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I hereby humbly present my Justin Berkovi Mix [.mp3 removed], featuring several of this UK producer's innovative techno tracks from the late '90s/early '00s. I thought the Village Voice was being perverse comparing techno to bluegrass a few years back (actually it was the other way around, and it was disparaging) but the second track "Gaddster" makes the connection explicit--much more convincingly than the The Grid's early '90s one-off "Swamp Thing." Berkovi doesn't just superimpose a banjo over a dancefloor beat, he actually uses electronic instrumentation and studio wizardry to mimic the rhythm and feel of a thumping hoedown, or maybe "holedown" since the track keeps plunging into the sonic equivalent of the Ketamine hole. Here's a track listing, all mixed live from vinyl EPs:
"Dark Clouds" from "The Storm" (Predicaments 11)
"Gaddster" from the "01273 Predicaments" (Force Inc.)
"Thass Raaht Baaahbee" from "Tanned Lumps With Lipstick" (Predicaments 9)
Track 2, text side, from Nightrax "London" EP (with Ibrahim Alfa)
"Dark Clouds" reprise
The plan was not to post anything too serious today, but here are some rhetorical questions addressed to future Memorial Days:
Did the cold war end because of Reagan's budget-busting military buildup or because the Soviet Union rotted from within?
With America's superpower rival gone, are "rogue states" and Islamic terrorists enough justification to maintain 700-plus military bases all over the world, and thousands of nukes?
Is the Dick Cheney goal of "imposing a fearful peace"1 on the world the right course for Americans?
Is "Islamic terrorism" about taking over America or getting America to leave Islamic countries?
1. Cheney didn't actually phrase it this way--it's what John Perry Barlow thinks his fellow libertarian Wyoming mountain man is trying to accomplish in Washington. Cheney a libertarian--what a joke: he's a creature of corporate and government bureaucracy.
It's a holiday (or post-holiday) so I'm posting stupid stuff today (or more stupid than usual). Like the homestar-ish End of the World (link may be dead because site exceeded bandwidth). This may be old news but I just discovered it. No disrespect meant to the war dead, but if we don't [fill in cautionary statement here].