April 22nd, 2009
As you may have read at Zilla Rocca’s Clap Cowards, Nico the Beast, one half of Clean Guns, friend of this blog, and the man behind last year’s excellent, No Beast So Fierce, was in a serious car accident last weekend. Initially listed as critical, the bulletproof Beast has improved, and with time, is expected to fully recover. Tragically, one of the friends traveling with him wasn’t as lucky. Thoughts, sympathy, prayers, etc. go out to his family.
If you’d like to send Nico any words of encouragement, his Myspace is here–they will be warmly welcomed. In the meantime, I recommend that you scoop up the songs below, along with his most recent mixtape, Dinner Is Served Vol. 1–a mature, thoughtful and virtuosic effort, that entrenches the South Illadelphian as one of the underground’s best young talents. Stop sleeping, or when he recovers, Nico will beat you to death with your own shoes.
Download:
MP3: Nico the Beast-”Promised Land”
MP3: Nico the Beast ft. Zilla Rocca-”A Simple Song “
MP3: Nico the Beast-”Don’t Talk the Talk”
ZIP: Nico the Beast-Dinner is Served Vol. 1 (Left-Click)
Posted in Are You From the Lester Bangs School of Thought? | 3 Comments »
April 22nd, 2009
Next week, we’ll tackle more pressing questions like keeping Atlantis off the map, making Steve Gutenberg a star, and keeping the metric system down. But for the duration of this one, consider Passion of the Weiss, official anti-stone mason headquarters.
On Thursday and Friday, Sach and Jonathan Bradley will battle the bulge of Roth publicist e-mails that bloat my inbox. After all, only hours ago, Roth’s fleet flackses informed me that Asleep debuted at number one on iTunes, with “major retailers underestimating Asher Roth’s grass roots support from blogs and magazines in the hip-hop and indie community and are scrambling to get more copies in-stores!” I’m not surprised. The marketing muscle thrown behind our new rap philosopher-king is astonishing, as Dart artfully explains here.
My review at the Times is too short for true justice, but thankfully Ian Cohen went in “Winter Warz”-style at Pitchfork, gravity-bonging it with an appropriate, 2.4. How is anyone supposed to respect a rapper who lets the waddling late-period Larry Holmes that is Busta Bus, look like the Easton Assassin of ‘82, who floored original Great White Hype, Gerry Cooney? Has an “event album” ever been as un-eventful as this one? Is it safe to conclude that Steve Rifkind is the Reverend Fred Sultan?
LA Times: Asher Roth–Asleep in the Bread Aisle Review
Download:
MP3: Asher Roth ft. Busta Rhymes-”Lion’s Roar”
MP3: Ghostface Killah-”Who’s the Champion”
Posted in LA Times | 6 Comments »
April 21st, 2009
Slowly, my brain is slinking its way towards sensible shape. Three days of Coachella are not for the faint of heart–if nothing else it requires a quarter-ounce of weed, an array of narcotic edibles from potcorn to cannabis cakes, several brightly colored pills of indiscriminate origin, copious spending money for wine, water, and whiskey, plus the heart of a three year-old Labrador to handle the strain. I’m not entirely ready to cop to that cliche, but had you seen the couple doing a hipstork mating call outside of Gang Gang Dance on Saturday night, you’d understand. It looked like a great fucking time.
So who am I to knock Coachella–it puts you in a position to win, and that’s all you can really ask of a coach or a festival. Even if the Clipse cancelled at the last second, that’s the brothers Thorton’s bad. Abandoning throngs of people waiting for Pitchfork approved trap-rap is an unwise move. Is Lupe Fiasco supposed to provide the kids with minimalist nihilism? Or maybe Clipse know that no matter how many new bad puns they devise involving the word, “brick,” they can’t match the freak show promised by Throbbing Gristle. After all, lead singer Genesis P-Orridge wears gold grills. She used to be a he. He once nailed piercings through his dick. That’s either the most incredibly hard core gesture possible, or the dumbest. Either way, Genesis is a better rapper than Paul Wall.
