THE HISTORY OF ICE

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I’ve been in the game a minute, and if there’s one thing that great bands do, it is cultivate a community. Not fans or “friends”, or “followers” –  I mean something much more basic, humane; the point of a stage is not to climb up & grin in the spotlight but use it to communicate (and create) us, our little vulnerable selves and the power that happens when we gather, talk, dance, build. How else we gonna survive? Godspeed You! Black Emperor is a very good case in point.

Bands are social microcosms, little mobile ways of being — if it’s just turning up to 11 and getting wasted on beer each night, you may as well be writing the history of ice.

Find us playing this weekend. Many friends gathering.

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TEMPORARY CURATORS: SLEAZY + BEYOND

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“We are all only temporary curators of our present bodies, which will all decay, sooner or later. In a hundred years or so all the humans currently alive will have died. I take great comfort in knowing, with certainty, that thing that makes us special, able to enrich our own lives and those of others, will not cease when our bodies do but will be just starting a new (and hopefully even better) adventure … ” –  Peter ‘Sleazy’ Christopherson

RIP Sleazy.

Coil was great. I can’t really explain it here. Just returned to NYC after a productive absence but today is one of those “days” where I’m “home” for less than 24 hours. His post–  post–  Throbbing Gristle project X-TG was slated to play at the GY!BE ATP this weekend, we were looking forward to that…

although his work that really opened my young self up was Coil.

Red Slur is the first Coil song I ever heard. Sometime in high school, these 3 minutes made an indelible impression. It remains one of my favorite songs.

[audio:http://nyc.duttyartz.com/mp3s/Coil-RedSlur.mp3]

Coil – Red Slur (from Gold Is The Metal With The Broadest Shoulders)

I loved that they could be honestly, truly creepy…

[audio:http://nyc.duttyartz.com/mp3s/Coil-TheFirstFiveMinutesAfterDeath.mp3]

Coil – The First Five Minutes After Death (from Horse Rotorvator)

…and then go “pop.”

[audio:http://nyc.duttyartz.com/mp3s/Coil-TheSnow.mp3]

Coil – The Snow (from Love’s Secret Domain)

AMERIKAN POETRY IN 2 PARTS

1.

Developed Nation by Joyelle McSweeney

Is this how a god returns from victory?

This is america. The boy soprano
into the doughnut-world.
Fresh from the fish-mold.
Clattering out across the snow
to buy a paperknife,
clutching a flier…

A test in harmonies.
Here comes the perfect pitch-
it’s white, it falls to the glove,
showing its stitches. Here comes
the hot-front, stitched with flags

O beautiful he produceth
language from everyplace
on his body, the room
where the heatcloud lifts to the ceiling…

the subcommander crouched in the stalkbed breathing
into his lily-season

2.

Hard Times by Baby Huey

CULTURE MUSICAL CLUB

is the name of a gorgeous, long-running group from Zanzibar. Twinned accordions, khanoun, oud, violins, dapper clothes…

Here’s a nice quote on that complicated kultur dance: the tourist stampede

“Their CD-releases have made the name Culture Musical Club known to audiences throughout the world, so much so that rehearsals in their clubhouse have become somewhat of a tourist attraction.

This, however, does not interfere with the first and foremost aim of their social gathering – namely to enjoy music and ‘to be moved’ by it, as the original meaning of the word “taarab” implies.”

a track from Culture Musical Club‘s latest CD kicks off last night’s radio show, now streamable:

 

Subscribe to the Mudd Up! podcast if you prefer downloadable versions, issued a week after FM broadcast: , Mudd Up! RSS. Also useful: WFMU’s free iPhone app. Got a LOT of positive feedback from the show with Das Racist a few weeks back. A very lively hour, that one.

 

tracklist

Continue reading CULTURE MUSICAL CLUB

NORTHERN WEEKENDER: TORONTO, BUFFALO

Headin’ north this weekend… Toronto on Friday, Buffalo on Saturday.

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The Toronto event forms part of the Music Gallery’s “Transforming The Network” series. We begin with a panel discussion on World Music 2.0 at 7pm. Details. A few hours after that the music kicks off. 

Then on Saturday, I’ll be DJing a party in Buffalo with Brainfeeder artist Alex B @ Soundlab. I’ve never been to Buffalo! Come on through and say what’s up.

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RADIO TONITE + JULIANNE SHEPHERD & DAPWELL LOOKBACK

It’s Monday and Monday means Mudd.

On tonight’s radio show: brand new material from Paddy Johnson/Art Fag City’s battle DJ inspired LP (one side features sound from Manhattan art projects, the other, Brooklyn), BananaClipz exclusives, a few vintage Khaled jams, and –  as always –  more more more.

Mudd Up! with DJ Rupture – WFMU 91.1fm wfmu.org Monday nights 7–8pm EST

And last week’s show with Julianne Escobedo Shepherd and Das Racists’ Dapwell is now streaming:

 

tracklist:

Continue reading RADIO TONITE + JULIANNE SHEPHERD & DAPWELL LOOKBACK

DJ RUPTURE – BBC 6 MIX – Nov 2010

originally posted at Dutty Artz

[DJ Rupture in Knoxville Tennessee, presumably photographed by Cooper Neill]

Wanna hear what some of the jams from New York Tropical sound like in an active setting?

