As mentioned Monday,DC’s Windian Records celebrates its first year anniversary with two back to back Anniversary Parties this Friday and Saturday night at Velvet Lounge and courtesy of Windian, we’ve got passes to put in your hands for both nights.
But that ain’t all as they say—we’ve got limited edition posters and Windian shirts to toss into the mix as well.
We’ll have two winners in our Windian Week giveaway—each will win passes to both nights at Velvet, the poster, and one of the tees you see above.
Now, we know you want to be there, so we’ll make it easy for you. Simply plead your case in the comments to this post as to why you should be the Windian winner and the most convincing two comments seal the deal.
Make ’em good and make ’em before noon on Friday (7/30) when we’ll choose our two winners. And don’t forget to leave us a contact email address!
The Rock and Roll Hotel hosts a very special Benefit for the Restoration of the Gulf Coast this evening. “Heal, Baby, Heal” boasts the talents of Typefighter, Drop Electric, DJ Smudge, and Laughing Man in an effort to raise some much needed cash for those affected by the disastrous BP oil spill in the region.
DC’s independent record stores have also risen to the occasion, donating a myriad of store credits redeemable by a few very lucky raffle winners. We’d like to thank Som Records,Crooked Beat Records, and Red Onion Records and Books for their generous support of this very worthwhile cause and event.
Event organizers Lisa Reed and Ian Graham spent a bit of time in Louisiana post-spill and have taken the time to give us a first-hand account of the region in advance of tonight’s benefit. —Ed.
Ian and I had been planning to visit my family on the Mississippi for the 4th of July before any of this happened (they live about a quarter mile from the beach). So following the oil spill it was decent timing for us to go down there so we could really get a sense of the gravity of the situation. Also, Ian hadn’t been to the Deep South since before he could remember. So boiled crab legs and New Orleans jazz were definitely in order for him.
We weren’t sure what to expect. I had heard that my family had suffered some headaches since the spill, depending on the ocean wind that day. There had also been dead dolphins washing up on islands, like Ship Island, a childhood vacation area for me. They had ceased fishing in the area about a couple days before we got there, so the coast was just starting to feel the real economic impact of the situation.
This is right before we rode “The Orbiter.” Afterwards, Ian thought he might die. Even later, after more rides, he thought he did.
What hit us when we first got there were the clean-up areas and campgrounds set up along the main interstate next to the beach. So there were clean-up crews in orange vests on one side of the road, and on the other side there were still slabs of concrete from the houses that had been washed away from Katrina, and a decent amount of reconstruction going on.
This is still difficult to see when I go back to visit, as I had the initial misfortune of moving to Long Beach, Miss., about two weeks before Katrina in 2005. I went to one day of classes at the University of Southern Mississippi. They canceled next day’s schedule because of the impending hurricane, so I went out that night to a bar called the Firedog followed by the Waffle House. I stumbled in during the wee hours of the morning to find my mom packing two guinea pigs, a rabbit, cat and dog into the back of our Volvo station wagon. Once we returned from evacuation, both the bar and the Waffle House had washed away. I had been working at a bar/wings place/car wash (yes, those places do exist), and the car wash had completely blown away. The school that I had been to was in shambles, so I stayed for a couple weeks more before I moved an hour and a half north to go to USM in Hattiesburg.
Jazz! In New Orleans!
It’s very relevant to bring up Hurricane Katrina, because it’s just another factor that has contributed to the more heightened economic situation down south during the recession, which we can expect to see get far worse in coming days. But the people’s spirits still have proven resilient and hopeful, as they have been pushing through hard to get past the challenges presented by the hurricane, even to this day.
However, despite the oil spill, we had no problem finding entertainment:
Bay St. Louis Crab Fest: My father told me they were still able to do fishing from Lake Pontchartrain, La., when we got there (it became contaminated later in July). So the city had stocked up on an awesome amount of crabs. Ian killed some crab legs with my dad. He’s a natural. (Ian: The beer helped. If you get a chance, try Lazy Magnolia on a sunny summer day. It also helps if you have fresh boiled crabs to eat with it.)
