Performing at Firehouse 13 on Friday, February 6th.
Click here for more information about this show.
The Low Anthem To Tour with Ray Lamontagne "The Low Anthem has created something strange, beautiful and new." – NPR SONG OF THE DAY NEW YORK, NY -- January 28, 2009 – The Low Anthem will join Ray Lamontagne on the road for 10 intimate theatre dates beginning April 2nd in Montclair, NJ at the Wellmont Theatre and ending April 15th in Toronto at the famous Massey Hall. The Providence, RI – based indie-folk trio has been touring in support of their third LP Oh My God, Charlie Darwin since it was self-released in September. In addition to headlining Johnny Brenda's in Philadelphia on January 28th and Joe's Pub in NYC on January 29th, The Low Anthem will join Martin Sexton on January 31st at Higher Ground in Burlington, Vermont. In March, The Low Anthem will head to SXSW, opening for Lisa Hannigan before joining Lamontagne on the road in April. In other Low Anthem News, End of the Road Records will release a limited edition 7" "Charlie Darwin" single in the UK on February 12th, the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth. One hundred of these will be available at the band's upcoming shows. In December, the Boston Music Awards named The Low Anthem Best New Act and NPR recently named "To Ohio" Song of the Day. Bruce Warren of WXPN wrote the review saying, "At times languid and haunting, but with detours into Tom Waits-esque stomping and hollering, The Low Anthem's music seems equally informed by Simon & Garfunkel, Bob Dylan, The Band and a late-night ride home in Joni Mitchell's car. 'To Ohio' showcases the group's soft and tender side, but there's more to it than just sweet elegance. Like fellow new-acoustic greats — Fleet Foxes, Blitzen Trapper, et al — The Low Anthem has created something strange, beautiful and new." (NPR) Paste also featured the band in their December issue, calling Oh My God, Charlie Darwin "time-honored, and astonishingly innovative," and saying the band is "always in lock-stop harmony, like a beautifully turned double play." (Paste Online, Paste)
1/30/09
Low Anthem @ Firehouse 13 - Friday, February 6th
1/29/09
LoveLife @ Club Energy - Friday, January 30th
Checkout LoveLife this Friday at Club Energy featuring:
Morgan Louis
Christopher Wade
Initiales A. A.
Pomp & Clout
11pm - 2am
$3
Click here to check out the LoveLife video
AfroSonic JUMP! This Friday Jan. 30 @ the Black Rep with special guest DJ OFFBEAT (SoulFunktion-NYC)
Don't Miss AFROSONIC JUMP this Friday January 30th at the Black Rep!
AfroSonic DJs Nick de Paris, Blackdove, Dublin, Mikedelick and special guest
DJ OFFBEAT ( Soulfunktion-Pressureradio-NYC) will be spinning afro-infused
dance beats with live percussion.
For more information and downloads go to www.afrosoniccollective.com
Empire Revue @ As220 - Sunday, February 1st
Superbowl Shmuperbowl.
Hear Johnny Ringo sing doo wop...attend an elementary school dance, and see a mummy visit a men's health clinic. We've got it all this month!
PLUS:
Our featured performers Bettysioux Tailor, with another dazzling burlesque routine (this time she'll sing too!)
and Jacob Haller, who will amuse and delight you with yet another one of his inspired ditties.
BUT WAIT, THERE"S MORE!
This month's show will also feature legendary outsider musician BJ Snowden! She's appeared on the Jimmy Kimmel show, and many many others. We hope BJ will regale us with her signature tune "In Canada".
There is also the fabulous Sentimental Favorites, local legend Rudy Cheeks...
PLUS the twisted hilarity of the Sparkling Beatniks (Richard Goulis, Kate Lohman, Hannah Devine)
PLUS OUR SPECIAL GUEST BEATNIKS Serena Andrews and Madeline Trainor
STILL WAN MORE?
Also featuring the sizzling music of the Superchief Trio for you!
AND ALL THIS FOR JUST EIGHT BUCKS!
Spread the word and don't miss this month's Empire Revue.
Click here for more information.
1/26/09
1/25/09
Celebration of Obama: One Post on Politics
Informed progressives have always known that Obama doesn't really lean left politically. He is pro-death penalty, against gay marriage, favors expansion of faith-based initiatives, has refused to investigate constitutional or international crimes by the Bush administration, and voted to renew the Patriot Act in 2006. Perhaps most importantly, he still seems to be pro-corporate, perhaps the unifying issue for all the different brands of progressive.
