October's Ocular Onslaught (16)

October, despite awesome things like the Bridge School Benefit, Pumpkin Festival, a Gala, three birthday parties and several football games that didn't go my way, was a great month for movies. I saw women fighting to get into a public soccer match in Iran, retards racing cars, a mentally challenged man raising a kid, brothers fighting armies, brothers fighting each other, husbands fighting wives, husbands fighting their wives' lovers, dueling magicians and even a man taking on a horse. Yes, October was eventful!

2: Offside
3: Talladega Nights
5: Trainspotting, Zoo
8: I Am Sam
15: LA Story
16: The Darjeeling Limited, The Royal Tenenbaums
17: Fantastic Four 2
19: Postman Always Rings Twice
21: The Prestige
23: The Color Purple
24: The Wind That Shakes the Barley
30: The Fountain
31: The Apartment, Misery

Building Bridges

Over here, we like it when things are thrown together and stirred around for a new outcome. And nothing says “mix and match” like the annual Bridge School Benefit held every year at Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View. Started by Neil Young as a fundraiser for the Bridge School, a school focusing on the education of children with very specific needs, the benefit is always one of the highlights of the concert season. Because of several of the basic principles of the Bridge School and the benefit, the event always turns into a sharing and communal concert celebrating life, happiness and the pursuit of education.

As for the mixing and matching…take multiple well-known and wealthy musical artists. Sprinkle in some lesser known artists that deserve some spotlight. The resulting line-up always covers an incredible spectrum of genres, and as a result, brings in one of the most diverse and eclectic concert going crowds you might ever see. Then, you make all of the artists, even those known for rocking hard, switch to acoustic for the event. Finally, you have all of these musicians and music fans coming together to support and donate to children that, for the most part, they could never imagine being in the shoes of.

So just how diverse are the musicians? This year’s show featured Regina Spektor, Tegan and Sara, My Morning Jacket, John Mayer, Tom Waits with the Kronos Quartet, Neil Young, Jerry Lee Lewis and Metallica. Yes, Metallica, at an acoustic show.

On the way to the concert, I make a joke that we should make sure we have our tickets. Turns out we do not. We turn around, we drive home, we spend 30 minutes looking for the tickets. I get a phone call from the car, “should we come up and help you look? Maybe we can see something you’re not seeing.” I think that’s impossible considering the depths of searching I had sunk to in the effort to find these tickets, but I say, “sure, if you’ve checked the car, come up and help me." No luck. I decide to check my car, get down to the car we were in to get the keys, and find the tickets sitting on the floor in the backseat. There the whole time. You checked the whole car, right? This makes us late and we miss Regina Spektor’s set.

But we’re there in time for Tegan and Sara, which was one of the groups I was most interested in seeing. Virtual nobodies before and now starting to bud on the national music scene, Tegan and Sara is one of those groups that got sprinkled into the Bridge School Benefit of 2000, which is where I first heard of them. Scared little children on a stage, they still put on a duo acoustic set that prompted me to download their music and get into them. Now, 7 years later, here we both were at completely different parts in our lives. I’m in the middle of telling some people, “I saw them for the first time when they played Bridge School,” when they tell the crowd, “the first time we came here, it was for Bridge School and we were 19.” It was nice to see them make their Bridge School return, now quite a bit more mature, with a band backing them, and a second cd to draw music from. They bicker on stage a bit, but I believe they do this to entertain the audience, although, sometimes it’s a bit embarrassing as you end up feeling that you’ve walked into a private family meeting. The highlights of their set are “I was 19,” “Like O, Like H,” and “Back In Your Head.”

Eddie Vedder and Flea were supposed to play after Tegan and Sara, but due to personal problems of Vedder’s, they had to cancel and were replaced by My Morning Jacket. I have never heard of this group before, and if the set they put together yesterday was any indication, I never want to again.

John Mayer, at least in my personal opinion, falls into that annoying category of singer/songwriters that succeed due to mass marketing, cheesy songs, romantic expectations and a sound simple enough that the general public goes, “oooh, this is really good!” Someone tried to compare Mayer with Dave Matthews at one point, and I almost threw that someone off a balcony. The lyrical depth isn’t even close. The guy that sings the “Had a Bad Day” song, John Mayer and Jack Johnson should get together to form a pop sensation super band in which all 102 songs of their catalogue sound vaguely similar and they go quadruple platinum because of how easily digestible their music is to the public. But hey…that’s just my opinion, right?

For the set, it’s Mayer and two other guitarists. Mayer comes out trying to act very relaxed and nonchalant, sits down on a stool, gives a raspy “How you doing out there?” to his female admirers, and proceeds with a set that sounds like a frat boy playing guitar in the middle of campus hoping to get noticed, if not laid. He pulls out the same raspy voice on the majority of his vocals, I can’t tell the difference between the songs other than slight tempo changes, and while they try to disguise it with tricky camera work, every guitar solo of even remote musical complexity is done not by Mayer, but by one of the other two guys on the stage with him. I’m about to give up the set as a complete washout when he closes it by covering “Free Fallin.” It’s a nice touch, but he comes dangerously close to screwing this hallowed classic up by failing to sing the chorus with anything remotely resembling Petty’s range and energy. If you ever want to listen to John Mayer, I suggest going down to your local campus and looking for a guy playing guitar…he may not be as well known, but hey, he could be the next John Mayer, and if not, he’s certainly more affordable to see in concert.

Following Mayer we have Neil Young. First off, you can’t say anything negative about his set because he puts on the event, his songs are as old as the Amphitheater itself, and he’s always Neil. You can’t say much positive though because bands have a tendency to lose their effect after multiple shows. Neil plays at every Bridge School, so I think I’ve probably seen him 8 or 9 times now. He’s solid, and you have to give him one thing…he’s extremely consistent. The only thing he didn’t break out last night was the big stand-up organ I’ve seen him use from time to time, but this is probably due to the fact that he usually closes the show and this time went in the middle of the sets. I don’t recognize any of the songs, but at the end he tells the crowd that it’s mostly new material and he doesn’t expect anyone to have recognized any of it.

