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Kickstart The Nostalgia: Helms Alee – “8/16″ [Video]

February 16, 2012 in Movies / Television, Music, The Web, With Video

The internet’s a weird fucking place and that’s mostly because it’s not really a “place.”  It’s absurd as shit and almost equally as fascinating when, one day, you simply realize that it’s the primary source for all of your information about what people are doing in the “real” world.  The computer is one of the first items that people head toward after they’ve done anything, just so that they can report to the virtual world that it’s just occurred and get validated, as if any meaning will evaporate otherwise.  That is, of course, if they don’t already have a smart phone, which allows them to report from it immediately, or even while these mundane events are still occurring.  It’s amazing how technology has managed to make a phone call even less personal and indirect than they were before.  [Remember the AT&T ads where the marketing angle was exactly the reverse.]  People have invested endless portions of their lives towards traveling this superhighway like Neil Cassady and becoming proficient survivalists in this world like some sort of Bear Grylls / Kevin Flynn hybrid.  Their fingers are on the electronic pulse and seem to know the moment that anything with any level of longstanding importance is generated, along with every fetal meme and the moment that each African green monkey cyber sneezes out a new strain of viral sensation.  These people are called “nerds” and, fortunately or otherwise, all of us have slowly grown closer and closer to epitomizing that term over the last 2 decades.  Most people seem to catch the hype during it’s peak, or even on it’s way out, like walking holographic corpses with the progeriatric life-spans of the digital age.  Those of us who fall somewhere in-between, either become aware of the new media by having it sent to us like a package or stumble across it like a pothole, possibly even getting nicked in the side of the head by it like low-hovering space-junk.  One such anomaly that’s really gained prominence over the last couple of years is the online crowdfunding website Kickstarter.com and, while I’ve often been unsure of what to make of it, the latest project by Seattle-based rock outfit, Helms Alee, has managed to officially validate it’s entire existence for me. Read the rest of this entry →

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RTX GONE GONE: Black Bananas – Rad Times Express IV

February 12, 2012 in Music, Reviews, With Video

In 2004, Jennifer Herrema released the debut album from her post-Royal Trux band RTX.  Royal Trux had been a favorite band of mine for a few years and all of the Neil Hagerty solo albums had been great so far, so I was really excited about this new project.  I took the September 24th release date off of work so that  I could spend the whole day smoking weed and listening to the album, but was disappointed when  Rainy Day Records‘ shipment from Touch and Go (Drag City‘s distributor at the time) didn’t show up that day.  I was even more disappointed when Rainy Day‘s order came in the next day and I finally heard Transmaniacon.  What a shitty record!  11 songs of fairly straight forward bubble gum metal.  Not what I was expecting from the co-leader of one of the most forward thinking bands of the 90s.  Herrema‘s vocals were still as good as they had been with Royal Trux, but the music just wasn’t that interesting and it was a bummer that the best song on the album, “Joint Chief“, was just the lyrics to her old band’s song “Shockwave Rider“, except with stadium rock guitar riffs behind it.  I gave each new RTX album a listen whenever they came out, but they just didn’t do it for me.

Then in October of last year, Drag City Records announced that Herrema‘s RTX had “Split into ‘Black Bananas’,” and that the new band’s debut, “Rad Times Xpress IV” would be out in 2012. Read the rest of this entry →

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BORDERLINE Depressing – Madonna, M.I.A. & the Super Bowl Debacle

