Three FREE Full-Lengths.

-  Really insightful post from my guy PEESHE (over in Australia) about using the MPC for live shows.   Specifically the MPC2000XL.   Number 5 is something I always try to remind myself of.  This is where he blogs now, mostly.  What an excellent collective site.  Dang.  Beautiful design.

-  And speaking of collectives, the new Minneapolis/St. Paul collective F.I.X. (“F to the I to the X”) is giving away three free albums in one nifty package until their debut collective show Friday the 17th: No Bird Sing’s “Theft of Commons”, Kill The Vultures’ “Ecce Beast”, and Kristoff Krane’s “Hunting For Father”.  The last I’ve spoke of on here before.  Probably multiple times.  It’s an awesome album.  The other two are as well.  And hey, the shit is FREE.  Here’s the Bandcamp stream:

-  Hey, independent comics retailers/press… wanna know a good way to not sell your shit?  By ripping on any of Warren Ellis’ friends in the public net-square.  This includes blogs, Facebook, in this case Twitter.  His wrath will be swift and severe.  And I’m betting his site gets more views than yours.  Not to mention that is just being an asshole.  Saying that shit on Twitter.

-  Very interesting interview about the global impact of Underground bookstores.

The social, cultural, and political turbulence chronicled by such off-radar newspapers as Rat Subterranean News, Screw, San Francisco Oracle, East Village Other, Black Mask, and Los Angeles Free Press, to name only a few, is commonly overlooked in mainstream histories. As a result, what often remains is the same scattershot of familiar imagery from the late 1960s/early 1970s that’s lingered in the nation’s collective memory: hippies dancing with flowers in their hair at the Monterey Pop Festival during the Summer of Love; Timothy Leary at the Human Be-In at Golden Gate Park in 1967, urging the Haight-Ashbury crowds to “Turn on, tune in, drop out”; U.S. military tanks on city streets during the race riots in Detroit and Newark; the rise of the Hell’s Angels as the new American outlaws; and the Kent State University shootings and Mary Ann Vecchio’s haunting scream.

-Sonny

Caps and Smalls… Why?

I’ve got work, so here’s a quick link dump:

-  The PitFalls of Indie Fame.

Klosterman evaluates that puzzling phenomena where a good, not great, band shoots up the “indie” ladder to become one of the most talked about bands of the year.  This time it’s Tune Yards (or however the hell you spell that shit; seriously… just write your name normally!!):

“When (and if) you listen to w h o k i l l by tUnE-yArDs, you are listening to two things: a record that’s very good, and/or a record that will someday seem way worse than it actually is. And logic suggests the latter is more likely than the former, even though that’s no reflection on the value of the artist.

I am rooting for you, Merrill Garbus. I like your record, and I hope you make many more. I want you to be a genius, and I have no reason to believe that won’t happen. But maybe don’t sell the puppets, because maybe you are doomed.”

-  Was Robert Hooke Really the Greatest Asshole In the History of Science?

It isn’t everyday one reads a headline like that:

“Robert Hooke discovered the cell, established experimentation as crucial to scientific research, and did pioneering work in optics, gravitation, paleontology, architecture, and more. Yet history dismissed and forgot him… all because he pissed off Isaac Newton, probably the most revered scientist who ever lived.

This seventeenth century polymath, who has been called the English answer to Leonardo da Vinci, almost disappeared from history entirely after his death in 1703, as even the only known painting of him was unceremoniously destroyed. It took over two centuries for his reputation to recover and his myriad of accomplishments to be properly celebrated. He’s a cautionary tale for just how dangerous it can be to find yourself on the wrong side of history.”

-  Get Your Ideas Out of Your Head and On Paper To Actually Make Progress Towards Your Goals.

“It may seem like common sense that you need to get your ideas out of your head to act on them, but how many of us walk around with an always-updating to-do list in our heads only to forget one of them later? One of the basic principles of GTD and many other productivity systems is that your first step is to get your ideas and to-dos out of your head and on paper or into some system as soon as possible so you have the clarity to actually work on them. “

Here’s an awesome video of Kristoff Krane playing in a record store for some people in San Diego.  He’s a wonderful performer, apparently even when there’s only like 10 people watching:

-Sonny