Sorry, I am a little slow in getting this up today:

The other day, I wasn’t home and Mega-Babe was busy teaching piano, but The Bug was content to keep himself busy downstairs doing this:

Yep, that is probably every board game that we own strung out across the entire downstairs TV room. Mega-Babe did say that he cleaned up his mess without complaining, which is out of the norm for him. He rarely cleans up anything without complaining.

Gotta love him.

More great releases coming up from Loefah’s new label. They’ve already released the much rated Kryptic Minds album, but well worth checking out Skream’s forthcoming “Repercussions of a Razorblade” and The Bug feat. Flowdan “Run” both of which are featured on the myspace site.

Very much in the maximum bass pressure and dark as hell direction, both records sound brilliant to these ears at least…..

Deb’s lying on the couch again. She’s feeling puny. Chills, GI distress, all-around blah. Says she may have the swine flu. Well, she’s actually sitting up on the couch reading the paper and drinking a cup of tea and having her morning cookie. But she still says she’s not doing very well.

She asked for a thermometer…finding that thing is like finding a needle in a haystack…but up I went to root around in our bathroom cabinets. Not too long ago, probably when Deb was sick on some other day, I had to finally organize our medical stuff…one box for diabetes, another box for things like cuts and bruises and sprained ankles, another box for allergies and things like that. But, I decided to make a bag called “The Debbie Bag” which contains all the things I need to find quickly for migraines and nausea, etc…you know, Debbie-type problems. I wrote “Debbie” on it with a fat Magic Marker so I can find it quickly. I think I should put the thermometer in The Debbie Bag.

Her temperature is 98.5 degrees. Her pulse is 72. She doesn’t know why these vital signs don’t reflect how sick she really is.

What do you do if you get a brand new clothes washer and dryer set delivered to your house?? Well, if you are The Bug, and your grandparents are the ones with the new washer and dryer, you obviously would want to see how well it works by dumping a scoop of shredded cheese, rosemary sticks, and an apple into the dryer and turning it on.

Yeah, Mama was not happy. I really would be fascinated to learn what is going on in that kids head that he comes up with this stuff. I say he is like me, but not even I am that creative. That kind of thing is troublemaker on a whole new level. Sorry about the dryer, Mama. Cleaning out all that melted cheese couldn’t have been all together pleasant. I do kind of wish I would have known about it so I could have had you take a picture of the aftermath. Makes for great blog material.

I must say though, I am a little relieved that he chose to put food into the dryer and turn it on rather than his little brother. I could definitely see him coaxing Little Woo into the dryer. Mega-Babe had enough insight to make sure that particular safety rule was drilled into Bug’s thick head last night at Family Home Evening.

That’s my boy!

I found this podcast from 2008 but it’s such an awesome selection of tunes that it’s well worth bringing it to your attention. This is a great example of where dubstep works incredibly well with other genres. This is the future!

DJ ChillMael ‘Journey into Futur Zion Episode II’

Tracks

1 Mercan Dede – Water Ceremony ( Golden Horn Rec )
2 Amon Tobin – Ten Piece Metric Wrench Set feat. Steinski ( Ninja Tune )
3 Mark One – Lost Gold ( Boka )
4 Skream – Monsoon [Loefah RMX] ( Tempa Productions )
5 Kode9 9 Samurai ( Hyperdub )
6 Goth-Trad – Genesis ( Soul Jazz Records )
7 Search & Destroy – Candyfloss (Loefah Remix) ( Hotflush Recordings )
8 The Bug – Jah War feat. Flowdan (Loefah Remix) ( Ninja Tune )
9 Peverelist – Roll With The Punches ( Punch Drunk )
10 Howie B Vs Casino Royale – Prova ( Universal Music )
11 Gatekeeper – Tomb ( Skull Disco )
12 Shackleton Tin Foil Sky ( Skull Disco )
13 Zion Train – Edelweiss Piraten ( Universal Egg )

October 2008

http://www.myspace.com/djpsysmael

I have been reading my past few posts and I have been doing a fair amount of ranting this week. I must really be on one lately. I was also going through my list of blog ideas and there is a lot of rant material there too. This all isn’t good for me, so today I am going to lighten it up a bit and keep it short and sweet.

Last night, The Bug was getting water from the fridge, and I could tell the cup he was using was getting kind of full, so I told him that was enough. He kept going as if I didn’t say a word, so I told him again, a little louder in hopes of getting his attention, again nothing. You have to understand, I was not a long way away from him, I was only about two feet away.

