Times are difficult for us all. I hope you find a little peace with these mixes. Feel free to download and share. I like many other artists/performers am out of work and your donations really help.
Here is a Saturday Quarantine playlist. Mixing a little Turkish psych, latin psych, cumbia, a few balkan gems, and some old school punk. Kick out the jams!
5 Brothers playing together since 1969 and legendary Peruvian chicha pioneers Los Wembler’s de Iquitos celebrate their 50th anniversary with an all-new album,Visíon del Ayahuasca Availableon Barbès records and return to Pittsburgh (for their 2nd ever US Tour).
Date: Sunday September 15
Location: 25 Carrick Ave Pittsburgh PA
Bus line 51 exit at Biscayne
Time: 7pm doors show at 8pm
25 Carrick Ave and Pandemic Present:
Los Wembler’s De Iquitos
Plus Pandemic Pete & tbd
Legendary Peruvianchichapioneers Los Wembler’s de Iquitos celebrate their 50th anniversary with an all-new album,Visíon del Ayahuasca Availableon Barbès records,September2019.
LosWembler’s haven’t lost any of their creative edge. To watch them perform or record is to witness musicians at the height of their powers. Their happy first experiments with cumbia and indigenous rhythms were not the product of chance. These are accomplished musicians in tune with their environment but also infinitely curious about the world. The style LosWembler’s pioneered more than forty years ago has finally found an audience around the world, and LosWembler’s intend to keep it relevant by finding new ways to experiment.
In 1968, in Iquitos, the capital of the Peruvian Amazon, a shoemaker named Solomon Sanchez decided to form a band with his five sons. They were the first band in the Amazon to play popular local rhythms with electric guitars. The new hybrid they were creating would go on to have an enormous impact on South American popular music. Some of their songs, such asSonido AmazonicoorDanza del Petrolerobecame the most emblematic of this newcumbia amazonicamovement.The brothers were born and raised in Iquitos – the largest isolated city in the world. Iquitos boasts close to half a million inhabitants, but its nearest road is six days away by boat. The river and the forest are a big part of the culture, but the city remains a large urban center. Indigenous folklore and urban living have created a singular culture with the river dolphin and the moto-taxi as its primary symbols.
The brothers’ main link to the outside world was the radio. In addition to their daily diets fTahuampa,PandillasandCriollowaltzes, long wave radio broadcasts would expose them to Colombian Cumbia, Brazilian Carimbo, Ecuadorian SanJuanitos, Venezuelan joropos – and psychedelic rock.Curious to a fault, and willing to experiment, LosWembler’s managed to incorporate all these styles into their playing.
Dance to live music performed by local and international artists. Eat delicious food from around the world. Check out work made by local artisans.
Presented in partnership with All for All, Kelly Strayhorn Theater, and Pete Spynda of Pandemic and Pittonkatonk.
Featuring
RAM (from Haiti) – “Vodou rock ‘n’ roots”, and has been one of the prominent bands in the mizik rasin musical movement in Haiti. The band’s music incorporates traditional Vodou lyrics and instruments, such as rara horns and petro drums, into modern rock and roll. The band’s songs include lyrics in Haitian Creole, French, and English.
CUMBIA RIVER BAND (NYC)
New York based Cumbia River Band’s music draws from a festive repertoire of Colombian Cumbia and Riverside music. These sounds will take you back to the golden years of Cumbia as well as inspire you to dance and contemplate the joy and energy that this Cumbia River brings along. Featuring tuba, accordion, clarinet, percussion, guitar and voices, the band delivers a captivating performance, supported by the band’s particular approach to orchestration, which honors both traditional and contemporary sounds found in today’s tropical music scene.
MOURNING [A] BLKSTAR (Cleveland)
We are a multi-generational, gender and genre non-conforming amalgam of Black Culture dedicated to servicing the stories and songs of the apocalyptic diaspora.
Les Filles de Illighadad come from a secluded commune in central Niger, far off in the scrubland deserts at the edge of the Sahara. The village is only accessible via a grueling drive through the open desert and there is little infrastructure, no electricity or running water. But what the nomadic zone lacks in material wealth it makes up for deep and strong identity and tradition. The surrounding countryside supports hundreds of pastoral families, living with and among their herds, as their families have done for centuries.
It takes its name from a drum, built from a goat skin stretched across a mortar and pestle. Like the environs, tende music is a testament to wealth in simplicity, with sparse compositions built from a few elements: vocals, handclaps, and percussion. Songs speak of the village, of love, and of praise for ancestors. It’s a music form dominated by women. Collective and communal, tende is tradition for all the young girls of the nomad camps – played during celebrations and to pass the time during the late nights of the rainy season.
