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Archive for December 2006
See you Thursday night 12/28 at The Buccaneer for a soul-stirring tribute to the legendary James Brown from two of Memphis’ most respected and knowledgeable soul music DJ’s, Buck Wilders & The Hook-Up. Don’t come crying, come down prepared to dance.
James Brown was like most of the truly great artists and creators in the world. When he was good, he was brilliant and when he was bad, man, that cat was super bad. Through his many trials and tribulations, no artist ever so richly deserved the title “the hardest working man in show business” as James Brown, and few, if any, will leave the impact on popular music and culture that he did. He changed the way people thought about rhythm, about song structure, language, and the importance of giving 110% on stage every time. There will never be another like him.
Some people will probably be offended by the following clip being posted on the heels of his death, but I would say to those people that this clip from Sonya Live in L.A. just goes to show his humanity and his ability to demonstrate complete confidence in the face of aversion.
I mean, when you’re eulogizing someone, you can’t just look at all the good things they did in life — you gotta laugh about the crazy shit they did that made them who they were and how it didn’t change your respect for their gifts. James Brown was more than just a musician and a performer — his public persona, his career highs and lows, had dramatic impact. I don’t want to focus on the negative and I’m not speaking ill of the deceased — far from it in fact. I mean, I didn’t know the man. But I hope that in retrospect, Brother James might be laughing at us from up on high that we remain fascinated by things like this — that people who cared about him might still see it and go, “Yep, James sure did do some crazy things and we still loved him in spite of it all.”
I found it on YouTube, and I share it with you because it makes me laugh and smile when I see this almost every single time. I’m not really laughing anymore.
Maybe James Brown just finally said, “You know what? They want to have me on CNN to talk about this? Well, I’m going to take control of the conversation and talk about what I want to talk about.” God rest your soul and thank you for the blessed and wonderful gifts you gave to us, for your humanity, for the struggle, for it all.
December 25, 2006 2:15am (AP) James Brown, the legendary singer known as the “Godfather of Soul,” has died, his agent said early Monday. He was 73.
Brown was hospitalized Sunday at Emory Crawford Long Hospital with pneumonia and died around 1:45 a.m. Monday, said his agent, Frank Copsidas of Intrigue Music. Longtime friend Charles Bobbit was by his side, Copsidas said.
The agent said Brown’s family was being notified of his death and that the cause was still uncertain. “We really don’t know at this point what he died of,” Copsidas said.
E.J. Says: This is horrible news and it caught me, like it caught you, totally off guard. James Brown, you will be missed. May Christmas in heaven bring you peace at last.
James Brown - Christmas In Heaven
Click here to return to the homepage for more music news, videos, and the Best of 2006.
I said it earlier this summer, I’ll say it again. This year, 2006, was not groundbreaking in music. No new precedents were set, nothing huge and earth-shattering happened, nothing twisted my caps back and made me run screaming naked onto the silent freeway. The same held true for many of you out there, it seems, as I’ve glanced at similar comments from other music writers whose opinions I respect. Not every year is going to be a golden year. It just doesn’t work like that, unfortunately, but a few sparkling moments always manage to surface.
There’s no new forward trend in music; everything is retro everything at this point and nothing revolutionary appears to be on the horizon. We’re at a period in music where everyone is still appreciating the wealth of music that is already out there and, so it seems, there are more converts to the roots of the music we’re hearing today. People are studying influences and legacy artists remain vital. The largest percentage of music buyers on the planet are still “baby boomers”, and they’re still buying the music of their generation more than any other.
So, what’s a young artist to do in this haze? I’m not 100% sure myself, but a change will come sooner than we all think. Just when hope for revolutionary advances in music seem lost, they always come around.
Here’s some hopeful contenders, some old dogs with newer tricks, but every album here contains at least three songs so moving I just can’t ignore the way it’s shaped my year. I can’t wait for 2007, and the records I’ve heard coming out are already giving me hope for that championship season in music to return soon.
Note: The MP3’s associated with these albums (one per album) will be taken down when I return from holiday, January 3, 2006. Get them while you can.
Loudersoft’s Most Listened To Records Of 2006:
(*)01) The Knife - Silent Shout
(*)02) Ghostface Killa - Fishscale
03) Spank Rock - YoYoYoYoYo
(*)04) Belle & Sebastian - The Life Pursuit
(*)05) Beach House - Beach House
06) Destroyer - Destroyer’s Rubies
(*)07) Lucero - Rebels, Rogues, and Sworn Brothers
08) Mission of Burma - The Obliterati
09) J Dilla Jay Dee - Donuts
10) Oh No! Oh My! - Oh No! Oh My!
