vanessadtam

In case you haven’t heard already, Angelina Jolie recently underwent an elective double mastectomy to dramatically reduce her risk of developing breast cancer in her lifetime. She got through the 3 months of procedures in private but has since chosen to share her story now in hopes of giving support to other women who may be in similar situations.

I find this story so incredibly inspiring and selfless, especially since it’s coming from such a famous celebrity. I can’t even bring myself to imagine how hard it must have been for her to make the decision to undergo the procedure so that she would be able to be there for her children in the future. Especially for a woman who has been voted as the sexiest woman alive on more then one occasion, breasts are an important symbol of a woman’s sexuality. To have to make the decision to remove them makes you question everything about yourself. Are you still a women if you don’t have breasts? Will my partner still find me attractive without them? Am I still a sexual person without them? So many questions.

Thank you Angie for sharing your story. You are a queen.

So when ∆ (Alt-J) was in town playing a show a few weeks ago, I was lucky enough to score an interview with their drummer Thom for my final Native Shoes Artist Feature post. I couldn’t fit everything we talked about there so here is part 2 for your reading pleasure.

I sat in one of the booths on the left side of the Commodore Ballroom, compiling notes, setting up my voice recorder and waited for my interview to start a few hours before doors were scheduled to open for the Alt-J show. There were a bunch of other press kids scattered around the venue, setting up, tearing down, waiting. I never realized this before, but the whole left wall of the Commodore is actually a huge window that I assume gets covered up at night during shows. Sunlight streamed into the historic ballroom refracting off the unsettled dust in the air.

The press manager walks by and introduces me to Thom Green from Alt-J. Thom smiles at me, says hello and sits down. He’s wearing a navy jacket, shaggy blond hair tucked under a hat with a scruffy beard starting to grow in. He tells me that they just flew in from London yesterday as he admits, “I’m so horrifically jet lagged.”

We talk about Coachella, steak and burritos, living in a hotel and their plans for a sophomore album. Thom talks about how he’s teaching himself how to use Abelton Live and about DJing after parties as Thom ∆. We talk more about the thrill/addiction of finding new music and his love of dubstep and hard electronic bass music. We talk more about Clams Casino and how his style of production influences Thom in his own production style. I also managed to introduce him to Adventure Club from Montreal ;)

We talk more about where he would like to re-visit if he ever had some free time to travel away from the band. “New York obviously… Brooklyn,” he mentions, “It’s just because we always have a great time when we’re there and the way I am at the moment, I just don’t want to stop.” He continues on to say, “I really love Amsterdam as well, it’s very cultural and has a lot of art there. It’s very relaxing and people are very welcoming. It’s a different experience from New York, so you kind of feel like a different person. We’re lucky enough to have toured so much that we can know about different places and what they can offer you.”

It was a pleasure to meet and spend some time chatting with you Thom! Hope to see you again soon, perhaps in New York :)

Follow Thom on Twitter @ThomSonny.

I guess this has, and always will be, a touchy subject in music. What is considered stealing and what isn’t. At least I can honestly say, at this point in time, that 80% of the music I consume has all been legally acquired.

Do you remember what it was like before the internet went mainstream? When the radio and MTV was your life and when you used to have a materialistic relationship with music? The first cassette tape I ever bought with my own money was the Space Jam Soundtrack. That was in 1996 so I guess I was 10 years old or something. I saved up 2 months worth of allowance to buy that tape at A&B Sound. That was also my first introduction to R. Kelly, haha.

When the internet started to get popular so did the free music sharing program, Napster. It’s kind of amazing to think that I have experienced almost every format of pirated music. From recording my own mixtapes off the radio, to burning mix cds, to having thousands upon thousands of songs downloaded my computer.

In the early days of the internet I remember how important it was to “own” things. To have so many megs of music or so many gigs of porn. Now I think it’s all about speed and access. I mean, if I kept every scrap of music I ever downloaded in the past 10 years i’d probably have a few teras full. The reason why I don’t even bother downloading music 80% of the time is because I don’t even want to begin thinking about where I would store it all. I mean, I don’t have a 64 gig iPod. Really, does anyone have a 64 gig iPod?

I pay a subscription to both Netflix and Rdio for essentially that very reason. I want to listen to and watch everything, but don’t want to think about storing it. The only time I feel like I have to pirate music is when i’m both too obsessed with a song to limit myself to streaming, and can’t seem to buy it anywhere. I mean, almost all the mixes I listen to are usually given away for free from the artists. Also, most of the studio albums I want to listen to are available for purchase or are released on Rdio at the same time so there is almost no reason to have to steal it. Besides, I kinda like buying music. Especially when you buy it directly from the artist, you get those warm fuzzies and shit.

My favourite song off of Bonobo’s latest album, which I just bought – Emkay:

Someone asked me recently what I thought the next big trend in music would be after Trap has run it’s course. My response was, and still is, R&B. 100%.

Although I do listen to a wide variety of music, lately i find myself listening to a mix of UK Garage and R&B during my down time away from work. I’m not listening to any old 90′s R&B though, no Ginuwine, Boys 2 Men or Aaliyah here. Don’t get me wrong, I love listening to classic R&B, but if you really want to know what’s coming next you need to look beyond the classics and into the future. The best part about making music in this day and age is that everything is so accessible. Any young musician with a laptop can just hop on the internet and find so many resources and inspiration, it’s kind of incredible. Even the young Garage producers that I listen to from the UK show how influenced they are by American R&B music from over 10 years ago.

A group that I think is going to really break new ground for R&B this year is inc. The band consists of two brothers named Daniel and Andrew based out of Los Angeles. They just released their first LP, no world, earlier this week to much deserved critical acclaim. I can’t wait to see what kind of remixes surface from this LP.

My favorite song from their latest album – 5 days:

Preview the album no world below on my Rdio player or stream the whole thing if you have a account: