Kanye West: Monster/Cannibal Ox: A B-Boys Alpha

If you're anywhere from the age of about twenty-eight to thirty-five (I only deal in multiples of seven), you've probably heard the term hipster thrown around. If you like a certain type of music, you might be labeled a hipster. If you like going to movie festivals, you might be labeled a hipster. If you dress in skinny jeans, spend two hours in front of a mirror making sure you look like you've spent no time in front of a mirror, you might be labeled a hipster. Maybe I check off some of the boxes on the "you might be a hipster if" list, but I'm too old and too uncool to truly deserve the moniker. In the end, hipster is just another word. In the sixties the hipster equivalent was probably a mod. In the seventies, the hipster equivalent was probably members of the punk scene.

Fast forward to 2010, and as a culture everything is about being frighteningly self-aware and incessantly self-referential. Blogging, tweeting, facebooking, creating mean spirited social commentary sites like Look at this Fucking Hipster.com, TMZ, Awkward Family Photos, The Smoking Gun, etc. Half of our time is spent living; the other half is spent analyzing either our lives, or more often, other peoples' more interesting lives. It's all so exhausting-I might have to bump down the living part to about 30% in the new year.

For the longest time, I've stayed away from mainstream rap. I convinced myself that mainstream rap stopped being good in the nineties, and there was nothing popular that I was going to hear that could stand up. So for the last decade or so, almost all the rap I've listened to has been either a further exploration of old rap (Main Source, Ultramagnetic MCs, the Last Poets, etc.), or "underground rap" from the last ten or so years (Madvillain, Dr. Octagon, The Coup, etc.). I probably missed out on some great music by buying into the "all popular rap sucks" stereotype, but then again I also did this with practically every other genre. Oops.

There's a video that was recently released of Kanye West talking at the Rolling Stone office, and at first he comes off sounding like his usual megalomaniacal self. He at one point compares himself to Rafael, and I don't think he meant the ninja turtle. But he said something towards the end that perked my ears. At the end of the speech, he said, "It's not cool for no one to hear anything anymore. That's the hipster justification of failure." The "hipster justification of failure" is an intriguing turn of phrase. Sometimes it does seem like folded into the hipster ethos is this being "too cool to try," or "too cool to sell out" ethos. I think he might have been trying to say that he is trying to make mainstream rap that has all the "artistic integrity" that the underground hip hop scene is supposed to have exclusive rights to. Maybe the real question is: does it even matter if he does that, or will the fact that the album is put out on a major label, and is listened to by a large audience, put off the people who claim that their sole aversion to mainstream rap is an inferior product?

One of my approximately ten to fifteen New Years' Resolutions is not to write off mainstream music simply because it's mainstream. Sometimes I catch myself talking about certain artists, and I just sound like such a cliche music snob curmudgeon. One of the byproducts of teaching kids is you get a window into how clearly they sometimes see the world. If they hear a song on the radio, and it sounds good, they like it. They don't write it off fifteen seconds in because the artist is signed to a major label, or because the artist was a child star, or for any other reason that is ultimately rooted in being a cynical bastard. They just listen to stuff cause it sounds good. Here's to stuff that sounds good.

So I'm enjoying Kanye's new album so far. I really haven't ever heard anything of his past music other than "Through the Wire" (yes, I live in a cave constructed out of "Mojo" and "Wire" magazine covers), but I fully plan on working myself backwards through his catalogue. His public persona might be annoying at times, but at least he's interesting. The production in "Monster" rules, and Kanye's delivery is tight. The song is packed with star cameos, some being more effective than others. It's a great song, though, and a few listens through the whole album seems solid.

So the flip side of the popularity coin is Cannibal Ox. The Cold Vein is a brilliant underground rap album, with amazing production by El-P. This whole album is ridiculously good, with dark, futuristic-sounding production, grimy beats, and great rhymes. It's easy to lose faith in mainstream rap when albums like this are simmering beneath the surface. In 2011, I'm gonna at least try to have an open mind. Rap and R & B in general were so great when I was in middle school and high school, and who's to say they can't get back to that point? Big Boi, Janelle Monae, Erykah Badu and Kanye West all put out great albums in 2010, so hopefully there's more where that came from in the new year.

Keith Sweat-Twisted/112 (featuring Biggie & Mase)-Only You/Dru Hill-In My Bed (So So Def remix)

I was in a cafe grading papers the other day (it's scary how many anecdotes begin with those ten words these days), and "Twisted" by Keith Sweat came on. I almost lost it. I hadn't heard it in so long! Totally classic slow jam. I didn't listen to tons of male R & B singers back in the 90s: I was more into rap and female R & B. The following songs, however, were three of my favorites.

I'm not so sure how I feel about the fact that two of these three songs are Bad Boy and So So Def remixes. Puff Daddy (I mean Puffy [I mean P Diddy] {I mean Diddy} ((I mean Tweetle-Dee Cocoa Puff Breath))) is annoying in a multitude of ways. On Ready to Die, his mumbling in the background serves no purpose other than to ever-so-subtly keep himself in the public's mind. Maybe that's some PT Barnum-style self-promotion tactic, but being on the listening end of it is kind of exasperating. Anyway, he's gotta be doing something right, cause "Only You" is a great track. The beat isn't very creative, but it's a serviceable vehicle for 112's vocals. I must say, though, I'm glad that Mase left rap to join the ministry, cause he looks seriously uncomfortable in this video. When Prodigy of Mobb Deep raps, "They never around when the beef cooks in my part of town," it sounds real. When Mase raps, "And when the beef come you nowhere to be found," I'm thinking THE ONLY BEEF YOU KNOW ABOUT IS YOUR MOM'S BEEF WELLINGTON.

