Album Review: Various Artists, "Eccentric Soul: The Young Disciples"

Eccentric Soul is a series that digs up soul sounds and scenes that are unknown to all but the most intrepid crate diggers. This volume features the Young Disciples label, a late 60s/early 70s soul/funk label from East St. Louis. Some of the session players on the track (drums, bass) are just insane. Overall excellent, interesting compilation that blends Chicago soul, wacked out psychedelic soul and countrified Southern soul.

Play all, but esp.: 2, 3+++, 4+++(bongos!), 6++ (slow jam), 8++, 11+, 12++(vocals), 13++(break!),19(stomp), 20++, 21+++

Sub Pop Singles Club: September

Everyone's favorite Seattle institution, Sub Pop records, re-established their well known singles club to celebrate their 20 anniversary. For $75, 1500 lucky subscribers will receive a special 7inch 45rpm record every month for one year. I'll review them all right here on the KWUR Blog.

My September 7-inch arrived late in the month. I was surprised to see the vinyl was "Jolly Rancher Sour Apple" green this time, instead of the beige color of the August OM single. This month, Sub Pop treated us to some of their own hometown punk with four (appropriately short) tracks by the Unnatural Helpers.

"Dirty Dumb & Comical", "Connecting" b/w "Break That Horse", "Easy Way"

I don't know much about the Unnatural Helpers, but they are a self-described "punk band from Seattle, Washington." I think that's pretty much all you need to know.

They have a surprisingly clean yet Seattle heavy sound that can't be described as anything but "punk". No "Pop Punk," "Post-Punk," or "Hardcore," -- just simple short northwestern punk.

All songs clock in under two minutes, but it's another strong effort. The opening "Dirty Dumb & Comical" is probably the best track with heavy riffs and drum fills, and minimal dryly delivered lyrics. The next two tracks ("Connecting" and "Break That Horse") stick with this tried and true formula.

But, the closing track, "Easy Way," is the divergent one here. The Helpers slow it down a bit and focus more on their heavy sound - a sound that gladly falls right in line with the celebrated Seattle underground.

And finally, it's nice to see that Sub Pop has added a little emblem on the back above their logo. It simply reads: "Singles Club, Sep 2008, Edition of 1,500." An appreciated move for all the record collectors out there.

I can only hope the October issue is on orange vinyl...

-Klax

Livebloggin' 6: The Final Countdown

9:15, Biden, warm bucket of piss: Interesting response, gently poking at the executive situation over the past eight years.

9:16, Palin, warm bucket of piss: Me and Ifill are doing telepathy right now...wow, she really doesn't know what the VP does. Fuck, she hasn't read the Constitution, it seems. I'm ready to call it now, EPIC FAIL!

9:17, Biden, warm bucket of piss: Wow, this is going to sting. Link her to Cheney. Damn, he hit hard.

9:20, Biden, sorry, got distracted: Wow, he does this common man stuff well, eloquent, even crying? Holy shit!

9:21, Palin, sry: Both sides of the legislature are trying to impeach her, too...I was in the "Maverick position" once, hell of a time getting out of it...see, both parties suck, so let's vote for one of them

9:23, Biden, maverick: Iluvhim, I luvhim, I luvhim...Swift boat him! Take apart the maverick.

9:24, Biden, had to change one held view: Thought he was going to do Iraq on this one, surprising. Interesting, using the conservative meme of judicial activism against them.

Losing it, sorry, we're getting geared up for spin alley, Giuliani (that's mussolini, believe me, boo) is outside, and my Brooklynite blood is boiling.

9:27, Biden: Wow, he is quite eloquent and charming on this kind of thing. Too bad it's absolute fluff.

9:28, Palin: Fired people of various political affiliations, too...Is it gonna be ok?...Tax-and-spendocrats, will that fly.

9:29, Palin, closing statements: Without the filter? This is without the filter?...Economic freedom is real popular right now, right?...the conservative "isn't it great back then" really does not ring true.

9:30, Biden, closing statements: I wonder where he grew up, he never talks about it, you know?..."Work hard and play by the rules", winning formula for Dems, at least it used to be.

Alright folks, tune in to the feed, we're gonna try and get at these bigs, see you there!

Livebloggin' 5: Fingers hurt so bad...

9:01, Biden, Afghanistan: Man, this debate is stalling, which means that Palin wins by default.

9:01, Biden, Intervention: Ifill is asking some nice questions. I'm so glad she's moderating this debate...It's Palin's response to Bosnia I'm interested in...Biden's excuse for voting for the war is lame, the same way it was when Clinton said it...Darfur! The kids like that.

