well, from the looks of it my cover girl days arent over just yet 
thanx to all the wonderful people over at howe for deeming me “special” enough to grace the front of their spring 2010 lookbook. we did that shoot this past july and it was a ton of fun. i’m glad i made the cut. love you guys so much and i hope we keep working together.
in honor of my intern’s one year anniversary of slavery i have decided to give him a promotion. no longer will he be called “intern” — he has paid his dues long enough. his new title will be “operations manager/sherpa”. you’ve done a great job dino - everyone loves you and u r actually starting to listen and execute my orders with speed and efficiency.
in celebration of this promotion i have decided to name my new fighting fish santino - which is dino’s real name. this is a tad bittersweet though because tessio my most recent fish died earlier this week. rip tessio…your life was a bit shorter than the rest but u were a true warrior. you battled back a couple times from some sort of fish disease - it was tough watching u die. i wish these fighting fish had a longer lifespan than just the one year average. anyway, dino…meet santino - ur now in charge of feeding him when u are over here.
hardknox. i found this bio on the site i just linked and it’s really accurate “Equipped with the streetwise fury of a junglist, the uncompromising angst of a metal rocker, and the discriminating taste of a Big Beat cut ‘n’ paster, Lindy Layton and Steve P — better known as the seasoned production duo Hardknox — overturn electronic music conventions into bloody, indistinguishable masses of sound. Scorched basslines press up against blistering breakbeats as screaming guitars survey the resulting ruination like shocked onlookers to a train wreck. Featuring a cameo by Schoolly D on their self-titled 1999 full-length debut, the grungy sounds of Hardknox first appeared on Skint Records (home of Big Beat king Fatboy Slim.) Hardknox’s window-cracking, wall-shuddering, speaker-busting sonic brutalism plays out like a lesson learned the hard way, spraying hooks with all the lethal fury of gunfire“.
i first heard of hardknox in 1999 when their self-titled debut landed on my desk. at the time i thought it was one of the better records i had heard primarily because of the aggressive nature to it all. the album moves into some dark dreamy patches at times but there are always aggressive almost abusive undertones throughout. to this day hardknox remains as a staple on my shuffle as i pretty much only listen to this when im doing something physical and aggressive like working out or running. this definitely isnt a band for everybody but im very specific in how i “use” (listen to) hardknox. it works really well for me in that regard and i suggest you track this cd down if u like to listen to music when u exercise. the track i chose cos i can is the first track i ever heard as well as the first track that hooked me. hope u investigate more.
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the h’s on both my desk top and lap top computers are pretty f’n weak. it’s always so much nicer when u have a ton of choices - maybe that’s why i have scratched my head over this second choice for a while. im not sure what this phenomenon is called but when i look at my library i have a bunch of singles by a bunch of h’s but not too many full albums. obviously this is the sign of the times as we move away from the full album paradigm into the age of digital singles. i mean, west indian girl’s next release is going to be a digital twin single so im not really complaining…just commenting - good or bad im not sure but that’s present day reality. i honestly dont have anything i feel really strongly about as it pertains to a new band. im sure some of u will mention health or the horrors and i hope u do because i want to listen to more of them. for both of the bands i only have a few tracks in my library but nothing where i can confidently say “i love this band and this album and here’s why”. i feel i would undermine my own credibility if i broke my own rules and just mentioned a trendy h pick based on just a song or 2.
heatwave. taking a page out of one of our regular blog-poster’s (nick d) book i’m going with a band from the 70’s. why? well the reason is this…while researching all my h’s i found heatwave’s story to be the most enjoyable to read because i honestly didnt know anything about them except that they wrote disco songs. please check out the bio i have linked because it’s a great read - i had no idea that their keyboardist and leader rod temperton went on to write and produce so many hit songs…esp with michael jackson. plus the picture i found of them is pretty classic - they look like they would still be really cool today. anyway, chalk heatwave up to a lesson in 70’s disco fusion. another reason i chose this song was because of the first 33 second dreamy jazzy intro which im sure so many people forget is even there. it’s pretty awesome how they started this song and how it drops right into that classic groove. normally i dont post videos but damn this is awesome - the amps the outfits the moves. makes me feel good.
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Bonus: 80’s cheeseball or synth pop genius…u make the call on this one. funny how the more digging u do the more u sometimes end up kind of liking someone in a very warped way. for example i had no idea that harold faltermeyer was an arranger on giorgio moroder’s soundtrack to the 1978 film midnight express, which if u havent seen u should because it’s a great movie. anyway…isnt it amazing how much money a person can actually make in this industry? fletch anyone. shit, his official site claims that the song below is actually the biggest selling ring tone of all time. damn, good god harold.
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OK PLEASE SEND ME NEW MUSIC!!! IDEALLY FROM THE LAST 2 YEARS - I DESIRE RECENT H’S
score another one for the great mark mahoney - mark has done all my work since 2001. he really is the best…no wonder why the appointment wait lists over a year long. interesting notes - at one point lady gaga, danny trejo, rita ora and mickey avalon were all in that back room together. it was pretty damn random if u ask me
watch this interview - it was done in the dressing room before our show at bottom of the hill in sf. as u can see my fellow ant drummer - jesper is standing to my right. he’s the strong silent type. we have a running joke about ants because i take an ant supplement called super ant….it’s basically ground up changbai black mountain ants. anyway, jesper now calls me frant. fyi this ant is the richest source of zinc from a plant or animal on earth. chew on that fact.
