GANGSTER LEGS

Welcome back

2015-12-15T14:46:00.001-05:00

Enjoy a playlist. We're back. For new posts bookmark our tumblr page: http://gangsterlegsdiamond.tumblr.com

Heartland Feelings

2012-06-12T12:06:00.002-04:00

What can be said that hasn’t already been said? “Verily there is nothing new under the sun”, wrote Melville in 1855. And so it is. But in the absence of new things, we recreate the old ones. The maps have all been filled, but that hasn’t stopped us from exploring. The same can be said of The Young’s latest release, “Dub Egg”, out today on Matador Records. Reminiscent of Crazy Horse era Neil Young, the (indeed young) Austin, TX quartet injects a heavy dose of Americana into their already ragged sound.

Over the past ten years, a wide range of avenues have been explored in search of a “new thing.” “Yawn”, I say. Ironically, all of them have been done before. It’s a simple mathematical fact that there are only so many notes and combinations of notes that can be weaved into song. New melodies inescapably evoke the old ones. The Young are no exception, but as I’ve argued before, it’s less about the notes and more about the “feeling” behind them. It’s the snarling distortion, swarming reverb, and sparsely accented pedal steel mingled with the rasp of frontman Hans Zimmerman’s vocals that bring to mind wide open spaces, complete with dust devils and cacti.

Dub Egg’s opener, “Livin’ Free” is a full-throttle run-thru of heartland aesthetics, while there are times throughout “NUMB”, an anthemic, alt-country B-side viber, that I’m looking for another log to throw on the campfire I’m not allowed to have in my living room. Until I kill my landlord, a flannel shirt will have to suffice...

And remember, denim is always underrated from the waist up.

HVD

2012-02-14T15:17:00.001-05:00

Fascinating.

Chop Chop

2012-01-21T15:54:00.000-05:00

You've probably heard Devil's Work already by Miike Snow. Now check out "Paddling Out" and prepare yourself for his full-length Happy To You coming out in March.

Quote: Though this song is like a freight train of awesome

2012-01-19T14:44:00.002-05:00

I LOVE JANA HUNTER I LOVE LOWER DENS. I love this song. It chugs along and gets better with every listen.

Go HERE and click to download.

Seeing dubble

2012-01-19T14:23:00.002-05:00

As per usual I am more than a year behind on cool new happenings. Awesome-band Gayngs did a cover of Godley and Creme's "Cry." A cover of the song AND the video. Check. It. Out.

The Words That Maketh Murder

2012-01-09T23:08:00.003-05:00

Somewhere along the line, someone (THANK YOU, WHOEVER YOU ARE) recommended that I check out PJ Harvey. I'm going to take a second to set a precedent:

A big part of music blogging is just passing on information you've already heard; information that's already readily available but that you feel deserves an extra boost of hype. Everyone, Gangster Legs included, is guilty of reposting something they've gleaned from major sources, ie. Pitchfork or Gorilla Vs. Bear. But it's important to consider that this is how just about everything gets passed on. We, the bottom feeding scum of the music world, don't have Isaac Brock's email address in our Gmail rolodexes (thank God!). Whatever the means of transmission may be, whether it's by word of mouth, the internet, or telephone, information starts with a primary source, which then gets passed on to numerous secondary sources. You didn't actually read Beowulf for that high school English class, did you? (Aside: You should have! Seamus Heaney's translation of it is EPIC!) No, you Wikipedia'd that shit. That's how music blogging works too. It's a big game of Telephone.

HOWEVER...

I ignored all those articles and reviews about PJ Harvey this year. Here's what I know about her off the top of my head.

1. She's British
2. Because she's British, she probably has bad teeth and smells like onions.
3. Because she probably has bad teeth and because onions are fucking delicious, she's got an incredibly unique sounding (and smelling?) voice.
4. She's got traditional rock instrumentation on LOCKDOWN. 4/4 beats, clean, reverb laden guitars, horns, harmonies, even an autoharp.
5. She's not this week's hottest electro sensation.

That being said, "Let England Shake" is one of the best albums I've heard in a really long time. I'll cease with the embellishment and let you make up your own mind.

Rave on, Kid Rodeo, rave on...

Grimes est CLEAN!

2012-01-06T22:24:00.004-05:00

New musical crush! It's hard not to imagine Grimes as a porcelain doll. Her voice is like glass, and her synths are equally chilly. I mean that in the nicest way. Come to think of it, maybe she's not a doll. Maybe shes a magical snowflake with vocal chords and opposable thumbs. Either way, her tunes are catchy as hell. Her new album (she's released alot of material, but considers this her "debut"), "Visions", is out in March. Till then, kids...

Brrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!

No One Likes "Best Of" Lists

2011-12-28T22:25:00.007-05:00

It's that time of year where "Best of" lists have already come and gone. You know you love them, and most likely are interested in reading another one. So here we go.

Best Albums of 2011 (In No Particular Order)

*araabMUZIK - Electronic Dream - watch THIS to understand

*Washed Out - Within and Without

*Jurgen Muller - Science of the Sea

*Com Truise - Cyanide Sisters EP

*Cults - Cults

*Real Estate - Days

*Sepalcure - Sepalcure

Honorable Mention of 2011 (In No Particular Order)

*Siriusmo - Mozaik

*Clams Casino - Instrumentals

*Mogwai - Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will

Albums That Disappoint Most In 2011

Suck #3) Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues: Absolutely horrible follow up album. Really horrible.

Suck #2) Blackbird Blackbird - Halo LP: To make the best chillwave album of 2010 Summer Heart and then follow it up with something this bad really sucks.

Suck #1) Justice - Audio, Visual, Disco: Sucked. Sucked. Sucked. Sucked. Sucked. Sucked. Sucked. Sucked. Wow! That Sucked.

I would normally put in more effort to explain each album, but I am too drunk. Merry Christmas!

Cold Sizzle

2011-12-15T17:08:00.003-05:00

Beck remixes Feist.

How Come You Never Go There (Beck Remix) by Feist

On the road again...

2011-11-30T19:07:00.007-05:00

"Everyone goes home in October." So wrote Kerouac, ruminating on his travels criss-crossing the post war American landscape. But guess what? It's November. Actually, it's almost December, for Christ's sake. I came home in October, and you know what? It's fucking boring.

I'm ready for the open road again. Who cares that it's going to be freezing cold, with snow blanketing the ground, breath freezing as it leaves your mouth, crystalizing at your lips in the chilly winter air. I've never had an adventure that was comfortable. In truth, adventure is nothing more than a romantic retrospective of one's suffering.

Now before I scare you off with my masochistic philosophical ranting, let me get to my point. Music can be an adventure, too. Unfortunately, it isn't always; everyone has different tastes, but I believe that a good song is partially defined by its ability to surprise you, to get you out of your comfort zone and push you into new sonic territory. I share this with you because it happened to me like 10 minutes ago...I was pushed.

Spectre Folk is harsh, lo-fi, and nostalgia-invoking . Their singer may be nothing special, and their chord progressions have all been done, but then again that can be said about everyone. They don't shred quite so much as they evoke. Fuck it, I'm rambling and I'd rather be rocking out than typing and editing this shit. Crank your volume and listen to the damned song already.

My mom hates my mohawk.

For You

2011-11-30T14:49:00.003-05:00

dreamage by Emily Diamond on Grooveshark

Bleed Red White and Blued

2011-11-28T13:14:00.003-05:00

The U.S. Girls sound a bit like Siouxsie and the Banshees on a warm vacation in a dark cave. In other words, they're all that and a slice of Vinnie's vegan pizza. Meghan Remy is U.S. Girls and the song I am featuring is from her third full-length release U.S. Girls on Kraak.

Listen to The Island Song

What happened to Rock N' Roll? Let me tell you...

2011-11-23T22:59:00.004-05:00

For the past couple of weeks I've been in a bit of a musical slump. I began asking bleak questions, like "Am I doomed to be an aural malcontent?" and "Is this what we've come to? Dubstep?" (Wub wub wub, wub wub wub). NO, I say! Never!! Rock n' roll will never die, and neither will I!!!

Widowspeak will carry the torch, channeling Mazzy Star (who finally reunited!), The Concretes, even a little Dum Dum Girls. So when the smokey haze of burned turkeys finally clears, turn up the volume and shake that fucking tush. At least that's what I'll be doing.

Happy Thanksgiving, you rebel scum.

Thanks for Living

2011-11-22T09:45:00.003-05:00

I am going to be dancing to this all week long. Goes without saying, this is best played LOUDLY.

via

Get schooled.

2011-11-21T19:24:00.005-05:00

One of the best songs ever written is Goodbye Horses by Q Lazarus. This is an indisputable fact, similar to the truth that kittens are cute and six-packs of tall boy cans are a better deal. Now, while going through my files (I call them that) I found a cover of my favorite song that I have not yet stopped to listen to, which made me seek out some more covers. Are they as good as the original? Do any carry the cinematic and creepy weight of the original? No, but try to listen and take it each as a separate entity keeping in in mind that anyone who deems it worth their time to cover one of the best songs ever written must be awesome. Here I give you the Goodbye Horses original video followed by some crazed covers. Let's be real. They all kind of suck compared to the original. But blogs are about getting culture up in their readers and Gangster Legs is no different in this regard.

