BELITA WOODS - I JUST LOVE YOU
18 hours ago
February 26, 2010
February 21, 2010
Pisces - Sounds of the Zodiac
The 'Sounds of the Zodiac' is brand new to the blog. It's a series of soundtracks for the Astrological Calendar composed by some of the heavy hitters from Detroit's music scene.
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We start in the last house of the astrological calendar - Pisces (18 Feb - 21 Mar), the sign of the twin fishes. Presiding over the occasion is Mr. Chris Koltay, who serves up a doublemix of tracks packaged neatly to drop right into your itunes library. Himself more of a psychadelic bear than a fish, Koltay still manages to show a keen grasp of this introspective watery sign.
Some words about Koltay: He runs Case Quarter recording studio in Corktown and gets his late night drinks at Slows and LJ's. Once in a while Chris takes a field trip down the street to the Lager House to see a rock show. Or up to Canada to record Akron Family in a country farmhouse. Or along some foreign coast with Deerhunter. It's hard to keep track. Along the way, Koltay's gathered quite an eclectic bag of music. See/Hear when you press play.
The download will take a few minutes. Please be patient. Enjoy.
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Click to drop the mix in your itunes: http://homepage.mac.com/claszlo/filechute/Pisces%201.
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Click to drop the mix in your itunes: http://homepage.mac.com/
Sample Tracks:
"I've Been Out Walking"
"You Keep On Looking"
"Red Tuesday"
(1) The Be Colony- Broadcast have been making amazing music forever. They are staggeringly good. (2) Green Crystal Ties- The Zachary Thaks make pretty good garage rock most of the time. Occasionally they do something brilliant. This is the case with Green Crystal Ties. (3) I've Been Our Walking- Awesome Jackson Brown early demo. (4) The Plague is my favorite Scott Walker song. Hooky anthem about the plague? Sign me up. (5) To Love Somebody- Dara Puspita are like The Ronettes if they were Indonesian. (6) Hurry, Tuesday Child- I know nothing about Deena Webster but this song is striking to say the least. (7) Moon Beeps- The Intelligence are almost singlehandedly saving rock and roll one show at a time. (8) You Keep On Looking- Gary Wilson. The weirdest pimp you could ever imagine singing the hottest nerdy make out jam. (9) Brigitte- Brigitte Fontaine is killing shit on this mellow psych folk number. (10) Down To The Wire is easily the best Neil Young cut from the early solo era. (11) L'Abandon- This Jean Le Fennec song encapsulates so much of what is good about french psych. (12) Highways- Jim Sullivan make this great loner folk rock. (13) Las Habladurias Del Mundo- Pescado Rabioso is some amazing Argentinian '70's rock. His name means rabid fish in english! The whole record is totally solid but this is my favorite. (14) Heaven Is In Your Mind- I hate Steve Winwood. Everyone does. Traffic rules though and this one rips. (15) Patience Is Virtue- William S. Fischer allegedly made this record soon after getting back from Vietnam. Astonishingly kick ass slow funk. (16) Storm Cloud- Not so much about Wolf People. (17) Videsh O.S.T.- Seriously authentic old sounding psychedelic rock made in 2008! Bali Tima blow the roof off the joint with this Indian funk rager. (18) The Author In Her Ear- Strapping Fieldhands hail from Philadelphia. They make amazing rackety pop jams. (19) Requiem Pour Un Con- Serge Gainsbourg is undeniable. This one still gets me. (20) Technique Street- The Homosexuals are the best band ever. Proof positive that England does more than deep fry candy bars. (21) It's A Dream- This Little Ed song is a total mindblower. Daytripper funk. (22) Chain Of Circumstances (Replacement Version)- Camper Van Beethoven are california art hippy rock. They covered Tusk in it's entirety. (23) Magnificent Dreams- Television Personalities made the scene with Part Time Punks. Their first record blew minds. This is from their second equally as incredible record. (24) Red Tuesday- I liked this Beyond The Wizard's Sleeve band live and this song just seemed a nice outro.
Thanks for listening. This was written at 3 am on little sleep after a long day of tracking The Dirtbombs who also happen to be nine ways of awesome. Apologies for the ramble. Long live the Fish!
