MIDWEST – The Week In Review!!!
The Week in Review
Holy Hot Dammm, we just stormed through the Midwest like a tornado, and i want to recap. THANKS FOR SUCH AWESOME TURNOUTS EVERY NIGHT!
First off, Thursday night in St Louis…all ages. I start getting heads up from my tour managers that it is FULL ON blast to the past Rave-Days, and when i showed up there were literally hundreds of kids with glowing regalia, glow sticks, it was bananas. I got there as Mochipet went on, in his purple dinosaur costume, and it reminded me of when i used to work as Barney, The Purple Dinosaur, at little kids’ birthday parties in San Jose, back when i was in college. I always wanted to play a set in it, but it was sooooo hot inside that thing…there was no way.
So Mochipet is THE MAN, and his beats were off the chain. Then Dylan cranked up the Wobble Factory, we had the stage RAMMED with speakers and my eyeballs started to shake and my mouse stopped working cuz of the vibrations… kids went bonkers and it was an epic night.
BWAMP!!!!!
Onward to Lincoln, mu-fuckn Nebraskaaaa. First night kicking off their new venue, the Bourbon Theatre…it was sold out to the gills, just ramm ramm rammmmed and i was covered in sweat before i even started playing. My man Jesse Jackson was in the house and we got all crunk before the show, and after the show, and during the show, and i looked up and there was like a row of girls, 2 deep, along the front of the stage all humping the Wobble Factory Subs…i thought they were gonna get ejected, but the crowd kind of just merged from the dancefloor to the subs and we went with it. Super smooth and super fun!
Then Saturday i woke up in Minnesota, at the Bella Madre Festival… lots of hippies. It looked like a grateful dead lot… i was immediately nervous like what are we doing here, our sound is going to crush them! should i throw together some jam band remixes? i dont even like jam band music! But sure enough, these kids were off the hook… it was AWESOME!!!!! a good 4000 nutters all rammed up to the stage for the first song, and they throbbed along like pro-FESH-unnalzz! (it is a testament to how hard my kru raged both in lincoln and bella, cuz we got ZERO footage!)
We were about an hour and a quarter deep into the set when all of a sudden my leg hair stopped moving and i was like “Some Body Dun TURNED OFF THE SUBS!!!!” Next thing i know, Elliott comez up and sez “The Cops are here dood. They’re pissed.” Then i find out its the farmers surrounding the property and they WERE NOT HAVING IT.
So We were too loud for the crowd…but that crowd was off the hook, and WE WILL BE BACK!!!!! As soon as possible (heartfelt thanks for your open minds, can’t wait to get round 2 with you all!)
So we kept our fingers crossed that we would get out of there without getting pulled over on our way out, and sure enough we got through hassle free. I fell asleep and woke up outside Chicago at SUMMER CAMP.
Holy moly, that place was HOT, and packed.
We had to play this goofy stage sponsored by “Jaegermeister” which wouldnt have been that bad if they just put up a stage, but they LITTERED every freaking INCH of it with “Jeagermeister” banners…
i was thinking “Guys! Dont be so DESPERATE! you gotta tease us a little! One Banner is enough! you do not need 87!”
But sure enough there were 8 billion massive Jagermesiter signs….enough for every starving child in Ethiopia to turn into a blanket, but anyways, as we started playing the place just PACKED OUT, and i got super inspired…i had expected kind of a low turnout cuz it was the day time, but sure enough it was freaks as far as my little eyes could see.
At one point i felt like paying homage to the ever sarcastically ironic Stephen Colbert, and kind of endorsing Jaegermesiter….
AS IF THEY NEEDED NINE MILLION BANNERS…i mean we GOT THE POINT from the big overhead Jaegermesiter sign, guys! we dont need you to put up anymore.
So i kind of took the piss out of the whole thing on the mic
now i do not beleive in religious gods…or spirits, or anything phony like that. But i think the gods of jager crept into the stage to avenge themselves, because moments after i said that, i was bouncing around like a freakin hyena on the stage loosing my mind and WHAM!!!!
