Journal Archive - November, 2007

ah, fun.
today i made this fantastic punk rock playlist and it's been keeping me jumping
around my living room all afternoon.
here it is, just fyi:
-moby

noise annoys, the buzzcocks
anarchy in the u.k., the sex pistols
new york, the sex pistols
sub-mission, the sex pistols
the ballad of johnny burma, mission of burma
career opportunities, the clash
right brigade, bad brains
garageland, the clash
new rose, the damned
the unheard music, x
holidays in the sun, the sex pistols
nausea, x
sugarlight, x
banned in d.c., bad brains
smart patrol/mr. dna, devo
clash city rockers, the clash
academy fight song, mission of burma
trash, the new york dolls
god save the queen, the sex pistols
emi, the sex pistols
sex and dying in high society, x
i fought the law, the clash
universal corner, x
pretty vacant, the sex pistols
oh! bondage, up yours!, x-ray spex
liar, the sex pistols
seventeen, the sex pistols
she's like heroin to me, the gun club
jet boy, the new york dolls
fun world, mission of burma
ready, steady, go, generation x
jail guitar doors, the clash
soul kitchen, x
what's my name, the clash
sonic reducer, the dead boys
sex beat, the gun club
hate & war, the clash
big take over, bad brains
no feelings, the sex pistols
death valley '69, sonic youth
janie jones, the clash
police & thieves, the clash
i'm so bored with the u.s.a., the clash
mirage, siouxsie and the banshees
the world's a mess, it's in my kiss, x
los angeles, x
london's burning, the clash
bodies, the sex pistols
i don't know what to do with my life, the buzzcocks
complete control, the clash
why can't i touch it?, the buzzcocks
banned in d.c., bad brains
orgasm addict, the buzzcocks
your phone's off the hook, but you're not, x
white riot, the clash
johnny hit and run pauline, x
what do i get?, the buzzcocks
cowboys in africa, bush tetras
remote control, the clash
big takeover, bad brains
clockout, devo
problems, the sex pistols
(white man) in hammersmith palais, the clash
why she's a girl from the chain store, the buzzcocks
we're desperate, x
carcass, siouxsie and the banshees
the once over twice, x
adult books, x

i just realized that there are literally thousands of myspace friend requests that we haven't approved.
mea culpa. i'm sorry.
they shall all be processed and approved right now.
sorry,
moby

for the last few years i've been working with an african injury prevention group called
amend.org
(little known fact, the leading cause of death for sub-saharan africans between the ages of 5 and 25 is traffic fatalities. odd but true...).
amend.org is a very efficiently run organization, and this year they're raising money by selling ghanain chocolate(with 100% of the proceeds going to fund amend.org's programs).
here's the web-site for the ghanain chocolate.
so, buy some chocolate and support a great organization.
thanks,
moby

http://sourcechocolate.org/

p.s-here's the amend.org website:

http://amend.org/

first off, congratulations to australia are in order for finally voting john howard out of office.
the new australian prime minister has vowed to remove australian troops from iraq, which begs the question, 'who's left in gw bush's "coalition of the willing" in iraq?'

the coalition used to be: usa, australia, spain, italy, poland, latvia, japan, denmark, britain, south korea, nicaragua, dominican republic, honduras, phillipines, thailand, new zealand, tonga, hungary, portugal, singapore, norway, ukraine, netherlands, slovakia, iceland, romania, bulgaria, armenia(and a few others or questionable significance).

the coalition is now: usa(125,000 troops), britain(5,000 troops), romania(250 troops), bulgaria(250 troops), armenia(2 troops).

so, from 49 members of the coalition to, roughly, 4.

man, we need a new president desperately.
at this point i'm not even too concerned who the next president is as long as they're even moderately competent.
my biggest complaint against the bush administration isn't their conservativism(well, insofar as huge federal debt and corporate welfare and starting and bungling a needless war are part of a conservative agenda), but rather their utter ineptitude.
the bush administration might be remembered for their criminal activity. they might be remembered for their comfort with lying and deceit. but they will certainly be remembered as the most utterly inept administration to have ever presided over the united states.
you can almost forgive an ideologically driven administration, but there's really no forgiveness for the level of ineptitude displayed by the bush administration over the last 7 years.
i hope that somehow americans employ slightly more developed criteria in picking the next president than, 'he seems like a nice guy to have a barbecue with.'

