I'm thinking yesterday was the final day of going through my CD collection. This drawer, the "Rock" drawer was always pretty spread out across different era's. It started with Animal Collective, Devendra Banhart, Coco Rosie, Elliot Smith and also had some early 90's Grunge with Nirvana, Stone Temple Pilots and such. It actually started as grunge and went into 90's indie rock and into freak folk back into what we now still call Indie, whatever that means. The word Indie has as much meaning as hand crafted now a days.
Once again, it was so nice to actually have to physically go through these. I would have totally forgotten about the early 90's band "Belly". I'm excited to have this collection back in my house and am looking forward to revisiting all the Blonde Redhead records. In the late 90's I was living in Williamsburg, Brooklyn and was spending all my days and nights listening to records, learning Pro Tools and playing piano and guitar along with making beats with Donovan Guidry on the MPC 2000. A few times a week when I felt I deserved it, I'd hop the train over to Nolita for a coffee break at Cafe Gitane. In those days you could sit in there for hours and read and sip coffee and gaze out the window. I don't remember there being any internet or computers involved and could remember people actually talking to each other.
There were regulars there everyday with these beautiful twin guys who were Italian and would ride vintage motorcycles. Sometimes they'd have instruments with them but never knew they were "Blonde Redhead" until a few years after the Cafe Gitane hang became too popular.
Luc, the owner of Cafe Gitane, was and remains one of my favorite men in New York. He is from Morroco and moved to NY and started this cafe and does really well for himself. He has a new location in the Jane Hotel now that I frequent sometimes. The vibe is still the same but the hang is not like it used to be. The guys and gals behind the counter still wear blue, French chore coats. Luc was onto to this look way before Bill Cunningham made it so chic.
Radiohead had just released OK Computer when I moved to NY and I would walk around the city with my walkman dreaming alone before I knew anyone. A few years later when we were building Headgear Studio in Williamsburg we'd would blast Kid A in awe. So good, two copies ended up in my collection.
Portishead's Dummy was probably one of the biggest influences for "So Long" Mostly in production style with the beats and ambience. Of course hip hop and sampling was an influence too but this was closer to the direction we wanted to go.
And then England puts their foot down again with Massive Attack. Once I heard them, I bought it all. Over time, I like it a little less mostly due to the female club style vox. I love them with Horace Andy though. I was happy to hear they ended up recording at Headgear with friend Dave Sitek.
The Yeah Yeah Yeah's were the first band to hit in the neighborhood. They were old school Williamsburg too, L Cafe people.
One of the best things about living in NY is the level of talent and taste you find living around the corner. We had a decent idea of what we wanted our music to sound like but needed some help and we were introduced to Chris Kelly and Danny Blume at Good and Evil studio. They had a small space in Carroll Gardens with a sound like no one else was getting. The song "Perique" was made there. Haunting sounds.
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