The Panty Raid

All Bianca, All the Time

Fri, 17 Apr 2009 11:22:00 -0400

No, I’m not some creepy perv who obsesses over fetish models; I’m just trying to whip up a little hype for my cover story in the spring ‘09 issue of Naked Eye. The mag is published by Brand U Media, which is co-owned by one Burton Rice, whom you can read about in this article. The whole thing kind of scares the bejeezus out of me.

Anyway, below are some photos that Martin (her boyfriend-photographer) & Bianca (pictured) sent me of their recent photo shoot in the tropics, none of which appear in the upcoming issue. I assure you the seal is not dead, just sunbathing. Apparently he took a real shine to B, who could certainly pass for a pinniped in these pics. Whether or not this thing actually gets printed is another matter entirely.

DJ Don'ts

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 16:25:14 -0400

I played a corporate event last winter where one of the organizers was shocked to learn that I didn’t have a microphone and that I had a “no talking” policy. I didn’t understand at the time, but that was before I experienced Disco Normand.

Here in Quebec, it’s called “Disco Mobile”. You know the deal: cheesy, ’70s-era greaseballs who think YMCA is a great way to set the party off. Worse than the music was the DJ himself - this dick actually actually had the gall to insist on sitting at our table, drinking our wine, and complaining about the food that he wasn’t even supposed to be eating. Anyway, get a load of his business card that he left all over the place. And check out the last bullet point - am I misreading this, or is there an actual DJs union?

Add Friend

Sun, 29 Mar 2009 13:51:48 -0400

Welcome to Facebook, Pee Wee.

Archie Digested - Special Guest Writer Christopher Walken!

Thu, 26 Mar 2009 14:55:00 -0400

Anyone who says Twitter is stupid obviously doesn’t follow Chris Walken’s feed. The nuggets this guy comes up with are incredible, and this one is no exception:

cwalken:
Better to read Archie comic books to study adolescent psychology than to think that you really know someone on Twitter. Jughead said that.

UPDATE: Hmmm…Twitter account has been suspended due to “suspicious activity.” This saddens me.

BB's Guns

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 17:43:00 -0400

Quebec is a many splendored province. We have poutine, great skiing, and of course, Bianca Beauchamp. B is considered the top latex model in the world. She’s appeared on over 50 magazine covers, including Playboy, and even has a video game character modeled on her curvy frame. I got to interview her for the spring issue of Naked Eye Magazine (pictured above), a Canadian quarterly published out of Montreal.

I’ll post a pdf once it’s been on shelves for a couple of weeks - in the mean time, feel free to check out her site (NSFW).

UPDATE: And I thought nobody read this thing…Naked Eye has kindly requested I take down the cover, and since they sign the cheques, I’m obliging. Hope the above substitute suffices.

Yes, Fonzie cool. Très cool.

Sun, 22 Mar 2009 17:05:00 -0400

Yes, Fonzie cool. Très cool.

Archie Digested

Sun, 22 Mar 2009 16:53:03 -0400

Where exactly is Riverdale? It has to be coastal, because that wave is at least 15 feet. The shoddy inking of this particular Gag Bag makes it difficult to tell exactly what’s going on - is that water polluted? Is it black from the run-off coming out of that tube in panel four? There’s also a weird time lapse between panels two and three: first Archie is teaching Jug to body surf, then he’s back on the beach. Finally, there’s the tube’s unknown source…is it that weird green complex in the back? It should also be noted that Archie’s lack of concern for Jughead suggests one of two things: that this happens all the time, or that Carrot Top is a sociopath a la River’s Edge (the one on the left; not Crispin Glover).

I feel like a total perv posting the real video, but if you want...

Fri, 20 Mar 2009 14:39:33 -0400

I feel like a total perv posting the real video, but if you want to see it in all its dental floss glory, then click here (NSFW).

My wife and I are totally gay for our cats. When she’s out...

