As far back as I can remember my mom has worked in the cosmetics industry. When I was growing up she was a representative for various brands like Mary Kay, Lancome, and Davidoff fragrance, officiating at various department store cosmetic counters across the greater Cleveland area. At one point there were more than a dozen shopping malls i could reach her at. The phone number for each was pre-programmed and labeled on a crisp white Panasonic land-line located on her desk in our family “den”, looking intimidatingly like some sort of conspiratorial switchboard of which decisions of the highest order were communicated. Until you picked up the phone, pressed a button and someone on the other end answered “Higbees, Westgate Mall, how may I help you?”

I tried to befriend the operator on the other end of the line. I imagined her sitting in a beige room in a design-y chair, filing a perfectly oval-shaped red fingernail  (it was the 80’s so fingernails were filed into an oval shape as opposed to rounded corners – although from what I understand the oval shape is back). She was surrounded by high-end pantyhose that needed to be stocked and was the gatekeeper for when products were allowed to be presented to us plebians-at-large. This telephone operator was fabulous, she had authority. I wanted to befriend this woman; not only because she was fabulous, but mostly because I knew she could connect me to my mom.

The majority of the time, after I was patched through another woman would curtly inform me that Linda (my mom) was with a customer and “unable to come to the phone, sweetie”. Would I mind holding, or would I call back? Of course I would hold – what I had to tell her couldn’t wait. I’d hold for 20 minutes, half an hour, sometimes longer, totally abandoned by my mom’s floozy co-worker as she floated to the next counter to gossip about last night’s episode of Dallas with some overdone woman hawking Estee Lauder perfume.

At some point, someone would pick up the phone to make a call and realize there was a little girl on the other end waiting to speak with her mother. When my mom eventually picked up I would nonchalantly ask her what we were going to eat for dinner, or if there were any good sales going on in the store.

I was 7.

I remember my dad tucking me into bed, giving me a kiss on the forehead and turning off the light. He would leave the door open just a crack and the light from the hallway would spill into my bedroom. For someone my age, the warm light should have provided comfort. It was actually more alarming because it meant that mom wasn’t home from work yet.

After what seemed like ages, I’d hear the mechanical chug of the garage door opening (This was before the chain on the mechanism broke and my dad would prop the garage door open with a broom when it needed to be open. Maybe this was strange but our family didn’t mind. Our neighbor from across the street grabbed on to the bottom of his as it went up and got stuck hanging there).

There would be a jangle of keys as the garage door into the house opened with a staccato cre-e-a-a-k. What followed would later become a Top 10 audio clip from my less than stellar storage bank of a memory, a sound that I amazingly still hear late at night when i’m in need of a visit with mom – the clickety-clack of high heeled pumps walking surely, soundly, across our linoleum kitchen floor.

The sound of her heels never spoke fatigue. They never spoke exhaustion of dealing with prissy women, bad breath and catty midwestern queens. To me, the noise spoke of comforted assurance and strength. It was a gentle maternal presence that quietly assured me that she was home.

After a few minutes the hallway light would snap shut rendering my room completely dark. I’m pretty sure she came into my bedroom to say goodnight, but by then I was fast asleep.

Around that time, my dad was teaching himself how to program computers. He would go on to become one of the leading computer engineers at a top-notch auditing firm. For now he was a guy who read thick programming manuals on the sofa for most of the day and tinkered with first-generation Macs in the basement at night. He had all of these books neatly stacked in our family “den”:  C, C++, Clipper and FoxPro. These books were equally intimidating as they were heavy. Even as an avid reader, the contents were mostly an alien language that my right brain couldn’t bear to comprehend and still don’t (or won’t) to this day.

Usually sporting a white v-neck tee and pajama pants, dad took breaks to play the piano or organ. We had both in our house (among many other musical instruments, which is nothing compared to my grandparents house. I’ll save that story for another time).  He’d gladly order us pizza, chicken wings, or basically whatever we thought would be “fun” for dinner.

Once a month he’d drive me to B. Daltons to see if the newest Babysitters Club book was available. If it wasn’t, I’d be mildly disappointed and choose something remarkably obtuse instead. Sometimes if I had been “good” he’d also buy me a candy bar. We’d go home and I’d settle in with my book on this perfect reclining chair, to which I really do believe I owe my literacy. He’d play a blues riff from one of his many dog-eared fake books. To me he was, and still is, the coolest guy in the world.

Oftentimes my dad, younger sister and I would pick mom up from work. This was when we had one family car. It was an automotive hand-me down from my grandparents – a bright yellow, rust-freckled Chevy that made my already lame attempt at 6th grade popularity even more slighted. The inside of the car wasn’t half bad and if I had more confidence then, the kind of confidence that only comes with age, really, I probably would’ve loved it’s character.

I’d sprawl out in the back seat, pop the cigarette lighter in and out of it’s carriage with my Jansport bookbag casually tossed to the side. I’d sit up, lean back in the sofa-like seat of the sedan, and gaze out the window pretending that I was being driven around a glamorous city as I watched the bright neon lights of Super K, BP gas, and McDonald’s amble by.

Some weekends I’d spend the day with mom at work.  Perhaps others my age reminisce on weekends spent at grandmas house, or perhaps doing something recreational like playing games or taking tennis lessons. For me, it was a shopping mall that I unofficially baptized as my place of fun.

To this day I have an immense love-hate relationship for these manufactured landscapes of falsified desire and need.  I knew how they possessed the ability to suck you in via coupons, spreads in Sunday’s paper and promises of savvy abundance on Memorial Day weekend.  I grew to understand how they spit you out, broke and empty as you search for your car in a blizzard, grasping the plastic handles on the adorably designed bags that took someone 4 years of college and 2 years of design trade school to create.

Meandering around the department store alone with nothing to do as I waited for my mom to take her lunch break, I’d spend time examining the Handbags and Accessories.  I’d feel grown-up as I pretended to select a Swatch Watch. After someone shooed me away I’d ride up the escalator and walk around the youth section that was excitedly called “Impulse”. As I got older I’d spend most of my time here trying on swimsuits and prom dresses, springtime frocks and back-to-school peacoats, twirling around in front of the 3-dimensional mirrors beneath the bright and unflattering lights.

Leaving not a square foot uncovered, I’d skip to the toddler section and browse the baby clothes. I’d put together ensembles for my future infants. I didn’t really want a boy but what a cute sunhat, and these socks are adorable but awfully expensive. However, they display the Tommy Hilfiger logo so my child will be considered to be important by others.  We’d need to get into the country club somehow. Scoping out the infant section actually prompted a campaign in which I informed my parents that I was ready for another little sister. I immediately began to tell the neighbors that my mom had a baby, hoping that the rumor would turn into reality. Years later our in-and-out of town Australian neighbors asked me how my little sister Sarah was doing. I stared blankly at them, totally forgetting my lie.

When I felt bratty I hid from my mom within the spinning, circular racks of DKNY outerwear. When I was feeling obedient I would sit in a chair normally reserved for bored husbands and watch the sales clerks put out new clothing for the upcoming season. To this day, dismembered manequins still make me uncomfortable.

I became obsessed with new arrivals. Because of this I developed a keen sense for seasonal trends. My seasons became Prom, Vacation, Back to School, and Post-Holiday Sale. To my mom’s dismay when it came time for back-to-school shopping I always wanted something ridiculously trendy at the moment like paint-splattered coveralls or a jacket made of lace and pleather. I didn’t get these things and remember thinking that if i owned that pair of Reebok pumps I would be popular and life would be easy for me – it never crossed my mind to actually consider speaking to my classmates.

As I became older and more adventurous, I would venture from the department store into the adjoining shopping mall. Each store was a new world ripe for discovery.

