Los Angeleez, I'm Yours

kanye west [new music]

2007-10-11T17:09:00.000-07:00

Good goddamn, Kanye's a crazy fuck. Did you see him on SNL a few weeks back, where he forgot his lines and started spitting a totally atrocious freestyle? Or last year, at the Europe VMAs, where he shit-talked Justice and essentially everyone in Europe (after which he bit their style and their video director; see below)? Or two years ago, on that Katrina telethon, when he blurted out his (entirely rational and justifiable) feelings about our dear Presidente? Yeah? Who the fuck cares. Continue making music this fine, and it really doesn't matter what E! and various hip hop bloggers have to say. Consider it thus: he's certainly less clinically disturbed than Brian Wilson, Daniel Johnston, Don Van Vleit, etc., and we don't question their street cred. Phil Spector (allegedly) murdered someone, for chrissakes, and we still love him for his production skillz. Kanye: yeah, he's got an ego, but at least he isn't on trial for second degree murder.
Graduation isn't as musically dense or satisfying as Late Registration, which could be due to Jon Brion's notable absence (he's around, but not to the same degree). However, it's still a fascinating, forward-thinking, solid record. Kanye seems to approach his craft as a producer the way Radiohead (yep, I said it) approach their song creation: the ultimate focus is the furtherance of their art and the cohesion of their work. If the resulting record is critically acclaimed and/or a chart-topper, all the better. And no, it's not an electro record (if you haven't heard it yet; I was slightly surprised), but it does abound in synths. Italo-disco-style synths, to get more specific, as opposed to Swizz-Beats-style synths. That's where his newfound love of electronic music, beyond the overplayed Daft Punk sample, comes in. "Flashing Lights" is a hip-hop-meets-house club banger in the style of the Streets "Blinded by the Lights." Several other tracks utilize the same aesthetic, and these are by and large my favorite on the album, none more so than the outstanding "Good Life" (linked below). Granted, there are weak spots (every hip hop album has them): Lil Wayne has a lame, out-of-place cameo on the unremarkable "Barry Bonds," and Kanye wastes a perfectly good beat on the head-scratcher "Drunk and Hot Girls," an argument against the titular ladies, as if there was some unknown party out there straight representin' for shitfaced sluts. Then there are the odd, tender moments, especially the closing "Big Brother," a song-length love letter to Kanye's mentor Jay-Z. Never before, and likely never again, will we hear such vulnerability from a rapper; it's totally against everything hip hop careers, including Kanye's, are built on. It's these moments, though, that set Kanye apart. Any rapper alive can pull off the swagger and braggadocio, most less successfully, but few even bother baring their souls this way.

Kanye West [ft. T-Pain] - Good Life [from Graduation, 2007]

I would be remiss in not also sharing the video for this track, somewhat ironically directed by Ed Banger art director So-Me:

bangers & cash + lcd + soulwax [new music]

2007-09-15T13:45:00.001-07:00

A few dance party jams for your weekend:

James Murphy is a busy boy. Constantly touring, he's got a live mix LP coming out as part of Fabric London's FABRICLIVE series, and he's also soon releasing the Bunch Of Stuff EP under his LCD Soundsystem moniker. Appropriately, this comp includes a bunch of stuff, including this lovely Soulwax remix of my favorite Sounds Of Silver track. True to form, our boy Soulwax tweaks it just slightly to the benefit of all, throwing in handclaps and synth patches and drawing everything out to make it even more dancefloor-perfect. Enjoy.

LCD Soundsystem - Get Innocuous! (Soulwax Remix) [from the Bunch Of Stuff EP, 2007]

On a slightly dirtier tip, Spank Rock's been a busy boy as well. Fresh off his own FABRICLIVE mix (and an excellent one at that, traveling from Kurtis Blow to Yes to Justice), he's delved whole-heartedly into a new project with Benny Blanco: Bangers & Cash. Look at that cover. Yes, kids, it's like 2 Live Crew. Is Miami bass the new Italo-disco? You be the judge.

Bangers & Cash - B.O.O.T.A.Y! [from Spank Rock & Benny Blanco Are Bangers And Cash, 2007]

breakwater [old music]

2007-09-12T17:26:00.000-07:00

Look at that album cover, and you might be thinking, "What the fuck?" What the fuck, indeed.
The short answer: this track is the sample source for Daft Punk's stellar "Robot Rock."
The short response: oh, how interesting. They lifted those riffs wholesale. The Daft Punk track is still pretty great, though.
The long answer: not only are Daft Punk brilliant producers with their ears permanently glued to the dancefloor, they're also extremely savvy crate-diggers who managed to unearth this gem in spite (or perhaps because) of this ridiculous album cover. It's moot that they lifted the synth riffs wholesale; had you not been informed as to the sample source, you never would have known. That's the art behind the French masks.
Nor is it right to ignore the standalone greatness of the original track here. Existing somewhere in the overlap of hair metal, the heaviest Tower of Power funk, and Edgar Winter's "Frankenstein," "Release The Beast" is a call to arms. The titular beast is the ever-elusive "funk," or "Da Funk," as Daft Punk themselves might put it, and don't you want to get up out your chair? Do it, release the beast, and thank Breakwater later for it. On the music snob tip, Breakwater was a funk band from Philly, active in the 70s, with at least eight members. That's about all I can tell you. Oh, and Wikipedia makes a point of mentioning that "'Release the Beast' features the sound of an oscillator sync patch on an analog synthesizer." Word.

Breakwater - Release The Beast [from Splashdown, 1980]

tiga + zombie nation + justice [new music]

2007-09-05T19:46:00.000-07:00

I'm sure this track has already been and gone on Hype Machine's top 10, but I've never been anything but a latecomer, and that certainly doesn't deplete the awesomeness of this club banger. Justice certainly wouldn't be blamed for getting lazy recently, what with their constant touring, remixing, and generally being the darlings of the "nu-rave" circuit; however, this remix finds them in full, brilliant form. I've been a Tiga fan for a while (especially "Good As Gold" and his LCD Soundsystem remixes), but I regret to say that I've never heard the original of this collabo with the excellently-named German DJ Zombie Nation. Regardless, this track's remix is the epitome of the current wave of indie electro dance party music: chopped synth samples, bleeps, even a tight vocal exhalation fade in and out just when you want them to. Generally, tension builds and releases very predictably in dance music, and not that it doesn't here, but it does so at the perfect places: this ain't some 1997 Paul Van Dyk cut. I can't put it better than the headline from Tiga's website: "It will wash your brain clear of all witchcraft...prepare to dance you slugs!"

ZZT - Lower State Of Consciousness (Justice Remix) [12", 2007]

liars + crystal castles [new music]

2007-08-28T18:24:00.000-07:00

Just a tiny taste until I get together something more substantial...

Liars just released a new, eponymous album today, which I can't wait to hear (and will certainly post upon when I do). Thematically, here's a lovely remix by the opulent Crystal Castles to tide us over. They take the hugely theatrical cut from Liars' last album and flip it into a four-on-the-floor club banger. It's a serious remix, but strangely true to the original. They haven't completely abandoned the subtle effects and minor-key progessions, and the added beats and tones are entirely in-line with the album's general aesthetic. A rare club remix that truly synthesizes without destruction.

Liars - It Fit When I Was A Kid (Crystal Castles Remix) [from the Alice Practice EP, 2007]

delinquent

2007-08-26T19:47:00.000-07:00

I apologize profusely for my blogginz delinquency. Los Angeleez, I'm Yours will return with new music stylez this week. Stay tuned: new music mind-blowing and old music education is sure to come.

retta young [old music]

2007-05-29T19:21:00.000-07:00

[Short post this week. Business is a little hairy here in Los Angeleez.]

A homie commented to me that a previous post was "venom-filled." I take umbrage at that; I am an admittedly arrogant music snob, but I vowed to Michael Plus that this blog would ascribe to Believer ethics: enthusiasm for all things I write about, ignoring the negativity--the Polyphonic Spree of criticism, a more academic version of "if you can't say anything nice..."
Kids, let me clarify and recapitulate. I merely wanted to point to the roots of what is currently hip (my favorite thing to do). If you love T.I., you should also be listening to mid-90s UGK, for instance. Related to that post, then, let me give you a lovely slice of the purest disco.
I know absolutely next-to-nothing about this Retta Young lady. She was married to Al Goodman from the Moments, recorded for the All-Platinum label (Sylvia Robinson's pre-Sugar Hill foray), and she scored a UK chart hit with "Sending Out An SOS" (not the ABBA song) in 1975. I do, however, know that this song is disco brilliance. Deliciously breathy vocals, sweeping washes of strings, chromatically rising vamps, and that fat, luscious backbeat. From the bottom of my heart, enjoy.

Retta Young - You Beat Me To The Punch (Disco Version) [12", 1976]

lcd soundsystem [new music]

2007-05-24T18:47:00.000-07:00

Success (or even validity) in any artistic career requires progression. Do I even have to say that? This is why I'm no longer a Weezer fanatic.
Thank God James Murphy is as smart as he is, then. His earlier music, both as LCD Soundsystem and his production/remix work under the DFA umbrella oozed tragic hipness. I'm thinking the various versions of "Yeah," the meta-electro of "Daft Punk Is Playing At My House," and climactically, the brilliant "Losing My Edge," almost a thesis for the early 00s James Murphy sound and attitude. Production-wise, his remixes and knob-twiddling for the Rapture, etc., was all about the dancepunk aesthetic: saxophones, 808s, bleeps and skronks, and more cowbell than an Amarillo ranch.
Wise up, kids. You can only drink at the Standard rooftop 6 nights a week for so long. Sound Of Silver is a hipster-hangover-comedown, seriously vibrant (and sometimes vibrantly serious). LCD Soundsystem has graduated from the self-conscious hipness we're still seeing, 5 years on. Don't get me wrong: club-bangers abound nonetheless, notably "Watch The Tapes." And the king of irony hasn't closed the book on the wink-and-nudge, either; he just shows more vulnerability with his smirking asides in "North American Scum" and especially the excellent album-closer "New York I Love You, But You're Bringing Me Down." The personal revelations in that track (a thesis for this album, much like "Losing My Edge" was to an earlier era) are also heard in the melancholy of "Someone Great." Most of all, he seems to be thinking harder. Look no further, friends, than "Get Innocuous," which brings to the music the same excitement that the aforementioned "Daft Punk" only talked about.
Yes, kids, I know this album came out like months ago. That's why I'm giving you this b-side here. In 12 minutes, we move from downtempo-ish house to a jazztastic drum solo to a Kraftwerkian vamp, putting into sound the namedrop appeal of "Losing My Edge" (can you tell that I love that track?).

LCD Soundsystem - Freak Out / Starry Eyes [from the "All My Friends" 12", 2007]

spacid [dj mix]

2007-05-13T12:11:00.000-07:00

A convergence of convergences: I was talking briefly last night with fellow Yes+er Teen Video about the recycling of club/dance culture and (specifically) that amorphous genre of "electro." It seems like every few years, as late, there's a resurgence of this style. Track the development from the late 70s purity of disco to the early 80s "electro-funk" of Afrika Bambaataa through Ibiza and rave culture to the early 00s and the "formation" of electroclash and the preponderance of weekly electro nights at clubs from Echo Park to Lawrence, KS. Seems like good ol' Fischerspooner and Miss Kittin fell off slightly, then, for a few years (as rock music "returned"), but we've happily seen the re-return of electro in the past several months from diverse areas of Europe. Ed Banger is a hero to the disaffected youth with their American Apparel jeans (I'm not a hater; I too rock the AA jeans). Fists pump once again to the boom-chick-boom-chick.
Why the convergence? A night prior, I'd been using this mix for background music while kickin' it casually. Ed Banger kids, I suggest you check out the roots of your passion: italo-disco to the max, some of it from up to 25 years ago. None of it would sound out of place at a 2007 East LA warehouse party...World Premiere, Claudja Barry, Anita Ward, Starsound...I wish there was a tracklist for these 59 minutes of glory. How we love zee Germans and their DJ skillz. Peep his myspace also for more mixes of old disco and acid house from the US and Europe. Classikz.

