Taj Mahal LIVES the Blues

Internationally recognized blue musician Taj Mahal (stage name for Henry Saint Clair Fredericks) played at the Santa Cruz Blues Festival this weekend. His stage name apparently came to him in a dream about Gandhi and India.

Winner of two Grammy Awards, Taj played up a storm with guitar, banjo and keyboard and while he didn't play the harmonica yesterday, it is yet another instrument in his bag of tricks.

Every Blues festival needs performers like Taj Mahal, who sounds as though he's played the music every day for as long as he has lived. He had a set-long conversation with his guitar, mostly about women and lovin', and he welcomed us to listen in.

With passion and humor, he fuses sounds from Africa, the South Pacific, the Caribbean and traditional American blues to get his audience moving. He asks the girls to scream and the guys to hollar. He then asks all of us to shout and adds a bit of relationship advice for all the men in the audience - "men, do yourself a favor, learn how to dance and you won't have any more problems."

Below, Taj's bass player Bill Rich

What I loved most about his candid style was not just the fact that his music was all blues, but his raw authenticity, his quiet energy and his ability to make you smile with every note he hit on his guitar.....simultaneously he adds witty words of wisdom into the mix.

He has played with Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Buddy Guy, Ry Cooder and Lightnin' Hopkins as well as in the legendary Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus. Critics describe his voice as "gruff, gritty, smooth and sultry" all at the same time.

Emphasizing dance more than once on stage, Taj is a musician who wants his audience to move and I might add: move as if you mean it. And believe me, I did and loved every minute of it.

Santa Cruz Blues Festival: Authentic & Intimate

Brad Kava, co-owner of the Santa Cruz Blues Festival talks about this year's Blues Festival which is being held this weekend at Aptos Village Park.

The event drew more than 2,000 people today who threw down blankets and beach chairs and took in New Orleans style pork and ribs, draft beer and music from the likes of Ben Harper & Relentless7, Taj Mahal, Joseph Arthur, Eric Lindell and Ivan Neville's Dumpstaphunk. Sunday is sold out but those lucky enough to have purchased a ticket in advance will be able to take in Buddy Guy, Derek Trucks & Susan Tedeschi Band, Eric Burdon & The Animals, and Coco Montoya Was (Not Was).

Who Said Venture Capitalists Can't Sing?

Who said VCs can't sing? It's a funny thing when you see people from one environment in another one - your brain does a quick re-wire and you quickly remember that everyone has another side -- in fact several... Jill Sobule's fun-filled song Karen by Night says it all.

Below we hear from VCs and technology entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley most of us who live here all know - by day. By day, they make deals happen, are addicted to their mobile devices and sometimes dress like geeks. By night, however, these five well known names cut loose.

They call themselves Cover Flow and the videos below give you a taste of how much fun geeks can have after the lights go down.

Facebook's Prashant Fuloria and Ethan Beard are on guitar, Philip Kaplan (now with Blippy) is on drums, Norwest's Tim Chiang is on bass and Raj Kapoor from Mayfield shows us that it's not just his voice that has energy. Get ready to tap and perhaps even dance when you hit play.

Kudos to Bambi Francisco for organizing and producing an amazing event and drawing such an eclectic crowd.

iPod! Convenience! Mobility! Who needs Quality?

 Life with music on an iPod would be a mistake.  -- Friedrich Nietzsche

The New York Times is finally addressing a subject of concern for some time.

Music sounds lousy on an iPod.

I have largely avoided the iPod revolution because listening to a Mahler mp3, particularly on decent equipment, is more depressing even than his songs about dead children. It is hospital food for the ears.

Now I am at last converting some 1,800 CDs because a 2T drive can be purchased at the dollar store and stuffed with tracks using lossless transfers. Finally, a reason to rip the "Ode to Joy" and the Hallelujah Chorus.

