November 13th, 2008
Idolator and the New York Times have got the obit front covered, but pour out a little Murray’s pomade for Mitch Mitchell, purveyor of one of the finest white boy ‘fros of all-time and a winner of the Griffith J. Griffith Award for Excellence in the Field of Nomenclature (take that Sirhan Sirhan). Granted, Mitchell’s fro fell far short of the tonsorial triumph that was Noel Redding (to say nothing about Jimi Hendrix’s G.A.O.T), but it remains an inspiration to us all. Oh, and he was also good at that drumming thing.
Download: (from The Experience’s BBC Sessions)
MP3: The Jimi Hendrix Experience-”A Brand New Sound”
MP3: The Jimi Hendrix Experience-”Driving South”
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
November 13th, 2008
In the two years that have elapsed since underground legend J Dilla passed, dozens of rappers — among them Busta Rhymes, Jay Electronica and Q-Tip — have plundered his seemingly abyssal stock of unused beats. Yet only Dilla’s younger brother, 21-year-old Illa J, can claim them as a birthright.
Upon relocating to Los Angeles from the family’s hometown of Detroit, Illa J received the ideal housewarming present: a CD’s worth of unused beats that his big brother (then known as Jay Dee) had recorded for Delicious Vinyl between 1995 and 1998. As one might imagine, the beats themselves take center stage (”DFTF” and “All Good,” in particular). The elder Yancey brother concocts a simmering, smoky, soulful brew — a dream cross-section of his work on A Tribe Called Quest’s Beats, Rhymes and Life, The Pharcyde’s Labcabincalifornia, and Common’s Like Water for Chocolate.
On the mic, Illa J might still lurk in his brother’s long shadow, but with his laid-back, sing-song flow, he seems to intuitively know how to rock Dilla’s soundscapes. Occasionally, this liquescent tone veers towards languor, but more often than not, Yancey Boys proves to be an impressive debut, one that would make big brother proud.
Download:
MP3: Illa J-”We Here”
MP3: Illa J-”DFTF”
Posted in eMusic | 4 Comments »
November 11th, 2008
I wouldn’t describe myself as a “happy” person. Not to say that I’m some sort of lugubrious, sepulchral soul brooding over melancholy poems by lamp light,* but rather, I find “happy” one of those banal adjectives that I tend to associate with watchers of CBS sitcoms, I’m From Barcelona fans and protagonists of the last decent Adam Sandler vehicle (no Punch Drunk Love). Yet strangely enough, the reason why I love going to see the Hold Steady in concert is because they make me really fucking happy. Of course, there are a lot of great bands that I enjoy live, but few elicit such joy as Craig Finn & Co.—it’s pretty embarrassing actually.
Thing is, whenever I see The Hold Steady, I get this broad, bovine grin on my face, like a sorority girl at a James Blunt concert, or a narcoleptic at a Coldplay show—and I’m not the only one either. I’ve stated in the past that the Hold Steady are closer to a cult than a rock band and that belief has only become more entrenched each time I see them. They don’t get fans, they get fan boys and listening to the albums, it’s impossible to grasp exactly how they could do such a thing. Because, let’s be honest, I’ll ride for all four of the band’s records but I’m not about to throw on “Boys and Girls in America,” give someone a pair of headphones and tell them that “The Hold Steady will change their life.” **
But something undeniably special occurs at a Hold Steady show. The audience gets swept into a sort of weird rapture, almost impossible to find in the mumbling, introverted world of indie rock. Throughout the band’s hour and a half Sunday night set at the Orpheum in Boston, my attention kept on getting momentarily diverted by three different types, all of whom continually kept on “losing their shit” (for lack of a better phrase). The first, a lanky hipster in a sport coat and asymmetric hair-cut, whose arms never slacked, a frenetic, flailing mixture of pointing, roof-raising and pure reverie. Every few songs, he’d get so swamped in the music that he’d storm to the front row, only to be hurled back to his seat by security. Normally, he was the type of guy I’d mock mercilessly and Google for a random photo to illustrate his absurdity.
