Monthly Archives: June 2009

Celebrate Sun Ra!

Come join WPRB and the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia as we celebrate jazz pioneer SUN RA with live performances, lectures, films, and a record fair! These events are part of the ICA’s current exhibition, “Pathways to Unknown Known Worlds: Sun Ra, El Saturn & Chicago’s Afro-Futurist Underground, 1954-1968,” which runs until August 2nd.

Full information about Sun Ra and the exhibition after the jump!

WED 07-01 @ 7PM: The Sun Ra Arkestra
Tickets are $10 General Admission, $5 for Students with a Valid ID, FREE for ICA Members

ICA is very pleased to present The Sun Ra Arkestra under the direction of Marshall Allen. The Sun Ra Arkestra continues to deliver some of the most potent, soul-grabbing jazz music ever written. With lyrics and song titles filled with mysticism, mythology, space travel, and other similarly cosmic trains of thought, the Arkestra’s freewheeling stage shows, complete with colorful costumes and uninhibited adventurism, perfectly embody the otherworldly proclivities of true jazz innovator Sun Ra.

WED 07-08 @ 7PM: John Szwed Lecture
FREE!

Hear a lecture by John Szwed, the biographic expert on all things Ra. He is an anthropologist, musicologist and historian who teaches at Columbia University and is the author of Space is the Place: The Lives and Times of Sun Ra (Da Capo Press, 1998).

SAT 07-11 @ 9AM-5PM: Philadelphia Record Fair 2009
$10 from 9-11AM, FREE from 11AM-close

A day of vinyl nirvana! ICA hosts the annual benefit for Vox Populi, Philadelphia’s acclaimed artist-run collective and gallery. Flip through bins. Find your treasure.

WED 07-15 @ 7PM: Outdoor Double Feature, curated by Jesse Pires (WPRB’s DJ Hi-Res!!!!)
Rain or shine. FREE!

Sun Ra: Brother from Another Planet (Dir. Don Letts, UK, 2005, video, 59 mins)
Don Letts, the legendary London DJ who introduced reggae and ska to a generation of punk rockers, delves into the mysterious world of Sun Ra in this British, made-for-television documentary. Sun Ra biographer John Szwed, musician Archie Shepp and member’s of Sun Ra’s Arkestra discuss the life and work of one of jazz music’s pre-eminent pioneers. For the uninitiated, Brother from Another Planet is a great introduction to Sun Ra, and for Ra devotees, it’s required viewing.

Sun Ra: A Joyful Noise (Dir. Robert Mugge, USA, 1980, video, 61 mins)
Consisting of explosive live footage of the Sun Ra Arkestra and fascinating interviews with the man himself, A Joyful Noise is the complete Sun Ra experience. Filmed in and around Philadelphia and Washington D.C. when the Arkestra was living in Germantown, Robert Mugge’s documentary captures the group at the height of its creative powers. Each live performance featured in the film further illustrates the distinctive alchemy Sun Ra was able to create with his disciplined band. Ra makes his case for a better world through music, transcending banal, earthbound realities to produce a strange and fascinating aesthetic fusing ancient history with future visions.

WED 07-22 @ 7PM: King Britt & Rucyl, “Saturn Never Sleeps”
FREE!

“Saturn Never Sleeps” is a cosmic adventure in contemporary music. For this artist-curated event, Philadelphia DJ, composer and producer King Britt, in collaboration with multimedialist Rucyl, present a night of sonic and visual funk taking micro-edits of Sun-Ra source music and combining it with live experimentation together with video collage.

WED 07-29 @ 7PM: Sonic Liberation Front & Planet Y, curated by Ars Nova Workshop

Please join Ars Nova Workshop and ICA for two very special performances in conjunction with Pathways to Unknown Worlds. An expanded 12-member Sonic Liberation Front, the Philadelphia ensemble acclaimed for their iconoclastic combination of Free Jazz passion and Afro-Cuban percussion, will premiere “Jetway Confidential No.3 (for Sun Ra)”, a new composition dedicated to Sun Ra and commissioned specifically for this performance, and perform an arrangement of Sun Ra’s “Where Pathways Meet” from 1978’s Lanquidity recording, which featured saxophonist and SLF member Julian Pressley. This evening will also feature a very rare appearance from Planet Y – Buchla Music Easel master Charles Cohen and Stinking Lizaveta’s Yanni Papadopoulos, best described as “Subotnick meets Sun Ra meets Schnitzler.” (Aquarius Records) In addition, newly-unearthed archival films will be projected on the gallery walls.

Led by percussionist Kevin Diehl, a protégé of Free Jazz pioneer Sunny Murray, Sonic Liberation Front merges post-bop with traditional Afro-Cuban Yoruba roots music. While other ensembles have merged Bata drumming and jazz, none have done it with the vigor of SLF. The band members are true students of the Lukumi tradition under the guidance of percussionist/omo aña Chuckie Joseph, a lifelong Yoruba cultural scholar. It’s been said a million times that all music originates in West Africa ¬ and by returning the focus to its origins, SLF achieves a natural eclectism that serves as a fountain of ingenuity. Ancient to the future, indeed. For this special performance, an expanded 12-piece SLF performs featuring some of the most notable names in Philadelphia’s exploratory music scene including members of the Sun Ra Arkestra, Make A Rising, and Shot x Shot.

Planet Y: Yanni Papadopoulos (dg-20 Casio digital guitar), Charles Cohen, (Buchla Music Easel)

Sonic Liberation Front: Todd Margasak (cornet), Terry Lawson (tenor saxophone/flute), Dan Scofield (alto saxophone), Julian Pressley (alto saxophone), Brent White (trombone), dmHotep (guitar), Travis Woodson (guitar), Matt Engle (double-bass), Chuck Joseph (Bata drums/drumkit), Shawn “Dade” Beckett (Bata drums/percussion), Khari Clemmons (Bata drums), Kevin Diehl (Bata drums/drumkit)


ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

Jazz pioneer, bandleader, mystic, philosopher, and consummate Afro-Futurist, Sun Ra, (born Herman Poole Blount 1914, Birmingham, Alabama, died 1993) and his personal mythology have grown increasingly relevant to a broad range of artists and communities. “Pathways to Unknown Worlds: Sun Ra, El Saturn & Chicago’s Afro-Futurist Underground, 1954-1968” presents a collection of paintings, drawings, prints, manuscripts, ephemera, and video produced by and about Ra and his associates–much of it previously unseen.

This exhibition, on view at the Institute of Contemporary Art April 24 – August 2, 2009 in the second floor gallery, examines how Ra and his dynamic, continually-evolving ensemble, the Philadelphia-based Arkestra, crafted both their otherworldly image and fiercely independent approach to self-production.

Highlights of the exhibition include original drawings for their 1960’s albums Art Forms of Dimensions Tomorrow and Other Planes of There, and five newly discovered typed and annotated broadsheets. Until recently, only one such broadsheet was known to exist – the one that Ra gave saxophonist John Coltrane in 1956. The show will also include the unpublished manuscript, The Magic Lie, a book of Ra’s poetry, which has become influential in the nascent Black Islamic movement. In addition to these documents, the film Spaceways, by Edward English, will be on view. The film documents Ra and his Arkestra (a deliberate re-spelling of “orchestra”), in 1968, as they prepare to perform at Carnegie Hall.

Early in his career, Sun Ra spent virtually all of his time and energy on Chicago’s south side, identifying with broader struggles for black power and identity, and saw his music as a key element in that struggle. As well as Sun Ra’s connection to the incipient grass-roots Afro-Futurist movement in Chicago, he also has a connection to Philadelphia. In 1968, Sun Ra brought the Arkestra to Philadelphia, where his band mate Marshall Allen inherited a house on Morton Street in Germantown. The house served as band headquarters until Sun Ra’s death in 1993. The Arkestra continues to perform under the leadership of Marshall Allen, who still resides at the Germantown house.

Long admired among fans of progressive jazz, Ra and his personal mythology have grown increasingly relevant and influential to a broad range of artists and communities. His music touched on the entire history of jazz, but he was also a pioneer of electronic and space music, and free improvisation.

Sun Ra developed a complicated persona of cosmic philosophies and lyrical poetry that made him a pioneer of Afro-futurism (a term coined by cultural critic Mark Dery in his 1994 essay “Black to the Future.”)

“Pathways to Unknown Worlds” is curated by John Corbett, Anthony Elms and Terri Kapsalis for the Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago and is coordinated at the ICA by Whitney Lauder Curatorial Fellow Stamatina Gregory. This exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue.

Pop Is Dead: The WPRB Top 30

It’s been a rough week for fans of pop and pin-ups, but we’re still handling it well enough to hook you up with the Top 30.

On Fridays you can always hear the best of the best during our Top Ten Show on at 5PM EDT! (Like the show? Become a fan on Facebook!)

1 VARIOUS ARTISTS Eccentric Soul: The Young Disciples (Numero)
2 DIRTY PROJECTORS Bitte Orca (Domino)
3 DEERHUNTER Rainwater Cassette Exchange (Kranky)
4 PJ HARVEY AND JOHN PARISH A Woman A Man Walked By (Island)
5 VASELINES Enter The Vaselines (SUB POP)
6 DEBBIE LEGGO Debbs Leggs (Fire)
7 CAVE Psychic Psummer (Important)
8 THE BATS The Guilty Office (Hidden Agenda)
9 OBITS I Blame You (SUB POP)
10 EXPERIMENTAL DENTAL SCHOOL Forest Field (Self-Released)
11 DINOSAUR JR. Farm (Jagjaguwar)
12 AUDIBLE In Simple Intervals (Polyvinyl)
13 SONIC YOUTH The Eternal (Matador)
14 IT HUGS BACK Inside Your Guitar (4AD)
15 SPACEMEN 3 The Sound Of Confusion (Fire)
16 SNAKE FLOWER 2 Renegade Daydream (Tic Tac Totally)
17 LIECHTENSTEIN Survival Strategies In A Modern World (Slumberland)
18 TARA JANE ONEIL A Ways Away (K)
19 SCREAMING FEMALES Power Move (Don Giovanni)
20 CAUSE CO-MOTION! Because Because Because (Slumberland)
21 TYVEK Tyvek (SILTBREEZE)
22 WOODEN SHJIPS Dos (Holy Mountain)
23 CROCODILES Summer Of Hate (Fat Possum)
24 NOSAJ THING Drift (Alpha Pup)
25 POISON ARROWS First Class, And Forever (File 13)
26 THE FIELD Yesterday And Today (Anti-Kompakt)
27 BISHOP ALLEN Grrr (Dead Oceans)
28 SUPER FURRY ANIMALS Dark Days/Light Years (Rough Trade)
29 YEAH YEAH YEAHS It’s Blitz (Interscope)
30 IRON AND WINE Around The Well (SUB POP)

Call For Artists: Submit Artwork For the 2009 Membership Drive!


Artwork credit: Gregory Pizzoli

The 2009 WPRB Membership Drive is coming! Mark your calendars! This year’s drive is October 7-14, 2009!

As you may (or may not!) know, WPRB 103.3 FM holds a membership drive every fall to raise funds and meet our annual operating costs. While our station is located on Princeton’s campus, we receive no direct funding from the University. We are an all-volunteer organization but there are still costs we cannot eliminate. Our annual membership drive is one of the ways we are able to keep WPRB running all year long.

Every year, we search for talented artists to contribute artwork. These designs grace the merchandise available during the drive that we give as exclusive premiums to our donors – T-shirts, hooded sweatshirts, tote bags – we give as premium items to donors.

Since we introduced our membership drive in 2007, WPRB has been fortunate to collaborate with many artists, including John Cei Douglas, Tim Gough, Ed Moorman, and Gregory Pizzoli.

This year, one of our artists could be YOU! (Or maybe a friend, family member, colleague!) This is a great way to get tons of exposure and link your work with an ace independent radio station.

This is NOT a contest. We’re posting this here to let people know about this opportunity.

If this interests you, please download the document below for complete details and contact our Development Director, Alaap.

» 2009 WPRB Membership Drive Artwork Submission Information (PDF)

FRI 6/26, 12AM: Circuit Des Yeux Live on WPRB!

Giants of Jazz welcomes De Stijl recording artists Circuit Des Yeux on Friday 6/26 at midnight ET for a live performance.

Fronted by Haley Fohr, Indiana’s Circuit Des Yeux are currently on tour in support of their new album, Symphone, which Volcanic Tongue’s David Keenan calls “a bunch of beautifully fractured tracks.” The album comes from “the same void that birthed Jandek, Jim Shepard, Adris Hoyos et al albeit cut with some almost Diadal-styled avant confusion.” Keenan goes on to write: “Imagine a solo songs LP by Jandek’s Nancy or Lisa Suckdog sung straight to cassette (w/ guitar / piano / keyboards / tape hiss accompaniment) and ‘produced’ by Majora’s ‘in-house’ team and you have the perfect recipe for a classically confusing late-night spin in the tradition of alla the best nada-info American privates.”

RSVP for this live performance on Facebook!

Workin' For [An Action-Packed WPRB] Weekend

We’ve been working all week preparing for Art All Night-Trenton and The Van Pelt. There’s been some nice things being said about both events:

And of course, we’re psyched! Please don’t forget to stop by our tables/booths to say hello when you come out to support these fantastic events.

Weekend Wax!

And what kind of sweet, action packed weekend would it be without the Top 30?

On Fridays you can always hear the best of the best during our Top Ten Show on at 5PM EDT! (Like the show? Become a fan on Facebook!)

