So I apologize for the last blog. I haven't heard any complaints, but I knew going in that my screed, my decree, might be decried as grandiose. That it might tickle some of you as off-topic, even though it WAS the topic.
((Well! Don't say I didn't warn you of My Awesome Powers when the Christo-Pocalypse rains upon the earth.))
But I know that you come here not for spiritual revelation, but musical revelation:
AND THUS IT SHALL BE.
{{updated August 5th, with some streaming audio and direct links to select MP3s!}}
If you know me IRL, then you have heard me discuss how I am the Second Coming. The Secular-Second-Coming, that is. I discussed it last night in fact, at Alexi's. But I can never remember all the reasons (so many reasons...) that could prove My Divinity to skeptics. Even the (Re-)Christ forgets things, okay? (It makes it easier to forgive, BTW!) Here are the reasons that I always remember: My name means bearer of christ (and who would bear christ more than the Re-Christ?) Almost nothing bad ever happens to me I have stigmata: one from an ACTUAL NAIL going through my hand; the other JUST SHOWED UP ONE DAY and has a way bigger/better scar than the nail one people love the shit out of me (with this corrolary: while I love everyone, in my own special -often despising- way, Jesus did not really love ALL THINGS, just all people: I love all things, even Us Weekly and dirt, so that makes me BETTER THAN HIM) I have a beard
((This is Soutine. It is supposed to be a self-portrait, with a beard, but I see no beard... Well, let's cut him some slack SINCE HE'S DEAD))
But just moments ago, I remembered another one, a really key reason. Everything in my life is connected in a productive way. I don't mean 'connected' as in "Man, my yoga guru and I are like, totally connected", nor do I mean it in the sense that temporally distant and causally distinct events might be thought to 'mean something' or 'belong' together. I mean that something happens- I hear something, I say something, I see something- and then something else happens- I am told something, I am shown something, I post something- and the connection which is established between the 1st and 2nd thing/event is E P I C.
It's like this: Went to the Barnes Institute the other day. Saw many painters that were new/s to me. One of those was Pacsin. (others of note were Corot, Rouault, Demuth, Sefarbi, Pippin, Glackens, Karl Priebe, Soutine, Settani, Dimock, Wols, and Gritchenko) Of these, Pacsin may have impressed me the least -- BUT -- there is a Divine Connection lurking...
I went to my WC today, just as I was thinking about writing a lil' weblo' about the Barnes Foundation http://www.barnesfoundation.org/ (people gotta know, ya know?). In the WC I have a copy of Hemingway's 'A Moveable Feast'. I don't love Hemingway, by the by, this is just a physically small book that will fit in the WC. (I scavenged it from Villanova Katie.)
One that I got recently, too, which makes me more likely to read it (oh, the backlog of books...). Plop down for a read and what do you think the very next chapter is called? 'With Pacsin at the Dome', that's what it's called. One and the same Pacsin as of the Barnes. HAH! The Supremes were playing on the jukebox (hereafter 'juxe') aka ITunes, which is also weblo' material (Past and Future). Dr.J and I were just talking about the Supremes here, and she had this genius insight about how the sample in question basically added a comma ('love child' vs 'love, child...') to the meaning. That changed the meaning from a comment about the status of the child, to a comment about the love this child has for someone else. Then I read the following in my German book (yes, the book from that OTHER blog).
Friedrich the Great was friends with the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn. Let’s pretend this Matisse below is Friedrich the Great, shall we?
And let’s pretend this Cezanne is a young Moses Mendelssohn.
Mendelssohn invited Friedrich the Great to dinner, and was keeping poor Fred waiting. The Great wrote a note and told his servant to place it on the missing philosopher's plate. The note reads: "Mendelssohn is an ass. [signed] Friedrich the second." Mendelssohn finally arrives, reads the note, puts it in his pocket. Friedrich says jovially, 'Hey, Moses, what was that note? What did it say?' Mendelssohn smiles and loudly reads HIS version of the note: "Mendelssohn is an ass; Friedrich: the second". Get it? Change the emphasis/punctuation a little, and The Great is just one of multiple asses. (Also densely connected within Blogville because Chet probably has read this note in the Official National German Archives- in the original German, no doubt.)
