In 2003, Benny Benassi was everywhere with the sexed-up robotic anthem "Satisfaction." Two years later, just when you thought you had deleted it from your mind, the song returns, this time in the hands of three guys from Denmark.
The cover might just be a bonus track on Who Made Who's self-titled disc off of Gomma Records, but it is the group's big club hit, championed by the likes of 2 Many DJs and probably a bunch of other tastemakers who never seem to spin here in Los Angeles. (Bitter? Yes, definitely.) In the hands of Who Made Who, "Satisfaction" goes from detached sexuality to down and dirty, rough, follow-me-into-the-club-bathroom nastiness. Jeppe Kjellberg enunciates the songs keyword with a snarl, like Johnny Rotten on E, as the female singer wails backup. Add to this a disco bassline and some serious cowbell action and you have a track that could even make your "I hate dance music" friends on floor.
Despite what you might think, though, Who Made Who is not another dance-punk dance. In fact, outside of the aforementioned song, there is nothing particularly punk about the band's sound. Kjellberg and bandmates Tomas Hoffing and Tomas Barfod seem steeped in 1970s funk and disco, with 4/4 beats all around (Drummer Barfod is a house DJ), basslines that seem to grab you by the legs and force you to move and guitars that, at times, seem almost as mellow as 1970s AM pop and, at other times, get all Tortoise or Sea and Cake-like. All this is peppered by airy soul vocals and Italo-sounding synths. It's an album more likely to appeal to househeads than to the emo-disco crowd, but one that I would suggest to anyone seeking new dance beats.

Suggested Tracks: "Rose;" "Hello Empty Room;""Cigar;" "The Loop;" "Satisfaction"

Are coming to a town near you. (Maybe.) Well, if you're in LA, the trio is playing at the Key Club next Thursday.

CHICKS ON SPEED
Appearing with Our Aura Hour starring:KEVIN BLECHDOM PLANNING TO ROCK
Except at shows marked with **
11/10/05 (CA) West Hollywood - Key Club
11/11/05 (CA) San Francisco -The Independent
11/12/05 (OR) Portland - Holocene
11/14/05 (WA) Seattle - Chop Suey
11/17/05 (IL) Chicago - Abbey Pub
11/18/05 (DC) Washington - Nation
11/19/05 (NY) New York - Knitting Factory
NEW: 11/22/05 (AB) Calgary/ Canada - Broken City**
11/21/05 (AB) Edmonton / Canada - New City Compound**
11/26/05 (FL) Miami –-Bang!Music Festival, Bugged Out Tent

Just so that you have time to calendar this event, behold, I am coming out of a two-month hiatus to play at the Club London/Poplife party on the night before Thanksgiving.

Last night, I decided that I have absolutely had it with putting together a narrative analysis of a news article and reading 500 pages of repetition (I get it, news is "socially constructed." I got it half-way through the preface. Isn't that enough?). I needed a study break.
That said, I grabbed a sweater an some earrings, put on a bit of make-up so that I didn't look like I just spent five hours on the computer, hopped into my car and drove down to Santa Monica with Black Celebration blasting the entire way.
Must stop thinking about school. Must stop thinking.
***
Generally, I try to avoid Santa Monica's 3rd Street Promenade, on account of the fact that I have a low tolerance of both tourists and upscale hippies. (For those who don't live in LA, 3rd Street Promenade is a beach-adjacent outdoor mall/indoor mall boasting two of all of the major Gap and Express Corporation mall stores, Urban Outfiters and a bunch of other crap that replaced the hole-in-the-wall record stores and NaNa.) However, our friend Nelson was spinning at 217, a tiny bar across the street from the Macy's parking structure on Broadway at 2nd. 217 is minimal-posh in appearance with tree branches doubling as lighting fixtures and lots of smooth, natural surfaces and the crowd was large for such a small bar, but fairly mellow in attitude. Nelson and Oscar Sanin split up the 10-12 set, playing techno (ranging from minimal to, er, not minimal) and a bit of house. It sounded as if there was a fairly good representation of Output records. Someone, at some point, played Optimo, but that's about the extent of any attempted trainspotting on our part, since I was too busy dancing and chatting.
Mostly, I just hung around with Carlos and the usual suspects (Juan and Nery) engaging in fascinating discussions as to how to get pictures from a cell phone camera in a really dark nightclub (for an example of shitty night crawler cell phone photos, see the picture of Nelson at the bottom of this entry). Other stimulating topics included whether or not it is odd that M.I.A.'s single "Galang" is now featured in a car commercial and how the stiff-legged guy dancing by us was an Alex Kapranos lookalike, which led to another conversation regarding the fact that Estelle and I were dissed for liking Franz Ferdinand last weekend by one of our friends. (Fortunately, Estelle is quick with the comebacks.) Then I realized that it was midnight and, as much as I did not want to get back to reading another 200 pages of media criticism, duty called.

