We'll Take the Rain -- Crooked Rain that is

While many Pavement purist favor Slanted & Enchanted, we think Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain is the defining Pavement album. In fact, this was the defining album for all indie music in the 1990s.

Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain offers a musical bounty of songs that really don't sound like anybody else...perhaps there is a glimmer of early REM in their work. Perhaps, but it was pure Pavement. Angular guitar riffs combined with Stephen Malkmus' word-play lyrics the band was quickly dubbed a favorite by graduate students.

Here's a key track called Gold Soundz. "So drunk in the August sun..." aah that line brings us back the halcyon days of 1994. Enjoy.



Pavement

Don't Let the Darkness Eat You Up, Jose Gonzales

Straight out of Sweden -- via Argentina -- Jose Gonzales brings a welcoming element to independent music. A pure sound comprised of only his voice and a nylon string guitar. His most recent album, In Our Nature, is award-worthy.

Here's the video for "Down the Line" from that record. Enjoy.



Jose Gonzales

Super Furry Animals, Juxtaposed with You

One can't deny the power of outside influences. In fact, the staff of Sound & Vision experienced a powerful shot in the arm by the outside influence of XMU (the hipster station on XM Radio). Our intern was out on a coffee run this morning and caught this most amazing song by Super Furry Animals while driving. Hope you enjoy and happy Friday.



Super Furry Animals, Sound & Vision

Santa Maria de Feira, Devendra's Spanish Influence

One would think that Devendra Banhart’s publicist has us wrapped around his finger -- considering the praise we heap on this groundbreaking artist. Not true. Our admiration of Devendra is purely organic. See our previous post on “I Feel Just Like a Child.” Not only is Mr. Banhart a diverse musician who – much like Ween – grabs pieces of various genres and makes them his own, but his Spanish songs are truly authentic -- like something played out of a tappas bar in Madrid.

Santa Maria de Fiera is one of these tunes. This song is guaranteed to put a smile on your face. To hear the tune, check out this YouTube clip. Very clever use of a baby orangutan.



As an added bonus, here’s him playing another Spanish tune in Poland. Enjoy.



devendra banhart

Innovative Multi-Media Artist Phil Hansen

The staff of Sound & Vision would like to thank Ron Papanek for introducing us to the innovative multi-media artist, Phil Hansen. We will let his work speak for itself, but definitely check out the Jimi Hendrix portrait made out of matches – which Phil eventually sets aflame. And this image of Kim Jong-il is made from the artist’s own blood.


Here’s the link to his web site and below is the Hendrix video.



Phil Hansen

Rutger Hauer and the Mulleted C. Thomas Howell in The Hitcher

The Hitcher 1986

This is the original tale of a cross country car delivery gone way wrong. It starts when the main character a very boyish Jim Halsey, played by a mulleted, C .Thomas Howell, stops to pick up hitchhiker named John Ryder played by Steven Segall’s favorite punching bag, Rutger Hauer. This film also stars Jennifer Jason-Leigh, slightly past her peak, with an annoying redneck accent. Who can forget the shot of her boobs in Fast Time’s at Ridgemont?

This is an action packed psychological thriller that is filled with car crashes, gun play and unbelievable moments. For example, dead eye Hauer is able to shoot down a helicopter while driving in the sand. This dude is not to be messed with. He torments, what ever became of, C. Thomas Howell, sporting his hockey hair and Indiana Jones leather jacket.

It is the classic, boy meets girl, boy loses girl, (because Hauer pulled her in half), and becomes a man. This film is an “awesome” period piece; the cars are unreliable and bio-degradable. The guns are all big ass revolvers, better suited for pistol whipping than gun fights. It is like Road Warrior without all the homo-erotic S&M leather. Check out the trailer:



Be sure to add this to your Netflix que and prepare yourself to be disturbed 80s style. Also, don’t waste your time with the 2007 remake of this classic.

