Check it out, I wrote my very own Tool song:
Tag Archives: #tbt
Thatch
Do you still read comic strips? If so, where?
If you read them in a metropolitan newspaper, you are reading syndicated comic strips. This is the traditional method by which comic strips are published. Syndicated cartoonists can make big bucks because they get a fee for every different newspaper they appear in, and then there’s the merchandising. Seventy years ago, it was not uncommon to see syndicated cartoonists living large alongside movie stars. They were feted as a new style of raconteur. At his peak, the artist of Dick Tracy got a shiny new Cadillac, every year. Syndication is the ultimate goal of the working cartoonist. Continue reading
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Filed under Comix Classic & Current, Magazine Rack
Bad Shape
Only partially autobiographical.
From BIUL #1.
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Filed under Bad Influences, Comix Classic & Current, Magazine Rack
Hate Proof: Tears For Fears’ “Head Over Heels”
Tears For Fears was a “Second British Invasion” band, meaning they rode stateside on the coattails of MTV’s early-80s saturation. Around 1985, they were ubiquitous. Their single “Shout” is considered one of the most successful and recognizable songs of the 1980s. I swear to god, it played on the goddamn radio every single ride to school. I don’t know if I can claim to like it or hate it; it’s been looping in the back of my head since fifth grade. Actually, yeah. I hate it.
Roland Orzabal was the guy who looked like Jon Cryer’s older brother, and Curt Smith was the other, moodier bloke. Orzabal’s voice is fine, but it’s bass player Smith’s voice that completed the harmonies on their biggest chart-toppers. After Smith departed in 1991, Tears For Fears never recaptured the delirious heights of “Everybody Wants To Rule The World”.
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Filed under Bad Influences, Faint Signals, Late To The Party, Nostalgic Obsessions, Thousand Listen Club
L’il T-Rex Arms
From ARMLOAD OF ACTION #1, 2008.
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Filed under Comix Classic & Current, Magazine Rack, Nostalgic Obsessions
Squirrel Nut Zippers
Le temps détruit tout; time destroys all things. People, corporations, empires; everything eventually must yield to the Great Abyss. Immortality only exists within the perception of us mortals, meaning, there is no immortality for anything but mountains and tardigrades. We all die, alone and afraid.
Music is a celebration of the immediate present. Musicians agitate the air molecules and create “living” sound. Live audiences receive these vibrations, and are stimulated. This is why recordings seldom deliver the experience that live performances do, and why some dudes have to blast their music loud enough to drive everyone in earshot insane.
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Filed under Bad Influences, Comix Classic & Current, Faint Signals, Girls of BIUL, Late To The Party, Nostalgic Obsessions, Thousand Listen Club
The Ur-Sample
Sampling in hip-hop is important because it can send you backward in time, when it’s done well. It’s crate-digging shared on wax. The best samples offer a window into the mind of the producer, and a peek at the most obscure records in their vault. Since legally all sources must be credited, you can check the liners and draw up a shopping list. The torch of the turntable is carried on.
And oftentimes, forgotten geniuses of the past get their due.
There’s an unspoken rule in hip-hop culture; it’s based in appropriation, so it’s all about forging something fresh out of a juxtaposition of elements. A sample is looped over a beat by a DJ, before the MC begins to rap. The right samples are crucial; they provide the hook of tonal immortality.
The handsome gent in the photo above is David McCallum. He is the most widely-heard yet unknown dude in rap music.
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Filed under Comix Classic & Current, Faint Signals, Nostalgic Obsessions, Thousand Listen Club
Def Leppard
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Filed under Bad Influences, Comix Classic & Current, Faint Signals, Nostalgic Obsessions, Thousand Listen Club
Rock Monglers
In 1986, the greatest animated film based on a toyline in history premiered. It had celebrity voices, stunning visuals, and in the years following, it became an unstoppable cult classic.
A few months prior to that, Hanna-Barbera produced a cheap, ugly little movie, as is their wont, this time about warriors that turn into rocks. It had “celebrity voices” and the same discount animation they always used, and was quickly (and deservedly) forgotten. It was called GoBots: Battle of the Rock Lords.
aka “Gaybots, Babble of the Cocklords” (Petey, 6th grade)
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Filed under Animation Analysis, Bad Influences, Faint Signals, Idiot's Delight, Nostalgic Obsessions, Robot Toy Fetish, Saturday Movie Matinee, Worst Of All
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