Documenting Random Arrangements

Lux Interior is dead so we had to spend this weekend getting on the Drug Train and listening to our Cramps records. Can't barely make it through "Lonesome Town" without dropping a tear, but anyway, I had to also pull out the Napa State Mental Institute Show for olde tymes sake. This DVD was produced by Target Video (no, not that Target), who included a bonus feature that actually caught one of my 96 eyes this time. This video production company captured a lot footage of late 70's/early 80's punk, which they threw snippets of in this bonus feature.

One scene showed this shirtless noise-punk guy rattling tied together metal tubes on the floor for like 10 minutes. The floor was checkered, the walls were dirty and scrawled on, and a lot of the people standing around him looked like people at shows here. But what was really on those walls, before there was a camera in every fingernail? We might never know, but here are some photos of "The Loft" (our loft) so that the hyperbloggers of the future may complain about the resolution of our ancient cameras. Look at that thing on the left- that's just a place on a door where we clean screens. Stuff like that is crawling all over this place.

I don't know where this bike came from or why it's hanging from the ceiling. But I do know neon orange came from heaven. (this just in -2/08/09 UPDATE: from Joe Jurewicz via Hotmail - "I rode that orange bike home from the levee one night wasted. it was just sitting on the sidewalk so I took it. It's been hanging there ever since.")

A long time ago in a galaxy far away, some space cadet thought we were gonna sell beer out of that Coke machine. Then it died two weeks later. Then we stacked a stereo on top of it and had to go upstairs to switch the records. Then Mac woke up at 3 in the morning and decided he couldn't sleep until he had painted the entire machine black. It's totally black now except where this one circular sticker was. Now that the sticker is removed, you can see one bare, red circle of magnified Coke machine perspiration. The record changing routine got old so we pushed the machine in a far corner. The end. George from Coin Under Tongue drew this mural thing with charcoal. Who are these people? That woman looks cool, but the guy looks sort of like an intense novelist type- sorry, guy! Actually, we can't take credit for this. That pot rack has been hanging there since we moved in. Those steel cables are like 25 ft. to the ceiling, all just to hang a few pots! It's space saver for sure, but it hurts when you go to high five people under it.

Free Jamz! - Download these to your iPuds

These tracks were posted a long time ago on Brooklyn Vegan, but for anyone that missed them way back then, here they are again. Two tracks from Coin Under Tongue and two tracks from Sisters. And hey, even if you already have CUT's self-titled song, download this new one, it has improved DRUM DYNAMICS! You know the deal, right click these to download, or alt+click for Mac (I think). CUT are recording some new songs right now at the DBA studio and hopefully they will show up soon on a couple of our favorite blogs. Ollie from A Place to Bury Strangers has been back in town and finished up the new improved prototype for the Fuzz War, which Joe used on one of the new songs.

1. Coin Under Tongue - "Coin Under Tongue"
2. Coin Under Tongue - "Roll Child"
3. Sisters - "Accolades"
4. Sisters - "Street Cars"

And hey, new president right!? Now is the time to buy something to commemorate this event in history and help the economy. Screw those Photoshopped coins, you need to get these new Obama action figures from Japan.

The Boob Movie Game

So a few of the dudes (Alex, Mac, Joe, Dorothy, George, and many many more!) were hanging out at "the loft", that's the main living area of "the ranch" or Death By Audio studios... whatever. ANYWAY, some people were watching Nightmare on Elm St. on the projector upstairs while people downstairs wanted to listen to records - a common debate in the house. The people downstairs complained that the movie sucked and we just want to get high and listen to these records and the people upstairs rebutted that they were waiting to see if there were going to be any boob scenes. Then the people downstairs said, "Hey if you wanna see boobs, take this Elm St. shit out and put in something like... Edward Boobhands." From there, the next half hour became a game of Outburst, with people shouting out movie titles, replacing one word in the title with the word "boob. Here are the best:

Tongue Love '08

It's that time of the year again, when the sunlight doesn't hit North America as often as it did when the the earth's north axis tilted into sun. That's when internet websites and magazines think, "Hey, we better make lists of all the things we liked since the last time we had short days!" Believe it or live in an imaginary world, but Coin Under Tongue popped up on FIVE lists for the year of 2008.

Mike Bell from Filter Magazine put CUT in his top 5 for 2008, along side another one of the DBA troops, The Jealous Girlfriends, featuring Holly Miranda, who has been subletting at the DBA dude ranch since last year. (thanks Mike!)

1. Grand Archives, The Grand Archives (Sub Pop)
2. The Jealous Girlfriends, The Jealous Girlfriends (Good Fences)
3. Sigur Ros, Meo suo i eyrum vio spilum endalaust (XL)
4. Coin Under Tongue, S/T (Death By Audio Records)
5. Sebastien Tellier, Sexuality (Record Makers)

Britt Daniel from Spoon was asked by pitchforkmedia.com what his favorite audio releases of 2008 were and he found room for The Coin Boyz in his top 10, as seen here.

