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Off to San Diego!

Cody — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 20:42:01 +0000

It’s that time of year again…I’m heading to San Diego for Comic-Con 2010. There will be a little bit of a down time here at Taking Tiger Mountain as I’m whisked away to the whimsical capital of cosplay & convention exclusives. I’m a free agent this year, no longer tied to any one booth or publisher (my day job is working as a comic editor). I’m now free range, wandering the halls with a fistful of business cards and an empty wallet. I haven’t even looked at the panel listings, as I’m so used to working the show and not just attending it. The best stuff happens randomly anyway.

I’ll probably check out this show featuring the magnificent freaks Le Sexoflex. If you’re not yet aware of them, please check out their most recent disturbingly catchy single ‘Twincest’. My personal favorite is the nut brown crown ode ‘Poop On Face’. It makes me uncomfortable, but I love it dearly. That’s what makes art, right?

Look for things to get back rolling next week. I’ll be posting up pictures from the show on my podcast’s website SRS BSNS with DeMatteis and 2hands. Check it out or add the show’s twitter account for updates.

In the mean time, any readers heading to San Diego for Comic-Con 2010?

More Self Promotion – SRS BSNS Updates!

Cody — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 22:10:36 +0000

My pop culture podcast has updated some more so here’s more shameless self promotion. We have new episodes up, episodes 2.1 and 2.2…parts 1 and 2 of our video game discussion. Lots of reminiscing about the good ‘ole days when games were cartridges and consoles had no clue of what the internet was. Some talk too about what’s coming in the future as we’re still basking in the glow of E3. Since I last posted about the show, we’ve migrated to a proper url. The show can be found now at dematteisand2hands.com. The feeds have been upgraded, so you can add us to your iTunes as well, check that out here.

Part 3 of the video game episode will be coming next week.

Thanks and let me know what you think.

TTM Dropbox!

Cody — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 17:45:58 +0000

I’ve added a Dropbox for the site. If you’d like to send me any material for review feel free to either utilize this new dropbox or just ole’ fashioned email will do – cody@takingtigermountain.com.

Click on the image above or the widget in the sidebar to send me stuff.

New Podcast – SRS BSNS With DeMatteis & 2hands

Cody — Mon, 03 May 2010 18:22:20 +0000

Hello again. So, in some of the spare time that I’ve not been updating Taking Tiger Mountain I decided to start up a pop culture seeped podcast with my buddy Andrew ‘2hands’ Tunney called SRS BSNS!. We both met at Comicon in 2007 and have been talking shit about media since…so making you suckers on the internet listen to it seemed like the next logical conclusion. Episode 1.1 is up and 1.2 will be arriving later this week. I guess I should give fair warning that it’s got a bit of profanity going on…almost 100% my fault, Andrew was the consummate English gentleman save some discussion about Watchmen’s blue cock density.

We aim to keep this thing regular, as there’s always things to complain about in movies, music and video games. Give a listen and share it should you enjoy.

SRS BSNS! With DeMatteis & 2hands

Thanks!

What Have I Been Up To?

Cody — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 18:11:00 +0000

As each month ticks by and I’ve barely scraped together half a sentence for dear ole’ Taking Tiger Mountain, you might wonder: what have I been doing in the meantime?

A lot and a little, as difficult as it is to express…one of the major projects that I’ve been working on for months has finally reached a small milestone. It’s not at all music related but the first issue of Devil’s Due Publishing’s forthcoming mini series Jericho: Season Three – Civil War has finally been sent to press. The six issue mini-series picks up exactly where the canceled CBS television show ended and I think it will be a massive treat to both the fervent fan base of the show as well your average comic book reader. This is the first title that I’ve edited from start to finish and it’s certainly been a massive learning experience for me along the way. I’m very proud of the end result that is issue #1, but I do recognize that there’s still 5 more issues to go. If you enjoy comics or the show, please check it out when it hits the stands November 25th.

Above is cover #1A, drawn by the fantastically talented Scott West. Hire him…well, once he’s done with the Jericho covers for me.