Craig Finn In the Midst of Performing a Cover of “YMCA”
Instead, the Kramer-esque, “hipster doofus” seemed imbued with a certain fundamental righteousness. As did the couple in the front row, rocking and holy-rolling to each song, arms intertwined—save for when he paused to rifle off an imaginary air guitar lick or she whipped out her camera to preserve the moment. To say nothing of the two teenaged geeks in the row in front of me, who like everyone else in the room seemed to know every word to every song. The pair amounted to a miniature Wayne and Garth, elbows akimbo, nearly knocking me out with their spastic churning and head whipping. There was a certain sweetness and sincerity to the affair, one lacking in the often-arch, tight-lipped performances that fall under the loose umbrella constituting “indie.”
Of course, I agreed. My grin, wide and nacreous, all of us distinctly different, unified in our shared belief that unfettered joy was the only appropriate reaction to Craig Finn’s giddy stage presence, beads of sweat pouring down his face, beatific smile and wild, frantic rapper arm gesticulations. Or Tad Kubler, the unassuming lead guitarist whose tattoos and guitar chops seem to multiply exponentially every time I see the band. While Franz Nicolay, multi-instrumentalist extraordinaire (harpsichord, keyboards, harmonica, accordian), chugged red wine straight from the bottle and once again, marked himself as the band’s secret weapon and the prime reason for their ability to diversify their sound beyond the Replacements and Springsteen worship of their first two albums. Perhaps predictably, the band leaned heavily on their most recent album “Stay Positive” (reviewed by me, here), but made sure to play the fan favorites from its predecessors (“Chips Ahoy,” “Your Little Hoodrat Friend,” and a particularly great, “Positive Jam.”)
Indeed, it’s the title of the latter song that indicates what makes the Hold Steady one of my favorite bands and ensures that I’ll see them every time they come through town (ensuring that you–dear reader–will be bludgeoned with another review in my on-going quest to cadge free tickets***). Blessed with the rare talent to mix sincerity and smarts, heart without schmaltz, The Hold Steady remain on my short-list of the finest bands to emerge during this decade. By the time, they unfurled a “Rock + Roll Means Well,”
banner during their encore (played with Patterson Hood of the Drive By Truckers), the band had validated every bit of the vague meaning contained within the statement. I was happy and I don’t think anyone in the room felt any differently.
*I mean, really, I do the wide majority of my reading during the day.
** Is it safe to say, with the decade winding down, that the “Shins will change your life” scene in “Garden State” is the worst sequence in any non-critically reviled movie made in the last 10 years. (Crash obviously discounted, for being perhaps, the worst film ever made—period.)
***Because unlike rap music, journalism lamentably isn’t conducive to the “champagne wishes and caviar dream” lifestyle.
Download:
MP3: The Hold Steady-”Sequestered In Memphis”
MP3: The Hold Steady-”Slapped Actress”
Posted in Beards, Blazers, & Glasses | 6 Comments »
November 10th, 2008
Douglas Martin normally blogs at Fresh Cherries from Yakima. He has never been to Yakima, but he can do the Watusi.
Being the world’s foremost blipster sure is a thankless job. Ever since I was given the opening quote in that infamous January 2007 feature in the New York Times about that new, cutting-edge subculture that long before had merely been known as “Afropunk” or “Tight Pants Wearin’-Ass Negroes” or whatever, my life’s been a whirlwind of dust, from being a public representative of Pacific-Northwestern black kids who listen primarily to art-punk, to receiving potshots on Gawker about being 23 and recording a folk-rock album. Now, I’m 25, have graduated from “folk-rock” (which was erroneous even as it was being printed) to “avant folk-pop” (hipsters are nothing if not arty individuals, right?), and am still unsigned. Thanks for nothing, Gawker.
In the two years since I became a footnote in the bowels of American popular culture, there has been a wellspring of blipsters springing up all over the place, as well as one of the most divisive scenes in rap history, “Hipster-Hop,” which comes across as some sort of backwards-reverse-racism sort of thing, where rappers do crazy, unprecedented things like not wear baggy jeans and chains, essentially discounting the “blackness” of these groups for not adhering to racial stereotypes. As I’ve learned from the four sentences written about me in The New York Times which quickly read like a pitch for an ABC Afterschool Special, the basis of the term “Hipster-Hop,” just like the term “blipster,” proves that some journalists are so silly.