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April 19th, 2009
As I wriggled out of the teeming crowd that clotted for M.I.A, I eavesdropped on the Spalding basketball-bronzed sorority sisters speaking behind me: “If I was like a dude, I would totally want to do M.I.A.” Personally, M.I.A. doesn’t really do it for me, but I get where they’re coming from. After all, I’ve long suspected that at least a modicum of the unchecked praise tossed her way stems from the fact that hundreds of thousands of her fans, “totally want to do [her].” Big deal. “Pop star’s success aided by looks,” is a story so spavined that it could only be broken by the Onion.
But–of course–there’s more to Maya Arulpragasam than just looks. Her back-story was Slumdog Millionaire before it was a glint in Danny Boyle’s eye. Between the radical politics, the day-glo clothing, and a savvy iconography befitting a former visual artist, she’s emerged as the first true pan-global pop star–the type to send writers to their keyboards binding the viral nature of “bird flu” to the viral nature of the Internet. Like the faces of the overly tanned acolytes standing behind me: it’s a slam dunk. Critics love nothing better than a good narrative, and let’s not kid ourselves that globetrotting, caps lock-impaired, Tamil Tigress isn’t a whole lot more interesting than Katy Perry–or god forbid, Lady Gaga.
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April 18th, 2009
Bret Easton Ellis once pointed out that the inhabitants of Los Angeles never stop babbling about the freeways. Then again, he penned, Less than Zero during the comparatively halcyon Tom Bradley days, prior to the total arteriosclerosis of the 405 and 101. Nowadays, surviving requires a serenity towards the iron inferno of rush hour. Consider Coachella a proxy for the city itself–if you’re going to survive, you have to channel your inner Gautama towards the terrible, tortuous lines. Waits for everything: the asphyxiating grind down Jefferson to park, lines to pick up your press ticket, lines to enter the actual festival grounds, lines hoovered in the bathrooms of the VIP section. It makes sense–this shit’s held at the Empire Polo Grounds: do as the livestock do, learn to queue.
If you can accept this basic reality, the festival continually lives up to its reputation. Three days in the desert, a backdrop of swaying palm trees and chocolate cake mountains, and every diletantish Angeleno trekking east to partake in a bit of cultural tourism. Thankfully, there’s a VIP section to contain the anti-rabble, ostensibly to provide them with cleaner bathrooms, shorter lines, and a place to wear their fedoras unmolested. But really, the place is a Twilight Zone-type netherworld–the clubs of Los Angeles turned inside out and dropped in the middle of the Mojave.
I’ve made this analogy once before, but after sunset, the VIP section turns into a terrifying place, undercut by a river of foul pink slime oozing beneath the verdant sprawl. Think the hermetic bubble that covers the New York City museum of art in Ghostbusters II. Raw uncut malevolence, Carpathians, people launching bolts of lightning from their eyes. I think I saw Vigo there. He was wearing a pair of $1,000 sunglasses, his lank hair worn in a windswept comb-over, leering at 19 year-old girls in floral print vspring dresses. To get even triter, the place was one big pose, except no one knew that the cameras were off. But who am I kidding? I like clean bathrooms as much as the next neurotic.
The Bug ft. Warrior Queen
Predictably, I’ve squandered most of the day shaking the idolatry (Moz, McCartney, Cohen, oh my), and cobwebs out of my head. This is what I get for devouring a weed twinkie based on the tenuous assumption that Paul would want it this way. Those things will get to you–you think they won’t–but after about an hour or two, you become convinced that you’ve been scammed and your need to beat a hasty retreat to the Cannibis Club and harangue them for the the $15 you wasted on the edible. The next thing, you know it’s midnight, your limbs are unnaturally frozen, and you’re convinced you’re watching a Madame Tussaud’s wax statue singing “Hey Jude.”
So I’m going to be brief here, offering sincere apologies for the scarcity of content. Leonard Cohen, Moz, People Under the Stairs, and the Hold Steady were all marvelous, but nothing touched The Bug ft. Warrior Queen. We’re going to have to forget about the Bug, I wrote about him here, and hopefully it described his mien. Those raucous dance-hall dub-step beats sounded insane live–bass barreling out of the live speakers like a baby at nine months trying to kick his way of his mother’s womb. Drums like tocsins-exploding with nuclear brissance.
