two main listens today - DJ Irene and Ellen Allien - who would not be very entertaining in a fight. allien's 'berlinette' is catching me, mostly for the track 'trash scapes' with the repetition of 'the past is a night train, to unknown trash scapes' is jangled, mutated and lovely without being miserable. i wish it would develop more, but its four minutes are fine.

DJ Irene is some seriously cheesy shit.. tho her skill is admirable, her tracks remind me of divey days at the Jersey shores (oh so long ago, 2002). i do like the tainted love mix by hi-speed, an agitated clip which speeds by into the slow calm of 'cool world,' and am into the 'funk 4 fun' as a more sophisticated listen in the second half of the mix. generally even i, who fears and loathes open spaces filled with wax-chested boys, know her pulls and am underwhelmed. i guess if i was cracked out i'd have a sick, amused smile on my face though, so i don't plan to sell the album...i'll keep it in my car, just in case.

unexpected pleasure - my friend andy, aka vertebrae, played a show in youngstown at the only decent club, the nyabinghi. of course, only like eight people were in the audience to hear his autechre meets the notwist, one man with an accordian, a laptop and a dream show but hey, what can ya do? i'm a sucker for children's toys bumped up next to harsh, skeletal sounds and man, he's really good and teasing beautiful, mature little melodies out of them. i guess he's changing the name of his project, tho, since some ridiculous band from seattle sent him a cease and desist on it even tho they've never put anything out and he's already got an album. alas, the tangled web of music law.
speaking of which, i was sad but not surprised to see that the FCC relaxed even further the cross-ownership of media in American markets. Now charmers like Rupert Murdoch can own newspapers, local television stations, radio stations, and cable channels in one market. Fun! the vote was split 3-2 with all the Rep. voting yay, the demos voting ney. Tis a sad world we're living in.