Son Seals Blues Band LIVE in Tucson AZ 1985
54 minutes ago
Wednesday 2 December 2009
Tuesday 1 December 2009
The Death of Uncool by Brian Eno
"It’s odd to think back on the time—not so long ago—when there were distinct stylistic trends, such as “this season’s colour” or “abstract expressionism” or “psychedelic music.” It seems we don’t think like that any more. There are just too many styles around, and they keep mutating too fast to assume that kind of dominance.
As an example, go into a record shop and look at the dividers used to separate music into different categories. There used to be about a dozen: rock, jazz, ethnic, and so on. Now there are almost as many dividers as there are records, and they keep proliferating. The category I had a hand in starting—ambient music—has split into a host of subcategories called things like “black ambient,” “ambient dub,” “ambient industrial,” “organic ambient” and 20 others last time I looked. A similar bifurcation has been happening in every other living musical genre (except for “classical” which remains, so far, simply “classical”), and it’s going on in painting, sculpture, cinema and dance.
We’re living in a stylistic tropics. There’s a whole generation of people able to access almost anything from almost anywhere, and they don’t have the same localised stylistic sense that my generation grew up with. It’s all alive, all “now,” in an ever-expanding present, be it Hildegard of Bingen or a Bollywood soundtrack. The idea that something is uncool because it’s old or foreign has left the collective consciousness.
I think this is good news. As people become increasingly comfortable with drawing their culture from a rich range of sources—cherry-picking whatever makes sense to them—it becomes more natural to do the same thing with their social, political and other cultural ideas. The sharing of art is a precursor to the sharing of other human experiences, for what is pleasurable in art becomes thinkable in life."
Strokes Announce Return to the Stage
Well, it looks like things have shored up a bit since then. The group has just announced their first live gig since October 2006, headlining this summer's Isle of Wight fest off England's southern coast, according to the event's official site. Jay-Z, Blondie, and Orbital are some of the other early names attached to the mega gig, set to go down June 11-13.
In other Strokes news, bassist Nikolai Fraiture recently offered fans some more hope of a new album in 2010 via a Twitter post. "While the guys are in LA, I went to scout some studios in NYC with [manager] Ryan [Gentles] today for what looks like Jan recording!!! mood = f***ing excited!" (Via NME.) Seems promising.
Pub 'fined £8k' for Wi-Fi copyright infringement
A pub owner has been fined £8,000 because someone unlawfully downloaded copyrighted material over their open Wi-Fi hotspot, according to the managing director of hotspot provider The Cloud.
Graham Cove told ZDNet UK on Friday he believes the case to be the first of its kind in the UK. However, he would not identify the pub concerned, because its owner — a pubco that is a client of The Cloud's — had not yet given their permission for the case to be publicised.
Cove would say only that the fine had been levied in a civil case, brought about by a rights holder, "sometime this summer". The Cloud's pubco clients include Fullers, Greene King, Marsdens, Scottish & Newcastle, Mitchell & Butlers and Punch Taverns.
The law surrounding open Wi-Fi networks and the liability of those running them is a grey area.
According to internet law professor Lilian Edwards, of Sheffield Law School, where a business operates an open Wi-Fi spot to give customers or visitors internet access, they would be "not be responsible in theory" for users' unlawful downloads, under "existing substantive copyright law".
She also said the measures that would be brought in under the Digital Economy Bill — measures that could include disconnection of the account holder — would not apply because the business could be classified as a public communications service provider, which would make it exempt. According to the terms of the bill, only "subscribers" can be targeted with sanctions.
According to legal advice sent to The Cloud by the law firm Faegre & Benson on 17 August, "Wi-Fi hotspots in public and enterprise environments providing access to the internet to members of the public, free or paid, are public communications services".
A public communications service provider must, under the terms of the Data Retention Regulations that came into force in the UK in April of this year, retain records for 12 months on communications that have taken place over their network. This data includes user IDs, the times and dates of access, and the online destinations that were being accessed. The content of the communications cannot be retained without the user's permission, due to data-protection laws.
