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Electronic Music Marathon Part 1: Friday night to Saturday morning

As I sit here recovering from my wisdom tooth surgery, doped up on oxycodone, I can’t really do much more in the running of things for our electronic music marathon and figured it would be a good time to do some write ups. Rob Paine and Will Putney from Worship Recordings kicked us off from 6-9 PM, with our favorite listener Spread Love calling in for the first time of hopefully many times.

Noah Beresin (Noah Breakfast) walked in at quarter to 9, for his triumphant return to the WKDU airwaves: the first time he’s been in the station since 2009. We talked a bit about what he’s listening to right now and he told me his favorite beat maker right now is Mr. Carmack- who I’ll be sure to check out ASAP. He gave us the low down on what it was like for him coming up making beats as a student and a bit of history of WKDU from before I even came to Drexel. He’s a pretty chill dude, and I really enjoyed the behind the scenes rundown he gave us before the show. And holy damn did he bring the noise!

Noah Breakfast bringing dancehall vibes — Noah Breakfast brings the dancehall vibes

Brad Henley AKA B-Rilla came next, for his first (but hopefully not last!) appearance on the WKDU decks. He played a set of drum n bass, a genre I know nearly nothing about. What I expected was something sounding like 90s Prodigy- what I got instead was fast paced, breakbeat goodness.

Next up, a name we’re all familiar with stepped up to bat: Chris B from The Hot Mix took the first all wax spin of the night. A few minor technical difficulties aside (hey this is college radio after all- it wouldn’t be any fun if it all worked the first time!) he threw one funk of a set. Slowing the grooves back down was the perfect lead up to Fich from Young Robots.

Michael Fichman, DJ Apt One from Young Robots, actually got here about 40 minutes early, which gave Sam and I some great one on one (on one) time with him. We talked shop about breakfast and fast food: who makes the best fries (the consensus seemed to be Shake Shack, though I still think Five Guys and their massive sized portions offer the most bang for your buck), and where you can get decent Mexican food in the north (apparently Norristown is quite good for that). Fich and I also swapped some painkiller stories. I won’t spoil the surprise or befoul his good name, but he definitely got into more trouble when he got his wisdom teeth removed than I did.

DJ Apt One gives us an education in classic italo-disco

Did I say Chris threw down one funk of set? That’s totally true, but Fitch freaking KILLED IT on the funk and grooves. Going back to the roots of electro and synth pop he hit all the buttons to keep me dancing, painkillers and all. His set of italo-disco was the coolest thing I’d heard all night, taking the cake for my favorite set so far. Even more impressive was that he had come from a 4 hour set earlier in the night and still had that kind of energy until 2 AM.

Sam from Blueshift gave me a tour of his Vestax board, showing me all the cool shit he’s programmed into it. Really gave me a new motivation to get a controller of my own and start experimenting. His set was much deeper than Apt One’s, a lot more chill, but no less awesome. Really good jams for 2-4 AM (the best time for jams).

For the last few hours of night the pain in my jaw had been getting steadily worse (basically from B-Rilla’s set until Blueshift’s began), but I had been holding off more painkillers (I’m afraid of addiction/constipation). Eventually I just said screw it and took another pill, lay down for a few minutes, and arose feeling refreshed and ready to enjoy Blueshift’s set.

Maybe it’s the sleep deprivation or maybe it’s the drugs but I’m feeling pretty good about the state of WKDU’s Electronic Music Marathon. With the first night behind us, I’m ready to face the rest of the weekend. I’ll be back on the blogz daily over the next few days, and be sure to follow us on Twitter @wkdu for updates, giveaways, and more.

Get Stoked for the Electronic Music Marathon!

The first round of DJs have been announced:

See here to donate/enter.

ANOTHER 10 Songs That Make Us Cry

By: Glasses

A fellow DJ here on WKDU called me cold and emotionless recently, so I decided to jump on the “10 songs” bandwagon to prove to myself in a meaningless way that I was still doing okay. Written at 4AM against harsh fluorescent light.

1. Spiritualized—Ladies and Gentlemen We are Floating in Space

This one goes way back for me. The gentle swinging in the background, the layering of the vocals, the juxtaposition between hope and despair. Whether or not this track was written about heroin is irrelevant. Spaceman taps in to a universal feeling of confusion between hope and biased preconception, and the result is something special. I ended up listening to this album a lot when experimenting with my first relationship. I was in no way ready emotionally, and by the time I realized that there was nothing real beneath my expectations and illusions, I found that this album was the only thing that was really left after the full ordeal. Great record, great live show, too.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iB7E1D_3Na4]

2. Godspeed You! Black Emperor — Sleep

“They don’t sleep on the beach anymore.”

