Antificial Radio Weblog. Methods of Torture

New blog.

2007-02-12T10:26:00.000-08:00

Alright folks, if there IS anyone here who still reads this, go to http://antificial.blogspot.com - that's where my new Mp3blog is. Bye.

2005-08-17T07:26:00.000-07:00

After a long, long break, Antificial Radio Weblog's active again. Among the main musical news of the past two weeks for me is the new recording committed by Gogol Bordello, which is now out in the US. For those of you who don't know yet, Gogol Bordello is a horde of gypsies from Kiev who emigrated to the states some time ago to make something they call "gypsy punk rock" and I'd say you have to hear to get. Luckily, the whole thing can be streamed from Side One Dummy's site.

And since we're at it, let's give you a few other links. Now, regular readers may know or have guessed i'm way into mash-ups and from time to time looking for some fresh and good ones. DJ Earworm is not exactly new, but worth checking out since he doesn't just mix vocals from one song and the instrumentals from an other, but rather puts together bits from many tracks. Technically, this is similar to Eve Massacre in a certain way, and if you don't know her, be sure to visit her site as well ("Sweet as Neurotic Euro Trash Indie Boys" is a classic but, sadly, not available for download anymore).

eMusic: What the... (no mp3s in this post; mp3 bloggers please pay special attention!)

2005-04-25T13:55:00.000-07:00

Has anyone else got this?

"Hello

I hope all is well. My name is Matt Zerbo and I handle the affiliate program for eMusic. I wanted to get in touch to see if there is a way Artificial Radio Weblog and eMusic can work together.

Your blog focuses providing independent music lovers with access to new and interesting music as well as providing exposure for emerging artists. eMusic provides the same service, only on a larger scale. We are different from the other major online music providers for a number of reasons. We only carry music from independent artists and labels, which makes our collection much more diverse. Also, we offer our entire catalog in the MP3 format free of any copy protection, which means our customers truly own the music they purchase from our service. They can burn unlimited CDs, transfer their music to any digital music player/product (including the iPod), download to unlimited computers, and play using any digital music jukebox.

[Well, so far so good... except for the grave fact that they SELL their mp3s. CDs are being sold. Mp3s aren't.]

I feel that connecting your users to eMusic would add value to your blog by offering them the ability to download the music that they love at an affordable price and from a trusted source. I would like to offer you acceptance into our affiliate program, which will provide you the opportunity to earn commission for posting links to eMusic. Becoming an affiliate will cost you nothing and has the potential to earn significant money for your blog. Our affiliates earn $9 dollars for every paying subscription started through the links posted on their sites, which is a very competitive rate.

[passage about eMusic being great and stuff cut out]

Please let me know your thoughts when you have a chance, or if you would like to move forward immediately visit [address cut out] to apply. Your application will be accepted promptly. If you have any questions about the affiliate program or eMusic in general, please do not hesitate to contact me. I look forward to hearing from you and I hope you decide to join.

Best

Matt Zerbo

Matthew Zerbo

Affiliate Manager

eMusic.com

[contact information cut out]"

I first thought it was some sort of clever spam, but nope, it wasn't, which could be noticed alone on the fact that motherfucker spelled the name of my blog wrong.

Now, obviously, I am NOT going to participate in this. Antificial Radio Weblog is not going to sell out. All mp3s that I offer are for free, and I do not believe in selling mp3s. So it would be nice if Mr Zerbo managed not to bother me with this kind of crap in the future. However, I'd like to hear some other bloggers on this subject.

"Guero"

2005-04-12T11:44:00.000-07:00

I didn't get warm with Beck's new album. I don't feel it was a good idea for him to go back to the Dust Brothers; AMG reviewer Stephen Erlewine writes that "[...] Guero never is as surprising or enthralling as Odelay" and that's right. But Erlewine finds it "mature", and I'm bored by it. The fun you had with "Odelay" never even comes up on "Guero", it lacks energy, it doesn't freak out, and Beck always knew how to freak out ("Sea Change" is an exception by the way, which doesn't mean it's bad). This new album hopelessly tries to freak out. It's the same low-fi samples, similar lyrics, the same voice and the same style, but something is missing on it.

