VLOGZZZ

WUTUP to CUTup

Yeah, new name, same great taste. As it turns out, the name Freak Mode was already taken by a Chi-city Juke label that just came out of hibernation a few days ago. We thought about getting some legal rights to the name, but we found out that they may just be too freaky for us to get into that.

We are now CUT DIVISION. I've been telling people that this name better reflects our personality as a label—showing our thang for bay slang as well as having our shit together and organized.

But we're really the exact same label. Same projects we're working on, same shows are happening, same Mission going on. So here's what we've been up to lately.

SLOW LORIS is going to sonoma to record its first EP tomorrow. And we're all pumped! We'll be working on the same rad tunes. I don't want to give away anything until I can actually literally give away some of these tracks when we're done, so I'll leave it at that. These are some really gnarly songs we have working. Actually you may have wondered why Thomas was a little late on his post—it turns out he had a RELAPSE of tonsilitis, which our music was able to STRIKE DOWN for the second time in a row! It's that good!

Also, I got a question—are you doing anything next friday? I hope not! actually if you have anything planned for Friday afternoon, cancel it—work, doctor appointsments, weddings, funerals, births—cancel it all and COME TO the THIRD ANNUAL DOLORES PARK ROCK N ROLL BBQ[name pending]!

It's gonna RULE. Guess who's playing:

TSA ([maybe] last show EVER!)

BLOOD ORGY

SLOW LORIS

ST. MAWR

THE EGADS

HI HO SILVER! (reunited!)

and MANY MORE t.b.a.

and there is going to be SO MUCH FOOD and SO MANY WEBBER GRILLS. I'm already in a rock 'n' roll food coma. I think I may be playing with at least four bands, so you know, I'll be interested in something the whole time. So why don't you come along? Bring a band! Bring a burger! Bring a grill! Bring a thizz pill!

That's about it. If that got you too excited, I would go over to gilman tomorrow night and catch MIKE HUNCHBACK AND THE WEIRD FANTASY BAND, SHELLSHAG, and local faves YANKEE KAMIKAZE, and MORE.

CUT OUT

TWO WARNINGS

WARNING ONE:

Odds are, if you're into visual art you'd probably need some free stuff. CUT DIVISION needs a logo. so hey! we're going to hold a contest to exchange one for the other! you, the artist, will send C.D. your best logo and we cuts will in turn provide the creator of the best logo with an excellent prize package! more details to come in the next couple of days, but we will have a deadline: if you have any ideas already, why not get crackin with them?


WARNING TWO:

SLOW LORIS is a band featuring Jimmy Stack (Cut Division co-founder), Thomas Rubenstein and myself. We just spent about 11 hours today recording a demo at the Dossetter Studio, on which Jimmy is doing a rough job of mixing and mastering as we speak. We'll be recording tracks for our debut EP next weekend, but for now keep your eyespace on our MySpace for us to drop a couple tracks from the demo. Thomas will make his blogging debut tomorrow with a write-up of the recording process, how great a dude BENJI DOSSETTER is and downloads of our soon-to-be smash hits "Bye Bye" and "Drunk Dudes".

That's it for now; clearly our epic recording session has exhausted me and ruined my attempts at coherance and made me look for elaborate ways to not end sentences with prepositions or whatever.

BIZZARRO

I got this friend Max right here. He's a great dude. He always has shit to talk. And I trust his taste in music over my own most of the time. So even Dolores Park seems fun with him.

For instance: Max was there a couple of weeks ago, when some friends and I were bumming around there and drinking 40z like morons instead of seeing Pentagram (like I said, moronic; maybe a little justified since i had to buy a bus pass and I could not afford $25 shows at the time). It was sort of fortuitous having him there, at least, instead of looking at the usual crowd of BKF weirdos (Robbie DiPaulo was hanging out with Cameron Knutson if that means anything to anyone. People don't read this as a SF gossip blog though so I'll just say that it's a weird combo that threw a surreal spin on a standard feeling of Thursday night lethargy). Here's not one, but TWO myspace sites that I was compelled to peep the next day, all by Max.



ONE:

I'm one of those Ameseours bandwagon-hoppin, Aquarius-newsletter-skimmin a-holes that's otherwise clueless about the rest of the French Black Metal scene. I mean, I know about Les Légions Noires on a wikipedia basis (Black Legions of Black Metal, too deadly for distribution other than tapes passed around the corpsepainted masses) but I'm too lazy to go out finding the good (or evil) stuff. On our way back to the park from the 40-store I told him about this, and he pointed out how "faggy" I was and referred me to PESTE NOIRE.

I found some of their music here, but be warned:

"PESTE NOIRE has no official myspage page nor any website and will never have. They are totally against that "Funderground friend-seeking" side of the internet BM [Thomas just asked me what this stood for: Black Metal, duh] scene (myspace, youtube) and reject the exposure of their music to the unworthy masses through mp3s by so-called "fans" (myspace, lastfm, p2p)."

