CHIRP: Chicago Independent Radio Project

Lost tapes of Delia Derbyshire
Posted by Dustin D. on July 22, 2008 around 3pm

The BBC reports that a cache of 267 tapes of unheard recordings by the late Delia Derbyshire has been found and work is underway to digitize the collection. Derbyshire, most famous for her work on the theme song to the Sci Fi cult classic Dr. Who, worked at the BBC’s Radiophonic Workshop during the early 60s and was a pioneer in the field of electronic music.

Many of these recordings contain manipulated samples of Derbyshire’s voice, found sounds and home made instruments. One track in particular, is an exceptionally early example of what can be considered a modern dance track.

David Butler, of Manchester University’s School of Arts, Histories and Cultures is working to record the collection.
“The next thing that we want to do is make the archive available to everyone who wants to hear it,” he says. “But also this has to be a living, breathing archive so we are going to commission new works as well.

Hear it the way Dre intended
Posted by Dustin D. on July 22, 2008 around 3pm

“When I’m making a track I’m trying to capture the sound that makes me go ‘now THAT’s the shit! And I want that reaction from everybody who hears it. I spend a lot of time in the studio listening to my music through headphones…with Beats, people are finally going to hear it the way they should: the way I do.”

So apparently Dr. Dre, Interscope Chairman Jimmy Lovine and Monster Cables are going to drop some serious headphone science on us come July 25th.

“Beats by Dr. Dre” headphones will come in a beautifully designed carrying case with anti-microbial cleaning cloths, a special Monster headphone cable, a mini-stereo to ¼-inch stereo cable adapter, as well as Monster’s iSonitalk, a microphone/headphone adapter for iPhones.”

Now if only you could plug it into a bong….then you’d REALLY hear what Dre hears.
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Modern Radio 2008
Posted by Dustin D. on July 22, 2008 around 9am

T-Rex at the record fair
Posted by Dustin D. on July 22, 2008 around 9am

One of the many great things about the Pitchfork Festival each year is of course our annual CHIRP Record Fair. Inevitably I find myself spending WAY too much money and this year was no exception; there’s just so much great stuff. One of my many finds was a Japanese fan club edition CD of T.Rex. Now, I don’t read Japanese, but I found this really crazy looking chart inside the booklet and thought it was pretty interesting. Personally, I’d go with more than 7.1% Electric Warrior, and that 26.2% The Slider is kinda suspect…but again, without context, who knows?
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Who’s on Sesame Street now?
Posted by Tony T. on July 18, 2008 around 9am

When I was a wee one, I remember Judy Collins on Sesame Street. Over the years, there has also been Harry Belafonte, Tony Bennett, Johnny Cash, Sheryl Crow, En Vogue, Mahalia Jackson, Queen Latifah, R.E.M., Nina Simone, and tons of others. My goodness! Who has not been on Sesame Street?

If you were going to say Feist, you’d be wrong:
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Anatomy of a cover: “There Goes a Tenner” by the J. Davis Trio
Posted by Tony T. on July 15, 2008 around 9pm

Ten years ago, Chicago performer Tom Dunning decided to create a Kate Bush tribute album. The result, I Wanna Be Kate, covers a wide gamut of approaches to making a cover. Perhaps the most surprising cover is the J. Davis Trio’s reinvention of “There Goes a Tenner”.

When Dunning approached his friend Julio “Stuart” Davis about taking part in the project, Davis said “yes” immediately, even though he’d never heard of Kate Bush. Dunning gave him a selection of songs on a mix to chose from, but steered him towards “There Goes a Tenner”.
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How to write a record review
Posted by Dustin D. on July 14, 2008 around 4pm

So let’s say you write for some prestigious magazine, and you need to write a review of the new Vampire Weekend record, but you just don’t know what to say.

Here’s an easy and accurate way to review that record.

First you think of something that would have a government pamphlet about it, and put that term or subject into google.
Let’s take STD’s for example.

Now copy the text from the pamphlet and judiciously replace key words with the name of the band.
Your end result should look something like this……
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History comics: throw in a few Decemberists
Posted by Tony T. on July 14, 2008 around 12pm

Kate Beaton is a new webcartoonist in Canada who writes funny, breezy comics in her spare time. Her specialty is comics about history. She doesn’t write about music much, but check out the second comic on this page.

Don’t quite get the joke? Maybe you should read up on the original Decembrists, the rebels in a Russian uprising in December of 1825.

Bert & Ernie - Ante up!
Posted by Dustin D. on July 14, 2008 around 11am

For some reason I really love when people re-edit old episodes of Sesame Street or other Muppets into “music videos” for seemingly incongruent things
Case in point; I bring you Bert & Ernie singing M.O.P.’s Ante Up…..
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It’s Time, Baby
Posted by Luscious Gris on July 3, 2008 around 3pm

to die by your side
the pleasure, the priv’lege is mine
take me home, tonight
take me anywhere, i don’t care

Morrissey wrote those lines a long time ago. I’ve been listening to this song, covered by somebody I don’t know, on a Rough Trade compilation I bought in London in the spring of 2006. It hits home. I came to the Smiths in college in 1988, a few years after I had bought my first cassette tapes: Never Mind the Bollocks, The Cure: Standing on a Beach, and VU & Nico. All purchased in Greenwich Village in 1985. Shortly thereafter I made the tennis team in high school listen to Catching Up With Depeche Mode, played on a crappy boombox on a concrete court.
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