MMW Fillmore Setlist

Animal Collective Keep Getting Weirder

This video is more than a year old, but I love the song. It's somewhere between Zap Mama and mid-1990's acid techno. A few things I learned from this video: AC is just as good without the light show. French hipsters are cooler, better-looking and far less uptight than west coast hipsters. The tie-dye shirts they're wearing are silly.

The lady and I had the pleasure of seeing Animal Collective just before they broke huge. They played in San Francisco with Black Dice (who were headlining) and they pretty much stole the show. It was the end of their first era -- they had their MiniDisc players going and lots of guitar pedals, very few keyboards. It was just a few months before Pitchfork gushed over "Here Comes the Indian," which is all it took for them to spin their neo-psyche garblings into a real career. Also, I just realized the tour-only vinyl 12" I bought at the show is probably worth a crapload of money now.

Podcast #4: Some Post-Election Dub

I have a hard time with politics. I understand the whole system is a necessary evil in our modern life, but all the chatter on the TV and on the radio just ends up making me depressed and angry. This election in particular, in which I feel the nature of the discourse was ruined by the 24-hour cable news networks, had me reaching for the mute button within several aspects of my life. The messages of the players were getting drowned out by the voices of analysis and paralysis. So now that it's finally over, and now that the good guys won, I'm trying to embrace a little joyful, wordless reflection.

If you feel like there's been too much jibber jabber in the universe of late, this is my offering. A slice of version -- a set of instrumental, wordless dub. Because enough with the talking. Let's just hit some drums, crank up the echo and skank a little. Flip the record over already. This is version style.

Veggie Burritos Podcast #4: Enough Talkin'