Broach this subject with the citizens of iPod nation and you'll be called a music snob, or worse, old.  But you're really a preservationist, insisting on a quality of life as one would by not eating at Buffet Barf or by drinking something better than Chateau Sous-La-Table.  

The iPod, in moderation, is a wonderful invention.  It's good to have less stuff around the house.  Cheers to the departure of those skinny six-foot high CD towers - especially the ones with the sinuous curves that make you think the earthquake is happening now, and that remind us of a future of interior design discarded sometime around Kubrick's 2001, or the TWA terminal at Kennedy. 

It's even better to be able to have music with you wherever you go.  (Supposedly Apple is working on an embedded player. The iBod will be placed in the torso - there's an Appendix for that - via a proprietary surgical procedure, with wireless file transfers.  A blogger I know seduced a prototype host from a pub in Sunnyvale, so stay tuned and please, V______, bar your doors.)

 "So, old snob, go ahead and listen to Stokowski on your tube system and crank up the Edsel, just don't preach to me." But when fewer people buy decent playback equipment then it stops being made or costs 10x.  

And when the most important feature of a digital recording is that it be LOUDER than the last one so you'll pay more attention to it - as when commercials are louder than program content - well, it's no wonder Nietzsche went mad.

 

It ruins music, just like crap food ruins eating.  Our expectations are gradually lowered so that we care less about quality, because we're not exposed to it and we're less able to discern its presence.

So play your iPod.  Play it on the subway, play it in the shower.  But go out and buy some decent speakers, man, and an amp or music system worthy of them.  You don't have to make your house look like an old Who concert  Good sound can come in small packages. 

Even when it's only background music if it sounds better you'll feel happier, be more productive, get along famously with others, put this country back on the rails. 

Don't pretend that you can't hear the difference, either, just so that you won't feel bad for choosing mediocrity.  And if you really can't hear the difference.......listen.  

Music is maybe the best thing we've been given in this life and it deserves our undivided attention.

And if you keep ripping at 128 may "Afternoon Delight" be your iPod's eternal recurrence.

  

SF MusicTech Summit

The SF MusicTech Summit hits San Francisco at the Hotel Kabuki on May 17, 2010. The event brings together visionaries in the music/technology space, along with the best and brightest developers, entrepreneurs, investors, service providers, journalists, musicians and organizations who work with them at the convergence of culture and commerce. Discussions on and off the stage evolve around where music interjects in the business and technology ecosystem. Buy tickets here.

Bhi Bhiman on Struggle & Injustice

Bhi Bhiman is a folk singer who writes lyrics about struggle and injustice. Originally Sri Lankan, he now lives in San Francisco. His parents are Sri Lankan Tamils who overcame incredible odds to emigrate to the U.S. in the 1960s.

LOOP!STATION: Enchanting Mix of Dreamy Vocals & Cello

LOOP!STATION is a musical duo: Sam Bass on cello and Robin Coomer on vocals. Together, they produce a dreamy, mystical, captivating and enchanting blend of sounds that brings you on a musical journey worth tuning into. I didn't shoot the entire song but below, you'll get a wonderful 3 minute experience of their style.

Gods Creation Embellishes Gratitude & Music

New York street musicians Dell (lead singer in the orange shirt), Dez (second), Sergio (tenor), Prince (baratone) and Yossef (bass) sing on New York City streets not far from Union Square. They call themselves Gods Creation: 2nd Chance because they all feel they have been given one. Once upon a time, drugs ran their lives. Today, it's music and gratitude.

Flex Mathews & Kosha Dillz Free Style using Corporate & Personal Brands

Flex Mathews and Kosha Dillz perform for the 140 Conference audience. They took cards, names and badges to incorporate into their 'free style' rap on the fly in front of the audience today. See if you can identify the companies and brands you can hear? Traveling Geeks and Answers.com are two of them - see if you can hear the others.

Free Stylin' Rap at 140Conf

Free stylin' rap at the 140 Characters Conference in NYC this week.