This came on the iPod today. Great song. Among other things it brought up three questions.
1. Was the Rza’s Gravediggaz phase the most unintentionally funny alter ego of the 90s?
2. Shaquille O’ Neal circa ‘94. A better rapper than Young Jeezy?
3. In terms of sheer ability to spit 16 bars, was anyone smoother/better than Method Man 93-94?
Game on.
Download:
MP3: Shaquille O’ Neal ft. Method Man & Rza- “No Hook”
Zilla Rocca’s chief problem isn’t too much rapping, but rather too little stunting like his daddy.
As someone who loves, loves, LOVES lyrics and rappin’ and bars and spittage and darts and verbal dexterity, it occurred to me the other day that rappers today rap way too much. I have a few theories as to why this happened: shorter attention spans, an oversaturated market, cheap recording equipment, MySpace, an endless supply of “producers,” exploitation of mixtapes, Lil’ Wayne, etc.
It seems as though now, most rappers pride themselves on that ability to have recorded 150 songs for an album that will “only” carry 22 songs, 16 of which will blow cow choad. This works great if you’re a member of the Wu-Tang Clan—I think GZA only spit on 7 joints for the entire double album “Wu-Tang Forever.” But for someone like Young Jeezy, to pen a full forty-eight bars over a 100 times in 3 months, well it’s safe to assume he won’t be unleashing anything close to “Verbal Intercourse” soon.
Here’s the biggest problem: most prolific rappers aren’t that interesting. They don’t take many chances. They don’t dabble outside of the same 6 concepts often. They don’t comment enough on the world around them outside of a few lines randomly addressing Obama, the
But what happens if you don’t rap ENOUGH? Well, you end up making “True Magic” or whatever the name of the new Mic Geronimo album is. It’s a delicate balance.
By the third day, we were knocked out, loaded. Hungover, weary, wandering the festival grounds like lethargic lemmings, queuing in lines off instinct, jostled, aggravated and in no mood for the weird Aramaic gibberish spouted by the kid seeing God underneath the Tesla Coil. Three days of this is too much to handle, unless you’re either steadily downing a diet of amphetamines, booze and hash; 16 years old, and/or Keith Richards at 16 years old.
To make matters worse, Sunday’s lineup had no chance in hell of topping Saturday’s Prince/Portishead extravaganza and everyone knew it. Scalpers couldn’t give tickets away and out of the five years I’ve been to Coachella, I’ve never seen fewer people on the field. It actually would’ve been nice, had my brain not felt it was composed out of hardened tapioca pudding and squelched grape fruit. The performance enhancing drugs, the miles of walking, and the dry desert heat have a way of sapping any and all energy you may have left after two days. Yeah, seeing Chromeo and Justice would’ve been nice, but the P.C.E. * levels would’ve been far too high. The followers of Vigo the Carpathian, scourge of Moldavia, were still out in masse, tucked away from the scrum, creeping their way through the VIP section. Even Carmen Electra was there and something told me that she and her ilk weren’t staying late to see Roger Waters.
I ran into a guy I knew from high school standing in line for the restrooms in the VIP area. I hadn’t seen him in a decade but was about four glasses of $7 wine deep and feeling good. No reason not to be friendly, after all, I no longer harbored a grudge from that time in the 11th grade when he tried to tell me that Magoo was a great rapper, a moment in which I knew that our friendship was well on its way to being up-jumps-the boogied.
“Hey Vargas,” I greeted him. (Names have been changed to protect the insolent)
“Hey Weiss,” he responded with a dazed, bovine look on his face. “I’m so wasted.”
“Cisco?”
“No. I didn’t see him here. But I think I just saw Mischa Barton and I definitely saw Paris Hilton.” he said,
“I meant…never mind…so have you seen anyone good today?”
“No, just some friends. We went to the Spin party, it was awesome.”
“I mean like bands. Have you seen any good music.”
“Ha…” he chucked drunkenly, leaning in towards me and spewing hot boozy breath all over me. “I don’t know anyone who’s playing. But they sound good from here!
“You can’t hear anything from here.”
He ignored the question.
“This place is an awesome party! Have you ever seen this many hot chicks?”
“Once, in an incubator.”
“You’ve still got the same sense of humor, huh Weiss?” he slapped himself on the forehead, doing my work for him.
“It’s not me, it’s the drugs,” I smirked and walked off, bobbing and weaving my way past the “hot chicks” re-intepreting Rihanna’s “Umbrella,” as “Coach-ella-ella-ella.” Needless to say, if one were ever to start recruiting a Fourth Reich, he would be wise to begin conscripting the thousands of ding-bats lurking past the velvet rope, er chain link fence.
