Month: July 2006

Well, the live remote broadcast from our Andaz night at the Fez on KBOO was a super success. We had a packed, raging party. People were coming in all night saying, “I heard this on the radio.” Thank you so much to Chihiro and the KBOO staff and Michael and the Fez staff for making everything work so smoothly. That was fun. I’d like to hear the recording. The one bummer was the fact that it is so hard to use the mic without it feeding back. It sucks. I’d love to get in more crowd interaction but when the high pitch screaming starts from the equipment its time to give it a rest.

I had a good time but I had the typical issues I have at that night which is trying to balance the desires of the different crowds. Things went a little different. Anjali and I played in a slightly different order. That meant that I played an entire hour of Bhangra early on when normally I concentrate on filmi. since Anjali’s sets are so heavily tipped towards the Panjabi crowd. I did get in a solid half hour of filmi in my second set. There is so much coming out these days all geared for the dance floor that no matter what I play there are five times as many songs I don’t have time to play. We had a vocal Panjabi contigent until 3am which meant that for my final set when I normally cruise into classic filmi mode I had to swich it up more. Its hard when a group of people just want to hear fimi, a group of people only want slow-n-low bhangra, and everyone else just wants to dance. Its hard to fit it all in and not seem schizophrenic when Hindi songs are often fast and trancey and many of the most-requested Panjabi songs are about 30 beats a minute slower than the filmi requests. To give you an idea of the polarity of the crowd I will mention that only two CDs had three songs played from them during the night. Kal Ho Naa Ho and Sukshinda Shinda “Collaborations.” Night and fucking day. My moment of greatest failure trying to bridge these two worlds during the night was trying to transition from Jazzy B’s “Soorma” into a filmi set. I chose to go with Jazzy’s recent filmi hit “Chug De Punjabi” as a bridge. Well, that involved going from a slow bhangra song, to a fast filmi-bhangra house track that didn’t work either pace-wise or sensibility-wise. The Panjabis didn’t like it (in fact I had the pleasure of watching a mass exodus of dancers from the stage) and I didn’t get a strong response from the filmi lovers either. Oh well, it can enter my personal gallery of embarrassing DJ moments of failure.

One thing that has to stop is people coming in the DJ booth. Even locked, people manage to get themselves in and it is just not cool. DJs have to work. I’m not busting into people’s offices during the day and getting all up in their faces. Respect the DJ booth. Its not a VIP room and it is not a staging ground for requests.

Thank you to everyone who came out and everyone who tuned into KBOO. Fortunately for all the attendees the air-conditiong was working better than it ever has and no matter how hot and sweaty it got it was nothing like the aquarium people were dancing in in July. See you at the shows, y’all.

IK

I’ve been thinking about one of my past posts a lot lately. The one attempting to castigate “hipsters” for their limited range of musical interest, especially when it comes to international music. There is a lot of dissing of “hipsters” these days, usually by other hipsters. If I’m going to be criticizing hipsters (no doubt seeming to most as one myself) I don’t want to give in to easy stereotypes and inaccurate generalizations. I tried to define the range of hipster interest in international music. Well, hipsters are not a monolithic group. There are certainly various tribes or sub-groupings. To some, the hipsters (characterized by the Fader writers for instance) are interested in just the sort of music I champion (Balkan beats, Baile Funk, Reggaeton, Bhangra). It must look amusing for someone with this take on hipsters to see me claiming that hipsters aren’t in to the type of music with which I am most associated.

I don’t see a lot of evidence of this sort of hipster in Portland. In fact, our crowd bears little resemblence to the large gatherings of hipsters I see at various musical events in Portland. I think that Portland hipsters are much less interested in contemporary international music than writers based in New York. Portland is the whitest city of its size in the United States. This isolation from any kind of racial, ethnic, or cultural diversity plays an insidious role in some people’s music listening. Believe me, I know ultimate hipsters who are way in to a variety of musics from different ages and spaces. However, if you look at the majority purchasing habits of the white Portland hipster tribe you are looking at a mostly white, white indie landscape. Retro in all things. Even what little passes for international music. If it isn’t explicitly retro than it has a strong hipster pedigree or hipster label presence.

Dengue Fever, good stuff, but so imitative of a golden past. M.I.A., hot, but acceptance by a hipster audience was preceded by her involvement with Peaches, Pulp and Elastica veterans, and Diplo. Hipster record stores will often have an African music section which basically consist of a million Fela Kuti albums. Fela’s great but he gained a great deal of musical inspiration from funk while living in the US and his music is certainly not the African music played and danced to by the vast majority of the world’s African diaspora. Antibalas? Possibly the only band from the US playing African music getting any attention and they imitate Fela’s style. You won’t find any of the rest of the world of African music in Portland record stores outside of places like Timbuktunes and Music Millennium. Konono No 1 and other Congotronics bands? Marketed like Sonic Youth and pitched to white boy record store geeks. (Konono No 1 shared a 12″ with Dead C, for fuck’s sake!)