Ian and Jay (Lisa’s dad) shuck crabs at the Bay St Louis Crab Festival
Gulfport Deep Sea Fishing Rodeo: This is the fishing event for 4th of July weekend on the Mississippi coast – a big deal, with the fishing competition, bands, and carnival rides. Unfortunately, this year the rodeo competition had been reduced from a tent full of huge fish to a couple of tables. Most of the divisions had been canceled, due to the oil. Even with the sad situation, we went and looked at the fish they had, and one of the fisherman was picking up different catches and showing them to us. The large mouth bass scared me. We went on three carnival rides in a half hour, Ian got sick from them. (Ian: I had been drinking all day, I was dehyrdated, I was about to pass out.) Ok, dehydration …and the Gravitron. We never made it to the Tilt-a-Whirl, unfortunately.
Lisa shucked the day away too
New Orleans, Lousiana: I was really excited to take Ian here, as it’s such a beautiful, colorful, interesting city. Unfortunately, destruction by Katrina is still highly visible, especially in the poorer areas of town. (Ian: It looked like a war zone. There were entire commercial and industrial complexes that were simply abandoned.) First we stopped at the Redfish Grill on Bourbon Street. This place is serious with their seafood. (Ian: I ate way too much, but I couldn’t stop. Alligator gumbo is amazing.)
We stopped in Preservation jazz club for a set, then headed over to Pat O’s. After an hour in the piano bar, we decided karaoke at the Cat’s Meow was a good idea. By my 4th Hurricane and 6th drink, Run DMC sounded like a good performance pick for me and Ian. (Ian: We didn’t know any of the lyrics, just the chorus. It was a trainwreck.). After wowing the crowd (from our memory), we headed out and I forgot I had a purse, and haven’t seen it since (Ian: Eff you, guy in Chicago, or Atlanta, or wherever it was you said you were from. You’re a jerk.). The next time I’ll take Ian to some other great spots in NOLA. There is so much more to New Orleans and the New Orleans people than Bourbon Street. It only seemed right to make Ian witness it once.
All in all, our trip was very bittersweet for me. It’s hard to see a place I’m so attached to getting hit with one misfortune after another. With the case of Hurricane Katrina, it came and went within several hours. With the oil spill, the damage is going to continue until there is no more oil in the water. What’s also very damaging to the Gulf Coast in general is the halt in the tourist industry. Even before it was unsafe to eat the food there, business had slowed a great deal. I’ve never liked the casinos in Mississippi, but right now I think they are one of the stronger points of the Gulf’s economy.
Floating construction platforms are building a new bridge across Lake Pontchartrain in Louisiana. The previous bridge (seen in the picture) was covered in water and heavily damaged during Hurricane Katrina.
When people ask how they can help, I might encourage them to visit the coast, contribute to the economy, get to know the awesome people there, and bring back stories.
I just hope that people realize we need their support in the south right now. Forget about the politics, forget about the finger pointing – because nothing’s getting better while we do that. Continue to put pressure on the government and BP to fix this sickening mess, but put more effort in opening your hearts and lending a hand to a part of our country that has contributed so much culturally to this country, like, I don’t know… rock ‘n roll…
“That Mississippi sound, that Delta sound is in them old records. You can hear it all the way through.” —Muddy Waters
Möbius Strip’s record release show is on Saturday, July 30, at Comet Ping Pong, located at 5037 Connecticut Ave. NW. It’s a free show with Boston’s Sidewalk Driver opening. Doors open at 10:30.
Pitt: Vinyl brought us together.
Mark: It’s true. Pitt and I met at work, but we were in different departments on different floors, so our paths didn’t cross that often at first. It took months for us to figure out that we listened to the same stuff.
Pitt: He’s never the one to bring it up, but Mark is a living music history almanac, especially when it comes to the underground scene in ’80s-era DC. He knows every band, every member of every band, every side project. One day at work, Mark shared his most recent discovery with me: our straight-laced boss had been the guitarist in an early ’80s DC band that used to open for Government Issue or something. Better yet, Mark had managed to get his hands on a sealed copy of the band’s only LP.
Mark: At the time, I didn’t have a record player of my own anymore, but I had to hear to this record. I figured Pitt had to as well.