Jermaine Dupris of So So Def also suffers from what Suge Knight would call "producers all up in the video" syndrome. It's ok, though, cause "In My Bed" is a great song. It has a similar garden-variety beat, but it works with Dru Hill's vocals, which I really love. I'm not quite sure why this video cuts off before the end, but i kinda like it cause it cuts off Jermaine Dupris. Haha. Less you, and more Dru Hill and Da Brat, please. It kinda felt weird typing Da Brat just now. She's gonna have to change her name if she ever records an album of jazz standards. "The All Grown Up! Artist Formerly Known as Da Brat" has a nice ring to it.

Leonard Cohen - Sisters of Mercy/Bob Dylan - Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues

A tennis friend asked me today if I go to church. That question always sounds like a one-way ticket to Judgeville, but he's not like that. I just didn't grow up with religion. Faith, as far as I can tell, usually has to be cultivated at a young age. Whenever I sit in churches, I usually end up gawking at the architecture, or analyzing the preacher's effectiveness as a public speaker. My old apartment was next door to a church, and when I took showers on Sunday mornings I could hear the choir/band through the wall. That was nice. I could certainly see myself getting into the musical aspect of it, or taking a Bible as Literature class.

There's a great line in Don Delillo's book White Noise where the main character, Jack, is in a shelter with his family. He says, "Watching children sleep makes me feel devout, part of a spiritual system. It is the closest I can come to God…standing in a great spired cathedral with marble pillars and streams of mystical light slanting through two-tier Gothic windows…" It's a beautiful excerpt, and I'm going to leave it there so I don't have to explicitly connect it to the horribly cheesy cliche "MUSIC IS MY RELIGION, MAN!"

Sometimes music helps me speed up, and sometimes music helps me slow down. Things have been moving pretty fast lately. Lots of work, lots of coffee to facilitate the completion of said work, etc. I saw Bassnectar last night, and he was great, but I feel like I need to step back from the electronic music for a second and breathe. Not yoga breathe, but Leonard and Bob breathe.

It seems almost sacrilegious (you see what I did there?) to not give either of these songs their own post, but I need a double shot of chill right now. Leonard Cohen is a master lyricist. My favorite line in "Sisters of Mercy" is: "If your life is a leaf that the seasons tear off and condemn," but it's worth reading them all below the youtube clip. They are absolutely brilliant, and combined with the music and his vocals, it's a very comforting song.

One of my absolute favorite songs ever is "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" by Bob Dylan. There's something really reassuring about some of Dylan's songs, and this one has put its arm around my shoulder many times. The last verse is perfect. The lyrics are actually about Dylan, at the height of his fame, being completely burnt out, but the way he delivers the lines just saves me, every time.

I started out on burgundy
But soon hit the harder stuff
Everybody said they'd stand behind me
When the game got rough
But the joke was on me
There was nobody even there to bluff
I'm going back to New York City
I do believe I've had enough.

*sigh* :)



WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH! There's no youtube of "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues"! SERENITY LOST!

Radiohead - OK Computer (oops, it's an album!)

Yesterday, a student burst into my third period class and asked me what my favorite band was. Normally I would have told her to come back and ask me sometime when there wasn't thirty-five kids discussing Brave New World in my classroom, but I couldn't help myself. She's a really awesome kid, and it's a kryptonite kind of question for me.

So now I actually had to attempt to answer the question, and preferably within twenty seconds. Because... you know... I was... TEACHING A CLASS. So I thought. Brian Eno? Minutemen? Guided by Voices? I quickly cycled through all the possibilities, but within my twenty second allotment of time I quickly came to the realization that I was completely kidding myself if I said anything other than Radiohead. So through gritted teeth I told her. A student asked me why I hesitated to say Radiohead. I said in so many words that my obsession with Radiohead was so intense during one period of time, that it feels very rooted in that place and time. Even though I still love Radiohead, in some ways it feels like I've "moved on." I think trying to explain "phases one grows out of in different stages of life" to fifteen-year-olds is akin to Rocky Dennis trying to explain colors to the blind girl in Mask. So instead we just jumped back into analyzing the philosophical smackdown between Mustapha Mond and John the Savage at the end of Brave New World.

I don't listen to Radiohead much these days, but being put on the spot like that reminded me of just how much of a complete and utter psycho fan I was for quite a while. Now I can't lay claim to having been a huge Radiohead fan since the very beginning, having seen them on their first tour, and (some people actually say this) having known that Radiohead was going to be brilliant based on their largely mediocre debut record. I, like the majority of the free world, heard "Creep" on MTV, dug it, bought the single, and eventually moved on to the next hot song by Cracker, Smashing Pumpkins, or someone else. Then college came and I became really uninterested in rock music.

Post-college, pre-career-job is when it happened for me. I was working in a music store for a bit, and that was like Violet Beauregarde working in a Bubbalicious factory. When Kid A came out I bought it, The Bends, and OK Computer. I became so irrationally obsessed with Radiohead, it was scary. I bought every magazine I could get my hands on that had Radiohead-related articles. I bought multiple books about them. I joined online message boards and tracked down all the b-sides I possibly could. I went to a concert, then maniacally searched for the bootleg recording of the show.

