G. - American Scholar Review

I reviewed G.'s "American Scholar" on RapReviews last week.

Review is here.

Not my bag.

Sankofa MWF 3 Review

My review of Sankofa's "Music With Friends Volume 3" is up at RapReviews. Here.



http://www.rapreviews.com/archive/2008_12_sankofamwf3.html

Go download it for free at his site, www.obeseamerica.com.

P-Funk Live review

I reviewed a live Parliament/Funkadelic show on RapReviews this week. Here.

I was got into Parliament in the early nineties. I had "Chocolate City" and their greatest hits. Then they became Standard Party music for the rest of the decade, and Dr. Dre and Snoop sampled them, and I got burnt out. I sold my CD's back a few years ago when i was low on cash and purging my collection of stuff I didn't listen to.

This live show reminded me that they were pretty f'ing amazing. That is a SHOW. That's like Broadway on acid. Literally. All you mopey indie rockers singing to your shoes and acting miserable, and all you rappers shouting over prerecorded tracks need to take some performance and sartorial hints from P Funk. They did shit right.



http://www.rapreviews.com/archive/2008_12D_mothership1976.html

Rachel's Geting Married To That Dude From TV On The Radio

Over Thanksgiving I went to see "Rachel's Getting Married," the Jonathan Demme movie in which Anne Hathaway plays a rehabing druggie who threatens to destroy her older sister's wedding.

Have you ever seen any of the Dogma movies? The Danish films shot on video that strived to be as realistic as possible, and ended up all being unwatchably shaky and about horrible psychic trauma and pain, including but not limited to incest and rape? Well, that's pretty much what "Rachel's Getting Married" was about, only it was also incredibly boring. It was basically like watching your friend's wedding video, assuming the camera man had Parkinson's, and your friend had the most bitchen' bohemian family evah. And her sister had killed their little brother while she was high. The only thing that made the movie somewhat bearable was the crazy wedding, and the sundry musician cameos, including but not limited to Robyn Hitchcock, Fab 5 Freddy, and TV On the Radio's Tunde Adebimpe.

Other than that, this movie was about as much fun as attending a horribly dysfunctional family's function. In other words, no.

You know what isn't incredibly boring and painful? TV On The Radio's new album, "Dear Science." They are an interesting mix of indie rock and soul, and I kind of dig them. Their one problem is that they are so unique and unusual that I never actually want to listen to them. They are like an exotic fruit: as much as I might appreciate its uniqueness, I end up missing the blandness and familiarity of an apple.

My favorite song on the album is "Crying." Here it is.

Crass

I'm reading Ian Glasper's book about British anarcho-punk, The Day The Country Died. It starts, as it must, with Crass, the band/collective who really cemented the look, politics, and sound of anarcho punk, which is a bit ironic since anarchy was supposed to be about doing your own thing.

The book has made me revisit Crass's second and best album, Stations of the Crass. It is one of my favorite punk albums ever. It is angry and political as hell, and yet just experimental enough to be interesting without being annoying. Most anarcho bands got super noisy, experimental and boring in their later years, and Crass was no exception. In fact, Penny Rimbaud, the main songwriter in Crass, now fronts a free jazz group. Ugh.

It's also remarkable how unpolitical most of the people involved with anarcho punk seemed to have been. In most of the groups, there was one guy steeped in anarchist dogma, and the rest of them were followers looking for some direction and a laugh. As much as I love the music, it seems like it was a pretty boring scene, what with everyone being so purer than thou and judgemental. And dirt poor.

Crass's music still resonates today, and I still appreciate their righteous anger, and the brilliant lines they come up with. Do they owe us a living? Of course they fucking do!

Links to visit NOW

First, a video of LCD Soundsystem's "New York I Love You" featuring Kermit thee frog.

http://www.simonowens.com/files/lcdsoundsystemnyiloveu.html

And second, the myspace page for The Very Best, who do African interpolations of songs by MIA and Vampire Weekend. You can download a free mixtape there. Awe-some.

http://www.myspace.com/theverybestmyspace

Carry on.

