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10 Great Musical Double Bills That Should Play Occupy Wall Street

By John DeFore on

The Occupy movement is famous for welcoming anyone who wants to join. But you can’t help but wonder if, for campers who’ve endured taunts and snow and pepper spray, some musical guests are more welcome than others. Yes, it’s a thrill to see Philip Glass using the people’s mic at Lincoln Center, but too many of the celebrities who visit OWS seem (at the risk of being uncharitable) to be using its fame for their own good instead of vice-versa. One wonders, for instance, how many impassioned discussions of banking regulations and foreclosure statistics were ever interrupted by the comment, “You know who I’d love to hear right now? Third Eye Blind.”

With that in mind, we offer ten dream concerts for OWS — double bills of music that’s relevant and rousing, from artists (unlike these movement-friendly newcomers) with enough name recognition to draw both fans and media attention to Zuccotti Park, or anywhere else the 99 percent are trying to make themselves heard. … Read More

Music

Photo Gallery: All Tomorrow’s Parties 2011 in Asbury Park

By Judy Berman on

Held for the past three years in a remote, ramshackle Catskills summer resort called Kutsher’s, America’s own version of the British All Tomorrow’s Parties festival was a somewhat different affair in 2011. Although the musical line-up was just as incredible as ever — Portishead curated and headlined two of the three nights, and Jeff Mangum also performed twice (read more about that here) — the event found a new home in Asbury Park, the New Jersey beach town that’s most famous for launching Bruce Springsteen’s career.

We can’t say we didn’t miss the intimacy and seclusion of Kutsher’s, but the new location proved to be a fantastic alternative nonetheless. Along with three days of excellent and challenging music that catered to the crate-digger set, we bowled, strolled the boardwalk, sampled the offerings of a remarkable (and fully playable) pinball museum, walked on the beach, played mini golf, and warmed ourselves in front of a bonfire. Most importantly, we reconnected with a deep-seated love of music that’s constantly tested by the Internet’s exhausting and trivializing hype cycle. A gallery of highlights from the festival — including Portishead, Public Enemy, Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, Cults, Deerhoof, Swans, Shepard Fairey, and many more — is after the jump. … Read More

Design

A Field Guide to Musical Typography

By Tom Hawking on

Regular readers of Flavorpill will no doubt have noticed that we are suckers for anything typography-related, so it’s really only been a matter of time until we found a way to combine our typographic geekdom with our love for music. And, indeed, the two fields aren’t as disconnected as one might think at first glance — there’ve been a number of interesting design- and typography-based trends in music over the decades since bands started putting out albums that needed accompanying artwork and lettering. After the jump, we give you a potted history of ten of music’s most interesting typographic movements and moments. Did we miss anything? … Read More

Music

10 Iconic Hip Hop Performances on MTV

By Colette McIntyre on

We were excited to hear that Lil Wayne recently wrapped production on an episode of MTV’s Unplugged — mostly because it marks the show’s first hip-hop performance since Jay-Z’s acoustic concert in 2001 (not because we want to hear a stripped version of “Mrs. Officer”). We hope that Wayne’s appearance will pave the way for a new generation of rappers to grace the show’s stage. This news and Lupe Fiasco’s performance on Sunday night’s MTV Movie Awards got us thinking about our favorite hip hop performances on the network. Our top ten is after the jump. … Read More

Music

Music’s 10 Greatest Multi-Album Winning Streaks

By Tom Hawking on

We were lucky enough to score tickets to PJ Harvey earlier this week at Terminal 5, and were rewarded with one of the best shows we’ve seen in ages. She played every track off her new album Let England Shake, and it got us thinking about how consistently excellent her career has been, save for a slight dip in the early 2000s. There have been plenty of artists who’ve had one or two good albums in them but found it ever more difficult to maintain that level of quality once the initial rush of ideas is gone. Artists who’ve been able to put out a string of great albums without intervening stinkers are few and far between –- so we’ve rounded up ten of our favorites. We’ve set our bar at four consecutive great albums, which rules out a surprisingly large number of artists -– it’s tough to turn out nothing but goodness over a number of years! Feel free to add your suggestions in our ever-accommodating comments section. … Read More

Music

21 Before-Their-Time Mashup Records

By Jason Gross on

It’s been called “bastard pop” and “bootleg remixes,” but since it’s been appropriated to describe any kind of combination of media, the most common term we have for it is “mashup.” Originally, it was used to describe unauthorized mixes where the vocal track from one song is laid over the instrumental track of another (or more than one) song to create a new tune.

