Like A Lifetime(demo)

Always in my mind(demo)

HoldingMyHeart

"When I hear what we call music, it seems to me that someone is talking. And talking about his feelings, or about his ideas of relationships. But when I hear traffic, the sound of traffic—here on Sixth Avenue, for instance—I don't have the feeling that anyone is talking. I have the feeling that sound is acting. And I love the activity of sound” –John Cage


John Cage, perhaps the 20th century’s most influential composer (and the first musician to sample for his compositions), once said his favorite song was the sound of 6th avenue. This was New York City, obviously, however that was not his point. The streets of Chicago provide equally rich aural textures full of beautiful chance and familiar motifs. It is often heard but not listened to, as people mindlessly go through their routine.  This soundscape changes with season, as sounds of treading through snow and cars driving through slush paint our scene. The aural experience of a bike ride is unique in its own way. Wind is whipping, powerful engines mere inches away. Cyclists provide their own mechanical sounds and, more recently, color our streets with Bluetooth speakers. These speakers have their own over-driven tone and sounds modified by the bicycle itself (to bystanders) via the  Doppler effect. These effects are captured here by playing recorded music (all bike themed, mind you) while modifying different filters. Through all the music and rumbling of gasoline engines, the gears of our bicycles ring through. Our aural environment has been monopolized by mechanical sounds over the last century, almost without criticism.  Bicycles have developed along a similar time-frame as cars yet bicycles are a refreshing and ever modern reprieve from the clouds of exhaust and interruption of engines.  Using filtered music, synthesizers, a drum machine, and field recordings around Lincoln Park/Lakeview I try to capture interaction of motion, chance, urbanity, modernity, and attention. I hope you enjoy the ride.

Blue Doppler: A Winter Street Ride

Summer of Soul: Good Vibes Only

Sway

Some musical reflections as the year comes to a close.

Happy Holidays

This is the A side to a currently ungoogleable 7" by Patrick Rodriquez;  If you are the rights holder to this recording or know anything about the artist please feel free to contact at SoundOut-Loud.blogspot.com.

01 Misty Morning - Patrick Rodriquez

The world is really wildin' out with this one. No matter what happens the world needs peace and love. Good thing music can provide both.

Recorded With:
Guitar - Valley Arts M Series
Amp - Fender Hot Rod Deluxe
Mic - Neat Microphone's Worker Bee

Keeping On

2020 is the year everything was supposed to be clear. Seen with perfect vision, a 20:20 vision that now has caught us with our pants down in unforgiving light. Our fragile state of affairs has collapsed under a massive public health crisis, economic crisis, and white supremacy’s deep roots and long shadow. We yearn for a way forward, and this Summer of Soul is about how soul music moved forward. This year is not some genre bound concept, the Summer of Soul was always about freedom. It is about how Black American music has proliferated promoting a world focused on love, empathy,  liberation, and the ecstatic power of a shared groove. 

Starting with a 70’s slow burner the ache of nostalgia is then intensified with the bleeding-heart soul then do-wop that follows. Soon after we are reminded how white rock n’ roll music has been influenced by the same African roots that run through all American music. Through some mixture of US foreign policy, global markets, and the sheer infectiousness of groove these sounds influenced music and politics around the globe. Caetano Veloso's seminal album Tropicalia is a perfect example of reverberations of jazz, rock, and R&B in Brasil. These are the defining sounds of the Tropicalia movement, the inheritors of Bossa Nova's legacy, which helped counter the Brazilian military dictatorship.

Flying back to America we hear the revolutionary sound of disco. This searing groove is a modern re-edit from English producer the Reflex, which reminds us, “There may be so many things that held us down… I know we got a long long way to go, and where we’ll end up I don’t know. But we won’t let anything hold us back.” The disco groove keeps going with a little light from Bobby Caldwell, and because this mix is about looking forward, it's another re-edit for that modern touch.

After the Bobby Caldwell re-edit we hear of some nostalgia even Gen-Z gets down to. Yes that is the  alternate 12” intro to classic Whitney Houston, this record gets a lot of play. Next we look forward by being ahead of our time. For Run DMC being ahead of their time is easy and this house inspired record sure proves it. Their lyrics are tough and unforgiving, yet noble and strong, “cause that’s the way it is”.  

We then travel to Smart Bar for some Blessed Madonna, the world class DJ and producer  carrying on Chicago’s house music flame. What is house music’s relationship to soul? Well from soul came disco and disco came house.  When the racist and homophobic disco backlash hit, its epicenter in Chicago with the famous “disco inferno”. Disco’s closed but Chicago’s Black and LGBTQ community needed a space where they were welcome. Enter the Warehouse in Chicago and sampling of Soul and Disco similar to the separate but contemporaneous tradition of hip-hop. 

Disco still plays a prominent role in dance music culture today and re-edits of old classics are frequently made to stand with modern club music. Here an Italo-Disco classic is given an tasteful modern update. The words “everybody everybody is looking for the maximum” echo with cautionary tales of late night excess in a world of overwrought materialism. 

We end with a trio from Columbian infused electro-pop by way of Brooklyn singing a message of tenacity. Second to last we have haunting electronic English music influenced by Jamaican dub. DJ Spinna and Rich Medina close out the hour with a poetic repudiation of the “American” brand of capitalism and governance saying “see this is indeed the end of the past, an intermission in futures overthought and yet to be experienced”.

The world is truly indebted to Black people in the United States for their contributions to culture. Yet they are treated unfortunately in this country. There is a dark legacy this music is trying to overcome. Hopefully it gets us there.

SummerOfSoul 2020: Super Soul Sanitizer

This is dedicated to all the ribosomes out there. Get vaccinated!

21 Days

Written and recorded entirely on the OP-1 synthesizer. Dedicated to Radio Raheem and all those who suffered his fate.

RadioMan(For Raheem)

Vocalist, guitarist, and jack of all trades based in Chicago. Feel free to say what's up in the DMs or on my tracks. 

Check out my latest project The Climate Variations at soundoutloud.bandcamp.com

SoundOutLoud

Pinned to spotlight

Popular tracks