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQcE4_7-X78]

3. Fuck Buttons—Olympians

Fuck Buttons takes me back to careless summers in high school playing now-dead video games with close friends and feeling a general acceptance of the world. These days are gone. Things change, and experience is flitting. There is no use in harboring desires informed entirely by past experience as they hinder any chance for real progress to be made going forward, but every time I hear this track, if only for a moment, I feel that a nostalgic lifestyle might not be too awful.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQZo2rsReEM]

4. Daniel Johnston—True Love Will Find You in the End

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ma7lyfYzIw8]

5. Jeffrey Lewis—The Chelsea Hotel Oral Sex Song

My friend Max sent me this song one of those early mornings in which you go to bed to the sounds of birds chirping outside. I took it as a personal attack. Never before had I felt more spiritually connected with a song. If anything sums up my most successful social experiences with others, this songs does it. Re-listening to the track for this article made me cry again. The universe is absurd, and no regrets are logical because the sheer amount of factors pulling us in all directions are limitless. At least that is what I tell myself to when I find myself in these places. There is a line in the song about writing love songs without every really having love to write about, but what is more important is the final vignette about the universality of all of these feelings.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlRanftUqO4]

6. The Antlers—Wake

“The hardest thing is never to repent for someone else, it’s letting people in.” In a particularly difficult summer, I found myself on the roof of a building in Las Vegas in 114 degree heat crying to this album.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fpI2PPRAM4]

7. Strand of Oaks—Pope Killdragon

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uWA_kCRaNM]

8. Mount Eerie—Moon Sequel

“What gives? I yell and there’s no answering sound. And there is nobody around, and there my answer was found.”

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsUfvPx7gbY]

9. Leonard Cohen—Suzanne

Please, just leave me alone, Leonard Cohen warned me about this and I’m not about to fall for it again.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otJY2HvW3Bw]

10. The Microphones—Instrumental

Goodbye my friends, I am gone.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlP57Ny-y9Q]
About the author: Glasses is doing much better now, thank you for asking. He is one Top 10 list away from making the Buzzfeed shortlist of list writers for 2014.

[spotify id=”spotify:user:1229622277:playlist:5XKLEtnBpTAAf5ZbYOXoRT” width=”300″ height=”380″ /]

Another 10 Songs that Make Us Cry

by Shannen Gaffney

As a last little hurrah as music director, before the reigns are handed off to DJ Glasses, I decided to follow DJ Esmail’s lead in listing ten songs that make me cry. It’s the perfect time to listen to this kind of playlist anyway, Back 2 School time! I would also like to just clarify that there are many, many more than ten songs that could make me cry under the right circumstances. Here’s a fraction of those.

1. Built to Spill – “Carry the Zero” (1999)

I nearly failed Math 101. But carrying a zero is a simple enough concept, even for me, to compare to a relationship gone wrong – and BTS do it just right. Those opening chords alone just strike a nerve. This song comes from my favorite album of all time, Keep it Like a Secret. If you don’t know them and need an album to start with, listen to that one!

2. Elliott Smith – “Between the Bars” (1997)

We’re going there. There’s loads of reasons why this song makes me cry from the lyrical content, delicate vocal timbre, and Elliott Smith’s story in general. Though many of his songs are, this song in particular is clearly about the struggle of overcoming addiction, and it’s utterly heartbreaking, as is everything this man is associated with.
=/

3. Jose Gonzalez – “Heartbeats” (2006)

This song was originally by The Knife, which is a much livelier, synthtastic (yup) version, but the way Gonzalez reforms this song with nothin’ but guitar arpeggios fits perfectly with its solemn lyrics and theme of broken promises. (This song works great on a sleep playlist.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKo8Czj112I

4. Sinéad O’Connor – “Nothing Compares 2 U” (1990)

I couldn’t leave this classic song out. Sinéad is an artist and activist and a heroine despite any mental breakdowns or illnesses she’s experienced, and this song is indisputably heartbreaking. Even Miley Cyrus was inspired by this music video, and tried to pay homage to it with “Wrecking Ball,” which, was not as good.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUiTQvT0W_0

5. Ben Kweller – “Old Hat” (2009)

I grew up listening to every Ben Kweller album. His older songs stick with me the most, but this one off 2009’s Changing Horses is a beautiful tune about avoiding the pitfalls of boredom in a long-term relationship featuring a giddy little piano line and heartstring-pulling lap steel guitar.

6. The Cure – “A Night Like This” (1985)

In 2014 there’s almost nothing more existential and sad than watching the Cure live. They aren’t the performers they once were, but in 1985 they were #sad for other reasons. Those perfectly timed and striking opening chords paired with in-your-face hollow drums open up the song with a void that rips through you, and just keeps pulling. Pure goth sadness.

