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Tonight’s Beat Research<\/a> brings to Boston the shady presence of a shadowy figure<\/a> known as DJ N-RON<\/a>. <\/p>\n N-RON first caught my ear back in ’05<\/a> with his (& Leftenant’s) mix, “A Thunder Sound” (mp3<\/a>), chock full of remixes and drawing together a wide range of sounds — from dancehall, grime, electro, leftfield hip-hop, ethnomusicology classics<\/a> — well before such an approach was as commonplace as it’s become (!!). Some of you might know him from last year’s “Collaborator Mixtape<\/a>,” which maintains a certain, shall we say, neoliberal acquisitiveness while showcasing some of N-RON’s own production. And attendees of this spring’s Nettle concert<\/a> at Brandeis would have seen an alter ego<\/a> offering utterly captivating realtime visual accompaniment to the band’s suggestive sounds (as appreciated & interpreted, e.g., by anthro prof Mark Auslander here<\/a>). <\/p>\n Tonight in Cambridge<\/a>, N-RON will be playing “some of his latest original stolen tracks, as well as findings from his recent multinational expansions to Mexico, Brasil, and Brooklyn.”<\/p>\n It’s too bad that Daniel has such a busy schedule, otherwise — based on this piece alone<\/a> — he’d be a great guest to have at a iittle favela film festival (um festivalinho?) that Gregzinho<\/a>‘s hosting at an undisclosed location<\/a> in East Cambridge this Thursday. (It’s gonna be a smallish affair, but if you’re muito muito interested in screening some recent funkcarioca-related videos and you’re in the area, get in touch.) The um-and-only Gregzinho, btw, is playing Beat Research two weeks from tonight (July 20), before he leaves town (again), so put that on yr clndrs. <\/p>\n Before we go: recommended reading for tonight’s N-RON show is Matt Taibbi’s “The Great American Bubble Machine” in Rolling Stone<\/em><\/a>, which begins with words like<\/p>\n The world’s most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n How’s that for an image? I admit I found it especially resonant — whether or not vampire squids actually<\/a> exist<\/a> — because of the way it vibrates in sympathy (slyly slithers?) with this line (especially if you sing “squid” after “vampire”)<\/p>\n Babylon system is a vampire, falling empire,
\nSucking the blood of the sufferers,
\nBuilding church and university,
\nDeceiving the people continually,
\nGraduating thieves and murderers\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n