July 05, 2009

Kitchen Sink Summer Pasta

Summer_pasta

Pictured: July 4th grilled vegetables (yellow squash, yellow zucchini, and green zucchini), homemade meatballs (from an Alton Brown recipe that I modified to include bacon and kale), turkey sausage (sweet), leftover grilled chicken from a Jersey diner sandwich, fresh tomato wedges, roasted red pepper strips, baby spinach that was about to go bad, juice from half a lemon, fresh basil ribbons, rosemary, and shavings of Parmigiano-Reggiano tossed with Pappardelle noodles and extra virgin olive oil.

Because nothing says happy birthday to our great nation like garish summer pastas with half the barnyard's livestock and a farm's worth of veggies.

June 30, 2009

Edith Frost, Thee Oh Sees

Cars

And a pair of first-rate songs about cars.

Edith Frost - "Cars and Parties" [MP3 | Info]



Thee Oh Sees - "Kids in Cars" [MP3 | Info]

These tracks are licensed for free and legal distribution via Creative Commons and the Free Music Archive. The FMA "is directed by WFMU, the most renowned freeform radio station in America. Radio has always offered the public free access to new music. The Free Music Archive is a continuation of that purpose, designed for the age of the internet."

So I guess you'd agree that it's finally time to buy that external hard drive you've been eyeballing at J&R, eh?

Mammatus Clouds Over NYC Last Friday

Mammatus_clouds

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June 29, 2009

Speaking of Faeries...

Faerie_beer The title of this morning's radio program was inspired by the weirdo beer I drank yesterday. Brasserie Dieu du Ciel's Rosée d’Hibiscus—an ale that's brewed with spices and hibiscus flowers. In other words, it's "faerie beer", as in faeries of the garden or faeries of whimsy. I'm not judging regular drinkers of this particular brew, but seeing as it pours a color that even a dead man would immediately recognize as "pink", it's unlikely this will be popular with the football enthusiasts down at the local sports bar.

Like most Johnny-come-latelys to the boutique beer phenomenon, I bought this one entirely because of the label. Now I don't know about you, but when I'm offered anything that comes with a picture of a freakish, pixie-like nymph who has flowers cascading out of her hair, I hand over my money and worry about the consequences later. It's a good thing I didn't grow up in a place like New Hope, Pennsylvania, or else I'd probably be homeless by now.

Here's how the label describes this most peculiar ale:

Rosée d’Hibiscus is a soft spoken Belgian-style wheat beer. Its rose colour comes from the hibiscus flowers added during the brewing process. The aromas and flavour of this tropical flower are very prominent in the beer, giving it a slight acidity and very agreeable fragrance.

Fair enough. Here's what the experts say about it. Unfortunately, I didn't like it as much as they did, or even as much as the peppercorn beer I wrote about a while back, so I probably wouldn't buy this again unless I were planning to invite some Hobbits over for a backyard barbecue. To that end, my wife was plenty jealous when she saw this beer's label because the only thing more pronounced than her hatred of beer is her love for Hobbits and princesses and faeries of the woodland realm. I think you'd agree the picture at left has a great deal in common with all of those things. After I drained the bottle, I stopped referring to it as Faerie Beer and (rather obnoxiously) started calling it "Faramir Beer", in honor of the Lord of the Rings character whom I sometimes jokingly call "the Faerie Son of Gondor" just to get a rise out of my wife. (She has a movie crush on him.) In a way, I agree that he is among the most compelling characters in the whole Lord of the Rings universe because even though he's gentle and wee and always loses the battle and probably likes Hibiscus flowers in his beer, he does NOT get killed by Orcs. More importantly, he ends up with the cute girl at the end of the story, so I guess it's time to review my criticisms once again.

