Machine Girl

Machine Girl goes record shopping at Amoeba San Francisco in this "What's In My Bag?" episode.  Given their genre-blending sound, it's no surprise that the electronic band has eclectic taste, spanning everything from '80s pop and Judas Priest to Madlib and John Zorn.  Machine Girl's Psycho Warrior (MG Ultra X) is available via Future Classic.

Machine Girl's picks:
• Scritti Politti - Wood Beez/Absolute (12")
• CoLD SToRAGE - Wipe'out: The Zero Gravity Soundtrack Vol. 2 (CD)
• Negativland - Free (CD)
• The System - The Pleasure Seekers (LP)
• Judas Priest - Priest...Live! (CD)
• John Zorn - Naked City (CD)
• Madlib - Shades Of Blue (LP)
• The Mars Volta - De-Loused in the Comatorium (CD)
• Philip K. Dick - A Scanner Darkly (BOOK)
• Alejandro Jodorowsky - The Holy Mountain (BLU-RAY)
• Dean Evenson - Ocean Dreams (CD)
• John Woo - The Killer (BLU-RAY)
• Ataraxia - The Unexplained (LP)
• Death - The Sound Of Perseverance (LP)
• Aphex Twin - Digeridoo (12")

Featured Artist: Machine Girl

Producer/Director/Editor: Gabriel Wheeler
Executive Producer: Rachael McGovern
Cameras: Michael Cruz, Gabriel Wheeler
Audio Recorded by: Michael Cruz
Assistant Editor: Patrick Emswiler

Watch Machine Girl's "What's In My Bag?" episode on Amoeba.com

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hi, I'm Matt from Machine Girl.

SPEAKER_02 0:02

I'm Lucy from Machine Girl.

SPEAKER_00 0:03

I'm Sean from Machine Girl.

SPEAKER_01 0:04

And this is Ido from Machine Girl. And this is what's in our bag. Picked out this uh Scritty Polity single for their tracks uh Woodbees in Absolute. The record that this is off of, which the name escapes me currently, but it's an incredible 80s pop record that I got into. Well, Lucy actually showed me it last year for the first time, and it was definitely like one of my musical obsessions.

SPEAKER_03 0:58

I got off my head where you can make a job.

SPEAKER_02 1:02

Wipe out the video game soundtrack from the PlayStation 1. This is actually the original soundtrack by the video game composer, not the other tracks from the game. But the game is famously featured in Hackers, which is one of my favorite movies of all time, early Angelina Jolie. But yeah, having this soundtrack, iconic soundtrack, very cool to find on CD, and I think it just came out uh like last year.

SPEAKER_00 1:54

Negative Land. It's an album I never heard of before by them. But if you don't know Negative Land, it's kind of like punk sound collage is like the best way I could describe it. Plunderphonics. Plunderphonics, but punctufied, I guess. They've had some like controversial albums there, they kind of tease copyright laws and definitely check out Negative Land.

SPEAKER_05 2:14

Boomer 1 to Boomer 2, standing by on Q1, two five-inch flag shells. Okay from the first two. Iron one.

SPEAKER_06 2:23

Bombs bursting in air.

SPEAKER_01 2:26

So I picked out this record by another kind of 80s pop uh like RB group called the System.

SPEAKER_06 2:33

Don't stop the music, cause it might bring me down the pledge of seekers. We need a discreet night show.

SPEAKER_01 2:41

They're very underrated. Um, in particular, there's this track, Don't Disturb This Groove, that like years ago, the first time I heard it in a coffee shop, I like ran to the barista and was like, what the hell is this song? This record, truthfully I'm not super familiar with, but it was the only one I could find. I'm excited to check it out. This guy, David Frank, co-wrote and produced Genie in a Bottle by Christina Aguilera. And it's funny because yesterday we actually listened to it in the car, and I haven't listened to that song in like since I was like an adult. And it rips, and the production's incredible, and it's actually kind of cool how if you listen to this, the system, like his production and writing style, you hear it in that track.

SPEAKER_02 3:42

My next selection is Judas Priest. Kind of a switch up from the other picks, but the only thing better than Judas Priest is Judas Priest Live. So that's why I picked this right here live in 1987. All the hits, they fucking kick ass live. If you don't like Judas Priest, listen to Judas Priest live and watch that live footage. It's fucking iconic. Free will burning staple for me. Awesome live. Fucking Rob Halford comes out on stage on a motorcycle, so don't miss it.

