Category Archives: podcast

I’ve transferred all the seqPOD podmixes on this blog over to Grooveshark. SeeqPOD bit the dust at the end of April, and, no doubt Grooveshark will expire someday too.

Still, this gave me the opportunity to carry over a mix from the group blog I participate in, Netdynamics 2.0. Here it is, found there as a post Generational Musings !.

Incredible the king of the crates, D.J. Weirton, has tracked me down and tomorrow I’ll pitch him some props. He was my right hand man at the Record Den and even outlasted me as he served out his commission right up to the point the ship rolled and sank under the waves.

I can’t wait to find out what happened when he resurfaced. It’s been 8 years. He played a very important role in my musical journey. I’ve put together a seeqPOD mix that highlight six of his biggest tips: the downtempo sometimes drum & bass of Lamb; the crooklyn dub and roots of Dr. Israel; Bjork; Lee Perry.

However this doesn’t do his game changing contribution or the story of our working together in the last days of the old school record business any justice. I can summarize and suggest that he remade an inveterate jazzer by creating the conditions through which his own diverse good taste could rub off a bit on an old geezer. I especially got jazzed by drum and bass, illbient dub, the Bristol chill, and, much of the turntabilism he’d toss on sound system.

The curious thing is that the store was decidedly urban and its customers’ tastes ran mostly from G to R&B. I’m basically a longtime enthusiast of southern soul, whereas Cleveland is a northern soul town. DJ Weirton loved old school hip hop. We both loved Prince. We could get behind Badu and D’Angelo, but we were out of step with the trends even if selling those same trends paid our checks.

But we sure had fun turning ears with all the DJ Spooky and Skratch Pickles and Grooverider and Roots Manuva and Meters and Bill Laswell, Ninja Tune crews and many others we’d spin solely for the sake of preserving our insanity while watching what happened on the floor, as-it-were. Heavy props to the rest of the Den crew, Amadeus, RJ Sax.

• Lamb – Cottonwool (Fila Brazilia remix)
• Bjork – Army of Me (Liquid Riot remix)
• Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry – Purity Rock (DJ Spooky remix)
• Dr. Israel – Reconnection

• John Martyn – May You Never
• The Band – Lookout Cleveland
• Mose Allison – Seventh Son
• Bob Marley & the Wailers – Stir It Up

Back in the day, I was part of a coterie of long-haired music fans who bounced between hi-fi safe houses. Those houses would be anywhere we could lay around and invoke the rituals of listening and mild albeit ‘chronic’ experiments with our consciousness. One of the brethren shot me an email yesterday after many years. Memories rushed in and, soon after, rushed in the tunes. This podcast is for you Marlon, a nickname posed to protect the not-so-innocent at the time.

He introduced me to Bob Marley and the Wailers, to Catch a Fire, to be exact. (I’m pretty sure–he was in room, I mean the room was smoke filled!) It took a while for me to be fully bitten by the reggae bug, but Marlon was there first and, impressively, got it. In this sense, at times, we were each other’s initiates. Marlon opened the rasta door of perception and we rushed in.


Enjoy the old school, Marlon!

Tony Allen-Every Season
Jorge Ben-Xica da Silva
Souljazz Orchestra-Insurrection

Enjoy!

Another way to put up a podcast is via SEEQpod. Basically, you use its nifty search engine to line-up tracks residing on somebody else’s server. This is legal for the time-being but the concept breaks down someday on at least the piggybacking purloined hot links.

Anyway, here’s what I put together in a couple of minutes of searching. All four bands are–of course–favorites. Beachwood Sparks reminds me of the International Submarine Band with their reverb drenched psychcountryrock. Panda Bear‘s Person Pitch was, along my discovery of Megan Hickey and Last Town Chorus, deliverance for my sweet tooth last year. Jellyfish was short-lived paisley precursor who just about perfectly split the difference between Badfinger and the Beach Boys. They have the greatest band motto ever: ‘turning bullshit into marmalade.’ And, their break-up caused The Grays (with Jason Falkner and Jon Brion along with Buddy Judge and Dan McCarroll) which in turn caused the greatest one-of power pop disc ever. Leaving the Wondermints, Brian Wilson’s first call backup band; say no more.

• Beachwood Sparks-Let it Run
• Panda Bear-Comfy In Nautica
• Last Town Chorus-Modern Love
• Jellyfish-New Mistake
• Wondermints-Guess I’m Done
• Brian Wilson-Surf’s Up