Sade Sundays: That’s How I Remember It, Season Finale (Best of 2010).
Part One: Michael Tapscott 1. Kanye West – My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (DefJam) [wpaudio url="http://www.islanddefjam.com/artist/discography_single.aspx?artistID=7307&productID=12417" text="Kanye West - 'Runaway'" dl="0"] The most controversial and real public figure almost caused a fist fight between Joshua and I at this year’s Thanksgiving. While Josh contended, correctly so, that Kanye’s public persona ruins his art, I contended, also correctly, that it heightens his palette and that the persona is in and of itself a fine work of art. We worked it out, but I was prepared to never speak to one of my best friends again for the cause. 2. Jerry Lewis [...]
Sade Sundays: To The Ends of Bear Gulch Road and Back, Year 0.
Part One: Joshua Rampage This thing could write itself; last weekend Mike and I went to find Neil Young’s house. It was a little too easy to track down the latitude and longitude coordinates of his compound, but with no GPS device we’d have to do it like gentlemen. Using a crumpled Google map I assumed the role of navigator as Mike steered us into the dark blue beyond of the Santa Cruz mountains. Rounding the steep switchbacks and overgrown hillsides of the Land That Time Forgot, it occurred to me that this might be the last and only place [...]
Sade Sundays: Post-Apocalyptic American Pastimes v.9.21.10
Part One: Joshua Rampage When I think of attending baseball games I picture Indian Summer nights, patterned green grass under bright lights, hotdogs + beer + peanuts, and thousands upon thousands of rabid fans cheering for their respective teams. Not anymore. Those memories were obliterated this past Tuesday when Michael and I attended the A’s vs. White Sox game in Oakland. The wind was ripping off the bay at a chilly 20 knots while we attempted our own version of tailgating, Mike leaving his party-ready station wagon at home, opting for his wife’s 4-door sedan instead. Brilliant. Popping the trunk, [...]
Sade Sundays: Leggo My Eggo, Season Three.
Part One: Joshua Rampage Mike "In Case You Didn’t Know I’m The Big King Over Here" Tapscott managed to leave work early (read: his 4-Square round-robby was cancelled) so we could play miniature golf and savor the remaining pockets of heat in the Bay Area. After an aberration of abbreviated warmth, things are back to 55F and foggy in SF, just the way nature designed this coastal town in Northern California. Herein lies my boggle: the mind recalls with vivid detail the island adventure I just returned from, the very trip that inspired this Sade Sunday’s latest musical undertaking – [...]
Sade Sundays: America First! Isolationist Prose Chapters I and II
Part One: Michael Tapscott I’ve come to realize that I love America. Perhaps it is reading Phillip Roth's The Plot Against America, a Jewish nightmare novel that imagines Charles Lindbergh defeating Roosevelt in the 1940 presidential election, sealing an Icelandic deal with Hitler and beginning frazzled out Semitic programs of his own. Viewing one’s country ripped apart instills a sort of swarthy patriotism in me and I am trying my hardest not to scrutinize things through a nostalgic lens, but I miss Bo Jackson and I miss trail mix with M&M's in it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87X2TV_Fkj4&feature=related To think of the suburban American [...]
Sade Sundays: Adrift In the Sea of Perdition XXVIII
Part One: Michael Tapscott I was a loaded pistol or at least a loaded squirt gun this past Wednesday night. I felt like I’d let you, the reader, down in recent months. Sade Sundays had been taking time off for no good reason, being sort of half way here with you when we were here at all. Suggesting random tunes and Randy Newman videos, and perhaps the worst came when I offered a two sentence review of the new CocoRosie record last month. I’m here to apologize, and if this article doesn’t seem as a grand apology full of witticism [...]
Sade Sundays: Girl, It’s a Photoshoot Part IV.
Part 1 By: Joshua Rampage As we approach mid-2010, the situation can be described as languid at best; adventures have been put on hold while I pace slowly up and down this long hallway, stirring up dust bunnies. Snoozy weather and sinus infections have the weird ability to cull the right kind of music for the moment, and I've been submerged in hazy ambiance ever since Die Antwoord depleted all of the serotonin in my brain with their impeccable taste. I've since grown comfortable within these walls of soft interiors. Set adrift in the haunted depths of The Caretaker, I've [...]
Sade Sundays: Variations on a Phantasmagoric Experience
Part 1 By: Joshua Rampage There are a candid few who can welcome an inconvenient and uncomfortable interruption into their lives so readily, but I was getting a little bored with feeling healthy every day anyway. So I did some smooching and before anyone could start snorting, I was sick. Self-diagnosing led me to believe I was suffering from the early stages of Pig Flu. I began to obsessively check my nose for an upward-tilt and my butt for a burgeoning corkscrew tail, but found evidence of neither. Instead, I was forced to accept an annoyance specifically reserved for those [...]
Sade Sundays: Variations on a Religious Experience
Part 1 By: Michael Tapscott Sade Sunday’s sat cold with a lingering spirit, an unnamed and undefined amorphous blob that cried out, “you have a commitment here fellows!†So, I met with Josh, on a Wednesday, in his bedroom. As we rotated seats between his couch and his bed to play tracks of our own choosing that the other person could care less about, I thought to myself, “this shall not do.†Josh and I met in Indiana University, our musical sophistication lies in those backwaters where we weaned each other on and off the new indie torrents and enjoyed [...]
Sade Sundays: The Fiery Furnaces, The Dodos, Jóhann Jóhannsson
Mike always insists I meet him in the east bay. When I ask why he says, “because I’m here†in a way that is devoid of shame. He picks me up from BART in his grandfather's silver Subaru and then we're at his house eating tamales and popping Brother Thelonious Beer. "Marlene's at Muir Woods, we can put our feet up". But when I realized the socks I was wearing had holes in them, I kept mine planted on the ground. Warming up with talk about choices and bearclaws, I began to wonder about his deliciously-round, butterball cat - and [...]