Photo: Jason Klauber
All right so how freaking rad is this? The mailman just laid the new copy of Spin on me, the Best of 2008 issue with TV on the Radio on the cover. And as I'm thumbing through it, I notice very few surprises: Black Kids, Vampire Weekend, Deerhunter and Santogold, all receive nods as expected, as do the cover boys, whose Dear Science platter has been anointed album of the year by the Spinsters
(thus co-signing Rolling Stone's earlier likewise endorsement). Perusing the res
Over the next couple of weeks, Backbeat will feature some Top Ten lists from around the Village Voice Media chain. Click here for previous year-in-review coverage from Backbeat and VVM.
Any knucklehead with DSL and a laptop can now make an electronic track. With a half hour of clicking and fiddling, you can sample enough cheesy beats and mashups to clog arteries from here to Berlin.
Photo: Lucia De Giovanni
Last night, I had the honor and privilege of guest deejaying at Matt
Fecher's New Music Mondays at the Larimer Lounge, playing music from my
collection next to the incandescent DJ Ginger and firestarter DJ Hot to
Death. Ginger played a couple of body-rocking sets, including
some frightening mash-ups, and Fecher, aka Hot to Death, unveiled some new remixes that
blew the roof off. While I only rocked the iTunes (and a few pre-mixed
sets that I put together ahead of time),
Yes, it's been more than 20 years since the Beastie Boys were licensed to ill, and in those intervening years, the trio's output has been, on balance, fantastic. Sure, there have been a few duds along the way, but every album has been worth hearing. That's why I still get excited when I hear Beastie Boys news, like the bit I just received about the Boys' newest album.
The quality of videos coming out of the Mile High City these days is pretty astounding. Gone are the days of convincing a buddy with a camcorder to spend an afternoon trying to make something "artsy." Within the past few years, the quality of videos seems to have risen in direct proportion with the quality of recordings. Likewise, there's as many good directors it seems as there are producers and engineers. Case in point: Just came across this video for the song "We're Going to Winchesta" from
