SlowFood to SlowMovements

Slow Food 2008

The First Annual Slow Food Festival took place this past week, and we had tickets to the tasting event on Sunday evening. The tastings included wine, cheese, olive oil, ice cream, coffee, naan, dried meats, fish and everything else legally edible. It was like taking acid for your taste buds. Although most of my buds have been burnt off for various reasons, and thus scotch has become a favorite, I was still able to taste some incredible flavors. I've always loved food, but I got a greater appreciation for it when I was living in Philly. There were/are? so many incredible corner neighborhood restaurants from Cafe Nola with their Shrimp Diane, to The Latest Dish with their specially prepared Monkfish to Blue In Green for their pancakes and egg scrambles. Everything was always fresh and I assume that it was from regional farmers. The Slow Food festival was a great celebration of tastes for food lovers that brought back the "re-localizing" of food.

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You tell people in the present about your past. This is you're present. That was your past. You describe a memory. Of how it felt. Of what was real. To hold on. You let go. Reality can only come from truth. I hope you are the next contestant on the Price is Right.


Stars - A Thread Cut With A Carving Knife - I'm not a huge fan of this band, although i do like the song, Your Ex-Lover is Dead. This one is from their new EP, Sad Robots and it has a good banter between the male voice and the female voice like the X-lova song. Maybe, they are growing on me.

The Gutter Twins - Belles (Vetiver Cover) - From their new EP, Adorata which also has an uptempo version of Jose Gonzalez' Down The Line. I like this dreamy version of the Vetiver classic from Greg Dulli and Mark Lanegan. It's a slow descent into your own hell of knowing when to leave.

DJ Koze - Smornin - Better known for his techno stompers. It sounds like Michael Jackson, when he was black, being kicked in the balls singing one of his 70's to early 80's classic. Maybe it's one of those 4am songs, when you don't even have the energy to raise those hands in the air........

The Velvet Teen - Red, Like Roses - From the excellent Out Of the Fierce Parade release. This band from the Bay Area, on this track do sound like Radiohead, and yes, it is a bit over the top. It is self serving (like this site), and maybe a little high school love letter-esque in a desperate love, or death kind of way, but when it does finally boil over at the 5minute mark, it shows the beautifully tragedy.

SlowTwoDay

Fuzz, 2008

Summer has ended, and as we enter the shades of the Fall season............

Flying Lotus - Testament (feat Gonja Sufi)

Leila - Why Should I? (feat Terry Hall & Martina Topley Bird)

Aretha Franklin - Do You Know (Hey Now Hey (The Other Side Of The Sky)) (Outtake)

Anna King - Night Time Is The Right Time

Radiohead-Live @ Outside Lands, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco 8.22.08

Picture courtesy of danbaber on Flickr

Radiohead
Outside Lands Music Festival
Golden Gate Park, San Francisco
August 22, 2008
The Chocolate Show

1. 15 Step
2. Reckoner
3. Airbag
4. There There
5. All I Need (sound cut out for a minute)
6. Nude
7. Talk Show Host
8. National Anthem
9. The Gloaming
10. Videotape
11. Weird Fishes/Arpeggi
12. Idioteque
13. Karma Police
14. Jigsaw Falling Into Place
15. Just
16. Exit Music (for a film)
17. Bodysnatchers

Encore:
18. Pyramid Song
19. You And Whose Army?
20. Paranoid Android
21. Fake Plastic Trees
22. Everything In Its Right Place


Download: Radiohead, Live @ Outside Lands

Modeselektor Jet Lag Mix XLR8R Podcast

Serious Faces For Serious Music: Modeselektor

XLR8R Magazine in their ongoing quest to serve you the next chapter in the development of life, i mean, music, offers yet another excellent Podcast. And this time around, it features one of our favorites here in the sunny-delight office of FroWheel, Modeselektor, who will also be featured in the new Speaking In Code documentary--go see the trailer.... I think this may be the movie to help bring a better understanding of the power of electronic music, mainly techno, and how it is truly music that you can fully immerse yourself in, mentally as well as physically.

Modeselektor will also be playing with Ellen Allien at Mighty on Friday September 5th in Sun Francisco brought to you by the fine people at Blasthaus and XLR8R.

Download: Modeselektor - Jetlag Mix - XLR8R Podcast

All I Want Is Another Chocolate

Outside Lands Festival, 8.22.08, 10:26pm

Thursday evening, The Wordless Music series came to San Francisco's Herbst Theatre in the form of the Magik Magik Orchestra conducted by Benjamin Shwartz to play pieces by John Adams, Fred Firth, Arvo Part, Mason Bates and Jonny Greenwood. Greenwood's Popcorn Superhet Receiver was making it's West Coast premiere, but all of the pieces from the evening made for a powerful night of twisting your mind around the conventions of music. The evening's most abstract piece, Save As from Fred Frith had tape recorded sampling, tin cans being thrown about on stage, crumpled pieces of paper, and a cello being played like a high guitar solo. Most of the elements from the other pieces were from the string family of instruments, but every piece had one foot in the past with one foot into the future, and each could have easily been translated from the arsenal of Aphex Twin, or Autechre's squelched synth sounds and spastic 808 kicks.

As the night started, the founder of the series, Ronen Givony mentioned many of today's leading abstract electronic artists and how he wanted to create this crossover between both of these worlds by tearing down the rigid classifications often given to music. What was once thought of as unconventional is now accepted as today's norm. It's refreshing to see things skewed using mainly tools that are part of today's convention of music. Check out more of the Wordless Series, which is mainly in NY, but hopefully will be making more visits to San Francisco. They have some incredible artists coming up, which have been featured on this site, including Flying Lotus, Steve Reich, Goldmund, Hauschka, Stars Of The Lid and Tim Hecker.

The next day was Radiohead's somewhat annual visit to the Bay Area. For this trip, they headlined Friday night at the Outside Land's Festival. The evening started out with Cold War Kids, the Black Keys and then to the Laser Light Show featuring Radiohead. It was the best visual display that I've ever witnessed from the band and even with a few sound problems, it was a great experience for all of the senses. The unexpected hysterical laughter from Thom Yorke at the beginning of You And Whose Army was the sentiment for most of the evening. And no, text messages along with phones do not work in a festival environment which consisted of 60k people.

Radiohead, for lack of a better comparison, are the Beatles of our/your generation. They have often reinvented themselves, and have created timeless music that continues to influence artists today. I hope they break up soon, only to reform in 20 years at Coachella. Yeah, that would be perfect.


Here are some pieces from the artists featured on Thursday evening for the Wordless Series.

John Adams - Shaker Loops - 1. Shaking and Trembling - this track was part of one of the pieces that was played on Thursday evening.

Fred Frith & Evelyn Glennie - Scuttlebutt - a great collaboration of two brilliant musical minds.

Jonny Greenwood - Smear - from the Ether Festival in 2005

Take A Step Back And You Can See The Hole

Garvan Institute, Sydney, Photo taken by eagle-ffm

I have no idea what is going on.
Radiohead is playing on Friday in Golden Gate Park.
Me, and 90K of my closest friends on Facebook will be there to witness the first band to play at nighttime in the park.
Bring a flashlight.

Schedule for Friday.
5:00-5:25 - Steel Pulse @ Lands End
5:25-6:10 - Cold War Kids @ Sutro
6:15-6:45 - Manu Chao @ Lands End
6:50-7:50 - The Black Keys @ Twin Peaks
8:00-10:100 - Coldplay Lite @ Lands End

I hate Tom Petty and Jack Johnson, who are headlining the rest of the weekend.
Jack Johnson is the Tom Petty of today. Everything sounds the same. They should smoke each other.
GOing to see Popcorn Superhet Receiver at the Herbst on Thursday night.


Mochipet - Rapcats (Featuring Zaptap-Citizen 10) - David Wang loves Daly City. He's probably the only one who loves this city in the Bay Area. Somewhat of a straightforward track for this finger-in-the-electrical-socket wizard.

Burial - South London Boroughs - this is where it began. it helped to define a new style of music. dubstep, which scares most people, yet somehow has found it's way into yoga studios ? For fuck's sake....

The Walkmen - What's In It For Me - from the classic Bows + Arrows album which has yet to be topped in subsequent releases. A great way to start an album that has songs that are either in your face or just a blurry dream, like this track.

Beirut - A Sunday Smile (Live) - a live version from Paris. gypsies, the circus and the bearded lady.

BlueInGreen

Blue In Green Menu, 2001

It was always on a weekend morning. Probably hungover. Going through the crowd, signed-in, and waited. It was usually around a half an hour wait. Grabbed some coffee. Tried to remember what exactly happened the night before. It was usually with same person, although that did change towards the end. It's still kind of a blur. It was the only place to go. Everything about it was unique and special. A wall dedicated to a small picture of Miles playing his horn. A worn menu like the 20 chairs and 10 tables that made up the place. Always a wait, but always worth it. In a great neighborhood before it got corrupted with money. I don't remember any conversations, but just glimpses of the stainless steel bathroom at the end of the narrow building which could have fit 2 tables, the old floor, the fluid motion of all the servers, the rings around everyone's eyes, the specials on the little chalkboard, the smell of a perfect weekend morning. And the food, which was the reason it was my favorite place to go. Breakfast during brunch hours is always the best meal of the day. What is my favorite restaurant ? Well, the most unique meal I've ever had was at a place up north in wine country, but my favorite place is, and always will be Blue in Green in Philly. And it's probably my favorite song as well. The song perfectly conveys the morning mood while chaos is just around the corner. A reflective piece...having coffee at the counter and wondering where, and who you'll be, in a day, month, year.......life. The slight turns and shifts that will appear to be so sudden when looked upon in 10 years. I'll take some coffee, spinach provolone eggs, and pancakes.


MGMT - Electric Feel - that 70's retro feel for the hipsters.

The Grays - Very Best Years (Acoustic) - a jason falkner penned song. a positive song for a positive person.

James - Lullaby - a beautiful song from an incredible album, Laid. A Brian Eno produced album who helped to create this cohesive mood which travels through every song.

Hall & Oates - I Can't Go For That (No Can Do) - melodies, harmonies, that 80's electronic snare, washed out reverb.