Faerie Beer [WFMU Playlist 6.29.09]


[Pop-up Player]

Don Cherry - "Brown Rice" - Om Mani Pad-me Hum
Dream Syndicate - "The Medicine Show" - Medicine Show
DJ/Rupture (feat. Elizabeth Alexander) - "Watermelon City Overture" - Special Gunpowder
Sad Lovers & Giants - "Imagination" - E-Mail from Eternity
Wooden Shjips - "Contact" - Contact 12" single *
Speaking Canaries - "Menopause Diaries" - Get Out Alive: The Last Type Story

Dream_syndicate Dj_rupture Sad_lovers_and_giants Speaking_canaries

The Kinks - "King Kong" - Kink Kronikles
Girls at Our Best! - "Politics" - Pleasure * [Re-issue, 1981]
The Rammellzee - "When Hell Freezes Over" - Bi-Conicals of the Rammellzee 2xLP
Handsome Boy Modeling School - "Once Again (Here To Kick One For You)" - So... How's Your Girl?
Hector Rivera - "I Want A Chance For Romance" - Broasted Or Fried: Latin Breakbeats, Basslines, & Boogaloo
Screaming Urge - "Homework" - Homework Vol. 1 [compilation]
The Rats - "Nightline" - Intermittent Signals [With Fred and Toody, pre Dead Moon.]
The Units - "Warm Moving Bodies" - History of the Units: The Early Years (1977-1983) *
Nomo - "Patterns" - Invisible Cities *
Willie Williams - "Armageddon Time" - 7"
Fly Ashtray - "Lt. Report" - Reports *

Kinks Girls_at_our_best Rammellzee Hector_rivera

The Fall - "A Day in the Life"
The (Ex) Cat Heads - "Too Little, Too Late" - Our Frisco
Go Home Productions - "Jacko Under Pressure" - MP3
Marianne Rosenberg - "Mr. Paul McCartney" - 7"
Franco Battiato, Juri Camisasca, Osage Tribe - "La Paranoia" - La Convenzione
Jeffrey Novak - "Short Trip Home" - 7" *
Ravers - "Goddess of Love" - Rocky Mountain Low * [compilation of 1970s Colorado underground bands.]
Dinosaur (Jr.) - "Forget the Swan" - Dinosaur
Holly Golightly - "No Big Thing" - Singles Round-Up
Sam and Joe - "Save the Children" - Fear of Smell [MP3]
Redd Kross - "The Lady in the Front Row" - Phaseshifter

Franco_battiato Dinosaur_jr Holly_golightly Redd_kross

Eastern Dark - "Johnny and Dee Dee" - Do the Pop! Australian Garage Rock Sound 1976-1987 [compilation]
The Nines - "I Would Never" - Yellow Pills Vol. 4 [compilation]
Nancy Sinatra - "The City Never Sleeps at Night"
Tim Maia - "Voce Fingiu" - Tim Maia [1970]
Wanda Jackson - "Please Don't Sell my Daddy No More Wine" - Tears will be the Chaser
Larry Cole - "Eternity"
Conrad Schnitzler / Dompteur Mooner - "The 4:08 to Paris" - Rare Tracks 1979-1982 EP *
James Pants - "We're Through" - Welcome
Melba Moore - "You Stepped into my Life" - 12"
Ruts - "West One (Shine On Me)" - Best of the Ruts

Do_the_pop Tim_maia Melba_moore Ruts

June 26, 2009

History of the Units, 1977-1983

On a strictly artistic level, much of what you need to know about legendary San Francisco synthpunks The Units can be summed up with the incredible Unit Training Film #1 (below, courtesy archive.org -- I have re-linked from YouTube, as the archive.org embedded player was misbehaving.) For a more comprehensive overview, you're invited to read my review of the band's newly-issued retrospective CD in today's edition of Dusted Magazine.


For your further enlightenment, here's the song "Contemporary Emotions", as heard during last week's radio show.

Buy History of the Units here

June 24, 2009

The Arvin 65R58

Arvin_front Few possessions can be described as both "cherished" and "brown." But as I recently became the owner of this Arvin 65R58 AM radio, I'm happy to challenge that widely-held notion. The primitive ghetto blaster at left belonged to my father, who recently saw fit to pass it on to me as a kind of family heirloom. Thanks, pop!

