Music

Rusko

Concert Photos: Rusko @ Congress Theater (Chicago, IL)

UK-based dubstep producer Rusko (real name: Chris Mercer) released his latest album, OMG, on Mad Decent one year ago Wednesday. Since then, he’s been working with some of the biggest names in the music business, including Rihanna and T.I.

Collaboration is turning out to be one of his calling cards; he’s worked with Switch, Diplo, Yo Majesty, and Wiley, and has remixed artists like Adele and A-Trak. In addition, Amber Coffman of Dirty Projectors is featured on “Hold On,” a single from OMG. Despite his myriad connections, Rusko needed only his equipment (and some snazzy stage decoration) to wow the crowd in a recent jam-packed show at the Congress Theater in Chicago. ALARM staff member Kyle Gilkeson snapped these shots of the thousands-strong dance party.

Rusko

Thursday

Guest Spots: Thursday’s list of 10 absurd/wonderful Beatles songs

Thursday: No DevoluciónThursday: No Devolución (Epitaph, 4/12/11)

Thursday: “Magnets Caught in a Metal Heart”

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New Jersey-based post-hardcore band Thursday just released No Devolución, its sixth full-length album and second on Epitaph. The band’s lead singer, Geoff Rickly, is also involved in a side project called United Nations, in which he’s the only officially listed member, due to its various members’ contractual obligations. The music occupies the same hardcore-punk territory as Thursday and features comedic lyrical contributions from Daily Show correspondent Kristen Schaal. Before it was turned away by multiple retailers, its self-titled debut from 2008 originally featured a modified version of The Beatles‘ Abbey Road cover art. Here, Rickly explains his longtime interest in the Fab Four.

Ten Absurd and Wonderful Songs by The Beatles
by Geoff Rickly

When I was just a boy, my mother would sometimes drop me off at my Nana’s house in Connecticut, kiss me goodbye, and rush off to work.  It was one of my favorite places in the world: the way the sun came through the porch and made patterns on the curtains, the way there were treats of every possible variety (coffee cake, waffles, bacon, etc.), and, most of all, the way that my Nana had no regard for material things like money, possessions, security, or savings accounts.  She would often say to my mother, “Enjoy it, Patty, you can’t take it with you.”

Case in point: my mother’s complete collection of The Beatles’ records.  My Nana saw no harm in letting me play whatever record I wanted on my cheap, blue-and-yellow plastic Fischer Price record player.  It completely broke my Mom’s heart that I ruined those records, but I think she was able to laugh about it proudly when it became clear, many years later, that I was devoting my life to a passion for music.  A passion that started with destroying those records.

Being that I started my love for The Beatles at the age of four, I’ve always been drawn to the most absurd, childlike, and wondrous tracks by the Fab Four.  Here are my favorites.

1. “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!”

Nothing conjures the joy and mania of a grand circus like the multi-ring narrative of “Mr. Kite.”  The wide cast of mysterious characters like Mr. K, Mr. H, Henry the Horse, and the Hendersons dances, sings, and spins its way through Bishop’s gate and hoops of fire, while the band cartwheels through the pomp of a traveling circus band.  The crowning achievement of the song is John Lennon announcing the proceedings in the disaffected eloquence of a tired but consummately professional carnival barker.

Q&A: Spindrift

Spindrift: Classic Soundtracks Vol. 1 (Xemu, 5/10/11)

Spindrift: “Theme From Confusion Range”

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Mixing influences from Italian-western composers like Ennio Morricone with elements of psychedelic rock, Spindrift has pioneered its own brand of western music. Its style is manifested through a diversity of sounds, including guitar, organ, pedal steel, flute, autoharp, sitar, tabla, and bass, but its musical résumé is more than merely instruments.

After a successful Kickstarter campaign, Spindrift recently recorded an album of unreleased movie themes and new material.  That album, Classic Soundtracks Vol. 1, captures the band’s eclectic nature and cinematic tendencies. Here, founder Kirpatrick Thomas elaborates on the forthcoming album, the impact of the desert environment on the band’s music, and the similarities between western scores and psychedelic rock.

What inspired you to use Kickstarter for Classic Soundtracks‘ fundraising as opposed to other, more traditional means of establishing a budget?

For us, Kickstarter was a great way to raise a recording budget and get friends, fans, and family directly involved in the making of our next album. We realized that we needed $5,000 and had a seven-week US tour ahead of us, so, along with touring and promotion, we created awareness about our upcoming project. At every show, we performed the new songs, then, after seven weeks, we had our goal and jumped into the studio to record. We had the time of our lives recording this record, and we wanted it to translate.

Classic Soundtracks was recorded in Hicksville Trailer Palace, and Spindrift was the first band to record a full-length album there. Can you explain why you chose this particular setting for recording?

