Eat Skull, My Lord!

PDX's Eat Skull are one of the best musical acts going right now. Period.
With members of Hospitals and a penchant for lo-fi dirtiness & raw melodies, the Dead Families 7" pressed on Skulltones in a run of 300 and instantly sold out, is one of the finest releases I have heard in ages. Repress coming soon.
They have a new album 'Sick to Death' on Siltbreeze that is not to be missed, so act fast before it's gone.
Check them out on their west coast tour in the US now:

Dead Families
If I'm Insane
No Intelligence

Pandaworks

Sorry its been so long since I've posted here but I've been consumed with my Production company of late. Please take a look at the site for Pandaworks and let me know what you think. You can also check out the Pandaworks Blog and leave me a comment!

Here's one of our latest vids!

The Western World Music Video

HOT SAUCE > Snoop Dogg - Sexual Eruption (Dirty South Remix)

January was one of the worst months for electronic music  since 91. That being said there have been a couple shining stars. Thank god I can always count on Dirty South for always coming through with something original or fresh. Here he takes on one of the best of last year in the form of Snoop Dogg's "Sexual Eruption".

What is it about this remix? I think it's main strength is the fact that it feels LIVE in a way most electronic music doesn't. It gives you a slow acid-house built until it takes a que from the title of the song and goes into an eruption of it's own. A better musical peak than I've heard in a while.

Seriously. Listen. I am dancing as I type this. Dirty South's Myspace

Snoop Dogg - Sexual Eruption (Dirty South Remix)

PS Dirty South in  Los Angeles March 22nd at Vanguard!

INTERVIEW: KENAN BELL

[photo by Alice Dison]

A friend recently told me about Kenan Bell, a talented young rapper from LA who recently grabbed attention for his witty sampling of Morrissey's "This Night Has Opened My Eyes" on his song "Save Your Life." Being both a Morrissey fan and a lover of hip-hop I curiously checked him out and was pleased to find it both innovative and catchy, and was impressed by his other songs as well. Even better, Kenan was nice enough to answer some questions for us here at Live From Hell's Basement.

AL: How did you first get into hip-hop ? What hip-hop artists did you listen to growing up?

KB: I never really got into hip hop, it’s something that kinda got into me. My pops got me a Kool Moe Dee “Wild Wild West” Vinyl and I remember Moms buying me Bell Biv Devoe and Arrested Development but then she got saved and took all my rap tapes away. I found them though, and my older half-brother also had whatever rap record was out and I’d hear them when he came over for the weekend. Growing up my influences were from KRS-One to Kriss Kross and Ahmad to ABC...from Public Enemy to PM Dawn…N2Deep to NWA. Honestly I heard anything and everything I could and still do.

AL: How did growing up in LA affect your music?

KB: Growing up in LA was imperative. Super crucial! Being surrounded by so many different cultures was awesome. Musically, I’d absorb elements from each and sculpt my sound from those in my head. The gangsta rap culture was thriving along with the G-funk era so I was exposed to all the West Coast rap daily in the streets by cars with aftermarket stereo systems.

AL: You rap about not drinking or doing drugs. In the entertainment business where alcohol and drug use seem to be glamorized by the media, how do you remain sober when you are easily surrounded by it?

KB: Frankly, Shirley Temples are way too tasty and I have control issues. Some say I have too much. I agree sometimes but I don’t like to mess with my body and if it tells me it doesn’t like something I listen. Ralphing isn’t a good thing. I don’t need to be intoxicated to have fun. Mind over matter. I don’t even like to take pain pills when I get a root canal. But for serious, I’m a thinker not a drinker as cliché as it sounds. I enjoy people enjoying themselves. And I let others do my drugs too. Reefer is not a drug.

AL: Sampling Morrissey in hip-hop is definitely a unique and brave move, but you made it work and did it really well. What kind of response have you been getting with that song?

KB: The response has been simply overwhelming. People from all over the world have voiced their opinions via Morrissey-solo.com. The majority has accepted the song as tasteful and innovative while a select few have seen it as a diss to the Moz himself. I did the song out of respect and am proud that it is being well-received.

AL: Ten years ago it wasn’t as easy for independent hip-hop artists to gain widespread exposure. In today’s society, almost any musician can gain fame and business connections with a Myspace profile or a Youtube account. Do you think there are any cons to using this type of technology to promote yourself?

KB: There is the potential for oversaturation. I don’t really need to see Puff or Soulja Boy tell ‘em urinate on my CPU. What happened to the allure and mystique? Artists sometimes like themselves too much and maybe want to share their every moment. Video killed the radio star..Internet killed the video star.
AL: What artists would you like to collaborate with, aside from Morrissey of course?