I instantly loved The Bends and Kid A, but OK Computer just took over my universe. To me OK Computer's greatness can be measured in the number of "H*LY SH*T!" moments on it. Almost every song on the entire album has a moment that is just knock-you-on-your-ass incredible.


Airbag: 2:23 - I'll never understand how Johnny Greenwood makes those sounds come out of a guitar. I used to just roll up all the windows in my car, turn the volume up to the maximum, and let this section wash over me. Mind-blowing.

Paranoid Android: The entire song, basically. The ridiculous bass playing at 2:08, the transition from guitar freak-out to acoustic transcendence at 3:27, the explosion at 5:35 back into another freak-out (this time with guitars filtered through some twisted electronic effects pedal). The entire song is perfect.

Subterranean Homesick Alien: 1:49, when coming out of the first chorus the entire song is permeated by that beautiful synth.

Exit Music: This song. 2:47 is just.. I don't know. Too much. I did the window-rolling-up thing with this song, too.

Let Down: The transition out of the morbidity of "We hope that you choke" in Exit Music, into the beauty of this song is just the greatest. Of course the lyrics are totally cynical, but what are you gonna do.

Karma Police: 2:27. "For a minute there, I lost myself."

Lucky: 1:39. I LOVE how the second verse adds the drums and the wind/voice/something in the background. And his vocals when he sings, "It's gonna be a glooooooooooooooorious day. I feel my luck could change."

The Tourist: The first line: "It barks at no one else but me." Game. Set. Match.


No matter what albums I fall in love with in the future, or what bands or artists seem more closely aligned with my current state of mind or musical proclivities, the Real-O-Meter will always remind me that, in the end, OK Computer is it. I can't even pick a favorite song. I have two. "Airbag" is the song that absolutely blows my mind, and defines why Radiohead was at one time better than any band making music. "Lucky," meanwhile, is the song that I have the urge to listen to the most. So yeah, here they are.

Dubstep And Drum & Bass Records With Reeeeeeally Long Artist, Remixer, And Title Lengths

Normally I put the artist and title of all the songs I'm going to discuss in the titles of my posts, but in this case they're almost all remixes, so it would take about 150 characters to get them all in there. It got me to thinking, what if authors remixed other authors' books?

For instance, in the Stephen King remix of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, Myrtle Wilson would get hit by an eighteen-wheeler, like the baby in Pet Cemetery, instead of by Gatsby's yellow car. A deranged George Wilson would then bury Myrtle in the pet cemetery, and she would come back all zombied out and slice Gatsby's Achille's heel like that little tweaker in the movie does to Herman Munster. Meanwhile, Daisy Buchanan, Pammy, and the help somehow escape after finding a humongous stack of papers that all read, "All polo and no football makes Tom a dull boy."

Or how about the William Shakespeare remix of J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye? When Holden says he starts "giving the three witches at the next table the eye again," he doesn't realize that they're actually the three witches from Macbeth. So just to screw with him, they prophesize that his destiny is to be the king of the lagoon in Central Park. He stumbles down to the lagoon in a drunken stupor, and starts brutally murdering ducks because he's paranoid that they're after his crown. Phoebe, wracked with guilt, goes crazy and offs herself after writing PHOEBE WEATHERFIELD CAULFIELD: GOOD DETECTIVE, BAD SISTER 763 times in her little notebook.

Some combinations might work better than others, I suppose. On to the music. The first record is the Flux Pavillion remix of DJ Fresh's "Gold Dust." This song's got a little funk to it, which is nice. The noise during the main drop is a bit intense, but that's not the part I really look forward to. The part at 1:45 is baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad. From the initial bass drop, with the drawn out whuuuuuuuuuuuur in the background, to the attitude-drenched vocals that come back in. So good. And even though this is the video for the original version of this record, it's pretty awesome. Makes me miss New York even more than I usually do.

The next youtube is the only non-remix. It's a record by Pendulum called "Set Me On Fire." The first "blow up" sounds like some crazy Transformers firefight, but my favorite part is when the vocals come in at 1:36.

The next record is the Baron remix of Stanton Warriors' "Still Here." This is more drum and bass than the other three other songs I'm posting. The beat that first kicks in at 1:05 is massive, and the vocals are understated and work well with the overall production.

Ok, this one is really a mouthful. (Deep breath) Finally we have the Dodge & Fuski remix of FunkyStepz featuring Lily McKenzie's "For U." Really? I've written short stories that weren't that long. Anyway, this is the cleanest, most mainstream-sounding record of the four. Some hardcore dubsteppers in the comments section are saying this record is a sellout, but that section at :54, when it sounds like she's kicking up little bass-pebbles in the background, is enough for me to really dig this record.

NOTE: If you want to hear a great mix that has three of these records on it, download Sir Kutz's mix here.

Notorious B. I. G. - Everyday Struggle/Public Enemy - Bring the Noise/Gang Starr (featuring Jeru the Damaja & Lil' Dap) - Speak Ya Clout

I've been getting a little carried away with puns lately. They're fun, and sometimes very funny, but at some point the law of diminishing returns probably starts to kick in. I'm a bit worried that that might happen much earlier for others than it does for me. Maybe if I try to get a bunch of puns out of my system here, I'll be in better shape for the rest of the week. It'll be a sort of pun catharsis, or putharsis.

