Monday, February 21, 2005  9:09 am 

Escape from planet jazzfunk! (with bent Teletubbies)

Today I was going to write a lengthy dissertation called ‘StoStoS: From the Shangri La’s to the Slits to Shystie’ but I won’t cos I’m tired and actually not feeling really inspired. So I’ll do the easy thing, which is posting this motherfucker of a tune by the master of all things B, both visual and sonic, yes, John Carpenter .

John Carpenter - The Duke Arrives/Barricade

‘The Duke Arrives/Barricade’ is included in the soundtrack to ‘Escape from New York’ (performed with many nice machines), which I really enjoyed re-visiting earlier this week on late night TV (ah, those snakeskin trousers, Kurt’s bad boy snarl, the ‘crazies’, the car loaded with chandeliers, freaky cinema of the highest order, will we ever get another hero with a name as unlikely and genius as ‘Snake Plissken’? I wouldn’t put my money on it, if I had any…)

Anyway, there’s not much to say about ‘The Duke…’, this is the moodiest fist of non-belgian New Beat tension never to make it into one of those Glimmers’ wicked Serie Noire compilations, it has ‘BAD’ Tattooed in its knuckles (only 3 fingers left, it’s the hand of a sinister Yakuza, troopers), a conga thing up there with Liquid Liquid in what refers to friggin’ sick headbanging appeal and a synth finale that gives me the good shits. All from one of the greatest creators in the history of cinema, yeah, yeah! John Carpenter, I will salute you once we get away from those crazies who want to use our entrails as decoration for the christmas tree and our legs as sticks in a neighbourhood hockey game…

RUNRUNRUN!!!! RRRRUN!

BTW, Bumrocks posted the main theme of the soundtrack some time ago, go and check his blog out, it’s the illest!

Talking of not feeling really inspired we got told Beck was releasing a new album, but surely there must be a mistake here.

All we have is a series of outtakes from the O’Delay album. No new ideas? no interesting stylings? boooooo. He seems to have a nice radio play album. Some of its rocked up, but not really out there if you know what i mean.

Live it is somewhat telling.
Beck’s live performance start with his full band pop songs, and I cannot help feeling he is just going through the motions on many of these. It is only when the band disappear and Beck sings on his own with a guitar that he gets that wondrous glint in his eyes again. When the full band come on it feels like The Beck has got it back though this solo stuff and the rest of the set is a stormer, pop songs and not pop songs alike.

So with the sad deficiency of any interesting new Beck stuff we picked a remix from the new album which we like a lot. Paza is a very odd pick for remixer (did Beck pick himself? we like to hope so) and has done a magic job.

Beck - Bad Cartridge (E-Pro Remix by Paza)

Lovely 8-bit people’s artist Paza from the X-Dump collective has out lo-fied and retrofied E-Pro. It is now full of Sid and sounds like Micromusic, which is a great improvement in our ears.

This is really the sort of thing we want Beck to be doing on his own album, and not having to resort to remixes to do all the interesting stuff for him. Maybe he needs to pick his producers more carefully. Kid 606 with Jeff Lynne and Tiefschwarz would be our pick for next album please.

This is a teletubbie the Sid from Toy Story like Paza has circuit bent. XXJFG are always in favor of teletubbie torture in the interests of science.

When is Beck’s birthday? Can we get him a Gameboy and Nanoloop/Little Sound DJ please? Maybe just a soldering iron to practice circuit bending on his Japanese toy collection.

Appendix 20JazzFunk Nite 18th February 2005. It’s a Playlist 4 sure!

Juan spun-

Delia Gonzalez & Gavin Russom- El Monte
Brian Eno- Big Ship
Ratatat- El Pico
John Carpenter- The Duke Arrives/Barricade
Need New Body- Popfest
Kid Commando- A New Rythm
Can- Hallellujah
Arab on Radar- Running on Asthma
Coachwhips-Mind Body and Brain
The Unicorns- Les Os
Rude Pravo- Mediaeval
Y Pants- Off the Hook
Generic- (Contra and Zelda)
Tortoise- Ry Cooder
The Shaggs- I’m so Happy When You Are Near
The Velvet Underground- Lady Godiva’s Operation
Hangedup- New Blue Monday
Six Organs of Admittance- Saint Cloud
Castanets- You Are The Blood
The Jesus & Mary Chain- Never Understand Me
Lightning Bolt- 13 Monsters
DFA1979- Blood in Our Hands
Les Georges Leningrad- Fifi F
Deerhoof- Sunny Dale
Liars- They Don’t Want your Corn They Want Your Children
The Unicorns- I was Born a Unicorn
The Make Up- Every Baby Cries The Same

Thanks to all who were there for another ace night. Tash, Matt, Russell, Carly, Leesey, Bonny, Neil, Neil, Dave Lisa, Scott, James, we love you to bits. And you unknown people too!! Blahhh!!! Massive respect to the Disko not Disco club posse after, Steve Chaos, Johnny Rocks and the amazing customised jacket clad Albert Einstein dancer , wow!

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