11) Gnarls Barkley - St. Elsewhere
(*)12) Brightblack Morning Light - Brightblack Morning Light
(*)13) Guster - Ganging Up On The Sun
(*)14) American Princes - Less And Less
(*)15) Midlake - The Trials of Van Occupanther
16) Yo La Tengo I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass
(*)17) Beck - The Information
(*)18) Black Devil Disco Club - 28 After
(*)19) Stanton Warriors - Fabriclive.30
(*)20) Clipse - Hell Hath No Fury
(*)21) Zero 7 - The Garden
22) Sonic Youth - Rather Ripped
(*)23) Soul Position - Things Go Better With R.J. & Al
(*)24) Camera Obscura - Let’s Get Out Of This Country
(*)25) ¡Forward, Russia! - Give Me A Wall
(*)26) Sound Team - Movie Monster
27) M. Ward - Post War
28) Juana Molina - Son
29) Morrissey - Ringleader of the Tormentors
(*)30) Rose Melberg - Cast Away The Clouds
Sickest Mixtapes I Heard In 2006:
(*)1) Spank Rock - Couche-Tard
2) DJ A-Trak - Welcome To Kanye’s Soul Mix Show
3) SA-RA Creative Partners - Dark Matters & Pornography Mixtape Vol. 30
4) DJ Drama & Lil Wayne - Dedication 2
Shit Other People Loved/Biggest Disappointments:
Note: I seriously did not understand the fascination with any of these records and, tried as I might, I could never get why people got goofy as shit over any of this stuff. These pancakes were not Bisquick to me, perhaps they were to you. If so, try me again in about ten years and see if I got it by then.
1) Tapes ‘N Tapes - The Loon
— seriously, what the fuck….
2) Red Hot Chili Peppers - Stadium Arcadium
— again, seriously, what the fuck….
3) Snow Patrol - Eyes Open
— a craptacular follow-up to a very good record.
4) Jay-Z - Kingdom Come
— note to Jay, all respect due: keep fuckin’ Beyonce and running empires, hang up the mic for the rhymes you committed.
5) Hot Chip - The Warning
— I tried so hard to like this record but it just annoyed the living piss out of me and made me go back and listen to New Order instead.
6) The Killers - Sams Town
— reinventing yourself is one thing. reassembling yourself is quite another. this record should have come with a “some disassembly required” sticker because, clearly, the sum was nowhere near as great as a few of the parts.
7) Razorlight - Razorlight
— give me Up All Night or give me silence, just don’t give me this.
Trail of Dead - So Divided
— Conrad, Jason…you know I love you guys but…this record should, maybe, be called So Mediocre From Such A Good Band? hey, i wanted to like it so don’t take it personally, i can’t wait for the next one and, no, this has nothing to do with you missing brunch at the 101 back in june.
9) The Rapture - Pieces Of The People We Love
— come on. come back. come better.
10) Dr. Octagon - The Return Of Dr. Octagon/Kool Keith - Nogtaco Rd.
— two totally unsatisfying releases from one man in one year is one too many.
If you read this blog in 2006, you would know that when this email came in I was beside myself. So wonderful it was that I had to give this up to you guys, a great cover from one of my favorite bands anywhere, what a wonderful way to start the holidays up!
Holiday update from the band:
Christmas came early for us this year. In May, we found ourselves in Atlanta , playing a festival with the Moaners, De La Soul, the Flaming Lips, and Big Star. Being as how we were the least enticing band on the bill, we got one of the first slots of day, which meant that we were all good and drunk by the time Big Star played. The sun was setting as they ran through “Thirteen,” and no matter how long we live we doubt we’ll have many better memories than that. Except for this: we looked across the stage and saw Luke (our 6’4” bassist) putting on a one-size-fits-all Santa Claus costume. He’d elected to be a part of the Flaming Lips’ stage show and was busy getting into character.After Big Star, Luke was hanging around backstage and bumped into Alex Chilton. He made small talk, telling him about how much we all like his music, how glad we were to see them live, and all that. Chilton, almost a foot shorter than the gargantuan, chain-smoking Santa that had appeared before him, simply said “I’m glad it did it for you,” in the most nonchalant manner possible.
It’s a small thing, but when we first started this band, the one overarching goal we had was to someday dress up the bass player as Father Christmas and have him converse with one of the greatest living songwriters. Truthfully, whatever goes down on December 25th, 2006, is going to pale in comparison.
