Four Things #6
Four things #6..
Back in Washington DC after a really nice tour in Australia and New Zealand with a grand finale at Sugar Mountain X Boiler Room in Melbourne which you can see/hear online as well. It was very nice to see some old friends over there as well such as Jerry Poon who has promoted gigs in Melbourne since day 0, Mark Pritchard in Sydney and Pariah who was traveling Down Under as well. I'm currently trying to juggle techno dad life, keeping up with my daughter's Halloween engagements, which found me delivering her Elsa costume to school yesterday, just in time for the Trick or Treat celebration, while still on a severe jetlag come down. Anyway, a slightly more 'light hearted' Four Things today, but including something I dug up during book research (Fourth Thing). If you are enjoying my news letters, tell your friends to subscribe and check out the archive https://tinyletter.com/Martyn-Deykers.
Martyn,
Oct 30, 2019
FIRST THING: JAZZ DRUMMER REACTS ..
This is a highly enjoyable Youtube channel by jazz drummer Garrett Miller, where he analyzes the top players in the world of Death Metal drumming. It's a little bit of technical analysis but mostly just 10 mins of bewilderment on what some of these drummers can physically achieve, very addicting to watch! Here are two of my favorite ones, the highly technical and innovative (and kind of funky in a weird way) Gene Hoglan from the group Death, and "extreme drummer" John Longstreth of Origin with the track "Staring from the Abyss".
SECOND THING: TRUMP BODY LANGUAGE ANALYSIS
Rather not spend any of this precious news letter space to The Great Cheetoh, but this body language analysis of the moment he was boo'd at the Washington Nationals game 5 of the World Series a few days ago I found really interesting. The way his face and demeanor reverts from gloating and overly confident to reliving memories of years of pain and rejection by his father Fred in a split second is just fascinating. Basically the motivation behind his entire run for the presidency in a 20 second clip. Now after you read the piece, play the video again but only watch Melania. There's a whole other story behind that! https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1188998171667525632.html
THIRD THING: TIPPING
Tipping culture in the US is basically Americans compensating for the absence of what is deemed aristocratic behavior, says this excellent article in The Atlantic by Derek Thompson. Besides the fact that tipping has the problematic aspect of employers leaving it to their customers to pay part of their employees' wages, Thompson says that tips have very little to do with the work that's been done, but more with how the tipper feels in relation to the employee being tipped. A study done by Uber suggests the highest tips are given by men, during business trips, to younger women, think about that. Derek Thompson btw is also the writer of the popular "airport book" Hit Makers.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/10/american-tipping-system-makes-no-sense/600865/
FOURTH THING: BODY SNATCH - EUPHONY (JUST 4 U LONDON)
"What we're going to play is a track called "Just 4 U London" by a guy called Mark, he was from North London, from the ghetto, Stonebridge, the Stonebridge estate. I remember he used to come down and bring tracks down, and if you didn't play them he used to get really funny. His name was Bodysnatch, he used to give me loads of tunes and I was never into any of them and then one day he just came down, it was a 3-track EP, I played the first two and I was like, "Oh no, no, no, that's not my kind of thing", and then I just put this track on and it was just like I've never heard anything like it, it was like proper jungle.
Tracks like this you couldn't make anywhere else in the world, this was a London tune [..] as Groove said before, certain tracks have got that magic, and you just don't know why you even like a tune that much but it's got that thing and it's got that vibe and it's a special tune to me."
Fabio on a Red Bull Radio Fireside Chat with Fabio & Grooverider, selecting seminal tracks from their Rage club night. https://youtu.be/YOJTjZflaqs?t=14