Music entrepreneur spins Studios event
Influential Olympia, Wash., musician, label owner, DJ and producer Calvin Johnson will don his Selector Dub Narcotic persona to spin records during a special Little Rock gig today.
Johnson will mix dancehall, soul, garage, punk and whatever else he has up his record sleeves at a dance party at Capitol View Studios. Brooklyn-based dancepop outfit Landlady and Arkansas’ art punkers Ginsu Wives will open.
Johnson, whose singing voice is a dry, unaffected baritone, founded seminal indie lo-fi rockers Beat Happening in 1982 and was also a founding member of The Go Team, Dub Narcotic Sound System and The Halo Benders. In the early ’80s, he started K Records, the imprint that has released music by Built to Spill, Beck, Modest Mouse, Teenage Fanclub and others. K Records was also home to the 1999 debut self-titled EP by Gossip, the garage-punk trio that got its start in Searcy.
Johnson’s first solo album, 2002’s minimalist What Was Me, features a duet with Judsonia native and Gossip singer Beth Ditto on “Lightnin’ Rod for Jesus.”
Landlady also has a Natural State connection. Its label, Hometapes, was founded by Arkansas natives Adam Heathcott and Sara Padgett Heathcott. The World Is a Loud Place, its third album, was released earlier this year.
“The album is best when it is most vexing, when its puzzle-piece arrangements demand you put everything together,” wrote Stephen Deusner in his Pitchfork.com review.
The band has also recently been featured performing for NPR’s Tiny Desk concert series and released a slinky, spacey cover of Al Green’s “Love and Happiness” backed with its own “Share a Tree” last month.