It's The Second Annual Punk Rock Prom Winter Ball!

Nerdsday

LoveLife @ Club Energy - Friday, February 27, 2009

Click here for more info.

Stomp Dance Collective @ Firehouse 13 - March 1s t- 14th

Stomp Dance Collective:
Runs from Sunday, March 1st - Saturday, March 14th

Stomp Collective Art Opening: March 5th, 6-9pm
The room is saturated with blacklights creating another dimension. Unique paintings and drawings transform the room.

RI Mash Up: Stomp Dance Collective #1 - Friday, March 6th
Dance to reggage, jungle, drum n bass, and dubstep.

Stomp Dance Collective #2 Shift - Saturday, March 7th
Evening of multi- genre all female DJ's from all over New England.

Singularity Stomp Dance Collective Closing - Saturday, March 14th
This is a private event.

Click here for more information.

Comedian Louis C.K. on Conan - Very Amusing.....

EMERGENCE Opening Night @ Firehouse 13 - Thursday, March 26th

EMERGENCE
Runs through Thursday, March 26th - Saturday, April 11th

Opening Night: Thursday, March 26th
With K-Rex Struts, 14 Foot 1, & Harpoon

Click here for more information.

Battle of Bands @ Firehouse 13 - March 24th & March 31st

WXIN Presents: Battle of Bands

Tuesday, March 24th
Tuesday, March 31st

$5/$3 RIC students

Click here for more information.

FIESTA ELEKTRONIKA THIS SATURDAY feb. 28 @ LOCAL 121!!

Come join us for an evening of bumpin west coast and groovy latin house all night courtesy of Nick de Paris
this Saturday @ Local 121! The beats start at 10:30pm, no cover...be sure to gear up by downloading the latest mix
for free, featuring the best soulful house tracks from the Soul Teknology show on Pressureradio.com!!

http://www.mediafire.com/?ftlwdgoimzj

121 Washington St. Downtown Providence

Tor Johnson Records @ Firehouse 13 - Friday, March 13th

Tor Johnson Records Presents: Loud Night #4

Kintaan
Elder
Megasus
Young Lady
Torchrunner

Click here for more information.

TONIGHT: Ghostly International at Machines with Magnets!

The Sight Below (Ghostly International)
Lusine (Ghostly International)
Area C
Tonight at Machines with Magnets. $10 in advance, $12 at the door.
Click here to get tickets.

NERDSDAY

SONIC UNITY @ FIREHOUSE 13 This Saturday Feb. 21st!

Come join us for our monthly installment of SONIC UNITY @ Firehouse 13, a party dedicated to the sounds of soulful, deep, afrobeat and latin house, right here in Providence! Djs Nick de Paris, Dublin, Mikedelick, Blackdove spinning with live percussion, horns and video to keep you groovin all night long.

To check out pics of our parties and free downloads, go to

www.afrosoniccollective.com

Free Download: Bloodless Coup - Regime Change EP

The Bloodless Coup (aka Tim O'Keefe) has just released a free digital EP on Cozy Music.

The Bloodless Coup combines Arabic, Bollywood, Electronic, and Western music into mash-ups, remixes and original material. This EP includes an Arabic remix of Maneater by Hall & Oates, and an Arabic remix of March of The S.O.D. by S.O.D.

Click here to download the Bloodless Coup EP (unzip and drop into your iTunes library)

Theatre at Gunpoint: "A Time of Fire" at the Black Rep

Black Rep is performing the U.S. debut of Charles Mulekwa's A Time of Fire every Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday through March 8th. Given the show's heat and intensity, I suspect Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays have never been such welcome days off for a cast. The play is about a civil war in an African country—perhaps Mulekwa’s native Uganda—and its effects on three people who meet each other in a cave: Omo, a student; Kadogo, a deserter from the army; and Ssaasi, a thief. In what ought to be a refuge, they alternately refigure, reject, and reproduce the lines of the battle outside; for Mulekwa, the causes and stakes—the spark and the tinder—of war are personal and ineluctable.