So I reached out and pulled his hand with the cup away from the water dispenser and made him look at me (you have to do this with The Bug or your chances of him hearing you aren’t good), and I asked him, “Dude, do you ever listen to me?”

Without the least bit of malice or snottiness, just very “matter of factly” he said, “No.”

Mega-Babe of course busted out laughing. What do I even say to that? What, something lame like, “Yeah, well…..you better start!”

Yeah right, he would have just looked confusedly at me as if he didn’t even understand the concept.

I have strongly suspected for a long time now that this was the case. It is nice to have him confirm it for me finally so I don’t have to wonder about it. Gotta love The Bug.

2tall, DJ Clockwork and Kper present a decades worth of quality hip hop in a megachuck of a downloadable mixtape, yeah, it’s still called a mixtape even though tape bit of the mix ain’t been used since last week.

What’s on it?

Dilla, Spacek, Mos-Def, Co-Flow, El-P, Flying Lotus, Matty G, Loefah, Samiyam, GLK, Ras G, Mike Slott, Danny Breaks, Nosaj Thing, Group Home, High & Mighty, Shawn J. Period,  J-Zone, Lootpack, Madlib, Pete Rock, Cannibal Ox, Rdj2, DJ Shadow, Boards of Canada, DJ Vadim, Busdriver, Pharoah Monch, Slum Village, Jaylib, De La Soul+MF Doom , Dabyre, Vast Aire, Roots Manuva, Prefuse 73, The Bug, Boom Bip, Oh No, Georgia Anne Muldrow, Modeselektor, Onra, Rustie, Jneiro Jarel plus about three giga more.

Download here

Thanks to Daily Swarm for the heads up.  How goes it Todd?

Welcome back one and all. I hope you all had a great turkey day, I know I did. I strayed from tradition and instead of having my usual chicken cordon bleu ( I am one of the only people that I know that does not like turkey in the least), and just made some of my patented barbecue chicken on the grill, along with some spinach dip and crackers, jello salad, mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing, etc. It was quite delicious.

Well, today is my 50^th blog post. That’s about 40 posts more than I thought I would make it. I am not the best person in the world about following through on things, and keeping a daily blog is exactly the kind of thing I would start out intending to do a really good job on, but losing heart after a while and deciding it is taking up too much of my precious time. But, go me, I have kept it going. I really like being able to get all of this nonsense out of my head and I like being able to keep up a little with all the stuff I am going through with my kids as they grow up.

Speaking of my kids growing up, The Bug turned a big 5 years old over the weekend. It was nice that it happened over Thanksgiving weekend. My mom was in town visiting, so she got to be here on his birthday. He really liked that.

I really can’t believe that he is 5. Time just goes by too fast. I know he is our challenge and all that, but he really is the best kid. He actually doesn’t make me too crazy because he is so much like me and I understand him, but he is definitely a trouble maker, which actually ends up making trouble for him too.

One time we were at Mama and Pa’a’s house and Pelon and his family were there too. Little Woo and Pelon’s daughter, Caboose, had gotten into Mama’s stash of M&M’s. Mama immediately started blaming (not to The Bug, she was just saying it to us) The Bug saying that he must have shown them where the stash was. Poor Bug didn’t have anything to do with it, but he was getting the blame. Then a little later, one of the other kids came up and said that Little Woo and Caboose had gotten water all over the floor in the bathroom. Again, someone said that it must have been The Bug. Pelon even asked Caboose if The Bug did it, and she said no, and then when he asked her if she was sure, she caught on to the fact that this was her chance to blame it on someone else and changed her answer to yes.

That is the problem with being a trouble maker. Even when you had nothing to do with it, you will still get blamed. Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing innocent about that kid, but that doesn’t mean he should get blamed for everything.  He actually is the nicest kid I have ever seen as far as his ability to care for other people’s feelings, but he knows more than his fair share of trouble. He just doesn’t seem to care much about mine and Mega-Babe’s sanity. Happy birthday little buddy!!!!!!! We love you!

