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Dusted Features
Every Friday, Dusted Magazine publishes a series of music-related lists determined by our favorite artists. This week: Comedienne Laura Kightlinger and Schematic newcomer Nick Forté
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Listed:
Laura Kightlinger +
Nick Forté
Laura Kightlinger
I (Laura Kightlinger) just finished making a documentary about the Rockefeller Drug Laws, and it will be in the Boston International Film Festival on July 4th (so who in the hell is going to see it?). It's called 60 Spins Around the Sun.. I nabbed a minor role in a Will Ferrell movie entitled: Anchor Man. I will be writing on Will & Grace again this year and appearing infrequently as Shelia, the nurse in the sperm bank. I wrote (and IFC purchased) a TV pilot for IFC tentatively titled: Asleep At the Wheel. The thing I'm enjoying most is putting a record together with Drag City.
1. Big Black – The Rich Man's Eight Track (Touch and Go) – The song "kerosene" has a special place in my heart because it was the song I was Bat Mitzvah-ed to. Steve Albini produced CDs for the Pixies and the Breeders before forming a band called "Rapeman" – proving once again that comeback bands with the word "rape" in the title are almost always a mistake. He produced another of my all-time favorite records – Nirvana's In Utero.
2. Big Star – #1 Record (Ardent) – Whenever I have one of my "funeral fantasies," I imagine Alex Chilton and Big Star playing 'Thirteen" while I'm in my coffin too embarrassed to tell everyone I'm not really dead, I'm just drunk.
3. Cardinal – Cardinal (Flydaddy) – I like this CD so much I put the liner notes in my underwear. I love the lushness of the strings and the French horns, combined with the Bowie-esque vocals. A lot of sound for two guys. I lost my virginity to "You've Lost Me There."
4. Dead Kennedys – Give me Convenience or Give me Death (Alternative Tentacles) – I think that I lost my virginity in the mosh pit while the Dead Kennedys were playing "Too Drunk To Fuck." In spite of that, to this day "Holiday In Cambodia" still makes me smile.
5. Brian Eno – Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy (EG) – "Burning Airlines," "The Fat Lady of Limbourg," – funny, intelligent, strange espionage lyrics. Brian Eno has the kind of imagination you wish you had. There are so many solidly wonderful songs on this CD, I can't return my mother's phone calls.
6. Brain Eno/David Byrne – My Life In the Bush of Ghosts (Sire) – I think you could call this atmospheric, polymeric, phantasmagoric...I could listen to Robert Fripp skip stones. It's like looking at a drawer full of ecstasy and deciding not to take any of it until you've heard the next song. This CD takes you to the same place as X, but not the same place as roofies – which is how I lost my virginity.
7. Ludacris – Southern Comfort (Def Jam) – His beats are very "street" – his music reminds me of carpooling with my friend's parents through the filthy suburbs of Jamestown, New York to get to the skating rink. To this day, I wish I could get "on the floor and throw them bows" with Mr. Andrews, even though he's been dead for 12 years.
8. Peaches – The Teaches of Peaches (Kitty-Yo / Beggars) – She's dirty, sexy and I don't know how many times I've popped in her CD and thought: "fucking the pain away" would be fun...but is it realistic? By the way, her real name is Merrill Nisker and she took my virginity.
9. The Smiths – Meat is Murder (Sire) – I wish I could've lost my virginity to Morrissey instead of the night manager at Burger King. "Well I Wonder" was my anthem in high school. I'd lie in bed, my heart beating fast from Dexatrim and Tab and listen to this album and think, "Maybe I'm not as ugly as I feel."
10. Smog – Red Apple Falls (Drag City) – "To Be Of Use" hits me in the breadbasket every time. I could swerve off the road, sit in the woods and cry for an hour. I can't help but think the title track, Red Apple Falls was written about me since my birthday is June 13th and that exact date is in the lyrics to the song. How did he know that about me?! It's eerie.
