It’s an uncanny performance mode, talking to a roomful of bodies seated before Spectacle’s screen but knowing that many many more are listening at home, and attempting to create a path that works for both. Feels ‘experimental’ in the word’s basic sense: something for which the process and its possible outcomes aren’t yet established.

For the first of these radio-Spectacle nights, I screened Khaled & Cheb Mami rai comedy 100% Arabica, then in December it was Nass El Ghiwane documentary Transes.

And this Wednesday, on the first day of Black Mystery Month, I teamed up with Lamin Fofana, Chief Boima, and Old Money to host AFRO-SPECTACLE, two hours of live radio constructed entirely from DVDs & VCDs purchased in African-run stores in New York City, followed by a screening of Nollywood-NYC film God’s Own Country.

You can stream the broadcast portion of the evening here. Kola nuts, beer, and a crowd of friends are recommended to help recreate the in-room experience at Spectacle:

Are here are two selections from the evening: a jam Lamin & I have been into forever, a perfect song basically, based on an international collaboration between Sékouba Bambino & Kandia Kouyaté.(Lamin’s Brooklyn-purchased video version had much higher quality that this youtubery, alas.)

And my contribution to AFRO-SPECTACLE, a Don Cornelius homage in the form of David Bowie performing ‘Fame’ on Soul Train.

info:

On Wednesday February 1st, at 7pm, DJ Rupture and Lamin Fofana will host a special 2-hour live radio show from south Williambsburg’s Spectacle Theater, with guests Chief Boima and Old Money.

Following the live WFMU broadcast — built entirely from African music videos purchased in the cornerstores of NYC — we will screen God’s Own Country by director Femi Agbayewa. GOC presents the story of a young Nigeria lawyer who immigrates to NYC to discover that life in America is not like he hoped… As Boima explains, “It’s firmly in the Nollywood tradition. The story line is a New York story, and I think it’s the perfect context for the non-Nollywood initiated to get introduced to the industry. . . it is also referencing the tradition of the American hood gangster flick like Belly. Almost an amalgamation of the two.”

Palm wine and kola nuts are included with the $5 admission. Space is limited, so come early!

For me, one of the real pleasures of BMW lies in experiencing the sheer variety of people’s takes on music contained in each one; reading BMW always expands the way I think about musical worlds and reacting to them with language. (Full disclosure, I’ve been included twice – EVEN MORE REASON TO GIVE THESE FINE PEOPLE MONEY). So. Let’s keep those books burning!

Last night’s radio show provided a particularly serpentine path through the fields of decentertainment, although sometimes things feel stranger than they actually are. Maybe always. End of show went elegy for Greek director Theo Angeloupolos, airing several selections from his long-time collaborator, Eleni Karaindrou. Streaming now:

+ + +

Brian DeGraw generously took the time to listen back and reconstruct his set list from the January 18th show. GGD’s BGD was really working with the mixer and FX (I brought my Pioneer DJM-800 for the occasion); here are the raw ingredients:

the KLF- Dream Time in Lake Jackson
Luciano- Los Ninos de Fuera
Lift Boys- Anarchy Village
Ku-Bo- Dingo Riddim
Joker- U Been Beta(demo version)
D Double E- Streetfighter Riddim
Javier Estrada- Crazy Indian
Nyamwezi (tribe)- Manyanga 2
Sonny Sharrock- Black Woman
Drumline Soundtrack
Paper Route Gangstaz- Woodgrain
Zomby- Digital Fauna
Debruit- Nigeria What?
Onipa Nua- I Feel Alright
Eski Instrumental
the KLF- Dream Time in Lake Jackson

This Wednesday, Gang Gang Dance’s Brian DeGraw stopped by my WFMU show to drop a deep hourlong DJ set. Brian does electronics in GGD and is deadly on the decks, too. Open ears will be rewarded. Now only that, but during the interview we learn that lately Brian has been feeling the tribal guarachero from Mexico! The radio show is now streaming:

Be sure to check out Brian’s visual art as well; he thinks across stylistic & formal boundaries, with consistently fresh results.

Day at the Office from Brian DeGraw.

I started the Mudd Up Book Clubb as a celebration of books, readers, libraries, IRL meetups, and all the hot people who love slow media. But the biggest thanks of all goes to the writers themselves. Keep us burning! We see you and salute your work. Furthering that end, here is a gift straight from my muddy heart –

Hand-drawn portraits of all the authors we’ve read so far by artist Rocio Rodriguez Salceda, fitted into digitals for maximum spreadability. Each drawing measures 600 x 800 pixels — formatted for Kindle screensavers, but they work well in many situations: say, an iPhone background, or a razor & octopus ink tattoo.

Click on each author’s name for the individual JPG, or grab this ZIP file (2 MB) containing all 8 images. (Here’s a detailed guide on how to jailbreak a Kindle).

