Fundiblog

Janelle Monae & Sharon Jones on Letterman

roadsidecafe@hotmail.com — 2010-06-01T19:42:22-07:00

Now this is what Fundi calls must-see TV -- funk is alive & well in the 21st century thanks, in part, to these 2 talented soul-goddesses! And one more take on "I'm Not Gonna Cry" (embedding disabled) right here on YouTube.

LCD Soundsystem's "Drunk Girls" -- outta hand!

roadsidecafe@hotmail.com — 2010-04-20T06:56:04-07:00

RJD2 on stage, 4/10/10

roadsidecafe@hotmail.com — 2010-04-11T21:46:31-07:00

RJD2 tore up the Wild Buffalo in Bellingham to a packed house on the 58th stop of his 59-city tour. Mixing new songs from his album "The Collossus" with older favorites from "Deadringer" and "The Horror," Rambling John played an array of turntables, mixing boards, computers, gadgets and guitar and sang too. A good time was had by all!

And here's a RJD2 on-air radio mix from 2004 for your funky enjoyments: www.podcastcafe.org/freestyle/RJD2-BreezeblockMix-2004.mp3

Lisztomania-mania

roadsidecafe@hotmail.com — 2010-03-11T19:17:36-08:00

I think it might be impossible to not like, love even, the tune "Lisztomania" by Phoenix -- easily the best pop tune of 2009, up there with Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy." Here is the studio version, and here is a short acoustic version just for good measure. Even more importantly, this song has reached a critical mass of cultural saturation and is now being taught to our children in school. Seriously, this rendition is just plain AWESOME:

Sade vs. Badu Soulsmackdown!

roadsidecafe@hotmail.com — 2010-02-12T18:22:28-08:00

Muppet Mob?

roadsidecafe@hotmail.com — 2010-01-24T14:29:15-08:00

The Podcast Cafe's Favorite Music of 2009

roadsidecafe@hotmail.com — 2009-12-26T11:56:12-08:00

The xx, Phoenix, Iron & Wine, Miike Smith, Neko Case & the Japandroids receive valuable multiple vote-points in annual renowned world-famous poll of the SBWS tastemakers -- Nirvana roars back, P. ...Built to Spill is the only oldie but goodie to me, and I was stoked to hear Doug & Co. roar back with a solid album full of beauty, heartache and soaring guitar solos. ...To my ears, the blandest and most predictable album they've ever made -- I tried very hard to like it. ... Instead of Backspacer, check out the band playing ferociously in peak form in 1994 at Wolfgang's Vault -- one of the best, most energetic and passionate rock performances ever, methinks. ...Not a bad album per se, only that Wilco has set the bar so damn high for themselves and I was over this one after 2 or 3 listens. ...Japandroids is just pure post-punk, there is just something about this album that makes we want to grab a smashing stick and go to work, but not with anger, rather pure joy and a smile on my face. The Decemberists album deserves the full listen with headphones, not single tracks, for it is what I would dub Storybook Folk at its best. ...The Avett Brothers - Many of you know my long standing obstinance to country (and hesh too but that is a different story) but this album is just great song writing, plus I am a sucker for a banjo (The January Wedding.) ...Phoenix - admitedly I am a little tired of this album nowadays, but I couldn't get enough when this first came out early in the year. ...Some Nordic country that Dille will have to affirm but do give them a listen, I promise you will want to stand up and march. U2 - I know Bono's crooning can be a bit much but there are a number of tracks on this album that harken back to the glory days (Joshua Tree) mostly due to the Edge. ...There are tons of really good new releases but none that I felt were far and away better than the rest. ... Even some that are in my top 10 I don't see being on my regular rotation like so many top 10's in the past. As evidence to this point, in the KEXP top 90.3 albums of the decade only two were from 2009. Some of my favorite '09 releases do not even qualify as new albums (one live, two b-side comps and one EP). I even went back through many of the "consensus" top albums to make sure I wasn't just in some strange socialistic music rut where everything is equal. ... Anyway, before you call bullshit on my entire "2009 -the year of parody" theory, have a gander at what wheat I have separated from the chaff, in no specific order: ...Nirvana - Live at Redding (this I will be listening to for the rest of my life) ...I will say that I do agree with K-Pop that the Decemberists latest is worthy, specifically the "Wanting Comes In Waves" track.

Best Albums of the Decade

roadsidecafe@hotmail.com — 2009-12-06T11:33:30-08:00

NPR's music team has posted a provocative list of their "50 Most Important Albums of the 2000s", with different critics of diferent genres weighing in, hence the rock albums alongside classical alongside jazz (reviews and samples from the albums are found here). Note that these picks aren't the BEST of the 2000s, but instead representative of some important trend or defining moment in music over the past decade. I am very happy to see several non-obvious choices on their list by artists that have inspired, challenged and sustained me over the past decade: Burial, Bon Iver, The Bad Plus, Iron & Wine, Yo-Yo Ma. Radiohead is the only band with two albums on the list -- can you guess which two? Carey Brownstein's Monitor Mix blog at NPR has a lot of thoughtful essays, quizzes, timelines and whatnot about the past 10 years of music too. I'm also enjoying studying the lists of "The Top 200 Albums of the 2000s" over at Pitchfork -- I always get a bunch of new musical leads to track down reading their various staff lists of this and that. They also rate the worst album covers and best musical videos of 2009.

Looping Around the House with Simon

roadsidecafe@hotmail.com — 2009-11-22T19:41:55-08:00

Looping Around The House from Si on Vimeo.

Nosaj Thing in action

roadsidecafe@hotmail.com — 2009-10-23T15:44:01-07:00

Yours Truly Presents: Nosaj Thing from Yours Truly on Vimeo.