SPEAKER_00 4:38

John Zor is a jazz musician. This is kind of like his metal band, I guess. Featuring uh one of my favorite artists on vocals, Kawataka High. It's outrageous punk metal jazz music. It's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 5:07

Shades of Blue by Mad Lib. It's a really great record. It's him just sampling their entire catalog. I discovered this because uh I used to have an internship and this guy asked me to like catalog all his CDs, and I just went through and burned all them onto my computer and then put them on my iPod at the time. This is a really chill, awesome record. I'm excited when I get off of tour and need to unwind. Listen to this.

SPEAKER_02 5:58

Very well-known record, honestly, at this point, but it came out when I was probably in eighth grade, like 2002, 2003. And this was kind of the first time I was introduced to any sort of like modern, psychedelic, progressive type music. Also being a fan of like At the Drive In and all their previous works. It's still a great record to go back to. So many layers. Very psychedelic, very inspirational for me.

SPEAKER_00 6:35

I picked a Philip K. Dick book, A Scanner Darkly. I love Philip K. Dick, and this is my one of my favorite ones, but it is kind of like sort of the most depressing one because a lot of dialogue is based off of like his conversations he had with his own friends who died of like drug overdoses in the 70s. It's an interesting take on like the drug war and counterculture paranoia. That's really good. You will, because when he slaps the cop's eye, I think you'll know for sure when that day comes out. How could a guy do that? Pose is a narc. What?

SPEAKER_01 7:07

Pose is a narc. I got the holy mountain.

SPEAKER_04 7:10

We have psychedelic shotguns. Grenade necklaces, rock and roll weapons.

SPEAKER_01 7:21

Total classic. I want it because I'm trying to build up my Blu-ray collection so I don't have to rely on like streaming and stuff to when I'm in the mood to, you know, go to another place and get reach a higher level of consciousness through watching movies. I'm a huge Joe Dorowski fan. Uh everything from like El Topo to this to his comics and Santa Sangre, which I was hoping you guys had. But this is still an incredible one-of-a-kind piece of art.

SPEAKER_02 8:20

I came across this ocean dreams compilation in the New Age section, and it has a lot of cool imagery on it, which caught my eye, and it says Parent's Choice Award winner. This recording causes a heightened state of peacefulness. Music includes the earth resonance frequency for deeper relaxation. Please do not use while driving. I'm really looking forward to listening to this. Um, I won't be driving. I'll listen to it on the bus.

SPEAKER_00 8:58

I chose a killer, a John Woo. This movie's badass. The best part about this movie, honestly, is the sort of like the real like it's there is a love story in it with this like blind woman that falls in love with the criminal. But the real love story seems to be between the criminal and the cop that have to like work together in the movie, and there is this sort of like hidden homoerotic overtone to it that just kind of adds to the action. It's classic.

SPEAKER_01 9:41

Pick this Mark Garson record, and like people probably know him because of the Plantasia record. Mother Earth Plantasia or Earth music from plants and the people who love them. All his music's incredible, it's like amazing early synth stuff, and I love that he was super into the occult and all this like weird esoteric stuff. He has that great astrology record, and uh this one's really cool too. It's like creepy synth sounds dealing with again all different kinds of esoteric new age uh you know occult uh concepts.

SPEAKER_02 10:33

So this was my last pick. I saved the best for last. Death, the sound of perseverance, their final studio record, R.I.P. Chuck. I'm from Florida and I spent a lot of time in Central Florida. So this band is very important to a lot of people there, and just such an important band in terms of metal music uh and the direction that it, you know, kicked off in the early 90s, that whole Florida scene. This is probably my favorite of theirs, controversial opinion, but uh I just love how it sounds. It's more sleek than a lot of the other records, and it's unfortunate that you know that was kind of it from them after Chuck passed away. So uh at least we're left with fucking incredible music that still stands the test of time.

SPEAKER_00 11:33

An Apex Twin single of Digeridoo, which is like one of the first Apex Twin songs I really loved, which apparently Apex Twin was involved in these parties that were being ruined by like hippie wook jugglers or something. So he wrote this song to like make them dance so hard they would like leave early or something. Like he wanted to write something like for them, you know, to like make sure they didn't like ruin the party they were throwing. It's crazy. Check it out.

SPEAKER_05 12:10

Thank you all for doing early today.

SPEAKER_02 12:13

Yeah, that was fun. Yeah, it's insane.