Kevin Martin has been making music for nearly two decades now. Whatever hes done, be it industrial metal as in God, weird experimental rock as in Ice, or in the outer limits of hiphop as Techno Animal and The Curse Of the Golden Vampire, the dark influence of Dub and the attempt to reach it’s deepest most alien extreme has always been evident. A lurking monster in the background calling out dark basslines or swirling ambient shrieks. Which is why it was no surprise, but more of a beautiful logical conclusion to see his Bug project joins the ranks of what is called dubstep and receive the respect and love of a new generation of musicians and listeners. The music had gone full circle.

But where most of the younger musicians had been bred on grime, dancehall, techno, Kevin Martins where not. It’s not dance music that runs through Kevin Martins veins, but experimentalism, dark ambient and free jazz. As The Bug, Kevin Martins dubstep were dirtier, muddier than his contemporaries. And on “London Zoo” was also the first collaboration (under the “Bug” alias)  with spoken word poet Roger Robinson, which would result in King Midas Sound. On paper the collaboration is most logical, a free form poet and native from Trinidad and Tobago fits well with both Martins background and current orientation. The conclusion however is not.

Roger Robinson is no Saul Williams. His poetry is not ranting and sonorous. Rather it is quiet and soft, cottony singing, not unlike some of the more pretentious neo-soul singers. Nor is his poetry what you would excpect from a spoken word performer, complex, outspoken, political. The lyrics are in fact usually somewhat harmless, with a somewhat dreamlike quality, difficult to interpret and decipher, when not concerning more mundane subjects, lost love, being good to mother nature. The combination gives a somewhat eerie result.  The music is sparse, ghostly, tribal yet urban. Futuristic not in the sense of shining towers of glass and metal but in the mad max sense of the future, ritualistic drumming under a collapsed highway round campfires built of the promise of what could have been while buildings crumble in slow motion and slowly crashing ships collides with shorelines.

Surprisingly though the combination is rarely what you would call Dubstep. It may have a few things in common with the current scene. But it has far more in common with the 90’s triphop scene. The music echoes Massive Attack, a dirtier version of Blue Lines, even more it echoes some of Trickys earlier works. And with a few sucessfull exceptions, such as the Meat Beat Manifesto flavoured “One Thing”, the music suffers from the same problems that plagued the trip hop movement. The music is a bit too cool, too much of a sound coulisse. It is more likely to be played in the background of a hip advertising agency or in a bar were you order up a couple of martinis to start the night before you go on to the real dubstep raves. When it should be played from a small radio in the back of a shop were rastas play dominos and drink rum from the bottle.

Another mix from FACT Magazine. This time King Midas Sound (The Bug, Roger Robinson and Hitomi) gives us a mix that is a bit different and highly enjoyable.

Tracklist:
King Midas Sound – Sometimes (Waiting For You/Hyperdub)
Lovejoys – All I Can Say (Reggae Vibes/Wackies)
15/16/17 – The Weather (Magic Touch/DEB)
Burial – Night Bus (Burial/Hyperdub)
Little Dragon – Twice (Little Dragon/Peacefrog)
The Dynamics – 90% of me is you (Version Excursions/Points South)
Tanya Stephens – It’s A Pity (Gangsta Blues/VP)
Jacob Miller – Baby I Love You So (Who Say Jah No Dread/Greensleeves)
Gregory Isaacs – I’m Alright (Cool Down/VP)
Wayne Jarrett – Live&Love (Horace Andy Meets Naggo Morris & Wayne Jarrett/Wackies)
Sade – Lovers Rock (Lovers Rock/Epic)
Rhythm & Sound ft Lovejoy – Best Friend (With the Artists/Burial Mix)
Larry Heard – Missing dub (Theo Parrish remix) (Missing You/Track Mode)
Vincent Gallo – Lonely (When/Warp)
A.R.Kane – Madonna is with child (69/Rough Trade)
Scritti Politti – Sweetest Girl (/Rough Trade)
Lloyd Chambers – Dry Your Tears (Firehouse Revolution/Pressure Sounds)
King Midas Sound – i Dub (Dub Heavy/Hyperdub)
Scientist ft Johnny Osbourne – In Your Eyes (Wins The World Cup/Greensleeves)
King Midas Sound – Outtaspace (Slow Motion mix) (Waiting For You/Hyperdub)
Japan – Ghosts (Tin Drum/Virgin)
Kevin Shields – Ikebana (Lost In Translation s/t/Emperor norton)
King Midas Sound – One Ting (Dabrye remix) (Cool Out/Hyperdub)
Oval – Do While (94diskont/Mille Plateaux)
Thomas Koner – Kanon (Isolationism/Virgin)
My Bloody Valentine – Touched (Loveless/creation)

King Midas Sound – dub sounds

A Great late night soundsystem style mix from “King Midas Sound”, consisting of the trio of Kevin ‘The Bug’ Martin, Roger Robinson and Hitomi courtesy of FACT magazine.

