News
16Jun2010
Sonar is Coming to Chicago. This is Not Necessarily a Good Thing
I'm supposed to be posting a mix right now, but I'm still reeling from this news.
Mark Caro, reporter for the Tribune, broke the story today that Sonar, the electronic music festival in Barcelona, Spain, will be "setting up shop in Chicago Sept 9 through 11":
"There's really no proper electronic music festival in Chicago," said Keigher (from the City of Chicago's Dept of Cultural Affairs - Ed.), who helped coordinate the house-oriented deejay series at Chicago's SummerDance festival in the mid-2000s. "(Sonar) is kind of the brand name of electronic music festivals in Europe. I'm not sure the first year out of the box it's going to be the big destination festival, but we're hoping so. We're now really just getting this moving and getting things locked in."
That first sentence, my friends, is what you call a slap in the face. What you're reading now is what you call a slap back.
Let's get to the real point here: bringing an event like Sonar to Chicago is like opening a Red Lobster in Cape Cod. It's a tacky and cheesy waste of city resources when there's a vibrant music scene right here suffering from complete and utter official neglect.
The powers that be in Chicago have never cared much for House Music. If you look at what they trumpet in glossy pamphlets about Chicago's musical legacy, they'll mention the Blues, Jazz, even folk, but never House Music. They didn't care when it was the biggest thing under the sun and they'd be floored if they realized the influence Chicago producers and DJs have on the world today.
There are a great number of outstanding summer festivals with House Music represented. Let's start with the biggest: The Chosen Few Picnic. This event is privately funded and existed for 19 years by passing the hat. If you're worried about credibility: the founder of the Chosen Few, Wayne Williams, is merely moonlighting from his day job as the Senior Vice President for A&R at Jive Records - a gig he's held for more than 20 years. Alan King is one of Barack Obama's basketball buddies. You can't get more plugged in than that.
Another example? The Silver Room Block Party. I'm not sure of the inspiration for the event but it is an undeniable fact that without Eric Williams, owner of the Silver Room, this thing would never happen.
Should the city get behind a music festival in Chicago - the birthplace of House - that's merely a franchise of a European festival that barely features House Music at all? Is this really what we're all about?
These events are already great: imagine what they could be if the City of Chicago would help out to make them even better. People already travel from around the country and around the world to attend the Picnic - yet the city seems completely oblivious to it. It's never listed in any of the city-promoted summer event guides and frankly the whole thing - thousands of folks listening to loud music on the Southside of Chicago - seems to scare them.
And now we get to the real meat. Here is the listing of DJs and live acts featured at Sonar. Do you notice anything about them? Is there anything in those wacky photos of artists that seems odd to you (aside from Ritchie Hawtin's famously dramatic hair)?
Sonar is overwhelmingly white. Chicago's House Music producers - newsflash - are not. The Picnic is an afterthought to the city because it's on the Southside of Chicago, and it's overwhelmingly black.
Herein lies is the key to understanding this, the whole thing - why the city would pour resources into a festival such as Sonar; why House Music has always been a red-headed stepchild; why all of the suggested venues for this are on the Northside - perhaps even why SummerDance, one of the most successful city music programs ever, was shuttled around and then shoved aside, despite incredible attendance.
In Chicago - one of the most segregated cities in the nation - it's always on the tip of your tongue. And I don't particularly care about offending anyone, because it's true. There's no other explanation as to why the city finds no "proper electronic music festival in Chicago". The Picnic, the Block Party, House of Sol - they're electronic enough, but they ain't "proper" enough because they're not white enough.
And remember: before House Music was "a black thing", it was a "gay thing". But hey, the city does all this nice pride stuff and acknowledges their right to exist. Why cater anything to them? Don't we already let them have a parade?
Before the backlash-to-the-backlash starts, let's address a few things right away.
It's Better Than Nothing: Any music festival is a fine thing. More music is a fine thing. But after 30 years of this, I'm gettin' pretty sick of being constantly shoved into the back room and told that maybe if we cater to what upper- and middle-class hetero whites want - in this case, maybe if we cater to what a few hundred tourists want - well, we can slip some House Music to them on the downlow.