However, there is a get-out clause in the Data Retention Regulations, in that no public communications service provider has to keep such records unless they are notified by the government that they are required to do so.
According to Edwards, this is because "only the big six ISPs have the facilities to comply, and because the government agreed [in its legislation] to repay some of the costs [of retaining such records]". She noted that this clause might itself be non-compliant with the EU data-retention laws that were transposed into UK law in April.
Edwards pointed out that, even if the sanctions proposed in the Digital Economy Bill come into force, "no-one will know who [the downloader] was, because the IP address that will show up [upon investigation] will be of the hotspot". She added that the rights holder seeking infringers of their copyright would probably not know that the IP address in question was not that of a subscriber.
It would then be up to the hotspot operator to point out that they were not the end user downloading copyrighted material. "But when would they get to say that? Maybe straightaway, maybe not until after disconnection — it's not currently clear," Edwards said.
Hawkwind - Silver Machine
Amazing that Lemmy just hasn't changed one bit. Just remembered that I caught a sweaty Hawkwind singlet that Lemmy threw out at the audience at a Hawkwind gig at the Glasgow Apollo. Would probably be worth a few bob now (more if I hadn't washed it?)
And a funny video for 'Do It' by The Pink Faries...
So hip!
(Click to enlarge)
Chloe Sevigny in an early modelling shot for Vice magazine. Note that the album to the left of her is Quicksilver Messenger Service's debut.
Astromill - Control - Alt - Delete (For Simondddd)
Astromill is the electro sci-fi creation of singer / keyboard player Sheryl McMillan. Think a Beatlesque mixture of Imogen Heap and Kate Bush on Cyber Pop.
Monday 30 November 2009
"Concierto de Aranjuez” performed at Carnegie Hall New York on May 19, 1961
Sunday 29 November 2009
Hashashan - Unreleased Songs
Hashashan is Fritz Catlin (AKA Fritz Haaman, Jackie Chanalogue, Firebomb Fritz etc.) who was a founder member of 23 Skidoo and also played with Last Few Days and Laibach in the 1980's. In the 90's he did various production/remixes including "Real Sugar" with Paban Das Baul and Sam Mills . Recent projects include mixing Susheela Raman's 33 1/3 cd, working on Siouxsie and Grace Jones remixes and various fashion shows for Mekon and a live music project with Michael Joseph called Skintologists. In the pipeline is an international coollaboration with DJ Retroblast and other virtual jammers.
Tracklist:
Claret 'n' Blues (Harmonica by Sketch)
Claret 'n' Blues (Harmonica by Sketch)
Early (Scratching by Deckwrecka)
Hausmixdown (Guitar by Sam Mills)
Honeymixxa (Sax by Adam Pretty)
On Mi Way
Check out Hashashan's MySpace page for more music.
(My thanx to Fritz for this 'Exile' exclusive)
Saturday 28 November 2009
Record of the year..?
St Kilda - EP
Label: Phantom Channel
Catalog#: PHCD001
Format: CDr, Mini, EP, Limited Edition
Country: UK
Released: 2009
Drone, Ambient
Tracklisting:
1 This Small Boat 5:19
2 You Are In Every Dream 4:06
3 Clutching At Straws 5:15
4 The Sirens 6:14
Credits
Music & Photography - Graham Richardson
Notes
Limited to 70 copies.
Probably not, but very close.
It is that time of the year when I try and work out which records rocked my soul.
A difficult task as there were SO many great releases, and do not let anyone tell you otherwise.
As for the records of the decade?
Well two records to my ears stand head and shoulders above the rest...To be continued...
Adele Bertei - When It's Over (featuring Green)
Produced by Adele Bertei, Fred Maher and David Gamson.
Steve Goodman (Kode9) on 5 years of Hyperdub
The label that brought Burial to the world is now celebrating five years of these mutations with a double-CD compilation of new and classic material, called simply Hyperdub 5 – spanning the various genres mentioned above, as well as lots of gloriously twisted electronic music so new that it has yet to take a street name.
