New Mix. Also, I've got a new myspace page for all music related endeavors. That old Record Breakers page is dead so head over to Boogie Board and ask to be my friend, I'll say yes it'll be cool.
Boogie Board Mix - March 2009
37minutes29seconds
Watch TV & the Primetimes – Voodoo Royal -2007
Bar-Kays – Let’s Have Some Fun (Galaxy Sound Edit) -1977, 2008
Peter Brown – Dance With Me (South City All-Stars Remix) – 1978, 2008
U-Tern – Shock - 2008
Hot Chocolate – Heaven Is In The Backseat of My Cadillac - (The Revenge Mix) -1987, 2008
Rolling Stones – Miss You (12” Disco Mix) -1978
Eric B. and Rakim – Know the Ledge (Instrumental) – 1992
Rhythm Based Lovers – Cold Comfort – 2009
Boogie Corporation – Junk – 2008
C.O.M.B.I. – You Got Love Song – 2008
Morgan Geist featuring Jeremy Greenspan – Most of All – 2006
Junior Boys – Bits and Pieces – 2009
Sweet D – Thank Ya - 1986
Dam Funk – Silver - 2008
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Boogie Board Mix for Download
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Dam-Funk Appreciation Post
"The reason I work on my own is because Prince is one of my major influences, and he did some of his best work on his own. I don't need to take five dudes with me to get a slice of pizza. I roll by myself."
Dam Funk - Burgundy City
(divshare)
Dam Funk - Galactic Fun
(divshare) Read More......
Friday, March 27, 2009
SXSW Report Card
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This is gonna be a long one...
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SXSW is a lot of different things to a lot of different people. I'd like to write a really lengthy piece on all the marketing bullshit/mob mentality that comes with the territory, but now isn't the time for that. It's time to turn in my report card.
Strengths:
-Efficient use of modes of transportation. I biked most everywhere, except when I needed to transport something specific. Occasionally I would transport my bike in my car somewhere to allow more flexibility to my plans. The last night I got a ride from a friend to the Mad Decent party, they left without telling me, and I got so drunk I had to be essentially dragged into a taxicab by Mark Donica.
-Jokes. SXSW is absolutely the best time to fuck with people. Everyone is drunk first off, which helps, and out of towners usually can't tell if you're making fun of them or not. Case in point, my "I'M MOVIN' TO LA" T-shirt. I was asked probably 20 times if I was actually moving to L.A., even by fairly close friends. I'm not moving to L.A.. Well, maybe not.
-Abuse of free things. This was one of my strongest areas, not because I milked the sweaty tit of a festival for all the free shit in the world, but because I frankly didn't give much of a shit. I drank for free pretty much all week, but let's be honest, it doesn't make sense to wait in line for 15 minutes for a bottom-shelf whiskey and coke that actually costs a dollar if you aren't a stingy bastard and tip the bartender. If you actually want to see a band playing at a venue with massive quantities of free drinks (Purevolume), expect a thirsty mob with no idea who is playing. This is annoying and made me lose respect for human beings. Food however is a totally different ballpark and I definitely stopped by places in order to eat lunch for free. Case in point, DJing for two hours at Karibu Ethiopian restaurant in order to eat a delicious feast.
-Actually seeing the bands I wanted to. This was the most important thing to me. I didn't mind waiting in line for 30 or 45 minutes in order to see a band or DJ that never comes to town. Also, I didn't mind at all going to shows by myself, even when there was no one there that I knew. Partial list of bands: Mayer Hawthorne, The Very Best / Radioclit, Diplo and Switch as Major Lazer, Diplo as Diplo, A-Trak, Bladerunners, Dirty Projectors, Bun B, Kidz in the Hall, Popo, Aside All-Stars, Fiasco, Rainbow Arabia, Mellow Owl, Golden Triangle, Dark Meat, Flosstradamus, dd/mm/yyyy, The Numerators, Mediums, Devlin/Darko, Gayle Gold, Peel, Belaire, MVSCLS, Foot Patrol, What's Up, and a lot more.
-Playing shows. I missed one X-Rays show, but 5 out of 6 isn't bad for an auxiliary member. Also, I DJed once and sat in on the drums with E.M.H.U.'s Spiked Punch.
Weaknesses:
-Sleep. I would have liked to get a few more hours, as I work at 7am every morning and it was pretty tough making it through the day Wednesday through Friday. Also, my biological clock is now programmed to function on 4-5 hours of sleep which is really dangerous.
-Lack of DIY initiative. There were a few bands who expressed some serious interest in playing shows that I wasn't able to help out, because I was a little late on the ball. Also, I wasn't able to do any of the booking for the Rancho shows, which I'm disappointed about.
-Babes. I wish I had talked to more girls from out of town instead of just staring at them through my sunglasses.
-Missing out on bands. I didn't get to see The Sonics, XXXchange, Kanye, Codebreaker, The Bar-Kays, Megafaun, Amanda Blank, King Khan, Kid Sister, Peelander-Z, Monotonix, or The Oh Sees.
Overall Grade: B+
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Awards and Superlatives:
Unsung Hero of the Week: Frederico Rocketjockey, for holding it down for the entirety of all three Rancho day shows.
Best Biker: 730, for screaming and ranting at the heathens while riding through downtown Friday night.
Hustler of the Week: Ervin Berlin. Nuff said.
Most Hardworking Band: DD/MM/YYYY. I think I saw these guys three times and they were laid back despite playing probably 15 shows.
Best DJs: Devlin/Darko/Pretty Titty at the Fader Fort. I've gotta hand it to these guys. I saw some good fucking DJs, but it takes some balls to play an entire Monks track to thousands of people who are just hanging out to drink free booze and be marketed to. Also, they played a great set of three reggae songs in a row after Diplo did his Major Lazer set, perfect for that post-dancehall pre-summer afternoon heat.
