Archive for May, 2010
the lifestyle of professional DJs is especially charming to me. you get to jetset across the globe playing music you love for audiences who love that music and you. depending on your status, a pro DJ can do so much more. case in point: mike simonetti. he got his start promoting shows in NYC and founding seminal punk/noise label troubleman unlimited records. in recent years, simonetti has been leading the disco revival through a label called italians do it better. IDIB broke through with their after dark compilation, and have since released quality output from bands including chromatics, glass candy, and nite jewel (who recently put up a cover of 80s soul group prophet’s song “tonight” that is worth checking out).
as for mike simonetti, he runs the show, and according to the italians do it better website/blog, DJs pretty much everywhere. occasionally he’ll make mixtapes too, like this one that he just did for dazeddigital.com. head over to the dazed site to stream this mixtape of obscure but great disco jams. download it here, and please do yourself a favor and check out this old simonetti mixtape that is primarily african and caribbean disco jams.
Via the homie Black Mal P, here’s live footage from L.A.’s Sunday stalwart, the Do Over, of Dam Funk’s remix of “I Should Tell Ya Momma On You”. Good times, and the sunny Sunday situation should make anyone’s gray Thursday pass a tad quicker.
Previous HVW8 lovage right hurr…
Lenny Kravitz brought together Mos Def, the Preservation Hall Band, Trombone Shorty, and Tim Robbins to record this song and video for gulfaid.org. Good song, but it’s too bad that it had to be written.
Having lived on the Gulf Coast of Florida for several years of my life, it’s hard not to feel incredibly sad whenever I see images of BP’s oil spill. Florida hasn’t been affected too much yet, but Louisiana is getting it bad. And it’s only gonna get worst before it gets better. Please give to Gulf Aid if you can. The money will go to clean up the wetlands and coast and to support fishermen who depend on the Gulf for their livelihood.
P.S. I hate you, BP.
The fellows over at HVW8 Production House don’t mess around. Their latest podcast, Master Blazter, is a future funk merry go round, mixed by the nearly-deported Los Anegeles-based DJ Kutmah. Good thing we’ve still got him, and good thing HVW8 is putting him on. Get get get it!
you should take a break from musical consumption for a minute and look at this INSANE set of photographs commemorating the 30th anniversary of the mount st helens eruption, courtesy of the big picture. yet another example of what the apocalypse might look like. one more of my favorites after the jump.
Hybrids can be dangerous things. Take the horrid sub-category of rap/rock: for every “Walk This Way” resulting from a Run DMC/Aerosmith collaboration, you have hundreds of Linkin Park/Jay Z combos. It’s painful, dammit, and it takes two perfectly good things (although Linkin Park doesn’t get even that nod…) and makes something far, far worse. It’s like vegan soul food. Yes, yes it is.
On that note, when someone starts talking about putting emcees over dubstep tracks, that raises my bad taste threat level to orange. It could so easily go terribly, terribly wrong.
Luckily, Dutch group Zwart Licht seem to be doing it right. They’ve been collaborating since 2007, developing as dubstep has gone through its ascendancy, and while they have been more traditionally hip hop sounding, they’re making new forays into the crossover gray zone. Numbering two emcees and one dj/producer, the group actually brings the good parts of both genres to bear, giving you all the neck-breaking bass and synth action of dubstep and combining it with street-inflected rhymes.
It’s good times, and it piques my curiosity to see what comes next, and if this particular shark will be jumped.
Download: Zwart Licht – Dubtrip (Fs Green Remix)
Videos after the jump.
DJ House Shoes is easily one of the best ambassadors of Detroit hip-hop that a city could ask for. The fact that he’s moved to Los Angeles like so many other Michigan hip-hop staples (J Dilla, Ta’raach, T3, Mayer Hawthorne, Now On, etc.) is actually fitting. There’s a musical kinship between Detroit and LA that dates back to when Berry Gordy packed up Motown and landed in California over 40 years ago. Since then, it’s been on!
While Shoes is out here on the West Coast, he’s keeping the Detroit hip-hop torch blazing and producing tracks as if he never left the 313. His latest production gem is called “Newports” and features another Detroit to LA transplant, Jordan Rockswell. It’s on the upcoming All City Records LA 10″ vinyl series that hits iTunes on May 18th.
Check out “Newports” below. Then get your hands on Elzhi’s criminally slept on Out of Focus EP. House Shoes produced the lions share of that underground jewel back in ’98 and I still listen to it once a month on cassette. No joke.
[audio http://www.thesouldojo.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/House_Shoes-Newport.mp3]
This one goes out to all Seattle peoples. Over the last 15 plus years of Seattle hip hop, Vitamin D and his Pharmacy studio have been constants. Unfortunately, it looks like even doing production for folks like Abstract Rude, Strange Fruit Project and many many more doesn’t pay the bills these days. Vita just announced a rent party to keep the Pharmacy in business.
Sounds like people who owe him money aren’t coming through, which is way more common in the music industry than it should be. It’s a shame that skilled musicians have to put up with this sort of bullshit just to get food on the table, but that’s where we’re at.
The silver lining is that we get a hell of a show out of the deal, including Vita and his Stay Hi Brothers project, promoter/rapper/scene stalwart Candidt, classic 206 crew Central Intelligence and DJ Audeos. Plus, you know when you have a gathering of this stature you’re going to end up with special guests and surprise acts.
You should be there. It’s going down this Saturday, May 15th at the Hidmo (2000 S Jackson) at 8:00, and the man is only asking for 5 dollars. Support your own.
Download: Vitamin D – Table Manners, Vol 2
Download: Vitamin D – the Bornday EP (read more about it right here)
Diamond District came through Seattle this past weekend. They performed at Chop Suey on Sunday night and I had plans to go, but I ended up passing out around 10pm instead. You’re probably saying to yourself, “Damn, Tang. That’s whack.” And I would agree with you, but some of us have to work in the morning and I was tired! Plus, (this is the part of the story where I redeem myself) the reason I was so beat on Sunday is because I was fortunate enough to catch a late Saturday night performance from Oddisee, put on by the good folks at Members Only, that didn’t wrap up until after 4am. Oddisee brought out yU and X.O. to do a little bit of their solo stuff too, and the gentlemen from DC did not disappoint. Oddisee performed a choice selection from his repertoire, including at least one joint from Odd Spring. YU showcased some songs from his well received first album, Before Taxes, and X.O. spit a couple tracks that I hope to hear on his yet- to-be-named upcoming album.
I had a chance to chat with the fellas real briefly and Oddisee told me to keep a look out for Odd Spring, his fourth and final installment of his seasonal free album series, scheduled to drop sometime this week. Sure enough, it dropped yesterday. (On sort of a side note, I gotta say, these Members Only parties are pretty dope. It’s like something straight out of a high school kid’s underground hip hop fantasy: rubbing elbows with rappers, hot girls, the homies, bluntsmoke, byob… shit, it’s kinda like my underground hip hop fantasy.)
I’m a big fan of the previous installments of the Odd [insert season here] series, and I would reccommend you check them out if you haven’t already. They’re free and you can find them at Put Me On It, or you can follow the links on the player below to Oddisee’s Bandcamp page. Not coincidentally, Oddisee is a blogger for PMOI. Bet ya didn’t know the rapper/producer was also a blogger! Ha! Anyway, peep the Odd Spring below and don’t sleep on Diamond District when they come through your town. That would be whack. Trust me, I know.
