Zoltar versus Zandar

Alas, Zoltar versus Zandar is not an ultra hip new electro duo (although it should be) it's just me comparing a really cool wizard with a really awful one. Zoltar is the one from the movie Big and is pretty much where it's at in terms of wish granting wizardry. Creepy, dark, knows his stuff, gets the job done, works even when not plugged in, disappears right after. He's like a fortune telling carnival assassin. I couldn't find the clip from the movie but a guy called Roger Hess from Minneapolis has created an amazing replica from scratch - you can check it out here:



According to Hess, the one in Big was just a prop so he set about building a working replica in his basement - you can see the movie one briefly at the beginning of the trailer:



What a film. Now. As for Zandar - check out this joker:



An old Captain Birdseye lookalike masquerading as a glorified magic 8 ball in a snow globe getting young girls to run their hands over him to gain meager and extremely vague tidbits of information with which to stroke their fragile teen egos? Yuck. Also, he had to get cards printed with "The Wizard Could Be Wrong" on them. I've a question for you Zandar - How is Zoltar so much better than you?

Q-Tip vs. Michael Jackson - Sweet Monophonic edit

MJ vs QTip vs MNPHC by choicecuts

You can download the track over at soundcloud and listen to more from ChoiceCuts there too.

Fleetwood Mac - Everywhere (Psychemagik edit)

This edit of Fleetwood Mac's song 'Everywhere' has been about for a while but I haven't stopped listening to it the last couple of weeks. It's pretty great - it starts off all echoey and has some gorgeous glittery space noises in it too. It's by Psychemagik and you can check it out here:

Everywhere (Psychemagik Edit) - Fleetwood Mac by AOR DISCO

You can listen to more from Psychemagik at http://soundcloud.com/psychemagik and more from AOR records at http://aordisco.blogspot.com/ - both are a sweet deal.

Detroit In Effect (D.I.E)

Nothing like a little low-key techno to cure what ails you on a Monday - Detroit in Effect (D.I.E) are DJ Maaco and P-Dog from eastside Detroit producing some quality beats on dutch label Clone Records and their own label M.A.P. The first video here is a live recording of a tune called Get Up, with P-Dog giving shout outs, the second is called 'Nothing's Like Detroit'; the video is a little tour of the city all snowy:





You can check out more of their stuff at http://www.myspace.com/detroitineffect (check out FM sucks) or on their youtube channel- all their stuff seems pretty limited edition but you can pick up Nothing's Like Detroit/ FM sucks on 12" over at Clone.

Enter the world of Creative Grooming. (in a good way)

Sandy Hartness runs a dog grooming salon in California called Sandy Paws - her site consists mainly of photos of her and her poodle Cindy at creative grooming competitions, a lot of which they seem to win. God bless America, and the internet. If it were not for both of these holy things we could never witness the following:

Camel (it's actually pretty good, right?)

Pacman!

My favourite - Mutant Ninja Poodle

Check out Sandy Paws' website at http://www.pinkcoyote.net/ for more eh.. creative grooming. And yes, Groomer to Groomer is a real thing and they are real, amazing covers - check out the latest:

Wow! A lion king dog - in your face, Sandy Paws!

ClimaXXX Sound Systyem Episode 01- Vol 10.

I shall be making a return to the Sth Willy this Friday with a big bag of righteous beats in tow. In a new direction for the Oh-10 I shall be playing in the bar, it's still free in though. Check out this awesome poster that KT-80 did too.

Free South Rakkas album over on Mad Decent...

I had the pleasure of warming up for these chaps before and their Lilly Allen remix still makes me smile, it's the South Rakkas Crew. And.. the nice peeps at Mad Decent are offering their brand new album for free over on their blog. Go get it!
http://maddecent.com/blog/2010/01/05/south-rakkas-crew-the-stimulus-package/

tank fly boss walk jam nitty gritty you're listening to the boy from the big bad city, this is jam hot, this is jam hot

Another reworking by The Revenge - I listened to his mix of Sister Sledge's 'Lost in Music' (that Chewy posted here) a lot last year and I've already listened to this one of 'Just Be Good To Me' a lot too. That song is originally by The SOS Band but I only know it from Beats International's version 'Dub Be Good To Me' from 1990. In case you need reminding of how great that was check out the video here.