Next up is one of the primary reasons I bought tickets for this Bridge School, and the performance of Tom Waits and the Kronos Quartet delivers. For those of you who don’t know the Kronos Quartet, they’re the group that performed Clint Mansell’s arrangements for Darren Arronofsky’s movie Requiem for a Dream based on Hubert Selby’s book. But when you mix a legendary, eccentric and out there rocker like Tom Waits with an incredibly proficient and polished string quartet like Kronos, the outcome is something spectacular. I’d almost want to dub this Chamber Rock. They come out and open with the theme song from HBO’s The Wire, which is stellar. He also plays some old time blues songs with the Quartet behind him straying into some dark and menacing arrangements. He plays a variety of songs with completely different sounds. One sounds like a Gotan tango song laced with arsenic, and one takes on the style of a macabre show tune. There aren’t a whole lot of succinct words to describe this performance, but it was one of the more interesting musical collaborations I’ve seen and ranked right up there with last year’s Trent Reznor/string quartet performance (although Trent didn’t use Kronos, so he loses some points there). After Waits leaves, I feel like the energy in the place is knocked up a few notches, and I’m wondering if they can bring him out for another set.

Jerry Lee Lewis is one of the other main reasons I bought tickets for this show. He’s one of the few truly incredible icons and musical prodigies that I had yet to see in concert. He comes out with a slower walk, a pair of glasses, long hair slicked back off his forehead and sits down at the piano. Now, he’s older, so you can tell his fingers can’t take the speed and ferocity he used to be known for, but he’s still a master musician. He comes out playing old hits and most everyone in the audience is moving with him. He at points lapses into a deep Southern twang, and almost consistently refers to himself in songs as “Jerry Lee.” He can’t dance at the piano like he used to, but the voice in his songs and the way he attacks the piano give you a clear idea of who he used to be as a performer, and just how much, even this late in life, is still there for him. His set is remarkable, and in conjunction with Tom Waits and the Kronos Quartet, the price of the ticket is well justified. The highlights of his set include “Roll Over Beethoven,” “You Win Again” (Hank Williams cover), “Your Cheating Heart,” “Great Balls of Fire” and “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Going On.”

After Lewis finishes up, Metallica comes out to close the show. They, like Tegan and Sara, have made two Bridge School appearances, and I’ve been lucky enough to be at both. They came out and played 5 covers and 3 originals. Thanks to KFer (not KFed!) for the info…They started with “I Just Want to Celebrate” (ironically used in the final episode of 6 Feet Under, making this an evening where two tracks from HBO series were played) then played Nazareth’s “Please Don’t Judas Me.” Personally, I found it excellent and amazing when they covered Garbage’s “I’m Only Happy When It Rains,” right before Dire Straits’ “Brothers in Arms.” Following this, they went into “Disposable Heroes,” “All Within My Hands,” and Bob Seger’s “Turn the Page” before closing their set and the show with “Nothing Else Matters.”

All in all, it wasn’t the most impressive Bridge line-up I’ve ever seen…My Morning Jacket and John Mayer could have definitely been left off the guest list. But seeing Metallica acoustically, Jerry Lee Lewis for the first time and the unreal performance of Tom Waits and the Kronos Quartet made this a very successful, diverse and memorable Bridge School Benefit. See y’all next year.

Scholarly

(as with all music related posts, you can see the full text of this article and my rant on Pop music at Evolving Music)

You deserve the underground of Seattle. Yes. I said Seattle. The City of Rain isn't just for Starbucks (scary stuff people) addicts, Seahawk fans, or long-haired flannel wearing musicians with the urge to turn their brains into a Jackson Pollack painting anymore. The indie (not grunge, indie) scene is pulsing with new musicians interested in turning the surroundings into a musical tapestry of depression AND hope. I thought a band like Throw Me the Statue showcased Seattle music at its best. Hip-Hop? You can find that in the Bay Area, LA, various havens on the East Coast. But not Seattle, not since Sir Mix-A-Lot or outside of the Lifesavas anyway. Or so I thought. Always exposed to new things through the IndieFeed Hip-Hop collective, I was recently turned onto Blue Scholars, an underground twosome from the Northwest with two albums for you to sink your ears into.

As with most prolific and worthwhile underground artists, the personal stories of the artists play an enormous role in the music they make, and the Blue Scholars, a play on blue collar, let their history and surroundings saturate every beat and line of their two cds, the 2004 release Blue Scholars and this year's Bayani. They're the answer to that question you have long contemplated but maybe never thought to ask...What do you get when you mix a Filipino rapper and an "Iranian American jazz-trained pianist" turned DJ? The result is a large spectrum of beats ranging from melancholy drifters to jazzy car cruisers, and lyrics examining the social, economic, and political systems in existence here in the United States. But when not tackling the socioeconomic divide, they still have the time and the skill to put together laid back summer day tracks that you can imagine coming out of stereos in the streets or from passing car windows.

What's interesting in discovering these two albums at the same time, produced three years apart, is noting some of the similarities while also being able to see how far the group has come in their personal and musical mission. On Blue Scholars, the group sounds like your fundamental backpack crew. The lyrics are laid back, slightly unpolished, but still with a sense of urgency in the message. The beats are of a lower production value, giving it the basement studio sound, but still contain musical hooks and phrases that you can't stop listening to. In short, it's your typical stellar yet underfunded debut album from an underground hip-hop group. The subject matter tackles their origins as a group, their personal connections to the working class and life for a Seattle transplant.

