AMFMPM

2011-04-15T15:01:00.008-05:00

For the next week or two, site functionality will be spotty as I build this guy back out from from the ground up. But then, new coolness. Stay tuned.

2011-04-14T18:50:00.002-05:00

A Spring track that's been sitting on my desktop for a few months. Listen below, D/L here.

Chambaland - “Life 3X” (Billy Joel vs Chris Brown)

2010-11-18T17:33:00.002-05:00

Breakup jam I made a few months back. Listen below; D/L here.

Chambaland - “Fuck You, I’ll Survive” (Gloria Gaynor vs. Cee Lo Green)

2010-11-10T15:59:00.003-05:00

With no desire to be tastemakers, the good people @ AMFMPM have been up to other things lately. NAMELY:

MRTIM has been holding down the internet-approved Our Valued Customers for some time now. Featuring only the best and brightest comic store shoppers, don't hate- let Our Valued Customers do it for you!

Left Handed Radio is a new monthly sketch show from your favorite New York comedy jerks. Recently featured on both The Apiary and The Daily What, you can give a listen here, or subscribe through iTunes!

fleyrm is a lifestyle site by Courtney Austen Brown. Are you making the beautiful choice in your life? Probably not.

And lastly, here's a quickie mashup I made this week.

Chambaland - “A Thousand Bootys” (Bubba Sparxxx Feat. Ying Yang Twins vs. Vanessa Carlton)

D/L here. We'll talk soon, gang.

2010-10-16T23:25:00.002-05:00

2010-08-04T20:12:00.002-05:00

Hello, internet strangers-

I'm Dan. I'm a comedian in New York. I used to run this music blog, but then I got tired of it, and haven't touched it since March. Just did a redesign tonight, and I'd like to make amfmpm a real site again in the coming months- albeit with a slightly different focus.

In the last few months, I got really into making mashups, which I largely distribute via my Tumblr. Here are some of them. The Best Week Ever/NYMag Vulture- approved "Invisible Gurls" and more are available as separate D/Ls; snag all four as a .zip by clicking here.

Genesis vs. Katy Perry - "Invisible Gurls" (Chambaland Mashup)

Nirvana vs. Justin Bieber - "Smells Like Tween Spirit" (Chambaland Mashup)

Madonna vs. Ke$ha - "Like a Drug" (Chambaland Mashup)

Weezer vs. Rihanna - "Um Scorcha" (Chambaland Mashup)

TENUOUS INTERNET SUCCESS!

2010-08-04T20:00:00.000-05:00

By far, the saddest shit I ever pulled to win favor with a girl was "aging" a note with tea water and wrinkles when I was in 8th grade in order to stage a Can't Hardly Wait-esque "I've had this note forever!" moment. To her credit, she didn't out-and-out turn me over to be (deservedly) mocked, but she did have some trouble understanding why there were obvious burn marks around the note's edges- like it had survived the Korean War or something.

I think she said it was sweet, but then it was summer, and we were all too young to drive.

THE END.

Foo Fighters vs. T.I. - "Live Long" (Chambaland Mashup)

2010-03-22T07:30:00.001-05:00

Welcome to the working week, NYC. Had a pass at the admittedly well produced Ke$ha instru a few months back, to moderate success. Much more pleased with this go around, as we learn once again that all the headbands and pitch correction in the world don't mean pop music has changed at all in the last half century.

Except that Ke$ha is dreadful. Press release goodtimes back in swing tomorrow!

The Supremes vs. Ke$ha "Tik Stop" (Chambaland Mashup)

2010-03-18T14:13:00.002-05:00

Hey New York people! Come hit up Orson Welles' Basement of Terror next Thursday night @ the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre! Written by Frank Hejl, directed by Chuck Dauble, and featuring the best cast this side of 1994 Mickey Mouse Club. There's no laughter like terror laughter.

2010-03-18T13:05:00.006-05:00

I've had 5-6 posts of new music goodness lined up for the better part of this week, but here's the thing: traffic is down as brown at the moment since we don't have any proper SXSW coverage, and it just so happens to be one of the loveliest weeks out in New York in the last six months.

So, a sunny day superjam I cranked out last night for now, and back to proper music coverage later. THERE'S BIRDS SINGING RIGHT OUTSIDE MY WINDOW, GUYS.

Iyaz vs. Alphabeat "Replication" (Chambaland Mashup)

(And hey! If you're @ SXSW, We Can't Live in a Cave is featured in the much buzzed about documentary The People vs. George Lucas! Check it out!)

2010-03-12T15:30:00.002-05:00

This is rough, but was super fun to make. Woefully inessential/just what the world needed. Happy Friday.

Notorious B.I.G. vs. Rent "Seasons Of Juice" (Chambaland Mashup)

2010-03-12T15:18:00.002-05:00

I don’t know what I like less about this Lady Gaga/Beyonce video: that title card “PRISON FOR BITCHES”? The hamfisted product placements for Virgin Mobile, Diet Coke, Polaroid, Wonder bread and Miracle Whip? The garish production design? Lifting the Pussy Wagon from Kill Bill and vague specifics from Thelma and Louise under the auspices that this video mirrors some aspect of those movies feminism? The fact that it’s 10 minutes long? (Tyrese Gibson?)

For all of Gaga’s adoration as a pop deconstructionist, the fact of the matter remains: reclaiming and casually using the word “bitches” is no braver or more progressive than some fake-ass ringtone MC causally throwing around “nigger”, and even ironically shilling for Wonder bread and Miracle Whip in your music video is still shilling for Wonder bread and Miracle Whip. This whole fucking shtick is the DEFINITION of “nothing more than the sum of it’s parts”.

2010-03-04T09:00:00.001-05:00

With Drew Barrymore, Alyssa Milano, and Jamie Pressly in its wake, it does my heart good to know that the Poison Ivy smut-thriller franchise is still chugging along, whoring up once wholesome actresses of youth. That is to say, YOU CAN SEE EMMA FROM DEGRASSI'S BOOBS IN THE DVD VERSION OF POISON IVY IV, YALL. In less wince-worthy alumni news, Jimmy is arguably the greatest hip hop breakout of '09, so I suppose it all balances out. Go Panthers!

It's Drake too that leads the week in mashups @ am.fm.pm, by way of renaissance man Objectiv One, whose Rad Jams Bro mixtape pits nu-skool rap phenoms against indie snob porn jams for a toe in the water that should put The Hood Internet on high alert. Two standouts from the collection this morning: first, our man Jimmy meets am.fm.pm favorites Washed Out for a druggy, dreamy take on last fall's ubiquitous "Best I Ever Had", and critical darlings Spoon find that hustlin's the best way to get by with a dose of (confirmed former corrections officer, LOL) Rick Ross.

Fine jams for Thursday morning. But not enough to get Poison Ivy IV off the brain. Rad Jams Bro (and more) is available for free D/L @ Objectiv's site, linked above.

Objektiv One "Best I Ever Had (Space Glider Mash Up)" (Drake Vs. Washed Out)

Objectiv One "Hustlin' (The Spoon Hustler Mash Up)" (Rick Ross Vs. Spoon)

(Art via.)

2010-03-04T08:00:00.005-05:00

It was somewhere in the middle of the last decade when the day came, as it does for the lucky ones, that I realized I had to quit fucking around with amphetamines. My friends and I had all taken to carrying micro-cassette recorders on our persons- the attempts at secrecy were pitiful as we documented and reported one another's shit-talking; our collective paranoia a caricature as action after action escalated into shattering social betrayal. We don't talk anymore.

Watching the sun rise along the southern New Hampshire highway as we'd come down, we liked to listen to New Order.

This track made me think back to that is all.

Out of Texas, Glasnost will be repping the home state with five sets @ SXSW this month. With an eye towards their first proper album later this summer, the trio set neon fire with a Tears For Fears as fuck treatment of a Matt and Kim favorite, below. Respek.

Matt and Kim "Good Ol Fashion Nightmare" (Glasnost Remix)

2010-03-04T04:30:00.000-05:00

In the interest of honesty, I've just out and out deleted (without listening to) any press releases I've received from Wakey!Wakey! in the last few months for the following reasons:

1. I've just kinda been doing that lately. Sorry. My Inbox is a fucking mess, and I hugely regret the time a few years back when I chose to consolidate my personal email and my email for press correspondence. I'll live with it. However, if your press release email title includes the words "Dubstep", "House", or some bullshit hyphenate (usually with a "Post" prefix), I'm just going to delete it. Browser window real estate ain't cheap, and I have a life away from this URL.

2. I've always found punctuation in band names to be a hugely irritating* flourish. Let's play a game: You Say Party! We Say Die! Panic! At the Disco The Academy Is... Run. Away. From. The. Humans. !!! Does It Offend You, Yeah? :wumpscut:. How many bands are listed in italics? THE ANSWER MAY SURPRISE YOU.

3. I've yet to receive a press release for Wakey!Wakey! that didn't include a reference to the CW drama One Tree Hill, which apparently, the group's frontman (Mike Grubbs) stars on. If you're unfamiliar with One Tree Hill, then we're in the same boat, as I know the series only for inflicting Gavin DeGraw's "I Don't Want To Be" on the world, and the below 30 seconds of unintentional hilarity.

NOW THAT'S WHAT I CALL A "COLD" OPEN!

This is why we should try new things. Citing the classic case of Judgement v. Book Cover, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), Wakey!Wakey!'s latest album Almost Everything I Wish I'd Said the Last Time I Saw You is a revelation; a rhythmic embrace of heart-on-your-sleeve poetics and indie holler with it's tongue planted not in cheek, but suspended mid- maw in a howl of hurt. PR people: I implore you to ditch the One Tree Hill associations for fear of associating the group with the dead-eyed smarty pants vamp of Gavin DeGraw. "I don't want to be anything other than what I've been trying to be lately" has to be the emptiest lyric in all adult contemporary music since Matchbox 20's "I wonder what it's like to be the rainmaker, I wonder what it's like to know that I'd made the rain"- no small feat.

