1) We’re still recording!  And “BCF the Webcomic” is languishing.  I’ll make more someday, but not too soon - shit is busy, people.  I’m doing some music for an upcoming Killing My Lobster show, for an upcoming KML short, and… shit, for lots of random things, and yet the damn number of hours in the day remains stubbornly constant.  Which means I have to spend some time in my time experiments, attempting to slow down time.  Of course I am wildly successful, but those experiments are filling up all that extra time.  Ah, the bitter, bitter irony.  But we are making recording progress, so that’s super god damn spanking awesome.  With fishy parts on top.  Mmm.

2) UNRELATEDLY, the following is AWESOMENESS that YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT:

Have you heard about Komar & Melamid?  They have done excellent work.  I bought their album “People’s Choice Music” some many years ago, and it contains 2 songs.  They did “research” and “discovered” the characteristics of songs that people do & don’t like.  And created 2 songs - a “good” one and a “bad” one - that followed those rules set out by the results of their research.  And it’s… “awesome.”  Both songs are awful, awful, awful songs.  And so very wonderful.

You can read all about it on their webpage, but some “most wanted” characteristics (which will make their song be “unavoidably and uncontrollably liked by 72 ± 12% of listeners) include:

• moderately sized group of instruments consisting of guitar, piano, sax, bass, drums, violin, cello, synth;
• male & female voices singing in rock/r&b style;
• lyrics narrate a love story;
• moderate duration (about 5 minutes);
• moderate pitch range;
• moderate tempo.

Delicious.  Of course this song has to be wonderful.

And of course the “most unwanted” music:

• over 25 minutes long;
• veers wildly between loud & quiet sections & fast & slow tempos;
• features timbres of extremely high & low pitch;
• large orchestra, including accordion, bagpipe, banjo, flute, tuba, harp, organ, synth;
• operatic soprano raps & sings atonal music, ad jingles, political slogans & elevator music;
• children sings jingles & holiday songs (NOTE: I can’t stress enough how wonderful this aspect of the song makes the song.  It’s… it’s so, so glorious…)
• subject matter: cowboys and holidays.

Wonderful, wonderful.  The Most Unwanted Music… I can’t even do it justice.  It’s a masterpiece.  It’s… well, yes, it is awful.  But it’s not the kind of awful that you don’t want to hear.  It’s the kind of awful you want to hear again and again.  In a 25 minute song kind of way.  And no one could ever really love the Most Wanted one.  Or if you do, well… you should probably flog yourself.  In a non-sexy way.  Just to do it.  While listening to the song.  And eating god damn grapefruit or something; I don’t know.  What’s your problem?  How can you like that one more?  I don’t get you sometime.  Some days, I think you were adopted.  Mom and dad were right to kick you out.

Anyway… so, can you hear these two abominations for yourself?  But of course you can!

Here they are streamed:

Streaming the “Most Unwanted Music” (that’s the one you wanted to hear anyway, you dirty thing you):

And the “Most Wanted Music”:

And hey download and enjoy.  But they probably could also use the money!

• Download The Most Unwanted Song
• Download The Most Wanted Song

They also did research to find the most/least wanted paintings for a variety of countries, but we can discuss those later…

Peace beyond belief… & do all your shopping… at Walmart!

David & such

Anyway, in other news I recently re-introduced myself to Cody Chesnutt’s album “Headphone Masterpiece.” Who is Cody Chesnutt?  What am I, wikipedia?  No, I’m not.  But this is. Yep.  So read that if you want backstory.  Relations to the Roots, to various songs you may or may not know.  The album itself is 2 discs long and has a lo-fi sound/feel to it that at times maybe gets in the way but more often seems to kind of push it into a nice place I think.  And his lyrics alternate between sensitive, normal kind of rocking lyrics, and profoundly egotistical - for instance, the song, “Brother With An Ego,” which is really just a study of ego, which has the following lyrics:

“Sexy bitches that I fuck with my big black penis

Think that I’m a mother-fucking musical genius.”

And only those lyrics.  That’s it.  It’s a 13 second song.  Aw hell, I’ll link it below, too!  It’ll be fun.