Bayani, on the other hand, shows what three years can do to the growth and development of a musical sound. They come out sounding more secure, more focused and more intent on being heard. If Blue Scholars is a whisper from the basement, Bayani is a shout from the rooftops. Some of the more typical hip-hop beats of the first album are abandoned here for more complicated beats incorporating jazz and world sounds. The beats by Sabzi here are of a much higher quality, creating a more perfect tapestry for Geographic's tightened and more lyrically calculated flow. You see glimpses of what he's capable of as a lyricist on the first album, but the second album shows off just how talented he is in mixing potent wordplay, social observations and governmental condemnations into complicated phrases that roll off his tongue.

Bayani also refuses to let its political message be ignored. While Blue Scholars carries some references to the war and bits and pieces speaking against our current government (which really hasn't changed much since the album's release), Bayani is infused with an anti-war, anti-establishment message that makes some sort of appearance in every song, most notably "Back Home" which tackles the need to bring American troops back from Iraq and "50 Thousand Strong" which looks at the riots and subsequent police action at the WTO meetings in 1999. At the same time, they don't forget the need for tracks that you can sit back to, which they fill with "Ordinary Guys" and the homage song to their hometown, "North By Northwest."

So if you're looking for some solid underground hip-hop from an unusual geographic location, look no further. It's only fitting that an MC named Geographic could help make the traditional locations of genres irrelevant.

Bleeding Opportunity

I couldn't let Chance run by,
so I grabbed it by the shoestrings,
watching it trip and slam its face into the concrete,
the teeth of circumstance loose and bleeding opportunity all over the pavement,
And here's me, running around with a glass beaker,
catching the dripping drops of future hope,
trying to save them from a time dried out and baked on the sidewalk in the sun,
holding no promise and no chance and no circumstance for anyone,
but collecting them instead,
watching the beaker fill as the days left in front of me fill my head
with words and sentences not yet said,
and therefore dead.

But Chance?
Chance wasn't a fan,
on its back on the concrete, looking up at me,
staring with an accusation that I couldn't ignore,
I mean, honestly, I had just sent it sprawling to the floor,
watching as I collected its misery to be my gain,
And with a look of disdain, Chance said my name,
The syllables echoing on the deserted street,
there was no one out there for Chance to meet,
just it and me,
staring silently,
It trying to hold back and me trying to grab by force
all that's left in front of me,
Looking around for something more solid than destiny,
Some piece of the rest of me,
and that's when Chance laughed at me,
because the busted teeth and the dripping blood were just symbols of who Chance really was,
and no matter how much of it all I collect,
or how many empty sidewalks I used to grab Chance and hold it in check,
Chance would always get up and walk on,
and when it turned the corner, I looked in my beaker,
and the blood was gone.

Virtual Mixtape

(For the complete version of this article, check out the Evolving Music blog.)

Coming out of the Bay Area is the new start-up, Fuzz.com. Luckily for all involved, Fuzz's goals do not conflict with MixMatch, but rather supplement them. I bring you Fuzz.com today because they have a very interesting new tool that could be a lot of fun to use...the virtual mixtape. Remember when we all used to make mixtapes for each other? Then it was mix CDs, and now it's like, "here, try my playlist!"...well, the good folks at Fuzz.com have created a way for you to upload your mp3s, make a mix tape (complete with customizable mixtape artwork!) and then send it to friends who can also download your music. For someone who was a huge mixtape maker back in the day, this tool is not only very neat, but also, in my mind, a wonderful juxtaposition of old school style with new school techmology.

The Weekend I'm Not Going to Blog About

Trust me...when I spend the majority of Friday wishing I was home while out playing wingman, and spend the first portion of Saturday night throwing up in the street before showing up to a party as the police are leaving, and then getting caught in 2 AM traffic, there's better things to spend your time reading about...so, go read them already!

Street Hop

We all know hip-hop. We also, for the most part, know that this type of genre, like almost every genre, has many sub-divisions to more clearly classify the type of music we're listening to. But down the genre of hip-hop, there has been a traditional and deep divide between the backpackers and the street rappers or gangster rappers...a divide often accentuated by underground v. commercially signed artists, thought provoking lyrics v. lyrics about money, guns and women, and melodic relaxed beats v. club bangers.

But recently, the Bay Area artist Planet Asia has decided that there's not enough room in these two separate and narrow definitions for certain types of hip-hop, including his own brand, and he has therefore coined the term "Street Hop." He introduces it on a track of the same name off his most recent album The Jewelry Box Sessions. The idea behind Street Hop is a genre that both the backpackers and the gangsters can enjoy...something that carries the lyrical intelligence and sound of underground over some of the heavier beats that will get the club going. Because there has traditionally not been much overlap between these two genres, the attempt to define and emulate it from Planet Asia should prove to be a launching point for others that don't feel their songs quite fit one style over the other.

For those of you looking to add a little hip-hop to your life, I suggest searching for IndieFeed Hip-Hop on iTunes. You can download single serving hip-hop songs with brief descriptions of the artists and their albums. Of course, if you're lazy, you can also just click here and go right to the site. If you're looking specifically for the Planet Asia song Street Hop, you're covered. As with all of my music related posts, you can also find this and other good things at the MMM Blog, Evolving Music.

I'm Being Adopted!

No, I haven't been out searching for new parents. But apparently my young and darling Cellar Door has. The success and love that I've found here has prompted an invitation to join another blog...I've now been asked to contribute to the sprouting, budding and soon to be unstoppable force of the MMM Evolving Music blog.

