I wanted to take the image of a wire coat hanger and make a shirt out of it with words,”Old School?” underneath it. It was going to be a pro-choice shirt. It may be lacking in a little tact, but it gets the point across. It can’t be worse than a PETA billboard.

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Brendan Monroe is currently having an exhibit at the Richard Heller Gallery in Santa Monica, CA. It’s entitled Places Between Here and Here. His work can also be seen at Red Choo Choo (Awakening, Crossing, Blob Sleep)

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Richie Hawtin has done the 100th podcast for Tsugi which is a live mix from the Big Outside Festival.  It’s the best live set/mix I’ve heard in a long time, and it harks back to Hawtin’s thumpier and funkier days and away from this boring minimal stuff that’s been the musical equivalent of Ambien for the past few years.

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Loöq Records has just release a new downtempo long player from Methodrone. It’s a departure from the their dance floor centered releases, and from the track, Slow It Down, it looks to be another stellar release from this San Francisco based label.

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Jon Brion – Little Person feat. Deanna Storey - From the Synecdoche, NY soundtrack, Jon Brion known for his excellent work on Paul Thomas Anderson films as well as being a member of The Grays and producing the stellar version of Fiona Apple’s Extraordinary Machine. A simple ode that puts Storey’s vocal upfront and center.

St. Vincent – Marrow - Annie Clark was a member of the Polyphonic Spree (don’t hold that against her) and a member of Sufjan Stevens’ live band, and on this album, Actor she again pumps and sprays her pleasantly skunk like juices on all of her songs. She knows how to use all of the spices instead of just the same old salt and pepper that normally goes with her brand of souffle.

Fever Ray with Van Rivers & The Subliminal Kid – Here Before – A B-side, and an incredible cover of Vashti Bunyan’s song. It’s on the Stranger Than Kindness single.

Matias Aguayo – Menta Latte – Another contender for release of the year. His second full length release, and again Aguayo ventures further away from his Kompakt label mates by making some of the best music that goes beyond the boundaries of his techno (Closer Musik) heritage.

We’ve been waiting and waiting for what, we have no idea, but we have some choice selections for you. Maybe it’s been a dull year for music. I’ve been focusing most of my attention on a business venture which if you’re into design and t-shirts, check it out, Red Choo Choo.

I’m really itching for Richie Hawtin, Marco Carola, Adam Beyer, Henrik B, Ricardo Villalobos or someone in that vain to come to San Francisco, so some FuzzyTeeth and SmellyFeet can be had from a night of sensory overload. Traditional rock shows can be moving, but there’s nothing like the give and take of a 4 hour “running man” battle with yourself. Ya feel me?

Oh well.

Burial – Fostercare - A brand new one from a person who changed the face of music, though most people haven’t realized it yet…..in the form of his own Dubstep. Trademark menacing voices, knife sharpening-like noises and everything you need to have a Halloween party in your head.

Fever Ray – If I Had A Heart – I finally figured it out. And now back to The Knife, but this Fever Ray album is dark and menacing which the videos do perfect justice, and I am slowly getting used to the vocals, but the music is a darker, more gothic version of Portishead, but for the Techno crowd. Frightening.

Andrew Bird – Lull – Sounds similar to Rufus Wainwright. I do love the line “Moderation itself can be a kind of extreme”.

Bon Iver – Re:Stacks (Live @ The Fox Theater, Oakland) – Recorded from my phone, the warmest song on an album full of songs that when heard on a cold day will make you go to the bathroon due to the sudden change in temperature.

Tune-Yards is the musical moniker of one Merril Garbus, and her album BiRd-BrAiNs is not only the best album you will hear this year, it is a mark on the musical landscape that will continue to grow. Even more surprising is that the album was recorded on a digital voice recorder with free mixing software. You can’t anymore punk rock that that. Her music defies categorization, yet feels so comfortably familiar. And in a live environment, it is one of the best experiences in music today. We are thrilled to have the following interview with Tune-Yards.

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FoeWeel: I understand that you recently moved to the Bay Area. What caused you to make the move and from where did you move ?

Tune-Yards: I haven’t quite moved yet, but it looks like I’ll move to Oakland in the fall. My boyfriend has a whole lot to do with it, but I also spent the summer here and really fell in love with the Bay. Mostly the potential that I feel here is what pushed me over the edge to make the decision. I’ve been officially living in Vermont and spending most of my off-time in Montreal for the past four years. Both of those communities have nurtured my music and career and it’s bizarre to think of leaving for somewhere all the way across the country. But it feels right at this moment in time: a larger musical community, a crazy history of soul, R&B, and hip-hop music, and sun!

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FW: What are you listening to these days and what are you reading?