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Chris Koltay
Clients-
Studio-
Holy Fuck, The Dirtbombs, SSM, Akron Family, City Center, The Readies, Lee Marvin Computer Arm, Afghan Whigs, Hermano, My Morning Jacket, The Intelligence, Shoe, Mirror Twins (Sisters Lucas), Demolition Dollrods, Augustana, Vaux, Thin Lizzy, Gardens, etc.
Holy Fuck, The Dirtbombs, SSM, Akron Family, City Center, The Readies, Lee Marvin Computer Arm, Afghan Whigs, Hermano, My Morning Jacket, The Intelligence, Shoe, Mirror Twins (Sisters Lucas), Demolition Dollrods, Augustana, Vaux, Thin Lizzy, Gardens, etc.
Live-
Akron Family, Deerhunter, Enon, Holy Fuck, Broadcast, Liars, Women, The Dirtbombs, The Intelligence, Sick Of It All, A Place To Bury Strangers, White Williams, Vaux, Vega 4, The Selmanaires, etc
Akron Family, Deerhunter, Enon, Holy Fuck, Broadcast, Liars, Women, The Dirtbombs, The Intelligence, Sick Of It All, A Place To Bury Strangers, White Williams, Vaux, Vega 4, The Selmanaires, etc
Recording Studios-
1995-2001:
Ultrasuede Studios
Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
2005-present:
Case Quarter
Corktown, Detroit, Michigan, USA
Fall 2008:
Petit Eglise
Farnham, Quebec, Canada
Winter 2008:
Trout Recordings
Brooklyn, New York
Petit Eglise
Farnham, Quebec, Canada
Winter 2008:
Trout Recordings
Brooklyn, New York
Snowbirds Come Home to Roost
RON AND PATTY COOLEY met and fell in love 42 years ago as students at Eastern Michigan University. After a stint at Ford in the early ’70s, they left Detroit behind, taking over her family’s modest real estate business upstate. The company prospered: for 30 years the two worked together, helping to finance, build and sell more than 1,000 homes.
With their two sons grown, Ron and Patty sold the business and semi-retired down to Naples, Fla. Ron took up golf, sometimes seven days a week, occasionally 36 holes in a day. Patty gardened. Their lives in the Sunshine State were relaxed and tranquil, the sort of serene ending that retirement brochures promise to us all. But, unsurprisingly, the collapse of the housing market had a serious impact on a couple with a nest egg tied up in real estate.
Ron and Patty looked around and did the math. Florida’s economy seemed to be declining even more steeply than the Motor City’s. In Detroit, they had roots, their sons had moved into the city and started a barbecue restaurant, grandchildren had arrived. So, weighing their options, they came back. They moved into a downtown loft, just a few blocks from the empty lot where Tiger Stadium once stood.
I first encountered Ron and Patty at an early morning fund-raiser for a neighborhood charity. Talking to them, I found that just like other new arrivals — the artists and recent college graduates coming here from other towns — they spoke of Detroit’s potential with an almost exalted optimism. Instead of depressing or slowing them down, the move has been a thrilling one and they shared examples of how exhilarating their life is downtown.
Being at the center of things means they can walk to the Avalon bakery on Saturday mornings and to the new Comerica Park for baseball games in the spring. Instead of endless golf, they now go to events like the fund-raiser where we met or lectures on design and sustainable development.
Talking about Florida, Ron sounds like someone who made it onto the lifeboat in the nick of time. Yes, they had to sell their home down there at a loss, but a former neighbor in Naples recently sold a similar house for less than half of what the Cooleys got. Ron estimates that with the nation’s battered 401(k) accounts, it could take decades before Florida returns to any sort of substantial growth.
Meanwhile, Patty and Ron are helping their sons expand their restaurant to a new location. Patty is involved in the local school system’s literacy program. Ron enjoys walking down the street to spend time with his grandchildren, the kind of time that, in his ambitious, younger days, he didn’t get to have with his own boys.
In the nation’s shared imagination, Detroit continues to be worse than a punch line — it’s an apocalyptic wasteland teetering right at the edge of the end of the world. When people hear that I live downtown, they ask, “Where do you get your groceries?” and “Where do you get your dry cleaning done?” and when I answer “Well, at the grocery store and the dry cleaners,” they simply look confused. In fact, few can imagine living a life here.
The truth is that my Detroit — and Ron and Patty’s Detroit — might no longer be a city where dreams come true the way they once did. But this story still demonstrates some important things: how lives and businesses can thrive here, how rewarding it can be to have family close and, at the very least, how nice it is that we’re not in Florida.
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Link to the article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/21/opinion/21barlow.html
February 19, 2010
Getting All Wilsonian
http://blog.detroitsymphony.com/2010/01/getting-all-wilsonian/
by Jim Boyle —
Let me start by admitting that at one point in my naïve, narcissistic youth the Beach Boys were nothing more than an engine helping propel my scrawny, exuberant body down a mud-soaked hill at Pine Knob (we called it “surfing” at the time). Brian Wilson’s place in the pantheon of pop may have been gaining steam, but it was nowhere on my radar. It was only after my voice changed, my mind became more supple, and I started reading about, and hanging out with rock and pop music snobs from Detroit and beyond that I denoted a prevailing theme – Brian Wilson is some sort of genius.
Look no further than Detroit’s own Don Was for case study number one. Co-founder of the critically lauded funkish-rock-like-soul outfit Was (Not Was) and music producer for the likes of Bonnie Raitt and The Rolling Stones, Was knows a thing or two about music. When it comes to Brian Wilson, he may not have written the book but, he did direct the movie – a 1995 documentary about Wilson’s life, I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times. The movie was the culmination of years of working together, during which Was told Record Hunter magazine that “I realized he (Wilson) was the greatest of them all….he just invented impressionism in rock’n’roll music.” In the film, Tom Petty even gushes (is that possible?) about Wilson, “I don’t think you would be out of line comparing him to Beethoven.”
The critics, for their part, aren’t only intrigued with both the Brian Wilson myth (the troubled youth, drugs, mental illness, etc.) and music (the innovation, front-and-center harmonies, and on….), but how it continues to unravel in the broader pop canon. Everyone from indie darlings Animal Collective – who in many critical circles, including Spin Magazine, feel have last year’s best album in Merriweather Post Pavilian – to the well-regarded Fleet Foxes, are either compared to Wilson and the Beach Boys or site them as a major influence. If I only had a free iTunes song for every time someone said that Pet Sounds is “the greatest album…ever.”
Detroit’s unabashed purveyors of crisp, clean pop, Pas Cal, were swept up in Beach Boy comparisons almost from the start, even though they didn’t particularly consider them a musical influence (note to self, don’t name a song The Bronze Beached Boys). Pas Cal front man Casimer explains:
“I was always more of fan of the myth of Brian Wilson, that is, the crazed musical genius who locks himself in the studio for months recording 20 pianos all playing the same three notes, more than I was a fan of those three notes.” Adding that, “as time went on and we wrote and recorded more songs, I can kind of see what those critics were getting at, but it took us like 20 more songs & a lot of discovery for us to even remotely earn that description.”
All of which seems to underscore that, in the critic’s quick desire to contextualize our music, Brain Wilson sits at an undeniable perch in our cultural consciousness, invited or not.
In Detroit, where music nerds sometimes run thicker than traffic, you can’t throw your hair back without hitting someone who’s ready to flex their Brian Wilson knowledge. It’s a badge of honor that should be out in full force February 18-20 the DSO takes on the music of Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys in their stunning venue. So if you want to get sense for what all the Brian-Wilson chatter is about jump, on board.
Movie Trailer: http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi3871015193/
Don Was: http://www.myspace.com/wasnotwasfreaks
Pas Cal Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Qxrpgyil9M
Animal Collective in Spin Magazine: http://www.spin.com/gallery/40-best-albums-2009?page=40
Fleet Foxes: MySpace: http://www.spin.com/gallery/40-best-albums-2009?page=40
Beach Boy Al Jardine on the Fleet Foxes in Rolling Stone: http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/index.php/2009/07/01/beach-boys-al-jardine-on-fleet-foxes-theyre-awesome/
February 15, 2010
Back Under the Cloudblanket
After slipping out of town for a week - I'm slowly greasing up the wheels to pick up where things left off. Check back later in the week for a good nugget or two...
February 2, 2010
Around Town Today...
A great video from the crazy fellas making an ice house...
A rad little trailer from a Frenchman who's making a film about post-industrial Detroit (with footage of stoves being launched from a 10 storey window)...
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