Let's get it out of the way upfront - Britta used to be the voice of Jem! If you don't know who that was (1) I don't blame you and (2) click here...She was also in Runaway with Justine Bateman and Liam Neeson back in the day. Dig IMDB's description:
"A couple of teenagers have a band, Mystery, with Jennie as the lead singer. They go to a bar on the coast and play during the summer. Jennie falls in love with the owner of the bar, Martin. They get an offer to play in Europe and perhaps become famous. But are they ready for it?"
Thrilling, no?
Sadly, I did see Runaway back in the day but Britta really got onto my radar screen the first time I saw Luna, shortly after she joined the band. She's got a real hip presence on stage and keeps the low end thumping along.
Britta and Luna frontman Dean Wareham are now married and have released a few albums and EPs on their own. Always exquisitely chill, their records use Luna as a staring point to create a loungey, indie pop sound.
A few good articles I came across in flights to and from Vancouver earlier this week...
Geddy Lee's Caption: The Pain of Politics. by Evan Solomon, Globe and Mail, May 26, 2007. Only a preview is available online but this short interview is so worth reading...In the "caption" series the Globe and Mail gives a public figure a photo from the recent news, tells them nothing about the image and then asks them to create a caption based on their interpretation. There is then a brief interview to discuss the caption, how the person arrived at it, to reveal what the photo is of, etc. Geddy's parents were Holocaust survivors and the photo he was given was of a family saying goodbye to each other after the temporary meetings between relatives arranged by the governments of North and South Korea...All I can say is pay the 4.95 Canadian to access this piece online, it is really amamzing.
The Sounds of Science: Computer-generated music moves out of the lab. by Alexander Gelfand, The Walrus, June 2007. This article starts by looking at laptop musicians and then puts the movement into the context of mid-20th century electronic/computer/avant-garde music. Only "300 of 2718 words" from the article appear online without registering but a free 10-day trial available at the end of the preview will unlock the whole piece....
I have been holding off on posting about this blog because it doesn't seem to get updated very often but if you visit only for the tracks they have already posted your time would not be wasted...Dig their description:
"I love African vinyl, dug up in chicken coops, oily garages, or roadside stalls. After Mwanza, Kinshasa and Lagos, and working in various African cities, I once again live in Tanzania. Time to share music's polyrhythms..."
A guy here at work pointed this out to me...the description on YouTube says, "rare early footage (shot by Ginger Baker) featuring Fela & Afrika 70 performing in the rainy southeastern town of Calabar, shortly after the the Nigerian civil war".
Aimee Mann and "bass player" are probably not synonymous but there it is, photographic evidence AND a wikipedia entry! Aimee Mann is in fact a bass player!
She's more known as a songwriter and arranger of intelligent pop music, and to some as no more than the singer from 'Til Tuesday...her music is almost always in the personal/"confessional" vein - writing about relationships, addiction and more in a very accessible, universal way.
Here are a few tracks to get you started....if you are up for hearing two very memorable guest appearances, look for her work on William Shatner's Has Been and Rush's Hold Your Fire...you will be convinced she can do anything - and please pick up the Magnolia: Music from the Motion Picture soundtrack - you get Aimee Mann and Supertramp!
I posted twice in the past about Alice Coltrance (here and here) but an article in the New York Times this weekend made me realize I needed to share some music...The article was the Times' coverage of a concert and memorial service held this past week, the Alice Coltrane Ascension Ceremony, at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in New York City.
I did not attend, in fact was not even aware the event was happening. I will not repeat the details of the night as conveyed in the article, instead I am including a copy of it in the folder with the songs that make up this mix.
Originally I thought I would match the playlist to the memorial service's program but instead opted to create a memorial of my own, Burning Dervish Vol 14: Alice Coltrane. The tracks included here all feature Alice as a side person or bandleader.
Peace on Earth from John Coltrane's Live in Japan, 1966
Ogunde from John Coltrane's The Olatunji Concert - The Last Live Recording, 1967
Ohnedaruth from Alice Coltrane's A Montastic Trio, 1968
Mantra from Alice Coltrane's Ptah, the El Daoud, 1970
Isis and Osiris from Alice Coltrane's Journey In Satchidananda, 1970
Water from Joe Henderson's The Elements, 1973
Angel of Sunlight from Carlos Santana and Alice Coltrane's Divine Light, 2001
Translinear Light from Alice Coltrane's Translinear Light, 2004
From one of our favorite local bookstores, Freebird Books & Goods:
Thursday, May 24th at 7pm, Rob Sheffield reading from his autobiography, Love Is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time
Rob Sheffield is a contributing editor at Rolling Stone, where he writes the "Pop Life" column. He has been a rock critic since Prince still had Wendy and Lisa in the band, starting with a review of Tiffany's second album for Spin magazine in 1988. His work has appeared in Spin, the Village Voice, MTV, VH1, and many other places. He lives in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. His memoir Love is a Mix Tape was published in January of 2007.
"Callier, a childhood friend of Curtis Mayfield, began recording in 1963 but never reached stardom despite a series of regional hits in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1983, he gained custody of his 12-year-old daughter Sundiata and decided to retire from music to look for a steadier income. He took classes in computer programming and
landed a job at the University of Chicago in 1984.
He reemerged from obscurity when British DJs discovered his old recordings and began to play his songs in clubs in the early 1990s. Acid Jazz Records head Eddie Pillar brought Callier to play clubs in Britain beginning in 1991 and he began to make regular trips to play gigs during his vacation time from work.