Many of the songs that we’ve written for Classic Soundtracks were birthed in the desert. Thus we wanted to lay them to rest (as in the final recorded track) in the desert as well. We actually would write and rehearse for a bit in the Gram Parsons death room at the Joshua Tree Inn. Keeping true to faith, Hicksville is a stupendous facility for being relaxed, isolated, productive, and creative. It’s a beautiful place, and recording in Joshua Tree was a dream come true. Highly recommended!

Charles Bradley

Concert Photos: Charles Bradley & The Budos Band @ Subterranean (Chicago, IL)

Much has been made of Charles Bradley‘s sudden emergence in the limelight, after many years of performing a James Brown tribute act under the name Black Velvet. In this rare instance, the hype is matched by the music — and then some.

Bradley’s acclaimed new album, No Time For Dreaming, is out now on Daptone imprint Dunham. Earlier this year, the soul singer joined Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings on a US tour, then teamed with The Menahan Street Band for a few European dates, and he just completed a Midwest leg with The Budos Band. These shots, from photographer Tammi J. Myers, are from the recent, sold-out show at Subterranean in Chicago.

Charles Bradley

Moses Supposes

Moses Supposes: 19 Music Conferences Ranked

Moses Avalon is one of the nation’s leading music-business consultants and artists’-rights advocates and is the author of a top-selling music business reference, Confessions of a Record Producer. More of his articles can be found at www.mosesavalon.com.

Moses Avalon: 100 Answers to 50 Questions on the Music BusinessMoses Avalon: 100 Answers to 50 Questions on the Music Business (Hal Leonard, 12/15/10)

With more than 100 music-business conferences in the US alone and most emerging musos on a limited budget, which ones are really worth the investment? The following is an excerpt/sample chapter from the revolutionary new book on music-business survival, 100 Answers to 50 Questions on the Music Business, by industry veteran Moses Avalon. Enjoy.

Maybe for many, the idea of spending thousands of dollars to schlep through airports and hotels for several days, only to end up with a handful of cards/CDs from people in the music business that they will never remember, is dumb. Or maybe it’s worth every dollar and minute that you can spare.

They say that you have to kiss a lot of frogs to find a prince. If you think so, there are a bevy of music-business functions that serve this philosophy. There are medium-grade ones geared towards the college-music scene, like CMJ, as well as high-end ones, like MIDEM, where people with far more dollars than sense fly to the south of France and stay in four-star hotels just to mingle with French lingerie models. (Wait, that’s starting to sound kinda cool.)

Some of these conferences are very useful, but most have become showcases for already-financed acts, not places where true “emerging” artists can get a fair shake — despite what they advertise. The panels often are a disappointment, filled with self-serving pitchmen from unions, PROs, and “indie services,” making it very hard to extract any objective information.

Okay, enough of the dark side. What’s the appeal?

Because the music business is about connections, you need to make as many as you can. Given this reality, I’d say that conferences are a must — as many and as often as you can. But with limited resources, how do you discriminate?

Eskmo

Eskmo: Hypnotic Electronics Guided by Intuition

Eskmo, a.k.a. San Francisco-based electronic musician Brendan Angelides, isn’t big on descriptions; he prefers to have his music speak for itself. And speak it does, with clear-eyed synth melodies and crunchy dubstep polyrhythms.

The Waitiki 7

World in Stereo: The Waitiki 7’s Waitiki in Hi-Fi

World in Stereo examines classic and modern world music while striving for a greater appreciation of other cultures.

The Waitiki 7: Waitiki In Hi-FiThe Waitiki 7: Waitiki in Hi-Fi (Pass Out, 4/12/11)

The Waitiki 7: “Ouanalao”

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When Dwight Eisenhower signed the bill admitting Hawaii into statehood in 1959, Americans were living in a post-WWII United States, ready to forget and eagerly optimistic to start anew.  Though a standard history book will tell you that everyone was consumer-crazy and making a lot of babies, it won’t tell you that a large percentage of the populace was listening to exotica.

Borne out of Hawaii’s post-war music scene, exotica is marked by its lounge-like feel, a tropical summation of Pacific, Caribbean, and Latin sounds fused with American pop and jazz.  As a precursor to the modern world-music movement, artists like Martin Denny and Les Baxter introduced stateside audiences to new sounds and rhythms.  By the 1970s, exotica was snooze-worthy, stock-heavy pop, but a listen to the golden-era recordings exposes some groove-heavy material with plenty of progressive rhythms and dreamy, vibraphone-drenched melodies.

Fortunately, Oahu-based The Waitiki 7 has managed to steer clear from contrived kitsch to bring modern sensibility to exotica’s late-’50s to mid-’60s pinnacle sound.  As heard on its 2009 debut, Adventures in Paradise, and on the 2010 follow-up, New Sounds of Exotica, the septet builds on Latin-jazz foundations with an ear for vintage and retro qualities.  Now the band is releasing a set of alternative studio takes from both records with Waitiki in Hi-Fi, a vinyl-only release that will have you dusting off that vintage Crosley record player.