Summertime bounty & a brief respite for DJ Fundi

roadsidecafe@hotmail.com — 2009-08-08T11:00:04-07:00

Hello friends of the Podcast Cafe -- DJ Fundi here, and I've just uploaded a ton of new music to all three of the DJ Fundi's Podcasting Network outlets -- the main Podcast Cafe channel, the Live Archive and Radio Free Fundi -- six new episodes in all. That should be plenty for you to chew on for some time to come, not to mention all of the archives of past episodes, including the recent 3-part Michael Jackson Tribute. I'm going to take a break for a few months from working at the Podcast Cafe. I need to put my energy towards some other pursuits that sometimes get neglected in my frenzy of music mixing and distribution. ... DestinationBurningMan.com is demanding lots of attention right now as I prepare for my third Burn at the end of August with a group of stellar friends -- the dBM blog and the Radio dBM feed in particular are active and funky-fresh. ... I will probably post a new episode here and there on the main channel as I have a few more already in the can, including Part 2 of the Purple Reign series. I want to thank those listener-subscribers who donated money to the Podcast Cafe over the past couple of months, including Miguel B., Edubious, Jodie_sweetfire, LizardSnyder, CheesyChez and the Mountain Sufi, and to Noble Andy for the shipment of fine oolong tea from Taiwan. Their support helps keep this free service on the air and lets me know that folks appreciate the hours and hours of labor that goes in to keeping it alive. There's a PayPal link in the sidebar to the right if you too want to pitch in to show some love for DJ Fundi's efforts. Here are a couple of amazing videos to leave you with -- enjoy the rest of summer and keep on rockin' in the free world! ...

Just Colour from Jesper Kirkeby Brevik on Vimeo.

The Falcon from The Shamptonian Institute on Vimeo.

Rest in peace, Michael Jackson

roadsidecafe@hotmail.com — 2009-07-08T22:22:41-07:00

Michael Jackson performing with James Brown and Prince: http://www.youtube.com/watch? v=1CoxNzOOoQU

Blame It On the Boogie A Tribute to Michael Jackson (Part 1) by moontrolling

Blame It On the Boogie : A Tribute to Michael Jackson (Part 2) by moontrolling

Michael Jackson * 9.27.87 * Live in Yokohama

Dance Party at the Gorge

roadsidecafe@hotmail.com — 2009-06-27T19:03:42-07:00

Neil Young's Archives Vol. I

roadsidecafe@hotmail.com — 2009-06-17T21:58:42-07:00

But while they're paying the least amount of money, the CD-box purchasers may feel the most short-changed, as Archives is not quite the vault-clearing revelation that fans may have been hoping for. Of the advertised 43 unreleased tracks, most take the form of alternate mixes or live versions of familiar material, ranging from the subtle (a cavernous mix of "Helpless" that enhances the song's hymnal qualities) to the substantial (early stripped-down versions of "Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere" and future On the Beach track "See the Sky About to Rain"). But as Archives attests, the lack of true, unheard rarities can be explained by the fact that Neil's been pulling from his mythical stash of lost songs since the mid-60s, padding his 70s and 80s releases with songs ("Winterlong", "Come on Baby Let's Go Downtown", "Wonderin'") written during this early era. ...And make no doubt about it: Next to the budget-line CD issues that Reprise rushed to the market in the late 80s, the new versions sound spectacular, breathing new life into these old warhorses. ... With so many songs here already familiar to even the most casual classic-rock radio listener, the most illuminating moments on Archives come from the less celebrated tracts of his career. For one, the Squires tracks provide not just a time-capsule snapshot of Neil's first recording forays; rather, songs like the wonderful "I'll Love You Forever" provide glimpses of an unrealized future as a Beatlesque balladeer. ... And if the turn-of-the-70s triumvirate of Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, After the Gold Rush, and Harvest became the go-to soundtracks for America's post-hippie hangover, Neil's comparatively overlooked 1969 self-titled debut feels all the more contemporary for being excluded from that classic-rock holy trinity, boasting a soft-rock lushness that-- in light of psychedelic successors like the Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev, and Sparklehorse-- has proven as influential as any album in his canon. But as Archives' multitude of newspaper clippings and radio interview excerpts explain, it was Neil's dissatisfaction with that first album's textured production and mastering that made him go folk/rock (not to be confused with folk-rock), and though they're already been released, the Massey Hall and Fillmore sets still represent this era's purest manifestations of those acoustic/electric extremes. The 1969 Riverboat disc, however, is less about what Neil does during the songs (acoustic readings of his first-album and Springfield catalogues) as between them: he talks. ... So much so that the these between-song "raps" constitute their own bonus feature on the Riverboat disc-- perhaps inspired by one-time tour-mate Thurston Moore's similar verbal deconstruction of a Venom live album-- with a stream of amusing anecdotes about groupies, drugs and The Guess Who. ...Taken individually, the reams of extras that accompany every track on the DVD/Blu-ray editions-- candid photos, original handwritten lyric sheets, radio-promo spots, newspaper clippings, tape-box doodles, and so on-- may not seem like a compelling reason to pony up for Archives' enhanced options. ... Given that Neil's become rather media-shy in his old age, Archives provides an opportunity to track his transformation as a public figure through the many newspaper articles and radio-interview clips gathered here, from the wide-eyed teenager promoting his club night in the Winnipeg daily to the disgruntled Buffalo Springfield exile trashing Jimmy Messina's mixing job on that band's last record (early evidence of Neil's notorious audiophilia) to the self-described "rich hippie" contemplating the peculiarities of fame just as Harvest is about to make him a superstar. And the (mostly hidden) video teases sprinkled throughout the set-- like CSNY performing "Down By the River" on a David Steinberg-hosted teen dance show, or rare glimpses of the long-gone Riverboat-- culminate with a treasure trove of footage on Archives' final disc. Here we get a series of intimate interviews conducted during Harvest's farmhouse recording sessions, as well as Archives' most amusing easter egg find: a 15-minute sequence where Neil discovers CSNY bootlegs during a record-shopping trip circa 1971, sparking a heated argument with the store employee that culminates in Neil walking out of the shop, bootlegs in hand, without paying for them. ...Taken together, Archives' musical and visual material form as complete a picture of Neil Young's early years as the most die-hard fan could hope for. ... So your options are either to let the music play uninterrupted (while your screen displays serene film loops of spinning record players and reel-to-reel machines), or exit "play" mode and silently sift through the extras-- without being able to actually listen to the song those extras are meant to contextualize. ...Brian Eno was recently quoted as saying that if the practice of selling music in physical form is to continue, the emphasis will have to shift from the content to the form, to enable a unique user experience that can't be replicated with the click of a mouse. ... And for all its multimedia chicanery, Archives ultimately seeks to reassert an old-fashioned mode of attentive listening and engagement that's been mostly lost as music becomes a WiFi-streamed soundtrack to some other activity. But if Neil expects his fans to retain their enthusiasm for future volumes (particularly when the focus shifts to his erratic 80s output), he'll need to make that immersion process more fluid, less disruptive.

