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Date: March 22, 2005
Subject: Brazil, Miami, Revolutionary Radio, and more.
Oi, gente! Todo bem? It's your home-garota dj99 here with a mouthful of news and a trunkful of tunes.
Summary:
- Back from Brazil
- Off to Miami
- Mix posted on Radio Volta's "Reverb"
- Playing the home turf at Philly's Walnut Room
- Original tracks coming soon
So I dropped off the face of the internet for about 2 months, but I had a damn good excuse. I was prancing around Brazil, from the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, up through Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, and ending in Salvador, Bahia. I took obscene amounts of pictures and did some writing about my adventures (quite intense at times) which you are welcome to check out at http://www.beleza-music.org/brasil. You'll find tales of a Greenpeace skateboard ramp; Carnaval at a gay mega-club in Sao Paulo; samba-ing with a Riot Grrl, a clown and a circus acrobat; a not-entirely-unsuccessful attempt to DJ in the largest city in South America; samba-breakcore in Belo Horizonte; losing some hearing at a DJ Marky gig; going from drum circle to drum circle in Rio then falling asleep on the bus and walking from Copacabana to Ipanema at dawn; seeing Banda Black Rio live...in Rio; a club in Salvador with a tree growing through the middle of it; roaming bands of drummers throwing their instruments in the crackling-tense air on Tuesday nights; lunching in the favela; spotting Candomble by a waterfall; etc, etc, etc. Standard disclaimers: The travelogue is rough, unedited, personal, often boring, and as yet, still incomplete. Guess what, it will always be incomplete. But I will be working on it over the next weeks to round out the stories, post the video footage I grabbed (like a Catholic/Candomble procession where people were playing percussion with their feet, and many other goodies), and also post a listening guide packed with pieces I picked up on my travels plus old favorites that have marked my way to the motherland over the many years I anticipated this trip. Brazil is a place that you can't even begin to wrap your head around, and I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to give it a wack after gazing from afar for so long. Hope you find something to wet your whistle.
Oh man, my mom was nice about it, but was clearly a little peeved that I took time out of my southern hemisphere internet cafe-ing to book a trip to Miami for the Winter Music Conference, but had no idea it was Easter. If I wasn't a heathen before, then finally now, "it is finished." Wakka wakka, but let's not mix any more bacchanal with religion--it's even making *me* uncomfortable. So yeah, I'm hopping back on a plane (pretty much just picking up the same bags) for that annual no-sleep, too-much-partying, sunburned noses, breakfast at 3pm Freakfest, after which the entire music industry plus the city of Miami simultaneously gets a nasty cold. I'm still packing and stuff, but I did compile an official DJ99 "Don't Blame Me If It Sucks" guide to WMC 2005 at http://www.beleza-music.org/events. It's a selected guide to stuff I'm interested in and plan to make an effort to attend, nothing more, nothing less. The party I'm playing is Transatlantic 4, the Garage Mashup at Hotel Chelsea, 944 Washington Ave, Sat March 26, noon-1am, check out www.boosted.com. I go on around 10 or 11pm, which is no excuse to miss the AMAZING talent at the rest of the gig, and serves as a good jumping off point for the rest of the busy evening. Some names to drop for that day and night are TSHeritage, Original Bubbles, DJ Cooper, Jason Mundo, Syrup Girls, and later on, Bugz, Keston and Westdal, and ridiculous amounts more. Bugz and more are doing a wicked lineup on the 22nd, Amalgama Records is bringing the heat on the 24th, Illvibe is letting loose on Saturday, it's nonstop again this year. For real, there is so much good stuff happening and many friends doing their thing, so if you're in MyHammy, check my site for the condensed version of Shows That Will Make You Cool, or please, at least check the M3 Masterlist. Drop me a line if you're going, so we can cross paths and either share a drink or spill one on each other. Me, I'm sticking to brown rice and wheat grass juice all week. Yall can get sick, but my body is a temple. OF DOOOOOM!
And poof, just like that, I'm featured on Radio Volta's new program, Reverb. Volta is the audible cousin of the outstanding, fantastic, crucially effective and wildly inspirational Prometheus Radio Project. Radio Volta is like really cool!!!! It comes from a history of West Philly pirate radio and always has a fantastic mix of diverse music, like Sirka's show on Wednesday afternoons, and worthwhile news like Democracy Now. It's good radio that you can feel good about. A mix of mine is featured on there for the week, and you can check it out at http://www.radiovolta.org/dj/reverb.shtml. If you are interested in getting your hands dirty in opposition to media consolidation, join Prometheus for their latest "Radio Barnraising" in Nashville, TN, April 1-3, where they will get a radio station on the air in one weekend, plus host an unreasonable amount of workshops and knowledge-sharing. Barnraisings are AMAZING. If you can go, you should. www.prometheusradio.org
When the dust settles from all this absurd jetsetting, I'll finally snuggle into a nice local gig in my beloved Philadelphia on Thursday, April 8 at Walnut Room, 1709 Walnut Street, 2nd floor. With a little luck I'll be jumping into a weekly rotation that includes powerhouse rare groove and Brazilian afficionados like Botany 500 and Lucas Rivera, but let's start with one evening, shall we. I got a stack of vinyl in Sao Paulo, Rio, and Salvador that's like half a foot deep, so I'll be bringing the whole pile to share with everyone there.
Last-not-least, very very soon I will have new tracks posted from young blood outta Philly. (E, sorry it's not up yet!!! I didn't even take a shower the first 2 days I was back!) Keep an eye on http://www.beleza-music.org/trackssets for the goods which will be up in a jiffy.
Ate a proxima,
99
In the Northeast, rhythm is God dehydrated. - Tom Zé
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Quem te mostrou a beleza Who taught you the beauty
De dançar dentro da briga? Of dancing within the fight?
www.beleza-music.org
-99-
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