Wallpaper Music

Make Your Own Punk Tunes.

'The dirty punk fuckin anarchy machine' is a music machine made by recording the guitar, and an electronic drum.
Stuff used : Guitar Epiphone LesPaul Custom
Amp : Marshall 2x40 W
Microphone : very bad computer microphone
Click on blog title, punk rocks!

Thug-Tags

ThugTags.com - Hip Hop & Urban MySpace Comments
This did make me laugh! There are some cool urban and hip-hop designs, amongst the cheesey but still cool 'I'm Rick James', graphix. Go pimp your site.

It Is Your Birthday ...

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Sexy Comments & Profile Graphics

babysole

For Helen

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Laurent Garnier

Dance lethario Laurent Garnier is set to release his first EP in five years, on the Berlin Innervisions label. Called 'Back To My Roots.' It will be out at some stage, along with a full length album later this year.www.laurentgarnier.com

Sexy If U Soundin Like Dis...

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Happy Days Are Here Again.

Balearic - a club scene from the 1980s spinning everything from folk-rock to disco - is flourishing again. Justin Quirk on why the conditions are perfect for a third summer of love
In 1983, Chris Rea released an album called Water Sign. The record was, in effect, little more than a demo, but its drum-machine rhythms and songs infused with the music he'd heard on his endless European tours made it something of a lost classic to some fans of house music. Despite Rea being a byword for middle-of-the-road rock, he forms an unlikely footnote to the most exciting scene in dance music right now.
Balearic - originally a loose amalgam of sounds rooted in the music that was popular in the clubs of mid-1980s Ibiza, encompassing everything from folk-rock to disco - is set to be the trend of the summer. Parties and DJs such as Tropical Hotdog, Afternoon Session and Chew the Fat (all in London), the Balearic Brothers (Brighton), the Balearic Mike/Jolyon Green axis (Manchester) and Phil Mison's Reverso 68 project are all flying the "anything goes" flag of Balearica. It's not just DJs and clubs, either. There is also a new generation of Balearic bands in the UK. Mountain of One combine beats with the influences of Pentangle and Tusk-era Fleetwood Mac, while the shadowy Beyond the Wizard's Sleeve marry Joe Meek-ish samples with pulsating backing tracks. Further afield, Norway's Todd Terje and Germany's Henrik Schwarz are producing Balearic-inflected electronica. Balearic is even starting to influence fashion: the spring/summer collections from Dries van Noten and Gucci embody the Balearic aesthetic in the form of linen trousers, slip-on shoes and soft pastels.
"The contemporary Balearic scene has been quietly developing and is a very exciting musical place to be right now," says Enzo Amico of the Balearic Brothers. "People are disillusioned with the house scene and are listening to a more diverse mix of music. The trend towards bars and smaller parties rather than superclubs suits a more relaxed and varied style of DJing." So, are we about to witness a third summer of love?

For convenience, most people trace Balearic back to the eclectic style pioneered by the DJ Danny Rampling at the London club night Shoom in 1987. Rampling had holidayed in Ibiza that summer, and became obsessed with DJ Alfredo, the Argentinian resident at the island's Amnesia club. His sets, as recreated on last year's Original Sound of Ibiza album, moved effortlessly between the Art of Noise and Yellowman, the Residents and Phuture. Rampling would later compare Alfredo's experimental mixture of "texture and music ... to a Miro painting", but his eclecticism was rooted as much in the realities of playing to a crowd who were both pan-European and in the first flushes of the ecstasy rush. The music at Amnesia didn't need to be fast and rhythmic to be danceable (most Balearic classics hover around 110bpm), and because familiar songs were put into fresh contexts, they shed whatever unfashionable associations they might have had for clubbers used to London ideas of hipness. "It was quite a naive thing," says Chris Galloway of Pure Pleasure Music, Britain's leading Balearic dealer. "You had a lot of classic pop records that became seen as Balearic, and a lot of songs that people could kind of take or leave on their release that were subsequently reassessed."

"In its purest sense it's about music that makes you feel good, makes you smile, and has no pretensions to be anything else," says Amico. The mixture of what Galloway sums up as "big pop records and very underground stuff put together" became, and remains, the defining characteristic of the Balearic aesthetic.