MM&W : "Amber Gris"

roadsidecafe@hotmail.com — 2009-06-09T22:45:40-07:00

This is the music video for "Amber Gris", the first single off of Medeski Martin & Wood's newest release, Radiolarians II. Radiolarians II is available now.

Beasties with The Roots

roadsidecafe@hotmail.com — 2009-05-28T21:26:14-07:00

Scenes from the Gorge...

roadsidecafe@hotmail.com — 2009-05-22T22:03:30-07:00

Happy 3rd Birthday Podcast Cafe !!!

roadsidecafe@hotmail.com — 2009-05-16T00:00:01-07:00

The Dead -- still alive -- in 2009

roadsidecafe@hotmail.com — 2009-05-01T13:15:54-07:00

There's something going on in the post-Garcia era, something bigger than lead guitarist Warren Haynes hitting the proper tone in his solos. It's the thrilling sense of a ship of fools that's lost its rudder, sailing at the whim of unpredictable winds. Without a figurehead, The Dead might be closer now to the egoless ideal that Garcia longed for. More of a band, less of a cult (there was a time when it was all Pigpen all the time, but they got over that loss, too). The Grateful Dead Experience has always been a more-than-the-sum-of-its-parts sort of culmination. That fact is driven home by the sum's continued evolution in the absence of what many considered its most important part... Addressing the crowd towards the end of the second set, after Bob unleashed an extra-screamy "One More Saturday Night," Phil perfectly summed up that sentiment. "Thank you all very much for coming out here, bringing our community back together again," he said. ... So thanks for bringing that magic to us, which is really what it takes for us to be able to make this music."

...There will always be naysayers sitting out the latter-day Dead, claiming the purity and fire is gone. Which is fine — for them the Experience is ossified, history, dead. Then there will be those that derive something meaningful from every encounter they have with the band, no matter what the setting or the lineup. They argue over details not to bemoan the band's demise but to keep the band alive. These aren't apologists or nostalgists, but seekers, thirsting for the Experience because they believe there is still nothing in the world like a Dead concert. ... You get out of it exactly what you put in...

...Saturday's set at The Gorge (America's most epic venue, sorry Red Rocks) wasn't perfect either, but it was joyous and thrilling and funny in a very welcome, familiar way. ... To bite a cliché and all the beauty and baggage it implies, it was like coming home. As long as The Dead are playing at this level, they're worth seeing. ... The old magic is still alive, if you want it.

Pearl Jam's "Release"

roadsidecafe@hotmail.com — 2009-04-22T21:12:45-07:00

e worldAnd here's a bonus track, also from the "Ten" release set -- great counterpoint to four listens of "Release": Breath and a Scream (1992) Release : Lyrics by Eddie Vedder ...I see the world, feel the chill Which way to go, windowsill I see the worlds on a rocking horse of time I see the verse in the rain Ohh...ohh...ohh...ohh... Oh, dear dad, can you see me now I am myself, like you somehow Ill ride the wave where it takes me Ill hold the pain... Release me... Ohh...ohh...ohh...ohh... Oh, dear dad, can you see me now I am myself, like you somehow Ill wait up in the dark for you to speak to me ...Release me... ...Ohh...ohh...ohh...ohh...

Tiger Mountain Peasant Song (Fleet Foxes covers)

roadsidecafe@hotmail.com — 2009-02-20T21:35:13-08:00

And finally, hailing from Lake Washington High School from the top of Rose Hill in Kirk land, Wa, Subpop recording artist, Robin Pecknold:::

My Sugar Lumps

roadsidecafe@hotmail.com — 2009-02-05T15:27:05-08:00

Boogie Universal presents...

roadsidecafe@hotmail.com — 2009-01-19T10:57:23-08:00

Freddie's Dead

roadsidecafe@hotmail.com — 2009-01-03T09:49:18-08:00

Of all the stylistic eras and instruments of jazz, trumpeters from that era seemed to have the most difficult time of it; many of Hubbard's contemporaries -- including Woody Shaw, Lee Morgan and Booker Little -- died tragically young, some violently. Even though Hubbard was the only member of this elite group to live into his late 40s and beyond, his career also was curtailed by severe troubles, both personal and professional. ...Hubbard had essentially lost his lip by the early '90s -- he more or less admitted as much in a 1995 interview in Downbeat. Even though I had heard him live a number of times in the last 15 years of his life, I still don't feel like I really heard him. ...Hubbard brought his working band into a now-forgotten club in Brooklyn and invited fellow Jazz Messenger Lee Morgan to join him. Blue Note issued the results on a widely acclaimed two-LP set titled "The Night of the Cookers" in which everything -- the dual-trumpet format, the extra-long tunes (one per LP side, about 20 minutes each), the title -- promised not just a jam session but a cutting contest, in which two of the most fearsome brassmen of their generation would slice each other to ribbons. ... But most of the time, Hubbard and Morgan are working with each other rather than against each other. The Latin-styled standard "Pensativa" is a convenient example, because Morgan opens the tune playing muted, which makes it easy to distinguish between the two. ... Hubbard's slightly sharper and more biting, and they briefly reprise a stock Clifford Brown lick (a quote from Jimmy Van Heusen's "All This and Heaven Too"). It's a long, almost rhapsodic interlude -- part of the time they're like two accomplished dancers doing an intricate routine together, like the Nicholas Brothers, but sometimes it's a duel to the death. ..."Cookers" stands out because it's not like any of the other 15 or so classic albums Mr. ... Hubbard's most revered recordings utilize the general approach perfected by Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers (with whom Hubbard worked for most of the early '60s): Emotionally driven extended solos are set within a tight compositional framework, allowing the composer (usually Mr. ...Hubbard made two albums for Atlantic, "Backlash" (which contains his two most famous songs, the waltz "Up Jumped Spring" and the delicately Latinate "Little Sunflower") and "High Blues Pressure," which are almost more Blue Note-y than most of his Blue Note albums. But what's really surprising is that many of his so-called fusion albums of the 1970s (made for CTI and Columbia) hold up very well. ... Hubbard blends his long-perfected hard-bop style (now being called "soul jazz") with overtly "commercial" elements, which vary between old-school pop (strings) and new-style rock (electronics). ... Hubbard balanced such market-driven projects with the deliberately experimental "Sing Me a Song of Songmy," an outlandish concoction by Turkish composer Ilhan Mimaroglu that sounds like Milton Babbitt and Stockhausen getting together with John Lennon and Yoko Ono to do a remake of "Bitches Brew." ...In the '60s, he had been called upon to stand in for Miles Davis in several classic albums by his sidemen, like Herbie Hancock's "Maiden Voyage" and Wayne Shorter's "The All-Seeing Eye." ...Hubbard's last hurrah, but they were among his final great sessions in the acoustic modern jazz setting that made him a star to begin with. Toward the end of his life, he began working with the New Jazz Composer's Octet led by trumpeter David Weiss, as on the 2001 album "New Colors," which allowed him to concentrate on his writing rather than trying to recapture past pinnacles as a player.

