Posts Tagged ‘Red Hot Chili Peppers’

Bootleg City: Red Hot Chili Peppers at the Reading Festival, August ‘99

I was dead asleep when the phone rang. It was three o’clock.

I picked it up and mumbled hello. I figured it was my ex-wife. She calls late at night sometimes to talk. She’s remarried, but it’s not going too well. I tell her not to worry so much, even though I never listen to that kind of advice myself.

Whenever she calls in the middle of the night, it takes me a few minutes to wake up. But it wasn’t her on the other end this time.

After I said hello, the voice said a few words, then hung up. All I caught was “building on fire” at the end of his sentence.

That got my attention.

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Caught on Tape: Red Hot Chili Peppers Interview Each Other, 12/6/1984

I’ve just unearthed a treasure trove.

Then again, maybe not.Red Hot Chili Peppers

Somewhere in my basement, I just found a box of cassette tapes. Not just dubs of albums or promo mix tapes distributed at the New Music Seminars and CMJ conventions I used to attend during the 80s – but some highly unique stuff from my days as both a college radio music director and arts editor at the Georgetown University campus paper.

The tapes say things like “T-Bone Burnett interview.” Or “The dBs.” Or “Interview with Peter Garrett of Midnight Oil.”

You know what? I recall every single one of these interviews.

You see, back in the day, I was pretty aggressive when it came to whatever cool acts came to town. Plus I had the added bonus of representing both Georgetown’s newspaper and radio station. Bands could do the equivalent of killing two birds with one stone.

Never mind that the paper was the secondary one on campus and the station was distributed via carrier current i.e. only on campus as a weak AM feed. Nobody needed to know that.

So I made plenty of friends with record company reps and got them to promise me interviews when one of their bands came to town. Or sometimes I would just attend the concert and see if I could wheedle myself backstage with my tape recorder. (more…)

Mix Six: “Mashups”

DOWNLOAD THE FULL MIX HERE

Last week, I was trying to figure out the awkwardly titled decade called “The 2000s.”  Yes, there’s been an A.D.D. quality to the last 10 years, but it could also be argued that there’s also a postmodern current flowing underneath all those mini-trends that came and went so fast they didn’t say goodbye. If I may be so bold as to throw another musical novelty borne out of the proliferation of cheap multitrack audio software into this decade, it would be the mashup.  I think the first time I heard  a kind of mashup was with the release of the Small Soldiers soundtrack.  Just a few years later, people wouldn’t need recording studios to do what the DJs where able to do on that soundtrack — and I’m thinking specifically of the “Love Is a Battlefield” Kay Gee remix with Queen Latifah and Pat Benatar.  Nowadays, it’s clear that ProTools can do wonders, and the more people with time and interest on their hands delve into what new musical forms they can weave into familiar songs, the more the original songs take on new and interesting twists when mashed up together.  Having tried to do my own version of a mashup called “the smashup” — where I smashed covers of certain songs together — I know the time and dedication it takes to put these mixes together.  So, here we go with a mix from some very creative individuals who clearly have talented ears and great skills with a multitrack recorder. (more…)

The Friday Mixtape: 7/17/09

“Favorite Zeroes”

“Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music.”—Sergei Rachmaninov
“Music and rhythm find their way into the secret places of the soul.”—Plato
“A wop-bop-a-loo-bomp. Alop-bam-boo.” —Little Richard

Fall Out Boy – Thriller (Rob’s Brady Mix) original track from Infinity on High (2007)
Peter Gabriel – On the Air from Peter Gabriel 2 (1978)
Kelly Buchanan – Favorite Zero from Kelly Buchanan (2008)
Lucky Soul – My Brittle Heart from The Great Unwanted (2007)
Sleater-Kinney – Light Rail Coyote from One Beat (2002)
Bob Mould – Underneath Days from Body of Song (2005)
Magnolia Electric Company – The Dark Don’t Hide It from What Comes After the Blues (2005)
Rancid – Disconnected from Let the Dominoes Fall (2009)
Red Light Company – With Lights Out from Fine Fascination (2009)
Social Distortion – Highway 101 from Sex, Love, and Rock ‘N’ Roll (2004)
Hold Steady – Yeah Sapphire from Stay Positive (2008)
Audioslave – One and the Same from Revelations (2006)
Neil Young & Crazy Horse – Too Lonely from Life (1987)
Sammy Hagar – Back into You from Sammy Hagar / I Never Said Goodbye (1987)
Rolling Stones – Heaven from Tattoo You (1981)
Red Hot Chili Peppers – Dosed from By the Way (2002)
Velvet Crush – Why Not Your Baby from Teenage Symphonies to God (1994)