Xanadont II: Electric Xanadeux

My friend Dylan is throwing another Dark Disco party May 30 at The Dark Lady (124 Snow St. Providence), which happens to a Dark Gay Bar. The party's name alone says it all.


here's the promo vid:

and Here's a promo mix Dylan whipped up:

Go if you dare!

My Tacos

Let me show you them.

Nounnoun

My boy C.W. Wang and his cohort Taylor Levy are on some genius-futurist imagineer business. Currently they are in Shanghai at the World's Fair Expo installing a project commissioned by Johnson&Johnson involving giant digital projectors, text messaging, cartoon avatars and "interactivity". You can see a lot of their experimental clocks, meta-flashgames and other tinkerings at CWwang.com and cwandt.com.

The last time I saw him Che-Wei had just come up with this idea: the noun-noun generator.

It takes two nouns from a list 7000 words long and turns them into noun-noun combination neologisms. It's remarkable how many of these new words describe things that already exist in the modern world, or could, or seem to describe some very specific thing in a concise, almost poetic way like certain German words (which are largely noun-nouns) are supposed to.
Che-wei imagines the generator could be used to generate novel ideas for new inventions or just to stimulate a stuck brain.

One suggestion I have is that there should be a repository where people can send the best of these and take turns defining them like on Urban Dictionary. That way Che-Wei might someday be able to feel like the indirect father of some improbably apt, overnight celebrity neologism that this thing is bound to eventually spit out.

I mean, I just got "Buzzchill", which I would use regularly. I imagine it as a milder variant of the Buzzkill, wherein someone doesn't quite kill your buzz, but just puts some icy notes into it. You know, maybe plays it a Joy Division record and whispers to your Buzz, "Do enjoy yourself, but just remember that we all die alone."

Wha Do Dem

Once again I have proven myself prescient about where the whitepeople cultural winds are blowing. From this film's arrival now we can deduce in hindsight that last year was all about going to Jamaica. In fact, this film looks a lot like the last year of my life, except not at all. (although I did recently date Norah Jones)

Wah Do Dem from sam fleischner on Vimeo.

To be honest this looks like it might be some precious twee indie bullshit with a dash of exotic negro wisdom, but that Nyabinghi song near the end of the trailer is sublime.

The Do-Over @ WMC Miami

If any of you are wondering what the hell I was doing at the Winter Music Conference in Miami, let me assure you that it's not all about paying 150 dollars to see David Guetta, buying 20 dollar Red Bull and Vodkas and trying to ply dead-eyed Russian 10s with your designer drug stash. In fact, I barely spent any money on events, had an amazing time and met lots of fun, down-to-earth people.
The culmination of this aspect of the WMC had to be the final Sunday's Do-Over party at Bar, the hipster spot on the edge of Little Haiti. The Do-Over is usually held in L.A. and has a sunny, Sunday backyard bar-b-que vibe with a "DJ's choice" musical policy that focuses on classic Hip Hop, Soul and feel-good grooves. The Do-Over's Miami premiere was no deviation from this steeze, offering a day's worth of secret special guest DJs that included Maseo from De La Soul, Rich Medina, Cosmo Baker, and Thee Mike B, as well as cheap beer and free burgers.
You can catch me in this clip (I'm wearing a purple T-shirt) rocking to Fela and later on sippin a Tecate and listening to Maseo's inspiring words: "No more top 40 in Miami!"


For me, the surprise champion DJ of the day, and therefore perhaps the whole week, was L.A.'s Jeremy Sole from WPNRY radio, who brought an A-game selection of Afrobeat, Latin, Soul, and Boogie re-edits: (the sweaty white dude at Jeremy's right is none other than the BBC's Giles Peterson)

He also provided the live P.A. for Aloe Blacc to perform his modern soul classic "I Need a Dollar": (you can spot me in this video briefly, too)

And the day was capped by da God Cosmo Baker, who was rocking his Dashiki and bringing the tunes to match:

Ting and Manao Soda

The U.S. is undoubtedly the world capital of soda. I mean, we invented Coca Cola, the greatest soda of all time. But, then we fucked it up with corn syrup and now you have to track down the glass bottles stamped "Hecho en Mexico" if you want "the real thing". We invented carbonated beverage bottling and nearly all of the name brand sodas that are available worldwide. So why is it that the best kind of soda in the world (aside from Coke) is not available widely in the U.S.?

