The Podcast Cafe

This episode features a wide array of music from just about all of my favorite genres -- hip-hop, reggae, electronica, jazz, alt-folk, Grateful, ambient, funk, weird noises -- and is like a transcription of my favorite toonz this springtime. It is a sibling mix to earlier efforts including Spring Buds, Fall Equinox and Summer Solstice I, and a cousin to 080808. This episdode does two things: collects and presents some of my freshest harvesting of tracks -- new songs, old songs newly discovered -- alongside a random smattering of other tracks not new in anyway but riding high on my "favorites" playlist. A finely-tuned assortment of grooves, ballads and jams that fill my earholes as of late.

Is there deeper meaning within the seemingly randomness of it, like the procession of Bill Frisell into Sonic Youth into the Supremes? That is, I suppose , a question for the listener to decipher on his or her own time. Or you could just kick back and enjoy the ride....

For its third anniversary on 5/15/09, the Podcast Cafe is kicking off its first ever listener-powered fundraiser. The old soundsystem, aka 5-year old MacBook, is starting to wear down and its memory banks are brimming over. The headphones recently stopped working and the music vault is straining. The whole shebang starts to smoke everytime Fundi gets deep down in to the groove, and that is unacceptable work conditions. The soundsystem can't take the strain of DJ Fundi's heavy podcasting habit and so the Cafe crew looking to upgrade to a system with more horsepower -- the better to power the Podcast Cafe!

Give a little and watch it come back to you with more musical blends to tantalize your earholes and frontal lobe. In 3 years, between all of his channels here at the Podcast Cafe and his work for www.destinationburningman.com, Fundi, sometimes in the bewigged guise of DJ Playaduster, figures he has somehow cranked out 60-70 podcasts. No kiddin'. That averages something like 2 per month, which is ridiculous. If you've been a beneficiary of this musical manna, then we hope you'll consider donating something like a 20 dollar bill to the Podcast Cafe PayPal account and help us upgrade the soundsystem for the next 60-70 podcasts. We're all looking forward to replacing things that are barely functioning now, and can see a bright future of music-mix-making on in to the future!

Donate via PayPal @ www.podcastcafe.org -- look for the button in the sidebar -- and big thanks!

Contact: [email protected]

www.podcastcafe.org

www.destinationburningman.com

I made this here mix with the idea of exploring sacred music from Africa, the Middle East and India. I tried to keep a sublime, introspective vibe pulsing through this diverse array of selections, which include field recordings from villages on the Nile River, traditional music from Iran, Armenian chanting, drum circles, world beat fusion from Pakistan and Ethiopia and a survey of Malian masters like Bouboucar Traore, Oumou Sangare and Toumani Diabate. The journey begins and ends with hypnotic sounds made on the kalimba, or "thumb piano," opening with a track from Samite and closing with Bobby McFerrin.

I hope this swirling mix of continent-spanning music from the soul inspires your own internal journeys.

Feedback : [email protected]

www.podcastcafe.org

Here is a recently-unearthed treasure trove of golden hits of the 1990's. This episode represents a cross-section of what I was filling my ears with in an earlier decade. I suppose you could call this mix The Roots of Fundi.

Featuring Bult to Spill, Pearl Jam, Pharcyde, Soul Coughing, Kristin Hersh, Ben Harper, the Presidents of the United States of America, Beck, Ani DiFranco, Nirvana, Pavement, Cornershop, Blind Melon, Tribe Called Quest, Jane's Addiction, Morphine, Digable Planets, Soundgarden, Beastie Boys, Sonic Youth, Screaming Trees, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Blues Traveler, Spearhead and others!

Feedback : [email protected]

Left speechless & shaking with an intense, spiritual joy after the 2008 presidential election, I was so happy for myself, for my country and for the whole entire world that I came to a rare loss for words. This "hopecast" is my best attempt to describe and share some portion of the mix of emotions the election of Barack Obama has inspired in me. It is especially informed by looking backwards, because you can't know where you're going unless you know where you've come from.

