Jeffrey Davison hosts WFMU's Shrunken Planet program every Saturday morning from 6-9 AM. His
playlists and archives are here. More WFMU DJ Top tens are here. All artists links are to streaming Real Audio.

Joanna Newsom   Ys   Drag City
Meg Baird, Helena Espvall and Sharron Kraus  Leaves From Off the Tree  Bo' Weavil
Larkin Grimm   The Last Tree   Secret Eye
Bonnie "Prince" Billy   The Letting Go   Drag City
Nina Nastasia   On Leaving   Fat Cat
Colleen  Colleen et les Boites a Musique  Leaf
Jeffrey Luck Lucas   What We Whisper  Antebellum
P.G. Six  The Sherman Box Series  Amish
Raro & Apenino  s/t  Digitalis
Fern Knight   Music for Witches and Alchemists  VHF
Harris Newman   Dark Was the Night  Kning Disk
Feathers  s/t   Feathers Family
Neko Case Fox Confessor Brings the Flood  Anti

Some older recordings issued or reissued:
Harry Taussig    Fate Is Only Once  Tompkins Square
Sibylle Baier   Colour Green   Orange Twin
Paul Adolphus  The Dawn Wind   Shadoks
Mark Fosson  The Lost Takoma Sessions  Drag City
Meic Stevens  Rain in the Leaves   Sunbeam (or anything on this label!)

I've been a film programmer for six years now, and even went to film school (and stuff) before that, but every year I am wowed more and more not by those new films that everyone talks about, but by old classics that I somehow missed. I tend to come late in the game because I prefer to see the "big" classics in the theatre (home video just doesn't so it for me sometimes), or something obvious just misses my radar. Oh, what I wouldn't give to trade in some of the crap I've seen in the past for more enjoyable educational film experiences. Anyway, here are my favorite "new" films from the past year.

1) Over the Edge (1979) & My Bodyguard (1980) 

Young Matt Dillon is truly a thing to behold. His performance in Over the Edge is electrifying, and the film, about bored suburban kids fighting back against the system, is one I should have seen when I was thirteen. Seriously, it could have changed my life. Even more important than that, if someone had paid attention to the sentiments of this film, a whole future of school shootings may have been avoided (the setting for Over the Edge is pretty much in the same Colorado suburbs where the Columbine massacre took place).   Over the Edge Trailer

My Bodyguard is a film I remembered vaguely from repeated screenings on HBO as a kid, but watching it as an adult was a completely different experience. It isn't just a "getting back at your bullies" movie, it's a realistic and rather grim look at how high school can be hell - wrapped inside a sweet buddy story. It also shows some really nice scenes of dirty Chicago in the late 70s. Dillon plays the bully in this one, and it's impressive that he can be so menacing, especially since he looks so scrawny next to bulky Adam Baldwin (who you may now know from Firefly/Serenity). The presence of Ruth Gordon is an added bonus.   My Bodyguard Trailer

2) Little Dieter Needs to Fly (1997)

I have been working my way through as much Werner Herzog as I can since rediscovering him a few years ago. I liked him as a young pup, but pretty much only knew his bleak narrative films (Aguirre, Fitzcarraldo, and my favorite, Stroszek) and never explored the documentaries. Since Grizzly Man, his doc catalogue has made a comeback (and you can now buy them all - even the obscure ones - on his website). Little Dieter Needs To Fly is the latest in a long list of catch-up films, and is so far my favorite. This gripping story of a German immigrant who then becomes an American prisoner of war doesn't do what you expect - that is, show recreated scenes of the war. Instead, Herzog and his subject head to the jungle and completely re-enact his experience. Emotionally draining, beautifully shot, and like all Herzog, still somehow hilariously funny and life-affirming, now is a good time to revisit this film as his upcoming film Rescue Dawn is the narrative version of Dieter's story. And I hear it is among his best as well.