In addition to crafting the Jericho mini, I spent a some time earlier this year prepping for and succumbing to the whirlwind that is San Diego ComicCon. I got wrangled into planning and managing the Devil’s Due booth and it was certainly an experience. The usual potent mixture of too little sleep, too much booze and people overload coupled with the whole “responsibility” thing makes for a surreal few days. Definitely some good times and positive things have come of my time down there.

Now, none of the above has anything to do with music, but but I’ll throw it out there that posts should be resuming again. If not for the few folks who may still check back, I need to resume writing for myself. My life has been pretty nutty and I think, while it’s not looking like it’ll calm down anytime soon, I’ve just settled into the fact that I have to adapt to the din that seems to always surround me and write anyway. There’s been a bit of a silent identity crisis, both for me and the site over the last few months…a debate about what the function of this site has been and what it should become. The content I hope to have here is less of a “Hey, here’s a new single from this band!” and more expanded commentary on what is appealing to me. A lot of times it’s easy to pop off a few words about a new video or leak, but better thoughts seem come with time. As I’m always thinking about music, I will continue to create content for the site that will be, with luck, worth the read.

New Feature For Taking Tiger Mountain: Twitter!

Cody — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 05:44:17 +0000

RSS feeds are out. Now we have what everyone loves to hate: a Twitter Feed!

Yes, I’ll now be contributing to the wonderful website with a mysterious profit model in hopes of promoting this wonderful musicblog. Subscribe to the OFFICIAL Taking Tiger Mountain feed to get updates on when new blog posts go up, recycled links from other more frequently updated music sites, and quite possibly, my musings about the chicken burrito I had for dinner tonight. (I ordered it without sour cream, it was good, and I ate it alone…glad that’s out of the way.)

Click the link below to find the new limb of Taking Tiger Mountain:

Oh yeah, I’m bringing the BLINK tag back, too. Just so ya know.

Oh Hai, Internet. I See You Were Here While I Was Out – Post Comicon

Cody — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 23:31:37 +0000

The day job called me a way for a significant length of time to deal with the thrill ride that is Comicon International. About a month and a half of prep outside of my normal book load, followed by 5 days of blissfully uncomfortable nirvana that is akin to being forcibly penetrated by a rainbow.

Yeah, that was from the final day of SDCC ‘07. It kinda feels like that after you work from setup to breakdown.

Anyhoo, I was drinking a solitary whiskey on the rocks of the evening, sitting outside at the Hyatt (yeah, too lazy to adhere to the boycott…it’s ok I didn’t pay for the drink) checking Google Analytics out of nervous boredom. Thanks primarily to Demi of This Next and her massive Stumbleupon influence, I found myself with a sizable spike in traffic. Moments later, my friend Andrew came running up looking like he’d witnessed the birth of his child, when he’d actually bumped into a slightly inebriated Joss Whedon *and* had a chance to chat with him.

Comicon is full of fun moments like that; it’s a surreal, democratic blend of fan, creator and furry all waiting in the same slow-moving line for a shitty convention center hotdog. Now that the madness is finally over, and the job has subsided a bit, I’m back to bring the posts up to a more regular frequency. Thanks to all those that have been stopping by!

This year I had a new phone around to snap a bunch of wacky pics. Enjoy the blurry fun over at my Flickr

(Potential) Mashup Alert! – The Cool Kids & Sebadoh

Cody — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 15:10:43 +0000

I’m a fan of mashups just everyone else. Audiobytes For Autobots is a charming new addition to the scene (anyone with a penchant for sampling the Talking Heads that much is o.k. with me). The new Girl Talk is enjoyable enough, a bit of a retread of the same concepts…but fun none the less. We could even trace it back to 2 Many DJ’s if you feel like digging through to the vintage.

But, in these modern times, we need more mashups. This year has seen the release of The Cool Kids debut EP Bakesale, another fantastic feat of Chicago hip-hop. This fun bit of minimalist hip-hop shares the same title as 1994’s proto-indie classic Sebadoh release. See what I’m getting at?

