drazin'

WUSC's Fall fundraiser - "Hellraiser Week" - wraps up today
each day of the week has been dedicated to a certain genre, with each show (between noon & midnight) dedicated to a certain aspect or subgenre within that category

yesterday was AMERICANA day & i had my show :)

Manatea Party! two hours of Lo-fi Folk music!
the show was a great success, got some great donations

if you're reading this and wanna show wusc some love, maybe return some of the immense amounts of love that its shown you..
please consider donating to this great and financially strugglin' station

donate to the on-air dj by calling:
(803) 576 9872

donate online by going to our website:
http://wusc.sc.edu


anyway, this was my playlist from yesterday that seemed to please enough people that i thought i'd share


1. Hop Along, Queen Ansleis - For Sebastian, From a Friend
2. Jordaan Mason - Take Ecstasy With Me
3. At Night - Sing Out to the Sun
4. The Brooke - Wonderwall
5. Diane Cluck - I Liked You As Soon As I Saw You
6. Assault Squad Safety Scissors - Kids to Save the World
7. Blanketarms - The Sea & Me
8. Burrowing Snagret - Little Owl Take 2
9. Dustin and the Furniture - Everything
10. Madeline Eva - Ghost
11. Seamonster - Owls of Milk
12. Josephine Foster - Little Life
13. El Explorador - S&M Is Really Fun
14. The Choir Quit - Ella Minnow
15. Tinyfolk - Everything I Ever Needed to Know I Learned from Horticulture
16. Jeffrey & Jack Lewis - Don't Be Upset
17. Spenking - Mortified
18. Yonlu - Humiliation
19. Kid Trails - Similar
20. Joanna Newsom - Flying A Kite
21. Midtown Dickens - A.M. Dial
22. Devendra Banhart - An Island
23. Mount Eerie - With My Hands Out
24. Vashti Bunyan - Song of a Wishwanderer
25. Woelv - Chanson Pour Les Guepes
26. Homecoming - (untitled track 4 from That Circle of Light, That's Around the Moon)
27. Isaac Arms - A Deep Breath
28. Jeffrey Lewis & Diane Cluck - The River
29. Rosa - Wiskey






**it should also be noted that a shit-ton of this music can be downloaded for ABSOLUTELY FREE NO GUILT NO STRINGS ATTACHED from http://cllct.com

skrumpin

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here and back again, a brother's tale

i just came back from picking my sisters up in New York. they both go to school in Poughkeepsie - one at Vassar, the other Marist. man, Vassar is so much infinitely cooler than USC. i wasn't even planning on going with my dad, but i was in greenville already to see Jack for his birthday - which was pretty understated and pretty great. so i offered to my dad a helping hand in driving and we left.

although i really need to find a job SOON i was really glad to leave SC, even if it was only for two days of constant driving. well, the few hours spent in NY was pretty great. i really am jealous of Alix for being able to go to Vassar, being surrounded by such positive energy. they have a freaking rec room in her dorm building with a community piano, board games, ...and hers isn't even the nicest building! she's a freaking sophomore, and she lived there freshman year as well. ugh! there are a million other cool things there. i've been realizing lately all the better decisions i could have made with my life back when i thought i didn't really need to give a shit about things, because i was sharp enough that "everything would work out 'in the end'." better decisions like, for instance, majoring in something that would actually get me a job without like 10 years of school. or, applying elsewhere besides USC.

but i don't feel any overwhelming feelings of regret, just inspired to be a lot more proactive right now. my parents are not happy with my decision to stay in Columbia - not that i have a choice anymore, considering the fact i need to retake that physics lab. but, i've begun to realize that the people i really enjoy in Columbia really are a niche group of people.

the truth is a lot of the 'cool'er kids in Columbia are too reactionary for me. i was just going through a photo album on facebook with images of Sarah Palin's visit to endorse Nikki Haley, and the comments on almost every photo were sooo childish. this goes right along with that entry i made about atheists looking down on people who believe in god - except replace 'atheist' with 'liberal' and 'god' with 'conservative values.'

this holier-than-thou attitude is a perfectly understandable, if undesirable, result of living somewhere like Columbia. this is the capital city of one of the most traditionally conservative, closed-minded, racist, bigoted states in the U.S. but -- there is a small but outspoken scene of progressive, intelligent and creative free-thinkers.

when someone who is more culturally aware & cosmopolitan lives in a town where similar-minded people are few and far between egos inflate.

you're not a big fish in a small pond. you're the cleverest fish in a school of dunces.

i have a friend who never feels very comfortable when visiting columbia and feels judged whenever going out to have a good time. seems about right to me! on the one hand there are the typically judgmental attitudes from meat-heads who think the word 'indian' refers to people we killed off with our big guns hundreds of years ago. and, then there are the hip kids so conditioned to these meat-heads that anyone outside of their exclusive social circle has to prove him/herself before they can actually consider this strange unfamiliar being as socially acceptable friend material.

it sounds pretty harsh, but here's what it boils down to: the smaller or less hip the town, the more exclusive and unforgiving the hip kids can be. some people need to take a break from their ego and take a trip to new york to realize that this is a big fucking world. there is no line between cool and uncool, just a humongous spectrum of people.

it just really irritates me when i see something lame like this:
[click to enlarge]

jesus, get a life.

the positive energy i felt at Vassar came from the fact that there is a LOT less of an attitude of "Us vs. Them." people have moved beyond their Rebel Without A Cause stage of development - a stage that's pretty necessary, but ought to lead to a more mature way of expressing dissent. and maybe this harmony comes from more uniformity, but that doesn't make harmony itself any less admirable a goal

anyway - like the vassar thing, i'm not letting this stuff get me down at all. i'm not trying to attack anyone (if you read this and feel attacked - woops!) and i don't consider myself better than any people i've mentioned. i am just using all of these thoughts to take a more proactive approach toward my own life. i am actively seeking a job in Columbia, but i just applied for an unpaid internship with anticon. records in downtown l.a. - how fucking sweet would that be!

at most i plan on staying in this town for another year. then - grand scheme or no - i am moving on to something bigger better and more humbling. montreal would be ideal, so i guess i need to start working on my French.....!