Nick Forté
Nick Forté Top ten records of recent recollect (in no order):
Nick Forté is from Brooklyn, but geographically speaking his music falls somewhere between his living room and Twin Peaks. He is half of the duo called Christmas Decorations, whose recent album Model 91 on the Kranky label crept quietly into many charts and CD players late in 2002. Pasted Lakes, his debut album on Schematic, is the remains of Nick's first foray into computer music – he took scraps and reassembled them in an somewhat random manner, recycling and remolding them until they bore no resemblance to their source and took on a form of their own. Forté used old punk and hardcore records like the first Wire album, early Minutemen records, and Renaldo and the Loaf as inspiration – but more as a guide than anything else. Forté admits that if anything had an effect on his sound, it was his apartment. Hearing things like boiling water or rickety pipes and figuring out how to capture those ideas comes across in the record’s faux-yet-lifelike textural themes. Cut, paste, listen, and save.
1. Wassermann – "W.I.R." 12" – Messed up angular disco. A great record to put on while getting ready for a night out on the town. Wolfgang Voight is the man, case closed. I have a framed picture of him hanging up in my studio. I'm serious. Come over and check for yourself.
2. Rudimentary Peni – The E.P.s of R.P. (Corpus Christi) – In times of war you have to kick out a little Rudimentary Peni just to not feel so dirty. If members of the Bush Administration would listen to this, I think Rumsfeld would be putting on hardcore shows in his basement and Cheney would do a personal ’zine, maybe with some recipes.
3. Amon Düül – Psychedelic Underground (Repertoire) – If they played this trance inducing jumble at raves in the 90’s I might have gone to some. Instead I had to score horse tranqs from this dude I know that works at the Meadowlands and take ’em at home all by my lonesome while listening to these Krauts get it on.
4. Motion – Dust (12K) – This came out recently on the amazing 12K label. Super minimal, grainy post everything blah blah blah electronics that puts most stuff out there right now to shame. Sounds like this was recorded on a Texas Instruments Sinclair or something. Remember those? It was one of the first home computers that was affordable from like 1980. I think it was 4-bit or something. God, how I wanted one of those at the time. But I didn't get one, my cousin did though and I used his. If I had a clue back then I would have used it to make a record that sounded like this instead of playing some lame Pac-Man rip off.
5. Animal Collective – Campfire Songs (Catsup Plate) – Are they hippies? Folkies? Indie kids? Don’t know. Don’t care. All I know is I see members of the "Collective" waiting in line at hip Brooklyn brunch joints and I find myself listening to this damn thing nearly every morning because it is just that good.
6. Stars of the Lid – Avec Laudenum (Kranky) – Everyone talks about ambient music...well okay, actually barely anybody talks about ambient music, but those who do really should talk about this. It is beautiful and truly ambient. I dare you to stay awake through the whole thing.
7. The Fall – Perverted By Language (Essential) – If I were to start a weird cult in the desert, this would be the only record anybody would be allowed to listen to. We would listen to it over and over and over again. We would then commit horrible and strange acts, inspired by the lyrics of "Tempo House" and "Smile". It would probably be really cool, but people would no doubt get hurt.
8. Audio Bullys – Ego War (Astralwerks) – The first time I heard this I thought it was one of the worst things I ever heard. Then I heard it again and realized I was just an idiot and it is actually totally brilliant. Duh. Sounds like an old ATV record wearing big white sneakers, baggy Levis, smoking a fatty. House music with attitude.
9. Iannis Xenakis – Electro-Acoustic Music (Fractal) – I've been trying to track down a cheap vinyl copy of this for a couple of years and just did recently. It was recorded like a hundred years ago or something when "laptop" was only some sissy way of saying napkin. If it came out today, everybody in the electronic camp would still be saying what the fuck is this? Forward thinking to the umpteenth level.
10. Men's Recovery Project – Bolides Over Basra (Load) – One day, many years ago, I was present when Sam McPheeters (vox of MRP) was doing a fanzine interview. When asked if he was a vegan, he replied, "No, I eat fur and have a belt made of eggs." This record is like that.
By Dusted Magazine
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