Friday, May 7, 2010

TVD's The Idelic Hour with Jon Sidel


Mayday Fiesta of Sound | Yes, it’s May and here in a LA it’s cause for celebration. This mix was actually created on Cinco De Mayo, a favorite Angelino holiday to simply eat tacos and get drunk on Margaritas. Maybe this should imply a Mexican inspiration but this week is more about new bands than chips and salsa.

I also like the expression “mayday, mayday” it brings to mind planes crashing in black and white WWII flicks. I looked it up and it comes from the French expression,
venez m'aider, meaning "come (and) help me." ...Ok, I’ve stumbled onto something here for which I could really use some help and a shot of tequila!

To be honest, Idelic Hour’s “Fiesta Of Sound” is more of afterthought than a muse or vehicle for creating the playlist below. I started off the week driving through the canyon listening to my I-pod on “random shuffle” and in many ways this is the real muse for many of my sets. I love that warm feeling I get when s song unexpectedly enters my psyche, especially while driving a car. I’ve always said I don't believe there's a better DJ than my I-pod on random shuffle. For me as the author, The Idelic Hour, is in fact a taste of my “random shuffle” for you the audience. Ok, maybe I’ve had one too many at El Coyote (mayday, mayday!)

So, my simple plan was to play my I-pod all week and recast the best hour of music I heard. I had a great week of listening but creating this week’s show from let’s say “Monday’s shuffle” just didn’t feel inspiring, random, or spontaneous. Instead I had a little Cinco De Mayo DJ party of my own and I’m calling it a Fiesta of Sound.

In the mix are more new artists and music than I usually drop. Highlights are new Interpol, Harlem, New Villager, Sleigh Bells, The Fall, Dom. I’ve also revisited as few of the stronger April releases with songs from The National, Avi Buffalo and as well as a track from Frightened Rabbit, Julian Casablancas, whose album I’ve been digging these last few months.

“Mayday, mayday” let the celebration continue!

Enjoy,

xosidealer

idelicsounds.com | @sidelic

The Idelic Hour [5/7/2010] (Mp3, 88Mg)

TVD's The Ardent Sessions Presents: Jeffrey James and the Haul


Jeffrey James and the Haul is the side project of Snowglobe drummer Jeff Hulett. Snowglobe was featured on MTV's $5 Cover in 2009. —Ed.

Recording at Ardent Studios in Memphis, Tennessee with Jeffrey James and the Haul was an amazing experience that I’ll never forget. How often are you allowed to perform a live show for all of your friends for free? And at the end of the day get a copy of the set you just performed? Let’s just say I’ll always remember it and I brag about it regularly.

People all around the world know about Ardent Studios and I’m lucky enough to live down the street. When I got the call from Rachel Hurley to do an Ardent Sessions I was honestly surprised. At the time we hadn’t been that active and we were trying to finish up our second album “Ride the Wind Carnival.” I think Rachel knew that and wanted to give us an opportunity to get our name out there more, and in a unique way. We are forever grateful and reminisce about that show as a band quite often.


There’s nothing like inviting all of your friends to see you play and they all show up. It was nuts. I think Rachel was even a little bit concerned about how many people we had in studio C. I was very nervous at first because it was such an early and intimate show that was going to be recorded live. But once we got started and began interacting with the crowd everything was great. We even had a bunch of friends/fans in town from Atlanta and Chattanooga that truly relished the opportunity to hang out in such a storied studio. And because it was an early show we were able to go out together afterwards and celebrate.

If I could play the Ardent Sessions again with the Haul or anyone else I would jump at the chance. It was such a fun evening that I think everyone enjoyed.

Viva La Ardent Sessions!



The Ardent Sessions Presents: Jeffrey James and the Haul | The Vinyl District Podcast [90Mgs] (Mp3)

Enter to win Jeffrey James and the Haul's 'Ride the Wind Carnival' on vinyl by simply leaving a comment, your name, and a contact email address in the comments to this post. We'll choose one winner each Friday for that week's giveaway which ALSO includes the entire Ardent Music catalog. (That's just 2 artists at this point, but who's counting?)

