Making Flippy Floppy

This weekend I discovered that someone's got a very nice pirate radio station going on here somewhere in the downtown CDA area at 88.1 FM. I can hear it just fine from my house but I doubt its reach is very far, it comes in and out driving around town. Great music, amazing variety...listening for an hour tonight I heard everything from The Shirelles to the Dead Kennedys to Jefferson Airplane to Public Enemy to Bjork to Primus to Bob Dylan. I other words, delightfully all over the map. I heard virtually no commercials or announcer interruptions at all, so it's a total mystery who's in charge, and a Google search brought up no clues. Anyone know anything about this too-cool-for-Idaho radio station?

I was pretty amazed to even find out there WAS a video for this 1978 electro-punk classic by Daniel Miller, the first ever release on his Mute Records. It's exactly perfect: lo-budget, eerie, and fantastic.

Unless you've lived in Seattle or Rome, chances are you've never had an Amy Denio experience. Denio (rhymes with "Ohio" or "gennaio") is a composer, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist (voice, accordion, saxophone, clarinet, bass, guitar) and veteran home taper based in Seattle, WA. She started her label Spoot Music in 1986, with the release of her first cassette release, No Bones. Since then, she's recorded & released other cassettes, LPs, and 28 CDs created solo and with an array of international musicians. Amy always has 18-and-a-half projects going on at once, including scoring ballets and touring the Italian countryside. I was introduced to the world of Denio via her 2nd self-released cassette Never Too Old To Pop A Hole(1988) during a stay in Seattle with my friends Bear and Jen who had it playing on a loop the entire time. I fell in love and searched for years for a copy of that tape, but never did. A few years later I happened upon copies of her later CDs Tongues (1993) and Birthing Chair Blues (1989), both brilliant, and when her Greatest Hits compilation (1999) came out, it was Amy-mania for months. I saw her perform twice with the insane Billy Tipton Memorial Sax Quartet, and even lived down the street from her in Madrona for a while, totally enthralled as her tiny frame would shuffle past my window: "Oh my god! Look - it's Amy Denio". Needless to say, Amy is a goddess I place in the upper echelon with Bjork, Liz Fraser, and Kate Bush, and I always wondered when the world outside of Seattle would discover her. I think Amy consciously shies away from the mainstream, preferring to continue doing things her own idiosyncratic way and remain a local secret. A few years ago, I finally found a copy of Never Too Old To Pop A Hole on CDR via her own website, Spoot Music. (You can purchase nearly everything she's done directly from her and for some truly reasonable prices - $5-$10). Impressively, on all her solo recordings, Amy records nearly every note herself in the fusty old corner of her bedroom...

• Isn't an avocado nice when it gets just ripe enough you can smear it on a nice piece of toasty french bread like green butter? Fattening and decadent...
• I'd like to think that my grocery deli sushi habit is lo-cal and somehow healthul and good for the diet but I have a hunch one of those packages is about the same as a Double Whopper or something typically fast-food and beefy like that...
• Speaking of sushi, looks like former Takara chef Viljo Basso's new place Syringa Japanese Cafe is a hit. I've peeped in there a few times to see the formerly cursed building hustling and bustling. I haven't heard any first-hand reports back yet, and I haven't had the extra time or dollars to check it out myself, but when I do expect a full review.
• I'm a fan of shrinking portions. I think everyone started getting fat when the food industry decided to come out with huge packages and portions and we just responded by eating more. That's why it's nice that Easy Mac comes in a wee envelope containing just enough of the classic orange stuff to do the trick. I used to be able to eat a whole box of the normal "slow"mac-n-cheese, now I find just one pack of Easy Mac fills me up...
• Plain ol' Albertsons Spice Drops. Who knew? They're fat free and they pack a lot of sweet-tooth sugar power. They're kind of rich and I can only eat about 5 at a time before I feel sick, and this huge bag has lasted me the whole month. Perfect!
• I had a reader inquire about the Sunset Grill here in CDA and they were wondering if the Hawaiian plate lunch cafe sold Spam Musubi and Loco Moco and yes, indeed they do! I have never tried either dish, and honestly I'm not so sure how hot I am to give them a whirl. Spam Musubi is basically fried Spam Sushi, and Loco Moco consists of white rice topped with a hamburger patty, a fried egg, and brown gravy. No wonder many Hawaiians are a bit on the, um...plump side.
• Rancid sugary brown liquid alert: Berries-n-Cream Dr. Pepper. Ugh. Whoever it was that decided it was neccessary to ruin the good Doctor's reputation with this swill should be cast away on the same desert island as the evil mastermind behind Blue Pepsi. It's pointlessly gimmicky and insulting to the consumer. The main issue is that it really tastes nothing the promised ingredients (berries, cream) but more like a very flat regular Pepper with a spike of Robitussin and aspartame. It's bitter and it's dark, not refreshing in the least, and has an aftertaste like Palmolive which requires perhaps a good burboun to kill.
• Vegetable of the moment: Sweet potatoes sliced thin as possible, spread on a cookie sheet, sprinkled with olive oil and salt and baked until crispy. So easy to make and surprisingly tasty and filling, I promise.

MySpace has really opened up the world wide web to a whole new wacky world of homemade music. I do a lot of "scouting" on MySpace, looking for potential artists for my net label Flexible Records and it takes a lot to phase me. But every now and then I come across something so out there and whacked that it makes my jaw drop in amazement. I present to you the neon-soaked gay drama of Freddy "Flamingo" Sinsations, who lists his place of residence as Miami (where else?) but came up in a search for Spokane artists... From the diet-Prince vocal effects and keyboard riff to the insane delight of the lyrics to the mid-sentence cutoff at the end, there are many wonders to behold here in this 1 1/2 minuite long flamimg flamingo fantasy world..."I like pink flamingos/I love their legs / I love to eat burritos all damn day/so dance/dance..."

