we got some kind words thrown our way this week:

impose says:

I’m sure they’re out there, I just happen to have five dolla, and this is where I will blow it all.

Yesterday, Brando Skirts hit us up with a delightfully eclectic mix of damaged rock songs, more often than not guitar-based, but most of the time weighed against fantastically freaked out vocal loops, or a rolling hill of feedback, horns on the fritz, heaps of dual-melody dissonance, found sound city Frequencies, vocal harmony. It almost feels like a throw-back to an earlier time when bros made dissonant post-punk and Sonic Youth reigned as the one and only right way. 2003? Maybe just 2010, this stuff is great.

the fmly says:

Brando Skirts are writing that messy, fucked up, and wildly intriguing sound that changes color with every play. I just downloaded their first record, Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo, for free over at Proyekto Records and it’s definitely conjuring up those early anticon. feelings. Maybe it’s the gross weather right now, but these tunes are laying over me like a mud bath. It’s difficult to distinguish where one sound ends and the other begins, but it feels damn nice. Stoked for the record to grow on me…but I should probably take a shower first before stems start sprouting.

thanks, dudes! reminder: you can download that first record ovah huur.

“Love, like capitalism, is an illusion,” Robinson said to the publisher. “We’ll call the book Love = Capitalism so it appeals to women and the business folk. I’ll gather a few anecdotes and lay out the theory in simple chapters. We can even make the evidence up. There’s no use in actually going out into the world and researching real stories. There’s no time for that. There’s simply no budget. I understand that. I’ll get this rolling – draft to you by Thanksgiving, marketing post-Christmas and then we can put it out by Valentines Day.”

Jerry Wellner thoroughly patted down his beard as if there were a baby cockroach stuck underneath it. He wanted to make sure it was dead and, besides, the doctor told him to show less emotion in these meetings. Restraint is key for all samurais.

When Jerry was younger, he had a stoic face. Any business situation was like any other. Now he’s all emotional because his daughter got knocked up on the Jersey Shore, blamed it on drug abuse and opted for rehab. Now he’s out at least $20,000. Did you know they charge you extra for a detox hospital bill? Seems like that should be included with the base fee.

“It makes sense,” Jerry said while nodding his head slowly like his pitcher threw a perfect curve ball and made the count 2-2. “I can really envision the marketing plan. What about promotional stuff? Will you do talk shows? I’m sure Today would love this.”

Robinson “Cupid” Caruso was just Roger’s pen name, but it did the job. He really had no background in self-help, relationships or business. Truth be told, he was a pretty normal dude. He used to work at an advertising agency where all the Creatives sat atop beanbag chairs and drank vodka with the boss. Robinson took half an amphetamine before the meeting and was saving the other half in some spent cigarette foil on the lower rungs of his messenger bag.

“Today would be great. That’s what I’m sayin. We get it out to the world and they’ll eat it up. I hate to keep referencing the market research, but I mean…”

Jerry shuffled through Robinson’s papers again. The boy certainly knew how to use Excel – multicolored pie charts, bar graphs and ven diagrams that looked like Asian vaginas. We’re talking space age shit.

“The research doesn’t lie. Love is best viewed through the lens of business. Make every relationship good business. Keep it simple. Don’t let fantasy get in the way. This is harsh realism we’re talking. We’re talking 21^st century shit.”

They both nodded and stood up simultaneously like the end of church.

The moral: a beautiful meeting can be just that.

My preview on a new Soho art exhibition called the Black Acid Co-op appears in NYPress today. The opening is tomorrow night (July 2nd) and comes highly recommended for those in the area. 

DON’T BOTHER WITH the back room at Café Select. Forget the basement of La Esquina.The new place to be in Soho is the burnt out meth lab on Wooster Street. 

Beginning July 2 at the Deitch Projects annex on Wooster Street, you’ll find an artistic mishmash so thought provoking and racy that it will give the neighborhood’s usual debauched haunts a run for their (rolled up) money. I’m talking jars of mystery meat and faux fetuses, strewn kitty litter, a library, visual and auditory deconstruction, Chinese herbs, astrological pelts, the aforementioned meth lab, a blown up RV, aquarium rocks and a replicated penthouse art gallery. Jonah Freeman and Justin Lowe, two New York-based artists completing their third collaboration, are the architects and alchemists behind this secret world. Welcome to the Black Acid Co-op. 

I went on a soundwalk with the legendary (best guitarist alive perhaps) Marc Ribot. It was pretty wild as a concept and a great time. I did a little write-up for TONY’s Volume Blog, which you can find by clicking here. Thanks to Peter Matthews for the photos. You can check out his site here.

Proyekto cohort (and embarrassed uncle) Brandon Kreitler has a great piece on dying music in this month’s Brooklyn Rail.  Check it out… A good example of music writing that isn’t complete circlejerk fluff!

By Luke Kozikowski

Dale Horowitz had never cheated at Scrabble
but today is the day for new habits.
He pussyfooted his finger into the bag
she chatted on the phone
“x,” huh?
Fuck yeah.
triple-word score.

The entire Proyekto Collective is chilling in Tucson, hence no real updates. We deserve a little vacation now and then!

That being said, the upcoming weeks promise to bring some true psychedelic collaborative content.

For today, check out my feature of Steve Rodriguez (the legendary NYC street skater) in this week’s Time Out New York