Released on Wall of Sound late last year:
Change One Thing
11 years ago
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Carl Craig & Moritz von Oswald
This first cut is a track from the original album titled "ReComposed" that was released on the supremely venerable record label Deutsche Grammophon.
And this is a remix by Carl Craig released on the AA side for a remixed release.
And this is a remix by Carl Craig released on the AA side for a remixed release.
New Basement Jaxx Album and Tour
Basement Jaxx have finished their fifth studio album titled "Scars", and is set for domestic release on October 6. They've got a short North America tour that kicks off in San Francisco on October 30 and ends in New York on Saturday, November 7 at Santos Party House. Hells yeah. You can purchase your tickets for the New York date here.
Here's the video for their first single "Raindrops".
Here's the video for their first single "Raindrops".
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Friday, August 21, 2009
Nate Appleman and Keith McNally Team Up For Bowery Pizzeria
From Grub Street:
This just in, via an e-mail from the man himself this morning: Keith McNally has tapped none other than Nate Appleman to helm the kitchen at his forthcoming pizzeria on the Bowery, Pulino's Bar and Pizzeria. Appleman, who will be chef and partner, was last seen looking for a point of entry into the New York market, having parted ways with his partners at A16 and SPQR in San Francisco. He's also this year's recipient of both the James Beard Rising Star award and Best New Chef honors from Food & Wine magazine. While the last time McNally experimented with a name chef on an Italian restaurant, at Morandi, the results were initially mixed, the McNally-Appleman one-two immediately catapults Pulino's into the territory of places like Otto and Co., where top operators and chefs are in tandem, and puts it on a path for epic success. It's a (characteristically) very shrewd move for McNally and a virtual lottery win for Appleman, who has something to prove in NYC. Pulino's, a breakfast, lunch, dinner, and late-night proposition — per the McNally standard — will open sometime in December.
This just in, via an e-mail from the man himself this morning: Keith McNally has tapped none other than Nate Appleman to helm the kitchen at his forthcoming pizzeria on the Bowery, Pulino's Bar and Pizzeria. Appleman, who will be chef and partner, was last seen looking for a point of entry into the New York market, having parted ways with his partners at A16 and SPQR in San Francisco. He's also this year's recipient of both the James Beard Rising Star award and Best New Chef honors from Food & Wine magazine. While the last time McNally experimented with a name chef on an Italian restaurant, at Morandi, the results were initially mixed, the McNally-Appleman one-two immediately catapults Pulino's into the territory of places like Otto and Co., where top operators and chefs are in tandem, and puts it on a path for epic success. It's a (characteristically) very shrewd move for McNally and a virtual lottery win for Appleman, who has something to prove in NYC. Pulino's, a breakfast, lunch, dinner, and late-night proposition — per the McNally standard — will open sometime in December.
Monday, August 17, 2009
Upcoming Eric Ripert Show on PBS
If you've checked out the blog list on the left side of this site, you'd see Ripert's Avec Eric site listed.
from W Magazine:
Out of the Kitchen
Le Bernardin’s Eric Ripert brings his brand of culinary cool to the small screen.
By Jenny Comita
September 2009
Compared with his fellow megachefs, Eric Ripert has always come off like a bit of an iceman. A tall, tanned, silver-haired Buddhist who manages to look cool even in close proximity to a blazing range, he reigns over New York’s famed Le Bernardin with a calm confidence that makes Gordon Ramsay and the rest of the apron-clad screamers seem like three-year-olds in dire need of a nap. When a judge on Top Chef, the cooking contest show on which Ripert has guest-starred, referred to him as Obi-Wan Kenobi last season, the analogy between the wise Jedi Master and the 44-year-old culinary whiz seemed apt.
This fall, however, foodies will get to glimpse Ripert’s untethered side when his own TV series, Avec Eric, debuts on PBS. A far cry from the cutesy quick-cook shows that dominate the airwaves, each episode opens with a behind-the-scenes look at one aspect of Le Bernardin—the haute seafood eatery’s saucier station, for instance—and closes with Ripert creating a masterly but manageable dish in a home kitchen. In between, Ripert travels in search of inspiration, and it’s on these trips—whether to slurp oysters straight out of the sea off California’s Hog Island or to hunt wild boar in Chianti, Italy—that his suave facade begins to erode. Standing in the Tuscan forest in a thunderstorm, his camouflage jacket pulled over his head like a babushka, he practically leaps out of the shot when the burly creature streaks past. Even eight months later, sitting in the cookbook-crammed conference room of Le Bernardin, he seems shaken by his close encounter with the big pig. “Eee was coming right at us!” he says, his French accent so thick it sounds almost put on. “We were looking for a tree to climb! Eee ad these beeeg teeth on the sides!”
Avec Eric represents Ripert’s first regular foray onto the small screen. Though he certainly doesn’t lack for presence, and though his culinary chops trump those of just about anyone else on TV—he has held on to his four New York Times stars for 14 years, longer than anyone else now cooking in the city—he has been slow to pick up the toque of celebrity chef. He’s doing so now, he says, because he believes his seasoned team is up to the task of handling the restaurant during his absences. “You don’t become a chef to become famous,” says Ripert, who enrolled in culinary school at 15 and landed in the kitchen of Paris’s La Tour d’Argent two years later. “You become a chef because you like cooking.”
But running Le Bernardin, which Ripert has co-owned with Maguy Le Coze since 1994, when Le Coze’s brother and cofounder, Gilbert, died, also means acting as manager, talent scout and marketing machine. Ripert, who lives on the Upper East Side with his wife and young son, does a remarkable job of juggling, says chef–turned–writer–turned–TV host Anthony Bourdain, a close friend. “I’ve never seen him freak out under any circumstances. He’s a great advertisement for Buddhism.”
Ripert credits the religion, which he began studying in his 20s, with teaching him kindness—as a young chef, he was a bit of a hothead, once throwing a plate at pastry chef François Payard—but it hasn’t exactly turned him into a type B personality. In his new memoir, Born Round, New York Times food critic Frank Bruni recalls that while many chefs posted his photo so servers could spot him, Ripert took it a step further, digging up videos so his staff could also study his mannerisms. Ripert seems embarrassed by the story but admits it’s true. “We have standards, and we do everything possible to meet them. If that means having Bruni on video, then that’s what it is,” he says. “But by the way, the videos were legal! They were Frank Bruni reporting from the White House!”
