Thursday, September 30, 2004
Sevara Nazarkhan
Sevara Nazarkhan, "Yol Bolsin (Where Are You Going?)"
Sevara Nazarkhan, "Moghulchai Navo (Moghul Melody)"
from Yol Bolsin (Real World, 2002)
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Nazarkhan opened for Peter Gabriel last year, and she would join him to do Youssou N'Dour's part on "In Your Eyes" (would have loved to hear her do Tony Levin's basso profundo bit, perhaps while wearing a big-ass 'stache and 1980s trenchcoat---w/collar up, natch). You can watch Nazarkhan do "In Your Eyes" on Petey's Growing Up Live DVD.
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Buy the download for her self-produced Gozal Dema album (pretty much impossible to find otherwise) and two tracks from her forthcoming Uzbekistan-only CD, Netay, including the OG version of "Mogulchai Navo," before Hector Zazou & the Real World Crew fed it through the computer (not that I mind at all, hence the posting). In fact, there's a third version of "Mogulchai Navo" floating around the universe, and I wish I could find it because I think that's the video I saw on Link TV. It has something of a hip-hop beat + back-up singers, and Nazarkhan is doing the coolest step: she barely twists up her long silk dress and just leans back, leans back. Fat Joe should rope her in for a remix.
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Official site
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Real World page, where you can see the video for "Adolat Tanovari" & "Yol Bolsin"
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Buy the Yol Bolsin CD
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BBC Radio 3 Award
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Live set on BBC
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Live at WOMEX
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BBC review of Yol Bolsin
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NPR profile
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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel interview
Posted by CP | Link |
Wednesday, September 29, 2004
I get the Worldwide reacharound today over at Tofu Hut. Thx, boss. Someone needs to interview John, figure out where kid gets his energy, maybe spread it around to the rest of us.
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Speaking of blog-on-blog love, I spent Friday night hanging with Noz from Cocaine Blunts for an article that will be in tomorrow's Washington City Paper. Started at the GWU radio station, got into some g.i. trouble over at Five Guys, headed back to the Cocaine Crib (has a blockade of empty Mickey's lining the living-room wall), and ended up in the street chuckin' the pigskin with Noz & his roomies/homies. I'll post the article soon as I get it back from the chopping block.
Posted by CP | Link |
Tuesday, September 28, 2004
A.R. Rahman, "Dil Se Re"
from Dil Se soundtrack (1998)
A.R. Rahman, "Chaiyya Chaiyya"
from Dil Se soundtrack; available on The Very Best Bollywood Songs (Outcaste, 2001)
A.R. Rahman & Andrew Lloyd Webber, "Chaiyya Chaiyya"
from Bombay Dreams (Sony, 2002; original London cast)
Pick up the new issue of Global Rhythm, which features supastar A.R. Rahman on the cover (and my Abdel Wright story on the inside). Rahman has clocked the "Macarena" for the Bollywood set with "Chaiyya Chaiyya." The tune was originally in the film Dil Se, and in the flick the cast is body-rocking to "Chaiyya Chaiyya" on top of a moving train. It's so damn tite. Matta fact, I'm gonna break out some "Chaiyya" steps atop a Metrobus tomorrow. At about 9:30 a.m. look for a fella with the skin color of a flashbulb and the dexterity of an offensive lineman droppin' legs on the Z8 route.
These two versions of "Chaiyya Chaiyya" are only moderately different, but the tune is so nice you have to have it twice.
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Good Rahman bio.
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Wanna do the "Chaiyya Chaiyya" dance in your cubicle? Here's how.
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A.R. Rahman interview.
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A big batch of Hindi MP3s (broken linkz galore).
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Info on the Dil Se flick, including movie trailer & soundtrack streams.
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Stream two hours of nonstop Rahman noodlin'.Posted by CP | Link |
Monday, September 27, 2004
Ya daddy's got a frozen face & an Autotune in his pants.
Kittytext hittin' it like ya momma at camp.
B. Wils riffz & in memory of E. Cotton (yeah, fIREHOSE ref, freak).
Posted by CP | Link |
Friday, September 24, 2004
 
Dolly Rathebe, "Tlhapi Ke Noga"
The Elite Swingers, "Dinokza"
from African Jazz 'n' Jive (Gallo, 2000)
Didn't have music handy when I posted my Dolly Rathebe tribute yesterday, so here you are: one song where she's singing and one instrumental featuring her frequent musical partners, the Elite Swingers.
