iJamming.net

I’ve written about the Ibiza-Voice.com free mixCasts before – back in March 2007, when I highlighted a particularly pleasurable mix by Club Cotton Cake. I’ve continued getting the site’s DJ-mixed Podcasts automatically downloaded onto my iTunes (and therefore also my iPod) every week since, and though I don’t always get to listen to them before they’re wiped clean by the next five installments, rare is the occasion I don’t enjoy what I’m hearing (especially while out running).

But none of the mixes in the two years I’ve subscribed to this service hold a candle to the Richie Hawtin DJ mix that came to my iPod a week before Christmas, all three and a half uninterrupted body-shaking hours of it. I’m not sure if there’s a competition out there for the longest Podcast, and if there is, Ibiza-voice.com have made no boasts about winning it, but I do know that to transfer this typically mega Hawtin mix onto CD would require three of the little silver platters – requiring fade-outs that don’t occur on this longest of iPod dance mixes.

There may be some iJamming! readers out there who don’t know Richie Hawtin. Simply put, as recording artist (Plastikman), label entrepreneur (M-nus), producer and spokesman, he’s one of the figureheads of techno. He’s lived in Detroit and New York over the years and now resides, appropriately enough, in Berlin. As a DJ, he’s without parallel. He’s the techno DJ’s techno DJ, a devoted master of minimal music played at maximum intensity; a man who thinks nothing of playing eight-hour sets except that they’re likely to be fully instrumental and involve as much music-making from the decks (and efx) as originally occurred in the studio. (I suspect his sets this New Year’s will be somewhat shorter: he’s due on in Florence at midnight, and in Madrid just ten hours later.) But don’t take my word for it. You can find out more about him for yourself over here, and here. Those iJamming! readers who already know Richie Hawtin by name and reputation should be scrolling for the download link already. Your New Year’s Eve dance party has never been better prepared.

Warning: As at a nightclub, the environment in which I suspect this mix was recorded, there’s no track-listing to accompany the podcast. And as you would expect from a three and a half hour Podcast, this is a big file: 286MB to be precise. It’s worth every byte.

Stream or download Richie Hawtin Ibiza-Voice.com Podcast here.

Happy Holidays to all iJamming! readers. Thanks for your continued support, and now that I’m done with the book, I look forward to spending more time online.

And a happy fourth birthday to Noel, named for his arrival on Christmas Eve of 2004. Noel is an absolute angel, an adorable addition to our family. He’s mostly very happy, he’s got great musical instincts (he walks around the house with his own guitar singing Uncle Rock songs every day), and his smile and his laugh are to die for. For various reasons, I have kept private some of the issues we have been dealing with along the way; the good news is that, thanks to a full-time early intervention school program, we seem to making enormous headway on them. The positive developments this past month, leading up to his fourth birthday, give us all enormous encouragement and optimism for the future, and make this a particularly happy holiday. We love you, Noel.

Rockin’: Hitting up New York City for a few days.
Shockin’: That it’s my first time (t)here for two months: the longest I’ve been away from New York City since 1996

Rockin’: Getting my own room for once
Shockin’: It’s in Jersey City

Rockin’: Jersey City is the new lower Park Slope
Shockin’: I.e., the brownstones are thriving, there are coffee bars everywhere, and more cheap condo buildings in state of panicked semi-erection than bankrupting mortgage companies.

Rockin’: The Village Voice and New York Press have cover stories that actually interest me for once. (The Voice has an interesting profile on African runners moving to New York hoping for the big time but mostly competing in second and third-tier races for small change. The Press writes on the so-called death of the East Village, a subject of continual debate ever since the locale was carved out of the Lower East Side by realtors in the sixties.)
Shockin’: That the Press has somehow stayed in business all these years.

Rockin’: There’s still such a thing as a business lunch
Shockin’: All the talk is business, about how bad business is these days.

Rockin’: Getting taken out for lunch to a posh-looking hotel restauranton 57th Street called Opia.
Shockin’: I order the only vegetarian item on the menu – the grilled vegetable sandwich – and am served the steak sandwich. This is the thing, people: it looks good when the waiter appears to memorize the order, but when he gets precisely 50% of it fully wrong, it’s embarrassing. Especially when he doesn’t even come back to apologize. Don’t they want repeat business? Don’t they know there’s a recession on?