See? I was going to write a blog anyway, and then all these other related things pop up to jiggle my memory box and get themselves inserted into the blog too! And see how then it got WAY BIGGER and then mutated into a blog about how my blogs can mutate into other, bigger blogs? And when these things come together in a really big, really effective, really truly awesome way, then we have such a greatness that we have no option other than to declare the birth of a divinity. OBVIOUSLY (that's El Greco's version of the vision of my ascension. They're trying to take off my clothes! Gasp/Giggle!)
Now, in no way, shape, or form do I think that my Father is GUIDING these things. There is not something or someone planning/directing/guaranteeing this good-into-Awesome development of reality. No, no, three times no. The new Christ is not a piece of a 'tripartite good', but an equiprimordial 'bipartite AWESOME'. Meaning, that my father does not guide these things, but rather they happen simply as a direct causal effect of the ontological depth of my reality. Holier than thou? NO: REALier than thou. I am, in the strict sense, 'more real' than you are: I have more formal and objective reality than you.
Don't get offended- it's a dirty job, but someone has to be the new improved Christ.
I am 'causa sui' (that means 'self-caused') -here, I say causa sui not as strictly as I said 'more real', but close: I am the primary cause of my own increase in reality. Hence the so-called bipartite awesome: I sprang fully formed from my own forehead- also, just heard Missy Elliot say "I don't brag I mostly boast..." --told you it was all related!!!)
Now, if there is not a transcendent/external cause, but an immanent/internal one (immanent to the caused, even- hence the 'loose-sense causa sui'), then you can understand why I stand in no need of a father. The result being: two parts (me as cause, and, me as effect) not three; and no need to go outside of the connected things to find a 'reason' why they are connected. (An important corrolary of the above is that no things BELONG together, but that many things can be productively combined, which is precisely the means by which I increase my being). Diana Ross does not BELONG with Hemingway; but she can (as it turns out- you could not have predicted it!) be placed right alongside, or superimposed upon him, and we can then see an increase in knowledge, power, or being (the three being very nearly synonomous: very tightly related). (The above is Karl Priebe- admit it: you'd never heard of him either. That is not ACTUALLY a painting of Diana Ross- her hair is not that bad.)
And, to go back to my love of all things, Jesus was a dirty dirty humanist: people are different than, and better than, things, according to him (Jesus= Augustine here; same diff, right?). But I know (this would be 'The Newest/Bestest Testament') that people are not different than things: people are simply made up of things. (Trust Me: Spinoza proved this for us.)
In my case, the things of which I am made up of are : The Supremes, Hemingway (just a little Hem though), a really big and badass bookcase, asphalt, a selection of works from the Barnes, coffee (aw, you could tell by this weblo, huh?), Missy Elliot, the day of Sunday, shoes, ties, special-bought shoelaces to ghetto-match with my shirts/hats (yup, made of those too), etc. etc. etc.
The above things have a shit-ton of being or reality (or, perhaps a dick-ton: I am willing to admit when I don't know something- I am a modest little DIVINITY after all), especially when combined. I am nothing but those things of which I am made. I am made of the above things THEREFORE I have a shit-ton/dick-ton of being. QED
(DEMUTH- I was probably the most taken with him) (Demuth again duh)
Degas
Matisse
Modigliani
Toulouse-Lautrec
(It pains me to say this, but most of the above pictures are NOT the ones at the Barnes. It was surprisingly difficult to find pictures of the paintings that I remember online; partly because, beyond the Matisses, and the Picassos, and the Cezannes, the Renoirs, etc., most of these artists are not so well-loved and so well-documented that many would take the time to put up significant numbers of their works. Plus old museum people are scared of the ones-and-zeros. The last 4 are at the Barnes Foundation; the Great and the Philosopher are as well; the smoking girl is Picasso's and I think there too.)
Sampling- the best thing to happen in music since strings?
Probably. Ignore for a second that they make it possible for someone to create a song without being able to play keys, drums, etc. That's a democratizing effect; but I'd rather talk about what it does musically. When you recognize a sample, it's like you are simultaneously hearing two songs at once-- and if one song is good, then two must be better, right? (This doubling can also induce a sense of deja vu when you know you know the sample, but can't place where it's from. I always find that disconcerting but pleasant too.) Many times, a sample is just a straightforward looping of a drum- nothing wrong with that;
jungle/drum and bass is built around looping a few really well-known breaks, and we all love jungle.
