Monday, March 17, 2008
Gig Review: The Fall Tripod
photo credit: Mc-Q
(This review was mostly written through robbin’ lyrics from popular toons – and under the restriction of having read too much Joyce on way too short a space of time…)
Wanted for continuous wanton crimes against the English tongue
– DJ Krossphader
City Hobgoblins
Read more »
Labels: Gig Review, Guest Blogger, Krossie, Music, the fall
(1) comments
Sunday, January 20, 2008
In Me Ears Eight: Ghislain Poirier
Ghislain Poirier is known for tearing it up over in the direction of Montreal with regular monster raves under the city's bridges. More fool me I've missed him every time he's hit Toronto, including both the release of his latest album down the Drake Hotel, then on Nuit Blanche - a 24 hour art mad rush around the city, and the only time it feels like there's a night life outside the Orwellian "clubbing district" - when his partners in illegal partying Megazoid played off the same hotel's roof to crowds below.Poirier's recent "Blazin'" track was a pretty big number, getting the remix treatment from Trouble and Bass' Starkey, Modeselektor and ripped with the vocals of TTC's Telephone. He sounds a bit like a heavily fractured electro dance hall in places or just stonking slap down rhythms poked around some more familiar club voices and rap artists, at least that's my impression of his Bounce Le Gros mix CD.
Recently Pitchfork had him do a pretty short mix poking back and forth between African rap and grimey bass lines. Anyone that liked the templates of exotica opened up by those Maga Bo mixes I linked to before, is sure to like this shit. If you are looking for more along these lines, get yourself a copy of The Rough Guide to African Rap compilation and do check out X Plastaz, their "Msimu Kwa Msimu" number is one of my recent favorites.
Labels: African Rap, Ghislain Poirier, In Me Ears, maga bo, mixes, montreal, Music
(0) comments
Friday, November 30, 2007
In Me Ears Six: Some Crunk Step Stylin'
Willy Joy mix: This Chicago based messer popped up to my attention recently via the DJC blog, always a source of tasty nosiey fucked pop cheese bizness. Its a fifty plus mix of blends spanning rap, pop, rock, electro, 80s, booty, club and some more in between. Perfect material to soundtrack the disgust of Texan parents who think who fancy the puritanism of Footloose rather than the grinding of their highschool kids.Toddla T: Prancehall had an interview with this guy where he struggles to put him in a category, concluding he sounds "like someone who is trying to make dancehall/techno/garage/house/hip-hop all at once within the same track without coming across like those dicks who make stuff like Baltimore bootlegs of kuduro tracks with an Akon acappella and a Daft Punk sample hook." It's seriously dope shit that'd have me bouncing off the walls were I to hear it out, it's the bass line evolution; no fucking morbid dull dubstep for this guy, it's like he sacrificed a hyper cat that feeds off pure catnip and made DMZ drink its blood.
Pirate Soundsystem: If even the description of Toddla T has you quaking in your dancing shoes, then do check out Pirate Soundsystem, very much in a similar vein with far more clippings of early rave effects popping over the top for shits and giggles. The remix of Ms Ting's "Love Guide" (at Hypem) is a seriously impatient dance-hall monster. More recently they've screwed with Drop the Lime and Hadouken. This lot played the George Bernard Shaw back in September, any word on how it was? Much of this sounds like the funky house that fella Woebot was bigging up some time ago as a far more significant form than Dupstep. The two most have had a bastard hate child after slaughtering some indie kids in the mean time.
Fela Ani-Kulapo Kuti: Coming out of Lagos, this bloke has a tragic story that you can read over at his Myspace, currently enjoying an album of his - simply called Afrobeat - at the moment. Imagine African percussion and chanting fused to the sound of sixties jazz, with a sharp dash of the black power politics he picked up when he was in the states during the sixties and translated back into a pan-Africanism via his lyrics. Most tracks start off as a flurry of tooting horn sections and then relax as a choir start to bring up the tension. The Hype Machine has some of his stuff and the more contemporary Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra are a group that could easily share the same blog post with him. And so now they do.
Labels: afrobeat, In Me Ears, Mix, Music
(0) comments
Monday, November 26, 2007
Vidiot: Sometimes he's talking and sometimes he's toasting..
"This is just an era we are in now, this jungle scene, because not so long ago there was another era, through the sound systems and what not, and all the DJ's watching this programme will know exactly what I'm talking about. It's just one of those things, a progression."
Turning into something of an old blogging vidiot box over here at Soundtracksforthem. Anyway, a Toronto friend and old junglist himself burnt me a copy of this half hour documentary last night. Lucky for you it's on Youtube. Coming from way back when in 1993 and all about the origins of jungle, its worth watching - and watching with that massive 18 month long hype around dubstep in mind. Think especially of how that has been treated as a musical form with an explosively new quality to it, it's all quietened down some what now, but you can sense a similar vibe around jungle here. The documentary is short enough and churns through the whole schema of pirates, racial segregation, freezing cold warehouses and monologues on the redemptive quality of rave with a real sense of the innovation at work and the role of technology in pushing it on. It features Rebel MC, MC Navigator, Groove Rider, Goldie, Nicky Blackmarket and of course the Ragga Twins, it's a London Somet'ing Dis. Enjoy.
(1) comments
Turning into something of an old blogging vidiot box over here at Soundtracksforthem. Anyway, a Toronto friend and old junglist himself burnt me a copy of this half hour documentary last night. Lucky for you it's on Youtube. Coming from way back when in 1993 and all about the origins of jungle, its worth watching - and watching with that massive 18 month long hype around dubstep in mind. Think especially of how that has been treated as a musical form with an explosively new quality to it, it's all quietened down some what now, but you can sense a similar vibe around jungle here. The documentary is short enough and churns through the whole schema of pirates, racial segregation, freezing cold warehouses and monologues on the redemptive quality of rave with a real sense of the innovation at work and the role of technology in pushing it on. It features Rebel MC, MC Navigator, Groove Rider, Goldie, Nicky Blackmarket and of course the Ragga Twins, it's a London Somet'ing Dis. Enjoy.
Labels: Drum and Bass, Film, jungle, Music, TV, Vidiot
(1) comments
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Vidiot: Vinyl Films Documentary On Sir Henrys
Anyone who as ever had a peak at the sprawling threads on early dance music clubs in Ireland over at Boards.ie, and then left with their eyes still scouring for more, will be happy to see Cork promising this little piece of recent social history.
Don't know how I missed it till now.
(1) comments
(Photo: Moe Train on Flickr)
Music writing hyperbole often seems misplaced but when it comes to a Girl Talk show it's entirely justified. At the first leg of his North American tour with Dan Deacon nearly a month ago, Girl Talk weaved a messy mix bag of down town hipsters and fresher week college drunks into a sweltering, unified but squirming beast of jiving bodies, sending 'em ga-ga with his irreverantly mashed beats and acapella. I caught up with Girl Talk a week or two after the show and chewed the fat over crowd control, how he re-defines sampling and the politics of piracy. This interview was first published in Fact Magazine in the UK.
Can you give Irish readers some idea of what to expect from your shows and do you have any plans to make it over this side of the Atlantic any time soon?
I haven't been over to Europe much in the past year because I was holding down a day job and only doing Friday and Saturday shows. I quit that job about 3 months ago, so I'm planning on traveling world wide very soon.
My shows are highly dependent on the people who come out to them. I play a single laptop. I mix and match a bunch of samples and loops on the fly. It sounds like my records, but it's a bit more free form. I like to party every time I play. I get sweaty. I get in the crowd. I dance with people. But, it's really up to the people as to how insane we're going to get. I'm ready to take it to the distance.
People like to read into things like an artist getting fans up on stage, or playing in the crowd like Lightening Bolt or Dan Deacon even, whats your reason - is it just a better party or do you like levelling it out and reducing that 'me the artist up here, you the fan down there' buzz?
To be honest, I never made a decision to have it happen. I've been playing live as Girl Talk for seven years, and sometime last year, fans started jumping on stage. People saw video of that on the internet, and it spread. Within a few months, it became this standard for my shows. It makes sense to me now. There's only so much I can physically do on stage to entertain people. I actually have to click the mouse every 10 seconds to keep the music going.
I think the people on stage is pretty much the best visuals I could have. There are some people who just like to come out and hear me do the music live, and to them, there's also some entertaining to watch. To those people who want to come party, then there's a whole dance floor and stage for that. I'm just a dude playing a computer; I'm not Steven Tyler up there. I like people to be able to interact with me to any level that they want. I like to minimize as many pretensions as possible with the music and shows.
I caught you at the Toronto show, it was pretty hectic, I'm not sure what your other shows are like - but have you ever seen bouncers do anything particularly stupid in getting fans off the stage and has the hectic crowding around you ever interfered with your ability to perform, like knocking your laptop over and people hitting keys drunk off their face and stuff?
With my shows, it's probably a bit more work for bouncers than the normal gig, so I really respect them for putting up with any bullshit. But yeah, it can get crazy, and sometimes, people cross lines. I always talk with the security before the shows and let them know what's going to go down.
I've had tons of problems in the past people stomping on cords, equipment, hitting the computer, spilling things, not having any room to even move my arm, and so on. I don't like it when those things happen, but it comes with the turf. The shows to me oftentimes feel like house parties, and I love that. It doesn't feel like going to a standard dance club or a rock show where nothing is going to go wrong. When the music stops prematurely at my show, that's a sign that things are truly getting insane. That's cool to me. It's part of the experience. I like when the shows are just barely staying together, everything is on the verge of falling apart. That's a great party to me.
I heard you recently posed for Playgirl in the man of the year issue, how the hell was that?
They wanted a "sexy photo shoot," which I think meant nude. I ran it past my parents, and I decided to keep my pants on. I've been a lot more nude at some of my live shows this year, so it wasn't too big of a deal.
You've talked before about how being Girl Talk and an engineer by night was like leading this double life, you sort of kept it quite from your work colleagues - when you finally made the decision to quit did the people there discover your other side and how did they react?
They never officially discovered about my music world. I told them I was quitting to travel the world before I was too old to do something like that, which isn't really a lie but not the complete truth. I'm still convinced that someone there knew but chose to not call me out.
You refuse to be seen as a DJ, hence those famous "I'm not a DJ t-shirts" - so what sort of live set up do you use and how much time do you think you spend on each track, from the initial idea to its readiness to be played live or dropped onto a CD?
(Photo: Tom Purves on Flickr)
I perform live on multiple copies of a program called Audiomulch. It allows me to cue up, mute, and manipulate a bunch of samples in real time. I perform it all live, but it's a rehearsed set. I think people get my records and come see my live to hear the compositions, rather than to hear me improvise. So I spend a lot of time on doing arrangements prior to performing.
It's tough for me to calculate how much time I put into specific tracks. I'm constantly working, and most things I sample don't see the light of day. I'm about ready to put together a new album right now, and it's been about a year and half since I finished up my last one. I've been averaging releasing a 40 minute album every 2 years. That's about as quantative as I can get.
I've heard you were in a few noise outfits before Girl Talk, when did you make the switch to party music and how does it relate to the sort of projects you were involved in before Girl Talk? I'm just wondering where the name comes from too?
I was in a noise band in high school. It definitely laid the ground work for Girl Talk. We worked with many different forms of experimental sound collage. We made music using physical tape collages, skipping CD's, and manipulated four-track machines.
I started the Girl Talk project in 2000, and I initially had a glitchy and avant-garde sound. I've always been a pop music fan; it just took me a few years to be comfortable making more accessible music. I started playing house parties around 2002, and I think this is when my music started to take more traditional form. The name Girl Talk comes from Yes lyrics.
You like to see your own compositions as original mash ups and sort of separate yourself from the whole mash up movement, are you still critical of it and why?
I just don't feel comfortable with many genre names in general. They are all silly to me. I like mash-ups. I don't want to separate myself from anything. For me, I was influenced to get into this style of music by people like John Oswald and Kid 606. I also listened to bands like Public Enemy growing up. These are all people who are sample-based at times but aren't usually labeled as "mash-up" artists. I'm down with all types of music. I just thought the label "mash up" might mislead people with my music. Maybe not, I don't really know.
