Justin Stens of Dr Dog Fame needs your help!

An old friend from Dr. Dog, Justin Stens, is trying to make a record by traveling on his motorcycle across the country and recording with a few of his famous friends. Our dear friend Drew is also a long for the ride to document the whole thing (we at Static are very proud to be supporting this doc as well on many levels). However, they have hit some road bumps along the way, as I am sure many of us have in these financial times, and they are looking for a little help to finish this project. Here is there message:

Hi friends,

This August I embarked on my most creative and ambitious project yet. I have been riding my motorcycle across the US visiting friends/musicians for a few days at a time to co-write and record one song at each stop using only the gear/instruments that are available, ultimately creating an album. I have been collaborating with some of my favorite song writers and musicians and meeting more along the way. I left Philadelphia with a batch of tunes in my head, but I have discovered new things at each step of the journey and continue to write new songs as I go.

I travel on my 1972 Triumph motorcycle and have been accompanied by a small documentary film crew led by Drew Stubbs to capture this writing/recording process as well as a rare American road trip.

This is more than just an album, it's an interesting journey and a sonic and visual documentation of an experiment in collaboration, including a network of talented musicians spanning the continent...

So far I have visited and recorded with:

Do send any help if you can. I mean IT IS the holidays and all!

Cambridge,MA - DRUG RUG, Sue Bell, Jesse Gallagher of APOLLO SUNSHINE

Harrisburg,PA - Rebecca Marie Miller of MYNABIRDS

Akron,OH - JESSICA LEA Mayfield, Bob Cesare

Chicago,IL - John Stirrat of WILCO / AUTUMN DEFENSE

Nashville,TN - DAVID VANDERVELDE, Courtney Jaye

Murfreesboro,TN - THOSE DARLINS

Black Mt., NC - FLOATING ACTION

New Orleans, LA - GENERATIONALS, Julie Odell of GIANT CLOUD

Lafayette,LA - BRASS BED

SanAntonio, TX - HACIENDA / HAWKS of holy rosary

Austin, TX - Bill Baird of SUNSET / Jim Eno of SPOON

December:

Tucson, AZ - BRADFORD TROJAN

Long Beach, CA - DELTA SPIRIT

Santa Barbara, CA - GARDENS AND VILLA

SanFrancisco, CA - Jeremy Black of APOLLO SUNSHINE

I am excited and grateful to have the opportunity to work with so many talented musicians. Please look them up to have a listen to their work. In conjunction with the release of this album, Drew Stubbs plans to screen the finished documentary in the Spring of 2012 at music and film festivals. I have been working hard all year planning and saving up for an adventure like this and I will match all donations up to $5000 to ensure a safe and happy trip. This is an independently funded project and is not financially backed or associated with any record label. ( yet ) Your donations will be used to help with the post production of documentary, video equipment rental, editing, promotion/publicity efforts, and emergency motorcycle repair, final mix and mastering of album, and to help me get home by the holidays.

I invite you to take part and give a helpful hand in something that has never been done before. I know it's not a moon landing or climbing Mt.Everest but I think it's a pretty special project and I have invested my heart and soul.

Please spread the word to friends and music lovers and please come along for the ride.

Kickstarter link:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1371951659/along-for-the-ride-a-musical-journey-0

Do send any help if you can. I mean IT IS the holidays and all!

October 2011 Playlist

Hey y'all. Once again I have left you in the dark as far as posts and shows. No more appoliogies, just content.

Twin Sister - Bad Street

I feel like I might have been in a more soulful mood then usual. This song is a great way to start any playlist.

Mayer Hawthorne - A Long Time

In the class of Jamie Lidell where you scratch your head and say, is that voice really coming out of his mouth? Really love this album.

Class Actress - Weekend

Sexy and danceable. Totally a more mature look at that Rebecca Black song.

Tycho - A Walk

This album brings me back to the early 2000s. So much to love about this album. It sets a tone and mood better than most works I have heard this year.

Feist - Caught A Long Wind

So happy to have her voice back in my life. This album is a lot less poppy and more rocking than her highly succesful sopmore work, The Reminder. Don't let that scare you off from it though. There is a lot of heart and emotion that went into this record and it resinates throughout.

Deer Tick - The Bump

Love these guys, probably too much. I have a feeling many a person sitting next to me on the train would appreciate me turn down their tracks.

Weekend - Hazel

It seemed like all their work was trending this month on my Rdio page. Very 80s and very rocking.

J Cole - Mr Nice Watch

Now, how could I go a month without one rap song on the playlist? I love the beats that rappers are using these days. This is by far my favorite track on the album, though the whole album has a lot of solid tunes and many are surprising uplifting.