T-Y: I’ve spent some time this summer listening to the Sasha Fierce side of the latest Beyonce. Also White Hinterland, the new stuff that no one’s heard yet because Casey’s a friend of mine and let me listen. I’m often listening to Kurt Weisman and Chris Weisman, and my sister, Ruth Garbus. And that Dirty Projectors band which had me addicted from The Getty Address. I don’t think I listen to music very much compared to some other people I know…I also like silence a lot. My boyfriend has been turning on Bay Area KISS FM lately, which soothes.

What I ought to be listening to: the latest Erykah Badu, Brahms, and the first Wu-Tang Clan album.

Reading. Right now I’m being a total music nerd and reading music criticism, specifically the Best of 2008 Music Writing edition. Fascinating articles on Wu-Tang (see above) and Keyshia Cole and the Congo. I started Zadie Smith’s White Teeth and will finish it on tour, I hope.

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FW: Your signing to 4AD label in England, the former home to the Pixies, Cocteau Twins, Red House Painters and now TV On The Radio and Bon Iver, has always been a true music lover’s label. What brought you to 4AD rather than a major label?

T-Y: That’s a funny question, because 4AD feels so big compared to everything I’ve known before! But a major label deal is a) not something I’ve had the opportunity to turn down and b) not something that would ever fit with the way I live my life. I like to question the impact, politically, socially, environmentally, etc., of everything that I do. So having a team of 300 people working on getting my new CD manufactured in the cheapest way possible and sold to people like candy bars at Wal-Mart doesn’t sit right with me.

By allowing 4AD to release the album I felt that my music would get a wider exposure while allowing me to maintain a connection with everyone involved in marketing me; that I could keep tabs on the process, and have more say as to the decisions involved in selling the records. And so far the 4AD cats have been great. They get so much done but really do listen to my preferences and objections.

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FW: Are there any plans for a headlining tour?

T-Y: In October I’ll do a tour of the east coast and Midwest that I think will be my first “headlining” tour. But in order for it to feel like that, people have to come to the shows, I suppose…which I’m never convinced that they will. I’m only just realizing that people are starting to know about me and like me enough to get their butts to the places I’m playing. I think most musicians learn to play to nobody, or to chatty cathies, or in tiny time slots that they beg for. It’s crazy to finally play to people who came to see me.

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FW: My girlfriend noticed that your music has a child-like feeling as well as some nods to nursery rhymes. Where did this come from?

T-Y: I’ve been noticing that too! Hmm, hard to put all of my thoughts on this in order, so I’ll go a little free-association on you. Nursery rhymes-children’s songs-musical bedrock/loamy soil-creepy-childlike innocence juxtaposed with cruel realities-complex truths within simple structures. There you go. Kids and childhood and memory all mean a lot to me. I was also a nanny for much of the time that the first part of this album was recorded, and hanging with a two-year-old most certainly influenced my palate.

I’ve also been working on a lullaby album with several friends, and I was a puppeteer in my past life…I’m fascinated by complex work for kids, rather than dumbed-down, simplified, truth-avoiding crap-o.

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FW: Your live shows are quite powerful. From your incredible vocal range, your sampling, the funky rhythms from you on the drums, and to your vaudeville-like act, you seem to engage the audience and make them part of your performance. A give and take experience. What influenced you in your stage setup and live performance?

T-Y: I majored in theater in school, and then worked for a professional puppet company for years, so performance is absolutely my focus as an artist, maybe even more than composing. I might even argue that the way I record is also a performance of sorts. In any case, that’s where I come from.

When I started writing songs I played open mics and shows at bars and cafes and loud places where no one’s there to listen to you. So I think during those years I honed a skill of getting people’s attention, drawing them in, and keeping them there. Drums were something I finally got up the guts to incorporate even though I didn’t know how it would work, but it has made such a difference to play something that physically compels people to move and get involved.

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FW: If you could cover a hip-hop song, what would it be?

T-Y: Hits from the Bong by Cypress Hill or The Champ by Ghostface.

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FW: From gigs with Beirut to Micachu & The Shapes, and to upcoming gigs with Dirty Projectors, do you feel the ground swelling beneath you with all of this attention that is starting to come your way?

T-Y: Ground’s the same. I’m the same. Just trying to stay myself and stay focused.

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FW: I think your music has similar qualities to Animal Collective and Dirty Projectors and it would seem that their fans should be a natural fit for your music. How would you describe your style of music?

T-Y: Thank you for the comparison. I guess one similarity between me and the bands you mention is a definite awareness and referencing, if not outright theft, of African music and musical ideas. And when I say African I include all musics that can be traced to African cultures, and perhaps I don’t include Middle Eastern and Asian influences simply because I’m not as familiar with those traditions.

We reference rhythms and polyrhythms. We reference inexact and stilted rhythms. We reference non-western harmony or simply abandon the confines of western harmony. We reference the concept of the human voice as a piece of a larger whole, as opposed to a “lead” vocal.

Is that what we do? I mean, I think that’s what we do, but I can’t speak for those dudes and gals. Shouldn’t that be what we do, since we have this joyfully endless access to obscure and historic music from all over the world?

Describing my own music feels weird and I don’t think it’s necessarily my obligation to do that. But: I sing and loop vocals and bang on drums and parlor-trick the uke. Hop, skip, and a jump.

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FW: Who has been your biggest musical influence, and your biggest life influence?

T-Y: Whoa. My parents are my biggest musical influence, and my biggest life influence. They are beautiful, wonderful people, and musicians, and introduced me to countless genres and traditions of music.

Michael Jackson also ranks on the music side; Woody Guthrie and Emma Goldman on the life side. Crazy people, all of them.

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FW: What is your biggest indiscretion?

T-Y: It’s funny, I had to look up that word. I dunno, man. Like “misdeed,” or “wrongdoing,” something I messed up and regret? I regret the time I spent hating myself. It feels like a wrongdoing to have hated myself, particularly after living in Africa, when I had so much information to share and instead turned it all inward on myself.

I’m not at all sure if that’s the kind of answer you were looking for. I have a bit of a nun/martyr complex, so I’ve lived my life trying to avoid indiscretions.

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FW: Who would you like to collaborate with in the future?

T-Y: Many, many people. Many of my friends with whom I already collaborate and look forward to spending more time with. I’d like rappers to put verses over my tracks, to arrange and record with R&B artists, to do anything with Zap Mama and Ian McKaye.

Cee-Lo. Laurie Anderson. Maya Lin. Dancers. A female drum corp. A high school choir. A gal can dream, no?

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Tune-Yards – Little Tiger – Is this Nina Simone playing with Radiohead? At the 3:11 mark when the chorus kicks in, you have a better understand of nothing at all.

Massive Attack featuring Martina Topley-Bird – Psyche [Van Rivers & The Subliminal Kid Remix] – MTB’s voice goes so nicely with the relaxed beats of Massive Attack even though they stopped making music 10 years ago.

Flight Of The Conchords – I Told You I Was Freaky – I think they should do a tour of dance clubs and quit doing television.

World Party – She’s The One – Karl Wallinger, one of the supposed heirs to the Lennon-McCartney songwriting throne is playing the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival this year. One of the great pop songwriters.

I’ve been a bit lax on the posts lately. Since the start of my new business, Red Choo Choo, things have been a hectic around these parts. Also, I haven’t heard too much music that has caught my ear. I don’t think that’s supposed to makes sense. Anyhow, we have a great interview with Tune-Yards that we will be posting shortly. Enjoy the new and the old.

Anti-Pop Consortium – Volcano (Four Tet Remix) – They’re back together, so they can be further ignored by the public, most likely. Their new album, Fluorescent Black is a nice return. It would be great to have them make an entire album with Four Tet.

Flying Lotus – Infinitum (Dimlite’s Re-finitum) – Ahead of his time. From the LA EP, having bloodlines to Coltrane, this is the new Jazz that will be played for apple products in 2023.

The Smiths – Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want (Live) – Growing up, I never was a fan of The Smiths. I thought Morrisey’s moaning vocal delivery with his Elvis aesthetic killed whatever great music Marr was trying to play. I’ve softened my view over the years, being like sugar, I can still only take it in small doses, and this slowed down live version is a nicely aged whine.

The Stone Roses – I Wanna Be Adored – This is the 20th Anniversary remaster, and a perfect way to start an album. Eerie noises, the bass rolling in, the guitar slicing in through tiny spaces, and then the kick driving you towards a proclamation of greatness. A perfect album from a once, perfect band.

Micachu, Rickshaw Stop, San Francisco, July 22, 2009

Here’s the video of the last song, Hardcore from that evening.

Micachu & The Shapes – Hardcore (Live @ Rickshaw Stop, San Francisco 07.22.09).

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tUnE-YaRdS, The Palace, Berkeley, August 11, 2009

This past Tuesday, we had the pleasure of going to Berkeley to some random house where Tune-Yards, along with some other talented musicians played in essentially what is normally used as a living room. We could only stay for 2 songs by Tune-Yards, and James Miska and friends were also a talented group. I have video of tune-Yards playing ‘News’, but due to low-lighting, the picture was less than ideal, so I ripped the audio from it. She started out by sampling 2 beats from the floor and then towards the end of the song, she samples her voice twice which created this nice harmony for her to sing over. An incredible experience which basically took place in someone’s living room with about 20 people huddled about on the floor. Enjoy.

tUnE-YaRdS – News (Live @ The Palace, Berkeley, August 11, 2009)