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Half Japanese
Half Japanese is an American art punk band formed by brothers Jad and David Fair around 1975, sometime after the family's relocation to Uniontown, Maryland. Their original instrumentation included a small drum set, which they took turns playing; vocals; and an out-of-tune, distorted guitar. Both Fair brothers sang, although over time Jad moved into the frontman role. As of the last several releases since the 1990s, according to the album and CD credits, the band composes and plays the entirety of the music while Fair, eschewing his role as guitarist from earlier albums, plays almost no guitar but is responsible for the vocals and lyrics, which typically divide into either "love songs or monster songs." The band, still a vital "art punk" unit, has released six albums since 2014 with the same personnel that recorded Hot in 1993. Their last three releases, Why Not?, Invincible and Crazy Hearts have all received four-star reviews from the U.K. magazine, Record Collector, while New ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
SXSW
South by Southwest, abbreviated as SXSW and colloquially referred to as South By, is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Texas, United States. It began in 1987 and has continued to grow in both scope and size every year. In 2017, the conference lasted for 10 days with the interactive track lasting for five days, music for seven days, and film for nine days. There was no in-person event in 2020 and 2021 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic in Austin, Texas; both years, there was a smaller online event instead. SXSW is run by the company SXSW, LLC, which organizes conferences, trade shows, festivals, and other events. In addition to SXSW, the company runs the conference SXSW Edu and the upcoming SXSW Sydney festival, and co-runs North by Northeast in Toronto. It has previously run or co-run the events North by Northwest (1995-2001), West by Southwest (2006-2010) ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Tinklers
The Tinklers are a band from Baltimore who have been together since 1979. The group consists of Charles Brohawn and Chris Mason, both of whom sing, play guitar, and percussion instruments of varying degrees of quality (including cigar boxes, spoons, and other types of junk). Both members are also actively engaged in creating art in other mediums including visual art and books. Their music can be characterized as outsider music due to its lack of traditional musical skills and abilities including proficiency at their instruments and the ability to sing in tune. Their performance method and practice eschews conventional standards of skills thought necessary for making music and can be historically placed with other acts such as Jad Fair and Half Japanese, Daniel Johnston, and many more obscure musicians. While the band's roots are in the mid-70s Baltimore art scene, they did not release a proper record until 1990 when the band caught the attention of legendary producer Kramer. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Virgin Books
Virgin Books is a British book publisher 90% owned by the publishing group Random House, and 10% owned by Virgin Group, the company originally set up by Richard Branson as a record company. History Virgin established its book publishing arm in the late 1970s; in the latter part of the 1980s Virgin purchased several existing companies, including WH Allen, well known among ''Doctor Who'' fans for their Target Books imprint; Virgin Books was incorporated into WH Allen in 1989, but in 1991 WH Allen was renamed Virgin Publishing Ltd. Virgin Publishing's early success came with the ''Doctor Who'' New Adventures novels, officially licensed full-length novels carrying on the story of the popular science-fiction television series following its cancellation in 1989. Virgin published this series from 1991 to 1997, as well as a range of ''Doctor Who'' reference books from 1992 to 1998 under the Doctor Who Books imprint. In recent times the company is best known for its commercial non- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1/2 Gentlemen/Not Beasts
''1/2 Gentlemen/Not Beasts'' is the debut album by American rock band Half Japanese. Originally released in 1980 by Armageddon Records as a triple record, it was re-released in 1992 on CD on T.E.C. Tones with additional material. Fire Records reissued it again in 2013 on three-CD and four-LP sets on Record Store Day 2013 with further additional material, limited to 1,000 copies in each format. Style The music has a sound more raw than garage rock, and has a very low fidelity recording. Most of the songs are originals with covers of a few of the band's influences interspersed. Most tracks are very loud and have an almost no wave sound, though some tracks are very meditative Krautrock-influenced instrumentals. Legacy Half Japanese have since played with many important artists of the experimental or alternative persuasion, such as Sonic Youth and Nirvana. Daniel Johnston has made a record with Half Japanese's vocalist, Jad Fair. Track listing Personnel ;Half Japanese * ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Science Fiction Films
Science fiction (or sci-fi) is a film genre that uses speculative, fictional science-based depictions of phenomena that are not fully accepted by mainstream science, such as extraterrestrial lifeforms, spacecraft, robots, cyborgs, interstellar travel, time travel, or other technologies. Science fiction films have often been used to focus on political or social issues, and to explore philosophical issues like the human condition. The genre has existed since the early years of silent cinema, when Georges Melies' ''A Trip to the Moon'' (1902) employed trick photography effects. The next major example (first in feature length in the genre) was the film ''Metropolis'' (1927). From the 1930s to the 1950s, the genre consisted mainly of low-budget B movies. After Stanley Kubrick's landmark '' 2001: A Space Odyssey'' (1968), the science fiction film genre was taken more seriously. In the late 1970s, big-budget science fiction films filled with special effects became popular with audie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Horror Films
Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit fear or disgust in its audience for entertainment purposes. Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements include monsters, apocalyptic events, and religious or folk beliefs. Cinematic techniques used in horror films have been shown to provoke psychological reactions in an audience. Horror films have existed for more than a century. Early inspirations from before the development of film include folklore, religious beliefs and superstitions of different cultures, and the Gothic and horror literature of authors such as Edgar Allan Poe, Bram Stoker, and Mary Shelley. From origins in silent films and German Expressionism, horror only became a codified genre after the release of ''Dracula'' (1931). Many sub-genres emerged in subsequent decades, including body horror, comedy horror, slasher films, supernatural horror and psychological horror. The genre has been produc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Supernatural
Supernatural refers to phenomena or entities that are beyond the laws of nature. The term is derived from Medieval Latin , from Latin (above, beyond, or outside of) + (nature) Though the corollary term "nature", has had multiple meanings since the ancient world, the term "supernatural" emerged in the Middle Ages and did not exist in the ancient world. The supernatural is featured in folklore and religious contexts, but can also feature as an explanation in more secular contexts, as in the cases of superstitions or belief in the paranormal. The term is attributed to non-physical entities, such as angels, demons, gods, and spirits. It also includes claimed abilities embodied in or provided by such beings, including magic, telekinesis, levitation, precognition, and extrasensory perception. The philosophy of naturalism contends that nothing exists beyond the natural world, and as such approaches supernatural claims with skepticism. Etymology and history of the concept Occurr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Electric Guitar
An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar (however combinations of the two - a semi-acoustic guitar and an electric acoustic guitar exist). It uses one or more pickups to convert the vibration of its strings into electrical signals, which ultimately are reproduced as sound by loudspeakers. The sound is sometimes shaped or electronically altered to achieve different timbres or tonal qualities on the amplifier settings or the knobs on the guitar from that of an acoustic guitar. Often, this is done through the use of effects such as reverb, distortion and "overdrive"; the latter is considered to be a key element of electric blues guitar music and jazz and rock guitar playing. Invented in 1932, the electric guitar was adopted by jazz guitar players, who wanted to play single-note guitar solos in large big band ensembles. Early proponents of the electric guitar on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Art Punk
Art punk is a subgenre of punk rock in which artists go beyond the genre's rudimentary garage rock and are considered more sophisticated than their peers. These groups still generated punk's aesthetic of being simple, offensive, and free-spirited, but essentially attracted audiences other than the angry, working-class ones that surrounded pub rock. History In the rock music of the 1970s, the "art" descriptor was generally understood to mean either "aggressively avant-garde" or "pretentiously progressive". Musicologists Simon Frith and Howard Horne described the band managers of the 1970s punk bands as "the most articulate theorists of the art punk movement", with Bob Last of Fast Product identified as one of the first to apply art theory to marketing, and Tony Wilson's Factory Records described as "applying the Bauhaus principle of the same 'look' for all the company's goods".Frith, Simon & Horne, Howard (1987) ''Art into Pop'', Methuen, , p. 129-130 Wire's Colin Newman describ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kramer (musician)
Mark Kramer (born Stephen Michael Bonner, 1958 in New York City, United States) known professionally as Kramer, is a musician, composer, record producer and founder of the New York City record label Shimmy-Disc.Strong, Martin C. (2003) ''The Great Indie Discography'', Canongate, , p. 240 He was a full-time member of the bands New York Gong, Shockabilly, Bongwater and Dogbowl & Kramer, has played on tour (usually on bass guitar) with bands such as Butthole Surfers, B.A.L.L., Ween, Half Japanese and The Fugs (1984 reunion tour), and has also performed regularly with John Zorn and other improvising musicians of New York City's so-called "downtown scene" of the 1980s. Kramer's work as a producer has been with bands such as Galaxie 500 (whose entire oeuvre he produced), Low (whom he discovered and produced), Half Japanese, White Zombie, GWAR, King Missile, Danielson Famile, Will Oldham, Daniel Johnston, and Urge Overkill, including their hit cover of "Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jason Willett
Jason Willett is an American musician, known largely for his work with experimental rock groups including Half Japanese, Can Openers, Pleasant Livers, X-Ray Eyes, The Dramatics (Martha Colburn and Jason Willett), The Jaunties, The Attitude Robots, Leprechaun Catering, and many more. His current projects are: Half Japanese, Period Bomb, Matmos, Spacience, Leprechaun Catering, and continues to put out new material in collaboration with Jac Berrocal and David Fenech. His record label, Megaphone, initially set out to issue work by performers such as The Work, Fred Frith, the Molecules, Matmos, David Liebe Hart, Tim Hodgkinson and Jac Berrocal, but became largely a venue for Willett's own collaborative music. He has also made records &/or performed with Ruins, Jac Berrocal, R Stevie Moore, James Chance, Matmos, Hanna Olivegren, Jon Rose, Michael Evans, Ron Anderson, Benb Gallaher, Mick Hobbs, Chris Cutler, Mu Mesons (not the other band, mu meson), Little Howlin Wolf, Yamatsuka Ey ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Don Fleming (musician)
Donald Gene Fleming (born September 25, 1957) is an American musician and producer. Besides fronting a number of his own bands, (Velvet Monkeys, B.A.L.L., and Gumball) Fleming has produced Sonic Youth, Screaming Trees, Teenage Fanclub and Hole. Career Bands The Stroke Band Fleming started his musical career with the art/garage/punk group The Stroke Band of Adel, Georgia in the late 1970s. They released one album, ''Green and Yellow,'' in 1978 on Abacus Records. Citizen 23 After The Stroke Band, Don relocated to Norfolk, Va. in 1979 and formed the punkish/new wave group Citizen 23 with Elaine Barnes, Mark Myers, and, Stephen Soles. Their only recorded output was on the compilation album ''No Room to Dance'' in 1980. The Velvet Monkeys Citizen 23 broke up in early 1981; all members but Mark Mayers relocated to Washington, D.C. shortly thereafter and formed the three-piece psychedelic/post-punk band The Velvet Monkeys in the fall of 1981. The Velvet Monkeys line-up ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
