Best in Local Music (Part Two)
Best Record Store for that Afropop comp: Melody. Every time I think nobody in town is going to have some obscure reissue I'm craving, Melody seems to have it on its shelves. The store just keeps getting better.
Best local blog: This one. It's out of Towson, Md. Does that count as local?
Best Music Story (long form) by CP: This one.
Best Alan Lomax impersonator: Jack Carneal. You can read a review of his finds here.
4:07 pm
Carneal's 'finds' (as great as they were) resembled some of the Malian music I heard when the Smithsonian featured that country at the Folklife festival a few years ago. Plus, even if Carneal is not making any money on the cds, that does not excuse his failure to give credit by name to any of the musicians. As Jace Dj Rupture Clayton said in his recent Frieze magazine essay regarding Sublime Frequencies and Carneal:
"Responding to criticism, the label[Sublime F] started to abandon its exotic-as-anonymous mindset and published some albums with liner notes. The brown people now have names, and we are the richer for it. One hopes that the bootlegged musicians are too. Unfortunately, a swath of copycat labels popped up, releasing ‘anonymous’ world music heedless of its original context or the fact that many of those who made it – be they from Mali or Tibet – are still alive, still trying to eke out a living as musicians. Jack Carneal and Drag City’s Yaala Yaala label were the most egregious examples of these copycats. "
4:20 pm
I believe Carneal addresses some of your criticism here:
http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/display.php?id=1775
2:08 pm
dude, that's your job. i've got my own problems.
but for starters, how about a year end wrap up that doesn't focus on two bands that broke up 1-4 years ago.
you guys need to dust yourselves off and get out there.