My whole table crashes to the floor, sound shuts of, computer smashes to the ground.
Of course, as always i had a CDJ there for back up, and i threw on a tune and laughed with the crowd, and we got everything back up and running and it was DANDY! kind of cute even.
Lasted us through the mega hot late night as well, and i thought we were home free.
Then Detroit. Monday night, closing out the Detroit Electronic Music Festival, MOVEMENT 2009, and my VERY FIRST SONG, the computer crashes.
i was just about to hit those folks with the WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE…oh LAWD i wanted to CRUSH DEMMMM!!!!!
What followed was one of the most voracious technical nightmares of my life, 2 laptops, a hardrive, 3 sound cards, literally FORTY FIVE MINUTES of pure insanity, blood racing, like WHAT! THE! F*CK! AM! I! GOING! TO! DO!>!>!?!
Nothing was loading, it was all just dead dead dead, and of course meanwhile, i have half the world’s photographers ALL over the stage, straight photo shooting me in COMPLETE scramble mode…
i dug into my bag, for a zip lock baggie of scratched up CDs i had not used since Burningman 2008… they were all mislabeled, out of order, just NONSENSE, and i start beatmatching away, which is a simple task really, but not where you are COMPLETELY FOCUSED on basically being LIVE TECHNICAL SUPPORT!
So as i mixed into tracks on the CD turntables, we hammered away, giving LIVE TECHNICAL SUPPORT STAGE SHOW 2009 to DEMF and i was literally at the end of my rope when POOF!
It all switched on, fixed up, the gods of Jager released my fromt heir punishing jaws and we proceeded to straight
SLLLLAYYYYY MICHIGAN’S FAAAAAACE
Oh Lord, that was so effing HOT!
I want to thank each and every creature and body for coming out, bouncing, jumping, screaming, surfing, diving, crashing, dancing, swatting, and completely soaking up the sound waves this past week
tomorrow night is Los Angeles, and then its basically 1 or more festivals a week until Fall.
LOTS OF LOVE TO YOU ALL!!!!!!
God Bless The Machines.
L
ROTHBURY
ROTHBURY
Hey all
So after SOOOOOOOOO MUCH uproar about Rothbury, and SO MANY questions, i figured i would send out a note, as to why Bassnectar is not at Rothbury this year.
I don’t think anybody in upper management (which is where most of these things are handled…while the artists either go bezerk in the studio or melt themselves down into throbbing human mush on the road) understood what i, and the Bassnectar crew, tried to explain: that there was an EXTRA ORDINARY demand for BN musica at Rothbury. I think they thought it was just another rad festival, and like most festivals, you play a year, you take one off, you play again the next year, etc.
I knew from the second the music started last year, with the Not In Our Name intro, that Rothbury was something REALLY special.
All throughout the fall, so many wonderful people spoke from the heart about their connections to Bassnectar through Rothbury, and i not only wanted to PLAY again in 2009, i wanted to set up a full on Bassnectar Zone, and bring all my favorite artists from around the world to throw down in one place.
I presented this idea last summer, and several times since, and i probably asked over 100 times to play at Rothbury ’09.
But when all was said and done, for MANY reasons (none of which are underhanded whatsoever!) it was decided (without me) that Bassnectar would sit out a year and CARUSHHH it in 2010 if it happened. We rammed up the Midwest with awesome dates (like Bella Madre, Summer Camp, Detroit Electronic Music Fesitval, and perhaps one of the most exciting events of the year for me: LOLLAPALOOZA!) and basically decided that although we had REALLLLLLLLLY (and i mean REALLLLLLLLY) begged to be there, it was not in the cards for ’09.
