Month: August 2008

Balkan Beat Box will be playing in Portland at Dante’s on Friday, September 12th.  The last time they were scheduled to play Portland they had to cancel, as they were held up by immigration issues at the Canadian border.     We won’t have to worry about that happening this time, as they are coming up through California, and won’t be crossing any international borders right before their Portland show this time. Anjali and I had the chance to meet Ori Kaplan when we played Mehanata with Joro-Boro last year, but we haven’t seen the band live yet, so we are glad to see they rescheduled a Portland show after their last unfortunate cancellation.

Click here to read DJ Anjali’s online interview with the Willamette Week. She’s not afraid of Anglo-Saxon words either.

Go see Maraca!  Years ago I went to a Portland State University Summer concert event in the South Park blocks featuring the band Maraca from Cuba. Lead flautist Orlando “Maraca” Valle’s group blew my mind.  I have not seen a better Latin band since.  I was so impressed I paid an exorbitant amount to see them play again that evening, at the old Holiday Inn on NE Broadway to a miniscule crowd of a few dozen.  I don’t think the evening show received much of any publicity at all.  The band were still great, but seemingly deflated by the lack of an audience.  While they played in the sun earlier in the day, numerous dancers twirled away under the trees, and that vibe far surpassed the empty American blandness of the Holiday Inn conference room.  Their upcoming show may be at the Roseland Theater, and not an outdoor venue, but it is being highly promoted, and I expect their will be a large crowd of motivated dancers.  I highly recommend this show to any fan of Latin music. You can buy your tickets here.

Enjoy,

IK

Saturday, August 9th, 2008 was a busy day. Anjali, E3 and I were a part of the all-day Playground Fixtures DJ event put on by the Fix and Upper Playground in Irving Park. We had an hour and fifteen minute set to split in the middle of the day. It was quite cloudy, but the rain stayed away, at least while we were in the park. The boys at the Fix are entirely vinyl-centric, so I knew there would be no CD players at this event. Since most of the music in the world has never been pressed on vinyl –only the middle and upper classes could ever afford that luxury– and most countries in the world stopped pressing vinyl entirely in the late eighties, Anjali, E3 and I, by necessity, play a lot of CDs, in order to feature the latest music being produced outside of the United States. Since most DJs who champion vinyl only play American, Western European, and possibly Jamaican music, they have no concept of how xenophobic and classist it is to argue the all-vinyl position. After bemoaning the fact that none of us would be able to play the latest, hottest music we are most excited about, due to the fact that it is not available on vinyl, we started focusing on what we could do with our sizable record collections — which is to play oldies.

Rather than try to unsuccessfully replicate an Atlas set that is only really possible on CD, I started thinking creatively about what I might want to do with my twenty-five minutes on stage. I really wanted to play the Fastbacks’ “In the Summer,” my favorite Summer anthem, and I considered playing a lot of fifteen year-old Portland indie rock as well, as my tribute to old Portland. After I found out a bunch of Desis were planning on attending, I considered doing an all Bollywood oldies set. I spent one feverish night dreaming different versions of the show, awaking at multiple times, obsessed with the upcoming gig, and in the middle of the night I had the revelation to play Charles Mingus’ “II BS” and “Get It On” by Ebony Rhythm Funk Campaign.

For a twenty-five minute slot I picked out two boxes of 7″ records and 120 records or so. Several hundred records too many. I left the 7″s at home, pared down to about 40 records, and managed to leave the house with only ten times as much music as I was going to need for the event. Not bad.

When Anjali and I arrived at the park Saucebox resident Mr. Mumu was performing a great set of Latin electronica, including some cumbia, and the new Buraka Som Sistema 12″, along with a bunch of other Latin tracks that sounded hot, and I will admit to wishing I knew what they were. The man definitely has records. Most Latin music is not pressed on vinyl, but Mumu buys the club tracks with a Latin feel released for the Western European and American DJ market .