I didn't have time to make a Spotify version of this playlist this month, but here is the Rdio playlist for those who dabble in that.

Review: M83 Hurry Up, We're Dreaming.

M83's Hurry Up, We're Dreaming. officially redefines their genre into more than space-synth or dreampop. I'm not going to call it shoegazing because that name is stupid and people only "gaze" at their shoes when they're in trouble. And who's the idiot who didn't come up with stargazing? After all they are named for a spiral galaxy. Uplifting, reflective and motivational---maybe we could call it church. No, it's too dancey for that. How about transcendental electronica? Gonzales did say that this album was influenced by numerous trips to Joshua Tree National Park. I think Emerson would be proud.

French frontman Anthony Gonzalez called the album "very, very, very epic." Sounds pretentious, but it is in fact epic x3. Apparently the best M83 album yet. Because Pitchfork says so. Despite the fact that they've given every M83 album high marks. For the most part, the extra attention from Pitchfork means this album is receiving a wider audience many of whom are listening to the back-catalogue, Before the Dawn Heals Us or maybe Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts, for the first time.

M83 has been making music for 10 years and over time the sound has evolved from melodrama to pitch-perfect introspection. I can't get over it. It makes me swoon every time:

Why does the single "Midnight City" sound so familiar? My boyfriend made the connection: Drive. It's like Kavinsky with far more depth - like the lovechild of Kavinsky and Noam Chomsky. In-song progressions shift so dramatically you're left wondering if you're listening to the same song. There's the same heady dreamscapes vibrating between morose and uplifting, but with some other unexpected additions. For instance, the child narrator in "Raconte-moi une histoire"is reminiscent of The Books and their playful use of obscure reading samples. For the first time there's also acoustic guitar and saxophone (giving it the added feel of 80s throwback) on this album.

Something that consistently surprises me about M83 is that their more uplifting, inspiring work never gets old and somehow Gonzales keeps making more of it. I'm stuck on this one right now:

Buy/Spotify Hurry Up, We're Dreaming. Use it to conquer the world.

For the latecomers here's a Brief History of M83:
Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts (2003). The song "Run Into Flowers" sold me on M83, although today it sounds a little too ambient to be true.

M83 - Run Into Flowers

There was more palpable inspiration and torment in Before the Dawn Heals Us (2005). "Teen Angst" and "Don't Save Us From the Flames" turned out to be much more mature than their emotionally taut names.

Digital Shades Vol. 2 (2007) showed a more somber side of mellow dreaminess. The band has a way of pulling you down into a lonely place and then building you back up into hopefulness.

And of course Saturdays = Youth (2008) included probably the most fully realized culmination of both M83's energy and meditativeness. The shining star:  "We Own the Sky."

Sarah Rae is a freelance writer and editor-in-chief of Poydras Review. She lives and writes in Brooklyn.

Synth Music & Sexy Cars: How Drive is Like Christine

Yes, I'm going to compare the sexy, blood-spattered Drive about an (insurmountably hot) carman in a heist gone wrong to Christine, John Carpenter's film adaptation of Stephen King's novel about a killer car.

Christine summary: a 1958 Plymouth Fury who entrances young males who want to own her. Once they have her they don't want anything else and eventually it leads to their ruin. Essentially they become angry, jealous, paranoid alcoholics. Christine kills for them - they kill for her. It's murdertastic.

It's not just the car-love, the violence, or the many shots of simply driving around and long, awkward pauses in conversation - the music in Drive is reminiscent of Christine. I'm not talking about when Christine plays "Bony Moronie," I'm referring to her score, the synth-charged moments when she's up to no good. I find myself at a loss because it seems most people are either too old to see Drive in the theater or too young to have seen Christine (1984). So let me offer up this example scene "The Death of Moochie"

Now compare that to College's A Real Hero - kind of the anthem of Drive.

A lot of the electro-pop in Drive is an 80s throwback. You can see their roots from across the room. In fact, Kavinsky's Nightcall single has (essentially) Terminator on the cover, and his previous album called 1986 featured the same illustration. And they know they tinker in the 80s horror genre, I mean, listen to Chromatics "Killing Spree" (and this is the non-gore video):

Word of advice, the Drive soundtrack is mostly made up of ambient music by Cliff Martinez, stuff that I could hear and never even remember from the film. What you want it the first few tracks which iTunes, Amazon, nobody wants to sell the separately because they know no one wants Cliff Martinez. Here's the solution, what you're looking for is available already on other albums. Look for this:

College (featuring Electric Youth) - A Real Hero EP
Desire - II "Under Your Spell" (Don't Call is also a really good song on this album)
Kavinsky - Nightcall Anniversary Edition
Chromatics - Night Drive "Tick of the Clock"(Think about buying "Night Drive" or "Running Up that Hill" from this album instead)

I could take it further and compare Arnie to Ryan Gosling, but I'll spare him the embarrassment since his bicep equals one whole Keith Gordon. Suffice to say, their crazy-eyes make hearts flutter - and they still look hot covered in blood.

