Best of 2007 (again)!


Ok, this record for me is my favorite from 2007. I ignored hearing it because everybody was talking about how great it was, like you know how online media sites pick one techno record every year and talk about how amazing it is etc, but when I finally heard this and listened it blew me away. Kompakt (and techno music in general) has become my favorite music but this record kind of shattered everything for me. Kompakt is still maybe the only label where I can buy anything without hearing it and know I'll like it. The songs are so simple and he just drops a drum machine line under almost all the tracks but the feelings that come from it are really pure I think. This music was my cool down in autumn and my heat up in winter and I listen to it more than anything I can think of really. I don't know if it's for everyone and that is ok but it always puts me in a good mood and gets me pumped for doing things and even mellows me out too and that is the best. http://www.kompakt-mp3.net

posted by NATE at 1:51 PM
0 comments

Best of 2007!

A lot of stuff passed through my fingers, my ears, my eyes, superficially, but don't feel like I read/saw/heard that much this year. A lot of this stuff (most) didn't come out in 2007 but it's all work I only just discovered. That said, here is my best of the year list:

Wer ist Carl Barks
This is a hefty art book from Germany on the great duck cartoonist that came out some years ago. Nothing like it exists in english and though I don't read German and some of the reproduction is shitty, it's still fantastic for all kinds of ephemeral material and isolated drawings to make it pretty essential and inspiring.


Fuzzy felt Folk
Trunk Records
yeah, I did listen to this 2006 release more than anything else. Up yours.


Frownland(2007)
Directed Ronnie Brownstein
Watching it the first time, I didn't know really what to think. Sure it reminded me of Basket Case and Martin in its visual style, and in part Lodge Kerrigan and Mike Leigh in it's thematic approach, and I could see the worth in it's literally tight focus on a truly disturbed ingratiating character but it was hard to deal with (and hard to decipher how much of that was intentional). It's not a movie that helps the viewer along at all. And as you find the film's rhythm, it gets even harder. But I haven't stopped thinking about the movie since I saw it earlier this year and rewatching it with an audience the other day I was struck by how much better it was on repeat viewing and how funny it is-the audience was laughing throughout. If it shows up at a festival near you or on dvd, its definitely worth a look.


No Age
The band I saw the most this year, but also the best I saw this year. The release of five records simultaniously on five different labels this past April was the kind of joyful expression of the love of objects and act of making things rarely seen in music publishing. Also: their belief in the Los angeles community and their involvement there, after years of everyone saying the contrary is just awesome to see. They are touring in January, so if they come by your house, open the door.


Royal stable Words vol. 1
I feel bad even putting this on the list. A limited edition hardcover (300 copies) of lyrics and writing by Will Oldham accompanied with letterpressed etchings by Diane Radford tipped in throughout. Holy Shit. I don't know how one gets one of these. If they show up for sale anywhere, I'll let you know. But if there was ever a book that captures, in physical form, the aesthetic of early Palace music, this is it.


Psychic Soviet
Ian Svenonius
This book is ridiculous in its scope and mind bendingly informative. Like The Talmud. And totally ridiculous (I guess like The Talmud...). By the way, have you been watching season two of Soft Focus?


Two-Lane Blacktop
Criterion
Finally. Don't like the cover design much, but still. There's a lot to say about this movie, and want to write more about it, but for now here are some minor things I put down when we started this blog and I was a non-stop blogging blabber mouth (scroll down to the September 2nd post).


Things Just Get Away From You
Walt Holcombe
Again, for more on this incredible book, go here.


Victoria
Knut Hamsun
A super short novel about two people who are obsessed with each other since childhood and don't know what do with that. An unabashedly romantic book, but harsh!


Possession(1981)
Directed by Andrzej Zulawski
When I started working with Cinefamily head programmer Hadrian Belove, one of the first movies he was excited about showing was Possession, which I had never even heard of. Watching it was one of the most intense movie watching experiences of my life. A true cinematic freak out-it somehow starts out hysterical in performance, music, photography, and and just gets more nuts from there. Zulawski builds his own film language here and through its own fractured logic says more about the heartache of love and commitment than almost anything else I have seen. truly an undiscovered classic.

posted by sammy at 9:42 AM
3 comments

CHRISTMAS EVE HOURS ALERT

we will be open christmas eve from 12pm until 4pm. please plan accordingly, thank you for all your support this year,
love, snuggly bear.

posted by NATE at 7:58 PM
2 comments

What's next? Jeepers Jacobs directed by McG?

