The Oxhorn Music Mix http://www.theoxhorn.com ....:::::Discover Great Music Now:::::.... Mon, 26 May 2008 23:40:04 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.2.1 en Pinback - Crutch http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheOxhorn/~3/298693753/ http://www.theoxhorn.com/2008/05/26/pinback-crutch/#comments Mon, 26 May 2008 23:40:04 +0000 Evan http://www.theoxhorn.com/2008/05/26/pinback-crutch/ Pinback rose from the terrible ashes of two of San Diego’s most celebrated bands, Three Mile Pilot and Thingy/Heavy Vegetable. Zack Smith and Rob Crowe combined their disparate skills to create an indie super group par-excellence. Pinback works so well because of Smith’s power to infuse Crowe’s normally frivolous pocket songs with development and compassion on songs like Crutch.

Rob Crowe and Zack Smith of Pavement
Rob Crowe and Zack Smith of Pavement

While recording their eponymous debut album, Pinback, their drummer quit. He was unceremounsiously replaced with a dinky drum machine. But it doesn’t mater. Smith’s melodic bass, the tiny guitar riffs, and Crowe’s falsetto all flow together in a hypnotic tapestry. Crowe’s literal lyrics about insignificant topics contrast nicely with the verve of Crutch.

It kicks in like an ugly sound
And a split divides me.
Skull collides.
Such a long way down.
Such a big big bad.
Such a bright white light.
Rubber crutch lands so hard.

All the elements of Pinback’s future greatness are on display - but who the hell thought that keyboard was a good idea?

Download Crutch

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Photo by Fenchurch

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]]> http://www.theoxhorn.com/2008/05/26/pinback-crutch/feed/ http://www.theoxhorn.com/2008/05/26/pinback-crutch/ Django Reinhardt || I’ll See You In My Dreams http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheOxhorn/~3/279088541/ http://www.theoxhorn.com/2008/04/27/django-reinhardt-ill-see-you-in-my-dreams/#comments Mon, 28 Apr 2008 01:57:35 +0000 Evan http://www.theoxhorn.com/2008/04/27/django-reinhardt-ill-see-you-in-my-dreams/ Django Reinhardt, the gypsy guitar great, picks out the melody of the beautiful Kahn/Jones song I’ll See You in My Dreams. Fluid movements fill the spaces, flying off the swinging rhythm guitars. Django bends each note, wringing every ounce of meaning from it.

Django Reinhardt Review I'll See You In My Dreams

I’ll See You in My Dreams

Listening to this song, a huge hit in the 20’s, brings you back to another world. It’s been played by the best musicians, and Django certainly fits the bill. The war to end all wars is over, Jazz is exploding, and in cafes and bars across Paris, Django and his quintet (featuring violinist Stephane Grappelli) smoke cigarettes and create a uniquely European interpretation of Jazz that fills gramaphones across the earth.

Joe Brown and George Harrison

Joe Brown offers a stirring performance of I’ll See You in My Dreams on ukelele at the end of the tribute to George Harrison, Concert For George. Check out this highly recommended tribute:

Lips that once were mine
Tender eyes that shine
They will light my way tonight
I’ll see you in my dreams

Like the Reverend Gary Davis, Django sounds like the love child of: A world long gone.

Download I’ll See You in My Dreams

Download “I’ll See You in My Dreams” on eMusic along with 25 FREE Music Downloads.
Get The Best of Django Reinhardton Amazon.com
Get A Concert for George on Amazon.com

Photo from The Triplets of Belleville

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]]> http://www.theoxhorn.com/2008/04/27/django-reinhardt-ill-see-you-in-my-dreams/feed/ http://www.theoxhorn.com/2008/04/27/django-reinhardt-ill-see-you-in-my-dreams/ DC’s First Annual Hip Hop & Peacebuilding Festival NOW http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheOxhorn/~3/271133477/ http://www.theoxhorn.com/2008/04/15/dcs-first-annual-hip-hop-peacebuilding-festival-now/#comments Wed, 16 Apr 2008 03:03:43 +0000 Evan http://www.theoxhorn.com/2008/04/15/dcs-first-annual-hip-hop-peacebuilding-festival-now/ The First Annual Hip Hop & Peacebuilding Festival is the brainchild of Stacy Willyard, is a George Mason University grad student at the Institute of Conflict Analysis and Resolution. The event is designed to bring together artists, diplomats, intellectuals & peacemakers from the US, Africa & the Middle East to increase understanding and awareness of political and social turmoil. The conference will focus on the role hip hop can play in empowering youth to speak out, organize and act to secure more peaceful future outcomes.


This conference represents everything good and awesome about this music. Hip Hop is a powerful art form and as such it has an incredible, if seldom recognized/realized, potential to be used for good. The medium can provide its practitioners an engaging forum to speak out about issues of real importance. And people listen. Whether or not the general populous is aware of this, real heads know it as truth.Consciously and conscientiously practiced Hip Hop is a positive influence on the communities in which it grows and provides otherwise disenfranchised youth with the means to affect real change on local and international levels. Hip Hop gives voice, gives direction, gives community, gives identity, gives understanding. Despite its somewhat sordid history, this art form can play an important role in peacemaking processes worldwide.The DC Hip Hop and Peacebuilding Festival represents the culmination of Stacy’s work with other GMU students, DC artists, and other foreign and domestic music groups to create a festival to promote co-existence and dialogue through Hip Hop. She is also a researcher at the United States Institute for Peace and is co-sponsoring the festival along with others such as Nomadic Wax, Rosetta Stoned, and Sol Productions, and GMU student group Project Nur. She deserves a hug, a handshake and a hardy round of applause.Word up.

Contact: transformationalart@gmail.com
Websitio: http://www.beats4peace.org/

Story by Ryn Burns

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]]> http://www.theoxhorn.com/2008/04/15/dcs-first-annual-hip-hop-peacebuilding-festival-now/feed/ http://www.theoxhorn.com/2008/04/15/dcs-first-annual-hip-hop-peacebuilding-festival-now/ Pavement - Speak, See, Remember (Terror Twilight) http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheOxhorn/~3/260379731/ http://www.theoxhorn.com/2008/03/29/pavement-speak-see-remember-terror-twilight/#comments Sat, 29 Mar 2008 20:05:35 +0000 Evan http://www.theoxhorn.com/2008/03/29/pavement-speak-see-remember-terror-twilight/ Pavement’s swan song, Terror Twilight, reveals a muscular, mature band strutting a decade of indie cool without batting an eyelash. Speak, See, Remember is a Jekyll and Hyde romp. The first section is a jazzy number, pushed along by Mark Ibold’s walking upright bass and rippling guitar textures.

Pavement's

Stephen Malkmus, lead singer of Pavement

The second section of Speak, See, Remember explodes with full electric destruction. A landslide of sound is unleashed as Stephen Malkmus (of The Silver Jews and The Jicks) offers a searing critique of capitalism run-amok.

Buy now!
Develop the coast and raise the sight lines
The ocean’s moving out
And someday
Develop the coast and sell the air
You know if we could we’d sell the air
Stand back!
Expansion is what we do the best
I don’t see the grass and the fields
I see an epicenter with agendas
And you’re aware they must be next
I hope you’re aware they must be next

The tempo ratchets up, distortion kicks in. Classic rock riffs. Pavement takes the song to 11 with surgical precision, a triumphant refutation to anyone who’s ever accused them of being sloppy.

Sounds like the love child of: The Clash and The Replacements

Download Speak, See, Remember by Pavement

Download “Pavement” on eMusic along with 25 FREE Music Downloads.

Photo by NicolMC99

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]]> http://www.theoxhorn.com/2008/03/29/pavement-speak-see-remember-terror-twilight/feed/ http://www.theoxhorn.com/2008/03/29/pavement-speak-see-remember-terror-twilight/ The Roots of Orchis - Contorted Face of Mercury http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheOxhorn/~3/249826102/ http://www.theoxhorn.com/2008/03/11/the-roots-of-orchis-contorted-face-of-mercury/#comments Wed, 12 Mar 2008 00:38:03 +0000 Evan http://www.theoxhorn.com/2008/03/11/the-roots-of-orchis-contorted-face-of-mercury/ Two basses twist together, playing out a deep, low groove. Chimes are heard in the distance. Up come the drums. Oh, Contorted Face of Mercury, what secrets do you hold? You twist back upon yourself, with grace and elegance. A snake stalks its prey, prepares to strike. Taughtly coiled, all energy and wicked intelligence.

Roots

The Roots of Orchis hint at the knowledge of good and evil, with a poison that seeps into your system, slowly drags you down into its melodic embrace. You are drawn to the drums of war. The diner bells rings, your mind a serpent’s feast.

Sounds like the love child of: The Black Heart Procession and Cal Tjader

Download Contorted Face of Mercury by The Roots of Orchis.