Well worth checking (it just revealed to me where the sample on one of my favourite jungle tunes came from for a start)… throws it’s net a bit wider than just reggae…

check it out and download it from here

Sometimes, kids seem to grow up a lot faster than they should. Some of the things that they say are just so grown up and you can’t help but wonder, “Where did they hear that???”

You just hope that nothing too obscene comes out of their mouth and that they didn’t hear it from you. At least that is my worry. Other people, that might not be an issue for.

But sometimes the things they say just make you laugh. For instance, a while back, we were sitting at dinner and Donut did something he shouldn’t have been doing, I don’t remember what it was. He may have just done something to make The Bug mad, who knows? Bug got a very grumpy face, pointed his finger sternly at the timeout corner and told him, “PIMEOUT!!! PIMEOUT DONUT!!!! PIMEOUT!!!!!!!!” (obviously he didn’t say ‘Donut’ but…well, you get the idea)

After he saw that we all thought it was funny and started laughing, he brightened up a little and started saying it to be funny, and of course he was hilarious! He was just so little! He obviously wasn’t even talking very well yet, but he knew all about timeout, even at an early age.

Well a few nights ago, we were again at dinner (A lot of things happen at our dinner time. I can’t even begin to believe that our dinners are even close to what a normal family’s dinner time is like.) and Donut was making rude noises into his milk cup. Mega-Babe started telling him how rude he was being, and The Bug quickly jumped right in on the mix, “Hey! We don’t do that at dinner! That is bad manners!” Donut kind of ignored him and asked if he could have more milk, and The Bug is leaning across the table reaching for Donut’s cup and says, “No! No! You are done with milk. You don’t get any more milk.”

I know exactly where he’s heard that before, only the million or so times Mega-Babe and I have told him that when he is being a little punk at dinner. Of course we all cracked up, but he was QUITE serious.

“so many tings dey git me angry, and so many tings dey get me mad”

So opens The Bug’s London Zoo over the top of a fierce dance-hall beat. I’m calling this dance-hall because that seems to be the word bandied around on the Internets for this English dub-influenced style. The beats are incredible – rhythmically daring you to not bob your head.

I think I acquired this after searching for the 50 best albums of 2008 according to pitchfork.com and was surprised to discover that I hadn’t listened to it at all. I switched it on one morning during the hour long metro ride to my work and was immediately transfixed.

Lyrically, it can be difficult to follow. For one, you have to deal with the Jamaican-tinged London accents that dance around crashing beats – which, even though I think I’m relatively good at understanding accents, at times pushes the limits of my English. Not only are the accents incredible,  they also melodically dive their way through the sounds, twisting words into incredible collages in order to meld with the music..

As I said earlier, it seems to have been classified as dancehall by the internets, it feels like it could very easily break from the dub and hip hop influence into rousing drum and bass. But it never does. It holds you there, in a trance, and judging from the number of times I’ve listened to the album in the last few days, it will continue to hold me there for a while.

Theres different sides to Flow Dan. On later Roll deep like the clubby  “Do me wrong” he comes with a deep smooth voice, a Barry White of the grimescene. Then theres the excellent heavy, raw,  underground collaborations with former industrial/techno/hiphop now reborn dubstep artist The Bug, such as “Skeng” “Jah War” and “Warning”. Theres the Grime of course, and search hard enough you might hear him on some of the jungle he started with (this was back in the nineties, so you might have to search hard). All this is proof that Flow Dan is something rare in the grime scene, an artist, capable of moving between different styles of music without loosing his step, without sounding awkward or forced. He’s ruff yardie flow may not work everywhere, then he switches it. Although to be honest, if i had a choice rigth now i’d rather hear him over heavy dub like the tracks Bug makes, then over clubhits, or even grime.