But today I'm showing you a few well-known samples that get used sort of against the original. So here is a sampling (hahahahah) of sampling songs and samples.
Lova and happiness, by The Most Reverend Al Green, you love that song. Upbeat, yeah, good things going on there, organ all zippy. But remember how he sort of mourn-moans in the beginning?
"something that can make you do wrong, make you do right..."
Well, Twista and Lil' Kim just keep that. That track uses the guitar too, which is not zippy, but all Sunday-having-coffee and reading the paper. It's all about 'doing wrong' at the club, zero of the 'do right', and getting with someone that you DID NOT come with ('now you know it ain't right, got a girl at home, but tonight, but [this other girl is] the type that'll "make you do wrong..."' ). Look, see how I have to quote Twista, and then, in the quote, I quote The Rev? Like, postmodern, see right?!?!?! And when you quote my blog- all the time, obv - you have to quote me quoting Twista quoting the Rev.
Yes, it's Twista, not the tippy-top of the hip-hop game, but this song is slick, and you aren't trying to diss Miss Kim, are you?
What else do we have here?.... Princess, of Crime Mob, released a 'mixtape' a while ago- not really a mixtape, but just an album, but for whatever reason (street cred, no doubt, or maybe just to make it seem like Princess wasn't going solo, but just messing around in the studio) they insisted on marketing it as a mixtape, even though you could probably buy it at FYE.
So she here is using another great famous song- Love child by the Most Supreme Diana Ross and the Supremes. Similarly, she keeps just the pained part of the vocal. The Supremes "Love Child" sort of stomps, doesn't it? God, I love that song. "Tenement slum" sure, but with these rad little chimes in the start, then it goes all horns in the chorus. Stuttery funk guitar.
But the Princess track ,like a fair but of the other tracks on that 'mixtape', is almost R&B, a slow sad thing. Listen to the way she isolates the saddest vocalization of the whole track (around 2 minutes in): listen to Diana's voice shake. "I'll always love you: you you YOU". Another thing about samples, they allow you to sense things hidden in the original. All of that great instrumentation in the original hides what Ms. Ross is doing.
Oh, what's she doing?: SHE IS KILLING IT is what she is doing. Her voice, never so big as Aretha's for instance , is really good at this shaking-shaken-broken thing. Like she's broken. I mean, Aretha can get sad, sure, but you can't break a woman like that. But D Ross is broken, always; she is the high school girl, just a pretty little doll in a pretty little dress, whose world just ended because the boy she loves, will ALWAYS love, just dumped her. And the Princess song recasts that sadness, that stupid stupid devotion to the stupid and lost boy.
Princess' track is about abuse, though, so when DR says, I'll always love you, she is the girl who never grew up, who never figured out how to be without that boy, even when he beats her, or at the least, emotionally abuses her. Princess has doubled and hence deepened the powerless hurt of a girl in the wrong relationship, and one that gets more wrong and more intractable as the song/the relation goes on. Try doing that with a really great bassline, or a funky vocal: can't be done, and that is why
I am learning German right now: Iche lerne die Deutsch. I have some books, and all of them are quite boring, except one: Elementary German Series by Peter Hagboldt.
I'm aware of how thrilling this sounds. This book is only of note (to you, at least - to me, es hilft mich mit die Wörtern!) because of it's drawings. You know, children -- feeble minds -- must be kept entertained, and I am much like them in this respect. It was illustrated by W.T. Mars and Susan Perl. Susan Perl also illustrated "The Sex Life of the American Female". What I have here is aimed down a little, as far as age goes. Roughly, this age:
Just some of the best illustrations today (I might post more later- these are not the only good bits PROMISE). All of these appear to be woodcuts, but I'm no expert (you won't hear me say that very often) Come on; I know something about everything, not everything about everything.
