Non-format

I’m no designer, but this Norwegian-British design firm’s work is inspiring:

More on non-format’s website.

ninjagarden

The Good Old Days

scott

related posts:

• Laconic Oration
• Season’s Greetings!
• love this
• Sexy Frankenstein’s Monster

CANON SONIQUE: a mixtape (16)

continuing the online mixtape.
[(1).(2).(3).(4).(5)]
[(6).(7).(8).(9).(10)]
[(11).(12).(13).(14).(15)]

song (16):

Morrissey – “Certain People I Know”

this song is the 3rd single off of the 1992 album, “Your Arsenal”.

Morrissey. well… i think most people know who he is. he was in the smiths, ya know. and even reel big fish have covered his songs (here’s proof), so you know he must be at least as well known as ah-ha.

here’s a video. look how fucking ROCKABILLY these guys are. i usually HATE rockabilly guys, but i LOVE these babies. hey! nobody’s perfect.

scott

related posts:

• CANON SONIQUE: a mixtape (1)
• some GOOD rockabilly
• PRIMER: SCREAM (pt. 1)
• CANON SONIQUE: track list

The man, the myth, just some guy

So, a couple of people have asked me, “Who is Rob Dobi, anyway?” By a couple of people, I mean just Ryan Meier AKA Rieman Miller. I already answered the question to RM, but I figured maybe other people were curious to the answer as well, and I have nothing to do on this cold, Saturday evening…

Back in high school when I was listening to really cool (JK) emo bands, I set out to the internet to learn more about this elusive genre. What I found when I googled “emo” was Rob Dobi and what was then his assumed fifteen minutes of fame: how to dress emo.

Back when dobi.nu was in its prime in 2002, Dobi featured on his website not only a tongue-in-cheek look at emo fashion, but also more personal information, such as school pranks, old family photos and a slew of urban exploring photographs of abandoned, east coast insane asylums.

Today, dobi.nu presents Dobi as a successful t-shirt, poster businessman with clients, such as Urban Outfitters, Fallout Boy and the like. There are still some urban exploration photographs, but the personal anecdotes that really made Dobi stand out as more than just some RISD graduate are gone.

So, yup, there you have it: a brief summary of who Rob Dobi of the never disappearing Rob Dobi 2008 post is.

ninjagarden

Least Viewed Posts

we have a little widget on the side of the page over there that is constantly updating itself with the most popular blog posts of the day. it’s pretty fun to see what kind of articles people are reading, but for me it’s just as fun to see what nobody bothered to read. thanks to the wordpress stats, i can do just that! and did!

here’s a list of the least viewed posts since we started the blog:

matt argos: sports fashion police
christmas carolz
movie party 1
europe trip: chapter 15 (getting a good deal done)
season’s greetings!
movie party: the rocky series
the urgency tour, days 4/5/6
bionic commando: rearmed
vote for beati paoli!
beati paoli w/ everthus the deadbeats: june 25th

sure… some of these, i understand the low view count, but there are also some decent posts in this list!

scott

Singles Club: 3

BLUR

“TENDER”

b/w “ALL WE WANT”/”MELLOW JAM”/FRENCH SONG”

(Albarn/Coxon/James/Rowntree)

Released 2/14/99

UK: 2

The first single from their 1999 album 13, “Tender” found Blur exploring a music direction more in keeping with the song’s eponymous emotion than much of their previous work. The band’s prior album, 1997′s Blur, saw the band move away from their signature “britpop” sound in favor of a looser, messier approach (this is the album “Song 2″ was on). 13 saw them go even farther into weird prog-art-rock territory, with the help of producer William Orbit (who worked on Madonna’s Ray Of Light album, among others). “Tender” gives little indication for what its parent album sounds like, however, as it is a gospel song that leisurely unfolds over the course of seven-and-a-half serene minutes.

Inspired, as much of the 13 album was, by the dissolution of main songwriter Damon Albarn‘s almost decade-long relationship with Elastica’s Justine Frischmann, “Tender” is a hymn of redemption and endurance. This theme is brought to bear simply but effectively by  the chorus’s plea t0 “get through it”, a sentiment made stronger by the gospel choir that accompanies Damon on this little piece of self-advice. Another love touch is the post-chorus contribution by guitarist Graham Coxon. who plantitively sings “Oh my baby/oh my baby/Oh why?/Oh my”. It might not look like much on paper (sic), but it’s very moving in song. Their are no great shifts in the arrangement of “Tender”, just the steady “Give Peace A Chance” percussion and Coxon’s unusually bluesy (for him) guitar figures, but its simplicity, in both musical and lyrical content, is what makes the song so direct, and so great.

It was kept off the top of the UK chart by “Baby One More Time” by Britney Spears.