Worst DJs: This one is tough (get ready for some DJ snobbery). The Hood Internet at Hi-Lo sucked terrible for the first half of their time, then had a few redeeming mashups later in the evening. Still, playing four hours of mash-ups is fucking retarded. Jayceeoh, an otherwise competent scratch DJ, had terrible sound, due to the fact that he was clipping on his mixer. I went up and told him and he fixed the problem. He also left the lights on in the venue at 4AM so no one danced. I'm sure I saw some more terrible DJs, but I don't want to think about it right now.
SXSW Tips:
-Wear band shirts. People will talk to you about the music you like.
-Bring a water bottle everywhere, preferably one you got for free earlier in the week that you don't mind forgetting/losing/throwing away.
-Have cash money for tipping bartenders, buying merch, 5AM eyes-closed-drunk cab rides.
-When you're in line for a free drink, get two and give one to someone else.
-Eat as much as you can when you can because you're going to be busy later.
-Ride your bike everywhere possible.
-Don't be afraid to go to shows by yourself. You will be much happier if you don't succumb to the will of the free-drink mob.
-Say goodbye to your friends when you're leaving a venue. This makes it feel like they're actually your friends and not an interchangable group of acquaintances. This is really more of a life-tip than a SXSW tip.
-Make straight-faced jokes to obvious out of towners. They won't be able to tell you're making fun of them.
-Don't hesitate if you see a change to sneak into a venue, just go for it, there are no consequences. That hesitation will cost you your opportunity to skip waiting in line.
-Don't be afraid to wait in line for 30 minutes if you actually give a shit about seeing the band. Waiting doesn't make you a tool, it makes you a sincere music fan. However, waiting in line for more than 30 minutes if you're only in it for free booze does make you a tool.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
my SXSW 09 in review: Tuesday
hey buddies! I gotta do this chronologically and then do my lists and shit later. Its the only way. I saw so many fucking great bands. Pushed my body and soul to the limit, and then on Saturday everything just went bonkers. Someone pressed the "Fuck It" button, and by someone I mean, life. Life, man....Life. But, what a blast!!
Tuesday: SXSW felt like it started in earnest once we had house guests. I was doing prep work the past 5 days straight on, just wracking my brain like "dont forget you need a soundman/drum rug/coffee cup/color flier/clean room/charged cell phone/duct tape/cleared band room/groceries/semblance of knowing what you are doing/ etc etc etc." jajajaja as my SXSW girlfriend would write (shes Mexican) but hey, we are getting way ahead of ourselves. And yes, she is a babe. Bragging about babes on a blog...nice one! OK Tuesday. Tuesday I got off work and rolled down to Ms. Bea's for a whiff of what was going on. I passed the "Fader Fort" on the way (whatever the fuck that was...no wait, i don't want to know.) I looked at it with a strange curiosity. I didn't remember Fader Fort like complexes from southby's past.
I easily found a parking spot (this being around 5 PM) and walked up to Ms. Bea's in my work clothes. It smelled like SXSW. The smell of PAs getting set up on dried straw. Ms. Bea's as you may know is where Todd P (DIY Promoter Emeritus) throws his shit. Red's buddy Adam delivered the quote of the festival for me which was (paraphrased) "Todd P is a fucking pro, and definitely not a pussy." Something is lost without his delivery, but it was a statement where a man was making a revelation as he was pronouncing it. It was fucking hilarious. But again, I'm getting ahead of myself...more on that story later (that would belong to Thursday). So that was my little stop off. The show there was starting in an hour, and I had to go home to do some shit, or something...maybe have a band practice. Actually definitely to have a band practice. Your RXRs were hard at work bringing a new tune up to a speed where we could over the course of our 7 performances get it to the point where it sounded like a song. Think about the logic behind that for a moment if you will (actually it turned out fine...mostly).
Anyways, at Ms. Bea's some (British?) lady (a promoter that works with Todd, I believe) showed me on her IPhone what was going on that night, which happened to be a Todd P house party at New Guild Coop. On his mailing list he called it the "Branch Davidian House" which is a funny little pro promoter marketing trick, because he obviously just made it up, as none of the guys in that band actually live there. Not to mention it also has a real name that people actually use. I called up my buddy, former EMHU and Imaginary Friends Sax wailer, and believed New Guild resident Steve Young. "Hey Steve, do you still live at New Guild?" He did. He had no idea there was going to be a huge fucking rager at his house that night. He was gonna go somewhere else. I told him to stick around.
I had wanted to go see Thee Oh Sees at Mohawk that night...it was my original plan, but my limited desire to find myself downtown is pretty much pushed to nil for the week of SXSW, and the prospect of a house show with The Vivian Girls made me straight up change my mind on my evenings plans. Plus I was gonna see them on Saturday night at Charlie Alvarado's house. I smelled trouble brewing because I had no closed toed shoes available to me and would be making the venture in sandals. The weather was perfect, although my route was altered by a zillion cops on campus who wouldn't let me use 24th street because an unknown substance was coming out of the science building. Just another day at the office.
The scene was cool...a mix between ATX band boys and girls who apparently got the memo on the show, NYC band boys and girls, college radio DJs, and hipsters of all the limited stripes that might be associated with those groups already mentioned. I knew some of these people and it was cool to see everyone in the same place. Lots of shaking of hands and whats ups.
I had figured this would be the ideal location to flier, and the only place to really flier for the Wednesday show, so I brought my backpack, some duct tape and the schedules for the show and began plastering them everywhere. I'm not sure that it boosted attendance, but I'm sure at least some people saw them and was like "damn, those guys put together hella good shows." General awareness baby, never underestimate it for the long term. Bathrooms are an ideal place to flier, because people wait around when they are up there, so I went up there. When I was up there one of the Beets (Juan) came up and we started chatting. We had played a show in NYC together last May. His friend who sings in Vivian Girls came up and sorta joined the conversation. It was all real pleasant, totally house party tastic.
I missed The Branch Davidians, but got there in time to see Total Abuse, who I have been wanting to see for a long time. It includes Dustin from Best Fwends/and some ex-Video Screams. They looked cool, and although it was definitely genre, I liked a lot of the the chugga-chug chug parts.
Next were The Beets. I played a show with The Beets last May in NYC and at that time they struck me as any standard Black Lips ripoff band that at that time you found in every single city in the entire country. Before those bands all turned into Jay Retard ripoff bands, according to some. The Beets this go around were definitely not that. They were fucking awesome. I couldn't catch what they were saying really, but I saw them again at the Todd P Acoustic BBQ, and the lyrics are legit. Since last May (10 months ago) they have abandoned the full drum kit and just they are awesome. The time was right at some point and I lifted myself for a crowd surf. It was good. I pride myself on knowing the exact right time to crowd surf. You have to be first, and it has to be during the right song at the right point of the song. I just have good instincts for it at this point. If you've never been and you want, next time we are at a show, I will pop your crowd surfing cherry, just let me know. Yeah, but the Beets were great...the first good band (chronologically) of SXSW. There would be many
The next band was some band from San Francisco that I felt like was influenced by what's coming out of L.A. right now. They had some San Fran sound to them, but they made me want to watch Thee Oh Sees. I went outside for a while. There were a couple of tools having the following conversation, by the trampoline i was bouncing on.
"Man, there is no creativity in this country man!"
"yeah exactly! I totally agree!"
"Yeah, like, no one is doing anything!"
Usually I wouldn't do this, but I interjected to tell them they were wrong.
Response: "look man, I've traveled all across the country"
So lame...you really just can't argue with people like that.
At some point it was time for The Vivian Girls. I was excited to see if they were good or not. I had seen video of them on pitchfork and was unimpressed. I had heard their single and was intrigued, but skeptical. I thought they were a garage band, which they are not. Interesting fact...The Vivian Girls played SXSW 17 times! Awesome! Hilarious! Something tells me this show was the best out of all of them. It was Cassie's 23rd birthday. She is the lead singer/guitarist. Those girls are artists man, and talented too, I have a lot of respect for what they are doing. That show they were really the real deal. The place was packed, but I had been camping out and was on the front row. I was on the right, in front of the bassist. My spot was pretty perfect, but about midway through the set I decided I wanted to stand closer to Cassie so I went over to the right side. The crowd was too strong and I got sucked back into it. My sandals were gonna get broken, so I just took them off and threw them by my backpack which I had strategically placed by the gear. I was now in the middle of a crowd going nuts with no shoes on. I would step on peoples feet to avoid getting stepped on and to avoid any potential broken glass on the floor. Tuesday of SXSW would not have been a good day to get broken glass all up in my shit, not with what we had coming. It was to my dismay that for the end they all switched instruments and if I had just stayed where I was I would have been about 2 feet from the singer for the finale, which was great. As it was at some point I had to go crowd surfing just out of safety for my feet to get the fuck out of where I was. The set was great. I'm willing to bet out of the 17 they played over SXSW, Tuesday night was the best one. I managed to hand Cassie a CD-R of the new EMHU shit at some point afterward.
The last band to play that night was The Strange Boys. They were supposed to play at 2, but Phillip was working a shift at Beerland, so he was gonna get there when he got there. The first "everyone I know has hysterically over scheduled themselves" happened when he finally showed up. At some point, TSB had to start playing just cause it was getting so late and the cops had already come once. They were playing Sans bass, and from my perch on the side I see Phillip 2 blocks down running his goofy ass off all the way to the house, grabbing his bass and with a smile kicking it right into gear like "hey whats up guys!" I don't think I've ever seen that dude run, it was funny as hell. They managed to play like 1 or 2 more songs before the house cut them off cause the cops were gonna come back. This was a ridiculous party, probably 100 people at a given time in the front yard and street alone.
After that I think I biked home and made myself go to sleep. I didn't have anything to drink that night, unsure if I could handle starting the week off on that foot. Todd and his crew were getting wasted, pipes were getting passed around, and all these pros were running the show and partying their ass off simultaneously, the ultimate multi-tasking accomplishment.
And that was Tuesday....the party had just begun....
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Musicnerd Homework One: The Ascension
I'm announcing an intent to start this new "Musicnerd Homework" series where I talk about those albums you're supposed to have heard / you say you've heard somewhere but you're not sure - didn't really - probably just thought you should be paying attention / you know it's a touchstone and will refer to it out of respect. The title comes from a review I read about the reissue of Pylon's "Gyrate" record, where the reviewer said that the release pushed Pylon's music out of the category of "hipster homework" and into the contemporary consciousness.
Assignment one: Glenn Branca - "The Ascension"
PS: MORE DEETS FROM SXSW PLEEZ?
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I am listening to "The Ascension" in full via the Lala music players that P'fork has decided to include in the sidebars of their record reviews now (it's a great move). With the anticipation of experiencing an album that will basically have a perfect rating anywhere you read about it, it is tempting to just be all, oh ok, so I have to think this is amazing too? It's seminal beyond seminal, apparently Sonic Youth's inspiration and all that, and from one listen it's obvious why that's the case. Surely this album has been analyzed to hell as an avant-garde masterpiece and whatever but it made me consider some fundamentals about music and how I relate to it.