A friend of mine reminded me today that our 10-year high school reunion is this weekend. I decided ages ago that I would not attend on account of the fact that most of my friends were on the missing list and I still talk to the few who weren't listed therein. When she mentioned this, though, I started thinking about Soup Dragons, the early-1990s Scottish dance-rock group best known for its cover of "I'm Free." I thought of this mostly because a mutual friend of ours was so enamoured by this band in high school that she swore she would name her first-born Soup Dragon. She's one of the few people that I haven't heard from since we all went off to college and that I actually miss.
Anyhow, I thought back to that 1994-95 school year, where we were so bored with school and even more bored by the fact that we lived in an earthquake-ravaged ghost town. We tried to pass the time by watching Dead Alive repeatedly, reenacting scenes from Heathers, making fanzines and listening to a lot of music. Here is a list of some of the favorites. A lot of these songs were pretty popular, so I imagine a good chunk of readers already know them. However, I really suggest seeking out some of the tracks that might be unfamiliar.

1. Pulp-- "Common People"
After my years of DJing at Britpop clubs, I grew tired of this track, but I can still remember hearing it right before we graduated. Jarvis Cocker's critique on "slumming" remains the lyrical highlight of his career, imho.

2. Blur-- "Parklife"
Yeah, yeah, yeah, "Boys and Girls" was the big hit, but "Parklife" was the true jam with it's skipping-down-a-street beat and cockney vocals.

3. Nine Inch Nails-- "Closer"
Angel, my completely platonic other half during high school, and I would scream along to this song in the car, if only so we could shout out "I want to fuck you like an animal" at the top of our lungs without meaning it. Along with a bunch of other friends, we caught NIN at Universal that year and it was mindblowing, partially because Trent performed like he knew that was going to be his last moment of relevance but also because unknown opening band Marilyn Manson was, quite possibly, the worst band I had ever seen.

4. Mazzy Star-- "Fade Into You"
Close your eyes, sit back and let the song run through your head. It stands the test of time.

5. Velocity Girl-- "Sorry Again"
Every now and again, the chorus of this song will run through my head and I will wonder, how was it ever forgotten?

6. James-- "Laid"
I was borderline obsessed with James in high school-- Tim Booth pictures cut out of Select Magazine on my wall, nights where I would do nothing but listen to one album after the next, afternoons going from record store to record store pestering people to help me find some out-of-print release from 1984. When this song hit big, I was excited thinking that maybe someone would reissue the back catalogue. I don't think that happened.

7. Elastica-- "Connection"
Oh, it's a rock song. But you can dance to it. What is it, like, dance punk? It kind of sounds like Wire or Gang of Four. Yup, Elastica beat all of those cool new-old bands to the punch by a freakin' decade.

8. Suede-- "We are the Pigs"
The last Anderson/Butler collaborations until recently, Dog Man Star was a dreary, wonderful album that I proudly listened to almost daily.

9. Supergrass-- "Alright"
I Should Coco was the sound of bored teenagers and perhaps nothing speaks more for 1995 than "Alright."

10. Edwyn Collins-- "Girl Like You"
Orange Juice didn't make the tiniest ripple in the States, but former frontman Collins was a hit for one summer with this dance track that sounds as if it were pulled straight from some 1960s British film.

Belle and Sebastian posted recently that the band's music will be featured in Chris Jaymes' new film, In Memory of My Father, set to screen during AFI's film fest at the Arclight Theatre in Hollywood on November 7 &8, 2005. For more information on the film and to purchase tickets, click here.

