February 8th, 2010
Alternate titles for this article included: Lo-Fi: How Well Does it Match Your Denim Jacket? The Gorilla Vs. Bear Guide To Los Angeles, and Douglas Martin’s Skit Plans for the next 5′ 0 Clock Shadowboxers album. For those of you averse to ink stains, Sunday’s LA Times included a feature on Dum Dum Girls, Best Coast, Nite Jewel, and Pearl Harbor. My crack team of Thesaurus-armed Caracals contributed the words that filled up the space between the Macy’s ads. This space has been conspicuously absent of coverage of these bands, mainly because Chris GVB continually beats me to the punch and it’s no fun to nod your head and hum the chorus to “Mr. Me Too.” Well, unless pyrex stirs turn to Cavalli furs.
However, these bands make good music and what they lack in fidelity, they make up for in personality. If I wasn’t too lazy to transcribe the hours of interview transcripts, I could keep the Internet intrigued for days with discussions of esoteric drugs, abstruse philosophers, and an in-depth analysis of “The Situation.” Instead, I will write a nebulous comment alluding to allegedly “deep” conversations, post some MP3’s, and go to my basketball game. But before I do — and while I’m on the topic of always on-point blogs — allow me to point your direction towards Aquarium Drunkard, who just posted an excellent garage-psych-rock mixtape compiled by Raven Sings The Blues. OK, you get it.
Tunes below the jump.
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Posted in Pearl Harbor, Dum Dum Girls, Best Coast, Nite Jewel, LA Times | 2 Comments »
January 27th, 2010
Clearly, Harry Belafonte has seen better days, judging by the Fester-like countenance the Day-O don sports with ex-Aftermath refugee, Bishop Lamont. But a half-century ago, when he ran the Catskill Resort circuit, Belafonte wooed my grandmother, who was reportedly once quite “a dish.” The story goes that the efforts were unsuccessful — thanks to my great-grandfather — who was having none of his youngest daughter running off with an unsavory entertainer. However, in spite of this, the Calypso king reportedly bestowed her with a massive fruit basket and a note divulging his hotel particulars. There are so many puns that I want to make invoking the lyrics to “Day-O,” but I will exercise restraint — for once.
But this post is not about Harry Belafonte, it is about Bishop Lamont, who I interviewed for the Times about leaving Aftermath, his plans for the future, and why labels sign West Coast rappers and give them less playing time than El-P Brian Scalabrine. Should you run into me in a bar anytime over the next year , I might be willing to paraphrase the unexpurgated transcript if you’re buying. Suffice to say, I do not expect Detox in stores anytime soon. I do expect to see more music from Bishop, who really is one of the rap game’s good guys: generous, witty, and exceptionally gifted. Like Rakim, Rae, Joell, and all the rest, he did not deserve Aftermath excommunication, but I’m excited to see what he’ll do next. For those unfamiliar with the head of the Diocese, the mixtapes below should provide an ample introduction. Church.
MP3: Bishop Lamont & Indef - “Money On My Head”
ZIP: Bishop Lamont & Indef - Team America: Fuck Yeah
ZIP: Bishop Lamont & Black Milk - Caltroit
ZIP: Bishop Lamont - Nigger Noize
ZIP: Bishop Lamont - The Confessional
Posted in Bishop Lamont, LA Times | 2 Comments »
December 4th, 2009
Few things are sadder than the territorial tendencies of those that brag that they blogged about an artist first. Not only does no one care, it’s not like you wrote the lyrics, the melody, or had even the remotest role in a song’s conception. You just discovered a Zshare link. Besides, it’s antithetical to the nature of criticism, which ostensibly would be about building on each other’s ideas not building up your own transparently insecure ego. That said, I totally wrote about the Local Natives first. Sort of.