Audience members may find themselves wishing that the war were less personal--if it is indeed the fire that melts or hardens these characters it might be evoked more vividly than just by unconvincing sound effects--but they will not ask for much more from the actors, particularly Raidge, who, as Ssaasi, proves once again that he is one of the great actors on the Providence stage. In a fragile, erratic first-act performance, he winces, stammers, and trembles as though his life depended on it; when, in the second act, Ssaasi is burned by the war, or inspired by its appetite, Raidge returns with red-eyed vengeance. His is an awesome transformation. Cedric Lily, who played a character with all the agency of a marionette in this Fall's Bug, makes a surprisingly fierce Kadogo, who pulls the strings. Jonathan Dent, as Omo, is less persuasive. It could be that Omo's religiosity is not as compelling as Kadogo's sadism or Ssaasi's despair, but I think the real problem is that Dent doesn't know what to do with it. We don't sense that his faith is tested and changed by the war; indeed, Dent does not transmit--physically, vocally--the important decisions he has made about who Omo is and so appears to be following, rather than leading, the script. Still, the script is hard--Mulekwa's lines are arhythmic and angular--so it is impressive that Raidge and Lily give readings as coherent, and even powerful, as they do.

The modesty of the set and the paucity of contextulizing cues means that the play must be carried by the actors. In the long second act, the show droops like the chicken-wire that represents the cave in which Kadogo, Omo, and Ssaasi are hiding, but it never dies. This, then, is what muscular theatre looks like: three actors, strained and exhausted, keeping a fire alive with their breath.

IMAGO FEM beautiful restoration - art advocating for women and girls @ West Side Arts -- February 21st - March 14th

IMAGO FEM
- beautiful restoration -
art advocating for women and girls

Women's issues including rape, battery, incest, female genital mutilation (FGM), sexual slavery, self-image, and eating disorders.

Opening on February 21st - 6pm - 10pm

Showing through March 14th.
Located at West Side Arts - 745 Westminster Street, Providence RI
Click here to learn more about this show and West Side Arts.

The New England Incubator

While riding the T back from Boston a few weeks ago, a young woman sat down next to me and we began chatting. She had a gigantic law textbook on her lap titled "Human Rights". Interested, I offered her my beat-up Brown library copy of The Sun Also Rises in trade for the ride. We continued chatting about law school and as it turned out, she had spent a summer as an intern at the Providence courthouse. I asked her what she liked about Providence, and she responded that in the courthouse here, everyone was very helpful, eager to teach, answer questions, and mentor. She claims that in Boston, people are too busy, too self-absorbed, and don't behave this way.

I was so thrilled to hear this, because this is one of the things I have noticed about the art and music community of Providence. In fact, it's one of the reasons I decided to stay in Providence last year, to start working on my music in a place that will support me spiritually. Providence artists and musicians are tremendously supportive of one another, even those with few resources to do so. I have also heard from an architect-in-training that other architects are more helpful in this community.

This will come as a surprise to few, I'm sure, but I was surprised to hear that it extends to professions beyond artists and musicians. And I wonder, then, does this incubatory aspect of Providence extend to all professions? Are garbage men and, I don't know, furniture restoration specialists cutting their chops before moving on to bigger ponds? Is this a good place to be a practice mayor? Or an amateur brain surgeon? Or a crack-dealer-in-training?

But this also raises another, more serious question: to what extent is Providence's strength as the incubator of New England also a heroic flaw? The whole point of an incubator is to protect and nurture the young, fragile, and inexperienced, but eventually they fly the coop, and other cities benefit from their learning and experience here. Or is it shortsighted to assume all the best talent leaves? Surely some talented people remain, toiling in obscurity and poverty while their brethren in New York go on to notoriety and wealth. What can be done to retain people who seek to leave? As one of these people myself, I already know the answer: more people like me, but who aren't thinking about leaving.

And I don't have an answer to that problem.

Nu-poseurs

As more and more spaces in Providence succumb to the luxe-loft epidemic and venues either wither or, in some cases, burn down, promoters and musicians alike are starting to succumb to the will of the economy, doing whatever to takes to get their shit heard. One who may have started simply performing in a band or as a DJ has been forced more and more to hone their promoting and shmoozing techniques. I'm sure that any dedicated reader of this blog has gotten a whiff of my disdain for Nu-sucker DJs and their damn patterned hoodies (mind you, the hoodies and neon Nikes are just to stick your mind with an image. I believe that a talented and dedicated DJ who treats their mixing and track choices as an art form can wear whatever they fucking want, even if my tendency to acquiesce to the classic or timeless would prevent me from doing the same, fashion-wise.). Suckers are fun to make fun of if one doesn't mind their mockery sounding a bit like sour grapes, for suckers don't seem to be lacking in their proficiency for getting gigs and starting nights. My qualm lies in the hunch that they'll be the death of music scene after music scene. Performers could potentially be replaced by fashionable promoters posing as artists behind their turntables, for their interests align with the club owners who book them. Benjamins baby. All it would take is for enough venue owners to fill up their weeks with "DJs" who can squeeze steady revenue out of the desperate people of our fine city who simply want somewhere to go and dance. I say desperate because, in this hypothetical situation, clubs and venues would form nepitistic clubs with these sucker-DJs with $$ as the primary goal on both ends, thus eliminating the need for artistic compromise with, say, a band or DJ with substance. This would eliminate variety in Providence's nightlife. In this case, of course, talented artists would simply do what they always do and take their work back underground to mill shows and house parties, where it would swell and gain popularity, thus bringing the cycle around again to repeat. But I digress. The title of DJ has, more and more it seems, become less about the discs and more about the jockeying. That is to say, more about manipulation.

