Wednesday, December 29, 2010

White Label Burger @ Ai Fiori

Ai Fiori, the newest venture in the expanding Michael White empire, located in the brand spanking new Setai on Fifth Avenue, has unveiled a new burger - the White Label, courtesy of the ubiquitous Pat La Frieda gang. It could be that because I'm absolutely famished right now (and on my way to Shopsin's) that the video has got my drooling.

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Girl's Hair Catches Fire Live On Diddy's Ustream!

The National - Sorrow



Sorrow found me when I was young
Sorrow waited, sorrow won
Sorrow they put me on the pill
It's in my honey, it's in my milk

Don't leave my hyper heart alone on the water
Cover me in rag and bone sympathy
'cause I don't wanna get over you
I don't wanna get over you

Sorrow's my body on the waves
Sorrow's a girl inside my cave
I live in a city sorrow built
It's in my honey, it's in my milk

Don't leave my hyper heart alone on the water
Cover me in rag and bone sympathy
'cause I don't wanna get over you
I don't wanna get over you

Don't leave my hyper heart alone on the water
Cover me in rag and bone sympathy
'cause I don't wanna get over you
I don't wanna get over you

Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons - Beggin' (Pilooski Re-Edit)

Radiohead - My Iron Lung (Live at Reading Festival 1994)

Monday, December 13, 2010

Grinderswitch - Pickin' The Blues

Used as the theme tune for the late, great John Peel's BBC radio show, it was also included in the 1976 Festive 50 compilation.

Sunday, December 12, 2010

Skip Spence - Grey/Afro (Beck's Record Club)

Beck's Record Club is a super cool project that's been going on for some time now. Basically, it's an informal meeting of various people to record an album in a day. Many awesome interpretations have sprung from these meetings. Here's a sweet one for you. You should most definitely check out the rest of the goods.

Record Club: Skip Spence "Grey/Afro" from Beck Hansen on Vimeo.

Friday, December 10, 2010

Nate Appleman Is Now Making Burritos at Chipotle

We hardly knew yah, Nate. I've never had Chipotle. Maybe it's time to try one?

Via Grub Street:

What happened to Nate Appleman after he left Pulino’s? The answer is kind of extraordinary: A source told us that a week ago he started a corporate gig at Chipotle, and a call to the chef confirms that he’s working out of the chain’s Chelsea location. “I make burritos,” the Beard Rising Star chef says. “You can find me in the store making burritos day after day — that’s what I do.” Of course, it’s not that simple. Appleman says he’s “learning the system” with a larger goal in mind: Steve Ells has hired him full-time with an eye toward “improving the model, and focusing on cooking techniques and getting better ingredients.”

Appleman says that although he welcomed the opportunity to get out of the blogger spotlight (indeed when he heard from us, he told us “I’m not in the restaurant business anymore”), the main reason he took the gig is because it’s a larger-scale continuation of what he’s been doing his whole career, i.e., “finding good ingredients, raised the right way or grown the right way.” He tells us, “What led me to this was being able to make a change. I was just trying to figure out, ‘How can I make a difference?’ It’s one thing to be a really good chef and cook and it’s another to impact millions of people — from the farmers, ranchers, and everyone down to the 20,000 employees. As you get older and wiser, you’re looking for more fulfillment.”

Here’s hoping he finds it — this gig is pretty much the polar opposite of a star turn at a McNally joint. By the way, Appleman recently tweeted from D.C., where Chipotle is expected to open an Asian concept, but he says he won’t be involved in that.

Ryan Crosson feat. Elflein & Fox - Sunshine Wave (Original Mix)

Your weekend choon:

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

John Lennon - Watching the Wheels

(I chose to embed this video not because of the visuals, but because it was the best sound quality of the lot...)

