Satori » Music

Addictive TV

Mark DeLoura — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 22:14:08 +0000

One of the highlights to my trip to Abu Dhabi was an evening concert on Corniche Beach by Addictive TV. I hadn’t heard of these guys before, but once they got started I realized I was in for a real treat. They create wonderfully fun, danceable electronic music, and they do it by mixing together the audio from TV or movies with their own synth work. So the experience is the kind of music that you have a hard time NOT dancing to, along with a visual extravaganza which tells a tale.
The music was frickin’ great (especially to hear in the middle of the middle east) and was also a demonstration of some really cool tech, the way they synchronized the video with the music. It’s hard for me to describe, so here’s a highlight – an Iron Man mix. You can find higher-fidelity versions of their work via their website, but this one is a really good example. Fantastic stuff! Turn up the subwoofer before you hit play!

Yoshi’s New San Francisco Location

Mark DeLoura — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 21:49:49 +0000

Before I moved to the San Francisco Bay area I used to always hear about Yoshi’s Jazz Club in Oakland on the radio, and what amazing performer was currently playing there. For some reason only a few of those performers ever came to Seattle. I was sad. Since moving to SF I’ve taken frequent advantage of how close Yoshi’s OAK location is to the city. It’s fantastic to have such a high-quality jazz club close by!
Last night we visited the new Yoshi’s SF to see the Chick Corea Freedom Band. Since we were checking out the early show we thought we’d get there a bit before and have a drink and bite to eat as well – something that we’ve done a few times at the Yoshi’s OAK location.
The new Yoshi’s SF is just absolutely stunning. I haven’t been to that part of Fillmore for awhile, but it is hardly recognizable with the new Yoshi’s building there now. The building brings some real glitz to that area; inside, the dining room is very modern, with the feel of a high-end restaurant in Japan. Curtains subdivided the dining space into acoustic and visual regions which seemed to work quite well (we didn’t spend much time in there though).
But we weren’t really there for the dining room, we were there for the jazz! We claimed our tickets from will call and strolled into the performance space. The main floor is incredibly similar to Yoshi’s OAK, with modern upgrades and a bit more width and depth. In addition there is a small upper balcony with more seating.
We sat at table 40 on the main floor, and the first thing we noticed was how tightly packed the chairs were – we had two banquette seats at our four-person table, and the other two people who ostensibly were to join us later would have really been bumping elbows with the people at the chairs of tables next to us. Fortunately for us, those theoretical people never arrived!
Relaxing in the banquette, we ordered some drinks, and an array of appetizers and maki. The food came at a relaxed pace, and was fantastic. At one point MB surprisedly suggested that we should just come back some time for the food alone, and skip the jazz – it really was quite good. I’d recommend the soft shell crab appetizer in particular. Alcohol pricing was about as you would expect, although the sake prices were a bit higher than usual.
As a jazz space goes, even though it is larger than Yoshi’s OAK it is still quite intimate. Chick Corea had the house lights brought up so that the performers could see the crowd, which resulted in more interaction between crowd and performers than usual. We noticed, walking around a bit, that the sound underneath the balcony is a little muffled and less bright than on the main floor or even on the balcony, so if you’re an audiophile you may want to avoid the overhang. I personally found the sound very good from our position on the main floor right, apart from a lack of definition in the bass… although admittedly it was hard to tell whether that issue was the performer or the space (I assume it was the space, because the performer was amazing!)
It’s clear that there are bugs being worked out there – although our servers were attentive and precise, the table next to us seemed puzzled when they received four glasses of tap water to go with their bottle of Pellegrino, and the table in front of us spent about ten minutes during the set trying to flag down someone to get a drink. In the men’s washroom there are plumbing challenges going on as well – men, I’ll leave that to you to find out about, just be careful at the urinals, okay?
All in all we are VERY pleased with the new Yoshi’s SF. We took a cab to and from the show instead of trying for parking, and cabs were very easy to get. Highly recommended!

Keeping Score

Mark DeLoura — Sat, 09 Dec 2006 22:59:01 +0000

Are you watching “Keeping Score”? If not, you’re really missing out! This PBS mini-series, hosted by Michael Tilson Thomas (MTT) of the San Francisco Symphony, is designed to help demystify classical music.
Each episode (of which there are only three!) takes on a big piece of classical music: Beethoven’s Eroica, Stravinsky’s Rite of Sping, and Copland and the American Sound in general. During an hour-long show, MTT walks through the music with his orchestra, describing the intentions of the composer, and the emotions the music is intended to elicit. He goes into the history of the composer, the mood of the time, and the common orchestral techniques of the time. If you’ve ever felt like classical music was just too dense, hard to understand, or required a lot of effort to enjoy, this is the show for you.
Check your local listings, don’t miss this great show!

White & Nerdy

Mark DeLoura — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 17:15:50 +0000

It’s been awhile since I’ve listened to Weird Al… I remember when I was a kid, setting up my audio cassette recorder to record Dr. Demento at midnight, then listening to it the next day. I loved that show! But in recent years Weird Al and I have parted ways.
His new album has been getting great play though, and keeps appearing in the Billboard charts. Check out this video, “White & Nerdy”. I was ROTFLOL most of the way through it.
Go Weird Al!

EDIT: Okay, this cries out for a look at the original… check it out too!

Big Ears

Mark DeLoura — Thu, 19 Jan 2006 23:50:14 +0000

As long as I can remember, I’ve been drawn to sound. Some people have acute senses of smell, or vision, or touch, and their memories are all impacted by this. For me, it’s audio. Whenever I visit a new place the things I remember most are the sounds: ravens in a Kyoto park, scooters on the streets of Saigon, camels at the Pyramids of Giza, angry taxi drivers in New York City, buskers in the Paris Metro, hubbub in Cairo’s Khan el Khalili market.
Being drawn to music is a natural extension of my sensitivity to sound: I’ve always thought of music as the language of emotion. Who can deny the emotions communicated by Holst’s “Mars: The Bringer of War”, Philip Glass’s “Koyaanisqatsi” soundtrack, Bobby McFerrin’s version of “‘Round Midnight”, Dexter Gordon’s version of “The Peacocks”, the haunting melody from the movie “Million Dollar Baby”… even Britney Spears’ “I’m a Slave 4 U” and “Toxic” or Missy Elliot’s “My Struggles”. A lot of pop music communicates simple joy or loss or exuberance or lust, while jazz and classical music typically convey a broader emotional palette.
So it’s probably no surprise that every time I travel I come home in love with some new music. On this trip I unfortunately aquired two sonic memes due to frequent repetition: Black Eyed Peas’ “My Humps” and Pussycat Dolls’ “Don’t Cha”.
The real winner on this trip though was Nancy Ajram. She’s a Lebanese pop singer whose concerts have been banned in several middle eastern countries for being too lewd, but her music can be heard far and wide. They play her videos in my San Francisco neighborhood “Naan ‘n Curry” shop, and in Cairo our mini-bus driver and our tour guide Hend both knew her lyrics by heart. On an evening where we were stuck in nasty Cairo traffic for over an hour, I couldn’t have been happier, just grooving to Nancy tracks and gazing out at the insane highway spectacle before me.
So now, listening to Nancy Ajram brings me back to Cairo, and I look forward to the many connected musicians who I will discover in the future as a result of being introduced to her music. It’s hard to find her albums in the U.S.; however, you can listen to low-fi versions on the Music of Lebanon site. I particularly recommend this tune “Aah w Noss”. Here is a link to the whole album.