A monkey caught stealing's Journal

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Zeigeist, "Neverending Love"
Oh. A-mah gawd. I just found out that Zeigest, the (now-defunct) Swedish synthpop outfit responsible for the incredibly infectious "Tar Heart" single a few years back did a Roxette cover. And no, they didn't opt for something easy like "Joyride" or even "Dangerous". They did the first track Marie and Per did together: "Neverending Love", later released on the (mostly ignored on this side of the Atlantic) debut LP "Pearls of Passion".

It's nigh impossible to describe just how bouncy and happy this makes me. I've held a flame for Roxette for just about twenty years now, and given how much of a force dance pop has again become on the general music landscape in the last few years, it's so exciting to see a younger band dust off a gem like this. I just wish it was longer or that there were some remixes.

Here's to you, Sweden.
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ETA:

-Holy MOTHER OF PUSSY do I not want to hear Vampire Weekend's cover of "Ruby Soho".

-I made some killer chana masala last night: onions just the right texture, perfect amount of masala, and a touch of arrowroot powder to thicken things up just a tad. I'm loving that M has been getting more into curry-based dishes, which means I get to cook dinner for the both of us way more often (even if I'm not making it as flaming hot as I would if it was just for myself).

-On a related note,

cow just came back from a trip to Seattle, including one of its finer spice and tea shoppes and brought me over half a pound of a double-bergamot Earl Grey which I'd been mooching from him in dribs and drabs for the past couple months, plus a quarter pound of an astonishingly strong vindaloo powder he gave me a tiny dab of a while back. Dunno what I'm gonna cook tonight, but it'll be fun.

Kvetch, kvetch, kvetch.
Y'know when you go to a really ginormous concert (let's say U2 or Metallica) and 60% of the people are wearing t-shirts emblazoned with the band's name or logo? If yr like me, you want to say "Yes, it's patently obvious that you like Metallica. You shelled out $80 plus TicketBastard charges to be here, just like me. You don't need to wear a shirt to prove it. We are all well aware that a Metallica concert is about to occur." (Never mind the fact that there are likely a maximum of 40-50 t-shirt designs in circulation, so at least 50 other people will be wearing the same shirt.) The idea seems a tad...redundant, no?

Now imagine that it isn't just a stadium full of people advertising a concert that everyone is attending, but an entire city.

Now imagine that it isn't any old regular concert, but a 10 billion dollar international mega-concert.

Now imagine that it isn't just shirts, but billboards, store displays, themed trash cans and mailboxes, stuffed animals, ads on public transit and entire buildings which are advertising said concert.

Now imagine that it's getting difficult to see sanctioned advertising in the city which actually doesn't reference the concert in some manner.

Now imagine that instead of the usual promotion cycle for a single event, the city has been subject to a years-long advertising blitz which is now building to a fever pitch.

Now imagine that you don't really like Metallica. Imagine that you think they're a corrupt bunch of stooges fleecing idiots in order to line their own pockets while paying lip service to an ancient idealized platonic form of athle-, I mean thrash metal, but were forced to endure a concert of theirs nevertheless.

Now you know what it's like for me to walk to work every morning.

...Oh yeah: public, private...VANOC exists in Schroedinger's Box, with their status fluctuating entirely in relation to who's observing them at any given moment.
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Okay, enough bitching.

-Here's some really good wave/post-punk shizz which should appeal to fans of Mephisto Walz or X-Mal.
-I'm late to the party, but if you've got any remote interest in metal and haven't already done so, I strongly encourage you to check "Sworn To The Dark", Watain's 2007 record. Haven't been playing a metal disc this much since Celtic Frost's "Monotheist". Choice cuts: "Legions Of The Black Light" and "Stellarvore".
-An excellent post on the fallacy of "strong" female characters in contemporary Hollywood.
-Goddammit, Pitchfork. If anyone other than Wayne released that shit sandwich you'd have given it .5 or less. Your love affair with Wayne is ever more embarrassing than Circus and Hit Parader's inexplicable stanning of KISS in the late 90s.

