Neil with the Deal ain't got shit on me!

So if you fuck with all this internet blog nonsense (you do), then you might have noticed these ad's for Wakeyz in the sidebar under sponsored ads. Or you might not have. I was under the assumption that my attention doesn't even begin to encroach on those dedicated "sell you shit" spaces. I figured I just had blinders on due to sheer conditioning at this point. Statistically, I'd assume that the auto-filtration of any sort of casual ad-related ANYTHING is pretty collectively developed by this point, at least on a conscious level (unless you are your grandparents or something, which again, you aren't...)

However, in the last couple days, my peripheral has been getting lit up by all these Dr. Mario pills raining down on a huge cracked out Residents' style eyeball guy, so my inner fiend begged me to take notice. Then I saw the words "Drug Mall" and floors and floors of condoned chaos started wildly sprouting up in my mind. Sedative Stands. Hopped up Haberdasheries. Wide eyed Willy Wonka shit as far as the eye could see. So not only did I click on it, I did the rapid fire multiclick thing while looking over my shoulder (I live alone).

So I hope you clicked on the Wakey's link. It'll be helpful if you are actually reading this and want to make sense of what I try and communicate. Lord knows I have enough trouble attempting to meet all you phantom people half way as it is. My ability to focus is pretty garbage pail kids (criterion edition). Ok, so if you care to, at some point you'll see a blue page slide down over the wakeyz products you are looking at and hopefully it'll all be clear. That's your signal to turn the page back here.

So obviously, the site is well designed, they went through great lengths to come up with the names of funny drug infused food supplements with graphics, menus, flash, all of that (I liked the ChloroFoam face mask and electrified cutlery). But turns out...it's a fuggin' mattress company! Huh? I thought mattress companies were terrible at marketing. The best thing mattress dudes got going for themselves here in LA (main guys being Leeds and Sit and Sleep) is that they battle to see who can outcheese each other with the low-budget factor. This here is like some Nike level consumer manipulation. By pretending to offer these ridiculous products, they call out our societal obsession with energy drinks and other "fda approved" stimulants. Yet at the same time, they are actually selling all this merchandise that coincides with the fake Wakey's ad campaign. Shirts, mugs, stickers...everything. Is this the ad guys way to circumvent that feeling of disgust you might feel when someone is trying to sell you something using methods that are transparent or beneath you? Is this self aware notion really that inherent to so many twenty-somethings nowadays? It does seem hard to deny that many many ideas are being increasingly re-examined and then coupled with a shit-ton of irony...repackaged by people that see the fault in everything. So it does make me think, are these guys trying to be the "indy" Tempurpedic? And is anybody actually buying their bibs or bumper stickers?

Anyway, biggest point being, I've never taken a marketing class or anything but I was kinda impressed by their tactics and how they tried to sell me some boring ass shit in a clever way that also entertained my eyes. The fact that they advertise like this on the hype machine, blogs, etc. just makes me curious as to how large this demographic has really gotten. Guess what, kool kids...even the mattress guys have this figured out to a certain extent. Uh Oh.

I guess the only recourse is to go ultrahypermeta, right? Then they'll never be able to stake a claim on you. I can't wait till people have to explicitly specify what level of irony they're on. (Oh darling, do you not see, I was making a level 7 double reverse pretzel comment on that subject, you must've thought I was addressing you in a level 4 way. Ah! You poor thing, you really couldn't tell I was inferring two more double negatives?).

Anyway, hit me off with that e-mail you promised and I'll tell you were to send the free full size queen, fellas. ::wink::
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So, there's my referential jump-off. I swear I told myself I was going to make these short and to the point. Instead I've got a page long tangent about some random ad I saw. Terrible! Plus all these blocks of text just look so uninviting.

(I believe it's called self-sabotage, my man! -Ed)

Meh...hey look, it's drizzling pictures.











I'll do another big art post again soon. But for the readers (people read?), I'm gonna tie this into my own promotionally-inclined inclinations by giving you one more natural alternative to restless nights. It's a mix I made three or four years ago, the first ambient one I ever made. Posting some old Xela and Super Numeri made me want to dig it up. I made it pretty much for myself, for utilitarian purposes, but my friends have said they like it and go to sleep to it too, so here it is. The only version I still have is already chopped into mp3's. Hopefully that gapless playback thing in iTunes will compensate.

Sleep Spindles 1: A Blanket of Stars

1.Ovuca-Untitled
2.Aphex Twin- SAW II Disc 1 Track 3
3.Aphex Twin- SAW II Disc 2 Track 5
4.Prefuse 73-Untitled
5.Xela-Bobble Hats in Summer
6.Bola-Vm8
7.Delarosa & Asora-Suki Swims
8.The Gentle People-Relaxation Central
9.Monolake-Indigo
10.Biosphere-Mestigoth
11.Fog-Plumb Dumb
12.Super Numeri-Electric Horse Gardens
13.The Album Leaf-We Once Were One
14.Labradford-Soft Return
15.Casino Versus Japan-Trad Velicido
16.Atom Heart-Acid Magic
17.Bochum Welt-La Nuit
18.Octavius-Artificial Spark of the Electrical Stripping
19.Biosphere-Kobresia
20.Biosphere-Poa Alpina
21.Brian Eno-Becalmed
22.A little thunderstorm action in case you haven't drifted off yet...

I'll just say, it's no Aurora Borealis in terms of arrangement or attention to detail, but it does start with Track 3 off Selected Ambient Works 2, which is one of my Top 5 recorded pieces of audio ever...so there's that. "Bobble Hats in the Summer" is also top 10 track that nobody has ever heard. The ending of that track? Tear-inducing. So beautiful.