Meeting those standards in the current economy has, of course, meant making hard choices. With many New York restaurants down as much as 30 percent, just about every eatery has reacted by offering some sort of deal. Ripert saw his own business plunge in the first month of 2009, and, he says, “we had to make a decision: Either we lower the price, in which case we cannot provide the quality that we want, or we stick to our standards.” The answer, he says, came to him while he was walking down Madison Avenue: “I saw one designer store where everything was 90 percent off, and it was empty. And then there was Hermès, nothing on sale, and the place was packed.” He chose the Hermès strategy, on the logic that “nobody remembers a bargain but nobody forgets a bad meal,” and insists that it has been successful, with business rebounding almost entirely by early spring.
Thus far, acting on instinct has served him well. “I never pressure myself to do something I don’t want to do,” he says. It’s a philosophy he applies even to Buddhism. While vegetarianism is the karmic ideal, for example, Ripert has no problem cooking up creatures. “The way I see it, you don’t take the life of an animal for something meaningless,” he says. “If I have a beautiful ingredient in front of me, I’m going to pay homage to it. I’m not going to f--- it up.”
from W Magazine:
Out of the Kitchen
Le Bernardin’s Eric Ripert brings his brand of culinary cool to the small screen.
By Jenny Comita
September 2009
Compared with his fellow megachefs, Eric Ripert has always come off like a bit of an iceman. A tall, tanned, silver-haired Buddhist who manages to look cool even in close proximity to a blazing range, he reigns over New York’s famed Le Bernardin with a calm confidence that makes Gordon Ramsay and the rest of the apron-clad screamers seem like three-year-olds in dire need of a nap. When a judge on Top Chef, the cooking contest show on which Ripert has guest-starred, referred to him as Obi-Wan Kenobi last season, the analogy between the wise Jedi Master and the 44-year-old culinary whiz seemed apt.
This fall, however, foodies will get to glimpse Ripert’s untethered side when his own TV series, Avec Eric, debuts on PBS. A far cry from the cutesy quick-cook shows that dominate the airwaves, each episode opens with a behind-the-scenes look at one aspect of Le Bernardin—the haute seafood eatery’s saucier station, for instance—and closes with Ripert creating a masterly but manageable dish in a home kitchen. In between, Ripert travels in search of inspiration, and it’s on these trips—whether to slurp oysters straight out of the sea off California’s Hog Island or to hunt wild boar in Chianti, Italy—that his suave facade begins to erode. Standing in the Tuscan forest in a thunderstorm, his camouflage jacket pulled over his head like a babushka, he practically leaps out of the shot when the burly creature streaks past. Even eight months later, sitting in the cookbook-crammed conference room of Le Bernardin, he seems shaken by his close encounter with the big pig. “Eee was coming right at us!” he says, his French accent so thick it sounds almost put on. “We were looking for a tree to climb! Eee ad these beeeg teeth on the sides!”
Avec Eric represents Ripert’s first regular foray onto the small screen. Though he certainly doesn’t lack for presence, and though his culinary chops trump those of just about anyone else on TV—he has held on to his four New York Times stars for 14 years, longer than anyone else now cooking in the city—he has been slow to pick up the toque of celebrity chef. He’s doing so now, he says, because he believes his seasoned team is up to the task of handling the restaurant during his absences. “You don’t become a chef to become famous,” says Ripert, who enrolled in culinary school at 15 and landed in the kitchen of Paris’s La Tour d’Argent two years later. “You become a chef because you like cooking.”
But running Le Bernardin, which Ripert has co-owned with Maguy Le Coze since 1994, when Le Coze’s brother and cofounder, Gilbert, died, also means acting as manager, talent scout and marketing machine. Ripert, who lives on the Upper East Side with his wife and young son, does a remarkable job of juggling, says chef–turned–writer–turned–TV host Anthony Bourdain, a close friend. “I’ve never seen him freak out under any circumstances. He’s a great advertisement for Buddhism.”
Ripert credits the religion, which he began studying in his 20s, with teaching him kindness—as a young chef, he was a bit of a hothead, once throwing a plate at pastry chef François Payard—but it hasn’t exactly turned him into a type B personality. In his new memoir, Born Round, New York Times food critic Frank Bruni recalls that while many chefs posted his photo so servers could spot him, Ripert took it a step further, digging up videos so his staff could also study his mannerisms. Ripert seems embarrassed by the story but admits it’s true. “We have standards, and we do everything possible to meet them. If that means having Bruni on video, then that’s what it is,” he says. “But by the way, the videos were legal! They were Frank Bruni reporting from the White House!”
Meeting those standards in the current economy has, of course, meant making hard choices. With many New York restaurants down as much as 30 percent, just about every eatery has reacted by offering some sort of deal. Ripert saw his own business plunge in the first month of 2009, and, he says, “we had to make a decision: Either we lower the price, in which case we cannot provide the quality that we want, or we stick to our standards.” The answer, he says, came to him while he was walking down Madison Avenue: “I saw one designer store where everything was 90 percent off, and it was empty. And then there was Hermès, nothing on sale, and the place was packed.” He chose the Hermès strategy, on the logic that “nobody remembers a bargain but nobody forgets a bad meal,” and insists that it has been successful, with business rebounding almost entirely by early spring.
Thus far, acting on instinct has served him well. “I never pressure myself to do something I don’t want to do,” he says. It’s a philosophy he applies even to Buddhism. While vegetarianism is the karmic ideal, for example, Ripert has no problem cooking up creatures. “The way I see it, you don’t take the life of an animal for something meaningless,” he says. “If I have a beautiful ingredient in front of me, I’m going to pay homage to it. I’m not going to f--- it up.”
Monday, July 20, 2009
Friday, July 10, 2009
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Matt Pinfield is cool (and also a DJ)
Here's an interview with Matt Pinfield (of 120 Minutes fame) taken from Gothamist:
Before MTV made the full switch to becoming a universe inhabited by the Spencer Pratts and Tila Tequilas of the world, there was a strange moment in the late '90s when the network appeared to be at a crossroads. After years of serving as the launching pad for models-turned-VJs, one face on the network stuck out like a sore thumb when he arrived on the scene—Matt Pinfield's. Pinfield quickly made a name for himself as the only guy on the air who appeared to be completely serious and passionate about the music he played, as he would sputter off obscure punk references while engaging bands in ways they were unaccustomed to when dealing with MTV. He went from hosting the weekly alternative video show, 120 Minutes, to appearing on-air so often at one point that the Post joked they just give him his own daily block and call it "360 Minutes."