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gesus christ….lots of interesting stuff for the letter g. oh the random trip that listening to these comments will take you on. thinking back on this response i remember guided by voices, gordon voidwell, giant drag and gustav holst. i also noticed that every video i make i start by saying im sorry for posting so late. i guess going forward im just gonna be late and not say sorry about it cos im pretty much just late all the time. hold on cos h’s are next homie
francis 2kTen
so we just came back from a 3 day run up north and i wanted to post some polaroids that chad elder took of melissa and i right after our last show in goleta. these were last minute shots right before melissa left the club. i couldnt pass up a polaroid moment because they are inevitably classic. i also couldnt pass up the opportunity to say a few things about melissa because i fucking love having her in the band! she’s doing so well and is quickly establishing herself as a force. her performance, energy and enthusiasm is honest, powerful, sincere and infectious. our new material is by far our best stuff to date and that will be evident all too soon when start releasing the shit over the course of the next few months. thanx to everyone who came out to support us this past week! we love u guys too!
ok…yes the 2 with ten was ideally….ideally….in a perfect world scheduled to be once a week but as it turns out it’s just gonna be as soon as i can get to it. i have been listening to all the g’s and was hoping to get the video uploaded before tour but thats not gonna happen - i’m gonna try but as of right now…no. so, what does that mean…it means expect it next week. if all i had to do was work on west indian girl i could have managed it but there has been way too much work on my plate the last 2 weeks with rehearsals a photo shoot and general band business all adding to the chaos. hope to see u at the shows this week!
buddyhead just came out with a best and worst of list for 2009. it’s stuff like this that reminds me why i love buddyhead. sometimes brutal honesty is the best policy. this site is worthy of a bookmark because it will make u laugh. and u guys think im harsh?
ok, before we start i think a quick recap of the 2 with ten rules is in order. in a perfect world i would like u to post no more than 2 artists from the letter in question. ideally these bands are found within your own personal itunes library. i would prefer more recent artists but again that’s tough given the limits of the library in question. (if there isnt much to choose from in your library this might be a reminder to stay current and not get complacent with your music.). now post one song link from each artist be it a youtube or myspace link. that’s it. pretty simple. if you want to list just one band/link and ask a question then do that as it will take this blog to even stranger places.
grizzly bear. gb is an indie band from ny that debuted in 04. they are my first g but it’s not because of their most recent and popular record veckatimest that everyone seems to think is so amazing. it’s actually because of their second record yellow house which i think is much better. yellow house came out on warp records in 06. i think that as a whole, from start to finish, it’s a very complete record - it flows extremely well with warm, dreamy, psychedelic, folky, unique and timeless elements to all of it. i don’t even remember how i got this record but i think i got it from amy. the track i picked was called knife.
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gabin. this was an easy choice for a few reasons. i discovered gabin when we were signed to astralwerks as they were fellow labelmates…but from italy. gabin is the elctro lounge duo of fillippo cary and max bottini. they are both great musicians with a defined style- bottini happens to be a well known jazz bassist in his own right. so here’s the story, before i took a trip to rome in 04 i had my a&r guy get me in touch with their manager. i set up a time to meet with them at their studio and played them our then unreleased debut cd off of a little digital camera that i had it on. they immediately took a liking to the song hollywood and eventually remixed the track. to date it’s one of the most radically interpreted remixes we have ever had made. this track still gets played on chillout stations and appears on our first remix ep which is actually tough to find in print.
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way to bring in 2010 guys. a few thought provoking mentions for the letter f. going to be doing my best in the upcoming weeks to dig more into the exact reasons and psychology of why i like or dont like certain bands and/or music. good stuff this week though - fugazi, foals, feist, and fever ray a bunch of times. thanx for taking the time to research and post the songs. i appreciate it - hopefully u r listening to all the songs like i am. it will make u musically smarter i promise
francis 2kTen
drat. once again, in efforts to abide by my own rules i find myself plagued by the limits of my itunes library. since i can only pick from what i have in the f’s im going with the first 2 artists that jump out to me. alas, they arent new but they both had an instant effect on me when i heard them and have since stood the test of time.
FC Kahuna. is a dj duo from london that made some pretty big beats. at one point they had a band that was touring. anyway, the song i picked called hayling came out in 2002 and features gus gus vocalist haftis helde. many a night i would sit in my truck with this song on repeat. i love the dark sparse bouncy use of electronics (fyi some samples on this song were lifted from tangerine dream). bottom line: this track is full on vibe - its minimal, beautiful, futuristic, trippy and sultry. damn, the cymbals are wonderful in this song too. oh, i first heard this song via a great double disc released my the ministry of sound label called the chillout sessions. this cd was a monster.
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in a weird twist of fate my other f happens to have also appeared on the aforementioned double disc. crazy huh…also the first time i heard of this band too!
Fischerspooner. usually when one thinks of fischerspooner a song like the one im posting doesnt come to mind. tone poem has always been my favorite fs song. we opened 3 shows on the west coast for them in 2005. at the time those were probably the biggest shows we played. adding to the fact that i love casey spooner this was a no brainer for me. check out this trip down memory lane. scroll down to june entry toward the middle of the page to see some of those show reports.. wow that’s a trip. ya know if anyone ever questions the amount of work and shit this band has gone through i guess i should just tell them to scroll through the archives of this blog.
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ok, on to the “f”uture. f me now please.
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thanx again for all the e’s people. way to keep this rollin. lots of good stuff. explosions in the sky - elbow - eels!!! awesome stuff. it was fun listening to all the good, the bad and the ugly. remember….two artists with a link or maybe just one and a question - just dont list bands. i love you guys
fran
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