While I don't want everyone to think that I only blog about artists I know, I gotta give all mad props to the new Illegible Dj Caps and Pandemonium Jones mix tape. I went over there the day they got the assignment from Caroline Distro and along with the job came about 100 brand new Caroline discs. We all sat there at Creely's place in Greenpoint drinking stiff Polish beer and sorting through the stash.
'You don't have to use all of these, do you?'
'Yeah, just about.'
'But you get to pick the track though, right?'
'No, not exactly. They have singles picked out.'
''Well shit. That blows. So wait, you're telliing me that they're gonna pick which Misfits song you can use? That's absurd.'
'No no. We get to pick out the Misfits track. Thank God.'
'Oh, well you're gonna use 'One Last Caress,' right?'
'Oh yeah, of course.'
As the proud indie rocker, I originally felt bad for my boys and how those suits over at Caroline (come on, they are hardly an indie these days) had sucked the creative life force from the best DJs in Brooklyn. I'm not sure what they would have done with such a huge catalog on their own, but they played by the rules and came out with a banger. When the guy paying you tells you he wants a 61 song mix tape composed of exclusively singles, intelligent people swallow their pride and content themselves on the fact that they at least get to play 'One Last Caress' and that raw Broken Social Scene single. And the result is some of their best work.
Without the typical esoteric-north-BROOKLYN-nyu-alumni-cool-guy pressure to find the obscure dust gems, they are free to create a mix that just wants to make ya'll shake that ass. I mean, these cats would never think to use the melvins on a mix and that track just starts the mix off so proper. Its the musical equivalent of making all your party guests drink 3 jager bombs when they show up at yur front door. 'Alright motherfuckers, now we party.' The real beauty part for capsandjones fans is that we get to listen to lacuna coil rip through a song inexplicably titled 'heaven is a lie' followed by an equally cryptic one called 'all my friends are dead' and then just as we're laughing and headbanging, 'one last caress' makes it all seem so impenetrably high-brow. Or to put it in another way, we get to listen to catchy pop rock ballads without feeling like turds cause we know there is gonna be a caberet voltaire or can song coming up soomewhere. its like a free pass to listen to my chemical romance.
Another clutch aspect is how rapidly the metal gives way to backpacker hip-hop
like only caroline can produce. So when you're sitting on broome street waiting to get over the tunnel to go to philly or b-more and jealous rich people stare at you for listening to 'black music', don't worry: they are gonna pray for the thugs bumping biggie when they hear how a cranked system pushes out caroline's brand of metal. Ahh man, I just want to rewind to that melvins song again and I keep repeating 'heaven is a lie' over and over again in my head. That shit is so loud in the car too. Damn. And don't even get me started on the fiendish house music.
We all need to lose our inhibitions and loosen our jeans every once in a while. If you have hipster neighbors or somethng, just do it when you're alone in the shower one morning and try to keep the sing-alongs to a minimum. Or tell that dude to step his game up cause everyone knows james murphy name-drops lacuna coil whenever he gets the chance. I know you can download this mix from caroline and its probably going to be free (with purchase of a regularly priced caroline cd, that is) at your local record store pretty soon. So grab it and listen to it at full volume. Because you know what? You don't have to be cool all the time so relax. Then come to Savalas on saturdays and geek out with us.
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