I remember very vividly getting these singles imported when they came out, through sirendisc.com. I was working at the Fleur 4 theatres the day I got them (with my friend Ryan Ingram?), and I couldn’t wait to go home and listen to the b-sides. That was TEN YEARS AGO. Jesus, I feel old. Anyway, it’s a great song, enjoy.

The video, featuring a live performance of the song instead of more typical lipsynched rendition:

Live on Letterman, circa ’99:

And audio of the “Tender” single’s best b-side, “All We Want”:

G.

More Japanese mergers/acquisitions

Awhile ago I wrote an entry about Japanese mergers and buy-outs of recent years. Here’s a recap:

Squaresoft (Final Fantasy, SaGa, Mana) and Enix (Dragon Quest, Soulblazer) merged to create Square Enix.
-Square Enix acquired Taito (Space Invaders, Arkanoid, Bubble Bobble) but maintains it as a separate brand.

Sammy (Guilty Gear, pachinko machines) acquired SEGA (Sonic, Phantasy Star, Yakuza) to form SEGA Sammy but SEGA is maintained as a separate brand.

Konami (Castlevania, Metal Gear, Contra) acquired Hudson Soft (Bonk, Bomberman) but maintains it as a separate brand.

Namco (Pac-Man, Tekken, Tales) merged with Bandai (Gundam, Digimon) to form Namco Bandai.

Technos (Double Dragon, Super Dodge Ball, River City Ransom) folded and its assets were acquired by Atlus (Shin Megami Tensei).

SNK (King of Fighters, Samurai Shodown, Metal Slug) was acquired by a pachinko company and then later regained its independence as SNK Playmore.

Since I wrote that entry, there have been more recent developments . . .

Namco Bandai acquired the video game aspect of Banpresto (Super Robot Wars, Summon Knight). Namco Bandai also acquired D3 Publisher (Puzzle Quest, licensed games).

Tecmo (Ninja Gaiden, Dead or Alive, Tecmo Bowl) merged with Koei (Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Dynasty Warriors) to form Tecmo Koei.

AND MOST INTERESTINGLY, Square Enix purchased a European publisher, Eidos (Tomb Raider, Hitman, Legacy of Kain), pending shareholder approval.

“The Girl Ain’t Preggers” now in video game format

Ever wish you could jump over babies and turn them into money?

Well, now you can thanks to BP’s pal, Grampall Jookabox.

As if his video for “The Girl Ain’t Preggers,” which Scott shared with us, wasn’t entertaining enough, Asthmatic Kitty created a video game set to that very same hypnotic song, that surpasses the video.  You run around, jump over babies, turn them into money, collect the money, money = milk, then toss milk bottles at babies.  And most importantly, it has a good message. To, um, feed babies, or something.

Check the game here.

Oh yeah, and the dude is going on tour in Europe in April, lucky bastard.

thanks to pitchfork for this info…yes, that means I’ve started reading them again.

Ryan

SINGLES CLUB: 2

THE HOUSE OF LOVE

“FEEL”

b/w “IT’S ALL TOO MUCH (Beatles Cover) / “LET’S TALK ABOUT YOU” / “STRANGE BREW (Cream Cover)”

(Guy Chadwick)

The House Of Love are one of my favorite bands that no one’s heard of. Initially signed to Creation Records (UK home of Jesus & Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine & Oasis, among others), by the time of their third album Babe Rainbow, the band had ended up on Fontana Records in the UK and Mercury in the States. Hyped by the UK music press as the post-Smiths great white hope of the 80s indie scene, many think the HOL’s thunder was stolen by the emerging Stone Roses. By the time of Babe Rainbow‘s release in 1992, The House Of Love were widely-seen as a group that never quite made it to the big leagues, instead eternally relegated to the second division.

Of course, this has nothing to do with their music, which I think is fantastic. Guy Chadwick, the band’s main songwriter, is criminally underrated in my estimation. both lyrically and compositionally. “Feel”, the second single from Babe Rainbow, features signature House Of Love heavily-reverberated guitar, Guy’s sweet croon and a general melancholy mood. So right up my Anglophile alley, then. Also, I tried to find the b-side cover of George Harrison’s “It’s All Too Much”, to no avail. Track it down if you can, quite good.

Here’s the video:

G.

Gamestop Training Video

I’m sure this has been making the rounds on the internet for the last few weeks now, but I came across this via The Consumerist.

I realize that Gamestop is attempting to make humor out of selling to women, but it still seems somewhat offensive. Imagine they were selling to Latinos or Blacks or any other social class, race, group, etc.

That aside, it’s still pretty amusing.  Nothing like suggesting for your employees  to tell fat women to buy exercise programs for the wii and  awkwardly introduce yourself and make passes at milfs.

Ryan