It hasn't worked the first 50 times we tried it, it isn't going to work this time, either.
I understand that these are "different markets". I have no qualm - and even like - much of the music that makes up the Sonar experience. But it makes no sense to franchise the rights to a festival out to Europe when we've got all this happening right here - with no help from the city. And whether it's polite to say it or not, a lot of the reasons the city is coveting that "different market" and neglecting the one it already has comes down to the fact that one "market" looks different than the other.
But We'll All Get Rich When They Buy $7 Bottles of Water: The city of Chicago isn't some hick town that relies on tourist dollars to balance the books. Every weekend, every year, there's some sort of convention or event that people come here for. The effect on the economy of a few hundred people traveling to a city of 3 million people is negligible.
But Think of All Those Great Acts the City's Money Can Buy: This is the real point: Chicago is known around the world for a style of music, and it isn't avant-garde electronica. Nor is it the style of music popularized by the DJ Rikki von Douches of the world. From the Tribune:
Keigher, who traveled to the Sonar festival in 2008, said "offers are out" to some acts to perform in Chicago. "We'll see if we can actually lock in some of these great groups," he said.
I'm going to make the conservative estimate that from the late 1970s to today, several million people on this planet have danced on Frankie Knuckles' floor. Guess what? He lives here. Bad Boy Bill lives here. Farley Jackmaster Funk lives here. Green Velvet lives here. Ralphi Rosario lives here. I can't throw a rock without hitting someone that not only makes 10 stacks playing overseas, but commands massive respect for the influence they've had on electronic music. Worldwide.
The sound of Chicago is the sound of House. That doesn't mean that that's all that we do here, but it's a big part of it. It'd be nice if the City of Chicago would notice once in awhile.
Discuss this on our Facebook page.
15Jun2010
Disco Makes You Blind, Deaf and Ugly
Won't someone please think of the children?
This is a 100% authentic story I found in Billboard from 1979 while doing research tonight, warning of the harmful health effects of disco. Lasers cause blindness! Speakers make you deaf! Cocaine rots your nose! And worst of all, platform shoes and stilettos will break your feets!
Discuss this on our Facebook page.
11Jun2010
Latest Chosen Few Picnic Info
The latest news for this year's Chosen Few Picnic - this is the largest House Music gathering in North America, with somewhere around 20k people in attendance last year - is that the organizers are partnering with Jam Productions to help with the logistical nightmare that the event has become. What started 20 years ago as a party in a chilly wintertime loft has evolved into something that people travel from as far away from Europe for.
Lotsa rumors going around and people ask us quite often what the story is so here is the latest verified information:
- Date and Location: This year's picnic is July 10, 2010 at the same spot as last year: 63rd and Hayes Drive, 8am to 9pm.
- Partners: On Thursday, the Chosen Few announced that they've retained the services of Jam Productions to help with "logistics, ticketing and overall production". Which leads naturally to the burning questions, such as:
- Tickets: There will be an admission fee this year (the previous 19 events have been free). It'll cost $5 before noon, $10 after 12pm, and free all day for children under 12.
- Vendor Fees: Apparently one of Jam Productions' gigs will be to organize vendors. Vendors must contact Bob Sunderland at Jam Production (bobs@jamusa.com or (312) 440-9191), and you must be on the approved list beforehand to sell your stuff at the picnic.
- Parking and Tent Space: This is a big one. The Chosen Few have listed 3 "packages" for VIP parking and tent space (or some mix thereof). If you go to their site and click on "Links" (I can't give you a direct link since it's in Flash), you'll see 3 packages. The following are direct links to each of them.
- "VIP" Tent Spot: This is the "Underground Package" and costs $50 (including 2 tickets to the event).
- "VIP" Parking Spot: This is the "Disco Package" and costs $50 for a parking spot in the east or west lot on Hayes Drive, plus two tickets to the end.
- "VIP" Tent AND Parking Spot: Both of the above, 2 event tickets for $100.
Goes without saying here - I'm not a member of the Chosen Few and have no involvement in the event outside of 5 Mag's sponsorship, I'm just reporting what the latest announcements are. The photo above is former Warehouse and Muzik Box owner Robert Williams at last year's Picnic from Czarina Mirani.