Deerhunter - Microcastle

Two of my favorite bands are My Bloody Valentine and Sonic Youth, so I'm pretty pleased with Deerhunter's new one, which combines elements of both bands. I enjoyed their 2007 album "Cryptograms," but it was heavy on the experimental side, which I was less excited about. It's not that I can't appreciate ambient soundpieces, but when I know that the band can produce gorgeously dissonant noise, it's tough to sit through their more indulgent pieces.

"Microcastles" is a more subdued, quieter, and ultimately better album than "Cryptograms." I think they recorded this in a whirlwind session after their original album leaked on the internet. It's available now as well, although I haven't heard it yet.

There is a lot going on on this disc, between the melodies, the swirling guitars, and the occasional jagged instrumentals. One of my favorite tracks is "Nothing Ever Happens," which pays homage to Sonic Youth without sounding like a ripoff.

The lead singer/songwriter is incredibly prolific, and if you check out his blog at http://deerhuntertheband.blogspot.com/ you'll find all sorts of free music he offers as part of his Atlas Sound project. That tends to be more ambient/experimental, and not as polished or pretty as the Deerhunter stuff. Not that it is overly polished.

I don't know enough about music to know if there is a conceptual backing behind Deerhunter's work, if there is actual music theory being put to test, or if they are just fucking around and doing whatever sounds right. Either way, I love this album. Fifteen years ago, Microcastles would have ended up in heavy rotation on my CD player, an album that I would bring with me on road trips for my discman, an album whose every song would be burned into my consciousness. Now I'm lucky if it stays on my ipod through 2008. I'm going to try and savor this one for a while, and not let it get buried under the deluge of new music that I get each month.

Quest-Rah and Viro the Virus

I have new two reviews up at RapReviews this week.

One is Quest-Rah's "The Ancient Tapes Vol. 1" mixtape. He is Islamic rapper from London, who is as heavily influenced by the Wu-Tang Clan as he is by the Koran. He isn't preachy, and has a nice Middle Eastern flair to his production work. Not bad.

The review is here. Or, paste this into your browser: http://www.rapreviews.com/archive/2008_11_ancienttapesv1.html



The other album I reviewed is Viro the Virus's "The Sharpest Blade." He's a Jersey MC who raps in a deliberate, enunciated style, dropping one-liners and some clever rhymes. I was into it.


My review is here.
(http://www.rapreviews.com/archive/2008_11_thesharpestblade.html)

Jake One or No Such Thing As A Free Lunch

I get emails from PR folk with mp3s every once in a while, and recently I got one for Jake One's "The Truth," off of his new "White Van Music" on Rhymesayers. Jake One has done production work for G-Unit, but this project shows him flexing his indie muscles with MCs like MF Doom.

I love "The Truth." I love the beat, I love Freeway's verse, and I particularly like Brother Ali's rhymes.

So now my free mp3 is costing me $14 for the Jake One album, and another $14 for Brother Ali's record, which I have to pick up now that I've heard how amazing the man is. Twenty eight bucks, all because of a free mp3. Damn.

Machete Vox Presents The Sneak Preview Review

My review of the Machete Vox label's Sneak Preview is up now at RapReviews.com. Here.

I love this comp, and I have high hopes for this Bay Area label. It combines some of the energy of hyphy, the attitude of Too $hort, and the indie spirit of artists like DJ Shadow and Blackaliscious. My favorite track is "Street Cred Need Me" by Z-Man, who also did the album cover.



The Machete Vox sound reminds me a little of E-40, especially Boac's "I Need Money." I was never a huge E-40 fan, but I did think the cover of his album In A Major Way, in which he is cooking crack, was fugging hilarious. He also had a few good singles as part of the hyphy movement, including "Tell Me When To Go." His weirdo rhyme style is an acquired taste, and best in small doses, but it is definitely distinctive.



