Free Music Archive - WFMU Blog

Fujiya & Miyagi

2012-02-10T17:21:31-05:00

It's winter.... well not really. Technically the calendar says winter, but for the past few months there has been no sign of it. Except for today. Yes, today when Fujiya & Miyagi are scheduled to show up to do their session with me. It decides to snow and enough to make the band's drive from their show in Philly the night before not a wonderful one. So I prepare the coffee, buy the bagels, fruit and juice while I await their arrival.

It's so refreshing when the band you have come in is actually a fan of the station. They become in awe of you and your place while you are in awe back at them for actually wanting to do a set for your show! They all pile in and are as nice as can be. As the band sets up, I chatted with David, the guitarist and singer, about the station and promised them a tour afterwards. It was such a relaxed vibe they gave off that it made everything run so smooth and comfortable. They get in to play and are pure professionals. It's my own private show, just for myself, though they can't hear me cheering behind the double plated glass. The entire time I can't stop moving. The music takes over and your are in their control, which isn't a bad thing.

Afterwards, the promised tour makes them giddy and the record library is a world of wonder. One of them even pulled out an album of his from a previous band. Ahhh, yes, the wonders of the record library....

Hopefully the next time they come around, the sun will be shining, the weather a little warmer and the stay a little longer. I could have listened to them all day and night.

Golden Festival 2012: Balkan Vocal Groups in the Atrium Room

2012-02-03T09:06:13-05:00

The Golden Festival is a massive Balkan and East European music and dance bacchanal. On January 14th, WFMU's Transpacific Sound Paradise presented its fourth live broadcast from the event's main stage in Brooklyn's kitschy and fabulous Grand Prospect Hall. The Grand Ballroom was one of four stages, and the two-night event featured over sixty groups. This year, the Free Music Archive will host archives from all four stages.

We're starting the Golden Festival 2012 Collection with the Atrium Room.

Black Sea Hotel (pictured) is the Brooklyn-based vocal quartet of Corinna, Joy, Sarah and Willa. Their set included traditional songs learned under a plum tree in Bulgaria, but with their own distinct twists and arrangements, since many of the songs were originally sung by larger choirs.

Brazda (pictured) is a New York-based Balkan band that plays fresh arrangements of traditional repertoire from Bulgaria, Macedonia, Greece, and beyond. Like many of the groups, they have provided information about each song in their set including translations. I was surprised to learn that "Yiati Foumaro Kokaini" has lyrics that translate to "That crazy rascal, cocaine smoker For my troubles, now I smoke cocaine."

Brian Chippendale's BLACK PUS live on WFMU

2012-02-05T05:44:28-05:00

Black Pus is the many-armed beast of a solo project from Brian Chippendale, one of the most distinct musicians and visual artists of our time. If you're not already familiar with the sounds of Black Pus, you may recognize Chippendale's many-armed drumming style and masked mic-in-mouth vox from his duos Mindflayer and Lightning Bolt. A co-founder of the storied Fort Thunder artist collective, Chippendale still lives in the Olneyville neighborhood of Providence, in a former mill building where lately he seems to be writing a new Black Pus song almost every night. So while we're wrapping our heads around 2011's Primordial Pus (Load Records) -- not to mention the limited edition CD-R series of Black Pus 1, 2, 3, 4 and 0 -- there's already a seventh Black Pus album ready to pop.

The live set on Marty McSorely's WFMU program is a special treat because, though he is a prolific musician, Black Pus doesn't tour nearly enough to quench our thirst for Pus. The set was expertly engineered by Ernie Indradat, and the interview covers recent collaborations with Björk and the Flaming Lips. Chippendale also talks about how he assembled such a unique setup, including an oscillator pedal that was originally a gift from Shinji Masuko of DMBQ. When Marty McSorely asks "What is Brian Chippendale's Black Pus?" Chippendale responds that it's reggaeton. He goes on to elaborate on a range of influences from the free jazz assault of Peter Brötzmann's Machine Gun to the unpredictable rhythms of Sightings and Black Dice (who started out as a hardcore band in Providence around the same time as Lightning Bolt).