Looking back...

roadsidecafe@hotmail.com — 2008-12-22T18:48:34-08:00

Kings of Leon/Only by the Night ...Death Cab for Cutie/Narrow Stairs ...TV on the Radio/Dear Science ... 1) Vampire - yes they have been played to death but I have to say they were my most listened to album, such happy up beat (literally strum upwards on guitar like SKA) - we need more music like this. 2) Beck - not my fav Beck (Paper Tigers) but I appreciate the happy grooves. 3) Kings - they are now taking over indie radio but they are one of those bands that is growing with each new album - kinda like how Coldplay grew outta KEXP to mainstream... I just hope they still get the airplay on KEXP. 4) Orchestra - talk about happy, West African guitar....this is party music in my book. 5) Girl Talk - Kinda like a Soduku puzzle, listen and try to figure out all the cuts...it blows your mind. He has taken the torch from Danger Mouse...just hope it doesn't end the same...lawsuit. 6) DCFC - honestly I am tired of this album but I have to give credit to it being in my rotation for a period of time. The tune Cath has a sound like their earlier albums which I dig. 7) The Tings Tings - dig deeper than 'That's not my name' and will discover the refreshingly low budget punk/dance sound. ...8) Ray - perhaps a tad too high on the list, but I am still blinded by his earlier albums - this has grown on me, had to adjust to the different sound. ...The Dutchess and the Duke – She’s the Dutchess, He’s the Duke ...Wild Sweet Orange – We have cause to be uneasy Head Like a Kite – there is loud laughter everywhere ...TV on the Radio –Dear Science ...Add your favorites and feedback in the comments.

Flying Lotus

roadsidecafe@hotmail.com — 2008-12-09T14:50:58-08:00

Ellison began his life as an artist making films in college, and has worked on a documentary about his great-aunt Alice Coltrane, who died last year. (There is a meditative sprawl in many Flying Lotus recordings that is not far removed from the work of the Coltrane family.) The hip-hop producer Ellison is most often grouped with is the late J Dilla, who worked with a wide variety of artists, including A Tribe Called Quest and Erykah Badu. Though Ellison shares J Dilla’s love of placing a hard, simple backbeat inside an indistinct wash of background noise, Ellison’s work is more extreme, pushing toward almost total atomization. ...The result, which can be heard on the Flying Lotus MySpace page, is a perfect example of how Ellison’s generation is trying to combine the musical equivalent of the figurative and the abstract. The voices sound like voices, and the instruments more or less sound like instruments, set in a frame of noise that refers only to itself and unfolds in irregular rhythms that almost, but not quite, get the upper hand over the steady time holding the music together. The “Reckoner” remix opens with what seems to be brushes or, possibly, handfuls of sand being dropped on an open snare drum. ... Around the original Thom Yorke vocals a louder motif repeats, which could be another keyboard or Yorke’s own voice, doubled up on itself, as if wrapped in plastic. ... As radical as the change of mood is, and as detailed as it manages to be, the track is less than four minutes and never gets too busy. ...Here, the Flying Lotus aesthetic stays on the stoned side of the fence too often, and ends up being paired with female vocalists whose voices are far less distinct than Yorke’s. ... “Interference,” which is less than three minutes long, opens with a small storm of static, and then the song forms around wooden clacks, buzzes, and an electronic voice, all of it encircled by a bell-like melody. ... EP 2 x 3” features remixes from Los Angeles-based collaborators like Samiyam and Nosaj Thing, as well as Mike Slott, a young man from the LuckyMe collective, in Glasgow. (LuckyMe’s recent multiple-d.j. set at Nublu, in the East Village, was sparsely attended but was a glorious, juddering collision of bumptious, harsh bass and sweet, tootling treble.) What is exciting about Ellison and his friends is not that they execute every track cleanly and perfectly or that they are a hard-charging group set to change the sound of radio. Ellison, like many of the artists in this affinity group I’ve met, has hundreds of unheard tracks on his hard drive, some long, many short. ...Aside from shouting out a few words of tribute to the Coltrane heritage, Ellison simply stuck to his laptop and to two devices that controlled and modified what was coming out of it: an M-Audio Trigger Finger, which allows the user to bang on a series of satisfying rubber pads, bringing back the physical gesture of the drum, and a Monome, a series of lighted buttons that controls sequences while making elegant patterns of orange-and-yellow light. The set began with quieter, clattering tracks from “Los Angeles,” like “Camel,” which centers on a placid metal clanking that could be a very organized group of cows crossing the road, and moved into heavier tracks by members of the LuckyMe collective, like Hudson Mohawke’s genuinely loopy “ZooO00oO0m,” a clump of high and low synthesizer lines that seems to be trying to untangle itself and to pogo at the same time. As he played, Ellison bobbed furiously, with an enormous smile on his face, twisting knobs but looking as if he wanted to dance as much as physically possible without abandoning his equipment. The set segued into his own gentle, loopy remix of Lil Wayne’s ubiquitous “A Milli” and then settled into several brutish, heavy tracks from the dubstep genre—rough-cut slabs of bass and drums that bully the listener into dancing.

Obama vs. McCain Dance-Off

roadsidecafe@hotmail.com — 2008-11-08T19:43:40-08:00

Celebration in the Streets

roadsidecafe@hotmail.com — 2008-11-08T19:41:55-08:00

Yes We Did!!!

roadsidecafe@hotmail.com — 2008-11-05T18:56:23-08:00

Glitch Mob Street Warfare

roadsidecafe@hotmail.com — 2008-10-30T08:35:13-07:00

more Foxes...

roadsidecafe@hotmail.com — 2008-10-22T12:29:11-07:00

Fleet Fox Mania!!

roadsidecafe@hotmail.com — 2008-10-19T13:12:59-07:00

Cool Fleet Foxes bio from the Sub Pop website here and a story called "Fleet Foxes Are Not Hippies: Don't Let the Floppy Hats, Jesus Beards, and Five-Part Vocal Harmonies About Rivers, Trees and Sunshine Throw You" from the Stranger over here. Found these fine homemade videos too:
Fleet Foxes He Doesn't Know Why from Grandchildren on Vimeo.
White Winter Hymnal from Grandchildren on Vimeo. OK. That is all.