7. Waxahatchee – “Catfish,” “Lively,” “Blue Pt. II” (2012-2014)
(Also P.S. Eliot’s “Diana”)

It’s scientifically impossible to pick just one Waxhatchee song that “makes you cry.” I had to include all of these, and even one from P.S. Eliot (Katie and Allison Crutchfield’s older band; you won’t be sorry). I’m assuming you’re having a horrible day since you clicked on this article, so wallow in these intimate tearjerker songs (and all of American Weekend) and you may feel a little better.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5ZMsO-iJXo

8. Kevin Devine – “Ballgame” (2003)

It only takes three chords to make a great song and Kevin Devine may just be the king of this rule. With three simple chords, “Ballgame” explores alcoholism, war, regret and growth in one of his most poignant songs ever written.

9. Drake – “From Time” ft. Jhene Aiko (2013)

I’m putting a Drake song on here. Sue me. Though I’ll admit a good portion of his lyrics are a bit elementary, tunes like “Furthest Thing,” and “Pound Cake” have that yearning, apologetic quality that we can all relate to – and an aural emptiness Drake cultivates extremely well. Aiko’s beautifully fragile voice carries this one, and Drake’s reflections on his relationship with his father add to the drama.

10. Bright Eyes – “Poison Oak” (2005)

Bright Eyes is up there with Waxahatchee in that the whole discography is emotional as hell. Oberst is a known existentialist, of course, his effective and assured recipe being a simple song structure, steady acoustic guitar and a philosophical debate, the piercing lyric in this one: “I’m glad you got away, but I’m still stuck out here, my clothes are soaking wet from your brother’s tears.”

Listen to more cry-worthy jams on Shannen’s Rock Bottom Radio, Wednesdays at 2pm.

10 Songs That Make Me Cry

By Esmail Hamidi

So there’s this thing going around on Facebook where people post about 10 albums that make them cry. In the post, they tag a bunch of their music nerd friends, who do the same thing. Participants bare their soul on social media, everyone discovers a lil’ more music, it’s a good time.

I was recently nominated to do this by WKDU DJ Maren Larsen. In her post, she listed songs instead of albums. By doing this, she brought up a good point, and maybe I’m projecting here, but who wants to sit through an entire album, let alone sit through an entire album crying? Is any album consistently cry-worthy?

Like any good book or fine meal, an album is traditionally sequenced with introduction, rising action, climax, falling action, and conclusion in mind. Musical intensity that may or may not provoke crying can occur during any of these parts of an album, but not all. A song that is cry-worthy may be on an album that is very much not. It is for this reason that I’ve opted to choose 10 songs, not albums, that make me cry.

These songs are in the order they occurred to me. I definitely wouldn’t play all of them on KDU, but they are all significant. Hold on to your hankies, fair readers.

1. Fuck Buttons – Sweet Love For Planet Earth (2008)

It’s hard to nail down why, but this is the first song that I thought of. I guess it might be attached to some old memories. Over this ten minute track, Fuck Buttons uses swampy electronics to build a hulking groove.

2. The Rolling Stones – Shine A Light (1972)

The penultimate track from the Stones’ drugged out, ambling, classic album: Exile on Main St.

Mick Jagger delivers a great vocal performance. True fact: Shine a Light was written about ex-Stones guitarist and 27 Club member Brian Jones’ worsening drug addictions in the late 60s. Cut with the Rolling Stones Mobile truck, a legendary thing among studio nerds and musicians alike.

3. Weekends – Camp Nowhere (2008)

The final track off Weekends’ first, self titled album. The coda features an oscillating snippet of the drummer yelling “Hey!” in a way that some may find annoying, but I interpret as exploding with emotion. It’s the musical equivalent of a thought loop, emerging from the background while life continues in the form of the duo bashing away on their gear.

[bandcamp width=100% height=120 album=549624242 size=large bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 tracklist=false artwork=small track=3226164341]
4. The White Stripes – The Air Near My Fingers (2003)

“Life is so boring/it’s really got me snoring/wearing out the flooring in a cheap hotel”.

Jack White said that the album, 2003’s Elephant, was a commentary on “the death of the sweetheart” in American culture. In a New York Times interview, White elaborated, saying that “The sweetheart, the gentleman — it’s the same thing. These ideas seem to be in decline, and I hate it. You look at your average teenager with the body piercings and the tattoos. You have white kids going around talking in ghetto accents because they think that makes them hard. It’s so cool to be hard. We’re against that.”

I take this to mean that with this album, the Stripes rally against the lack of emotion in early-oughts American culture. Emotion can be good or bad, but is always powerful. This song is sniffle-enducingly powerful.