3) Airport 1975

I loved disaster movies as a kid, but wouldn't watch ones about airplanes or airports because I was already afraid of flying. The, of course, there was Airplane, the Zucker Brothers' comedy which I would watch over and over without being freaked out because, you know, I was too busy squirting milk out my nose with laughter. This year I finally saw the film that inspired it all, and now I will never go back to Airplane. The real thing is Airport 1975, the sequel to the first successful airplane disaster film. With Karen Black freaking out, Charlton Heston heroically sky-jumping onto the damaged 747, and Helen Reddy as a nun singing folk songs, it is way cheesier than any parody could hope to be. And, yeah, even more fun then Snakes on a Plane (which I actually really liked). The DVD also includes the original Airport as well - which I liked a bit less because, for shame, it was actually a "better" movie.

4) L'Argent (1983)

Ah, Robert Bresson. His films always kind of bored me, something about them was so detached and emotionally drained that I just couldn't relate. However, I never fell into the love him or hate him camp (his films can be so divisive), rather I was still waiting to see if anything of his would take hold on me. And then I stubbled on his last film, L'Argent. Based on a Tolstoy story that follows the circulation of a forged bill, it is told with a unique style even for French cinema. The stilted dialogue. The 80s preppie mentality. The seeming unemotional acting. It all takes some getting used to, but it leads to an ending that just rocked me to the core. Most amazing is that Bresson was 82 when he made this and it feels completely fresh and young. I am now in the process of reassessing my previous knee-jerk opinion.

5) Hallelujah, I'm a Bum (1933) & The Bowery (1933)

Honestly, neither of these Hollywood versions of down-and-out New York should work at all, but by somehow spreading on a thick layer of cheese, they managed to capture a weird archetype: the happy-go-hard-lucky New Yorker. Hallelujah, I'm A Bum stars the incredibly perky Al Jolson as the lovable and happy Bumper, the homeless "Mayor of Central Park". It addresses homelessness, vagrancy, Marxism, and what happens when you fall in love with the real Mayor's amnesiac girlfriend (a mayor with a girlfriend - how scandalous!). Most notably the dialogue for the entire film is told in rhythm. It's like a modern Shakespeare comedy, and features some great Rodgers & Hart songs like this one, "My Pal Bumper:

Who protects your apple stand / When you've no license in your hand?
My pal Bumper
When you break a law or two / Who can make the cops skidoo?
My pal Bumper
Who can keep a business man / From vacations in the can?
My pal Bumper
Who can keep the cops away / When we kiddies want to play?
My pal Bumper
When you're hungry for a steak / Who can cure your bellyache?
My pal Bumper
He can make me feel I'm full / When he feed me full of bull.
My pal Bumper

And here's a video clip of Jolson singing Hallelujia I'm a Bum.

The Bowery, recently seen in the Film Forum's pre-code series, tells the story of two Irish volunteer firemen (Wallace Beery and George Raft) who are jostling for control of the Lower East Side. It plays like a Tammany Hall screwball comedy complete with feisty paper-boys, illegal bare-knuckle boxing, heavily-accented showgirls, explosive cigars, rampant racism and sexism, a comedic appearance from Carrie Nation, and a jump off the Brooklyn Bridge. Pretty much every moment of sleazy Bowery history is packed into this highly enjoyable little time capsule.

6) Shoot the Piano Player (1960) & The Rules of the Game (1939)

I love the French new wave, but here are two great films by two of my favorite filmmakers that I avoided for way too long because I just didn't know any better. I thought that Shoot the Piano Player was lesser Turffaut for some reason. Silly me. This noir crossed with the cinematic style of the new wave has everything you'd want out a crime film, action, gunplay, tragic romance, and with two incredibly charming leads, Charles Aznavour (already a famous singer at the time) and Marie Dubois (so dangerously cute).  Left off my list for too long, this film is now it is right up there among my all time favorites.

The Rules of the Game is one of those films I'd always heard about and wanted to see, but was just waiting for the right moment. Well, that came this year with a gorgeous new restoration and reconstruction - since the film was almost destroyed by the Nazis, it took years to put together a full print of the original film. Jean Renoir not only made one of the best character movies, one that explores class, romance, screwball comedy, and the troubled uneasy feeling in pre-war Europe, but his co-starring role is one of my favorite acting performances. Totally worth the wait. 

