There's No Padding Like American Idol Padding

The female section of Pontiac Dream is currently watching hour number 5 of the lingering death of American Idol's latest season. Queen Latifah has kindly taken time out from making the worst films in Hollywood to scare the audience with stretchy black pants.

So I have put on my headphones and although I can still Paula Abdul read from her thesaurus, my music acts as an effective kind of Maginot Line.

And I'm listening to The Future Will Come, the new album from The Juan Maclean. TJM, as I will call them in an effort to appear in a zeitgeist, are from the DFA stable. John MacLean, who essentially is TJM and James Murphy used to be in the same group and it was Murphy who brought Maclean back to music and its electronic possibilities. Yeah, I read the wikipedia site, want to fight??

I picked up TJM's first album, Less Than Human, on the back of hearing a few tracks on a DFA comp and a general obsession with the disco-punk-funk ethos represented by the lable. Less Than Human was a mostly minimal techno with touches of dancefloor motions. A soundtrack to the first date between two 23rd Century androids.

So I was excited about the recent release of The Future Will Come. The surprise was that rather than another journey to the stripped down electric side of DFA, the two androids have built themselves a time machine and are having a honeymoon in a parallel universe to 1982.

edit point: the metaphor has gone too far I know, but in my defence my musical critique professors were all Muzik magazines writers like Calvin Bush and Ben Turner. And they used metaphors with military precision. Respect.

So anyhoo...The Future Will Come has an eighties pop feel while hinting at the House boom waiting fround the corner. LCD Soundsystem keyboardist/synth destroyer, Nacy Whang, has joined MacLean as a vocalist and there duets are a mix alienation and curiosity.

So far I I still prefer the first album. It was my techno treat for a long time and the new tracks are still finding their way under my skin. Some of the lyrics are nonsense but at points it becomes very danceable and a couple of tracks are classic DFA statements: punktinged lyrics, disco electrics, funk basslines.

Check it out and wet your beak with these tracks.

The Juan MacLean - The Simple Life

The Juan MacLean - A New Bot

Papas Got A Brand New Handbag

It's true you know.

Old Faithfull Gravis has helped me across Glasgow, Scotland, Europe, The Atlantic and the mean streets of the Upper West Side.

But in recent times as the spring sun hit him, he looked more like Skeletor's scrotum rather Jesus's napsack. So I hoped to find a bag in NYC but with little luck. All the ones I liked fitted in with a two dollar-pound style of economy.

So I visited everyones favourite cornershop and found a funky yet urban flavoured satchel from Eastpak. By the way big shouts to Chemical Records to for their swift delivery and beating the price of the offical Eastpak site by nearly £10. I will be returning to this site as it looked like a great little side street of internet funkiness be it tshirt, bag or tunes.

So with a new bag at my side I am ready to step out and take the praise. Speaking of praise and newness its been too long since I actually posted some new music. So tonight I say..."Listen".

Tosca are Austrian duo Richard Dorfmeister (of Kruder & Dorfmeister) and Rupert Huber and excel in making experimental but accessible electronica. Their new album, No Hassle, is out and making inrodes into my eardrums.

Now I'm not going to say that this album breaks musical boundaries. But it reminds us why electronica can be so good in the right hands. I'm looking at you Zero 7 and every other coffee bar electro jibbery-jazz Morcheeba soundclash.

Tosca make stripped down electronic tracks. Bleepy at some points, selective strings at others and Austrian beats as clean as the Alpine air. I am really enjoying this album and I hope that you like the tracks below. In addition I added the video for Birthday which is how first came across the new album. It totally reminds me of some of the low budget but effective music videos that many house and downtemp producers used in the late 90s. More new music soon....

Tosca - Elitsa

Tosca - Birthday

Are You Positive?

Tomorrow Shatner's Bassoon has a job interview and everyone here at Pontiac Towers is wishing him well and sending adequate amounts of positive related energy.

In addition here is a interview guide from Will Ferrell:



Good Luck Shatbass

I See Famous People

As promised details of the celebs stroke famous people stroke hollywood legends we saw in NYC.

In order of appearance we have:

Paul Herman aka Beansie from the Soprano's aka the guy Richie Aprile crushed with his motor aka Marvin the accountant from Entourage.



