Random Post #5

I Will Survive - Art Brut

Nag Nag Nag Nag - Art Brut

Yes, happy anniversary to us indeed. The pop-cultural cyborg known as Wintermute is now one year old, which I believe is the Oral Stage, so don’t leave anything of value on the floor. It’s been fun, and with your sexy-sexy help, we’ll reach that damn Emerald City. Almost all of us, and several strangers, are in this drunken photo, taken years ago in downtown Madison by a kindly bartender, except for resident genius and general culture critic ohmygodimmike, who is instead shown below, his steely Greek eyes criticizing general culture. As before, and in Laz’s personal OZ (shown with the previous post), correctly link the blogger to the face and win a way cool prize!!! (seriously, we’ll give you something).

So for our first post-anniversary-post post, here’s another installment of our Random series (1, 2, 3, 4), which will have nothing to do with our anniversary, because its RANDOM! Let’s start:

First, in underground movie news, Dan Anderson’s wonderfully absurd and disgustingly eccentric Bearded Child Film Festival is gearing up for its 7th year and is now opened for submissions. All details HERE. This Michigan based fest, which features the best in underground, avant-garde and outsider cinema, was truly one of the most disturbing and deeply satisfying evenings of film I have ever stumbled through. And without it, I would never have seen Amy Lockhart’s Mrs. Edmonton Teenburger 1983 in: It’s Party Time!, the greatest movie ever made. Check it out America. Here’s more info:

www.beardedchild.com

Bearded Child Film Festival
Myles Reif Performing Arts Center
Grand Rapids, Minnesota

Mailing address:
BC Film Fest c/o Dan Anderson
612 1st Ave. NW
Grand Rapids, MN 55744

Festival: August 17-18
Deadline: Aug. 1

Next, HERE (streamable) and above (downloadable), are some tracks from the new Art Brut album, It’s a Bit Complicated. This adorable and essentially air tight little rock album pretty much represents my hope for the future of rock n’ roll. Yeah England(!) Their sophomore effort finds the surprised rockstars expanding musically (if not conceptually) while still sticking to their core sound of simple kick ass garage cock-rock, with lyrics that express an openly sincere if snippy observational charm. Eddie Argos’ biting prose have shifted perspectives from that of a young lovable malcontent, to those of a lovable malcontent who somehow found himself on the Top of the Pops, and continue to drip with a mix of tounge-and-cheek bemusement and outright desperation. No one does ironic sincerity like the Brits. European Tour NOW, U.S. Tour in Augest.

Lastly, I was going to post an E.E. Cummings poem about youth, but DJ took back the book I was borrowing, so instead, here’s one by Raymond Carver for absolutely no reason whatsoever.

Threat

Today a woman signaled me in Hebrew.
Then she pulled out her hair, swallowed it
and disappeared. When I returned home,
shaken, three carts stood by the door with
fingernails showing through the sacks of grain.

Dear Transmissions, Happy Blogoversary.

A lot has happened since we started our fantastic Transmissions, a whole year ago. Good things, bad things, becoming world-famous. Let's celebrate with some songs. I'm going to start off with one of my favorite covers of all time which I recently discovered at the House my friends are renting by a lake in the middle of nowhere. Among the books, furniture and records we got after a doctor who recently passed away, I found a great Eartha Kitt record, The Sentimental Eartha Kitt. It took me a few seconds to recognize this Donovan song, but once I did I loved it even more.

Eartha Kitt- Wear Your Love like Heaven

There's a guitar in there that bends the notes so sweetly I go into a musical coma every time I hear this song.


Michael Polnareff- Love Me Please Love Me

France Gall- Laisse Tomber les Filles

Two songs from a great mix CD that I got for my fake birthday last weekend. Thanks Gabriel!

An Interview with CRM

Transmissions From Wintermute’s Grant Miller inspired Interview Series continues this week with Zestfully Clean’s own CRM (a.k.a. Radial Radish). Using a recent plug for his strangely unnerving blog as bait, I was able to score a rare interview with this postmodern cynic and armchair doom sayer. Writing from an internet cafe in Berlin, CRM discusses his love for beef and Franz Kafka, as well as his plans to stab me in the heart with a steak knife.

CRM’s only stipulation in granting me this interview, however, was that I post the hot new single by Denver’s underground MC, Boabeide (bow-bay-da). However, due to technological issues, I am unable, but will instead post Boebeide’s 2nd-to-newest single. And, I’ll go even further and include this wonderful little piece of homoerotic gangsta absurdity by I Be Ill, Boabeide’s original group. And, due to our mutual love for Gene and Dean, and to help flesh out the homoeroticism of this preface, some Ween for good measure. Enjoy!

As always, if anyone out there would like to be interviewed by us, just say so in the comments.
(Thanks to A-Bomba for the picture of Kafka wearing a sweet hat).

Song One - Boabeide

Work That Heat - I Be Ill

The Homo Rainbow - Ween

Who are you and what do you want?

I am Chell and I just want to Dance! Actually, that's not true, I do like to dance, but I want lots of other stuff too. For example, right now, I want to take a shower.

What kind of animal would you most want to kill and eat with your bare hands, and why?

The answer is obviously a cow. I want to raise it too, love it, etc., and then kill it and eat it. It would be hard to kill a cow with my bare hands, so I would have to rely on the trust that I'd have built between us, and then go for the throat unexpectedly.

If your brain were put into a robotic body of your own design, what would be your main robot power? (Optional follow up, what would be your favorite robot food?)

Robots don't eat asshole. But to answer your question: upgrade-able parts. I'm actually pretty sure this is going to happen, I've given it a lot of thought, and it is pretty much the only explanation for the fact I'll never die (unless, of course, I commit robot suicide).
[Robots DO eat jerk - ED]

Do you like being an American?
You know I do, it's just other Americans I don't like being.

It's your birthday and you have a magical dinner party, to which you can invite 3 nonfictional people, living or dead. The catch; at the end of the night you have to stab one of them in the heart with a steak knife. Who are your choices. Please elaborate.

OK, first off it's not magical, it's also not my birthday, rather it is just a dinner party like any other, and I'd invite you, Bao Bei Da, and probably Kafka just for shits. I would not kill Kafka (he probably won't really be there when this happens).

Rather morbid questions, readers will think I'm violent. I'm not. I do like cow, and I am going to kill either you or Bao Bei Da at a dinner party sometime. If you put any music with this post, put Bao Bei Da's 'tragically hip' (it's new).

Modest Americans

BJ Snowden- America