I've spent too much time here talking about things that aggrivate me. Lyrically and melodically, Wakey!Wakey! shines. Spin album standout "Twenty Two" below, a song that I at once love and totally do not need to embrace the sentiment of right now. Almost Everything I Wish I'd Said the Last Time I Saw You is now available via Family Records/Timber St. @ iTunes & Amazon.

Wakey!Wakey! "Twenty Two"

*Just as a punctuated band name has not kept me from enjoying the group featured in this entry, punctuation has not kept me from enjoying Was (Not Was), Against Me!, Man or Astro-man?, and ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead. Still, an irritating flourish.

2010-02-26T06:35:00.006-05:00

Not newness persay, but a cool, fun, flattering internet find: apparently, folks have been uploading mashups of mine to YouTube, creating neat album graphics for tracks. Speaking with Benjamin this morning about an upcoming series of his and digital content distribution in general, he pithily said "God, the internet is great. 15 years ago, none of this was doable." And you know what? He's 100% right.

Later, I'm gonna call my folks to tell them how much I love phones. Thanks to Diago Francis for the Ke$ha/Lauryn Hill video, and DonFu for the below.

RE-UP:

Stevie Wonder vs. Jay Sean Feat. Lil' Wayne "Downtight" (Chambaland Mashup)

2010-02-25T08:30:00.001-05:00

For all us New York media pricks who can't wait for the Olympics to end so we can get back to NBC's Thursday shows, a reason to keep your eyes on Canada this morning- Nova Scotia's Rich Aucoin gives a song about humans performed by two robots a complete overhaul, building a flesh-and-blood Prometheus around Daft Punk's synthetic skeleton.

Somewhere between Brian Wilson and Empire of the Sun, Aucoin's cover is at once wounded and forward looking, reminding through repetition that bruises are the first signs of healing.

Highly, highly recommended. Aucoin tours Nova Scotia and Ontario through the Spring, before hitting the UK in May.

Rich Aucoin "Human After All" (Daft Punk Cover)

2010-02-25T08:00:00.001-05:00

Scribbling their party-positive brand of Windy City flamboastin' all over The Go! Team's rah-rah anthem playbook, BBU- that's Bin Laden Blowin’ Up or Black, Brown and Ugly- are primed to be playlist dark horses of 2010. Humboldt Park MCs Epic, Illekt and Jasson Perez constitute the crew (whose debut mixtape FEAR OF A CLEAR CHANNEL PLANET drops March 1 @ FOCCP.com), crafting real deal floor fillers with a brain stem- rhymes like "MTV gave me ADD, BET taught me to hate me" are just as apt to send a shiver up your spine as that thunderclap beat is to possess you into dancing the Penatrada. (It makes sex look like a church!)

Chicago am.fm.pm readers are encouraged to hit up the FOCCP release party on February 27th @ Subterranean- just tell your folks you're going to juke! They'll think you're up on some Happy Days shit, and you can move ass like y'sposedtuh.

Good luck getting this out of your head in the next month.

BBU "Chi Don't Dance"

2010-02-21T04:42:00.002-05:00

Newness from Mr. Tim over @ Monsterbunny!

2010-02-20T09:00:00.002-05:00

Man-oh-Manischewitz. I cranked this track out in a few hours almost a month ago, and entirely forgot about it until it just came up on my own iTunes shuffle. Derp. Forgive that hiss; would that there were a clean DeRulo a capella out there...

Jason DeRulo Feat. Imogen Heap vs. Phoenix “Nineteen Oh What” (Chambaland Mash)

2010-02-20T06:25:00.006-05:00

Gross-out sketch goodness from the brand new Space Time TV this week; conceived and directed by the incomparable Veronica Osorio. Starring Benjamin Apple, Dan Chamberlain, Frank Hejl, & Rob Stern.

2010-02-20T06:21:00.002-05:00

This past week, I watched the first episode of Full House I've seen since the mid 90's- the one where Danny invites that Rusty kid to a Tanner family barbecue, and he writes a fake love letter to DJ supposedly from the paper boy she has a crush on. The love letter passes from set of wrong hands to set of wrong hands, and soon everybody in the Tanner household in convinced that another member of the house has a crush on them. Individual characters' suspicions are revealed through an inner monologue device, underscoring the episode's psycho-sexual nightmare with a touch of Godard's hyper-realism: this was truly one of the most dreadful 30 minutes of television I'd ever experienced, a comfy second place to that half-episode of The Surreal Life I saw once while descending into an LSD trip.

Upon tweeting my realization that Full House is- shockingly- terrible, I was inundated with IMs from friends asking me how I could so casually malign a series so close to their hearts. The phrase "my fantasy!" was thrown around a lot, and I found it hugely interesting that Full House still served as a famial ideal to so many friends.

In Linda Hutchinson's essay Irony, Nostalgia, and the Postmodern, the notion is put forth that ironic appreciation is often a component of nostalgia, in that "nostalgic distancing sanitizes as it selects, making the past feel complete, stable, coherent, safe"- and that ironic distance communicates the same "dissatisfaction with modernity." Full House is one of those shows which I feel most fans enjoy ironically, but that doesn't negate the very real place it holds some folks' hearts.

Which brings me to Friends. Prior to this evening, I had never seen a complete episode of Friends. Not out of any snootiness, I just wasn't savvy enough to keep abreast of NBC's Thursday night comedies in 4th grade, my age when the show premiered. By the time I'd reached the age where I was tuned in to that sort of thing, I was intimidated by the show's then lengthy history. Season-long story lines are incredibly hard to keep track of in syndication, so for one reason or another, it just never happened. Being the cultural touchstone that it is, I certainly have a cursory understanding of the show and it's tropes- I know the characters, I know "How you doin'?", I know Pheobe's cat song, I know Ross and Rachael. I've just never seen it.

The difficulty I'm having digesting what I saw this evening (three episodes described as the best of the series- the one where Ross and Rachael finally kiss after watching the prom video, the one where the friendship knowledge game is played for possession of the big apartment, and the series pilot) is that I'm SO familiar with the series' trappings and the influence it had on TV sitcoms both immediately and after the fact, that I have trouble seeing the show as anything more than the sum of it's parts. I understand how and why it's seen as more than a proficient three camera sitcom- Friends defined much of the genre's stylistic language. But I'm just as sure that if I saw, say, Pulp Fiction for the first time this evening, I'd be saying the same thing: I don't get it.

Is the show's prominence in the annals of comedy television a byproduct of nostalgia or ironic appreciation? Both it and Full House certainly share a maudlin streak punctuated by blithe sassyness, all set in a non-traditional (yet oddly perfect) family unit built on perpetual forgiveness and zero consequence for anti-social behavior. Or is this really and truly a great television show that I just missed the boat on? And if that IS the case, doesn't acknowledging that I "had to have watched it from the beginning" also acknowledge that there is a certain level of nostalgia and (in turn) merely ironic appreciation of the series?

TL;DR: I don't think I like Friends. But I'll give it further study if recommended.

*That bit about the family unit and anti-social behavior may well be true of all sitcoms.

2010-02-11T08:00:00.000-05:00

This one time, I was walking down 9th Ave. singing along to "Under Pressure" on my iPod a little more audibly than I should have been doing in public. Making eye contact with a homeless man, he glared at me, severely.

"Poor homeless guy", I thought. "My chirping this Bowie/Queen track must've been a crummy thing to see, him being homeless and all."

It wasn't until a block or so later that I realized how deserved that glare was- I'd made eye contact with him just as I sang "PEOPLEONNASTREET. BA BA DEE DAH DAY. PEOPLEONNASTREET. BA BA DEE DAH DEE DAH DEE DAH."

WE'RE LIKE THIS ALL THE TIME!

2009 indie juggernauts MGMT announced the track listing for April's Celebration LP this week, a lean nine tracks trumpeting titles which indicate a shift away from the nostalgia we've come to know and love Ben & Andrew for. (Rewind here for a super rare Talking Heads cover from the duo.) A song called "Brian Eno"? "Lady Dada's Nightmare"? As always, I'll reserve judgement for a proper listen, but one of the things that made Oracular Spectacular such a standout last year was that it was so perfectly un-clever, just an earnest ode to the stars, summer, and the harshness that is coming of age. It's a sound we revisit this morning courtesy of Mighty Mike, who brings deft mixing to the terror of knowing what this world is about. Ups.

Mighty Mike "Pressure Time" (MGMT vs. David Bowie & Queen)

2010-02-11T02:40:00.004-05:00

In 2008, Warner Music Group collected roughly $2 Million dollars in royalties for "Happy Birthday to You", a song of dubious origin first made record of over a century ago.

The song will not enter the public domain until 2030.

In light of Warner Music Group’s recent decision to no longer offer free streams of their music catalog online (this means Spotify, LastFM, Pandora), am.fm.pm has become a proud partner of Happy Birthday Warner, a site that'll be featuring user-submitted covers of “Happy Birthday to You”.

HBW intends to serve as good-natured rebellion against an outmoded licensing policy which stands to punish both artist and listener alike; sacrificing sustainability in favor of immediate profit growth.

And honestly, “Happy Birthday to You”? You’ve got to be kidding.

Submit your own cover (in video format) by clicking here, or as an MP3 by sending it along the e-mail address specified @ the site. Thanks!

2010-02-08T07:00:00.001-05:00

I doubt many were expecting a contender for album of the year to drop eleven days into it's passage, but Owen Pallett's Heartland (available for streaming via Domino Records @ Soundcloud) is just that, and more- a lush, triumphant emergence from the chrysalis courtesy of the baroque pop movement's most prescient instrumentalist. (The above free listen comes highly encouraged; "Lewis Takes Action" and "Tryst With Mephistopheles" are album standouts.)

While I take delight in Pallett's decision to perform under his own name, abandoning his copyright-infringing Final Fantasy moniker to stronger stand as truthful and stark an artist as he's always been, it's been kind of a motherfucker coordinating my iTunes folder of late- see, the obsessive compulsive ID tagger in me wants to lump his catalog all together for simple access, while the neurotic album completist in me knows I just can't go changing history like that.

Ownal Fiwen Pallantasy Fantlett it is, then.

Pallantasy Fantlett hits the northeast in Spring, Apr 20th in Boston (@ the Institute of Contemporary Art), Apr 22nd in New York (@ Webster Hall), and Apr 25th in Philadelphia (@ First Unitarian Church).

Below, two danceable treatments of our man from Ontario: under-the-radar mash hero Tor (the fella responsible for last year's Sufjan Stevens Illinoize mashup project) spins '08s "The CN Tower Belongs To The Dead" alongside a classic Q-Tip plea for industry sanity, and Leicestershire's Simon Bookish explores the balance between drive and flourish in his arrangement of Heartland's "Keep the Dog Quiet".

Tor "The CN Tower Can Work It Out" (Final Fantasy Feat. Q-Tip)

Owen Pallett "Keep The Dog Quiet" (Simon Bookish Remix)

2010-02-06T17:27:00.004-05:00

Great googamooga! Have 'yall seen the trailer for Freaknik: The Musical? The closest thing that us advocates of That Crook'd Sipp will ever get to a second chance at that series, Freaknik is an hour-long special paying tribute to the late, great Atlanta music festival with a syrup as fuck voice cast including T-Pain, Lil Wayne, Big Boi, Snoop, Cee-Lo, George Clinton, Bootsy Collins, Lil Jon, DJ Drama, Rick Ross- and Andy Samberg and Bill Hader for good measure.

“Back in the ’90s, Freaknik was Atlanta’s version of the ultimate block party,” says T-Pain. “It was Mardi Gras meets spring break at your crazy cousin’s bachelor party and anything could happen. A decade later, I’m bringing it back for people like me, who didn’t get to experience it the first time around. We’ve recreated Freaknik’s vibe and energy with amazing animation, new music and an all-star cast of characters.”

Color me hugely excited for this. Freaknik: The Musical will be airing March 7th on Adult Swim.

2010-02-04T19:00:00.002-05:00

We hear shades of The Flaming Lips' deep-space ennui present in "Whiskey", the latest from Brooklyn quintet Lowry, who begin their eight week residency at Williamsburg's Spike Hill this evening.

At a time when the label "indie" has blurred to include major label heavy hitters like Coldplay (much like the 90s "alternative" came to include Sheryl Crow), it's incredibly refreshing to hear a group hewing so perilously close to the genre's trappings while remaining so vitally un-commercial sounding- the sentiment "you've got to grow up sometime" isn't a particularly marketable one, especially off Bedford Ave.

Chilly in ways that only the most human amongst us can pull off, "Whiskey" is a fine score to these lip chapped days.

Lowry "Whiskey"

2010-02-02T09:21:00.002-05:00

2010 Oscar Intro Montage Predictions

George Clooney looks out the window of an airplane and sees the house from Up.

Paraplegic Sam Worthington wakes up in the body of a District 9 arthropod.

Carey Mulligan is whisked away from her stifled 1960s home life and into the sexy, exciting world of Minnesotan Jews.

Some Hurt Locker/Inglorious Basterds thing. You know, war and all.

Sandra Bullock teaches Precious to be really good at football.

2010-02-02T07:06:00.003-05:00

With nu-skool nostalgia hat tippers The Knocks and Samuel in tow, Chinatown's own Heavy Roc Music cooly planted their flag on the New York music scene in 2009 as a label with one ear toward mom and dad's dance records; the other on the L train. Even their press photos have headbands!

Stepping out confidently this year under the HRM label is Detroit's Alex Winston, whose extraordinarily playful LP debut this February belies her previous Grammy-nominated songwriting career (for Black Eyed Peas of all people, LOL).

The below "Animal Baby" skips giddily between back-clawing innuendo and squeakier brands of sassy she-pop; Winston's innate musical skills less challenged here than they are just playing around. The track's levity suits Alex well- she might not be the marrying kind, but at least she's not brushing her teeth with a bottle of Jack. I'm really, really liking this track.

Ups.

Alex Winston "Animal Baby"

2010-02-01T07:00:00.001-05:00

As the am.fm.pm betting pool for whose album will rule summer 2010 nears it's final tallies, it's increasingly difficult to reach a consensus. Who will it be? With new releases from The National, Arcade Fire, LCD Soundsystem, The New Pornographers-

EDIT: Realizing that we have not, in fact, heard any of the much speculated albums in question, this year's pool is canceled. All collected monies will instead go towards next month's Bagel Friday, or Haiti. All the best, -ED

-Gorillaz, and a possible THREE Outkast projects due before the end of Q2, the much speculated summerjam playlists of 2010 are still anybody's game.

I'd be remiss if I failed to convey my sincere anticipation for Christina Aguilera's Bionic (due in April), whose production credits alone herald her as a pop Alice, primed to bludgeon the ever tiresome Lady Gaga's Queen of Hearts out on the dancefloor with her own disco stick. (You know back in my day, we just called it a penis.)

Bionic's roll call thus far? Tricky Stewart. Linda Perry. The Neptunes. Ladytron. Sia. Le Tigre. Goldfrapp. MIA. Santigold. And Flo Rida.

YEAH, WELL NINE OUT OF TEN AIN'T BAD.

In anticipation of a time far from this lip-chapping cold that New York's in the throes of, a little retro/premature summer fun by way of France's Gaston. Summer '09 staples Santi and MGMT come together with a little Joshua Tree- U2 for jam that's 100% aspiration- because cold weather builds character, kids.

Gaston "With L.E.S. Kids" (Santigold vs. MGMT & U2)

2010-02-01T06:00:00.001-05:00

The thing about that Owl City motherfucker is that he's just like Paranormal Activity.

Whereas most naysayers bemoan some flawed authenticity, I'm 100% on board: I completely buy that Adam Young twinkles away on his SPD in a Minnesotan bedroom, yearning for a thousand hugs from a thousand lightning bugs between juice time and extended 4Him listening breaks, the same way I completely buy that some nothin' muffin student and her day trader boyfriend living in a nouveau riche San Diegan tract house decorated with guitars they probably don't even know how to play would be made all pitiful and bitchy by the presence of a ghost.

My distaste isn't rooted in image. The problem is that none of these people are the type I would want to spend any prolonged period of time with. In Micah and Katie's case, that's about an hour and a half. In Owl City's case, that's about three minutes.

And your haircut game is fucked up.

What's it called when someone's from one coast, but the other guy's from the middle of the country? Not bi-coastal... whatever. am.fm.pm's dear friends the White Panda rep LA and Chicago. They also rep a little track this morning bound to make even the most twee amongst us quit chasing fireflies in favor of Chevys with butterfly doors.

Ugh, writing that made me remember he pronounces it "Mee-kah". (WE BACK.)

The White Panda "Fireflies Goin' Down" (Yung Joc vs. Owl City)

2010-01-28T16:50:00.001-05:00

am.fm.pm will be back in full force this Monday, February 1st.

2010-01-13T09:13:00.000-05:00

2009-12-31T14:30:00.002-05:00

That fucking Ke$ha song, AMIRITE? The spelling made my skin crawl too at first, and I was all ready to make some Diddy reference/Ma$e joke, but now that Mr. Bad Boy has committed to doing the Chris Gethard Show it's all good.

Nonetheless, it's been some time since I so loved a track's production while so despising it's lyrics- so I went and did something about it.

Next week on am.fm.pm, I stop pretending to be a DJ, and start covering new tracks proper. Happy New Year, tronkies.

Lauryn Hill vs. Ke$ha "Doo Tok" (Chambaland Mashup)

2009-12-25T03:34:00.004-05:00

Merry Christmas, am.fm.pm.

Below you'll find our year end mixtape, an overview of classics & newness we've enjoyed this past year, all mixed and mashed for your consumption ease. Give a stream in the player below the album art, or D/L by clicking here. (Complete tracklist is in the comments.)

2009-12-23T07:36:00.007-05:00

To begin, forgive the nothing out here this past month or so. I'm backed up 200+ press releases at the moment, and needless to say, January will bring a long overdue return to form 'round am.fm.pm way.

This morning, a taste of the Cache Vol. 4 mixtape, coming down in the next 24. Stevie Wonder's ever versatile "Uptight" pella meets Jay Sean & Lil' Wayne's "Down" for some exuberant year-end love. EXCLUSIVE, KID.

Stevie Wonder vs. Jay Sean Feat. Lil' Wayne "Downtight" (Chambaland Mashup)

2009-12-16T18:14:00.010-05:00

Two holiday treats this Wintery Wednesday:

Dan Chamberlain & Brandon Scott Jones "The Christmas Shoes" (Newsong Cover)

&

Dan Chamberlain & Brandon Scott Jones Feat. Mariah Carey "All I Want For Christmas (The Christmas Shoes Remix)"

2009-12-16T07:40:00.001-05:00

There were a magical few years in my house growing up where the argument between us kids and my parents over what to listen to during dinner held prominence over all other discourse. As we saw it, my brothers and I were technically doing my parents a favor, who clearly didn't understand how lame their taste in dining accompaniment was. There was Candlebox to listen to, after all. There was Spin Doctors.

In time, we conceded this battle with the folks- like you do- but it's a contention that rose up again years later. I was working as an organic produce buyer for a mom 'n' pop whole foods store in my hometown, minus the pop, who'd scurried away from this woman (the owner) years ago. The petty rebellions I'd enact against her over the store's music knew no end. I'd hide all of her post- Till I Loved You Barbara Streisand CDs. Reprogram the radio dial presets and feign ignorance. I didn't feel my desires were out of bounds, either- I'd have gladly settled for any of our multiple Oldies affiliates than listen to the milquetoast strains of fucking Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow's "Picture" one more time. Or classical! Everybody likes classical.

Never did these sparks rise to flame as they did during the holiday season, though. As my boss saw it, it was Barbara, the "All Christmas music" station, or nothing. "Simply Having A Wonderful Christmastime" being so bad it almost cancels out Paul McCartney's entire Beatles catalogue, I tried my best to spice things up with non-traditional holiday albums: Sufjan Stevens "depressed" her. Herb Alpert made her feel "crazy". A James Brown Christmas was "dirty".

It wasn't until the week leading up to Christmas '05- just a few weeks before I moved to New York- that compromise was reached in the form of the Vince Guaraldi Trio's A Charlie Brown Christmas score. A compromise so simple I curse myself still for not thinking of it years prior. So as that album is ever played in the coming weeks, let us never forget its magical power to bring people together.

I think I just found my Christmas Sweater, guys. Ups to Pocketknife.

Vince Guaraldi "Linus & Lucy (Pocketknife's Hark, the Holler Remix)"

2009-12-14T10:38:00.002-05:00

"Lie to me in four good power chords"?

Are you fucking kidding me? That actually WORKS as a lyric?

Okay Kittens Ablaze, nice try. Give me back my high school chorus trip breakup poetry and teach me the secret of your polyrhythms and let me be in your band and we'll call it even.

I can't believe you tried to pull that shit on me on a Monday.

Kittens Ablaze "Gloom Doom Buttercups"

Peep the Kittens @ Boston's Middle East 12/17, and Webster Hall 12/18.

2009-11-24T08:48:00.003-05:00

I've roughly 20 minutes complete of the upcoming Cache Vol. 4 mixtape for the site here, and as it's a decade ending, the mix is titled Last Century. Focusing on source tracks released before 2000 (with more contemporary fare mixed in), I find myself struggling not to drop "I Want You Back" at every possible turn- it's like a 1900s cure-all tonic for laptop DJs unsure of a mix's next turn. It works EVERYWHERE. Everywhere.

That's no sleight to Andrew John Long, whose deployment of the world's most positive hook parallel an aggro Gorilla Zoe pella has damn near spoiled any use I'd have in store for it.

Jeez, these grapes are so sour. (Ups.)

Gorilla Zoe vs. The Jackson 5 x DJ Skeet Skeet "Jivin' and Shivin'/Fuck Frank" (Andrew John Long Edit)

2009-11-24T08:27:00.007-05:00

From directors Ferry Gouw and Jason Miller this week comes the video for Major Lazer's latest, "Keep It Goin' Louder". An infinitely more obvious single from Diplo & Switch's debut than "Hold The Line" and "Pon De Floor", "Keep It"s housey hook is coolly surfed by club favorites Ricky Blaze and Nina Sky for a winter-break playlist staple; a sweat-friendly reprieve from all the acoustic guitar mopery inherent to the season.

Indeed, the ghouliriffic video is a few weeks late for Halloween- but it's just in time to get our metabolisms running post-meat this Thursday.

2009-11-21T00:10:00.011-05:00

Its Gattaca by way of JNCO Jeans cover art notwithstanding, I've the queasy suspicion that Chris Brown's Graffiti will move big numbers when it ships December 8th. So take note, Ben Gibbard: if you want to beat the shit out of Zooey*, apparently six months community service and a viral wedding video is all the recompense needed to get you back in the public's good graces. The site here took a little heat when discussing the death of Ike Turner a few years back, specifically for calling into question the veracity of rape claims made in Tina Turner's autobiography. Here's the thing, though: Chris Brown is no Ike Turner. Fine for summertime pop, the boy's no innovator- and the fuck a track with paid promotion for a gum company is ever making an appearance at my wedding.

Brown, like Rihanna, is less an R&B dynamo than a vessel for timely production, and their careers will be remembered best for those they shared the studio with. Ri Ri (AAHHHH HA HA "Ri Ri") has been nothing short of a muse to The-Dream and Tricky Stewart, and Brown's output under T-Pain, Swizz Beatz, and Polow da Don will most likely be the sound imitated in bad "whoa, the 2000s" sitcom flashbacks thirty years from now.

Of course by then, television will be wirelessly beamed to the retina, music will be drinkable, and man will be forced to live in Dyna-Glass domicile pods in order to shield our minds from exposure to the man-made, madness inducing "ninth color".

Ups to P. Smitty for the Portuguese treatment. (Small catalogue, but his calm "Ice Logos" comes highly recommended too.)

P. Smitty "Kuduro Kiss" (Buraka Som Sistema vs. Chris Brown Feat. T-Pain)

*I kid. Please beat up Adam Young.

2009-11-17T06:45:00.002-05:00

I admit that for a time, I avoided The xx for fear of having another Black Kids on my hands; another blog fetishized quartet of mixed gender twentysomethings, with an ear towards danceability and an eye toward Beacon's Closet who ultimately failed to deliver in the sustainability department. Then, I pulled my head out of my ass.

Maybe it speaks to the general cynicism I've developed about "it bands" three years deep with this site, but I've begun to empathize more and more with my friend Brett (who I'm still trying to convince to write an essay about why he despises mashups so badly) when he proselytizes that no band with a single album or EP under their belt can be your "favorite band"- that you shouldn't be buying the t-shirt until you and the band have really gotten to know each other. It's sound logic in the age of shuffle, where Zutons and Louis XIVs of all shapes and sizes lurk in the shadows, waiting to be our one night stand.

So while us Brooklyn assholes (who secretly really liked The Killers for a while, LOL) may scoff the next time "Listen To Your Body" pipes through Enid's, this Roman philosophy of instant dismissal/approval becomes hugely muddled when applied to the repurposing of art in a sample-savvy culture. Hip hop has always borrowed from the hits of it's day, from the Sugarhill Gang hiring a studio band to cover Chic (both "Good Times" and "Rapper's Delight" were released in 1979) to Jay Z employing M.I.A.'s "No one on the corner..." lyric from her 2007 "Paper Planes" on he and Tip's '08 "Swagga Like Us". A track which samples an of-the-moment artist certainly can't be forever bound to the trajectory of the sampled artist's career, can it? What about mixtapes?

Isn't it easier just to like things?

Tastemakers make just that, but not without exerting an inordinate amount of energy towards a value system with completely invented metrics. I like that Black Kids EP. I like The xx's debut. In turn, I'm really liking Chicago's Jams Dean, whose unapologetic, wonderfully knowing "Chicago Girls" stops just short of reminding the listener that New Kids On The Block had a bunch of hits, Chinese food makes him sick, and he thinks it's fly when girls stop by for the summer. Will those American Apparel and Frappuccino references hit strong ten years from now? I dunno. They've got about as much chance as the sample.

Thankfully, cute girls are always in fashion.

Jams Dean Feat. The xx "Chicago Girls"

2009-11-16T07:00:00.000-05:00

Malice: ...we care about it, man. We can do everything they’re doing now. I mean, we can put out an album in a week. We can do that. But I wouldn’t be happy with it. I think our songs, our albums, singles, even the mixtapes, everything is handcrafted.

Pusha: Yeah, I think that stuff sucks too.

Malice: [Laughs.]

Pusha: All of that music I’m seeing every fucking day…all these 50,000 mixtapes. With not one gem on it. Come on…You’re ruining it. You’re pissing me off.

Malice: Then making 50 songs, and throwing away 30 that don’t make the album. It’s like, What were you thinking when you were writing those?

Pusha: Stupid! Hey, stupid!

Malice: When we make a track, we loved it from the beginning.

Pusha: Hey, dummy. What’s wrong with you, stupid? Who works like that?

Malice: What song do you make that you can throw away? What the hell is wrong with you?

Pusha: Unless…

Malice: You knew it was doo-doo.

Pusha: And they are real stupid…

Malice: And frivolous.

Pusha: Pointless, meaningless…

- The Clipse, from their Clipse x KAWS Complex interview, 11/09.

And yeah, the irony of posting a mashup in tandem with that statement isn't lost on me. Good looking to the greenhorn DJDiE.

The Clipse vs. Phoenix "Wampomania" (DJDiE Mash)

2009-11-15T01:09:00.000-05:00

Eventually discharged from the Air Force for being uncooperative and "evidencing a dislike for the service", Marvin Gaye went so far as to fake mental illness in his efforts to escape the mid-century war machine he'd so gracefully speak out against with his first post- Tammi Terrell output in 1971. Jokes to be made about the Gaye family and mental illness aside, it's a telling rebellion from artist in restless youth, one that first came to mind upon hearing the song featured in today's post.

"Get It On In My Mind" is an exhilarating meeting of mental illness (by way of a Fight Club enshrined Pixies single) and the universally acknowledged Greatest Fuck Jam Ever Written™, brought to you by French mash warrior DJ Zebra. With a percussive assist from Lee Dorsey, the track is once soaring and wounded- everything that a good, stormy love is heir to. Ups.

Marvin Gaye vs. The Pixies "Get It On My Mind" (DJ Zebra Mash)

2009-11-14T23:33:00.006-05:00

No Mas and regular collaborator James Blagden present the animated tale of Pittsburgh Pirate Dock Ellis' legendary LSD no-hitter. Flawless repurposing of audio; hugely original animation.

2009-11-14T03:46:00.004-05:00

Former Miss California Carrie Prejean visits Larry King Live, 11/11/09.

Dramatized and interpreted by Dan Chamberlain and Brandon Scott Jones; featuring Rebecca Drysdale. RRRADIO.