Pitt: My record player was a bit of a Frankenstein, but I loved it. I got it from a friend who had hardwired his turntable to a boombox that played CDs and tapes. He’d cut the wires that connected the tape deck to the speakers and spliced in the output from the record player. It was so loud and so raw—I always felt like the band was in the room with me when I played records on that thing.
Mark: After work one night, we took the bus to Pitt’s apartment for the album’s inaugural playing. In almost ceremonial fashion, we inspected the jacket, the insert, and then the vinyl. Yes, that appeared to be a photo of our boss on the back cover. And yes, that was his name printed on the jacket, insert, and center label. But was it really him?
Pitt: I had no idea what to expect, but what we heard was a collision of new wave and jazz fusion. Even though the vocals were in multiple languages, there was no mistaking our boss’s voice. That was the beginning of my friendship with Mark–we had breached the bounds of office camaraderie, and we had learned our boss’s secret.
Mark: It was a pleasant surprise to meet someone else who still appreciated vinyl. Like everyone born in the mid-70s, I grew up with it. When I was a kid, my parents’ records were on constant rotation, especially on the weekends when my dad loved to blast the instrumental portion of Boston’s “Foreplay/Long Time.” Another repeat offender was “Afternoon Delight” by the Starland Vocal Band, one of the few DC bands to have a big radio hit. My first record was the “Ballad of Davy Crockett” single, which I listened to over and over again on my portable Mickey Mouse record player. Appropriately, one of my first full-lengths was the Mickey Mouse Disco record. I still have that one–it’s a classic.
Pitt: My earliest memory of vinyl is from the late ’80s or the early ’90s. I guess my older sister had these 7-inch Star Wars records–or, I don’t know, maybe they were mine. Anyway, there was this kid down the street who I was always getting into trouble with. I don’t remember much about it except that we were slinging them at each other like ninja stars. We threw them so hard that the edges stuck in the walls. You couldn’t pull the records back out; you had to break them off. I bet there’s still painted-over vinyl in the drywall of my sister’s old room. My parents were pretty pissed.
Mark: When I was maybe six years old, my mom told me that when I got to be a teenager, I would sit in my room for hours with the door closed, listening to records. At the time, I thought she was nuts. But sure enough, that’s just what happened.
Pitt: I didn’t come to really appreciate vinyl until I was much older. CDs had already taken over the world when I became interested in music. I know it’s weird, but for a long time I didn’t like any music at all. I don’t know if I liked being different or what, but I was the kid at school who out-obscured my indier-than-thou classmates by eschewing music altogether. I just didn’t like any of it… until I heard They Might Be Giants. The Johns became my religion. I actually felt betrayed when I learned that some of my friends were listening to bands other than TMBG.
Mark: The centerpiece of my record collection was a complete set of Kiss albums that I kept up-to-date through the mid-90s. I had the U.S. first pressings with all of the inserts intact, along with a few radio-only promo samplers, all in nearly mint condition. Those records were as much fun to look at as they were to listen to. The flashy artwork, gatefold sleeves, and gimmicky inserts made for an interactive experience that no other musical format offers. I can’t tell how you much fun I had with one oddball–it was a 12-inch single with a double-grooved A-side and autographs, but no music, etched into the B-side. When I later discovered The Misfits and other more obscure music, I moved on to increasingly expensive purchases of limited edition colored vinyl in hand-numbered sleeves. I loved that it was possible to personalize every single copy of a DIY release.
Photos: William Rivas-Rivas Pitt: For me, I think the original appeal of vinyl was economy. 7-inches were a great way to check out a band you’d heard about without committing to the price of a full album. Split releases were even better. You paid to hear the band you already knew and loved; then you got to flip over the record and discover something new. The other side of the 7-inch was like an unopened pack of baseball cards. Would you end up with a bunch of commons; a Ken Griffey, Jr. rookie card; the rare Billy Ripken “fuck face” card? It wasn’t long before I was hooked: colored vinyl, marbled vinyl, the buzzsaw-shaped “Coup d’État”/”Amoeba” 7-inch split I ordered in the early days of online mail-order (it never arrived). I spent a fortune collecting Servotron 7-inches–they had so many songs that never made it to CD, and the album art alone was worth the astronomical price. On at least one occasion during college, my record spending went so far as to endanger the monthly rent check. I guess it was sort of a reaction to the Napster thing. I needed to have something in my hand.
