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.)

So lately I have been inseparable from George Harrison's early 70's output. Obsessive to the point that I spend entirely too much time analyzing every available configuration of guitar slides to try to find that clean sparkly sound he gets on his lead lines. Oh, and my ringfinger is the lone digit with dishpan hands from essentially sitting inside a jar for hours while I perfect the tag solo from "The Lord Loves The One." Of course, the only detailed info I can find on his guitars is during his Beatles tenure. Either way, as a slide melody master tribute here are 4 Fab solos from the man himself.

1. "I'd Have You Anytime" - All Things Must Pass

2. "How Do You Sleep" - Imagine (John Lennon)

3. "The Lord Loves The One" - Living In The Material World

4. "I Dig Love" - All Things Must Pass

The most recent addition. These guys are out there.

Of Mexican Descent - Exitos y Mas Exitos

Here's a few new OKP posts from September.

Baraka Noel -The Mixtape Philosophies of Mushroom Black

Kid Koala - Your Moms Favorite DJ

DJ Kayslay and Greg Street - The Champions

I may wear the same shirt for three days, but you better believe that when it comes to accessorizing my music I've shopped around like a trophy wife in Bloomingdales. These two items have become indespensible to my music listening habits.

1.) Grado Labs SR60 headphones - Handmade in Brooklyn, these are the only model in the Grado line that even approach the pocketbook of a still unrealized lotto winner.
2.) Vaja Cases I-Pod case - again, handmade but this time in Argentina. Easily in my exhaustive search one of the most expensive cases available on the market, but absolutely nothing competes with their quality. And, they offer an entire gamut of customizable options and colors to fit every conceivable electronic device. Mine (pictured above) is army green with a brown back.

Check out Living With Music.com. This website is my newest first stop when I'm looking to waste time. It has comprehensive reviews of a whole range of storage options for every form of media imaginable. Not included in the reviews is Boltz, my personal favorite storage system. But I've already demonstrated my love for them by posting a photo of my own unit several entry's below.

Continuum: First Listen
There's a chance this new record may be JM's best yet. Either way, it is without question his most cohesive and acomplished after having only played it through a couple of times. Continuum is the logical evolution of the scented candle reflection of 2003's Heavier Things merging with the Hendrixian posturing of the JM Trio's live release Try. The pyrotechnics are toned down here (save for the "Bold As Love" Hendrix cover) in favor of sizzling late night grooves more in line with his previous studio efforts. Essentially, this feels like a lost Clapton or Sting record from the 80's. Think Nothing Under the Sun or Slowhand and you're pretty much on target. So much so that I have read that same sentiment in several reviews of the record including the same album comparisons. The music is John a little more grown up and stretching his legs within the Adult/Alternative Rock genre more than ever. The lyrics still hold a tinge of the cocksure boy that wrote Inside Wants Out but lean more towards the overarching twists on generalization that made "Daughters" a hit. What is most suprising is the almost uncharacteristic acousitc work. Sure, John is known for his acoustic hits, but "The Heart of Life" lacks his signature sound in favor of a lo-fi lope that very closely resembles McCartney's "Blackbird". "Stop This Train" also draws more from the tone of JM friend and admired artist Teitur than the strummed ballads of Room For Squares. Still, these offerings are strong as well as the album standout "Slow Dancing In A Burning Room," a Bonnie Raitt style heartbreak groove, which may be John's most mature offering to date.

How is is not criminal to even nominate Nick Lachey for anything, but Mos Def can't get on stage and say something that has relevance to the political state of the union without walking off in handcuffs?

Sweet Soul Music

by Peter Guralnick

The definitive history of southern soul. A music always largely under represented in American popular culture that long ago submerged to mostly a cult following of collectors trolling through dusty 45 bins. This book left a pile of scribbled notes beside my bed and scattered along my coffee table full of long lists of artists and records I'd never heard of. The obvious are well represented here (Stax, James Brown, Aretha) but the stories of Goldwax, Johnny Jenkins, and Dan Penn are the reason to dig in. Now if someone would just release the legendary Dan Penn demo's from Fame and American studios.

My only complaint is the more than lacking discography which is comprised almost entirely of bargain bin best of's for all the baby boomers who picked this book up on a whim of nostalgia. For such a thoroughly researched work, the discography could have at least pointed at a few of the less obvious gems instead of just telling readers to pick up James Brown's Polydor comps.

Above Otis Redding protege Arthur Conley performs the books namesake to a German audience in 1966

 

Two more recent OKP reviews to bring us up to date.

Jern Eye - Authentic Vintage

Super System - A Million Microphones

Yeah, so this would be the ultimate goal. I don't even need a kitchen or anything, just give me this room, a stereo, and a matress.

A personal tour of Questlove's infamous 'Record Room'

 

Vinyl is a fairly new obsession, but I spent the better part of college in used record store basements digging up obscurities and imports. This looks like the beginning of something promising until you see Questlove in his library. Note the ever expanding Miles Davis section second shelf top left. He's the only artist who gets his own category in the filing system. My most exciting find lately was a pair of James Blood Ulmer albums from early 80's New York loft scene albums.

These went out of print in the mid 90's and will run anywhere from $25 to $60 on Ebay or Gemm. I picked them up separately used at Waterloo Records for $9 apiece. Still missing 'Tales of Captain Black' though, that's the record that got me started digging for these.