Fun Fun Fun Fest 2011 Recap

We went to Fun Fun Fun Fest in 2010, but this year we had to take in most of the festival through TV, thanks to the multiple live video streams generously provided by Pitchfork.

It was awesome to avoid the dust kicked up by 25,000 people dancing in a drought-stricken park. But as high quality as the video streams were (when they were working), you don't experience the same energy as being there.

Nevertheless, now you can take in the entire weekend in a mere four minutes, thanks to the recap above provided by Austin-based creative company Guerilla Suit.

Penguin Prison - Don't Fuck With My Money (Music Video)

I have really enjoyed this song ever since it came out, which is strange because I dislike almost all the other songs on Penguin Prison's new self-titled album. I just find them too poppy or something. But this one is different.

Well, now there is a new video for it. I think it might be the first music video to air on MTV that was filmed at the Occupy Wall Street demonstration in Lower Manhattan. To be honest, I never got the broader political implications of his lyrics, "Don't fuck with my money." I just thought he was singing to his landlord about rent or something.

Am I being cynical if I find irony in the use of Occupy Wall Street as a backdrop for a music marketing effort waged on a TV channel owned by Viacom, one of the largest media conglomerates in the world?

Then again, who cares, the video is entertaining. A nice distraction from the real world.

80s Moments: Transformers in Time

Here's a blast of feelgood 80s nostalgia!

It all started when Futurecop! took their song Transformers and mashed it with Robbi Robb's In Time, the song that plays when Bill and Ted visit the future during their Excellent Adventure. A fantastic retrofuturistic synth pop song was born: Transformers In Time.

Then this DJ from Kazakhstan took a bunch of memorable moments from the awesomest 80s teen movies and synced it to Transformers in Time, creating a warm trip down memory lane. Thanks DJ Artem Narcisse! I hope the weather is nice in Almaty today.

Bonus videos:

If Michael Jackson's 90 second Pepsi commercial from 1988 doesn't warm your heart, then you weren't there when it happened.
This is just awesome 1987ness: Miami Vice night drive sequences edited to one-hit wonders The Ward Brothers' Madness of It All.

Death Grips at Empire Automotive

One of the Fun Fun Fun Fest aftershows last week featured an experimental hip hop group from Sacremento, California called Death Grips. The intensity of their live show isn't really captured in this shaky iPhone video. But their music and performance is exhilarating and terrifying. Best of all, their dark off-tempo music actually sounds like something new and original.

The venue was cool too. Empire Automotive really is an auto repair shop during the day. I guess they started renting it out for the occasional live show at night. Definitely has an underground warehouse feel to it, even though it's just a block off Red River street, one of the major live music centers of Austin.

You can download Death Grips' mix tape "Exmilitary" for free on their website.  Or stream it here.