You can listen to The Revenge - Just be Good To Me feat. Danielle Moore here.

Check out a cool piece on The Revenge at junodownload.com where you can listen to his top tunes of 2009, and his myspace: http://www.myspace.com/skyrocketideas

1980s game show 'Star Quality' scares bejaysis out of me.

Star Quality was an English 80s game/talent (ahem) show hosted by Gyles Brandreth (remember him? you will) and an Amazonian named Beverly. They only made 6 episodes and you can see why - although there is a pretty outstanding Thriller impression about 4 mins into it:



I saw that video on Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe - Brooker is hilarious -and not just for co-writing Nathan Barley (http://www.trashbat.co.ck/) with Chris Morris. Although any excuse to post it - Embedding is disabled but check out Nathan Barley's Sex Rap- you could learn a few sweet moves. And some kindly youtube user collected all the episodes of Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe in a playlist for you to peruse if you so desire. Not a bad way to spend a couple of hours if you get snowed in. Or really lazy.

Beardyman's Time Travel Top Tens: 1997

More ridiculousness from Beardyman - stuck in the past with his malfunctioning sound sampling time machine - the flux capacitor will only work if the top ten is inputted from his destination year, and it's not even a year he wants to go to anyway:

Cover album inspired artwork

“Dear Batman: We accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in Bat-detention for whatever it is we did wrong, but we think you’re crazy for making us write an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us: in the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is an archer, and a speedster, and a swimmer, a princess, and an acrobat. Does that answer your question? Sincerely yours, The Teen Titans.”

Thank you, John Hughes. Rest in peace.

-Cliff Chiang

Full story here

Omar! Is that you?

Even I know The Wire is the best thing ever. And that Omar is also the best thing ever. The only video I could find with Omar that didn't have some kind of spoilers in it was this montage which is initially amusing but turns out to be quite mesmerising and does somewhat capture him:



So kudos to the actor Michael K. Williams for being so amazing. And DOUBLE kudos to him for ALSO starring as James the cop in R.Kelly's supreme hip-hopera opus Trapped in the Closet. Yes, remember that little gem?! James the cop is going out with a lady called Bridget who is having an affair with a midget (R.Kelly's got mad rhyming skillz) - and if you don't remember it or haven't seen it - behold it in all its dramatic majesty:



According to his wiki page, Michael K. Williams got his awesome facial scar in a fight on his 25th birthday, which would have been in 1991. I know it's kind of fuzzy but it doesn't look like he has the scar in the R.Kelly video which was produced in 2005. What gives, internet? I'm not even going to consider the possibility wikipedia isn't made of 100 per cent true science facts because my whole belief system would crumble. The mystery just makes me more enamoured.

You can watch more of Trapped in the Closet on youtube but really what you should be doing is going and buying all 5 series of The Wire here. I was going to end there with an Omar-esque "You feel me?" but clearly I could never pull that off.

Bobby McFerrin - who knew?! Everyone, apart from me, clearly.

Up until very recently if you had said the name Bobby McFerrin to me I would have thought of that 80s 'Don't Worry, Be Happy' tune, and not very favourably at that probably. But a friend sent me the following video of a talk he did at a science (stay with me now) fair last year and as Hansel would say it changed my whole perspective on shit: check it out, it's so good:



So it turns out Bobby McFerrin is a musical legend - his parents were classical singers and he has won 10 grammys and did the theme for The Cosby Show (season 4) and he's a world famous conductor and has his own vocal orchestra and is currently writing an opera among other things. Boy, is my face red. Check out his wiki page if, you know, you aren't feeling quite under-achievery enough this fine January. Actually, scratch that - check out this video instead - it will make you feel much better. Just him on a stage singing 'Thinking About Your Body' and playing himself like a funky theremin:



Thinking About Your Body - Bobby McFerrin mp3 (Yousendit)

http://www.bobbymcferrin.com/