Is it just me...

...or does Ray J seem like if Steve Urkel grew up and tried to be a smooth R&B sanger (don't trip, I spelled singer wrong on purpose).


Actually, Marques Houston looks a little more like a grown up Urkel...crossed with one of those cabbage domed aliens from every 50's Sci-Fi movie ever made,



I would describe that skull cap as...well: bulbous.

Okay, if Ray J and Marques Houston could, through some miracle of science and a direct defiance of nature and all that is sacred, produce a child together, the child would seem like a grown up Urkel trying to be a smoove R&b sangar! Which Puff Daddy would then sign to a 12 album deal on his new imprint Bad Boy DNA, which is a subdivision of Bad Boy that deals exclusively with genetically spawned offspring of R&B sangarzzz!

And of course, Marques Houston was once part of the adorable R&B kid group Immature.


(I think, ahhh who cares? I really just wanted an excuse to post that Immature LP cover, man Kris Kross really threw a monkey-wrench in the game didn't they?)


I missed the bus, I missed the bus, I missed the bus... and that's something that I'll never ever ever do again..."
Real talk yo, real talk!

Behold, the visual and aural representation of total and pure joy...

When I was in Jr. High, Everlast looked like this:

Then he looked like this:




The best House Of Pain album is their 3rd one by the way...

Then he disappeared for a few years, had a heart attack and came back with a guitar and started singing:

I dug all of it, dudes got longevity, he evolves, however, I wasn't ready for this:

It's pure joy, fear not it's lulling effect and inspiration for toe-tapping and knee slapping.

This is so ridiculous it's borderline post-modern! I can't lie, I'm diggin' it. It's almost amazing as this:



You gotta count your dubplates before you touch your turntables, because if you run out of big tunes, that means your sound is done...

YOU MEAN I CAN BUY CRAP WITHOUT EVER LEAVING MY COUCH!?

Kevin already posted this on his blog:
http://kennyconga.blogspot.com

It's amazing in many amazing ways. Reminded me of this brilliant infomercial made to promote the LP "Hello Nasty" by the Beastie Boys:



YOU TRYIN' TO TELL ME I CAN'T POLISH A BANANA?!



YOU CAN'T PUT CAR WAX ON PERISHABLES!

Maybe someone can straighten this out for me...

Is this 70's era 7up commercial where Mercury Rev got the idea for their "See You On The Other Side" album cover?


Here's a few more trippy ads from the late 60's-70's, thanks for the heads up Mr. Lynch...

Awww mannn... see I KNEW America was cool!

I think I can taste sound...

This trippy tribute to our country's 200th birthday was funded by a Bicentennial Project Grant and animated by Vincent Collins who made other psychedelic cartoons. This film was produced by the United States Information Agency -the government's propaganda agency. Director: Vincent Collins Audio/Visual: sound, color

It's the most lucrative time of the year...

I did a post on this last year, I really didn't think there would be another, but, time and time again the record industry proves that if you want a career, you have to play ball and no matter how cool you think you're favorite artist is, no one is immune. In my years of record retail I've seen Jewish Xmas CD's, Atheist Xmas CD's and enough subversive rock bands turn faux-religious... it's enough to make you fill your stocking...

WITH PUKE!

Brace yourselves and of course, happy fishmass and merry moo year:

WHAT?! SLADE?!

?

When was the last time Canned Heat made a record?

You probably are Santa Claus Ringo.

AAAAAAH! EYBALLS! UHHHH...38 SPECIAL?!

Who on earth would want a 38 Special Christmas album? Who on earth would still want an album by 38 Special, period?

Remember when The Police were the coolest band ever?

This is what they call a niche market.

See, even Satan is cashing in... and by Satan I mean Sheryl Crow.

Rosie O'Donnel sings with Elmo, N'Sync and Cher = sonic terrorism.

No.1 "rebel Christmas album," THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A REBEL CHRISTMAS!

Alright, I'll admit, it's clever.

Who the hell is this?

After you win American Idol (I don't know, did he win?) you should, ummm... I'm looking for the whole deal with the devil thing where you make a deal for eternal life and then get life in prison kind of thing... AH F&#K IT! KILL HIM!

When is this ever necessary?

WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE?

Wasn't his big hit about the devil?

Et tu Chicago?

Stop.

Wait? Another one?

I guess you get to pick whether he looks more life an escaped elf with or without the santa hat.

A Jewish guy from rich parents who made his career singing like a poor sharecropper decides to make a record about a Christian holiday, MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY... C'MON Y'ALL!

The gay lead singer of a band shunned by the Christians makes a holiday record, get 'em Rob.

I believe in the separation of superheroes and state... and most definitely religious holidays.

Yes, it is.

Wow! (see comment about 38 Special)

Alright, enough.

The cover for my impending "Holiday" CD...

Not any specific holiday either, I figure I can make more money if the CD can be used for any celebration. Especially one that involves a huge red rose and a tiny violin.

Many thanks to www.awkwardfamilyphotos.com for the continued joy and, well, awkwardness.

After 2 minutes of watching "For the Love of Ray J"...

I long for a spinoff called "For The Death Of Ray J" where unless he writes a relevant or even remotely competent song that doesn't contain the "words": "shawty" or "gifts"

...he must enter an arena and fight to the death with another semi-celebrity riding the coattails of a more famous sibling (Brandy *cough* *cough* excuse me).

First challenge: Frank Stallone.

Or maybe Madonna's rapping brother.

(He once called himself M.C. Ciccone).

Next would be Billy Ray Cyrus (Achy Breaky Fart or something like that).

All you people out there who want to pretend like you didn't buy this album need to find a short pier and throw each other off into shark infested waters after coating yourselves with chum, his debut album went 9 times platinum (9 million records don't sell themselves) and he was nominated for a Grammy award, but now, (HA HA) who cares, no one because his daughter sole his shine, so now he's riding her coattails...

Awww, her dad sold 9 million albums and she's worried about fitting in in Hollywood, just like we would if we went to a new scary place where everyone looks famous... I for one relate, thank goodness the DJ dropped my Jay-Z song.


One week after D.O.A. (Death Of Autotune) was released to record pools another song came out with a Jay-Z cameo and a sample of Marvin Gaye's voice, ran through an autotune. I guess Jay figured he could postpone the assassination for one last paycheck.

No I.D. killed this beat by the way, find out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_I.D.

8-Bits is enough!

When I was a kid in the 80's (when we had tape walkmans and rode dinosaurs to school with no shoes on uphill both ways) one of the major rites of passage was upgrading your video game platform from the Atari 2600

(I love the wood grain by the way)
to whatever the hot new system was. There was Colecovision (which I'm pretty sure had that weird Smurf game),


Intellivision,

Sega Master System...


I had Nintendo...

Nintendo was way too cool. The games weren't super realistic like they are today, they were 8-bit games which meant that the graphics were passable and the music was completely digital, yet funky, and most of the action went from left to right or bottom to top. Needless to say I used to have amazing hand-eye coordination. Where my Nintendo ended up, I have no idea, but I missed it until I found out about emulators.

From Wikipedia:
A video game console emulator is a program that allows a computer or modern console (cross-console emulation) to emulate a different video game console's behavior. Emulators are most often used to play older video games on personal computers and modern video game consoles, but they are also used to play games translated into other languages or modify (or hack) existing games. Emulators are also a useful tool in the development process of homebrewed demos and new games for older systems.

Uhhhh...what that means is that I can play pretty much any Nintendo game ever on the net.

This is the best site I've found so far:
http://nintendo8.com/all/

It doesn't have every game but almost, some of the stuff on here are relics from a bygone era, Waynes World,


Just so you can wrap your head around what you're seeing: the screen shot is of Dana Carvey's "Garth" character making his way through a super sized instrument store fighting animated drums with some kind of pellet gun, way to cash in there video game dudes...


Tiny Toons,

Back to The Future,


there's even a California Raisins game

(and it's really hard)... whoa.

Not only can I play all the games I used to play, but I can play every freakin' game I couldn't afford as a kid as well (we were on a budget). Call me a 33 year old kid, but I have every Nintendo game ever made now and it rules!!!

Here's a few of my favorites:

http://nintendo8.com/game/101/burgertime/

Yeah, remember how good we used to be at these games, try playing Burgertime now, if you get to level 3 shoot me a descriptive email, I don't know if I'll ever make it.

http://nintendo8.com/game/343/castlevania/

I used to play this piece for hours, a life well spent.
http://nintendo8.com/game/324/lifeforce/

Does it really get any cooler than being a buff, shirtless bald guy that spits fire?
http://nintendo8.com/game/199/karnov/

Quite possibly one of the greatest games ever.
http://nintendo8.com/game/486/mega_man/



R.I.P. Ken Ober.



The TV show that spawned the careers of Adam Sandler and Kari Whirrer (did I spell that right?) is a pretty awesome game, however, the youngins probably won't know any of the 70's TV references.
http://nintendo8.com/game/152/remote_control/



You get to smash buildings and eat people..
http://nintendo8.com/game/626/rampage/



Yes, the 3-D function works, you just need to score some of those 1950's B-Movie glasses.
http://nintendo8.com/game/753/rad_racer/



When's the last time you thought about Town & Country Surf Designs, I love the surfing Gorilla!
http://nintendo8.com/game/564/t&c_surf_design/



http://nintendo8.com/game/24/excitebike/
There's literally thousands of games to peep, life is good, word.

I'm like jury duty, you're new to this part of town...

Not only is this amazing but the version of "Walk It Out" they used is the one with the awesome Andre 3000 verse:

This thursday @ Wish bar in S.F.

From the classics, to the newest grooves
feel good funky jams :]

*free* !

I dig this party because I really get to focus on my personal and favorite re-edits!

Word.

Wish is located @ 1539 Folsom Street
Selections by (myself) DJ4AM and the lovely and talented Miss Watkins.

The Shocking Blue "Venus" DJ4AM's Dirty Drum Mix

I first found out about The Shocking Blue through the Nirvana cover of "Love Buzz"...



...which was their first release on Sub Pop as part of their singles club. Of course I wasn't THAT cool in 1989 to be part of the Sub Pop singles club, so I got my copy of the tune on their debut LP "Bleach."

I wasn't cool enough to know it was a cover version until a couple of years ago when a roommate of mine happened to have the original LP on while he was cooking his vegan dinner.

It was psyche but funky and the vocal was insane. (gotta love the visuals on this you-tube video as well... groovy). The LP: The Shocking Blue "At Home,"also had the original version of "Venus" which was remade in the 80's by Bananarama.

(gotta love the lack of visuals in this you-tube video)

Here's the extensive bio of The Shocking Blue from www.allmusic.com:

With a catchy guitar riff borrowed from "Pinball Wizard," this Dutch group had a worldwide hit in late 1969 with "Venus," which was later covered by Bananarama. After that they never had much success outside Europe, but they generated enough hits in enough parts of the world to warrant a compilation on Rhino Records.

I feel like I know them so well...
Anyway, here's their version of "Venus."

To me they seems like the Dutch Jefferson Airplane.
I started off remixing "Love Buzz" but it wasn't working out too well, then I realized that the elements I was using worked way better with "Venus," so here it is...word.

Like whoa!