For those of you out of the loop, MMM is the brainchild of my near and dear friend Chaz, with assistance from numerous other people, all working for him for free out of his basement. The goal? A worldwideweb based site that allows musicians from everywhere to meet, collaborate and enjoy each others' sounds. With musical pieces called mBits and their online sequencer, you can take pieces from anyone on the site and mix them with others to make a song that sounds how you want it to sound.

The blog then is going to tackle music, technology, web issues and other ideas of collaborations for the amusement and education of the MixMatch crowd. So you can find me there under the pen name Actual, and don't worry, I'll still be here doing what I do best...turning a five minute story into a five page blog and calling it entertainment.

Bringing Pumpkins Back

You know what time it is when that calendar hits October. It means three things: Halloween, Bridge School Benefit and Pumpkin Festival (though not in that order). Well, with the first two being two weeks or so off, the Pumpkin Festival came around again this weekend.

Waking up around 930 or so, Sis, Hessica, Murphy, ER, Finger and myself get into bloody marys. This continues as we wait for Chaz, Gavroche and Cam to show up. By the time 12 rolls around and we're ready to get into town, we're well on our way, having gone through two Js, a few bloody marys each (although I've moved on to rum and coke at that point) and been moving to Kanye. We hit the halfway stop at Cameron's and make the smoking bus bow to our demands (specifically being filled with dope smoke while we chug our beers)...we then continue the walk into town.

Gavroche and I fall off the back of the pack in order to eat a cookie...we then head into the beer garden, grab a beer each, chug it and then promptly head to the market to buy 22s of Corona (3 bottles for 6 bucks) to avoid the overpriced festival beer (1 8 oz glass, 8 dollars)...the group gets split and Chaz, Gavroche and myself wander for a bit, letting Chaz find a bathroom in a parking lot. We rejoin the group at the Half Moon Bay Inn to be told that they're over their limit and can't let us in. We literally wait like 15 minutes for the tough guy security man to let us in. Once in, we get a drink before everyone wants to leave.

The festival is packed, the artwork is all pretty cool and the police presence is minimally intrusive. In short, your typical once a year Pumpkin Festival.

By the time it's 4pm and time to go back to the house, the memories are pretty hazy. We know we're heading to Cameron's but it seems so faaar. We call drivers to pick us up there, but not before we make use of the smoking bus again, before being told by someone that works there that it's for smoking NON drugs. Oops. The 'rents drive us back where we get into the kegs and start watching football. The year of the upset continues as we throw a baseball around in the backyard, paying absolutely no attention to the games on tv.

The tri-tip hits the grill, the keg drains slowly downward and the food provides a brief respite from early blackouts, though not for all (goodnight ER, Sis). When I wake up on the couch at 2 in the morning, the party has passed me by. I have nothing to do but go back to sleep, wake up Sunday, go to Nini's and then work on the remainder of the kegs while watching football. Tough weekend.

For those that keep missing P-Fest because it's "too far," "too hard," or doesn't "sound exciting enough," I think you should work on coming up with excuses that might actually mean something like, "I'm too lame," "I'll be in a coma that day," or "I just don't like to party," because passing up a street fair that's bookended by free food and booze (and I know those two things aren't free at SF festivals) because it's in HMB is like passing on a free car because you're not really keen on the color...it might make a lot of sense to you at the time, but you're really only hurting yourself. Some of the best things in life take a little bit of work. Up next, Bridge School.

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

Ever cognizant of the growing and rapid change in the way we obtain and listen to music, I've been intently following the release of Radiohead's new album In Rainbows which was rumored to have a price tag left up to the buyer.

Five years ago, the idea of buying mp3s was still relatively new and left mainly to the Napsters and Limewires of the global net...Tower and Warehouse roamed the Earth and used CD bins were the place to be. But as Apple announced their plans to launch a wirelessly accessible iTunes store conjoined with the fact that in the last fiscal year, 31% of music has been released in digital format ONLY, a new horizon of music store frontiers looms in front of us. It appears that Radiohead is one of the first groups ready to take the plunge.

Known for bucking the mainstream and having extreme problems with the state of the establishment, Radiohead has been groundbreaking for years, mainly in their musical endeavors of OK Computer, Kid A, Amnesiac and Hail to the Thief. Now, their new release In Rainbows, a mere (yes, I'm being sarcastic, this is longer than edIT and Felix) four years after Hail to the Thief, attempts to go even further in that it is being offered digitally only. While they say they have a box set ready for a few months from now, for now, the download only album speaks boldly of their lack of concern for traditional methods of distributing music, and their personal belief that their album will sell.

But Radiohead didn't stop there. In the current world of .99 cent iTunes songs and 10 dollar albums, Radiohead has stepped up their opposition to the label war on the music consumer by giving their fans something different...you can actually decide what you think the album is worth. That's right, you pick the price. You get to the checkout basket, and there's a blank slot for the price that you fill in. There's a ? link next to it, and when you click it it says, "you decide." If you click it again, it says, "No, really, you decide." It also allows you to fill in 0 if you want to download it for free. Talk about holding the artist's livelihood in your hands! So check it out... www.inrainbows.com (if it's not jammed full and busy at that point). Maybe a musical purchasing future like this is out there somewhere, where bluebirds fly.

For those of you interested...I paid 7.10L for my copy (roughly 15 dollars)...the .10 I put in there because for some reason Radiohead has centered around the number 10 for this album (released 10/10, 10 tracks, announced 10 days before release). I'll also let you know that the first track has some.....Glitch!

Glitch Mobs and House Cats (New Music)

Two very long overdue albums managed to find store shelves recently...we're graced with Felix da Housecat's Virgo Blaktro and the New Movie Disco (10/2/07 release date) and edIT's Certified Air Raid Material (9/18/07)

For Felix, it was his first non-mixtape style release since Devin Dazzle and the Neon Fever, which was only, oh, 3 years ago (5/25/04). For edIT, the wait was about the same. His lone solo album Crying Over Pros for No Reason came out two weeks earlier than Devin Dazzle in '04, but was far more painful for his listeners (what handful of them there are) due to the fact that unlike Felix, he didn't have multiple mix albums and guest appearances, but only a handful of remixes (such as his remix of Mos Def's track Sunshine and contributions to the Baby Godzilla and Autonomous Addicts compilations) relegated to the basement of iTunes singles bought only by those actually looking for them.

