Sacred Reichman (whoa, watch out!) / Hot Heat

happy to report the arrival of composer/accordionist/pianist/world-class wit Ted Reichman into the blog land. i interviewed Ted as part of a program on Skirl Records on this "Time Out"-related internet-radio dealie (show's not up yet, but i'll post the link when it is) the other day and he mentioned that he had a blog and since he's one of the drollest, most insightful dudes i've encountered, i was immediately intrigued. he was sort of reticent about letting me know the address (a symptom that seems to be common to early-stage bloggists--i can relate: i was sorta dipping my toe into the thing until Steve Smith pushed me into the deep end by linking from his page. and i do thank him for that nudge, btw, so hopefully Ted will feel similarly grateful...), but now he's come through with it and the site's as fun as i would've hoped.

if you spend five minutes with Ted, you know he's the kind of guy you'd want to hear ramble on a blog. aside from being an awesome musician--check out his new disc, "My Ears Are Bent" on Skirl; it's a beautiful, eccentric and subtle record that exists in some harmonious nether-region between meticulous pop, electronica, jazz and classical music--he's just a really witty dude and extremely knowledgable on a lot of topics. one of the highlights of the radio show was his description of Chris Speed's Clarinets project as a kind of "brain tonic." in short, his reasons for liking and/or disliking things are very particular and that seems to be what makes for interesting writing on art.

anyway, enough of my jibber-jabbering; check out the dang site, Surviving the Crunch, at your leisure. i really enjoyed the post on the new Pynchon book, which includes a description of the sociological baggage of reading Pynchon in public, and Ted's take on "The Departed," which he analyzes from a sound design point of view (appropriate, b/c he works in film scoring).

so give him a look, will ya?

*****






as i'm preparing to compose my yearly top 10 for "Time Out," i'm getting waaaaaaay back into the This Heat box. holy cripes, they just kill it so hard. "Horizontal Hold"--any version will do, but i prefer the one from the Peel Sessions--pretty much obviates the entire noise-rock, industrial and even No Fun movements with its sheer crushing weight of rusty distortion. listening to that track is like slowly suffocating in a frigid warehouse.

i have one slot on the top 10 that i'm not sure how to fill. should it go to Mastodon? i'd like it to, but my interest in "Blood Mountain" drove off a cliff a few months ago: i listened to it like 700 times in the first several weeks i had it and now i feel like i never want to hear it again. that's happened to me a lot w/ Mastodon--i'm just as likely to find them tedious as brilliant. i dunno, i guess we'll see in a week when i'll be forced to make up my mind.