After the initial disappointment, i really genuinely let go: we have an absolute CRUSHING list of tour dates…almost every show is SLAMMED shoulder to shoulder with wonderful people, the fall plans are INSANE!!!! (more on that later) and at this point there are only 2 weekends off the entire summer, that i am trying super hard to KEEP OFF so i can have MUCH NEEDED studio time (even though i would have LOVED to have been able to say yes to Bisco!) before the Wildness of Fall comes slamming in, and before we know it will be New Years 2010!!!!!
So to everyone, all the bass-heads, fans, friends, and good people wondering “WHY ARENT YOU AT ROTHBURY!!!?” that is why.
And again, although we REALLLLLLY fuckin wanted to be there, there is SO much in life to be thankful for, and we are grateful and focused on the mega-intense future as it rides towards us on an inevitable wave of enthusiasm!!!!
MUCH LOVE AND RESPECT TO ALL!!
L
CAMPin’ out St. Louis & ROCKin’ Lincoln with CROPS of kids
CAMP- The Community Arts and Media Project
The Community Arts and Media Project of St. Louis is an experience in cultural fusion. These people fight la guerra buena to bring the best in resources- those free and sustainable- to their city. Aside from gallivanting with and reaching out to people with rainbow tiedye bunny ears and rings of glowsticks that make them look like they’re training to join the Pa Dong tribe, these fantastic people find diverse means of empowering their community. In their lives as social activists, CAMP facilitates a gorgeous space and beautiful events to focalize their community on collaborations to improve every aspect of living in St. Louis, whether it be through alternative media, sustainable technology, a free school, a massive zine library (do they have a zine on the Pa Dong?) Anything you can think of because YOU are invited to make it happen.
In fact, it all happens only because of people like you, whether you’re handy with a hammer, have a bike fetish, love to teach, or enjoy webninjaing.
Diverse? Si.
Worthy of your help? Sin duda.
But wait, there’s more…
I read somewhere that your average ten year old has about 10 times the energy necessary to sustain life. Meet an organization that is channeling that 90% of said raw child energy exactly where it is needed: music. The Academy of Rock, our favorite division of the Northeast Family Center, provides a much-needed intensive music program to the K-12 students of Lincoln. Local professional instructors contribute their time and talent to facilitating a ‘band experience’ for kids from all over the Lincoln area.
If we at Bassnectar Labs had only known a little more in advance, you would have had the likes of these kids opening the night. Next time, my friends, come prepared to be converted to the faith that these kids shall inheret the vibrant culture and prowess of artists like Bassnectar.
And YOU can help make it happen. You can help teach these kids music, whether it be rock, hip hop, yodeling, headbangingcrunchywomptastic electronic shenanigans, or something that hasn’t been invented yet. You can run sound, design a shirt for them, have your band play in their class, or volunteer to help out and learn about music yourself. You can help to give them the true band experience of playing a gig if you’re involved with a Lincoln event.
We command unto thee, oh nectarites, bring forth the Bassnectars of the future!
Community CROPS fosters an ideal fusion of community gardens, farmers markets, CSAs, and education about your greens and the greenest ways to get them (fresh from the garden with a lil’ dirt still there- it’s healthy. Lotsa vitamins in dirt! At least, that’s what I tell myself when I don’t wash my biatola…)
But, I digress. If you can’t see it already, CROPS brought us prime examples of the best ways to get involved and independent. Their pictures of happily tanned and healthy people, combined with that glory shot of tomatoes should be all the motivation you could ever need to contact CROPS or your local community garden/CSA project to put your money and your energy where it matters!
I hear that they’re even offering a special discount on green thumb transplants to Bassnectar participants…
UCSC Administration Gettin’ Womped the BAD Way…
The Coalition To Save Community Studies
Welcome, my friends, to activism in action. The 40-year-old Community Studies Major at UCSC is about to be downsized, and we, Bassnectar Labs, will not let the program Lorin got his Bachelor’s Degree from go down without the UCSC bureaucracy gettin’ womped!
(In the bad way.)
