Knuckledragger

April 23, 1976, the Ramones released their debut album. Hey, ho, 50 years ago(!) As I snarked in 2016, "Sheee-it, some tiny insignificant punk rock album by a band you've never heard of dropped 40 years ago today. It sold poorly, probably because it didn't have any good songs on it." I know I don't have to explain the significance of the Ramones to the crowd of codgers that is head case. I will be lecturing some mostly uninterested zoomers on the subject.

This is going to be a long walk for fairly little payoff. Everyone knows the 1994 hit film Pulp Fiction, which made Samuel L Jackson a household name and revitalized the career of John Travolta. There's a scene where Quentin Tarantino has a cameo (as he likes to do) playing Jimmie Dimmick. Jimmy has three noteworthy traits: he's the person who the two main character seek out when they need to hide a corpse, his wife (never seen) is black, and he casually drops the N-word (something else Quentin likes to do.) That scene birth the phrase "Dead N-Word Storage" which has lived on on the internet since 1994. Certainly it's popular with people who were going to find a reason to say the N-word anyway, but even outside such circles, the phrase is a cultural touchstone. With that in mind, this meme came across my radar earlier: Even as far back as 1994, I thought Jimmy's kitchen looked very dated. That rage hood reeks of the 1970s. A few google searches later I learned that "Jimmie Dimmick's house in Pulp Fiction is located at 4145 Kraft Avenue, Studio City, California." The property is listed in Zillow and Redfin. It's far older than I'd have guessed, built in 1936. Also it's $2 million, but that's hardly batting an eye about these days. The place has been completely redone since 1994. Very deceptive photo that makes the kitchen look far larger than it actually is. Significantly more realistic shot. Note in both that the range hood (now an iconic screen-used prop) is there in all its glory. The hallway has a print of the Banksy work of the same name (which is so famous it has its own Wiki page.)

Just learned that Michael Kohlbecker died. In the 90s he made pounding hard trance on the then-mighty Harthouse label. I especially like the work did under the Eternal Basement name. I had a whole stack of Harthouse compilations in the mid 90s the EB tracks stuck out even amongst his legendary peers. Later, he'd go on to do ambient downtempo weirdness with a rotating crew of compatriots as the Saafi Brothers. While I outgrew the hard trance sound fairly quickly, the better Saafi tracks have stuck with me for decades. My favorite track by them is still this one: In classic SB fashion, it takes forever to get going and goes on far longer than it has any need to. With that said, I used to put it on whole I was cooking dinner in the 00s. I've mixed parts of it in to my radio show many times over the years. It's got the best shuffling bassline.

Boards of Canada Reveal New Album Inferno. First new BoC album in 13(!) years. Hol. Lee. Fuk. 🤯

Good Lord. He's the Akakichi no Eleven meme come to life.

Tim Apple stepping down to be replaced by John Temu. Oh, sorry! I don't have my reading glasses on. that's John Ternus.

Not a person, but RIP Hampshire College. "Hamster" or "Hempshire" as it was known was always the junior sibling to the other four colleges in the happy valley. Hampshire has been plagued by rumors of financial troubles for years at this point. I grew up going to shows at a couple different Hampshire venues. Phish played there regularly in the late 80s and early 90s. There is a longstanding urban legend that the characters in Scooby Doo are modeled after the five colleges: Fred is Amherst, Daphne is Smith, Velma is Mount Holyoke (these roles have reversed in my observance), Shaggy is Hampshire and Scooby is UMASS. The legend is not true of course, but the parallels between Shaggy and Hampshire are particularly strong. For 60 years, Hampshire was an important part of the landscape of the Pioneer Valley and the Five (now Four) College area. It's sad to see it go.

There's a guy I follow on Flickr who has a Fuji X-E3 mirrorless body. He adapts a variety of old manual lenses to it, which is how he caught my attention. He's got a taste for old and custom tube gear and has a whole album of space heaters and funny wooden boxes.

Mega necro here. Last sumemr I bought an unlocked Android tablet. Today I taught myself how to use Morphe to patch the YouTube and Reddit apps for android. It involved a lot of jumping through hoops that were unfamiliar to me. It took me four tries, but managed to get both working. This means I now have native (or if you prefer, "native") apps for both platforms that support ad blocking. If I'm not mistaken, the YT app now has integrated SponsorBlock support, which is quite something.

One of my oldest Facesbook friends is Matrix Synth. He started out as a user and is now a "page." He mostly posts ads for synth gear on sites like Reverb and the 'Bay. In spite of not being in the market for any synth gear (ever, sadly) I enjoy keeping tabs on his posts. Today he linked to this listing for a virtual analogue widget that is completely unfamiliar to me. Apparently the unit runs damn near 3000 GBP new. It's "virtual analogue" so purists won't like it. I'm not quite so snobbish. What's surprising to me is that I've never heard of this brand of synthesizers before. In any case, this has been your moment of synth porn.

