The 100th Post

We've made it to 100 here at the CTRL! It's with that in mind that the information in the following comminuque is both technical and philosophical... isn't that what each and every one of you faithful readers comes here for?

The Central Target Research Labs are up and running, with a library, lounge, galley, communications center, recording studio, nearby escape route, and an in-house exotic eatery.

Despite the toll that the relocation has taken on us all, several projects are in the works, including the production of a soundtrack for a lost 1960's biker/exploitation film, a review of the latest album by Detroit music legends The Dirtbombs, new Spirit Three material, as well as a series of random and insightful dispatches originally created between 1:00 AM and 7:00 AM.

However, despite the best effors of our tech team, we're currently without a way to broadcast these, as a freak accident has knocked out our comminications equipment. So, all of our efforts are currently self-contained, until a way to jack into the system presents itself. Then, we'll naturally flood the channels with new updates. Until then, hold tight.

We're working on it, don't worry.

So until then, I'll leave you faithful followers with the following postulation.

I was watching the 1987 film version of Less Than Zero (a longtime favorite book of mine, but I'd never seen the movie), and found myself wondering if a plastic, shallow, day-glo wasteland of superficiality presented in the film is somehow preferable to a twitchy, paranoid existience where imminent doom is never far from anyone's mind. Of course, years spent decrying the artificial, dead-inside gloss of the late 1980's makes (and a naive longing in my adolesence for "gritty reality") this is a bitter pill to swallow, but as defeatist as it may seem, it sure seems prettier than the alternative.

Grim, huh? It's February. Let's not get too peppy for another month, people.

Thoughts Found Online: A Quick Update For The Faithful

'Found thoughts' for you... an excellent point about the state of most "indie rock" (the musical 'style', not the act of being a band/artist on an independent label) and its influence derived from Radiohead, who, for the LAST TIME, I do enjoy.

"What strikes me most about them is the absolute lack of playfulness in their music. Everything about them seems absolutely calculated and simultaneously stoic and histrionic. Nothing about them feels immediate.

There's also the matter of their influence on independent rock since the release of "OK Computer." I feel like a large percentage of music championed by Pitchfork and their ilk is derived from or greatly influenced by "OK Computer" and its followups and the musical principals extolled therein. The punk values of "indie" throughout the 80s and 90s where replaced with prog rock values."

- "PB", avclub.com reply boards, Jan. 2011

Interesting. When confronted with the question of how I could come up through the same "pre-indie" channels of alternative rock and punk, yet feel so distanced from the state of current "indie rock" (i.e. "blog rock") is because I approach it expecting the same punk-derived value system (both musical and philosophical) I encountered in the "alternative" scene throughout college and the early years of the current environment. I'm looking at it as a punk, they're looking at it the way prog-rockers would, which, to my mentality, is anathema.

And don't worry, faithful readers, Central Target has not forsaken you. We're simply in the process of updating the new and improved Central Target Research Labs.(CTRL). The lab equipment has been moved in, there's still some light cleaning to do, and we're desperately in need of that phalanx of teenage Swedes to shuffle things around, but it's coming along nicely. Here's a snapshot from the "moving-in" process:



We may be taking January off in the "Spirit Three Live EP Series" after the relocation and the sad passing of a member of the Central Target family, but we will be back in force, and rest assured that January is not going to pass without some type of surprise.

Switchblades & Lollipops,
Mikey Shake
Central Target Research Labs

Two Roads, In A Wood... blah, blah, blah...

Self-taught musicians tend to learn by listening and playing along to things, whereas more trained players are taught the "right" and "wrong" way and focus on accomplishing a superior performance. Which might explain the fact that bands like Joy Division and bands like Dream Theater exist under the same category of "rock music".

The Central Target Research Lab

Well, 2010 is winding down, so it's time to keep running from the Man, as always. We here are proud to announce that we're moving into some new digs... the new Central Target Research Lab. It's essentially a private new hideout/base, replete with an in-house Indian restaurant, a recording studio, media center, library... and it's all "transport adjacent" for a quick underground or airborne getaway. If we can get that team of interns (forced labor) we're hoping for, there might even be a tiki bar.

We'll be keeping you updated with pictures of the installation as it progresses, but please forward your hate mail, marriage proposals, and kinky photographs to the new address:

Central Target Research Lab (CTRL)
Secret Lair, Deep Underground
Boston, MA 0212

(No C.O.D.)

