Listen Localy: Rant Globaly

The gates to Seattle Center open tomorrow at noon, beginning the three-day musical smorgasbord that is Bumbershoot. Some of the main stage headliners are new-school impressive: Band of Horses, Black Keys, Neko Case, T.I. Others are old-school confounding: the Offspring? Stone Temple Pilots? Superchunk? Does anybody care? There are far more interesting '90s holdouts to bank on (Beck, for instance, who headlines tomorrow). Such divergent quality is the nature of the music festival that tries--and mostly succeeds--to be all things to all people.

As usual, it's the densely-packed undercard that holds up the rest of the hubbub. One of most interesting performances of the weekend happens tomorrow afternoon. I've never seen Darondo or Nino Moschella, but friends who have, including Rhapsody hiphop guru Sam Chennault, can't rave enough.

Darondo's backstory is fascinating. The man born William Pulliam touts a resume that includes cable TV host, physical therapist, import/export, and opening a San Francisco show for James Brown in the mid-'70s, from which he drove home in his custom white Rolls Royce. (Some would add "pimp" to that litany, but Darondo denies ever working in The Business.) It was during that era that Darondo was a minor fixture on the Bay Area R&B scene. He recorded three 45s that ranged from string-laden Al Green-ish love ballads to syncopated, sinuous floor-fillers a la Sly Stone. Then he retired from music to live the rest of his life.

That kind of mythology is hard to come by today. As unique as his story is, Darondo's music speaks loudest. Peep "Let My People Go"--a dark, reverb-drenched stab of minimalist funk, a liberation manifesto wrapped in a dead-on slinky groove. In 2006, L.A.-based vinyl archaelogists Ubiquity Records reissued the track and nine other '70s Darondo tunes as an album of the same name. It's unbelievably hot stuff.

Somehow, Nino Moschella is not the household (ok, warehouse loft) name that Jamie Lidell has become. Moschella trades Lidells' techno-noise pedigree for a California hippie upbringing, but the end results are similar: wicked, blue-eyed electro soul. Moschella's stellar Ubiquity debut The Fix came out the same year as Darondo's record. Both remain largely unknown.  

These days, Moschella and his band the Park back Darondo, though they play very rarely, and usually only in California. It's a super-special, cross-generational funky thing that stands as one of Bumbershoot's most unique offerings.

When the Robert Moses-built (and Works Progress Administration-funded) McCarren Pool -- tucked to the eastern corner of Brooklyn's McCarren Park-- ceased to be a pool in 1984, Sonic Youth was still scurrying about the scuzz of the Lower East Side, blasting out "Death Valley '69" at Danceteria and at Maxwell's. nearly twenty-five years on, things have changed. The decrepit pool grew weeds and housed junkies, Polish drunkards from neighboring Greenpoint, the homeless, and skaters, while Sonic Youth grew to become ageless purveyors of cool.
The Warriors-esque red-brick walled cement pit that is McCarren Pool re-opened three summers ago and instantly became a bastion for Brooklyn's emaciated and pasty fashionistas in the summer. Sunday afternoon free concerts from the likes of Blonde Redhead, TV on the Radio, and M.I.A. instantly achieved legendary status. Meanwhile, all around the pool and park, up went glimmering glass and steel luxury condos. Now, NYC's Landmarks Preservation Commission plans to restore this landmarked spot to all of its chlroniated glory by 2011, meaning: everyone out of the pool.
As is their status as godfathers of the alternative milieu, Sonic Youth have returned to soundtrack one last adult swim here, the last concert to be held here. For some curious reason, SY are now renowned for closing other venerated venues (such as Liberty Lunch down in Austin, Texas), not to mention saying Goodbye 20th Century. The band packed the walls last year as they recreated their much-feted masterwork, the double album Daydream Nation in its entirety. No doubt the band will have no such straitjackets tonight as they draw from their back catalog (maybe even all the way back to 1984) to bid adieu to summer and the driest pool of a generation. With Vivian Girls, Wolf Eyes, Times New Viking.
Saturday 8/30 @ McCarren Park Pool Lorimer Street & Bayard Avenue 4pm, All ages, $35

Is there anybody in the District who's aged better than Chuck Brown? He got his start 40-some years ago, at a time when the local music scene wasn't the easiest place to break out of. There were plenty of clubs back then--just very few labels and a whole lot of schemers. But Brown kept at it, wringing blues from his guitar in backyards for beer and barbecue. Graduating from the barbecue circuit to soul covers to inventing that go-go beat should have been enough.

According to an Associated Press report federal authorities say they have arrested a blogger suspected of streaming songs from Guns N' Roses' ridiculously long over due unreleased album, Chinese Democracy, on the website www.antiquiet.com.

FBI agents arrested 27-year-old Kevin Cogill (A.K.A. Skwerl) on Wednesday morning (Aug. 27th) on suspicion of violating federal copyright laws. Federal authorities say Cogill posted nine unreleased Guns N' Roses songs on his website in June.

A new AC/DC song, "Rock 'n' Roll Train," has been posted on the band's official Web site. The song will appear on the band's next album, Black Ice, due out on Oct. 20.

So, how is it? Well...it sounds like AC/DC. A big rock riff with the high-pitched vocals of Brian Johnson over it all leading to a big hook.

Fans should be happy...it sounds like everything else they've done.

Before hearing their debut disc, I expected Apache to sound like their Dude Rock brethren -- aka more fist-shaking, groin-thrusting '70s-styled rock that sounds way better in a live setting than on the stereo. The kind of music that needs a few Budweisers, a dingy stage, and a couple fucking in the bathroom to sound right. Boy, was I wrong.

Welcome to the new Listen.com, your web hookup to local music scenes. Listen.com was reborn from a very simple premise: putting a world of music lovers in closer touch with what's musically popping in any given town.

Dig it: the Internet has already been instrumental in introducing musicians to fans looking to discover them. Too often though, it's either single-staff websites or single-minded bloggers calling all the shots. One set of biases = one set of recommendations. Don't get us wrong, these people have turned us onto some great tunes, but we figured there's got to be a better way.

Instead, we've gathered some of the best writers and bloggers from every corner of the country and asked them to forget the things happening elsewhere. It's all about what's happening in their own backyards: local shows, local bands and local clubs. For Listen.com, the local scene is life. So the more of scenes we know about (and the more we know about each scene), the more fulfilling our life - and your Listen.com experience - will be.

And we're not going to do it on our own! We'll be adding scenes from around the U.S. - and, hopefully, beyond - as you tell us to. Soon enough, you'll probably be covering your local scene better than we do - and we'll be the ones paying attention. (Go HERE to tell us which scene we should add next!)

So do what you've always done -- listen locally, rant globally. Check out how the new Listen.com does the same. Then tell us what we're doing right and what we're doing wrong.

Listen to the Listen.com playlist, New York Classics 1. Tunes from the Big Apple, for the Big Apple, by the Big Apple. Enjoy!

Setlist:
Ace Frehley, "New York Groove"
West Side Story, "Jet Song"
Interpol, "NYC"
LCD Soundsystem, "New York, I Love You"
Nas, "N.Y. State of Mind"
The Ramones, "53rd & 3rd"
Velvet Underground, "I'm Waiting for My Man"
Sonic Youth, "NYC, Ghosts & Flowers"
Sonny Rollins, "The Bridge"
Boogie Down Productions, "The Bridge is Over"
Santogold, "Shove It"
Frank Sinatra, "New York, New York"