In some circles, Brian Chippendale is known as much for his fine art, comics and graphic novels as for his music. His visual style can be experienced as part of every Black Pus and Lightning Bolt release. And, as those of you who are on the WFMU swag mailing list may have heard, Brian Chippendale designed an awesome biker t-shirt for WFMU's marathon which begins later this month!

Previously on the FMA: doncbruital (Angels in America) on Anarchic Self Reliance: Black Pus

For more, check out the Black Pus blog, which just debuted this trippy surrealist video for "I'll Come When I Can," off Primordial Pus.

Spider Trance - Southern Italy's Traditional Music

2012-01-06T17:00:29-05:00

Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino is Salento, Italy's foremost traditional music group. They will perform as part of this Sunday's Global Fest at Webster Hall, NYC along with Debo Band, Yemen Blues, and many other incredible artists. CGS made their U.S. debut last year, including the following performance on WFMU's Transpacific Sound Paradise engineered by Davey Jewell and Juan Aboites. At the time, host Rob Weisberg wrote:

Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino specializes in the driving rhythms of the pizzica dance and other ancient rhythms on traditional instruments. The pizzica is the local variant of the legendary mystical spider-trance-dance, the tarantella.

Founded in 1975 at the urging of writer Rina Durante, CGS was the first traditional revival band in Salento. Durante was a major advocate for reviving, preserving and promoting the region's traditions, culture and language. She was the catalyst for a cultural revival, with the band at the center.

Yet in all its years (and with 16 albums to its name), Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino never made it to North America. Until now. Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino is having its own revival, with leadership handed down from father Daniele Durante to son Mauro, and a new wave of younger musicians playing and singing traditional tunes and originals rooted in tradition.

It's a very rare treat to have this superb group live in studio to play and sing - in the dialects of Salentino and the rarer Grecanico - and introduce us to the deep musical, cultural and linguistic roots of the region.
-Rob Weisberg / WFMU, Oct 2011

Among the other Globel Fest performers are the afro-columbian group M.A.K.U. Sound System, the jaw harp master Wang Li, the Bedouin-inspired Yemen Blues, Malian rap group SMOD, and the Debo Band (FMA) -- an Ethiopiques-style ensemble who recently signed to Sub Pop and were recently featured on the FMA by LizB. For more Global Fest sounds, check out NPR Music's Global Fest Stream, curated by our own Rob Weisberg!

Entropica's Favorite Live on WFMU Tracks of 2011

2011-12-30T14:57:59-05:00

re-posting this mix from the #bestof2011 collection generated by FMA curators and community members: "Favorite Live at WFMU Tracks 2011" by entropica

Cake & Polka Parade 2011 Jewels

2012-01-04T14:03:25-05:00

Here are my picks of top 2011 FMA tracks, some of which I curated. Like my WFMU podcast, I spotlight odd and avant-garde yet accessible music. This mix features a lot of gems that seem to have slipped through the cracks somehow, judging by their ridiculously low play counts.

U.S. Girls "Island Song" remixed by Peaking Lights, EL-G, Bear Bones Lay Low

2011-12-05T09:22:06-05:00

U.S. Girls on KRAAK is what it says it is: the new album from U.S. Girls, released by the KRAAK label / festival / grassroots org out of Belgium. The occasion of her 3rd LP release is a great moment to reflect on U.S. Girls' radio debut over three years ago on Scott Williams' WFMU program. Megan Remy continues to refine her warped top ten pop vision on on Kraak, including a sinister take on Brandy and Monica's "The Boy Is Mine."

To coincide with the release, KRAAK has unleashed "The Island Song" along with a slew of remixes by the likes of Peaking Lights, él-g, and Bear Bones, Lay Low. There's also a sweet music video (below), and a limited edition 7" from U.S. Girls' new Calico Corp imprint.