Every year, people go ape shit over "Bela Lugosi's Dead" for one night. While we love us some Bauhaus, we know that there are far more frightening songs than the one just mentioned. Hell, even Bauhaus has some more terrifying tunes. Here's our list. Add your own.

1. Bauhaus-- "Party of the First Part"
A movie sample winding around David J.'s eerie dub-influenced base. I put this on my answering machine in 9th grade and then realized that all of the other goths had the same idea.

2. Nick Cave and Kylie Minogue-- "Where the Wild Roses Grow"
Murder as only a perky Australian pop star and her surly, post-whatever counterpart could retell.

3. Lydia Lunch and Clint Ruin-- "Don't Fear the Reaper"
Sure you are familiar with the work of BOC, but it's just so much more chilling in the hands of these two.

4. Siouxsie and the Banshees-- "Voodoo Dolly"
The song goes on forever, particularly if you have the live version of it, and Siouxsie wails like she has the hem of her really big lace skirt caught in her throat and she can't see through her bangs and she's about to fall right over the edge.

5. Spell-- "Theme From Rosemary's Baby"
Seriously, Boyd Rice kind of creeps me out anytime of the year, but he's at his most wicked when covering sugary AM pop songs with former Strawberry Switchblade singer Rose McDowell and then throwing this dead-on rendition of the theme from this horror movie on at the end.

6. Current 93-- "Christopher Robin"
This is on Current 93's record Island, which is my personal fave and ridiculously hard to find (at least prior to the Internet). It's the story of a boy selling his soul to the devil and frontman David Tibet delivers it like Vincent Price with folkie ambitions.

7. Skinny Puppy-- "Killing Game"
Listen to the piano at the beginning of the song before you fall asleep. Better yet, watch the video before you fall asleep.

8. Cocteau Twins-- "Strange Fruit"
Yup, the Billie Holiday song. Hearing Liz Fraser singing comprehensible words is scary enough, but her voice makes the song seem unnatural.

9. Sisters of Mercy-- "Marian"
Pretty much any Sisters song could fit on this list. Andrew Eldritch's voice makes the hair on my arms stand at attention and he did adopt a stage name that means "eerie." "Marian" is included because of the way he practically howls the name throughout the course of the song.

10. Apotheosis-- "O Fortuna"
Some people are scared by the epic sounds stemming from Carmina Burana. Others are scared by 1992 rave anthems. Either way, this will work.


Compiled by Liz and Balthazar

I have been wanting to attend Dance Like a Machine for the few months that it has been open, but that whole school thing got in the way. Now it's closing and I shall never, ever get to dance like a machine. Humbly, I would like to encourage you to do so tonight. It's your last chance for Monday night techno dancing. Well, for the time being, it's your last chance. DLAM plans to return in 2006.

Due to the fact that I have a midterm tonight (what kind of bullshit is that?), I will have no Halloween stories to post. (Although, Estelle and I did bring PLUR to the 818 in our candy raver costumes at a party on Saturday night.) If you have no plans yet, check out this party. It looks like fun.


I'll live vicariously through your Halloween stories, should you choose to share.

(Aside from the fact that it's entirely possible to run a massive piece on The Boondocks without really discussing the show.)
Kate Bush is great...for a girl. Okay, maybe I'm reading too much into the piece. Blame it on the fact that just finished reading four books on media representation for school. Regardless, Richard Cromelin writes of Bush, "a genre unto herself, she's regarded as a primary source for most distinctive female singer-songwriters, and she's also picked up accolades from less likely artists, including R&B singer Maxwell and ex-Sex Pistol John Lydon." I doubt Maxwell is an unlikely candidate for covering "This Woman's Work," since his voice matches the song and considering that Kate Bush's back catalogue is closely alligned with the, for lack of a better term, "post-punk" groups of the early-1980s (of which Lydon's PIL was one), there doesn't seem to be so much of a mismatch there either. Keeping in mind that Bush's songs have been an influence on some huge club tracks (most prominently, Utah Saints "Something Good" from the early-1990s and, more recently, a slew of popular white label remixes, including an intense reworking of "Running up that Hill" from two years back) and that "Hounds of Love" was recently covered (wonderfully, I might add) by the Futureheads and, gee, it starts to look like Kate Bush is more than just Tori Amos' predecessor.