A decade later, Pinfield is still just as excited about the music he plays and the bands he gets to talk to, doing it now as a morning co-host for the modern rock station 101.9 WRXP (check out the podcast archives here). It has only been around for a couple years, but has built up a great word of mouth among rock fans as being a rare local radio station that keeps you guessing. Matt was kind enough to invite us down to the WRXP studios where he talked to us about not keeping quiet after a recent trip to rehab, which rock star was brought to tears over his contributions at MTV and how he truly broke records at his first-ever radio gig.
You have a good Fourth?
Yeah, I did. I hung out with my 9-year-old daughter. I took her to a big fireworks thing in Jacksonville where she lives. Then we went to her to her great-grandparents for a big outdoor barbecue on Saturday. I only got there Friday afternoon and then I had to leave Sunday just to make it back for the show. So it was quick, but it's great to spend time with her.
You've mentioned on your radio show that you've lived in quite a few apartments around city. What kind of ground have you covered?
I've lived in at least eight or ten apartments in the city. Let me give you some of the addresses: 99 John Street, 95 Christopher Street, 360 First Avenue, The Longacre House on Eighth and 50th, 504 Grand Street, 75 West Street, 110 Washington Street, 38th in The Montrose—let me think...that's quite a few though, isn't it?
It's amazing you still know all the addresses. No wonder you never forget a B-side when interviewing a band. Is he the New Yorker you most admire?
Well I love Lou Reed. The picture he painted of New York in the 1960s and '70s and even in the '80s was groundbreaking. He took pop music to a darker side.
You just took a month off from your radio show to go into rehab. A lot of people seemed caught off-guard that someone they perceive as having such a low-key persona, sort of an everyman, would end up in recovery at this stage of the game.
For me I feel that I've been born predisposed to alcoholism because of the fact that when I was very young—I wasn't drunk and falling all over the place—but it got to be a problem. It was one of those things where it was very casual and then you cross the line and you don't even realize that you're crossing it and you're drinking wine every day. It was a gradual thing.
What made you decide to talk about it so openly as soon as you started doing the morning show again?
There are two reasons I went public about it. One because keeping it a secret was just detrimental to me. That at the end of the day, it would be a great weight off my shoulders. Secondly, I knew I could help others by being open and honest. Part of the philosophy of recovery is you help other people that are suffering from addiction or alcoholism. It just got to to the point where I knew that if I didn't get a grip on what was happening, it would eventually start to affect my career and my life. Like everyone else, if it takes you all the way down, you lose your gigs and your health gets destroyed. Luckily I wasn't that deep. But it could have ended up there if I hadn't done something about it.
And what has the response from listeners been so far?
This is an amazing thing, but I've already gotten three letters from people who went into treatment because of my broadcast that first morning. And then I've run into others who have said, "My friend went into rehab because of your broadcast" or "my friend quit drinking or blow or whatever because he heard your story." So I believe it had a positive effect on people. When I went on the air that morning, I said, "I'm doing this because if you're going through this, you don't have to be doing it alone." Because there's nothing worse than going through trouble by yourself.
How scary is it being in your first month of what appears to be a long road ahead?
Well, I just hit sixty days. And it's not really scary because I've got an incredible support system around me. Now more than ever, rock musicians, musicians in general, people in entertainment—there are so many people in recovery and of course we don't out each other. I don't talk about the program in depth because I respect the traditions of that. But there are so many people out there that you would be surprised are in recovery, that it's keeping their lives going. So I have this incredible amount of support out there. Not just from my listeners, but people I know, people in the industry—a lot of musicians—that are all there to support me and want me to succeed at staying sober.
It's cool that RXP records at the same studio next to Hot 97. You're neighbors with Funkmaster Flex.
Well Flex and I have been friends for a long time since we both did MTV, doing New Year's Eve stuff in the window the first year MTV was in Times Square. It was a very cool situation from those early days because I've always received a lot of respect from the black community because people could sense that I was A)not full of shit and B) really knew my music. And what they respected was knowledge. The guys that did Yo! MTV Raps would go to me, "The black community is really feelin' you."
You guys were also there at the same time as Jesse Camp. What was that like?
The Jesse Camp thing is funny. There was the whole "Celebrity Deathmatch" where I fought him. You never knew who was going to win—they wouldn't tell you. But I said to the guys working on it, "C'mon man, let me know. Do I win?" And one guy says to me, "All I can tell you is that the animation department doesn't dig Jesse."
There was such a contrast between the two of you when you were both on the air. It was always cool watching you that there was this guy on MTV with a look, but not really "A Look".
(Laughs) I definitely had a look, but it was one I was born with and then turned into. As a kid, when I was 15, it was discovered that I had an aneurysm. It was a pulsating exterior aneurysm with an artery. My mother took me to a couple of specialists who said I was gonna die, that I couldn't live through the operation. Then she finally found a neurosurgeon who would do it and I ended up living through it. But the chances of surviving were twenty percent. At the time, I remember being in the hospital and having the doctor say to me, "Well Matt, we're gonna have to shave part of your head to do this operation. So we can either shave half your head or all of it." And here I'm just getting out of junior high to start over in high school and I'm the lead singer in a rock band. So of course I say, "Well shave my entire head." This was the mid-seventies, pre-punk. No one was walking around with Mohawks. So it's interesting how I felt so alien until my hair grew back with these stitches all over. But ultimately I went bald very young and it became my look. And it's actually what kept me off MTV early on.
Before you hosted 120 Minutes, you worked in the music department there, picking out Buzz Clips, right? Are there any Buzz Clips that you really pulled for?
Me and Lewis (Largent, host of 120 Minutes at the time) were both really championing Radiohead, all those clips from The Bends and we were getting skewered by the industry. Because Lewis and I were saying these are the greatest videos, this record is groundbreaking and the industry had already written off the band as a One Hit Wonder with "Creep." But now there was "Fake Plastic Trees" and "High and Dry" and "Just" and these videos were pieces of art as far as I'm concerned. That was one of the ones we fought for as other record companies would give us shit, "What do you mean?! This record's not selling as much as our record!" But then one of the most amazing and satisfying days for me and Lewis and the Music Department was when Thom Yorke came in to give us gold records for The Bends. It took a long time to get there. But when they came in and handed us the gold records in our music room that day, Thom Yorke walked up to us and said, "I know you guys took a lot of shit for staying behind this and backing us on this record. And I just want you to know how much it means to us." And Thom Yorke actually broke into tears before he walked out of the room. He was literally in tears.
