Shit, how did I miss this?

Blue Language is a live double-album from some of the most talented people I've had the distinct priviledge to hear perform in the great underground cultural mecca that is Portland, Oregon. If you have any sort of taste for acoustic music with wit, you should
give it a listen on CDbaby. Then buy it. I did.

So as a concession to the bum-killing cold, I stopped off at CompUSA on the Upper West Side -- where I was meeting with the burgeoning Mike Lupinacci Campaign and then having a much-belated dinner with good ol' Yuliya -- and picked up a 512MB shuffle. It's the right thing for me and my style: resistant to rough treatment, lightweight, and ready to be reloaded on a regular basis with whatever's in heavy rotation lately.

Zipping down from Uriveck's spot in Greenpoint (where I hope to move sometime in January) to my current digs in the Slope took about 25 minutes. That's about five minutes faster than usual, and given the inclement conditions I figure under other circumstances I would have been good for a minute or two more of speed. That's about 6.5 miles as the car drives, so I was making maybe 13 mph on average. A respectable speed.

In the new year I'll be getting a new bike with a bike-computer, so expect some statistics.

One of the things about underground/indie music is it tends to be local, meaning if you don't live in the locale you miss out on the good stuff. I was out at UP the other weekend up on a mountain high and getting the hipster claustrophobia fear -- the steamroller of gentrification... every place has a bouncer now... girls getting younger and less pretty every year... -- and the skinny-ass white kid with the stringy Alan Ginsburg beard on the decks dropped this track:

Aceyalone, The Faces

And it makes everything ok, a little too ok actually. Sexy even. I go over and ask him who it is, trying to maintain some edge, some pride, some credi-fucking-bility in this now-thrumming sharklike scene. "A.C.L.O" I hear, and it sticks, even though it's wrong, so I ask google and plus in some lyrics that stuck too ("lemme holla at ya face to face") and in three or four clicks I get around to A Book Of Human Language, an apparently seminal track from 1998. Up there with Dr. Octogon and Deltron3030, now out of print. Took me somewhat longer to score the track I heard off the peer to peer scene.

But I believe it must be that good of an album. There was some very very good shit coming out regional at that time. Outkast, the Wu Tang, Del, etc. Give that mp3 a listen and see if it doesn't tickle your lower back a bit.

I have a few gadget-type purchases on my list. I already got the big ol' external hard drive, so cross that off (and color my system backed up for the first time in years). The next things are an LCD monitor and some portable music solution.

The monitor will probably wait until the new year, but the tunes I could use sooner. The cold season has begun, and music is essential fuel for biking in inclement conditions. I've been leaning towards the Shuffle, because it's simple and cheap and seems to fit my needs. I'd have to spring for some different headphones too -- tired of letting Apple brand me, dammit.

Any pointers?

The Go! Team, which I just discovered thx to SomaFM. It's getting me amped. A great mix of old-school R&B sounds, mixtape breaks and indy-noise pop. Oddly enough I'm not huge fans of any of those on their own, but together it just works.

Also, this is interesting:

Originally issued in the U.K. last year, "Thunder, Lightning, Strike" was recently released in a new edition in the U.S. through Columbia Records. Because of sample clearance issues, some of the songs needed to be reworked, but the band also had the opportunity to add two new tracks.

"There were three or four [sample] denials, but it wasn't too bad; there were a few melody changes, which I actually prefer in a way. A lot of the samples come from thrift-store, nothingy records that no one would think of looking at anyway. There's something about those Bollywood soundtracks that I've always loved: You have a 50-piece string section that is always out of tune with each other, and that's a sound you could never recreate."

Apparently their live show is a hoot too:

Lollapalooza may have had it all over the Intonation Music Festival in terms of sheer spectacle, but for me, the winning moment of the summer concert season came when the Go! Team took the stage at Union Park and a dozen preteen girls from the surrounding neighborhood, fresh out of the swimming pool, joined the absurdly energetic English dance-rockers onstage to gyrate, shimmy and frug.

It's definitely going into heavy rotation for the Bike Mix.

Give it a listen; I think this is good music. It's got some of the same qualities as St. Germain, which is an old favorite, but feels more soulful and deep. It's a sound for movement.

DownhillBattle with More Sheer Brilliance.

Save Betamax - National Call-In Day TODAY

I just did this thismorning, calling up my reps and telling them that I think the INDUCE act will stifle innovation and doesn't serve the public interest. You can, and should, do it too. It's not too late to Save Betamax.

Save Betamax - National Call-In Day TODAY

I just did this thismorning, calling up my reps and telling them that I think the INDUCE act will stifle innovation and doesn't serve the public interest. You can, and should, do it too. It's not too late to Save Betamax.

I've got a pretty eclectic music collection, and I thought maybe I'd haul out a few of my more gourmet morsels so you can hear the soundtrack to my life. It's mp3 blogging, baby, and it's all the rage.

Do you guys know and understand Underworld? It's great fucking music, early trance (before the sub-genres, it's what we called "techno" at the time). They're best known for the single that was featured in the film version of Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting. It's a thinking man's techno, and much of it is significantly deeper than Born Slippy, much of it engagingly narrative.

They're Real Artists.

Early Underworld sound is marked by long waves, surreal/poetic lyrics, and sudden, dramatic shifts. I've posted a track from their first CD, DubNoBassWithMyHeadMan -- one of the great Techno albums of all time. It's track number four, and so the sound starts off very much "in progress," but just let it hit you and try to groove along with it, and then enjoy the ride.

You can get soundgarden off your favorite peer to peer network, but this shit is rare and hard to find.

Underworld: Spoonman

Comment if this is something you would like me to do more often.

If'n you wanna buy the album: here's amazon.