Blogs

 On I Liked You Better Before You Sold Out this coming Sunday, Roberto and Diane of New Town Drunks will be stopping by to chat about their upcoming album release party, which will be taking place Sat. 7/23 at the Station in Carrboro.  The new 10", Going, is LIVE to boot.  I promise, they will not be drunk.  

 Dexter Romweber is a true North Carolina icon, and along with his sister Sara, he's currently doing some of the best work of his long career. They have a brand-new album due out on Bloodshot, and a show at Cat's Cradle on Friday 7/22. But first they'll be stopping by WXDU to play live on-air at 4pm this Sunday, 7/17. We can't wait!

 The playlist for WXDU’s “Out There a Minute” Jazz Program on Sunday 7/17/2011 will feature the music of Pharoah Sanders, who, according to Allmusic.com., “possesses one of the most distinctive tenor saxophone sounds in jazz”. 

Jazz critic Stanley Crouch places Sanders in the triumvirate of tenor saxophonists (along with Archie Shepp and Albert Ayler) who formed the second wing of the jazz vanguard.  And, according to Ashley Kahn (in the liner notes to the 2006 reissue of Pharoah Sanders:  The Impulse Story), Ayler once dubbed Sanders the “son” of the holy avant-garde trinity, with Coltrane as the “father” and Ayler, himself, as the “holy ghost”. 

Sanders worked with many of the jazz “avant garde” at the time, including Don Cherry and Sun Ra (who suggested Sanders change his name from “Farrell” to “Pharoah”), as well as with John Coltrane.  In fact, Sanders began working with Coltrane in 1964 and he continued working with him until Coltrane’s death in 1967.

  I Liked You Better Before You Sold Out Has a rare split show coming up! First, Meredith Heil, who filmed "Whistlin' Dixie", a documentary about LGBTQ music in the South, in 2009-2010 and was a guest on WXDU last year, will be having the premier of the movie this Sunday at the Pinhook at 8 pm.  WXDU gets a name drop.  How cool is that? Visit www.queersouth.com for more info.  Then, up and coming Raleigh band This House on Fire will keep you entertained for the rest of the hour, and we'll be playing some tracks from their randomly burnt CD.  Tune in!       

OK, well, it probably goes without saying that web streaming on Mac OSX is, um, complicated. 

• The good news: the MP3 stream is back up, and full-digital end-to-end, from the studio to your computer
• The bad news: the OGG stream is currently down & is likely to stay that way for at least a while.

I'd kinda like to hear from anyone who was still using the OGG stream, in fact, before I waste time putting it back online. Email computing@wxdu.org if you're desperate for it. And by "desperate" I mean "lacking hardware or software to play MP3," not "philosophically opposed to listening to MP3 streams." C'mon, it's 2011.

 Mingus Mingus Mingus! on WXDU’s “Out There a Minute” Jazz Program for 7/3/2011

The playlist for WXDU’s “Out There a Minute” Jazz Program on Sunday 7/3/2011 will be devoted to compositions by Charles Mingus.  

His work includes several well-known jazz standards, music for film (e.g., for John Cassavete’s Shadows), music to accompany spoken word/poetry (e.g., Weary Blues, with Langston Hughes), pieces designed for collective improvisation, as well as what George Kanzler, in his liner notes to the Mingus album, Let My Children Hear Music, describes as “ambitious attempts to build ‘tall buildings’ in jazz employing large ensembles and extended compositional structures”.  After MIngus’s death, The New Yorker wrote of him: "For sheer melodic and rhythmic and structural originality, his compositions may equal anything written in western music in the twentieth century” (mingusmingusmingus.com,).  Mingus’s music defies easy categorization, but it includes elements of traditional jazz, hard bop, free jazz, black gospel music, and classical music.     

Hopscotch festival is quickly gaining recognition as a powerhouse of local and national indie rock.  This year, Eric Tullis, an Independent Weekly writer, is spearheading a hiphop compilation project for hip hop artists in North Carolina to be featured at the festival.  So wat cha sayin is currently accepting songs and submissions for a chance to be on the first Hopscotch hip hop compilation album.  You can email sowatchasayinNC@gmail.com with your submissions or visit http://sowatchasayin.com/ for more info!

 To promote their upcoming full length 12" - album release party will be July 1st at the Nightlight - Bitter Resolve will be stopping by from 6-7 pm on I Liked You Better Before You Sold Out.  You know the drill. 

 Happy Father's Day! Maybe you should make him some vegan brownies or something...Beloved Binge knows how.  They'll be on ILYBBYSO this Sunday from 6-7 pm discussing their upcoming split 7" with Battlestar Canada and the release coming up on 6/25.

In tribute to Clarence Clemons who died yesterday, today's Divaville Lounge will celebrate the saxophone. We'll hear saxophone legends like Sidney Bechet, Ben Webster, Charlie Parker, Coleman Hawkins, Illinois Jacquet, Woody Herman, Johnny Hodges, Lester Young, John Coltrane and many more. Tune in for two hours of Sax Heroes.