Mixtape Martyrs

War on music

Pitchfork media had a news item on their site yesterday about DJ Drama and DJ Cannon’s Gangsta Grillz mixtape operation getting busted by the po-po.
Here’s an excerpt from Pitchfork’s article, as reported by Dave Maher:

"A SWAT team raided the popular mixtape DJs' Walker Street studio and confiscated at least 50,000 CDs, computers, recording equipment, money, bank statements,and cars. 17 people were detained, but Drama and Cannon were both arrested.Saying the RIAA had investigated the business for a while before the raid,RIAA representative Matthew Kilgo expressed eyebrow-raised amazement at the two's Gangsta Grillz franchise: "These guys are actively advertising online.They've got a website that they're advertising from. That's where you place your order, and that's how the orders are shipped out."
….
Adding insult to injury, Fulton County police officer Major E. A. Platt said, "In this case, we didn't find drugs or weapons, but it's not uncommon for us to find other contraband when we execute a search warrant."
The TV reporter concluded her segment saying, "Authorities tells us this is a big problem in Atlanta,because Atlanta is known as the hub for the Southeast. They say anytime anybody wants a CD, they know they can find it in Atlanta."

Let me start by saying that I’m not sure who originally raised the beef with the GangstaGrillz, or if they were doing some shady, bootlegging bullshit on the side. What I do know is that there is a difference between a mixtape and a bootleg. A big difference.

A bootleg is when someone buys a copy of an album,makes a million illegal copies, and then sells those copies, thus making money off of a knock off and depriving the artist of any royalties .

A mixtape is sort of a combination between a dj mix, a demo, a radio show,and a compilation. They are either scene-focused, DJ focused, or Artist focused. Mixtapes serve three major purposes: They help promote a local scene, they help promote a Dj, or they help promote an artist. Mixtapes are successful and popular not only with fans but with artists. They are an inexpensive way for artists to promote themselves and get their music out there, and they are often released a little bit before an album is released to build up excitement. Most mixtapes feature exclusive, remixed album tracks,and "freestyles", which are basically new rhymes over other artists' beats.

Example:

A few months ago I bought Lupe Fiascos ChiTown Guevera,a mixtape by DJ envy to build excitement for Lupes oft-delayed Food and Liquor album. It featured stuff lupe had done with other artists, remixes of his"Kick, Push" hit, new album tracks, and lupe rhyming over beats from the gorillaz. Most of the tracks were abbreviated, as they typically are for mixes. The mixtape worked – it showed me what lupe was capable, and made me hungry for more.

Here’s another example: Fifty Cent made his career on his mixtapes. He made several before he was picked up by interscope/aftermath.

The game has released a billion mixtapes in between albums. Chamillionaire isknown as the mixtape messaiah. Lil' Wayne has made major waves with his recent series of "Dedication" mixtapes with Gangsta Grillz.

These aren’t bootlegs – these are works to promote underground music, to promote artists, and to give fans the chance to hear the artists in between official releases. True, there is a ton of money in mixtapes, and a lot of the songs and samples on them haven’t been cleared by the original artists. It maybe that there are shady people releasing shady mixtapes that basically generate a ton of money off of other artists' hard work. However, the majority of mixtapes have at least tacit approval from the artists on them, and a lot of them are endorsed by rappers.

Gangsta Grillz are even affiliated with TI's Grand Hustle records, and beyond doing work with Grand Hustle Artists,they've been in TI's Front Back video and had a cameo on his movie "ATL". These are not pirates cranking out bootlegs for sale at your local swap meet.

The crack down on Gangsta Grillz is a sign of both how totally out of reality the record industry is, and how completely out of touch with hip-hop fans they are. I understand the concern about people bootlegging and downloading music without the artist seeing a penny of it. If a label spends millions of dollars producing and promoting an album, they deserve to see some return on their investment. If an musician spends time and effort creating a piece of work, they deserve to be compensated for it. I don't buy the idea that kids with 2000 dollar computers , 400 dollar x-box 360s, ipods, cell phones,exclusive nikes, etc don't have the cash to spend on music. That's bullshit. So fine, as we move forward in the digital age, we should find a way to make sure that labels and artists are able to support themselves with the music they make and release.

What the industry is doing, however,is trying to pretend that it is 1990, and grasping on to a business model that doesn't work anymore. Guess what guys? Your margins just got tighter,you can no longer expect to get whatever overhyped, overproduced crap you put out to go multiplatinum, and there is just too much music out there to expect consumers to buy all of it. Deal with it.

The other thing about the Gangsta Grillz arrest that bothers me is it is yet another example of the recording industry putting a stranglehold on creativity. Ever sincethe courts decided that biz markie had to pay big bucks for a seconds long sample, the ability of producers and djs to use samples in their work has been drastically restricted. While this may keep people like vanilla ice from making beacoup bucks off of a queen bassline, it also means that the sonic collages created by the bomb squad, prince paul, dr. dre, and a lot of other early producers are now illegal. As much as I'm behind people getting paid for their work, I also think that people ought to have some right to use the images and sounds we are constantly bombarded with and reinterpret them in their own way. The RIAA (and motion picture industry, and adversting industry, etc) want us to absorb every bit of media they put out, but they also want it to be in its own bubble, unchangable,forever a proper representation of whatever brand it is supposed to be.

The cops in Atlanta also didn't seem to be able to draw the distinction between DJs and drug dealers. True, there is well-publicized intersection between the hip-hop world and drug world, but that doesn't mean that everyone with two decks and some recording equipment also has a direct line to columbia.

I'm curious to see how DJ Drama and Canon fare, and see just what the law thinks they have on them. I'm hoping this doesn't mark the beginning of the end of mixtapes. If so, the record industry just hacked off its own foot with a rusty saw. Dumbasses.
-pst

Now ya see it, now ya don’t

The beginning of 007 has seen two magical disappearing acts from the artists formerly known as Black Star. First, Mos Def released True Magic at the end of December. It arrived in stores almost devoid of packaging, basically a CD in a plastic case with a web address for liner notes. Keeping in mind that the main reason why suckers fork out eighteen bucks for a cd these days is in fact the packaging, it seemed like kind of a dumb move. Basically released to finish his contract with Geffen, True Magic evidently sounded as half-assed as it looked. In fact, it was SO half-assed that Mos Def and Geffen decided to pull it, fix it up, and re release it later this year. So now there are a bunch of folks with copies of what isnow a rare, if sucky, disc.

Talib Kweli and Madlib released a 9 song album Liberation for download on the Stones Throw site (www.stonesthrow.com). I was quick enough to actually download it before the link went inactive. Now there is just a notice saying that one day they may release it again. I don’t quite understand the logic behind any of it – first of all, if two artists like madlib and kweli decide to work together, why the hell wouldn’t you charge folks for the output – Both are respected, popular musicians, but neither is exactly rolling in it. Also, while Liberation may not be the most amazing thirty minutes in music history, it’s certainly not a half-assed freebie. In fact, “Happy Home” has got to be one of the best tracks in a while – it’s a five minute geneology of Kweli’s family, including marriages, protests, births…yes, that’s right, it’s a hip-hop song about family that CELEBRATES family. That’s about as rare as punk songs about family that celebrate family. Production-wise it is mostly Madlib’s usual crate-diggin’, soul-centric beats, although he does break out some crazy synth riffs that could almost be drrty south.

I like Kweli, but usually in small doses, and this nine-song ep is the perfect amount. I hope that it gets re-released in an actual album form later this year. As much as I like the free downloads, it worries me to see artists themselves devalue their music. It’s one thing to have a friend burn a cd for you, but to have an artist burn their cd for you themselves? Probably not the best business plan.

-pst

Dirty Money

I keep meaning to write a review of the Clipse album Hell Hath No Fury, but it has fallen into the same wormhole as the write up of modest mouse i started three months ago and the write up of quasimoto i began a while back. All artists/albums i like so much, i can figure out a way to do them justice. so instead, i'm just gonna write about "Dirty Money", which is one of my favorite songs on Hell hath no fury, and seems to sum up what is so amazing about the record.

For one thing, while dirty money is about buying shit with drug money, it is a million miles away from all the bling bling flossin tracks by, um, well, everyone. Ok, so maybe the chorus isn't quite so many million miles away:

All my fly bitches like (dirty money, dirty money)
All my stripper bitches like (dirty money, dirty money)
All my college hoes like (dirty money, dirty money)
Dont it spend so right? (dirty money, dirty money)
Now lets go shopping, lets go chill
Lets go buy them new Louis Vuitton heels
Ass of La Perla, ears full of pearls
Damn dirty money know how to treat the girls



Ok, so it sounds like something that might come out of the Jigga's mouth, and i can sort of picture the video of them sippin' cristal in the club pointing at big booty broads in g-strings. However, what separates this from a lot of the materialistic club anthems out there is that this song is ultimately sort of sad and joyless. They are bragging about all the money they got, but you can tell from their voices that they had to pay a high price for their paper. The beat reinforces this - it's both banging and unsettling.

