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.

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.

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.

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.

OK PLEASE SEND ME NEW MUSIC!!! IDEALLY FROM THE LAST 2 YEARS - I DESIRE RECENT H’S

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

the first show we have available thru inticketing is our valentine’s day show with pollyn presented by kcrw. it’s at the bootleg theatre and josh/nynex will dj the after party presented by filter. hope you can make it and thanx for being part of our family.

Here’s a lil’ teaser of a working (unmixed) track entitled “Shangri-La,” one of our new songs to be released later this year. You may have heard various incarnations of this live…enjoy.
shot & edited by yours truly

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.

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.

francis 2kTen

best records of 09
amy - Fever Ray, The XX, Atlas Sound, Mike Snow and Memory Tapes

jesper - Modwheelmood : Pearls to Pig dbl. vinyl

fran - west indian girl - 4th on the floor remixes vol 2, i will never be the same- standby

melissa - The Growlers- Are you in or out, Animal Collective- Merriweather Post Pavilion,The Avett Brothers- I and Love and You

rob - Freelance Whales - Weathervanes, Passion Pit- Manners, The XX- XX, Animal Collective- Merriweather Post Pavilion, Jacob Kirkegaard- Fonik Works, Phoenix- Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, The Antlers- Hospice, Laneous and The Family Yah- Shit at Life/Good at Music EP, STS9-AD Exporata, West Indian Girl- 4th on The Floor

dino - Temper Trap- Conditons, The XX- XX, Passion Pit- Manners, MSTRKRFT- Fist Of God, Grizzly Bear- Veckatimest, Julian Casablancas- Phrazes For The Young, Phoenix- Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, UNI- A Love Supreme

dylan - Get Color - HEALTH, Ayrton Senna EP - Delorean, Pearls to Pigs - Modwheelmood, Fever Ray - Fever Ray, Standby - I Will Never Be The Same, Ming & Ping - Ming & Ping, I Feel Cream - Peaches

new year’s resolutions:

amy - to finish this record

jesper - to listen to more music…and to make more !!!

fran - to go running on a beach in malibu with my dog tony 1/wk for 52 weeks

melissa - my new years resolution is to quit smoking AGAIN, to keep my nails painted, to finish the new WIG album, make use of the beach and desert being so close, and to meet lots of new stories and people.

rob - To control my breath…increase my capacity for fuller breathing. Health statistics show the average person uses as little as ten percent of their lung capacity. This shallow breathing is associated with stress response of the sympathetic nervous system and is the cause of many health issues in our fast-paced modern society. With every breath comes a thought. With every thought comes an action. By controlling my breathing I’m attempting to control my thoughts…thereby controlling my state of being.

dino -to stop drinking soda….

dylan - to never get sick again. to graduate and be financially independent.

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.

ok, on to the “f”uture. f me now please.