WFMU's Beware of the Blog

Hugh Cornwell and Hooverdam

Though my new WFMU show is immersion total in scary metal and noise, this particular aesthetic apex could never have been realized without the formative contribution of my obsession with The Stranglers. I feel compelled, as Diane Kamikaze has done in the past, to bang the drum for Hugh Cornwell—singer, author, guitarist and former co-frontman for the paranormal punk combo (who still record and tour without him, under the Stranglers moniker.) Hugh's made a great new record, Hooverdam, and you can download the full album for free, with Hugh's blessing, right here. Hooverdam will be a treat for Stranglers fans, as it creeps up on you that these catchy songs are very much in the spirit of the more straightforward Stranglers material—the album has some real strong moments, the more I listen to it. (Note that on the cover, Hugh's name is reproduced in the familiar "Stranglers font.")

Hugh has several shows in the NY area coming up in September (Johnny Brenda's in Philadelphia on 9/8; the Brighton Bar in Red Bank, NJ on 9/9; The Record Collector in Bordentown, NJ on 9/11; and Highline Ballroom in NYC on 9/12); complete tour dates can be seen right here, at Hugh's Web site. It's also been announced that at his UK Academy dates in November, Hugh and the band will be performing Hooverdam as well as The Stranglers' classic album, Rattus Norvegicus IV—both in their entirety.

Since Hugh is giving these preview tracks away (the CD/LP are nicely packaged and are affordable to own as well), I'm hoping he won't mind my re-posting a few favorites here:

Delightful Nightmare
Rain on the River
The Pleasure of Your Company

There are also some amazing Stranglers clips up now on YouTube that you don't need my help finding, but here's a personal favorite, "Shah Shah A Go Go" from 1979:

A Night in NYC

I didn't move to the Big Apple until 1995, but as a kid growing up watched all the city's TV channels that got exported to Pennsylvania, and formulated a distinct picture of what living there was like. In my mind everybody there made their own independent swinger ads on Al Goldstein's show, had kids who competed for Dynamite magazine and Lenders' Bagelettes on Wonderama, had weird telephone numbers that started with "Murray Hill", and lived in apartments like Felix Unger and Oscar Madison. This 25 minute Jools Holland/Leslie Ash-hosted special for The Tube is a nice drift of early 80's NYC sights and sounds, focused on the Danceteria scene, Arthur Baker, Paradise Garage etc. Check it out (via Skratchworx).

Transpacific Sound Paradise live from Lincoln Center this Friday

Transpacific Sound Paradise host Rob Weisberg has been pretty busy lately, and will be bringing some more live sounds from NYC to the WFMU air/netwaves this Friday, July 10th as he does a special fill-in show from 7-11PM from Lincoln Center's Midsummer Night Swing Series! First we'll hear from the Occidental Brothers Dance Band International, a Chicago-based collaboration between American jazz players and two former members of the highly regarded Ghanaian highlife band Western Diamonds.The Occidentals, who just released their first CD, are building a following playing shimmering old-school West African and Congolese electric dance music. Then at 9 pm, we'll be treated to a performance by one of the all-time great singers of Congolese style electric dance music, Samba Mapangala with Orchestra Virunga. While based in Kenya in the early 80s, Samba and Virunga recorded one of the all time African classics, Malako. And Samba's still going strong today: his 2008 election song "Obama Ubarikiwe (Obama Be Blessed)" was a YouTube sensation.

Last summer WFMU first found itself outdoors working with the fine folks at Lincoln Center when we held one of our 50th Anniversary free NYC concerts with the Ex, Getatchew Mekuria, Mahmoud Ahmed, Alemayehu Eshete, Either/Orchestra and Extra Golden under a beautiful sky in Damrosch Park with 10,000 enthusiastic attendees and a night of music we won't soon forget. While we won't be co-producing these shows this time around, we're kindly being allowed to broadcast some more of LC's great outdoor upcoming events, including two nights of Ponderosa Stomp to be aired on Dave the Spazz's show (July 16th airing live and July 17th airing later on Dave's July 30th show). It's an amazing place to see music in the city if you've never been, but if you can't make it out, be sure to catch these special broadcasts.

Video: Occidental Brothers "Grupo OK" (live at the Old Town School of Folk Music)

Video: Samba Mapangala "Nyama Choma" clip from 2006

WFMU/Barbes Cumbia night TONIGHT at The Bell House w/ DJ Rob W

<--Los Destellos, featured on the Barbés Records compilation The Roots of Chicha: Psychedelic Cumbias from Peru

The worldwide cumbia resurgence is overflowing the WFMU bin, with records focusing on old and new. Check out Soundway's Panama! 2: Latin Sounds, Cumbia Tropical & Calypso Funk On The Isthmus 1967-77 (pop-up), Lucas Luisao's "Bounty Caderas" (pop-up) off Vibration Sound's Nuevacumbia - Le Nouveau Son De Buenos Aires, and Uproot Andy vs. ODB (pop-up) from DJ/Rupture's Mudd Up podcast. More Chicha from Beware of the Blog here.

So it seems fitting that WFMU is joining forces with Barbés Records tonight for an evening of Cumbia at the Bell House in Brooklyn. Rob Weisberg of Transpacific Sound Paradise will be DJ-ing in between sets by Very Be Careful (Los Angeles) and Chicha Libre (Brooklyn). The event won't be broadcast live, so make your way out to The Bell House!

More info about the music from WFMU's Beware of the Blog

Listen to Very Be Careful spinning records and chatting live with DJ/Rupture on Mudd Up last year.

Listen to Chicha Libre's "Six_Pieds Sous Terre" (mp3) from ¡Sonido Amazonico! (Barbés Records 2008)

Listen to DJ Rob W's spotlight on Zizek, an Argentinian collective who just released ZZK Vol: 2, a killer follow-up to last year's Cumbia Digital vol. 1. (This show also featured a great live set from Cordero!).

If you like what you hear, hope to see you tonight!

Cumbia! Cumbia! With VERY BE CAREFUL & CHICHA LIBRE
Sunday July 5th, 8:00pm
@ The Bell House [149 7th Street, Brooklyn, NY (map)]
Adv. Tickets:  www.thebellhouseny.com

WFMU & Barbés Records present: Cumbia night at The Bell House, July 5th (mp3)

WFMU and Barbés Records are joining forces to present two of North America's pre-eminent cumbia bands: Very Be Careful from LA and Chicha Libre from Brooklyn. They'll be joined by DJs representing both old school and digital cumbia.

Cumbia became popular in Colombia in the 50s, and its mix of indigenous and African rhythms quickly spread to the rest of the world. In the 70s, Peruvians introduced psychedelic electric guitar and renamed the music Chicha, while Mexican musicians added rock drums and synth to create Sonidero, and Argentineans introduced the Keytar to create Cumbia Villera.
    In the past 5 years, a worldwide cumbia resurgence has infiltrated rock, hip-hop and electronic music. From Monterey's rebajada to Buenos Aires digital cumbia, young musicians are recycling their grandparents' music and launching a global musical rebellion.
 
VERY BE CAREFUL (pic L, live in Japan, via myspace) is a homegrown Los Angeles band that plays Colombian Vallenato music. They keep the music rootsy with the use of a traditional instrumentation of accordion, guacharaca, bass, caja vallenata and cow bell. They have the drive, energy and overall attitude of the best punk bands, which has helped them gain and retain a faithful audience whose dancing owes more to pogo than it does to cumbia.
    Very Be Careful has performed at clubs and festivals all over the world. They come to NY only once a year, so dont miss them!
    Listen to Very Be Careful spinning records and chatting live with DJ/Rupture on Mudd Up last year.

CHICHA LIBRE (pic R) play Peruvian chicha music, a style that is loosely inspired by Colombian accordion- driven cumbia. It incorporates the distinctive sounds of Andean melodies, some Cuban influence, psychedelic rock, and the modern sounds of surf guitars, farfisa organs and wah pedals.
    Chicha Libre is a Brooklyn-based Franco-American group that has toured all over the US, and they're becoming popular in Peru, the birthplace of Chicha music, where the band has appeared on various magazines and tv shows. They have been invited to play a series of concerts in Lima this fall, with legendary Chicha band Los Shapis.
   Listen to "Six Pieds Sous Terre" (mp3) from ¡Sonido Amazonico! (Barbés Records 2008)

Cumbia! Cumbia! With Very Be Careful & Chicha Libre
Sunday July 5th, 8:00pm
@ The Bell House [149 7th Street, between 2nd and 3rd Avenues, Brooklyn, NY (map)]
Adv. Tickets:  www.thebellhouseny.com

The Mermaid Parade

The Mermaid Parade - a New York cultural tradition established in 1983 by Coney Island USA - takes place Saturday, June 20, 2 PM. A throwback to the old-time Coney Island Mardi Gras, the Mermaid Parade is three hours of chaos, diversity, independence, weirdness, high-concept-low-brow-cheap-fun for the masses. It celebrates everything that makes Coney Island great - and for twenty years I've been at the center of it.