The Coalition to Save Community Studies, a student-led group, came to educated, fundraise, and hellraise over the downsizing of a program that, according to its website, “has maintained a focus on identifying, analyzing, and helping to construct sites for social change and cultural transformation.”
Isn’t that exactly what we all need to be learning right now? Sadly, UCSC has decided to stop supporting the programs that really matter. The Coalition asserts that there are many social science programs at UCSC that are hiring new faculty and receiving extra resources. This fact and other lead students to believe that the budget cuts are about more than the money- politics.
These people are working very fast and very effectively to save their department, and we at Bassnectar Labs request your full support, whether it be on the ground at UCSC, through an email, or through addressing a similar travesty in your local community.
Get involved and check out the excellent example these individuals are setting for organizing around what matters.
UCSC administration, our toes cringe at the idea of being in your shoes!
Ffffan Srancisco: How to Give Back (A Guide for the Bassnympho)
KKKAABOOM! Or, Vagaboom to be more exact. We don’t know exactly where they came from, but these lovely ladies seem to have swooped down from the sky to salvage the arts and physical education programs in SF schools utilizing our favorite means: having an awesome time while rockin’ others’ sockz clean off. Vagaboom is on a mission to fuse circus arts, music, theater, acrobalance and stage production with K-8 education. Looking back at our public school experiences, we want to shove these people in a time machine so that they can go back to play with us.
Vagaboom can always use talent and resourceful individuals to further their mission of transforming education into the experience that it should be. Their website is fun for the photos alone. We want to play dress up, too!
San Francisco, meet CELLspace, although we hope you have already. CELLspace is an activist venue, but not in the traditional sense of activism. Instead of protesting, CELLspace offers a space for both at risk youth and artistic adults to gather and create, learn and teach. And, any profits CELLspace gains from events go back into the programs they sponsor. By providing the space for underserved groups to organize and fundraise, meet and create, CELLspace grants greater power and ability to those who would not have it otherwise.
Your mission, FanSRanzowoomparoos? Go to an event at CELLspace and see if you don’t get sucked in to this group like Lorin’s head when we tried to vacuum out the residual headbangs… We promise it will be WAY less painful and much more diverting to tutor, work an event, promote a class, or any other number of opportunities you have to get involved with this space.
Global Exchange is a national organization that puts its roots down into local communities and gets their hands dirty in the soil of our backyards. After working with some of the atrociously articulate affiliates in Eugene, OR, we couldn’t get enough and reached out to see what they were up to a little further South. We were not disappointed in the slightest by what we found.
In partnership with the City College of San Francisco, Global Exchange is connecting city college students to all the resources they require to learn about, contribute to, and work in the green community. Students are granted access to paid internships that facilitate the bridging of the gap economic and the gap social between underrepresented communities and the green future that we all share.
And that’s just a few words on one (sinfully successful) effort.
Tour Update – May 2009
Kaa-BLAM!
Hi-fives, hugs and headbangs to everyone who came through the site and checked out the new features, grabbed the music, and shared the news.
And thanks to all the West Coast freaks that joined us for Round 1 of the Art of Revolution tour. In the first week, well over 7000 bodies from San Diego to Bellingham got an 80hz jolt from the Wobble Factory’s PK sound rig.
Next up: returning home for back-to-back nights in San Francisco and Santa Cruz – extremely overjoyed to get back home and DROP. IT. …Then on to 6 sets in a row in the Midwest, culminating in MOVEMENT: The Detroit Electronic Music Festival, closing out the stage after Flying Lotus, Benga, Busy P and Afrika Bambaataa. Then we jet back down to LA to close out the month alongside our friends and family at The Do Lab. Lots more summer fests being confirmed this week, and setting up the next single for mid summer: BOOMBOX!
After an exclusive sneak preview on Bassnectar.net we are excited to announce the official release of one of our heaviest tunes ever: Art of Revolution, which features the legendary Jamaican vocalist Tappa Zukie and includes massive remixes by Diplo, Ghislain Poirier, 6 Blocc, and Product 01. The single is available in digital and vinyl formats at music.bassnectar.net, as well as through all major music outlets including Beatport, iTunes, Juno Download, and Amazon. The vinyl release will hit stores later next week with limited quantities available, so be sure to stop in and ask for the wax!