February 8, 2012 in Global Destruction, Music, Reviews, With Video

Like over 100-million other Americans, I spent this Superbowl Sunday planted in front of a television screen like a goon.  Whether it was because I’m a superfan that gets really fucking amped about over-the-top musical productions by aging over-hyped performers or because I’m really just into talking shit during inevitable trainwrecks, I still have to admit that I bothered to sit through the excruciating annual disaster known as the half-time show and any justifications as to my reasoning for doing so, doesn’t really let me off of the hook.  While watching this filth live, I caught a bunch of shit that people around me didn’t happen to see, for whatever reason.  Plenty of others did and, by now, the internet is flooded with articles and coverage of the bullshit that I’m about to write about here and now, but that’s not really my concern.  That’s everyone else’s angle and their perspectives.  Most of the time I really don’t feel like wasting my time talking about this type of junk or getting swept up into the whirlwind of TMZ topics like the Superbowl and Madonna or Justin Beiber skateboarding with his shirt off, etc.  This time, however, it appears that I’m weak folks.  I’m weak, and I can’t help myself.  The following is my breakdown of a performance that already managed to break down much more painfully on it’s own.  If I can spew all of my rants like this in one load at the beginning of the year, maybe I can get back to writing about things that are slightly more important throughout the rest of it.  Probably not.  There’s gonna be a lot to address here, so I’ll try to stay as focused and on point as possible… Read the rest of this entry →

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ENDED: WIN Tix to ELEANOR FRIEDBERGER Live @ The Crocodile [Seattle]

February 1, 2012 in Music, With Video

CONTEST HAS ENDED

winner will be announced/contacted shortly

The brother and sister duo of Eleanor and Matthew Friedberger officially came together as the experimental Indie-pop project, Fiery Furnaces back in 2000.  Since then, they have consistently proven themselves to be one of the most adventurous and prolific groups in contemporary music.  The duo is credited with 9 releases throughout their shifts between 3 of the most respected independent record labels in the business (Rough Trade, Fat Possum, & Thrill Jockey).  With Eleanor taking on the majority of the vocal duties (both live and in studio) and Matthew handling most of the instrumentation, the brother and sister team has created everything from concept albums to incredibly inventive re-workings/re-editings of previous material, a “silent album” and even their “Democ-Rock” series, which attempts to place the fate of the music -both in content and approach- into the hands of their fans/audience.  It’s not rare to find Eleanor singing pop-like melodies over a mutated fabric of bubbling and squawking sonic confusion ala-Captain Beefheart, with glimpses of Brazillian psych legends Os Mutantes, shambolic free-jazz drum assaults, or synthed-out bleeps and blown-out bass lines forcing their way up through the film of buzzing Marquee Moon-esque guitar work.  It’s often been difficult to describe their sound for many, but the word “difficult” itself has been used on more than one occasion.  Their live performances had a tendency for becoming even more “experimental”, blending songs together or simply fragmenting and reconstructing them into new creations altogether.

Matthew dropped two simultaneous solo records in 2006, but Eleanor didn’t bother to take that same plunge into the realm of solo artist until 2011‘s 10-song effort, Last Summer.  Overall, Last Summer was received with incredibly positive reviews, even landing on multiple best of the year lists.  With her vocal cadence often coming through like a cross between Jonie Mitchell and an On Golden Pond-era Katherine Hepburn injected into the bone of verse-chorus-verse structure, it would be almost understandable for one to attempt to classify the release as a straight ahead indie-pop effort, but the stark shifts in tone, subtly off-kilter rhythms, and varied influences overlap in such manners that they often become something almost undefinable.  It’s something that is decidedly and uniquely Friedberger.

Guitar in hand, Eleanor is currently touring in support of Last Summer and our friends at the legendary Seattle venue, The Crocodile have offered us a pair of tickets to kick down to one of youz guyz, so as you can go to and enjoy the show real nice like. Read the rest of this entry →

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Pledge to see TIM & ERIC’$ BILLION DOLLAR MOVIE Un-”Rango’ed” on Youtube or On Demand

January 28, 2012 in Comedy, Movies / Television, The Web, With Video

We here at Monster Fresh are huge fans of the comedy team of Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim.  These days, the duo is most widely acknowledged for their sketch comedy program Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! that airs on the Cartoon Network‘s late night programming block Adult Swim and features jarring quick-cut editing, flashes of Pokemon-seizure-level anxiety, and public access/early ’80s instructional video aesthetics.