2009-11-12T07:00:00.002-05:00

When the BBC Sound of 2009 anointed Master Shortie's debut LP came and went with little fanfare earlier this year, most suspected that there just wasn't room for another kodachrome decked pop hip hopper here stateside. Top 40 radio only just tapped into Cudi, and four years since his debut STILL has no idea what to do with Lupe Fiasco- it just wasn't time.

I however, am of the school of thought that nobody's going to buy the authenticity of a track called "Dance Like a White Boy" when it's being performed by a guy that played Simba in The Lion King in London's west end. Sorry. But here's the thing about Shortie: dude can rhyme. So was it a label thing? Where was the cool, collected young man I hear freestyling over this Passion Pit instrumental earlier this year?

Take a cue from Drake, fellow heartthrob with a handgun- you can have it both ways. Keep to this mixtape thing for a minute, and our ears will be there for the sophomore release. Respek.

Passion Pit "Sleepyhead" (Master Shortie Re-Up)

2009-11-10T17:31:00.007-05:00

Can I tell you how much I love the backlash against Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'"? Since 2007's Sopranos finale, Steve Perry's ode to small town girls living in lonely worlds has been worked into Kanye's Glow in the Dark tour, given the jazz hands treatment in both Glee and Rock of Ages, and become go-to karaoke dynamite for a generation swaddled in faux-worn sex-pun Aéropostale tees.

The rolled eyes are understandable then, when the track comes piping through a diner's tinny PA at 2am; as if we have all tacitly agreed that "Don't Stop"s inherent optimism is somehow unearned in the moment. It's just hugely funny to reserve our groans for such an innocuous, positive song- particularly one that was first released in 1981- while we shrug off more recent (and far worse written) ubiquitous fare like Rob Thomas and Santana's "Smooth". Released the same year as "In The Air Tonight" and "Jessie's Girl", "Don't Stop" deserves no more claim of being played out than either of those tracks, particularly from anybody under 30.

This week, two DJs do their best to reclaim Journey's good name from out of line haters and lead singers found on YouTube. From the fascinating Tron: Rise of the Virals project soundtrack, Chicago's Rhythm Scholar pits the group's slightly less prevalent "Any Way You Want It" against electronics and bongos in a dynamic, polyrhythmic take, and Germany's Marc Johnce cools the track our contemporaries love to hate by way of an understated, housey Frankmusik mashup.

Journey "Any Way You Want It (Rhythm Scholar Syntax Error Remix)"

Frankmusik/Russ Chimes vs. Journey "Don't Stop Confusion" (Marc Johnce Mashup)

2009-11-04T06:31:00.000-05:00

For all the preparation that goes into a new release from an artist- writing, production, promotion, press- it's audience reception that remains the unknown variable. Fickle listeners have to be factored into any artist's plan for longevity, and the major labels are masters of manipulating this to their advantage- there's a reason Crazy Frog moved more albums than Spoon in 2005. It strikes me then, that the one thing no act can prepare for is parody. People making fun of them. Sometimes reverent (Belushi's Joe Cocker), sometimes scathing (South Park's take on the Jonas Brothers comes to mind), there's a few ways artists can deal with the satirical backlash inherent to celebrity. Citing precedent, we prove that Lil' Jon is still badass by testing which "rubber/glue" method is most effective:

1. The Vanilla Ice. In a nutshell: Change your sound entirely. When the masses began to suspect that a Floridian named Rob Van Winkle wasn't the most authentic voice of the streets available for their dollar, Ice's credibility and record sales fell in tandem like a child's science experiment with a penny and a rock. In latching on to the late 90's rise of nu-metal, Ice somehow became all the more cruel a punchline, his last grasp at authenticity deemed so transparent dude didn't even get a Vh1 show of his own in the last decade. Strategy not recommended.

2. The Lady Gaga. In a nutshell: Get famous for being so strange as to forestall any attempts at parody. If 2009 pop culture had a prom, Lady Gaga would be it's queen; Carrie White pouring pig's blood over her own head. With a multi platinum debut and a never ending parade of "OMG DIDJA SEE?" public appearances in tow, Gaga somehow remains weirdly untouchable a pop star, precisely because she's so chameleonic that it's tough to nail down any strong satiric take on her. Fresh faced enough that she ducks the claims of bullshit self-importance volleyed at fellow she-changeling Madonna, THAT BITCH'LL GET HERS IN TIME. Strategy recommended? Eh.

3. The Lil' Jon. In a nutshell: Get weirder. Post Chappelle, Lil' Jon began manufacturing energy drinks, wine, and a line of sunglasses with built in mp3 players. And he started blogging for NHL.com. These are not the actions of a man who takes himself seriously. All this while holding true to his hyper-referenced catchphrases ("what", "yeah", "okay") and still building an ever impressive production resume. Strategy strongly recommended.

The am.fm.pm approved and adored The White Panda agree, making a resounding case for Lil' Jon's continued relevancy by way of a fresh Oceanlab/Gareth Emery mash. Crunk's formal heyday may well be past, but even the champion of a fading genre is still a fucking champion. Ups.

The White Panda "What Lonely Girls Do" (Lil' Jon vs. Oceanlab)

2009-11-02T19:01:00.008-05:00

First Denny's, now Ghostbusters: What's Hoobastank going to make terrible for us next? Backrubs and good weed?

2009-11-02T17:37:00.001-05:00

By way of Washington state comes Brooklyn's Brad Oberhofer, a noise pop dynamo with hooks built to give fans of Cloud Cult and Say Hi alike real pause. Such calculated cacophony so often strays into the recherché, but Oberhofer keeps things elastic and dangerous, earning his xylophone strikes with howls of desperation and exasperation. Spin the galloping "Away From You", below.

Oberhofer "Away From You"

2009-10-29T06:36:00.006-05:00

Pluggery this morning for my boy Dan (and his compatriot Brian), aka Ninja Sex Party- your new favorite comedy band. I heard this track for the first time a few months back, and I'd be lying if I said "I Just Want To (Dance)" didn't claim some heavy earbud real estate in the following weeks. Watch, listen, love, and spread it around the internet like so much rave herpes, you little kittens you.

2009-10-28T16:00:00.002-05:00

From the Mutant Pop crew this month comes Fleetwood Mix, an 8 track mash tribute to the west coast's most cosmic, cokey Brit rock transplants. Featuring Boston's djBC, UK party kings Celebrity Murder Party, and a veritable Benetton ad of global mash contributors, Fleetwood Mix is a vital source for dead-leafed Autumn mixtape heroism.

Below, Stevie Nicks' earthy ode to simpler days shapes Plies' rhyme about the fine-assed unattainable into a fine little jam for cold night necking.

Fleetwood Mac vs. Plies Ft. Akon "Hypnotized Gypsy" (DJ Fox Mashup)

2009-10-28T04:14:00.003-05:00

Fuck the haters, 50. Trading competent production, album sales, and beef victories for Vitamin Water and being the new Damon Dash was 100% the right thing to do. Can't wait for this.

2009-10-28T03:50:00.002-05:00

At some point over the weekend, am.fm.pm's file hosters- Boxstr- permanently shut down without any notice to their paying users. All past mp3 files are gone, with no hope of recovery. Frankly, these guys were consistently total fucking failures in terms of support/user communication, and their collapse- while unfortunate- is not at all suprising.

What does this mean for you? No archived music. We're not diving back through this site to upload everything we've ever posted. Any comments requesting a new D/L link will be ignored. Every post has a link to the source artist's page; you'll probably have luck there as the music posted here was probably offered free by them in the first place. So that's that.

Lastly, suck a dick, Boxstr.

2009-10-22T16:56:00.001-05:00

2009-10-22T05:00:00.004-05:00

Making Daft Punk mashups is a lot like putting up homemade stencils exclusively in the three blocks surrounding your first apartment: you're probably not rattling the cage as hard as you think, but hey man: still super fun.

Ups to MMM.

Daft Punk vs. Bob Marley "Is This Digital Love?" (MadMixMustang Mash)

2009-10-21T00:03:00.000-05:00

As all that "Balloon Boy" nonsense unfolded in the press last week, I couldn't help but be reminded of Disney's Flight of the Navigator, a thoughtful science fiction favorite of my youth. A young boy, tangled up in time travel and government intrigue by way of a mysterious silver vessel- it's the sort of magical story I feel the nation wished came of the Heene family instead of the pitiful perversion of post-Jon and Kate reality television that came to light in the days following the incident.

Watching FotN Thursday, (which some good soul has uploaded in ten parts to YouTube), I was struck by it's frightening maturity, illuminated in no small part by composer Alan Silvestri's score. The only synthesised score in his filmography, Silvestri employed NED's Synclavier System to create an outright creepy futurescape, lush with lonely tone-poems of space travel and living in a time not your own. It's music that hearkens back to a more curious time in my life, and the first thing I was reminded of upon hearing Iceland's Bloodgroup, whose latest single "My Arms" (below) stirs just as nervous a brand of unknowing in it's listener.

With the fragility of Jamie Stewart, siblings Halez, Raggi, Lilja, "and their amazing Faroese sidekick Janus" build grim pop castles, buttressing their songs with knowing lyrics like "metal heath is all we have" to create a plucky, paranoid, and desperate world all their own.

Bloodgroup will be repping CMJ this Thursday evening @ The Suffolk in NYC.

Bloodgroup "My Arms"

2009-10-20T00:56:00.003-05:00

Man, remember when every couple in Brooklyn had a lo-fi pop outfit to go with their Jonathan Safran Foer-font canvas totes? Five year's later, mom's got a gig as a social media strategist and dad's hand painting labels for his artisan jam/jelly venture with a baby on the way; the xylophone and 808 collecting dust somewhere in Cobble Hill.

I'll bet she sneaks looks at Paste like Kate Winslet did that swimsuit catalog in Little Children.