The remixes on the "Hell Yes" EP are better, at least the 8-Bit remix of the title song. They are by far not the best thing Beck has ever made, but they're neat. The whole single has this Nintendo sound by the way, so if you like that, you'll probably have your fun with it. And you get the album version of the song as well.

I Hope You Die three times

2005-04-11T06:17:00.000-07:00

No one will deny that the Bloodhound Gang was absolute crap but somehow still fun music. "Hooray for Boobies" was actually probably the best you could make out of punk in the nineties: Just plain fun music without much sense. This is punk rock music completely disposed of any punk ideology which, at that time, was hopelessly dead anyway. Take Blink 182 or a random nineties band who are similar to them as a negative counter-example to this.

So, the lyrics for "I Hope You Die" are just ridiculous. If you saw a Ramones song called like that, you'd expect something different, and you would be right on that. There's a more shocker-based version by 16 Bit Slaughter (or just Bit Slaughter? I couldn't find any info on them or him or her on the web) though, for all those of you who are looking for some medium anger (the lyrics are the same ridiculous ones, so if you want hardcore anger, take something else). A bit cheap, but I like it. And finally, there's a nice mash-up of this song with Fatboy Slim/Macy Gray's "Demons" by Fettdog which is partly out of key, but. Available on Fettdog's site.

Meet the Feebles soundtrack, Ween

2005-04-10T10:40:00.000-07:00

I first got into "Meet the Feebles" when a guy I know sent my girlfriend and me "Sodomy", a song sung by Sebastian the Fox in that movie. I instantly liked it. When I first listened to it, it sort of reminded me of Anthony & The Johnsons' humour, only more offensive and with less kitsch. The song (as well as three other ones from the movie) can be picked up at this "Meet the Feebles" site in the "sound clips" section. Interestingly, that site is placed on the Ween domain and is created by someone called Hill, as the links section on their official site states. I couldn't find out who Hill is and how he relates to Ween, but seemingly he strongly does, given the fact that you can contact him on the site, while the link sections says it's run by Dean Ween. I never really got into Ween, but I downloaded "You Fucked Up" again another day and listened to it quite often (I had already heard it, but that was looong ago). Hearing "You fucking nazi whore" screamed in a microphone with a hysteric voice is just amusing. You can get a live version of it in their audio section.

Rx

2005-04-10T10:28:00.000-07:00

This guy sampled speeches of George W. Bush (mainly) and made songs out of them, available at thepartyparty.com. At times sloppy (which is no wonder, try to make a song out of a political speech, and I don't mean just sampling one or two damn sentences for one song), but sometimes really good sampling, funny and hell, there are even Bush "Imagine / Walk on the Wild Side" and "Sunday Bloody Suday" cover versions now. I particularly recommend "My Name is Rx" ("By the way, I wake up every day, every morning, that's my job! And it's hard work, it's haaard work, it's hard work, it's incredibly hard, believe me") and "Boys and Girls".

PS: Those are Anti-Bush songs and at times really evil parody. So if you are a rigid Republican, you could easily be offended by them. Download at your own risk, then.

Dozer, Gogol Bordello, Locust Toybox, AFX

2005-04-10T06:36:00.000-07:00

So, Dozer from dozer mp3 blog emailed me and asked me if I wanted to take a look at his blog. Now, normally, the links that people visiting this place send me are rather uninteresting: mediocre bands who want to somehow get their music promoted (bands and musicians, keep on sending anyway, I still hope to get something really interesting from you) and some strange actions like putting a "vote" sticker on the blog shortly before the 2004 US presidential elections in order to make people vote (yeah, in an mp3 blog. EmptyFree then wrote about that and although his tone was rather harsh, in general he was right about it). Well, this time I actually got a link to a good mp3 blog via email, thanks Dozer and you all go check it out. As far as I have figured it out until now, it's mostly concentrated on IDM and other electronica. And oh yeah, just in case Dozer reads this: could you put up a sort of a preview mp3 of this nintendo thing?

Anyway, Gogol Bordello have a new EP out and a free mp3 track from it up on their website (just scroll down). This one is in crap quality (only 96 kbps) but a damn good song.

