I don’t listen to much DJ music, but I’m intrigued by the group called N.A.S.A., which stands for “North America, South America.”
N.A.S.A. is Sam Spiegel (Squeak E. Clean) and Ze Gonzales (DJ Zegon). They make extraordinary mashups and put striking images to the beats, as you can see above.
“Money” features graphics from Shepard “Obey Giant” Fairey. The combination of elements, musical and graphic, make a strong impression to say the least.
To learn more about N.A.S.A., see this interview they did with Carson Daly.
Phish is back and the thing I like about it is it’s Phish, not an imitation of Phish.
The Vermont-based jamband returned to the stage last night at Fenway Park in Boston after a three-year hiatus. I’ve been listening to the show today, and from what I can tell they delivered, particularly from a set list perspective, as the show was full of classic tunes like “Sample In A Jar,” “Chalkdust Torture,” “Cavern,” and “Down With Disease.”
Phish also busted out two choice covers–Led Zeppelin’s “Good Times Bad Times” and “Curtis Lowe” by Lynyrd Skynyrd.
I know the Gorge shows in August are sold out, but I might have to materialize some tickets.
A bunch of our friends were there. We were not there.
Last week, an old friend took the time to explain to me why he decided to go. I said, “You don’t need to explain, you’re a Deadhead.”
I’m a Deadhead too, but since I wasn’t there, maybe I’m the one with some ‘splainin’ to do. So here it is: Since Jerry died, I’ve met Phil and Mickey on their turf backstage and they were both intolerably rude. I have never met Bob, but some of his decisions over the past few years have been even ruder. Yes, I’m talking about taking the soundboards off Archive.org—that was a bullshit move any way you look at it, especially considering he failed to consult his old prep school buddy John Barlow on the subject. Barlow is one of the world’s top experts on internet culture, but Bobby blew him off. Greed is stupid and it blinds.
Okay, back to the show. It was broadcast on Sirius XM, which I don’t subscribe to, but downloadablefiles were pretty much instantly available. So, while I wasn’t there in person to soak up the vibe, I have listened to the show. It had its moments—”Crazy Fingers” into “Dark Star” in the first set being one. Thanks again, Warren.
There’s not much coverage of this show yet, but I did find this sober report from Glossolaliac:
The seating logistics were slightly annoying, since they were just folding chairs set up on the asphalt, moveable and moved by whoever got there first so you still had to fight for space. I wasn’t in the mood to be subtle and I think I succeeded in forcing our chairs out far enough to give me room to move, and I dare anyone to tell a pregnant lady to squeeze her chair forward. That said, the system is just dumb.
There was one place to pee, about halfway up the (steep fucking) hill in porta-potty town with a nonstop line, so they let me use the ADA bathrooms at the bottom. At band-break hubs got some $9 beers and I got an $8 cup of undercooked noodles with chicken. Thanks, Live Nation, for the hospitality! Way to cover people’s basic needs!
As for the band, she has this to offer:
The Dead came on with Bobby in front looking like a cartoon Einstein with a fluffed out shock of white hair. Phil still can’t sing. Warren Haynes again taking a role. The first set was a little disjointed, it felt like songs without much of a flow.
Which is interesting. Paul Liberatore of the Marin Indepedent Journal has Hart saying, “We really found each other on this tour. We’re renewing our friendship. We’re starting to become a group again.”
So which is it? Is the band gelling again, or are they an overpriced, out of touch relic that gets away with “bloody murder” thanks to their unquestioning, deeply loyal fan base? I guess everyone who cares will have to answer that one for themselves.
Horse Feathers is one of the local band’s I’m excited to see play this summer at Pickathon, an Americana music festival at Pendarvis Farm outside Portland.
Here’s why. It’s not everyday that a zydeco diva and her posse rolls up to a mountain side retreat and unleashes the powers of according-driven music and Louisiana good times. Thankfully, for us the Waterfront Blues Festival is taking place in Portland from 7/2 to 7/5, which is what brings the St. Martinville, LA band to the Northwest.
I was pleased to see Music Millenium on East Burnside stocking two of the group’s discs when I visited the store last week. I bought them both, of course. Now, Workin’ It and Guaranteed Lover are in our rotation and we get more excited to party with this band and our friends and family at every listen.
Angelle has some saucy, often funny lyrics to go with her driving beats. She also has a soulful voice to deliver them with. Rubboard Mary also brings several of the band’s tunes to life. And when Ruboard Mary’s not on stage she manages the band and handles booking.
The film, four years in the making, is the story of one of America’s truest folk art forms, the rock poster.
Beginning in the 1960s in San Francisco with the birth of the dance concert, a rock poster accompanied almost every show that was put on during that era.
“At the time, Janis Joplin and The Grateful Dead were not played on the radio, and the only way you could advertise their shows, was by hanging posters in the streets”, explains author Robert Greenfield.
Today, America is seeing a resurgence in this art form, brought upon by the popularity of websites like Gigposters.com, and the ease of silk screening. Artists like EMEK, Tara McPherson, and Jay Ryan are creating beautiful works of art for contemporary groups like The Decemberists and Death Cab For Cutie.
The film includes interviews with over 30 artists and takes the viewer on a journey through the different decades and incarnations of this rebellious art form.
The band known as “The Dead” embark on spring tour 2009 today in Greensboro, NC. It’s not news that this band has friends in high places (and high friends in places), but today it’s imminently clear that some of those friends work for The New York Times.
There’s a massive print and multimedia feature written by Ben Ratliffe in today’s paper, clearly timed in concert with the start of this tour. The feature examines Deadheads’ eternal need to define, categorize and remember. For instance, many heads believe 5/8/77 was the best performance ever delivered by Grateful Dead.
Ratliffe’s central argument is that one needs ALL the information in order to confidently make such declarations, and that advances in technology are making analysis of the band a more exact science.
In the late ’80s information access was limited. You had to work for your collection. It wasn’t all online. In 1987 the ability to point to a certain show — a Cornell ’77 or a Fillmore East 1970 — indicated great knowledge. But we can also now say that it indicated a kind of lack of knowledge. Because more and more of us now know, from better and better audio evidence, how the band sounded in the weeks and months around those famous nights.
Playing right into this need for further inquiry, the band recently released To Terrapin: Hartford from that same tour and Gary Lambert, a host of the Grateful Dead Radio show “Tales From the Golden Road” on Sirius XM, considers it just as good as 5/8/77.
The reality is people like what they like. I like shows from 1980-85. Like this one from West High in Anchorage, AK on Summer solstice, 6/21/80:
…and this one from Merriweather Post Pavillion on 6/27/84:
Buddy and Julie Miller are out with a new album, Written in Chalk that’s tearing up the Americana charts and hitting people where it counts — in the heart, gut and head.
The album’s lead song, “Ellis County” presents a picture of The Great Depression that is distinctly human. “Times were hard, but we didn’t know it. If we ate, we had to grow it,” sings the couple to a contemporary audience that’s clearly in tune with (and in need of) these kind of not so scary stories from the last severe hardship our nation endured.
With music that is always deeply personal, naturally eccentric and spiritually weighted, not to mention expertly performed, Buddy Miller is considered an auteur and a virtuoso. A skilled producer and emotive songwriter, Buddy is also widely recognized as one of the best guitar players in Nashville.
“Both Buddy and Julie Miller have famously good taste, and Written in Chalk, with its wide range of voices and styles, nicely displays the different modes in which they can work,” says Pop Matters.
Bob Dylan has a new album coming out on April 28th called Together Through Life. “Beyond Here Lies Nothin'” is one of the featured tracks on the blues heavy record.
The Los Angeles Times says of the song, “There’s something Leonard Cohen-esque about Dylan’s lyric, which is deeply existential and exceedingly debonair.” The Times also mentions that David Hildago’s accordion is “Dylan’s muse” on this song and throughout the album.
As part of the publicity for Together Through Life, Dylan engaged in a Q+A with Bill Flanagan. Here’s an excerpt:
BF: The new record’s very different from Modern Times which was a number one hit. It seems like every time you have a big hit, the next time out you change things around. Why don’t you try to milk it a little bit?
Dylan: I think we milked it all we could on that last record and then some. We squeezed the cow dry. All the Modern Times songs were written and performed in the widest range possible so they had a little bit of everything. These new songs have more of a romantic edge.
BF: How so?
These songs don’t need to cover the same ground. The songs on Modern Times songs brought my repertoire up to date, and the light was directed in a certain way. You have to have somebody in mind as an audience otherwise there’s no point.
BF: What do you mean by that?
There didn’t seem to be any general consensus among my listeners. Some people preferred my first period songs. Some, the second. Some, the Christian period. Some, the post Colombian. Some, the Pre-Raphaelite. Some people prefer my songs from the nineties. I see that my audience now doesn’t particular care what period the songs are from. They feel style and substance in a more visceral way and let it go at that. Images don’t hang anybody up. Like if there’s an astrologer with a criminal record in one of my songs it’s not going to make anybody wonder if the human race is doomed. Images are taken at face value and it kind of freed me up.
How odd it must be to have poetic visions as insanely beautiful as Dylan’s and be asked to explain them to people, as if explaining them is entirely possible and even the courteous thing to do.
