Blog Archives
Anklepants
(Photo by Maren Michaelis)
Ever since Daft Punk strapped on their cyborg motorcycle helmets, it seems like every electronic artist from Deadmau5 to the Bloody Beetroots has felt the need to liven up their act with some kind of crazy mask or helmet or headdress thingie. But how many electronic artists can you name with an animatronic penis where their nose should be? As of today, you can name one: Anklepants.
The man behind the Anklepants mask is Dr Reecard Farché, aka Josh Head, whose day job is working in the special effects industry, designing latex models, prosthetics and animatronics. His credits include Where the Wild Things Are, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and one of my favorite weird movies of all time, The Host, a Korean monster movie that you should Netflix this instant if you haven’t already seen it. (Seriously, stick that bad boy in your Netflix queue. I’ll wait.) His skills in this area explain how creepily lifelike Anklepants’ wrinkled visage is, as well as how his penis-nose is able to waggle around seemingly with a mind of its own (watch the video below, you’ll see what I mean).
But enough about Anklepants’ prosthetic schnoz. How’s the music, you ask? Well, that’s pretty fucking out there, too. If you cruise over to his Soundcloud page, you’ll hear some bizarre spins on techno, dubstep and drum ‘n’ bass with titles like “I Took Candy From a Baby” and (deep breath) “InsideyourfacedubstepbeanstalktoheavenfortheAtheist.” Dude’s definitely not coasting on his visual effects skills.
Anklepants’ live show looks pretty fun, too. He uses a custom cordless microphone with all sorts of buttons and presets that distort his voice in various interesting ways, and he seems to enjoy getting out from behind his gear to run around the audience, even when that audience is a bit scattered and obviously really confused by what they’re seeing.
So here’s the video for “[speak you little facehead],” which features Anklepants and his similarly faced sidekick (who also apparently sometimes doubles as a pole dancer at his live shows) tripping balls after devouring a bunch of plastic toys that have been melted in a microwave. Actually, we’re not really sure what’s going on in this video, but we’ve definitely never seen anything like it. Which coming from us is saying something.
Links:
- Anklepants on MySpace
- Anklepants on Facebook
- Anklepants/Reecard Farché on Bandcamp
- Anklepants on Soundcloud
- Qwerty Records official site (Anklepants’ label)
- Squat Club on Bandcamp (Josh Head’s prog-rock project)
The Zambonis
Full disclosure: I have never liked hockey. Maybe it’s because I grew up in upstate New York, where hockey was rammed down every boy’s throat like a puck made of broken teeth and bruises. And yeah, okay, I was forced to play in the Squirt and Pee Wee leagues, and I sucked. So that may have something to do with it.
But The Zambonis are almost great enough to make me a hockey fan. Almost.
Started way back in 1991 in Connecticut (R.I.P., Whalers), The Zambonis are the world’s only hockey-themed rock band. Now you might think this is a somewhat limited genre to work within, and frankly, you’d be right. But somehow, against all odds, these dudes are getting ready to release their sixth—sixth!—album, Five Minute Major (In D Minor), on Feb. 14th. Just in time for Valentine’s Day! Because nothing says romance better than songs like “I Got a Concussion (When I Fell for You).”
The Zambonis have built up a pretty decent following among puckheads over the years. They’ve played the NHL All-Star Game twice, written a theme song for the Boston Bruins (“To Bleed Black and Gold”) and even got their song “Hockey Monkey” used as the theme music for The Loop, a short-lived Fox sitcom. The illustrious Jonathan Richman once called them “a beach party on ice.” We like to think of them more as Weezer with mouthguards. They don’t take themselves or their music too seriously (how could they, really?), but most of it is catchy as all get-out.
Side note: Founding Zamboni Dave Schneider is something of a specialist in the art of Extremely Specific Rock Bands. He’s also the co-creator (with Adam Gardner of Guster) of The LeeVees, a band that only writes songs about Hanukkah. And no, it’s not actually all that weird to be both Jewish and into hockey.
Second side note: Believe it or not, the makers of the Zamboni® ice resurfacers actually sent a cease and desist to The Zambonis in 1998. After some legal wrangling, Zamboni® finally let The Zambonis license the name—and, we sincerely hope, granted their wish and finally let them drive an actual Zamboni.
