The News Review:
- Rock’n'roll rebellion
- Sanjaya will be singing the blues after getting voted off: `AMERICAN…
- For Musselwhite ‘every culture has its blues’
- DJ Kid Koala’s music is a mind-blower full of fun
Rock’n'roll rebellion
The Age – Apr 19, 2007
nly Tinariwen would call it something different. “I gotinterested in music as a way of expressing how I felt about mypast my heritage” says Ibrahim Ag Halbib lead singer andguitarist. “That sense of nostalgic longing of loneliness andsuffering is our assouf our blues. Tinariwen’s music is as Led Zeppelin muso Robert Plant put it”like falling in a well”. The analogy functions on a number oflevels – desert wells are deep essential to survival and filledwith a substance more precious than gold. Yet to make sense of thedepth of Tinariwen’s music to understand how critical the pull ofthe desert is to their identity you have to visit the Sahara. Which is what after a 1000-kilometre journey through the desertI’m fortunate enough to do.
Sanjaya will be singing the blues after getting voted off: `AMERICAN…
Free with registration – Charlotte bserver – AccessMyLibrary.com – Apr 19, 2007
19–He gave us something to talk about and — in the end — that was the problem. Sanjaya Malakar whose so-so vocals and yo-yo hairstyles made him the talk of this seas.
For Musselwhite ‘every culture has its blues’
signonsandiego.com – Apr 19, 2007
“I would look everywhere for old blues records” he says. “I'd go to junk stores used-furniture stores and thrift stores looking for blues records. Along the way I discovered Greek rembetika flamenco Arabic music and other stuff. ften I'd find stuff that had the kind of feel that blues had. ”He remembered that when he sat down to study Memphis street singers or blues musicians such as Furry Lewis Will Shade or Earl Bell. “You could learn so much about the blues just from hanging around with guys like that in their homes” he says. “Nobody was really thinking about it but they were just playing spontaneous jam sessions and passing the bottle around.
DJ Kid Koala’s music is a mind-blower full of fun
Providence Journal – Apr 19, 2007
n his latest record last year’s Your Mom’s Favorite DJ Kid Koala takes the DJ tradition and infuses it with his trademark eclecticism and humor taking the grooves and riffs from tons of records and shaping them into something new. The record is based heavily in jazz swing R&B and blues with strings horns and other noises dropping into piano-based grooves with occasional blasts of hard rock and sardonic juxtaposition of spoken-word bits from movies TV shows and old public-service announcements. It’s a mind-blower full of fun and energy and it speaks to the energy of the found-object artistic tradition. When Koala (born Eric San in Canada) comes to the Living Room this weekend he’ll be combining that energy with the spontaneity of the live performance. “The live show is a combination of records that I’ve owned since I started DJ-ing in 1988 mixed with records I just got in the mail mixed with records that I cut specially for touring that have quick cue parts on them so I can re-create some of the studio recordings live without having to bring 50 records or whatever it is on the track. “But the challenge is still the same… ”“It’s still the same thing — having a big bunch of vinyl and trying to put it together in a way that describes what you’re coming from. … Throughout the night I still want to tell [one] story. But I have different chapters” including dance-floor pounders ballads ambient music and his own bizarre juxtapositions. “For me it’s all sort of changing the format while it’s going. It’s about exploring the whole range of what it can do. ”Kid Koala is at the Living Room 23 Rathbone St. Providence tomorrow night at 8 p.