Mark: People have been listening to music in this format for more than a century because it provides such a great listening experience. I had a strict vinyl-only policy for years, and I always assumed that my band, if I ever had one, would release its stuff on vinyl. Thankfully, I wasn’t alone.
Pitt: Had to be vinyl. There was never any doubt that whatever we released would have to appeal to the record nerd in me. Our debut album is a limited edition release on 180-gram marbled vinyl with a full-color insert, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Enter to win Möbius Strip’s brand new ‘A Knee in the Back’ on vinyl by simply asking for one in the comments to this post. We’ll award one winner a copy who suitably impresses us and the band. Remember to leave us a contact email address—important!—and we’ll choose a winner a week from today, Wednesday, 8/4.
The screening will start at 12:00 PM PST/3:00 PM EST/8:00 PM GMT.
The format will be an introduction of the film by Stuart from the band and Vincent Moon the director, followed by the screening, and ending with a question and answer session with audience members viewing via the web.
To steal a line from ‘Lost‘: There’s a war coming.
I was hoping to spend this week’s column talking about some hot new Pitchfork band, because I’m a solid week behind on the news and failed to realize that Pitchfork happened two weekends ago, and not this past weekend. I’d also be happy to talk about nu-metal again. Or Eminem—he’s fun. That is not going to happen, because this Monday, the hashtag world is being dominated by five very unsettling hashtags. In order of reverse magnitude, as of 10 pm on Monday, according to the fine robots at wthashtag.com:
#6millionbritbitches (6,095 tweets by 606 contributors) #6millionbritfans (6,414 tweets by 788 contributors) #5millionmonsters (8,205 tweets by 3,131 contributors) #britneyvma2010 (13,666 tweets by 1,036 contributors) #4millionbeliebers (21,009 tweets by 8,186 contributors)
Obviously, something is up: There is hostility between the lines of these hashtags, and pathos and hubris and pretension. Mix in some natural resources and egomaniacal political leaders and you’d have all the ingredients for a sloppy war soup.
Here’s the timeline of events. Justin Bieber is the genesis of so many wonderfulthings on the internet, including this escalating hashtag rivalry.
Nearly 4 million people follow Bieber’s verified Twitter account(3,959,118 at time of writing), and his bonkers tween-girl fanbase is prematurely celebrating that monumental achievement. There is a joke in here about “premature” that is just out of my reach, and that’s probably good because it is either crass or completely dumb or both. Also, these people call themselves Beliebers as, like, a badge of honor, and that fact is sort of buzzing around in my brain and making me question everything I thought I knew about humor.
As a response to the swell of Bieber tagging, the fans of two other pop stars apparently decided to hype their preferred Tweeting sensations.
First up, Lady Gaga, who refers to her fans (on Twitter and elsewhere) as her “little monsters.” Unlike the Biebermeister, Gaga does actually have as many followers as her hashtag claims: As of 10 pm Monday, she was at 5,117,634 followers. I assume this is because her Twitter background involves her wearing a metallic bikini with sparks flying from her boobs and crotch, but it could be because of her musical ingenuity, I suppose.
Then we’ve got #6millionbritfans and #6millionbritbitches: Both are referring to what you’d think would be Britney Spears’s 6 million Twitter followers. Brit is nearly 600,000 followers shy of 6 million, though, so this celebration seems maybe delusional instead of just premature. Perhaps if her followers could decide whether they are “fans” or “bitches,” they could present a unified front in this battle and push through to the 6 million mark? Brit lovers do seem to be unified in their desire to see Ms. Spears perform at the 2010 Video Music Awards in September, hence #britneyvma2010.
Who will win this hashtag war? The Bieber fans have enthusiasm, sure, but they’re counting their followers before they, er, hatch. Britney’s fans seem deluded, frankly, but they’ve got a common cause: Getting their girl onto the VMAs. Lady Gaga seems like the likeliest winner of ANY war—I have to think that someone with a machine-gun bra who models her revenge-fantasy videos on Tarantino movies and death metal videos has a bit of an edge in at least the munitions department.
