Gnooz

Here's an announcement for you beepners out there: If you come across Vice magazine on your daily purtrails, pick up a copy (it's free) and check out the music reviews in the back. You'll see my CD, Five, reviewed there, and it got 10 out of 10 from reviewer Nella Kram on p. 124. Yay!!!! Other reviewed artists include Xiu Xiu, Gravy Train, Royskopp, Fat Joe and Common (so I'm in good company ingweeb). In case you can't pick up a copy of the magazine, I'm reproducing the review in its entirety here, complete with a close-up of it from my scan:


When I play Ed Shepp for people, they usually shoot me death looks and then call me up later just to say, "I was thinking about that Ed Shepp guy you played for me and you may think he's an artist, but you know what? He isn't!" And then, a week later, they call me back asking to borrow the CD. Much ilke Sun Ra, Ed Shepp has claimed to be from another time and space, from which he records and makes his CDs according to his own specifications (like Stockhausen), which contain schizophrenic-like channeled voices and "songs" that so are bombastically sick in ways you never thought "sick" could sound. Mark my words, this Shepp kid is going places.


So that's the news, gnoozbles! Wheeeeeeeeeeee! :)

And it's a good thing that I have this happy news to share with you, because frankly lately I've been totally freaked out by Peak Oil, and I needed something to distract me from the concept. Is anyone else freaked out by Peak Oil? Or no? If not, tell me why. If so, tell me what you're gonna do. Is the world going to revert to Little House on the Prarie? If so, I hope I own the General Store. Hmm. I thought I had more to say about all that. Imagine!

Back to modern life, specifically the TV Show The Girls Next Door, or whatever it's called. That one about the Playboy girls. It's not bad. One of Hefner's girlfriends looks just like a slightly prettier version of Gwen Stefani. Another is very athletic with crappy-looking hair. (Speaking of hair, there are a LOT of blonds in that house! And really light blonds, too! It's insane.) The other one, though, the older, slightly more abundant one, is the most interesting. I saw this episode where twice she talks about how she's bitter that she hasn't yet been a playmate "and never will be." In one scene she's talking about how she sees some girls come in for testing, but get wasted the day before their shoot, and how she gets schadenfreudlich watching it (no, she doesn't use that word); she even says "because I'm jealous!" And in another scene she talks about how it's always been her dream to be a playmate, and how she tested before, but now she realizes that it will never be. She's crying here. The odd thing about both of those scenes, however, is that she's smiling the whole time she's talking to the camera. Even when she's crying. It's jarring. And cool. And while in theory I really hate that kind of disingenuous smile-all-the-time emotional posturing, it's really disarming to watch her perform it. And I can see why some people like it. Because it would be much easier to deal with someone who's crying in front of you when they're actually smiling and being pleasant. I guess it takes a lot of self-control. Or a lobotomy. I bet it would be pleasant, but I don't have the wherewithal to keep that shizz up. But men aren't expected to, so that's good.

And that's the beep for now. The theme for tomorrow's Ed Shepp Radio Experiment is Cars, and my guest is Sam Hatmaker. Tune in!

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Ed Shepp

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