There's a part of every little boy who wants to be a rock star. I hope everyone's gotten the chance in their lifetime to experience the feeling of a large crowd of people cheering for them. Winning the big game. Giving a moving speech. Blah blah. It can be an addictive thing, depending on one's personality. A man from the future got me privy to the fact that "in the year 3030, everybody wants to be a DJ". As a starter DJ setup comes closer and closer in price to... well... free for your average consumer, kids with an ego-hole to to fill have made "tempo-sync" buttons their new best friends and hit the clubs in search of the great rockstar high. Armed with a musical sensibility no more evolved than that of the geek controlling iTunes at a RISD party, this new generation of talentless hipsters have discovered the playground that is our current mash-up/remix-iverse and have decided to paint, quite sloppily, inside the lines with whatever colors they've found via The Hype Machine. If homeboy's not doing it for artistic fulfillment, the closest they'll get to that rockstar high is that moment when all his/her boyz/girlz all go "AWWWWWWWWWW!" over any fade or EQ cut that reminds the crowd that he or she is present.

Now, I know that lacking art is and has always been all around us (even more so as our proximity to art schools increases), and I don't want to waste our time, reader, by simply bitching about how unrefined the craft is of these maggots to whom I've been referring. What makes me feel that an injustice is actually being done to the artistic community is the fact that the traits of understanding, empathy, honor and friendship usually exhibited by creative types are generally absent in the career motivated doings of these selfish little twats. I see them as business-people disguised as creators, hiding behind their zeigeist-ey musical tastes and trendy garb. Art can be cool, no doubt, but "cool" is rarely art. "Cool" can certainly be used to sell art. Christ, it's used to sell EVERYTHING! If advertisers were executive chefs, sex appeal and "cool" would be their salt and pepper. You have to admit, though; Joe Camel WAS pretty damn cool. That knowing smile. Those dark shades. Man, I really want a cigarette. Do you have a cigarette I could bum?

When sucker DJs' aggressive self-promotion and networking actually works and fills the weeklys of the few venues we still have in this city, keeping out musicians and DJs that younguns actually WANT to come out and see, is where I have a bone to pick. DJs demanding the same guarantees as touring bands? You'd better be pretty fucking good. Your Karmaloop wardrobe won't work on me.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for looking cool. It's another medium to have fun with. Fashion and

music have always had a close relationship, but all it takes is for a few entrepreneurs (who have their chubby fingers close enough to the pulse to capitalize on emerging culture) to start churning out poseur-food. Neon consumer DJ headphones (with cell-phone mics built into the cord so everyone can hear you discuss which D.A.N.C.E. remix pwns hardest on the T) are everywhere. Urban's "electronics" section caters to the lazy blipster bedroom-DJ with iPod mixing stations and turntable-shaped iPod speaker keychains. Go look. Right now.

*sigh*

As I type this, I'm picturing some of my Bodega-clad DJ friends thinking that this is a shot at them, so I'll repeat myself: If you've got the skills, if you're doing something, then wear whatever the fuck you want. I'm simply attempting to use these kids' appearance to drive a new stereotype into your heads for the purpose of having your collective guard up. If you think it looks cooler to have a DJ all set up in the corner at your graduation party rather than simply making an iTunes playlist, fine. Just don't go paying $100 bucks an hour to your buddy's buddy in the alife hat who could give twelve about moving a crowd. Don't be the chump who pays a hipster to do what they would have been doing that night anyway in their bedroom; showing "this hot new track" to their buddy- "Stands-Behind-DJs-With-Folded-Arms". Had I felt like writing about the value of the timeless and classic (and the uselessness of trends) in fashion, I would have let a Nu-poseur's wardrobe remain enough of a reason for their ridicule, but I'm not here to point my finger and guffaw. I can do that on my own time. What do you think musicians and DJs talk about anyways?

On an unrelated note, here's the second of the four songs I wrote for my neighbors. Chris Kette has a habit of singing Billy Ocean every single time he does karaoke, so I made the chorus mimic "Caribbean Queen". Otherwise, it's original... well... despite borrowing heavily from 80s clichés, but clichés were the fun of writing these four songs in differing genres in the first place. Enjoy!

