Festering deep beneath the underbelly of avant-garde indie
rock at Coachella was the electronic/electro/DJ scene. The
"Dome" was where the electronic music lived (with the exception of
Groove Armada and MSTRKRT) at Coachella 09. The clusterfuck of Coachella's schedule prevented us from spending too much
time at the Dome (with five stages in constant rotation of artists). However,
in the late hours of the night, we found a few moments to dance. Here were some moments.
Flying Lotus. Hailing from
Winnetka, California and armed with Coltrane blood, this DJ/producer had a
small crowd of people fully loosing their minds. Even pretty, blonde, timid
looking, alabaster dolls in purple cardigans and flowing skirts were poppin’
and lockin’ like it was a 1984 Breakin 2 Electric Boogaloo casting call. Check
out the sensual Tea Leaf Dancers.
Kode 9.(Steve Goodman). It's safe to say that every London kid
attending Coachella 09 was present at the Kode 9 set on Saturday night;
rhythmically pumping their fits in the air and kicking out a leg here and
there. The dubstep and Dancehall extraordinaire sounds may have some influence
in today's more mainstream dubstep laced tunes (i.e. Santigold) and has
collaborated with the Bug and Warrior Queen. After the set, into my dreams, and
well into the next day, his track 2 Bad rang pleasantly in my head.
Treasure Fingers. Nothing feeds the soul like disco and some good old fashion house music.
Luckily for the Green Owl team, we got a heaping, soul-warming spoonful of both
on Sunday from Treasure Fingers. The Atlanta native via Brooklyn transplant had
a huge crowd, matched with clips of 80's aerobics classes projected on the
domes octagon shaped walls. Really, what else could you ask for? It was like an
acid trip minus the dangers of turning out like Roky Erickson. You won't get
enough of the synth-pop track Cross the Dance Floor, in 5 remixes.
Festivals have simply grown too big to be "covered." In some ways, that's liberating for a blogger -- the personal experience gets validated because an all-encompassing perspective isn't possible. The blogger then becomes less of a journalist, and more of a poet, stringing together disparate parts to create a nuanced arc, to make the pieces click together so that they add up into something new (that may or may not be emblematic of the event as an objective whole). But this is also the challenge for anyone at Coachella -- how to line up the bands so that you can not only see everything you want to see, but also so that you can be surprised and inspired when acts on different stages seem to be part of the same story.
Well, the night time is the right time and everything at Coachella came together after sun set. On Saturday and Sunday nights in particular, there was a strange grace that washed through the desert grounds. The heat was gone and a cool breeze ushered in the type of magic that we didn't expect.
Saturday night, it started with M.I.A. Like Tinariwen earlier in the day, M.I.A. came out on some wholly other style. She wasn't wearing desert robes, but her dancers were laced with neon -- everything about the show popped in a way that set it apart from the day-to-day rock shows. Fans left wide-eyed -- there was something amazing about her persona, the visual art behind her (and on her) and the wail of sirens coming from all corners of the park. It was a spectacle that propelled us onward to The Dome where we were received heartedly by the biggest, baddest beats being made today. KODE 9 was in full effect and it was the perfect complement to the echoes of London bass in M.I.A.'s sound.
A similar alchemy hit us on Sunday night -- it was the wash of The Cure, Public Enemy (performing It Takes A Nation...) and Treasure Fingers. Sounds weird, right? That's a crazy hyprid, but somehow it worked. It made us realize how important "the festival" is to echoing the listening patterns of people today. A sense of musical focus is gone -- we're in the past on some irony; we're in the future with some house music; and then in between it all, we're wandering through the California desert beside clean energy golf carts and a metal snake that spit fire.
Was Coachella's a perfect line-up or even a near-perfect lineup? No. Disappointments abounded, but between Lykke Li's sugar-sweet swerve and Devendra's pre-show yoga, there were plenty of amazing moments.
This week's Mugshot Monday lands on Chi-town native, Vyle. I met Vyle through Radioclit babydaddy, Johan, with whom Vyle collaborated on the first Hoodtronics mix. We talked via email about music and an old-school video simulator that he used to play in downtown Chi.
How does music relate to activism and the environment? It relates a lot to activism. At a subconscious level especially, a listener can be affected in terms of the way they feel about a particular subject, in the moment or later on in life.
What's one of your favorite spots in Chicago that's memorialized in your music? There used to be a huge mall in downtown Chicago called North Pier that I used to go to in like 94 when i was in 4th grade. It was a weird mall because they didn't really have that many stores, but the design of the mall was so post-modern -- all exposed concrete brick and glass. They had a huge arcade upstairs, but downstairs they had this simulation called Battletech, which is a game where you team up with 3-5 people; it's like laser tag, but you're also playing a simulation video game and you're controlling these robots (kind of like Gundam). I used to go down there all the time and in the same place they had a virtual reality experience machine. I used to just go through those places as a kid, wildin out. That definitely influenced my music and style.
What's the most happenin shit in Chicago? The Cool Kids, Million Dollar Mano, Ozone, Hey Champ, Kidz In The Hall ,Flosstradamus and this one italo-disco group from out here called, Love Concept -- my friends make the best music in the world, in my humble opinion.
What inspires your music besides music? Inside jokes, everyday life, my neighborhood, hotel rooms, traveling, the parties that I preform at and go to, my childhood and clothing and music styles from that era, Michael Jackson, synthesis, my friends, the resurgence of house music in the 90's and how its happening all over again in 2009. I like to think of my music as a personal inside joke/reminiscing session/ look into tomorrow between me and the listener.
