SXSW '07 Revisited

The link to my SXSW blog within Okayplayer's archives seems to change about every 3 days. So here's a screen grab to keep my exploits available to my adoring fans. (Thanks for reading Dad.)

Before The Music Dies

I caught the afterparty for this film's premier a couple years back and just recently got the opportunity to finally see the film itself. If this film doesn't disseminate enough information to incite revolution then I'm quitting the business to sell vacuums door to door.

Read my Okayplayer review here. Watch the preview:

 

Buy the DVD, and log on to join the revolution.

Secretary - Secret Life of Secretary

The Aggrolites - Reggae Hit L.A.

Tim Buckley - My Fleeting House (DVD)

Sage Francis - Human The Death Dance

The Rosebuds - Night Of The Furies

Picked this record up today because it was an integrated band in the mid 70's on a label from none other than Waco, TX, my hometown. Well a little googling revealed that Andrae Crouch and the Disciples weren't in fact from Waco, and weren't nearly as obscure as I had hoped. In fact, if I had looked a little closer I would have noticed Billy Preston and Larry Carlton both lent their hands to the record in the studio (which was actually in Hollywood.) Andrae is the brother of Stanley Crouch, famed jazz critic and notorious denouncer of Miles' electric period as well as hip hop in general. (I have a bit of an antagonistic take on the man.)

But Light Records, a joint venture with fellow Waco label Word Records, was a Waco label that specialized in early pop influenced gospel music. Word eventually sold to ABC and moved to Nashville, now boasting artists like Amy Grant on their roster. That's about as white as you can go after beginning as a soul inflected black gospel label. After going defunkt in the 80's, Light was resurrected as a modern gospel label that still exists.

Okay, so I'm having serious trouble reviewing this in a clever, quotable way so, as one of JoAnna's card carrying top 5 fans, let me just drop a tangent on you. I effing love this record. Jo and I have spent countless hours in Boston coffeehouses or sprawled across municipal lawns arguing the finer points of lyric writing, and in my awkwardly verbose nature we have traded hundreds of pages worth of emails on the subject, even if that quantity is weighted heavily in my favor. Tracks like "Closer To You" and "Shut Out The Lights" clearly demonstrate her intuitive storytelling, single lines filling out the scene like a deliberate pan across the room before settling on the action.

But lets get down to why I keep coming back to listen to JoAnna, and it's not because we're friends. Jo sings from the gut in a way that is almost unsettling for such an unassuming little girl. She's goofy, skinny as a rail, and can't weigh more than a buck o' five, but start her singing and she blows down houses like a hungry wolf. Yeah, she can ball you up on the floor when she sings:

I turn the key, make a wish, flip the switch
Is this all that there is, is this it?
And I slide down the apartment door
I'm alone. Nothing to go home for any more.

But she doesn't need the power of a strong lyric to empty your last box of kleenex. Wait till she hit's the chorus in "Christina" and just repeats that name over and over again. I even knew what was coming on this song, I probably read down 10 drafts of it as she filled a small collection of notebooks trying to finish it, but I still wasn't prepared for the impact the first time I finally heard it. Even on the 20th listen it's still leveling. When she hits that first B in the chorus and lets it drag just a moment before breaking into vibrato, you can hear the microphone begging to redline, you can hear the dimensions of the room, and you can hear the frustrated cry of a woman who has entirely let go.

Order the EP, the poster, and other goodies online from JoAnna's Myspace.

Guess what's finally back in print, remastered, and expanded. Nina Simone Sings The Blues. This record sat on my wish list for over a year before I scratched it out figuring I wouldn't see it anytime soon. I actually found it that very afternoon in the discount bin in Waterloo. There's so much humor and sensuality in Nina's voice, and the just under two minute long "Buck" is about the funkiest track ever recorded. Everyone needs this.

11 Songs - Liz Pappademas

If you were introduced to Joni Mitchell chronologically, or if you were lucky enough to have lived during the anticipation of each of her releases, then you are aware of the moment when you were listening to Ladies of the Canyon that it suddenly became clear Joni was not just a "good" songwriter. That in fact something special was happening. It only took her one album to answer those promises with Blue. I first heard that promise in Liz Pappademas (2) a couple years back, when I picked up a copy of her first EP 5 Songs From Laurel Street, after a professor we shared in school introduced us.

I recall sitting at dinner that night and our professor asking her if she had found a solid group of writers in town. She responded that no one was as technical. Ultimately, that is a word I may have chosen in an attempt to describe her skill. Liz can write lines I would have deemed unsingable and turn them like Dylan Thomas. In "Neighbor Boy" from the aforementioned EP she sings a line that still levels me every time it curls out of my stereo, "where did you come from/where did you come from/the tree in your yard/its roots in my basement/breaking up my foundation."