Part of it is that the song is a defense of ill-gotten gangs. It's bling with a concsience:

"I dont mind keepin you up on them must-have's
Pito pumps, Gucci slouch bags
Now tell me, is that dirty money really that bad? "

He's asking because he knows it kinda is that bad. There is also a loneliness to the macking that is a lot deeper than our standard mysogynistic lyrics. In one line, malice says "You could tell me bout ya day, I pretend I listen
And you aint gotta love me, just be convincin' ". Later on he expounds "By no means, am I in love with a stripper
You understand that then you fittin the glass slipper." There is a sadness, an emptiness behind all the glitz and ice.

This song reminds me of coming home late from a club when you are starting to sober up and come down, all the magic of the evening is going away and the city just seems lonely and cold. It's like the final scene in La Dolce Vita where marcello ends up alone on the beach after the party. It's just sad, and cold, and fucking awesome.

Anyways, dirty money. believe that.
pst

Peanut Butter Wolf

There is an interview on the Onion AV Club webiste this week (www.avc.ub/content) with Peanut Butter Wolf, the founder of Stones Throw. Stones Throw is an independent hip-hop label best known for putting out various Madlib projects, including but not limited to the Madvillain record, Quasimoto’s albums, Yesterday’s New Quintet, and his own solo stuff.

PB Wolf was also responsible for getting me into independent hip hop. I had a girlfriend in 1995 who had an ex boyfriend who was friends with Peanut Butter Wolf. Through my ex, I got into some of the more seminal hip hop artists of the mid 90s, like Nas, Jehru the Damaja, She also got me into unwound at this time, so I have that to thank her for as well. She showed me a side of rap music that less commercial and more committed to the art form than what was going on in the mainstream (of course, mainstream in 1995 meant Nas, Biggie Smalls, the Wu…kind of a far cry from Chingy). She also made me less self-conscious about being a honkaloid who was into hip-hop.

I admire Stones Throw and PB Wolf because they put out good, interesting music that is both entertaining and artistic. Like the best indie labels, they are keeping music real, without having to dumb it down for the mainstream or be too ridiculously obscure and quirky. Now, if anyone has a copy of blunted in the bombshelter they want to send me….

pst

Port of Miami

Rick Ross
Port of Miami
Def Jam, 2006

For Fans of: cocaine, rhymes about cocaine, CSI Miami, Miami Vice, ironic hipster beards, rappers who keep it simple, stupid.

This year, the Onion voted Kevin Federline's debut as the Least Essential Album of 2006. I've heard snippets of it, and let me assure you, it sucks ass. The production is ok, but the rapping is just embarrassing.

K-Fed is not the only one dropping lead bombs though. Rick Ross is almost as horrendous on his debut "Port of Miami", and that fucker has sold a bajillion copies.

The basic premise of Mr. Ross is this: He is a major drug dealer, and he is very wealthy and sexy. He likes to have intercourse and become intoxicated on expensive alcohol and marijuana. Basically the same MO as 90% of rappers out there, right? The production is pretty standard, as well - vaguely 80's synths, soul crooners backing him up, intros in which he introduces himself and the production team.

Ok, so whatever. His subject matter is morally bankrupt and as uninspired as his production. That doesn't make him any different than a lot of people out there, and doesn't automatically make him bullshit. The problem with Rick Ross is that he doesn't follow hip-hop rule number 1 - it's not what you say but how you say it.

Ross also needs to get his ass a rhyming dictionary, and someone needs to explain to him that while it is true that every word is a perfect rhyme with itself, you can't really get away with that. He certainly tries, like in his smash "Husltin":

"It's time to spend my thrills, custom spinnin' wheels
I ain't drove in a week them bitches spinnin' still
Talk about me because these suckers scared to talk about me
Killers talkin' bout me, it ain't no talk about me
It ain't no walkin' 'round me, see all these killers 'round me
Lot of drug dealin' 'round me goin' down in Dade County
Don't tote no twenty-twos, Magnum cost me twenty-two
Sat it on them twenty-twos, birds go for twenty-two
Lil' mama super thick, she say she twenty-two
She seen them twenty-twos, we in room two twenty-two
I touch work like I'm convertible Burt
I got distribution so I'm convertin' the work
In the M-I-A-YO them niggaz rich off that YAYO
Steady slangin' YAYO, my Chevy bangin' Yayo"

So basically, he was like. "what rhymes with twenty-two…? Oh! I know! Twenty-two! Now, what else rhymes with twenty-two…? Hey! Twenty-two! Ok, so what rhymes with yayo? OH! Yayo! Sweet! Cut the track, lets go sip some crystal and smoke a blunt."

In his jiggy/play anthem Get Away, he raps :

"rick ross ima real nigga,u can feel the realness when i deal wit ya,baby i wont lie to ya,im to honest i promise i wont lie to ya,that otha bitch finished wit,
ur the 1 im having dinner wit, and its candlelit can u handle it,cuz i can handle it,so lets handle it"

This right before the chorus, which is:
"when can we get away and enjoy each other, get away and explore each other
all i wanna know is when can we get away and exchange our feelings, keep it poppin like a movie screening, i only wanna get away"

Exchange our feelings? Riiiight.

Anyways, before everyone starts snickering at bullshit like K-Fed, they best take a look at their own record collections. Rick Ross my ass. Jeezus.

Oh, and also he bragged that he needs to pull in ten million a year just to exist, and it aint coming from records, wink wink. If it's true that he's a big mac dealer, he's in for a world of hurt from the DEA. It's more likely that he is a broke ass livingbeyone his means. His bankcruptcy sale is gonna be hi-larious. Go get a savings account and start living within your means, mack daddy.
-pst

Busta Buss Gettin' Busted

What is it with aging hip-hoppers losing their fucking minds? KRS-One has gone from being a street philosopher to a mean, lean assaulting machine. Busta Rhymes seems anxious to join him. He's just been involved in a post-xxxmas assault, one in a series of scuffles he's been in in 2006. Oh Busta!

Speaking of, i went to the liberry last weekend and picked up a copy of his latest, "The Big Bang" (god bless the library!). This was his first venture on Dr. Dre's Aftermath label, and Dre is all over the production. This is both good and bad - it's good in that dre's production makes busta sound downright contemporary, and there are some funky, catchy tracks. It also helps him move away from the goofy, cartoonish persona he's had for so long.

the bad is that now he's trying to be all gangsta, and has picked up dre's unfortunate overuse of "bitch", raps about cocaine, and in general buys in to all of the bullshit that is making hip-hop so fucking lame these days.

Check, for instance, his chains. Look at those ugly bastards. That shit is real. Real diamonds. He has a NY Apple made out of RED DIAMONDS!!!! Little kids lost arms and shit so that he could spend a small fortune on piece of utter tackocity. His other new chain is the Aftermath logo, again made from real diamonds. There oughta be a law. Whatever happened to dookie chains? The subtle diamond ear stud? oy.

I haven't really heard much of Busta's music, save for a few guest appearances. I gotta say i don't share the critics love of "The Big Bang". I mean, it's alright, but who needs to fuck with mediocrity these days when there are so many good songs and artists. To quote Sick Boy from trainspotting - you think it's alright, but it's really just shite. And to quote Renton - We all get old and cannae hack it anymore.

So busta, maybe your 2007 resolution should be to not get in fights anymore, yah? Maybe you and KRS could take anger management classes together. And then you could do ultimate NYC battle raps incorporating your new found sensitivity -"I feel that when you dis NYC, it disrespects my crew/Which makes me feel devalued/and like you don't respect my personhood BIATCH!!!""

pst

2006 – the year in lists

2006 was a monumental year for me in a lot of ways. There were weddings, births, engagements, organ transplants, friends moving far away, new friendships made, and just in general feeling like things were getting better. People started to think that maybe bush was kind of a dick, that maybe the Iraq war wasn’t so hot, and that maybe this global warming thing was for reals.

Anyways, here are some lists, to add to all the other year-end lists.

Top trends of ought six-

1. CD going the way of the LP – Ringtones and downloads put a huge chunk in record sales this year. If you don’t believe me, ask all of the artists whose records failed to hit gold or platinum, or ask Tower records.

2. I joined the 21st century. I found an ipod, and discovered the joy of downloads and podcasts.

Predictions for the Future
1. By 2010, every B and C list actor still living will have been on a reality tv show. By 2020, every reality TV show contestant will have been on another reality show with other washed-up former reality show contestants. By 2050, the last ten adults in America who have not been on a reality tv show will be on a reality tv show about how they’ve never been on a reality tv show. We will watch it, all the while commenting on how pathetic the whole reality tv thing is.
2. 2007 will see the first Gay rapper. Believe that.
3. Grindcore will go mainstream. Extreme Noise Terror will have a surprise crossover hit, ala’ “Crazy”.
4. Neither Chinese Democracy nor Detox will be released.

