Friday, July 31, 2009

WADaBo Calendars -Dance & Drum in Boston (& Cambridge)

So I haven't put this up since June of last year, and their have been some updates. Check out the calendar below, and if you want to subscribe to the calendar via XML, iCAL, or HTML, use the following links.

XML: Please use the following address to access your calendar from other applications. You can copy and paste this into any feed reader:

http://www.google.com/calendar/feeds/r26bktjma8ks5qpi0tia5o9fj8@group.calendar.google.com/public/basic

iCAL: Please use the following address to access your calendar from other applications. You can copy and paste this into any calendar product that supports the iCal format.

http://www.google.com/calendar/ical/r26bktjma8ks5qpi0tia5o9fj8@group.calendar.google.com/public/basic.ics

HTML: Please use the following address to access your calendar in any web browser.

http://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=r26bktjma8ks5qpi0tia5o9fj8%40group.calendar.google.com&ctz=America/New_York

You can embed Google Calendar in your website or blog. Use the google configuration tool to generate the HTML you need.

Monday, July 20, 2009

Used Pontiac Vibe (mine) for Sale? Maybe!

We're thinking about selling a car. . . my car. I love this car, so it's a bit hard for me to contemplate. But really, do we need 2 cars when I live <2 miles from work? So as hard as it is for me to do this - I'm thinking seriously about selling the first new car I've ever bought. I've taken good good care of my Vibe, so I'm looking for a good home for it. I'll throw some pictures of the car up here shortly, but in the meantime, here's the deets. Get in touch if you're interested in seeing it or a test drive. I don't know what I would accept yet for an offer, but I'll edit this post as soon as I do know.

The details:
2003 Pontiac Vibe Sport Wagon 4D
70,000 miles (actually a little less, but we'll round up for the moment)
4-Cylinder 1.8L engine
Automatic Transmission
Front Wheel Drive
Roof Rack
Air Conditioning
Dual Front Air Bags
Power Steering
ABS (4-Wheel)
Cruise Control
Power Door Locks
Power Windows
Tilt Wheel
Alarm
AM/FM Stereo
Single Compact Disc

Values (based on above details)
MSN Autos: $4775 Trade In Value
Kelly Blue Book: Excellent: $7,055; Good: $6,555; Fair: $5,955 (I'd put my car in the "Good" range)

Edmunds.com (who says Vibe is a "used car best bet"):
2003 Pontiac Vibe 4dr Wagon
Private Party Value for "Average Condition"
National Base Price $6,032
Optional Equipment $340
Cruise Control $34
4-Speed Automatic Transmission $160
Power Windows $44
Power Door Locks $38
Anti-Theft Alarm System $64
Color Adjustment
Silver $14
Regional Adjustment
for Zip Code 02145 $-37
Mileage Adjustment
70,000 miles $270
Condition Adjustment
Average $-1,330
Total $5,289


Private Party Value for "Clean Condition"
National Base Price $6,032
Optional Equipment $340
Cruise Control $34
4-Speed Automatic Transmission $160
Power Windows $44
Power Door Locks $38
Anti-Theft Alarm System $64
Color Adjustment
Silver $46
Regional Adjustment
for Zip Code 02145 $-37
Mileage Adjustment
70,000 miles $270
Condition Adjustment
Clean $0
Total $6,651

Values searched for on 7/20/09

Sunday, June 14, 2009

I'm a Conde Nast Traveler. Ha!


So I just submitted a photo to a Conde Nast contest. A condenastest? Anyway, . . . I probably don't fit the typical profile of their travelers, so I submitted a photo that probably doesn't fit their typical photo profile. Here is text I submitted along with it:

The first night of our honeymoon. A small restaurant in the heart of the old city in Lisbon. A rotating cast of local amazing Fado singers and two wonderful guitarists. Hours of unexpected flavors, sounds, and ambiance, both culinary and musical. While this is not a traditionally "great vacation" photograph of flowers, buildings, landscape - this photograph sums up some of what we experienced in this moment. Towards the end of dinner, the lights were dimmed, the doors closed, and the music began. Over the next few hours and glasses of port, we knew that we were in a transformative environment to match our recent transformation to married couple. This is the best of travel - great music, food, meeting locals, and learning about ones self. The photograph captures the musicians (singer standing behind guitar player on right), the view we had out the door, and of course a bottle in the foreground.

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Coumba Sidibe 1959 - 2009

. . . has passed to the ancestors.