Here’s a radio rip of quick mix I did for the BBC which aired on Tom Ravenscroft’s show a few weeks back. 20 minutes of Rut-pure. The weird bit in the middle (when the beat vanishes and we’re left with Moroccan violin + a ripe synthesizer) is an outtake from my upcoming Nettle album, El Resplandor: The Shining In Dubai… more on THAT in a bit. But first, THIS:

[audio:http://www.duttyartz.com/podpress_trac/web/6970/0/DJ_Rupture-BBC6mix-TomRavenscroft-Nov2010.mp3]
DJ Rupture – BBC 6 mix November 2010

DJ RUPTURE BBC 6 MIX TRACKLIST
Kelly Rowland — Like This (/rupture’s 33/45 mix)
Gucci Mane — She Geeked
Timeblind — Ontological Ground of Being (SOOT)
Gil Scott-Heron — New York Is Killing Me
King Abid — Yezz mel Viss
DJ Orion — The Undertow (DUTTY ARTZ)
Toy Selectah — Compay
? – Push: instrumental
Nettle — Assaiya Violin Shining (SOOT)
Rita Indiana — Los Poderes – Kingdom remix (DUTTY ARTZ)
Los Vlamers — Cumbia del Monte: Marquillos rebajada
DJ Rupture, Matt Shadetek, and Chief Boima — Elegy for Mr Peach: Rupture mix (DUTTY ARTZ)

DJ SCREW’S SWAMP GOSPEL

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My latest essay, on the slowed-down tempos of screw + its influence on contemporary bands, has been published in this month’s Frieze and is available online. It begins with DJ Screw and ends with interview observations from Romanian programmer Paul Nasca, responsible for the Bieber stretch algorithm.

Ten years ago this month, one of the great, lazy American geniuses died, at the age of 29, from drinking too much cough syrup. His name was Robert Earl Davis Jr., and I believe he stole the technique that made him famous from the Mexicans. . .

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CUMBIA MONTERREY: THE BLACK MAN PLAYS HIS DRUM

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I am up to my ears in non-blog writing, which means that I haven’t had time to feed the internet with my buzzing thoughts on cumbia; nueva cumbia; Lacanian cumbia trolls; why nobody talks about Super Grupo Colombia even when they come to play a heavily promoted New York City show; the subgenres I keep noticing –  like ‘songs about being drunk in the morning’ and ‘songs about cumbia reaching cities like Philadelphia and Miami’; and much much more. For cumbia is nothing if not generous.

I have a folder containing tribal guarachero tunes that sample Hossam Ramzy and I have another one with the tribal remix + cumbia original done up as nice little pairs, and I will share these things, but before we get to that, we need to do our homework.

CUMBIA EN MONTERREY.   

This 2002 article, Cumbia Sobre El Rio: Celso Piña exports Monterrey’s new Cumbia Dub , goes deep. Required reading.

Here’s a high quality gift — a ‘Monterrey cumbia’ with a guy singing in English about the black man playing his drum. Songs like this were made for me. “The black man plays his drum and the women begin to shout / I want to dance la cumbia de Monterrey”

[audio:14 Parranderos – Cumbia Monterrey.mp3]

Parranderos – Cumbia Monterrey

Los Reyes Vallenatos run things in Monterrey. This band played at the ArcoIris tribal party I covered in the Fader article (Erick Rincon pointed out that most of the bandmembers were in their teens!). Pablo Lescano and Damas Gratis have recorded with them as well. This cumbia gets a lot creepier if you live, like I do, a few blocks away from bars where these dollar dances happen.  

[audio:https://negrophonic.com/mp3/Los%20Reyes%20Vallenatos%20-%20%20La%20Cosita.%20www.negrophonic.com.mp3]

Los Reyes Vallenatos – La Cosita

and the man himself, Celso Piña — given the slo-mo scraper remix, sonidero melt, CUMBIA POWER. Can’t turn it off!

[audio:19 Celso Pina – rebajda Con Huaracha – Cumbia Poder.mp3]

Celso Pina – Cumbia Poder (rebajada con guaracha)

GY!BE ATP: NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS

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Montreal’s Godspeed You! Black Emperor is back. And they’re kicking things off by curating the December 3–5 UK edition of All Tomorrow’s Parties. I’ll be DJing there, along with Parasite, Shitmat, and Awesome Tapes From Africa. Brooklyn, Bristol, Brighton, Brooklyn. Along with us DJs they invited many bands. The lineup is exciting. Not to mention heavy. 

In addition to visiting friends I haven’t seen in awhile, I’m looking forward — with equal parts anticipation and dread — to the singularly British ‘holiday centre’ experience. Which eloquent friend Joe Ruckus described to me as:

“1950s ‘holiday camps’ – a bit like army barracks on otherwise non-touristic seaside towns, they’re concrete townships of small chalets for self-contained entertainment… Call it a holiday – many do, unmasochistically at that.”

The GY!BE ATP is already super sold out, but they seem to periodically release small batches of tickets for sale.