Marshmallow Ghosts and Tobacco at the Wormhole

Graveface Records founder Ryan Graveface is a busy guy. He just finished opening up his new retail shop in Savannah, Graveface Records & Curiousities, and wrapped up a feature film, plus this Marshmallow Ghost halloween record. To celebrate, he put together a surprise show at the Wormhole with the Marshmallow Ghosts and Super Black Moth Rainbow collaborator Tobacco. They screened some videos Ryan shot in Savannah (which you can watch via IFC), plus the trailer for Corpse Reviver No. 2, which stands to become the indie version of Thriller.

Everyone put on a great show, plus the videos/movie trailer were perfect for setting the mood. If you have a chance to see Tobacco, don't skip out. He puts on a good show, especially if there's some live percussion alongside him (I don't know if that's always the case or not, but he was joined by the Marshmallow Ghosts' drummer for a couple songs and it worked).

C.Jizzy "Give You Up"

 I forgot to post this over the summer, but I had to come back around to it. Jizzy is from Savannah, but if I didn't know, I'd swear she was from New York (or maybe North Jersey). Her style and delivery definitely share some common traits with Lyte and Latifah. She's taking over for me teaching classes at AWOL, and I'm psyched about that because she's got a ton of talent and knows how to vibe with the kids.
 

If you like what you hear, grab an extra track here.

Video: M.E.D. "Blaxican"

M.E.D. skates across this Madlib production. The intro is about 30 seconds long, but your patience is rewarded with an anthem about the intermingled minority culture of Los Angeles. A great example of how the visual can add to the content and style of a song (rather than compete with it). M.E.D.'s new album Classic is definitely worth a listen.

G-Side "Gettin' It"

 Fader premiered this crisp rider from Huntsville, Alabama duo G-Side. It's called "Gettin' It" and features cameos from Stalley and Joi Tiffany. [explosion sounds].
G-Side f. Stalley and Joi Tiffany, "Gettin It" by The FADER

Kellie Walker's "Bones"

Kellie is a Savannah-based painter with a thing for skeletons. Not cheesy/spooky halloween bones, but cow skulls and other large mammals. Her solo exhibition follows the Savannah Windows project at the Creative Coast space, and it's cool to see them fostering as much local art as they have small business enterprises over the years.

MC Zulu x Poirier

What?! Grinding dancehall mayhem. The only question is can the dance floor work it any harder? "Red Alert"


Learn more about Zulu here.

Sub Swara's "Videogames" remix

 The guys from Sub Swara did their thing on this remix of Lana Del Rey's "Videogames". The results include some sort of mariachi-on-ether=nordic-battle-horn leading into tasteful drums, pulsing bass and reverby wafts of Del Rey's vocals. They manage to bridge the gap between angelic harp runs and gritty bass lines, avoiding any chance collision with monotony. Click to listen, or [right-click+save as]. They're will be a new mixtape from Sub Swara in November. Should be something special for the bass realm.

J.Rocc's Quantic Mix

 Here's a good bet. Let J.Rocc take 10 years worth of Will Holland's musical output and turn it into a 40 minute mix. Go ahead and get down.
Best Of Quantic Mix by J.Rocc by Tru Thoughts

[via Hypetrack]

Vow (Diplo and Lunice Remix)

This is awesome. Super mellow, and then when the beat drops in, it's some sort of poly-rhythm of life that you can just slide along to.

Robot Koch "The Other Side"

The new LP from Berlin's Robot Koch arrived a few weeks ago, and I've spent some time riding around listening to it in the car (driving alone, imho, is one of the best places/times to pass judgment on music). This album is definitely worth checking out, if you're looking one of the smoothest and most listenable bass/beats/post-dubstep albums available right now. Check it out here.

Koch shows off his dexterity by pulling together tracks that offer a little something for everyone, opening with slower post-rock crooning before moving into the realm of glitchy, boss-wobbling beats. His tracks also manage an expressiveness that is lacking from some of the recent flood of young beatsmiths. In an age when technology is allowing quantity to surpass quality in the ears of some fans, Koch maintains an edge in the fantastic texture he provides his sounds. 

Listen to "Heal" featuring John Lamonica
  Robot Koch- heal feat john lamonica by Robot Koch

Cinespia DJ sets

Are you familiar with Cinespia? If not, it's a series of film screenings in cemeteries around Los Angeles.