Current Music: Klinik

Hair
I'm at a fork in the road, LJ. I need to either hack my hair back down to a reasonable size, or just trim the sides, dye it back to black and let it go all moppy again. Not promising to abide by the popular vote, but I'd like some counsel.

Poll #1517920
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 28

Which do?

View Answers

Black William Reid mop
14 (50.0%)

Short, brown n' spiky
14 (50.0%)

Current Music: Subtonix

Rank and file: Top Ten 2009
At long last, but still just in under my personal "end of January" deadline, here's my Top Ten Albums of 2009 write-up, with plenty of bonus goodies. It was a great year in music by my measure, and just about anything in the top twenty-five spots might've made the upper tier in a weaker year.

( Cut for length )

...And by the by, if any of these lists read as desperately clingy or hopelessly outdated, I refer you to the byzantine Robert Christgau's recent Best Albums of the Decade list, which included two Kanye and two Dylan records in the Top Ten. I may be cresting the hill in my old age, but I ain't coasting on my shit yet.

Current Music: The Horrors, "Sea Within A Sea"

"We're gonna rock, rock rock! Rock with the rock!"
Tonight: Jonny Vancouver and I climb aboard the USS Rock & Roll High School for a five hour tour of...

Okay, that's the worst conceptual gambit for a "show up tonight" post I've ever come up with. You know the score. 23 West. These two mooks. Booze. Rockin' the fuck out. Drag yr carcasses out and dance to the beat of the living dead, Vancouver.

huh
Christopher Lee is doing a symphonic metal concept album about the life of Charlemagne.

Yep. I'll just leave it at that.

cookin'. watchin'.
So I've been on fire in the kitchen lately. Made my own variant on maggi goreng last night, a dish that I got hooked on in Malaysia. Instant yakisoba, pan fried with tofu, onions, lime and loads of sambal ulek. Meant to make it last for three or four meals but ended up wolfing it down in two.

M went to a Malaysian restaurant a few nights ago with her folks, and came away with a hankering for curry and coconut rice. With our work schedules we usually eat dinner at different time but I was keen to try to whip something up for her. I bought a mild curry sauce (my tastebuds didn't even register any heat from it, but M ain't exactly the glutton for painfully hot food that I am), cooked it into some stir fried veggies (celery, onions, shrooms and zucch) and whipped up some brown coconut rice in the cooker (I wasn't sure how well the brown rice would soak up the coconut milk but it ended up having a pretty good consistency). I'd cooked the veggies just right and the rice was pretty tasty, but it was a tad too sweet and glommy for my taste, until I slathered the whole deal with sriracha (M kept hers mild). Somehow the sriracha just smoothed out the consistency of the dish, and the heat brought out loads of flavours that had been hiding behind the sweetness. I'll go on record as deeming this the best curry I've made since moving back to Van.

...Oh yeah: we finally started watching "Twin Peaks" tonight. It's nice to watch a show that seems to place a lot of importance on the environment of Cascadia. There are so many establishing and mood shots that make use of scenery that's very familiar, and I can't help but feel more drawn in as a result.

Current Music: Julee Cruise, "Falling"

The Bleeding Light
So pretty much everyone knows how much I love experimental black metal - shit that takes the classic Norwegian template then goes way off the reservation with it, ending up in wacky gnostic territory (Deathspell Omega, Blut Aus Nord) or whatever Ulver happen to be this year. So imagine my surprise when, after checking out some leads from my discovery of Sjenovik, I found a band that does for the Gothenburg sound what the aforementioned bands do for black metal.

French one-man act The Bleeding Light draw such a clear line between melodic death metal and goth/industrial experimentation that I can't believe I've never heard the parallels (no, gothic metal doesn't fit the bill). Some tracks cleave close to a compelling (if conservative) metal/industrial (but not "industrial metal", if you follow) compositional template, but fantastic experimentation abounds, with hints of Coil, Fields Of The Nephilim, Lacrimosa, and plenty of second wave goth rock cropping up all over the place. Hell, there's even a track that samples Danzig overtop of a Controlled Bleeding-like grind. Folks on last.fm keep tagging it as a black metal or related act, but I just don't hear it.

