The FunkyFunky 7

Hey love, we'll get away with it

2007-06-07T15:18:00.000-07:00

at the Opera House, Toronto
Tuesday June 5th 2007

There is actually, and I don't say this lightly, a phrase in the press release for Boxer that does a decent job of summing up what the National sound like: "a meditative rumble that starts in the heart, gets caught in the brain, and resonates outward." Still, J. Edward Keyes continues to put it best, and while I was worried his post about the National's NYC shows would mean that their Toronto show would be a bit of a let down (high expectations, TO not being their home base, etc), I shouldn't have.

This was seriously one of the best shows I've seen in a while, if we're specifying rock shows (as opposed to, say, Hot Chip) I'd say in years (when did I last see the Wrens again?). The only part that was even a bit of a let down was the encore. I love "Green Gloves" but it was a bit low key, "Abel" is not one of the tracks from Alligator I was familiar with, and "About Time," while awesome, was both new to me and not "Lit Up" (which, along with "Brainy," marks the only song(s) I was hoping for that didn't get played). If I'd known it was on the Cherry Tree EP they were selling, I would have picked up a copy; as it is, I grabbed the pretty cool limited edition tour print instead (now I just need to get it framed).

One thing that J's post that definitely held up was the crowd singing. Not for all the songs, and not as loud as I imagine it'd be in NYC, but "The Geese of Beverly Road," "Daughters of the SoHo Riots" and most of the other tracks had at least a good fourth of the audience (it sounded like, from the front) singing along. Even the fucking perfect "Mr. November" that closed out the main set had plenty of accompaniment, although it was kind of hard to make out for part of the song.

It's pretty much a truism to say that a band is louder and more aggressive live, and it'd be doing the National a disservice to not mention that the National were capable of massive and affecting restraint during the show (with the possible exception of the awesomely into it Matt Berninger, who I could swear almost fell into us while perched at the end of the stage during the more intense bits of some songs), but even a quiet tune like "Start a War" (beautiful choice of opener) managed to build up some real heat on the extended ending; often they would play what was effectively a more red blooded version of the album track and then after it was 'over' just continue on to new heights. Padma Newsome was there with a violin and some electronics, and they managed to replicate many of the album effects, but without horns and more strings the songs were definitely different; in fact, it was a perfect balance between the twin evils of slavish devotion to the recorded version and going totally off the rails. "Fake Empire" in particular took on a wholly new cast, one that was incredibly impressive.

Also, as is already pretty evident on record Bryan Devendorf is one hell of a drummer. He sets his kit up pretty carefully, of course, but the amount he can add to a song is just ridiculous. The whole band was extremely tight and clearly at the height of their powers. The guy I was talking to before the show told me that each of the National's albums have been better than the last (I've never heard the first two); I believe him, but I almost can't bring myself to hope the same is true for Boxer's eventual successor. The album already feels pretty monumental - how can they top it? They've got at least two albums worth of songs that seem to speak personally to a crowd the size of the packed Opera House in a way that I've never really seen a band manage before - or, to quote Keyes, "Berninger is a master lyricist, able to write lyrics that everybody gets but nobody quite understands." What makes the National so great, though, on record but even more so live, is that they more than match Berninger in terms of musical effectiveness and impact. Usually bands either nail the lyrics/content or music/form; the National are one of the lucky few to excel at both, and at their strange intersection as well. Very few things could prevent me from seeing them next time they come to town.

Set List:
Start a War
Secret Meeting
Slow Show
Baby, We'll Be Fine
Apartment Story
The Geese of Beverly Road
Racing Like a Pro
Squalor Victoria
Murder Me Rachael
All the Wine
Guest Room
Daughters of the SoHo Riots
Mistaken For Strangers
Ada
Fake Empire
Mr. November

Encore
Green Gloves
Abel
About Today

[Cross-posted at Fractionals]

Everybody walk the dinosaur

2007-06-04T10:48:00.001-07:00

This is why he's Kells

Click to embiggen. Art stolen from Dinosaur Comics, obviously.

Cross posted at Screw Rock 'n' Roll

Man, that music isn't hip-hop, or rock, or anything essential to culture.

2007-04-21T04:03:00.000-07:00

You tell him, Kid With Big Hair

So High School Musical was on Disney Channel here for what must be about the millionth time since its debut, and since the soundtrack to that movie was the biggest selling album released in '06 and I had nothing else to do, I figured I'd watch the damn thing and work out what it means to be listening to and writing about music in a time when the only people paying for music are 12 year olds. [1]

So, let us begin... Notes from a High School Musical.

* I tell you one thing about Disney: based on almost zero thought on the subject, I'm going to say that the folks at Disney have made more of an effort to give a cultural response to a changing American society than other writers/producers/directors/etc. At a time when the biggest population growth is in the South and Southwest of the country, High School Musical is set in Albuquerque. Call it smart marketing or whatever, but at least they're making an effort to keep their collective finger on the national pulse. In fact, I really have to imagine that the New Mexico setting was chosen purely for demographic reasons; it could have been set in Orange County for all the regional distinctiveness the movie has.

Nevertheless, Albuquerque it is. Not the New York or Los Angeles or New England locations that TV and movie-makers seem convinced are the only places in America (they add Wisconsin or Michigan to the list if they want somewhere "ordinary").

It's like Anthony Easton wrote in an article on Country music at Stylus a couple years back:

Going back to the geography--of Cleveland, Phoenix, Sioux Falls—They are all the same kind of city, in the middle of America, with the suburbs exuding out, conservative in the sense of conserving traditions and customs--by name checking them Kenny and Keith indicate audience participation in he most obvious way—they tell the citizens of over looked America that their concerns are being addressed.

High School Musical is about, and for, the kids of this audience. It's a red state movie that's been depoliticized of the issues that make states red or blue — the kids just don't care, y'know? — and so the result is a portrait of an America that is actually more accurate than the standard red-blue divide. They're red state kids that do the same things blue state kids do. They go to church (lead girl-character Gabriella says she had only previously sung in church choir), play sports, sing in musicals and have impossibly expensive cell phones. Just like in the real America. Considering Disney also does Hannah Montana, some show about Billy Ray Cyrus' daughter becoming a country singer, it seems that this company has realized that telling stories about people who don't live where the entertainment industry is based could actually have its advantages.

But, yes, this is Disney, and despite High School Musical's non-standard outside-NY/LA location and explicitly church-going lead character, the movie still takes place in an amazingly well-funded school district, in which the upper middle class students take vacations at ski lodges, can afford to carry expensive WiFi equipment around with them to serve plot points and go to a far-more racially integrated school than your average upper middle class institution. Things are different, but there also really quite the same as they've always been.

* My first HSM exposure was when we reviewed the big duet between the lead characters, "Breaking Free" for the Singles Jukebox last year. At the time, I said:

This Singles Jukebox gig isn’t all A-list parties and complimentary Cristal. Zac and Vanessa are two fresh-faced kids in some straight-to-TV Disney Channel movie about – get this – a brainy girl and a sporty guy who, even though they have nothing in common, audition for a high school musical. That’s why the movie has the appropriate name High School Musical. As for the song: it’s complete pap, of course. Its saving grace, though, is that it’s pap with verisimilitude; it sounds exactly like the big numbers that the popular drama kids would sing back when I did theatre in high school, loaded with uplifting sentiments and ripe for choreography. Bonus points for nostalgia, then, because musically… well, I’ve still got videos of productions I was in, and the quality is about the same. Which is the appeal, of course.
[4]

Well, I hadn't seen the movie then, but the plot isn't anymore complicated than I described there. Apart from "Breaking Free," the movie doesn't have that verisimilitude I talked about there. It's just pap. Zac Efron and Vanessa Anne Hudgens, the two lead actors, are rather lacking in chemistry, so their relationship isn't particularly interesting. None of the other characters are very interesting, either, save for Ryan, the male-half of the evil theater-pro antagonists, and I only found him interesting because he was exactly the kind of bastard you meet in youth theater productions. The female villian was entirely unrealistic, which didn't particularly matter, but given that her name was Sharpay - Sharpay! - I would have hoped they'd find something more interesting to do with her. I guess if you're twelve years old, the pursuing your dreams and ignoring peer pressure theme would be pretty neat. Still, as kid's entertainment goes, it's slick but uninspiring. I mean, a big chunk of that audience probably also saw Mean Girls, right? And Mean Girls is obviously light years better.

* So HSM, not a good movie. And it's not a good musical, either. There actually aren't that many songs in it, and the songs are for the most part forgettable. A good musical should have you humming those tunes hours after you've finished watching it (q.v. Elaine's father and "Master of the House" in Seinfeld). I can't remember a single melody from this movie. And these aren't good pop songs, either, for the same reason. There was one moment, at the beginning of big basketball choreography number "Get'cha Head in the Game" where they construct a beat out of foot stomps and sneaker squeaks that is a pretty neat effort in musique concrete, but that was quickly subsumed into a bland dance track. Really, the songs on this soundtrack could have come from any Disney movie from the past ten or fifteen years. They just had floppy haired teenagers singing them instead of genies voiced by wisecracking warthogs or Robin Williams.

* A note about the plot: this is some weird, hormone-free high school, seriously. Look, the main guy wants to go spend time with this cute chick, and all his guy friends have to say is, "Naw, man, don't you think you should be spending more time in the locker room with us?" Until the happy ending where everyone hooks up with everyone else, practically arbitrarily, everyone in the entire school acts like it's the most thoroughly bizarre thing in the world for a teenager to want to spend some time with an attractive member of the opposite sex. Weird stuff.

* But conversely, I think there's a bit of metaphor going on with this movie. Basketball jock develops an interest in musical theater, is confused by his feelings, is worried about his father's response, fears that his friends will reject and ridicule him if they find out? Damn, this movie should have had "(nullus)" stuck up on the screen at the end of the credits.

*So, what can we conclude about the biggest selling album released in 2006? Well, I'm making the not too out there guess this was big because it was a movie tie in. These songs wouldn't have gone multi-platinum on their own. So that means that not only are 12 year olds the only people buying records, they'll also only buy records that soundtrack their favorite movies. Here's a recommendation: Cam'ron, hand the production of Killa Season 2 over to Disney. Maybe that's the only way to get hip hop sales back up.

[1] And indie kids, if the Modest Mouse, Arcade Fire, Shins, et al., sales figures are to be believed. But there are a lot more 12 year olds than indie kids. And they might have more money, too, considering, if I have my stereotypes right, indie kids are poor-ass ramen-eating college students, while Disney Channel viewers are pampered suburbanite middle-schoolers.

life is very short and there's no t-i-i-i-ime...

2007-03-31T22:07:00.000-07:00

Yes, more about Stevie. I could fill a thousand grade-school composition notebooks with praise, criticism and rumination on Stevland Judkins/Morris/Wonder and never run out of things to say. One thing that gets lost amidst the zoom-in on his 70's output, though, is how great an interpreter of other people's compositions he was before he moved to exclusively self-penned material. In particular, I'm listening to his version of "We Can Work It Out," which eclipses the Beatles own rendition by a miracle mile. Perhaps because he sings like he's desperately meaning (and needing) it, whereas we all know what completely fucking useless human beings McCartney and Lennon turned into. It's what, five years between "We Can Work It Out" and "How Do You Sleep?" That latter song, for the record, boasts one of the most inane lyrics in pop history. Even as far as diss tracks go, it's pretty limp- I doubt it had Ringo fearing he'd be the next contestant on that Summer Jam screen.

Anyway, Stevie's "We Can Work It Out" is choice, from the echoed backing yelps at the end of every other line in the verse to the scuzzed-up backbeat, to the veering-towards falsetto he dips into as the song progresses. Even the harmonica solo is cool. Who the hell else makes harmonica solos sound cool?

Cross-posted with mothafuckin' S&M.

20 Albums of 2007: 20-16

2007-02-08T09:01:00.000-08:00

Yes, it's February; quiet, you. I have been doing these slowly and irregularly at my blog, but all along my intent was to collect them here at the FF7 when I had enough done. I just posted the sixth, so here is the first quarter of my 2006 albums-in-review.

#20: Mogwai - Mr Beast / Excepter - Alternation

This is the list I submitted to Stylus, with one addition in this entry, and I don't even pretend this is still what I'd put down as my twenty favourite records of 2006; but it is twenty good ones, mostly not too terribly overexposed, and I certainly don't feel any regret.

So, to begin with, my #20 and the one that narrowly got bumped off the list once I realised I'd forgotten Phoenix (that would be Excepter). I went back and forth quite a bit on which of these I liked more, but ultimately Mogwai is the one I'd rather listen to for pleasure. Because I don't quite get "pleasure" from Alternation, even if what I do get might be more valuable.

But one at a time! Mr Beast may not have the best songs Mogwai has ever done (or at least, not all of them - although I'd make a case for "Travel Is Dangerous," "Glasgow Mega Snake" and the deceptively swooning "Friend of the Night") but it is resolutely their best album,* one where even the weaker tracks make perfect sense as parts of a whole, where brevity and power and nuance manage to collide perfectly. They pull off the same trick here that Constantines did on the underrated Tournament of Hearts, making their best record without quite hitting the heights they did before - maybe because they don't aim that high? Or maybe because both albums are so obsessively cohesive that it's harder to see highlights. "Team Handed" and "Emergency Trap" may not be songs I'll be putting on mixtapes, or even ones I can remember real well, but in context they, bluntly, work.

It doesn't hurt that Mr Beast manages to be both the hardest and the softest Mogwai have ever been on an LP; it avoids the absurd excesses of their first two records, the oddly unsatisfying sheen of Happy Music For Happy People and barely outshines the great Rock Action by dint of better sequencing and the fact that it turns out that a lack of epics suit the band. This is the first Mogwai album I love where I'd like to see them build on this sound; Come On Die Young and Rock Action felt more like they'd gone as far as they should and it was time to try something new.

As for Excepter, I'm just going to go ahead and post a conversation we had about it on the Stylus staff message boards.

Derek Miller: [Alternation] is a rather odd space for the band after their first few releases, more in the vein of Sunbomber.

Jeff Siegel: Yes. I quite like it actually. It's literally the most basic, fundamental thing they could possibly do. Ennui in a bottle. Yeah.

Mike Powell: Yeah, totally agreed. They're officially one of the most bored-sounding bands ever.

Jeff Siegel: Bored, but not boring. That's the key isn't it--how Uncle Andy put it?

Mike Powell: (The sound of our brains humming in unison, shattering the fragile champagne flute of mediocrity)

Jeff Siegel: Great minds.

I didn't think it was possible, but I've somehow managed to get "Ice Cream Van" stuck in my head.

Mike Powell: Because it is so awesome

Jeff Siegel: This is the fucking weirdest, most out-of-the-blue thing I've come across in a long time.

Mike Powell: Do you really think it's out of the blue? It makes perfect sense to me... and I'm not saying that to be weird or anything.

Ian Mathers: I won't be able to tell whether I like this or not for, oh, another ten or so listens. But I can tell I'm going to enjoy the process.

Stewart Voegtlin: Excepter certainly enjoys the process. The only other band who's patient enough to let songs "develop on their own" is NNCK. I think Excepter is stunning, and they ain't gettin' as much love as they should be. Dada dance band? Angst ridden disco? Coil meets LFO? All the above, yo.

Ian Mathers: Okay, I don't think I've been able to go a day without listening to this since I last posted (24 days before) in this thread. And that's fucking bizarre for me. Alternation is pretty severely eating/rewiring my brain.

Mike Powell: I find this admission both disturbing and laudable.

Stewart Voegtlin: That's funny, Mike. I felt the same way when I read it this a.m.

Ian Mathers: I finally managed to delete the damn thing off of my iPod (although not, of course, my hard drive**) tonight. My coworkers were, seriously, beginning to complain. They said it was "creepy". I find myself listening to it and half the time enjoying it without thinking, and the other half of the time sort of listening with part of my mind removed from the experience, asking the rest of me "and what are you getting out of this, exactly?" "The Rock Stepper" is pretty much the only song I know that I wish was an hour long.

*My favourite Mogwai album is Come On Die Young (absurdly long running time and all), so if you're one of many who thinks they stopped being good after the over-rated Young Team, go fetch some salt.
**Yes, I bought a real copy.

#19: The Walkmen - A Hundred Miles Off

Except for "The Rat," I never liked these guys before. I hated this when I downloaded it. And then I got a hangover. A Hundred Miles Off is a headache, a blearily bawling pain behind the eyes, an almost determinedly ugly record from Leihauser's yowl on down. I mean, "Always After You ('Til You Started After Me)"'s main hook is the sound of the drummer trying to kill you after the title is wearily intoned.

And like a real hangover, it winds up being richer and more complex than you'd think at first. It helps that Leithauser is, no shit, one of the few great vocal personalities in modern indie rock (I love Chutes Too Narrow to bits, for example, but Mercer is basically a cipher). What's he actually saying? Who can tell? Who cares? Making something like "Emma, Get Me A Lemon" not only tolerable but a highlight is real yeoman work, in frontmen terms. This record, from the quietus of the far-off storm in "Lousiana" to seething spit, sweat and raw ache of most of the rest, reminds me of too many late nights out and too much of the texture of my actual life in 2006 to be ignored. I'll be unpacking what I love about it for years.

#18: Espers - Espers II

"There are shocks to the system hidden within II, but they're so pleasingly cushioned you never notice until afterwards. It’s an album that leaves you both soothed and disturbed, lulled and shaken by the group’s masterful blend of the comforting and the uncanny, slightly dazed as if returning from time travel or a knock on the head."
(Me)

Space-age crystalline sludge-folk about deceased royalty, magick, storms, visions, hypnosis, living nightmares and the fugue state. Uses everything from an Omnichord to a dholak. Their publishing company is called "gonedarkside." This should be insufferably twee and/or goth but is instead strangely touching and genuinely weird. If Joanna Newsom was into writing songs with actual choruses and lovingly exploring the varieties of drone in the context of popular song from the Elizabethan era on down, she might sound a little like this. Only one of the strengths of Espers is that they very much sound like a collective instead of a person or group of people, and while the rugged individualists have long been lionized in music criticism, maybe we should be paying a little more attention to the gains made by groups that have more fully mastered the seeming mind-meld. It's probably just planning, but on the slow motion waltzing drift of "Dead Queen" and the almost schematic (in a good way) "Children of Stone" it seems more like telepathy.

#17: Mates of State - Bring It Back

One of those albums I'm surprised to see on one of these until I put it on again. But then I remember; I love pretty much every setting on Kori Gardner's keyboard (especially the ones that sound like organs or anything else that buzzes), "Think Long" is a strangely rousing opener, and I've never heard any of their other albums so I don't (can't) think this is any sort of a let down.

But mostly, I just love the way she and Jason Hammel yell. Not at each other - with each other. Whether it's the "Think long, think think long, think think!" from the opener, "And you will surely find this news pleasing to your ears!" in "Fraud in the '80s," "I've been thinking it's an afterthought!" in the ridiculously great coda to "Punchlines," "Nothing! And everything!" in "So Many Ways," or a bunch of other examples scattered across the punchy, hooky but tightly-plotted Bring it Back, it's one of the most willfully exuberant sounds I've ever heard. They really are like the anti-Low, where their voices don't go together at all and it does sound like two people, always, instead of one other... thing, but it's still amazing and alive and wonderful. And the record is perfectly paced (yes, I even like the ballad-y "Nature and the Wreck"); the closing "Running Out" is a bravura change of pace. A massed group of voices all yelling "Ooooh, tired of singing!" out of the ashes of the good-but-stark song the duo was playing somehow fills nearly 7 minutes without getting bored or boring.

I don't want them to add more people, or more instruments, or anything else. Just more albums of sugarbuzz surprisingly complex drum-and-organ-and-yell pop, please.

#16The Goslings - Grandeur of Hair

This is definitely the right time to talk about the Goslings; my head is clogged up by the tail end of a cold, and my working life is swiftly becoming a nightmare. In my review (too late, as is customary these days) I compare them to blood bruises, dull metal scraped on stone, and Aristotle's notion of catharsis. And a man who knows a lot more about this stuff than I do, Bryan Berge, was "pleasantly surprised by just how heavy and harsh it is. Usually when people talk about finding beauty through the noise, they don't REALLY mean noise. Here it seems like a legit description." That's the problem/greatness of a record like Grandeur of Hair; it's so far off from what most people consider music that it can be hard to talk about without seeming pretentious, but this really is the real deal.

Like scrubbing yourself with sand, it's almost unpleasant but also cleansing; while plenty of music should be listened to loud the Goslings make sounds that demand the needle be edged over into the red. When you do, the noise is like a physical, prowling thing, and you're never sure if it's going to hug you or kill you. "Croatan," "Overnight" and "Dinah" alone deserve to inspire legions of imitators, but instead you can barely find Goslings material unless you take to the internet. At least they have a label now.

Save a horse, ride a Norwegian

2007-02-06T06:55:00.000-08:00

There's this thing comedians like to do: they find a dumb American, interview them, and claim the subject represents the entire nation. It's a pursuit equally beloved by non-Americans (Borat) as it is by Americans (Jay Leno), and admittedly, it can be pretty funny (Borat, not Leno).

It works because America is such a large, diverse country that you can, without too much difficulty, find someone somewhere who will not only hold a mindblowing ridiculous belief, but will also be entirely willing to elaborate this belief on camera. You can't do this style of comedy on Europeans, though, because the entire continent of Europe is utterly batshit insane. You interview an insane European, and the only response you could provoke from your audience would be, "Yeah, what's your point?"

Don't believe me? Look, here's a brief history of Europe:

1. Every European nation takes turns fighting one another, in some cases multiple times, over the course of a thousand years.
2. Eventually, they all have a gigantic fight that leaves millions of them dead.
3. Europe decides to hold an annual popular song contest.

This European insanity is not necessarily a bad thing, mind you. Since World War II, Europe has (mostly) avoided fighting itself and has instead been devoted to pursuing three main goals, which are, namely, making money, promoting public nudity and attempting to shorten the working week without reducing their capacity to make money and promote public nudity. That's not so bad. (America, for its part, has spent the time making money, restricting public nudity and trying to lengthen the working week without interfering with the pursuit of its first two goals. Australia has been pursuing the American goals, while telling itself it is pursuing the European goals.)

Come May, Eurovision will have been nobly stopping Europeans from killing each other for 51 years. I've only watched one full Eurovision contest, and that was last year's, which I helped profile for Stylus. I had seen bits of previous years, in those cases because I wanted to laugh at it, and I watched the year Russia entered tATu, in that case because of lesbians. But I've seen enough Eurovision to know one thing: it isn't all that good. It is better, however, than the other two major occasions for Europeans to gather together and not kill each other; unlike the UEFA Champions League, Eurovision actually offers contestants the chance to score a reasonable amount of points, and unlike the European Union parliament, Eurovision has decent costumes.

But before Eurovision starts, each individual nation needs to work out who is going to represent them at the festivities. Norway, for instance, holds a contest called Melodi Grand Prix, and if only them Norwegians vote properly, MGP 2007 has every possibility of launching the year's Eurovision champion. The MGP finalists have by now got through the gruelling semi-finals, and the clear standouts (i.e. the only ones I've bothered to check out) are a fantastic act who go by the delightful moniker Dusty Cowshit.

Dusty Cowshit are a Norwegian country act half way between "Rawhide" and Cowboy Troy (not that there actually is a lot of difference between those two). Germany tried to take out '06 with some Euro-country, and it wasn't half bad by Eurovision standards, but it was unfortunately played very straight. Dusty Cowshit solve this issue with their absolutely absurd song "Chicken Rodeo." Quite reasonably, Scandinavians are apparently rather impressed with these dudes. As the official MGP Web site says: "Norge liker cowboylukt!"

Let's face it: Eurovision is pretty shit. The reactionary end of pop music journalism tries to talk it up, but the rest of us can see that 90% of it is bullshit. I will admit that Kate Ryan, Belgium's failed '06 entry, had a decent enough song in "Je T'adore," but by normal pop music standards, even that was only average. The vast majority of Eurovision acts are comically bad, and the best ones are comically brilliant. Dusty Cowshit fall into the latter category, and I fully support their bid for MGP victory this year. With these guys and the possibility that Morrissey will represent the UK in '07, we have the makings of a first class cheese-fest on our hands.

Can I get a witness?

2007-01-28T16:09:00.000-08:00

This is a little perfunctory, as grad school and the like have yet to release its hellish grip on my life, but I wanted to mention that I recently caught the CFRU anniversary bash, or, as I prefer to think of it, the most recent Constantines show in Guelph. They began (again?) with the underwhelming-to-me "Tank Commander," but I seem to be the only one who thinks that the end of Shine a Light was the worst part of the band's discography.

Luckily, they were on their customary fine form (best live band in Canada, and don't give me any Arcade Fire guff), and the two new songs they played were easily up to the standards of their best material. One of the nice things about seeing them live is that they get a chance to transform tracks from Tournament of Hearts. It's their best album because for the first time Constantines really engage with the difference between playing live and making an album, and they want to fully explore the possibility of the latter, which also means Tournament of Hearts is their least-obvious record to date (although fans howl for "Hotline Operator" or "Draw Us Lines" just as much as they do for "Young Lions" or "Arizona"). But live they trade subtlety and range for brawn and excitement; "Lizaveta" feels about as heavy as Black Sabbath, and Steve Lambke's "Thieves" goes from quietly jazzy on disc to the highest of high octane.