The success of Rampling's Shoom nights sparked off a series of similar parties, such as those organised by Boy's Own, a loose network of clever, funny, music obsessives from Windsor and Slough, including Andy Weatherall, Terry Farley and Cymon Eckel. "It really picked up in 1988-89 and the race was on to find the strangest records that you could dance to," says Eckel. "There was a massive Boy's Own party at Painshill Park in Surrey and It Must Be Love by Madness got played. Being happy and smiley as we were, as opposed to nasty and aggro, it all worked."

While much of dance music culture was (and is) lambasted as little more than pill-munching, repetitive idiocy, the "Balearic network" offered a stylish, knowing alternative based on better clothes and encyclopaedic record collections. "Given the state people were in, it was easy to see how you might end up in a pair of denim dungarees - not that I ever did, I might add - but you wanted to look a bit more well dressed," says Eckel.

The original Balearic players shared a deep, trainspotterish immersion in music, style and vinyl hunting, kicking against what they saw as the lumpen nature of most pop and rock. The critic Simon Reynolds saw the original Balearic lovers as representing an English obsession with class and status: "The antagonism was grounded in an enduring class divide that runs through British pop history," he wrote in his book, Generation Ecstasy. "An upper-working-class hipster superiority complex vis-a-vis the undiscriminating unskilled proles."

"There was a conscious split, as you wanted a point of difference," agrees Eckel. That sentiment is echoed by the new wave of Balearic artists. Questioned recently by a journalist about the grand, almost prog-like nature of their music, A Mountain of One's Mo Morris witheringly pointed out that "you can only hear so many songs about fights in chip shops." .

A Mountain of One are the emblematic modern Balearic group, with feet planted firmly in two vintage musical camps. As well as the 1980s dance influence that underpins the music, they draw on another side that predates Rampling's encounter with Alfredo, rooted in folk, psychedelia and pagan counterculture. "People are, without a doubt, more open-minded at the moment," says Morris. "They want something that is more contemporary and - for want of a better word - abstract, as record companies have just been playing safe for so long."

"Ten years ago, people just wanted the big club records," adds Balearic Mike. "But kids nowadays who are 20 want to hear bizarre things that aren't getting played on the radio."

Balearic Mike also believes new technology has been the key to reviving the attitudes and sounds of the Balearic era. "For a while it was a nostalgia thing," he says, "but the internet's made the world a lot smaller and opened up all these scenes that have fed into the current sound. There's Italy's cosmic scene, which no one in this country knew of until five years ago. There's a whole scene in Belgium that I had no idea about." And because of the ease of access to so many different forms of music, Balearic flavours are popping up all over the place. Goldfrapp's new album, with its pastoral feel and acid-folk overtones? You could call that Balearic. The sophisticated, slow-house of the New Jersey label Italians Do It Better? Very Balearic. Even Kate Bush is in on the act. Her last album, Aerial, with its ambient interludes and massive crescendoes, couldn't have been more Balearic if it was wearing white espadrilles and hoovering up MDMA.

Nick De Cosemo, editor of the dance magazine Mixmag, has a further theory about Balearic. First, he suggests, some of the new bands and DJs function as "the acceptable face of chill-out, and in some ways the acceptable face of the 'Guilty Pleasures' phenomenon." Second, he posits that a scene rooted in the drug revolution of 20 years ago might now be recurring as a partial reaction against drugs. "The whole minimal thing - very discordant, electronic music that is interesting but very challenging - has been dominant for a few years, really fuelled by ketamine, and a taste for disharmony. I think there's probably a search for melody again, something a bit less abrasive for people doing less drugs."

But perhaps the real attraction of the Balearic scene lies - at least for now - in its organic, unmarketed state. Its open-mind and constantly evolving nature makes it difficult to turn into a standardised advertising soundtrack or instore radio staple in a way that couldn't be said of new rave or indie. "In A Short Film About Chilling someone asks [808 State's] Graeme Massey about Balearic, and he says it's just about having freedom in DJing," explains Balearic Mike. "There's loads of artists you shouldn't even own records by but sometimes it just sounds right." In this way, the scene is harking back to a time before every single aspect of youth culture was commodified and marketed. "We started Boy's Own coming out of the matt-black Filofax era in terms of what nightclubs were like," recalls Eckel. "Nowadays you can do college courses in party planning and every aspect of event management. It was much less structured then."