God bless us, everyone.
Here beginneth the holiday postings at Loudersoft to make up for the last couple of months. Word to Princes, and to you.
Listen To Or Download “Don’t Lie To Me” by American Princes
American Princes, a fine band from Little Rock, want to be your friend. Begin sharing the love by visiting them here.
If you are seeing this message, then it means that I'm someplace other than at home & whatever I'm calling in about was worth posting about. Listen, listen, listen….
I’ve often lamented the loss of key pieces of my own collection of vinyl. I have always loved the smell of a record, the feel of it, the way the static charge is released from it when you crack the plastic for the first time and pull the record from its sleeve. I love the warmth of vinyl records, the way it sounds, and even the inconvenience of having to turn the record over to hear the other side. My love affair with vinyl is lifelong and, up until recently, I thought it made me a dinosaur in the animal kingdom, clutching desperately onto the last shred of my childhood memories in some foul attempt to recapture the magic.
It came as a huge surprise to learn that there is a resurgent interest in vinyl — so great, in fact, that sales of 45 RPM records in Great Britain surpassed the 1 million mark in 2005. It’s the first time since 1998 that vinyl record sales have even reached the 1 million mark, and it appears to be no random occurrence.
The reasons for this resurgence make a great deal of sense if you sit down and think about it. One possibility is that the sons and daughters of the working class are searching for symbols of their importance to artistry through music. The same kids whom our world has pressed and pressured towards learning and embracing technology have, in some ways, shunned technology as a way of demonstrating their independence from the status quo. In their music and their art, they see technology as representative of the establishment against which anxious youth are bound for rebellion. While millions of young people are downloading and burning music to CD’s, the working class have neither the wherewithal nor the interest to learn how to burn CD’s. This generation finally got tired of being pressured into upgrading their technology and said, “Why should we?”
In the same regard, vinyl records, while not piracy-proof, offer limited options to consumers for conversion to digital format. Though there are products on the market like the Numark TTUSB Turntable with USB output which allows a user to convert their vinyl records to MP3’s, it’s not a very convenient option. Sure, you can slap that vinyl on the turntable and boot up your computer. However, if you’re used to ripping a CD to MP3 in a few minutes, you’re in for a surprise. Unlike conventional CD methods, vinyl records have to be converted at standard speed. In our busy world, people don’t really want to take the time to convert their records one at a time to MP3’s because they don’t have time.
Yet another important thing to remember is that owning a vinyl record represents a special connection to the music you love. It’s like a tiny piece of art that an individual person can have for themselves — beautifully packaged or brightly-colored vinyl has never lost its collectible value. With recent limited runs of vinyl from any number of modern artists (including Radiohead, Arctic Monkeys and White Stripes) pushing individual sales of records, music fans are proving that they continue to have respect for the art and artistry of the music and the representative releases of those creating the music.
In this day where MySpace, MP3 blogs, and P2P drive the tastes of popular music, it’s actually warming to my heart to see that vinyl is not dead. I know what its like to have that love of vinyl, to embrace the physical record and place it on the turntable, to put the stylus down on the groove and hear the sweet sounds come pouring out. Since the music industry is responsible for steering everyone towards the compact disc over 20 years ago, why not employ the same steering methods to start a backwards momentum? If they want to, it’s an excellent time to revisit their power to steer popular culture by starting to release music exclusively in vinyl or digital format. I say if the kids want a CD, they can burn them for themselves. For all our modern conveniences, there are times where mere technology is not enough to keep art alive. To all you kids out there going to record stores and buying vinyl I say thank you; you’ve chosen wisely.
This link clicks thru to an eBay auction on one of the rarest pieces of rock and roll memorabilia in the world. Purchased at the Sunday fair in Chelsea for 75 cents, the unreleased acetate of Velvet Underground & Nico features an alternate sequence of the record and a series of alternate versions of the tracks on the album long thought to have been lost completely due to time and circumstance. Among those tracks are “European Son”, “Venus In Furs” and a completely different take of “Heroin” complete with some different lyrics and more primitive drums.
The listing for the item reprints details of the purchase from an article from Goldmine magazine entitled, “THE MYSTERY OF THE VELVET UNDERGROUND’S ‘REAL FIRST RECORD’ (AND HOW THE ONLY EXISTING COPY WAS BOUGHT FOR 75 CENTS)”. Details about the purchase and discovery are laid out in great detail in the article. As of this writing, it’s at $111,000 and climbing. The auction ends on December 8th, 2006.