I was the first Atlas DJ to take the stage in front of a small crowd of people sitting on chairs and blankets in a semi-circle around the covered DJ setup. Mr. Mumu was kind enough to warn me that the right cue on the mixer was funky, and sure enough, I could barely hear the tracks on the right turntable in my headphones. It was like a whisper, and very difficult to hear what I was doing. I began with “II BS,”(which earned me an instantaneous compliment from DJ Suppoz for playing what is possibly his favorite Charles Mingus song), went into “Get It On,” (Which earned me a compliment from DJ Beyonda for playing funk. She herself had brought two gorgeous vintage 7″ record cases, filled with what I could only assume were fabulous, and fabulously rare funk and soul 7″s), I played Panjabi MC’s “Boliyan” on 12″ vinyl, and then exited the stage to the epic “Pag Ghunghroo Baandh” from the Namak Halal soundtrack. Since the song is ten minutes or so, and I couldn’t wait to leave the stage, and Anjali was standing on stage throughout the duration of the song, many people assumed it was her first song, when it was actually my last. E3 complimented me on that monster, so I guess I pleased some DJs with my set, and DJs were certainly a large part of the crowd, so I apparently I did some things right.

As I wandered into the gathering crowd lounging on blankets in the grass, I discovered that a bunch of our friends had arrived at the park during my set, including a noticeable contingent of Desis, some of whom were happily singing and dancing to “Pag Ghunghroo Baandh.” I made some people happy. I love doing that.

Thank you to everyone who came down to support us during our sets. It made the event infinitely more pleasant to have all your smiling faces there.

After my extra-long final song finished, Anjali began with a Madlib Bollywood-sampling Beat Konducta 7″. She almost brought her own vintage 7″ case as well, but at the last minute decided to bring mostly 12″ records, with some 7″s thrown in. She then played Carl Douglas’ “Kung Fu Fighting.” (I will go out on a limb and suggest that I was the only person who knew that Anjali was playing the song because it is a composition by Biddu, who is responsible for some of the biggest Bollywood and Indi-pop songs of all time. Most people are totally unaware of the connection.) She then mixed into Nazia Hassan’s “Boom Boom” (One of Biddu’s huge soundtrack hits), Alisha’s Hindi “Like a Virgin” cover (While Biddu is responsible for some of Alisha’s biggest albums, this is actually produced by Anu Malik.) and Cornershop’s “Hotrocks.” Unfortunately as “Hotrocks” was playing, the sound totally died. Anjali could hear the record in her headphones, but no sound was coming out of the speakers. E3 was about to take over from Anjali and they both tried to figure out what had gone wrong. Anjali slapped a record on the other turntable that had been working, and it ended up being Ges-E + Social Security ‘Zubeida’ which was not how she had envisioned ending her set. She wanted to play Timbaland & Magoo ‘Cop That Ish (Mentor Remix Feat Juggy D)’ but that song was spinning with no sound coming out on the right turntable. The soundman then appeared to say that the mixer was running too hot, and the soundboard should have been turned up, but this is little consolation to a DJ who has had the sound die on them, since DJs rarely, and in this case certainly didn’t, have access to the soundboard.

E3 switched to the second of two turntable setups, thinking that he could avoid the sound issues that had sabotaged the end of Anjali’s set. Little did he know the awful fate that lay in store for him. The left set of turntables were inclined just enough, due to the slightly sloping hill the DJ booth was set up on, that the counterweights on the tonearms actually slid around on the tonearms, causing Ezra’s records to skip all throughout his set. Since no one in the crowd could have had any idea how badly the equipment was malfunctioning, they might have wrongly assumed that E3 brought a bunch of really scratchy, skipping records to the event. No, he didn’t, and it is a shame that his set was so impacted by the faulty setup. E3 mostly stuck to a Jamaican vibe, but he did slip some vintage French hip-hop into the end of his set.

Since Anjali and I had to leave during Matt Nelkin’s set (he was playing a bunch of dancehall, and dancehall remixes while we were there), I don’t know if any of the other DJs suffered from technical issues during the rest of the event. Matt Nelkin wisely chose to go back to the turntable set up on the right at E3’s advice, rather than risk the sliding counterweights of the left turntable setup.

