They Should Teach This In School

...but they don't.

So I learned something very important the other day. It's something that should be obvious to most people, I guess that's why they don't teach about this in school. Here it is.

Never put cooked sausages in your pocket for any reason.

You see, I was over at a friend's place and I guess I had a bit too much to drink. On my way to bed, I stopped off at the fridge. There were a few pieces of vegetarian sausage wrapped in seran. I thought they would make a tasty treat. But instead of eating them, I put them in my pocket. I suppose I figured I would eat them at a more opportune moment.

Anyhow, I changed into my pajamas and went to sleep. The next day, I kicked around the house in my pjs, and only showered and dressed later, when it was time for me to leave. That's when I found out about the sausage in my pocket. Needless to say, the seran leaked, and my pants ended up smelling of vegetarian sausage.

My friends had a lot of fun at my expense. We were flipping around on the television and a show about hot dogs was on. My friend turned it up so we could hear what they were saying. "I bet that woman is saying, 'sometimes people just like to put our hot dogs into thier pockets. There's one right there.'"

I think I need new pants or maybe to do some laundry.

The Consequences: Live! At CBGB

I'm a friend of the consequences. Above is a picture of them in the studio.
It's always a good scene.
They will be playing at CBGB This Monday, Feb.6th - 6:30PM
(Corner of Bowery Bleeker, $ 3.00 cover)

Gooten Morgan Freeman

Just saw the movie Batman Begins.
Great flick.
Want to see more Christian Bale as The Batman. He's even better than Michael Keaton, who is, as you know, the best Batman to date.
Michael Caine was really excellent.
But this post is all about the Gooten Morgan Freeman.

Put on a tie!

So I have a fancy dinner to go to tonight. It's for AIPAC.

I think my tie is appropriate for this kind of event.

What do you think?

More Glacial Profiling

So this dude in Illinoise has a blog devoted to Swedish mp3s. I love it. It's called Sweedes Please.

I've always been fascinated by Scandehoovia and all things Scandehoovian.

Maybe I can add a few locations to my global tour this year. We'll see.

Chuck Norris Day

I was reading the student paper here at Purchase. On the backpage someone wrote,

"If there's a Martin Luther King Day, theen there needs to be a Chuck Norris Day."

It's not such a bad idea. A couple of laughs, some roundhouse kicks, our troubles are over...

New Belle & Sebastian

Oh my goodness! Another Belle and Sebastian album!
I must run out and buy it!

Looks pretty sure...

I had a very good discussion with Motti over at the mocca lounge in Tribeca. It looks pretty sure that the mennu method mocca monday show will become a reality. I was thinking of calling it Euphoria: Israeli Psychedelia...

Still working on it.

Got a call from Chicago yesterday. They want to fly me out for a gig in April.

Then there's that spot in Tel Aviv that offered to let me play this summer.

Not to mention the radio station in Tel Aviv that offered to give me a guest spot.

So I guess the mennu method world tour 2006 is looking like a real possibility.

So how do I work New Orleans into this mix?

Return to the Exile

Alright. I got back on Tuesday night and am suffering the worst jetlag of my life. Goodness!

A few words about the trip:

• The birthright group was excellent. I look forward to seeing more of the local group over the next semester(s). As for the Iowans, I was a little choked up when we parted, because I knew it might well be the last time I see them.
• Guy, the guide is quite the guy. He is so much of a person that if you took away a person, you would still have a whole person left.
• Good to see King Joey ruling once again. Tel Aviv makes a better throne than Jerusalem for His Freakyness.
  
• Howard Glanzman still knows how to throw an excellent party, and as the old saying goes: it's better to drink with Howard Glanzman than to Howard Glanzman. Had I known the party was going to get broken up when it did, I would have done a lot more flirting.
• At the rate that I am visiting my family members, I should visit all my cousins by 2013. I urge them not to give up hope in the last scion of Menachem Oded.
  
