Life, music, tech and other fun stuff from Prague, Czech Republic
This week’s show had a lot of very new music, owing to the South by Southwest Festival underway in Austin, Texas, plus the upcoming Sperm Festival here in Prague.
One of the bands to watch for 2011 is Brandt Brauer Frick, who will be playing at the Sperm Festival. Here’s their newest clip, Caffeine:
Because tomorrow is the Vernal Equinox, I also played a few songs about spring, including this one from Saint Etienne:
Anyway, the entire setlist is here as a Google Spreadsheet.
This week’s show had two main themes, the start of Carnival in Rio and songs about coffee (and one about tea).
There were some new tracks in there, including the brand-new Aeroplane remix of the Human League’s “Never Let Me Go:”
and this new Brazilian singer, Tulipa Ruiz, and her song, “Do Amor:”
but there were two mini-sets this week, including one of sambas from Carnival:
and this mini-set featuring songs about coffee, including Squeeze’s outstanding “Black Coffee in Bed:”
This week’s show marked a couple of big anniversaries: Radio 1 is celebrating 20 years on the air this week and next with a series of retro broadcasts, where each day is devoted to the music of a year. Because I play on the weekends, I got to play the years 1991-93, and it was a lot of fun to put together.
The other anniversary is a personal milestone: It’s been 19 years since I came to Prague. And stayed 
One of my favorite songs from that period is Jesus Jones’ “Right Here Right Now,” which has special relevance not only because of the Radio 1′s anniversary, but also because of what’s going on Cairo and elsewhere in the Middle East.
This week’s show was, even by my own standards, really international. I just returned from participating in Berlin’s Transmediale Festival, and one of the concerts I got to check out was with Vienna’s Dorian Concept. The acoustics in Berlin’s Festhalle Kreuzberg, an old dance hall made of wood, really resonated with the heavy bass that Dorian Concept laid down.
Another killer track this week was Cypress Hill’s “Armada Latina,” which is pure ear candy.
A standout video from Devendra Banhart is here:
The whole setlist is here: https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Akv6Emv2Lo0EdEVscUx6ZHM1TGpuQmZKWUVDXzNkUEE&hl=en&pli=1#gid=0
As we come up to the holiday break, I figured I’d bust out an early present: A new double “mixtape” of sorts, with both video and audio. One side, “Gloss” tends toward BPM, whereas the other side, “Matte” tends toward MPB
The mixes were made for the very cool site “Proti šedi,” which features various DJ mixes in addition to lots of cool reporting about fashion, travel and other neat things. They put their mixes here.
I was able to use the very cool tool called Dragontape to make the video version of the mixes. Dragontape lets you drag and drop various YouTube videos to make your own “mixtape.”
The video mix of “Gloss” is here.
The video mix of “Matte” is here.
My next Radio 1 show will be on Christmas Day, 25 December, or the feast of St. Stephen. In keeping with the spirit of the day, it’ll be all Christmas music that doesn’t suck.
This week’s show was mainly put together on two long flights between Prague and San Francisco – having 10 hours each way to do nothing to put together my setlist is a rare opportunity
The standout tracks this week were Solly’s ‘Shawty Swing’ via the Sick Girls’ excellent mix CD, “Revolution No. 5,” and this one from Malente & Dex:
Because I spent some time in the Bay Area, I managed to catch this great track by Lucy Pearl on the radio:
But my absolute favorite track this week was a live recording by Stevie Wonder:
I’ve just returned from eight days in Berlin, so this week’s show had a pretty strong Berlin vibe to it. It was great being in Berlin and hanging out with other radio people (my organization sponsored a festival devoted to the future of radio called Test Signals). It was also very cool because a local radio station, Reboot.fm, held a party in our honor featuring their all-stars, including the very cool DJ duo Sick Girls.
But enough about that. This week had a lot of new stuff, including this cut from the German trio Brandt Brauer Frick. The video is excellent, drawing from ’70s German orchestra TV shows:
Also a killer track and clip from the last show that is worth checking out is El Guincho’s “Bombay.” (NSFW):
This week had a really wide scope, starting with friend and classmate Monty Luke’s “Art of War” and going all the way through bossa nova covers of Burt Bacharach. It was a lot of fun to put together, and the coolest track was this one, by El Guincho, “Bombay.” It’s NSFW, but what the heck. It’s art, man!
http://player.vimeo.com/video/15274619
El Guincho – Bombay from CANADA on Vimeo.
The setlist is here as a Google spreadsheet.
This week’s show was marked by a cold I managed to pick up either while traveling in Georgia or somewhere in town. But there was a lot of good music I managed to put together, including new songs by Everything Everything, Mads Larsen, Fyfe Dangerfield and Luanda, Angola’s Jazzmatica. And because the fall is well on its way, I even managed to play Colourfactory’s “It’s All You.”
As always, the setlist is here as a Google Spreadsheet.
