Let’s wrap up our Best Of 2010 series and take a stroll around the interwebs to see what were the pleasure trends among fans and critics, what were the best live albums, and what bands should be on your tour radar for 2011!
The Year In Live Music: Pleasure Trends, Best Bands and New Discoveries
January 4, 2011 By 1 Comment
Survivors: An Interview with KRS-One and Buckshot
May 17, 2010 By 2 Comments
Popmatters Interview: Fool's Gold
November 30, 2009 By Leave a Comment
This interview first appeared in Popmatters The debut album of Los Angeles afro-pop collective Fool’s Gold erupts with an exotic mix of African rhythms, percolating rock melodies and purring synths. The urge to dance grabs you instantly, shortly before the fantastic fusion of music and lyrics (sung mostly in Hebrew) sends you on an ancient [...]
Follow Live Fix to BlogWorld 2009
October 13, 2009 By Leave a Comment
This post is a shout out to all my fellow blogging and new media buddies! And a note to you my faithful and cherished Live Fix readers! This Thurs-Sat (Oct 15-17), I’ll be taking Live Fix on the road to Las Vegas for the BlogWorld New Media Expo. BlogWorld will be my first “blogger conference” since I [...]
Live Preview: Fool's Gold, BLK JKS at Bottom Lounge
September 20, 2009 By Leave a Comment
For the last two months I’ve been re-absorbing the self-titled debut album by Fool’s Gold, a Los Angeles band that blends world rhythms with afro-pop and rock. They seem to be carving out their own niche and style because their music speaks to me in ways that other afro-pop and world music hasn’t in a while. Maybe it’s the lyrical [...]
Nerdy Music Journalists ''Q'' It Up at Lollapalooza
September 2, 2009 By Leave a Comment
Just one peek into the strange sociology of music journalists will show you that they’re a peculiar bunch. I can say this because I am one. And it’s true. We are just as eccentric as the artists we write about (if not more!) We are truly a strange and quirky breed. We’re obsessive and overly protective [...]
Interview with Chicago's FM Supreme
August 21, 2009 By Leave a Comment
As promised here’s my interview with Chicago emcee/poet/activist FM Supreme. A link to the full interview on Popmatters is below. A chilly drizzle begins to fall and soak the sidewalk as I speak with Chicago emcee Jessica Disu—aka FM Supreme—outside and under awning at the Wicker Well on Chicago’s North Side. It’s an hour [...]
Popmatters Interview: FM Supreme
August 20, 2009 By Leave a Comment
This interview first appeared in Popmatters. A chilly drizzle begins to fall and soak the sidewalk as I speak with Chicago emcee Jessica Disu—aka FM Supreme—outside and under awning at the Wicker Well on Chicago’s North Side. It’s an hour before her late night performance at the Great Smoke Out Showcase, where Disu will perform [...]
Concert Review: Black Moth Super Rainbow
June 24, 2009 By Leave a Comment
On a warm Spring Chicago evening, Black Moth Super Rainbow and School of Seven Bells took the crowd at the Bottom Lounge for a psychedelic ride to a place where vocoders spoke of love and pain, and where ecstasy and horror evolved into joyful jubilation and perpetual elation. Cracking open the door to this mid-week [...]
Popmatters Review: Dam-Funk's Rhythm Trax Vol. 4
May 20, 2009 By Leave a Comment
I’d like to share with you this Popmatters review I wrote for Los Angeles electro-funk beatman Dam-funk and his latest Stones Throw release Rhythm Trax Vol. 4. Dam-funk is known for laying down some seriously trippy boogie funk for his live shows. And if they’re anything like this album I hope to catch him the next time [...]
Popmatters: Interview with Danny!
April 15, 2009 By Leave a Comment
So what does a hip hop artist/producer who loves creating lushly layered albums do when he can’t create the same feel live? He relies on his rhyming and storytelling talent. Those two combined can reveal to the crowd a deeper dimension of the music that can’t be conveyed on record. Such was the intended approach explained to me by [...]
Popmatters Interview: Danny!
April 14, 2009 By Leave a Comment
This interview first appeared in Popmatters Talking with Danny Swain (aka Danny!), the message is loud and clear: all he wants to do is make music and let people here it. The first part has been the easy part for the prolific producer/emcee. He began recording music with the production of his 2002 debut Danny [...]
Shaking Off The Dust of Wilco’s Ashes of American Flags
April 8, 2009 By Leave a Comment
He’s so right. I completely agree with Ben Rubenstein as he reflects in his MixTape Confessions Popmatters column on a recent trip to see Wilco’s concert/tour film Ashes of American Flags at the Music Box in Chicago. Ben says that the crowd in the theatre was surprisingly subdued and that it made the screening of the [...]