So, for my first of my (hopefully many) columns for Passion, I thought I’d do a service for the blogging community by comparing and contrasting the blipsterness of the leading artists in the Hipster-Hop scene. Lace up those dingy Chuck Taylor’s people. It’s go time:
EXHIBIT A: KIDZ IN THE HALL
PROS: Double-O and Naledge apparently met at the University of Pennsylvania after a talent show, forming Kidz in the Hall and recording an album called School Was My Hustle. The irony of being college-educated and having a phonetically-spelled group name has “hipster” written all over it. They released an album called The In Crowd, which has a bevy of early-90’s hip-hop nostalgia. No wonder critics latched these guys onto the Hipster-Hop scene; some things are just too calculated to make up.
CONS: School Was My Hustle was co-signed by Just Blaze and released by Rawkus Records. The In Crowd was released by Duck Down Records, founded by Boot Camp Clik. Hipsters may know of Just Blaze, from their rarely-listened-to copy of The Blueprint to prove that they do actually enjoy rap. There’s no way a hipster has heard of Boot Camp Clik, no matter how many ironic hip-hop-themed parties they’ve gone to. Plus, Kidz in the Hall’s style is more “Baby Boomer Douchebag Chic” than anything that resembles a hipster these days, but perhaps someone will take a wrong left turn towards Pitchfork and stumble on this post, and adopt this look at their next Williamsburg costume party appearance, in which the guys will get extra points for being ahead of their time.
HIPSTER SCORE: 7.2. The whole “hipster” angle they’re going for is sort of contrived, but being as though contrivance is sort of what the movement is based on, it comes across as weirdly well-played.
EXHIBIT B: THE COOL KIDS
PROS: In addition to opening for hipster icon M.I.A., Chuck Inglish and Mikey Rocks have been playing the retro-angle hard, sampling drums, melodies, and even vocals from golden-era hip-hop hits such as “My Posse’s on Broadway” (Seattle, stand up!), all while wearing acid-washed skinny jeans and retro sports gear and shouting out Starter jackets in their rhymes. Genius! Way to bring back Starter like the ill-fated Members Only craze of 2006!
CONS: You get the feeling that if The Cool Kids were an all-white rock band, they’d be touted as “saviors of rock ‘n roll” and all that jazz. But, because they’re a revivalist hip-hop group? Hipsters they are. Plus, they hopped on a track with Lil’ Wayne, and everyone knows that makes you REAL hip-hop!
HIPSTER SCORE: 3.9. However, if they were being solely judged on their fashion choices, they’d get an 8.8 and be inducted into the “Best New Hipster-Hop Music” category.
EXHIBIT C: THE KNUX.
PROS: A pair of Los Angeles-via-New Orleans brothers, Krispy Kream and Rah Al Millio play their own instruments (which includes guitars, people!), wear tight jackets and jeans proudly (namedropping American Apparel in their Passion of the Weiss interview, even), and, by their own admission, have been listening to TV on the Radio since the release of their Young Liars EP. And they have connections to hipster-dance scene demigod Steve Aoki! They have a background in jazz, played in their school’s marching band, and still managed to not get beaten up when they were kids. Their very promising debut, Remind Me in Three Days, is a genre-defying excursion into the world of scenester L.A., with guitars blaring over drum machines as girls snort lines like hypochondriacs drop Airborne in their water. Although they’ve vehemently denounced the term, this is the type of group hipsters could really get behind.
CONS: Not only do they rap very well (name one hipster than can even sorta rap, and Kanye West doesn’t count), but they play their instruments with a high level of technical proficiency. Hipsters that play music value amateurishness and obscure that behind the fact that you’re not “advanced enough” to engage in their art. Not only that, but they are from New Orleans, and both carry the main trait of the city’s natives: they don’t pull punches (once again, see their Passion of the Weiss interview).
HIPSTER SCORE: 7.8. Hipsters love things that are sonically progressive. And they love dudes who wear tight jeans, take it from me.