Spacid dj mix [from Good for Nothing]

relaunch + rolling stones [old music]

2007-05-07T18:00:00.000-07:00

Los Angeleez has joined the Yes + iverse and on an auspicious occasion...35 years ago today was the release of the insta-classic album Exile on Main Street. Suffice it to say, this post will be a placeholder until the real "hypetastic" music criticism comes online, as I enjoy the new Sarkozy administration in a chateau in the south of France while railing lines of Keef's dad. For those of you that are new to the house of Angeleez, I post mp3 links via yousendit, broke-ass style, and my music criticism is not always uber-current. E.g., I will go buy the new Bjork album tomorrow, when it's released, but probably not post on it for a week or two so that it may properly digest in my brain and heart.
I suggest you get rip-roaringly drunk on good red wine and/or Kentucky bourbon. Then, as the sun is rising the next morning and your bender tips over into hangover, let that not-so-attractive-anymore person that you're with lead you into the bedroom and let it loose; let it all come down (so says Mick).

the Rolling Stones - Let It Loose [from Exile on Main Street, 1972]

a crepuscular massage

2006-05-21T18:37:00.000-07:00

Sunset Rubdown - Stadiums And Shrines II [from Shut Up I Am Dreaming, 2006]

Wow, it's been quite a while, so my humblest apologize to all the fanatical Los Angeleez readers out there. I have a great deal of phenomenal music to update you on, so I will post as frequently as possible to plow through this pile. Let's start here with the excellent Sunset Rubdown, yes? This band and album have been promoted as the "new release from Wolf Parade's Spencer Krug." Well, I never listened to Wolf Parade, so that didn't do it for me. The uber-indie-rock-ness of this album, however, blew my fucking mind. I hear pieces of Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, the Arcade Fire, Sufjan, Broken Social Scene, and pretty much every other indie band I love in a magnificent mashup. Remember how those "Return Of The Rock" bands in 2002 all sounded like an amalgam of the Stones, New York Dolls, and Stooges (and only a couple actually pulled that off well)? Sunset Rubdown is the indie equivalent, successfully. Though I was quite annoyed by this song's title, which should actually be "Stadia And Shrines." Fucking latinate pluralizations.

post-emo

2006-05-06T18:53:00.000-07:00

Parts & Labor - Repair [from Stay Afraid, 2006]

Yes, that's a brand new subgenre coinage! Actually, if you look at my iTunes, the genre for this is "no wave," but only because it's noisy and I haven't found enough post-emo bands yet to warrant an entire iTunes genre category. Basically, if you stripped the noise and effects away from these Crooklyn cats, you'd be left with Saves The Day, albeit with some slightly Mars Volta-esque lyrics: the chorus to this tune is "Corroded old impatient wire wait to die this cold disposed of makeshift child has expired;" you can still feel the emo sentiment in the surrealism, though. Don't strip the noise and effects away though, because they're fucking awesome (and who wants to listen to Saves The Day, anyway, short of a nostalgic trip?). On this tune, for instance, the chorus is sung through a crappy walkie-talkie, with the effects board AC adaptors used to pick up the signal. That's some genius electronics.

[Sorry that it's been a minute since I last posted. But really, does anyone care but me?]

scratch attack

2006-05-02T21:29:00.000-07:00

Cut Chemist [ft. Edan & Mr. Lif] - The Storm [from The Audience's Listening, 2006]

Some people are unstoppably old school: this crew fits that bill exactly. Cut Chemist is one of those classy DJs who simply hasn't given up the wild style ones-and-twos even after the DMC competitions retired his number, despite being a life-long Angeleno (I don't know if my man is actually a Grandmaster, if anyone wants to fill me in on that info). B-boyologist Edan drops rhymes that, while closer to Del than MC Shan, are still more block party than bling (this song, in fact, would have fit nicely in his recent album, 2005's Beauty & the Beat); Def Jux's Mr. Lif is similar, though he also divides his time with appropriately Co-Flow-style consciousness. The real star here is Cut Chemist's beat: modern, choppy production leaning towards an almost hyphy-like synth storm, while keeping an close ear to hip hop's storied heart. Streets is watching...out June 13.

BONUS: I love this album so much, I just have to post another track:

Wilderness - Beautiful Alarms [from Vessel States, 2006]

still sonic, not so much with the youth

2006-05-01T18:22:00.000-07:00

Sonic Youth - Incinerate [from Rather Ripped, 2006]

Decades ago, Sonic Youth blew open the stagnant New York "new wave" / art rock / post-punk scene with complex, richly aesthetic albums of serious, though still accessible, music. Twenty years and many musical excursions later, SY returns to the form of their greatest album, the masterpiece Daydream Nation. Well, that may be a stretch, considering I haven't heard more than this track from their latest endeavor (due out June 13), but it certainly sounds like a return to that form. This version of Sonic Youth, like that mid-eighties original version, is deeply intruiging without sacrificing melodicism. Thurston Moore's guitar is again at the forefront (not that it hasn't always been), but with a simplicity lacking in the band's recent jammy albums. The purity of his licks here, though, is a departure from the double-tracked scratchiness even of the SY classics, instead recalling the tone and line of Tom Verlaine and (dare I say it) Jerry Garcia. Sonic Youth: still relevant.

how to be a music snob, lesson 9

2006-04-30T18:48:00.000-07:00

Galaxie 500 - Blue Thunder [from On Fire, 1989]

If you dug the Wilderness track I posted here, now is the time to check out the basis for the music snob reference I made. There is a certain niche of albums tailor-made for driving through the desert late at night, by oneself, of which this stands at the very pinnacle (for me, at least). The sophomore record by the shoegaze band from Boston is unbeatable in its epic build, dramatic (and harmonic, for theorists) tension, and uplifting release. But its a melancholic uplift, and that's my favorite kind. Extra-snobby bonus points: singer and lead guitarist Dean Wareham later went on to form the preeminent slowcore band Luna. The bassist and drummer later went on to form uninspired, forgotten bands (sad).

shoegaze's not dead

2006-04-29T15:01:00.000-07:00

Wilderness - Emergency [from Vessel States, 2006]

I had a cathartic experience at the Echo last night. After some ridiculous post-emo from Parts & Labor and thrilling Year Future post-punk, Wilderness took the stage to deliver the most dramatic, emotional performance of shoegaze (post-shoegaze?) I've heard since listening to Galaxie 500 and bemoaning the fact that I'd never get to see them live. Busting out of Baltimore on the excellent and excellently named Jagjaguwar (home also to the aforementioned Part & Labor), this comes from Wilderness's follow up to their eponymous debut, released last July. Imagine Explosions In The Sky with vocals from a bastard child of Ian Curtis and John Lydon (what ridiculously morose sex they would have had), and with said vocalist doing bizarre tai chi throughout the set. If that doesn't sound awesome to you, imagine some snobby music calculus that would make it sound awesome. Or, just download the damn mp3 and check the shit for yourself.

performance venue arson

2006-04-28T18:17:00.000-07:00

The Theater Fire - These Tears Could Rust A Train [from Everybody Has A Dark Side, 2006]

Imagine Devendra Banhart, but more folk, less freak. Replace the occasionally annoying warble with a serious A.P. Carter tenor, and the psuedo-pedophilia subject matter with real rustic lyrics (yes, I know the title sounds slightly emo, but when would Ben Gibbard ever sing about rusted trains?). I've been fans of these Denton boys since my Lone Star L.A. days, and it's good to see that their banjo / glockenspiel / french horn tunes can still pull them in to Dan's Silverleaf. The new album is due out May 9, so support Texas music and peep this shit.

hip hop originals, part 3

2006-04-26T20:53:00.000-07:00

Minnie Riperton - Baby, This Love I Have [from Adventures In Paradise, 1975]

As I said, the beat for Tribe's "Check The Rhime" isn't entirely original. It comes from a ten second loop off the very beginning of this track by Miss Riperton, she of the insanely high-octave vocal reach. Everybody knows "Loving You," from the Burger King commercial and/or South Park, but she was fairly well known for her mid-70s albums in general. This song is just modern enough, slightly touching cheesy new-soul, but not enough to detract from the straight up sensualness of it.

you be illin(ois)

2006-04-25T21:18:00.000-07:00

Sufjan Stevens - The Henney Buggy Band - [from The Avalanche: Outtakes And Extras From The Illinois Album, 2006]

Somebody remind Sufjeezy that he signed on for a project called The 50 States, and he's got 48 to go. Also, that had he done his research, he would know that Illinois doesn't have avalanches, as it doesn't have mountains. But you know, I really can't argue with a song this great. Sufjan is as consistently awesome and creatively rich as very few artists are, and if this song and the title track (which I've also heard, and you should Soulseek) are any indication of this due-out-in-July album, he could continue making records solely about Illinois for the duration of his career. Though I am eagerly awaiting songs like "French Fries! Tater Tots! Ruffles! (A Song For Boise)" (from the Idaho album), "Sufjan Does Dallas, or, A Melancholy Ode to the Lone Star" (from the Texas album), and "The Ghost Of Henry David Thoreau Returns To Walden Pond By Midnight, To Find It Overtaken By Revelers And Harvard Coeds" (from Massachusetts). By the way, can I get some props for the title of this post? It's at least as good as "Come On! Feel The Illinoise!"

[big up to stereogum for the track]

how to be a music snob, lesson 8

2006-04-24T14:51:00.000-07:00

A Tribe Called Quest - Check The Rhime [from The Low End Theory, 1991]

There's a certain "funk" band, made up of USC students, that likes to jack beats. And not just beats, it turns out; they like biting entire rhymes from hip hop songs. The unknowledgable kids go wild for that shit, but if you're going to beat-jack in front of music snobs, don't make it from something as classic as this. The originators of jazz-rap (check out the Dave Chappelle movie for their direct descendants) were one of the last hip hop groups to do all their production in-house, and, thusly, the beats perfectly back the rapping. Q-Tip and Phife Dawg are incredibly "on point" on this track, especially (all the time, Tribe). So if you're going to be unoriginal, pick a less well known song, more obscure producers, or a less identifiable MC. This was just too easy to pick out. [Of course, this beat isn't entirely original on Tribe's part, either, but stay tuned for more on that in the next couple days.]

sebastian grows some balls

2006-04-23T17:03:00.000-07:00

Belle & Sebastian - We Are The Sleepyheads [from The Life Pursuit, 2006]

Pardon my tardiness in posting on new CDs I buy; it takes me a long time to thoroughly listen to them. Anyway, this comes from the new B&S album, universally hailed as their best since If You're Feeling Sinister. I think it's a step up, too. Though I love the latter album a bit more, that feeling is a bit more situational (related to what was going on with my life while I was really into it), while my admiration for this album is more critically informed. The Life Pursuit is no less twee than anything B&S has done previously, but their musical palette has expanded greatly, in the same progression that started with the Books EP. The fireside lo-fi-ness of their early work is replaced with super-shiny production, recalling Phil Spector and the height of the Motown sound. This tune exemplifies their new density and sheen: twee lyrics and vocals, in addition to some killer guitar work and speedy doowop harmonies.

hip hop originals, part 2

2006-04-22T15:05:00.000-07:00

Willie Hutch - Baby Come Home [from Concert In Blues, 1976]

Part of what makes Ghostface's new "Back Like That" so great is Xtreme's incredibly classic-soul beat, most of which comes from this track. I don't know much about this album, other than that it's on Motown; in fact, this may be a 12" version instead of a version from this LP. Willie Hutch, who died last September in his hometown of Dallas (boo-yeah), was known mostly as a songwriter and producer in the Berry Gordy hit factory, especially for 5th Dimension, Smokey Robinson, and the Jackson 5 (he wrote "I'll Be There," one of my favorites). He also wrote the score for The Mack, one of the classic blaxploitation soundtracks up there with Isaac Hayes's Shaft and Curtis Mayfield's Superfly. He also was one of Motown's biggest solo artists in their mid-1970s slump, after the group-pop scene had fallen off, and continued carrying the torch for the label through the 80s and 90s, when Motown was pretty much irrelevant. This song, however, is the shit.

you haven't been hungry since supreme clientele

2006-04-21T22:33:00.000-07:00

Ghostface Killah [ft. Ne-Yo] - Back Like That [from Fishscale, 2006]

I posted a tune off this brand new LP a while back, but let me reiterate: Ghostface hasn't sounded this great in years. Nobody raps harder or stronger than Tony Starks, and the beats provided by a multitude of New York's finest are superb, soulful pieces that sound great under his voice. Both stylistically and lyrically, Ghost is untouched by any MC who's come out with a record this year. He's eminently creative, too: though this album is as completely about the yay game as Jeezy's Let's Get It, Ghost manages to go all the way through without once saying "trap" or "trappin'" (I'm looking at you, Cam'ron). This song, specifically, is my favorite, and sort of the pinnacle of the sound that Ghostface is forging on this record. I'm going to leave words about the beat til the next post, but I will tell you that Ne-Yo is the new R. Kelly, minus of course the pissin' on chicks. Dig it.

how to be a music snob, lesson 7

2006-04-19T19:34:00.000-07:00

Pixies - Velouria [from Bossanova, 1990]

The post on why being a music snob necessitates being a huge Pixies fan should be a foregone conclusion. The most influential band of the past twenty years, the soft verse-loud chorus thing, blah blah blah. I'm not even going to bother...if you don't know already, forget any chance you had of being a true snob. This song, from Black Francis & Co.'s penultimate album [the usual cliche here being "already showing signs of tension between Kim Deal and the rest of the band!"], is my very favorite Pixies song of all time. Also, despite their total suckage of the past six years, I still love Weezer's cover of this (and that may be the first time I've ever written that band's name without the =W=. Damnit, I just did).

centro-fanatic

2006-04-18T17:53:00.000-07:00

Centro-matic - Take A Rake [from Fort Recovery, 2006]

At the merch booth at Centro-matic shows, they have a graphic representation of all of Will Johnson's recorded output, with axes like "Country--Rock" and "Mellow--[something else that I can't remember]." I would put this new record sonically close to South San Gabriel's recent The Carlton Chronicles: this is definitely the most musically complex album, at least under the Centro-matic nom de guerre. Though SSG will throw in a good bit of slide guitar, and Centro always has piano and an occasional violin, this is the first appearance of synth (heavily backing up the piano on this song), absent just a touch on Distance & Clime. The song structures, too, are denser than the usual verse-chorus-bridge that Will generally operates in. Lyrically, this is between Will's solo Murder Of Tides and the last Centro album, Love You Just The Same. The songs are obtuse as usual, but not enough to obscure the rural, sort of Southern Gothic melancholy pervading a good bit of the album. These are songs of departures, reflection and maturation, which has really been the progression through the Johnson oeuvre: the "twenty years stuck in my dreams, undefined."

hip hop originals, part 1

2006-04-17T21:33:00.000-07:00

Keeping myself organized...here's another new series. Inspired by Mos Def's totally fucking awesome and, well, inspiring show Saturday night on the USC campus, I'm going to be posting about some excellent songs sampled in hip hop tracks. Shazam-blizzity:

Aretha Franklin - One Step Ahead [from Take A Look, 1967]

Appropriately, we start with the sample from Mos's hit "Ms. Fat Booty," a plaintive slice of soul from Queen Aretha herself. DJ Kool G uses quite a bit of this sample in his production, and, as was the standard in pre-Kanye days, the vocals and instrumental are pretty much untwisted. A little chopped and mixed, but essentially the same as the original. DJ Preservation, who was backing up Mos the other night, played most of this before dropping into the beat, and we had a cozy, campfire singalong with it.

happy birthday, los angeleez

2006-04-14T20:15:00.000-07:00

This, ladies and gentlemen, is my 100th post on the blog, and so I'm gifting to you what I've recently decided is my favorite song of all time.