Serious. Too metal for myspace. Too metal for music-listening. Too raw for reality. Listen for yourself, if you think you're up to it. You also notice on there that Peste Noire is french for the Black Death. I guess the direct translation is just Black Pest; to the French, death is no more threatening than a mosquito! METAL. I also noticed that this says they're looking to play shows in July...they may not be into the Bay Area Funderground though. Moving on—




TWO:

After some High Life, Max ended up meeting the bassist of MISTER LOVELESS. More "arguing/bonding with" than meeting, I should be more precise. We'd sort of known Charlie for a while through mutual friends, but Max has a way of hazing people when they "step on the scene", so to speak. I'm gonna paraphrase that conversation and probably misappropriate and embarrass myself and everyone else involved.

Charlie: Are you gonna go to the Rickshaw Stop on the 23rd?
Max: I don't think so, man.
C: You know I'm playing there dude, and your friends in Tincture and the Downer Par—

M: I hate you Charlie.

C: I hate you too Max.
M: You know what charlie, I like you.

C: I don't want you to like me.
...
C: I like you, Max.
M: Charlie, I LOVE YOU.

My buddy Thomas ended up chatting up Charlie about how much they like reverb. So natch I'm up on myspace the next day, peeping Mister Loveless. I like them! Shit, I think I could even convince Max to like them. He'd at least give them a shot, which is saying something. The last time he gave someone shit for being too fashionable or "hip" or whatever, the guy went "dirty-hippy" and decided to change his name to Learner Patrick Young and go to "Wanderer's Conventions" in New Mexico. Charlie is doing strong at this point. Probably practicing for his show next Thursday at the Rickshaw Stop or navigating some legal shitmine involving liscensing their song for the next Tony Hawk game. Real shit. Maybe M.L. is down to get Freaky and let us put a track or two up in a bit.

I'll also see if Max Bizzy is down to get Freaky...maybe trade him bass lessons for blog posts so that he can start the best doom metal band to come from SF since Blood Orgy.

But that's it for now. See you on Saturday, FREAKS. I'll be stepping in the studio with Jimmy and Thomas, and maybe by the time we come out I'll have another myspace to show you. I'll at least put some pictures on this post to make it more exciting by then.

P BUH

Phaseone is on one.

A few weeks ago I hit up STL's Phaseone, asking him if he'd be open to doing some production for an MC's release on Cut Division. He soon responded denying my request (or more of a plea). At the time I was thinking, Oh well thanks, you stuck-up douchebag. (I admit, my feelings were moderately hurt...) But as I listen to Phaseone's new album now, entitled "Thanks But No Thanks," I realize his music/production shouldn't be used in conjunction with an MC. In his music he employs many samples, synth lines, and rhythms that when molded together, form a truly complete composition; any singing or rapping would take away from his eclectic and almost psychedelic vibes. So I must say, Phaseone, good call on not working with any MCs.

I find Phaseone's music to be genuinely new and innovative, and I must say it's pretty refreshing. We're at a point in the music industry where almost everything sounds the same. Seriously, every time I turn on some Clear Channel "hip hop" station, I think to myself, This song must be by Lil' Wayne or Drake, or T-Pain, or Akon, or Jamie Foxx, or Plies, or Hurricane Chris, or Soulja Boy, or Jim Jones, or Rick Ross, or any hip hop artist that has had any moderate success in the past ten years. It's not to say that some Clear Channel music isn't catchy or even well produced, it's just monotonous and repetitive. Phaseone's music really brings a ton of contrasting elements into the lately unvaried world of hip hop. He some how finds a way to give weird, ambient, and unpredictable music a head-nob-able feel and flow.

I'll post some of his original tunes a little later, but for now here's his remix of Animal Collective's "Daily Routine."

Daily Routine (Phaseone Remix) - Animal Collective

Brookah!

My long time friend Brookah (pictured in the middle) and I have recently reconnected. So here's the story. Brookah and I went to an elementary school together in San Francisco, known as Town School for Boys. TSB is basically just your typical preppy, all boys elementary school. The folks at TSB boast that it's the top elementary school in San Francisco, I don't really know what I'm saying...I can't think of anything funny to say about TSB at the moment. There is one for sure cool thing about TSB, both members of Two Gallants went there! Yeah, pretty rad.

Anyways, Brookah cut from San Francisco in roughly 1999 (I think?) and ultimately wound up in Chicago. It had been years since I talked to him, but this year we reconnect on Face Book. Hells yeah FB! We found we both have a common passion for electronic music. So we got to talking and as it turns out he writes for Hot Biscuits and runs a blog with his friends in the chi, entitled Squeegie. So here's a recent mix he did. Hit it up, download it, comment.

