Making Flippy Floppy

I'm always hunting hither and yon for obscure New Wave music from the original 80's era, and just when I think I've turned up every rock, something else wriggles out of the mildewy corner. A famous Google search turned up scant information, but from what I gathered the story runs like this: Xex were a band from South River, New Jersey, just south of Sayreville (the home of Jon Bon Jovi.) They formed in 1980, made up of a young woman and three or four fairly dainty young men, playing nutso synth-pop entirely on "electronic instruments -- synthesizers, arps, computers" without any record industry veneer whatsoever. Little evidence of their existence remains but a blurry live photo and an enthusiastic review in a college newspaper. They had one album titled group: xex that was rediscovered a few years back by a DJ at NY's famed KCMU while cleaning out the record shelves. This led to a very limited CD reissue on some obscure, tiny label and swiftly sank out of print again. I happened to accidentaly chance upon this track on a p2p network, now I'm obsessed with finding my very own copy. It's a real synth chestnut, totally oddball and messed up and sounding like a Jersey version of the B-52's meets The Normal. Worth noting is what sounds like some type of crazy prototype record scratching (but may be just a dying drum machine) which continually pop loudly into the mix, and the vaguely Communist lyrics. As usual, if anyone has any more info about this lost classic, let me know.

Since Ling-Ling's collar bell fell off a few weeks ago it's been dead bird hell around this house. Without the gentle but effective tinkle to scare them away they're going down, and fast. It started with a bang when one evening she brought in a terrible, withery looking thing, just a baby chick, dead and cold and placed it under my feet at my desk. I don't know why I always get mad because the cat just glares at me with prideful detachment as she wanders away, suddenly disinterested, leaving me to deal with the carnage. And I do, carefully picking up the poor thing with plastic grocery bags, then tied tight and taken out all the way to the alley trash. An hour or so later it happened again like deja vu, and since she has been known to somehow get in the alley trash and bring them back for a return visit, I assumed this is what happened. Imagine my horror when I discovered the other dead bird was still there. This struck me as odd because usually it just takes one bird for her to get her daily fix. Flash foward a few hours and it's bedtime. I crawl in and the cat comes in the room and hops up all cute and purring as I settle into a magazine. Imagine my delight when I got up to get some water and another very dead baby bird is lolling about the floor beside my bed. I'm swiftly losing my patience as I once again dispose of the critter and shut any and all doors and windows to make sure she doesn't get out and kill again, at least for the night. 5:15 AM and the sun's already creeping in as I wake up to go pee. I move my foot under the covers and feel something odd down there. "No..." I think, "It can't be..." and it is - the final withery dead baby bird dragged into my actual bed as I slept and placed lovingly so with, and I'm not making this up, a few green leaves placed next to it, as if Ling Ling were creating a culinary masterpiece complete with garnish. I realized that she must have had at least the last one stashed in the house somewhere since there was no way she could have gotten out. Suddenly queasy, I got rid of the damn thing and stayed up the rest of the night watching TV, rattled and unable to sleep. Since then she's been pretty much back to her bird-a-day habit, mostly small ugly ones, but the other day she dragged a huge black bird half her size up onto the porch! Tonight she came in with one still flapping around in her mouth and just dropped it off here under my desk, not even bothering to kill the poor thing. I think it must've had a bit of a wing problem since it couldn't really get off the ground, but it was mainly in shock. It limped over in the corner and I couldn't see any bloody wounds or anything too awful. The poor creature was clacking and panting and looked at me with untrusting beady black eyes. What on earth does one do? Certainly I wasn't about to name it something cutesy and devote my life to nursing the poor thing back to health, (although the thought did cross my mind) but I was afraid to just throw it outside where Miss Lady Killer would surely make short work out of finishing it off. I scooped it up in a box and put the box on the porch with just a small hole, thinking that might protect it from the cats and it could leave when it wanted to. "You gotta fend for yourself, kid - good luck, " I told the poor bird, whose current status remains unkown. I wouldn't be surprised if I saw it again by tomorrow morning, this time not looking quite so hot. Reminder to self - get a new bell for Ling Ling's collar before she brings Asian Bird Flu into my house.

Isn't there just something delightfully warm and fuzzy about this photo of Quincy, Granny Sally, and the dogs? The photographer really manages to get everyone looking right at the camera, even the dogs...

The new Peaches leaked onto the web today and naturally, I was right on top of that one. Impeach My Bush is a Peaches record through and through, no major artistic change of direction - just pure juicy in-your-face Peach nastiness exactly how we like it. Her 808 electro sound remains intact but the sonic pallete is richer thanks to the excellent co-production work of Mickey Petralia (Beck, Ladytron). Tracks bump and pump, hitting the brain's pleasure center like a long lost Vanity 6 album. Of course, there are also a couple of full-on rock stompers including the barn-burning "You Love It" which features the legendary Joan Jett on guitar. I nearly peed my pants the first time I heard the raunchy rhymes and mind-blowing double-time rap of "Slippery Dick" and the chorus "Slippery Dick / It's just a fish in the Atlantic" put me in tears. I had to listen to it three times in a row before I could carry on with the rest of the album. Pottymouth Peaches remains ironic and iconic, straddling that thin line between low and high brow in a detachedly perverse way only previously achieved by her pal John Waters. Impeach My Bush is massive and addictive.

(Woah. This one came to me complete, as-is, at the bottom of a spam for soft-Cialis. I can dig it.) nose-shy milo maize near-dwelling Mohave apache passage bird Nodus secundus passion-torn orchid pink noble-natured old-established oat-crushing pay-all orange-tailed patent medicine non-natty nut grass Pan-sclavonian mouse-eared mosquito boat milch cow passion-guided Non-malay narrow-mindedness methylene iodide nail making paddle-shaped neuter passive nose-shy parliament hinge Non-anglican mulct law mid-flight mutation pressure orient pink navy board multiple-toothed mochi wood money-spelled non-pros mid-crowd oatlike grass mis-pen nitta tree page proof ore miner mind blindness orange aurora new-wrought open-chested olive mangrove much-valued oil bushing one-two new-apparel net value neutral point nest egg olive-backed thrush nurse crop oval-lanceolate ore handler mining engineering old-gold paper-cutting patina green one-word milk-yielding open-spacedly musculocutaneous nerve peacock-voiced njave oil ninety-seven mid-walk mist-impelling Pan-latin mid-length peace-preaching peak load much-admired moldy nose night-clad Navy list ostrich-feather odd-humored nut buoy one-acter