1 V/A – Shiftless Decay: New Sounds of Detroit (X!)
2 SONIC YOUTH – The Eternal (Matador)
3 DEATH – For The Whole World To See (Drag City)
4 VARIOUS ARTISTS – The World Is Lousy With Ideas, Vol. 8 (Almost Ready)
5 SPACEMEN 3 – The Sound of Confusion (Fire)
6 IDA MARIA Fortress Round My Heart (Upper 11-RCA-Fontana)
7 ART BRUT – Art Brut Vs. Satan (Downtown)
8 CAUSE CO-MOTION! – Because Because Because (Slumberland)
9 DIRTY PROJECTORS – Bitte Orca (Domino)
10 CAVE – Psychic Psummer (Important)
11 POLLY SCATTERGOOD – Polly Scattergood (Mute)
12 PINK MOUNTAINTOPS – Outside Love (Jagjaguwar)
13 CROCODILES – Summer Of Hate (Fat Possum)
14 COMET GAIN – Broken Record Prayers (What’s Your Rupture?)
15 BOY LEAST LIKELY TO – Law of the Playground (+1)
16 SUPERCHUNK – Leaves In The Gutter [EP] (Merge)
17 DEAR NORA – Three States: Rarities ’97-’07 (Magic Marker)
18 WAU Y LOS ARRRGHS – Viven (Slovenly)
19 THE FIELD – Yesterday And Today (Anti-Kompakt)
20 MSTRKRFT – Fist Of God (Downtown)
21 KURT VILE AND THE VIOLATORS – The Hunchback (richie)
22 NAOMI SHELTON AND THE GOSPEL QUEENS – What Have You Done, My Brother? (Daptone)
23 EAT SKULL – Wild And Inside (SILTBREEZE)
24 LEE FIELDS AND THE EXPRESSIONS – My World (Stones Throw-Truth And Soul)
25 OBITS – I Blame You (SUB POP)
26 HERMAS ZOPOULA – Espoir/Live In Ouagadougou (Asthmatic Kitty)
27 AXEMEN – Big Cheap Hotel
28 MAGIK MARKERS – Balf Quarry (Drag City)
29 DEBBIE LEGGO – Debbs Leggs (Fire)
30 PREFUSE 73 – Everything She Touched Turned Ampexian (Warp)

For Services Rendered….

In our ever-continuing saga of tracking WPRB alumnus Ken Katkin’s awesomeness, we’d like to congratulate him on his special award from the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Ken’s continuing support of that state’s grand contributions to independent music has awarded him the rank of colonel:

“For decades of unbroken support for the Babylon Dance Band, King Kong, Bastro, Bonnie Prince Billy, Slint, Bodeco, Your Food, Antietam, Squirrel Bait, Papa M, the Endtables, the Blinders, the Dickbrains, the Palace Brothers, Malignant Growth, Fading Out, and even Paul K & the Weathermen.”

We hear fried chicken was served at the ceremony. Ken, now that you know the secret recipe, we have two words to say: we’re hungry!

WPRB Welcomes The Van Pelt on Sunday 6/21!

WPRB & R5 Productions are thrilled to welcome THE VAN PELT to Kung Fu Necktie (1248 N. Front Street, Philadelphia, PA) on Sunday, June 21st, for a rare reunion performance that will be taped for broadcast. This show is 21+ and starts at 8:00PM! Also performing are Blacklist and This Frontier Needs Heroes.

Stay tuned to WPRB — we’re giving away tickets! You don’t want to miss this!

WPRB is taping this performance at Philly’s Kung Fu Necktie for broadcast (air date TBA), so we hope you can make it out and be a part of the live audience! It will be quite a night!

RSVP FOR THIS EVENT ON

» Purchase your tickets today!

The Van Pelt formed in 1995 and subsequently released two albums for the Gern Blandsten label: Stealing From Our Favorite Thieves (1996) and Sultans of Sentiment (1997). These records combined the ferocity of post-hardcore with the experimental textures of Sonic Youth. The Van Pelt occupied a rare space in the New Jersey rock scene and beyond: delicate enough to be pegged with the “emo” tag, but loud and angry enough to hang with the punk rock kids. Back in the day, you’d be hard-pressed to find a moment on WPRB that didn’t include one of their songs; all these years later Chris Leo & co.’s music still deeply resonates with us.

Here’s a sweet video of The Van Pelt performing in 1997 (it’s even shot on real film):

Loud Lunch: Bonnaroo Chronicles Vol. 3


Well, well, well: Three days, four nights, and more burgers and dogs than I can count later, my adventures in the wonderland that is the American South have finally come to a close. Why don’t you read on for all the juicy details of Saturday and Sunday of Bonnaroo 2009?


