What I've Been Listening To

I have an 8 gig iPod mini, so what I choose to put on it says a lot about what I'm into at a particular moment. Right now hip-hop is winning out with 220 songs. I've been listening to a lot of hip-hop lately. I have the new Vast Aire (of Cannibal Ox fame) to review, and I'm also working on reviews of the new Aztext ep, and have been meaning to review Open Mike Eagle's Unapologetic Art Rap and Madlib's last album for about three months. I also got Pharaoh Monche's new album, which has convinced me that I respect him more than I like him. Maybe if I listen some more.

The album that has been getting heavy rotation is Has-Lo's In Case I don't Make It, which I reviewed last week. I complained in my review of how it was a downer and dragged towards the end, but it has stuck with me. He's a great if understated album, and it is a heartbreaking album. In the same vein, I bought OC's Word...Life. He was a contemporary of Big L and part of the Diggin in the Crates crew, only where Big L excelled at bravado and wicked one liners, OC is a much more thoughtful rapper. I've only given it a few spins, but already I love it.

I'm also loving Big L's Lifestylez Ov Da Poor and Dangerous. I wrote about it a while ago, but it has stayed on heavy rotation. It's classic 90s East Coast gangsta rap in the vein of the Notorious BIG or Nas, but without the remorse. Big L is rude, crude, and raps about robbing and killing people in the most creative way possible. Here are just a few choice lines:
"This ain't Cali, it's Harlem, nigga, we do walk bys"
"Me bein' a virgin, that's idiotic/cuz if Big L gots the AIDS every cutie in the city got it"
"I wasn't poor, I was Po'/I couldn't afford the O-R."

On a less offensive note, I have also been listening to the new TV on the Radio. I had decided I didn't like them that much after I lost interest in their last album, Dear Science. My problem with them is that they are too complex, and there is too much going on in their songs. Which is an idiotic thing to complain about. Nine Types of Light is a mellower album, but their instrumentation, songwriting, and sound is so rich and rewarding. I'm a fan.

Here's a video someone made for my favorite song on the album, "Keep Your Heart."

What I'm Listening To

I've been studying a lot, which has changed the music I listen to. I can't study to hip-hop - it's too abrasive and distracting. Instead, I've been listening to a lot of jazz. A lot of jazz albums are cheap on Emusic, so I got a bunch recently, including Oliver Nelson's The Blues and The Abstract Truth.



I also got John Coltrane's A Love Supreme, which is brilliant. It's one of those amazing pieces of music that makes me feel alive. I just wish I knew more about music theory, because I'm sure Coltrane's work is a lot deeper than I'm able to digest.

I've also been listening to old hardcore punk. I put my old Minor Threat, Circle Jerks, and Germs records on my iPod so I can relive my adolescence on my bus ride home. I find 80s thrash oddly soothing.

I also found a Stitches album at Amoeba for five bucks. They were a trashy Heartbreakers-inspired band who I saw in the mid-nineties opening for the Workin' Stiffs at the Purple Onion. Their friend Dusty was sitting at our table with a box of seven inches to sell. He was drinking Old English from a can, ashing into it, and then taking swigs. They were a toxic, druggy band who had a decent song or two. The album is pretty terrible.


Finally, I've been listening to a lot of 70s deejay music. I went almost all of January without listening to any reggae, but the second school started up again I started listening to reggae again. It's soothing yet a little aggro. I found a used copy of Trinity's Shanty Town Determination at Amoeba, which I'm enjoying. He sounds a lot like Big Youth, but that's not a bad thing.

What I'm Listening To

I just found a copy of Sly and the Family Stone's trippy masterpiece There's a Riot Goin' On.  It's a claustrophobic, intimate record. Drugs may have been involved.



I also bought a two-disc compilation of producer/singer Linval Thompson's stuff. He was somewhere in the Horace Andy/Dennis Brown/Bob Marley vein. I just got his Six Babylon Recently, which is pretty great. The one downside to his groovy, heavy, dready music is that ever single song is about loving Jah and/or having natty dreads. Except for this song, about how much he likes weed.


Finally, I loaded my iPod up with Iron Maiden so that I could listen to the sweet, sweet sounds of Bruce Dickenson wailing away on "Run to the Hills" while packed like a sardine can on Muni on my way home.
Rock the fuck out.

Homeboy Sandman Review/What I'm Listening To

I reviewed Homeboy Sandman's The Good Sun on RapReviews this week.  I compared him to DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, but by way of a compliment. I'm loving it. The verbal dexterity of Eminem, only not a dick.

I've been meaning to listen to Sun Ra for a while, ever since he was mentioned on Quasimoto's 2005 album The Further Adventures of Lord Quas. Trippy, spacy jazz? Yes, please.

The new M.I.A. came out today. I'm sure I'll end up picking it up, but I'm not excited about it. I'm over her schtick - revolutionary posturing without really saying much, all from a woman who is neither a good rapper nor a singer. I still love Kala, but I feel like I've moved on. Maybe I'll change my mind.