To my tastes, the perfect soda is slightly sweet from real sugar and refreshingly tart from either real lime or real grapefruit. Ting, Jamaica's favorite soda, is a good example. It is grapefruit-tangy enough and not too sweet to actually quench your thirst. It is something you crave on a hot day, and makes an amazing mixer with Rum, Vodka or Gin. It makes complete sense that Jamaicans love Ting and need not mess with 7UP or any of that syrupy garbage.

But Ting is not the only great, slightly sour soda I have come across in, perhaps not coincidentally, other of the world's hot climate countries. Schweppes Manao Soda, available only in Thailand, is maybe my favorite soda of all time. Debuted in 2003, Manao Soda (Manao is Thai for lime), is uncharacteristically unsweet for a Thai soda, most of which taste like undiluted cordial. And it is made with real lime juice, about which a Coca Cola Thailand represenative says "We believe that this - Prew Sa tung nam tung naur (fresh taste of the real fruit and juice) - has been to our success".

In India, if you order a "lime soda" in a restaurant you get bottled plain soda water with fresh squeezed lime juice and either sugar or salt. The salt bit might seem a bit odd, but if you are in the desert in Rajasthan and sweating more than you can imbibe, the salt begins to make sense as a desperate bid to retain some liquid in your cells. The sweet version of Indian lime soda has been bottled and sold in the form of Limca soda, available in India and some Indian ex-pat hubs like Detroit and Toronto. This stuff is a bit more in line with your average lemon-lime soda and probably there is no real juice in it, but it does have an odd, slight taste of ginger.

The only sodas you can source readily in the States that come to close to that crucial sweet/sour dichotomy are a bit more of the Euro high-end variety: San Pelligrino Limonata, San Pelligrino Aranciata, and Orangina. Oh, and please do get out of my face with that "Fresca" bullshit. That stuff tastes more Crystal Lite than soda.

As We Enter

Damian Marley and Nas sampling Mulatu Astatke! This beat is pretty bananas. Nas kind of struggles at this tempo, though, Damian could have carried the whole song, he's a beast!


Expect to hear that intro pulled up at least twice if you see the W.A. Sound spin this Summer- "As we entah..."

Jerk Pork

I was excited to try real Jamaican jerk chicken as soon as I got to Jamaica, but when we got to the Jerk Center on the road from Montego Bay to St. Elizabeth I was surprised to be given the choice of Jerk pork, which I jumped at. For some reason Jerk pork is not a concept that I have run into the states. Maybe that's because unlike its chicken equivalent, Jerk pork truly requires the hardwood smoking it receives in a real jerk set-up like you see below. You can make passable Jerk chicken in an oven at home, but bad Jerk pork is just terrible, as you will discover even in Jamaica at a half-assed Jerk stall. When it's done right, though, it becomes smoky pink on the inside and charred black and caramel crisp on the outside. The large swaths of fat in the meat will have essentially been transformed into spicy bacon. Hacked up and doused in the incredibly hot scotch bonnet homemade pepper sauce and sweet Jerk-flavored barbeque sauce you can find at Jamaican Jerk centers, it is like alpha-barbecue, like the superior progenitor of the entire culinary milleu. As you can see from the menu below, most Jerk centers are pretty straight-forward deals, offering only Jerk and a bit of starch to quell the scotch bonnet burn. Once you've had a quarter pork paired with festival (sweet fried-dough that tastes to me like the coating on a corn dog) and a Red Stripe, you won't miss side dishes.

2 Pints of Lager and a Pack of Rizzla!

New mix from the Midnight Mongo Sound is right on time and in tune. Skinhead reggae, punk dubs, whiteboy skanking. Perfect tunes for an anglophile afternoon watching football, sipping lager and feelin' irie, innit?