Most eagerly anticipated yet disappointing releases of 2006:

1. Lupe fiasco: Food and Liquor – I was really excited on this based on the “Push, Kick” single, and his appearance on Kanye West’s “Touch the sky”. Then the record came out and I realized, oh yeah, I don’t like this kind of music!” so I never bought it.
2. …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead – whatever their new one is called. After the mediocrity of their last album, I decided to take a pass. I respect that they are trying to branch out beyond their epic emo, but it just isn’t that interesting.
3. Mars Volta – Amputechture –See above. I’m starting to think that Pitchfork is right in detesting them…
4. Jay-Z – Kingdom Come. Considering that all of his releases since retirement have been utter bullshit, it’s no surprise that this is an exercise in blandness. I think I own all the young hova I’ll ever need.
5. Sufjan Stevens – who put out an odds and sods compilation and a five disc Christmas cd. Quit fucking around, and get back to your next State record. Might I suggest Califormia?
6. DJ Shadow – The Outsider – In which he creates a record that is almost impossible to listen to in it’s entirety.
7. Stones Throw – Chrome Children Comp – So much hype, even a tour in support of it, and it’s basically a thirteen dollar label sampler. Neat.



Records of the year:
1. Ghostface Killah. Fishscale – The ghost proves that he still has it, coming out with one fo the most inventive, quality releases of the year. And I’m pretty sure that come this time next year, I’ll still be listening to it.
2. Spank Rock: Yoyoyoyoyo. Fun, clever, and blessed with wicked beats. Supposedly put on a hell of a live show.;
3. TI – King – This was the only hip-hop record to go platinum this year, and although it’s not my favorite record ever, it’s still worth a spin.
4. Madlib – Tha Beat Konducta – God bless madlib. He brings genuine talent to hip-hop – the chops of a jazz musician and a record collection to make you drool.
5. Special Herbs Box Set – MF DOOM/Metalfingers – Proving that there is more to DOOM that wacky rhymes. Also makes better background/chill out music than Madlib’s disc.
6. The Clipse – Hell Hath No Fury. - I just got this yesterday, so I haven’t had a chance to really listen to it, but I’m pretty sure it’s awesome.
7. Four Tet – Remixes and Remixed. One disc of their reworking of other artists’ stuff, and one disc of other artists’ reworking of their stuff. Aphex Twin, Radiohead, Madvillain…how can you go wrong?
8. Sufjan Stevens – illinoise. Ok, so it came out last year, but it’s still a really good album..


So that's all i got. Hope your 2006 was good, and here's hoping that 2007 is even better.
-pst

The Duchess

I often listen to the local urban radio station when I'm cooking dinner, and one song getting heavy rotation is Fergie's "Fergaliscious". If you haven't heard the song, go to her myspace page and check it out. It's an amazing song in so many ways. For one thing, it blatlantly rips off so many other songs and artists. The intro is equal parts Supersonic and "We like the cars that go boom". The chorus sounds exactly like Peaches' rap on "AA/XX". Her whole album/career is ripped off from Gwen Stefani, right down to the buff abs. Fergie should be paying gwen royalties, for real.

Exhibit a:

Fergalicious (Fergalicious)
But I ain't promiscuous.
And if you was suspicious,
All that shit is fictitious.
I blow kisses (mmmwwahhh)
……

My body stay vicious
I be up in the gym just working on my fitness


There are two other awesome aspects to this song. One is Stacy Ferguson's adoption of the "ghetto/gangsta" diction. "I be up in the gym?" wha? Honey, you are white, white, white. Own it, love it, live. Don't get all justin timberlake and assume that making r & b automatically makes you an honorary african american.


Second, the whole song is about how hot she is. That's just tacky and unsexy. Yes, she's got a pretty slammin' bod, and she's certainly not the ugliest person on god's green earth, but singing a whole song about how sexy she is? One just doesn't do such things.

Still, whatever, it works. Like all of the black eyed peas stuff, it is genetically engineered to be catchy, and it works. I'm sure if I was in europe, I'd think the track was pretty dope.

Now I'm gonna go listen to someone with actual talent and integrity.
-pst

“Controversial Hategrind since 1988”

“I love to hate/I hate your love/and I can’t feel affection for people like you!”

That, my friends, is the chorus of the first song on the Cripple Bastards first proper album, 1992’s “Your Lies In Check”. It also sums up the bands mantra and modus operandi. Look on the Cripple Bastard’s website and you will see the word “hate” and “Violence” all over the place (www.cripple-bastards.com) They ain’t lying either. Listening to the Cripple Bastards is somewhat akin to having someone hit you over the head repeatedly with a hammer/and or vomiting glass and bile. There music is fast and ferocious, with machine-gun drumming, and Guilio’s alternating scream/growl, which in practice sounds kind of like “grrrrr grrrr YAAAR YAAAR grr grr YAAR SUFFER!!!”

A lot of the tracks on “Your Lies” are basically unintelligible, but it comes with lyrics/interpretations, so you get something out of it. Basically, they hate people, ex-girlfriends, feminism, war, the government, religion, society, and militant vegans. This is summed up even more explicitly in their second release “Misantropo a senso unico” (One-way misanthrope).

What I like about CB is the fact that they are so extreme, so completely beyond your normal everyday experience. I first started listening to grindcore and hardcore in the late 90’s, when I was broke working a shit job in Pacific Heights, watching everyone around me get rich and stupid and not being able to relate to it at all. Bands like the cripple bastards were the perfect salve, a wave of ugly negativity to drown everything out.

There is also an abstract beauty to their songs. They are so short, so crazy, so non-song like that they become enjoyable just for their abstractness. Anyone can write a pretty ditty with a sweet harmony: Not everyone can write a ten second song where you basically just growl. That takes talent and ART.

When I moved to italy to study in 2000, I ended up being friends with some of the local punk kids, and they invited me to see the cripple bastards play with brazilian hardcore band Ratos de Parao in Milan. The venue was this big open air thing in the middle of a neighborhood, which was a bit chilly as it was November. The cripple bastards came on and played for about 90 minutes, which is impressive as all of their songs are about twenty seconds long. They were incredibly tight, and the lead singer kept bashing his head with the microphone and covering his mouth with his arm ala bela lugosi’s stand in in Plan 9 from Outer space. By the end of the evening he was all bloody. It was pretty freaking awesome. The crowd was full of punkabestie, the Italian word for crusty punks, who all had the same dreads, the same dog on the same rope leash, and were all passed out in their own vomit on the same cheap wine.

We also got stopped by the cops on the way home, which was fucking scary – we were outside of pavia, it was three am, no one was around, we weren’t doing anything illegal…the cops just checked my friend mila’s drivers license and let us go home. What made it so scary was realizing how much power they had at that moment, and how little power we had. There was no one around, no witnesses, and they were the law. What could we have done if they had decided to fuck with us? I could only imagine what it’s like being a young Hispanic or black guy driving on a lonely road at night and seeing those lights flashing behind you.

I don’t necessarily recommend the cripple bastards, unless you like loud, crazy music. I don’t listen to them that much anymore, which is a good thing for my mental health I think. Still, when I’m feeling pissed off at the world and need a good boost of negative energy, I just put them on and rock out to the bad vibes.
-pst

Racism is Wiggity-wack, yo.

I was on the bus a few months back talking to some young, upwordly mobile gentleman, and the subject of racism in Eastern Europe came up. He said something to the effect of "it's weird that that goes on there, since we don't really have racism here." And this when there was a young black girl standing right next to us. The fact that he didn't think there was racism in America (or at least San Francisco) goes to show the problems with race we have in this country. SF is the most liberalist, pat-yourself-on-the-back-for-your-tolerance-enest city in the US. Most of the poor people in the city are either black or hispanic, and they all live in areas separated from the wealthier friscans. The areas they live in are known as the sketchy neighborhoods (mission, tenderloin, western addition, bayview/hunter's point), and white people only go there when they feel like being edgy or a little naughy. In fact, the guy on the bus later said that he didn't go to the mission because it was too edgy.

I'm not going to go off on a self-hating rant on white liberals. I certainly don't prefer the more conservative take on race issues, which is basically "let's build a wall to keep the messicans out, and why can't the blacks all just get jobs/ Gee, wouldn't it be great if it were the 1950s again and non-whites knew their place?" However, i think the whole colorblind/post racism perspective that we sometimes congragulate ourselves with having is utter bullshit. There are still tons of racial issues in the US, and all the good intentions in the world won't make that go away. Hurricane Katrina was a perfect example of the problems of race in the US, and how closely tied they are to class. Yahoo News' calling blacks looters and whites "foragers" illustrates the unspoken assumptions and prejudices so many Americans have, namely that most blacks are criminals, and certainly aren't "like us".

The other thing America does that doesn't serve us well is shut down most discussions on race. We sing the song of multiculturalism, and you aren't given much room to voice any concerns or issues in an honest, open way. People can't say "whoa, my neighborhood has gone from being predominately white to predominately asian/hispanic/indian/whatever in the past ten years, and it makes me feel kind of uncomfortable and weird". If you say that, you get labled a racist, so instead you either pretend that it's the best thing ever that you can't relate to you new neighbors, or you end up feeling like your racism is justified.

And here is a fact for all of you non-white folks out there - even though they don't say so in public, most whites are secretely a little racist, and they talk shit when they are amongst their own. It comes out more in less direct criticisms about how the increased asian populations are ruining grading curves, or how the increased hispanic population is causing gang problems, or how the influx of african-american culture in the media is rotting the morals of our children. I can't help but feel like if there could be a more open and honest forum for people to voice their concerns and prejudices, we'd be able to deal with them better as a society. As it stands now, we tend to bury things and let them fester.