At risk of succumbing to the Jean Shepherd-like prose that so often plagues discussions of childhood radio memories, this device is one of the earliest things I can remember being truly fascinated with. My dad would arrive every morning at the breakfast table with this radio in hand, always tuned to the local AM station. Except for Sunday mornings, when said station would run repeats of old-timey radio shows, their programming consisted of news, weather, traffic reports, and the most anxiously sought information for kids everywhere: snow-related school closings.

With the object of my obsession now under my own roof, I immediately did what most people my age would do: pop the back panel off, retrieve the model number, and punch it all it into Google. Sadly, aside from a visual gallery of other old radios, useful information was pretty lacking, and I couldn't even confirm a manufacturing date. My dad claims the Arvin is from the 1950s, and while its sturdy construction and sheer bulk make that quite believable, I couldn't find any corroborating evidence on any of the websites that mention it. Based on my amateur analysis, I can tell you that when loaded with its necessary SIX C-cell batteries, the 65R58 tips the scale at a whopping five pounds. The brown leather exterior bears a stamp on the back which reads "Top Grade Cowhide", and there's even a mini-jack output on the side, which my iPod headphones miraculously work with. (OK, perhaps not so miraculously—a mini-jack is still just a mini-jack, even with 50 years of technological advances in the stable.)

But most important of all, it picks up WNYC's signal with all the atmospheric and electrical interference that gives AM radio its antique charm. I'll consider my life a success if I'm able to wrangle another half century from the Arvin's timeworn transistors—even if that means listening to Leonard Lopate talk about Do the Right Thing when I could be on WNYC's website listening to John Schaefer discuss Iggy Pop's bizarre new album. For you broadcast engineer and hip transistor types, a picture of the Arvin's innards is posted below.

Continue reading "The Arvin 65R58" »

June 23, 2009

Indulgence or Necessity?

BottlYesterday, I spent $27 on a bottle of shampoo.

Before you accuse me of skipping out on my Recession Sensitivity classes, let me stress that it was a super-sized bottle which will probably last me a full year. But on the other hand, it is a fancy/goody brand made with tea tree oil, it has a wonderfully camphoraceous scent, and features a hi-tech hand pump that releases the precise amount needed for routine cleansing rituals. I started buying it more than ten years ago because my girl at Supercuts uses it, and I got hooked on the warm and tingly feeling that would resonate on my scalp for hours after every visit. I could buy something much cheaper at the local dollar parlor, but... I don't. And in an age when I've made financial cutbacks in every area of my life, I can't deny the need to qualify the few remaining indulgences I enjoy on a regular basis. Perhaps more boldly, I've elevated a few of those indulgences to necessity status, if only to dilute my fear that we're all headed for life in a communal mudpit anyway.

So let's talk about indulgences and necessities by first reviewing some of the cutbacks. At the grocery store, my wife and I now purchase the store brand plastic wrap (even though it's maddeningly uncooperative in comparison to the name brand), whole chickens instead of pre-cut chicken parts, and corporate milk instead of the organic brand we used to pay almost twice as much for. Additionally, I've become a fiend about crunching numbers and multiplying unit prices while roaming the aisles of the Stop n' Save. I have an array of price-plus cards tumbling out of my wallet, we grow all our own tomatoes and herbs in the backyard, and I'm totally willing to hold up a checkout line if my five cent discount for using canvas bags isn't honored. But in spite of the proactive rationale and general belt-tightening with regards to exotic household goods, there are some things that I am completely unwilling to give up—sacrifices that don't even earn a fleeting consideration on the profit and loss report that lives inside my head. To wit, here are a couple of the necessities.

Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, which we continue to drop upwards of twelve bucks a slab for at least twice a month. Fresh shavings of it served on an arugula salad with lemon juice and olive oil equals one of the most magnificent yet simple meals I have ever plated. More importantly, I've tasted that pre-shredded parmesan "cheese" that comes in the crude, shake-n-bake canister, and the idea of scattering that salty sawdust onto any meal summons an immediate and crippling depression.

