If it's Friday, it must be House

House Music Friday took a bit of an extended break which may or may not have involved it being briefly detained in a Mexican jail, but it's back... now.



I'm usually somewhat suspicious of House acts that have some kind of "house" pun in their names, but thesed dudes called The House Inspectors from Australia are solid...

The House Inspectors - Come Back (ysi)

So yeah, I figured I'd spare you from any crazed rants today... have a great weekend!

I know what you had for lunch

The question is not how well you know your blogger, but how well your blogger knows you...



... because I know what you're thinking today. Actually, I always know what you're thinking but I don't talk about it that much because I don't wanna creep you out... but I do know... and what you're thinking right now is, "Gee, Tone, your blog is the best thing on the entire internet and all, but you're really lacking in posting Zambian Psyche Rock. It's kinda disappointing. Also, I've heard you have a solid gold cock. Is that true?" Hey now, that's none of your business. But I can help you with the Zambian Psyche Rock. Don't know that much about Amanaz and I really don't need to, except that for some reason I can't quite put my finger on, this is one of my favorite songs in the history of ever...

Amanaz - Sunday Morning (ysi)

I mean, there's no reason for me to love this song so much... it's not exactly my usual cup of tea... but love it I do... so, um... there you go. AND YOU WILL LOVE IT, TOO! YOU WILL LOVE IT LONG AND HARD! REMEMBER, I'M IN YOUR HEAD, MAN! I COMMAND YOU!

That Sting gig just pays the mortgage...

Sometimes you find that the dude playing bongos for Phish has a little bit more going on than you'd realize...



Brazilian percussionist Cyro Baptista doesn't necessarily hang out with the cool kids. Looking through his bio, I saw that Sting, Melissa Etheridge and Bobby McFerrin are some of the folks he's played for and decided I'd better stop there. But I'm happy to say that it only appears that Cyro is only a part-time Adult Contempo sell-out, because his own stuff is pretty wild. Kind of a World music kitchen sink thing going on... which is better than that sounds. To wit...

Cyro Baptista - Nana & Tom (ysi)

Now you're probably saying to yourself, "that doesn't seem like the kinda guy who would be running out for encores of 'Soul Cages' and 'Brand New Day' broken only by a story about Sting's latest 24-day tantric sex experience"... and you'll think so even less after you watch him freak the solo (on some homemade instruments, to boot)...



And then there's his amazingly named percussion ensemble Beat The Donkey, which is... well, actually from what I watched that one's kinda gay. But nonetheless, Cyro is solid. And I love the hat...

Disco Chili Dogs

'80s revivalism... good or bad? Turns out the answer is black and white...



I'm pretty sure we can all agree that just about any music being made today that's too heavily '80s-influenced is usually a steaming pile of aural shit. I personally blame Interpol for this... because fuck Interpol, that's why. But here's a new record that has changed my tune somewhat. From now on, I think you can say that music being made today that's too heavily WHITE '80s-influenced is usually a steaming pile of aural shit. Because here's something that's quite a bit BLACK '80s and quite a bit good. Parallel Dance Ensemble is the name and somewhere between Disco, Boogie and early Rap is the game...

Parallel Dance Ensemble - Turtle Pizza Cadillacs (ysi)

That's a summer party jam, right there. Too bad I'm giving to you in the dead of winner. Irony, she's a cruel bitch. Anyhoo, this song has a cool animated video, so you know Im'ma show you it...



Audi 5000...

Live from The Comedy Pouch in Possum Ridge

Let's start the week off with some comedy, just for shits and giggles... and because the world is nothing but an endless, meaningless catastrophe spinning relentlessly toward a horrific apocalypse...



I've been around enough stand-up comics in my day to know this. Show me a well-adjusted, happy, non-something-addicted, productive member of society doing stand-up, and I'll show you someone who's not fucking funny. Comedy is pain, people! And Bill Hicks seemingly had his share. This short bit isn't even necessarily anything amazing, yet still it gets more laughs outta me than an hour of Dane Cook... well, unless Dane Cook had his leg caught in a wood chipper, which would be fuckin' HEE-larious...

Bill Hicks - Fevered Egos (ysi)

Go troll through some more Hicks quotes and decide... was he ahead of his time, or has shit just been this fucked up for this damn long?



Back to music tomorrow...

Scholarly rhymes

Today, the hottest thing to come out of Seattle since Sir Mix-A-Lot...



I know, quite a claim... but these two dudes known as Blue Scholars are good at the Rap music. I gotta say I especially like this song because, being of a certain age, I get every single '80s reference in it...

