Tuesday Evening Listening: When You Awake Mixtapes

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Our pal Jody over at When You Awake has a new mixtape up, put together by Akron/Family member Dana Janssen. It’s called Top 10 Songs To Ride A Bike Thru NYC To and it features pedal-pushing hits from Harvey Milk, Fela, Tinariwen and Lil Wayne. It’s an annotated mixtape, naturally, so you can also look for tips on what to look out for (curbs) and drink after the ride (kombucha). Check it out here.

She also reminds us that Akron/Family will be playing a three-night run at the Steve Allen Theatre here in Los Angeles on March 10, 11 and 12, no doubt previewing material from their new album, Set ‘Em Wild, Set ‘Em Free, due out on May 5. The show is presented by Arthur and Aquarium Drunkard, and all you need to know is found by clicking here.

While you’re over at When You Awake you should also totally check out their double-disc set of post-Valentine’s Day jams, Music For The Morning After, featuring one disc of songs selected by bands like Vetiver, Howlin Rain and Beachwood Sparks. Disc two has another set of jams picked by writers, bloggers and DJs including Aquarium Drunkard, Little Radio, and a very special foresty nugget contributed by your humble Arthur Magazine contributing editor. Go get it here.

More on our selection, Kate Wolf’s “Early Morning Melody,” plus a bonus track after the jump.

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Tapes and Tapes and Tapes

In a technological down-shift that will warm many an aging Deadhead’s heart, cassette tapes continue to be the medium of choice deep in the American underground. This embrace of outmoded audio technology is old news to regular readers of Bull Tongue, Byron Coley and Thurston Moore’s Arthur column — new installments of which will be featured here on the Arthur site — but even old hands can find this network of brilliant and often purposefully obscure music tricky to navigate.

Among the many resources that your contributing editor consults in searching out the latest drone and psychedelic noise releases is Expressway To My Skull, an audioblog and review site maintained by Vancouver’s Mark E. Rich. Rich is on vacation at the moment, but prior to leaving he posted Expressway’s Guide To The Cassette Underground, a handy digest of “earth psych” labels, DIY distributors and cassette-only radio shows.

You can also check out his monthly cassette review columns by clicking here. Have a nice vacation, Mark.

(And P.S. thanks for the Bull Tongue shout-out.)

American sports' aesthetic peaks

Fascinating cultural anthropology perspective on American pro and college sports’ eras from Bourgeois Surrender blog, excerpt below. If anyone has any good leads on particular NFL Films and other archival/ethnographic sports films, pass em on in the Comments section…

Pro Football’s aesthetic peak spanned roughly the era of the 14-game schedule, 1961-1977. I might even restrict it to the 60s, before the AFL-NFL merger, because I like smaller, exclusive leagues, and the 70s saw the debut of a lot of new and ugly stadiums, but there was also a lot of interesting stuff going on in the early-mid 70s–the George Allen Redskins, the colorful Raiders teams, the great Miami teams, the great early Steelers teams, the very good Minnesota teams back when that franchise played outdoors in what wouldn’t be an acceptable stadium for a Division II college team today. The outstanding work of the NFL Films company in this era, when the corporate arm of the league as well as the coaches and players took themselves considerably less seriously than they do today, reveals all kinds of fascinating nuggets of detail about both football and everyday life in the 1960s and 70s that are astounding to see, or in some cases be reminded of, now. Everything was comparatively so small-time, or perhaps I would better say, on a reasonably human scale. The stadiums, the media coverage, the money, the players’ bodies, the locker room amenities, are all phenomena well within the realm of ordinary experience. The crowd at a modern game is so individually insignificant and stifled, overwhelmed by the spectacles of technology, money and modern security, as to be little better than ants. In most of the stadiums (stadia?) of the 60s they tended to be closer to the field, in more intimate communion both with the players and other people around them, less distracted by other demands on their attention; the filmed crowd shots of the era reveal livelier and more engaged expressions (as well as better clothes) than fans have nowadays, who if they are acting in an energized manner are probably responding to television or some other media provocation than anything they can see with their eyes. MORE

Happy President's Day!