This one is complex. Hip-hop pioneer Afrika Bambaataa dead at 67. The guy coined the term "hip hop." Calling him a pioneer is an understatement. The problem is that he was a child molester and got away with it for decades. There is at least one alleged murder involved in the coverup of his crimes. I can't say RIP in this case.

Haters will saw it Photomeowshopped.

Shee-it. I went to Chicken Alley today and they had an Apple A1407 Thunderbolt display for $28, sold "as is" because they had no means to test it. I lugged it home and worked perfectly. The only part I can't quite figure out is which revision this one is. It has a physical latch that blocks off the webcam. Every other version of the Thunderbolt Display that I've owned has lacked this feature.

Longtime listeners will be familiar with my obsessions surrounding the music of Oliver Lieb. OL wears many hats, working as a producer, remixer, DJ and mastering engineer. In my jaded opinion, he's one of the people best at mastering techno on the planet. Oliver's productions are legendary for having every element positioned perfectly in the mix. OL has an on-again, off-again approach to social media. He'll post a bunch then take a few years off. He's been active recently, posting a bunch of historical photos and information. In his own words: TIL that OL is a big fan of vintage Quad and Parasound gear. It's like he's pandering to make me an even bigger fanboy. 🤣

I mentioned in the rest in peace thread that DJ Dan died unexpectedly at 57. I did some digging. I was wrong when I said I did a 4 our set downstairs at RISE. It was 5 hours (1AM-6AM). The entire thing is on Mixcloud and has been since 2012. Mixcloud has fallen down the path of enshittificaiton in the last decade. The entire tracklisting is on the page, but only I can see it now. I don't have a copy (of the list) locally anymore. After entirely too much futzing: 1 Freeland - Wish I Was Here 2 Carmen Cuesta-Loeb - While My Guitar Gently Weeps 3 Bazille Noir - Big Time 4 Bally Sagoo - Dil Cheez 5 Funki Porcini - Dubble 6 Mr Scruff - Honeydew 7 Massive Attack - Karmacoma (Bumper Ball Dub) 8 Kid loco - She Woolf Daydreaming 9 Urban Species - Blanket 10 Tricky - YOU DONT 11 Waldeck - Floater (Dubblestandart mix) 12 Flight Facilities - Crave You (Adventure Club Dubstep Remix) 13 Freestylers - Cracks (Flux Pavillion remix) 14 John lennon - Imagine (Nicoluminous Remix) 15 Sofa Surfers - SEE THE LIGHT 16 Chin chillaz - Konkret 17 Death In Vegas - Rematerialised 18 Massive Attack - Teardrop (Phutureprimitive Remix) 19 Saafi Brothers - TOGETHER IN SILENCE 20 Kruder & Dorfmeister - Shakatakadoodub 21 Alex Cortiz - Chambre 606 22 The Delta - As A Child I Could Walk On The Ceiling (Dub Edit) 23 Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan - Mustt Mustt (Duck Pond Dub Mix) 24 Shen - Embrace 25 NENEH CHERRY - Move With Me 26 Tycho - From Home 27 Pitch Black - The Random Smiler (Live) 28 Small World - Shuttle 3-5-8 29 J Boogie's Dubtronic Science - Le Booty Cinematique 30 Alex Cortiz - SMOOTH 31 Gary Jules - Mad World (Phutureprimitive Mix) 32 Andain - You Once Told Me 33 Sneaker Pimps - Six Underground (The Perfecto Dub) 34 Minuit - Except You 35 Minot - Distant Lights 36 Dj Food - 3 Pound Skank 37 Hol Baumann - Benares (live edit) 38 Pretty Lights - Hot Like Sauce Rustified Remix 39 Pretty Lights - Country Roads (Pretty Lights Remix) 40 Pretty Lights - Gold Coast Hustle 41 THIEVERY CORPORATION - The State Of The Union 42 THIEVERY CORPORATION - Lebanese blonde (French Version) 43 Hooverphonic - Club Montepulciano (Bugs Downtown Remix) 44 Nacho Sotomayor - Song for a Lonely Men (Part 1) 45 RJD2 - Ghostwriter 46 Shen - Symbol Range 47 Heyoka - Diesel 48 Statik Sound System - Valentine 49 The Smiths - How Soon Is Now 50 Planet E - Klub Kola (Uptight On The Rocks Mix) 51 Heyoka - Two Sea Blues 52 Ennio Morricone - L' Estasi Dell' Oro (Bandini Remix) 53 Depeche Mode - It's No Good 54 DNA feat Suzanne Vega - Tom's Diner (12'') 55 Dj Food - Dark Lady 56 Beef Wellington - Tacet 57 BANCO DE GAIA - Qurna (Mister Christian on the Decks) 58 Leftfield - Inspection (Check One) 59 Heyoka - Shmazdipdoodlydurkayoda 60 Tosca - Mango di Bango 61 Bush - Letting The Cables Sleep (The N.O.W. Remix) 62 Baby Mammoth - Frank's Angels 63 Rabbit In The Moon - Dubassex 64 Jester - Free 65 Bullitnuts - Heavy Air 66 The cure - Burn 67 Neotropic - Here i am 68 Nightmares On Wax - You wish 69 Pretty Lights - Finally Moving 70 The Nomad - Check The Pitch It's a pretty good selection. TBH there are a few tracks in there I'd skip these days. IIRC it took me a solid week to program that set.

