Power on first listen but keep going, it has its own thing going on including genuinely great instrumentation and lyrics full of imagery.
Play Thao - Swimming Pools
Buy MP3s from Amazon

Neon Neon - Stainless Style
Gruff from Super Furry Animals and Boom Bip doing a concept album about John DeLorean? What more do you need to know? How about that it’s actually a great record covering pretty much every style of music from 80s dance pop to hip hop? Don’t delay, kids.
Play Neon Neon - Dream Cars
Buy MP3s from Amazon

I also dig the MGMT record a lot (and a lot more than I thought I would) and the new Sun Kil Moon, but I’m tired of making links and lots of other folks have already blogged those. Go buy them, and while you’re at it make like Rob Lord and pick up the great Mark Kozelek book of lyrics.

Music is the best,
ian

I was giving a Topspin demo to some rock stars (of sorts) today and got called out: “Someone wants a Bad Brains t-shirt.” Of course I do, who doesn’t, but how did he know I’d just been searching for one? Did I leave the window open? No, worse, the words were still in my Firefox search box.

I was embarrassed. Not sure why, but I was.

Anyway, I was searching for it after being inspired by this post. Which was inspired by this post. The blog circle.

FWIW, I think I’ll get one of these.

ian

As I wrote in more detail a while back, I’ve been using custom guitar picks as business cards since the late 90s. I have to say, it’s pretty rewarding to hand one of these out at a meeting. Not only do you get a “hey that’s pretty cool” kinda comment, but you often get a genuine “shit, why didn’t I think of that” sort of a-ha moment.

Feel free to steal the idea (with citation would be nice). In the old days I ordered from Legend Picks (and they haven’t changed their site a bit since then) but the last two have been from Steve Clayton and I have to say, the Clayton picks have a much better, more textured, less likely to slip out of your hand when you’re practicing like Dweezil sort of feel.

Special thanks to Peter Brambl for turning these around in record time. Peter rules, btw.

Speaking of shredding, the first person to name both the author of this lyric and explain who K.K. Downing and Glen Tipton are wins an out-of-print CD version of Gregory Isaacs’ (crucial) Cool Ruler and Soon Forward (how’s that for multi-genre?):

Cassius Clay was hated
More than Sonny Liston
Some like K.K. Downing
More than Glenn Tipton
Some like Jim Nabors
Some Bobby Vinton
I like ‘em all

ian

In the back of a cab on the way home from LAX on Friday, I was living an iPhone commercial. I was watching Bad Brains Live @ CBGB’s 1982 on my iPhone when Liz Heller called. While talking to Liz Dave Conway was text messaging me about meeting me at my house to leech my FIOS. Suddenly my wife, Julie, calls. Going from being entertained to flipping around and conversating with three people in different ways all with this one slim little device was very post-modern. I was an embarassing caricature of myself, and I wish I could say that was unusual.

But that wasn’t the point of this post. The point of this post was to get you to buy this Bad Brains DVD. The best hardcore band of all time did three nights at CBGB’s starting on Christmas eve in 1982 and the DVD collects the best of those performances. For example:

I moshed my brains out in the back of the cab watching this. Mouthed every word. Watching this footage it’s really hard to believe this moment in time existed. Thank god it did.

At the same time I bought the Bad Brains DVD, I also bought the Minutemen documentary, “We Jam Econo”, which I haven’t watched yet but I did watch the acoustic jam on the second disc at the urging of Greg Miller:

Also magical moments never to be recreated. D. Boon RIP.

Enjoy.

ian

As if I needed another reason to love my new job or feel like I’m the luckiest CEO on the planet, Peter Gotcher kicked off my first Topspin board meeting by presenting me with a custom Topspin skateboard.

Finally, my own pro model?

Thanks to Tim (throwing the shaka), Shamal, and Peter for making me feel so damn welcome. And love to my entire Topspin crew, y’all are incredible and I’m fortunate to be a part.

ian

Sometimes people ask me, what’s Justin doing?

No one believes me when I tell them the truth: he’s creating his own audio editing suite a la ProTools — he’s written an incredibly flexible piece of software, called REAPER, which is a 3.2MB download (!) and is $50 shareware. When I tell people the reaction is usually that I must be crazy or lying to them, because a) it’s not possible, and b) if it was they’d have heard of it. Well, as it turns out it is possible, Justin is really doing it, and you haven’t heard of it because it’s just him and Christophe spending 100% of their time writing code, playing with the result, and making music, and 0% of the time marketing it.

But don’t take my word for it, read this review in Electronic Musician which was the inspiration for this post.

Download REAPER for free, here.

Thanks Alan for sending me the link to the article.

ian

Holy shit. I can’t believe I’ve never seen this video. Found this evening when looking for a Styx video for Zoe’s playlist.

My dad and I listened to this song over and over when I was little. In junior high Kris Kurtz and I lip sync’d this for the talent show. In wigs, of course. But our wigs didn’t rule half as much as these dudes’ wigs rule. And when I say wigs I mean moustaches.

A house in the country with girls, guitars, and motorcycles? This is my dad’s dream come true. This one’s for you, pops. Dig.

Actually, dad, I have one more for you. Check this shit out. Seger System KILLING it (even though I think he’s lip syncing cuz that’s what they did on TV in those days).

(thanks to Sam Velde for sending me that one)

MAXIMUM R&B FROM THE MOTOR CITY. Don’t front.

ian

I finally put up a months-old episode of Zoe Radio tonight. We were going to record a new one but Zoe’s baby sister Lucinda was throwing up instead of going to bed so this is all we got done. Next week, right, Zoe?

Zoe’s Show, 2-7-2008

Visit www.zoeradio.com.

ian

[photo from Travis Keller’s Flickr stream]

Thanks Trent Reznor for blazing the trail.

Everyone is talking about his latest free download and his previous digital foray, but don’t forget his work with Saul Williams (statistical transparency included) and the marketing of his last record for Universal, which was by far the craziest marketing endeavor in the history of recorded music (if you follow one link in this post, follow that one). As Bob Lefsetz pointed out yesterday, it’s not about a press release, it’s about connecting with your fans and giving them something to believe in. And Trent has the attention to detail to see it all the way through. I’ve never met the guy but he seems driven.

What he’s doing doesn’t just take balls, it takes awareness and intelligence. Congrats, man. Keep it comin’.

ian

ps - the $300 Ultra-Deluxe Limited Edition NIN Ghosts box showed up at the office last week and it’s AMAZING. by far the best album package I’ve ever seen in my life.

If I had more time (time is the reason I haven’t been posting much lately) I could make a list of 100 reasons Steven rules. But to save time I’ll just put two out there tonight.

#1: He’s printed a book collection of questions and answers from his Dear Abby site, Sex and The Single Ape.

#2: He’s selling a Trader Joe’s Cashew on Ebay. Click through and read the questions and answers.

Thanks, Steven.

ian