For my part, i just try and acknowledge when i'm being bigoted or prejudice or a dickhead, figure out where it's coming from, and try and find a way to deal with it, at least in my head. The truth of the matter is that all cultures adn races have their aspects that suck, and all have their aspects that are good. "tolerance" also has taken on a new meaning for me in recent years. I used to think of being tolerant as being accepting and embracing. Now i think of it as admitting that i'm not into certain beliefs, but acknowledging their right to exist. Agreeing to disagree, as it were.

And some of my best friends are black/jewish/hispanic.

-pst

We Jam Econo

I watched We Jam Econo last night, which is the recent documentary on the minutemen. The minutemen have always been one of my favorite bands, not so much musically but in terms of their ideology and what they did. They were three not-so-hot, working class guys from pedro who made jangly, jazzy, punky music that tackled politics in a way that was vague enough to not be didactic. Their songs were short, sometimes with only two lines of lyrics, and they referenced a lot of things without explicitly saying them.

One of the highlights for me was seeing them play "Corono", aka the Jackaass theme song. It starts off in it's jangly, mexi-rockabilly way, with D. Boon dancing like a large spazz, and then he starts singing "The people will survive/in their environment../the injustice of our greed/ ...There on the beach/i could see it in her eyes/ all i had was a corona/ five cent deposit."

gives me chills every time.

The film is a great tribute to a band who deserve one. Go see it and be inspired. I came away feeling more strongly than ever that music can be both art and a better way of living.

--pst

So Long, Clamor

Going Under

I got an email the other day that Clamor Magazine was going to stop publishing. Clamor is a leftist activist zine that has been around since the WTO Riots. It was started by two ex-Maximum Rock n’ Roll writers, who decided to move from the Yay Area to Ohio, and start a magazine that focused on actually doing what punks talked about, rather than just bitching about the system and buying records.

I’ve been writing for them for a couple years, doing music reviews. My relationship with them started when I looked up “indie” “Zine” “submisssiions” in Google, and their site came up. They would send me stuff, I’d write grammatically incorrect reviews, and get to see my name in print. In my two years working with them, I heard some pretty good albums (the rakes, ponies in surf, gravestone, one.be.lo, comet gain, the ios) some forgettable indie rock, and some absolutely wretched mall punk and street rap. It was fun while it lasted, but they seem to have been in financial difficulties for a while now, so it’s not surprising that they are folding. Disappointing, but not surprising. I hope that Jason Kuzcma and Jen Angel both keep their energy going, and move on to new projects. Maybe an e-zine?

It’s ironic that I wrote for clamor, since my politics have gotten more conservative than theirs in recent years. By conservative I mean closer to the center left than far left. I’m just not a radical at heart. Although I do fantasize about my fascist environmental regime that I’ll set up. It would rule.

Space is the Place

I owe Tom Jones and my ex-girlfriend for my discovery of Unwound. I was on a Tom Jones kick, it being the mid-90's and kitch being king, and my then-girlfriend mentioned that he was on the cover of an Unwound album. A year after we broke up I came across a used copy of said album, Fake Train, and bought it, only slightly bitter that it was tangentially attached to my ex.

It instantly became, and remains to this day, one of my favorite albums. I think it easily ranks as one of the best indie/post punk/whatever albums of the 90s.

Unwound at that point were basically a hardcore band who had learned how to play theirr instruments a little and listened to a lot of sonic youth. Their early singles were more on the hardcore bent, and lacked the melodies and listenability of their later works. On fake train, they retained their hardcore element, but coupled it with large amounts of melody, and an overwhelming does of late twentieth-century ennui.

The album kicks off with the repetitive riff of "Dragnalus", over which they sing "You're so bored with tv, radio, audio, video". It perfectly encapsulates the blahness of suburban life, and the boredom of late adolescence.

It immediately jumps into the feedback-fueled "Lucky Acid Trip", which recalls their origins as a punk band. The whole album sees the band veering from the sad but beautiful longing of Kantina/Were, Are, Was, and Is and the chaos of "Valentine", "Ratbite" and "Gravity Kills". The whole quietloudquiet thing has been done to death since then, but it was still relatively new in the early 90's, Unwound still sounds much more convincing than anything on Victory's label, not to even mention all the top 40 suburban emo bands.

I got bored with punk because it was too simplistic and two-dimensional. Punk songs all used the same structure, same chords, and same angry rants about how society, like, fukin' sucked. Albums like "Fake Train" managed to harness the anger, passion and rawness of punk but make it a little more nuanced and interesting. God bless Tom Jones and my ex for introducing me to this Fake Train. It's the perfect album for the 20th/21st century blues.


Holy shit...after reading over this, i realize that it sounds almost exactly like one off Patrick Bateman's "American Psycho" pop culture rants. Jesus. I gotta go return some video tapes.
-pst

Rebel WIthout A Pause

The Coup
"Pick A Bigger Weapon"
ShoYoAss/Anti-/Epitaph, 2006

For Fans Of: Public Enemy, RATM, BDP, Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy, Outkast, Roots, Jello Biafra

This Bay Area hip-hop group have been doing their Commie-rap thing for over a decade. Where other rappers rhyme about grills and killing rivals, the Coup rap about overthrowing the boss and starting revolution. While other Yay Area crews are all about getting stupid, thizz face, and ghost riding whips, the Coup stay far away from Hyphy, and concentrate their energy on trying to raise consciousness and get the proletariate angry.

In theory, this should be my favorite album ever. I miss the days when artists like PE and Ice Cube instilled hip-hop with righteous anger. It's disappointing that so many artists are so self-centered, materialistic, and focused on perpetuating shitty lifestyles. It's sad to me that Fifty Cent is the hero of choice for today's youth, and that hip-hop came to be a means of bragging about dealing drugs rather than escaping from being a dealer.
In practice, the Coup suffer from the two weaknesses intrinsic to message-oriented music: It sacrifices the music for the message, and it is too didactic and self-righteous.

The basic template of the Coup is slightly preachy revolutionary lyrics over Bay Area funk. While sometimes the lyrics are on, more often than not they are clumsy and simplistic. It reminds of Christian music that tries unsuccessfully to hippify its Jesus-talk. Lines like "I'm here to laugh, love, fuck and drink liquor/And help the damn revolution come quicker" don't flow well, and seem like obvious attempts to reach the masses.
Boots' goofy Andre 3000 meets E-40 meets high school teacher flow doesn't help matters much, either. I've never been fan of that type of exaggerated rhyming, and this disc didn't do anything to win me over. It's possible that with a different MC I'd find the Coup more palatable, but I just wasn't feeling Boots.

While in general I agree with their politics, they share Jello Biafra's strain of ultra-left, ultra-paranoid smarmy radicalism, and likewise share Jello's unfortunate tendency of coming off like they know everything and are just trying to let the dumb masses in on it.
"Head (Of State)" tells the story of the Bush family's connection to Saddam Hussein, but its sing-songy storytelling would be better as a column in a zine rather than a hip-hop song. Here's a sample lyric:

"Saddam Husssein was their man out there/ [The C.I.A.] told him to rule by keeping people scared/ Sayin' any opposition to him, he must crush it/ He gassed the kurds/ They gave him the budget."

It's just too….i dunno, simplistic and awkward, I guess. I mean, I think it's awesome that they are pointing out how closely connected the administration was with Saddam, but the delivery does nothing for me. I kept comparing this with David Banner's music - half the time Banner is a sexist, mean bastard, but when he drops science on the state of the bullshit, it's done in a much more convincing manner than the Coup. It's more about him expressing his own anger and frustration over how he is fucked over by the system, rather than trying to educate and raise consciousness.

Maybe I'm just not the right audience for the Coup's message. If I was an angry, confused teenager, this would probably seem a hell of a lot more intense. After all, I used to think Jello Biafra was a political genius. And I think the Coup's slightly awkward but good intentioned music is miles better than all of the guns violence drugs and fucking music that is polluting the airwaves. It's also refreshing to hear rapper talk about uniting the working classes and trying to create a cooperative system where the poor aren't fucked over by the rich, rather than the multitude of rappers bragging about how they want to get rich so they can be the ones fucking people over. I'm glad artists like the Coup exist, and I wish them the best of luck. If you are into BDP, the Roots, or the Outkast, you'll probably dig this album. Personally I'm going to respectfully pass.

-Patrick Sean Taylor

KMD

KMD
Best Of
Nature Sounds, 2003.

For those who don’t know, KMD was the first group that MF DOOM was in (then called Zev Luv X). It consisted of Zev, his brother Sub Rocc, and Onyx. The group released their debut, “Mr. Hood”, in 1991. They started recording a new album, then Onyx quit the band, Sub Rocc was killed in a car accident, and the band’s label immediately dropped them when they saw the proposed coverwork for the follow up, Black Bastards. The cover showed a Lil’ Sambo character being lynched, and in the wake of the “Cop Killer” scandal, Elektra wanted no truck with any controversy. (Incidentally, I saw a white kid wearing a KMD shirt recently that had the Black Bastard character on it, and I gotta say, just as white kids can’t say “nigga”, they can’t wear shirts with sambo’s on them, even if it is a KMD shirt).