7) Cockfigher (1974)

Monte Hellman retrospectives have been popping up all over the place, but Cockfighter always gets skipped. It could be because of the completely un-pc anti-PETA topic - and yes, actual cockfights are featured in the film. But the movie is so much better than the exploitative title. It's the story of a trouble cockfighting champion (Warren Oates), who has taken a vow of silence until he regains his winning status. Oates is fantastic, delivering more emotion with no dialogue then most could do with pages of dialogue. You also get Harry Dean Stanton as a rival cockfighter, and a screenplay by the author Charles Willeford (whose novel is pretty darn good as well). Oh, and the best thing is that I found this on DVD at the library. Transgressive!   Cockfighter trailer.

8) The Mack (1973) & Wattstax (1973)

I went through a blaxploitation phase in my early 20s, but somehow missed some of the best West Coast titles (outside of the Dolemite films, that is). The Mack has of course influenced a great deal of hip-hop culture, and now it has finally found it's way into my heart. Max Julien gives a rather heart-felt performance as Goldie, the pimp on a quest for power and then redemption. Forget about all those fake macks, this film is filled with more pimp realism than any other film about the life could be, mostly because of the use of real pimps and pimp events, like the Player's Ball and Baseball Game/Picnic. The documentary included on the DVD gives all the back story, and, oh yeah, Richard Pryor is a great side-kick. Video clips from The Mack.

Little did I know, but the director of Willy Wonka had a huge career as a documentary director. I finally saw Wattstax at a screening with the director, Mel Stuart, in person, and he talked extensively about his career making somewhat outre non-fiction films. His most famous is this one, chronicling a landmark concert of Stax soul (dubbed the Black Woodstock), which brought the community together seven years after the Watts riots. Of course, the music is fantastic, and it is infectiously awesome to see the huge crowd moving and grooving in the stands. Isaac Hayes is the hottest billed act in the film, but Rufus Thomas pretty much steals the show - even in his silly pink schoolboy outfit. But the on-the-street interviews with Watts residents (including some hilarious moments with Richard Pryor, doing impromptu stand-up) make this so much more than a concert film.    Rufus Thomas Wattstax clip.

9) The Long Goodbye (1973) & California Split (1974)

Until recently, I wasn't a huge fan of Robert Altman, mostly because I hadn't seen the right films. M*A*S*H was okay, but I couldn't separate it from the ubiquitous TV show. The Player, Short Cuts and Nashville I felt were overrated. And some other ones I had seen were just plain boring or confusing (O.C. & Stiggs - the f??). But earlier this year the theatre I was programming brought Altman to town for a career retrospective (and to help us honor Meryl Streep, but more on that in a minute). This gave me a chance to catch The Long Goodbye on the big screen. I had seen it several years ago, but it was on a crappy old VHS and just didn't translate well. This time I was immediately in love. Not only is this my favorite adaptation of Raymond Chandler - it veers quite a bit from the novel, but captures the feeling of his writing more than any other adaptation - but the performance by Elliot Gould is nothing short of astounding.

The next year Altman made California Split, which I only saw a few months later in it's re-issue and was again madly in love with film again for a few lovely hours. This is a more personal Altman film, about a pair of scuzzy gamblers (Gould again and George Segal), who team up for the big score. But really there is no plot. Two guys get together and gamble like crazy until one day it ends. But talk about immersion...today's Celebrity Poker tv matches have nothing on this look at like at the poker table.   Intro to California Split.

As for finally meeting Altman, I only had a few minutes alone backstage with him before introducing a screening, and all I really managed to do was croak about how much I liked Elliot Gould. He agreed (of course), then offered me a joint. RIP, you magnificent bastard.  (Psst - almost all of Altman's films are playing over the next few months at the IFC Center - with the exception of The Long Goodbye. Damn!)

10) Sophie's Choice (1982)

Alright, this one is kind of unexpected for me to pull out, I think. So, first the backstory. My aforementioned theatre pulled a big coup by getting Meryl Streep to come to Boston and accept a lifetime achievement award. The theatre's middle aged executives and donors were all atwitter with anticipation. I was...well, I was less excited. I knew of Meryl Streep of course, but I had never seen her career defining movies because most of them were released in the early 80s when I was still a kid, and they were, you know, serious films. The kind your mom liked. The job fell to me to write the Meryl Streep bio and film blurbs and help select clips for a retrospective tribute. So I found myself hunched down with a ton of videos. I saw some great movies - Silkwood, Ironweed, The Deer Hunter - and some crappy ones - The River Wild, One True Thing, Death Becomes Her - and discovered that no matter what the movie, there was something about Meryl that really was pretty amazing.

The last film I watched the film that launched her as a modern star, Sophie's Choice. We showed that on the big screen not long before she arrived, and even though I had seen a bunch of her films and was pretty satisfied, I was kind of dreading this one. All I knew was that my mom loved it and the holocaust played a big role. I've never had much of a stomach for holocaust films. I've just seen that story too many times. But then the film started, Meryl showed up with this beautiful Polish accent and sensual alive demeanor and I was deeply smitten. Heck, I didn't even recognize her. Add to that Kevin Kline in excellent hamming mode, a wanna-be young writer, and a distraught tale of tragic love and I was hooked. Then the holocaust flashback kicked in - a relatively small part of the film - and it was just...It was devastating. I was crying and getting all girly. Whew. While the film hasn't weathered fantastically (a bit too misty around the edges at times), it still packs quite a wallop.

Bonus Top Ten:
Top 10 Movies in My Netflix Queue That I Don't Remember Putting There

• Space Truckers
• The Mansion of Madness
• Mazes and Monsters
• Superchick
• 2019: After the Fall of New York
• Date With an Angel
• I, Madman
• Next of Kin
• Rhinestone
• The Octagon

Here are some of my favorite female troublemakers of 2006:

10. This wee Brazilian preacher (pictured, right) gave me nightmares. Watch the video and be amazed.

9. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), for blowing the whistle on some shady cover-up shenanigans at the FCC. She uncovered two media ownership studies that someone on the commission had attempted to wipe from the records.

8. Connie Chung, for her grace and style. Love the grunt!

7. Afrirampo and OOIOO, who each released amazing and fun chant-along records this year. Bonus points go to Afrirampo, who lived and recorded with a tribe of Pygmies in Cameroon!

Click here for a sample tune from Afrirampo's Baka Ga Kita (Moonlight) 

Click here for a sample song from OOIOO's Taiga (Thrill Jockey)

6. The Bronx woman whose hair stopped a bullet.

5. Iva Toguri, aka Tokyo Rose, who passed away this year. Iva was an American forced to broadcast propaganda for Japan during WWII, and was later welcomed back to the U.S. by treason charges and a prison sentence.

4. Lore Barges of the band Dragibus, because there's something incredibly tough about her voice (click here for a sample tune in real audio).

3. Kola Boof (Osama bin Laden's alleged lover), for outing America's Most Wanted man on such guilty pleasures as Whitney Houston, MacGyver, and Van Halen.

2. Muffletoes (Hip Hop Raskalz) and the Rappers Delight Club, little girls telling it like it is.

Download the Muffletoes MP3 of "I Want Candy" here

Download the Rappers Delight Club's "First Ladies Club" here

1. Naomi Campbell, two words: assault and battery.

More DJ Top 10 lists here.

Jeffrey Cobb's Top 10 Record Stores for 2006

1.  Sounds of the Universe, London   
2.  Zulu Records, Vancouver, B.C.   
3.  Jammyland, NYC   
4.  Amoeba Records, Berkeley   
5.  Beatnick Records, Montreal   
6.  Other Music, NYC   
7.  Princeton Record Exchange, Princeton   
8.  Village Music, Mill Valley   
9.  Black Swan, Vancouver, B.C.   
10. Down Home Music, El Cerrito   

See all WFMU 2006 top 10 lists here.

Shhh. Do you hear it? Come closer. Now listen. Do you hear them? They're little baby circuits. Listen to them, cooing and gurgling. They've all gathered together here because they want to tell you about what they do. You see, they play with electricity. They stretch it and squish it and fold it and kneed it as it travels through them. It makes them happy. They play with electricity all the time and when they are done playing with it, they make these sounds. And they can make so many sounds, from the purest of sine waves to a flurry of blurts and squiggles. Only problem is, they can't hear what they make. They don't have ears. I think that's why they want to share their tiny melodies with you...so you can hear them. Because, you see, these little machines, I think they are just as fascinated with us as we are with them. They find this whole "purpose" concept that us humans play with intriguing, despite it being a bit silly. It's the only thing in the world that causes them to voluntarily stop doing-doing-doing, if only for the tiniest increment of time. But still, these infinitesimally small moments of introspection, they linger in the machines. And I think because of this, they want you to hear their sounds. That way, you can carry them around in your head and anytime you feel like humming, you can hum these sounds they made, because they are now a part of you. That makes them happy. It's nice and simple. Cause and effect. Just like the thoughts of a newborn. They want to affect life because life has effected them... At least, that's what they told me... Tracklist at the bun or myspace.com/djscallywag - Source Site:http://sscumberbun.blogspot.com

Here are some of Noah's favorite records from the past year (click artist or compilation name for a sample tune in realaudio).

