Had the pleasure of seeing Saul Williams perform at a packed Button Factory last night in Dublin. Took some photos, embedded below. Enjoy (:

If you get any chance to see him live, I highly recommend it. Sharp industrial punk hiphop, I think I'll call it, and with some heavy political messages embedded.

Luckily they were selling merchandise as well, so I got his book "The Dead Emcee Scroll", which I'm looking forward to read.

Update: State has a nice review of the concert on their blog.

Paul Dateh plays the violin, and he likes it. What I like about him is, that he plays it on top of hip-hop beats.

Now there's something new.

Det er bash, det er imorgen, det er Sundaybash. Længe siden sidst ja.. uh men.. det der skete var, at dine to små bamser opdagede gæret sukkerrør, det modsatte køn og de der små gode brunchpølser med ost. Sikken en omgang og du vil ikke ha været i vores Ugg's! Uh uh.

Dublin vs Århus, DJ Bobby Bonzai mod DJ soulclap, i en battle om at have de rette connections når det gælder, den gode version af musikhistorien. Dine to hvide mors-drenge, lukker op for godteposen og giver (hinanden) en lektie i numre de (måske) kender men som lyder meget bedre i den her version. Det bliver frækt, hårdt, musiknørdet, frækt, ligepå, blødt, smukt, frækt, lækkert og ikke mindst, ret sjovt.

Kig allerede nu forbi sundaybash.net for mere info.

Vi glæder os til at se dig (:

I've just bought a USB-turntable, so I can listen to some of the records I've bought in Dublin, and looking around shops yesterday clocked in a nice 3 albums, and two 45s. One of the albums is the following:

Cover-wise, nothing much, a little boring maybe, apart from the women all having their mouths open, and wearing clothing that probably would be hip today (is that a knitted dress on the one in the middle?).

Music-wise, it's a curio. It seems to me, that there was a movement of remaking albums with instrumentals of perfectly good tracks back then, as I have a couple of similar albums at home in Copenhagen. Usually, the tracks have been mutilated in some shape or form, and this one is no exception. Have a listen to the version of Serge Gainsbourg's "Je t'aime".

Argh! Hammond hell. The intro is so promising, and then that hammond... My ears are bleeding.

I have no idea of who is actually playing on the album, as it doesn't list one single piece of information about the musicians, so I'm stuck with the 'unknown artist' signifier.

Henrik Moltke links to an interview, or rather discussion, between Chuck D and Lars Ulrich about Napster, and the new shape of the music industry, on Charlie Rose. It's a great 20 minutes, really, and I'm guessing it's from somewhere around 2000-2001, back when the Napster case was flaming hot.

I really like Chuck D and his view, that the power shifted to the consumer, and that the bus of total control, that Lars Ulrich so desperately wants a seat on, left.

I've been spotreading Gerd Leonhard's Music2.0, where I found a link to a NYT interview with David Bowie from 2002. In it he says:

"Music itself is going to become like running water or electricity,'' he added. ''So it's like, just take advantage of these last few years because none of this is ever going to happen again. You'd better be prepared for doing a lot of touring because that's really the only unique situation that's going to be left. It's terribly exciting. But on the other hand it doesn't matter if you think it's exciting or not; it's what's going to happen."

Seeing what artists have begun to do, giving away albums for free (Radiohead, Saul Williams, Nine Inch Nails, Charlatans, and quite possibly a lot more that I haven't heard of), David Bowie was right on the money 6 years ago.

A couple of weeks ago I was at a concert with Sharon Jones and The Dap-Kings here in Dublin, which was bloody great, true entertainers they were, and especially her. The support act was Noelle Scaggs, formerly of L.A.-based The Rebirth (and has done extensive guest performances, on Quantic releases for instance). Before she started playing, you could sign up on her mailing list, and during her concert, she said that everybody who had signed up would get a link to download her new album, for free, before it was released.

I haven't received the email yet (I still trust it will arrive), but the idea is very much in tune with Bowie's idea of doing a whole lot of touring, and Kevin Kelly's 1000 true fans concept. It's great to see artists embracing this, and realizing that rolling with it, makes more sense than trying to fight it.

But I'm still curious, being priked down sounds a little unpleasant.

I still remember this episode of the muppets from when I was a kid. I loved it back then, and it still makes me laugh.

FEVER! <crazy drums>