Oh that comment? Don't mind that, it's just bitterness at iTunes overselling and hyping of already popular and well known artists through featured artists and free singles of the day. It's almost like giving you a free coffee sample to get you to come back and buy triple non-fat no foam no whip pumpkin spice lattes everyday. Like an addiction of caffeine and pop music forced down your throat and into your ears until you can't do anything but feed the monkey while listening to the new Nickleback single on your Starbucks iTunes hooked up iPod. It's like an evil empire. Starbucks and Apple should team up and try to control the minds of the masses. Oh. Wait. That's right, they have. Keep your wits about you, people. The only safe triple non-fat no foam no whip pumpkin spice latte is a triple decaf non-fat no foam no whip pumpkin spice latte. Or maybe it's a half double decaf half caf with a twist of lemon? And the only safe new single from Souljah Boy is the one you don't download. Really people...superman dat ho? After how many years of rap and hip-hop, that's the best we can do? With the rap songs on the radio, my song with the chorus, "that's the way my dick likes to fuck" is getting more and more likely to be a bona fide radio smash.

But, credit where credit is due...iTunes also allows us to avoid buying full albums containing songs we don't really need or want (depending on your taste of course), thereby making the job of reviewing the albums much easier. Of course, with smaller artists, it unfortunately doesn't go without saying now that you have to support and buy the full album. This has been a public service announcement from a music lover.

First up, edIT. Not enough people know about this guy and I don't want y'all to read about big bad Felix and then leave before edIT gets his due. I first heard this guy from another DJ that worked at KSCR who had a show called Robot Music. For those that like to genrefy music (i.e. MMMers, iPod junkies, radio disc jockies) he holds elements of IDM (Intelligent Dance Music), folktronica, experimental in one sense of the word (computer music) but, in my personal estimation, he's mostly Glitch. Of course his styles can be pieces of all of these...but if I have to give someone on the street one of them, I'll go with Glitch. Of course, this is the label edIT himself prefers as he associates himself with the Glitch Mob, a group of performers in LA.

This album pretty much bangs from start to finish. For those that know Crying Over Pros for No Reason, this one is a major change in tempo and motif. Gone are the melodic, drifting pieces that can inspire both dancing and melancholy reflection all at once. Here he has moved away from pieces that you would almost want to call introspective from his first album, to be replaced with club tracks and glitch-hop pieces that take the mastery over sound that edIT has crafted in his music and shoot it up forcefully with steroids. The result is a grouping of cuts that you could imagine pounding in any club, but manage to sound very different from the Top Pop 40 Radio dance cuts we've gotten all too used to. He also brings in The Grouch for a few cuts.

He starts the album off with an intro that calls into question the very answer of genre I was attempting to provide above. When asked how he would describe his music to people on the street, there is no answer, just a quick cut to the opening track "Battling Go-Go Yubari in Downtown LA" which thumps with a stop and pop beat laced with blips and glitches. When it hits the bridge and he mixes in a snippet of Japanese, the cut returns deeper and with an extra vocal sample. The "Artsy Remix" with the Grouch can be a tad grating at times, though it still retains a bounce and swagger that make it more original than In Da Club or Smack That. The title track, "Certified Air Raid Material" backs off the momentum a bit, but keeps you moving in a forward direction with stop and go moments that greatly accentuate the glitch beauty edIT employs. "Night Shift" is a bit too pedestrian for my tastes, sounding too close to a Prefuse 73 remix or a slightly out there radio cut.

The first half of the album ends with "Straight Heat" a cut that reminds one of the closing track from Def Jam Poetry. It feels like there should be some vocals here, but the cut is a heavy hitting instrumental. In the second half, the Grouch featuring "Back Up Off the Floor, pt 2" keeps the tempo of the album heavy and provides a great backdrop for the grimy start and stop of Grouch's flow. "Fire Riddim" sees edIT attempting to infuse some slight world flavor into the predominately glitch-hop based beats of the album. The album wraps up with "If You Crump Stand Up" a track that leaves you unsure whether you want to dance or just sit there and bob your head. Following that, the album concludes with "Crunk de Gaulle" an interesting piece that mixes parts of the peaceful and cut up rifts that made Cry Me a River popular for Timberlake and Timbaland with parts similar to the Jay-Z/Linkin Park mash-ups and has both English and French vocalists on it.

As edIT explains in the outro, the name of the album comes from the idea that war and bombing in our current global situation has grown out of control. "We don't need any more bombs. Period. What we need is more bombs out on the dance floor." The album was created to help people jam out on the dance floor and find their release there. I believe it succeeds.

To be honest, the Felix cd, after waiting three years for it, is a tad disappointing. Out of the 16 tracks on the album, I bought 7 of them. This of course excludes the 4 tracks that are intros or interludes and clock in under a minute. The songs I didn't buy included: Radio, Sweetfrosti, I Seem 2b The1, Lookin' My Best, and Tweak. For Felix, this album marks a definitive step away from the rock and electroclash fueled dance songs of previous albums and attempts to walk closer to the 80s electronic pop sound and certainly 70s discolounge.