The athletic store smelled of new basketballs and sneakers with grown up high schoolers shopping for soccer jerseys or chatting with their friends who worked there – fit, authoritative adults wearing referee uniforms who when I was around was always on my best behavior.  The jewelry store where I got my ears double-pierced and yearned for a plastic tiara and multi-colored slap bracelets. The pet store where I swore then and there that someday that i would own several birds and let them fly around the house. Sam Goody, where I headed straight for the tapes in the basement to examine the cover artwork and imagine what the music sounded like based on the art.

And of course the bookstore. I liked B. Dalton’s better. I scoffed at the lack of selection as the kids my age assembled puzzles in the back of the store while their mothers quietly browsed the embossed paperback Harlequin novels towards the front.

And this went on for years. I loved things. I developed an impulse to be around things. I needed things, because things meant security and things meant access to the outside world and things meant success.

As I grew older this led to a total fascination with consumerist behavior.

Like most matters we’ve been institutionally taught as a kid, I’ve chosen to unlearn and re-teach myself about it.  Consumer-aimed messages are created by a precise, controlled machine with many moving parts. These messages are intended to trigger a need within us to fulfill the aforementioned assumptions with physical objects, validating us in the space created specifically for us by the machine (I’ll break this down another time, too).

On the outside, we see it as killing time. It fills a void. It numbs us, temporarily satiating us from that and those we need to keep us whole. Later in life I’d go on to study how to create these messages, and in grad school I’d pull them apart.

Today I  appreciate consumerism in a mildly humorous way, like pre-packaged snacks or bad reality TV.  I have a tough time visiting shopping malls. Not because I had a bad experience as a kid, but because I loathe artifacts from the past like re-runs, or macrame. I do, however, enjoy the occasional trip to the amazingly excessive Costco warehouse, or the conquest of a fabulous Prada loafer.

My mom is still in cosmetics. She’s a makeup and portrait artist (self-described as “face painter” on Facebook). We speak all the time now that I live across the country. We gossip and talk about the news and when we’ll see each other next.  I’ve come to learn that the intangible can be the greatest thing of all to acquire.

©  Nicole Cifani, 2010.

I totally forgot about Scanners until I stumbled across their new album on LaLa today. The song “Lowlife” from the 2006 album Violence is Golden was totally killer then. It’s good to hear that not only they’re back, but have a kick-ass new album to boot.

Listen to “Lowlife” (Dim Mak)

Lala embeds don’t work on the Wordpress install for some reason (ahem!! ). Here’s 2 places to go to have a listen to the full album:

Stream the full songs on LaLa

Stream clips from “Submarines” on Amazon

Hip Hop is like comfort food to me.  I love it so much and always have.  I go on my long, weird, late-night runs listening to hip hop mixtapes (and R&B oldies – see the Atlantic 60th Edition for starters). It totally gets me going every time.

I started off the evening working on a Teen Beat-style mix and wound up with this mini-mix of new’ish cuts from my music library.  Kind of random, yet rewarding.

Enjoy!

// tracklist

Strong Arm Steady “Best of Times (Feat. Phonte) – prod by Madlib”

Freeway & Jake One “One Thing (feat. Raekwon)”

Consequence “Sounds G.O.O.D. To Me”

Mux Mool “No Black Crayon”

People Under the Stairs “Hit The Top”

Timbaland feat. Keri Hilson “Rumors”

The Arch Cupcake “Airmail Mashup (feat. Ella Fitzgerald) – prod by Ming from Ming + FS”

Other mixtapes (free download):

Danceypants #1 10.09

Danceypants #2 11.09

20 Years of Warp Records

Red Eye mix

The other night was quite windy in here Santa Monica. It was 4am and I was wide awake and totally spooked.  I randomly posted how I was feeling to Twitter and noticed shortly thereafter that other west-siders were awake and acknowledging that they felt the same way.

This exchange comforted me somehow. It made me feel less neurotic about being freaked out by something so simple as wind.

It’s scary to think that everything I post is on record somewhere, but to participate I realize – like in a real world relationship – that it helps to open up.

