like the moon
Tomorrow I’ll be joining the fine folks from the Music and Sound Studies Colloquium Series at the University of Minnesota to talk about the synaesthetic publics addressing each other via skinny jeans, electronic dance beats, and wonky shuffle steps. I’m pasting the title and abstract below. As you can see, I’m flogging some familiar, but […]
Read More →Despite that my blogspot blog is long defunct, I have, largely out of protest, republished the post which some idiot (or some idiotic bot, more likely) thinks infringes copyright. Here is a link to the post, and below is the note that I have appended to it: Update (31 March 2010): This post, originally published […]
Read More →Joining the ranks of many great blogs and other innocents caught in the crosshairs of copyright fuckery, I received my very own Blogger DMCA takedown notification today! I learned this evening via email from Blogger that the following post, originally published to my wayneandwax blogspot blog back in June 06 (defunct since October of that […]
Read More →Sometimes it really does feel like I’m in Oz, some Wizard behind a curtain producing lifelike YouTubes of my swirling musical obsessions — or like that cartoon kid Simon for whom the things he drew came true ¡ via via via con dios !
Read More →No, this post is not principally asking about things I should go see at SXSW next week, though I am eager to know about promising parties and awesome acts to catch. Holler if you’re gonna be in town or have a tip. (I can safely predict I’ll be unable to avoid the Tormenta Tropical tractor […]
Read More →This Monday, the French section of Foreign Languages & Literatures (my home at MIT) is presenting Hamé, a rapper and filmmaker from France. Some of you might know him from his work with La Rumeur. Here’s what is in store for Monday evening — In addition to a sample performance of his rap artistry and […]
Read More →In my recent post on “Watagatapitusberry” I wondered aloud, in so many words, where “the text” in question might reside, given that most people have been exposed to an intermediary “fan”/peer-produced text (a video) more popular than the original “text” (a recording), tho perhaps soon eclipsed by a new “official” video with potentially greater reach […]
Read More →Mil gracias a Marisol LeBron, who not only first brought to my attn the wonderful nueva-media phenom of “Watagatapitusberry,” but who has offered some interesting thoughts on its homosocial joi de vivre (check her initial round-up of home videos) and has kept up on the latest developments around the song. Most recently, the launch of […]
Read More →The latest Woofah — a UK-based magazine covering the latest and greatest in bass culture — is finally out, and it’s a big, glossy whopper of an issue. What’s more, yours truly has a thinky-piece in it exploring the fraught relationship between Afrofuturist reggae musicians and the Rastas-in-Space projected by Hollywood films and sci-fi authors […]
Read More →awesome img grab via promo materials for a similarly titled music conf also this week I’m honored to announce that I’ll be keynoting this Saturday’s Columbia Music Scholarship Conference. The conference theme is near and dear to my heart & work: “Music and Money: Examining Value in Music.” The relationship between money and value is […]
Read More →This one’s making the rounds, but I can’t resist posting here too — it’s just so funny, awesome, etc. (via) — I wish there were a way to make a similar gesture in the age of mp3s. Empty thumbdrives seem to lack a certain poetry.
Read More →Pacey Foster has a great post over at his blog detailing a recent discovery of — and creative engagement with — a 1914 book published by Vernon and Irene Castle, perhaps the premiere dancing couple in the pre-jazz age and crucial players in the formation of the “society” dance scene in NYC during the 1910s. […]
Read More →A few recent projects of note landed in my inbox last week. And though I don’t have the time to really give them the write-ups they deserve (and don’t get me started on the backlog of projects I need to big-up), they each grabbed my attention — a remarkable feat in this age of info-glut […]
Read More →I was excited to find in my inbox today a link to a brand new LP by one of my favorite artists from whom I hadn’t heard much in a while: the mighty Mutamassik! It’s called That Which Death Cannot Destroy and the liner notes very plainly state that it “cannot be bought or sold.” […]
Read More →[Here’s another Riddim Method re-post, featuring a couple mashups which I made all by myself (with the help of Kazaa and Ableton). It attempts to embrace a “riddim method” approach to music blogging — to focus more on musical texts that say things about music than wordy texts. I liked the playfulness and directness, as […]
Read More →Now, you know, dear reader, that I don’t want to work, I just want to bang on this blog all day — — but duty calls, whether as a dad, a teacher, a fellow, or a Boston beats booster. At any rate, realizing it’s been two weeks since I last posted something here, I’m starting […]
Read More →As I suspect many readers are aware, next week here in Boston is the first annual Together Festival, this city’s own attempt at an electronic dance music gathering that seeks to highlight local talent as well as bring in some heavy hitters from beyond New England. The schedule and lineup are pretty damn impressive, I […]
Read More →Since I’m in a syllabus sharing mood, I figured I should finally get around to posting the one I put together in Spring 2008 for a course on “Global Hip-hop.” A series of case studies examining how hip-hop travels outside the US, what it carries with it, and how people adapt its forms to their […]
Read More →What Happens in Riddim Method Stays in Riddim Method
I’ve written a lot here about the “riddim method,” a cheeky term suggested by my co-author Peter Manuel to describe a well-worn practice (and in the case of our article, a distinctly Jamaican version of it). We jest, but we’re serious. In short, what we try to explain is an approach to musical materials as […]
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