Speaking of, let me here justify the posts tagged "Archive Fever". Blogs should be a particular form of narcissism. They do it well: displaying bits of whatever catches someone's attention about themselves. But if a blog is up there so you can discuss yourself, I mean your 'self', then that is generally in very poor taste. (I'll tell you why later: it's my anti-humanism at work.) It reminds me of this song
It has choice lines like "Hey all you Renaissance Geniuses you know we wanna see it all your vaginas and your penises your feces-es masterpieces oh".
I am not a Renaissance Genius myself. I am a Renaissance Dilettante: hence knowing something about it all. So I am archiving my GREAT stuff, not because it is mine, but because it is GREAT. It's interesting stuff (Vinyl records, woodcuts, tins, Italian anti-drug pamphlets, skateshop vinyl figurines, etc.) It's all AWESOME first, and mine only secondarily. That they are mine just makes it easier for me to present them to you (I'm not lazy: I'm just efficient). Plus, some of it's three-dimensional, so I am bringing analog and three dimensions to the digital and 2-D internet. EVERYTHING SOUNDS BETTER/BEST WITH ME.
'On to the pictures, please', right?
I particularly like this one. The lion has its right paw raised, giving a balance to its raised tail. Even better, the roots of the trees snake around its feet, so that you know that the lion is in the forest. If the roots didn't come into the foreground, the tree would seem to be in the background. But the story clearly says that the lion is in the forest; I know this because I read the story BECAUSE I AM SMART AND I AM LEARNING GERMAN.
And to bring it back to the text, here is one with a little Deutsch thrown in. It says that the wolf ate a little lamb, "but was still hungry: a wolf is always hungry!" So it went back, but the farmers caught it and beat it with their sticks until they had "beaten the wolf as soft as butter".
Funny people, these Germans.
(FYI I bit the title of Archive Fever from Derrida- the only thing you'll ever get of him from me.
"ain't shit worse than a waste of talent still, life goes on without it still, real ni**as do somethin' about it- Smash Brothers doin' somethin' about it" That's from Illy by S.A. Smash.
HEY are you listening? I said, You Can Still Download The Songs. Download them thru the link w/ the song title- the MediaFire link. Easy Breezy.
Camu Tau was half of S.A. Smash (with Metro) and he died this May. He was a sick, sick rapper with a unique style. His gruff and fierce style was helped out (on the S.A. Smash album) by fittingly on-point production from El-P and PRZM (who also died recently).
He also did an album with Cage that's supposed to be pretty good, but the album I know best is "Smashy Trashy".
"Smashy Trashy" is a good album, all the way through. What is unusual about Smash shows up right away- "seen you acting up, from the bottom of a plastic cup": Smash get drunk, get WASTED (see [How'm I gonna] "Get Home"). Most rappers don't get wasted - they don't rhyme about it at least - but why not? because rappers have to act (act) hard, all the time. Remember, like Fat Joe told you:
"Said my ni**as don't dance, we just pull up our pants and, Do the Roc-away. Now lean back, lean back, lean back, lean back..."
But Smash ain't fronting- if they wanna dance, they gon' dance. And if they wanna drink, then they are getting right ready ripped. I mean, they have a track called "A.A.", nahmean? And it's Natty Ice, Steel Reserve, not Moet and Kris: so they're real ("You seeing where I'm layin', and you sayin' I'm making it up?"). Anyhow, they might get splitfaced and they might dance, lose their keys, chase groupies (ugly or not: a thug doesn't care, I guess).
Oh yeah, they're thugs too though- but weird thugs. Like misanthropic sadists, not just rough to avoid getting hassled, or rough to own a corner. No, they threaten you with weird shit like getting a "shovel in the face", chasing a punch to your face with a glass of stout (also to your face), and so on. Cos enough of this same-old-same-old "thugg"ery. Rappers talking about guns you don't use: it's experiencing diminishing returns these days, right? So Smash keep the violence-- and we keep the little thrill from thinking about some UltraViolence-- but flip it into something more interesting. More like this (from "Clout.mp3"):
"now that everybody rhymes, it's time to battle for souls, start a single-file line and pay me after the show... the monster and we conquered half of the globe with an attitude like that'll get you clapped in the dome we be the menace, we like the sound of shatterin bones... my intentions are infected and I'll pass it along You askin if the passion is gone? Motherfuck you and that watered-down rappin you on pipe ni**as smoke crack to this one, fake ni**as practice packing a gun the aggravated immigrant, African son, smoke a blunt with you, punk, put a stab in your lung" Etc.
