Party Playlist: This is Your Cinco De Mayo

This week’s playlist is dedicated to anyone hosting a Cinco de Mayo party. The day known among Mexicans as the day they kicked ass in a battle they shouldn’t have won against an invading French army. Contrary to popular belief the French used to be good a not losing. To Americans the day is known as an excuse to get drunk on Coronas an Margaritas while eating our fill of chips and salsa. In the spirit of creating a more authentic celebration, we went to some friends in Mexico City to find out what’s on their playlist when they want to party.  What follows is sure to take any Cinco de Gringo/Drinko de Mayo bash to the next level.     

Check out the playlist here: Party Playlist: This is Your Cinco De Mayo

Now, just as a man cannot live on bread alone (or so they say), a party cannot live on music alone.  So we’d also like to share our foolproof margarita recipe.  All you need to remember is 3, 2, 1.  

The Perfect Margarita:

3 parts (1.5 oz) Tequila Blanco (preferably one that is 100% agave based, like Camarena or Milagro) 
2 parts (1 oz.) Grand Marnier (or Simple Syrup, if you prefer yours a little less strong)
1 part (.5 oz) lime juice

- Shake over ice and strain into a salted glass

If you want to get a little funky with it, try one of these variations (listed from easy to complicated)

Blood Orange Margarita

3 parts (1.5 oz) Tequila Blanco 
2 parts (1 oz.) Grand Marnier or Simple Syrup
1 part (.5 oz) Blood orange juice (always fresh)

- Shake over ice and strain into a salted glass

Smokey-Watermelon Margarita

3 parts (1.5 oz) Tequila Blanco 
2 parts (1 oz.) Simple Syrup
1 part (.5 oz) lime juice
1 part (.5 oz) Mezcal*
4 cubes fresh Watermelon, muddled in the bottom of the glass

- Shake over ice and strain into a salted glass

Passion-Pepper Margarita

3 parts (1.5 oz) Ancho Pepper-infused Tequila Blanco**
2 parts (1 oz.) Grand Marnier or Simple Syrup 
1 part (.5 oz) lime juice
1 part (.5 oz) passionfruit nectar

- Shake over ice and strain into a salted glass

*Mezcal is another Mexican spirit that is very close to tequila but has a smokey quality to it.  Sort of like the difference between Irish and Scottish whiskey.  

**To make Ancho infused Tequila, put 1 ancho chile into a jar with 750 ml of tequila.  Let it infuse overnight, up to 24 hours, then strain the tequila back into the bottle.  Anchos are dried Poblano peppers which have a mild spice and a sweet, almost raisin-like flavor.  You can find them in most grocery stores.

More, More, More: Every Band That’s Playing at SXSW, Pretty Much

                 

This playlist is a leviathan, it is a behemoth of music. I’d like to invite you to take a trip down the rabbit hole that is the massive sxsw comprehensive-ish playlist ‘13. It is 1,325 Tracks from the 1,325 artists that are going to be gracing the music festival with their presence.

It’s what you want right? You’re not afraid?

Yes it’ll be rigorous - just like the sxsw is rigorous. I have faith in you. You can listen to all of this music. You can go to all the shows. You can be a champion.

Good luck!

Butter Playlist 10.16.12

The CMJ Music Marathon is here once again. There will be a lot of bands and they’ll all be vying for a couple seconds of your twenty second attention-span. There hundreds of bands! Do you have time to listen to hundreds of bands and decide who you want to go see?

We need someone to tell us who to go watch - instead we got blogs.

And hey we’re a blog! We can’t really tell you who to go see but we could certainly give you a little bit of music to listen to. Ok well out of all these bands only Mean Lady is going to CMJ.

If you want a good place to pick up music of bands that’ll be playing at CMJ this week just head over to the CMJ Mixtape.

Click through for the link to this week’s Butter Internet Playlist and the track listing!

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Butter Playlist 9.20.12

Spotify is great - but it is also weird. Have you ever listened to Larry Norman? Rita Moss? The Gaurdian has an ongoing series called 101 Strangest Records on Spotify. Not only the music is trippy - the people are just as strange and curious. Toni Arthur was known for being in a children’s show called Play Away - but she also collected and sang old English and Scottish folk songs with her hubby David!?

Spotify is to weird old records as Mongolia is to dinosaur bones. Crazy.

Speaking of crazy. I have playlist for you to check out. There aren’t any Norwegian Folk songs - but there are recently released downloadable content across the internet. Also Sky Ferreira.

I also made it available to follow and download via the Spotify at the link.

Link to download the tracks and a track listing are after the jump!

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Every band that is playing at sxsw - pretty much

Listening to this playlist is like drowning for your ears. Be careful when listening to this playlist. The worst part of me wants to start a tired argument to be had about gatekeepers and the vice and victory of the internets - but really this just a playlist with every band that is playing at sxsw - pretty much!