I noticed that after posting more opinionated tweets or describing certain situations that my number of followers dramatically increased.  Offering up stuff I was working on, like  DJ mixes, helped too.

Make the experience personal and memorable and people will follow.

Just like the real world, the Twitterverse is full of amazing individuals who love to share their creations, thoughts and opinions.

Get to know your tweeples. Send them messages, read their blogs. You’ll become flattered by the types of people who follow you, and become inspired to offer more.  It makes participation more meaningful than communicating aimlessly in an anonymous online world.

Thought I’d share a few singles of what I’ve got in rotation this month.

What are you listening to? I’d love to know!

xx – nicole

Dan Black – “Yours ” (The Hours)
This is an artist I’m really excited for in 2010. The album UN is available digitally right now on the iTunes store, and the album is expected to have an official release next month. He’ll be performing live at Cinespace in Hollywood on 2/23 and Spaceland on 2/24.

http://www.myspace.com/danblacksound

Delphic – “Doubt” (R&S)
Delphic’s debut album Acolyte is out real soon, and it’s already built up a large amount of buzz – they’ve been cited in numerous ‘Ones To Watch in 2010′ lists and have been hyped up a bit on the blogs. The record is lush, modern, energetic electronic music, and if you’re a fan of bands like Hot Chip, Friendly Fires and Empire of the Sun you may dig these guys.

http://www.myspace.com/delphic

ChewLips – “Play Together” (Kitsune)
“Play Together” is a taken from their debut named Unicorn available February 9th on import. I suspect you can find a few singles floating around out there, including issues from some of the recent Kitsune label compilations. You can learn more about the london-based trio at -

http://www.myspace.com/chewlips

We Fell To Earth – “Deaf” (Ais)
A producer group comprised of the duo Wendy Rae Fowler alongside Richard File. Richard is best known for his work with James Lavelle as part of the group Unkle. The two met in fall of 2005 at Rancho de la Luna Studios near Joshua Tree here in So-Cal, where Richard was recording with Josh Hommie from Queens of the Stone Age. The two hit it off and began recording together, with their debut self-titled album released independently last August.

http://www.wefelltoearth.com

Pete Lawrie – “Black and Blue (Troublemaker remix)” (Field Records/Island)This muti-talented, multi-instrumentalist, singer/songwriter actually has roots as a hip-hop DJ and producer. If you head on over to his website there’s a free mixtape for download that pays homage to his roots. You can check out a few samples of his work prior to this years’ debut coming at us from Island Records.

http://petelawrie.com

TAPETHERADIO – “Stay Inside” (unsigned/indie)
The most recent signing to Rough Trade records, this is their second single and is quite appropriate for these wintery days. The song is aptly named “Stay Inside”…

http://www.myspace.com/tapetheradio

Mike Slott – “Gardening” (LuckyMe / All City)
He’s a producer who worked alongside Hudson Mohawke, Dabrye, and others…His first LP Lucky 9teen was released last month by LuckyMe recordings.

http://www.myspace.com/mikeslottbeats

The HotRats – “Big Sky” (Fat Possum)
England’s HotRats is actually the lead singer and drummer from Supergrass – Gaz Coombes and Danny Goffey – alongside rockstar producer Nigel Godrich who’s best known for his work with bands like Radiohead, Beck, and Air. They recently played a few packed shows in LA that included the full band members from both Radiohead and Spoon in attendance. I’m really digging this album. It’s named Turn Ons, and is collection of cover songs -reworkings of classics by the likes of the Doors, the Kinks, the Cure, Elvis Costello, Squeeze, Pink Floyd, Roxy Music, the English Beat, and David Bowie. The album came out Monday.

http://www.thehotrats.com/

The Webb Sisters – “Plastered Scene” (Mercury)

They’re sisters from Kent, UK born to a hairdresser father and a tennis coach mother. They signed to Mercury records and released their first LP in June 2006 named Daylight Crossing. They’ve recently collaborated with Angelo Petraglia from Kings of Leon, and were backup singers from Leonard Cohen’s tour in 2008, his first tour in 14 years. They recently played a few dates at the esteemed Hotel Cafe…

http://www.thewebbsisters.com/

David Bowie – “Heroes” (RCA)

Can’t say no to Bowie! Last week he released A Reality Tour Live 2 CD set – 33 songs recorded live from a Nov 2003 show in Dublin.

http://www.davidbowie.com/

Manchester-based Lonelady produces raw, snappy beats with sharp and shouty singing reminiscent of Beth Ditto of the Gossip, Chew Lips or DFA’s Pylon.