- Kevin Langan, Contributing Editor, Sound & Vision

Zappa for President

A visionary, musical virtuoso, Presidential candidate and First Amendment advocate, Frank Zappa was a true pioneer who was uncompromising and ahead of his time. (Check out his critically acclaimed double album, Joe’s Garage). Do you recall when Prince’s Darling Nikki caused such a stir for its sexually explicit content? Well, Mr. Zappa fought an admiral battle to keep the government from censoring musical content. Check out this great clip of Mr. Zappa on CNN Hardball from 1986. One word to describe Zappa: badass. Enjoy.



Frank Zappa

Paris-Based Video Artists Bring 'Sound & Vision' to Life

While the music video has solidified as an integral part of popular music, in some ways it remains a frustratingly untapped art form. Its potential for expression is often pissed away in favor of serving the vanity of the performer, or bludgeoning the viewer’s baser instincts to death. Innovative crafters in “sound & vision” can be found, however, within the bowels of the Internet.

Pleix, a Paris-based collective of digital artists formed in 2001, has produced a handful of warped and humorous videos for European electronic groups, such as Basement Jaxx, Plaid and Vitalic. Their website is a QuickTime showcase of their award winning videos.

While there, check out “Itsu” which skillfully melds a tale of bio-corporate derangement with a dense and exciting piece from British electronica duo, Plaid. Here's the YouTube clip:



Pleix’s comic stride really comes across, however, in its direction for Groove Armada’s 2007 UK chart-topper “Get Down.” Put on some headphones and try to sit still.

- Matt Squire, Senior Contributing Editor and financial reporter (in his day job)

Pleix

Let’s Get Married in a Big Cathedral by a Priest

Hotel Yorba (White Blood Cells, 2001)
From garage rock, indie darlings to full-fledged rock stars, The White Stripes have indelibly been the most creative force in pure rock n roll in the new millennia. While they have many hard-rockin 1-4-5 tunes – with Jack’s gnarly signature lead licks – the one song that will stand the test of time is Hotel Yorba. A very, very (did we say very?) simple folk romp with a sing along chorus, this tune could very well be an Appalachia folk tune passed down from generation to generation. Enjoy.



White Stripes

Hip Hop's Most Dependable Absurdist

"Predictably Outstanding...Rehab delivers everything we've come to expect from hip-hop's most dependable absurdist — more psychedelic, coke-addled crime fiction spit relentlessly over horny rewired soul samples.”

This quote from New York Magazine’s Vulture Blog perfectly summarizes the Ghostface Killah aesthetic as captured in his new album The Big Doe Rehab.

The beats are jacked-up seventies R&B samples, laid over hard-hitting bass and snares. It is a sound that Wu Tang invented but that Ghostface has taken to new heights with Fishscale, More Fish and now The Rehab Album, all dropped within the last year-and-a-half. The end result is a sound that is both sweet and grimy, like candy that you found on the street.

The lyrics are more graphic than his last two albums. This can be accredited to the artist’s revitalized fame, which has no doubt propelled his decent into the hip-hop underworld of cocaine and ultra-violence. This is best exemplified in track number 4, Walk Around, which is a recount of an execution-style shooting at a bodega in New York City, and the subsequent getaway:

Flashbacks of me blowin' his brains out,
All I remember's my shirt, I couldn't get them goddamned stains out
Oxy cleans weak 'round the chest area, Right hand side,
I'm pluckin' off li'l pieces of meat…

While the rants on The Big Doe Rehab do not reach the levels of absurdity characteristic of albums such as Bulletproof Wallets, Ghostface breaks out the crazy with versus like:

G4 Jets with like three or four pets,
That’s bats, chickens and hens all the same sex…
Walk through the Amazon spilling Don Moet,
To find my way back I have to leave a trail of baguettes…

The Big Doe Rehab is a solid album from a solid artist who is keeping east coast hip-hop alive nearly a decade after its prime.

- Andrew Hoffman, Contributing Editor, Sound & Vision