Ted Leo/Pharmacists - Timorous Me [from The Tyranny Of Distance, 2001]

It's that moment, halfway through the song, just after the second chorus...where the snare comes in, and if you're at a live show, everyone starts clapping rhythmically; people love this song so much, they know the right moment to start the clapping. That moment is why I love this song: it gives me chills right now just thinking of it. That, and Ted's awesome falsetto. And the great, poetic lyrics, which Ted told us (on the late great radio show) were about an Irish funeral. And the fact that this song totally sounds like "The Boys Are Back In Town," in the best possible way.
When we first discovered this song on the aforementioned radio show, we played it every week for an entire semester and never got tired of it. And I don't think (unlike "Hey Ya," which lasted a relatively long time) I ever will.

how to be a music snob, lesson 6

2006-04-13T17:50:00.000-07:00

Wire - Reuters [from Pink Flag, 1977]

One of the most influential, longest-lived British punk bands of the late 70s is also one of the least known among music snobs. With extremely short songs, angular dissonance between guitars, serious political content (as opposed to the Sex Pistols' comic extremism), and non-traditional structure, Wire's debut LP exerted a huge influence on nearly every non-hair metal band to follow them, including PiL (I suppose I should have posted this one first). Though "poppier" stuff exists on this album, "Reuters" kicks things off with an almost climactic example of this new wave. The heavy bass, straight-ahead toms, and guitar drone are a straight, two-year line away from Joy Division. So is the nihilistic worldview; says Colin Newman:

This is your correspondent,
running out of tape:
Gunfire's increasing,
looting, burning, rape.

how to be a music snob, lesson 5

2006-04-12T20:27:00.000-07:00

Stevie Wonder - Heaven Help Us All [from Signed, Sealed & Delivered, 1970]

Lil Stevie becomes full-fledged Stevie Wonder here. He was still on Motown in these days, but he was beginning to throw in electronics (more than just an amplified blues harp), expand lyrically, and generally get away from the standard Smokey Robinson/Holland-Dozier-Holland Motown scene. Most significantly, he moves away from the usual songs about romance into more socially profound territory, or (with several tracks, including this one), into religious topics. Kanye said "they say you can rap about anything except for Jesus," but, 35 years earlier, Stevie was taking a huge step by singing about Jesus while former gospel singers like Solomon Burke and Sam Cooke moved into more secular territory. This LP still made Berry Gordy a grip of cash, but the man called Wonder was starting to bust out on his own.
[Also, doesn't he look like Andre 3000 in this picture?]

how to be a music snob, lesson 4

2006-04-11T21:05:00.001-07:00

Lou Reed - Wagon Wheel [from Transformer, 1972]

If the only Lou Reed song you know, or even the only song from this album you know, is "Walk On The Wild Side," you're sadly not a music snob. Though that track is undeniably a classic, Reed's sophomore solo effort is an all-around masterpiece. In the Velvet Underground, he contributed the dramatic pop side of the songwriting (in contrast to the harrowing darkness of John Cale's songs), and that voice comes through even stronger here. It's the sound of early 1970s New York: songs about transvestites, casual love, drugs, but all with a less-than-melancholy undertone, even reaching heights of joy on some songs. Plus, this was the peak of Reed's musico-homoerotic relationship with David Bowie (before Bowie dropped Reed like a cheap trick in favor of Iggy Pop), and Bowie's sideman Mark Ronson shreds some killer guitar.

did you really chop your dreads for this?

2006-04-10T19:35:00.000-07:00

Busta Rhymes [ft. Swizz Beatz] - New York Shit [from The Big Bang]

In my earliest days of music enjoyment, I was listening to Dookie and "Woo-Hah!!" The two classic pieces of music were my very first moments of fanatical listening, and probably a good indication of how I formed my eclectic taste. Accordingly, this new track (the album is due out May 16) gives me the exact feeling I get listening to "Boulevard of Broken Dreams." Busta, Billie Joe, why the fuck do you insist on stealing my childhood from me? About 50% of this track, without exaggeration, is shout-outs to New York hip hop icons; what little rapping there is is incredibly half-assed, light years away from anything even on E.L.E. Also, Swizz Beatz does the hook: why? Fucking stop that. Why am I even bothering posting this at all? It's all about the beat. DJ Scratch (who I believe used to go by the name DJ Skratchator, unless that's a different guy, though he was the Flipmode producer-in-residence) laces Bus-a-Bus with one of the most epically classic, sweeping beats I've heard since "Encore" or something else off The Black Album. These hugely orchestrated sounds are what I truly love about New York hip hop. Though, now that I'm researching it, it turns out this beat is wholly jacked from Diamond D's "I Went For Mine." So fuck this track, entirely.

how to be a music snob, lesson 3

2006-04-09T17:19:00.000-07:00

Brian Eno - Sky Saw [from Another Green World]

Eno: producer extraordinaire of everyone from Bowie to U2, member of Roxy Music, inventor of the ambient subgenre, but how much Eno have you ever actually listened to? If your answer is "none," start with this 1975 LP. Eno here hasn't totally abandoned traditional sounds and song structures, but his approach is much more towards creating mood than pop music. Studio virtuosity is his focus, not melody or rhythm (though there are some poppier pieces on here, "Sky Saw" is not one of them, pleasureable as it is). To pull an art reference out of my ass, Eno has moved from Roxy Music's Van Gogh to this album's Monet, and will later take on a Rothko vibe (damn, that was in fact a good one).

the garden of indietronica

2006-04-08T14:18:00.000-07:00

Zero 7 [ft. Jose Gonzalez] - Futures [from The Garden]

Zero 7 used to be totally lame, almost new-agey electronic music; they were in the same early 00s school as Moby, like a half-assed Massive Attack. If this track is any indication, however, their forthcoming LP (out in May) takes a more-organic turn into CSN&Y territory. We still get Air-esque synths and reverby production (though that same reverb is, again, more David Crosby than Morcheeba). Add to the mix samples chopped from Swedish indie darling Jose Gonzalez's guitar work and vocals, and you've got a much more interesting tune, instead of something to soundtrack a Toyota commercial with.

how to be a music snob, lesson 2

2006-04-07T17:48:00.000-07:00

Guy Clark - L.A Freeway [from Old No. 1]

I've said it before, but a true music snob can't have an instant aversion to country music, because there's too much good shit out there. Specifically, there's a group of Texas singer-songwriters that every good snob must be knowledgeable about. Guy Clark is among the best of these. Clark's 1975 debut LP is a collection of several songs already recorded by other Texans, like "Desperados Waiting For A Train" and this track, which I posted in honor of my 70-minute commute today on the 10 and 405 freeways. Plus, there's a bunch of other great Clark originals running the gamut of songwriter styles, with backing from good folks like Emmylou Harris, Rodney Crowell, and Steve Earle.

how to be a music snob, lesson 1

2006-04-06T21:10:00.000-07:00

I'm not listening to quite as much new music lately, so I'm starting a new program here, educating you in the basics of "seminal" bands, easily quotable in casual conversation to show off just how much you know about music and just how much your friends don't. Without further ado...

Public Image Ltd. - Careering [from Second Edition]

If you thought Johnny Rotten fell off the planet after the Sex Pistols' spectacular flame-out, you're clearly not a music snob. In fact, his second band probably had more influence, musically speaking, than the manufactured punks ever did. Originally entitled Metal Box, PiL's 1979 sophomore album was initially issued in a cost-prohibitive metal film canister. Reissued a year later in the more standard cardboard sleeve (and later, plastic jewel case), Second Edition is a standard-bearer for serious post-punk. With heavy, dubby rhythms and jagged, scraping guitars, the album is absolutely uncompromising in sound and epic in scope. John Lydon here is far more transgressive and iconoclastic than Johnny Rotten could ever have been. For snob bonus points, PiL also includes producer extraordinaire Jah Wobble on bass (sort of a proto-Albini) and original Clash member (before they ever recorded) Keith Levene on guitar.

like a slutty bird

2006-04-03T21:05:00.000-07:00

Nelly Furtado [ft. Timbaland] - Promiscuous Girl [from Loose]

Back from Vegas (a kickin' time), and here's some new hotness for you. I remember two things about Canadian Nelly Furtado: the insanely happy-pop smash hit I alluded to in the title, and here performance of it with Steve Vai on that year's Grammys. This song from her forthcoming new album (tentatively due out May 23), then, came as a huge surprise. First, it's a celebration of Nelly and Tim's respective skaniness, which is pretty funny. More importantly, however, is the very-un-Timbaland beat. I'm talking huge, Kylie Minogue-like synths. If this is the new sound of pop music and/or of Timbaland, I'm damn stoked.

jammin' trench town fi ya'

2006-03-27T18:21:00.000-08:00

The Wailers - It Hurts To Be Alone (Alternate Take) [from One Love At Studio One 1964-1966]

Heartbeat, that reggae reissue label of repute, has just released this gem: a collection of the Wailers very first studio recordings, mastered from the original tapes without overdubs. Before Bob, Bunny, Peter and the gang were making Jah-rootsy jams, they cut sides for soundsystem dances, a crowd-pleasing mix of doo-wop, pop, gospel, ska, rocksteady, and the occasional Beatles or Dylan cover. From the liner notes:

"It Hurts To Be Alone" is an unreleased alternate take, with a mellifluous Ernest Ranglin lead lifted from the Impressions' "I'm So Proud." This song written by Bob and led by Junior Braithwaite was a huge hit and unfortunately marked Junior Braithwaite's departure from the group only days after the recording session as he headed for Chicago hoping for a musical career.

Also, I'm going to Vegas for a conference for a couple days, so here's a hilarious bonus track for your ass:

Project Pat - Googly Moogly [from Crook By The Book]

I shit you not, the chorus to this song is "Good googly moogly, that ass is juicy."

I know you got soul

2006-03-26T02:31:00.000-08:00

I enjoy making mixtapes, and I usually post the tracklist up here. This time, though, I thought I'd do something different. Since I've been doing music posts, with the music itself, I'd like to post this mixtape for you, in all its 81.8 MB zip file glory. This is a soulful mix, entitled Move On Up!, for your groovy pleasure. Download it here. Also, big up to soulsides for many of these tracks.
Tracks:

"Home Is Where The Hatred Is" Esther Phillips
"We People Who Are Darker Than Blue" Curtis Mayfield
"Call My Name" Joe Bataan
"Equipoise" Dwight Trible & the Life Force Trio
"Stay Away From Me" the Sylvers
"Didn't I" Darondo
"Do Your Thing" Isaac Hayes
"Hard Luck Guy" Eddie Hinton
"Peace Be Still" the Emotions
"Your Love Is So Doggone Good" the Whispers
"Compared To What" Roberta Flack
"Requiem For A Rainy Day" Second Coming
"The Soil I Tilled For You" Shades of Brown
"Get Off The Streets Y'all" Eric & the Vikings
"You Beat Me To The Punch (Disco Mix)" Retta Young
"Still Jivin'" Hawkeye
"Move On Up" Curtis Mayfield

don't believe the hype

2006-03-25T12:54:00.000-08:00

Guillemots - Made Up Lovesong #43 [from From The Cliffs]

I'm always extremely wary of whatever new British band Pitchfork seems to be hyping each month. Are they legitimately rad or simply a project of the NME machine (cf. Arctic Monkeys, Babyshambles, etc.)? Guillemots seem to be the former, thank god. I'm imagining them as a sort of ballsier Belle & Sebastian: quirky, sensitive, but much less twee. Musically, they're closer to Broken Social Scene; though not as dense, the classically-trained band provides complex musical accompaniment to the singer's plaintive voice (like a less-histrionic Jeff Buckley) and love-drenched lyrics. The sentiment in this song, particularly, is about as baldly romantic as "Yellow," and I always loved how plain-spokenly powerful that song was. This album is technically a collection of singles and their 2005 ep I Saw Such Things In My Sleep, so lets hope its a harbinger of good things to come.

back to the indie rock

2006-03-23T19:36:00.000-08:00

Chad King - Naomi [from Well, Hell]

Time to re-eclecticize this blog. Our man King here is a singer-songwriter from Crooklyn (see, even without a hip hop track I can't help but make the references) with a brand new LP out on KEEP (a nice sensitive indie label). He's also got a band called Hula. This song sounds like what Elliott Smith would have sounded like if he was from Austin instead of Silverlake: eminently hip, melancholy, lo-fi, but with the addition of pedal steel. That's about all I know. Oh, and by the way, I'd like to know if I'm doing other than simply wasting my time, so if you're reading, drop me a line in the comments...even if it's just anonymous...pretty, pretty please.

