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tonight's new episode of DEER GOD RADIO at 8PM EST on MAKERPARKRADIO.NYC is dedicated to the music of EL-P and KILLER MIKE, a.k.a. RUN THE JEWELS! easily one of my favorite HIP HOP groups of the last decade. Gonna be a fun show.
past episodes of DEER GOD RADIO as well as other MAKERPARKRADIO.NYC shows like MAKE HER SPACE, NOWHERE FAST, THE SYNTHESIZER SHOW and CLASSICAL-ISH WITH NUTMEG are available here at the DEER GOD website. and if you haven't done so already get the FREE PHONE APP for IOS/ANDROID and enjoy listening to MAKERPARKRADIO.NYC 24/7 at your convenience! 
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click HERE for the most recent episode of THE SYNTHESIZER SHOW on MAKERPARKRADIO.NYC where Reed and Vince are finally REUNITED in Vince's studio to present another playlist of electronic goodness!
as always, you can access all past episodes of THE SYNTHESIZER SHOW via the DEER GOD website as well as those of MAKE HER SPACE, NOWHERE FAST, DEER GOD RADIO and CLASSICAL-ISH WITH NUTMEG. ​and if you haven't done so already get the FREE PHONE APP for IOS/ANDROID and enjoy listening to MAKERPARKRADIO.NYC 24/7 at your convenience! 
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i havent attempted to hide my contempt on this platform for all things SACRAMENTO. having lived in that area for my senior year of high school i was convinced that nothing relevant ever came out of there with one exception: DEFTONES. that changed over the years to include both CHELSEA WOLFE and DEATH GRIPS.
DEATH GRIPS when they came out roughly 10 years ago had that whole HARDCORE, DIY ethic and a sound that split the difference between grating INDUSTRIAL production with dissonant layered distorted guitars and an almost post-modern, unpredictably kinetic HIP HOP sense of production. to my ears it seemed like they took the most abrasive sounds out of all those traditions and cooked them up into an uncomfortable, unfolding concoction that was absolutely abrasive yet, strangely, entirely listenable. probably the most revolutionary rock(?) band in terms of sonics of the last ten years. like next level RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE. definitely check them out. but stay please stay away from SACRAMENTO. redneck country. 
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in keeping with this enduring moment of national reflection regarding the systematic racism embedded within our legal, educational, political, housing, financial and policing systems brought to national consciousness by the generational clarion call of the BLACK LIVES MATTER movement, i wanted to step aside and showcase opinions and testimonials from the BLACK COMMUNITY i have come across. this will be an ongoing series.
this time i wanted to focus on a recent testimonial given on THE 9 CLUB from the likes of MISSOURI native and professional skateboarder STEEZUS CHRIST entitled "The Plight of My Black Skin." 
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my dad recently clued me into a recent segment of an episode of MEN IN BLAZERS, which is AMERICAN TV SHOW about all things world football, errr, SOCCER for all you hapless cretins out there. my family was overseas in AFRICA and the MIDDLE EAST for the better part of two decades so being intimately aware of EUROPEAN FOOTBALL just came by osmosis. the fact that a show like this exists stateside is a god send for any yankee curious about sports that actually matter beyond our borders.
this segment was based on interviews with current LIVERPOOL FC manager JURGEN KLOPP about his philosophy towards coaching and life in general. you'd think he'd double-down on stale platitudes regarding winning and success, but what he said was essentially that effort has value. he didnt say winning has value, but rather effort has value. winning can be the end result of short cuts, cheating and other unenviable and other actions that diminish and dehumanize the perpetrator, but working hard and giving something all your honest effort is really all that can be asked of someone and is success in and of itself. even jaded me was a little shocked by this admission. i don't think my AMERICAN brethren really understand how obsessive people are globally about EUROPEAN FOOTBALL. it's beyond our petty little rivalries (YANKEES/RED SOX, LAKERS/CELTICS, PATRIOTS/EVERYBODY) since you will find people in small PERUVIAN villages following attentively along to LA LIGA games on crude makeshift radios a continent away. sorry, our sports don't compare. for a coach of a top-flight PREMIER LEAGUE team to espouse effort over winning is pretty revolutionary given the stakes of his position. but he would counter that look back on his career in the distant future, he sees the relationships and stories that he shares with his former teammates and players he coached are what would be valued most, not a trophy. any title would just be the end result of teamwork and, again, effort. i just think that in a modern global capitalist construct where exploitation of labor from underserved communities in forgotten faraway places robs us all of our basic human dignity in favor of social network-assisted materialist, clout-chasing bullshit; that in that space there are some that focus in on human effort as deserving of our attention and respect is heartwarming. naive probably, but indicative of a space i'd prefer to inhabit. almost like that famous PAUL MCCARTNEY line in ABBEY ROAD where he states "and, in the end. the love you take is equal to the love you make." we all are the summation of the stories we tell each other. go make them. 
