like the moon
Hot off the heels of a couple gigs in Sao Paolo, and en route to rock CMJ in NYC next week, le gran Poirier touches down in Boston this Monday to share his latest concoctions with the Beat Research massif. I never quite know what to expect from Ghis. First time I heard him play, […]
Read More →I’ve been listening to the MasalaCISM radio show for years, so it was a thrill to finally make it over to the studio when I was in Montreal last weekend. Extra bonus: Poirier and Dub Boy (in from Bristol for Karnival v.1) were also Bendude‘s guests that evening. Benoit started red hot with uptempo dancehall, […]
Read More →I’m excited to announce, for a couple reasons, that next week PBS will begin airing the 4-part series, “Latin Music USA.” Episode 1 (Latin Jazz, Mambo) and Episode 2 (Salsa) will air on Monday, October 12; Episode 3 (Chicano Rock, Tejano, Norteño) and Episode 4 (Latin Pop, Reggaeton) will air the following Monday, October 19. […]
Read More →Not sure what to make of the casual misogyny (metaphor?) at the heart of this — a generalizing of hoe — but, that aside (if I may), I gotta say that I can’t get enough of dudes dancing lithely on their front lawns (wait for 1:10 in the video below). Apparently, this joint’s on some […]
Read More →wheel it back, selector I’m going to take a page from MBQ’s playbook and reblog a rather interesting post on sound cannons (aka LRADs, Long Range Acoustic Devices™) by fellow ethnomusicoloblogger, Ben Tausig, who is writing a very engaging blog about the “politics of sound.” I find Ben’s thoughts particularly revealing against the backdrop of […]
Read More →photo by julie_chen The annual HONK! Festival is going down this weekend, making Somerville the joyfully cacophonous meeting ground for an international bloc of brass bands (and related ensembles). I missed HONK! last year, out of town, so I’m looking forward to taking it in this time around, especially with the girls, who will no […]
Read More →Team Tenenbaum has filed an OPPOSITION TO PLAINTIFFS’ MOTION FOR JUDGMENT AND DEMAND FOR INJUNCTION, which pretty much means what it says — or in my attempt at non-legalese: they’re asking the judge, rather than entering the judgment recommended by the jury (which, interestingly enough, she has yet to do), to fundamentally reconsider the validity, […]
Read More →Thx to the ever-vigilant Ted Swedenburg for bringing to my attn the latest episode in the surreal and surprisingly sustained saga of “Arab Money” (click the non-HD version to stay here) — Video Games | GTA IV: Ballad of Gay Tony | Yusuf Amir Trailer XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii So there […]
Read More →I’m headed north this weekend to take part in the Pop Montreal conference. I’ll be speaking/playing on a “DJed Lecture Series” alongside such keen observers / boosters / makers of “World Street Music” as Guillaume Decouflet (aka Khiasma / Valeo from Masalacism), Brian Shimkovits (of awesometapes fame), Sao Paolo’s Dago Donato, and 90210’s favorite hip […]
Read More →check the tech rider! With regard yet again to bass feeling, but especially the way that loud, low frequencies operate at a seemingly (sub?)atomic level, vibrating us like a set of “permeable membranes through which forcefields can pass,” note this evocative passage from Sasha Frere Jones’s review of a recent Sunn O))) concert: Sunn O)))’s […]
Read More →Tonight’s guest at Beat Research is my friend & colleague at MIT, Ian Condry, author of Hip-hop Japan (Duke U Press, 2006). He’ll be joining us this eve to celebrate the translation of his book into Japanese, and he’ll do so by offering a set that traces the broad contours of Japanese hip-hop. I hope […]
Read More →A happy six months in this crazy world, lil girl! That proto-crawl is really coming along —
Read More →Got an email last week from a French netlabel called, of all things, ZUNG ZENG, which, apparently & admirably, “aims to release dub and electronic music under Creative Common licence.” Cue promo — The first dubtek release (digital only) is out now : the AIR CUT EP by Force Quit (Marseille/FR) It’s downloadable for free […]
Read More →photo by jake walters, via the wire As the treble/bass culcha conversation continues here and there, we keep coming around to the words & work of Kode9 / Steve Goodman. It became increasingly clear, esp as we wait for his book to come out (yo MIT Press, get at a Fellow!), that I should ask […]
Read More →me & keith, mixing under mcgrath (photo by charles daniels) It’s a special week in W&Wland! Not once, but TWICE, I’ll be playing alongside one of my favorite local turntable heroes: DJ Axel Foley. I’ve been jamming with Keith for years now, and it’s always great fun. He provided scratches for several tracks on Boston […]
Read More →I’ve really been enjoying all the feedback I got on my “treble culture” post. One idea that’s been especially interesting is the seemingly common notion — repeated & affirmed by many commenters — that we tend to imagine/assume bass even when we don’t hear it. I suspect that this phenomenon may be at work more […]
Read More →The Story Behind The Story Behind The Roxanne Shante Story By Wayne Marshall and Jeff Chang If a rapper claims to be a killer, no one cares. If she says she has an education, they send in an investigative reporter, or at least someone who purports to be. Oh don’t we love gotcha journalism. But […]
Read More →I’m in the process of working up a short essay on the topic of “treble culture” for a volume on “mobile music.” I’m hoping that some of my awesome readers/interlocutors might lend me a hand (and/or ear). There are two main areas in which I am interested: 1) the rise of “treble culture” and the […]
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