July 25th, 2008
For the last six weeks, I’ve spent my drive time cloistered within the soothing cocoon of Fela Kuti’s Expensive Shit/He Miss Road. Accordingly, few contemporary albums have battered through that hermetically sealed, parallel universe where I smoke acres of trees at the Kalakuta Republic circa 1975 while inventing a plethora of dance moves, including the Roger Rabbit, the Cabbage Patch and the Wop.
One of the rare exceptions has been Karl Hector and the Malcouns’ Sahara Swing, released earlier this month on Stones Throw subsidiary, Now-Again Records. Information about Hector is scarce, with his only previous recording experience being one 7-inch that he recorded a dozen years ago as the leader of an ostensibly aviation-themed outfit called the Funk Pilots. But his influences are clear: Fela’s slick, seraphic swing and James Brown’s filthy pigpen funk.
Other cited inspirations include Mulatu Astatke of Ethiopia,Jean-Claude Vannier and Can, the latter being particularly prominent, no doubt partially because of Hector’s Krautrock-weaned German backing band. It’s no Expensive Shit, not even close, but it’s a fun, graceful ride, with both crisp jazzy jams and disco-inflected dance grooves. In fact, here’s a video of me moving to it. Yes, in case you were wondering, the sport coat is C&R.
Buy Karl Hector + The Malcouns-Sahara Swing
Download:
MP3: Karl Hector + The Malcouns-”Nyx”
MP3: Karl Hector + The Malhouns-”Rush Hour”
Posted in Are You From the Lester Bangs School of Thought? | 3 Comments »
July 18th, 2008
Is where I’ll be until Monday. Goals for the trip: eat a deep dish pizza, drink myself into a Sparks-induced stupor, critique a free Chipotle Burritos for lacking flavor variance and sonic originality. Out of these three, I will probably only eat a deep dish pizza. However, I expect it to be delicious. Expect updates, blog posts and various digital merriment through the weekend, provided I don’t get sidetracked by Chris Martin asking me if I think about him now and then while trying to remind me of memories of watching fireworks over Lake Michigan.
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July 16th, 2008
I am under the impression that there is no such thing as the wrong morning to listen to “Monday Morning in Lagos. ”
MP3: Fela Kuti-”Monday Morning In Lagos” (Left-Click)
Posted in Are You From the Lester Bangs School of Thought? | 2 Comments »
July 14th, 2008
Ginsu’ing a sample from The Parson Redheads’ “Full Moon,” Zilla Rocca enlists Philly underground kingpin Reef The Lost Cauze and fellow Clean Gun, Nico the Beast, to create the sort of posse cut that explains why Beat Garden and the entire Philly scene deserve more press than the dozen or so music blogs that continually champion them. All three rappers deliver impressively but Nico might steal the show by declaring “I’ll stomp your face like the Power Pad,” therein making him the front-runner for the annual MF Doom Award for Great Punchlines That Somehow No One Thought of Before. I’m posting The Parson Redheads’ source sample below, if you don’t have it by now you should.
Also, since I’m on the topic, this Clap Cowards post on the Wayne-A-Tron 8000 deserved to blow up more than it did. That is all.
Download:
MP3: Zilla Rocca ft. Reef The Lost Cauze & Nico the Beast-”Get That Gun”
MP3: The Parson Redheads-”Full Moon”
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July 8th, 2008
Per Idolator. I apologize for the inaction around these parts. Things will get back to normal soon. In the meantime, if you’re bored write your own lists in the comments. The Wikipedia album list and Robert Christgau’s website should help you in the quest. And if you’re looking for any meaning from this post, it’s quite clear. I really really like the Smiths and Dunkin’ Donuts coffee.