1. Masta Killa - Made In Brooklyn (Nature Sounds)
2. El Da Sensei - The Unusual (Fat Beats Records)
3. The Good People - The Good People (Goon Tracks)
4. Ugly Duckling - Bang For The Buck (Fat Beats Records)
5. Mekalek - Live And Learn (Glow-In-The-Dark Records)
6. DJ Ese - Side Two (Embedded Music)
7. Shakeyface - Bicycle Day Boogaloo (It's Bananas)
8. Brian Coleman
9. V/A - Big Apple Rappin: The Early Days Of Hip-Hop Culture in NYC 1979 - 1982 (Soul Jazz)
10. Aceyalone & RJD2 - Magnificent City (Decon)
11. V/A - The Celluloid Years (Groove Attack)

For more Top 10 lists from other WFMU DJs, click here.

Visual Acoustics is an online musical toy built in Flash designed by Alex Lampe (”Ample Interactive”) of the UK. (Via Music Thing.) The motion visuals are beautiful, and the music and interface is very reminiscent of Toshio Iwai’s work (see Nintendo’s ElectroPlankton, for instance). As with Iwai’s designs, just about anything you play will sound good and ambient. Now, there are two schools of thought on that. One suggests that these kind of futuristic interfaces make music accessible to anyone. The other would hold that part of what makes traditional musical instruments lovely is that, while they take a long time to learn, the rewards are much deeper. I’m not sure one is inherently better than the other, but I still wonder if it isn’t possible to build visual interfaces that are harder to master but deeper to play.

If you want some inspiration for moving in either direction, Visual Acoustics certainly shows potential. Now you just need a Wacom tablet-enabled version that, rather than conventional sliders for parameters, adjusts to gesture and pressure.

adobe, alternative interfaces, design, drawing, Flash, interactive, interfaces, sound toys, tablets

OK. Let's cut to the chase.

My Favorite Song of the Year: "Nina, Olen Palasina" by Risto.
Maybe it's the chorus that sounds like a bunch of kids all shouting in unison, or maybe it's the upwardly cascading structure of the song itself, but something about this burrowed meaningfully into my cranial cavity and has made no overtures that would indicate a looming departure. I first bumped into it last April on a Fonal Records compilation called Summer and Smiles of Finland, and in a spiritual sense, it's a worthy answer song to Madeleine Chartrand's "Ani-Kuni", which it seems I overplayed last year. (Like I said, I apparently have a thing for songs with people all shouting in unison.) Now if only they'd worked a pick-slide into the mix, I'd be jumping on top of my desk and doing karate kicks at Liz Berg or Maria Levitsky (also big fans of this number) every time I heard it. [Download MP3] | [Stream Real Audio] | Risto on Fonal Records

Best Night Out Below 14th Street: The Ex at the Knitting Factory
For years, I've declared the Dutch art/punk/activist group the Ex to be the only band I would drop anything to go see live. I'm proud to say that I've made regular practice of catching them at the Knitting Factory on every single tour since 1995 and they are always paint-peelingly good, no matter what the incarnation. (To avid enthusiasts, they can appear to be something of a collective, with certain members dropping out of the live lineup, but then re-appearing on subsequent tours. They've also done extensive collaborations with the late avant-cellist Tom Cora, and have a new record out that pairs them with Ethiopian saxophone legend Getatchew Mekuria.) The Ex's December 13th show in NYC was 150% bring-the-house-down amazing, with the band wheeling out one goosebumps-on-top-of-goosebumps stomper after another. A live Ex performance permanently endorses everything good about being alive, and for that, I can't think of another band more deserving of their many accolades. Brace yourselves now for their upcoming live session on Brian Turner's program on January 9th, and check their website for pics, videos, and a full arsenal of free MP3s. Streaming Real Audio Links: Frenzy | Huriyet/Prism Song | Stone Stamper's Song