Not that the set didn't have quieter moments, although those mostly came from the first album; more importantly, they played "Soon Enough" and "On to You" (the two hidden gems in a pretty ridiculously rich catalog), when four guys yelled out "Young offenders!" after "Young Lions" the band indulged them, and they always play well in their old home of Guelph. I could watch these guys every week.

Setlist:
Tank Commander
Working Full-Time
No Ecstasy
Hotline Operator
Young Lions
Young Offenders
Soon Enough
Showers of Stones*
Subdomestic
On to You
Credit River*
Arizona
Thieves
Lizaveta
Shine a Light
Nighttime/Anytime (It's Alright)

Encore:
Draw Us Lines
Hyacinth Blues
7 AM

New Singles Jukebox Unveiled!

2007-01-27T18:37:00.000-08:00

The Stylus Singles Jukebox, to which Jonathan, Ian, John and I are contributors, has gotten a whang-bang revamp and is now being published in blog form. CHECK IT OUT. IT'S BE-EE-EAUTIFUL.

Top 10 Albums of 2006

2006-12-18T10:33:00.000-08:00

I did a top-five list with blurbs for Scenestars.net last week (although it hasn't gone up on the site yet), and while I was at it, I figured I could fill in the rest of the ballot that I submitted to the Jackin' Pop poll. (Still torn about whether or not to contribute to Pazz and Jop this year. On one hand, there's the genuine thrill of inclusion the last couple of years: "Ma, I'm in the Village Voice!" On the other, we're talking about a paper that has fucked over Robert Christgau, Chuck Eddy, and Michaelangelo Matos, three of the best, most consistently interesting music critics in the world. I guess there's always Hinder.) And so here we are:

10. Hot Chip, The Warning

An uneven record from a gang of pasty white British dudes that still contains some of the past year's most rewarding pop pleasures, from the energized, anthemic refrain of "Over and Over, " to the alluring blue-eyed croon and insistent twitch of "Boy from School."

9. Herbert, Scale

On paper it sounds like disco: lavishly sweeping strings and anonymously fabulous singers both subservient to a dance beat -- but for Herbert, fine details matter more than grand statements, and so his Technicolor orchestra here is microscopic, wrapped in a warm blanket of mellow clicks and glitches, and no less captivating for all the tweaking that implies.

8. Kaki King, ...Until We Felt Red

It's hard for me to dislike an album whose antecedents seem to be the kind of moonlit, back-porch post-rock I loved at the turn of the century: Tara Jane O'Neil's Peregrine and Papa M's Live in a Shark Cage, most obviously -- but the young guitar whiz also demonstrates her versatility by interspersing meditative, finger-picked instrumentals with eerily poignant vocal numbers like "Jessica," which borrows some of Jeff Buckley's compelling reverie.

7. Grizzly Bear, Yellow House

They've been said to resemble the softer side of Animal Collective, and this ensemble indeed copies the celebrated noise-folk outfit's wondrous harmonies and acoustic trance, but Yellow House is redolent less of the bounties of nature and more of the shadows of the past, with the hushed, creeping "Marla" seeming not so much a cover as a palimpsest, all the dusty, wine-stained markers of the attic where it was discovered still preserved and seeping through.

6. Destroyer, Rubies

Dan Bejar is the only New Pornographer I've ever had any use for, and though I admired the bold romantic artifice of Your Blues, his previous record under the Destroyer moniker, it was the sprawling Rubies that really sold me on him: an organic tangle of ramshackle piano and bleeding guitar, overlaid with endless strings of words that Bejar clearly relishes, as they build upon his own mythology.

5. Joanna Newsom, Ys

Girl's getting a lot of guff and p-word drops for her long song-suites, but pretentious only makes sense within the insular realm of indie rock: no one would dare diss Philip Glass, say, for ten minutes of hypnotic harp figures. Plus, the expansiveness only enhances the thorny beauty of these fairy tales: amid the colorful swaths of orchestration, it lets them linger and breathe.

4. Junior Boys, So This is Goodbye

Two years ago I swooned for the tricky rhythms and gorgeously frozen sighs of the electro-pop duo's debut, Last Exit, and though this one's more streamlined, that may ultimately be to its advantage: the persistent beat and elastic laser synths on "In the Morning" prompt fantasies of dancing all night, eyes lifted to the darkened sky.

3. Final Fantasy, He Poos Clouds

Owen Pallett's palette consists of the polite tools of the trained composer: contrapuntal cello and ornate piano intricately darting past each other, for instance. But he's as likely to spiral into cries of anguish as he is to dwell on his own prettiness (just as the album title conflates the heavens with literal shit), and the appearance of the Charlie Brown children's chorus on "This Lamb Sells Condos" all but encapsulates the record's consuming melancholy.

2. Sonic Youth, Rather Ripped

Twenty-five years on, and these boho rock stars not only haven't lost the plot, they're making some of the best music of their career: here they condense the bright, dreamy jams of their last couple records into crisp, shimmering pop songs, albeit with plenty of detuned arpeggios and breathy art-school poetry that'll probably always serve as a signature, since it still sounds so good.

1. Girl Talk, Night Ripper

In 2006 the gimmicky fun of the traditional mash-up gave way to a more transcendent pleasure: hearing dozens of my favorite radio hits stitched together, one snippet after another, for over 40 breathless minutes. Even when the name-that-tune factor lost its novelty, I was still left with a cavalcade of thrilling new contexts that unexpectedly stuck in my craw, and as the sort of dilettante who loves Ciara nearly as much as Sonic Youth, I couldn't help feeling like the mix was designed just for me.

Runners-up: The Knife, Silent Shout; Ellen Allien and Apparat, Orchestra of Bubbles; Belle and Sebastian, The Life Pursuit; Phoenix, It's Never Been Like That; Justin Timberlake, FutureSex/LoveSounds; The Changes, Today is Tonight; Booka Shade, Movements; LCD Soundsystem, 45:33; The Rapture, Pieces of the People We Love; Luomo, Paper Tigers.

[cross-posted on Seaworthy Southeast Thesaurus]

The Producer Report: "Money in the bank, Fergie what you drank?"

2006-12-10T00:10:00.000-08:00

Will.I.Am as mercurial opportunist

A consistent theme in one particular brand of hip hop is money; the earning of such, the keeping, the spending, the look, the feel, the smell, and, particularly, all the benefits and problems associated with the earning, keeping and spending of this money. This isn't a surprise. Money plays a significant role in nearly every aspect of life in the contemporary Western world, and as a lyrical theme, it is notable for its capacity for both breadth and depth, whether discussing its abundance or scarcity, or the transition from one state to the other.

Many rappers, particularly those who like to concentrate on the less legitimate, more desperate ways of earning funds, often discuss the mercenary nature of their approach. It's simple: C.R.E.A.M. get the money, from Mobb Deep's bleak "Shook Ones" to Lil' Wayne's "Money On My Mind," in which he spells out the relentlessness with which he and his contemporaries supposedly pursue their fortune: "Money is more important than the person."

These rappers don't want you to notice how seriously they take their craft. They slip hints, of course. Weezy sneers "cross-over, whatever, mainstream, no" and declares himself the best rapper alive, just like noted hustler-not-artist Jay-Z did before him. Young Jeezy says he does not even like rappers, then boasts of his own superiority as a rapper. As thuggish as they try to paint themselves, as economically single-mindedly as they claim to be, your average rapper ends us having a fairly extensive list of things they consider more important than money. Will.I.Am is an exception.

Black Eyed Peas ft. Esthero - Weekends

Will.I.Am has spent his extensive career reinventing himself in the pursuit of success, and his versatility and malleability has produced the kind of results he could not get from his rapping. Not to spend too much time kicking someone with absolutely no credibility anyway, but let's be clear: Will.I.Am is a horrible rapper, both in terms of lyrics and performance. His wordplay is near non-existent, he can't sustain a thought for more than half a bar and his rhymes are generic, repetitive and frequently cringe-worthy. The most memorable verse on Bridging the Gap, the group's second album, is almost certainly the large chunk of Afrika Bambaata's "Planet Rock" that they bite for "Go Go." If anything, Will gets worse the farther his career progresses; these early Black Eyed Peas raps were hardly inspiring, but they never quite plumbed the depths of his recent work, or, worse, his guest appearances.

Thematically, these releases concentrated on G-rated partying (a lot of which comes very close to being explicitly straight-edge) and lecturing other rappers for being too violent, too materialistic and for being lyrically vacuous. There are also a lot of hilarious accusations thrown about against those they believe are not being true to real hip hop. It'd be tempting, in light of the act's recent career moves, to accuse them of hypocrisy, but that assumes that they once genuinely believed the values they espoused in their lyrics. It is pretty hilarious hearing tracks like "Positivity" or "BEP Empire," of which the pious, Jurassic 5 style lecturing sounds like it was aimed at the rap group they would become (though, to be fair, the Peas are just as non-violent now as they have always been), but rather than viewing their 180 as the product of a cynical cash grab on behalf of the band, I am more inclined to believe that their original stance was just as cynical a cash grab.

The Black Eyed Peas' debut, Behind the Front, came out in 1998, and this period from the late '90s through to the early years of the '00s (when Bridging the Gap was released), was pretty much the creative zenith of the backpacker OkayPlayer positivity movement, and back then, it may even have seemed like this subgenre could be the commercial future of rap music. Biggie and Tupac had both died, and the West Coast was fading; gangsta could well have been on the way out, and I would not have blamed anyone for considering the possibility rap music would switch its focus to the Mos Defs, the Black Stars, and the Roots that were coming to prominence at this time. Perhaps Will.I.Am also saw this, and, sensing an opportunity, gathered together a couple of rappers who were even less talented than he was to create nouveau-hippie pop music. They even played their live shows with a real band, so they wouldn't scare off people who thought rap was bad because it wasn't made by people playing real instruments. Will was an able, though hardly gifted, producer, and he probably knew that for a good chunk of his audience, it was more important for rap to be moral than interesting.

Sonically, he did his best to make the music a success, filling the group's first two records with soulful limp funk, that fake Native Tongues bullshit that backpackers turn to when they get lazy. And it all had a gleaming pop sheen — not too much, mind you — just enough that you would never think a Black Eyed Peas track was abrasive or intimidating. "Weekends" is one of the better tracks from this era, and though its production is forgettable, it is still decent, and would be even moreso if it had a better rapper on it.

Full disclosure: back in high school, I quite liked the Black Eyed PEas, and I even have a signed copy of Bridging the Gap as proof. Apl.De.Ap and Taboo signed it, but at the show I saw, Will.I.Am had his lowly bandmates out meeting and greeting the general public while he hid backstage.

The whole caper nearly worked, too. It's pretty damn embarassing how hard the underground was riding B.E.P. dick back before they were Fergie-fied. Bridging the Gap managed to attract guest spots from backpacker heroes De La Soul, Mos Def, Chali2na and Wyclef, as well as a DJ Premier beat for the title track - and this was before Premo was tight with Christina Aguilera. The Peas even got Macy Gray on the single "Request Line," a surefire hint that they were looking to get paid off this positivity jawn; the song was even more glossy than the rest of their work, and people actually cared about Macy Gray at the time.

Fergie - London Bridge

Of course, that wasn't the end of the Black Eyed Peas' story. They genuinely bridged the gap between conscious rap and pop rap with 2003's "Where is the Love?" which hijacked anti-war sentiment to smuggle a now Fergie enhanced BEP into the mainstream, and once they were there, they promptly forgot that they ever had anything to do with the now stagnant undie rap scene. Will found success as part of a pop group whose singles were as successful as they were forgettable, and that should have been the end of it.

Except, if this history has shown nothing else, Will.I.Am is not one to settle. He seemed perfectly content to continue grinding out an even more anemic version of the production aesthetic he pioneered for the Black Eyed Peas, but when Fergie came along, whether he expected it or not, he had a genuine pop star on his hands.

Apl.De.Ap and Taboo have always seemed to exist solely to make up the numbers, to provide variety to songs Will's rapping can't carry alone. It's no surprise that they should continue to be shoved into the background, and it looks like Stacy Ferguson has given Will.I.Am the opportunity to rid himself of them completely. Originally, Fergie seems to have been conceived as the chirpy, little sister of the BEP guys. If you watch the videos in which she first appeared with the group, she seems like she was drafted to have no greater role than sing the hooks and smile at the guys while they did their rapping thing. Even on "Shut Up," the Elephunk single she contributed most to, the video made it quite clear that she was only playing the part of the jilted, bitchy girlfriend. It was only when "Don't Phunk With My Heart" and "My Humps" came out, that she established her current persona, and she was able to do that in good part due to external events, like that photo of her pissing herself on stage and the vast amounts of hatred she attracted from, well, nearly everyone listening to pop music (I'm even willing to believe that her fans hate her). Add in that meth-addiction, and — bam — a dumbfuck trailer trash pop star was born. You think it's an accident that "t" was left in the title of The Dutchess? Even Jim Jones could afford to spellcheck the title of Hustler's P.O.M.E.

Justin Timberlake ft. Will.I.Am - Damn Girl

So with a genuine pop star on his hands, Will.I.Am started making genuine pop star music. The beat was the best thing about "My Humps," which really isn't saying a lot, but Will continued his second rate Neptunes act by conjuring up some really quite OK production for Fergie's record. It shows his greatest strength as a producer is not the brilliance of his ideas — as interesting as his blippy pop-hop is, it is clearly influenced by, and overshadowed by, the avant-garde of Timbaland and the Neptunes. Rather, Will is an admirably versatile producer, able to come up with a passable approximation of nearly any style of pop he requires. With a good performer, this results in music that is really quite enjoyable; Justin's "Damn Girl," for instance doesn't pop and fizz the way "Señorita" did on Justified, but it nevertheless does a good job playing second string for the absent Neptunes. Even if Will.I.Am did insist on weighing it down with an absolutely horrific guest rap. The words "feminine gelatine" should not be a part of pop music, especially when rhymed with "cinnamon."

With a less able performer, however, the results are less pleasing. The Dutchess sounds a good deal like a Black Eyed Peas record in many places (as Kelefa Sanneh said, "two [rappers] down, two to go"), and that's not a good thing. "London Bridge" and "Fergalicious," the singles, are two of the best tracks on the record, and I can't say I ever feel the urge to listen to those. Still, they work because Will keeps the production interesting enough that, similarly to Gwen Stefani's Wind It Up, while the track is never actually good, it avoids being boring simply because it is constantly doing something different. The rest of the album can't even live up to that standard, because, even with Will.I.Am pulling out skittering-electro-rap-future-pop, Fergie is a deeply unpleasant person to spend any amount of time with. Her dumbfuck white girl image may give her personality, but it doesn't make for enjoyable music, and listening to this record, I struggled to make it far into each track once Fergie had started singing (another Sanneh quote: "The worst thing about hearing the word “Fergalicious” for the first time? The dreadful certainty that you’ll hear it again"). There are some truly terrible lyrics, like, "I miss you like a child misses their blanket" from "Big Girls Don't Cry," and that track and the follow-up "Mary Jane Shoes" have a bizarre infantilization thing going on (the latter is a truly horrible one-joke reggae track about marijuana). Fergie doesn't have the ability to emotionally inhabit her tracks; when she sings "You're probably on your flight back to your home town," it sounds like she doesn't name that town because the you in question is not real enough to have a history. As such, these Fergie-as-a-little-girl moments don't make her sound vulnerable, they just make her sound like she's borderline mentally retarded.

Too Short ft. Snoop Dogg, Will.I.Am & Fergie - Keep Bouncin'

The Game - Compton

And just to prove Will.I.Am can do anything, he's recently begun producing... wait... yes... hip hop. For the first time, he's making rap music that people into rap music listen to. I'm still a bit confused as to how this happened. Will.I.Am should be completely worthless as a guest rapper or producer, having zero credibility and zero crossover appeal (the Black Eyed Peas' kiddie-pop audience is not likely to want to buy Hip Hop is Dead just because a Black Eyed Pea is on it). It seems quite incredible that "serious" rappers would want anything to do with him. As Ian Cohen correctly said:

"[W]e all knew they were wack as fuck from the get-go, but at this point, it barely merits a mention. Making fun of them is almost redundant, but you figure they have no trouble paying their bills. There's supposedly a breakout star ( . . .Fergie) in here, but I seriously have my doubts if the public really cares. Absolutely no one would shed a tear if they disappeared completely."

The only explanation then, is that Will managed to get some rappers to liston to his production, and that these rappers, quite properly, chose quality over credibility. Just as Will is passable at doing club pop and second generation Native Tongues impersonations, so too is he quite passable at street rap instrumentals. More than passable, actually, considering his work with Too $hort, The Game and Nas. I still can't work out why they let him rap, though; "If we have a President's Day and a Veteran's Day, let's have a Titty Holiday" is unacceptably idiotic, even for a Too $hort song, as is "Them boobies was bouncing on my head."

And still, even with all this, it's hard to ascertain exactly what Will.I.Am is about as a producer. Any stylistic traits he has are just as likely to be missing as they are present. He likes live drums, except when he puts cold, hard drum machines on tracks for Fergie or the Black Eyed Peas. He does have a weakness for novelty (the "makes me wanna bounce" loop on "Keep Bouncin'", the inanity of "My Humps," the senseless pitchshifting of Ludacris' guest verse on Fergie's "Glamorous"), except he's also capable of turning in a bone simple banger like Game's "Compton." He likes samples, particularly when he can leave them practically unadulterated ("Hip Hop is Dead," "Pump It,") except he also likes creating frenetic synth patchworks, as on Fergie's hits. In fact, there is only one clear, consistent line running through Will.I.Am's production work, and that is its mercenary nature. If it sells, he does it. As a less capitalistic rapper said, "Money on my mind, so money is all I think of."

Cross-posted with Screw Rock 'n' Roll

Buy the Black Eyed Peas' Bridging the Gap from Amazon or Insound.

Buy Fergie's The Dutchess from Amazon.

Buy Justin Timberlake's FutureSex/LoveSounds from Amazon or Insound.

Buy The Game's Doctor's Advocate from Amazon or Insound.

Buy Too $hort's Blow The Whistle from Amazon.

This Really Needs No Explanation

2006-12-06T21:09:00.000-08:00

For anyone who's been keeping up with Stylus (especially the retarded four or five regular douchebags who pollute the comments thread with their inanities).

The Heights Presents...Take Me To The Other Side

2006-12-05T03:47:00.000-08:00

The Heights Presents...Take Me To The Other Side

1 Xiu Xiu- The Fox and The Rabbit
2 Tyondai Braxton- Raise Yr Arms & Cross Them
3 Serena Maneesh- Drive Me Home The Lonely Nights
4 Parts & Labor- Don't Just Fucking Stand There
5 Patrik Torsson- påmönstring
6 Múm- Ég Finn Ekki Fyrir Hendinni Á Mér, En Það Er Allt Í Lagi, Liggðu Bara Kyrr
7 Sagor & Swing- Baklängesvisa
8 Mono- A Thousand Paper Cranes
9 Patrik Torsson- Komunikationerna
10 Birds- Birds
11 The Cleveland Orchestra- Ravel, Pavane Pour Une Enfante Défunte
12 Do Make Say Think- Frederica

http://www.sendspace.com/file/u4vx8c

The Idiot Sound, We Call That Lo-Fi

2006-11-23T17:58:00.000-08:00

As I maybe alluded over here, I'm vibing some hot zone music to go with my hot zone food today, and what could be more timely than a new Souljazz comp that follows in their awesome Dynamite series, only this time it's focused entirely on teh Dancehall.

I don't know what it is about dancehall - I've always really liked it in theory and sometimes in excectution - but too often I've found it rather tiresome to listen to for any extended period of time. Maybe it's just that I can't parse the patois, or perhaps my hackles get raised easily when homophobia is displayed...

Anyway, Souljazz tried a couple years ago with this comp, a half-baked effort if ever there was one. They've done a bit better this season with Dynamite! Dancehall Style, which blends old-school faves and the inevitable dubstep track or two without seeming like a cop-out. Here's some choice cuts:

Anthony Red Rose - "Tempo"

Fat Eyes - "Assault Rifle"

Lady Saw - "Sweetest"

Shinehead - "Billie Jean"

"I could write a song - with real words, not phony ones like 'Odelay'."

2006-11-23T07:51:00.000-08:00

Needs a new Rhyming Becktionary

I think everyone's forgotten, but Beck brought out a new album this year. It was called The Information and probably the most interesting thing about it is that it came with DIY artwork; if you cared enough to buy the record, you could make your own album art out of the free stickers. I've only heard the music, so I missed out on this record's most enjoyable feature.

Beck - New Round
Beck - Diamond Dogs

Beck's most recent two records have been extraordinarily dull; I'm not saying anything new by noting that Guero saw him repeating himself for the first time, but I'm not saying anything inaccurate by mentioning it again. The entire point of Beck was that he was a crazy-ass guy who'd try anything to make weird, catchy pop music. Guero was just Beck trying to be Beck and, as a result, making rather dull pop music. But it doesn't have to be this way. Let's take a look at where Beck can go from here.

The only track from The Information that I have on regular rotation is "New Round." It's not so much that it does anything different to what Beck has done before, but rather that it does it right. Aside from Beck's junkyard popsmith image, he has his folk trubadour persona - his 21st century Nick Drake aspiration - and that's the Beck behind "New Round." It was the Beck responsible for Sea Change and to some extent Mutations as well. It works fantastically at times, for instance on "Nobody's Fault But My Own," "Golden Age" or (especially) "Lost Cause," but he has never been able to sustain that approach over an entire album.

This is for any number of reasons. "New Round" works in the same way all the best introspective Beck does, using his monotone speak-singing as an advantage, surrounding it with suitably moody production and packing it with enough intricacies and quirks to convey the emotion his voice can't. When it succeeds it can be devastating, sounding like Beck is remaining outwardly stubborn and morose while his inner emotions are projected in glorious technicolor behind him. Unfortunately, it too often does not work. Sometimes the production is focused on novelty when it should be focused on emotion (Has anyone considered that maybe Nigel Godrich isn't actually all that? I know he's part of the whole Radiohead brilliance phenomenon, but his greatness with that band does not necessarily translate to him being able to spin gold from anything handed to him, like, say, The Strokes or Travis). Somtimes Beck's monotone is just boring, rather than an unemotional counterweight, and sometimes Beck's songwriting is not strong enough to stand up without the bleeps and bloops that support his more freewheeling work.

Beck surely has the capacity to produce an album full of songs like "New Round" and "Lost Cause," but it seems unlikely he will ever do so. His strike rate with this style is too low. You could cobble together a good mix tape from his past attempts, but introspection is not Beck's path back to glory. Instead he should be attempting to recapture the thriftstore party atmosphere that made Odelay, Midnite Vultures, and Mellow Gold such enjoyable records. His big mistake with Guero was that he tried to capture the sound, not the spirit.

The solution is so obvious that I'm not sure what the bigger the surprise is: that it's already happened, or that it's only happened once.

Carry the anything goes, futurism-through-foraging mentality of Odelay through to the present day, and whom do you get? Tim Mosley, that's whom. And fair enough, there probably isn't an artist in the world whom I would not consider able to benefit from a Timbaland collaboration, but Beck would be particularly great. You don't even need to consider the contemporary implications; back in 1996, although Beck and Timbaland were operating in vastly different arenas, their approach to music, that is, getting asses shaking by being as weird as fuck, was rather similar. Or in another way: find a Beck a capella from '96 and lay it over Ginuwine's (Timbo-produced) "Pony." You've pretty much got the party mash-up of the century right there.

But you don't need to imagine how great a Beck-Timbaland collabo would be. It's already happened. They did David Bowie's "Diamond Dogs," for that Baz Luhrmann movie that everyone hates, Moulin Rouge (incidentally, I don't get why folks can't deal with the music in that movie. Maybe it's just because I've grown up watching music videos, but I really don't see any disconnect in planting "Smells Like Teen Spirit" in the middle of a garish 19th Century Parisian period piece).

"Diamond Dogs" is such an underappreciated high point in the Beck catalogue. For a start, the song is absolutely perfect for him, to the extent that I'm willing to call his version definitive. It was never one of Bowie's most loved songs, anyway, being the lead single off a concept album that never got the love things like Ziggy Stardust or Low did. It even sounds like a Beck song; lyrics like "The diamond dogs are poachers and they hide behind trees," and "In the year of the scavenger, the season of the bitch" have the ring of classic Beck nonsense, and the track's steady grind works much better as Beck/Timbo avant garde R&B/rock/pop than Bowie boogie.

Beck needs his freak back, and there's no better than a.k.a Thomas Crown to give it to him. And you can't say Tim wouldn't be interested. Beck would offer all the possibilites a Justin collaboration would and that Timbaland was in discussions with The Rapture shows Mosley could be interested in stepping outside the already rather vast R&B/pop/hip hop umbrella he works under. The Rapture was priced out of contention, even with Tim offering them heavy discounts, but Beck seems to have larger amounts of label money at his disposal; certainly enough to make high concept videos, anyway. I know where I think the dollars could be better spent. In '96, Beck had two turntables and a microphone, and ten years later, he's due back in the club. And the best part is, Timbo knows how to mix clever production with emotional resonance much better than Nigel Godrich. He did it on Nelly Furtado's most recent record, he did it fantastically with Justin, and, oh, yes, there were a few songs with Aaliyah that don't sound too bad. The Mosley-Hansen hook-up would not only let Beck party the way he used to, it would let him cry the way he wants to. And it would also thrill me crossover loving heart to no end. Let's get it happening, guys.

In other news, how much do I want this?

P.S. Happy Thanksgiving, y'all. Except Ian. Unless he wants it.

