if you haven’t caught it yet, here’s the film clip for “coach” recently completed by bob jarvis aka zeal, who has now earnt his PhD in photocopying:
coach comes from the changes EP, released last november. buy it or don’t.
also – there are, all of a sudden, a bunch of places online where you can hear new faux pas songs, works in progress, remixes, things like that:
- 3 new songs at myspace.com/iamfauxpas
- a remix of mine now appearing at myspace.com/olloollo (which comes from their recently released remix ep)
- the rad istanbul blog undomondo recently posted an edit i made of 70s kraut stoners agitation free… alongside some footage of them rolling in egyptian dunes. big thanks, considering that its only through undomondo that i found out about the track in the first place.
i playlisted my brother’s 21st birthday last night, i think it went ok. that fine old tradition of the “21st birthday DJ” – its got me feeling real kitsch. so, here’s some messed-up kitsch to help get you through your working week.
i got to say, love shack is the most played-out of played-out tunes. but i couldn’t help but fall in love with it all over again when i got distracted with some pitch-shifting while putting together my bro’s playlist. simple pleasures, folks, simple pleasures. here’s what i’m talking about:
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its not quite a screw, but you know. i’ve always had a sneaking suspicion love shack was meant to be sung by an all male choir, and this is a step closer. for some reason i can’t get this guy out of my head when i listen to it, brian, hank kingsley’s assistant:
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but here’s a real screw, and a real heavy-hitter. this is bona fide, knock-it-out-of-the-park amazing type shit! god bless dutty artz for posting this earlier in the year. i’ll admit to having a serious soft spot for alicia keys, but this takes this song to a whole other planet. this is the kind of song that can keep me going when things get tough, know what i mean? this is something i can get behind. i feel better every single damned time i listen to this. i’m posting it here because you can no longer get it from dutty artz.
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screwing is about slowing songs down, but i can’t bear to hear any more of love shack than absolutely necessary so, yeah, original tempo. in fact, recently i’m all about shortening songs. like, for example, did you know that “horses” by daryl braithwaite is waaay more palatable when condensed down to 1 minute and 9 seconds?
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this all reminds me of the time i condensed my 60 minute JJJ mix up set down to 7 minutes. imagine if itunes or winamp or whatever just had a button you could press that says “condense music” and it just compacted what you were listening to into a fraction of its running time. we’d get so much more done.
and lastly, i found this great 7 minute megamix of “i wanna dance with somebody.” in fact, on a p2p network that shall remain nameless, i found no less than TEN remixes of this track, all neatly packaged together by some dude. its 70 minutes of i wanna dance with somebody. most of it sounds way to queer eye soundtrack for my liking – this is the pick of the bunch. no trickery here, just seriously intense 80s pop remixing. the best bit is about 5 minutes in, where it just becomes this intense drum machine workout and some dude yelling at me over and over “dance, dance, d-d-d-dance”
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i’m seriously RIAA-baiting with this post. methinks i’m about to trigger a wide variety of alerts on RIAA automated blog piracy detection bot programs. note to tim’s ISP: prepare to receive correspondence! shit i’ve even said RIAA a couple of times in this paragraph so no doubt they’ll be checking me out.
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lothar and the hand people!
found at dreamchimney…
Lothar and the Hand People was a late 1960s psychedelic rock band known for their spacey music and pioneering use of the theremin and Moog modular synthesizer.
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the band formed in denver in 1965 when NY-born john emelin and his university of colorado roommate richard willis were inspired to form a jug band after seeing the rolling stones play…
Willis, in classic hippie fashion, came up with the band’s appellation while he was sleeping; he had a dream in which an enslaved race called the Hand People was saved by a hero named Lothar, and when he related the scenario to his fellows, who’d been stumped in their search for a trippy handle, the moniker stuck. Only later did they decide that a theremin owned by Emelin was actually the group’s namesake. “People would always ask, ‘Who’s Lothar?’, and we wouldn’t know what to tell them,” Conly says. “But finally we realized that Lothar had been there all along.”
“Our timing was good,” Emelin says. “We were long-haired at a time when there were only one or two other long-haired bands in town; the rest were old-fashioned greaser bands. So we hit the scene with a more modern look, and that propelled us to local fame right away.”
the band moved to new york. they started gigging at a greenwich village club, befriending a local guitarist called jimmy james (who would later move to london and get a few gigs under the name jimi hendrix). the hand people on the other hand (ha!) recorded a debut album, enlisting a novice composer whose only credits at the time involved production music for star trek but whose future credits would involve the lion’s share of stevie wonder’s 70s catalogue, robert margouleff…
It is electronic country, a kind of good-time music played by mad dwarfs, and it is really good to listen to. There is no tension here, no jarring forces at war with each other. It may be strange that New York, the city which deifies speed and insanity, could produce this music, but it is as if Lothar and the Hand People have gone through this madness and come out on the other side, smiling.
Lothar and the Hand People have a spirit about them which pervades all they do. And after awhile, you’ll see, it doesn’t matter what they do, because the spirit is sort of happy and a lot of fun to be with. It captures a New York time when something happened that denied the concept of a city. And something which can do that, which can overcome the smoke and noise and confusion, is to me something very valuable to have.
less than five years later, the band would wrap things up. a couple of years ago, “presenting… lothar and the hand people” was re-issued by razor & tie records.
the full story of lothar and the hand people can be read here.
here’s a clip of a dude listening to “machines” on LP in his lounge room. the internet is an increasingly absurd place to hang out:
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recorded in one take, in the doom-chair, in despair, about one hour ago
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/// New 6-track Vanderbilt EP features two Faux Pas tracks plus remixes by Crumbs, Aoi, Pasobionic and Lewis CanCut. Its a free download, get it here.
/// My album Noiseworks – featuring “Vanderbilt”, “Chasing Waterfalls” and “Silver Line” – is available here.
/// I’ve been working on remixes for local bands Rat vs Possum, Flying Scribble and Akimbo. These are good people.
/// I’ve started making some new songs – if you want to have a sneak peek at what they sound like, here is the place to start.
Tim Shiel lives in Melbourne. He makes music under the name FAUX PAS, and is also a broadcaster on public radio station 3RRR FM. This blog began in 2005.
1981: Born in Melbourne Australia, life feels empty and without meaning
2005: FAUX PAS created – life still meaningless
2010: Tim writes brand new three-line biography
Press photos:
“Cool Quotes”
“Psychedelic. Balearic. Straight up pop. Call it what you want, this is memorable music.” keytarsandviolins
“Lush, dreamy future pop that just begs you to dive in headfirst, your heart in close second. Just be careful how many times you dip in – you might find yourself blissfully lost in here.” mess+noise
“Impressive elastic strands of plaited sense associations; extract of flashy disco, pastoral swoon and computer exploration.” threethousand
“A total cottage industry – one guy recording, pressing and releasing his own music – and it’s an example of how to do it right from the bottom up.” Stylus
“A manic journey of sounds, bound by neither genre nor era.” Beat
“Cuts-and-pastes big samples with delicately rendered instrumentation. A party jam. Four stars.” Pitchfork
