v9

Chapstick Weekly-ish
For the prudent gentleman or gentlelady

The Definitive Paul Reinken Mix

The Word – The Beatles
Ghettochip Malfuntion (Hell Yes) [8bit Remix] – Beck
Happy Valentine’s Day – Outkast
The Last Time – Gnarls Barkley
Phantom – Justice
Inspector Blanchflower – The Fiery Furnaces
Phantom Pt. II – Justice
Brakes On – Air
Huddle Formation – The Go! Team
Move Your Feet – Junior Senior
Idioteque – Radiohead
Boy From School (Erol Alkan’s Extended Re-Work) – Hot Chip
Crimewave – Crystal Castles vs. Health
The Girls – Calvin Harris
Electric Feel – MGMT
Black Ice (Hymn 4 Disco) – k-os
Trying to Put Your Heart Back Together – Slow Runner
Got To Get You Into My Life – The Beatles

Albums in my Car
Beck, Modern Guilt
The Black Ghosts, The Black Ghosts
The Hold Steady, Stay Positive
Flying Lotus, Los Angeles
MGMT, Oracular Spectacular
Midnight Juggernauts, Dystopia

Chapstick Weekly Release Party Tonight!

MF! The party is upon us, as suddenly as a 30 degree weather shift in Indiana! An electric feeling, from the depth of my tarsals to the tingling ends of my carpals, is reverberating through my body. I hear a maniac, purple-hatted Gene Wilder shouting/singing something over the storm! It’s kind of like this:

There's no earthly way of knowing
Which direction we are going!
There's no knowing where we're rowing
Or which way the river's flowing!
Is it raining?
Is it snowing?
Is a hurricane a-blowing?
Not a speck of light is showing,
So the danger must be growing.
Are the fires of hell a-glowing?
Is the grisly reaper mowing?
Yes, the danger must be growing
'Cause the rowers keep on rowing
And they're certainly not showing
Any signs that they are slowing!

STOP THE BOAT! Savvy Salon on the BRAVE (BroadRipple Avenue) will be momentarily become an outrageous oasis to the desert of style and good music typically found in Broad Ripple on Saturday nights (in fact, probably found in most major cities....).

Editors Note: Savvy Salon could always be considered this Oasis.

There will be drinks and dancing, wanderings and wonderment, and great music all night! Pull up your socks, jump of your boat docks, and be ready to rock! I’m going to karate chop a panther, I’ve done it before!

See you there, we couldn’t do it without your imagination and shaking booties! After all, We are the Music Makers, we are the Dreamers of Dreams.



What’s New to Me and Maybe New to You

Black Ghosts
Beautiful, sublime, and masterful in its production, this album is brilliant on every track. The Black Ghosts combine energetic electronic grooves with touches of funk and jazz, with a sublime craftmanship that merits an extra large portion of toe-tapping. I’d love to call this album playful, but the serious effort given by the obviously talented musicians in this group can be seen from the first moment the music fills the air and enters your cerebrum.

The Hold Steady
Recently I referred to this band as a group finally fulfilling the potential of what midwest rock could do (from Minneapolis-Saint Paul originally, their roots grew in Brooklyn). They have also been referred to as “America’s Bar Band” – however the driving feature of this band is undoubtedly their ability to combine meaningful, sometimes heart-wrenching lyrics to a full, rock band back without ever coming across as just trying to do so. The lyrical influences, from Bruce Springsteen and Jim Carroll to Atmosphere and Jay-Z, show in this vibrant, far-spanning effort!

Chromeo
If the fun-loving, superfunk attitude that all but drips out of the air when this album is on makes is purely evident that the two members of this band never made it out of the disco mindset. But given all the modern advantages of The Electronic/Communications/Nintendo Age, what comes out of the speakers is the exact thing that would come out of Hal’s exercise room in Space Odyssey 2001! “When you wanna go Wow! When you wanna scream and shout tonight!”


In Case You’re a Dummy

Buy the Ratatat, LP3 album. Just as you’d expect, there are swelling strings and guitars! Crescendos of drums and sound! Quirky arrangements that draw you in for a closer look then spring on you in jack-in-the-box fashion with the absurd ridiculousness of all things beautiful! Their album, Classics, was amazing and by all means, their most recent effort on LP3 is obscenely precise and wonderful!

BEER! (from Tony the Yodeling Shetland Pony)
It is safe to say that the best beers in the world come from Belgium. Before the goose-steppers ran amuck, Belgium boasted more than 3000 breweries, today that figure is around 100. Even American breweries have taken notice and started to reproduce and play around with traditional Belgian beer recipes.

