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Monthly Archives: February 2009

Oblio, in loving memory of Anna Nicole Smith

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With a touchingly strong voice and an emotional deliverance similar to a break-up from somebody who still loves you but isn’t completely heart-broken, Oblio caught my notice with the song ‘Anna Nicole Smith.’ Somewhere in between electro, trip-hop and pop, it reminds me of something a really sexy, dark featured girl would strip to in a movie in which she later goes on to kill people. If you want to check him out live, he’s playing for free at The Stud in SF this Sunday, 10 pm (along with Shaw and the Shaws and myself, Samuelroy, as openers). Continue reading →

Ascension Recordings and Publications 2009 comp!!

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So okay, I was just asked to release my EP ‘Pi11 Bits’ on Casey Chisholm’s ‘Ascension Recordings and Publications‘, and I’m maybe a tad bit excited. But hey, in credit to my own back-scratching, I was a fan of Casey Chisholm’s own music, Religious Girls, Brother, and other stuff released on Ascension well before this happened. So take a look at the roster and listen to the label’s stuff on myspace, because it really is great. If we must play the genre game, it’s kind of electro-acoustic, anti-folk, shoe-gaze blah blah blah. But what I really value about the musical community that Ascension is forming and promoting is the lack of ‘genre.’ It seems much less focused on being too aligned with a particular movement or moment, which is a quality that has appealed to me since I have been writing on this blog. Continue reading →

SUPER CUTE LIVE VIDEOS :: AKIINE

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So one of MinorProgression’s favorites now has some video’s up on youtube that haven’t really been seen. Anyway, I encourage you to beef up the view counts on these cute short live videos to hopefully inspire Akiine to make really cute music video’s that only someone with her quirky sensibilities could create:::::

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Fever Ray “When I Grow Up”

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I can’t stop watching Fever Ray‘s new video for “When I Grow Up.” Karin Derijer Andersson ( of The Knife fame ) seriously takes the cupcake for this one. The costume design is so perfect, it’s exactly how I like to imagine that crazy girl we all went to school with (you know, the one who would strike fear into your fifth grade math teachers heart with one under the breath murmur) spending her afternoons covered in furs, face paint and alphabet magnets conjuring up storms and monsters in her pool.

Video for ‘Eugene’ by Mirror Mirror

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Though the song is good and the video carries it’s own torch, part of the fun in watching Mirror Mirror‘s ‘Eugene’ is finding out how strangely the audio to visual match up in this colorful, casual boy-fest. “What was that?”, I found myself asking the first time. Then I watched it again. I couldn’t help but wondering whether or not the guys in it were randomly hired models, or if they were friends of the Brooklyn based band, or some combination of the two. “They look kind of familiar…” I thought to myself, but maybe it’s just the pizza, the over-sized tank-top… and the clown. And oh yeah, am I the only one who is reminded of ‘Black Hole Sun,’ by Soundgarden for some reason?

Oakland’s Got The BROTHER(s) You Always Wish You Had: Interview and Rantings

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Sometimes I am a truly lucky son of a bitch. I just got to take a trip to Oakland California for a week, leaving behind a colder than a well diggers ass Brooklyn, to bask in the surprisingly warm and consistent Bay Area weather and spend time catching up with both popejohnpaul12 and Tarnation1. Aside from having a glorious time telling stories and gallivanting about, I also got to take in two nights of great music. Aside from OUR FIRST EVER MINORPROGRESSION EVENT that took place at popejohnpaul12′s fabulous, sprawling, uber bohemian, living quarters ( aka Mr. Floppy’s) in the central Oakland area, I also attended a show at The House Of Nostromo, an great medium sized warehouse space in the middle of a strange dock community just on the other side of the 580 freeway. While my co-writers have already blogged some about the events that went down at Mr. Floppy’s, nothing has been said yet of our trek to House Of Nostromo, which we set out for in order to see a minorprogression favorite (and fellow SXSW attendee!) The Mae Shi. As these things sometimes go, we ended up leaving before The Mae Shi got to play due to my being tired, jet lagged and lacking in sobriety, but luckily I didn’t leave before watching Oakland band Brother play a great set and buying their seven song ep that I’ve been listening to ever since.

Here’s a video taken from that show:

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VALENTINES DAY LOVE IN: RIP OSCAR GRANT

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The official MinorProgression stance on the horrendous unwarranted murder of Oscar Grant“ by BART police is FUCK THE POLICE!!!

Since we don’t support police brutality and the violence they stand for, we’re urging all bay area residents and those in the vicinity that can make it, to do what police officers cannot do, and that is love… Continue reading →

Bird announced land: video of cute kids dancing in a bathtub

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Ta – da!!

This guy named Marshall who does this event-organizing thing called Pretty Blue Presents posted this bird announced land video on myspace, asking for people to repost it around. I thought it was pretty cute, so I figured I would be an asshole not to carry the torch for this lovely little ukulele moment. It reminds me a tiny bit of a minorprogression.com favorite akiine. Apparently it has been blogged about by somebody major and is now snowballing into some giant youtube sweeping the entire world. NOW YOU CAN BE A PART OF IT TOO!

READING THE NEWS: ARIEL GOLDBERG

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Last Friday night, February 6th 2009, was the first official MinorProgression party at the Flophouse in Oakland. On the bill: visual art by Justin Swaby; performance art by Ariel Goldberg; Music by Debutante, Casey Chisholm, our very own Samuelroy, and Shaw and the Shaws (a write up of Shaw and the Shaws is coming soon)… everyone at the show except Shaw and the Shaws can be accessed on the site. The party was a total success and special thanks to everyone that made it out to the party! In the corner Ariel Goldberg gave the audience a taste of her project that recontextualizes the news and mass media. All night long I watched a lot of people get lost in the projected images she delivered as she sifted through the news. This past week I caught up with her and got an extensive interview so everyone there that scratched their heads and all of you that didn’t make it, can have a better understanding of how she is trying to reshape our intake of the news. Continue reading →