5. Jimi Hendrix – Bold As Love (1967)

The final track on Jimi’s sophomore effort Axis: Bold As Love.

The final “underwater” section guitar solo, featuring the first example of flanging on a studio recording, is incredible.

“My red is so confident that he flashes trophies of war, and ribbons of euphoria/Orange is young, full of daring, But very unsteady for the first go round”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQY26kcbDDc

6. Mumblr – Sober (2014)

The first time I saw Mumblr was under the Greys Ferry bridge, with my friend Nick. We talked to some Temple freshmen girls, drank out of red Solo cups, climbed on the abandoned rail bridge, and got really hurt in the dusty, dirty moshpit. With broken glass underfoot, surrounded by skateboard-swinging punks, huffing generator fumes, my mind went to a really beautiful place.

This song is on their upcoming album Full of Snakes, which comes out September 16th.

7. The Plugz – Reel Ten (1984)

This is off the soundtrack to Repo Man (not Repo Men), the 1984 film about Otto, a young Cali punk played by Emilio Estevez. There’s space travel, secret agents, and great music, often all in the same scene. The lesson to be learned here: when punks grab synthesizers, good things happen.

This track is surfy, spacey, eerie, and jubilant. Many chills to be had.

8. PILE – The Jones (2012)

“tried to keep up by running in place/tried to keep my cool but all that blood went in my face/now i’m cold”.

I could go on about PILE forever. They’re my favorite band you can bum a cigarette off of. Their KDU live session was awesome. Rick’s lyrics are about as abstract as you can get. That means they have a wide appeal, but are still cutting-edge intellectual.

My thoughts are racing as my body is transformed into a sweaty mosh alien, feeling the air of the Golden Tea House thicken with the essence of fifty other people having the same exact experience.

9. The Front Bottoms – Skeleton (2013)

“Who was I kidding? I can’t get past you/ You are the cops, you are my student loans”

It’s desperate and ragged, but chugs on and on, like a drunk kid making his way home. Drug abuse, feelin’ loose.

10. Double Dagger – Rearranging Digital Deck Chairs (2007)

Double Dagger is special to me because they were more or less my introduction to basement music, waay back in 2009. Yeah. While this song was never one of their live favorites, it still holds significance because it was pretty much the first Double Dagger song with introspective, philosophical lyrics that are more thoughtful than pissed off. This song is the moment where Double Dagger ceases to be a joke band about graphic design (see also: this song), and becomes the most dangerous band in the land.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UEGKNOhsKY

“It’s always a problem/when the weight of the world/it’s always a problem/is outweighed by the girl”

______________________________________________

Some observations about this list: 7 out of 10 bands on this list are post-2000. 2 are from Baltimore. 1 hails from Philadelphia. 5 are bands that I’ve seen live. 4 are bands that cease to exist. Take from this what you may.

Lil Sean gets his very own day @ PhilaMOCA

by: Chris Burrell // @Chri5B_

Lil Sean is ~~probably~~ the most beloved 12 year old in Philadelphia.

He’s the unofficial mayor of the Eraserhood and now even has his own mural to prove it.

The mural, prominently displayed on the exterior of PhilaMOCA at Ridge Avenue and Spring Garden, was only one part of the festivities for Lil Sean Day, which also included the premier of his film and a selection of his favorite local bands.

So how exactly does a 12 year old go about getting themselves their own day?

Sean has been a fixture in the neighborhood for years – he can usually be found hanging out around PhilaMOCA, saying hello to passersby, and doling out fist bumps and signature handshakes to his many friends. I remember when I was finally cool enough to get a fist bump from Sean – it felt like I had earned my citizenship to the neighborhood.

Bigups to PhilaMOCA for continually providing unique and quality programming, and putting on such a solid day.

While you’re waiting around for the 2nd annual Lil Sean Day, be sure to go check out the amazing mural done by artist Karli Cox (who also plays Sean’s love interest in his film – WE SEE YOU, SEAN).

Dr. Plotkin and Sean — Dr. Plotkin, friend and former neighbor to Sean, poses with the young icon and his freshly unveiled mural.

2014 CMJ Nominations are Open!

Are you a person involved with CMJ/College radio? Do you like us at all? (just a little?) Then consider nominating us for the 2014 awards! Whether it’s “Best use of limited resources,” “Most creative programming,” or “most likely to inappropriately hit on me,” we’ve got to qualify for ~~something~~ that last one, at least.

Additionally, and more excitingly, the 2014 artist line-up for the festival has just been announced, and includes the Wytches, 2:54, Juan Wuaters, Porches, Saint Pepsi, and even GERARD WAY among others!

We’re #stoked.

See you there!