Saturday, February 19, 2011
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
TOP 5 MUSICAL INSPIRATIONS.
1.
My first and fore most musical inspirations would definitely be my parents. My Father was raised in St.Croix, Virgin Islands and began playing music in a west indian folk band. He moved to Harlem New York in the late 1940's. The hight of the be bop/hard bop scene. He quickly became a Jazz drummer, a part of the early be bop movement through to the straight a head, on into the a vanguard/free Jazz sound.
My Mother on the other hand, who was raised in Colorado, but moved to San Francisco and is quite the psychedelic-Beatnick-punk rocker. I always was attracted to their personal choices of music identity as well as the music that was part of their growing up process. For example i love Jazz and Punk, the music my parents found along the way and adapted. But i also love reggae and country, which is more of a given and less of a choice, at least it was for them. for example, my mom hates all the old country music such as hank williams, which i cant get enough of. As much as Punk and Jazz may seem to have no connection, they both saw the connection, as do i. So to me John Coltrane is equally as punk as Angry Samoans.
2.
My second would actually be a unfortunate stranger i've never met. An old boyfriend of mine stole someone's ipod, the old chunky ipod that you could knock someone out with. He gave it to me because he was embarrassed by it, as well as it having no music that he recognized. The ipod was automatically mine as i started to read off such titles as Patti Smith, The Go Team, and Tv On The Radio. It took me about a year of randomly clicking on weird names of bands, and even weirder named songs to discover some of the most amazing music i otherwise never would have been hip too. Quasimoto, Dr.Octagon, The Seeds, The Meters, Yoko Ono, Beck, Pit Er Pat, Electralane to name a few. Who ever that person was who lost their ipod truly has the best array of music i've heard. I thank them all the time.
3.
I have many DJ friends, some famous, some not so famous. But my favorite DJ is also one of my biggest musical insertions. DJ Anthony Avatar is amazingly well rounded DJ, and out of this world style of dressing which he calls zulu digital, or b-boy shaman. He grew up in Chelsea in the 1980's and was a well known house dancer at all the loft clubs. He shares his emense knowledge about house and garage music of hat time with me. We use to have a day every week where he would personally Dj for me for an hour. Playing all these amazingly rare records, and showing me the house moves.
4.
this might be a kind of strange inspiration, it's not really any specific person but more of a medium, it's probably the main thing that attracted me to hip hop, sampling. for me music has always been an on going thing, adapting, changing, growing. so sampling has always been a fun game almost. listen to the song, figure out the sample, or find it on the cd, then look it up, listen to it, see what they didn't sample, and why. you can get to know a producer a lot better through their sample choices. but its also amazing how much seemingly random music served as an inspiration to hip hop. so many things nobody could have guessed young kids of color where listening to, and they weren't only listening to, but they were making their own music out of it. to me hearing what the rappers or groups were listening to while they made music, has always been inspiring, and their are so many rappers and producers that are really listening to some next level shit, and they put you on, but only if your interested.
5.
i couldn't really think of anybody really great or epic for my last inspiration, so i'll go with somebody who has really inspired me lately. well actually, thats a terrible introduction, he's awesome, and has great music choices, one MR.Quentin Tarantino, i love his commitment to all around mood, he really makes the music a respectable part of all his films. I'm a huge fan of most of his films, i love that film noir, kind of semi vintage film. and all that good old rockabilly stuff, with the big bad guitars and the bad production sound, i love it, it totally stays synonymous with the over all vibe of his films, that bad ass lone ranger kinda stuff, i just love. but i must say the same for spike lee and jim jarmusch, both excellent users of music in their films.
4.
this might be a kind of strange inspiration, it's not really any specific person but more of a medium, it's probably the main thing that attracted me to hip hop, sampling. for me music has always been an on going thing, adapting, changing, growing. so sampling has always been a fun game almost. listen to the song, figure out the sample, or find it on the cd, then look it up, listen to it, see what they didn't sample, and why. you can get to know a producer a lot better through their sample choices. but its also amazing how much seemingly random music served as an inspiration to hip hop. so many things nobody could have guessed young kids of color where listening to, and they weren't only listening to, but they were making their own music out of it. to me hearing what the rappers or groups were listening to while they made music, has always been inspiring, and their are so many rappers and producers that are really listening to some next level shit, and they put you on, but only if your interested.
5.
i couldn't really think of anybody really great or epic for my last inspiration, so i'll go with somebody who has really inspired me lately. well actually, thats a terrible introduction, he's awesome, and has great music choices, one MR.Quentin Tarantino, i love his commitment to all around mood, he really makes the music a respectable part of all his films. I'm a huge fan of most of his films, i love that film noir, kind of semi vintage film. and all that good old rockabilly stuff, with the big bad guitars and the bad production sound, i love it, it totally stays synonymous with the over all vibe of his films, that bad ass lone ranger kinda stuff, i just love. but i must say the same for spike lee and jim jarmusch, both excellent users of music in their films.
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