Are you going to this year's Picnic? Will the introduction of fees have any impact on your decision? Discuss this and more on our Facebook page.
10Jun2010
This Industry Treats Fans Like Shit and Other Observations
Is there a genre of music that treats their fans shittier than electronic music? I'm going to say "no", and that carries over from DJs with a God Complex down to labels that view fans as walking credit cards and basically anyone at a festival with the pitiful power of a laminated pass. I know several big name DJs who obscure all their contact info online because, as one told me, they "don't want everyone to send me their music". Srsly. Pipecock has written up his depressing account of this year's Festival Formerly Known as DEMF, and the undertone reflects just the pitiful lack of respect shown across this genre. You could write a book on it, and I think that'd book get rave reviews from everyone except the trogs at the top of the foodchain. [Infinite State Machine]
Rebirth is now on an iPhone app/toy, which is probably the best use for it. The interesting angle here is the repackaging of an older technology rather than abandoning it. [CNet]
See? People always bitched about the scene. [DJ History]
A fairly detailed homage to the 303. [No Dough Music]
Read more after the jump ⇢
07Jun2010
Another Example of Electro-House Creativity
We have an interview with Groove Junkies in this month's 5 Magazine, with some chat about the split between Evan Landes and Parrish Wintersmith (amicable and drama-free it would appear), the debut Groove Junkies' album and the MoreHouse radio show.
Evan and I talk from time to time - he's an interesting guy, and as a label owner and recording artist is doing everything he can to keep the torch burning for House Music in LA, in the United States and in the world.
Imagine my surprise when the label for these two guys making some kind of secret Euro gang signs informs me that Groove Junkeez are releasing their first album not in June, but in August; and not on home label MoreHouse but on a label called "Diamond Production":
No, you read that right. These are "Tha Groove Junkeez", not "Groove Junkies". Their music is just the worst kind of by-the-numbers Electro-shlock you can imagine.
Really the entire package that is "Tha Groove Junkeez" is summed up by that photo.
There's one problem: the real Groove Junkies have been releasing music under that moniker since 1997 - on Virgin Underground, no less. From the looks of it, Die Douchemongers were about 5 years old then.
The offer of a promo from the head of their label prompted this interesting exchange:
From: Terry Matthew
To: Geraldine Feruglio-Allemann
Subject: Re: Tha Groove Junkeez feat. Al Walser
Date: Mon, 07 Jun 2010 15:30:35 -0500
Why an act would call themselves "Tha Groove Junkeez" when there's a very well known act known as "Groove Junkies" already?
From: Geraldine Feruglio-Allemann
To: Terry Matthew
Subject: Re: Tha Groove Junkeez feat. Al Walser
Date: Mon, 07 Jun 2010 22:47:01 +0200
Hi,
Our Tha Groove Junkeez exists since 2003 and did not want to change their name since then. ( http://www.myspace.com/thagroovejunkeez) - Back then they did not know the Groove junkies existed.
My Music Label & Distribution took them under contract last year, they have published two hits since and will publish their first album this August 2010.
I am staying at your disposal for any additional question
Wish you a great day :-)
Gery
From: Terry Matthew
To: Geraldine Feruglio-Allemann
Subject: Re: Tha Groove Junkeez feat. Al Walser
Date: Mon, 07 Jun 2010 15:57:36 -0500
I'm sorry, I know this is not your purview but Groove Junkies' debut single came out in 1997.
I don't think anyone is going to confuse soulful house with the generic electro they're playing but dance music is not such a big world that a record-buying consumer would understand the difference between "Groove Junkies" and "Tha Groove Junkeez" -- no more than if I created a band called "Thee Rolling Stoons".
That's ridiculous and not something I support.
It's probably pretty clear to you by now that I despise Electro (actually, not true: just the silly and non-creative kind. Unfortunately, that wipes out about 95% of it.) The absurd "Ready For Ibiza" poses of these clowns isn't really the issue either (though it doesn't help).
Really, it's just this simple: Evan Landes spent 13 years building the Groove Junkies name, only to have two Swiss kids come along, throw together a couple of cheesy productions and capitalize on it.
