Hipsters need to dance too

I needed a week to recover from the chaos that was SXSW. I came home only to suffer from a horrid cold this entire week. (A sickness caused by all the sins of Austin I’m sure.) I’m a bit better now and ready to share with you my favorite discovery from this year’s SXSW.
Do you ever feel bad for being from the same place as the guys who gave the world the “skanky leg”? Not to worry. Texas may still find its hip hop salvation in the guys from Damaged Good$. This hip hop duo is made up of two lads from Oak Cliff and Tyler (respectfully), Coool and Theodore. And these guys know how to make the usually armed- crossed hipster crowd dance and everyone else dance too for that matter. Just try to keep still while listening to their funky electronic New wave inspired beats and with lyrics that name check Ronaldinho and Pele, you know I have to be down. I was lucky to catch these guys by chance at Red 7. In a week full of indie artists who seem to cool for school to even show a bit of personality, these two charismatic guys were a breath of fresh air. It was nice to see a band that actually seemed to want to be there and *gasp* one that tried to engage the crowd. Theodore even did some booty bumping with some of the ladies in the crowd.
Damaged Good$ is playing a show on April 10th at Rubber Gloves in Denton so you’ll have a chance to do some booty bumping of your own. Czech them out on myspace at http://www.myspace.com/dmgeez.

-Yvonne

I want to get hurt this weekend

They say punk is dead. Well, whatever the hell you wanna call the stuff taking place at Exploding House(711 Page) in Forth Worth Saturday night at 8, punk or not, it’s going to be bad ass. I guess you want to know who’s playing: Negaduck/Division of Power/ Rocket for Ethiopia/Electric Vengeance/Scoff. Go and czech out some DFW DIY! Its the shitty good stuff, not the plain shitty sounding shit. You know what I mean?

-Yvonne

Czech and Listen: Roy Robertson

Catchy melodies, pretty guitars, quirky lyrics, Midlothian musician, Roy Robertson makes the kind of songs that just won’t leave your head and maybe you don’t want them too. If you haven’t yet heard Robertson unique blend folk and whimsical pop then you can Czech it out at his MySpace page www.myspace.com/royrobertson . Robertson sat down talk with me about his music for what will hopefully become a regular feature here at Czech It Out where I, Yvonne, interview musicians worth your ears’ attention.

How would you describe the type of music you play?

Like a donkey chocking a waffle

How do you go about putting your songs together?

What usually happens is I’ll either be walking around and just start singing something like in a musical you know just like la la la and yeah that’s pretty much how it goes. I just record vocals done on my four-track and figure out what cords [to use] and go from there and once I get started it’s easy to build upon that.

You have a lot of side projects. Could you tell us about those?

Smitten Kittens? Yeah, I guess you could call that a band I play in usually for harder more electo-fied gigs. And I’m very proud of having I think four MySpace’s at this point in time. One of them is my brother’s Francis Lanier. The other one is my record label Clangorious Circle Entertainment and the other one is Smitten Kittens.

Planning on a fifth one any time soon?

I have one but I haven’t put any music on it yet. It sucks cause you can’t like put a lot of music on your MySpace page, so that’s why I do it.
So you live in Midlothian, not exactly a hot stop for music is it?
No, I wouldn’t say that. I really wouldn’t say that. What’s your point with that? Are you just rubbing it in?

No! How do you plan on changing that sir?

Well, I don’t really plan on changing it. I think sort of really good music comes out of really shitty places like The Beatles in Liverpool. They didn’t have a lot of shit going on in the beginning. And Cedric and Omar, I’ve read about them complaining about living in El Paso. Just there’s nothing to do and you sort of have to make your own entertainment and make your own fun. That’s why I like living in Midlothian or why I like living there and am able to write music.

So you’ve moved a lot…

Yeah, my dad worked for a company that worked for the military.

Do you think that affect your music in anyway?

I think it affected my personality… I saw a lot of other cultures and I was able to see other ways of life and I was able to see that America wasn’t the shit.
No, really moving around was a great thing. You know it’s really a hard to do that you know because you always have to a whole new group of friends and you have to know a whole different geography of a place and you don’t where to go or what to do, but I’m sort of used to it. I think it helped me out a lot with being independent and doing things by myself.

Where do you plan to go with your music? How far do you wanna take it?