If you've never been, here's footage of the 2004 Mermaid Parade, shot by Phil Catalano:

ISSUE Project Room: NYC Soundwalks 6/7/09

ISSUE Project Room, Brooklyn's progressive non-profit performance space, has put together the most interesting walk-a-thon we've ever heard:

 On the afternoon of Sunday June 7, a group of visionary artists will lead sonic excursions throughout New York as part of a rare live sonic arts experiment — the ISSUE Project Room Soundwalk-a-thon — a fundraiser and collective public inquiry into the connection between urban space and our collective sonic imaginations.

You can sign up to...
* Bang a Gong for Issue with Swans co-founder and WFMU's favorite drummer, Jonathan Kane.
* Walk through the Brooklyn Botanical Garden contemplating the simulated sound of tinnitus with Anthony Coleman.
* Explore the sounds of Gowanus with Marc Ribot.
* Join a game of urban "telephone" -- the Tin Can Telewalk -- led by Marie Evelyn and WFMU DJ Kurt Gottschalk

There are 20 options to choose from, but you don't just have to pick one! You can experience them all in the disruptive We would like to run past all your walkers, opposite their direction, while screaming songs walk led by friends of the station Flaming Fire. And if you won't be able to attend, you can pledge your support to those who can.

...Speaking of ISSUE Project Room, have you heard their recent contributions to the Free Music Archive? Here's a recent highlight from James Blackshaw, live at ISSUE Project Room on March 7, 2009 excerpt (MP3)

Check out IPR on the Free Music Archive for Meg Baird's set from that night, along with IPR-curated audio from Elliott Sharp, Arthur's Landing, Stars Like Fleas, Carlos Giffoni & Okkyung Lee, Alex Waterman, Arthur Doyle, Teeth Mountain, and much more.      (photo via Urban Zen Sound Meditation and Labyrinth Walk  led by Eric A. Dah)

Mark Flood NYC Exhibit

Few bands revelled in the seedy underbelly of the American stripmall like Houston's Culturcide, a band fueled by the Boss' 80s bluejeans back pocket lint and grizzle from the bottom of a Burger King deep-fry tray; they were also purveyors of possibly the greatest holiday single ever, "Depressed Christmas" (MP3). Chelsea Whores is an exhibition by Mark Flood, an artist well-involved in that band's general orbit, running here in New York at the Zach Feuer Gallery (520 West 24th Street), from May 22 through July 10th and features his collage works and what he's termed "broken paintings" from 1979-2002 (though one recent review from Los Angeles states that all of the materials claiming to be decades old were actually made in the last two years). The refuse of American consciousness Flood chooses to deal with has included literal debris from Hurricane Ike, modified road or food service signs, and as we see left, lots of mutated iconography (one of my fave images he has made in the past has Annie Lennox on the Eurythmics' Touch LP cover being rearranged into garish Elephant Man-style paste-up). Great quote on Germany in NYC about the Chelsea Whores exhibit that makes me even more down with it: "His influence is comparable to that of the American artist Andy Warhol, but whereas Warhol's work features talent, Flood unintentionally devises a tedious formal vocabulary, layered with meaning and metaphor."

Maria Levitsky: Building Photographs

Our talented (and exceedingly modest) radio compatriot Maria Levitsky (formerly heard 3-6pm Wednesday afternoons) is crafty with a camera. Her premiere NYC photographic gallery exhibit, Building Photographs, opens this evening at Deborah Berke & Partners Architects (220 5th Avenue, 7th floor) with a reception from 6:30 to 8:30. (Levitsky has previously exhibited in several Brooklyn venues and around the country.)

Dozens of black & white and experimental works can be viewed at MariaLevitsky.com. At left: Shoes on Stairs (Invisible Ascending), silver gelatin print from 2000.