Anyway, sorry for talking so much to myself while being watched from a two way mirror that I set up, ya know. From now on it'll just be party pictures with that one filter. You know the one.

Stay tuned for my Justice vs T-Pain mash-up, Buy you a D.R.A.N.K. There's bmore drums over it too. How do I do it, right?

Dntel-To a Fault (feat. Grizzly Bear)

Dntel-Last Songs

Jimmy Tamborello had quite the bevy of high profile indy people guest on just about every song from his last album. Makes sense though, it's common knowledge that he invented the genre together with Zach Braff. Anyway, The Grizzly Bear collabo was tops for me. That other song is Pre-Postal Service, back from his first full length from 2001, Life Is Full Of Possibilities. I stumbled upon it right around then and being big into samples and electronic stuff, I was really captivated by how he chopped up those acoustic guitar loops back in the day. Still a great song, though.

The Virgins-Rich Girl

I've dipped into pretty much every genre imaginable, and I know that jangly British guitar rock is not my strongest trait, tastemaker-wise. Certain genres like dancehall, hardcore, early house music, folk rock, etc. all have stuff I like, but I'm not driven enough to really turn them out and dig through them them. I leave those ones for others to inform me when shit is really good. I don't get a constant stream of blood and dopamine trickling out my ears this way. I think I was tipped to this joint on EVR. I like it a lot for what it is. Catchy riffs, clever lyrics, nice drawl, and a sick disco bassline. I'd say it sounds kinda like the Arctic Monkeys or the Strokes meets The Rapture, but I could probably break it down even better than that if I knew more about this stuff. That hard panned hi-hat kinda fucks with me though.

Dimlite-Lullaby for Gastric Ulcer

Dimlite-The Way Blood Travels

My original genre of choice was stoner downtempo stuff in the vein of Mo Wax or Ninja Tune. Nowadays, it's real hard to find artists that can really innovate with this sound, pushing it in a new direction while keeping things appealing but not strictly experimental. Dimlite's one of those guys whose forged his own sound but can still keep your head nodding. I'd say his stuff references J Dilla and Four Tet in equal parts. For fans of Daedalus, Caural, Flying Lotus, etc.


Cozy Powell- Dance With The Devil

This is a great but pretty obscure track that all the of sudden decided to randomly crop up in my life in a crazy little trifecta. I heard DJ Harvey play it his Sarcastic Disco warehouse party two weeks ago (dope as fuck btw), and then I listened to the new DJ Food Solid Steel mix, Now, Listen Again, and there it was again (this is also real good, but get's a bit too British with the Pendulum tracks towards the end). Then I saw the movie Hot Fuzz (hilarious) and guess what track pops up. Wierd shit. Anyway, this track is a monster, it's basically just a real heavy drum workout with some classic rock power chords but it is heavy heavy. If this is how the forces that be are deciding to collude on my fate, then sure, go ahead I guess, as long as you keep hitting me with jams of this caliber. Sidenote: If you look at dude's room in Shaun of the Dead, he's got a bunch of Ninjatune posters on his walls. I remember seeing that back in the day and I started geeking out and rocking back in forth in my seat while looking around the theatre smiling...nobody else got it. Story of my life?

Michael Rother- Silberstreif

Here's some more rock stuff from German musician, Michael Rother. He was in Kraftwerk in the early 70's, before they turned into robot. He also recorded with Brian Eno under the name Harmonia. This is like krautrock mixed with thinking back about how you used to go wind surfing all the time and how killer that was. In fact, some weekends, you like to take the Saab out and cruise the shoreline with the top down, and when this tune really gets going, you swear you can feel the ocean spray as your hair whips around in the breeze.

Anthony Rother- No Love

Anthony Rother- 10,000 Dancer

And here's another german Rother who makes electro that is obviously informed by Kraftwerk. Association City, huh? This is from his 04 album, Popkiller. I figured more people would know about his shit now that electro is big again.

No Bra-Munchausen

And now that we are in Germany here's some of that Level 3 irony we discussed earlier, courtesy of No Bra. The beat sounds like it was concocted in some pitch black underground fetish dungeon. Everything is made out of latex and the clientele use butt plugs like battering rams. The lyrics are a pretty hilarious though. It's a pretty scathing indictment of disaffected socialites who claim to know about everything. Thankfully, I only get like half of the references. Did you click that picture? Yeah, she just cruises to parties like that. Gravity has not been kind to this woman and she wants you to know this. I'm curious if she has a line drawn in her head where she knows just exactly how much she does this to make a social statement versus how much she does it to alienate people while still drawing attention towards herself in a publicity stunt kind of way. Or does that only matter to me?

Supercheap-Super Rich

I don't especially like this song, I just feel like I'm tying shit together left and right today so I thought I'd pull out the theoretical female response to that Virgins song, just to bring everything super full circle. I still like it though, it's just the chorus is a little disappointing. This comes from a comp from last year, Berlin Insane IV. See, it's German too! Yeeee. I have pleased myself once again. (I so let you slide this week -Ed).

PS Oh yeah, and I notice those match.com ads on myspace, i'd like to say mostly because of the fast loading streaming video, which seems like a kinda new advent. They are pretty funny to me. Like, how much body language they throw up in there because there's no audio or how they have semi-obtainable looking girls on it versus real model types. Like the nerdier looking chick who takes her glasses off and next thing you know, she's all that. Smart thinking, ad guys. Still haven't clicked though. Should've mentioned a drug mall.