This is really the best example I've come across to show just how painfully bankrupt Electro is. You can see why wearing a cartoon mousehead represents the apex of Electro's creativity now, can't you? Anyone can do this: just fudge the name a little and you too can start a rewarding career with a skimpy resume under the name "Frankie Nookles", "Davido Morelas" or "Kenneth Dupe Gonzalo".
27May2010
Mix of the Day: Fish Go Deep
Here's today's mix o'the day by Greg Dowling and Shane Johnson, aka Fish Go Deep. You probably remember them from the massive 2006/2007 "The Cure and the Cause" (the wonky fan-posted youtube video has more than 1.3 million views) and a ton of hot remixes, quite a few of them for Kerri Chandler.
I assume this mix was for their weekly radio show, as it features proper intros, bumpers and DJ chatter. It's posted up at their podcast page - you can head over there to download the MP3. As there's no embed code I've knocked it together so you can listen either over there or below (it's just over 2 hours, so give it a sec to load if it doesn't right away!)
Listen after the jump ⇢
25May2010
LawnChair Generals Spring Fling Mix
Little known bit o'trivia for you: LawnChair Generals were the headliners at the release party for the very first issue of 5 Magazine back in late July 2005. Embedded is their new mix for Spring of 2010 (well, it's technically still spring for another 27 days), Spring Fling. We have a review of their latest remix for Olivier Desment's Amenti Music in the upcoming June 2010 issue of 5 Mag - it's actually the 5th track on this mix. The boys are also offering up a full download for your iPod at their site, lawnchairgenerals.com.
Listen after the jump ⇢
06May2010
Pirate Bay Founder Wishes It Would Die
For five years, I've been interviewing people who wished that the file sharing genie could be poured back into its bottle and the whole thing would go back to the way it used to be. Most of their wrath is aimed at a BitTorrent tracker named The Pirate Bay - scourge of music industry types everywhere and at one time the center of the file sharing universe.
If they ever dreamed of seeing this site 404 and vanish from the face of the earth, well, they're not alone.
In a remarkable interview with snarky Brit IT site The Register, Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi - one of four men who created The Pirate Bay back in 2003 - says he wished the zombie site (which hasn't really been updated in several years now) would just keel over and die already:
I think it would be better if The Pirate Bay died. The thing is is that it has been so big for six or seven years now. It's unique in the internet's history when it comes to file sharing and peer-to-peer. So I think it's time for something else.
Nothing has happened to the site in five years. Someone reboots a server when it crashes. The idea was for it to be a central hub and eventually letting it slowly die.
The problem is it's still growing and at the same time everyone who was behind it has left it so it has its own life, it's become this HAL entity that kinda runs itself. If it dies a bit more than perhaps people will go to the more decentralised systems.
Well, you didn't think he'd feel sorry about the whole thing, did you?
The interview ends on a rather startling note:
I went to Sony BMG and proposed we work together on another site. The guy from Sony said: 'I feel that you raped me and raped my kids and you raped everybody I know and you're speaking to my face like you enjoyed it.'
06May2010
Pimpin' Ain't Easy and Neither is Running a Festival
A pretty amazing discussion is taking place (or was - it's just about over now) on the Infinite State Machine about the set up of this year's Detroit Electronic Music Festival (sorry, "Movement") and the segregation of local artists in some cavernous dungeon known as the "Made in Detroit" stage.
The salient point that's brought up right away is this: The Festival Officially Known As Movement (TFOKAM) is no longer Detroit's electronic music festival, but an electronic music festival that happens to be in Detroit.
That isn't 100% accurate of course, but there's no doubt that the current festival organizers have put a lot more emphasis on Big In Europe acts likely to attract out-of-town ticket buyers than on Detroit's homegrown product.
The example of TFOKAM has been brought up quite a bit in the context of Chicago's Chosen Few Picnic. Unlike TFOKAM, the Picnic is free. There's also no "Vitamin Water Stage", no "Red Bull Stage", no "Movement Torino Stage". The Chosen Few Picnic isn't going to be Powered By Ford Fiesta. The Chosen Few Picnic is paid for by pre- and post-parties and passing the hat (or, actually, the bucket!) and the overruns - of which I assume there have been several over the years - are taken care of by the promoters themselves.