All cynicism aside, let's be realistic about the next four years. Here are a few things Obama will not do:
1) Save the economy. It's just too damn big. And even with a Keynsian package that was big enough to have any real effect, the country's credit is already on the brink – we can't afford it. Any long-term solution to America's economic woes needs to address our fundamental relationship with money and consumerism. Unfortunately, we may have to wait for another bubble to recover (it's going to be a health care bubble next, you watch).
2) Create a nationalized or single-payer health care system. It's not the health insurance industry, nor is it the neoconservatives that hold it back – it's that America still cares, on average, too much about the dream of insane wealth, and concurrently we don't handle aging and death well, spiritually speaking, so we have a hard time putting a “cap” on the dollar value of life.
3) End the “War on Terror”. The neoconservatives have dug us too deep into this one. No doubt Obama will change US diplomatic behavior, and draw down troops in Iraq, but no president is going to withdraw all forces and risk what might happen. It would be political suicide. I'm not saying it's the least bit moral. It's just reality.
4) Surrender significant executive powers. He may choose not to exercise the powers Bush/Cheney requisitioned for themselves, like signing statements, warrentless wiretaps, and total non-transparency, but you won't see him move to expel those powers from the oval office through permanent measures.
5) End partisan bickering. The Democrats may make some positive changes for the country, but like all parties in power, they will eventually grow arrogant and badly corrupt. It always happens. The Republicans will be back once they've shaken the religious right, and they will look more like Ron Paul Libertarians. You might even like them a little.
Now, here is one thing Obama will definitely do. And it is more important than any single policy decision:
1) Create faith in government. The fundamental difference between Obama and the neoconservatives that have been in power since 1994 is that Obama believes government can work well. Neoconservatives believe government can never work well, because the only incentive they understand is financial incentive, and government isn't in the business of making a profit. Conservatives set out to dismantle government institutions where possible. If they cannot do so, they snipe at its institutions from the sidelines – by defunding (FDA) or appointing unqualified people (FEMA) or loyal partisans and industry insiders (Justice Dept., EPA, NASA). That way, when the institutions inevitably fail to live up to their charge, the neoconservatives can say, “see? Government doesn't work.”
Whether or not you like the resumes of Obama's cabinet appointees, one thing cannot be argued: they are all dedicated public servants, and if the US government did half the things it claims to do, we'd be in a much better place right now. And I think that within four years, it WILL be doing at least half the things it claims to do, if not more.
I Like to Score
Back in '06, I was introduced to local filmmaker Richard Griffin by my then roommate. He liked the Llove song "Sandman" and wanted to use it in a film he was working on at the time, Pretty Dead Things. It's about a group of porn stars who became vampires in the 70s and now prey on Providence's nightlife. Very cool. Very funny. Since then, I've done three original songs for movies he's made. My friend Sam (Neon Vomit) and I were on our way over to Club Gallery to be extras for his film Splatter Disco and the band that was supposed to perform for a scene had a hitch (I think a traffic accident) that prevented them from being able to make it. Richard asked if we knew any bands that could perform on short notice. Neon Vomit's members were scattered about the country, and I hadn't yet made Llove a live act, so Sam and I went back to our place and banged out a song in, like, 15 minutes. I did the music and she wrote the lyrics. We then performed it as a made up band called "Crutchy La Rue" (Sam was on a crutch from a Roller Derby injury). We recorded it right after. Richard liked it and asked me if I could do another original song for a scene that takes place during the fictional club's "Wet Wednesdays", a lube wrestling night. Our performance goes down during the ending credits. Last Thursday, Richard sent me an e-mail asking me if I was up for a challenge. He told me that if I could write and record a song about Jesus loving nuns in nun heaven by Saturday morning, he'd give me $150. It's for his new blacksploitation influenced film, Nun of That. I wrote the lyrics less than two hours after getting the details from him on the phone and recorded it on Friday. I played it twice last night at the King House Triangle Forest show, for which I was the DJ. The second time was by request from Ben Britton, but I was secretly happy to play it again. I never used to play my own stuff whilst DJing, but have since started to. I like how SebastiAn and Busy P use DJ sets as a way to debut new material. I feel like I'm catching a mini-concert that's been hidden in the set. It makes me excited as a dancefloor participant. The scene where Jesus lip-syncs to the song is being shot over at Club Therapy as I type this.