I got the call with the sad news from a Malian friend today. Coumba was a pioneer, one of the women who helped create what we now know as the Wassoulou style of music. In the 60s and 70s in Mali, music in the Wassoulou region was transforming from sacred and traditional to the popular front, with that transition being led by female singers including Coumba and mali n'goni players who transformed that instrument from 4 strings (doson'goni) to 6 strings (kameln'goni).

I first met Coumba through a friend Mamadou Sidibe, a n'goni player who was living in NYC at the time. He introduced me to Coumba, and with the assistance of Moussa Traore, I produced/promoted/managed a show for Coumba in Cambridge, MA. The show was amazing, and featured Ramata Diakite on backing vocals for Coumba. Mamadou had initially come to the US with Coumba, and for that reason alone, I am grateful to Coumba. However, further, Coumba opened up the path for artists like Ramata Diakite and Oumou Sangare, and now generations of female singers to rise in Mali.

Coumba had been brought back to the front of my mind in late April when some filmmakers sought me out to find Coumba. I sincerely hope that they were able to find her, and talk with her, and film her before she passed. Too often it seems that artists only get their due after they have passed.

Megan Romer has a nice write-up as does Banning Eyre of Afropop Worldwide. Apparently the radio in Mali is all abuzz with the news and playing her music. In that vein - some video below (i'll try and dig up audio from that show in cambridge and/or find my CDs of hers and rip them).

Coumba - Thank You, may your transition to the ancestors be easy, may you continue to lead, may you not be forgotten, and may you rest in peace.







mp3 Downloads from Amazon

mp3 Downloads from eMusic

mp3s from LimeWire Store


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From Coumba's bio I wrote up for the show in Cambridge:

Coumba Sidibé was born in 1959 in the Wassoulou region of Mali, West Africa in the village of Koniko. She was born to family of singers and dancers. Her grandparents were some of the most famous singers in the region, and her father was a famous dancer of the Sokomkou masks and secret societies.

When she was 8, Coumba sang in place of her mother at a wedding. Even at this early age, her talent and musicianship was apparent. From this point forward, she was a regular at weddings and other cultural ceremonies. From 1974 until 1977 (from the ages of 15 to 18) she won “Best Female Vocalist” in the National Competitions held in Mali’s capital, Bamako.

She then shifted her attention to a group setting, and became a member of the Ensemble Instrumental National du Mali. Coumba also started performing as the lead singer of her own group in the early 1980’s.

Coumba’s first album was the highest selling album ever in Africa for a female vocalist. Coumba’s significant touring in support of this and subsequent albums brought Wassoulou music and its distinct singing style to the forefront of the world music scene in Africa, Europe and the United States. After a worldwide tour of almost 10 years, Coumba settled down to tour exclusively in France for a number of years. She has since been performing and raising a family in Mali and New York City.

As Wassoulou music has swept across the globe, legendary singers have followed in the footsteps of Coumba, with Oumou Sangare and Ramata Diakité among those citing Coumba’s work and dedication in their own success.

To say that Coumba Sidibé is a legend does not capture the range and depth of her impact. Her robust, tenor vocal stylings brought Mali to the rest of the world.

Other Links:

Thursday, March 19, 2009

sadness. . .

sadness for someone i never knew.
backstory in link or here.
for more:
kate's photo album

and
kate's blog

Public Art

Worth reposting in total I think is Jill Medvedow's (the director of the ICA) response to the puritanistic response by many vocal old windbags to Shepard Fairey and his arrest. Such idiocy and a waste of public money. Let's get on with our lives, we have many more issues to deal with here in good ol corrupt Boston. And let's see more graffiti all over! Lively up the public sphere!

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A Message from Jill Medvedow, Director, Boston ICA
Shepard Faireyʼs art and arrest have exposed the nerve endings of longtime issues regarding public space, graffiti, fair use and copyright and launched us into a culture war of our own right here in Boston. The ICA mounted a major exhibition of Shepard Fairey because his artwork is powerful, commanding, and important. Fairey combines strong imagery with abstract pattern and design, and draws on artistic traditions as diverse and historic as Art Nouveau, Islamic abstraction, Cubism, Constructivism, and the great graphic artists and muralists of the Soviet Union and Latin America. Record numbers of people, including teens and young adults are responding enthusiastically to his art, his energy and the ideas and images heʼs created for public consumption.

As a street artist, Faireyʼs stunning graphics have been presented on city walls, and other public places. To ensure that Boston audiences could experience Faireyʼs street art, the ICA worked with both public and private individuals and institutions to provide several sanctioned spaces for Faireyʼs murals and banners: City Hall Plaza; the House of Blues; the A Street diner, Tufts University, and private homeowners, all of whom granted permission.