Best Shameless Nostalgia Trip that involved riding in the back seat of a Volvo: Sticks & Stones reunion at Asbury Lanes
This late, lamented New Brunswick band signified everything about the punk rock stance of my youth, while simultaneously validating all the horror of experiencing that youth in the wastelands of suburban New Jersey. Using the mythically regarded Scott Hall and Middlesex County College matinees as their platform, Sticks & Stones gathered a small but devoted audience of clench-fisted artists, writers, outsiders, and exceptional fuckups, all of whom waved the flag of their personal discontent with an acute sense of tenacity. The determination and style with which they put forth their strident jams (and the legend-status it posthumously vaulted them to in the minds of kids too young to have seen them) resulted in a recent discography on Chunksaah Records, and a string of reunion gigs at which the band completely blew doors, minds, and all related appendages. Never mind about Burma, Birdman, or whoever else is making the rounds on the revival circuit this week... This was my class reunion, not somebody else's. [Streaming Real Audio Trifecta: Theme Song for Nothing | Along the Way | Saved] || [YouTube link to followup acoustic show at CBGB]

The Music that Makes me Proud to be Human: Jonathan Kane's "I Looked at the Sun"
I've said it before and I'll say it again: Few things in life warrant a 60 megabyte download. The video of Jonathan Kane's February performing live in WFMU's Love Room is a glaring exception. This subsequent EP said more with two songs than most bands can say in a lifetime. Funny that, as both tracks are instrumentals. [Streaming Real Audio: "I Looked at the Sun" | "BQE"]

Most Infectious Pop Song: "Posters" by Jeffrey and Jack Lewis
"The History of Punk on the Lower East Side" [Download MP3] was and remains a well-deserved WFMU epic-length hit, and this song from the recent "City and Eastern Songs" LP totally changes gears by working true pop wonders with staggering efficiency. [Listen to "Posters" in streaming Real Audio] | [Watch the Video on YouTube]

Best Argument for Outlawing All Medications for Clinically Demented British People: Queen Adreena's The Butcher & the Butterfly
"Holy shit, this is the girl from Daisy Chainsaw," I yelled upon first previewing this CD in advance of my radio show. Typically, no one responded. (OK, the room was empty at the time.) Then I started walking around the WFMU broadcast complex repeating aloud in each room that "Holy shit, this [was] the girl from Daisy Chainsaw." Finally, I found fellow DJ Scott Williams, who not only remembered Daisy Chainsaw (and the trashy, one-hit-wonderment of their song "Love Your Money" [Click for Streaming Real Audio],) but who agreed with the holy-shittyness of the matter and further agreed that this Queen Adreena CD was a great, filthy, strung-out-on-all-the-right-drugs, destructo-rock good time. Turns out the Holy Shit girl is named Katie Jane Garside, she has a solo record coming out in 2007, and she has a certifiably 100% batshit awesome website which Scott and I can't stop looking at. [Streaming Real Audio Links: Medicine Jar | Pretty Like Drugs | Razor Blade Sky] || Watch Streaming Video of "Medicine Jar" (Kinda NSFW, like if you work in a church...)

Most Soul-Crushingly Beautiful Song of the Year: Brother JT's "That's What They All Say" from the Not My Life CD
This man's a genius, a gentleman, and as Brian Turner would say, a true class act. Several years ago, after a devastating solo acoustic set at the WFMU Record Fair, I awkwardly attempted to foist some travel-expense money into his hands for coming all the way from Pennsylvania to play at our fundraising benefit. He politely refused, adding that he was happy to have come to help out the station, and that he'd "enjoyed the drive." (Actual quote.) Spine tinglers like this song, when coupled with that kind of humble and honest sincerity, perfectly encapsulate why JT is such a hero to so many of us here at the Magic Factory. Fills me with the reassurance that all of this is still worthwhile.  [Download MP3] | [Streaming Real Audio] | Brother JT Homepage