2pintsoflagerandapacketofrizzlas
2PintsOfLagerAndAPacketOfRizzlas by MidnightMongo
Symarip-skinhead girl
The Clash-Robber Dub
x-ray spex-Germfree adolescents
The Ruts-Love in Vain
scientist -The mummy's shroud
jennifer lara-My Man
Shane Macgowan & the popes-B&I Ferry
Patti Smith-redondo Beach
bad Brains-Stay Close to Me
Splodgenessabounds-Two Pints (dub)
P.I.L.-Careering (peel sessions)
the Mighty Two-Baldhead Brigade
Mikey dread-Problems
WayneJarrett & Rankingtrevor-Money Problem-Only jah can solve it
Stiff Little Fingers - Johnny Was (peel Sessions)
Thin Lizzy-half caste
The specials-Longshot Kick de bucket (live @moonliteclub)
New Age Steppers-Love forever
The Slits-Instant hit
Jah Wobble-tales from outer space
Doctor Pablo & dub Syndicate -A taste of honey
The Terrorists & LeePerry -Guerrilla Priest
sham 69-the reggae pick up pt.II

Dinner in Prison

Now we check in with Animal Blanco's resident food Vlogger, Henry Hill. This week's report is a reminiscence on dinner in prison, with an important tip for garlic lovers:

"In prison, dinner was always a big thing. We had a pasta course, then we had a meat or a fish. Paulie was doing a year for contempt and had a wonderful system for garlic. He used a razor and sliced it so thin it would liquefy in the pan with a little oil . It's a very good system."



Tomorrow, we eat sangwidges. You gotta go on a diet!

Lagos Disco Inferno

Last week Mike from Academy Records gave me a copy of his label's newest reissue compilation, Lagos Disco Inferno, so I thought it would only be right to give it a bit of shine here. Not that it needs it, apparently this thing is selling out all over the place. Academy's label seems to happily be finding itself right in the center of the dovetail of several trends in NYC that have been going strong for a few years: the eclectic African sound being bolstered by things like Awesome Tapes from Africa, The Very Best and indie bands like Vampire Weekend, the resurgence of all things disco, especially the reissue/re-edit variety, and the record collector scene in general, which never really goes away but seems to be enjoying a strong push in New York lately thanks to the rarer-is-better mindset of the "weird punk" scene.

This video gives you an idea of what this comp. is all about: one man's quest in Nigeria to do some seriously adventurous digging and unearth rare, scorching afro-disco records for your ass-shaking enjoyment! Big ups to Academy, Voodoofunk.com and to this record!

Peep Show and In the Cut

I've been rewatching the BBC comedy Peep Show (watch), and it occurs to me that as over-the-top as it's internal monologe voiceovers are, they also can be horrifically accurate representations of what it's like to be male.

Peep Show has a POV camera style which puts you inside the heads of it's hapless male leads as they try to cope with the baffling loveliness and irresistible irrationality of the females in their world. I think most guys would have to admit at any given moment our perspective in dealing with the opposite sex hovers somewhere between the helpless, desperate cluelessness of David Mitchell's Mark (left) and the unearned self-confidence, entitlement and essential cluelessness of Robert Webb's Jeremy. These two characters come to represent in miniature the duality of the male psyche in our dealings women, like a highly reductive, extra-horny version of the cast of characters in The Brothers Karamazov (or "Herman's Head", LOL).
Appropriately reductive, I should say, as the show seems to stick to portraying the diminished, distinctively male mindset mostly experienced when badly needed brain blood is occupied elsewhere. There is a wincingly familiar moment that occurs in the third act of most the episodes where either Mark surveys his abject romantic failure and says to himself "You. Fucking. Idiot.", or Jeremy appraises his unfounded, inexplicable romantic success and says to himself "You fucking bastard."

On the other side of the chromosomal scale, my friend Lilah recently showed me Jane Campions' (In the Cut (watch)), the romantic thriller starring Meg Ryan. While I can't declare that In the Cut was a complete success as a film, it did seem to me to be perfectly successful in transporting you into the female mind. The difference between this movie and most other serial-killer thrillers is analogous to the difference between mainstream Silicon Valley grindhouse porn and the soft-focus story driven lesbian variety they make for women. Everything here: the over-saturated colors, the disconcerting sound design, the grotesque and lyrical images seem designed to conjure a particular sensuous and hormonal female mindstate. From our heroine's perspective, all of New York, all the people and things in her world are imbued with Eros and muted, strangely alluring menace. Blood, murder, sex and romance swirl around her in the thick sweaty air of a Summer in the city. Even the way the film is plotted seems to transmit a feminine sensibility, eschewing the linear, implicitly masculine thrust of the average thriller's plot development for a languorous, organic pace more attuned to our main character's indecisive, overheated state. Oh yeah, and it has some hot, hot sex, which I think is something that we can all appreciate no matter our gender perspective.

