Virtual Festival 001 - SXSW 2013 (Part One)

Being preggo can kind of cramp your style when it comes to travel so I decided to attend some festivals virtually instead. I started with a big one and didn't realize what I was getting myself into when I decided to do this. SXSW has a lot of friggin bands. So I will be separating my journey into parts. Here are the noteworthy sounds I have found so far...

12th Planet & Mayhem - Whoops ft PennyBirdRabbit 
Downtown LA, United States
Nice chill dubstep track with hot vocals.

The 1975 - Chocolate  
Manchester, UK
Just a lovely, fun track. Makes me happy.

The 4onthefloor - Lionhearted  
Minneapolis, United States
Just loving this guttural sounding rock.

50 Carrot & Coffi - Problems  
Leeds, UK
Awesome team up on this track. Samples '99 Problems' with sub that shakes the speakers.

A-Trak - Landline 2.0 feat. GTA  
New York, United States
Always love me some A-Track. Great build-up on this track. Can't get enough of the beat.

A.Dd+ - Can't Come Down   
Dallas, United States
Solid hip hop track. Creative use of Britney Spears 'Toxic' for the hook.

Absolutely Free - UFO  
Toronto, Canada
Not sure how to explain this track besides being trippy as fuck and I like it.

Adam WarRock - Columbia  
Memphis, United States
A hip-hop track about the game Bioshock Infinite. I am in.

Allen Stone - Unaware  
Chewelah, United States
Baby making music..uhhhhh

Ashtrobot - She Will RMX  
Los Angeles, United States
Hot remix..nuff said.

Azizi Gibson - 8th Street  
United States
Great track. One of my fav labels is Brainfeeder.

Baauer - Harlem Shake  
New York, United States
Harlem Shake mother fuckers!!!!

BADBADNOTGOOD - Flashing Lights
Toronto, CanadaJazz Trio plays hip hop. Loving it.

Ben Baxter Band - Flash  
Austin, United States
Great vocals and guitar.

Beware of Darkness - Howl  
Los Angeles, United States
Some good old fashioned rock.

BishopNehru - 13 Elder Blossoms  
New York, United States
Great lyricist.

The Black Angels - Evil  
New York, United States
Dig the lead singers voice. Rocking drums.

Sexy Sounds of My Morning Commute

Listened to one of my favorite podcasts on the way into work this morning, Electronic Explorations. I have fallen quite behind but I highly enjoy catching up. Today I listened to Episode 209 featuring a mix by producer Ruckspin. He is one half of Tectonic Recording's "Author' and the sound designer of 'Submotion Orchestra'. Here are some tracks from his mix I really dug...

Planas - Breathless

Foreign Beggars ft. Donae'o - Flying to Mars

Cymatic - Glue

LAXX - Sound of the Universie 

LDZ / Matta - Pressure ft. Stig of the Dump (Ruckspin & Medison remix)

Noisia - Stigma (Neosignal remix)

And here is a sweet track from the top of the show...

Trevino - Tweakonomics

My Return, I Missed You Old Friend

In the past year I slowly let my passion for music wane. I became lazy. Defunct. I listened to things hear and there. Made modest attempts at listening to the crap radio station's repetitive playlists out of boredom. I still listened to podcasts. Not much work there. You just subscribe and it shows up on your phone. But slowly they became mostly talk shows and music got pushed to the bottom of the list.

Then on one of my favorite shows, Smodcast, I heard an episode where Scott Mosier mentioned a doc he worked on and I really didn't pay much attention. On following episodes it would come up now and again. Recently he mentioned it was now being distributed by Drafthouse Films and was available in digital download. So I went and checked it out. It was 12 bucks and I thought why not, I do love a good documentary.

The name of the film was A Band Called Death and it blew me away. Three teenaged African American brothers in Detroit playing punk before punk existed. Their music never saw the light of day and had just recently been discovered. It was an unbelievable story that was beautifully executed in a film that had amazing visuals and great music. Immediately after watching, I read a few articles about the band, got the album off iTunes and discovered some new music blogs.

One blog I am really digging that was mentioned in the film is Chunklet. It was the first site to post two tracks by Death on the web after the record was re-discovered. After scouring their site today, I realized that I was missing a little piece of myself by abandoning my love of music and that was sad. I got so much joy listening to new music and discovering bands. I think I might even start looking through random vinyl stores again. I am inspired and I like that feeling.

Here are two albums on Chunklet that stood out to me. Hope you like them too and if not well..screw you. ;-)

Total Control - Henge Beat
post-punk/garage rock (Australia)

Man Or Astro-Man - DEFCON 5…4…3…2…1
punk rock / space rock (US, Alabama)