R.I.P. Ari Up

This totally sucks!!

One the Program Today ...

"What does it mean to be able to enjoy uncertainty?"

The above quote comes from this article by Bill Bahng Boyer, where the ethnomusicologist explores the relationship between Western conceptions of human subjectivity and technology, looking particularly at the change in the musical experience in light of the development of the iPod shuffle. I don't want to say too much about the article here (other than that you should really read it). However, it has inspired me to finally do something on my show that I have thus far been unwilling to do. For tonight's show I'm giving up control to my iPod, pressing shuffle and then pressing play. Each set I play tonight will be initially determined by the shuffle function of my iPod, which will randomly choose the first song of each set. Following this, I will do my best to make a 15-20 min. long set arising out of the randomly chosen song.

This could prove to be difficult, or extremely easy, depending on what ends up coming up randomly (and no I won't be censoring anything), as I will still also be determined by Can-Con rules and the fact that I'm supposed to be playing mostly new material. I'll post the playlist first thing tomorrow, and will have further comments then.

Wish me luck!

Back in Business

In order to truly start blogging, one must begin at least one post with "Well it's been busy lately. Back to normal activities." Well it's been over a week since my last post, so here it goes. I've been busy lately. To make it up to you, here is what I've been listening to lately.


New Releases



The Bad Plus: Never Stop

Never Stop is first album by Minneapolis trio The Bad Plus to feature only original compositions. After making a name for themselves for wonderful jazz arrangements of pop classics like Tears for Fear's "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" or Rush's "Tom Sawyer", here The Bad Plus re-display their own pop sensibilities with originals such as the title track "Never Stop" or "Beryl Loves to Dance". While clearly still living firmly within the jazz tradition, these are songs that could easily be re-done by countless pop artists. As such, the record serves well to draw attention to the line connecting the likes of Monk, Oscar Peterson or even Cecil Taylor with Prince, Janelle Monae and, at times, Rihanna. A great jazz record, that ought to be remixed by Timbaland (I'm totally serious).



Mount Kimbie: Crooks & Lovers

Surprise! Another great electronic album. Seriously, when did electronic music get so freaking good? First it was the likes of Pantha Du Prince, Actress, and Four Tet pushing awesome records at the beginning of the year. Then came in T++, Vex'd, Flying Lotus and Baths with equally strong records. More recently it's been artists like James Blake and Teengirl Fantasy that have been providing strong beats to excite the masses. It's a good time to be a fan of electronic music for sure. With regards to Crooks & Lovers, an album that is currently skyrocketing up my list for favorite records of the year, it's their re-working of the more formulaic elements of dubstep (something which has resulted in the horrible label "Post-Dubstep" being used to describe the bands sound), that sets them apart from others. This is dance music first and foremost that proves to be a rewarding listen time and time again.

Other new releases I'm currently loving:
the new Deerhunter and Women records (obvie)
Dave Holland Octet - Pathways,
Salem - King Night,
Zola Jesus - Valusia EP

Currently looking forward to: New records from Darkstar, Panda Bear, Blank Dogs and Tomboyfriend. Especially Tomboyfriend!! What a wicked name for a band.

Nostalgia! Nostalgia! Nostalgia!!



Matador at 21

Enough has already been said with these release celebrating 21 years of one of America's most beloved record companies that I won't go into too much detail here. I will say though, that Matador at 21 has done what all good compositions ought to do, in that it has encouraged me to go back and listen to some of my favorite Matador releases over the years. The past weeks have been filled with records like Helium's The Dirt of Luck, Yo La Tengo's Painful and I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One, Guided by Voices, Chavez, Pizzicato Five and a host of others. That and the release comes with it's own set of poker chips!!

That's all for now!

When Baseball Meets Pop Culture

UMFM is currently going under some major renos, and tonight the studio will be in the process of moving across the hall. This means of course that there will be no show tonight. Tomorrow I will be previewing some of the artists that I have been listening to a lot recently as a means to make up for this.

In the meantime, let's get ready for some post-season ball. For some reason, Baseball and and independent music seem to go hand in hand. Bob Pollard (who is a regular at Boston's Fenway Park) is currently working on the soundtrack for an upcoming documentary on Pete Rose. Stephen Malkmus is OBSESSED with fantasy baseball. Craig Finn has his Twins, while The John Darnielle and Eddie Vedder have their Cubbies. There's Yo La Tengo, who supposedly got their name from an inside joke running around the New York Mets locker room shortly after the whole Bill Buckner incident. And then there's local peggers like John K. Samson and Michael Petkau (not to mention local film director Guy Madden), who too are baseball nerds.

Needless to say, Baseball and pop music, for some weird reason, seem to go hand in hand. Here are some personal highlights of mine.

To start, it's not music. But who can resist Mr. T. "One, two, three strikes you out!" Classic.