Brookah's "Let's Try This Out Mix" - 42 min

01. Renaissance Man – Haarlem
02. Count and Sinden – Hardcore Girls (ft. Rye Rye)
03. Hatiras – The New Jam
04. Bingo Players – Get Up (Diplo Remix)
05. Bart B More – Make Some Noise
06. Bumblebeez – Dr. Love (Crookers Remix)
07. Bart B More – Dubbin
08. Dem Slackers – The Joker (Edu K’s Bad Boy Stomp Remix feat. MC Gi)
09. DJ Ralph One – Soundz That Pop (Richi Jamz Remix)
10. Boltan – Creepy (Mightyfools Remix)
11. Digital Manges – Give Me A Reason (Douster Remix)
12. Lorcan Mak – Crack Shack (Mad Kids Remix)
13. The Yank – We Can’t Be Stop’d

http://www.myspace.com/brookahmusic

Boy, Oh Boy

If you follow me on Twitter (jstackills, follow me!), you would know that I worked in the studio last night. Overall, it was one of the most frustrating and emotionally draining experiences of my life. Despite the fact that not much actually went wrong and was just done wrong, the session overall just fell short of a complete failure.

The whole process started with me arriving to Josh Meer's house 45 minutes late. Josh is one of my co-producers and also an author on the Cut Division blog. Lunching with my mom in downtown San Francisco at Perbacco, an amazing restaurant by the way, held me up for a while. Even though I left at 2:30, with bus time and everything, I still somehow managed to show up at Josh's late. We spent quite a while trying to put a project of Josh's into Pro Tools from Reason. Once we finished that whole deal, which took like 2 hours or so, Josh and I walked to Divisadero Street and got some dinner.

After dinner we arrived at Benjamin Dossetter's house. Benji has been a long time friend of mine and he is really generous when I ask to use studio. He's got the place pretty decked out for an amateur. Benji has quite a few exceptionally nice guitars, a Korg synth, Pro Tools, a Digi 002, a Digi Command 8 mixer, and much more. If you ever need a demo recording stop, holler at me, I'll hook you up with Benji, he'll hook you up with a great deal. Anyways, I really came into the session totally unprepared. My song, unlike Josh's was not only not Pro Tools ready, but incomplete. So that in its self was a disaster. Jesus H. Christ...

I think Josh will give you guys the full DL on the whole session, but overall, for my first experience in the producer's chair, legitimately producing an artist, things went terribly. I was unprepared, I didn't get what I needed out of the artist, and I feel like I generally wasted everyone's time. But I guess any experience is a learning experience, right?

Recording Sesh

Christ.

Well there's no getting around it; putting music together is tough. Mr. Stack and I are hard at work on the first EP for Cut Division. Up until today things seemed to really be going swimmingly. This is of course why I am writing this post.

Let's blame the first gaffe of the day on Muni. Apparently, it's not that the 38 didn't come, it's just that "the route takes a while." Fair enough. Jimmy arrives at my residence 45 minutes later, but alas it's alright. Eli and I have been preparing beats, all is well.

Jimmy has this particular notion that recording audio into pro tools from reason is some sort of easy step in the process, though it turns out to be quite the opposite. What my man wants is each track of reason data (a track for drums, bass, synths, etc) on it's own track in pro tools. We spend a good two hours attempting to create different kinds of pro tools tracks while rerouting the hell out of our reason file and we are unable to record the audio into pro tools. In the end it ends up being quite a simple task; creating stereo wav files of each track and importing them into pro tools, no longer using a special module known as ReWire (Jimmy was a bit obsessed). Hallelujah: Jimmy is thrilled, the pro tools file is looking great, it's on his hard drive and we're on our way to Benji's.

Well that was only the beginning. We get to Benji's (a beautiful spot I must say, a great place to record) and we f*$# around for a while, but then get down to business and begin preparing to record. WAIT, hold the phone. Jimmy's not ready to record vocals on his track, he hasn't finished his track yet! Apparently, his "sketchy" Logic Pro isn't quite fulfilling his deepest desires, and that was a problem, especially tonight. What a marathon. We arrived at the studio around 7:30. I left the studio at 1:00. We were trying to record two songs. Only two. One of the tracks was already done, a form put together, ready to rock but our MC had issues writing the words so essentially, that track is now on the back burner. The wheels were coming off quickly. Whilst I write this, vocals are being recorded on the other track. I hope they are going well.

Things might sound like they're in the s*@#ter but honestly, this is a part of the process. I'm having a ball. I love being in studio environments and I'm loving every minute of this. We're learning a lot of new things (tonight was my night to bear witness to Jimmy's ridiculous flatulence) and I see a bright future ahead. Up until this point there had been no road blocks. Now we have come across some, and that's totally okay. We shall regroup. Nothing has gone to waste, we are still in utero, still carving out our space. Absolutely not a vaginal or hysterectomy reference, sorry Mom. That being said, the world will know when we burst from the womb.

