Last night, I had the opportunity to see perhaps my favorite artist do a show. The last time I saw Bonobo, it was three or four years ago in The Avalon in Boston, MA. He played that show shortly after Black Sands came out, and I believe played the entire album with a full band. Songs like Kong and Kiara made me feel like the vibes were going to bring the venue crashing down. Last night at the Crystal Ballroom, I didn't have the same experience. Maybe it was the geometry of the room, but standing in two different places still gave the same audio loss at enough tones to sound like I was seeing him outdoors from hundreds of feet away. Simon started off playing a few tracks of his new album, North Borders, before bringing out a wonderful singer for a full ensemble performance of memorable vocal tracks from his past three albums. At no point, however, was I fully blown away. After we moved down into the throng of people, about halfway through the show, the atmosphere definitely changed (no part undue to his choice of classic Bonobo tracks), but the lossy sound persisted through the whole performance. On the positive side, his track listing was phenomenal. He played three of the best songs off Days to Come, amazing concert pieces off Black Sands (including Kong and Kiara), and even a song off his Live Sessions EP (which I maintain is his best work, song for song.) I mean, come on, nobody cannot get down to this… What reallllly bugged me was how the show kind of throttled turning into a jam band performance. It felt really similar to STS9, Lotus, and Disco Biscuits and I feel like in part that's Bonobo playing to his American audience (which was a lot more festival-oriented than the show I'd seen in Boston.) At one point, after a very long drum solo, his saxophonist came out and started playing with loops and other effects. It felt like a page straight out of Big Gigantic: Which isn't an awful thing in and of itself, but it is a shift away from the "experimental warmth of 50's French jazz" Bonobo bills itself as. As the background chaos of the piece picked up, I slowly and uncomfortably came to the conclusion: this had turned into a dubstep track. Thankfully, it didn't last long, but still: my favorite band played a dubstep track. And it was awful. Thankfully, it ended, and they resumed their ensemble performance, rounding out an energetic two-hour set. I would highly recommend anyone check out Bonobo, including his three hidden gems of non-studio albums: Solid Steel Presents: It Came from the Sea One Offs Remixes & B-Sides and my personal favorite: Please do yourself a favor: take a Sunday, eat your late breakfast, put off cleaning your house for an hour, and listen to this lazy, wonderful set. That is all.

Hi guys, found this on the I-Drive. Thought you might like to hear Post-Modern Rock Show interview They Might Be Giants back when we were on the AM dial.

KPSU interviews Brother Ali, 10/20/2012 (click if player does not load)

Brother Ali at the Hawthorne Theater

Writing this, I think you're going to hate me, then accept what I'm about to tell you as one of the unfortunate truths of life. But Brother Ali is such a larger-than-life character, he needs to be split into two personas: the Preacher and the Reacher.

Brother Ali, The Preacher:

Brother Ali spits Truth with a capital T. He told me he doesn’t make music to simply speak authentically, but it's certainly a pervasive theme in his music. It’s not just him; it’s a marginalized eye that cuts a fine figure through the shady reality we live in.

So Brother Ali speaks Truth... is it really true? When I asked about the presidential race, I was surprised at the level of vitriol he leveled against Barack Obama. To Ali, it's far worse to harm someone under the pretense of helping them. For example, the Tea Party is up-front about what they believe. However, there's a fair chance these power-players may actually believe they're helping the world – in the same way Ali does. If you believe you're absolutely right, how can you condemn other zealots as evil, not simply wrong? In essence, there's a danger to Ali's Truth: his vision of absolutism is shared by the Mujahedeen, the Israeli settlers, the Westboro Baptist Church, and even myself – who believes you're still reading this article.

Brother Ali the Preacher is like Morpheus of the Wachowski trilogy The Matrix: we know he's on the right side, but his principles and morals give him a serious case of tunnel vision. In the end, his convictions get him into an untenable position. Also, Cornell West.

"Have you ever had an American Dream, Neo, that you were so sure was real?"

Brother Ali, The Reacher:

Let me get off my soapbox for a moment and talk about the content of Ali's lyrics. After all, this is a man who is able to reach out and attract hundreds of white college kids to hear him speak about the poor and marginalized people in cities like Chicago. At the same time, he is not condescending or arrogant. In his own words, everyone has both privilege and hardships. I can relate to that because I have seen every episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm.

But it’s not just the great beats (provided by Seattle’s Jake One) or Ali's commanding prose, presence, and flow that draws me in, it’s his ability to talk to listeners, to get us to understand privilege and marginalization in a way that Spike Lee or that sociology major you went out with once never could .

She knows I'm right.

At the end of the day, Brother Ali has style, humility, and dedication to his craft; traits that make him both a great lyricist and a scary-good preacher. But, according to Sartre, a man is the sum of his actions - no more, no less. Brother Ali spreads a message of peace and understanding, something that very few people civilized people would disagree with.

Bonus! Wolfgang Gartner at the Crystal Ballroom while totally sober:

Hopefully this works?!