Kele (of Bloc Party fame)

Flight

Fat Phaze (Daclan Remix)

Harlem (one of my favorite bands)

The Harvey Girls

Brain RAPE Massage

2011-11-18T17:38:00.007-05:00

Where do I find myself in 20 years. A new life as a lesbian supermodel. No one can defeat me. I am a rape victim of justice. I need to find a load of nickels I left in my back pocket. Sometimes life defeats me but then I watch television.

Commonality is the store I often miss during my shapeshifting loads of crap. I sometimes find reality is where I left the last vestige of my mind. Weirdly, god lives in a milkshake. His voicemail is always full.

It's to time to set the record straight. I realized this last night. Trees are usually faster than this.

When you get down on yourself, sing a song about taking a right on red. Whatever happened to line dancing on a personal mirror? I find I am quite inflexible like an orange. I am so fat. Time to talk to my urologist.

My time is up. I forgot to brush my teeth.

Muskrat Love

2011-11-15T17:09:00.008-05:00

Colorado duo Gauntlet Hair came out with a new release in October. It is grand! The first two songs are off the new self-titled album and the last two are older but sweet!

Keep Time

Top Bunk

Our Scenery

I Was Thinking...

Give Pain a Chance

2011-11-15T17:05:00.004-05:00

This is a really good song. Give it some time because it gets better. At first I was like whatever and then? Then I was like DO IT DO IT. Then I listened to it again.

Fun info from the comments section. Reliable? I think so.

"its a song that missy created and wanted tpain to do a verse on for her upcoming album block party. tpain then produced it and killed the song, somehow it leaked but missys part isnt even on there and theres speculation that the other verse is from andree 3000 , so its save to say we should here a new version of this soon" - kevinosika

Mind Dimension, Mind Dimension, Mind Dimension, Mind Dimension, Mind Dimension, Mind Dimension, Mind Dimension, Mind Dimension...

2011-11-07T13:16:00.007-05:00

Hi Everybody,

I'm sick today and writing this blog post from my bed. FYI it's really hard to use a laptop keyboard whilst lying down, in bed, while sick. My WPM has been slashed significantly, and its almost as bad as one handed typing IMHO.

Regardless, my sched thus far has incorporated a.) a lot of sleeping, b.) a lot of coughing, and c.) a lot of crying. Snot precipitation has been scattered throughout the day, thus perpetuating this cold front my body is experiencing. However, I expect things to better throughout the day, with a high chance of clear skies by tomorrow morning.

In the interim, I wanted to bring your attention to a fan fav of mine. His name is Tiga. He is Canadian, which is good because he speaks French which makes him A LOT COOLER than anyone on planet earth. He also makes electronic music, which is crazy because who listens to that shit anyway?

...but the real reason I wanted to introduce you to Tiga is that his humour is quite dry, sarcastic, and, often times, ridiculous. This is an interview with him wearing Crocks. Enjoy!

(WARNING THIS IS LONG, BUT TOTALLY WORTH IT)

"Unfortunately it's not exactly as metal as I would like it to be, and it also talks about my feelings..."

2011-10-28T21:17:00.012-04:00

Some people will tell you that Ryan Adams hasn't made a good album in quite some time...and I will wholeheartedly agree with them. The alt-country crooning and Grateful Dead noodlings of Heartbreaker, Cold Roses, Jacksonville City Nights, 29, hell, even Easy Tiger, have been replaced by a consistent stream of too-polished cheesiness that sounds not out of place in a church sermon or an office training video.

Regardless, I'm still pretty gay for Mr. Adams. It's hard not to be when someone is that prolific, that hilarious, that narcissistic, and that BAT SHIT CRAZY. Every few months I check in on Ryan (read: lurk his shit on the Internet), and what I find on YouTube never ceases to amaze me. OK sometimes it ceases to amaze me, but as his music gets progressively worse, his homemade death metal videos get better and better. Here's a recent one he uploaded listing his favorite metal videos on his fictional(?) web talk show, Night Sweats.

