As a reminder about Vinyl Saturday tomorrow, here are links to audio streams of the A/B Sides of Modest Mouse’s 7″ that is being offered as part of the RSDVS initiative:
I haven’t really been into a new Modest Mouse song in a minute now, but damn, “Whale Song” is like a reminder of why I loved this band in the first place.
-Drew
Filed under Jam of the Day, Music
Take that, rain
We hope that you can stay dry and enjoy yourselves today, while Ben Harper and Ghostface Killah croon to their “forever” loves in the background.
Ben Harper – Forever:
Ghostface Killah – Forever:
Also, I can’t resist posting this quote from an interview Ghostface did that I read recently on Unkut.com, about his upcoming album and the need to talk about some more serious real-to-life issues:
“It’s my last album [for Def Jam] so I wanted to do the album I always wanted to do, man. You gotta tell the fans that you not gettin’ no younger here – we gettin’ older! And everybody don’t sell crack no more, man. I don’t sell crack, yo. I ain’t movin’ no bricks or none of that other shit. I ain’t shoot nobody in like…since the early 90’s, man. How long you gonna be 40 years old and actin’ like you still sellin’ cracks and you on the block and you doin’ this and you doin’ that when times is more serious, man. We in a fuckin’ recession, B! Ain’t nobody gettin’ no money, man! We gotta stop lyin’ to ourselves and lyin’ to the fans. And the fans gotta stop bein’ so dumb and ignorant, and know it’s time to talk about grown-man situations. Shit that happen in the real life, inside your household, your love life, your personal life, that’s just like, ‘Damn, it’s hard for a nigga to get some money!’ It might be so hard to get some money that your girl might wanna leave you someday because you ain’t get no money like you like you used to be getting’ money! Those are real situations, so I think it should start goin’ back to songs that mean shit. All that other shit outside is just gonna keep us dumb, deaf and blind, yo, and we ain’t never gonna get nowhere.”
Word.
-ev2bk
Filed under Jam of the Day, Music
The 5th Annual Brooklyn Hip Hop Festival is happening this weekend, beginning with a photo exhibit tomorrow night at the Galapagos Art Space in Williamsburg that will feature photos from the past four years of the festival. The invite-only Kick-Off Party is Friday night, and then the real fun starts on Saturday, June 20.
The festival, hosted by Brooklyn Bodega, will be held this year at the Empire Fulton Ferry State Park in DUMBO, Brooklyn, and runs from 12-8pm, although the action on the main stage doesn’t start until around 4. Here’s a look at the set times and some of the artists performing:
3:15-3:25 Meter Maids
3:25-3:30 Kel Spencer
3:30-3:45 Brown Bag All Stars
3:50-4:00 Keys N Krates/DJ Parler
4:00-4:10 Tiye Phoenix
4:15-4:20 Chip Fu
4:25-4:35 Keys N Krates/DJ Parler
4:35-4:45 Marco Polo & Torae
4:45-4:55 Tanya Morgan
4:55-5:00 Homeboy Sandman and Shawn J Period
5:00-5:20 Smif-n-Wessun
5:25-5:55 J Period with Grand Puba and special guests
6:00-6:30 DJ Premier
6:30-7:00 Dead Prez
7:00-7:30 Styles
7:30-8:00 Pharoahe Monch
I mean, that is a HOT set of performers, just no denying. Get excited, BK!
One of the most anticipated performances will surely be from Tanya Morgan, who recently released their sophomore full length, Brooklynati, which has been receiving lots of good press and critical praise. The group consists of MCs Donwill and Ilyas, and MC/producer Von Pea, who hails from Brooklyn (County of Kings!). So get ready for a long day of great hip hop by checking out this new video from their second single off the record.
Tanya Morgan – So Damn Down:
One more thought: does anyone else get a hint of the Bird of Paradise from dude’s mouth? The director obviously jacked this video idea from Planet Earth.
Bird of Paradise mating dance
-Drew
Filed under Jam of the Day, Music, Performance
Well, we already know that it’s impossible to buy records at the Virgin Megastore anymore, given that it closed yesterday. But even though it’s a tough world out there, some groups of independent record stores have started to collectively organize in order to try to save themselves.
One such effort is Record Store Day, which was founded in 2007 by a group of like-minded individuals in the San Francisco area. Record Store Day, which celebrated it’s second anniversary recently (it is celebrated on the third Saturday of every April), was inaugurated on April 19, 2008, with events and performances throughout the country, including at our very own Sound Fix and Other Music.