“Mr. Hood” is still available on CD, and I think that “Black Bastards” was finally released in 2001 by another label, although there are older copies around that sell for a lot of money.

This collection basically combines most of the two albums and two unreleased tracks into a single disc. Since the band only released two albums, it seems like it would have made more sense just to release a double album collection with all of the tracks from both albums, and include the original album artwork, some liner notes, and any unreleased tracks laying around. Or do it as two separate discs, for that matter. As it is, it’s not really worth it to buy both albums, but it’s frustrating to have almost all of KMD’s songs except for a handful.

Then there are the liner notes, or lack thereof. Besides the name of the album and a catalogue number, there is no information about the band, label, tracks, or anything else on the disc. The liner notes include a lot of photos of the bands’ notebooks, which is kind of cool, but I think I would rather have had a track listing and information about the songs. I’m confused why the greatest hits collection for an obscure band would do absolutely nothing to shed light on the artist. Is it one of those “if you have to ask” things? Like you need to be cool enough to know everything about KMD in order to appreciate the disc?

Whatever. Enough about the packaging. The important thing is the songs, and those are good. The first half of the album is from the more upbeat “Mr. Hood”, a concept record about taking a clueless white guy through the hood. The clueless white guy is played by what sounds like an English phrase record from the fifties. Mr. Hood spouts of lines - “I’d like another shirt. This one is dirty”. Hello, may I get my hair cut?” – and the KMD crew give responses. Musically, it is sort of like De La Soul’s “Three Feet High and Rising”, only a little darker and less hippy. KMD sample Sesame Street, offer bouncy, funky beats, and their rhymes have the sing-songy flow and clever wordlplay typical of the era.

The second half of the album is from the darker “Black Bastards”, which is laced with Last Poet’s samples (or what I’ve been told are Last Poet’s samples, never having heard one of their records). It definitely brings a different, more hostile energy into the mix – For example, “What a Niggy Knows” starts of with the Last Poet’s screaming “He was a nigger yesterday!!! He is a nigger today!!! And he’s gonna be a nigger tomorrow!!!” Then it goes into the whistling, synth riff from Sheila E.’s “Glamorous Life”. Crazy shit, yo. I’ve had it in my head all week, which is not so good considering I’m a white guy.

So how do KMD size up to DOOM’s stuff? Well, for one thing, while fans of DOOM will recognize him as Zev Love X, his flow and style has changed since ‘91. He is much more spry and energetic on this disc, an eager young pup compared to the blunted veteran of today.

While he has progressed and improved since he dropped these rhymes, it’s still DOOM:

On the bouncing, jazzy “Popcorn”, Zev/DOOM/Dumille spits:

Zev Love a brother I never budges
I hold everything from mics to like grudges
I won't let a bygone be a bygone
Back to play the bitch niggaz like a fly horn
I'm controllin all you snakes with, hookin up the cakes
with hot butter, the same like your grandmother bake up
Butt naked, take it from the Riddler, Batman
Who be the oddball, Jake or the Fatman?

Bottom line is, despite the dubious art direction on this package, the disc is a must-have for fans of MF DOOM or early 90’s afrocentric rap.

DOOM has said that he’s working on another KMD record as we speak, by the way. Hopefully his choice of covers this time around doesn’t get him axed again.

-pst

The Death of Jazz-hop

There are some who espouse the following version of music history: In the early 90's, conscious, jazz-influenced hip-hop was destined to dominate the airwaves and the culture, until Dr Dre's Chronic album seduced the masses with it's g-funk tales of misogyny, drug use, and violence, thus hurling hip-hop into a gangsta-rap dark age from whence it has yet to emerge from.

There are a few things wrong with this theory: For one thing, jazzy hip hop was never that popular. The other thing is that gangsta rap was never unpopular.

Let's set the wayback machine to 1990 and check out what the kids of Aptos High were listening to. The heshers were still enjoying the last gasps of the hair bands - AC/DC was huge, Aerosmith was massive, and Metallica was the number-one stoner shirt of choice. The freaks were happy in their alterna-land, knowing that they would have an instant kinship with anyone who had heard of the Smiths, Joy Division, the Cure, or Fugazi.

The hip-hop fans would rush to the Santa Cruz flea market every Saturday to pick up bootleg tapes of their favorite artists. And who were they listening to? Tribe Called Quest? De La Soul? Brand Nubian? HELL NO. They were blasting Ice Cube, Ice T, NWA, 2 Live Crew, and any other artist who swore like a sailor. They'd fuck with PE, but only because Ice Cube was on a few of the tracks, and they made being conscious seem rebellious and angry.

As the decade slowly progressed and Nirvana forced all of LA to get a haircut and distortion pedal, were the hip-hop fans at Aptos High checking out the Low End Theory or Digable Planets or Guru? Hell no. And why the fuck would they have? Metallica, Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, even the Red Hot Chili Peppers were all about being bummed, angry, and wanting to get laid. Why would you expect the hip-hoppers to be digging on jazz cats or getting into how the Tribe was using live instruments? "We got the Jazz?" "Smooth Like Butter"? Um, no. We are talking about teenage boys who are young, dumb, and full of conflicting emotions - do I beat someone up or beat off? Why fuck with boring-ass jazz shit when you've got Ice-T saying "That Bitch Tried to Kill Me"?

Let's put it another way - how many teenagers were/are into jazz? Um, like four, and they are all in the jazz band doing their best worst Coltrane to poor unsuspecting saxophones. So why are kids alla sudden gonna want lots of jazz in their hip-hop?

Let's put it yet another way - in 1991, two artists released iconic, seminal indie rock albums. One was My Bloody Valentine, whose "Loveless" is a masterpiece of swirling, abstract guitar goodness. It sold less than half a million copies, and made their label go bankrupt. The other was Nirvana's "Nevermind" which was equal parts punk, seventies rock, and contemporary teen angst. Not revolutionary, not terribly original, certainly not nearly as experimental and mind-blowing as "Loveless". It sold a bajillion records and even warranted a Weird "Al" parody. The point is, the masses love shit that is visceral, immediate, and easily digested. If they gotta think too much, they'll stay away. At Aptos High, the only other person I knew who was really into Tribe was Amy Santora, who, like me, was more of an indie kid. Everyone else was too busy rocking out to the Chronic.

And let's face it: The Chronic is a good fucking album, just as nevermind is a good fucking album. If you are a young kid looking to start making music, doing rhymes about capping fools and getting high over seventies funk seems like a hell of a lot more fun than busting out your thesaurus and Miles Davis albums and trying to play bohemian.

So the Chronic won out. Kids raised on Run DMC and License to Ill were not going to be suckered into becoming mellow, smacked-out jazz cats. They wanted something angry and banging, and that was about drugs they did. Let me ride, byaatch.

Jazz hip-hop went in several different directions. People took the mellow instrumental with a beat thing and created leagues of downtempo jazz-house records. St. Germaine, Tosca, basically anything that makes urban professionals want to sip cosmos, buy designer clothes, and make sweet love. Other artists took the jazz influence and turned it into something darker, ala Nas' first album, or Mobb Deep's "Infamous". Same upright bass riffs and jazzy beats, but with gritty rhymes about guns, drugs, and inner city life. Q-Tip was present on both albums, proving that the marriage of hip-hop and jazz wasn't just a one-trick pony.

Finally, there are a ton of artists out there who count "The Low-End Theory" as one of their favorite records of all time, and Tribe's mellow beats, clever word play, and conscious lyrics have lived on in a lot of acts, from underground artists like, well, most of the Stones Throw catalogue, to more mainstream artists like the Roots and Common.

So next time you hear someone lament the fall of jazz-hop and rise of gangsta rap, tell him to shut up and buy a Yesterday's New Quintet CD. Now allow myself to excuse myself while I go put on the Digable Planets. Remember to vote, because those fascists are some heavy dudes.
-PST

MSTRKRFT and Chrome Children

MSTRKRFT
Chop Suey, Seattle
Friday, October 20

Chrome Children Tour
Neumoe’s, Seattle
Sunday, October 22

On a recent trip to Seattle, I was treated to a taste of their nightlife. First up was electro-DJs/ Dirty Mustache-wearing MSTRKRFT. I can say the following things, based on that show:

1. While I love my people, I have to admit, White folks can’t dance.
2. There are a lot of really skinny chicks in the Seattle hipster scenes.
3. People in Seattle drink a lot.

They spun two hours of Daft Punk-esque house, putting the funk back in the punk. I would have enjoyed it a lot more had I not been half-asleep, but still it was a good show, except for the stinky couple dancing near me. BO=bad.

The Chrome Children tour centered around Madlib, who didn’t show at Neuman’s, due to a family emergency. Instead MED, Percee P, DJ J-Rocc and Wild child did their best to keep the crowd entertained and make us forget that the guy we came to see wasn’t coming. J-Rocc is an awesome DJ, and the rappers did a great job of keeping the crowd hyped. In between sets Peanut Butter Wolf would spin video mixes – he had old hip-hop videos connected to digital turntables, and so would mix the songs and the videos at the same time. It was cool to see old EPMD, Ice Cube, Tribe Called Quest, etc. videos. Also, the shit was LOUD. I was wearing a knit cap and ear plugs, and it STILL hurt my ears. I didn’t mind though….it felt good to actually feel the beats, and since my eardrums weren’t ringing, I don’t think I did any lasting hearing damage.