One thing that interests me about Girl Talk, and I've heard a lot of people say this is that you are legitimizing listening to forms of commercial music that people would otherwise scoff at, sometimes this music is damn good but people need to hear it through an irony filter before admitting this. How do you feel about being this "cool" filter for people, do you think they should just drop their pretensions and recognize a good track when they hear it and not when its a safe "classic" years later?
I sample everything sincerely. I like all of the music I sample. There is no irony. I'm definitely not trying to act as any sort of "cool filter." I'm down with people being turned on to new forms of music in any way. I like how people have major differences in their interpretations of my
music. Some people like it because they love the source material; some people like it because they hate the source material. I've always hoped that my work is transformative. I want people to hear my songs and say "That's a Girl Talk song," rather than "That's song A mixed with song B mixed with song C."
I think the act of sampling music to make new music, and the fans of the new music not necessarily being into the original source material is not a new thing. Think about the history of hip hop. Producers will sample anything to make a hip hop beat; that doesn't mean that the people into the beat will be into or should be into the source material. Most young kids who jam Kanye West could probably care less about Chaka Khan. It's the context and the additional production that makes people get down with it.
Your congressman Mike Doyle seems to be quite taken with you, you are well aware too of the dangers you face from major labels around being sued for copyright breaches and have played a benefit for the Creative Commons project - how does it feel to be turned into something of a figure head for "free culture"/or the fair use movement? Can there be a reconciliation with existing copyright law or do we need a complete rupture with the economic mentality they base it on?
I've never pushed a political agenda with my music. I've always made music with samples because I simply enjoy it. If my music makes people think about these type of things, then that's cool to me, but it's really a side note.
Fair Use is a progressive idea with the existing copyright law, but it's very black and white to me. I think the current law doesn't taken into account an album that can be made from 300 samples that most major music sources and publications treat at as an original work.
I see your website links to Drop the Lime, who I've interviewed before, he's really one of my favourite DJ's and producers, have you been up to any of the Trouble and Bass parties he puts on and what do you think of the whole thing thats going down at the moment from "bass music" to new rave/french electro etc? Is there something in the air and people are just looking to dance?
I haven't been to any of those parties unfortunately. Luke and I go way back. We did one of our first tours together in 2003 or so, back when he was called Dysis. He seems like he's really shaking things up in New York right now, which gets me pumped.
I notice as well you mentioned elsewhere you liked Kid 606, Shitmatt and Jason Forrest, do you think the whole breakcore thing, aside from the frantic amen breaks and cut up sampling technique of it had any influence on your approach to music production?
Yeah, to a degree. I was more into the music known as IDM when I first started doing Girl Talk productions. I think the quick-paced nature of my music is influenced by guys like Aphex Twin and Squarepusher more than anything else. It seems like some breakcore artists came from this sort of background, so I think it's related.
I've always felt more connected to guys like Jason Forrest than more standard mash up artists. He's another guy who's make original music almost completely out of samples. I was reading on your blog about a remix project that you're working on called Trey Told 'Em. Could you tell me a little bit about that and what you have planned for the future?
It's a project with Frank Musarra and I. I'm dedicating all of my remix work to it. I want to concentrate on other material for Girl Talk. Frank and I are also doing beats together. We work with samples at times, but it doesn't have to be appropriation-based. We also do original instrumentation.
(0) comments
Rio Baile Funk always brings some excellent on the ground coverage (see the Sandrinho interview for a one of those voices seldom heard..) of that happy clappy partying taste of exotica that gets western hipsters falling over dancefloors - courtesy of it a new site out of the Czech Republic has been brought to my attention with a wicked compendium of mixtapes. Well worth a gander..
(0) comments
Saw Yo! Majesty smash down it down in Toronto again tonight, as two of the notorious three and Taxlo Dj Chris O passed through for the first time since their NXNE show case. It seems the last time they came through one of them was refused border crossing due to "habitually driving without a license," well she was present and semi-nude on this occasion - the others absence went uncommented on.
The new material sounds as rough and in your face as their past out put. The gig bordered on a karaoke session in parts as they performed this rather riotous cover of Justice/Simian's "We Are Your Friends," some old soul number and countless bursts of cheese, including pushing the crowd along in joint sway to Daft Punk. Then there was a preachy moment where we were advised not to fall for the "deceptions of the devil," that left most of the crowd standing their wide eyed but dripped in sweat.
Overall left feeling that I'd rather have seen Chris O do what ever it is these Taxlo sorts get up to on one of their nights down in Maryland, all the right names seem to pass through their outings and the noises his drum machine/pad were setting off were well to my liking. If you like this sort of buzz then do check out Thunderheist.
Speaking of Simian, I was dragged along to see their new Mobile Disco last week too - their stage set up is pretty impressive, with so many wires and knobs being twiddled that its hard to figure out how much is for show, how much they are actually affecting the music and whats just performance for a generation that never really sees much hardware used to play dance music these days.
It got nice deep and bassy in parts, but really that was used to elicit cries of "what the fuck was that!" from the crowd of indie-dancers present. When it got heavy it got real heavy, unfortunately they never kept it throbbing enough to sway you, moving up the scale and back to distorted effects and squelches as fast as they could for some mass - but enthused - head nodding. I'd really gotten some kicks from the New Rave mix they put together for NME about a year and a half ago, to see them DJ would be far more interesting I think.
Elsewhere: In anticipation of the upcoming Nuit Blanche, the Toronto Star carried an interesting article that weaves its way through the meanings given to darkness and night time through history and by different societies.
(0) comments
Don't know how I missed it till now.
Labels: Music, Out, sir henrys
(1) comments
Thursday, November 01, 2007
Girl Talk Interview: Not Just A DJ
(Photo: Moe Train on Flickr)Music writing hyperbole often seems misplaced but when it comes to a Girl Talk show it's entirely justified. At the first leg of his North American tour with Dan Deacon nearly a month ago, Girl Talk weaved a messy mix bag of down town hipsters and fresher week college drunks into a sweltering, unified but squirming beast of jiving bodies, sending 'em ga-ga with his irreverantly mashed beats and acapella. I caught up with Girl Talk a week or two after the show and chewed the fat over crowd control, how he re-defines sampling and the politics of piracy. This interview was first published in Fact Magazine in the UK.
Can you give Irish readers some idea of what to expect from your shows and do you have any plans to make it over this side of the Atlantic any time soon?
I haven't been over to Europe much in the past year because I was holding down a day job and only doing Friday and Saturday shows. I quit that job about 3 months ago, so I'm planning on traveling world wide very soon.
My shows are highly dependent on the people who come out to them. I play a single laptop. I mix and match a bunch of samples and loops on the fly. It sounds like my records, but it's a bit more free form. I like to party every time I play. I get sweaty. I get in the crowd. I dance with people. But, it's really up to the people as to how insane we're going to get. I'm ready to take it to the distance.
People like to read into things like an artist getting fans up on stage, or playing in the crowd like Lightening Bolt or Dan Deacon even, whats your reason - is it just a better party or do you like levelling it out and reducing that 'me the artist up here, you the fan down there' buzz?
To be honest, I never made a decision to have it happen. I've been playing live as Girl Talk for seven years, and sometime last year, fans started jumping on stage. People saw video of that on the internet, and it spread. Within a few months, it became this standard for my shows. It makes sense to me now. There's only so much I can physically do on stage to entertain people. I actually have to click the mouse every 10 seconds to keep the music going.
I think the people on stage is pretty much the best visuals I could have. There are some people who just like to come out and hear me do the music live, and to them, there's also some entertaining to watch. To those people who want to come party, then there's a whole dance floor and stage for that. I'm just a dude playing a computer; I'm not Steven Tyler up there. I like people to be able to interact with me to any level that they want. I like to minimize as many pretensions as possible with the music and shows.
I caught you at the Toronto show, it was pretty hectic, I'm not sure what your other shows are like - but have you ever seen bouncers do anything particularly stupid in getting fans off the stage and has the hectic crowding around you ever interfered with your ability to perform, like knocking your laptop over and people hitting keys drunk off their face and stuff?
With my shows, it's probably a bit more work for bouncers than the normal gig, so I really respect them for putting up with any bullshit. But yeah, it can get crazy, and sometimes, people cross lines. I always talk with the security before the shows and let them know what's going to go down.
I've had tons of problems in the past people stomping on cords, equipment, hitting the computer, spilling things, not having any room to even move my arm, and so on. I don't like it when those things happen, but it comes with the turf. The shows to me oftentimes feel like house parties, and I love that. It doesn't feel like going to a standard dance club or a rock show where nothing is going to go wrong. When the music stops prematurely at my show, that's a sign that things are truly getting insane. That's cool to me. It's part of the experience. I like when the shows are just barely staying together, everything is on the verge of falling apart. That's a great party to me.
I heard you recently posed for Playgirl in the man of the year issue, how the hell was that?
They wanted a "sexy photo shoot," which I think meant nude. I ran it past my parents, and I decided to keep my pants on. I've been a lot more nude at some of my live shows this year, so it wasn't too big of a deal.
You've talked before about how being Girl Talk and an engineer by night was like leading this double life, you sort of kept it quite from your work colleagues - when you finally made the decision to quit did the people there discover your other side and how did they react?
They never officially discovered about my music world. I told them I was quitting to travel the world before I was too old to do something like that, which isn't really a lie but not the complete truth. I'm still convinced that someone there knew but chose to not call me out.
You refuse to be seen as a DJ, hence those famous "I'm not a DJ t-shirts" - so what sort of live set up do you use and how much time do you think you spend on each track, from the initial idea to its readiness to be played live or dropped onto a CD?
(Photo: Tom Purves on Flickr)I perform live on multiple copies of a program called Audiomulch. It allows me to cue up, mute, and manipulate a bunch of samples in real time. I perform it all live, but it's a rehearsed set. I think people get my records and come see my live to hear the compositions, rather than to hear me improvise. So I spend a lot of time on doing arrangements prior to performing.
It's tough for me to calculate how much time I put into specific tracks. I'm constantly working, and most things I sample don't see the light of day. I'm about ready to put together a new album right now, and it's been about a year and half since I finished up my last one. I've been averaging releasing a 40 minute album every 2 years. That's about as quantative as I can get.
I've heard you were in a few noise outfits before Girl Talk, when did you make the switch to party music and how does it relate to the sort of projects you were involved in before Girl Talk? I'm just wondering where the name comes from too?
I was in a noise band in high school. It definitely laid the ground work for Girl Talk. We worked with many different forms of experimental sound collage. We made music using physical tape collages, skipping CD's, and manipulated four-track machines.
I started the Girl Talk project in 2000, and I initially had a glitchy and avant-garde sound. I've always been a pop music fan; it just took me a few years to be comfortable making more accessible music. I started playing house parties around 2002, and I think this is when my music started to take more traditional form. The name Girl Talk comes from Yes lyrics.
You like to see your own compositions as original mash ups and sort of separate yourself from the whole mash up movement, are you still critical of it and why?
I just don't feel comfortable with many genre names in general. They are all silly to me. I like mash-ups. I don't want to separate myself from anything. For me, I was influenced to get into this style of music by people like John Oswald and Kid 606. I also listened to bands like Public Enemy growing up. These are all people who are sample-based at times but aren't usually labeled as "mash-up" artists. I'm down with all types of music. I just thought the label "mash up" might mislead people with my music. Maybe not, I don't really know.
One thing that interests me about Girl Talk, and I've heard a lot of people say this is that you are legitimizing listening to forms of commercial music that people would otherwise scoff at, sometimes this music is damn good but people need to hear it through an irony filter before admitting this. How do you feel about being this "cool" filter for people, do you think they should just drop their pretensions and recognize a good track when they hear it and not when its a safe "classic" years later?
I sample everything sincerely. I like all of the music I sample. There is no irony. I'm definitely not trying to act as any sort of "cool filter." I'm down with people being turned on to new forms of music in any way. I like how people have major differences in their interpretations of my
music. Some people like it because they love the source material; some people like it because they hate the source material. I've always hoped that my work is transformative. I want people to hear my songs and say "That's a Girl Talk song," rather than "That's song A mixed with song B mixed with song C."