But Warrior Queen. Let’s just start with the nomenclature. The woman is in fact a warrior queen–Hippolyta if she’d been born Jamaican, an Amazonian built like gibralter, with a corona of caramel-colored hair, and a practically incomprehensible patois. In a black jacket, fishnet stalkings and dominatrix boots, the women essentially made it so that no one will ever be able to speak about Peaches or Lil Kim without using the word “fraud.” She doesn’t use sex as a weapon, she uses it as an extension of her idea of ecstasy, humping the speakers, herself, the audience’s imagination. Think Sharon Jones but far raunchier, a dervish whose stage presence couldn’t be captured by the best writer, let alone a hastily written first draft.
Penultimate song, “Poison Dart,” brought the climax. I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen that sort of pandemonium in my life. The show was scarcely attended–maybe only a few hundred people. To think that Bright Eyes was going on at the same time was too much for my fragile skull to handle. Because Warrior Queen warped out of a different galaxy. I’d try to compare her to other dancehall artists, but let’s be real, my knowledge is limited to Mad Cobra, Shabba Ranks, Buju Banton, Sizzla, and the remaining flotsam and jetsam that guested on mid-9os dance tracks. After it was all over, they turned the lights on. Everyone shuffled out with an embarrassed but sated gait, as though they’d just had sex, and their eyes were awkwardly adjusting to the bright lemon light. The only way Karen O has a chance of topping this tomorrow night, is if she hires Ditta Von Teese, several midgets, a crate of dry ice, and a vat of silly putty.
Posted in Festivals | 1 Comment »
April 16th, 2009
Not much to add that the title doesn’t explain. All in all, a fair quarter for rap albums: two great ones (UGK 4 Life, Born Like This), one great mixtape (Superbad), and a half dozen solid to very good efforts. For better or worse, contemporary hip-hop is about keeping up. Product is increasingly disposable. It’s hard to care. I get it. But if you dig, it’s out there, the onus is just on you (I do what I can, but time + outside interests are a motherfucker.)
Yes, I wish that the names Rick Ross and Asher Roth conjured jello-eating, high-waisted, Floridean retirees, rather than the two biggest names you’re supposed to like. And yes, I often spend days like yesterday–flashing back to ‘93 Yo! MTV Raps and the video for Da Youngstaz’s ‘”Crewz Pop.” But I’m going to Coachella today, and for once, not in any mood to complain–now off to cop a Hadley’s Date Shake.
LA Times: The Quarterly Report–The Best Rap Albums of the First Quarter of 2009
Download:
MP3: DOOM-”That’s That”
MP3: UGK-”Swishas and Erb”
ZIP: Boosie-Superbad: The Return of Mr. Wipe Down (Left-Click)
MP3: Camp Lo-”Gotcha”
MP3: Exile-”The Sound is God”
MP3: Finale-”One Man Show” (prod. by Black Milk)
MP3: Blu-”Amnesia”
MP3: Del-”Get It Right Now”
ZIP: Tiron-Ketchup (Left-Click)
MP3: Harmonic 313 ft. Elzhi & Phat Kat-”Battlestar”
Posted in LA Times | 18 Comments »
April 15th, 2009
I’d wanted to write about Akron/Family ever since their SXSW set at the Dead Oceans showcase left me waxing rhapsodic about their ability to successfully navigate the divide between the genius of the great jam bands (The Dead, The Allmans, Phish), vs. the fat-fingered indulgences of their single (brain) celled brethren. But props to Hidden Track, for providing me with the impetus: Akron’s cover of Dead staple, “I Know You Rider.”There are celestial harmonies, harmonica, banjos, and feathers in hats–though no one calls it macaroni.
I’m currently in the midst of writing an article about the Dead’s emergence as a touchstone in contemporary indie, with Animal Collective, Blitzen Trapper, Dr. Dog, and Akron, openly acknowledging the architects. But for my eighth’s worth, the Brooklyn by way of Pennsylvania trio, channels the lysergic efflorescence of Jerry & Co. better than any of their brethren, tugging at similar roots: folk, psychedelic rock, free jazz, afro-beat, delta blues, yet filtering them in a way that never feels pre-worn or familiar. Their latest album, Set ‘Em Wild, Set Em Free, might be their best yet, and certainly comes the closest to matching the high-wattage illumination of the live show. These guys are probably the best family since Sly, or at least Mo Thugs.