Prior to the Awesome Show, Tim and Eric starred-in/created Tom Goes to the Mayor, another Adult Swim program that, unlike it’s follow-up, was primarily animated and much more story-based.  The limited animation style of TGTTM was created from highly expressive (both facially and bodily) still images -processed through photo-shop to resemble photocopies and making for incredibly jumpy transitional movements for the characters- to tell the stories.  The program, which evolved from a web series, had a very specific aesthetic of it’s own, while including random live action clips interspersed throughout it.  When the Awesome Show was created, it adopted some of those same live action characters (ie. married news team, Jan and Wayne Skylar).  It also brought with it some of the many co-stars/cameos that Heidecker and Wareheim had managed to work with on Tom Goes to the Mayor (Patton Oswalt, Zach Galifianakis, Jeff Goldblum, etc.).  With the shift into the more fragmented approach of the Awesome Show, an altogether new, yet equally distinct, aesthetic was created that came to define the duo.  Eschewing the static imagery and stiff facsimile look of the two-tone TOM for schizophrenic blips and the diced-up scattered imagery of their new program, the live action felt decidedly more “animated” and, for lack of a better word, psychedelic.  It was like laying half-chloroformed in a bin of mixed candy’s while a wall of televisions flipped through clips of Max Headroom, QVC, white noise, Univision, and Sid and Mary Krofft outtakes.  While TGTTM was like a pill high (or, low, rather), The Awesome Show was like floating out of an LSD or Molly trip, while spiking your high back up with OJ, wasabi, and a cocktail of  the shit that gets you crunk, but wasn’t necessarily created for that intended purpose (solvents, dramamine, nitrous, Robitussin).  The strychnine was dirty.  The cinematography often felt like a real life John Kricfalusi cartoon. This was a style that followed Wareheim into directorial work in videos for the likes of MGMT, The Bird and the Bee, Major Lazer, and Depeche Mode, as well as commercials for Old Spice.  They’ve done live tours and even some short films for HBO‘s Funny Or Die presents, but this week the comedy duo is attempting to translate their trademark tomfoolery onto the big screen (or small screen, depending) with a handful of somewhat unorthodox promotional methods. Read the rest of this entry →

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CAPTAIN AO – A Conversation with Electronic Musician, DJAO

January 10, 2012 in Interviews, Music, Technology, With Video

Alex Osuch, who records under the moniker of DJAO, is a member of the Pacific Northwest electronic music label/collective, Dropping Gems.  He is a relatively new artist making his way into the Seattle music scene, but with the release of his first solo EP, Wuhn and his more recent collaborative EP in the No Northwest series, he has been getting a lot of attention.  A promising up and comer, Osuch creates music that has a distinctive tone and that crosses genres.  Though he works with the tools of electronic music, he has a quality that appeals beyond his media.

Electronic music is not my genre of expertise, so it came as a surprise to me when I heard AO’s soothing and ambient tones on his solo release.  I had the good fortune of then, seeing him live at the Dropping Gems Showcase at Decibel Festival, where he was joined by friend and frequent collaborator, Zuri Biringer, whose lilting guitar riffs added a grounded sense of nature, invoking images of sky and water.  It’s impossible to listen to the Seattle native’s sound without being drawn to the beats.  However, while they ultimately drive the music forward, they aren’t the primary focus of the songs, which create a vivid mood through crooning vocals, guitar, and keyboard.  In combination with some incredible imagery that accompanied the performance, the set was nearly transcendent.

Not long after his show that night, I was able to sit down with Alex to discuss his development as a DJ and find out where he draws his inspiration from.  His ambient sound was a divergence from the sounds that I had heard from him previously and I had many questions.  Eloquently and in fascinating detail, he was able to give me answers to questions that I didn’t even know that I had.  To an electronic media newbie, like myself, I found him to be incredibly informative and insightful; even providing hints on where to start my own exploration of the vast genre.  In the end, he was even so helpful as to give a demonstration of how he creates his unique style.

The following is the transcript from that conversation. Read the rest of this entry →

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