[Note: I know MegaUpload blows ass, but YouSendIt seems to be temporarily down. Deal, or give me a suggestion of a better file-hosting thing.]

solo hiero

2006-03-22T17:45:00.000-08:00

Souls Of Mischief - Cab Fare

I like to think of Hieroglyphics as a psychedelic, indie Wu-Tang (with less members, of course). Huge, histrionic, historic, and notably inconsistent on the solo and spin-off output. Let's follow this to a ridiculous extreme: Del, obviously, is Ol' Dirty (brilliant, elusive, and quite fucked-up), Casual is Method Man (initially lauded but since fallen-off), Extra Prolific would be the equivalent of an Inspectah Deck / Masta Killa / U-God supergroup (underrated, but usually with good reason), Domino no doubt the RZA (the production genius), leaving Souls Of Mischief to be analogously composed of mirrors of Ghostface, the GZA, and Raekwon (the best MCs that aren't the big stars, and it fits into my rhetorical flow). Like the Shaolin Beez, these guys are habitually slept-on (let's think about Ghost pre-2005) and more likely to appear on cameos or remixes than in their own albums. Here we have an unreleased demo track, initially slated for 1995's No Man's Land. Reflecting the mid-90s love of intelligence and backpack jams, we got an excellent, post-old-school backwards drum beat, punctuated by samples from the Taxi theme. Over this, the flows is casual and storyrappin', about race and taxi cabs. Like cruisin' through the Yay on a Sunday afternoon.

out-gravelling tom waits

2006-03-21T17:55:00.000-08:00

Bob Dylan - High Water (For Charley Patton) [from Love & Theft]

I was recently watching the excellent D.A. Pennebaker doc Don't Look Back, which documents Bob's 1965 tour of England; it's a really unique view of Dylan from when he was mysterious, but not a complete asshole about it. Then, this tune pops up on my iPod from the opposite end of his career. Late-period Dylan is notoriously inconsistent and weak, but this 2001 album is a pretty great piece of clever songwriting, though nowhere near any of his 60s or early 70s output. The album as a whole looks back at old musical idioms: pop, blues, folk, ragtime, piano rolls, etc. This song, specifically, is in tribute to the original bluesman Patton, and Dylan throws in dozens of quick references to classic blues songs. Love & Theft is no substitute for any of the Dylan masterpieces, but we music snobs have fun with songs like this.

no peace

2006-03-20T21:32:00.000-08:00

No Justice - Red Dress [from No Justice]

I'm not a subgenre junkie. That is, I don't listen to (for instance) grindcore or dancepunk simply because it's grindcore or dancepunk. As a Texan expatriate however, the one exception I will make is Texas country. For you idiots out there with an instant gag reflex towards country music, this style descends more from Willie and David Allan Coe than it does from George Jones or Tammy Wynette (not to slight the great George and Tammy, it's just that their Nashville followers totally blow ass). So from time to time, I will post tantalizing tidbits of Texas music such as this. Ironically, the first post of this type is a band hailing not from Texas at all, but from Stillwater, Oklahoma. [Some refer to this music more correctly as "Red Dirt," which isn't so Texas-biased and can therefore rightly encompass alot of excellent acts from OK, Arkansas and Louisiana, but I think the name is fucking stupid.] For such a shitty town, Stillwater breeds a disproportionate number of top-notch bands, such as this one. I haven't found much about No Justice, as their webpage is sparse, but they're doing the roadhouse circuit (Helotes, Bandera, Gruene, etc.), their album is new-ish, and this song is #7 on this week's Texas Music Chart. Peep the flava.

toddler starks

2006-03-17T11:53:00.000-08:00

Ghostface - Whip Me With A Strap [from Fish Scale]

The more tracks I hear from Ghost's forthcoming album (due out March 28), the more stoked I get. Ironman was classic way back in the day, The Pretty Toney Album was sick a couple years ago, but this, I think, has the potential to be gigantically great, from what I've heard thus far. Exhibit A is this unique track. Starks has always been decent with the storyrappin', as we see in this more-than-decent tale of the corporal punishment enforced on young Ghost. On seeing this title, of course, I assumed it was instead a flow about some bondage shit, which Ghost has been known to rap about on occasion as well, though this concept is far more creative. Plus, however produced this seems to be rockin' the Kanye + RZA tip; slightly-sped vocals over a soulful piano-laden beat. Definitely fits the song well. I can just imagine Li'l Ghost getting his ass beat.

earth people

2006-03-15T17:50:00.000-08:00

Dr. Octagon - Trees [from The Return of Dr. Octagon]

For the past couple years, it's looked like MF Doom has usurped Kool Keith as the ruler of pseudonymous indie hip-hop. Certainly, thanks to his recent turn as DangerDoom and numerous forthcoming collabs, the Masked Villain is getting to be more successful than Keith ever was in his prime. However, the former Ultramag / Dr. Dooom / Keith Korg / Black Elvis / Spankmaster / Matthew is resurrecting his most popular persona, Dr. Octagon, to put forth a new record, allegedly. The man himself is notoriously reclusive, and a quick internet search yields a wide range of news on this supposedly official LP. So, it may be a legit record, it may be a bootleg; Pitchfork hasn't spoken, so how can we be sure? Regardless, this track reminds me of how Keith is, indeed, more skilled than the two-O Doom. Rather than returning to the minimalist style of his longtime producer Kutmaster Kurt, this beat is significantly electro-tinged, making for a psycho-party jam. Though both rappers excel at the pop-culture-obscure-name drop, Keith's weirdness has always made slightly more sense: this track is, in a way, about environmentalism (I suppose). Andrew Marvell would be proud.

UPDATE: This is, in fact, an official release, due out June 27 on OCD International. Boo-yeah.

ali farka touré, r.i.p.

2006-03-11T18:47:00.000-08:00

Ali Farka Touré - Timbarma [from s/t lp]

This week saw the passing of one of the world's greatest blues guitarists, and, due to his North African descent, likely one of the least appreciated, at least outside the blues-guitar-aficionado community. I'll spare you the full biography, which you can read in any number of obituaries. Suffice it to say, Touré had a huge influence on both blues guitar and North African music, as well as the confluence and acceptance thereof. You can hear it in this track, from his eponymous, name-making debut album (recorded in his 50s, after he'd been playing guitar locally for decades), in the utterly sublime blend of John Lee Hooker style riffage and Tuareg melody and vocals. Generally, my African music tastes slant towards Ethiopia and Kenya (cf. Fela Anikulapo Kuti), but I'll give a big up to Mali and a hat tip to the late great Mr. Touré.

wonder what toby keith thinks of this

2006-03-10T18:20:00.000-08:00

Willie Nelson - Cowboys Are Frequently, Secretly (Fond Of Each Other)

Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be [gay] cowboys. Actually, rather than a cautionary tale, this is a plea for tolerance. And before you cry foul at Willie for jumping late onto the gay cowboy bandwagon, consider this: though he recorded this last year (before the film was released; Willie has a different song on the Brokeback Mountain soundtrack), the song was actually written by Ned Sublette in 1981, long before Annie Proulx wrote her short story. Think about it, too; Willie has always been an outlaw/liberal/anti-Nashville type, whether evading taxes, smoking pot, or protesting Bush, so it was only a matter of time. As far as the song itself goes, very nice picking (like Willie always does) and loads of excellent innuendo. Ultimately, the moral isn't even for tolerance of the gay cowboys, but the argument that all cowboys are, in fact, homosexual.

ghostmetalface

2006-03-08T18:23:00.000-08:00

Ghostface & MF Doom - Angeles [from the still-untitled collab lp]

If you'd told me ten years ago that Ghostface would be the most relevant Wu-Tang MC in 2006, my 12-year-old ass would have been rather dubious. Though more credible than, say, Masta Killa or U-God, Ghostface was initially less prominent than Method Man, Raekwon, or the GZA, even when the Beez started dropping solo albums in the late 90s. However, between The Pretty Toney Album, his forthcoming Fish Scale, and many cameos over the past couple years, it looks as though Starks has come out on top of the Shaolin pile. Doom, apparently, has inspired this run of profligacy in our man, producing a couple of tracks on the aformentioned new LP and currently prepping this release, which should be out in the fall. Ghost's flow is always solid, and the Villain known as Dumile manages to drop one of his better verses here. The real treat of this track, however, is the beat. I don't know who produced it; it sounds like maybe Scott Storch, but its like something Bernard Hermann would have done if he was a hip hop producer. Very dramatic and serious, but more Hitchcock than kung fu.

time's a-wastin'

2006-03-07T21:41:00.000-08:00

Get Him Eat Him - Exposure [from the Do As I Tell You ep]

Since the post earlier was an older song, and I'm bored as fuck, here's another track for today. This band of young'uns sounds more like Ted Leo than any band I've heard recently. Falsetto vocals, a little bit of shredding at the end. And, of course, that Balgeary-esque synth wailing all the way through. What is it about really happy synths that I love so much? Maybe that they're really happy. I don't know much about this band, except that they're from Rhode Island and they're on Absolutely Kosher (a nice label for generally quality power pop like this.)

the workweek starting off right

2006-03-07T17:30:00.000-08:00

13 & God - Tin Strong [from s/t lp]

My song selection method is basically whatever pops up on my iTunes/Pod, so it will be wonderfully eclectic. For instance, this: I wrote about this album when it came out, but I happened to be listening to and digging this song today. If you don't know, this was the collab between German indietronica crew the Notwist and Yay Area freak-hoppers Themselves. The majority of the album is strongly geared towards one or the other, but the sounds really blend finally in this track, with Chipmunks-style flows over a glitchy, glimmering synth production. If you've heard the new TV On The Radio demos floating around recently, I think they sound a bit like this. Speaking of which, though I really liked this album as a debut, I think it could have been more solidified in a followup. I've got a Hvratski remix from one of their singles, but other than that, I know nothing of 13 & God past this album. Any news?

gangsta grillz: the oscars

2006-03-06T20:02:00.000-08:00

Three 6 Mafia - Sippin' On Some Syrup [from When The Smoke Clears]

We all must definitely take a moment to celebrate the fact that Three 6 Mafia won the Oscar for Best Original Song last night. I checked, and the only other hip hop act to win was Eminem with that "Lose Yourself" song that the USC football team loves so much. The remainder are mostly Elton John or Randy Newman songs from Disney movies, or "Love Lifts Us Up Where We Belong." So yeah, it's totally awesome, but lest we forget who we're talking about, let's look back to 2000 and the song that put Triple 6 on the map (outside of the Dirty-Dirty, at least). I think this may also have been the first time that non-Southerners had heard of syzzurp or the DJ Screw style of production, and possibly the progenitor of the popular resurgence of Southern Rap that we're seeing right now, in the persons of Slim Thug, Mike Jones, Paul Wall, Jeezy, and the original Tear Da Club Up Thugz themselves. This also includes one of my favorite hip hop boasts of all time: "I eat so much shrimp, I got iodine poisoning."

bigger than los angeleez

2006-03-05T22:22:00.000-08:00

I've decided to convert this to an mp3 blog, mostly, which will allow me to post more often without having to think as much about it. So, let's get it goin':

Dead Prez - Bigger Than Hip Hop [from Let's Get Free]

This song rolled during the credits of Dave Chappelle's Block Party, and really summed up what the movie was all about. For those of you who haven't seen it (and you need to, if you like hip hop at all), it's really much more of a hip hop concert film than a movie about Dave Chappelle. Moreso, like DP says, it's not even about hip hop, but about a bunch of good folks coming together and having a block party, having a good time. Dead Prez were most known for their militancy and Black Power stuff, which was great and totally what you wouldn't hear either on the radio or from most "conscious" rappers like Black Thought or Common, but this track goes further than that. Certainly, there's some Huey P. Newton shit ("I'm down to make a run up on those crackers in City Hall"), but it's truly about the power of hip hop and all music to educate, inform, and bring folks together. Come to think of it, an excellent start for Los Angeleez 2.0

remember back?

2006-03-05T14:28:00.000-08:00

Inspired by Dave Chappelle's Block Party (the Fugees alone is worth the ticket price), here's the tracklist for Backpacker Block Party:

"The Seed 2.0" the Roots [ft. Cody Chestnutt]
"The Food" Common [ft. Kanye West]
"The Blast" Talib Kweli & Hi-Tek
"Animal In Man" Dead Prez
"Fu-Gee-La" the Fugees
"Love Rain" Jill Scott [ft. Mos Def]
"Retrospect For Life" Common [ft. Lauryn Hill]
"Next Lifetime" Erykah Badu
"You Got Me" the Roots [ft. Erykah Badu]
"A Long Walk" Jill Scott
"The Light" Common
"K.O.S. (Determination)" Black Star
"Get By" Talib Kweli
"Guns Are Drawn" the Roots
"Ready Or Not" the Fugees
"Rock N Roll" Mos Def
"Bigger Than Hip Hop" Dead Prez

the big d

2006-02-21T21:30:00.000-08:00

I love Dallas, but this is silly:

Having lived there for 18 years, the last two of which I was pretty well-informed on the various wheelings and dealings, I know that Dallas has all the problems of a big city, none of which can be solved by exclamation points. Shall we enumerate and give it a try anyway?

A heavily polluted Trinity River cutting through the center of the city that remains undeveloped despite ten years and billions of dollars spent on planning!
Said Trinity also acts as a de facto segregation line, cutting off low-income and minority residents in South Dallas from the wealth and services of the Park Cities!
The failure to return a storied NFL franchise to the actual City of Dallas, despite an existing stadium that could be easily refurbished!
A series of corrupt and unaccountable school superintendents who have driven an already low-performing district into the ground for the last eight or so years!
The continued northward expansion of the suburbs, as more and more citizens flee the central city and downtown literally empties of life!
The blight of the historic Deep Ellum arts district due to money-grubbing landlords that don't understand what made it so cool in the first place!
A statutorily useless mayor who made the jump from investigative journalist/gadfly to the pocket of American Airlines luxury box billionaires!