Stay tuned for more bootlegs, mixes, and original releases in the coming weeks!
Love and bass,
Bassnectar Labs
Organizations louder than 110 dB in PDX and SEA
In the green, green PDX scene, City Repair was subject to one of the most epic Bassnectar sets I, personally, have ever encountered. And hotdamn did they deserve it! After putting on Portland’s stellar Earth Day Celebration yet again, they are gearing up for a 10 day Village Building Convergence to provide education in permaculture and green building, as well as common ground on which to build community relationships.
Everyone is invited to build, listen, learn, and laugh while collaborating to transform communal spaces.
We say onto thee, oh ye listeners of Bassnectar, bring tha ruckus! Stomp these Portland blocks and leave your mark on your community. We promise you a star on HollyWOMP Bvld.
Seattle- Umojafest Peace Center
In the entranceway to Seattle’s Showbox at the Market, we united with a gaggle of guys and gals driven and dedicated to bringing Seattle the message of the Umojafest Peace Center: Seattle needs real help with violence, and the community is offering it up on a shiny, progressive, silver platter. With a cherry on top! Razpy, Geneiva, and Angel took to the stage opening for Gift of Gab and Bassnectar, and offered us a vision of how Seattle’s youth should be.
The current goal of these young people is a Peace Center, named after a festival that has been happening in the area for over 30 years. They want to transform neighborhoods by teaching audio production, organic gardening, marketing, event production, political advocacy, (we could visually claw your eyes out with this list…) The Umojafest Peace Center, despite battles with the city, lacks in funding, and countless other setbacks, effortlessly teems with lively people driven to make the center fully operational in Summer ‘09. In the face of adversity, they have banded together like the cables connecting Lorin’s laptops and used their difficulties as inspiration to work harder, to write, to dance, to sing, to rap. Umojafest is not only an entity of its own; it is lusciously hopeful tangle of several pillar organizations that have been active and effective for years. These groups work together to create a web of support and, as Monica Mathews, an at-risk youth mentor, says: “ I went there wondering ‘what kind of place is this?’ and found that everything they stood for is already what I wanted to do.”
Bassnectar Labs came unprepared to find an organization so thoroughly doing exactly what we admire most in activism- taking a love (music) and making it do work for you (social change) while having the most excellent time imaginable. Now let me tell you that we gave these kids a hearty womping that night (my earplugs were almost insufficient 70 feet from the stage) but this group deserves much more than the bass.
They want to host more events at the outdoor stage they are creating, they need help with outreach, marketing, graphic design, gardeners, audiophiles, funding, you name it. Here, there is a niche for everyone, even if you do not live in Seattle.
This, mis amigos, is the level where we build a bassquake that will shake down everything extraneous. Those who are taking shelter beware: you will be SQUASHEDDD.
So get out, get active, and stay tuned for when we bring you San Franzzzzzwomparooo!
Five (SUPER)stars for Eugene
Welcome to Eugene, the so-called Anarchist capital of the US. Brace yourselves, because this one was a WHOPPAH- we had five (as in 1.2..3…4….5!) prime organizations in the lovely lobby of the McDonald Theater.
So let’s get crackin’ with…
M.E.C.C.A.- Materials Exchange Center for Community Arts
MECCA brought us both smiling faces and an art show replete with prime examples of community arts programs at their finest. On entering, everyone was greeted by some exceptional art made possible by this volunteer-run program that brings recycled arts education to children and adults through partnerships with schools, workshops, and classes in their wonderfully colorful headquarters.
