lumpenprol

I have read that it's at least in part related to China pollution changing weather patterns...it wouldn't surprise me.

exactly. I wouldn't be surprised if Mag is 100% correct regarding the sense of freedom an average individual feels on a day-to-day basis. Hell, I live in China, and while you can criticize the country on any number of global comparison metrics, the experience on the ground - minus the pollution (!!!) - is much more enjoyable than in the US. I went back to the US recently (Hawaii and San Francisco) and experienced: an obese native concierge in a hotel giving me attitude; an obese native tattooed guy in the restroom near the beach growling and acting strange and somewhat threatening; a guy in a pickup truck getting road rage and flipping me off for just slowing down slightly to take a picture; rude drivers blocking me into my parking space and only reluctantly agreeing to move; every parking area being zoned with street sweeping etc; extremely high parking rates; extremely high public transportation rates; constant panhandlers; constant weed vapor everywhere; surly black female employees of Best Buy acting like they were doing me a favor by taking my money; etc. Most of this stuff never happens in China, people are largely courteous or minding their own business. The streets are safe. No drama, no attitude, no identity politics. Edit: to bring it back around to Putin, I've always kind of liked him in interviews, I find him charming. Same with Assad, for that matter: a smooth, intelligent speaking style without all the posturing that American presidents do. Now, Putin may be a royal authoritarian prick with blood on his hands, I'm just talking about appearances for now. He is articulate and likable, and sometimes cuts through the bullshit nicely: [youtubehd]ZlY5aZfOgPA[/youtubehd]

are these downloadable from soundcloud or...?

ive stolen mad shit in my teenage past but if i had been confronted by police, you know what i wouldn't do? REACH FOR THE COPS GUNS Shot to death 30+ feet from the cops vehicle. No fingerprints on weapon. No signs of altercation on body of cop. Gun wounds indicate shot to death while kneeling or falling to the ground. Completely incorrect. Dna from Mike Brown on the gun, on the interior doorhandle of the car (!) , Brown's blood inside the vehicle, and burn marks from the close-range gunfire on Mike's hand: http://cnsnews.com/news/article/brittany-m-hughes/evidence-brown-s-dna-was-interior-door-handle-police-vehicle

truth bullets from Zeffolia (though he was only 6 ft. 300 lbs heh)

several of "the artists" have lurked and posted under aliases going way back, including the wild and wooly days of yore

autechre track is just weird

hi delet...! I'm a chauvinist pig, I have two kids now and have probably changed only 10 diapers between them. Thank heavens for a dutiful wife and maid (though truth be told I actually kind of enjoy changing diapers...they just won't let me do it!)

I'm so zen I can feel strong opinions on this subject and yet keep them hidden behind my wide and some would say child-like smile

can someone please ban this clown?

looks really terrible, hopefully they improve the cg before it gets released.

nah it's crap, it's basically an early 30's dad forum where 90% of the posts are about depression, diaper brands and balding. hey now

Can't wait until they bring back Lara Flynn Boyle as the love interest again

no it's a good post, I think you're on point re: their rather laughable "we hate exposure and the media but by the way we have whole album's worth of unreleased material, are never going to give you the boxed set we teased multiple times, or the film projects, or the acoustic MHTRTC, or anything else really. In fact we're as uptight as a mosquito's asshole...but we LOVE the attention! Peace from Hexsun". I've gotten over my anger about this but it does make them laughable in my eyes. Some of their last interviews (for TH) made this really blatantly obvious and ridiculous (can't bother finding the quotes). I also used to have dreams about BoC, they were always very vivid and hyper-real. It was actually quite odd, as I've never dreamed about any other act that I can recall. It sounds a bit fanboyish but there it is; it surprised me too. I have my own pet theory, which is that Mike used to be the prime mover in the band - as evidenced by the brilliant drums on their earlier work - but fried his noodle on drugs (you can see this progression through their band photos) partway through the process of Geogaddi, and from then on it's been more of a Marcus project - more emphasis on production, but less originality. Mike is seemingly back to earth but I think the genius has left. I don't have much of anything to substantiate this, and it'd take a long time to gather together all the bits and pieces that led me to this (admittedly conjectural) theory. But anyway that's my guess. Btw I think the same dynamic applies to Orbital and to a much lesser degree Ae. In both cases I think there was a special dynamic between the partners that kind of got lost a bit due to the drug use of one of the members. In Orbital's case it was obvious that although Paul Hartnoll was probably the more musically gifted, Phil added some special dynamic that disappeared when he monged his brain out on drugs somewhere around the time of Middle of Nowhere. With Ae I don't think it's been quite as evident, but I think Sean does quite a bit of drugs and there was a point around Quaristice where he started looking pretty monged out in a lot of photos, certainly different from his previous laser intensity. He's still managed to keep up his love of making music which is great, but their stuff has been more terrestrial, more loose and jammy, and more hit-and-miss since then, though I still love it and they are my favorite act. What can you say, drugs giveth and they taketh away. And you never know which dose is going to be "one too many" until it's already happened and you're picking up the pieces on the other side. In the end it's usually the more stable but less inspired of the two - Paul Hartnoll, Rob Brown, Marcus Sandison - who ends up having more influence over the group. This has been repeated time and again, see Pink Floyd etc.

I'm still angry at Amber, actually, for all the US releases having the gap of silence in TearTear. I bought two copies and they both had the damn gap. Come to think of it, I wonder if other people did the same thing and helped fund Sean and Rob's future career, heh.