Little Superstar vs. Herbie Hancock

roadsidecafe@hotmail.com — 2008-10-17T10:59:37-07:00

Bill Frisell in Bellingham

roadsidecafe@hotmail.com — 2008-09-15T21:51:45-07:00

I've been dying to get inside of Pat Wickline and Sharon Streams' renovated-church venue on Mill Avenue in Fairhaven since they started hosting concerts there last year. Intimate affairs, their concerts have been more like living room hootenannys as the intimate space only accommodates125 people. But my, what a living room: a former Methodist church originally built in Fairhaven's 1890 building boom, it boasts over 3,000 square feet of old-growth California redwood boards paneling 25 foot-high ceilings that soar upwards in graceful arcs. "The ceilings looks like the hull of a ship," Wickline once remarked to the Herald. The design of the space and use of natural materials reportedly combine to create a warm, one-of-a-kind reverberation and compression that brings out the best in vocals, acoustic instruments and drums. Frisell, under these circumstances, seems like a natural fit for the Church House. His penchant for generating ambient abstractions, and the creative ways in which he coaxes a wide range of sonic spectrums from his guitar, leads me to believe he is going the make the whole room sing. Since Frisell's Valentine's Day 2007 performance with Greg Leisz at the Nightlight Lounge, the Bainbridge Island-based musician has continued with his prodigious output of albums – each one seemingly inventing its own new category of music – his most recent release being the double-CD set History, Mystery. Trying to describe it with a friend the other day, we came up with "americana/soundtrack," "avant-garde jazz" and "postmodern bluegrass chamber music," but we didn't know what it was called when you released a record that contains all of those genres, sometimes in the same song. Most of History, Mystery was recorded live with a very talented octet including Ron Miles, Jenny Scheinman, Eyvind Kang, Tony Sherr and Kenny Wollesen. ... An unusual hybrid of songs that Frisell wrote for various side projects, sometimes they feel like a gesture or a brief thought, maybe a passing mood. Short bridges like the one-minute "Probability Cloud 2" or the 36-second "A Momentary Suspension of Doubt" stitch the larger suite together. ...The best model one might look to anticipate what this talented musician might play would be to give a listen to Ghost Town, his 2000 solo release on which he plays acoustic and electric guitars, bass and the 6-string banjo, as well as deftly builds and bends woozy loops of his various instruments. He has a fondness for electronic effects and at performances is often seen twiddling knobs, pressing buttons and tapping foot pedals. Frisell's is the light touch however, and his audial manipulations are typically restrained and subtle, providing depth and mysteries to his compositions. He'll be playing the Bellingham solo show coming hot off a 5-night stand at the Village Vanguard in New York City, where he'll have performed with his long-time jazz trio with Paul Motian on drums and Joe Lovano on saxophone. Hopefully he'll have time to take a deep breath of the autumn-tinged maritime air in our fair burg before his fall tour launches him to Sao Paulo, Rio De Janeiro, Lisbon, Zurich, Istanbul, Budapest, Zagreb, Rotterdam, London and points in between, all before Thanksgiving. To say the City of Subdued Excitement is fortunate to host Frisell at the Church House is an understatement. One thing's for certain: he's going to deliver a sermon to remember.

Musica Obscura

roadsidecafe@hotmail.com — 2008-07-22T20:20:55-07:00

Vancouver Folk Music Festival July 18-20 Jericho Beach Park, Vancouver, BC A festival with a generous definition of folk, this laid-back gathering on the beach has roots stretching back over 25 years. Many of the eclectic world beat musicians do indeed play folk, but it's the traditional music of the Middle East, Ireland, Africa and beyond. Consciousness-raising hip-hop, bluegrass and some pop thrown in for good measure. Featuring Abigail Washburn and The Sparrow Quartet featuring Bela Fleck, Michael Franti & Spearhead, Yungchen Lhamo, Aimee Mann, the Master Musicians of Jajouka, John Reischman and the Jaybirds, Ozomatli and others. Café, music workshops, Arts Market, Little Folks Village and sunny Strait of Georgia views. 21st annual Grand Targhee Bluegrass Festival August 8-10 Alta, Wyoming Perched high in the mountains at a ski resort on the Idaho-side of the Grand Tetons, this is one of my all-time favorite music festivals ever. Aspen groves, lingering sunsets and tawny meadows set the backdrop for 3 days of intimate performances from always-personable bluegrass players, and the campground rocks all night with pickin' and croonin' circles deep in the pines. Featuring Tim O'Brien, Tony Trischka's Double Banjo Bluegrass Spectacular Band, Sam Bush, Abigail Washburn and The Sparrow Quartet featuring Bela Fleck, Darrel Scott and the Infamous Stringdusters.

Praises

roadsidecafe@hotmail.com — 2008-06-29T19:53:42-07:00

Esbjorn Svensson, leader of e.s.t., R.I.P.