Role #mmodel: “@justinbieber: I love girls…and today was a really great day.” Oh no way. You’re kidding me.
My #musicmonday pick: If you follow me on Twitter (come on over! I’m @alnotally), you’ve already seen me pushing Ezra Furman and the Harpoons, “The Faceless Boy.”
First off, it’s a CD—not an LP. I’m bending the rules a little bit for this one because it’s well…great.
Lawrence Arabia, who opens for Crowded House tonight at Wolf Trap, has been on my radar since last Winter, when I wrote:
“Methinks if John Lennon were still kicking around, we’d have this bit of canny song craft perfection on the regular—if he were in top form, that is.
A former member of bands like The Ruby Suns (Sub Pop), The Brunettes and The Reduction Agents as well as a touring member of Okkervil River, Lawrence Arabia—the savant-like songwriting alter ego of James Milne—is shedding his sideman status and stepping alone into the bright light of the U.S. music scene with Chant Darling.
The album is his first full-length on Bella Union, the UK-based label credited with discovering hallmark influencers Fleet Foxes, Midlake, Beach House and Explosions in the Sky among others.
Already receiving four-star reviews from UK tastemakers like Mojo and Uncut, Chant Darling melds irreverent lyrics with West Coast melodies and lush harmonies, playing like a modern take on the work of classic popsmiths like Jonathan Richman, John Lennon and Brian Wilson.
The first single from Chant Darling ‘Apple Pie Bed,’ received New Zealand’s highest songwriting honor the Silver Scroll award this past September.“
I think this one’s worth bending our ‘vinyl only’ rule but we’ll let you decide. Pipe up in the comments to this post to enter to win an autographed copy of “Chant Darling” and the most stellar comment will be sent the (egad) CD. We’ll give you until this Friday (7/30) and remember to leave us a contact email address!
Tonight, two pioneers of the dancefloor, CHROMEO and HOLY GHOST!will be dropping by 9:30 club for what is sure to be a stellar performance. If you happened to miss Holy Ghost!’s recent performance at U-Street Music Hall than it is an absolute must that you catch them this time.
Holy Ghost! are Brooklyn natives Nick Millhiser and Alex Frankel, who have been on the DFA label since 2008 and the notorious indie-electronic giants Chromeo are Dave 1 and P-Thugg, whose first studio album “She’s in Control” dropped in 2004.
Take a listen to the tracks below and get your tix at ticketfly.com now before they’re gone! I’ll see you at the show!!!
…after watching this video is there anyway you can really NOT go to this show??
If revolutions are lit brick by brick, pamphlet by pamphlet, musket by musket, DC’s Windian Records has been igniting its own in this town — seven-inch by seven-inch.
With releases from The Points,The Shirks,andThe Cheniers among others, they’ve responsible for a string of 45’s from some of the best bands in this area within just twelve months.
Windian Records turns one this week, and in advance of the two back-to-back Anniversary Parties at Velvet Lounge this Friday and Saturday night, we’ll be spotlighting the eight 7″s the label’s released over the course of the year all this week on the blog.
Check in with us tomorrow for your chance to win tickets for both Anniversary Parties along with Windian tees and posters.
First up however, before we begin counting down the Windian releases, a few words from BEERONIMO:
Photo:Sam Vasfi
WINDIAN RECORDS WOULD LIKE TO THANK VINNIE & JOURDAN BETETTE, JOE KORZEN, EVA THORNTON, DAVID MALITZ, ASHLEY FULWILER, MATT & JENN, PATRICK WHITE, ZABBY BIG ACTION, KODI FRENCH, SONNY VINCENT, DARRYL READ, THE POINTS, TWO TEARS, PERSONAL & THE PIZZAS, THE CHENIERS, CRUSHED BUTLER, THE SHIRKS, TESTORS, SWEET SIXTEENS, DISCHORD RECORDS, REVOLVER USA, GONER RECORDS, INDIE IMPRINT, THE VELVET LOUNGE, AND EVERYONE WHO BOUGHT A RECORD FROM US THIS PAST YEAR, ALLOWING US TO CONTINUE CATCHING DREAMS, AND KEEPING OUR EARS TO THE GROUND. POW’N ‘N WOW’N.
