So, Will Los Angeles Black Out on October 20th...or Watt?

...that's a clip from one of my favorite films, Phillip Glass' called "Koyaanisqatsi" (slathered with the Strokes' "Reptilia")...the flick holds a message that goes with the thrust of what I'm about to say...I don't know if you've heard about this but it appears that the powers that are in my fair city are taking a proactive stab at conserving energy...but it might be a day late and a dollar short...


"Led by Supervisor Yvonne B. Burke and City Councilwoman Wendy Greuel, the proposed effort asks Angelenos to simultaneously go dark between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 20, as San Franciscans do the same. Local officials are expected to vote on the plan next week.

At the original event in Sydney, Australia, in March, 2.2 million people cut the lights, causing a 10% drop in electricity use. The so-called Earth Hour reduced 25 tons of carbon dioxide, equivalent to taking nearly 49,000 cars off the road for 60 minutes...


Although officials still are finalizing which public buildings will join in the voluntary blackout, possible candidates include City Hall, the county Hall of Administration, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, DWP headquarters, the Port of Los Angeles and the multicolored pylons at Los Angeles International Airport.

"I think it will have a big visual impact," Katona said." (here's the rest in the LA Times)


...okay, I'll bite, I said to myself when I heard this on talk radio earlier...I'll do my part but I wonder if those millions of single-serve commuters will step up to the plate for 60 minutes to see if they can make a difference...I'm skeptical as it'll take place during Prime Time on a Saturday...and if there's one thing that Angelenos can't deal with, it's an inconvenience to their party plans and intra-city travel habits...they didn't back in 2000 and I don't think even the spike in fuel prices will make 'em curb their power-sponging ways...and I said as much during that last heatwave.

...I bike around this town all the time and take notice of all the wasting of natural resources, primarily water, that goes into making what's essentially a desert by the sea look like some side street art-deco utopia...well at least in the parts where the the "ghetto birds" don't fly too often...don't get me wrong, I hope the proposal gets pushed through and everyone chips in, but I'm familiar enough enough with my fellow citizens and how a lot of them would rather sweep the whole conservation thing under the rug...until it gets unbearable and we get what we got in 2000...when I ride the commuter bus and trains in the morning, it's rare that I see car poolers...even now...so pardon me if the tongue in my cheek hinders my speech...


...ah well, a positive anything beats a negative nothing...I'm no Ed Begley, Jr but I'll give it a whirl just the same even if the proposal doesn't get approved because it's high time for us all to think about alternatives...on many fronts..."ain't nobody gonna shite, shave or bathe until some changes are made!" as my granny used to say when she got fed up with feckless proles, talkin' loud and saying nothing...it all reminds me of a piece I wrote a while back which I closed like so: "... The word "Koyaanisqatsi" is a Hopi Indian noun for "life out of balance; crazy life; life in turmoil; life disintegrating; a state of life that calls for another way of living"...I still stand by that line of thought ... if you live in the area, why don't you do your part on October 20th, yo?...

Check It: "Ich Bin Nackt"...mit Stereo Total

...a few things for those who read me on the regs: if you've been doing so lately, you'd know that my MacBook's been on the fritz and I took it in to the AppleStore where it is now being turned B.A.D.,"bigger and deffer", as LL Cool J woulda put it back in the day...I've grown so used to that thing that it's been kind of weird sliding back into my old rhythms, like going to the magazine stand down the street and copping that week's New Yorker and actually sitting down to read it cover to cover with a couple of ciggies and double espressos...for years that was a part of my Saturday regiment and it was refreshing to return to this weekend...