So unstructured that even Chris Rea could and can be celebrated as a house pioneer. "I Can Hear Your Heartbeat's a sweet record," says Chris Galloway. "Danny Rampling broke it first time round. The story I heard was that it was played in a taxi when he was on the way home from Amnesia and he loved it." In the world of Balearic, anything goes.

· A Mountain of One's Collected Works is out now on Mountain Records. Balearic Mike's album, Cosmic Alphonsus Vol 7, is available through piccadillyrecords.co.uk.

The Jukebox Made In Heaven

From CDs to downloads, vinyl has had a tough time of it lately. But maybe there are enough people like Rahul Verma around...
It's 21 years since I first stumbled on an independent record shop, Beggars' Banquet in Kingston. Even for an 11-year-old, its teeming, vibrant window display, piles of flyers and hundreds of records and tapes with handwritten descriptions stood out against the sterility of Our Price and Woolworths. I've been a devotee ever since, never happier than whiling away a spare few hours trawling through the racks of a quirky record shop tucked away from the identikit high street. I'm a music journalist and I've still never bought a CD: strictly vinyl only. But the last few years have been worrying.

The internet has revolutionised how we access and consume music, what with online purchasing, file-sharing and downloads. The independent scene survives - just. There have been some high-profile casualties: this summer Soho's Berwick Street, which has the highest density of independent record shops per square metre in the country, lost Reckless Records after 24 years and Mister CD also closed. Reckless's closure is particularly sad considering its pivotal role: Coldcut formed after meeting there by chance in 1986, and it was the place to be during the late 80s rare groove and acid jazz scene where DJs Norman Jay and Ashley Beedle could be found waxing lyrical to shop manager Patrick Forge, who would go on to co-found Kiss FM.

Joe Bindley started at Reckless in the 80s before setting up secondhand record shop Vinyl Exchange in Manchester in 1988. It has been hard work and the internet hasn't helped, but Bindley is still there. "People popping in to buy CDs in their lunch hour was our bread and butter; the ability to buy music online has hurt us," explains Bindley. "That's the same for all record shops: you simply don't have as many people coming through the door, because they don't need to go out of the house to do their shopping."

But Bindley has harnessed the beast. "The internet's an opportunity as well: now we sell loads of music online, which means our market is bigger than ever because we sell internationally," he continues. "Previously we did international mail order by phone and it was hit and miss; now people can see exactly what we've got online and it's much more slick."

And while the internet can beat any independent record shop in terms of convenience and choice - it is virtually a celestial jukebox, offering access to almost any song ever recorded - it can't provide face-to-face contact.

"Online, you can read that 'people who bought this record also bought that one', but that's nothing like dealing with counter staff on a regular basis - you get to know people," says Bindley. "Staff will say: 'We've just got this that you might like, or you liked this guy in such-and-such a band and he's now in this other band, so you might want to listen to this.'

There's no substitute for well-informed staff. You can't get that online; interaction there is done in a very crude way."

Stephen Godfroy, the director of Rough Trade shops who oversaw the opening of a flagship store in London's Brick Lane this summer, agrees: "If you're an independent record shop people are going to shop with you rather than online because of the experience you provide, and that is partly down to how much knowledge the staff have and how they share it."

And a correlation of that is the independents' status as trendsetters. "We're all about discovering new releases," says Godfroy. He points out that while of course the Rough Trade shops sell music that reaches the top of the charts, what they excel at is introducing music that doesn't have the benefit of huge marketing campaigns to generate interest. "Thanks to our staff knowledge and 20 years of experience in music, we can help generate a following for an interesting or underrated band. People can discover bands with us at an early stage of their careers."

Looked at this way, the future is anything but bleak for those independent record shops sturdy enough to survive the current corporate and technological revolution. After all, they've been here before.

"With music, there has been a battle between the high street - HMV, Virgin, Our Price, supermarkets - and independent shops for 20 years," says Bindley. "And we're still here." Furthermore, he points out that other areas are catching up: foodies as well as music lovers are down on supermarkets these days. So, with any luck, my Saturday afternoons flicking through the racks are safe for a while yet.

SALE!

The New Year is already shaping up nicely for me. I went to the sales yesterday, and found a bargain pair of black drainpipe fit jeans made by punkyfish. Check their online store and where to get your hands on some of their gear. Get Dressed for 2008. It's gonna be a good one!