I think the act of sampling music to make new music, and the fans of the new music not necessarily being into the original source material is not a new thing. Think about the history of hip hop. Producers will sample anything to make a hip hop beat; that doesn't mean that the people into the beat will be into or should be into the source material. Most young kids who jam Kanye West could probably care less about Chaka Khan. It's the context and the additional production that makes people get down with it.
Your congressman Mike Doyle seems to be quite taken with you, you are well aware too of the dangers you face from major labels around being sued for copyright breaches and have played a benefit for the Creative Commons project - how does it feel to be turned into something of a figure head for "free culture"/or the fair use movement? Can there be a reconciliation with existing copyright law or do we need a complete rupture with the economic mentality they base it on?
I've never pushed a political agenda with my music. I've always made music with samples because I simply enjoy it. If my music makes people think about these type of things, then that's cool to me, but it's really a side note.
Fair Use is a progressive idea with the existing copyright law, but it's very black and white to me. I think the current law doesn't taken into account an album that can be made from 300 samples that most major music sources and publications treat at as an original work.
I see your website links to Drop the Lime, who I've interviewed before, he's really one of my favourite DJ's and producers, have you been up to any of the Trouble and Bass parties he puts on and what do you think of the whole thing thats going down at the moment from "bass music" to new rave/french electro etc? Is there something in the air and people are just looking to dance?
I haven't been to any of those parties unfortunately. Luke and I go way back. We did one of our first tours together in 2003 or so, back when he was called Dysis. He seems like he's really shaking things up in New York right now, which gets me pumped.
I notice as well you mentioned elsewhere you liked Kid 606, Shitmatt and Jason Forrest, do you think the whole breakcore thing, aside from the frantic amen breaks and cut up sampling technique of it had any influence on your approach to music production?
Yeah, to a degree. I was more into the music known as IDM when I first started doing Girl Talk productions. I think the quick-paced nature of my music is influenced by guys like Aphex Twin and Squarepusher more than anything else. It seems like some breakcore artists came from this sort of background, so I think it's related.
I've always felt more connected to guys like Jason Forrest than more standard mash up artists. He's another guy who's make original music almost completely out of samples. I was reading on your blog about a remix project that you're working on called Trey Told 'Em. Could you tell me a little bit about that and what you have planned for the future?
It's a project with Frank Musarra and I. I'm dedicating all of my remix work to it. I want to concentrate on other material for Girl Talk. Frank and I are also doing beats together. We work with samples at times, but it doesn't have to be appropriation-based. We also do original instrumentation.
Labels: girl talk, Interviews, Music
(0) comments
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Well Worth A Gander
Rio Baile Funk always brings some excellent on the ground coverage (see the Sandrinho interview for a one of those voices seldom heard..) of that happy clappy partying taste of exotica that gets western hipsters falling over dancefloors - courtesy of it a new site out of the Czech Republic has been brought to my attention with a wicked compendium of mixtapes. Well worth a gander..(0) comments
Monday, September 24, 2007
Bounce Back and Forth
Saw Yo! Majesty smash down it down in Toronto again tonight, as two of the notorious three and Taxlo Dj Chris O passed through for the first time since their NXNE show case. It seems the last time they came through one of them was refused border crossing due to "habitually driving without a license," well she was present and semi-nude on this occasion - the others absence went uncommented on.The new material sounds as rough and in your face as their past out put. The gig bordered on a karaoke session in parts as they performed this rather riotous cover of Justice/Simian's "We Are Your Friends," some old soul number and countless bursts of cheese, including pushing the crowd along in joint sway to Daft Punk. Then there was a preachy moment where we were advised not to fall for the "deceptions of the devil," that left most of the crowd standing their wide eyed but dripped in sweat.
Overall left feeling that I'd rather have seen Chris O do what ever it is these Taxlo sorts get up to on one of their nights down in Maryland, all the right names seem to pass through their outings and the noises his drum machine/pad were setting off were well to my liking. If you like this sort of buzz then do check out Thunderheist.
Speaking of Simian, I was dragged along to see their new Mobile Disco last week too - their stage set up is pretty impressive, with so many wires and knobs being twiddled that its hard to figure out how much is for show, how much they are actually affecting the music and whats just performance for a generation that never really sees much hardware used to play dance music these days.
It got nice deep and bassy in parts, but really that was used to elicit cries of "what the fuck was that!" from the crowd of indie-dancers present. When it got heavy it got real heavy, unfortunately they never kept it throbbing enough to sway you, moving up the scale and back to distorted effects and squelches as fast as they could for some mass - but enthused - head nodding. I'd really gotten some kicks from the New Rave mix they put together for NME about a year and a half ago, to see them DJ would be far more interesting I think.
Elsewhere: In anticipation of the upcoming Nuit Blanche, the Toronto Star carried an interesting article that weaves its way through the meanings given to darkness and night time through history and by different societies.
Labels: Blogging, Gig Review, Music, simian mobile disco, yo majesty
(0) comments
Sunday, September 23, 2007
New Stuff From Herv
Organised Ideas/Armed Ambitions have been doing the good stuff for what seems like a year now and with a new site up they bring the baying public a down loadable gift from Dublin's Herv via the Nordies in Acroplane.
Download the release from acroplane (320kb/s mp3s, 69.5MB)
(0) comments
Download the release from acroplane (320kb/s mp3s, 69.5MB)
(0) comments
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Cousin Cole
It was his pretty decent Soulja Boy mix that drew my attention to him, Check him out over on Myspace and get all the goodies you need from dirty crunk vocals, to ravey stabs, hissing hi-hats and decent bass over on his download page..
(0) comments
AL Haca touch base with all the right German crews, friends with Modeselektor and Apparat they deal in subdued digi-dub journeys that seduce your lower body to swing on the dance floor only the way creeping bass can.
Wavering between cavernous sub sonic wobbles, electronic meanderings and the tension of soulful voices over gritty beats Put this one on for making the dinner or for bullshit conversation subdued by the after party blues.
(1) comments
Anyone who likes the Postal Service just may like Plushgun, its your usual indie rock whimper with a dash of electronic shuffle in the background. He emailed me out of the blue and asked me to share this track with the world. Not my cup of tea really - but you can make up your own mind.
Apparently he has been included in the "popular webTV series We Need Girlfriends", and according to himself he's creating a bit of a buzz around the net at the moment. Why I feel all grown up, sort of like Palmsoutsound or something.
Plushgun "Dancing in a Minefield" (Zshare)
(0) comments
(Photos courtesy of Maga Bo's Kolleidosonic)
Soon to tour North America and Canada, but sadly with no Toronto date - I hit Maga Bo up for an interview. Here are the results where he talks about life in the Favela, his work as a sound recordist, his travels and his work using music as a tool of participation for those excluded from a material society that whizzes by them without pause for even a whisper of concern.
Your recent mix CD was called Confusion of Tongues, is the name some sort of reference to the cacophony of different voices that haunt your mixes and releases?
It's a reference not only to that, but more specifically to the story of the collapse of the Tower of Babel, which was built with the intention to reach higher into the sky than god. As punishment for this blasphemy, god banished humans to the furthest corners of the earth in a confusion of tongues. It's a classic story which has been written about and has inspired many different pieces of artwork.
Here are two paintings which helped inspire the title Confusion of Tongues by Gustave Doré and, The Tower of Babel by Pieter Brueghel the Elder.
Whats your own background and what sort of music would you have played when you first started to get into DJ-ing? Its pretty hard to really isolate and put you into one box isn't it?
I've always been into a really diverse range of music and my DJ sets have reflected that since day one. I initially began to DJ as a way to show my production work in public and then it just grew from there. In the beginning, I found it really difficult to get gigs, especially when there was no real way of describing what I do without simply listing all of the different influences involved.
I also found it difficult in Rio, because the market is really oriented toward proven formulas which can guarantee a good draw for the promoters and club owners. It's much easier for them to make money by booking DJs that people know (local or international) that are going to play music that is accessible and familiar to most people. I got into music in the first place to express myself, but I always felt like that was difficult within the established boundaries of the local club scene, so I just persevered with what I believed in and continue to do so.
From what I've read you've traveled extensively; is this part of a methodology of searching out new interesting sounds? Can you tell me of some of the most exciting and surprising ways you've seen music used while traveling?
I've loved to travel and get to know new people and places as long as I can remember, so seeking out new sounds as part of my travels has been a very organic progression. Although I have done a fair amount of backpacking and hitch-hiking around the world as a tourist, my traveling has become much more of work oriented. I am also a sound recordist working primarily with documentary films and have been able to travel a lot as a result.
Most of the time, depending on the place, after wrapping a shoot, I spend time connecting with people and working on music on location. I'm now getting ready to spend the month of November in Ethiopia working on a film and producing music afterwards. So, I guess you could say that I take advantage of other people paying for my transportation as much as possible.
Outside of the restrictive boundaries of North America and Europe, where there is less police presence, fiscalization, and fewer resources to go around, noise compliance laws are not respected as much and as a result, it is much more common to see people using their own sound systems however they see fit. I love this!
I'm always fascinated by how people can manage to rig together a mobile sound system with a car battery, some trashed speakers, random wire and maybe a cart or a bicycle or even a backpack with a megaphone. The whole point of doing this is to express oneself - whether to yell at people and tell them to change their ways, blast their favorite music, broadcast the local winning lottery numbers, let people know that it's time to pray or to just try and attract customers.
One of the last times my friend Grey (Filastine) was here in Rio, he brought me an amp that I ordered on Ebay in the states, we borrowed some speakers, roped another friend with a car into driving us to Lapa and just set up our sound system on the street using pirated electricity from a manhole. We played several times on the street during carnival and never had the police come and tell us to stop. Nearly every time we did this in Seattle, we were chased off by the police. Even during the Art Walk Open house whatever you call it Tuesday night thing where culture is "important" and everything is free and open.
Where did the bug for travel come from and what made you settle in Rio De Janeiro above elsewhere?
In Seattle, I got involved with the local Brazilian community recording as well as playing percussion and became interested in Brazilian culture. At the same time, I'd been plotting an escape from the rain and dreary climate for a long time. Eventually, things came together financially and I was able to come to Rio to check it out. I found work doing English language recordings and made just enough to pay my rent. That was 8 years ago. I stay because I love the weather, the beach, Brazilian culture and music, the Portuguese language, my friends and community. I am at home here.
You are involved in researching ethno-music, do you think there are qualitatively different ways of enjoying music and giving meaning to it?
This is a really good question and, in all honesty, I'm not sure that I can answer this with conviction. First, I'd like to point out that ALL music is "ethno-music" - that goes for Britney Spears and Madonna all the way through to music played in a circumcision ceremony in the forest in Senegal. To be quantitative about it, the behavioral norms of people enjoying Jola circumcision songs or "Like a Virgin" in their "native" settings is very different.
I think the motivation of people seeking out music in different environments or cultural settings can be different as well, but I think the actual experience of "enjoying" the music is extremely similar or even the same. Music is a form of self-expression and communication. It is a language which can say many different things - from the extremely sacred to the extremely profane and everything in between. My faculty to experience, or enjoy, music is the same, regardless of whether it is gangsta rap or sufi music.
Everytime I go back to the states, I notice more and more how the culture of the individual is really strong there. If you have money and privilege, you don't need anyone. That's what fuck you money is. There is much less fuck you money in Brazil and much more human interaction. So, whether this has an effect on my music, I really don't know. It definitely affects my personal relations with people and probably also somehow seeps into my music as well.....
In modern-day city life, many of the traditional disciplines (like farming, capoeira, circumcision ceremonies, sports or whatever) are no longer part of our lives. Many of these activities were ways in which we learned about ourselves, related with our families and communities and grew into healthy, adult human beings.
Some of this "post baile funk" as it's being called here, can be heard at parties which are not in favelas, but in clubs (which usually are prohibitively expensive for most people). At any given baile in a favela, you would be hard pressed to notice any great difference or change as a result of the hype surrounding baile funk outside of Brazil. Most people have never heard of Bonde do Rolê or MIA, for example.
