GAAAAAHHH!!!

Coming soon to a Sci-Fi Channel Original Movie...

'Horror frog' breaks own bones to produce claws

"Amphibian horror" isn't a movie genre, but on this evidence perhaps it should be. Harvard biologists have described a bizarre, hairy frog with cat-like extendable claws.

Trichobatrachus robustus actively breaks its own bones to produce claws that puncture their way out of the frog's toe pads, probably when it is threatened.

David Blackburn and colleagues at Harvard University's Museum of Comparative Zoology, think the gruesome behaviour is a defence mechanism.

The researchers say there are salamanders that force their ribs through their skin to produce protective barbs on demand, but nothing quite like this mechanism has been seen before. [Read the rest here...if you dare!]

DON'T DO IT

Really interesting post by Simon Reynolds on improv and why he doesn't get it. I don't get it either (the music or the social scene and rhetorical fog that surrounds it), and only recently decided that I needn't feel guilty about that fact (which I have, in the past, and Reynolds' phrase "because some smart people with otherwise sharp taste are really into this shit" pretty much sums up the reason why - it's related to the peer-pressure/inferiority-complex I have suffered under in the past that's compelled me to buy Dizzee Rascal and M.I.A. albums, or to worry that maybe I should give a fuck about Vampire Weekend or the Shins or whoever, and it's only recently that I've accepted that it's my job to know stuff those people don't know, and vice versa, and that's perfectly OK). So I must extend this public warning to Reynolds, who at the end of his post writes "I have been thinking of giving that whole area another 'go.'"

Don't do it.

Don't let yourself get cultural-snob-guilted into wasting your time dicking around with non-idiomatic improv, or eai, or whatever it's called this month. The only one of the lot who's worth even a moment's consideration is Bailey, and he's best heard in duet/duel with a drummer, preferably one with some kind of jazz perspective, because then he's got to struggle with his partner's innate desire to create steady rhythm. (I would have loved to hear Bailey battle it out with Ronald Shannon Jackson.) I recommend the following Derek Bailey discs as a beginning and end point:

Daedal (Incus; with Susie Ibarra, drums)
Ore (Arrival; with Eddie Prévost, drums)
Mirakle (Tzadik; with Jamaaladeen Tacuma, bass & Calvin Weston, drums)
Derek & The Ruins, Saisoro (Tzadik; with Masuda Ryuishi, bass & Tatsuya Yoshida, drums)

That's all you need. On each of these albums, Bailey is dragged out of his shell by his partner(s) and forced to actually play something approaching conventional music, but at the same time his highly individualistic style remains clear and present. You should also maybe hear him as a sideman on Peter Brötzmann's Nipples, MOre Nipples and Fuck De Boere (all Atavistic). But you could live a long and happy life without ever listening to an Evan Parker or John Butcher album all the way through. I know I have.

LIFE IS WHAT YOU MAKE IT

There's people who use rock 'n' roll to reinvent themselves, and then there's this guy.

THIS WEEK IN THE SCENE

LAIR OF THE MINOTAUR UNLEASHES FLESH-EATING, LIMB-SEVERING, SWORD-SWINGING METAL

Wondering where all the blood-and-guts imagery that runs through Lair of the Minotaur records comes from? "I read a lot of stuff that most people only read in college classes," laughs Steven Rathbone, frontman for the Chicago metal band.

"I'd read some writings about [god of warfare] Ares that don't describe him as a person [but] as the will to kill," he goes on, rattling off his literary finds. "When there was a battle, they would say Ares was on the field with them. Not that he was actually there, but that there was this feeling to kill. I thought that was an awesome concept."

Little surprise that all of the songs on Lair of the Minotaur's latest album, War Metal Battle Master, were inspired by Greek mythology. It's really no different from the trio's previous two albums. In fact, almost every song the band has ever recorded can be traced to thousands-of-years-old texts about angry gods wielding ginormous weapons. [Read the rest here.]

A REPO MAN'S LIFE IS ALWAYS INTENSE

HARRISON TOWNSHIP, Mich. — So many people have so many things they can no longer afford. This is an excellent time to be a repo man.

When a boat owner defaults on his loan, the bank hires Jeff Henderson to seize its property. The former Army detective tracks the boat down in a backyard or a marina or a garage and hauls it to his storage area and later auctions it off. After nearly 20 years in the repossession business, Mr. Henderson has never been busier.

“I used to take the weak ones,” he said. Now I'm taking the whole herd."