But really the song I wanted to share is called “Somebody’s Parent.”  I like it - it’s got a lot going for it, in a played-down kind of way.  I find myself singing it at random times and in random locales - generally while not in great mood, but still.  I like this song, and I think you will too; enjoy yourself:  And I’ll throw in the “Ego” song and one more just for kicks, because I like you.  ‘Cause you’re so cute.  Aww.

Headphone Masterpiece

- Cody Chesnutt: “Somebody’s Parent”

- Cody Chesnutt: “Brother With An Ego”

- BONUS: Cody Chesnutt: “Upstarts in a Blowout”

Fuck yes.  Oh, and, you know - you can buy this album in places like this.

In Boneless-related news, we are still working on recording our 2nd, though it was interrupted by my several weeks out of the country on vacation.  Which was splendid enough.  But back to work, I suppose.  No rest for the wicked, or the weary, or the pissed off, & so on.

Peace with no relief,

David & such

Long time no blarg, eh?  Yes indeed.  Well, we’ve been quite busy over here at Boneless HQ.  For instance, Jonathan Kepke and I have been busy working up music for a short by Killing My Lobster, which actually I’ll also embed here for enjoyment:

Click here to view the embedded video.

And before that, I personally did the music for KML’s “Oakland” video:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Super.  And actually I posted the full musics over on my personal web page, which you can go enjoy by clicking here! And scrolling down to the KML Oakland section.  We’re having fun now, boy…

And otherwise, we’ve been recording our new album monster, which has been delightful and enjoyable and it’s getting there, you know how it is (do you?), and also preparing for the thrill-ride that is to be the Rock Make Street Festival in San Francisco! Which the kind folks running were kind enough to bring us in on.  And especially special thanks to Tartufi for that.

So it’s on Sunday, August 23, in San Francisco’s Mission District.  Can’t miss it.  It’ll be the loud music thing going on.  And it includes a huge number of other great bands - Tartufi, Low Red Land, The Dont’s, Geographer, Magic Bullets, and so on.  And it’s sponsored by The Bay Bridged, Tartufi and Whiz Bang Fabrics!  So there you go.  Oh, and co-presented by Noise Pop, yes it is!  So that’s a thing.  All in all.  To come and see.

Still not sure when we’ll be playing, but it’s going to be an exciting thing… probably we’ll be on the earlier side, because we are that kind of band, god damn it, but you never know I suppose!  AND we’re working hard to get some t-shirts printed up for the event!  And frighteningly special thanks to Sarah Forrester for continuing to help us with art and for being so super awesome.  It’s going to be a version of that there “Critters” design you see in the upper left hand corner of this page!  So that’s neat. And yes we will have girl sizes also!  Hooray!  So girls can wear our shirts all strapped to their upper bodies.  Lower half?  Sorry, we have nothing for you.  You’ll have to go nekkid if you need us to dress you.  Sorry.  For real.  Go get something on; it’s cold out.  In San Francisco.  I mean, or don’t - feel free to frolic naked until it gets cold.  But it will, because it’s San Francisco.  And it’s like that.

In other news, someone just reminded me that “Animal House” was the movie wherein I first saw actual nudity in a film.  Interesting.  Other early nudity-in-movies moments for me included “Ragtime” (the “my clothes evaporated” scene - the movie might have other scenes in it, but I can’t recall; I was a little thing at the time!), “Revenge of the Nerds,” and… well, I don’t know.  Probably whatever I could scare up on late night Showtime.  But that’s not so early anymore, really.  And I don’t think I’m all that scarred for it.  Nope.  I don’t think nudity really causes as many problems as violence.  I do recall seeing a brief, brief scene of the movie, “The Boogeyman” (1980 movie; not the 2005 one) where someone got an arrow in the neck while they were sitting in a car.  Yeah, that caused more ascaredyness in me than the nudity in the aforementioned movies caused profound en-pervitude.