…and they’re giving you a shirt right off their backs. (Well, from the merch table – but you get the idea.)
The mightySolar Powered Sun Destroyerjoins North Carolina’sHammer No More The FingersMonday night over at Velvet Lounge in advance of new releases from both bands—SPSD’s J. Robbins produced “Sender/Receiver” and HNMTF’s “Black Shark.”
And with a little twist on a popular theme around here, the guys in SPSD have come up with the hoops you need to jump through to win this one:
“To celebrate this historic night of rock, Solar Powered Sun Destroyer and the guys in Hammer No More The Fingers have decided to give away a couple shirts as well as a pair of tickets to see them at Velvet Lounge on July 26th.
The rules are simple—tell us who you feel deserves a Solar Powered Sun Destroyer shirt and why . . . and the best answer wins.
You can say “my grandmother, because she doesn’t understand irony.” You could suggest “the wolf kid from Twilight cuz homeboy needs to get in the habit of wearing a shirt to work at Quiznos as soon as his ‘acting’ career ends.” Or, you can say “Megan Fox because she is not talented and is married to the white rapper from 90210.”
It’s up to you, be as creative as you want or, if you are a fan of lame, be as sincere as you want.
Winner gets a choice of shirts for themselves or having us personally send the shirt to the person you choose a shirt for with a note saying why they deserve that shirt . . . oh, and remember, you get a free pair of tickets to the show.
That’s one Solar Powered Sun Destroyer shirt, one Hammer No More the Fingers shirt, and one pair of tickets . . . FOR FREE. Be sure to leave your name in the comments section and enter your email in so we can contact you if you do win. Best of luck.”
Is it OK to say you grew up in the ’70s and somehow never really got into Bruce Springsteen?
None of my hometown friends were into Springsteen when he hit it big in the mid-’70s. But when I went away to college, I started working at the newspaper and found myself one desk over from a guy who was a hardcore Springsteen fan. You did anything with that guy and you got the gospel according to Bruce.
Somehow, perhaps by hearing it played at Truckers Union (our local record store), I was introduced to Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, the great R&B big band that thundered out of Asbury Park, New Jersey, not long after Springsteen hit it big.
Part of Southside Johnny Lyon’s appeal (to me, at least) was that he was not Springsteen, yet he was one of Springsteen’s pals, doing any number of Springsteen songs and sharing a collaborator in Miami Steve Van Zandt. That gave my friend and I some common ground.
Part of the Jukes’ appeal (again, to me) was that their music was more consistently upbeat and joyous than that of Springsteen, especially on “This Time It’s For Real.” That was their second album, released in 1977. It was arranged and produced by Van Zandt, who wrote eight of its 10 songs.
Side 1 is an extended nod to classic R&B, with a cover of Aretha Franklin’s “Without Love” and tunes on which the Coasters and the Satins sing backup.
Side 2 gives way to five original R&B workouts, all written by Van Zandt (and three with Springsteen as his co-writer).
We have three of the latter for you. Finishing out Side 2, they go from laid-back, stripped-down blues (“I Ain’t Got The Fever No More”) to Brill Building-inspired orchestration (“Love On The Wrong Side Of Town”) to primal, thundering drums, piano and guitars (“When You Dance”).
(Note to Springsteen fans: I appreciate your passion and I appreciate his greatness. I have some of his records. But I am far from a hardcore fan like you, or like my old friend from the newsroom.)
“I have encountered Vinyl: I have encountered Vinyl at many pivotal moments in my development as an audio-attentive human. Of the records I can call my own, one that is very special to me, is my Monorchid 7” that my friend Paul gave me long ago. I remember the singer was the door guy at our local venue, the Black Cat. They sang a song called Red Red Meat that I heard on vinyl as a youngin’ and is probably one of my favorite songs in the world… I still sing it.