I had spent the week so obsessed by my twenty-five minute set at Playground Fixtures, that it wasn’t until I got home with a few hours before we were due at Atlas that I was confronted with the result of what I already knew in the back of my head was an ass-backward way to go about things. What should a DJ prepare for more, his regular night that involves playing for two hours in front of hundreds of people dancing, or a twenty-five minute set for a small group of people sitting in a park? Hmmmmm. I found myself with little time to go over my many New York purchases from our last visit, and my music was in such a state of disarray, that I found myself bringing an obscene amount of music, because it takes far less time to throw everything in a bag, than to carefully go through all the music and pare down my selections. In my rushed preparation, I ended up bringing 150 records, three 200+ CD binders, and a suitcase filled with CDs. For an hour and fifty minutes worth of performing time. Talk about overkill. Since one of my standard Atlas complaints is that I take way too much music, and I drown in the selection, stymied at playing with a clear direction, I knew I was really setting myself up for a confused evening. As it was, getting home from one gig to prepare for another, we got to Holocene later than we ever have to set up . . .

8/8/08

I couldn’t find my journal with notes on our New York trip when I was writing the last blog post and I wondered what I was forgetting to put in my account. How about the fact that we opened for the world’s greatest Serbian brass band? Funny I would forget to mention that. Joro-Boro was kind enough to think of us when he got the gig to DJ the after-party for the Boban i Marko Markovic Orkestar at Drom, and he invited us to DJ the proceedings as well. The initial plan was that the Orkestar would play from 9pm-11pm, and then we three would take turns DJing for the rest of the night. We were eating at Kenka on St. Mark’s Place before the gig when Joro informed us that the Orkestar was held up in Toronto where they had played a gig, and that we should arrive at Drom at 8:30pm to play until the Orkestar would arrive, which they were hoping would be around 10:30pm.

Great news! I was paranoid about playing for a hardcore Balkan crowd, which I don’t have a lot of experience with, and despite my numerous Balkan and gypsy albums, I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to give them exactly what they wanted. I don’t have turbo-folk, or chalga, or other hard to find Balkan musics, and I didn’t want to piss the crowd off. Since we were scheduled to play AFTER the Orkestar, I was afraid I would not be able to entice the crowd into staying after the headliner was done, and I figured the club would be none too pleased with that, and I was trying to make a good impression, as Drom seemed like a good place for Anjali and I to play in NYC in the future. Now that we had to OPEN instead of play the after-party I was greatly relieved, as I figured: a) There wouldn’t be that many people early on, so I probably wouldn’t have to play to a dance floor, or a large demanding crowd. b) I wouldn’t have to worry about clearing the crowd, because no one was going to leave as they waited for the Orkestar.

When we got to the club, I volunteered to play the first set after Joro had warmed up the system with a few tracks, including a Funk Carioca remix of a Balkan Beat Box track. Since the night was a Balkan one, and the club is Turkish, I planned to stick to those themes almost entirely, although I made sure to play a few appropriate Telugu soundtrack songs that are really floating my boat these days. There was hardly anyone there the whole time I played, which was just fine with me. No pressure and no stress. Just call me the performer who doesn’t like to perform.

Anjali and I agreed that Joro-Boro should play the best slot to the most people, since it was his gig that he was kind enough to have us join him for, and no one is better equipped to deal with a hardcore Balkan crowd than Joro. While Anjali played her second song, “Reggada” by Outlandish, a waitress came up and told her that the crowd was asking for gypsy brass music. This really frustrated her, as she felt like she was going to leave those sounds for the expert, and she was going to do something different for her set. There was hardly anyone at the club, and it was a lounge-y and not dance-y vibe, and she felt free to do her own thing regardless, which ended up being a mostly Panjabi set.

I learned from Joro that most of the 160 ticket holders to the event were asking for refunds of the $25 fee, since they didn’t want to wait around for the Orkestar to finally arrive. I also learned that it was a torrential downpour outside the club, and that wasn’t exactly encouraging any patrons either. Joro went on after Anjali, and he played a brilliant set, despite having to deal with numrous requests to play Boban Markovic songs, which he explained to the clueless requesters he would not do, as the Orkestar themselves would shortly be arriving to play those songs. Later he said he felt pressured by the crowd to play it straight, as they only wanted gypsy brass music, but I felt like his set was typically inspired. I only recognized a few tracks, and he played songs that sounded like Balkan reggaeton, and Balkan drum’n’bass that had me highly curious.

