June 24, 2006 - Free Kick Drinks & Goes Home
Well, it's really summer now... so go enjoy yourselves! That should include listening to the Free Kick if at all possible: the next show is on Saturday July 8, from 9-11 pm eastern time.

If you want to check out last Saturday's thrill-packed show, you can use these links to download the mp3's:

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Or stream the show from the CKUT 90.3 fm archive page: we started just after 21:04 and soldiered on till 23:04.

that's all folks!
Dave

June 19, 2006 - Fire Into Music in Montreal
Last night Montreal fans were treated to another mind-blowing show as part of the astounding Suoni Per Il Popolo festival. Fire Into Music, led by Steve Swell (trombone) and featuring Jemeel Moondoc (alto) with the all-consuming rhythm section of William Parker (bass) and Hamid Drake (drums, pictured here), just tore up the Salla Rossa on a Montreal Monday night to the delight of a mesmerized crowd. Classic "liberation music", just like we have come to expect from shows produced by the Suoni crew!

Most of this show was broadcast live over CKUT 90.3 fm - and there were no technical hiccups this time! You can listen to it now using these links:

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I'll make sure to adjust the links when the higher quality versions expire...

If you want to stream the show, go to the archives page and get Monday June 19 from 21:54 - 22:43 and 23:22 - 24:27.

And remember, friends, the next Free Kick show is coming at ya this Saturday night on CKUT 90.3 fm, from 9 -11 pm eastern time. We'll be expecting you!

Dave

June 10 - Free Kick... GOOOOOOOAL!
The World Cup is on, and we've already seen some interesting developments, but without too many surprises. I hope you thought Free Kick's performance on Saturday was better than Ronaldo's in the Brazil-Croatia game today.

There was a hell of a lot a Brazilian music in last Saturday's Free Kick show, but Shawn & I didn't step on each other's toes too much. To let you in on a secret, we come up with our contributions separately every two weeks, so it's interesting that we came as close as we did this time: Shawn with his half hour of great capoeira-related sounds and myself with a number of more poppy selections that drew on the characteristic riffs of the capoeira instrument par excellence, the berimbau. That's the instrument shaped like a hunting bow with a resonator at one end, played by hitting the string with a stick while stopping it with a stone.

While our in-studio capoiera tournament went unrecorded, I was able to locate some videos of people practicing this funkiest of martial arts on the internet. Here's one, and hey, another that purports to be from Montreal. If you want to see more, slog through youtube yourself.

OK, that's enough of that... now let me point you to the download links for Saturday's show:

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Or you can stream them in the usual way from the CKUT archives page: the show went from about 21:03 to 23:03.

That's all folks! Check us again on CKUT 90.3 fm on Saturday June 24 from 9 -11 eastern!

Dave

A Cosmic Hop in Montreal
We had a rare treat here in Montreal last night... in fact one that hasn't been matched since (if I remember correctly) 1989: the landing of the Sun Ra Arkestra in the city to treat us to their unique interstellar sounds. Of course, Mr. Ra (or Mr. Re, or Mr. Mystery, if you like) was not there in body, but with Marshall Allen - pictured here in a shot by Frank Schindelbeck - at the helm to carry on the galactic navigation, nobody was complaining! Winds-of-space abstractions, dreamy exotic grooves, Fletcher Henderson charts, and so on and so on - all the classic Arkestra sounds were graciously offered up to an enthusiastic crowd.

This will certainly be remembered as one of the greatest of the many fantastic events set up for this month by the good people at the Suoni Per Il Popolo festival. And, thanks to CKUT 90.3 fm who broadcast this event live, last night's sounds can be heard over and over again by anyone who wants to download the show from the station's audio archives. The two sets basically went from 22:01 - 23:05 and 23:40 - 24:59 (on June 6 of course). Go get em!

To make it easier for you, dear listener, I will post the links to the two sets:

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PS: There are quite a few dropouts at the beginning of set 1, but these clear up for the most part after about 30 mins.

Space is the place! Oh, and remember to listen to the Free Kick show this Saturday, June 10, from 9 - 11 pm eastern on CKUT 90.3 fm.

Dave