Night Ripper is what the party in my mind sounds like. Mash-ups-mashed up… a radio-made-brain gone wrong. Most pop songs can be summed up in a few seconds, why listen to them any longer than that? MTV gave us ADD. I don’t click; I made a television network that shows shuffled programs in 5-second segments. It was all a dream… I used to read Word Up magazine. Get crunk, get drunk, get fuuuuuucked up! Rappers get more airtime because they have something to say. I be on it all night, I be on it all day, I be on that Kryptonite, I be on that Kryptonite. Bump Bump Toot-toot! Hold me closer Tiny Dancer… hmmm… text isn’t much fun to listen to, but Girl Talk is!!!

Unlike his first album Night Ripper is glitch free. There is no noise to be found here. It’s a fucking party record! Since I don’t have time to go to parties because I’m locked in a little box with a typewriter strapped to my forehead (this is how serious critics do their best thinking) I love getting stuff like this. Best mix-tape ever.

Smash your head!!!

http://illegalart.net/

This is a really nice package. There are 8 tracks of audio, one video tack & a fifty-page book packed into a well-designed black and yellow rectangle that’s over twice the size of your average cd. If all the copyright law debate and intellectual property discussion is too much to wrap your brain around all at once they also include a whoopee cushion for comic relief. The audio tracks are made entirely of recycled sounds, from show tunes to old movies… cut-ups, as they’re known in the biz. For Negativland fans this is nothing new…even underwhelming, if you know how much of a densely packed audio punch Negativland can deliver. This is sort of a “Negativland for Dummies” (which explains the black and yellow packaging), so you won’t find the obscure home recordings, found sounds & original noises that are usually mixed with the hacked up pop tunes. It’s still a fun listen… the perfect present for your parents or anyone who doesn’t understand fair use & thinks the creation of art from found materials is a criminal activity. There is a not so hidden treat for the old school fans, but it does require putting the cd into a computer. The “Gimme the Mermaid” video collaboration with Tim Mahoney is a nice jab at their old record label & courtroom nemesis, SST records. A combination of Disney’s the Little Mermaid and a “you’d better get a lawyer, cuz I own you & I’m gonna sue your ass” phone-call, topped off with mockery of the Black Flag classic “Gimme Gimme Gimme” it’s the kind of anti-corporate absurdist hilarity we’ve come to expect from Negativland.

Editor’s note: Tim Maloney is a former Disney animator & the “Gimme the Mermaid” video was created on Disney’s own computers while the corporate monsters weren’t looking!

http://negativland.com/

This is a 4 song 7″RECORD which means it’s the best thing I’ve been sent to review in a while. At Retard Riot Reviews all cd’s take a backseat while records get served up delicious on the freshest platters. I build towers out of all the cd’s I get and then knock then over while I listen to rad records. I’ma take this one song at a time folks…

EXTREME ANIMALS – guitar center punk
I went to Guitar Center for the first time in my life the other day. I usually find my instruments in the trash and Guitar Center was like diving into the ultimate dumpster. I jammed on a video mixer DJ set-up for hours… it fucking rocked! The equipment probably cost $10,000 but I didn’t have time to look at the price tag. I was too busy partying & blowing out the speakers.

FORTRESS OF AMPLITUDE – surfacing crown
Imagine your favorite heavy metal band…mine is Journey. Now imagine taking a journey to the beach. Isn’t it beautiful?

DJ JACKY JEXX – running free #1 remix by teddy b. and the bearington.
Most people don’t understand how to have fun, especially DJ’s… they are too serious. They’re always trying to figure out how to make people party properly. This DJ doesn’t do that cuz she doesn’t need to. Proper reviews compare music to other music so DJ JACKY JEXX is like CELLPHONE TUMOR PARTY but a little more light hearted. Did I mention noise & having fun? Yes… you CAN do both!

DR. DOO – dune tune #9
I just listened to this 10 times. Trying to put into words = math problem in my mind. I’ll probably listen to this a million more times. Math. Just Doo it!

http://viciouspoprecords.com/

Doctor Ninja don’t review no commie poems!
He reads them on the underground metal dragon,
With the uplifting downtrodden,
People of New York City!

The prison diary of Ho Chi Minh was written between August 28, 1942, and September 16, 1943, when Nguyen That Thanh – alias Ngyugen Ai Quoc, alias Ho Chi Minh – was a prisoner of Chiang Kai-shek’s police in several of South China’s jails. It is not a “diary” in the Western sense, for it consists of 115 verse-quatrains and Tang poems in the classical Chinese style.

“In such men as Ho Chi Minh, the intelligence and sensibility are one. There is nothing secret in his public and private life. To him the sight of sight of suffering is a call for both action and to poetical expression.� from the Preface by Phan Nhuan

I found this lovely little paperback amongst pornography & old magazines at one of NYC’s finest street vendors. Find your way to this book or save your strength & let it find you!

