Zombie Treats

You ever get that real late birthday or Chirstmas present when you were a kid? Like six months after the fact? Those were great because you totally weren't expecting it..and then BOOM!! It was like your own personal holiday....

A few months ago I was honored to be a part of Evil Nine's latest LP They Live, one of the best reviewed electro-punk records to drop in some time. The duo mentioned, the track I did, "Icicles" was probably in line to become a single off the album....time came and went...never gave it much more thought....and I haven't talked to the guys in some months.

So I'm leaving my Brooklyn hideout and see this package with that Royal Mail thingy that makes all letters from the UK look so official. I peeled it open, and out jumped the latest Evil Nine single....sure enough it was "Icicles" (complete with its own amazing Berni Wrightson meets Lucio Fulci artwork). I flipped it over to check the credits and notice the track remixed by breakbeat LEGEND Adam Freeland...another by rising electro-house star Shir Khan...and yet another by the Evil ones themselves....

Of course I'm a little biased....but I think you should go 'head and cop that bad boy...

Oh...by the way...recorded this past weekend with New Kingdom's Jim Kelly...and rising Afropunkster Voodoofe...and managed to squeeze out a song with my partner in crime Monica Sharp...April showers y'all!

stay loose!!
Seraphim

The whip...and the hand grenade

Slight concern arose here in our mobile office a few weeks back when the big O hired that AIG tool to join his "It Club"...if we had a water cooler...(or a staff for that matter), we'd be ceremoniously forming a white collar crop circle near the microwave and stale donuts to pow wow about how we should both lobby the O congress for a recording budget and issue our protest!!

But we let it slide...after all you have to play politics to be in politics...and in these times...you gotta "dance with the one you came with" so to speak... so we're behind him...but this week was a little hard. He kind of went a little wishy washy on this torture business. You get the feeling his sense of morality is at a crossroads with political posturing (i.e. fear of a G.O.P. backlash), and for the first truly major moral test...our guy may scrape by with a 'C'.

Now I'll be honest, I'm not so naive that I'll feign shock at the use of torture during a time of war, or pretend you can stop it. I mean get real. Its war. Not some heated game of Chutes and Ladders. To dream that torture will FOREVER be dismissed during war is childish thinking. Period. Pain, suffering, violence, blood, death. These are the cousins of war, and wars will be waged until economic wars are no longer profitable...and that becomes the tasty fiction of Political Theorists and Sci-Fi authors. HOWEVER, if you hint that you're going to punish the naughty child...and then don't...won't you just be shouting pale threats into his bedroom and then a little down the lane you watch him bloom into Ed Gein (I know...quantum leaps in logic...but you get the point).

BUT if our boy fails to legally pursue those who may deserve it...doesn't that set change back another how ever many years? Damn this is a tough one...decisions decisions.

Me...I'm thinking all this is a pump fake. After all...the real test of how anti-torture we are as a nation is gonna hit soon. As we bulk up on troops in Afghanastan and the Taliban makes a brilliant military threats to move deeper into that nuclear power called Pakistan. I can see this getting ugly as the Taliban has occupied territory as close as 60 miles from the capital. Though they've retreated this show of power tells us there is more than torture to worry about...and probably a lot of good old fashioned violence waiting ahead. Bottom line is, its not a new outlook on torture we need...but a new shift in conflict resolution. We certainly can't be all anti-torture and pro-let's go hunt people in the mountains far, far away. I mean really, who brings a six pack to an AA picnic? I mean I would, but at least I'd bring Pretzels too and call it a party...not progress.

Do we let our man slide on this one...seems we kind of have to unless we're going to advocate some social uprising to end all violence at the hand of government. That's not really waht we expected to happen, right? So where do we draw the line? And if there even is a line...what's all the anti-violence p.c. bullticky worth anyway?

Yes...things are complicated in this mad world...thank god for the simple things cartoons and sunsets...now somebody quick...get that Somalian pirate dude a reality show, he looks like he's a hoot....

Thumbs Up

Okay...we're really going to try and get regular entries into this thing....


TECH REVIEW

I dig Wired Magazine...enough that I got my dad a subscription a few years back...and brought him into the fold. This month's issue of Wired is guest edited by J.J. Abrams...in what I would usually cry foul as corporate manuevering (his Trek film hits soon and the timing is certainly the device of some cult of doom marketing department...its jokes), but its a pretty good issue.

