On Sunday, I attended the (probably) last ever Williamsburg Pool Party. They're called that because they were originally put on in McCarren Pool, but when the city decided to renovate the pool the organizers moved the parties to the East River Park. Did I write about this when I posted about Chromeo? Whatever. Anyway, the shows are awesome and free and yet another awesome thing about living in New York City. The crowds are wild, the women are stunning, and there's no better way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Unlike the pouring rain of the Chromeo party, this Sunday was a hot sticky mess. Standing in line in the direct sun wearing a black t-shirt, it wasn't but a few minutes until I started sweating my ass off. This particular party was something of a gamble, too. They'd only announced two performers for the show: DeLorean and Dominique Young Unique with "Special guests". Rumors ran wild, no doubt partially thanks to me standing in line for Chromeo and this one saying things like, "I hear the special guest is The Flaming Lips."

"I hear the special guest is Daft Punk."

"I hear the special guest is The Rolling Stones."

"I hear the special guest is The Grateful Dead with Jerry resurrected."

It became a damned fun game and then extra fun when my own rumors would come back to me. Awesome.

Even waiting in line no one has ANY idea who was going to be playing as the special guests. Charles had heard Gucci Mane, but that was just speculation. After a quick, forgettable set by Dominique Young Unique and a very poor set by DeLorean (learn to sing, guy), we still had no idea who was going to be playing next.

Luckily, the special guests were, to put it too mildly, fucking AWESOME. DMC (of Run DMC) with Andrew WK, Gucci Mane, Doug E Fresh, and Big Freedia. Just stupidly great.

But for me the real standout of the surprise guests was Big Freedia. From where I was standing on the beer side, I couldn't tell if she was a dude or a chick, until I heard her speak and I knew she was a dude. I have never in my life seen so much ass shaking. It was mesmerizing. She had a line of women on the stage bent over, asses in the air, shaking their shit for all of Brooklyn like professionals. Amazing. The music too was unlike anything I'd heard before. The most similar thing I could reference was Detroit Booty House, but it definitely had a different edge to it. Jesse told me that it was something called Sissy Bounce that came from New Orleans.

And right there I knew I'd found the new hot shit, thought it's nothing new for New Orleans. Big Freedia has been pumping out Bounce jams for a decade, but it's new to me and that's all that matters. You guys know that I'm the main character, right?

I could blather on and on all about it, but check out the videos below for words straight from the First Lady of Bounce's mouth.

When you're done with those, enjoy some tunes. If this shit doesn't make you want to F&F, you need to check your pulse.

Not enough yet? How about some articles and websites?

NY Times - New Orleans' Gender-bending Rap

Big Freedia's homepage

NOLA Bounce

And now all you have to do is enjoy these magical fruits and shake that fucking ass.

"I'm full of that gin, and I'ma do that boy in!
He's full of that jack, someone should hit me from the back!"

Beauty.

Remember this? Yeah, you do. Well, today the official video for the song dropped on Facebook for some reason, but because I am a super elite computerbox hacker, I am able to post it for all you lovely, lonely souls here. Enjoy!

Oh...and, uh, fuck you, too, eh?

This is totally rad. You will enjoy this. Or you will suffer.

FUCK YES THIS IS AWESOME.

That is all.

Nergal has leukemia. LAME. But, because I believe in the power of darkness, I will send some good juju to Nergal by sharing some of his unbelievably evil music.

Get well soon, Nergal. I expect many more Behemoth records down the road.

With each passing day, Deegan becomes more and more entrenched in the East Bay Hip-hop community and I love it. Regular readers and friends will immediately recognize Deegan in this video, but for those of you that don't fall into those categories, you have two options.

1) Click on the "Deegan" tag at the bottom of the post and find the recurring dude in all the posts.

Or...

2) Look for the only white dude in the video.

Also, wow, this whole "shot on a 5d2/7d" look sure has become easily recognizable. Not that it's bad, but definitely recognizable immediately.

Anyway, neat, if simple, video for a song I really feel nothing about. I'm just waiting for Deegs to show up in a metal video. That would be amazing.

On Sunday, Charles and I went to see the Chromeo show I had mentioned here before. The day was grey and threatened rain. The air was thick and humid. The forecast called for lightning. Undeterred we set out at around 12:30 to get in line. The doors were supposed to open at 2:00, but, both being relentlessly on time for everything, we wanted to get there early. And not unreasonably, I might add, since the Pool Parties things typically get very crowded very quickly. We were just acting in a prudent manner. Business.

