HOLIDAY PARTY @ SHEA STADIUM

Impose, FMLY, Friendship Bracelet & Rose Quartz present:

IDIOT GLEE
LUKE PERRY
ALASKAS
CH-ROM
BIRTHDAYS
HUMAN RESOURCES
BIG SPIDER'S BACK

+ WEIRD MAGIC AFTER PARTY

VISUALS BY EYEBODEGA

Thursday December 9 | 8pm | FREE! (suggested $5 donation)

facebook event

REDEMPTION ARCADE

Screech and the Medium Fries - Star Six Seven
I'm gonna go out on a limb and say the reason why the 90210/teen sitcom-mining sample-based pop that Ryan aka Luke Perry, Axl and now Screech and the Medium Fries makes hits home so much with Shea and myself is the 3 or 4 solid hours of Aaron Spelling-produced (or related) TV on every afternoon in New Zealand; it really and probably unhealthily video-tracked my childhood, such a televised youth and a perfect way for the streak of American life to seep into the NZ culture. It's probably nothing new (and probably everyone had this experience) but it's a real scratchy kind of nostalgia. These day-glo lo-fi hits contain samples seemingly lifted from warped VHS tapes of those shows though this new one is more abstract electronic pop and a bit more of a coaster. We haven't heard from this Peace Ager for a bit but grabbed this new jammer (under a new name) from his MySpace. Apparently he's putting out a record soon produced by James Ferraro (!) oh and also is playing at our unofficial CMJ showcase both solo as Luke Perry and as part of the Greatest Hits live crew.

[Buy tapes from Skymall]

[Luke Perry/Axl/Screech and the Medium Fries MySpace]

TANNER DROP

Axl - The Foam Tape Bounce
New hit from the Axl/Luke Perry computer room (it's real well-let w/ nice off-white desk and faded pastel wallpaper) via SKYMALL and it's a slo-mo Mario bassline crossed with those typical drifting infomercial feelings that come from either really digging back through "yr mom's workout tapes" (as the Peace Agers previously pointed out/suggested) or watching way too much Tim and Eric or maybe just the internet, which has a lot of things on it. That's how we approach these plastic Spelling-infused hits, full of "things" themselves which is totally how it should be.

[Axl MySpace]

GUTS / COLOUR RIDE

Twins & Luke Perry - Malibu Body Crew
New Twins/Luke Perry collab tape from Peace Age has finally landed and is full of what must be the "gnarliest" weird pop sounds around (fact), our favourite for sure, big on colour and doubled realities blasted by Supersoaker commercials and boardwalk mythos, thousand island vacation days, a pretty great style of energy positively jammed with the right sorts of nostalgias and day-glo feelings.

[Twins MySpace]

[Luke Perry MySpace]

[Buy GUTS cs from Peace Age]

320 GIGABYTE ETERNAL HIGHSCHOOL

Mind Rippers - Backdraft
A few new drops over at SKYMALL reveal this particularly bodacious combined jam from three of our favs: Speculator, Luke Perry and CH-Rom. Really makes sense that Nick from Speculator raved to me (in an upcoming interview for Tiny Mix Tapes) about getting stuck in 1995 w/ Johnny Mnemonic cos this one's straight up '95 excess that reminds me of being 11 years old at Hoyts 8 and walking past the space-age arcade game of the same film. Also check out the super beguiling sun-spotted/porcelain zoner from Wo (another from CH-Rom and other favs Twins) on SKYMALL it's real serene as well.

[Luke Perry MySpace]

[Speculator MySpace]

[CH-ROM Soundcloud]

COROLLA MYST

Luke Perry - Street Galaxy

Luke Perry - Brenda-Vision

Yesterday was cool cos I saw that I had an email from the actual Luke Perry in my inbox, then discovered it contained his brand new Grammy-nominated cassette, and then when I got a few tracks in I heard a cover of the 90210 theme song so I was pretty much buzzing out with excitement. Brainwave's Rerun Crunch will be out soon on revered cassette label El Tule and will surely be up in the top tapes of two thousand ten. Seriously impressed with how Luke's Ryan Howe creates such fun hyper-pop hits informed by (channel)-surfing his way through the best and worst parts of commercial televisual memory. Ride yr motorbike like Dylan on phased-out solo-heavy jammer "Street Galaxy", and re-imagine yr fave teen cast with synthetic smiles on the dream theme cover "Brenda-Vision".

[Luke Perry Myspace]

[Buy Brainwave's Rerun Crunch soon from El Tule]

2010 PEACE AGE

New Yoga - Lizard Vision

CH-Rom - Teenage Cop

Luke Perry - Sky Unit Infiltration Sim

Geist - Car Heaven(*)

HEY welcome to 2010! Nice to be back on the blogging, especially when there's so much amazing stuff that's dropped in the last week or so, and lots of gems piling up in my inbox. Prettay overwhelming knowing where to start but decided I had to first write about all the amazing stuff I've been jamming to over the holiday period from the PEACE AGE blog "SKYMALL". Matt Weiner from Twins/Best Hits described PEACE AGE to me as an 'imaginary free record label' between buds and loved RQ alum like New Yoga, dANA and Luke Perry. United by peaced-out future visions, forgotten weirdness, spiritual physicality and Melrose Place as a grand narrative, this stuff is the absolute best and way fun in its alien weirdness. Want to kick it in an age where "Lizard Vision" plays while motorcycling to school and struttin through the locker room or where Prince is reborn as "Teenage Cop". Seems appropriate to kick off a new decade with this stuff, too.

Skate up to the SKYMALL for whole album downloads of all the tracks above YIKESS~!!

[New Yoga Myspace]

[Luke Perry Myspace]

[Geist Myspace]

SHEA'S TOP 20 SONGS OF 2009

Doing these kind of ranked lists really stresses me out and makes me think that maybe I listen to too much music, especially when I have to spend hours trawling through iTunes libraries, external hard drives, radio show playlists, Last.fm charts etc. to make sure there's not a forgotten gem in the digital ether. That said, I do like doing song lists, not just because they're easier compile, but because it's a chance for newer and smaller artists who might've only released a couple of tracks to get some serious recognition. Anyway, listened to so many amazing alien/garage chillin/gutter-dwelling/beach-bum/pizza party/cyborg/memory-scaping/weirdo/new age jams this year and these are my faves, enjoy!

1. Animal Collective - My Girls
from Merriweather Post Pavilion

I had a feeling this would be top even after hearing it for the first time a year ago when it totally hit on some base level and I was basically unable to stop smiling. I'm not sure what gives this song that kind of instinctual appeal, but when I saw it live the other night all manner of social stereotypes (hippies, hipsters, teen stoners, fashion chix, bros bro-ing out, older critic chin-strokers) were unified against all odds by these simple positive mantras and WOOOO!s and it was a pretty weird and amazing thing.

[Myspace / buy]

2. Tonstartssbandht - Black Country
from An When

Continually floors me; beautiful junkyard, sibling savants.

[Myspace / buy]

3. Best Coast - Sun Was High (So Was I)
from California Girls

Lo-fi aches, perfect chord changes, classic pop. Your dream girl group where the leader channels Courtney Love c. "Malibu".

[Myspace / buy]

4. Ducktails - Wishes
from Landscapes

As alluring as the city might be, this just makes me want to hang in the backyard or somewhere in the countryside or play basketball at my old primary school. I think they must sell golden syrup guitars in New Jersey.

[Myspace / buy]

5. Smith Westerns - Tonight
from Smith Westerns

Wish I could be nineteen again and release an album that's really lo-fi with this song on it cos it totally swaggers and aches with coolness. I love that slight pause just before it builds up to the hook where the singer goes "UHh".

[Myspace / buy]

6. Speculator - We Don't Give a Shit
from Friendship Bracelet Vol. 2

More new age more Peter Gabriel more warbly guitar sheen and freeway hits, more from this band plleasszzzzze.

[Myspace / buy]

7. Teengirl Fantasy - Floor to Floor
from TGIF EP

Dudes keep killing it - so many club spirits and parallel dimension glimpses lurking in the dankness between these beats and tweaks.

[Myspace / get]

8. Girls - Lust for Life
from Album

So much romance and sloppy charm squashed in here despite its fleeting duration. Best bits: when the bassline drops in second verse, and "I wish I had a pizza and a bottle of wine", always.

[Myspace / buy]

9. Luke Perry - Avon Lust
from Terminator Ecstasy

Really obsessed with all this retro-futurist weirdness that's around right now, and Luke Perry's Ryan Howe welds it hapzardly into this wonky cyborg pop hit that has been the #1 most played song in Planet Hollywoods across the world for six weeks straight.

[Myspace / buy]

10. Kurt Vile - Beach on the Moon
from God is Saying This To You

Kurt Vile is totally at his best solo, especially when he plays these super evocative desert/lost highway sketches complete with cryptic lyrics and a hook so good he uses it in three songs.

[Myspace / buy]

11. The Parasails - Skylife #2
from Skylife

Also appearing on the Ducktails album Landscapes (as "Seagull's Flight") this track fits perfectly into the pastel-hued heavens of Skylife, perhaps Matt Mondanile's most cohesive effort - totally visual and hypnotic, sounds that look like gentle gusts of wind 100 metres above the ocean.

