Get down and boogie with the family!

For years, the Burlington area has enjoyed a family funk dance party called Boogie Wonderland. I reported on it here.

Well, in that proud tradition, the Canton-Potsdam-greater St. Lawrence County community now has the same! Bring the family on down to La Casbah in Potsdam on Saturday February 20th from 2-4pm for family-friendly disco, funk, and fun. There'll be food for the kids and a bar for adults. I'll be laying down the groove.

Here's the official press release from the Family Funk-Shun:

Round up the family, dust off those bell bottoms, and get ready to shake your groove thing on Saturday, February 20^th from 2-4pm at La Casbah, 6 Elm St. Potsdam. It’s a new series of dance parties! We’re called Family Funk-shun. The party will feature music from DJ Tapatio (David Sommerstein from NCPR’s Beat Authority), snacks for the kids, and a cash bar for adults. The party is geared toward kids under 10 and all kids must be accompanied by an adult. Funky costumes are encouraged. Admission is $3/person or $10/family. For more info email familyfunkshun@gmail.com.

Beat Authority playlist: 2/5/10

Que Rrrrrico!

Have a great weekend and let me leave you with "La madre de todas las Bandas", Banda el Recodo...

Swimming in Speakers hits it BIG!

Tonight on Grey's Anatomy, Beat Authority listeners may hear something familiar. Saranac Lake's Swimming in Speakers' song, "In Knowing", is scheduled to appear in the episode!

Here's the song. Here's Chris Clarke talking about it. And here's SiS performing live last summer on the Beat Authority (including four free downloads)!

Congrats, Chris and Meadow!

Free MP3s: Saratoga!

I don't know why, but I always think of a hippy-stoner voice and the Grateful Dead when I think of the Saratoga Performing Arts Center, known around here as SPAC.

But you must check out this Talking Heads bootleg from 1983 at SPAC. This is around the time Stop Making Sense was released and the band was bangin'.

Back in town (with a good cause)

I'm back after a sweet vacation in Oaxaca and D.F., Mexico. Heard lots of great sounds that I'll be sharing.

First, though, I found this going through the inbox. Sierra Leone Refugee All-Stars and Cumbancha records are donating all the proceeds from the digital sale of a single off their upcoming record to the Haitian relief effort.

Spend (at least) a buck, get a cool tune, and pitch in.

Beat Authority playlist: 1/22/10

Quantic drops a mambo straight.

Very very cool chart

Nothing like the combination of raw data and sleek graph design to give us a new way of looking at the world. Here's a graph of the most popular bands in 2009, according to listening habits on last.fm (which I've never used before - have you?).

To really appreciate it, click here to look up close. It compares listening habits in two trend-setting cities, New York and London, to those of the rest of the world. The accompanying article argues two things: cities have "edgier" listening habits than suburbs and "the rest of the world"; and non-pop bands, like, say, Animal Collective, can remain "obscure" in the general public yet sell out huge shows to their niche.

Delaney Flushboy argues that's a good thing:

Not sure if I agree with the author's final conclusion about Animal Collective and other extremely popular "obscure" bands. I've read other authors who make the same argument: that pop music has become boring because bands like Animal Collective can't break through in the internet age. I'm sure that Animal Collective would appreciate the extra money (and god knows they deserve it) but I actually think that the music world has gotten more diverse and more interesting in the past ten years for just this very reason. Many more bands can have success like Animal Collective's, and while they might not be "breaking through" like Nirvana did, they're doing well financially (at least making a decent, stable living I imagine) and thriving artistically. I'd rather see more artists have the opportunity to make a living as musicians while doing their own thing than everybody in the industry taking part in a crap-shoot to make it big or go broke trying.

Free mp3: Madagascar's Razia

Not a lot of music from Madagascar makes it to the U.S. Tarika and D'Gary are the only ones that come to mind.

Cumbancha is bringing another to light. Razia Said's album, Zebu Nation, is coming out next month. The press materials say it has a political bent:

Zebu Nation is the outcome of a personal journey that began in February 2007 when Razia returned to Madagascar to reconnect with the land she left as an eleven year-old child. For six weeks she traveled around the country in a van with a group of musicians and a film and audio recording crew. Along the way, she visited inspiring local musicians and saw firsthand the damage done to her homeland's forests and landscapes.

Until the full-length comes out, you can sample Razia's first single - and download it for free - here.