The closest thing I've ever done to a proper "score" would be the RISD senior degree project Arcadia by Conor O'Kelly-Lynch. Giovanni and I did video game-esque sound effects that were properly edited in by Conor. Then I wrote a few 8-bit sounding tunes that serve as the movie's music. Giovanni did the crazy diddy that you hear in the opening scene.
I look forward to doing a proper score for a movie or short someday. I had an idea recently for a musical with Lloyd Webber style lyrics and Wendy Carlos/Isao Tomita-esque synth music where every character would have some kind of disability, be it a speech impetiment, psychological disorder, or physical handicap. The music would be played by a whole bunch of synth players offstage or in a "pit" of sorts. It would be fun to perform at one of our warehouses here in Providence, "Pirate Snake" style. I know nothing about organizing something like that (directing actors, etc.), but wouldn't it be dope?
1/24/09
http://betteroffted.com/post/723841061/23/09
Now at Perishable Theatre: Deca-Go-Go
If the Elemental Theatre Collective's Deca-Go-Go, now at Perishable Theatre, is one of the most physically and emotionally draining activities of this young year's cultural calendar, it is because it is also one of the most ebullient. You may not see actors as happy to be on stage again this year; they remind us that theatre’s roots are as much in child’s play as in ancient ritual. This is not to say that Deca-Go-Go deals only with childish things, but that it moves through the adult world—or whatever you call a world bursting with war, drugs, sexual anxiety, and death—with uninhibited (i.e., childlike) appetite and enthusiasm. The stage, in other words, is not a colony to pacify and tax but an unkempt wilderness--a suburban forest, a post-apocalyptic alley, a neurotic imagination--to explore, unarmed and vulnerable.
The show, as you might already have heard, is a chain of ten discrete ten-minute plays, five each by David Rabinow and Alexander Platt, who wrote alternating pieces knowing only the essence of the final moment of each other's scenes. The plays are linked directly by overlapping last and first scenes, and suggestively by a series of randomly chosen "things" that return throughout the evening. If this sounds dryly algebraic, keep in mind that algebraic equations can be poetic and elegant, or, better yet, that prolonged full frontal nudity is one of the show’s constants. Death, of course, is another, but the show never lingers long on self-pity: characters are invented, developed, and destroyed recklessly; so mortality and terror are in the show’s DNA, but they are paired with creative urgency and awe. Characters die, but the actors don't, and whatever Medusa suffers in one scene, Tiresias or the Lone Ranger can avenge in the next. And in the end, like even the most somber film footage shown at double-speed—when it looks like it is being acted out by children—the plays strike us as mordantly funny: at once melancholy and hysterical. Rabinow and Platt employed a form—“the exquisite corpse,” so dubbed by surrealists of the 1920s—meant to revive and liberate the moribund imagination through an abstracted kind of collaboration, and they have enriched it by enforcing other arbitrary limits. It is well suited to the stage, and to the terrible imperative of our brief lives: if we strut and fret a full hour, or if we only get ten minutes, we’ve got to make them fucking awesome.
(Deca-Go-Go is at Perishable Theatre this weekend, Friday & Saturday at 8:00PM, Sunday at 2:ooPM; and next Thursday, Friday, and Saturday at 8:oo PM, and Sunday at 2:oo. Just call 401-447-3001 for tickets and reservations.)
The Cozy Collective with Djs Nick De Paris & La Rochelle @ Tazza Caffe - Friday, January 23rd
Check out the sounds of The Cozy Collective featuring Tim O'Keefe on electronics, Cliff Wood on saxophone, Umberto Crenca on flute & flarinute, Bryan Minto on guitar, harmonica, & synth, and Tony Teixeira on bass. The Cozy Collective is an improvisation ensemble that explores various combinations of electronica, downtempo, jazz, blues, experimental and world influenced sounds.
Djs Nick De Paris and La Rochelle will be mixing up a variety of eclectic electronic and house music.
Friday, January 23rd at Tazza Caffe.
10pm - 2am
1/22/09
Barnacled Record Release @ AS220 - Saturday, January 10th
Announcing the Providence record release of the new album on the legendary ESP-Disk label, "Charles".
Barnacled is a Providence-based sound-collective formed in 2000. "Charles" is their 5th album following 3 self-released albums and "6" on the local Corleone label.
Frank Difficult: electronics/keyboard
Michael Jeffries: bass/baritone saxophone/modified Speak & Spell
Jason McGill: alto saxophone/percussion/shortwave radio
Matt McLaren: drums/percussion
Nicotina: guitar
Alec K. Redfearn: accordion
Chris Sadlers: bass
Ann Schattle: horn in F
Erica Schattle: bassoon
The full 9-piece Barnacled will be playing at AS220, Saturday, January 10th with special guest Septimania - a performance by musician/author Jonathan Thomas.