Wow, that's amazing. Can you think of a favorite "Only in New York" story?
Well the first thing that comes to mind is a surreal van ride back from the Tibetan Freedom Concert in '97. Sitting in this van is me, Lee "Scratch" Perry, Steven Malkmus of Pavement and Sarah McLachlan. So you talk about how diverse—just a truly surreal moment.
Do you have an all-time favorite summer festival?
I happened to be over in England for the Reading Festival the year that Nirvana headlined with Public Enemy and The Wonder Stuff, who were huge in England. That was the year that Kurt went out on stage in the wheelchair and the woman's dress. Another favorite was the year that had Jesus and Mary Chain and Lush at Waterloo Village in Jersey. I was covering that for the station I worked for at the Jersey Shore.
What's the biggest challenge of trying to get young adults to listen to RXP when so many of them here seem to have no connection to the radio in their lives anymore?
I really want people to know about what we do cause I know a lot of people have left radio because it hasn't done anything for them in so many years and New York radio has sucked so bad. I'm constantly telling people that I mean this, not just cause I work here, but that this station has really made a lot of people who had given up on radio turn back to listening to it again. Because they've finally found a place where they can hear everything from Grizzly Bear and Gomez.
Last month I was driving to Philly and heard MGMT into Mellencamp.
Well we subscribe to the philosophy that great music in rock can be from different eras and different styles. Things have become so sub-genred and specialized and niched that it doesn't give a lot of people the opportunity to grow. And that's why people have gone away from it. Radio has gotten so boring in so many parts of the country because people are afraid to experiment and give things chances. We support local music in a big way and are becoming involved in the music scene in a big way, all over—from Brooklyn to Jersey.
Even though I hate getting up at 4 in the morning like anybody else would, I'm almost always in a great mood because I'm so excited to play music for people. I'm a blessed guy because I've been doing cool, alternative radio for 25 years.
What first drew you doing radio?
My start actually came from doing a pirate station that my dad and I built out of my basement in East Brunswick, New Jersey at 9, 10, 11. Other neighborhood kids would come over and play. I had this beat-up Radio Shack mixer and these two turntables, one that my father had built from scratch and one we got from a neighbor, and two microphones we bought. We ran a line on the antenna from the house on a wire. And it would broadcast a block.
So was your dad a big part of getting you into music as a kid?
Well he knew I loved radio and loved music from the time I was 3-years-old. We were a poor family so my parents pooled the money to buy one of these old '60s 45" players that had the spindle, this tube that would come up, and you would stack the 45s and they would drop. And I was fascinated with this thing and would sit there at 3-years-old in front of it and rock back and forth, listening to The Beatles, The Stones, The Who, Motown, whatever. My parents would offer me kiddie records cause they would buy me Peter Pan records and all this crap. And I would throw them under the refrigerator to hide them. So when we moved to East Brunswick, my parents pulled out the fridge and found all these broken records.
By Billy Parker
Link to Interview
Before MTV made the full switch to becoming a universe inhabited by the Spencer Pratts and Tila Tequilas of the world, there was a strange moment in the late '90s when the network appeared to be at a crossroads. After years of serving as the launching pad for models-turned-VJs, one face on the network stuck out like a sore thumb when he arrived on the scene—Matt Pinfield's. Pinfield quickly made a name for himself as the only guy on the air who appeared to be completely serious and passionate about the music he played, as he would sputter off obscure punk references while engaging bands in ways they were unaccustomed to when dealing with MTV. He went from hosting the weekly alternative video show, 120 Minutes, to appearing on-air so often at one point that the Post joked they just give him his own daily block and call it "360 Minutes."
A decade later, Pinfield is still just as excited about the music he plays and the bands he gets to talk to, doing it now as a morning co-host for the modern rock station 101.9 WRXP (check out the podcast archives here). It has only been around for a couple years, but has built up a great word of mouth among rock fans as being a rare local radio station that keeps you guessing. Matt was kind enough to invite us down to the WRXP studios where he talked to us about not keeping quiet after a recent trip to rehab, which rock star was brought to tears over his contributions at MTV and how he truly broke records at his first-ever radio gig.
You have a good Fourth?
Yeah, I did. I hung out with my 9-year-old daughter. I took her to a big fireworks thing in Jacksonville where she lives. Then we went to her to her great-grandparents for a big outdoor barbecue on Saturday. I only got there Friday afternoon and then I had to leave Sunday just to make it back for the show. So it was quick, but it's great to spend time with her.
You've mentioned on your radio show that you've lived in quite a few apartments around city. What kind of ground have you covered?
I've lived in at least eight or ten apartments in the city. Let me give you some of the addresses: 99 John Street, 95 Christopher Street, 360 First Avenue, The Longacre House on Eighth and 50th, 504 Grand Street, 75 West Street, 110 Washington Street, 38th in The Montrose—let me think...that's quite a few though, isn't it?
It's amazing you still know all the addresses. No wonder you never forget a B-side when interviewing a band. Is he the New Yorker you most admire?
Well I love Lou Reed. The picture he painted of New York in the 1960s and '70s and even in the '80s was groundbreaking. He took pop music to a darker side.
You just took a month off from your radio show to go into rehab. A lot of people seemed caught off-guard that someone they perceive as having such a low-key persona, sort of an everyman, would end up in recovery at this stage of the game.
For me I feel that I've been born predisposed to alcoholism because of the fact that when I was very young—I wasn't drunk and falling all over the place—but it got to be a problem. It was one of those things where it was very casual and then you cross the line and you don't even realize that you're crossing it and you're drinking wine every day. It was a gradual thing.
What made you decide to talk about it so openly as soon as you started doing the morning show again?
