From the mid-90s to the early 2000s, the Internet was a roomier landscape. People tended to congregate in AOL chat rooms, but if you were a little savvier, you found a home on your favorite band's message board. If you were one of those poor saps who actually had a social life during your teenage years, here's an A-Z guide to obsessive boardies.
Read MoreIs it ageist to say that the sight of a 70 year-old rock-and-roller makes me uncomfortable?
Read MoreA recent Buke and Gase show reminded me of the power of good two-piece bands. And given the way we're wired, seeing two perspiring humans onstage, singing songs that often feature the word "love," tends to activate the imagination, too. Here's a wildly speculative look at the dynamics, both musical and personal, of some sweet rock duos.
Read MoreFive of us are on our way back from a cabin upstate, in a Dodge van with cushy captains' chairs and a back bench that electronically folds into a squeaky leatherette bed. We're all musicians, and even before I insert Grizzly Bear 's new album, Shields, into the CD player, opinions start clashing.
Read More“Yo, who's that guy everybody's lined up for?” asked this tall dude with Beats by Dre headphones, nodding at the swelling crowd around the Warp Records booth. I'd been at the Brooklyn Flea Record Fair for a couple hours and was a bit buzzed on Bitches Brew, but the question snapped me back to lucidity. “That's Flying Lotus, man!” I said. “He's signing his new LP Until the Quiet Comes.” I believe I dropped the adjective “dope” multiple times here.
As winds across the Williamsburg Waterfront concluded NYC's Indian summer, the arrival of Flying Lotus (né Steven Ellison) signaled the Cali producer's brief local residency, which includes a Terminal 5 show Sunday night and a Brainfeeder “takedown” on East Village Radio this afternoon. Basking in the man's broken-beat aura was a sublime bookend to an afternoon spent navigating the record fair's creamy nougat center withinSmorgasburg.
Moving away from NYC last year was rough, but rarely have I felt it so acutely as the walk on N 6th away from Bedford Ave, where the population of black-garbed Brooklyn girls — some in heels, more in skinny jeans, most sporting 12”-sized tote bags — increased tenfold. Couple that with Dogfish Head on tap at the barrel-bordered SmorgasBar, and I realized I'd landed in a specific sort of nirvana.
If I hadn't sent a Brooklyn Bangers weißwurst to my gullet like a scrumptious lead luftballon, I would've hit Yuji Ramen, where chef Haraguchi-san and crew concocted uni mazemen (sea urchin roe in dry-mixed ramen) assembly-line style. I'd pledged to remain sober for the first half of my record fair visit; besides, it's hard to juggle a notepad and a beer while digging through crates of LPs.
“You don't have any dubstep?” someone asked DUMBO-based techno titans Halcyon. I stifled an oath. The young woman next to me nabbed OutKast's Stankonia (LaFace) double-LP, and I stifled another oath.
I lingered at the Minimal Wave booth as founder/owner Veronica Vasicka updated me on Japanese pre-MIDI pioneer Sympathy Nervous. We recounted Modern Love's mind-altering sonic experience last night at Public Assembly, and I walked away with Sympathy Nervous' crystallinePlastic Love (Minimal Wave).
As the day progressed, rotating DJs segued from the Rolling Stones' “Get Off Of My Cloud” to Kraftwerk's “Boom Boom Tschak.” Clutching another cup of Bitches Brew, I mulled over the re-released Eraserhead Original Soundtrack (I.R.S.) at Sacred Bones and the rare stuff at Mondo Kim's: from Willie Hutch's Foxy Brown (Motown) to Squarepusher's caffeinated breakbeat Big Loada (Nothing/Warp). “Hey man, you see any dub?” one Kim's employee asked another, gesturing to a customer. “He's looking for dub.”
Now that's more like it, man. Flying Lotus would approve.
Images courtesy the author
Wye Oak's show at Music Hall of Williamsburg last week got me thinking about the potent layers of the human voice — its power to bind together sound and sense. Join me as I search for connections between boozy Irish folk songs and indie rockers covering Aaliyah.
Read More"A protest song is a song that's so specific that you cannot mistake it for bullshit" —Phil Ochs
As we march past the one-year anniversary of Occupy Wall Street (or politely make our way around it), I’m reminded that nothing keeps a good protest going like music. Long before Tom Morello and Jeff Mangum played Zuccotti Park, musicians have been harnessing and amping up the power of the people in song. Here are a few personal favorites.