I'll leave you with this long scene from Christine. And, yeah, the guy in the passenger seat is the guy from he beginning of Ghostbusters while Bill Murray is testing for ESP, "Well, I didn't know you were gonna be giving me electric shocks!"

Sarah Rae is a freelance writer and fiction editor for Prick of the Spindle. She lives and writes in Brooklyn. www.sarahrae.net 

Required Reading: Dirty South

When you live outside of LA or New York, sometimes you feel like your voice is never heard. That your stories are not seen as important from an outside perspective. How many movies or long running, successful comedies or sitcoms have taken place in Atlanta, Dallas or Houston? The South is perceived as backwards and uneducated and these negative stereotypes are not, by any means, the whole story of the South. This is a proud place that through it’s neglect, and isolation has built it’s own unique culture that has cultivated some of the greatest food, literature and music the world has ever seen. So, who will tell the true stories of what it is like to live in the South if not Hollywood or Broadway? How about the fables we hear from Southern Rappers?

These are tales of true entrepreneurs like DJ Smurf and Screw who went about their business the way they saw best. Originators like Paul Wall, who would rather write music for his own hood, rather than try and make mass appeal songs and still found national success. And, truly unique stories like that of Scarface, and his time in a mental institution in his youth and how it drove him to be one of the most respected musicians he is today. These are just a few stories of a lot of musicians and artists that were raised below the Mason Dixon line and shunned from major labels and popular East Coast and West Coast independent rap imprints because they weren't perceived as true Hip Hop. This drove many of them to the point where they felt that to survive they had to do it themselves; despite their love and appreciation of the Godfathers of Hip Hop and Rap, and a want to be apart of the larger community.

And do it themselves they did, and with a degree of success that has most other rappers around the country still trying to catch up. This month alone, Lil Wayne's The Carter IV out did the highly anticipated Watch the Thrown venture by Jay Z and Kanye West. As Bun B told VBS.tv for their documentary Screwed in Houston “A lot of these cats (in the South) learned to make what they needed to make happen outside of the system. They just said ‘fuck it,’ and it’s that ‘fuck it’ mentality that gets these cats these great deals” now with the major labels.

RZA of the Wu Tang Clan is quoted in the Ben Westhoff's book Dirty South saying “The South has evolved later than us.” Really RZA? This is a strange belief that has no root in musical history that dates back to prior then the late 1970s. True, Hip Hop and Rap may have come from New York, but the blues and rhythms that live in Hip Hop as we know it, and which is found in all modern popular music comes from the South and more specifically the Delta. The Blues is the father of all great American music, and comes from a combination of Baptist/Catholic cultures, and more importantly African cultures. These cultures melted from a more liberal allowance of a freedom of expression that was allowed in the colonial days of the South and Caribbean and in particular New Orleans. This is totally opposite of the Northern culture that did not allow slaves in the Protestant, English colonies that restricted any drumming or singing, since it was seen as a sign of unifying which would lead to revolts.

I could go on about how important Southern roots music is, but I know I am preaching to the choir here. A majority of this point is touched on more eloquently than I could ever put it by Ben Westhoff new book Dirty South: Outkast, Lil Wayne, Soulja Boy and the Southern Rappers who reinvented Hip Hop, out now on Chicago Review Press. Ben goes on to show how Southern musicians in the last decade and a half have gone on to conquer the music style that was not necessarily created by them. These rappers had a better understanding of what everyday people want to hear from their musicians: party music. And Southern rappers went on to create some of the biggest dance crazes of the last decade from Crunk to Bounce and from Swerve to Snap.

Good music helps you forget all the problems in the world: war, Wall Street buyouts, and revolutions. And that is what Southern music has always been about. Thats Jazz; thats brass music; that's Country and that's especially the blues and the best blues helps you get over the blues. Southern music isn’t Gil Scott Heron, it’s Ray Charles. It’s not KRS One or Grand Master Flash it’s Scarface and Juvenile. It's not Tribe Called Quest it's Outcast. And note, that all the Southern artists mentioned sold more records then their North Eastern counterparts. And, what is the measure of success? Financial or critical?