Javelin and KaraokeCrime @ Santos Party House

The New York Times did a review of a show by Providence-boys-gone-bigtime Javelin that also served as big-upping of their openers, Worchester friend Holmes Wilson's KaraokeCrime project and local Providence favorites The What Cheer? Marching Band.

The reviewer describes Holmes' interactive performance as "a boisterous one-man spitfire", "inspiring a mix of enthusiasm and revulsion" in the crowd. I'm sure this notation is going get Holmes a lot more opportunities to bring his subversive sing-along Ableton insurgence into a lot more faces, which I think is overdue.

Javelin "Vibrationz"-

Skateboardanimation

This is hella sick tight rad:

Skateboardanimation from Tilles Singer on Vimeo.

Hellbent for Cooking

I was visiting Armageddon Shop in Providence a few days ago, soaking up the unintentional comedy and genuine graphical genius you can find in equal measure on the LP covers in the metal section, when I noticed this book from Bazillion Points books out of Brooklyn:

The idea of a metal cookbook definitely seems like a joke and one would guess that even if you got the concept off the ground, the actual book would turn out worthless either to cooks, metal fans, or both. But, this book seems to have been put together with the perfect balance of humor and dutiful respect to both food and to the musical culture of metal. More than that, it has nice graphic design and food photography and a great glossy feel to the pages.

Asking metal bands to submit recipes also seems like a terrible idea, opening yourself up to getting dumb, jokey recipes like "Bacon and American cheese and Beer and Cigarette Butts" or something. And although some of the American bands' recipes approach that level of stupidity, the book's real strength lies in the global nature of metal. Many of the bands featured here hail from far-flung countries with strong culinary traditions and they seem adorably eager to share them with you. Probably all the contributors, who include members of Amebix, Brutal Truth, Budgie, Electric Wizard, Eyehategod, Judas Priest, Mayhem, Nuclear Assault, Obituary, Pentagram, Possessed, Saint Vitus, and Sepultura, were excited to be a part of a project that would highlight the lesser-known, improbably friendly side of metal that is typified by the sharing of local foods and imbibes between international touring bands and their hosts.

One disappointment here, though is Annick “The Morbid Chef” Giroux's curatorial Chef's notes. She seems hesitant to criticize the recipes of any of her contributors, legendary or not, and so we are left with mostly fawning notes on every dish that invariably end with an exclamation point. This has her coming off as more of a metal cheerleader than the clever editor she was in compiling this book.

One of the most touching recipes here is from the mother of Phil Lynott, the late frontman of Thin Lizzy, who tells us that her Irish Roast Leg of Lamb was her son's favorite. Isn't it an interesting bit of revisionist history that Thin Lizzy have become so embraced and beloved by the metal community in recent years when during their career they were regarded as more of a groovy, heavy-rock band that was probably held at arm's length by metalheads? In hindsight I agree that musically and stylistically Thin Lizzy do belong in the pantheon of proto-metal godfathers like Sabbath and Hawkwind, but that's probably because I come from the same generation as the young metal fans who have brought this view into fashion: the crusty punks, travelling kids, scensters, stoner audiophiles, and skater dirtbags. These neophytes have have swelled metal's ranks in the past 20 years, bringing DIY ethics and energy from the punk scene and shaped it's new sophistication. One might argue that without that injection metal would just be the overblown commercial joke you see in things like Rock Band and on VH1 specials, and there would be no shops like Armageddon (owned by Ben, formerly of the hardcore crusty thrash band DROPDEAD) and no books like Hellbent for Cooking.

Jamrock, and Welcome to it

Animal Blanco, Jamaica.

Thug Life.

King of Tandoor, Brooklyn

They don't call him the King for nothing:


