English readers please check below.

Gisteren hebben Radna, Melodee en ik voor het eerst in maanden weer het mediapark te Hilversum betreden om de eerste ‘officiële’ Future Vintage show van 2009 op te nemen. Wel eens waar een uur korter maar nog altijd even sterk !
Vandaag drop ik een preview op de show die morgen avond tussen 23:00 - 00:00 te beluisteren is op RADIO 6. Uiteraard zal hij de volgende dag online staan, hopelijk in zowel in podcast formaat (itunes) alsmede streaming (via deze blog) en download link.
Anyway! Let’s get down to business….

Veel ga ik niet verklappen, maar een nieuw onderdeel van de show genaamd ‘3 is the magic number’ zal morgen een hommage brengen aan een aantal overleden legendes van 2008.
Wegens de beperkte zendtijd konden we niet iedereen bespreken, vandaar dat ik hier nog eventjes wil terugblikken op Norman Whitfield.. De songwriter van o.a. The Tempations, Undisputed Truth en Edwin Starr die op 16 September 2008 is overleden. Continue reading »

Don’t call it a comeback… It took a while, but finally it’s official: Future Vintage will be back with a weekly radioshow, on Radio 6. Every sundaynight from 23.00 - 00.00 Melodee and Radna will present you the music we love and discover, both new and old, whether it’s vinyl or mp3, from jazz and soul to hiphop and electronic music. Since Tom Trago is mainly focused on making music and DJing worldwide, he couldn’t make it to the studio every week. But Boye (aka the secret force) will be, as part of the Future Vintage crew, a regular contributor to the show and this blog.

In these days it’s quite hard to find airtime on Dutch public radio if you want to decide what to play, instead of following the station’s playlist. We’re very happy that after Lijn5 left the NPS, the same broadcasting company will now give us airtime on Radio 6, the station that’s specialized in ‘jazz, world, cross over and culture’. While we played the most ‘old’ music on Lijn5, we’ll be probably one of the youngest shows on Radio 6 - but why think of music in boundaries?

The first show will be on the 4th of january. For now we don’t know what the podcast possibilities will be, but we’ll work on that. You can listen to Future Vintage on Radio 6 online, or through Dutch cable radio. FutureVintage.net will expand as the portal to more information about the show, the music we play and news about interesting people and events that we like to share with you.

Thank you for your patience and support thusfar, let’s step into tomorrow!

Donald Byrd - Steppin’ Into Tomorrow

It’s that time of the year where you can’t turn around or you’ll hear WHAM’s “Last Christmas” or Paul McCartney’s “Wonderful Christmas Time” on your radio and TV. And although many of our favorite artists have often recorded Christmas songs or even albums, very few of them have tried giving their own spin to it. I.N.T. of La Melodia must have thought the same, because the endless stream of Christmas albums has inspired him to lock himself in the studio the past 3 weeks (and believe me he did… we share the space!). The result? A 20 track Christmas album with samples from Christmas songs only and sounds ranging from broken beat-ish to soul to straight up hiphop. And the best part? It’s FREE! Go to Nalden.net through the link below and turn off Sky Radio this Christmas. Personally I think I.N.T. quite outdid himself here.

Download

It’s the end of the year, the time that music aficionados all get crazy with their top-whatevers. Some people can discuss endlessly about it, but the Future Vintage crew keeps it quite simple.

I asked people who were involved with the show somehow, to make a Top 5 of 2008, but also mention artists we should look out for next year. You know, 2009, the year that Future Vintage will be back on air. More about that very very soon!

Please let us know what your favourite tracks, albums, concerts or moments of last year were, we’re curious as ever.

LEFTO (De Hop, Appletree)
1: Miles Davis 50th Anniversary Boxset - Kind Of Blue (Blue Note)
2: Q-Tip - The Renaissance (Motown)
3: Esperanza Spalding - Esperanza
4: Benga - Diary of an Afro Warrior (Tempa)
5: Illa J - Yancey Boys (Delicious)

Continue reading »

When I entered Rush Hour last monday, something was different. The recordstore at the Spuistraat looked more spacious in a way. The artwork from the walls was gone, to make the store a white canvas for the exhibition that opens this thursday: Different Strokes by Niels ‘Shoe’ Meulman. Shoe is kind of a graffiti legend in Amsterdam, and abroad. He began tagging when he was 13 years old and developed into a designer, art director and owner of scarves brand Unruly.

