Sitting on the bench outside diverse works. Smoking a joint. Watching some banners blowing in the wind. About to drink wine and see Han Bennink and Peter Brotzmann again. Theres no humidity whatsoever. Houston feels strange. It looks strange. The sunset fading through the haze and the sky is literally purple like how they say in the rap songs.
Last night they tore the roof off the oversold Victory Grill in Austin. Tonight they upped the ante tenfold and played with more fervor and intense love for the art than I've ever seen either play before in any combination.
Han on the floor with that long 2x4 and a cymbal, Peter in the back, blowing his soul straight into the sky.
Two different worlds, two completely different nights in two completely different cities, and I thank God that I was able to bear witness.
Suffice it to say it went down. I gotta get in the car and drive to Houston for the show tonight, so I'll write more about it later. But yeah man, these dudes are a powerhouse.
Rest in Peace Sean Bell, and to his family, we will keep you in our prayers.
Seriously though, WTF???
From the New York Times: "The detectives were found not guilty on all felony and misdemeanor charges in the November 2006 death of Sean Bell, who died in a hail of 50 police bullets outside a club in Queens."
If the dude wasn't committing a rape or murder at that very moment, then I don't see why he needed to be shot. And I definitely don't see why he had to go down in a hail of 50 bullets????
Come on now man. If I wasn't so fat and lazy I'd start a motherfucking riot in this hoe. Also I'm in Austin. But shit man, shit like this reminds me that I was supposed to be born in Amsterdam. Or Mars. Or not at all. This world makes me cry.
Just need to get up in them Dew Music Studios, and I will, I PROMISE. If it rains in Austin today, it's goin' down. If not, I'm gonna go drink beer in the grass. We shall see.
Do not miss this. Cuz it's goin' down. This is really special to me and I pray we will see each and every one of you out there. Dam and Mohammed Al Farar of PR are available for interviews. If you are a member of the press HOLLER!
Holiday weekends can be exhausting, what with all the family obligations and such. Travelling from house to house cuz the older members of your family want nothing to do with each other, but really want to see your kids... Soooooooo you do what you need to do. And honestly, I don't mind. But this past weekend was a holiday weekend built explicity for ME.
Saturday = Record Store Day
and
Sunday = 420
What a weekend for Daddy. Anyway, where to begin?
Saturday I packed up the girls with the full intention of hitting some record stores in honor of record store day and then seeing Grimy Styles at Reggae Fest and then seeing Prince Paul at Richard Henry's birthday party. Part of that worked out.
We started the day at Backspin Records, Austin's second newest record emporium (newest being Spot's Trailer Records). Backspin is kicking some major ass. Sadly we went pretty early and missed the free beer and Superstar DJ crew. But whatever.
Eva and Elena had a great time.
Lena found that Fox and the Hound Picture Disc she's been digging for for AGES!
Then we headed off to my old place of employment, Music Mania, where we were once again too early cuz DJ Grip and Young Spinna and Lil A had a whole event planeed there for later that day.
Elena loved the cookies, seen here admiring the owner of the store...
Bernard!
Here's DJ Grip, I caught him as he was loading in. He told Eva she had to be in the pic so he could "Get on the blogspot." I think someone should GIVE me and Grip a radio show. Cuz we are both underground soldiers.
As is Young Spinna who had on the truest shirt of the day. I need a 2x asap my lil bro.
Then we went and met up with Sun Jue and her son Ziggy and headed towards Zilker Park/Auditorium Shores for Reggaefest. Why Austin has no real parking lots in that area is beyond me. The Manhattan of the South (which is what I call Austin) needs to work a little harder and faster to contain all these people. This is Texas, parking everywhere else in this state is mad plentiful yo.
Anyway, we were headed to Reggaefest but we stopped off at this fountain so the kids could play. Grimy Styles was going on at 4:30 p.m. so we headed over there at about 4:20 ish (uh huh) and heard them starting up as we walked across the street. We got to the gate and the line was LITERALLY 6,000 people deep. I am not kidding. With three small children and the only band I wanted to see already on stage, we decided to say forget it and go to Waterloo.
With a quick stop into Whole Foods cuz the man Davey D was having lunch so we swang thru and said hello.
At Waterloo I had to wrestle past the legions of Panic at the Disco fans who were there for the autograph session (they were 30 mins late) and I thought back to the day when my dad took me to Texas Tapes and Records (age 10) for a Twisted Sister/Ratt autograph session and well, I pondered the similarites and realized that there were many, only the line at Texas Tapes and Records was more manly and rough and tumble, even if it was mostly 10 year olds, like this one was as well.
Anyway I bought this:
And it's made me laugh more in the past 24 hours than just about anything in the past year. John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats on BLACK SABBATH'S MASTER OF REALITY! If any record deserves a book written about it, it's this.
John Darnielle is one of the greatest American songwriters of our generation and his brain and soul should be regarded as national treasures. That's all I'm gonna say. Go get the book. Oh yeah, one more thing...
I didn't post a track list for the podcast cuz I personally feel as though the beauty of radio is that you don't know what is coming next (for the most part). So I didn't. But I screwed up so much in the studio, that I didn't announce that I played "Heretic Pride," the title track from the Mountain Goats latest opus, and well, whatever, here it is.
Radioclit - Secousse Rootz Underground - Victims of the System Dam - 2 Mali Huriye Bavu Blakes & Terel Shahid - Go Blaze Josh Martinez & Devin the Dude - Storm Comin' Mountain Goats - Heretic Pride PPT - American Weirdo Selda - Yaz Gazeteci Yaz E-40, B-Legit, Laroo - Showin' Out El Remolon - Cumbia Bichera Dokkebi Q - Hardcore Cherry Bonbon Grimy Styles, Chalie Boy, Bavu Blakes - Still Standin' Intro Hezeleo - So Sensitive Ganxsta Nip, K-Rino - The Takeover Question, Gucci Mane - That Boy Bad Kidz in the Hall, Bun B, Talib Kweli - Work to Do Sonidero Nacional, DJ Blass - Sonidero Compay
Then later that night Melissa and I went to Mohawk for Richard Henry's birthday party, with Crew 54 and Prince Paul. DJ P Nyce from Baltimore was spinning for most of the time we were there and he really only played east and wets coast hits from 1993-1995 so we pretty much bounced after a couple beers. No offense, but I just wasn't needing a hip hop history lesson on that particular night.
Then Sunday night I headed back out to Mohawk to check out Collie Budz, Grimy Styles, Zeale 32 and Phranchyze. Show was pretty much off the chain. Zeale and Phranchyze have some serious energy and lyrics for days.
My boy Krisna worked the beats.
Richard Henry was still celebrating his birthday.
Gary Clark Jr. and Friends. Dude is amazing as well. I need to get more on this site up on him man cuz he's a serious shining star in this Austin city town.
Noam Sayin'?
Anyway the crowd was pretty thick and of course, Grimy Styles killed it! (Word to Deborah Sengupta Stith and the Austin American Statesman for putting Matt from Grimy Styles on the front page Sunday!)
Anyway, they killed it.
Matt
Martin
Chris
And I never get any good shots of Jacob, aka Dr. Dubbist, but um, I think I did here.
Collie Budz hit the stage, and honestly, I haven't been listening to much dancehall in the past few years. Not a huge fan, I lean more towards dub and roots, but his show was really good. He has a strong voice and real energy. I was a lil surprised.
Anyway, I cut out like 1:30 a.m. and headed home after taking a leak and this photo. Many messages are contained in this photo...
WHAT A WEEKEND! But for me, this coming weekend promises to be even better. See, I am a lil obsessed with this Dutch drummer named Han Bennink so I'm gonna check him out on Saturday in Austin at the Victory Grill and on Sunday in Houston at Diverseworks with Peter Brotzmann. Two improvisers who wreck fucking shop real talk noam talm bout?
Anyway, I wrote about Han on HoustonSoReal before and posted some pics I took of the Instant Composers Pool when they played Diverseworks a couple years back. I'll have a full report and photos next week. For now check out some of this YouTube footage and get familiar with what you just might see should you heed my advice and come out to one or both of the shows.
Like I said, I'm pretty obssessed. Han Bennink is my favorite musician. No lie.
Peter Brotzmann & Han Bennink (2006) - I bet they are even better now! Ha.
Solo at North Sea Jazz Festival
Solo live in Jimma, Ethiopia
Terrie Ex and Han Bennink Duo
"Solo"
The Ex in Ethipoia 2004
Misha Mengelberg & Han Bennink Duo - Improvisation
Here he plays blocks of cheese. Ah the Dutch!
Part Twee
Here he proves that he is an unparalleled master of rhythm. PEEP THE CLOGS! Ah the Dutch.
ICP Orchestra - 'Criss Cross' (Monk)
Anyway get on his level, I will see you there.
Peter Brötzmann / Han Bennink Duo
Legendary free music duo in a rare Texas appearance.