Vosotros' Sargent Singles: Inara George

2011-11-21T17:08:15-05:00

What better way to inaugurate Sargent Singles, the free split virtual 7" series from Los Angeles music collective Vosotros (FMA | vosotros.com), than with the silky-voiced jazz of Inara George's "Q." Co-written and produced by Gus Seyffert, the song floats by on tropical nylon guitar chords teetering against menacing lyrics: "I asked you a question...you piece of shit." Inara George has had a string of solo releases in recent years, including a collaboration with Van Dyke Parks, and in 2010, she released a tribute to Hall and Oates on Blue Note with her group The Bird and the Bee.

The Sargent Singles series accounts for six excellent songs to date, and all three volumes are available here or after the jump.

Revolution as a Loop: Sol Rezza's Radio-Arte

2011-11-09T13:03:40-05:00

SPIT is the latest work from Argentinian sound artist Sol Rezza, manipulating sounds sourced from lawn mowers and lakes, crickets and dogs, into strange sonic narratives. Take "Revolution as a Loop" (below), and experience the full 47-minutes here on FMA or at Sol Rezza's Radio-Arte. Be sure to use headphones, because SPIT was designed for not only designed for stereophonic listening, but selected for the first series of concerts in the Turbulence Sound Matrix, Steve Heimbecker's 64-channel surround sound system.

Sol Rezza is also half of Panz4 Troupé, a duo with Mexican multimedia artist Daniel Iván. Here's a video of Matar al Gato 2.2: Ekpyrotica as performed live at Mexico City contemporary art venue Laboratorio Arte Alameda:

The Ekpyrotica series deals with the idea of Ekpyrosis, proposed by the Stoic philosophers. They believed the universe is repeated after every "great year", and that this repetition is preceeded by the universe's destruction via a "conflagration" (read more)

Wild Flag & Zounds Live on Terre T's Cherry Blossom Clinic

2011-11-01T08:07:28-04:00

Terre T hosted on her Cherry Blossom Clinic, 2 live bands: Wild Flag (all female quartet containing members of Sleater-Kinney, Minders and Helium) and UK DIY anarcho punk rockers Zounds! Yowza, now that's a show! I was asked to engineer both, and responded with a HELL YES, and so our work was cut out for us! Check out the archive of the program. Shock and Awetober, indeed!

Wild Flag is still out on tour; they played a scorching set on WFMU, here are some more of their dates that end near their home base of Portland:

Nov 1st - San Diego, CA @ Casbah
Nov 2nd - Los Angeles, CA @ Troubadour
Nov 3rd - Los Angeles, CA @ Troubadour
Nov 4th - San Francisco, CA @ Great American Music Hall
Nov 5th - San Francisco, CA @ Great American Music Hall
Nov 7th - Arcata, CA @ Humboldt State University
Nov 9th - Portland, OR @ Doug Fir
Nov 10th - Portland, OR @ Doug Fir
Nov 11th - Seattle, WA @ Neumo's
Nov 12th - Vancouver, BC @ The Bitmore Cabaret

Zounds just finished a stretch in the US and Steve Lake has gone back to the UK; they have a new record out -The Redemption of Zounds -and a box set of represses of their 7"s. Check their website to purchase. Here's a review of one of their west coast shows: recent Fun Machine/Peer Pressure Guest, Dave Edwardson of Neurosis/Kicker played bass with Steve in the Bay Area.

Mike Doughty's Dubious Luxury

2011-10-26T09:42:04-04:00

Mike Doughty unleashed Dubious Luxury earlier this year as an appetizer to his fourth official solo release, Yes and Also Yes. Dubious Luxury apparently caught a few fans by surprise (judging by the Amazon reviews) with its dearth of vocals from the former Soul Coughing frontman. What we have here is a fluid 18-track cut-up experimental dance party mix that's primarily instrumental, but with sampled vox used to great effect, and a playful invitation to join in on the fun. Along with the release came a new website where Doughty offers up even more instrumental tracks for free personal use, while providing an easy email contact for further licensing. Along the same lines, the Free Music Archive is now proud to welcome Dubious Luxury to the free world under a Creative Commons-Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license so that it may inspire further creativity.