By making huge generalizations like this, the richness and complexity of culture and music is belittled and objectified in the name of consumer culture. Jace (DJ /Rupture) likes to point out that "global music" is Timbaland or Britney Spears and I couldn't agree with him more. On a more positive note, it is a sign that people are, in fact, opening up to things outside of their comfort zone and engaging at some level. This has the capacity to transform into a beneficial exchange for all involved, but mutual respect and awareness are crucial.
On the other hand, what are the most interesting ways you have seen western forms of music being subject to re-interpretation?
While there can be damaging effects as a result of poorly or even ignorantly informed cultural interaction, there are many, many wonderful things that have come out of creative cultural exchange. There is the salsa movement in Senegal, Cambodian country and western bands, highlife and juju bands using electric guitars in the 50's and 60's or Jamaicans playing R & B. One of my favorites was seeing the house band for a circus in Madurai, India playing surf music. Anything and everything is possible!
(0) comments
Soundtracksforthem Blog Mix 2
75mb / 40:57 sec (Download here at Zshare)
Just a heads up on Zshare, where once you could listen to a mix through on it they now jump to an ad screen after you stall on a page for a bit too long for a listen like. So you are probably best downloading the MP3 and listening off your hard drive.
1/ Starting Something - Unknown Reggeaton
2/ 10 - Mia
3/ Hot Like We - Cecile
4/ Beanie Man - Beanine Man (feat Dangel)
5/ El Tiburon - Baby Ranks (feat Looney Tunes)
6/ RDB feat. Elephant Man - Ishq naag reggeaton Remix
7/ Personal Jesus - Depche Mode (Boys Noize Rework)
8/ Sem Makas - Burka Som Sistema
9/ Doi Festival - Ghislain Poirer
10/ Party - Unknown Reggeaton
11/ We're Broklynites - Tittsworth
12/ Minute by Minute - Girl Talk
13/ Super Freaks on Film - Rick James Vs Duran Duran (Bass211.com)
14/ Should I Stay Or Should I Go - The Clash
16/ What I Like About Crunk Music - Lil Jon (Menegaux Mash)
17/ Oh Sheila - Ready for the World
18/ Oh Sheila - SneakMove (Quarterbar remix)
19/ Popuzuda Rock n' Roll - De Falla
20/ Go My Way - Lenny Kravitz
21/ North American Scum - LCD Sound System
22/ Bump - Spank Rock
23/ My Love - Justin Timberlake (Diplo Remix)
24/ Do I Look Like A Slut - Avenue D
25/ Yah - Buraka Som Sistema
26/ LDN - South Rakkas Crew (Crack Whore Riddim)
27/Crank Dat - Solja Boy (Rough)
28/ Ain't Nothin To Fuck With - Wu Tang Clan (Bird Peterson Remix)
(1) comments
(Photo from Each Secure Note)
Girl Talk and Dan Deacon tonight, Girl Talk and Dan Deacon tonight, Girl Talk and Dan Deacon tonight. I don't think I've been this excited about a gig, oh since the last time I drank too much Buckfast before rushing down Thomas St to one. Rooting around for my tickets last night it dawned on me and herself that in one of those foul humored, strop around the gaff tidy ups I had managed to throw them in the recycling along with the wad of paper they were sitting in. Last minute panicked calls to the credit card ticket sales line and a rush to the home of the Toronto Blue Jay's baseball team to pick up re-issues and all was sorted. Ants in my fucking pants.
The second of the Soundtracksforthem Summer Mixes will be online tomorrow and possibly some ramblings post Girl Talk. There's a pretty in depth interview completed with Maga Bo that I'm holding off putting online in case I can get it published first, as well as one with an unembedded journalist in Iraq called Dahr Jamail. All will be revealed soon, same irregular time, same irregular bat url.
(0) comments
What a way to start your day. 
(4) comments
OK back to Friday
My next venture was a solo pilgrimage across the wastes to see the most talented member of the Wainwright family – the mighty Martha.
No I could not persuade any other person to go to this!
The sun came along with me though.
Hello sun
Fuck off Krossie!
I took a great liking for the new Park Area – programmed by Michael’s daughter Emily Eavis, in general, I have to say.
Very few folks hanging around for this one.
Bean searbach we say in Irish:
A bitter woman.
But can she weave the straw of heart break into the shadowy, spun gold of gold that will make yer heart ache?
YES she can.
Without doubt the most intense gig of the festival – almost too intense betimes
Before things get underway she insists on not using a radio mike
And the roadie snaps to - instantly inserting the old fashioned lead.
Possibly cos he knows only too fucking well “that she’s half crazy” as some other bard once put it.
Forty minutes of cussing, and singing like a beautiful, badly damaged but still flutterin’ angel and she has another roadie rescue the joint rolled and thrown just short by a kindly fella in the crowd. She (bizarrely!) sticks it into the neck of her guitar lights it and launches into a crowd pleasing rendition of ya Bloody, muthafucking asshole.
She tells us she’s getting married soon .
44% of marriages end in divorce.
They’re the lucky ones according to Bob Dylan’s brilliant radio show!
– Oh goody - so much new material…
Now a lot of folk don’t like Martha.
Hey that’s fine - music is very subjective.
However.
It moves me to actual physical wrath when I hear people say she can’t sing!
Certain things are easily verifiable and one of those is that her vocal range and depth and intonation are nothing short of astonishing.
But maybe she just jumps from one end of the scale to another a little too fast - she gets thrown purely on the number and scale of her own transitions.
Or, maybe, there is just a physical limit to the amount of pain that one human voice can carry.
After some tasty scran (don’t let anyone say different there is a lot a lot of excellent food in Glastonbury)
While I munch I listen to schlomo
He does human beat-boxing pretty well.
Not much more to say!
I find myself somewhat mysteriously wandering back to see brother Rufus on the other stage. In a lovely striped suit he delivers some beautiful arrangements and I have to say I enjoyed it a lot. I am even more pleased when he summons his sister up for a fairly ragged version of Jerusalem – but hey who hasn’t heard that number just too many times!
They make a good team though – mannered, trained, beautiful voice v crazy, raw beautiful voice and I like the way he looks out for her.
Back to the Park for its official opening ceremony and surprise (!) guest Lily Allen.
As if her vapid, semi literate, vacous whining wasn’t enough (and it surely is - I’ll give ya al-fresco ya dozy cow!)
– MIA has been cancelled to make way for her.
Jaysus – sickening disappointment.
More about “surprise” guests later
Death to surprise guests!
Meself and Paul bleed off and move down agin’ the tide as the masses rush up from the other stage.
…To find ourselves in the Glade.
Oh ho - a discovery!
While Bondo De Role have been whipping it up for the masses in Brazil – the imperialist motherland has been working on its own version of Baile Funk. These Portuguese geezers were called Buraka Som Sistema. They were utterly infectious fun with a roundy black female rapper/ranter/singer/grinner and a skinny young fella doing the most scarily acrobatic dancing ever – cartwheels head spins – you name it!
Trick of the day persuading us all to crouch in the mud and then leap up in the air in a coordinated fashion.
Mind you get a good class of punter in Glasto who take these things in their stride!
I repaired back to the tent for some sleep and then Lost Vagueness and Bjork – who did a decent stadium gig with really nice versions of some of her best stuff.
No Anthony from the Johnsons though. But there was also an astonishing green laser with a range of, jaysus, 2 million kilometres maybe.
I can see for miles and miles says a texter…
Then I went into a frenzied Jack Daniels trip which finally knocked me out at about 3 am.
Such a perfect day
and It hadn’t rained since four in the afternoon!
(1) comments
After providing us with a chemically enhanced review of the 2004 festival, our roving raver Krossie is back with some more installments in his Glastonbury romance. All photos are pulled from this deadly Flickr collection.
Michael Eavis: Well what have you got for us in the way of mud this year my bofin-tastic friend? Mad Scientist: Very Vell - If a vay can be found, in which, through radical agitation of the slippy mud – a partial transition can be achieved to gloopy mud we can create ze new hybridised super mud which will first of all cause zeee slip sliding avay but also trap zee victim by zeee vellies achieving a miraculous double torment for zem!
M.E: Could it last?
MS: Ze super mud vill be highly unstable at a mol ecul ar level BUT perhaps a unique combination of ze persistent light rain with occasional short clearances it can be maintained as zeee mtestable complex… But also veeeeee vill be needing zeee many feet with wellies to go tramp, tramp, tramp and then pound and pound and pound like this, like this, like this AHA HA ha ha ha ha!
M.E. That’s my knee you’re hitting
M.S: Sorry…Its just recall ze good old daze – free reign for experiments many vict…subjects for da procedures….ja ja JA! Vell
M.E: Vell??
M.S: Vell can ve proceed with these procedures – vit this new a different type of experiment ?
M.E: Yes….I do believe it could well be possible…YARR
That’s nearly all from me on the mud. I could bleat and moan and make comparisons with the battle of the Somme or Napoleons exit from Moscow, maybe the last chopper out of Saigon 1974. But this is to be mostly about the music of which there was much – a lot of it pretty decent too! However for a brilliant general article on the buzz of Glastonbury and what it involves try Charlie Brooker’s cynical but very accurate Guardian review.
Part One
(Warning contains cursin’ like- recommended for childish readers, copyleft but maybe put in a link to my Myspace.
6.15 am – Persistent rain since 4 has killed of the last sound system – thank jah for small blessings – sleep comes…
9.30 am – Awake to an interesting roasting tent scenario
– Mr Sun has arrived?
(boffin laughing in the distance…)
10 am – 12 pm rain pours like there is no tomorrow.
Strangely there never seems to be any correlation between the weather and the appearance of the sky in Glastonbury – impossible to call it – experimental weather, mental weather!
Adopt random wander strategy -
First up Tor Dogs play their guilty pleasure cover versions on the Jazz World stage
Of course comrade Nietzsche assures us that there can be only innocence in the taking (and even giving) of pleasure.
In this case full marks Nietzsche – stinking Neil Diamond covers remain stinking Neil Diamond covers – what ever you chose to call them.
Pleasure and guilt definitely ride smoother in separate vehicles methinks.
In the new Park Stage which the younger Eavis is later to officially open - the Ralph band make a tolerable racket up to a point.
The sun arrives back.
Upgrade opinion to “decentish 70s mush”.
The sun goes
– So do I.
Wandering to the dance area for two bands I want to see the weirdly monikored !!! (chk chk chk apparently is how ya say it) and eighties acid pioneer A Guy Called Gerald.
Catch the Cribs en pasant by the other stage.
Shite!
First wander around the tents to sample random DJs.
Ok break-beat seems to rule the British dance scene for now.
Punters already pleasantly mashed going by them eyes!
Crap dance music proves yet again vastly superior to crap guitar music.
Whoops - Me boots after 5 years service spring a leak – rush off for girly wellies which serve very well for the rest of the festival. Dump boots.
Glasto tip wellies >>> any other footwear including yer sophisticated 2000 quid ultra hiking boots.
They are the dogs for squelching through any conditions.
Dance tent East.
The DJ playing when I get in is called caged baby.
He should have been
(as in shoulda been caged - baby – ah ya get my drift?!)
Of he goes and out hop
!!!
Its 4 pm for you guys but its 4 am for us…they tell us…
Jaysus these guys turn out to be quite a proposition – a 28-32 legged limbed and lithe, gay funk monster from straight outa New York city – they rock out from the first chord.
The gadging about of the gangly lead singer in his massive yello wellies and his disreptutable buddy with the weird beard are a joy to behold.
He seems to have at least four extra vertebrae and be convinced that his mike should function as a spare portable cock.
Some what in the Rapture/LCD sound system mode they duck and dive around the stage like the Happy Mondays circa 1989
on crack
“tell your friends out there we’re the best mutha fookin band in the world”
he tells us bigging up their next night’s show in the Glade
(even better it was too I’m told!)
Well there ya go - now I have
– who could argue with him!?
A great start.
The sun comes out
Off across the mud track to the slightly smaller Dance Tent West…
Now who here has heard of a Guy Called Gerald?
Hmmm not many…
Who owns an early 808 state album?
Or a ground breaking piece of ambient Drum and Bass called Black Secret Technology?
To be honest I was shocked he was even playing.
I was shocked there were so many people.
But I wasn’t too shocked that it was an incredibly good gig!
His style still has much of that eighties funky percussive groove to it. In the daze before rave when house was techno and everything was subtle, funky and based on locked grooves. The tunes proceed by way of crunchy but slightly wonky industrial baselines, tinny acid squelches weaving in and out and pin point hits of 808 drum machine. The final weapon is the very occasional use of awesomely beautiful vocal samples.
He’s not adverse to throwing in lines from Detroit Grand Pubah’s sandwiches, Boogie wonder land and even an awesomely treated and isolated sample of Sylvesterout of the 1970s classic “you make my feel mighty real”?
This was the best moment for me as he froze out the entire track except that one highly treated highly pitched voice filling the tent with its
“feeeeel real, feeeeel real, feeeeel real, feeeeel real” - beat kicks in – frenzied crowd response. Finishes with a very silly version of 1988’s chart hit Voodoo Ray.
John Peel would,without doubt, have been somewhere at the back, just smiling and nodding his head…
Ah John Peel ya had to remind me!
Rant follows
(What’s the fucking deal with the John Peel stage eh eh?.
What
WHAAAAAAAAAAAT!?!?
Drab indy smindy bollix from bands who’s names all start with “the”
Is this what I listened up for every night on my tiny radio with the crap medium wave signal and the telly smacking it around into a whistly mess?!?!
I don’t think so.
And here’s the news flash
YO
–Yeah John Peel did Occasionally play the Wedding present
He ALSO played The Bhundu Boys, Bikini Kill, Napalm death, Mantronix, Public Enemy, Tackhead and any form of minimal techno, acid, drum and base and gabba gabba break core noise terror he could get his mits on!
The fucking Peel stage was sickening insult to the mild mannered Liverpudlian and everything he stood for in the breadth, depth and range of his courageous musical meanderings.
Who ever or what ever fuck wit put together this atrocity exhibition should be fuckin lead out to a place not far from this court and there…..
Krossie is taken away up to the healing field where a team 17 trained, battle hardened psychologists fail to talk him down for over 45 hours)
Rant ends
OH wait, wait
NO
NOOOOOO NOOO no noooo noooo NoONoooooooo…
I didn’t see any of kasabian, Maximo Park, Lily Alen, Babyshambles, The Arcade Fire, the fookin Manics (jay sus wept!), The Who, The Killers, The Kooks, The Gossip, The Kaiser Chiefs, The Twang, The New Pornographers, The Artic Oasis beatles Monkeybabywipes (what ever!) or, indeed, anything on the Pryamid stage ha ha
Why?
Because they are bloody useless in my view that’s the why
–so there!
Is it because you is a lonely snobby muso git then?
Em…
(0) comments
So here it is, a Soundtracks for Them summer mix. With bits of baile funk, kudoro, old school rave, electro and club rap all lazily squished together with the powers of Sony Acid, so there should be something in it to satisfy one or two of you out there. Sorry about the unknown tracks, they were just things that were sitting around my computer for the past week or two, and liking them I couldn't really leave them out. I can't even remember where the hell I got them from to start with now, the Beanieman number however came from a reggaeton MP3 collection bought in Bolivia but it has no ID tags. Thanks to Nialler9 for the Kid Sister track, it's a killer.
Track Listing (71.5mb length: 39:04)
1/ Peter, Bjorn and John, Young Folks (Diplo Drums of Death Remix)
2/ Beanieman Unknown Reggaeton.
3/ Unknown Baile Funk, Impostra De Cur
4/ 2LiveCrew, Get It Girl
5/ Bondo De Role Gasolina (Buraka Som Sistema Remix)
6/ DeBonair The DJ Killer
7/ Josh Wink Higher State of Consciousness (TV Rock and Dirty South Remix)
8/ Technotronic Pump Up The Jam
9/ CSS Lets Make Love and Listen to Death From Above (SMD Mix)
10/ Yo Majesty Club Action ( Dj Paul V)
11/ Spank Rock Sweet Talk
12/ Justice Dance (Tittsworth Bmore Mix
13/ Drop The Lime Juggernaut
14/ Dj Branquinho Danca Da Maluca
15/ Kid Sister Control
16/ Thunderheist Suenos Dulces
17/ MIA Boyz
18/ Unknown Rock and Roll Is Here To Stay (Pulled from the DJ C Baltimore Mix)
19/ Lady Sovereign Hoodie (Alternative Medysne Radio Mix)
Download it NOW at Zshare.
(6) comments
Labels: cousin cole, Music
(0) comments
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
In Me Ears 4: Al Haca Blues
AL Haca touch base with all the right German crews, friends with Modeselektor and Apparat they deal in subdued digi-dub journeys that seduce your lower body to swing on the dance floor only the way creeping bass can.Wavering between cavernous sub sonic wobbles, electronic meanderings and the tension of soulful voices over gritty beats Put this one on for making the dinner or for bullshit conversation subdued by the after party blues.
Labels: Al haca, In Me Ears, Music
(1) comments
Dancing in a Mine Field
Anyone who likes the Postal Service just may like Plushgun, its your usual indie rock whimper with a dash of electronic shuffle in the background. He emailed me out of the blue and asked me to share this track with the world. Not my cup of tea really - but you can make up your own mind. Apparently he has been included in the "popular webTV series We Need Girlfriends", and according to himself he's creating a bit of a buzz around the net at the moment. Why I feel all grown up, sort of like Palmsoutsound or something.
Plushgun "Dancing in a Minefield" (Zshare)
(0) comments
Monday, September 17, 2007
Maga Bo Interview: "Hip hop, Like Any Discipline, Can Be a Form of Therapy and Source of Positive Change.
(Photos courtesy of Maga Bo's Kolleidosonic)Soon to tour North America and Canada, but sadly with no Toronto date - I hit Maga Bo up for an interview. Here are the results where he talks about life in the Favela, his work as a sound recordist, his travels and his work using music as a tool of participation for those excluded from a material society that whizzes by them without pause for even a whisper of concern.
Your recent mix CD was called Confusion of Tongues, is the name some sort of reference to the cacophony of different voices that haunt your mixes and releases?
It's a reference not only to that, but more specifically to the story of the collapse of the Tower of Babel, which was built with the intention to reach higher into the sky than god. As punishment for this blasphemy, god banished humans to the furthest corners of the earth in a confusion of tongues. It's a classic story which has been written about and has inspired many different pieces of artwork.
Whats your own background and what sort of music would you have played when you first started to get into DJ-ing? Its pretty hard to really isolate and put you into one box isn't it?
I've always been into a really diverse range of music and my DJ sets have reflected that since day one. I initially began to DJ as a way to show my production work in public and then it just grew from there. In the beginning, I found it really difficult to get gigs, especially when there was no real way of describing what I do without simply listing all of the different influences involved.
From what I've read you've traveled extensively; is this part of a methodology of searching out new interesting sounds? Can you tell me of some of the most exciting and surprising ways you've seen music used while traveling?I've loved to travel and get to know new people and places as long as I can remember, so seeking out new sounds as part of my travels has been a very organic progression. Although I have done a fair amount of backpacking and hitch-hiking around the world as a tourist, my traveling has become much more of work oriented. I am also a sound recordist working primarily with documentary films and have been able to travel a lot as a result.
Outside of the restrictive boundaries of North America and Europe, where there is less police presence, fiscalization, and fewer resources to go around, noise compliance laws are not respected as much and as a result, it is much more common to see people using their own sound systems however they see fit. I love this!
One of the last times my friend Grey (Filastine) was here in Rio, he brought me an amp that I ordered on Ebay in the states, we borrowed some speakers, roped another friend with a car into driving us to Lapa and just set up our sound system on the street using pirated electricity from a manhole. We played several times on the street during carnival and never had the police come and tell us to stop. Nearly every time we did this in Seattle, we were chased off by the police. Even during the Art Walk Open house whatever you call it Tuesday night thing where culture is "important" and everything is free and open.
Where did the bug for travel come from and what made you settle in Rio De Janeiro above elsewhere?
In Seattle, I got involved with the local Brazilian community recording as well as playing percussion and became interested in Brazilian culture. At the same time, I'd been plotting an escape from the rain and dreary climate for a long time. Eventually, things came together financially and I was able to come to Rio to check it out. I found work doing English language recordings and made just enough to pay my rent. That was 8 years ago. I stay because I love the weather, the beach, Brazilian culture and music, the Portuguese language, my friends and community. I am at home here.
You are involved in researching ethno-music, do you think there are qualitatively different ways of enjoying music and giving meaning to it?
This is a really good question and, in all honesty, I'm not sure that I can answer this with conviction. First, I'd like to point out that ALL music is "ethno-music" - that goes for Britney Spears and Madonna all the way through to music played in a circumcision ceremony in the forest in Senegal. To be quantitative about it, the behavioral norms of people enjoying Jola circumcision songs or "Like a Virgin" in their "native" settings is very different.
You've described living in Rio as a bit of a "mindfuck," where you can be chilling on a roof and five minutes away there's a war zone with people wielding machine guns in a neighborhood beside you. What sort of psychic landscape does this create for people living there and does it have much of an effect on your own music?
A lot of people are terrified by this reality, but everyone deals with it in their own way. Most people simply take it into account and act accordingly. Don't leave the house with anything that you would care to lose. Don't go to an unknown favela without having a local contact. Etc.
Rio, like anywhere in the world, is a place where people live and want to be in peace. People want to be happy and healthy, love their family, make a living. Living in a challenging situation where violence, crime and poverty are common, forces people to unite to some degree and communicate.
A lot of people are terrified by this reality, but everyone deals with it in their own way. Most people simply take it into account and act accordingly. Don't leave the house with anything that you would care to lose. Don't go to an unknown favela without having a local contact. Etc.
Rio, like anywhere in the world, is a place where people live and want to be in peace. People want to be happy and healthy, love their family, make a living. Living in a challenging situation where violence, crime and poverty are common, forces people to unite to some degree and communicate.
You worked on a stunning mix for World Up, can you tell me about the work the organisation does, the sort of projects its involved in and just how it is using hip hop as a tool of education and action?
Their main objective is to promote international hip hop culture by producing events and creating situations where people can connect, show their work, learn and grow. Hip hop, like any discipline, can be a form of therapy and source of positive change. Any discipline in which we are forced to confront ourselves and our own weaknesses in order to grow and learn can be a means through which we learn about ourselves, our relationship with those around us and the world at large.
Their main objective is to promote international hip hop culture by producing events and creating situations where people can connect, show their work, learn and grow. Hip hop, like any discipline, can be a form of therapy and source of positive change. Any discipline in which we are forced to confront ourselves and our own weaknesses in order to grow and learn can be a means through which we learn about ourselves, our relationship with those around us and the world at large.
Hip hop is being used as a tool to fill some of these roles. It is a way that people can learn a skill which boosts their self-esteem, teaches them how to learn (and solve problems) on their own and how to express themselves in a healthy, positive way.
Baile funk has reached a pretty startling level of popularity in the west, Bonde do Role and MIA feature on magazine covers, and a lot of club sets seem to have their baile funk moment; I'm wondering has much of this success made its way back to the originating producers/scenes in your city?
Yes and no. There are now a few DJs and MCs that are traveling internationally and have benefited from this exposure. They, in turn, have been influenced by music that they heard outside of Brazil and this has slowly been entering into their music. Their audience, however, hasn't had the same experience and is a bit resistant to too much change all at once.
Baile funk has reached a pretty startling level of popularity in the west, Bonde do Role and MIA feature on magazine covers, and a lot of club sets seem to have their baile funk moment; I'm wondering has much of this success made its way back to the originating producers/scenes in your city?
Yes and no. There are now a few DJs and MCs that are traveling internationally and have benefited from this exposure. They, in turn, have been influenced by music that they heard outside of Brazil and this has slowly been entering into their music. Their audience, however, hasn't had the same experience and is a bit resistant to too much change all at once.