For starters it made me think of something that happened to me a few years ago, brought on by a phone conversation I had. Tonight I talked to my good buddy Cody Logan on the phone. Ever since I've met him it's been clear to me that he's an archetype of the "Classic Rock only" fandude. I always think of him whenever Yes is mentioned or heard -- it's his favorite band. He is really opinionated about what he enjoys, too. He alludes to the better days of music in the sixties and seventies, claiming stuff's only gone downhill since. You know, he's of the kind that can't be bothered with the current state of pop/radio, that thinks punk rock was awful for its dumbing down of the notions of virtuosity etc.etc. Part of me sympathizes with those claims, but I wanted to see if I could break him out of his shell by showing him some more contemporary stuff that would fit his taste. So, one day I'm with him at a hookah bar and I decide he should hear Mogwai's "Mogwai Fear Satan," a fairly 'proggy' track that I thought he'd be interested in, as it showed off where rock's been going in terms of post-rock sensibility. After explaining those theories to him I let him sink into the headphones plugged to my Ipod, and I thought I'd nailed it... He told me he was impressed with the atmosphere and sense of restraint going on throughout the song's long arc, and it felt new to him. However, he thought he'd get to dig into another Mogwai song if he kept the headphones on, and this was to his detriment, unfortunately, because mr. ipod decided to go randomly into "The Sad Punk" by Pixies... which, if you know the song, is a pretty jarring shift of tone -- that's probably even putting it lightly -- from the soundscapes of Mogwai. He threw the headphones off with a yell of shock. "What the fuck is that trash? How could Mogwai go into that?"
When I realized what had happened it was a pretty funny event, and it has come to be an inside joke between Cody and me. He hates Pixies because of that moment, which is just such a mishap (uh, cuz, can we all say they are A+ awesome) that I have repeatedly vowed to convince Cody that they're great, and that punk is great, somehow someday. He still remains unconvinced.
But, my appreciation for the ideas of punk and the sound of Pixies versus Cody's standards serves as a good backdrop to what I think is at stake in an album like "The Ascension." Old techniques and instruments, new ideas and output. It's a rock combo on record that goes way beyond the sound of something like The Rolling Stones, which is basically the way I try to describe Post-rock. But at the end of the day it is, essentially, a very rock n' roll record. It grooves and relishes in the sound of guitars, but instead of attacking via melody it overwhelms with tenacious attitude, ominous discordant riffing, and a primal, unrelenting pulse.
It makes me think about the value of knowing how to play an instrument in a tuneful way. See, I was in a band where I would occasionally noodle around to make some melodies happen, but wanted to thrash into distorted reverb codas like I'd heard Yo La Tengo or Sonic Youth do... It seemed acceptable, people liked that sound if the records were held in high esteem, so maybe a good solo wasn't worth my time. However I remember I always felt like it was a copout when push came to shove and I was onstage hitting my guitar with a drumstick a la Lee Renaldo.
In a meta-theoretical way, I think that noise music occupies a space in the spectrum of sound that can really bring out emotions that melody, like in the very traditional common-sense meaning, otherwise does not (or maybe cannot) touch. Maybe with the exception of Xiu Xiu (someone who elicits fear and discomfort through sheer art-damaged dying kid outbursts, arrangements, or weird lyricism, bringing the listener his special brand of ennui), or some other people you might want to name, most popsters out there will resolve their melodies and bring you some kind of positive vibe. But if you are out to shock and be shrill, there's a whole tradition of dissonance in popular music that seems like some elite party to me. I felt stupid doing it when I did it myself but it was invigorating to see Sonic Youth destroy instruments. Perhaps this is pure starstruck syndrome. Maybe you have to have a following already before you do something abrasive, and then critics will say you have put out music that has "alienated your fanbase" or "middle-fingered the status quo." Whether or not you'll get a positive verdict for doing so is whimsy.
A composer using his name to direct an art-rock ensemble seems to me to be one way to get people to listen, I guess. I recently talked about how much I respected Scott Walker for being able to control the chaos on his "The Drift," and I am not backing away from that claim, but... what if I went out one day to record percussion sounds by punching a slab of meat? (Edit: I realized that not everyone is going to know that Scott Walker evidently did do this for sounds on "The Drift") Would you call my parents? Think of how weird and bloody I'd look with like a set of scrubs and maybe latex gloves. Pretty insane.
In the same way that chaos control happened with Scott Walker, I guess I have to admit that Glenn Branca is a similar stylist. I just wonder sometimes if the notes from a song like "Structure," definitely my favorite track on the album I'm talking about, were picked out by Branca telling his guitar army to find random tones that ascend and descend in a certain pattern from different parts of the neck, and then instruct them try to play them over and over in time with the drums. Bullshit or genius? Such is the problem of noise music, I suppose.
Gonna go listen to US Maple's "Acre Thrills" now, which I bought on vinyl in high school so I could be really cool and pretentious... listening to it only like once every three years.. Not going to figure anything out.
Monday, March 23, 2009
the funk box!!!!
(if you want any other single songs uploaded let me know -- in the meantime, remember that funkadelic lyric? "if you ain't gonna get it on, take your dead ass home!")
DISC ONE
1 Get Up I Feel Like A Sex Machine - James Brown (full-length single version)
2 Express Yourself - Charles Wright & The Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band
3 Give It Up Or Turnit A Loose - James Brown (unedited undubbed 1970 version)
4 Rock Steady - Aretha Franklin
5 Slippin' Into Darkness - War
6 I Know You Got Soul - Bobby Byrd
7 Jungle Fever - The Chakachas
8 It's Just Begun - Jimmy Castor Bunch
9 Outa-Space - Billy Preston
10 Think (About It) - Lyn Collins
11 Goin' To See My Baby - The Fatback Band
12 Pass The Peas - The JB's
13 "T" Plays It Cool - Marvin Gaye
14 The Message - Cymande
15 I Can Understand It - New Birth
16 I'm Gonna Love You Just A Little Bit More Baby - Barry White
DISC TWO
1 Future Shock - Curtis Mayfield
2 The Bottle - Gil Scott-Heron/Brian Jackson
3 What Is Hip? - Tower Of Power
4 The Payback - James Brown
5 For The Love Of Money - The O'Jays
6 Hollywood Swinging - Kool & The Gang
7 Tell Me Something Good - Rufus
8 Do It, Fluid - The Blackbyrds
9 Do It (Til You're Satisfied) - B.T. Express
10 Just Kissed My Baby - The Meters
11 Skin Tight - Ohio Players
12 I Get Lifted - George McRae
13 Shakey Ground - The Temptations
14 School Boy Crush - Average White Band
15 Erucu - Jermaine Jackson
DISC THREE
1 Fight The Power (Parts 1 & 2) - The Isley Brothers
2 The Jam - Graham Central Station
3 Give Up The Funk (Tear The Roof Off The Sucker) - Parliament
4 Get The Funk Out Ma Face - The Brothers Johnson
5 Changin' - Brass Construction
6 Dazz - Brick
7 Superman Lover - Johnny "Guitar" Watson
8 The Pinocchio Theory - Bootsy's Rubber Band
9 Slide - Slave
10 The Hump - Patrice Rushen
11 Running Away - Roy Ayers (12" mix)
12 Brick House - The Commodores (12" mix)
13 Let's Have Some Fun - The Bar-Kays
DISC FOUR
1 You And I - Rick James
2 I Like Girls - The Fatback Band
3 Let's Start The Dance - Bohannon
4 One Nation Under A Groove - Funkadelic
5 Bustin' Loose - Chuck Brown & The Soul Searchers
6 I Just Want To Be - Cameo (12" Extended mix)
7 Glide - Pleasure
8 Behind The Groove - Teena Marie
9 More Bounce To The Ounce - Zapp
10 Burn Rubber On Me (Why You Wanna Hurt Me) - The Gap Band
11 Atomic Dog - George Clinton
Friday, March 20, 2009
Number 365 Demo
SXSW INTERRUPTION
I've been working on this track for a few months now. I recorded the xylophone with Bob King. You may recognize the guitar samples from a King Sunny Ade song that I posted on the blog awhile back. This is a rough mix, so constructive feedback is appreciated. Hope you enjoy it.
(divshare)
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
MUTO by BLU
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See more of this artist's work on his internets
MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Wow, this sounds fun!?!?!!>!?@>$
Uh whoops. so KUT had a story about the club 1808 dayshow ... but then they took it down. wanh wanh.
Monday, March 16, 2009
come out to revolution tonight in Bryan, TX for the Rancho Festivities pre-party with Quiet Hooves from Athens, GA and Treasure Mammal from Phoenix, AZ, and Alyx Pryce from Bryan, TX
Friday, March 13, 2009
8 Bit + Dub Step
Here's some dirty nerd drug shit for you from Houston. Sent to me by Sievert...
Proof God at least Doesn't Hate Us
maybe...
Weather update for sxsw 2009:
tuesday: sunny, high of 77, low of 59
wednesday: sunny, high of 77, low of 52
thursday: sunny, high of 73, low of 53
friday: sunny, high of 75, low of 53
saturday: sunny, high of 75, low of 57
sunday: sunny, high of 75, low of 61
Thursday, March 12, 2009
DIG THIS SHIT
since the previous screw mixes have basically been badass things meant to blow out your speakers and take you to that other level in the sky...i toned it down with this one so you can slowly slide down the banister into one of those bean bag sacks made of sweet, smooth, and sexy sounds (with some exceptions in terms of subject matter)
uploaded some of my favorites individually
part one
part two
1- boom - mac mall
2- in the house/best friends - brandy
3- fire it up - da brat
4- bangen screw - woss ness
5- shinin - dj dmd/a week ago- jay-z
6- one more chance - notorious b.i.g.
7- g ride
8- high with the blanksta - point blank
9- tales from the hood - domino
10- bad news - too $hort
11- the game goes on - k-rino and z-ro
12-do g's get to go to heaven? - richie rich
13- reason for rhyme - eightball and mjg
14- lay your head on this pillow - richie rich
15-we can freak it - kurupt
16- g's roll 4 deep/swang and bang - esg (~20mins but so good)
The Latest in Daft Punk Technology
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iDaft beta.
With the power of Daft Punk at your fingertips, truly, the future has arrived.
I for one welcome our new daft overlords.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
An Odd Case of Mismarketing?
I think some of you are aware of the fact that Cormac McCarthy is my favorite author and that The Road is my favorite book. Not to do the whole flag-planting routine of I-saw-it-first or whatever, but I read No Country for Old Men about 2 and a half years ago, only to learn later that it was being adapted to film. Since my first exposure to McCarthy's work was The Road, though, I think I sort of spoiled my chances of enjoying No Country, which is surely a very fine book in its own right, but less suited to McCarthy's special style. In fact, I'd go on to analyze The Road later, emphasizing how McCarthy purposefully forgoes the application 'standardized' writing conventions like punctuation and proper sentence construction, to mirror the hellish, blink-and-you'll-miss-it intensity of The Road's overall setting... It was a brilliant expression of poetic license in a novel, an expression I thought was unique. Turns out, that's just how he writes in general, apparently.
Brief aside to the Coen Bros. The movie was great, but somehow I imagined some parts would be "bigger," particularly when Llewelyn (cumbersomely named protagonistman) had to run away from the abandoned SUVs in the desert night while being fired upon. The film shows his only escape was a quick swim through a little ravine. That is to say, reading it, I thought he basically fell into a canyon-size gorge and injured himself; therefore, even though he was wounded, it essentially amounted to a successful escape because the 'bad guys' didn't want to follow him after that fall, or perhaps they could no longer see him.
Small gripes aside, I wanted to say that new copies of The Road come emblazoned with the all-too-cheezy feeling "NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE!!!" blurb on the cover. I heard rumors that the story was also to be adapted to the screen, but was pretty sure it had not been released yet. A few internet checks later I think I'm 100% correct claiming that, so it's just weird that those blurbs already come on the cover of The Road, preemptively so it would seem. As if that story really needs any more selling though -- seriously, for anyone who feels burnt out on pleasure reading, pick up The Road and tell me it wasn't good, I dare ye.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Sk8 or Die, Man
Nothing is cooler than skateboarding. Nothing is cooler than explosions.
Taken from the Turntable Lab blog.