In Boston, Fairey did not need to resort to postering without consent. Still, consent is one of the key issues addressed in Faireyʼs art. We are constantly bombarded by unwanted images in the public sphere. These images – wrapped on buses and billboards, for example – are based on an exchange between corporations buying and selling space in the public domain. When a private entity purchases that space in the realm of commerce, it is deemed acceptable. Fairey, with his ironic and iconic OBEY brand, asks us to question that exchange. He is, in fact, breaking the bond of consent to ask where the room is for public consumption of non-commercial images? And who gets to set that agenda?

Consent also relates to Faireyʼs use of existing photographs in his work, including his transformation of the now iconic photograph of Obama, taken by an Associated Press photographer. Appropriation is a long-standing artistic strategy, used by artists as diverse as Picasso and Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, Jeff Koons, and Richard Prince. Standing in front of the layered, mixed media portrait of Obama hanging in the ICA, one is unmistakably looking at a work of art by Shepard Fairey. His transformation of the original photograph includes digital manipulation, cropping, collage, color, the addition of text, and an intricate use of layering, pattern, logos and design. Artistic transformation is the ethical and legal difference between plagiarism and art.

The vitriolic and knee jerk reaction that all graffiti is the same, that it all contributes to the defacement of our urban environment, and that it is equivalent, according to Boston Globe columnist Kevin Cullen, “to relieving oneself on someoneʼs private lawn” uses stereotypes to incite resentment, stirring up a backwards-looking sense of us and them and widening the generational divide. Two tickets are waiting in Cullenʼs name at the ICA so he can see Faireyʼs work, hopefully with an open mind.

Since the arrest, Iʼve been asked numerous times if I would like to come home and find my house or our museum covered with graffiti. I would not like that, nor do I wish that experience on others. Shepard Fairey didnʼt and doesnʼt put his art on peopleʼs homes or on public institutions; his work is primarily on abandoned buildings and derelict sites and many, if not most people, see them as a positive contribution to the visual urban landscape. What Shepard Fairey does do, however, is raise important and loaded questions about the balance between public and private space; about youth and age; about dissemination and distribution of art and imagery in a digital era; about sampling, ownership, intellectual property and fair use. More public space should be public, not privatized. Fair use must extend to artistic intention and transformation. Is it possible to debate and discuss these timely and relevant issues without polarizing neighborhoods and generations? When news of Faireyʼs arrest was reported nationwide and internationally, the response was: what do you expect from Boston? I, for one, expect better.

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

globalistas and transculture

So this article is a nice follow-up to K'naan's album. I'm sure myself and many many others in the world/global/whatever music sphere are posting/reposting this today. It is a great article, cites some great music, and links to some of the best blogs (imho). Excellent. All this makes me wonder if Canada will lead the way for us as we explore how to mix cultures/races/histories in a respectful, vibrant, and real way. Tough for all Americans, but especially for those of us in the boston area where everything is broken up (not quite ghetto-ized), but where everything has its place and borders/boundaries are rarely crossed.

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

K'naan's new joint

I met K'naan and his manager Sol at the UN-Habitat Hip Hop Summit in South Africa. Good guys doing good work. Check their new joint, out today. I'm listening to it on Lala, but pick it up anywhere you can. This is a great example, imho, of how to do hip hop in your own way, bringing in influences from different places, but maintaining quality. All too often, heads doing hip hop in different places bring in funky stuff, but lose the quality. Keep the quality, bring the tight rhymes, the dope beats, and people will pay you to keep performing and recording.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Ghetto Ruff wizes up

After many years, Ghetto Ruff has wized up. Many years ago, I signed them up to a digital distribution deal on Calabash Music. For many years Calabash was the only place outside of South Africa anyone could get their GREAT music. Now, only a short time after their music has "disappeared" from Calabash (Mondomix has not yet picked up the license), they have appeared on eMusic. Excellent. 3 albums up, many many more to come.

Sunday, February 08, 2009

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

new design

so i finally upgraded to the new templates, which look exactly like the old ones, but worse. so now i have to sort out if i want to fix this by getting new background images, or migrating this to wordpress, or taking some other action to get it working in blogger. oy. i already made the following changes to the template:
740 - 940 outer wrapper
485 - 585 main wrap1
240 - 340 side wrap

this solved the problem of scrunching the NPR widget on the right, but otherwise it looks awful.
ideas?