2006-11-22T08:55:00.000-08:00

DOWNLOAD

01. The Visionaries - Hindsight
02. Mighty Casey - Liquorland
03. Jay Dee - Fuck The Police
04. Clipse - Wamp Wamp Ft Slim Thug
05. Dilated Peoples - Bullet Train
06. Jurassic 5 - Linguistics
07. West Side Connection - Westside Fo Life
08. Fabolous - Superwoman Pt 2 Ft Lil Mo
09. Kudu - Hey 50
10. Professor Murder - Champion
11. Klaxons - Golden Skans
12. Spank Rock - Far Left (Audioporno Remix)
13. Shitdisco - Disco Blood
14. The Rapture - Whoo! Alright - Yeah... Uh Huh
15. The Blow - The Big U
16. Hot Chip - Just Like We (Breakdown)
17. The Knife - We Share Our Mother's Health
18. Sayag Jazz Machine - Flipper Down (Memories Mix By Co)
19. Radiohead vs. The Jungle Brothers - How Ya Want It (PZ Punchup Remix)
20. Masterminds - The Spinners
21. Mnemonic Ascent - Hold Back
22. Lyrics Born - Hello (Remix)

X-posted @ NSB

Just One Pair Is All I Want...

2006-11-17T23:09:00.000-08:00

Alfred & I both raved way back in July(here and here, respectively) about Escort's previous single, "Starlight," a simmering slice of summer's madness delivered in discotheque form. I made the rare journey to a local record store on a quest for more Serge Gainsbourg music (I've just finished Fistful of Gitanes, but more on that later), and though I was unlucky in that quest, imagine my astonishment and delight when I found a brand new Escort 12" single! "Love In Indigo" is every bit the stunner that "Starlight" was, this time on a deeper boogie tip - much more bass-led and sporting a set of delicious string breaks sparkling like gold cufflinks. B-side "Karawane" reveals an unexpected afro-beat direction, complete with some stunningly deployed samples. Classy, funky disco for the naughties dancefloor - like KRS-One might not have ever said, not so much old school as true school. Coupled with an unexpected epiphany last night at The Proletariat to the tune of Sister Sledge, I'm quite ready to whip out the old disco dubplates and ring in the Holiday season with glitter, high-stepping dancefloor action and plenty of good-old fashioned pomp. I wanna see some freakin' pomp!

The Burden of Expectation (AKA Mallory's Week In The City)

2006-11-15T09:14:00.000-08:00

Without naming names and starting pointless fights about what is (like most things, really) nothing more than a matter of opinion, I'm finding certain colleagues reactions to the recently leaked Bloc Party album both a) disarmingly vague and irritating and b) exactly what I expected. Given the level of (deserved) praise Silent Alarm received, it doesn't take a genius (or a well-heeled monkey with a protractor) to anticipate a critical slashing of its' follow-up.

Needless to say, the early word on this is precisely what I imagined it would be - the most conservative so-called critics are ready to give it the boot, while a few people who (shock-of-the-month-club) took the opportunity provided by Silent Alarm to become fans are willing to listen twice, maybe even three times to their new record.

What are they finding, these lucky few?

Well, they're finding that the 192 kpbs .mp3 files that have illegally escaped the clutches of the record company are of a muted, rather poor sonic quality. No! Do go on!

They're finding that the songs on A Weekend in the City are different from those on Silent Alarm, yet obviously written and performed by the same band. "Do you see what I did there?"

They're also finding that some of the quirks and flaws inherent in Bloc Party's sound are still intact. For instance, Kele still exhibits moments and passages redolent of third-form poetry (vampires are mentioned twice, Sudoku once, and Bret Easton Ellis is both alluded to and quoted). The band still uses the same loud/soft patterns and punching/soaring alternations. They're still crippled by an enormous debt to minor chords and certain comfortable progressions.

They still have those kinda goofy backup vocal stylings a la "Helicopter." And I'm not sure if that's a flaw or a virtue, actually. So it goes in the middle.

They're finding that the virtues exhibited by repeat exposure to Silent Alarm are still here on its sequel. Kele still sings like a tense "ordinary man" accustomed to cloaking his vulnerability in a sense of retributive pride and world-weary dismay. The band still packs a rhythmic punch, even if its somewhat lopped short by a weak (hopefully-not-the-final) master which is heavy on compression and low on seperation. The songs still soar along in a manner evocative of U2 but without the latter's pernicious self-righteousness. There are still moments of intense ugliness alternated with flashes of beauty.

In short, it's the new album by Bloc Party. And just as haters (and those regrettably shorn of their ears) declared the album inferior to the (rather lopsided) EP, those quick to follow popular opinion will regard A Weekend in the City as Silent Alarm's leftovers. Fine with me. That's just more room at the feast-table for the rest of us.

Bloc Party's debut album was an unexpected explosion that ranks as one of the classics of the naughties despite its flaws, just like a hundred great records before it. Its successor builds on the debut without rewriting the book overmuch, yet adds elements and influences which weren't as obvious on the first record. It's the textbook example of the follow-up: consolidating ground, winning few new converts but not alienating the fans. Or it would be if we were retroactively judging, say, the second Ramones record. Instead, certain crusties are taking out their alienation from youth culture by binning the second record by the buzz band of 2005 on the basis of an un-finalized leak. Which they would be doing regardless of the quality of said record or said band.

Congratulations, ladies and gentlemen. You have officially become your elders.

I've been listening to A Weekend in the City almost constantly since getting it - several times in the car, a couple at home, etc. It's a great second record, with many valid high points ("Hunting For Witches," "Waiting For the 7.18," the Cure-like "I Still Remember") and nothing jaw-droppingly embarassing.

And... (wait for it):

It's not as good as Silent Alarm. You know, the album that effortlessly ranks amongst my ten favorites of the decade thus far.

What, were you hoping for a miracle?

Also cross-posted.

The Slits @ Emo's in Austin, 11.11.06

2006-11-15T07:16:00.000-08:00

"Do you know what it means, the Slits in Texas on Veteran's Day?"

No. And we never found out either. Which suited me just fine - the Slits were at their best when carving out a space based on the commonality of sexuality's terrors ("Or What Is It?") and a appealingly trite rejection of consumerism ("Shoplifting," with its gleefully anthemic "I pay fuck-all!"), rather than grandstanding about the usual political suspects.

Original Slits Ari Up and bassist Tessa Pollitt led their merry band of fellow travellers (six Slits in toto) through the changes at Emo's (lol) in Austin on Saturday night. In attendance were myself and fellow FF7ers lady k! and senor shoup - another merry band, though slighly less large and dread-y. (Budgie was no where to be seen.) It must be said, the audience didn't seem to know quite what to make of things, a rather vocal contingent up front excepted. Perhaps it was the band's determination to avoid nostalgia (Cut dominated the proceedings somewhat less than expected), perhaps it was their repeated demands upon those in attendance to make "bird sounds." Most likely it was a sense of being completely dominated by Ari Up's alarmingly fit, nearly stentorian stage presence, which seemed to treat the audience as though it should, you know, actively become involved in the performance or something. Goodness. End result - the thrashing or at least happily bopping majority had a good old time, the rest went home to sit in front of their X-Box.

The band's sound vacillated between old-guard punk, trad reggae, punky reggae, and some indefinite other, in which something even more deliciously, suffocatingly primal than their Earth Mother riddims began to rear its head. This was made most clear when the Slits alternated rebel rock and lover's rock within the context of individual songs, and when they played material from their daring and overlooked second album, Return of the Giant Slits. All told, only three songs from Cut, the only album most concert goers could be reasonably expected to have heard, made the... setlist ("Typical Girls," "Shoplifting," and "FM"). Instead, the crowd was treated to a new song ("Slits Tradition") from the quickie EP Revenge of the Giant Slits, an oldie ("Number One Enemy," available on that release and the shoddy Live at the Gibus Club) and some more traditional reggae material, such as Ari's rasta polemic "Kill Them With Love," which originally appeared on her solo record of last year. We were also treated to some rather odd statements, such as the one that the Slits "invented New Music." I think Schoenberg and Stravinsky, among others, might have had a thing or two to say about that, but we'll let that pass for now.

But don't you let them pass :

Not so much a live show as an event,
the remaining dates for Slits Tour 2006,
an uproarious and almost dangerously wholesome good-time:

11.16 Thu - San Diego, California. The Casbah
11.17 Fri - Los Angeles, California. Troubadour
11.18 Sat - San Francisco, California. Mezzanine
11.19 Sun - Oakland, California. The Uptown
11.20 Mon - Eureka, California. Synapsis
11.21 Tue - Portland, Oregon. Dante's
11.22 Wed - Seattle, Washington. El Corazon
11.26 Sun - Chicago, Illinois. Logan Square Auditorium

In the meantime, treat yourself to two songs from their undervalued sophomore album:

"Earthbeat"
"Animal Space / Spacier"

Cross-posted with S&M 'cuz it's like that.

Hot Chip at The Mod Club, Toronto, November 6th 2006

2006-11-07T12:53:00.000-08:00

Hot Chip will put you down, under the ground

Setlist:
Keep Fallin'
Shake A Fist*
And I Was A Boy From School
Out At The Pictures*
Just Like We (Breakdown)
Colours
Hold On*
Graceland*
Beach Party
No Fit State

Encore:
Careful
Over And Over

*As far as I know/can tell, new songs.

As at least one other member of our little collective could tell you, Hot Chip rock surprisingly hard live. Well, "rock" isn't quite the right word. As a band that have made a lovely, restrained album that's one of my favourites of the year for emotional rather than ass-shaking reasons I had some small amount of trepidation about them seeing them live, and not just because it meant I was going to have to finish off a 50% essay after going a full night without sleep (concerts in Toronto should end earlier, or else the bus back to Guelph should leave later).

I mean, The Warning is one of those records that really makes me want to never meet Alexis Taylor and Joe Goddard. Not because they don't seem nice, they do (and I covet Joe's "Extended Version" t-shirt from the show), but because in my experience meeting people who have made music that "really, like, speaks to me" is disappointing. There's a necessary combination of specficity and vagueness needed for this kind of effect; sure, I love Hot Chip partly because they write about/from the perspective of people like me, but also because there's enough room in the songs that I can interpret them to be really personal.

As a result many of my favourite tracks on the album - "So Glad To See You," "The Warning," "Won't Wash," "Colours" (along with "Crap Kraft Dinner" from Coming On Strong, on which more in a minute) - are on the quieter, more reflective side. As you can see from the setlist below, that is not a side the band indulged much last Monday, but Pete and I still walked away having loved it more than pretty much any comparable concert we'd been to in the past few years (I mean, yes, the Mountain Goats were pretty amazing, but that's a serious case of apples and oranges).

On this show, at least, the six-person band (five in the front playing some combination of keyboard/device/percussion/drum/guitar, and one full time drummer in the back) seemed determined to provoke the maximum amount of dancing possible. The older tracks, which initially seemed kind of limp when I downloaded Coming On Strong (which I now have to buy; there used to be a used copy available down the street from my building, but as I found out last night it's been sold, naturally), were ferocious (I've had that sing-songy refrain from "Keep Fallin'" in my head all day!), and the material from The Warning was ecstatic. Let's not even get into Taylor interpolating "oh you've got blue eyes, oh you've got green eyes, oh you've got grey eyes" into the mid-section of the I-didn't-even-realize-how-much-I-wanted-to-hear-it "No Fit State," which I had just decided on the way up to Toronto that afternoon was maybe my new favourite song of theirs. You could have knocked me over with a feather. And after so much sweat and euphoria never have I been in a crowd so desperate for just one particular song the band had been teasing us with all night, and when they finally played "Over And Over" it detonated like a bomb. By the end, my voice was sore, my legs were sore, I was covered in sweat, and I'd gone from loving an album to loving a band.

And the new material! Usually these are the dull moments of a live show, but all of them were great, particularly the duo of "Hold On" and "Graceland," the latter of which sounded like a polyrhythmic sunrise. The comment in the review of The Warning comparing them to New Order is almost painfully apposite at this point, not because Hot Chip sound like them, but because if there is an analogy and these songs get aired in anything approaching their live versions we are headed for "Temptation" territory, in terms of quality. And although I'd never connected the two, Hot Chip and New Order are actually fairly similar; rock bands (kinda) playing electronic dance music (kinda), lyrics equally loved and derided for both their goofiness and their devastatingly precise emotional command, artfully opaque narrator/singers. I am fantastically excited at what comes next, and given that so far Coming On Strong seems to me to have more great moments than Movement (although I think the latter is a bit underrated; nothing as incredible as "Crap Kraft Dinner," but still), I'm possibly even more excited about Hot Chip. Of course, it helps that unlike New Order I get to be a fan as the band happens, so to speak.

The way the band fucked with the arrangements was also incredibly impressive, turning "Beach Party" into almost-Krautrock, "Just Like We (Breakdown)" into something vaguely akin to high-grade Underworld, "Careful" into an even more storming version of itself. Unlike most concerts even songs I know and love took a little while to identify, and the mass cheers when we did were kind of inspiring. The band actually had impressive stage presence, walking the fine line between cool and dorky exceedingly well.

I don't really have a greater point to make here, other than Hot Chip are awesome and I expect great things from them. But if they're coming your way, you kind of owe it to yourself to check them out. I admit that in addition to this sort of show it'd be neat to see them doing a more musically sedate set (dropping something like "Look After Me" into the middle of this show wouldn't have made a bit of sense), but it's the collision between the raucous and the emotional, as with New Order, that makes the band great. If they put out a live album (which they absolutely should), "No Fit State" alone should prove that amply.

"You Look So Absurd / You Look So Obscene / Oh"

2006-10-31T20:19:00.000-08:00

Yeah, so I ain't exactly painting the town tonight. But as a frustrated pre-teen rap fan trapped in a frustrated little goth boy trapped in a frustrated rapidly aging I don't know what all, Halloween has to be the best holiday, like, ever and shit.

Wow, that made no sense... neither does this:

Ministry - "Everyday Is Halloween"

For those of you playing the home version of the game, that's the early, gay, synthpop Ministry when Al Jourgensen spells his name Alain and affects a totally bad Brit accent. Before he started doing smack and mucking about with animal carcasses and all that.

Right.

Time to go get more bourbon.

For the love of Christ, please have a safe and joyous Holiday and stuff.

Cross-posted with S&M 'cuz I'm a lazy git.

They call me new money, say I have no class

2006-10-24T10:00:00.000-07:00

The Saturday Club presents... Instant Gratification #01: Me and My Friends Are Classier Than You and Your Friends

Tracklist:

01 Gwen Stefani - What You Waiting For (Jacques Lu Cont Remix)
02 Ada - Eve
03 Jurgen Pappe - So Weit Wie Noch Nie
04 United State of Electronica - Umbrella of Love (Ron Curty Mix)
05 Sophie Ellis Bextor - Mixed Up World
06 Bloc Party - Banquet (Phones Disco Edit)
07 Coldplay - Clocks (Royksopp's Trembling Heart Remix)
08 Electric Six - Future Is In The Future
09 M.I.A. vs Mylo - U.R.A.Paris (Erik Pearson's Remix)
10 The Knife - Heartbeats
11 Architecture In Helsinki - Like A Call (Two4K's THX Mix)
12 Kylie Minogue - Slow
13 Nina Simone - Little Girl Blue (Postal Service Remix)

So here is the mix I promised last week, the first Instant Gratification. This happened because about... well, probably a year ago now, I started thinking about how I'd rather lost touch with what was going on in electronic music. See, I used to be all down with all the DJs and all, initially as a result of all that big beat Fatboy Slim/Chemical Brothers deal that went down in the late '90s, but later on due to all the good house music that was coming out round that time. Eventually the dance music focus shifted to electro and bastard pop and glitch, which all ended up acting as a a sort of musical torniquet; I lost my patience for broad, sprawling seven minute throbs and became only interested in the short term satisfaction offered by artists like Peaches and Miss Kittin and Chicks On Speed. The bottom fell out of electro pretty quickly, and with plenty of interesting things going on in indie rock and hip hop and modern rock and pop and country and well, everything else, I began to pay less interest in the Euro-geeks-making-blipping-noises scene. Everyone was talking about micro-house, but that genre didn't really have a mainstream arm operating as an easy entry point the way drum 'n' bass or house or trance or any previous genre had, so I didn't really pay much attention to it. I always thought that I should, but that was a responsibility I never followed up on.

Eventually, though, I slsked a bunch of Kompakt releases and resolved to put together a compilation aimed at redressing my recent neglect of electronic music. it didn't actually work; my short attention span quickly piled in all this other stuff I'd been listening to, like Jacques Lu Cont remixes and Scandinavian pop and all this other stuff, and it turned into the compilation posted above. I also decided that the set would work best mixed into an hour of continuous music, all proper club style, and... never one for expedience, I ended up doing that just this past week.

So, OK, it isn't by any means the micro house primer I intended it to be. If anything, it's a mix of vaguely trendy acts that if you weren't paying much attention at all, you might still think were real cool. For this mix, I recommend playing it when you bring all your friends over for one of those fancy-ass dinner party get-togethers I know all you kids are into, one of those dos where you want music that doesn't overpower the conversation, but isn't so bland that you can't convincingly pretend you're listening to it if you need to get away from someone who needs to tell you about their latest property investments in Arizona or something.

Since it is a year later, I should probably make another bid at putting together a proper electronic revisitation, but in all likelihood, it will just turn out like this one again. I can't say I'd mind that too much, though; this has some absolutely fantastic songs on it. I don't think I'll ever get sick of "Mixed Up World" or the incredibly underrated "Future Is In The Future." And if I should ever want to genuinely check out what the dance DJs are doing, I know I can always start reading Stylus' Beatz By The Pound, and its accompanying Podcast.

Until that day comes though, I'll just keep putting together comps like this. In the future though, I may be thinking about tempo as well as awesomeness, which will mean less awkward moments like the super-speed version of The Knife's "Heartbeats" with which this mix is saddled.

Cross posted with Screw Rock 'n' Roll

1,800 Words on Emo

2006-10-16T16:34:00.000-07:00

So Ian invited me to join the club a few weeks ago, but I'm only getting around to making my inaugural post now, as I nurse a beer and eagerly await the Junior Boys show at the Empty Bottle tonight. (I've even broken out my soft black pinstripe trousers and am strongly considering mascara.) Anyway, howdy. I'm not sure yet who are our readers are, but I suspect that most of my fellow bloggers already know me as an occasional contributor to Stylus, so I won't bother with an overly long intro. I'm John, I live in Chicago, and my musical preferences mostly encompass pop, indie, and dance/electronic, with specific weaknesses for stylish synths, finger-picked guitar, and bossanova rhythms -- among plenty of other things, of course. (Right now, I'm listening to an Italo Disco comp a friend burned for me.)

Speaking of mascara, though, I've been thinking about emo lately, and part of what I've been thinking is how the genre even got to the point where I can start a sentence about it with "speaking of mascara." An acquaintance in the UK (read: some guy on ILX) reports using the word "emo" in an article he wrote for the Daily Mail, which prompted the following query from his editor: "I wonder if we need to spell this out for our readers ... would neo-goth in brackets do it?" And I don't want to be all "back in my day" about this, but back in my day (I went to college in the late '90s) emo and goth were completely different subcultures; if emo had a dress code, it was geek glasses and thrift-store Izods and no makeup for boys whatsoever. It was also fairly underground, thriving without constant MTV exposure and before ringer tees were made widely available at Urban Outfitters.

I'm not invested enough in the scene to seriously bemoan this shift, though I did cringe when I learned that "emo" has recently become a noun, a new category of high-school students to compete for cafeteria space with jocks, preps, skaters, and burnouts. It's just that most of the emo I heard in college wasn't really up my alley. If you'd asked me in 1998 to name a prototypical emo band, I'd have said either Cap'n Jazz or the Promise Ring, mostly because that's what my roommate listened to. At the time, the Promise Ring just sounded like uninspired indie, but Cap'n Jazz was pretty much intolerable: sloppy, lo-fi, and deliberately abrasive, with guttural, off-key vocals. Both bands were on Jade Tree Records, and over the next couple of years, several other bands on the label's roster -- Jets to Brazil, Joan of Arc, and Pedro the Lion -- contributed to my sense of what emo was all about. The summer after my sophomore year, my friend Chris and I went on a road trip to Cleveland, and along the way, I made up the chorus of an emo song, which was pretty much just me yelping "O-HIIIIII-O" in a wounded voice: this, years before Hawthorne Heights's "Ohio is for Lovers."

During my senior year, I befriended a freshman named Jason Hendrix who wore small, theadbare t-shirts and old corduroys. He always appeared restless and eager: he rocked from side to side when standing, and when he found out I was into music, he quickly said, "You heard of this band Braid? What about Cursive? You like American Football?" I was embarrassed to admit I'd heard of none of them but wasn't too surprised once he explained they could all be loosely considered emo, and so I kind of dismissed the recommendations. At that point, I was still bopping along to Stereolab's (still underrated) Cobra and Phases Group. But Jason was a persuasive kid, and smart and hilarious, too, and so not long after I graduated, he'd made me a fan of Modest Mouse and Death Cab for Cutie and Dismemberment Plan, none of which were really super-emo but close enough, right? (First time I heard "Ice of Boston" was in his car, and I said "Whoa, what's this?" and he grinned and said, "I knew you'd be into it." Why, because I liked it when Malkmus rapped, too?) Braid and Cursive still seemed too difficult -- my reaction to the latter's Domestica, which Jason eagerly bought the day it came out, was mostly bafflement -- but American Football's self-titled record ended up as the first bona fide emo album I embraced.

Mike Kinsella of American Football

Or was it? I mean, I called it emo because Mike Kinsella's voice was raw and wandered in pitch, and the rhythms were mathy and jagged, and there was even this chord change that still strikes me as an emo chord change, even when it's used by, like, Múm (on "Green Grass of Tunnel") -- which is really just a "I" chord dropping down to a "vi," and I don't even know why it resonates as specifically emo for me. But it also doesn't take a genius to guess that the reason I took to American Football was that it was never too aggressive -- the vocals strained but never screamed, the guitars twinkled in clean arpeggios instead of erupting in shards of noise -- and that a fair bit of it could aptly be called post-rock. ("Stay Home," for instance, is entirely in 7/4 and features a three-minute-plus instrumental intro.) By definition, emo is supposed to be a fairly pussy genre, but few bands can get away with a fucking trumpet solo.

[Download: American Football, "Honestly?"]

Which is fine. No one agrees on what counts as emo, anyway. The guys who listened to Rites of Spring in 1985 sneered at Sunny Day Real Estate in 1995 (what, too melodic?), and the Sunny Day fans probably look aghast at Taking Back Sunday now. Death Cab only took on the emo sobriquet once Seth Cohen's name-drop of the band on The O.C. dovetailed with Dashboard Confessional's appearance on the cover of SPIN; whereas before, they were just another wussy indie outfit from the Northwest (early reviews referenced Built to Spill and Quasi), now they were spearheading a movement.

So I didn't have a whole lot of patience when certain emo-aligned friends of mine complained about Jimmy Eat World's Bleed American. It wasn't even their major-label debut, but I guess "The Middle" got played a whole lot more on KROQ than "Lucky Denver Mint" did, so that made it bad. The thing is, I don't even remember a whole lot of Clarity from the one time I heard it, while "The Middle" is easily one of the best mainstream rock singles of this decade: an efficient pop confection with tight, tension-building guitars and an invigorating sing-along chorus. (To be fair, I recently listened to "Lucky Denver Mint," and it's pretty great, too.)

I'm assuming what turned a lot of fans off when emo became a buzzword in the early part of this decade is that a lot of it was indebted to pop-punk. The intersection isn't so odd: the chief demographic of both genres is misunderstood 17-year-old boys. The difference is that pop-punk channels its misfit status into dumb, cheery adolescent pranksterism (cf. Blink-182), whereas emo kids, who read books, usually sulk before they explode. If there was an antecedent for this merger, it was probably Weezer, who rocked the airwaves in the mid-1990s with a crop of silly, upbeat singles before turning more introspective on their sophomore effort. Neither pop-punk nor emo exactly, Pinkerton still may have paved the way for streamlined alt-rock that wasn't afraid to wear its insecure heart on its sleeve. (Not that I was aware of it at the time. It wasn't until late college, when Weezer became the default band to put on at the end of the party, and people closed their eyes and nodded meaningfully, did I realize they were respected as much as they were, and not the three-hit wonder I'd previously considered them to be.)

With the exception of "The Middle," though, most of the pop-punk that's now considered emo hasn't done much for me. I was recently browsing through my girlfriend's CD collection and found an "Emo Mix" that a friend had made her, but my initial intrigue turned to tedium as I took it home and had to sit through five largely uncompelling Saves the Day songs. However, I'm fascinated by this new wave of bands that preserve the moodiness of '90s emo but make its melodrama more overtly theatrical: see the pale-faced altar-based pageantry in the videos for both My Chemical Romance's "Helena" and Panic! At the Disco's "I Write Sins Not Tragedies." Scholars of the '80s revival might also note that these bands' eyelinered affectations harken back to the Cure, while their predilection for long song titles (e.g., Fall Out Boy's "A Little Less 'Sixteen Candles,' A Little More Touch Me) might make even Morrissey blush. But it's precisely this ambitiousness that draws my curiosity, even as the songs flail under their own weight and wind up sounding ridiculous and immature. That my 19-year-old sports-buff cousin has lyrics by Fueled by Ramen bands plastered all over the quotes section of his Facebook profile, instead of the bland platitudes of Jack Johnson, is somehow encouraging.