"Future Calls the Dawn" is a pretty standard Felix cut that walks the line between laid back 2 am sidewalk fare that will keep you moving and the dancehall you just left from. It's main downfall is that at 6 and a half minutes, it gets a bit repetitive. Felix again falls back on his standard practice of mixing in synthesized vocals, but not many people know how to do it better, so he saves himself a bit there. "NightTripperz" is a beat best suited for a late car ride or late night lounge session. The song is a mix of the memories of 80s cuts such as those slipped into Scarface and the Vice City video game and a slow Felix. Half dancepop, half dreamscape. "It's Your Move" brings some distinct synthesized guitar licks over an upbeat and decidedly disco beat, complete with back up female vocals to augment the once again synthesized main voice. One begins to wonder where he samples or creates these from, and whether or not he ever uses his own voice.

"Monkey Cage" brings back a very familiar Felix sound in a slower tempo with alternating blips and beeps over a sparse background. It's most reminiscent of Runaway Dreamer, but moves slower and doesn't have the verses to break up the almost monotonous sound. "It's Been a Long Time" ups the tempo of Monkey Cage a bit, and one can almost see it as a club track if a DJ upped the tempo a few notches more. It goes gracefully into a brief instrumental section that fades back into the chorus to end the song. But at 2:24, it certainly feels like he could have done more with the skeleton of this song. "Like Something For Porno" is the most upbeat track on the cd, using a quick tempo mixed with hand claps and a lead female vocalist. It moves with an urgency that Monkey Cage and It's Been a Long Time lack to a certain extent, but the chorus, again, is a bit too repetitive, even for someone like Felix that makes a habit of repetitive choruses. But the background melodies laced over the steady beat keep this one alive, though it almost falters when the background singers come in with some chants that could have been left in the leisure suit days. Finally, "MovieDisco" is a slow plodder with heavy and deep synthesizers and bass lines. This one brings to mind certain elements of Tangerine Dream of the 80s and their work for the Risky Business soundtrack. All in all, these tracks are good additions to the Felix collection, but they don't particularly strive forward to break any new ground for the artist, nor do they harness the raw emotional dance appeal of "Madame Hollywood" "Silver Screen Shower Scene" or the oddly haunting melodies of "Marine Mood."

Gala=Good, Football=Bad

If there’s any night for USC to lose, it needs to be a night that I’m doing something else and not watching the game. It also needs to be a night that Notre Dame wins. And so it was Saturday night, as I left the house for a black tie gala celebrating 75 years of existence for a high school, and walked away unsure what was going to happen to my two teams. Losses like the 1 point loss sustained by USC can send me into tailspin for a week. But not if I’m not watching them. And not when Notre Dame snaps an 0-5 record against UCLA.

This gala is a $75/person affair with dinner, full free bar and dancing. Held at a beautiful mansion that also houses the high school, it was the perfect setting. Even more so considering an anonymous sponsor paid for all athletic coaches to attend, making the tickets for Hessica and myself gratis.

Upon getting there, they’ve enclosed an entire portion of the back courtyard for the dining area with 35 tables surrounding the pond/fountain. Fashionably late describes us after we get back from a 10 hour day at a Pacific Grove cross country meet and then I proceed to take 25 minutes trying to remember how a bow tie gets tied. Eventually, remembering some moves of my Dad’s and with some straightening help from Hessica, it gets done.

It’s all old folks, faculty, alumni and even some star power (Tom Lantos) at the gig, and I get to show a more cleaned up tuxedoed version of myself to the staff that only gets to see me in running gear after 5 to 10 miles. Hessica is of course stunning in a strapless black affair, sunglasses and scarf that have her looking more Jackie Kennedy than Sen. Fe’s assistant.

Word comes in by text on the USC loss, but I’m 4 drinks deep and celebrating the other text with word of Notre Dame’s first win of the season over those hated Bruins, so it kinda rolls off my back. Besides, I have my hands full doing my best to keep one of the track runner’s mom from molesting me in public. An alumni herself, she had attempted to touch me a few weeks before by putting a name tag from her daughter’s retreat on my chest. I hadn’t really thought of it like that until Coach had pointed it out. Here, in the comforts of a black tie gala and with a few knocked back herself, she came at me full speed. By the end of the evening, I had to stand a few feet away while talking to her as I had had my ass pinched quite enough for my liking.

After dinner, Coach, EdeJ, Hessica and myself open up the ante on dancing. The band was going, but the floor was bare…the four of us cut to a few songs and then welcomed the rest of the party out to join us. Hessica provides great bait and simultaneous protection for some of the younger alumni that had made me feel like a meat market earlier in the evening. I’m talking to the saucy mom when five of these ’99 grads walk by and proceed to give me the toe to head inspection. They get past and the mom with a hint of jealousy tells me, “someone’s being checked out.” No place like a gala event for an all girls catholic high school for a guy to feel properly objectified.

I want to break the bartender in half when I ask for a rum and coke and he tells me I’m a frat boy. “This is a 75th anniversary gala, have some champagne or something.” Last I checked, it wasn’t the guy hired to make the drinks that was paid for critiquing drink choices and deriding the guests. And last time I was in the bathroom, it looked in the mirror like I was the guest in the tux and you were the one behind the bar mixing drinks. That’s not to say that I don’t value you as a bartender at the event or as a person when you go home and are no longer working an event, but I know that if I was getting paid to make you drinks, and a rum and coke was what you wanted your tasty beverage to be, I wouldn’t be talking shit about you for ordering it. I’d be working on making you the rum and coke to end all rum and cokes.

This is kinda like a time a few months ago when a City Tavern bartender got on my case for ordering a long island iced tea. I’m sorry, but if you’re behind the bar, suggestions and fun new drinks are within your range of conversation. Critiques and hard times meted out to drinkers whose choice you don’t agree with are not. If you don’t want to be an equal opportunity drink server, don’t become a bartender! Millions of bartenders the world over take your order and serve what you asked for with a smile. I think it’s called a service industry.