In the past years, certain genres of Tuareg music have become popular in the West. International acts of “desert blues” like Tinariwen, Bombino, and Mdou Moctar are synonymous with the name “Tuareg.” But guitar music is a recent creation. In the 1970s young Tuareg men living in exile in Libya and Algeria discovered the guitar. Lacking any female vocalists to perform tende, they began to play the guitar to mimic this sound, replacing water drums with plastic jerrycans and substituting a guitar drone for the vocal call and response. The exiled eventually traveled home and brought the guitar music with them. In time, this new guitar sound came to eclipse the tende, especially in the urban centers. If tende is a music that for women, the Tuareg guitar was its gendered counterpart.
Fatou Seidi Ghali, lead vocalist and performer of Les Filles de Illighadad is one of the only Tuareg female guitarists in Niger. Sneaking away with her older brother’s guitar, she taught herself to play. While Fatou’s role as the first female Tuareg guitarist is groundbreaking, it is just as interesting for her musical direction. In a place where gender norms have created two divergent musics, Fatou and Les Filles de Illighadad are reasserting the role of tende in Tuareg guitar. In lieu of the djembe or the drum kit, Les Filles de Illighadad incorporate the traditional drum and the pounding calabash, half buried in water. The forgotten inspiration of Tuareg guitar, they are reclaiming its importance in the genre and reclaiming the music of tende.
Kicking off the fall with some big events. First I’ll be guest djing at Spirit Hall for Afroheat w/ DJ SMI. Then on to pandemic w/ Super Yamba Band and bringing in guests Lemon Bucket Orkestra. Click images for links
Djs SMI and Pandemic Pete plus special guests bringing the Afrofunk from Benin by way of NYC.
Kaleta and Super Yamba bring the 70s era Afrobeat sounds with this 9 piece funky and dark sound.
Brooklyn afro-funksters Kaleta & Super Yamba Band are fronted by legendary Afrobeat veteran Leon Ligan-Majek a.k.a. Kaleta. The singer, guitarist and percussionist from the West African country of Benin Republic lived his adolescent life in Lagos, Nigeria where Afrobeat was born. Kaleta performed and toured the world with the two most popular musicians from Nigeria, Fela Kuti and King Sunny Ade, along with Majek Fashek and recently Lauryn Hill.
Kaleta got his start in the late 70s performing in church and was soon after picked up by iconic Juju master and world music pioneer King Sunny Ade. A few years later Fela Kuti came calling. Kaleta would go on to tour the world playing guitar for the King of Afrobeat in his band Egypt 80 through the 1980s and into the 1990s.
Now based in New York City, Kaleta was overjoyed to find Super Yamba Band and hear their take on the vintage, psychedelic sounds of his native country. Super Yamba takes its cues from artists like Orchestre Poly-Rythmo, El Rego and The Funkees, all legends in their own right for pioneering the classic styles of Afro-Funk and Afro-Rock in Benin and Nigeria. With regular gigs all over New York City, Super Yamba Band have dialed in the nuances of some of the rarest grooves out there with a timeless sound that will move everyone in the room to dance! Audiences will hear Kaleta sing in several different languages native to West Africa including Fon, Goun, Yoruba and Ewe, along with French and Pidgin English, “the official language of Afrobeat” he says with a grin.
Super Yamba Band’s live performances with Kaleta are absolutely explosive. Afropop Worldwide said “their ace-up-the-sleeve: the singer Kaleta, whose James Brown grunts have got to be some of the best in the business.” With Kaleta at the helm Super Yamba Band have recently erupted onto stages at Paste Magazine’s Emerging Music Festival, World Music Institute’s Masters Of African Music Series, The Untitled Action Bronson Show (Viceland TV), L.E.A.F. Festival, Secret Planet APAP 2018 Showcase and more, giving audiences an unforgettable experience of world-class Afro-Funk dance music.
Click Here to visit the Brown Paper Tickets event page.
BALKAN BRASS from Toronto…Tuesday Night Balkan Dance Party
“Lemon Bucket Orkestra is a guerilla-punk-Balkan-brass band massive like no other! Equal parts reckless abandon and exhilarating precision, the 12 strong collective’s legendary live shows are a truly immersive experience, ranging from the ecstatic to the cathartic – and all points in between. Don’t miss the Pittsburgh debut of this Canadian juggernaut, celebrating the worldwide release of their new album If I Had The Strength on Six Degrees Records.”
Special guests : The Gypsy Stringz playing Eastern European and Gypsy Music.
w/ PANDEMIC PETE
ticket info coming soon.
“Amazing, frenetic, gloriously anarchic and ultimately joyous!” Winnipeg Free Press
“Adventurous, multicultural and amazing!” The Wall Street Journal
“Raucous and hot-blooded – a collective triumph!” Exclaim Magazine
“A truly exhilarating performance!” The Guardian
“When LBO ditched the stage and jumped in with the crowd on Saturday night they cemented themselves a place in WOMAD lore” Taranaki Daily News, New Zealand
Brown Paper Tickets Ticket Widget Loading…
Click Here to visit the Brown Paper Tickets event page.
Pandemic is rounding out its 12th year and entering 13 with a bang-up lineup. On Aug 3 we welcome Radio Jarocho playing traditional son jarocho music from Veracruz, Mexico with special guest dj Mateo Mattos.
Radio Jarocho plays the rowdy, upbeat, and at times melancholic music of the countryside of Veracruz, Mexico, and has been mixing it with the sounds of New York’s urban life for over ten years. Having recently joined forces with son jarocho legend Zenen Zeferino, they deliver performances that are passionate, energetic, and true to the roots of the genre. Radio Jarocho & Zenen Zeferino have played concerts at festivals and venues in the east coast, including Kennedy Center, Brooklyn Bowl, Joe’s Pub, La Casita at Lincoln Center, Le Poisson Rouge, Celebrate Mexico Now! and Celebrate Brooklyn. They are gearing up to release “Rios de Norte y Sur”, their first studio production together. With this album, Radio Jarocho & Zenen Zeferino celebrate the music that unites Veracruz and New York, Mexico and the United States through original songs and new arrangements for old jarocho tunes, offering a modern take on a traditional genre by fusing it with sounds that have become part of New York City’s musical fabric — flamenco, cumbia, rock, baroque, and jazz. “Rios de Norte y Sur” will be available in May 2018.
In September we are back with an Afrobeat Special featuring Keleta and Super Yamba Band at Brillobox. Afroheat’s DJ SMI and resident Pandemic Pete playing tunes all night long.
Kaleta & Super Yamba Band Afropop Worldwide said “their ace-up-the-sleeve: the singer Kaleta, whose James Brown grunts have got to be some of the best in the business.” Brooklyn Afro-Funksters Kaleta & Super Yamba Band are fronted by legendary Afrobeat veteran Leon Ligan-Majek a.k.a. Kaleta.
Femi Kuti (born June 16, 1962) is the stage name of Nigerian Afrobeat and jazz musician Olufela Olufemi Anikulapo Kuti. Born the eldest son of Afrobeat figurehead Fela Kuti, the musician has collaborated with the likes of Common and Mos Def and hails from Lagos, Nigeria.
REX THEATER JULY 28
NEW SHIRTS ARE IN! CLICK THE SHIRT TO PURCHASE at our store on Commonwealth Press website.
THE RETURN OF PITTONKATONK HEADLINERS and one of the baddest bands around WHAT CHEER BRIGADE!!!
plus TranSaharan Ensemble from North Africa
10 bucks FRIDAY AUGUST 5 @ BRILLOBOX
Here is a great documentary on contemporary gypsy music posted by the BBC. Its definitely worth looking into.
Pandemic is only happening 1 time in Jan but in February we are launching some big things. Pandemic is back on Feb 5, Feb 12 we are djing @ Carnegie Museums Feast w/ Raya Brass Band & UPrep High School Band, Feb 13 Cultural Gumbo for Pittonkatonk‘s fiscal sponsor New Sun Rising and we are bringing back Fanfare Ciocarlia. All the images are links. click them!
prepare yourself
The Cultural Gumbo celebrates 10 years of NSR helping the people and communities who make Pittsburgh great!
Music, Food, Art, & More
Music by
Raya Brass Band (NYC)
UPrep High School Band
May Day Marching Band
Col. Eagleburgers Goodtime Highstepping Marching Band
DTC Organ Trio
+ DJ Sets by Pandemic Pete
PLUS
City of Play
Barrels to Beethoven
Stacyee Pearl Dance Performance
Pittonkatonk
& more
6pm
$20 suggested Donation
$60 VIP Tix
Tickets on sale soon!
Pandemic Presents:::
Black Bear Combo 6-8 piece brass band hailing from the depths of the windy city. They appeared at the 2014 Pittonkatonk Brass Fest and are returning for a night of Drinking Dancing Stomping and Yelling.