That in and of itself is pretty awesome, but the icing on the cake is that they get world class DJs to throw down sets before and after the screenings. Now, living several thousand miles from the action, I'd be bummed, except that they record these sets and host them on their website, where you can listen/download. I'd highly recommend the Gaslamp Killer set, which rolls from Joe Meek through some psychy mayhem to a kazoo-centric medley atop a dance clap. This thing is hours upon hours of awesome live sets just waiting for your perusal.

Milagres & Peter Wolf Crier at Livewire (10/05/11)

Savannah Stopover brought back one of the festival favorites for another visit on Wednesday. The last time Milagres was in town, in early March for the festival, they were but young men traveling the country full of talent and potential. They rocked while they were here (or so I was told by everyone in attendance, because I stopped to see Prince Rama before leaving to set up for the after-party). When they returned last night, it was with some more successes under their collective belt, including the release their debut Glowing Mouth, and a lot more touring.

  The touring might be wearing them out, or so pontificated someone next to me, who felt that they exuded more raw energy during Stopover. I wouldn't know. I got a taste of what he meant when they kicked into the album's title track, which they saved like a dangling carrot until near the end of their set.

 The energy they brought to performing that track was double the energy of any other song in the set. They exploded into it, drawing the crowd into as much of a frenzy as they would reach all night. But where was that energy for the rest of the night? Don't get me wrong, Milagres is a great live band and their set was well-played, but it rendered the album beautifully from studio to stage...a little too well...so that some of the risk and effusive rawness of live performance was lost.

If you haven't checked them out, I'd highly recommend giving the album, Glowing Mouth, a spin if you're looking for some moody psych-pop-rock with a tip of the hat to Spector-esque reverb.

One of the night's heroes, however, was Peter Wolf Crier's drummer. This guy plays like a maniac - a real octopus on meth.

In most cities, Peter Wolf Crier is the headliner, but in Savannah, we like to do things our own way. The Minneapolis-based band was really good though. The lead singer, who is a handsome man according to reports from nearby lady drool, was also pretty funny, even if the casually dropped title of an overly academic-sounding paper he presented on his previous (non-musical) visit to Savannah leaned a bit toward pomposity.

Musically, they are what happens when waves of sound crush a U2 concert and then ride their dirt bikes across it. They closed with an INXS cover that was awesome. At one point, the singer's distortion pedals were feeding back a little too much for my liking - like when it crosses over from being awesome and distorted and just becomes piercing to an overwhelming degree. He didn't seem to notice, so either he's lost a hi-frequency range in his hearing, was being polite to play through some extended feedback in the PA, or the song was supposed to sound like that...

Overall though, they played a great set which was executed with what appeared to be precision planning. The rise and fall of moods, the crashing of white noise into the ambient intros of new songs, the build-up to a frenetic close - it was well done. They make a great pairing with Milagres, although I think I do prefer Milagres to play second, all things being equal...

War on Stupid at DMA

 Earlier this week I was up in Boston co-presenting "The War on Stupid" with Andrew Davies, a designer extraordinnaire with Paragon Design. As part of the Geekend Roadshow we presented at the Direct Marketers Association conference. It went well, and the crowd seemed to enjoy it. If you read/speak Danish, let me know if this article about the talk is good or bad.

The basic idea is that people need access to important information about the world around them, but most people either don't like to read, or never find time to keep up with more news than what is available via cable news channels. They are left under-served in the realm of informational nourishment. We propose to combat that through the collaboration of creatives (designers, illustrators, filmmakers, sound designers, etc) with 'sense-makers' (journalists, research scientists, etc) to turn complex ideas and data heavy material into short videos.

We created a demo of our idea. Drew took a 3-part investigative piece that I did about a nuclear reactor project outside of Augusta and turned it into a minute-and-a-half long motion graphic video. Check that out here.

You can follow the War on Stupid blog, which highlights other folks working in the realm of information translation.

The Last Poets

If you don't know, now you know. Knowledge from the streets. Listen to the end and check the "party and bullshit" sample.

Sights of Savannah

Bob Jones is constantly carrying a camera and snapping photos around town. It doesn't matter if it's a stray cat or a rock show, if it catches his eye, he'll take a picture. He probably has documented more of the breadth of Savannah's many pieces than anyone else. Here are a few from a recent evening that caught my eye. 

You can follow his daily output here.