Mike Doughty understands a thing or two about the nature of musical creativity and collaboration in the digital era. He sampled the likes of Raymond Scott back in the Soul Coughing days, and Yes & Also Yes sports collaborations in the standard sense (i.e. the "Holiday" duet w/ Roseanne Cash) as well as some good ol' fashioned musical borrowing. "Na Na Nothing," Doughty touts in the press release, "was partially stolen from a song written by Nikki Sixx, Dan Wilson (wrote 'Closing Time'), and Matt Gerrard (wrote a bunch of tunes in 'High School Musical'). I got their permission to steal it."

Mike Doughty performed "Na Na Nothing" and other new songs off of Yes & Also Yes earlier this fall on Irwin's WFMU program, where he was accompanied by cellist Andrew 'Scrap' Livingston:

Doughty recently started his own label, Snack Bar, in order to have control over his own work. So these are tracks that Mike Doughty wants you to share. If you've ever pirated his music, that may be a different story, but the man himself is not out to sue his fans. Instead, Mike Doughty generously offers "amnesty for filesharers" on his website in the form of donations to Doctors Without Borders, a cause he advocates via his fantastic blog (though much of the conversation's moved on to tumblr and twitter). He's also got some sweet T-Shirt + LP combos of his recent releases available here. Cover art for Mike Doughty's Dubious Luxury by Aleksandra Waliszewska

Radiovision NYC Hack Day Oct 30th: Demo a similarity-based HTML5 Free Music Archive player, powered by The Echo Nest

2011-10-21T08:14:51-04:00

Following up on last week's announcement that The Echo Nest has indexed the Free Music Archive catalog, Mike Adler put together an open source hack to demonstrate one of the myriad possibilities when this most incredible music intelligence platform is applied to the finest collection of free music.

The demo lets you search for any artist in the universe that Echo Nest knows about, and returns similar results from within the Free Music Archive's catalog in an HTML5 audio player. Go ahead and try it out. This is an incredibly powerful music discovery tool, though it's just the start of what we can build together. Sign up for API keys at the FMA and The Echo Nest to begin tinkering with our demo hack.

Next week, we're holding a Hack Day as part of WFMU's Radiovision Festival: Sunday October 30th we will "Re-invent Radio" with The Echo Nest, the Free Music Archive, and Zeega's new HTML5 platform for digital storytellers. There'll be workshops on Musical Timelines, Hacking Physical Spaces, and Multimedia Mash-ups, so plenty of opportunity to participate in the hands-on making of stuff whether or not you've got the proverbial coder's neckbeard. The Radiovision Festival takes place atop WFMU's annual Record Fair at NYC's Metropolitan Pavilion (125 W. 18th St), and Hack Day is free with RecFair admission as long as you reserve a spot in advance.

Matthew Mullane & Homophoni

2011-09-26T16:43:34-04:00

Matthew Mullane is an improvisational guitarist and experimental electronic artist from Ohio who recently stopped by WFMU to play a set for Irene Trudell's show. His live performance and interview with Irene is up on the FMA here.

Recently, he has pointed us in the direction of Homophoni, a Creative Commons netlabel/artproject that pairs electroacoustic improvisational performances with accompanying visual artworks. Matthew has three works on Homophoni, two under his name and a third as Non Group.

The other Homophoni works available on the FMA were a few of Matthew Mullane's favorites, and can all be found at the Homophoni's FMA label page. Artists include Asher Thil-nir; Jason Kahn, and Gabriel Paiuk; Burkhard Beins, Michael Renkel, and Derek Shirley; Steven Flato; Tim Albero, Bonnie Jones, Jesse Kudler, and Howard Stelzer; Kevin Parks, and Joe Foster.