“1. How did you first find out about Alleged? 2. What shows/times at Alleged were you involved in? 3. What was your favorite Alleged moment? 4. What was the “hairiest” moment or most sketchy Alleged moment? 5. How do you see Alleged as representing/symbolizing any specific moments in time?”

Brendan Fowler (aka BARR the rapper) emailed about seventy artists/scenesters these questions. I took the liberty of answering them myself. They might come in handy… if I ever put out a book out about all the cool stuff I did in the 90’s. If you like nostalgia, you’ll love this book. There are lots of photos too… pictures of what “cool art” & “the scene” looked like… way back when.

1. From 1992 to around 2002, I had no interest in what was happening in New York Galleries. I spent most of my time in the streets. Allegedly there was this gallery that showed street art. You could see that stuff by just walking around. I did a lot of walking around so I probably past it a few times but I never went inside. I was into drinking forties at Casualties shows, smokin’ blunts with Boot Camp Clik and all types of ill shit. One day Andrew Jeffrey Wright was tellin’ me something & I was barely paying attention… my mind was on food at the time… then I heard the word “Gallery” and left to go find a sandwich. That was the first time I heard about Alleged.

2. Mid 90’s I started working on this project at Dojo’s on St. Marks. It was really small space, just big enough to fit a toilet & a sink, so it was easy to put art up. It’s not there anymore but that’s how I was introduced to Barry McGee. He started doing stuff there too & I thought it was pretty sharp. I left NYC, end of August, 2001 cuz I was doing a lot of installations in galleries, art mausoleums… places like that. Did you know that some galleries don’t even have walls?!? Once I was in this cave in Ohio and saw these two dudes with huge beards. I was all drunk & said “WHAZZZ-UP?? ZZ TOP!!!� Then I thought to myself… “uh-oh… if dat ain’t dem uhma hafta get the gatz on”… but they ended up being really cool. That was the first time I met Chris Johanson and another guy with a beard. I didn’t really get involved in what Aaron was doing until the Beautiful Losers thing. Christian Strike emailed me a few times. Then he shook my hand at Beaver College. Anyways I wanted a copy of the show catalog and Christian said I could have one for half price, but that was still like 25 bucks so I said fuck it. Later I found a copy at the Strand for a lot cheaper. Anyways, back when Aaron started Alleged, I was really into zines. I used to hang out at Fat Beats a lot & found this dope zine called ON THE GO… shit.. All this reminiscesizing got me confused… what was the question again?

3. My favorite Alleged moment� Hmmmmmm. I had a print in this show & it was hanging in the bathroom. At the closing of the show there where all these girls waiting to pee & Jeffrey Deitch comes out of nowhere & starts yelling at them… “Get the hell out of here! Go take a piss in your own bathroom!�” I was kind of shocked, cuz normally Jeffrey’s all cool, calm & collected. After the smoke cleared I went into the bathroom & my print was gone! I thought maybe one of the girls stole it, but allegedly Jeffrey took off with it.

4. Chloe Sevigny & I were buyin’ some drugs from Duane Reade. It was really sketchy cuz Duane was at 14th St. & 3rd Avenue at the time. Anyways, I ended up getting multi-vitamins! I don’t even remember what kinda shit she got… it was a really crazy time. Another thing I remember… there was a lot of lettuce at David Aron’s wedding. It was at the top of this hill & there were hippies everywhere. Big trees ‘an shit… it was wild. It seems like where ever David is there are all these hippies hangin’ around. Man, those guys are hairy!

5. I ran into Stephen Powers the other day. He told me something that meant a lot to me at the time… “I haven’t seen you up lately… ya gotta keep bombin’, stay up!” Then he gave me an industry hug, hopped on his motorcycle and vvvrrrrhoooom!!! It was very symbolic. The good ol’ days were great and we’ve learned a lot since then. Some of us learned how to ride motorcycles and some of us learned how to stay out of jail. Most importantly… we’ve all learned that yesterday means something, even if we’re not sure what it is yet.

http://www.dragolab.it/ Paperback, 7 x 10 in./224 pgs / 100 color and 100 b&w.

Cauliflower Ass is possibly the world’s greatest living blues-man. Bob farts along on the trumpet while Cauliflower pours his miserable heart out with aid of his only friend … the guitar. I not sure how many strings the guitar has, probably one. One is the loneliest number. Stand out songs include “Call the Doctor” “Four Season’s O’ Misery” and “I Can’t Work”. Actually that’s just the first three tracks…I’m too deppressed to read the rest of the list. I just glanced at the lyric sheet. I hope I die soon. This will be a nice soundtrack.
Unavailable from: Wheelchair Full of Old Men P.O. Box 5418 Saginaw, MI 48603

Have you ever felt like a cog in the machine, like a baby robot pooped out by a technological overlord?
A million years in the future we shall all live in harmony! But wait you say, “I can’t wait a million years I want utopia now! Well if you want to change your life than this is the dvd for you! After just one viewing you will have the robots serving you! Instead of being a slave to technological going to work day in and day out getting a pixel tan. Let the robots do the work for you! Then you can sit back relax lax & get a real suntan! With just a single Fleshapoid you can be living the life you always dreamed of… bathing in jewels, looking at yourself in the mirror and making love to whom ever you please. But wait! You say, “Won�t it be weird having a funny looking robot around?” Have no fear! A Fleshapiod might be made of wires but then exactly like real people, but unlike real people they serve your every command! Get this dvd today and start your new life… in the lap of luxury.