Bottom line?  The following points:

1) Check out the musics and short videos I posted above;

2) Go to the Rock Make Street Festival on August 23 in San Francisco’s Mission District;

3) Go look at nudity; it’s good for you;

4) Don’t show your kids lots of violence, simulated or no.  Not good for their little minds.  Seriously, people.  Cut that shit out.

Ok!  Happy thoughts.  And more happy thoughts soon.  And watch out for fascism; it’s sticky and gross and really, really hard to clean off your shoes.  Stepped in some this morning.  Someone threw up some outside my house.  It’s a god damn mess.

More and more,

David

On July 3, we, the Boneless Children Foundation, being of sound, will be playing at San Francisco’s Make Out Room at 7:30 PM.  Which is located at 3225 22nd St in San Francisco!  Right the god damn there:
View Larger Map

Yup, pretty much right there.

We’ll be playing with The Parents, who are a delightful band who appear to formerly have been called Fuck Fuck Riot, which I think deserves about as much cheers as “The Boneless Children Foundation,” truth be told.  Though I like “The Parents,” too.  Both are nice.

But so The Parents, yup - and they’ll play after us, and we’ll play before them, and the show starts at 7:30 pm, and we play first, so that means we play at 7:30 pm.  And they play at 8:30 pm.

Yes, yes, a thousand times - YES!  This is early.  And it’s July 3.  Which means you’re going to be celebrating probably anyway, since I mean whoah - thank god we’re not a member of the British Commonwealth, huh?  Whoah.  I mean, Canada?  Pff.  Right.  Whatever, dude.  I’ll show you a Canada.

But, so anyway - the point is, yes, I know it’s early.  And that’s why it’s a great idea.  Because you can just get the party started right away.  [Emphasis mine]

So, come down, enjoy a drink, we’ll play some music, we’ll arm wrestle, Jon will show off his collection of dog tattoos, and I will fight you.  [Legal Notice: No, I won't.]

It should be fun; I love that place, and it’s been ages. In fact, I think the time before last - which itself was easily a year ago - was the time that the sound guy thought I’d thrown a drink at him from basically across the room.  Which I totally had not, though I will grant him that my story was very improbable - but true!  We played, we finished, I hustled to get my amp & other gear off the stage, and my whiskey glass (1/3 full, I might add) was on the lower tier of their stage as I reached up to the upper tier to grab my amp, and I put my right foot right by the whiskey, and I just pivoted it - for real.  Just pivoted it, and I obviously did something to pivot really, really strangely, because it ended up (a) rotated roughly one full 90 degrees in a counterclockwise direction, and (b) hitting that glass of whiskey, which rocketed off to my back-left (say, 8 o’clock from my perspective) at a surprising speed and smashed against the wall of the club, somewhat narrowly missing the sound guy who had just said something to me and proceeded to turn around and walk back to the sound mixing area.  I guess he must’ve said something that had conveyed a dicky tone, because it made logical sense to him that I had just then hurled a glass at him.  I don’t even remember; I was just hustling trying to get my shit done, and did particularly have time to take offense to anything just right then.  Though I suppose I do recall he was being a general dick that night, and to all the bands.

I’m not fact checking this all right now; I’ll do so later, and we’ll see how thrillingly a greater level of detail adds to the story.  So check back soon.  Oh boy!

The long & short:

- Friday, July 3, at the Make Out Room.  3225 22nd St.  San Francisco.

-The Boneless Children Foundation: 7:30 pm

-The Parents: 8:30 pm

-A full night of dancing to DJ business: directly post The Parents set.

So there you go.  And thanks to The Parents for inviting us to play the show…

-David

- Bob Dylan.  Really?  Bob Dylan?

- Cyndi Lauper:  So, so cute.

- Michael Jackson back when he was mysterious, but before he’d become creepy.  Yes, there was such a time!