KB: I would like to collabo with Jimi, Kurt, Bob, Mike Jack, Stevie, Prince, Sting, Sade, 2Pac, Biggie, Dre, Timbo, Pharrell, and Kanye. All the greats. I am a fan of good music in general. I’d like to work with anyone living or deceased who knows how to create masterpieces.

AL: Your EP comes out at the end of the month. Can we expect a full album release in the near future?

KB: Yes actually I am recording my LP at the moment. I’m working daily on new material and plan to be releasing a full length on Lass Recordings later this year.

AL: Any other projects you're working on?

KB: I’m working on a made for TV film loosely based on my life and a motivational book on tape.

Kenan's Good Day EP drops at the end of this month. There are record release parties coming up on February 29 at Feel the Noise in San Diego and on March 1 at The Scene in Glendale. You can enjoy Kenan's music and get more information at his myspace.

Bright Tomorrow : Fuck Buttons

Quote:
"Fuck Buttons was conceived by Andrew Hung & Benjamin John Power in the winter of 2004, Bristol UK.
Initially the group was born as an outlet for their nihilistic-noise tendencies but quickly, the two Fuck Buttons realised they could harness the use of noise as a tool to immerse and evoke.
No longer afraid of melody or rhythm, the group started fusing all these elements to the point when drone becomes melody becomes rhythm.
With their electric live performances sealing the notion that the two Fuck Buttons are attempting some kind of transcendence between the listener and the Universe itself, one could easily envisage one’s psyches being shaken by the very rumbles of the earth’s motions.
Tribal beats and subtle beautiful melodies weave amongst contorting Technicolor drone-scapes while preaching distorted-vocals scream for dear hope herself…
Fuck Buttons straddle you between the wall of sound that lies between the beginning of destruction and the end of birth. This grand noise will fondle you into a state of immersed euphoria."
Thanks to: Bolachas Gratis blog
Interesting images/sounds...investigate for your sake.,.,

Tolerance: 'Divin' - Divinity from the past

Amazing lp of primitive, murky minimal electronics which was originally released in 1981 on the legendary, Osaka based Vanity Records.

Vanity Records stock-in-trade was raw, electronic experimentation which sounds impressively comtemporary when compared to current glitch, minimal techno and laptop artists found today.

It brings to mind Basic Channel and Moritz Von Oswald's Maurizio M-type sounds dipped and smothered in a muted analog mud stack on top of bloody pancakes of rhythm & quasi digi/analog percussion; oh, yeah!, 10-12 years ahead of it's time.

The "pulse static (tranqillia)" track is one for the ages.

Fantastic!

Find repress here

Thanks, KFW.

March Down Babylon, mon frere

Prince Douglas: Dub Roots

Quote:

This album contains the original Chosen Brothers / Prince Douglas version of "March Down Babylon" - one of the finest heavy heavy dub pieces you will ever hear..guaranteed!!
Engineer Douglas Levy was part of the original Wackies set up from 1974-75, alongside Lloyd Barnes and Jah Upton.
For a while he would have his own label - Hamma - within the Bullwackies group; but besides Sugar's International Herb, this 1980 dub album is his finest work.
Wackies' fans have been clamouring for its reissue ever since Rhythm & Sound began making the catalogue available again.
Many of the rhythms are derived from a tape given to the studio by Sly and Robbie, containing their versions of recent Joe Gibbs hits.
And there are brilliant treatments of Tribesman Dub - the rhythm for Tyrone Evans' Black Like Me - and Wayne Jarrett's definitive interpretation of Every Tongue Shall Tell. Elsewhere Jah Batta takes deejay duties - likewise Prince Douglas himself.
But the deadliest cut of all reworks another gift, Steel Pulse's "Handsworth Revolution", which arrived in a parcel of records from England the same weekend as the session:
March Down Babylon Dub, with Bullwackie himself at the microphone in his Chosen Brothers guise, as steely and apocalyptic as Douglas Levy's fabulous production.

Immense.

Full-on audio brilliance, friends. Please enjoy.

One minor note:
Sound quality is ripped at LAME 3.90 around 145 VBR.
Until I get my hands on a better version, play till the stylus (sic - I mean digiPlayer) runs batteries dead...

March Down Babylon (Dub)

Dub Roots

peas

Papo Pepo - In Ordem

  

I'm serious I wish I knew more about the band Papo Pepo but it just isn't out there. I know they're from Mexico City. I know they rock. I know they're on the Letouch. 

Papo Pepo - In Ordem

Nath Family wants you as a new family member

Nath Family: Sounds of the Indian Snake Charmer

Quote:
'For the first half of 2005, I lived with my wife Erika in Kirtipur, Nepal. During our days, while she was studying at the Kathmandu Association For The Deaf, I was roaming the streets and villages of the Kathmandu Valley in search of sounds and music. While kickin? round the tourist district of Thamel picking up cassettes, I met a family of Snake Charmers from Haryana, INDIA. An old man probably in his 70s or 80s, his 2 grandsons, and one of the grandson?s sons. 