Some of Maria's photos are spooky—one of many qualities I find appealing. Her works often frame scenic ruins marking time before the inevitable wrecking ball. This decaying architecture reveals few signs of life—but many signs of former lives (what Levitsky calls "evidence of disappearance").

Building Photographs runs through the summer by appointment.

More WFMU DJ Off-Mic Activities

Not only can you catch Dave the Spazz rubbing shoulders with Mick Collins and the Paul Green School of Rock kids tonight at BB King Blues Club in Manhattan... a few other DJs have some upcoming off-mic events this week that are worth checking out.

HotRod DJs tonight @ the Lamp Post in Jersey City (352 2nd St), 9pm-2am... Free!
 
Maria Levitsky celebrates the opening of her photography show, "Building Photographs," at Deborah Berke & Partners Architecture Gallery (220 5th Ave, 7th Floor) in Manhattan tomorrow evening (Thurs 5/21), 6:30 - 8:30pm.

Small Change DJs at the Down & Derby roller disco party at Studio B in Brooklyn (259 Banker St) this Saturday with DJ Ayres and Rok One, 10pm onward (RSVP here for discounted admission).

  

Mick Collins to appear at School of Rock Benefit tonight!

Rock hero Mick Collins (from the Dirtbombs!!!!) will be joining Dave the Spazz and the Paul Green School of Rock kids for the WFMU Benefit tonight at the BB King Blues Club in Manhattan!

Tonight marks the second and final night of performances hosted by Dave the Spazz, who has handpicked music to be performed by local branches of the Paul Green School of Rock and the SCHOOL OF ROCK ALLSTARS.

The kids will compete for rock glory, as Dave selects the winning school. Expect a chimpified, sonic soiree of overmodulated, toe-stubbing rock and roll music as performed by junior high and high school kids! Plus a special guest appearance by Mick Collins! Don't miss it!

Wednesday May 20th - 8pm
BB King Blues Club
New York, NY
$15 advance and door

The Vinyl Solution

My friend Jimmy is the superintendent of a small apartment building where a DJ used to live. (Not a WFMU DJ, but a club DJ). Then the DJ moved out, but he kept paying rent on one room that he used for storage. After a while he quit paying rent on the storage room. The landlord waited for a bit, then told Jimmy to break the lock and throw out whatever was in there. Jimmy finally got the door opened and found hundreds and hundreds of record albums, all stacked up in milk crates. So he set to work hauling the crates full of records down to the street, all by himself--up and down the stairs, crate after crate. It took a long time, but he finally got all the records stacked up out at the curb in a long row a little higher than Jimmy is tall. He went back upstairs to secure the door to the DJ's former storage room, and he swears he couldn't have been up there more than 15 minutes or so. But when he got back down —all the milk crates were gone! The records, however, were still there, tossed all over the street in a huge mess. Somebody had snagged the crates, but not the contents. So Jimmy had to push all the hundreds and hundreds of records up out of the street and off the sidewalk, so they'd be out of the way until the sanitation truck came to take them away with the garbage.

Thanks for reading my blog post this week, and may God bless.

ISSUE Project Room's 6th Anniversary Party

On May 19th, Brooklyn's excellent non-profit performance space, ISSUE Project Room, will be celebrating their 6th year of kicking ass and taking names in the experimental music, film, literature, and art scenes (and also on the Free Music Archive).

The 6th birthday party/benefit for ISSUE Project Room takes place at Galapagos in Dumbo Brooklyn (16 Main St), and WFMU's own Fabio will be representing on the ones and twos. Other notable highlights on the bill include:

- The Pinch of the Baboon (JG Thirlwell, Ed Pastorini, Oren Bloedow and Ben Perowsky)
- Elysian Fields
- Mountains
- members of Excepter
- “Straight and Narrow” (1970), Film screening by Tony Conrad with soundtrack by John Cale and Terry Riley
- Robot Movie by Jim Sharpe with Soundtrack by Lary Seven

On top of this, IPR will reward a prize to the person who shows up in the best Holy Mountain-inspired costume, so you know there's potential for this party to be way better than Halloween. Purchase tickets here, and you'll get $10 off if you use the promotional code fidelio - have fun!

