“Dude, Neil Peart is totally fuckin sick.”
This sentiment was sure to have been offered by at least one member of Mastodon at an earlier stage in his life, likely within 10-20 feet of a 7/11. And though the geeky squelch of Rush has long ceased to interest many of my peers, I still put on All the World’s a Stage (Rush’s live album, recorded during their 2112 tour), and opine the same: Dude, Neil Peart is totally fuckin’ sick.
Brann Dailor is totally fuckin’ sick. Part Peart, part Philly Joe Jones, part your favorite double-kick drummer (Lars circa Master…?), Dailor is Mastodon’s none-too-secret weapon, dropping Jack DeJohnette-on-basement-crank fills and beats into most every tune on Mastodon’s massively metal kickassterpiece, Leviathan.
Now, I know what you’re thinking: jazz and/or prog-rock drumming in metal-sounds totally fuckin’ gay, dude. But Dailor’s drumming never takes center-stage, remaining content to fuck with us from the perimeter. Because if you’re a metal fan like I’m a metal fan, you know that metal’s best when there’s not too much getting in the way of the riffs. And-dude!-the riffs on Leviathan!

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Remember K-Tel Records? They pumped out the hits during the Seventies and Eighties with classic collections like “Hot Nights, City Lights,” “Girls, Girls, Girls,” and “Disco Rocket.” Anyone raised in the Seventies had at least one K-Tel record in his/her collection. Ever wondered what happened to K-Tel? Times must be tough… now you can order all your pharmaceutical favorites at the K-Tel Drug Mart. Celebrex, Plavis, and Lipitor can all be purchased “[at] a savings of up to 70% or more. All drugs are shipped directly to your home from our licensed pharmacy in Canada, where drug prices are regulated by government review boards. What’s more, with the favorable exchange rate on the US dollar, the savings are even greater!”
The Apocalypse is surely near. What’s next? Is Tab now a malt liquor? Does Garanimals sell bondage gear? We feel dirty now.
It’s a virtual jukebox of Canadian drug import hits!
Visit them today.
See the full K-Tel collection here

We love you Ali G.
From Roanoke Times:
No one knows for sure who he was, that Middle Eastern man in an American flag shirt and a cowboy hat who was supposed to sing the national anthem at a rodeo Friday night in the Salem Civic Center. But he sure shook up this town before leaving in a hurry.
Introduced as Boraq Sagdiyev from Kazakhstan, he was said to be an immigrant touring America. A film crew was with him, doing some sort of documentary. And he wanted to sing “The Star-Spangled Banner” to show his appreciation, the announcer told the crowd.
Speaking in broken English, the mysterious man first told the decidedly pro-American crowd – it was a rodeo, of all things, in Salem, of all places – that he supported the war on terrorism.
“I hope you kill every man, woman and child in Iraq, down to the lizards,” he said, according to Brett Sharp of Star Country WSLC, who was also on stage that night as a media sponsor of the rodeo.
An uneasy murmur ran through the crowd.
“And may George W. Bush drink the blood of every man, woman and child in Iraq,” he continued, according to Robynn Jaymes, who co-hosts a morning radio show with Sharp and was also among the stunned observers.
The crowd’s reaction was loud enough for John Saunders, the civic center’s assistant director, to hear from the front office. “It was a restless kind of booing,” Saunders said.

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Morgan Geist is the coolest DJ in New York. He’s responsible for the amazingly popular remix of The Rapture’s “House of Jealous Lovers.” He’s the founder of his own label, Environ Records. He’s one half of the duo known as Metro Area who released our favorite electronic record of 2002. He regularly spins at Apt and other hip clubs where the “I’m not a hipster even though I look like one” crowd can be found. And he just released a new collection of Italo disco from the 70′s and 80′s called Unclassics.
Despite Geist’s inability to license all the tracks he’d originally intended to include, Unclassics effectively functions as a bizarro companion disk to any 70′s disco hits that features overplayed classics like “Y.M.C.A” and “Shake Your Groove Thing.” The dark underbelly of a K-Tel comp. Nevertheless, you will shake your groove thing when listening to Unclassics. The 32-year-old Geist was born in Jersey and currently lives in Brooklyn. He agreed to answer a few of my questions early in 2005 after I confessed to including Metro Area on my wedding mix.
1. What is Italo Disco and how did you get into it?
There are many definitions of “italo disco.” When I got into dance music, I thought it was Irma and DFC, “Ride On Time” and Soft House Company, “What You Need” and “A Little Piano.” Some will say that’s Italo house or Italo pop. Whatever. I guess the important thing is my personal area of interest, which spans from about ’77 to maybe ’85 or so. It starts with more organic sounds that copy US soul/disco and then I eject right around when digital technology starts taking over. That’s when the stuff took a nosedive, in my opinion.
2. Where do you find your music?
Used record shops. There are too many amazing unknown records to be found to get hung up with eBay or expensive dealers. I want to play records, not collect them.

