around 13 or so, i heard JS Bach's Chaconne in D Minor for Unaccompanied Violin on the car radio. I was stuck in the crappy Corsica with my dad while Karl Haas' radio program, Adventures In Good Music, came on the classical station. the violinist Nathan Millstein's Stradivarius came over the air playing this piece. this . . . leviathan . . . this fury of genius that is the Bach Chaconne filled my 13 year old head and jarred it into fruition.

i had started playing the violin when i was 8 years old, but it wasn't really until around this time that i actually wanted to practice. i would get home from school and practice for 5 or 6 hours a day. there's a performing arts high school in my city that I auditioned for and got accepted (que the theme to Fame). we actually took dance instead of P.E. the other half the day I went to the magnet school across the street for academics. when i went to this place i would bring copies of biographies of famous violinists and read those instead of the textbooks. I read the biographies of Nicolo Paganini, Jascha Heifetz, and Fritz Kreisler. names that only violinists, except for Heifetz maybe, know by heart.

the Bach Chaconne inspired me because I vowed that someday, however long it takes, I would play that incredibly difficult, beast of a piece from beginning to end without it sounding like crap.  

 

(the original sheet music for the Bach Chaconne for Unaccompanied Violin)

to be continued . . .

strange skulls sprinkled over the land . . .

Chris Rock Is Documenting Every Time He's Pulled Over By Cops By Taking A Selfie

when I first saw this headline I thought, "how many times can the guy get pulled over? maybe 2 or 3 a year?" According to the article above, Rock decided to start taking the selfies after getting pulled over 3 times in 7 weeks.

(Chris Rock from "Pootie Tang")

 

Rock was also pulled over twice more earlier this year.

 

 

this is what Rock said in December when he was interviewed with New York Magazine and spoke about the racism he encounters as a black male in 2015:

“I mean, I almost cry every day… I drop my kids off and watch them in the school with all these mostly white kids, and I got to tell you, I drill them every day: Did anything happen today? Did anybody say anything? They look at me like I am crazy.”

i remember Rock joking about 'driving while black' during his second HBO stand-up special, Bring the Pain. that HBO special, by the way, holds up quite well 19 years later. it's sad, not ironic, when life, in this case, imitates art.

 For your viewing pleasure, I give you the YouTube link to Chris Rock's Bring the Pain (1996), the full special. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-opn0LzBR8  

Why do we have wars?

Hugh Hefner Built A Secret Tunnel Between the Playboy Mansion and Jack Nicholson's Home

"Non Gratum Anus Rodentum" was the motto for the Tunnel Rats over in Vietnam in the 70s. it translates as "Not Worth a Rat's Ass". It's also the title of the first track on Jucifer's new album, District of Dystopia. jello Biafra's Alternative Tentacles http://www.alternativetentacles.com/ label is coming out with a vinyl version soon. A few weeks ago, i picked up a copy of Jucifer's за волгой для нас земли нет (Rough translation: “there is no land beyond the Volga”). thank the giant lizards in the sky for cut & paste! what first interested me was the concept behind the album. it sprang out of Gazelle Amber Valentine and Edgar Livengood's childhood love for books about Russian history and culture. the album itself is about the Battle of Stalingrad during WWII and the role of women in combat. Amber Valentine's vocals (especially on the B side) are brutal and nihilistic as fuck. that's what i love about this album. it hits HARD mimicking the chaos and visceral hatred of war. Jucifer’s glacial doom comes with flashes of complete aggression in the form of beligerent sludge, & frantic black metal. i've been spinning it and spinning it and spinning it. it rewards the listener the deeper you listen to Valentine's chugging bass and Livengood's competent drums. i give this album FIVE OUT OF FIVE LAVA HELMETS!

CLICK HERE To Hear FALL OF EFRAFA - Owsla

Incredible band from Brighton, England that manages to artfully combine black metal, hardcore, crust punk, and chamber rock.

my lava helmet is leaking oxygen. ALRIGHT, so i grew up listening to punk rock because of skateboarding. i started skateboarding in the late 80s and early 90s and during that time it went hand-in-hand with bands like Dinosaur Jr., Minor Threat, the Descendants, and Dead Milkmen just to name a few. later on i started realizing that my relatively small Midwestern city (Louisville, KY) was a hotbed of great punk rock & indie bands like Slint, Rodan, Endpoint, the Rachel's, Shipping News, Will Oldham, and i could go on. also during this time i was practicing the violin between 4 to 6 hours a day and falling in love with composers like Nicolo Paganini, Vivaldi, Shostakovich, J.S. Bach, Sibelius, and Sarasate. When i started playing the violin i didn't think that the classical world and the rock world could be combined. Later, i would break away from playing pre-written music written by dead composers and start composing new music with rock musicians instead of oboe and tuba players.


Since coming here I've taken an interest in your primitive tinkerings at musical profundity. it's pretty much molten lava & a 100% cholesterol-based diet in my parallel reality so music is a rare delight for me. My very first album review will be Mount Eerie's "Wind's Poem"! Mount Eerie is centered around Phil Elverum, who was in the Olympia-based band, The Microphones. i ordered Sauna (his latest album) and Wind's Poem from my local music store a few weeks ago. because Phil Elverum puts his music out on his own record label, PW Elverum & Sun, it can take a little longer than usual to arrive. i've heard he has a very DIY operation out of his home. my first exposure to Mount Eerie was through his "No Microphone" album, which is great and highly recommended.

 

 

 

Wind's Poem is an album partially inspired by black metal. I think "inspired-by" is an important distinction to note. This isn't traditional black metal by any means. Elverum did mention two black metal bands in an interview about Wind's Poem; Xasthur and Burzum. Although, the two aforementioned bands are very different stylistically. Xasthur is funeral doom and Burzum is classic, shitty (imho) Norwegian black metal.  If there's one thing Elverum is known for, it is creating interesting walls of sound. As a result, there are tracks on Wind's Poem that revel in creating insane towers of black sonic omnipotence! 4 tracks in particular stand out: Wind's Dark Poem, the Hidden Stone, Mouth of Sky, and Lost Wisdom Pt. 2. Every single one of them a winner. I own this album on both MP3 and vinyl. the audible difference between the two formats is stunning.  There are more traditional Mount Eerie songs on the album that give it a dynamic feel without overstimulating the listener. This album caused me to take a closer look at the black metal genre. i've been rewarded a thousand-fold for doing so. a couple bands in this vein worth checking out are Deafheaven, Ash Borer, Panopticon (a Louisville guy), Vestiges, Fall of Efrafa, and Mayhem. It is now that i will introduce my music ranking system (which is very simple). I give 1 out of 5 Lava Helmets with 5 obviously being the highest. Wind's Poem receives FIVE LAVA HELMETS! Yay!