Is it working yet?! Laura Miller is frothing at the mouth! Tom Hicks and the DBC are straining at their chains! Forward! Forward!! FORWARD!

now is the early February of our discontent

2006-02-08T16:35:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted much besides music shit recently (speaking of which, the new Soul Jazz comp Tropicália is totally hot), so I figured I'd get into this during my immense boredom this afternoon.
There seems to be a pall of disillusionment drifting over the South Menlo Estate. Could be that we are all just anxiously anticipating graduation and either (like myself) sick of the work until then or (like most everyone else) fearful of what's coming next. Or, for those who aren't graduating, sad that their beloved elders will soon be leaving.
I've been surprisingly productive writing poetry for my independent study, which is pleasant, though it's all emo-Imagist stuff (like William Carlos Williams meets the Postal Service...damn that's literate of me). Let me know if you'd like to read; I'm not confident enough to fully post it.
What we all really need is for Young Jeezy to roll in and save us from this ennui.

I'm your favorite blogger's favorite blogger

2006-01-25T02:17:00.000-08:00

[In response to the line "I saw the marriage of a trapper..." from Whitman's "Song of Myself"] Me: So if he's a trapper, what does that imply?
Selam: OH! He sells; you know, like Young Jeezy!
Aaaayyyy...tracklist for South Menlo Pimpin' Vol. II: Dead Rappers & Beef mixtape:

"120 Bars" the Game
"Crazy" Gnarls Barkley
"So High (Cloud 9 Remix)" John Legend [ft. Lauryn Hill]
"Slow Wind (Remix)" R. Kelly [ft. Sean Paul & Akon]
"True Confessions" Tragedy Khadafi [ft. Iman Thug]
"Party & Bullshit (Dirty Harry Blend)" the Notorious B.I.G.
"Chi State Of Mind" GLC
"Corner Store" Papoose
"Ain't No Tellin'" Grafh
"Three Sides To A Story" Joe Budden
"More Gangsta Music" Cam'ron [ft. Juelz Santana]
"Shooters" Lil Wayne [ft. Robin Thicke]
"Standing Ovation" Young Jeezy
"Burn Hollywood Burn" Public Enemy [ft. Ice Cube & Big Daddy Kane]
"They Reminisce Over You (Vibes Mix)" Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth
"Peep The Steelo" Beanie Sigel
"Dreams Of Fucking Lil Kim" Kanye West
"You Gotta Love It" Cam'ron [ft. Max B]

a Kobe filet mignon

2006-01-21T00:33:00.000-08:00

Since this is gradually turning into a hip hop blog, I suppose I'll comment on the hot breaking news: Cam'ron vs. Jay-Z is the most epic beef since (at least) Nas vs. Jay-Z. [Check it: you can hear Cam's first blow, "You Gotta Love It," pretty much anywhere on the web or Soulseek.] I've been getting sick of the usual shit. Perhaps, the Game and 50 have some legitimate shit between them, and Joe Budden certainly is ambitious in taking on the entire industry, but I really don't need to hear Lil Wayne calling out any and everyone he's ever heard on a mixtape.
This new shit, however, is serious. Sure, Cam starts the track by calling Hov out for being "42 years old" and the fashion faux pas of wearing sandals with jeans, and he certainly plays the ugly card to a hilarious degree in comparing Jay to both Joe Camel and Fraggle Rock, but there are deeper issues here. To enumerate:

There's an entire Dame Dash-Cam'ron-Jay triangle regarding (among other things) Hov's split from Roc-A-Fella, Kanye, and Roc-a-Wear. In recent articles in both the New York Times and Rolling Stone, Jay has been less than completely discreet in his lack of love for Dame, and Cam has clearly joined the side of the new Roc-A-Fella.
Cam claims someone was throwing up the Jay-Z diamond when Lance "Un" Rivera got stabbed, a few years back. Were this true, and not simply a rap beef accusation, Hov could be vulnerable to criminal prosecution.
Cam also claims that "all [Jay-Z's] publishing should go to Ms. Wallace." I'm assuming he backs this up with the fact that (unlike 2Pac), very little of Biggie's tapes have been released posthumously, and he connects the dots to finger Jay as a biter of one of hip hop's most canonized figures.
Finally, and most personally, Cam'ron boasts he'll take Beyonce "back." If you remember, she sang the hook on a song of his several years back, and Cam makes a huge point of saying he could get her back at any time, even dropping her chorus lines at the very end of the track.

All told, "You Gotta Love It" is a MOAB of an opening volley. Were this any other beef, the "best rapper alive" would have no problem putting the offending party away with a simple cameo verse. However, considering the extremely personal attacks and accusations Cam is putting forward here, and the history of the two, this has very high potential to be the most fruitful beef since KRS-One and MC Shan (no exaggeration, and if you don't know your history, you better recognize). Cam says this is only Round 1 of 15, and if that's the case, it'll be a dramatic 2006 in the hip hop world.
[UPDATE: I just thought of this. Considering, as I said, how personal Cam is getting, and how intense this beef may get, let's not forget 1997-98. Keep it to the vinyl.]

best of 2005 part 2: rock

2006-01-06T20:16:00.000-08:00

1. Illinois by Sufjan Stevens The second entry in Sufjan's 50 States project (and yes, he needs to get the hustle on) builds on the model set up in Greetings From Michigan. The same folky ballads are there, as in "Casimir Pulaski Day," but the lush arrangements are now even deeper and more complex. "Chicago" is riotous, and the title track is sort of a indie "Stairway to Heaven" in reverse. Plus, it features the scariest song written about a serial killer this decade. Musically and lyrically, a complicated masterpiece.
2. Broken Social Scene by Broken Social Scene Montreal's finest follow up their lo-fi The Bends with a lo-fi OK Computer (seriously, that's it for me on this one).
3. Frances The Mute by the Mars Volta Though not nearly as coherent as their debut, the Volta continue to stretch the boundaries of guitar-and-noise rock. Not prog, nor psychedelica, funk, jazz, or latin, but a sort of intergalatic sound odyssey. The storyline here is a bit more of a stretch than the first album, but still, it was the best record to lose yourself in in 2005.
4. Picaresque by the Decemberists This is what happens when English majors start rock bands. Colin Meloy hones his wordplay and characterization wonderfully, especially in songs about spies and getting trapped in whales, and the band rocks the catchy hooks to the finest possible point.
5. Superwolf by Bonnie 'Prince' Billy & Matt Sweeney This album sounds more like Neil Young than Neil Young's new album does. Well, Will Oldham doesn't have the same voice or plaintive harmonica, but Sweeney's guitar licks and the melancholy/humorous lyrics recall On The Beach and Zuma like few can (and many have tried, including Oldham himself).
[I seem to no longer be able to review rock albums with the same finesse as I used to, or with which I can review hip hop.]
Honorable Mention: South San Gabriel, Eisley, M.I.A., M83, Xiu Xiu, the Mae Shi, Stephen Malkmus, Six Organs of Admittance, 13 & God, Devendra Banhart, Caribou, Doves,

best of 2005 part 1: hip hop

2006-01-05T18:15:00.000-08:00

1. Late Registration by Kanye West 9 rappers out of 10 fall victim to the dreaded sophomore slump: I don't know what it is about hip hop that causes this, maybe something to do with the preponderance of guest spots and filler skits. Though Kanye's second album included those, he saved himself by pulling in Jon Brion as co-producer, who gleefully added oboes and harpsichords to whatever soul samples Kanye could speed up. "We Major" will stand as my favorite hip hop track of the year: Nas's verse, the extended hook, and the sheer breadth and depth of this song were more complex than anything else I heard in 2005.
2. Be by Common Kanye's going to do a double on this list. Hip hop truly lacks much in the way of cohesive albums, the kind we often see in the rock world. This, however, was a perfect piece of conscious hip hop all the way through. Kanye laced all the beats but one on this, lending it a wholeness of tone that's generally unmatched in a scene where producer proliferation is the status quo. Common hasn't been this good, or this uplifting, on the mic since the late 1990s, and he manages to rhyme about a whole wealth of experience: love, politics, crime, food. I feel like ol' CS should retire after this; it's kind of like Brett Favre's huge game at the end of last season, followed by this year's immense Packer suckage.
3. Let's Get It: Thug Motivation 101 by Young Jeezy 2005 was a banner year for Southern hip hop, and for my scrilla, Jeezy led the charge. Not only that, he also set the standard for the so-called "trap-hop" that's been so prevalent recently (cf. Juelz Santana, Cam'ron, the Clipse). Little did I know you could make an album entirely about slangin' coke that would seriously bump without tedium, all while not being named Jay-Z. Truly, Hov passes the (crack cooking) torch to Jeezy on "Go Crazy," my number one banger of 2005. And damn, it feels good to be a trapper.
4. Beauty & The Beat by Edan Southern rap might have been poppin' off, but the underground scene was a bit lacking in 2005. Really, there were only a handful of indie albums that were worth more than a cursory listen. Edan, however, takes the number 4 spot thanks to his incredibly psychedelic sound collage styliez. This isn't your average backpack bumper. It's more like if the Dead were from the Bronx instead of San Francisco. The noise shimmers and washes around, while the beat still locks in just enough to keep you from floating into lysergic voids. His rhymes aren't the best, but he throws in just enough good puns and such (especially on the killer "Rock & Roll") to keep interest.
5. Run The Road compilation I'm still waiting for the grime scene to cross the pond. Really, this is so different from American hip hop that it should be put into a "world" music category, and yet the sentiment is the same. Kano and Wylie are two of the most interesting MCs I heard this year, and would sound as good rapping over a Dipset beat, just like I could see the Game (possibly) flowing over a rhythm by Lethal B. Get some fucking collabos on, with the quickness!
Honorable Mention: DangerDoom's The Mouse & The Mask, Gnarls Barkley, the Game freestyles, Mike Jones, Cam'ron, Juelz Santana (occasionally), Bun B's prolific cameos, 50 Cent (only "Just A Touch"), mixtapes with dead rappers, Joe Budden mixtape cuts, David Banner's Certified, the Clipse, Three 6 Mafia's "Stay Fly," GLC

FIGHT ON

2005-12-12T18:54:00.000-08:00

Two Rose Bowl tickets: $350
Amount offered by a guy outside the ticket office immediately after purchase: $1,200
Seeing two Heisman Trophy winners battle for a third straight national championship in your senior year at the school with the greatest football team in history: PRICELESS

ivory tower'd

2005-12-06T16:43:00.000-08:00

I keep forgetting to write about this, which is incomprehensible considering my violent and righteous indignation, and I've probably already told you about this anyway. Shakespeare did not write in Old English, he wrote in Early Modern English. This is Old English, via Beowulf:

Hwæt! We Gardena in geardagum,
þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon,
hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon.

I don't care whether you are a tenth grader or a professor of education, if you insist that the two are the same, you are arrogantly ignorant of the truth. Do they even look similar? Saying otherwise is as patently incorrect as saying people in France speak Latin. And no, just because people always say that Shakespeare is Old English doesn't make that correct. They mean to say archaic English, if anything, and they simply don't know what they are talking about. Remember: common usage does not excuse the bastardization of the English language.

Bush approval rating soars

2005-12-04T14:51:00.000-08:00

Reggie Bush, that is. 175 rushing yards in the first quarter? Sounds like a Heisman to me. Here's my BCS bowl picks:
Rose: USC over Texas
Orange: Penn St. over Florida St.
Fiesta: Notre Dame over Ohio St.
Sugar: Georgia over West Virginia
Tommy Trojan is sharpening his sword...he'll be sawing some horns off come January 4th.

hotter than Bill O'Reilly's loofah

2005-12-02T20:27:00.000-08:00

Mike and I are going collabo on the brand new XXX Political Circle Jerk, inspired by our several-hour discussion this afternoon/evening on politics and social responsibility. I'm a bleeding-heart liberal; he's a moderately liberal Canadian. Character will be assassinated, mud will be slung, and the greater institutions of government will be torn down.
Posts will go live this weekend, premiering with our various opinions on Syriana, the apparently controversial movie that sparked our entire thrilling debate.
Like LIVE AT CHANOS, except I'll be insulting Republicans instead of listeners.

DT: "drugs are...bad?"

2005-11-30T18:05:00.000-08:00

The Daily Trojan has been running an (annual?) series this week on drugs. Since we here at USC like to put our Greek friends first, the package kicked off with yesterday's coke story, the saga of a (no doubt) frat boy using coke up to once a week (!) until finally having a "bad crash" in which he couldn't stop crying while out at the club. No word on whether the coked-out sorostitute got off his dick, though. Don't worry, "Although [the expert] said cocaine is not extremely difficult to stop doing, it is a drug that people still like to use." Hooray for the Row!
Even better, though, they big-upped the west side of Hoover today with a barely veiled approval of psylocibin mushrooms. And yes, the headline starts with "'Shrooms..." Our anonymous hippie here, at one point, did shrooms an astounding once a week. He goes on to discuss the "amazing" and "mind-cleansing" properties of the fungi, expound on the necessity of sherpas or "baby-sitters" and admits (I shit you not, this was in the DT), "I definitely saw dragons in the clouds on the beach." Whhhhoooaaaa, man, like can you even imagine the fucking implications of that proposition? Certainly, though, our campus paper wouldn't condone such behavior? Hmm...