Fri, 20 Mar 2009 14:03:30 -0400

My wife and I are totally gay for our cats. When she’s out of town on business, I have Cat Movie Marathons where the pets & I watch stuff the missus isn’t interested in seeing. The above poster is from last October’s edition, which was a huge disappointment; In Bruges is tedious and Scanner gave me a headache. I know - these titles have nothing to do with cats, but I can only see Cat People and Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties so many times.

MSTRKRFT Leftovers

Thu, 19 Mar 2009 13:27:00 -0400

I was warned that Jesse F. Keeler had a reputation for being ~~a dick~~ mildly abrassive, particularly towards music journalists, but nothing (in my experience, at least) could be more untrue. Jesse’s a total dude, and a very relaxed interview. Sure he’s a bit of a name-dropper, and maybe even a little too self-assured, but modesty doesn’t make for sexy quotes. Out this April in Nightlife Magazine, here’s what got cut:

Why The Looks sounds kinda half-baked

JFK: At that point we were still figuring out a lot of stuff; Al and I are fans of a really broad spectrum of music; I don’t understand people who don’t listen to everything, you know? I listen to The Supremes, then I listen to Slipknot. Al ‘s not as extreme as I am about that stuff; we have a really big pool of influences to draw from – so big that I think it’s hard for us to do anything…if we have an idea, it’s hard for it to ever come across exactly…I couldn’t say to you, ‘I wanna make a song that sounds like this,’ because in the end it’s just not going to. I can’t do it. It never works out.

OG Electro

JFK: It’s funny looking back at The Looks now, because at the time we only had a small handful of contemporaries – there was a time where it was us, Boys Noize, Justice, Digitalism and Simian Mobile Disco. And that was the whole music scene. We were closest with Justice, and are still really good friends. Everyone found their voice, and it’s been interesting to how everyone has evolved. For us, what I always wanted to do was to…it’s sort of lofty, but I figure you should aim high and then if you get close there’s always something further to work towards.

The gambler

Our is goal is to change popular music. Fist of God is something we’ve been working on since 2006. we started work on it about a month after we delivered The Looks, before it have even been released. At the time, modern rap and r & b production didn’t have four-on-the-floor kick drums – it didn’t sound like it does now. And it was so funny, because I talk a lot to parents about music, and I said to them, ‘I really think that this stuff can become the sound of popular music, and I’m going to bet my livelihood on it.’

Hola Hova

JFK: I still want to do a track with Jay-Z, and the irony is that our publishing guy at EMI is his best friend. Next time it won’t be hard, but this time around, because we were making music that doesn’t really exist yet…

“Bounce” - MSTRKRFT ft. N.O.R.E.

Numero uno in a series of illegal music posts. Looking forward...

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 14:19:00 -0400

Numero uno in a series of illegal music posts. Looking forward to my first cease and desist!

“The Love I Lost” - Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes

Recognize the voice? It’s Teddy Pendergrass. I don’t pretend to know much about soul or rhythm & blues, but what I do know is that this song is pure proto house. The last 45 seconds should sound very familiar to anyone with even a passing interest in dance music.

MARCH 20: is it kosher to just stream tracks? Or do I really need permission?

Deadmau5 Leftovers

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 14:00:00 -0400

Talk about paranoid…

I interviewed Deadmau5, Toronto’s Joel Zimmerman, for the upcoming April issue of Nightlife Magazine (he’s booked to play a circuit party in Montreal that goes down on the Easter weekend). As talented as he is, the Grammy-nominated producer has some deeply conflicting views on what it is to be a DJ, as well as a hearty disregard for club culture. Usually I just list a few unused quotes, but in this case I left it as is for the sake of context:

So is this going to be a live performance with a laptop and effects?

Deadmau5: Yup.

You use something called ‘Lemur’ – is that some software I don’t know about?

Deadmau5: It’s the name of a product – a touch-screen control surface.

Like midi triggers and stuff?

Deadmau5: Yeah. It’s actually made by a company in Montreal – a company called JazzMutant.