We got into line very near the front. We were excited to be so close to the gate even though we could have easily been much further back and still been guaranteed admission. But, fuck it, we were pumped. Neither of us had ever seen Chromeo before and you cannot deny a free show. You just can't.

And then, sometime just after 1, it started to rain.

Now, I'm not talking about that bullshit rain Californians get so upset about during the winter. No, I'm talking some motherfucking god damned 40 days and 40 nights DOWNPOUR. Raindrops like golf balls. Flooded streets, gale force winds, umbrellas torn to shreds, and there were Joe and Charles, without any sort of protection from the elements, getting absolutely drenched. But were we deterred?

No! Never!

We stood there literally for hours in the rain. When 2 came and went and the rain showed no sign of slowing, Charles very nearly hit his breaking point and asked if maybe we should call it. I stood firm, however, and made it known that I would not move until they told us the show was going on, it was being moved, or it was cancelled.

Shortly after 3, the rain abated a bit, and yet we waited in line for some spec of info. Was the show going on? Was it moving? So many people had given up and left for the dryness and safety of home. Fools! They missed the doors finally opening around 3:30 and we poured in. I made a beeline for the beer table as standing in the rain for hours had developed in my a considerable thirst which would only be quenched by beer. And, beer in hand, the show began as it was supposed to, minor delay notwithstanding. Here are my thoughts.

Telephoned

Is it me or does opening your set with a cover song seem like a fucking stupid idea? The best part of the set was when the wind blew the DJ's records off the turntables. I described them to one of the dudes I met in line as drum & bass karaoke. Forgettable.

The Suzan

I think I might have enjoyed The Suzan better if I was a 14 year old Japanese schoolgirl. Now, I'm not saying they were bad; they weren't. It's just that their brand of stupefyingly sweet bubblegum pop really does nothing at all for me. Maybe I don't have enough Hello Kitty shit in my house, but there's something about their music that gave me a toothache and made me worry I might need a root canal.

If you like this sort of thing, then good for you. Check these ladies out. They are by no means bad, just not my style.

Kid Sister

This is where the show really picked up for me. I've listened to Kid Sister's record and it's pretty good, I guess, but not something I would get behind and recommend to someone. It's fine, but, I don't know, not all that exciting really.

But, god damn, Kid Sister brings it live. I don't care if you're a fan of her records, but if you like to see a damned good show that'll make you dance and want to F&F, then this is your jam. I don't really have much else to say about the set except that it was awesome. A very nice surprise on a rainy day since I really had no expectations of her whatsoever. And, DAMN, watch that girl dance.

Chromeo

Through the three previous sets I had stood on the beer side of the venue. It's weird. They have two separate sections: the stage area and the beer area. You can't take beers to the stage side for some inane reason, but you can hear and see just fine from the beer side. Priorities straight, I stayed on the beer side for the three sets I hadn't stood in pouring rain to see. Even better because it gave me and Charles plenty of space to dance during Kid Sister. We looked at the crowd and felt confident that between sets we'd be able to push our way to very near the front of the crowd. Not all the way, because then you have to look up, but like 15 or 20 feet back.

Of course, we were right. Years of metal shows teach you how to walk through a crowd.

We were right where we wanted to be when Chromeo came on to the stage. I maintain that these guys are our generation's Hall & Oates. Pop funk duo taking cues from classic R&B? They just write more electro types of songs. All the blogs I've been reading call these guys joke-funk, but that just seems like a lazy description to me. Like one blogger wrote it, another read and stole it, and then the term spread. I like to think of Chromeo as good old party music. Does everything need to be a god damned ironic, tongue-in-cheek in-joke these days? Why not just allow for the possibility that these two French Canadians wrote great, catchy as hell, funky pop songs? I don't think there's anything that's a joke about their music at all. Sure, they have fun, but that doesn't make them a joke. Not everyone needs to be John Cage or Gaahl.

If I remember correctly, they started with "Tenderoni" but I honestly have no idea. It might have been another song. I do know that they played my favorite song of theirs, "Bonafied Loving," and that they played "Night By Night." Their performance was pretty damned tight, even if they had to cue about half the instruments from Dave 1's laptop on the stage. Too many layers of shit going on not to either have a backing band or to have your laptop pumping out the jams. They chose the latter.

