From: 99 (beleza_at_speakeasy.net)
Date: 2005-05-20 22:04:02
Oooh, it's a big day. No playlists and no self-promotion. Honestly,
I'm kinda sick of hearing myself talk. Just slightly off the beaten
hipster Straight No Chaser we're-so-cool brukbeat path, all worn and
grassless, a couple random things making me smile, and I hope that one
or more will do the same for you:
Cyro Baptista
Nobody does weirdo like Brazilians do weirdo. What a fun show!
Somehow I managed to sleep on this guy for years and last night saw his
band of merry noisemakers. Originally from Brazil and now living in
NYC, Cyro's Beat the Donkey project is like part Tom Ze, part
Parliament, part Timbalada, and part Konoko n.1. I hate to even invoke
such a lame comparison, but they are kinda like what Stomp would like
to be when it grows up. I found myself going WOWOWOW when Cyro came
out dressed in a big blue nasa suit and a fuzzy russian hat, standing
next to an instrument made of PVC pipes and played with flip flops,
making whirry noises with toys, then going into a drum and bassy kinda
thing on some really bassy drums. Really super fun. There was tap
dance and bodies-as-percussion, a respectable stab at some martial art
with a sword, and even a bit of gamelon, woohoo! There were also nods
to the afoxe stilo, you know putting drums in the air and all, plus
forro, bumba meu boi, maracatu, samba/bossa, a berimbau solo in a cool
time sig, some fancy pandeiro playing, and classic rock...!!! Mostly
it was about making noise on anything and everything, and by the end
I'll have to admit I was a little weary of the performance which, while
bombastic till the end (and generously including Philly experimental
woodwind royalty Elliot Levin on sax whose playing is amazing but whose
3-foot poop-dread I simply can't condone), seemed to kind of devolve
into a lot of great musicians in silly costumes (fuzzy blue and pink
polka dot halter top, pope outfit with a name tag saying "Sex
Instructor", and so forth) making noise on everything around them. But
that's kinda cool in its own right--actually, it's really really cool,
and refreshing among all the slick laptops and knobby boxes buzzing
around lately. (Speaking of which, Autechre sucked live.) I give it a
thumbs up. Check out the madness:
http://www.cyrobaptista.com
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DJ Kiva
Lemme say that again.... DJ Kiva DJ Kiva
DJ Kiva DJ Kiva DJ Kiva v DJ Kiva DJ Kiva DJ Kiva DJ Kiva DJ Kiva DJ
Kiva DJ Kiva DJ Kiva DJ Kiva DJ Kiva
DJ Kiva DJ Kiva DJ Kiva DJ Kiva DJ Kiva DJ Kiva DJ Kiva DJ Kiva DJ
Kiva DJ Kiva
DJ Kiva DJ Kiva DJ Kiva DJ Kiva DJ KivaDJ KivaDJ Kiva DJ Kiva DJ Kiva
DJ Kiva
YAY!!!!! <3 <3 <3
Kiva is a classic Brooklyn-style weirdo, making celestial-sounding
sounds with roots in earthy things like, well, the earth, and cuban
drums and cartoons and stuff. I met him b/c I happened to play a
Troubleman track in 3/4 at a party a few months back and he lost his
$h1+ because lo and behold, that's his specialty...broken, bassy,
spacey stuff in non-4/4 time signatures. *GUSH GUSH GUSH* But then he
dropped me some stuff off his hard drive, from brand new and unfinished
all the way back to several years old, and the range and diversity
combined with a consistency of overall mood (playful, pensive, detailed
and slammin) is just so impressive. Everything from plaintive
meditiations on the human condition over tight, urgent jazz drums with
brushes, to ruff dancehall tings with serious MC work, to a silly,
strong, and really fun theme song for a cartoon about futuristic Latino
robots in outerspace, ese. He makes the music that's been rattling
around my brain, and is currently my biggest inspiration. Also,
watching him work is great fun. He beatboxed some crazy complex riddim
into the mic, and over the next 2 minutes there were strange and
beautiful sounds bouncing all through wonderful machines and around the
living room. Additionally, he has film festivals in his back yard and
does precolumbian-inspired graf. Like wow, Scooby. Also, he's playing
at Kingsize in NYC tonight as part of Andrew Edward Brown's Building
Bridges party whihc looks to be a weekly killer in its own right. If I
were 20% less geeky I would be there. If I were 20% more ballsy, I'd
actually have bells on. SOMEBODY SIGN THIS GUY!!!!! Diaspora? Omoa?