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By now, most people are familiar with the Armstrong Williams scandal. It was revealed last week that the Education Department paid this spineless pundit $240,000 to promote President Bush’s No Child Left Behind bill. Using tax dollars.
Nevertheless, most of the nation’s major newspapers (including The New York Times) have failed to follow-up on this story appropriately, relegating meager space to their back pages or failing to mention it at all. (There was no mention of the scandal in the Sunday Times).

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Check out the Free Videos of Joanna live in November in Birmingham. (Thanks DJH)

FRIDAY:
Winter Soul: Featuring George Clinton and the P-Funk All-Stars
TV on the Radio
BAM Howard Gilman Opera House
Jan 7 at 7:30pm
Tickets: $20, 30, 40, 45
click here for more info
SATURDAY:
from Flavorpill:
Christian Marclay: Shake Rattle and Roll (fluxmix)
Sat 1.8 (10am-7pm) FREE
Paula Cooper Gallery (534 W 21st St)
“One of the founders of turntablism, Christian Marclay is an avant-garde DJ who also creates in other artistic media. In the video installation, Shake Rattle and Roll (fluxmix), he projects a special brew of Fluxus-inspired montage, stemming from his time as an artist-in-residence at the Walker Art Center, on several screens. Dredging through archival materials and artifacts from a motley group of Fluxus artists, Marclay plays with the musical possibilities of wooden toys, puzzles, postcards, and other ephemera by such luminaries as Yoko Ono, Nam June Paik, and Joseph Beuys. Where Fluxus confounded audiences by stretching disciplinary boundaries, Marclay, the sonic archaeologist, succeeds by orchestrating their complexity.”

Education Department paid commentator to promote No Child Left Behind Using Tax Dollars

By Greg Toppo, USA TODAY:
Seeking to build support among black families for its education reform law, the Bush administration paid a prominent black pundit $240,000 to promote the law on his nationally syndicated television show and to urge other black journalists to do the same.
Williams on being paid to boost NCLB: “I wanted to do it because it’s something I believe in.”
The campaign, part of an effort to promote No Child Left Behind (NCLB), required commentator Armstrong Williams “to regularly comment on NCLB during the course of his broadcasts,” and to interview Education Secretary Rod Paige for TV and radio spots that aired during the show in 2004.

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From Baltimore Sun
Staples softens stand on limiting Sinclair ads
Two days after Staples Inc. became the first company to say it was limiting advertising on Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc. television stations because of customer complaints about one-sided news coverage, the office supply chain softened its stance yesterday. While still acknowledging e-mail complaints in part caused it to stop advertising on Sinclair’s local programs, Staples issued a statement saying it “does not let political agendas drive our media-buying decisions.”

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I know January is usually the prime dumping ground for Hollywood fare (their version of “Take Out the Trash Day”), but man, they aren’t even trying anymore. The indie world has basically taken the month off, and the rest, well, see for yourself…
January 7
WHITE NOISE
WHAT’S THE PITCH?
What’s that voice you hear buried in the static on your radio? It’s your long-dead loved one! And they’re really bored because apparently all they have to play with in the afterlife is a ham radio.
WILL IT SUCK?
This is from the director of the attempted reboot of “Doctor Who” in the states, and maybe only a seasoned fan can tell you why it was a bad idea to cast Eric Roberts as The Master, but it was. Better yet, the writer penned “Let’s Talk About Sex,” a movie which spawned the single greatest two-word review since “Shit sandwich,” namely “Let’s not.”

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