I went to King of Tandoor, a newish North Indian restaurant, in the very Caribbean neighborhood of Prospect Heights which I stayed in and used as a kind of decompression chamber just before my descent into Jamaica. As it was, the place was not making any concessions to the thrifty Carribeans or time-pressed Muslim cab drivers who frequent the other spots on their block: there were no steam trays or sneeze guards visible, no chicken wing specials, no "Tropical Rhythms" juices being offered.
The place is just a direct port from India of the kind of pseudo-fancy Punjabi restaurant that upper-middle class Indians go to on a Friday night. They have the too-numerous, over-eager waitstaff clad in ill-fitting tuxedos, the wonderful homemade chutneys and pickles served with papadams to start, the DVD of Hindi romantic musical comedy playing in the background. Just as it would in India, my request to slightly modify a non-veg thali took multiple attempts and clarifications, worried looks, other servers being called over, and finally a managerial executive stamp of approval before it could go to the kitchen. The thali was not super cheap, something like 12 or 14 dollars, and it took a bit of time to come out, but this was a good sign: they were actually cooking things to order.
When it came out, the portion was huge and the Tandoori chicken was royal. Like the best Tandoori chicken it was slightly charred on the outside and so tender on the inside that it seemed slightly undercooked. This texture is slightly disturbing at first and then blissfully sensual when your mind reconciles the fact that your are in no way risking salmonella by enjoying it. It's just the yogurt and citrus that have gone to work enzymatically on the chicken flesh and left it all limp and tender like raw veal. And as you can see in the photo, the cooks also put the bird through the ritualistic red food-coloring bath, which to me needs about as much explanation or over-examination as the yearly colored-powder fights in the streets of India at Holi- it just kind of looks cool.
Big ups to the King!

Jamaican Journalism

These were the headlines on the day I arrived in Jamaica:

Which of these stories do you find the most surprising/gripping: The angry man crapping on a woman's lawn, the chef who was beaten after confessing to serving dog soup, or the cops charging Barrington Levy? Let's just say it wasn't a slow news day.

Probably the only headline I saw down there that rivaled these ones was "Baby Falls into Pot of Soup!".

Until the End of Time

New mixtape from the White Animal Sound cartel: Until the End of Time (March 2010). Recorded in Jamaica and Miami, this one is some of the more laid-back stuff I was listening to all last month. Lots of content from the Hollerboard here, plus two exclusive White Animal blends (available as separate downloads below), herbalist tunes, a bit of DnB, dubstep, and starin-at-candles hip hop. Thanks to my friends who were putting my broke ass up in tropical paradises while I worked on this!
Until the End of Time (March 2010) by whiteanimalsound



Click the Down arrow icon to download the continuous mix, or Click here to download a .zip file of the separated tracks.

• Vybez Kartel- Marie (Bomb Drop riddim prod. by Russian)

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• "That Tree" Blend by Kenny Meez

• Snoop Dogg feat. Kid Cudi- That Tree (prod. by Diplo)
  

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• Mr. Lexx- Nuh Gal Nuh Wann Dem ("That Tree" Riddim blend by Greg Nyce)

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  Stacious- Stop Me from Shine ("That Tree" riddim blend by Greg Nyce)

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• Rihanna- Rude Boy (Emynd's "Sun God" Blend feat. Baby Cham)

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• Erykah Bad- The Healer/Hip-Hop

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• Madlib- African Voodoo Queen

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• Sade- Soldier of Love (DJ Critical Hype blend feat. Ghostface and Black Thought)

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• Taken by Trees- To Lose Someone/Tupac- Until the End of Time (White Animal Blend)

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• Download that shiiiiittt!
  

  Mavado- Dying/DJ Shadow- Six Days (White Animal Blend)

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  Major Lazer feat. Collie Buddz and Linda Ortega- Good Enough

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• Thunderball- Bam n' Bass

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• Groove Armada- Superstylin' (Bassnectar remix)

• Joy Orbison- Hyph Mngo
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• Gorillaz- Stylo (MAK dubstep bootleg)
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  Starkey and Ludacris- How Low, Luv? (DJ Cable Blend)
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• Kingdom feat. Shyvonne- Mindreader (CFCF remix)
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• Jah Vinci- Baby Girl I'm Alone

Supreme Clientele – 10 Years Later

"YAW! NEW GHOSTFACE!" Remember when that was an accurate opening remark?

Here is a really well-written article from Richiestyles.com called "Supreme Clientele – 10 Years Later"

Elephant Man - So High (Fireflies)

When I got down here to Jamaica last month and a new link was giving me his rundown of the "tunes dat a mash-up Jamaica right now" he mentioned, along with hardcore Vybz Kartel joints, "Firefies" by Owl City.
If you think it's incongruous that a song that even teenage emo boys in the U.S. would call "gay" could "mash-up" the most homophobic country in the Western Hemishere, you don't know how weird it can get down here.
Immediately when I heard this I said "So when is the Elephant Man dubplate coming out?", to which my friend said "Oh, it definitely will." Turns out it was already out there:

Elephant might not be Jamaica's best deejay, but he is the quickest to jump on every U.S. hit, probably hoping for some crossover U.S. radio airplay. He also has to be careful not to use homophobic slurs as that would prevent radio airplay here in Jamaica. This remix seems like it should get big in the next couple weeks, as Diplo reports on the Maddecent blog after his gig in Kingston last week :

"The biggest track was either "Pon the Floor" or an Elephant Man Owl City" dubplate! ?!?"