Third and last single off of Double Fantasy:





People say I'm crazy doing what I'm doing
Well they give me all kinds of warnings to save me from ruin
When I say that I'm o.k. well they look at me kind of strange
Surely you're not happy now you no longer play the game

People say I'm lazy dreaming my life away
Well they give me all kinds of advice designed to enlighten me
When I tell them that I'm doing fine watching shadows on the wall
Don't you miss the big time boy you're no longer on the ball

I'm just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round
I really love to watch them roll
No longer riding on the merry-go-round
I just had to let it go

Ah, people asking questions lost in confusion
Well I tell them there's no problem, only solutions
Well they shake their heads and they look at me as if I've lost my mind
I tell them there's no hurry
I'm just sitting here doing time

I'm just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round
I really love to watch them roll
No longer riding on the merry-go-round
I just had to let it go
I just had to let it go
I just had to let it go

Monday, December 6, 2010

Carl Craig & Moritz von Oswald 'Movement 8' (c2 Version)

The seasons definitely play a role in the music I listen to at a particular moment in time. Sometimes that force is stronger than at other times. Today is the former. This has got a winter-vibe...at least for me. A dark and brooding storm that's cold and ominous is on its way...

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Jack White tries to close the gap between artists and fans

Recently, Jack White set up an Ebay auction for paid subscribers to his record label's (Third Man Records) membership program, known as The Vault. It's created quite a bit of backlash for the high amount that the wining bidders cast for limited edition vinyl versions of the self-titled White Stripes reissue (five in total).

In an effort for artists to fight back against flippers and scalpers, White retorts those who have voiced complaint at the high cost that Third Man Records directly sold and tries to elucidate his reasoning in doing this in the first place.

It's interesting to see a major player in the music industry try to stifle the huge resellers market (something that I've had to deal with many times when buying vinyl to my chagrin...I understand it's just a matter of supply and demand). In any case, Antiquiet has the whole lowdown here. Article is below:

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In a rather immediate act of self-justification on Monday afternoon, Jack White responded directly to fans’ backlash against an eBay auction hosted by his own Third Man Records for one of five coveted copies of The White Stripes‘ first album reissue, on the double-colored vinyl edition set for extremely limited release in select stores and TMR’s Nashville store on Tuesday.

For nearly every TMR release, there’s an accompanying rare special edition. White’s voracious international fanbase spends batshit crazy amounts of money for these gems as soon as they hit eBay, fueling a black market ruled by “flippers,” record scalpers snatching up every triple-colored vinyl for quick, fat profits.

Yesterday, Mr. White decided to turn the situation to his advantage (if not the fans’), altering the dynamic of music profiteering in the process. Rather than challenge the futility of attempting to blockade the rampant inflation, he shifted the goods himself and stiffed the middleman.

Paid subscribers of TMR’s The Vault were directed to an eBay page with open auctions for copies of the limited edition vinyl version of the self-titled White Stripes reissue. Within an hour, all 5 auctions were above $100 each, and a small shitstorm of comments began to erupt on The Vault, when, suddenly, Jack White joined the site’s chatroom with a handbasket-gripping introduction of “See you in hell?” and explained, quite simply, why the hell there were people paying 500 bucks for a record you have to crack open to listen to: “Supply & demand.”

The simple nature behind all the profiteering on eBay is that people pay as much as they can for a record they want. As Jack said, “nobody told them to buy it with a gun to their head.” The records are expensive because the fans make them expensive. When a fan tried to argue that people with “more money than sense” were to blame, Jack retorted: “Or are they just paying what the going rate is?” White explained: ”We sell a Wanda Jackson split record for 10 bucks, the eBay flipper turns around and sells it for 300. If 300 is what it’s worth, then why doesn’t Third Man Records sell it for 300? If we sell them for more, the artist gets more, the flipper gets nothing. We’re not in the business of making flippers a living. We’re in the business of giving fans what they want.”

Arguably sound logic. When Jack was pushed about the integrity of this move, he responded: “Integrity? What are we doing that doesn’t have integrity? You’re the ones telling us what they are worth.” Though it might not seem fair to make the colored vinyls so difficult to attain, as he put it, if everyone could get their hands on a limited vinyl, it wouldn’t be limited. For the people who aren’t able to, they have “the black vinyl UNlimited version.”