There are two reasons I went public about it. One because keeping it a secret was just detrimental to me. That at the end of the day, it would be a great weight off my shoulders. Secondly, I knew I could help others by being open and honest. Part of the philosophy of recovery is you help other people that are suffering from addiction or alcoholism. It just got to to the point where I knew that if I didn't get a grip on what was happening, it would eventually start to affect my career and my life. Like everyone else, if it takes you all the way down, you lose your gigs and your health gets destroyed. Luckily I wasn't that deep. But it could have ended up there if I hadn't done something about it.
And what has the response from listeners been so far?
This is an amazing thing, but I've already gotten three letters from people who went into treatment because of my broadcast that first morning. And then I've run into others who have said, "My friend went into rehab because of your broadcast" or "my friend quit drinking or blow or whatever because he heard your story." So I believe it had a positive effect on people. When I went on the air that morning, I said, "I'm doing this because if you're going through this, you don't have to be doing it alone." Because there's nothing worse than going through trouble by yourself.
How scary is it being in your first month of what appears to be a long road ahead?
Well, I just hit sixty days. And it's not really scary because I've got an incredible support system around me. Now more than ever, rock musicians, musicians in general, people in entertainment—there are so many people in recovery and of course we don't out each other. I don't talk about the program in depth because I respect the traditions of that. But there are so many people out there that you would be surprised are in recovery, that it's keeping their lives going. So I have this incredible amount of support out there. Not just from my listeners, but people I know, people in the industry—a lot of musicians—that are all there to support me and want me to succeed at staying sober.
It's cool that RXP records at the same studio next to Hot 97. You're neighbors with Funkmaster Flex.
Well Flex and I have been friends for a long time since we both did MTV, doing New Year's Eve stuff in the window the first year MTV was in Times Square. It was a very cool situation from those early days because I've always received a lot of respect from the black community because people could sense that I was A)not full of shit and B) really knew my music. And what they respected was knowledge. The guys that did Yo! MTV Raps would go to me, "The black community is really feelin' you."
You guys were also there at the same time as Jesse Camp. What was that like?
The Jesse Camp thing is funny. There was the whole "Celebrity Deathmatch" where I fought him. You never knew who was going to win—they wouldn't tell you. But I said to the guys working on it, "C'mon man, let me know. Do I win?" And one guy says to me, "All I can tell you is that the animation department doesn't dig Jesse."
There was such a contrast between the two of you when you were both on the air. It was always cool watching you that there was this guy on MTV with a look, but not really "A Look".
(Laughs) I definitely had a look, but it was one I was born with and then turned into. As a kid, when I was 15, it was discovered that I had an aneurysm. It was a pulsating exterior aneurysm with an artery. My mother took me to a couple of specialists who said I was gonna die, that I couldn't live through the operation. Then she finally found a neurosurgeon who would do it and I ended up living through it. But the chances of surviving were twenty percent. At the time, I remember being in the hospital and having the doctor say to me, "Well Matt, we're gonna have to shave part of your head to do this operation. So we can either shave half your head or all of it." And here I'm just getting out of junior high to start over in high school and I'm the lead singer in a rock band. So of course I say, "Well shave my entire head." This was the mid-seventies, pre-punk. No one was walking around with Mohawks. So it's interesting how I felt so alien until my hair grew back with these stitches all over. But ultimately I went bald very young and it became my look. And it's actually what kept me off MTV early on.
Before you hosted 120 Minutes, you worked in the music department there, picking out Buzz Clips, right? Are there any Buzz Clips that you really pulled for?
Me and Lewis (Largent, host of 120 Minutes at the time) were both really championing Radiohead, all those clips from The Bends and we were getting skewered by the industry. Because Lewis and I were saying these are the greatest videos, this record is groundbreaking and the industry had already written off the band as a One Hit Wonder with "Creep." But now there was "Fake Plastic Trees" and "High and Dry" and "Just" and these videos were pieces of art as far as I'm concerned. That was one of the ones we fought for as other record companies would give us shit, "What do you mean?! This record's not selling as much as our record!" But then one of the most amazing and satisfying days for me and Lewis and the Music Department was when Thom Yorke came in to give us gold records for The Bends. It took a long time to get there. But when they came in and handed us the gold records in our music room that day, Thom Yorke walked up to us and said, "I know you guys took a lot of shit for staying behind this and backing us on this record. And I just want you to know how much it means to us." And Thom Yorke actually broke into tears before he walked out of the room. He was literally in tears.
Wow, that's amazing. Can you think of a favorite "Only in New York" story?
Well the first thing that comes to mind is a surreal van ride back from the Tibetan Freedom Concert in '97. Sitting in this van is me, Lee "Scratch" Perry, Steven Malkmus of Pavement and Sarah McLachlan. So you talk about how diverse—just a truly surreal moment.
Do you have an all-time favorite summer festival?
I happened to be over in England for the Reading Festival the year that Nirvana headlined with Public Enemy and The Wonder Stuff, who were huge in England. That was the year that Kurt went out on stage in the wheelchair and the woman's dress. Another favorite was the year that had Jesus and Mary Chain and Lush at Waterloo Village in Jersey. I was covering that for the station I worked for at the Jersey Shore.
What's the biggest challenge of trying to get young adults to listen to RXP when so many of them here seem to have no connection to the radio in their lives anymore?
I really want people to know about what we do cause I know a lot of people have left radio because it hasn't done anything for them in so many years and New York radio has sucked so bad. I'm constantly telling people that I mean this, not just cause I work here, but that this station has really made a lot of people who had given up on radio turn back to listening to it again. Because they've finally found a place where they can hear everything from Grizzly Bear and Gomez.
Last month I was driving to Philly and heard MGMT into Mellencamp.
Well we subscribe to the philosophy that great music in rock can be from different eras and different styles. Things have become so sub-genred and specialized and niched that it doesn't give a lot of people the opportunity to grow. And that's why people have gone away from it. Radio has gotten so boring in so many parts of the country because people are afraid to experiment and give things chances. We support local music in a big way and are becoming involved in the music scene in a big way, all over—from Brooklyn to Jersey.
Even though I hate getting up at 4 in the morning like anybody else would, I'm almost always in a great mood because I'm so excited to play music for people. I'm a blessed guy because I've been doing cool, alternative radio for 25 years.
What first drew you doing radio?
My start actually came from doing a pirate station that my dad and I built out of my basement in East Brunswick, New Jersey at 9, 10, 11. Other neighborhood kids would come over and play. I had this beat-up Radio Shack mixer and these two turntables, one that my father had built from scratch and one we got from a neighbor, and two microphones we bought. We ran a line on the antenna from the house on a wire. And it would broadcast a block.