To hear more great Ardent Sessions please visit Ardent Presents.

TVD Bubblegum | Shout Out Louds, May 2, at the 9:30


Sunday evening The Freelance Whales and the Shout Out Louds took the stage at the 9:30 Club. I had never heard The Freelance Whales before but was excited to see another band who once hailed from DC.

It was exactly the type of emo you would expect your fourteen year old little sister to enjoy, and the fourteen year olds that had made it to the front of the state were certainly enjoying it. Their long intros and vocals became monotonous. The chorus of ‘Generator 1st Floor’ was a series of “eheheheheh” that didn’t translate to their live set. It’s always a shame when someone’s recording doesn’t work well on stage, though, to their credit, they are still a young band and it was the first night of the tour.

I have been a Shout Out Louds fan since the summer of 2005 when I was wandering the aisles of a Best Buy in Arizona with my sister-in-law and liked the name of the band – Shout Out Louds. I hadn’t read about them, I was fifteen, I hadn’t yet started actively following new music, let alone new music from Europe, but I had been listening to The Cure – a lot. I bought three cd’s that day, ‘Howl Howl Gaff Gaff’ is the only one that I still listen to (the others were the Garden State soundtrack, and Anna Nalick’s first album – judge away). That album became my high school love life; I could relate each song to a different boy that I had had a crush on. I suppose this was the beginning of my catharsis. They played at the 9:30 Club in 2006, but it was a Sunday, and I wasn’t allowed to go.


They also didn’t curse very often, if at all, so when I was blasting it from my boom box, my parents didn’t mind too much.

In 2007 they released ‘Our Ill Wills’ and this time I bought it on vinyl at Crooked Beat a store my brother had first taken me to earlier that year. ‘Our Ill Wills’ again became an album that I could, and did (and still do) relate to far too many circumstances. ‘Tonight I Have to Leave It,’ ‘Your Parent’s Living Room,’ ‘Impossible’ and ‘Hard Rain’ quickly made it into heavy rotation. They played a second time in the fall of 2008, on another Sunday, and for a second time I wasn’t allowed to go.


When they announced their hiatus in 2008, I was wary of whether there would be another Shout Out Louds album. But after six months apart they came together with a new perspective and a new appreciation for what they do. They created ‘Work,’ it’s more mature and subdued than their previous albums, but in a way I have grown up with them, and it seems to have moved in the appropriate direction.

Seeing them live, on stage, with the lights and the fog was everything I could have hoped for. They opened with ‘1999’ the first track on ‘Work’. It quickly established their presence while inviting the audience to take part. They moved with few pauses through their set. ‘Please Please Please,’ was the first song they played off their debut album, and it became apparent who in the audience had been with them since the beginning – a lot. The movement only grew as they moved to ‘Tonight I have to Leave It.’ At least, the movement in front of the stage increased, I didn’t really bother to look behind me. They spaced the songs at just the right intervals for the crowd to dance, catch our breaths, dance, dance, breathe.

I had not yet heard the entire album ‘Work’ and was quite pleased that people were singing along to even those songs, even some of the parents and fourteen year olds. ‘Show Me Something New’ and the single ‘Fall Hard’ were among the new favorites. They closed their thirteen song set with ‘Very Loud’ a song that could easily be interpreted as being about a lost love, which is only half true, no one would guess it’s actually about the music industry.

They humbly left the stage and lingered just long enough before coming back to play a three song encore - all sing-alongs, all dance numbers. They began with ‘Impossible,’ Then ‘You Are Dreaming.’ They closed with ‘Walls’ the most recent single. It’s chorus - “Whatever they say, we’re the ones building walls. Whatever they say, we’re the ones that never say no. To get to know yourself you have to run away. Never trust anyone, run away, run, run, run.”- was shouted in earnest by fans and performers alike.