Soft and Music

Chances are if you were to pick up a CD and see a Ramones looking cover with a guy wearing a bunny mask dressed like Joey Ramone, you would put it back down and continue with life.  In the case of solo act Nobunny, I almost did the very same thing.  In fact I have had the CD for a few weeks now and could not for the life of me force myself into playing it; that is until today.  Today was like any other day except I finally put Love Visions into my CD player and what I got out of it was a complete surprise. What is Nobunny you ask?  Nobunny is a man of sorts, a jokester performer who is more of a modern day GG Allen. A gimmick act who sounds a lot like a mix between the Dead Milkmen and the Ramones, all while sporting  a bunny mask.  His live shows are for the less timid mostly because the masked Nobunny loses his pants during performances after drowning himself in booze and sings into a microphone that looks like a carrot.  The result of his actions, on top of his music, however have won over an elaborate array of fans.  This is Nobunny's first CD release thanks to 1234 Go Records. Not much is publicly known about the man behind the mask or the band that backs him up.  The only known fact about Nobunny is that he is from Tucson.  From there it is said that he was living in a trailer with no utilities and came to realize he wanted to be an Animal Elvis impersonator to help pay the bills.  Soon thereafter Nobunny was writing his own material and booked his first show in Chicago on Easter Sunday in 2001.  The set was in fact dedicated to Joey Ramone, who had actually died that day. Nobunny has been known for his shenanigans while touring.  He once booked two shows on the same day, at the same time, and had a fill in for the show he did not perform.  Sometimes he doesn’t even show up to the venue at all leaving fans with a not so funny feeling.  Nobunny even mentioned receiving a gift while on stage at Cleveland’s Tower 2012, but you will have to read the interview to find out that gift.  You would not think that someone who acted like this would have fans, but the truth is a lot of folk like him and have paid outrageous amounts of money to acquire his Love Visions record on Ebay. With knowing what Nobunny is I finally checked out Love Visions.  As soon as “Nobunny Starts” I can not decide what I like about it except that it is a direct rip off of a classic song from the past that I can not for the life of me grasp the title.  I can only imagine Junior Senior while listening to it and realize it is only a gimmick.

Sonic Youth have reached the mixing stage of their forthcoming album, tentatively titled ‘The Eternal’. The band have also revealed the names of songs destined for the album. The indie veterans are mixing the album with producer John Agnello (Patti Smith, Aerosmith, Dinosaur Jr.), revealing on Twitter.com/thesonicyouth that working titles for songs include ‘Calming The Snake’, ‘Sacred Trickster’, ‘Massage The History’, ‘That’s What We Know’ and “something about a Malibu gas station”. Former Pavement guitarist Mark Ibold plays guitar on ‘That’s What We Know’. Sonic Youth plan to release the new album, the follow-up to 2006’s ‘Rather Ripped’, in June. Twitter users can also follow NME updates at Twitter.com/nmemagazine.

In an era where mash-ups, remixes, and mixtapes are plentiful, it takes a lot to stand out from the crowd. Girl Talk (aka Gregg Gillis) certainly does so on his newest album Feed The Animals. Drawing from an unbelievably wide variety of songs and genres, Gillis has not only crafted a great party album but also one of the best albums released in 2008. For those who are unfamiliar with Girl Talk's work, his style of music involves combining elements from many different songs into something new. It would be easiest to describe it as a "mash-up" but it's really something quite unique. While most mash-ups are meant to be singular tracks, the songs on Feed The Animals are really meant to be listened together as a cohesive work. Each one flows easily into the next one, like a DJ mix. However, with over 300 songs sampled across the entire album, it's a lot more intricate than most mixes. Many dance/DJ artists sample obscure tracks or make familiar samples unrecognizable. Girl Talk does neither. If you have been a fan of popular music at any moment in the last 20-30 years, you will probably be able to recognize at least one or two of the songs sampled. All the samples used don't matter unless the music made with them is good and fortunately, Feed The Animals is very good. It's immensely entertaining from start to finish. The music is always changing and songs progress in unexpected ways. Some of the album's best moments come from successfully combining hip-hop tracks with ones from very different genres. "Set It Off" pairs Jay-Z's "Roc Boys (And The Winner Is)" with Radiohead's "Paranoid Android" which gives Hova's lyrics a darker tone than the original celebratory beat that surrounded them. One can't help but laugh at the combination of Eminem's raunchy "Shake That" with Yael Naim's sweet, Apple-approved "New Soul" in "No Pause." The hard-hitting drums of Lil Mama's "Lip Gloss" are replaced with the hard guitars of Metallica's "One" on "Like This" for a combination that works far better than it should. While the clever combinations of samples are what drives the album, it's the actual construction that makes it great. A lot of the samples used on Feed The Animals are small and are used to transition to the album's larger moments. The opening drums of "In The Air Tonight" by Phil Collins lead to the Busta Rhymes/Police combination on "What It's All About." A very short clip from OutKast's "Ms. Jackson" leads to the Vanilla Ice/Jackson 5/Rihanna/Queen sequence that ends "What It's All About." It's these smaller elements that keep things moving and help make everything else seem that much better. No matter what kind of music you like, Girl Talk's Feed The Animals will keep you moving. It makes unfamiliar genres palatable whether it's classic rock for a pop fan or heavy metal for a hip-hop fan. It's the perfect album for the music lover who is likely to have anything and everything on their MP3 player. It's detailed in its construction but still insanely fun to listen to. If you haven't heard it yet, it's worth checking out. Feed The Animals is available in a variety of formats from Illegal Art.

Warning: Very mild spoilers ahead House, MD executive producer Katie Jacobs has a lot on her plate. As “showrunner” of the hit series, she, along with series creator David Shore, are largely responsible for House’s feel and look; its stories and direction. Approaching its 100th episode, and in the middle of its fifth season, House was the only network series nominated for a Golden Globe award. The show's star (and executive producer) Hugh Laurie was the only star of a network drama nominated in the drama category. I had an opportunity to sit down with Jacobs by phone the other day to chat about the show and reflect on its upcoming milestone 100th episode (airing February 2). Although House, MD came away empty-handed from the Golden Globes, Jacobs said that the nomination “made us really, really happy.” She pointed out that the other nominated series (including the winner, Mad Men) are “wonderful, ambitious, and original.” But she also pointed out that “they don’t have to do 24 episodes a year. To be included alongside them, when we have to produce so many shows a year,” she continued, “is really an honor — especially in our fifth season.” House returns Monday, January 19 (NOTE: Another new timeslot for the show!) at 8:00pm ET with an episode entitled “Painless,” an ironic title given House’s own problems with pain. This week’s patient, suffering with pain more “advanced and severe than House’s,” according to Jacobs, has been referred by House’s former fellow, Cameron. The patient's pain has become intolerable  “to the point where painkillers no longer work,” Jacobs explained. “He’s at a place where House may find himself at in years to come. That’s the focus of the episode.” She continued, “House is in a constant state of pain; believes that his drug use lets him do his job and relieve his pain. Cameron introduces the patient to House hoping that he sees some sort of version of what it might be like for him if he doesn’t take better care of himself. She is worried about House, how he deals with his pain.” As you all might recall, when last we saw Dean of Medicine Lisa Cuddy back in December, she had rescued a left-for-dead baby, hoping to first become a foster mother and then adopt the child. “Painless” picks up with Cuddy dealing with the challenges new-motherhood.  As anyone who has tried to cope with the trials and tribulations of being a working mother of an infant knows, it is an incredibly challenging task. The them resonates deeply with women who try (and not always with success) to find some sort of balance. “Would it be fair if we didn’t present the challenges that it presents?” asked Jacobs. “Hopefully at some time she will find a balance, but it takes time,” she added. “One of the things that is going to happen at the end of the next episode – Cuddy will see if perhaps someone else can do her job for a period of time so she can spend more time being a mother.”

English four-piece Late of the Pier released Fantasy Black Channel in the UK way back in June of 2008. Fans ate it up, the kids went mad, and the British music rags sopped it up with four-to-five star ratings. As though to tell us we’re finally ready for all of the magnitude this bloody thing has to let loose upon us, the record was finally released in North America on January 13, 2009. Now sure, it’s really easy to yawn past another British debut. In fact, nobody seems to have quite the gift for hyperbole as the NME people or other UK music mag writers. With NME claiming that Late of the Pier “are rapidly making most other British bands seem like primitive, drooling Luddites by comparison” and Uncut telling us that these guys are the British answer to 2008 darlings MGMT, the praise is ceaselessly high. Putting that aside, just how good are Late of the Pier anyways and just how fucking endlessly wicked is Fantasy Black Channel? For starters, these four Castle Donington cats aren’t afraid of making pop music with an enigmatically untidy frame. There appears to be no genre-busting exercise that they won’t buckle down and attempt, as Late of the Pier’s debut record is slammed and jammed with several tracks of hard-nosed gusto and plucky energy. Bubbling over with synth seriousness, danceable thumping, psychedelic pop waves, and a whole lot of experimental lunacy, Fantasy Black Channel shifts genres without trepidation and doesn’t mind wearing Gary Numan, Frank Zappa, and Queen influences right out in the open flanking the nods to the Klaxons and all things eternally fucking cheeky. After all, how ballsy do you have to be to take a trip through the hallway of spandex rock right before twisting down a throaty techno bypass? Fantasy Black Channel is so bold that it shifts gears, often in mid-song and mid-goddamn-sentence. Let a track like “Space in the Woods” take you for a drive and you’ll wind up in a much different place than where you started from with its pulsating disco beat, slimy guitar accents, and vocalist Samuel Dust’s dark declarations. “The Enemy Are the Future” finds Dust contemplating the end of himself (once more) as a churched-out organ swells behind him begging for donations. A few bumps later and the song starts struggling to life, unfolding like a crated jack-in-the-box popping up for a nibble. Drummer and percussionist Rouge Dog Consuela sets a ripping start to “The Bears are Coming,” a cut that rumbles with electronic correctness and makes no apologies for its industrial tone. And “Bathroom Gurgle” loads up with Francis Dudley Dance’s low bass and an enormously addictive Jack Paradise synth scrap. Heavy on the glam-rock sheen and bursting with audacious and impenitent tang, Late of the Pier’s Fantasy Black Channel should stand out as one of the first truly great records to grace North American shores in 2009. Anthemic, pure, and electrifying, this is one band I’ll be watching closely.