What does it allow you to do?

Deadmau5: Well what it does for me is that it’s a very modular system; all it is really is a flat touch-screen surface where you can draw on your own control schemes and customize every controller or have it laid out however you want because it’s a video screen. You can draw your own buttons and knobs and switches and have them do only what you want as opposed to buying a fixed hardware midi controller where you’re limited to a set of [controls] that have hard-wired assignments in them. With the lemur I can build it the way I want it.

Is this something they developed for you?

Deadmau5: No, it’s actually pretty old technology. When it came out very few people were using it and were used more for lighting at big concerts. People eventually became keen on the idea of integrating it with live music.

Before I get too ahead of myself, what are the origins of the mouse head?

Deadmau5: I used it as a test model that I created in 3D Studio when I was doing 3D animation. He was the all-around guy I would use to test environment variables such as lighting, refractions and that kind of stuff. He was my basic go-to model that I would put in my scene to test things out. It’s been a staple in my life for all things, and when the music thing started to take off, I was like, “hmm…throw him in.”

Is it one of these things where the mouse head represents a different persona?

Deadmau5: You mean like a getting all alter-ego? Nah, not really.

So is your background in graphic design?

Deadmau5: All things multimedia. I’ve always done music – when I wasn’t releasing my own music I was writing music for stock music companies. For instance, a reputable motor company can’t just take any old song and use it in their campaign without permission or obtaining rights. So they’d go to a stock music company. It’s a very lucrative business, especially when Flash came out and everyone was making these gaudy, hideous websites with music blaring all over it. So I was working very closely with a lot of the top companies for stock music and sound effects. I dabbled a bit in web design, programming, audio programming like digital signal paths – all that stuff. If it involved me sittin’ around on a computer, I was into it.

On your MySpace page, you talk about having not come from a DJ or club background…

Deadmau5: …not at all.

I know this may sound like a re-hash of what some other journalists have said to you, but…

Deadmau5: Have you spoken to Alex?

Alex who?

Deadmau5: Are we recording this?

Yeah, I’m recording.

Deadmau5: OK, ‘cause this is a very touchy subject and I’ll hang up the phone if it gets out of hand. This is old news, and I’m not interested in…

It’s not what you think. I was going to ask about a recent blog entry you wrote on the trad DJ format, and how it’s mostly smoke and mirrors.

Deadmau5: It’s not the format – it’s the ideology behind the format. I can play two pieces of vinyl – each have their own unique acoustic properties, as opposed to a digital recording – at the same speed and move the fader from one to the other with the greatest of ease. That same idea has been taken and put into CD format, and now I can play two Ableton tracks side-by-side. It’s that idea that just doesn’t turn me on. And correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think it turns anyone on. It’s just a lot of smoke and mirrors; not too many people understand what you’re doing. It’s not my goal in life to advocate making things complicated, but I’m not an illusionist up there working some magic that nobody else is doing. Because at the end of the day, be it vinyl or CDs or whatever, it’s how you’re putting it together and what you’re doing in between two songs. If I’ve noticed anything, the average dance-techno-trance record is about six minutes long, so if it only takes you a minute to transform between these two tracks then what’s going on in that five minutes? And more often than not, I’ve seen nothing.

I understand where you’re coming from with respect to the divide between audience and DJ, and how the concept is less complicated than it appears.

Deadmau5: Exactly. The idea now for me is not to be a DJ or one of these old classic heads who just play records and all that stuff. Now it’s all about the production value and putting on a show. I for the life of me would not want to pay money to listen to music in a club. Even if this guy is doing all the most technical stuff in the world, I wanna go see a show. I can listen to music way more comfortably at home; the drinks would be a lot cheaper and it would sound a lot better, you know? That’s just me; a lot of people like the atmosphere and the other people that are there. Me, I’m a bit socially retracted from just about anything and everyone so I choose not to do that. But if I were to go to a show, I’d wanna see some really crazy stuff. I wanna see some theatrics! I would gladly go to a Gwar show; I hate their music, but the amount these guys put into their production is hilarious and it’s a spectacle. And that’s what a show is all about.