In a similar vein there seems to be something in the air around favelas and ghetto music, kudoru springs to mind too; is there a reactionary aspect to this fascination among Western listeners? In one way it sets aside the harsh realities of favella life, seeking a glamor from poverty, with out much awareness of the context where the music is born - all for a voyeuristic exotic pleasure for the ear? I think Rupture has raised something along these lines in the past, what do you think?
There is a tendency to exoticize "the other" or people who are living in a reality that is vastly different and/or unknown. There is a long history of this - from the western world to the "third world" and all the way around again. It is an objectification of people and culture which is incredibly damaging and perpetuates racial, cultural, religious and sexual inequality. The term "world music" is an excellent example of this. From the beginning, it meant music which was not from the western world and went on to lump Tuvan throat singing in with Jamaican mento on the same shelf.
There is a tendency to exoticize "the other" or people who are living in a reality that is vastly different and/or unknown. There is a long history of this - from the western world to the "third world" and all the way around again. It is an objectification of people and culture which is incredibly damaging and perpetuates racial, cultural, religious and sexual inequality. The term "world music" is an excellent example of this. From the beginning, it meant music which was not from the western world and went on to lump Tuvan throat singing in with Jamaican mento on the same shelf.
On the other hand, what are the most interesting ways you have seen western forms of music being subject to re-interpretation?
While there can be damaging effects as a result of poorly or even ignorantly informed cultural interaction, there are many, many wonderful things that have come out of creative cultural exchange. There is the salsa movement in Senegal, Cambodian country and western bands, highlife and juju bands using electric guitars in the 50's and 60's or Jamaicans playing R & B. One of my favorites was seeing the house band for a circus in Madurai, India playing surf music. Anything and everything is possible!
Some might what you focus on is a transnational bass music, or a ghetto to ghetto style; how do you explain what you do with music and what are the threads connecting such wild diversity?
Well, I play music from the ghetto, but also music not from the ghetto. There is no discrimination in my music! I just play what I like. This can vary wildly, but I do like to form a narrative and tell a kind of story with what I play. It's kind of a way of making connections between things that may seem different, but actually share many common characteristics, whether it is in the rhythm, the melody, harmony, timbre, lyrics or feel.
Well, I play music from the ghetto, but also music not from the ghetto. There is no discrimination in my music! I just play what I like. This can vary wildly, but I do like to form a narrative and tell a kind of story with what I play. It's kind of a way of making connections between things that may seem different, but actually share many common characteristics, whether it is in the rhythm, the melody, harmony, timbre, lyrics or feel.
Most of us who think we have a pretty wide eye for music are strikingly limited compared to you, its the usual lexicon of next big thing, dubstep, minimal and baltimore etc etc ; but from your wider palette where do you see the most exciting and innovative forms of music coming from?
Hmmm, lots of places. I'm digging on cumbia, champeta and chutney, all of which are mashups of various different things. I think as the bongo flava industry in East Africa grows and gets more sophisticated, there will be some interesting stuff there. Especially, if taarab starts to be integrated into the mix. Both Senegal and South Africa have big hip hop scenes and there's some great stuff coming out lately. In Brazil, there are a lot of people combining Brazilian musics with different forms of electronic music.
With the release of Favela Rising, many people will now be aware of the work of the community group like AfroReggae, can you tell me how you ended up coming across them and eventually working with them to build a studio in Complexo do Alemão? How are they using music to challenge different forms of oppresion?
I knew about them through their international touring band, which I'd seen perform a few times. They have a very visible presence here in Rio. Later, I was introduced to their international relations person, who is a friend of a friend. We then started talking and brainstorming as to what we could do. I had been wanting to do some sort of community oriented work for some time. Unfortunately, the studio in Complexo do Alemão has been postponed partly as a result of lack of resources and partly as a result of heavy violence that has been going down there. So, instead I made proposal to teach workshops on beat-making in Reason at their digital radio studio (and computer center) in Parada de Lucas. Afroreggae is a big organization and things move very slowly, so we are still in the beginning stages of this.
Their objective is very similar to WorldUp! in that they are using music and culture to help young people (and especially people involved in trafficking) develop self esteem and learn skills which can be marketable (and get out of drug trafficking). So, it may be that one person gets involved because they want to play music and in the process of that, they end up realizing that they can identify and accomplish their dreams and goals. That may lead them to taking computer, dance or english classes, and from there, who knows?
On another level, they are using music to become "visible." This is directly related to the exoticization of "the other." While the world around them pays them (the poor and primarily black people in the favelas in Rio) no attention and essentially treats them as invisible (MV Bill has a lot to say about this in his work), they use music as a way of asserting themselves and participating in society at large. Afroreggae is a direct result of using resources at hand in a positive and creative way to change things.
You also work on the soundtracks for documentaries, what are some of the more interesting documentaries you have worked on?
One of the things I like best about working on documentaries is that I get out from in front of the computer and into the world where I meet extraordinary people that I would never meet in any other way. I've filmed rubber tappers in the Amazon, kite makers in Gujarat, female circumsizers in Senegal and cocoa farmers in Guyana. Part of the process of making a documentary is to forge personal relationships with the people that you are filming. This necessitates exchange, honesty and and openness and that is a powerful thing.
Your touring at the moment, playing quite a few different places too; what sort of reactions are you getting, what are people being responsive too and after the gigging is done whats next for your good self?
Actually, I just finished a 2 month tour in Europe and a 3 week production trip to Senegal where I was participating in an artist exchange, producing new tracks and filming 2 video clips for tracks on my upcoming album, "Archipelagos," to be released on Soot Records. Next up is a USA/Canada tour in October and then a documentary shoot in Ethiopia, followed by a short stint in South Africa to do some gigs, make some new tracks and shoot another video.
Hmmm, lots of places. I'm digging on cumbia, champeta and chutney, all of which are mashups of various different things. I think as the bongo flava industry in East Africa grows and gets more sophisticated, there will be some interesting stuff there. Especially, if taarab starts to be integrated into the mix. Both Senegal and South Africa have big hip hop scenes and there's some great stuff coming out lately. In Brazil, there are a lot of people combining Brazilian musics with different forms of electronic music.
With the release of Favela Rising, many people will now be aware of the work of the community group like AfroReggae, can you tell me how you ended up coming across them and eventually working with them to build a studio in Complexo do Alemão? How are they using music to challenge different forms of oppresion?
I knew about them through their international touring band, which I'd seen perform a few times. They have a very visible presence here in Rio. Later, I was introduced to their international relations person, who is a friend of a friend. We then started talking and brainstorming as to what we could do. I had been wanting to do some sort of community oriented work for some time. Unfortunately, the studio in Complexo do Alemão has been postponed partly as a result of lack of resources and partly as a result of heavy violence that has been going down there. So, instead I made proposal to teach workshops on beat-making in Reason at their digital radio studio (and computer center) in Parada de Lucas. Afroreggae is a big organization and things move very slowly, so we are still in the beginning stages of this.
Their objective is very similar to WorldUp! in that they are using music and culture to help young people (and especially people involved in trafficking) develop self esteem and learn skills which can be marketable (and get out of drug trafficking). So, it may be that one person gets involved because they want to play music and in the process of that, they end up realizing that they can identify and accomplish their dreams and goals. That may lead them to taking computer, dance or english classes, and from there, who knows?
On another level, they are using music to become "visible." This is directly related to the exoticization of "the other." While the world around them pays them (the poor and primarily black people in the favelas in Rio) no attention and essentially treats them as invisible (MV Bill has a lot to say about this in his work), they use music as a way of asserting themselves and participating in society at large. Afroreggae is a direct result of using resources at hand in a positive and creative way to change things.
You also work on the soundtracks for documentaries, what are some of the more interesting documentaries you have worked on?
One of the things I like best about working on documentaries is that I get out from in front of the computer and into the world where I meet extraordinary people that I would never meet in any other way. I've filmed rubber tappers in the Amazon, kite makers in Gujarat, female circumsizers in Senegal and cocoa farmers in Guyana. Part of the process of making a documentary is to forge personal relationships with the people that you are filming. This necessitates exchange, honesty and and openness and that is a powerful thing.
Your touring at the moment, playing quite a few different places too; what sort of reactions are you getting, what are people being responsive too and after the gigging is done whats next for your good self?
Actually, I just finished a 2 month tour in Europe and a 3 week production trip to Senegal where I was participating in an artist exchange, producing new tracks and filming 2 video clips for tracks on my upcoming album, "Archipelagos," to be released on Soot Records. Next up is a USA/Canada tour in October and then a documentary shoot in Ethiopia, followed by a short stint in South Africa to do some gigs, make some new tracks and shoot another video.
Labels: In Me Ears, Interviews, maga bo, Music
(0) comments
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Soundtracksforthem Blog Mix Two
Soundtracksforthem Blog Mix 2 75mb / 40:57 sec (Download here at Zshare)
Just a heads up on Zshare, where once you could listen to a mix through on it they now jump to an ad screen after you stall on a page for a bit too long for a listen like. So you are probably best downloading the MP3 and listening off your hard drive.
1/ Starting Something - Unknown Reggeaton
2/ 10 - Mia
3/ Hot Like We - Cecile
4/ Beanie Man - Beanine Man (feat Dangel)
5/ El Tiburon - Baby Ranks (feat Looney Tunes)
6/ RDB feat. Elephant Man - Ishq naag reggeaton Remix
7/ Personal Jesus - Depche Mode (Boys Noize Rework)
8/ Sem Makas - Burka Som Sistema
9/ Doi Festival - Ghislain Poirer
10/ Party - Unknown Reggeaton
11/ We're Broklynites - Tittsworth
12/ Minute by Minute - Girl Talk
13/ Super Freaks on Film - Rick James Vs Duran Duran (Bass211.com)
14/ Should I Stay Or Should I Go - The Clash
16/ What I Like About Crunk Music - Lil Jon (Menegaux Mash)
17/ Oh Sheila - Ready for the World
18/ Oh Sheila - SneakMove (Quarterbar remix)
19/ Popuzuda Rock n' Roll - De Falla
20/ Go My Way - Lenny Kravitz
21/ North American Scum - LCD Sound System
22/ Bump - Spank Rock
23/ My Love - Justin Timberlake (Diplo Remix)
24/ Do I Look Like A Slut - Avenue D
25/ Yah - Buraka Som Sistema
26/ LDN - South Rakkas Crew (Crack Whore Riddim)
27/Crank Dat - Solja Boy (Rough)
28/ Ain't Nothin To Fuck With - Wu Tang Clan (Bird Peterson Remix)
(1) comments
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
On The Dancefloor They Call It Murder
(Photo from Each Secure Note)Girl Talk and Dan Deacon tonight, Girl Talk and Dan Deacon tonight, Girl Talk and Dan Deacon tonight. I don't think I've been this excited about a gig, oh since the last time I drank too much Buckfast before rushing down Thomas St to one. Rooting around for my tickets last night it dawned on me and herself that in one of those foul humored, strop around the gaff tidy ups I had managed to throw them in the recycling along with the wad of paper they were sitting in. Last minute panicked calls to the credit card ticket sales line and a rush to the home of the Toronto Blue Jay's baseball team to pick up re-issues and all was sorted. Ants in my fucking pants.
The second of the Soundtracksforthem Summer Mixes will be online tomorrow and possibly some ramblings post Girl Talk. There's a pretty in depth interview completed with Maga Bo that I'm holding off putting online in case I can get it published first, as well as one with an unembedded journalist in Iraq called Dahr Jamail. All will be revealed soon, same irregular time, same irregular bat url.
Labels: Blogging, Gig Review, Mix, Music
(0) comments
Tuesday, July 03, 2007
Glasto Sunday Report: Hard To Get Into and Even Harder To Get Out Of!
What a way to start your day. Shuffling around to the very nice gypsy sounds of Forty Thieves Orkestar and suddenly one of the five or so people dancing has collapsed. Great hardly up out of bed and I get to see some one die. She's twitching and very pale - her boyfriend is screaming to her stay with him, the securities are running and walkie talkieing. All is well though within a minute or two she's back up and talking and able to take a sip of water - doctors arrive in about 8 minutes (which I thought was pretty excellent given the mud etc).