Someone needs to bring the two together. Now, my song chopping skills are intensely rusty otherwise I’d screw this up myself. Instead, I’m reaching out to you, Internet, to take on the task. There’s got to be someone out there with the time and the chops to mix some of Lou Barlow’s manic lyrics with the sparse beeps and claps from Chuck Inglish’s production.

Pretty please?

There’s even 2 mp3’s down here to get the ball rolling.

I look forward to what you have to offer, Anonymous Internets.

The Cool Kids – What Up Man?

Sebadoh – License To Confuse

I love the Beat Drop – Metal Lungies’s in-depth discussions of Kanye and J Dilla

Cody — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 05:00:46 +0000

A random click today landed me at the hip-hop tinged blog Metal Lungies. Much to my delight they have a reoccurring feature entitled Beat Drop. The site gathers writers to do a round table discussion examining the production skills of a particular hip-hop producer.

The most recent focuses on the great polarizer Kanye West. This discussion has of course garnered more comments than any of the other Beat Drops. Love him or hate him, Mr. West has a fantastic sense and feel for giving life to samples, at a level which belies his campy ego-driven persona. If I’d ever have to pick a bone with the man, it’d be that he chose to be the only man in hip-hop to sample Can and use it for the crappiest track on Graduation. I’ll forgive him…his almost equally strange choice of sampling Steely Dan’s Kid Charlemagne was an charming flip-cum-ploy for the ears of nerdy, white scenester kids. (See also, A-Trak). Weather you like his persona or not, his skill is undeniable. Listen to ‘Spaceship’ off Late Registration and try to say otherwise.

Kanye West – Spaceship

(On a related note, check out this Portfolio article on Steely Dan’s arrival into the world of samples)

For an even better dissection of a great career, their Beat Drop for the late master J Dilla is a wonderful exploration into catalog cut short. I became a fan quite late, well after his passing. One night a friend showed me the beautiful, Mixtape Club directed video for ‘Nothing Like This’.

J Dilla – Nothing Like This

The track is a kind of musical Schrödinger’s cat; something that is simultaneously hip-hop and not. The song, in combination with the beautiful video, blew my mind open and I began to probe the back catalog. There’s something startling about many of his production choices; combining elements both slinky and gruff to make unique compositions.

All of the Beat Drops are insightful & engaging bits of writing, something rare in this age of the McDonalds-esq music blogging. Where else are you going to find a statement like this:

I believe that people don’t truly change your life until your life has gone on for some time without them — only then do you realize the difference that they made on you.

It’s hard to find writing with such introspection in most corners of the internet, it’s even nicer to see such words written about hip-hop. Both posts alerted me to tracks loved but had no clue either had a hand in producing. (Kanye produced Goodie Mob…really?) Give them a read and I guarantee you’ll learn something…

Nom Nom Nominee – Happy Cat Approved!

Cody — Sun, 11 May 2008 02:08:31 +0000

R. Stevens went and created the above macro, featuring a mindblowingly content looking Obama chowing on tacos along side a classy ‘nom nom nom’ gag. This brightened my evening.

I couldn’t resist a tweak.

There, my hat is in the political/catmacro ring.

8-Bit Street Art Fills My Heart With Love

Cody — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 03:31:02 +0000

photo via Nick Gray

I’m a fan of pixel most things 16 bits and below; the closer you get to 8 the happier I am. This lovely moment of 8-bit zen was photographed somewhere on the Lower East Side. A step up from the real life Mario question mark boxes that nearly got a few Ohio folks arrested, this piece of art charmingly integrates itself into the concrete environment.

I’d always daydreamed of ripping off the idea I’d heard about long ago: making the entire first level of Mario into a stencil.

I mean, come on…half the work has been done: a full .png of World 1-1.

Someday.