Dirty South is a delightfully easy read, and I believe Ben looks at all the musicians in the book from the perspective of a true reporter. This is something you don’t see enough of these days. He put in a lot of hard work into this book, and it shows. From actually going out to meet such rappers as Ms Peachez, known for her Fry that Chicken song, to pretty much stalking Luke Campbell from 2 Lie Crew. All of this hard work contributes to him telling some amazing anecdotes about some of the musicians that have been a part of many of our soundtrack for the last 15 years. There are stories of rappers being true to themselves from the likes of T-Pain to people so self aware of their persona's and their brand that it is inspiring, like TI. These are stories that once you hear them you will never be able to listen to their work the same way again.

If you are at all a fan of music, especially rap, I highly suggest picking up this book. You will be happy you did.

August 2011 Playlist

Ever wonder what you are known for? What your brand is? I wonder if I am known as the half ass blogger/music video show producer. To all my fans who come here on a regular basis and follow us on Twitter and Facebook. Thank you! Here is one of my favorite posts of the month. Here is our August playlist!

Zee Avi - Swell Window

If you start selling an album at Starbucks does that ruin your street cred because you have gone "mainstream"? Or, because no one with street cred supposedly shops at Starbucks does it even matter? Regardless, Zee is a beautiful singer, songwriter. UKULELES ARE TAKING OVER!

Yellow Ostrich - WHALES

I love this album. It really brings me back to the things that got me back into rock in the early 2000s.

Mister Heavenly - Charlyne

Do you like Man Man when they created pop songs with melodies? Well there is a good chance you will like these guys.

Stephen Malkmus and The Jicks - Tigers

Another solid solo work from Pavement's former front man. When does he become more known for his work with The Jinks than Pavement?

Boy & bear - Feeding Line

I don't know much, but I know I like this album. According to the main source for lazy Bloggers, Wikipedia, they are from Australia, they recorded this album in Nashville and their single "Mexican Mavis", was featured on 90210 episode "Nerdy Little Secrets"

Arcade Fire feat David Byrne - Speaking in Tongues

Not happy they did this so soon. I thought the original version of The Suburbs was about as close to perfect as you get. Why release a Deluxe version of the album just a little over a year after it was originally released. Also, the original version of the album ends beautifully. I think they should have just released a B-Sides or an EP.

Eternal Summers - Pogo

I like this song, but it's never a good sign when there is a Taiwanese film by the same name that you probably named yourself after that is more popular on Google than your band that is currently active. I hope they aren't paying people to help them with the band. Good album.

Fruit Bats - Dolly

Really neat album. I've learned to quit reading comment sections. Here was my favorite on Rdio from this album from Marshall Preddy, "The best Shins record in a long time." I'm not sure if that is sarcasm? But the only ways they are related is from the fact that they both have been on Sub Pop and that they toured together. Though I could be wrong since I get all my info from Wikipedia. Why doesn't anyone comment on my blog?

The Drums - Money

Just saw Death From Above 1979 this past month. They opened up for them. Apparently New Yorkers have a weird relationship with this band. I enjoy their pop sensibility even if they don't like New York music fans (I don't like them much either).

The Rapture - How Deep is Your Love

Not the best Rapture song, but solid and nice to see that they are making new tracks. Hopefully any future album has some nice jams. I do like that they have gone back to their roots in production.

Hercules and Love Affair - My House

Always down to promote 90s style House production. They also put on one of the best live shows I have seen in the last 5 years.

Jamie XX - Far Nearer

Who would have thought that when we interviewed The XX that the quietest one would grow up to be the one with the loudest musical voice. I am very much enjoying watching him grow as a producer. For more be sure to check out his Radio 1 Essential Mix.

M83 - Midnight City

If this is what happens at midnight in an M83 world I am scared. Pretty pumped for the whole album.

#STUPIDFACEDD - Wallpaper.

OMG YALL The web has destroyed the youth! #ROTFL #GETOVERYOURSELF

JAY Z and Kanye West - N***as in Paris

I will be posting about this and the Lil Wayne album next week, so I won't say much.

T.I. - We Don't Get Down Like Yall

The King is back and rapping over mediocre beats. I wonder if Jay Z and Kanye are watching his thrown?

Lil Wayne - MegaMan

Post coming soon

Nas - Nasty Nas

I think having Nas follow the last 4 songs really adds the point that Hip Hop is dead and the Rave has taken over.