I hate lines. They’re somewhere in the lower rungs of my own personal inferno along with club kids in fedoras, the Los Angeles Dodgers and the abstract concept of valet parking. Unfortunately, entering Coachella brings me into contact with three of those four food groups as quite often, while waiting in the Bataan Death march-like line to get in, you wind up next to a car full of trust-funders in fedoras maligning the Andruw Jones acquisition (seriously, you give the guy $40 million and he shows up to camp looking like Pop-N-Fresh?). It’s times like this, I like to play a game creatively entitled, “What Band Are They Hear to See.” As for the fedora fedayeen, I’d bet even money they were there to see Diplo. Or maybe Spank Rock. The guy strutting to the right of our car wearing a scarf in 100 degree weather? Vampire Weekend. The shirtless frat brahs tossing around a football? Jack Johnson. The girls to the left of us who wrote “Licking Windows all the Way to Coachella,” on the exterior of their Toyota Carolla. Slightly Stoopid. No questions asked.
But the lines. Good lord the lines. Two hours trying to leave, one trying to enter. An interminable snarl of scalpers hawking tickets and t-shirts, hazy beat-up brown dust, beads of sweat slipping slowly down your spine, dull heat-stroke headache, Lawrence of Arabia thirst, and that gnashed teeth silence where you ruminate on the simple fact that after nearly a decade of doing this, no one has been able to figure out how to get cars in and out of the Empire Polo Grounds faster than than 250 feet per hour. And all this while the palm trees tauntingly sway in the breeze, laughing, calmly, coolly, reminding you of all the wonderful things waiting to be seen. That is if you ever get in–chump.
Scott Towler once received six weeks in jail for kicking Tucker Carlson in the groin. Politics as usual.
Hillary won Pennsylvania! Did you hear? Do you care? Yeah, me neither. But with all the recent hub-bub about who’ll be our next president, it’s getting harder and harder to ignore. What’s next for this great nation? Personally, I think it’s time to think outside the box. Get a new face in the political realm. Hire someone with half a brain, instead of just a quarter. But there’s a lot more to think about than just that: where the world will be in 10, 15, 25 years; what will become of America’s youth; who will win the space race; just how long will this steroid problem go on; and finally, just how old should our president be?
OK, granted, he isn’t American, which completely rules him out of ever being president. And you’re right, he’s older than the universe itself. Some even contend that it was his cosmic dust that made the planets. Richards will tell you otherwise. But as I started to think about who I wanted to run this mucky-muck of a crap factory, it became very obvious: someone who’s invincible. Kieth Richards can’t die. He’s tried. He’s also outlived his mother and his father at this point, who, rest their souls, never touched any needle drugs or peyote. Still not convinced, eh? How bout the fact that he was alive during the Revolutionary War? He practically begged the colonies to succeed. He’s the father of this country for Christ sakes!
OK, I flipped out back there. Perhaps someone that old isn’t competent enough to run the country. Perhaps adult sized diapers should never set foot into the oval office (I’ll spare you the incontinent Cheney-with-a-shotgun jokes). But there is something to be said for a person who can affect the minds of millions of Americans. And what better way to build better citizens of tomorrow than starting them off at an early age. That’s why The Wiggles seemed like a natural choice. I firmly believe that the two best forms of birth control are A) flying on a plane with a baby, and B) going to the grocery store. Have you ever seen how unhappy those parents are? And just how mad does it make you when the kid starts screaming and the parents do nothing about it? Well, somehow, The Wiggles have written songs that put children in a trance, causing them to shut the fuck up, do their homework, and eat their vegetables. If that’s not role model behavior, I don’t know what is.
Of course, the only issue with The Wiggles is that they could create a people’s army of children. Nobody wants that. Plus, there’s four Wiggles, but room for only one president. Socialism just isn’t ready for this country. Because of that, I think it’s important we elect someone both powerful and important. Kind of like Barry Bonds. Think about it…Bonds is guilty as sin, right? But he’s the only one who has yet to face charges for blatantly breaking the rules and ruining baseball. Call him the O.J. of non-violent crime, cause he’s got the system figured out. My only issue stems from the fact that he could one day go on a roid rage, killing everyone in his path. Our country needs someone more balanced than that. Or smaller! A miniture Barry Bonds would ensure that we were taken seriously while preventing us from ever going off the handle. Plus you could put him in your carry-on bag.
The only other potential issue that will arise in the coming decades is how we’ll conquer space. While the space race of the 60s left much to be desired, the race of tomorrow will end with the colonization of Mars, the continual search for alternative fuels and the eventual discovery of life beyond ours. Who better to pioneer this front than Meteor Man? In an effort to gain a legitimate nomination, most of his friends already call him the ‘Barack Obama of space.’ Personally, I think the ‘Lewis and Clark’ of space might be more appropriate, or perhaps the ‘black-manifest-destiny-2010,’ but either way, he’s hot on the heels of the competition (that being Richard Branson and Laika (the first dog in space)). With the growing importance of preserving our planet, and the fact that we all already know hope is lost, this issue will percolate to the top of the political scene before any of us stop voting.
So as the election draws nearer, take some time and really think about who you’d want running this country. Whether it be a white woman, a black man, or an old person, one thing is clear: it won’t be a robot. Scott Towler, live from Washington D.C. reporting.
On last year’s None Shall Pass tour, Aesop tabbed Pittsburgh psych weirdos Black Moth Super Rainbow to open for him. It was an inspired move and one that I recommend more rappers do, lest I get stuck standing stupidly watching a bunch of mush-mouthed Myspace MC’s clinging to arbitrary 20th Century notions of what constitutes “underground rap.” (And why are you kids still wasting your night handing CD’s outside the show? Haven’t you heard of the Internet? )
Superficially, the pairing of Black Moth Super Rainbow front-man, Tobacco would make for a weird mix. They’re hippie-freaks from the woods outside of Pittsburgh who play Richard Simmons videos at their concerts and name themselves after cash crops. Aesop is a misanthropic, hyper-syllabic B-boy from New York who used to call himself “Bazooka Tooth.” Then again, marijuana has been known for its keen ability to unite seemingly disparate entities. Not to mention that last year’s Dandelion Gum, with its woozy drum machines, cavernous mellotrons and pink bubblegum and LSD vibe, felt more like a cross between Moon Safari-era Air and Edan’s Beauty and the Beat record than it did “indie rock”.
This lazy Summer, aesthetic meshes nicely with Aesop’s thinking man’s stoner sensibility on “Dirt.” Over Tobacco’s fractured pop, Aesop falls back in the pocket and takes rapid jabs at the beat, rather than trying to overwhelm it to prove his virtuosity. It’s a wise move and it makes for my favorite psych-rap song since “Beauty.” Not to mention the thing got heavy burn on my iPod all day Sunday. Just listening to it, you can catch a contact.
Download:
MP3: Tobacco ft. Aesop Rock-”Dirt”
From Black Moth Super Rainbow-Dandelion Gum
MP3: Black Moth Super Rainbow-”Forever Heavy”
MP3: Black Moth Super Rainbow-”Sun Lips”
From the Split Collaboration with Octopus Project, The House of Apples and Eyeball
MP3: Black Moth Super Rainbow-”Spiracle”
From Start a People
MP3: Black Moth Super Rainbow-”Vietcaterpillar”
I wrote about the Mezzanine Owls here last month, and my review of their Mezzanine Owls EP appears in this LA Weekly. They’re one of my favorite local bands and they’ve got the Spaceland Monday night residency for the Month of May. I’ll let the review say the rest.
LA Weekly: Mezzanine Owls-Mezzanine Owls EP (Scroll to Bottom)
Download: from The Mezzanine Owls Digital EP
MP3: Mezzanine Owls-”Snowglobe”
Last week, Zilla asked me if I’d like to be part of a contest/freestyle demolition derby involving Nico the Beast, in advance of Nico’s upcoming solo jaunt, No Beast, So Fierce. I agreed, as I make it a general rule to not quibble with anyone nicknamed “the beast,” (this also includes, Dr. Hank McCoy from X-Men, Michael Beasley and antagonistic cans of Milwaukee’s Best.)
In Zilla’s words, “Feed the Beast is a contest where once a week, we’ll take requests from people in person/over the internet/on MySpace/at the bus station that give Nico instrumentals to murder. Once a week, we’ll post the new bangage on Nico’s MySpace page, as well as Yadibox and Beat Garden’s website [and 33Jones and Passion of the Weiss]. And whoever gets their track picked out will get a shoutout at the beginning of the track. “
The first installment is below, with Nico crushing Channel Live’s, “Mad Izm” like an empty can of Milwaukee’s Beast. I know I sound like a broken record, but both dudes in Clean Guns are pretty much killing everything they touch these days. Judging from the first round of the competition, things should prove interesting, especially if Nico decides to rap over my pick: the beat for “Reflections of Passion” from Yanni’s Live at the Acropolis.
Download:
MP3: Nico the Beast-”Mad Izm Freestyle”
The Real “Channel Live”
The LA Weekly let me ramble at-length and with messianic zeal about My Morning Jacket in advance of their Coachella performance next weekend. I think it came out well, though ideally I would’ve loved to have had the chance to conduct in-person interviews with the band. That said, Jim James, bassist Two-Tone Tommy and Bo Koster spoke graciously and candidly to me over the phone and I got to the bottom of how high they were when they decided to do an Oregon Trail skit on their New Year’s Eve show 2007 (answer: not very). The performance in question is posted below, along with the lead single leaked from Evil Urges, their new and very-good album. And if you’re going to Coachella, it goes without saying…
LA Weekly: Morning in America-Why My Morning Jacket Are the Best Live Band In the World
Download:
MP3: My Morning Jacket-”Evil Urges”
ZIP: My Morning Jacket-Live 12/31/06 @ The Fillmore, San Francisco (left-click)
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