fork/knife

Sometimes it pays to read Pitchfork, and this is one of those times. They posted a link that brings us your good news of the week. As most of us had hoped, James Murphy is currently making a new LCD Soundsystem record according to his latest MySpace post. In addition, he gave a rather detailed account of his night at the MTV Movie Awards with his friend Aziz Asnari, which proves why he is simply one of the coolest people on Earth. As if his music didn’t prove enough. I think it’s safe to say all of f/k is very eagerly awaiting this release, whenever that may be. Murphy writes:

“making a record is strange. last time i made a record i had a pretty brutal and miserable experience. then i made something that wasn’t the record, went back to said record, and had a great experience. it all worked out. this time i’m having a pretty great experience. i like the record more, but have no idea if that means it’s better or anything. it’s just more fun. the shitty full-days of lying on the floor stuck in my own head about things has been pushed back into hours, or only one hour, here and there. i also get to swim in the morning, and do things like that. which is good. which makes the record better, i think. because now when i’m not actually working on the record, i’m doing something i like and that occupies my mind, rather than sitting in a room with my head in my hands wondering if i still know how to make music.

i was very hungover today, mainly because i drank a lot of drinks with alcohol in them yesterday. i accompanied my tv star friend to the mtv movie awards because it seemed like the most hilariously hollywood thing i could possibly do right then, and wound up at times pretending to be either his publicist or body guard, which was very funny. i also ate a lot of these skewers with a shrimp and a green olive on them. they were good, but not substantial enough really to soak up the shitty free beer that they have at these things.

while at the awards, i learned a few things:

1. will ferrell is very nice in person, and must be exhausted with how much effort he puts in to seeming like a decent, regular guy. i met him very quickly and he was so absurdly nice that i felt like a dick for all the times i was wooden and awkward with strangers at a festival or something.
2. danny mcbride is fucking hilarious. and pretty much like you expect.
3. eminem is a better actor than you think.
4. pr people and “young hollywood” seem like, literally, different species of animal.
5. young, self-satisfied, confident celebrities are weird to be near.
6. the more excited young people are about an actor/actress, the less likely i am to recognize them. there is an inverse relationship formula for volume-of-screaming to person-i-recognize that i’m working on.
7. jason ‘mayhem’ miller has a very large head. and that’s coming from ME.
8. talking for 2 minutes with ben stiller about something totally unrelated to the mtv movie awards while at the mtv movie awards makes people audibly say “who is that talking to stiller??” in total, unselfconscious earshot of the subject (me) while said subject (still me) walks back to the bar area. they’ll actually point.
8b. being at an event thrown by a company called “music television” pretty much ensures that you will not be recognized by anyone at all except for the people you show up with, previously know, and danny mcbride.
9. comedians are funny in person, but not the way you think.
10. hollywood likes to stratify, and being the +1 of a tv personality makes you pretty low on the list, but if you’ve just said hi to will ferrell, and he looked at you in some way that could be interpreted as “familiar”–largely because he’s kind, and you blurted something about him using “north american scum” in “stepbrothers”–you can basically walk into any room you want and take beer for the next 5 minutes. it’s like getting an invincibility pill in pac-man. you can feel the power start to blink after you cruise out with 4 beers from the 3rd dressing room, so you should probably head back to your friends and share the beers.
11. chris isaacs likes his dog.
12. forest whittaker is disarmingly friendly.
13. i, as a person, am oddly frightened (i’m saying frightened here–not intimidated) by jim carey.

i think like being a largely anonymous dude in a weird band that most people don’t know about. it’s nice. i wouldn’t want to be a movie star. i mean, i feel like i knew that, but it’s good to have your feelings validated like that once in a while. because it’s easy to sit back and say “i wouldn’t want to be a movie star” when it’s totally not a salient point… but being there, with everything seeming so easy for them, still didn’t make me want any of it. except the free stuff.

today i woke up late, sat around in a horrible state, until i went in the pool and played “goodminton” (which is badminton where the object is to keep the birdie in play as long as possible), ate in n’ out burger, and watched several episodes of the BBC show “ashes to ashes”, which has amazing music.

tomorrow i’ll wake up early, do a little jiu jitsu stuff, swim, shower, get into my making-a-record outfit, eat an avocado and a hard boiled egg, make an amazing coffee, and get to work on a new song. gavin russom (gavin and delia, black leotard front, black meteoric star) is here for a few days, so maybe i can get him to wrangle some synths with me. i have a good feeling about tomorrow, frankly. and i’m also terrified that i’ll never make anything good again.

that works.

oh: my tv friend is aziz ansari. thanks, aziz.”