Why do people react to you the way they do? I only bring this up because I just listened to Ghosts and Tapes and you totally riff on that shit at the end of the track.

Deadmau5: You know what it is? It’s the Internet. And this is the god’s honest truth – I wouldn’t make this up because it almost sounds so weird, but I never once have ever played a show, and I’ve played hundreds, where someone came up to me and brought this up and said ‘you’re a prick’ or ‘this sucks’ or ‘I had the worst time.’ That whole thing was just me and Flipside having a laugh at some of this stuff. The brunt of the negativity has come to me from online, and that’s just the rule of thumb – it’s anonymity plus an audience is a perfect recipe for total…fucktardness. You know what I mean?

Which is what you’re making fun of at the end of Ghosts and Tapes…

Deadmau5: I am a very opinionated person, which is not to say that my opinion supersedes anyone’s. I have that quirky oddness about me where I’ll just say it and not really about the effects. Sometimes I’m applauded for it, sometimes I’m hated for it. At the end of the day it’s just a load of bullshit because when I’m finished with that I’m back in the studio, doing what I like to do. It just dissolves it, and then I’m awake at night going, “well that whole thing was pointless.” So whatever.

Flashback: The Time Vice Magazine Hurt My Feelings

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 13:16:00 -0400

I’ve been in Vice Magazine twice: once when they published a feature I wrote while on an internship in Kosovo, and prior to that when they straight-up dissed me on the letters page. The latter is a far more interesting story:

It was around 1998, and I was still in journalism school. A (former) friend and classmate who worked for Vice invited me to do some proofreading with him, and I leapt at the opportunity. Back then, writers got paid but shlubs like me didn’t - instead, a few hours pouring over bad copy was supposed to get you some free shwag, i.e. shoes, CDs, etc. Anyway, it was me, this guy, and some woman who knew Suroosh. At the end of our shift, Suroosh tells what’s-her-name that she can grab a pair of Diesel jeans from off the top of the pile. As for me, I left that night empty-handed.

Rather than let sleeping dogs lie, I made the catastrophic error of writing an irrate letter to the editor, complaining about how I deserved something for my hard work. flash forward a few weeks - I’m browsing through Sam the Record Man when a friend informs me that he read my name in the latest issue. Curious, I asked for more details, but he would only divulge that “it wasn’t good.” (Click here for the full-size scan.)

At the time I was devastated, but in a way it’s a badge of honour. after all, someone went to a considerable amount of trouble to inform thousands of hipsters that Chris Paré sucks. This was a pivotal incident in my career as a writer, shutting me out of certain circles while pushing me towards others. I regret nothing.

Oh, and the guy peeking out above the text is Arish Ahmed from King Khan, back when he wasn’t a pretentious rock star.

Zen and the Art of Dubstep

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 13:14:50 -0400

Our good friends over Music is My Sanctuary posted Flying Lotus’ Essential Mix, and it’s a real lulu: Daedelus, Portishead, Slum Village, and all sorts of moody, broody goodness. Run by the one of the hardest working DJs in the 514, Lexis, Sancutary is probably the best music portal in the city, and a well-written one at that. So, uh, check it out.

I (heart) Theme Parties

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 13:12:00 -0400

For those of you outside of Facebookvania, this is a shot of me at the Reitmans Christmas party last Friday night. I was the DJ, and one of about five people dressed up according to that night’s theme, Brow-Furrowing Virtuoso Composers of the 18th Century (but seriously, it was something like Catherine the Great).