There is also more than a little Too $hort in the Machete Vox sound, especially on tracks like "Shuddup." I actually have never owned any Too $hort, but it was impossible to come of age in Northern California in the late 80s without hearing "Life is..Too $hort." It sounds kind of corny now, but I like it. I made a Pandora station that is all 80s gangster rap, and it's friggin' awesome. It's amazing how tame a lot of that stuff sounds now.

Anyways, there's your Bay Area hip hop history lesson.

Blake from Jawbreaker has a new band

They are called Thorns of Life. From the video above, taken from their second show ever, they sound like melodic punk-leaning indie, not unlike Jawbreaker or Jets to Brazil. I loved Jawbreaker, but was pretty unimpressed by Jets. Cautiously optimistic about this one, but at this point, he really should do whatever the hell he wants, right?

I got this from Stereogum, who got it from the Bohemian. Here.

Megatop Phoenix

I finally found a copy of Big Audio Dynamite's 1989 album Megatop Phoenix week. BAD was formed on the ashes of the Clash in 1984 by Mick Jones. They used samples, drum machines, and keyboards, creating a sound that had more to do with hip hop and dance music than punk.

Megatop Phoenix was their fourth album, and last under their original incarnation. They became BAD II in 1990, and had a hit with "Rush." Then they did a techno album, and finished things off with the pretty awful "F-Punk," which includes the catchy but inane "I Turned Out A Punk." I actually kind of like that song, even though it sucks.

Megatop is clearly influenced by the house music/rave scene that was blossoming in Britain at the time, and is dancier than BAD's work to that point. It was one of the first techno-ey albums I heard, and I was really into it Back In The Day. One of my favorite songs was "Union, Jack," which uses the drum beat from "Honky Tonk Woman," and loops it over some modern rock guitars. The lyrics are not super impressive, but they are catchy. "Take a stand/before you fall/your country needs you/to play football." Are they serious? Is he being ironic? I dunno...what i do know is that Joe Strummer was probably the lyric writer in the Clash.

Whatever. The songs are catchy, and the use of samples is pretty impressive. Maybe not "Paul's Boutique" impressive, but still.

Anyways....Megatop Phoenix. Well worth the five bucks I spent on it.

Serge Severe and Mic Crenshaw reviews

I have two new reviews up at RapReviews this week from two Portland rappers on the Focused Noise label.

Mic Crenshaw does politically charged hip hop with a lot of live music. I reviewed his debut, Thinking Out Loud. I liked that he uses live music, and I liked where he was coming from politically, but it didn’t always translate into hip hop magic. There are some good tracks on it, and it’s still worth checking out. If you aren’t feeling his music, check out his non-profit, Global Fam. They help war refugees.

Serge Severe does old school battle and party raps. I reviewed Concrete Techniques, his second album. He’s pretty good, and has a fantastic producer in DJ Universal Sect.

I hear so much bullshit, that it's nice to see two rappers doing something interesting and heartfelt, and not just recycling the same tired cliches.

Dodos at Bimbos, 11/7/08

I saw the Dodos the other night at Bimbos in North Beach. I hadn't realized until they came on stage that they are essentially a two piece, with a dude on drums (Logan Kroeber) and a dude on guitar and vocals (Meric Long). They supplement this with a guy who plays percussion on some songs, and the fancy looping stuff that a lot of acts do live.

I've decided that the best music these days is stuff that fucks with established genres just enough to be interesting, but not so much that it is unlistenable. The three minute pop song has been done to death, so you need to bring something a little different to the table (unless you are Nickleback, and they've made gajillions playing different versions of the same shitty song that sounds like half-assed Pearl Jam). A lot of the bands I'm excited about these days bring something a little unique and interesting to the genres they play: Fucked Up and their shoegazer take on hardcore, Panda Bear and his adaptation of electrionic musical ideas to Beach Boys melodies, even Vampire Weekend and their preppy interpolation of West African rhythms. You gotta bring something new to the table, and the Dodos do that. They take what could be overly dear indie pop, and add an unusual rhythmic element in the form of Kroeber's drumming. It was pretty great live, especially because they messed with their songs a little to make them sound fresh. For example, they drew out the intro to their hit "Fools" to the point where it just became a drum beat, before finally going into the song. The interplay between Kroeber's beats and Meric's singing and guitar playing was also cool, and sometimes it almost didn't synch, but still worked.