From the ESP site:
Charles, Barnacled's new full-length, and first outing for ESP-Disk', is a rollicking, propulsive offering featuring the band in some of its most intricate formations. This deftly arranged record follows Barnacled as it tightens itself into high corners, only to purposely fall down, find new ground, and pick itself back up again. This work is highly playful, even at its most intense—and it does get intense, with saxophone battles surging over electronics and highly distorted accordion fire offerings. Then all of a sudden the sound drops out, save for a plaintive lone bassoon call, or static from a short-wave radio that sounds soothing by comparison. Intertwining rhythms and melody lines then revolve around a pulse that creates a new frame of reference while also complicating it. This music invites deep listening, and rewards the curious. Often it is simply mesmerizing—essentially what adventurous minds have come to expect from the legendary ESP-Disk' oeuvre.
some links:
Barnacled on ESP-disk: http://www.espdisk.com/
Barnacled on Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/
Barnacled on WFMU: http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/
Septimania on Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/
Jonathan's new collection of short stories published by Hippocampus Press: http://www.hippocampuspress.
If have any questions, need photos or would like an interview, please contact me at this address or Jason McGill at jasonmcgill@gmail.com
♫
Jonathan Thomas can be contacted at septimania@verizon.net
About ESP-disk:
ESP-DISK' opened for business in New York City in 1966 on the 12th floor of 156 5th Avenue. During its first 18 months, 45 albums were recorded and released, featuring previously unknown free improvisational artists. The only exceptions were Ornette Coleman and Paul Bley, both of whom had gained global recognition during the 1950's. Artists who made their debuts as leaders on ESP included Albert Ayler, Sun Ra, Gato Barbieri, Bob James, Marion Brown, Roswell Rudd, Burton Greene, Patty Waters, Henry Grimes, Charles Tyler, Sunny Murray, Milford Graves, Sonny Simmons, Ronnie Boykins and Frank Wright. Several of these artists were then quickly sought out and recorded by the Impulse and Columbia labels. ESP had signed no term agreements with its artists, anticipating that this might happen, and that they would then enjoy promotional support from these large companies.
ESP's rock groups, the Fugs and the Pearls Before Swine, wrote and recorded powerful statements against the war in Viet Nam, (KILL FOR PEACE, UNCLE JOHN) and their records rose quickly towards the top of the pop charts, through word of mouth. Over night, the record industry began bootlegging their lps, and no further orders reached ESP. In 1968, less than 3 years after its launch, ESP was driven out of business. The new music that was the major focus of the label was ignored in the U.S., while it was celebrated in Europe and Japan, where licensing agreements were made. Bernard Stollman, who had founded ESP, continued to produce records, although his distributors had shifted to purchasing bootlegs of these recordings, and his market had vanished, He treaded water until 1974, when the label ran out of funding. Within months after ESP closed its doors, Federal anti bootlegging laws were enacted. The master tapes were stored in safe deposit boxes, where they remained for 17 years. Stollman, a lawyer, eventually found employment as an Assistant Attorney General of the State of New York, and retired in 1991. A German record company, ZYX, then licensed the catalog in 1992, reissuing all 115 titles on cd. This relationship continued for 6 years, to be followed by a brief licensing agreement with a Dutch label, CALIBRE, and subsequently with an Italian company, Abraxas. In 2005, ESP resumed manufacturing, and now, many of the titles are available from retailers in many countries or by online order directly from this web site, or by download from itunes, emusic, rhapsody, musicnet and others.
1/21/09
GO-GO POWER! FRENCH EDITION! FRENCH MUSIC DANCE PARTY! @ Tazza Caffe - Saturday January 31st
Go-Go Power! Dance Party Goes French! Our annual DJ party night this month dedicated to both new and old French music from France, Canada and other Francophone places! Hear sexy French sounds! Watch Rare French Stars on the Big Screen! Dance to French Chansons all night long! Oooh-la-la! You don't have to know French to enjoy Bardot in full color. Cest BCBG toute nuit! It was one of our biggest and most interesting parties last year so please don't miss it or you'll have to wait til 2010 for the next one!
Located at Tazza Caffe.