African Jazz 'n' Jive is super tite throughout---it even perked up the ears of Mr. Meltdown today. Snag it here.
Posted by CP | Link |
Thursday, September 23, 2004
Dolly Rathebe, 1928 - Sept. 16, 2004
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Top photo: Dolly Rathebe, photographed in 1955 by Jurgen Schadeberg.
Other photos: Sophie Mgcina (left) & Dolly Rathebe in stills from the film Amandla! A Revolution in Four-Part Harmony.
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Dolly Rathebe was a South African singer, actress, pinup girl, business woman, and activist. She will be buried in Soweto.
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If you've never seen Amandla!, you should bust out your credit card and buy it right now. The scenes with Mgcina and Rathebe reminiscing about music during the apartheid era are funny, sad, touching, and among the highlights in this great documentary. Here's a Real Player excerpt from Amandla! that was featured on the Connections radio show; you hear the two women crooning "Meadowslands" and then explaining what their real intentions were in singing that song. (The clip continues for 37 more minutes with other interviews from the stars of Amandla!)
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South African History entry on Rathebe
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iAfrica.com article
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CDs by the Elite Swingsters
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An article about Rathebe's star turn in the culturally significant 1949 movie Jim Comes to Jo'Burg (aka African Jim), and here's a piece where she remembers her audition for the film.
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Rathebe profiled in South Africa's Sunday Times
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Obituary in South Africa's Mail & Guardian
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BBC's page on the Sophiatown documentary
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A history of Sophiatown
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A history of South African music
Posted by CP | Link |
Wednesday, September 22, 2004
For free you can download the entire Folk-Songs of America LP from the Library of Congress' Robert Winslow Gordon Collection in the American Folklife Center.
The LP cover and liner notes
The recordings (made between 1922 and 1932)
"The notes to the LP give an excellent account of Gordon's role in the history of folksong collecting and archiving. In the context of the present reissue, it is worth pointing out that Gordon's interests extended beyond the folksongs themselves to include the means of capturing them. From childhood he was a tinkerer, fascinated by technology, and it is no surprise that he was a pioneer of the use of sound-recording equipment in folklore fieldwork.
Gordon's cylinders and discs are of inestimable value and form part of his legacy. But they present a challenge given by Gordon to future archivists. Gordon's intent was not only to collect folksongs but to present them to the public, and his song columns in Adventure and the New York Times Magazine were an early form of applied or public folklore. Gordon's challenge to us is to make sure that these folksongs remain accessible to the public, that they not be hidden away in an archive. With each evolutionary step in sound recording technology, Gordon's challenge is renewed."Posted by CP | Link |
Monday, September 20, 2004
It's Time for the Turbinator
Dr. Lonnie Smith, "Too Damn Hot"
Dr. Lonnie Smith, "Back Track"
from Too Damn Hot (Palmetto, 2004)
I have several photos and posters of jazz musicians hanging in my office, from Andrew Hill to Soweto Kinch to Vandermark 5 to Russell Carlson. But the one image that sits above my desk and looks down on me all day long is a great shot (not shown above) of the extra-stanky organist Dr. Lonnie Smith by Jimmy Katz. Dr. Lonnie's gaze in the photo is beneficent (spectral even), so whenever my energy starts to lag I look up at Doc Funkenstein for spiritual inspiration. And for years now that photo has come alive and shouts back, "I'm too damn hot!" Since my office is temperate year-round, I've always wondered what the hell Dr. Smith's complaining about.
Then I heard these trax and I finally knew what he meant.
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Check out more downloads from Palmetto Records, including Dr. Lonnie's "Woozy," which is an outtake from Too Damn Hot.
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Here's a long Before & After (aka Blindfold Test, aka Invisible Jukebox, aka excellent magazine filler) I did with Doc Lon in 2001. You can play along as well. (The opening line to this B&A has to be one of the worst things I've ever written. For some reason, B3 players bring out the worst puns in writers.)
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All About Jazz's profile of Doc.
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Buy Too Damn Hot when it comes out Oct. 12.
Posted by CP | Link |
Friday, September 17, 2004
Today, I twist your neck & attention toward Beau Beau. He cold kicks it, Richmond-flood styleee, with Fudge, one of my fave U.S. indie-pop bands from the early '90s. Andrew posts three MP3s---all great---interviews the band's David Jones, and muses on the D.C. & Richmond pop scenes of the late '80s & early '90s, as well as the epochal "...Lotsa Pop Losers festival over two days in 1991. That show marked the first coalescence of likeminded bands from all over the East Coast and, whatever you think of what came after, was a real shot across the bow of the music scene at the time."
