Ellen Allien @ Sonar 2005 live online!

Kendra knows how I like it. Big ups for pointing me to one of the best minimal Ellen Allien sessions I have heard in a long time. Brought to us courtesy of the good folks at Samurai FM. God bless Japan.

Ellen Allien Live @ Sonar 2005 in Barcelona (my second home).

$40 Maximo.

One thing to know about me is my tendency to over-purchase tickets for shows. The usual two will suffice for an average known band... but if I see a $10 show for an up and comer at a small venue, I'll usually splurge and buy 4.

I am not looking to scalp them, rather, I feel that since the price is so good I can probably convince a few people to come with me without risking a big money loss.

So take the Maximo Park so a few Sunday past at the Middle East in Cambridge. This show was the right price and the right night.. so I thought! Problem was, low promotion and a hot swelting Sunday night in June was just not getting anyone out of the house.

I can only push and promote a small band to a certain limit. You either take my word or take the word of the album playing on your system. Difficulty is that at 10p on a Sunday, people are either settled in for the week or in no mood to endear the sopping humidity that makes this June all too famous.

3 tickets left and no takers... hell, at least I can sell or (gasp) give them away at the door....

10p outside the MidEast and its a deadzone. No smokers in sight, no strollers walking by... just me and the door.... the bouncer moved inside.

I have never not given away a ticket when I had spares. Tonight was a first in my musically career. It wasnt so much the money but the fact that at 10p I saw NOT ONE person enter the venue in 20 minutes time!

I did what any honest music fan would do. I left them at the will call and made the ticket girl promise to give them to any souls that wandered in. God only knows if any did.

So how was the Maximo Park show? Well, outside of onstage soundcheck and filling in less than a quarter of the cellar with 100 people, Maximo played as though the room was full... which is what any band should have done. A solid 1 hour set of tracks off their latest 'A Certain Trigger' and words of insight related to finally having heard their music on Boston radio (what channel????) proved to us early adpopters that this band would back soon.

I wouldn't compare it to U2's first show in Boston playing to less than 50 people in 1980 (no I was not in attendance), but it was well worth the 40.00 I spent on a ticket(s) to see them.

Hopefully my early investment will produce some good futures later on.

Site update in progess.

Apologies if things dont look proper as of yet. Live site update happening now...

Kwatra in Barcelona

While working on a simple redesign of dp, I found some old photos I took in 2003 at the Kwatra Nike boutique in Barcelona. They're up on flick now for your viewing pleasure.

New records... loads....

Well worth picking up anything I have added in May. Excellent stuff. Dont sleep on the Superpitcher Today mix. He is on top of the world...

Did someone at Music Choice mix their databases?

Tell me what's wrong with these screen images I took off of Music Choice TV radio?
I didnt know The Carpenters were so into niteclub and electro music history!

As captured off channel: "Sounds of the Season."

Recap coming later in the day...

Gotta let you fools know what I thought of this boring year...

Hi. I write here....

Buy some new music while I get my shit together:

Morgan Geist - Unclassics
U2 - How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb
The Bravery - Unconditional EP
John Tejada - Logic Memory Center
Ellen Allien - Remix Collection

All available at finer record stores in your area.... and thats whats in my iPod right now...

fukced.

Thanks to Jason

Back from the Dead: U2+iTunes=postMTV

A large gap on this one folks. Apologies for the silence but as I said, if I had nothing to say, I would say nothing.

Lots to discuss with the most important being U2's alliance with Apple. Though not an exlusive online sale relationship, it show Apple's further march to be the new MTV.

Once L3 comes back from the dead, I'll try and produce some more words.

Fatalist Outro Music

While watching the movie, Mayor of Sunset Strip, last night, I got to thinking about my musical choices for my end of days procession.

I have no intentions of leaving yet, so don't be concerned ;)

Current picks:
Slow Country - Gozillaz
Les Amours Perdus - Serge Gainsbourg

More to come.

Casual music.

OK I fold. Finding that next breakthrough record just is not going to happen this year. Yes folks, I am back to the old reliable saying, "Music Still Sucks."

But like I said, I have given in and have become content with some "casual listener" albums that reprieve the industry (for now) from their misunderstanding of what I want to hear...

Defining what I consider "casual music" is a bit difficult but the following should give you an idea: easy, for the drive, background background, and pleasant for a moment.

Completely lost yet? I assumed the worst, so here's two of my current easy music favs.

Phoenix - "Alphabetical." Imagine Timberlake/Neptunes style beats with AIR-esque vocals and you get back excellent French pop thats catchy, and humiliation free. Solid for long weekend drive.