Check out Homophoni's website for a complete list of thier releases (48 and growing!) and more of Matthew Mullane's work here. His debut album is out now on Vin Du Select Qualitite (VDSQ) as part of the label's Solo Acoustic series, also featuring the likes of Thurston Moore, Mark McGuire, Allen Karpinski, Chris Brokaw, and more

Asian Women on the Telephone - Chelsea Grandpa, USA Tour

2011-09-23T16:50:09-04:00

Asian Women on the Telephone? My Lord, what would Yuri Andropov make of this mysterious pseudonym-attired bunch of miscreants? The tracks on this Moscow quintet's Chelsea Grandpa CD-R open up clogged passages in one's 3rd ear by driving a motherfausting caveman club right through it. All the evidence required is on the falsetto-melt of "Scania-Man"/"Commandment 69" and the Flipper meets Can of "High Grade". Recorded live and released without any post-production, the mangled stew seems to emanate from somewhere between a state of visionary mental instability and a healthy sense of the absurd. Just try to get through the damaged guitar/keyboard/drums of "Feeling Round Dance" and the lysergic space portal of "Aspect-Son" without seeing a wood nymph on a tricycle wielding a battle axe. Hopefully this lunatic fringe will invade U.S. shores soon. Judging by AWOTT's video clips, the lo-fi free-psych-noise gurgitation-rock costume-drama is a killer spectacle! Come to think of it, I bet Yuri would be proud. You can download material (several albums worth!) via AWOTT's Free Music Archive profile! [via Daniel Blumin at WFMU's Beware of the Blog]

Asian Women on the Telephone are going to make their USA debut in October, which is very exciting because, as Liz B wrote in her AWOTT feature, "When the band performs live, they dress up like overgrown mutant arthropods" -- seriously, check this out!

Tour dates below are subject to changes and additions, and if you see AWOTT member Nikita (aka Raretist) around the FMA, be sure to say hey

Oct 8 Albany NY @ UAG Gallery w/Spreaders
Oct 9 NYC Brooklyn @ Bruar Falls w/Advaita/Guerilla Toss + 1 more TBA
Oct 11 NYC CAKE SHOP NYC w/Spreaders/Manburger Surgical
Oct 13 San Francisco @ Stud Bar w/California Bleeding/Sutekh Hexen
Oct 14 Portland @ The Know w/Big Black Cloud
Oct 15 Olympia @ TBA w/Broken Water
Oct 16 Seattle @ Josephine w/Perpetual Rituals
Oct 23 LA @ the Smell w/TBA
Oct 27 Oakland @ Mama Buzz w/TBA

Fanny: June & Jean Millington Live at WFMU

2011-08-30T21:16:34-04:00

Believe it or not, in the good-old bad-old days, it was a big deal to be a girl in a rock band. This idea seems a little silly now, when at a concert you're just as likely to see a woman playing a guitar as a man, but it was pretty unusual back in the late 60s and early 70s. Even more unusual were bands made up solely of women. They were out there, but they were barely on the music business radar. Early all-female bands like the Daisy Chain, the Daughters of Eve, Goldie and the Gingerbreads, and the Ace of Cups all did their share to break down some of the entrenched attitude towards women playing rock music. None of these bands, however, was able to make the next step up from small clubs and independent-label singles to the male-dominated world of big tours and major-label records. Only one all-female rock band was able to take the big step that finally leveled the playing field: Fanny.

Helmed by sisters June and Jean Millington, Fanny started out in the mid-60s in Southern California and experienced a lot of the same hostility towards women playing rock that their fellow all-female bands did. But they persevered, and by 1970, their first record came out on Reprise Records. They attracted big-name producers, recorded in world-famous studios, and developed a reputation as a killer live act. Fanny would go on to release four more LPs and a host of singles, two of which were Top 40 hits, and tour the world before calling it a day in 1976. Along the way they made fans of most of the rock royalty of the day, including George Harrison, Harry Nilsson, Todd Rundgren, and David Bowie. They even backed Barbra Streisand during her short-lived rock period of the early 70s.

After Fanny broke up, mostly for the usual reasons that bands break up (different musical directions, changes in lifestyles, record label shuffles), the core of the group, the Millington sisters, occasionally came back together to make music. June Millington became very active in the women's music scene, working with Cris Williamson and making her own solo albums. Now and then, her sister Jean would join her on bass. These occasional reunions were natural enough given their familial ties, but only this year have they combined forces to release a duo album under their own names. It's called Play Like a Girl and it's on their own Fabulous Records label.