In the late 90's Callier began his comeback to recorded music, contributing to Beth Orton's Best Bit EP in 1997 and releasing the album Timepeace in 1998, which won the United Nations' Time For Peace award for outstanding artistic achievement contributing to world peace.
Callier today is continuing his recording career having currently released five albums since Timepeace."
I am still filling in holes in my Callier collection and just recently picked up Speak Your Peace, from 2002. I can't say I enjoy it beginning to end but there are a few gems...
OK, the bluegrass and reggae "tribute" albums are definitely getting worn out. It was a fun, post-modern concept for a while and there are still flashes of brilliance...See Radiodread, the reggae version of OK Computer). At this point, though, I am thinking that maybe the whole genre-themed "tribute" concept is basically a way to make dying or rutted musical styles relevant...
Anyway, I was late to the game on this one and a friend of mine persuaded me to download it from eMusic. It is definitely fun and funny and while I will probably never listen to it again, I could see throwing a track here and there onto a straight bluegrass mixtape and having a laugh...
The music itself is pretty interesting and the band, Iron Horse, approach the tracks as sincerely as is needed (such an approach is the key to making the whole thing work anyway).
Pentangle were a British Folk band who first appeared on the scene 40 years ago. More "folk-jazz" than "folk-rock", their fans often cross into prog-rock territory (I am certain there is a ton of overlap with Renaissance fans) and the Fairport Convention/Steeleye Span crowd...
As with these other bands there are multiple incarnations of the group over the years and I really don't know enough about them yet to have a particular taste for any one era. There are countless compilations and collections of their material and the track offered up today appears on a disc that takes some standard album cuts and throws in a few rarities, thus focring die-hard fans to shell out a couple of more bucks to the few tracks they really want...
As I continue to wade through this month's score from eMusic, I want to post this track, from Parisa, a female vocalist in the Persian Classical tradition...
Parisa's website gives you all of the requsite background info, so I will not repeat that stuff here. I will say this, given her age (born in 1950) and the circumstances of her country during her lifetime, I would love to read something "unofficial" written about how she weathered the years of and immediately following the Revolution in 1979...
The album this track is on is something of a collaboration with, or at least was produced by, Hossein Omoumi, a scholar and teacher of Persian music who has done some interesting work in what I can only think of as ethnomusicology or even musical archeology...he has researched the origins and inner working of several Persian instruments, most notably the ney (the traditional reed flute from Iran) and added physical enhancements to them which allow them to create sounds newer and different from their typical abilities.
I don't know alot about this stuff but enough to be intrigued.
I don't remember how this album got on my radar screen but it had been sitting on one of my want lists at emusic and I finally downloaded it this month.
Not sure I should have bothered.
It's not the lamest thing I have ever listened to but there isn't a lot of personality to it. I really like Middle Eastern music of all types and am in no way a traditionalist - I like my dance beats along with my Bedouin chants as much as the next guy...but this record is really just...ummm...synthetic.
Am I overreacting? Did I miss it entirely? You tell me.
This snippet about Muslimgauze, from Wikipedia, should be enough to get you intrigued...
"Muslimgauze was the stage name of Bryn Jones (June 17, 1961 - January 14, 1999), a prolific British electronic music artist, strongly influenced by everything to do with the Middle East....He was a staunch supporter of Hamas and the PLO, and he believed Palestine should be "freed from the Zionists." Born in Manchester, England, United Kingdom, he never visited the Middle East, explaining, "I don't think you can visit an occupied land. It's the principle. Not until it's free again.""
As early back as 1982, his music was about protest - initially in response to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Wikipedia counts "90 original albums on 32 different record labels, creating nearly 2,000 original songs". Including re-issues, his release total is estimated at over 180 albums. His official website lists 192.
His art, not his politics, interests me, as well as the bizarre nature of his "career". Pick out three albums at random from his discography and you may well get three very different sounds from ambient, to noise, to percussion, etc. A hater, but an interesting cat.
Alright, I am the first to admit it this time...this mix might be a little silly.
Nah, not really. It's fun. Whattya think?
Can't Stop The Spring - The Flaming Lips
Springtime in New York - Jonathan Richman
June 16th - Minutemen
The Coming of Spring - The Rapture
Springtheme - Ween
Opening Medley: Hi Diddle Dee Dee (An Actor's Life For Me)/Little April Shower/I Wan'na Be Like You (The Monkey Song) - Ken Nordine, Bill Frisell And Wayne Horvitz; Natalie Merchant, Michael Stipe, Mark Bingham And The Roches; Los Lobos
I'd be really interested in hearing about other sites that post compilations and mixes. I'm up for any kind of music - just a big fan of the mixtape...
27 years ago today the South African government banned the Pink Floyd track "Another Brick In The Wall" after the country's black children adopted the song as their anthem in protest against the inferior education opportunities available to them under the apartheid regime.
What role does popular music play in the social dialogue today? What role should it play? Does it matter that Waters was writing this song for himself based on his own repressive experiences as a British schoolboy and had no other "political" intentions for the song?
All I can hope is that you enjoy visiting and reading this site as much as I enjoy working on it. If you like what you find here, please leave a comment. It means a lot to hear from you.
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Let's get it out of the way upfront - Britta used to be the voice of Jem! If you don't know who that was (1) I don't blame you and (2) click here...She was also in Runaway with Justine Bateman and Liam Neeson back in the day. Dig IMDB's description:
, the reggae version of OK Computer). At this point, though, I am thinking that maybe the whole genre-themed "tribute" concept is basically a way to make dying or rutted musical styles relevant...
