May 2nd, 2008
Lost somewhere in the shuffle of the 43,214 stories on the potential impact of Obama’s ex-pastor’s crack-pot comments*, was the news that Albert Hoffmann, the founder of LSD, died this week at the ripe old age of 102. Along with completely dis-proving everything you ever learned in D.A.R.E class and befriending Aldous Huxley, Allen Ginsberg and Timothy Leary, Hofmann also invented methergine, a drug for postpartum hemorrhaging, the leading cause of death from childbirth. Understandably, he’s more remembered for his other invention, the one that allowed hundreds of thousands of people to expand their minds, and hundreds of thousands more to roll their eyes. The New York Times obit on Hofmann is fascinating and recommended reading. In the meantime, this muxtape goes out to the memory of the father of LSD, with songs selected that wouldn’t have been possible had Hoffman not accidentally ingested some ergot fungus on a fateful day in April 1934. Ergo.
Passion of the Weiss Muxtape #2: A Tribute to Albert Hofmann-”Pour Out A Little Lysergic”
* Question to ponder: Do you think at any point in the past week, Obama turned to Michelle and said, “Damnit, why did Rev. Wright have to become such a little bitch?”
Tracklisting After the Jump
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May 1st, 2008
Not sure whether this is the jump-off for a new album or just a stand-alone single, but either way Pharoahe’s new Mr. Porter-produced joint has been on repeat since it leaked a few hours ago. For my money’s worth, Monchichi does the love-lorn break-up thing as well as anyone in hip-hop, navigating the complex emotions of jealousy, anger and regret in just over three minutes and still finding time to call his ex-girl’s new man a bitch. That said, this is what you get for dating a girl who rocks 2Pac posters on her walls.
Download:
MP3: Pharoahe Monch-”Broken Heart”
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May 1st, 2008
It happened again. The dancing thing. I’m not quite sure how and I’m not sure why. I know we talked about this the other day but I’m not ready to move on until we get to the bottom of it. Because this whole thing is getting embarrassing. Seeing Hot Chip two times in three days and grooving (yes, grooving) at both of them? What’s next, traveling to Berlin to snort Molly off a chick named Molly? Dressing in all-black, slicking my hair to the right and listening to only Neu! records? Actually learning the meaning of the phrase “deep German House?”* The ramifications are endless and ghoulish.
The thing is, I actually do dance, it just takes a lot, and when I do, it’s invariably to music made by black people. You know that Chappelle skit where Dave brings John Mayer and his electric gee-tar around the barber shop and everyone starts heckling him. That’s me. Sure, part of it’s because John Mayer really fucking sucks, but really, put on some hard drums in broad daylight when I’m totally sober and I’ll suddenly find myself swaying uncontrollably, beat-boxing and asking ?uestlove to borrow his afro pick. **
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April 30th, 2008
This came on the iPod today. Great song. Among other things it brought up three questions.
1. Was the Rza’s Gravediggaz phase the most unintentionally funny alter ego of the 90s?
2. Shaquille O’ Neal circa ‘94. A better rapper than Young Jeezy?
3. In terms of sheer ability to spit 16 bars, was anyone smoother/better than Method Man 93-94?
Game on.
Download:
MP3: Shaquille O’ Neal ft. Method Man & Rza- “No Hook”
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April 30th, 2008
Zilla Rocca’s chief problem isn’t too much rapping, but rather too little stunting like his daddy.
As someone who loves, loves, LOVES lyrics and rappin’ and bars and spittage and darts and verbal dexterity, it occurred to me the other day that rappers today rap way too much. I have a few theories as to why this happened: shorter attention spans, an oversaturated market, cheap recording equipment, MySpace, an endless supply of “producers,” exploitation of mixtapes, Lil’ Wayne, etc.
It seems as though now, most rappers pride themselves on that ability to have recorded 150 songs for an album that will “only” carry 22 songs, 16 of which will blow cow choad. This works great if you’re a member of the Wu-Tang Clan—I think GZA only spit on 7 joints for the entire double album “Wu-Tang Forever.” But for someone like Young Jeezy, to pen a full forty-eight bars over a 100 times in 3 months, well it’s safe to assume he won’t be unleashing anything close to “Verbal Intercourse” soon.