• Steve Guns still lives, but I wonder what kind of a life it is for him anymore. My old friend is fading fast into a sinkhole of depression and oblivion.
  
• I have picked up another 20 discs or so. More mixes to come. Tops in the bunch? MC Karolina, Shy Nobleman, and Sympozion.
  
• My heart is broken that I am back here in the US. Each day I wonder why I don't live in Israel. Oh yeah, it's that crushing debt. Cut up your credit cards folks! Don't end up like me, pining for the promised land.
• I never did get to crash Kol haCampus while there. I guess I'll have to do it next time.
  

My welcome yesterday was typical. I blew a flat in bumper to bumper traffic on the approach to the Tappan Zee Bridge and had to pull over to the left in order the change my tire in a driving rainstorm. If it wasn't for bad luck, I wouldn't have no luck at all.

I'm in Israel

Need to reach me?

From the US call:
011-972-52-609-2173

Also: stay away from the new years mix, it sounds terrible...

They're on to me!

Have some fun of your own at: http://www.churchsigngenerator.com

Corroboration

So the other day I was driving around listening to my mp3 player, or as I call it, Bartok The Randomizer. Bartok decided to cue up a mix I made a couple of years ago to commemorate a visit from my friend The CorRoborator. It brought up some good memories and I decided that I would post it here. The playlist is erratic and ecclectic. There's Irish music, children's music, meditation, and all kinds of whackiness. So enjoy it.

A Night of Corroboration

Nordic Invasion

Did I mention that I put the Nordic Invasion on my Extras page?

Check it out...

Culinary Creation

I made this colorful appetizer for dinner on Friday night. I was going to make some kind of dish using red, yellow and orange peppers, but apparently the price of those went up due to the hurricanes in Florida. (Remeber Florida? They also had hurricanes, but they get them all the time, so I guess they don't count.)

So here's what's in the dish:
Roasted Eggplant or Eggplant Salami
Red, Orange and Yellow Tomatoes
Fresh Basil
Baked Tofu with Sesame and Flax Seeds

Needless to say, the dish was well accepted.

One Voice For New Orleans

Make Your Voice Heard

This week, Congress will make a critical decision that may singularly determine how a storm-devastated New Orleans will rebuild—and how many of its scores of displaced residents will return to live and work.

Your legislative leaders have the power to fund a rebuilt levee system designed to withstand the most powerful storms. Funding approval is critical to the stability and the security of one of America’s most cherished cities.

Today, you have the power to be a Voice for New Orleans. Please take a moment to send an e-mail to your legislators and ask them to support the future of New Orleans. Let them know that protecting this city is important to you.

Click here to sign the petition.

Feed Me Good Tunes: Tidbits for Hip Kids

I just listened to a really fine post on Feed Me Good Tunes which is authored by jt and Silent K. This particular one was by jt, and it was pretty good.

Here's the setlist with some reactions:

BUSTER RIDES AGAIN, by Medeski, Martin and Wood
I have been trying to listen to more Medeski, Martin & Wood lately. I have a negative association with them and have not been able to properly get into their music. Thankfully I'm getting past that. This is a really decent track.

BLOW UP, by Chicago Underground Orchestra
The Chicago Underground Orchestra was like a steam roller smoothing out my afternoon. It helped create mellow vibes that allowed me to stay focused and on point with my various tasks, all the while nodding my head with that whole "yes...yes...keep on jammin there, Duders..."

ANOTHER PERFECT DAY, by Jazzanova
Nothing bad about Jazzanova. They pop up on various DJ compilations here and there. Thier stuff is all good.

BLIND MAN, by The Lester Abrams Carnival
A fairly interesting choice: Musically sound, but I was not prepared for vocals. But hey, I should be prepared for anything.

SPANISH HARLEM INCIDENT, by Chris Whitley
Sparse, in a good way. All I can hear is voice, guitar and what sounds like drumsticks hitting a folding chair.

Good stuff overall. That's why I really like this MP3 Blog thing. Great exposure to great stuff. I salute you Feed Me Good Tunes!