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OASIS: SUPERSONIC (MINT PICTURES, 2016) is easily one of the better documentaries ive watched in recent years, not least because strucurally it is an anomaly having two competing narrators in the GALLAGHER BROTHERS walking us through their story on separate tracks. recorded separately with no interaction, which seems as good a description as any for the dynamic within the group. this film shows how this highly dysfunctional pair of siblings rose to prominence with the BRITPOP movement and cemented their legacy as iconic BRITISH cultural exports on par with THE BEATLES and THE SEX PISTOLS from previous generations. its an amazing story.
you don't have to look very far in this film to see examples of singer LIAM GALLAGHER's loutish womanizing behavior that have made his king hooligan public persona the stuff of legend. but honestly that stuff bored me. what you really get at the heart of their relationship, and by definition the crux of this film, is this notion of an unbalanced division of labor. guitarist NOEL GALLAGHER comes off as the brooding, sensitive son of an abusive MANCUNIAN father who made himself into a songsmith whose innate sense of melody and human observation led him to write transcendent songs that put him in the pantheon of great BRITISH songwriters along with the aforementioned LENNON/MCCARTNEY as well as RAY DAVIES, MORRISSEY/JOHNNY MARR, ELVIS COSTELLO, ELTON JOHN/BERNIE TAUPIN, VAN MORRISON, IAN CURTIS and even DAMON ALBARN. but that only got him so far without the magnetism, charisma and straight-up sex appeal of LIAM in the vein of iconic BRITHS frontmen like JOHNNY ROTTEN, FREDDIE MERCURY, PAUL WELLER, NICK LOWE, JOE STRUMMER and of course (again) JOHN LENNON. with NOEL you got the substance of an older brother that took the blunt of the blows from their father and with LIAM the upstart baby of the family, shielded from such abuse, who wanted all the attention good or bad. super interesting family dynamic and expressions of warped masculinity that was probably also influenced by poverty, unemployment and the like in 1980s MANCHESTER. perhaps my favorite moment in the film is when NOEL is hard at work writing songs for their follow-up record in the studio while everyone else in the band has pissed off to the local pub, leaving him with all the creative control, but also the pressure. at some point he asks LIAM for ideas and his brother is totally dismissive, saying that he didn't have time for that right now. you really get the sense in this film, admittedly by both narrators, that this was NOEL's ship (despite the fact that he didn't start the band) and that LIAM was just in it for the fame, glory and the birds. it makes sense now that NOEL's solo career has blossomed into, for all intents and purposes, the second phase of OASIS' career given that the quality of the material has never diminished. this can't be said for LIAM's solo work or lackluster BEADY EYE efforts, the later of which saw the remaining OASIS members dismally attempt to recreate the magic sans NOEL to no effect. its super glaring and obvious now, but by watching this documentary you begin to understand that this trajectory was embedded in the very framework of OASIS and how it functioned and that LIAM seriously better set his ego aside and make nice with his brother. seriously, for all our benefit. make up and go conquer the world again. nobody died. you all survived. nobody took your throne so got out and kick ass again. please. i really want to hear "ROCK N ROLL STAR" in a stadium. just do it. 
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back during my first 3 months as a PEACE CORPS volunteer in ALBANIA during the requisite training awkwardly termed PRE-SERVICE TRAINING (in my opinion the minute you got off the plane in country you became a volunteer despite what anyone says to the contrary) i read LAWRENCE WRIGHT's PULITZER PRIZE-winning book THE LOOMING TOWER (KNOPF DOUBLEDAY, 2006) bout the philosophical roots and systematic/organization machinations that lead to the 9/11 ATTACKS.