There seems to be just one (self-titled) release on Season of Mist and available on iTunes and emusic, and the project seems to be on permanent hiatus, but this is well, well, well worth checking out if yr hungering for something that's pushing either the death metal or goth envelope.

Current Music: The Bleeding Light, "Kyrie Eleison"

Bedtime for democracy
Parliament is creating an image of instability for Canada in global markets — and it isn't a bad thing that it has been suspended until the beginning of March, Prime Minister Stephen Harper suggested on Monday.

source

Okay, so I just woke up and don't have any real assurance that this isn't another freaked-out dream prompted by eating too much Christmas fudge and listening to DVOA just before bed last night, but on the off chance that this isn't all about to morph into another Wagnerian zombie apocalypse dream, I'll take the time to do a double-take.

Harperbot 3.1 thinks that minority governments are fundamentally unsound in bad economic times. Proroguing Parliament to nuke legislation in process and stack the senate makes sense as a power grab, but even my jaded ass never imagined that Harper would be so transparent as to admit on-camera that democratic representation doesn't serve the interests of the global market. Don't think I'm overselling this; that's exactly what our prime minster told us yesterday.

Current Mood: angry blood
Current Music: Wrnlrd

Swans Are Undead
My head is buzzing and my teeth are chattering now, minutes after learning that yes, Gira is in fact organising a Swans reunion album and tour, with a lineup which includes Norman Westberg.

I will sell off a chunk of my vinyl collection if I need to travel to the nearest show.

I will sell my own organs to see this tour.

I will sell PCP to schoolchildren if need be.

I am seeing Swans.

Two Gentlemen of Lebowski
This shit's viral like Typhoid Mary right now, but if you haven't checked it, you need to give a scan to "Two Gentlemen of Lebowski". It's clear from the first lines of the prologue that the concentrated levels of awesome contained within this, this paean to joy and life, are well off the measurable Internet Stuff scale.

BLANCHE
Trifle not with the fury of two desperate men. Long has thy wife sealed a bond with Jaques Treehorn; as blood is to blood, surely thou owest to Jaques Treehorn in recompense.

WOO
Rise, and speak wisely, man—but hark;
I see thy rug, as woven i’the Orient,
A treasure from abroad. I like it not.
I’ll stain it thus; ever thus to deadbeats.

[He stains the rug]

THE KNAVE
Sir, prithee nay!

BLANCHE
Now thou seest what happens, Lebowski, when the agreements of honourable business stand compromised. If thou wouldst treat money as water, flowing as the gentle rain from heaven, why, then thou knowest water begets water; it will be a watery grave your rug, drowned in the weeping brook. Pray remember, Lebowski.

THE KNAVE
Thou err’st; no man calls me Lebowski. Yet thou art man; neither spirit damned nor wandering shadow, thou art solid flesh, man of woman born. Hear rightly, man!—for thou hast got the wrong man. I am the Knave, man; Knave in nature as in name.

BLANCHE
Thy name is Lebowski. Thy wife is Bonnie.

THE KNAVE
Zounds, man. Look at these unworthiest hands; no gaudy gold profanes my little hand. I have no honour to contain the ring. I am a bachelor in a wilderness. Behold this place; are these the towers where one may glimpse Geoffrey, the married man? Is this a court where mistresses of common sense are hid? Not for me to hang my bugle in an invisible baldric, sir; I am loathe to take a wife, or she to take me until men be made of some other mettle than earth. Hark, the seat of my commode be arisen!

WOO
Search his satchel! His words are a fantastical banquet to work confusion upon his enemies. There sits eight pounds of proof within; surely he hides his treasure on his person.

BLANCHE
Villainy! Why this confounded orb, such as men use to play at ninepins; what devilry, these holes in holy trinity?

THE KNAVE
Obviously thou art not a golfer.

Current Music: Carcass, "Heartwork"

Kwik-E-Reminder
Comin' up this Friday: M's show at Blim!

Current Music: Swans, "Will Serve"

empire down
A Sisters cover was pretty low on the list of things I'd expect from Daniel Myer, but here we are. Straight-up, no frills. Not much from the new Destroid EP really grabbed me apart from the Ass 23 remix, but I'm still mucho stoked about seeing them at Kinetik.

