Nov
30

Bishop Lamont: The Next Great West Coast Hope?

I…listened to all that Death Row stuff….and Lords Of The Underground, Busta Rhymes, Redman and Keith Murray, where your takes had to be so clean and ill to get off the phonetics that you were dropping. Your lines had to be crisp. Other cats don’t come from that school. It took me studying Redman, Method… Continue reading »

Nov
29

Big Things Poppin’

T.I. tells me that big things are popping. And when T.I. tells me something I listen. Once he spoke rhapsodically about “the trap” and within 15 minutes, I had rat traps planted everywhere in my apartment. This time, the big thing poppin’ is the news that I will now be blogging for the LA Weekly’s… Continue reading »

Nov
29

Beards, Blazers & Glasses: Los Campesinos!

Granted, the twee-leaning indie pop made by the Welsh seven-piece, Los Campesinos! might not be your cup of Earl Grey, but if you hate them there is a high probability that you might be an asshole. These kids are hater-proof. Hating them is like hating the easter bunny, or wearing coats made of greyhound, or… Continue reading »

Nov
28

May God Strike Me If He Don’t Like Me

It’s a full-time job just trying to keep up with all the rap records that leaked over the past week. I mean, The Wu, Scarface, Beanie Sigel, Styles P and now Ghost. Fuck. It’s a lot to handle. It’s enough to make a blogger want to call his local herbal dispensary to re-up for the… Continue reading »

Nov
28

Burial-Untrue

About three weeks ago when I was in New York, Tal Rosenberg pretty much gushed non-stop about the Burial record’s brilliance. At the time, I didn’t even know that the London-based Dub Step producer had a new album coming out, which isn’t much of a surprise considering fewer than ten people know his actual identity,… Continue reading »

Nov
27

The Mad Hatter: The Passion of the Weiss Guide to Hipster Haberdashery

If home is where you hang your hat then Silverlake is rapidly turning into the world’s largest hat rack. Over the past 12 months, it has become de rigueur in hipster courting rituals for male hipsters (homo habilus hipstericus) to trot out increasingly ridiculous pieces of vintage head-ware in an effort to woo the female… Continue reading »

Nov
26

My Morning Jacket-Blue Moon

My Morning Jacket’s cover of “Blue Moon” sounds pretty wonderful on this crisp Fall evening. Perhaps you agree. Download: MP3: My Morning Jacket-”Blue Moon”

Nov
26

Raiders of the Lost Art

Sometime after 50 arrived, the art of the narrative wandered into a blizzard of coke raps, artificial hood mythologizing and pandering simplicity. Complexity no longer moved units, and with sales sliding, Scarface xeroxes and ringtone rappers became the safe bets. You can’t blame the suits either. They’re just trying to save their jobs and besides,… Continue reading »

Nov
24

The Wu Coming Through

This is going to take a while to unravel, but on first listen, it’s clear that at the very least, 8 Diagrams > Iron Flag. Your thoughts? Download: MP3: Wu-Tang Clan-”Take It Back”

Nov
23

I Imagine A Jamaican Thanksgiving Would Probably Involve Pumpkin Pot Pie

It’s impossible for Thanksgiving weekend to feel like Thanksgiving when it’s 70 degrees out and sunny and you randomly found yourself last night in a vaguely “trendy” Los Angeles bar watching a fedora-clad couple make out like they were trying to empirically decipher what the other had for Thanksgiving. (Seriously, do these people find each… Continue reading »

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