The Orkestar didn’t arrive at the club until after midnight, and didn’t go on until around 12:45am. A far cry from the scheduled 9pm start time, but a miracle nonetheless, as we feared they would get held up in customs and immigration. The Orkestar was ten strong, eight brass players, a drummer, and a percussionist. They had an incredibly loud sound. As I listened to their CDs getting ready for the gig, I knew their live energy would put their recordinss to shame, but I couldn’t imagine the order of magnitude of difference. They were electric. They performed by far the best version of Hava Nagila I have ever heard, with an insanely fast and funky rhythm change-up. Boban dropped the horn after a few numbers, and mainly sang, in an incredibly full and powerful voice, for the rest of the night. Despite how many people had asked for refunds, there were still enough people at Drom to mostly fill the dance floor, and with all the singing and dancing and yelling and carrying-on, a great time was had by all. I was incredibly impressed, and glad that we did not have to go on after them, because they are not an act to follow. Highly recommended.

Many thanks to Joro-Boro for inviting us to be a part of this incredible evening of music.

IK

8/1/08

While I am always aware of how much I blow off while I am in NYC, either because of conflicting events, or simply a lack of energy or motivation, I did manage to check out a few things while I was there. Saturday Anjali, JD and I went to Prospect Park in Brooklyn to watch Bruce Lee’s Enter the Dragon with a new live score performed by Karsh Kale and MIDIval Punditz. We missed the first minutes of the movie, and there were so many thousands of people at the park to see the movie that we had to find a spot way in the back with a tree blocking part of the screen. As much as I am an enormous fan of Hong Kong martial arts films, I have only seen Enter the Dragon once before, and I don’t remember the original Lalo Schifrin score well enough to compare the original versus this new live Indian tabla and electronics version. The crowd was very demonstrative throughout the movie, huge sections roaring at different scenes, and the new soundtrack credits got a huge cheer at the end of the movie, so I’d say the project was a huge success. Although there were Desis throughout the crowd, I doubt Karsh Kale and MIDIval Punditz were familiar names to most of the crowd before the screening.

After eating at a Thai restaurant called Beet in the neighborhood (I really enjoyed the Khao Soi.), Anjali and I headed down to SOB’s to catch the Argentinian cumbia Zizek tour. I should point out that the only reason Anjali and I had any idea this show was happening was because Uproot Andy (who I met at the show) had put flyers out at Turntable Lab where we had been shopping earlier in the day. None of the NYC entertainment publications mentioned the show at all. I assumed that we were going to totally miss the tour, as the Zizek boys were playing Portland while we were in NYC, and I was unaware of a New York date while we were there.

They were scheduled to start at midnight after the regular Saturday Brazilian show at SOB’s. When we arrived at 12:45am, the DJ for the Brazilian event was still playing Batucada and other Brazilian sounds for the people who were there for the early event. The crowd was very thin, and they mostly appeared to be hold-overs from the Brazilian event. No real Latino presence, and no vibe that I was in a room full of cumbia fans at all. I feel like it was after 1am before the Zizek DJ setup was complete, and one of the DJs began playing a very slow, minimal cumbia beat. The crowd had been dancing to really fast, dense batucada percussion tracks, and there was a grinding gear shift as the Zizek crew began. It took a while for the crowd to find the groove, and it seemed to be a new one for most of them. There were two DJs who performed, and their tracks were very minimal, with only a hint of cumbia flavor in a sparse electronic rhythm. The Argentinian rap group Fauna then hit the stage, and their hype, rockish vibe really seemed to clash with the sexy people vibe in effect on the floor. I think they are talented, but they needed to be performing at an outdoor Summer concert to a mosh pit of young males, and not the crowd that was in attendance that night. During their set Anjali spied Maga Bo in the crowd, and he then introduced us to Geko Jones and Uproot Andy, both of whom I plied for any new info I might glean on scouring NYC for obscure international dance music. It turns out that Uproot Andy has taken over weekend DJ duties at Mehanata, after Joro finally decided he had had enough of the place.

The DJ who backed up Fauna played for a while after they left the stage, and then Uproot Andy took over at 3am. He leaped into a blindingly fast set that was radically different than the minimal electronic cumbia that had been playing before. Even though it was 3am, and Andy began with such a radically different sound and tempo, the crowd exploded with energy, and I could only guess that Andy knew the crowd, since they responded so enthusiastically. Other than a kuduro track, I had a hard time even guessing the genres of the hyper-speed tracks he threw down. Anjali and I left exhausted at 3:15am while Uproot Andy was still adeptly working the crowd.