You can get into all sorts of arguments over where this began or what was the first mashup record, but a pretty good educated guess traces it to computer/electronics wizard Mark Gunderson, who founded the group Evolution Control Committee in 1987. Four years later, a landmark legal case, where dreary singer/songwriter Gilbert O’Sullivan’s publishing company successfully sued rapper Biz Markie’s label over a sample of GOS’s 1972 hit “Alone Again Naturually,” drove the hardcore art of sampling (especially the unauthorized kind) underground, which is where ECC comes into the picture again. … Read More

Photography

Photo Gallery: The Roots of the Punk and Hip-Hop Revolutions

By Judy Berman on

From revolutionary politics to game-changing street style, punk and hip hop have a lot in common. Although one was headquartered way uptown and the other made its home downtown (and across the pond in London), both grew out of working-class neighborhoods in the last quarter of the 20th century. Now, punk and hip hop’s founders are among music’s most recognizable and iconoclastic icons.

Still, we rarely see these two kindred forms juxtaposed. That’s one reason we’re so excited about Catch the Beat: The Roots of Punk & Hip Hop, a show that brings together the work of Janette Beckman and David Corio, photographers who published photos of both scenes in British music papers throughout the ’80s and beyond. Another reason we can’t to check it out? The images in the preview gallery after the jump, which feature everyone from Public Enemy and Run DMC to the Ramones and Ari Up of the Slits, are quite simply some of the best music photos we’ve ever seen. The show opens March 10 at New York’s Morrison Hotel Gallery. Click over to Flavorpill for more info on visiting. … Read More

Music

Reader Poll: Will You Buy Some Shares of Public Enemy?

By Caroline Stanley on

Chuck D, Flavor Flav, and the rest of the Public Enemy gang want your money. Earlier today their profile appeared on SellaBand.com looking for funding to record their 13th album. For just $25.00, you can help make their $250,000 goal a reality. According to the web site the money will be used to a)… Read More

Music

Exclusive: Q&A with Virgin Mobile FreeFest’s Ron Faris

By John Hood on

Free has a bit of a buzz about it these days — free drinks, free downloads, free lunch. In fact, the concept is so hot that Wired Editor-in-Chief Chris Anderson wrote a book about it (Free: The Future of a Radical Price), and then digitally gave it away. But of all the “freemiums” and “freepstakes” out there, here at Flavorpill we’ve yet to come across something that’s more buzzworthy than Virgin Mobile FreeFest.

Going down on August 30 on the grounds of Baltimore’s Merriweather Post Pavilion, the free festival features an onslaught of new, old and unexpected acts, including Franz Ferdinand, Weezer, Public Enemy and Blink 182. Better yet: It’s for a damn good cause — a $5 suggested donation goes toward preventing youth homelessness, a rampant and too often ignored problem that more and more kids in America face each day. And if you act fast and do some volunteer work, you can earn “Free I.P.” tickets to the show.

Flavorpill got with Virgin Mobile’s Ron Faris to see what the hot fuss was about; here’s what he told us. … Read More

Books

Superhero Sighting: Impossible Man

By Kristen O'Toole on

The Taqwacores is a novel that was photocopied, sold from the trunk of a car, and passed around in the DIY tradition of punk zines for at least five years before seeing formal publication from Soft Skull Press this past winter. It’s centered on Muslim punk youth culture in Buffalo, NY, and when readers came looking for the scene, ready to dive in like so many teenagers and so many music-based subcultures that have come before, they found it existed only in the mind of author Michael Muhammad Knight. So they began to form their own Islamic punk bands and the taqwacore movement moved from page to life. … Read More