Since it seems like the biz is in need of some serious help (like the kind of help that comes more than one day a year), the “consortium” behind Record Store Day recently announced a new program called Vinyl Saturday, which will be a self-described “new monthly unveiling of limited special vinyl pieces, [and] an irresistible lure to your local indie record store, where treasures of all sorts are glittering on the shelves.”
The first Vinyl Saturday kicks off this Saturday, June 20, and features new releases (available exclusively on vinyl for now) from Modest Mouse, Wilco, Green Day, and Pete Yorn’s new project with Scarlett Johansson. Quite a few record stores from the East Village to Brooklyn are participating. Apart from Sound Fix and Other Music, the NYC list also includes Academy Record Annex, Basement Mix Records, Black Star Music & Video, Bleecker Street Records, Downtown Music Gallery, Earwax Records, Etherea, Fat Beats, Generation Records, Gimme Gimme Records, Halcyon the shop, and Rock and Soul. You may want to give the places a call beforehand if you’re looking for one particular record, since these are all very limited releases and are likely to go fast.
Personally, I’m most excited to hear the new Modest Mouse tracks, which will be their second recent vinyl release following the failed attempt to participate in Record Store Day this year. I’m hoping that this one will be far better, given the disappointing “Satellite Skin/Guilty Cocker Spaniels” 7-inch effort. Seeing as “Satellite Skin” wasn’t released until May 26, and you may not have heard it yet (like me earlier today), you can check the video out here.
But since we’re looking to maintain the integrity of the Jam of the Day archives, the official Jam today is going to take you back to the Mouse of yesteryear. Enjoy.
Modest Mouse – Edit the Sad Parts:
Finally, I suppose it’s going against the whole point of Record Store Day, but if you can’t make it to an area record store, you can pick up a copy of the forthcoming Modest Mouse 7-inch online here.
Maybe you’re an indie fan on crutches, OK?
-Drew
Filed under Event, Jam of the Day, Music
Passion Pit wasn’t really supposed to be a band. Back in 2008, Michael Angelakos made a bunch of songs as a Valentine’s Day gift to his ex-girlfriend, which eventually wound up as the six song Chunk of Change EP (released in Sept. 2008). By then word started to spread about the Boston band’s falsetto crooning, clean synth-driven dance pop tracks, and Passion Pit began playing shows all around the Northeast.
My first encounter with the band was at the Mercury Lounge during the CMJ Festival last year, when I tried to ask my sister a question at the bar and she got pissed at me for ruining her conversation with “the lead singer of Passion Pit.” Oops! I quickly checked them out on Myspace and became briefly obsessed with uber-danceable “Sleepyhead:”
Then this February I happened to be in London and managed to catch them playing at Cargo, since our good friends Bear Hands were also on the bill (and are definitely also worth checking out!). The show was sold out and the venue was absolutely packed, but this didn’t stop anyone from getting down with some serious booty shaking/sing alongs, and the entire set was really high-energy and enjoyable:
Passion Pit @ Cargo, London - Feb 09
Passion Pit @ Cargo, London - Feb 09
Passion Pit @ Cargo, London - Feb 09
After the European jaunt, the band hit up a little U.S. tour, including some dates at SXSW, which leads us up to this week and the release of their first full length album, Manners (Frenchkiss Records). To celebrate, on Tuesday the boys played what looks to have been a raucous and celebratory show on a boat cruise in the Hudson. Apparently, the band has really tightened up over the past few months, especially on the new tracks from the LP. Even MTV was there filming! Val Loper, the bassist from Bear Hands, was at the boat show and told me last night that they were “fucking amazing.”
To be honest, I wasn’t sure what to expect from Manners, especially after “The Reeling,” the album’s first single, sounded hella over-produced. After the first listen I was thinking I was maybe right. But so far each listen has only made me get more into this expanded sonic repertoire. Sure, the lead singer’s voice can get a little grating/distracting sometimes, like in the chorus of “Folds in Your Hands,” interrupting an otherwise charging opening. But there are lot of nice surprising touches that I guess come from working with a big label producer, like the funky baritone sax at the end of “To Kingdom Come,” or the kid choruses (in “The Reeling” and “Little Sectrets”) ala Pink Floyd.
The standout tracks for me were “Little Secrets,” “Swimming in the Flood,” and – even though the LP version seems to me to be essentially unchanged from the EP – “Sleepyhead” is still a dope song. A lot of the other joints seem to me to suffer from too much ambition or good beginnings gone awry into spacey-synth jams and too-high vocal flights. But overall I’d say that the disc is pretty solid and worth more than a few spins.
-Drew
Coldplay is giving away a live album as a “thank you to [their] fans.” Download it here. Enjoy your Saturday!
(thanks to brooklynvegan.com)
East Village to Brooklyn 