I kinda knew this wouldn’t be the case with this release though. Flow Dans been making music for a long long time now, and it’s obvious that with this long-awaited first release he wants to show that he is the master of more than one style, as well as paying homage to the grime he’s so long been a part of. I would almost have expected this cd to be a bit disorganized, more a collection of assorted tunes than an integrated whole. However it is not. I don’t now which is the case, either producers make tracks with Flow Dan in mind, or Flow Dan chooses the tracks that best fit his style. Either way this makes the album, although having a range of different musical styles, grime, dub, ragga, electro, a very collected unified work. More so than most albums i’ve heard lately.

There are a few standout tracks. Opener “Just Me, with fellow Cemetary Warrior and yardie mc Riko is great Wiley produced hype grime, The Bugs “Run” is the dirtiest, most lo-fi dubstep you will find.  ”Show Dem” by Mega is slow horn-driven, rolling grime and perhaps the first track with auto-tune on the chorus Ive actually liked.  There are a few skippable tracks as well, Bless Beats “Dumpers” with Frisco is quite boring, and Targets “Moving to me” feels kinda out of place. But in general what is true about this release is that it not only contains some of the best grime ive heard lately, but some of the best music. Flow Dan suceeds were few does, by making actual tunes, actual choruses and by actually having a personal sound.

The Bug has a birthday coming up soon, his first “friend” party. He is excited about being able to invite his friends over for a party and the theme of this party has been a recurring source of conversation around our house lately. He finally made up his mind that he wants a “fishy” themed birthday party, so the conversation now has become how do we do a “fishy” themed birthday.

You know, we have to figure out party gifts and what kind of cake and what games they are going to play, etc. Donut and The Bug have actually been coming up with some good ideas for this. Things like “pin the tail on the fish” and “fishy, fishy, shark” (the fishy equivalent of duck, duck, goose).

We were discussing this at dinner the other night and Donut came up with the idea of coming up with a song they could sing at the party, and he and The Bug start singing:

5 little fishies sittin in a pool,

A shark came up and bit the pool.

5 little sittin on the grass,

A shark came up and bit…………………..the fishies

This is the point in the song that I snorted milk out of my nose and laughed myself into a good cry. Then they kept singing it and every time they got to that point in the song, I would break down into a new fit of hysterics.

Mega-Babe just loves this kind of juvenile behavior from me. She was half amused, half appalled and said, “Seriously? What is the matter with you?? Its like you got stuck at being 12 years old!”

I know it, Babe, and all I can say is I’m sorry.

I did distinctly hear Mega-Babe do a little snort laughing of her own one of the times The Bug was running through the song, but she may have been laughing at how much of a child I am. See, she will sometimes feign shock and disgust at my behavior, but I think deep down…….WAY deep down, she finds me pretty amusing.

Donut kept trying to figure out why I was laughing so hard at their little song. “Nothing, Buddy. Daddy is just a bit immature.”

I eventually had to excuse myself from the table and go upstairs until I got control.

When I posted my interview with Kevin Martin (aka The Bug), I mentioned that the gig was a total belter. Here’s the review.

THE BUG AND DADDY FREDDY
BLACK BOX, BELFAST

In our last issue, Kevin Martin (for The Bug is he) promised that the live show would be “fucking all over the shop”, “confrontational” and “physical” but “enjoyable”. He wasn’t kidding, as tonight deserves to go down as one of the gigs of the year. It’s nearly over before it begins, though. A deafening blast of noise announces his arrival and demands attention before Martin, alone behind a desk of equipment at the back of the stage, powers into versions of ‘Angry’ and ‘Poison Dart’ from last year’s extraordinary London Zoo album. And then, as abruptly as it starts, the sound and lights cut out. Oops. 10 minutes of uncomfortable shuffling about later, Martin is back and this time there are no familiar bangers to cling on to. For half an hour until ragga MC Daddy Freddy arrives, it’s a sonic battlefield of harsh noise, dancehall beats and teeth-rattling bass – aggressive and deafeningly loud, yes, but compellingly danceable as well.

Eventually, Daddy Freddy does turn up and the mood changes, taking us from confrontation and aural punishment to a chaotic dance party. The familiar tunes are back – ‘Jah War’, ‘Warning’, the peerless ‘Skeng’ and reprises of both ‘Angry’ and ‘Poison Dart’, each with Daddy Freddy completely ignoring the original vocal and letting rip over the top in his own ultra-fast style. It’s a total riot, the MC’s charisma matched to the mood of the crowd and Martin solemnly going about the business of making us move, hard. They are originally scheduled to play for an hour, but once the hour is up the encores begin – largely led by Daddy Freddy, it must be said. Running out of his own material, Bug (as the MC addresses him) starts to DJ, playing fucked-up, noisy versions of dubstep producer 2562’s smooth, spacious ‘Techno Dread’ and even Dawn Penn’s classic ‘No, No, No’. Thought you’ve never heard it quite as gnarled as this before. We hit 2am and the lights come up, closing support act Filaria not even getting a chance to play. It’s a shame, but how would you follow that anyway?

