Music News: Summer Hits, Bewildered Radio, and WRVU

Lots going on in the exciting world of music!!


First, one of my best friends from WRVU, Dave, who now lives in London, has started up an internet radio station on Live365! It's called Bewildered radio, and right now the only DJs are Dave, another WRVU DJ Walker Starling and me. Dave and Walker's shows are full of hip, upbeat summer music - really good stuff. They both have such great taste! My show is a compilation of some french music - not all french, but having some relation to french (for example, Luna's Dean Wareham and Laetitia Sadier doing Serge Gainsbourg "Bonnie & Clyde." So be sure to listen up!! The link is on the left, under the "Listen!" heading. If you like my french stuff, listen to my radio show Tuesdays 12pm-1pm on WRVU - different french stuff each week. I think my next playlist for Dave's station will be regular music, to kind of fit in better with the flow of the station. Here are my two favorite tracks of the summer so far, which will defninitely be included!


Weird War - "Illuminated" [mp3 removed due to bandwith overage, :( ]

What is more summer than rockin' 70s music by War, Bowie, T-Rex or Iggy? Rockin' psych-indie that wishes it were in the 70s - namely, this awesome track by Weird War. They're on Drag City, and contain former members of the Makeup, Love as Laughter, Nation of Ulysses, and Scene Creamers. This song just makes me happy, and I think it will do the same for you.




Jamie Lidell - "Multiply" [mp3 removed due to bandwith overage, :( ]

My other track of the summer (so far!) is a single from England's techno-soul-god, Mr. Lidell. Firstly, I am so excited to see Lidell going in this direction. His last album on Warp (Muddlin Gear) was unique in that it used his amazing voice as a layered instrument to enhance these really jarring electronic tracks - but it's never as brilliantly showcased as I thought it should be, and many of the tracks on that album are just too intense (read: unlistenable) for my wussy ass.

So backtrack to Mutek 2004: Austin, Benji and I got to see Jamie live! He was the highlight of the festival for me. He is this little British white guy, but when he opens his mouth, holy crap! The most soulful, gorgeous voice imaginable. He wore this crazy pouffy tape suit (as in the picture above), and sampled live radio, then sang over it, did some ridiculously amazing beat boxing, layered his own vocals, and created these amazing compositions using those elements, all live! It was so refreshing after three days of watching "performers" hunched over their laptops, just triggering samples. Lidell was a burst of energy and sheer, unadulterated talent. He did one track which he said was going to be on his new album - it was a crooner-style ballad. Now, I had heard him sing on Matthew Herbert's Big Band album, which was awesome. So i'd heard him croon before, and have been anticipating this new album ever since. I was so excited when I finally got to hear the title track, "Multiply." It is straight up soul, and even better to me in that the lyrics are expressing a lot of what I'm feeling these days. Please enjoy, and don't miss the album of the same name when it comes out this June!


Things are going well over at WRVU . . . the last music director is a great, cool guy; but he definitely got way overwhelmed with trying to balance school, his band Prom Night (I think that's it, either that or Prom Date - they're good, you should check them out!), and etc. Soooo I've had to do a lot of work to try to get us caught up with stuff that is a few months old as well as new stuff. A lot of promotions companies and labels were about to cut us off their mailing lists - i'm glad that that didn't happen! I've gotten to listen to a lot of awesome new music so far, and will post on the outstanding stuff. It takes up a ton of time, but I've really got nothing but time, and I've been looking for something useful to fill it with. So this has been perfect, and I've been feeling so much better about everything lately. Yay! In addition to my french show, 91 Montmartre, I'm doing a weekly top 10 rotation show, kind of like what Dave did when he was music director. It's basically just what it sounds like: the top 10 records of the week, as dictated by spin counts and word of mouth from the DJs, and as reported to CMJ in our weekly top 30. SO listen up!!!