"The physical effects, which appear within 20 minutes of ingestion and last between four and six hours, include drowsiness and lack of coordination.

Kevin Weissman, a pharmacist and director of the Drug Information Center at LAC+USC Medical Center, said other side effects include dilated pupils, confusion, vertigo and muscular weakness. But, those are only the physical effects.

'The psychedelic effects are distortions of space and time, mood alterations and sensory distortion, such as people seeing music and color,' he said."

Oh, shit! That sounds...enticing.

Unbelievable. Tomorrow, the DT on how to perfectly sync Dark Side of the Moon and The Wizard of Oz, plus tips on getting bongwater out of upholstery.

pitchfork: snobbily hilarious

2005-11-18T15:36:00.000-08:00

I wouldn't usually just quote a Pitchfork feature, but I read this at work and laughed out loud, disturbing several annoying Masters students nearby. Fuck them.

"In a recent interview, the singer of Disturbed described the death of 'Dimebag' Darrell as 'the 9/11 of rock.' Carrying the analogy, the cover of Metal Magic must be the Holocaust of Camaro hoods."

droppin' more science than a clumsy biologist

2005-11-16T20:26:00.000-08:00

Our hip hop finesse is flawless. Tracklist for $outh Menlo Pimpin' Vol. I mixtape:

"Whatchu Want" the Notorious B.I.G. [ft. Jay-Z]
"Just A Touch" 50 Cent
"Erotica" Log Cabin Crew
"Roaches & Rats" Outkast
"Movie Niggas" Sheek Louch [ft. Ghostface]
"The Horse" Sound Directions
"Bust Mine" Natural Elements
"Get Ya Hustle On" Juvenile
"Still Jivin'" Hawkeye
"Blood Type" Tragedy Khadafi
"General Principles" GZA [ft. DJ Muggs]
"F.U." Hell Rell [ft. J.R. Writer]
"1st Things 1st" Attitude
"At Your Door" Clipse [ft. Roscoe P. Coldchain + Pharrell]
"Step" Maspyke
"Message From The Boss (Original Mix)" Ultramagnetic MCs
"Yo-Yo-Yo" Medina Green [ft. Mos Def]
"Fireman" Lil Wayne
"Pick It Up" Juelz Santana [ft. Lil Wayne]
"Dumb Out" Joe Budden

Get all the way through...Joe Budden kills every MC, but respects them in their prime.

it's not over til the tremulant sings

2005-11-15T20:51:00.000-08:00

Those who rock the jam-band flava know that you check out live shows and bootlegs, and that albums are less important. I may be somewhat of a Deadhead (though not a Phishhead or a Spreadhead or a String Cheesehead), and so I know that, as the Mars Volta pushes ever closer to jam-band-ness with Frances The Mute, a release like the new Scab Dates is totally appropriate. Don't be fooled by the CD's supposed twelve tracks: despite the apparently new song titles (what the hell is a "Gust of Mutts"?), which I assume are ripped from some drug-fueled diary or late night vaporizer binge with John Frusciante, the only true songs here are De-loused's "Take The Veil Cerpin Taxt" and "Cicatriz," along with "Concertina" from the Tremulant EP. Interestingly, no songs from the aforementioned sophomore album appear here; I guess they figured that LP was jammy enough already. I am disappointed, slightly, that the album was recorded at a variety of shows from May 2004 to May 2005, as opposed to a single show (a proper bootleg). Considering that, though, Omar does a ridiculous job of mixing the tracks to make them sound contiguous. More so, the versions selected here are outstanding examples of peak Volta performance: "Cerpin Taxt" is jagged and drivingly abstract, "Concertina" is a serious Latin boogie, and "Cicatriz" is absolutely blistering. And of course, the interluding jams are spacey and noisy. A necessity for Voltaheads (too much?) disappointed by the recent rash of masturbatory releases (namely, the "Frances The Mute" vinyl single and its accompanying b-side), and Pitchfork can continue fucking off for their Volta reviews.

halloween-type record review OH!

2005-10-30T20:55:00.000-08:00

It's about Halloween (everything is spookier, can't you tell?), and I start thinking about scary music. Namely, bands like Teenage Jesus & the Jerks, Suicide, early Art Ensemble, and, oh yes, Xiu Xiu. Ever since I heard A Promise, I've held Xiu Xiu in that highest regard of fright music. This ain't some Dr. Demento Monster Mash shit, but truly frightening tunes. An earful of their cover of "Fast Car" from that album is a good primer for the power of the double X. Fabulous Muscles, though, was a less scary album, albeit a still-great one. They'd moved towards a kind of freak-dancepunk; freak being the operative, as handclaps were replaced with lyrics about child molestation. Now their new album, La Foret, finds them treading a slightly less fruitful middle ground. The darkly (and I mean blacker than Dick Cheney's heart) humorous subject matter is still there, replete with references to sodomy and the Global War on Terror ("You smell like Fallujah"). But the album alternates between incredibly spacey pieces with little more than atmospheric instrumentation to full out horror-disco, without much transition. The contrast is a bit abrasive, and unlike most of the jars you get from a Xiu Xiu album, I don't think this is intentional. Unlike their previous two, La Foret fails somewhat as a larger piece; it seems a bit slap-dash, with even Jamie Stewart's normally intimate vocals far back in the mix. In all, a must-buy for Xiu Xiu fans like myself, but I'd stick with Fabulous Muscles for an introduction to the psychosis.

put a cardigan on this

2005-10-30T20:20:00.000-08:00

Tracklist for the new Twee As Fuck mixtape [blatantly jacked from Pitchfork; yes, I'm a nerd, but it's a good mix regardless]

"Bewitched" Beat Happening
"My Boy Says" Talulah Gosh
"100,000 Fireflies" the Magnetic Fields
"Puzzle Pieces" Tiger Trap
"Three Star Compartment" Heavenly
"Emma's House" the Field Mice
"I Love You The Way I Used To Do" Rocketship
"Hello Rain" the Softies
"Tilt-a-Whirl" Glo-worm
"I Have The Password To Your Shell Account" Barcelona
"Different Drum" Pastels
"Tell Me Now" Cub
"Pop Songs Your New Boyfriend Is Too Stupid To Know About" Tullycraft
"Hey It's Finally Yay" Wolfie
"Throw Aggi Off The Bridge" Black Tambourine
"Pop Loser" Velocity Girl
"Molly's Lips" the Vaseline

The first mix in decades without a single showing of the Wu. Enjoy.

a closet full of skeletons and terry cloth Kangols

2005-10-22T21:22:00.000-07:00

Don't compare it to Gorillaz; that's an insult to Doom's skills. And nobody from Adult Swim raps, save for Meatwad. Originally, the thought of a Danger Mouse/MF Doom collab had me excited, but that turned to anxiety when I heard it was an Adult Swim promotional thing. I learned not to front: if anybody can pull off a cartoon album (I'm lookin' at you, Damon Albarn), it's the Viktor Vaughn Madvillain himself, along with the most-hyped producer since Diddy was still Sean "Puffy" Combs. The Mouse & The Mask is an excellent, though not entirely classic, disc of backpack-hop. The Adult Swim cameos, though ample, aren't overbearing enough to quickly get tired; they will eventually, though, and I think that's DangerDoom's one failing point. This would be an outstanding album without the skits, samples, and ad-libs from the admittedly hilarious cartoon collective. DM's beats aren't spectacular, though there are some stellar points, like the guitar-laden "Crosshairs;" still, they get the job done and bump. I think he's like Kanye without the soul vocal samples. Doom's rhymes are great, as always, though not particularly beyond anything on Madvillainy. Pop-cultural references abound in absurd ways, here, and you can count on allusions to the Ionic Breeze Quadra, Tempurpedic, and other assorted Sharper Image products. Cee-lo really steals the stage with his hook on "Benzie Box," which has me even more excited for Gnarls Barkley (keep your ear to the streets on that one).
Yeah, it's a commercial for the Cartoon Network, but you know you'd watch that shit anyway.

the beautiful narcotic place I reside

2005-10-17T22:08:00.000-07:00

Somewhere out in the Mojave, a couple hundred miles from Los Angeles and a couple dozen miles from nowhere (or, more specifically, Twentynine Palms), is a little place called Wonder Valley, and at its heart lies a desert-shitkicker honky tonk called the Palms. Make the trip one weekend, say, a weekend in mid-October, through the yucca and Joshua trees, and there it is...looming out of the dusty blue desert gloom, its buffalo sign lit next to the beat collection of trailers and lawn furniture and twisted chain-link. Maybe you'll see a couple German-accented brothers who, though they don't speak German, live in an unhitched 18-wheeler trailer filled with living and/or dead desert arachnids, wax phalluses, and other generally acid-induced paraphernelia. You'll sit around the raging fire, eating fried chicken and beans washed down with pitchers of Pabst. You can peruse the stacks of rotting paperbacks from the Marine base, custom puff-painted t-shirts, and surprisingly well-kept cowboy boots while debating the merits of pissing into the sagebrush rather than waiting in line for the bathroom (the locals advocate it, but you have to watch out for the scorpions and sidewinders). And maybe, just maybe, you'll meet Laurie, the self-professed "nicest woman in Wonder Valley," and her tiny dog Lillybelle. What she misses in reputation (just ask anyone in the Valley), she makes up for in elocution. Ever wonder what it's like cooking at a desert pitstop motel while supporting a daughter at Berkeley? Or owning three cabins, plus your own house, and decorating them in what might be called "Southwest Psychedelic?" Laurie will let you in on the secrets of life in the Mojave unincorporated areas.
Oh, yes, then there's the Hawks. I See Hawks in L.A., channeling Gram Parsons and Touchdown Jesus for over an hour on a Saturday night, as the wah and twang wafts over the sand and under the full-ish moon. Paul Lacques does Crazy Horse and Slash proud, and ex-cons gyrate and shimmy with the developmentally-disabled, shuffling across the dusty parquet. Paul Marshall takes it back to roots, his George Jones awoken by a Strawberry Alarm Clock. From cowpunchers in painted Wranglers to a Michael Stipe-hipped portrait of androgyny, they all kick their heels and swing to Rob Waller's beery croon. Even the hipsters, out from Los Angeles and points west, loosen their girl jeans to tap their toes in time.
So go East, young man, to find your lost West, east to Wonder Valley. Maybe it was never really there, only a dream in your imagined memories of a home on the range. But for one night, the sands, wind, mountains, music, moon and sky come together, there in Wonder Valley, and around the fire, hearts and Hawks explode in the soul of America. Come on back, now, some time...the Valley'll be waiting for you.

I want my child to be a long-haired child

2005-10-13T20:39:00.000-07:00

So I bought Devendra Banhart's Cripple Crow like three weeks ago, and I don't have tons to say, except I enjoy it immensely. It's "accessible," i.e. less warbly vocals; "freak-folk," i.e. sitars and shit; etc. My one x-is-like-y snobbery is for "Heard Somebody Say," which is like Sufjan Stevens on acid, at an ANSWER rally. Also, I heard somebody say (ha!) that "Long Haired Child" and "I Love That Man" were "totally Velvet Underground," which is totally bullshit. I don't even know what that means. I'm fixin' to go to Amoeba, though, so maybe buying more CDs will inspire more commentary.
Morbidly: This girl at USC had a baby and left it in a Dumpster. I know several people who checked out the girl's facebook profile as soon as the story broke. What kind of world are we living in? I know, it was my first instinct, too.

a slice of nice verse pie

2005-10-04T00:33:00.000-07:00

I don't know about the album yet, but check out this sick ad for DangerDoom.

killing me softly with this piece of shit song

2005-09-27T22:16:00.000-07:00

"Take It Easy," Fugees? Is that what you want me to do? How about you don't put out an album like The Score, make us young'uns wait for nine years while you churn out babies and racist comments/overhype yourself/smoke crack, then drop some shit bomb like "Take It Easy"? Then I'll take it easy. Did you even record this in the same room? Lauryn, yes, your Miseducation was nice, but you should have been able to get some more schooling in the intermediary. Wyclef, I'm sorry, but you're not the "top celebrity MC," unless we fire up our time machines for 1997. I think 50 would beg to differ, and he has guns. Pras, no, we didn't think you'd show up, nor did we need to be reminded that your only piece of work in a decade was "Ghetto Supastar." You know, there were two crackheads on that track, and I'd have much preferred had ODB been the one to survive.
The Pixies were "irreperably" broken up for over a decade, but they didn't come back just to turn into the Black Eyed Peas.
My life has devolved into teaching, homework, and sleep...can you tell?

call it urban

2005-09-27T13:04:00.000-07:00

I've been listening to, and digging I might add, that un-crossed-over subgenre of hip hop called grime since I heard Dizzee Rascal's "I Luv U," probably about two years ago. So, I finally broke and bought the stellar and mind-blowing grime comp Run The Road. Yeah, I dug the sound, but I always thought it was kind of one-track; this record refutes that idea (commonly held by American music heads, and one that might be preventing the full cross-over). Right, they all have British accents, but the range of style is huge. There are plenty of grimy club bangers, inspired by super heavy dubstep; apparently, at least, these are club bangers in London, but I don't understand how folks drop it like it's hot to the stuttery, off-kilter beats anymore than I understood how people danced to 2-step/garage. Of course, ol' Dizz is here, along with Wiley representing the common rapidfire spitting that I haven't heard since E.L.E.-era Busta (true, Twista rhymes fast, but he also blows). No Lay positions herself, with "Unorthodox Daughter," as a British Lil Kim. The Roll Deep posse cut "Let It Out" is straight Wu style, with it's heavy piano filled RZA-esque beat. On the more "indie" side, Ears's "Happy Dayz" is like Madlib-meets-Artful Dodger in its upbeat quirkiness. And of course, there's Kano, who I'm now calling the Jay-Z of grime. "P's & Q's" boasts and swaggers as much as anything on The Black Album; like Jigga and his Roc family, he also pops up on no less than 5 of the comp's 16 tracks. Who else but Hov and K could say shit like: "I ain't got punchlines, I got kicklines," or, "You might see my face in a magazine or in a fur coat in FACE magazine."
Please, please, don't pull a Robbie Williams on me. If I ever can get a Kano/Kanye collabo, or even Demon and Pharrell, my head will explode.

yeah, SO out of control, part II

2005-09-26T22:29:00.000-07:00

Currently trying to unravel the mystery: is B Rad here? If so, he's a shady fucking savage. And it's exactly the point, getting people to debate blog-wise as to his presence (or lack thereof) in Los Angeleez; I only encourage him thusly. The epic continues...

assignment for my English students

2005-09-26T14:02:00.000-07:00

Me: OK, if a predicate is the verb clause in a sentence, why is Tony Yayo's album called Confessions of a Predicate Felon?
Teddy: 'Cause, like, he's thinking about being a felon right then.
George: Yeah, he's actively being a felon.
Emanuel: Naw, nigga; it's 'cause he steals verbs!

pinko bastard

2005-09-23T21:03:00.000-07:00

You are a
Social Liberal
(80% permissive)

and an...
Economic Liberal
(10% permissive)

You are best described as a:

Socialist

Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid

unite!