1/20/09
1/18/09
Songwriting and Shamaning
Songwriting is a vocation. It is no different than learning how to fix a car or cook a plate of eggs. There is no magical mystical skill that musicians have that everybody else lacks, and any asshole who claims that writing a song is anything more than that is a super-big asshole. Writing music consists of sitting around with a pencil and paper, or your instrument, and maybe a partner, and trying to find new sounds, ideas, and clever-sounding phrases. Even for people who have been doing it for years, even for people steeped in music theory or classical training, there's still a lot of trial and error, and it still takes time and effort. When somebody tells you they wrote such-and-such a song "in five minutes while I was sitting on the toilet after my tonsillectomy" is both lying and a liar, and possibly trying to get into your pants. Even if you get the principle lyrics written out in a short amount of time, the song isn't finished until it is FINISHED and ready to perform. You wouldn't say a painter painted a painting in five minutes, the time it took them to sketch out a thumbnail, so why say that about music?
Here's a great example of a musician being an asshole like this. It's my arch-nemesis, Jason Mraz (see my last article about this monster 'tard). At about 50 seconds in, he answers a question about women he was inspired by in writing his hit song “I'm Yours”. Here's his answer, verbatim:
There are several. Several many beautiful females. And one we'll start with just our big mother that we're sitting on right now, female Earth. You know? And through that, you know, sprouts many beautiful feminine species...It's not that I saw inspiration, it's just that I think I was inspired through life experience, through life, through waking up to life's infinite opportunities.Now, here is the opening verse to the song they're talking about:
Well you done done me and you bet I felt itIt's pretty catchy when he sings it. The guy definitely knows what he's doing. But Jason, that's all it fucking is – a catchy sugarpop verse. It has about as much meaning as an unopened bottle of hotel shampoo: you use it once to get the come out of your eyebrows and then you throw it the fuck away. You answered a simple question from a 15-year-old interviewer like you just wrote the goddamn Bible.
I tried to be chill but you're so hot that I melted
I fell right through the cracks, now I'm trying to get back
(Also, is anybody else's gaydar going haywire watching him speak? Could there be an obvious reason his marriage fell apart so quickly? He claims to have a “bisexually open mind” but has never had sex with a man. Hmmmm...)
On the other end of the spectrum from Jason Mraz, there's Ray LaMontagne, a singer-songwriter I can definitely say is not full of shit. He had a full-page spread in Rolling Stone this month to spotlight a review of his third album, Gossip in the Grain. In it, Ray sits in what appears to be a barn at a simple wooden table with a typewriter. A motorcycle sits behind him. It actually would not surprise me if Ray LaMontagne actually writes his music in a barn with a typewriter and a motorcycle. But the image created by this photograph bastardizes and distracts from Ray LaMontagne's process, and in fact I'm surprised he agreed to it. Ray writes music the same way everyone else does, through hours of conscious effort. He doesn't write in a barn because he needs to draw some kind of divine, soulful farmer inspiration that the rest of us can never touch. My guess is he does it because it's the quietest place on his property, away from his kids.
But musicians, and more importantly the industry that makes money off musicians, need that mystical image of the inspired artist. The people who listen to the music, and go to the shows, and read the articles, and watch the interviews, see musicians as some kind of OTHER, not as human beings but as shamans. Never mind the reality of how music is created: through hours of work spent writing, rewriting, and practicing.
That's it. That's all it is and all it will ever be.
Winter Work and Lack Therof
Around Thanksgiving, I realized that I would be too poor to buy anyone Christmas presents, which sucks. Say what you will about Christmas, but I pride myself on my gift giving skills. It's a straight-up art. I've learned that there are lots of "don't"s and zero "do"s. Like so many things in life, one just has to feel it. I felt especially bad because I didn't get my brother or then-girlfriend anything last year either, even though I had the money and knew what to get them. In my defense, we were robbed and evicted that December PLUS I was about to take on running Thursday nights at Club Energy as Morgan Louis decapitated POP! to move on to minimal house-ville. I 'spose it's no excuse. I should've just played the "consumer-cattle" card.
I decided to make my presents this year. Pepper preserves for my brother and his girlfriend (a selfish gift as it's something I wanted to learn anyway), a
nd songs for my neighbors. I started writing four songs in my head for the four Narwhal Arms kids. Each was to be in a different musical style, sung in a different voice. The work went very slow, as I dove into all four at once. Then I tore a ligament in my knee on New Year's Eve/morning which put a dent in the songs' progress. Didn't stop me from partying though. Stuck the spongey side of a mop under my arm and hobbled about for the rest of the night like Tiny Tim. I was coked up enough where it could've been broken and I wouldn't have slowed down, but I sure payed for it the next day. So I scored a bit of a vacation from work, most of which I've spent filling out TDI and Community Free Healthcare forms. Over the past week, I've been making music with my neighbor Brendan (Triangle Forest) who's also on work hiatus. He's a college professor by day, so he gets a Christmas vacation. Amazing how easily the body gets into a nocturnal sleep schedule. I've been getting up at 9 or 10 pm (depending on whether or not I need to buy booze), popping over to B-Lite's, recording music all night, d
iscussing the songs over breakfast once the sun is out, doing an errand or two, and going to sleep around 11 or noon.
So here's some fruit from my new life. A new Triangle Forest song th
at B and I did, and Narwhal Jamie's pop-punk Christmas song. It helps if one knows that she
's from Portland, OR. The plan is to give the kids the songs on CD-Rs, with an instrumental version of the song included for Karaoke purposes (they love their Karaoke up there). They'l
l be able to sing each other's songs! I've looked into software that'll let
me turn a DVD-R into a CD-G Karaoke disc. I could encode the lyrics and sequence when the syllables get highlighted or have a ball bounce over them, but I don't think they have a proper Karaoke setup (dedicated monitor, etc.) permanently over there. Jamie's song still has a long instrumental break. I just love it when the Karaoke monitor says "Instrumental Break" and you can do the Macarena or air guitar during the eight or sixteen measures. Something. Anyway, here they are.
1/15/09
Cut&Paste Boston 2009 Digital Design Tournament
Cut&Paste Boston 2009 Digital Design Tournament
Cut&Paste, an innovative design company, is looking for talented designers to represent their city in three fast-paced, single-elimination rounds in 2D & 3D and one round for Motion, each with a unique design theme and set time limit.
The annual global tournament is set to zip across 16 cities this year, from February through June 2009, and this year for the first time ever, all of the winners (that's all 48 of them) will be thrown together for the first-ever Global Championship in NYC.
Cut&Paste is challenging designers from various backgrounds and nations across the map to dig deep and design their way into the spotlight.
The annual Call for Competitors is now open, with two deadlines: January 23 for cities in North America, and February 6 for the Europe and Asia/Pacific regions.
more: www.cutandpaste.com... <http://www.dexigner.com/jump/
SAVE THE DATE FOR AFROSONIC JUMP JAN. 30TH W/ SPECIAL GUEST DJ OFFBEAT ( SOUL FUNKTION-NYC)
Save the Date for AFROSONIC JUMP Friday January 30th @ The Black Rep with special guest DJ OFFBEAT ( Soul Funktion- Pressurereadio)coming from NYC to bless us with his underground afrogems.
Evolving out of the deep house and nujazz scenes, DJ Offbeat fuses the current sound of West London and Germany with classic Brazilian and African rhythms. He spins an innovative, jazzy blend of brasilian, afro-latin jazz, soulful deep house and funky broken beats, presenting a modern reinterpretation of traditional ethnic grooves that is equally suitable for discerning dance floors as well as the most sophisticated lounge atmospheres.
Born in Detroit, DJ Offbeat was quickly transplanted to Sao Paolo where he developed a love for classic Brazilian rhythms and melodies. Returning to the US, he settled in Dallas, Texas and spent years running various record shops, radio shows, and club nights. A six month stay in Copenhagen sparked his interest in European jazz and a return to NYC revived his passion for soulful house music.
Combining his diverse musical tastes, DJ Offbeat is expanding the boundaries of music as you know it.
SOUL FUNKTION is a roaming party that has touched down in NYC, Detroit, Atlanta, Denver, Dallas, Austin, Memphis, Houston, and Ottawa.
SOUL FUNKTION Radio is a weekly podcast and that also airs live every Wednesday night on Pressure Radio UK, as well as in syndication on about 25 stations internationally each week. DJ Offbeat and guests take you on a deep journey, dishing out healthy servings of afrobeat, deep house, brokenbeat, global soul, jazz and more.
DJ Offbeat has played alongside some of the top DJs in the world, including Osunlade, jojoflores, Bobby & Steve, Ian Friday, Master Kev, Julius Papp, Frankie Feliciano, Mr V, Alix Alvarez, Karizma, John Beltran, Julius the Mad Thinker, Lars Behrenroth, Jihad Muhammad, Eddie Matos, Kevin Hedge (Blaze), Antonio Ocasio, Carlos Mena, Joe DiPadova, Adam Gibbons, Jaymz Nylon, Andrew Carter, Rodney Hunter, Sabine, Bradford James, Rani “g”, Demarkus Lewis, Boo Williams, Sir Piers, Big Bang, as well as top level local DJs.