Originally from Glasgow, Goodman moved to London to be closer to the music he loved at the end of the 1990s, and started Hyperdub as a web magazine in 2001. "The main editorial remit was the Jamaican influence on London electronic music," he says. Under the name Kode9, Goodman has been making music since 1995, and turned Hyperdub into a label to put out his own Sine of the Dub in 2004, after prompting from Kevin Martin, aka the Bug. "I was interviewing him for XLR8R magazine and he said, 'You should release it yourself,'" Goodman says. There's never been any grand plan though: "The whole thing's been a series of accidents."
Without an A&R policy, an office, or even any employees, Hyperdub is a remarkably successful one-man empire, although that does have its drawbacks: he gets sent a lot of music. "It's just painful," he says, "I'm really drowning in it. Especially now I've broadened out the remit of the label, so it's not just one genre of stuff I'm being sent."
Key among the series of accidents that has seen Hyperdub championed from the NME to the New Yorker, presumably, was releasing Burial's music, and it becoming unexpectedly popular. "Yeah, that was completely unforeseen," he laughs. "I was worried about putting his album out – I didn't think anyone would be into it. It was quite a weird take on garage."
Goodman was "hugely relieved" when Elbow pipped Burial, who had been the bookies' favourite, to last year's Mercury Music Prize, so protective is he of Will Bevan, the man behind the music, who was desperate to avoid the full glare of the media spotlight. "There are certain tunes on there that are obviously not that sophisticated," Bevan told me self-deprecatingly in a Film & Music interview prior to the album's release, when he was still able to protect his identity. "I'm just pretty defensive about it, because I was never really expecting so many people to hear the record."
With Bevan clear that all he wanted was a quiet life, Gordon Smart, editor of the Sun's Bizarre gossip pages, started a campaign to unmask Burial last summer. That forced Bevan to reveal his identity – he was not, as Smart had suggested, Fatboy Slim working under an alias – and triggered a litany of revenge fantasies for Goodman. "I went through how each one of these scenarios would play out, and they all seemed to result in me imprisoned for the rest of my life – you know, 'Sun Journalist Kneecapped' – it's not a good look," he sighs. "So it was just me quietly, in the privacy of my own home, cathartically burning a copy of the Sun. That was as close to voodoo as I could get on a Wednesday afternoon."
A more positive effect of Burial's success was that it meant Goodman could plough the money Hyperdub made off the album back into the label – into releasing more regular vinyl releases, into compiling Hyperdub 5, into imminent albums by the likes of Darkstar and Ikonika, who grew up on dubstep and garage, but are now taking it into bold, bright new directions. It's a mutation Goodman has been eager to incubate.
'It's like hearing circuitry cry'
By about 2007 I was getting left a little cold by the greyness of dubstep: stuff that is literally just drum and bass, with no tone colour. That minimalism felt fresh at the time, but that freshness doesn't last, it leads to stagnation, and gets predictable." So the virus mutates? "Yeah, your immunity to it increases. And like any drug experience, your response becomes, 'I don't get high off that anymore.'"
The new Hyperdub sound is all about synthesisers: sci-fi melodies as the host for this restlessly progressive London dance aesthetic. "It's like hearing circuitry crying," Goodman has said of this recent output, and for new signings Darkstar this idea of computer love is a real fascination. The duo talk with gusto about studying film post-production, about 2001: A Space Odyssey, John Carpenter, and the "robot dialogues" on their forthcoming album. Their new single Aidy's Girl Is a Computer is one of the stand-out tracks on Hyperdub 5, and the pair tried to use a particularly robotic vocal on it: "When we were making it we did actually spend a lot of time trying to get our Mac to sing to us … but it started to get a little bit too strange," says Darkstar's James Young.
As with Burial's new contribution to the compilation, Fostercare, you can hear discernible syllables in the distorted, chopped-up vocal that Darkstar eventually used, and your brain tricks you into thinking you're singing along; but listen more closely and you realise the vocals have been tuned just beyond recognition. The sense you get from Aidy's Girl is that the human, physical world has revolved ever so slightly out of reach. It's heartbreakingly beautiful.