'ttoo?

of all the places i'd like to be

is it more difficult or more comforting to know that everything ends in the same moment it begins?

the sun rises, but it also sets

you're not done with me yet

general consensus among atheists is that asking about my religious beliefs is (of course) pretty rude
so it's much easier to make assumptions and flat-out make fun of god and his/hers/its believers with the expectation that i'll play along

i think most people who don't believe in god make similar assumptions about intelligent people they encounter

it's pretty insulting
to me, both
as an intelligent person and
as a friend to some who have genuine religious beliefs

people around the world devote themselves to fictitious figures in literature every day
literature is a powerful tool
fiction becomes reality, and vice versa, and neither can distinguish itself
when does conviction become devotion become faith become a marker for stupidity and fanaticism?

when can you decide that another's beliefs have become less valid than your own faith

Have One On Me

Joanna Newsom, along with Devendra and CocoRosie was one of the original freak folkers, and she definitely earned her title. she came into the music world a pixie, with the harp as her eclectic choice of instrument and a voice that was.. absolutely adorable to some, abrasive to others. following Milk-Eyed Mender's critical success, much-anticipated Ys had her take a now much larger audience on a dynamic journey, sweeping, mythical, magical. Have One On Me is three discs long, so it's difficult to not call this grandiose as well, even intimidating. but, the huge difference here is subtlety - and that is what makes HOOM's 2+ hours of music very manageable. that symphony that bombarded us with beautiful sounds on Ys, is now under control (thanks greatly to composer Ryan Francesconi). the squeaks and yelps of Milk-Eyed Mender are there but less forceful. her BA in creative writing, as always, is in full effect. but things seem much more personal. more... sad. not a one song is made to be some kind of adventure. there is a distinct lack of hooks, of any dramatic narrative. if you're not careful, all three discs might finish before you feel like you've grasped on to much of anything. and somehow this does not lessen anything. the great achievement of HOOM is that it's a well-composed piece of art that is just fucking beautiful for being itself and offering nothing else - an anti-pop piece. it's a heartbreaking meditation, not designed to have you hanging on every note and lyric. Baby Birch's slow buildup hits in just the right places, rather than overwhelming the listener with emotion. the symphony pops in only when needed on "In California," in which Newsom seems to channel the blues and folk of Joni Mitchell. each and every song contains multitudes of layers, labyrinths of lyrics to wade through. yet, all of that can wait. because for the first several listens, all that you'll need to get out of these tracks is that they make up an album that's quite pretty to listen to. Joanna Newsom has done nothing but mature - this is her most adult release to date. and it's absolutely magical.

Moynihan, Comics

the other day i started getting caught up in webcomics. i have two bookmarked on my computer that i regularly read, White Ninja and Pictures for Sad Children. it was while reading the latter that i was directed towards Jesse Moynihan's Forming, which is seriously the best comic i've read in a while. retelling the origins of everything earthbound, it's a pretty ambitious project. i breezed through about a year's-worth (54 comics at one per week) of storyline in a few hours, and now i'm hungry for more!


unfortunately he is on a Forming hiatus (working with Cartoon Network!?) until May 8th. if Forming looks neat-o, you should check out his other badass comics, including one entitled GWC about George Washington Carver. it's not finished yet, but apparently he is NOT taking a hiatus from that 'un.. so it should be updated in the near future at least. he also has three books out, and i really want to read at least one of them.


it was while on that site that i also was reminded of what's probably my favorite webcomic. this is where i got my DJ name Jampot from — A Lesson is Learned but the Damage is Irreversible by Dave Hellman & Dale Beran. seriously, each comic is beautiful, and so uniquely told. your eyes often aren't quite sure where to go next, but it doesn't matter all that much, as it all ties together so well. also, they're really funny. unfortunately, its creators are on what would seem to be an indefinite hiatus, but there are enough comics on the site to amuse you for a while. plus, reading this interview with Dale displays pretty well how awesome he is.


and, one more - if you happen to enjoy ALiLbtDiI, be sure to check out Dale's new comic, The Nerds of Paradise. so far it includes an adventure entitled "Must I?" with the philosophical musings of a child named Richmond Virginia, and the beginnings of a caper with the Raisins d'Etre.



on a more personal note, i never really thought all that much of comics & graphic novels for a long time. i just thought of them as something for pasty white geeks to amuse themselves with. something about growing up and reading picture books as a kid makes most adults feel like they don't need illustrations with their stories anymore. because ya kno the imagination can take one so much further and all that. for me that mentality ended probably with Seamonster aka Todd Webb aka Adrian Todd Webb.


he's a musician (Seamonster), but a comic book artist first & foremost. he came down to play for a music festival WUSC hosted last year. when i took him to a local comic book shop to sell some of his work, he showed me some pretty amazing things in the store, and i really started appreciating comix & graphic novels more. started to appreciate illustrations more as an added dimension.

that experience, coupled with the fact that i personally know a pretty awesome comic book doodlist, have made me appreciate the medium a whole lot. but seriously, along with the previous recommendations, go check out todd, as well as sam. he is a super cool dude and his daily comics are worth putting on whatever RSS feed you've got, as they are often pretty hilarious