soul sides

Over at the Soul Sides audio blog, Oliver Wang, aka DJ O-Dub, cranks out a steady stream of musical knowledge and history through a combination of written history / context / analysis / commentary, and the tunes themselves in mp3 format, which you can download for ten days after the original posting.

The music is soul, R&B, rare grooves, funk, rap, hip-hop, jazz, bugaloo, obscure permutations of these forms from outside the U.S., and combinations of all of these. Today’s posting, the first in a new series on “overlooked latin groups,” is a great example of the work Wang does busting some solid musical knowledge and history and making connections across a wide range of cultures, traditions, and modes—not to mention laying down some amazing tracks to groove to. Along with the blog, he also puts together compilation CDs.

In addition to being an audio blogger, Wang is a professor of Cultural Studies at a local university. He also deejays around town, and if you can get past the hipster factor, he’s got an excellent show at the Shortstop in Echo Park on Thursday nights (no cover!). Maybe if we can get enough real Eastsiders over there to roll to the bugaloo etc., the hipsters will retreat to the bar down the block. Better yet, maybe DJ O-Dub will play some place like East Side Luv soon (hint hint).

Soul Sides Audio Blog: http://soul-sides.com/.