Myself and Wattser wander of around Glasto central shopping area - got the free daily guide and confirmed there would be direct coaches outa there on Monday morning.
We get back to the Jazz stage for an Australian outfit called Ganga Giri. This seems to be another band relying on the trusty crowd-pleasing format of ethno cheese, rapping and drum machines. It seems sooo, sooo easy in the hands of Bondo or the likes of Buraka Som Sistema from last night. But it quickly appears that misapplied it can bomb and bomb very badly - these guys were terrible.
Towards the end I formulated the theory that they were in fact a small hard right wing group who had set up the band as a deliberate attempt to destroy the remains of aboriginal culture through generating comically awful piss take music.
The rain returns.
Sticking with the Jazz area and the next up where a frentic Japanese jazz combo calling themselves the Soil and Pimp Sessions These fellas where astonishingly talented and crowd hypers par excellence. Quickly we all found ourselves jumping around and roaring soil soil at the top of our lungs. Full marks for the complicated “brass off” between the trumpet and sax men and the crazy “bezz style” band leader in the pork pie hat.
Nothing would do me now but to catch a bit of CSS (Cansei de Ser Sexy) on the Other Stage.
These guys are tired of being sexy (I know it can be a pain like). Personally I doubt I could get tired of watching miss lurve fox changing from really over the top cat suit to even more over the top cat suit.
In the end for my money they were completely overwhelmed by the other stage, very, very bad sound and their own alcohol consumption - though it was a good natured drunkenness which had them charmingly falling around, dropping mikes and generally generating confusion.
Still and all they still managed to knock out pretty decent versions of Lets make love and music is my hot hot sex.
Off to the dance area to meet mate Simon, charming wife Caroline and Posse for some faffing. Bondo's time had being switched so headed for the wonderful roots area for Ariwa records supreme Mad Professor The Prof and the soundman were immediately at variance as the first baseline sends the speakers shaky with distortion. The crowd in here were lovely helped out in no small measure by the ferocious skunk that the Brits love so well. I found I got quite a good buzz just wandering and sniffing the weed-saturated air. Mad prof was excellent as were a couple of younger singings to his label (a girl singing and too really young rappers)- proper deep, deep dub with modern touches. A massive standing ovation and demands for more, which seemed to take them totally by surprise.
Back in the dance lounge Erol Aiken is laying down a bombardment of that cheesy breakbeat house style which some people rather weirdly refer to as electro. A crowd of insane mongers is spilling out from all round the tent and into the mud - it's the best crowd reaction I've seen so far but not really my style of stuff. After a lot of toing and foring Bondo de Role leap onto the stage.
What a fucking insane gig.
Think three cats tied up in a bag of sugar but about to be thrown into the river.
They purr mewl, bite and fight.
“Meet me after school and I'll beat you like guerrilla”
Or how about this for an intro
“This is a romantic song, this one is for you and you and you - this is a song about sharing cock”
Over the course of 45 minutes the small audience of maybe 100 or folks witness
Outrageous cod diva posses - with winkin!
Simulated “riding” from almost every position
Repeated attempts to tear of clothes!
Live biting and licking sessions
A three person piggyback ride
A wheelie mud rubbing and throwing session
A stage invasion by
- All of CSS
- 2. A giant cat
- 3. A bearded man in a wonderful gold lame dress
- 4. All of Erol Alkan and his crew
Surely there are rules governing this much fun in a non built up area
While all of this is going on the three of them manage to keep perfect timing on all beats and rhymes over a stew of beats from Kraftwerk, Daft Punk, Europe's Final countdown (oh yeah). Salt and Peppa, Summer Loving from Grease and various baile funk loops of their own devising. Is it rock and roll or simply shouting over thieved beats - I wouldn't care to speculate!
There is really not much point in crapping on much further it was superb.
I got briefly diverted to the cabaret stage in the circus area which was really nice and theatrical and there witnessed Four Poofs and a Piano (very funny) and irish crazy comic Andrew Maxell (very, very, very funny) - then repaired back to the tent and kidded myself that I could sleep for a while!
For the evening back to the Jazz Stage - a few pints of Perry pear cider and a bit of John Fogarty, then a long gap as Rodrigo y Gabriela were having technical problems. Technical problems!??! How can one have fecking technical problems with two acoustic guitars! Oh no I need my “lucky” plectrum.
Any way lots of chats with random strangers - Glasto is brilliant for this and kicks lumps out of ATP or any muso style festival in this regard. Eventually they started and I was glad to have seen em live - though I half missed it as the chat was too good. I thought the Pink Floyd stuff was silly.
The rest of the night - total waste of time. Drifted back to the Glade on the half hearted belief that a cancelled Hex static gig was going to be rescheduled - not a chance. This was a slow and painful walk against thousands of punters coming down from the main stage. But the attempt to get home was the real bastard. Traffic flow was directed all over the camp - Lost Vagueness and the mucky hill with our tents was more or less out of bounds due to (yawn) “surprise” gigs by Madness and that dribbling idiot Fat Boy Slim (the billionth “surprise” gig of his career - one punter retold an incident at Glasto one year where she was just standing minding her own business and a tank drove up next to her - out pops Fat Boy Slim to pull a “surprise” gig!) - a long long treck home and a deadly fall in the mud - left me pretty much spent for the day…
Part 3 Sunday (alert alert - boring section follows!)
Sunday dawns with rain and low moral. Myself and Paul sit in the nice Lost Vagueness crepe joint and speculate about staying there all day.
It has this advantage - dryness.
Finally a plan is roughly hatched to take in a few bands in our local hood are but that treks to the likes of the Go Team or Cold Cut are not happening - Dame Shirley Bassey is out - diamante wellies or not!
We bum around the Bimble Inn in the Avolon field and the sun comes out and its quite warm and there's mud wrestling which leaves me quite happy. Also they have Jameson, which leaves me even happier. Ah the simple pleasures!
The first band we dragged ourselves along to were a quite diverting mix of folk and electronic and, almost, rave betimes. They were called Tunng - I thought they were good - particularly liked the homemade bass thingy with the giant elastic band played by a lad they'd only just met - bespeaks confidence but seems like such instant collaborations are quite common in the “folk world”
The band I was most looking forward to were Tinariwen. OK y'all know the deal - a gun toating rebel band of fierce nomadic Tuareg desert tribesmen, no place to call there own - trained in Moammar al-Qadhafi's camps - traded guitars for AK47s and so on. They are ferociously good - playing a low key but gradually building set. They sounded something like seven Rory Gallaghers on a blissed out mellow buzz of a Sunday afternoon- except for the scarfs and robes of course! Very blues rock driven but yet subtly African in a way couldn't quite put yer finger on - OK maybe it was the chanting! Thoroughly enjoyable.
After a bit of a gap me favourite gypsy crooners Beirut are on. They were lucky by all accounts after a fierce taxi fuckup left them almost in the middle of nowhere. I looked the off kilter lutes and ukuleles and the lovely, lovely melancholy trumpet sounds - quite as good as their album. The lead singer is a bit mad though! Finally for the Jazz Field Amp Fiddler - I dunno it sounded OK if you just swayed around clicking your fingers and occasionally muttered “sophisticated” to yourself (give it a go - works for most jazz funk!) It was quite slick, very slick' in fact, but, at the end of the day, not shockingly original or innovative - but he worked the small wet crowd very well…
Darkness descending and for some crazy reason myself and Paul decided to take a gander at Kila - who of course you can see any old day in Dublin! But they were (in fairness)on top form! I've only seen them twice before I think but it was a mesmerising set in a gradually filling Avalon stage. Oh the percussion, the harmonies - the intensity, the tunes, the “progging” out (very, very prog) - the battering with percussion (at one stage every one of them was simultaneously battering something and signing!) I especially enjoyed that gorgeous tune “Glan na scamill amach as mo chroi” (clean the cloud out from my heart! It works I tell ya!) The crusties began to filter in - it was fun. The rain resumed its tiny patters…
After this (for some strange reason) nothing would do us but to go and see a weird band combining Elizabethan courtly music, traditional medivial ballads and spacey seventies rock. They're called Circulus. Sounds like it could be awful doesn't it? Sounds like the “outer limits” part of pulling yer wire magazine gone mental eh?!?
No actually they were well worth the horrific attempts to slide up the muddy slope of park and the standing around in the rain - because they were actually extremely entertaining and certainly fairly tongue in cheek - me-lord.
After that wandered home via the upper parts (Stone circle, Green field etc) there by avoiding any crazed mobs from the Who and the Chemical brothers! After that it was huddling in tents listening to a seven hour down pour, packing up tents in pouring rain, standing freezing for three hours before escaping to Bristol.
From what I understand we were among the lucky ones. Glasto - hard to get into and even harder to get out off!Labels: festival, Gig Review, Glasto, Guest Blogger, Krossie, Music
(4) comments
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Glasto 2007 Review 2: A Solo Pilgrimage Across the Wastes
OK back to FridayMy next venture was a solo pilgrimage across the wastes to see the most talented member of the Wainwright family – the mighty Martha.
No I could not persuade any other person to go to this!
The sun came along with me though.
Hello sun
Fuck off Krossie!
I took a great liking for the new Park Area – programmed by Michael’s daughter Emily Eavis, in general, I have to say.
Very few folks hanging around for this one.
Bean searbach we say in Irish:
A bitter woman.
But can she weave the straw of heart break into the shadowy, spun gold of gold that will make yer heart ache?
YES she can.
Without doubt the most intense gig of the festival – almost too intense betimes
Before things get underway she insists on not using a radio mike
And the roadie snaps to - instantly inserting the old fashioned lead.
Possibly cos he knows only too fucking well “that she’s half crazy” as some other bard once put it.
Forty minutes of cussing, and singing like a beautiful, badly damaged but still flutterin’ angel and she has another roadie rescue the joint rolled and thrown just short by a kindly fella in the crowd. She (bizarrely!) sticks it into the neck of her guitar lights it and launches into a crowd pleasing rendition of ya Bloody, muthafucking asshole.
She tells us she’s getting married soon .
44% of marriages end in divorce.
They’re the lucky ones according to Bob Dylan’s brilliant radio show!
– Oh goody - so much new material…
Now a lot of folk don’t like Martha.
Hey that’s fine - music is very subjective.
However.
It moves me to actual physical wrath when I hear people say she can’t sing!
Certain things are easily verifiable and one of those is that her vocal range and depth and intonation are nothing short of astonishing.
But maybe she just jumps from one end of the scale to another a little too fast - she gets thrown purely on the number and scale of her own transitions.
Or, maybe, there is just a physical limit to the amount of pain that one human voice can carry.
After some tasty scran (don’t let anyone say different there is a lot a lot of excellent food in Glastonbury)
While I munch I listen to schlomo
He does human beat-boxing pretty well.
Not much more to say!
I find myself somewhat mysteriously wandering back to see brother Rufus on the other stage. In a lovely striped suit he delivers some beautiful arrangements and I have to say I enjoyed it a lot. I am even more pleased when he summons his sister up for a fairly ragged version of Jerusalem – but hey who hasn’t heard that number just too many times!
They make a good team though – mannered, trained, beautiful voice v crazy, raw beautiful voice and I like the way he looks out for her.
Back to the Park for its official opening ceremony and surprise (!) guest Lily Allen.
As if her vapid, semi literate, vacous whining wasn’t enough (and it surely is - I’ll give ya al-fresco ya dozy cow!)
– MIA has been cancelled to make way for her.
Jaysus – sickening disappointment.
More about “surprise” guests later
Death to surprise guests!
Meself and Paul bleed off and move down agin’ the tide as the masses rush up from the other stage.
…To find ourselves in the Glade.
Oh ho - a discovery!
While Bondo De Role have been whipping it up for the masses in Brazil – the imperialist motherland has been working on its own version of Baile Funk. These Portuguese geezers were called Buraka Som Sistema. They were utterly infectious fun with a roundy black female rapper/ranter/singer/grinner and a skinny young fella doing the most scarily acrobatic dancing ever – cartwheels head spins – you name it!
Trick of the day persuading us all to crouch in the mud and then leap up in the air in a coordinated fashion.