Since her last effort with trio Hurts to Purr (2), Liz has systematically been stripping the excess from her music. At times this even includes discarding rhythm, or functional harmony, or both to properly accent phrases. Some of it disturbing, often clever, and occasionally reminiscent of the young childhood Liz seems to spend so much creative time reliving.

The sparse appointments of her new record, 11 songs, provide a window into the unique space she has built around herself. Almost an intrusion into her life at times, this is her Nebraska, or her New York Tendaberry. The program is uncompromising, and emotionally engulfing. Going back to Joni, Blue has always been a record that demanded no less than 3 full listens before it can conceivably come out of my stereo, and in the past several weeks since I pulled the shrink wrap off of 11 songs, the Joni standard is one I am finding once again applies to Liz as well.

Long awaited Bad Habits EP release!!

My good friend JoAnna Lynne plays at The Jewish Mother in Virginia Beach, VA tonight to celebrate the release of her debut EP Bad Habits. For everybody on the inside, this has been a long time coming. I watched a lot of these songs take form through the endless drafts she emailed me and our friend Justine for revisions, and I can't tell you how excited I am to finally hear them coming out of my stereo. Jo is one of my favorite singers and I don't think you'll get deep into these 5 tracks before she tops your list as well.

Stay tuned for a forthcoming review which I'm finding difficult to write because it's about my friend (you should have seen how long it took me to write the bio for her upcoming website) and also online ordering information for all of us not lucky enough to live on the beach.

Check out the third name on the second line. It reads, "MUSIC BY PAKK HUI." Pakk happens to be one of the first people I met during my first semester at Berklee. He's in LA now persuing a career in Film Scoring, and this month a short he scored, Illegal, was featured at the Tribeca Film Festival (scroll down.) Check out a brief example of his work in the trailer, or hear full clips on his website and myspace pages.

The Future of Music?

A team of sound designers and engineers working at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona Spain have developed an entirely new approach to electronic music creation. The instrument, called the Reactable, is described as a "multi-user electro-acoustic music instrument with a tabletop tangible user interface." The Reactable is played by placing a selection of different objects that emulate various parameters of synth construction, onto the table surface. Moving, rotating, and altering the touch sensitive video display around each object modifies the sound!

You can watch the reactable in action here. Trendhunter.com also reports that Bjork is using the instrument for her upcoming tour.

This weekend is cause for celebration, for mourning, but most of all, for remembering. Sunday, April 1st marks the 23rd anniversary of Marvin Gaye's murder, one day before his 45th birthday. On Monday, April 2nd, Marvin would have been 68.

I believe Miles hit his peak at about 45 years old, and to hear some of the things he did after that point it becomes even more saddening to realize how early Marvin left us.

Even so, Marvin's legacy remains great, and I have immersed myself in his records so much that only a handful of artists even approach the time I have spent with his music. So thank you Marvin for what you created for me and for every one. Happy Birthday. We love you and miss you.

El-P - I'll Sleep When You're Dead

4Hero - Play With The Changes

Rich Boy - Rich Boy

Serengeti - Dennehy

VA/Sound Chronicles - Volume 1

photo by Angelo

I spent this past weekend trolling for SXSW freebies. Without a $600 badge or a $160 wristband a fellow has to start hustling a little. In all honesty, folks did most of the hustle for me. Ginny from Okayplayer made a few dozen calls. At one time me working as load crew for El-P was discussed. Guest list for Amy Winehouse? But SXSW authorities got all jumpy and finally she called Tayyib Smith, general socialite and industry insider, along with his own journalism and soiree endeavors.

Ultimately I just hung close to Tayyib and he handled the VIP hookup for me, Jill, his friend Sara, and anyone else who was nearby. Thanks Tayyib for the wave past the velvet ropes.

I spent most of my time at day parties because they seemed to be more accessible for industry related shows than the population doubling night bills. Monday, OKP posted my thoughts about the weekend on their blog. Check it out here. (Scroll to the SXSW 2007 headline.)

Two shows I wish I had seen, were the 50th Anniversary Stax Records Reunion, and Charles Wright with the Watts 103rd. (For some reason he's abbreviating the name now.) Both of those were at Antones, but Jill and I got crazy sunburned at the Stubbs Ghostface/Rakim show and slept right through the late afternoon and Charles' performance.

My good friend Kenny is on VH1! Check out the dreaded-out black guy playing keys. His brother Tony shows up at the end in a red track jacket. Look for Nya Jade on tour to see Kenny playing.

If the youtube link is down, try VH1.

My first freelance rejection slip:

Hi there

Thanks so much for your proposal for the 33 1/3 series. I’m afraid that yours isn’t one of the proposals we’ll be signing up, but we really do appreciate that you took the time to send it in – we enjoyed reading every one of them.