Monday, March 9, 2009
vinyl rip: hendrix in the west (released 1972)
apparently there are many varying bootleg copies of this record
Track 4 and 7 recorded at The Royal Albert Hall in London, England on February 24, 1969
Tracks 5 and 6 recorded at The Isle of Wight Festival in England on August 30, 1970
Track 8 recorded at the San Diego Sports Arena in California on May 24, 1969
(side one)
2- lover man
(side two)
(thank you jesus for letting me be a ut student) Read More......
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Friday, March 6, 2009
Hudson Mohawke
Hudson Mohawke is from Scotland. This is the hardest beat I've heard in awhile. You should probably play this louder than you play most of your music. Gotta love that T.I. vocal sample.
Hudson Mohawke - Overnight
(divshare)
Also don't forget, tonight is Funk the Box! Get ready to get down.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
I guess it's country youtube day at rancho
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up: dwight yoakam - swingin doors (merle haggard)
down: dwight yoakam - goodtime charley's got the blues (Danny O'Keefe)
i feel bad though about pushing trip's awesome post down, but i cant resist.
self fullfilling prophecy pt. 2
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/149334-wavves-wavvves
Read More......Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Retardedly Perfect Musical Performance Killing My Ego
I consider myself vaguely musical, je suis musician, and I still have rock star dreams which I may or may not fulfill someday. There are things out there though -- songs on records, singer performances, bands, moments of music -- that just make me want to hang up my creative hat and say, here, this is how it's supposed to be done, I better not spoil. Here, James Mercer of The Shins live, he has absolute control over that voice of his. Here, you feel those goosebumps when Thom Yorke freaks out when Idioteque hits the fever pitch? Or when Jonsi nails Untitled One like a siren of myth?
Here's Ethan Smith on a rhodes, persnaps?
Well, today I will say for certain that my icy aging little heart was broken by a Youtube video. Someone I honestly I haven't paid too much attention to at all before, St. Vincent, shows up in this DUMBO performance (which other bands have apparently done), doing the best Nico since Nico did "These Days." I get the feeling her fingers know the contours of this song so well, and she just looks forward trying to channel the history of this song, all it is, and it's like she's not afraid of what it means at all. I don't think I could ever do it. Not like this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vxQs84FMWQ
Kanye on VH1 Storytellers
Kanye West performed on VH1 Storytellers last Saturday, and despite my best efforts (devoting my facebook status to the endeavor), I couldn't find someone with cable to watch it with me. Thankfully(?) broadcast television is pretty irrelevant ever since TV networks realized that they can sell ads to play before streaming internet content.
So hop over to VH1.com for the first time since you were 12 and check out some of these videos of Kanye. They are totally dope. Most of the songs are from 808s and Heartbreak, which I pretty much despise, but the production value and arrangements are so meticulous that I can't help but love it. The stage is completely amazing. Makes me wish I had thrown down 60 bucks for the Glow in the Dark tour.
Sure, Kanye acts like a fucking idiot the whole time, but that's a given. My favorite bit of monologue is when Kanye declares that his greatest pain in life is never being able to see himself perform, and that the audience is lucky because they are experiencing something he'll never be able to experience. And he says this with a totally straight face, it's priceless. In the Flashing Lights video that I embedded he also threatens to kill the doctor who is writing a tell-all book about the surgery that caused his mother's death.
The whole affair is the most indulgent show you can imagine. It's pure Kanye. But the thing is, the musical arrangements (we're talking 20 piece band here) are beautiful. I'd bet a few dollars that Jon Brion was tapped to arrange this. It's surprisingly heavy on electric guitar, strings, and timpani drums, which totally works. And unlike some of his previous live vocal performances off Heartbreaks (SNL in particular), his singing actually sounds good. Read More......
Monday, March 2, 2009
RanchO SXSW Sorta Announced
Info is still coming in/bands still being confirmed, but for info on these shows check the sidebar to the right.
we are doing these shows with those Athens, Georgians, Party Party Partners aka Secret Squirrel aka Quiet Hooves dudes and the Rad Racket dudes who run the Danger Danger Gallery in West Philadelphia.
More info on these shows TBA
hope to see you there!
Why I Love Techno pt. 2
This is the second installment of my exploration / analysis of techno or electronica or dance or [insert genre tag]. Why I like it, why it's classified the way it is, the way it works, that sort of thing. I slipped the first part in under the radar, so if you want to be up to speed like a good student then jump over to http://casavista.blogspot.com/2009/01/iiiiive-got-big-beat-aka-why-i-love.html first.
REPLACE THESE STARS WITH FULL POST<-->
So yeah, big beat happened. Fatboy Slim probably ended up making out with the biggest loot from that party. From the seminal "Praise You" video (which, thinking about it now, shines like a harbinger to stupid multitudes of YouTube video'd people dancing or singing along to songs they like today) to his occasional and sometimes surprisingly incredible work on contemporary remixes/productions.. Songs on Blur's sinfully under-appreciated "Think Tank" come to mind.. he typifies what nineties big beat techno means (meant) to me. And what reinforced my classification of him this way? It wasn't anything sophisticated, certainly not an understanding of how rhythm or tone worked in dance classifications -- that would come later. It was on the one hand an understanding that Big Beat usually meant good-times party music, but on the other hand it was guidance from CDNOW.com.
Trying to hit CDNOW today will shoot you straight into Amazon's eswamp. In the past days of Napster, roughly the late nineties, CDNOW was an invaluable resource that stood on its own as an early online record shop, yet it also featured bits of criticism and commentary on the music. As I recall it was a pretty awesome site. It had the breadth of allmusic as it exists today, just about the same simplicity in its interface, and great recommendations that worked well for me at least at that point in my life. I linked the few techno records I had to the critics' label of Big Beat automatically, just saying, ok, sure, perhaps that's what popular electronica in the nineties is called. But what else was out there? I looked into some related artists, and before I knew it I, like many of you surely have also done, stumbled upon what might be #1 on the list of worst-named genres...