NYC Indian Classical All-nighter Preview on WFMU

While being a usual event on the subcontinent, all-night Indian classical concert events are not so common here in NYC. Rob Weisberg's Transpacific Sound Paradise previews one this Saturday, May 2nd between 6 and 9 PM live on WFMU : NY-based tabla player and scene advocate Samir Chatterjee has organized a 10th annual all-nighter taking place Saturday to Sunday May 9 to 10 at the Society of Ethical Culture (2 West 64th Street, Manhattan). Included on the show: three musicians who will be among the many participants in the concert: highly regarded veteran virtuosos Pandit Soumitra Lahiri (sitar) and Sri Shailendra Misra (tabla); and representing the next generation, Samir Chatterjee's son, up-and-coming tabla player Dibyarka Chatterjee. Tune in and prep for Saturday's all night-flight.

SONAR in NYC One Night Only

If you're out and about in NYC on Tuesday, May 12th, Spain's esteemed SONAR festival makes a one-night-only soujourn to our fair city with assorted artists from Barcelona, plus Prefuse 73, Beans, and our own Mudd Up! host DJ/Rupture. The show is free, but you need to sign up here, and it'll all be happening at the Baryshnikov Arts Center at the Howard Gilman Performance Space, 450 West 37th Street. SONAR NYC is part of an ongoing Catalan Days fest happening in town now through May 20th. Also, if you haven't heard the news yet, WFMU will be making its own little pilgrimage to Barcelona at the end of May for a three day simulcast of some of Primavera Sound's massive fest, more details on that forthcoming.

Virtual CBGB's

I kept peering around corners thinking I was gonna run into Vinnie Stigma, hopefully not in the bathroom. Link courtesy John Neilson (who wonders if maybe this actually the Vegas recreation being that it was lit so well)

WFMU Teams Up with the School of Rock!

Paul Green's School of Rock Presents:
WFMU Benefit!

Join us for 2 nights hosted by Dave the Spazz, with his handpicked music performed by local branches of the Paul Green School of Rock and the SCHOOL OF ROCK ALLSTARS.

For each show there will be groups of kids from local schools performing songs of Spazz' choosing as part of a contest; Dave will select the winning school. The School of Rock Allstars will then take the stage and blow you away!

Expect a chimpified, sonic soiree of overmodulated, toe-stubbing rock and roll music as performed by junior high and high school kids!

Hope you can make it to one of these nights:

Friday May 15th - 8pm
Asbury Lanes
Asbury Park, NJ
$10 advance and door

Wednesday May 20th - 8pm
BB King Blues Club
New York, NY
$15 advance and door

Sightings playing Saturday's WFMU Free Music Archive concert w/ Thee Oh Sees, Excepter, Pink Skull (mp3s)

As we continue to tweak WFMU's emerging social music website The Free Music Archive, we've just been informed that Catatonic Youth disbanded this weekend and canceled all future shows, including Saturday's Free Music Archive launch party. With this bummer news comes the awesome news that Sightings has been added to the bill.

Over the last decade the Hoffman/Lockie/Morgan trio has become one of thee live bands to see in NYC, taking cues from everything from early Neubauten to Japanese blowout psychedelia to cave-dwelling dub and even minimal house, all contained within a traditional guitar/bass/drums format. Sightings channel it all via noisy, organic rock with weirdly structured songs developed through a keen and alien vocabulary that constant playing and recording has developed to today's state of the band. Five years ago people first started to talk about them reaching new peaks, but they've only kept adding fuel to the fire and are really are destroying more every show.

This is music best heard live. Sightings damn near blew my mind opening for The Dead C last year at The Bowery Ballroom, and I'm looking forward to hearing them through The Bell House's excellent sound system.

Every band will be getting a full sound check, and don't forget that we're broadcasting live starting at 8pm ET! We're also recording multi-tracks, and high-quality live recordings from this show will be just a handful of thousands of free, legal mp3's you'll soon be able to download from FreeMusicArchive.org.

7pm DJ set from WFMU Music Director Brian Turner

8pm Pink Skull (Philadelphia Kraut-House, RVNG Intl.)
listen: Pink Skull - Unicorn Harpoon (mp3) from Zeppelin 3 (Free News Projects 2008)

9pm Sightings (NYC kinetic noise-rock)
listen: Sightings - Perforated (mp3) from Through The Panama (Load Records 2007) co-produced/engineered by Andrew W.K.