While the national struggle for Peace and Democracy may sometimes feel like listening to Bassnectar in your grandpa’s 1990 Ford Falcon that he shot through the door speaker when his favorite Tim McGraw song was interrupted, Peaceworks adds a dash of sanity to the struggle. Through facilitating alternative pro-peace media, providing counter-military recruitment, actively engaging the community with speakers and events, and maintaining a positive, locally oriented approach, Peaceworks is one of the most well-known and respected activist organizations in the Eugene community. Their spread at the event was also impressive, with petitions, pamphlets, peace paraphernalia, and a positive outlook courtesy of the idea that peace begins on the individual level, and we all have the ability to effect change on that scale.
Global Exchange is a national organization that fosters the growth of local groups concerned with issues in their backyards. One of the biggest issues in Oregon’s backyard right now is Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) and those who desire to build pipelines for it. Global Exchange steps up not only to educate and protest LNG, but also to help communities plug in to alternative energy through a paid internship program that links up budding alternative energy gurus with local community projects to foster real alternatives to fossil fuel. Perhaps the Wobble Factory should figure out how to harness the heat of a sea of churning bodies to power sound next time…
Victory Gardens offers healthy organic food, community building, exercise, landscaping, education, increased self-sufficiency, and lots of savings on veggies all though their program that links neighbors and gardeners to end the grass oligarchy. Radishes are WAY sexier than grass—didn’t you know?
Whitebird provides health care for many in the Eugene community, including especially its homeless and low-income residents. These people deserve boasting rights for their ability to teach volunteers about health care, counseling, crisis management, and advocacy. Whitebird has been a pillar in the Eugene area for years and has proved itself invaluable in its services. Reciprocation from the community is essential to Whitebird’s continued ability to reign supreme over any other health care option available to its clients.
We hope you’ll tune in for Portland and Seattle, where we promise not to mention ‘90s cars or Tim McGraw again.
S.A.Y., have you met Democracy Unlimited?
Welcome to the first edition of the Bassnetwork Wezt Coast Tour 2009 community empowerment blogtastrophe! Thus far, we have blasted 7 venues in a row and connected with 11 organizations rife with that juicy raw energy we love so well. All of these organizations are ripe and ready for new activists and volunteers. The people you see here are often both fans and some of the most vibrant people we have encountered on our odyssey.
Comin’ at you first we have the four lovely ladies from Sebastopol and Eureka representing S.A.Y.- Social Advocates for Youth and Democracy Unlimited.
S.A.Y. Social Advocates for Youth: Sebastopol, CA
We met Madalyn (left) and April of S.A.Y at the Hopmonk Tavern amidst a rumbling waterfall of Wobble Factory womp. These girls are involved in a righteous organization that hooks young people up to work together on issues common to disadvantaged youth. Theirs is the essential story of young people reaching out to help each other. We all know that there are never enough resources or knowledgeable people to make our communities what they should be. The Social Advocates for Youth helps out with employment, housing, counseling, and so much more. Many of the young people who come to S.A.Y. end up working for the organization later and learning all the skills it takes to carry on the group. As Madalyn says, the program is so successful precisely because it is run by young people for issues that they have experienced firsthand.
Let’s just say we offered a lot more than earplugs in Sebastopol.
Democracy Unlimited: Eureka, CA
Megan (left) and Meghan of Democracy Unlimited wowed us with their variety of tabling materials and knowledge base concerning the state of democracy in Eureka. These ladies spoke powerfully to their issues that revolve around bringing democracy back to Humboldt County through community currency, a local business alliance, facilitating a CSA food program with local farmers, and more.
The best thing about watching these ladies table is how much the people in the community already knew about their programs. Fans worked at coffee shops that accepted the independent currency and had participated in the CSA program. What makes their programs work is participation, and that is where we can all lend a hand. D.U. facilitates ways to vote with our dollar to relocalize the power of the people.
We all make choices when we spend our money, people like Megan and Meghan are keeping them conscious.
Could they be more awesome?
Get active and stay tuned for Community Empowerment Round II in Eugene, OR with Bassnectar Wezt Coast Tour 2009!