And while we're on Feed Me Good Tunes:

Grimace Federation - 7 Avec 2, Jah Division - Heart and Soul Dub are deep and wonderful. DJ Krush - Flipshot sounds like the kind of thing that cool late 80's early 90's rappers would rap over. Good instrumental track.

Worst Post Ever

I sent around emails to alert people about my latest mix, The Future. Some folks listened to it and liked it, some didn't like it, and some didn't listen to it at all. I spent three days putting the "liner notes" on the mix together. The reactions to the liner notes were all negative. One reader described it as boring. Another described it as being too long. Most people avoided it in general.

Let me wax philosphical if I may...

Most humans, Americans in particular, have a tendency to try to categorize things. Here's an example. Lets say that you go to a museum in order to take in art with a friend or lover. Instead of looking at the object and taking in its beauty, your partner may ask you questions like, "Who painted this?" "When is this from?" Your partner may make the statement, "This reminds me of..." and refer to another work of art. Kind of like when you see a trailer for a movie on TV, which says if you liked X and Y, then you're gonna love Z. People like to categorize things. This need for organization, compartmentalization and classification can often interfere with a natural sense of wonder, or a sense of, "Wow! Just look at that! It's so nice." It would be far too much to ask of an American to say nothing at all.

The same is true when I play new music for people. The first question is usually, "Who is this?" Followed by, "Where did you hear about them?" And sometimes I get, "What language is that? Do you understand what they're saying? How can you listen to it if you don't understand it?"

So I tried to be thorough and answer the first two questions in the liner notes. It was an effort to preempt the quesions that invariably flow out of the listener.

I guess my conclusion is that people don't really want to know more information about the music, they just want to make conversation, or perhaps they just like to hear themselves speak.

posted by mennu
(Who is presently listening to Stereolab sing in French as they are remixed by Theivery Corporation who reside in Washington, D.C.)

The Future

Here's a track listing for my latest mix called The Future. You can download it here. Don't complain that you can't skip tracks. Should you be really interested, you can buy the tracks or the album. The file is windows media (.wma) and I don't really care if you can't figure out how to download it or if your media player isn't being cooperative. I'm also not going to convert it to an mp3 file for you. I tried, but failed. I also tried to make an actual CD out of it, but it seems that that digital rights management software was working at full force, so although I was able to make an actual CD, most of it was just blank. Oh well, so much for that.

First something about the format of this post, because it's a tracklist made of links. (Mmmm, links.)

• The name of the track will take you to the mp3 blog post that turned me on to the track.
  
• The name of the band will take you to the bands website with the exception of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, whose website first gave me a heart attack and then gave me some seizures. I just checked it again and it seems to have stopped doing what it was doing.
  
• The name of the album will take you either to Amazon or to the record label's website where you can buy the CD.
  
• Then I name the mp3 blog that turned me on to the track, clicking on that link will take you to the blog's current homepage. If the songs they suggested in the past rocked, you can be pretty sure that whatever they are posting now also rocks. These folks are the real dedicated music people. They have reaffirmed my faith in music, humanity, the internet and the intersection of all three. Some of the songs were suggested by an Elf.
  
• And finally, you will see some tracks marked with the word "download." These songs can be legally downloaded for free.
  

And here's something about the music itself: it's the music of the future today. That's right. We are living in the future with our cellphones and the interweb and all those silicon chips and whatnot. So I think it's about time to retire the classic rock you've been listening to since your childhood, forget about the mass marketed top 40 crap, put away your AK-47 inspired gangsta rap and open your ears to something new.