So was your dad a big part of getting you into music as a kid?
Well he knew I loved radio and loved music from the time I was 3-years-old. We were a poor family so my parents pooled the money to buy one of these old '60s 45" players that had the spindle, this tube that would come up, and you would stack the 45s and they would drop. And I was fascinated with this thing and would sit there at 3-years-old in front of it and rock back and forth, listening to The Beatles, The Stones, The Who, Motown, whatever. My parents would offer me kiddie records cause they would buy me Peter Pan records and all this crap. And I would throw them under the refrigerator to hide them. So when we moved to East Brunswick, my parents pulled out the fridge and found all these broken records.
By Billy Parker
Link to Interview
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Animal House at 30
College students find new ways to channel their inner Bluto
By E.E. SMITH
When Animal House first came out just over 30 years ago, it dominated the cultural landscape. College students were nostalgic for the "raunchy, pre-1960s undergraduate ideal," says Peter Rollins, who has been studying pop-culture academically for over 30 years. Mr. Rollins, who attended Dartmouth in the 1960s, says that students back then tried to live "the fantasy" on their own campuses. Some still do, taking Bluto's counsel to heart: "My advice to you is to start drinking heavily."
Take Alpha Delta, the Dartmouth College fraternity that the infamous Delta house of the movie is based on. The movie, co-written by Dartmouth graduate and Alpha Delta brother Chris Miller, still inspires some of the fraternity's traditions today.
In spring 2008, a band covering Otis Day and the Knights played on Alpha Delta's front lawn to an audience of boozers, brawlers and, probably, future U.S. senators. This past spring, Alpha Delta organized an Animal House-themed party with the preppy brothers Sigma Alpha Epsilon, the inspiration for the sadomasochistic Omega house in the film. And on any given Friday night, it's not just beer making the basement floor of Alpha Delta sticky. Paying tribute to the movie that made their fraternity famous, the brothers of Alpha Delta relieve themselves in plain sight along their basement wall.
This behavior is frowned upon by some. James Watson, a senior at Dartmouth and the current president of Sigma Alpha Epsilon, says that the Animal House culture is "very irresponsible." Speaking as the president of a fraternity whose motto is the "true gentleman," Mr. Watson unsurprisingly takes issue with such Bluto-inspired basement practices as "doming," where one chugs a six-pack as quickly as possible until projectile vomiting is induced.
Deborah Carney, director of Greek letter organizations and societies at Dartmouth, echoes Mr. Watson's concerns. "I saw Animal House twice and I thought it was funny," she says. "But when I show clips of Animal House to student leaders of Greek organizations today, they tell me that the clips are funny, but also . . . not funny."
So why do so many college men see Bluto as a model? "People think that behaving like Bluto will win them respect," Mr. Watson says. Bluto has nearly become the archetype of the college man. His poster is found in dorm rooms across the country. He is a binge drinker, physically aggressive and impervious to pain -- especially when he is chugging a fifth of whiskey.
Add one ingredient to Bluto's mischievous mix, sexual prowess, and you have what at Dartmouth is currently called "the hard guy."
An Alpha Delta insider, who agreed to be quoted on condition of anonymity, describes the hard guy. Referencing the excesses of typical Friday festivities, he says, "Your Friday night is my Monday morning." A Web site, created by Dartmouth alumni David Grey and Bobby Zangrilli, is devoted to selling T-shirts emblazoned with that and other hard-guy mottos. Another: "Hard Guy Dating: Having a girlfriend and not even liking her."
Interestingly though, the one variable that could check the hard guy is sex -- or more precisely, the opposite sex. Ms. Carney, looking back at her time at Dartmouth, says, "Over the last couple of decades, one of the biggest changes to the Greek scene has been the presence of women." Women were admitted to Dartmouth in 1976.
Mr. Watson agrees: "Having women around changes the way men act." The Alpha Delta insider has a different take: "My personal theory is that the college really didn't appreciate the attention from the movie and tried even harder to suppress the Animal House culture." As Dean Wormer once said, "The time has come for someone to put their foot down. And that foot is me."
The Alpha Delta insider is referring to the college's heavy oversight of Greek life. In 1999, Dartmouth's board of trustees passed the Student Life Initiative to sap the Greek system of its social dominance. Just one of the many highly unpopular provisions of the Student Life Initiative required Greek houses to register parties and kegs with the college. "Students tell me that, since the Student Life Initiative, parties have grown much tamer. There is more administrative oversight of the parties," Ms. Carney says.
Whatever the cause -- the presence of women or tougher supervision -- the Animal House culture is not the Sodom and Gomorrah it once was. Still, even after 30 years, neither the administration nor women can take the mischievous boy out of the college man. Back then, the frat brothers raged defiantly against the stuffiness of Omega house and the authority of the college administration. Today, they've been reduced to channeling their inner Bluto with hard guy T-shirts.
Ms. Smith, a recent Dartmouth graduate, is a Robert L. Bartley Fellow at the Journal.
Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A13
Copyright 2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Link To Article
And, if you've never read Chris Miller's "Night of the Seven Fires", check it out here.
By E.E. SMITH
When Animal House first came out just over 30 years ago, it dominated the cultural landscape. College students were nostalgic for the "raunchy, pre-1960s undergraduate ideal," says Peter Rollins, who has been studying pop-culture academically for over 30 years. Mr. Rollins, who attended Dartmouth in the 1960s, says that students back then tried to live "the fantasy" on their own campuses. Some still do, taking Bluto's counsel to heart: "My advice to you is to start drinking heavily."
Take Alpha Delta, the Dartmouth College fraternity that the infamous Delta house of the movie is based on. The movie, co-written by Dartmouth graduate and Alpha Delta brother Chris Miller, still inspires some of the fraternity's traditions today.
In spring 2008, a band covering Otis Day and the Knights played on Alpha Delta's front lawn to an audience of boozers, brawlers and, probably, future U.S. senators. This past spring, Alpha Delta organized an Animal House-themed party with the preppy brothers Sigma Alpha Epsilon, the inspiration for the sadomasochistic Omega house in the film. And on any given Friday night, it's not just beer making the basement floor of Alpha Delta sticky. Paying tribute to the movie that made their fraternity famous, the brothers of Alpha Delta relieve themselves in plain sight along their basement wall.