For those of you who missed the tour, pick up the chrome children comp. It has a decent if inconsistent mix of artists on on disc, and a dvd of a stone’s throw SXSW show, with witty commentary courtesy of the adult swim crew.

-pst

And Shadow says “Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me!”

DJ Shadow
The Outsider
Motown, 2006

Creating a genre-defining masterpiece is great, but it can play hell on your career, especially if it is your first album and the genre is past its sell-by date. Just ask Josh Davis, aka DJ Shadow. His 1996 debut “…Endtroducing” essentially set the template for trip-hop, along with some stuff by a little band called Massive Attack. Shadow combined crate digging, turntablism, hip-hop, and added a little melancholy and depth. His booming, analog drum sound became signature, and he managed to mix samples from James Brown and Bjork without it seeming off.

A few years later he dropped the fairly well-received “Printing Press”, and has done a host of other production and DJ work, mostly shit I’m not cool enough to know about.
Evidently he’s spent too much of the last ten years trying to live down his reputation from Entroducing, and has gotten pretty sick of being pigeonholed or told he is old hat. Here’s some advice, Josh: Don’t pay too much attention to shit you read on the internet. While you’re busting your ass creating albums and producing, all us slobs are busy criticizing people for having the audacity to actually do something rather than just consume and bitch.

Something else happened in the interim as well: Shadow got Hyphy. Hyphy is the Yay Area’s answer to crunk, and our own failed attempt to get our MC’s noticed by the rest of the world. Hyphy is marked with burping, high energy beats and lots of obscure slang.
Shadow getting hyphy is just about the greatest thing to happen to hip-hop all year, and certainly the best thing that could have happened to hyphy. In fact, all you really need to know about hyphy is on this disc.

The disc starts out strong, with a spooky intro, and then the gorgeous soul tune “I’m gonna do it my way” And indeed Shadow does, because he jumps directly into “3 Freaks”, one of sevaral hyphy tracks on the disc (others include Turf Talk’s “Turf Dancing”, E-40’s “Dress My Part”, and a remix of “3 Freaks”). The track is, how you say, banging. Shadow manages to get stupid without losing his smarts, and creates an upbeat ode to getting laid. And yes, this is an ode to getting laid. There is nothing underground, progressive, or backpacky about this track: it’s a street anthem with street lyrics, as are the other hyphy tracks. For those of us who have both T.I. and Xiu Xiu in our collection, this is a fine thing. For the rest of the world, the it may be a bit problematic, cuz the rest of the disc ISN’T street anthems. There are a couple more rap collabos, and then it’s off to experimental zone so Shadow can get his Radiohead on. When he’s not doing blues instrumentals, or punk instrumentals, or blues jams about groupies.

As a DJ, Shadow should know the importance of creating a cohesive set. Would you spin an Iron and Wine song after a Lil’ Jon song? No, right? And not because your audience is too unsophisticated to digest both, but because they don’t go well together. I love ice cream and I love wild boar, but I’d never have ice cream on top of wild boar. I really wish this had been a double album, with one disc all rap collabos and one disc all mellower, experimental stuff. As it is, the disc can be a little jarring in its rapid changes between genres.

Despite my complaints, I don’t want to pan this record because it is too diverse and schizophrenic. The fact is, there are only one or two ungood tracks on the album. Most of the stuff is pretty damn good. Consider how many albums out there only have a handful of good songs. The Outsider, on the other hand, is packed with good songs, a handful from various not-so-compatible genres. There are far worse things in the world, like, say, E-40’s latest disc, which is basically really long single.

And there are some moments of absolute brilliance. David Banner’s contributes his gruff vocals and angry yet insightful lyrics to “Seein’ Thangs”:

Martial law, tell Bush naw we ain't ready to flip
The hood is like a modern slave ship
We packed like sardines and shackled to the streets
And crack is cotton that grows up from the concrete
Shit, but I guess I'm seein thangs
We'd rather not learn, we'd rather fuckin gang bang”

I know DJ Shadow is going to get a lot of shit for The Outsider, and I hope it inspires him to do even more crazy shit in the future. There are too many musicians playing it safe.
-Patrick Sean Taylor

Not so consistent....

So i haven't been posting a lot lately, but it's not because i'm flaking out. I've been busy, had technical problems, and been a bit in the doldrums/not felt like doing a hell of alot. I'm going to a few shows this weekend, and i'm working on a review of DJ Shadow's new one, so hopefully i'll be able to stay true to my goal of posting once a week. I know - MAJOR relief, right?

Currently listening to Blackalicious's Blazing Arrow, a brilliant record that i rarely feel like listening to. I've also been listening to a lot of Teagan and Sara, Trail of Dead, and David Banner. He's like the new Ice Cube - angry and alternatly brilliant and offensive.

pst.

Poguetry in Motion

I have been a Pogues fan since I first heard "If I Should Fall From Grace With God" in 1987. Their combination of traditional Irish music and punk pretty much ruled. I think it’s the fact that they played Irish music as if it were punk, rather than playing punk as if it were Irish. Also that they were actually Irish, and not a bunch of dudes from Boston or SoCal all proud of their alcoholic heritage (ala Flogging Molly, Dropkick Murphys, et al).

I saw the Pogues play in 1991, only Joe Strummer was sitting in for Shane MacGowan who by that point was no longer in the band for being too much of a drunk fuckup. When an Irish drinking band kicks you out because you are a drunk, you have serious, serious problems. Seriously. It’s better that Mr. Strummer toured with them, because it ended up being the only time I got to see him, and he played Straight to Hell and London Calling. Still, it was a bummer not having seen Shane, so I was very happy to see that they were playing in the city.

To give you an idea of the kind of following the Pogues have, they hadn’t toured or come out with an album in almost ten years, most of their old stuff has been out of print for a while, yet still they sold out four nights at the Fillmore. And I would say 90% of those attending were serious Pogues fans. These were not jaded bastards who just came to act bored. And it was expensive, even if your sister was paying for you, and even MORE so if you had to pay for yourself and your brother.

When shane hobbled up to the stage looking like the bloated old drunk he is, the crowd went nuts. He mumbled something like "mblmlfdooemd,buckaroos" and away they went. Oddly enough, even though he could barely stand, hardly talk, and kept leaving the stage to get even more fucked up, he still sang every word and sounded pretty damn good. Even the ballad "Rainy Night In Soho" sounded ok. Admittedly, he was probably totally fucked up when he made the original recordings, but still. He may be a severe alcoholic, but he is a functioning severe alcoholic.

The show was great, even if it was a bit sad to see the old man. The band sounded amazing, and did an excellent job keeping up and down with Shane. He’d stagger off, they’d do a couple numbers, he’d stagger on and shout out songs, they’d go into em, and a good time was had by all. They even did "Fairytale of New York", with Jem Finer’s daughter sitting in.

In other exciting news, Rhino has reissued the Pogues’ first five albums, most of which have been out of print or import only for a long, long time. They are remastered, have extra tracks, and are I think twelve bucks – ish. If you don’t have any of them, go get "If I should fall from grace with god and "Rum Sodomy and the Lash" right NOW. Then you should get hells ditch an d red roses for me, and maybe peace and love. Or whatever.
Then blast your stereo and get all nostalgic about a country you’ve never lived in and that your ancestors left because they were so desperately poor. And remember – Ireland is WAY better than England, and the Irish are WAY hotter than the English.

Love and whiskey,
Patrick "Poor Paddy" Sean Taylor

The Doctor’s Advocate

Here are some facts about 26-year-old The Game.:

1. His debut album, 2005’s The Documentary, was pretty fucking good, and a welcome return to form for the West Coast, which hasn’t been getting much air play this decade.

2. The Documentary was good not so much because the Game is a great rapper, but because he had great beats behind him. He’s a decent rapper, but a large chunk of hi s rhymes is just him referencing other, better artists.

3. Since The Documentary dropped in early 05, the Game has spent most of his time beefing with former mentor 50 Cent, or writing rhymes about how wack 50 is, to the point of it almost being an obsession. Game’s ultimate dis of fiddy? Calling his crew G-Unot (get it, instead of G-Unit?) and for this, shots are fired.

4. The game is one of the prettiest rappers out there. Really. The boy is hot. Sorry if that sounds gay.

5. His real name is Jayceon Taylor (no relation). At first I was like, huh, that’s an interesting name, and then I realized it was just a ghettoization of “Jason”.

6. On “The Documentary” he is on the cover sitting on gold rimmed tires. On “Doctor’s Advocate”, he is sitting on platinum tires.

7. Despite the title of the album, dre didn’t have much to do with it, causing some to speculate that they are beefing (which the game denies) and wondering whether the album is gonna suck. Jayceon swears that it’s going to be, like, the best album ever, but I’m not convinced. I may not even fuck with it: I’ve been feeling awful broke lately, and need to limit my music intake.

8. His album is coming out in November, so we shall soon know if it sucks.

also, you should check out his interview in XXL this month; I know high-school girls who are less catty than he and fiddy. Jeez, hug and get over it guys.