Today on Scene and Not Seen - Sun Ra and The 'Noise of Jazz

Subcultures represent 'noise' (as opposed to sound): interference in the orderly sequence which leads from real events and phenomena to their representation in the media. We should therefore not underestimate the signifying power of the spectacular subculture not only as a metaphor for potential anarchy 'out there' but as an actual mechanism of semantic disorder: a kind of temporary blockage in the system of representation. (Dick Hebdige, 1979)

The above quote comes from Dick Hebdige's monumental study on the relationship between style and social resistance. Looking at a variety of different 'subcultures' developing in post-war England (ie. The Teddy Boy, The Skinhead, The Mod and The Punk) Hebdige attempts to illustrate how these cultures, formed predominantly in response to the culture and lifestyles of the dominant classes of the day, provided British youth with a means to short-circuit and disrupt the powers and ideologies propped up by mainstream society, powers and ideologies that elsewhere serve to keep them subdued and in the minority. Subcultures represent 'noise' in the sense that they serve to break apart and bring into disarray typical systems of representation; taking daily objects (for punks, objects such as safety pins, tubes of vaseline or even the Union Jack) and reordering them in a way to make them seem like nothing but nonsense.

While there is much to be critical of Hebdige's analysis of the social functions of style (such as his depiction of the active participant in a subculture vs. the passive/disinterested participant in the mainstream, or even his unquestioning assumption of the possibility of a true subculture as such), his narration of the place of 'noise' in popular forms of music, in many ways, provides us with a helpful way of reading the work of Sun Ra. It is fairly easy to write-off Sun Ra's project as yet another vain form of escapism (this time arising out of the free-form jazz tradition), as Sun Ra sought first and foremost to provide his listeners with the means to imagine life outside of this world. While this is certainly part of what is most appealling about the pianist, looking at Hebdige's reading of noise, it seems to me that Ra's other-worldness can also be read as a form of resistance, seeking to re-read this world in a new light, in the hopes of uncovering new possibilities and potentialities. Much of his music is nothing but nonsense, taking one of the great African American triumphs - jazz - and stripping it of western conceptions of harmonic construction (a lack of melody, closed chord progressions etc ...), infusing it instead with a bizarre blend of Old Testament and Sci-Fi imagery. He took that classic American art-form that gave us "Ain't Misbehavin'" "Autumn Leaves" and "Don't Get Around Much Anymore" and transformed it into sonic (and with Ra you can also add visual) nonsense. Like Hebdige's 'punk' figure, Ra's music can be seen as another form of stylistic resistance, seeking to make this world seem 'other-worldly' and as such infuse it with a messianic hope illustrating how the way things appear isn't necessarily the way they are.

All of this is but a means to say you should listen to tonight's show as I will be playing a selection of tracks from ESP-Disc's recent box set Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra. The box set is a wonderful collection of some of Ra's more bizzare moments (which, considering Sun Ra's generally out-there aesthetic is saying something), and does well to illustrate just how 'this-worldly' Ra's declaration that "The Space is the Place" is.

Until next time ...

Carl Wilson on Superchunk

I feel like I should probably link this article from Carl Wilson on Superchunk's recent reemergence. Like usual, he's right on point describing the band as representing the 'anti-slacker version of 90s indie culture," and even more on point in his claim of Pavement's musical influence being overrated and Superchunk's being underrated. Not that I don't of course love Pavement (Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain is an amazing record, and the guitar on "Stereo" still gives me goose bumps when listening to it), but I've always been somewhat uncomfortable with the heaps of praise given them, particularly with regards to Slanted and Enchanted which I've never been able to fully get behind. Much of what they accomplished as a band, and much of what is attributed to them (like the whole slacker thing) had already been done by other artists, by the time they showed up on the scene, and in some cases (like with The Fall's Hex Enduction Hour) with much more interesting results.

All of this is to say, yet again, that Superchunk deserves more props then they have thus far received (they gave us the Arcade Fire, and Neutral Milk Hotel for crying out loud, not to mention three of the 90s strongest releases in No Pokey For Kitty, Foolish and Incidental Music).

In other news, the new Black Mountain kicks ass. Here's the epic "Let Spirits Ride" (big props to J-Rod, who reminded me about this earlier today).

The Spectacle that is The Flaming Lips Live

My review of last night's Flaming Lips and Ariel Pink show is now up on Stylus.

For the most part, I thought the show was success. Both groups put on quite the spectacle (although the Lips' set had WAY more props and theatrics), but both groups could have done better with their song choices. Ariel Pink went with more of his rock-oriented songs like "Butthouse Blondies" and "Little Wing", which made for a more rock-oriented show than I was hoping for. I REALLY wanted to see how some of his more fuzzed out pop-songs like "For Kate I Wait" or "Immune to Emotion" played out live, and that didn't happen.

With regards to The Flaming Lips, I hate to be that guy, but how could they not play ANYTHING from The Soft Bulletin? Sure their catalog is huge, but this is for many fans (myself included) their strongest record to date. Given that this was their first time through town, this omission really surprised me. That said, the giant laser hands more than made up for it.

Next up ... The Liptonians turn Wilco tonight at Cinematheque.