Meet Mr Udu Drum

Things to do this week

1. get a set together
2. Finish the song for Matt's radio show
3. play Trepid house
4. go to Sudbury
5. Play in Sudbury with the Captain opening
6. Find a damn duffel bag big enough for booty of musical instruments and clothes (might have to sacrifice bringing clothes for instruments, getting arrested for playing a naked show would make for good publicity, but its probably pretty cold up in Sudbury)
7. Stop writing run on sentences
8. Get ahold of Steve and see if he has my vibraslap
9. Eat more fruits and i love you most of all my favourite vegetables
10. Get good fake moustaches for me and Matt for the................ moustache party.
11. Find out who the hell put this up.

http://www.lyricsmania.com/lyrics/captain_wonderful_and_the_less_than_perfects_lyrics_20330/other_lyrics_51015/youre_special_lyrics_536987.html

booooooks

Went to Chapters today to pick up the Paul's boutique 33 1/3 I ordered not planning to spend any money and spent almost one hundred dollars. I've been addicted to books lately but everything I got was on the list of things I wanted to read anyways, so i guess it's not a bad thing. I picked up Ray Davies's "X-ray" his unauthorised biography of himself, "Electric don Quixote" another bio about Zappa, "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" an autobiography by one of the merry pranksters during the summer of love and "Gonzo" a Hunter S. Thompson Bio. I really like reading biographies about authors i find interesting before i dive into their work, especially authors that write autobiographical works, it seems to bring you deeper into the works. kinda like reading about an old friend.

My Favourites 08

2008 wasn't that remarkable of a year for me, half of the albums that i was looking forward to hearing didn't come to be this year (Clues, Starlight mints) and ones by bands i used to love just seemed to disappoint (Islands, Of Montreal) but here are the ones i did like in no particular order.

1. Tobacco - Fucked up Friends
Taking a more instrumental/hip hop approach to the same formula that made black moth super rainbows dandelion gum so awesome last year Tobaccos album wasn't a show stopper but is consistently good enough with a few great moments to probably be my favourite album this year.

2. Beck - Modern Guilt
While the risk taking, genre bending Beck of last decade may be gone the new beck sure knows how to set a mood over the course of an album. I think this is the first time Beck has taken a big stab at more 60's styled music, tho he dabbed in pscydellia before it is was a more post modern version. Song for song this isn't one of Becks best efforts but i give him points for always trying something different.

3. The Bicycles - Oh No, Its Love
Expanding on their debuts style the new album is more hit and miss but still a very good pop album. On some of the songs the bigger production values seem to strangle the songwriting a little bit, not enough to hate the songs but enough to slightly annoy you. In other places the album tends to go a more 70s route than the 60's styled pop the first album specialized in, but a lot of the more mediocre ideas only last 30 or 50 seconds and its on to something fun and funky again.

4. Man Man - Rabbit Habits
This record didn't win me over at first, but eventually a lot of the material really grew on me and it turned out to be one of my favourites of this year. The record has the instrumental prowess of 70's Zappa and mixes it with the strangeness of Primus and that's bound to turn more people off the band than on to them, but under it all the songs are strong and the instrumentation, i think is well chosen and played.

5. Unicorn Dream Attack - Love Bits
I just got this in the mail a couple weeks ago but its one of the most original pieces of music I've heard this year. Made mostly of game boy beats and old Casios it gives you that warm feeling of being 8 and playing video games. One thing they have on other 8bit or Chiptune music that put them ahead of the pack is the vocals, although vocoded are sweet and melodic as opposed to the sometimes harsh and abstract approches of other 8bit groups.

New 4th Floor Crest

Incorporating elements of the crest of Britain and the Bahamas, i think it turned out nice.

some covers i did with my toy keybords. Most of the instruments are done with my Kawai Ms50 I got at value village the other day. Gangsters has my Casio VL-1 Being distored with my big muff then vocoded. (Right Click Save as to save)

Devo - Girl U Want

The Specials - Gangsters

So today Allys dad brought his friends son over to take a look at my "setup" They came over at about 12:30 and i showed him around my instruments. He didn't seem to be very interested by anything, when i asked him his favourite music he just said he couldn't listen to any if he wanted to write music because it would come out the same as it went in. But after an aquard hour or so we left and went to food and the antique store in Galt.
At the store, which is more like a warehouse I ended up finding a good selection of records all for under $10. Really good considering antique stores usually mark everything up a ton. I got
T.Rex - The Slider
Devo - Freedom of Choice
Pink Floyd - Wish you were Here
Arlo Guthrie - Alice's Restaurant
Kraftwerk - Computer World
Bob Dylan - Highway 61 Revisited
The Beatles - Sgt Pepper
ELO - Time
ELO - A New World Record

all in almost spotless condition.

Tomorrow apparently I'm going to the ROM with Ally's family then maybe to Ikea whereupon i can finally get the shelf i want for my record player and records.