Best Unrehearsed Live Experiment Pulled Off in the Presence of Book Nerds: Steve Wynn & the Miracle 3 with George Pelecanos at Magnetic Fields, Brooklyn NY.
George Pelecanos books are among the most effecting I've ever encountered, with narratives involving drug dealers, crooked cops, addicts, private dicks, moral shepherds of the working class, and countless other heroes and villains operating in the peripheral orbits of urban America. His contributions as writer for the HBO dramatic series The Wire only further add to the enormous amount of respect I have for this man, and I was proud to have welcomed him as an in-studio guest on the August 14th edition of my radio program, during which I geeked out with the hero worship, and where he humbly elaborated on the details of his career while spinning the Blue Oyster Cult and Lalo Schifrin vinyl. He wrote the song "Cindy, It Was Always You" [click for streaming Real Audio] for Steve Wynn and the Miracle Three, which perfectly suited the band's often noir-ish sensibilities, but this live collaboration was a different beast entirely. The band, as lead by the affable former frontman of the Dream Syndicate, played an improvised jam in the spirit of 70s Miles Davis, while Pelecanos read from the first chapter of his recent novel, The Night Gardener. No one--least of all the performers--really knew what to expect, but all agreed that it was a smashing success. [George Pelecanos + Steve Wynn and the Miracle Three on YouTube] | [Real Audio of George Pelecanos on WFMU] | George Pelecanos Homepage | Steve Wynn Homepage

Best Hip Hop Track of 2006: Krisma featuring Sinisista - "No Competition"
Push Bin host Lou Ziegler knows that nothing voids my interest in a new hip hop track like sweeping, orchestral samples. Unless you're Nas--and I'm fairly certain that you're not--sweeping, orchestral samples totally put the t[u]rd in "tired". Or whatever. Enter this track from the Urban Intelligence Presents Homemade Bombs: The Irish Hip Hop Mixtape compilation. [Click to stream Real Audio] Shoot-to-kill-beats! Rat-a-tat-tat vocal delivery! Inexplicable counting to the number seven! It's everything I liked about hip hop when I was a 12 year old kid staying up all night to listen to Chuck Chillout and Mr. Magic on KISS-FM and WBLS respectively. And hell, they're from Ireland! Somewhere, no less a man than Billy Jam nods his head in approval.

The Other Best Hip Hop Track of 2006: The Muffletoes - "I Want Candy"
No bad samples here, just the inspiring genius of a bunch of NYC 5-10 year olds and Mr. Dave Soldier, orchestrator extraordinaire of Da Hip Hop Raskalz project, which puts said kids in the driver's seat for making their own music. The whole disc is great, and in no way do the kids sound coaxed or like they're participants in some nefarious plot on behalf of Mr. Soldier, as this guy seems to suggest. (He even goes so far as to call it "a ready-made collection of in-jokes for the WFMU crowd", and then somehow quotes me to make his point.) Oooooo-kay... Let's hear it for the "WFMU crowd", (whatever that means) and god bless The Muffletoes. [Download MP3] | [Streaming Real Audio] | Hip Hop Raskalz Homepage

I Can't Believe I'm Admitting to Liking: "Free" by Deniece Williams. Yes, that Deniece Williams. It was effectively described to me by fellow freeformer $mall Change of the Nickel and Dime Radio franchise as the "ultimate end of the night show-closer". [Click to stream Real Audio] Only I am more disturbed than you are by the fact that 2006 was also the year that I finally learned how to appreciate the mind-blowing depth, sincerity, and uniquely British sensibility of Sade. Which is the most perfectly inappropriate segue to tell you about...

The Most Wonderfully Creepy and Enthralling Album of the Year: K. Ross' "That Dirty Clown"
You know K. Ross as Clay Pigeon from WFMU's currently-off-schedule but hopefully-back-soon Dusty Show, and fans of that program will find the same sort of captivating and unsettling monologues on this disc, a re-issue of the 1996 "micro-cult classic" that employs analog tape manipulation and other no-fi atmospherics to craft a narrative of disturbing fluidity. Trust me, you've never heard anything like this before. [Download Sample MP3] | Dusty Show Archives | K. Ross on MySpace | Buy "That Dirty Clown"

Best random discovery: Beverly Kenney's "Brooklyn Love Song"
It's all thanks to WFMU's own DJ Tamar that I first discovered this 1950s Jazz vocalist from WFMU's own backyard of Harrison, NJ. (A town that is also home to my least favorite PATH station, among other things.) Seldom does this kind of music inspire me to do more than cursory googling, with perhaps an obligatory visit paid to that frustrating old bitch on the block, the All Music Guide... But this song, in all its fanciful and evocative splendor, was quickly tapped to be the soundtrack to the first wedding dance I shared with the lovely lady I married in October, and for that it retains a place of special reverence. $65 import CDs on Amazon be damned! [Click here for Streaming Real Audio]

More WFMU DJ Best of 2006 Lists are here.

