Chris Clark Interview

HERE

Autechre Interview

HERE

Silicon Graffiti

Friends and folks of the free loving world. Catalog and Circuitree Records bring forth the long awaited supercompilation Silicon Graffiti featuring such badasses as Jimmy Edgar, Machine Drum, Caural, Phoenecia, 000, Take, and many more! This comp has something for everyone: from the post apocalyptic hip hop banger "2013" by Junc Ops to the Dancehall infused banger from Machine Drum. Almost 80 minutes of music from some of the top electronic musicians in the world.


Silicon Graffiti

1. Under Your Skirt- Take
2. 2013- Junc Ops
3. 18th Street Reflections- Jimmy Edgar
4. Inference - 000
5. Dream Eater - Baku
6. Judah 2012 - Machine Drum
7. You are the Important Person - Fluent In Fiyah
8. Lyrical Soda Paper - PG-13 and Wake
9. Dangling Eyeball - Nived and Hydroplane
10. Arriving at the Water - Roy of Sealand
11. The Vapors - Alf 1
12. Testshot Starfish's Polaris Remix - Caural
13. Fellow Rescue Paste - Hydroplane
14. Through the Magnesium Manifold (Voyeurs) - Eleanor Channel
15. Bro79 - Phoenecia (Jacque Polynice Remix)
16. NeighborhoodSpecialist - Wake
17. Cognizance - Kentsoundz
18. Good Living - Omar Jon Ajluni



SILICON GRAFFITI PRE-ORDER

000 interview on trash audio

.:!:.:!:.:!:.:!:.:!:.:!:.LINK.:!:.:!:.:!:.:!:.:!:.:!:.:!:.

girls girls girls

Important

Layin' It Down and Raising Spirits

Joey Stevens and Itaru de la Vega from Rumspringa
12/20/07
The Echo
Review by Rory Vallis
rory.vallis@gmail.com

On December 20th, 2007, The Echo presented Rumspringa, the larger-than-life two-man band of Joey Stevens(guitar/vocals) and Itaru de la Vega (drums). I was asked if I could attend and do a brief write up. "Holy crap Batman! I get to see a kick-ass show AND write about it?" I quickly grabbed my brother, girlfriend, her brother, and headed for the venue.

I've seen Rumspringa play both in studio (for their much anticipated debut CD) and in concert, and as phenomenal as it was to see them pump out an incredible album, there is a transporting and uplifting effect to their live shows. An effect that I think can only be attributed to the synergy Rumspringa shares with the crowd.

Invariably, listening to Rumspringa causes me to tap my feet, if not shake and bounce with the eagerness and abandon of a good bedroom dance session. But inevitably the song ends, my feet tap to a stop, and the air hangs empty save the echoing track trailing my thoughts; "Damn, that was a good song".

In concert however, this changes dramatically. Despite the band's performances being near perfect translations of the tracks you'll find on CD, their concerts include so much more than the music. The difference is the crowd. Rumspringa seems to have taken the term "in concert" to heart and made sure that for every live show they play, the audience gets to play too.

As early on as the microphone check, front man Joey Stevens received coos and cheers from the audience. In reply, Joey answered a heated sighing into the microphone in place of the expected "check 1,2,3". In turn the fans cooed and crowed louder. This exchange elevated to near climactic levels until the soundman gave the thumbs up. Time for the show to start.

Fans crowded the stage in taught anticipation, claiming spots beside perfect strangers, and making friends and conversation out of the combustible excitement in the air. The first notes of the guitar and kicks of the drum sounded "Catfish Blues" and the crowd exploded, the temperature and people both jumped, and the air became full to the brim with tumult, sweat, shouts, laughs, smiles, smoke, booze, and well...rock n' roll.

It was at this point that something very peculiar, very incredible happened. Most likely if I tell you, you will wave it off as editorial aggrandizement, fabulous fanatics, or otherwise twisted reporting. But it's my word against your eyes (we're dealing laterally here in the present), and if you were there, you'll agree that everything that follows is (pretty much) the unequivocal truth.

Roundabout the third song into the set, the crowd was soused with the histories of the previous dance mapped across their t-shirts, and Joey, in signature style, sock footed on stage, began to rise. At first only up to his toes, but then gradually, his entire body began to float off the stage floor. People in the crowd, too, were rising and falling like coke bubbles in rum. Some of these people wafted on stage and started dancing around Itaru. The once coolly blue lighting lining the walls glowed red with the heat of the crowd. The crowd became so densely packed we began to rise together, like a loaf of bread in a brick oven.

Rumspringa were cookin' with gas.

Itaru threw the crowd holiday treats, while Joey handed the people in front a box of shakers, tambourines, and maracas. As "In the Jungle" began I heard a steady rhythmic shaker hitting the 8ths in the pocket. I looked to Itaru, but saw that he was busy tapping the 16ths on the hi-hat. Turns out the expert percussion was coming from an egg-shaker in the hands of the girl next to me. The crowd had likewise devoured and dispersed the percussion and the song was now a quilt, woven from the stage to the entrance and back.

