August 2008

The Archives

• 08.10.08
  New Feature For Taking Tiger Mountain: Twitter!   Rant (0)

  

  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.
  

• 08.06.08
  88 Drummers Wearing Nike Shoes! - 88Boadrum This Friday   Social Calendar (8)

  

  Following up on last year’s 77Boadrum, the even has expanded and gone bi-costal. This year, you’ll get live drumming in both NYC and Los Angeles. The LA venue will be at the La Brea Tar Pits, nestled in the heart of the city. For NYC, the everyone will be gathering at the Williamsburg Waterfront. The west coast event will be conducted by Soft Circle contributor and 88BoaDrum artistic director Hisham Bharoocha; east coast duties will be handled by local act Gang Gang Dance. Both cities will be performing an 88 minute piece that will begin this Friday 8/8/08 at, yep, you guessed it…8:08pm. Personally, LA wins for the simple fact that they have Hella’s Zach Hill. I doubt they’ll let him solo, but one can dream.

  I had the chance to catch The Boredoms a few years ago at 2006’s Intonation festival, where Eye conducted a mini version of the past two years events. Leading a circle of 6 drummers on the outdoor Chicago stage, the whole event was surreal and hypnotic. Amongst an lineup that smashed stoned hip-hop up against Robert Pollard’s tequila fueled antics, The Boredoms brief but electric set was the peak of an otherwise wonky festival.

  Available at the show will be first-come, first-served hand screened “Nike Sportswear 88BoaDrum NSW Tee.” Woo Nike sponsorship! Each of the event shits will be hand screened on site, featuring designs by Boredom’s lead noisician Eye. Supposedly, the performers may be getting some custom kicks too.

  While the event is free, it looks like most all the tickets from the website have been distributed. There may still be tickets at the physical distribution centers for each event:

  LA:

  Amoeba Music
  6400 Sunset Blvd., Hollywood, Ca 90028
  323.245.6400

  LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art)
  5905 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90036
  (323) 857-6000

  NYC:

  Sound Fix Records-Brooklyn
  110 Bedford Ave @ N.11th St. , Brooklyn NY 11211
  (718) 388-8090

  Other Music-Manhattan
  15 East 4th Street, NY NY 10003
  (212) 477-8150

  Volunteering is also an option; one I may be engaging in just to make sure I can participate in what will be an undoubtedly amazing event. Drop a line to volunteers88BoaDrum@gmail.com to see if there’s still slots open.

  If all else fails, there’s always the Craigslist vultures of NY and LA.

  HIT THE JUMP FOR THE FULL ROSTER OF DRUMMERS (THAT I STOLE FROM PITCHFORK) AND A VIDEO FROM LAST YEAR’S 77BOARDRUM

• 08.04.08
  Sing It With An Accent And I’m Weak In The Knees - New CSS   Singles (1)

  

  Though I far prefer the cute soaring chorus of ‘Left Behind’ over the grunge-lite camp of ‘Rat Is Dead’, but the latter will do for a label sanctioned freebie. Sub Pop has released the song to give us a taste of the recently released CSS album entitled Donkey. The cutesy buzzsaw riffs do the job, but the better choice is the first single ‘Left Behind’.

  It’s a song fully formed; utilizing the smatterings of studio polish to round out their sound, rather than corrupt and bloat it. The hook is a genuine winner, mashing Lovefoxxx’s soaring vocals with the punkish guitar riffage. Case in point, my room mate just walked by, ushered by my repeated playing of the track, air-guitaring along with the chorus. I think it’s exactly the kind of reaction the song intends to illicit, given that the song’s sugary coating will grind it’s way into your memory quite easily.

  
  

  CSS - Rat Is Dead (Rage)

  Free download from Sub Pop.

  
  

  CSS - Left Behind

  HIT THE JUMP FOR THE ‘LEFT BEHIND’ VIDEO

• 08.02.08
  Politely Face Melting - Free Mogwai Single   Singles (0)

  

  It’s been nearly 2 years since Scottish post rock masters Mogwai have released a proper album. Mr. Beast came out in early ‘06 and except for that wicked riff in the middle of ‘Glasgow Mega-Snake’, was honestly a pretty wobbly affair. The following years saw the band doing the soundtracks for football doc Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait and the vaguely metaphysical Aronofsky film The Fountain.

  September 23rd of this year will see the release of The Hawk Is Howling, a new album released via Wall of Sound. In honor of the impeding release, a single has been set free on the internet…like an eagle or hawk. Get it?
  
  

  Mogwai - Sun Smells Too Loud

  The overall dynamic remains the same, but the consistency of the atmosphere has shifted somewhat. A distinctly electronic texture sits atop the usual Mogwai formula. It’s a slight twist, something that counterbalances the inherent same-ness that made Mr. Beast disappointing. While there’s nothing wrong with the Mogwai structure, but there’s something to be said for a band subtly adding to the usual to create “new”.

  Look for the new release on September and check out the track listing below.

  1 I’m Jim Morrison, I’m dead
  2 Batcat
  3 Danphe and The Brain
  4 Local Authority
  5 The Sun Smells Too Loud
  6 Kings Meadow
  7 I Love you, I’m Going To Blow Up Your School
  8 Scotland’s Shame
  9 Thank You Space Expert

• 08.02.08
  Oh Hai, Internet. I See You Were Here While I Was Out - Post Comicon   Rant (1)

  

  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