Different Strokes is his third exhibition of Calligraffiti-works (indeed a combination of calligraphy and graffiti). Coming from the streets, Niels Meulman still tries to ’stay away from those clinical gallery spaces for the elite.’ The works he present at Rush Hour are titles, some of them are of existing tracks from the Rush Hour label, while others ask the viewer to imagine their own complementary sound. So drop by, the exhibition is on view from 19 december - 18 january. Bonus: Watch Shoe working on Calligraffiti.

There’s no podcast from home this/last week, but there are fortunately a lot of alternatives to bless you with interesting music. Take for example Dublab.com. This LA based collective believes in new forms of radio, online and independent that is, with no boundaries to their playlist. Among the many contributors to Dublab are people like Daedelus, Carlos Nino and Flying Lotus. Often they’ll play futuristic and spaced out electronic music, but also dreamy folk and even hints of post-punk. If you look a bit on their website you’ll discover lots of podcasts, a live radiostream and dj mixes, but also articles such as ‘A day in the life of Moondog’ by Frosty, or an interesting online exhibition where Dublab combines music with visual art. The interesting thing is that Dublab gives podcasts and mp3’s away for free, but kindly ask the listener for a donation.

To get a little taste of the music they play, here’s a Flying Lotus remix of Woebegong by The Long Lost:

For 6 years, Sasha Dees and Philip Powell have organised the Black Soil Hiphop Filmfestival. It started in Rotterdam, but later the festival (or parts of it) also took place in Amsterdam, the UK and France. Because of a lack of funding Black Soil 2008, this weekend in new Rotterdam venue Watt, seems unfortunately to be the last one. As always they have a nice line-up of movies and documentaries, Q&A’s with filmdirectors and some great afterparties as well.

While some films might be very hiphop in the 4 elements sense, others are more about hiphop culture in a broader perspective. See for example Living The Hiplife , about highlife/hiphop music in Ghana, presented by AfricanHiphop.com (also check their weekly radioshow). Dutch filmmakers are respresented as well, see Rio Cruizero (by Dre Urhahn and Jeroen Koolhaas) and the very first film by my friend Bibi Fadlalla, Stars In His Eyes.

And then the afterparties; Future Vintage collaborator Lefto (BE), TY (UK), Rich Medina (NYC) and DJ Spinna (NYC) are all there! Spinna will do a soul slam party, Michael Jackson vs Prince style on the 6th of december. Hop skip to the website for more details.

Cellist, composer, singer and disco artist Arthur Russell created in his short life a great diversity of music. You might know the Paradise Garage classic ‘Is it all over my face’, but apart from producing innovative disco music, Arthur Russell also played cello to accompany the poetry of Allen Ginsberg, performed with David Byrne and worked with avant-garde composer Philip Glass.

That’s quite amazing, and more than enough reasons to see the documentary Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell, that got released earlier this year. See the trailer here. I haven’t seen it myself, but hope to change that this week. It’s out on DVD, but if you prefer a bigger screen, Wild Combination is now on show at SMART Project Space.

Have a dance on ‘Go Bang’ by Dinosaur L (produced by Arthur Russell) from 1982:

Tom Trago made it to the finals of de Grote Prijs, the main music talent contest in the Netherlands. Ok, maybe Tom is not such a ‘new’ talent, but you know he’ll spend the price money well and invest it in good music. So just vote! Go to the website, dance/producers category. The finals will be on the 13th of december in de Melkweg, Amsterdam.

This thursday live in Paradiso, Amsterdam: Raphael Saadiq. Mister Saadiq is the kind of artist that seems missing in action for a while, but then suddenly pops up with strictly quality music. While I still enjoy some songs from Instant Vintage, his latest solo project The Way I See It is all about the retro soul sound that seems very popular lately. Think vintage Motown and Stax, some horns, handclaps and even doo wop…soul with a rough edge that also influenced Amy Winehouse and Mark Ronson.

There’s something about it that makes me itch, why copy a style so much instead of creating something completely new? But then again, Raphael mastered it - listen to 100 Yard Dash and watch him wear his slim fitted suit with swagger.

Stones Throw also jumps on the soul bandwagon, with a new artist that reminded me vaguely of Smokey Robinson: Mayer Hawtorne. The biography of this 29th year old singer and producer from Ann Arbor actually mentions the question about new/old soul music: “It’s not just throwback music anymore – this revival is all about progression.”

Mayer Hawtorne just released his first single Just Ain’t Gonna Work Out (on a beautiful limited edition heartshaped 45!), so decide for yourself and listen: