SCINTILLATING MUSICAL MOMENTS MEGAMIX PART 5

Good [time of day it is wherever you are]. I have scavenged some musical crumbs from all over the meadow to bring you a special new blog megamix. Within:

getting innocuous at the LCD Soundsystem show

gaming poorly at the Sega Dreamcast Rave

a Potent Punk Rock Rec

I Enjoy Music Enjoys Music From Past I Enjoy Music Blog Posts

Blog Posts of the Recent Past

it feels like forever

I've seen LCD Soundsystem, the band of legendary electrocrank James Murphy, a good handful of times now. I missed the boat on their initial pre "retirement run but my husband got me into them big time and we're lucky to get to see them on a more or less annual basis (most recently in San Francisco for New Year's). This month they played a handful of shows in Los Angeles, at both the Shrine and the Palladium, and we caught last weekend's Saturday Palladium show.

The thing is, LCD doesn't have that much music in the tank, at least for how long they have existed: four albums, and a handful of singles. And they also have so many S-tier songs that people would lose their mind if they didn't play. I do not want to picture a world in which LCD fans don't get to hear "Dance Yrself Clean" at the show. Riots would happen. So you're not going to get an unexpected setlist swerve at an LCD Soundsystem—certainly not the zany roulette wheel of a King Gizz show, for example—but you will assuredly be comforted by a selection of classics: yr "Losing My Edge"s, yr "Daft Punk Is Playing At My House"s. Like a weighted blanket you can dance to.

LCD Brooklyn Steel 2017...why am i using this old photo? well...

At this point I really like going to LCD shows for the people more than the music. In San Francisco I complimented a women's cool-ass jacket (it had the words "Boys Wanna Be Her" stitched on the back—Peaches was opening the show) and she gave me a shiny sticker advertising her embroidery studio! At the Palladium show I chatted with some seasoned dudes who said they first became friends in the house music scene in Orlando in the '90s, as well as a guy wearing a light-up tracksuit he made himself! Wow lots of homemade custom clothing.
Anyway, the vibe was great, everyone was dancing, couldn't ask for more.

I have no photos of the show, because uh, I lost my phone there? Cool stuff. Very neat. One minute you're ascending toward an elevated group consciousness to tunes made by someone who cares deeply about analog synthesizers, the next you have lost the digital appendage that you both need for a bunch of logistical stuff and also are probably addicted to for entertainment stuff. "That's life" - Frank Sinatra.

I suck ass at Sonic

Taking it back even further ago, weeks ago, I want to shout out the CEO of nü-metal, Holiday Kirk, who has been throwing some amazing themed parties in the Los Angeles area under the umbrella of his flagship enterprise The Nu Metal Agenda. Chris and I went to his Dreamcast Rave ("a DJ Dance Party Dedicated to the Ultimate Gaming System") at the Moroccan Lounge and I had a blast. The theme entailed, loosely, music that came out around the short but sweet heyday of the Dreamcast (1998 - 2001 according 2 Wikipedia), and the party offered plenty of video game accoutrements, including various Sega sound effects + visuals, and a real Dreamcast you could play demo games on.

Highs: hearing Cher's "Believe" in a club-style setting, which I think I maybe have not experienced before?; Holiday mixing "Sandstorm" into "Ride Wit Me," causing me to black out and healing my inner middle schooler. Low: trying to play Sonic the Hedgehog and failing miserably. I didn't have a video game console growing up! I like to watch people play video games! I'm a Sims girly!! That hedgehog was too damn fast, I abandoned my turn halfway through when I kept falling off a cliff.

Anyway, Holiday is killing it, the theme parties are so smart and fun, all hail The Nu Metal Agenda.

Holiday's throwing another party, a Matrix-themed rave at Bar Franca in Los Angeles, on November 23rd. If you are in L.A. you should go!

Spiritually Cramped

The longer I blog, the more I hold in esteem the simple but powerful music recommendation: hey, you should listen to this album; hey, give this song a try. This type of transaction used to exist in more analog formats. Making someone a mixtape or mix CD. Going big and compiling a data CD for a big-ass library download. Or one of my favorite activities from like 2006 - 2009, which was literally grabbing the other earbud (this was the time of earbuds) of a beloved person and listening to one half of whatever they were listening to, left-right effects be damned.

Now recs usually happen digitally—a link to a playlist or a song over text. But I got a good one recently, delivered straight to the I Enjoy Music blog email: someone, who I'll leave anonymous unless it turns out they want to be shouted out by name (update: thanks @afuckingmohawk!!), told me to listen to the band Spiritual Cramp, calling them "one of the more underrated punk bands to recently come out of the Bay area" and pitching their sound as something between The Modern Lovers and The Clash. I pressed play on their self-titled debut album from last year on a lengthy car ride and was not disappointed.

To paraphrase the guy who loves Dan Flashes shirts in I Think You Should Leave, Spiritual Cramp are my exact style. I dabble in many modes beneath the punk umbrella, from the girly to the grubby, but my favorite type of punk has a touch of glamour to it, and ideally it leans more Dance than Mosh. From the first song of Spiritual Cramp, "Blowback," which opens with A MOMENT OF DUB and then accelerates into the ZIPPY CHORD ZONE, I knew I was in for a treat. Lead singer Michael Bingham delivers lyrics with a shouty swagger, the tempos are fast, the guitars are sharp but lush...I have no problems with this music, no problems at all. If you have music you think I should listen to...hit the email...

I Enjoy Music Enjoys Music From Past I Enjoy Music Blog Posts

Minneapolis chamber pop singer-songwriter Bryn Battani, who last graced the pages of I Enjoy Music with her Three Music Thingz...

...has a new song out! An "ironically beachy" single called "All I Need," which is a collaboration with fellow Minnesota musician Dirty Hymns. Ironic or no, it does make me want a piña colada regardless...dabble in it yourself if you would like...