Recording in an old mill turned studio, Julie Campbell laid down tracks for her debut in a short 4 weeks – channeling wide-ranging influences from Prince, ESG, The Fall, REM, Joy Division, and Peaches.

Her sound incorporates a smart, party vibe that when cut to the bone remains quite arty and tasteful.

It’s a quality recording from Warp, the label with a reputation for nothing but quality releases.

From RCRDLBL:

“Stripping back the glossy veneer of glass and cheap tinfoil to uncover the brittle, workaday ordinariness of a Manchester that has been trampled, buried and renovated, she exposes the raw, ragged memories, ideals and nerves now wriggling, bare, vulnerable; the dove-grey patina of the old city that lurks beneath. Uncovering a Manchester we seldom choose to revisit with her harsh, uncompromising and discordant stance, a new kind of beauty is revealed, alive with the rich hues of slate and mauve we’ve been persuaded to outgrow and discouraged from appreciating.”

“Nerve Up” is out February 22nd on Warp. You can grab a free single over at RCRDLBL.

More:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/jan/29/new-band-lonelady

http://warp.net/records/lonelady

On Saturday we paid a visit to CityCenter, the newest development on the strip that includes 2 hotels, a condo structure, restaurants, shopping center and spas.

The development, officially opened in December, is completely LEED-certified making it the largest sustainably-designed architectural development in the world. Rockstar architects involved in the project include Helmut Jahn, Studio Daniel Libeskind, and Foster + Partners.

The modernist design is breathtaking with plenty of glass and steel, extraordinary lighting and surprising turns and angles at every step.

It’s a beautiful complex and well worth the visit. I had a great time visiting the Aria Casino where we caught a few football games, played some games of our own in the casino and nibbled at a totally delish patisserie.  Check out some snaps below!

More:

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/gensler-leads-design-of-citycenter-79314067.html

http://www.arialasvegas.com

http://www.dwell.com/articles/citycenter-las-vegas.html

http://www.inhabitat.com/2010/01/07/is-it-green-citycenter/

Below are my top 10 pics for 2009 as well as a quite considerable list of notable runners-up!

Runners Up:
Doves  “Kingdom of Rust”
Bodycode “Immune”
Silversun Pickups  “Swoon”
Muse  “The Resistance”
White Rabbits “It’s Frightening”
Nosaj Thing  “Drift”
DJ Vadim “U Can’t Lurn Imaginashun”
One Eskimo “One Eskimo”
Ingrid Michaelson  “Everybody”
The XX  “xx”
Volcano Choir  “Unmap”
The Antlers  “Hospice”
Dead Weather  “Horehound”
Neon Indian  “Psychic Chasms”
Dead Man’s Bones  “Dead Man’s Bones”
Califone  “All my Friends are Funeral Singers”
Mayer Hawthorne  “A Strange Arrangement”
Monsters of Folk  “Monsters of Folk”
Phoenix  “Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix”

Click here for last year’s choice music podcasts of 2008.

For those of you who think dubstep is contrived strictly by the male gender, I’m not at all sad to inform you that you’re mistaken.

She Is Danger is Maya Jane Coles and Lena Cullen. The female duo from the UK write, produce, engineer and perform all of their own music and according to MySpace are likened to a “modern day Burial meets Portishead, with hints of Massive Attack and Kosheen.”

Nice.

A single is coming mid-December, with the full album  in Spring 2010.

More:

http://www.myspace.com/sheisdangermusic