August 14th, 2008
Still waylaid by this mysterious illness, going on five days and counting. Not fishing for sympathy but it’s been a rather nasty combination of fatigue, aches, pains and weird red welts all over my legs (No Hives). My infinitely apathetic doctor couldn’t tell me much more than “you have a virus,” get some rest, drink some chicken soup, watch the rest of your Simpsons Season 9 on DVD.” Needless to say, last night the Beer Baron saved the day. Up yours Rex Banner.
My other primary diversions have been the haunted and hypnotic alchemy of Light in August and pre-WWII Delta hell-hound blues. The sort of stuff that reminds you as bad as it gets, it’s still pretty good. After all, I could be blogging under the stage name, Blind Jeffrey Weiss, an alias originally slated to be my pen name, but unfortunately previously taken by a popular Israeli Ophthalmological blogger. I’m no expert on the Blues but I know a little and hopefully you’ll enjoy the mix. It sounds right to me in the middle of this fierce August haze.
Passion of the Weiss Muxtape #9- The I’ve Either Got Mono Or I’m Just Really Bored Blues
Tracklisting After the Jump
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May 30th, 2008
I won’t deny it. Things started spiraling rapidly downhill the moment I started compiling mixtapes of my favorite non-hip hop songs released this year. Vampire Weekend? Santogold? Hercules & The Love Affair? I kind of wanted to kick my own ass or at the very least give myself a wedgie. Of course, music is music and it’s stupid to let one’s natural “hater” inclinations stop them from enjoying something good, regardless of how stupid their haircuts and/or facial hair are (save for arguably Man Man). Still, there’s something deeply troubling in my nagging suspicion that these muxtapes were compiled by someone in a Fruity Loops hoodie, a pair of $2 neon green sunglasses and a mustache lustrous enough to be the toast of Echo Park.
So snipe away in the comments section if you will. You can even call me that increasingly meaningless* perjorative, “hipster.” All I can really say in my anti-hipster defense is that I still eat hamburgers at In-N-Out, can dunk a basketball and am hitting .368 with a .680 slugging percentage in my Saturday hardball Baseball league (Go Buzz). Now if you’ll excuse me it’s time to put on a headband and cut my hair in fashionable yet unflattering manner. Good day.
* The word “hipster,” of course, only being meaningless when used to potentially describe me.
Passion of the Weiss Muxtape #5: The Best “Indie” Songs To Get An Asymmetrical Haircut To (Part 1)
Passion of the Weiss Muxtape #6: The Best Indie Songs To Get An Asymmetrical To (Part 2)
(Track listing After the Jump)
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May 16th, 2008
In case you missed it, Sach O of Oh Word touched down briefly last week, taking a break from trying to find Manuel Noriega in the Philippines (He has a mansion?) to bless the blogosphere with one of his hilariously entertaining rants. If you’re too lazy to click over, the gist revolves around the assertion that Portishead and Erykah Badu have pretty much bodied all hip-hop made in 2008. Dart Adams of Poisonous Paragraphs fired back in the comments section with his claim that there have been 50 worthwhile rap records released this year and then wrote this post where he pointed out that “hip hop is far from dead, but the way we used to hear it and become exposed to it may be dead forever. If you’re not scouring the internet or the bloggerverse for that new shit then chances are you have no idea what (if any) new Hip Hop albums dropped last Tuesday.”
Personally, I’m somewhere between the two. Yeah, Badu and Portishead dropped two monster records this year that pretty much sonned nearly every hip-hop full-length. But Bun B, El-P, EMC, Elzhi, Metaform, Why? and The Kidz In the Hall have all made albums that I would’ve happily purchased had the Internet not turned the music world into a cheap all-you-can-eat buffet. Moreover, the year has produced a bonanza (yes, a bonanza) of great singles, many of which are on albums still forthcoming (in theory).
So if you’ve glossed over most of what I’ve posted this year in hopes of the rare chance that I’ll make fun of the Iron Sheik or something, the muxtapes are below. I purposely omitted songs that were on my first tape, so “Royal Flush” didn’t make it despite being easily one of the year’s best songs. Next time, I’ll do best non-hip hop stuff for the four of you into that sort of thing. In the meantime, peep the tapes below to find 24 of the finest rap songs made by rappers that contain rapping, sometimes in rhythm, occasionally on-beat, often high. In the words of William Mulholland, “There it is. Take it.”
The Passion of the Weiss Muxtape #3: The Best Hip-Hop Songs of the Year Part 1
The Passion of the Weiss Muxtape#4: The Best Hip-Hop Songs of the Year Part II
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April 16th, 2008
I’ve resisted the Muxtape meme that’s been spreading across the blogosphere over the past month, but when Goathair of the very excellent Blowtorch blog, asked me why I hadn’t made one to entertain him at work, I didn’t really have much of an answer other than mumbling a few asides about the site being lamely named. After laboring in a light-less laboratory for the last week, I now can unveil the first Passion of the Weiss muxtape. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll hear Ghost declare that “Tony went raw on plenty.” And yes, I even included a Lil Wayne song for the kiddies. Everyone wins. I’m hoping to make muxtapes a regular feature on the Passion, so please let me know what you think of this first hip-hop themed installment. It might not top the Catbird Seat’s tape, which clearly wins the Montgomery Burns Award for Excellence in the Field of Excellence, but hey, one can always try.
The Passion of the Weiss Muxtape
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