Damn it was a good time.

My girlfriend and I were now exchanging smiles and dance moves on the ceiling. The whole crowd was off the floor, the floor itself undulating in a mirage of heat. Itaru was upside down thudding base kicks from ceiling to floor. His snare had slipped into the crowd and expanded to trampoline proportions. Some people were somersaulting and flipping on it, while others were content to simply float above it all. It was synchronized mayhem. It was everyone in concert.

After several new songs (whispers of a second album before the release of the first?) Joey broke into "I Wanna Make You Mine", and everyone grabbed someone, and floated gently back down to earth.

I was intoxicated. This doesn't happen everyday you know, people becoming clouds inside of venues. But just when I was getting used to gravity, the crowd cooed, and cheered, and applauded and chorused "Encore! Encore! Encore!", and Rumspringa came out, and let fall a never before heard tune, hot off the press, fresh out of the oven, bob's your uncle, a slammin’ , shakin' swingin' song. What ever room remained in the air exploded with applause and the song finished leaving the crowd smitten, searing, elated and exhausted.

I walked out that night, in December, in a t-shirt, and felt as though it were an August after noon.

But that's what I hear happens when you play with a band. You sweat a little. You should try it sometime. Rumspringa and 200 or so back up singers, dancers, percussionists and live-set incendiaries.

Last I heard they were still taking submissions.
-RV

The LPs at the House of Blues.

Emerick, Jake and Brando from the LPS
Sunday 09/09/07
The House of Blues.
Interview by Rachel Austin
rachel.austin@gmail.com

The The LPs had just opened for the GZA that night and were hanging out after the show, we caught up with them in the parking lot.

Rachel: Were do you guys comes from?
Emerick: We come from the west of Los Angeles and we all go back like rocking chairs from when we were little kids.
R:What got you guys started?
E:It all came from our friend Severen.
Brando: The son of the drummer from Little Feat. Rock folk group from back in the day.
E: He’s a DJ he inspired us all and we all wanted to make beats for him. We all were rhyming a little bit, Jake was freestyling but also wanted to make beats. So were doing it and we just getting involved and all of the sudden there’s like 7 of us.
R: What do you guys do in the band?
All: We write lyrics.
B: I write lyrics I write poetry I try to get on the blues harmonica on tracks if I can but these guys usually chase me away from doing that. I just maintain and do whatever I can.
E: We all work on beats together. I work on beats, Brando works on beats. Jake works on beats everyone works on beats together. We all MC except for Mike who holds it down on the drums.
R: Is it a collaborative effort?
E: It’s a completely democratic, sometimes communistic whole thing we got going here, and it works pretty good most of the time.
R: I wanted to ask you about the style you guys have, from my perspective I noticed it was a mixture between Hieroglyphics, Standing Practice and Sugar Hill Gang in the flow and the lyrics, so I wanted to know what your influences were?
E: Too many to name...but uh
Jake: Let me put it like that, we like the good shit that tends, but is not exclusive, to have come between 1988 and 1994 and it is a wide scope from the East Coast to the West Coast, the DITC, Hieroglyphics, the Pharcyde....
E: And such on and such on and such on…
J: We like the good shit, and we like funk soul, hip-hop, jazz music...
E: But honestly we don’t come trying to do a retro style, we don’t say were gonna bring it back to anything we don’t try to achieve in that sense, we just do what we do.
R: When guys come on stage and it’s the kinda crowd like tonight were it’s the hip hop scene. And homeboy here (pointing at Emerick) you’re wearing a flannel shirt, and...
J: Hip-hop is about being yourself and making music that you feel and enjoying what you do...
E: We all enjoy what we do.
R: How’s the feed back on stage?
E: The feedback on stage is everybody calls us old school and that’s good.
R: People will label you..
E: they always do and that’s how people work.
R: Do you like that label?
B: I'd rather sound old school than sound like what’s on the radio these days, that shit is so... its just a bunch of heartless pop.
E and J: But Pop is great.
B: Yeah, I mean if you can come up with a track that is still your style, whatever funky jazzy whatever it is and it can kinda have some kinda of poppy feel to it that people can dig whether its the hook or the sound of the drums.
R: You guys don’t ever fight?
B: We grown together throughout the years and we’ve become a lot closer and we respect each other’s opinions so we just try to sit down and talk everything out diplomatically.
Were gonna keep working on that were gonna keep working on new music and new poetry and new themes and new concepts and songs. That’s what we all love to do we wanna keep doing it. We got some kinks to work out and were gonna work them out and were gonna come back stronger than ever, people are gonna be like what?!!!

-R.A.