Loungin'? Are you listening???
www.adiosbabylon.com
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Gloria Justen, Tim Motzer, and VJ Kaboom
I am really lucky to have access to this kind of talent. Gloria is a
violinist with the Phl orchestra, a composer, and sometimes-member of
various experimental bands. Tim is a guitarist who did that riff on
"Change For Me" and is all over the experimental set, and worked on
King Britt's fabulous new project with recordings of Sister Gertrude
Morgan
(http://www.artnet.com/Magazine/features/karlins/karlins4-9-04.asp).
He also looks just like my Uncle Michael when he used to play drums and
do sound. VJ Kaboom (Ricardo Rivera) is one damn impressive
videologist who I first met when he was doing video projections at
raves and stuff. Now he is all big time and does installations all
over the country. The three of them plus a bunch of other talented
mofos (including dj Crasta, whom I have never seen so motivated,
positive, and on-it!! Yeah!!!) put on this amazing show under the Arts
in Motion org to augment the ooh-la-la Salvador Dali exhibit here at
the Phila Museum of Art. Check out the show at
http://www.artsinmotion.org/dali_setlist.html. This performance was so
good! The hall that it was in made you feel like you were in the
shallow end of a pool looking into the deep end, and the video
projections were monstrous and enveloping. They may be re-performing
chunks of it, so keep an eye out. Also check out Kaboom and the Klip
Collective at http://www.klip.tv/
Well, last weekend Gloria did a recital
(http://www.peabody.jhu.edu/index.php?pageID=1895), most of which I
missed b/c I am a schmuck, but I did catch some Bartok. Other pieces
included one she composed using spoken word and recordings of birds she
collected in Australia. Gloria also re-performed a part of a piece she
wrote with Tim for the Dali thing called Ants in my Trance (!!!). She
has promised me recordings, so if I get them, I'll do my best to pass
them on.
Kaboom is going to be part of a thing I just found out about over
memorial day weekend that looks really cool:
Next Weekend, Thursday May 26- Sunday May 29
Kate wawa will be premiering THE MENTALIST in Old City (phl)
Q: What is THE MENTALIST? you ask...
A: a hybrid performance installation
part dance performance
part grafitti writing
part fashion and hair show
part music installation
part video animation
part punk poetry
Join a kick-ass crew of dancers:
Devynn Emory
Bethany Formica
Meg Foley
Olase Freeman
Alex Holmes
Kate Wawa
and 2 punk poets:
Adiel Reckly
Shaun Walker
as they transform an empty room on-site, blasting the
space with acrobatics, sound bites, video paintings,
live grafitto, and breath taking dancing...
THE MENTALIST: a performance installation
choreography: kate watson-wallace
grafitto: carrie powell
poetry: shaun walker
music: daud sturdivant
video: ricardo rivera
costumes: linda smyth
hair design: tracey olkus
THURS MAY 26 8PM
FRI MAY 27 8PM
SAT MAY 28 9PM
SUN MAY 29 2PM
@ Samuel Machinery Company
135-37 North 3rd Street (between Arch & Race)
Admission: $10.
4 NIGHTS ONLY. SEATING ID LIMITED SO ARRIVE EARLY.
RESERVATIONS: katewawa_at_yahoo.com
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Tied and Tickled
Next, how did I sleep on Tied and Tickled Trio???? Yeesh!!! I think I
heard a blip or 2 on NPR or something and I honestly meant to
investigate, but then a birdie dropped some things on my hard drive and
now I will have to drop some cash to fill in the discog. Is it jazz?
Is it spacey-soulful stuff like Radiohead and Suba? "All of these
things, and more, and more, we are."