The beats are saucy and the music is pumping. Tonight we just decided to play a record with a lot of scratches on it. It happens, it's going to happen again, and I have no issue with that. This is all a part of the process, and I look forward to more; much more.

St. More

"Indie" "bands" tend to end up on "sound-tracks" for "indie" "films", but if St. Mawr got into the pictures they would probably end up backing up something a lot more interesting than Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist. Movies suck. Your friends rule. Your friends should be in movies because movies should be about them. I'm more upset about my friend/bandmate having mono than I am about never actually seeing Nick and Norah. I'd rather watch my friend tune his guitar than watch Michael Cera in an uncomfortable sex scene.

So, real shit: St. Mawr is a great band with guys I've good enough friends with to have strangely unflattering photos of them.

Josh Meer plays guitar and sings on most of the songs we've put up here. He's been writing songs as long as I've known him, which goes back to some really excellent pop-punk demos in freshman year. I was in a sort of "youth crew" (oriented more toward blunts and beer than baseball bats and beatdowns) called Wiener Section in the first half of high school, and Josh Meer was a tight enough homie to run with the fourteen of us. I think we also went to Hebrew school together at Temple Emanu-El. By the time we saw Star Wars Episode III together, he was already a matured and disciplined songwriter/musician/producer, and that shows in these spring 2008 demos.

Andrew Hine plays drums and sings on one track, the blackout rager that is "Turning Into Nothing". I could go on and on about all the cutty things this man has done, how deep he mobs, etc. etc., but it should suffice for today to say that he's a classmate of Josh (Drew College Prep, SF, 2008).

This recording, Sweaty Palms, also enlists Jim Garrison, a music teacher who enjoyed working with the band so much that he joined them after their tenure at Drew to keep playing music with them. You can hear him hear playing bass, sax, accordion and probably a few other things I haven't even noticed yet. I haven't had the pleasure of meeting him, but someone told me that he and I were at the same Shellac show a couple weeks ago, which I consider a good sign.

It's nice how this band covers so much ground in just the four or five songs we've put up here and still manages to maintain its own energy, despite the influence of hanging out with the same crowd of punkers and taggers and assorted high school d-bags that surrounded the rest of us. This is a band that's worth following and more than worth listening to.

TL;DR version: St. Mawr rules and I'd rather listen to them than get fingered by Michael Cera.

Recollection - St. Mawr

Turning Into Nothing - St. Mawr

St. Mawr

One of our good friends, a friend who will soon write for the Freak Mode blog, has this band St. Mawr. To tell you the truth I don't know much about them, I just know they're from San Francisco. They've definitely got a pretty indie thing going. Other than that, all I really have to say is that their music is genuinely enjoyable. I feel their music would be perfect for indie movies for some reason. So check 'em out. Leave some comments. Tell us what you think.

Tim - St. Mawr

WIllful - St. Mawr

Chamomile - St. Mawr

Thug, Nastier

A very cutty thing got dropped into the Box recently. The track is by a cutty who refers to himself by "Tre-Fuck".

I'd love to throw a lil bio at all you faithful readers but the truth and realness is that I actually don't know a thing about Tre-Fuck aside from some rumors and hear-say humming around the Dolores Park scene. Basically I've been able to paste together some drunken homeless ramblings of him being the sole survivor of Christmas Castle or being the latest incarnation of Prophet Elijah—not the Hebrew, but the muscley shirtless black man that used to hang around DP and offer my friends meth. It's also said that this Tre-Fuck has something to do with another figure, known as Kongo Rock—not to be confused with the Italian House Congorock. The hype is that Tre-Fuck has to lay low due to a mile-long rap sheet for disturbing the peace, amplified noise without a permit, noise vandalism, vandal vandalism, impersonating a judge, impersonating clergy, and otherwise going too hard.

That's why I was so surprised to see this character turn up, if not in the flesh than at least in the pulse of one-zeroes that goes into our "Sound Cloud" box. They say you're innocent until proven guilty, but this track makes it clear that if he stands accused of going too hard, he's guilty as charged. He told us that vocals need some remastering, and that could be the case. It does sound like Sticky Simple, the talented local who drops an epic bus-hopping/getting-up narrative of a flow, recorded his rap through the plexiglass window of a county jail, like Mac Dre's In Motion and so many other Bay rap classics.

Hear it yourself: you be the judge.

Thug Nastier - Tre Fuck

King Kraken

I just got sent some music by this band King Kraken. I think they've got a pretty unique vibe. It's like ska (modern ska?) type stuff but with a kind of indie influence. Or at least that's what it sounds like to me. Give "Wax Moon" a listen. It's hard not to like.

Wax Moon - King Kraken