Eclectic Grooves

Before the last vestiges of summer slip through my fingers, I wanted to share this incredibly catchy tune from  Jacuzzi Boys' soon to be released S/T record called " Domino Moon " . Had I heard it prior to compiling this year's summer mix, there is no doubt that it would have been featured prominently in the mix.  "Domino Moon" is a perfect little slice of energetic garage pop that lodges itself into your brain matter, and doesn't let go.  I simply can't get this song out of my head, and I don't think that you will be able to either. For those of you who are interested in buying the new record, it will be released on Hardly Art on 9/10.  Jacuzzi Boys- Domino Moon

On July 1st of this year, Google had decided to suspend it's Google Reader service after 8 years due to a ongoing decline in usage, and most likely because they wanted to focus their energy on new services like Google Plus.  Even though I knew that Google Reader was slowly coming to its demise, I still neglected to let my readers know to transfer to another service before this happened. While I didn't notice a drop in subscribers until two weeks after the official shut-down date, it was fairly clear that most of my subscribers used Google Reader as the number of subscribers had dropped from 890 to 180. The reason I bring this up is that the future of Feedburner is clearly hanging in the balance, and it is difficult to ascertain how long it will remain active.  For those of you who would like to know when the blog has been updated, I suggest that you do one of the following things: 1) Follow my blog by clicking on the "Join this Site" button at the top left corner o...

Recently, I checked out the latest full-length movie from Portland filmmaker James Westby entitled Rid of Me. While I had been trepidatious about wasting my time on seeing a movie with Storm Large (kitschy lounge singer from Portland) in it,  I have to say that it was well worth it for the music alone. I'm not going to go into a synopsis of the movie because there are other avenues like Metacritic or IMDB at your disposal if you so desire to go down that road. The reason I am posting today is to let you know about these two fantastic tracks by Ros Sereysothea that are featured at the end of the film. For the esoteric music aficionados out there, you may recall these tracks being featured on the long out-of-print classic compilation Cambodian Rocks .  The first track entitled "Chnam Un Dop-Pram Muy", translated to "I'm 16" in English,  was a perfect song to show the transformation that the main character Maris was undergoing after deal...

As the Breeders so aptly stated on their infectious slice of summer jam “Saints”, “Summer is ready when you are”.   While I’ve been ready for summer since it ended last year, I wasn’t quite expecting the sudden onslaught of heat that the Portland area received at the beginning of July.   But once the days started to stretch longer and the warm air was hitting my skin, I became inspired to create a new soundtrack for my summer days. Since summer weather in Portland doesn't typically start until around the first of July, I started to compile my summer playlist at this point. Over the past few days, I have managed to narrow my selection down to an eclectic mix of songs spanning genres as diverse as funk, jazz, rap, soul, gospel and rock that clock in at just over an hour. So fire up the barbecue, bask in the afternoon sunlight and don't hesitate to dive right into this year's summer mix! Summer Mix 2013 1) New Dawn- There...

It's been awhile since the last Choice Cuts was posted, but I wanted to get some music up here since the last post was primarily meant to spread awareness about my partner's health problems. Happy 4th of July to everyone! Be on the lookout for Summer Mix 2013 in the next week or so. It is once again time for me to reach back in the refrigerator for some "choice cuts". Each time, I will be featuring sizzling and succulent morsels that are grabbing my ear right now that range from funk to country, from afro-beat to garage rock, etc. Sometimes there will be a theme to these songs that ties them all together in a nice bow, but other times the songs featured will just be a musical hodgepodge of eclectic delights. Without further ado, lets see what "choice cuts" the vinyl butcher has prepared for us today. Blossom Toes- Peace Loving Man From: If Only For a Moment [1967, Marmalade] When first hearing the...

I know it's been a while since I've posted, but over the past few months life has thrown some high speed curve balls at my girlfriend and I that have required my complete attention. In fact, the material in this post has been on the back burner for a couple months, coming to fruition only after the thoughts have had ample time to gestate in my mind.  You may be asking yourself, what kind of content would be in a post with the title "The Uncertainty of Life"?  I assure you that right now I am fit as a fiddle, so I am definitely not here to retire the blog in any way, shape or form. Instead, I wanted to share my situation with you all to let you know what's been going on. While I don't normally open myself up to be scrutinized by the public, I figured it was high time that I explain to you all what has been going on in my life during the past 3 years. My girlfriend of over 10 years had first started experiencing the onset of severe digestive problems back in t...

The latest edition of I Hear a New World is available to listen to here, and to listen\download at http://ihearanewworld.podomatic.com/. As usual, this episode of I Hear a New World has been brewing in my head for quite awhile. What started out as a simple idea has expanded into a complex project that has dominated many of my days and nights over the last couple months. Regular visitors may recall that I did a podcast featuring a hodgepodge of psychedelic funk back in 2008. While this one has smatterings of funk, it's sole purpose is to take the listener on a guided trip through the mind of someone tripping on LSD, regardless of the style of music. It is the result of countless hours of listening to many different shades of psychedelic music from all over the world, weeding them out one by one and finally tweaking the flow of the mix until it sounded perfect to my ears. In keeping with the continuity, I have opted to record this as a single mix with no interr...