Actually the NME contacted me in May to write a story about the rising Silverlake quartet, who were about to go on their first English tour. Because the piece was print-only, I never linked to it on the Passion and thus deprived the folk-pop outfit of the overwhelming deluge of attention that would’ve inevitably ensued (groupies, tours, offers of free penguins). Luckily, good music won out yet again and over the last six months, the band became blog bonus babies and and delivered one of the best Monday night Spaceland residencies of the year.
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Posted in Local Natives, LA Times | 5 Comments »
November 9th, 2009
Parts of this interview originally appeared in my Pop and Hiss article on Wale. More on Attention Deficit tomorrow, maybe.
So judging from the title of Attention Deficit, its wide-ranging sound, and interviews that you’ve given, it seems like it’s your commentary on the fragmented nature of the Internet world, with a million blogs, twitters, and dozens of mixtapes released daily, How hard is it for an artist to create something that has a life span longer than the next blog post?
I think a lot of the blogs are selfish, they don’t really care. There might be five or six really legit hip-hop blogs, your Rap Radars, your Nah Rights, your 2 Dope Boyz, and others, but some that are very minuscule, if you don’t give them what they want, they’re going to shit on you. I think that their visitors aren’t even 1/1000th of another blog that you’ve already done an interview for and they want one to do one with them too.
Q-Tip one time told me that 15 years ago, all people had to judge you on was your album, one or two interviews, your record for the radio and picture on the album cover. That’s it. The only way you can remain relevant is to give yourself up, unless you’re blessed every once in a while there’s a Drake situation, but that’s not even once in a while, that’s a once thing.
But that’s pretty much a different stuation unto itself. A lot of people watched Degrassi, a lot of girls watched Degrassi.
And now they’re more mature and can hear words like fuck and shit. Look, I’m happy for what happened to dude. But the game is just completely impossible now. You have to give yourself up. That’s why I’m so frequently on Twitter, it’s because I don’t have a big record out right now. I don’t have a lot of things to explain and prepare people for the person they’re about to listen to.
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Posted in Wale, Interviews, LA Times | 21 Comments »
November 3rd, 2009
Neither a 650-word review for a general interest publication, nor a discursive blog post making stale jokes about hippies can adequately describe my Festival 8 weekend. Suffice to say, my neurons currently share the consistency of fried squid and I am subject to embarrassing revelations about my newfound ardor for Phish. It’s the sort of thing that needs a minimum 10-page essay, a video accompaniment, and a haiku about Hacksaw Jim Duggan (see above), who never broke character while wearing his costume all weekend long. At 4 a.m. on Saturday night, he could still be found wandering around the parking lot screaming “Hooooo.”
Posting may be a bit light over the next few days as I struggle to re-acclimate to Los Angeles, daylight savings, a slew of looming deadlines, and the ramifications of last weekend. As a man named Ox once said, “everything’s the same, but different.”My review for the Times is up now. At some point, I imagine I will write about it in more depth–but in brief, Phish pulled it off, which is just about the highest praise I can give to a band with the hubris to book the Empire Polo Club for a weekend without any openers or ancillary live entertainment. Below, Phish’s two best songs for people who don’t like Phish. Don’t question my sanity, regardless of how much fun I had this weekend, I still think “Gotta Jibboo” remains the most insipid song ever recorded.
Download:
MP3: Phish-”Bouncing Round the Room (6/7/09)
MP3: Phish-”Fee” (Live Phish 19)
Posted in Phish, LA Times | 3 Comments »
October 6th, 2009
Considering that Breakestra’s last album was released in that antediluvian pre-Winehouse era known as 2005, people listening to From Dusk Till Dawn might wrongly peg them as carpet-bagging members of the Mark Ronson fan club (comes with free fedora-shaped Mezuzah and a CD-R mix of Le Tigre’s greatest hits via Samantha). After all, retro-soul has become as ubiquitous as rappers in skinny jeans and scarves. But Breakestra were at the forefront of the trend, mining Meters and J.B.’s breaks for inspiration long before they cut one of the first Stones Throw releases in 1999. My interview with Music Man Miles Tackett is up at the Times blog, discussing their excellent new record out on Strut, the memory of DJ Dusk (no, the title isn’t a dedication to the Sex Machine), and his all-time favorite breaks.
