fnordication…

I am debating on picking this camera up:

Amazon Link

It’s an attractive price.

Stealing an idea from Frank. I decided to start adding some of the reviews I write up to this blog, one – it’s a way to keep this blog moving along, and two – this will give me that ability to review older releases that we don’t cover on Soundsect as well as other releases like DVDs and books.

So here is the first one I am adding to the blog, Nurse With Wound’s new release Huffin’ Rag Blues.

Buy From Amazon

As a longtime fan of Nurse With Wound, I was both eager and afraid to hear the latest effort by Steven Stapleton and crew, Huffin’ Rag Blues. Up until it’s release it was touted as a very lounge-inspired release with vocals that harkened back to Peggy Lee. Not really knowing what to expect I put the disc in the player and was pleasantly surprised by the outcome.

The short opening track, “Willy the Weeper,” begins with a whimsical tune that fades into a terrifying growl, letting you know that this is still clearly a NWW release. Between the droning, free-form jazz of “Thrill of Romance..?”, the lounge organ of “Groove Grease (Hot Catz)”, and the piano of “Wash the Dust From My Heart” the setting of this album is created. A dingy, smoky subterranean club, pulled out of David Lynch film.

Where the album strays from the lounge concept is on the tracks “The Funktion of the Hairy Egg” and “Juice Head Crazy Lady”. The nearly 14 minute long “Hairy Egg” is mostly a traditional Nurse With Wound track for the majority of it’s length. Vocals kick in around the 9 minute mark and the underlying noises morph into the tribal drumming and animal sounds of a rainforest cacophony.

One of the more interesting choices on Huffin’ Rag Blues is definitely “Black Teeth”. The vocals by Matt Waldron make this track sound like a Tom Waits inspired Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds outtake… not something you would expect to be said about a Nurse With Wound song, especially one that apes Sheena Easton lyrics.

The highlight of the album is the track “Cruisin’ for a Bruisin’”, which has an equally great remix found on The Bacteria Magnet mini LP. Utilizing car horns, car radios and other auto related samples, it seems easily to be the track on Huffin’ Rag Blues that the most fun was had making.

Huffin’ Rag Blues could be difficult for a lot of Nurse With Wound fans to get into as it is somewhat of a departure and is, on the surface, one of Stapleton’s more accessible outings. After 30 years in the making music business, it is clear to me that Steven Stapleton is still being as experimental and innovative as he was when he first began Nurse With Wound.

This review and others can be found on Soundsect.com.

A friend linked me to his new blog, whatjamesknows.com, and it got me thinking about this post graveyard. I really should try to keep it up to date for the 3 people who look at it. Of course, there are so many of this kind of posts from me on here that it really should have it’s own category. lol.

We will see.

This past week there was a series of exhibition matches between Pete Sampras, arguably the best tennis player ever, and Roger Federer, the current #1 ranked player. It was an interesting series that I was looking forward to seeing. I was hoping that Sampras could show that he could still hold his own four years after retiring and ten years older than his opponent. The first match in the series went to Federer (6-4,6-3), as well as the second (7-6,7-6). But finally Sampras came through and one the final match in Macau, China (7-6, 6-4).

What this proves to me is that Sampras is by far the better player. Yes, Federer is a great player and, yes, he is on the verge of breaking Sampras’ title record. The problem I have always had with the praise that is thrown upon Federer all the time is that it isn’t that he is just so amazingly good, it’s that he doesn’t have the same caliber of opponents that Sampras had throughout his career. Right now the main obstacles for Federer are Nadal and possibly Djokovic. Atleast these are the only two players semi close in point standings to Federer. There is always the hope of a Davydenko, Safin or Nalbandian upset against Federer though. The point is that Sampras had so many more better players to contend with throughout his career, let alone the Agassi-Sampras rivalry that existed for most of it. And to see a player in his mid-30s come out and give such a strong performance throughout the series against someone in their mid-20s, as well as clearly learn Federer’s weakness and adapt so quickly match to match, is just amazing. Tennis will never be the same without him. I am glad that he is atleast a part of Jim Courier’s Senior Tour so the possibility to see him on TV is still very possible. Those matches are great. Seeing Todd Martin and Sampras play is like jumping in a time machine back to the greatest era (IMO) of men’s tennis.

There will definitely be a New York City exhibition coming next year in March, hopefully ticket prices won’t be too high so we can get a chance to check it out. It may be the last chance we have to see Pete Sampras in action live. Hopefully he will pull together another win.

Finally, Project Runway Season 4 premiered this past Wednesday. I have been waiting on this one for a while. So far it seems like it will be a good group. The majority of the people seem to have a clue as to what the fuck they are doing. Here are some of my faves so far:

Marion - He seems very quiet right now, but I think that will change as he moves ahead in the competition. I wasn’t that crazy for the outfit he made in the first episode, but he seems to have a good fashion sense.

Christian - Right now my fave. It looks like he will have a good style, and he definitely seems to know what he is doing. I have a feeling there will be a lot of drama in the group and he will be my favorite commentator on all of it.

Steven - Ok, the guy looks like a serial killer. That is someone I could get behind.

Some of the people that I don’t like right off the bat:

Elisa - Absolutely clueless. I can’t stand granola-y people like that. Doesn’t seem to know what she is doing. Fancies herself an arteest.

Jack - He just rubs me the wrong way. Wasn’t crazy about his design and he wears tacky t-shirts.

