Tag Archives: music
iMix: Tolerable Christmas Music
Here’s a mix of songs from D. that will get you in the holiday spirit without making you feel like you’re trapped in an elevator with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Another good Christmas album, not available on iTunes, is Kindercore Christmas Two, an $8.99 download on Amazon. It includes the Kings of Convenience singing an a cappella version of the traditional Norwegian hymn “Deilig Er Jorden” and other rare finds.
Alice Waters, Influential Chef and…DJ?
She’s not just a proponent of fresh, organic food for all, she’s also a Radiohead fan. Who knew?
It’s definitely worth listening to Alice Waters’ guest DJ set on KCRW, if only to be hypnotized by her surprisingly sexy voice intoning, over Nina Simone’s “I Want a Little Sugar in my Bowl”:
It’s a beautiful sensual song, and I am always trying to get people to open up and to touch and to taste and to smell and really engage in a different way with food…. I play it when I’m cooking in the kitchen and it’s so beautiful and so deep in its sensual appeal.
Put out the fire! Other highlights: bribing a taxi driver with dinner at Chez Panisse, dancing in the kitchen to David Byrne, going to a peace march in Berkeley, and other zany facts you never knew about her.
iMix: October 2009
Here’s an October mix of some of the best new songs coming out and a few rediscovered classics. Favorite sources include KCRW, the recent Fever Ray concert, the Where the Wild Things Are soundtrack and more. It has already accompanied us on several very long weekend drives, and we’re still not sick of it!
Tagged culture, music, Where the Wild Things Are
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Street Chic: Atlantic Antic Brooklyn
The annual Atlantic Antic festival on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn isn’t your average tube-socks-and-Italian-sausage street fair: Hundreds of local Brooklyn businesses set up shop, from clothing shops like Steven Alan to favorite neighborhood restaurants like Building on Bond. Oysters on the half shell, vintage dresses, pulled pork sandwiches, live music and Six Point Ale: it’s all here. Many came out in their Sunday best to check out the festivities.
Love the flower in her hair, green eyeshadow and beads. (more…)
Fall’s Fashion Hit: Where the Wild Things Are
As much as designers try to predict how music, art and film will influence fashion the next season, it’s always a wonderful wild card to see how things will turn out. Though Disney has seen to it that there’s a designer connection with the anticipated Tim Burton project Alice in Wonderland – they commissioned Tom Binns to design a jewelry line – the film that really seems to be tapping into our collective fashion subconscious right now is Where the Wild Things Are.
At last night’s amazing Fever Ray concert at Webster Hall, the famously shy Karin Dreijer Andersson appeared on stage in what looked like a massive, dreadlocked headdress, surrounded by band members in costume. (more…)
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Tagged culture, music, Where the Wild Things Are
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The Latest It Bag? The Collectible Cotton Tote
Status bags may no longer be about money, but they are still about caché. At the 2009 Siren Music Festival, must-have bags in the VIP area were plain old cotton totes. They may been acquired for free, but they denoted access: to a Marc Jacobs show (Sonic Youth tote, after the jump) or some early contact with the hot band Phoenix, whose new album imprinted on this bag, left, just came out.
Siren Music Festival 2009
Onto another subculture: The 2009 Siren Music Festival, hosted out in Coney Island by the Village Voice. There was a great roster of international bands this year, from already-popular Built to Spill to cult faves (and fashion icons) the Raveonettes from Denmark and up-and-comers like Grand Duchy and Scotland’s Frightened Rabbit.
This being Coney Island, tattoos and quirky fashion were welcome. A number of concert goers – especially the women – pulled the look off with aplomb, even in 85-degree heat. (more…)
iMix: RIP Michael Jackson
Buy it, sync it, and blast it – this is the best of Michael Jackson, from the Jackson 5 days up until the late ’80s. Every song is worth every cent and then some.