Barsuk was good enough to send us a determined little remix of the borough's best couple band- Mates of State- this week, in celebration of the digital release of April's vinyl only Re-Arranged: Remixes Volume 1. Featuring battle weapons from DJ Sega, Flosstradamus, and more, the below stuttered thunder comes courtesy of LA punkers The Mae Shi, who clip "You Are Free"'s original Gibbard-esqe organ build into a bouncy escape jam that should earn a spot on the iPhones of Brooklyn's best dressed runaways.

Sarcastic? Maybe- but well deserved for a track this proud to wash off gross acquaintance. Mates of State's Re-Arranged: Remixes Volume 1 is available now on iTunes.

Mates of State "You Are Free (The Mae Shi Remix)"

2009-10-15T05:00:00.004-05:00

Now that Yeah Yeah Yeahs have played Radio City, the petulant teenager in me wants to bitch philosophical about waning authenticity and the pimping of once-fringe borough art for the midtown set, whereas the sensible fucking man in me knows to bless Karen O & co. for refusing to kowtow to the "Starbucks Recommends" scence, even when backed by a children's choir for this month's Where The Wild Things Are OST.

Did you see those $900 WTWTA parkas and shit from Opening Ceremony? If anybody's gonna talk about a nauseatingly blurred line between art, childhood, and commerce, let's start there. I'm in the market for a good winter coat myself, and appreciate investment in quality apparel- but something tells me a thousand dollar Halloween costume's not gonna look so great on that Eugene Lang girl when she makes beer and xanax barfs all over it.

Below, Bootie stalwart DJ Clive$ster gives the unofficial love song of the decade the UK electro treatment by way of a little Metronomy. Additionally, I'm re-upping one of am.fm.pm's most requested tracks in anticipation of Sufjan's release of The BQE next week, a gloriously forward moving mash courtesy of Illinois' Radioface.

Metronomy vs. Yeah Yeah Yeahs "Heartbreaking Maps" (DJ Clive$er Mash)

Sufjan Stevens vs. Yeah Yeah Yeahs "Maps To Chicago" (Radioface Edit)

2009-10-13T21:09:00.004-05:00

When the Outer System Space Station Pacificus explodes, First Officer Huck Dougan (Brandon Scott Jones) jettisons in a small, damaged escape pod. His distress call has reached Earth. This is his story.

Show the love for space madness @ FOD.

2009-10-06T16:00:00.001-05:00

For all the coverage that vampires making their way back into the mainstream have received of late, few seem to acknowledge the stylistic debt owed to Joel Schumacher and The Lost Boys, the crew responsible for defining the visual aesthetic of the MTV vampire: piercings, leather, hairspray- the undead looking more like the Billy Idol fans you don't want your son hanging out with than the bloodsucking monsters they are.

I stand firm in my belief that while vampires can be sexy, they cannot be sexual, and that Twilight and it's contemporaries have more in common with The Lost Boys 2: The Tribe, a flaccid, Byron-in-Hollister dirge of a movie who's payoff is the only time you'll ever say "well, thank God Corey Feldman was in that."

As Halloween draws closer, can we stop being scared of whether or not people will accept us fucking a vampire and start being fucking scared of vampires again?

Props to Missouri's Gizmo for the Lost Boys OST love.

Lil' Wayne vs. Gerard McMann "Cry Little Lollipop" (DJ Gizmo Mash)

2009-10-04T06:44:00.013-05:00

am.fm.pm is repping Boston for a few days, and was lucky enough to catch Ben Folds with the Pops (under Keith Lockhart) at Symphony Hall on Friday night. Beautiful as expected, the real highlight of the show was a pair of songs he premiered from a project he's been working on with Nick Hornby- author of High Fidelity and A Long Way Down. As Folds described it to the audience, Hornby has been providing him with lyrics, and the two have been volleying rough mp3s back and forth since early '09.

Massive BF fan though I am, 2008's Way To Normal was a step backwards for Ben, particularly on the heels of the three phenomenal Super/Sunny/Speed EPs and Songs For Silverman- when his music slips from the personal to the introspective, it's simply not as interesting. Collaboration has always been a forte of his however, and Hornby's knack for obsessive, hyper-literate protagonists is a dovetail fit for Folds' pop reverence. Color me hugely excited for this album.

Super-'sclusive bonus demo version of one of the aforementioned tracks (lovingly ripped from a video @ Sydney Morning Herald) is below the full show set list. Here's hoping Hornby is cool with it. (* denotes songs performed without the Pops.)

1. Effington
2. Lullabye
3. Smoke
4. All U Can Eat
5. The Ascent of Stan
6. Landed
7. Zak and Sara
8. Gracie
9. Cologne
10. Jesusland
11. Not the Same
12. Picture Window (Hornby collab.)*
13. Belinda (Hornby collab.)*
14. Steven's Last Night in Town
15. Fred Jones, Part 2
16. Narcolepsy
17. One Angry Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces
18. The Luckiest*
19. Army*
20. Rockin the Suburbs*

Ben Folds & Nick Hornby "Picture Window" (Demo)

2009-10-02T10:53:00.002-05:00

I heard that Glenn Danzig was so horror punk that he actually birthed 3OH!3 in a black mass to undo all goodness in the world.

Props to F.L.P.

Danzig vs. Justice "Two Minutes to Mother" (Frail Limb Purity Edit)

2009-09-30T15:05:00.000-05:00

This Wednesday RIGHT AFTER a Daddy/Zuleyka edition of Wednesdays With Harold, Nate Kushner (A Week of Kindness) and Matt Little (Thank You Robot, The Ground Williams Show) will be presenting the inaugural edition of their new film series, Movies vs. Humans.

If you’ve ever been late to the party on a cult movie, Movies vs. Humans is the show for you. This is your monthly chance to get in on the ground floor with movies that don’t yet have cult followings, but should. At each Movies vs. Humans show, Matt & Nate guide you through a free screening of one of these “new classics.” New York’s funniest comedians and improvisers will join them on stage to experience these movies for the first time, and to give us their perspectives on what they just witnessed.

Tonight, the guys present Jamaa Fanaka’s 1992 masterpiece Street Wars. It’s a gritty slice of life from South Central Los Angeles in which a drug gang attains supremacy by taking to the skies. Click here for the trailer. Joining Matt & Nate are Jeff Rubin (collegehumor.com) and am.fm.pm's own Dan Chamberlain.

It’s the most free entertainment you’ve ever had outside of your pants, and it all goes down Wednesday, September 30th, at 10 pm, at The Creek.

2009-09-30T04:13:00.003-05:00

A fresh video for Depeche Mode's kinky, pessimistic single "Hole To Feed" this week, directed by the increasingly prolific Eric Wareheim. Wareheim's peculiar brand of filthy direction suits the track's gallop well, but it's the audience's fading capability to laugh at the sexuality of his subjects which shows us real growth as a director. Peep:

2009-09-28T06:00:00.002-05:00

Being disappointed in Relapse as I was, I really haven't been keeping a thumb on Eminem in '09. Still though, I figured my comic geek radar would've picked up on his Punisher book, released back in May, of which I was entirely unaware of until preparing this here post.

So in 2009, Eminem has released an underwhelming LP, contributed an admirably nasty verse to a Drake remix, and joined the esteemed ranks of Witchblade and Archie. That's breaking even, right?

am.fm.pm's got an exclusive for you this morning from the The White Panda, a little thank you to all the readers who pushed them and their pop-swagger "What You Know About Little Secrets" past 2500 (!) downloads over the weekend. Em gets trancey as fuck with a twist of The Juan MacLean's "Give Me Every Little Thing" and "The Simple Life", giving all them coked up Rubulad wimmins a REASON to bust out the American Apparel tank thong. Welcome to the working week.

The White Panda - Shake Every Simple Thing (Eminem vs. The Juan MacLean)

2009-09-27T08:30:00.001-05:00

The first of Fever Ray's two shows at Webster Hall is Monday, and judging by the tour's trailer (as well as The Knife's reputation for stunning live sets) ticket holders are in for the best haunted house of the season. Further tour dates are availble @ her official site; peep the trailer below.

While Karin Dreijer Andersson is taking the stage here in New York, we turn to two other lady indie heroes to sit in with Olof Dreijer on some nu-classic Knife mashes. First, DJ Topcat makes "Paper Planes"' dollar go even FARTHER as M.I.A. meets the oft remixed "Heartbeats", and Hi-Brid doses "Silent Shout" with La Roux's anthemic "Bulletproof".

Hopefully we'll have some show pics late Monday. Fever Ray's latest single, "Seven", featuring remixes from CSS, Martyn, Crookers, and more is available Tuesday via Mute Records.

M.I.A. vs. The Knife "Paper Heartbeats" (DJ Topcat Mashup)

La Roux vs. The Knife "Silent Bullet" (Hi-Brid Mashup)

2009-09-26T20:35:00.004-05:00

We can tool on Vanilla Ice all we'd like, but I'm of the school of thought that in every Cool As Ice joke, there lies a kernel of resentment for a time that we thought Rob Van Winkle was honest-to-God the baddest motherfucker in America. Dude MOVED records, and that doesn't happen ironically.

Frail Limb Purity gets it, repurposing the theme which Ice will forever live in the shadow of into just as stirring, electric, and- well, cool- a jam as it was back in the day. Ups.

Frail Limb Purity - Vanilla Ice vs. Yusek & Duotone (White Label)

2009-09-26T19:30:00.006-05:00

am.fm.pm ain't the only game in town when it comes to comics- Rob @ Shtick Around shames us on the reg, cranking out the best computron comic assholery since Don Rickles did an ep. of ReBoot. Below, a standout from Shtick Around's recent Power Rangers week.

2009-09-25T15:55:00.004-05:00

Utilizing what little findings I've drawn from site analytics, the average am.fm.pm reader makes under $30K a year, and lives in a metropolitan area.