LCD Soundsystem- Thrills
iTunes / amazon

-Chandler

It looks and feels like spring, and it makes me want to dance. Well, maybe not dance, but listen to some great music. It’s also the weekend, which means this music must be bumpin’, and there’s nothing that bumps quite like LCD Soundsystem. And with that, I give you “Freak Out / Starry Eyes” from the All My Friends EP, and perhaps a couple of dancing-related videos.

LCD Soundsystem- Freak Out / Starry Eyes
Buy Song: iTunes

-Chandler

April 18, 2009

Thanks to my dad, it has come to my attention that this April we will celebrate the second annual Record Store Day! It’s quite clear that there is a vinyl explosion happening these days, and this idea seems like a great addition to the market. Their website gives you a solid description of what happens:

“This is the one day that all of the independently owned record stores come together with artists to celebrate the art of music. Special vinyl and CD releases and various promotional products are made exclusively for the day and hundreds of artists in the United States and in various countries across the globe make special appearances and performances.”

Seems like a solid idea, especially when Modest Mouse is supposedly releasing the first of a series of four new 7″ singles just for this day, among other great events with artists and products. Anyway, make sure you find a local independent records store near you and support them, especially April 18th. To help you remember we’ve added a nifty little countdown clock over there on the right of our page. Otherwise you might miss out on something like this:

LCD Soundsystem- No Love Lost (Joy Division cover)
itunes/amazon

LCD Soundsystem MySpace

Record Store Day website

-Chandler

I’m posting this song because it’s so hard to find, and deserves to be heard by many, many people. The original is a classic by Harry Nilsson, and whenever I hear it I think of the scene from Goodfellas when Ray Liotta’s driving paranoid because of the helicopter. And then I think of how good of a director Scorsese is, and then of how he has so much money and can’t find some time to trim his enormously bushy eyebrows. I mean, that’s out of control. Anyway, I digress. This is another instance where LCD Soundsytem takes a great song and makes it even better by adding that LCD Soundsystem “oomph.” So here you go. Please play as loud as possible.

LCD Soundsystem- Jump Into the Fire (Harry Nilsson cover)

-Chandler

Happy 39th birthday to LCD Soundsystem founder and all around awesome man, James Murphy. Murphy, born in 1970, was pretty much destined to become influenced by the music of the 80s, and while that could’ve definitely been a bad thing, it turned out fantastically. Murphy’s coined songs titled “Losing My Edge” and “North American Scum”, and while these may seem like the themes of Kevin Federline’s next album, Murphy manages to say them while convincing you of the opposite. We also know Murphy is working on a project outside of LCD Soundsystem, which may include members of Hercules and Love Affair, of which we currently have frustratingly little news. At any rate, we’re all estatic to see that his musically adept mind is still at work. I leave you with the opening track of his insanely good most recent album, Sound of Silver, with LCD Soundsystem.

LCD Soundsystem – Get Innocuous
Buy Song: iTunes

-Donovan

I think everyone at fork/knife would agree that LCD Soundsystem is one of the best acts around today, even though it has only released two LP’s. It’s the brainchild of James Murphy, co-founder of DFA Records, and it can’t really be thrown into a genre, it kind of mashes a bunch of types of music together. In studio it’s just Murphy, but when performing live, he’s accompanied by any number of people on stage. I’m writing this because if you haven’t heard any of it, you really need to. And it’s 8:30 in the morning due to the time difference so I need something to do.
LCD Soundsystem crashed into the electric scene in ‘02 with the single “Losing My Edge,” which features a solid beat throughout all 8 minutes and is basically the definition of cool. Making splashes with the self-titled debut LP LCD Soundsystem in ‘05, LCD Soundsystem really left it’s mark with the fantistic sophomore effort Sound of Silver in ‘07. I absolutely love this album, with the exception of the last track, which I could do without. If you want an intro into the world of LCD Soundsystem, do yourself a favor and pick up Sound of Silver because it’s simply fantastic. Unfortunately, it seems LCD Soundsytem will not have another release for a while, though there are rumors that Murphy will create another side project with a sound quite different from LCD Soundsystem. In the meantime, here’s “Someone Great” and “Get Innocuous,” two songs that will get you dancing. Head over to his MySpace page to listen to more and/or visit his website.

LCD Soundsystem- Someone Great

LCD Soundsystem- Get Innocuous!

-Chandler