The Figgs, The 'Mericans & Barn Burning @ The Blackstone - Saturday, January 17th
THE FIGGS
THE 'MERICANS
BARN BURNING
we are excited to bring our friends THE FIGGS back
to rhode island. their recent december show wound up
getting canceled, so here they are again . . .
THE BLACKSTONE
1005 MAIN STREET
PAWTUCKET, RHODE ISLAND
02860
(just over the providence line)
10pm
$6
Providence Roller Derby's Pajammer Party @ The Scurvy Dog - Wednesday, January 28th
The Providence Roller Derby's Pajammer Party at The Scurvy Dog
9:00 pm - Free!
1/12/09
Narragansett Beer Father's Day tie contest - Design the 2009 Narragansett Beer Father's Day tie!
Submit a design, and if it is chosen, you could win money and a chance for your design to be produced and distributed throughout New England... or better yet, a case of Narragansett Beer!
The only stipulation is that the tie must incorporate Narragansett Beer elements/imagery... we aren't just looking for the most attractive tie. Ties will be judged on creativity, wearability, and Gansettness.
To enter: email a low-resolution .JPG to Intern@NarragansettBeer.com
by Friday, January 23, 2009
Then, come to the Wrap Party at AS220 on Friday, January 30th - 7pm - 9pm.
Prizes:
1st Place: $250, or free beer for a year (2 cases/month) + the use of your design on this year's tie.
2nd Place: $100, or 1 free case of beer per month for 1 year
All other Finalists: Free case of Gansett!
The Sight of Sound: Call For Art! @ Machines With Magnets
THE SIGHT OF SOUND : GROUP SHOW 2009
MARCH 2009
*CALL FOR WORK*
you have until February 20 to submit work.****
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES :
-Open genre: illustration, painting, drawing, screenprints, photography, digital prints, sound, video, sculpture
-Subject of artwork must be related to sound in someway
-All work must be for sale
-Submit up to 3 images of completed work for consideration to gallery@machineswithmagnets.com or via snail mail
-Include name, contact info, artist bio / statement, CV, URL/website, examples of work, medium and dimensions of work
Submissions must be received by Feb 15, 2009.
All accepted work must be shipped to MWM by March 1, 2009.
Opening Reception: March 6
Closing Reception: March 27
*AT*
MACHINES WITH MAGNETS
400 Main Street Pawtucket, RI 02860
Contact info:
gallery@machineswithmagnets.com
http://www.machineswithmagnets.com
401.475.2655
1/11/09
The Providence Wal-Mart
Many middle-to-upper-middle class types hate Wal-Mart, for reasons including, but not limited to: overseas sweatshops, union busting, wage and insurance problems, sexism, racism, censorship, and driving local merchants out of business. Upper class types, also known as the aristocracy (landed gentry, nobility, and Madonna) love Wal-Mart because it's a glorious gem in their portfolios, actually gaining value when the economy goes to pot and their shares in Bombardier Learjet collapse (this joke is especially funny to aristocrats, because Bombardier is traded on the Toronto stock exchange).
A few weeks ago, I voluntarily visited our newish local Wal-Mart to purchase an obscure household item that I might otherwise have had to order online. On the way there, I made a wrong turn and found myself passing through housing projects, which, like any good projects, were easily identifiable as projects because they look exactly like projects. As I came to the end of the block, I saw the monolithic white letters looming only a few hundred yards directly in front of me.
As it turns out, the only Wal-Mart in Providence is right across Route 146 from the housing projects. This is, of course, not coincidental. Rich people avoid Wal-Mart like they avoid general seating. There is no Wal-Mart on the East Side, where I live, nor are there any train yards or highways, unless you count 195 or that post-apocalyptic arrangement that feeds the Henderson bridge.
There are not many white people in Wal-Mart, either. When you do see one, he's probably a manager. That is not a joke. I was there on a particularly busy day, and walking around, every now and then I would pass another white customer, looking lost and bewildered, who was clearly only visiting Wal-Mart as a last resort, and each time they would look at me with a long, blank stare as if to say "boy, don't you hate that we have to come to this place?" It was so gross.