Wish you could build your own music devices? Our friend Jason Kramer points to the Critter Board, a “hardware platform for creating self-contained electronic music devices.” The board looks great: it’s based on the 32-bit 58 MHz ARM microcontroller and programmed in C, like some other boards, but features a unique setup perfect for making musical toys: 21 I/O connections for adding knobs, sensors, LEDs, and the like, flash memory support for storing sounds, and a line out jack.

Of course, all of that is meaningless if you don’t already know how to build electronics projects. Fortunately, there’s a growing collection of very tasty tutorial examples for MIDI, synthesis, and audio:

Critter Board Tutorials

Best so far: a 4-voice FM synth in a cigar box. Jason writes:

just got mine today, I actually bought one of Owen’s one-off projects touted as a tutorial to demonstrate a possible application for them; the 4 Voice Cigar Box Synth. It sounds pretty amazing, but apparently it can do way more just make sounds.

The board itself is US$64.95, including the flash card socket, and can be programmed via any Mac, Windows, or Linux machine using the USB programmer. You can also buy the pre-built FM synth for US$190, but where’s the fun in that?

And more projects from these guys are on the way — stay tuned!

Speaking of which, for those of you who add visuals to your work, as well, whether it’s custom imagery or just a simple controller screen, try pairing this with the video version on CDMusic’s sister site:

Video Critter: Custom, DIY Video Synthesis [Create Digital Motion]

DIY, Electronics, hardware, physical computing, projects, synths

Several of you have written to point to a new article by Peter Gutmann, who argues that content protection (known commonly as DRM, but arguably broader than that) will exact a major cost in Microsoft’s upcoming Windows Vista. These issues should be of special interest to Windows musicians: Gutmann predicts Vista’s new content protection features will disable video output functions, eliminate open source and unified drivers, consume more resources, and cause a major loss in device compatibility and system reliability.

A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection

Now, this is just the kind of coverage that Windows experts have begun to dub Windows FUD, after the “Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt” Microsoft themselves tried to spread about rival platforms — now, though, with Microsoft the target. Of course, there are two kinds of FUD — the propaganda kind, based on false or exaggerated information, or real fear, uncertainty, and doubt, which scary OS features might rightfully cause! The challenge is figuring out where the truth lies.

First, I think it’s worth setting aside the DRM restrictions imposed by the new HD-DVD and Blu-Ray formats, at least to the extent that those directly impact the OS. These new requirements are just downright hideous, but that’s the fault of the big studios backing the lockdown, not necessarily Microsoft, and you can (as I and many others plan to do) save your pennies and stick with DVDs for the time being.

The question really is, to what extent will changes in Vista impact music and visual work? So far, indications suggest things may not be as bad as they seem. For the time being, I don’t see any big migration to 64-bit Windows, and 32-bit Windows Vista can install unsigned drivers, meaning your existing devices should (mostly) work — or, at least, you can install them. (64-bit Vista, in contrast, is even more incompatible with software and drivers than Windows x64, suggesting 64-bit is even further off than it seemed with Windows XP x64.)

It’s also difficult to tell how much of this article is based on planning documents rather than the finished OS.

I pass this along only because I’d be glad to have someone shed more light on the situation. My personal feeling is that the best way to find out the truth is based on the actual, shipping operating system, not speculation on planning documents. Until Microsoft gets Vista into my hands (which they do say will be any day now), I can’t comment directly.

So, if you’re the kind who is easily startled, I’d take this with a grain of salt or just wait (something you’re likely to be doing for Vista drivers, anyway). But those of you who write drivers for a living (yes, that is actually a surprising number of CDM readers), feel free to debunk — or confirm — the items in this story.

drivers, editorials, operating systems, PC, software, Vista, Windows