Saturday, September 9, 2006

Assembly Series, 9-20, David Robertson / free Symphony tickets

First ever KWUR Classical post (so please be kind). As part of the WU Assembly Series, David Robertson, the new conductor of the St. Louis Symphony, will be speaking on Wednesday, Sept. 20 at Graham Chapel at 4 PM.

http://assemblyseries.wustl.edu/robertson.htm

He is an excellent and very enthusiastic speaker, and a really approachable guy. So if you have time that afternoon, I highly recommend checking him out.

In addition, Wash U has some tickets to give away for the "Sound Check Preview" concert of the SLSO's opening weekend, on Thursday, Sept. 21:

"WU students: Free Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra tickets are available for a September 21, 2006 performance. Call 935-5994 for additional information."

If you can't get these free tickets, all tickets for that Thursday 9/21 concert are $10, every seat in the house. If you've never been to the Symphony, this is a great intro to them. This is the music on the program:

David Robertson, conductor
Leif Ove Andsnes, piano

SMETANA The Bartered Bride Overture
MOZART Piano Concerto No. 17 in G, K. 453
BARTÓK The Wooden Prince (only the second performance ever in St. Louis)
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Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Touch and Go's 25th...

This year Chicago based indie label Touch and Go will be celebrating 25 years. While not as old as KWUR, this label has been around for a while for an alternative independent label. They are the real deal and KWUR has gladly been broadcasting their output since their birth.

To celebrate their age and liveliness they are having a 2.5 day music festival in Chicago from September 8th-10th. This isn't just any music festival however: a bunch of awesome kick-ass bands from the past have agreed to reunite on this one-time special occasion. Bands that have long gone on "indefinite hiatus" (such as Big Black, Man or Astro-Man?, Scratch Acid, and, Girls Against Boys) will be at the event giving us all one last chance to check them out. I'm particularly excited about Man or Astro-Man? since a personal friend of the band once told me they would never play together again. This may be your last chance...make the short trip to Chicago in September.

Advance 3-day tickets can be bought for $35 bucks starting August 18.

Check out the lineup...

-Klax
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Wednesday, July 19, 2006

I Gave into The Buddha Machine

So I finally did it. I bought a Buddha Machine.

If you haven't heard yet the Buddha Machine is a hardware loop machine.

Basically FM3, an electronic group from China, programmed 9 of thier loops into a little handheld radio looking device (colors shipped randomly--awesome). You can select one of the 9 loops and play it through the attached lo-fi speaker or through the headphone jack. The droning loop will play continously until you turn the device off.

When I first heard of this thing and I figured it was just another hipster fad. After I read glowing reviews of the device time after time I went on ahead and threw down the $23 bucks this thing costed.

Apparently "Alan Bishop bought twenty-four of these on sight and Brian Eno bought eight". Add Klax to the list. It sounded like an interesting venture into mass produced experimental music. Plus there is nothing like having a take anywhere droning loop machine.

Full review to come when it arrives on Friday. Can't wait to see what color I get.

A new KWUR backup (droning) auto-rotation possible...

-Klax
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Thursday, July 13, 2006

CAVEFEST!

From Mr. Jazzface...

"I just opened up my local newspaper and read about this weekend's "CAVEFEST", which is a festival held in a local saltpetre cave with country rock and "light metal" bands, including Facd Forward, Misfire, and Adam Tanas. Who is Adam Tanas? He is proudly a former member of the seminal Krokus! The festival also includes a bikini contest, which will probably be the best part of the weekend..."

That's right folks, former member of Krokus. At KWUR we love Krokus. For those of you who are ignorant, check it out.

Thanks for the news Mr. Jazzface.

Note: I've never actually listened to Krokus, but I like the idea of Krokus.

-Klax
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Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Syd Barrett Is Dead

The best member of Pink Floyd is dead.
I hate when pitchforkmedia (of all places) delivers this news to me.
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Sunday, July 9, 2006

KWUR Welcomes Free Speech Radio News

KWUR is now one of 94 stations world wide to broadcast Free Speech Radio News. We are the only station in Missouri that currently broadcasts it. You can check it out every weekday (Mon-Fri) here on KWUR at 6pm CST.

"Free Speech Radio News (FSRN) is an independent media organization that produces a 30-minute Monday-Friday radio newscast. With a network of over 200 freelance reporters around the world, FSRN serves over 100 radio stations and a growing cadre of Internet outlets. FSRN brings the world to the U.S. in first-hand reportage of every continent by independent reporters: coverage that CNN can only dream of. Our diversity of voices, in ethnicity, age and class, outstrips every other news organization and we’re proud to be a progressive daily news outlet for those without Internet access. "

[UPDATE: We will begin broadcasting FSRN once our Auto-Rotation program is updated. Should be pretty soon.]

-Klax
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Wednesday, July 5, 2006

Best (Wave) Albums of 2006 Thus Far

So it's July 5th which means that we have 178 days remaing in the year. That means we are more then halfway done with the year. I thought I would give a little summary of the best albums of the first half of 2006. In no particular order...
  • The Flaming Lips - At War With The Mystics
    • The Lips finally returned after sucking all they could off of Yoshimi. Luckily they didn't let anyone down and once again created an album with a (relatively) different sound that was still uniquely The Flaming Lips.
  • Sonic Youth - Rather Ripped
    • The always respected Sonic Youth also finally returned releasing their 15th album (depending on how you count). They went back to the classic 4 piece (Moore, Ranaldo, Gordon, Shelley) lineup after loosing member Jim O'rourke. That's OK though since this album might be one of their best ever.
  • The Black Angels - Passover
    • This Austin, TX band released their first full length album this year as a follow up to their self-titled EP that came out in the fall. While some of the tracks are the same this album is an impressive retroized fuzzed out effort that sounds like it was recorded in the late 60's/early 70's
  • Islands - Return to Sea
    • 2 Ex-Unicorns members collaborated with tons of indie rock faves to create this gem.
  • Eagles of Death Metal - Death By Sexy
    • This is actually EODM's second album but it seemed like their first as they all of a sudden became a household name in ass kickin' rawk. Sadly music from their first album (Peace, Love, Deathmetal
      • ) also all of a sudden showed up in car commercials.
  • The Raconteurs - Broken Boy Soldier
    • Jack White wins again! White lost Meg and joined Brendan Benson and some dudes from the Greenhornes to create this album that he claims should not be labeled a side-project.
  • Wolfmother - Wolfmother
    • While their sound is highly derivative of early Black Sabbath (the dude sounds just like Ozzy) this young Australian band showed they could "kick out the jams motherfucker". Sadly we again heard their music popping up in all kinds of commercials.
  • Gnarls Barkley - St. Elsewhere
    • Cee-Lo & Danger Mouse! Covering the Violent Femmes!
  • Stereolab - Fab Four Suture
    • While not technically and album (more of a singles collection) the classic Stereolab cranks out another winning album full of music for space age bachelor pads.
  • The Subways - Young For Eternity
    • Its pretty obvious that these teenagers listened to a lot of Nirvana and early 90's rock, but none the less an impressive first effort.
  • Mudhoney - Under A Billion Suns
    • GRUNGE in the year 2006! Also a much more political effort. These dudes started it all in Seattle.
  • The Black Keys - Chulahoma EP
    • Kickin' out a couple Junior Kimbrough tunes.
  • Art Brut - Bang Bang Rock 'N' Roll [US Version]
    • This album actually came out last year everywhere else. Here in the US we got some extra tracks (that actually doesn't happen often). They sound like the Fall with some humor and are one of Pitchfork's perennial faves. They were right about this one.
Reissues:
  • Wire - 1977-1979
    • Includes Wire's first 3 albums and 2 unreleased live sets in a fancy box. If you don't already have these albums you are a looser.
  • The Flaming Lips - Hear It Is/Oh My Gawd!!!/Telepathic Surgery/In A Priest Driven Ambulance (Vinyl Only Reissues)
    • I don't know if I read about these being released anywhere, it just kind of happened. Plain Records reissued the first four Lips albums exclusively on vinyl in very nice limited editions. Pick these up if you have a turntable.
  • Delta 5 - Singles & Sessions 1979-81
    • I had never even heard of this band but they sound like Gang of Four if they collaborated with the Raincoats, which by the way is fucking amazing. It's good this got to see the light of day.
  • Sun Ra - Heliocentric Worlds, Vols. 1-2
    • Some classic "Space" Jazz remastered the right way.
  • The Beatles - Capitol Albums, Vol. 2
    • Hey, it's the Beatles. Second part of this series finally gives us Mono/Stereo remasters of the late-early part of the Beatles career. For serious fans only.
  • The Fucking Champs - III
    • I guess this got remastered. This explains why I could finally find it somewhere after looking for years. I never felt like paying the $100 it was going for on Amazon. Probably the Champs masterpiece and its basically a double album.
This has been a pretty good half year and we defiantly have a lot to look forward in the second half.

Stay tuned....

-Klax
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