Goddamn. Just learned that DJ Dan died at 57. I did a 4 hour set downstairs at the legendary afterhours club Rise in Boston while he headlined in the main room upstairs in late 2012. A few months later, I helped run a show where he played in early 2013. This was the upstairs before DJ Dan started playing. The number of people in it tripled by the end of the night. I don't have many photos of the downstairs ...because I DJ'd for 4 hours, but this is one long exposure taken with me braced against a couch. The 2013 show was amazing. I saw a bunch of jaded drum n bass and dubstep fans realizing that house music was a lot of fun. I only spoke to him briefly, because I had a job (or more to the point, like 20 jobs) to do. He seemed like a very chill, down to earth guy, especially for someone as famous as he was. 57 is crazy young to pass.

Ross “The Boss” Friedman, Legendary Dictators and Manowar Guitarist, Dead at 72.

It's an interesting unit Not the sharpest thing in the world, but it focuses quickly. The out of focus areas are warm and fuzzy, so it has good bork-eh. Probably best used outdoors.

Martin L. Kennedy, the main man behind the Australian space rock project All India Radio has a very nice kitty.

Sam Kieth, Creator of The Maxx and Sandman, Has Died, Aged 63.

This is my personal apocalypse. I don't drink booze, I don't smoke or vape. Weed makes me paranoid and miserable (edibles make me trip balls in addition to being paranoid and miserable.) I sure as fuck don't mess with any powder or pill drugs. While I am a believer and advocate of the use of natural psychedelics for purposes of therapy and personal growth, I'd never do them recreationally. Tapatio is my one drug. Long term listeners may recall when I told the tale of driving to a Walmart Black Citadel Super Center in W.Mass to buy them out of Tapatio. I've done that two other time, but not photographed it. I did the math once and I went through ten 32oz bottles in 2 1/2 years, or about four per year. I've had dozens of other brands of hot sauces. Many are weak, some are insanely spicy (extracts are just dumb), and most taste rather bad. Tapatio isn't the hottest of the widely available brands, but it's the best balance of heat and flavor. Vulture capital is the ruiner of all things good. I fully expect Tapatio to turn into something on par with Frank's Red Hot in the next six months. I posted in the hot sauce subreddit and already people are panic buying. I'm seriously considering buying a box of four one-gallon jugs and a pump (usually sold to the restaurant market.) This is a nightmare.

There's a persistent internet rumor that Benjamin Netanyahu died on March 9th (Biggie Smalls is not happy to share the date.) The theory is that Bibi was killed or injured in an Iranian air strike. Supposedly he's missed some key cabinet meetings. Also, there's a (in my jaded opinion, extremely flimsy) theory that one of Bibi's kids was observing Shiva ...by not posting on social media for seven days. The Israeli government has released three videos of Bibi since then, and all have been "debunked" on the internet as AI generated, enhanced, manipulated, etc. In the first video, Bibi appears to have six fingers on one hand for a moment. In the second, he's in a coffee shop. In that one he actually counts to five in Hebrew on each of his hands and takes a sip of some mocha latte whatever. There are a lot of theories about the coffee video: The cafe in question is not currently open because of the attacks on Tel Aviv. The original footage was shot in 2024 (some say 2020) for a different propaganda effort. The third video is him and the huckster himself Ambassador Mike Huckabee. It's clearly a scripted bit, where ol' Huck meets Bibi in a hallway, they have a stilted and awkward conversation about Israel's assassination list, shake hands and talk about the number of fingers they have. There are a number of weird digital artifacts in the video, but it all seems pretty real to me. An AI generated video wouldn't seem stiff and forced in the same way (it'd be unreal in a completely different one.) I did go on a bit of a deep drive, which even lead me to Xitter for a bit. Wading through the legion of Nazi posts, I found some pretty funny remixes. (There may not embed correctly.) https://fxtwitter.com/abdulhyefahad/status/2034006657722982435 https://fxtwitter.com/drvijaysrinivas/status/2033988906576974124 https://fxtwitter.com/JaiNDoC_RL/status/2034032032813040007

Nvidia released some DLSS5 teaser images and are getting absolutely roasted. The Akakichi no Eleven meme, which I still don't fully understand. My personal favorite, Gen XLSS5.

Martin Stutzer is doing a live broadcast. Neptune the kitty is having a nap.