Die Antwoord are playing in SF this Friday at a tiny club. I didn't buy tickets. I did buy tickets to see Thao Nguyen and some other mellow dudes next Friday, and Thee Oh Sees and Yellow Fever in August. Debating if I want to go to Treasure Island this year. Great line up, shitty logistics. The Outside Lands festival, a twenty minute walk from my house, has a pretty uninspiring line up this year.

Polvo, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, and the new Wavves are all on rotation in my iPod. And a bunch of reggae. This week it's Linval Thompson. Plus I've been listening to Gregory Isaacs in the morning. Nothing better than lovers rock at six am.


I was busy writing a statement of purpose for grad school and debating if I really wanted to spend the money and time to get a second degree. If I went back to school it would probably mean less time devoted to writing about music. Although that would be replaced by more time writing about how a nonprofit organization should run. Hm.

Also, Joy Division. One of my favorite bands ever. If you don't like them, you're wrong. Or better adjusted than I.

Applejaxx Review

I reviewed Jesus High on RapReviews this week, the new EP from Christian rapper Applejaxx. Not my thing. I'm working on a review of ANOTHER Christian rap group, Carnival, for next week. Me reviewing Christian rap is like someone with a wheat allergy reviewing a pastry shop.  Good for what it is, but not my cuppa.

Speaking of artists with religious views that conflict with my own, I've been getting really into Dillinger's CB200. He's a dancehall artist most known for his song "Cokane On My Brain." He's got a lot of other great songs that aren't so novelty-ish, and I'm loving that album. "Plantation Height" is one of my new favorite songs, and I love it even more than the Mighty Diamond's original, "I Need A Roof."

I've given the Guilty Simpson/Madlib collab, O.J. Simpson, a few spins. Surprisingly, Madlib is the weak link on that project. Half of twenty-four tracks are given over to lame skits where he basically plays back (Melvin Van Peebles?) comedy skits. It's half-assed, and takes away from the music. Guilty continues to be inconsistent as an MC, but "Coroner Music" has been one of my favorite songs since it was released earlier this year."

I'm also reading Rip It Up and Start Again,  a book on the post-punk scene of the late-70s early 80s. It talks about how much British bands were influenced by dub and reggae, especially in the bass. You can hear it in the rolling bass of Gang of Four, and in Jah Wobble's driving bass on PiL's "Poptones," one of my favorite songs ever.



PiL's whole second album, Metal Box/Second Edition, was song after song of bass-heavy death disco. I was in love with that record as a kid, and it still sounds good today. I also loved their follow up, Flowers of Romance, which was totally stripped down, with just bass, drums, and strings. I need to buy a copy of that. My 13-year-old self bought a cassette of that album at the Wherehouse on 41st ave in Capitola, and then listened to it obsessively while playing Nintendo, trying to figure it out.


I'm also thinking of buying the new Roots album. I haven't really gotten into anything they've ever done, although I've always liked the IDEA of them.

For A White Agnostic Who Doesn't Smoke Pot, I Sure Listen to a Lot of Reggae

I've been listening to a lot of reggae lately. I finally bought Lee Perry's Ape-ology, which collects his Superape, Roast Fish and Corn Bread, and Return of the Superape LPs. It's two CDs of the dankest, muddiest, deepest dub and reggae, the kind of music that you get a contact high from just listening to.
This video for "Roast Fish and Corn Bread" lets you see the master at work.


I also got Serge Gainsbourg's reggae album, Aux Armes Et Cetera. It was originally released in the late 70s, but got a rerelease in 2004 with an extra disc of new dub and deejay versions. It's sort of horrible, sort of awesome. Gainsbourg isn't exactly a reggae singer, but he's backed by Sly and Robbie, so it sounds good. His reworking of the French national anthem evidently caused riots when it came out.



I also got Madlib's Medicine Show #4, which is a mix of dub and deejay tunes. I'm loving it.


I was also listening to the two Joe Gibbs Discomix albums, which got me interested in deejay/dancehall, so I downloaded Major Laser's album from Emusic. It's a project from Diplo and Switch, the guys who did "Paper Planes," working with dancehall deejays. It's noisy, obnoxious, raunchy, and amazing, dancehall meets glitchy Bmore club music.

My biggest coup of the week, though, was figuring out who sang "Ring the Alarm." I had heard it sampled by Big Audio Dynamite and Fugazi, but I never knew the source. Turns out it is Tenor Saw, and there is an entire album (Stalag 17,19-20) with just that riddim. It's definitely a classic.

What I'm Listening To

I'm listening to a lot of stuff right now, including....

The new Beach House album, which is as good as everyone says it is.

Teen Dream - Beach House

The new Fucked Up album, a nice two-disc compilation of their singles.

Couple Tracks: Singles 2002-20...

Toro y Moi's album, which I'm reviewing this week.

Causers Of This - Toro Y Moi

Ornette Coleman's 1959 avant-garde jazz masterpiece, Shape of Jazz to Come. My fiance fuckin' hates this, which means it's pretty awesome and noisy.

The Shape Of Jazz To Come - Or...