But...I walked into Other Music (a favorite between class dash) and snagged this month's VICE (a fan since their tabloid days when you could get them at Liquid Sky...downtown vets know the deal...). It was the technology issue...and I gotta say...I enjoyed it more than...or at least as much as this month's Wired. That's saying a lot since there's a Dr. Spock story by Paul Pope in this month's Wired (perfect for when you're tired of reading long winded articles about how much things are going to suck or not in the future) ...Every now and then I think I've read one VICE too many...and then an issue will bring me leaning over the fence in their favor a bit. Man I wish we had this mag when I was in high school.


ANTENNA

Speaking of downtown vets...on my many travels through the NY underground I've encountered the beloved and charmingly eccentric artist's artist Valerie Geffner. Our paths have met on a few mind-warping and entertaining occassions over the years. A few months ago, I had the pleasure of looking hip at the listening party for the first act of her self-described pop-opera Antenna. It's the amped desire of electro crashing against downtempo while flirting with house and every half-living or fully functional form of electronica to emerge in the past ten years. Its like Warhol's take on a Slowdive record tracked in some magic corner of Studio 54 that got a peek into the future. Artsy, with just enough pop. Pop, with just enough art before exploding into pretentious posturing. What? Yes, that means I dig it.

BLAST OFF

Okay, gotta blast off kiddies....so I'll leave you with a present...

Evil Nine feat. Seraphim Video

'Tis the might Seraphim with the mighty Evil Nine.....that's a whole lot of mighty. Slightly truncated version of the song (I think)....but still one of my favorite collaborations of all time....word is bondage.

Told ya we'd post a bunch of stuff to whet your appetite today. Okay so since they keep firing all the chicks that ply me with free booze at our HQ/favorite watering hole... leaving me with nobody to flirt aimlessly with, me and whiskey slinger Matt over at Savalas have bonded over our love of the trashiest most low-brow disgusting (and sometimes previously banned) B, C and D films known to man (and we're slowly dragging Midnight Masses guitarist Eric into the fold). The 70s and 80s were awash with low-budget films either exploiting or reacting in sheer confusion (or both) to social changes clashing against traditional norms....and the silver screens all tarnished.

I was one of those kids permanently scarred (and probably a bit perverted) by Skinamax, Commander USA's Groovy Movies, and a mom who was more than happy to get me out of the house by letting me see trash like Day of the Dead and Demons 2 in the theater. I remember thinking I had gotten away with murder when I rented a copy of Gore Gore Girls when I was all but 12....

My cult film influences run really deep and samples from my stash are found on every record we've ever done (I can hear the lawyers now...I'm too slick chump you won't peep the sample) Hell the un-released but sometimes performed No Surrender tune Black Emanuelle was an homage to the Laura Gemser films of the same name (and a thinly veiled way of writing a song about this Kiwi/Aussie chick I fell hard for a few years back).

Speaking of Laura Gemser, Severin Films who released a lot of the Black Emanuelle movies on DVD have done it again....they have released THE smut legend...the film your mom never heard of and wishes you hadn't either...the film that will probably make you want to take three showers after viewing...the film your drunken dad just might sit and watch with ya until he shoots you a disgusted look and walks out of the room....The Sinful Dwarf. Really ain't much else to say about that. Its called The Sinful Dwarf, what you need a description? There is nothing dignified about th is slice of celluloid mayhem. Just a red-headed step-child creeping out of the film closet to flaunt its blushing bad taste and good fun...

'Phim...yup him

Web Shooter

Check the madness....my inner-geek...can't resist this....Iron Man movie...not a huge fan...The Hulk...didn't bother...Wolverine comes out next month...m'eh.

I'll be glued to my computer screen watching the 70s Japanese Spiderman TV show. Japanese Spiderman has his very own transformer thingy...and his theme song includes lines like: "eyes sparkle with the flash of anger!" and "giving up peace, giving up everything"....and of course the intro chant of "yeah, yeah, yeah, wow!"

You know you're gonna watch it...don't worry we'll be here when you get back. Almost forgot the link First episode is called: The Time for Revenge Has Come! Attack the Iron Cross Army! Our Spiderman just kinda told jokes and fought guys that looked like Scooby Doo villains. Wimp.

Anywaze gots lots of entries coming up....cuz we've been slacking off like good soldiers and consuming pop-culture trash like good Americans....