Now, if you’re not already sick of all this hockey talk, why don’t you watch The Zambonis’ latest video, “I’m a Puck.” It’s got a cool sort of NRBQ/Brian Setzer/rockabilly vibe that we’re digging. Maybe it’s…puckabilly? (Ouch. Feel free to cross-check me into the boards for that one.)
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Otto von Schirach
(Photo by Sarah Sitkin)
Today’s weird artiste has been suggested to us by several folks over the years, most recently a reader named voodoojuice (not his real name, we assume…otherwise, he probably has to repeat it several times at parties). He’s a breakcore artist from Miami named Otto von Schirach, and even in a genre of music that’s pretty much all lunatics, he stands out as being extra wackadoodle.
Before we talk about Otto and his mythological origins, let’s back up a sec and talk about breakcore. A mid-’90s offshoot of hardcore techno and “IDM” (aka “intelligent dance music”…one of those genre names so obnoxious, I can only type it in quotation marks), breakcore basically lays an unholy mishmash of distorted kick drums and snare hits, gangsta rap and horror movie samples, dive-bombing bass lines and death growl vocals over breakbeats that have been chopped up and sped up to the point where the only logical way to dance to them is to fake an epileptic seizure. It’s not for the faint-hearted.
You can get a peek at several breakcore artists in action—including Von Schirach—in this excellent video, which was apparently done for some German television show. It’s mostly in German, but you don’t really need to understand what anyone’s saying to figure out that these breakcore producers and their fans are fucking nuts.
So, back to Otto von Schirach. According to his official bio, Von Schirach was born in 1978 in Miami or possibly dropped off by aliens and introduced into a Cuban/German family that included santeria practictioners and possibly wolves. He acquired his first drum machine in either 1991 or 1995, possibly from a neighborhood crackhead. Soon thereafter, he began making beats, which were decidedly breakcore-esque but slowed-down and strongly influenced by Miami booty bass, goregrind and IDM O.G.’s like Aphex Twin.
Von Schirach’s first big “break” (breakcore pun!) came when he got to open for the industrial band Skinny Puppy in 2003. According to one bio, “He scared the living shit out of all the Skinny Puppy fans night after night with his 35 minute, 3 costume change, ear punishing dance party.” That might sound far-fetched, but we’ve met a few Skinny Puppy fans and underneath all the black clothing and piercings, they’re a pretty skittish bunch. So it’s quite possible that Otto’s unique “spin” (DJ pun!) on breakcore really did freak them out.
That spin, as heard on albums with fantastic titles like Global Speaker Fisting and Oozing Bass Spasms, combines elements of (and again, we’re just quoting from the official bio here) “Electro Bass Noise, Gore Grind, IDM Glitch, Calliope, Breakcore Gabber Jungle, Gangsta Rap.” And as if all that weren’t enough to blow your mind, he’s also been known to perform in a superhero costume. We foresee a future Sir Ivan collaboration.
P.S. The track in the clip below is called “Teabagging the Dead.” Awesome.
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Dir En Grey
(Photo: angst-im-wald)
What’s up, weirdos? Sorry I’ve been letting Andy hog the site lately with his weak-ass indie pop hipster shit. I promise we will tilt the balance back in favor of punk, noise and metal in the weeks ahead. (Organic veggie instruments, dude? Really? But I digress.)
This week’s band was suggested by a reader named Kurtis, who reminded us that there’s more to Japan than Lady Gaga wannabes wearing headdresses made out of popcorn. Japan has also produced its fair share of pretty extreme and seriously awesome metal over the years, and Dir En Grey is about as extreme and awesome as it gets.
Dir En Grey have been around since the late ’90s and changed both their look and their sound several times over the years (Japanese bands seem to get bored with staying in one genre for too long–see also, ironically, Boredoms). They started out as a “visual kei” band, which basically meant hard rock with lots of elaborate costumes, crazy visuals and music videos that were a mix of anime, goth and cyberpunk. They’ve since toned down their image a bit (hence the biker gang look seen above, circa 2007), but their music has, if anything, gotten weirder. Their latest album, Dum Spiro Spero, kind of sounds like Tool meets My Chemical Romance meets Queensryche meets Napalm Death: alt-metal, screamo, grindcore and prog rock all fighting it out like superheroes in a Japanese action comic, with lead singer Kyo’s crazy vocals (dude can death-growl with the best of them, then unleash an operatic falsetto close to Mike Patton’s) leading the way.