I have occasionally found myself in an argument with someone over Wal-Mart (typically a libertarian, also middle-to-upper-middle class). I present my litany of charges, all the "bad" Wal-Mart does, but I am countered with the suggestion that Wal-Mart's low low prices are a boon to low-income families, immigrants, and basically anyone who has to struggle to pay bills. On this particular visit, I was struck by how many people were checking out with a basket of sundries. For many customers there, this is doubtlessly a primary weekly stop for groceries and supplies. Is it not therefore horrendously classist of me to suggest that these people, who really benefit from Always Low Prices Always, shouldn't have access to this place? So here's the logic I use to justify my horrendous classism. It also relieves cognitive dissonance, as it turns out:
In the case of Wal-Mart, in order for something morally "good" to be performed (low prices and, therefore, more opportunity for low-income households), a whole string of morally "bad" acts precede it. Someone with a strong sense of morality would likely only see the "bad" -- because Wal-Mart is taking an action, or set of actions, that increases suffering somewhere for someone, often within their own stores. A good Machiavellian or neoclassical economist, on the other hand, would be most interested in the net effect: "does the cumulative good performed by Wal-Mart outweigh the cumulative bad?" After all, weren't a few astronaut deaths necessary to make space travel possible? Sacrifice, as many would have you believe, is necessary for advancement.
Unfortunately, we have no way of knowing the true net effect of Wal-Mart's actions, either the good or the bad, so this is a useless standard. And any sacrifice that leads to suffering should only be made by those choosing to sacrifice, not by those Wal-Mart steamrolls. I therefore think that morality is the only standard we have to make this judgment. Money and profits are amoral. That is, they are absent morality. (Not the same as "immoral" -- meaning the opposite of moral). Money and profits exist on their own, outside our moralizing. We as humans must chose where and when something stops being a financial issue and starts becoming a moral issue. And I'm afraid that most Americans set the bar far too high. We love money way too much, but money doesn't love us. Money only loves other money.
Wal-Mart is bad. I haven't changed my mind, even though they had exactly the item I needed and saved me time and cash. I'd still rather it not be there at all; taunting me with its ambiguous ethical constitution.
The Danger Danger Birds Calender Release Party with Ted James, Spanish Dancer, and The Swiss Chemistry Club @ Firehouse 13 - Tuesday, January 13th
The Danger Danger Birds Calender Release Party at Firehouse 13
featuring live performances by Cozy Music artists:
Ted James, Spanish Dancer and The Swiss Chemistry Club.
Tuesday, January 13th - 8:00 pm
$5
1/7/09
Bravo-A-Go-Go! A Night of Rare Groovy Music with Ty Jesso & The Cold War Djs @ Bravo - Friday, January 9th
DJs Ty Jesso, Eric J. Smith & Pete Lima at Bravo Brasserie
Also featuring The Danger Danger Birds
10pm - 2am
Free 21+ with ID
SONIC UNITY this Saturday Jan. 10th @ FIREHOUSE 13!
Come join us for the monthly installment of Sonic Unity, brought to you
by the AfroSonic Collective this Saturday January 10th, a night dedicated
to afro-infused dance rhythms. Djs Blackdove, Mikedelick, Nick de Paris and
Dublin on the decks alongside AfroSonic resident drummers. Check out our
blog for last month's party pics and free Afrosonic downloads!
www.afrosonic-ri.blogspot.com
1/6/09
Spanish Dancer @ Tazza & Nick De Paris @ Indie-Dance Party
In this IndieArts/ri Video post:
- Spanish Dancer performing at Tazza Caffe on January 2nd, 2008
- Nick De Paris guest DJing at Indie-Dance Party hosted by Tim O'Keefe & Gregor Mittersinker at Local 121 on Saturday, January 3rd. Indie-Dance Party is the first Saturday of Every month at Local 121.
1/5/09
Download SONIC UNITY mix by DjDublin
SONIC UNITY promo mixed by DjDublin
includes some great tracks and remixes by:
Boddhi Satva, Manoo, Jay Tripwire, Marlon D,
Reelsoul, Glenn Underground, Mike Dixon,
Jephte Guillaume, The Sunburst Band, and more!
SONIC UNITY Sat Jan 10th @ Firehouse 13
Please Come Join Us for Our Next Monthly Journey into
deep afro infused dancefloor rhythms with Dj's:
MikeDelik, NickDeParis, Dublin, & Blackdove
Along with Live percussion by The AfroSonic Drummers
Saturday JAN 10th 9:00PM @ Firehouse 13
Firehouse 13 41 Central Street Providence RI
www.firehouse13.org
http://afrosonic-ri.blogspot.com/
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