This behavior is frowned upon by some. James Watson, a senior at Dartmouth and the current president of Sigma Alpha Epsilon, says that the Animal House culture is "very irresponsible." Speaking as the president of a fraternity whose motto is the "true gentleman," Mr. Watson unsurprisingly takes issue with such Bluto-inspired basement practices as "doming," where one chugs a six-pack as quickly as possible until projectile vomiting is induced.
Deborah Carney, director of Greek letter organizations and societies at Dartmouth, echoes Mr. Watson's concerns. "I saw Animal House twice and I thought it was funny," she says. "But when I show clips of Animal House to student leaders of Greek organizations today, they tell me that the clips are funny, but also . . . not funny."
So why do so many college men see Bluto as a model? "People think that behaving like Bluto will win them respect," Mr. Watson says. Bluto has nearly become the archetype of the college man. His poster is found in dorm rooms across the country. He is a binge drinker, physically aggressive and impervious to pain -- especially when he is chugging a fifth of whiskey.
Add one ingredient to Bluto's mischievous mix, sexual prowess, and you have what at Dartmouth is currently called "the hard guy."
An Alpha Delta insider, who agreed to be quoted on condition of anonymity, describes the hard guy. Referencing the excesses of typical Friday festivities, he says, "Your Friday night is my Monday morning." A Web site, created by Dartmouth alumni David Grey and Bobby Zangrilli, is devoted to selling T-shirts emblazoned with that and other hard-guy mottos. Another: "Hard Guy Dating: Having a girlfriend and not even liking her."
Interestingly though, the one variable that could check the hard guy is sex -- or more precisely, the opposite sex. Ms. Carney, looking back at her time at Dartmouth, says, "Over the last couple of decades, one of the biggest changes to the Greek scene has been the presence of women." Women were admitted to Dartmouth in 1976.
Mr. Watson agrees: "Having women around changes the way men act." The Alpha Delta insider has a different take: "My personal theory is that the college really didn't appreciate the attention from the movie and tried even harder to suppress the Animal House culture." As Dean Wormer once said, "The time has come for someone to put their foot down. And that foot is me."
The Alpha Delta insider is referring to the college's heavy oversight of Greek life. In 1999, Dartmouth's board of trustees passed the Student Life Initiative to sap the Greek system of its social dominance. Just one of the many highly unpopular provisions of the Student Life Initiative required Greek houses to register parties and kegs with the college. "Students tell me that, since the Student Life Initiative, parties have grown much tamer. There is more administrative oversight of the parties," Ms. Carney says.
Whatever the cause -- the presence of women or tougher supervision -- the Animal House culture is not the Sodom and Gomorrah it once was. Still, even after 30 years, neither the administration nor women can take the mischievous boy out of the college man. Back then, the frat brothers raged defiantly against the stuffiness of Omega house and the authority of the college administration. Today, they've been reduced to channeling their inner Bluto with hard guy T-shirts.
Ms. Smith, a recent Dartmouth graduate, is a Robert L. Bartley Fellow at the Journal.
Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A13
Copyright 2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Link To Article
And, if you've never read Chris Miller's "Night of the Seven Fires", check it out here.
Claude Von Stroke @ Water Taxi Beach Tonight - 27/06/09
The man behind Dirtybird Records and Mothership Music is playing his brand of twisted and funky house music tonight at Water Taxi Beach. It's gonna be hot, hot, hot. And stoopid.
It's only $5 if you show the flyer above on your mobile.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Greg Wilson - Renaissance 9
You should get this mix right now:
Recorded early doors at a mad but memorable event promoted by the E.T.A crew next to a gypsy camp underneath London’s Westway (A40).
GREG WILSON
E.T.A – UNDER THE WESTWAY LONDON
12.02.2006
Full Tracklisting
Shuggie Otis / Strawberry Letter 23 (One Rascal Extended Mix)
Eighties Ladies / Turned On To You
The Cure / Close To Me (Oakenfold Mix)
Marvin Gaye / Inner City Blues (Makes Me Wanna Holler)
Kanye West / Heard ‘Em Say
Thick As Thieves / ‘Lectric Love
Silver Convention / Fly Robin Fly
Mary Jane Girls / All Night Long
Timmy Thomas / Why Can’t We Live Together (Pressure Drop Edit)
Crazy P / Lady T (GW Edit)
Grace Jones / Nipple To The Bottle
Kid Creole & The Coconuts / I’m A Wonderful Thing, Baby (GW Edit)
Grand Groove Bunch / Catch The Groove
The Whatnauts / Help Is On The Way
Linda Clifford / Runaway Love
http://www.cosmicboogie.co.uk/2009/06/greg-wilson-renaissance-9/
Direct Link To Mix
Recorded early doors at a mad but memorable event promoted by the E.T.A crew next to a gypsy camp underneath London’s Westway (A40).
GREG WILSON
E.T.A – UNDER THE WESTWAY LONDON
12.02.2006
Full Tracklisting
Shuggie Otis / Strawberry Letter 23 (One Rascal Extended Mix)
Eighties Ladies / Turned On To You
The Cure / Close To Me (Oakenfold Mix)
Marvin Gaye / Inner City Blues (Makes Me Wanna Holler)
Kanye West / Heard ‘Em Say
Thick As Thieves / ‘Lectric Love
Silver Convention / Fly Robin Fly
Mary Jane Girls / All Night Long
Timmy Thomas / Why Can’t We Live Together (Pressure Drop Edit)
Crazy P / Lady T (GW Edit)
Grace Jones / Nipple To The Bottle
Kid Creole & The Coconuts / I’m A Wonderful Thing, Baby (GW Edit)
Grand Groove Bunch / Catch The Groove
The Whatnauts / Help Is On The Way
Linda Clifford / Runaway Love
http://www.cosmicboogie.co.uk/2009/06/greg-wilson-renaissance-9/
Direct Link To Mix
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Laurent Garnier - Essential Mix - 23/05/09
The genius that is Laurent Garnier is back with another Essential Mix. Broadcasted last week, it's nothing short of what you'd expect from one of the best dj's in the world. It's a two part mix; the first part consisting of straight clubby tracks, whilst the second being composed of eclectic, "open-minded" cuts.
