plunderphonic party music

I am so old now. Keeping up with new music often feels like chore. Goddamn it I know what genres I like and what bands I like and I only want to hear more of that. I frequently catch myself settling into the comfortable zone of music I listened to either in high school (grunge and indie hip hop mostly) or the stuff I would spin during my brief tenure as a college radio DJ (instrumental hip hop, indie rock, downtempo beats). Finding new stuff for me lately has mostly consisted of realizing a favorite released a new album (usually a few months after it hits the street). I only mention this because I used to spend hours and hours researching music, finding new artists, investigating their influences and oh lord, the downloading! Now I can rarely find the patience for such efforts. Which is why when I find something new and interesting, I feel the need to TELL EVERYONE and listen to it until I'm so tired of it I want to puke.
Today's find is GIRLTALK (which as a further illustration of my elderlyhood, I first heard about this guy on NPR yesterday). Girltalk is a one-man mash-up machine. Mash-ups are nothing new. DJs have been playing Metal guitar solos on top of whatever gut-twisting shout-rap of the moment for what seems like ages. GirlTalk refines the mash-up into an esoteric orgy of musical excess spanning four decades. I want to develop a smug sample naming drinking game and get drunk on my own self satisfaction. The component parts are so well-layered and linked and the juxtaposed bits, especially the 80's pop and 90's hip hop shit makes my little short attention span heart flutter with refreshed Adderall beats. Oh Girltalk you know what white males, aged 18-28 really want.

Check out GirlTalk's myspace and listen to the whole album for zero dollars.

the pacific northwest gains another mark in its column

Sam's graduation is in sight and my head is swimming with the possibilities ahead of us. Soon we'll be a young married couple looking to enter into a serious and possibly long-term relationship with a city other than Denton. I love Austin, but I feel like if we move straight back to Austin, we'll never want to leave again and I think it would be really great to live somewhere else for a little while. I am basically looking for a cool, mid-sized metropolitan, liberal-leaning, eco-conscious city near some water with great public services, parks and libraries and a killer film, music, and art scene where the summertime high temperatures are well under triple digits. So basically I'm looking for Austin in some other bio-region. Which is why I keep coming back to cities like Portland and Seattle.

At the same time, I haven't been to all the cool places in the US so I'm trying not to be biased and am gradually investigating other cities. I've been working at launching our Nashville destination at work lately and it looks pretty cool, I've got to say. It definitely requires some first-hand investigation. In my online research though I discovered this list of Allergy Capitols which is pretty disheartening and also somewhat confusing. Sam suffers from terrible allergy problems and so too does The Baron whose red allergy eyes make him look even more hangdog. When we visit Austin, Sam and I both have to bulk up on allergy medication several days in advance to prepare for the pollen and mold spore onslaught that inevitably befalls us. Since moving to North Texas, I've noticed a marked improvement in my allergy-related ailments. Austin ranks 41 in the list (where the most pollen-dense city is #1) but DFW ranks #27 which seems counterintuitive to me given my aforementioned decreased allergy difficulties in our current locale. Then again Denton is a solid hour away from Dallas and its possible that air quality plays into the ranking as well. Nashville is ranked #26 and I have no idea what that means given the other data. What I do know is that at the very bottom, #100 is Portland, OR - by no means perfect, but it certainly adds to my enthusiasm for that much touted hipster paradise.

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Heinlein said it best: A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

Popular Mechanics - 100 Skills Every Man Should Know (2008)