(see how the rhyme scheme switches from the sound "oh" to "own" to "on" to "un"? Not Easy: Guys can flow, right?
And if you're rapping about new thangs, you should have some new-sounding beats under you: S.A. Smash produced 10 of the tracks, getting serious help from El-P on a few others. ("Illy" is produced by him.) The beats lurch around- makes sense, they were probably wasted when they hit the studio- jumbled and dense. Guitar comes in and out, but this isn't rock and rap- that never works, does it. No, but here, the guitars=gutter. You know El-P's style, and the album has that feel, and that level of quality too, no matter which producer did which track. Yeah, El-Producto did "Illy", but that other dope jam "Slide on 'Em (Escapade).mp3", which has a truly awesome rhyme on it (by Vast Aire), that jam was a S.A. Smash production.
Well, Camu's gone. Here's a few tracks, by him solo.
Portishead had a new album out not too long ago; but what you need (and SO what I am supplying you) is from an album 40 years old. Miss Morgana King. Setting a template. A template worth knowing about. I will, out of self-interest (enlightened self-interest, at least) rather than generosity, also give you some of this most-recent Portishead. Why do I say self-interest?: I am trying to "drive traffic", as the hackers say. You will come for Portishead, but what I really want you to have the Miss Morgana King. That is why I will post the relevant Portishead songs near the end of this blog: DADDY SAYS you MUST eat your (delicious!) vegetables before having your (also delicious!) dessert. The RULES are the RULES my son.
Ahem. Listen to this song alone, and you will hear Beth Gibbons -- You will hear what you love about Beth Gibbons (she, of course, is the Voice of Portishead).
Now, I often feel like a motherless child myself - I was raised by wolves (which I sometimes phrase as "I sprang fully formed from my own forehead") - so I can empathize with this song's effective working-through of mourning.
To continue with songs that evoke Portishead, we have the title of this song- "The Night has A Thousand Eyes".
Since I don't feel like emoting all over this blog, I will post, instead, the back cover of the album, which does a reasonable job of encapsulating
Miss
Morgana
King
If your browser (or my blog itself) is giving you grief viewing these, go to my flickr page and view them fullsize. They, like Miss Morgana King Herself, are worth the time to engage. Although her music more than these texts, obviously. Oh, you wanted some P-head too, correct? Here are some excellent songs of their new album, which (to my recent thinking) sound the most like Miss Morgana King. So, together with her songs to which you have listened, you will get a nice dense block of a particular sound. Oooh! you are so LUCKY!
Ah yes I almost forgot to add this: Tom Jones (!) covered "Motherless Child". With Portishead! BUT Tom did the singing himself. I grant you permission to listen to a clip of it HERE. I hope that marking out your preference for one song over the other will not tax you too greatly. Thanks to Matt Beck for accidentally drawing my attention to a conversation about Portishead's new album, which was the spark that led to this blog: blame him - not me.
M83 is a band that explodes out of the following primordial brew:
France and America (the place, for the former - the feeling of, for the latter); My Bloody Valentine; Slasher Flicks; Weed; 11:00 PM - 5:00 AM; Cars which are being Driven; Drum Machines Over live drummers, Every Time; (This is general:) High School and Its Attendant Feelings. Cynical Sensualist Romanticism (the heart knows no lies)("they are in love with romance, and illusions")(:This is specific).
The other M83 albums end up being very very good for driving. Driving with your jaw set and eyes narrowed. There is an edge or tension or 'drama' to those songs, and one which cycles around. When driving late at night on a empty stretch of interstate highway (I-5), you need something that keeps you looking out out far into the darkness, which approaches just as it recedes, and so looks the same now as it did five minutes ago... you have to be on edge as not to be caught sleeping, or looking too close to where your car actually is, but rather looking out, covering with your eyes the whole road on which you are driving. Other M83 albums are perfect for that driving.
