Desert Bus For Hope 6
Alright so I mentioned this event last year but I thought for this year I might make a more bigger post about it. Well, not really bigger, just a bit more detailed.
Here's what this is all about: Desert Bus For Hope is a charity event that will start on this Friday (Canada time) and will end in seven days (or eight?). Unlike in the movie Ring they will not die in pain but will instead collect money from auctions and donations for charity. This event is actually connected to the Child's Play charity that collects money to buy games and things for children in hospitals.
The event is called Desert Bus For Hope because they play continuously a very boring game while you watch them on stream doing it. Aside from playing the game there will be auctions, guests, interviews, special events and all kinds of shenanigans.
Usually I don't use this blog to promote this kind of stuff but as someone who spent a lot of my childhood in hospitals I can get behind the idea. One of my fondest memories from childhood were nights spent in the hospital watching an older kid play Zombies Ate My Neighbors on snes on a really small TV in our room. Moments like that were great in those troubled times so I think this is a good cause.
Kammerflimmer Kollektief - Absencen
This summer I shared a band called Bohren & Der Club Of Gore who are a quite known band for its genre. While I like Bohren and their sound they do tend to get kinda stale after a while. Lucky for us Germany seems to be a really good place for strange jazzy sombre bands and Kammerflimmer Kollektief is an excellent example of that.
Unlike Bohren though these guys tend to experiment with sounds a lot more often. Absencen was their fourth album released back in 2005 and they were ripping shit up. Perhaps the most positive side of this is that these guys are a lot more jazz oriented in playing. There are some really sweet solos and free jazz outbursts on this album but they also provide an ample supply of smooth melodies that we come to expect from bands like this. While the album is overall in darker tones it does not shy away from more playful and happier moments. There are some great "happier" songs here like Shibboleth or Unstet that offer some really nice soprano sax/guitar improvising and upbeat tempos. There also, of course, great sombre tracks like Nach dem Regen that remind me of rainy strolls through the city. There's a bit of everything here so it might feel a bit too random but after a few listens it all sinks in very well.
Generally speaking if you're looking for a modern jazz band that is not shackled in old school worship but also not too much in the free jazz area this might be right up your alley. It's a great mixture of experimental and orthodox with a lot of different instruments and approaches to atmosphere.
Check them out.
Tsutomu Takahashi - Jiraishin
How about some tasty reading? It has truly been a while. Dunno why really. Must be the times (forgot most of my sources for manga).
Jiraishin right off the bat might seem a little too "tough guy" to be taken seriously. The main character can be a little stiff and sometimes the plot might be too absurd but once you get used to this world it's actually a really fun read. The manga went on from 1992 to 1999 making most of the volumes (and chapters) episodic with an overarching plot lurking somewhere behind. The stories themselves vary a lot and some are outright absurd while some are excellent thriller dramas and murder intrigues. When the story works it really works great. Luckily for the most part it works. The characters themselves are very distant from what you would find in a mainstream manga. They're very sombre and nihilistic at times and they act out much like slimebags act in real life. The main character after who the manga is called is a ruthless murdering detective who only cares about reaching his goal. I think he's a bit comparable with the Punisher.
The setting is another very bright point in this saga as well. Artstyle is very noir like and it's absolutely gorgeous to look at with a lot of double page scenery. Characters themselves as the volumes progress from looking mediocre to better and better but at the start they might seem a little too stiff. At least that's the impression which I got. Another interesting fact to point out is that apparently Nihei (of Blame! fame) worked as an intern or something like that for Takahashi and honestly you can really see how this influenced his later works. He helped only with art though (most visibly with the buildings I think).
Overall this is a very good detective saga. It never really got stale for me despite the plot being weak here and there. So I would recommend it to anyone who is looking for something more serious and longer to read.
vol. 1 to vol. 5
vol. 6 to vol. 10
vol. 11 to vol. 14
vol. 15 to vol 19
I did some separation so that each link contains only volumes indicated, you can just download the first link if you feel like only checking this out to see how it looks. You don't need to combine all the links is what I'm trying to say.
Babatunde Olatunji - Drums Of Passion
Despite never playing or having drums I always had a passion for them. I will always enjoy a good drumming session and this album is exactly that plus Africa because Africa is great (when it comes to music not nutrition).
Babatunde Olatunji was a drummer from Nigeria, a country most known (musically) for Fela Kuti and afrobeat. This record was released back in 1959 so afrobeat and funk in general for that matter was not really around that time but you can hear a lot of drumming here that will occur in later music. As I have said before this album is all about drumming but there are chants here as well to complement the sounds. Some tracks feature other native instruments but overall focus is always on drumming and the beat. There's a plethora of moods here from sad songs to flirting dances and so on. You heard this music before elsewhere but you don't realize it until you hear it again here.
