Plastic Beach

Older video from Gorillaz, but i like it.
so watch that shit.


I feel like people hate on Gorillaz.
Maybe i'm wrong, but Gorillaz seems like the kinda band
that PitchforkMedia bros. would hate on, 
just for the sake of it being cool to dislike Gorillaz.

new album 'drops' tomorrow.
but it was pirated today.
by me.


it's really good.


Superfast Jellyfish (feat. Gruff Rhys & De La Soul) - Gorillaz
Stylo (Alex Metric Remix) - Gorillaz
Rhinestone Eyes - Gorillaz

Bring the Ruckus.

the Wu is still the king.

best rappers, best beats.

the Wu is captivating.

...tiger style.

this has the potential to be disgusting.

that's about as good a trio as i've ever seen in hip hop.

'Our Dreams' -- Wu-Massacre (Method Man, Ghostface Killah & Raekwon)

and I have to say...
I'm honestly shocked that this even exists
I'm even more shocked that i don't hate it.


seriously, it's pretty good.




'Got You Money (feat. Kelis & ODB)' -- Wu-Tang vs. the Beatles
'Forget Me Not (feat. Inspectah Deck)' -- Wu-Tang vs. the Beatles
'Uh Huh (feat. Method Man)' -- Wu-Tang vs. the Beatles

CARIBOU + junk.

i gotta admit, i've been playing out Caribou 
pretty good for the last two weeks. 
i love the 60's pop vibe. top notch all the way

below is a pretty old video for 'Yeti' 
off of 'the Milk of Human Kindness'




here's a few tracks i've been killing.
including the new Caribou track


'Caribou' -- Odessa
'Stay Off the Fuckin' Flowers (feat. Raekwon)' -- Blakroc
'the Card Cheat' -- the Clash
'Floating Vibes' -- Surfer Blood
'Cecilia/Amanda' -- Elliott Smith


good shit.

Brooklyn's Finest (feat. Eddie Vedder & Benjamin Rooney)

(thanks for the picture, kev.)

yeah. 

ok, i get it.

so, i basically stopped blogging.

... & the Ray Liotta thing was thrown together specifically 

so i could get the blog total up to fifty instead of fourty-nine.

so sue me, i like round numbers.

this isn't going to be much better than 'Liotta-Gate'

but i figured i'd update ya'll

on the Life & Times of Sam Famolaro

-- I moved into a small place in the Fort Greene section of Brooklyn about 2 weeks ago. thus my documented relocation from Utica to West Nyack to Brooklyn is finally complete, for now. 

(see: A Tale of Three Cities) 

It's been very cool & quite relaxing so far, it's a hundred times better to commute on the subway than it is to commute on the bus in the mornings, but i desperately need my loan check to come in & i need to find a steady source of income cause Mr. Famolaro is basically living in a state of destitution at the moment. 

-- One of the main reasons for neglecting the blog falls simply on the fact that i have attempted to throw myself back into the two projects I feel more passionately about, my music project 'the Informers' & my attempt at writing a novel, 'Greene Disease'. I'm happy to say i've made more progress in the 2 weeks since i've been in Brooklyn than i have in the 6 months i was in Nyack, mostly because Brooklyn caters to my strange work hours more effectively.

the Informers:

   i'll hopefully have some basic tracks of scratch vocals & basic instrumentation up here for download by the end of next week, so look forward to brand new free tracks up very soon.

Greene Disease:

   i'm was questioning whether or not to post 'Greene Disease' in periodic segments on the blog, or to keep it quiet until more work is finished. More likely, 'Greene Disease' will stay out of the sun until it's finished, which could be anywhere from another 1-2 years. It's far more likely that 'Invisible Sheep' will turn into the blogs main source of serial fiction writing, but for now 'Greene Disease' has been the main creative focus of my life. If anyone would like to read what i've written so far, just eMail me at famolaro15@yahoo.com and i'll send you what i have in exchange for constructive criticism.

-- that's all i have for now, but i was looking around last night & i found a whole bunch of these Pearl Jam fliers from various shows around the US & Europe. Pearl Jam always has really impressive flyer design, so i figured i'd share some of my favorites with ya'll.

   

                                         

                                              

           

       

                                              

                                              

                                                    

          

       Later Gators...

Ray Liotta looks like a Velociraptor.

Invisible Sheep: Pt. I

i'm not sure what this will be just yet.

maybe it'll end up being something larger

but for now, it's just something to keep my

mind from exploding during my finals.

enjoy.

Do Survivors Dream of 
Invisible Sheep?
(Part 1: Stand in the Place Where You Live...)

:by Sam Famolaro

            They said maybe it was some sort of biological weapon. Some kind of terrorist super-virus meant to decimate a large portion of the United States; meant to be an “extinction” kind of virus. They said that the terrorists under-estimated how quickly and efficiently the virus would spread. Some people said that it mutated after it was released and became a rampant epidemic like this world had never know.

Some people said it had already spread across the whole planet.

Some people said that it was the Rapture.

Either way, all those people are dead.

To be honest, I don’t remember anything about the so-called “attacks”. Everything I know now is just facts I learned from skimming through whatever newspapers were lining the empty streets of Sandusky, Ohio. I woke up after the car crash in the ICU at the Veteran’s Hospital downtown and my mind has been hazy at best. Everything seems to hum with warm colors and fuzzy translucent outlines. I had only been in the coma for a week, but the way things looked when I regained consciousness I might as well have been in a coma for years. It must have taken me a good two weeks to fully accept that every person on the planet whom I had ever loved was dead; lying in a pool of vomit & blood in the same spot they were when the virus took hold of their central nervous systems. Needless to say, I had very little interest in staying in Sandusky. I needed to know if anyone else is left.

So, on the morning of September 16^th, 2010, I packed all the items I felt I could carry into a backpack and my messenger bag, and left Sandusky, Ohio on bicycle heading Northeast. In my messenger bag, I carried a small thin black screwdriver and a laptop computer. At this point the computer is utterly useless, I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to access an kind of electricity, but I can probably take it apart and find use for the parts. And the screwdriver, well… you remember that episode of the Twilight Zone where the guy survives the atomic bomb and goes to the abandoned library to read all the books he never had time to read before the bomb but then he drops his glasses on the library steps when he starts the first book and breaks them? I figure I might as well be prepared; my glasses have the tools necessary to be rebuilt. Faster. Stronger. We have the technology. Plus, besides the small revolver I stole from my old man’s deserted house, that tiny screwdriver is all I have to defend myself from whatever’s left. I don’t believe in zombies or anything, but I’ve read enough “doomsday” novels to know I should be prepared for anything from mutant motorcycle gangs to triffids. In the side pocket, I have a copy of Gustav Meyrink’s the Golem, which I stole from the abandoned Barnes & Nobles in Cleveland, and a half-empty box of bullets. A black Bic lighter, along with a pack of American Spirits I took off of a corpse two towns back, are stowed away in the inside pocked of my jacket. Buried in my backpack are both a glasses case full of glasses and a glasses case full of marijuana. I’ve been allowing myself 45 minutes of music (or one full joint, whichever comes first) a day, but sooner or later, my iPod is going to die and I’ll have to deal with the silence. Today’s album was Remain in Light by the Talking Heads. More than anything I can foresee, I think the silence is what scares me the most. David Byrne keeps singing about how the days go by. I can’t begin to describe the hours spent collecting the tens of thousand of illegally pirated songs that are currently on death row on my rapidly fading iPod. In retrospect, it all seems like such a waste of time, but before the “Rapture,” it was my only real obsession to speak of. Hanging from a clip in my messenger bag is a police-issue Mag-light and a small canteen. I have a heavy scarf, a gold & scarlet San Francisco 49ers beanie hat and an emergency blanket in my backpack in case it gets too cold to sleep at night. Not like I’ve been able to sleep anyways.

If you’ve found this, that means I’m not alone. So, that would be a plus. I made my way as far east as Binghamton, NY before I realized I was fooling myself thinking anyone would be left alive in Manhattan. If my calculations are correct, and I’m sure they’re not incredibly far off, it’s December 17^th, 2010. It’s starting to get too cold and too icy to continue going north on bicycle, so I’ve decided to head south to a more reasonable climate. I don’t know quite where I’m going to go, but at the moment, I think I’m heading for Virginia. If anyone is still alive and following my trail, I will do my best to attempt to lead you south. I am not ready to give up hope.

Keep strong and remember

that survival of the species is paramount.

I will continue searching for survivors.

Hopefully. If you’ve found this, you’re not too far behind.

Paul Berger

December 17^th, 2010

Trenton, New Jersey

heading due south on Route 95 South

toward Virginia Beach, Virginia.

My Favorite Album of All-Time... (Pt. I)

this is my favorite album of all-time.

i have always been known to speak in exaggerations,

so i may (and probably will) tell you the same thing

about a variety of other albums as well...

but THIS is the one, the one that changed everything for me...

i was somewhere in the range of 16 years old,

i was in Virginia for a family vacation that i had

no interest on being involved with.

while watching TV, i found this new station 

called MTV2, that actually played music videos

and the first video i saw was "El Scorcho" by Weezer.

Weezer at the time had been a pretty fringe band for me.

i liked the Blue Album alot

& i knew how to play "Say it Ain't So"

but other than that, Weezer was just another

band that wasn't Blink-182.

but that video & that song hit me right in the chest.

right place, right time, right on.

i went out to a now-defunct record store in Utica

& bought the album before i took the train to NYC

to visit my sister & on the 3-hour trip

this album single-handedly changed the way

that i wrote music to this day.

the guitar tone on "Tired of Sex" is so dirty

& "Getchoo" sounds like it was played on a chainsaw.

and it's not to say that the Blue Album wasn't loud,

but when Pinkerton wants to be heavy, it's fuckin' heavy...

Rivers was great back then at

pulling you apart with his lyrics.

everything he said was just so real,

but he was never afraid to sound vulnerable or silly.

& honestly, is there any question that

"Across the Sea" isn't the best sad song ever?

luv weezer

wish they wouldn't put out bullshit anymore.

the informers (an introduction...)

ok, so i guess this is my

first official discussion on the subject.

since i've been at Hunter, i've been unable to play

guitar/sing with a band as much as i've grown accustomed to.

all i've been really been able to do is record

new music on GarageBand by myself.

out of these sessions, i created

a little side project for myself called

the informers

now, i'm very aware that

because i'm only one person, it should be called

"the informer" or "the informant"

but it just didn't sound as good.

...kinda like "the Lone Rangers"

''how can you be lone if there's three of you?"

- ian the shark

that's not really important though...

what is important is that sooner or later,

i'm gonna have to start auditioning

future "informers"to play live with,

and the way it looks

i'm gonna have to be ready before

christmas vacation...

more info on that later....

that being said, let's look at the actual music...

IMPORTANT NOTE:

because of the nature of the tracks,

they are best enjoyed through headphones

as are all the tracks i write.

this is due to the limitations i have in terms of equipment.

so please bare that in mind while listening...

Forget the Golden Times

this is the main project that

i'm working on as the informers.

more than anything else,

i really need to get to a real studio

to record vocals & make some better drum samples.

i'm sure i'll get sued for the artwork choice.

here's a few free tracks for my loyal readers...

Fossils (demo vocals) - download

In Bocca Al Lupo (no vocals) - download

Also...

by absolute dumb luck, i've gotten myself attached

to a Christmas CD done by local musicians in Nyack.

so, i did some recording on a whim last night

& pumped out a wintery dance gem for the Holidays.

i may or may nor make a whole christmas EP,

we'll see how long i can stay in the spirit.

the Dear Santa EP

so guess what?

you get that for free too!

(who love's ya? Uncle Sammy, that's who...)

(Christmas) Baby, Please Come Home - download

assorted nonsense II: electric boogaloo

Photo #1: "I bet their coffee tastes likes shit..."

so yesterday, I was walking from the subway

to my cousin's apartment on 34th & 1st in Manhattan.

somewhere along the way, i saw an establishment

with a big neon sign 
& it was called...

that's right...

ASS GRILL.

that seems like a great place to eat, huh?

a nice, hot, steaming plate of meatloaf

from the ASS GRILL sure sounds tasty doesn't it?

stay away from the gravy though...

this is the kind of error that you would imagine

any restaurant or a popular establishment

would fix as it's number one priority.

"what to do today, hmmmm...

order new place mats, check....

re-stock the "no pointy end" toothpicks in the handicap bathroom, check...

change the sign of my restaurant so it no longer reads ASS GRILL in neon letters...

fuck that noise, i'll do it tomorrow."

why do i feel like i've seen something like this before?

no no, not that one..

Yeeaaaaaaah.

"East Nasty Buffet" never gets old...

Photo #2: Godzilla & Mothra go to a baseball game...

"Hey, bro"

"Hey"

"Soooo, I had no idea you were a Red Sox fan when i invited you..."

"Oh, don't worry. I'm not really a "Sox Fan" per say..."

"Wait, what do you mean?"

"I just root for whoever is playing against the Yankees..."

"..."

"what?"

"You're a real piece of shit."

"Do you have any wool?"

Photo #3: Miscellaneous PhotoBooth Picture w/ Effects on it

I call this piece:

"Sam, Dano, Johnny Z. & Maunz Melting

during a Hot Summer Day while

Ingesting Mass Quantities of Opiates"

i think it's crazy that Dano only has one eye

& yet he still manages to looks very chill.

he's totally oblivious to the fact that John kinda looks like

a demon who's vomiting on Maunz's face before he eats him.

BONUS!!!

SHAQTASTIC PHOTO OF THE DAY

"oh yeah, dat's just how da' big Shaq likes it.

Shaq Daddy's gonna give it to ya' rough...

don't try to fight it, just accept the Shaq.

I'm bout to tape dis' here

picture of Kobe to your back...

whether you like it or not...

don't cry & afterwards da' big Shaq will take you

to da' ASS GRILL fer some nice chocolate soft serve"

"tell me how my ASS GRILL tastes..."

Into the Deep [a mediocre attempt at poetry.]

i am a monster...

not the kind of monster that ends worlds

but the kind that ruins lives.

an unseen beast lurking beneath the skin of a man.

maybe you have seen me before

somewhere deep inside yourself

in the places you dare not look;

buried beneath acrid smoke & heavy breathing.

or maybe i am alone

maybe i'm one of a kind or simply one of a few.

in constant struggle to keep it inside

& shield the ones i love from it's destructive capabilities.

and so, with head held low

i hide in a crowd of infinite numbers

safe in the cover of anonymity

constantly holding back the darkness that i know lurks within.

...until i reach the water.

and suddenly, all attempt at restraint become futile

as my mind goes blank & my darker side gains control.

calm yourself & accept that what you see before you is real

& hold back everything that clouds your emotions.

only you can stop this looming premonition.

make sharp your sword & make clean your spirit

& prepare to do what is necessary...

the time is at hand for you to accept

that you'll never amount to the thoughts in your head

& before you go searching for names in the stars

remember who showed you how lucky you are.