Graveyard Girl by M83 has been playing on the Ipod incessantly the past few days so I thought I'd share. It reminds me of a cross between Stone Roses and Arcade Fire. I'm not a big fan of indie music in general I think like everyone else it feels rudderless and prepackaged but this song is great. 
Ok I just a lost a long post because typepad is automatically logging out for some reason now, so I'll just post the track and reqrite what I wrote later, but track of the day is 4 am by Kaskade.
Here are some photos from the Williamsburg Music Hall. We were there Saturday night, it's an excellent space for private events, just small enough to be intimate, large enough to have a great party.
We were at the W Hotel last night in Union Square djing a private party. They have this amazing, huge ballroom on the second floor with 40' tall ceilings. It looks like it was an old bank similar to the two converted on the corner of 14th st and 8th ave. The event was more of a mixer/ cocktail party that turned into more of a party towards the end. Enjoy the photos!
This is hilarious, saw the for the first time last night the Dockers commercial featuring Marlena Shaw's California Soul. I was never a hug fan of this song but in many soul lists and compilations it exists as an essential track. The ad displayed a montage of clips of people wearing dockers in California.
I don't know about you but when I think of dockers I think of cape cod, chrysler seibrings, sailboats, chardonnay and brown boat shoes. A while back I posted about songs being ruined by commercials, for me the most egregious example was the Isuzu trooper cruising through the woods with Pusherman by Curtis Mayfield blaring.
To me the subtext of this message was it used to be rebellious to sell drugs on a street corner in Harlem and now the rebellious guy is the one who takes his SUV and trashes some nature. But the Dockers ad is even more of stretch, just look at the album cover versus most of our perceptions of people wearing Dockers! But then when I look at these two photos I realize that Marlena Shaw was oddly prophetic, she envisioned the dockers guy and said, "Who is this bitch, anyway?"
This a great track, often described as salsa romantica, and perhaps less played than Willie Colon's more famous of La Murga, Che Che Cole and El Malo. There are so many different directions you can go when spinning salsa, most of it depends of course on the crowd, how many people can dance salsa, if there are more couples or more single people, Idilio is a good choice for a mid tempo track but perhaps less recognizable than La Murga.
Revisiting my previous post about the amazing Panama Calypso album from the Isthmus of Panama, I was reminded to put it back on the Ipod when I saw the album cover in the display at the Record Mart in Times Square. Earlier I didn't post any of the tracks but this one is just too good I had to share it, called Let Me Do My Thing by Los Dinamicos Exciters.
I've been slowly going through the mixes over at Voodoofunk, there are so many great tracks,
sad to see that Frank is leaving his record collecting tour in West Africa. Because of space in New
York City I simply don't collect records anymore and the piles of old funk, latin soul, salsa, hair metal, 80s etc records I have are sitting in storage. So much about record collecting is the sociology surrounding the experience of digging through crates in odd places on the planet, and once in a while finding that gem you won't find anywhere else. And more importantly the people you meet and experiences you have along the way. On a deeper level it often feels like you are connecting with the past in a pure way, not packaged, computerized or chopped down. It's something people who don't collect records don't understand.
The afro funk is amazing because of how untouched it is, the hiss from the albums, the loose playing and spontaniety. It'd be great to unchain myself from rent here for a while and go to central america and the west carribean and start up the collection again. I love the funk influenced afro beat/island feel type tracks, it combines elements in such a unique way with horns, bluesy bass, great vocals etc. Anyway, without further ado, here is my favorite track from his African Movement compilation, called Cherie De Mon Coeur by Agbandou Babiao. It's 4mb so be patient!
We were at Battery Gardens on over the weekend. I'm not sure when the last time a windmill or snail was on display there, but "the breaks" were in full effect on Friday.
This is a great album, it's described as Cuban Doo-Wop and it's solid all the way through. My favorite track is Cuando Yo La Conici but the entire album is worth checking out.