"Which Side Are You On?" (Traditional)
This union anthem’s central thesis never gets old. There may be some complicated situations in the current political climate, but really it all comes down to what I like to call the Star Wars test: are you on the dark side of the force, or are you with the people — the rebels and the workers, the downtrodden, the mothers, the regular folks against whom the system is most often rigged? Pete Seeger leads it off here:
"Bella Ciao" (Traditional)
Out west in the little town of Oakland, we have a radical marching band called the Brass Liberation Orchestra. Rain or shine, they keep protest crowds animated and motivated with their kick-ass brass action. Although they don’t play it much anymore, "Bella Ciao" is one of my favorite BLO numbers. The song was originally an Italian anti-fascist tune, and despite the language barrier it never ceases to get everyone singing along. Here’s a mostly English version by Chumbawumba:
Nina Simone: "Mississippi Goddam"
It feels almost wrong to try and write any words about this stark, furious classic. It’s that good. We should all bow down before Nina Simone, and listen as she lays the horrors of racism in America across her keyboards and pounds them out the way only a genius can. God damn.
Public Enemy: "Fight the Power"
It’s hard for me to separate this song from Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing, in which it serves as a key narrative catalyst. Together, Lee and Public Enemy broadcast a potent cultural one-two punch that told America to wake up: racism is alive and well, and it's not going anywhere without a fight. As Chuck D says, "My beloved, let's get down to business."
Whether you love or hate its raw sound, riot grrl was the real deal, and this song is a chillingly straightforward “fuck you” to dudes who disrespect women. Hear it for the first time as a teenage girl, as I did, and you will never let misogyny go unaccounted for again.
Pulp: "Common People"
Okay, I wouldn’t technically categorize this as a protest song, but it’s an awesome, sneakily angry class-war fairytale. Brit-pop: dancin’ it out for the working-class since the fey 90s.
Bonus protest classics!
Woody Guthrie: "This Land is Your Land"
Phil Ochs: "I Ain’t Marching Anymore"
Sam Cooke: "A Change is Gonna Come"
Bob Marley & the Wailers: "Get Up, Stand Up"
Bob Dylan: "The Times They Are A-Changin’"
N.W.A.: "Fuck Da Police"
Billy Bragg: "Help Save the Youth of America"
Crass: "Do They Owe Us A Living"
Dead Kennedys: "California Über Alles"
…and about a million more. Leave your own faves in the comments. And then hit the streets.
Image: hiphop-n-more.com
Do you love reading but sometimes wish it were a little more social and a little less taxing on the wrists? Don't fret; just do a Big Read. There was Infinite Summer, when thousands of people read Infinite Jest, and Conversational Reading did a Big Read of Helen DeWitt’s The Last Samurai in 2010. And the latest, best Big Read is happening right now: Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick is starting a new life as a podcast. That means the dulcet voices of Stephen Fry, David Cameron, Tilda Swinton, and Simon Callow are all mainlining Melville’s words straight to your ears.
Feel like rising to Ahab's challenge? Here’s how you do it, in seven easy steps!
1. Accept & forgive your decades of Moby-Dick avoidance
“I’ve got too many other books.” “I wasn't that into Bartleby the Scrivener.” “I still hate my high-school American Lit teacher.” Or maybe you took that one English class pass/fail and realized that maybe you could pass without cracking that spine. One way or another, Moby-Dick got beached on your bookshelf. Perfect.
2. See a friend reading it and think seriously about picking it up
Maybe you just came off the heels of a terrible airplane novel and suddenly Melville doesn’t seem so terrible. Maybe you just want to sleep with that boy/girl with the oversized glasses and you need a reason to strike up a conversation. But don’t start the book yet. Baby steps.
3. Learn that Moby-Dick podcasts are happening and that David Attenborough and Benedict Cumberbatch are reading chapters
Read that again: David Attenborough. The dude narrated Planet Earth. Hell, he could read the chapters classifying different whales and have us riveted. Begin seriously considering reading the damn book.
4. Download the first podcast. Then the second. Then the third...
Okay, you’re committing to this. Just listen to Tilda Swinton intoning “Call me Ishmael.” Start out amused, quickly become addicted.
5. Get to Chapter 32 and briefly consider cancelling your internet service
Do whales actually have to be classified by size? Why are you listening to these overly detailed descriptions? Is this book even worth listening to? Ah, but herein lies the beauty of the Big Read: get on Twitter and ask everybody if you really need to keep going. Hear from various sources that yes, really, you should stick with it (and even finish the cetology chapter). Regain your belief that there's method to Melville’s mammalian madness.
6. Kill the White Whale
Four months and one hundred and thirty-five podcasts later, realize that you somehow did it. You read Moby-Dick. Wasn't it better than that terrible airplane novel? Did you hook up with the glasses-wearing friend? Who cares — this is one serious book crossed off your Lifetime Reading list. If you still have an apartment, pop a bottle of Champagne and toast your tenacity.
7. Go hunt another Big Read
Well? Did you think you were done? Look at your bookshelves. (You may take the bottle with you.) The Iliad is actually pretty awesome. And War and Peace’s two epilogues aren’t going to read themselves. Take a deep breath and pick one.
Go on, get cracking.
image credit: ocburbs.blogspot.com
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