Tim & I made that trek down to D.C. from Michigan, and because of the people I met at Lotsa Pop Losers I ended up moving to the Washington area in 1994.
David Jones is a damn funny guy, and I wish we stayed in touch. Veronica Lake played a pop fest in Providence, R.I., in, like, 1992, along with Tsunami, Velocity Girl, and all the other usual suspects. We crashed in the same house that the Fudge boys did, and we got along very well---mostly because we were, by far, the most socially retarded guys there. There is one great story from that fest that I'd like to tell online, but I don't want to embarrass anyone---but I will give you the punch line: "If you find anything odd, Todd, keep it for yourself." (Even funnier---to me & Tim, anyway---the guy's name was Ty, not Todd.)
Somewhere I have a photo of a sleeping Jonesy with a day-glo tank top draped over his inert body; the shirt features the verbiage Hang Loose and an accompanying hand signal. My then-employer brought it back from Hawaii for me, thinking I'd dig it because, as he said, "You have spiky hair and you're a willld guy!"
My former employer later died in a plane crash (true story).
Truth is, I could see Jonesy slappin' that tank top on when he woke up and thinking nothing of it.
David J: If you're out there, holla at ya middle-aged man.
Posted by CP | Link |
Monday, September 13, 2004
This view of Venice's Grand Canal and Chiesa di Santa Maria della Salute...
...has nothing to do with today's links.
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Pianist Jason Moran---you need his Bandwagon CD---features several MP3s on his site.
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The process behind saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa's Mother Tongue: Do You Speak Indian? suite is as fascinating as the music. MP3s from his previous album, Black Water, here.
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Trumpeter Dave Douglas lets his peeps do the remix thing.
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Saxophonist Greg Osby has tons of live MP3s on his Web page.
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DJ sets from Yoshitoshi Records.
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Trumpeter Nils Petter-Molvaer has an MP3 for "Wilderness" at his zzzzzite.
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Full radio programs from Oslo's Experimenta show.
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Bassist Eivind Opsvik features MP3s, including two live ones with Wibutee's fantastic saxophonist, Hakon Kornstad.
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Jaga Jazzist features a buncha em p troisssss.
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Tons of Ninja Tune downloads.
Posted by CP | Link |
Friday, September 10, 2004
Tech Club
Sutekh
+
Portable
+
Mikroknytes (U.S.A.)
vs.
Sawtooth (U.K.)
(This last joint is a live performance clash across two continents, which you can watch right here.)
@ Flashpoint
916 G Street, NW
Washington, DC
8pm, $10
This is part of the American Composer Forum's Sonic Circuits festival.
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I've never mentioned Mikroknytes before, but I've been remiss in not doing so. Derek Morton, one half of the 'knytes, is one of the most creative and tireless promoters of experimental electronica that I know. The amount of effort he puts into creating art, music, and performances, as well as promoting & booking shows, is admirable in the fullest. I wish I had half his energy and focus.
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My story on Abdel Wright is in the new issue of Global Rhythm, but I just read that his CD has been pushed back to spring 2005. Shite! They've been tinkering with his record for most of 2004, sending it down to Sly & Robbie for some remixes, but Abdel wasn't crazy about the idea. Here's an excerpt from my interview that didn't make it into the article:
"Those guys didn't believe in me. Long before I got this deal, I go to them and show them my talent, and they just were like, 'Well, OK, but this type of music not gonna really do well.' When I eventually got this deal, and the record company send my album down for a remix, they say, 'Oh, mon, dis sound good.' Me say, 'Yeah, mon, I'm the same damn person who sang in front of you a couple years ago and you did nothing. So I'm not pleased to make you remix it.'"
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Spreadin' Luv:
--Yulduz Usmanova
--Garmarna Tekameli
--Mash It got dem mad hitz inna soundclash style
--Sound Portraits
--Handsome Nate Chinen on Public Radio Weekend in two spots: here and here
--My holmes over at Global Rhythm, Tommy Pryor, on PRW as well, here
--Hearing Voices
--Daniela Mercury
--My man David Adler in The New Republic on why Dead Prez are idjitsPosted by CP | Link |
Thursday, September 09, 2004
Yes, yes, y'all: Luigi Nono
Luigi Nono, "Io, Frammento Da Prometeo [section 8: bass flute, contrabass clarinet]"
from Io, Frammento Da Prometeo / Das Atmende Klarsein (Col Legno, 2003)
The four of you who regularly read this site know I like to post music from whatever place I've been fortunate to visit recently. Since my travels have been, mostly, because of work, it's been easy to find pop / folk music from Jamaica, South Africa, and Norway, or music related to events in, say, Montreal, Chicago, and Michigan. But since my trip to Italy was 100% personal (though for wifey-poo, it was for work initally), and Venice isn't exactly a pop paradise, how do I honor the Queen of the Adriatic? I mean, we could rock some Vivaldi MIDI files and chat up the life of the red-headed priest, but all of you have The Four Seasons already, right? If not, trip across a budget version of it next time you're at Tower; it'll be the finest $5.98 you spent since lunch.
