Dirty Beaches – Speedway King from Alex Zhang Hungtai on Vimeo.

Late to the game on this one (shocker). Dirty Beaches – Badlands has been a daily listen of mine for the last couple of months. There’s a haunting Ian Curtis-like vocal throughout. I am not sure if this is an official video, but it’s damn good.

If you’re a music lover and you’re using the TuneIn Radio App you’re doing yourself a major injustice. Justin who runs the Aquarium Drunkard blog turned me on to this amazing app a few months ago. I can’t stop using it! Nowadays, it’s so easy to get any song by just about any artist on a variety of music overload services. I find it way more enjoyable to listen to a good DJ doing their thing. There’s the element of surprise, the curation, the human voice with the back-story of what you’ve heard and the overall discovery that used to be the thing I love about music. The way it used to be. Walking into a record store and hearing something playing you’d never heard before. Or, sifting through the staff pics to uncover that gem. I am old. What can I say?

TuneIn allows you to listen to 1000s of radio stations all over the world. It reminds me of sitting next to a shortwave with my dad listening to the BBC. You just select a region, find a country, find a city and see what’s on. Some of my favorites are: WWNO3 (Jazz from New Orleans), Folk Radio UK Frukie (beautiful new and old folk from the UK) and Seneweb Radio playing loads of new and old Afrobeat out of Senegal. The BEST thing about TuneIn is you can record programs right on the iPad. Aside from Instagram, it’s probably the App I use the most. Check it out.

If you were to tell me that “The Weight” is the best song ever written I probably wouldn’t argue with you. It’s definitely up there with the best of them. If you search YouTube for “Mavis Staples The Weight” you’ll see a ton of her live performances of this song. I just came across one from the other week with Win Butler from Arcade Fire. Pretty great…

Generationals live at the Echo from jon setzen on Vimeo.

2011 is shaping up to be a banner year for music. So many good records have come out: Bon Iver, Black Lips, McCartney reissue, etc. One record I have been listening to for months is “Actor-Caster” by Generationals. It’s a great summery pop record which just doesn’t get old. I went to see them the other week at The Echo and definitely would go back to see them again – a perfect show for a Summer night – goes well with Red Stripe. Check out their album.

I’m really loving the new Thurston Moore LP. It’s produced by Beck and it’s a completely stripped down sound complete with some lovely orchestration. As I write this it’s still streaming over on the Guardian website.

front cover

front, back and spine

insider and disc

canoe

me (far right), harris (#12) circa 1983

Harris Eisenstadt was my best friend when I was growing up in Toronto. When I moved to San Francisco when I was 10 I started to lose touch with him and I hadn’t really spoken to him in about 20 years when I reconnected with him last December. My dad sent me a link to a write-up in the NY Times about Harris’ jazz band. Turns out my old friend is a highly accomplished and extremely talented jazz drummer and composer. Harris had finished a new album, Canada II, and asked me to design the artwork. The album is inspired by his Summers spent in the woods outside of Toronto. He sent me old photos from the camp he went to and, combined with my memories of that part of the World, we came up with some imagery that worked with the music. It’s been a dream of mine to design a jazz record since I was in junior high and it was such an honor to be able to work on this for Harris. I also found out he lived in Silverlake then moved to Brooklyn where he lives now. Next time I’m out in NYC I look forward to spending some time with he and his family. Check out his website for some music samples, tour dates and more information. Watch the video above to get a glimpse into his process.

After years and years of waiting I finally had the opportunity to see Godspeed! You Black Emperor. The show was everything I had hoped for. It was symphonic, chaotic, epic and LOUD. What an incredible band. The videos that accompanied the songs were fascinating and perfectly timed with the crescendos of the songs. Here’s a little video I snapped…

Godspeed You Black Emperor 01 from jon setzen on Vimeo.

I am going to be up for hours. This site is incredible! Jam-packed with eclectic songs, reissues, one-offs from around the World. Loads of download links. Wow. Amazing. Great work. Check out Ghost Capital.