King Sunny Adé cancels US tour due to deaths

Lots of musicians have been canceling international tour dates lately, mostly because of the hazards posed by the volcano eruption in Iceland. But concerns at once more tragic and more ordinary have forced King Sunny Adé, the legendary Nigerian bandleader, to call off his North American tour, which was scheduled to start in Canada last week and come to the Highline Ballroom in Manhattan on May 20.
In late March two percussionists in Mr. Adé’s 17-piece touring band, Gabriel Ayanniyi and Omo Olope, died in a car accident in Nigeria on the way to a music video shoot. With just a few weeks before the tour was to start, attempts to get American visas for replacement members of the band proved unsuccessful.
Andy Frankel, the band’s Philadelphia-based manager, said that the band had applied for visas but that American officials in Lagos “just flat-out failed to respond.” For help Mr. Frankel turned to his Congressional representative, Chaka Fattah, Democrat of Pennsylvania, but there was no luck there, either. “We got a response a week later,” Mr. Frankel said, “saying that unless it is a matter of medical emergency or business emergency they will not respond to any issues out of the normal time frame. I don’t know how this doesn’t constitute a business emergency.”
Finding replacement players in the United States was next to impossible, Mr. Frankel said, for financial, logistical and, especially, musical reasons, given Mr. Ayanniyi’s key role: lead talking-drum player. In Mr. Adé’s juju music — a Nigerian pop style rooted in Yoruba traditions — the talking drum is, Mr. Frankel added, “equivalent to the lead guitar in a rock band.” “After King Sunny, it does everything,” he said.

 Ben Sisario @'NY Times'

RIP Guru

HERE

Sex Pistols interview on Radio Clyde's Streetsounds Show with Brian Ford from 23rd November 1977

HERE

(Thanx to 'Exile' reader WMHP!)
I listened to this at the time

Sid is AWOL...

Cannot believe...

...that I went past the 5,000th post without realising it!

Sorry Audiozobe 

(but as you say here's to the 10,000th!)

How to put a little more G in your Earth Day

It will make you all warm and fuzzy. Or not.

Imagine for a moment the amount of batteries that it would take to charge up 15 billion dollars worth of sex toys per year, then imagine the majority of those batteries ending up as toxic waste. Along side that there are the manufacturing processes, most of which go relatively unregulated and continue to use phthalates (pronounced thal-ates), chemical plasticizers that have already been banned from use in children's toys in the U.S. and which Greenpeace has now requested the European Union start banning the use of in sex toys as well. All told, it suddenly seems obvious that the sex toy industry is a great place to start going green. 

The manufacturers of the Micro-Kitty, the world's first solar powered sex toy (which is also phthalate-free) were apparently thinking the same thing. Using the popular design of a strap-on clitoral vibrator that can be worn by women solo or with a partner, they made the toy from silicone which a handful of conscientious sex toy manufacturers are now turning toward to create phthalate-free toys. They then took it one step further and made the vibrator solar powered just like the grade school calculators but a apparently a whole lot more fun. 

@'PRWeb'

No comment from me...

I will let you make up yr own mind! 

Disregard the wanky 'youtoob' headline

Memo to TV producers: 

There is a great competition there...

Yirrip blondes VS USA blondes

& who do you think will win?

CAVEAT: 

I AM a blonde.

(Happy 4:20 BillT!)

Sonic Boom reads his liner notes to MGMT's 'Congratulations'

Get it

HERE

(This was only available as a limited iTune pre-order release)