Rockin’: Having become so acquainted with the research libraries of the NYPL that I can be in and out of them in 30 minutes even if it means looking up a thirty-year old alternative weekly.
Shockin’: I always get too distracted by the intricacies of history to make it quite that quickly

Rockin’: Neil Young and Wilco are on at Madison Square Garden
Shockin’: Tickets are priced from $54.50-$150. Don’t they know there’s a recession on?

Rockin’: Ivo & Lulu on Broome Street is still BYO. Dinner is only $35 with tip.
Shockin’: That more people still don’t seem to know about this hidden treasure.

Rockin’: The food at Ivo & Lulu has actually gotten better. The stuffed “summer” squash was superb – even if it is now the midst of winter.
Shockin’: BYO invites self-abuse.

Rockin’: The PATH train runs all night.
Shockin’: Trying to get my sense of direction in Jersey City from the Grove Street Path station. (I end up taking a cab.)

Rockin’: Running from downtown Jersey City to the Colgate Sign by the river in the morning…
Shockin’: …In sleet

Rockin’: Oasis are in town.
Shockin’: They’re playing at Madison Square Garden. Pass.

Rockin’: The Happy Ending Music and Reading Series is still going strong after five years
Shockin’: It’s at least three years since I participated in it.

Rockin’: I get to attend the last night. (It’s moving up to Joe’s Pub in the new year.)
Shockin’: Me and a couple of hundred others. It’s corridor room only.

Rockin’: Great storytelling by Mary Gaitskill and especially A.M.Homes. And the Wingdale Community Singers write the song “Happy Ending” especially for the final night.
Shockin’: It only takes 11 minutes, door-to-door, from Happy Ending in Chinatown to my friend’s house in Jersey City. (That’s intra-state travel, y’all. And I guess that’s rockin’ as much as it’s shockin’.)

Rockin’: A friend loads me up with a DVD containing 83 of (his) 2008’s best songs.
Shockin’: I haven’t previously heard about 75 of them

Rockin’: Being taken to Franchia on Park Avenue for lunch
Shockin’: I had no knowledge the place even existed.

Rockin’: It’s is the best vegan Asian food I’ve had this side of Zen Palate – and maybe the other side, too.
Shockin’: That there aren’t more people having lunch here the week before Christmas. They must know there’s a recession on.

Rockin’: The tea list is the equivalent of an award-winning wine list: a full book to itself.
Shockin’: So is the menu. I’m used to ordering “the vegetarian item.” (E.g. the “grilled vegetable sandwich.”) I’m not used to having the menu as my oyster (mushroom). I ultimately plump for the “Tofu and roasted kabocha pumpkin in sesame soy sauce” and it is truly enlightening.

Rockin’: Making an effort on this trip to the City to catch up with friends I was otherwise falling out of touch with – and succeeding
Shockin’: The tourists spending big money for very little (quality) food (and drink) at PJ Clarke’s just outside the Lincoln Center. Don’t they know we’re in a major recession?

Rockin’: All the Obama posters still up around town.
Shockin’: That I wasn’t in New York City to enjoy the instant street celebrations when he was elected. Friends from Harlem to Park Slope tell me about the impromptu parties that night, and I wish I could have been there to join them.

Rockin’: The New York DJ for Tots party at Santos’ Party House features the Rapture, Eamon Harkin, Andrew W.K. and Gang Gang Dance all DJing for just the price of a new, wrapped toy. I’ve been looking forward to this one.
Shockin’: It turns out to be on the one night most of my Brooklyn friends can meet me in the old hood. Friendship trumps the dancefloor.

Rockin’: There are now three pubs at the bottom of my old street, the otherwise seamy 4th Avenue in lower Park Slope. And one more within walking distance.
Shockin’: They weren’t there when I was living there.

Rockin’: The Australian-themed Sheep Station. I liked the ambience, the décor, the fact that beers come in three sizes (glass, schooner and imperial pint) and that the place serves proper food, too. I assume my beer was Australian, too.
Shockin’: My friend and I only have time for one quick drink there before heading to meet others

Rockin’: Pacific Standard, our major meeting point, is rockin’. By which, I mean it’s jumpin’ when we get there. I miss this kind of energy.
Shockin’: There’s maybe 100 people in the bar, including a Christmas party, but there’s only one bartender. He’s nice enough and he’s doing his best, but he’s hopelessly over-worked, and it doesn’t help that the bar has run out of the first two beers we request. Someone is making out like a bandit running this place (in a recession) – and I don’t appreciate their lack of concern for customers by cheaping on the bartending. By the time we leave, two hours later, the dirty glasses have piled up everywhere, though the experience is certainly improved by the Christmas party hosts – the good people of Storycore – who walk around the bar offering us to sample their food.

Rockin’: Pacific Standard is billed as “a cozy, relaxed West Coast microbrew pub.”
Shockin’: Ten of the 18 beers on tap come from the east coast, and one from the UK. I’m not complaining, just pointing out that it’s not, in fact, a West Coast microbrew pub.

Rockin’: The Ithaca Flower Power IPA from Ithaca – in New York, the east coast – is a damn good pint.
Shockin’: It’s only when looking at the web site I realize it’s a solid 7.0% ABA. No wonder I felt tipsy after a couple.

Rockin’: There’s another bar over the street.
Shockin’: It’s the Cherry Tree, and it’s effectively a sports bar – big screen on the back of the room that you can see from the Avenue, big hair at the bar. We enter, turn around and leave.

Rockin’: There’s still the 4th Avenue Pub. I had a couple of drinks here back in the summer, on the back deck, and remember the high quality of the beer.
Shockin’: Of the 24 beers on tap, I make the mistake of ordering the Arrogant Bastard Ale – before I notice its strength. If you think there’s a tendency for wine-makers these days to opt for power over subtlety, you haven’t entered the world of the American micro-breweries. Much though I admire all the craftsmanship, it’s hard work just finding a nice IPA or lager or brown ale that’s a standard 5%ABA..

Rockin’: Ultimately, Sheep Station, Standard and Pacific and the 4th Avenue Pub are all beer-drinkers’ palaces, laden with choice of micro-brews on tap and in bottle, and at fair (by city standards) prices. It’s at times (and places) like this that I realize just how far American beer drinking culture has come, quite arguably to the point that it’s ahead of most European countries.
Shockin’: That we don’t have bars like these, with so much choice of quality independent beer, up in the Catskills. (And if we do, there aren’t three of them at the foot of my stret. Thank God.)

Rockin’: Friday night I have the option of Evan Dando at Southpaw, at the top of my old street, the DFA Christmas DJ party and the Loser’s Lounge in Manhattan. This is the kind of variety that keeps people in the big city.
Shockin’: There’s a major winter storm set to kick in straight after the morning rush hour – and I decide I want to get home before it gets bad.

Rockin’: I figure I have time to stock up on English goods at Key Food on 5th Avenue – HP sauce, Yorkshire tea, custard creams, Weetabix, and a plum pudding that I don’t really need, and probably don’t want, but hey, it’s Christmas.
Shockin’: The check-out assistants arguing amongst each other. I don’t miss this part of my old ‘hood.

Rockin’: Stocking up on Gorilla Coffee on 5th Avenue.
Shockin’: Even on a Friday morning, the place is so busy it takes 15 minutes to get served. I don’t miss that aspect of city life either.

Rockin’: There’s very little traffic in the City this Friday morning – the storm has gotten everyone scared – and I figure there’s time to pick up some wine from storage in Chelsea.
Shockin’: It takes an hour to sort out the wine during which time we go from overcast skies to heavy snow. That’s me in a nutshell.

Rockin’: I make it back to Mount Tremper after a harrowing three hour drive that includes the sight of several accidents, pile-ups and spin-outs on the Thruway.
Shockin’: It’s a snow day (of course), the kids are at home, the holidays are right around the corner. New York City and its endless possibilities seem a long way away. I love it down there. But I love it up here, too.

The second snowstorm in three days leaves us more than guaranteed a white Christmas… Check our garden chairs for evidence of just how much of the white stuff fell our way. Happy holidays, all.

I didn’t spend the whole of the two weeks that I was offline locked up in my office editing/cutting my book. A boy has to live, after all. Or, a boy has to see live music …

On Thursday December 4, we took a trip to the Bearsville Theater in Woodstock for the double bill of Mercury Rev and Dean and Britta. Mercury Rev are locals, of a sort. They ended their last American tour at the Bearsville, almost exactly three years ago, and chose to start their new one here too. Interestingly, they brought their own PA with them, which notched the volume up many many many decibels. In fact, it had us pinned against the back walls for most of the show: about an hour and a quarter of gloriously uninterrupted bombastic psychedelic rock, opening with the new Snowflake Midnight album’s “Snowflake In A Hot World,” closing with its “Senses on Fire,” and included several highlights from The Secret Migration, Deserter’s Songs and All is Dream, plus a stunningly original reworking of Talking Heads’ “Once In A Lifetime” in there as well. (Curiously, this was the second time I heard the song played live in a month: David Byrne included it in his solo set at Albany’s The Egg.) Attendance, even allowing for all the variables that come into play where we live, was absolutely pitiful, but Jonathan, Carlos Anthony and Grasshopper (and company) took it perfectly well in stride, relishing the opportunity to play their music in such a beautiful venue. We greatly appreciated having them here.

We also appreciate that they brought in Dean and Britta as opening act, especially as I’ve been on such a massive post-Luna kick of late. I fell in love with the Tell Me Do You Miss Me DVD that documented Luna’s farewell tour, and from there, went on to Dean Wareham’s marvelously dry autobiography, Black Postcards; between these two forms of media, I think you can learn much about what makes a rock band tick – and why they break up – and all in the highly literate manner you would expect of a band like Luna. Since Luna’s demise, Wareham and partner Britta Phillips have continued pecking away at the margins of indie rock, and they benefited at the Bearsville from the crystalline clarity of the PA.

Backed by a 21-year old drummer and a Rhodes-playing keyboardist, they offered up a 45-minute show that matched Luna at its best for subtle ingenuity. The major difference would be Dean and Britta’s comparative reliance on cover versions; other than their own “Words You Used To Say,” I made note only of Buffy Saint-Marie’s “Moonshot,” Lee Hazelwood’s “You Turned My Head Around” – with Phillips’ floor-clearing screams – and that old Luna chestnut, New Order’s “Ceremony.” The set list included a finale of Serge Gainsbourg’s “Bonnie and Clyde,” which also dates back to Luna days; unfortunately, they didn’t have time to play it. Dean and Britta’s performance was one of the most beautiful shows I’ve seen this year.

Attendance may have been an issue at the Bearsville, but there were no such worries about turn-out two nights later for Ray Davies at the Bardavon Theater in Poughkeepsie. This was my first time at this venue, but surely not my last. As with UPAC in Kingston, the Bardavon is a glorious old theater of sensible size (I would figure less than a thousand people in all), with great sight lines, a fine sound and a good membership policy that helps bring in international names such as Davies. (It also has a bar that sells Millbrook’s wines for $4. You can’t go wrong.) My host for the night, Jimmy M., has already posted a report over at the iJamming! pub and there’s not too much for me to add. I can confirm that Davies was in wonderfully jovial mood, relishing his “Storytellers” persona, and even if he relied too often on the crowd sing along, it seemed to be from a folk singer’s sense of community than any great act of showmanship or ego. The set was long and varied, including “Father Christmas” for the season and what Ray claimed to be a first EVER live performance of Village Green’s “Starstruck,” which at least gave the night an air of exclusivity. There were but a smattering of songs from his two solo albums, including “Working Man’s Café,” and “The Gateway (Lonesome Train),” and of course the set was book-ended and otherwise pock-marked by one Kinks classic after another, from opening trio “I Need You,” “Where Have All The Good Times Gone?” and “Dead End Street” to the ramped-up finale of “All Day and All of the Night,” “You Really Got Me” and “Lola,” the last two with opening act Locksley as back-up. (Through the rest of the show, he was accompanied only by guitarist Bill Shanley, who took some of the burden away from t his being a “solo” show without stealing the spotlight or turning it into an electric gig.) My personal highlight, somewhere in the middle of all that – apart from the Poughkeepsie singalong of the very cockney “Dedicated Follower of Fashion” – was the rendition of “I’m Not Like Everybody Else,” accompanied by the announcement that that’s how he still feels, even after all these years. Ray’s a treasure, we all know that, and his two-man show, especially in these intimate surroundings, is also an absolute pleasure.

… And you know how many great songs the man has written by the fact that it wasn’t until after I left the venue that I realized he had’t even played “Waterloo Sunset.” Imagine him trying to get away with that in England….