I Heart Bob Dylan

Ok, so I realize that until now I’ve only written about hip-hop, but today I’m going to ramble about one of our county’s great artists: The man, the legend, the unintelligible, Bob Dylan.

It took me twenty-five years to accept the genius of Bob Dylan, and I largely blame 1967’s dismal “greatest Hits’ collection. Part of the problem is that Dylan’s most popular songs have either been ruined from being on the soundtrack of too many nostalgic 60’s films (“Blowing in the Wind”, “The Times They Are A-Changing”) or were never so hot to begin with “Rainy Day Woman”). Also, Dylan’s material covers too much ground to be represented well by ten tracks. It ends up just being a mish-mash of styles and genres, nuggets of brilliance that don’t really work when placed together. I was forced to listen to “Greatest Hits” on too many car rides in high school, and it almost turned me off to Dylan for good.

What finally changed my mind was a copy of “Highway 61 Revisited” that came free with a copy of L’Espresso, which is Italy’s version of Time, only with more boobies. I had heard “Like A Rolling Stone” a million times, but this was the first time I really listened to it. Besides the fact that it is a good song, it has got to be one of the most viscous singles released until rappers started releasing dis tracks in the 80’s. I was suffering from a nasty dot com hangover, and Dylan’s tirade was the perfect revenge anthem to all of the yuppie assholes who made my city so unbearable in the late 90’s. –

“You've gone to the finest school all right, Miss Lonely
But you know you only used to get juiced in it
And nobody has ever taught you how to live on the street
And now you find out you're gonna have to get used to it.”

All the angry punk rock anthems in the world can’t compete with Dylan’s vitriol on that track. The rest of the album holds up as well. Ok, so the lyrics don’t always make much sense, and it can get uncomfortably jammy at times, but it’s still really, really good.

Since I was in Italy, and it was tough finding decent music, I started buying all of the Dylan records I could find. I started with his most famous, 1963’s “The Freewheeling Bob Dylan.” Despite the fact that it contains one of his most popular songs, it is not one of his best albums. First of all, do you really ever feel the need to hear “Blowin’ in the Wind?” Because I don’t. It’s sort of like a lot of the Beatles’ stuff – totally ruined by repetition. It’s still worth owning, however, for “Oxford Town”, and the brilliant “Masters of War”

Next I picked up hi s debut, 1962’s “Bob Dylan”, which is notable for Dylan’s touching ode to Woody Guthrie, as well as his covers of old blues songs. For a young Midwestern Jewish kid, he sure sold lines like “Lord I’m fixin’ to die.”

1966’s double album “Blonde On Blonde” has some fine moments that build on the more rock and psychadelic leanings of Highway 61 and Bringing it All Back Home. However, too much of the album seems to conflate being on acid with being creative, and it’s not nearly as effective today as it must have been when it was released.

My favorite album of Dylan is 1964’s “The Times They Are A-Changing”. The title track is pretty brilliant, if overplayed. The rest of the album is full of angry folk music that attacks American hypocrisy, classism, and racism. It has also got some gorgeous ballads, and is consistent the whole way through. Fans of Elliot Smith should check this out, as Smith was obviously inspired by Mr. Dylan.

I haven’t really listened to any thing else Dylan has done. 1975’s “Blood On the Tracks” is a pretty heavy break up record, but it gets a little to jam-rock for my tastes. I’ve heard bad things about a lot of his output from the late 70’s, and I sort of feel like I own enough Dylan at this point. His last few albums have gotten rave reviews, but again, I’m not really desperate to add more Dylan to my collection. It’s not that he’s not great, it’s just that I have to make room for some of the other billion good artists out there.

While Dylan’s nasally voice may not be for everybody, he has a rightful spot in the pantheon of great American musicians, as well as great pop musicians. Next you get shit from a European about how the US has no culture, you can reply “Oh yea?!? Well what about Bob Dylan, muthafucka?” That’ll teach the Europeans to think they are better than us just because their countries aren’t full of ignorant superstitious Christians who don’t know shit about anything beyond their television…what-EVER.
-PST

Get Hyphy!!!

Evidently hip-hop cannot exist unless it is some part of a movement, be it crunk, snap, screwed, trap, mobb, and now hyphy. Hyphy is a bay area movement that is basically uptempo, danceable hip hop that allows you to "go dumb". It's sort of like less aggressive crunk, or techno and house mixed with hip-hop. There are some hyphy gems out there - Wolfpack's "Vans", DJ Shadow's "3 Freaks", and some of the tracks off of E-40's album. I like the fact that an underground Oakland phenomenon is suddenly the next big thing. It's a little lame that so much of hyphy revolves around doing stupid shit like "ghostriding your whip" (ie. walking alongside your moving car), and doing other not-so-smart car-related things. Of course, they do call it getting dumb, so i guess it fits.

I've never been a fan of bay area hip-hop. Mac Dre, Mac Mall, C-Bo, even E-40....none of those guys have ever rocked my world. More underground/indie artists like DJ Shadow, Dan the Automator, Del the Funky Homosapien and Blackaliscious have put out some innovative and exciting stuff in the last ten years. The whole hyphy movement isn't rocking my world too much, although i can appreciate it from the sidelines. The one thing that bothers me about the whole movement is that it has to be a movement: it can't just be regional rappers. They all have to be part of a certain sound with a certain dance and a certain drug of choice and slang and aesthetic. I feel like that dooms all of these artists to obsolescence once the public burns out on hyphy in a year or so, and moves on to the next big thing.


Whatever. At least the bay area is getting some attention and props. Maybe hyphy will force bay area rappers to crank it up a notch and make hip-hop that is a little more innovative and interesting.
-pst

David Banner Review

David Banner
Mississippi: The Album
Universal, 2003

For Fans of: Crunk, Lil’ Jon, guys who yell a lot.

I’m not sure how I ended up having this in my possession. For one thing, it’s crunk, and I don’t like crunk. For those of you unfamiliar with that genre, it’s derived from “crazy drunk” and is basically simple, aggressive hip-hop designed to make people go nuts at the club. Lil’ Jon? “Hey! What!!!?” Ringing any bells?

Second, Mr. Banner (in a name derived from the TV Incredible Hulk, who was for whatever reason named David, not Bruce) spends a lot of the album dissing women folk and just being an all-around ornery old bastard. For example, on the aptly titled “Fuck Them Niggaz”, he yells:

“What this hoe really wan' do? fuck or suck the stick
Like ooh, don't fuck me naw nigga, I'll fuck you
Two, three in your face till you're blue - black
Would you fuck her wit a jack top man?
I'll shoot ya in your back like BLAT BLAT BLAT!!”

Ahhh, romance. This followed up with a screamed chorus of “Them niggaz wanna hate? Fuck them niggaz!!”

It would be totally horrible and unlistenable, only it has got such a good beat. Granted, it’s a beat that hits you upside the head and leaves you with a migrane, but still. Banner’s agro tracks have the same quality that makes grindcore and powerviolence bearable –it’s so aggressive and pummeling that it ends up just sort of numbing you.

On the Lil’ Jon produced “Might Getcha”, Jon lays down a booming beat over a tinkling music box riff, which contrasts nicely with the verbal ass-kicking the song delivers:

“Might Getcha jaw broke
Might Getcha wig split
Might Getch car shot up
Might Getcha door kicked
Might Getcha kidnapped
Might Getcha neck snapped
Might Getcha your feelings hurt thinking this is just a rap”

So I hate crunk, but dammit if I don’t kind of like Banner’s stuff. It’s just so…I dunno. Aggro yet more.

If it was just a bunch of screamy songs, it would get old quick. However, Mississippi’s real strength is in its mellower, more reflective tracks, most of which are built around acoustic guitar riffs. Banner seems to hate just about everyone (except God), but at least he’s got a reason: “We from a place where my soul can’t be free/cuz a [Confederate] flag means more than me,” he declares on “Mississippi”, giving the listener an idea of just how fucked up and shitty it must feel to live somewhere where people still actively romanticize a period of history when your ancestors were treated like 3/5 a person.

“Caddilac on 22’s” follows in the slower, more thoughtful vein. The real gem is hidden track 19, “Fire Fallin’” . It’s downright pretty, almost like a mournful hip-hop spiritual. Serious.

In the end, Mississippi: The Album is a little too mean spirited (“There’s a bitch up in the club that I want to beat up/ Point that bitch out!”) and a little too noisy for me to fall in love with it. Still, even though it’s obviously not my thing, I couldn’t help being impressed by Banner’s ability to be both insightful and offensive at the same time. Maybe he’ll get older and mellower and stop making songs about how much he hates women. Then he’d be fucking awesome.
-PST

Rap: Feminist Propaganda?

Sadly, misogyny and hip-hop seem to go hand-in-hand. The rampant woman-hating on so many hip-hop songs is even harder to swallow than the rampant glorification of violence; at least when guys rap about capping a fool, it doesn’t necessarily have to be taken literally. More often it’s just bravado and bluff, an exaggerated show of strength. When you say “a bitch is a bitch, however, you can’t really read that any other way.

In fact, it was the bullshit sexism of NWA’s “She Swallowed It” and 2 Live Crew’s entire catalogue that turned me off on rap for a long time in the late 80’s and early 90’s. It was ridiculous enough that my white-ass friends who lived in a white-ass community with no black people anywhere would be so into wanna-be gang-bangers talking about life in Compton; It was even worse when they tried to adopt the Two $hort/Eazy-E Mack persona. “Just Don’t Bite It?” Shit, we were a bunch of dorky 14-year-olds who would have been lucky to get a girl within arm’s distance of our johnsons, much less their mouth.

Sexism has ruined or spoiled many a hip-hop song and album. Dr Dre’s
“The Chronic” would be a masterpiece, but it’s just too goddamn hateful. “Bitches Ain’t Shit”???? What the hell is that? Jay—Z’s “99-Problems” – killer beat, brilliant lyrics, except for that whole “but a bitch ain’t one.” Bitch? Dude, you’re dating Beyonce! If I was dating Beyonce, I’d be writing songs called “Oh My god, I’m Dating Beyonce”, and “I’m Only Leaving Bed To Shower and Eat” and “My Girlfriend’s Voice (Is Almost As Nice As Her Ass)”. And if Beyonce really is a bitch, either break up or learn to deal with her assholicness. Jeez.


Ice Cube? A lot of brilliance, a lot of assholeness For every “Amerikkka’s Most Wanted” there is a “Cave Bitch” or “Giving Up the Nappy Dugout”. At least with Ice Cube, you know he is just trying to fuck with people and piss them off. I’m pretty sure that Snoop really doesn’t love them hoes.

One of the worst offenders was Tupac, who would alternately sing sappy love ballads to his momma and scathing tirades against women. Worse still he would try and justify it by saying there was a difference between bitches and women, ala Jay-Z’s execrable (yet funky) “Bitches and Sisters”. (you know, the one with gems like “Bitches give up the ass/Sisters give up the ass/Sisters do it slow/Bitches do it fast”).


Which leads us to another rap cliché – the scandalous, money-grubbing female who’s only out for your money. I have absolutely no doubt that such women do exist, or that they are more common in the hip-hop scene than at, say, the alt-country scene. But see, if you rap about how much money you have, if you go out sporting six figures of jewelry, if you are driving a fancy car and drinking crystal in the club, you gotta figure that you aren’t exactly going to attract the down-to-earth, girl next door. A rapper complaining about attracting shallow, greedy women is a little bit like someone complaining that there are too many yuppies at the Matrix in the Marina, or that there aren’t enough chicanos hanging out at the Beauty Bar in the Mission. You reap what you sow, nyamean?

The misogyny in rap music bothers me for two reasons: One, I happen to like females, and I don’t really like anyone saying mean things about my friends or relatives. Two, it seems to me that if you are really such a manly man, you shouldn’t have to spend so much time dissing other people. If Snoop truly was a mack and truly was sure of himself and all that, he wouldn’t need to spend so much time expounding on how worthless females were. Get over it, shit. And anyways, if you hate ladies so much, does that mean you just want to hang out with your homies? A bunch of stoned, strapped dudes playing Halo? You go and do that - I’m gonna go have dinner with a lady friend.

I dunno...maybe hip-hop will get over its mysogyny, or it will become the exception and not the rule. Until then, I’ll just keep on trying to disassociate the words with the music, and pretend to myself that it’s ok to listen to guys saying bitch like it didn’t mean anything.

(It should be noted that the author does not assume that other forms of popular music created by boys who are “young, dumb, and full of cum” are paragons of feminism and understanding. Anyone looking for a nuanced, intelligent examination of the relationship between the sexes in popular music is stupid. Still, “Girls, Girls, Girls” is a pretty fly song, and I’ve always been partial to GnR’s “It’s So Easy”).

-PST

T.I. Take Two

Um, so after singing the praises of T.I.’s dis track “I’m Talking to You”, I recently read that in May a member of his entourage was killed by gunmen aiming for T.I. in Cincinnati. In light of that, the sort of looses some of its luster. Trash talking is one thing- having it translate into actual violence is another. But at the same time, if you make records where you claim “We can shoot it out whenever you want,” you can’t be too terribly surprised if someone ends up taking shots at you. Likewise, the death of Biggie Smalls was very sad, but the man did make a shitload of money rapping about shooting people and dealing crack. I’m not saying gangsta rappers deserve to get shot at, but I do think that when you glamorize a shitty lifestyle (ie violent, drug-dealing gang-banger), you can’t be all that shocked when you end up in the shit.

Chamillionaire Review AKA Worst. Rap Name. Ever

Chamillionaire
The Sound of Revenge
Universal, 2005

For Fans of: 50 Cent, Paul Wall, all things Houston, Purple Drank.

First off, what the hell is up with that name? Does he have a million disguises? Does he have a Chamillion dollars? It's incredibly hard to take someone with such a lame-o name seriously, and I dismissed Chamillionaire until I read an interview with him on the uber-indie website Pitchfork. Chamillionaire purposely sought out Pitchfork precisely because they weren't the typical venue for his music. He knew that XXL and the Source would already be covering him. He wanted to try and recruit fans from different genres.

Chamillionaire is often praised as one of the best rappers to come out of Houston, mostly based on a series of mixtapes and underground CDs, including the classic "Get Ya Mind Correct" with ex-partner Paul Wall. However, while Cham's early material mostly concentrated on cars, rims, grills, chains, and getting one's lean on, Sound of Revenge sees him going in a more serious direction. While I definitely admire and respect this move towards maturity, it is not entirely successful.

Sound of Revenge offers up 15 tracks of melodic Texan hip-hop. Most of the production is handled by folks that I don't recognize (Beat Bullies, Sol Messiah, Cool-N-Dre). The only producer I had heard of was Scott Storch, who contributes a decent beat to the Lil' Flip assisted single "Turn It Up". In true Southern fashion, most of the beats are constructed around skittering drums and synth riffs. Although I much prefer the more analog boom-bap sound of old, Cham makes a convincing argument for the newer direction of rap.

Like 50 Cent, most of the songs have sung chorus, and Cham actually has a decent voice. Songs like "Ridin'", "Southern Takeover", and "Think I'm Crazy" actually have good melodies, and are some of the better songs on the album. For the most part, Chamillionaire's rhymes and flows are spot-on, although occasionally he would try and cram too many syllables into each line, and it sounded stupid (as on "Turn It Up".
The real problem with this album is the same thing that was wrong with "Get Rich or Die Tryin'": It's too fucking serious. For a rapper known for his sense of humor, Sound of Revenge is totally humorless, and the me-against-the-world vibe gets old. Also, while there are some great tracks, there are also a fair share of mediocre ones. The end result is a disc that demonstrates Chamillionaire's potential, but isn't quite there.
-PST

Wild Style

Wild Style
Directed by Charlie Ahearn
1982


I'll admit it - it's a little weird that I'm so into rap these days. I'm neither African-american nor hip-hop. I don't aspire to become a b-boy, I'm not adopting hip-hop slang into my vocabulary, except for purposes of irony, and I am distinctly aware that I am an outsider to the culture. However, watching the 1982 film Wild Style, which documents the early days of hip-hop, I understood why I have such a fascination with the music and the culture. I grew up listening to punk rock, and was very inspired by the way that the punk scene tried to create an alternative culture that gave ordinary people an opportunity to make music, art, and actively contribute to creating culture rather than just be a passive consumer. I was essentially an outsider to punk culture as well, even if I did relate to it a lot more than I do to hip-hop. Part of what I loved about punk was the thrill of discovering new bands, of trying to find out more information about this underground scene, buying records based on what was painted on people's leather jackets, or by the name, or because you heard them mentioned in a magazine.

Hip-hop offers many of the same challenges and rewards, and Wild Style is evidence of this. Although technically a drama about a graffiti artist's trials and tribulation in the South Bronx, Wild Style works best as a documentary of the nascent hip-hop scene, and the devastated community that it came from. The film is full of real-life figures of the early rap, graffiti, and breakdancing scene. People like "Lee" Quinones, Zephyr, the Cold Crush Crew, Fab Five Freddy, Grandmaster Flash, and some of the early breakdancing crews. The best moments of the film come from seeing the live freestyling at the Dixie Club. Rap was originally a live art form, and watching Busy Bee battle other MC's shows just how good early rap could be, and how poorly it translated to record. There is something very exciting about watching the DJ's and MC's creating the culture that is now a multi-national, multi-million dollar animal. It gave me the same sense of exhilaration that I get watching clips of the Ramones when they first started.

The acting is terrible, the plot is nearly non-existent, and the quality is not so hot. Still, Wild Style is a classic. Besides documenting the scene, it also contains a lot of clips that have been sampled by rappers throughout the years. The intro to Nas' Illmatic, the "Shut the fuck up, Chico Man" clip from the Beastie Boys "Professor Booty", the "Hey sucka nigga, whoever you are" from Tribe Called Quest's "Sucka Nigga". It was exciting realizing where these quotes had come from, and the impact this film had on so many rappers.

We live in a world where culture is mass-produced ,where rebellion is sold to the masses, where punk rock and gangsta rap have become tools of the very machine they were meant to criticize. Wild Style is proof that the world belongs to us, and that ordinary people have the power to create something innovative, moving, and revolutionary.
-PST