Vinyl Notes

I was a little early to the Troubadour to see Tim Fite perform so I thought I’d try to see if I could get an interview. One of the bouncers told me Tim was around somewhere so after looking around the showroom lazily, alone and bored with staring at the empty stage, I wondered into the bar-room to sit for a few minutes before the show started. Wouldn’t ya know it, my wandering around led me to a seat right next to Fite.

He had a calm, friendly demeanor and surprised me by remembering my name from the MySpace message I’d sent him. It was 20 minutes to showtime so I had to make the interview relatively quick.

When I started off thinking he’d grown up in Brooklyn Fite quickly corrected me. “I grew up in the sticks,” he said telling about the weekend trips to into the City; mom went to the art gallery, Fite & dad went to the record store. It was in these very record stores that Fite heard Cool DJ Red Alert’s song “Don’t Believe the Hype” and began his lifelong love affair with hip-hop.

While his first two albums are largely a blue grass, folk, country fusion, the third album was the one that won me over with its quirky satirical hip-hop style. “Hip-hop is the foundation of the music,” Fite explains. “It’s all sample and loop based; it’s how I think about what I’m making.”

(more…)

Last September, embarked on a social networking experiment by spending a weekend with people I’d met on Newsvine. This Vinemeet was the event that sort of solidified my theory that Newsvine was much more than just a social networking site but a place where virtual friendships become real. There have been several Vinemeets over the last year but this weekend I hopped on a plane (gasp!) to meet a few more practical strangers and reinforce the since of community and camaraderie on the ‘Vine.

While Columbus may not be the most happening town, one might be surprised to find out that it is the indie art capital of the world, a noteworthy designation as one of the highlights of the trip was a live performance by our host, a member of Flotation Walls. Friday night, approximately 10 Newsviners from across the country (mostly the eastern seaboard) gathered at Andyman’s Treehouse, most of us exhausted from a day of traveling, looking forward to a good show nonetheless.

The show took place in a tiny room with a huge tree in the middle (hence the name Andyman’s Treehouse and no elevated stage; suffice it to say, the show was intimate. Considering the amount of equipment Flotation Walls had to set up – keyboards, a synthesizer, saxophone, bass, drums, percussion, violin and three guitars – they moved quickly and got their set started with surprising speed. The set up was interesting to watch, everyone in their different zones, tuning, testing, listening to each other, completely in sync and comfortable with each other.

(more…)

Just when I had all but given up hope that underground hip hop is still alive, I see a glimmer of hope.

The thing is this: underground music is about the culture of the music. It’s great that there’s such a prominent indie rock blogging community; I’ve discovered some great music that way. When digging around though, the best I could find on hip hop was Hip Hop Ruckus which respectable for sure but way too busy, too mainstream and too inarticulate for my taste.

And then I found out that Aceyalone, Dilated Peoples and Alchemist were slated to do a joint tour and then saw an article on the A.V. Club blog about free hip hop mixed tapes. Yay! Maybe it’s not prominent, but obviously there’s a bit of underground love out there in the blogosphere.

I leave you with the most Aceyalone’s latest single from his album entitled Lightning Strikes.