Everything is Interesting
Telefon Tel Aviv is an American electronic music act formed in 1999. Formerly comprising Charles Cooper and Joshua Eustis, Telefon Tel Aviv continues with Eustis as the sole official member since Cooper’s death in 2009 from an accidental overdose of sleeping pills and alcohol. The two were high school friends whose four-song demo was picked up by John Hughes III’s music label, Hefty.
Joel Thomas Zimmerman (b. 1981), better known by his stage name deadmau5 (pronounced ‘dead mouse’), is a Canadian progressive, electro, and house producer based in Toronto, Ontario. His debut album, ‘Get Scraped,’ was released in 2006. He is known for often performing in a titular costume head which he originally created while learning to use a 3D program, which resembles a mouse head.
Matmos is an experimental electronic music duo originally from San Francisco but now residing in Baltimore signed to the Matador Records label. M. C. Schmidt and Drew Daniel are the core members, but they frequently include other artists on their records and in their performances, including J Lesser.
Much of their work could be classified as a pop version of the musique concrète genre (a forbearer of modern electronic music). The name Matmos refers to the seething lake of evil slime beneath the city Sogo in the 1968 film Barbarella.
Kruder & Dorfmeister is an Austrian duo most known for their downtempo-dub remixes of pop, hip-hop and drum and bass songs. Their mixes are usually flavored with sampler-processed vocals, deep bassline dub, trip-hop elements, bossa grooves and smoothly-shaped echoes. Some of their better-known works include ‘High Noon,’ ‘Original Bedroom Rockers’ and remixes of Madonna’s ‘Nothing Really Matters,’ Depeche Mode’s ‘Useless,’ Count Basic’s ‘Speechless’ and Roni Size’s ‘Heroes.’
Many of their remixes are collected on the double album ‘The K & D Sessions.’ Although best known internationally for their remixing work, the duo gained their primary reputation in Europe for their live DJ performances and ‘DJ-Kicks’ album. Peter Kruder and Richard Dorfmeister have their own record studio, G Stone Recordings in Vienna, through which they release many of their own albums.
Boss Hog is an American punk blues band including the husband and wife duo of Jon Spencer (guitar) and Cristina Martinez (vocals) along with Jens Jurgensen (bass), Hollis Queens (drums) and Mark Boyce (keyboard). Their name derives from a slang term amongst bikers for a desirable ‘boss’ motorcycle ‘hog.’
The band achieved some notoriety, not only due to their abrasive sound, but more to Martinez’s confrontational use of full nudity on the band’s debut live performance and record sleeves. Their releases were relatively sporadic, but comprised three full length albums, a mini-album, an EP and a number of singles in an 11 year history. Jon Spencer’s other bands include Pussy Galore, of which Martinez became a peripheral member, and The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion which existed in parallel to Boss Hog and now continues under the name Blues Explosion.
Giorgio Moroder (b. 1940) is an Italian record producer, songwriter, and performer. His work with synthesizers during the 1970s and 1980s had a significant influence on New Wave, house, and electronic music in general. Particularly well known for his work with Donna Summer during the era of disco, Moroder is the founder of the former Musicland Studios in Munich, which was also used by Led Zeppelin, Queen, and Elton John. In addition to his work with Donna Summer, Moroder also produced a number of electronic disco hits and a score of songs for a variety of others including David Bowie, Irene Cara, and, Blondie.
In 1984, Moroder compiled a new restoration and edit of the famous silent film ‘Metropolis’ and provided a contemporary soundtrack to the film with pop hits from Pat Benatar, Adam Ant, Billy Squier, Loverboy, Bonnie Tyler, and Freddie Mercury. He also integrated the old-fashioned intertitles into the film as subtitles to improve continuity, and he played the film at a rate of 24 frames per second. Since the original speed was unknown this choice was controversial. Known as the ‘Moroder version,’ it sparked debate among film buffs, with outspoken critics and supporters of the film falling into equal camps.
Javelin is a hip-hop and electro production duo based in Brooklyn, New York City via Providence, RI. Javelin has been known to use colorfully painted boomboxes that hang from the ceiling or stack up on the floor like pyramids. The signal from the show is broadcast via FM transmitter, thereby fostering audience participation (B.Y.O. Boombox) or fueling battery-powered, mobile parties.
Balkan Beat Box is an Israeli musical group founded by ex-Gogol Bordello member Tamir Muskat, Ori Kaplan of Firewater and Big Lazy, and Tomer Yosef. As a musical project they often cooperate with a host of other musicians both in the studio as well as live.
Co-founders Ori Kaplan and Tamir Muskat both met in Brooklyn, New York as teenagers. Both had grown up with music and Kaplan had been a klezmer clarinetist, while Muskat was a drummer in a punk band. They began playing together and had trouble finding a style that they felt represented themselves, so they decided to create one. They established their own unique sound by fusing the musical styles of Mediterranean and Balkan traditions with hip-hop and dancehall beats.
Wendy Carlos (b. 1939) is an American composer and electronic musician. Carlos first came to notice in the late 1960s with recordings made on the Moog synthesizer, then a relatively new and unknown instrument; most notable were LPs of synthesized Bach and the soundtrack for Stanley Kubrick’s film ‘A Clockwork Orange.’ Although the first Carlos Moog albums were interpretations of the works of classical composers, she later resumed releasing original compositions.
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Arzell ‘Z. Z.’ Hill (1935 – 1984) was an American blues singer, in the soul blues tradition, known for his 1970s and 1980s recordings for Malaco. His 1982 album, Down Home, stayed on the Billboard soul album chart for nearly two years. The track ‘Down Home Blues’ has been called the best-known blues song of the 1980s. This track plus the songs ‘Taxi,’ ‘Someone Else Is Steppin’ In,’ and ‘Open House’ have become R&B/Southern soul standards
ZZ Top is an American rock band, sometimes referred to as ‘That Little Ol’ Band from Texas.’ Their style, which is rooted in the blues, has come to incorporate elements of arena, Southern, and boogie rock. The band is from Houston, Texas, formed in 1969. Musician Billy Gibbons and drummer Dan Mitchell, originally in a band called the ‘Moving Sidewalks,’ got together with bassist Lanier Greig, forming ZZ Top. In 1969, Greig and Mitchell were replaced by Dusty Hill and Frank Beard from the band ‘American Blues.’
They were signed to London Records in 1970 and released several albums. After years of touring, the band went on a two-year break in 1977, which resulted in Gibbons and Hill growing chest-length beards. The band’s name was rumored to have derived from Zig-Zag and TOP rolling papers. Gibbons, however it actually refers to an apartment Gibbons lived in, with a row of flyers on a wall, including Z. Z. Hill and B.B. King posters. Coming to the conclusion that B.B. King was on the ‘top,’ Gibbons settled with the name ‘ZZ Top.’
Gil Scott-Heron (b. 1949) is an American poet, musician, and author known primarily for his late 1970s and early 1980s work as a spoken word performer and his collaborative soul works with musician Brian Jackson, which featured a musical fusion of jazz, blues and soul music, as well as lyrical content concerning social and political issues of the time, delivered in both rapping and melismatic vocal styles by Scott-Heron.
The music of these albums, most notably ‘Pieces of a Man’ and ‘Winter in America’ in the early 1970s, influenced and helped engender later African-American music genres such as hip hop and neo soul. Scott-Heron’s recording work is often associated with black militant activism and has received much critical acclaim for one of his most well-known compositions ‘The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.’
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