[Myspace / buy]

12. Dirty Beaches - Low Rider
from Dirty Beaches

That bassline! Fucking so cool and oozing nonchalance. Soundtrack to driving topdown wearing wayfarers and a leather jacket with a cigarette in the corner of yr mouth. Hey Jim Jarmusch, this song is for yr next movie.

[Myspace / buy]

13. Night Control - Good Looks
from Death Control

Intercepted from yr favourite oldies AM station in 2050 in a perfect world.

[Myspace / buy]

14. Oneohtrix Point Never - Hyperdawn
from Zones Without People

There's some super interesting ideas behind OPN's arpeggiated future-memory-utopias but you don't necessarily have to understand them to feel yr chrome heart beating as rays of the three rising suns reflect off the sharp planes of yr face and form a perfect opaque triangle in the sky.

[Myspace / buy]

15. Jeans Wilder - Tough Guys
From Tough Guys/Up All Night split 7"

This might be pretty unrepresentative of Jeans Wilder's oeuvre (super downer sparse guitar songs, which are excellent too), but when he takes that ethos and adds a bouncy reggaeton preset it becomes a loner, downer, weirdo, undeniable pop hit.

[Myspace / buy]

16. Lotus Plaza - Sunday Night
from The Floodlight Collective

Once I went on a night bike ride listening to this and it sounded exactly like my sleepy suburbia, moths fluttering around yellow street lights and dreams rising through humming powerlines.

[Myspace / buy]

17. Blondes - Spanish Fly
Unreleased

"Effortlessly cool, this anti-club track from Brooklyn duo Blondes whisks you away from crowds and strobes to a dark V.I.P. corner where the distant beats actually sound better and the tempo is slower -- there's space to think here, to gaze at the club dust hanging mid-air through yr private disco ball lights, sweat condensing on concrete ceilings above."

[Myspace / buy]

18. Neon Indian - Should've Taken Acid With You
from Psychic Chasms

Pretty sure that twinkling loop and those shooting star synths are what it actually sounds like in the Milky Way. I'm too much of a wuss/nerd to take acid but this song makes me wish I wasn't.

[Myspace / buy]

19. Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - Can't Hear My Eyes
from Can't Hear My Eyes 7"

As much as I love the blurred soupiness of the 'hypnagogic pop sound', it's nice that Ariel Pink renders his 80s cultural totems and aesthetics with a greater degree of clarity. The cock-rock riffage on "Flashback" could equally take this spot, but I'm a sucker for late night lovesick love songs.

[Myspace / buy]

20. Fluffy Lumbers - Harry Dolland's
from Harry Dolland's 7"

"... these hazy guitar lines echo like half-remembered punk pop hitz heard while cruising yr suburban neighourhood, sadder on reflection with all their lost and mixed associations."

[Myspace / buy]

TERMINATOR ECSTASY

LukePerry from Elise Oh on Vimeo.

Big HOLLA to our newest blog bud Pixelhorse for hooking us up with this amazing footage of previously loved Luke Perry tearing it up at Death by Audio in Brooklyn, NYC last week. Playing on a seemingly unreal line-up with James Ferraro, Eric Copeland and Infinity Window, this footage suggests our mysterians totally fit in with their 90210 hypnagogics and catchy cyborg mutations. If you missed it last time around don't miss it again; grab Luke Perry's #1 hit "Avon Lust" here.

[Luke Perry Myspace]

IN ROBOCOP'S EYE

Luke Perry - Avon Lust

Hey who is Luke Perry and how come I'm in Los Angeles or is it Miami - night time in the city and it's full of palm tree holograms and neon martini signs w/ flashing olives. Oh it's a party, Luke Perry invited me, it's pretty cool, it's at a place called The Peach Pit. I'm just doing the limbo right now, and everyone is wearing either: denim jackets with leather pants, or denim pants with leather jackets. This guy with a computer head just gave me a piece of glowing pizza; "is this okay to eat?", "is this a joke? Or is he actually Luke?". Some guy just stood up on the bar, is his name Luke? It's a pop song, he's singing it, but the sounds come out of his mouth as tetris blocks and only become audible once they are touching each other. What happens if he sings forever? Will I get crushed to death by tetris blocks or will I become one? My pals Brandon and Kelly just came over to say "hey". They lift their hands to their temples and slowly take off the front of their faces, in unison, metallic jawlines and chrome smiles; think I might have a bite of this pizza.

[Luke Perry Myspace]

[Luke Perry/Speculator and Luke Perry/Twin splits available soon from Wet Merchants]