...another thing about me you might've picked up is that I loves my music and you'd be hard pressed to catch me anywhere without tunage in some configuration on my person...but there's just so much of it out there...and doing what I do, I get turned on to so much chaff that it's hard to keep up with the stuff that rises...so, I don't get in a twist when I get told where the bear shites in the buckwheat, if something's good. Case in point, this last Saturday, I wanted to check out the second season of Weeds (as you know, I do my TV shows by seasons in one sitting)...but realized that the copies that were brought to me from Europe were configured for a program that I had on my Mac...which is in the shop...so I said fuggit, called over to Penny Lane and shot down to the video store to rent 'em...while searching for the discs on the shelving, I hear in between tunes on my headphones (I'm still blasting Greg Sage & Wipers Is This Real? Box-- again, if you check me, are another band to seek out nice 'n quick-like...I'm not too proud to say that a girlfriend hipped me to 'em...there's a grip of good sound out there that gets drowned out by the white noise of mediocre scheiße that the suits try to soft sell/shovel into the collective earholes of the record-buying public like we're being fattened up for foi gras...but there's more than one way to cook a goose...




















...I'm one of that hard-headed lot who has a habit of absorbing his data and thinks for himself, son...so it took a few seconds for my ears to perk up when I heard this cut from Stereo Total blaring out of the speakers and ask the horn-rimmed, tatted up art-schooler behind the counter for some 411 and he hips me...I turn him onto a new wave group from Deutschland I thought he'd like called Ideal...a tune called, ironically, Berlin which he did vibe on, so a little barting-of-beats took place...



...when I got home, I continued to strayed away from the "Off the grid" game plan for a bit and did a little research (because I gotta know once my curiosity's piqued) and found out a little more about Stereo Total...turns out that the group's based in Berlin, a city I tend to visit in the next couple of months, and are comprised of members from all over Europe among them, vocalist/guitarist/drummer Françoise Cactus from France and vocalist/guitarist/keyboardist Brezel Göring who's from Germany...their debut set, Oh Ah! dropped a-decade-and-change ago, picking up where groups like Kraftwerk, Giorgio Moroder and The Sea and Cake had gone before...which is a good thing...so, I keep digging around and although I see the album and tour with the Octopus Project mentioned in a music eZine with a penchant for grandiloquent exposition of musical minutia, I moved on and find a few cuts of theirs on MOG where apparently people have been blabbin' about the group since April of this year...you can't catch 'em all, boyo so let's not stand on ceremony with the "you read it here first" bit-- here's a video for Ich Bin Der Stricherjunge...the slice that caught my attention whilst looking for my flicks...I'd heard it before but didn't know where at the time...





...clearly, I'm sold on Stereo Total and will submit that this is definitely an electro-pop band worth checking out...the dude at the counter told me that I'd just missed a show of theirs in LA by about a month...(which I saw in the aformentioned eZine)...based on his description of how the band members played and built a rapport with the audience on the stage-- he told me that they hung out with the audience before blowing shit up on stage, smoking fags and kickin'it...it let me know that if they've been at it this long and they're still doing that sort of shite, they're lifers or will be around for a minute or two more, at least...they've got something to say that's worth saying and they're doing it the old fashioned way...

...if you like early LPs from Stereolab, or that Daft Punk drift, this group won't do you wrong...these fuckers have the sack-and-temerity to take a stab at a Serge Gainsbourg cut...and nail its ass to the floorboards...they get propers from over here...as stated above, my MacBook's tucked up and I'm not writing this piece on my PC but these YouTubes are proper..."ooh, shocking"...check their video for Ich Bin Nackt (I Am Naked) from their Do the Bambi LP (cover above)...

...I love an enemble that doesn't take itself too seriously but can actually play their fucking instruments, make their ideas felt, get shit done-- and still aren't afraid to experiment which stokes the flames of the jazz-lover in me too-- I likes it all, son...you can get a free download of "Patty Hearst" from the band's label Disko B for free right here on one of the label's landing pages; which I think is uber-cool of 'em...blowin' shite up...gettin' things done...righteous, son...here's another vid from the new album called "Plastic"...kinda Ramones...kinda Bomb the Twist...kinda "Orgiastic"...kinda nice...find this band, if you haven't already...