From the city of jet noise, beaches, cover bands, sprawl, and suburban adventures (fast food tapas, what?!):
Kind Of Like A Big Deal (by way of P4k + thatott.com)
P.S. on my way to NYC for a few days. When I return, there'll be some tunes here for yr enjoyment.
Two shows on Friday 04/17/09:
Early show:
DBB Plays Cups w/Caninos @ the Garage (250 N 1st St), show starts 9 PM, no cover.
Caninos play really upbeat pop songs with a dash of country and silly humor thrown in. DBB Plays Cups will feature Caninos plus myself as the backing band. This time you can expect me to mostly play keyboards (!!!) and, thanks to the Caninos, this show will probably be a lot more melodic, tight, and structured than the last few. I promised that last time, but this time I really really really mean it.
Late show:
Order, Buck Gooter, Accumulator Syndrome, La Mere Vipere @ DUST. Head to this one afterwards, it's guaranteed to be quite the opposite of the one we're playing -- loud, loud, loud.
After yet another long dormant period, the Audiozine Listening Series shudders back to life. Two aural delights this time:
1) Dirty Projectors – Stillness Is The Move
Yes, this track has been out for a while. In fact, the full album leak’s been out for a while. That doesn’t change the fact that this song is a hugely auspicious sign that Bitte Orca, the latest offering from the Dirty Projectors, will be among the year’s better collections. Two notable points about “Stillness…”: a) it features a killer vocal that, for once, utilizes melisma, vibrato, and other elements that seem directly pulled from modern R&B; b) the track’s combination of huge drums, synthesized bass, spidery and spare guitar licks, and pop-friendly vocal strike me as being a delightfully warped take on the spare nursery rhyme-like quality of the last few years of hip-hop and R&B. A grayer shade of white, maybe?
2) Wintry Mix 2008-2009
Since last fall I’ve been playing around in my spare time with some really barebones free DJ software, mostly blending hip-hop and other danceable genres. Last winter, I decided to blend some songs outside of the dance music world in an attempt to catch the feeling of the season. From a mixing standpoint, there’s really nothing notable going on. But when I dug the mix up earlier this week, it seemed like something people might enjoy. Runtime is approx 30 minutes.
Tracklist:
D. Lissvik -- Track 6
Arthur Russell -- You and Me Both
Autechre -- Altibizz
Flying Lotus (orig. Kanye West) -- Love Lockdown Remix
Erykah Badu -- My People
Jaylib -- Starz
Slum Village -- Fall In Love
Jape -- Floating
No Age -- Keechie
Portishead -- Hunter
Last weekend, the annual MacRock festival went down in Harrisonburg (pics via Rob from the Dec). When I first went (in 2002), the event was a huge two-day festival that culminated with sets by the Dismemberment Plan and Fugazi, both of which were game-changers for my musical tastes and commitments. I went every subsequent year in college for one or both days of the festival and off the top of my head can recall sets by the Forms, the Desert Fathers, Kid 606, You Are The Drum, Order of the Dying Orchid, Ultradolphins, Prefuse 73 ft. Susie Ibarra (how crazy is that?!), Mr. Lif, Wesley Willis, Q And Not U, Wolf Eyes, Ted Leo, and Denali. After college, times have been more hectic and MacRock itself has steadily declined in scope. It was once a massively attended event with plenty of indie-famous names but, from what I understand, some financial mismanagement has led to its current, humbler form. And unfortunately, my schedule has kept me out of the loop since college.
That being said, I paid an ultra-brief visit to Harrisonburg on Friday night, catching only a set by Medications and then a really loose, fun hip-hop showcase at Blue Nile. Looking at the roster of bands, there was a lot less in the way of "star" power (i.e. no bands even close to as influential as Fugazi). But it still looked extremely fascinating; the festival appeared to gather up an enormous amount of talent from Virginia and the rest of the Mid-Atlantic. Though I missed their sets, Mas Y Mas, The Great White Jenkins, Invisible Hand, Nelly Kate, and a staggering number of great musicians played this year. Maybe MacRock has become something I once dreamed about: a festival where all of my friends' bands and their friends' bands and their friends' friends' bands play together. Gathering so much unsung talent seems as massively important to me now as seeing Fugazi back in the day.
Dang, I'm gonna need a nap and lots of ibuprofen thanks to last night's unbelievable Dan Deacon/Future Islands/Teeth Mountain show in Williamsburg, VA. Sonically and communally the best concert I've been to in probably the last year or so.
Anyway, once I've returned from slumberland, I fully expect to see you at The Box tonight, where Thomas Dean and Adam Smith will be spinning records/wrangling mp3s this evening. Starts around 10, no cover. Also, these guys comprise 50% of the lineup for Cville's best band at the moment, Invisible Hand. If you haven't downloaded their free SXSW promo EP yet, do it do it do it. And if you'd like a little background or context, then check out this interview that Rob conducted with Adam for the Dec.
Erik Carter (my friend and bandmate in the short-lived and never-publicly-debuted band, Contraceptors) directed a video for Jay Reatard and the ol' P4k just put it up on the internets. Enjoy!
04/01/09 -- Fluxblog is doomed.
04/02/09 -- Fluxblog is not doomed. Go enjoy yrself some nicely curated mixes of Wu Tang and Helium/Mary Timony tracks via the FluxTumblr.
We live in a brave new world of mp3 blogs and other techno-literate tastemakers. The huge internet-based network of writers and mp3 distributors can greatly expand our tastes, but at times I find that the actual writing and criticism components come up short. And, more worrisome, there are times when the internet seems to hype bands up well before the group in question has had time to develop organically.
Why all the handwringing? First, because I was reading way too much Hipster Runoff over the weekend and, second, because Fluxblog is effectively over. Fluxblog was one of the earliest mp3 blogs and its author, Matthew Perpetua, has been one of the few dependable, sensible writers in the internet-music-crit/distro age. He'll be writing exclusively for Pitchfork now, which means they've got at least one reliably good writer now. Anyway, in a digital domain of snap judgments and fashion statements posing as sonically substantive jams, Fluxblog will be missed.