1981-David Byrne/Brian Eno-My Life in the Bush Of Ghosts
1982-Michael Jackson-Thriller
1983-Talking Heads-Speaking in Tongues
1984-The Smiths-The Smiths
1985-The Smiths-Meat is Murder
1986-The Smiths-The Queen is Dead
1987-Eric B & Rakim-Paid in Full
1988-Slick Rick-The Great Adventures of Slick Rick
1989-The Beastie Boys-Paul’s Boutique
1990-Digital Underground-Sex Packets
1991-A Tribe Called Quest-Low End Theory
1992-Dr. Dre-The Chronic
1993-Wu-Tang-Enter the 36 Chambers
1994-Notorious BIG-Ready to Die
1995-Genius/Gza-Liquid Swords
1996-Outkast-Atliens
1997-Notorious BiG-Life After Death
1998-Outkast-Aquemini
1999-Sigur Ros-Ágætis byrjun
2000-Ghostface Killah-Supreme Clientele
2001-Aesop Rock-Labor Days
2002-Wilco-Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
2003-The White Stripes-Elephant
2004-Arcade Fire-Funeral
2005-Three Way Tie (Dungen-Ta Det Lungt/The Hold Steady-Separation Sunday/My Morning Jacket-Z)
2006-Sunset Rubdown-Shut Up I Am Dreaming
2007-El-P I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead
Posted in Are You From the Lester Bangs School of Thought? | 13 Comments »
June 30th, 2008
Blame it on an ever-lasting romance with the concept of the hover board,* but since childhood, I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of being out of one’s time. Hoverboards or horse shoes were fine by me, just not the present. Hell, during one one parched spell between the fall of 2003 and the spring of 2006, I decided to half-pretend that it was the year 1966. Though this may have had to do with Mike Jones, Paris Hilton and Dubya at the zenith of his “I’ve Earned Political Capital” unctuousness. Sure, I may have gotten strange glances from people who’d never seen paisley on a man, but damn it, it was worth it.**
Below-the-radar of many, Daptone Records has spent the better part of this decade releasing distinctly anachronistic and summarily excellent records. While Sharon Jones and The Budos Band are the popular faces of the Brooklyn-based funk and soul label, this recent collection of their 7″ singles proves its Isaac Hayes-sized stash of talent, with cuts from The Mighty Imperials, Lee Fields and Charles Bradley able to hold their own with nearly anything from this time or any other. I’m sure critics could find a way to nit-pick on some “lacks-innovation” bogus babble, but they’re wrong. This is pretty much perfect music. Pure classic funk and sad soul that sounds excavated from a lost crate last seen in 1972.
When I finally get around to making my Top 10, this will be on it. Directly below the records from Pissed Jeans and Fuck Buttons. Apparently being “with the times” requires you to give your band, the world’s dumbest nickname. Holy Fuck!
*And really what exactly about the prospect of a hover board should one not be enthused about? I mean, it’s a flying skateboard, one that allows you to escape from villainous pursuers named Griff who may or may not be calling you a “bojo.”
**For those wondering what I looked like during that tie-died period, here are some photos.
Download:
MP3: Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings-”Just Dropped In To See What Condition My Condition Was In”
MP3: Lee Fields & The Sugerman 3-”Stand Up Part II”
Posted in Are You From the Lester Bangs School of Thought? | 5 Comments »
June 25th, 2008
O contraire, this isn’t just any stupid Diplo song, this is a re-working of A Tribe Called Quest’s “Electric Relaxation.” No Baile funk. No M.I.A. telling you she’s going to get your money and then re-distribute it to Third World Orphans Who Want to Learn to Dress Good and Do Other Stuff Good Too. Just a lift of Phife Dawg’s, “I like ‘em brown, yellow, Puerto Rican and Haitian” line, the sped-up and slick glide of Ronnie Forster’s “Mystic Brew,” and some fierce, clapping drums. It’s called “Brew Barrymore.” I know. That doesn’t change the fact that it deserves to be on every amateur DJ’s Fourth of July play-list.
MP3: Diplo-”Brew Barrymore”
MP3: A Tribe Called Quest-”Electric Relaxation”
MP3: Ronnie Forster-”Mystic Brew”
Posted in Are You From the Lester Bangs School of Thought? | 2 Comments »
June 20th, 2008
What’s better than one of my favorite songs of the year? A remix featuring one of my favorite rappers of all-time. The ideal way to start your weekend off right.
Download:
MP3: Erykah Badu ft. Pharoahe Monch-”The Healer Remix”
Posted in Are You From the Lester Bangs School of Thought? | 2 Comments »
June 20th, 2008
Odds are on any given day you can catch Nico the Beast rocking plain white tees. They’re his uniform of choice. Not because he’s trying to sell some D-boy image to get that Plies money.* but rather because they symbolize what Nico reps: a sort of basic no-frills, rock-ribbed fundamental rap. Or in sports terms, think him as the classic, blue-collar lunch-pail, PJ Brown-type, always hustling (no Rick Ross), willing to put his head down, take charges, board hard and lock-down scorers.
A few people sniped at Nico for dissing Lil Wayne on his “Dey Know” freestyle a few weeks back. I understood where the sentiment was coming from. It’s easy to label any attack on the rapper du jour as being sour grapes, considering the salvo came from an independent rapper very much on the grind. Yet the diss seemed logical to me, the natural polarization that exists between two opposites. Indeed, few people on earth are more diametrically opposed than Nico and Weezy, the former’s knuckle-nosed, blue-collar sobriety, the very antithesis of Wayne’s self-aggrandizing swagger and candy-colored flash. Unlike the man who boasted he’s so high that he’s eating stars, Nico’s a drug-eschewing, happily married father of two young daughters, a family man with an almost tribal sense of loyalty that he’s unafraid to flash on wax (”Sunshine,” “Loving You a Lifetime,” “Be A Man.”)