How To Be A Grouch: Top Seven Of 2010

So it's that time again. I'm spurred on my by my colleague's mention of his impending list... and my own guilt about not really even thinking about mine in ages. See, 2010 was big for me. Got a good job that I like, that lets me write professionally... got married... moving to a nice new place before the year is out... and more specifically around here, started up a new musical endeavor of my own... which has tended to make me listen to more ambient/drone/experimental stuff than I have in the past.

So maybe, I've just been busy... maybe that's why I'm finding it so hard to muster up a top 10 albums of 2010. Scrolling through the digital Post-It (TM) that I've been keeping on my laptop for years... the one that says "Best Albums Of The Year"... it's December, and I've only got eight. The ones I've been thinking of adding would take my pool of candidates up to 13. Not the glorious two-or-three dozen I've had in some recent years to sift through and really decide what cut my jib the past 3-6-5. Nope, a slim, trim 13. So screw it. I'm calling it off. There will be no top ten this year (*waves arms in that "simmer down" motion to quell outraged threats and hysterical sobbing*)... no, not this year. In this year, I present to you a top SEVEN. Not a TEN, a SEVEN. There were plenty of albums, new to me, that I heard that I liked. A medium-sized percentage of them were even from this year. Several were even albums I really enjoyed listening to over and over, but they were like flings... nothing that really stuck. So here's a short list of what I REALLY, REALLY liked,

7. Wu-Tang Meets The Beatles - Enter The Magical Mystery Chambers
I just found this a week ago, and the earliest date my completely half-assed search for info on it pulled up was in January, so there. It is what you think it is, just spliced 'n' diced Beatles bits with the Wu-Tang swarmin' at you like a bad fever dream. Not revolutionary, in this post-Danger Mouse world, but it's a good example of how far sampleadelic culture has come since a JBs break first got lifted by an enterprising DJ. Well-done, with surprising sound quality and a nicely-put-together cover. The best part? It's the most fun you'll have if you're that rare breed that straddles a line between Liverpool and Shaolin. The re-contextualization appeals if you're jaded by hearing another Beatles song ANOTHER time, and it's fun to hear tales of feudal ghetto warfare over psych-pop breakbeats.

6. Sade - Soldier Of Love
My adoration for this record is based almost entirely on the title track. Most of the rest doesn't begin to live up to that pinnacle of (in my opinion) her career. But it's good enough to get the whole album on this list. Low on the list, though, but still... It's a great album, but my god, that song. It wouldn't have such power if it weren't sung by a returning champion we didn't understand... we hadn't seen her dark side. Hearing the jagged, murky landscape of this song, traced with a voice that is older, more nuanced... but still familiar? Fantastic.

5. The Dead Weather - Sea Of Cowards
I'm a Jack White fan, yeah, but I'm no patsy. I've said it before, but if Jack wants to make it on my list, he's gotta earn his keep. Lucky for him, it was a thin year, because this ain't his finest-ever. But so what? A greasy, sexy profanity of an album, it's dark, angry, sexually-charged, and loud. It's primitive, thudding, grinding rock music. Electric guitars turned up to "loud" and banged on rhythmically. And it's pretty great. And if he keeps making these, I'll take back most of the good things I said about the second Raconteurs album. promise.

4. Janelle Monae - The ArchAndroid
I can't really give a fair description of this record, because I don't really know how I'm supposed to be listening to it. Is it coming from an R&B/soul angle? Because it doesn't make sense as an R&B album. It's not a "rock and roll" album either. And forget pop, this is almost (nay, certainly) willfully weird. And that's its best trait. The songs are great, the presentation is great, the experimentation is great. One of the only reasons this wasn't my favorite album of the year is that it felt "still a little unformed". If Monae can keep her artistic freedom for another album or two, those will be the ones that really knock it out of the park. Like Prince, circa Dirty Mind... we'll be looking at it in ten years as the great warmup that's also a classic in it's own right.

3 Malory - Pearl Diver
It's the sound of dreaming about clouds while floating underwater in bright sunlight. Pensive, layered, thoughtful, beautiful.