And apparently the man was in the building! (pics from The Fader):

Seriously, how fucking bummed am I that didn't make it over to Kingston for this party?! Lykke Li and Prince Zimboo like what? Why am I broke and on the other side of the island?

The Liberty Elm, Providence

Why do earnest do-gooders always do things just half-assed enough to prompt you to go "Aw, but.. at least their heart is in the right place."?
The Liberty Elm is a diner in Elmwood Providence that is serving locally sourced organic products, using biodegradable take-out containers, and giving 1% of their profits to buy disease-resistant Dutch Elm trees to "re-green" their neighborhood. We went there on New Years Day for a mimosa brunch with extreme needs for quick service of multiple forms of beverages and large amounts of food. Unfortunately the service, though friendly was totally shoddy, with everything coming out in random order between long unexplained intervals. And the food was just the sort of mishmash of bland fake Mexican and vaguely healthy randomly combined vegetarian items that make the "real Americans" of the Heartland hate us liberal elites. Luckily I opted for the least healthy and least fuck-upable choice on the menu, the Monte Cristo sandwich, which was actually very good.
Maybe I'm being too hard on the Liberty Elm. I just think that if they put as much thought into their food as they do their social consciousness they could create an even more profitable business, which would help them do more good in their neighborhood. But.. at least their heart is in the right place!

NYE in Providence

New Year's eve at JC's in Providence may not look very punk, what with all the finger foods and crudites, but it turned punk-as-fuck later on when some crazy-ass girl they know blacked out and decided to smash every piece of glass in the house, including all of their fancy beer mugs. After the coffee table had been overturned and all the counters cleared, she added her piece de resistance by reaching in the cabinet and grabbing a bottle of high-end balsamic vinegar and a bottle of extra-virgin olive oil, smashing those to create a dressing for the broken glass salad she had left on the kitchen floor. This last move, I thought, showed a certain panache and sense of the absurd that I find lacking in many other fits of drunken destruction.
Anyway, earlier on things were more of the "D.I.Y" variety of punk, with JC busting out his home-brined corned beef and cabbage and homemade Rye Egg-Nog.
Homemade Egg-Nog takes at least a few days to get good in the fridge (and will continue to improve for a year or more, a mind-blowing fact considering that it includes uncooked eggs), but is a good way to get many people very drunk for very little, using copious amounts of affordable Rye whiskey. Corning your own beef also takes some forethought, but saves money and helps you avoid the preservatives, saltpeter and/or red dye they put into the store-bought variety. It also makes for some truly banging Ruebens the next day.
Here's a recipe (via Recipezaar.com) that's probably close to what JC uses:

Ingredients

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• 1 (8-10 lb) beef brisket

• 4 garlic cloves, peeled and cut in thirds

The Brine

• 2 quarts water
• 1 cup kosher salt
• 1/2 cup white vinegar
• 4 tablespoons sugar
• 3 bay leaves
• 1 teaspoon peppercorn
• 1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds
• 1 pinch ground cloves

The Simmering Liquid

• water, to come up 3/4 to side of brisket
• 1 teaspoon peppercorn
• 1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds
• 1/2 teaspoon whole allspice
• 1/4 teaspoon whole cloves
• 4 garlic cloves, sliced

Directions

1. Combine all of the brine ingredients and bring to a boil, then cool.

2. In a huge plastic roasting bag (do NOT use a garbage bag), place the beef brisket, the cooled brine, and the 4 garlic cloves.

3. Make sure that all of the meat is covered by the brine (cutting the brisket in pieces if you need to), tie off tightly, place in a pot large enough to hold it all, and refrigerate for 6 to 7 days, turning occasionally.

4. After the 6 to 7 days, remove brisket from the brine and discard the brine.

5. Rinse the meat thoroughly, then place in a Dutch oven or other large pot and add enough water to come up 2/3 to 3/4 of the way up the side of the meat.

6. Add the rest of the Simmering Liquid ingredients (peppercorns, mustard seeds, allspice, cloves and garlic), bring to a boil and skim off any foam.