Luckily, it didn't detract at all. Their energy on stage was infectious. The crowd danced and screamed and yelled and jumped and threw their hands into the air with wild abandon. It's rare you get a crowd that is as into the band as this crowd was into Chromeo. I suppose there's something about standing around in the rain for hours that brings the best out in people.

All in all, it was an amazing show. To my friends who were here in Brooklyn and decided not to come out because they were afraid of the rain, sucks to be you. You missed an awesome afternoon, an awesome adventure, and an awesome show. Maybe next summer you can catch the Pool Party again. OH WAIT. This is probably the last year! OOOH sting!

And, because I know you want to see more coverage of the show, here it is:

Brooklyn Vegan - Chromeo, Kid Sister, The Suzan & Telephoned played the Pool in the rain (Williamsburg Waterfront pics)

The Village Voice - Live: Chromeo Thrill A Soaked, Oft-Shoeless Jelly Pool Party Crowd With Rampant Corniness

The Village Voice - Brooklyn, This Is Your Rain Dance: Rating Audience Moves at Yesterday's Chromeo Pool Party

The Village Voice - Pool Party with Chromeo Gallery (Can you find me in this gallery?! hint)

Stereogum - Chromeo, Kid Sister @ JellyNYC Pool Party, Williamsburg Waterfront 8/22/10

See you next time!

My friend Jamez posted this on Facebook as a response to my Cee Lo post below.

Now, I don't know if he's commenting on me, since this is how I look right now:

Or if he is commenting on himself, since this is how he looks:

Either way, it's like he's blessed us with this weird tranny mess singing about wet vaginas and why she loves to fuck dudes who have beards. If this is not the feelgood hit of 2010, I don't know what is. Fuck all that slowed-down-Justin-Blieber shit and Double Rainbow song and whatever out there. Majela ZeZe Diamond and her (his?) vagina song is the new hot shit.

This has been floating around the last week or so, but I thought it was worth sharing for the 3 of you out there who have yet to see it. If you're offended by crude language, then don't watch this video. Also, what the fuck are you doing reading my site?

My friend Deegan for being such a die-hard metal dude, sure does mix a lot of non-metal stuff. Like this for example. What would you call this? I don't even know. I also can't tell if these guys are good at what they are doing. It's just so far out of my realm of understanding that analysis is impossible. It's like asking a person who's been blind his whole life to describe the difference between red and magenta. Impossible.

Anyway, check this video out. Maybe you'll have more luck than I have, but maybe not. Regardless, support my homie and listen to his hard work. And then pay him to do some mixing for you. His son needs to eat.

HI DEEGAN!

If the machines had a dance party, this track would be in the rotation for sure.

This spectacularly weird 10 minute video featuring the members of Röyksopp as a sleeping bum and an old man living with a Barbie-obsessed man and his wife boils down to an excellently executed announcement for their new record Senior which comes out in September. Check it. This rules.

They all be trippin'.

Behemoth are back with another Grupa 13 produced video for a track from Evangelion. While I don't think it quite lives up to the sheer evil awesomeness of "Ov Fire and The Void", this video is still pretty bad ass. Mind that there are a couple of NSFW shots of a clergyman nailing a blonde chick. You've been warned.

Let's examine the elements that make it awesome.

• Sewn-mouth kids water priests with blood.
• Nergal as Iron Indian Evil Dude.
• Faces writhing in some black goop which we come to realize at the end is actually the Hell living inside Nergal. Awesome.
• A chick cutting her own throat.
• Swarms of flies.
• The chick floating out of the slime.
• An awesome fucking song.

God damn it, Behemoth rule. These guys are just awesome. This video is not as well made as the last, but who cares? It still kicks the ass of about 99% of other metal videos out there by miles. And because The Black Laser is awesome, I am linking you to the uncensored video from Vimeo rather than the bullshit censored version from Youtube. Unfortunately, Metal Blade decided that I shouldn't be able to embed it on this domain. SUPER LAME, METAL BLADE. It's never very metal of you.

Yes, you're welcome. Get well soon, Nergal!

The Swell Season covers Neutral Milk Hotel

The Onion's AV Club has had a series of musicians come in to cover other famous songs. This week is The Swell Season covering one of my favorite songs from one of my favorite records by one of my favorite long-defunct bands, "Two-Headed Boy" by Neutral Milk Hotel from In The Aeroplane Over The Sea. It's a damned good cover, too. I have no idea who these guys are, but in this instance at least they have excellent taste.

In case you've been living in a cave for the last 15 years, here's the original.

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Pretty awesome, right?