DJs might be opting for serato... and yes, there's a whole lot of people getting stuff online (via legal and illegal means)... but the recent development is that people who abandoned vinyl in the 80's... people who bought into cds, and ditched their collections because they were living in small apartments, or had young children... and didn't have the time, or the room for records... a lot of those people have careers, and grown up children, and houses... and they're coming back.

In a weird way, record collections are the new midlife crisis... the people that were buying sports cars 20 years ago are opting to seek out original pressings of records they remember from their youth... or they're digging up jazz albums that have never made it to cd... DJs, for the most part, have moved on... and the shops that catered specifically to that market have suffered... the shops that appeal to a wider clientele have survived... and despite a few closures there are some really great shops in this city...


my picks:
Beatnick
Atom Heart
Cheap Thrills
Soundcentral
Death of Vinyl

as for the chain stores... well... they fucked themselves right in the ass when they replaced knowledgeable staff with people who can run a till and look hip while they're doing it... their focus shifted from having employees that were able to introduce people to music, and sell the back catalog that actually turns a profit, to relying on a 'range' of proven sellers - and a chart wall that might move a lot of units, but has an extremely weak profit margin...

Of course, this is just my opinion based on observations made during 10+ years of work in the industry...

[ chud.com ]

looks like a sweet night... not sure if I'll be able to slip out to catch any of it, though... nice to see a crew dedicated to keeping the vinyl alive!

Two Girls - (We Are) One Cup

probably... but I wasn't here before that, so I can't say for sure.

I've always used contact cleaner... under no circumstances should you use WD-40... it might work better for an hour, but then it'll be worse than it was before.

y'know... I could have sworn that breakcore has been here at least as long as I've lived here.

I think I'll have to make it out for this...

kick ass!

it's arguably one of the best breakcore sets of all time... the version of Necrophilia that he put together is total madness.

Sweet... does that mean the only ones missing are Mark N., Abelcain and Unibomber?

Only two weeks until S4!

awesome read... thanks muchly, ms. haze!

don't forget Arthur Baker... that guy was fuckin' everywhere... he produced Planet Rock, selected the soundtrack for Beat Street, remixed everybody from Cyndi Lauper to New Order... and still managed to find the time to put together his own classics (Breaker's Revenge!)...

not bad for a white guy with a mullet!

I'm not especially interested in opening a whole can of worms here, but yeah... violence, poverty and crime have been topics in hip-hop for a long time... the difference is that in the early days it wasn't something that was glamorized. If you read enough McLuhan you'll come across the notion that violence is a tool used by people who feel stripped of their identity. The founding elements of hip-hop provided the means for people to express themselves in non-violent ways... issues and beefs could be settled through dancing or rapping... these were called battles, but they weren't about violence - they were a means to avoid it.

A lot of the early-school sought ways to send a positive message - something that KRS-ONE began referring to as edutainment... but that trend didn't start with him; tracks like The Message spoke of the conditions in the ghetto, and White Lines warned people away from addictive drugs...

how does your PE reference make sense, btw... they're the furthest thing from gansta... and despite the media's attempts to paint them as intolerant of other cultures, I've only ever gotten the feeling that they're intolerant of oppression... case in point, Chuck D's response to what happened at Oka:
[ www.discogs.com ]

try tennis balls cut in half - with a patio stone on top, then a thin layer of foam and another patio stone... I know a few guys that swear by that solution...

dropped off hardcopies of the flyers at Atom Heart and Beatnick, if anyone's looking for 'em.

got a bundle of flyers today, they look sick. I'm so looking forward to this.

I think you're talking about the new Shitmat record on Planet-µ... which, I must concur, is pretty damn awesome...

there's a lot of excitement about this year's event... the show last summer (with Mark N., Baseck vs. Dynasty, Anonymous, Abelcain and Unibomber) was one of the most retarded things ever, and it's going to be crazy to head back to Detroit (which hosted Schizo II in December of '07)... the Friday night show (with XANOPTICON and Synthamesk) should be really sick, too...

This is only a few hours from Toronto - and you've got a month to plan your trip... y'all should find a way to get there.

This promises to be most excellent. Over the last couple of years Schizophrenia has really raised the bar and become the premier breakcore event in North America.

my point is that one of the reasons that the scene has dissolved over the past few years is that a lot of people think that kind words and a smiling face constitutes "showing support"... but without some sort of a return on their investment, a lot of artists will be forced away from production... and not just the bad ones. This isn't strictly a discussion about money, either... I'm talking about the investment of time. You can give back by helping to spread the word about a new artist, by talking to promoters at clubs about artists, or by asking about them when you go to stores... so that even if you can't afford the record, you've maybe helped a struggling artists get a gig, or sell a record to someone else. I mean, I've received more than my fair share of promos, and a number of artists regularly pass me material before it's released, but even when I'm not paying cash for the music, I still feel obligated to provide some sort of feedback about the material... and if it's material that I really like I'll go ahead and get a copy when it comes out, sometimes more than one copy.

I've always made it a point to include track listings for all my mixes, and I've never, ever tried to keep any signature tracks a secret.

My point is... what's happened to respect if the only thing that stops people from stealing is that sometimes it's hard?

where does this sense of entitlement come from?

I mean... all the arguments boil down to people whining that "the things I want cost more than I can afford!"

never a fan...