This obviously isn't an ideal situation - it actually sounds pretty close to what Derrick May went through when he was organizing the Detroit event, back when TFOKAM was still Officially Known as DEMF - but on the other hand there's absolutely no way Chicago artists will ever be sidelined in their own town.
So there's a choice, and expecting the promoters of TFOKAM to scale things back and place Detroit's artists more fully in the limelight ain't gonna happen. But the Chosen Few manages to attract more than 10,000 on Chicago's Southside, with minimal promotion and a budget you can charitably call "shoestring". It's a fuck of a lot of work and I'm glad I'm not the one putting it together, but the option's there in every city where there's a musical following for this kind of music.
Oh, and since I'm getting a lot of questions about it: The Chosen Few Picnic is set to go off on July 10, 2010 - location and line-up still TBA.
20Apr2010
Updated: Crobar to Reopen with 'Urban' Theme
Yeah, it's as bad as you expected.
The former Crobar in Chicago will remain shuttered for less than one week before reopening as a tacky mainstream joint called The Vibe. The new club's "urban" theme appears to be a code word for "dumping as much cheese and douche in one room as possible".
Here's a copy of the flyer for The Vibe's "launch party" - just 6 days after Crobar's closing party.
Prominently displayed is "Natalie 'I Run LA' Nunn from Oxygen's Hit TV Show Bad Girl's Club", who is hosting what is sure to be a night filled with more fist-bumps than anywhere west of Jersey. I'm not sure if this is a step up or a step down from wheeling out Dennis Rodman in his walker - we're talking degrees of tackyness here - but it's... different.
Apparently she's an amazing DJ as there's no other music information listed.
And good luck to the owners - apparently most of the staff has long since been let go.
20Apr2010
Julius Malema Rant: The House Music Remix
This is awesome.
Julius Malema, leader of the Youth League of the African National Congress in South Africa, recently held a press conference in which he screamed at a BBC reporter, calling him a "bastard", a "bloody agent" and accusing him of having "white tendencies". The Guardian has a 2 minute video of his bizarre temper tantrum here.
The speech was a sensation in South Africa. One week later, House Music remixes of Malema's tirade are appearing on South African radio stations with a souled-up House beat. Below is just one of a half dozen quick-and-dirty edits making the rounds. (It's actually a really good beat!)
Listen after the jump ⇢
19Apr2010
Crobar to Reopen with 'Urban' Theme
If you're hoping that the recent closure of Crobar's Chicago location will result in quality dance music returning to what was once a downtown mecca, I've some bad news for you. According to the Sun-Times (which jibes with what I've heard), the club's "closure" this weekend will result in a very brief layoff and rebranding. The former Crobar is slated to soon re-open under the name "Vibe" in the not too distant future.
Unfortunately, the word on the street is that the club is going for the "young urban demographic." What this means: commercial Hip-Hop, bottle service - you know the score.
Crobar had been largely seen as in decline for a long time. Perhaps this was never so apparent as during their closing second-to-last weekend, which featured geriatric "bad boy" and Reality TV retread Dennis Rodman as a "celebrity host" - yet another instance when music was entirely secondary to spectacle at a club.
19Apr2010
Blackcoffee SA's Male Artist of the Year
Nathi Maphumulo, better known by those in the know as Blackcoffee, was named Male Artist of the Year in last weekend's South African Music Awards for his stunning 12 track album Home Brewed.
It may seem strange to people in the rest of the world that a House Music producer would have this kind of name-cred, but, yeah, as I've said before, House Music is hot in South Africa. But more than that, Blackcoffee's creations are tinged with local flavor as well as part of the global House sound. Elsewhere, local distinctions seem to be dissolving, probably on account of the Internet (when was the last time you heard something like the "West Coast sound" - and the record actually came from the West Coast?), but South Africa's new jacks have managed to adapt this music to their own time and place. What's that they say? Think global, act local. It's that gorgeous authenticity that makes their music sell here, for sure.