Overall a very fun and interesting album.
Get.
Videos vol. 4
So these posts get a lot of views which I think means people like it. Here's a new batch of videos for you to watch when you have nothing better to do in life.
Music:
Charles Mingus - Jazz Pour Tous In Belgium
Bill Evans Trio on Jazz 625
Bill Evans - Waltz For Debby
Ravi Coltrane & Alice Coltrane - A Love Supreme
Wes Montgomery - West Coast Blues [1965]
Wes Montgomery - Twisted Blues
O'Death - Angeline (FD session)
Coltrane Walkin'
Vitalic - Stamina
Flying Lotus - Putty Boy Strut
Son House - Death Letter Blues
Marvin Gaye - Let's Get It On (live in Montreux 1980)
Maceo Parker plays "Let's Get It On"
Portishead - All Mine
Elmer Snowden: Up A Lazy River
Cannonball Adderley Sextet - Jazz Stars 1963
Krzysztof Penderecki - Viola concerto, Nora Romanoff - Schwarzberg - Solo
Krzysztof Penderecki - Kadysz (Festiwal Warszawa Singera 2010)
Richie Cole Quintet - Panishment Blues
Herbie Hancock Headhunters 1974
Sun Ra - Music Video Short - A - Interplanetary Music - "Orbiting"
Charles Mingus - So Long Eric
Kenji Kawai - Cinema Symphony - Ghost In The Shell OST
Bartok, Piano Concerto No 3 Argerich, Bashmet, Toho Gakuen Orchestra April 14, 2007
Bat For Lashes - Laura
Louis Armstrong - When the Saints Go Marching In, 1961
O'Death - Bugs
"Lover Man"Sonny Stitt,Walter Bishop,Tommy Potter,Kenny Clarke.
タラチネ - 百景
Dizzy Gillespie - On the Sunny Side of the Street
Jascha Heifetz plays Hora Staccato
Jascha Heifetz plays Rondo by Mozart
David Oistrakh - Brahms Scherzo in C minor (III. from FAE Sonate)
The Bridge/ Sonny Rollns & Jim Hall
Dizzy Gillespie - Mmm Hmm
Fun or stupid things:
How to play Counter Strike
First dude who won the Millionaire in US
Miles and Coltrane Shred (the original if you don't get the joke)
Stewart Lee - Political Correctness
GTA 4 Funny Moments
[Vinesauce] Vinnny - Half-Mind
Driving in Albania - Top Gear
Henry Rollins vs Hipsters
Henry Rollins being a douchebag
The most awkward interview ever filmed
Billy Joel being mad
Pokemon Spread
Papa Was A Rolling Stone
Extreme Dagobah Tourism Video
二足歩行で押す猫
schemat musi być (dj problem remix)
Michael Bay presents: Microsoft & Nintendo E3 2012 highlights
Pikachu on Acid
Mr Ando of the Woods
Interesting:
Hysterical Literature: Session One: Stoya
Three Minute Philosophy: Galileo
The Station nightclub fire
There You Are
A Liturgy interview where HHH is not a pretentious elitist (somewhat).
Playing Borderlands 2 with Randy Pitchford (for an hour, pre-release video)
1,000,000,000,000 Frames/Second Photography - Ramesh Raskar
Mark Applebaum: The mad scientist of music
John Cleese on Creativity
The Great Porn Experiment: Gary Wilson at TEDxGlasgow
Freddie Hubbard - Straight Life
Freddie was a guy who did a lot of work in his heyday. He played all over the place from Herbie Hancock fusion albums to the excellent Ascension by Coltrane but he also did some things on his own. Up until the seventies he did the usual Blue Note bebop and post-bop stuff which is technically in musical sense excellent but it wasn't really breaking any new grounds.
Then arrived the seventies with all its new ideas with this electronic music. Now Freddie got some ideas and decided to switch labels and start doing fusion albums. What followed is kind of a mixed bag. After a while he got stale and released some really cheesy cash grabs. The usual 70s kitsch. Despite that his first four albums were one of his most successful and innovative ones that he ever did. Out of those four Straight Life is probably my favorite.
While other albums had more song oriented structure with 6-7 minute tracks this album has just two long tracks with one filler (but overall nice) ballad to fill out the empty space. This actually why I prefer it much more from the others simply because it sounds like a long jam. The lineup on this album is nothing but stellar. You have Herbie Hancock on keyboards, Henderson on saxophone, George Benson on guitar (which is mostly just in the background), Ron Carter on bass and Jack DeJohnette on drums. All of their signature sounds are very much present on this record especially Herbie who delivers that really nice Mwandishi soundscapes into the album.
Overall I really like this album a lot, and I would recommend it to anyone who has the least bit interest in jazz even if you have a distaste for fusion.
Get it.
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