Allagash brewery from Portland, Maine has emerged as one of the leading American breweries producing authentic Belgian style beers. They serve up a plethora of different and creative beers, ranging from under $10 to nearly $20 a bottle. For this article, I recommend sampling their Triple Reserve. Allagash’s Triple Reserve is a bench mark upon which most other triples can and should be measured against. Their Triple has a high carbonation (I imagine it is what fizzy lifting drink feels like on one’s tongue), and a cloudy, golden, almost honey coloration. As in the nature of Belgian-style beers, you will immediately notice a quickly-fading, not overly-sweet taste to it.

With a price tag of $7.92 at the ghetto shop down the street, it is reasonably priced (for one 750mL bottle, so the size of two large pints), and it packs a punch at 9% alcohol. If you’re not in the know, please pour your Belgian style beers into a rounded bottom glass (think brandy glass, goblet, large wine glass, etc), and if you don’t have one of those, just use any glass you got.

For Tony the Yodeling Shetland Pony’s sanity, please do not be a philistine and drink it out of the bottle, you will be like a child clown without shoes! Have you ever seen one? It’s disgusting!



The Alamo: Sean Lennon, Friendly Fire

Remember Sean Lennon, Friendly Fire? At first listen, it is difficult to overlook the fact he is his father’s son. It is equally difficult to avoid immediately drawing an intense emotional connection to his music.

The morose, uncomplicated lyrics fed with inspiration from his self-said greatest influences (mom and dad), give this musical savant a razor sharp edge to do some surgery on your foolish and broken heart. He can burn a hole into the center of your deepest memory, ball it up in titanium twine, and pull it out of your core to see the fresh light of day, all in a single breath!

The beautiful arrangements of music that accompany his words, have a style of their own: unpretentious harmonies, masterful two-handed piano, and classical guitar all ease themselves into and out of the intricacies of every track.

As an added bonus, this album comes with a brilliant DVD that depicts the album through short sketches. A single scene sticks out in my mind: Sean Lennon, bent under the weight of a sleeve-carrying heart is slumped on a couch, strumming the complicated chords of the album’s title track “Friendly Fire” with an ease and effortless giving of emotion. Wonderful, sublime, emotional, timid, and unique.

Tastin' Summer! (Submitted by Katie2 of Savvy Salon in Indianapolis)

Music and umbrellas set the scene on the front deck of Taste Cafe in SoBro (South Broad Ripple)! Cool off with a cool lunch with the many gourmet salads to choose from. (Esp. our savvy favorite: beet salad, tortellini salad, and curry chicken topped off with a quenching tea/lemonade beverage. Numbingly deliciosa!

Speaking of taste, check out the Ronson genes! Charlotte Ronson, sister of music maestro Mark Ronson, has a remarkable clothing line that found now at Urban Outfitters! From high-waisted sailor shorts to stacked sandals, this line is a savvy favorite!

ps. Duh! “Electric Feel" by MGMT is totally beaching!
pps. Savvy is proud to launch "what's next" in hair care, by Sebastian. www.sebastianprofessional.com

Some Things Are Funny

Like Music Genres. So much depends, it seems, on the name of a genre of music.

Realistically, the genre is often the first point of description. Is this album rock? Is this alternative country? Electric Blues? Or even Adult Alternative Pop-Idol. But, in the endless repeat of “what kind of music do you listen to?” I am still puzzled as to the correct response. Obviously this Chapsticked effort of mine here has a severe electronic lean (or lien.). But does that pinch me into a situation of a solo electronic listener?

I’d prefer to think that my canned answer of “just good music” can hit a mark that naming off a few genres cannot. I also prefer to think that, just perhaps, the area of electronified music is the area where the most new, innovative material can be found.

The much appreciated singer/songwriter genre contains many of today’s poets and prophets, and certainly emerging in hiphop commonly are performers who are coming to be defined as the new age of Bob Dylans, speaking directly about the common state.

All the same, the largest consistency of compelling releases and innovation in music appears to be coming directly out of the wall outlet, into a myriad of electronic equipment. This makes sense, seeing that our recent history is marked by great strides and advances in electronics.

The merging of popular genres back into a single “pop” umbrella seems to be approaching, for simplicity. I mean, let the specialty genres carry the specialty names. In the mean time, I am going to stick with the idea of “just gimme somethin’ good!”


Next Week:
Gnarls Barkley, Dirty Pretty Things, The Music, and more gloss for those puckering kissers.