You are also white and use Firefox, but that's neither here nor there.

My boy Ben (of Mr. Professor fame) has just released a new iPhone app with cost conscious city-dwellers in mind. MetroCost calculates just how much coin you're dropping with an Unlimited Ride versus a Pay-Per-Ride MetroCard- "All you need to do is swipe across the (picture of a) magnetic strip each time you ride, and MetroCost will do all the math for you."

Better yet, MetroCost is customizable for any transit system, so whether you're sick of scraping quarters for your Charlie Card OR Muni pass, it's got you covered. Simple, smart application for broke, stormy days. More info here.

2009-09-25T05:00:00.001-05:00

Tom of CA mash crew The White Panda was good enough to reach out to us this past week with the duo's latest, a thumping, inspired meeting of in-demand Boston indie kings and Arkansas' best behaved inmate.

The media blitz around T.I.'s release from prison in May will be no surprise, and besides that whole getting busted with a ton of guns in the first place thing, dude timed things nicely dropping a multi-platinum album full of charting singles just before going away. Now Harris can rest assured that the hipsters will be back for him too, even if Jim Jonsin and Swizz Beats don't make it to the Paper Trail follow-up. Respek.

The White Panda "What You Know About Little Secrets" (T.I. vs. Passion Pit)

2009-09-24T13:49:00.002-05:00

One of the common themes I write about here is how the democratization of media production tools has leveled the playing field, as open distribution channels offer everyone the means to either showcase true, unknown music and film talent or reveal ineptitude blanketed in kinetic text and dinky Garage Band beats.

It's an inherently positive movement, forcing the major labels/studios to up their game, while affording the independent community a voice on technical par with them. I'd like am.fm.pm to be a site about showcasing that good, "off the grid" media with a little bit of a thumbed nose at the mainstream, and largely I think we do an okay job of not shitting on people for the sake of it. You can go anywhere online to find forums just for that, and well, when it comes down to it, it takes a certain amount of balls to post your creative content online. Whether or not it's narcissistic in motive (or whether or not you and your girls lip-syncing a Lifehouse song is all that "creative") isn't the point. The fact is, you've made something- however inconsequential- and put it out there for the world to access. And that's awesome.

The point at which I feel parody and teasing is allowed comes when ego enters the game. We get dozens of press releases every week with subjects like "THA SICKEST RAPPER IN THE GAME PLZ POST PLZ POST", and more often than not I just delete that shit without ever listening to it. Delusional artists have their place as comic devices, even if I feel a little bad doing it.

That said, I assure you that you're not ready for Tom OC.

2009-09-20T22:44:00.011-05:00

When R&B is ready to date again, having finished mourning the (entirely timely) passing of auto-tune, can we set them up with our friend prohibition-era jazz orchestras?

I'll bet two bucks you almost forgot about "Single Ladies". Let's nip that in bud.

Tip your Bizzy Izzys to Okiokinl, gang.

Beyonce vs. Duke Ellington "Up in the Cotton Club" (Okiokinl Mash)

In other Beyonce related internettery, an official video has dropped for the am.fm.pm approved Antony and the Johnsons' take on "Crazy in Love"- just as creepy a brand of romantic as you thought it'd be.

2009-09-17T15:19:00.003-05:00

New York's Low Life Inc. has teamed with French label Boxon to usher Turkish dance goliaths Gooseflesh here to the states, probably the most promising collaboration between the West and the former Ottoman empire since the Treaty of Lausanne.

Ulas Pakkan (aka Jackdied) and Volkan Akaalp (aka Jasko) have built fair stateside cred by way of remixes for both Tiga and Digitalism, but a sustainable DJ crew is only as good as their original compositions- like a killer studio band that can't play live. As evidenced on the below "Still Wild", Gooseflesh certainly bangs with the same confidence of their dance floor demolition crew contemporaries. The group shines however where others go dark, flexing a positive, hook-friendly brand of roof raising; hiding the hammers behind their backs with big grins.

No wonder the French are eating this stuff up.

Gooseflesh "Still Wild"

2009-09-17T00:27:00.006-05:00

Let's do the 2009 "Cool People Who've Died" list real quick:

Bea Arthur. DJ AM. Michael Jackson. John Hughes. Walter Cronkite. Dash Snow. Jim Carroll. Karl Malden. Fred Travalena. Billy Mays. Farrah Fawcett. Ed McMahon. David Carradine. Jay Bennett. Dom DeLuise. Marilyn Chambers. And it goes on.

Mary from Peter, Paul, and Mary died yesterday. And of course, Patrick Swayze.

While everybody jokes about how bad it sucks to be a celebrity this year, I choose to celebrate- because if nothing else, 2009 has completely legitimized an otherwise irrational fear of success.

Respect via MM below. (Also, this.)

Michael Jackson vs. Patrick Swayze "Beat the Wind" (Mighty Mike Mashup)

2009-09-15T22:57:00.003-05:00

The am.fm.pm plugged/Hype Machine approved Urban Noize team is back this month with "December 4th's Black Parade", an uplifting banger (and thoughtful meditation on absent fathers) that finds impressive middle ground between mall culture and the project hallways- if there's one thing the hip hoppers and emos can agree on, it's sooo cool to be black.

Jay-Z Feat. My Chemical Romance "December 4th's Black Parade" (Urban Noize Remix)

2009-09-09T21:30:00.005-05:00

2009-09-08T22:00:00.007-05:00

Ten thousand internet dollars to GaraGara this week, who with a little Arulpragasam on his side completely reclaims Matthew Wilder's '83 megahit "Break My Stride" from Sean Combs and his Bad Boy heyday posturing. All that Caribbean strut AND all that moustache? Shiiit.

Last vestiges of summerjam season, guys.

M.I.A. vs. Matthew Wilder "You're Never Gonna Break M.I.A. Stride" (GaraGara Mash)

2009-09-08T07:11:00.001-05:00

I understand that everybody out there isn't coming off a three day weekend. An total bummer, to be sure. But to all those lonely souls at the office this week, remember: without you, the puzzle is incomplete.

(You think that's bleak, peep Because of You.)

2009-09-07T01:38:00.002-05:00

If the 90's are coming back for real, can we get a new set of good artists to remind us how sexy and depressing California can be? We East Coast jerks are dangerously close to forgetting, and them indie hard-on OC soundtracks really didn't do the trick- you know, Mazzy Star never technically broke up.

Because I'm great at writing transitions, Mazzy Star's Hope Sandoval is back with a new album this month, her arrangements smokey; vocals drizzling the innocent, off putting power of a little girl with a shotgun. Sandoval's Through the Devil Softly is available 9/29 via Nettwerk. Below, druggy, crushed, and decadent as ever is Softly's first single, "Trouble".

Hope Sandoval and the Warm Inventions hit Music Hall of Williamsburg 10/10, Bowery Ballroom 10/12. Full tour info here.

You guys starting to feel that chill in the air?

Hope Sandoval "Trouble"

2009-09-03T12:51:00.005-05:00

This week Hulu has made available RiP! A Remix Manifesto, Brett Gaylor's SXSW lauded documentary on remix culture's past and future. Tethering his narrative (and argument for open source culture) to the work of Girl Talk, Gaylor explores some interesting and maddening loopholes in current copyright law, and all in all makes a compelling case against outmoded attitudes towards fair use, my distaste for "manifestos" not withstanding.

Gaylor's doc falls off the rails when he comes to the defense of out and out piracy- it's one thing to lament that today, an album like Paul's Boutique could never be made due to sample clearance issues, but it's disingenuous at best to make such complaints when in the same breath confessing that you'd just download that album from P2P networks anyways. Despite this immaturity (and the sense that mash culture begins and ends with Girl Talk and Negativland), RiP is an earnest, inspiring love song to remix culture and the repurposing of ideas and art. Highly recommended viewing to all am.fm.pm readers.

2009-09-01T02:30:00.000-05:00

Happy September, 'yall. I was all ready to do a proper write up for this badass little EW&F employing jam from Amoraboy, but in prepping the post I got too bummed out by the fact that Google automatically suggests an image search of Rihanna's leaked abuse photos.

Fuck you, internet.

Rihanna vs. Earth Wind & Fire "Distember" (Amoraboy Mash)

2009-08-31T17:58:00.008-05:00

Drew the above earlier today; Micron & Prismacolor. Some quick thoughts on Why we're okay with Disney buying Marvel:

1. Marvel spent half the 90's in and out of bankruptcy. If this means Marvel never finds itself in the position of having to farm out Captain America and FF to fucking Rob Liefeld ever again, I'm all about it.

2. According to a stock holder call, "John Lasseter met with Marvel last week about a possible team-up between Marvel and Pixar and got 'pretty excited, pretty fast.' They say there's definitely an opportunity there." Technically, The Incredibles was the best Fantastic Four movie ever made. Marvel's pre-existing Avengers film slate with Paramount still remains in tact, as do Fox's claim to certain X-Universe properties. That is to say, on the film front, things are more likely to remain the same instead of getting worse.

3. Marvel Universe characters in Kingdom Hearts!

4. Was I the only one kind of bummed that Julie Taymor/Bono Spider-Man musical imploded on itself? Broadway is Disney's bread and butter.

5. Lastly, we can't forget that Disney is largest media conglomerate in the world, a holding company first and foremost, and one of five that pretty much own everything. Shit, under their Touchstone imprint, "Disney" technically just put out District 9, the best sci-fi movie of the decade.

So don't be expecting a New Mutants Disney Channel musical any time soon.

2009-08-31T04:11:00.004-05:00

Somewhere between Sebadoh and Donovan we find Marmoset, an Illinois trio of over a decade, sitting in a suburban garage that smells of opium smoke.

When I say "Now, imagine they're not a jam band", you all react like I'm Matthew McConaughey in A Time To Kill, and I'm saying "Now, imagine she was white", okay?