Blue Scholars - Morning Of America (ysi)

Hey, rappers on my radio... Why don't you do yourself a favor, listen to some stuff like this and learn to write some fucking lyrics. And before you dismiss that as a rant from an angry old man (which I am... p.s. get off my lawn) I offer you this bit of genius from the current Number 1 Rap song in the nation according to Billboard...

Sittin at the club oo shawty
Walkin past a nigga lookin at me all naughty
Then i said baby wassup
Reach for that hand shake got a hug
Bottles of H got me wit a lil buzz
Up in VIP wit all my thugs niggas
U leaned over and said u want me
Girl when the vallet pull the benz up
Off to the crib shawty where we gon end up

I rest my case. Have a great weekend...

What have you done with my vowels?!?!?!

The year, even the decade, may have changed, but some things never change here at Tonegents... for instance, if some act I've never heard of is suddenly the featured artist on Gilles Peterson's show, Im'ma go find me out sum-MO 'bout dat guy!



The dude up there in the kooky mask has been making waves under the name SBTRKT lately, as a feature spot on Worldwide will attest. The kooky mask is because he's another MYSTERY PRODUCERRRRRRR (Cue theremin/Vincent Price laugh). Hey, it worked for that Burial dude, right? Now... folks always like to think that it's someone famous behind the mask (even though in Burial's case it was just a bloke who more or less didn't want the bother of being recognized), which I think would only truly be awesome if the man behind the mask was someone so unexpected that you'd never, um... expect it and stuff. Like if it was, say, Ray J... think about that. Imagine if you found out this sick little 2-Step number... was by Ray J...

SBTRKT - Rekorda (ysi)

(As far as I can tell this one was given out gratis. So enjoy with a clean conscience... and clean underwear)

RAY J? WTF?!?!?... that would be somethin', huh? But... highly unlikely.

Oh, and you may want to go check out SBTRKT's page on my new favorite site, Soundcloud... the mixes are highly recommended...

The Hawk to The Hall!

Andre Dawson has been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame! I'm extremely happy about this even though most of you have no idea what I'm talking about. But that's your problem...



Now, I would imagine it might be kinda hard being Clara Hill. She's pretty much "the girl" on the Sonar Kollektiv label, which means two things. On the one hand, she is able to consistently work with her choice of some of the most amazing producers in the entire world, and as a result her music is pretty awesome... but on the other hand, she ends up spending all of her time with a bunch of pasty, nerdy Germans who probably don't get out of the studio that often and masturbate to her furiously pretty much any time she's not looking. So it's a bit of a glass half-full/half-empty kinda thing, I'm sure. We'll just focus on the half-full side...

Clara Hill - Flawless (ysi)

I suppose one could make some kind of connection with the title of that song and The Hawk himself, but I'm not nearly that much of a huge, flaming gay. 'Til tomorrow...

Tee hee...

And now a return visit from an act we haven't heard from around here in almost 2 years. This is noteworthy because in the time I've taken to type these two short sentences, Gorilla Vs. Bear has put up 13 posts on Animal Collective...



It's an annual occurrence in these parts... a rite of the early winter if you will... they take to the Coachella message boards and scream, scream... scream for Boards Of Canada! And every year it proves as futile an undertaking as trying to find a laugh in Dane Cook's act or a brain cell in any Kardashian's head. But still they do it... and I don't hate, because if it ever happens I am ALL. OVER. THAT. SHIT...

Boards Of Canada - Sixtyniner (ysi)

"Sixtyniner"... tee hee... tee hee hee... tee hee hee... tee hee...

(three hours later)

tee hee hee... tee hee... phew...

We shall call him Bjeck!

Hey everybody! Well after a nice long break it's good to be back and I look forward to another exciting, death-defying, paradigm-shifting and ass-blasting year of the Tonegents Interwebs Musical Spot and Clambake. And what better way to start the year than with the song that was stuck in my head for the last two weeks of '09...



So this Bjorn Torske cat looks kinda like a creepy Nordic version of Beck, doesn't he? The kind of dude that would be like, "Hey little girl, come for a ride on my toboggan. I've got cannnnndyyyyy..." Or is it just me? Well, that aside, here's the best use of whistling in a House song since, well... "The Whistle Song"...

Bjorn Torske - Hatten Passer (ysi)

The whole record isn't all House, btw... actually dude is quite odd, as you'd expect from someone from the Nordic part of the world. I think it has something to do with the fjords. How odd is this dude? Well...



So yeah. 2010, folks... saddle up!