2005-09-19T22:39:00.000-07:00

More mixtape madness. Tracklist for the by request Afrika Bomb mixtape:

"Zombie" Fela Anikulapo Kuti + Africa '70
"Lufuala Ndonga" Konono No. 1
"Huriyet" the Ex
"Sét Alamenem" Girma Beyene
"Heavy Heavy Heavy" Geraldo Pino
"Love's A Real Thing" Super Eagles
"Sweeper Soul" Super Mambo 69
"Jin-Go-La-Ba" Babatunde Olatunji
"Yègènèt Muziqa" Getatchew Mekurya
"Get Together" Brigth Engelberts + the B.E. Movement
"Big Man" Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra
"Muziqawi Silt" Wallias Band
"Astawesalèhu" Lemma Demissew
"Allah Wakbarr" Ofo + the Black Company
"Fever" Jingo

Shit's getting all worldly and obscure. Boo-yeah.

zuuuuuluuuuu!

2005-09-17T13:58:00.000-07:00

If you like hip hop at all, I don't ever want to hear you say, "Who's Afrika Bambaataa?" The goddamn George Washington of hip hop, the "Amen-Ra of Universal Hip Hop Culture," and he was at the Temple Bar in Santa Monica last night. I haven't been to a hip hop show, let alone a good hip hop show, in quite some time, and this was the hard hard shit. Bam's Belgian friend, whose name I didn't get, played about an hour set of funk so heavy you needed a forklift to get it off the floor...real old school, too, all James Brown, Bar-Kays and Parliament. The dude was a b-boy like they don't make them anymore: solid on the wheels, rapping in French, and poppin' to the beat. To my disappointment, the man Bambaataa Himself was fucking around with his computer for most of the night and never stepped to the decks, instead toasting on the mic and leading the finale of "Planet Rock." In the high point of the evening, however, homeboy from Power 106 took over from the Belgian guy with an insane mix of serious electro-funk, supporting the rhymes of none other than the original Soulsonic Force's Bizzie B. I swear, it was like being at a Boogie Down Bronx block party in 1979. You just don't get more old school than that show.
Like B said, "rap is what we do, hip hop is what we live." For real.

doin' a heckuva job

2005-09-13T17:55:00.000-07:00

If you're going to take a 400-level English class and talk for 45 minutes about whether or not you liked the book, you need to drop your English major and get a job with Entertainment Weekly. If you say "I really enjoyed reading this book because it flowed well," and leave it at that, you're missing the point. If you don't understand why narrator reliability "matters," you need to go back to high school. Maybe we could discuss theme and symbolism some more, hm? Ooh, juxtaposition! That's a big word! And if you preface your (very superficial) criticism with "I have nothing against the author, but..." you're clearly, inarguably, just some fucking kind of idiot.

echoplex shouts-out

2005-09-09T22:07:00.000-07:00

Here's the tracklist for my BotMix'05, newly produced for the robot Herself:

"One Day Of The Beetle" Himuro
"Julie And Candy" Boards Of Canada
"Suite For The Way Things Change" Prefuse 73
"High Noon" DJ Shadow
"Tokyo" the Books
"0078h" M83
"Trans-Europe Express" Kraftwerk
"We're In Business" Andrew Thompson
"Soul Power" Aaron Dee & C-Nice
"Marley Marl Scratch" Marley Marl & MC Shan
"Hittin Hardest Pt 2" Doctor Becket
"Sucka Nigga" A Tribe Called Quest
"17 Slaves" African Identity [ft. Del]
"Cursive" Grayskul [ft. Mr. Lif]
"Sea Lion" Sage Francis [ft. Will Oldham]
"One More Robot/Sympathy 3000-21" the Flaming Lips
"Gold Star For Robot Boy" Guided By Voices

I happened to catch a very small portion of the Katrina Telethon that was on tonight. It was CCR playing "Who'll Stop The Rain." Is that appropriate? Tasteless? I can't decide...

I'm a business, man

2005-09-02T09:27:00.000-07:00

Whoa, Kanye, holy shit.
That was going to be my whole review, but maybe I'll say a little more. Late Registration, I think, was my most highly anticipated album in a while, at least since Frances The Mute (not counting Make Believe, because that was more fear than excitement). And, thank god, Kanye refuses to disappoint. This is serious shit: a fully formed extension of and maturation from The College Dropout. The "am I conscious or am I a club banger?" dichotomy is still evident, most exemplified by the two versions of "Diamonds From Sierra Leone" (note to Kanye--a different verse does not a remix make, and I'll stand by that opinion like I have since "All About The Benjamins"). Jon Brion adds a totally new dimension to the production. It remains indubitably soulful Kanye, but deeper and more layered and fascinating, like OK Computer (Jesus, did I just do that? Fuck it, I'm going with that comparison). I don't think the sound is going to change the face of mainstream hip hop, like the Neptunes or Lil Jon sounds did when they blew up, because the production here is just too damn complex for some cut-rate Just Blaze wannabe to imitate.
There are some unbelievable cuts here, and I'm almost going to do it track-by-track, impressionistically. First, I'm all for pussy white boys, like John Mayer or Kanye's bro Adam Levine, doing hooks on rap tracks. It works for me. I was driving down Santa Monica when the "Move On Up" (one of my all-time favorite soul songs) dropped into "Touch The Sky," and I nearly had to stop. Jamie Foxx thinks he's Ray Charles now, but "Gold Digger" is a serious bumpin' tune. The skits are annoying, and I'm just skipping over them. The Game's spoken word thing at the end of "Crack Music" can stand toe-to-toe with Common's tune on the album (which itself sounds like an outtake from Be, in the best possible way), as far as consciousness goes: who would have thought? "Drive Slow" is Kanye, Dirty-Dirty style; the screwed-n-chopped end of that track cracked me up in its genius. Only negative thing: Brandy blows ass, and so does "Celebration;" sorry, you're not Dave Chappelle. I wanted to dislike "Hey Mama" because it initially sounded sappy, but it reminds me of a Paul Simon song with the vocal melody. Also, I wanted to hear Kanye sing again since "The Food," so that was cool.
One of my favorite things: how incredible are Jay-Z and Nas's verses? It's like anybody, from Lupe Fiasco (who? exactly...) on up has to throw down the best they have on a Kanye album. Hov calls himself both the Rock of Gibraltar and Jesus in the span of two lines, which I can't particularly argue with; I got chills even when he was going "uh-huh" behind Kanye's rap. Nas wonders about the pressure of being so well-regarded for so long, and can't decide whether to rap about hoes or politics, and ends up doing a meta-verse. Hot shit, like Really Doe's hook-that's-really-a-verse.
For sure, this is a hip hop classic. Kanye can't be stopped.
Yesterday, my mom told me they should nationalize the energy industry. I called her a pinko commie.

I'd rather be a killa whale

2005-08-29T14:33:00.000-07:00

I have to drop some album review science on y'all before Late Registration hits tomorrow and my soundsystem is permanently occupied by Kanye. Check it:
What's the deal with indie folks changing their name to their album titles? First, Jason Molina's Songs: Ohia came out with Magnolia Electric Co., then he changed his name to that. Then, Phil Elvrum, who was the Microphones through his Mt. Eerie album, became Mount Eerie. Now, Dan Snaith is Caribou, after a song on his Manitoba's Up In Flames. It's a strange trend. Snaith has always reminded me of a happier M83, gazing at the sky instead of his shoes, and Caribou's The Milk Of Human Kindness continues in that vein. Imagine if Brian Wilson had gotten himself ahold of some drum machines. I need to listen to this one some more, as my commentary feels a little shallow.
Understandably, though, because I've been blowing my mind with Edan's Beauty And The Beat. As lyricists go, Edan isn't a Del or Gift of Gab, but he's solid as fuck and the presence of folks like Mr. Lif and Insight kick the rhymes up a notch. I like that he one-up's the Game's namecheckmanship with two killer tracks: "Fumbling Over Words That Rhyme" is a rapid history of real hip hop, from Kool DJ Herc up to the Wu, while "Rock & Roll" spins puns on classic rock bands over a guitar loop that can only be (unconfirmedly) Tony Iommi. What kills on this album, though, is the production. If Omar Rodriguez-Lopez produced hip hop instead of proglatinfunkfusionrock, this is the album he would make. Insane Moog (R.I.P.) tricks, loads of backtracked drum loops, spaced-out guitar effects and assorted other noise, all flowing together into one continuous sound--no track breaks to speak of on this album. In a few songs, Edan raps over a psychedelic sound collage that can barely be called a "beat," which will fade out into directionless ambience for a few bars before phasing back in for another verse...just like, say, the space between movements on Frances The Mute. I've been listening to a lot of hip hop this summer, but Edan is the first, even among the backpack heads, that has sunk into my skull in an intellectual way, and I dig it for real.

exit music (for a blog)

2005-08-24T11:54:00.000-07:00

If you haven't heard, Radiohead are blogging the creation of their new album, due out who know's when and with no title, not even a "working" one. For such a huge and well-respected band, the blog is really juvenile, like you'd imagine Sum 41 having if they were all creative writing majors. Suffice it to say, I will be reading it daily, because I am an obsessive Radiohead fanatic.

I'll let you try my wu-tang style

2005-08-24T11:37:00.000-07:00

Here's the tracklist for the Solo Shaolin Mixtape that I made for Josh. Peep the sword style and burn it on your own wax:
1 "Brooklyn Zoo" Ol' Dirty Bastard
2 "Incarcerated Scarfaces" Raekwon the Chef
3 "Tooken Back" Pretty Toney Ghostface
4 "Release Yo' Delf" Method-Tical
5 "4th Chamber" the GZA/Genius
6 "B.O.B.B.Y." the RZA as Bobby Digital
7 "Rumble" U-God Golden Arms
8 "No Said Date" Masta Killa
9 "Show N Prove" Inspectah Deck/INS
10 "Defective Trip (Trippin')" Gravediggaz [RZerator + Prince Paul]
11 "Beneath The Surface" the GZA
12 "Daytona 500" Ghostface Tony Sparks Killah
13 "Once Upon A Time" Raekwon as Lex Diamond
14 "Got Your Money" Big Baby Jesus
Killa Beez on the swarm!!

seriously, dude, I'M mike jones

2005-08-16T01:18:00.000-07:00

Damn, I've gotten so gangsta recently. I came home from a party this weekend and spent some drunken time downloading DJ Screw versions of "Wanna Be A Baller" and "I Got 5 On It." Then, homeboy over at Cocaine Blunts & Hip Hop Tapes starts posting a bunch of old old school No Limit shit. And all of a sudden, it's 7th grade again.
Speaking of nostalgia, I want to throw a 1995-themed party where everybody wears Jncos and Vans while we bump Green Day, the Offspring, and TLC. And Warren G, of course. It'll be like a sixth grade social, except you don't have to wait for your mom to pick you up. And there will be booze. Anybody down?
Also, I've got a mad case of insomnia. It happens when I have nothing much to do with myself, like now. So I'm going to listen to old This American Life episodes. In the mean time, check out my camp pictures.

chief chief chief

2005-08-05T16:09:00.000-07:00

By the way, there may be a shindig at the South Menlo estate tomorrow night, the first of many with the new triumvirate. It will be for the purposes of getting crunktastic and taunting our Peeping-Tom neighbor. If it goes down, you will be notified via thefacebook. Or follow the sound of us yelling "CRACKA ASS CRACKER" and Neighborface's harrowing screams of hysteria.

friday: fish

2005-08-05T15:59:00.000-07:00

Art snobbery! Last night, we checked out the hot Jean-Michel Basquiat exhibit at the MOCA. Mostly, because Shockley had told me to, but also because MOCA is free on Thursday nights. Walking through the exhibit, looking at the astoundingly huge and dense collection and Basquiat's astoundingly huge and dense range of evocation, I felt like I was listening to Fela Kuti. And/or Art Ensemble of Chicago. Something sort of African, free-jazzy, possibly some sampledelic hip hop. See, I have no words for art other than music, and I can only make aesthetic connections to listening to music. That's why my entire final paper for African-American Narrative was about Ornette Coleman and Shoenberg, with very little about the actual writers. Anyway, between this and bombing with my Seattle bros over the summer, I now want to be a graffiti artist; except, of course, my total lack of any artistic skill whatsoever. Otherwise, you'd see my tag in your sleep: I'm tellin' you.