Mix 01 Straight DJ Set
Twelve ‘Back To Black’ (CDR)
Chymera ‘In Vogue’ (CDR)
Unknown ‘Unknown Title’ (CDR)
Kapuchon ‘And Again’ (Beyond Recordings)
Jamie Jones ‘Summertime’ (Crosstown Rebels)
DJ Hell ‘The DJ’ (International Deejay Gigolos)
Oculus ‘Creator’ (Open Concept Recordings)
Secret Cinema ‘Kurzweil Chicago’ (CDR)
Xpansul ‘Miss Fortune’ (T Bet Records)
Ame ‘Ensor’ (Innervisions)
Arno Mathieu ‘Soil Hard Winter’ (Innervisions)
Satoshi Fumi ‘Change’ (Apt International)
Mix 02 Eclectic Mix
Buddy Guy ‘One Room Country Shack’ (Vanguard)
Alan Hawkshaw & Brian Bennett ‘Name Of The Game’ (KPM)
Milez Benjiman ‘Chop That Wood’ (Tru Thoughts)
Giallos Flame ‘Crime Squad’ (DC Records)
DJ Fresh ‘The Pink Panther’ (Breakbeat Kaos)
Anthony Joseph ‘Vero’ (Heavenly Sweetness)
Mulatu Astatke ‘Bootleg’ (CDR)
Middlewood Sessions ‘Fall Back (Remix)’ (Brownswood)
Guy Gerber & Chaim ‘My Space’ (Supplement Facts)
Chain Of Command ‘Rogue State’ (Merciless)
Martyn ‘Natural Selection’ (3024)
Radio Slave ‘Bell Clap Dance’ (Rekids)
Lulu Rouge ‘Melankoli’ (Music For Dreams)
Link To Mix
Mix 01 Straight DJ Set
Twelve ‘Back To Black’ (CDR)
Chymera ‘In Vogue’ (CDR)
Unknown ‘Unknown Title’ (CDR)
Kapuchon ‘And Again’ (Beyond Recordings)
Jamie Jones ‘Summertime’ (Crosstown Rebels)
DJ Hell ‘The DJ’ (International Deejay Gigolos)
Oculus ‘Creator’ (Open Concept Recordings)
Secret Cinema ‘Kurzweil Chicago’ (CDR)
Xpansul ‘Miss Fortune’ (T Bet Records)
Ame ‘Ensor’ (Innervisions)
Arno Mathieu ‘Soil Hard Winter’ (Innervisions)
Satoshi Fumi ‘Change’ (Apt International)
Mix 02 Eclectic Mix
Buddy Guy ‘One Room Country Shack’ (Vanguard)
Alan Hawkshaw & Brian Bennett ‘Name Of The Game’ (KPM)
Milez Benjiman ‘Chop That Wood’ (Tru Thoughts)
Giallos Flame ‘Crime Squad’ (DC Records)
DJ Fresh ‘The Pink Panther’ (Breakbeat Kaos)
Anthony Joseph ‘Vero’ (Heavenly Sweetness)
Mulatu Astatke ‘Bootleg’ (CDR)
Middlewood Sessions ‘Fall Back (Remix)’ (Brownswood)
Guy Gerber & Chaim ‘My Space’ (Supplement Facts)
Chain Of Command ‘Rogue State’ (Merciless)
Martyn ‘Natural Selection’ (3024)
Radio Slave ‘Bell Clap Dance’ (Rekids)
Lulu Rouge ‘Melankoli’ (Music For Dreams)
Link To Mix
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Friday, May 22, 2009
Moderat
From Resident Advisor:
The trio of Apparat and Modeselektor have once again teamed up to create Moderat, their full-length debut.
The unlikely pairing of electro crunk hipsters Modeselektor and the relatively laidback Sascha Ring only yielded an EP in 2002 when they got together to collaborate on some music. And when their solo careers took off, the idea of joining forces was shelved indefinitely. Late last year, however, they found themselves with some time on their hands and got back in the studio once again to craft Moderat, an all-analog album recorded in the same Berlin studio that housed David Bowie as he put Heroes to tape.
Per usual, the collaborators have invited even more collaborators. On vocal duties, we have Paul St. Hilaire, indie rapper Busdriver, Dellé and Ring himself. And, as if that weren't enough outside help, lead single "Rusty Nails" will feature remixes from Booka Shade and Shackleton, while Modeselektor's visual buddies Pfadfinderei will provide a music videos and more exclusive content for a planned DVD release of the album.
Tracklist
01. A New Error
02. Rusty Nails
03. Seamonkey
04. Slow Match feat. Paul St. Hilaire
05. 3 Minutes Of
06. Nasty Silence
07. Sick With It feat. Dellé
08. Porc # 1
09. Porc # 2
10. No. 22
11. Out Of Sight
Moderat will be at Webster Hall on Saturday, May 30 with support by dj Damian Lazarus.
Link to ticketmaster here.
Edit: The venue has changed to the Music Hall of Williamsburg.
The trio of Apparat and Modeselektor have once again teamed up to create Moderat, their full-length debut.
The unlikely pairing of electro crunk hipsters Modeselektor and the relatively laidback Sascha Ring only yielded an EP in 2002 when they got together to collaborate on some music. And when their solo careers took off, the idea of joining forces was shelved indefinitely. Late last year, however, they found themselves with some time on their hands and got back in the studio once again to craft Moderat, an all-analog album recorded in the same Berlin studio that housed David Bowie as he put Heroes to tape.
Per usual, the collaborators have invited even more collaborators. On vocal duties, we have Paul St. Hilaire, indie rapper Busdriver, Dellé and Ring himself. And, as if that weren't enough outside help, lead single "Rusty Nails" will feature remixes from Booka Shade and Shackleton, while Modeselektor's visual buddies Pfadfinderei will provide a music videos and more exclusive content for a planned DVD release of the album.
Tracklist
01. A New Error
02. Rusty Nails
03. Seamonkey
04. Slow Match feat. Paul St. Hilaire
05. 3 Minutes Of
06. Nasty Silence
07. Sick With It feat. Dellé
08. Porc # 1
09. Porc # 2
10. No. 22
11. Out Of Sight
Moderat will be at Webster Hall on Saturday, May 30 with support by dj Damian Lazarus.
Link to ticketmaster here.
Edit: The venue has changed to the Music Hall of Williamsburg.
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