James Brown Tribute T- Shirts

Bagged Yours yet? On SALE at WeFunk Radio

Laura Rubin Interview

Candy Darling photographed by Laura Rubin

Laura Rubin's photographs of Candy Darling, Holly Woodlawn, and other Warhol stars have been widely exhibited and reproduced in books on the era, including My Face for the World to See: the Diaries, Letters and Drawings of Candy Darling and Holly Woodlawn's autobiography, A Low Life in High Heels. Her work can be seen at: www.rasa.com/warhol.

In the Eye of the Glitterball written by Peter Dougherty

In a rare confluence of art and commerce, two homosexual Italian Americans from working-class families in Brooklyn developed the cult and culture of the DJ and put them at the vanguard of New York City nightlife. Want to read more? Click on blog title.

Slang Terms Of...

...The Seventies! Hey! I got love for you if you were born in the late sixties, early seventies and in the eighties! Rock on! Calvin Harris! Am a Doonhamer anaw ye ken!

Airhead
Stupid person, usually a woman, usually blond. Often someone pretending to be stupid in order to be considered attractive to the opposite sex.
All Right
That's da bomb.
Bogue
Used to describe something offensive or an unrealistic idea. "That's so Bogue" or "That's Bogue" or "Bogue, man..."
The 'Crib' and going to the 'Gig'
The "crib" was going home or to someone else's house, and "gig" was work or job.
Dream On
a term used to get someone down to earth, or tell them they are being unrealistic about something, e.g. when someone would say, "I'm getting a brand new car!" you'd respond, "Yeah, right; dream on man!"
Far Out
cool
In Your Face or simply 'Face!'
I have succeeded in embarrassing or up-staging you (usually as through an exceptional play in basketball).
Lay A Gasser
to fart.



TO BE CONTINUED...

It's The Way She Walks.

A woman who walks with a seductive sway of her hips is unlikely to be ovulating, a finding that sheds light on the complex sexual signals that women give to men, New Scientist reports.

A team at Queen's University in Ontario, Canada, dressed female volunteers in suits which had light reflectors placed on the joints and limbs and filmed them walking in order to analyse their gait, the British weekly says.
The women also gave a saliva sample to assess their hormone levels.
Women who were in the fertile period of their menstrual cycle walked with smaller hip movements and with their knees closer together, the scientists found.
Forty male volunteers were shown the footage of the women and were asked to rate those with the sexiest walk. The winners were those who turned out to be in the least fertile part of their cycle.
The study appears to run counter to recent research that found men respond more readily towards women at ovulation. A US paper published last month found that lap dancers earn more tips during their fertile period than during the non-fertile part of their cycle.
But, the Canadian researchers believe, there is no contradiction, because a fertile woman gives out "come-hither" signals at close range rather than at a distance.
These signals come through scent molecules called pheromones and facial expressions. The proximity means a woman can vet a potential mate for fitness before allowing him to come close to her.
In contrast, men can pick up the attractiveness of a woman's walk from a long distance -- and a "sexy" walk, visible from afar, could therefore act as an unwitting signal to less appealing males.
So, having a less sexy walk at the time of ovulation gives a woman an evolutionary advantage: she can hide her fertile period from an undesirable man who might want to take advantage of her at the time.
The research, by Meghan Provost, is to be published in the US journal Archives of Sexual Behavior, says the report. It appears in this Saturday's issue of New Scientist.

Christmas Shopping?

A huge selection of Punk Rock T-Shirts, over 13,900 different designs to be exact. Click title above. Check it.

Made In Korea.

The guitar is one of the easiest instruments to learn but one of the most difficult to master.

Selected Sounds Of Space

The multimedia production Sun Rings is based on sounds of space collected by University of Iowa Prof. Don Gurnett over a 40-year period. The musical portion of Sun Rings was composed by Terry Riley and performed by the Kronos Quartet, and accompanied by a visual production created by visual designer Willie Williams. Sun Rings was commissioned by NASA and co-commissioned by Hancher Auditorium, the University of Iowa, the National Endowment for the Arts, The Rockefeller Foundation, and other music-presenting organizations. owa, Iowa City, IA. Listen to discussion about the sounds of space and the Kronos Quartet
Jan. 23, 2003 Sounds of Space - Listen to sample sounds of space.