Ever the product of the South Philly streets that raised him (see Nerd Litter’s outstanding post on “Philly Codes”), Nico’s outlook and rhyme capabilities are very much the result of geography and the thousands of ciphers that find you when you’re a hulking white boy rapper with a hair-trigger temper. Retaining the asphalt and dirt rawness you’d expect from a snarling ex-street fighter nicknamed the Beast, No Beast So Fierce strikes a surprising moral balance without resorting to self-righteous stridency.
Why Yes, This Man Did Once Challenge The Spiderman on Hollywood Blvd. To A Fist-Fight
Even if for nothing else, Nico’s debut record would be a success based on his ability to evince a complex, compelling personality without opting for the easy confessional rout that so many other rappers have traveled in the past (hi Marshall.) But there’s more to like than mere three-dimensionality. On pure ability to spit raps, few young subterranean rhymers can in recent memory can match Nico’s ability to flow. A master of byzantine internal rhyming, breath-control and the skill to kick both double-timed burners over bounce tracks and blunt, hammering raps over woozy gospel-infused moans, Nico’s versatility makes him one of those quintessential “rapper’s rappers.”
Moreover, No Beast So Fierce makes a clear statement for the case that the Philly/Camden scene is turning into one of hip-hop’s most vital, with help arriving from impressive guest turns from Reef da Lost Cauze, 2ew Gunn Ciz, Magr and Nico’s partner in Clean Guns, Zilla Rocca. Of course, the record isn’t without it’s flaws. At a whopping 20 tracks and an hour and twenty minutes, like nearly all hip-hop albums it runs at least 20 minutes long, making it hard to get through in one sitting. **To Nico’s credit, the bloat stems more from the near-impossibility of sustaining attention over such a long stretch, rather than anything being an outright dud.
It’s unlikely that No Beast So Fierce will satisfy that subset of the blog-rap world that worship swag and style above skills, but both genre purists and anyone in thrall to that mid-90s school of hard rhymes spit over knocking beats will undoubtedly find something to like. In the liner notes, Nico thanks his favorite rappers, Brother Ali, Joe Budden and Joell Ortiz and with his impressive debut, No Beast So Fierce, he’s established himself as being a worthy inheritor of that lineage. Or at the very least, an RA the Rugged Man or Vinnie Paz for this generation. Consider it a triumph of the power of plain white tee (no American Apparel).
*As long as the South is the only region that y’know, buys rap CDs, it will stay winning. Sort of. At the very least, it ensures that majors will always push crap like 2 Pistols over that Knux album that Interscope will probably never release.
** Rappers, I know there have to be at least a few of you reading this. Unless your name is Big Pun, stick to 14 tracks running no more than one hour. Or do we have to bring up the played-out reminder that Illmatic was about a half-hour long.
Buy No Beast So Fierce
Download:
MP3: Nico the Beast-”Mark of the Beast”
MP3: Nico the Beast ft. Reef Da Lost Cauze, Zilla Rocca, 2Ew Gun Ciz & Blessa -”Feedin’ Time”
MP3: Nico the Beast ft. Dame, Black Russian, Zilla Rocca, Blessa, Slim-DSM-”One of These Days”
Posted in Are You From the Lester Bangs School of Thought? | 10 Comments »
June 19th, 2008
Photo Via American Songwriter
Lamentably, I didn’t make it out to this year’s Bonnaroo, but thanks to some enterprising hippies, I’ve wrangled a bootleg of My Morning Jacket’s marathon four-hour set that was reportedly played in the midst of a torrential downpour. I haven’t had the chance to listen to it in its entirety but the sound quality isn’t bad, even if Jim’s voice sounds a bit strained. Naturally, there are covers galore (galore, I tell you), including cuts from Sly & the Family Stone, Erykah Badu, James Brown, Funkadelic, Kool & the Gang, Bobby Womack, the Velvet Underground and uh…Motley Crue. I’m presuming this is as a thanks to Tommy Lee for writing “Highly Suspicious.”
Setlist after the jump (jacked courtesy of the fine people at Hidden Track)
Download:
ZIP: My Morning Jacket-”Bonnaroo 2008, 6-13-08) (Left-Click)
Read the rest of this entry »
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