tuesday: string beans

2005-08-02T21:16:00.000-07:00

[Note: the camp-song-lyrics-as-post-titles will not stop until I get bored of it.]
Much better. I think I've got a job at REI, but I'm not sure I can kick it in the retail scene. As far as that goes, though, REI would be way cooler than Barnes & Noble. Or Wal-Mart. But possibly slightly less cool than Amoeba.
Speaking of Amoeba, I bought the new Björk album, her soundtrack for Matthew "Yes, I Fuck Björk Every Night" Barney's film Drawing Restraint 9. It's difficult, and I haven't dug into it enough yet to comment. She only sings on two songs, but Will Oldham sings on one, and that's fucking rad. I also bought the eponymous 13+God LP. It's exactly what I imagined: a perfect blend of the Notwist and Themselves, artistically. Musically, it's a little closer to the Notwist, and the tone is alot more cLOUDDEAD than Themselves, really: more laid back than abrasive, though you definitely know it's Themselves on the flow. If that's too obscure for you, think the Postal Service with a robotic Del rapping over some of the songs, but arty instead of emo.
My favorite album of the summer (so far), though, has to be Common's Be. I remember buying Like Water For Chocolate when it came out, I think in 2000, and this is as good conceptually but even better stylistically. Kanye's beats fit Common's verse so well, better than Jay-Dee or Dilla or whatever he calls himself. Kanye really excelled in pulling the album together in a really soulful way. Plus, I like the upliftingness of the lyrics. As CS says, "we write songs about wrong 'cause it's hard to see right," but he manages to find the right inside of it. He starts shit-talking on "Chi City" and sounds foolish, which is unfortunate because the beat and hook is stellar. I was also disappointed, slightly, with the live version of "Food," my favorite song on the album. Granted, it's a hot performance, but the sound quality is slightly lacking for such a sick Kanye beat. Otherwise, though, I can't stop listening to it.
"Now the money comin' slow but at least a nigga know slow motion better than no." Story of my life.

monday: bread + butter

2005-08-01T11:02:00.000-07:00

It's been over a week since I left wonderful camp (you're going to have to holla at me personally for the details on that), and I keep getting punched in the face with reality and reminders that I'm not there. In Seattle, waking up late for three straight days; leaving Seattle; dropping off my friend Rachel, and my last physical contact with camp, in San Francisco; getting back to LA; and now, finally, going back to work at USC. After a normal summer, I'm kind of bummed for about a month after camp, wanting to go back (I tell homesick campers that I now get campsick). This is the same thing, only slightly more tragic.
I'm trying hard to keep in the forefront all the good memories of camp and Seattle; regardless, it was a fucking phenomenal experience. Those, I think, will come through now that I'm getting back to the blog scene. Like this:
The first thing that blew my mind about camp was the trees. Back at Grady Spruce, in Texas, we had a bunch of big old live oaks down by the water, some mesquite, and way too much scrubby white mountain cedar. The diversity at Colman, and Washington in general, was huge by contrast: oak, cedar, alder, maple, and of course huge Douglas firs. Here in LA, we have palm trees, and those aren't even really supposed to be here. What can I say, I have a tree fetish. Then the rest of the staff showed up, and then the kids, and I was running shit, and it was a blast.
So I'm in LA. Chillax with me if you're here, too, or come visit if you're elsewhere. I'll be around.

bwernt

2005-06-06T20:00:00.000-07:00

I don't have the energy for writing anything insightful, verbose, or even remotely clever today. Been running my ass off, three days straight, trying to get things done before I leave for Washington tomorrow, and nothing seems to be working out quite right. Actually, that's not true at all. The Mars Volta concert worked out perfectly, and [thank Lord Jesus] my subletting conundrum resolved itself as well as I could have hoped for. I'm mostly pissed off about Pep Boys stripping the threads on my drain plug and then jacking me around for long enough that the dealership, and the only source for a new part, was closed by the time they got around to telling me I needed to go pick one up. Meaning, I have to wake up even earlier tomorrow, go to the dealership, get my oil changed, and still try to get on the road by 10. Yay.
If this blog remains un-updated for a while, it's because I'm basking in the wonderous temperate rainforests of Puget Sound, and yelling at children. In the meantime, I'll be posting pictures. Right now, it's only year-old or older stuff, but soon it will be awash in the glory of a Pacific Northwest YMCA camp, as will I.

OH! (klahoma)

2005-05-30T23:03:00.000-07:00

I've been in Stillwater, OK, home of Oklahoma State University and Capt./Dr. Jason White (not the OU quarterback), all weekend long. It was a swell time. They like Jesus there, and Jesus doesn't like real beer, apparently, so they only sell 3.5% beer. Meaning, you have to spend twice as much money to get just as crunk. However, it is home to the National Wrestling Hall of Fame, so I guess everything just about evens out.
Friday night, I saw John Lamonica at the Gypsy Tea Room. I used to see him and hang out back in the old, moldy Deep Ellum days, when he was the frontman for myspacecoaster or singing by himself. Either way, it was very sensitive emo(slightly)core or singer-songwriter, but in a good way. Since then though, I think he's been taking some classes at the Dismemberment Plan Memorial School of Indie Funk. The man struts around on stage like Prince, and even rocks the falsetto from time to time. I'm not talking about your ubertrendy dancepunk here, this is straight up indie-disco [subgenre coinage!], like Death Cab for Cutie at Studio 54, but better than that analogy makes it sound. He did end up seguing into some more standard indie action, though it wasn't as emo as his old style. The first half of the set, however, was more Donna Summer than Sunny Day Real Estate. Or, maybe, if Donna and Jeremy Enigk had babies. God, enough analogies. Anyway, he's got a new album coming out soon, so that should be interesting, at least. Oh, he has myspace too, if you want to hear.

put your money in your shoe, for real

2005-05-27T15:22:00.000-07:00

Back in high school, we used to go to Deep Ellum at least two or three times a week, to see bands, explore the local music scene, and generally hang out (it was better than driving aimlessly around Plano). There were plenty of 17-and-up places to go, and even more hip-looking bars that I couldn't wait to get to, once I turned 21.
The times, well, you know what Dylan says. Apparently, there's been a serious fall-off in people going to Deep Ellum, in the past few years. Reading the music section of the Dallas Observer, it seems as though this might be tied to the fact that, despite bands like Eisley and the Spree blowing up, the Dallas scene has really fallen off itself. That, plus the exodus of country-folk fans to the new South Lamar places and the fact that all the good indie shows seem to end up in Denton now (Melt-Banana is playing there tonight, for instance). So, what do the geniuses at the Deep Ellum Chamber of Commerce do? Sell all the old, cozy, neighborhood bars to corporations and have them turn them into giant booze-fueled dance clubs!
All I want to do when I go down there is hear some little local band or have a relatively quiet drink. Ain't happening. The other night, my choices were party with old frat boys and ghetto-looking sluts, or chill at Sons of Hermann Hall. I went with the old cowboys; they're less douchebaggy.
So, fuck that. Also, fuck the Mavs losing. Will says, they're like a girl that won't put out: so much potential, but they just tease you in the end.

promotionality

2005-05-20T00:22:00.000-07:00

If you so happen, like me, to be permanently or temporarily in the D/FW metroplizzle, I implore you to go to the Gypsy Tea Room on 5/27 (that's next Friday) and check out my ol' buddy John LaMonica. That's some old school Deep Ellum styleez. If you check the press shit, it's always "John LaMonica (myspacecoaster, the Polyphonic Spree)," so how can you go wrong with that? Also, the dude from Braid is doing a solo set. It'll be emolicious; I guarantee you.

obscure reference

2005-05-19T11:00:00.000-07:00

Goddamn, it's been a while, yes? Over a week, I think, since I last posted. I'm back in Dallas now, hot shit, doing lots of various things.
I saw the new Star Wars last night, and it was better than I even expected. I had fairly high hopes, at least as high as it would be better than the last two, but it was legitimately a pretty badass movie. I hate to give away the plot, but he turns into Darth Vader in the end. Also, that dude can't act himself out of a cardboard box, even with a lightsaber.
My mom had me replant our flowerbeds for my sister's big graduation party, so I did it with native plants because it's environmentally friendly. She thought it looked shitty; as North Texas isn't a rainforest, you can't plant big lush flowers sustainably. So I called her an evironmental hypocrite, and she understood.
Mostly, I've been going to bars...like almost every night. If you ever happen to be in Dallas, and want something fratty to do, go to Addison. If you like the college scene and cheap beers, go to the various Fry Street bars in Denton (though the cheapness barely justifies the long drive). If you like the cozy neighborhood thing, Cosmo's in Lakewood is the place. Maybe I'll keep "researching" and do a Dallas bar review at some point...
Oh, yes, the new =w= album. Right...nope. I can't even be bothered to think about it too much. It's no Pinkerton, but it's not the green album either. Oh well. Hey, how about them Mavs, huh?

we know of a certain fjord in norway

2005-05-04T00:16:00.000-07:00

Lots of madness, trying to end the semester. Paper writing, storage space finding, sublease hassling, insomnia, etc.
Last Friday's bi-weekly Amoeba trip earned me Talk Talk's Laughing Stock and Six Organs of Admittance's new album, School of the Flower. The latter somehow got missed in my freak-folk freakout from earlier in the semester, but perhaps appropriately, as it doesn't really fit into that same vein. Where my homies Devendra Banhart and Joanna Newsom exist in some psychedelic never-happened revisionist Americana tradition (like if the Carter Family had intermarried with the Manson Family), 6OA inhabits more sphere of influences from the other side of the Atlantic, say, Bert Jansch or Fairport Convention styleyz. The comparison is especially apt as the album is mostly instrumental, though 6OA freaks out a fair bit more than those drug-addled Brit folksters ever thought to do. The excellent (and excellently long, at 13 minutes) title track is a good example: the circular Richard Thompson-esque guitar slowly gets overshadowed by reaaally drony shit and some almost free jazz type noise.
Talk Talk, on the other hand, is bizarre. Remember that super poppy No Doubt cover of "It's My Life"? Yeah, that's not what this is. I almost wrote "echoes of Slint," until I realized that Slint is really "echoes of Talk Talk;" Mark Hollis sounds like Will Oldham after an Ian Curtis overdose. I really hate when critics call an album "indescribable" or "unclassifiable," but I really can't make any good comparisons, so I'll just throw out some abusively overused, and particularly undescriptive adjectives: atmospheric, ambient, spacious, evocative, understated, natural, cinematic, epic, and blah blah woop woop. Oh, and I realized how much I dug this CD upon having a song like "Ascension Day" remind me of the trippier parts of Frances The Mute. When you can find a retroactive Volta reference, all is well in the world.

yeah, SO out of control...

2005-04-30T17:49:00.000-07:00

B Rad left abruptly today [note to Dallas folks: this is the new B Rad, not the illiterate Mineral Wells B-rad], and that's sad. Pour some out for him when you party tonight.
My Poisoned seems to have decided to peace out on me, at least for the time being, so I've been hitting the mp3 blogs like whoa. Notably, there's soulsides, featuring excellent slices of rare soul (if we were British, we'd call it "Northern soul," but that's dumb) and old school hip hop. It's a crate-digger's dream. Also, Moistworks and Of The Mirror Eye have newer, weirder stuff. Just yesterday, they hooked me up with some excellent Anticon tracks and a Merle Haggard cover by some former Mekons. Booyeah to the max.

the meowface lp

2005-04-29T21:24:00.000-07:00

Apparently, I hadn't really listened to that new South San Gabriel album I talked about a couple posts back. I just listened to it again, all the way through, and discovered that it is in fact a concept album...about a cat.
The cat, Carlton, stalks and kills a bird. Owner gets mad at him for this and locks him in the garage for the night. His girlfriend, Kittyphone, is disappointed to find him missing, and the neighboring dog, Ramon, taunts him, inspiring Carlton to run away. Though he's happy with his flight initially, he realizes that life on the road isn't for him, especially after an altercation with Possum that leaves him with a broken leg. Dejectedly, he limps home. Owner is dismayed but happy to see him again. In the end, Carlton is disillusioned: his less-than-triumphant return and pending operation have left him with ambiguous feelings.
Will Johnson, your postmodern sentiment in the guise of a cat is brilliant. Thanks, you genius songwriter you.

m-u-s-c-l-e

2005-04-24T18:54:00.000-07:00

Normally, a show at the Smell is all hipper-than-thou kids with asymmetrical haircuts. Last night, however, it was as though a ComicCon down the street had emptied out and the nerds had somehow found their way up that stank-ass alleyway. This is what happens when the Minibosses haul out from Arizona to play a show. In addition to being the wildest show (as far as audience vibe) I've seen at the Smell, this was also probably the most fun I've had their, not related to the Mae Shi.
The Minibosses play serious shred-guitar covers of Nintendo songs. You know, Zelda, Super Ghouls & Ghosts, an insanely epic and triumphant take on Megaman 2. The double guitar front perfectly replicated the tone of the old school 8-bit synthesizer we know and love, but in an incredibly huge way. I have to say, I'm not a video game nerd to speak of, but I was totally and completely into that shit.