Thanks again to Billy and Al over at undulate recordings for having me on. Here’s a tracklist and download link.
Tracklist: 1. The Foreign Exchange – Daykeeper 2. Freddie Cruger – Keep on Knockin 3. Nicole Willis – Blues Downtown 4. The Bamboos – Move On 5. The Sweet Vandals – Nites Lites 6. WAR – The World is a Ghetto 7. Lee Sankey – The Man (Abstrakt Knights rmx) 8. Jon Kennedy – 110% 9. DJ Day – Manha 10. Lizzie Parks – Ode to St. Cecile 11. The Natural Yogurt Band – Chapter One 12. Luniz – I Got Five On It 13. Hardkandy – My Morphine 14. The Ranjahs ft. CeeLo- InspHERation 15. Aldo Vanucci – What Would I Do (JP’s Edit)
I prepared a special guest mix for di.FM’s Exposure NYC radio show that will be airing tomorrow, March 3rd, at 2PM. It’s an hour of old and new deep funk and mellow soul with some other choice downtempo goodies throw in. Big shout to DeepSpell for giving me the opportunity.
Anyhow this is what happens when they get glockenspiels and set off to recreate the work of some other famous duos. Namely Hall + Oates and Justice. It’s so wacky that it just plain works. Hit the jump afterward for two more.
Real quick because I have a few pressing concerns to deal with, but Etherea Records, a dope little record shop with a phenomenally curated selection, will not be going out of business after all. Their manager managed to scrape together a few investors in the 11th hour and will be staying open! Details are sparse at the moment but you can follow the story straight from the horse’s mouth over at everyone’s favorite vitriol filled nyc clubbing site.
NARAS lived up to expectations by failing to remain relevant and rewarding the most commercially successful/ elder statesmen rather than those making waves. No disrespect to Robert Plant but everyone surprised by his win just needs to think back to Herbie Hancock last year. Burning Spear winning the reggae category really gets on my nerves. Did anyone actually listen to that album? Also Daft Punk winning best dance record for a song released in 2001 is another testament. Oh well, whatever.
Total music shutting down comes as no surprise to me. Listening to the European CEO of Nokia try to spin it and explain how comes with music works differently on friday was pretty humorous though. Sorry Rick Rubin, but streaming music is not the way to save the industry. The internet is not ubiquitous enough to benefit from a cloud based music library system, and there’s no value in letting someone else curate your music library. Seeking alternative revenue streams and letting big business pay while the consumers get a free ride is probably the most viable option at this point. Chris Anderson talks about it here in detail. I’m extremely excited for his new book that comes out in the spring. The Long Tail was a good jumping off point but the theory is much more evolved at this point.
Speaking of alternative revenue streams, the ticketmaster/livenation deal is kind of the defintion of “getting it” when it comes to making money off of music. Antitrust suits are probably in the works as we speak, but when you look beyond the venue/artist monopoly and actually examine how diversified the two companies involved actually are, you’ll see that they’re poised to thrive in this new economy while many others flounder.
Neil Portnow’s speech always makes me laugh but this year’s was above and beyond hilarious. Neil, please leave the co-opting of Obamamania to Pepsi. Secretary of the arts is an old argument that holds no water. However, props for mentioning the performance royalties for radio thing. Great to see that gaining momentum.
Phenomenal R&B album from Phonte of Little brother. Dude also recently did some excellent work on the new Jazzanova Album, Of All The Things
Also – how in the fuck did a bunch of geeky german dudes become so awesomely soulful? It defies logic.
Hardkandy – Second To None
Basically imagine if Curtis Mayfield was still alive and got a 21st century update. That’s what this hardkandy album sounds like. Love love love love love it.
And here’s a freebie cuz you know I love you all. Ceos & Arcee – Seachops of funk - My pals from downbeat productions have a new promo mix out. It’s tasty angry nuskool breaks business. Good for gym etc. Check them out over at http://www.downbeatproductions.com
Last week, youtube decided to mute user created videos that feature copyrighted music. For now, the only videos affected are those including music owned by Warner, but more are sure to follow. Needless to say, this created a deluge of angry anime fans, guitar hero players, and preteens recreating the dances from music videos in their bedrooms. While some have opted to voice their disdain via youtube-embedded letters to WMG (pictured at left). Others appear to have already figured out a workaround. Youtube’s proprietary system seems to be matching the copyrighted songs’ waveforms with the waveforms in the background of each video. In order to counteract this, video uploaders have begun to modify the pitch and tempo of the songs posted in their videos in order to skirt the search. Pretty crafty if you ask me. Pretty foolish at the same time on behalf of the bigwigs though. I can totally understand youtube wanting to cover their ass with regards to any copyright infringement claim from the labels but this scattershot approach to hindering creativity and alienating your consumer base doesn’t strike me as the best move for the already sputtering labels. Warner, there’s a reason your stock is trading at $2. Stop pissing off the people that support your artists. Figure out a way to add value and encourage interactivity. There’s only so many things you can monetize in the modern digital world. Deal with it.
This article over at Variety clued me in to one of the more sensible things that the RIAA has done lately. They’re finally pushing congress hard for a uniform public performance royalty from radio stations. The bill was originally introduced backed in December of 2007 and Passed the House Judiciary Committee back in June but seems to have stalled around the time of that whole economic crisis thing. Pfft. Hit the jump for a bunch of background and analysis on what’s going on.
Here’s some stuff that’s been rocking my earholes lately. These aren’t reviews, because I see no reason to give shine to music I don’t really like. They’re also not necessarily the newest albums. Just what I’ve been enjoying and think you should too.
Lo Recordings, purveyors of all things cosmic disco, released this badboy back in september. Sam Grawe does a great job of blending the electronic and the organic here, resulting in the perfect music for cruising. I had this pumping in my ears while skiing earlier this week and it helped make sitting on the lift a little bit more bearable.
The raid is a compilation series wherein Jalapeno records highlights the back catalog of like minded albeit smaller record labels. The first in the series focused on the DC funksters Fort Knox. The second installment sticks to the beltway and takes on the All Good Funk Alliance. The cd features original tracks along with remixes from jalapeno artists. The whole album is about as solid as it gets. Highly recommended. Also, if you’re in NYC, they’re playing at APT with Ursula 1000 this friday. I picked the wrong weekend to go to Vermont, but whatever.
Here’s a free one for you guys. Fueling my strange obsession with dancehall reggae this week is DJP, a Costa Rican (WTF?) dancehall dj and remixer. It’s a pretty solid mix, not mindblowing, but hey it’s free and I figured it’s poignant this week since it starts off with an Obama song.
This is kinda neat. Adam Freeland has been playing a Speak and Spell “O-B-A-M-A” sample at his gigs for a few months now. Apparently they decided to make a video out of it. Dunno if the term remix necessarily applies, but it’s kinda neat anyway. I just want to know whose vinyl toy collection that is so I can raid it.
New Freeland album in April. Hopefully it’ll be decent.
The Foreign Exchange – Leave It All Behind 