you know, some light reading. the book is expansive and really gets into the long-term friction between AMERICAN CAPITALISM and the rampant tribalism that marks the ARABIAN PENINSULA that lingers on to this day. that friction is first seen in a young foreign exchange student SAYYID QUTB who is crestfallen by what he perceives as the loose morales of the AMERICAN society he encounters during his time at the UNIVERSITY OF NORTHERN COLORADO in the 1940s. his writings on his return to EGYPT mark the beginnings of the extreme strain of ISLAM that calcifies and much later is exploited by the likes of AYMAN AL-ZAWAHIRI and OSAMA BIN LADEN. the book is very much about how ideas are birthed, spread and imposed organizationally by those with the means and vision. it just so happens here that this idea is terrorism. what made this book interesting for me as a PEACE CORPS volunteer was ALBANIA's inclusion in the book. during the nearby KOSOVO conflict of the late 1990s, SLOBODAN MILOSEVIC was basically ordering the genocide and ethnic cleansing of MUSLIMS in the region (also including BOSNIA). this provided the perfect platform to franchise their organization in EASTERN EUROPE, and so in the capital TIRANA. with the help of the AMERICANS, this cell was caught in 1998 and provided key information in understanding the structural implementation of the AL-QAEDA operation en masse. as a PEACE CORPS volunteer more than 10 years later this information was, of course, omitted from what we were told of the region. most of the volunteers were idealistic idiots anyways, so it wasn't like they were seeking out outside information anyway. when i brought up the 1998 cell in an information meeting the security officer almost turned white, attempting to provide proper context for this omission. but whatever. i got it even then. ALBANIA is one of those countries that can go either way, having a complicated and interesting history that finds it at the crosscurrents of influence by the east and west, christian and islam, land and sea. as an act of self-preservation it is understandable that they would maintain dialogue with all actors in the region, and they do. i always felt as a volunteer that we were the canary in the gold mine, but that is a story for another day. this book is informative and expertly written in an approachable, very readable manner. i highly recommend it and i'm glad that there is now a mini-series on HULU that is attempting to share its insights. it should be required reading for all AMERICAN citizens interested in understanding the power of religion to corrupt absolutely. 
parodies by nacrowe
check out HERE this recent streaming video episode of DEER GOD RADIO dedicated to the roots and enduring legacy of INDUSTRIAL MUSIC.
​past episodes of DEER GOD RADIO as well as other MAKERPARKRADIO.NYC shows like MAKE HER SPACE, NOWHERE FAST, THE SYNTHESIZER SHOW and CLASSICAL-ISH WITH NUTMEG are available here at the DEER GOD website. and if you haven't done so already get the FREE PHONE APP for IOS/ANDROID and enjoy listening to MAKERPARKRADIO.NYC 24/7 at your convenience! 
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leave it to AARP of all places to produce this gem of a YOUTUBE series where the late comedic legend DON RICKLES (R.I.P.) gets taken out to eat and talk shop with various comedians including ZACH GALIFIANAKIS, AMY POEHLER, JUDD APATOW, SARAH SILVERMAN, SNOOP DOGG, ROBERT DENIRO, MARTIN SCORSESE and MARISA TOMEI.
i know his insults were not exactly the most politically correct or compliant with our current age's cancel culture, but shit that guy was funny. and sharp. even in his late 80s which in a sense makes the AARP thing make perfect sense. here is an elderly dude giving these young bucks a run for their money. you see him not missing a beat with witty comebacks and razor sharp barbs. its totally endearing. you also just get a real sense of how much he was loved and cherished by comedians, actors and directors. almost like a surrogate family. definitely worth checking out if you haven't already. side note: i remember when living in VLORA, ALBANIA during my time as a PEACE CORPS volunteer i told new, incoming sitemates that there were three rules to being a good volunteer. now you have to remember that PEACE CORPS had all these maxims and without a doubt, they were all effectively bullshit. here were my three rules. rule #1: don't be a dick. rule #2: dont be a dick. rule #3: whatever you do, don't be a dick. i remember going around town and hearing different ALBANIANS i knew complaining about my sitemate, the fact that he said all these nasty things to their face. i had to explain to them that he was just repeating things that i already said to them earlier a few weeks back. their response was "yeah, but you didn't mean it." i would tell them they knew i meant it and we'd all laugh. i feel like what RICKLES did was similar in that he tore down the walls that we put up against each other in order to inhibit honest communication. in a sense he was creating a shared sense of affection through his comedic barbs. i almost see it as a kind of empathy in the way that the ALBANIANS i knew really felt i saw things from their perspective because i was so adept at mocking it and throwing it in their face repeatedly. it definitely went both ways and it was all love. for my sitemate they werent convinced he knew where he was and it came off as spiteful and full of hate. oops. 