again, congratulations australia for finally kicking john howard out of office.
moby

let's just ignore the dead birds and genocide and enjoy that there's a holiday devoted to gratitude.
so here's me letting you know how i spent my thanksgiving.
it might seem a bit self-serving(surprise), but if you read on you'll see that it's not.
see, i had been asked to volunteer at a soup-kitchen today, so in the interest of being altruistic and potentially making up for a multitude of mundane sins(death by 1,000 cuts)i agreed to quasi-anonymously help out at a soup kitchen.
i saw the email. it said, 'see you at 6:30'.
6:30. thanksgiving dinner time. right?
that's a good time to eat thanksgiving dinner. dinner time. sun's down, time to eat.
again, right?
wrong.
6:30, meaning: in the a.m.
funny how the same three numbers can mean such different things to different people.
6:30 to me only has possible meaning in the following ways:
as:
a-a time for being asleep
b-a time for still being awake from the night before
c-a time that is followed by the happy letters 'p.m'

to my great chagrin it never occured to me that '6:30' might mean:
d-a time in which to begin work getting ready to serve breakfast to homeless people on thanksgiving.
so, mea culpa, because of assumptions and ignorance i slept through the allotted time in which i was scheduled to do noble service on thanksgiving.
yup, while others were preparing food for the homeless i was happily sleeping, dreaming of 6:30 in the p.m, when i thought/dreamed/dreampt that i would be lending my humble efforts to feed the homeless on this most food oriented of days.
i woke up at the sane/reasonable/civilized hour of 11 a.m. i had breakfast.
i went for a walk. i worked on some music. i read some crappy fiction. and i checked my email.
and i saw that i had been expected to show up at the homeless shelter at 6:30 in the a.m.
and i felt like a dirtbag for having been happily asleep when i should've been working at the shelter.
now i'm not looking for absolution, but was i crazy to assume that '6:30' as it applied to food and thanksgiving might've possibly meant '6:30 pm'?
ok, maybe i'm looking for a degree of absolution and/or assuagement.
but wallowing in guilt(as i've been doing all day)is fruitless, so let's move on.
i then went over to a friends house at 8pm and played with babies and talked to adults and drank coffee and then went to mars bar and drank some beer and tried to convince a homeless person(who looked well-fed, thankfully)that i wasn't working for the cia.
for some reason he was convinced that i was a cia employee.
maybe it was that shifty 'i know something that i'm not telling you' cia look that i seem to have when confronted by well-fed homeless people in the mars bar at 2 a.m.
the mars bar, that on it's own should be the subject of an entire update/blog.
it's kind of the last bastion of the new york that i knew and loved when i first started coming here in the 80's.
and i'm amazed and thrilled that it still exists. i go there a lot, always filled with gratitude that it hasn't been torn down.
and cheap domestic beer is the best guilt assuager i've ever encountered.
so, happy thanksgiving.
moby

oh, i want to remind everyone that 'southland tales' is in theaters now.
personally i think it's awesome, and i'm very proud to have written the music for it.
go see it and let me know what you think.
moby

they were great.
i especially like the ep's they released in the mid 80's('hymn from a village', etc).
i was just thinking about their lead singer, tim booth(was that his name?), and how if he were a dj he could be:

dj booth

which is a pretty fantastic name for a dj, if you ask me.
i don't know, even if i didn't like music i'd be tempted to become a dj if my last name was 'booth'.
see, i'm full of informative and salient posts today.
still working on the field mice post.
it'll take a while, but when it's done it's going to be riveting.
here's a teaser: did you know that even though lyme disease is spread through deer ticks it's usually spread by deer ticks who ride around on field mice?
see, that's the sort of stuff you have to look forward to with my timely and germaine and compelling posts.
some other fascinating topics i'm thinking of covering:
a-the difference between sheetrocking and plaster walls
b-the history of the catlytic converter
c-chalk, pro or con?
d-sea monkeys: fish or primate?
e-an in depth look at the rise of the magic marker
and so on.
that's just me trying to be the top notch entertainer i know i can be if i just apply myself.
now i'm going to go fold laundry.
thanks
moby

