https://vimeo.com/10774634
This is Stanley Odd. They’re a hip hop band from Edinburgh. Last night, I was at a party in someone’s house, and they played an acoustic set live. Not what you’d typically expect in a living room – and not what they would normally do either – but they were really great.
Clutch and I went and saw Canadian band The Besnard Lakes play live at the Hare and Hounds in Kings Heath. I’d heard a few of their songs, and Clutch is a bit of a fan, so we went along.
They were superb. Really tight band – really great music. They had some technical difficulties along the way but charged on through and played an absolute scorcher of a set.
Afterwards I bought a screen print poster, and Clutch bought a record and a poster – and we managed to get them all autographed by all the members of the band.
Yes, I’m a 42 year-old man, hanging around after gigs for autographs of rock bands I see in pubs. What of it?
Marlena Shaw, live at the Hare and Hounds
Bobbie bought tickets to go and see Marlena Shaw and was really excited about it – but then a trip out of town clashed and she wasn’t able to go. She was really deeply disappointed.
Instead, Clutch and I took the tickets and went along. It was okay – the band were good and everything, but it wasn’t an amazing gig – and I suspect Bobbie might have been just as disappointed if she did go.
ROOTS ISTA POSSE
LIVE & DIRECT BERLIN’09
Roots Ista Posse live @ NetAudio Festival
Club Maria am Ostbahnhof
8th October 2009
Thought you might like this live mix recorded at that NetAudio Festival I went to in Berlin last week. The guys from Fresh Poulp Records were really great. We stayed at the same hostel boat on the river, they were brilliant company (despite my terrible French, and them finding English understandably complex after a few drinks) – and this Roots Ista Posse dub session above, Normaa‘s 4am dubstep set and Rafiralfiro‘s Latintronica were real highlights for me.
Best of all, you can download all the music for free.
It’s a Net Label thing…
I'm the Director of MTF Labs, a Senior Researcher at the Industry Commons Foundation, advisor to ArtEO and founder of New Music Strategies.
I'm an author of books about technology, culture, music and radio. I'm also an award-winning broadcaster and filmmaker, a public speaker and lecturer, record producer and festival director. I am closely following developments in emerging technologies and the cultures and ethics surrounding them, and my projects typically focus on issues of justice, inclusion, and sustainability.
Most of my work involves surrounding myself with incredibly smart and talented people who would have no other reason to ever be in the same room as each other. That's when amazing things happen.
I tend to talk a lot about music (often jazz-adjacent and particularly on vinyl, but also playlists and mixtapes). I'm enthusiastic about food and cooking, the intersection of art and science, new technologies, vintage technologies, education, social progress, silence, innovation, narrative, data commons, culture, sound art and the spoken word. This blog will continue to reflect those diverse and shifting enthusiasms. I may also digress.
I'm from Tāmaki Makaurau / Auckland in Aotearoa New Zealand, I have Scottish ancestry, I've spent a decade in the south of Birmingham UK, and another in a forest in the north of Sweden.
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