I’m always overjoyed at the longevity of the basic Mario iconography. The lasting cultural impression that the 53 color palette of the NES has left on us as a generation never fails to bring me joy. From the evidence of chiptune composing software LSDJ to art collectives like I Am 8-Bit, the cultural resonance of the NES has lasted. I remember the moment I walked into a room at the 2004 Whitney Biennial and saw projections from Arcangel’s hand glitched NES cartridge displaying only SMB’s iconic clouds to the sound of looping chiptunes, I felt a sense of legitimacy.

photo via Artlink, though it is not a photo from the ‘04 Whitney Biennial

There was art distilled from the heart of a working NES, that sat high up on a shelf in a major NY art gallery. The artist had chose to leave the system visible, the heart of the projections left out and visible. Showing that the importance came as much from what was projected as to what created the images.

I had a similar feeling walking into the Game On exhibit which graced Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry twice (as the popularity demanded it). I visited the first incarnation in 2005, with a friend who had come to town for the week. Both him and I, who had went to high school together, lived as a pretty similar caliber of geeks. We walked the halls of the museum, looking at the original Famicom systems running behind glass, controllers jutting from the wall, like relics on hermetic altars. I poked at the table of ancient hand held systems, which included an array of Nintendo’s Game & Watch systems (crude LCD Gameboy precursors, some of whom share a striking resemblance to their current DS) I went on play Infocom’s text only Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy game on a still breathing Commodore 128. I’d wasted many hours on the same kind of computer, locked away in a self-imposed bedroom isolation on that very agonizing game.

cheeky animated gif via the archives of douglas adams dot com

I looked to my friend and said, “Well, we have to be doing something right…the shit we wasted our childhood on is now in a museum.”

Where Did I Go?

Cody — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 21:20:20 +0000

Almost a month and a half since the last post at TTM.com, and hell, let’s be honest…that post was written by Dan. So, it’s been ages since I wrote here, and I do think about it often, but time/life has consumed me:

I’ve begun a new job, working as an assistant editor for Devil’s Due.

I disappeared to Chicago for a week to celebrate my birthday and catch Why? at the Abbey Pub.

I returned to LA and caught some kind of chest plague that hurt enough for me to quit smoking and take a sick day from work.

I’m just realigning my life to a point where hopefully I can write again. We shall see.

When will then be now?

Soon hopefully…

THANK YOU: …and hello new folks.

Cody — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 22:32:58 +0000

To the few folks who’ve been visiting lately, a big thank you. Any eyes on the page are a motivation to churn out wore words. I’m going to be focusing on bringing more regular content to the site. I hesitate to put a formal schedule to it, as the day job still holds a grip on the majority of my time, but my goal is to bring updates to you every Monday-Wednesday-Friday. The format is still really being defined, the little stylistic tics still being hunted down and corrected. I’m also daydreaming about expanding the content to other writers down the road, potentially syndicating some things written by folks I know.

If you are so inclined, I’m always looking to expand my roster of logos. At the moment, I culled the backgrounds for my logo from an assortment of my own photography and am always looking for more. I’m going to create a page to host the full photographs of the ones submitted by readers with link backs and joyous thanks. If you’d like to submit one, please feel free to EMAIL them to me and I’ll add them to the rotating roster. The final image format will be 336×336 with the TTM logo over the top half of the image, so the abstract stuff seems to work best.

If you happen to be a fantastical designer who’d like to work me up a logo, that’s also awesome. Feel free to EMAIL me as well, you imaginary internet designer person.

I’ll leave you with a song:

The Books – Smells Like Content
(from 2005’s Lost and Safe)

LISTEN Download audio file (TheBooks_SmellsLikeContent.mp3)

Purchase at Insound

This song, for me, embodies a rainy Chicago day. The bulk of my last days in that city were wrapped in a bizzare cloud of confusion and potential that this song embodies. The skittering percussion and enveloping fragments of guitar feel much like the overarching feeling that permeated my last year in Chicago. I was gripped by a burden of of being simultaneously connected and fundamentally disconnected to the world, so much that I abandoned most every venture. The seeds of my drive and ability to write were hidden away in a long long winter, buried in an abstract comfort with the place I’d stuck myself. It’s a beautiful song none the less; efficiently encapsulating in a way that few other songs have, the calm that comes from recognizing the both the futility and beauty in life.