San Diego's The North Atlantic

Then again, how does this trend benefit the emo band that's working within the traditional 1990s indie-rock model? The North Atlantic describes itself as "a staggering blend of New York post-punk, Chicago noise rock, and San Diego punk" (the band is based in the latter city), although the hallmarks of mid-period emo are all over Wires in the Walls, a 2003 release that was recently reissued by We Put Out Records (a sub-division of Warner). There's the full-throated drunken yelling, the stuttering guitar assault, the convulsive stop-and-start beat that must nearly cause whiplash in excited fans. There's even, in "Scientist Girl," a crunch-pop song that finds the band at its catchiest, the kind of lingering bitterness about failed relationships that's led many critics to theorize about emo's latent misogyny (although I don't think this band is guilty of such). But while Panic! At the Disco acolytes can stomach 14-word song titles, it's not clear whether they'll gravitate toward 7-minute epics like The North Atlantic's "Atmosphere vs. the Dogs of Dawn" -- in which furious, sweat-soaked choruses crash against sparse, drawn-out verses -- or be able to follow the band's shift to skeletal dance-punk in the middle of "Swallows Air."

Because of this versatility, I generally consider The North Atlantic to be a cut above its peers, but since this post pretty much encapsulates most of what I know about emo, I'm not always entirely confident of that claim. I'm mostly just happy that they've gotten signed, since I've been following them since their very first show more than six years ago. See the lead singer up there on the left, the one looking all serious at his guitar? That's Jason Hendrix.

[Download: The North Atlantic, "Scientist Girl"]

Show Me What You Got

2006-10-16T12:31:00.000-07:00

We've all probably refrained from commenting on it because pretty much everything that can be said about it already has been said about it on every other blog that exists on internet.

It's not a *bad* single... It's just not a particularly "good" Jay-Z single. It's lyrically poor, uses recycled samples that could've been mixed better probably, and, well, apparently Jay just isn't interesting enough to carry a song by himself anymore. He's great for throwing in a line or 2 here and there in other peoples' songs, but when you're Jay-Fucking-Z and start being reduced to a level on par with Paul Wall... er...

And to top it all off, we have a video now. And if you're a fan of NASCAR...

well........

Yellin' over tracks like a motherfuckin' DJ

2006-10-15T22:19:00.000-07:00

The Saturday Club presents... Instant Gratification 0.9: Milk and Water

Tracklist:
01 Gwen Stefani - Hollaback Girl
02 Ciara ft. Chamillionaire - Get Up
03 Nelly Furtado - Do It
04 Cam'ron - Weekend Girl
05 Fall Out Boy - Dance Dance
06 Fat Joe ft. Lil' Wayne - Make It Rain
07 Jay-Z - Show Me What You Got

I've been doing some mixes lately, some screw, some not, and I'll be putting up some of those later in the week, but I thought I'd give y'all this in the interim. I was just messing around with a loop made out of the Ciara track, and then threw some other stuff together on it. Some of it's pretty sloppy, because I wasn't even intending to turn it into a mix or anything, but hey, it turned out OK. It's entirely posible that I think it's good only because I'm so self obsessed that I like near anything that I come up with, but while there's a bit of that involved, you know these are all good songs anyways. So, here you go, a preliminary shot preceding the first real Instant Gratification mix. It's been a long time, I shouldn't have left you...

Cross posted with Screw Rock 'n' Roll

Growing Old Disgracefully

2006-10-12T19:20:00.000-07:00

The genial lie that most self-appointed cultural historians would love you to swallow is that young, "hungry" artists make vibrant art but, as time goes on, they become mellow, gentrified parodies of their former selves. While I won't dispute this on the whole, I do think that the overall picture is a bit more complicated. Notwithstanding what the ravages of time can do to ones' very vocal chords, some of our greatest singer-songwriters (though I loathe that term) manage to wrangle some of their greatest work while in the latter portion of their careers - I'm thinking Waits, Cohen (up until his recent Sharon Robinson-curated downturn), Prince, etc. All have had "comebacks" ranging from moderate to formidable, all suggest the distinct possibility that the most interesting things they have to say may be, as yet, unspoken.

For years Caetano Veloso, he of the unassailable early cred as pioneering Brasilian composer and interpreter, has been drifting slowly but surely in the direction of mediocre balladry. Recent albums for Elektra Nonesuch have borne witness to a lush, orchestrated, inarguably gorgeous direction that lacked any of the grit and vibrancy of his early work. Veloso's last record, the "tribute to American songwriters" A Foreign Sound cast him in a ghastly Rod Stewart-esque mould - sure, he covered "Come As You Are," but the results were more Paul Anka than anything else. Stacked up against the usual suspects from the Great American SongbookTM and all yer Tropicalia begins to look like so much flash in the pan.

So it was with a great deal of trepidation that I turned to Ce, Veloso's outright tribute to my old archnemesis Bob Dylan. Fortunately, it's also his "rock" record - though there's a great deal more "roll" here than anything else.

Son Moreno may be partly to blame for injecting the proceedings with a youthful energy, but I refuse to believe that this isn't a Caetano show first and foremost. His singing, for one, hasn't been this effortlessly edgy in years - listen to "Rocks," which, umm... rocks. Elsewhere, the familiar smoothie of recent efforts is still in evidence - "Nao Me Arrependo," which opens with the same three notes as "Walk on the Wild Side," is more of a stroll, and trannies are conspicuous only in their absence. But there's also a yearning here, a jazz-derived opening of the throat that Veloso's avoided since his days on Verve.

The rest will have to wait upon a future, actual review of this record, as I've just received word that such a thing is pending... for now - let us revel in the fact that it's never too late to learn some new tricks... well, maybe it is. But you can always relearn some old ones. And in the end, that's more than enough to ask of those who have given so much of themselves to be cultural institutions rather than mere artists.

Here's to being old as fuck! (Clink)

(Cross posted with S & M.)

"Oh, those sun-kissed French girls..."

2006-10-04T20:09:00.000-07:00

The Rapture's first album missed me entirely. I danced whenever I heard "House of Jealous Lovers" but avoided the rest, assuming that it was rank hipster jive (post-apocalyptic white kids steal post-punk dance moves, yawn). Pieces of the People We Love, however, is a first-rate record, by far the best synthesis of 1981 sounds and post-Strokes attitudinal pop I've heard. "'The Devil" and "Get Myself Into It" conjure the gay-disco vibe with sturdier beats and tunes than I've heard the Scissor Sisters proffer; the former has an especially ominous swagger, like a shrieking cat-beast had figured out how to grope the rhythm of PiL's "Poptones" and lick ugly Mekons guitars. "First Gear" features the year's silliest refrain ("My-my-my-my-my-my-my Mustang Ford!") and the sexiest car-as-sex metaphor since R. Kelly's "Ignition." Luke Jenner's words may be confusing, but he's not confused; while he doesn't cop to after-party wisdom (the kind you know you'll forget as soon as the hangover ebbs) he keeps enough of his wits about him to recognize that one party's as good as another. Accepting the ephemerality of scenester fame positions him closer to the Prince side of the continuum than, say, former mentor James Murphy's: the cops are going to break things up soon, so let's not waste time on hamhanded irony (listen to LCD Soundsystem's "Losing My Edge" again).

It's almost impossible to parse Jenner's sexuality, which is probably how he wants it. What is admirable is the band's commitment to self-reliance, and not the kind infused by mere "positivity" either (except on the closer and sole dud "Live in Sunshine," a compendium of greeting-card maxims set to a raga melody evoking the Chemical Brothers circa 1999). Take "Down For So Long":

Then an analyst said, "Why fret finality?"
Cuz lookin' up ain't nothing lookin' down on me.

When, four albums after their debut, New Order released their own manifesto ("All The Way") it swung with a loose, earned ferocity. Their career trajectory suggests a model worthy of study: how to take drugs, record brilliant music, and maintain your savoir faire. As for The Rapture, their dreams may go up their noses by the next album but after careful examination of the evidence The Rapture are (a) aware of it; (b) will make all the guest lists anyway, even if they can afford the DFA and Danger Mouse just once.

(crossposted with A Grand Illusion)

They even made me show ID to get inside of Sam's Town

2006-10-04T11:40:00.000-07:00

The Killers, Sam's Town and "When You Were Young" (which always makes me think of Whipping Boy's fine "When We Were Young") seem to have been much discussed recently, which means this is the perfect time for me to finally get around to posting this. Back when the single hit the Jukebox reviews were... "mixed" is too kind a word, and I was probably in the 5-6 camp myself. The funky funky Jonathan Bradley, though, saw its genius immediately and gave it a 10, something I'd now agree with. What follows is a discussion we had near the beginning of September about the band via gmail...

Ian Mathers: Okay, I give, "When You Were Young" is one of the best singles of the year. Have you heard the album yet? I haven't, but this makes me wonder just how good it's going to be.

Jonathan Bradley: Proving once again that good music criticism relies on repetition, not strength of rhetoric! :)

I mean, hey, glad to see you've come around. I really want to believe that Sam's Town (which I haven't heard - I don't think it's leaked) will be this incredible, monster success that will blow everyone away and establish the Killers as a fantastically awesome band, but I keep remind myself that if I'd only heard "Mr. Brightside," I probably would have expected Hot Fuss to be amazing as well, rather than a record with good singles and stacks of filler. I want to be a fan of the Killers, you know? They want to be a big rock band and act all dumb and grow goofy moustaches and make Statements, and that sort of thing is fun, and maybe Sam's Town will make them as good a band musically as they are publicity-wise. Or at least see a whole lot of critics saying "we always kind of liked these guys" like they did after Green Day made American Idiot.

IM: Agreed. Especially as one of those who said that about American Idiot. What's interesting to me is that on my recent listens [of "When You Were Young"] I can finally hear the Springsteen influence Flowers has talked about in the past. I think that being a genuine outcast as a teen (fat Mormon > the kind of "geek" every other guy in a band talks about having been - video games and comic books are cool now, kids) affects his songwriting in interesting ways. I do think it makes him better, and it's why he can toss in lines like " You sit there in your heartache / Waiting on some beautiful boy to / To save you from your old ways" without being emo (in the negative sense). What's crucial about Flowers is that you can tell he's never referring to himself when he writes about "beautiful boy"s, and while he's bitter about that fact (about his ugliness/awkwardness, however illusory/self-created they are), he's also very self-aware about it. This is, of course, why "Mr. Brightside" was one of the best written pop hits of the last couple of years.

JB: Sorry it took me so long to write you back - I've been way too busy this past week. But I didn't want to ignore your last email re: "When You Were Young," because I thought it was definitely interesting, and rung real true. The whole Flowers as Mormon outcast is an idea I really like, and yeah - you are right. I hadn't considered it before, but you're right on with Flowers never referring to himself when he sings about "beautiful boys." Somehow I'd missed the... self-loathing, I guess, in the Killers' music. It seems so often that in his songs Flowers is an observer - he's like the platonic friend of the popular girl, who's living vicariously through her life. Sort of. I think I'm not quite on target with this, but, I mean - "Somebody Told Me" is about him hearing about events second hand, the "Mr. Brightside" video did something I think is pretty rare even amongst the most whiny bands, that is, it showed the frontman of the band not getting the girl, not triumphing. Even when she goes out to watch the fireworks with him, he only gets a moment before she goes back inside to be with the asshole. And then, of course, there's "When You Were Young," with Brandon as offsider and confidant rather than leading man and saviour.

PS: Were you the one that put Monkey Swallows The Universe up on the Stylus board, and if so - where on earth did these guys come from? I've only listened to the first couple tracks so far, but... I think I'm really liking this. They need a new name though.

IM: Yep, that was me with MStU. The name comes from a TV show, I guess? I admit it put me off as well, but after hearing "22" and "Wallow" and "Sheffield Shanty" I came around. Interesting that you'd mention them, because I think one of the reasons I love The Bright Shallows is because Nat Johnson writes from what I think is a pretty similar perspective to Flowers - although both of them are perfectly physically attractive human beings they usually are coming from the perspective of the shunned/rejected/ignored party (see: "Chicken Fat Waltz", "Wallow", "You Yesterday", etc, etc). I think there's definitely some self-loathing in Flowers (and perhaps in Johnson as well, although in both cases we should be wary of assuming an identity between the singer's actual self and the narrator of their songs...).

-----

We then trail off into talking about how good the new Mountain Goats and Jason Molina records are (in both of our cases, Get Lonely and Let Me Go Let Me Go Let Me Go are likely to make our 2006 top tens, so you know they're good...).

I think Anthony and Alfred's discussion of "When You Were Young" is pretty on the mark, as I'd bet Alfred's review is (although I have yet to listen to my copy of the album yet; Jonathan had already told me that "
Unofficially (ie, pending further listening), this appears to be no better than Hot Fuss"), but I want to take a minute to defend two of the more universally mocked parts of "When You Were Young."

First and foremost, the lines "We're burning down the highway skyline / On the back of a hurricane / That started turning / When you were young" are getting way, way too much flack. When Bloc Party's "The Pioneers" came out I don't gales of laughter from the line "shaking hands with the hurricane," and "burning" only doesn't make sense if you think Flowers means literally on fire, which seems a bit odd. They're burning down the highway (i.e. moving quite quickly) riding a hurricane. If you don't like it because it's kind of over the top and absurd, fair enough - but I've read plenty of criticism centered around the fact that apparently "burning" and "hurricane" are not allowed to be in the same sentence. And I love the second half of those lines - the image of childhood as a hurricane, something both powerfully on your side (they're riding it, after all), but also potentially destructive and out of control (it's a friggin' hurricane), as something that stays with you despite you thinking it might have exhausted its grip over your life by the time you're an adult is one that I love.*

Then there's "Every once in a little while" - I would never attempt to defend it, as it is most definitely a horrible grammatical crime; I just want to point out that until I read Anthony's post I hadn't noticed it, because Flowers sings it well enough that it's effective. Here is where I'd refer to Alfred's point that Flowers has a massive emotional range to make up for his limited technical one...

*And, I think, this is a reading that's pretty sympathetic to the Brandon Flowers I've read about in interviews, the one who clearly has never quite gotten over being a shy, ugly wallflower with unpopular beliefs and tastes. This, if anything, is where Flowers reminds me of Morrissey; both are or were attractive young men who cannot help of themselves as unappealing. Although Morrissey always seemed to think so on personal/ideological(?)/metaphysical grounds, whereas I think Flowers is more haunted by the fact that he was actually physically ugly, or at least I assume - I've never seen pictures from the period of time he's referred to.

Only in Amerikkka

2006-10-02T08:48:00.000-07:00

I'm devoid of much witty, clever or insightful to say on this fine morning - having successfully relocated and semi-successfully unpacked, I now (of course) am sick as a worthless dog, this morning in particular feeling like I have throat cancer.

But I've been away too long, so enough griping - here's the goods!

Eazy-E ft. Blood of Abraham - Niggaz N' Jews

Body Count - Cop Killer

And a quick poll :

Is or is not Big Daddy Kane's "Pimpin' Ain't Easy" the most pointlessly offensive song of the pre-90's rap era? I'm thinking of, in particular the little sequence of lines right here - "the Big Daddy law is anti-faggot / that means no homosexuality / what's in my pants will make you see reality" but, believe me there's plenty to be horrified by in the 4 minutes and 9 seconds of this little nugget. "Let me up off this virgin before I come," much?

Lady K! Presents: Good Vibrations

2006-09-29T14:44:00.000-07:00

no explanation needed.

DOWNLOAD

1. Bugz In The Attic - Don't Stop The Music
2. Tiga - (Far From) Home
3. Slope - Want'Choo Longa feat. Ovasoul 7 (12" edit)
4. Eddie Kendricks - Date With The Rain
5. Ennio Morricone - L'Estasi Dell Oro (Bandini Remix)
6. Radio Citizen - Everything (feat. Bajka)
7. Alice Smith - Love Endeavour (Freeform Five's Freeform Reform)
8. Hot Chip - Over And Over
9. Gorillaz - Dare (Soulwax Remix)
10. Under the Influence of Giants - Mama's Room (Weird Science mix)
11. Spektrum - May Day (DJ T. remix)
12. Spank Rock - Backyard Betty
13. Busdriver - Kill Your Employer (Recreational Paranoia Is The Sport Of Now)
14. Scissor Sisters - I Don't Feel Like Dancing (Linus Loves Vocal Mix)
15. Klaxons - Gravity's Rainbow (Van She Remix)
16. In Flagranti - Reputation Or Notoriety
17. DJ Hell - Let No Man (Busy P Stotter Mix)
18. The Gossip - Standing In The Way Of Control (Soulwax Nite Version)

Christine Fellows/The Mountain Goats at Lee's Palace, September 19th 2006

2006-09-25T23:51:00.000-07:00

This was my second time seeing John Darnielle and Peter Hughes rip it up live, and between being the Best Man at a wedding this weekend and sundry other things, I am woefully late in writing about it. So late, in fact, that Carl Wilson has already done a masterful job of discussing the concert, here, in a fantastic post that covers pretty much everything that I was thinking of talking about (although my set list is more complete than his - I was front row centre, scribbling down each song as it came on, and only the opening ditty I still can't track down (possibly a new one?), although Darnielle graciously gave us the title). I incredibly glad to run into Wilson's post while trying to track down the actual title of the Franklin Bruno song that the Goats covered fantastically during the encore because he bothered to remember the between song banter more than I had, and John Darnielle's stage presence is worth paying $15 for all by itself. The songs were amazing, and astoundingly done - I'd seen him do "Lion's Teeth" where the chorus just drops into nothing before, but seeing him work similar magic with the more simpatico moments on Get Lonely took my breath away.

Yes, like the guy shouting for old songs I could have done with some more history (I would kill to hear "The Young Thousands" live), but the Mountain Goats last two records are arguably highlights of Darnielle's whole career, so I don't begrudge his focus on them at all. And of course, songs I thought were merely good on record, like "Wild Sage" and "In The Hidden Places" were revealed as absolute highlights, one of the funnest parts of seeing these guys live.

Unlike Wilson, however, I have a little more space, and I'd like to mention Christine Fellows. Playing keyboards and with a band composed of a drummer, a cellist/zylophonist and a full-time percussionist who was actually valuable, she put on a fantastic show; I'd never heard her before, although I think she's played Guelph quite a bit, and I bought her latest album Paper Anniversary as soon as the show ended. Darnielle dedicated "Get Lonely" to her as a sign of the high esteem he holds her in (as Wilson notes, he mentioned her as one "whose boots I don't consider myself worthy to polish"), and although I'm familiar enough with the songs to speak convincingly or even coherently about them, after her set I can see where he's coming from. As the unconventional band setup indicates, she wasn't exactly rocking out, but her songs managed to marry a level of sonic detail you don't often get with live music with the kind of energy you can only really find there. The only thing disappointing about her performance was that her cellist didn't re-emerge when the Mountain Goats played "Dilaudid" (and even then their acoustic-and-bass rendition was a lot of fun).

Set list:
"Design Your Own Container Garden"
New Monster Avenue
Moon Over Goldsboro
You Or Your Memory
Dance Music
Dilaudid
Get Lonely
Wild Sage
Going To Cleveland
In The Hidden Places
Game Shows Touch Our Lives
Cobra Tattoo
Lion's Teeth
This Year

Encore:
No Children
Houseguest (Nothing Painted Blue cover)

Second Encore:
The Best Ever Death Metal Band In Denton

(cross-posted to the Turntable)

Hard work and songcraft mitigate assholism

2006-09-20T20:49:00.000-07:00

As Mallory knows, I'm fond of Sting's The Soul Cages, the only solo album on which his poetic pretensions find appropriate, pretty settings. Since this is Sting he's incapable of considering that ponderous subjects may be more interesting if treated with levity. The endless closer "When The Angels Fall' falls and falls, searching for a melody, anything to justify itself and its employment of worn tropes (and yet a feisty deejay played this at my junior prom, to my delight if not my date's). Elsewhere his crack band injects a tricky time signature on "Jeremiah Blues (Part 1)" as predictable as their paymaster's wit and even stoops to power chords on the epic (there's three songs which qualify as such; remember this is Sting), broken-kneed shuffle of the title track.

Yet there's a sense in which Sting's commitment to the myth of his upbringing (destitute Newcastle shipbuilder dies to give birth to the once and future King of Pain) frees him from sullying his genius on the creation of hits and such. At least half of TSC's tracks allude to his childhood, and each improves on its predecessor, as if he was a writer discarding incomplete drafts. He works damn hard here, and while the strain shows the results are often impressive. The album's lone hit, "All This Time" is one of the oddest Top Fivers ever: a striking mandolin hook ("Losing My Religion," the year's other mandolin hit, was three months away) and Sting's mastery of conversational cadences; he unfurls those polysyllabic sentences ("Fussin' and flappin' in priestly black like a murder of crows") as if Paul Simon had never existed. "Why Should I Cry For You?" should get more publicity as his most ambiguous ballad since "Every Breath You Take." Sounding a little like Peter Gabriel's "In Your Eyes" and studded with unexpected filigrees, it shows a rueful, gentler Sting, whose dusky croon weighs each word like he can't understand why he should feel conflicted. The sailor-far-from-home metaphor mitigates the assholism he's surprisingly eager to accept (""I loved you in my fashion"). It's a touching performance, justifying the song's inclusion in a couple of C-90's I've compiled over the years.

From its doctor's-office cover art to Ottmar Liebert homage/pastiche, The Soul Cages is estimable middlebrow art. It's the sort of album your cousin Ralph will zealously defend at a Christmas party, provoking from you a condescending smirk but no rebuttal.

(crosslisted on agrandillusion.com)

Wishing to be the friction in your jeans

2006-09-18T11:13:00.000-07:00

Taylor Swift - Tim McGraw

We've got Taylor Swift's song up in the Jukebox tomorrow night (check Tuesday's Stylus), and this is a rare instance where the Jukebox introduces me to a track I really quite like. Usually the tracks I give high scores to are ones I am already familiar with; since we work on actual release and charting dates rather than Internet leaks, I'm usually already familiar with the song if it's the sort of thing I'm likely to like. Of course, country is my blindspot, the one area of popular music that I'm always behind the times on, so it shouldn't be surprising that if the Jukebox is going to be giving me something new to listen to, it's going to be a country track.

This track is called "Tim McGraw," but I don't think he's that vital lyrically to the song. The idea is that Swift's favorite singer is Tim McGraw, so when the boy she's had a fling with and moved on from hears a McGraw track, Swift hopes he thinks of her. Really, she could have substituted any artist with a three syllable name - "When you think Eminem"; "When you think Fall Out Boy"; "When you think John Coltrane" - etc.

However, she did choose Tim McGraw, which is something I kind of like. See, Swift is 16 years old (for lazy writers, Wikipedia counts as fact checking), so it makes a neat kind of sense that if she's going to namedrop an artist she likes, it'll be someone recent like Tim McGraw. Namedropping artists is a fairly common theme in pop music since pretty much forever, and if we're not talking about dis tracks or humorous pop cultural references (Eminem, Adam Green, etc.), artists usually like to sing about artists who have meant a lot to them. And because an artist who you've spent much of your life listening to is the type to stick around in your mind for a long time, the artists who get namedropped tend to be a fair bit older than the artist doing the namedropping. Don McLean sung about Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper; Biggie rapped about Salt 'n' Pepa and Heavy D; The Replacements shouted out Alex Chilton. It's the same reason artists cover older songs more often than newer songs.

But when you're only 16 years old, a current artist like Tim McGraw can have been part of your life long enough that it makes sense to sing about him in a song. It would make no sense for Swift to be singing about Willie Nelson or Johnny Cash, or hell, even Garth Brooks. She would have been about two years old when Garth Brooks was at his biggest. So when McGraw is looking for a musical touchstone to color the experience of her summer night with a guy in a broke-down Chevy, she sings what she knows. She sings what was probably on the radio at the time.

The worst thing rock music ever got itself involved in was creating history and heroes to be reverent about. In today's rock environment, you're not allowed to contemplate the idea that you could be better than Bob Dylan, or the Rolling Stones or the Beatles or the Beach Boys, or even Nirvana. Evan McGarvey said something similar about New York hip hop in his Stylus review of T.I.'s King, and suggested that the fertile creativity of the South is somewhat due to that region's music community being not "as fascinated with the dead artists of yore." (He's right - why do you think the most interesting acts in New York are the man who said "if I'm not better than B.I.G., I'm the closest one," and Dipset, who act like people who are better than them don't exist?)

Rock acts are cripplingly fascinated with the dead artists of yore. And when the entire rock culture is built on this idea that there are a certain number of heroes (and there always are, no matter what type of rock you play - indie kids are not alllowed to think they could best the Pixies or Sonic Youth for instance), it's going to shut down an artist's ambition and creativity. That's why I like hearing an artist like Swift, who operates in such a contemporary environment, that her number one historical reference is a guy on the radio right now. With no history to revere, she can do whatever she wants.

Something Corporate - Konstantine

Something Corporate isn't quite so young as Taylor Swift, but they're close. In fact, frontman Andrew McMahon is 11 months older than I am (which makes him 24), but still - that ain't old. And this song, "Konstantine," comes from a 2003 Japanese-only release called Songs For Silent Movies (Something Corporate, as a vaguely emo band, are contractually obliged to make their best tracks only available on obscure EPs.) So he was 20 when this track was recorded, and younger than that when he wrote it, and goddamn, you can tell. Something Corporate are juvenile, and I'm not talking juvenile like Blink-182, I'm saying they have an immature outlook on life. The way they talk about things is quite clearly not anything close to adult.