While on one of our many subway journeys just as we came into 42nd St Station I turned to see an older man dressed to impress with shades and tan to match. It then dawned on me that it was Beansie. As usual did have the time or inclination to stalk Beansie on the subway but a good start.

Next up was a sighting all down to Mrs Pontiac and her knowledge of the fake/reality show The City on MTV. Wandering up 8th Ave we passed a Blockbuster Video and I was dragged back to to see Miss Allie Crandell aka Allie from The City aka a thin model. Cannot be sure of the dvd being rented but believe she had a bucket of popcorn and a a bucket for her bolemia.



A now for the legend................

It's our last night in NYC. We have just had a lovely Italian meal and were heading up 7th Ave to get some frozen yogurt aka some Yolato. I turn to see some old lady getting out of a limo. She looks familiar. She looks confused, rummaging in her handbag. Is it? Can't be? Mrs Pontiac confirms it is.



Inappropriately Sexy



Radical Sexy



Leg Warming Sexy



Classy O'lady Sexy

Jane Bloody Fonda

New York Fever

Well me and Mrs Pontiac and are back from the Big Pork and can confirm that after a long and deep nights sleep recovering from a return to Scottish time, we are showing no signs of the three-way we had with Miss Piggy.

So no bacon flu yet but a lot of good memories and slick shopping stays with us. Of course this is all about holiday to New York where the mantra was "we will not retread" and "we want to visit 'New' New York." And pretty much we managed that.

Main tourist spots where side stepped and new corners missed last time where exploited to the fullest. We did the lower east side, alphabet city, coney island, williamsburg, brooklyn heights, fort greene, chelsea etc etc. You get the point.

The highlights.........

1) Is That Bruce Springstein?
While lining up to get into a comedy club everyone was sitting or standing on the sidewalk waiting for the doors to open. Suddenly we hear a few muffled screams, hoops and movement. Is it a comedy star like Steve Guttenberg or a movie star like Steven Guttenburg? The screams got louder and the queue parted as if Moses himself was parted it. Out of the gloom charged a pretty big rat racing at me!!!!...or near me. As I jumped up into Mrs Pontiac's arms, Pussy (as we later named the rat bastard), dashed into some nearby shrubbery.

2) Sunday Service
Until Sunday I had never been on a rollercoaster. But we took a trip to Coney Island to escape the record breaking heat of the city and I had a wee look at the Cyclone and thought, "hey its small and got some wooden bits...how bad can that be??"



Well I am not in a rush to go on another. My scrambled eggs went up and down i perfect symmetry to to the ride, the wheels where square, the corners right angles. Mummy.

3) We're All Gonna Die
American TV is worth a holiday in itself. Swine Flu, adverts for immortality drugs, murderers, Swine Flu, out of control children, Swine Flue and things coming up, up, up!

4) Western Wet Dream
I got to see Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid at an open air drive-in style event by a sun soaked Hudson River. Excellent.

5) The Chelsea Star Hotel
Great hotel. Great staff. Great Location. Great drunken jakes across the street each morning letting the world know what was what. Great room. See the pic below. each room had a theme and ours was the Wizard of Oz.



There is more. Tomorrow I will post details of the stars we saw and I how excited that made us. One is a genuine cinema legend.

Bleep, Bleep, Crunch, Scratch & Wirl

Not sure when it happened. It started before I had my own taste, i know that for sure. It has sometimes been an obsession. Sometimes it just lies about in the dusty attic of brain. But every once in a while its steps forward.

No, not my invisble friend, Harry Fercklesteinbergblum, but my fascination of electronic beat/bleep-scapes. Be it the sound u-zip, Luke Vibert, Tom Jenkinson, Richard James, Vadim and the mountain of records I picked up in the late 90s searching for the new chunk of electronic junk, its very apparent inaccessbility is its sweetest sound. Finding a moment where you hear a sound you aint heard in a record before is a discovery worth waiting for.

So to the new album from Prefuse 73. Just like Dan Deacon I am not in a position to give a biography of the guy or even historical background to his musical devlopment but I have....or had a few of his albums lying around the flat or PC. While they were more conventional (in the sense of accessibility rather than experimental adventure), his new album Everything She Touched Turned Ampexian plays like an epic electronic track broke into smaller electrons known as tracks.

