h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Jake--

I've been meaning to watch this series for a while now (I read about it in Time Out New York back in the day) and I was wondering where someone in the metro New York area can rent these things. Kim's? The Movie Place?

Brian

I've seen both at Kim's. If you can swing it, the DVD is a better deal, since it has all six on one disc, as opposed to three videotapes (cheaper on the wallet). Of course, you can trade in the UPC symbols for valuable indie hipster points.

Congrats on the Food Cart entry btw.

Incidentally, I always wanted to do my own series in NYC called "Drinking with Jake", where I'd make a fool of myself on a given liquor with a minor celebrity, but it's probably just as well it will never happen.

I'll have to get down to Kim's and see what's what. I respect Kim's for what it is--it has a great selection--but I am morally opposed to the organization of its music, which seems to me to be a product of the worst kind of hipster snobbery. Organizing things by major-label vs. indies! And sub-headings of sub-headings of sub-headings. It's worse than Other Music. The result, of course, is that I can never find what I want in that store, and then I leave and go buy it at Sounds or Norman's, which are right next door and usually about five bucks cheaper.

Re: congrats: Thanks. You too.

I think "Drinking with Jake" is a great idea. I hear Vincent D'Onofrio is in town. You could make him repeat the line "I am in a world of s***" from Full Metal Jacket over and over, and laugh like a hyena every time.

-Brian

P.S. I have no idea why my post appears three times on the conversations list. This is embarrassing. I'd like to blame it on my provider, which has been acting wiggy lately, but it's possible that I just went out of my head and madly pressed the button over and over.

Well, I suppose you could find it at many other video stores (except for Blockbuster video). Still, Kim's is a great source for everything cult (the fact they have the Star Wars Christmas Special and an unreleased Directors' Cut of Buckaroo Banzai amazes me), but their organization is annoying. And the employees sometimes make Randall from Clerks seem nice.

I don't know, I find Other Music's organization scheme annoying sometimes too (In, Out, Krautrock, Electronic, etc.). And it is so expensive, but sometimes my only choice for that weird minimal electronic stuff. Incidentally, the Other Music in Boston is larger, cleaner, AND cheaper. It threw me for a real loop.

I think Vincent D'Onofrio is too well-known and perhaps too cool to be in the obscure land of drinking with Jake. Instead, I confine myself to the D List, people like James Urbaniak, Thomas Jay Ryan, Bruce Campbell, Michael Ian Black, Amy Sedaris, or perhaps even Crispin Glover. Real dorks drinking real drinks.

Yours,
Jake

"Real dorks drinking real drinks." I think you've found your subtitle. Oh, by the way, I hear Bruce Campbell is doing a little talk and book-signing job sometime soon (or maybe he already did it). I remember intentionally not remembering the date because I couldn't make it, but maybe you could extend The Hardest-Working Man in Showbiz the invitation for a couple White Lightnings.

Who's good in the minimal electronic music world? My taste in music is growing increasingly broad and shallow, so I know very little about any given genre. If I like Philip Glass, Brian Eno, and DJ Spooky, who might I also like?

Yeah, I think that pretty much captures a lot of the intent of the idea. Now if I could just find somebody with a camera who can still shoot even when plastered, I'd be set. I also like the byline "Jake knows absolutely nothing about drinking...", since that's largely true (I'm not a guy who belts it back as frequently as those fabled men of yore). By the way, Bruce Campbell is appearing tomorrow (Thursday) at 7:30 at the Astor Place Barnes and Noble, and at 12:30 PM on Friday in the World Trade Center Borders. So you have two chances to see the hardest working man in show biz selling his book "If Chins Could Kill"

Well, I'm no snobby Other Music employee, but I know some of the neat stuff. Lately, I've been into the microtonal dub stylings of Pole and his friends (imagine mellow reggae picked up by German knob-twiddlers), the Scape Records Stadtzism 2 sampler is great in this way. You can also hear some of the workers on the Clicks and Cuts 2 CD, or see what exactly they're selling on the {URL removed by moderator] this week. May I mention how great Photek's Modus Operandi CD is. Mmmmm, paranoid drum and bass. But now, it's time for the next musical trends, electronic rhumba lounge. And then it's mariachi grindcore or gangster klezmer. Yes, I'm making it all up. But I am this close to buying a Yamaha Q70 and forming my own bad synthpop group, which I will call Future Monkey or something like that.

Yours,
Jake

I hunted down a few bits and pieces of Photek's stuff, and it's some cool stuff. I'll have to pick it up, even if it does mean trying to decide if it's under "Establishment" because it's Virgin or if it's under "Indies" because it's Science, a subsidiary of Virgin that seems to have some autonomy. Argh.

B

P.S. How the heck can SST, a California record label, be considered "establishment?" Their biggest act is Black Flag, for the love of God.

Just avoid the new album, since it's not as good. But I'm not going to declare that Photek is minimal electronic by any means. You have to instead find those guys by going to events at the Anchorage or such. Or just look for things on the Mlle Plateaux, Rather Interesting, or Quartermass labels. That gets a lot of them, plus some other weird stuff (not all of it good).

SST is probably mainstream because they sided with U2 against Negativland and sued them as well. That wasn't the greatest PR move I suppose.

Yours,
Jake

Maybe I should just raid YOUR collection instead, Jake. How's about that?

I'm impressed that you can keep up with all these different labels--you must find Kim's not half as bewildering as I do. For me, the label thing is weird because the sort of people I tend to collect these days--Afropop and other dance music played by hordes of people at once--jump around from label to label. Thomas Mapfumo, one of my favorites, seems to be on a different label with nearly every album he makes (he's currently amassing the rights to all his music, which will allow him to support him, his family, and his bandmates, at long last). Fela Kuti, as big as star as the Afropop world has seen, is on a bunch of different things, and keeps getting reissued in different formats. Even more well-known American acts like Funkadelic--those guys have their stuff put out by Westbound sometimes, Charly sometimes, God knows what else sometimes. It's all too complicated for me to bother with. I learn just enough for me to get the tunes I want, and then forget it all in minutes.

What's that SST-U2-Negativland thing all about? Can you explain that some more?

Well, it gets confusing sometimes. Minimal dub pioneer Pole was on Matador Records of all people (home of a thousand perky indie bands). And Juno Reactor (techno artist who works with African group Amapondo) is on Metropolis (before that Wax Trax), labels known more for industrial and gothic acts. And don't forget Nettwerk was home to both Skinny Puppy and Sarah McLachlan. But some labels do work to stay somewhat consistent these days, so if you buy a Mlle Plateaux records, it's often some German knob-twiddler or such.

In regards to Negativland, they're a band that does a lot of silly things with samples and such. In 1991, they released a single called U2 that featured a cover of "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" with a U2 spy plane on the CD. It also had a short sample of the song and a whole bunch of samples of Casey Kasem cursing up a blue streak. They got sued by Island Records (w/o U2's knowledge) for the sample and the alleged confusion it might cause consumers. They lost the suit, and then SST sued the band for the cost of the first lawsuit. The band has now been able to win back permission to rerelease from all parties except Casey Kasem. It was a watershed case in sampling law, especially since Puff Daddy lifts far larger snippets of songs without any legal threats made.

Yours,
Jake

PS I've heard a bootleg of the tracks. Casey Kasem really does curse quite vocally. It's a bit funny and disturbing at the same time.