July 1st 10PM ... a dream line up at the Mercury Lounge
Pylon Reenactment Society from the ashes of the best live US indie band of the early '80's (Athen's GA PYLON) comes a perfect reconstruction of the Pylon songbook put together by the magnetic and indelible Pylon lead singer Venessa Briscoe Hay that features some of today's best Athen's players and most importantly has the approval of both Michael and Curtis the other two surviving original Pylon members, (Randy unexpectedly had a heart attack and Pylonceased t exist. I saw the PRS last year at Maxwell's in Hoboken,,, and it was a memory made alive and real. I have always loved PYLON and now I love PRS
Richard Barone is a legend in US indie rock because of both his band the Bangos and his solo albums ... as well as his work with recreating the folk music scene of the early 60's He also happens to be one of the best guitar players to emerge in the indie rock of the 80's
ah 75 Dollar Bill,, not Not since the Method Actors has a two-person band been able to make such hypnotic soundscapes, Rick Brown and Che Chem a new 75 Dollar Bill some call it trippy psychedelic jazz looping rounds and others ears suggest a mash-up between Mauritanian trance meets the softer side of Branca's guitar sonic complexity. 75 Dollar Bill is my favorite NYC art experimental band ..
The last time we heard of Farris was when he was playing live with Katy Perry.. he had, had some success in Hollywood including the use of his song on American Idol (7) Interesting back story: a Jordanian born, American, out singer brought up in Southern California, lives in Hollywood. pals with Adam Lambert .... etc etc etc
... but he seemed to have disappeared... and now this popped up... a powerful new song and video released in January with a promise of a new album...
welcome back Ferras.
Beyonce does not need the NY TIMES to spread the word that Queen Bey has embraced rather than move beyond her blackness and black history. Her fans already knew that she was in a teaching mode for some time as she bounced and flounced and sashayed across the stage and with attitude and song put black first in her identity as an American and they jumped for joy!
Mr. Johnson is the author of the children’s book “Large Fears.”
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Beyonce performed at the 2018 Coachella Valley Music And Arts Festival.CreditLarry Busacca/Getty Images for Coachella
Beyoncé is at the pinnacle of her career. At the Coachella festival in the Southern California desert on Saturday, she showed that there’s nothing this mother of three can’t do. But she didn’t just kill the performance; she also rewrote the book on black respectability politics. She could have decided to play to the majority-white audience with a show that made it easier to forget cultural differences. Or she could be herself. Beyoncé chose the latter.
In putting on a show that celebrated the diversity of black people, she conveyed that no matter how much fame or money she has, she will refuse to divorce herself from black culture, even the parts that are underappreciated, disrespected or misunderstood by white people. Beyoncé was performing her music, but she was also saying that the performance of respectability — the policing of black people’s behavior and appearance to better appeal to white people — is an oppression we don’t need in our lives.
Black musicians in particular have long been told how they should look and perform to sustain their success and be marketable to a larger audience. That often meant that black artists distanced themselves from the things associated with black culture, especially the things that might be coded as not-respectable.
Whitney Houston famously struggled under this weight. At the urging of her mentor Clive Davis and others, she wore glamorous clothes, sang pop-driven songs instead of R&B and obeyed other unwritten social norms that circumscribed how she could live her life and express herself.
Michael Jackson, Oprah Winfrey and President Barack Obama have all been accused of staying aloof from black culture to gain more power and be more relatable to a wider, whiter audience. It is a common belief among black people that the more successful we become, the more we should keep away from black culture — especially when white people are looking. And especially at work.
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Members of Beyoncé‘s audience at Coachella.CreditKyle Grillot/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Beyoncé’s mother, Tina Lawson, echoed this sentiment before her daughter’s performance: “I told Beyoncé that I was afraid that the predominately white audience at Coachella would be confused by all of the black culture and black college culture because it was something that they might not get,” she wrote on Instagram.
But Beyoncé assuaged her fears. “I have worked very hard to get to the point where I have a true voice,” Ms. Lawson recalls her daughter saying. “And at this point in my life and my career, I have a responsibility to do what’s best for the world and not what is most popular.”
It would have made sense if Beyoncé decided to perform songs that were more culturally ambiguous, as to not alienate the people she was hired to entertain. However, before a mostly white audience, Beyoncé sang “Lift Every Voice,” widely regarded as the black national anthem. That song melted into “Formation,” her own pro-black anthem, where she talks about loving “Negro” noses and positions herself as a black Bill Gates.