I do wonder how much further they can take their sound. I feel like they've pretty much nailed the whole "guitar and drums" thing, but then the White Stripes are still making ok music, so maybe the Dodos have a future.

It was one of the most obnoxiously talkative crowds I've seen in a while. I was in the back for a while, and people at the bar where carrying on like the band was just a jukebox. I went closer to the stage, and the people next to me were talking so loud that you could hear them over the band. When you are having to yell to be heard over the band you just paid twenty bucks to see, you are a fucking moron and need to shut up. The ultimate moment was during the encore, when the woman to my right had her back to the band, and was blathering on about her relationship issues. Why not just stay home?

This video isn't from the show I saw, but gives you a good idea what they are like live.

Illa J Review

Illa J
Yancey Boys
Delicious Vinyl, 2008

I reviewed Illa J's Yancey Boys album this week on RapReviews. Here.

Illa, in case you don't know, was J Dilla aka Jay Dee aka James Yancey's younger brother. Dilla being the producer who died a few years ago from lupus. The album is alright, mostly because Dilla's beats are always worth a listen. I wasn't into the generic subject matter of the lyrics, but then Illa's older brother wasn't the world's most amazing lyricist (or rapper) ever. His main skill was behind the boards, not behind the mic. Illa does have a pretty good singing voice, and he's a decent rapper, so he's got that going for him.

The promo CD was some bullshit though. Each song was divided into five 30-40 second tracks, which makes it harder to illegal post online, and harder to listen to on an ipod. Then, ever ten seconds some jackass would say, in this lame-o voice, "HI! This is (jackass fuckface). I've found that the best way to listen to music is not to upload it, but to boom it in your jeep." What jeep, Gomer? I gotta upload it so I can listen to it in my jeep.

Kids, don't illegally download music: it makes labels go through really irritating lengths to avoid it.

The Big Takeover

So long, Mr. Bush. Don't let the door hit you on your ass on your way out.

I'm cautiously optimistic about Obama's win, and incredibly happy. Evidently, Americans are willing to elect a black man with a foreign name as president. All it takes is white guys running the country into the ground for the last eight years. Let's hope he does well. He's got quite a battle ahead of him, but all I can say is the country and the planet couldn't take four more years of Republican rule. Things are broken and fucked up, and we need to restart and try something new. So congratulations Barack, and please don't fuck up.

(the video clip is the Bad Brains doing "the Big Takeover" off of their awesome debut. I thought it was apropos given that they were African Americans, and the Democrats are about to take control of the white house and senate and shit. The Beastie Boys sampled this song on "So Watcha Want.")

Dead Homiez

Five years after everyone else, I've discovered the magic of YouTube, and the fact that you can find old videos there. So I hunted down the video for one of my favorite songs ever, "Dead Homiez."



There's some context you have to appreciate when watching this video. When it came out, Ice Cube had released "Amerikkka's Most Wanted," and was scaring white parents and delighting white suburban kids as the "Nigga You Love to Hate." The mainstream media was painting him as Public Enemy #1 for his hateful, angry lyrics (including the infamous line about kicking a pregnant lady "in the tummy." So what did Cube do? He released "Kill at Will," an EP that included "Dead Homiez." "Dead Homiez" is the flipside of the gangsta rap that Cube had helped pioneer as a founding member of NWA. While his cohorts in NWA were still stuck in ultraviolence mode, Cube described the aftermath, and asked some hard questions, like why a funeral is the only time Black folks get to ride in a limo. The song also contains one of my favorite song lyrics ever:

"Another homie got murdered on a shakedown
His mother is at the funeral, having a nervous breakdown
Two shots hit him in the face when they blasted
A framed picture
And a closed casket."