Download:
MP3: The Cool Kids- Oscar the Grouch (Left-Click)
MP3: Fresh Cherries from Yakima: Flood Party
MP3: The Knux-”Fire”
MP3: The Knux-”Bang Bang”
MP3: The Kidz in the Hall-”Drivin’ Down the Block Remix ft. Pusha-T, The Cool Kids & Bun B
Posted in Douglas Martin's Dirty Shoes, Fresh Cherries From Yakima | 21 Comments »
November 7th, 2008
Hey Mr. Indie Graphic Designer!
Are you a six year old?
Are you my friend and have been hand drawing all of your work for me as a personal gift?
Or are you just a big K-Records fan who’s stuck in the tribute stage?
Maybe you lost an eye in a frappuccino related mishap and can’t draw depth anymore…
…or your mother hit the bottle when she was pregnant and you were born this way?
No? Seriously? None of the above?
Then why-the-living-fuck do you persist in perpetrating this God awful trend wherein every other product aimed at my generation looks like it was scribbled up by a tard baby?
It DOES NOT make us “closer” or give you a “connection” with the audience.
It DOES NOT make you “indie”: you’re bankrolled by some huge conglomerate.
It DOES NOT make Michael Cera’s acting any less unbearable.
It DOES NOT make me want to see your movie, buy your record or go to your God damned coffee shop.
And a few years after Napoleon Dynamite and Garden State it doesn’t even fool arts school chicks anymore. When you can’t fool 19 year olds it’s time to switch strategies.
I know the movie you’re promoting sucks and is a shallow attempt to eek-out a profit out of an insecure niche audience that can’t decide what it likes for itself and must constantly refer to a higher authority (blogs, not God) to know if something’s good in a “real” way or an “ironic” way, but you’re not doing yourself any favors by stealing your little nephew’s drawing off the fridge and using it in your marketing campaign. Next time consider coming up with an actual visual identity of your own: something original, eye-catching and (wait for it) well drawn. Or painted. Or photoshopped. I don’t care really. Oh and get the people you’re working for to drop this stupid teen-to-twenty-something-consumerist-but-still-sensitive-romantic-angst bullshit.
Or the next post I write might be about indie musicians who never learned to play guitar.
Download:
MP3: Jeru the Damaja-”Divine Design”
MP3: Queens of the Stone Age-”I’m Designer”
Posted in Sach O | 14 Comments »
November 6th, 2008
I can’t tell how much I like Q-Tip’s, The Renaissance. It’s good sure, but it’s impossible to listen to without noting the elephant in the room: the fact that Q-Tip has been a.w.o.l. for most of the decade and y’know, that whole “centerpiece of one of the greatest groups of all-time” thing. So without contrasting it to the back catalogue, let’s just leave it at that it’s alternately clever, complex and fun; moreover, it feels right that it dropped during this weird, wonderful week.
Anchored by a half-dozen outstanding tracks (that co-exist with benign neo-soul soporifics), the greatest of the bunch is “Move,” the lone J Dilla contribution. Measuring up to anything the pair ever cut, its first half sounds like a successful realization of what they’d intended to do on Tip’s solo debut, the more uneven Amplified. It’s an upbeat, dance-workout type track that nails the platonic ideal that Tribe always achieved: lyrical and hard-core enough for the dudes, blithe and bouncy for the ladies.
Yet its the latter half of the song, the part excised from its video that makes “Move,” a petri dish of what makes both Dilla and the Q-Tip so special. With a flip of the beat, the sweaty rap-disco descends into an eerie whistling, subway banger. Gone is the pop sensibility flexed seconds earlier. In its stead is a younger, hungrier rhymer, Tip recounting his days murking chumps on the A Train line. The side of the Abstract that you never think about when you think about Tribe Called Quest, the days when he was a helium-voiced teenager eager to show and prove. There’s a fierceness to the song that makes it much more than an exercise in nostalgia, the sort of greatness that leads you to believe that the album title isn’t just bombast.
Shea Serrano on Q-Tip’s The Renaissance in the Village Voice.
Buy The Renaissance
Download:
MP3: Q-Tip-”Move”
MP3: Q-Tip ft. Camp Lo-”Gettin’ Up (Remix)”
Posted in Are You From the Lester Bangs School of Thought? | 6 Comments »
November 5th, 2008
Apologize for the NOT-ANOTHER-POLITICAL post (insert groan here). But it probably couldn’t hurt to re-watch this speech again. Regularly scheduled programming should resume tomorrow. In the meantime, to once-again cite Larry David, yesterday was “pretty, pretty good.” In fact, even such an inveterate hater such as myself had only one real qualm (two, if you count Cali’s passing of Prop 8).