Last Sunday, we had a member of the leadership of our church come and talk to us at church. He was a really good speaker from England who I actually enjoyed listening to. Just sitting and listening to someone talk is not always the easiest thing in the world for me to do, and as I have mentioned before, we are not always sure that our boys are listening either.

In this particular talk, he started to talk about how he has 5 sons and how some people live under the delusion that his family is perfect. This of course got my attention having 3 boys of my own who have been known to not always be little angels. He talked about how each of his sons has a set of boxing gloves and if they ever got into a fight, that he would put them in the backyard and have them slug it out until they love each other. I personally think that is a great way to raise a house full of boys.

The Bug was not there to hear this particular talk, but Donut was there coloring and doing other things to make the church time pass quicker.

Fast forward to this Sunday. We were all getting ready for church and I hear a little commotion downstairs and the boys both laughing it up with a lot of banging and grunting. They make their way upstairs and I see that they have split up the set of boxing gloves that Donut has so they have each have one glove on at which point Donut tells us, “We are fighting until we love each other.”

Mega-Babe and I just half laugh, half wince at what is sure to not end well. After a while, Donut starts to take his glove off and says, “Alright, alright, I love you, we can stop.”

The Bug hauls off and punches him while his guard is down and proclaims, “I don’t love you!”

Having 3 boys can wear me out, but it sure can be entertaining. I am already picturing how I can set up a cock-fighting pit of sorts and I can invite people over to take bets on the winner. I personally would put my money on The Bug, he fights dirty.

Me: I am doing great. I really have the easy part in all of this new baby stuff. Its Mega-Babe who carries the load. I am not going to make any friends here by saying this, but I am not the kind of husband that gets up at night with the kids when they wake up and need something. I sleep too hard, I get too grumpy, and I don’t realize that I am being grumpy. Heck, I probably won’t remember the whole incident. I can’t tell you the number of times that I have been asked the question, “Do you remember being a complete jerk last night?”

And the honest answer is no, I don’t. Apparently Mega-Babe has tried to wake me up on many occasions for one emergency or another only to have me say or do something completely jerky to her. I don’t remember ever doing it and I am not entirely positive she isn’t just making it up. I think she has been making a list of things from the day that we got married of stuff like this that she can show to the judge if we ever get a divorce that will completely discredit me as a competent father. She is just holding it as insurance. So, I just don’t get out of line too bad so she never has to use it.

Anyway, plus I don’t handle being tired well AT ALL. My body will shut down and I will get sick and end up missing a lot of work, so Mega-Babe carries the not sleeping load with the stipulation that I let her nap whenever she wants. Works for me!

I LOVE my little Mini-Babe. She is great.

Mega-Babe: She really is super woman. I guess I never realized exactly how much a woman goes through to have a kid until I saw the pain Mega-Babe was in giving birth without an epidural. I mean, I knew it was bad and I knew it was more than I could ever handle in my life, but to see it, with my own eyes was…..wow! Mega-Babe and I are still in unbelief that it all went down that way. I know, this apparently happens to a lot of people. I can’t tell you how many people have said something like, “Oh yeah, that’s exactly what happened with our second kid.”

or

“My sister gave birth in the hallway of the hospital.”

or

“By the time my wife got to the hospital, she was sitting on our daughter’s head.”

or

“My aunt gave birth in the car in the middle of rush hour traffic.”

or

“A girl I work with had her baby while she was in the middle of a trapeze act at the circus. She shot the baby out 75 feet in the air and the baby was caught and slapped on the bottom by Guido the Monkey Boy while he swung from a trapeze.”

Yeah, I know, ME ME ME ME ME ME ME! Everybody has a better story. Brian Regan talks about this phenomenon but uses the wisdom tooth example. Its like telling someone you had 2 wisdom teeth pulled and before you can even get the words out, someone will say, “That’s nothing, I had 4 removed and they all had to be cut out and they were impacted and blah blah blah.”