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Video game music
Have you caught onto the latest thing that the kids are doing, making
music on Gameboys and Playstations? I'm fascinated by examples of
technology being hacked to make music. So I saw a show of it here a
couple months ago, and you'd be surprised the kind of bass you can get
out of a Game Boy! Also love the sort of seat-of-our-pants, punk rock
aesthetic that necessarily comes with doing a show on devices that
randomly crash and stop making noise. I got a kick out of the guy who
niced up the dance by yelling, "All the muhfukkas in the house who
program in assembly code say HOOOOOO!!!!! Hack the bootprom!!!!" But
he was a little cocky, as boys tend to be, so when his game boy
crashed, I took maybe a little too much pleasure in yelling back,
"Where's your eprom now, beeotch?" I wonder if I can make a midi drum
out of an etch-a-sketch. There are surely kids doing something like
this in your town, so keep an eye out. I have only started to touch on
this world so I don't have a lot of names to drop, but look me up on
myspace, click on Advanced Idea Mechanics, Retrigger, Geoff, or any
"friend" who looks odd, and begin stumbling down the path.
To seed your search, here's the first useful article that came up in
google. No idea if it's any good:
http://www.mp3.com/story/feature_gameboy.html
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Pink hair!
I gotta give major, major props to my Hair Grrrl, Leslie at American
Mortals at 7th and Walnut, Philadelphia. This girl is a frickin'
genius and it gives me such intense pleasure to go in with a head full
of floppy over-growth and say, "Do WHATEVER you want." This time I
came out with little spindly icicles of curls emerging randomly and
chunks of blond and flamingo pink!!! YES! Never before has pink hair
been so classy. Book a cut there!
http://philadelphia.citysearch.com/profile/11482780/?
cslink=cs_boc_ew_3_4
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Whimsy
Last weekend after the sun came up, my friend D spotted these things
wistfully painted on a building that I think is probably an abandoned
cheesesteak joint:
http://www.beleza-music.org/photos/toofast.jpg
http://www.beleza-music.org/photos/whizz.jpg
Then we found a little crown made of tin foil and foam stars hanging on
a nail in the door.
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Linky dinks
Have you seen www.ubercoolische.com? It's hilarious. Time and place
exist in blurry indistinct partnership!!!! www.overheardinnewyork.com
is also internet crack, ranking up there with
www.ratemykitten/puppy/bunny.com. Also, I can't stand Bright Eyes,
like really *can't stand* but his performance on Jay Leno a couple
weeks back was pretty impressive. More impressive is that he wasn't
ripped limb from limb right on stage. Thanks to Sirka for making me
watch this.
http://www.prefixmag.com/Bright_Eyes_(Leno)(05.02.05)_(high).php
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Grrrr
In other news, the US government still sucks, and the astoundingly
broad diversity of its suckiness only continues to grow. I don't even
want to go into it. Feh. If you find yourself in a position to do
something about it, I encourage you to do so. International friends,
please send help. Oh and um, "love it or leave it" is wrong. What
they mean is "love it or FIX it." Screw the whales, save the
democracy! And what is up with that pope???? Hi Vatican, ever heard
of Africa and Latin America? Apparently, they are small islands off
the coast of Your Ego. And a (luke?)warm re-welcome to the UK Labour
party. You know, maybe you could win by more than a milimeter next
time if you go from poodle to pitbull. Or at least german shepherd.
Something. The pound is smashing all other currency, man! You run
tings, do whatcha want!
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"And finally, fully sated and purged of enthusiasm, our hero
contentedly settled back into the daily routine, an empty vessel
awaiting new (and old) things to be excited about and share the next
time, with anyone who cares to tune in."
Yours in all that makes us daydreamy and starry-eyed,
99
P.S. - Bjork says, "When in doubt, give."
dj 99
www.beleza-music.org
P.O. Box 5457
Philadelphia, PA 19143
aim: grokgrrrl
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In the Northeast, rhythm is God dehydrated. - Tom Zé
Quem te mostrou a beleza / De dançar dentro da briga?
Who taught you the beauty / Of dancing within the fight?
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