i was just reading the national geographic website(nerd that i happen to be), and they had an article on the return of the wild turkey(the bird, not the hangover inducing rot-gut brownest of the brown liquors).
have you ever lived among wild turkeys?
a few years ago i had a house upstate and the woods near the house were completely over-run with wild turkeys.
which was great, although being a city kid i found it disconcerting to walk outside and see 40 wild turkeys grazing on the lawn.
because wild turkeys are big.
they don't bother anyone(although there was a funny part of the article where some old ladies in connecticut called the police because they believed that the turkeys had penned them into their house and wouldn't let them leave), but they're huge.
well, huge by bird standards.
small by bear standards(we had black bears upstate, too, although black bears are much more solitary and shy than wild turkeys, which, in the interest of keeping people from getting mauled, is probably a good thing).
apparently there have even been wild turkeys in manhattan.
which begs the question: how did they get here?
forgive my ignorance, but do wild turkeys fly?
whenever i saw them upstate they just kind of wandered around.
i'm guessing that they have wings(being birds)but do they ever actually use aforementioned wings to fly?
and if they didn't fly to manhattan how did they get here?
did they walk across the williamsburg bridge at 5 a.m?
car service?
f-train?
you might have figured out that this post about wild turkeys doesn't really have a point, except to say that it's cool that these giant birds are repopulating and walking around new england.
next up maybe i'll write about something equally as fascinating, like field mice.
-moby

and the, i think, american music awards was/were on the tv.
and, accidentally, i found myself watching them.
ah boy, i mean, really?
it made me think of something flea said to me.
we were at a concert(the artists name shall not be mentioned)and he turned to me and said 'it's like punk rock never happened'.
and i agreed.
so, again, really?
this is what mainstream music has become?
music has the potential to be transcendent.
it has the potential to change people's lives and inspire people to, potentially, change the world.
music can reach people in their darkest places and inspire hope.
music can reach people and inspire them to make the world a much better place.
music can be gods way of reaching people.
sorry if that sounds trite or cliche'd, but it's true.
music can be all things to all people.
it can be celebratory or it can be mournful.
it can be sacred or secular.
it can be destructive or constructive.
it can be everything.
so how the fuck did it end up being trite crap that is referred
to as 'product' between network sponsors?
sorry, but music, which can be sacred, has become the disturbingly profane.
i'm not exempting myself from this.
i've sold my songs.
i've sold myself.
and i'm sorry.
and i probably have no right to criticize what's become of the world of popular music.
but when i see the world of music, formerly the domain of john lennon and kurt cobain and joe strummer and neil young, profaned and turned into a desperate machine for perpetuating soulless corporate careers it makes me sick to my stomach.
music should be better.
it is better.
please, someone, redeem this morass in which music finds itself.
sorry if i sound disingenous and way too earnest.
it just breaks my heart that music has become what it's become.
it's god's language.
it breaks my heart that it's become a vehicle for aggressive compromise.
it needs to be redeemed.
moby

so on november 29th(a thursday) the little death nyc will be playing at mercury lounge again.
this time we're playing with our friends nous non plus.
nous non plus go on at 9pm and we go on at 10pm.
it should be fun.
hopefully see you there/then.
-moby

the next degenerates will be on december 6th, also at hiro.
the lineup is:

alex english and alex frankel
princess superstar
moby
jacques renault and justin miller

last night's degenerates party sold out pretty quickly, and there was a long, long line to get in.
with those things in mind might i presumptuously suggest:

a-that you get tickets early
and
b-that you arrive relatively early(or late)to avoid the long line(as it'll be december 6th it might be cold)

and, again, thanks to everyone for coming out last night. hopefully you all had as much fun as i did.
thanks
moby

p.s-oh, congratulations to jacques, who was just voted the best dj in nyc by paper magazine! he and justin are fantastic disco dj's, and i also highly recommend their tuesday night parties at 205 club.

