Eclectic Grooves

With the Halloween season creeping up on me once again, I will be presenting a more concise overview of my last three nights of Music Fest NW 201 to focus my energy on compiling a new Halloween mix over the next week. My hope is to have this year's mix posted within a week of Halloween so that everyone will have a sufficient amount of time to enjoy it. Friday :  La Luz- 9:00 Since I had already seen Mt. Eerie with Bonnie Prince Billy on Thursday, La Luz was definitely the best choice for the 9:00 time slot. I heard a few songs from their Damp Face ep that was released last year, and I was completely sold on their twisted surf noir sound that seemed to draw from influences as diverse as  Brenda Lee, David Lynch and The Ventures. After arriving at Dante's, the band started promptly at 9:00, and proceeded to deliver a fantastic set filled with seductive ballads, surf instrumentals and garage rock rave-ups. Their set was concise at 35 minutes, but filled with enough memorabl...

I apologize for posting so infrequently lately, but I have been in the process of looking for a new job and I am moving in with my girlfriend at the end of January. This will give you a chance to explore the archives of Eclectic Grooves. Please let me know if anything needs reposted, as I will be checking my e-mail every day. I was inspired to create this mix after viewing many film noir movies such as Touch of Evil , The Maltese Falcon and The Third Man . I loved these films and appreciated that the music was almost another character in the dark and seedy streets of crime, corruption, deception and lust. The music in film noir movies is decidely slow and moody with mostly smoky jazz that complements the cool detachment of the characters portrayed in the films. My general idea was to create a mix tape of songs that would fit in a 40's/50's film noir crime drama, but one in which none of the songs were actually from a movie soundtrack(Jim Jarmusch featured the Mulatu Estatke s...

I hope you all had a great holiday this year. Since I haven't really been hearing a lot of new music this year, my list will be a combination of new discoveries along with reissues and new releases from 2006. Here's my "Best of 2006" list just in time for the new year. Have a safe and happy new year, and I'll see you next year! 1) Comets on Fire- Avatar - This time around the boys from Santa Cruz tone down the cacophonous swirl of saxophones, psych garage guitars and echo-drenched vocals for a more laid back classic rock sound. Don't get me wrong though, the opening track Dogwood Rust still pummels you with a mind-melting hard rockin' listening experience. Think Jefferson Airplane mixed with MC5. Comets on Fire - Dogwood Rust and Lucifer's Memory 2)Fred Lane- From the One That Cut You- I discovered this album on the fantastically diverse blog Palestinian Light Orchestra. The record is a mix of skronking big-band free-jazz ...