San Francisco Music News

I believe Energy 92.7 creates bliss. The music is the brilliant work of DJs mixing and matching seemingly incompatible beats into a beautiful blend of music that used to make me want to, well basically drink. The music works as a natural, homeopathic anti-depressant. Lets say, just maybe that I was struggling because I got denied entry to my graduate school of choice. After receiving the bad news, I would mope around the apartment for an hour or two, then jump in the shower wash off the depression and allow Trevor Simpson, Joey V, DJ Ajax or Greg and Fernando to brighten my mood and lift the cloud of disappointment with their mixes and music commentary.

I first became interested in dance music when my cousin started sharing Peter Rauhofer mixes that he had discovered at the different circuit parties he had attended over the weekend. The music my cousin brought into my life was galvanizing. At the beginning stages of my interest, I realized dance music was a trigger. Whenever I heard a dance beat or a Madonna mix it became time to get drunk and dance for hours on end. Now I have established a much healthier relationship with the music by using it for emotional healing rather than a catalyst for partying.

92.7 is now the default station on my shower radio and it can provide me with a boost to wake up in the morning or a Sunday night Subzero set of relaxing electronic beats. No matter what, I will be missing the DJs and music of 92.7 when I move to Tennessee to be oversaturated by country tunes while committing myself to an existence of books and coffee.

Enya, Dido and Elliot Smith will become my most played artists once school starts. These artists make up the bulk of my study playlist mainly because it is soothing and easily heard as white noise. I will use the music to focus and study by drowning out other distractions. But I need more! Please share with me other worthy artists who contribute to focus and long hours of reading.

Lastly, the most inspiring music in my iTunes library is the extensive list of hip hop that my brother has shared with me. K-os, Common, Aesop Rock, the Coup (so sad I couldn’t attend their show in Berkeley last week), Atmosphere, Mos Def and most important of all, Immortal Technique. These artists are commonly grouped into the genre of ‘conscious hip hop’ and diverge from the mainstream misogynistic/superficial rap (not quite sure how to define some of it) that we are so regularly perverted with.

Immortal Technique is by far my favorite because he is a social deviant that constantly inspires me with his poetry. For me, he is the musical equivalent of Chuck Klosterman. I’ve contemplated writing an entire essay arguing why his music is so influential and important to us as a people (and maybe I still might do it). He breaks down taboos, industry piracy of talent, the government and the inhumanity that is quite prevalent in this world. Many times I’ve quoted him in life because I can believe in so much of what he says.

The 4th Branch is one of his most powerful songs with its most striking line being, “You still want to take me to prison just because I won’t trade humanity for patriotism.” With Bush and Co. condoning waterboarding and other ‘mild’ forms of coercion/torture, IT’s lyrics are all too appropriate.

Music influences us all differently, but I would like to know what affects you the most and why? I am looking for inspiring music and something to assist me in my studies, but nothing more to help me get drunk (I am abstaining from the sauce from August 2008-August 2010).