For Goodman, the way forward seems to be akin to taking a set of felt-tip pens to dubstep's blank, monochrome outlines. "It's the tone colour of synths that's become important to the sound, how to fill in the mid-range without becoming annoying." For him – and for so many of this new generation of Hyperdub artists – synths are there "to create euphoria, or to create hooks, or to create something that's colourful and memorable and catchy, that's maybe slightly unsettling at the same time. I've always been fascinated by these little squiggly synths, whether it's been in jazz funk, or gangsta rap, or 80s synth-pop. That's what I love most about grime, too, that hyper-coloured sound."
'I've always been fascinated by these little squiggly synths …that hyper-coloured sound'
Sometimes this relationship with colour and art takes on a truly vivid quality: one can find blogs where the parallels between Hyperdub's music and abstract art are discussed in detail. One of those cited in such discussions is Zomby, another maverick, anonymous producer. "It's quite an odd sensation," he tells me about his occasionally synaesthesiac relationship with music. "The colours are intermittent," he says, "but the chemical that shoots through your body is the same." He cites the tonal language and "colour representation of scales" explored by Russian composer Alexander Scriabin as an inspiration.
Hyperdub artists make dance music that is hedonistically enjoyed in clubs – but with an undeniably cerebral approach that comes from the man at the top. As well as teaching the music culture BA at the University of East London, Goodman has just finished writing a book, Sonic Warfare: Sound, Affect, and the Ecology of Fear, which will be published by MIT Press in December. This covers the use of the Sesame Street theme tune as a military torture device, worrying new police technology such as Long Range Acoustic Devices ("they're like acoustic water-cannons"), and the "infrasonic hum" the planet has endured since the dawn of time: "We live in the echo of the Big Bang, so the heat death of the universe is the dying out of this echo."
Another mysterious strain of the Hyperdub virus is the Cybernetic Culture Research Unit (CCRU), which Goodman helped create in the late 1990s, while studying at Warwick University. "We were all graduate philosophy students, but writing about jungle and philosophy, or Cronenberg films and philosophy, for example. We were told it didn't fit into the discipline – it never really got acknowledged by Warwick.
"It was an attempt to look at popular culture, cyber culture and rave culture, and bring it together with difficult French philosophers. We were treating popular culture as serious cultural production because it has inherent value, not just as pop …" he pauses, and self-corrects. "But that's not fair on pop – it's exactly because it was pop that it was interesting."
Despite having DJed in more than 20 countries, and having signed tracks by artists from America, Japan and Denmark, Goodman emphasises that London is still very much the heart of the label. "Even when you leave London, you don't really leave London – you still carry it with you, like a thin layer of grime on your skin. London music culture is so strong because every few years it manages to refresh itself, and rejuvenate what has become staid. Just as you're getting bored, the elements twist in a different way."
Musical mutations ... five essential Hyperdub recordings
Burial: Etched Headplate (2007)
From the Mercury-nominated album Untrue, this encapsulates Burial's unique and astonishing ability to turn an emotional breakdown on a London night-bus into six minutes of absolute musical transcendence.
Ikonika: Please (2008)
Sara Abdel-Hamid grew up on Pretty Girls Make Graves and R&B, rather than weary cliches about the greats of the UK dance music canon. This utterly addictive single combines the urgency of the former with the hooks of the latter to take electronic music to strange, punch-drunk new places.
Kode9: Black Sun (2009)
With Steve Goodman's early releases drawing deep on the well of Jamaican dread, it was his boredom with dubstep's monochrome landscapes that prompted this new direction. It's the sound of a true auteur donning the cloak of house music for the first time: but only after deliberately putting it on too hot a wash, so that all the colours run into one another.
2000F + Jkamata: You Don't Know What Love Is (2009)
A one-off by two Danish producers, this is arguably the greatest example of the "purple funk" that is currently steering dubstep towards the sexy and psychedelic, featuring a towering vocoder-treated vocal with synths straight from the west-coast G-funk of Nate Dogg and Warren G.