Now: imagine they're not a jam band.

"Strawberry Shortcakes" is the best written single of the year.

Marmoset's Tea Tornado is available now via Joyful Noise; playing New York 9/9 and 9/10 at Cake Shop and Bruar Falls respectively.

Marmoset "Strawberry Shortcakes"

2009-08-31T03:53:00.004-05:00

This shit is great, because now I don't have to buy Pedialyte AND cheap gin.

2009-08-31T03:12:00.001-05:00

I feel I should fess up: for all my YO HEREZ THE NU CLUBB HOTNESS shit I talk up here, I can't stand clubbing. I love dance music, concerts, breasts, and casual drug use, but for some unfortunate reason the sum total of these interests is a night of privileged LES night children putting shit up their noses and strutting their plumes. Or I don't know the cool places to go or whatever. Clubs are overpriced and full of sex offenders.

And I can get into some house music, but that new Calvin Harris album is ludicrously cheesy. Sure, I Created Disco tasted like bargain bin James Murphy here and there, but what it lacked in imagination it made up for with energy and enthusiasm. Good electro demands a little punk rock, and it's too bad that Harris ditched GG Allin in favor of Gigi D'Agostino on Ready For The Weekend.

But hey, let's piss off some Nirvana fans this Monday, what do you say?

Oh, word? Activision is alredy on it? NM. (Mighty Mike- you've been KILLING it lately, man.)

Calvin Harris vs. Nirvana "Not A Teen" (Mighty Mike Mashup)

2009-08-29T01:44:00.002-05:00

Hit the ground in NYC about two hours ago with sea water still in my hair. Technically, my birthday. MJ's too. Good luck to everybody hitting the Spike Lee block party tomorrow in Prospect Park, weather and the pretty inevitable crowding issues are keeping me the hell away from all that. In any case, a badass vacation.

It's fucked up that DJ AM (WHO FOR REAL COMMENTED ON THIS BLOG ONCE, NO JOKE) went and overdosed like that. I dunno. Dude got a free pass a few months back with that jet shit, and it's terrible that the aftermath went down like that. There are reeeal sick people out there that would kill for the second chance he got, and homeboy still fucked it up. And he was a good producer! His Fix Your Face mixes produced alongside Travis Barker are free, legal , and a good place to start for the curious. So, respek. But drugs like that are for fucking retards.

An unrelated track:

This was the vacation jam in a big way. The Urban Noize crew spun a Jay Z/Kanye verse around some key hooks from the am.fm.pm adored Adele to create a metropolitan anthem of the moment- big, proud in it's failures, and ready to take a town for all it's worth. Listen below,
I'll be back to proper posting and shit come Monday. Good to be back.

Jay-Z Feat. Kanye West & Adele "Never Chasing Pavement" (Urban Noize Remix)

2009-08-22T04:49:00.000-05:00

Errite. I'm out of NY for the week; things are going to be sleepy around here. Didn't deliver on write ups for that previously mentioned Z-Trip or new music, will do later. (Wayyy backed up on press releases, but will hopefully get around to some listening and culling in the days ahead.)

A few plugs before I'm out:

1. I'm late to the game, but The Dream's "Rockin That Shit" is the baddest R&B jam I've heard in a minute.

2. Tumblrers! Are you following Cool Songz 4 Teen Girlz?

3. Come see and support new indie improv hotness Casino make their full fledged debut next week! Playing Thank You Robot's Summer Fridays, Under St. Mark's Theatre, Fri. August 28 at 10:30pm.

4. Lastly: this has been a fucked up month. Nobody died or anything like that, but... eh. You know. Life is all. I haven't been myself lately, and I'm in bad need of a little escape. I do need to say: I have the absolute best friends in New York. I mean it. I know the most funny and brilliant and scary talented people in this whole fucking city, and I only hope that in 15 years I can be in place to start paying every one of you back for the support and love I feel. House party on the 29th, for real.

Below, Joe Cocker respek from DJ Zebra's nu-mash classic Bootstock.

OUT. PREACH.

DJ Zebra "With A Little Help From Soulwax" (Soulwax vs. Joe Cocker vs. Queen)

2009-08-21T17:21:00.006-05:00

I'm calling for a ceasefire from all "Paper Planes" haters. MIA's dark horse smash was played out for a time, no doubt- but like low key indie dance singles that unexpectedly blew up before (I'm looking at you, Bloc Party) it's worth remembering that these tracks got big for a reason and GODAMMIT IT'S IN THE NEW MICHAEL MOORE TRAILER, NEVERMIND.

(Props to Mighty Mike.)

MIA vs. Foo Fighters "Paperlong" (Mighty Mike Mash)

2009-08-20T10:21:00.006-05:00

Hey guys, remember 2006?

2009-08-20T05:24:00.004-05:00

When Rachael Kichenside, frontwoman of Manchester's Run Toto Run slips into Michael Angelakos' first "Sleepyhead" verse, she does so with the clean comfort of a freshly showered, pajama'd girlfriend pulling new sheets over herself. Mandolin and strings balance out a simple arrangement that transforms Passion Pit's 2009 playlist goliath into a delicate, Copeland-esqe "Fanfare For The Common Hipster", and all of the sudden we're left wishing that all electro-indie would just unplug itself for moment, like a Glo Worm slowly dimmed by loosening grip of a tired child.

Run Toto Run's Plastic Gold EP is available now.

Run Toto Run "Sleepyhead" (Passion Pit Cover)

2009-08-20T04:58:00.008-05:00

Fuck me, is that a for real Discworld reference in the opening moments of Murphy/Jackson's "Whatzupwitu"?

Also, Michael Jackson's 51st birthday- the day he'll instead be buried- falls next Saturday, August 29th. This is also my 24th birthday. Spike Lee is throwing an MJ block party in Fort Green to celebrate the man, if anybody's down.

Previously on am.fm.pm: The King mixtape and Discworld cake!

2009-08-14T12:59:00.002-05:00

Sorry fer' the nothing all week, been a little crazypants. Going to be all over the Del Close Marathon this weekend, working Urban Stages until 2am tonight, with a 30 min We Can't Live in a Cave show tomorrow morning @ 10:45am. Come say hey if you're out an about, and hit up am.fm.pm next week for new Boston music, some rare Z-Trip classics, and more. PREACH.

2009-08-12T11:22:00.003-05:00

I'm going to go on the record as really disliking the movie Wall Street, a simplistic morality tale about a sneaky little shit who is embarrassed of his roots, chooses a sneakier shit as his surrogate father, still chooses to petulantly rebel against him, and then sells everyone out to cover his own ass while taking no responsibility for his actions. There's no real conflict; just sociopaths born for each other. Wall Street's lean redeeming qualities are:

1. That part where Charlie Sheen gets led out of the building crying, LOL

2. Talking Heads' "This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)"

The repeated use of "This Must Be The Place" is one of few hints from Oliver Stone (hardly known for his subtlety) that he's in on the joke of just how maudlin and ludicrous the movie is- it's one of the only melodic pieces in the film, placed specifically twice: as Sheen's Bud Fox laps up his capitalist spoils by redecorating his apartment, and at the film's conclusion, just as Bud enters the courthouse. David Byrne has stated that he included the "Naive Melody" parenthetical in the song's title because the bass and guitar simply mirror each other through the track, but it's cokey, "how did I get here"-era lyrics are a sublime sarcastic underscore to the falsely doe eyed willful ignorance of America's business leaders. (And politicians, as evidenced by Stone's use of Talking Heads' "Once In A Lifetime" in his underrated W.)

Below, the borough's favorite psych rockers tackle the TH track in a rare college recording, and Thousandaire (who needs to get some web presence) dunks Miles Fisher's spacey cover in a little wawa for a take that's 80's impersonality at it's most personal.

MGMT "This Must Be The Place" (Talking Heads Cover)

Miles Fisher "This Must Be The Place (Thousandaire Remix)"

2009-08-12T10:40:00.003-05:00

Chicago artist Derek Erdman was curious enough to attend this past week's Gathering of the Juggalos. He emerged with the below documentation, as well as an impressive photo essay. Well done.

2009-08-10T01:37:00.002-05:00

Oh man, remember The Point? The 1971 made for TV movie (later released on VHS) was never a staple of my youth, but was one of the real treasures I uncovered while working in the children's room at my local library during High School. Built around a soundtrack/album composed by Harry Nilsson, The Point tells the tale of Oblio, the only round headed boy born into the Pointed Village- it's a terrific, cleverly animated fable that reminds the viewer that solitude and loneliness can indeed exist exclusively of one another. Cool shit. (Granted, back in the day I thought it was cooler that Nilsson admittedly conceived the project in the throes of an acid trip, but that's neither here nor there.)

Andrew Bird, Nada Surf, and Dawn Landes are amongst artists recently announced to contribute to Songs From The Point!, a soundtrack cover compilation benefiting Park Slope's own 826NYC- the Dave Eggers founded (and indie rocker approved) youth literacy program which provides after-school tutoring, workshops, field trips and in-class help for local students. And if you're unfamiliar with the Kentucky born Dawn Landes, you're in for a treat: Landes' mellifluous voice is a dovetail fit for The Point's more delicate departures, flexing tones that flirt with mournfulness but never collapse wounded.

Songs From The Point! is scheduled for release October 27th. Below, Landes' earnest take on Peter, Bjorn, and John's ubiquitous "Young Folks".

Dawn Landes "Young Folks" (Peter, Bjorn & John Cover)

2009-08-06T16:44:00.008-05:00

R.I.P. John Hughes. A righteous dude.

2009-08-05T15:49:00.002-05:00

New Eric Wareheim directed video for Major Lazer's "Pon De Floor". Slightly more SFW than "Dance Floor Dale", but just.

Previously on am.fm.pm: Major Lazer's BBC 1 Annie Mac Mini Mix.