Infamous Anniversary

Since today's is an anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, I am throwing this at you. Put it on blast-
Team America!; Team Isley!



Download Isley Brothers, "Ballad of the Fallen Soldier" here

I didn't say "blast" to be funny. It was an accident; yet, since it is a little bit funny, I will leave it.
Another happy accident: I googled 'peral harbor' first (to check if today was the day or not ... shameful not to know, isn't it?). What if it were called "Feral Harbor"?
Wouldn't that be wild?!?!

That's a feral pig, dummy.

Jay-Z sampled the Isley Brothers' "Ballad of the Fallen Soldier": the keyboard hook and some guitar...


And you know what? The hell with Jay-Z. That's right, I said it. Why is that fool rapping about marriage?
Just because he is married is not a good excuse!
I do not want to hear songs about marriage right now- that is why I am listening to the hip-hop radio station.
Only NPR stations give you less about marriage than hip-hop radio. Well, NPR talks all the time about GayMarriage (...liberals...) fair enough. But I thought I could count on rappers to uphold their fine tradition of pretending like love and ruinous heartbreak simply never happen.

What the fuck rap?!
You blew it.

Skuffled Mammajamma

Went digging through CDs to find something to listen to the other day. Felt in a particular kind of mood, so grabbed some Drum and Bass CDs I hadn't listened to recently, including....
the classic...



Metalheadz two-disc of golden-era Junglist anthems.


(if you are impatient, go to about 1:30 for the big drop...)


This is the kind of CD that nobody sells used. You don't just accidentally end up buying this- so nobody is selling it used, because they happened into it with no idea what it was.



(although the tracklisting for it on amazon.com is incorrect, so maybe 'no idea' is true, in a wholly different sense. The right tracks are listed on Discogs.com.)

You also don't get tired of it, unless you just get tired of whole genres of music. All the reviews of this state accurately: peak tunes; never tire of these; "don't make 'em like this no more"; sick wicked dope; etc. For this genre of music (drum 'n' bass, aka jungle), this would be like a Led Zeppelin greatest-hits package: if you ever like it, you always will, and never any less.
So nobody ever bought this and liked it, and then eventually soured on it, bored of it, overplayed and so played-out it.



But how did I get it used then?
Well, Everyday Music in Portland sells used CDs, and they will sell you scratched CDs.
Sounds bad: is good.
They mark out the scratched ones; they sell them for less; and they even will take them back if they skip. You know how almost all of your CDs are scratched, somewhat at least, and how many of those never ever skip.
SKUFFS, they call them.
Well, this mamajamma was skuffed pretty bad. Two whole tracks just ain't played right, ever. Or at least, ever for me, since I bought it scratched.
One that never got all the way through, was Dillinja's "Angels Fell", above. Obviously, the YouTube version no skuff.

But what you can do, see, is copy a scratched CD. Because while the CD player has to deal with scratches in real time, your computer's CD-ROM does not- it will keep patiently scanning, scanning, re-scanning-- until it can find out just what 0s and 1s made up that track, in its prediluvian state. So usually, the copy will be a like-new, scratchless, unskuffled version. That beats a lossless copy- it actually improves your version.

So now, for the first time ever, I can listen to this track all the way through-
And so can you.

Danzig's Mother is a suggested video,
so is Halo Benders (the laziest band in rock and roll!).
What is funny, is that my dad has something to say about both lazy bands, and drum n bass. He said (says) that Pavement et al. "aren't even trying" when they sing.
It's true!
He also once said a drum and bass song was "Ferris Bueller music", which I took to mean: sounds like that Ferrari music in the movie.
Which is false;
But what he meant was, it sounded like another drum and bass song
Which in fact!
Sampled a line from the movie.

I must have got my "right all the damn time" gene from my pops.

Got it?, Good!

As a treat to myself, I got me some more records, all of which are top drawer: they all get top billin'.


Audio Two - Top Billin'



One of them is this bad bad bad beat. An ol' skool hip-hop classic, I mean classic cut. On the Youtube comments, someone rattled off 4 big songs they knew that sampled this song- the drums, I imagine- and someone else dropped a few more on there.

A bunch of the other songs posted as this on Youtube are not the song; remixes (by Youtube users, not real remixes), other songs entirely (they will make you take the songs down sometimes, they = copyright holders, and people often put up a new song and leave the name of the old), and one version that was so very quiet, you couldn't hear the bass go

....boooooooooom.....

which, on this version, you can.

If I have to Walk, I'm a get There just the Same - Wilbert Harrison goes to Kansas City

It's been a while, hasn't it. Chomping at the bit again, I'm sure. Here's a 'your new favorite song' to hold you over until I drop some serious mixes *plop* right in your lap.



There are about 5 in post-production right now (all in the "AMX" series which I mentioned); a long-finished mix called "Pretty Pretty Songs" that even a grizzled homeless guy would like; and a more recently accomplished mix in a series called "SHOWER JAMZ!" (yes, it must be in all caps- you'll grasp the enormity of it all, which requires decisive use of graphic effects, in not too long).

But for now, a little ditty by Wilbert Harrison: