Oh, how could I forget. It was 1985 and my 7 yr old eye were glued to Mtv… and the heart-felt melodic collaboration performed by the most iconic singers of that decade. “Do they know it’s Christmas time at alll….” all over the radio, all over Mtv, all over my parents’ outdated record player. I loved every second of that song…even after the 187th listen. The collaborative effort was to raise funds for famine relief in Ethiopia. Thank you isupportadoptionsblog for the trip down memory lane…
Musicians Perform at Holiday Food Drive
There are a lot of great musicians out there doing a lot of great things…and I’m not just referring to the great tunes they’re pumping out each and every day. Thanks to MC Rydel for the article:
A group of musicians and DJs from across the United States entertained a crowd of people who donated food to the Greater Chicago Food Depository on December 6th. With the support of 39th District State Representative Toni Berrios and Music Plant Records, founder/owner Georgie Porgie hosted the event at Moonshine’s in Chicago. The food collected will be given to charitable organizations, including the Armitage Baptist Church and the Women and Children’s Shelter in Evanston this holiday season.
The show featured well-known artists who appear on IMRadio as well as many other venues. The night began with music provided by DJs. From Chicago, Tod Miner and “G” Cavelle appeared. With his first single, “Reach For The Sky”, ready to be released, Tod Miner has “his eyes, ears, feet and heart deeply rooted in dance music.” Chicago’s very own “G” Cavelle also thrilled the crowd with his work behind the decks, and he showed why his music is climbing the Billboard Charts…read on!
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Lightning Show etc.
So I went to see Lightning Bolt last night, doubly fun because our friend Zack was coming down to meet us from Amherst and my ears are still ringing. I think my eyes are ringing. Total sonic overload. It was the Benefit for Dan Tanner at Firehouse 13 in Providence. The line up on the website says Lightning Bolt, Tinsel Teeth, Human Beast, Midnight Mongo Sound System (DJing between acts), Russian Tsarlag, Talk Normal (from NYC) but there were only four bands that played besides the DJ. I know Lightning Bolt played, and Tinsel Teeth, but I don’t which band it was that didn’t play. All these bands had trashy garbled effects on the vocal mics. I’m sure they said who they were but it was all like half way between two radio stations. There wasn’t anyone who played I didn’t like though. Lightning Bolt’s set was berzerk. The artwork fell off the walls, people were going so crazy. The drummer had to stop to fix his drumset, people were going so crazy. Plus, there was a bar.
(Remember that scene in Goonies when the older brother rode that little pink bike? Then those jerks pulled him along side their car? Then training-wheels blew off?)
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Ducktails
I recently acquired my very first mp3 player via: desperation due to: computer atrophy and I will admit now that, yes, I am satisfied. I had not realized, you see, the utter dependence my access to music had on my computer. At first I did not fret, casting my laptop to some forgotten corner, a lifeless bulk. Someday, when the time is right it will be fixed, I thought, and anyway there are other computers in this house by which I can access the Internet. As for music I resorted to my high school CD collection, which, despite its nostalgic value, almost immediately became inadequate. Next, I thought to use my sister’s computer to burn CD’s from my external harddrive. For whatever reason these discs could not be read by my primitive discman and were useless. “No Disc,” the machine told me and it was then that I began to feel the cold fingers of desperation. A small CD book I kept in my car of new music suddenly and mysteriously went missing. A crusade was launched! My family and I took to searching the house for said CD book and even phoned my brother in far away Boulder, Co. But it was to no avail. I had no other recourse but to take that step into the modern world of consumer-based made-to-break hyper-technology, to get an mp3 player. My sister, with a shrug, gave me her old one.
Something I’ve been enjoying on my perfectly-functioning Sansa Fuse is Ducktails, a project of Matthew Mondanile from New Jersey making lo-fi loop jams, melodic and upbeat. He just put out an album on Olde English Spelling Bee called Landscapes but my favorite is his self-titled album on Not Not Fun.
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Deer-
I think Deerhoof could play a show in a multi-colored ball pit. (Does Discovery Zone still exist?) And I wonder if they’ve ever played for a crowd of children. Medeski, Martin and Wood just put out an album for kids called Let’s Go Everywhere and I’ve seen videos of them playing for kids at bookstores. It very well may be an untapped market. Or perhaps a mistapped market. Do kids really enjoy being subjected to the Wiggles and Kidz Bop? It’s like when people dress their pets for the holidays. You love it! You love it this instant or you’re grounded.
So I saw Deerhoof at the Middle East last night in Cambridge. The show was 18+ but I definitely considered 90% of the crowd to be kids; grass stains, backpacks, rolled up shorts, that whole scene; the kind of crowd that just wants to draw with crayons all day and resist at all costs the pressure to become mature, responsible citizens, even if that means living in their parents’ house for another few years. It’s not just Satomi Matsuzaki’s childlike vocals that make Deerhoof songs sound like one bizarre picture book after another. Many of their songs have an undeniable narrative quality to them and upon seeing them I confirmed my intuition as to their approach to music. When they play music, they’re playing. Like the way kids play: building things, destroying them, getting suddenly distracted, repetitive tangents, falling asleep, starting over.
I was really happy to hear the variations they made for some of the songs. I thought their almost tropical take on “Flower” off Apple O’ was especially cool. And the opening band wasn’t bad either: Glass Ghost.
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I Likeee Lykke Li
Those Swedes certainly churn out a great deal of sweet indie pop. And Lykke Li (full name: Li Lykke Timotej Zachrisson) is the latest and greatest product to pump out of the sugar factory. With a voice that channels Frente! – that Australian folk-pop wonder from the early 90s – she’s tearing up the indie scene at the tender age of 23. Check out her debut album Youth Novels, released just last year. “Dance Dance Dance” is a hot ticket track that will make you want to…well, do just that.
The Beatles Remasters. A wonderful time is guarenteed for all.
Now before everyone starts yammering about BUT THEY COME OUT TOMORROW!!! I happened to walk into a store that sold them early, and I bought every single album. This review only serves to reflect improvements over their now horridly outdated counterparts, and not to review The Beatles entire catalog itself. With that said lets get to what matters. The music.
The Beatles are awesome, their the only thing that I can safely say is beloved by everyone and their mother. The Beatles catalog was released in 1987 to much distress. US listeners got copies of the UK version of the album, some were only available in mono, cats and dogs living together Oh my! Throughout the 90’s everyone from contemporaries such as The Rolling Stones, to even more obscure bands such as The Vaselines all received top notch remastering, leaving many fans wondering why the hell nobody remastered the catalog of the most influencial band ever. Well now there here. In mono and stereo, all in the UK format. Here they are…THE BEATLES!
As somebody who has spent an incalcuable amount of time listening to them, The Beatles albums are very much ingrained in my mind. I know the differences between mono and stereo, LP and CD. Cassette, 8-track, Reel to Reel. (Get the point). And the fact of the matter is that this is the best sounding Beatles ever. Levels were raised, and painstaking hours were spent giving the band a sonic overhaul. Lennon’s voice sounds crisp on songs like Rockey Raccoon, The orchestral parts on songs like Good Night are awesome. The harmonies and crunch guitars on songs such as And Your Bird Can Sing are just that much sweeter. Simply put they kick ass, it’s as if someone had caked a layer of dust on every disc sold and somebody came and cleaned it up. However as much as I do recommend people run out and buy these albums, while listening to them, basking in the very subtle neuonces I could now fully understand and conceptualize. It’s not about the remastering, it’s about the music. You could listen to Sgt Pepper on a Cassette that’s been worn since 1987 and still derive just as much pleasure as you could from these remasters. I urge you to give your older cd’s not to music stores so they can sit on shelves and be mocked by audiophiles claiming that they can now hear Ringo’s squeak chair during the final chord on A Day In The Life with painstaking accuracy. Give your cd’s to cousins or other people who might not have listened through a Beatles album. The draw of this music is for it to be incalculably outreaching, that’s the legacy and the intent of The Beatles music. It’s not for Yoko, Paul, Oliva, and Ringo to run off with millions of pounds to buy whatever it is they buy, it’s for an entirely new generation to be exposed to one of the most puerile forms of pleasure, good music.
