TGIF Mix: I LOVE DJ HEATHER
Sometimes I miss dancing in Chicago so much, it makes me want to cry.
More mixes on this “unofficial” BBC Essential Mix Blog.
All Gussied Up
Feature
April 26, 2007
All Gussied Up, With Nowhere to Go (But Up)
GusGus return with Forever and a far-reaching perspective
Once an “apostle-like” 12-member multimedia conglomerate, Iceland’s GusGus is now a self-anointed techno-soul trinity in full halo drag. Their current album, Forever, dropped in February. Earplug’s Jorge Hernandez gets the grease from President Bongo, leader of the Pineapple Empire, on their “spectacular Schnitzel on the Highway show,” due to burn rubber this spring.
Earplug: It’s been five years since Attention; were you suffering from attention deficit disorder?
President Bongo: I wish! No, we’ve been busy with other projects. Giving birth to babies, a record company, photo exhibitions, DJ’ing, playing live — we quit touring Attention in late 2005 — and we were waiting for “Moss.” It only came to us six months ago.
EP: “Moss” is a monster track. I loved hearing Daníel Ágúst again, and Earth is an amazing vocalist.
PB: Daniel and Earth are brilliant song composers; we’re just good stylists. We can’t work with anyone but them.
EP: Former vocalist Emiliana Torrini sang on the Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers soundtrack. What other film/video work has GusGus done?
PB: We don’t do these things anymore. They are extremely boring. You have to compromise, and we are not very good at that! But we have done some scores for Levi’s and Coca-Cola, and some movies have used our tracks.
EP: Do you see any of your ex-bandmates?
PB: Mostly Daniel, as we are always working together. I don’t know what my father is doing, either, so I guess I’m up my own ass a lot.
EP: Most techno is dismissed as soulless; have you encountered problems going in a more straightforward dance direction?
PB: I don’t agree with this. Kraftwerk is one of the most soulful bands that ever emerged to the human race. Most of the electronic music that I have listened to is full of love and soul. I think that the love we put into our music has been the main reason for us being ten years old this year.
EP: There’s a fuzzy, fat Detroit sound to your music. How was Forever made?
PB: We use analog equipment and are constantly on the lookout for new synths. The German Doepfer tops the new list and the Arp 2600 reigns over the old ones. All the tracks on this, and all other GusGus albums, have been done in Iceland. Carl Craig and Aaron-Carl have been our musical influences from the Motor City, but mainly we are influenced by the energy that emerges when we meet to do music. We had Aaron-Carl doing backing vocals on the album. Remixes have been done by Icelandic and German friends; Detroit friends are still working on them.
EP: Explain the song “If You Don’t Jump, You’re English.” Do you have mixed feelings about the UK?
PB: No, not at all! I think the UK is great, but Argentinians don’t, and that’s what the track is about. The guitar samples are from the Icelandic punk band Purrkur Pillnikk’s album Googooplex from 1982 — one of the most influential albums in Iceland, ever!
EP: I heard you spent time in Barcelona.
PB: We had a monthly residency in Barcelona four years ago. We were dead bored. Too hot. Barcelona people are too lazy, so we stopped playing there and returned home. We don’t like Ibiza, either.
EP: A friend’s visiting Reykjavik; do you recommend any hotspots so she can do it up right?
PB: Do it upright? As in… against the wall? Sirkus is the after-midnight, Boston is the before-midnight. Qbar is the gay one and Kaffibarinn is the boring one.
EP: Iceland is part of a Human Genome/deCODE project; any GusGus DNA in it?
PB: No, Icelanders are leading in that field because we are so few and we have records of our ancestors going way back. It is easy to isolate sickness and to see if it is genetic. We are very positive and generally very happy.
EP: You guys do seem forever “high on love.” Who sent you? What do you want?
PB: My grandmother is an elf and she was sent by Master Elf Monsieur Techno Elf. We are sent to convince Americans that rock ‘n roll is dead. Techno is the new punk!
Xanadu on Broadway!
From the Xanadu Preservation Society, news that the ELO/ONJ/GK cult flop/guilty pleasure is taking its place along all the other synergy productions on the great white way. Sadly there will be no ELO, Olivia, or Gene Kelly on hand. I may still go if I can win tickets with my own Dancing with Xanadu clip – or round up enough other twisted sissies to come dancin in the aisles.
XANADU HITS BROADWAY, NYC in 2007
(update 4/23/07)
As of April 21st, the tickets are for sale at Telecharge.com and the usual outlets. But now comes the radio commericals! Yes, radio commercials…..really!!!! Broadway World.com announced and previwed a 1 minute spot promoting XANADU ON BROADWAY.
No More Limbo
Pope: No more limbo, it’s heaven or hell
While the words of the Pope have long gone unchallenged in Latin America and other countries with large Catholic communities, even the staunchest supporters of the Vatican’s doctrines must be scratching their heads at this: after 800 years, Pope Benedict XVI has done away with the concept of “limbo”:
The decision was taken after Benedict XVI was presented with Vatican studies that said there were “serious” grounds that such souls could go to heaven, rather than exist between heaven and hell as they have done for almost 800 years.
Boy, Oh Boyd…
Seth Boyd, everyone’s favorite new “Naked Gay Friend” appeared in the Sunday NY Post.. among a million other places, by now I’m sure. If more of our Govenors spent their money like Jim McGreevey, I might not mind paying taxes so much. It’s clearly art.
SLIDES = new slideshow(“SLIDES”); SLIDES.timeout = 5000; SLIDES.prefetch = -1; SLIDES.repeat = true; s = new slide(); s.src = “/seven/04222007/photos/fullfrontal.jpg”; s.text = unescape(“”); s.link = “/seven/04222007/photos/fullfrontal.jpg”; s.target = “”; s.attr = “”; s.filter = “”; SLIDES.add_slide(s); if (false) SLIDES.shuffle();
McG’S GAY POSTER BOY
By ELIZABETH WOLFF
April 22, 2007 — This is the full-frontal nude photograph that hung in the bedroom of New Jersey’s disgraced love gov, Jim McGreevey, when his 5-year-old daughter came for sleepovers – and the source of his estranged wife’s claims that he’s an unfit parent.
The 50-by-60-inch print in the master bedroom of the Plainfield, N.J., home of McGreevey and partner Mark O’Donnell is part of a series called “Naked Gay Friends” by Manhattan photographer Richard Renaldi, and was featured in Blue, a gay men’s magazine.
###
US patent number 6,618,593
Mobile social networking patent sold for US$2.6 million
From our reporter in Chicago.
The lot number 25 was launched at a US$1 million starting price by the auctioneer and was disputed for several minutes by at least 3 different bidders. It eventually reached its final price when a quiet man seated in the middle of the crowd raised its hand and topped the last bid by US$100,000. After the usual three warnings the hammer of the auctioneer closed this record sale, followed by a burst of applause from the 300 intellectual property professionals gathered on the auction floor.
This patent covers a location based match-making technology. The system, working with location-aware devices connected to a remote server, allows users to make connections with other users based upon specified preferences and their distance. For example, a user can setup a profile indicating the types of people he would be interested in meeting. When he comes nearby another user matching this profile, a notification is sent to both.
The field of application of this patent is essentially mobile social networking and mobile dating. Both markets are soon to explode, especially in the US with million of users on the verge to shift from PC to cell phone to manage their digital social life. These mobile applications are the obvious next steps for websites such as MySpace, Facebook or Match.com. Several start up companies are already launching their services, for example Loopt, which we interviewed recently (see here ).
While the buyer’s name is not disclosed according to the rules of these IP auctions, one can imagine it might be a large online social networking portal wishing to lock the market with a strong patent, or a company specialized in the monetization of intellectual properties willing to license this promising asset to the various players on the market. But for now the only people making profit out of it is the group of inventors who filed this innovative patent seven years ago.
Hello world!
Hello world.
This is a trial template.
I am transferring my blog. Many things were lost in translation.
More soon.
Quien es Delfin?
What’s funnier than a pack of nappy-headed-hoes? A Peruvian-9/11-Techno-Karaoke-Tribute, of course! Funnier still, a Spanish-”Family Guy”-pun/mashup, silly!
[Insert Disclaimer...where the sun don't shine.]
Penis Power: Screwed into Submission
“Some men they have so much heat and intensity in they penis, just to touch the penis, it’s on fire….all penises are not created equal…we hooked on the penis power and this man won’t even buy you some shrimp from Long John Silvers, and that plate is what? 2.99, but he can give you a mouth full of sperm...and now, her mind ain’t good, cuz the penis done ejaculated all in her brain, she gone crazy…THEN they start talkin….”
Now THAT’s crazy! “Who’s vagina is it, WHOSE?!”
Preach on, Public Access!
Moodymann Roller Disco Birthday
Happy Birthday to me. The Detroit Electronic Music fest is coming up Memorial Day weekend, the week of my 38th – egad. On Saturday, the reclusive Kenny Dixon Jr, aka Moodyman, is spinning at a roller disco, Soul Skate 07. Though I may look a bit the geriatric fool, I’ll still be there with wheels on. This should make up for missing out on SxSw and WMC. Somebody, in the celestial disco, loves me. Time to go shopping! Highlights of DEMF line up below.
- 3 Chairs featuring Rick Wilhite, Theo Parish & Malik Pittman
- A Guy Called Gerald
- Baby Ford & Zip
- Bad Boy Bill
- Charles Webster
- Gui Borrato First time in Detroit
- Guido Schneider First time in Detroit
- Hardfloor First time in Detroit
- Jeff Mills
- John Acquaviva featuring Dan Diamond
- Kevin Saunderson
- King Britt
- Matthew Dear
- Michael Mayer
- Model 500 featuring Juan Atkins
- Moodymann featuring Pitch Black City
- Rhythm & Sound 6 hour dj/live with US exclusive vocalists
- Stacey Pullen
- Vladislav Delay
Hot Chip Ahoy…
Interviewing Hot Chip for Earplug at this quaint joint in Gramercy.
I’m up second; hopefully I won’t be too much a redundant bore.
The menu looks yummy. Most likely, I won’t have time to savor the flavor. So, close, yet so far; and so, so not funny. Maybe I’ll linger at the next table and eavesdrop on the other hacks as they break it down. A boy’s gotta eat, after all. Inspiration’s not all sugar, honey.