1. Crooked Fingers: Forfeit/Fortune
2. The Heavenly States: Delayer
3. Jay Reatard: Matador Singles '08
4. Carbon/Silicon: The Last Post
5. Wolf Parade: At Mount Zoomer
6. Deerhunter: Microcastle
7. Q-Tip: The Renaissance
8. Coin Under Tongue: Coin Under Tongue
9. Earles and Jensen: Just Farr a Laugh, Vol. 1 & 2: The Greatest Prank Phone Calls Ever!
10. The Walkmen: You & Me

(It should also be noted that Joe from CUT's favorite release from 2008 was also Earles and Jensen: Just Farr A Laugh) Joseph Robinson from the Village Voice rated CUT 6th in their annual Pazz and Jop critics awards for 2008 - look at this! :

1	M83, Saturdays=Youth Mute
2	Crystal Stilts, Alight of Night Slumberland
3	Bon Iver, For Emma, Forever Ago Jagjaguwar
4	Guns N' Roses, Chinese Democracy Geffen
5	No Age, Nouns Sub Pop
6	Coin Under Tongue, Coin Under Tongue Death By Audio
7	The Walkmen, You & Me Gigantic
8	Fuck Buttons, Street Horrrsing ATP
9	Chase King, Chase King Arkain Records
10	Marnie Stern, This Is It . . . Kill Rock Stars

And in the WTF, holy blaADOW! category, the Minneapolis, Minnesota based music/humor blog Cancers from 1970 named the Corn Wonder Hung 12", record of the year for 2008 ! Wow, please baby, baby, PLEASE don't hate- it's just one geniuses' opinion! (thanks Ben!- your BJ is in the mail)

Then there's this video of "The Spiciest Songs of 2008" from Spicy Times With Nora & Jinners, which features a clip from Coin Under Tongue's "Shaven Clean". Thanks Jin! xoxo

And hell, while we're at, blogger Bill P. from SoundBites made a comment on stereogum.com that he can't wait to hear the 2nd Coin Under Tongue LP coming in 2009. Thank you Bill!

Big Hugz in New London, Connecticut

For the first time this millenium, the entire Death By Audio roster hit the road together. With a little help from our friends in the Total Bolsheviks, we GPS'd our way up the road to the Oasis Pub in New London, Connecticut. A very courteous (and quite possibly homeless) man helped us parallel park our van with seriously 2" to spare.

DJ Charlie Chaplin got the room warmed up as the bands hauled their crap into the venue. The Coin Boys hung around outside smoking, where they noticed a pair of breasts defying the freezing temperature 20 feet above their heads. It's a busty bust sculpture high above the bar (see badly lit photo above) Aaron from Sisters took a pill that should have been reserved for giants and rendered himself happy and unable to drive. Sisters played a hurricane alarm loud, bedazzled set in front of the bathroom. Total Bolsheviks expanded on themes written within chapters that could be dated back to as far as 13 A.D. , given that you have ample translation dictated to you in your native language. Rounds of shots were fired at Coin Under Tongue which resulted in some very enthusiastic ape like headbanging from the band, which led to an outbreak of primal cheers among the patrons. There was a cool guy with a Wipers shirt up front.

The crown jewel of the night was when this man Rob showed up with his fast-food-on-wheels truck called "Roadside Grill". I had a nacho bacon chilli dog. Those are the four elements that lead to the center of my heart. Are you listening, ladies!?

Superfriends Spotlight! - The Muggabears

When they're not destroying their Rock Band instruments at the Death By Audio loft, The Muggabears record their own original music. Over the past few weeks they have been bringing over daily mixes of their upcoming album entitled... well, we don't know, the CDs they gave us are just blank white. Their music reminds me of those Japanese horror movies where the sexy girl with dark hair walks towards you sort of weird and you think "that's cool come over here, err...wait, something's not right here" but then it's too late and she's right in front of you, then you notice she crying black ink and her hair is actually dragon scales and you scream and she shakes you and says "what's wrong with you!?" and now she looks perfectly normal again and then you kiss her because you want to make sure she's real. Today they finally released one of these new jams out into the wylde (i.e. Myspace) and it definitely has a title that everyone can relate to: "Guitar Feelings". Everyone's got 'em so click the link below to get yours!

The Muggabears - Myspace Site ("Guitar Feelings")

The Hangman

Have you ever rented a horror movie you remember seeing as a kid only to find out it’s not mysterious or spooky at all. In fact, almost all horror movies seem cheesy to you now. But somewhere lurking in your head is the version YOU remember, a version that your imagination has built into myth that no movie could live up to. That’s what I had carried around in my head for 20 years and had almost decided to try to remake a version of The Hangman, a slideshow animation of Maurice Ogden’s poem. I was haunted by the Hangman’s “buckshot eye” and “yellow twist of knotted hemp” long after my 7th grade English teacher rolled the projector back to the A.V. room. I scoured the internet for years in the hope that it might silence my attempts in vain to describe it to friends. 2 years ago I began storyboarding my remake. I was almost disappointed to find it on YouTube last month. Would it live up to my memory? Would it ruin my version? Turns out my version would have been shit. Message, art, direction – it’s all as intact now as it was back then. It’s truth is timeless and this video (although I pray for a clean DVD transfer someday) is UNFUCKWITHABLE.