We grew up in the DC area, the nation’s capital of vinyl-releasing delinquents, and Paul was in a band called the Better Automatic for a time – they released their music on Vinyl. The place where I grew up seems to spawn musicians that both appreciate, and release their music on Vinyl . . . an inarguable fact of this universe, so I’m especially delighted to share some stories about Vinyl’s involvement in my life. Kids from the area who released music on Vinyl in the DC area include, and to whom I looked up to a lot were Mike Kanan of the Black Eyes, Jason Simon of Dead Meadow, and Dan & Hugh of Q and Not U among others. They put on great shows and had neat record releases, many of which I have held in my hands and inspected myself.
Living the high life the way I do, coming and going at all hours, in and out of town in an unpredictable fashion, never knowing what’s happening next, I store most of my records and delicate possessions 3000 miles away in my parents’ basement. It was in that house that I heard the greatest records of all, my Dad’s collection from the 60’s, which sits in near-mint condition on a shelf over the player in their family room. He and his friend were Martin and Gibson guitar dealers for a time in the early 70’s, so growing up we listened to lots of Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, CSN, guitarists like Leo Kottke, and all kinds of magical-realm-level shit like that.
The poetry, the visual art, the sense of purpose and journey on those records all fired my imagination. Emerson, Lake & Palmer’s record “Tarkus” was the one I always reached for on the shelf. It was beautiful. The cover was an armadillo/tank, and the inside were these ferocious animal/weapon/machines that were going to battle… they were some of the coolest illustrations I saw as a kid, alongside Shel Silverstein and Dr. Suess, that Tarkus record was one of the most awe-inspiring visual masterpieces of my life. The music on it was crazy and mysterious beyond words, it would take a lifetime to grasp all that was on that thing. Illustration has since been as much a part of my life as music and writing songs, and I cite that particular record in a lot of conversations I have about album art.
As early as 8 years old I remember being across the street in my buddy Paul’s basement, listening to the Magical Mystery Tour a million times and playing BattleTech. I think that as my big brother-figure on the block, he felt responsible for introducing me to all the best rock and roll in the world before I could be corrupted by anything else, and I will always appreciate that. Praise the Lord, I done been saved. The Stones “Sympathy for the Devil” and Dire Straits “Sultans of Swing” were other songs I heard on that old, clunky, silver record player down there.
It was dark down there and it was like operating heavy machinery. Soon enough it was cool to skip school and release a vinyl record all around town, and there were kids with their new vinyl records everywhere. I watched, listened, and participated in their vinyl-centric shenanigans with glee – it was like a duty in my home town. It was the code.
I later encountered many vinyl-weilding musicians in Boston, where many of us worked on Emerson College’s WERS 88.9fm, a fantastic college radio station to have been involved in. My friend Fakts One would take a record and make it make noises unknown to humans…. He was a master at the turntables, I’ll never forget watching him do his thing. He gave me the healthiest respect one could have for the existence of and many uses of vinyl.
The music of Aphex Twin, Doctor Octogon, DJ Shadow, and DJ Spooky played in my room a lot. I remember hanging with friends, digging though weird useless piles of old records, finding the strangest thing for them to use later in something they were making…. Just the weirdest stuff sometimes. Vinyl became synonymous with treasure hunting, in a way, during my time in Boston.“ —Gabriel Mintz
DC’s Jukebox The Ghost return in September with the brand new “Everything Under The Sun” on YepRoc and we’ve got the first track to be released, “Empire” which Filter magazine is calling “the catchiest song of the summer.”
We post. You decide.
Catch JTG this Saturday, July 24th, at the Tarara Winery in Leesburg, VA, at the FLO Fest, an all day music and wine event.
By now I’m certain you’ve noticed the pattern—if we’ve got a blog takeover, we’ve got a contest running in tandem with it, and this week we’re certainly not breaking from any of those well worn (and much loved) devices.
In celebration of their Phoenix-like return from departing members and the ensuing uncertainties, Tereu Tereu hit the road for a 9-date mini-tour revamped and refreshed with a new rhythm section and a brand new vinyl pressing of last year’s “All That Keeps Us Together” (…no irony there of course.)
The band doesn’t play the DC area just yet, but that’s not stopping us from offering tickets for any of the dates on the upcoming tour. Check out the list of live dates and the cities the band will hit below and let us know where you want to check them out in the comments to this post.
