Oh my my, we are mid-way through the first month of the new year! Excitement! While I felt that 2008 was both overwhelming and under-whelming, all signs are pointing towards good vibrations in 2009!... even if I'm already feeling sick and antisocial.
I'm happy to say I already have my favorite Portland band of 2009 already picked out. Explode Into colors FLOORED me at Holocene's NYE shindig and then again the other weekend at Dekum Manor (see post header pic).
Without further ado, let's have a little round up of my 2009 blog posts so far posted elsewhere on the internets:
How I spent my NYE:
At Holocene I FINALLY saw Explode Into Colors after everybody and their brother had been singing their praises to me for quite some time. What I don't mention in my review of that set was what happened afterward. DJs happened. Crowd atmosphere became weird weird weird - like a highschool dance/frat vibe about it. Like not the normal bump and grind that comes with a plethora of drunk people in one room, but shot-gunning and body glitter. Linger & Quiet scored major points by playing Mickey Moonlight's Sun Ra cover as part of their set and I did enjoy when Hot Mess segued from Lil Wayne's "A Milli" onto Purple Ribbon Allstars' "Kryptonite" and then into Outkast.
In between seeing Explode Into Colors and taking in the DJ action, I slipped away to Backspace.
Starfucker at Backspace was a blast and a half. Insane, ecstatic chaos!
Other LocalCut posts of mine in 2009:
Starfucker Dun Soldout: “Holly” In New IBM Commercial
I encourage you to check out the comments on the post and the particularly rad and insightful path they take.
I am beaming about the ad. SO PROUD! This is arguably bigger than when the trio released its self-titled debut in the fall of last year. Seriously. And it's a vindication of what I've been saying all along: Starfucker's songs were meant for ads! I mean I mentioned the fact to Josh the first time I ever contacted him through MySpace back in 2007 and when I profiled Starfucker in URB magazine, I closed the piece with:
Sounds like: The next song to cross over from a commercial.
2009! 2009!
(PS - Don't you love magazines who ask you to submit tons of stuff (copy and photos) for free, but say they'll pay you for one piece and then a year later you still haven't been paid? Yeah. Urb rocks in that department)
Inside The Video: Dissecting Blitzen Trapper’s “Furr” With Director Jade Harris
I'm so into music videos right now. I really like the medium because it marries so much that I hold near and dear: story-telling, music and visual imagery. So open-ended too.
I proclaim White Fang's disc Pure Evil to be one of the best of 2008 in WWeek's 2008: Never Forget
I have this to say about Benoit Pioulard in LC's Even More Of The Year-End Roundup:
"It’s hard to hold a grudge against Benoît Pioulard mastermind Tom Meluch when he’s supplying my eardrums with such sincere, yet near indecipherable, lyrics that glide over richly textured sound collages created within the confines of his bedroom. The problem? Only his bedroom is getting the privilege of such performances since he doesn’t play out very often. If he were to reverse his stance and take up a residency—even for just for a single evening—in a local venue more than three times per annum (his 2008 tally) this coming year, not just my ears, but my eyes would know the pleasure of such a reclusive musician."
Other Pampelmoose blog posts so far:
El Guincho, Spot the Sample - All Revealed
So Mike from Reporter rocks. I have finally started frequenting his late-night fry cart on Hawthorne. Potato Champion is now my hands down favorite place in Portland. Hands down. More than the woods, more than select segments of train tracks in SE, more than the boardwalk near the police horse stables in NW. The cart is ALWAYS playing good music and one night a weke back it was playing El Guincho. I start dancing. Mike mentions this rad African mixtape blog that has the original song El Guincho samples in "Antillas" on it. We start talking about African music and it's prevalence of late. In return for the blog recommendation, I tell him about DJ Mujava's "Township Funk" which I initially heard in that trusty Mickey Moonlight podcast.
So do gravitate over to that post to hear the El Guincho song and the song "Pelina" by Oriango & Kipchamba that it samples. Chris from Gorilla vs. Bear got the comment thread going and it must be noted that he's taken an extra swoon-worthy polaroid of El Guincho in the past. Weigh in in the comments over there about whether Paul Simon or David Byrne is to blame for Vampire Weekend. A continuing discussion which gives me to the excuse to link Ladysmith Black Mambazo's Lifesavers ad from the 90s. Brilliance!
Guns N Bombs, Disco Night at the Big Horse
Holy shit! It's all disco! Authentic disco! Insanely easy to listen to. As I mention in the post, Mickey Moonlight's Ed Banger podcast was the be all and end all of mixes, so much so that I didn't listen to another for the entirety of 2008. His was just TOO good. So I missed this Guns N Bombs one when it first surfaced.
On the radio:
And last, but certainly not least, Monday of last week I appeared as a guest on Arya Imig's Sound Judgment radio program on KPSU. It was fun. For two hours and 15 minutes I played some of my favorite songs, plus rambled about being high on life. Wanna listen? The broadcast is available to download or stream in three parts:
10-11pm, 11-12am, and 12 until 1am though I sign off around 12:15am.
So 2009's theme? The year of the novel and the music video. Those will be my two areas of focus. And a move to New York for who knows what reason (interning at Partizan and auditioning for musicals).
Though 2008 felt like a non-event that I'm all to happy to leave behind, there were moments of amazingness and hard fought accomplishments. I met my goal of creating 10+ concert posters for local venues. I became a "DJ" for a brief second there. And photography really took off. I landed my first cover (Willamette Week's Best New Band issue) and had images appear in Rolling Stone and Blender and too many more. Plus my photos of Bon Iver served as his UK publicity shots and I really really wanted to do publicity shots in 2008. I'm also proud of putting together the series of outdoor concerts under the banner of Lost Gospel. It kinda all went to hell, but it was ultimately a positive experience. A trying and tiring positive experience. those last two sentences apply both to Lost Gospel and the year 2008 in general.
I didn't want to do a year-end post on here because I was soooooo ready to move on from 2008, but a couple other sites did including Rolling Stone and Pitchfork, both of which my photos appear in their round-ups.
Rolling Stone: The Year in Performances: 2008's Best Live Shots - 6 of my photos make it in
Pitchfork: The Year in Photos 2008 - 3 of my photos make it in
And here are my most listened to artists of 2008*:
1. Animal Collective
2. Metronomy
3. Bon Iver
4. Jesse McCartney
5. Ratatat
6. TV on the Radio
7. Starfucker
8. Britney Spears
9. Benoit Pioulard
10. Muscles
11. White Fang
12. Born Ruffians
13. Late of the Pier
14. Breakfast Mountain
15. School of Seven Bells
* according to last.fm which wasn't able to accurately record when you listened to a song on repeat until mid-way through 2008. Otherwise Born Ruffians woulda been higher.
2009: The year of music videos for sure! Starfucker #2 is on. It'll be for a new track called 'Medicine' appearing on their unreleased EP due out in the next few months. YES!
p.s. I'm gonna link to yer blog Nilina, wanna hook me up too?
Posted by: MAKE YOUR COCK BIGGER IN 9 EASY STEPS! | January 20, 2009 at 11:21 PM
no portland? I kind of live vicariously through your concert pictures and plan to move there eventually just cause it seems so great.
Posted by: jojo | February 13, 2009 at 09:39 PM