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Dance Like You’ve Heard it Before: The Limousines & DJ Paparazzi at Popscene [09.03.09]
As many people now know, thanks to Asher Roth and students not wanting to take any classes on Fridays, Thursday is the new Friday and as anybody who knows me or can take an educated guess by looking at my iTunes library they can most often find me at Popscene at 330 Ritch in San Francisco. Last week was no exception, and in fact last week was one of the best shows I’ve been to there consisting of The Limousines, a local bay area electropop duo, along with a guest DJ set by Hollywood based, Paparazzi.
About an hour and a half into the night, The Limousines emerge onto the stage, clad in matching red hoods and immediately start bringing the house down. It’s very rare for a band to sound better than recorded, but The Limos live are about ten times more electrifying when they are less than five feet away from you. Throughout the entire set Giovanni Giusti provided hard hitting beats that interlocked the dance floor with the pulse of about 400 sweaty hipsters’ heart while Eric Victorino’s dynamic vocals pierced through the fog and lights. About half way into the set, the whole club erupted into a sing along as they performed the remixed version of their hit “Very Busy People.” Over the course of the forty minute set, they played a few new songs, Eric Victorino at one point saying “its your new favorite song you’ve never heard” the new tracks didn’t decrease the crowds energy proving that The Limousines will be making us all dance for a very long time.
After The Limousines, Paparazzi spun for the remaining two hours of the night, and even though the big sweaty guy with football player stature that stood behind me during the Limo’s set shouted “limousiness got nooo soul put Paparazzi on!” Paparazzi failed to impress me. Of course, anything is good for dancing and there wasn’t a fall in the crowds energy once he started spinning, but after being pumped from an incredible live set Black Eyed Peas and Pitbull being mixed into rotation just didn’t seem to do it for me. I guess its always tough to follow a great act.
See The Limousines at Channel 104.9’s Big Show and Treasure Island Music Festival and Paparazzi spinning at Dance Arena and The Fox Theatre Pomona .
Who Is This Ida Maria?
There are still a few good things that MySpace is good for. Well, one good thing and that is discovering new obscure music. Give individuals who know nothing about html control over design and the end result is utter chaos and the likelihood that it’ll take several days to load a page. However, if you get there, go check out Ida Maria. She’s a sweet Swedish sensation, making energetic, punk-infused pop that will likely make you forget that you’re on the worst social networking site on the planet!
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DJ AM death
“New york, new york. Big city of dreams, but everything in new york aint always what it seems.”
As this year has turned out with terrible celebrity deaths (Billy Mays, Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, Teddy Kennedy, etc) another one just happened. The incredible DJ AM was found dead in his Manhattan apartment this morning with drug paraphernalia around after not being seen or heard from for a few days.
This is probably the death of Summer of Death that has affected me the most because DJ AM remixes are part of my every day playlist repertoire. With dates set through October, I’m sure many can relate to the fact of why I’m so shocked and upset at his death. Fellow dj, Paparazzi tweeted “I don’t want to believe this” John Mayer also tweets “I really want to use words right now but I can’t get em. Fuck.” amongst many others expressing their condolences.
Personally I have a theory that its a Final Destination thing, you know like in the movies when somebody escapes death but then it comes and finds them. About a year ago AM escaped death and survived a plane crash…getting it? That’s my theory. Let’s hope Travis Barker isn’t next.
Its a tragic loss to the DJ world.
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