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Before we get into a fresh HIGHLY RECOMMENDED with Danny from Frog (I say “fresh” because Danny also did a HIGHLY RECOMMENDED Q&A all the way back in 2016, as this was a frog blahg before grog), let us first get to the World Wide Canadian premiere of Frog’s “proper” GROG album opener ‘Goes w/o Saying’ — so how about we all press play on this track for the first time ever now:

Now, it should go without saying that it’s your call whether you want to just sit here with your eyes closed and bask in the audio vibes for a bit OR if you want the sounds premiering in your ears to be the audio backdrop for when you peruse Danny’s top shelf recommendations in the Q&A below — BUT — I will just add that when Jamie from Audio Antihero (who also recently did a HIGHLY RECOMMENDED Q&A, fyi) explained to me their plans for having 7 Frog tracks premiere on 7 different sites (in 5 different countries) on the day before Frog’s much-anticipated-by-those-who-know new album GROG releases on November 17th, even though I’m not really a “music blog” that does premieres, I figured… why not just pop a premiere on top of the Q&A we were set to share this week anyways, eh?!

And on that note, let’s continue the #frogGROGblog festivities by asking Danny for some personal life tips that we can all take back to our own orbits while we wait for GROG to officially drop tomorrow:

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#1 - WHAT IS THE ONE ALBUM (OR EP OR SONG) THAT YOU THINK SHOULD BE THE VERY NEXT MUSICAL THING THAT EVERYONE PRESSES PLAY ON THE NEXT TIME THEY FIND THEMSELVES THINKING “WHAT SHOULD I LISTEN TO NOW”?

I recently started listening to this album by Sally Oldfield, Mike Oldfield (the guy who did the music in The Exorcist)'s sister. Her solo records are a bit obscure- most of them are not on spotify, but her debut album is from 1978 called Water Bearer, and it is next level.

This is like a reach-through-the-mirror-and-emerge-in-a-pool-of-clear-water-in-a-snow-covered-alternate-universe-style vibe. This is like if the elves in the Lord of The Rings made folk songs with bust-your-shit-open beats. Everything she does is amazing.

#2 - WHAT IS THE ONE MOVIE OR TV SHOW THAT YOU THINK SHOULD BE NEXT IN EVERYBODY’S NETFLIX QUEUE (OK, DOESN’T HAVE TO BE NETFLIX, WE’RE ALL INTERNET ADULTS HERE AND KNOW HOW TO FIND ANYTHING ONLINE, ONE WAY OR ANOTHER)?

I’ve watched several movies in the last year or so that affected me in a major way and made me think about art differently, but the one I maybe loved most was Tampopo, which is a Japanese film from the mid-80s by Juzo Itami starring his wife and muse Nobuko Miyamoto.

The movie is about Ramen, the dish, and there are a bunch of different recurring tangentially related narratives and character arcs that are interspersed and woven throughout. The main plot line features a John Wayne type that gets convinced to help a novice, untrained chef make her restaurant into the best Ramen shop in Tokyo. It literally blew me away and also made me very hungry. Itami makes fun of a number of different narrative and film forms/tropes- there’s a framing device featuring a gangster who interrogates the audience, many different hilarious skits involving food and/or sex, sight gags, and an unforgettable ending. Goodfellas meets Buster Keaton meets Guy Fieri. Hilarious & mandatory viewing for anyone with a criterion account.

Itami is a really interesting story himself- he was a famous actor who became the greatest director in Japan late in his career, after he turned 50. He made a movie called Minbo, or The Gentle Art of Japanese Extortion, that made fun of Japanese gangsters; they were so mad about it they attacked him six days after the premier and slashed him in the face. He made a few more films after but in 1997 the yakuza took him up to the roof of his office building and made him choose between being shot in the head or jumping off the roof. He jumped off and died; they faked a suicide note and left it for the police and the press. I don’t know if the police ever solved the murder.

#3. I (AND BY “I” I MEAN “THE PERSON THAT IS READING THIS”) AM GOING TO THE LOCAL BOOK STORE (OK, MAYBE THE LOCAL LIBRARY FIRST) TO FIND THE VERY NEXT BOOK THAT I WILL BE PUTTING SOME EXTREMELY VALUABLE ‘ME-TIME' ASIDE FOR. WHICH BOOK WOULD YOU GET, IF YOU WERE ME (AND, I SUPPOSE, YOU HADN’T ALREADY READ WHAT YOU’RE ABOUT TO SUGGEST)?

I’m not gonna lie - things have been pretty nuts for me lately in my personal life and I have not had a huge amount of time to read. I started Don Quixote like a year or so ago and have slowly been making my way through it. It’s hilarious! It’s crazy that this was written in 1500 and it’s still just as funny as like, Dumb and Dumber to me. The way that I’ve been thinking about it is that Quixote is sorta like the archetypical artist in a society that loves art but doesn’t value people that make it at all - he’s a joke to everyone around him, his life is completely ridiculous, he is basically starving and so thin that you can see his bones, and yet he is completely and utterly devoted and consumed by the ideas in the books he reads, by chivalry and romance and adventure. He is completely ready to die at any moment for things that are only real in the minds of children and writers.

I also read Charlie Parker’s biography - I would read any musician’s autobiography/biography.

#4 - WHAT IS THE ONE WEBSITE (OR JUST ANY OLD INTERNET THING: APP, GIF, SERVICE, WHATEVER) THAT YOU WOULD GET REALLY DOWN IN THE DUMPS ABOUT IF IT WERE TO SUDDENLY GO AWAY?

When I used to have time, I’d watch a lot of YouTube videos- there are some crazy things on there that can be really moving. For a while, I watched many, many different interviews on Soft White Underbelly, which is a channel where a photographer films interviews in his studio with people who live on Skid Row.

There is something amazing about the fact that basically, the only thing he ever asks them is how was your childhood - and invariably they talk for hours. I think it must be that so much of the world treats them like less than human that anyone asking them a normal question gives them something that they’re like hungry for, and they start pouring themselves out completely to anyone who treats them normally. Mostly it’s just regular people who weren’t given the type of attention and love that they needed growing up and things spiraled from there.

#5 - AND FINALLY… PLEASE GIVE ONE COMPLETELY UNAIDED RECOMMENDATION THAT YOU THINK EVERYONE SHOULD START DOING / USING / WATCHING / EATING / THINKING / QUITTING / ETC-ING TO MAKE THEIR LIVES A LITTLE BIT MORE BETTER AND/OR BEARABLE.

I recommend getting your, like, heart trampled on, to basically anyone. I recommend walking around, like, naked in your living room - you know, swallow it down! It’s a jagged little pill but it’ll feel so good swimming in your stomach. And remember - just, wait until the dust settles. You live, you learn, you know?

OK folks, there you have it. Things that Danny from Frog thinks you should consider incorporating into your day/life. Before you log off and go get naked in your living from, make sure to follow Frog on the Facebook / Instagram / Twitter and then also give some more Frog GROG singles a listen below…

…and if you like what you’re hearing, go do some further frog-flavoured audio exploring over on the Bandcamp / Spotify —AND — if the ‘Goes w/o Saying’ blahg premiere up above only served to wet your whistle and you’d like to sample the full SEVEN #frogGROGblog premieres happening around the globe today, I recommend checking out what the other sites tagged on this Various Small Flames tweet are posting/premiering throughout the day!

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JEREMY / @HI54LOFI

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