Very best wishes,

David

I submitted a proposal to write a book on D'Angelo's Voodoo for Continuum Publishing's 33 1/3 series. Last year there were 170 proposals and of those 20 books were signed. This year, in order to fill the same 20 slots, there were 449. Sweet. I guess I was a year late.

I just posted a new, semi-finished demo on my myspace page. I tracked most of it in mad dashes between my audio hardware crashing. As I was mixing though things kept crashing so much that I upgraded my whole system. Cool except that now my OS is too modern for my music editing software which means I can't even open the damn thing. So until I figure out a solution, here is my progress so far.

On a side note, I had planned to fade out this track until my computer crashed. So now with the full version you can hear me snatching Stevie Wonder lyrics out of the air at the end. Don't laugh, I improvised the end on like half a dozen takes and there's one where I was singing Usher.

When I was about 13 I heard this track called "Jazz (We've Got)" on a sneak preview of Groove Productions VG2. When I got back to Waco I couldn't find that song but I did find the artists newest release, "Beats, Rhymes & Life." I still remember pulling it out of a box below the display shelves in Wherehouse Music. That record is probably the earliest root of my musically elitist and snobbish tendencies.

It just so happened that A Tribe Called Quest emcee Q-tip had a cousin named Consequence he brought in on that album. Quence appeared on about half the cuts including helping to co-write one of my favorite songs to this day, "Stressed Out." Then Tribe broke up and a decade passed. Last week I got to talk with Consequence about his second chance at fame in a long quest to realize his dreams.

Here is the interview.

Lewis Taylor - The Lost Album

Jewels - The Self Outside Project

Bassline - Elevator Music

Burnt Sugar - Chopped and Screwed, Vol. 2

Jordan Miche - Phantom of the Operation

Wu-Tang Clan & Friends - Unreleased

My choice for Okayplayer's 2006 Best of list. Read my comments here. My editor tagged my entry with a line from an email I sent her about Amy, but I guess they are still my words.

It's a UK release still unavailable in the states. I ordered the Canadian version from Dusty Groove and it is missing the last track from the UK version. I've heard rumors of a March release in the US.

Big Wille Green - The Proof

Lady Sovereign - Public Warning

The Insomniaddicts - Eventide Revery

J Xavier - Young Prince Of Tha South

Lexicon - The Rapstars E.P.

Owusu & Hannibal - Living With Owusu and Hannibal

Youngblood Brass Band - Is That A Riot?

Zion I & the Grouch - Heroes in the City of Dope

Monday I caught Howard Tate at the Continental Club down on South Congress. Howard is a much lauded soul singer from the late '60's among collectors but basically unheard of by anyone else. I discovered him through an article in the annual Oxford American southern music issue (2005 ). Still, I've never stumbled on any of his records. Apparently after the mid 70's he basically fell off the face of the Earth and has only in the past few years reemerged and begun recording and touring again. He's older and a little scary when climbing the rickety half staircase to the red curtained stage, but his voice still holds an audience in suspense even if it has become thinner over the years. And he holds a genuine appreciation for his audience, which he displayed by shaking every hand deep into the second row during his final number. Most importantly, very few torch bearers of the soul legacy still tour and it felt like crawling out of Michael J. Fox's Delorean to see Howard on that tiny stage in a dive bar in south Austin.

Jill tried to drag me back stage after the show to talk to him and I refused. I feel stupid for that now. How many 25 year olds are there in the world that understand how important the social contributions of soul music were to America? I should have just gone back and said, "Thank You."

Well it was fun while it lasted. I bought this Novax CH-8 last January. The CH-8 is Charlie Hunter's custom designed 8 string guitar which utilizes 3 bass strings tuned E-A-D, 5 guitar strings A-D-G-B-E and a split pickup system that runs bass and guitar lines out to their respective amplifiers. I spent 2 months playing nothing but James Brown tunes on this guitar and it taught me two things:

1.) I love James Brown in the most masculine way possible.

2.) I can't play 8 string guitar.

I might have guessed, I don't even like to play a 6 string in dropped-D. But I am amazed by Charlie Hunter and have wanted one of these for nearly as long as I have played guitar. Other gear I have bought because of Charlie includes a Hughes and Kettner Tube Rotosphere, a Mesa Boogie amp, and I've been lusting after the now out of production Way Huge Aqua Puss analog delay pedal. I've even considered strapping my Boss TU-12 to my pedal board instead of messing with a stomp box and to be honest, if I ever used any of the guitar pedals I owned, I would probably buy a Keeley Compressor too. When it comes down to it Charlie is still amazing and I'm too obsessive about being awesome at everything to have time to learn 8-string. So I am selling the Novax to pay for the Custom Shop Tele I bought a few months ago. By the way, James Brown's guitarist Phelps Collins played a tele. (Sorry no link to that, that guy is a ghost.)