Suffice to say, greeting the apparent endtimes by re-evaluating everything on the grocery list has produced some positive fallout. We eat more healthily now than we ever did back when there was money for things like vacations or dining out or going to bars. Shoe Crazy as it may sound, I'm thankful that in spite of modern history's plentiful gloom, recent years have taught me a smarter and more economical way of life. For anyone who rode the crest of 90s prosperity into the full stride of their adulthood, it's a pretty critical lesson to have learned, especially since so many of my peers have lost houses or their entire life's savings. I never would have imagined that simple thriftiness would help me dodge a bullet as big as the early 21st century.

Looking beyond the kitchen, shoes are another recent purchase that caused me to suffer the mental gymnastics of price point consideration. My adolescence and early adulthood were spent wearing archless Converse All Stars, hipster-doofus John Fluevogs, $5 flip flops, and clumsily unlaced work boots, sometimes all in the same day. When not traumatizing my lower extremities as such, I also frequently drove my car while barefoot, and sometimes walked around un-pastoral environments like Brooklyn and New Brunswick with no shoes at all. As a result of this foolishness, my feet are now what an experienced podiatrist might call "fucked", and I pay handsomely for it every time I need new shoes. Annoyed with the self-negligence that caused these problems, a recent shoe-shopping mission (which I had hoped to fulfill at the always-empty DSW in lower Manhattan) turned into a multi-borough search for black Doc Martens. I hadn't purchased a pair of Docs in more than 15 years, but my disdain for Skechers and other such craptastic footwear finally pushed me into that zone where paying a higher price for a more durable product becomes a no-brainer. As such, my quest for non-steel toed Docs eventually set me back a hundred bucks, but I'm pretty confident it was worth it. Properly cared for (read as: "not worn to Cro-Mags reunion concert"), Docs can last a good five years and offer unparalleled comfort, even for someone with feet as ravaged as mine. They are expensive, but they're also highly versatile, as well as being a long-term investment in basic health and necessity. Interestingly, the only shoes aside from Doc Martens that I find comfortable are skateboard-issue Vans, which makes me worry that in spite of my sartorial prowess, I will always look like an 18 year old punk rock enthusiast from the ankle down. Though that might be an asset in the event that my interest in the Cro-Mags re-emerges, part of me just wishes the Italian leather industry would collapse so I could scoop up a pair of Forzieri wingtips on the cheap.

Next time: "Apparently Netflix isn't interested in my idea for a three disc PER YEAR plan", or "I got thrown out of Bed, Bath, and Beyond for questioning the patriotism of anyone who charges that much for a shower curtain."


June 22, 2009

Welcome, Summer [WFMU Playlist 6.22.09]

[Pop-up player]

Malcolm McLaren - "Obatala" - Duck Rock
The Units - "Contemporary Emotions" - History of the Units: Early Years 1977-83 *
Pailhead - "Ballad" - Trait EP
Booker T - "Pound it Out" - Potato Hole *
Spark - "Don't Rain on my Parade" - MD8 [compilation]
People Like Us - "Blue Bayou" - All Together Now
Ronnie Spector & Joey Ramone - "You Can't Put Your Arms Around a Memory" - She Talks To Rainbows EP
Scrawl - "Begin" - Smallmouth

Malcolm_mclaren Pailhead People_like_us Scrawl

Chris Knox - "The Hell of It" - Beat
Odd Nosdam - "Fly Mode" - T.I.M.E. Soundtrack *
Edith Frost - "Cars & Parties" - Demos [Find it in the Free Music Archive.]
Eddy Current Suppression Ring - "Which Way to Go" - Primary Colours
De la Soul - "Say No Go" - 3 Feet High and Rising
Kendra Smith - "Stars Are In Your Eyes" - 12"
Sleeping Giant - "The Sun's Gonna Shine in the Morning" - Late Music
Mirrors - "You Me Love" - Something that Would Never Do * [Re-issue, 74/75]
The Cords - "Ghost Power" - Back from the Grave Vol. 1 [compilation]
Golden - "Hot" - Summer

