Mixtape 222 • Machine Shop
It’s time to take perspective on our hyper-technologized society, through the audio lens of song.
It’s time to take perspective on our hyper-technologized society, through the audio lens of song.
Enter Tommy Guerrero’s world of light breeze and perfect t-shirt weather.
All hail the mighty kraken — it’s about time some brave band took up the Squid name for themselves.
Out of all the songs to receive Animal Collective’s swirling dayglo treatment, “Jimmy Mack” might be the most unexpected yet the most deserving. Elsewhere tonight, loyal listener Underdog, usually located in the wilds of Georgia, was able to tune in around lunchtime while traveling in Japan, making the second show in a row with a listener based in Asia. Get me marketing!
Always a special treat to be back on the air after missing a show. This is the third show in a year that I’ve started with a Fugazi cover, in this case Failure taking on “Waiting Room” with their trademark grinding, implacable approach. The power of these songs, its distinctive musicality and lyrical content, is undiminished in the hands of any band bold enough to take on the material. Tonight also featured the confluence of several loyal listeners, including James in California, Underdog in Georgia, and Charley who is on South Korea time and got to take benefit from the time zone.
Featuring a thunderous rhythm section unafraid to venture into lockstepped odd grooves, a guitar team willing to weave in and out of those sonic pylons in tandem, and a beguiling childlike voice floating above it all, this is your standard Deerhoof.
You never know what to expect from Deerhoof, even if your list contains “sound art medleys improvised out of musical themes recognizable and unrecognizable”
It was a quiet night. Somehow, three songs with states in the title ended up in the second hour, so I bumped them all to the top for a mini-tour.
This is MACHINE SHOP, a special one-hour mixtape from yours truly featuring songs about all the weird devices we humans have imagined and constructed out of musical parts. I’m closing it out with the Smugglers’ “She’s A Machine,” which inspired me to put this together when a search for it revealed all sorts of inexplicable gadgetry lurking in my library.