Last year, Hollywood came knocking in the remote eastern Romanian village of Zece Prajini, a hop, skip, and a jump from the former Soviet republic of Moldova. With its muddy streets, horse-drawn carts, and modest houses, the place, even according to villagers, is “the end of the earth.” What attracted movie moguls to Zece Prajini? Borat needed a cover of the biker anthem “Born to be Wild,” and they had a very particular group in mind. That group was Fanfare Ciocãrlia, the speed-loving masters of Romany brass music’s curlicue melodies and exhilarating rhythms, who were sought out for the soundtrack of last year’s quirky hit, “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.” And while it may seem odd to have rural Romanian gypsies playing Steppenwolf behind the antics of a pseudo-Kazakh, it’s just par for the course for the eleven-member, multi-generational Fanfare Ciocãrlia, whose history and inspirations span the globe. This history comes to life on Queens and Kings (Asphalt Tango Records), an album that draws together the reigning royalty of Europe’s Roma musicians and pays touching tribute to Ioan Ivancea, Ciocarlia’s late bandleader.
I feel like pictures are worth so much more than any blabber i have to say. But i will say this, 2016 is going to kick off with some amazing Pandemic events. We have some really big things in the works that we can’t even really announce yet. But between you and me, there will be plenty to do and a lot to keep you busy until the weather is nice enough to party outside.
Pittonkatonk programming is underway for our May 7 event at Vietnam Veterans Pavilion. I’m working on a program at Spirit called The Rec Room : Winter Games w/ City of Play that will kick off Jan 24, 2016.
DJ gigs, Live band productions and a lot of other crazy shit coming down the line.
Pandemic is happy to announce we were again voted one of Pgh City Paper’s Best Dance Parties 2015. That’s 3 years running! We are really excited about this award. We were also given BEST DIY FESTIVAL for Pittonkatonk.
Now we move on to Pitchblak Brass Band and the People’s Champs.
Summer is unfortunately coming to a close but that means I’m ramping up for a great series of shows in the fall and winter. We are quickly approaching the 10 Year Anniversary of Pandemic. This is the first in a series of events leading up.
Friday Sept 4th Pandemic is squaring off again w/ Juan Diego for a night of Cumbia, Tropical Bass, International Flavors, Coastal Vibes, Manele, Chalga, Bhangra, Bollywood, and more. Juan Diego and Pandemic Pete have been teaming up and destroying dance floors for the past 3 years. You may have caught them at the Cosmopolitan Pgh event back in July or at the La Misa Negra show at Bayardstown Social Club.
By the time Tal National reached international acclaim with 2013’s ‘Kaani’, the band’s first release outside of Niger, they had spent a decade crisscrossing dirt pathways through the Sahara, playing epic five-hour sets, seven days a week and selling their CDs on street corners. In the process, they became Niger’s most popular band, with songs blasted on national TV and cell phones. Following FatCat Records’ release of ‘Kaani’, Western audiences and critics embraced the band’s finely-honed sound. NPR were hit by “the band’s tightness and fiery energy”; The Guardian praised “their full-tilt approach, and hypnotic intensity”; while Songlines wrote of “a rich, hybrid sound that draws on familiar West African elements to create something rewardingly fresh and different”. FatCat released their dazzling follow-up, ‘Zoy Zoy’ in April 2015, which Pitchfork called “colorful and bright and dizzying, [recalling the] wall-of-sound quality of Konono No. 1, except more frenzied and texturally varied.”
Niger borders Nigeria, Mali and Ghana, and is also the home of well-known musicians Bombino and Etran Finatawa. Collected within this former French colony can be found Songhai, Fulani, Hausa, and Tuareg populations, all of whom are represented in the membership of Tal National. The nation is no stranger to highlife, kora and afrobeat musics, while giving the world Tuareg Blues and a unique brand of hip-hop. In Tal National’s music can be heard the rolling 12/8 rhythms in the Hausa’s fuji percussion, the pensive aridity of the Tuareg’s assouf and the exquisite griot guitar of Mali’s Songhai, all delivered with virtuoso precision and unrelenting energy. After listing ‘Kaani’ in its top 10 albums of 2013, The New York Times wrote that “the music keeps leaping ahead with one surprise after another: guitar parts that align and diverge and reconfigure, drumming that pounces on offbeats. The patterns are crisp, complex and tireless.”
This concert is co-sponsored with The Consortium, Pandemic and Calliope.