it's called 'synthesizers'.
it was the last song on 'baby monkey' and i always liked it.
moby

i guess they'll stay up there until someone from the record company yells at me and asks me to take them down.
these are 2 of the more obscure songs on the record, 'the stars' and 'sweet apocalypse'.
i played 'the stars' last night at degenerates.
hands in the air big rave song.
moby

and/or a book.
when i was 11 years old i was obsessed with john gardner's 'grendel', about the mother of 'beowulf'.
so, as a result, i was kind of surprised that beowulf had been turned into a $150 million movie.
really?
$150 million for an ancient and obscure story?
that's either folly or genius or some nice combination of the two.
i haven't seen it, but i'm looking forward to seeing it.
either:
a-it'll be great
or
b-it'll be profoundly flawed
or
c-a combo of the two

ok, once again, goodnight.
oh, i'm doing 2 songs at tingle-tangle on friday night in williamsburg.
moby

call me simple.
but it was so much fun.
there's something, for lack of a better word, transcendent
about people staying up late and dancing hard to really loud
music.
again, i'm stating the obvious.
but it's very special.
thanks everyone for coming out and having a great night.
spank rock and tommy sunshine were fantastic.
life is short, have fun.
moby

so last night i went to see 'control', the ian curtis movie directed by anton corbijn.
and it was great.
when i was growing up i had no bigger hero than ian curtis.
my high school yearbook quote was from 'love will tear us apart', my band(awol)covered 'new dawn fades' and 'insight', and in my high school yearbook picture i'm even wearing a joy division 'still' pin.
so going into seeing this movie i had no idea what to expect.
and, as i said, it was great.
beautifully shot, beautifully acted, beautifully edited, and the new versions of the joy division songs sounded remarkably faithful to the originals.
whoever the actor is who played ian curtis he:
a-did a wonderful job
and
b-really did his homework

and you know, a few years ago i was on tour with new order and we did a version of 'new dawn fades'.
it was the first time that they'd played it since ian was alive.
i'm still stunned that i was able to play a joy division song with, essentially, joy division.
it stands as probably the best moment in my career to date(especially rehearsing backstage with barney and hooky). if you had told me when i was 16 that at some point i would be standing on stage singing a joy division song with joy division i never in a million(or billion)years would've believed you.
but the movie is wonderful.
as a tribute of sorts here's me doing a cover of 'new dawn fades' from jools holland a few years ago.
moby

ok, l.a dj date is at elevate(811 wilshire) in downtown l.a on tuesday the 13th from 9pm - 3 a.m.
i'm not sure who else is dj'ing, but i'll find out and let you know.
hopefully see you there/then.
moby

a few things:

1-have you noticed that gw is getting a little crazy with the veto pen?
he's vetoed:
a-a bi-partisan bill(schip)that extended health care to the children of lower middle class parents.
b-(as of today)a bi-partisan bill that would help clean up and protect america's waterways and water supplies.
it's good that we have a rational and deeply sane president to protect us from such horrifying legislation as bills that would provide health care to children or protect waterways...
i mean, can you imagine the chaos that would ensue if children got free health care and the everglades continued to have, uh, water?
he is the daddy-protector in chief. well, at least in his peanut mind.

and:
2-i'm dj'ing in l.a next week. only problem is at present i don't know where or when or even which day. but i'll let you know soon. like, tomorrow.
i do know that it's going to be a small place downtown. i'm not being coy, i genuinely don't know where or when. maybe now that i've confessed my ignorance someone will tell me where and when i'm dj'ing in l.a next week. nothing gets people to speak up like a sincere confession of complete ignorance.
i haven't been to l.a in a while. i like l.a a lot. i've considered moving there, but(as i've possibly said before)if i moved to l.a i'd probably get a comb-over or a hair piece and end up becoming a scientologist and dating underage d-list actresses.
and the world is a better place without me being a fake-hair-having scientologist.
it really is. i love visiting l.a. i just have this fear that if i lived there i'd succumb to the allure of egregiously bad choices.

3-i'm dj'ing the 15th at hiro for 'degenerates 2'. i think i'm even going to have a hip-hop turntable battle with the spank rock guys. if they're up for it. i know, you don't look at me and think that i would be much of a hip-hop dj. but i started dj'ing hip-hop records in 1985...i know.
22 years ago. ouch.