She also amplified Malcolm X’s famous words about black women: “The most disrespected woman in America is the black woman. The most unprotected person in America is the black woman. The most neglected person in America is the black woman.” This centering of black womanhood is not what black people have been taught to do when given as much power and attention as Beyoncé has.
It would have been reasonable to assume Beyoncé would perform the entire show in a glamorous couture number, like the Nefertiti-inspired costume she came onstage in. Respectability is also imagery: Black people are told, when we gain power and are under the gaze of the public, we must always wear our most formal and elegant attire.
Instead, with millions of people watching in the desert and online, Beyoncé reappeared in blue distressed denim shorts and a hoodie advertising a fake historically black college. Success does not need to have a preferred style; a black person does not have to wear a glamorous gown or a tailored suit to captivate the imagination of the public. Beyoncé shows that talent and discipline are enough.
She follows in the tradition of black performers like Michael Jackson and Tina Turner, but she is unique in imagining blackness as something so big. To Beyoncé, attending a historically black college is more than a niche experience coveted only by students and alumni. Instead, it’s something thematically paramount and worthy of an enormous stadium.
You might think that Beyoncé’s promotion of historically black colleges and their intellectual traditions also might have conflicted with her sexually charged songs like “Partition” and “Drunk in Love.” We’re taught that an intellectual being can never be sexual one. This is especially true for black people who have been hypersexualized in media and daily life. So it wouldn’t have been odd for her to edit her sexuality to fit society’s ideas of what it means to be proud, black and smart.
Not at Coachella. Beyoncé performed her sensuality proudly in those songs making political statement that a person can be both intellectually rigorous and sexually expressive.
We know Beyoncé can sing and move, and that she treats stadiums as if they are her living room. But it wasn’t clear whether, after Clive Davis called her “the first lady of music,” she would adhere to respectability politics, especially on a stage like Coachella, where she may have alienated a large portion of her audience. The easier route would have been cultural ambiguity. But excellence is found in risk, and Beyoncé has proved to be an artist most interested in excellence.
All black people should follow her lead and refuse to shrink blackness. Black people often negotiate how much of ourselves we should show to make others comfortable. Black people often feel the need to edit parts of our culture and upbringing for the sake of appearing respectable — that is, of course, until our music and style are appropriated by the very people we were attempting to not alienate.
Beyoncé’s Coachella performance suggests that, as black people’s power grows, we should intentionally amplify the culture that nurtured us. This anti-respectability politics that Beyoncé brought to the stage is what transformed her performance into a political statement.
Mr. Johnson (@hausmuva) is the author of the children’s book “Large Fears.”
Finally, an artist who has had a wide influence on a generation of indie music legends is recorded. Who knew a neo-classical/rambunctious jazz musician was being listened to by so many "rock" musicians ..Think Monk meets Glass! (Yes, Monk meets Glass!!!!)
Sub Pop will release Walt Wagner’s 'Reworks' – an album of renditions popularized by the likes of Band Of Horses, DJ Shadow, My Bloody Valentine, Prince, Fleet Foxes, Phoenix, and more – on November 17th, 2017. The veteran pianist recorded the songs live on October 9th, 2016 at the famed Canlis Restaurant in Seattle, Washington.
Remember vinyl is the sonic choice for all ears, all recorded music
when Randy died of a sudden heart attack years ago, PYLON ceased to be....years passed. Then last year Vanessa went to Curtis and Michael and said she wanted to sing Pylon songs again. She wanted to put together a Pylon Reenactment band. Both Curtis and Michael said "go for it." so she found players in Athens and then under the watchful eye of Curtis and Michael.....PRS was born. I saw them at MAXWELL's ..about six months ago...the songs were almost recreated perfectly..and Vanessa, well Venessa is a rara avis twirling and singing on stage as a packed room cheered and caught the dance bug, i was in 7th heaven ..as was Richard Barone he jumped on stage and joined them for a song... now I have learned PRS is releasing an ep from the tour. WOW1
Just one of the reason we LOVE Peter Gordon .. and LOLO...
Peter and Kit will be in London on Sat 21st at Cafe Oto w/special guest David Cunningham ...