MUDD UP BOOK CLUBB KINDLE SCREENSAVERS:

Cesar Aira

Lauren Beukes

Samuel R. Delany

Juan Goytisolo

Nalo Hopkinson

Maureen F. McHugh

Vladimir Sorokin

Mudd Up Book Clubb

I’m orbiting in a space station above Las Vegas right now, so I was unable to get on the mic during yesterday’s radio show. But fire is fire. And no voice means more music, which speaks for itself. You can stream it here. Highlights include an exclusive debut of the new Los Rakas single, ‘Pimpin Smokin Dro featuring E-40′. Cue airhorn:

& for next week’s show, January 18th 8-9pm, I’ll have Brian DeGraw from Gang Gang Dance on-air! We’ve successfully rescheduled and got him all the gear needed to do a DJ set live in-studio. Muddy gifts never stop.

A trio of visionary DJ/producers from Chicago graced Mudd Up radio on WFMU last night: we had DJ Rashad, DJ Manny, and OG Traxman. They did back-to-back mixing, everyone playing unreleased original productions — a true glimpse of what’s to come!

Footwork spread in 2011, speeding up and weirding out dancefloors in NYC and beyond, so it was a real treat to have these guys come through to share the new.

STREAMING NOW: DJ Rupture’s Mudd Up January 4th show feat. DJ Rashad, Traxman, DJ Manny.

Ice Trilogy – Vladimir Sorokin (Mudd Up Book Clubb January 2012 pick!) – aaaahhhh! I wrote: “It’s ambitious, totally nuts, capable of generating new emotions, perhaps the first “21st Ct” novel I’ve read.”

Embassytown – China Miéville. Language, addiction, bio-urbanism. Embassytown is especially wow in light of the rest of Miéville’ ouevre.

My Common Heart – Anne Boyer. My one complaint: (not tryna be greedy but) IT’S TOO SHORT!

“At night I dream of a poetry for the crowd. I imagine the bodies pressed against each other until there is not one set of feet left on the ground.”

:in the category of city slickers:

[Photo: Tyrone Brown-Osborne]

Harlem Is Nowhere – Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts. You heard our mix for this, right?

Down & Delirious in Mexico City – Daniel Hernandez. You heard the radio show we did, right?

plus an important Mexico addenda:

El Narco – Ioan Grillo. Lucid overview of “Mexico’s criminal insurgency,” putting the complex mayhem into historical perspective while avoiding the sensationalistic.

“If the East India Company was the first drug cartel, then the Royal Navy was the first band of violent cartel enforcers. After the two Opium Wars, the company won the right to traffic in 1860. The Chinese kept smoking and took the poppy with them in their diaspora round the planet.”

&

“I ask Mathilde [a poppy farmer in the Sinaloan mountains] to describe the effect of these flowers. What is the magic property they have? What is it that makes them so valuable? She looks at me blankly for a moment, then answers in a slow, thoughtful tone.

‘It is a medicine. And it cures pain. All pain. It cures the pain you have in your body and the pain in your heart. You feel like your body is mud. All mud. You feel like you could melt away and disappear. And it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. You are happy. But you are not laughing. This is a medicine, you understand?’

I’m burnt out on the NYC 70s & 80s glorification/nostalgia/histories, a genre that seems to metastasize each year, but Will Hermes’ Love Goes To Buildings On Fire is exemplary for its wide-eyed span: a five-year history of musical innovation in New York City that takes on rock guitars, salsa, rap, jazz, minimalism. Rare that these contiguous/adjacent scenes get examined together. There’s a paragraph in here about how session musicians formed a kind of connective tissue across scenes & studios — so many ways to think about how music circulates and histories congeal. Here’s to more thought-provoking anticoagulants in 2012.

Radio last night was lively, with large exclusives from Traxman and DJ Matabaya, upcoming soca power from Poirier, the overlooked Luciano remix of a Salif Keita & Cesaria Evora song, and an overall energized future lean like Jay Electronica’s crushingly expansive Eternal Sunshine (The Pledge). Here’s lookin’ at you, two thousand one two! Streaming:

tracklist
Salif Keita ft Cesaria Evora Yamore (Luciano remix)
Jay Electronica Eternal Sunshine (The Pledge) What the Fuck is Jay Electronica
Jon Kwest Drunken Monk (Get the Fuck Out)
Popcaan Dem A Talk (bottle party riddim)
Traxman In Yo Lyfe remix EXCLUSIVE
Poirier Who Got Di Riddim Soca Road EP
DJ Matabaya feat DJ Kuimba Kassubody Funana Remix DZC Deejays Summer Storm UNRELEASED MUDD UP EXCLUSIVE FAST ACCORDIONS YES PLEASE & MORE
Ce’Cile Material World Yes, Material Girl.
Popcaan ? sorry no metadata on dis one
Sinden High Demand ft Jesse Boykins III (Brenmar remix)
DJ Funeral Nitemare Last Breath EP
Exuma Mama Loi, Papa Loi Exuma
Conjunto Los Rumberos Cumbia del Puerto The Original Sound of Cumbia: The History of Colombian Cumbia & Porro as Told By the Phonograph 1948-79
Luzmila Carpio Bartolino Sisaman Rough Guide to Bolivia
Mavado Cyaa Hold Me Again Tenement Yard Riddim