Friday, May 23rd, 2008

Gary Wilson DVD Release Party @ The Knitting Factory on Friday June 6th

gary wilson

Come enjoy the mayhem with Gary Wilson and Plexifilm at the Knitting Factory (NYC) on Friday June 6th as we celebrate the release of You Think You Really Know Me-The Gary Wilson Story.

Check out this lineup, it will be a night to remember:

Gary Wilson and the Blind Dates
James Ausfahrt (Love is All)
Andrew Thompson
The Bunnybrains
The Shalitas
Hosted by MC Paul Barman
Tickets are Available on-line or at the Knitting Factory Box office.

[del.icio.us] [Digg] [Ma.gnolia] [StumbleUpon]
Friday, May 16th, 2008

Ode to the Plexi CD player

In my first post on the Plexiblog, I’d like to pay homage to a CD player. Not just any CD player, mind you, but the little wonder that has kept our office filled with music during the entire existence of the company so far (coming up on seven years!).

I actually bought this Sony when I first moved to New York, for my apartment in Brooklyn. I liked its vertical orientation, see-through aesthetic, and its faux wood grain. But then we started Plexi in my apartment, so it naturally became our office music machine. It’s tough to estimate how many CDs this little guy has played… we average at least eight discs a day here, times five days a week, times 52 weeks a year, times seven years… that’s almost 15,000 CDs!

About a year ago we thought it was on its last legs. The up/down sliding mechanism it uses to load the discs started sticking, so you have to punch the front of the glass with your fist in order to get a disc to load or eject. But somehow we’ve all gotten used to that, and it just seems normal now. 

Hang in there little CD player. For the years of rock you’ve brought us, we salute you. 

[del.icio.us] [Digg] [Ma.gnolia] [StumbleUpon]
Friday, May 16th, 2008

Johnny Scott

Johnny Scott is soothing my hangover – I ditched the Nurofen in favour of an old Jazzer. 

Anyone with a healthy interest in vintage British horror and documentary films will know this guy. He scored a load of Norman J Warren flicks throughout the Sixties and Seventies and collaborated with Jacques Cousteau. He now lives in the States where he spends his time conducting the Hollywood Symphony Orchestra and writing cues for Van Damme films amongst others.

Here The Johnny Scott Quintet perform a track from the 1961 movie All Night Long which is based on the Shakespeare play Othello and stars some other greats including Charlie Mingus and Dave Brubeck. For anyone else with a sore head this morning, here you go:

 

[del.icio.us] [Digg] [Ma.gnolia] [StumbleUpon]
Wednesday, May 14th, 2008

Things I’ve learned from Dean Wareham part 1

I’m 50 pages into Black Postcards, the Dean Wareham memoir. Here is the first installment things I have learned from Dean’s book.
dean
15 things I’ve learned so far:

-Don’t take acid and swing a pickax
Chinatown’s Pathmark is the biggest supermarket in Manhattan
Voidoids’ guitarist Robert Quine once said: “Matthew Sweet…I hope he gets hit by a bus.”
-It’s sexy for a girl to have an empty refrigerator
Australians are fond of suits that favor shorts over long pants
-Dean and Damon’s pre-Galaxie 500 band Speedy and the Castanets lost a battle of the bands to a band featuring Semisonic singer Dan Wilson
-Pete Kember and Jason Pierce had come to fisticuffs the first time songwriting credits were discussed in Spacemen 3
Naomi’s mom writes a gardening column for the New York Times
The first Galaxie 500 album was made for $750.
Damon was class valedictorian and president of his high school class
-The cover image on David Bowie’s Diamond Dogs is scary
Damon and Naomi have been a couple since high school
-Dean is a big Feelies fan
-Boston Scenester, Billy Ruane, was the first person to book The Middle East Rock Club in Cambridge, MA had a day job and it was working in the Wider Library
Joe Cocker was big in Australia

don't let your youth go to waste
p.s. . I really enjoyed working on the Galaxie 500 DVD, Don’t Let Your Youth Go To Waste, with Dean, Damon and Naomi released by Plexifilm a couple of years ago.

[del.icio.us] [Digg] [Ma.gnolia] [StumbleUpon]
Thursday, May 1st, 2008

Morrissey Channeling Sammy Davis Jr.

I was a big Smiths fan in my youth. Morrissey influenced me to write really bad adolescent poetry and to use too much hair gell to the point where my hair did not look so different from a helmet. That said, earlier this week I watched a performance of Morrissey on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, and was shocked to hear the vocal stylings of Sammy Davis Jr. coming out of Moz’s mouth. I’m serious, close your eyes and watch the video.

Sammy as Morrissey:
Sammy as Morrissey

[del.icio.us] [Digg] [Ma.gnolia] [StumbleUpon]