Mathewson King

Giovanni Presents : Round 2 : Saint V Day - Saturday, February 14th

Saint V Day from Jace Bobius on Vimeo.

Giovanni Presents : Round 2 : Saint V Day
10pm
Narwhal Arms
99 (cents)

Debut and Improv performances by:

Mike Hoska
Morgan Louis
Organizational Behavior
Christ Wade
Giovanni

Bravo a-Go-Go with Ty Jesso @ Bravo Brasserie - Friday, February 13th, 2009

Tonight DJ Ty Jesso at Bravo Brasserie
The Best in 60's & 70's Mod, Soul, Funk & Garage

NERDSDAY @ Tazza Caffe - Thursday, March 12th

RI's only DJ'ed tweet-up / work-session. 9:00 PM - 1:00 AM at Tazza Caffe. Brought to you by: DJ Ted James, Tazza Caffe, LiveDowncity & IndieArts/RI
Follow @NERDSDAY on Twitter. Visit NERDSDAY.com for more information.

Structures Of Weight And Light - A Collaborative Installation @ Book By Book - February 19 - 26

"Structures of Weight and Light"
a collaborative installation by

Asher Israelow
Agata Michalowska
Will Reeves
Meg Turner
Jay Zehngebot


February 19th- 26th

Reception: February 21st from 3:30 PM- 8 PM

"Book by Book" at Hope Artiste Village- Suite 2233 1005 Main Street, Pawtucket, RI 02860

Daniel Chase LIVE @ Tazza - Saturday, February 14th

Special Valentine's Day Night at Tazza

With special menu and featuring:

Daniel Chase
with the StereoFidelics

Click here for more information

A Sense of Place: Real vs. Superficial

In considering what city I might like to move to next, one criterion I'm examining carefully is the idea of "real" versus "superficial". These are generic terms, perhaps, and their content is a bit subjective, but when I use them I'm not looking particularly at any negative/positive connotation spectrum. Some people would always say they are attracted to "real" over "superficial" characteristics, while others can't handle anything "real" in their lives, but the superficial is often more fun, less demanding, and usually more attractive. A good city, to me, would have a balance between the "real" and the "superficial".

Here's a short list I use to help define these terms as they relate to cities, in no particular order:

Real
Spiritual
Serious
Business
Outdoorsy (hiking, sports, water and parks, etc.)
High-strung, tense
Planned
Sane, level-headed, and punctual
Long, intense relationships that are difficult to end
A few close friendships
Working class
Folk music/world/singer-songwriter
Families
Focused
Love

Superficial
Aspiritual/Nihilistic
Fun
Pleasure
Indoorsy (bars, art galleries, dance clubs, etc)
Relaxed
Spontaneous
Crazy, unstable, and flaky
Short relationships that are easy to end
Many friendly acquaintances
Hipsters
Rock music/electronic music
Singles
Scattered
Sex

Of course, how you define real vs. superficial may be different. This is just my own list. And I don't mean to imply that art itself is superficial or that people who play sports are not superficial, nor do I think sex is superficial and all "love" is real or that these or any of the terms are necessarily at odds with one another. It's just shorthand for the things that tend to go hand-in-hand. And of course, when I evaluate a city on its realness vs superficiality, I'm putting it in the context of my own life and the things I like to do. I don't believe in marriage and I'm not that interested in children, so just because there's a bunch of contracted breeders living in Miami doesn't mean I count it as anything less than superficial. Salt Lake City, on the other hand, is so real it's just stupid.

One of the reasons I love Providence is that it is a very well-balanced city. We have a lot of artists and hipsters, but we also have an entrenched working class, plus the mafia. We have the bay and downtown, folk musicians and rock musicians, dance clubs and rowing clubs, a serious side and a crazy side.

My feeling of Washington, DC, for example is that it is a "real" city. It has its superficial elements, of course, and its fun, but the people strike me as high-strung, career and goal-oriented, and very serious. Contrast this with Baltimore, which has the opposite feel (again, my opinion). Seattle also feels very "real" to me, in fact, Seattle is almost too real for its own good. Portland, Oregon seems balanced to me, as does Vancouver. I'm still not sure about Boston, which seems balanced, but I think when you factor in Cambridge and all the surrounding neighborhoods that blend into Boston, you get a "real" picture. New York is almost too big and ridiculous to be included on this list. You'd really need to break it down by borough, or even by neighborhood:

Bronx: real
Queens: real
Brooklyn: balanced
Manhattan: superficial
Staten Island: who the hell knows...