When: Saturday Apr 26, 2008 at 8:00 PM
Where::
Victory Grill 1104 E. 11th St. Austin, Texas 78702
$15 Advance tickets available now @ End of An Ear and Waterloo Records. $18 @ door
(512) 462-6008 for ticket info -------------------------------------- When: Sunday, April 27, 2008 8 pm
Where: DiverseWorks (map) 1117 E. Freeway, Houston, Texas 77002
Tickets: $13 general admission / $10 for students; everyone under 18 gets in for free
Peter Brotzmann (Germany) - saxophones, clarinets Han Bennink (Holland) - drums, percussion
Quite a rocky start, but straight jams throughout for 76 minutes of realness. We just plugged in and went for it so theres some technical difficulties but by next week we will be pros.
In the first break I put on the wrong pair of headphones and couldn't hear anything and totally fucked it up but it goes up from there.
Also I'm not going to post the playlist. You don't know what yer gonna get when you listen to live radio and I want this to be as much like that as possible.
Weekly at least. Thanks to Rapid Ric!
P.S. Please leave comments on this. I want to know how long it takes you to download. Also I'ma get the RSS Feed thang thang and submit it to itunes, Zune and all that so it should get easier and easier as time goes on. But for now I would REALLY like your comments on how you like the show, what you want to hear, how does the end product sound to you, did it take too long to DL? Should I make it a higher bitrate (or whatever one calls such things)? What shall I do to make this thing something you will want to hear every week? Cuz I'm just not sure. But seriously, your feedback would be much appreciated. 37 of y'all downloaded this since I went to bed last night, please lemme know what you think!
And of course. Bavu Blakes - Extra Plair - This is what I'm jammin'.
You can hear more of what I'm jammin' early Thursday morning and every week from here on out as tomorrow starts the recording of my weekly podcast. Finna put it down again. I miss the radio.
Anyway this weekend marks the first weekend we have in Austin to just sit back and chill, so what are we gonna do? Pack it full of shit to do, yes of course.
Then don't forget May 8th - Austin, TX - The Scoot Inn and May 9th - Houston, TX at Warehouse Live - AustinSurreal & The Houston Palestine Film Fest PRESENT LIVE IN CONCERT
Jackie Salloum, Director of Slingshot Hip Hop, Mohammed, Dam & Chamillionaire at Sundance!
More info, official press release, and flyers coming this week.
Hosted by this dude.
Anyway, more family pics. This past weekend we went to the wedding of one of Melissa's cousins in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. I'ma tell you right now, that's a pretty little village. The air felt like it's supposed to feel. Light and pretty, not all hefty and painful as it can be in the city.
Anyway, we lucked out and the wedding just happened to fall on the same weekend as the 20th Annual Ozark UFO Conference. So of course DJ Eva and I had to check it out.
It really went down. I don't know how many people were actually in attendance but it was a lot. And from the looks of the license plates in the parking lots (No I'm not a government agent) people came from all over the country. Honestly, from what I saw it was mostly people quite a bit older than me. Old schoolers in the UFO Game, as they say.
I learned I have a lot to learn. DJ Eva was quite intrigued by the whole thing, as since she was even younger, aliens have always been a favorite topic of hers. I managed to type a couple things she said into my sidekick throughout the event. The best of which were:
"I think this whole ufo thing is a lie. I think they were just trying to get people to have dinner with them or something."
and later...
"I think this whole ufo thing is just about eating food and talking about aliens."
Yeah but they had a trade show / vendors area. With cool stuff like this.
We didn't stay for the talks, I had a 5 year old with me, and we had a wedding to attend midday. But I may try to go next year and get the full experience. Eureka Springs is a city worth returning to for sure, and like I said, I have a lot to learn if I someday want to live on Mars. And I just might.
Anyways, like I said, I was with DJ Eva, so we took off after about an hour and climbed this thing. (No comments on the photoshop skills or lack thereof please)
Then we went to the wedding. Crazy thing is, I didn't know where it was going to be held, but on the way into town I saw this sign for the "Thorncrown Chapel." I immediately thought to myself, "Thorncrown? That's heavy?" Plus the sign just pointed to what looked like a long road into the woody mountains. So I was just like "Oh man, we are IN the Bible Belt now man." Thorncrown? It just conjured up bad thoughts to me. But then I was informed that the wedding was there and we drove up and MAN ALIVE it's definitely the most beautiful chapel I've ever been in, and the entire atmosphere surrounding it is just magical. I can only imagine what it's like when everything is in bloom. Yep, it's glass. (And yes I slacked on photos inside during the wedding cuz they had enough photographers in there and I didn't want to get in the way. Plus i was just soaking it all up.
