Time for another cleansing of my brain...

We Want the Funk
My last posting talked about a street festival happening in downtown Champaign. I basically took the position that it was one of the dumbest ideas ever, seeing as how it blocked off a major traffic route while not really bringing anything useful to downtown Champaign (the lineup was absolutely useless).

Well this weekend, Urbana accomplished the exact opposite by throwing an amazing event, the 32nd Annual Sweet Corn Festival. Not only were there cooler games, tents, and vendors than all five of downtown Champaign's festivals combined, but the musical lineup was incredible on Saturday (yet as abhorrent as the Champaign festivals on Friday). There was a very good second stage that featured a lot of quality local bands, but best of all, PARLIAMENT FUNKADELIC headlined on Saturday!


Sure, George and Bootsy (pictured above) weren't there, but a proper summer festival is being outside on a gorgeous night with friends, drinking some cheap beer paid for with tickets, and hearing P-Funk rip through "One Nation Under A Groove." From local talk, this will be the last time that Urbana will be able to line up someone of this caliber for their festivals. And we already know Champaign is just purely unwilling to spend money on real talent (so we get the shitty Boat Drunks every year). So I'm glad I went to the last big city-sponsored outdoor festival with good music that Champaign and Urbana will have for some time.

Pygmalion
Just because the cities I live in have no idea how to throw a festival doesn't mean someone in this town doesn't know how to put on a quality show. For as long as I have been in this town, Seth Fein has been making major contributions to this city as a promoter and a musician (drummer for the incredibly awesome band, but now unfortunately defunct Absinthe Blind). Anyhow, Seth continues to make major contributions to the music scene here by booking tons of shows, and by hosting the annual Pygmalion Festival. Get your passes now cause they're going fast and this is going to be one hell of an indie rocktacular lineup this year.

The "Last" Show
Well my final show in Champaign with J Phlip was a massive success. We filled up Champaign's largest dance club and had a line stretched outside by midnight. People danced, bodies sweated, ears were pummeled with bass, and all was good. I'd post some pictures up, but I don't have any back yet. I figured I was going to be far more depressed than I was at the end of the gig, and even on Saturday when Jess and I said our last goodbye before she moved to San Fran. But, due to some developments Friday afternoon that I cannot talk about yet, I am not at all worried about her moving to the Bay. There's a chance I'll see her sooner than I expected. :-)

Worn-Down
However, that show being in the bag has left me so run down. I must have put 25-30 hours of promoting into the event, and now that I have nothing to stress about, my immune system has dropped and I feel a bit of a cold coming on. Hopefully the Airborne I took will help.

New Night
I'm going to start spinning Thursday nights at a relatively new bar on campus called Fubar. I'll be playing swanky, upbeat downtempo and deep house. Good lounge music basically. While I do think some campus bar situations are quite awful, Fubar is a really nice space, I know the bar managers and I know they have great taste in music, and they want an upscale atmosphere. Plus, I'm looking for new challenges and new crowds, and I think this will be exactly that.

Dubstep 101
So I'm not going to pretend to know a whole ton of a lot about this subgenre/latest craze called dubstep other than the fact that I really like it. The tunes are a stripped down version of garage/grime/drum n bass, with heavy reggae/dub influence to them. It isn't the easiest style of music to put into words, but once you hear a dubstep song, you'll get the genre. A good place to start listening is the online streaming station dubstep.fm. But if you want a guaranteed great mix, check out this one from Hoodz. I can't find much online about Hoodz, but this mix is just incredible:

Hoodz - Poolside Presha Session (Live)

For the third year in a row, the Champaign City Council and the Champaign Park District foolishly have decided to throw a street festival in the middle of August. Normally, that sounds like a great idea, especially since this festival actually is about more than selling booze.

However, there's one slight problem with this annual event: it has coincided with the University of Illinois's move in day. The festival is held at the intersection of Main St. and Neil St. While Main St doesn't exactly live up to its name, Neil St. happens to be one of the busiest and most important streets in this town. However, starting at 8 am, one of the 3 main exits from the expressway and one of the busiest streets in Champaign will be absolutely useless and will stay that way until midnight.

And what exactly is the payoff for such a festival? Well here's footage from last year:



Yeah... Not that impressive at all.

I probably could start a whole separate blog about how the Champaign City council has no idea how to properly run downtown Champaign. This festival is a great example. Creating congestion not just downtown, but across all of Champaign, just goes to show a short-sided detachment from what else is going on in this town.

I don't want to live in this town long enough to run for a spot on the city council, but if I was going to live here for a considerable amount of time, I definitely would love to take a swing at fixing things here.

The Final Countdown

Well, I can't believe it's finally going to happen, but J Phlip is moving to San Fran, leaving me behind in a Midwest that sort of gets our style of house, but not exactly. We're performing one last time together in Champaign on Thursday August 23rd at Soma Ultralounge. Here's the truly awesome flyer that Jess designed:


If you're in Champaign, you owe it to yourself to come out and hear us play together one last time. I intend to be at my peak and to break out some goodies. I will be recording the set for those that might not be able to make it (shame on you).

I had intended to post our last set at Boltini as the song for this post, but I cannot find my jump drive that I recorded it on (not good). So instead, I am going to post up a solo set that I've been meaning to post for ages now. This is a set I recorded on Radioactivity (a radio show I used to host on WPGU now hosted by the Muffin Man, Lincoln Jones). Anyway, this set was recorded Mother's Day weekend (which explains the Jay West track near the end) and it was also graduation weekend, which explains the first song in the mix.

The set is all funky house music, mostly cause I hadn't recorded a funky house set for a while, and at the time, some of these cuts were extreme exclusives. By now, nearly all of the tunes should be released, except for Chris Grant's soon (hopefully) to be released "Slow Your Roll." If anything on there is not released and label owners want to throw a fit, well throw one. Pettiness in the funky house scene is a definite post for a later time.

The mix itself went pretty well (despite a mishap where I turned off one of the decks in the middle of a blend... you'll hear it fairly early in the mix, like the 3rd or 4th song). I had thought about re-recording it so it would be perfect, but there's something nice about throwing down live and unplanned.

Mertz - Live On Radioactivity (05.12.07)