7. Reduce heat to a low simmer and cook, covered, for at least 3 hours, but 4 hours doesn't hurt anything. Meat will be SO tender and delicious!

I would venture that JC also added some beer to his simmering liquid, as good beer seems to be the binding principle of most recipes and events at their house. One new beer label JC introduced me to on this visit was Pretty Things, who are a tiny company of "gypsy brewers" currently operating out of Buzzard's Bay Beer Co.'s brewery and making some awesome "real beer". This is a company you should definitely support- seek them out! Their beers are served at some Animal Blanco-approved bars in the Northeast such as Bukowski's and Redbones in Boston/Cambridge, The Foodery in Philly and Barcade in Brooklyn.














BTW, Yes, as far as we could tell the beer is named after the awesome British garage/psych band of the same name, which is kind of reason enough to drink it for me.

Salem @ Glasslands Gallery

I don't think the author of this New York Times review of the Salem show with Gatekeeper at the Glasslands Gallery last month understood what he was seeing. He does a decent job of describing Salem's sound, but concludes that "(their) performance was hollow at the core, aspirated, almost soothing in its inconsequence" and that Gatekeeper had offered "a far more productive, and convincing, approach to the dark".
Gatekeeper were somewhat "dark" but still squeaky-clean Art Institute of Chicago gayboys who sounded exactly like Italian horror film-score maestros Zombie with an 808 drum boost. The NYT reporter downplays this part of their sound and says that they sounded like "80s club music", which I read as "I luv Depeche Mode!". I would guess that the NY Times heard this was going to be a cutting edge gay cultural event (Micheal Stipe and Terrence Koh were also in attendance) and sent a music reporter who was enthralled by the "bright, erotic, alive" atmosphere during Gatekeeper's set ("OMG, goth twinks!"), but couldn't get his head around Salem's real witchery.
I have to admit, though, that I was completely under Salem's spell from the moment the video screens started flickering with candles and burning cars, soiled mattresses and grainy police footage. Through the heavy smoke-machine fog you could barely discern the three members of Salem file onstage looking like solemn, wolfish, preternaturally cool black-eyed backwoods Michigan teenagers. The attention to aesthetics was boldfaced from the start: this was River's Edge as directed by David Lynch and scored by Burzum. The leader was a gaunt pretty boy with Nordic blackmetal blond locks who immediately started slurring a chopped'n'screwed rap, "Trapdoor" without any wiggerish gesturing or self-consciousness. They rotated for the next song and another pale whiteboy stepped up and mumbled his way through a woozy, muffled dirge, looking as hopeless and drug-addled a Midwesterner as eminem ever tried to be. Next up was the girl, a roots-showing peroxide blonde wearing an oversized men's dress shirt as if fresh off some kind of long harrowing night, who smoked and sang an even slower, dreamier song that brought us all into Badalamenti territory, like one of those transcendent numbers from the floorshow at One Eyed Jacks.
Through it all dirty-south rap drum fills rattled and the low-end just warbled and peaked. I would be hard pressed to have to explain to music journalists in attendance what they weren't getting, I was too busy writhing around and intentionally falling over photo-taking hipsters, trying to stir up some chaos on the floor (I had snuck in and proceeded to blow what I'd avoided spending on PBR tallboys). If I had to try to explain it I'd say it was all cigarette burns, dark secrets, ghetto Chicago minstrelsy, heroin, speed, horrorcore rap, midwestern teenage hopelessness and arch darkwave posturing repackaged musically as a gay high-art project that still bangs. As the inevitable influx of Salem copycat bands emerge, I hope the reviewer from the Times will realize that the last word he should have brought anywhere near this futuristic performance is "inconsequence".

White Animal Radio # 669: "Fantasy Tropical"

Here's a brand new mix of Tropical House, U.K. Funky and Indie remixes. Caribbean vibes, wall to wall 4x4 beats and a little bit of wistful daydreaming.
"I wanna take u far away"
fantasy tropical by White Animal

Dr Bronner's sexy side

I think my favorite passage from a label of Dr. Bronner's Soap (A big 1 quart bottle, not those weak little ones) is when the Doctor takes a sudden unexpected turn from his usual Christian-Marxist-Eco-Utopian blathering into... the erotic.

