quarterempty

Most people who know me probably wouldn’t suspect the deep affection i hold for DAFT PUNK, or electronic music in general. I stole their first major release, HOMEWORK, off napster years ago, probably after seeing SPIKE JONZE’s music video for DA FUNK (though AROUND THE WORLD by MICHEL GONDRY is better), and consider it one of the perfect albums of my generation [this post coming soon]. Albums and videos since have offered diminishing returns, and their attempts at feature length music videos have been a terribly unproductive distraction from their stronger talents. I’m not a dancer, I don’t go to clubs, never been to a rave, but I love the energy of their music. I was unsurprised to hear DAFT PUNK started out as a guitars-based rock-and-roll band, so many of their songs have a garage rock spirit.

An electronic music label here in new york, PALMS OUT RECORDS, has a blog where, among other features, every wednesday is samples wednesday. not only do they track down the original sources of samples used in an artist’s songs, they provide mp3s of the original songs! Some of DAFT PUNK’s samples are obvious, others may have you scratching your head. As they put it: “you’ll either decide Daft Punk isn’t as genius as you thought they were or that they’re twice as amazing.” Other artists palmsout has pulled the curtain on: OUTKAST, JAY-Z, MISSY, LADIES LOVE COOL JAMES, MADONNA, and so on. It really is an amazing archive.

Daft Punk took their name from a review in Melody Maker of a single put out by their first band, Darling as “a bunch of daft punk.” Of course Darling has a myspace page with the single.

The boys from Daft Punk, Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, have gone to great lengths since Discovery to disguise their identities. Even using the costumes featured in the Robot Rock video (and the Gap ad) on stage. They weren’t always so secretive, as in this 30 minute clip from a wisconsin festival in 1996.

In their first US performance since 1997, at Coachella last year, Daft Punk performed a cracking good show. They tear their music apart and put it back together again. BrooklynVegan posted the full set. rumor is, this will be released as a DVD.

Oh did i mention i will see them August 9 at Keyspan Park in Coney Island? Yeah, I’m a little excited.

And one last thing. Is it just me, or does the new Apples In Stereo album sound like Daft Punk rocking? It’s got all this weird electronic stuff. Weird good. Not weird bad. Maybe it is just me.