"Saturdays=Youth" is better for a different kind of driving. driving, still, but driving through a light rain, through mist. but to a party, no: a gathering, NO: a 'get-together', a small party where you will know, and like, everyone. there will be records, actual records played. not 45s, but full albums. whoever is sitting nearest the record when it stops puts on another one. candles, but they weren't lit specially for the party. there won't be snacks out or anything, but you could make yourself something in the kitchen upstairs if you wanted. nobody is drinking- we're in high school (it's not that kind of get-together)- we're not like those football players who drink cans till they fall over in a parking lot. we might end up watching a movie at some point, a movie that most of us will have seen before. the Wild One, or Pretty in Pink, or Nightmare on Elm Street but more probably Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Japanese movies, including but not limited to anime (but your friends call it Manga), or something in black and white ("M" by Fritz Lang would work), or The Breakfast Club, Beetlejuice or the first Batman, or The Crow, maybe even Fast Times At Ridgemont High. some of these kids at the party have just dropped out of high school. some others won't go to college, even though they could if they wanted. the get-together is in a basement, but a finished one: carpeted, everywhere. that's why everyone can spend the night. we just fall asleep when we get tired, about when the second movie we put on is almost over.
It's okay- you've seen this one before.
This album is more human than the others. It has too be- it revolves around (allegedly was ''inspired by''), and produces a sense of, 80's movies- the 80's were the "ME decade", right, so there has to be a Me, or a You that me sees: movies show people. Sometimes they even show TWO PEOPLE: these are called 'Couples', and they come in a two types: in L- O- V- E, or, Broken Up. One can turn into the other, potentially any number of times, especially in movies (remember WE ARE STILL TALKING ABOUT MOVIES and M83). However, in M83, Couples, when they exist, are always IN L- O- V- E). As we can witness in Kim and Jessie.mp3. Although, really, Kim and Jessie are just friends. But they do love each other. SO, beacuse of 80's/(and) movies this album has more voices, and an instrument made of wood, not plastic: The Piano! The keys more typical of M83 are still here- see Coleurs- but they get plus-piano'ed. The keys/synths M83 usually uses are like an acid-bath wash of synths. Less notes and more chords, with little or no gaps between chords, instead of plunked out, single piano keystrokes. Right on the very first track, we have this new use of keys clearly presented: You, Appearing.mp3 On "Saturdays=Youth, we get more pianos, and pianos sound pretty, in the way that crystal is pretty- it could break, it can break hearts. Organs or keyboards have that 'shake' and that vibrato to their notes - think of a Hammond- so keyboards usually sound more tense. This album is about movies where she (read:you) get dumped for someone more popular etc, not slasher flicks like the earlier albums. Slasher=tension=shaking sustained sounds=Keyboards: SIMPLE MATHS. Here, with pianos, and even more so since M83 is in the vein of the 80's, we get The Cure, we get the Cocteau Twins, we get ethereal, pretty, already doomed. As Graveyard Girl says on this record,
"I'm fifteen years old, And I already feel it's too late to live. Don't you?"
Pianos have actual strings, which slowly stop vibrating, the sounds they make literally decay. The first song, as well as the last, have piano. I mean, it's highly likely that it is still a keyboard, just playing on the 'piano' setting. And there are vocals on almost every song, which is the reversal of the normal M83 ratio (mostly no lyrics, some movie-style voice overs, like on THIS older song: Car Chase Terror!.mp3).
My favorite song off this album is Couleurs.mp3- it is tres Depeche Mode. Which means 'fast fashion', correct? Which is now what they call H&M, Forever 21 (which now has guys' clothes GET PSYCHED), Canal Street, etc. So, much like all the stuff we like from the Eighties, it feels perpetually fresh and new, and reminds us of our adolescence too. Something like what M83 must have aimed for on Saturdays=Youth.
M83 has always been like movies; this time it is just explicit. Because it's movies, the last song, it HAS to be so long (over 11 minutes): It's the credits. That time in which you can re-think what you just saw and heard, what you just went through. Other albums of theirs have calm lulls like this, but between songs. Like a movie then, too: you can't have ALL!GO, ALL!THE TIME. M83 gives you the real real intense scenes, but in order that you can handle them, you need rest. At least a contrast: so the lulls (ambient wash, a tone that drones, a soft and soothing loop lain on a loop that soothes softly)inserted between the most bombastic songs. But this CD is not like songs in movies (that would be the previous M83 stuff), but is itself a soundtrack, or better, a movie itself. So, like a movie, it ends with credits. So, now, finally, you can rest your tired eyes, or, maybe just use the bathroom.