Ok, so this week I want to talk about my favorite rap lines delivery-wise. The artists I'm going to discuss are Biggie, Public Enemy, and Gangstarr (featuring Jeru the Damaja and Lil' Dap). Putharsis, putharsis, putharsis. Hmmmm...

Jeru the Damaja got fired from Fed Ex because his delivery was terrible. There's two puns in there, and they're both lame. Maybe this isn't such a good idea. :(

ANYWAYS. On to the music. All of Biggie's album Ready to Die
is amazing, but he just goes off in "Everyday Struggle." My favorite section is:

I'm seeing body after body and our mayor Giuliani
Ain't trying to see no black man turn into John Gotti

The flow and rhymes are just perfect. Biggie's lyrics were so brutally honest, and he could rap circles around pretty much anyone. The verse about Maryland is also ridiculous.

------------------------------------------------

In "Bring The Noise," this section is the perfect combination of a disgusting beat and a great MC spitting daggers for lyrics. No one has a voice like Chuck D.

Never badder than bad 'cause the brother is madder than mad
At the fact that's corrupt as a senator
Soul on a roll, but you treat it like soap on a rope
'Cause the beats in the lines are so dope

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"Speak Ya Clout" by Gangstarr has three sections, and DJ Premier's beats are filthy in all three. Jeru the Damaja raps in the first verse, and he kills it as usual. I can't even cut it down past this:

I've paid my dues to this game word to mother
Peace New York hops it gets no rougher
Baby brother been puffing buddha and blunts since eighty-five
Before the fake motherf*ckers started perpetrating live, i've
Achieved mad props though niggaz roll around in jeeps
I ride the a-train and get mad beeps
So when we bang bang boogie out jumps my boot knocks
Chicks come in flocks when d.r.s. rocks glocks

Love it.

New Order - Age of Consent

I cannot stop listening to this song. I'm helpless. It just feels so perfect. I'm having a rather unmusical couple of weeks, and yet I can't stop listening to this song over and over again. His vocals are amazing throughout, but at 2:56 they're just so right:

Do you find this happens all the time/Crucial point one day becomes a crime/And I'm not the kind that likes to tell you/Just what I want to do/I'm not the kind that needs to tell you/I've lost you

There's nothing to do but give myself over to this song. NEW ORDER, I SURRENDER TO THEE.

Tough Alliance - Miami/Neo Violence

I miss the ocean. I like being underwater. Physically it's a pleasing sensation, but there's also the feeling of being completely cut off from the rest of the world. For however long I'm submerged, I can't hear what's going on above water, I can't see what's going on above water, and I don't care what's going on above water. The last time I was in Florida, I technically swam in the bay, but at least it was a body of water that wasn't completely frigid. One time I came up for water and a dolphin was swimming next to me. It was a sublime little moment. I miss swimming in the ocean so much, but not enough to make me swim in the Pacific Ocean.

Three posts ago I wrote about ceo, who is one half of The Tough Alliance. Listening to ceo is like surviving a foggy, windswept day on Ocean Beach (especially this song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQImTcqQK6Y [can you spot the Lord of the Flies movie sample?] ), while listening to The Tough Alliance is like swimming with the dolphins in the warm ocean water. Ummmm... maybe? Work with me here. It's been a long day. Usually I'm posting this at 10 am. It's 9:30 pm, and I feel like a Dolphin after one too many helmet-to-helmet hits.

Miami probably isn't one of the better songs on the album, but it makes me happy. :43 makes me want to walk down the street and spray cotton candy in people's faces. That super-low bass line at 1:02 also gets me. Love it.

Neo Violence, on the other hand, is certainly one of the best songs on the album. Cool video, too. The beginning, where they're trapped in that strobe light pyramid prison, reminds me of Superman II. Remember how the three villains were trapped inside that gigantic mirror that floated around in space? Classic. I'm gonna come out right now and say I was strangely attracted to the dominatrix-looking one with the British accent. So arrogant, and she could vaporize a snake with her eyes! Hot.

Tom Waits - Cemetery Polka/Jockey Full of Bourbon

I've always been interested in the origins of expressions. When my friend's dad said he was going to to stand on his head and spit wooden nickels, I not only thought he was a couple fries short of a Happy Meal, I also would have given my eye teeth to find out where the expression came from. I recently saw the book, "A Hog on Ice & Other Curious Expressions," and I was tickled pink to find out that I could get Doogie on the subject. I was also somewhat disappointed to discover that Tom Waits didn't truly come up with the line, "Independent as a hog on ice." When I first heard that line I almost flipped my wig. The image of a hog's feet flailing and eventually splayed on ice is such a perfect visual to describe a person who is completely dependent on someone or something. NOTE: One of the italicized phrases is not an actual expression (though it obviously should be). Can you find it?

This discovery does not, however, take away from the fact that Tom Waits is one of the greatest songwriters ever. No other writer paints more vivid pictures with lyrics. Granted, they are usually rather twisted pictures filled with drunks, hobos, criminals, and assorted miscreants, but these people need to have their voices heard too! Waits dabbles in different genres and uses random objects as instruments, all to create a musical mood that fits his lyrics.

I'm posting a couple of songs from Rain Dogs. "Cemetary Polka" has a really cool animation sequence which highlights the lyrics, but unfortunately is cut off a little early. "Jockey Full of Bourbon" has an amazing New Orleans scene from the beginning of "Down by Law." Rain Dogs is one of the most amazing albums ever made, so if you don't already have it, get it!