Tereu Tereu will play:
7/26 – Fredericksburg, VA (Chidester House) 7/27 – Richmond, VA (The Camel) 7/28 – Charlottesville, VA (Tea Bazaar w/ Drink Up Buttercup) 7/29 – Roanoke, VA (The Bazaar) 7/30 – Cincinnati, OH (Northside Tavern w/ Enlou and Sacred Spirits) 7/31 – Fort Wayne, IN (Dash In w/ Darkroom and Metavari) 8/1 – Chicago, IL (Beat Kitchen) 8/2 – Detroit, MI (PJ’s Lagerhouse) 8/3 – Pittsburgh, PA (Ed’s)
We’ll have two winners for this contest—a grand prize winner will receive a pair of tickets to any one date on the tour of his or her choosing and a vinyl copy of “All That Keeps Us Together” and onerunner up will receive a vinyl copy of “All That Keeps Us Together.”
Again, shoot us a note in the comments to this post with the city in which you’d like to see the band and y’know…make it stand out from the others. We’ll choose the most compelling comments this Friday (7/23) at 5PM. And remember to leave us a contact email address – important!
#musicmonday is predictably trending hard on Twitter as I type this, on Monday night, because it’s Monday, and “monday” is in the hashtag and all. But you know what else is trending? #oldpeoplenames. I love this. Can we talk about this instead of music? Why is no one named Gladys anymore???
Also, in true Twitter spirit, no one who is using this hashtag seems to fully understand it. Amy? Come on. That is not an old person name. Dolores, Gaylord, Agatha, and Wilmer are. Tweeps clearly need to waste more time at work looking up baby name trends since the 1880s using ridiculously cool live-updating graphs. Not that I do this. To find cat names. What? Let’s talk about music!
I would like to put on my Old Auntie Myrtle bonnet for this column, and talk about #musicmonday etiquette. (Disclaimer: The following harshly worded mandates reflect my own preferences, and may not be actual Twitter best practices.)
Rule 1: #musicmonday more. When I joined Twitter, so many moons ago (er, 3?), the Music Monday tradition was all about sharing new music with friends. Now, every week, the Twitter transcripts are overrun with scalpers using #musicmonday to hawk tickets to concerts. I can’t remember the last time I saw a #musicmonday suggestion in my own Twitter feed. I miss them. I learned things from those Tweets. Y’all have good taste—sock it to me.
Rule 1a: Experiment. Make up new alternative music-related hashtags. Let’s get #punkrockfriday off the ground, yes? I’m partial to #rainydaypowerpop, too, although I’m pretty sure I’m the only person on the planet who has ever used that hashtag. Take it! Make it your own! Give it the life that I cannot!
When you’re giving life to all these hashtags, remember Rule #2: Please include a link. Preferably a shortened link. I am lazy, and I assume 99.9% of Twitter users are also lazy. A tweet like “OMG cannot stop listening to the new Mark Ronson single! #musicmonday” is frustrating, because then I have to laboriously highlight alllllllll the relevant words, copppppppy them, mouse allllllllll the way over to my Google search bar, passsssste them, and scan through alllllll the results before I get to hear the music you so graciously recommended.
It’s important to include the link, but (Rule #3), it’s equally important to explain what you’re linking to. Unless you’re trying for a #musicmonday Rickroll. (Rule #4: Never Rickroll.) If I see a tweet in the middle of the work day that reads “OMG #musicmonday blast from the past!! [link],” I will be grumpy for hours if I click and get ambushed by the Spice Girls. Include the artist and song name. No one actually likes internet surprises. (Except for thisone.)
So, all you Blanches, Ednas, Lelands, and Clarences, you are now empowered to give new life to a dying hashtag. Give me music to listen to! But do it properly. According to me.
Role #mmodel: “YouCanAnswerNow: Where can i read high school musical the manga? #MusicMonday #comics http://www.linkati.com/q/index.php?i=207291” Wow, now I sort of want to know, too.
My #musicmonday pick: An oldie, in honor of all those names—Otis Williams and The Charms’ “Hearts Made of Stone.” I love this song so much, and maybe I should have named my cat Otis.