That works out wonderfully and disastrously for them in about a 50/50 ratio. Seriously, I like some Something Corporate tracks, but they have recorded some terrible, terrible shit. On their first record they have a track called "If U C Jordan," which is not only a nauseatingly horrible exuberant take on midtempo pop, it has quite possibly the dumbest lyrics ever commited to tape. The sort of thing where you can't wait for the singer to get the shit smacked out of him, as he almost undoubtedly will. McMahon tells us that "Jordan" is about "this kid who just don't like [him]/And that's a solid fact." Check this verse and ask yourself how a human being who's been on this earth for two decades could write something like it:

You tried to fight me down at Tyler's beach/And man I think that's great/You nearly cried and said/to yell at you like I did at all the girls/You drove home real quick, did you make it in time to masturbate?/There's one too many of you in this world

Damn, a guy who's been on this earth one decade shouldn't be writing that shit.

But the flipside is, McMahon has a knack of pulling some brilliant stuff out at times, to the extent that you wonder how this could be the same guy who penned a track called "If I Was A Terrorist (I'd Bomb Your Graduation)." "Konstantine" is a perfect example of the talent he apparently has hiding somewhere. It's just as immature, but in that great irrational, impassioned, limitless opportunity type way. "Konstantine" is about... shit, everything. It's about McMahon, and his girl Konstantine ("why I can spell confusion with a "K" and I can like it") and him disappointing Konstantine, and the two of them talking about the future, and McMahon's dreams of becoming a rock star, and drinking and nudity. And McMahon is so struck by the importance of all this stuff that he makes "Konstantine" nine minutes long! And we're not talking about big proggy instrumental interludes; the whole thing is McMahon singing, at first solo with a piano, then over a gorgeous throbbing bass and then the whole band comes in, but they stay somewhat restrained. Only McMahon's vocal goes over the top. It's a stupid idea, terribly audacious, but it works, simply because McMahon believes that this track is his masterpiece, and he delivers it as if it is the greatest and most meaningful song ever released. Maybe it's not, that but it's still pretty fantastic.

And somewhere in the middle of the thing, he sings "it's to Jimmy Eat World and those nights in my car/When the first star you see may not be a star," a reference to Jimmy Eat World's track "For Me This Is Heaven," from the 1999 album Clarity. Like Taylor Swift, Andrew McMahon is so young that his musical reference points don't extend back much beyond who he's listening to right now. In this case, Jimmy Eat World. He has heard older music of course - the band does a truly horrible cover of Bob Dylan's "Just Like A Woman," - but the fact remains, when the emotional big guns had to come out, McMahon drew on Jim Adkins, not Robert Zimmerman.

When other artists have a similar lack or reverence for people like Dylan, maybe we'll start getting somewhere.

Buy Something Corporate's Songs For Silent Movies from Insound

To call for hands of above to lean on

2006-09-12T07:11:00.000-07:00

(Jesus, people - I'm starting grad school, there is no way I have enough free time to be the one updating the FF7. Step up!)

So, with Scala & Kolacny Brothers' absolutely gorgeous choral version of Heartbeats (the original of which is presented above, for your viewing/hearing pleasure) I have no heard five versions of what I continue to insist should be the first standard of the 21st Century. Every version, whether it's a reworking by the Dreijers themselves or a cover, has been amazing. The lyrics always stay the same (and always remain fairly cryptic), but the range of emotional tone between the differing versions is a wonder and a joy. And yes, it's a favourite of mine, but there are plenty of favourites of mine I don't think of this way (and this isn't even my favourite Knife track, that'd be something off of Silent Shout, today probably "Marble House," which also has a much better video); there's something about the durability of "Heartbeats," it's ability to stand reworking, that makes it even better.

And of course, if you know of any versions other than the original, the Knife' live reworking, the Rex the Dog remix, the Jose Gonzales cover, or Scala's version... please, please tell me.

Lady K! Presents: White-Collar Booty Grooves!

2006-09-07T11:35:00.000-07:00

The latest in the "Lady K! Presents" series...

The mix itself is pretty typical for a Lady K! mixtape. It's mainly comprised of funk and hip hop (surprise surprise!), with a few big hits, a few tracks you've never heard, a few old favorites of mine, a few songs that you people will think are boring, and a few WTFAREYOUSMOKINGCRACK?!?!s. The idea for this particular theme struck me one day while blaring the Ice-T track and wondering what my coworkers would look like getting down to it-- and well... that's a pretty hilarious thought when your brain is being wrung out at the office. So I ran with it.

And thus-- White-Collar Booty-Grooves exists! enjoy!

[[DOWNLOAD]]

1. Paris Combo - Fibre De Verre
2. The Five Corners Quintet - Case Study
3. Marlena Shaw - California Soul
4. Kashmere Stage Band - Ain't No Sunshine (Live)
5. Soil & Pimp Sessions - Waltz For Goddess
6. Stark Reality - Dreams/Comrades
7. Jaylib - Champion Sound
8. Ice-T - Girls LGBNAF
9. Jibbs - Chain Hang Low
10. DJ BC - When The Meth Comes Marching In
11. Soul Excitement - Stay Together
12. Deaf In The Family - Mr. Blue Sky feat. Scavone
13. Wilson Simonal - I'll Never Fall In Love Again
14. Treva Whateva - Singalong
15. Funkmaster Flex - Here We Go (Run DMC)
16. Pitbull, Ying Yang Twins, Lil Jon - Bojangles (DJ Benzi Remix)
17. Mac Mall - Go Dumb
18. Beyoncé - Get Me Bodied
19. Phil Flowers - I've Got to Move
20. Justin Timberlake - Damn Girl (feat. Will.I.Am)
21. Tami Lynn - Mojo Hanna
22. Broad Street Gang - 12th Street Man
23. Charles Wright and the Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band - Your Love (means everything to me)
24. Focus 3 - 10,000 Years Behind My Mind

We take more drugs than a touring funk band, sing it!

2006-09-05T20:25:00.000-07:00

This is why we miss Mclusky:

Note the evil grin on Andy Falkous' face after the first chorus. I wonder how many of those teenage girls in the audience went on to embrace The Rock?

I'd rather listen to your instrumentals

2006-09-05T08:16:00.000-07:00

When bad rappers happen to good beats.

The Beastie Boys - An Open Letter To NYC

OK, I like the Beastie Boys, they were my first favourite rap act, but To The 5 Boroughs had them sounding old and tired and utterly disconnected from contemporary hip hop. And that can’t be excused with tired old “Beasties are real while all the pop-rappers are fake!” arguments – the Beastie Boys just sounded like they had no business rapping at that point in time.

But when I came back to the album a year or so later (OK, the mp3s I had on my computer from the album), I noticed how incredible the beat for “An Open Letter To NYC” is. A few scratched samples give way to a loop from the Dead Boys' "Sonic Reducer," and the track takes on this nervy, claustrophobic air that has nothing to do with the lyrics the Beasties lay over it. But the thing is, it so easily could have - the whole thing is about post 9/11 New York, and while they may not want to create a response to the attacks that sounds terrified, the tense electronics and paranoid punk is certainly appropriate for 21st Century America.

But instead of reflecting this, the Beasties spout corny hippy couplets about how damn great it is that everyone in New York gets along, even though they're from all over the world. Which is naive and unrealistic as hell as well as gratingly upbeat; they don't need to turn their city into a liberal Eden to pay homage to it, but that's what they attempt to do. It makes something like Arrested Development (the group, not the show) look bleakly nihilistic. And the result is the "love letter" to their city sounds insincere, a collection of well-intentioned bumper sticker slogans that probably should have "The More You Know!" appended to the end of each one.

It doesn't help, either, that the Beasties haven't switched up their vocal style since Licenced To Ill, but instead have let it degenerate. The one time they do break out of that chant-a-line-and-then-on-the-last-word-SHOUT style that makes each song sound like a museum piece is the staggered delivery on the line "We're doing fine on the 1 and 9 line," and it shows what the song could have been, but it's only a glimpse. Juelz Santana is only on the hook of Cam'ron and Jay-Z's "Welcome To New York City," a far superior post-9/11 anthem, but his contribution alone is superior to this song.

Who would sound better on this?
If we stick with the New York theme, Nas or Mobb Deep would have killed this, delivering a performance cagey enough to go with the beat. Then again, Young Jeezy never fails to deliver on the steely, claustrophobic front, so I wouldn't mind hearing this rebranded as "An Open Letter to ATL," or something.

Jurassic 5 - Radio

It should be pretty obvious that Jurassic 5 working with Nas-and-others producer Salaam Remi would be a bad idea, but I kind of thought it could have worked, if only because Jurassic 5's turn as rap's Dave Matthews Band was becoming increasingly boring (full disclosure: I used to like these guys, and still don't mind them at times. Despite the dumb chorus, "What's Golden" was a pretty neat single, and "Thin Line" would have predicted the current Nelly Furtado singles run if the "Get Ur Freak On" and "Turn Off The Lights" remixes hadn't done it already). The way I figured it, the injection of a bit of hard-ass testosterone into their college-kid jams could only do good.

Well, I was sort of right. Salaam Remi really brings it, turning out the sort of cold, sparse banger that better rappers process into hot shit. It kind of nods to that whole "back in the day"-fetishism that Jurassic 5 built their career on in that the bells are vaguely reminiscent of that "Take Me To The Mardi Gras" sample that got such play in the '80s on things like LL's "Rock The Bells," and Run-DMC's "Peter Piper," but even so, the production aesthetic is one more modern than Jurassic 5 have ever been involved with. Abandoning stubborn regressivism is a positive move as far as I'm concerned, and I hoped something good would come of it, even though it'd be too much to expect Jurassic 5 to listen to some rap since 1989 and work on updating their anachronistic flow - honestly, kids, cut out that '80s revival flow. Y'all are acting like the rap version of Rennaisance Fair geeks, and damn near just as irritating. You can be into medieval history without running round in costume and you can be into early rappers without trying to be one.

So, strike one - J5 are still acting like they haven't heard a new rapper in the past 20 years. But even worse than the way they're saying it is what they're saying. Now, right now you may be thinking, "Hold up, Jonathan, you listen to coke-rap all the time and you're down with that. And you want to front on Jurassic 5 for criticizing Clear Channel?" And to that I say, why the fuck are you paying that much attention to what I say? but more pertinently: I only care about what Jurassic 5 is rapping about because they're making it an issue. From the opening declaration that they're putting "real hip hop on the radio," J5's subject matter is an issue; by announcing their self-congratulatory piety to the world, they are required to back it up. And good lord do they fail dismally. It's like a tightrope walk the way they stay so carefully on the talking points - their '80s fashion, their '80s idols, their good behaviour. (Possibly the most offensive part is that they say they never "indulged" in the street life, as if every ghetto in America is filled with people who'd be living nice in the suburbs right now if they only had a bit more self control.)

Look, I don't care what you say in your songs. Rap about murder, drugs, whatever. But if you're telling me that your songs are "real hip hop" and then you serve up this weak-ass shit, then, yeah, I'm going to say your subject matter needs some tweaking. And the thing is, other rappers have made music worth listening to on exactly the same tip J5 are on. Dead Prez's "Hip Hop" has the same righteous attitude toward radio rap that Jurassic does, but Dead Prez at least have some fire in their voices when they call these rappers out. And on the '80s rap nostalgia, Biggie's "Juicy" bests every Jurassic 5 track ever made, mostly because Biggie makes his nostalgia relevant by connecting it to the present. Jurassic 5 tries to do this, but it's a weak effort - ending each verse with "now my song's rockin on the radio" is entirely unconvincing, both because it sounds tagged on and because no self-respecing radio station would be playing this.

Who would sound better on this?

Remi usually produces New York rappers, but I want to hear some Southerners on this; the Dirty has a track record of laying hypnotic flow over this sort of stripped-back banger with excellent results. So, my wishlist for the next Southern Smoke is for UGK on this beat, maybe Field Mob, Chamillionaire, T.I. - anyone who can just lay something tight down over those bells. Maybe make it about dealing.

Rick Ross - Push It

This guy over here on our left is Rick Ross. Rick Ross is the founder and Executive Director of the Rick A. Ross Institute. He is an internationally known expert regarding destructive cults, controversial groups and movements. Since 1982 he has been studying, researching and responding to the problems often posed by such groups or movements. Dude could probably make a better song out of "Push It" than the guy from Miami with the Bin Laden beard. I daresay rap about destructive cults would be pretty great, too.

"Push It," by Rick Ross (the Miami guy, not our expert friend here) is a dismal waste of a good beat. If you read Stylus, you might notice that I gave it an [8] in this week's Singles Jukebox, which is testament only to how much I love the beat. Every time I hear this track, which is a hell of a lot, I can only think "Fuck Rick Ross. Fuck that fucking fat sack of shit hard with that white on white ride he can't shut up about."

Here are three different takes on Ross' Port Of Miami, and while they are all wildly divergent in their opinions, I agree with each of them. I speculated before it came out that in spite of his lack of talent, Ross could make an enjoyable record, but I can't really say he lived up to my hopes for him. In the Stylus review, Evan McGarvey described the albums thrust as "the city of Miami as gluttonous, deadly, sun-drenched metropolis," which would had have made for a pretty compelling slice of schlock if Ross wasn't so incompetent, and the best songs on the record do capture that Miami (though since I've never been there I can't speak for its accuracy). With the amount of money poured into the album, all Ross had to was get out of the way, let his big booming voice do the work, say something dumb every now and then and not fuck it up. He only manages to do that half the time.

Still, at the end of the year "Hustlin'" is going to be rubbing shoulder with "When You Were Young," "Wolf Like Me" and "What You Know" (good year for songs starting with W) at the top of my singles list. "Push It," though, won't, because Ross doesn't deliver. There aren't as many stupid quotations - "I'm building the dream with elevators in it" and "that fat girl would grow into Oprah" are about as good as it gets, and after the weak opening line, Ross sounds like he's constantly struggling to stay afloat. It's even worse in the context of the album, because it's the opening track, and it should be a stomping, glossy monster with a delivery triumphant enough to match, the sort of thing to get us primed for Rick Rawssss the bawssss. But instead the beat shoves Ross into the spotlight and he shits himself. Not to mention that it comes after a skit featuring a bizzarro news report from WCCC, whose reporters mispronounce "confiscated" and think the thrust of a drug-seizure story is how "the cocaine would have made drug dealers millions of dollars."

Who would sound better on this?

Do you have to ask? Killa Cam was made for production like this - ridiculous, over-the-top samples, tinkling keys, soaring vocals, blatant dealing references. Let's just hope "Push It" becomes a hit, so the next Dipset mixtape will feature Jim Jones, Freeky Zeeky, Juelz Santana and Cam'ron Giles doing what they do best over the type of beat they were born to do it over.

Buy the Beastie Boys' To The 5 Boroughs from Insound

Buy Jurassic 5's Feedback from Insound

Buy Rick Ross' Port of Miami from Insound

I was going for an Adam and the Ants kinda retro thing. Did you just say 'blouse'?

2006-09-01T09:03:00.000-07:00

Some By Sea - (These) Actors and Actresses, They'll All Die Soon.

Some By Sea - The Winter Rush.

"There's something about the Pacific Northwest. Perhaps it's being overshadowed by towering evergreens that instills a modest reverence for beauty. Perhaps it's the evergreens remaining ever green under the gusts of snow which keeps hope alive. Perhaps it's the cradling of cold coast and the Rocky wall. Whatever the causes, the Pacific Northwest has played womb to some of the most skyward, heart-wrenching, and gentle pop music of recent history."

So said Brent Dicrescenzo back in 2000 in his review of Death Cab For Cutie's We Have The Facts and We're Voting Yes, which is probably my favorite record by my favorite band in the world. I think there are a lot of people who don't like Brent Dicrescenzo as a writer; his high-concept creative writing reviews were the sort of thing that made a lot of people despise Pitchfork, but the paragraph I've quoted above demonstrates the talent he has. No fancy gimmicks, no time-travelling George-Washington-listens-to-Supergrass cuteness, just a simple description of my favorite place in the world. What he says is not only an accurate portrayal of that part of the world, but his musical analysis is right on, too. I first read that review about 5 years ago, and when I went to Western Washington University in 2004, I realized how accurate DiCrescenzo was. That insight is the reason why I've still got his last ever 'Fork review saved on my computer, an ill-advised but brilliant Gonzo take on the Beastie Boys To The 5 Boroughs that no longer exists in original form on the Pitchfork archives due to the numerous entirely fictional claims it makes on interactions he had with various people associated with the Beastie Boys. Journalistically stupid, of course, but great reading.

Anyway, this post is about Washington State and Some By Sea, not my liking of Mr. DiCrescenzo's writing. In his review, an odd time capsule from a period when Death Cab were another really good indie act rather than Seth Cohen's Favorite Band and The Guys That Are At The Vanguard Of A New Indie Niche Market, DiCrescenzo pretty much nails not only DCFC, but the musical direction of a good chunk of bands from that region.

The trademarks of the Northwest sound continue to be cherubic eunuchs on vocals, crisp production, slow rollercoaster melodies, and tales of crushes and the crushed. Built to Spill, Elliott Smith, Quasi, Sunny Day Real Estate, and even Modest Mouse and Caustic Resin, to some extent, all revolve around this central axis of Northwestern pop. In two short albums, Death Cab for Cutie have firmly established a stylistic nexus from which all of these bands spoke. Like history in reverse, We Have the Facts and We're Voting Yes documents the proto-Northwest sound as a footnote to a decade of tranquilizing rock.

I love that sound, which is lucky, because like the guys says, the Pacific Northwest is loaded with acts like that. Perhaps it could be argued that Seattle is the reason we have the New Indie Niche Market, except I'd need to think that through a bit more extensively before I commit to it as a theory. Anyway, I'm getting distracted. Some By Sea is a band who, it turns out, broke up a few months ago, a fact I only found out tonight while I was looking up some links in preparation for this post. It's a real shame, because I really liked these guys. They're one more out of hundreds or thousands of groups in the Seattle area who all make this kind of indie pop that sounds almost exactly like the photograph illustrating this post, but luckily, Some By Sea did it really well. Gorgeous melodies, crisp production, great lyrics that chronicle the lives of 20-something college kids as effectively as all those UK voice-of-the-yoof acts cover Chav culture (or whatever) or your favorite rapper describes the hood, except the indie acts do it such an unassuming manner that no-one notices.

I discovered Some By Sea through the brother of a very good friend back in WA - he (the brother, whose name is Tomo) was in another great, now-defunct Seattle indie band, and I guess his band was friends with Some By Sea (they get a shout out in the liner notes, anyways). On my second last day in America, I told Tomo that I wanted to buy his band's record, because I love what they did, and he not only refused to let me pay for it, but gave me Some By Sea's album, too. I guess he figured I'd like it, which was an accurate surmisal. Thanks, Tomo!

That album, which these tracks come from, is called Get Off The Ground If You're Scared, and I strongly recommend it. You can buy it here, if you like. I'm not sure how much money they'd be making on it, because the liner notes look hand made, and are absolutely gorgeous as a result; thick card with cut out windows and little sketches accompanying the lyrics all on expensive-feeling paper. Any profit margin is probably absorbed by packaging costs.

Some By Sea also have a second album, called On Fire! (Igloo), which you can get here, and although I haven't heard it yet, I'm going to order it, so if it's good, maybe I'll put some more stuff up. It's a real shame actually - this one came out on Sidecho records, and though I've never heard of them, it seemed to be a step up for the band, one which they unfortunately not do get to capitalize on. Anyways, check out the track, check out Some By Sea's MySpace, and enjoy your musical excursion to the Pacific Northwest, wherever you are.

P.S. The title is a complete non-sequitur. This sounds nothing like Adam and/or the Ants

Recap of VMA's

2006-09-01T09:01:00.000-07:00

For those of us who don't have cable...

Further proof that Beyonce is probably the greatest performer out there at the moment:

And our boy JT, following in at a close second, given a slightly sharp start on what's got to be one of the hardest songs to find your pitch on at the beginning EVER... I think he more than makes up for the pitch problem with the wonderfully godawful pseudo-attempt at beat boxing he does at the end though. Yes, definitely.

Justin: his future is sound

2006-08-31T15:08:00.000-07:00

As I duly note the hosannas piled like fruit at Justin Timberlake's feet, let me posit FutureSex/LoveSound as Timberlake's Modern Times: an album that refines the achievements of its predecessor, made by a star whose anemic theosophy hardened not long after his thirteenth birthday, who prefers to beg/borrow idioms, sounds, tropes, production doohickeys, and melodies over crafting something world-historic – who may in fact be smarter than we critics because he realizes that begging and borrowing, when refracted through his starpower, becomes lustrous and thus stranger. Like Dylan, Justin knows just enough about how human beings interact to use their language but is incapable of transcending his/their limitations (lots of losing-my-ways, what-goes-around-comes-arounds, and until-the-end-of-times here), which is, I suppose all we want from a star.

Frankly I don't get the complaints that Justin's a cipher without Timbaland; since I figured that JT's a zero anyway he had nothing to lose. But "Señorita" and "Rock Your Body" on 2002's Justified didn't sound like anything the Neptunes had done before, and I give Justin the credit; their toddler-funk and Justin's pseudo-lubriciousness mated and produced a handful of delightful children (if you doubt me, relisten to the latest Nelly Furtado album and you'll note the difference between a client and a collaborator). Divining ways of fucking with his producers' sonic signatures by plagiarizing primary sources is his finest gift. He croons over a Linn drum programmed with Princely precision in "Until the End of Time," forces Snoop to inject languid raps in the loping "Lady Cabdriver"-wannabe "Pose," and overdubs himself singing in his lower register for the magnificent title track. Most happily for all concerned: not a single Brian McKnight horror.

Justin wants us all to love him (and according to this many of his skeptics already do), despite the disparity between his ambitions and the results. He's got great ears and a big attention span though, both of which distinguish him from the other graduates of the Teen Pop Class of '99. The smugness which once made him distasteful has turned into a self-confidence winning enough to win the surly likes of Jim DeRogatis.

(crossposted with A Grand Illusion)

Chocolate All Up In Yo Peanut Butter

2006-08-30T18:53:00.000-07:00

Our feared & revered leader recently made her opinions clear on the new records by one Justin Timberlake and one Beyonce Knowles. Notwithstanding the fact that I am an insider because my first psuedo-girlfriend had the surname Knowles (OK, not in any way related, buuuut), I agree with much of what she said. JT's record is a bit long for me, and it has that queasy virtue/vice of running with the same handful of synth sounds throughout, but it's clearly the better of the two albums. That being said, what would happen if we made... one great album out of two so-so ones? What would happen if we alternated nothing but the best tracks from both records to make one hot-as-a-grill (and I ain't talkin' bout Paul Wall) summer R&Bpop LP... Hmm...

Perhaps it would be like this :

JuBeTi - Future Beyonce Love Day

(Motown afficionados will note the oh-so-clever reference)

Tracklisting:

1. Justin Timberlake - FutureSex/LoveSounds
2. Beyonce - Deja Vu (ft. Jay-Z)
3. Justin Timberlake - Damn Girl (ft. Will.I.Am)
4. Beyonce - Upgrade U (ft. Jay-Z)
5. Justin Timberlake - Sexy Ladies
6. Beyonce - Ring the Alarm
7. Justin Timberlake - SexyBack (ft. Timbaland)
8. Beyonce - Get Me Bodied (Remix)
9. Justin Timberlake - LoveStoned/I Think She Knows

Purists will note that the 5th track is a splice of the 3rd track from JT's album, with the unnecessary slow shit hacked off. Also, the 8th track is the more-unhinged version found in the "bonus" section of B'Day, freed from the obnoxious bullshit that surrounds it.

Fitter, Hyphier

2006-08-28T22:06:00.000-07:00

Via, of all things, Something Awful, we have Skeet Spirit, an instrumental crunk tribute to Radiohead. This brings together two of the FunkyFunky 7's favourite loves/punching bags, and although I have yet to listen to it (I am downloading as I type) I am sure that it will be much enjoyed whether trainwreck or surprisingly good.

Somebody who isn't tired can outline the sociological interest inherent in this kind of project, or the legal issues, or even the aesthetic ones; I'm just waiting to hear "No Sizzurprises" and "Creepin' (On Dat Ass)" with glee.

London (What!) Bridge (Yeah!)

2006-08-27T20:12:00.000-07:00

A bit from the crunk playbook.

A hot track can be crafted from as little as a knocking 808 and a couple calls to violence:

"Fuck them pussy ass niggas"
"I don't give a fuck"

And a couple call to arms:

What!
Yeah!

Lil Jon shows here that he can make a fucking banger with little more than a nursery rhyme, dental floss, and a turnip.

"Home Boxing Bloopers with Bob Saget and Yog-Sothoth"

2006-08-26T02:34:00.000-07:00

Could they have gotten a worse picture?

Salon, that online outlet for liberals 1) summarizing books either for or against a creative God, or 2) interviewing authors who write books either for or against a creative God, just gave us a change of pace with its article "My Dream TV Show". A series of heads including St. Mark Cuban, James Frey (I just saw him on Deadspin! His agent is totally a scepter'd lion!), and Phil Rosenthal weigh in on that very subject.

But the true gift is John Darnielle's. For those of you who've caught the connect to Jakarta with some regularity, it won't surprise you to know all five of his ideas involve boxing. They're pretty awesome. I kind of hope Get Lonely is pretty awesome. But then, I keep hoping everyone's albums are pretty awesome.