But a visit to a merchant of Venice produced Luigi Nono for me, a man I had read about in relation to Schoenberg, Boulez, and Stockhausen but had never heard. Somehow, during my five minutes of modern-classical mania in 1995, I never gave in and bought one of his CDs (or 25-cent LPs from the library). Shame, because I like him more than all those other dudes combined.
Here's what I picked up:
--Arditti Quartet, Luigi Nono: La Lontananza Nostalgica Utopica Futura (Montaigne, 2000)
--Andre Richard, conductor; the Experimental Studio of the Heinrich Strobel Foundation, electronic realization: Io, Frammento Da Prometeo / Das Atmende Klarsein (Col Legno, 2003)
--Sinfonieorchester Basel; Mario Venzago, conductor; Mark Kaplan, violin: Luigi Nono: Variazioni canoniche; Varianti; No hay caminos, hay que caminar; Incontri (Con Lego, 2001)
--Orchestra Works & Chamber Music: Due espressioni; Fragmente - Stille, an Diotima; Post-Prae-Ludium (Col Legno, 2000)
Since classical compostions are usually long and sound like ass when compressed to 192kbs---plus, much of Nono's later music is just this side of audible---it's kinda futile to post a track. But futility is what The Suburbs are all about, so ahead we push like Sisyphus behind the wheels of steel. If you have any interest in Nono after hearing this out-of-context excerpt in lo-fi audio, by all means pick up the CD it came from---in fact, it's an SACD, so it's really tite.
Based on the four CDs I own, it sounds like some of Nono's work may have informed Jerry Goldsmith's soundtrack to the Planet of the Apes (1968): rumbling tympani mixed with slowly rising violin squeaks followed by outright explosions. But maybe the two classical boyz I read---Lindy & Ross---can weigh in and let me know if Lu No influenced Jer Jer.
(Speaking of the Apes soundtrack, the first time I went to NYC was in summer 1994, several months after I moved to DC. I entered the Apple with the Searing sibs, and we were blasting the Planet of the Apes soundtrack as we cruised through the city, the big buildings and the tiny peeps coming to life in a way that actually lived up to all the images I had seen in movies and mags. It's still one of the highlights of my life.)
Nono was a deeply political chap (a commited communist---a party that is still very active in Italy; pix to come) whose music started off being heavily influenced by the serial theories of his father-in-law, Arnold "12 Notes, Gotcha Row Rite Hurrrr" Schonberg, and ended up more melancholic, more electronic-tinged, more about small sounds and textures interacting quietly across various sound stages. If you liked the Akira Rabelais stuff I posted, or still remember the isolationism genre from about 10 years ago, or like Radian, Microstoria, Trapist, and other bands that sound like they're moving furniture, you'll like Nono.
Also, I suggest listening to Nono from time to time not on headphones but rather in the way that Brian Eno ended up hearing 18th-century harp music as described in the liner notes to Discreet Music. At work, with the air conditioner running like a Hemi, the phone chattering away like a manic cockatiel, and the mail being delivered with far too mucho gusto, my Nono CDs would frequently fade into nothingness. It was beautiful.
Big Linka
Nono World
Luigi Nono archive
Nono's by all means yes-yes works
Symposium on Nono
Music Web on Nono
Hay que caminar score (premier mouvement, esquisse complete)
Il Prometeo: A Revolutionary's Swansong
Downtown Music Gallery's got yer Nono
The Experimental Studio of the Heinrich Strobel Foundation
Posted by CP | Link |
Monday, September 06, 2004
I didn't die in a gondola accident...
...cuz I didn't climb in one, sukkaz!
Once they recover my luggage, and I recover my senses, I'm gonna come on strong like a lobster fra diavlo. Till then, Boogie Boys & Dee Dee King links are fixed. I think.
