November 20 is Universal Children's Day , officially "a day of worldwide fraternity and understanding between children" and unofficially, a great day to explore global music by, for, and about children. (Nov. 20 also marks the day on which the UN adopted the Declaration of the Rights of the Child in 1959, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989.) Grab your kids and youthful acquaintances, and huddle around to listen. Global Music by, for, and about Kids: Spin The Globe playlist for 20 November 2009 as heard [...]
A couple of weeks ago, we went to New Orleans for a friend's wedding. We had a chance to see the World War II museum and the fancy new wing that Tom Hanks helped contribute with and the new theater much cooler than an Imax (it's in 4D!). The picture from above is taken from the museum, and before the trip, I had no idea there was a WWII museum. I guess Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg are teaming up again to retell the story of the US invading the Pacific during [...]
The Bloodsugars stellar debut album, I Can't Go On, I'll Go On was released this week on Engine Room Recordings. After their short Midwest tour last week, including a great show in Cincinnati, singer/guitarist Jason Rabinowitz was able to take some some time to answer some questions about the creative process and theme of the new album, some of their new favorite bands and the their new-found love for Bobby McFerrin. Atlas and the Anchor: My favorite song on I Can't Go [...]
http://soundcloud.com/thecunni ngone/jay-cunning-old-skool-vo l-02-jungle 32 classic Jungle tracks in 1 hour mixed, blended & triple dropped for your audible pleasure! www.myspace.com/jaycunning www.myspace.com/subslayers [via http://bassmusicblog.com/class ic-jungle-mix ] 1 Alex Reece / Pulp Fiction / Metalheadz 2 Leviticus / Burial / Philly Blunt Records 3 Origin Unknown / Valley Of The Shadows / Ram 4 Omni Trio / Renegade Snares (Foul Play VIP Remix) / Moving Shadow 5 [...]
Sidd Coutto's Tough On Tobacco project releases its debut album The Happy Goat tonight at the Hard Rock Cafe in Mumbai. The ten track album will be available via digital download and the band will be "selling certificates at Rs 10 which will provide the source for download" (which is this ). The cover is a picture of a goat, which doesn't look too happy, but well, it's got a Tough On Tobacco towel on it. ToT's music is largely reggae-tinged, pop-rock. We've caught them live twice before - within the cramped [...]
So the pretty lil event site Winter is the New Summer that Devin and I have been working on has officially launched in full! Whoo! Let's have a 750ml salute to that! We did a soft launch in October, then last week we introduced the poster concept and from this week on until the end of winter we will have a different member of the Portland scene acting as a Poster Boy or Poster Girl, holding up our event picks of the week, this week being Rocky formerly of the Hush and currently of [...]
Jay Cunning dropped this mashup of classic jungle tracks. 32 tunes in one hour - now that's value for money. You used to see loads of compilations of this stuff on CD - I don't know if you still do, but they can't sell all that well, since people are putting stuff like this up for free on the internet these days. Anyway, if you don't know your history - get to know. This is actually a pretty well put together example of the genre of classic DnB mixes, and [...]
words by Andrew Frisicano , photos by Steven P. Marsh As its length [about an hour] suggests, this was a leisurely "In C," and it began [at Le Poisson Rouge on Sunday] with a prelude of sorts: a rich aural haze surrounding a honking, spirited saxophone line that darted about for five minutes before the steady, pulsing C signaled the start of Mr. Riley's work. The ensemble, which included standard strings and woodwinds, as well as a few guitars, an accordion, a piano and percussion, moved between [...]
It was Gandhi that said, "Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes", and it is that concept that lays the foundation for the work of Hannah Stouffer . It's not that her work is filled with mistakes, no in fact there are many fine precisions and details that she adds, but it is more that she works in a way that allows for freedom. For me what makes watercolor so beautiful is its ability to spread out and explore a canvas, and beneath the darker and primal imagery in Hannah's work [...]
I keep missing Kasey Chambers when she comes through town, but it's not for lack of trying. The Australian singer-songwriter with the airy twang in her voice does heartache so well, it's a dream of mine to sit on the grass at some summery festival, eyes closed, letting the bittersweet music burn through me like the sunshine. Kasey's talent springs from growing up with music in her veins: the daughter of steel guitar player Bill Chambers , she picked up her first strings early, and spent an adolescent decade on the road [...]