June and Jean stopped by the studios of WFMU to play some of the songs from their new album last week and proved that they still have the fire and solid musicianship that made Fanny such an attraction back in the day. With Lee Madeloni on drums, the Millingtons played the kind of confident and seemingly effortless rock and funk you might expect from the sure hands of lifelong musicians. The limos and road crews of the big Fanny tours may be a thing of the past, but the talent that elevated the Millingtons to that level is intact and in effect.

Joining the Millingtons on two songs, and making the idea of playing like a girl literal, is Ari Natoli, one of the young graduates of the Institute of the Musical Arts (IMA), an organization June Millington founded to help girls develop their interest in making music. Who better to teach young women about rock music than the original pioneers of female rock? Check out the IMA here. For more on Fanny, see here. To hear the entire archived show, go here.

Collected Works of Ilya Monosov (LP, book, sound, video)

2011-08-22T13:14:09-04:00

The Collected Works of Ilya Monosov is a new limited-edition boxset from the You Don't Have To Call It Music label consisting of an LP, book, CDr w/ sound-files and video, and a collection of objects. This range of materials should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with Ilya Monosov's myriad musical projects, which themselves take many forms: from Holy Mountain noise/psych-rock duo The Shining Path and improv with Preston Swirnoff (Monosov/Swirnoff) to 'DJ Ilya Monosov' collaborations with hip-hop super group Hedonic Islands and the 'new music' of 21st Century Punks.

Collected Works showcases Monosov's more conceptual intermedia projects, "for fans of Joe Jones, Takehisa Kosugi, John Cage, and Terry Riley" according to the label's description. For example, "One Hour As Music" (an hour-long ResonanceFM performance), "Music for Broken Music Box and Electronic Cricket," "Music For My Empty Room," and "Autonomous Guitar Music for Marc Shulz". While these works make for deep listening experiences on their own, meaning is derived from the environment in which they were created.

The book [.pdf] that accompanies the boxset is titled Performance Things Scores and its snapshots of installations, objects (like the broken music box and sounding record), writings, and scrapbook-style 'scores' provide a more in-depth understanding of Ilya Monosov's broad output. Context is key -- for example, there is an essay accompanying "Solo Cello #1 For Charles Curtis" and while it helps to know that it was composed for the Fluxus 40th Anniversary Exhibit along with a series of photographic sheet music, the music itself is plenty engulfing. Video includes performances with Little Howlin' Wolf, "Silent Music," and the fascinating "Sounding Record" pictured above.

The boxset is limited to 50 copies, with an additional 250 copies of the LP. You Don't Have To Call It Music has generously made the music available for free download along with a PDF of the book. We are proud to mirror a selection of recordings here at the Free Music Archive (below), and a PDF of the book can be viewed here or download courtesy of WFMU.

Blank Generation: Ivan Julian Live on WFMU (mp3s)

2011-08-17T16:47:59-04:00

In the Voidoids, he and Bob Quine comprised what was probably the fiercest guitar duo in punk's infancy. And just last week, Ivan Julian turned in a solid WFMU performance on Terre T's Cherry Blossom Clinic as both he and his band tore through a number of covers and originals from his new alb, The Naked Flame (2:59 Records).

Fans of his work in the Voidoids, Outsets and beyond will be stoked to hear that time hasn't tamed Julian one bit. His guitar's still as sinewy and caustic as it ever was, and his band brings up the rear with some real panache. They pull out a surprising and great cover of the Nuns' "The Beat," not to mention a haunting original, "You Is Dead." Hell, the whole set's rife with those trebly strangulations that Julian harnessed throughout his time in LES's punk and no-wave heydays -- and those that son Austin Julian continues to harness in his own no-wave unit, Sediment Club -- but they sound just as vital as ever. So have a listen, chum. And don't forget to catch one of his upcoming live shows, three of which are with Radio Birdman's Deniz Tek (who'll make his own trip to WFMU's Three Chord Monte on Aug 25th):

