Before going to sleep last night, I heard that another great loss in the music world had taken place.  As reported by Rolling Stone, singer/songwriter/producer, Mark Linkous (aka: Sparklehorse) took his own life yesterday (March 6th, 2010).  According to the magazine, this has been confirmed by the late-artist’s publicist and the following statements have been officially released by Linkous‘ family.

“It is with great sadness that we share the news that our dear friend and family member, Mark Linkous, took his own life today,”

“We are thankful for his time with us and will hold him forever in our hearts. May his journey be peaceful, happy and free. There’s a heaven and there’s a star for you.”

I laid down with the assumption that I would wake up to endless posts and messages regarding Linkous‘ untimely death, but this doesn’t seem to be the case.  I generally wouldn’t put too much thought into reporting news such as this, but that’s not because I don’t feel that it’s important.  It’s usually because I don’t feel that it’s important for ME to report it, because sites swarm on to the stories of dead celebrities the way that buzzards swarm onto the bodies themselves.  They don’t even wait for them to get cold, “Breaking News is Breaking News!“  People will always get information like this, because it’s posted everywhere.  Today, however, I fear that the loss of  such a vital entity in the music world may risk being overshadowed by something as trivial and worthless as an award show.

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Untied States (“un-tied” states) is the musical creation of two childhood friends from Atlanta, GA.  Colin Arnstein and Skip Engelbrecht dropped their first release, Bird of the Blood Feather, as a duo in 2003.   That EP was followed up by the two full-lengths, Ineffable, by Design (2004) and Retail Detail (2006).  Although all three of them were self-recorded/self-released efforts, the latter two found the duo collaborating with a plethora of rotating additional musicians.  The group spun through various incarnations for their live performances until connecting with Darren Tablan in 2001.  With Tablan operating as an engineer/keyboardist/sound-sample manipulator, US released the 7″, Bye Bye Bi-Polar (b/w These Dead Birds) and was subsequently signed to Distille records.  With the addition of drummer Satchell Mallon, Untied States has now released their first large studio recording, Instant Everything, Constant Nothing.

I hadn’t heard the group’s previous releases and I nearly didn’t hear this new one, either.  I had already received an email about the band from Distile, but I paid it little mind.  We receive so many emails these days that I can’t focus on them all and most have little to no connection to anything that we would even be slightly interested in dealing with.  I think that I had even given a quick listen to an album link for IECN but, for whatever reason, I wasn’t immediately impressed and instantly went back to what I was doing.  Maybe I’m just like a toddler and need pictures to get my attention because, after receiving the following video of the guys performing live for the WRAS | indieATL music series, they had captured my full attention. (more…)

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Shit! Christ! This is the problem with using the internet when you have so much to get done.  This is can be an even bigger issue when you need to use the internet to finish what you needed to get done.  SXSW is coming.  Sasquatch! is coming.  I have a record review piling up on my plate.  I have 2 more show reviews… some networking….I need to edit another article… I need to do a lot of shit.  Fuck, I need to get a real job!  Then I come across something else and it catches my attention.  Maybe it’s some  crazy story about a 7 yr old that steals the family car.  Maybe it’s some ridiculous right wing propaganda, insisting that a imprisoned sea mammal get stoned to death (like it says to do in the bible).  Maybe it’s a trailer about a futuristic martial artist/lady of the night/cyborg.  Whatever it is, it threatens to stall me out every time.  “Post this now!  Fuck what you’re doing.“  These things scream at me, but I can usually blow them off.  “This is and/or will be posted to death anyway.“  I tell myself.  Or, perhaps, I just throw it on the “I’ll get to that later” pile.  Sometimes it doesn’t matter.  Sometimes, I have to stop what I’m doing immediately and enjoy something with the rest of the world.  “Then sometimes, just sometimes, the Crow can bring the soul back and put the wrong things right “- [I couldn't help myself].  Sometimes, it’s just a music video. (more…)

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Whether you knew him as Jay Dee, Jay Dilla, or simply James Dewitt Yancey, when the Detroit native, super-producer/MC died from from the rare blood disorder TTP,  he had already managed to make an incredible impact during his mere 32 years (February 7, 1974 – February 10, 2006).  Among his family and friends, Dilla left behind an allegiance of fans, admiring colleagues, and an irreplaceable gap in the music industry.  He also left behind endless new fans, imitators who were forced to discover their own sound, and a posthumously ominous swan song entitled DONUTS, which he perfected on his death bed.

On Feb. 13, STUSSY paid tribute to Dilla through collaborations with Yancey’s estate and Stones Throw records.  Stage one involved the clothing company’s release of a limited edition T-shirt, featuring a classic image of the producer take from Raph Rashid’s photography book “Behind the Beat: Hip Hop Home Studios“.  From there, Stones Throw embarked on multi-city in-store release parties for this shirt.  The main project that was birthed through this collaboration, however, was a 3-part documentary, offering insight into Jay Dee’s character and time on this planet.  Each piece has been being released one at a time and, now that the final installment has finally arrived, we’re pleased to provide the documentary to you now with it’s pieces back to back and in it’s entirety.

Enjoy
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First Ever Live Show – TONIGHT 2/19!

Broken Bells has confirmed the details of its first ever live date. The band will perform TONIGHT (February 19) at the Fold In Bootleg Theater in Los Angeles located at 2220 Beverly Boulevard just west of Alvarado (Across the street from Brooklyn Bagel).

Doors are at 8 pm. Free parking available on Roselake Ave. directly behind The Praise Christian Church. A LIMITED number of tickets are available now via http://www.inticketing.com/evlist.php?events=search&v=6117

2 ticket limit.

For anyone who is unaware of the project, Broken Bells is the new collaborative effort between DJ/super-producer, Brian “Dangermouse“ Burton and James Mercer of The Shins.  If you live in the Los Angeles area and act fast, tonight could be your opportunity to see if it it lives up to all of the hype. (more…)

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LSD…  it’s a helluva drug.  Back in the day, I did my share (and, perhaps, the shares of a few others).  Some believe that it has the potential to help turn you into such a super genius, that you appear freakishly insane to anyone else that’s not “on your level“.  Then again, it’s always possible that the reverse is happening and they really are going so ape-shit crazy, that it only leads them to believe that that they have a growing mental superiority.  One thing’s for sure; these chemical roller-coasters have the ability to twist up and whack out a synapse, like eating a parasitic egg-salad-sandwich from the vending machine of an interstellar truck stop bathroom.  The reality is that, even with all of the epiphanies and life lessons that one may obtain during these odysseys, there is really no scientific control for the experimenter/guinea pig and, short of a clone or view into a parallel dimension, no one can ever really know if they would have arrived at those same conclusions without the “aid” of the hallucinogen.  The good part is, since there is no way to make that determination, it doesn’t really matter and there are more detrimental things in the world than examining the differences between arrogance and confidence, exploitation and opportunity, respect and glorification, inspiration and contrivance, hustling and…well, hustling.  Despite the blatant self-aggrandizement implied in his stage name, Sean “Har Mar Superstar” Tillmann seems to have an incredibly firm grasp on these concepts and plenty of others.  Of all the electric realizations that I had, however, there is one specific principle that truly epitomizes Tillmann’s career for me: “Regardless of how clearly, simply, honestly, or directly you express a pure truth, it doesn’t mean that anyone else will, necessarily, hear, believe, or even understand what you are trying to relate to them.” (more…)

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