MOON TUNES
August 31, 2009
by VBS Staff
Motherboard
One thing uneducated people like to say about famous works of art they don’t understand is that they/their kids/arbitrary beast suffering from arbitrary neural affliction could make that. While this statement is generally a gross overestimation of their own creative faculties, exceptions abound, with a major one being the serialist works of Pierre Boulez where the beast/child/dunce in question is the Moon.
I'M CRAZY FOR EXCEPTER
August 25, 2009
by BABY BALLS
Music World
Excepter are responsible for two or three of the best shows I’ve ever seen, one of the absolute worst shows, and possibly the most embarrassing thing I did at the last apartment I lived in. A few years ago they put out a 12" that ends with one of those “locked grooves” where the last few seconds of the record keeps on playing forever or until you finally remember to lift the needle. In this case, instead of music or feedback or some pithy joke-statement, the groove contained a single muted car-honk that sounded exactly like someone’s alarm going off down the block. After putting on the record slightly hungover one morning and spending half an hour shouting out the window at the asshole who left his car alarm on, I finally stormed outside swearing like a spazzed-out Rick Moranis and realized I’d been screaming profanities at a bunch of 5-year-old Puerto Rican kids playing in front of their grandmother on a completely quiet street. Oh, and I was literally in a bathrobe and socks.
GERMANY - TEAM DEUTSCHLAND
August 19, 2009
by FELIX NICKLAS
Here is the new way to promote political messages in Germany. You take a drunk, unwashed guy who looks like he is going to vomit any second now—which is exactly how you feel when you listen to this terrible piece of rubbish they call a song—and tell him to raise his fist up in the air as an expression of emotion. He must hold every tone, though a female holds them longer because she is misunderstood asa “rock singer.” And then there must be Schlager music playing in the background. These are the rules of “Team Deutschland Song,” written for the conservative Party in Germany.
Keep reading on viceland
LANCE BANGS MEETS FAMILY LA'S EXTENDED LA FAMILY
August 17, 2009
by VBS Staff
Bangs
Hey, starting tomorrow “Lance Bangs”: returns to the VBS fold with a two-part series on the Family bookstore in LA.
We agree that watching a documentary about a store sounds only a tad more captivating than shaving your balls on muscle relaxants, but what Lance does is he uses Family as a launchpad to talk with all the artists and musicians who like to hang out there and play in-stores, then he follows them to their spaces (like the Smell and Ooga Booga and Sam Harkham’s silent theater) and talks to all the people hanging out there and before you know it you’ve sat through an epic Fassbinder-esque account of the entire Los Angeles scene at this specific moment of time.
Anyways, even if it was strictly about Family, we bet it would still be a better watch than most of the crap coming out these days. Far be it from us to tell you what’s awesome, but where else are you going to find a copy of Soiled Matress & the Springs first album, a Harmony Korine zine anthology, and an oversized print by comics insaniac Victor Cayro while watching a show while hanging out with all your best buds and a bunch of Southern Californian creative types? Oh, the internet? I’ll internet you, you damn wiseass.
WE LOVE THE STYLOPHONE, BUT FUCK ROLF HARRIS
August 17, 2009
by VBS Staff
Motherboard
A few months ago, we decided to make a series of short films on one of the silliest, most iconic synths on earth, the result of which is today’s episode of Motherboard, directed by William Fairman (who also directed The Deer Hunter episode of Rule Britannia). The Stylophone was originally invented as a children’s toy until it fell into the hands of Rolf Harris, who called it “the biggest little instrument of the century” and brought it to global fame. After that, Bowie used it on “Space Oddity.” It also pretty much invented Kraftwerk.
WOODSHOCK, IT'S LOVE
August 14, 2009
by VBS Staff
Since all the olds are busy waxing nauseous once again about the anniversary of goddamn motherfucking Woodstock, we thought you could cleanse your mental palate with this little Linklater mini-doc from the 4th annual Woodshock, Austin, Texas’s mid-80s attempt to rectify the mistakes of generations prior with a wash of drugs, punk music, and swimming. Blah blah guys on acid blah blah blah Daniel Johnston blah blah blah girl in GBH shirt etc. Enjoy your weekend! (And a tip of the hat to @AgentMule).
I CAN'T BELIEVE WE INTERVIEWED GRASS WIDOW
August 11, 2009
by ERICA BRAINERD
Practice Space Season 2
Do you know who my favorite ladyband is? All right, it’s the Runaways. But do you know who my favorite ladyband from the last tennish years is? It’s Grass Widow! The first time I heard them on a Yeti sampler I was like, “Wow, when did the Vivian Girls stop boring me to tears?” Then I realized I’d lost the magazine with the tracklisting and could only refer to them as Vivian Girls Who Aren’t Boring, but then they had a really boring interview in MRR (interviewer’s fault) and the name finally clicked and a love affair was born anew. I even stuck it out after discovering that they weren’t singing “He’s got a tumor” in this song, though it was understandably an emotional struggle. Anyways, you can guess the surprisyness of my delight when I found out that someone in England had not only interviewed these feisty ’Franciscans for Vice, but did an excellent job involving sample tracks and plenty of pictures. Good work, team!
I SAW A UNICORN
August 10, 2009
by BABY BALLS
Practice Space Season 2
There is a moment in this week’s Practice Space with Obits that, tragically, you will never fully enjoy. Right before the beginning of the interview portion where he’s cleaning off his chin in the sink, Rick Froberg accidentally hit the button on the hand dryer of the women’s bathroom we decided to talk to the band in (reason moved below to preserve “flow”), spraying a foamy plume of beer all over him and his bandmates. It was like in Decline of Western Civilization II when the guys from WASP or Odin or whoever would whip champagne all over each other, only less advertent and involving far better musicians/human beings.
2009: THE YEAR JUGGALO BROKE
August 04, 2009
by BABY BALLS
Americana
Right now there are thousands of smirky, middle-class dipshits chomping at the bit to sink their fangs into this week’s Gathering of the Juggalos. Of the hundred-odd ’That’s it, I’m going’s that have been cropping up on message boards and comment threads since Tom Scharpling blew the lid off the whole deal a couple weeks ago, I’m guessing maybe 10-15 of these will actually make the three-hour drive to Cave-In-Rock from the nearest airport, from which maybe 4-5 mean-spirited articles and ‘blog stories’ will result. Nevertheless, the scab’s been opened. Next year there’ll be more gawking smuggalos with cameras, and more the year after that until eventually the whole thing looks like the crowd of a Vampire Weekend concert, only with everyone falling over themselves to capture something they can laugh at with their friends back on the coast versus jerk off to in the bathroom.
ARIEL PINK HAS NOT DIED
August 03, 2009
by NATE HARRINGTON
Practice Space Season 2
By the time I heard Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti in 2004 I felt like I had already missed out on the most important part of their musical career, aka the 30-odd tapes and records they’d put out over the past 8 years. Luckily, looking back now I can see that I was wrong and it was only the beginning in many ways. As you’ll see in this week’s episode of Practice Space, the band are still very much “out there,” but they’ve never sounded tighter or more determined than they do now and I think we should all be thankful and excited for/by that.
Here’s a little tune from the ‘old days’ to compare and contrast.
And here’s that one everyone likes.
Most commented
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