Of Movies And Music

Watched Jim Jarmusch's Broken Flowers the other day and loved it. I have avoided that movie for awhile since I was feeling sore for him dropping me last minute to have "a friend" spin at the production end's party some years ago. Bruised egos aside, a fantastic movie written it would seem almost as an appendix to an even better soundtrack. Then two days later I run across this:

Inexplicably, it is the second least watched video of the David Byrne's Luaka Bop label archives. The least watched? A short documentary (doubling as a compilation promo) on the mangue beat scene in Brazil's Pernambuco state. Most watched? Anna Karina dancing in perfect time to a Nouvelle Vague song - the scene is taken from Godard's Bande à part, which happens to be the title of the band's 2006 album from which the song is taken - wrap your brains around the game of signifiers while you watch this:

1 assistant professor of English and film studies at Bucknell
University (Eric Faden)
+
7 of his students
+
8 months of editing videos (some of them retelling stories collected and published by 2 German brothers many years ago)

=

This weekend I'm off to Steel City to do a gig with Slavic Soul Party! at Pete's Pandemic event:


Naturally it is one of the best weekends not to leave the city: the first NYC dance parade is taking place during the day ("Salsa, Contra, Disco, Clogging, Ballroom, Irish Step, Hip Hop, Swing, Tango, Ballet, Break dance, Japanese, Sufi, Samba and more" boasts their website) with a lineup of DJs to rock your socks off including Timeblind. Meanwhile some of the best producers and studio engineers will be delivering their treasures for free at the Remix Hotel. To wrap it up Kode9, Shackelton and (my personal favorite) Badawi will wage the DubWar.

So how, you ask, do I manage to still convince myself to take the plane? Two reasons: seeing the city from above

and seeing the airport on the way back knowing that
Monday is DeepSpace with Kode9 and Dub Gabriel.

Chuck Cheese's submission to the Balkan Beat Box remix contest - some sick grime beats, dash of favela funk and all sorts of other goodies: