TRMW Archives

* Hello there! You've stumbled onto the archived bloggage of TRMW aka The Real Matt Wright (wait... who?). This site contains posts from my stints blogging at Metempsychosis and Urban Honking, before I moved TRMW over to it's current home. Enjoy!

June 30, 2005

P*L*U*R 2: Invasion 503

Just discovered my other homeslice Connie Wohn’s DJ collective thingy, Styulus503, has gone live on the interweb. Pretty slick site, nice design, tho I’m a little-bit-a-lot hateful of content-less entry pages with pop-ups for the main site. The crew is TIGHT tho: DJ Beyonda (rulz), DJ Rev Shines from the Lifesavas, DJ Safi aka Shayla from Urban Honking (holla!), DJ Anjali + Incredible Kid, DJ Stay in School aka my man Martín from college dropping funky breaks, the one and only Chris Funk from Decemberists and such: this is clearly the preeminent DJ posse in this little town*, and who better to book/organize the thing than Connie. Seriously, she is one of the raddest, sweetest people running round this cozy/claustro PDX music biz/scene, and I wish her and hers all the luck in the cosmos.

* No disrespect to the many other rad DJs around, this is just the only “collective” I know of, so it is the best. Deejays P.Disco, Nightschool, DTFM / Beat Officer, Corban Lester, Brokenwindow, Tiger Stripes, Teenage, Wicked, Izm, PRA get nuff respect from the TRMW plus plus on the realness.**

** please god say it sounds cool when i type like that

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P*L*U*R

Homeslice Michaelangelo Matos has a really wonderful post up today. Got me all nostalgic and teary-eyed for my brief, totally amazing rave-going experience. I’m gonna have to bust out those trance mixtapes soon… if I had a tape player.

Also, super nice guy and popfest volunteer Brent Bell just started up a blog. He’s off to a good start already, connecting dots between Chekhov (whoever that is) and proper non-diaristic blog practice.

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June 28, 2005

Dirty Projectors, E*rock, World, The Wind Up Bird, DJ Totally Cutie, Holocene, 6/14

[This post originally appeared on Team Tinnitus]

world

world by daniel

erock

e*rock by daniel

dirtyprojectors

dirty projectors by daniel

I’m super late on this so let me just say this: sometimes you go to a show and you don’t really know what you’re gonna see, and sometimes you end up with your mouth open going “holy sheezus, what IS this?” and proceed to be totally enthralled for (almost) the entire set (my attention span is flimsy). Dirty Projectors did that for me. I’d been prepared for greatness, but like any jaded person-who-goes-to-hella-shows I wasn’t totally buying it.

So I was floored. The music was alien and fascinating; the video gave me chills. The sound is totally unique: a mix of vintage crooner vibes, afropop sunny funk, and Bjork-ian epic weirdness. The band was huge and pumped: upright bass, drums, female backround singers (!!!), synth, other things I forget. It was ambitious and successful.

At one point the singers were holding out a tone and all of sudden they snapped their heads back like rag dolls and slid the notes UP. That was the coolest thing I’ve seen at a show in a long time. That ruled!

Other notes:

  • Wind Up Bird was INTENSE. One guy sitting on the floor with his laptop playing beautiful ambient music that slowly morphed into primal scream/drone therapy. That should’ve been my first clue. He later appeared in the Dirty Ps.
  • I thought I’d seen World before but I think I was wrong. They were totally good too. At one point the video was projecting a disembodied head onto Honey’s sternum. It looked like she had a tiny, evil second head. TRIP.
  • E*rock‘s new jamz are awesome. Totally spazzy dance stuff that hits on this exciting emerging intersection between weird electro stuff and house. The first track had a barking MC sample that built the beat up until you were begging for more of that clipped funky beatness, and then you got it, and it was rad. I hope that gets pressed on vinyl, cuz I’d totally spin that shit.
  • DJ Hot Air Balloon aka DJ Totally Cutie played the entirety of R.Kelly’s “Trapped in the Closet” and it was suitably epic. He also played lotsa chopped ‘n’ screwed Houston rap. He was totally a cutie.

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June 27, 2005

Boomerang Bling

Yesterday I got an e-mail from Scott (i don’t normally refer to people you probably don’t know by first name like that actually it’s a major blog peeve of mine but my brain feels like mush so there it is) asking me to forward a press release to my press peeps. I open it up and it’s got pictures in it and one of them is this

front_grills

which is wierd because when I was down in San Francisco for Emily’s wedding a little while ago I stayed with Kristen’s friend Dru and that very same picture was hanging in the bathroom. I thought she took it, but I guess not. I don’t know what this means. What I do know is that the world feels like a closed loop sometimes. Things I see/say/hear reappear in strange places. It’s exciting and scary.

Anyway the photo is by this guy Gavin Stevens and there will be an art show at Holocene with more of them. Looks to be a very cool thing. This whole “art at holocene” thing is rad.

***

front_grills_back

***

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
HOLOCENE ARTS FIRST FRIDAY
July 1, 2005

Holocene, in conjunction with Central Eastside Arts District (CEAD) and First Friday, will exhibit New York artist Gavin Stevens.

Gavin Stevens is a 25 year-old photographer living in Queens, New York. He received his BFA from the California College of the Arts in Oakland, CA and is currently the photo editor of Mass Appeal magazine. Gavin’s work has been exhibited at San Francisco’s Factory Gallery, Oakland’s Ego Trip Gallery, North Gallery and Swallow Tail Gallery, Grand Rapids, MI’s Urban Institute of Contemporary Art, and is often featured in Mass Appeal.

Prior to Gavin’s move to New York City he was the manager of San Francisco’s notorious gold front retail outlet, “Mr. Bling.” Over his three-year period of employment he took hundreds of promotional portraits of the store’s clientele. Word spread and front bearers throughout the Bay Area began to approach him to be included in Mr. Bling’s marketing campaign.

“Custom Fit,” 12 color prints, is a series of images of Mr. Bling’s clientele and environment. Unlike the general mass media depiction of gold front wearing people as criminals, Gavin has documented his subjects honestly, intimately, and ultimately, as individuals. Some he represents humorously, others stoically, but all, respectively. Other images integrated within the exhibit depict and pronounce Mr. Bling’s as a modern day, popular cultural center within the San Francisco Bay Area. Holocene is excited to bring “Custom Fit” to Portland and the Pacific Northwest for the first time ever July 1, 2005.

An opening reception will be held from 6 to 9pm on July 1st, 2005. Music will be provided by Portland / Florida’s favorite party dj, DJ Sew What.

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June 21, 2005

Tom Cruise Kills Oprah

OMGROTFLMAO!!!

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June 13, 2005

OPP = Other People’s Postcards

postcard front

postcard back

(click to read)

I found this yesterday at Really Good Stuff on Hawthorne. I love looking at other people’s postcards. This one had me from the start – who sends a trippy postcard like this? As it turns out, a pretty trippy and awesome person by the name of John F. Barrett. On June 6th, 1988, John was verging on an awesome summer, couch-surfing in Eugene, putting the money saved on rent towards a motorcycle named Freckle, hitching, staying up all night in in a desperate “probe for truth” with someone named Suzanne, “deriving pleasure” from the first Iron Maiden album, and getting ready to cycle cross the USA. In short: living the dream. John, if you ever find this, email me. I’ve got your life over here, and it’s sounding pretty badass.

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June 10, 2005

Spittin’ Out Pet Sounds (mp3)

Finally listened to Hippocamp Ruins Pet Sounds. My friend Ben from Metempsychosis asked me to participate in this crazy Beach Boys remix project a while ago, but I was too lazy to take part. It ended up rocketing through the blogosphere, landing on Pitchfork, getting way more attention than anyone ever thought it would.

The music itself is mixed; some of the remixes are really cool, some are pretty boring, and some suffer from the IDM producer’s signature problem of focussing too much on production tweaks while clearly being tone deaf.

The version of “Don’t Talk (Put Your Head on Shoulder)” in particular, comes this close to something brilliant, layering Wilson’s pastoral haziness over chopped up ravey arpeggios, but fails by being completely out of tune/sync with those gorgeous vocals. That would be fine if this were the intended effect, but everything else is so perfect… I kinda doubt it.

jerohme spye - don't talk (talk wake walk take)

The standout for me is this totally absurd piece of musical stoopid-geniusness.

kidgloves and autistici - pet sounds (zoophilia)

…and that really just speaks for itself.

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linxxx

This is a bitingly acurate survey of the stupid things people yell at shows, and what they’re actually saying.

This is a video of Javan doing boring things slowly. (see it at the one minute film festival.)

This is adorable. (courtesy of onomato)

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June 9, 2005

Phone Bank Hell vs. Music (Good and Bad)

I finally convinced my wonderful and talented friend Jenny Tatone to start a blog. Named after a Sonic Youth song I don’t know (there are many), Jenny’s blog is about Jenny’s life, which entails working in the horribly pomo “virtual receptionist” field, listening hard and writing well about music, and seeing Marshall Tucker Band with her parents. Of all the music-related blogs out there, I’d say hers is one of the warmest and most human. Music and music writing do not take place in a cardboard box. Jenny’s wielding an exacto knife.

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June 8, 2005

VOTE POP NOW

Javan and I have been sweating out the details on the PDX Pop Now 2005 Festival Voting Form ™ and we’re finally all done. Voting went live this morning (late because I slept in) and runs till the end of the month. It would be awesome if you would vote for the bands you wanna see play the festival this year, and you can do that here. Also check out this rad write-up courtesy of none other than Pitchfork. STOKED!!!

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