Music – Page 13 – Quartz City

Things I Like August 2005 (ennui vs. manic depression edition)

1. This collection of posters for the movies presented by Mystery Science Theater 3000.

3. Though not furry, the the sponge crab carries around a sponge on it’s back for camouflage.

4. Italian guitars of the 1960s. (full disclosure: I own a Crucinelli-built Vox Cheetah)

5. François Schuiten and Benoît Peeters’ comic series Les Cités Obscures. Mysterious steampunk adventure stories where the story/plots center around architecture city planning constructs. I’ve got three of the books and love them dearly, but I had no idea that there were nine more. Each one feels like a history parable that fell out of some parallel universe. (more reading)

9 Recent Obituaries You May Have Missed

William Donaldson a.k.a. Henry Root: His obit in the Telegraph might be one of the best things I’ve read all year.
Lesley Smith: One half of the Lesney partnership that produced Matchbox Cars, the classy die cast cars which were vastly superior to the garish Hot Wheels (at least until 1997 when Matchbox was purchased by Mattel).
The voices of Pooh and Piglet may have died on the same day, but two stars of the terrific cult television show U.F.O. died within a day of each other. Ed Bishop’s obit is terrific.
Simon Waronker: Liberty Records founder, discoverer of Julie London, and the namesake of Simon in Alvin and The Chipmunks.
Dorothy Chase: Co-founder of the Claremont Folk Music Center in Claremont, CA. Possibly even more influential to me than any other music shop in getting me to try out oddball instruments.
Doran William Cannon: Noteworthy for two things – the screenplays for two of the most bizarre movies to come out of a major studio: Skidoo and Brewster McCloud.
James Stockdale: Possibly best known as Ross Perot’s 1992 running-mate, Stockdale’s son has been heavily involved with my alma mater Webb School and on occasion the Vice Admiral would come by to visit and speak at one of the graduation ceremonies.
Higley’s Coffee Shop in La Cañada, California. I’ve been going to Higley’s for 11 years now and I’m sad to see it go.
The Ford Thunderbird: the last date of production was July 1. Thunderbirds had been built at the Wixom plant since 1958.

Jocko Homo

Your weekend crank literature reading is F.W. Alden’s 1924 pamphlet “Jocko Homo-Heavenbound” a antecedent to Akron’s favorite spud boys. Read the annotated version on the web or download a PDF.

Which Creation Records band are you?

You Are… My Bloody Valentine.

You tend to be a bit distant and reclusive. You are a leader as opposed to being a follower. You are a perfectionist and pay very close attention to detail. You have the tendency to be lazy, which sometimes get’s in the way of you achieving whatever it is you may be trying to perfect. You don’t really care about what’s typically looked upon as the norm. You really don’t care about what people think about you at all, or at least so you try and make it seem. You care most about just being yourself.

what Creation Records band are you? (complete with text and images)
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Things I Like (May 2005)

1. The “op-art carnival vs. 1970s futurism” design aesthetic of Braniff Airlines.

2. The “Visual Music” exhibition at MOCA in Los Angeles. Don’t miss the companion book.

3. The ridiculously charming and catchy Volkswagen Jetta ad known as “Independence Day.”

4. The fantastically groovy 1966 cult German television show Raumpatrouille.

5. Logic System. YMO spin off band that circulates around moogsploitation, straight-up technopop, and leftover tracks from the Cosmos television series. I somehow picture this playing at a western-themed truck stop in Japan somewhere.

Cover art for ILMiXor Vol. 2

Still chugging along through cover art for the ILMiXor series. Here’s art for Volume 2, subtitled “Pop Top 40 From Another World.”

That cover image came from Dmitry Popov’s terrific “Drive Back In Time” photograph series. Worth checking out when you have the time.

(previous post on ILMiXor Vol. 1 art)

Cover art for ILMiXor Vol. 1

Awhile back I plugged the ILMiXor round-robin mix disc project I’m part of. Anyway, we’re three volumes in and it’s time for some cover art so in keeping with the first disc’s theme of “chutzpah” I give you:

Things I Like (March 2005)

The March 2005 server explosion edition…

1. The SSI Industrial Shredder: When you absolutely positively need size reduction done right It’ll eat tree stumps, furniture, washing machines, and of course paper. Check out the videos.

2. The Space Age – The Age Of Reliability. I actually have a copy of this I found at the Salvation Army in Thousand Oaks, CA.

3. The Disneyland art of Mary Blair. Discussion and some images here, but check out the full book.

4. The Morning Glory Waves of the Gulf Of Carpentaria in Northern Australia. The glider equivalent of Hawaii’s north shore for surfers, the cloud waves here can exceed 1000 km in length and go over 10,000 feet high.

Things I Like (Feb 2005)

1. Zaha Hadid’s deisgn for the Bergisel Ski Jump in Austria.

2. Italian science-fiction magazine covers.

3. Brazilian album covers from the 1960s.

4. The mind-croggling critters of crank biologist and illustrator Ernst Haeckel.

5. Eurotrashy road trip quests. Probably best exemplified by William Gibson’s Pattern Recognition and Wim Wenders’ Until The End Of The World. Transnational citizens with no visible means of support other than from some sort of shadowy organization hop, skip, and angst their way across continents in pursuit of some esoteric “something.” With the aid of consumer brands, the lead characters find hidden truth that they can’t comprehend – proving cultural critic David Lee Roth’s axiom “It doesn’t matter if you win or lose, it’s how good you looked.” Am I the only one to wonder if Cayce was named after Edgar Cayce?

Things I Like (January 2005 edition)

1. The statue of Godzilla in the Ginza district of Tokyo.

2. The terrazzo floor of the Clark St. subway station in Brooklyn.

3. The Yu-Mex music movement. When Yugoslavia broke with the Soviet Union during the “Informbiro” period, the entertainment authorities had to go elsewhere for film and music inspiration. Enter Mexico…

4. The web page of Albanian President Alfred Moisiu

5. Julian Opie’s strangely hypnotic Bruce Walking and Sara Walking LED signs in front of the Tweed Courthouse on Chambers St. immediately next to the Brooklyn Bridge.