2. Ceremony - Rocket Fire
Cold but human, noisy but pretty. I can't listen to it quietly, because there really is no quiet in there. Ceremony wraps synth-pop drum machines in the gauzy wrap of fuzz and static. If you're in a city sometime, close your eyes and listen. Start to isolate sounds... the radio across the street, honking horns, people yelling, that white-noise of a hundred thousand people moving around? Now fix in on the way that nearby construction saw's whine is rubbing against the screech of bus breaks down the street... now bring in that jackhammer a block over. Pummelling, pulsing rhythmically, but not too loud... just an insistient, continuous machine-gun "brrrap-brrrap-brrrap-brrrap". You suddenly realize the synchronization of those sounds... or your mind somehow glues them together... and you hear, in your head, just for a second, the way the sounds make some alien type of music together, like they're playing off of each other... that's what Ceremony sound like.

1. Gorillaz - Plastic Beach
...speaking of albums that will be better appreciated later. It's funny how after all those years of Albarn getting Ray Davies comparisons for his incisive Brit-life lyrics, he'd years later slide into that other Ray Davies role, that of underappreciated storyteller, the weary poet with a fondness for humanity, but not much hope that anyone will listen until it's too late. The way we can look back on some of the Kinks' mid-period work and ask "How was this a commerical failure?" This is great pop, it's danceable and it has catchy hooks. It's conceptual - after all, the band is made up of cartoon character ape-people who live in a floating fortress. It's post-modern pop music that makes a patchwork out of its genres and guest stars, painting slashing swathes of memorable (con)texture over unfamiliar backgrounds. It's social commentary, in a not-too-veiled way. It's the tabloid story of a phoenix-like second-chance career run from a former Buzz Bin bad boy, who's both a Royal National Treasure and a one-hit wonder. Here he's making the most personal album of his career, and even if it's not his best, it's his bravest yet.

Special extra credit to albums by Erykah Badu, John & Exene, Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings, School of Seven Bells, Manic Street Preachers, Black Mountain, High On Fire, Beach House, and several others my mind is far too full to conjure up right now. Nice job!

The Spirit Three - "Wartime (Missing Pieces)"

Outtakes & Rarities

"This is a collection of session outtakes and unreleased tracks. Some of them will sound familiar, as some of the tracks were simply more of what was initially released... just a few feet down the tape from where the one you know ended. Or was it before it began? How long did some of these tracks go on? Are all the recordings so far excerpts from much longer pieces of music?

Of note is the live recording from 2007, which was the first public performance of the Spirit Three, although at that time, the project was going by the name 'Midway Strange'. That composition, 'Time Is Violence' was first recorded at this performance, but had been playing in one form or another every hour since approximately 1998. "

- Mikey Shake

DOWNLOAD HERE

1, Drone Musik (Double Pink, Two Blue)
2, Somewhere Last Night, After You Left
3, Interlude, Variation 2
4, Split Decision
5, Melted Zip Decay
6, No Johnny, I Don't (The Well Of The Souls)
7, The Day After Revere (Wonderland, Pt. 1)
8, Closed The Park
9, Coedar
10, First Strike, Second Run
11, Time Is Violence [Live 2007]
12, The Crack In The Wall


Recorded 2007-2010
Front Room Studio, Boston, MA
Uncle Fester's, Bloomington, IN
Mikey Shake - guitar, bass, baritone guitar, piano, programming
Front cover by Upstairs Design
Layout by Mikey Shake
Special Thanks to Shake, Shannon, and ofthemetro

Part Five of the Spirit Three EP Series

"The Defilers": A Grammatically Acrobatic Film Review

While its sick violence and rampant mysogyny is unrepentant, "The Defilers" plays like nothing so much as a David Lynch film, with its themes exposing the brutal perversion underneath the sweet, sweeping soundtrack strings. However, this film has the added benefit of being ACTUALLY of the cinematic period that Lynch so lovingly and painstakingly recreates. The first blush of "anyone with a camera and a few friends" making their own small-scale masterpieces. It's just that "The Defilers" is of that era's "just give 'em sex and violence" exploitation wave. It's the air of low-budget, Golden Age Of Hollywood aspirations, combined with a punk rock sense of "cut the shit, get to the good stuff" that makes it riveting. However, it's the under-trained but highly ambitious cinematography, combined with the aforementioned collision of graphic thrills, faux-Hollywood glamor (and the attendant campy low-budget production value, acting included), and the disconcerting is-it-real-or-just-for-shock saturation of sadism, sexism and violence, that makes it damn near psychedelic.