As badass as I think LehtMoJoe's "Spaghetti Western" album is, the one thing disappointing about its release was that it marked the end of Leht's remix-per-week project. Because during that those months I was rapidly filling my iPod with danced-up versions of my alternative rock favorites. For his latest offering Leht puts his spin on The White Stripes' "Blue Orchid," replacing Meg's four to the floor kicks with much more rhythmic percussion. While he does keep some grungy guitars in the mix this time around, they stay on a consistant chord, creating a tense drone that [...]
The Modern Skirts play three shows in our area this week. They'll be at Schubas in Chicago on November 18th , Mad Planet in Milwaukee on November 19th , and the Project Lodge in Madison on November 20th . Please take this chance to catch these guys live if you can. If you have not yet heard their fantastic 2008 release, All of Us in Our Night (that's the awesome album art above), please add it to your collection. You won't be disappointed. Speaking [...]
It's annoying, I'm sure, but I find it really hard not to compare this to this year's other solo release by the front man of an early-nineties arch indie hipster band, Julian Plenti. Alternatively, I suppose, you could compare it to the Strokes' last and best album, First Impressions of Earth. In either comparison Phrazes For the Young fares really rather badly, in my opinion. It comes across as a light, eighties synth-pop facsimile of the best Strokes stuff with all the bite removed. And it certainly lacks the invention of Plenti's inconsistent, but often very good, solo [...]
La scorsa settimana abbiamo terminato il nostro viaggio attraverso gli album più importanti del decennio che si sta concludendo. Abbiamo quindi pensato di riassumere il tutto in questo post che non è altro che la lista completa, tappa per tappa, degli album che di volta in volta abbiamo approfondito, in modo tale da avere una sorta di indice delle varie puntate. Dopo il salto trovate anche la listona di tutti gli album che di anno in anno sono stati inseriti fra "gli album da salvare". [...]
For ramblings on how I came to compile this list go here . And for commentary on previous selections: [ #50-46 ] 45. The Weekend - The Weekend (2000) Probably the most obscure selection on my personal list comes by way of London Ontario's now defunct The Weekend. At the turn of the century I was listening to a lot of embarrassing music and, as expected, when I took the time to revisit some of those [...]
Hands down, the Valerie Collective is responsible for some of the very best original electronic music now coming out of France. And no, these sound are not coming from Paris as you might expect, but from further afield in Nantes in western France. After starting his own brilliant musical project College in 2005, David Grellier went on to found Valerie (a name which resounded with David from the 80's - our money is on Valerie Bertinelli of 70's/80's soap and made for TV movie fame). David created Valerie as a way to foster musical talent, by providing opportunities [...]
Welcome to the new, not-really-improved BabyStew This Week In Chicago listing. What's new about it, you ask? Absolutely nothing, except that it now covers the week from Monday through Sunday rather than Sunday through Saturday. It always seemed weird to me not to be listing Sunday shows until the morning of – when not many people are reading blogs – for the sole purpose of sticking with the conventional definition of "week" ( i.e. , Sun-Sat). But convention be damned. So here's what's going on in Chicago this "week". [...]
This is probably the most exciting interview we have done since our inception. "A Huge influence on bands like Daft Punk, SPACE sold 12 million records across 4 albums from 1977-81, and are sadly referred to as one of Europe's great forgotten innovators of the 1970's" NO WAY should spAce be forgotten! Whilst a certain Parisian electronic duo were still (probably impossibly chic) toddlers, French band /production SPACE had worked out that making lots of hooky synth disco and wearing Space suits [...]
First let me start off by saying that there should be a word limit to album titles, sometimes they get out of hand. There also needs to be some kind of truth in advertising thing as well, I mean, The Hearts We Broke On The Way To The Show sounds a wee bit pretentious doesn't it, never mind a bit wordy. But this is really apropos of nothing. The second thing I want to address is that second or two of foreboding you sometimes get when you look at something and think [...]
Does video art sap the life right out of musical lyricism, stifling imagination? I begin today's Radio Dick with my simplistic and probably naive assertion that one ought to still read words and not dive too heavily into visual culture. My thoughts have been weighing pretty heavily on this idea lately; my 9th grade class is moving through Romeo and Juliet with me and I can't help but notice the dwindling patience with the text, the lack of analysis without strong coaching from my end with visual stimuli. The largely thematic aspects of the play still garner interest, [...]
Vampire Weekend - Cousins
WKND PLYLST!! This has nothing to do with NEW MOON!
HOT CHIP TAKE another crack at IT and I’m IN
The Beach House Theory of 2k10.