Geto Boys - Mind Playing Tricks On Me/Brian Eno - In Dark Trees/Aphex Twin - Next Heap With

I haven't seen a really scary movie in a long time. There's not even that many through the years, but The Exorcist, The Shining, Poltergeist (just for the old man), and Silence of the Lambs are legitimately frightening. Everything nowadays either seems like a rehash of an old idea, or an out and out remake. Remake of Nightmare on Elm Street! Remake of The Hitcher! Remake of The Hills Have Eyes! More like The Screenwriters Have No Ideas, amirite? I'm sure it's similar to music these days. You just have to look harder for the good stuff. I've heard there are a lot of great horror films being made in Asia lately...

Music can be scary in many ways, but it rarely has anything to do with a maniac hiding with a butcher knife while a blond girl for some reason searches for her boyfriend in a broom closet. Brian Eno and Aphex Twin create scary with atmospherics and mood, and Geto Boys create scary with some of the best rap lyrics I've ever heard. Every verse has a different story, every character has three dimensions. Just the first few lyrics are brilliant: "At night I can't sleep, I toss and turn/ Candle sticks in the dark, visions of bodies being burned." I also love the story of the guy who wants to love his girlfriend, but is too obsessed with the notion that she's somehow out to get him.

The last verse is the Halloween/trick or treat story, and it's nuts. They jump a seven foot tall behemoth and start beating him up, but then things really start getting weird: "The more I swung the more blood flew/ Then he disappeared and my boys disappeared, too/ Then I felt just like a fiend/ It wasn't even close to halloween/ It was dark as death on the streets/ My hands were all bloody from punching on the concrete." :O I haven't even mentioned the great sample and beats. A true classic.
NOTE: The album cover photo is real. Real-O-Meter went up to 11 on that one.

Happy Halloween!

ceo - Come With Me

I sometimes have a problem with music that is too three-dimensionally happy or perky sounding. Many people react to that issue by saying, "OH MAN, YOU'RE SUCH A DOWNER. GO MOPE IN A CORNER AND LISTEN TO YOUR RADIOHEAD AND SMITHS." But it's not as simple as that, not by a long shot. NOT BY AN ALL CAPS LONG SHOT. Can I make the commitment to never again write in all caps on this blog? I don't know. I just don't know.

I think I listen to a decent amount of "happy" music, but to me, if a song sounds completely happy, it just doesn't ring true. The Talking Heads make happy-sounding music, but there is always this strange undercurrent of paranoia or desperation, like Byrne is always looking over his shoulder, waiting for reality to smack him in the face. To me, that doesn't make the song any less happy, it just makes it more realistic. Take a song like "Hello, Goodbye" by the Beatles, or "Big Day" by XTC. Musically, they both sound like the emotional equivalent of a Smurfs episode, but lyrically "Hello Goodbye" is about Smurfette and Grouchy Smurf fruitlessly attempting to reconcile their diametrically opposed worldviews, and "Big Day" is about Grouchy's fundamental distrust of the institution of marriage. Man, if your name is Grouchy, there's just not much room for character development. Poor guy. No wonder he was in such a bad mood all the time!

There's been a lot of electro-pop coming out lately, and some of it is pretty good. I'll listen to many of these albums and enjoy them for a while, but after a while they grate because they're just too perky and corny sounding. I need at least a sliver of angst; it really doesn't take much. ceo has more than a sliver. He has a pretty sizable angstbag he seems to be toting around. It's the confluence of the happy and the sad, the combustibility of both occurring so intensely at the same time, that creates the beauty. That sentence was way too serious-sounding. I like turtles!

The Slits - Ping Pong Affair/Love Und Romance/Typical Girls/Man Next Door (RIP Ari Up)

[Introductory Note: If you only watch two of these youtubes, make them the last two. You'll be hooked for life.] Ari Up, the lead singer of the amazing British punk band The Slits, died this week. The Slits were one of the first punk bands to incorporate dub reggae into their sound...

Ok. enough introductory spiel. Ari Up and the rest of the Slits were amazing. They obviously weren't the most technically proficient musicians, but their warbled, off-kilter harmonies worked perfectly with their music. They had an amazing rhythm section, brilliant anti-everything lyrics, and an attitude (from what I can tell) that society is pretty ridiculous, and they were gonna enjoy making fun of it.

My music nerd friends and I used to discuss silly (but fun) topics like, "What's the greatest three song stretch on any album?". These weighty questions usually revealed answers from artists such as Joy Division, The Beatles, Radiohead, Can, or some other band from the rock critics' "canon." But in terms of a three song stretch that I derive the most pleasure from on a consistent basis, tracks 7-9 on the album Cut by The Slits is definitely up there.

I'm posting all three, though "Love Und Romance" is actually from the John Peel sessions. There's no Cut version on Youtube, but it's fine b/c the Peel session one features an also-amazing straight-punk version of the Slits. There's so much energy, so much humor, so much RHYTHM, so much of everything that makes rock great.

The last youtube is a Slits live performance in 1981. They're performing "The Man Next Door," which is what I guess you could call a reggae "standard." I loooove the version of this song by Massive Attack, and this performance is equally great. The drumming, the dancing, Up's vocals, everything. RIP Ari.

Meat Puppets - Plateau/Nirvana - The Man Who Sold the World

So this is my 100th post. Clearly this landmark means less than nothing, but I'm going to use it as an excuse to both focus on finding a song i really love, and also to write an incredible wanky post about said song. *approximately one really intense minute passes* So! That was easy.

I've been meaning to write about "Plateau" by the Meat Puppets for a while now, but every time I searched youtube for it I only found a middling quality live version. Now there is a studio version up! Someone obviously heard I was approaching my 100th post extravaganza! "Plateau" is such a beautiful track. My three favorite aspects are the plodding rhythm section, the strange yet somehow Zen-ish lyrics, and the amazing short guitar solo at the end.

If you read any of the comments in the youtube, you will see an intense conversation regarding Nirvana and the Meat Puppets. The Meat Puppets were, if you look at it from a commercial standpoint, a one-hit wonder. Their song Backwater was shown fairly frequently on MTV, but this entire gem of an album, and the rest of their catalogue, was pretty unheralded and "underground."

Nirvana happened to be huge fans of the Puppets, so when they made their post-Nevermind-explosion album "Unplugged in NYC," they covered a few Meat Puppets songs. Of course, Nirvana's covers garnered more attention than the Meat Puppets' versions ever did. Add to that Kurt Cobain's annoying propensity to mumble song intros while wearing wussy sweaters, and you'll understand why many people had no idea this was even a Meat Puppets track! "HummmummblahblahthisisaMeatPuppetssonghummuummmublahblah." "Umm. Come again, Kurt?!" "My sweater looks like I borrowed it from Freddy Kreuger, and my bass player kinda looks like he's smelling a fart!" "Oh, ok. Thanks, Kurt!"

I could pretend that in my infinite high school wisdom, I was fully aware of who all the real artists were on this album. But the Real-O-Meter would have my head. Nirvana also covered "The Man Who Sold the World" on the Unplugged album, and I always considered that to be the best song on the album. The guitar sounds like it's crying in the solo. So good. I really had no idea it was a Bowie song, though. He says it at some point, but it's Mumble Central again. Then I heard the Bowie song much later and thought, "WOW, THAT'S A GREAT NIRVANA COVER!" Then I realized that it was recorded over 20 years previous to the Nirvana version, and things started to make more sense.

The Bowie cover is my favorite Nirvana "song" by a pretty good margin. Kurt's vocals are relaxed and almost soothing, the band plays really tightly, and as I previously stated, the solo at the end is sublime. Actually, he doesn't really mumble Bowie at the end, but I promise he mumbled Meat Puppets! :/ To be honest, I don't think the name David Bowie really meant much to me at the age of 15. He might as well have said, "This is a Wilford Brimley cover. It's the right song to do, and the tasty way to do it."

So this is 100 posts. It's been a great ride. To all my fans out there, I never could have done it without you. To all my sponsors, thanks for standing by me during that unfortunate cow-tipping controversy. I really do love cows, but this one was just begging to be tipped! You wouldn't believe the look on his face! Anyway, here's to you, my 7-10 sporadic readers!

Single Cell Orchestra - I Want to Fall

The Nintendo Entertainment System was the hot video game system when I was a kid. By hot I mean basically every kid I knew had one and was completely obsessed with it. I would run to the phone to call my friends every time I beat a Legend of Zelda boss, figured out a 30 men free Castlevania cheat code, or beat the new Super Mario game. In our sixth grade kickball games, one team would be based on Super Mario characters, and one team would be based on Legend of Zelda characters. You might be thinking, "Wow, these kids sound like massive dorks!" YOU WOULD BE CORRECT IN THAT ASSUMPTION.

Breakbeat records are great for two main reasons: beats and weird noises. "I Want to Fall" obviously has filthy beats throughout, but where it really sets itself apart from some other classic breakbeat tracks is in the weird noises department. I feel like I'm playing a video game when I'm listening to this song. Or, more accurately, living a video game.

Contra was one of the most famous NES games, and also a personal favorite of mine. It basically consisted of running through the jungle with a fellow guerrilla soldier and shooting other guerrilla soldier dudes. I might add that the "killing" was a lot less graphic than it is these days. When you shot a guy, they did this really awkward and sudden back-flop. They actually looked like they had just stepped on a rake, causing it to smack them really hard in the face. Nowadays a guy gets shot on a video game and you see every last chunk of his brain splatter all over the screen. It's a little... intense.

To my ears, the weird noises in this song almost completely correspond aurally to the visual representations of the different guns in Contra. At :14, when the first nasty beat kicks in, the weird noise in the background sounds like the rapid fire gun that enables Joe Jungledude to shoot a bunch of red bullets in rapid succession by simply holding down the b button! Solid gun. The psychotic vacuum cleaner noise at :31 sounds like the laser gun, which while being the most powerful gun and shooting really cool looking lasers, is kind of a bummer cause you can only shoot one "bullet" at a time. At 1:11 the regular, or default gun comes in. It's functional, but not really exciting. You just shoot one red bullet at a time. YAWN. Hold onto that for too long and you're sure to end up laid out like a trampled palm frond.

