Columns

We here at Wyllys & The World Party thank you for your patience. As most of you know I’m a transient DJ and Lighting Designer currently roaming the world in the name of Prog Rock and Beats – a nice segue into this episode.

I was scanning DJ-Mixes.com and realized we needed a Hip Hop installment with a quickness. I stumbled upon a domestic purveyor of urban sounds. DJ Digital Green started as a lighting tech at a club and decided that turntables were more of a creative outlet and started playing old school Hip-Hop, Techno, Trance and a little House. His lighting background earned him the nod this week, despite some shortcomings.

He is still a little….green around the edges but the intent is all there. This two part mix is a tight jaunt through mid to late ’90s Hip Hop interwoven with today’s Top 40 Rap fare. The tempo holds steady and the track selection is PERF for the Summer, which is why I chose the mixes. HOWEVER…our boy asks for some advice in his bio (shown below) so we here at HT are going to give it to him straight: Without tempo variation it sounds like one big Jock Jams jerk off session. Vary the tempo a bit and you are on your way to more natural sounding Hip Hop. Till then, check out these two entertaining and head-bob inducing mixes. Guaranteed to have the ladies shaking the goods.

Featured Artists: Arrested Development, 50 Cent, Tribe Called Quest, Nate Dogg, Kanye West, 2 Pac, and many other legends

• Dj Digital Green Top 40 & Hip-hop Mixes: Vol 1, Vol 2

READ ON for Dj Digital Green’s biography…

From its humble beginnings as a monthly online newsletter in 1995 through its current reign as internet hub for indie culture, Pitchfork Media has always championed the under-heard, eclectic and sometimes downright weird. Whether you agree with their (most-likely unfavorable) review of your favorite record or not, it’s hard to deny their reach and influence on independent music and how it intertwines with the modern social web.

As their presence continued to grow it came as no surprise when Pitchfork decided to bring their niche to life, curating the 2005 Intonation Music Festival. It was even less surprising when the fest re-branded itself under the Pitchfork name the following year.

For one reason or another, I had never been able to attend any of Pitchfork’s festivals. The bills always had bands that didn’t come through Chicago often that I wanted to see, but the timing didn’t work out for me until this year. This year, I found myself with a rare weekend both at home and sans work for most of the July 17 – 19 weekend and could finally attend the Pitchfork Music Festival (well…2/3 of it at least).

READ ON for more from Joel on the Pitchfork Music Festival…

It’s another good musical week for the Biography Channel which will air several musical profiles this week including an extended two-hour program dedicated to Frank Sinatra airing Thursday, August 6

Alejandro Jodorowsky is many strange things to many outraged people, so it makes sense that clarity of purpose doesn’t appear to rank high on his artistic agenda. And that’s the hook right there. With the advent of this third season, 3.0 if you like, we drift away from the essence of what is known, and move further towards a more obscure angle—if that is actually possible when one is trying to focus on a rational discussion of film.

Well, that was all hoity toity and the usual heaping of pretension mixed in with foggy dissonance, but what does it mean? Indeed. What does anything mean? As we head out on a third voyage into the Great Cinematic Unknown with more than a little bit of tongue in cheek, and a heady nod towards experimental versus populist films, the nail on the head in this discussion becomes obvious, especially in light of this week’s Hidden Flick.

Before tripping on to the path of Jodorowsky’s scandalous The Holy Mountain, let’s continue our brief look at the definition of our little idea of a Hidden Flick column. These remnants of celluloid which we study and admire aren’t so much “hidden flicks” as they are films about “hidden knowledge” masked in eternally weird riddles: what is the protagonist after? What is the director trying to say? Is this a truly unique film, and does it challenge the viewer, thereby forcing the issue that to be questioning obscure ideas means that one’s audience is far smaller, but more in tune with the creative process? Ahhh…we have the answer: the Spinal Tap factor. Our audience is more “selective,” which is always the initial step towards delusion and self-indulgence, but it’s also far more honest. Let us build our 3 foot high monuments to Stonehenge, shall we?

READ ON for more on this week’s Hidden Flick…

Phish – The Wedge

This year’s Garcia Birthday Edition of Stormy Mondays is the tail end of a widely circulated JGB late show from March of 1978 – a real classic. We pick up