Filmed in 1965. This film is up there with Kenneth Anger’s “Scorpio Rising” as the one of the greatest movies ever made. It proved to the world that you could make a modern masterpiece with no budget. I love the word bubbles that occasionally over lap the action. Totally Simpsons. John Waters cites this as his greatest influence “even bigger than The Wizard of Oz”. This is the Wizard of Oz of the 60’s, truly beautiful.

This also includes Kuchar’s THE SECRET OF WENDEL SAMSON, a surreal psychodrama of sexual desire and the entanglements of intimacy as well as THE CRAVEN SLUCK, a torrid tale of adultery and flying saucers. What more can you ask for???

http://www.othercinemadvd.com/fleshapoids.html

A touching story. Subtly depressing humor comics. “hazard” gave me six copies of this. 5 of them are currently available in Dr. Ninja’s Lending Library aka the bathroom. Email him at momoftheyear@gmail.com I bet he could sell that address to Rupert Murdoch someday.

The first draft of this review was basically a word for word transcription of the documentary. Since Noam Chomsky already wrote a book called Manufacturing Consent, I figured that was pretty pointless. You’ll learn more about the world from watching this 167-minute movie than you will from watching a billion hours of TV news. Or at least you’ll learn why watching a billion hours of TV news won’t teach you much about the world. I’ll make this brief so you’ll have more time to check out this mind-blowing movie. Noam Chomsky is a world-renowned scientist, linguist, media analyst and one of the harshest critics of American foreign policy. The New York Times called him “the world’s most important living intellectual” and when this film was released in 1992 he was the world’s most quoted living scholar. If you’re surprised that you’ve never heard of him it’s because you’re paying too much attention to sports. If you think Chomsky’s books are too wordy… well, here’s a movie… go get edujmacated, ya big dummy!

http://www.zeitgeistfilms.com/film.php?directoryname=manufacturingconsent

Fucking PRIEST!!! Wooooooooooooooooooooh! Yeah! Preist fuckin’ rules, man!!! Fuckin’ metal!!! Yeah! PRIEST!!! PRIEST!!! PRIEST!!! Fuckin’ Judas Priest!!! Yeah! Wooooooooooh!

I learned all of these things from watching this John Heyn & Jeff Krulik’s classic documentary. If you haven’t seen Heavy Metal Parking Lot or at least heard about it, you are probably lame. You either don’t like music or don’t like movies, both of which make life on this planet bearable. I guess that would make you beyond lame, it would make you some sort of alien. Now that I’ve alienated (literally) all the book worms (pun-intended) and blog readers (insert irony here) I shall continue my fuckin’ praise of fuckin’ Heavy Metal Parking Lot cuz it fuckin’ rules.

Since you’ve already seen it you know that it’s twenty minutes of interviews with kids getting trashed out of their minds in a parking lot, before a 1986 Judas Priest concert. It’s been bootlegged so many times…the first time I saw it was by renting a bootleg video. It was probably the only bootleg that you could rent. Videos like this are the reason youtube was invented. It’s something you see & immediately want to show you’re friends.

Heavy Metal Parking Lot is also the blueprint for American Idol. It’s people making fools of themselves while waiting for the “the big event” which, is in fact, more exciting than the big event itself. When you turn the camera on the fans they suddenly turn into the stars, singing and dancing they way their heroes do on stage. When they are in such close proximity to stardom, whether waiting on line to audition for American Idol or getting wasted in a parking lot, the fans go crazy. Take away the crazy fans and there is no show, no idols…no metal gods.

“Living after midnight, rockin’ to the dawn Lovin’ til the morning, then I’m gone, I’m gone…” some wasted dude singing that in Heavy Metal Parking lot is what got me into Judas Priest.

This DVD includes over two hours of special features including all the sequels: Neil Diamond Parking Lot, Monster Truck Parking Lot and Harry Potter Parking Lot. I think Harry Potter is my favorite sequel. There’s lot’s of other stuff too, like Dub-O-Vision: a tenth VHS bootleg version of the Heavy Metal Parking Lot. I loved watching it with it subtitles, it made classic lines like “My name is Grahm…like gram of dope!” all the more memorable. It’s hard to get past watching Heavy Metal Parking Lot over and over again, so there’s probably an hour’s worth of dvd I haven’t seen yet.

http://heavymetalparkinglot.com/