I said Refix, not Remix. We call it Refix cos' we remixed the word "remix" (hereafter "RMX"). Heady stuff, I know. AKA "I'm the DJ, He's the Rapper". What's the mix sound like? Big drums. Disco sirens. Ass-on-Fire-Tracks. Is this the Future of Hip-Hop ??? ...
REFIX - I'm the DJ, He's the Rapper.zip (all tracks) Flashing Lights (Benzi Refix) ^ Kanye West & the Clipse Raw Shit ft. Talib Kweli ^ Jaylib What's Your Fantasy ^ Ludacris Ft. Shawna Take It to da Floor ^ DJ Killa Naz ft. Young Jeezy & Bone Crusher Rump Shaker ^ Wrex 'N' Effect Whistle Song (There it Go) ^ Juelz Santana Ass on Fire (Busta Rhymes & Pharell) ^ Ghislain Poirier RMX Turf Drop ^ E-40 ft. Lil' Jon What We Do [Explicit] ^ Freeway, Beanie Sigel, JayZ Stop Snitchin' (Milkcrate Mix) ^ mixed by Aaron Lacrate (from "Bmore Gutter Music") Are U Ready [Hollertronix Mix] ^ mixed by Low Budget (from "Bmore Gutter Music") It Takes 2 ^ Rob Base & DJ EZ Rock Top Billing ^ Audio Two
This is not the version you have - didn't I already tell you?: it's the REFIX version - This track is just the Clipse rapping, no Kanye. We need those Brothers Clipse to add some more grimm coldness to the track : Icy. Dey know, yayo... This comes first, because it's a song you all know, but not the version you all know, so it double-catches your ear. IS HE OR ISN"T HE??? Watch the video, reminds me of 'karma police' by Radiohead (oh, back when I still cared). Slower-than-life + cars + the meeting of a violent end. Kanye's so arrogant (fair enough, not complaining) that he probably thinks that Radiohead are biting his style.
But the Clipse are key right now. Check some mixtapes: THEY GOT IT FOR CHEAP. Two of them, but they're brothers, so who can tell who is rapping? (hint: NOT ME) They need to be more like Dre and Snoop, who told you "It's Dre/ It's Snoop" mostly every third rhyme.
Jaylib (J Dilla and Madlib) bringing some niceness. If you don't know about Stones Throw records, well, you could. The best rap label I know of right now; better than Def Jux even. Jux can get its head a little too far up its own ass sometimes. Plus, there are more rappers/producers on Stones Throw. Listen here (there is even a dope podcast you can get) . Plus, this one has Talib Kweli rapping on it. Best living rapper: hands down (but, like, 'hands in the air' too).
Luda- off Diplo's Fabric mix. But was it a remix?- no.
Take it to the Floor - DJ Killa Naz Feat Lil' Jon & Bone Crusher is more or less a rave choon! Hip-hop is stealing from techno forever these days. Like how what flyers call 'electro' bites techno, and 'disco-punk' got white kids to dance by toning that shit (both disco AND punk) down. Timbaland, years ago, claimed to never had heard drum and bass, obv lying. But we'll let him lie, because in a field where you have to claim innovation, and no predecessors (which is weird ,since you have to 'know your history' and 'keep it real'), and where even British rappers
couldn't learn to rhyme until a white guy came around in 2002, you cannot really claim you are inspired by the click and booooom beats from across the pond. That would not be real: it would really be not real.
Rump Shaker- Oregon Nathan told me the Neptunes produced this track. I was thinking, wow, how misinformed! I love Nathan, and Nathan loves hip-hop, but that song is as old as we are, and so are the Neptunes so, it's impossible! NATHAN 1 CHRIS 0 Nathan was right, oh so right. Nathan should create a diss-track where he freestyles about what a know-it-all know-nothing I am. I could help produce it.... Plus, between this song and the gunshots coming up later, you basically have listened to M.I.A.'s Paper Planes (which, by the by, the best RMX of is the DFA discofied version, and there are many hott RMXs of that song). So this song is like Neptunes/ N.E.R.D. in training.... Also, in terms of the mix itself, this song will get people back on the floor. Some people are scared of the RaveRap whistles from the previous jam. But, see, "Rump Shaker" won't lose the people who nuh afeared of RaveRap, because the horns on "Rump Shaker" are flute/whistle-like. Fun for EveryOne, riiiiigh?
Whistle Song- this rides the "rave synth TO horns TO whistle" train. CONTINUTITY IS KEY- CONSISTENCY IS KEY- KEEP IT SIMPLE (and/or) STOOPID
And so we keep it minimal and BOOM with Ghislain Poirer - Ass On Fire, a Canadian DJ and produceer and RMXer- I put up something off his Myspace on my Myspace the other day- yeah, you remember, huh? That one hott jam. Both Pharrell and Busta are funny on this one. AFTER convincing these girls to 'party' with him and Busta ("take off your jacket"), then Pharrell asks "What's your name? Word?" (probably says 'word?' because it's a stripper name, right?, and so it's something like Phantazia or Bunny) Every line in this song is a crack up. (get it CRACK up - because the song is about ASSES and EVERY ASS has a CRACK - like the Liberty Bell). Busta Rhymes is not exactly slept on, but he's also a better rapper than people give him credit for. Put it this way- what was the last time you heard anyone discussing his skills? Yeah, me either. So this one is Neptunes/NERD full blown, even though it is a Ghislain Poirer refix.
E-40's "Turf Drop" has some similar big drums. This is how you keep the mix smooth moving from one songs to the next. Especially important when the tracks are not Dj-mixed together, but just laid side by side on your ITunes etc. THe drums work so well one after the other that I was vaccuuming (while listening to this mix, and Of Course, thinking, mang, what a sick mix) and thought it was still the same song. Both songs have such GoodLowBass that you can can hear the bass over power tools like a vaccuum. PROOF OF THE GREATNESS OF THESE SONGS, YES?
Freeway - What We Do Freeway not only has a Muslim beard, but is also from Philly- these two things win him big points. (Beards Is A Must, ya heard?) This song makes poeple go nuts when it's LOUD. You could totally play it at a wedding reception. Why? Because it is old and new: Old means that they would have played it at 700 Club back in the day (before they started busing in people from wherever), and new means that New Silk City AND arts garage both put it on B L A S T. Warning you though: Free will snatch the dishes out your kitchen if his kids are hungry. Between this song and "Stop Snitchin'", another warning: I'm just sayin that girls, your guy is feelin pretty tough right now, and he will probably want to do it when you get home.
We on the Philly to B'more X-press now! Free to Gutter, etcet etcet. Two tracks quick back-to-back. So very white tees: songs with gunshots-as-percussion! So very white tees: tracks with a sirens on them! Drugs are 'wrong', but still , his drugs do not mean that you can snitch.
The Baltimore tracks are from Bmore getting repped hard by Philly.
Didn't like this at first, was way let down. It is just too much all at once, even though it is really two separate mixes. Now I like it a lot more, but mixed in a bit it really kills. Over an hour straight can be a bit much. Bmore all day e'ery day is too much...
Then some older bidness here. I have never understood this line from "It takes Two": "I don't smoke buddha, can't stand sess YES". Is he being sarcastic? Before, I thought, definitely sarcastic, because I thought he was saying he can't stand SEX. It's one thing to say you don't puff in a rap tune, but another to (non-sarcastically) say that you hate doing it. One is statistically anomalous, the other, simply unacceptable, unthinkable even.... But now I see that he is just saying 'weed' twice, in two different ways (buddha and sess).
Music; musing; must-haves.
The curatorial agenda. Sealing up a void whose vacuity was a source of distress to no one. The seed I am most likely to sow is a certain jargon. Built on tilt. The center of a new universe of counterfeit. Increasingly random and increasingly increasing.
THE SIDEBAR PODCAST: REBOOTED
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15 years ago, I started my own, personal podcast: The Sidebar. This was my
attempt to explore podcasting as a medium, having been very much inspired
by the...
Hotel Bar Sessions, Ep 31: Whose History?
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The HBS hosts sit down with Dr. Charles McKinney, Jr. to talk about whose
history is (and isn't) being taught.
Following on the heels of a recent and ...
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