Clubbing In Boston for Resident Advisor*

It's hard to believe that I haven't visited Boston in nearly a year, though. I lived there from February 2006 - November 2008, and really grew into a new version of myself in New England. I discovered my undying love for the region, and a seed of desire to move back in my later years was planted. I miss many people who are still living there, and the most recent Clubbing In feature on Resident Advisor explores facets that were such an important part of my life during that time.

Grateful to have been a part of it, Forward Management is mentioned towards the end in conjunction with Lauren DeVain and her skilled efforts in Berlin with her own Carousel PR.

You can read the feature in its entirety, posted here: Clubbing in Boston
*Unlike most links posted on THD, I did not write this.

Unsound Festival New York: Internship + Experience

I had imagined that by early or mid-February I would have noted my worthwhile experiences with the Unsound Festival's first New York installment, but time certainly flies when you are busy. Truly, thoroughly busy. In between blogging all things metal for Noisecreep + booking artists for Forward Management, I lent a hand to one of my favorite established, Brooklyn-based business: Backspin PR. Run by someone whom I respect greatly, I contributed about 10 hours or more of my time each week to blasting through the repetitive but relevant tasks of clipping and organizing the major press efforts launched by Backspin.

The Unsound Festival is a Polish electronic music festival (based in Kraków, Poland) that happens each fall for the last seven years, and its founder - along with several international cultural institutions and consulates - organized a 10-day, city-wide festival that brought some of the most talented electronic music artists to New York. There were over 10 US debuts, featuring artists from around eastern Europe and major outlets in New York (the Times, Time Out, Village Voice) as well as significant online resources (Self-Titled, Brooklyn Vegan, XLR8R, Resident Advisor, Little White Earbuds) all participated in previewing, attending and reviewing with endless praise. It was something that everyone knew needed all cooks in the kitchen to pull off, and would likely be an enormous success.

Experiencing the Unsound Festival was my payoff. I'd written about the opening night, where new muscles were stretched. Warmed up, my friends and I enjoyed some of the best panels, dance parties and cerebral music performances (Tim Hecker & Jacaszek spring to mind immediately) in what seemed like an endless fashion. As if all of this wasn't enough, new friendships were formed with industry folk as well as individuals that I feel confident will be in my life, now, for a very long time.

The Afterlife Of My Memories

I started writing a simple post for my blog, Onward Charles, and the plan was a brief run-down of Maura's birthday wishes to CD player on Idolator. My personal and assigned writing has been short, with everything from journal entries to record reviews being 250 words or under.

But today it was different. It was much more personal, and as I reached the end of my final sentence, I decided it was more fitting to post here - in a place where my published opinion and career as a member of the music industry are followed.

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27 years ago today, the CD player was born. I vaguely remember them being a considerable amount of money, but my memory tells me that my family didn't get one until about 1992.

Can that be right? I remember tapes and tapes and even 8-tracks (my parents were never that big on vinyl, though there's an interesting but modest collection in their den), but did CDs fit into my 80s experience? I honestly cannot remember. That also begs the question: do people still have dens? My parents' house has a den and a living room. Are those the same now?

In any case, my first CD was Green Day's Dookie (with the banned Ernie puppet on the back cover). Shortly after that, Garbage's self-titled debut, Smashing Pumpkin's Mellon Collie & The Infinite Sadness, Nirvana's Nevermind and Michael Jackson's HIStory came as birthday and Christmas gifts. I remember how special I felt, after inheriting my sister's first compact stereo system. I used that machine for years. Nine Inch Nail's Downward Spiral would go on to be both one of my all-time favorite albums as well as one that I wouldn't buy, in CD form, until I'd graduated college. I spent my high school years constantly re-playing the dubbed cassette I'd made from my bio lab partner's CD, and the same holds true for Marilyn Manson's Anti-Christ Superstar.

I fell in love with Led Zeppelin through a cassette tape that a boy made me when I was 14. I listened to it the morning he moved away for college and cried in my bed. I had made him a Tori Amos "best of" in return. During college, a guy communicated a break-up through cassette tape. There were hundreds of miles between us and I sneer at the thought of him still. My ego was cracked harder than my heart, but I still remember the songs on the tape, which only took up about 15 minutes of plastic, polyester film.

And Tori Amos...she was my hero in high school. If I remember correctly, I own about 80 of her CDs: albums, singles and bootlegs. Back then the UK import singles came in two parts, and I would dilligently buy both from Tower Records in Huntington, NY (now out of business) whenever I laid eyes on them. For months I found the same goddamn issue of Caught A Lite Sneeze, and was thrilled when I got my hands on the UK version. It had a different cover - taken from the Boys For Pele photo shoot - and B-sides I'd never known about. Still, I wanted it all. I wanted the German version, and would gladly pay over $9.99 to get it. The funny thing is that it was the same artwork as the US version. It also contained two of four B-sides already on the domestic...but there was a third. It was called "Hungarian Wedding Song," and clocked in at exactly 60 seconds. It was childish and nonsensical but when I walked into Tower Records on one of my Saturday visits...there it was.

And it was all mine.

There were no waffles.fm or what.cd accounts. I don't even think Napster existed at the time, and I wouldn't get the internet until sometime in 1997. It was my moment...my music, my format and my money. I can still hear the click of the magnet in the top corner of my stereo cabinet. Push in...click...release. A wall of glass glided towards me and the modest facade of my CD/cassette/radio system with detached speakers was before me like the monolith in 2001. It was beautiful.

With all that said, the New York Times published a much talked about story about Downtown 161 records this week, and the point I took from it was this: people cling to vinyl and continue to cultivate an unavoidable digital music library. That's all. Cassettes receive affectionate attempts of ressurrection because of the endearing nostalgia of "the mix tape," but CDs and 8-tracks dont's have that. For the commercial consumer, the latter was never possible and the prior is just too cold, plastic and lifeless. Example: a music fiend can look at a vinyl record - just look at it - and remember key moments in their longtime affair with music. I truly don't believe that catharsis can come to life with a CD until after the play button has been triggered.

I'm not old enough to start prefacing my anecdotes with "When I was your age" to anyone, but college graduation is a distant memory and the woes of car insurance, 401k's and mutual funds are as staple as morning coffee. I'm part of the last generation that saw ghettoblasters as a top-selling model, and not kitsch factor. I remember when the mp3 came out. Reading about the birth of the CD during its death or journalists referring to the domino-like shutdown of brick & mortar record stores like a pandemonium of the past finds me sitting here thinking about the music collector. If we don't have a tangible format, will those private, bedroom moments still exist for future generations? While you can still stick the title tape that you carefully removed from the top spine of your new CD on the dashboard of your car in the record store's parking lot, it's just not the same. I cherish my relationship with music as equally material as I do metaphysical, but as I find more and more of my library existing in my iTunes...what will be lost?

Jeff Mills for Resident Advisor & Fuck The Facts for NoiseCreep

One of my highest priorities is to post my writings right about the time they're published, but from time to time it's difficult to stay on point. I'm still living on a fantasy summer island, but have been keeping myself plugged into my two favorite genres: metal and techno. Before I left for Fire Island, I spent my final, epic weekend with a string of memorable nights. On Wednesday, my friend Mattis and I drove up to Boston for a RBMA Thomas Oberheim workshop and Le Loup at Midweek Techno. Thursday was Raster-Noton at Make It New, and Friday - the day the up button broke on my car stereo's volume - we drove back to Brooklyn with a full car for Bunker, which featured R-N and Insideout (I think Grant is my new hero) and an epic 6hour tagteam between Jan Krueger and Derek Plaslaiko. The following night was Jeff Mills at the Sullivan Room, topped with a Cadenza party on the Bar 13 rooftop the following afternoon. Easily one of the best (and longest) weekends of my life. My review of Mills was a feat - making sense of one night amongst all of that can be difficult when you consider how much one event will blend into another. It was truly a weekend of loving life, and Mills' set (especially when he played "The Bells") was the opposite of a heartbreak.

True love?

Secondly, I'm on the verge of digging into new metal, and I have big plans with NoiseCreep that hit on a very personal level in the near future. Still, we wanted to know what Fuck The Facts couldn't leave home without - aside from, of course, instruments and merch - because they are just an awesome band. Please go see them if they're coming to your town.

You can read the reviews, posted here:
Jeff Mills @ Sullivan Room for Resident Advisor
Fuck the Facts Hit the Road With Five Essential Items

Movement 2009 In Review for Resident Advisor

I've already mentioned several times here how Detroit was an incredibly enriching experience for me. In fact, I called it before I even went, but it was a bit of a give-in. Myself and a handful of other Resident Advisor contributors covered most of the festival, and I was lucky enough to be assigned all of my favorite highlights. I'm most thrilled that Monty Luke was pleased with the Mothership review, as he and everyone else from the San Francisco-based community conscious label had a blast that night. The other major point for me was Cassy, a female DJ who's come blasting through the doors and taken a seat at the table of my favorite DJs. I'd seen her before, but her set at House 'n Home at Oslo is the first thing I've been mentioning when people ask me what I liked the most. I can only hope that dubbing her "the Sophia Loren of DJs" goes viral and she gets properly appointed. Damian Lazarus wins Breakthrough Artist in my own personal awards ceremony, and I still watch YouTube videos of Adam Beyer's set on a regular basis. Viva la Beatport stage!

You can read the review, posted here: Movement 2009 in review

Voodeux - "The Paranormal" for Resident Advisor

This was an exceptionally challenging review for me. While I've been writing about music for a long time, I can't say that writing about techno is one of my older trades. Facing any genre is difficult, but while I've spent many years as a lover of electronic music I've only been personally invested - and fairly dedicated - to techno for about two years. There's so much more at risk, much like a romantic relationship you truly stand behind because you believe in it.

Mothership is one of my favorite record labels. Resident Advisor is one of my favorite sources of music journalism. Tanner Ross, who comprises one half of Voodeux, is a producer and DJ from the Boston scene, and I've had the pleasure to watch this particular project cook slowly. The end result is the forthcoming release of The Paranormal and Voo's debut live performance, which just kicked off my DEMF experience at the C-Pop Gallery in Detroit. You can imagine there was a lot riding on this - it only helped that after several sit-down meals of ingesting the entirety of the album I found a copious amount of positive reflections to put in order.

I'd only be repeating myself to say more, but I'm particularly proud of this, so I hope you enjoy it. Purchasing the Voodeux album is highly recommended, and they have a pretty sweet deal going on.

You can read the review, posted here: Voodeux - The Paranormal

Square Pegs In A Round Hole Kind Of World

I had a recent discussion with one of my editors about the amount of personal insertion one should have in their pieces. Depending on the format and subject, the acceptable etiquette may vary, and often more than not do event reviews contain personal anecdotes and visceral reactions. We're both writers and lovers of electronic music, but agree that there is a lack of discipline in writing about it. Club music culture is not like rock n' roll, who quickly adapted the developing necessity for music criticism and journalism from the classical era. A particular comment I made was that, in my opinion, the real bible of electronic music journalism was Mark Prendergast's The Ambient Century: From Mahler to Trance. It's not world-renown, not every techno disciple owns it, and I don't recall a major fuss being made when it was actually published in 2001. It is, however, the most complete and encyclopedic collection of electronic music in one substantially thick book. It's a thorough introduction to anyone that is new and curious towards EDM in general, but also fills in many of the historical gaps for long-time fans that haven't reflected on its many minor details.

Now that the book is nearly 10 years old, there are certain missing elements that have developed over the last decade. The first thing that comes to mind is dubstep, a genre that claims to be anything but that. It's a conglomerate of so many previous club subcultures, such as grime and dancehall in the UK and rave, jungle and even hip-hop in the US. Every dubstep DJ I've ever met has undeniably vast tastes in music, and while everything they spin might be sub-bass heavy and 140bpm, they are drawing from a wide spectrum; from the revolutionary music culture of Jamaica's ragga movement to top40 pop. A respected music writer, Philip Sherburne, recently interviewed Steve Goodman a.k.a. Kode 9, and their conversation touched upon all of this and more.

This sounds unavoidably condescending, but I feel sorry for people who are unable to appreciate electronic music. Growing up in the hardcore/punk culture of Long Island, I honestly don't see a great amount of distance between A and B. The modern techno scenes that I know and love in both Boston and New York are comprised of hard-working, passionate DJs, promoters and music lovers that have really found that niche for themselves. They are often smart, eclectic and have a very strong sense of individuality. Hardcore punk was a home for the lost, changing dramatically over the course over the last 30 years, but at the core it has always been centered around getting to some state of nirvana - be it a mosh pit or a crowded dance floor - and being a square peg in a round hole kind of world.

With all that said, I've been literally between Boston and New York, transitioning slowly as I try to rebuild my life in Brooklyn without enough income to afford an apartment there. It's been easy to long for the family I left behind when Ben Klock comes to town and there aren't thirty close friends coming along. This weekend, I took a chance and went in blind; alone and curious to see how an all-night party would turn out with my own company. I found the same sort of solace that one would find in any alternative culture, and ended up having one of my most memorable New York nights to date. Much of good music is about taking chances, as are investing in promotional/booking collectives for a variety of non-mainstream crews. It's a faithful reminder that life, very similarly, is much about taking chances.

Hell & Heaven @ a secret location for Resident Advisor

Everything that I could possibly say about Hell & Heaven was published in Resident Advisor this week. Rarely do I not enjoy the large variety of live music events that I attend, but this was an exceptionally brilliant night. ReSolute and the promoters with whom they teamed up with ran this warehouse gig so smoothly that I can bravely assume on everyone's behalf that no one noticed any operational issues that might have come up. Also, I was in heels for about 9 hours and am fairly certain I did not sit down at any point. For that, some of my toes are still numb, but I would never complain. Journalist or not, there have been so much monumental live music I've experienced, and this night was definitely one of them. Accompanied by such a great set, I've also praised DJ Hell's forthcoming album, Teufelswerk, which redeems any qualms I had with N Y Muscle and the fashionable electroclash front that Helmut had on for years.

You can read the review, posted here: Hell & Heaven @ a secret location for Resident Advisor