Enough on that rant. When I left the house, Roomie told me she’d be around if we needed to be picked up from the event. I knew that with Coach driving it was doubtful that we would, but at least she’d be around. Because of this, I leave my keys at the apartment. Upon getting back, I buzz myself into the front door, get upstairs and find that the door’s locked. I’ve noticed that having spent time in Philadelphia, my roommate is a little overly careful with locking the door. I’ve noticed that she will even lock it while she’s home, which makes me wonder just what sort of neighborhood she’s accustomed to living in. We live in a building comprised mainly of people well into their golden years that keep every exterior door locked and closed. Heck, you need a key to get the elevator to come down to the garage, so I routinely feel safe leaving it unlocked.

Well, it’s locked and there are lights on inside, so my immediate thought is that she’s passed out on the couch, because why would she have left and locked the door knowing I would be home later after telling me she could give us a lift if necessary?

This is where I begin 30 minutes of pounding on the door, ringing the doorbell and calling her cell phone in an attempt to wake her up. But the cell keeps ringing through to voicemail (on silent next to her on the couch perhaps?), and she’s not answering, which is overly odd to me considering how loud our doorbell is.

I then call my building manager, who is of course asleep, and doesn’t have keys to the unit. I then start 15 minutes more of the above before getting a hold of Charles who informs me, “oh yea, she’s right here with me in the city.” The blood pressure upon hearing this almost blows the top of my head off. Especially when it looks like she’ll be sleeping there. At least at this point I know I can stop pounding on doors and windows.

After a few phone calls routed and rerouted, I actually somehow manage to get the fire department to come out to the apartment. Using a set of keys that unlocks a box by the front door that contains keys to the building, they find a key that gets them onto the roof. Picture me, 12:30am, drunk, on the roof of my building in my tuxedo/evening wear with three firefighters. They bring up a ladder, put it down onto my bedroom balcony, and go in, letting Hessica in through the front door. Now that’s what I call service with a smile.

So all’s well that ends well, even if it didn’t start well, right? That’s how I felt when I went to bed thinking of a gala that had wiped away the pain of USC losing and allowed me to bask in the glow of Notre Dame’s win and UCLA’s misery. Up next? You know it’s pumpkin time.

Still Water

In the final moments of the breakdown
the truths spewing out turned into a shakedown,
and I looked deep into the eyes of a sadly fake clown,
watching a perfect palimpsest that had recorded so many big
and small white flies,
caught in webs of intentional and unintentional disguise,
and slick alibis,
A black hole in time that allows the twisting of anything to keep peace,
They say why strive to be truthful when honesty's a little bit painful and always just out of reach?

Don't worry, we're not alone, it goes deeper than just we,
the new the old the in between, all one family,
all privy
to the same type of mask and sugar sweet deceit,
A deceit that allows the boat to float still despite the rocking of the tide,
Because when we don't know who we are, what kind of mask do you need to hide
and keep the indecision, lack of direction and lack of self -
all locked up within for an outward appearance of mental health
and a good deal of stealth
with a swift jump to a new lily pad
or perhaps a new johnson or willy fad-
not to be crass
but the conflicted hyperbole of jumbled and mumbled brains and heart and misplaced thought
is wrapped with ass -

- and with a laugh
I think I'll pass.

And now the beach that is my brain keeps being hammered by a joyous ocean with no name,
sitting quietly wanting for the tide to never pass
and with each sundraped wave and wave drenched speck of sand,
the ocean and beach collide in the palms of my hands
waiting for me to make manifest the sum of all my best laid plans
and I can.

DMB: Gone, But Not Forgotten

For those of you that know my past, you know I am (or was) a huuuuuge DMB fan. I've been to 22 shows, many during the same concert tours, and have over 100 discs of live bootlegs (although, technically, if the band allows recordings, are they really bootlegs? This guy says no.) So when the Band, and Dave in particular started going downhill in recent years with Everyday, the scrapping of the Lillywhite sessions, and then the almost completely forgettable Stand Up album, I gave up going to shows. I mean, I saw some glory years, why taint them with concert memories that don't stand up to the past? Well, due to the generosity of FSU, I got the chance to attend the DMB show this past Saturday at Shoreline. Below, you'll find some video clips that I got at the show (amazing 13th row seats), as well as a song by song breakdown of the concert.

In a nutshell, the show was very good, but demonstrated the bulk of what I had already thought about DMB...the talent of the musicians hasn't changed...they are as tight a band and as spectacular at improv-ing as they were when I first saw them in 1998. When they are playing the old cuts, the power, energy and beauty that always made me a staunch defender of DMB in the face of critics is still there. Yet the minute the set gets to a new song, it's invariably bad. Every old song they played on Saturday rocked, and every new song they played was horrendous to the point of wondering how the same band responsible for Two Step could also be responsible for shit like Louisiana Bayou. Hence the title of this post...

The Dave Matthews Band I knew and loved, for the most part they're gone. But the memory, enjoyment and love I have for their old work is still very much with me. Similarly for the band...the band they were, the music they were once able to create, that's gone. Dave and his song writing have been turned from the starving tortured amazing lyrical artist they once were together into a garbage-producing pop radio machine that doesn't even sound that good. Yet, in concert, they still play the old songs with the energy, verve and style they once possessed. Even in their own minds, the band they once were is gone, but not forgotten.

