WFMU's Beware of the Blog

In Memory Of Dilla, Pt. 1: The 90's

It's dismaying and bittersweet that the week in which we celebrate the birthday of celebrated hip-hop producer J. Dilla (February 7th), we also have to reconcile the fact that it was only a few days later that the legend passed away from complications related to lupus (Feburary 10th). In the years since his death at the maddeningly young age of 32, Dilla's cult has grown significantly, but this posthumous appraisal is definitely not without good reason. It was even while bed-ridden in a hospital suffering from the disease that would take his life that Dilla crafted the exquisite opus Donuts, a superb statement that focused on Dilla's rabidly growing innovations as a beatmaker and a forward-thinking master of craft who's artistic career was cut infuriatingly short. Thankfully, Dilla left behind a strong body of work stretching back into the 90's, one which has been evaluated in the ensuing years as one of the most distinctively consistent and inventively soulful in the pantheon of hip-hop. Like his friend and colleague Madlib, Dilla was one of the most visionary of the post-90's golden age of beatsmiths, with both using their worship of giants like Pete Rock, Large Professor, DJ Premier, and the DITC crew (Diamond D, Showbiz, Lord Finesse, Buckwild) as a starting point for a distinctively original and personal sonic template that shined as the obvious progressions from this revolutionary era of hip-hop. His drums and his basslines have a legendary funk that made his singular work a perfect fit not only for many MC's within the hip-hop community, but also for a good handful of soul and R&B acts as well. Dilla was one of the last great hopes for hip-hop in a period marked by an increasingly commercial crassness, where big business and trend-chasing began to stifle the progressive spirit set forth in years past. His passing was beyond unfortunate, but thankfully, a strong backbone of fans indebted to his work keep this genius's body of work visibly lauded for what is sure to be years and years to come.

Below are some highlights, many overlooked, from Dilla's 90's career (then producing under the name "Jay Dee"). Part 2, looking at the 00's, will follow next week.


1st Down - "A Day Wit The Homiez" (1995)
Although the Payday imprint was responsible for such cult hip-hop classics as Showbiz & A.G.'s Runaway Slave and Jeru The Damaja's first two albums, they seemed to drop the ball when it came to the early careers of some eventual hip-hop legends (see also Mos Def's trio Urban Thermo Dynamics having their solid 1995 album for the label scrapped in spite of two singles being promoted). 1st Down was the duo of Detroit stalwart Phat Kat and Dilla himself (then going by the pre-Jay Dee moniker of John Doe), who saw this 12" pressed on the label and then....nothing. It's a shame as "Day" is a wonderfully smooth lost gem with Dilla making deft use of both a loop of Joe Sample's familiar "In All My Wildest Dreams" (most famously sampled on 2Pac's "Dear Mama") and some added flavor from The Brothers Johnson's "Tomorrow." An early notable glance of greater things to come.

FOOD (1972) – Gordon Matta-Clark's Restaurant – Directed by Robert Frank

FOOD is a short film directed by aritst/photographer Robert Frank about Gordon Matta-Clark and Carol Goodden's conceptual restaurant. Founded in 1972 in the SoHo neighborhood of New York City, FOOD brought together many factors of the local community, artists and otherwise, becoming a space for dialogue and conversation as well as a living piece in it of itself. 

Tree People + Folks on Fire + Larry Mondello Band = The Update

Tony Coulter here, with a critical audiovisual update for your mental operating system. Click your way past the fold, and you will find music and videos by three groups I've already blogged about here on BotB. This is the stuff I should have/ would have/ could have included the first time around. Better Nate than lever, no?

You may continue to use your computer during this essential update.

ASMR's Greatest Video Hits

Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR) is a physical sensation characterized by a pleasurable tingling that typically begins in the head and scalp, and often moves down the spine and through the limbs.

Most ASMR episodes begin by an external or internal trigger, and are so divided for classification. Type A episodes are elicited by the experiencer using no external stimuli, and are typically achieved by specific thought patterns unique to the individual. Type B episodes are triggered involuntarily by an external trigger, via one or more senses, and may also involve specific thought patterns associated with the triggering event. Both types of triggers vary between individuals, but many are common to a large portion of ASMR enjoyers.