Saturday got off to quite a slow start, as a pretty nasty cough made it’s rounds all around camp, confining everyone to their humid tents for a few extra hours before allowing them the strength to embrace the pollen soaked air awaiting them outside. I made it to the press tent just in time to catch Jimmy Buffet talk with Margret Cho for five minutes about how gosh-darn green the festival is this year (a very good point, off course, with a Green Squad roaming the whole compound round the clock) before I had to split to catch a bit of the Tony Rice unit over at The Other Tent.

Following over at This Tent, Of Montreal raised some psychedelic hell for a solid hour, definitely making a fan out of yours truly, but leaving me with so little energy that I slept through the bulk of David Grisman’s set. No bother, because I woke up watching the Decemberists, who rocked much harder and louder than I would have expected. You win this round, Colin Meloy!

Somewhere amidst the ruckus, I had a moment to meet one of my favorite performers of the year, Greg Gillis, aka Girl Talk, who said he remembers PRB for playing, “all that great punk rock back in the 80′s.” Boss.

The blunders of the afternoon were rendered insignificant, however, in the face of Saturday’s headliner, Bruce Springsteen. The Boss played for three whole hours without taking a break, and killin’ it the entire time no less. I’m not even a fan, but that man knows how to get a crowd riled up like it’s nobody’s business: while I could not comprehend exactly what he meant during the ten minutes he took to talk about building, “a house of love on rock ‘n roll and filling it with faith and then more love,” (or something along those lines), I jumped and screamed like I’d been down since day one, and enjoyed every moment of it.

Sunday most definitely took the cake as the most representative and enjoyable day of the festival. We packed up our camp, toured Shakedown Street for a while (picking up some amazing chicken on a stick, btw) and spent the rest of the day plopped on the lawn. Everything was down-tempo on Sunday, from the surprisingly dynamic psych-folk stylings of Andrew Bird, through the sweet and subdued Band of Horses on the same stage, right up to the OG himself, Snoop Dogg.

But once again, in the opinion of this DJ, the headline took the cake. I don’t really listen to Phish, and I’m not too huge on light shows either, but the vibe at their Sunday night performance, from the stage all the way to the back fence, was so unbelievably warm, welcome, and radiant that it was impossible not to just give up and get down. I’ve never seen so many glowing objects in the sum of my entire life, let along all in one place. And just when you thought you couldn’t chill harder, the Boss himself joined the band on the What stage to kick out a cover of Mack Rice’s Mustang Sally and the best version of Glory Days that most of us will ever hear. Needless to say, the crowd went wild.

And with that we were off, for another fifteen fun-filled hours on the road, basking in the shadow of one helluva festival. Mad respect to Music Allies for putting together a sweet press tent as well as a great radio program to listen to on the way down, Crazy Pete for having my back the whole time, and all the artists and attendees that made this one for the books.

See y’all next year!

Loud Lunch: Bonnaroo Chronicles Vol. 2


Good afternoon Radioland! Lance Loud here, comin’ at’cha will a whole new Bonna-recap for the second day of tunes. Running on four hours of “sleep,” a few cases of water, and a half a bottle of ibuprofen, we braved the heat (what’s up with this weather?) for the first full day of the Roo.


New York City was holding court all day with killer performances from seasoned veterans and the new school alike. TV On the Radio and the Yeahs Yeah Yeahs threw down some serious rock in the mid afternoon, but the highlights of the day did not rear their heads until after dark. While the headliner of the night was Phish, an experience that I’m saving till their second performance on Sunday night, the Beastie Boys brought all the serious noise.

Rockin’ everything from their hardcore to lounge tunes live, the B-Boys were only half the fun of the set, as the stage was bulging with celebrity from Mix Master Mike on the turntables, Mr. Money Mark on the keyboards, and a mind-blowingly awesome cameo by NYC hip-hop legend, Nas.

After a short rest back at camp, we made it back out the stages for one hell of a party, rolling from the tale end of Phoenix’s set back into some more bangin’ NY tunes a few yards over with Public Enemy. I don’t remember Flava Flav rapping too much, but I do remember that he mentioned yet another VH1 reality-series that he’ll be ringleading this summer, so tune in.

The night rounded itself out with ninety minutes of bounce from bastard-pop wizard, Girl Talk, and a set from trance master Paul Oakenfold that stretched three hours overtime, past the sunrise. Good thing there’s only two days left here, or else I think my feet would never forgive me for what I’m putting them through at this festival.

Stay tuned for more…