Chris_knox Odd_nosdam De_la_soul Mirrors

Long Tall Ernie & the Shakers - "Motor Man" - Clap Your Hands and Stamp Your Feet ! * [compilation]
The Streets - "See if they Salute" - MP3
Boney M - "Daddy Cool" - 7"
Bob Seger - "Travelin' Man" - Beautiful Loser
Spectre - "Stepping Forth into Daylight" - Internal Dynasty *
Glaxo Babies - "Avoiding the Issue" - Put me on the Guest List
Alamogordo - "Drugs" - All You Kids do is Destroy
Aphrodite's Child - "Aegian Sea" - Aphrodite 666
Stones - "Sympathy for the Devil" - Beggar's Banquet [Outtakes]
Doug Gillard - "Call from Restricted" - Call from Restricted *

Boney_m  Bob_seger Glaxo_babies Aphrodites_child

The Ex & Tom Cora - "Lamp Lady" - ...And the Weathermen Shrug their Shoulders
Henry Mancini - "The Party" - "The Party" [soundtrack]
Peter Sellers - "She Loves You (Irish Dentist Version)" - A Celebration of Sellers
Kurt Vile & the Violators - "The Hunchback" - The Hunchback EP *
Duffy - "Warwick Avenue"
Black Box Recorder - "Uptown Top Ranking" - England Made Me
The Van Pelt - "The Speeding Train" - The Speeding Train EP
The Bats - "Supernova" - Live at the Primavera Festival *
Shakin' Stevens - "The Green Door" - 7"
Joe Pop-O-Pie - "I Am the Walrus" - Joe's Third Record
John Lennon - "Bring On The Lucie (Freda People)" - Mind Games

Ex_cora Peter_sellers Duffy John_lennon

June 18, 2009

On Resuming Broadcast Activities at WFMU

Collage_by_David_ThorpeI'm floored to announce that I'll be firing the opening volley of WFMU's summer programming schedule, which goes into effect on June 22nd. Forthwith, my show will air every Monday morning at the ungodly time of 6-9 AM and will comprise three hours of freeform music and chatter which will be heard only on the web—not over the FM band. (At that hour, JM in the AM broadcasts on the station's 91.1 frequency.) Various life changes and my unpredictable schedule made it impossible for me to commit to any other timeslots, so rather than continue my self-imposed hiatus from WFMU, I'm opting to put my faith in the station's enormous web listenership. (Kim from Louisville and Pete in L.A., I'm lookin' at you!)

Although the difference for most web and archive listeners will be utterly transparent, a few critical points should be made. First of all, I'll be getting up at the asscrack of dawn on Monday mornings this summer, so I regret having to decline any Sunday dinner invitations up through mid-October. Secondly, as the FCC does NOT have the power to foist their priggish standards upon the internet, I'll be freed from the crippling fear that a song with fleeting expletives could rack up huge fines for the cash-strapped station. That doesn't mean I'm planning to air the entire Frogs discography, or open each week's show with "Saturday Night at the Bookstore" by the Dicks (still one of the filthiest songs I know), but I'll definitely enjoy the freedom to relax as opposed to being on constant nanny patrol for words and themes that some people find saucy. In any case, I hope my enthusiasm for this summer program translates accordingly to the deskbound Europeans and bleary-eyed New Yorkers who make up much of the realtime listenership at that hour of the day. My podcast will go on hiatus after the July 1st edition, but content from the Monday morning freeform program will be archived on my FMU index page. I also plan to re-post the playlists with graphics, notes, and embedded player right here on R:M:B. I'm anxious to resume regular programming, especially in an environment of creative collaboration like WFMU, so here's to hoping you can tune in as you brew that pot of coffee, tackle your morning grooming rituals, or survey the day's grim economic news. As always, I am humbled by your support, and will try really hard not to play anything that'll get you fired.

About this Blog

  • Read:My:Back collects work authored by Michael Lupica: a freelance writer, WFMU radio host, and event director based in New York City. On the docket are discussions pertaining to media (broadcast / print / digital), food (cooking / discovering), plus areas of more questionable sophistication (weirdo music and art). If you enjoy talking shop about any of the above, you're in the right place.

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