Download “The Roots of Orchis” on eMusic along with 25 FREE Music Downloads.
Get Crooked Ceilings on Amazon.com

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]]> http://www.theoxhorn.com/2008/03/11/the-roots-of-orchis-contorted-face-of-mercury/feed/ http://www.theoxhorn.com/2008/03/11/the-roots-of-orchis-contorted-face-of-mercury/ Roxy Music - The Space Between Bryan Ferry and the Present http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheOxhorn/~3/240561490/ http://www.theoxhorn.com/2008/02/24/roxy-music-the-space-between-bryan-ferry-and-the-present/#comments Sun, 24 Feb 2008 23:09:56 +0000 Evan http://www.theoxhorn.com/2008/02/24/roxy-music-the-space-between-bryan-ferry-and-the-present/ Roxy Music lead that glimmering wave of 80’s world-beat synth pop, that, for a brief, brief moment seemed set to change the timbre of music for eternity. Listening to Roxy Music, it comes as no surprise that Brian Eno - soundscape architect and Talking Heads/U2/Coldplay collaborator - was a founding member.

Avalon is the final album Roxy Music recorded. It remains a brilliant, thickly layered exuberance, bursting with acoustic peals and electric shivers. Avalon is best known for the hit More Than This, also performed by 10,000 Maniacs and powerfully by Bill Murray (as Bob Harris in the most poignant scene from Lost In Translation).

Bryan Ferry of Roxy Music

However, Avalon is full of powerful songs. The Space Between stands out as much for the deep groove as the mesmerizing improvised movements carried out across a dozen instruments drenched in syrupy effects. Ferry croons about a relationship not quite right.

The way I see it
This relationship ain´t right
The space between us
Better close it up tonight
The space between us
Close it up tonight
The way I see it
This relationship ain´t right
The space between us
Listen here listen, listen here listen
We better
Close it up tonight

After the initial theme is established by the bass, drums and a funky guitar, the wild things come out to play. Saxes, synths, percussion and un-nameables ricochet across the shimmering surface. Around 2:40 Roxy Music tighten the groove ever so perceptibly. What initially sounds like a blistering pattern on repeat shatters into a thousand, beautiful echoes.

Sounds like the love child of: Talking Heads and Brian Eno

Download The Space Between by Roxy Musicc

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Photo by Jlacpo

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]]> http://www.theoxhorn.com/2008/02/24/roxy-music-the-space-between-bryan-ferry-and-the-present/feed/ http://www.theoxhorn.com/2008/02/24/roxy-music-the-space-between-bryan-ferry-and-the-present/ Martin Sexton’s Recipe for American Candy http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheOxhorn/~3/238818102/ http://www.theoxhorn.com/2008/02/21/martin-sextons-recipe-for-american-candy/#comments Thu, 21 Feb 2008 13:30:33 +0000 Evan http://www.theoxhorn.com/2008/02/21/martin-sextons-recipe-for-american-candy/ Martin Sexton Sings Candy from The American

A big, sluggish alternative rock song full of chunky chords, Candy lets Martin Sexton’s overpowering voice… overpower. Sexton’s range, from low to high, vibratto, falsetto, and a bunch of other latin words, sends shivers every time I hear them. Candy is one of the many highlights from Sexton’s album The American. Sexton is more than a powerful singer, though, he is a master story teller.

Hey little jail bait
Tell me a story
Let me bum a smoke and we can chat a while
I only need a moment
One moment in your glory

Lyrics delicate, precise, but obscured by the smoke as well. A metaphor so clear it’s meaning nearly disappears. When it does, Sexton’s voice remains, roaring and rising, raging and resigning.

Sounds like the love child of: Dave Matthews and Van Morrison

Download Candy

Download “Martin Sexton” on eMusic along with 25 FREE Music Downloads.
Get The Americanon Amazon.com

Photo by Peter Kelly

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]]> http://www.theoxhorn.com/2008/02/21/martin-sextons-recipe-for-american-candy/feed/ http://www.theoxhorn.com/2008/02/21/martin-sextons-recipe-for-american-candy/ A Valetine’s Day Romantic Downtempo Lounge Music Mix http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheOxhorn/~3/233505115/ http://www.theoxhorn.com/2008/02/11/a-valetines-day-romantic-downtempo-lounge-music-mix/#comments Tue, 12 Feb 2008 03:14:07 +0000 Evan http://www.theoxhorn.com/2008/02/11/a-valetines-day-romantic-downtempo-lounge-music-mix/ Here’s a Romantic Mix of Downtempo Lounge Music for Valentine’s Day with a strong Brazilian flavor. Let’s call it something special for the ladies. Download these songs and press play. You’re sure to have an enjoyable night.

Valentine’s Day Romantic Downtempo Music Mix

right click to “save as”
Thunderball “Solar”
Phoenix “Definitive Breaks”
Lemon Jelly “Stay With You”
Basement Jaxx “If I Ever Recover”
Babel Gilberto “August Day Song [King Britt Remix]”
Eddie Harris “Theme in Search of a Movie”
Milton Nascimento “Clube Da Esquina No. 2″

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]]> http://www.theoxhorn.com/2008/02/11/a-valetines-day-romantic-downtempo-lounge-music-mix/feed/ http://www.theoxhorn.com/2008/02/11/a-valetines-day-romantic-downtempo-lounge-music-mix/ Classic Blues: Rev. Gary Davis - Cocaine Blues http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheOxhorn/~3/231280057/ http://www.theoxhorn.com/2008/02/07/classic-blues-rev-gary-davis-cocaine-blues/#comments Fri, 08 Feb 2008 00:07:42 +0000 Evan http://www.theoxhorn.com/2008/02/07/classic-blues-rev-gary-davis-cocaine-blues/ This recording of Cocaine Blues by Blind Reverend Gary Davis, sounds like it’s gonna fall apart under the crush of all the cobwebs and dust. But the Reverend’s brilliant, sparkling finger picking provides the momentum to keep the edifice intact.

Despite his backwoods birth in 1896, Davis’ unique guitar technique was a huge influence on the folk and blues revival of the 60’s, and can be heard in The Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan and Jorma Kaukonen.

Reverend Gary Davis Cocaine Blues

Cocaine Blues evokes a stroll through humid country, fragrant pastures, religious revivals moonshine, barbecue, old men on rocking chairs chewing dip on their porches. You can hear it all in the steel plod of the bass notes, one-two, one-two, the march steady like a steam engine pulling a long train of cars. The treble arpeggio betrays the grace and majesty of the locomotive coming round the bend, while Reverend Gary Davis listens and plays this song.

Sounds like the love child of: Blind Lemon Jefferson and Robert Johnson

Download Cocaine Blues by Reverend Gary Davis

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Get The Complete Early Recordings.

Photo by Bill Smith

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]]> http://www.theoxhorn.com/2008/02/07/classic-blues-rev-gary-davis-cocaine-blues/feed/ http://www.theoxhorn.com/2008/02/07/classic-blues-rev-gary-davis-cocaine-blues/ Edan - Beautiful Beats, Stormy Lyrics http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheOxhorn/~3/228548317/ http://www.theoxhorn.com/2008/02/03/edan-beautiful-beats-stormy-lyrics/#comments Sun, 03 Feb 2008 21:24:06 +0000 Ryn Burns http://www.theoxhorn.com/2008/02/03/edan-beautiful-beats-stormy-lyrics/ Emcee/DJ/Producer/Musician/Artist Edan is a master of musical collage. His second LP, Beauty & The Beat is a rich psychedelic tapestry, punctuated with soundgems pilfered as readily from 60’s and 70’s rock & roll as from funk and rap. Combine this with blistering lyrical imagery steeped in hip hop history and a humorous, even humbling, dose of self aggrandizing and you have yourself one the best albums of 2005. Shedding the silliness that permeated earlier release Primitive Plus (which is still a damn good album), Edan comes into his own.

shoot my television walk out doors and explore
with the innocence of kids age four
I frolic in the sand with a colony of ants
my particles expand building oxygen in plants
from Rakim to Caz to Lakim Shabazz
illogically advanced with a knowledge of the past”Download Making Planets

Edan has associated himself with some of the rawest, most significant and established emcees and djs in the underground and in the biz at large. For example, check out his jam, Cut Chemist remix of Torture Chamber featuring Percee P.

In addition to time tested emcee, Beauty and the Beat features, Mr. Liff, Dagha and Insight.

Incorporating vintage pedals and digital effects keeps his show live, hitting hard on reverb and delays at key moments. Moving from the tables to the mic, to both at once is a feat few in the world can do well.



In addition to all that, dude does his own album art and has a singer/songwriter folk project on the side. Plus he’s environmentally conscious…“I don’t think human beings right now are doing too much to assess their relationship with nature, and just the natural ways of this world. Ultimately it’s about saving ourselves because once we cross that line the world will shit us out and revitalize and bloom once again as if we never even existed. It’s not really about save the earth as, respect the earth and save ourselves. And respect each other and love each other. And know that love is all we got here, and make most of our actions stem from that.”
- Grand GoodThe combination of all these seemingly disparate elements is Edan Portnoy, a hiphop jabberwok.

The artist receives an Oxhorn rating of “if you haven’t heard it, I will hunt your ears with a soundgun”

Check out Edan’s official page or his label Lewis Recordings.

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