Mind you get a good class of punter in Glasto who take these things in their stride!
I repaired back to the tent for some sleep and then Lost Vagueness and Bjork – who did a decent stadium gig with really nice versions of some of her best stuff.
No Anthony from the Johnsons though. But there was also an astonishing green laser with a range of, jaysus, 2 million kilometres maybe.
I can see for miles and miles says a texter…
Then I went into a frenzied Jack Daniels trip which finally knocked me out at about 3 am.
Such a perfect day
and It hadn’t rained since four in the afternoon!
Labels: festival, Gig Review, Glasto, Guest Blogger, Krossie, Music
(1) comments
Glasto 2007 Review 1: The Mud Scientist Prelude
After providing us with a chemically enhanced review of the 2004 festival, our roving raver Krossie is back with some more installments in his Glastonbury romance. All photos are pulled from this deadly Flickr collection.Michael Eavis: Well what have you got for us in the way of mud this year my bofin-tastic friend?
M.E: Could it last?
MS: Ze super mud vill be highly unstable at a mol ecul ar level BUT perhaps a unique combination of ze persistent light rain with occasional short clearances it can be maintained as zeee mtestable complex… But also veeeeee vill be needing zeee many feet with wellies to go tramp, tramp, tramp and then pound and pound and pound like this, like this, like this AHA HA ha ha ha ha!
M.E. That’s my knee you’re hitting
M.S: Sorry…Its just recall ze good old daze – free reign for experiments many vict…subjects for da procedures….ja ja JA! Vell
M.E: Vell??
M.S: Vell can ve proceed with these procedures – vit this new a different type of experiment ?
M.E: Yes….I do believe it could well be possible…YARR
That’s nearly all from me on the mud. I could bleat and moan and make comparisons with the battle of the Somme or Napoleons exit from Moscow, maybe the last chopper out of Saigon 1974. But this is to be mostly about the music of which there was much – a lot of it pretty decent too! However for a brilliant general article on the buzz of Glastonbury and what it involves try Charlie Brooker’s cynical but very accurate Guardian review.
Part One
(Warning contains cursin’ like- recommended for childish readers, copyleft but maybe put in a link to my Myspace.
6.15 am – Persistent rain since 4 has killed of the last sound system – thank jah for small blessings – sleep comes…
9.30 am – Awake to an interesting roasting tent scenario
– Mr Sun has arrived?
(boffin laughing in the distance…)
10 am – 12 pm rain pours like there is no tomorrow.
Strangely there never seems to be any correlation between the weather and the appearance of the sky in Glastonbury – impossible to call it – experimental weather, mental weather!
Adopt random wander strategy -
First up Tor Dogs play their guilty pleasure cover versions on the Jazz World stage
Of course comrade Nietzsche assures us that there can be only innocence in the taking (and even giving) of pleasure.
In this case full marks Nietzsche – stinking Neil Diamond covers remain stinking Neil Diamond covers – what ever you chose to call them.
Pleasure and guilt definitely ride smoother in separate vehicles methinks.
In the new Park Stage which the younger Eavis is later to officially open - the Ralph band make a tolerable racket up to a point.
The sun arrives back.
Upgrade opinion to “decentish 70s mush”.
The sun goes
– So do I.
Wandering to the dance area for two bands I want to see the weirdly monikored !!! (chk chk chk apparently is how ya say it) and eighties acid pioneer A Guy Called Gerald.
Catch the Cribs en pasant by the other stage.
Shite!
First wander around the tents to sample random DJs.
Ok break-beat seems to rule the British dance scene for now.
Punters already pleasantly mashed going by them eyes!
Crap dance music proves yet again vastly superior to crap guitar music.
Whoops - Me boots after 5 years service spring a leak – rush off for girly wellies which serve very well for the rest of the festival. Dump boots.
Glasto tip wellies >>> any other footwear including yer sophisticated 2000 quid ultra hiking boots.
They are the dogs for squelching through any conditions.
Dance tent East.The DJ playing when I get in is called caged baby.
He should have been
(as in shoulda been caged - baby – ah ya get my drift?!)
Of he goes and out hop
!!!
Its 4 pm for you guys but its 4 am for us…they tell us…
Jaysus these guys turn out to be quite a proposition – a 28-32 legged limbed and lithe, gay funk monster from straight outa New York city – they rock out from the first chord.
The gadging about of the gangly lead singer in his massive yello wellies and his disreptutable buddy with the weird beard are a joy to behold.
He seems to have at least four extra vertebrae and be convinced that his mike should function as a spare portable cock.
Some what in the Rapture/LCD sound system mode they duck and dive around the stage like the Happy Mondays circa 1989
on crack
“tell your friends out there we’re the best mutha fookin band in the world”
he tells us bigging up their next night’s show in the Glade
(even better it was too I’m told!)
Well there ya go - now I have
– who could argue with him!?
A great start.
The sun comes out
Off across the mud track to the slightly smaller Dance Tent West…
Now who here has heard of a Guy Called Gerald?
Hmmm not many…
Who owns an early 808 state album?
Or a ground breaking piece of ambient Drum and Bass called Black Secret Technology?
To be honest I was shocked he was even playing.
I was shocked there were so many people.
But I wasn’t too shocked that it was an incredibly good gig!
His style still has much of that eighties funky percussive groove to it. In the daze before rave when house was techno and everything was subtle, funky and based on locked grooves. The tunes proceed by way of crunchy but slightly wonky industrial baselines, tinny acid squelches weaving in and out and pin point hits of 808 drum machine. The final weapon is the very occasional use of awesomely beautiful vocal samples.
He’s not adverse to throwing in lines from Detroit Grand Pubah’s sandwiches, Boogie wonder land and even an awesomely treated and isolated sample of Sylvesterout of the 1970s classic “you make my feel mighty real”?
This was the best moment for me as he froze out the entire track except that one highly treated highly pitched voice filling the tent with its
“feeeeel real, feeeeel real, feeeeel real, feeeeel real” - beat kicks in – frenzied crowd response. Finishes with a very silly version of 1988’s chart hit Voodoo Ray.
John Peel would,without doubt, have been somewhere at the back, just smiling and nodding his head…
Ah John Peel ya had to remind me!
Rant follows
(What’s the fucking deal with the John Peel stage eh eh?.
What
WHAAAAAAAAAAAT!?!?
Drab indy smindy bollix from bands who’s names all start with “the”
Is this what I listened up for every night on my tiny radio with the crap medium wave signal and the telly smacking it around into a whistly mess?!?!
I don’t think so.
And here’s the news flash
YO
–Yeah John Peel did Occasionally play the Wedding present
He ALSO played The Bhundu Boys, Bikini Kill, Napalm death, Mantronix, Public Enemy, Tackhead and any form of minimal techno, acid, drum and base and gabba gabba break core noise terror he could get his mits on!
The fucking Peel stage was sickening insult to the mild mannered Liverpudlian and everything he stood for in the breadth, depth and range of his courageous musical meanderings.
Who ever or what ever fuck wit put together this atrocity exhibition should be fuckin lead out to a place not far from this court and there…..
Krossie is taken away up to the healing field where a team 17 trained, battle hardened psychologists fail to talk him down for over 45 hours)
Rant ends
OH wait, wait
NO
NOOOOOO NOOO no noooo noooo NoONoooooooo…
I didn’t see any of kasabian, Maximo Park, Lily Alen, Babyshambles, The Arcade Fire, the fookin Manics (jay sus wept!), The Who, The Killers, The Kooks, The Gossip, The Kaiser Chiefs, The Twang, The New Pornographers, The Artic Oasis beatles Monkeybabywipes (what ever!) or, indeed, anything on the Pryamid stage ha ha
Why?
Because they are bloody useless in my view that’s the why
–so there!
Is it because you is a lonely snobby muso git then?
Em…
Labels: festival, Gig Review, Guest Blogger, Krossie, Music
(0) comments
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Get Yo Ass On The Floor: Me Summer Mix
So here it is, a Soundtracks for Them summer mix. With bits of baile funk, kudoro, old school rave, electro and club rap all lazily squished together with the powers of Sony Acid, so there should be something in it to satisfy one or two of you out there. Sorry about the unknown tracks, they were just things that were sitting around my computer for the past week or two, and liking them I couldn't really leave them out. I can't even remember where the hell I got them from to start with now, the Beanieman number however came from a reggaeton MP3 collection bought in Bolivia but it has no ID tags. Thanks to Nialler9 for the Kid Sister track, it's a killer.Track Listing (71.5mb length: 39:04)
1/ Peter, Bjorn and John, Young Folks (Diplo Drums of Death Remix)
2/ Beanieman Unknown Reggaeton.
3/ Unknown Baile Funk, Impostra De Cur
4/ 2LiveCrew, Get It Girl
5/ Bondo De Role Gasolina (Buraka Som Sistema Remix)
6/ DeBonair The DJ Killer
7/ Josh Wink Higher State of Consciousness (TV Rock and Dirty South Remix)
8/ Technotronic Pump Up The Jam
9/ CSS Lets Make Love and Listen to Death From Above (SMD Mix)
10/ Yo Majesty Club Action ( Dj Paul V)
11/ Spank Rock Sweet Talk
12/ Justice Dance (Tittsworth Bmore Mix
13/ Drop The Lime Juggernaut
14/ Dj Branquinho Danca Da Maluca
15/ Kid Sister Control
16/ Thunderheist Suenos Dulces
17/ MIA Boyz
18/ Unknown Rock and Roll Is Here To Stay (Pulled from the DJ C Baltimore Mix)
19/ Lady Sovereign Hoodie (Alternative Medysne Radio Mix)
Download it NOW at Zshare.
(6) comments
About Soundtracksforthem specialises in iconoclastic takes on culture, politics, and more shite from the underbelly of your keyboard. A still-born group blog with a recent surge of different contributers but mainly maintained by James R. Big up all the contributers and posse regardless of churn out rate: Kyle Browne, Reeuq, Cogsy, Chief, X-ie phader/Krossie, Howard Devoto, Dara, Ronan and Mark Furlong. Send your wishes and aspirations to antropheatgmail.com
Label Cluster
In no certain order...
Politics,
Guest Bloggers
Interviews,
Music,
Internet,
Guest Bloggers,
Travel,
Blogging,
TV,
Society,
Film,
Gig Reviews,
Art,
Media.
The Neverending Blogroll
A Womb Of Her Own
Arse End Of Ireland
BlissBlog
BBC One Music Blog
Blackdown Sound Boy
Buckfast For Breakfast
Customer Servitude
Counago & Spaves
C8
Candy PDF Mag
Guttabreakz
House is a Feeling
Homoludo
Infactah
Indymedia
Indie Hour Blog
Jim Carroll
kABooGIE MusIC
Kid Kameleon
Kick Magazine Toronto
Libcom
Matt Vinyl
Modern Cadence
Mongrel
Nialler9
One For The Road
Old Rotten Hat
Pitchfork
Salvo
Spannered
Sigla
Test
Thumped
Newish Journalism
TV Is Crying
Uncarved
Una Rocks
Urban75
Weareie
WSM
Wooster
Village Magazine
Radical Urban Theory
Archives
February 2002
October 2002
April 2003
September 2003
November 2003
December 2003
January 2004
February 2004
March 2004
June 2004
September 2004
January 2005
February 2005
March 2005
April 2005
June 2005
July 2005
August 2005
September 2005
October 2005
November 2005
December 2005
January 2006
February 2006
March 2006
April 2006
May 2006
June 2006
July 2006
August 2006
September 2006
October 2006
November 2006
December 2006
January 2007
February 2007
March 2007
April 2007
May 2007
June 2007
July 2007
August 2007
September 2007
October 2007
November 2007
December 2007
January 2008
February 2008
March 2008
Gig Review: The Fall Tripod
Gig Review: Gogol Bordello
Broken Pencil Gets It's Irish On
Fecking Civil Servents
Fake Pharma Ads
Vidiot: Data Entry
Life and Debt
Last Night Cosmo Baker Saved My Life / Hip Hop His...
Eye Candy: Dufferin Hoarding Gallery
Review: Heads for the heart of the Sun – The Welco...