- Huey Lewis.  Don’t get me wrong, I know Huey had/has some talent, and is a certain type of rock and roll powerhouse… but he was a #1 charting star back in the day. The 80’s.  They let dudes be stars whose bright ideas were to have them chasing single moms in their videos.  I don’t know the last time I saw Usher’s leading video lady having a kid.  Why?  Because it’s just not simple enough!  Fantasy is a simple, uni-dimensional thing.  It’s, “Ooh yeah, I wanna break me off a piece of that!” And not, “Ooh yeah, I wanna break me off a piece of that!  And then take her and her kid our for pizza!  And maybe we can all go see a movie or do some other family-oriented event this weekend!”  Naw, man.  Fantasy doesn’t tend to allow for complex, real-life situational drawback-ness.

- Did I mention Dionne Warwick?

- I have no comment to make about Billy Joel.  Let’s just move on.

If this had been done today, they’d stick to one, maybe two genres.  Not so back then; Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen, Dionne friggin Warwick, Kenny “Yule Log” Loggins, Steve “Journey” Perry, Paul Simon, Ray Charles, Lionel “Easy Like Sunday Mornin’” Richie, Harry Belafonte, Diana Ross, Willy Nelson, the Pointer Sisters… the list quite literally goes on and on.  Today, it’d be, like, Lady Gaga, Kanye West, Miley Cyrus, the cast from High School Musical, Britney Spears, the All-American Rejects and Usher.  And maybe Katy Perry.  And all would be super glammed up for the video, and probably Britney and Katy Perry would make out in the video.  And it’d be hot. None of this “showing the actual recording session” crap.  Where’s my near nudity?  I pay taxes; I deserve my somewhat titillating near nudity as much as the next guy.

Of course, those who are not there are kind of interesting… Madonna, Prince, Van Halen, Metallica… the Grateful Dead… heh… they should’ve all gotten together in 1985 to do their own.  I’d love to see Jerry and Madonna gettin’ down.  And Prince dancing in a way that is suggestive of the manner in which doves cry in the background.  And then Eddie Van Halen shreds his way through a guitar solo, unnecessarily finger-tapping all the way.  And Metallica kicks it up even one more notch, leading to an Eddie Van Halen-Kirk Hammett solo-off, a la Dragonforce.  Because it doesn’t get any better than that.

But wait - then Ozzy Osbourne and Zakk Wylde show up, Ozzy screaming about how the poor, starving kids need to eat.  Bat blood is flying everywhere.  Zakk is shredding up a storm on his bullseye guitar.  Eddie is playing the synth intro to “Panama.”  David Lee Roth’s pants are causing widespread hardware meltdowns in the studio.  The Grateful Dead are hiding in the bathroom getting high on “the grass.”  Madonna is kicking Prince’s ass.  Mr. T and Eddie Murphy are banging on the door, yelling, “We did a little bit of singing in the 80’s, too!  Let us in!”  Alex Van Halen falls from his drum set, which had been soaring above the studio.  He lays on his back, his belly baking in the hot sun, beating his legs trying to turn himself over, but he can’t. Not without your help.  But you’re not helping.  Why is that, Leon?

Whew!  Wow.  What a mess.  Maybe it is better that they weren’t invited.  Still, you’d think Boy George at least would’ve gotten an invite.  I mean, come on - he did a lot for equality.  He was a symbol in a huge way; he looms large.  And what about Wham?  Poor George Michael. Always the Wham’s-maid, never the… other thing.  Well, until after Wham, at which point he did become the other thing.  The main dude.

Anyway, so yeah.  On to the “mp3 blog” aspect of today’s post.

And I have two songs to share for today.  David Byrne is a multi-faceted artist with a long and incredibly illustrious career.  He is one of those artists who is just the guy, in that sense that there’s nobody like him.  He does his own thing without it being pretentious or ridiculous, and still manages to make it approachable & pleasant, even.  Say what you will about his solo career, but it is certainly widely varied - from the orchestral loveliness of “The Forest” to the Afro-Cuban amazing-nality of “Rei Momo,” and on into his more recent fairly poppy work, he has had quite a career.  And that’s not to go into his entire Talking Heads discography, which on its own is completely insane.

His most recent release, “Everything That Happens Will Happen Today,” is a collaboration with Brian Eno, long-time Byrne-related collaborator & all around amazing artist himself.  The good parts are very good.  And this song is one of them. 