Oddly, Blackcoffee is currently midway through his long-awaited tour of the United States - tonight he'll be appearing at Boom Boom Room in Chicago, as fate would have it. And naturally 5 Magazine will be taking a few minutes of his time for an interview.
Photo via Blackcoffee's myspace. Pick up a copy of this gorgeous album here.
19Apr2010
Industry Footbullet of the Day: Internet Radio
Last week, this handy infographic began to make the rounds. It purported to show how many copies of music in varying formats an artist would need to sell to make the equivalent of the USA's minimum wage. Many artists and labels made a public display of sweaty hand-wringing in response to these giant pink blobs.
It's unclear where this infographic came from (the site listed as a source comes up with a 404 page), but a link at the bottom goes to this spreadsheet where the raw numbers are listed and sourced.
Many people are debunking this graphic (including in the comments of the original gizmodo article) with the claim that with a few exceptions, musicians never made a living wage off recorded music. This is true - if you're not Mick Jagger, your royalties probably didn't buy a goddamned thing, much less provide you with a living wage.
Continue Reading Post ⇢
10Mar2010
(Ableton) Masturbation and You
So you're a youngblood, you're living in the city. You play a weekly residency and some gigs here and there. You're not the first guy on the flyer but you're not the last. You've played some big clubs, more often in the smaller room of a large venue, and you've been invited to some cities and even had people pay to bring you there.
You usually open up for the big name DJ and you think it's about time that some of them start opening up for you.
So you fire up BitTorrent, find a copy of Ableton Live, Google your way through cracking the copy protection and get ready to launch the next phase in your career. It's not very intuitive at first, but after working with it for a few weeks you're able to put together some sounds that aren't altogether displeasing. You don't have a vocalist, you can't afford a band and your engineer is your roommate Clarence who used to do the sound at raves.
Listening to the finished product, it's not much of a "song" - but really who cares? Nobody makes any money off records in House Music anymore anyway. It's all promotion, baby! And you looked through Beatport and saw these guys who throw out dozens of these instrumental beat tracks a year. They're big names and they have fans and when you opened for them last month at Le Club, it didn't seem that attaching their name to unmitigated shit did their careers much harm.
So you post it up and wait for the marquee gigs to roll in. Your friends (you've been in the game for awhile now, so you've got lots of those) say it's the greatest fucking track since they first heard "Phreaky Muthafucka" on a big system. Or that's what they say, because the last four times you went to see them, they told you apologetically that your 6 minute piece of McHouse Music didn't fit with the "vibe" on the floor. It's "jackin'" but the crowd was more "laid back". You nod your veteran (some say "legendary" but you - humbly - wouldn't go that far) head, because man, you know the psychic connection between a DJ and his audience. It's tight like that, bro.
Continue Reading Post ⇢
16Feb2010
How Hot is My Track? Rating the Promo Services
Are you still using sendspace as a promotional tool? Unless it's personalized, as part of a larger campaign or sent specifically to a few key DJs or buds (for whom sending a track "just to you" has a personal touch that is indeed a stroke of genius), there are better options for getting music in the hands of the people who play it.
These days, any DJ or music writer spends hours every week clicking links and being sucked into the abyss of promo pages. It's actually frightening to think how much time someone like Louie Vega or Kenny Dope spends just sorting through the hundreds or thousands of tracks sent every month with a corresponding promo page for each (though by the time you get to that level, you probably have someone at least doing the initial clicking for you).
Considering how many promos are being sent out these days, the reaction to a label's promo page and the service they use probably has a lot more to do with their music catching on than anyone cares to admit.
Though I know it shouldn't be this way, I've often found myself just moving on to the next flagged email when a promo page doesn't let me do what I want to do or proves to be too irritating to bother. Seven minute instrumental Ableton masturbation from someone I've never heard of? Most people, I think, are nice and will give that a fair hearing unless you make it too complicated for them to bother trying.
There are four primary services in use today among House Music labels that I get sent to every month. I'm the king of cheap, I don't believe there's any product or service on this planet that you can't do for cheaper, but unless pop-up ads for mortgages and erectile dysfunction are concepts what you want people to associate with your music, you could do with spending a few bucks and maybe learning a little more about which of the DJs that say A++++++ WILL PLAY AGAIN are actually even listening to it.