This was also around the time that Cube did his turn as Doughboy in John Singleton's brilliant "Boyz In the Hood." And just when we white liberals were proclaiming Ice Cube the poet laureate of the hood, he went and released "Death Certificate," which contrasts his intelligent, biting rhymes with some of the most offensive, ignorant shit ever cut to wax, including attacks on blacks, whites, women, Koreans, and homosexuals. I love "Death Cerificate," even though (or perhaps because) it offends the hell out of me. A perfect example is the closer, "No Vaseline," a funky, homophobic tirade against his former NWA band members, implying that they are all homosexuals (and including gems like "you let a Jew break up our crew"). The whole idea of him dissing his bandmates by implying they like anal sex is wrong, and yet he does it in such a clever and funky way that I buy it.

So Ice Cube. There you go. The Supersuckers did a cover of this that is pretty awesome.

Willie the Kid

I reviewed Willie the Kid's Absolute Greatness CD this week on Rapreviews.com. Read it here.

Willie is getting hype as a "lyrical" Southern rapper, and while I have some issues with that term, I think he's a promising rapper, one of the better I've heard in a while. Not totally unlike a Southern Nas.

Here's the video for his song "Love of Money," which I'm not crazy about. I've never been able to get into to R&B crooners singing stupid shit on hooks.

One bit of bullshit - when I did a search for "Absolute Greatness," I found about two legitamate posts, and about a million illegal downloads of the album. Way to support hip hop.

The Best Video Ever

I saw this video exactly once, years ago, back when MTV actually played videos. It's for Radiohead's "Karma Police," which is one of my favorite songs off of OK Computer. The video shows a car following a man down a lonely British country road. It pans every now and then to Thom Yorke, who is sitting in the car and half lip-synching. The man stops, exhausted, and the car backs up, revealing a line of gasoline that has been leaking. The man pulls out a match, and lights the gasoline, setting his pursuer's car on fire. Luckily, Thom escaped to continue to make music.

Also, the numbers are in, and evidently In Rainbows sold more copies online (not counting the freeloaders who downloaded it for nada) than Radiohead's previous release, Hail the Thief. The fact that Hail the Thief kind of sucked may or may not have factored in to the sales.

Da Capo and Jazz

I'm trying to make it through every volume of Da Capo's Best Music Writing, which has been coming out as a yearly trade paperback since at least 2000. It's part of my new kick to actually read music criticism, since I'm, you know, a music critic. The Da Capo series are my favorite reads, because they offer some amazing writing on artists and genres I didn't know much about.

For example, Matthew Duersten's "The Moon Look Down and Laughs," originally published in Flaunt. It's about jazz singer Anita O'Day, and what a crazy, fucked up life she's had. He describes in detail her amazing performance at Newport '58, documented in Bert Stern's Jazz On A Summer's Day, which, with the magic of the internet, I was able to find and post here:



I had never heard Anita O'Day, but now I'm eager to stroll through her back catalog and see what she has to offer. She's not quite as clean and pure as Ella Fitzgerald, but isn't quite as sultry and damaged as Billie Holiday, either. (Although I still contend that once you've heard Ms. Holiday do a song, you can't ever really accept someone else doing it.)

Incidentally, another blogger had the same reaction to the article. Here.


This all coincides with me listening to a lot more jazz lately, partially because I moved into a space with a record player. I've been going to Recycled Records on Haight and finding old bargains. My favorite new acquisition is a copy of the record that John Coltrane did with vocalist Johnny Hartman. I love this album, all thirty minutes of it. I'm on a bit of a Coltrane kick, and have been listening to Giant Steps, his greatest hits, and the record he did with Duke Ellington which is also good. I just picked up a bio of him that Ben Ratliff of the New York Times wrote, but it may be over my head. Here's "The Very Thought of You," with Johnny Hartman singing. It's the perfect fall music, and makes you want to curl up in a warm bed.