yesterday, TMYLM spent lots of time being outraged, shocked, and variously consumed by dreams of cannibalism.  as letters to aig provoke strong reactions across the aisle, we got to thinking about the holiday of passover thats a-coming up for us jews.  if we can argue that pesach represented a perfect embodied example of proletarian revolution: the leaving in the dust, literally, of the accumulated capital of the egyptian empire and rising up in a strike to cross the river where labor was not converted to surplus value (hence the unleavened bread), we may offer in rejoinder: where’s our embodied revolt?  the perfect thing about pesach was its insistence on the non-ethnic divide of the egyptians and hebrews (remember that moses was, early 90s multiculti speaking, an egpytian although by blood a hebrew!) but rather class divide - class that could only be experienced through slave labor.  in every other biblical story, it’s an ethnic problem that causes bloodlust and suffering. in todays america the raped, however, the sitch is quite different, but bodies and slaves are no minor players in the creation and growth of the credit market.  We must reconsume the credit markets, for their speculation consumes us all.

Upstairs: Patti Smith singing “You Light Up My Life” on the perfectly named show, “Kids are People Too.”   Love the riff on punk not being a commodity. Hee.

Its a far cry from our normal blog posting schedule, but this ultrapoppy song just begs to be heard.

K’naan - Waving Flag [alternate]

Welcome to Donkey Disco - the final days of the campaign.  First we go from a stale debate (which your correspondent couldn’t avoid) to a genuinely funny one where, nevermind the winner (McCain), the general consensus is that our first black president will inherit our tremendous financial collapse.  What is there to do but to rejoice that some kind of change is gonna come, and to be happy for the good things we have in life (namely, girls?).

Eleni Mandell starts off todays discussion.. A seemingly chickrock song actually is a pretty provocative digression on obsession and nostalgia, a welcome theme thats infected both sides (unfortunately, there are only two) in the election.  Baby Huey picks it up next with a psychedelic masterpiece version of the classic song.  We can only hope the candidates have as much sense as this tweaked out freakface.

I wonder how you feel when you kiss on election night?

Eleni Mandell - Girls

Baby Huey - A Change Is Gonna Come

Ok hai - we’re back.  Though many vacations and ups-and-downs have taken us, your resident geniuses, away from the computer, we thought we’d take the opportunity of this economic mindfuck to shoot you some songs detailing the economic relationships embiggening this perfectly cromulent country.

In the first, from the Republican aisle, TI enjoins the banks, indeed the financial institutions glueing this country together to do Whatever They Like.  Yes, they can have whatever they like.  They can go wherever you like.  TI will be there to bail them out: just pick up the telephone, Goldman Sachs, you want your $5 million dollar home?  You can do whatever you like, do the infectious beats and catchy hooks not convey this financial bailout to you?

BUT WAIT… doth exclaim Timberland & Little Lord Fauntleroy, darling butterflies of the revolution.  They are problematizing this distinction of the banks/commerce society AND the government on the one hand!  In this song, the US Government recognizes that they smashed the economy apart - and they’re a’gonna put it back together!  Through the pounding bassline, the fiction of the economic neoliberalist empire is revealed; indeed, the commerical industries are seen to ask, plaintively, to get the direction from you. Lets IMMERSE together, they shout in unison.

Well, we need a mediator.  And who’s a better mediator than a woman?  Eva Ayllon steps in (who wants to go with me to the show in November at Carnegie Hall?) to enjoin us that when the hour arrives, one must break up.  Time was good - oh, times woz very good - but in all the streets, listen to our voices, its time to just separate! Ultimately, government, the market loves you!

TI - Whatever You Like

Timbaland ft James Fauntleroy - Back Together

Eva Ayllon - Cuando Llegue La Hora

Ten miles on a bike + four lines = this song
Chuck Jackson - Tell Him I’m Not Home

Spring makes us jump for joy, it really does, and as our neighborhood(ies) experience tons of growth, we have only to celebrate, count down the moments till that godforsaken spring break descends on us and listen to these fun, dancey songs.

Estelle - No Substitute Love
Fruko - El Preso

Welcome to the police state - no, not that kind. We mean the kind where they play the same fucking Police album three times in a row. It’s enough to make you want to move to Canada if only Montreal weren’t so cold. As a welcome antidote, TMYLM is posting two delicious slow and sultry songs that will get your tingle in a wingle just as soon as you can say GOLD CASE. The first, an odd David-Lynch-fucks-the-Eighties soul number is more sad; the second, a gem off the Afro-Peruvian classics album, picks you back up. Innjoy!

Luz Casal - Un Ano De Amor
Cecila Barraza - Canterurias

So it’s getting nicer around, and although Odilio Gonzales is Puerto Rican (and recorded this album there), can it be that he’s in Prospect Park, having ridden his fixie with his sweetheart in order to charm her with his knowledge of obscure-yet-respected Park Slope restaurants? Or is more likely that, after a heated and passionate debate about the merits of the DC vs NYC subways, they’re about to go into performing some great hits united?

Either way, his music is the perfect way to pass a warm, cold, and then warm late February day.

Odilio Gonzales - Palabra De Hombre
Odilio Gonzales - Arbolito
Odilio Gonzales - No Te Contestare

So Dubai arrests some guy for having weed stuck to the soles of his shoes. Brooklyn charm-poppers Vampire Weekends release a song that echoes Paul Simon’s Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes. Hilarious skinny-jean wearing Max Gogarty gets demolished for privileged, promiscous traveling through India and Thailand. Gender-neutral pronouns emerge in Baltimore. The TSA travelog goes unmentioned in a long presidential weekend of crazy weather. Soulful world - soulful world music. Sorry haters but its what I am.

Maria Daniela y su Sonido Lasser - Miedo
The Exciters - Yo Que Nada Tengo

Feminists don’t worry, the above image is meant ironically… And besides, who doesn’t like eating a lot on days of dreaded wintry mixes, snow pouring into rain pouring into cold? Who doesn’t like a little whiskey and gospel on such days? WHO!?

Dorothy Coates - Strange Man