I hated it at first. I'll freely admit that. But like the Boof character in a 1980s Michael J. Fox coming-of-age comedy, Fatdrop decided to hang around long enough for me to decide that I love her. This is the gold standard of promo services. Their reporting for the label is robust, and while their pages allow for some customization, your DJs know exactly what they have to do to listen to and download music. Fatdrop's widespread use has made their interface so familiar that most people can sleepwalk through the process. If everyone used Fatdrop, my life would be 10x easier.
Continue Reading Post ⇢
11Feb2010
What Happened to Gemini? A Spencer Kincy Update
I've put off writing this for awhile, much like I put off writing the original Spencer Kincy article 5 Magazine published last April. It's not a happy subject. But with renewed interest in this as well as wild speculation and rumor circulating in place of fact, it's probably about time for an update as well as to ask one of the philosophical questions posed by Spencer's disappearance from the scene seven or eight years ago. I also have some good news for fans of Spencer's music about a new re-issue by one of his original labels.
But first, let's start with brass tacks. Spencer Kincy is not dead. He's living around Chicago but has done more or less everything in his power to remain far, far away from the music scene.
I haven't seen him and I don't know exactly where in Chicago he is. My proof is that Spencer Kincy, on a single day last August, filed 3 lawsuits against various United States government bodies and individuals in Federal Court seeking a grand total of $29,997,000 in personal injury and other damages. The parties being sued in these lawsuits are:
- US Department of Defense
- The FBI
- FBI Director Robert Mueller
- FBI Special Agent-in-Charge Robert Grant
- FBI Agent Mitchell Marrone
- Office of General Counsel
- Federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald
- Thomas Walsh
- Gillian Ferguson
- Cathleen Martwick
(It's not 100% certain, but I believe the three names listed after Fitzgerald are all either lawyers or prosecutors here in Illinois.)
Continue Reading Post ⇢
08Feb2010
When Playa Hating Goes Too Far
Back in the 1990s, when the Chicago Bulls were a dynasty rather than a laughingstock, I remember overhearing a conversation at a diner between two twenty-something women. Apparently, one of them had bumped into Scottie Pippen at a restaurant and asked him for an autograph. As the guy was sucking down a plateful of pasta, he declined. "And you know what I said to him?" the lady telling the story said. "I said, 'I don't care about yo' autograph anyway. You'll never be Michael Jordan.'"
Welcome to Chicago, where Playa Hating is elevated to an artform that only crusty pimps and musical vagabonds just one week of radioplay away from being Bigger Than Kanye can appreciate.
Continue Reading Post ⇢
28Jan2010
Susan Boyle Hates Vinyl, or the Dangers of Self-Delusion
Reading and listening the triumphant but ultimately shallow posts about the "comeback of vinyl records" has turned my stomach in knots and now it's inside out. This is nothing to celebrate and if you read the very statistics you're posting with a critical eye, you'd file this one not under WOOT but WTF.
Yes, Soundscan (which, incidentally, is a verifiably awful metric of music sales but which everyone in the big industry adores, because yes it's the 21st century and they really can't build a better mousetrap after all of these years) reports that sales of LPs rose 33% in 2009.
And if you stop there, that's fucking awesome. Go vinyl. The audiophiles, for once, are winning.
Continue Reading Post ⇢
11Jan2010
Ableton and Serato Team Up on... Something!
In one of the more cryptic pre-launch announcements in recent months, the makers of Ableton Live and Serato Scratch Live have issued a press release, launched a website and are throwing a party to let the world know that they're doing... something.
Reading between the lines from the sparse (and extremely old) statement issued at ableton-serato.com, it appears that Ableton has vinyl-emulation envy and Serato has event-trigger envy. How to mix these two aspirations together - well, it's not hard to use your imagination to think up some potentially wonderful and some potentially disastrous mash-ups here.
Scouring my sources, it appears that the two companies will be launching a joint product this week (yes, that much was obvious). Seriously though, a hat-tip to corporate security because no one seems to be clear on the details or what this will mean for existing users of Serato and Ableton Live. Some interesting speculation at the excellent dv247 blog though.
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