I feel lucky to be old enough to remember the phenomenon that was Michael Jackson, especially when Thriller came out. The entire country – then the world – was obsessed with his music, his fashion, his every dance move. Kids were begging for bright red leather jackets, wearing one glove, and dancing, dancing dancing. It was like one great mass infatuation. There has never been anything like it since.
Listening to these songs now, you’ll find the music as infectious as it was when it first came out. Here are 19 of the best, in roughly chronological order. Buy it here
Tagged culture, music, playlist
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KCRW iPhone App
KCRW, LA’s public radio station run out of Santa Monica, is a music geek’s dream come true, especially for alternative music. Their “Morning Becomes Eclectic” program, now hosted by Jason Bentley, has been breaking new artists into the scene for years with live in-studio performances. The only problem? It’s in LA, whether or not you are.
But rejoice! KCRW’s streaming music is now available not only online, but via an iPhone application, so you can listen to it wherever you are and whenever you choose. I’ve tested it for the last few days, and while AT&T service is still sucky in parts, when it works, so does KCRW’s stream – live broadcast, NPR news, or music. And it’s only 99 cents, which goes towards this great non-profit radio station.
Get ready to rock.
KCRW iPhone application available on iTunes.
Tagged culture, iPhone apps, music, technology
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Street Chic: David Byrne Concert in Prospect Park
What happens when David Byrne throws a free concert in Prospect Park to open the season of Celebrate Brooklyn, a summer of music, dance, spoken word, and film at the band shell? Approximately ten thousand people show up to see an amazing show. The concert, which was free because, as Byrne joked, “Given the cost of concert tickets these days, the poor hedge fund guys and investment bankers can no longer afford them. So made sense to do a free show, as the tour has been going incredibly well and we can afford it.”
Not only was there valet parking for bicycles, Byrne himself biked to the concert. (He lives in DUMBO.) Because of huge monitors and speakers set up in the surrounding fields, even fans squeezed out of the band shell could see the show.
The wait was suspenseful, but fortunately, we had people watching to entertain us in the meantime. Here are some of the best outfits on the scene – and some good clues to what to wear at outdoor shows this summer. Plus! A brief video of Byrne shimmying to vintage tunes “Crosseyed and Painless” and “Once in a Lifetime.”
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Tagged bikes, Brooklyn, culture, music, street chic, streetchic
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May Playlist: Theresa Anderson, Miike Snow, Lykke Li, and More
This is what I’ve been listening to in May 2009: a mix of artists from Sweden, Scotland, New Orleans, Paris, and LA. One recorded an album in her kitchen, using wine glasses and beer bottles for percussion. Another is a rockabilly sensation…from London. Several of the bands are “overnight successes” that actually put in years of work to get that moniker; others are teenagers. Thanks are owed to KCRW and D. for the discoveries. Hope you’ll check out the mix on iTunes and enjoy. After the jump: the mix plus more details about the artists.
Adventureland Playlist
Love, love Greg Mottola’s new flick Adventureland. It’s a grown-up version of a coming-of-age story, with complicated characters (think comp lit majors mixing with conservative Catholic girls) and side plots (doddering dad meets social-climbing stepmom). But there’s no need to get philosophical about it: one of the best things about this film is the music. Tracks from Husker Du, Lou Reed, New York Dolls, the Cure and the Replacements will take you back, if you were born before 1990 (unlike actress Kristen Stewart – yikes).
The problem? The official soundtrack doesn’t have nearly as many songs as the actual movie. Fortunately, Reel Soundtrack Blog got them all. Here’s an abbreviated, alternative music version of the Adventureland soundtrack, after the jump – (more…)
Tindersticks
Saw UK band Tindersticks this weekend, compliments of D., at the Brooklyn Masonic Temple in Fort Greene, which is a great place to see a show. It has the intimacy of a high school auditorium,
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if your high school were cool. Lead singer Stuart Staples has a haunting, hypnotic voice and moody, Smiths-like melodies, though the multi-layered sounds of the huge band are thoroughly modern. They got two standing ovations from the crowd.
If you missed them this time around, you can hear a few of their songs on My Space.