At 3:49 the big daddy of all guns comes in. It also happens to be represented by the best weird noise in the entire song. It's when the song goes from Barry Bonds pre-steroids to Barry Bonds post-steroids. It's the spread gun, which shoots out five red bullets that spread throughout the screen. It fires rapidly, so you can cause awkward back-flops as far as the eye can see. Amazing gun. The fireball gun, on the other hand, is awful, and I always got rid of that thing post haste. The record would have to be warped to sonically represent that meandering, good-for-nothing albatross of a gun. Accidentally replacing the spread gun with the fireball gun instantly caused Joe Jungledude to spiral into a crippling depression, inevitably leading to a half-hearted awkward back-flop off the television screen and into the vast abyss of video game purgatory.

And how about that awesome Close Encounters of the Third Kind-ish weird noise that comes in at 5:29? That has nothing to do with Contra, and everything to do with Richard Dreyfuss being surrounded by a bunch of benevolent breakbeat aliens and busting a move.

Led Zeppelin - Dancing Days/The Who - Love Ain't For Keeping

This post is brought to you by the Sony 7500XP Real-O-Meter. For those of you who don't know what the Real-O-Meter is, it forces a person or group of people to "keep it real." Sometimes it forces people to keep it a little too real. Now, the majority of the music I've written about in this blog is music I've gotten into within the last ten or fifteen years. It's music I love with all my heart. The Real-O-Meter has no objection to that. The Real-O-Meter has been wondering, however, why I insist on denying my roots. What about those songs I listened to in Westhampton basements and Port Orange bedrooms, when I was in my pre-adolescent years and my musical knowledge was restricted to hand-me-down tapes and FM stereo playlists? Am I trying to give the impression that I was listening to Can and Wire as a pimply pre-teen? That doesn't sound like I'm keeping it real.

When I decided I should do a classic rock post, I wanted to write about bands that I still listen to at least fairly regularly, like Love, Cream, and the Zombies. But the Real-O-Meter went off like a pulled fire alarm during an organic chemistry final. From the age of about ten to thirteen, I listened to mostly Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, The Doors, and The Who. Familiar male pre-teen story, right? I knew every word to every Led Zeppelin song (even the ones on Coda), I had seen the Wall seventy-eight times, and I was still under the illusion that Jim Morrison wasn't a cringe-worthy songwriter. One thing the Real-O-Meter can't make me do is post a Doors or Pink Floyd song. I can still listen to Led Zeppelin or The Who (especially Tommy) and enjoy them, but the Doors are just too corny, and while Pink Floyd have some good songs, they're just too damn serious and angsty for me. Piper at the Gates of Dawn is listenable b/c they were too zonked out on acid to ponder their navels for too long, but after that it got progressively worse and worse. If I'm gonna go back to 1989, I gotta have a fun time doing it.

Devo - Satisfaction; Mongoloid; Smart Patrol/Mr. DNA

The San Francisco Giants, the local baseball team, went into the last series of the season this weekend with a three game lead in the division. They are playing the second place team, so fate lies completely in their hands. Even if they lose three games in a row, there would be a fourth game to break the tie on Monday. No pressure, right? OOPS! So far the Giants have lost two games, and there's gotta be a little doubt creeping into their minds. I don't think they're completely freaking out at this point, because they still have two solid pitchers scheduled. HOWEVER, if they somehow manage to lose the next two games and not get in, the sound of their collective choking would reverberate from San Jose to Sausalito for decades to come. In other words: YOU BETTER NOT SCREW IT UPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP!

This whole situation got me to thinking about the most nervous-sounding bands out there. There are a few candidates, but no one even comes close to Devo. Maybe the greatest example of how tweaked they are is their cover of The Rolling Stone's "Satisfaction." They took this balls-out rock classic and COMPLETELY spazzed it out, with the jerky percussion, paranoid synths, and warbly vocals. It's one of the greatest covers in the history of music, and while I all too often fall into a hyperbowl, I don't think this is one of those times. The "BABYBABYBABYBABYBABYBABYBABYBABY Tells me baby better come back later next week, can’t you see I’m on a losing streak" section at 1:48 is pure gold.

Just the intro to "Mongoloid" makes me start freaking out. That bass comes creeping in, then the guitar slinks in behind it, then the little keyboard riff taps you on the shoulder, then the drums smack you in the face. WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH. LEAVE ME ALONE! YOU'RE SCAAAAAAARING MEEEEE! Add in alien robot vocals and the permeating synths at 2:46 courtesy of in Eno We Trust (well, probably, he produced the album), and you have a classic.

I'm not gonna say much about Smart Patrol/Mr. DNA. It's another twisted song with ridiculous and funny lyrics. I'm personally partial to the Mr. DNA section. THAT GUITAR FILTERED THROUGH A SYNTH FILTERED THROUGH A CHAINSAW FILTERED THROUGH ET'S LOWER INTESTINES NOISE AT 5:34. KILL ME NOW.

PJ Harvey - Man-Size/Down By The Water

PJ Harvey has charisma oozing from every pore. Not charisma like a game-show host or a presidential candidate, but she's just so damn interesting. Her lyrics are completely unique: both dominant and submissive, both empowered and vulnerable.

"Gonna wash that man right out of my hair
Gonna take my hips to a man who cares"


"Must be a way that I can dress to please him
It's hard to walk and the dress is not easy
I'm swinging over like a heavy loaded fruit tree"


I'm bummed that I've never seen her live, but I hope to get the chance to someday. Watch a video like "Man-Size," and you'll see what an amazing performer she is. Just watch her! So freaking awesome. "Down By The Water" is also a fabulous video, but the only one posted on Youtube freezes constantly. Love the menacing fuzz-bass on "Down By The Water." Fits the lyrics and overall mood of the song perfectly.

Music needs more PJ Harveys.

Outkast - Spottieottiedopaliscious/Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik/Ghetto Musick; Big Boi-Follow Us

It's great to go see a group or performer I've loved for a long time, but a lot of times that also means that the artist isn't currently releasing anything of note. So the concert might be great, but there isn't that added excitement and anticipation of hearing new material, and feeling like I might even hear a new song that hasn't been released yet.

I'm going to see Big Boi Thursday night, and I'm really excited. It's kinda scary when an classic group starts making solo albums, but his "debut" is really great. The fact that Outkast has been releasing amazing music (EVERY one of their albums is great) since I was a junior in high school is kinda mind-boggling. That's sixteen years. SIXTEEN YEARS. God I'm old. I hurt my neck the other day PUTTING ESSAYS IN WRITING FOLDERS. Well, it might have initially occurred on the tennis court, but that's when I started to feel it. I felt like my old English teacher who wore a pacemaker, had a sign on her wall that said "TIME PASSES. WILL YOU?" and said "burp your bottom" when a kid would fart in class.

I'm posting these out of chronological order, cause Spottieottiedopaliscious is the greatest Outkast song ever. In fact, it's simply one of the greatest songs ever. So funky, so smooth, so everything. Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik is the title track from their first album, and has a laid-back vibe and great flow from Andre and Big Boi. Ghetto Musick is from Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, which is when Outkast TOTALLY blew up and won a bunch of Grammy's. The huge singles like Hey Ya and The Way You Move got more attention, but this is my favorite song on the album. I LOVE how the beat is fast throughout the song, then at 1:15 slows down and smooths out with the female vocals and those tink-a-tink percussion sounds. Rhyming Georgia with foyer is one of of the greatest things ever, too.

Finally, we come to Big Boi's solo album, and the song Follow Us. It's got a great beat, and I love that little synthy sound that starts following the beat around at :30. It took a couple of listens to get used to Vonnegut's vocals, but now I dig them. I like that there's so much going on in the song, and the more I hear it the more they all seem to be pulling in the same direction. GREATNESS.

Belle and Sebastian - Stars of Track of Field/Act of the Apostle/Lazy Line Painter Jane/Piazza New York Catcher

There's this really stupid game on my iPhone that I can't stop playing. It's called Bejeweled Blitz, and it involves lining up these jewels in rows or columns of at least three. Four causes a huge explosion, and five (really exciting) creates this whirling dervish that shoots out lightning and eviscerates every jewel of a chosen color. Sounds like a genocide, now that I think about it. Anyway, as incredible as this game may sound, it gets really monotonous after a while. BUT STILL I PLAY.

Yesterday I didn't bring my laptop to the cafe, so that I wouldn't get distracted from grading. The thing is, grading essays gets so mind-crushingly tedious after a short while, I need something to do for a break. And so I turn to Bejeweled. I think I just need to erase the application and move on with my life.

Grading essays. I love so much about teaching, but I sometimes fear they will be the death of me. As I stare down the barrel of more essays on this beautiful Sunday morning, I need music to take me to a happy place. Ok, so this first Belle and Sebastian song isn't really happy, but I worship it. I love how the instruments come in one by one, and Stuart Murdoch is such a great songwriter. At 2:14, when the organ comes in and he sings, "Can I write a requiem for you when you're dead?" So great.

Ok, so that wasn't a happy song at all. Act of the Apostle is slightly happier, and so beautiful. It's from their most recent album, which is really poppy and really good. Finally, there's Lazy Line Painter Jane. Mr. Murdoch often writes from the point of view of women, but he seems to pull it off. All the girls I know who know Belle and Sebastian love them.

Oh, man, I gotta break my rule again and post a fourth Youtube. I forgot to write about another interesting tidbit about this group. This twee band of pasty Scotts is obsessed with the New York Mets, just like I am! Somehow they continue to write happy songs despite following this team. They go to spring training and watch games, and they even wrote a song about the Mets. There was a rumor that Mets catcher Mike Piazza was gay, and for some reason the media became obsessed with it. The song is partially about that, and partially about a baseball game in San Francisco. It even mentions Chinatown, where I used to live. Creepy! I think I'm being stalked by Belle and Sebastian. Hmmm. That's kinda cool, now that I think about it. (NOTE: I didn't even post one song from Tigermilk, which is an amazing album, but this band has about a million great songs, so ya know).

Cocteau Twins-Lorelei/Guided By Voices-Game of Pricks

I don't really feel like I have anything to write this week. In fact, I've already posted about these two bands. That's ok, though, because I love these bands so much that I would do this for them. This post is a symbol of my undying affection. LOVE YOU GUYS.

I feel like pulling a John Lennon and copying this post from a circus poster or a corn flakes commercial. Though I suppose I'd have to write about thirty classic songs before I could get away with that.

Lorelei is amazing the whole way through, but 2:50 is the knockout punch. Cocteau Twins is musical heroin. I've never done heroin, but I've seen people do it on TV, and they totally look like they're listening to the Cocteau Twins. Until they die miserable deaths, which is the listening-to-Creed part of doing heroin, I suppose.

Game of Pricks shows that GBV could have been absolutely huge, but they decided to take a chainsaw to all their recording equipment in order to prevent that from happening. Still, they are an incredible group, and they make me very, very happy. Try depositing that in your bank account, Robert Pollard!