Destroid, "Lucretia My Reflection"

The Biggest Ball of Angst In Minnesota
So I'm over at the folks' for my grandad's birthday last night, and I go to Wikipedia to prove to my dad that Weird Al isn't Frankie Yankovic's son. While I'm there, I notice that in addition to "polka", "comedy" and "parody", some assclown's added "nerdcore" to the list of genres Al plays. A fiery rage consumes my very being. I edit the article (and it's still gone last I checked), but no one there can understand why I'm so choked, possibly because the rest of my family (a) don't get pissed about stupid shit on the Internet and (b) because they have no idea what nerdcore is and why it's so idiotic to tag Al with it. I do my best to explain to my brother ("This is like calling The Cure emo") but I still don't think the gravity of the insult was communicated.

"This is why events unnerve me..."
The New Order/Joy Division tribute night at Sanctuary was off the chain. All three of us were firing on all cylinders all night, managing to cover as much ground as possible while keeping the theme running strong. Massive crowd which superseded our rather grandiose expectations - plenty of new folks too. I'd guess that the heavy postering paid off. Setlist below the cut.

( We're spinning for England. EN-GER-LAND! )

Current Music: Liquid Divine, "Autophobia"

coda
RIP Rowland S. Howard.

descend and reverberate
Do you know yr dark ambient shizz? I've got a craving for unnerving drone and the one Lustmord album I have ("Paradise Disowned" - where should I go from there?), while excellent, ain't enough to fill the void. What's a good starting point for Brighter Death Now? Coph Nia? Y'all know what I like, so make with the suggestions. (Stuff on Cold Meat or Cyclic Law would be especially appreciated, as their stuff's on emusic.)
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On a related note, I highly endorse pretty much everything that Starlight Temple Society currently has in print. I wandered over to order the newest Velvet Cacoon (which is likely their best effort, BTW), checked a few samples of the other offerings they had, did a double-take at their prices, and ordered the whole shebang. I've been especially impressed with Bird From The Abyss, Sjenovik and Schrei Aus Stein. If you like ambient and/or experimental black metal (with the occasional larf, like a raw Smiths cover) with some spacey and folky accents, check their stuff out.

Current Music: Bird From The Abyss, "Abdul Alhazred's Anxiety"

winning
In a perfect world, The Sound would be mentioned in the same breath as Joy Division and The Cure by anyone with a remote interest in postpunk. In a perfect world, people would compare the relative merits of "From The Lions Mouth" and other sophomore efforts like "What Does Anything Mean? Basically". In a perfect world, reissues of The Sound's entire back catalog would have been released by a major label years back, so today's kids interested in doing their homework could find out about them as easily as they can Echo. In a perfect world, Adrian Borland would have a successful solo career and would be acknowledged by today's whippersnappers (I'm looking at you, Interpol and White Lies) as an inescapable influence.

But this isn't a perfect world. Borland lost his fight against himself ten years ago, The Sound's records languish in relative obscurity (Less than a million plays on last.fm? Really?), and record clerks are likely gonna think yr talking about The Sounds (nearly 12 million last.fm listens, natch) if you ask about them.

Seriously. If you haven't heard The Sound, do yrself a favour and click below.

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The Black Christmas do at Sanctuary was kick-ass, and I dare say Isaac and I were on point all night. Business kicked into high gear at 11 and didn't let up until we closed the house with "Goin' Out West". The new Nitzer and [:STID:] albums are blowing up like mad, and I found a couple of Herzschlag tracks to start bumping without stepping on Alex's turf ("Dein Lied"). Oh yeah: pretty much my entire D&D party was out in full force and we all did mad Patrón shots. Nerdy and awesome as all get out.

...Why am I always wearing my Ant-Zen shirt whenever I get photographed DJing? Note the prominent placement of the Can of Beans.

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Caught a cold from the family over X-Mas, but have fought it off with loads of Tofurkey sammiches and Earl Grey, and am hopeful about getting some thesis work done before New Year's.

Current Mood: Earl Grey
Current Music: The Sound, "All Fall Down"

"Take, eat: this is my fishy."
Merry Fishmas. Have some pouty Siouxsie and completely twonked on LSD Robert: