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Don’t Shoot, We’re Devo: Part 2
Even today, some 30 years after the band’s debut, there are legions of Devo-tees. Perhaps it’s due to the philosophy of De-evolution and the precocious employ of musical, visual and philosophical elements before it was in vogue. Perhaps it’s an inevitable outcome of years spent releasing daring records bound to off-the-wall antics, to court popularity [...]
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Don’t Shoot, We’re Devo: Part 3
Scrunchies. Jazzercise. The Gremlin car, in all its hatchback deformity. Cone-shaped bras. Jell-o fruit salad. Members Only jackets. Hammer pants. Over the course of a decade, countless trends have lit the pop-culture landscape and receded into obsolescence. What is it, then, that endures about Devo? Why does their 1978 album, Q: Are We Not Men? [...]
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Mutek 2009
Mutek 2009 marked the electronic-orientated new media and music festival’s tenth consecutive year with too many multi-sensory delights for brain synapses to process in quick succession. Highlights included performances by Nortec Collective’s Bostitch and Fussible, GAS (Wolfgang Voigt, founder of Kompakt), Moderat (a collaboration between Modeselektor and Apparat, founder of Shitkatapult), The Orb’s Thomas Fehlmann, [...]
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Exclusive: Producer Dave Pezzner Talks Mixtapes and Mics Inside Monkeys
There’s a jovial bent to Dave Pezzner’s demeanor. The Seattle producer possesses a rare brand of affability: the ability to translate a light, slap-happy approach into driving tech-house. Pezzner rocketed to underground popularity as one half of Jacob London (along with Bob Hansen), releasing on squid:recordings, Viva Recordings, and a Hydrogenated Funk EP on Carlos [...]
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Devo’s Jerry Casale on De-evolution and the Meaning of ‘Whip It’
The narrative of Devo follows a labyrinthine maze through the shattered idealism of the ’60s, the record-label monopolies of the ’70s, and the cocaine-addled New Wave scene of the ’80s. Recently reemerging for present-day collaborations with artists like Adam Freeland and Teddybears, the sometimes famed, sometimes infamous Devo have been busy of late. After completing [...]
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Bicycles are Your Friends: Peloton Musique
The whir of spokes slicing air, crank and shaft rotation, the sprickity-sprock as chain catches teeth, torque coupling — who says bicycles aren’t sexy? For its inaugural release, rough-riding Seattleite Peloton Musique invited producers to use samples of spoke plucks, bicycle-pump valves, brake compression, and hissing sprockets. Artful production shenanigans, chin-scratching time signatures, and Kompakt-like [...]
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Internet Radio
Internet radio has revolutionized our ability to listen to music without the pesky limitations of terrestrial radio frequencies. It’s now possible to listen to a Berlin station in Australia, a Spanish station in Antarctica, or an Iraqi station in Peru. If you live in a small burg and love polka music, for instance, there’s a [...]
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DJ Greyboy
The road wends and weaves through the Naples neighborhood of Long Beach, California as I approach Greyboy’s Edward Killingsworth- designed monument of a home. I pass the obligatory Lexus SUVs, Jaguars and expansively landscaped lawns of this somewhat yuppified, “cancel- the- Friday- afternoon- patient- appointments-‘cause-I-gotta-play-golf” neighborhood. I’m trying to reconcile the vague preconceptions I have [...]
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Marques Wyatt
Sonic love travels in many dimensions—through visceral pathways of the senses, as a uniting force on dance floors everywhere, in movements spanning entire eras to unify—whether souls, states or nations. And as sonic love relates to house music, Marques Wyatt is a seminal force. A robust musical foundation had been laid for the Santa Monica [...]
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Seattle’s Rich History of Rhythm
Seattle, while not as large as the American metropolises of New York or Los Angeles, is host to a bustling, shucking and jiving culture. With a half million residents in the metropolitan area and another 3 million in the surrounding Puget Sound, Seattle has long had a vibrant Asian and Asian-American population, and well-established communities [...]
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