So let's hear from you. What do you think about different cities in this country, or in the world? Who is superficial? Who is real? Do my terms need adjusting? Does my face need adjusting? Should I use some other criterion to help me decide, such as number of strip clubs per capita?

DJ Ted James - Herrlich Bad Zeit

It's splendid bath-time with DJ Ted James.

A Glitch-Hop, IDM & Experimental Electronic mix featuring Beans, Prefuse73, Chris de Luca & Pearbird, Jimmy Edgar and Funkstorung.

Download Zip.

Indie-Dance Party @ Local 121 - Saturday, February 7th

Come check out DJs Gregor & Tim O'Keefe at Indie-Dance Party with this month's special guest DJ, Marcella!

Saturday, February 7th
Located at Local 121
Every first Saturday of the month
Free!

Help Preserve Providence By Getting your Dance On

What's better than getting funky for a good cause? Nothing, that's what. Nothing is better than getting your groove on to raise funds for, say, architectural preservation. For example.

But geez, you say to yourself, shaking your head; there's probably no upcoming event at which my unique thang-shaking abilities, and my love of historic factories, churches, or banks, can be combined in one feel-good fund-raising gesture.

Au contraire.

This Saturday night at the Foundry's Sharpe Building (at 25 Holden Street), the Providence Preservation Society, our city's erstwhile architectural preservation non-profit, will host PPS Unmasked: The Carnivale Winter Bash. Featuring fabulous entertainment by Santa Mamba--whom you may remember from a recent night at the RISD Museum--and DJ Lively/Unkle Thirsty, extraordinary hors d'oeuvres provided by Pizzico Ristorante, and all kinds of preservation chit-chat, this is the Winter Bash everyone will be talking about until Spring 2010. Dancing, drinking, and eating--saving a city has never sounded so fun. Tickets are $30 in advance and $35 the day of the event--so save yourself some money and buy your tickets today.

(Now you nod your head and say, Oh yeah: that's the one.)

Mail Call

This week, I open up the comments pages and respond to you:

A few readers have made some very unflattering comments on my post about how Jason Mraz's music is maybe possibly what child molesters listen to. They wrote to inform me that I am a dumb writer, and that Jason Mraz actually sings about cancer all the time, not love. If that is the case, then my post should have been titled Cancerpop Cancer Songs and Jason Mraz's “Music for People Who Defend Child Molesters on Blogs”. I apologize for this error.

All three posted their comments anonymously, possibly to hide their identity as child molesters. I'm not stating that as fact, just as an almost certain (almost) conjecture. It is also possible that one super child molester, who coincidentally has Alzheimer's disease, posted all three comments. Again, not stating a fact, just a near certainty. (Note: Alzheimer's disease is a terrible, debilitating disease that should never been joked about, unlike cancer, which is hilarious in every social situation.)

First, full disclosure here: I do not own a single Jason Mraz album. In fact, I've never actually listened to his music, but he looks kind of gross so I assume his music is terrible. Also, I have never been a child molester. I'm not saying this proves my point, but it is certainly compelling evidence that completely proves my point about Jason Mraz fans possibly being a little pedophilish.

Second, in the interest of public discourse, I would like to clarify my viewpoint a little, because if there is one thing I would never, ever, ever intentionally do, it's write closed-minded, hyper-opinionated or alarmist pieces, exaggerating and hyperbolizing my simple musical or artistic tastes for the sheer sake of entertaining others.

It's not that ALL people who like Jason Mraz are pedophiles, or that Jason Mraz is a TOTAL gigantic blowhard living in the closet, it's just that he's not as good as the greatest band that ever lived, Coldplay. And that conga-playing guy that he tours with, you know, the guy with the dreads, isn't as good as the greatest drummer of all time: whoever the drummer from Coldplay is. I forget his name.

Now, I know you Bloc Party fans are going to be furious and use all sorts of inappropriate language and cockney slang in the comments (like “plonk”), but let's just look at the facts:

• Fact #1: Coldplay is the greatest band that ever lived.
• Fact #2: Coldplay is way way better than Bloc Party.
• Fact #3: Chris Martin could probably kick Bono's ass because Bono is old and can't see well.
• Fact #4: I would totally bang Gwyneth Paltrow.
• Fact #5: etc...
• Fact #6: etc...
  

There are so many other facts proving this point, actually, that I won't even bother repeating them here, because if you don't already know them, you're not going to be able to understand them anyway. It's public knowledge. Look it up in the public knowledge dictionary.

Also, Blondie invented rap music.