[Pre-Order: Akron/Family-Set ‘Em Wild, Set ‘Em Free]
Download:
MP3: Akron/Family-”River”
MP3: Akron/Family-”Ed Is a Portal” (Left-Click)
MP3: The Grateful Dead-”I Know You Rider” (Live @ Carousel Ballroom, 1969)
Posted in Are You From the Lester Bangs School of Thought? | 4 Comments »
April 14th, 2009
Kevin Elliott tells me that I too often sleep on Columbus hip-hop. Kevin Elliott is usually right about these matters. Therefore, here’s the latest cut from Buckeye rhymer, Illogic, with guest spots from Slug, Aesop Rock, and a guy named Zero Star. It’s a fun song, though I’m not sure if it qualifies as “diabolic.” To be diabolic, one has to have a mustache capable of being twirled. I’ve always liked Illogic, yet have never before admitted it publicly. Henceforth…
Via 2 Dope Boyz
Download:
MP3: Illogic ft. Slug, Aesop Rock, and Zerostar-”Diabolical Fun Remix”
MP3: Illogic ft. Aesop Rock-”Killin’ Time”
Posted in Are You From the Lester Bangs School of Thought? | No Comments »
April 14th, 2009
Due to the sheer glut of good rap inner-tubing through the Internet, I’m starting a new column to round-up the best singles of recent vintage. There is a 75 percent chance, I’ll never do this again. Credit due to Joey, Noz, and Brandon, for pioneering this not-so-novel concept.
Kurupt ft. DJ Quik-”Hey Playa”
Considering a Kurupt and Quik collaboration seems conceived at a ‘94 rap fantasy camp, consider me skeptical that Blaqkout will ever emerge from the hirsute labyrinth that is Quik’s perm. Then again, after staying scarce for most of the decade, Quik has ditched his Compton cocoon of late, hosting a monthly series of Quik’s Grooves at Key Club. I’ve tried to make it out on several occasions, but seem to find out about them at the last second, and despite what my blog prolificacy might hint, I have a life off the Internet. True story.
Between “Hey Playa” and first leak, “Fuck Y’all,” the vets still burn the good Cali kush. Had a less talented beatmaker attempted this, it’d come off as Punjabi MC-lite, but Quik finds the oasis, offering up a funky slice of Mid-Eastern harem rap that both rappers crush.
Busta Rhymes ft. Raekwon-”Deathwish”
Maybe the Passover prayers worked, and I inhabit an alternate 1995, where Busta and Rae (and Quik and Kurupt) are in their prime, and the nation is in the midst of a Pax Americana pregnant with limitless peace and prosperity. I doubt it. But hearing Busta on the Asher Roth album felt like watching the Cavaliers decapitate the Celtics this week (sorry Dart). “Death Wish,” isn’t on any of the leaked Back on My B.S. tracklistings, but it doesn’t matter. What does is that Busta and Rae have recovered the hunger that abandoned them sometime around the time the Republicans captured Congress. Though judging from his waistline, that hunger never left the Chef.
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Posted in The New Rap Language | 9 Comments »
April 13th, 2009
Photo via Austin Chronicle
The moral of the story is that I should listen to Skeet on Mischa more. Because it’s otherwise inexplicable why I’ve yet to write about Smell favorites Mika Miko–LA’s answer to the X-Ray Spex and Germs smorgasbord of Love is All. Their official sophomore debut, We Be Xuxa drops on May 5th on the always dependable Post Present Medium, and it’s certain to catapult them to the next level, whatever that means.
Occasionally, the band’s raw, unvarnished punk leanings feel less like an aesthetic decision than a drift towards the inchoate. But for the most part, their sugar rush snarl and serrated guitars lift stealthily concealed pop leanings. My favorite moments come when Mika Miko are less wilfully obtuse, especially on “Sex Jazz,” the record’s longest track at just a shade over three minutes. Originally released as part of the Sub Pop 7″ Inch club, “Sex Jazz,” manages to do the impossible: be almost as good as both sex and jazz.
Pre-Order: Mika Miko-We Be Xuxa
Download:
MP3: Mika Miko-”Sex Jazz”
Posted in Are You From the Lester Bangs School of Thought? | 1 Comment »
