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September 28, 2008
September 25, 2008
Save it for a Rainy Day
Do you ever wake up and think, "Today feels like a good day to join the ACLU"? Today, for some reason I did, and I'm proud to announce that I'm now a card-carrying member, or will be as soon as the arrives in the mail, anyway. Feels good.
September 23, 2008
On Board the No-Comment Express
On insurance coverage of Viagra (covered) vs. birth control (not), McCain: "I certainly do not want to discuss that issue."
Love the body language; it's like his hands are trying to swallow his face. His hands are smarter than he is.
September 22, 2008
Dear John McCain
September 18, 2008
Tomorrow in Bristol
The rumors -- or I suppose I should say, "rumours" -- are true: tomorrow I touch down in Bristol for my first-ever UK gig, thanks to Richard Carnage and the fine folks at Tape. You know about me; read on after the jump for full info, plus a free Ramadanman mix. I hope you can make it out.
Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 3:14 pm Post subject: [BRISTOL]- TAPE -Fri 19/9- PHILIP SHERBURNE & RAMADANMAN
TAPE
Friday 19th September
Native, Small Street
10 til 4 // £6
with special guests:
PHILIP SHERBURNE (LAN Muzic) - DEBUT UK PERFORMANCE!
RAMADANMAN (Hessle Audio / Soul Jazz)
with support from your trusty residents:
Puffin Jack & Richard Carnage (TAPE)
http://www.tape-club.com
Philip Sherburne (Lan Muzic)
Writer, DJ, producer: Philip Sherburne is a one-man techno trifecta. Philip is best known as one of elecronic-music's most tireless scribes. With over a decade of bylines to his name, he is the editor of the biweekly electronic-music newsletter Earplug and writes regularly for Pitchfork, The Wire, XLR8R, eMusic and URGE; he's also contributed to many more publications, among them the New York Times and Slate.
Too restless to remain on the receiving end of the speakers, Philip has become increasingly visible as a DJ. While living in San Francisco, he threw one of the city's few minimal-techno parties of its time, hosting the likes of Ellen Allien, Superpitcher and Ada; in addition to a running hip-hop/downtempo/experimental weekly, he was also a part of the experimental-techno collective Trouble (along with local mainstays like Sutekh, Kit Clayton, Safety Scissors and Kid606) responsible for some of SF's most notoriously unhinged parties. Since relocating to Barcelona in 2005, Sherburne's reputation as a selector has grown. Both headlining and supporting marquee talents like Michael Mayer, Ricardo Villalobos, Luomo, Swayzak, M.A.N.D.Y., Apparat, Anja Schneider, Ewan Pearson, Efdemin and Sebo K, he appears regularly at multiple venues in Barcelona (The Moog, Raum, Lo*Li*Ta, Fellini and Kubik) and has also played in Berlin, Montreal, Chicago, Austin, Seattle, Portland, New York; Santiago and Valparaiso, Chile; and Juarez, Guadalajara, and Mexico City, Mexico.
In the last few years, Philip has increasingly turned his attentions towards production. His first release, the single "Lumberjacking," appeared on Berlin's Lan Muzic label in September 2007, backed with an Exercise One remix. His second twelve, 'Salt & Vinegar', dropped a couple of months back, again on LAN.
Phil's 'Light In August' mix
http://fairtilizer.com/track/lightinaugustmix
DJ Koze, "Cecily" (Philpot)
Shinedoe, "The Peacemaker (Deetron Remix)" (100% Pure)
Channel X, "Burning Train" (Upon You)
JC Freaks, "The Rock" (Wandering)
Knowing Looks, "1100=moon" (Musique Risquée)
Vera, "People's House" (Cargo Edition)
Goldwill, "Motion Team" (Musik Gewinnt Freunde)
Recloose, "Can't Take It (Carl Craig Remix)" (Planet E)
Ra.H, "The Fall of Justice" (Morphine)
Motorcitysoul, "Change You (Shur-I-Kan Remix)" (Simple)
Crustation, "Flame (Mood II Swing Borderline Insanity Dub)" (Jive)
Blaze, "Lovely Dae (Friends Experiment Remix)" (Playhouse)
More mixes:
'An Unseasonably Warm Mix'
http://www.allez-allez.co.uk/2008/04/philip-sherburne.html
'Beta Lounge, March 2008'
http://fairtilizer.com/track/8647
'Music For The Evening After'
http://fairtilizer.com/track/10247
'Schaffel Is Stronger Than Pride'
http://www.zshare.net/audio/3844693743eea2/
Ramadanman (Hessle Audio / Soul Jazz)
David ‘Ramadanman’ hails from north London, but now lives near Bournemouth and goes to university in Leeds. He has been DJing from the age of 14, beginning with deep house and hip hop, becoming attracted to hip-hop and jungle as he grew older.