James Pants - Incantation

Just to warn you, the music will be more chill and wavier from this point on.

I Break Horses - Load Your Eyes

This was an unexceptionally beautiful album.

Active Child - Playing House

I like this album a lot too.

Dom - Damn

Check out the review I did for this EP. You see, I do write stuff for this blog!

Bombay Bicycle Club - Lights Out, Words gone

Awesome to have a new album from these guys. I figure this is a great way to end the playlist.

Here is the Rdio link for this playlist and here it the Spotify link for this playlist. I have a few more songs on the Rdio playlist that I don't have mentioned here or on Spotify. Spotify didn't seem to have all the songs. Here are four other reasons I like Rdio better than Spotify.

FILM REVIEW: The Big Uneasy

Harry Shearer’s new Hurricane Katrina documentary, The Big Uneasy, is not a good “film” . . . technically speaking. Shearer is best known for two things – his many characters on the Simpsons and being the bass player for Spinal Tap. What he’s not known for is documentary film making, but he’s not claiming to be an expert. At the end of the day, a documentary is only as good or as important as its subject, and the story The Big Uneasy tells is very, very important.

As a critic, I have to address the film’s problems, and it’s easiest for me to do it all in one go. For his personal narration, Shearer inexplicably places the camera what feels like six inches from his face, it’s both awkward and off-putting. The film is far too dependent on voice-overs (and no, the multiple celebrity cameos don’t help). There’s several obvious-to-the-point of clichéd visual metaphors. The John Goodman “Ask a New Orleanean” segments are great for breaking up the heady content but poorly executed. The variety of interviewees is pretty shallow. It’s arguably 15 minutes too long. And while there’s no shortage of technical shortfalls in the film, it’s still worth seeing (today, tomorrow, or whenever you get the chance). Why? Because it is arguably the most important post-Katrina documentary that’s been made.

I’m a former New Orleanean and was living on Jefferson Avenue when Katrina rolled in. Following evacuation I was back in the city by December, and the year following was one of the most impressionable in my life. Thanks to my personal investment, coupled with working in film and television, I’ve seen just about every documentary on the storm or city since. Many have been good, some have been great, but few have had much to add other than more gut-wrenching personal stories. So perhaps the highest praise I can offer The Big Uneasy is that it does have a unique story to tell. At it’s heart, it’s a film that’s less about Katrina and more about the mind blowing incompetence of the Army Corp of Engineers.

Shearer consciously refrains from the human struggles and despair so well covered by Spike Lee and Treme and a dozen other films. Instead, Uneasy works just one central thesis – Katrina was NOT a natural disaster. The film opens with a 3D model explaining the hour by hour levee failures and progression of water flooding into the city. From that moment forward the viewer is bombarded with facts, numbers, technical information and stories of bureaucratic incompetence of the most stunning sort.

There’s so much information in the film that it’s laughable to try fitting it into a single review. What I will say, is that for all the numbers involved and soil analysis and technical detail – it’s a compelling story. The history of the Army Corps of Engineers is overflowing with corruption, but the senate won’t address it because Corps projects mean big money and jobs for constituents. The Corp either saw or should have seem what happened during Katrina from a mile off (I’m not sure which option is more disconcerting), but refused to “look back” following the storm. Thankfully, a team of scientists who funded their own post mortem of the levee system that unequivocally found the Corps was at the heart of the problem. It’s scary. It’s disheartening. It’s the truth.

In the Q&A following last night’s screening at BAM, I asked Shearer why he’d decided to enter the crowded arena of films that had already chimed in on the subject. He answered:

“I’d talked to a lot of the people in the film on my radio show. I’d written about the levy failures for the Huffington Post . . . I’d done my part. Then I was in London the first time President Obama visited the city. He was giving a press conference when he called the flooding “a natural disaster.” It just wasn’t true, and I asked myself, what do people do when they want to reach a mass audience on an issue like this? They make a feature length documentary.”

And that sums up the film. Shearer saw a topic that was being ignored and used his influence to talk about it honestly. The Corp botched the job. The scientists who spoke out about it were intimidated, discredited, and in several cases fired by their universities (let’s just say LSU isn’t a bastion of academic freedom). Despite all The Big Uneasy’s flaws, it’s hard to not fall in love with a project so passionate about what it’s trying to say.

The Big Uneasy is available on Video On-Demand around the country, as well as for sale on Amazon.com. The producers are doing their best to spread the word, so do your part and tweet about it (@thebiguneasy), Facebook it & talk about it.

Mat Newman lives & writes in Brooklyn. Follow him on twitter @mtnewman or check out his website.