West Indian Girl

word has it that fran’s intern and all around west indian girl good guy band helper has been promoted. great work dino your going places kid.

in honor of my intern’s one year anniversary of slavery i have decided to give him a promotion. no longer will he be called “intern” — he has paid his dues long enough. his new title will be “operations manager/sherpa”. you’ve done a great job dino – everyone loves you and u r actually starting to listen and execute my orders with speed and efficiency.

in celebration of this promotion i have decided to name my new fighting fish santino – which is dino’s real name. this is a tad bittersweet though because tessio my most recent fish died earlier this week. rip tessio…your life was a bit shorter than the rest but u were a true warrior. you battled back a couple times from some sort of fish disease – it was tough watching u die. i wish these fighting fish had a longer lifespan than just the one year average. anyway, dino…meet santino – ur now in charge of feeding him when u are over here.

hardknox. i found this bio and it’s really accurate “Equipped with the streetwise fury of a junglist, the uncompromising angst of a metal rocker, and the discriminating taste of a Big Beat cut ‘n’ paster, Lindy Layton and Steve P — better known as the seasoned production duo Hardknox — overturn electronic music conventions into bloody, indistinguishable masses of sound. Scorched basslines press up against blistering breakbeats as screaming guitars survey the resulting ruination like shocked onlookers to a train wreck. Featuring a cameo by Schoolly D on their self-titled 1999 full-length debut, the grungy sounds of Hardknox first appeared on Skint Records (home of Big Beat king Fatboy Slim.) Hardknox’s window-cracking, wall-shuddering, speaker-busting sonic brutalism plays out like a lesson learned the hard way, spraying hooks with all the lethal fury of gunfire“.

i first heard of hardknox in 1999 when their self-titled debut landed on my desk. at the time i thought it was one of the better records i had heard primarily because of the aggressive nature to it all. the album moves into some dark dreamy patches at times but there are always aggressive almost abusive undertones throughout. to this day hardknox remains as a staple on my shuffle as i pretty much only listen to this when im doing something physical and aggressive like working out or running. this definitely isnt a band for everybody but im very specific in how i “use” (listen to) hardknox. it works really well for me in that regard and i suggest you track this cd down if u like to listen to music when u exercise. the track i chose cos i can is the first track i ever heard as well as the first track that hooked me. hope u investigate more.

the h’s on both my desk top and lap top computers are pretty f’n weak. it’s always so much nicer when u have a ton of choices – maybe that’s why i have scratched my head over this second choice for a while. im not sure what this phenomenon is called but when i look at my library i have a bunch of singles by a bunch of h’s but not too many full albums. obviously this is the sign of the times as we move away from the full album paradigm into the age of digital singles. i mean, west indian girl’s next release is going to be a digital twin single so im not really complaining…just commenting – good or bad im not sure but that’s present day reality. i honestly dont have anything i feel really strongly about as it pertains to a new band. im sure some of u will mention health or the horrors and i hope u do because i want to listen to more of them. for both of the bands i only have a few tracks in my library but nothing where i can confidently say “i love this band and this album and here’s why”. i feel i would undermine my own credibility if i broke my own rules and just mentioned a trendy h pick based on just a song or 2.

heatwave. taking a page out of one of our regular blog-poster’s (nick d) book i’m going with a band from the 70’s. why? well the reason is this…while researching all my h’s i found heatwave’s story to be the most enjoyable to read because i honestly didnt know anything about them except that they wrote disco songs. please check out the bio i have linked because it’s a great read – i had no idea that their keyboardist and leader rod temperton went on to write and produce so many hit songs…esp with michael jackson. plus the picture i found of them is pretty classic – they look like they would still be really cool today. anyway, chalk heatwave up to a lesson in 70’s disco fusion. another reason i chose this song was because of the first 33 second dreamy jazzy intro which im sure so many people forget is even there. it’s pretty awesome how they started this song and how it drops right into that classic groove. normally i dont post videos but damn this is awesome – the amps the outfits the moves. makes me feel good.

Bonus: 80’s cheeseball or synth pop genius…u make the call on this one. funny how the more digging u do the more u sometimes end up kind of liking someone in a very warped way. for example i had no idea that harold faltermeyer was an arranger on giorgio moroder’s soundtrack to the 1978 film midnight express, which if u havent seen u should because it’s a great movie. anyway…isnt it amazing how much money a person can actually make in this industry? fletch anyone. shit, his official site claims that this song is actually the biggest selling ring tone of all time. damn, good god harold.

OK PLEASE SEND ME NEW MUSIC!!! IDEALLY FROM THE LAST 2 YEARS – I DESIRE RECENT H’S

score another one for the great mark mahoney – mark has done all my work since 2001. he really is the best…no wonder why the appointment wait lists over a year long. interesting notes – at one point lady gaga, danny trejo, rita ora and mickey avalon were all in that back room together. it was pretty damn random if u ask me

watch this interview – it was done in the dressing room before our show at bottom of the hill in sf. as u can see my fellow ant drummer – jesper is standing to my right. he’s the strong silent type. we have a running joke about ants because i take an ant supplement called super ant….it’s basically ground up changbai black mountain ants. anyway, jesper now calls me frant. fyi this ant is the richest source of zinc from a plant or animal on earth. chew on that fact.