I was surprised today to find my Ghost Hunter S2 replacement sets in the mail. Especially because I never actually got around to sending in my covers as proof of purchase. I had contacted Big Vision Entertainment because I had gotten my two Season 2 covers signed by Jason and Grant at Chiller last year so there was no way I was sending in my covers. I had put my address in the email hoping they would just say “OK” and not make me actually do anything. lol. They said I had to photocopy them, and even though I sit maybe 20-30′ from a photocopier every day at work I never got around to doing it.

They must have picked up on my immense slack and sent them anyway.

So thanks Big Vision! Bob would be proud!

And I promise, this should be the last Ghost Hunters related post for November.

I have a ton of CDs in my pile to review. I hate when I (have to) let things go for too long, because it gets to be such a pain to sit down and start the reviews. I’m also working on a new project that I want to keep low key about until I actually get somewhere near completion. It’s been something I have wanted to do for a while but have put off.

I have this habit that when I start on a project, art or otherwise, my mind just keeps going and mutations and offshoots of this project come to me rapid fire. I do edit myself as this happens, but I still get overloaded with new ideas. 99% of these things will never ever see the light of day of course, but it still happens.

I also need to work in a haphazard manner. If I feel too stifled I get nervous about what I am doing and it just fucks up. I also think far too grandiose in scale and execution and always outside my means be it space, ability and environment. This came up today actually as I was walking around Home Depot with AK. I was looking for some wood that I need for the thing I am working on and also looking at some option for one of those offshoots that I mentioned above. She commented on my horrible knack for not thinking about the limitations of our space to work on this project. After a bunch of “I know…I know… I know”s on my part I managed to put on my best art school reject manner and voice and drop a “chaos is my muuuuuse, man”, which of course made me giggle and her to roll her eyes.

This makes me think back to my college days, in particular one of my sculpture classes. When I first started college I was going as a sculpture major. I’ve always loved working in a three-dimensional form because there is a nice problem solving aspect to it. I came up with a concept that I only really half remember at this point, but it involved an installation. I was making these large masses out of gauze and plaster with some wire framing. They were, as I was envisioning them, large pockets of energy that were taking on a physical form. It was a snapshot in the process of their transformation and they were being trapped… anyway it’s hard to explain without going on and on a bit and I really don’t feel like getting into it. An integral part of the piece was going to be the location and the staging of them. I couldn’t find a free space in the art building that I thought would suit them so I decided, “hey! I can just build the space for them!” Great fucking idea. So now I just added a crapload of work and cost. So I decided to make this ritual space that would house them outdoors. I welded this beautifully ugly, Thunderdome-esque structure out of rusted rebar and then covered most of the structure in a gauze that I painted with a clear sealant. It was great. I worked throughout the night and finally was almost finished. I couldn’t believe that I was actually doing it and it was coming out very close to what I wanted. All until one of the worst storms of that year starts up. The wind whips up and because of the way I (stupidly) designed it the wind is able to get underneath the structure and catch the polyurethane covered gauze and the whole piece starts to lift up into the air. Since I was still working on it the piece wasn’t anchored down as much as it should have been and the structure goes up in the air, I jump up and grab the center of it from the inside and it is still getting pulled up so I let go. The whole thing goes a few feet in the air, the wind whips it up and backward and it crashes down into a mangled mess.

I nearly cried.

So where do the captured energy masses end up getting hung? In the fucking school hallway. Looking like shit. And I am a broken young man.

The site is definitely working 100% again now. What a pain in the ass it was. Thankfully none of the really important sites I have hosted on this box were affected. Anyway, on to the post.

The Ghost Hunters did their follow-up show to their live investigation from last week. I have to say it was somewhat of a let down. The reveal didn’t really show us any more evidence than what was already shown on the actual live broadcast. Their was a little bit of some new investigation footage that wasn’t aired, but nothing amazing happened. The better footage of the ball moving on the second floor was interesting though, so much clearer on the handheld DV than what was shown originally. I was kind of surprised that they didn’t bring up/apologize for the shitty attitudes of those two girls. There was a big outcry on a few sites/forums about their bitchiness and I know a number of people contacted TAPS and/or SciFi. They did edit the contestant footage shot with them well enough to conceal the cuntiness though.

The second half of the show was really interesting though. Some redneck house that seemed to have atleast two “ghosts”. The footage they caught of the “big man” on the thermal was pretty compelling. Since it was the season finale I don’t think there is going to be anything until January when Ghost Hunters International starts.

Here is an old, but good Ghost Hunters spoof from Chris Elliott:

Sort of.

As some of you may have noticed my domain expired and there was a whole screwup with getting it fixed so it took 3 days. Of course, what better fucking timing than during NaBloPoMo. It seems to be still propagating and luckily the only one that seems to be working is this subdomain.

Go figure.

Now, I could cheat and just back date some posts, but I won’t. Fuck it. So I don’t win any little prize. I will just play catch up and double up a day.

I was planning on continuing one of the things I had started a few months earlier, Liber Nought: Part 2, but I just don’t have the time tonight to get into it. Hopefully that will show up tomorrow, if I feel so inclined. Four days in and I am already having trouble keeping up with NaBloPoMo lol.

So yeah, you get a small, shitty post tonight. I promise that tomorrow’s will be of more substance. If all goes well it will be Liber Nought: Part 2, if not you can just go and reread Liber Nought: Part 1. I actually have several things in my head to blog about, but haven’t sorted through them yet… I have all of November though so eventually they will land on this page.