Le Sigh

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I'm obviously going to regret posting this when I show up at 2 p.m. and supplies are long gone, but so be it: today is the day us kicking screaming gucci little piggies get a free copy of The Universal Sigh, Radiohead's answer to the Panorama (or something).

The newspaper, which promises to contain all manner of artfully stilted sky-is-fallingisms, is a gesture to commemorate today's official hard-copy release of The King of Limbs. Ever the forward-thinkers, Radiohead will be monitoring the project's carbon footprint and retiring an equivalent number of credits. (Watch the cute lil' video about carbon retirement and imagine how much creepier it would be if set to, like, "Pull/Pulk Revolving Doors.")

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German DJ and producer Marco Niemerski (who makes disco-friendly house music under the name Tensnake) has been climbing the ladder of universal interest of late, thanks largely in part to a single by the name of "Coma Cat." The bubbling party tune--which borrows largely from a classic '80s dance jam à la Daft Punk--has been making the rounds in DJ sets worldwide, and boasts quite an alluring music video to boot. More >>

Hey! Do you like cat videos and robot in-jokes and urban derring-do and painfully topical mashups and groaningly pop-culture-referential T-shirt designs and straight-up geek bliss? Don't front like you don't! Remember where you live?

Well, Scott Beale was way ahead of you fifteen years ago when he started Laughing Squid, almighty aggregator of the aforementioned, and he's still way ahead of you. (He has since moved from San Francisco to New York, so he's at least three hours ahead of you, but his presence can still be felt on certain Tenderloin corners, thanks to LS's sponsorship of Frank Chu, voted SF Weekly's Best Pathological Citizen of 2007.)

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Satriani: Not the first to shave his head after balding set in.

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Nowadays, with Guitar Hero turning everyday basement dwellers into rock gods, and electronica granting everyone with a laptop the ability to make impossible masterpieces, a skilled technician like Joe Satriani must feel left behind.

How could one of the Bay Area's most influential guitar heroes and teachers -- mentor of Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammet and famous wanker Steve Vai -- adapt to a listening public that probably couldn't care less about actual musicianship?

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Wonder what song they'll close the set with?

​This would seem a perfect place to insert a "Semi-Charmed Life" joke, recall that Third Eye Blind hails from San Francisco, and/or begin a discussion about crystal meth references on American Top-40 radio.

But really, we just wanted to tell you that the band is playing a free show in its hometown this week.
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Apparently, Bay Area-based multi-instrumentalist/producer/engineer/vocalist Jaswho? (pronounced Jase-hoo) has been crafting his club-friendly music for over a decade -- a style that is allegedly "at the forefront of the 'San Francisco Sound.'" I can't say I'm familiar with the "San Francsico Sound," really (I wasn't aware we had only one), but suffice it to say, there are apparently some infectious, pop-leaning dance tunes in the works for his upcoming debut album, Nudroid Musik (out on November 2 via Temple Music Group).

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Just... wow.

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I think we can all agree that Berkeley-based loudmouth Lil B is full of surprises: last week he released a splashy watercolor Hallmark card of an album called Rain In England; this week he's dropping MF Based, a "rare" (how does that work, exactly?) mixtape of half-baked freestyles dedicated to MF Doom. (Cop it now and get the RARE GOLD EDITION FRONT COVER!)

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​In their ongoing colonization of the fertile realms beyond the province of television, the indefatigable content-providers of Cartoon Network's Adult Swim programming block -- in partnership with Scion's weirdly savvy marketing team -- have seen fit to drop another bomb on the internet. Enter Metal Swim, "16 tracks of rare or unreleased metal from the heaviest bands in existence."

Unlike previous Adult Swim compilations, including the excellent Ghostly Swim and Chrome Children, this one isn't centered on a particular label's roster. Instead, it offers a pretty great sample of the contemporary metal scene without restricting itself to any one corner or prefix: there's blastbeat-riding death metal, ominously lumbering doom metal, art-damaged drone metal, and cheesy throw-up-your-devil-horns metal metal. Nary an acoustic instrument to be found. All that's missing is Dethklok.

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If you're like everyone in the world, you've been into Cee-Lo's irrepressibly catchy reprisal anthem, "Fuck You." Maybe you've even checked it out in Spanish!

Well. Think that's subversive? Try "Fuck Me."


Meet Camu Tao: Ohio player, Def Jux staple, and member of some of underground rap's most venerable crews, including The Weathermen (along with Aesop Rock) and MHz (along with Rjd2). Camu died in 2008, at 30, of lung cancer, before his solo debut saw the light of day. That album, King of Hearts, was finally released on Def Jux a few weeks ago; you can nab it here. As an appetite-whetter, though, the label is giving you the first hit free. Head here to download Forever Frozen in Television Time, an EP recorded in 2004-5 by Central Services, a.k.a. Camu and El-P, "under the influence of several illicit substances between the hours of 3am and 8am." (Fittingly, the only non-original cut is a "cover" of Huey Lewis's "I Want A New Drug," with "want" changed to "need.")
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You guys know DJ Shadow, right? He's that one dude from the Bay Area that put modern turntablism and DJ culture onto the world's radar back in 1996 when he released his game-changing debut album, Endtroducing...... Yeah, you know DJ Shadow. Well, the DJ, producer, and musical icon, born Joshua Davis, would like to give you some brand-new music for absolutely free, but you've got less than 24 hours to download it.

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