LADY BUNNY,,, speaks to power ... and reminds the DTs ...don't. DON"T mess with an outraged QUEEN .. between you and me ...I prefer the integrity insight and take no prisoner politics of Lady Bunny over all the LQBT self-appointed Leadership talking heads
BE NOT AFRAID to combine beauty and truth,..... we can not let them steal, the landscape of hope ., Thank you, David Yates, Robert Conroy, Cara Maria O'Shea.MY DEMON SISTER
The word Opera becomes like the word curator has been kidnapped by jobless Ph.D. candidates and has become devalued by their use of it to cover a mess of work. BUT but it is amazing to actually learn that contemporary musicians are border crossing and seeding and pruning new work that justifies the description OPERA... I think of Roddy Bottum (Imperial Teen, Faith No more ) and the preview of an opera he is working that was done as part of two nights of emerging opera composers at Roulette last year. I think of the young composers like Nick Hallett seeded by Meredith Monk and Philip Glass. I will at length in a separate post discuss contemporary opera in depth, But I wanted you to get a taste of work that you may be familiar with as an award-winning play and film: DOUBT: here is an excerpt: (remember heightened musical spectacle)
A SONG MORE RELEVANT TODAY THAN WHEN IT WAS FIRST RECORDED Rough Trade - What's the Furor About the Führer?Thank You, Carole Pope and Kevin Staples ... Rough Trade still sizzles in my memory as the opening night headliner at Danceteria 2 on 21st Street .. And yes its true the support band was from Athens Ga named REM and as well as Joanna Wendt the performace artist from LA
ALERT: Best SONGS of the Year playlist: OK listen up: Here is my playlist of the best songs in 2016... it's personal .. it may not be hip but it is songs that I actually play more than once,,, you need to have Spotify to listen. It is free so download and give a listen. Of course, I may have left out the best song of the year... so your feedback is welcome 1: radiosexbeat best songs of the year : spotify playlist 2: spotify:user:12101583:playlist:04bklQAAM06PVtKnSfS7xh
OH Boy some good news .. REGINA SPEKTOR has a new song and here is the video watch it twice and I just bet not only will you identify but it will be sticky in the audio sounds section in your brain's memory bank. Nice: She is one of the few artists that actually gives credit to the creative team behind the song. Directed by Jack Dishel Animation created & directed by Chris Tucci Archival footage & photos by Ilya Spektor
Prince and Husker du both were local bands in the Minneapolis. In the early '80's . They played the same clubs and both were part of the post punk , rock scene with Du the rock,guitar driven yang to Prince's mash up of funk and Sly riding guitar riffs in a very yin expansive way. Bob Mold secretly loved dance music and Prince knew the best of Brit rock.both excelled at putting as bedrock the beats and riffs that shock the body and extended an invitation to anyone to join the party regardless of labeling. So it should be no surprise. That Prince would cover Led Zep and Mold would secretly be be making dance mix playlist for for his Walkman on the road..... give a watch ... It really is THAT good...,made me think of Nona Hendryx (Ronnie Drayton guitar) and the Black Rock Coalition turfing out Thanks for reminding me Tim Holmes
What I missed at SXSW was I was in Cuba (WHEW) 68 year old Iggy Pop On Wednesday night I witnessed a 68-year-old man stage-dive. That man was Iggy Pop. It was, of course, incredible, as was the rest of his set with Josh Homme. The emphasis was on material from their new album, Post Pop Depression, but there were plenty of Iggy classics like “Lust for Life,” “The Passenger,” “China Girl,” and “Nightclubbing” tossed in for good measure. Homme is the perfect musical partner for Pop, holding his own on the hits, and the new material sounded strong among the timeless stuff. Iggy seemed truly appreciative of the large crowd at the Moody— this video was from three nights before and showcases the band that is on the new album and blew everyone away at SXSW or so I was told.. damn
Pylon Reenactment Society from the ashes of the best live US indie band of the early '80's (Athen's GA PYLON) comes a perfect reconstruction of the Pylon songbook put together by the magnetic and indelible Pylon lead singer Venessa Briscoe Hay that features some of today's best Athen's players and most importantly has the approval of both Michael and Curtis the other two surviving original Pylon members, (Randy unexpectedly had a heart attack and Pylonceased t exist. I saw the PRS last year at Maxwell's in Hoboken,,, and it was a memory made alive and real. I have always loved PYLON and now I love PRS
Richard Barone is a legend in US indie rock because of both his band the Bangos and his solo albums ... as well as his work with recreating the folk music scene of the early 60's He also happens to be one of the best guitar players to emerge in the indie rock of the 80's