4-there's an apartment near where i live in lower manhattan that's for rent for $60,000 a month.
i think it's a sign of the apocalypse. it's on a street that even 10 years ago was comprised mainly of garages and empty lots and homeless people. i don't know, even an apartment made out of cubic zirconias with a person in every room to tell you how awesome you are still can't be worth $60,000 a month. new york real estate has lost it's mind.

5-oh, the little death nyc are playing at mercury lounge again on november 29th.
another fun, beer-soaked show. a big part of our criteria in choosing venues is whether or not the venue sells cheap, domestic beer in plastic cups. i do love some sweet domestic beer in a plastic cup. it's my favorite way to enjoy sweet, lovely beer, the cause and solution to all of life's problems.

1 a.m, it's not late but it's time for bed.
good night,
moby

oh, just to be very clear, when i said that ron paul was 'awesome' i was not saying that i agree with his policy positions nor do i plan on supporting him.
what i meant was that i love that he seems to speak a very different language than most of the people running for president, and it's refreshing, kind of in the way that al sharpton was refreshing in the 2004 campaigns.
candidates who have no real chance of winning can say the things that the bigger candidates can't, and i find that to be, as i said, refreshing.
a ron paul presidency(or an al sharpton presidency)probably wouldn't be the best thing for the country, but having people like ron paul or al sharpton running for president makes the whole process a lot more interesting
and entertaining.
that's all.
thanks,
moby

list time:

1-i went to see duran duran on broadway on friday night. it was really fun, especially the 'ode to kraftwerk and daniel miller' mid-section. i kind of wished that they had played 'careless memories', but the show was fantastic nonetheless.

2-in the most recent debates the democrats mentioned gw bush 47 times and the republicans mentioned gw bush 2 times...(one of which was a critical mention by ron paul, who is awesome). must not be too much fun being a republican these days.

3-we're putting out a limited vinyl release of 2 songs from my next album, 'last night'. the songs are 'everyday it's 1989' and 'the stars'. they're both piano driven rave anthems and will be released on vinyl only. i think this single gets released at the end of november, and we're only making 1,000 copies of it.

4-the next single after the rave vinyl is called 'alice', and it's being released in december, i believe.
it's a dark hip-hop track, with vocals from:
aynzli, a jamaican rapper who lives in the uk.
the 419 crew, nigerian rappers who live in the uk.
and my friend lady rizo, a burlesque performer from brooklyn, nyc.

5-isn't it odd that it's more than twice as expensive to live in a former factory in the former slums of lower manhattan than it is to live in a 4 bedroom house on 5 acres of land almost anywhere else in america?
i guess people really hate mowing lawns.

6-at the duran duran show i was talking to a friend and recounting some of my most humiliating public musician moments.
i narrowed it down to:
a-playing a late-afternoon 'rave' in 1993 to an audience of kids with an average age of 10. it was in a club that held 500 people and i believe that 50 or 60 10 year olds showed up.
or
b-the first time i played in italy. in milan, i believe. it was in a club that held 1,000 people and eight people showed up.
yup. 8 people.

well, now that i'm thinking of humiliating moments...there was the time i was playing in helsinki and i ran on stage in front of 2,000 people only to fall on my face due to tripping over an untied shoe-lace.
or my first show in miami where i was billed as 'mobe, singing their hit "ok".
that one in particular makes me laugh, as every last aspect of it is wrong.
mobe?
singing?
their?
"ok"?
ah, the good old rave days.
or my 2nd ever performance. at the palladium(now an nyu dorm). an audience of...5,000 people? i was as nervous as i've ever been, sweaty, queasy, etc. i walked on stage and hit 'play' on my alesis sequencer(this was a while ago...)and...nothing.
no sound(well, the sound of 5,000 restless drunks). i had forgotten to load the sounds into my piece-of-garbage yamaha tx-16w sampler and, as a result, was unable to actually make any sounds. it was like one of those bad dreams where you're naked in front of a lecture hall. eventually i was able to load the files and play the show, but i do kind of believe that i took a couple of years off of my life while standing on stage unable to coax sounds from my equipment in front of 5,000 restless drunks.

i'll think of some more humiliating experiences and share them in the future.
moby