From Blag Jesus Sex Machine Sent Mon, Sep 21st 1998, 23:00
From Blag Jesus Sex Machine Sent Mon, Sep 21st 1998, 23:00
So, I was going to lay out on this thread, but I can't.
Trying to rank things is futile, so here's a list off the top of my head:
I'm leaving out jazz records, (which would make this list MUCH MUCH
longer) and everything before I turned 15, but my basic groundwork was
QUEEN (*barf* I don't know what I was thinking, but I was kid... the first
tape I ever bought was "A Day at the Races." Hold that against me if you
want.) LED ZEPPELIN, PINK FLOYD, THE WHO, THE POLICE, THE BEATLES, BOB
MARLEY (tapes from K-Mart) and the 70s coked-out ROLLING STONES... then
came:
The Clash: London Calling ("Clampdown" was my theme song in high school,
of course, I love every Clash record to little pieces.)
Gang of Four: Entertainment! (I saw a few other people mention this, so
it obviously needs no review. I did a little dance in the aisle of the
record store when I discovered the CD reissue. I used to listen to it and
London Callin almost exclusively.)
Black Uhuru: I got really into all of the Michael Rose-era B.U. records,
which led me to DUB, which I discovered completely by accident, as I had
no idea what dub was until I bought a B.U. dub record. ("Wow, this 'dub'
shit is cool!" I thought, and proceeded to buy whatever I could find that
said "Dub" on it... which wasn't much considering I was deep in the heart
of the midwest.)
<<Around this time I was also into Fugazi, Jawbreaker, Mano Negra, The
Specials, the The, Violent Femmes, and Son House.>>
Big Black: The Rich Man's 8-Track Tape (I heard "Kerosene" on the radio
and thought "Kick ass, a song about my hometown!" So I bought this CD (I
actually didn't even have a CD player yet) and annoyed my best friend with
it. I wanted to do "Jordan Minnesota" in my high school garage band, but
my fellow bandmembers said we couldn't since we didn't have a keyboard
player. I just dropped the issue, needless to say :) No one has ever
managed to duplicate the perfection of the Big Black Chink and Vroom
guitar sound. Steve Albini looked like a big dork too, which was a
definite bonus.)
Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy: Hypocrisy is the Greatest Luxury
(I closed my radio show with "Waterpistol Man" every night for over two
years. I'm really disappointed out how whole heartedly Michael Franti
sold out. I don't really listen to this record much any more because of
it. But, at the time DHH was perfect for me.)
Gary Clail and the On-U sound system: Emotional Hooligan (I got this in
college, my first introduction to AMS. I was REALLY into that record for
a long time "Holy shit! Radical-militant vegetarian dub reggae!" I still
listen to it a lot, even though it's a tad housey at times. I do't don't
think anyone can dispute the mastery of "False Leader." Those Big Youth
samples still make the hairs on my neck stand up.)
Dub Syndicate: Echomania (The first record I got after the Gary Clail one.
After I got this one I started picking up anything I saw with Adrian
Sherwood's name on it. I'm still doing that to this day, but there are
better record stores here in sunny California, so I don't buy *everything*
I see.)
KMFDM: UAIOE (I was a trenchcoat kid for a couple of years, listened to a
lot of WaxTrax! stuff, but this is the only one I still listen to. Of
course Adrian Sherwood produced it (and reused some Tack>>head tracks in
the process) so of course, it's going to hold up.
Manifestation: AXIOM compilation Vol 2. (I was music director at my
college radio station, and this got sent to me by Polygram. I didn't play
it on the air very much (our audience would get pretty peeved about having
to sit through music like that, as they wanted to hear Suicidal Tendancies
and that fucking "Detachable Penis" song.) but I listened to it at home
incessantly. Thus began the Bill Laswell phase. That went on for a
while, but sometime last year I got tired of the 2 basslines he plays and
sort of moved on...)
Autechre: Incunabula (sent to me at the radio station by TVT. I used it
as a music bed for one of my projects in college, but I never found any
other records by them until I moved to California.)
The Orb: The Orb's Adventures Beyond... (I LOOOOOOVED this record. It was
my walkman tape for several months, and was much better for listening to
while on acid than my other favorite record at the time, Coil's "Love's
Secret Domain." I'm convinced that the bass parts on the Coil record were
specifically designed to fuck with people on acid. I also had two copies
of the "Prepetual Dawn" 12" and basically taught myself ever DJ trick I
know with those two 12"s. I can fuck that shit up... :)
I moved to California the summer after I first heard the Orb, and I
listened to "The Low End Theory" by A Tribe Called Quest for almost all of
my three day busride.
Once I got here, I found out all of my records got stolen (along with
well, just about everything else I owned) and I got a job at Tower
records. Not only did the hours suck, they treated you like shit AND the
pay sucked. I listened to a lot of really angry stuff and Tom Waits
records then.
After refusing to like them when their first record came out (I don't know
what I was thinking) I went completely apeshit over SPIRITUALIZED. Every
single one of their records is an epihany.
Last year I started working at a different record store, and got turned on
to what is now called "IDM" by Kiya "Lord of the Copier" B. I got Blech
(which I'm convinced is the best IDM starter CD) and a bunch other cool
shit that he recommended. This is all his fault, not mine.
Lately, I've been filling in gaps in my record collection as opposed to
looking for anything new and mind-blowing, but in the past several months
there have been three things that really stick out.
The Ae remix of 1647, which is without a doubt the best autechre track
I've ever heard, hands down.
The Headfake "Cycles" 12" is just awesome.
and my album of the year: Audio Active: Tokyo Space Cowboys (It's like
Lee Perry if he was Japanese and from outer space! It rules rules rules.
The Apollo Choco Remix EP is also really cool, and it's mostly insane dnb,
and it even has an Alec Empire remix that I actually like, and I HATE that
freakin Alec Empire.)
I'm not even going to go back over what I just wrote, as I know I've left
out a lot of things. Heh.
.Bil.
IAMaCOPIER