Street Meat Homicide

2011-10-12T00:22:00.007-04:00

I'm not talking about that binger where you ended up naked in a Denny's storage closet after consuming large quantities of alprazolam and 2-Ci. Those were some intense therapy sessions. Then you freaked out again at Denny's. We found you raping a cheese dog while blowing lines of chicken sandwiches. I'll tell you one thing, your sneeze was All American.

Anyway, I'm talking about that time you had sex with my VCR. And when I confronted you about it, you asked me what time 106 & Park comes on. Well, you better start paying me money, because my VCR is 6 months pregnant.

...followed by DANCE!

Street Photography

2011-10-12T00:00:00.004-04:00

So I have been shooting a lot of people on the street... and they don't give me the "all clear" about whether or not this is kosher. I used to never imagine myself doing this. I wouldn't have gone into the realm of harassment or molestation... but I guess I am starting to tread on that boundary.

There is a str33t photographer (forgot the name) that uses a flash when shooting people. This I think is on the extreme end of invasion of peoples privacy on the streets. Flashing someone with a huge strobe is a very intrusive event, particularly if they are caught unawares.

At this point, I don't think I will go that far... but I may eventually do this... if I need to get the lighting just right. But I would imagine by that time I will have definitely gotten beat up. I have already had a number of confrontations.

I think so far I have been yelled at 3-4 times by different people in the past month. One guy at Coney Island just yelled at me because I had a camera around my neck (wasn't even using it)... Then he talked to me and eventually gave me a hug... (it was weird). Another guy yelled at me for photographing this sleeping bum. He told me, "If you have the right to photograph him without his consent then he has the right to kick your ass."

I obviously argued with him about this for a good 5 minutes. Kicking someone's ass is illegal. Photographing someone is not. People don't realize that you can take photos of whoever and whatever whenever you want (as long as it's on public ground). Go ahead and try to take my camera away and I will kick your ass and then sue you for all the suet in Sudan.

This past sentence is illustrative. I am now addicted to photographing people on the street. I (heart) it. I want to go further, faster, narrower, brighter, higher and dirtier than ever before. I see it as a way of continually shaking New York City's hand. Pulling back the curtain on a moment and saving it forever. I am not a brewer. I only bottle.

I have never been motivated to see the decrepit and destitute of NYC. But I am now. I want to greet them or the remnants of their person. I want to see the really real truthy truths, the cultures and concubines, the silly and the somber.

I know this blog is supposed to be about music. So I will give you a link to the best Queen music video of all time. But if you have a camera... go outside and steal the world.

Here is a link to some of my shots (if you want).

Fuck Summer, Let's Fall!

2011-10-11T22:10:00.007-04:00

Summer is over. Done. Gone. To say it aloud or read it in print has a certain achiness to it. I'll be the first to admit that I'm an extremely nostalgic person. I pine for the days that never actually existed. I create fantastic realities out of the ether about my past. Put me in Coney Island for one shitty, rainy October day and I'll turn it into a summer spent carousing the boardwalk, eating funnel cake and sipping Coke from a straw, catching glimpses of the summertime girls in their summertime swimsuits, doing sweet summertime things.

But truth be told, summer blows. It's too hot. It's muggy. Bugs are everywhere and the water is still too cold to swim. Who really swims anyways? Sharks are dicks, and they're everywhere. Fucking EVERYWHERE. And Coney Island? It's all Russians, all the time.

Then Fall comes around, and it's all I can think about... Summer: that syrupy season of my long-lost youth. It's not so much a season as it is an ideal. We yearn for it, but it never really happened, and never will. We'll get older, grayer, and gayer, and with each passing year the longing will only get worse.

I'm going to take the next couple of months to cry about imaginary long-lost girlfriends on the beach and old-timey necking sessions. In the meantime, enjoy Real Estate. They're made from real bits of New Jersey...so you know it works. They have a new record, "Days", out on Domino next week.

Here's another track from their self-titled debut on Woodsist (A label I HIGHLY recommend checking out!)

Hurts, don't it?

Oh dog, oh deer.

2011-09-29T18:47:00.008-04:00

I fucking love the radio. Not like online radio but car radio as in here I am in a car driving listening to sounds that someone else put on they're called a DJ disc jockey and they spin the tunes. I heard this song and it is ahhhhmazing. It touches me in a weird way, like a great inspiring way that not everyone and everything blows monkey chunks.

Eric Berglund goes by ceo and is formerly half of the Swedish electronic duo, The Tough Alliance. He released his first album last year called White Magic. The entire album is worth a listen but the song "Oh God, Oh Dear" just hits me like a book in the face. A hardcover. The only trouble is it's so short you may want to put it on repeat, which the neighbors might not like.