Also, Ian prompted, and I deliver: 128 kbps (forgot to change the defaults) renderings of the couple songs I talked about last post:

ELO, "Turn to Stone"
The Mamas & The Papas, "Strange Young Girls"

still/stone

2006-08-25T15:05:00.000-07:00

I'd like to talk about some white people for a second. If I could. On an impulse, roommate Chad bought a record player yesterday; last night, we had Baby's First LP Scouring Session. His thing, I believe, is vocal pop. The Beach Boys, cabaret Queen, and the Mamas and the Papas.

That's one of the records he bought. The big single is "I Saw Her Again," something I've been enjoying incrementally more upon each hearing for the last fifteen years. Just a great, intricate pop song. John Phillips has the girls imitate cellos, each pair of voices fights the other for dominance, and the shudder in the line "you know I wanna lay down and die": as Beatlesque as one can get while actually referencing the Kinks.

But the most interesting thing on the album is the following song, "Strange Young Girls". It's basically an olde school English folk song about blank girls on the Strip. Each member takes a mournful line, followed by the whole group in homophony. It's pretty contrary to Phillips' concept for the group (all that contrapuntal shit covering up for lazy songwriting), but it completely makes sense. It's California dreaming on ketamine.

Fuck if I know who plays the spidery lead guitar, as three guitarists are credited on the ass end of the sleeve, including "John Phillips, the acknowledged leader". Regardless, the setup is blessedly simple: a bass, an acoustic guitar, and that guitar (when it's not up front, it's tapping ominously along the surface). Really fucks up the flow of the album, which would be a problem if 1) The Mamas and the Papas were a stone classic, or 2) if it were some schizo gem, in which case "Strange Young Girls" would be doing a favor to the album's reputation. Neither is happening here.

Oh, and as I was telling Alfred, last week I had the overwhelming urge to hear ELO's "Turn to Stone". So I bought it on iTunes. And it was the best decision I've made since the test for chlamydia. I'ma jack off to the Vice letters section now.

Work it out!

2006-08-24T06:25:00.000-07:00

Since the FF7 somehow keeps building upon a single recurring theme (and that theme is motherfucking BEYONCÉ), I'd like to take this opportunity to expound upon something I mentioned that pertains to her a while back .

I've never seen the Austin Powers Goldmember movie. I think I've picked up bits and pieces over the years, but I've never just sat down and watched it from start to finish. But a single from our beloved Beyoncé was dropped thanks to that flick, and it was titled "Work it Out". And it was ok... er... good, even. An interesting (and movie appropriate, I assume!) sounding tune, the thin funky (somewhat annoyingly flat) beat and fake horns bump and grind against eachother whilst Beyoncé sings sweetly and slowly about being lonely and horny until she gets the opportunity to tackle and bump and grind against her mans. She doesn't really exercise her vocal capabilities too much here; on (rare) occassion, she lets herself go-- her passionate throaty screaming penetrates the empty void that the minimal beats create, and, well, ends up way overpowering the whole joint and sounds pretty out of place. But despite, who DOESN'T want to hear a song by Beyoncé where she sings and screams about sexxin'? NOBODY.

Beyoncé - Work It Out

Then, there is Speedometer.

Speedometer is pretty much the UK's answer to Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings-- just slightly older and whiter, and, well, European. If you don't know what that comparison means, just think funky horns, guitars, sassy soul-queenesque vocals, and drum breaks that make you want to dance until your heels dig themselves inches into the ground below you. THAT-- is Speedometer. Speedometer has made their mark on the neo-funk scene by touring constantly for the bulk of the 21st century. One day I guess they decided that it would be fun, or hilariously kitschy even(?), to cover this Beyoncé song and play it at their shows. And I'm not sure if it's just the overall nature of the beast (i.e. THA FUNK), or if these guys are just THAT DAMN GOOD, but I would take this cover of Beyoncé's song ANY DAY over the original. They sped the song up a good bit, added rip-roaring horns and some funkyfunky rhythms and beats. And the SINGER! Ria Currie! That girl can FUCKING SING. She's dynamic! Sultry! And in control! I *dare* say, that in this case, given the nature of the song, etc, she pulls off a MUCH better vocal performance than our dear Beyoncé. Blasphemous, I know. BUT... Check it out.

Speedometer - Work It Out

So. The real question here is... if Beyoncé had had a proper musical backing for her vocals, meaning she had the opportunity to sing along to a rip roaring funk burner instead of a... uh... laid back faux-porn soundtrack... Would the end result have been any better?

Someone, thankfully, has already had the balls to answer that for us...

And the answer is... no! Beyoncé sounds like a chipmunk when she sings over tha funk!

And for posterity's sake:

So, When Exactly Did Mediocre Become the New Good?

2006-08-22T09:32:00.000-07:00

Today is an important day in music history.

Today is the day that OutKast release Idlewild, an album that many will purchase, few will understand, and almost no one will care about when the big ball drops on 2007.

It's been a pretty good year for mixed bags getting praised as startling successes, but the loving-up almost universally expected and accorded to Idlewild is puzzling at best. The Guardian and NME can be forgiven 'cuz they're British, but the normally reliable Rob Sheffield? FOUR STARS?

Come on, people.

Don't get me wrong. When the lid on my coffin is slowly lowered, Aquemini will be one of the ten records held in my steely grasp. Despite "Mamacita." But Idlewild is nothing more than mediocre.

Is it eccentric? Yeah, sure. It's crazy, man. But it ain't "Crazy in Love." For once, with the possible exception of single #2 "Morris Brown," it's the first time OutKast have been weird in such a predictable fashion. Honestly, when I heard that it would be hip-hop with swing/30's-era touches, I expected PRECISELY the record that's being sold in stores as of today. Even the '71 Funkadelic cast-off that serves as coda here didn't surprise, if only 'cuz the boys have been avowed worshippers of the Clinton Empire since day one, a fact made ridiculously apparent by ATLiens comic-book display.

But all I wanna know is, since when were we supposed to settle for this? Is rap dead? It can't be - shit regenerates like bubonic plague. But I refuse to accept T.I. and the despicable Lil' Wayne as the new saviours, just as I resisted the onrush of backpacker bullshit post-'98. I like some Lupe Fiasco allright, but his whole act seems like it was pre-manufactured to be served in a can. And Kanye West can eat a bag of dicks. Good producer, "Jesus Walks" aside. Lousy rapper. End of story.

Where is our hero, people? Who will save us now?

Must we be forced to accept the half-assed musings of an act who once littered the landscape with cast-off gems like "In Due Time" - a throwaway soundtrack cut better than anything on Idlewild?

Someone please come with salvation. I refuse to believe that my suburban love for Run-DMC and LL Cool J should end so direly.

Homoerotica and its discontents

2006-08-21T18:02:00.000-07:00

Beyond their penchant for horrorshow tabloid headlines, the Libertines move me because they find a lyrical and vocal correlative for the motormouthed preemptory insistence of their guitars. The dialogue -- between singers Carl Barat and the hapless, hopeless Pete Doherty -- is jagged and demotic, exactly what one would expect from old friends/combatants. Or lovers. The ease with which Barat and Doherty allow for this possibility opens their music; it positions them fully in the canon. Consider Mick Jagger and Keith Richards' yelped harmonies in "Dead Flowers," animated by a mutual delight in tweaking the song's country-blues tropes yet buoyed by the tacit admission that, snarky or not, having a laugh at these tropes' expense keeps the needle and the spoon at arms' length for another four minutes.

The Libertines' 2004 single "Can't Stand Me Now" is a soiled transcript of what happens when two men realize that their jokes no longer amuse, that irony isn't enough anymore, that there yet remains an appetite neither music, friendship, nor even the needle and the spoon can sate. The song itself teeters over chaos: in its opening salvo one guitar keeps a nervous rhythm while another picks high, yearning notes, before trading places -- all this before Barat and Doherty dramatize their revolting melodrama. Barat is matter-of-fact and inexorable: "An ending fitting for the start/you twist and tore our love apart"; Doherty, at first a live embodiment of why the bromides of Narcotis Anonymous are as injurious as the drugs ("you shut me out and blamed it on the brown"), kicks back with a chorus admission so strangled and free of irony that it can make you gasp. By shouting "You can't stand me NOW!" he's inverting a myriad love songs in which the lover can't grasp why the beloved finds him undesirable; and when Barat confirms his partner's conclusion with an improvised "No," it's as chilling a moment as any I've heard in recent years. Where else can Doherty go beyond self-abasement? He'll take his partner anywhere he wants to go, he'll try because there's no worse they can do -- he'll burgle his own room if necessary. It's not a stretch to imagine that the love-which-dare-not-speak-its-name nibbles at the frayed edges of Doherty's heart; it's not hard to postulate that Doherty found the Fisher-Price homoerotica of the Who, the Stones, the Kinks, the Buzzcocks, the Smiths, and Suede a disgusting sham unequal to the dilemma of what to do when the person you want most in the world is your male best friend. There he is sharing your microphone: the only awareness that your improvised lyrics might have parallels beyond the fictive is in the frightened wet in his eyes.

All this serves as a preface to the Dirty Pretty Things' Waterloo to Anywhere. I've only heard it once; it sounds a lot like the Libertines, without Doherty's guitar, harmonies, and subtext. Perhaps Doherty hopes that Barat's perfectly honorable impulse to carry on will suceed -- surely one of the many reasons why he continues to destroy himself is his inability to cope with this news anyway.

I Am the Ron Weasley of the Funky Funky 7

2006-08-21T10:13:00.000-07:00

Though I'm not sure that makes sense - but I aspire to be / teh Hermione.

So, it ain't about rap (Houston or otherwise) it ain't about indie and it ain't a mashup.

What is it? It's Archie motherfuckin' Shepp, bitches! Recognize!

So, who is he? Well, he's the missing link between John Coltrane and Joe Henderson. He's one of the unheralded greats of the tenor sax. He's the man who brought some of the rawest politics to jazz in the 60's but didn't forget how to swing, bop, or rock the gutbucket blues. In short, he might be the man for me this side of Coleman Hawkins, and those who know me know that's sayin' a lot.

I really know next to nothing about jazz, but I listen to a lot of it and I love a wide range of it, so, though I might not be able to articulate in a Down Beat type-o-way, I can at least say this much: what made Shepp so great is that same indefinable combination of progressive blowing with pure swing that informed his predecessors - from Ben Webster, to Hawkins, to 'Trane (well, up until his space cadet days), who was his immediate mentor. Better yet, Shepp had a real lust for and understanding of R&B and blues that many of his fellow hard-blowing tenors lacked - so when Albert Ayler made a record like New Grass, it (undeservedly) brought the heavy hand of critics down upon it, but Shepp's own Attica Blues was heralded almost immediately as a classic, despite its deviation from the reedy freneticism of his earlier Impulse sides.

So, from his 1968 mini-classic The Way Ahead, we've got the monster (hehe) "Frankenstein," swingin' like Hawkins after too much Bourbon & Coke (not a-Cola), beltin' like Bing Crosby after coming home to the wife and blowin' like that shit did in the wind.

And from the mega-classic Attica Blues, may I present - "Blues for Brother George Jackson," and the funky funky "Attica Blues." Yes, I may.

I'll also add these two tracks culled from the excellent recent Impulse! round-up Archie Shepp on Impulse!: "Mama Too Tight," showing the man in souljazz mode and the spoken-word heroin-stoked "Scag."

Word!

Oh shit

2006-08-21T09:26:00.000-07:00

Beyonce - Ring The Alarm

You know how the most obvious thing about "Deja Vu," was that it is not "Crazy In Love"? Even when you first heard it and it was completely awesome, as good as it was, it had its complete failure to live up to its predecesor constantly hanging over its head. To make myself very much a complete geek, it was the Ron Weasley of Beyonce tracks. (I'm not even sure if that makes sense, actually.)

"Ring The Alarm" is the spine-tingling, incredible Beyonce smash that "Deja Vu" aspired to be. (Does this make it the Ginny Weasley of Beyonce tracks?) I hope this is a hit, because god damn does it deserve to be. It's all sirens and screaming and the best thing about it is its affirmation that Beyonce can still be creating songs that are actually exciting. Not just enjoyable to listen to, but exciting, the sort that kind of stop time when you listen to them.

"Ring the Alarm" is better than "Deja Vu," it's better than "Ain't No Other Man," it's better than motherfucking "Crazy"... I'd even say it's better than "Promiscuous Girl," except, you know, let's not start throwing around accusation we can't take back.

I really hope I don't get sick of this.

(P.S. The Hold Steady's "Chips Ahoy" is great too, but I'm going to save my Hold Steady post for some other time)

Kings of Diggin' + Scarface news!

2006-08-18T08:03:00.000-07:00

Fellow FF7er, Mallory, ripped this compilation for me a while back when it was released (waaaaay back) in July. It's the latest in the excellent line of Rapster Records' "The Kings Of..." releases.

Disc One is compiled by Kon & Amir, the prolific digging duo behind the "On Track" compilation series of soul-popping rare grooves and breaks. Disc Two is compiled by Japan's own super funky and self-proclaimed "King of Digging" DJ Muro.

This pairing of artists is a bit odd, considering there's been some beef between the two groups in the past-- a quote from Amir...

“There was this guy out at the time named DJ Muro who called himself The King of Beats, or The King of Digging. We kinda took offense to that because to us, no body could be the king of digging because there is always gonna be somebody who has knowledge of records more so than you. That’s just the nature of things. So we decided that we could do it too because there are so many great records out there—like, if [Muro] was the King of Digging, how come he didn’t put these or those tracks on there, you know?”

But either they got over their hatin' and realized that with their digging powers combined great things were possible, or maybe Rapster didn't care that there was beef there (or paired them intentionally for dramatic purposes!), BUT for whatever reason, now we have a good two cds of jaw-drop-worthy soul and funk that you've probably never heard before packaged nicely together in one nice little set!

Now Disc One, the Kon & Amir disc, is a bit tame for my personal tastes. There is some great laid-back funk, soul and disco here-- a lot of instrumentals mixed in as well. It's mixed well, and, well, I'd never heard anything on this compilation prior to listening to it, so I guess there's definitely some rare shit on 'ere. Overall I wasn't too keen on the mix though... just not my "style", the tracks felt a bit long and cumbersome at times, etc. Some notable (and probably some of the most upbeat) tracks off of Disc One:

Unico Black - A Vida
Soul Dazz Band - Dazz

Then there's Disc Two. DJ Muro's mix. Which is pretty much the densely mixed, fast paced, makes-me-want-to-move good time that I was hoping to get out of this compilation in the first place. I was familiar with a few of the tunes off of this mix before listening, which *may* mean that Muro is not as deserving of the rare digging crown as his mixtape counterparts (kidding!). But regardless, the guy knows how to mix a fucking tape! His transitions are for the most part flawless, he throws in bits of salsa, funk, soul, disco, and pop in 1 to 2 minute-long blurbs, which keeps things constantly moving and exciting. There's a very strong sexual tension overlaying the entire mix, more blatantly in tracks such as the Bob Crew Generation's "Menage A Trois" and Together LP's "We're Together", but all the latin tinged instrumentals and sassy soul tunes throughout help carry that motif to the end. Some favorites:

The Crowns - Jerking Dog
Ko Ko Taylor - Yes, K's Good For You
Phil Flowers - I've Got To Move

and try out this lovely trifecta of greatness:
Milton Wright - Let's Take A Break
The Trubadours - Funky Good Feeling
Johnny Gamboa - Bad Boy

Also if you want to hear more of these mixes, or hear how well they're actually mixed, you can check out Rapster's webpage and stream the first 15 minutes of each disc from there.

And Scarface! You may recall (or not) when I mentioned something about Scarface not thinking T.I. was gangsta, and from there, I pointed you to a post on my own blog from a while back. If you scroll down to point "f" and point "g", you will see some mumbo jumbo about scarface wanting to get out of the rap game. Well, I got that information from my brother, who used to work at one of the Harley Davidson shops here in Houston, namely the one that Scarface shopped at. My brother was Scarface's go-to parts-guy on many occasions. And my brother sent me a follow up article yesterday that proved that Scarface wasn't shitting him when he went off on his rant about getting out of the game. Scarface has now very publicly vowed never to record another solo record. 'Tis a sad day in Houston, folks.

I don't play no games like I forgot my jersey

2006-08-18T03:58:00.000-07:00

Texas is the home of the playas and pimps

Trae feat. Paul Wall, Three 6 Mafia, Jayton & Lil' Boss of S.L.A.B. - Cadillac

One of the things Texas hip hop is great for is the posse track. OK, one of the things hip hop is great for is the posse track, but these Texas cuts seem to have their own distinct take on the form that makes a great thing pretty fucking amazing. My theory is that because all the big Texas names are primarily rapping about rather limited, culturally specific subject matter - cars, drank, hometown pride, etc., - they've finessed their flow and their presence as their standout qualities rather than their subject matter. This is hardly an original thought - 7er Heightsy was alluding to much the same thing a few days. So I guess when you get that many rappers all on the one track, and they're all rapping about the same general thing, the only way they can stand out is by dropping mesmerising punch line after punch line. And if you get a whole bunch of H-town rappers on the one track all trying to out-do each other you know it's gotta be fucking gold.

Trae's track isn't quite a posse cut - it's still primarily Trae, and the guests are support players, but nevertheless, y'all need to hear Trae, and as one more blogger who's blogging about how not enough people are blogging about Trae, maybe that will change and y'all will start blogging about Trae. And listening to him, too. This is about cars, so we get everyone dropping great lines about how much they love their Cadillacs, and it's all over this thick grimey bassline that sounds kind of Three 6-ish (they're on here, so it's a distinct possibility that they produced it), and by the time we get those icy synths dripping like candy paint sneaking in when Paul Wall starts rapping, you should be sold. I'll be writing Trae's new record up for Stylus in the coming weeks, so you've got until then to cop that, otherwise you'll just be... well, you'll be missing out, won't you?

Z-Ro feat. Trae, S.L.A.B., Paul Wall, Chalie Boy & Chamillionaire - From The South (Texas Remix)

This also has Trae on it, and a million other great Texas kids, so, yeah, again, it's great. The original was on Z-Ro's Let The Truth Be Told and it's good too, but it doesn't compare at all to the Texas remix, which, so far as I know, is only available on Rapid Ric's Afta Da Relays mixtape. (I got it from The Shrimp sometime last year). This exemplifies what I was saying - it's hard to go ten seconds without someone saying something incredible. Let's start with Paul Wall informing us that he brushes his teeth with Windex and go from there. It's also worth owning solely for the Chamillionaire verse, because, while I'm real pleased that the King Koopa is getting his cash on, there is no way "Ridin' Dirty" or the Ciara collab or anything from The Sound of Revenge compares to verses like these.

Bun-B feat. the H-Town All Starz (Lil' Keke, Slim Thug, Chamillionaire, Paul Wall, Mike Jones, Aztec, Lil' Flip & Z-Ro) - Draped Up (H-Town Mix)

And here again we have another stunning Chamillionaire verse, followed (as everyone's noted) by a Paul Wall verse, something we're incredibly lucky to be hearing on a 2005 track (as everyone's noted). But really, everyone brings it here, from Slim Thug doing his bawss thing to Lil' Flip's melodic flow to Mike Jones being his goofy-ass self and shouting a lot. Even Aztec, Roc-La-Familia's next big thing for about 5 minutes last year sounds good, rapping in Spanish and getting to do a verse alongside some of Houston's finest - nearly all of Houston's finest, actually, which is why this is so enjoyable.

Buy Trae's Restless from Amazon

Buy Rapid Roc & Mr. Rogers' Afta Da Relays mixtape from Mix Unit and Buy Z-Ro's Let The Truth Be Told from Insound

Buy Bun B's Trill from Insound

Instincts that can still betray us

2006-08-18T01:32:00.000-07:00

So, as mentioned briefly over at my own blog, I recently received a copy of Joy Division's Heart And Soul, aka "basically everything they ever did" - not that I didn't already own a hefty chunk of their work (and also not that I'm not still tempted by at least one more disc - come on, how can I not own a live version of "Atmosphere"?). I have been listening to basically nothing else all week; every day at work I get through at least two of the four discs before people ask me to listen to something, anything else, please, and it has been, so say the least, illuminating.

I won't deny a part (a large part?) of the appeal of Heart And Soul is that it is, or rather seems, complete; "here, this is everything, you have all of them now." Just as with their songs the existence of Joy Division came to sudden stop; as the allmusic review of H&S puts it, they both fell apart and collapsed. In at least some ways I prefer New Order to Joy Division, but the fact is there will never be an object that exists for them the way Heart And Soul turns the work of Joy Division over those four years into a kind of singular entity; New Order have simply done too much to be concretized in this fashion (yes, you could take all of their albums, b-sides, etc., and put it in one place (Andrew Unterberger did it, before Get Ready I believe, and it was 14 CDs) but it would be different for a host of reasons beyond the trivially tautological one).

And similarly, fittingly, Joy Division's music/image/art/career seems complete and singular in a way New Order's (and the vast majority of other bands') doesn't. The thing about the way we talk about the corpus of most bands is that we discuss it (knowingly or not) in a kind of ideal fashion, where we speak as if every individual song or moment exhibits the traits we wish to mention; of course there are always counter-examples, interesting discographical nooks and crannies, counter-essays to be written. But despite the fact that not every Joy Division song sounds remotely the same (and I don't just mean the divide between their icy remove and their darkly frenzied moments - see "Autosuggestion" for a relatively rare example of them bridging the gap), their music has this weird kind of darkly monolithic force (and yes, darkly; as Mark k-punk puts in an excellent post I'll be linking to shortly, "They were Gothic, but not Goths, surely") that means you really can't find exceptions; Paul Morley's wildly imaginative reading in the booklet for Heart And Soul makes some huge, overarching claims that wind up sounding and feeling real; there are very few throwaways or deviations in the catalog, for better and for worse.

Of course, as mentioned, I have been listening to little but them for a week, but the fact that I could/would do this is to my mind more proof of this quality of their music, not less; theirs is a sound and, yes, a worldview so starkly self-sufficient that you can crawl inside of it and get lost, and as long as you keep your head about you, as long as you remember what's up and what's down (as long, in other words, as you don't pull an Ian Curtis - remember too that clinical depression is above all else an inability to see other possibilities, and suicide often occurs when you believe that things will never be different again), there's nothing wrong with that. They may be anhedonic, pessimists in the Schopenhauerian sense, despairing of existence itself, but that is not necessarily a harmful thing:

I remember, in what must have been 1983, asking a fellow JD cultist (being into Joy Division for me was pretty straightforwardly a religion, a cult in the strong sense, a badge of non-membership in the teenage world of empty hedonism): 'Why is it that negative things are so much more attractive than positive things?'

Seems to me that its crucial to go all the way through the libido of the negative - to utterly resist the commonsense privileging of the vital whilst NOT getting Curtis syndrome. The r and r young death thing was so self-conscious --- from what Deborah Curtis says, Ian C was fixated on this since his own teenage years.

That comes from here, which is a follow up to this rather amazing, aforequoted post; both are worth your time. The latter, which I stumbled open while writing this post, interacts with what I'm saying here in all kinds of ways and I'm not even sure what I want to say makes sense without reading what Mark has to say as well. It didn't determine the content of my thoughts on Joy Division, but it certainly implemented large areas of the structure. It also highlights two extremely important things about Joy Division (well, many more than two, but two I specifically want to mention here):

JD followed Schopenhauer through the curtain of Maya, went outside the Burroughs Garden of Delights, and dared to examine the hideous machineries that produce the world-as-appearance. What did they see there? Only what all depressives, all mystics, always see: the obscene undead twitching of the Will as it seeks to maintain the illusion that this object, the one it is fixated upon NOW, this one, will satisfy it in a way that all other objects thus far have failed to. Joy Division, with an ancient wisdom (‘Ian sounded old, as if he had lived a lifetime in his youth’- Deborah Curtis), a wisdom that is pre-mammalian, pre-multicellular life, pre-organic, saw through all those reproducer ruses. This is the ‘Insight’ that stopped fear in Curtis, the calming despair that subdued any will to want more.

and

We should resist the temptation to be Lorelei-lured by either the Aesthete-Romantics (in other words, us, as we were) or the lumpen empiricists. The Aesthetes want the world promised by the sleeves and the sound, a pristine black and white realm unsullied by the grubby compromises and embarrassments of the everyday. The empiricists insist on just the opposite: on rooting the songs back in the quotidian at its least elevated and, most importantly, at its least serious. ‘Ian was a laugh, the band were young lads who liked to get pissed, it was all a bit of fun that got out of hand…’

It’s important to hold onto both of these Joy Divisions – the Joy Division of Pure Art, and the Joy Division who were ‘just a laff’ – at once. For if the truth of Joy Division is that they were Lads, then Joy Division must also be the truth of Laddism.

It is so, so important that Mark doesn't privilege either of these views of the band. I, unsurprisingly enough to many who know me, think of it in a Spinozistic framework; insofar as you consider Joy Division as Pure Art, these things are true, and insofar that you consider them as Lads (or, more simply, People) these other things are true. There is no contradiction there, merely different ways of looking at it. This is, admittedly, how we get away with saying these mad, beautiful, insane things about the band; Joy Division as Pure Art (or more accurately, as Art Object) is and always must be a complete idealisation, an abstraction. What we encounter when we listen to the actual music is never that abstraction; instead, all the things Mark, or Paul Morley or myself say about the band are mere shellshock, the attempt of the mind to explain this thing that has happened to it.