It’s called “Home,” and here it is. It’s a pleasant, mid-tempo walkin’ kinda pop song.

Brian Eno deserves a special call out, too.  Former Roxy Music member, father of ambient music, and so on - he’s had quite a unique career, himself.  Perhaps even moreso than David Byrne, though their paths have intersected quite often.  At any rate, Eno’s first solo release, “Here Come the Warm Jets,” released in 1974, kicks off with this just fucking fantastic song, “Needle in the Camel’s Eye.”  Which doesn’t sound, really, anything like its title, and instead sounds a lot more like something the Strokes wish they would’ve written.  It’s like Iggy Pop “Lust For Life,” but maybe not quite so lusty.  I guess I’d concede that Eno’s vocal style is not the most unique ever - that’s probably the one thing keeping this song from being the most god damn amazing thing ever.  You don’t get that “he’s singing right to me” kind of feeling that you do from your David Byrnes, Tom Waitses and Billy Joels.  (I hate when Billy Joel sings right to me; I hate it so, so much.  He mocks me with his stupid voice.   Stop it, BJ!  Stop it now, BJ!!!)  But it’s good.

So, you know.

Download it here and check it out: Needle in the Camel’s Eye.  A fan-fucking-tastic slice of timeless rock and roll from 1974.

Peace out, Boneless friends.

-David

And so here we are.

For those of you who don’t know, The Walkmen are a delightful band from New York City, the home of Statues of Liberty, Rudy Giulianis and my friend Rudy Delson.

The Walkmen are a stripped down kinda… hmm… vintage instrument playing indie rock band in a sort of Velvet-Underground-meets-The-Cowboy-Junkies-but-really-isn’t-described-by-that-at-all kind of way.  Maybe it’s more like a rockabilly band not at all playing rockabilly and in fact playing indie rock but with a twangy almost Wilco-esque kind of tone, but not country, and actually just really rock, in fact.  Indie rock, even.  And “indie rock” because, well, they’re not a pop band.  Genres aren’t so useful in these heady days of 2009, are they?  No, apparently not.

Anyhow, the members come from a variety of fairly celebrated bands (Jonathan Fire*Eater, The Recoys) with whom I’m not all that intimately familiar.  But The Walkmen and their most recent album, “You & Me,” makes me mad.  It makes me mad because it’s too good. It’s music that makes you want to be the singer in that band, because it must be so god damn fun to sing those songs.  And so on.

I mean, yeah - it’s kind of smacked out.  But you say that like it’s a bad thing.

It’s good business, this “Walkmen” music.  Kind of can’t recommend it enough.

This particular song is a fun listen.  It’s bombastic, it gets quiet, it gets exciting, it has yelling in it, it’d make you break a sweat if you’re singing along to it, it’s ostensibly very glorious and positive but has a strong, sad note running through it… it’s bittersweet, like so many sour worms.  Ok, those are more like sweet & sour, but still.

And so, without further ado, here it is:  ‘In The New Year,’ by the Walkmen.

Thanks for the reading!

-David

P.S. BCF!  This Saturday, 6/6, at Flux 53 in Oakland, CA!  5300-5312 Foothill Boulevard, tickets $8 pre-sale & $10 at the door.  Playing with Shovelman (8 pm) and Colossal Inertia (9 pm).  Mm hmm.

So anyway, just posted, fresh off the writing desk and everything: BCF Comic #77!

And it’s about a topic near and dear to all of our hearts: Jesus on a cliff. Yes indeed.  Enjoy.

The “Chronon” game is especially complicated - not a Grow game per se, but by the Eyemaze folk.  I needed a walkthrough just to get to any part of this game, really.  But still, overall, good stuff; fun and cute and interesting. High recommendations.  From moments to hours of entertainment, depending on your desire… and availability…

From Grow v.1 to Grow Island, Grow Tower, and so on… it’s a world of joy.  Pure, pure joy.  Ahh.

David out-ish.

Yes: SALVIA DIVINORUM.  Oooh.  Scary times.  Great job, Yahoo & Fox, in trying to scare people.  And what are the dangers of it, as detailed in this story?  Mainly inappropriate behavior. Yes, the story even says that some parents have ended up “having” to take their kids to the emergency room since their behavior was “so inappropriate.”  Uh huh.  Dang.  Inappropriate behavior.  Pretty scary.  Woo.

Oh, Sally D - you so crazy.

Ok, to be clear, I’m not saying kids should go out and smoke random plants all the time.  But I mean come on.  Yeah, people shouldn’t take it and get behind the wheel of a car.  Sure.  Nor should they drink, or probably even take freakin’ Benedryl.  That’s no reason to ban something.

Sure, do more research - find out what’s dangerous about it if anything.  But just to say, “Oh people are doing it so it must be bad,” is silly.  I know it’s just how the mainstream dominator culture brouhaha deals with these things - especially with things that cause any degree of hallucination - since we’re not a culture that particularly understands how & why people might want to have their own altered experiences & what not, but it’s just too bad that the rhetoric aroudn this is so idiotic.  As I say, as per usual, but still.  Maybe it shouldn’t be quite so available, but maybe we should give people some sense of personal responsibility with what they do with their own bodies and maybe then they’d be more responsible with them, mm?  Mmm? Mmmm?

I’m just sayin’.

And, incidentally, say what you may about wikipedia not being a reliable source, but it’s much more reliable than some (essentially) anti-drug op-ed video piece on yahoo.  And here’s what it has to say about Salvia, the Scourge of Parents Everywhere:

“The duration of effects is much shorter than that of other, more well-known psychoactive compounds; the effects of smoked Salvia typically last for only a few minutes. The most commonly reported after-effects include an increased feeling of insight, an improved mood, a sense of calmness, and an increased sense of connection with nature—though, much less often, it may also cause dysphoria (unpleasant or uncomfortable mood). Salvia divinorum is not generally understood to be toxic or addictive, and as a κ-opioid agonist, it may have potential as an analgesic and as a therapeutic tool for treating drug addictions.”

Pretty scary.  Not only is it very short-acting (you’d have to run to the car to get there before it stopped working), but you end up often feeling - GASP! - calm.  Or maybe kind of unpleasant and uncomfy.  And it’s biggest danger: it’s neither toxic nor addictive, and in fact it might work to help treat drug addiction.  Pretty scary.

Fox, I understand.  You like scaring people and saying dumb shit.  But, Yahoo?  I thought you at least knew slightly better.  No idea why I would think that, though, upon reflection.

Watch out, parents!  It’s a Big Deal.  A Big Scary Deal.  Oooh.  Oooh!

David very much out.

2) Girl Talk’s “Feed the Animals” album - it’s so good!  It’s just fun on wheels.  Music wheels.  It really is.  And people made some pretty great videos for it, too…

3) The National’s album, “Boxer” - same opinion: so good!  But not total fun-ness.  More smooth and low and dark which is actually so very hard to achieve and make it work.  But they sure do it.  Amazing.  Nice.  Here’s the first song, “Fake Empire,” as they play it on the tee-vee…

4) Do you all know the Mr. Bungle album, “California?”  It occurred to me recently since we’ve started playing a song I wrote like 10 years ago that kind of sounds a little bit like the song “Vanity Fair” on that album.  Sort of.  Well, ok, “Vanity Fair” is like its supersonic cousin, but still - it’s a great album.  A little intense at points, but if you’re into that - as I am - then hot patootie do I have an album for you… and Mike Patton, my god, is there anything he can’t do?… and hey who knew, a fan-made video for the song “Pink Cigarette” from “California.”  Kinda interestin’.

5) Yes!  Still!  Tomorrow, 3/25 - at the Knockout in SF!  Boneless!  Boneless!  Boneless!  Children Foundation.  And Off Campus and Vox Jaguars.  Brought to you by the lovely folk from the Lower Class Revolt:

And come celebrate - it’s Jonathan Kepke’s birthday!  (Our bass player)  We’ll, I dunno, chuck donuts at you or something nice.
Thanks, folks.  Hope to see you there…

David, in the outness.