They asked if I wanted to see a show....I said Hell YES!! They gave me a show...a KILLER show... we?re talkin 3 fuckin? king cobras dancing at once, while a giant boa chilled at the side and few other random lil? snake dudes are wigglin around here and there. I became obsessed. I had met my new best friends... Though the kind of best friends you have to pay to hang out with. They were hustlers, yes.. But that?s their job... The money was well worth the shows. 

I spent about 3-4 days a week for the next 2 months, recording their music and their snake shows on mini-disc and videotape. 

I Drank alot of chiyaa with them, smoked alot of cigarettes and bidis. They taught me how to make reeds out of bamboo, and I traded them some clothes for a snake charming horn. They call them Beens, they are also known as Pungis. These guys were the best. At the end of April they left Kathmandu, heading to Pokhara, after that it was time for them to head back home with their earnings. Man...I missed them. 

This LP is the BEST OF THE BEST of the recordings I made of them. There are some classic Bollywood tracks, a Nepali folk song, and side 2 is a 19 minute drone journey into the head of the KING COBRA. The recordings were done in stereo. A been on the left, a been on the right. A premtal (stringed percussion instrument) on the left, a premtal on the right. The stereo recording of the charmers sway creates a very disorienting stereo tremelo effect. It?s almost as if YOU are the SNAKE! These tracks were recorded in an alley. There is the occasional rumble of a car passing by, and the low murmer of the locals checkin out the white kid with the fancy gadget hangin? with the snake dudes.' -- AARON DILLOWAY, May 2005

Addicting Nepal muzak...so f-ing Great, enjoy.

Track 01: "Untitled" Nath Family Sounds of the Indian Snake Charmer

lifted from a great thread: 

hip inion dot com thread thirty37five lpyou fawk....

 

cheers

HOTSAUCE > Ra Ra Riots (RAC Remixes)

Over the last year Remix Artist Collective has been putting out some of the most interesting remixes of the year. not always quite for the dance floor, RAC seems to make more artist remixes made for the music lover. To be honest the remix I'm posting of Ra Ra Riot is a few months old, but I'm posting it because there is a new remix of a Ra Ra Riot track on their MYSPACE. Listen to "A Manner to Act (RAC Remix). I'll definitely try to catch Ra Ra Riots the next time they come to LA.

Ra Ra Riot - This Year (RAC Remix)

Wooden Shjips are here among us

Fantab release from SF's Wooden Shjips:

Wooden Shjips - Loose Lips 7inch - 2007 

Size: 19.42 MB
Music speaks for itself - awesome.

Sit back in your favorite lazy boy, burn some incense 

and...

peas

Deer Tick (is gonna getcha)

Found this incredible album entitled, "War Elephant," by Deer Tick:

Quote:

Deer Tick began as the songwriting project of John McCauley, a singer/songwriter based out of Providence, Rhode Island. Thanks to the help of Brendon "Viking Moses" Massei, McCauley has been ferociously zig-zagging across the United States, hitting all the sparsely attended basement shows, smoky bars, upscale joints, small to medium size festivals, and everything in between, since April of 2005. At 21 years of age, McCauley has worked very hard to get his homemade CD's in players across the country, and has no plans to stop any time soon.

Deer Tick's first official release came out on September 4th, 2007 through Houston's Feow! Records. Entitled "War Elephant", the album represents the fearlessness of a young man who will play a set at a New England sports bar while a Red Sox championship game is on the tube. But more than that, the album celebrates the art of songwriting and the songs that have advanced McCauley in his career and made him a unique figure on the face of music for the past two or three years.

McCauley takes his cues from legendary songwriters such as Townes Van Zant, Neil Young and Ritchie Valens, and big stage personalities like Sammy Davis Jr., and Tony Bennett. His influences are something that sets his live shows apart from most other acts. The Deer Tick experience is something that can be fun and heart wrenching at the same time. The performance is usually riddled with jokes, but always with a genuine and serious message that is delivered sincerely to the listener. You might just have to go and see it to fully understand it.

This is not going to be the record they play at the dance party in the warehouse that you got all done up for. This will be the record you listen to on the drive back, alone and after you’ve sobered up enough to make it.

deer tick "These Old Shoes"

War Elephant

Enjoy.

LIVE IN LA > The Cool Kids, Hollywood Holt, Million $ Mano, more.. at the Echo!

This is a show I'm truly excited about.  The Cool Kids goes without saying but the bonus kickers here are Million Dollar Mano and Hollywood Holt. I get the sense that this will not only be a hip hop show but also a flat out dance party. 

Live MCs, bangin DJs (Frankie Chan of IHEARTCOMIX is no slouch either), and a great venue.

Peep the tracks below and definitely check out the show. Tickets are $15 advanced and can be bought HERE. 

The Cool Kids - Mikey

The Cool Kids - Gold and a Pager

ABX - We are Mikey! We are Rock!

Hollywood Holt Mixtape

Million Dollar Mano - Lady

The Dream - Shawty is a 10 (Mano Remix)

Digitalism - Pogo (Mano Remix)

BIG FLOOR: It's True (Dabruck & Klein Remix)

Could any more producers/Remixers be involved with the following track!? I mean holy shit it took 5 people to make this? 

I think the formula is something like this:

2 Producers x 2 Remixers + One Original Artist. OMG Math.

Liked Axwell and Sebastian's original. This remix just gives it a little dancefloor punch.

It's True - Axwell, Sebastian Ingrosso, Salem Al Fakir (Dabruck & Klein Remix)

High Quality Mp3 available at BEATPORT

Best OF 2007 > Tegan and Sara - Back in your Head remixes

I am a sucker for the indie rock anthem remix. I think producers nailed it when it came to the catchy Tegan and Sara tune "Back in Your Head". Morgan Page goes big floor, Tyler Fedchuks goes disco, and Remix Artist Collective keeps the rock vibe intact while adding some extra energy. Enjoy.

Tegan and Sara - Back in Your Head (Morgan Page Remix)

Tegan and Sara - Back in Your Head (Tyler Fedchuks 1/2 Alive Disco Remix)

Tegan and Sara - Back in your Head (RAC Remix)

PS. Please BUY the Morgan Page remix. It is on sale on iTunes here for $.99

WORST OF 2007 > Justice - D.A.N.C.E. Remixes

Seriously. Apologies to Justice but honestly it's not their fault. Loved the song. Love the album. The D.A.N.C.E. remixes on the other hand .... AHHHHHHHHHHHH (That was me screaming in horror). 

These remixes are the reason people end up using the term blog house (btw that is an insult people. The electronic version of calling someone emo and we all know how that's looked at now). There is so much good music out there to remix! Why do you have to do play that song out (Exception being CFCF's remix which is a lot of fun)?

You HAVE to check out my boy at The Lemar Blog's Collection of D.A.N.C.E. remixes. I'm not kidding its a whole load and worth seeing just how many there were this year. Just to prove that I'm a good sport and not all the apples are bad, check out the Neon Coyote Mashup below. 

Cheers and god bless.

Neon Coyote - I Just Wanna D.A.N.C.E. With You

Hot Sauce: T.I.Busta Rhymes - Hurt (Chew Fu Refix)

Because I get down like that. 

Chew Fu is the next on my list of peoples I want to interview for the blog. Hipster Crunk? Whatever it is it's Hot Sauce. Enjoy.

T.I. & Busta Rhymes - Hurt (Chew Fu Refix)

BEST OF 2007 > Dada Life - The Great Fashionista Swindle (Ladiback Luke Remix)

At first I thought no way am I going to do any sort of Best of 2007 list. Then, I got to thinking about the artists out there that rocked it this year but maybe didn't get the credit they deserve. I'd like to not that this is going to be top songs and will cover all genres of music. So here it begins....

First off we have a great track by the group Dada Life. The remix by house producer Laidback Luke has become the centerpiece of recent sets and is just an overall amazing track. I'm a sucker for great song structure and this has got it. It keeps teasing you and then exploding again and again. I'm not a raver by any means but this song is about as close as I get to rave music. It just conjures images of 10,000 native people dancing their asses off.  Enjoy.

Dada Life - The Great Fashionista Swindle (Laidback Luke Remix)

Cool Kids - "Black Mag" Video

I'm seriously starting to think Chicago is the only city in America that is actually putting out good rap tunes. Kanye, Common, Lupe, Kid Sister, and of course the one and only Cool Kids. Thanks to Rob for passing me this video. Must of missed it but I got love for it anyway.

"Britney is a Robot"

It's true. I don't know what it is, but I love this god damn remix. Its part electro, part gay club anthem but it just works people. I guess I've just kind of gotten used to hearing Britney's name and music in LA. It's getting kind of ridiculous. I worked at a production company where the office manager would bump blackout constantly. 50% of my homies here in town worked on a video of hers and well......etc.

Listening to the original "Piece of Me" I thought: God damn this bitch sounds like a robot. It's what I like to call the Rihanna effect. That vocal auto-tuning doesn't always fit the sound of pop songs but it does work great with this beat. The only problem is you have to drop this when everyone is too drunk to notice they're dancing to a Britney Spears track.

Ok, enough gossip. Hear's the track.

Britney Spears - Piece of Me (Bimbo Jones Club Mix)