But what has happened to us has happened on the level of art, and art is always the realm of the ineffable, and so we all scratch the truth (hopefully), sometimes strongly enough others can recognize the truth they've encountered too. What's kind of wonderful about criticism is that writing about this even can generate, again, this kind of visceral impact, in fact the best of it has to; and so we're left reeling again (reeling was precisely my reaction to "Nihil Rebound: Joy Division", especially stumbling on it at work!). It's not as if Joy Division has a monopoly on this sensation, or that it must be somehow dark or tormented or anti-vital; every single album or song I love does this. But the reason I keep listening to Joy Division, over and over and over, is that they seem to posses infinite reserves of the stuff; "Insight" and "Atrocity Exhibition" and "Glass" and, yes, "Love Will Tear Us Apart" still give me that shock of the new, still excite and terrify and effect me in a way that doesn't seem to wear off. I don't care if there are 3-4 versions of "Dead Souls" or "She's Lost Control" not just because they're fantastic songs, but because they keep hitting me as if I'd never heard them before. ("The point about the return visit is not the infantile pleasure of repetition, but the possibility of surprise. A good work of art never stays quite the same: it ambushes you, outwits you." Rupert Christiansen) And if you don't think that's rare and precious I would suggest with no ego at all that you probably don't listen to nearly the volume of music I do (with no ego, because how is that somehow a good or proud or noteworthy achievement?).

In much the same way that film critics wind up loving films and directors that those who watch few films - not necessarily bad films, although they may be, but few films - think are too obtuse, too off-putting, too weird, music critics usually wind up liking weird shit. Not liking, really - needing. If I only listened to ten CDs a year, would I need Joy Division, or Eluvium, or Low (one of the few bands I could compare with Joy Division in the strength of their, again, not just music but view of the world) - hell, would I need Wheat? Teenage Fanclub? Rachel Stevens? Submerging yourself in the great stream of relatively similar mainstream cultural/artistic products makes you more receptive to the stuff on the margins, although hopefully still receptive to the best of that stream.

But, unsurprisingly, I've moved a little far afield. It's actually tempting to stay away from Joy Division's actual music, because so much has been said about them so well. Anyone attempting to grapple with what we might call the punk diaspora (or maybe the post-Glam or post-punk diaspora) needs to grapple with them, as well as anyone who doubts at all the primacy of the vital (or even, as I do, just doesn't want things to be so lopsided, so "positive" all the time, which of course robs the positive of its force), anyone who has ever had art hit them like a freight train - all of these people need, at some point, to grapple with Joy Division's work. Most of them, if they can manage the sheer force of the stuff, will enjoy the experience. This is a band who made one album that could secure their good name forever by itself. It took me ages to come around to Unknown Pleasures; but that's because I had the (mis?)fortune to buy a copy of Closer, one of the very few things I am tempted to call a perfect album, before I ever encountered that forbidding black sleeve. Again, those two slim works would have been more than enough to lionize Joy Division; the massive wealth exhumed on Heart And Soul for those of us born too late is again as good but in some ways purely unnecessary.

And yet, for me at least, absolutely none of the power of Closer depends on Ian Curtis' death. I was aware of his suicide when I bought the record, but I seemed to forget about it when I listened. Yes, he sounds "already gone" (although well-worn, that particular critical line happens in this case to be 100% correct), but in a way that really doesn't depend on physical death. Your take on suicide may vary, but I can't help thinking of it in all but medically-caused cases (i.e. clinical depression) as a stupid, selfish, cowardly act. So Curtis was either obliterating any claim he had to my respect at the same time as he obliterated himself, or else he was the victim of an illness. Pity or disgust. The man may inspire either, as well as myriad other emotions, but the music, the aesthetic object - how above all that it was and is. Closer is nothing less than every negative impulse of humanity, both good and bad. It is an album that it is impossible not to understand in some way as a human being, from "Atrocity Exhibition" to "Decades" and back again, fear/fury/despair/loss/knowledge/lacking looping around towards you forever ("forever" being a concept Joy Division have a very odd relation with, in a lot of ways). I can only think of Curtis the human in the abstract, when not experiencing the music; when I am in the grips of it there is only Curtis the force of nature.

One thing is certain; if there ever is another act with Joy Division's viscerality (coated with layers of abstraction, yes, but at the root of it, at the level where it connects - something primal and howling, expressed either through actual fury or negatively through the desperate show of abeyance Joy Division would put on), they will be wholly different. And when I listen to Heart And Soul I begin to share Mark's pessimism that there ever will be again. Listen to someone like Editors, whose debut I quite enjoy; ultimately it's "just" music. You can argue that Joy Division is more than that partly because of the weight of history and significance they have accrued, but The Back Room will never be another Unknown Pleasures (And also, what of those who were there at the time who felt the way we do about Joy Division, without history on their side?) (Also also, to be fair to Editors who as I said I like, I don't get the sense their ambitions were ever to make anything beyond "just" music, nor do I think they've failed at it; Mark may argue that their ambitions are too low, and it's a worthy point, but a different one.) That time, for better or for worse, has passed. We are left with some deaths, some deprivation, a wonderful legacy (in the form of New Order, on whom I could easily write as much, but I like you all, believe it or not), and one of the most shocking, terrible, powerful, and perversely enough vital oeuvres ever produced by anything related, however tenuously, to Rock and Roll.

Mixtape: Latin Uphop

2006-08-17T10:33:00.000-07:00

Its hot in Houston. Too damn hot. And there's three things that I like in hot weather: coke (as in cola), spicy foods and spanish music. The thought of sweating it up to salsa, cumbia, reggaeton... its refreshing. And it just so happens that those rhythms mix so well with hip hop. So I built a mixtape of various Latin styles, threw them around some beats and mixed in a little funk. RJD2, Ozomatli, Breakestra, Gorillaz... who knew they'd work so good together.

[Download the Mix]

Diplo - Support Your Local Travel Agent

Fania All-Stars - Picadillo

RJD2 - 1976

Ozomatli - Chango

Perez Prado & His Orchestra - Flight of the Bumble Bee

Los Aterciopelados - El Estuche

Diplo - Lost Under my Sheets

Breakestra - Cramp Your Style

Ozomatli - Ya Viene El Sol (The Beatle Bob Remix)

Noro Morales & His Quintet - Serenata Ritmica

RJD2 - Since We Last Spoke

Gorillaz - Latin Simone (Que Pasa Contigo)

Pucho & His Latin Soul Brothers - Heat!

Sidestepper - Linda Manigua

RJD2 - Exotic Talk

The Mighty Imperials - The Matador

Ozomatli - Eva

Cesta All-Stars - El Quinto de Beethoven

Ozomatli - Santiago

Prefuse 73 - Uprock and Invigorate

cowboy's lament

2006-08-16T16:38:00.000-07:00

Under the delightful title of "Did Rick Rubin Turn Johnny Cash Into a Cheesy Goth?", Slate's Jody Rosen lays a critical palm all over Cash's American Recordings series. Killing is her business, and business is good.

Just like seemingly no one gave a shit about commercial hip-hop-as-art as recently as four years ago, the universal esteem accorded the Man in Black is a fairly new phenomenon. It just took the equivalent of five Kidz Bop! albums and a creepy-ass video, no? The only Cash album I listen to these days is Gospel Glory. It's not amazing.

these old country boys ain't just playin'; they coachin'

2006-08-14T22:13:00.000-07:00

Let's stop all the fussin' and a-feudin', guys

Julie Roberts - Break Down Here

One of my favorite things about country music is the economy of the lyrical structure. Every single line is placed to build up to the one or two lines in the chorus that provide the thematic center of the track. It's even like they've worked backwards, which in actuality, I'm sure they do. The killer phrase in the chorus comes first, and the entire track gets built round that.

It's different to the way things work in other genres. Rock tracks tend to be built in linear fashion, usually an outpouring of the artist's feelings or thoughts. The hook exists to reaffirm the already introduced ideas. It's the idea of the artist as unique genius, some specially-gifted individual with insight into thoughts and feelings the rest of us could not hope to understand. This style of writing assumes that the goal is to plug a hose into the writer's heart and extract pure emotion out through the mouth, with things like words and structure necessary evils. Of course, the end result isn't quite like that.

In hip hop, meanwhile, the hook is usually just the catchy bit to grab your attention - there's a reason why in rap it gets referred to as hook rather than a chorus. Often it doesn't even need to have anything to do with the verses; it can be a thematic re-affirmation, but that's not necessary.

Julie Roberts' "Break Down Here" is one of the best country songs from the past few years, and of course, it has a great idea at its center. Julie's just left her guy and is driving down a road in the middle of nowhere and her car is making those bad sounds that no one likes to hear their car make. And in the chorus she tells us that she sure hopes she don't break down here, but, of course, she's not referring solely to car trouble.

I'd sure hate to break down here/ Nothing up ahead or in the rearview mirror/ Out in the middle of nowhere, knowing/I'm in trouble if these wheels stop rolling/ So god help me, keep me moving somehow/ Don't let me start wishing I was with him now/ I made it this far without crying a single tear/I'd sure hate to break down here.

Dierks Bentley - Settle For A Slowdown

I like to imagine that the guy Julie is driving away from is Dierks Bentley, and that this song is his response. The two tracks, so far as I know, have nothing to do with each other, but if we pretend that they're related it adds another level of meaning that makes each a little bit more enjoyable.

Dierks Bentley (his name is the country equivalent of Juelz Santana) has just been left by his woman and he's got a cute lyric to describe it, too:

I know there's nothing stopping you now/But I'd settle for a slowdown.

Ah yes, emotional pragmatism is a quality so sorely lacking in pop music. Or rather, it's a nice idea; Bentley knows he's fucked up way too much to even entertain hopes that his girl will come back to him, but he hopes she'll at least slow down a little bit as she drives away from him. If that woman actually is Julie Roberts, we know she's feeling just as bad as he is. So, come on Julie... give Dierks a slow down, and maybe you'll realize he's not that awful after all.

Buy Julie Roberts' self titled album from Insound

Buy Dierks Bentley's Modern Day Drifter from Insound

How long must we sing this song?

2006-08-13T13:26:00.000-07:00

For those who haven't seen it:

We're blurring the boundaries of what constitutes musical content, I'm sure, but what the Hell. It's Sunday and work sucks a fat one.

Five Music Videos That Are Much Better Than Their Songs

2006-08-13T00:16:00.000-07:00

5. Anna Nalick, "Breathe (2 AM)"

One reason I think I will ultimately fail as a writer is my inability to translate my feelings for Anna Nalick's "Breathe". And had I heard this on the radio before I caught the clip one night on VH1, I'd still be kidding myself that I'm destined to write the Great American Pale Fire. Really, the video is shit, all designed to guss up my fellow Californian as a Serious Artist, one who paints song lyrics on her walls and scratches out bad stanzas with the fury of creation. But - fucking BUT - there's this moment when she's singing the most self-important & dead-signifier lines of the song ("And I feel like I'm naked in front of the crowd/Cause these words are my diary, screaming out loud/And I know that you'll use them, however you want to..."). The music cuts out (which isn't done on the album or on radio), and I'm watching a white screen with Nalick's singing head. And as soon as she finishes those last four words, her head snaps with an involuntary spasm, and there's the start of a sob. A real fucking sob. And it gets me every damn time. I've probably started to cry about ten times just watching a callow soft-rocker get Gilmore Girls on my ass. It pisses me off no end, but you absolutely need to know this about me.

4. Erykah Badu, "Love of My Life"

Witness! The progression of hip-hop, beating "Dani California" by a half-decade. Note! How disco and funk had as much to say as dub. See! Erykah take the Rock Steady Crew to the mat. Laugh! As Badu dons a Kangol and breaks MC Lyte down. Nod! As Badu sheds the dookie rope and salutes the Five Percent machinations. Give dap! When Erykah hops from West (funny + not so funny the moment when Ice Cube gets hip-hop in some criminal-type shit) to Dirty South. Mourn! The signing of contracts, the fulfillment of dreams, adolescence's skin shed. Fucking check out! That lily-white sight gag, true and sad. Try to remember! The song after watching the video ten times.

3. Lee Ann Womack, "Twenty Years and Two Husbands Ago"

I was a bit startled when this track got the nod in Stylus' year-end singles list over the stylish throwback "I May Hate Myself in the Morning". As bridges go, I'd take "I know it's wrong/But it ain't easy moving on/So why can't two friends/Remember the good times once again?" over the wishy-washy "Water under the bridge/I guess that's all life really is". Maybe that says more about my satyriasis. Whatever. Anyway, this video debuted about a week after Faith Hill's "Like We Never Loved At All". Both clips pull heavily from Nashville's glorious countrypolitan days, and both are for subpar clips. I give the nod to Womack because for all her magic, Sophie Muller (who deserves her own post on a subject tangential to this) can't avoid Tim McGraw's dumbass hangdog eyes.

"Twenty Years" is decidedly brighter, and populated with sketches that seem familiar: the fedora-clad, cigar-chomping manager (?); Womack's triad of delicately-coiffed belles; the girl with the stunning brown hair who may or may not be Womack's daughter; the young buck with the obscenely large (and obscenely drained) decanter. No asshole lovers to be found, just high tea in a bygone Nashville with Womack poignantly reigning o'er all. There's a part about halfway in where Lee Ann sings "never let somebody get that close," and she's set off against the wood paneling like a porn actress, and some crewcut photog is off her left shoulder, sticking his tongue out as he snaps another one. Fantastic.

2. Frank Sinatra, "Old Man River"

Not a bad song for the Chairman, certainly giving him a vocal showcase toward the end, but the subject matter finds Frankie trying and failing to express solidarity with the plight of the Black sharecropper. But the video - actually the closing scene to the forgettable 1946 feature Till the Clouds Roll By - trumps all. From the first shot, a woman staring off-camera as a man strikes a timpani (both clad totally in white), this clip is the closest thing Earth came to a Stanley Kubrick musical. From there, Ol' Blue Eyes hisself, in an alabaster tuxedo and elevated from the orchestra upon a pillar, becomes our focus. There's a sudden cut outward (I could see this in Stanley's bag of tricks), but we're still trained on the lofted singer, as far from harsh Mississippi labor as a man can be.

But once the singing cessates, the camera pulls back until we see that Frank, orchestra, superfluous girls, and conductor are all on a celestial island, ribbed on the underbelly with a staircase corkscrewing perilously down, offscreen. It's an effect that I daresay sill stuns sixty years later.

1. Mat Kearney, "Nothing Left to Lose"

Why one? Cos it's recent. I think there's a plot at work here: our scruffy slinger works his way cross-country to his heterosexual other. Intervening, though, is America, gorgeous and tired. Within a palette of grey-leaning blues and browns, Kearney slouches across dozen of restaurant booths, parks his Motor City hulker in institutional motels, and hitches through some of the most worn-in country - natural, urban, and semi-urban - you've ever seen. Kearney himself mouths a few words, and we see him jumping in the bed of the odd truck, but director Douglas Avery makes landlocked America the star. Editor Nicholas Wayman-Harris cuts between arresting images (flaming car in a lot, a streetside shop that just ends along a desolate blacktop, traffic on a rain-slick cantilever bridge) in a manner that would be dizzying. But anyone who's made a highway trek from Florida to Indiana by way of the Appalachians, say, knows: this is how you see the sights through a window at 70 mph. Don't linger too long on any one place, or your thoughts are lost forever.

From the other room, my roommate thought Kearny was the Counting Crows. Surely that means something.

The sex in your soul will damn you to Hell

2006-08-12T13:29:00.000-07:00

Some questions:

1. How closely does this song/video (particularly Michael Gira) veer towards the line separating terror and camp, and is there any correlation between the bits where "New Mind" approaches (or crosses and re-crosses) that line and how close it comes to being Goth?

2. Has anyone else noticed that Godflesh's entire career is pretty much an amplification (and maybe slight metallization) of what Swans were doing in the 80s? Does this mean I can't like "Body Dome Light" any more? Is this part of why I prefer Jesu to Godflesh?

3. No matter how you feel about Gira marching around with a flashlight and an axe, how creepy is the end of this video, with its light-enshrouded torso writhing at the end of a corridor?

the hills

2006-08-11T14:58:00.000-07:00

So I finished off that sixer of Coronas last night. M wanted to take the room swimming, but everyone decided another episode of The Hills was in order. The show name sounded familiar; it turned out to be Laguna Beach in Space or something. Some ginger-headed boy in Jordan home whites took umbrage that his aspiring fashionista girlfriend wanted to be "royalty". She simultaneously took offense and the under at once: "Well, every girl deserves to feel like a princess!"

Everyone in the room loved it. Just ate it up. I thought about my half-bottle of Thunderbird in the fridge until I realized it fell to me - the only one who didn't feel the stone drop while viewing BBC Three's Sinchronicity - to bitch about the state of MTV. Right? No videos, the travails of (hopefully) unrepresentatively moronic rich kids? The usual. But on the truck ride back to M's I realized I didn't care. No, it was more than that: I don't want MTV to show more videos.

In the ATX, we have ME Television, which shows about 20 hours of videos a day (the remaining hours are devoted to local restaurants, the same shitty short film about a kid hunted by soldiers, and station gadfly JJ Castillo's shiteating muggings). I've been guilty of watching this channel for hours at a time, with its beguiling mix of new (Rihanna, that damn Dixie Chicks video) and old (the Fabulous Thunderbirds!). But whenever I stop, I get cloudy. Convention after convention haunts these videos, from "Triumphal Live Setting With Hand-Raising Twats" to "Side Mounted Car Camera Catches Rapper Looking Existentially Disquieted" to "Director's Comments and Band Lingering After 'Cut' Left in Video Because We're Packaging Reality". This shit runs together after a while, because 1) singles tend to maintain similar themes and structures, which means most videos are responding to the same cues, and 2) music videos are a profoundly lesser art. Like, lesser than slam poetry.

We all know "Video Killed the Radio Star," but who remembers the other videos MTV played that day? Very few, of course, and there are reasons why. Music videos are promotional tools, designed to get the songs in front of more people (and in many, many cases, videos seemingly exist to make the songs better). Why would I watch Men Women and Children's ponderous Studio-54-on-the-sun video if I wouldn't want to catch their half-assed electrorock live?

I'm also getting weary of music videos that show up the songs within (see: Sophie Muller's entire output). The first five times I watched OK GO's last couple videos, I was amused at the band's cheek and "ambition" (which would be subversive if we weren't living in a viral-video age). After that, I noticed the songs kind of suck. At first, it was fun trying to sort out the mashed iconography in Cat Power's "Living Proof," but in the end, the peakless track leaves me as cold as its video's endless slow motion. ("Lived in Bars," on the other hand, is a joyous clip with a song to match.) Coldplay's "Speed of Sound" (by the always-reliable Mark Romanek) and Doves' "Some Cities" are two other culprits that seem to show every couple of hours down here.

If MTV showed videos all day, we'd see garbage like 30 Seconds to Mars, She Wants Revenge, and Dem Franchise Boys. Who wants that? Relegate the videos to the late night, and maybe we'll be forcing groups to get more creative with their visual choices to get noticed. Or we'll just unleash another generation of Sophie Mullers. In any event, I'm more entertained and inspired (even if it's a reactionary inspiration) by dumb-ass Hollywood interns trying to choke "soulful" and "concerned" looks out of those drained-pool eyes.

What, it's not Maggaggie's Birthday?

2006-08-11T11:49:00.000-07:00

Sources close to the subject inform me that it is Funky Funky 7er Ian Mathers' birthday today. 25, I am to understand.

Happy Birthday, Mr Mathers. Let's hope it is funky.

Flow-ers

2006-08-10T21:07:00.001-07:00

I was never a fan. I was one of those people so caught up into east coast wordplay and avant-gardism that I hastily ignored the south. It was actually not until talking to Saul Williams (conversation to be published this fall through Callaloo) about southern hip hop and its parallels to southern blues music that I actually started to give it the recognition that it deserves.

As one who will join the cipher from time to time, I’ve got mad respect for MCs who freestyle songs in the studio (ex. Dipset Three Song Freestyle On Hot 97/ Lil Wayne Where The Cash At). I’m a bit biased at maybe becoming attached to the idea that the spoken word possesses some sort of supremacy to the written one.

On Weezy: I don’t know where he suddenly came from, and no not every song is fire, but when he’s on—he’s on. This song reeks of misogyny a bit (sorry Kates) but Spank Rock (not beating a dead horse, just an example) and Williamsburg have taught me that even little trust fund girls want to dance to the raunchy shit. Thanks Caps & Jones!!
Weezy’s flow is like a cyclone and it just throws out these great lines at random:

"I like those Amerie’s you can have those Omarosas"
vs.

"Broke niggas only make jokes, nigga.I make more than I can fit in this quote"

After that last line, my head exploded.

Dipset are goombas. The Ramones were goombas too and they’re legendary for it so what’s the point in worrying about that? One thing that Dipset does well is doing what other people aren’t. They sample songs that no one would ever consider (“Built This City”) and they do things like freestyle three songs live on the radio and brag about doing so. If JR Writer’s new record was as good as his mixtape verses and what he does on this, Dipset would be a whole ‘nother story.

"You’s a fake G like a thousand in counterfeits"
"Listen here, your fucking engineer couldn’t get to my level"

Ignore the Hell Rell verse, it’s pretty stupid, but the 1st and last songs. Wow. Also: This post started about the south, and then it kind of went onto Dipset. They have a lot of joints with Weezy--plus Santana and Weezy have a joint tape coming out…so yeah.

Weezy
Dipset

I fear the only person who is going to dig this is our Australian hip-hop fan.

T.I.'s Introduction to Jazz

2006-08-10T09:18:00.000-07:00

First off. I'd like to start out with a little love for T.I. (lady k!'s no hater!)

I found this unmarked remix of "What You Know" somewhere on the internet. I don't have anymore information than that-- I actually have had it a while apparently and randomly found it in my recent-downloads folder the other day. Whoever remixed it changed the entire backing music/beat to something weird and electronica sounding. And in doing this, it pretty much changes everything.

Also, T.I. at his best, MIXED WITH BILL WITHERS' "USE ME" courtesty of Nick Catchdubs on The Rub's "It's the Motherfucking Remix Vol.2".

I was scrolling through ye ol' ipod yesterday (which is coincidentally also named "the funkyfunky 7" (he's lady k!'s primary DJing tool- "lady k! and the funkyfunky 7!"), and thus inspired the name of this blog-- IN CASE YOU WERE WONDERING) in preparation for my hour-long commute home from work. While scrolling through my tons and tons of tunes, I noticed the Nextmen mixtape titled "A Child's Introduction to Jazz". I found this a few months ago, but have yet to get around to listening to it. So I thought, "Hey! what the hell! why not! I like the Nextmen's previous mixtapes (scroll to the bottom) alright, so this should be good too. right?"

Let's just say "this should be good" = UNDERSTATEMENT OF THE YEAR, people.

This mixtape is FANTASTIC! The title of the mix, though misleading, I assume was taken from the record they sample at different points in the mix, which is a really old children's educational record about jazz. It starts out with the first lesson from the jazz record, the instructor talking mundanely about 2 different jazz samples that open the record, when all of a sudden no other than Luda! get's dropped in to crash the learning-party.

Throughout the mix, you'll be taken through a roller coaster of sounds from the likes of Nas, Rhymefest, Plant Life, Faith Evans, Jill Scott, The Talking Heads, Breakestra, Bob Marley, and a TON of others. You'll hear Hall & Oates mixed up with a Clinton Sparks (feat Notorious BIG) track. You will hear MORE THAN ONE Prince track. Is that the UK'S fabulously funky Speedometer doing a BEYONCE COVER?? OH HELL YES IT IS!

They slow the mix down considerably towards the end, which is a bit of a bummer, but they wrap things up with Al Green's "Let's Stay Together", which has always been in contention for lady k!'s favorite r&b track of all time, so the slowing down of the mix is lady k! approved!

I *highly* suggest checking this one out. I'd post some samples, but the copy I have is just one huge mp3, and I don't have the tools to slice anything out at the moment. Just know that there are a few tracks involving Alphabets on here. And come on! Hall & Oates + Clinton Sparks! If that's not enough to send you running to your nearest record store (or p2p program) IMMEDIATELY, you probably hate music. So go!

Stuffs & Things Pt. 2 - "Houston, Do You Wanna Ride Y'all?"

2006-08-09T11:58:00.000-07:00

Just a little bonus treat for the H-Town crowd. 1976 Houston clip (verrrry high quality for Youtube) of the "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" chant from "Mothership Connection (Star Child)" with the amazing Glen Goins (from my Dad's hometown of Plainfield!) bringing down the Mothership.

Stuffs & Things & Things & Stuffs

2006-08-08T21:57:00.000-07:00

Funky Funky 7 Gets Funkadelicized On Dat Ass

1. Get Off Your Ass & Jam - Let's Take It To The Stage
2. Freak Of The Week - Uncle Jam Wants You
3. Red Hot Mama - America Eats Its Young
4. Back In Our Minds - Maggot Brain
5. Funky Dollar Bill - Free Your Mind & Your Ass Will Follow
6. Good To Your Earhole - Let's Take It To The Stage
7. Super Stupid - Maggot Brain
8. Standing On The Verge Of Getting It On - Standing On The Verge Of Getting It On
9. One Nation Under A Groove - One Nation Under A Groove
10. Hit It & Quit It - Maggot Brain
11. Stuffs & Things - Let's Take It To The Stage
12. You Can't Miss What You Can't Measure - Cosmic Slop
13. I'll Bet You - Funkadelic
14. Loose Booty - America Eats Its Young
15. Cosmic Slop - Cosmic Slop
16. You Scared The Lovin' Outta Me - Hardcore Jollies
17. Maggot Brain - Maggot Brain

Not definitive, but it's a start. Album title in italics, natch.