Intelligent Dance Music. IDM. Uh oh, OOO, smart dude, nerd guy, do you listen to difficult, abstracted music that you could never dance to if you tried because you... can't dance? Thus you punish all us slick meathead dudes with moves by playing your breakbeat drilling sounds changing meter every five seconds? Music we obviously cannot take as we are not "Intelligent" ourselves but mere fratboys still jamming Everlast's "What It's Like"?
...Hopefully someone will laugh at that. See how nasty that genre name is? It's basically the same thing as the insertion of post- in front of a genre, where a critic describes an artist who is using the same instruments, sounds, and techniques of their colleagues but mutating the result/output that those elements made previously. Post dance must not have been attractive at the time. Nomenclature concerns aside, IDM was a really positive discovery for me. This music didn't seem concerned with a strictly party or dance situation at all, but rather it rewarded close, personal listening like I was used to doing. It was almost like I had finally found some electronica I wouldn't feel silly listening to on my own.
My first IDM love was Mr. Richard D James, otherwise known as Aphex Twin. My Audiogalaxy (RIP) profile listed him as one of my favorite artists, and I'm sure I really thought so back then when the listening was fresh. Dude's still a god to a lot of people to this day. I still have a few albums of his on various formats, my favorite being the wonderful "Windowlicker" 12". It's an unforgettable album cover, and the song is pretty wicked too. Back then though, I just loved that he made tunes that seemed to be so... Advanced sounding, I guess. Like he was channeling high-speed chaos in ways that no one before him ever attempted or conceived, save some early jungle stuff (which I hadn't heard or processed at the time). This is, of course, excluding his Selected Ambient Works series... which are much less schizo but still very cerebral slices of electronica.. SAW2, the "weirder one," has been a slow-burning favorite of mine. Some differences about him that stood out first: his face was on his records and videos, reestablishing a humanity to his musical persona that other techno acts did not do/have; his arrangements were like serpentine puzzles to be untangled; his sound palette seemed so vast and mutable it suggested infinity. All this contributed to a long-lasting feeling of surprise as I listened in and found other similar artists.. This is probably the golden age of Warp Records era techno. Aphex's symbol and visage might be the most recognizable sign from the IDM camp, but he's by no means the best there was to hear. I'd give that honor to Autechre on "Tri Repetae +++."
For all the maximalism Aphex Twin's freaky beat workouts suggested at times, I thought that IDM style actually brought a much needed element to the electronica table: subtlety. Trance's hypnotic samelike-ness, and so-called HI NRG dance tracks on the radio were stoopid (think C&C Music Factory, Groove Is in The Heart, etc). IDM was adventurous and daring in comparison. New rhythms abounded. Crazy textures flew into the mix out of nowhere. Other brain-y techno trends emerged from IDM's sound palette like glitch and microtechno (minimalism in dance...). It was only a matter of time before trance's reign over the techno popularity club would erode, giving way to something a little less blunt, and hopefully more smart.
On my personal timeline of music analyzing, this puts me right about 1999 or 2000. I was still pretty naive to the way that electronic/dance music got classified, but I started buying more and more of it anyway, learning what I could. Spin magazine, my music subscription of choice through these years, basically demanded my purchase of Moby's "Play" after it was released. At the time, this record felt really good. I heard it was a house record, which didn't mean much to me, but I appreciated the lighter, more emotive beats matching with good pop structure, some things that trance definitely lacked. I knew "Play" wasn't the braingame that anything from Warp was putting out, but I didn't want to feel like I was flying through a jagged minefield of percussion all the time as I kept listening to IDM, drum n' bass (basically IDM's more jungle-y cousin, perhaps) and that sort of thing. That was refreshing.
It might sound a little silly for me to admit that my first experience of a live electronica/dance show was Moby's headlining tour when he played Austin Music Hall. Because for one it really wasn't that kind of show at all. He was just touring with a band. Still, I knew he used to make purely electronic music, so I totally thought I was going to a rave and was nervous. The funnier parts are the amazing, perfect rave cliche memories I have from the experience. I rode downtown with a girl who was older than me and we parked somewhere nearby the venue, and almost immediately as we exit the car a guy with soooo too much candy jewelry, neon bracelets, and tiny backpack gear comes up to us offering to sell us "rave toys." I asked what he meant... 'oh you know, glowsticks, water, other.. fun.. things?' Too bad I wasn't very interested in that sort of thing at the time, I probably could have scored some E pretty easily. Still, we left that guy laughing to ourselves only to see that the standard outfit for the evening was definitely "rave style." Good thing I wore orange, a v-neck tee with an Atari logo from Urban Outfitters... I had a pair of Jnco's once, but nothing like the really hardcore kids wore. I'm talking 3 or 4 feet of bellbottom so their feet are gone under a denim blanket. In the venue, you saw The Liquid, you had strobe lights going off, fog machines... the whole shebang. I had fun at that concert, it felt somewhat devious even though I barely did more than giddily sing along to some of the songs.
The story of what became of Moby's "Play" is one of complete and utter media saturation from what I remember. America's great techno hope got pretty played out in every sense of that phrase. I recall that he licensed every single track off the record to some commercial purpose... The Southside single featuring Gwen Stefani probably still gets daily play on some radios... but I totally knew that the original version on early "Play" copies didn't feature her vocals. I was such a true Moby fan for knowing that. Spin named it pretty high in their best albums of the nineties list and I felt cool for liking him. "Play" still sits in my CD collection but it doesn't get too much love lately. I wonder why Moby became so uncool? No singles really after Play was the shitstorm album of those years. Perhaps he ran out of new tricks. Going back, all the classifications of that album as a house record don't really make too much sense, but back then I thought of it as house music, and I thought I liked house music...
I can certainly say that my introduction to house via Moby lead me to Daft Punk and Basement Jaxx, and that "Digital Love" was the first electronic song that totally made me lose my shit when I heard it. The Jaxx's "Remedy," another record worshipped by Spin at the time, was pretty fresh then too... I dug it. Moby was my bridge into better, more fun times in dance music. While I didn't recognize what made house "house" (much less why Daft Punk was labeled acid house) at this point, I dug it as a better version of historic trance. Daft Punk, you gotta love 'em don't you? Crazy beats, nasty breakdowns (Harder Better will forever have an undeniably amazing outro), very good production level.. Today I love Discovery as one of the greatest dance albums ever, but I listened to Digital Love so much back then I can barely stand to hear it again these days. When I come back to Discovery at any time, some song I didn't love quite as much before will suddenly be the song I have to hear on repeat 20 times. It demands a dance but it's got amazing pop quality to it. By now, I don't think I gave a damn whether electronica was "meant for clubs and parties"; maybe I stopped caring about music "purposes" altogether. So even though I was still playing guitar a lot, trying to make a band happen (hail Iconoclast), and becoming obsessed with Radiohead, I tried to keep the pace with new techno sounds.
My listening habits post-IDM discovery, post- Kid A, post- post-rock and all that stayed eclectic through the years.. well, this puts me near the tail end of high school, I think. At that point, Audiogalaxy was still live and I was using that to learn about music. I took a chance following an obscure recommendation whilst perusing the lovely racks of Waterloo Records and picked up a slightly pricey import of "Textstar" by Farben, aka Jan Jelinek. Some online buddies gushed about the greatness of Jelinek, the so-called master of microtechno. I think a P-fork review would call this release "music for neat freaks" and a study of "beat structure" then rate it very, very favorably. I didn't know what I was getting into at the time... it seemed to me to be a really great headphones-listening album, with all its discreet parts coming together to form a complicated, ticking beat mechanism. But I got into it more and more, I think, for the same kind of reason I love records like Tortoise's "TNT" so much -- they are definitely paradigmatic showcases of the "less is more" maxim. While "Textstar" still remains one of my favorite albums ever, listening to it back then for the first time would cause at least three important realizations for me.
For one, I was crazy for this injection of minimalism in dance and techno. I couldn't get enough of it. I'd go on from "Textstar" to discover I loved the rest of Jan Jelinek's catalog quite a bit, but also introduced myself to other favorites like Ellen Allien's "Berlinette," the skittering electro-pop of The Notwist, et al. When DNTEL's "Life Is Full of Possibilities" was released, I thought it was absolutely some of the most forward-thinking songwriting ever done. I haven't listened to that one in a while though. It'll probably be worth going back to soon... When The Field made a big splash with "From Here We Go Sublime," I was a bit sad that Jelinek wasn't being trumpeted as a big hero alongside Go Sublime's fanfare. For as much as I would grow to love The Field's music, I always thought Farben had the superior sound and hoped people would be encouraged to go out and try Textstar on for size at least for good measure against The Field's sound. but for minimalism's sake, I think it was finally the cure for my doubts about the genre of dance and techno as a whole. It was the ultimate expression of subtlety in a genre that desperately needed to tone down the tendencies of its past mistakes in trance's somewhat rock n' roll maximalism. The releases that are still steadily being pumped out by electronic artists today are tempered by this introduction of minimalism as a sort of guiding principle, I think... No one would dare produce a stoopid, repetitive trance record and expect to be taken seriously these days because the music has improved since microtextures were introduced. As it goes with most trends or sounds, especially in the quickly mutating world of techno that creates new ideas nearly annually, there's been an eventual backlash for minimalist techno fans in recent years.. but while it was fresh, it was truly amazing stuff.
Slightly more significant for me was how these minimalist albums introduced the concept of tone to my ears. Sheer sonic timbre and how artists manipulate it wasn't something I really listened in for before... I just stuck mostly to the vibration of guitars and drumkit hits. But an album like "Textstar," being virtually without melody throughout, forces the tone into the foreground of the tracks. Suddenly, I was really interested in "purely" tonal artists like Stars of The Lid, Keith Fullerton Whitman, or Fennesz, when before I didn't really get what could be interesting about so-called "drone" music. Around this time I also began to dig pretty deeply into a habit of listening to bands like Mogwai and GYBE! It also allowed me to go back and recognize what I had been missing out on before when I didn't consider a tonal analysis to be that prescient to the listening experience... I now have a deeper appreciation for the stuff I was listening to before techno came along, and can see how the different tones of rock styles have changed throughout its history.
But I guess I can finally say for certain that minimalism brought the component parts of dance music to my ears in a "simple" or "clean" way such that I finally recognized what designated different techno styles. In the words of Simian Mobile Disco's track, "It's The Beat." It wasn't totally obvious to me, for some reason, that "house" meant four-on-the-floor bass patterns and a fairly particular tempo range. "Jungle" or "Drum n' Bass" featured groovier, more complicated bass patterns and upped the tempo. "Disco" means alternating bass and snare on the one, two, three, four. Call me ignorant if you want but I guess it just took a discovery of microhouse for these dance and rhythm principles to become obvious to me.
Going back to why I started, the rise and fall of big beat (and how it may be the solution for techno's current dearth post-minimalism), will be the next part of this series of posts.
Until then, dig this awesome site, which is a visual timeline of the development of electronica / dance styles complete with samples of pretty much every style. Check microhouse or something in there for a Farben reference! It's at http://techno.org/electronic-music-guide/music.swf.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
no brainer
Here's some music I made the other day...
DOWNLOAD IT by clicking the image (link will open in a new window) or listen below
Dam-Funk Teaser
If I haven't already done a gigantic Dam-Funk post, it's totally overdue. Here's a teaser of what I hope turns into his band, right now I think it's just an improvisational group. They're called Master Blazter.
I was listening to one of Dam-Funk's tracks earlier today and it made me want to live in California. If I did, I would be hanging out here every week.
I would post some of his tracks, but it's late. I usually only blog from work.
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