9:03, Palin, Intervention: Aw shucks, y'all, I'm not a Washington insider, I don't know nothing bout no ko-so-vo. C'mon, America, you have to be horrified by this, it's Bush's populist conservative "jus' folks" bullshit taken to a grotesque extreme. Does it seem as staged to you as it does to me? Does it sound as dumb to you as it does to me?

9:05, Biden, Intervention/Iraq: Does Biden look too much like a grumpy-puss?...It's much harder for him to make "McCain's got bad judgment" points than Barack Obama, since he's tainted.

9:06, Palin, Iraq: She gets really thrown off when Biden gets tough on foreign policy.

9:07, Biden, Succession: "The worst outcome imaginable. But if it did..." lolz....Capture and kill! BLOODLUST, YEAH!...he really gets on a roll

9:09, Palin, Succession: "What do you expect!" this perkiness is surreal, "Maverick!" is not the answer they want here, you must be reading from the wrong sheet...I really hope this conservative ideology, with the fucking economy melting down, doesn't hold water. Government, please help, no?

9:10, Biden, Succession: He doesn't seem silly when he does the populist line, although there's a little bit of "my father was a balllicker there"

9:11, Palin, Succession: Wow! "Say it ain't so, Joe!" Shout-out?!? This woman is unhinged. Also, gaffe? Joe's wife already has a reward in heaven.

9:13, Ifill: "Everybody gets extra credit tonight." Marry me.

9:13, Palin, warm bucket of piss: Cute exchange...what in God's name is she talking about with VP exerting more power in the Senate "if she so chose"? Has she been talking to Cheney?...Did I mention my baby has Down Syndrome? I think she's really falling apart here.

Livebloggin' 4: Out of names

8:46, Biden, Pakistan/Iran: I always wonder whether Americans know enough about Pakistan to care about it.

8:47, Palin, Pakistan/Iran: God, this pandering to Israel. The worst thing is I think it works..."The Castro Brothers" David Rheinstrom couldn't help but crack a joke at that. Made the media laugh. She's doing better than people thought she would in this section.

8:48, Palin, engagement: She had a "good talk" with Kissinger, this is boilerplate, let's see if Biden can nail it.

8:50, Biden, engagement: OHMIGOD, NOBODY CARES WHO REALLY RUNS IRAN, NOBODY KNOWS ENOUGH, STFU...He could really do better on this one, nice with the allies "talk talk talk", Spain crack made the international press laugh, he really needs to point out how insane McCain's stance is.

8:51, Palin, Israel: Let the sloppy blowjob commence! She's all over the place with this answer. Does she even know what the two-state solution is? Couric, quo vadis?

8:53, Biden, Israel: Nice to actually answer the question, Joe. Sigh...one day we will have a sane conversation about Israel. Not today. At no point is America's right to meddle in the affairs of other countries ever questioned in these debates. It's our sandbox. Always. Ooh, that was some nuance with insisting on letting Israel run its own shit.

8:54, Palin, Israel: "We both love Israel!" Threesome time...this administration screws up, everyone screws up! Not gonna fly, sister, no way, no how.

8:55, Biden, Israel: Jam this in, how are they different, keep it up. The McCain Campaign has given me ten sets of talking points over the course of this debate, no lie.

8:56, Palin, nukes: She sounds to me like she doesn't know what she's talking about, but does she sound that way to America?..."Surge principles?" Sorry, but wtf are those?..."A true comment hurts our cause", freudian slip, huh.

8:58, Biden, Afghanistan/nukes: Don't play this "listen to the generals" game, Dems won't win those...the nuclear system is broken, so I think Biden is wrong on this in principle. Also, you can't stick McCain for being anti-proliferation.

Livebloggin' 3: Palin in Africa

8:30, Palin, Climate Change: How can you not argue about the causes and argue only about the solutions? "Give those fuckers sandbags"? If you're getting slowly stabbed to death, do you say, "hey, let's not argue about the causes?"

8:32, Biden, Climate Change: Biden is a really tuned-in debater, check out that nice little "difference" move...way to make McCain look dumb, say drill, drill, drill with such disdain.

8:34, Palin, Climate change: Environmentally friendly drilling, yeah? Also, thanks, cheerleader mom, for making sure we get the cheer right. She's doing ok here though, bamboozling sufficiently.

8:35, Biden, Climate change: Sure he's lying about this clean coal stuff, sure the people at home are sure too. "Twenty times against alternative energy?" Eh, weak.

8:36, Biden, gay marriage: Stumbled a bit by telling independent bigots that he'll let gays kiss up on each other, but got to the hospital stuff, which is the meat of the issue.

8:37, Palin, gay marriage: She's home here, very comfortable, answer is really well shaped. Should reassure some socially liberal independents, but I wonder if people even care about this stuff (besides the christ kooks), when the economy is in the shitter.

8:39, Biden, gay marriage: No nuance, so no, and then nuance nuance nuance. Niiice.

8:39, Palin, Iraq: She's got this beauty queen bearing, looking straight at the camera that just comes off as weird. Nice on using Biden's own words. Ex-DJ Claire: "When Joe Biden smiles, I feel unsafe."

8:41, Biden, Iraq: "With all due respect, I didn't hear a plan" and just a bit of bite? Too much bite? The media shall decide. Either a good line or Biden's a meanie poopoo head..."We will end this war. For John McCain, there is no end to this war?" Nice, that'll echo.

8:42, Palin, Iraq: Clearly thrown off guard, "white flag of surrender"?, Biden's gotta answer back...this attack on Biden personally draws blood...wow, pitbull time.

8:44, Biden, Iraq: See what I mean, senate record cancels out senate record. Overall weak reply, the same talking points.

Livebloggin' Part 2, Electric Boogaloo

8:16: The McCain camp just gave me talking points. Lolz.

8:16, Palin, Taxes?/Healthcare: Conservatism is patriotic...she memorized this, I bet...Gotta say, tapping into the anti-government stuff in the air, good tactics. I don't want Paulson doing my co-pay.

8:19, Biden, Healthcare: The man can freakin speak, the Scranton stuff doesn't sound put on like when Kerry did it...OMG GAFFE! GAFFE! DID EVERYONE SEE THE GAFFE!...oh damn, that joke was slick, reporters were laughing

8:21, Biden, Cutbacks: Why do we need to cut foreign aide? It's piss-trickle little already...dodge this question, my friend, dodge like the wind! Generalize as much as possible!...man, I hate wasteful spending. We should only spend usefully.

8:22, Palin, Cutbacks: Yeah, this question is toxic, run away. Americans hate hard choices...Oh boy, this is full of shit, the CEOs own Alaska. Her mannerisms make watching this downright surreal. Also, the energy plan was a compromise, everyone knows it..."How long have I been at this, like five weeks?" We may have just heard a campaign ender, folks.

8:25, Biden, Cutbacks: Shows restraint not pouncing. Nice backhanded compliment about how damn weird Alaska is. Biden is debating better than Obama was.

8:26, Ifill, Bankruptcy bill: Biden's bankruptcy bill? Gwen Ifill, you are on your shit.

8:26, Palin, Bankruptcy bill: if she had any idea what Ifill was talking about, she might actually draw some blood here.

8:27, Biden, Bankruptcy Bill: Ifill had to bring it up? Lolz...obfuscate, my friend. The bottom line is you toughened bankruptcy for the credit card companies in your state, and that meant people couldn't pay their mortgages.

8:29, Palin, Bankruptcy bill: Wow, she just obviously doesn't know what this is. I dunno, I'm biased, but she is not looking good at all. Not epic fail yet, but close. Love the cutaway to Biden's smug closed lip smile.

Spin Alley Livebloggin' 1

8:01: AND SO IT BEGINS! AND I AM LOCATED RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE SPEAKER! AND GWEN IFILL IS BLARING IN MY EAR!

8:02: "Can I call you Joe?" Eugggh...

8:03, Bailout question, Biden: Man can shape a good word, let's see how he does on the reply. Also, he neglects to mentioned that he backed the bankruptcy bill that helped create some of these problems...

8:05, Bailout question, Palin: "Betcha"? Maybe it's just cuz I'm an east coast elite, but this have-a-beer-with-me shit grates...Oh, he's a real martyr, suspending the campaign so you can capitalize on it politically.

8:07, Bailout question, Biden: "On the sidelines", he takes her words and he twists them without sounding nasty. HATCHAAA!

8:09, Bailout, Palin: The change thing just hits me as totally incoherent, still. A change would be a change from you guys, if Biden has bad experience, so does McCain...Joe Sixpack is gonna solve the bailout by calling his congressman? Doesn't fly, sister.

8:11, Bailout, Biden: It almost seems like he's not even debating her. Might be a good tactic...as someone who bleeds blue, I love to hear this assault on deregulation...that anecdote really worked.

8:13, Bailout, Palin: Am I not paying attention? What does tax relief have to do with this? Did she just veer off?

8:14, Bailout, Biden: Flashback from 04, nice when both candidates are senators, cancels out. AND HE JUST STUCK IT IN!

8:14, Bailout, Palin: I wish I could not turn in a paper and say, "That's what the American people want." Fuckin' weak.

Liveblogging from Spin Alley!

Hey folks, I'm sitting here in the rec gym, getting ready to liveblog the debates from the Media Filing Center, aka "Spin Alley"! I'm surrounded by Germans and Frenchmen. John Oliver from the Daily Show is here, he is the only one making noise in the whole building, everyone is looking at him like he's a weirdo. We get the live feed, which is pretty sweet, I get to look at Gwen Ifill patiently sitting, which has always been a dream of mine. I'll send dispatches out every half-hour or so, tune in afterwards when we go live from Spin Alley, with our crack media team.

KWUR, where the K stands for kwality.

Pre-Debate Mischegas

Finally, my hideously expensive education and my ceaseless toil on behalf of KWUR have paid off. I'm going to the big show. I got my ticket to the dance. Hitting the big time. Finally, I've got access to the movers and shakers, I'm going to ask the big questions, I'm going to nail people, I'm gonna shake this whole rotten system. But perhaps more importantly, check out the free swag I get!

Metal water bottle! Damn, Wash U! Also included, but not pictured: a Wachovia pen. The ill-starred company agreed to sponsor this before going down the shitter. So there's Wachovia stuff everywhere, and if you concentrate, you can smell the flopsweat of financial failure here on campus.

So I set out around 5:30 today to capture the various developments on campus. With my v-neck KWUR t-shirt, my camera and a Merantz, a mike and a cable wrapped around half my damn body, I made a quick circuit of the debate area. Here are a few choice snippets:

This is where they're setting up for Hardball, in front of Graham Chapel. If you look closely, you can see the holding pen where they keep Chris Matthews before the show. Most of the stuff on campus is like this, just kind of superimposed on the campus. So there's this weird feeling of, oh shoot, NBC is setting up near where I go for roast beef sandwiches on Tuesday. I'm impressed by how quickly they got all this stuff up. None of it was here a week ago.

Check out the interns! Look at them go!

I really like the guy on the left's 'stache. Tech people, for whatever reason, always seem to look like "Roadie: Metallica '92 World Tour".

Not pictured: The "Sex" sign, pointing to the showers in the DUC.

This is where we're going to be broadcasting from tomorrow (Pre-Debate at 7, Post at 9:30ish). Gotta say, they've done right by us. Check out Bubba's big mug on the screen. Nice.

This is from inside the AC. The "For Authorized Personnel Only" space is where I typically use the treadmill. I would not want to be authorized to access a space that smells like my stale sweat, but hey, spooks gotta have what they gotta have.

The media filing center, AKA Spin Alley, AKA, the Rec Gym, if you can freakin' believe it. This place is posh. TVs, ethernet. WUTV's got a fancy interview space up front, and KWUR is in the back with Asahi Shimbun and German Public Radio. I will definitely let this corrupt me.

This is Barry, a former KWUR DJ(!), now working for Wash U, making sure all the press folks get what they paid for. Back in the day, he spun Industrial. We commiserated over the demise of the Rat, and he asked if we still play vinyl (which of course, we do).

This is from the debate hall itself. Unfortunately, it is slightly blurry, but that's almost better, since these folks are student volunteers used as stand-ins for Palin, Ifill and Biden so that they can get the lighting right. They all fit in the same, uh, category as the person they are supposed to be, so Ifill is a black female, Palin is a brunette with spectacles, and Biden is a tallish white guy. I got an interview with fake Palin. I asked her if she learned how to field-dress a moose in preparation for her role as fake Palin. Apparently, she did not. I question whether she was truly prepared for the position.

Seats on the debate floor, and the tech guys doing the finishing touches. Overheard from one exhausted tech guy: "Is the debate over yet?" Don't blame 'em, they've been working nonstop all day.

The scene from backstage. Wires!

When I took this picture, I thought these were servers, but it occurs to me now they might just be a stack of preamps. Tech folks want to chime in here?

The podiums, from fairly close up.

These are some elaborate soundstages set up in front of the AC. I think they're for the major networks of something.

Overall, didn't get much out of this little trip, outside of the interview with fake Palin. I wanted to chat up the cops and the tech people, but they're barred from talking to the press, apparently. Also, I was a little shellshocked; this is my first time doing this stuff. I'm no journalist, I just read the newspaper and spin soul records. But I'm gonna try and get deep into this thing, see if I can get any neat insights, and besides, I'll have some friends with me. Tune in tomorrow at 7, for commentary from WUPR and special guests, and live coverage from Spin Alley!

P.S. Show yer corner