...and I find it kind of disturbing how the media has jumped off the "he's a freak" bandwagon and decided that he was misunderstood, or something... but hey, somebody's making money... yesterday afternoon Jacko held down the top 14 bestsellers on [ amazon.ca ]

the 'dance' instructions on the back are classic.

North America's premiere breakcore event is back again. Serving up a collective response to summer of broken dreams, Schizophrenia brings you shattered beats and full-on chaos. More details as they are made available... but here's something to whet your appetite.

Schizophreni4
Saturday, September 5th
Detroit, Mi

Somatic Responses - LIVE
CDatakill - LIVE
Dev/Null - LIVE
Unibomber - LIVE
Fishead
Sickboy - LIVE
J-Stat - LIVE
Droon - LIVE
Stagediver - LIVE
In Broken Key - LIVE

[ schizophrenia.c8.com ]

check out the Abusive Consequences releases that No Room For Talent put out... Hidden did the sleeve art for them. Sick, sick stuff.

Actually, Mutanté isn't joking. He canceled his appearance after a travel advisory was issued warning people about the possible dangers of coming to North America... it's not just Montreal that was canceled, there was a show lined up in Toronto as well.

a diabetic friend of mine once had problems with Jehovah's Witnesses coming around all the time. One day he answered the door while taking his insulin shot. They freaked out at the sight of the needle (probably thought he was a degenerate) and ran away...

well... they're both well outside the styles that I like, but Acid Drops has some elements that I quite like. The psy-influence kind of takes me out of it, but the basic groove to the track is nice... the Moroder-ish melody at the beginning is a nice hook, and it hits me in the same place as some of the less-abrasive material on Kompakt.

At any rate, I'm not a fan of house or psy-trance, and I managed to make it all the way through... so that's saying something.

sorry... I'm getting crucified by term papers at the moment... which is appropriate, given that it's Easter weekend and all.

Ambush had some pretty solid releases, not sure if they're still around... Welcome To The Warren and Snipers At Work were really sick for the time. Panacea's Tron/Torture 12" is also hard as hell... stay away from the remixes, though... the Torture remixes that came out years later are total shit.

Scud's release on Rephlex is a decent starting point... it's a decent overview of his work, although it's missing some keys tracks (notably Total Destruction and Mash The Place Up).

Kid 606 has done some stuff along these lines, and the Tech Level 2 release on the ShockOut label is interesting (for those unaware, Tech Level 2 is the drum'n'bass alter-ego of Justin Broadrick)...

for the most part, though... I couldn't really care less what 'genre' something falls into.

I got dibs on last place.

crazy... I'm just on the other side of Gauthier.

Well... the state of the modern horror film is pretty terrible... it all seems to be either remakes or films modeled on the framework of torture-porn (ie: Hostel and such) or reality-horror (handheld shaky-cam films like Cloverfield, Diary of the Dead)... but the light may be at the end of the tunnel. I think now that the tools of production are in the hands of more and more people, there is the possibility to have far more interesting material floating around now. Unfortunately, the means of distribution aren't quite as easy to access... unless one wants to invest money and time into a film, only to turn around and upload it to torrent sites and get absolutely no return.

It's going to take some time for things to sort themselves out, but I feel that putting cameras into more hands may lead to some really interesting things. It will also, undoubtedly, lead to a lot more crap that isn't worth watching... but sometimes it's worth wading through a lot of bad ideas in order to get at a really great one.

how far up the street? I'm about three blocks from there.

I meant Driller Killer was a Ferrara film... LHoDES is some guy who disappeared into obscurity after making the film... As for Last House On The Left... I often get the feeling that the original Hills Have Eyes is the only film Wes Craven has ever had anything to do with that's worth watching.



Walken really isn't in The Addiction for very long... it's more of a cameo (similar to his appearance in True Romance, but not as good)... imho, that's the kind of role that Walken excels at. In small dose I think he can add immensely to a film, but when he's asked to be the lead it often fall flat (ie: Brainstorm, Dead Zone).

yeah.. but Driller Killer is also Abel Ferrara... who has made some pretty awesome films (Bad Lieutenant and The Addiction are the first to spring to mind)... as for Last House... are you you thinking of Last House On The Left (Cunningham/Craven vehicle) or Last House On Dead End Street?

If anything, films that were nearly impossible to track down during the VHS era are easier to find now... look at the work that companies like Barrel entertainment are doing. Last House On Dead End Street, Schramm, NEKROmantik, Darkness - these were things that were clandestinely traded in small circles where you could tell how in-the-loop you were by estimating what generation your copy was.

Shit... friends of mine used to collect all the different versions of films in the effort to splice together master cuts of films. I kind of miss the search... hitting up video shops and digging through the racks trying to find something obscure - not knowing if it was going to be a cut print, or something you hadn't seen... Now you can order Cannibal Holocaust from Amazon...

As for packaging... the metal box edition of Lucio Fulci's The Beyond (a film I was NEVER able to track down on VHS) is awesome... reproductions of lobby cards + a book.... it may not be quite as awesome as the ultra-limited Exorcist VHS that I've got (which came with full-size lobby cards, an 8" x 12" book and a still from the film)... but it's far more awesome than 99% of the VHS releases from back in the day.

there's a couple of spots around my place... including a little street park on Delormier (just below Sherbrooke)... anyhow... if anyone feels like hitting it up, let me know. I don't think it's ready yet, but in a couple of weeks we can head down there with a broom and sweep up the debris.

finally... some points!