Common external triggers:

• Exposure to slow, accented, or unique speech patterns
• Viewing educational or instructive videos or lectures
• Experiencing a high empathetic or sympathetic reaction to an event
• Enjoying a piece of art or music
• Watching another person complete a task, often in a diligent, attentive manner - examples would be filling out a form, writing a check, going through a purse or bag, inspecting an item closely, etc.
• Close, personal attention from another person
• Haircuts, or other touch from another on head or back

My pal Mark Houston stumbled across an assortment of clips meant to induce this state of mind, and we couldn't stop watching them. I posted it to a friend in Australia who used to be driven mad by things like people who chew cereal loudly, and even she was oddly lulled.

Insanely Rocking Qawaali Video Clip

Aziz Mian! (thank you Katherine Graham):

 

The Pope of Trash: John Waters

by Whitney Weiss

Talk Show - John Waters

See more on Network Awesome

When I was 22, I was lured to Provincetown (once a thriving hotbed of underground artists and cultural revolutionaries, now home to condominiums and dogs in strollers) by the promise of relatively easy money and the opportunity to meet my favorite living director, John Waters, who spends his summers there. When the film festival brought Jane Lynch and Gael Garcia Bernal to town, I kept my eye on the prize: a man whose own twenties were spent living in a treehouse and having sex in the town cemetery, activities that seemed to have been replaced by the current crop of twenty-somethings with shopping at Marc Jacobs and fucking in the gym.

While the money never came that summer, a chance to speak with The Pope of Trash did. One balmy evening, he and his boyfriend were sitting on a bench in Town Square while I walked by on my way to

Peter Cook and 'Derek and Clive's' Last Album

With some friends working on a Peter Cook / Dudley Moore project recently, my mind wandered back to thinking about the many hilarious and truly outrageous things that they had filmed and recorded over the years. Someday I'll do a long article about them but for today I just want to talk about one of my favorite comedy albums as a teenager - Derek and Clive / Ad Nauseum.  My record-buying budget was slender in those days (1979), and I recall vividly how upon seeing the new copy of Ad Nauseum in the store, with its cleverly designed cover and special screen-printed clear bag I had to have it. But as usual with my "going up to the city to buy new records" trips, this meant that some cheaper lps would be sacrificed altogether in order to get the higher-priced import vinyl (Ad Nauseum was on Virgin Records, right when they went from the sweet little painting of a virgin on the label to the more punk 'side one RED and side two GREEN' format).

Here's a (NSFW) sample of one of the few fully pre-scripted scenes from this record:       Horse Racing   

Brian Chippendale's Black Pus Live on WFMU (MP3s, Video, T-Shirt)

Black Pus is the many-armed beast of a solo project from Brian Chippendale, one of the most distinct musicians and visual artists of our time. If you're not already familiar with the sounds of Black Pus, you may recognize Chippendale's many-armed drumming style and masked mic-in-mouth vox from his duos Mindflayer and Lightning Bolt. A co-founder of the storied Fort Thunder artist collective, Chippendale still lives in the Olneyville neighborhood of Providence, in a former mill building where lately he seems to be writing a new Black Pus song almost every night. So while we're wrapping our heads around 2011's Primordial Pus (Load Records) -- not to mention the limited edition CD-R series of Black Pus 1, 2, 3, 4 and 0 -- there's already a seventh Black Pus album ready to pop.

This live set on Marty McSorely's WFMU program is a special treat because, though he is a prolific musician, Black Pus doesn't tour nearly enough to quench our thirst for Pus. The set was expertly engineered by Ernie Indradat, and the interview covers recent collaborations with Björk and the Flaming Lips. Chippendale also talks about how he assembled such a unique setup, including an oscillator pedal that was originally a gift from Shinji Masuko of DMBQ. When Marty McSorely asks "What is Brian Chippendale's Black Pus?" Chippendale responds that it's reggaeton. He goes on to elaborate on a range of influences from the free jazz assault of Peter Brötzmann's Machine Gun to the unpredictable rhythms of Sightings and Black Dice (who started out as a hardcore band in Providence around the same time as Lightning Bolt).

In some circles, Brian Chippendale is known as much for his fine art, comics and graphic novels as for his music. His visual style can be experienced as part of every Black Pus and Lightning Bolt release. And, as those of you who are on the WFMU swag mailing list may have heard, Brian Chippendale designed an awesome Biker T-shirt for WFMU's marathon which begins later this month!

For more, check out the Black Pus blog, which just debuted this trippy surrealist video for "I'll Come When I Can," off Primordial Pus:

A Young Omar Khorshid Video Clip

 

 

No comments necessary, just watch this clip. Thanks to the folks at Norient for posting this a while back. 

In case you didn't feel like showing up - Volume 27

Pure adrenaline.

All Pigs Must Die live at The Acheron in Brooklyn on 20 Jan 2012

70,000 Tons: Metal Mutiny 2012 Edition

1 cruise ship, 4 days, 42 bands, 2,000 fans! Yes, I had to do it again! 70,000 Tons of Metal, 2012! I had such a great time last year that I had to go for a reprise and see what would happen! I've got a photo album here with many more photos, and this entry is the companion to my radio show, airing Thursday Feb 2nd at noon. When the archive is posted, it will be linked here.

It's true, I had a lot of prior experience, so I had already been on the same ship, Royal Caribbean's Majesty of the Seas, and knew my way around. The weather I was leaving was not nearly as horrendous as it was last year, but I was still looking forward to punishing my ears and my body for a possible 84 sets of music in 4 days. I arrived in Miami a day early to trek up to Ft. Lauderdale with one of my partners in crime for a Cannibal Corpse show, and to also pick up another partner in crime to head back to Miami. Why not get an early start on bludgeoning my senses? I have to admit we did find time to view a certain sporting event involving a NY team that day also. On to the cruise! Last year I never noticed how much was loaded onto the boat via crane; the pool stage was composed mostly of large items, let alone all the rigging, backline, etc. I watched the crane pluck pieces off the ground and onto Deck 11 for hours on Monday morning.

 

A Joy Division in Nazi Disneyland

Last week the web was wriggling with outrage over The Disney Store Corporation offering for sale a Mickey Mouse™ T-shirt in the graphic style of Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures albumcover -- not that the iconic white-on-black waveform image (plucked from the Cambidge Encyclopedia of Astronomy by drummer Stephen Morris) was any stranger to absurd marketing schemes.

 

Klaus Schulze live in 1977

The La Vie Eletronique series of triple-disc collections archival material from German synth wunderkind Klaus Schulze has beautifully compiled the man's various live and unreleased sides, painstakingly compiled in chronological order. Me being a fan especially of his symphonic and texturally dense soundscapes indulged during his "Berlin School" phase, I've been particularly taken by the fifth volume, from which this following performance appears. Seeing Schulze control such a meticulous accumulation of equipment is a site in itself, and something that certainly puts a lot of the less driven also-rans in the recent synth-revival to shame. Essential viewing....

Demo to London: The Handgrenades / Sponsors Story

In '79, the Handgrenades issued what would become the best UK DIY punk single not actually from the UK: their "Demo to London" b/w "Coma Dos" 45, self-released in an undetermined quantity on the band's unnamed imprint.

The single is a killer.  It was also once a source of profound mystery -- to collectors and wayward punk geeks, at least.  Omitted on the sleeve are the band's roster, their location and where they recorded their material, and the only nuggets of information profferred are a production credit attributed to Bob Levitan and the word "phonographix." Given this anonymity, and in light of the title and subject of "Demo to London" -- not to mention the otherworldly cut-up cover art, production, vocals, and musicianship (or lack thereof) -- many took the band's provenance to be London, or perhaps the outskirts of Manchester.  The flip's manic "Coma Dos" sheds even less light on the single's origin, and the listener's left with a clang-punk artifact of the highest random order, reminiscent of contemporaries like Swell Maps, the Petticoats, Desperate Bicycles, so on, so forth.

E.S.P. TV #11 / "New Dance City" Special with Mutual Dreaming

In case you missed it Sunday night on Manhattan cable access (MNN), E.S.P. TV #11 is now online. The hour long special was taped at Mutual Dreaming's "New Dance City" party (organized by Aurora Halal) at 285 Kent over Halloween weekend and features performances by Vidrio (ex-Ultradyne) and Steve Summers with possibly you or someone you know dancing to DJs Meridian 7 (also known for her modular synths), Ron Morelli (head of L.I.E.S.), and Traxx (prolific Chicago-based turntablist, producer, and owner of Nation Records)...

See it and past episodes at the E.S.P. TV Vimeo channel here: vimeo.com/channels/esptv

The next live public taping is Feb 18th, 8-12 at Roulette in Downtown Brooklyn. Lineup for that night includes MV Carbon and C Spencer Yeh, Grasshopper, and Little Women with video by Amanda Long and the E.S.P. TV team. More info here 

The Curse of Brando Island

The ghastly Spectres which were doomed at last
To tell as true a tale of dangers past, 
As ever the dark annals of the deep
Disclosed for man to dread or woman weep. 

-- The Island, Lord Byron

In 1960, while on a scouting journey for locations for Mutiny On The Bounty, Marlon Brando visits the atoll Tetiaroa and falls in love with the former home of Tahitian royalty. Two years later, Brando marries his second Mutiny co-star, Tarita Teriipia, who played his Polynesian wife in the film and purchases Tetiaroa for $200,000 with the intention of making it his home. Little did Brando know what his island paradise would bring he and his visitors, for in acting, one not only brings himself to a role, but the role can transform the actor's real personality, permenantly -- a most dangerous game for friends and family of the 'Godfather' and 'Colonel Kurtz'.

Brainbombs on TV

Here's a strange television piece on Swedish psychopaths Brainbombs in the 90's, centered around what may possibly be one of the best band interviews ever. Tongue-in-cheek discomfort reigns in abundance, which may help take a bit of the edge off the band's absurdly anti-social m.o. Be sure to click the Closed Caption button on the video, unless you're fluent in Swedish.

In case you didn't feel like showing up - Volume 26

It has been 13 long years since (((unartig))) was last involved in promoting a show. But the hiatus is history. Or to quote ATDI: This station is now operational. Below are video edits of our co-production with BBG/BrooklynVegan at Saint Vitus on January 14.

Sondra Sun-Odeon live at Saint Vitus in Brooklyn on 14 Jan 2012

More from this show below.

WFMU DJs Pick Their Favorites of 2011 (part VI)

All good things must come to an end, and here is the last episode of year-end picks from WFMU DJs.  This time we've got Rob Weisberg, Jason Sigal, Evan "Funk" Davies, and Scott McDowell.  To read all of this year's lists, click here.

10 Fave 2011 cds by current bands / artists From Rob Weisberg's Transpacific Sound Paradise

Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino: Focu D'Amore (Ponderosa)

Dhoad Gypsies of Rajasthan: Roots Travellers (World Village)

Fanfare Ciocarlia vs. Boban & Marko Markovic Orchestra: Balkan Brass Battle (Asphalt Tango)

Frente Cumbiero Meets Mad Professor (Vampisoul)*

A Moving Sound: A Moving Sound (Motema)

Nation Beat: Growing Stone (Barbes)

Tareq Abboushi and  Shusmo: Mumtastic (Shusmo)

Ssahha: Ummi (Ssahha)

Wang Li: Reve De Sang (Buda Musique)

Yemen Blues: Yemen Blues (Lev Group Media)

*Technically late 2010 but came to FMU late in 2011

 Jason Sigal's TOP 12 Albums / Reissues / Comps in no particular order (but the Clap reissue is #1)

Clap - Have You Reached Yet? (Sing Sing) 
Wallahi Le Zein!! - Wezin, Jakwar And Guitar Boogie From The Islamic Republic Of Mauritania (Lattitude)*
Ruth Veln Kiss - I Was 21 Yrs Old And Now No More (Sometimes Records / Handwriting Records)*
Univeria Zekt - The Unnamables (Golden Pavilion) [listen/download]
The Paperhead - The Paperhead LP (Trouble in Mind) [download a song]
Laurice - Best of Laurice, Vol. 1 LP (Mighty Mouth Music)
Question Mark - Be Nice To The People (Now-Again Records)
Apache Dropout - Apache Dropout LP (Family Vineyard) [listen/download half]
Music From Saharan Cellphones (V/A) (Sahel Sounds)
Mark Fell - Periodic Orbits of a Dynamic System Related to a Knot (Editions Mego)
Opika Pende: Africa at 78rpm Box Set (Dust-to-Digital) [listen]
Psyclones - Different Thinking People (Permanent / Ladd-Frith)

Much more listage for you band name nerds further down in the post, so read on!

TV Is the Government: The Underground Vaudeville of TV Party

By Gabriella Arrigoni - Collection: TV Party

Watch more on Network Awesome

Not always, actually quite seldom, is the distinction between art and absurdity a relevant one. And it certainly doesn’t matter when in a TV show you combine live music, in-studio party, fancy dress, videotapes, punk, disco, anarchism, new wave, visual arts, rap, interviews, phone-in sessions, shaky camera angles, crude advertising and live drug taking. All this featuring guests such as Jean-Michel Basquiat, John Lurie, David Byrne, George Clinton, Fab Five Freddy, Tuxedo Moon, Debbie Harry, Maripol, Iggy Pop, Chris Burden, John Feckner just to name a few. The uniqueness of TV Party, however, was not as a celebration of the apotheosis of the underground, but that this played out on the mass media it rebelled against.