Nação Zumbi: Brainy Crabs & Cannibals
I first heard of Chico Science and Nação Zumbi in late 1995 on a music discussion list. I was just launching fastnbulbous.com, and a couple members of Tortoise had provided an intruiging list of music artists the were not strictly influences, but simply their favorite music. The name Chico Science & Nação Zumbi stood out as a name I had never heard of. This is understandable, as their debut album, Da Lama ao Caos (From Mud To Chaos) was just released in 1994, only in Brazil. Brazilian imports were nearly impossible to come by then, and there was zero media coverage in the U.S., outside of more established former tropicálistas like Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil and Tom Zé. Perhaps the folks in Tortoise caught their performance at Central Park’s SummerStage that summer opening up for Gilberto Gil. I was grateful for the tip, as the money spent on the import was well spent. The album was simply explosive, mixing the power of three large bombo bass drums culled from the Afro-Pernambuan maracatu tradition with embolada, raggamuffin, heavy metal, psychedelic rock, punk, funk and hip-hop. This fusion music was far more successful than the clumsy attempts of American bands to fuse rock, funk and rap. I would have thought they’d become immensely popular here. But the release of their second album, Afrociberdelia (1996) came and went with no acknowledgement here, and by February 1997, Chico Science was dead from a car accident. Just as Joy Division's future was in doubt after losing Ian Curtis, many wondered if they could make it without their charismatic leader. Continue...
January 29, 2008The Best Artists Of The 00s (So Far)
In less than two years this decade will be over. It's hard to believe, as most of us still haven't decided what to call it (the "oughts", the "naughties"?) let alone get a grip on what it means. It's been a blur of stolen elections, downspiraling economies, mounting debt, and a paranoid entertainment industry relentlessly jerking their customers around. Despite all the BS, some people still managed to release some good albums. The era of blockbusters are over, because the industry no longer has a stranglehold on bottlenecking the variety of what we choose to listen to. As much as they'd like twenty million people to all buy the same ten albums at Walmart, we have a far wider variety of choices than ever before. The era of consensus is over, and canons are always questionable. That may sound strange coming from a compulsive listmaker, but I'm all for supporting a variety of opinions. Lists aren't very interesting if they're all alike. Just because lists can be challenged doesn't mean they aren't valuable. I've used critic's polls and books like the MOJO Collection and 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die to find albums I've overlooked, reconsider ones I've dismissed, and get a different perspective on ones I'm familiar with. Whether I agree or not, I often hear things I didn't notice before. Continue...
January 21, 2008Book Review: Lewis Shiner, Glimpses (1993) 9+
Glimpses was published 15 years ago and is out of print (though easily available used). I can't believe I never heard of it before. The story can get bogged down by some excruciating family drama, but the parts where 38 year-old stereo repairman Ray is transported from 1989 to the 60s and interacts with Brian Wilson and Hendrix are awesome. It starts when he daydreams about The Beatles recording the original version of "The Long And Winding Road" for the truncated Get Back sessions. His tape deck records the imagined session that never was. Continue...
January 20, 2008
Fast 'n' Bulbous Redesign (In Progress)
Since IE7 decided to make my venerable, long suffering site look broken, I decided it was finally time to make the conversion to CSS. Some of you recall I started working on a redesign in 2005 for its 10th Anniversary (eek). I tried dozens of fonts and logos to base it on and wasn't happy with any of them. The current logo is still a temporary placeholder, while an amazingly-patient-and-generous-friend to whome I'll be forever indebted makes a nicer one. The color palette is not set in stone. I'm trying out the old dark green background combined with a sufficiently evil (\m/) black main content area, neon (meate dreams of an octafish) green headers and orange links. Feel free to compare the 
changes with the old site and give feedback via my email listed on the lower right, and I might try other things. Click on the image to see suggestions my friend John kindly made.
Neon Meate Dreams of an Orange Octafish
Lighter Dreams
Poopy old site
December 30, 2007
2007 Year-End Summary & Fester's Lucky 13s
I always say there's no such thing as a bad year in music, because every year there is more good music than anyone can possibly have time to digest. Some years it may be a little harder to find than others. As late as September I was a little worried. My list was looking a little anemic, and I wasn't feeling hardly any of the critical favorites of the year so far -- Panda Bear, The Field, The Arcade Fire, Kanye West, etc. I had to dig a little harder to find more albums that scratched my itch. My itches vary, from craving some good basic rock that isn't totally cliched and boring (Witchcraft, White Stripes, QOTSA), cracking, well-written, passionate pop songs (young UK bands pretty much cornered this market again, including Maxïmo Park, Field Music, Good Shoes, Mothers and the Addicts, The Rakes, The Maccabees), electronica ranging from glitchy microhouse to experimental to tuneful (Apparat, Matthew Dear, Dan Deacon, Moon Wiring Club, Chloe, Studio, Laub), and bits of metal, post-metal and hip-hop.
Most of all, I like the music that delves in mystery and magic, that's not easily categorized nor quickly digested. It's not always the case that music that takes a little more work is longer lasting. Continue...
Magnet Magazine: Fast 'n' Bulbous was reviewed in the Nov/Dec 2003 issue of Magnet, the best music magazine in North America (I'm not just saying that cuz they reviewed me, really. I've been a subscriber since issue 3).
The Wire Magazine: Adventures In Modern Music. Fast 'n' Bulbous was reviewed in the February 2001 issue of The Wire, a British magazine that covers "electronica, avant rock, breakbeat, jazz, modern classical, global and sounds from the outer limits."