ALSO HELPING OUT W/ ROOTS: A ROOTS REGGAE FESTIVAL
The Detroit Party Marching Band is a guerrilla band based in Detroit, Michigan. The band appears at events unexpectedly.[1] The band has played at events such as Mardi Gras (2012), Theatre Bizarre, Noel Night, Blowout!, the Nain Rouge parade,[2] the Hamtramck Labor Day Parade, 2010 Detroit Free Press Marathon,[3] and HONK![4] in Somerville, MA, as well as at many bars and parties throughout the Detroit area, both scheduled and unexpectedly. It has supported acts such as Band of Horses, Rebirth Brass Band, and What Cheer? Brigade. It was founded by Rachel Harkai and John and Molly Notarianni,[5] who felt inspired by the second-line bands they saw in New Orleans during Mardi Gras, and also after a trip to HONK! in late 2009. Its repertoire is a mix of Balkan and Balkan-inspired songs, and modern pop and R&B rearranged for brass, usually by the members themselves. They have also toured the Netherlands in Europe as part of the Cross Linx festival. They enjoy the admiration of their mothers, each other, and various drunks in and around Detroit.
Hip hop music has always been unafraid to push boundaries. Perhaps because it simultaneously came from nothing yet came from everything, the genre stands alone in how creatively outside influences can be incorporated into its musical mix.
PitchBlak Brass Band uses the epic sounds of tubas, trombones, saxophones and other typically non-hip hop instruments in the spirit of The Roots and some of rap’s iconic live bands, to deliver an energy that samples, loops and breakbeats can’t always capture. Their blend of soundscapes and lyrical exuberance creates a grand adventure in listening, one that can hold the attention of music fans from across a fairly wide spectrum.
-Manny Faces, Birthplace Magazine
THE PEOPLE”S CHAMPS
eople’s Champs combines the hottest dance rhythms from West Africa and South America with retro-futurist synth tones, crafting them into indie songs with Stevie Wonder-esque lyrics.
With their “crazy ass genre mash ups” (Blakbook), People’s Champs’ truly original sound is equal parts Sharon Jones, tUnE-yArDs, Os Mutantes, William Onyeabor, and Prince. Critics are calling People’s Champs a “New York supergroup!” (Lucid Culture) and “Well on their way to becoming NYC’s de facto Funk and Afrobeat experience” (Deli Magazine).
Big tings… Guest DAN DABBER is back w/ Pandemic Pete on Friday April 3rd.
Pandemic is one of Pittsburgh’s longest running dance parties featuring music from around the globe. Prepare yourself for a night of Indian Bhangra, Balkan Brass, South American Cumbia, Brazilian Samba, Baile Funk, Bulgarian Chalga, Russian Ska, and more.
More killer tunes from Man Recordings. Loving this new one from Daniel Haaksman.
Coming up this weekend I’ll be speaking at the Humanities Festival at Space Gallery on Saturday March 28.
PITTONKATONK IS UPON US. Who doesn’t love a day long picnic featuring over 100 performers like What Cheer Brigade, Detroit Party Marching Band, Pitchblak Brass band, Black Bear Combo, Beauty Slap and more. Please consider donating to our indiegogo so we can make it happen.
PITTONKATONK 2015: A May Day Brass BBQ Picnic
Where: Vietnam Veterans Pavilion
When: Saturday May 2, 2015 at 2pm
The Festival
Pittonkatonk is a May Day Brass BBQ/Picnic held on Saturday May 2nd at the Vietnam Veterans Pavilion in
Schenley Park. This years event will include 4 national touring bands What Cheer Brigade , Pitchblak Brass
Band , Black Bear Combo and Detroit Party Marching Band as well as locals Beauty Slap , May Day
Marching Band , Col. Eagleburger’s Goodtime Highstepping Band , and more. We are also adding to the
lineup 2 local high school marching bands and facilitating a collaborative performance by UPrep High School
Band and What Cheer Brigade.
About Pittonkatonk .
While we don’t charge and admission to the event, this event is not free. The bands need gas money, food,
and accommodations. We ask that folks make contributions to our Indiegogo Campaign . We do not sell
tickets, we do not vend food, everyone is welcome. But if you find a value to this we ask that you consider
donating. This event is a potluck and we ask that members of the community bring a dish to share. Last year
we had over 700 ppl attend and participate. We hope that we can continue to make Pittonkatonk a May Day
weekend tradition.
BREWS FOR BRASS A PITTONKATONK FUNDRAISER is happening April 22 at Rock Bottom Brewery in Homestead.