Jah Wobble's top ten Dub trax

1 KING TUBBY MEETS ROCKERS UPTOWN
Augustus Pablo I first heard this as a pre-release in 1976. Love the sound of Augustus Pablo's melodica; I am also kinky for the sound of the dubbed-up timbale drums that feature on this recording. King Tubby was the king of pure, heavy-duty dub at that time. It was released in this country on Island Records. Hearing 'King Tubby' for the first time had a profound effect on me: it was like hearing music from another cosmos. There are any number of good King Tubby compilations now around - Trojan Records and the Blood & Fire label are good places to look.
2 CONCRETE DUB Bob Marley
I no longer have this record... in fact, I have not heard it for probably 25 years, so I hope it does really exist and is not a figment of my imagination. If memory serves me well, it was the dub version B-side of an Island 7" single; probably of the track called 'Concrete Jungle', from the Catch a Fire album. It must have been one of the first ever domestically released dub singles. It was great to hear a dub version of a Marley track - I nearly always preferred the dub version of a tune. There was more space, and the bass and drums were pushed to the fore.
3 MARCUS GARVEY (DUB VERSION) Burning Spear
One of the very first dub versions I ever heard. I heard it in 1975 on a Friday night on the Capital Radio reggae show. I used to listen to that show religiously - Tommy Vance was the DJ. I now occasionally hear him DJing on heavy-rock stations as I channel-hop.
4 PROMISE IS A COMFORT TO A FOOL Trinity/Yabby You
A classic bassline, with a beautiful vocal refrain, and DJ chat. There are some bass lines that contain the whole mystery of creation within them. This is one of them. Other examples are Roy Budd's bass line to the title track of Mike Hodges Get Carter, and Cecil McBee's line on Lonnie Liston Smith's 'Expansions' are two that come immediately to mind. The crediting of reggae musicians is notoriously lax. There are three possible players, re this particular tune. All giants of the bass - Robbie Shakespeare, Aston 'Family Man' Barrett and Clinton Fearon. If I had to put money down on who it is on this track, I would say it was Mr Fearon.
5 TWO SEVENS CLASH Culture
For a while back in 1977, you could not get away from this tune. It still sounds heavenly. It reminds me of walking back from a party in Hackney on a Sunday morning as the sun was coming up. I couldn't get the tune out of my head.
6 JUJU MUSIC King Sunny Ade
There was a little-known dub version of this classic album, mixed by an engineer that I worked with, called Groucho. What he did was devastating. I would love to hear it again. It was on Island (again!) and was released around 1982.
7 ROWING Dennis Bovell
One of the great musicians of his generation. I used to watch him perform this with his band Matumbi. As with "Juju Music", I hankered after hearing it again. I'm pleased to say that the label Pressure Sounds has released a compilation of Dennis's dub stuff, which includes this track.
8 THE SAME SONG Israel Vibration
Similar to our own late, and very great Ian Dury, 'Skeleton,' 'Apple' and 'Wiss' [Israel Vibration's three members] were stricken by polio in the fifties. This blend of their vocals within a dub context is wonderful. Yet again, there is a great compilation on Pressure Sounds.
9 CONSCIOUS MAN DUB Lee Perry and the Jolly Brothers
You could not have a dub selection without Lee "Scratch" Perry appearing. This is a great example of his idiosyncratic style.
10 SMILING STRANGER John Martyn
This is taken from his 1980 album One World. It was one of the first records outside reggae to utilise dub techniques. Superb.

The Black Dog (Orlando Voorn remix)

Going out...

OOPS!!!

Actually I am going up to the Northcote Social Club to see The Paradise Motel...
Laterz/