Prego!Posted by CP | Link |
Thursday, September 02, 2004
Konono No. 1 Upsies
The Ex, "Konono"
from a bootleg, live at the Knitting Factory on 9.9.03
The Ex, "Theme From Konono"
from Turn (Touch & Go)
Konono No.1 already toured in Europe with The Ex, who in turn covered "Theme From Konono" on their new CD. Without the makeshift Congolese IDM context, the Ex's versions don't do much for me, but don't shoot the messenjah.
Here's the word from Crammed Discs on the forthcoming Konono CD:
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Hi Chris,
We heard from Louisa @ Six Degrees that you liked the Konono excerpt that's on our site, and that you were wondering about our release plans. We also noticed an enthusiastic comment about Konono on http://www.christopherporter.com/
Konono No. 1 is actually only one of many "electro-traditional" bands which Vincent Kenis recorded during several stays in Kinshasa. As explained in the presentation text on the site, Konono No. 1 are part of a whole movement of bands who moved from the bush to the suburbs of Kinshasa, and went on to amplify their instruments.
We're doing extensive work with several of these bands, and have already gathered many hours of recordings.
We will be releasing a Konono No. 1 album around November, and are also finalizing a "various artists" album, to be entitled "CONGO ELECTRICO (Buzz & Rumble from the Urban Jungle)", which will feature tracks by several bands. This should come out in early 2005, and will include tracks by Kasai Allstars, Kisansi Congo, Sobanza Mimanisa, Konono No. 1 and several others.
Meanwhile we are also releasing a 12" with two Konono No. 1 tracks, through a small UK label called Fat Cat, which generally deals with experimental & electronic music. It's interesting that many people in those areas seem to be very excited by these recordings, and we're working on getting remixes done by interesting European & US producers.
Please get back in touch if you want additional info.
All the best,
Marc
Crammed Discs and associated labels
43 rue General Patton, 1050 Brussels, Belgium
phone (32 2) 640 79 14 - fax (32 2) 648 83 69
http://www.crammed.be
Posted by CP | Link |
Wednesday, September 01, 2004
Boogie Boys, "Runnin' From Your Love"
Boogie Boys, "Do or Die"
Boogie Boys, "Break Dancer"
Boogie Boys, "Fly Girl"
Boogie Boys, "City Life"
Boogie Boys, "Party Asteroid"
Boogie Boys, "You Ain't Fresh"
Boogie Boys, "Shake and Break"
from City Life (Capitol, 1985)
Dee Dee King, "Funkyman"
from Funkyman 12-inch (Rock Hotel/Profile, 1987)
Remember when hip-hop wasn't really all that funky? Here are nine examples of robotic rap. I think I'm in love.
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I remember me & my bro practicing breakdance moves on our kitchen's linoleum floor. I smashed the cupboards and crashed into the fridge like a NASCAR driver, and I booted my sweet & lovely mutt, Marmaduke, right in his pretty little head during a wayward butt spin.
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My bro & I never busted out the cardboard in public, but I remember attending an electric boogaloo event in our then-rural town of Howell. In 1983 the city elders hosted a breakdancing contest during Melon Fest, right in front of the courthouse. That's some b-boy sh*t, man.
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B. Coleman, O-Dubs, Noz, Can't Stop & Mos Def Won't, Catchdubs, Lindy, Stickball Frere-Jones, Urban Honker, and my main man Moisty von Obalay---this download of a full OOP record is for you. If I die in a gondola accident this weekend, please remember me by this gift of the Boogie Boys' debut. (That request just qualified as the saddest memorial ever.)
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"Fly Girl" and "You Ain't Fresh" were hits, and the Boogie Boys released three more albums, but they pretty much went straight into the dustbin of history after City Life. But here's a 2001 interview with Boogie Knight (aka Delight)---who died soon after the chat. The dustbin of life. C'est la vie.
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"1987, Dee Dee's in hospital. The guy in the next bed hears the doctor calling him 'Douglas Colvin' so he starts calling him Doug E fresh, after the rapper. Dee Dee gets into this and starts making up raps to pass the time. They're pretty funny and he makes a 12" single for Rock Hotel Records under the pseudonym Dee Dee King with this great artwork by James Rizzi."
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The Dee Dee King (nee Ramone) tune sucks---but it's awesomely sucky. Therefore it's great, no?
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BTW: The Craig Le Roq tracks I posted on May 18, 2004, are still up and ready to download. Just look in the Burbs' archives. (I'm trying to kill my bandwidth before the month even starts rollin'.)
Posted by CP | Link |
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Who cork the dance?
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