If you’re in LA, their show tonight at the El Rey comes highly recommended if you’re into both kinds of music: rhythm and blues.
Amazon: Breakestra-From Dusk Till Dawn
Download:
MP3: Breakestra-”Need a Little Love”
MP3: Breakestra-”Lowdown Stank”
Posted in LA Times | 5 Comments »
September 24th, 2009
The intent was to transcribe and post the entirety of my Q&A with BBC Radio One DJ, Mary Anne Hobbs. Unfortunately, it’s 1:00 a.m, I’m exhausted and as much as I like you guys, I enjoy sleep that much more. So, a link to my Times piece, the promise that I’ll do it sooner than later, and a few MP3’s from her debut compilation, Warrior Dubz.
Download:
MP3: Burial-”Versus”
MP3: Benga-”Music Box”
Posted in LA Times | No Comments »
September 17th, 2009
Under no circumstances should Skinny Jeans and a Mic be better than Kid Cudi’s Man on the Moon. After all, Cudi has the co-signs (Kanye, Common, the uh, Black Eyed Peas) the would-be indie icons brought in for Aoki-crowd mustache cred (MGMT, Crookers, Ratatat) and the back-story: at age 11 loses father to cancer, makes the Bright Lights, Big City trek to New York, gets a job at the Bape store selling hoodies the color of skinned angel fish, etc. The New Boyz had one classic single, guest spots from a third-tier Young Money yokel and Brandy’s sex-tape making brother, and less than a month to record a quick cash-in album.
Somehow, things got mixed up faster than you can say Billy Ray Valentine. While Cudi decided to sink his putatively huge recording budget into warbling off-key experimental electronic ephemera, The New Boyz had neither time to contemplate nor the self-awareness to even attempt something that ambitious. Sometimes, the tinkering in the lab approach can yield you a Loveless or a Revolver and other times, it finds a young artist running up against the predictable pitfalls: pretentiousness, over-thinking, letting Lady Gaga infect their album. It’s unwise to bet against Cudi–he has the substantial fanbase in place to ensure that he’ll continue to receive label backing, his gestures towards the avant-garde seem sincere (even if he doesn’t really seem sure what the term means), and there are moments on Man On the Moon that justify the outlandish expectations placed upon him.
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Posted in Jerkin, LA Times | 6 Comments »
September 16th, 2009
A link to my review at Pop and Hiss. No more Cuban Linx talk until year-end list time. More content coming later today.
And while we’re on topic…
Download:
MP3: Raekwon-”Can’t Hide It” (Left-Click)
MP3: Raekwon ft. Ghostface-”Criminology’09″
Posted in LA Times | 3 Comments »
September 15th, 2009
On the Nile. Great cover or greatest cover? Granted, my review of Old School Fest at the Greek should only appeal to the scant but savvy readership who may or may not have sported a buoffant during the mid-80s. I myself once used Murray’s pomade for a two year-stretch, but I don’t think that counts. Mainly, I am using this post as the context to post these songs, which I’m sure the majority of you have, but some of you might not. Were I not to post them, it would be worse than drinking Jobu’s rum. It would be very bad.
Download:
MP3: Egyptian Lover-”Egypt Egypt”
MP3: Afrika Bambaataa & Soulsonic Force-”Planet Rock”
MP3: Kraftwerk-”Trans-Europe Express”
MP3: Grandmaster Flash & The Furious 5-”White Lines (”Don’t Do It)”
MP3: Liquid Liquid-”Cavern”
MP3: Kurtis Blow-”The Breaks” (Left-Click)
Posted in Egyptian Lover, Old School, LA Times | No Comments »