I have not had the time to sit and listen to in one session but heard most of it while getting ready last week and with the exception of a harpsichord-like sound that I can do without, it is triumph in random electronic inchoherent coherency (I should have worked for Muzik magazine!!). Not many tracks that would make sense alone but I have added a couple below for your enjoyment/interest.

Prefuse 73 - Regato

Prefuse 73 - Natures Uplifting Revenge

For Mr & Mrs Chivas

VOGUE!!!!!

Goodbye Film Memories, Hello....Music?

I will not pretend to know a lot about Dan Deacon.

I am aware from the blog the blog grapevine that his noises are experimental, electronic, childlike and dance conscious. I know his live shows are meant to awesome-o. And I know his new album and pretty sweet.

Bromst is his latest album and I've been enjoying it the last few weeks. It's hard to pin down what it's like. At times you feel you've stumbled across a gem from Warp as there is tastes of Squarepusher and Aphex Twin in there. But there are not, if any, dark edges or shadows that the aforementioned couple use to such disorientating effect. Sometimes it feels like a lullaby for a 22 Century kid deep in a techno induced coma. It's a lot of fun. And at times it's a little exhausting but in terms of quality electronic noises, voices and beats I would recommend visting it.

Dan Deacon - Red F

Here is a wee example of Deacon's live experience......

Now Post-Apocalyptic 75

Well I think I have made it clear how important and how much I enjoyed the midnight hour movie treats of pre cable tv. All the channels chipped in. Even Channel Five.

So before I move onto to playing some new music I have been listening to and my latest obsessions, I have one more film to give a big olde clut shout out.

Now sci-fi is a genre I can take or leave. For me it seems hard that a genre that demands such an expression of imagination can throw up so many tepid visions of our future or aliens that are human but with a third ear.

However, one sub-genre of sci fi I have always had an interest in is the Post Apocalyptic vision of the future. Films such as Delicatessen, Hardware, The Omega Man, Soylent Green, Logan's Run, Mad Max 2, Plant Of The Apes, Day Of The Dead, 1984, Death Race 2000, Esacape From New York and Rollerball.

Now I know some might say that some of those are Dystopias. But I aint going there. Like I said I like these films, I don't obssess over them.

My favourite Post Apocalyptic (love that word) movie has to be A Boy And His Dog. Starring a yougn Don Johnson and directed by Peckinpah stock actor LQ Jones its the story of earth after World War Four. Walking through the nuclear desert and amongst the savage remnants of humanity is Don and his dog. His dog and him can talk telepathically. A side effect of the radiation. Don finds food. The dog warns of danger and seeks out women. And in this vision the women are not for companionship or babies. As the film develops we meet an insane community based on Philip Sousa, marching bands and town hall meetings that meet out capital punishment. I don't need to say anymore.

I have included the original trailer below and then the re-release trailer. Why two? No idea but I would the guess the incoherent marching band music, flashing images and lack of narrative meant nobidy understood it. It certainly does not mention the talking dog.

The Last American Hero

Been a while since the last post but want to keep the theme of late night movie treasures going on and since the last post there has only been one movie I have wanted to talk about.

Vanishing Point.

Starring Barry Newman (TV's Petrocelli) this existential descent through the repressive urges and progressive fractures of Nixon's America seen through the destructive eyes of Kowalski, a guy whose American Dream has left him trying to drive from Denver to Frisco in 24 hrs with only a big bag of speed, a disc jockeys words and memories of loss. I know I really pretentionised that right up but my god this is a great film. Booming soundtrack. Car chases. Easy Rider's dream turned nightmare theme. A hero.

Check out the trailer below. I saw this on the Mark Cousin's shift as Moviedrome presenter. Instantly and just like a first listen to Neil Diamond, you say 'how did i live without this???'



And as an extra treat here is a couple of the tracks from the soundtrack. The first is followers one of the more manic car chases while the second gets us ready for the inevitable. Sorry that the rips are little poor.

The J.B. Pickers - Freedom of Expression
Segarini & Bishop - Over Me