Closing the conversation, Jack reassured fans that “[Third Man] is on your side don’t forget,” and a promising “see you soon.” The money will roll right in, of course, and in today’s shifting music paradigm, it’s a fascinating thing to see such a highly renowned artist beating the devils at their own game. At least those with the pockets and arguable insanity to pay so much for the music will be directly funding the artist, and not the peripheral parasites feeding on fandom. But we’re not holding any illusions that the vinyl will ever see a record player.

Read the full context of Jack’s comments at The Little Room.

UPDATE: Jack later returned to the site and responded further, directly to reader comments, in a fiery exchange which you can read below, in all his unedited lowercase glory.

Fan: Alright? Is this a big FU or something to vault members?! I ran home all excited to see what was going to be posted and this is it?! Seriously this is a bunch of crap. I pay my membership and have really got nothing extrodinary for it in return really?

Jack: you’ve gotten NOTHING extraordinary in return? i’d have to disagree with you, as the records you’ve received you can ONLY get with a vault membership. i won’t bore you with online content and free giveaways, and first admission privileges, etc. but are you saying you aren’t getting rare records at a price that’s at least a third of what they go for on, oh i don’t know ….ebay?

Fan: Well I think it’s official this is my last Vault experience. Really nothing on here worth paying for anymore. Think you get something special with a message, but it’s really just a link to fan exploitation.

Jack: fan exploitation? really? if you don’t want it, DONT BUY IT. and if you do want it, don’t act like you DON’T want it. get in line like anyone else, hunt for it like anyone else. you act like we bury them in tunnels in vietnam for god sakes, you can get one randomly in the mail if your lucky, in line at a store if you’re lucky, in your hometown if you’re lucky, etc. who is guaranteed a rare hard to find record? only vault members and their quarterly subscriptions. there’s luck in every other version.

Fan: Fuck you, Third Man.

Jack: really? you think we deserve that? would you like us to just stop making limited edition records? you would go so far as to say fuck you to us? for what? we didn’t do anything to you but give you what you want. you’re a vault member obviously, for what reason? limited records you can’t get elsewhere? would you kindly send us those records back so we can sell them to some other fan who didn’t get to have them? don’t want a split colored limited edition record? then guess what? don’t buy one. don’t want them to be expensive? then guess what? don’t WANT them. it’s you and others wanting them that dictates the price and the entire nature of the idea.

make no mistake, we could make twenty thousand split color whatevers for you, and they’ll be worth 20 bucks, and you’ll pay 20 bucks for them, and you’ll never talk about them, desire them, hunt to find them, etc. why should ebay flippers, who are not real fans, dictate the price, make all the profit (taken from the artist and the label) and take the records out of the hands of real fans. there’s a guy who waits in a black suv down the block from third man who hires homeless people to go buy him tri colors when they are on sale. doesn’t even get out of his car. should he be charged ten bucks or two hundred? don’t be spoiled, don’t insult people who are trying to give you what you want. last quarter every vault member got a black and blue live record. a record you’re only supposed to get if you ACTUALLY GO to a live show at third man. are you pissed about that?

we’ve done giveaways, contests, auctions, etc. a lot of different ways for vault members to get first crack at limited records when we don’t have to. we do it because by being a member you’re supposedly making a statement that you’re a real fan who wants the music, and to be involved in collecting rare and interesting vinyl. from some of these comments i take it that a lot of you would like this to be all digital, available to anyone on amazon dot com, anytime. boring, lifeless, lazy, and redundant. don’t get mad at third man for giving you exactly what you’ve asked for. and seriously stop all of the whining, because what you communicate to us is that all of the trouble we go to isn’t worth it because nothing we do will make you happy. we’ll try to do back rubs door to door when we get a chance. sincerely the staff at third man records.