• 1. Nightclothes and Headphones [ft. Laura Cantrell]-Jason Forrest-3:58- Shamelessly Exciting - The Camera As Pen - download
• 2. Lunch for Breakfast- Cassettes Won't Listen-4:59-Mobody's Moving - Scissorkick - download
• 3. Where'd They Get To- Flevans-3:48- Flevans - download - Somebody must have mentioned this somewhere, because I'm not that original. Or maybe I was doing a random search of Professor Frink expressions on google.
• 4. Great Gleiven In a Gladbag!-Professor Frink-0:01- The Simpsons - recorded off of the cable box
• 5. Junior Kickstart-The Go! Team-3:34-Thunder Lightning Strike - I was turned onto this band by an Elf.
• 6. Let's Talk About Spaceships - Say Hi To Your Mom -3:03- Numbers & Mumbles - Think Tank - download
• 7. In Your Mind- Built To Spill -3:46- Ancient Melodies of the Future - shake your fist
• 8. People - Silver Jews - 4:43 - American Water - Not sure where the hell I heard of these guys. Maybe it's cause I'm Jewish? I donno. - download
• 9. The Sun Fell on You - The Prayers and Tears of Arthur Digby Sellers - 3:15- Psalterie - Sixeyes - download
• 10. Be Gentle With Me - The Boy Least Likely To - 3:50 - Best Party Ever - I was also turned onto this band by an Elf.
• 11. Maps - Yeah Yeah Yeahs - 3:39 - Fever To Tell- Indie MP3
• 12. Merge (Dntel Remix) - Grizzly Bear - 3:38 - Horn of Plenty (The Remixes) - The Camera As Pen
• 13. Salvatore Amato - Bell Orchestre - 6:39 - Recording a Tape the Colour of the Light- Alright, so I got the track off The Camera As Pen so I must give respect over here. But the fact of the matter is, I heard them first on Soundcheck, a radio program on WNYC.
• 14. Hey Saturday Sun - Boards Of Canada - 4:56 - The Campfire Headphase - Borrowed Tunes
• 15. Reality Check - Schneider TM - 4:22 - 6 Peace - You know, at this point I'm not really sure where I got this from. I know it was somewhere. Just don't know where. Besides, it's been taking me, like forever to get this post together. I'm assuming that other people who do things like this have some automated system that does it for them.
• 16. Blooms Eventually - Pulseprogramming - 5:25 - Tulsa For One Second Remix Project- Not sure about this one either. Whoa. I must be...oh, wait a minute, I think I got it. These dudes and Schneider are somehow affiliated with B. Fleischmann (see below).
• 17. When It Happens It Moves All By Itself - Telefon Tel Aviv - 3:28 - Map Of What Is Effortless - I already said that I liked them in a previous post. That being said, I was turned onto this track by an Elf.
• 18. I'm Feelin It - Steve Martin - 0:22 - A Wild And Crazy Guy - "I've never felt this way before..." - I just thought it would be a funny and appropriate sample for this spot in the mix.
• 19. Broken Monitors - B. Fleischmann - 7:08 - The Humbucking Coil

Now that is one exhausting and exhaustive post.

Enjoy!

the good one

I was on the phone with my buddy The Corroborator this evening. He called right after I had changed out of my work clothes after dinner. I volunteered to wash the dishes since I did none of the cooking and the other diners have a rather long day ahead of them tomorrow. Anyhow, I started talking with the Corrob, walked downstairs, and started putting away leftovers and washing dishes. Corrob was on his way home from work talking with the hands free device. Half an hour into the conversation I tell Corrob, “You know I’ve been washing dishes pretty much from the time we started this conversation.”

“That’s the good one,” he said.

This is one of Corrob’s greatest strengths, finding wonder in the mundane. I put on my Corrob voice and parodied him, in the deep surfer dude tone of voice. “Ha, ha. Washing dishes and talkin’ on the phone. This is great.”

Telefon Tel Aviv

I was on the telefon tel aviv site listening to some of their tracks. Really interesting and mellow stuff. They have a player that you can click on to hear some of their music. Once you do, you may find yourself wanting more. You can download some of their tracks legally from download.com. I highly recommend "My Week Beats Your Year." It's soooooo fresh.

Stylus Magazine describes them as:

A combination of Pink Floyd’s ambience and Kraftwerk’s domination of the static beat.