Sunday Anjali and I went to see Santogold, Diplo and A-Trak at SummerStage in Central Park. The line to get in was probably not even a mile long, but it was quite an epic walk to the end of the queue. Apparently we were not the only ones who were impressed by the length, because as we waited a half hour or more to get in, we watched several people walking the length of the line and filming as they went. Here’s one video I found online:

http://www.vimeo.com/1383313

Can you spot DJ Anjali and The Incredible Kid in the line? The crowd to get in was highly diverse, and there was a real gathering of the tribes feel to all the different people who were hoping to get into this show.

We were still quite a ways from the entrance to the concert area, when several staff members walked by us explaining that the line was too long, and none of us were likely to get in. People didn’t seemed fazed and kept waiting, including us. The DJ music we could hear from off in the distance was comprised of Baltimore club tracks, and even a bassline song. Hearing these sounds was getting us hyped and anxious to get in.

We did make it in, and the line was held immediately behind us. Eventually more people were let in, but as we walked to the stage area, we turned back and realized that we were the last people let in at that time, and felt very relieved that we had managed to make it in. The place was full of all types of youngsters, and A-Trak was onstage playing quick clips of hip-hop standards. Yawn. Far less interesting than what we were hearing as we approached. A-Trak didn’t do anything to interest us much during his set, and Diplo did no better. The only brief moment of interest was his opening track, a fast drumbeat with a looped middle-eastern sounding horn over the top. It got me hopeful for some interesting international flavor, but it was a false alarm. Just club music, and none too interesting club music at that.

People were lethargic and disinterested during the DJ sets for the most part. Yes, it was hot, but people were waiting for Santogold. And when she came out, the crowd was hyped. She had a backing DJ, but said that on her next tour she was going to have a full band, which I think will suit her songs and energy far more. She had every color of kid singing along, and I was amazed at how she has captured the hearts of such a wide range of people. She only performed for about a half hour, and then it was time to herd out.

That was the last time Anjali and I made it out. I’m sure there were tons of cool things going on every night, In fact on our last night KRS-One was giving a free show in the amphitheatre featured in Wildstyle while at the same time a gaggle of original hip-hop DJs were playing a free park concert up in the Bronx. Meanwhile Anjali and I were out in Crown Heights Brooklyn scouring soca and dancehall shops for chutney soca, only to learn that we should have been out in Jamaica, Queens for that particular search, which we knew already, but I thought we would turn up some in Crown Heights anyway. And we did, but not much. Our best find was an instrumental chutney soca CD that had some incredibly sick and unique polyrhythmic beats that floored both Anjali and I.

I had been in correspondence with Carolina Gonzalez, hoping to find new sources of Latin music in NYC, especially underground merengue de la calle (mambo) and underground reggaeton mixtapes. She recommended a corner in Bushwick, where I managed to find some of both, but even after walking away with some big stacks of music, I still feel like I barely scratched the surface of what I think is out there.

Of course no trip to New York is complete without a stop (or several) in Jackson Heights, but the music shops are mostly closed up these days. Jackson Heights used to have music shops all up and down 74th St., and along all the side streets as well. Most of these have closed down over the years, leaving only four main music shops along 74th St. On my first trip in a year I learned that two of those stores have closed down, leaving a final two. The downloaders have won. The community music shop is dying. The end of an era. Since most of the CDs in Jackson Heights (originals and not just the bootlegs) are five dollars, people really must not want to buy music if they are unwilling to pay even that much for a CD. I only walked away with fifty dollars worth of music, which is a tenth of my usual haul. It was an absolutely unique visit in that respect.

Since Anjali and I will be leaving for India for several months at the end of the year, the NYC trip had a real bittersweet feel. Not sure when I will be back, and since so much of the music I desire is not available online (outside of illegal downloads on sketchy sites), and only available in the States at ethnic community music stores in NYC (And depending on the community, some other large metropolises, but in terms of the music I am after, it is hard to beat New York.), there was a real feeling of loss, wondering when I will next be able to feed my very specific musical hungers.

IK