Also, check out David Firth alias Locust Toybox. This is IDM music, I haven't heard much of it myself yet, but I've seen his cartoons on fat-pie.com where some of his songs are partially used as a soundtrack and some of them seem to be pretty good. He is copying Aphex Twin in a certain sense, which of course cannot lead to great results because copying Aphex Twin never leads to great results. Nevertheless, give it a listen. And take a look at his cartoons, as well, and because this is an mp3 blog, I'll particularly mention the soundtrack: lots of AFX music used in there, and there is even a flash clip to "Milkman". Enjoy.

2005-02-10T01:43:00.000-08:00

I originally intended just to make an entry about a famous rap group sampling Rocket from the Tombs, but then discovered that some more RftT related stuff has accumulated during some weeks, so now you get an entry stuffed to the neck with mp3 files. Now, isn't that something?

I hadn't noticed that the Beastie Boys actually sampled a guitar riff from an RftT song until I listened to that collection of 1975 recordings again with my girlfried during her latest vacation here. Obviously, the Beasties didn't take the 1975 version of "Sonic Reducer" but the re-recorded song from 2003's "Rocket Redux"; and here's "An Open Letter to NYC".

Then, it appears that Guns'N'Roses covered RftT's "Ain't it Fun". Rocket smoothened the song themselves in 2003, having an old Cheetah Chrome sing the song (and the last thing you want to have on a Rocket from the Tombs song is a singer with that typical old rocker attitude), but Guns'N'Roses outran them in these terms. Well, what would you expect from G'N'R anyway; but hey, they DID do a Rocket from the Tombs cover!

"Ain't it Fun" (1975 version)
"Ain't it Fun" (2003 "Rocket Redux" version)

Some anonymous commenter mentioned that "Love Love Love (I Can't Believe it)" from Pere Ubu's "Cloudland", a song which on that album possibly got the most synth-driven treatment, must have been written in the RftT days; and indeed, although no RftT version of the song is known to me, I have a Pere Ubu live recording from 1976 where the band plays the song, titled just with "Can't Believe it". The recording quality is even tolerable, you can quite well hear the arrangements.

2005-01-31T05:58:00.000-08:00

"The REAL New Fall LP (formerly "Country on the Click")", which was released in 2003, was originally entitled just with "Country on the Click", then leaked onto the net and into filesharing networks before its planned release and because of that was partially re-recorded and re-mixed by the band, so now there are two different versions of the album. I'm not sure which one of the two versions I like better, here are two songs from the album in both versions and a song which was included on the final album version only and given that another reason why it's good that The Fall did "Country on the Click" two times.

"Mountain Energei" (first version)
"Mountain Energei" (second version)

"Recovery Kit" (first version)
"Recovery Kit" (second version)

"Janet vs Jane and Johnny"

2005-01-29T11:33:00.000-08:00

The Chemical Brothers' initial big beat line, which was given up after their second album, "Dig Your Own Hole" (and their sound became boring from that point on) was something that brought post-techno dance music a possibility to actually be listened to. Of course they never got out of the orientation towards dance music, while IDM by 1995 (which was the year the Chemical Brothers' first album, "Exit Planet Dust", was released) had little to do with dancing, so they kind of looked like the younger brothers and never really were on a cutting edge of electronica. On the other hand, making music for only listening never was their goal, and as background music, their two first albums fit well. Then, if you are looking for something with a loud dirty beat and some noisy samples, you can hardly go wrong with them. Here are two of their songs for you to download.

Song to the Siren (from "Exit Planet Dust")
Block Rockin' Beats (from "Dig Your Own Hole")

2005-01-28T13:32:00.000-08:00

As you might know, "Tainted Love" was first commited by Gloria Jones in the 60s, a soul singer who is mainly known for that song and then for having married Marc Bolan; here's her version. Later on, in the 70s, "Tainted Love" was redone by Ruth Swan, featuring those two hits (in her version done by the brass section) appearing for example after "I've got to..." which were to re-appear on Soft Cell's cover and on most other forthcoming versions of the song that I know. I'm not sure whether those hits appeared on any earlier version, in any case they weren't there yet on Jones's original.
"Tainted Love" became Soft Cell's only big hit, undeservedly as it is so often, because at least "Sex Dwarf" is a good song. Their version definitely went into a darker direction and some time later, Coil came up with their goth cover, committed, among other things, with bell voices and choir synths; the hits I mentioned above strogly changed as well. Coil's version may sufficiently show why Marilyn Manson's cover was completely spare, but the last few doubting that should be convinced by the metal version done by My Riun in 1999 (which I do not like but hey, I don't like Marlyn Manson either). Have fun with the song.

2005-01-27T10:51:00.000-08:00

If you are into mash-ups, you could go and check out gordy Boy's "A Hidden Forest", which is Björk's "Hidden Place" mixed with The Cure's "A Forest" (which I do not have in the original version). A neat bootleg. Björk, whom I once already wrote about here, is best heard on bootlegs, as well as lots of other bootlegged stuff.

And since we're at bootlegs and were at bastardizing The Beatles in my previous post here, why not go and download The Beastles? Good mashes, and my girlfriend and an other friend of mine both claimed that they liked them more than the original Beasties stuff. Well, well.

2005-01-27T10:34:00.000-08:00

There's this band called Beatallica which plays Beatles songs imitating, who would have thought that, Metallica; you can get both of their albums on their site. Okay, you can hear that the singer is definitely not Hetfield, but it only makes the whole thing even funnier. Imagine guys with long hair hammering on their guitars and stomping on the ground with their feet, playing "All my Loving" (which in the Beatallica version is called "...And Justice for All my Loving"). Personally, I only like a couple of Beatles songs, like "Strawberry Fields Forever" (which Beatallica, pitifully, hasn't covered) and I do not like Metallica at all, but hey, this band is fun.

2004-12-16T13:39:00.000-08:00

A short entry for today, with a rather big mp3 file though. After having posted a song from Pere Ubu's first album, I think it's adequate to post one from their lastest work, "St Arkansas". "Dark" is the last song on the album.

2004-12-15T13:20:00.000-08:00

Since I posted some Pere Ubu stuff yesterday, it's the right time I guess to declare a David Thomas & Pere Ubu week on Antificial Radio Weblog. So up to and including Monday the 20th, you will be getting Thomas related tracks, and we'll start this entry with a Pere Ubu song called "Life Stinks". If there ever was such a thing as post-industrial post-proto-punk, then this is it, although this description doesn't really hit the nail on the head.

Then, even before Pere Ubu's first album, "The Modern Dance", this song has been recorded by the pre-Ubu Rocket from the Tombs.

Rocket from the Tombs. David Thomas' (on the right) hair is frighteningly long.

The front cover of "The Day the Earth Met the Rocket from the Tombs" says "LIVE FROM PUNK GROUND ZERO, CLEVELAND 1975". Here you go: Rocket from the Tombs - "Life Stinks".

2004-12-14T23:44:00.000-08:00

You all have probably heard about Nouvelle Vague. Now, it IS of course a hip, hip, hooray project loved by all those indie kids who aren't really into Joy Division, Dead Kennedys, you name it, but hey, those are fun versions anyway. Here's "Too Drunk to Fuck", and you can also listen to three other songs performed by Nouvelle Vague on their site, including "Love Will Tear Us Apart".

2004-12-14T11:50:00.000-08:00

Yes, yes, okay. This blog hasn't been updated in a looooong while. But now! you are being provided with a new entry and from now on, Antificial Radio Weblog becomes a regularly updated place again.

Pere Ubu's sound at least should be known to many of the readers. Just in case it's not, I'm going to post some more Pere Ubu and David Thomas & Two Pale Boys songs later on. But what the hell happened on "Cloudland", the listener-for-the-first time may ask? Okay, Thomas called Stephen Hague, who at least at that time was an Ubu fan, and asked him to produce their album. They did that eighties-pop-sound-thing, and very authentically they did. So...what the fuck? Hey, if you listen a bit intently to this album, you'll hear that yes it IS a Pere Ubu album, and it's actually great. Pere Ubu's sound remains under the smoothed "Pet Shop Boys" arrangements, and you should also pay attention to "Cloudland"'s lyrics.

"Breath"
"Ice Cream Truck"

Organizatory: Just a bit closer to the end of this year which is near anyway, Antificial Radio Weblog is going to presumably give you a little series of entries running under the title "the most remarkable musical releases of 2004". Every day during this series, two songs from the respective album shall be posted.

2004-10-14T13:59:00.000-07:00

Organizatory: Tomorrow, I am going on vacation to Halle, Germany, visiting my girlfriend; the vacation goes until the 31th of October. So during this time, there will be no new posts. I'll probably be able to sporadically check my mail, though, so if you want to ask or tell me something, or if you just want to know how things are going, write me. And in the meantime, check out the link list to the right, in the sidebar, in case you don't know the mp3blogs listed there yet.

2004-10-13T11:05:00.000-07:00

Sadly enough, Fad Gadget opened for Depeche Mode in 2002; ironical, considered that DM once opened for Fad Gadget back in 1980. The project, pioneering in electronic music born from the post-punk era in the eighties, has been pretty much forgotten. Personally, I'd rather listen to a revitalised Fad Gadget show from 2002 than to Depeche Mode recordings from whenever, especially considering FG didn't fuck up the old songs that much from what I've heard. The show, though, obviously did become more goth-compatible. The whole thing went in that direction after the first couple of years anyway.
Here's a live version of "Back to Nature", performed in 2002 in Bielefeld, Germany. I'll post some older Fad Gadget stuff later on.

2004-10-12T13:20:00.000-07:00

Yet again, it's Twin Tuesday here on Antificial Radio Weblog. I wasn't really hoping to find some more good AFX stuff, as far as I can remember, when I stumbled upon the "Hangable Auto Bulb" EP (both of them actually - there was a second one, plus "Melodies from Mars", which I discovered approximately around the same time); I was pleasantly surprised. Bein full of tracks of "Richard D. James Album" quality, "Hangable Auto Bulb" is an unequitably hard-to-find recording. I first thought I'd just give you the title track, but "Children Talking" is actually just too good for you to miss.

2004-10-10T13:48:00.000-07:00

EmptyFree once wrote about Laibach's "Tanz mit Laibach" from "WAT", mentioning it was heavily derived from D.A.F.'s song "Der Mussolini". Now, I've heard the Deutsch-Amerikanische Freundschaft track for the first time today and must agree with that. In fact, this clears up something about certain lines in "Tanz mit Laibach" which I before that had found surprisingly naive:

"Americano Freunde
und deutscher Kamerad,
wir tanzen gut zusammen
wir tanzen nach Bagdad!"

Now it has become obvious that the first two lines include a reference to D.A.F. and their above-mentioned song; this cuts into the seeming naivety.
Before "Der Mussolini", I'd only known their "Die Kleinen und die Bösen". Basically and as far as I remember, it was drumming, noise and a voice that would buzz or scream (something like "Eating then sleeping then eating sleeping then eating then eating" or "Work is boring! Sex is no fun! Work is Boring! Sex is no fun!", all that in German of course), altogether quite great fun. I think I should deal with some of their later albums as well.
Here's "Der Mussolini".

2004-10-06T14:28:00.000-07:00

I feel that the unaware should be enlightened about where the tagline of this blog came from. Here's the story (of the whole title), basically: I had an idea for a title of a musical project, "Antificial Intelligence", playing with the AI term and at the same time with the titles for the (in some sense groundbreaking) Warp "AI" compilations and with the term "anti". No concrete musical projects, however, have been named so since then, but I called my SHOUTcast "radio station" "Antificial Radio", which had the known tagline taken from the title of a Negativland song (where it's referred to sound). And that's where we come to the mp3 linked in this post: "Methods of Torture". Enjoy and be sure to visit their site as well, among other things including instructions on how to download Negativland's video work "The Mashin' of the Christ".

2004-10-05T13:44:00.000-07:00

Twin Tuesday! A not really rare Aphex Twin track this week, having been included on the "Classics" compilation (originally coming from the "Xylem Tube" EP) Here's "Polynomial-C". I definitely do not agree with the common opinion that this is his best track, but it's worth listening to, nicely illustrating at least parts of his work in the first half of the nineties.

2004-10-04T14:03:00.000-07:00

Totally Fuzzy celebrates one year of blogging activity today, and I suggest you all walk over and check this blog out in case you do not know it yet. Personally, I'd like to mention that herr k. hasn't only put up some good tracks I hadn't known before, but also massively helped this and many other blogs gain popularity by linking hand-picked entries of other people.
My congratulations.

And here are a couple of files I uploaded on the occasion of this jubilee:

Brian Eno - "Baby's on Fire" (live) (from that live recording with Nico, Cale and Ayers)

And one by a singer of yiddish songs once introduced to me by Windofviolence (and thank to her for that):
Chava Alberstein - "The Secret Garden"