loose joints

Sundae and Theo Parrish - Worldwide Festival 2009 from numa on Vimeo.

The Supermarkt

A few pictures of the exhibition The Supermakt (with schaden.com) that took place in Arles from the 7th till the 12th of july 07 2009. All the infos here

Funky tambourine

Donut of the Heart

Sessun Songs Collection

La première compilation Sessùn sort enfin ! elle s'appelle "Sessùn Songs Collection" j'ai fait le tracklisting avec Guillaume Sorge (D.I.R.T.Y. & alainfinkielkrautrock.com) et Emma (Sessùn), elle est tirée à 1000 exemplaires et sera uniquement disponible dans les boutiques Sessùn et offerte aux fidèles clientes ....

Tracklisting:

1) Marissa Nadler "Famous Blue Raincoat"
2) Farah "Dancing Girls"
3) Beach House "Master Of None"
4) Marine Girls "A Place In The Sun"
5) Yo La Tengo "Today Is The Day"
6) The Fiery Furnaces "Pricked In The Heart"
7) Chromatics "I'm On Fire"
8) Chris Garneau "Relief"
9) Arthur Russell "Arm Around You"
10) Everything But The Girl "On My Mind"
11) Sonic Boom & Spectrum "True Love Will Find You In The End"
12) Week-End "Nostalgia"

Rap

Voilà l'enregistrement de l'émission du 21 mai de Push Pas Mémé . Hip Hop, my first love !




La playlist

Saafir "Just Riden'" 1994
KMD "Peachfuzz" 1990
Zano "Ass Birth" 2006
The Egyptian Lover "My House (On The Nile)" 1984
Twilight 22 "Siberian Nights" 1984
Madlib "Raw Addict (Original)" 2004
Subtle "Red, White & Blonde" 2004
Beastie Boys "Cooky Puss" 1983
Schoolly D "Saturday Night" 1986
De La Soul & Teenage Fanclub "Fallin'" 1993

merci Greg !

The story of Ululation

Here is a little interview of Seb Carayol about an incredible, beautiful and very rare jazz record called "Ululation" wich was also used as a soundtrack to one of the greatest skateboard video ever made and for sure one of Seb's favorite, "A Visual Sound" by Stereo (1994).

Can you quickly present Ululation ?

Ululation is a jazz album that was released in the late '80s by Long Shot records. It was recorded in NYC and it was the first one in a series of two but the second Ululation never got released because the guy behind it, John Lee Krasnow (who plays tenor sax on it), passed away right before. It's a great Coltran-esque LP that I had been after for a long time.

What's drew your attention to this jazz record ?

Skateboarding. Basically, a lot of it was used on the soundtrack of a 1994 skate video called 'A Visual Sound,' it was Stereo Skateboard's first vid and the company's owner, Chris Pastras, being a man of fine musical tastes, decided to use the Ululation tape he had on it, sort of going against the grain of skateboarding at the time -videos then consisted more of Onyx, Tribe Called Quest or soul oldies, not that there's anything wrong with that! The Ululation tape was given to Pastras by his good buddy, NYC artist Gio Estevez, who knew one of John Lee Krasnow's daughters, Highlyann.



I think jazz and skateboard work so well together, so why do you think it is so rare to hear some jazz - i mean straight jazz - in skateboard videos?

I have no idea why, but it's true that every time it's used it's so powerful. To me jazz captures the pushing/cruising aspect of skateboarding, which is what people do 90% of the time -it's not all stunts, kids. I'm thinking of course about the Mark Gonzales section in Spike Jonze's Video Days (1991) or that fantastic movie done by Thomas Campbell in 1995 for Supreme, called A Love Supreme. It's basically a skate/non-skate NYC black and white collage set to the Coltrane tune (check it : www.supremenewyork.com/random/a_love_supreme), so perfect, probably one of my favorite flicks ever.

It's funny how you don't hear the music much, but there are still references to jazz in skateboarding, like the whole image that Stereo Skateboards tends towards, or the amazing work of Ian Johnson for Western Edition skateboards -his illustrations are often seen in Wax Poetics mag, and I recommend to buy his small book of jazz musicians portraits, Beauty Is a Rare Thing.

So when did you start searching for the original members of the band Ululation ?

Last year I finally got a copy of the LP on Ebay, I had been loosely looking for it every now and then, but the funny thing is that I had just talked about it with Stereo Skateboards' Chris Pastras the week before. Basically it's really hard to find cause Ululation never was in shops, to order it you had to send money to John lee Krasnow and he would mail it to you! Anyway once I got the LP things got way easier. Before that, I was trying to call all the Krasnows in New Jersey, and even the phone number from 1994 that was at the end of the Stereo video -no luck as you imagine.

With the credits in hands I started to hunt down the musicians on it, found most of them, and was able to gather enough material to write an article in Wax Poetics about it. On a side note, in the credits "Highlyann and Tamar Krasnow" were thanked. I had the feeling they might be his daughters or something, and I got lucky to find them. They still have the master tapes for both Ululations, hence the idea to have Wax Poetics records reissue it. I already helped them with reissuing a reggae 12'' the year before, and they're great people so I gave it a shot.

When and how did you find them (or any person related to them) ?

In march 2008 I reached first Valery Ponomarev, he's relatively easy to track down cause he's a famous trumpet player, he played with Art Blakey for a while and now his big band plays in NYC all the time. I actually called and left messages at one of the venues he plays a lot at, he actually called back. And it's funny cause he has a Myspace and shit, should have thought about that first, duh. But I did it the old school way I guess. Then I found the pianist Janice Friedman and the Krasnow daughters, really nice people and very helpful along the way.



How are you involved in the reissue of this record?

It just took me a few emails to the Wax Po camp, sending them Highlyann Krasnow's contact. Et.. err.. voila ! What I'd like to do now is really let all the old skateboard farts from the 90s like myself, who all revere the A Visual Sound skate flick, that the reissue is about to come out. A lot of my skate buddies have been looking for that album for what, 15 years now? Maybe work on some kind of release party with Stereo, stuff like that.

Have you ever seen an original copy of this rare record ?

I have one, it was never repressed. That cover with the wolf howling at the moon has just written "skateboard graphic" all over it! I asked the Ebay seller I got it from, for cheap, but that's the only one he had. And also, even better, Highlyann sent me a cassette tape with Ululation 2 on it. That was a real treat. I think she told me they pressed under 1,000 copies of the record then. Most of the time when you look on Ebay for it, it brings up all the items that involve "ovulation" instead. For real.

So when the reissue will be released ?

There's no date set as of now. From what I understand, it should be between maybe the fall and the end of 2009...

Seb Carayol is a journalist, check his two incredible blogs about skateboard music avisualsound and boardnography's memoryscreened, he is also writing for Next, the supplement of the french newspaper Libération and he just wrote an article in Wax Poetics magazine about Ululation (the one that makes me want to learn more about it) ... and we used to skate together in Montpellier in the early 90's, we also used to do a fanzine called Barbe à Poux, but that's another story ...

merci Seb

Ray Barbee

smooth as a way of life