Jah Wobble's top ten Dub trax

1 KING TUBBY MEETS ROCKERS UPTOWN
Augustus Pablo I first heard this as a pre-release in 1976. Love the sound of Augustus Pablo's melodica; I am also kinky for the sound of the dubbed-up timbale drums that feature on this recording. King Tubby was the king of pure, heavy-duty dub at that time. It was released in this country on Island Records. Hearing 'King Tubby' for the first time had a profound effect on me: it was like hearing music from another cosmos. There are any number of good King Tubby compilations now around - Trojan Records and the Blood & Fire label are good places to look.
2 CONCRETE DUB Bob Marley
I no longer have this record... in fact, I have not heard it for probably 25 years, so I hope it does really exist and is not a figment of my imagination. If memory serves me well, it was the dub version B-side of an Island 7" single; probably of the track called 'Concrete Jungle', from the Catch a Fire album. It must have been one of the first ever domestically released dub singles. It was great to hear a dub version of a Marley track - I nearly always preferred the dub version of a tune. There was more space, and the bass and drums were pushed to the fore.
3 MARCUS GARVEY (DUB VERSION) Burning Spear
One of the very first dub versions I ever heard. I heard it in 1975 on a Friday night on the Capital Radio reggae show. I used to listen to that show religiously - Tommy Vance was the DJ. I now occasionally hear him DJing on heavy-rock stations as I channel-hop.
4 PROMISE IS A COMFORT TO A FOOL Trinity/Yabby You
A classic bassline, with a beautiful vocal refrain, and DJ chat. There are some bass lines that contain the whole mystery of creation within them. This is one of them. Other examples are Roy Budd's bass line to the title track of Mike Hodges Get Carter, and Cecil McBee's line on Lonnie Liston Smith's 'Expansions' are two that come immediately to mind. The crediting of reggae musicians is notoriously lax. There are three possible players, re this particular tune. All giants of the bass - Robbie Shakespeare, Aston 'Family Man' Barrett and Clinton Fearon. If I had to put money down on who it is on this track, I would say it was Mr Fearon.
5 TWO SEVENS CLASH Culture
For a while back in 1977, you could not get away from this tune. It still sounds heavenly. It reminds me of walking back from a party in Hackney on a Sunday morning as the sun was coming up. I couldn't get the tune out of my head.
6 JUJU MUSIC King Sunny Ade
There was a little-known dub version of this classic album, mixed by an engineer that I worked with, called Groucho. What he did was devastating. I would love to hear it again. It was on Island (again!) and was released around 1982.
7 ROWING Dennis Bovell
One of the great musicians of his generation. I used to watch him perform this with his band Matumbi. As with "Juju Music", I hankered after hearing it again. I'm pleased to say that the label Pressure Sounds has released a compilation of Dennis's dub stuff, which includes this track.
8 THE SAME SONG Israel Vibration
Similar to our own late, and very great Ian Dury, 'Skeleton,' 'Apple' and 'Wiss' [Israel Vibration's three members] were stricken by polio in the fifties. This blend of their vocals within a dub context is wonderful. Yet again, there is a great compilation on Pressure Sounds.
9 CONSCIOUS MAN DUB Lee Perry and the Jolly Brothers
You could not have a dub selection without Lee "Scratch" Perry appearing. This is a great example of his idiosyncratic style.
10 SMILING STRANGER John Martyn
This is taken from his 1980 album One World. It was one of the first records outside reggae to utilise dub techniques. Superb.

Nick Lowe - So It Goes

'Yaka-Wow' hits Boing Boing!

Are you a breezy person who goes, "Yaka-wow!"? Maybe you already were, and just didn't know it. Alice Bell, science communication lecturer at Imperial College, London, explains:

The main reason we've all been saying yakawow is simply because it's a cool word. It should be used more. Try saying it yourself out loud - yakawow, yaka-wow. Doesn't it just make your mouth happy?

More specifically, yaka-wow is the accidental brainchild of British neuroscientist Susan Greenfield. In the UK, Greenfield is known for holding the rather controversial position that use of computers and video games irreparably damages children's brains—unless, of course, said children are using her computer games, in which case they will become smarter. You see the problem. Last Thursday, Greenfield gave an interview to the London Times, which led to this fabulous exchange:

She doesn't think computer games are life-threatening, like smoking, but she says that they are as much of a risk to mankind as climate change. [...] She is concerned that those who live only in the present, online, don't allow their malleable brains to develop properly. "It's not going to destroy the planet but is it going to be a planet worth living in if you have a load of breezy people who go around saying yaka-wow. Is that the society we want?"

Within hours, yaka-wow had inspired a Twitter stream, poster, T-shirt and burgeoning personal philosophy. But why yaka-wow? Bell says it's probably a fortuitous typo:

As it turns out, Greenfield wasn't just making up an odd phrase. It seems to be a transcription error of "yuck and wow", a phrase Greenfield has often used to describe the way people act online, running quickly from one sensation to another. Greenfield famously refereed to the banality of twitter as, "Marginally reminiscent of a small child saying, 'Look at me, look at me mummy! Now I've put my sock on. Now I've got my other sock on.'"

Naturally, that quote inspired mathematician Matt Parker to thoroughly wow the web by pulling both his socks on at the same time.
 

Image courtesy the brilliant mind of Adam Rutherford.

@'Boing Boing'

4-20

...but especially for you Dray 3-0!