He beached his barque in a place where the bird would easily find it; but the hat was such a great success that she abandoned the nest. It drifted about till it went to pieces, and often Starkey came to the shore of the lagoon, and with many bitter feelings watched the bird sitting on his hat. As we shall not see her again, it may be worth mentioning here that all Never birds now build in that shape of nest, with a broad brim on which the youngsters take an airing. "It was exactly as if someone were pulling my hair"

After lingering on my SoulSeek wishlist for as long as I can remember, I finally found a download of Neil's Heavy Concept Album. In fact, I've been looking for a copy of this on any format for a long time, pretty much ever since watching The Young Ones late Sunday Nights at 2AM, for my entire teenagerhood. Pleased to say it's actually a fun listen and the music aged surprisingly well. Long out of print in any country, this one deserves the royal re-issue treatment. Neil - My White Bicycle (mp3 4.06MB, 128 kbps)

(First in a series of prose/poems created by cutting and pasting select phrases from the daily spam in my email. Might as well put that junk to use somehow...) Mandy bright takes anal attack. Bullseye in diffusion, Singapore see Allemand in chaplain be snow! Abdominal in apprehension, In cartoon not raspberry. May rim see riot on change on white. See asexual, try jetliner. Behold! the birds are gathering back again, to the Mountain and to Dale from South and East, and West, for word has gone out that Smaug is dead! Dead! Dead? shouted the dwarves. Cash be chinch in succubus may restitution and rectory, Floury try chameleon may birdwatch! Sue Diamond -leggy blond enticing a merchant prince. Are you sitting there bored or just sick of the one you're with?

I haven't had a lot of extra cashflow for CD's of late, but I'd better update my ongoing list here before I lose track...This covers April and May (so far)... 53. Placebo - Meds (Hastings CDA, new $18.99) - An excellent album, and an improvement on the last few Placebo albums, it comes with a bonus DVD featuring a cool documentary, some unreleased tracks, and a must-have clip of the band performing "If Only Tonight We Could Sleep" with The Cure on French TV last year. 54. Ladytron - Extended Play (Hastings CDA, new $11.99) - I can't get enough of the trend of putting fun video extra stuff on a DVD and including it as a bonus disc with a CD, especially when the price is this good. The CD has some okay remixes and even better b-sides, but the DVD is where its at, with a really cool arty mini-documentary about Ladytrons tour of China last year. Cool! 55. Magnapop - Magnapop (Pawn 1, Spokane Valley, used $2.00) - I'd forgotten about this grunge era sugarpop band who piqued my interest on 120 Minutes, if I recall. Many years later, it's mine. 56. Love and Rockets - Earth Sun Moon (Pawn 1, Spokane Valley, used $2.00) - The first 4 L&R albums are underrated classics. This is such a great album with my faves "Mirror People" and "The Telephone Is Empty." I miss Daniel Ash's hair. 57. Erasure - I Say I Say I Say (Hastings CDA, used $4.99) 58. Erasure - Erasure (Hastings CDA, used $5.99) 59. Erasure - Cowboy (Hastings CDA, used $4.99) 60. Erasure - Nightbird (Hastings CDA, used $5.99) The new Erasure "Union Street" sent me on a bit of an Erasure kick one day. I actually owned most of these at some point but sold them used long ago. Thankfully, goog old Hastings was overflowing with used Erasure discs. I think I have all their CDs now, except 2, which is really something, I think. 61. Various Artists - Declaration of Independence (Pawn 1 CDA, used $3.00) - It's an NME freebie sampler of Domino records and includes Franz Ferdinand, Pavement, The Kills, and Fourtet among others. Decent comp. 62. The Dresden Dolls - Yes, Virginia (Target CDA, new $9.99) - I dunno how this ended up as a featured sale title at Target. It's grandiose and vulgar, gothic and melodramatic. Who knew that such a melodious racket could come from just drums and piano, plus the haughty bellow of Amanda Palmer, who is Sally from "Nightmare Before Christmas" personified as Tori Amos, complete with weird, tattooed-on eyebrows. I saw them perform a few songs on Craig Kilbourne randomly the other night, and was instantly smitten. Brilliant album! 63. David Bowie - David Live (Hastings CDA, used $5.99) - OK, I admit I already owned the Rykodisc version of this 1974 Double CD chestnut featuring the famous shot of Dave looking coked-out and cadaverous. But the price was right for this 2005 re-issue which restores the song order to it's original concert track listing. 64. The Rolling Stones - Let it Bleed (Hastings CDA, used $5.99) - Used Stones CD's are really hard to find, and I'm on a mission to eventually own them all. 65. Revolting Cocks - Beers, Steers, and Queers (Hastings CDA, used $5.99) - This is a 2004 reissue of this classic chunk of industrial sleaze-funk. 66. Various Artists - Compounds & Elements (Hastings CDA, new $2.99) - Super low priced, and beautifully packaged, this All Saints label comp is heavy on the Brian Eno, Roger Eno, and Harold Budd.

Photo Montage by Patrick

Hide your kitties' eyes. Here's a rather surreal and mundanely entertaining video in which hundreds of Leonberger dogs take over downtown Coeur d'Alene for no explainable reason. I can't believe these people got away with dragging their mutts through the Resort Shops without being harassed by a HagaCop. I love how all these dogs seem like they're about ready to rip each others throats out, and the owners seem to find it cute.