I played to a predominantly female crowd, so I more or less knew what tracks would get the biggest reaction: ABBA, “You’re the One That I Want” from Grease, Madonna, etc…HOWEVER, I was also educated on what the average 18 to 25 year-old woman expects to hear when she’s dancing - corporate and event DJ’s, take note:

Lady Gaga - Poker Face

Lady Gaga - Just Dance

Bob Sinclar - Love Generation

Britney Spears - Womanizer

Timbaland feat. Keri Hilson - The Way I Are

CFCF Leftovers

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 13:11:00 -0400

Has it been two-and-a-half months already? Boy, time sure flies when you’re avoiding the creeping guilt of giving up on your blog. As a peace offering to our zero readers, here’s what was left on the editing room floor of my interview with the mysterious Mike Silver, aka CFCF (Myspace page here). Dude’s 21 and he’s already remixed Crystal Castles, The Teenagers and The Presets - he has a new EP of old stuff out on Paper Bag, plus a scorching-hot split single with upstart Acephale, due out in 2009. Think Twin Peaks meets Maurice Fulton.

Crystal Castles: not much with the feedback

Mike Silver: I don’t know; it’s kind of strange with them specifically, ‘cause they don’t really communicate a lot with people. I don’t know if they give a lot of interviews, and they’re kind of notorious for their live shows being kind of last-minute. They definitely reacted well, they just weren’t very specific in their comments or anything. They just said that they liked it a lot and…uh, that was basically it.

Alan Parsons Project, Quiet Village, and the “Voyager” sample

Mike Silver: When I used it, at the time it sounded so familiar. It was only after that I found out about that Quiet Village song that is basically an edit of the original. I felt like such an idiot for not even realizing that I had heard this song before. But anyways, in the end I figured they’re two different songs, and pretty different in style and texture. I guess I was attempting to make some dancey prog.

Scary soundscapes and the italo connection

Mike Silver: It’s no coincidence that whenever you read about people who were responsible for the beginnings of italo, they always mention Giorgio Moroder or Claudio Simonetti, who was in Goblin doing horror soundtracks. It’s present in so much italo – that scary undertone.

You Should Write That Down

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 13:10:49 -0400

Always keep a notebook and pen handy. The missus and I watched Commando the other night when I scribbled down the following gem:

I *think* I was referring to Tommy Chong’s daughter, Rae Dawn Chong, who played Schwarzenegger’s sidekick/love interest. And for the record, I don’t think she’s ugly at all…that said, “horse-faced dog monster” is officially my new favourite insult.

SkyMall: Slice Me Nice

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 13:09:47 -0400

In your FACE, pizza wheel! SkyMall’s Labour Day sale is on, and you know what that means: big savings on essential kitchen accessories like the Pizza Pro, a combination scissor-spatula that cuts serving time in half:

Pizza lovers rejoice: serving slices is easier than ever!

The Pizza Pro - Slice and serve pizza easily with this new invention. It combines kitchen shears with a wedge-shaped spatula so you can slice and serve with one hand without ever losing toppings.

Unlike wheels and knives, it won’t damage cooking pans and will cut a perfect, even slice, every time. There’s only one utensil to clean, and it’s dishwashers safe.

Works for both left- and right-handed people. Features stainless-steel blades and a contoured soft grip. Fits in a standard kitchen drawer. 10-year manufacturer’s warranty. 3 5/16”H x 4 7/8”W x 12 7/8”L. 21 oz.

PARADIS CITY: 1994 snapshot of Johnnny Depp’s main squeeze,...

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 13:08:01 -0400

PARADIS CITY: 1994 snapshot of Johnnny Depp’s main squeeze, French chanteuse Vanessa Paradis (no idea who the spaniel is). Please let me know if there’s a better video than the one I’ve linked (not too up to speed on my French pop).

Vive le Québec Fétiche

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 13:08:00 -0400

The unstoppable Bianca Beauchamp lands another cover, this time for Summum, the Quebec equivalent of Maxim or FHM (“lad mags” as they call ‘em in the UK).

We here at The Panty Raid are huge supporters of Bianca’s every endeavour, not just because she looks great drenched in baby oil, but also for the fact that she’s fetish culture royalty and the biggest local export after hydro electricity. Check her site if you dare (NSFW).