But where Dir En Grey’s weirdness really shines is in their videos, some of which are disturbing enough to make Rob Zombie sleep with the light on. You know how the original Ring was 10 times scarier than pretty much any American horror movie ever? Well, your average Dir En Grey clip makes Marilyn Manson look like Mr. Rogers. Warning: You may need to increase your Xanax dosage after viewing this.
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Twink
Lots of bands use toy instruments in their music, but few do it with as much dedication as Mike Langlie, the man behind Twink, the Toy Piano Band. Since 1999, Mike has been using his growing collection of toy pianos and other gear you’d more likely find at Toys R Us rather than Guitar Center to crank out seven albums’ worth of surprisingly diverse music. Given that Langlie himself calls this stuff “toytronica,” “cartoon pop,” or even “cutetronica,” you might assume it all sounds like it ought to be coming out of an ice cream truck. And yeah, some of it does. But much of it’s also funny, creepy and occasionally beautiful. Turns out these toys aren’t strictly for kids.
Mike was kind enough to send us a copy of his latest album, Itsy Bits & Bubbles, which is about as fun-loving and candy-colored as its title, although there’s a surprisingly strong bottom end to some of the tracks, too—I think it’s safe to say the man’s been listening to some dubstep. He’s also posted videos for most (all?) of the new album’s tracks, all built around cleverly edited vintage black-and-white cartoons. Here’s one of our favorites, for a truly twisted track called “Flibberty Gibbet.” Wonder if any DJs spin this type of stuff at Electric Daisy Carnival? If they don’t, they really should.
Bonus factoid: Among the various labels that have released Twink’s music over the years is Seeland, the label run by Weird List veterans Negativland. Told ya this stuff ain’t just for kids.
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tUnE-yArDs
Okay, so I know I made a big production on New Year’s Day about how we were gonna start having Weird Wednesdays as the day to unveil our Weird Band of the Week–and by the time 99% of you see this, it won’t be Wednesday anymore. Bear with us, okay? We’re still getting used to this whole operating on a regular schedule thing.
So anyway, our first weird band of 2012 is actually more of a solo project. Her name is Merrill Garbus and she operates under the name Tune-Yards…or, as she prefers to type it out, like a 14-year-old in an AOL chat room, tUnE-yArDs. Which right away should tell you that we’re dealing someone a little off-center here.
Fortunately, Merrill’s music is much less annoying than her usual of capital letters. She recorded her first album, Bird-Brains (okay, fine, BiRd-BrAiNs) at home on a voice recorder, multi-tracking her vocals along with some very lo-fi percussion and the occasional guitar, bass, ukulele and hard-to-identify racket. Her music is at once abstract and somehow very pop, with lots of pretty layered vocals and the occasional soul shout–seriously, this woman can belt like Nina Simone, with a force that kind of catches you off-guard when it’s rising up out of all this primitive, home-tape murk. It doesn’t seem like that voice can possibly be coming out of this funny-looking, slightly androgynous hippie art student chick–but there it is, and she totally owns it. Merrill Garbus is fierce.
What’s even more amazing is that, thanks to getting signed to this uber-hip indie label 4AD Records and getting written up all the blogs that are way cooler than, say, us (i.e. Pitchfork, Drowned in Sound, Coke Machine Glow), Merrill Garbus and tUnE-yArDs have become sort of indie famous. The video for her song “Bizness,” off her second and far more polished album, Whokill (okay, fine, w h o k i l l), has racked up over 1.8 million views on YouTube. For something as peculiar as tUnE-yArDs to be seen and heard by that many people…well, it kind of renews our faith in the power of weirdness.
I was really hoping we could embed the video for “Real Live Flesh” off tUnE-yArDs’ first album, because it’s by far the weirdest thing Merrill Garbus has ever done–a sort of dykey, art-school send-up of video vixen come-hitherness with lots of face paint and awkward editing and even more awkward dancing all set to a song that’s like an R&B slow jam getting shaken around inside an empty coffee can. But embedding seems to have been disabled on that video, so we’ll have to settle for the video for “Bizness,” which is actually okay because if we can help get it to 2 million views, we’ll have done our part. Also, if you haven’t already, you should go check out our first-ever Weirdify playlist, because the tUnE-yArDs track “You Yes You” is the first song in the mix and it will make you feel grateful to have been blessed with the power of hearing. No seriously, it’s that good.
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