moby to play on the road

Not too long after trumpeting his return to the DJ booth, Moby is back to his band set-up for a summer and fall tour in support of his latest long-player, Wait for Me. The bald one states on his site that he'll be joined on-stage by Kelli Scarr, an "additional drummer," and a bassist and violinist. The North American dates:

09-17 Baltimore, MD - Ram's Head Live
09-18 Washington, DC - 9:30 Club
09-20 Philadelphia, PA - TLA
09-21 New York, NY - Irving Plaza
09-24 Boston, MA - House of Blues
09-29 Detroit, MI - St. Andrew's Hall
09-30 Chicago, IL - Vic Theatre
10-01 St. Paul, MN - Myth
10-03 Houston, TX - Warehouse
10-04 Dallas, TX - Palladium
10-12 San Diego, CA - House Of Blues
10-14 Los Angeles, CA - The Wiltern
10-15 San Francisco, CA - Warfield Theatre
10-18 Seattle, WA - The Showbox
10-19 Portland, OR - Crystal Ballroom

Tix.

trance jam band reviewed

New York Times pop critic Jon Pareles reviews a live show by British trance jam band Younger Brother, noting on Sunday that "jam bands and the trance-music branch of electronica share a fondness for open-ended marathon dancing, fluorescent colors and neo-hippie fashion."

Indeed, I think I've made a similar point: The Burning Man crowd and the psychedelic trance acts that feed it (STS9, Infected Mushroom, et. al.) seem to have replaced the Grateful Dead circuit, at least out west.

Pareles writes that "replacing machines with human muscle has hurled Younger Brother backward along rock’s timeline, toward the post-psychedelic early 1970s ... But the music has also grown more human, approachable, dynamic ..."

(Eh, sorry Pareles -- I admire your work -- but this is a typical rock critic's reaction to electronic dance music: The more band-like it gets, the better it is. In other words, the more it conforms to a 1960s aesthetic -- white guys with guitars -- the more it is "real" and authentic. I'll continue to argue that the further we get from the Elvis stance, the more music will evolve).

new l.a. club debuts

The Los Angeles Times today takes a look at the latest Hollywood Boulevard sensation, Playhouse, noting that a pre-opening drew so many people that police had to clear the street. The story contains a lot of hyperbolous quotes, almost all from people who have something to gain from the endeavor, which occupies a former theater called the Fox.

I'm not too hopeful about this place in terms of dance music (although it is promoting a "Dirty Sexy House" night -- how original! -- Fridays). Though it's stated that it cost $6 million to open, there's nary a mention of what kind of sound system it has or whether quality DJs will be involved on a regular basis. Rather, the buzz seems to be about how its bartenders dance (Coyote Ugly style?) and how it's going to bring a Vegas vibe to the scene (great). It looks somewhat like a Disneyland-ish theme club through this kind of prism (and boy, the boulevard could use more cheese), but I guess I'll have to see for myself some time.

The piece also notes that one of Playhouse's parnters is turning Nacional and adjacent Holly's into a club called 77 with the disco-ish theme of 1977. No word on whether the core DJ night at Nacional, Monday Social, will stick around to see that.
[Los Angeles Times photo by Jay L. Clendenin].

l.a. gets convention-al

Los Angeles techno promoter Robtronik, a.k.a. Robert Pointer, plans to capitalize on the booming buzz for the genre in the city by organizing a festival he's calling Convention. It's set to happen Sept. 18-20 at locales throughout L.A. Juan Atkins, Paco Osuna, Misstress Barbara, Joel Mull, Stacey Pullen and others have signed up as talkent. The event will take cues from Sonar, Movement and Mutek, according to a statement.

freeland speaks on b.e.p., new album

In today's LA Weekly online I catch up with Adam Freeland, whose Freeland band just released the album Cope. He speaks about the Black Eyed Peas' apparent use of the album cut "Mancry" on its "Party All The Time," saying, "Just listen to our track 'Mancry' and listen to their 'Party All The Time' and draw you own conclusion.

More from the Q&A.

deadmau5 releasing new album

Dance music sensation Deadmau5 has a new album, For Lack Of A Better Name, hitting retailers Sept. 22 via Ultra Records. The long-player will feature the track "Ghosts 'N' Stuff," featuring Pendulum’s Rob Swire, as well as the title track. More song info will be released at a later time.