“Don’t ever try telling a 2 wisdom tooth story because you’re not going anywhere with that. The 4 wisdom tooth guys are going to parachute in and cut you off at the pass.”

Look, this may be common place for the rest of the world, but when it is your 4^th kid and nothing exciting has EVER happened during the birth of any of your children so far and you are expecting the same thing to happen again and to just have another nice mild-mannered, epidural controlled delivery, this all came as a bit of a punch to the gut. I have a whole new appreciation for what it means to give birth to a child (obviously nowhere near the appreciation that Mega-Babe now has). To see my wife, who hardly ever complains about anything other than the fact that I don’t take out the trash often enough, in that much obvious pain…I am so glad that I am a guy. I can’t stress that enough.

After the baby was born, and Mega-Babe is still sitting on the bed in tears, the doctor said to her, “Now you’re a real pioneer woman. You can get your pioneer woman badge.” I just shot him a look that clearly said, “What is the matter with you? Do you really think that is helping???”

She has been doing great since then. She is tired, but rightfully so, as I mentioned above, she is carrying the late night load. She could have done so much better than me….but she is stuck now.

Donut: To be honest, I haven’t seen a lot of Donut since Mini-Babe was born. He has been staying at my in-laws house, which he prefers to our house. He would just live over there if he could. Mama apparently spends more time with him working on things like reading than Mega-Babe and I do. Since he is in first grade, he is supposed to read for 20 minutes every day and we struggle at times to make that happen. But since staying at the in-laws, he has been reading 45 minutes to 2 ½ hours every day and he has passed off several of his sight words/phrases lists. We are apparently bad parents. He loves reading now. Mega-Babe said the other day that Donut’s teacher is going to think that we should have a new baby more often so our kids actually learn to read. Shame.

As far as Mini-Babe, the jury is still out. Donut likes her. He loves to hold her, but he told me the other night that he hates her….right after he got done holding her for 20 minutes. I think that now he just thinks that he is supposed to hate her since he already said it, so he is trying to play the part so Mom and Dad aren’t right.

The Bug: He has been reaching a whole new level of difficult lately. When Donut gets mad, he is likely to just punch someone. He takes out his aggression on whoever is closest. The Bug on the other hand is different. As much of a trouble maker as he is, he is probably the most compassionate kid I have ever met. He is always thinking of others. The other night, he was being very difficult during dinner because he did not want to eat his potatoes so he started to spit, so I sent him to his room to sit on his bed. For 15 minutes, we sat down at the table laughing at him up in his room yelling at the top of his lungs:

“UGH!! UGH! UGH! UGH! UGH! UGH! UGH! UGH! UGH! UGH! UGH!”

“I HATE SITTING ON MY BED!”

“NOW LITTLE WOO GETS MORE PEACHES FOR DINNER AND I DON’T!! ITS NO FAIR!!

“UGH!!” (Yes, my kids actually say “UGH” all the time. You know, if we tell them that we have to go to Kohls, their least favorite store, they will say, “UGH! I don’t want to go to Kohls.”)

“I HATE THIS!”

“ITS NO FAIR!!!”

“UGH!! UGH! UGH! UGH! UGH! UGH!”

I know, we shouldn’t have been laughing, but it was amusing….for a while anyway. It got old fast, but Mega-Babe figures this is a better way for him to get his aggression out since he is not hurting anyone. I finally went up stairs and calmed him down and he was very apologetic. He really is a sweet kid. He just has a warped view of right and wrong…..just like me.

He really loves Mini-Babe though and loves to give her smooches. He told me the other day that he thinks she is great and he told Mega-Babe the other night that we should keep her.

Little Woo: Woo has a new favorite toy, a new favorite person in the house, a new best friend, a new something to whine about. First thing he says in the morning is where’s the baby? Randomly throughout the day, he asks where’s the baby? When we put him to bed at night, he spends 20 minutes crying for Mini-Babe. The other night, he woke up right as I was laying down to go to bed, so I went in to check on him. He just kept whimpering the baby’s name until I found his binky for him. Its pretty cute, but I can see it getting old. We finally printed off a picture of Mini-Babe that he can take to bed with him. Mega-Babe found him asleep with the picture right by his hand like he had fallen asleep hugging the picture.

