Krautrocksampler: German Kosmische Music
Eno, Bowie, PiL, The Fall, Negativland, Stereolab, Orb, Sonic Youth, Th’ Faith Healers, Cul de Sac, Tortoise, LCD Soundsystem, Fujiya & Miyagi, even Wilco among many many others were profoundly influenced by Krautrock. For years, the albums were nearly impossible to find, and I was only able to play a smattering of Can and Neu! on my radio show, Uncle Fester’s Bucket O’ Nasties from 1987-92. A slew of reissues came out, thanks partly to The Teardrop Explodes’ Julian Cope’s book, Krautrocksampler: One Head’s Guide to the Great Kosmische Musik, first published in part as an article titled “Kosmische Echoes” in the December 1994 issue of The Wire. It was hard to tell which his overall favorites were, because nearly everything got the same level of hyperbole, even the ridiculous Cosmic Jokers, while he dismisses key Can albums. Continue...
January 20, 2008
Fast 'n' Bulbous Redesign (In Progress)
Since IE7 decided to make my venerable, long suffering site look broken, I decided it was finally time to make the conversion to CSS. Some of you recall I started working on a redesign in 2005 for its 10th Anniversary (eek). I tried dozens of fonts and logos to base it on and wasn't happy with any of them. The current logo is still a temporary placeholder, while an amazingly-patient-and-generous-friend to whome I'll be forever indebted makes a nicer one. The color palette is not set in stone. I'm trying out the old dark green background combined with a sufficiently evil (\m/) black main content area, neon (meate dreams of an octafish) green headers and orange links. Feel free to compare the 
changes with the old site and give feedback via my email listed on the lower right, and I might try other things. Click on the image to see suggestions my friend John kindly made.
Neon Meate Dreams of an Orange Octafish
Lighter Dreams
Poopy old site
December 30, 2007
2007 Year-End Summary & Fester's Lucky 13s
I always say there's no such thing as a bad year in music, because every year there is more good music than anyone can possibly have time to digest. Some years it may be a little harder to find than others. As late as September I was a little worried. My list was looking a little anemic, and I wasn't feeling hardly any of the critical favorites of the year so far -- Panda Bear, The Field, The Arcade Fire, Kanye West, etc. I had to dig a little harder to find more albums that scratched my itch. My itches vary, from craving some good basic rock that isn't totally cliched and boring (Witchcraft, White Stripes, QOTSA), cracking, well-written, passionate pop songs (young UK bands pretty much cornered this market again, including Maxïmo Park, Field Music, Good Shoes, Mothers and the Addicts, The Rakes, The Maccabees), electronica ranging from glitchy microhouse to experimental to tuneful (Apparat, Matthew Dear, Dan Deacon, Moon Wiring Club, Chloe, Studio, Laub), and bits of metal, post-metal and hip-hop.
Most of all, I like the music that delves in mystery and magic, that's not easily categorized nor quickly digested. It's not always the case that music that takes a little more work is longer lasting. Continue...
Magnet Magazine: Fast 'n' Bulbous was reviewed in the Nov/Dec 2003 issue of Magnet, the best music magazine in North America (I'm not just saying that cuz they reviewed me, really. I've been a subscriber since issue 3).
The Wire Magazine: Adventures In Modern Music. Fast 'n' Bulbous was reviewed in the February 2001 issue of The Wire, a British magazine that covers "electronica, avant rock, breakbeat, jazz, modern classical, global and sounds from the outer limits."