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LOS ANGELES-based INDIE ROCK musician ARIEL PINK is a hard one to pin down as his work is highly experimental, often utilizing odd instrumentation (electronic, field recordings, woodwind) with dissonant results. that being said, his music has a distinct classic pop sensibility. this keeps him in tradition with THE BEACH BOYS and THE CARPENTERS as if channeled through CAPTAIN BEEFHEART and R STEVIE MOORE.
super interesting, multi-textured music that is definitely worth checking out. 
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i always feel like when you are listening to ROCK AND ROLL of any genre or era, inevitably all roads lead you to AC/DC. their sound is stripped of anything superfluous and just hits you over the head with the grace of a sledgehammer. to me it is the very essence of BLUES-based ROCK AND ROLL. i mean what more can you say that hasn't already been said about MALCOLM YOUNG (R.I.P) and his sublime rhythm guitar playing. it feels like he invented the notion of playing in the pocket. if you only listened to their grooves it'd be worth the price of admission alone, but on top of that you have ANGUS YOUNG and his legendary crafty lead work that never seems extraneous. BON SCOTT, BRIAN JOHNSON, i mean come on.
again, straight-up ROCK AND ROLL done absolutely right. no chaser. what more do you need on a thursday? ​past episodes of DEER GOD RADIO as well as other MAKERPARKRADIO.NYC shows like MAKE HER SPACE, NOWHERE FAST, and THE SYNTHESIZER SHOW are available here at the DEER GOD website. 
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with the advent of YOUTUBE there is a whole host of record producers that realized maybe the salad days of the recording industry are over and that one possible new avenue for revenue is creating videos about music production. producers RICK BEATO and WARREN HUART both come to mind immediately as they utilize their trained ears to inform the public about things like composition, tracking, mixing, panning and the various tricks of producing professional, well-recorded music.
i'll leave BEATO for another entry, focusing instead on an impressive sub-series HUART conducted on his PRODUCE LIKE A PRODUCER YOUTUBE channel where he interviewed prominent producers about noteworthy records they produced. this sub-series was called INSIDE THE SONG. the majority of what HUART does on his channel are long-form videos about the innards of recording studios and why owners chose various outboard gear and how producers go about utilizing such. the INSIDE THE SONG series is more accessible to a non-techie crowd and gets into how songs evolved throughout the recording process and what particular techniques are favored by each producer/engineer at the time. you also really get the sense of the amount of play involved in recording and how ideas evolve over time. super interesting stuff even if you are not a confirmed studio rat. especially such if you are a music junkie like i am. participants to date include producers/engineers DAVE JERDEN (JANE'S ADDICTION, ALICE IN CHAINS), MICHAEL BEINHHORN (SOUNDGARDEN, MARILYN MANSON), ULRICH WILD (STATIC-X), BRADLEY COOK (FOO FIGHTERS), SHELLY YAKUS (TOM PETTY & THE HEARTBREAKERS, BLUE OYSTER CULT) and JACK DOUGLAS (AEROSMITH, CHEAP TRICK). definitely worth watching. 
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i remember watching the documentary JIM & ANDY: THE GREAT BEYOND (VICE FILMS, 2017) with a family relative at his house within a year of returning stateside. people had long thought that JIM CARREY had lost his mind based on some "unhinged" interviews he gave in which he questioned the very nature of identity. at best people thought he was attempting to be provocative and at worst, his faculties had devolved to the extent that we were now watching another HOLLYWOOD star in some sort of twisted, psychic free fall in which he had become detached from reality.