Mini-Babe: So, you might be asking yourself, how long does it take a new baby living in a house with 3 older brothers to get hit in the head by a toy? The answer is 5 days, which is actually longer than Little Woo lasted when he was born. He had already been hit in the head by a toy and almost suffocated with a balloon by The Bug. I guess the boys really do like having a little sister. I guess they held out as long as they could. Little Woo was the tosser. I guess he was just giving it back.

Mini-Babe is just stupendous. She is still trying to get the hang of eating. I think she would do a lot better if she could manage to stay awake long enough to finish eating. This kid sleeps more than any of our other kids combined. We actually got worried about her last weekend when she was awake maybe 5 minutes the whole day, so we called our doctor. Mega-Babe felt a little silly doing that, I mean, It’s not like we are rookies at this baby thing, but a lethargic baby is one of the things they tell you to be mindful of, so we wanted to be sure. Better safe than sorry when it comes to my little Mini-Babe. Turns out she is fine, just a sleeper.

At church, one of our neighbors asked me which finger Mini-Babe had me wrapped around. “All of them.”

King Midas Sound

Yes, a great way to start the weekend, and a great way to rinse my head of the tacky ’80’s-themed track I’ve been working on all day.  Freshly arrived in the inbox a little while ago…the album from King Midas Sound, the project of Roger Robinson and Kevin Martin.

King Midas Sound mutated from a chance discovery during a collaboration between the two for for Kevin’s other project as ‘The Bug’.

Kevin had employed the skills of Roger as a highly respected poet, but when Roger opened his mouth to sing in a fragile falsetto, everything changed and King Midas Sound was born.

The album can’t be readily compared to Kevin’s previous production work. Although there is a militancy to the beats as always, King Midas Sound is more like the aftermath to  the fierce battleground dancehall of the Bug, Roger’s voice is like a paranoid and vulnerable soul resting inside a blanket of  bass and heavy vertiginous atmosphere.

As opposed to Roger’s spoken word pronouncements and The Bug’s fierce battleground dancehall, King Midas Sound is more like an opiated aftermath; a sound somewhere between Gregory Issacs and Vincent Gallo, nestled inside an intimate blanket of bass and vertiginous atmosphere.

On three of the album cuts, the duo becomes a trio, as the bittersweet backing vocals of Hitomi (Dokkebi Q) adds a further disorientating swirl around the mix like memories gatecrashing the present.

“What genre is it” you ask?  Blues.

‘Waiting for you’ will be released November 30.

Hyperdub on the case again!

Beautiful and haunting (as always) new Burial track that comes to us from the new Hyperdub compilation 5: 5 Years of Hyperdub.

Also on this comp are Joker, Flying Lotus, Kode9, Martyn, The Bug, and many others. I definitely want this!

Here’s the Flying Lotus track that appears on the comp:

-MissRuckus

Michael Buble's Crazy Love's record sales skyrocketed past New Moon's this week after an appearance on Oprah

Not even the New Moon crew could use their vampire powers to outdo Michael Buble’s release of Crazy Love, reports Rolling Stone. The crooner appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show, causing album sales to skyrocket to over 55% more than during the record’s first week on shelves, outdoing the new Twilight soundtrack by a score of 203,000 to 115,000, respectively, according to the Nielsen SounScan. Oh, the power of Oprah.

Stereogum gives us a look at last night’s Grizzly Bear gig at the Hollywood Palladium in L.A. with some pretty sweet pictures courtesy of Andrew Youssef. Beach House, the opening act, played a few tracks that will appear on their new release, Teen Dream, due out from Sub Pop Records on January 26^th.

Seattle’s post-hardcore pioneers The Blood Brothers practiced one of the 2000s’ most unique forms of punk, and after their breakup in 2007, fans were left with little to cling to other than their old Blood Brother’s records. Until now, that is. Epitaph Records is planning to re-release the entire The Blood Brothers‘ catalogue, minus their 2000 debut, This Adultery Is Ripe, reports Pitchfork. Look for it to the reissues, which will come stocked by B-sides, videos and live performance videos, when they drop on November 17.

Canada’s Kid Koala, Dynomite D and Wolfmother’s ex-rhythm section Chris Ross and Myles Heskett make up the psych group Slew. Their debut release, 100%, is set to be reissued by Ninja Tune, the label responsible for the likes of Amon Tobin, Blockhead, Bonobo and The Bug, just to name a few, reports Pitchfork. Look for the turntable-heavy sounds of Slew when the record drops on November 24^th.

– John Luposello