Ramadanman has been interested in music all his life, and began producing by recording keyboard songs onto cassettes. After learning how to make music on computer, Ramadanman started to use his brother’s copy of Fruity Loops at around the age of 15. He has stuck with this program ever since.
He heard about dubstep through making grime instrumentals, after several people commented that his beats sounded like it. Inspired by a Mala set after reaching FWD for the first time in April 2006, Ramadanman became involved in the dubstep scene. He made many tunes that summer after moving house, two of which he had professionally mastered at Transition Studios. These tunes were digitally released as WAVs, and were sold directly to DJs through Dubstepforum.com.
Since then Ramadanman has put out two more digital releases, and has seen his music appear on vinyl. His tune ‘Response’ was the first release on Bare Dubs, and the anthemic ‘Good Feelin’ came out on 2nd Drop Records with a Jamie Woon remix on the flipside. In late 2007 his track ‘Every Next Day’ opened proceedings on the compilation Box Of Dub 2, released by the legendary Soul Jazz Records. He has enjoyed DJ support from Skream, Kode9, Distance, Mary Anne Hobbs, Rob da Bank and many more.
Ramadanman decided to start a record label called Hessle Audio with fellow students Ben UFO and Pangaea at the start of 2007 and the first release by TRG sold out within weeks. He is involved in organizing the Leeds’ first 100% dubstep night ‘Ruffage’, as well as hosting a weekly show on internet radio station Sub FM. 2007 has seen Ramadanman DJ in UK cities such as London, Leeds, Bristol, Nottingham, York, Brighton, Cambridge, Stoke and Durham as well as international bookings in Amsterdam, Berlin and Brussels.
He has performed alongside dubstep artists such as Digital Mystikz, Skream, Benga, Kode9, D1, Rusko, Kromestar, Plastician, Mary Anne Hobbs, Heny G, Scuba and Headhunter. With more releases forthcoming on Soul Jazz as well as Hessle Audio, things are looking promising for Ramadanman in 2008.
Mix for Electronic Explorations.org (starts at 36 mins in):
http://electronicexplorations.org/podpress_trac/web/43/0/ElectronicExplorations_016_Ramadanman.mp3
01. Pangaea - Antistatic (Ramadanman Remix) [Unreleased]
02. Pinch - Dr Carlson [Forthcoming Punch Drunk]
03. Ramadanman - Offal [Soul Jazz]
04. Pearson Sound - Dimes (Ramadanman Re-Edit) [Unreleased]
05. TRG - Generation (Breakage Remix) [Forthcoming Naked Lunch]
06. Quest - Arawak [Unreleased]
07. Untold - Walking Through Walls [Unreleased]
08. Ramadanman - Bidding War [Unreleased]
09. Ramadanman - Blimey [Forthcoming Hessle Audio]
10. Komonazmuk - Bad Apple [Forthcoming HENCH]
11. Headhunter - Royal Flush [Unreleased]
12. TRG - Put You Down (Ramadanman Refix) [Forthcoming Hessle Audio]
13. Martyn - All I Have Is Memories [Forthcoming Applepips]
September 17, 2008
And on that subject...
It must be hardcore day or something. Even for Ben Kingsley!
Sir Ben Kingsley STOMPS into the shoes of Minor Threats' Ian MacKaye from Mean Magazine on Vimeo.
[Thanks to the Daily Swarm for the link.]
Record Collectors Are Pretentious Assholes
Been awhile since I updated, so perhaps it's appropriate that today's post switches it up a bit. No minimal, no techno, no house, but hardcore punk is the theme of the day. A few months back, the good folks at Fact Magazine asked me to contribute a "20 Best: US Hardcore" installment, having somehow gotten wind of the fact that I grew up in hardcore's trenches -- ok, not so much the pit, but an imaginary battleground papered with lyric sheets and the pages of Maximum Rock 'n' Roll. (I did, however, break my collarbone while stage-diving at a GBH/Accused show when I was 16; if that ain't cred, I don't know what is!) Hardcore was probably my first true musical love -- the first culture I felt was mine (even if that experience was always about a double alienation -- from my straight-laced suburban peers, but also from a world I knew mainly through records). Class distinctions aside, I deeply identified with Repo Man's Otto; that whole film was a revelation, being the first semi-mainstream representation of hardcore I'd found in the US media. Holy shit, it really exists, I thought; and so, by some strange method of mediatic trans-substantiation, must I.
I was never faithful exclusively to hardcore; I had discovered new wave and goth slightly before, and my high school years offered a strange (or not) mixture of the Cure, Siouxsie, Joy Division, Xymox, Bauhaus et al, sharing turntable time with bits and pieces of UK punk and a growing diet of US hardcore from across the spectrum, anything I could get my hands on, often bought sound-unheard. Dischord touched me most deeply, and when, after college, I finally moved to the D.C. area -- Annapolis, MD, to be specific -- it was profoundly disillusioning to find that "Revolution Summer" was quickly fading to memory. But I still managed to get a last couple of good years out of hardcore; it was 1994, '95, and Born Against, Unwound, Heroin, Universal Order of Armageddon were all going strong; seeing UOA at a VFW hall in suburban Maryland felt like the culmination of a long quest.
That quest took a turn around 1995 when I moved to Providence and discovered Fast Forward Records, less a proper shop than a selection of new and used records sold out of Ron and Judy's apartment. (No other record store has had a greater impact on me; I will go to my grave swearing it the greatest record store on earth, for reasons I really must write about some time.) Fast Forward stocked all the post-hardcore I loved—the screamo, the powerviolence, the sludge. They also happened to stock a ton of Warp and Rephlex, and it was there that I realized for the first time that some of that "rave shit" wasn't half bad. My hardcore purchases dwindled to nothingness, and I began buying so many electronic-music records that I'd hide them from my girlfriend when I came home, stuffing the shrinkwrap to the bottom of the waste-paper bin, just so she wouldn't know how much I was spending, as we were supposed to be saving for a three-month trip through Greece and Turkey. (I believe this is called obsessive-compulsive behavior.) I defected and never looked back.
Which made the chance to look back all the more exciting. The assignment -- following similar recent features on bleep techno, UK garage and the like -- was harder than I expected; to begin with, all of my hardcore records languish in boxes in my mother's basement in Portland. More crucially, I wasn't sure I was qualified to speak authoritatively on hardcore. But the more I worked on the project – generously aided and abetted by Last.FM – the more I thought "fuck it" to the credentials issue. Hardcore was always ostensibly about bucking the system, DIY and individual expression (despite the movement's at times conservative, conformist counter-impulses). I might never have participated in "the scene" like some; I didn't necessarily look the part. But I immersed myself in the music and made it mine. And looking back, that's more than enough.
You can read the whole piece here, with an extended introduction that probably repeats a lot of points I've just made here. I'm looking forward to reading your comments, even (especially?) the ones that tell me I'm fucking crazy, a fraud, unfit to have a Blogger account, etc. It'd hardly be hardcore without a little turmoil, after all.
September 02, 2008
This Thursday in Berlin
If you're in Berlin this Thursday, come down to Club der Visionäre. We'll be going from mid-afternoon until the wee hours (or well beyond).
The main event is a special performance by Jacopo Carreras and improvising guitarist and effects wizard Seth Josel, in celebration of Jaco's killer new album Bed to Couch. Believe me, this will not be your average laptop set.
Rounding it all out are DJ sets from Arne Michel, Exercise One, Efdemin, My My's Lee Jones, and me... Best of all, the shindig's totally free!