However, how in a righteous world can it be deemed acceptable for CNN to conduct an interview about politics with a hologram of will.i.am? Was Fergie unavailable? And where were Apple De Apple and Taboo in all this? Also, does this mean there is going to be a Black Eyed Peas, Captain Eeo-esque show at Disneyland? I sincerely hope not.
Lastly, was I the only one who mistook Kim Stratton, the woman who sang the National Anthem prior to Obama’s speech, for Queen Latifah? And if so, was anyone else secretly hoping she would sing, “U.N.I.T.Y?” If so, your wish is my command.
Download:
MP3: My Morning Jacket-”Celebration (Kool & The Gang Cover)”
MP3: Cameo-”Word Up”
MP3: Fela Kuti-”2000 Blacks to be Free” (Left-Click)
Posted in Are You From the Lester Bangs School of Thought? | 4 Comments »
November 4th, 2008
Official election day anthem. I’d post the video, but stupid You Tube won’t let me embed it. I’d write some sort of strident, “Get Out the Vote” message, but hey, that’s what You Tube’s for. After all, how would I know it was election day were it not for every acquaintance I’ve ever known getting out my vote via status update? Ah Barackleby, ah humanity.
Download:
MP3: Outkast-”Git Up, Git Out”
And Just Because–Goodie Mobb-”Dirty South”
Posted in Are You From the Lester Bangs School of Thought? | 4 Comments »
November 4th, 2008
Despite his Australian roots, ex-Stylus scribe, Jonathan Bradley somehow managed to handily defeat the rest of the staff in an American History trivia quiz. For that, he has earned the title of Passion of the Weiss senior political analyst. His writing can also be found at Screw Rock N’ Roll, a website whose pro-syrup mantra has been blamed for death of Houston rapper, Big Moe.
If you haven’t been paying attention, America’s rappers have found a hot new accessory, and it’s not a Japanese clothing label, testicle-hugging denim or jewel-encrusted rendition of their own heads (no Rick Ross). In 2008, anyone who’s anyone in hip-hop is rocking Barack.
And as Run-DMC did with their Adidas, Busta Rhymes with his Courvosier, and the Wu-Tang Clan did with um… Wu-Wear, rappers are heading to the studio in droves to record songs about their favorite new brand. And, seriously, who could blame them, right? Obama is the silver-tongued, audaciously hopeful agent of change who electrifies hundreds of thousands of Germans, sends a thrill up at least one leg of MSNBC anchor Chris Matthews, and might just redeem mankind for the sins of Oliver Stone leading man George W. Bush. Also, if he wins the election this Tuesday, he’ll become America’s first black president. What is there for a rapper, or indeed, an American voter, not to love?
I’m Australian, so I’d consider it damned disrespectful to try to convince you to vote one way or the other (though, I will warn all 300 million of you Yanks that if I see Republican candidate John McCain inaugurated come January 20 I will be sobbing into my Fosters[1]). But I do know the value of putting your money where your mouth is, and thanks to the efforts of some guy called McCain Feingold (shit, if only John McCain were that honorable), whenever anyone in the United States donates more than $200 to any political candidate, they have to tell the public.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in The Bradley Effect, Jonathan Bradley | 2 Comments »
November 3rd, 2008
It’s been hard to think of a 24-hour span when I’ve been less productive than today (save for that evening in college, when after listening to “Sippin’ on Some Syrup” one too many times, I decided to mix a bottle of Robotussin and Strawberry soda, a move that led to me falling asleep–in public–into a slice of pizza).
Hopefully, sooner than later I’ll return to normalcy (where you at Warren G.) In the meantime, I’ll feebly flail at getting some work done and listen to these absolutely transcendent cuts from venerable New Orleans funk-soul drummer, Idris Muhammed. Download it and ask questions later.
Download:
MP3: Idris Muhammad-”Hard to Face the Music”
MP3: Idris Muhammad-”Sudan” (Left-Click)
Posted in Are You From the Lester Bangs School of Thought? | No Comments »