You know, with all the “Is Obama The New Black Lincoln?” commentaries going around, George Washington is kind of getting the short end of the stick this President’s Day. With that in mind, we give you the above historical retrospective of Washington’s lesser-known talents (e.g., he had four dicks, rode a crystal horse and “made love like an eagle falling out of the sky”). Every year your contributing editor’s favorite “DC gossip” blog Wonkette posts this thing and he watches it a dozen times before emailing it to all his friends. It’s got some NSFW cusses in it, but you’re probably gonna get laid off anyway so who cares, right?

Watch more ridiculous videos from Brad Neely at his website, Creased Comics. UPDATE: More of Neely’s amazing videos after the jump.

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Tues Feb 17 in Philly: CHROMATIC MYSTERIES, new ensemble featuring Marshall Allen

This just in from Scott Verrastro…

CHROMATIC MYSTERIES
featuring Marshall Allen (Sun Ra Arkestra)

Tuesday, February 17
Johnny Brenda’s
1201 N. Frankford Ave., Philly

Home


215-739-9684
$10, doors at 8pm, 21+

Chromatic Mysteries is a new Philly-based ensemble — or perhaps a conduit for extraterrestrial audio manipulation — comprised of members from such sonic explorers as Sun Ra Arkestra, Bardo Pond, Kohoutek, and New Ghost. Horns collide with guitars that melt with percussion to create alien emissions that communicate with man’s primordial urges.
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Kev's Trips in Iran (or why the Electric Prunes Broke Up)

Fifty Thousand Atomic Rials (= about $4.60)
Fifty Thousand Atomic Rials (= about $4.60)

From Ian Nagoski:
Iran isn’t going anywhere. We know the Iranians bring us thousands of years of cultural history and nearly daily news headlines, but what else do we know about them? After reading Kapuscinski’s book on the Iranian Revolution Shah of Shahs, there are the decidedly more vernacular travel journals of Kevan Harris, Sociology PhD, ‘Merican of demi-quasi-Persian extraction and wayward prog DJ, who has spent the past three summers studying in the belly of a country where the goverment is, well, let’s just say NOT allies of the U.S. and its allies.

In his writings you’ll “meet” strongmen, magicians, the Iranian Frank Zappa, globo-talking blowhard Swiss academics and leftist philosophers as well as tender, juicy and very chewable lessons on the ins and outs of global economics, the problem of fat babies and the inside dirt on whether or not Freddy Mercury can truly be thought of as part of the Axis of Baddies.

Click on the five spot for the site (hosted by hot Chicago rockers No Doctors).

Reasons to be cheerful No. 1

From the Washington Post:

Obamas to Honor Wonder

President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama plan to host a concert Wednesday in the White House’s East Room in honor of Stevie Wonder, reports The Post’s DeNeen Brown. Wonder is to be awarded a Gershwin Prize for Lifetime Achievement from the Library of Congress.

Wonder’s songs “Higher Ground” and “Signed, Sealed, Delivered” were played often during Obama’s campaign. And it was the performance last month by Wonder, along with Usher and Shakira, that pulled the Obamas out of their chairs and set them to dancing during the inaugural concert at the Lincoln Memorial.

Wednesday’s concert is scheduled to be shown Thursday on PBS as part of the network’s “In Performance at the White House” series and to celebrate Black History Month, the White House announced yesterday.

OH YES DUDE

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Five Peace Band: Chick Corea, John McLaughlin, Christian McBride, Kenny Garrett, Vinnie Colaiuta.

www.fivepeaceband.com

Chick Corea and John McLaughlin are truly kindred spirits. Both are brave musical explorers and singular virtuosos on their respective instruments. As young jazz artists, they both did stints with the legendary Miles Davis and appeared together on the groundbreaking jazz/rock/funk classic Bitches Brew.

Each later ventured out to form his own revolutionary band: McLaughlin’s Mahavishnu Orchestra and Corea’s Return to Forever. The innovative music played by these two groups attracted huge audiences in the ‘70s and helped shape a new genre of music, turning multitudes of rock fans on to a new form of jazz.

Now [touring] with a group featuring some of the greatest musicians on the planet: Kenny Garrett on sax, Christian McBride on bass and Vinnie Colaiuta on drums in Europe while Brian Blade takes over the drum chair in Asia and on select dates in U.S…
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