roadsidecafe@hotmail.com — 2008-06-21T09:49:09-07:00

If you're the DJ on a jazz radio programme, as I am, you face the task of dealing with the death of a significant musician at some point or other. Live on air, it's no easy task: how do you actually say that a person has died? ... Your tone of voice, almost inevitably, is gauged too far towards stiffness - I avoid referring to someone as having "passed away" but it's often all you can say. It's easy to make a slip, and if it's live, you'll never get another chance to show your appreciation for that person or, in the case of the Swedish jazz pianist Esbjörn Svensson, your love. I'm not looking forward to my show on Sunday, where I will pay tribute to Svensson, one of the great jazz pianists and composers, who died last week at the age of 44. There's no question of me getting this broadcast wrong - my listeners already know how I'll be feeling. ... Endless plays of Elevation of Love, which still makes me smile, cry and want to drive across Europe in mad abandon, or critical appraisals of the Esbjörn Svensson Trio's Viaticum - which I slightly criticised, for God's sake - will mean that my listeners will be tuning in for a tribute from a number one fan. ...Bored with the usual thing and knowing I could find the "good stuff" in northern Europe, I headed to the record shop at the earliest opportunity. ... Seeing this enticing minimalist design made me buy all the EST they had, and driving back to the ferry I listened all night. The mix of autobahn and EST was delicious - I had found what I was looking for in jazz. ... It was sensuous, soulful and funky music, executed with precision and passion but tempered by the self-awareness of competent jazz players honestly stretching the potential of the music. I underline that this music was born out of self-awareness, not self-consciousness; this wasn't an exercise in vanity. ...I was lucky enough to interview the trio in Southampton for my show around the release of Seven Days of Falling. It was my first radio interview and probably the most nervous I've ever been. I was allowed to watch the soundcheck and sat at the back of the auditorium to watch EST perform Elevation of Love, with me as the sole audience member. ... To this day it's my favourite track: its seamless variations and nods at all the musical styles still wows me. Esbjörn - though he wouldn't take credit in the interview - had constructed the most moving piece of music, its progressions wrenching the listener into a blanket of beauty no matter where the CD is played. ...Probably for the first and last time, my show on Sunday will be a tribute to my favourite musician: a champion of the European sound - indeed Svensson was the European jazz sound - a man whose musical mind, as complex as it was, embraced all its listeners, whether jazzheads or not. I'm not looking forward to my show, but I will convey how much Esbjörn Svensson meant to jazz and to jazz fans.

Black Cab Sessions & Blogotheque

roadsidecafe@hotmail.com — 2008-06-12T09:32:07-07:00

Prince at Coachella

roadsidecafe@hotmail.com — 2008-05-01T09:57:34-07:00

The big difference: One of them is indisputably one of the great performers of our shared lifetimes, a galvanizing presence with a deep catalog and history of leaving awe in his wake, and arguably even—if you look at the full scope of 20th and 21st century musicianship—the Last of the Great Entertainers. ...Not that there wasn’t a lot of enthusiasm right at the front of the stage for Johnson’s climactic performance, where there were a few thousand extremely enthusiastic fans packed tight and, when the overhead screens caught sight of them, cheering wildly; it was just behind them that you saw the kind of wide open spaces that once made the American West so inviting to European immigrants. Now, it’s altogether likely that these few thousand diehard Johnson fans were people who wouldn’t have otherwise bought a three-day pass to Coachella, given the lack of any other similar band among the 100-plus scheduled acts, so maybe his booking wasn’t a total bust. ... The guy has sold more albums than anybody this year, and to the extent that he’s seen as kind of a poor man’s Dave Matthews, it’d be easy to assume that Johnson would be the one reliable stadium-filler to come along in rock in the last 20 years. ...Once Kraftwerk took the stage at dusk, however, the mainstage crowd instantly swelled to at least three times what it’d been for any other act in the preceding day and a half of music, and any fears that there wouldn’t be a Coachella 2009 immediately subsided. ...After that aforementioned instrumental, Prince launched into “1999” and followed it up with partial or full versions of “I Feel for U,” “Controversy,” “U Got the Look,” “Cream,” the great “Anotherloverholenyohead” (along with “Shhh,” one of only a couple halfway-obscure album tracks), and “Musicology” (the only selection from one of this decade’s Prince albums). ...For much of the song, Prince altered the lyrics to shift them away from the first-person, singing them as “You wish you were special…” instead of “I wish…” And this made a certain amount of sense: Could as renowned an egotist as Prince really sing about feeling insecure or having feelings of self-loathing, right after he interrupted “Cream” to give us an amusingly self-aggrandizing aside about how “I wrote this song while I was looking in the mirror”? ... Then came another extended cover: Sarah McLachlan’s “Angel,” done up as a gospel number, sung entirely by a backup singer that we later learned was Ledisi, the fairly obscure R&B stylist who rose to greater fame when she was nominated for a best new artist Grammy this year. ...Then it was back to Prince—back in canary yellow after a costume change—for a “Seven” that led right into the Beatles’ “Come Together,” followed by the only predictable part of the night: encores of “Purple Rain” and “Let’s Go Crazy.” One complaint I have at festivals is how little evidence there is among some of the performers that they know they’re at a festival; the bigger the headliner, the more they’re apt to just plow through their usual touring show, without any concessions for the uniqueness of the night. But Prince took advantage of the fact that he was at a “rock festival” to show off his rock & roll guitar prowess at the kind of length I’ve never seen him do before, at least outside of an all-instrumental club set. (The last time I saw Prince, I was standing eight feet away from him at Hollywood’s Hotel Roosevelt as he finished up a jazz-fusion set at about 6 in the morning for the 30 or so of us who remained. ... If the guy had done nothing in his life but aspire to be the lead guitarist in a band, he’d be a Hall of Famer, but there are so many other aspects to his genius that that’s not always the one he favors. But on Saturday night, he didn’t bogart the Stratocaster, interrupting nearly every song—except for the most truncated or medley-ized ones—for an impressive workout, even showing off a couple of times by soloing just with his left hand on the neck while he waved the right around in the air freely, mock-conducting his own virtuosity. ...There may be no such thing, since his catalog and capabilities are so vast that diehard fans are likely to come away just a little disappointed by some song or strain he doesn’t get to. ...Just a few hours earlier, we’d marveled at the magnificence of the audio setup during Kraftwerk’s performance, a true showcase of how good the sound can be in this large a setup, and a teaser for how spectacular Roger Waters was likely to sound in his Sunday-night slot. But when Prince came on, the volume seemed diminished by half, and I had to go plant myself right in front of a bank of speakers to feel like I was at a rock show. ... Since some of the acts in the dance tents go on till 2 or 2:30 in the morning, it’s reasonable to surmise that any such curfew has more to do with not tormenting the sleeping residents of Indio rather than following union regulations. ...And then it was onto Sunday, and some of us felt just a little ruined, for the moment, for more indie-rock, because it's tough to watch Prince and then see just about anybody else and feel like the musical bar hasn't been set awfully low.

His Holiness in the Pacific Northwest

roadsidecafe@hotmail.com — 2008-04-24T21:00:33-07:00

"Return of the Rock Lobsters"

roadsidecafe@hotmail.com — 2008-04-19T16:49:01-07:00

But the B-52s’ unusual mix of the avant-garde (they cite John Cage and Yoko Ono as influences), 1960s fashion (Diana Vreeland is another hero) and party-friendly pop (girl groups, garage rock) eventually struck a nerve, winning fans like John Lennon and a young Kurt Cobain. ... Most recently their first hit, “Rock Lobster,” was the soundtrack for the drunken conception of a baby in the film “Knocked Up.” ...While many of their reactivated contemporaries, like the Police, have not recorded new material, the B-52s were growing tired of playing the same songs every night and desired a fresher set list. ...Wilson’s brother, the band’s co-founder and guitarist, Ricky Wilson (who died of AIDS in 1985), at school in Athens in the early 1970s. ... According to band lore, the B-52s (named after local slang for their female singers’ signature beehives) formed after sharing a five-strawed Polynesian cocktail at a Chinese restaurant, which led to a jam session at a friend’s house. ...By 1977 the band scored a short gig at Max’s Kansas City in New York, where some people in the crowd assumed that the women in the band were drag queens. ...By the time “Rock Lobster” was released as an independent single in 1978, the B-52s were drawing the likes of William S. ...So for “Cosmic Thing,” the group’s sixth album, released in 1989, the band enlisted as co-producer Chic’s Nile Rodgers, who had worked on second-act hits for David Bowie and Duran Duran. “I had them do things on that album that they’d never done before,” said Mr. ... “I remember, when I finished, calling the record company and saying, ‘I hope you do the right thing here, ’cause you got a smash on your hands.’ ...Geordon Nicol, of the Manhattan D.J. and promotions trio Misshapes, remembers playing “Planet Claire” at a packed party, but to his surprise, “It didn’t go over so well,” he said in an e-mail message. ... He thinks that there is a certain stigma attached to saying you love the B-52s, at least for those “who think ‘Love Shack’ and ‘Roam’ are all the band has to offer — most people miss out.” ...The band gathered in Athens and upstate New York to jam and quickly decided that it was time to record again. ... On “Ultraviolet” he sings, “There’s the G spot/Pull the car over,” which will surely end up in the museum of groaners some day. ...But the B-52s have always celebrated music’s power to “make you feel a lot better,” as the early song “Dance This Mess Around” proclaims. ... The band traditionally performs them live, but as the members get older they admit that it’s getting harder and harder to get them right. ...Positive review of "Funplex" over at Pitchfork Media: "This overriding theme of Funplex-- temporarily forgetting your troubles and giving over completely to the pleasures of getting down-- underscores the album's two best moments, "Juliet of the Spirits" and "Eyes Wide Open". "Juliet" is the album's ladies-only electro-jam, Pierson and Wilson's voices pushed into a deleriously high register, and asserting on the wide-eyed chorus "I'm not afraid anymore." "Eyes" moves from a dark, claustrophobic verse to an expansive disco-tinged refrain, triggered by Strickland's crisp, echoed guitar: "I don't wanna clash/ I don't wanna rehash the past/ I just wanna release!"

Erykah Badu's "New Amerykah"

roadsidecafe@hotmail.com — 2008-04-02T21:43:36-07:00

That night, she sang a song that suggested a vocal comparison that has dogged her, and other singers, in the past decade, though it wasn’t such a common reference point in 1996: Billie Holiday. ... The song she chose was “Appletree,” a cutesy number with an anachronistic bent: “And if you don’t want to be down with me, you don’t want to be from my apple tree.” ...Her just released album, “New Amerykah Part One (4th World War),” is a brilliant resurgence of black avant-garde vocal pop, convincing in its doubts and stable in its unmoored ways. This lineage started, roughly, in the late sixties, with Sly Stone, on the West Coast, and, a bit later, Marvin Gaye, in Detroit; continued through George Clinton’s various iterations of Funkadelic and Parliament; and bled into the work of one of the great soul acts of the nineties, D’Angelo, a friend of Badu’s. ... Like “Voodoo”—and like Miles Davis’s “On the Corner,” as several critics have noted—“New Amerykah” is a relatively short record that feels infinitely relaxed, and favors sound and mood over choruses and verses. ... The success of that sound has resulted in Badu’s best opening week since her first album, “Baduizm,” was released, eleven years ago: both albums débuted at No. 2 on the Billboard charts. “Baduizm” was one of the first releases to be tagged “neo-soul,” a genre that has little to do with older soul music but does tend toward slow tempos, a pronounced bass line, hushed instrumental moves, like quiet rim shots (“I want a rim shot, hey, diggy diggy,” goes the first song on “Baduizm”), and the use of an electro-acoustic keyboard, most often a Fender Rhodes. ...Her first hit, “On & On” (1997), for example, wasn’t about any one subject, though there was a specific basis for some of the lyrics: the Nation of Islam of Gods and Earths, a splinter group formed in Harlem by Clarence 13X Smith after he broke with the Nation of Islam, in 1963. ... All this undertow is probably imperceptible to most of the three million people who have bought “Baduizm,” but, when Badu refers to “master teachers” on “New Amerykah,” the ghost of Smith is present. ...One of the first tracks to leak from “New Amerykah” was “The Healer,” a song that has little to do with any known genre. It begins with a brief snippet from a song by Malcolm McLaren featuring the World’s Famous Supreme Team, an obscure reference that will be instantly recognizable to hip-hop’s faithful—a sort of secular analogue of Smith’s Five Percent philosophy. “The Healer” was produced by Madlib, an independent hip-hop producer who usually works with rappers; the music flirts with total stasis, though it still has an audible beat. ... Badu also sings a dedication to “Dilla,” a reference to the hip-hop producer James (Jay Dee) Yancey, a beloved figure and collaborator of Madlib’s who died, from complications of lupus and a blood disorder, in 2006, at the age of thirty-two. But if you listen only once to “The Healer” it is clear that the song itself, like the other songs on “New Amerykah,” isn’t so much hip-hop as it is a reorganization of the historical flotsam and jetsam that were recycled and turned into hip-hop. ... Over a seventies funk vamp, Badu mumbles; a chorus of female voices sings “American promise”; and a deep male voice intones, in the manner of a corrections officer speaking over a P.A. system, “Excuse me, young lady, excuse me, you’re causing quite a disturbance over here.” ... What the track most recalls is the opening of a Funkadelic record, like “Maggot Brain,” or the moments when George Clinton would let a variety of characters play out paranoid scenarios, and blend explicit political satire into unhinged, improvisatory funk. ...“Twinkle,” a remarkably odd track that Badu co-produced with the engineer Mike Chavarria—he is responsible for many of the album’s deep and strange sounds—starts with a sample of what might be film dialogue, and seems to involve a fight. ... Badu raps, “Children of the matrix be hittin’ them car switches, seen some virgin Virgos hanging out with Venus bitches,” and then uses melodic singing to explain what is going on: “They don’t know their language, they don’t know their God.” ... After a minute, you realize that it doesn’t just sound like Peter Finch’s rant from “Network”; it is that rant, but with a new score, something like the Art Ensemble of Chicago locked in a room with Brian Eno.

MicroMoog Laboratories Worldwide

roadsidecafe@hotmail.com — 2008-03-09T13:08:55-07:00

Dubstep revealed

roadsidecafe@hotmail.com — 2008-01-28T18:48:31-08:00

The party was Dub War, a monthly get-together for the obsessed and the curious. And Friday’s headliner was D1, a dubstep producer and D.J. from Fulham, in West London; the gig was billed as his American debut. On paper the labyrinth of British dance genres and microgenres can seem hopelessly complicated. But at Love D1 emphasized the basics, and he got a big cheer every time he dropped one of the monstrous bass lines that dubstep is known for. Although “bass line” scarcely seems like the right term: the timbres are scrambled and the tones are obliterated; instead of a melodic groove, you get a huge, serrated blob. Dubstep is one more aftershock of an explosion that happened in the early 1990s, when British producers drew from electronic dance music and dance-hall reggae to create a furiously syncopated genre called jungle — and, later, drum and bass. Since then the sound has been mutating, spinning off new genres as producers and D.J.s change their priorities: hot declaration versus cool abstraction; voices versus beats; fits and starts versus nonstop dancing. Earlier this decade grime emerged, with dirty bass lines and sparse beats that left plenty of room for rappers. Dubstep is nimbler and lighter, with skittering beats that hint at 1990s-era syncopation without sounding busy. One dubstep producer, Burial, has converted some American listeners with an excellent pair of murky, melancholy albums that seem designed for bedroom (or iPod) listening. By contrast, the party on Friday showed off the genre’s gregarious side, thanks partly to those frequent rewinds. The party’s hosts were a pair of D.J.s, Joe Nice and Dave Q, and an M.C., Juakali, who stayed in the booth during D1’s set, providing public-service announcements (“Bass line!”) ...D1 specializes in moody, bittersweet tracks that sometimes emphasize dubstep’s debt to house music. Last year he released “Trial Run” (Tempa), a six-track EP that included “Mind and Soul,” which already feels like a dubstep classic. It’s based on pitched-up snippets of “Give It Back,” by the Atlanta-based R&B singer Gaelle, with brisk drums that keep switching in and out of half-time. (Like many dubstep tracks, this one makes it difficult to say which is the true tempo.) “Mind and Soul” is light and sublime and (thanks to those sped-up vocals) girly, but on Friday night, D1 mainly stuck to heavier, tougher tracks, which seemed to please the crowd. Often the warped bass lines pulled the tracks toward hard techno, even as Juakali’s patter underscored the link to dancehall reggae. And by the end of the set, the term dubstep was starting to seem too big, or too vague.

Thom Yorke & David Byrne

roadsidecafe@hotmail.com — 2008-01-08T12:12:36-08:00

What you did with this record wasn't traditional, not even in the sense of sending advance copies out to the press and such. ...And then it'd be, "Would you go do this for this magazine," and maybe this journalist has heard it. ...Like me — if I hear there's something new of yours out there, I'll just go and buy it without poking around about what the reviews say. ...The only reason we could even get away with this, the only reason anyone even gives a shit, is the fact that we've gone through the whole mill of the business in the first place. ...Yorke: Well, first and foremost, you don't sign a huge record contract that strips you of all your digital rights, so that when you do sell something on iTunes you get absolutely zero. ... Then again, I don't see a downside at all to big record companies not having access to new artists, because they have no idea what to do with them now anyway. ...Probably the reason it's a little hard to break away from the album format completely is, if you're getting a band together in the studio, it makes financial sense to do more than one song at a time. And it makes more sense, if you're going to all the effort of performing and doing whatever else, if there's a kind of bundle. ...Byrne: And for some people, the overhead for touring is really low, so they make a lot on that and don't worry about anything else. Yorke: We always go into a tour saying, "This time, we're not going to spend the money. ...We did one of those carbon footprint things recently where they assessed the last period of touring we did and tried to work out where the biggest problems were. ...Yorke: In terms of digital income, we've made more money out of this record than out of all the other Radiohead albums put together, forever — in terms of anything on the Net. ...When we first came up with the idea, we weren't going to do a normal physical CD at all. ... So now they're talking about putting it on the radio and that sort of thing. ...Byrne: I've been thinking about how distribution and CDs and record shops and all that stuff are changing. ...I was just thinking while you were saying that: How does a record company get their hands on that? It makes me think of the No Logo book where Naomi Klein describes how the Nike people would pay guys to get down with the kids on the street. ... And then I was thinking about that Johnny Cash film, when Cash walks in and says, "I want to do a live record in a prison," and his label thinks he's bonkers. ... And why would you worry about an artist or a company going after people copying their music if the music itself is not valued?

Favorite albums of 2007

roadsidecafe@hotmail.com — 2007-12-17T21:58:42-08:00

MY VERY FAVORITES OF 2007 iron & wine "the shepard's dog ...tom waits "orphans" (released at end of 06, didn't hear it until 07!) ...cowboy junkies "at the end of paths taken" ...FROM: irb, by way of The Boaster Here is the official ranking coming out of the irb global listening outpost. The latest communication from the outpost offered no explanation or disclaimers. There was only some cryptic remarks about “full stiebers”and “all will be compelled”. It was at that point that the transmission transitioned to the a continuous loop of the Benny Hill theme song. ... • Peter Bjorn and John –Writers Block ... • Iron and Wine –Shepperd’s dog ...Eloheim the Shaman's Favorites of 2007: Eloheim works for Rhapsody and seems to know about every new album released in the year, along with having time to actually listen to most of them! ...Album: The Shepherd's Dog Single worth checking out: Pagan Angel and a Borrowed Car ...The Good, The Bad and The Queen The Good, The Bad and The Queen ...Explosions in the Sky ...It's Natural to Be Afraid