"Passions that quicken your senses, fulfill, quench the thirst of lonesome years! Yet, the sun has shadows: learn to control your will, to enjoy life-long happiness, not tears! Wait, rise to the stars above and thrill! Arouse the very flames of life! Sweetheart, kiss me! Hold Still! Hold still! Listen to God's reward for strife! Rosebuds, slowly woken, break budding open, delicate, sweet, so on soft fingertips, shivering up your spine, red pulsing blood, in lightning speed through your pure body's lips! Caressing deep, searching way out of sight! Oh, beautiful spirit of God's Eternal Spring, heat of passion in a warm moonlit night, ecstasy to be buried in heaven, within! Relax, then, through long, dreamless sleep, body & soul join close in life's most brilliant bliss; revealing clarity-beauty-harmony-peace, sailing on far-away sun laden ships! Yet-what-cunning-feminine-touch, can draw new desire to pulsing lips?! When-soft-hands-wander-casually-such, deftly down near lingering tips?!"

Whoa... dirty! Mind you all this is written on a bottle of soap. I wish more of my toiletries featured such smut. Would it be too much for Colgate to slap a little bit of Anais Nin erotica on my toothpaste tube? I feel like some graphic yet poetic descriptions of lesbian sex would brighten up almost anyone's brushing time.

Future Reference

My long-lost pal Emily is back to posting up her deceptively boring/insightful photo compositions on her revamped Brog: Future Reference.

Dance Party @ Spiritus

Here's a rare moment of synergy between the twin preoccupations of this blog: food and music. Back in Provincetown for the holidays, I attended a dance party some friends threw inside of Spiritus Pizza, the local landmark with the legendary whole-wheat crust Pizza. Spiritus, like just about everything else in Ptown is shut down for the winter, so they blacked out the front windows, wheeled in a keg and set up turntables on the counter where they usually flatten the dough.
This was in the middle of darkest, deadest winter and the place was packed and going off! Gay dudes were walking in off the street at 1AM after the clubs closed and couldn't believe what was going on.

The Breslin @ Ace Hotel

My lovely friend Lilah invited me for yet another culinary foray, this time along with her friend the "well-known food blogger". How else could I have ended up at the chef's table at The Breslin sampling things like shelled boiled peanuts deep-fried in pork fat? (Seriously, look at their menu, it's kind of bananas). Too bad, though, that I didn't realize how déclassée it would be to whip out an iphone and start taking food photos.
Trife as it may have been of me, I had to document this Bone-Marrow Soup somehow.

Anyway it was all worth it to get within an arm's length of this: 50 US dollars worth of dreamlike Braised pork belly. Thank you Lilah.

Apple Crepes @ Yaffa cafe

Do you know how some pet owners can start to look like their dogs or whatever? Apparently it can happen with food, too. Apple crepe, Christina @ Yaffa cafe, St. Marks, 5:30 AM.


Notice the shiny contact paper on the tables? They are still as crazy for contact paper at Yaffa cafe as I was for like a week in seventh grade. The food there is kind of whatever, but if you go, order anything with their Carrot-Ginger dressing, it's drinkable.

Tacos @ The Woods, Wllbrg

Can we for a moment get back to what this blog is supposed to be all about?
And by that I mean girls and tacos.
I think that the taco truck behind The Woods in Williamsburg has some of the best late-night tacos in Brooklyn. The folks who run it are incredibly sweet and make it tolerable to stand in line in the cold with execrable drunk hipsters who will invariably try to engage you in some way. Seriously, The Woods has the ambiance and clientele of a terrible house party where people from the bus stop out front wander in. This proves how good the tacos are because you're more likely too see me there at 3:30 AM than the truck at Union Pool. I go there just for Carne Asada covered in Guacamole and Lime and Green Salsa and just notice afterwards that its Karaoke night and this guy is singing "Common People".

I mean, I don't usually go in for that Look At This Fucking Hipster!.com stuff, but really do look at this bastard. He has no idea whether he is joking or not. He only wonders whether a 500$ Gucci Sweatshirt he bought in L.A. will show up on his Dad's credit statement if the purchase was made "in jest".

Thanks to my luvley models Alix and Chloe BTW.

Toy Selectah on NPR

NPR's Morning Edition did a brief story about Cumbia in L.A. which featured Toy Selectah and Bomba Estereo.

Every day down here I'm hearing or remembering a tune that should have gotten on that Jamaica mix:

Warbling autotune and pitched-up strings make the chorus on this one sound like some epic Pakistani pop shit.