Just read the surreal and good news that Michel Gondry is directing a short film adaptation of Gabrielle Bell's strip 'Cecil and Jordan in New York', first published in Kramers Ergot 5 (with a title change to Interior Design). Now I can't wait for Brinkman's Mutant Life Expectancy directed by Frank Hennenlotter. or Ang Lee's version of Zettwoch's 'The Ghost of Dragon Canoe'. or Miranda July's Bald Eagles Adaptation. or Jim Jarmusch's Tom Gauld's Writers series (in the vignettes style of Coffee and Cigarettes) or Tom Shadyac doing Heatley's 'My Sexual History'.


By the way I guess here would be the place to just say once and for all that Gondry's video for Daft Punk's Around the World is not only the best video I have ever seen, but one of the great pieces of art in my life. I could watch those girls in the swimming caps rotating around those football players with the fake heads on a loop all day now till forever. And being on acid and 15 on first viewing might have something do with it but that's good thing.


posted by sammy at 3:10 PM
4 comments

This Weeks's Movie Pick: The Wicker Man


Coming all the way from England is a beautiful print of this classic film, part of the SECTS, DRUGS, & MIND CONTROL festival at the Cinefamily this month. You will want to be there for this, as the chance of a print popping up again in LA is highly unlikely. Friday Night at 10 and Midnight.
From the Program:
One of the true "cult" classics from the 1970s, The Wicker Man is an
intriguing occult thriller about evil neo-pagan happenings on a remote
Scottish isle. Scripted by playwright Anthony Shaffer and directed by
Robin Hardy, the film features an iconic performance by Edward
Woodward as an upright detective from the mainland called out to
investigate a tip about a missing girl. Once there, Woodward discovers
an unsettling island community, at once welcoming, but also chillingly
hermetic. The villagers are more concerned with nude sun worship than
Woodward's investigation, which eventually leads to one of cinema's
most infamous endings. Featuring Christopher Lee as the island's
inscrutable representative, Lord Summerisle, and Britt Ekland as a
comely innkeeper's daughter whose legendary seduction scene led to
urban legends of then-husband Rod Stewart trying to suppress the film.

Directed by Robin Hardy, 1973, 100 min.

posted by sammy at 4:13 PM
0 comments

THE lsd Epic

Otto Preminger's still unreleased masterpiece Skidoo in it's entirety:


posted by sammy at 4:07 PM
3 comments

The Sads Live at Family, Sunday 3pm



To mark the end of Dave Scott Stone's weeklong residency at Family, on Sunday The Sads will be playing a very special set. Sunday at 3pm.



PS - Thanks to Cali for the pics.

Tonight Dave was taking conceptual advice from Sammy via telephone in Australia.

1) A horse in a kitchen.

Then the converse was applied:

2) A toaster in a Barn on a stack of hay. (Dave asked if it was an Australian barn, with a corrugated iron roof. Yes, Sammy confirmed, it was.)

posted by kramer at 7:08 PM
0 comments

More Dave Scott Stone

Dave and Mike Gallagher haven't played together in a year since they recorded the album 'Impromptu' together. These photos were taken with a phone because Rebecca's digital camera, along with photos of Dave and John Wiese, was stolen out of her car last night. Don't worry - it was a crap camera that barely worked.




posted by kramer at 12:12 AM
0 comments

Dave Stone Residency Update



Tuesday's special guest in the Dave Stone residency is John Wiese! A clash of the titans for these two heavyweights of the VIP noise chatroom, and a small taste for Thursday night's Sissy Spacek 13-Tet show at the Smell.



Thursday's special guest is none other than Aska Matsumiya! Intermittent Family staff member, member of The Sads, and Moonrats.

posted by kramer at 10:54 PM
0 comments

Dave Scott Stone Week-long Residency Begins

The master of the modular synth, Dave Scott Stone will be performing and recording in Family with special guests every afternoon this week. Dave has lent his powers to outfits like Unwound, The Melvins, Get Hustle, and recently The Sads. His solo album 'Dave Scott Stone Plays The Modular Synth' is available at Family and features female French vocals and extreme modular mayhem. Be sure to drop in.


posted by kramer at 12:32 PM
0 comments