Athlete - "Vehicles & Animals." I initially labelled this new release as working man's rock, but its grown to be much more. Consider it a commended effort into the post-Britpop sound. Elbow anyone?

An old friend returns.

Of late, I have suffered greatly when using my iPod. You see, for the last 3 months I have been without my trusted Koss Porta Pro's, my darling portable headphones who's georgous sound overpowers its terribly dated look. As funny as they look when worn, I have missed their service dearly.

Why had I not just purchased another pair? Thats a long story, but the short being that I knew they had to be somewhere in the house. Lucky for me, the amazingly LA rediscovered them while doing some much needed cleaning.

Not only am I blessed with LA, but my old Prota's have been brought back from the lost.

Few new CDs on the iPod

I have nothing too interesting to discuss at this time, but I did add a few new gifts to the List. All solid releases worth a listen.

Avril Lavigne - A payola bee-otch

So maybe she is ignorant to the workings of her "independent promoter," but this nasty payola steam train keeps on rolling through commercial radio.

And they say the problem is the music buyer's not buying... well who the fukc would when you can hear it 3 times an hour, every hour of every day?

The New Yorker: Paying to Play

God bless Portugal and Erlend Oye.

So I am back from a full week in Portugal watching some of the best footie at the Euro 2004 Finals. As much as it sucks to be back, it did feel good to see the Portuguese pushing as a striving culture on all levels.

Erlend Oye looks to be ruling their underground sound right now. Not bad.

For those interested in some of my vantage point at the Portugal v England match, dig in right here.

My current rant in print

For those interested, here's my latest writings for Boston's Weekly Dig news rag. Find it FREE on every street corner in metro Boston or peruse the online version here:
Special: Me and My Adidas Do the Illest Things
(thank to the editor for that title)

Perlon wakes up Boston's electonic underground

This must be my month...

Perlon Records' own, Sammy Dee treated Boston/Cambridge to the new face of tech* by ripping up the Phoenix Landing this past Wed night.

With the help of live laptop set performed by Unlocked Groove's Scorcho, they woke Boston's eyes to the shuffle and swings sounds that make progressive tech some of the best sounding electronic music in years.

Call it a wake up call or simply a banger session, it was the best session in Boston in years! Hands down classic.

(For those in MA, catch the Unlocked Groove team every Saturday night at River Gods in Cambridge, MA for Peer Pressure.)

*Tech: an all inclusive term used in referencing the crossover of techno, house, and electro beats to form a more blended sound.

god comes through after punishing me for 5 months.

S/he finally came around. After a bad string of months where good music was as difficult to find as good weather, my luck looks to be changing and just in time for the ass romping summer that 2004 will be.

Music. With so much bad music coming out it became more difficult to siphon the mediocre from the terrible. Records moguls may complain of depressed profit... but really...fcuk them. Its obvious why if you look at the umbrella from under the raining cloud. Most new music is garbage. Sure, you get some occasional one offs that need attention but even then, why would I spend my money on "so so" releases? Or was I not exploring the right venues for finding music I enjoyed?

Last week, I decided to take some action. I started reading the review sites again. Not skimming the ratings but actually reading the full reviews. They shed some guiding light across our modern day hell. I've read them all from the old standbys to some new blurb writers that i had never explored. In moments, my purse dumped 40$US down and my ears were shown that not all was hopeless. Holy lord, I got to stimulated again by new music.

Details will come in time. As a promise to myself to be a bit more sharing, I'll be writing much more frequently here again while trying to not waste your time with space filler.

[op ed: Space filler was never my intention with dropform as it tends to be with most blogs. Reading about someone's daily trip the store for ice cream is only entertaining if they happen to fall on the counter and lose their pants in persuit of a missing nickel. Buying ice cream is (simply put) not inherently funny. Its space filler. It does nothing more than cause my news agg to inform me that you've spent the last 15 minutes cracking your head in order to piss me off in an hours time when I break down and hope to god you wrote something insightful (should I pull that feed from the agg? Yes. I'm doing so now).]

But as I write more about the state of my head, I may occasionally get the "ice cream syndrome." At that time, please fcuking remind me of what a twat I've become.

Anyways, as a short starter: Buy The Streets "A Grand Don't Come for Free." Truly, its better than his freshman release. Don't hold back because the name is now synonymous with the pre-grimy, 2step era of British rap. Buy it because unlike most new music, this record is sheer honesty. Oi.

Also, seeing as music sucks right now, I bought some classics. Check the list.