Mr. Mau5, already a touring force, will launch a tour to support the album in fall. His rest-of-'09 DJ schedule follows:

Sun 8/2 Wasaga Beach, ON The Dome
Wed 8/5 Niagara Falls, ON Dragonfly
Fri 8/7 Baltimore, MD Rams Head Live
Sat 8/8 Miami Beach, FL Mansion Night Club
Sun 8/9 Chicago, IL Grant Park - Lollapalooza
Wed 9/2 Aspen, CO Belly Up Aspen
Thu 9/3 Charlotte, NC The Forum
Fri 9/4 San Juan, PR The Arena at Pier 10
Sat 9/5 New York, NY Randalls Island – Electric Zoo
Sun 9/6 El Paso, TX Club 101
Mon 9/7 Las Vegas, NV MGM Grand Hotel & Casino

The ‘For Lack Of A Better Name’ world tour dates in North America are:

Wed 9/23 Ottawa, ON Ritual
Thu 9/24 Quebec City Dagobert Night Club
Fri 9/25 Montreal, QC Metropolis
Sat 9/26 Toronto, ON The Guvernment
Tue 9/29 Winnipeg, MB Republic Nightclub
Wed 9/30 Calgary, AB Flames Central
Thu 10/1 Edmonton, AB Edmonton Edmonton Events Centre
Sat 10/3 Seattle, WA Showbox at the SODO
Wed 10/28 Portland, OR Roseland Theater
Thu 10/29 San Francisco, CA Grand Ballroom
Sat 10/31 Los Angeles, CA HARD @ The Forum
Sun 11/1 San Diego, CA House of Blues
Mon 11/2 Tempe, AZ Marquee Theatre
Wed 11/4 Denver, CO The Ogden
Fri 11/6 Dallas, TX House of Blues
Sat 11/7 Austin, TX Stubb's Waller Creek Amphitheatre
Sun 11/8 Houston, TX House of Blues
Tue 11/10 Little Rock, AR The Village
Wed 11/11 New Orleans, LA House of Blues
Thu 11/12 Orlando, FL House of Blues
Fri 11/13 Ft. Lauderdale, FL Revolution
Sun 11/15 Tampa, FL The Ritz
Tue 11/17 Atlanta, GA The Masquerade
Wed 11/18 Asheville, NC The Orange Peel
Thu 11/19 Nashville, TN Limelight
Sat 11/21 Detroit, MI The Fillmore
Sun 11/22 Philadelphia, PA TLA
Mon 11/23 Washington, DC 9:30 Club
Tue 11/24 Boston, MA Roxy Boston

autotune in the spotlight

PBS show Nova takes a look at the science behind autotune music, and notes that the technology -- widely used in-studio and even live -- had its coming out with Cher's trancey, 1998 hit "Believe."

It appears to me that Daft Punk was using similar technology on tracks like "Around the World" in the mid-1990s, the Prodigy was laying it down in the early '90s with songs such as "Out of Space" -- although they didn't seem to have pitch correction back then -- and even such talk box taples as Zapp's "More Bounce to the Ounce" (1980) and Kraftwerk's "Autobahn" (1973) were tweaking vocals in a similar manner before the computer-recording era. Feel free to add your own recollections of vocal tweakery in the comments.

[Spotted at Entertainment Weekly].

did b.e.p. rip off freeland?

URB magazine and music industry veteran Todd Roberts asks aloud if the Black Eyed Peas sampled (without clearance) Freeland's "Mancry," off his latest, Cope, for its "Party All The Time," off their chart topping dance album, The E.N.D.

barcelona takes on miami

Barcelona Summer Week is being marketed as an alternative to the Winter Music Conference this year. The festivities Aug. 3-9 include scheduled performances by Tiësto, David Guetta, Layo & Bushwacka!, Erick Morillo, Armin Van Buuren, Sander Kleinenberg and Fedde Le Grand. They're expecting 50,000 people. Info.

remembering jackson's 'soul makossa' moment

New Yorker magazine staff writer (and former New York Times pop critic) Kelefa Sanneh makes a keen connection between Michael Jackson and core, 1970s dance music, noting the king of pop's liberal use of Manu Dibango's "Soul Makossa" on his "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin,'" especially heard in the chant, "Ma ma se, ma ma sa, ma ma coo sa." In fact, Dibango, who was not origially credited on the Jackson track, ended up getting some compensation.

Released in 1972 as a b-side, "Soul Makossa" was perhaps the most-influential proto-disco track of the early '70s -- a staple at such pre-house happenings as David Mancuso's Loft parties. It's great to see Sanneh making the connection between the cradle of modern club culture and the world's best-selling studio album (Thriller).

gus gus goes kompakt

GusGus's sixth album, titled 24/7, goes to Berlin's zeitgeist-surfing Kompakt label for a Sept. 15 (stateside; Sept. 14 rest-of-world) release, a publicist for the band announced. The fresh long-player will hail the act's "new experience in sound and vision brought forth by Daníel Ágúst, President Bongo and Veiran." The brief track list:

1. Thin Ice
2. Hateful
3. On The Job
4. Take Me Baby – Feat. Jimi Tenor
5. Bremen Cowboy
6. Add This Song

[Above: Cover art for 24/7].