Setlist:
Sugar Will (tease) - I don't know how much of what I heard was a tease and how much was the song below...either way, it didn't seem like I was being teased all that much)
A Dream So Real * - Wasn't really impressed with this song. Started to wonder when I would hear something I knew that wasn't being called out by the drunk frat guy next to me.
Two Step * - A strong example of why this band is so great. They jammed this one into a frenzy and had a very nice piano/vocal improv from Butch Taylor. They took this one on for about 13-14 minutes, every one of which was excellent. You can see the opening verse here.
Eh Hee * - I don't know when Dave lapsed into Pop produced Rock Gospel, but I had heard this song a few weeks ago on iTunes and wondered what had happened to the songwriter I used to love. This song has got to be one of the worst I've ever heard by any band, let alone DMBand. I sat down and wished for it to be over.
You Might Die Trying * - One of the more tolerable songs off the Stand Up album, this one shows hints of the old DMB which it then turns to shit new stuff...this song is hard to deal with because I like good portions of it, only to see the final reality of what their music is now.
Everyday * - This song walks a fine line for me...they started it out with the traditional Boyd solo and the crowd singing "honey honey, come and dance with me." Personally, it has always brought a smile and sometimes even tears to my eyes hearing 30,000 people singing "come and dance with me"...the song itself is decent, one of the few partially salvageable songs off the Everyday album, but in the end, it's still a far cry from the likes of real DMB songs like
Dreaming Tree * - I almost had a heart attack when this song came on. As I mentioned, this was my 23rd DMB show and only the third time I've heard my favorite song. This song is by far my favorite by the band, and when people all around me sat down and got quiet, I wanted to shake them collectively as a group that cheered wildly and obnoxiously for that piece of shit song Eh Hee and then didn't realize what they were hearing in Dreaming Tree. From what I've been told (thanks Eric), DT has slowly made its way back into concert rotation, but for five or six years hearing this song in concert was like hearing Bush put together five complete sentences with no grammatical errors. This song didn't disappoint until they followed it up with
Grace Is Gone Don't get me wrong..the first 10 times I heard this song, I really enjoyed it. It was new, it was kinda like a radio song but also like a DMB song, and just kinda worked for me. Now I've come to recognize it as one in a grouping of songs that foreshadowed the collapse of Dave as a songwriter. Drunk guy next to me goes, "Dude, stand up!" to which I, still in a deep depression from having Dreaming Tree go into this instead of something like Song that Jane Likes or Stone, reply, "no." I don't think he liked me after that.
(Black Water) * - This interlude, as far as I can remember, was decent.
Louisiana Bayou * - One of the songs off Stand Up that makes me want to throw Dave and his producer into the Bayou to watch them sink.
Sister + - Hadn't heard this song before, but it was worth hearing if only for the fact that as Dave sang solo, Carter, Butch and Rashawn sang back up vocals by Butch's keyboard like they were the Four Tops or something. I'm convinced this song was in there to allow Boyd and LeRoi time to go back stage and burn one down.
Granny * - Always good to hear an old classic. This one carried flair and energy, which was desperately needed after the Dave Matthews and the Pips rendition of Sister.
Corn Bread * - I'm not positive what the idea behind this song was. I'm still not positive why someone hasn't taken everything that Dave holds dear away from him to make him write decent lyrics again.
The Idea Of You * - If I remember correctly, this song was about a babysitter that he was attracted to. You see, in the old days, we got songs like Two Step lamenting the swift and fleeing idea of life, Last Stop about racism and war, Rhyme and Reason about drug addiction. Now we get songs about crushes on nannies. For what it's worth, it's a better song than Louisiana Bayou. Did I mention that that song makes me want to throw Dave into the Bayou? Yes, I believe I did.
#27 * - A Dave number song?! No way! Hadn't heard this one before, and truthfully, don't remember it much now...guess it wasn't that great?
Dream Girl * - I think they should rename this one...I think Nightmare Song would be appropriate.
Jimi Thing * - A classic done right...long jams, funky dancing and a middle section where Dave lead the crowd in a rousing rendition of Buffalo Springfield's For What It's Worth.
Grey Street * - Following Jimi Thing, this was a solid one. During the line, "She could paint anything about her using colors bold and bright" Dave showed he still had the ability to really belt. I thought he was going to rip his apple out with that one.
Stay (Wasting Time) * - Disappointing finish to the set given the fact that we had come out of Jimi and Grey. But I guess I'll take it over an Everyday or Stand Up song. As Gavroche used to point out, the beautiful irony of this song used as a set closer or encore ending is that the line is "it makes you wanna stay," but then they make you go.
__________________
So Damn Lucky ~ Wasn't very impressed with this encore opener. But what was I expecting? Seek Up solo?
American Baby Intro * sThis was a pretty cool intro. When you hear it on the Stand Up album, it sounds great, and then goes into American Baby which again begs that too often repeated question from this blog...what happened? But here, they took the intro and turned it into an 8 minute jam that was excellent.
Ants Marching * -
Show Notes: * Rashawn Ross + Carter, Butch and Rashawn: Back-up vocals ~ Dave Solo

So all in all, I was glad I got out to the show...it reminded me of a lot of the music that I loved, and realized that even if, post-Before These Crowded Streets the band has gone down hill, it hasn't tainted their ability to play the old stuff, or my enjoyment in listening to it...Below, enjoy the opening verse to Dreaming Tree.

Films of September (10)

What a slow month for movies! The return of the NFL (1 game attended), the end of the Giants season (4 games attended), multiple XC meets (4), the end of the Lake House season and the Bachelor Party and wedding for my Dad all took up huge chunks of movie watching time. Not to mention the return of Curb Your Enthusiasm and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, the start of Tell Me You Love Me, and last night's debut of the second seasons of Dexter and Brotherhood. But hey, that's not bad, right? I'll take it over someone kicking me in the head. Here's the movies I did get around to watching this month:

4: The Opposite of Sex, Annie Hall
6: Chasing Amy
11: The General
12: Syriana
13: The Method
18: Superbad
19: American Psycho
20: Network
27: The Story of the Weeping Camel

Kudos go to The Method, a foreign language film revolving around a job interview where all the candidates are competing directly...