Tryna bring the '80s back

2006-08-08T18:35:00.000-07:00

What up?

I'm the newest and, I believe the fourth funkiest (though my funk quotient is steadily increasing) member of this here Funky Funky Seven. I hope y'all are doing well.

I'm Jonathan, regularly of Screw Rock 'n' Roll, and thanks to Lady K (got diamond eyes) I'll be talking about music in this blog, too. So, let's begin.

I'm a big fan of regionalism in hip hop. If there's a regional scene, I need to know. I'm a sucker for all the idiosyncracies, the slang, the local legends who never sell on a national scale, all that shit. So, yeah, the Bay never took off with Hyphy the way we all thought it would. OK, the way people like me who thought we were going to see H-Town happen all over again in northern California thought it would. But even if it didn't really happen, the Yay is still pretty great. It can be the Scene That Almost Was, and that's good enough for me.

This is what I've been listening to of late:

Federation ft. E-40 - I Wear My Stunna Glasses at Night

Let me explain. Rick Rock takes Corey Hart's "Sunglasses At Night" and turns it into "I Wear My Stunna Glasses at Night." That's all you need to know. What, you're not downloading this shit? "Sunglasses At Night" becomes "Stunna Glasses At Night." It's genius!

Mistah F.A.B. - Ghost Ride It

And let's continue this cheesy sample fest with Mistah F.A.B.'s celebration of ghostriding, which is quite possibly the most entertaining aspect of sydeshows, and certainly the one that makes for the best YouTube clips. Which I would find and post except I've never blogged YouTube videos before, and I haven't had enough coffee this morning to learn how to do it. The best way to make a song about ghostriding, as Mistah F.A.B. is quite obviously aware, is to sample the Ghostbusters theme and then... well, not much more than that really. When you've got a sample that great, all you need to do is come up with lyrics like...

"Get out the way let Casper drive!"

"Who's that driving? PATRICK SWAYZE!!"

And you're pretty much set.

I have a feeling I took this track from one of the many Bay Area blogs around, most likely Nation of Thizzlam, City of Dope or Strivin, all of which are excellent resources for those of us who like what's going on in the Bay, but live thousands of miles away. So check them out, too, alright?

A Walking Memorial

2006-08-08T17:29:00.000-07:00

About terming it a ‘synth rap revolution’. That was a bit of hyperbole on my part, but it does not diminish that since about the time that Lil Jon was getting on magazine covers accompanied by his favorite synths, this rap shit has been changing. It’s true that Cash Money was doing synth stuff as well, but with Lil Jon it became a bit more pronounced. Take for example his team up with the Youngblood’s “Damn”. What many pointed out during his ascendancy to the top of the pops, was that he was using synths not generally associated with hip-hop. Thus, it can be said that he was innovating the game in a way. For instance, Jimi Hendrix wasn’t the first guitarist to use feedback in a recording, but the way that he flipped the script with it, was in fact innovating.

In regard to a false sense of epic-ness, I should hope that producers need not be phenoms in order to make music of quality. In our world of indie-rock, going back to its punk rock ideals, there is something inherently noble about making music without being a musical prodigy, so I believe that criticism is a bit misguided and unnecessary. (The Ramones, Pavement, The Raincoats, The Jam, Lo-Fi rock by design really.

What’s wrong with infusing hip-hop tracks with a bit of the baroque? Is it loftier to sample the Patton soundtrack than to do it with an SR-10 or a Korg Triton? It sure is cheaper for one thing. The sense of ‘false epicness’ is a term particular to the one who said it, so it seems that’s a matter of personal preference. Do movie soundtracks, which often operate in a minimalist framework, also reek of ‘false epicness”?

I also find it a misnomer to say that TI and Rick Ross are seen as deities, when to all of us in the know (and I’m including school age kids too) ask “who produced that?”. The Runners appear in the video for Hustlin’ (albeit ever briefly) and producers often have the rapper exclaim their name somewhere near the track or the producer does it him/her self. This a Nitti Beat!

If the southern drawl is something inferior to the sharp diction of the rappers of the Bay Area, why not throw out Delta blues. At its core another genre of “sloppy” vocal style and crude instrumentation (while I don’t find “What You Know About” crude at all). I do encourage those who decry TI’s lyrics to be stupid and senseless to actually rap them along with the song. Once I found myself rapping to the beat and realized what an impressing effort his flow is on the track. True, the lyrics may not be full of any consciousness expanding, but then again neither is Spank Rock’s “Put That Pussy On Me”.

One thing that southern rappers aren’t appreciated for is their penchant for actually flowing over the beat with no lyric sheet. BIG did it, Jay-Z, Ja Rule, etc do this, but for southern hip-hop this is pretty much a standard practice. In their genesis, Houston screw tapes were always “flow only”. Riding the beat to the degree he does in this song, is actually something to marvel at. Which, again is my personal opinion. It has been written that speech is higher than writing because it is actually closer to the original thought. In a sense, if this is seen as a worthy view, the ‘south flow’ has something going for it.

As far as ringtones go, sure, record companies want to sell music. If “She Loves You” came out in a time where one could download a ring tone, rest assured that it would indeed be everywhere as well. Does the popularity of a song take away from the quality of said song? The first time I heard the ‘synth washes’ of “What You Know”, I felt it was something special. A force feeding wasn’t necessary. Also, as one who never listens to the radio, neither song has been force-fed down my throat.

When I listen to say Aphex Twin or Boards of Canada, the fact that many times the pianos involved don’t sound ‘real’ isn’t really bothersome. They are after all, sounds that build a musical composition. Spank Rock sounds no more “authentic to me” than the synths in the Lil Jon produced “Yeah”.

As far as emptiness in material goes, Spank Rock does indeed mention that they “accumulate money from state to state…(and something about a) Bentley…”Briefly, is Lil Jon’s need to “Fuck those pussy ass niggas” any more primal than Spank Rock’s need to “Put That Pussy On Me”?

I’m in the park now and it’s getting dark so I should go. Forgive any grammar mistakes, etc.

"Don't be afraid / there's no marmalade"

2006-08-08T15:46:00.000-07:00

It's tough, the life of a rocker. Between all the drug-taking and the shagging, one has to squeeze in copious amounts of time being interviewed by doltish journalists, making sure makeup is carefully applied, mincing about for videos, etc. Oh, right and making some music, too. Anyway, shit gets stressful. So what do you do?

Well if you're Robert Smith of the Cure and Steve Severin of the Banshees you rent a hotel room, take copious amounts of LSD, watch a million bad horror flicks, book some studio time and hack out an album's worth of psychedelic exotica with an untested ex-TOTP dancer singing lead. In the Spring of '83, Smith & Severin recorded the one and only album by The Glove (named after the baddy in Yellow Submarine), Blue Sunshine. It's long been a fan curio and widely regarded as, well as what it is, which is about 50,000 times better than The Top.

As part of their ambitious and somewhat over-stuffed Cure reissue campaign, Rhino wheels out a ridiculously enormous 2 disc version of the album today, along with the next batch of Cure reissues - the aformentioned The Top, The Head On the Door and Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me, which was already too freaking long, but whatever.

The point, though - right - the point kids is that this one is really worth it. Why? Well, if you don't have the Glove album yet (which you really should), then you need it and if you DO then you still need it - unlike the half-baked and laughably bad demos and extras that watered down most of the earlier reissues, the second disc here is what we call "tit." Featuring the whole album sung by Robert instead of Landray, as well as some odds n' sods, the demos are high quality (drum machine a bit loud though) and worth a listen. Something like a strange Cure mini-album between "Let's Go to Bed" and the rest of the "Fantasy Trilogy" emerges, simple songs that show Smith working towards the perfect pop he would soon master.

Now, I'd love to share some of these with you, but I've been told that the promo copies of this set are encoded with a special device that enables the good folks at Polydorwarnerrhino to find me, come to my house and punish me for my temerity, most likely via hanging me upside down and flogging me. So instead you get this lovely video for the near-ambient instrumental "A Blues in Drag" :

"it's like hot chip. but gangsta."

2006-08-08T06:13:00.000-07:00

Fellow funkyfunky 7-er "heightsy" and I were having an interesting discussion the other night about what he calls the "synth rap revolution".

Without reiterating too much of the conversation here, "heightsy" feels that the style of synths used in songs like T.I.'s "What You Know" and Rick Ross's "Hustlin'" is really great (so great that he hails those 2 songs as "tracks of the year. bar none."), and I'm just really not feeling it *at all*.

Now this is probably mostly a style preference thing-- while our tastes cross paths a lot of the time, when it comes down to specifics he prefers much heavier, brooding-type rap to my girly, cute, poppy rap preferences. He loves Can-Ox, I love Blackalicious. His love of Dipset vs. my love of Dizzee. He prefers Bazooka Tooth to my preference for Labor Days. Etcetera.

So it would be simple to say, "oh I don't like that T.I. song because it's too heavy". Which, yes, it is a lot heavier (and duller!) than what I'd prefer to listen to for the most part. But what irks me about the song (aside from T.I.'s over-emphasis and needless sustaining of his thick sloppy southern accent) is how over-used the synths are in it. Mister Heightsy points out, "it's a producer saying, 'man, lemme fucking play this keyboard'. the synth rolls in that TI song are total hip-hop producing regime change."-- which YES it is a lot of synth, and a lot of very active synth at that (in that it's moving constantly as opposed to calculated sparse blips here and there), which *is* a bit unusual for rap production as of late. But I think it's *too* synthesized, if that's even possible. I mean, when the piano chords enter in during the chorus- even the PIANO sounds bright, electric, and completely fake. And this all boils down to personal preference again, probably as a result of my background in classical music resulting in a semi-purist nature when it comes to sampling, but fake sounding strings, piano, chorales, etc, especially if they're intended to sound real but just don't quite, grate on my nerves.

Another thing-- the production quality gives each of these songs a false sense of being epic. It's almost like the producers felt they HAD to go all out and make the music as dense and awe inspiring on purpose to make up for the fact that the rappers' flows in each song are hardly impressive (and at times, even embarrassing). But when people hear the massive production, the sweeping fake strings, the catchy as hell and carefully-composed-to-intoxicate-you synth melodies... before you know it, everyone's brainwashed to think that T.I. and Rick Ross are dieties of sorts. I mean, Rick Ross's Hustlin' ringtone is the most downloaded single prior to the release of the debut album EVAR! Over a million people in this world have their cell phones ringing to Hustlin' right now, which even further adds to the force-fed repetition the record company hopes for in order to sell more albums. And that kind of carefully planned brain manipultion through music is nothing new, dating back thousands and thousands of years. In fact, we even have computer programs now to help our lovely record executives make more money off of tricking our brains into liking shit we're force-fed on the radio. Shit, even I was starting to doubt my original disgust for the T.I. track after the 200th time I heard it on the radio, but fear not, the disgust still remains.

So yeah. To sum up, it's not synth rap I dislike. Hell, my favorite album of 2006 thus far is the Spank Rock joint, so I've got some pretty severe personal/mental issues going on if I were to declare hate on the "synth rap revolution". It's more the way the synths are used excessively in some cases to disguise extreme mediocrity in the rap artists, and the overbearing forceful nature and false ego these songs also embody that I'm not to keen on. And, well, I have a slight negative bias of T.I. because Scarface doesn't think he's gangsta. And what scarface says is always right. So there.

Ratatat: Classics

2006-08-06T18:19:00.000-07:00

You know how you like an artist and you want more, you can't wait till they come out with more music because you just love that last album. Then you get it and its exactly the same as the last one and you're really disappointed. Yeah, that's Ratatat's Classics.

I've been a fan of Ratatat from the first listen of their self titled debut. They fill a wired niche as post-rock's answer to electronica or vice versa. Their Remixes Mixtape was thoroughly impressive and, like indie kids everywhere, it helped prime me to accept a new serving of hip-hop into my musical diet. So, needless to say I was pretty eager for the new Classics album coming out in late August.

I got my hands on it a couple of weeks ago and I've tried listening to it several times but I couldn't ever finish it. The album just doesn't seem to catch your attention at any point. They seem to have developed a formula for how their songs are structured and made an album base off that.

The album's opening track, "Montanita," is a tropical-flavored copy of "Spanish Armada." "Gettysburg" gets repetitive, with not enough breaks; especially considering that the builds are too short with not enough release. "Wildcat" uses a wild cat's screech a little too much. My jaded indie rock sensibilities (an oxymoron, I know) tell me that you should not be so literal in your music. Either don't name it "Wildcat" or cut the Spank Rock sounding sample out.

A few highlights do exist. "Lex" and "Nostrand" are standout tracks in the mostly boring album. And their appreciation of / experience in hip-hop production shows through a little in "Tropicana's" beats and "Kennedy's" drums and bass.

Their debut was in no way an energetic album, but they seem to have lost even that. Basically, the album is a sequel. More of the same without any ingenuity, without any growth. They lost most of the drive and complexity that made one appreciate Ratatat. Classics will probably be anything but.

Album hits stores August 22nd.
Untill then: Evidence.
Ratatat - Gettysburg
Ratatat - Lex
Ratatat - Nostrand

Kashmere High School Stage Band

2006-08-06T13:29:00.000-07:00

NPR's All Thing's Considered ran a feature on Houston's own Kashmere Stage Band last week. I'm not going to say much else, because I am requiring each and every one of you to go and stream the 8 minute segment on the webpage and listen to it. You will hear interviews with the Kashmere band-leader, Conrad O. Johnson, various bits and pieces of their performances, examples of their music being sampled by DJ Shadow in "Holy Calamity", and a whole lot of history about the band itself and how their music has evolved.

One thing-[spoiler!]- it warms my heart TO NO END to know that band director Conrad O. Johnson's entire inspiration for the stage band was fueled entirely by none other than Otis Redding. Seriously- my heart is near-boiling at the moment, it is SO WARM WITH HAPPINESS OVER THAT FACT.

That is all. Go listen. NOW.

The Agony of Patronage

2006-08-06T07:46:00.000-07:00

Charlton Heston plays Michelangelo in a 1965 film called The Agony and The Ecstasy. This film continues his knack of playing characters from ancient periods, and thus there are no guns involved. The film revolves around the famed artist’s painting of the Sistine Chapel and his relationship with the Pope. His Holiness constantly questions Michelangelo as to when the work will be done, and the artist always responds with “When I’m finished”.

I noticed a post from Dave of TV on the Radio on his youngliars blog where the band apparently received a considerable amount of a paypal donation. Dave then goes on a spiel about the possibility of musicians to have patrons like the artists of old. I would like to comment on this a bit.

If bands like the Flaming Lips can pay for their own album recordings, have Warner put them out, and still recoup enough to eat there should be a way to patronize our favorite musicians today. I read an article once where Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy mentioned that in a good year every member of the band could gross about $100,000 each. This is the same band who streamed their entire album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot online. The business model has changed. Despite the Virgin Megastores all over (at least in New York) according to the press (of whom I’m citing an article that I cannot find again) compact disc sales are down by a significant quality. In today’s era of low cost and convenient monetary transfers it ought to be beyond easy for music fans to patronize their favorite artists. After all, a kid became a millionaire by selling single pixels and someone through a system of barter deals traded a paper clip for a house. As Americans we love to fund stupid shit.

We also love to feel involved. Sometimes I stand in disbelief in the lines at the movie theater when I hear people talking about box office grosses. People want to be a part of the team. I also know that rich people love to blow money on really crass things. In New York, I’ve seen timid pieces of photography sell for $5,000 dollars a pop. Perhaps oil and hotel heiresses are putting their funds in the wrong pots. Just imagine if the 100,000 people who downloaded songs from a record would donate $10 each to a band of four or five guys. They would invariably be able to live a decent existence for a year. In the non-profit industry, I have seen amazing amounts of money donated for all types of causes; I’ve seen all kinds of selflessness with no charge housing and the like. One thing that I have noticed in this age of freeware, free operating systems, and other altruisms, is that we aren’t as competitive and cut-throat as our economic model would have us seem.

pop music

2006-08-05T13:45:00.000-07:00

I ran across this video while poking around the intarwub this afternoon. It's a month or so old, so it's probably been seen by a lot of people already, but it's new to me.

Beyonce Feat. Jay-Z performing their new single Deja Vu on the 2006 BET Awards.

No one can deny that Beyonce is a fucking POWER-HOUSE vocalist. She does not need a producer to mix her voice into perfection, and she's so damn good that she can run around on stage in high heels, succumb to uncontrollable booty shaking convulsions, and even throw herself down on the ground and do the back-stroke on stage ALL while her vocals are still stunningly strong, gorgeous and perfect.

Jay-Z, eh, meh. His flow in this one could use some work, though he does call out the H-O-U-S-T-O-N (!). The great thing here in the video though, is when he says the word "bounce", he reaches out and smack's Beyonce on the ass. Yes, in case you missed that:

Anyways, I'm mainly posting this because I liked the theatrics, costumes, the guitar players' dancing, and I liked seeing a wannabe Tina Turner seizure on the ground while belting out beautiful lyrics flawlessly. Also, I'm quite taken by the bridge that leads into each chorus of the song. And this video is so way better than the Justin Timberlake video I considered blogging about instead.

Treadmills (again)

2006-08-05T10:19:00.000-07:00

[Reposted from my blog, at the request/demand of our fearless leader...]

After seeing "A Million Ways", I never imagined Ok Go were going to turn the whole dancing thing into something approaching an aesthetic; but the video for "Here It Goes Again" is a hell of a lot of fun. I hope they keep it up (even the part where the guy lip synching isn't the actual singer).

Ted Leo is Punk Rock

2006-08-05T01:28:00.000-07:00

Holy crap Ted Leo is the fuckin' man's man, man. Charlie Bronson has got nothin on him.

Ok, so get this: Ted Leo plays a show in Baltimore... doot doot doot, typical awesome TL/RX concert and then bam! the lights go out. Well, what do you do then? Why if you're Mr. Fucking Ted Leo, you launch off into a capella cover song set: the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' "Maps", Kelly Clarkson's "Since U Been Gone", and "Don't Stop Believing" by Journey. Then you grab an acoustic guitar and a flashlight, keep playing, fall off the stage and play some more. Of course, now its unbearably hot, dark and fire hazard or something, so everyone gets sent outside. And as you may have guessed, Ted Leo follows and keeps playing out on the street.

Oh hell yes.

And it's not confined to one incident: At the Pitchfork Music Festival this year, he bashed his face in with a microphone and kept playing. He plays tamborine on his head. And if you've watched the "Dirty Old Town" DVD, you saw him play a completely awesome set in New York City during the 2003 blackout off of a Starbucks promo van's generator.

Nothing can stop this man.
(Except of course sickness. Fucker cancelled his show here earlier this year because of a sore throat. Bah!)

I can't wait till he comes to Houston in September.

Yeah, I know, you've probably already read all this on pitchfork... but I don't really care. It's worth reading again.

I'll Be There Today With a Big Bouquet of Cactus

2006-08-05T01:13:00.000-07:00

Well, it was bound to happen. Leonard Cohen : The Movie has been made and thus, Leonard Cohen : The Movie Soundtrack has been released. Featuring nearly nothing outside the realm of utter predictability, with precious few artists that don't have the last name Wainwright (McGarrigles, you don't count), it's precisely as tedious as one would expect it to be. No one does a version of "Jazz Police," "Diamonds in the Mine," or "Don't Go Home With Your Hard On." "Suzanne," "Bird On a Wire," "Tower of Song," "Famous Blue Raincoat," yadda fuckin' yadda, all present and accounted for.

Butbutbut. To continue an odd tradition (see the Pixies), Jarvis Cocker (it's OK, Jarv, we still love you) covers the second worst song from I'm Your Man, the remarkably bland "I Can't Forget."

So, what I'm basically saying is that the best moment from something that totally sucks also kind of sucks.

Not exactly the most inspiring of first posts, I will admit. But I promise - I do actually like stuff.

Lonely Hearts (CLUB BAND? LOLZ)

2006-08-04T18:41:00.000-07:00

No no no, this is in no way related to the Beatles. So sorry to get your hopes up.

This is, however, about one of the greatest soul queens who ever existed and one of her greatest, yet oh-so-sadly underappreciated, b-sides.

The Allen Toussaint penned "Lonely Hearts" (mp3) is about as catchy and funky as a depressing soul ballad can get-- the heavy bass and relentless drums chug along in a lazy swing backed up by some bluesy piano and horns that pop up every now and then...

But then there's Betty Harris... Oh, Betty! She has one of the most attitude-laden voices EVER laid to wax (she's on the same level as my baby momma, Ann Sexton, in that regard). Her vocals in this song convey SO much more meaning in their delivery than the actual words she's singing. They simmer... burn... growl... EXPLODE INTO FLAMES!

Even though it's just your everyday classic man-leaves-woman-and-woman-becomes-a-depressed-insomniac-because-of-it structured song, her self-defeating attitude ("what was confucius talkin' 'bout / every dog's got its day") and her overall sense of defeat and helplessness in the whole situation ("i was promised a ring, 10,000 things / but I'm still alone today") are sung in such a way that the listener feels crushed and desolate, left alone and cold in the meaningless void of her broken relationship (but even then, the funky drums and horns continue to play on!). Not to mention, ANY vocalist who can pull off a chorus as simple and repetitive as this ("I'm so tired, tired, tired / I just cry, cry, cry") without sounding silly, kitschy, or like they just ran out of stuff to say, and is actually able to fuel *more* emotion into it than the actual verses, deserves a gold medal.

I can't afford a gold medal, but I can give you my never-ending love and devotion, dear Betty. Thank you for sharing a piece of your soul with us.

[[also, if anyone out there in intardnetland reading this knows where I can get a copy of this 45 (Bad luck/Lonely Hearts - Sansu 461 * 1967), please tell me!]]

Just can't help believin'

2006-08-04T15:48:00.000-07:00

It's not the best best version of the song (this is what you want, and you want it, oh yes), but if you can watch the above video or more importantly listen to the mix of this song I've just provided for you and walk away thinking that it is anything less than one of the innumerable pinnacles of Pop... just don't talk to me anymore, okay?

And although I'm convinced the song could be enjoyed by listeners of any political stripe, I have always been a little thrilled at how good Johnny Boy are at melding total ecstatic joy and some of the best politics I've ever heard in music.

"bodymore murdaland shit" * + booty shaking + [gezundtheit]=

2006-08-04T08:57:00.000-07:00

DJ Ron Rico - Miss A (Sneeze Song)

*lolz<3markronson

Lady K!'s Summer Jamz v.4.0 : HEAT WAVE EDITION!!

2006-08-04T06:52:00.000-07:00

Ok!

For the first actual music related post here on The FunkyFunky 7, I figured I'd get things started out right with a x-posting of my latest "Summer Jamz" mixtape.

My "Summer Jamz" series is a total rip off of Stylus Magazine's annual feature. I made one at the beginning of the summer for the hell of it, and after that, started naming each subsequent mixtape I created as a new mix in that same series (because I'm lazy and uncreative!).

This particular mix is comprised mainly of more recent hip hop, electronic, and latin-tinged beat (salsa/funk carioca) type stuffs. Because it's HOT outside, and hot weather deserves even HOTTER music. It's fairly remix-heavy for a lady k! mixtape as well, which will please some of you, I'm sure. Also, you can probably tell from listening to it that I attended a Diplo show recently. I wear my influences on my sleeve, what can I say?

Download!

01. Tony Middleton - Return to Spanish Harlem
02. MC Mascote - Bate La Palme De Mao
03. Waguinho - Academia De Furacao I
04. Os Tchutchucos - Chapa Quente
05. Cansei De Ser Sexy - Let's Make Love (Diplo Dub Remix)
06. Bonde Do Role - Melo Do Tabaco (Bonjay Remix)
07. Sayag Jazz Machine - Flipper Down (Memories Mix By Co)
08. DJ Shadow - 3 Freaks (Feat Keak Da Sneak and Turf Tals)
09. Jazzconductor - I Used 2
10. Lupe Fiasco - I Gotcha
11. Robin Jones - Royal Marcha (Raj Gupta Remix)
12. Bazeado - Viva A Povo Brasileiro (Da Lata Remix)
13. The Gossip - Listen Up! (MSTRKRFT Relick)
14. Scissor Sisters - Don't Feel Like Dancing
15. Girl Talk - Bounce That
16. Teki Latex - Disco Dance With You (Spank Rock Remix feat. Amanda Blank)
17. Dizzee Rascal - Girls (feat Marga Man)
18. Rich Boy & Pitbull - When Niggaz Get To Poppin' (Remix)
19. Roots Manuva - Colassal Insight (Scratch Perverts Remix)
20. Beatconductor - Goes To My Head (feat. MC Lyte)

The FunkyFunky 7 FAQ!

2006-08-03T21:06:00.000-07:00

What the fuck?
The FunkyFunky 7 is the collective internet-home of a group of kids from all over who love, and love writing about, music.

What, The Funk?
Actually, no! Despite the name and general appearance of the blog, we intend to have no genre restrictions whatsoever in our discussion here. Some of us may be a bit more down with The Funk than others, but we are all about mixing it up.

Can I write?
I don't know, did you pass the 3rd grade?

If you want to contribute, feel free to comment and link us to some of your work, or you can email us at thefunkyfunky7 [at] gmail [dot] com.