I used to say that I would like to just make a living on it and I would really still like to do that but I think that’s sort of the base of what my goals are. I would really like to be rather successful and play big places.

Cover of Spin maybe?

No, not really that. I would like to be able to travel around the world and not worry about where I’d sleep and not like freeze in a van all the time. I want to do that in the beginning, but I want to get to the point where I can always have 100 percent control of my music but like you know sort of like The Mars Volta. I like the way they act and also Sufjan Stevens. I think he does a really good thing where he’ll only work with a major label if he gets to do what he wants to do and that’s what I would like.

Any upcoming dates the people should know about?

I’m going to put out another CD pretty soon, probably in the next couple months. I’m playing The Hydrant [Denton], Thursday, Feb. 12 and Banter[Denton] the day after and then there’s this thing in Mansfield. I don’t remember the date. You can check the MySpace, but I also play house parties, house warmings, funerals, divorces, vegan pot lucks.

Bar mitzvahs?

Actually, no, I’m part Jewish so it brings back bad memories. Adult circumcision… [He was joking… I hope.]

Smile, mother fuckaz the polaroid is saved!- Article by Sierra

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/smile-polaroid-is-saved-1418929.html

A.K.A “The Impossible Project” my favorite missing series of John Woo espionage/IMM'AHOSS films.

Is also funded by Austrian artist and photographer (Who actually has a Polaroid gallery called ‘Polanair‘), Mr. Kaps by recreating the film with the same shit for saturation and it’s signature white frames we love, only with the advantage of having two different exposure types of films or models of Polaroid can still be functional in their cartridges.
So don’t sweat stocking up to much! or feel you have to resort to this: http://www.poladroid.net/

I mean, seriously. WTF?

When the evening news just isn’t enough

Have you noticed the lack of international news broadcast these days? You probably weren’t even aware there were other happenings around the world worth noting. Worldfocus, broadcasted on KERA 13 at 11:30 p.m. weekdays here in the DFW, picks up the slack left by the mainstream media when it comes to worldly affairs. Worldfocus partners with other news organizations around the world to present its viewers with thought provoking and unique reports. You’re likely to receive news here that you wouldn’t get from any other source. Worldfocus just recently did a series on universal health care that profiled the health care systems in Canada, Singapore, and Brazil. You can view these reports and others on worldfocus.org. This is journalism at its best if you ask me and I am journalism major so you should ask. :)

-Yvonne

Bunker Hill: Be There or Be Square (8 pm)

2614 N. Elm Street, Denton, TX, that is where I will be tonight. If you like houses, if you like punks, if you like both… than… you will be there too! The Hex Dispensers, Fungi Girls, Occult Detective Club, Bad Sports will be there too!! I’ve wanted to see these Fungi Girls I’ve heard so much about and Hex Dispensers should be fun.

-Yvonne

Czech and See Che: Four hours well spent

Benicio Del Toro is a great actor by any measure, but as I sat in the theater Saturday night I didn’t think to myself “Why, that Benicio is giving a great performance.” Del Toro WAS Ernesto Che Guevara and I didn’t mind spending four and a half hours watching him help overthrow Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista or attempting to lead a similar revolution in Bolivia. The movie is split into two parts: The Argentine and Guerrilla. If you hear four hour long movie and get scared just think you are really seeing two movies, two excellent, well made, and riveting movies at that. Che is most certainly a controversial figure, who many either love or despise. This film doesn’t set out to make you do either. It is based in part on Che’s own journals, Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War and Bolivian Diary. The film is very present oriented. It doesn’t bother filling in the viewer with details of what Che’s life consisted of during the period before the time frame in which the film takes place or the time in between which the two parts of the movie occur. The film focuses on present events within in contents of the film and on Che’s current goals. If we learn anything from this film it’s that Guevara was a determined, goal orientated man.
The soundtrack, which incorporates Cuban, Argentinean, and Bolivian sounds, is lovely. I highly recommend you go Czech out this film. The two parts are being presented back two back as a special roadside screeni ng at The Magnolia Theater in Dallas with screenings at 1:30 pm and 7:30 pm. At the screening you receive a special Roadside Edition guide, so don’t be afraid of the weather and go see it!

-Yvonne

PS: Keep a lookout for Lou Diamond Phillips who has a small role in the second part of the film as a Bolivian communist party leader. Another Latino role. Oh Lou! Will ever get to play a Filipino character?