What projects do you have in the works? I'm working on another mixtape with DJ RTC from Rubyhornet.com called C/A/C/H/E which will come out in late summer/early fall and an album with production from Discotech and Danger right now, but I'm going to work with a whole host of producers and rappers as well -- gotta keep some stuff secret.
How do you keep innovating? I pride myself on knowing the future (laughs) but seriously, I just trust my instincts.
It was mesmerizing to focus on Coachella as a pure musical phenomenon, but underneath the surface (and actually inter-weaved with the fabric of the festival ) was a penetrating and inviting green strategy. Through a series of exhibitions and events curated by our new friends at Global Inheritance, Coachella encouraged festival-goers to celebrate and perpetuate environmental sustainability.
"People at festivals are here with open-minds," said Matthew Brady, the creative director for Coachella's green campaign. Matthew talked with us about the importance of coupling music festivals with environmentalism and about "re-branding activism." Through a simple activity like the Recycled MIA Paper Plane Shoot Out, Eric and his colleague Matthew Brady (Global Inheritance) made recycling an artful and non-threatening part of Coachella.
The shootout worked like this: people brought recycled paper (or found it on the premises) and turned that paper into airplanes. Each plane was judged on its appearance, take-off style, flight distance and its plane name. The winner of the contest got to watch M.I.A. from the stage as she rocketed out Saturday night.
More soon on clean energy at Coachella. But for now, Esau Mwamwaya's "recycled" paper plane. . .
Summer is rearing it's head here in Southern California. If you were at Coachella this weekend, then you know: it's hot. It's overwhelmingly hot. Mind-numbingly hot. Global-warming deniers got nothing to say on a day like today.
But I'm not complaining (especially not to anybody who's still stuck with winter weather). Heat like this calls for super chill music. Here's an old track from the smooth dancehall singer Pinchers called "Eat Man." To my ears, his patois makes the chorus sound like he's singing "Heat, Man!" Or maybe my mind is melting and I've got weather on the brain.
green chemistry |grēn ˈkeməstrē|: also called sustainable chemistry, is a
chemical philosophy encouraging the design of products and processes
that reduce or eliminate the use and generation of hazardous substances.
Kenan Bell is a So-Cal schoolteacher by day and an eclectic hip-hop artist by night. He's recently released "Good News: The Mix Tape," a remix project that sees him reinventing and rapping over tracks by a diverse crowd including Peter, Bjorn & John, Jose Gonzalez, Duran Duran and Neil Diamond. Kenan explains: "Rap is a fatherless music. So there are no guidelines or blueprints to follow. ’Hip-hop’ is a term developed by Bambaataa, who sampled Kraftwerk, a German techno outfit. So who’s to say what is and isn’t hip-hop? Chic was sampled in ‘Rapper’s Delight.’ Nile Rogers went on to produce Madonna."
This cross-genre pollination is actualized all over the mixtape, but is especially evident on his reworking of "House Jam" by New York experimentalists Gang Gang Dance. The original track is one of my favorite songs of 2008, so it's great to hear a new spin on it.
More on Kenan Bell here. More on Gang Gang Dance here. To The Maxxx is here.
Go here now. I've been hooked on Heavy Industries for a while now, so figured it was time for them to make their way to the GREEN OWL blog. Not really something that needs an intro (or a school of criticism), but hey, it's bound to happen. We caught up with Young-Hae and Marc a few months ago at a net-art conference at Brown University. They were dope; we talked about academia, New Haven libraries and jazz, but at the end of the evening, Marc and Young-Hae (on some post-transparency sh*t) made sure not to let us publish their photos (love it) More "net art" from Heavy Industries here. Wikipedia it up here.
Just arrived in LA for Coachella and feelin that highway breathe. It's all palm trees and tainted skies, but it feels alright in the carpool lane with Ashley, pumping the radio (listenin to Puppy Dog like woahhh punk's alive!) and thinking about what might be next (post-Detroit, post-CO2 sunsets). Here's a tribute from WebUrbanist to the best kinds of cars -- ones that don't exist.
Hey gang! Coming at you from Los Angeles today, where we're being exposed to the life
of orange skin, bad boob jobs and meeting Osama bin Laden's niece, Wafah Dufour. Home girl is pretty smokin. Osama may not like American freedom but he sure doesn't seem to mind hot, sexy freedom. Checks it. Oh, and we didn't actually meet her unless you count the inter-web introducing us. Lies and deciect, George W style.
In honor of the passing of the Jewish holiday of Passover at sundown tonight, I thought I'd share some exciting sounds from The Sway Machinery. A New York collective (supergroup? Jew-pergroup?), The Sway Machinery is lead by Jeremiah Lockwood of Balkan Beat Box, Stuart Bogie and Jordan McLean from the Antibalas horn section, Colin Stetson (Arcade Fire, Tom Waits) holding it down on bass sax and Brian Chase of Yeah Yeah Yeahs on drums.
Colliding the tradional with the non-traditional, Lockwood sings Jewish cantorial lyrics over lush Afro-beat accompaniment, creating some sort of new mystical experience. Bluesy Malian-influenced guitar lines snake around deep horns which blurt out over complex polyrhythms and even if you don't know what Lockwood is singing about, you can't help but be moved by it in some way.
The track is "P'sach Lanu Sha'ar" and if you're not moved by it spiritually, then maybe it'll move your feet.
More on The Sway Machinery here. To The Maxx blog here.