August 20 - New York, NY - @ Highline Ballroom w/ APB
August 26 - Brooklyn, NY - @ Bell House w/ Deniz Tek
August 27 - Hoboken, NJ - @ Maxwell's w/ Deniz Tek
August 28 - Philadelphia, PA - @ Kung Fu Necktie w/ Deniz Tek

New Bin Faves: Terrors - Lagan Qord (Weird Forest) [MP3s]

2011-08-16T11:10:03-04:00

Somewhere in the cold grey spaces between Amen Dunes and Kurt Vile live the faraway, mournfully woozy guitar ballads of Terrors, the home-recording project of Elijah Forrest, whoever that is (I'd like to know).

Lagan Qord is a CD & vinyl issue of 2 years' worth of cassette releases. Check his take on "God Bless the Child," which sounds almost like John Cale demoing tracks for Nico's Chelsea Girls sessions.

>> Terrors - Lagan Qord @ Weird Forest

(via Recent New Bin Faves at WFMU's Beware of the Blog, August 2011)

Psychic Paramount live at WFMU (MP3)

2011-08-15T10:12:06-04:00

Hard to believe Psychic Paramount have been around for ten years already, coming up out of the ashes of the late great Laddio Bolocko. Both on record and live, PP swerve between brutality and bliss: layers of textural distorto guitar action and color, throttling, mathy percussive pummel recalling great moments of This Heat gone into total in-the-red Japanese psych mode. Add Robert Fripp-like loops building and dismantling the songs themselves in bulldozer style, and you've got the makings of one killer progressive rock unit. This month's session on my radio show blasted into orbit at the moment of start-up; guitarist Drew St. Ivany matched the propulsive intensity of bassist Ben Armstrong and drummer Jeff Conaway with figures reminiscent of Achim Reichel, heavy repetition segueing into burnt intermission of collapsing rhythms, eerie space and then finally climbing upwards into another frenetic movement to close off the 30 minute set. St. Ivany tweaked the post-session mix, it's a scorcher! Thanks to the band, Mike from No Quarter and Ernie Indridat and Ruaraidh Sanachan for the engineering.

DJ Assault: Live, Sans Jive

2011-08-11T11:59:01-04:00

AKA Craig Diamonds AKA "the king of booty" AKA "the hottest in Detroit dance music," DJ Assault is probably the most reoccurring name in the Booty Bass/GhettoTech pantheon. When people imagine the essence of the genre, many immediately recall the concise, infectious hook from "Ass-n-Titties." When people want to hear the accelerated tempo, gait, and raunchy lyrics associated with the genre, they want to hear Assault. Even if they may not know him by name and their only familiarity with his work stems from the features, snippets and samples laid throughout incalculable DJ mixes, compilations, as well as TV and movies over the past decade and a half, he's the one behind what they want to hear.

When the King of Booty came to WFMU's Marty McSorley show for a live session (and later ice cream), he surprised us with his congenial and fairly reserved demeanor but soon revealed an overpowering love of the production, history, traditions of dance music as he knew and grew up with it. He waxed on about his vintage 303s, and told us about all the Chicago house and Detroit techno DJs he would religiously tape off the radio while growing up in Michigan.

Assault's live set, comprised of all original productions, showed this kind of youthful home-taping enthusiasm still very much alive, as if he knew there was another young DJ Assault-to-be on the other side of the radio wetting his or her pants with the same kind of excitement. His joking "Friday night live, ain't no jive!" is actually a reference to the kind of banter pioneering house DJ Farley "Jackmaster" Funk would pepper throughout his late night radio appearances in the 80s.

This was all on the eve of a massive Santos Party House event featuring fellow Detroit Ghettotech pioneer DJ Godfather, Chicago juke innovator DJ Rashad, Dipset's Araabmuzik, locals Blissed Out and Laurel Halo, and many more.

DJ Assault recently founded his own record label Jefferson Ave, through which he shares a TON of free recordings (as well as rips of some of the original cassette from his favorite 80s radio mixes)-- dig in here: http://www.jeffersonave.com/