Part two centers around Obama's election night victory speech in Chicago, interspersed with Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech from the March on Washington in 1963: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character." Bob Marley, the Neville Brothers, Bill Frisell, Marvin Gaye, Common, Z-Trip, Bonobo, James Brown, the Blind Boys of Alabama, George Clinton, Fela, Prince, Public Enemy and assorted hymns, field hollers and cameos from Dubya inform this tribute, along with a cast of dozens more.

I hope that my Hopecast serves as an audio record of history in the making, set to a fitting groove. Viva Obama!

Part one of the Hopecast is available at www.podcastcafe.org/episodes. Feedback welcome: [email protected]

A sound-smoothie made from my most favorite sound-nutrients of the past year; favorite artists, dopest tracks, weirdest records: all blended up just for you!

Flying Lotus

Erykah Badu

Gnarls Barkley

Al Green

Bob Dylan

Cat Power

Fleet Foxes

Q-Tip

The Roots

Jamie Lidell

Stephen Malkmus

The B-52's

Beats Antique & Bassnectar

Dust + Blackdown

DJ/rupture

Bon Iver

Esau Mwamwaya & Radioclit

DJ Scruff

Ani Difranco

Amadou & Mariam

K'naan

Nina Simone

Thievery Corporation

Quantic

love, DJ Fundi

12/31/08

www.podcastcafe/[email protected]

44/2009 : yeswecanobamahopecast : usa

part one of a two-part series

left speechless & shaking with an intense, spiritual joy after the 2008 presidential election, i was so happy for myself, for my country and for the whole entire world that i came to a rare loss for words.

this "hopecast" is my best attempt to describe and share some portion of the mix of emotions the election of Barack Obama has inspired in me. it is especially inspired by looking backwards, because you can't know where you're going unless you know where you've come from.

bob marley, curtis mayfield, marvin gaye, public enemy, ludacris, nas, lee "scratch" perry, maceo parker, the blind boys of alabama, george clinton, fela, prince and assorted hymns, field hollers and cameos from MLK and Dubya people this tribute. it also features excerpts of Obama's most memorable oratory as he made the transitions from junior senator to presidential candidate to president-elect -- an audio record of history in the making, set to a fitting groove.

Part one takes the listener from Obama as junior senator from Illinois on to the campaign trail and up to the Democratic Convention when he became the Democratic nominee. I'll release part two in a week or so and it will finish up the story with his acceptance speech in Chicago.

www.podcastcafe.org

feedback: [email protected]

Welcome to the 35th episode from the Podcast Cafe! This is a musical mix in the same vein as "Snowgreen Spincycle" -- I chose the concept of "trouble" and then searched through my archives for songs with that word in their title. I think the whole idea came about because of my enormous love for Cat Stevens' song "Trouble":

"Trouble

Oh trouble set me free

I have seen your face

And it's too much too much for me

Trouble

Oh trouble can't you see

You're eating my heart away

And there's nothing much left of me

I've drunk your wine

You have made your world mine

So won't you be fair

So won't you be fair

I don't want no more of you

So won't you be kind to me

Just let me go where

I'll have to go there

...

I've seen your eyes

And i can see death's disguise

Hangin' on me

Hangin' on me

I'm beat, i'm torn

Shattered and tossed and worn

Too shocking to see

Too shocking to see

Trouble

Oh trouble move from me

I have paid my debt

Now won't you leave me in my misery

Trouble

Oh trouble please be kind

I don't want no fight

And i haven't got a lot of time"

Not a happy song by any stretch, but a powerful cry out that I've related to many different times throughout my life. This episode starts and ends with Cat's classic, and mixes in Elliott Smith, Bob Marley, Fela Kuti, Screaming Trees, Aretha Franklin, Wynton Marsalis, Keith Jarrett, Johnny Cash, Charlie Hunter Trio, Marvin Gaye, Jerry Garcia and others. Very diverse, but methinks it holds together pretty good.

Enjoy!

Feedback: [email protected]

An audio postcard from where DJ Fundi's ears, heart and mind is at on the eighth day of the eighth month of the eighth year of the new century. Brewed with freshly-harvested soundstick recordings.