On the sxsw website there is a list of bands and artists that are going to be playing shows at the festival next week. That is a long list and it’s not even that comprehensive! So using the mighty powers of Spotify - I put all the performing bands going to sxsw into one gigantic 24 Hour playlist of music:

sxsw comprehensive-ish playlist

In a way this playlist is indicative of the sxsw experience. There are so many bands buzzing around that you’re pretty much inundated into a music coma. This playlist will be good exercise for your ear muscles - when you’re taking a white cab alongside the cab driver’s girlfriend and teenage daughter to a Diplo concert at 2a in the morning you’ll be happy that you did!

Butterlist 10.14.11

Butter Music + Sound loves Shara Worden. Not just me, but the collective identity of Butter Music + Sound loves Shara Worden and My Brightest Diamond. Her voice is singular, delicate, strong, fun and flirty. I could probably use every adjective to describe her voice. I once heard her wail rock vocals a la Karen O in a collab with Butter’s own Ryan Lott. She can do it all. She’s classically trained you know.

And then there are her collaborations with yMusic. She’s got composer chops! Speaking of collaborations, Here is Son Lux’s remix of Be Brave.

Her album, All Things Will Unwind, is up for streaming on NPR this week. You should give it all a listen, all of it!

And so the opening track on All Things Will Unwind, We Added It Up, is available in this weeks internet roundup playlist after the jump!

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Butterlist 7.29.11

Death Cab For Cutie - Twisterella (Ride Cover) by ListenBeforeYouBuy

“Who is Ride and why is the coolest band ever covering them? Srsly u guys. Psshhff if Death Cab thinks they can make me care about Ride by covering one of their songs…” - kids these days

That’s what the kids these days say about stuff like this. They don’t care about ‘shuegraze’ or British people. Honestly I think Ride is the best. Actually from 88 to 95 or so we had some pretty solid music to listen to. Good work for covering this band Death Cab for Cutie. You guys are professionals.

It’s playlist time! It’s impressive to have both St. Vincent and My Brightest Diamond in the same playlist and not have the world collapse in on itself. By the way did you see their friend Sufjan put out a video of an interview during his dance rehearsal? Interesting! Actually not really! That interview was pretty lame. “Do you think that this is going to become a trend for “independent music?” What the fuck has Of Montreal and plenty of others been doing for years?

Anyway I’ve been very hateful this post so let’s get to the music. Playlist time after the jump:

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Butterlist 7.15.11

Wonderful. I love westerns. I’ve been moving through the standards for a while now. High Noon, The Shootist, Dollars Trilogy, Unforgiven, Once Upon the Time in the West and on. I haven’t seen Dead Wood yet, but one of the dudes from Deadwood is in this awesome short that pretty much has everything that you need in a good western. Union Soldiers, desperate bad outlaws, and weird masked beasts in all black?

Revisionist western!

Anyway that has little to do with the playlist but I’d thought share it anyway. For your education, now you know what I am up to! I’m watching westerns and you’re downloading this playlist for your ears. Get it after the jump, folks!

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Butterlist 6.30.11

So Bjork is at it again.

“The Biophilia live show will have its world premiere on Thursday, June 30, as part of the Manchester International Festival and continues as a three-year world tour of six-week residencies in eight different cities. In each city, Björk will perform Biophilia twice a week, using the apps to play live a set of custom built musical instruments and evoking an atmosphere similar to being inside the app itself.”

Whoa. And this:

“Björk has commissioned a set of unique musical instruments to accompany her on the live tour. The team who created these instruments include an English inventor, an Icelandic organ builder and a graduate of MIT Media Lab. Among these creations are four 10-foot pendulum-harps, in which the swinging motion plucks the strings and illustrates the songs’ gravitational subject matter.”

She’s intense. She’s also Bjork so I’m sure she’ll be fine.

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Butterlist 6.17.11

Check out this album and its beauty. Very neat! You should go on to http://sonlux.tumblr.com/ to see Ryan Lott’s own take on the work. The Son Lux album release show is on June 28th at the Public Assembly. It’s gonna be a good show but you don’t have to take my word for it.

So it has been too long since I’ve had a playlist for ya’ll! What, like three weeks? That’s offensive.

I’m digging heavy synthesizer and moody music this week. Unlike Ford and Lopatin, all apologizing for their MIDIs and junk. Have fun with Wild Beasts and Gardens & Villa and good ol’ Future Islands. Don’t worry though, Bleached (ex-Mika Miko, which were so much fun) and Mozart Parties are a a good change of pace for all of you analog people. Pearl and the Beard just sound down right out of place, but they got some great harmonies and stompin’ folk.

Get the playlist after the jump!

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