this documentary is based on his work in the MILOS FORMAN film MAN ON THE MOON (UNIVERSAL PICTURES, 1999) and the lengths in which he went through to become comedy icon ANDY KAUFMAN. first some background. KAUFMAN was a transgressive comedian who used several outlandish personas that were designed to confront, and ultimately destroy, audience expectations. he would withhold punchlines and gags indefinitely. it almost reminds me how german composer RICHARD WAGNER would utilize leitmotifs in his OPERAS that never resolved, leaving the listener to be more and more enwrapped in the proceedings without a release. KAUFMAN in my opinion was the COMEDY equivalent of such, working on a level that was both juvenile and transcendent. makes total sense that another generational talent in CARREY, a man of many faces himself, would be so intrigued. the footage of the filming showcases CARREY's dedication to being in character, even to the point of speaking with the family of KAUFMAN's in the first person. it makes sense to me that life as performance art made an impact on how CARREY viewed himself as an individual, even apart from comedy, since in essence we are all performing for each other all the time. but who are we really? this is where i think CARREY loses people when he talks about their being no individuality and that in essence we all cease to exist. i know my relative fealt that way. in my mind that was BUDDHISM 101, the idea of ANATMAN or "non-self." there is no soul or unchanging essence that precedes us or follows us into death. the idea of self-hood is a mirage, a biological phenomena that helps us get through our lives but is ultimately a lie. this precept takes root in HINDUISM with the concept of ATMAN, or a self concept, that in some schools is equated with BRAHMAN, or the ultimate reality. its interesting because in the HINDU context, in essence there is also no individuality because we are all in essence an extension, a manifestation of BRAHMAN. any concept of selfhood as being separate from the physical world is a contradiction in terms, by definition you are of this world because it is you. for me the most interesting nugget in this film is how this idea of a non-self becomes interjected with the acting occupation, where people take on personas for a living. in a sense, any persona is as relevant as any other and, to draw the point home again, we all are engaged in this activity. we all perform according to what the local normative culture requires of us. i personally saw this again and again living overseas when fellow AMERICANS would take on the racial prejudices of the local majority population. it always jarred me but made sense on a certain level, that your sense of self is intertwined with your surrounding context. the fact that CARREY took this concept to heart doesnt seem crazy at all but a recognition of the false precepts that we all assume are resolute and unyielding when it comes to our sense of identity, yet in actual fact they are all inventions created to help us navigate an uncertain reality, a fascinating documentary well worth checking out, whether or not you find the humor of CARREY amusing. this film is working on a level far beyond that and i hope it reaches a decent audience, as we are in a downward spiral at the moment based on cults of personality and mass conformity spear-headed by corporate media companies of all political stripes. the message of this film resonates with me far beyond the context of one actor and a film he did in the late 90s. what doesn't jive with me is CARREY's anti-vaccine horse shit. that's another rant altogether. SMH. 
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co-written and released around the time of his second studio album, recent departure from VELVET REVOLVER and return to STONE TEMPLE PILOTS, famed ALTERNATIVE ROCK frontman SCOTT WEILAND's memoir NOT DEAD & NOT FOR SALE (SCRIBNER, 2011) is a frustratingly clipped, half-hearted attempt at an open dialogue of a supremely gifted musician with his fans, family, critics, bandmates alike. you really get the sense that despite his charisma and gifts as one of the premier vocalists of his age, his guard was forever up, especially regarding his reasons for abusing drugs which affected his career multiple times and, ultimately, took his life.
i dont know, maybe its me but this book came out shortly thereafter his exhaustive and expensive divorce was finalized and the recent publication of that same ex-wife's tell-all book. in many ways this memoir feels like a cash grab. i say that because in this book he doesn't come off like a knowledgeable narrator of his own life since things just sorta happen. he comes off like a passive viewer, not even a participant. we formed the band. this song was about my ex-wife. this song was about heroin. nothing is ever expanded upon, just referenced or briefly mentioned. which really sucks, because he had such a unique vantage point on that era given his stature as one of its premier and most successful lyricists and vocalists, along with KURT COBAIN, CHRIS CORNELL, EDDIE VEDDER and LAYNE STALEY among others. just a shame this book wasn't more insightful. for someone that saw himself as transcending cliches, this book is one never-ending cliche. the cliche of taking advantage of your fanbase. even the painful parts of his childhood, events such as being sexually abused and his parents divorce, just sort of happen and never inform anything later in his life, career or personal life. even the birth of his kids just happens. deeply disappointed by this memoir and i don't recommend it at all. seems like a wasted opportunity, which probably could also be a summation of his career in general. all that being said, i still love his first solo album 12 BAR BLUES and i highly recommend fans of classic 1990s TRIP HOP check it out. 
parodies by nacrowe
tonight's new episode of DEER GOD RADIO at 8PM EST on MAKERPARKRADIO.NYC is focused on PROG METAL. think odd time and song structures and intriguing concepts galore! oh and it will be crushing, worry ye not.
past episodes of DEER GOD RADIO as well as other MAKERPARKRADIO.NYC shows like MAKE HER SPACE, NOWHERE FAST, THE SYNTHESIZER SHOW and CLASSICAL-ISH WITH NUTMEG are available here at the DEER GOD website. and if you haven't done so already get the FREE PHONE APP for IOS/ANDROID and enjoy listening to MAKERPARKRADIO.NYC 24/7 at your convenience! 
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