To celebrate her cd release, Maria Isa and friends (Los Nativos, Leroy Smokes, Raices and a bunch of other musicians, singers and dancers) put on one hell of a show last night. Maria Isa is a vocalist and songwriter who performs Afro-Puerto Rican music, Bomba and Plena with a mix of Hip-Hop, R&B, and Reggeaton. Her passion for her music, her culture, and justice creates an intoxicating performance. On one listen the album sounds really good and more hip-hop heavy than the performance last night, mixing a number of musical styles with talented and meaningful lyricism. Check her out at B-Girl Be this year.

Thanks to Electrelane I was treated to one of the most amazing musical experiences of my life. Honest. The show was incredible, watching them construct their songs and moving with it was nothing short of amazing. Four friends, who had never really heard their music before trusted in my guarantee and came with me. All of them left that night stunned with what they had just been witness to. Honest. I couldn't believe I was closest to the stage with wiggle room all around, if we all knew better I would have been head-bob wrestling all night.

A surprise treat of the evening was Anni Rossi who upon cancellations and short notices came up with them from Chicago. She played the viola every possible way imaginable, plucked it, thumped it, strummed it. This generated a myriad of sounds to accompany her voice, which she also twisted and bent. This multitude of sounds coming from two instruments, well three, there was boot stomping, was delightful.

A good article on Electrelane's new album.

enjoy your weekends,
alice

InRadio April/May: Opportunity, Opportunity at its core connotes hope, possibility and good things to come. However, it is not passive, it must be harnessed and if you wait too long it will pass you by. Opportunity is inherent to music, however sad a song, it was created, perhaps to personally expel and move on or perhaps to bring awareness to a problem in hopes of change, but hope has to exist to create.

By featuring artists who are using their music to create the world they would like to see we hope that InRadio 5.1 leaves some of that energy with the listener. Canadian fun lovers, You Say Party! We Say Die! insist that if you are doing what you really love then life feels like a party and that happiness translates through their music. Through their beautiful music, Andy Palacio & The Garifuna Collective are bringing awareness to and continuing their Garifuna Culture. The basis of Zaki Ibrahim's music lies in her philosophy that cultures exchanged lead to greater understanding and tolerance.

In the words of the brilliant Ellen Willis, who we sadly lost last November: 'My deepest impulses are optimistic, an attitude that seems to me as spiritually necessary and proper as it is intellectually suspect.'

Let InRadio 5.1 bring out a little optimism in you, it is essential for change.

If it's time to renew, be sure to click on the link to the left. Otherwise, to get yourself a subscription, click here

I saw InRadio 5.1 featured artist The Shaky Hands last week at the Turf Club. Tambourines, bows on guitars and grandfathers playing the congas. They were great and I apologized for being the only one pseudo-dancing, he promised they'd be back through and I promised more dancing from Minnesotans.

A surprise plus was that my good friend's band, Over/Under opened up for them. I had also just bought Electrelane's new cd and got to enjoy it on my bike ride over to St. Paul. Couldn't have asked for a better night.

On Sunday I got the pleasure of hearing one of the best bluegrass bands in Minneapolis. They played for a few hours and got everyone in the place two stepping along with them. They have recently started playing with an upright bassist, who also plays bass for a local group, Black Blondie. Her jazz infused bass playing added delightfully to the many guitars (steel, acoustic, slide), banjo, fiddle, mandolin and steel ukulele. They were in complete control of the tempo and in sync with each other, speeding it up and slowing it down without even a nod, I was floored. Check them out: Ditch Lilies.

Wanna sneak peak into InRadio 5.2? I will tell you this, it's the most up-tempo cd I've made yet. Summertime fun here we come. It also features two artists I've posted about before.

take care,
alice

Electrelane has just released their fourth album, 'No Shouts No Calls' on Beggars Group Label, Too Pure. I haven't heard the album yet because I haven't risked going into a record store unattended. I need to find a chaperone who will strictly limit my purchases to said item and perhaps the new Blue Scholars.

What I can confidently say is that after purchasing I will immediately put it into my disc-man, get on my bike, and smile all around town as I absorb the first go through.

Equally thrilling is the fact that they're touring the u.s. right now and will be in Minneapolis in one week. I have not looked so forward to a show in a long time and it feels good to be ridiculously giddy.

I've never been able to aptly describe their music or pigeon hole it into a genre. All I know is that it demands my attention and I gladly give it. Each listen and album conjure different feelings. 'Axes' reminds me of wandering the streets of Chicago, I like to ride my bike to 'Power Out' and of late if I had my druthers it would always be raining when their music was on (that's not a bad thing coming from Portland).

Greatest of all is that it continuously serves as a reminder of how powerful music can be and why it is essential to my life.

okay...off you go to by your tickets now.

-alice

I hope that everyone enjoyed May Day. I spent the latter part of mine marching with a few thousand other people down Lake St. here in Minneapolis in support of immigrant rights.

The boom box kept blasting a Victor Jara song that I now can't remember the name of. Victor Jara was and is a hugely popular Chilean folk singer, professor and political activist. He was a leading voice during the 'Nueva Canción Chilena', a movement characterized by the renewal and reinvention of Chilean folk music whose politicized lyrics depicted the struggle and desires of the working class. Victor Jara, like thousands of others was taken to the Estadio Chile (now named Estadio Victor Jara), which housed political prisoners during the dictatorship. Jara was kidnapped the day after the U.S. sponsored September 11th coup of 1973, which toppled the democratically elected socialist government of Salvador Allende and placed Augusto Pinochet in power. There Jara was tortured and murdered. Although the military regime burned the vast majority of his master recordings his wife managed to sneak recordings out of Chile. It is because of her that his music and its message has continued to be heard throughout the world and within Chile.

Hearing his music yesterday brought me back to the May 1st that I spent on the streets of Santiago. Surrounding me were hundreds of thousands of workers, mothers, children, musicians, anarchists. We all marched together for our common rights as a worker and as a person.

Another artist responsible for the 'Nueva Canción Chilena' was the amazing Violeta Parra. The last song she wrote before she committed suicide in 1967 was 'Gracias A La Vida' (Thanks To Life), which has been a favorite song of mine since I first heard it in Chile years ago.

I am thankful for so much that surrounded my time in Chile, the people I met, the beauty I saw, the things I learned, and the music that I was exposed to daily.

The video isn't great, but it's the only one that I could find with the song.



-alice