Often times what little contemporary international music released in the US and marketed to a hipster audience will be a once-removed imitation of a cutting-edge style. Edu K? Feigned Baile Funk from a Punk band veteran available and marketed only OUTSIDE of Brazil. Bondo do Role? Another faux-Baile Funk band that imitates the favela music with art school credentials.

What about contemporary international music available in the US that is not aimed at young white hipsters? There are the stodgily prosaic ethnographic and classical recordings. A purists nose-turning which says that a dialogue between nations, especially technologically-debased Western ones, infects the pure traditions. “Pure” traditions that surely involve much historic mixing and blending over hundreds or thousands of years. Naive music ruined by technological elements? What, we will control access to beats and basslines the way we are gatekeepers of nuclear weapons technology? Stay pure, avoid the tempation of the 808 and Fruity Loops? Aid to your country will be limited by your efforts at keeping your musicians from working with synthesizers and drum machines. Equation of primitiveness with purity. Acceptance and use of technology = Western and debased.

Then there is the infinite world of “chill” comps and “lounge” CDs. Anjali and I are so sick of “Asian Chill” and “Asian Lounge.” When some of the most riotous, jump out of your chair music in the world is coming from the Asian diaspora why does every collection of “Asian” music involve a somnolent posture? Why are all the musician and producer names on these CDs European, even if they hide behind a name like “Buddha Channel” or somesuch?

Saw “Harakiri” aka “Seppuku” last night; another film in the NW Film Center’s Samurai series. Once again it starred Tatsuya Nakadai who played a role with a very different tone despite being an equally disillusioned character. He is the man. I feel like he used an octave lower voice for this role compared to “Kill!”. Of course it had to have a tragic ending to get across all its bitter points but I kept hoping for a justice-feuled slicing and dicing of all the bad guys. Despite its slow pace, or perhaps because of it, there is a gripping tension throughout the piece. I guess a movie that begins with a brutal seppuku ceremony featuring a bamboo sword used in the disembowelling is gonna rivet your attention early on.

IK

6/10/06
It was a long, hot summer day and we want to thank DJ Blackmarks and Soulsalaam for taking the stage and performing at Atlas. Thank you also to everyone who came out and poured ritual libations of sweat on to the dancefloor. Soulsalaam is moving to Brazil and we wish him all the best in his new hemisphere.

To check out these artists, follow the links:

DJ Blackmarks

Soulsalaam
Hypnomadic a project with Soulsalaam and Process Rebel

I’m not necessarily talking about music that’s any more than a year or two old, just things that have lain around unappreciated only to become alive with a single airing. Music and books both are merely physical objects until experienced and made alive in the spiritual dimension of the individual (Or until they have channeled new pathways in our neuro-electrical network, if you prefer). When closed between record jackets or dustcovers it is far too easy to dismiss the objects as being nothing other than their physical presence. When experienced and absorbed they become a memory library of different consciousnesses and interactive experiences. This internal library will continue to exist with or without the physical presence of the objects. Music and books both work interactively mentally and emotionally with the individual, but music with a strong beat also works interactively in the physical dimension, moving limbs and centers. Fully interactive. Memory, emotion, mood, sanity, neurons, dendrites, muscles, blood, soul.

I’m not saying that books can’t make you stomp your feet or get up and jump up and down or hit something, but rhythmic music consistenly provokes a much more continuous physical response during the exposure period (regardless of the will or consciousness of the individual). Especially at high volumes. Kevin Shields said it was at 135 decibels that he started seeing dramatic physical responses in his crowd. What a chap.

7/10/06 early

7/8/06

Well, that’s the name of the film anyway. Kill! “is a 1968 film directed by Kihachi Okamoto, written by Akira Murao, Kihachi Okamoto, and Shugoro Yamamoto and starring Tatsuya Nakadai” according to the Wiki. It’s the first film in the NW Film Center’s Samurai series that we’ve been able to make. Quite enjoyable. Taysuya Nakadai is charming and full of underdog appeal. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him before and now I’m very curious about his career. He reminds Anjali of Robert Mitchum but his soulful eyes remind me of Peter Lorre without the creep factor. The film is thoughtful and not at all what you might expect from a movie called “Kill!.”

IK