Darkstar: Aidy's Girl is a Computer (2009)
The newest Hyperdub 12in vinyl release, an NME favourite and one of the singles of the year. Remember in the 1990s when cyborg theorists talked about our increasing dependence on technology, about post-physical humans, and about computers with emotions? Well they only sounded slightly silly at the time because their soundtrack had not arrived; it has now. DH
@'The Guardian'
Rumour: New Australian festival w/ Massive Attack in March or April?
There are rumours that Michael Coppel Presents and Modular are set to collaborate on a new national festival. Mooted to take place in late March/early April – the space previously reserved in the calendar by V Festival – this venture is said to boast Massive Attack in the headline spot, with a strong line-up behind them.
With Modular’s annual summer party NeverEverLand a notable absentee in 2009 and Michael Coppel Presents cutting its ties from V Festival, the timing and fit seems right. In an interview with triple j, Massive Attack revealed an Australian tour was planned for the new year. The esteemed Bristol outfit has also just finalised details of its much-anticipated fifth album Heligoland, which will surface at last in early February.
With Modular’s annual summer party NeverEverLand a notable absentee in 2009 and Michael Coppel Presents cutting its ties from V Festival, the timing and fit seems right. In an interview with triple j, Massive Attack revealed an Australian tour was planned for the new year. The esteemed Bristol outfit has also just finalised details of its much-anticipated fifth album Heligoland, which will surface at last in early February.
RePost - Dudu Pukwana
Dudu Pukwana & Spear
'Flute Music'
Here.
As already mentioned here I was lucky enough to live in London when Dudu was playing around town.
In fact I saw him in London, Glasgow, Liverpool & Amsterdam.
I also worked at a jazz club in London for a while (100 Club) and when he would play there we would have a few ales...
At the end of the night we often found ourselves catching the same bus and Dudu would play his sax to me and whoever else was there at the bus stop.
Wish that I had thought to record those impromptu sessions on my walkman.
This music is just perfect as the weather starts warming up.
There is a Dudu Pukwana discography to be found here.
Interview w/ Derek Bailey from 1973
Due to the fact that when I was living in London in the late 70's to early 80's I was often to be found at the London Musicians Collective and through that got to know a lot of the prime movers of the improvised music scene of the time and one of the highlights of every year was the Company week of concerts that were instigated by Derek.
There is no doubt that improvised music to my mind polarises people like no other style but please do yourself a favour and dip your toe into it. If you do like it you will be rewarded by hearing some of the most invigorating music of all time!
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06.26.09 at 10:39 am
06.26.09 at 11:40 am
06.26.09 at 12:21 pm
06.26.09 at 12:25 pm
06.26.09 at 4:36 pm
Der schwarz-weiß bemalte Sting, einer DER Stars von World Championship Wrestling ist tot.
translation: the black and white painted Sting, a famous wrestler, is dead.
the “real” Sting is alive ;)
06.28.09 at 7:56 am
ahum grra hum….gr grr gr gr gr
uh uh
aaaaaaaagggggggggghhhhhhhhhhaaa……………………………..
me 2 ohh i’am dead….
06.30.09 at 1:14 pm
07.02.09 at 4:48 am
Where is your source
07.09.09 at 6:51 am
07.09.09 at 7:30 am
There is not!
07.10.09 at 12:32 am
07.11.09 at 4:55 pm
07.12.09 at 2:29 pm
The director of the movie “Sting” died in 2002. As for Sting the wrestler, he became a born-again christian, but that’s brain-dead; not the same thing.
Looks like your carreer as an investigative blogger is off to a nad start. Well, back to comedy.
07.16.09 at 8:57 pm
07.17.09 at 10:35 am
regards/
Mona
07.17.09 at 11:00 am
08.06.09 at 8:11 am
Well, I wish he was.
09.08.09 at 8:52 am
10.17.09 at 4:07 pm
@The Cleverest'