10pm Excepter (Brooklyn electronic-improv)
listen: Excepter - Kill People (mp3) from Debt Dept (Paw Tracks 2008)

11pm Thee Oh Sees (Johnny Dwyer's newest shit from San Francisco, w/ a new album on In The Red Records)
listen: Thee Oh Sees - The Freak Was Clean (mp3) from the oop Peanut Butter Oven 12'' EP (Awesome Vistas 2008)

Saturday April 4th, doors 7pm, 18+  @ The Bell House: 149 7th St, Brooklyn [map]
admission: $10 adv. [tix here] or a roll of the dice

The Sursiks - Little Paper Airplanes (video)

This video has a less-than-subtle Libertarian conspiracy message, but it is still pretty cool. And it features tubas! Not quite safe for work, I guess...

Taken from the Sursiks CD Christmas In March. YouTube: [link]

WFMU-curated Free Music Archive Party 4.4.09 @ The Bell House (mp3s)

WFMU is throwing a launch party for FreeMusicArchive.org on April 4th at The Bell House in Brooklyn. There'll be live music from Thee Oh Sees, Excepter, Catatonic Youth Sightings, and Pink Skull, a DJ set from WFMU music director Brian Turner, a live broadcast booth, dub pies, libations, mayhem, special guests and the unleashing of positive post-WFMU-marathon energies.

The Free Music Archive will combine the curatorial approach that stations like WFMU have played for the last few decades, and the community generated approach of many current online music sites. It'll be a valuable resource for those in search of legal audio; each track will have a clear set of rights associated with it, as determined by the artist, letting podcasters, bloggers, remix artists and music fans know what uses the rights-holders will and will not allow. The project began here at WFMU, but we are just one of several curators who've been gathering audio for the Free Music Archive, freeing archival audio into the public domain, adding to the Creative Commons and building an open forum for participation that we're very excited to share with you. Stay tuned to our pre-launch blog for more previews and announcements as we get closer to launch. In the meantime, here's the launch party info:

WFMU Presents: FreeMusicArchive.org Launch Party
Saturday April 4th, doors 7pm, 18+
@ The Bell House: 149 7th St, Brooklyn [map]
admission: $10 adv. [tix here] or a roll of the dice
Thee Oh Sees / Excepter / Catatonic Youth Sightings / Pink Skull

11pm Thee Oh Sees
John Dwyer's latest project, based out of San Francisco, with a new album on the way from In The Red. The(e) Oh Sees is not to be confused with OCS (Dwyer's backporch underwater psych-folk collabo with Patrick Mullins of Burmese). This is more akin to the Coachwhips but with more breathing room and crazy Pink-and-Brown rhythms.
listen: Thee Oh Sees - The Freak Was Clean (mp3) from the oop Peanut Butter Oven 12'' EP (Awesome Vistas 2008)

10pm Excepter
Experimental electronic-improv 6-piece from Brooklyn, with records on 5rc, Load, Fuck It Tapes, Fusetron, Paw Tracks, and their own Excepter Records. They document their notorious live shows in a/v formats at pod-o-matic, and the latest mind-melting vid from Excepter's 17-hour Election Day performance can be found here.
listen: Excepter - Kill People (mp3) from Debt Dept (Paw Tracks 2008)

9pm Catatonic Youth
"Control My Gun" was my favorite song of last year. Listen to it! Catatonic Youth is a solo recording project, but 3 catatonic youths will be performing for this show, their east coast debut.
listen: Catatonic Youth - Control My Gun (mp3) from World's Lousy With Ideas Vol. 5 7'' (Almost Ready Records' 3-way split w/ Christmas Island, Dan Melchior Und Das Menace)

[UPDATE 4/1/09: Catatonic Youth has disbanded and had to cancel the show. Sightings has been added, more info here] listen: Sightings - Perforated (mp3) from Through The Panama (Load Records 2007)

8pm Pink Skull
Kraut-influenced house music from Philadelphia, "for those who love drugs and disco/fans of zongamin, soccio, faust and DC recordings." Pink Skull are awesome DJs and remix artists, and they'll be performing with a full band for this show.
listen: Pink Skull - Unicorn Harpoon (mp3) from Zeppelin 3 (Free News Projects 2008)