Here’s the biggest problem: most prolific rappers aren’t that interesting. They don’t take many chances. They don’t dabble outside of the same 6 concepts often. They don’t comment enough on the world around them outside of a few lines randomly addressing Obama, the Jena 6, Sean Bell, shitty public schools, etc. To quote Brother Ali, “There’s 8 million ways to wrap words around beats, and 6 millions rappers be using the same three.”
But what happens if you don’t rap ENOUGH? Well, you end up making “True Magic” or whatever the name of the new Mic Geronimo album is. It’s a delicate balance.
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April 29th, 2008
By the third day, we were knocked out, loaded. Hungover, weary, wandering the festival grounds like lethargic lemmings, queuing in lines off instinct, jostled, aggravated and in no mood for the weird Aramaic gibberish spouted by the kid seeing God underneath the Tesla Coil. Three days of this is too much to handle, unless you’re either steadily downing a diet of amphetamines, booze and hash; 16 years old, and/or Keith Richards at 16 years old.
To make matters worse, Sunday’s lineup had no chance in hell of topping Saturday’s Prince/Portishead extravaganza and everyone knew it. Scalpers couldn’t give tickets away and out of the five years I’ve been to Coachella, I’ve never seen fewer people on the field. It actually would’ve been nice, had my brain not felt it was composed out of hardened tapioca pudding and squelched grape fruit. The performance enhancing drugs, the miles of walking, and the dry desert heat have a way of sapping any and all energy you may have left after two days. Yeah, seeing Chromeo and Justice would’ve been nice, but the P.C.E. * levels would’ve been far too high. The followers of Vigo the Carpathian, scourge of Moldavia, were still out in masse, tucked away from the scrum, creeping their way through the VIP section. Even Carmen Electra was there and something told me that she and her ilk weren’t staying late to see Roger Waters.
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April 27th, 2008
I ran into a guy I knew from high school standing in line for the restrooms in the VIP area. I hadn’t seen him in a decade but was about four glasses of $7 wine deep and feeling good. No reason not to be friendly, after all, I no longer harbored a grudge from that time in the 11th grade when he tried to tell me that Magoo was a great rapper, a moment in which I knew that our friendship was well on its way to being up-jumps-the boogied.
“Hey Vargas,” I greeted him. (Names have been changed to protect the insolent)
“Hey Weiss,” he responded with a dazed, bovine look on his face. “I’m so wasted.”
“Cisco?”
“No. I didn’t see him here. But I think I just saw Mischa Barton and I definitely saw Paris Hilton.” he said,
“I meant…never mind…so have you seen anyone good today?”
“No, just some friends. We went to the Spin party, it was awesome.”
“I mean like bands. Have you seen any good music.”
“Ha…” he chucked drunkenly, leaning in towards me and spewing hot boozy breath all over me. “I don’t know anyone who’s playing. But they sound good from here!
“You can’t hear anything from here.”
He ignored the question.
“This place is an awesome party! Have you ever seen this many hot chicks?”
“Once, in an incubator.”
“You’ve still got the same sense of humor, huh Weiss?” he slapped himself on the forehead, doing my work for him.
“It’s not me, it’s the drugs,” I smirked and walked off, bobbing and weaving my way past the “hot chicks” re-intepreting Rihanna’s “Umbrella,” as “Coach-ella-ella-ella.” Needless to say, if one were ever to start recruiting a Fourth Reich, he would be wise to begin conscripting the thousands of ding-bats lurking past the velvet rope, er chain link fence.
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April 26th, 2008
I hate lines. They’re somewhere in the lower rungs of my own personal inferno along with club kids in fedoras, the Los Angeles Dodgers and the abstract concept of valet parking. Unfortunately, entering Coachella brings me into contact with three of those four food groups as quite often, while waiting in the Bataan Death march-like line to get in, you wind up next to a car full of trust-funders in fedoras maligning the Andruw Jones acquisition (seriously, you give the guy $40 million and he shows up to camp looking like Pop-N-Fresh?). It’s times like this, I like to play a game creatively entitled, “What Band Are They Hear to See.” As for the fedora fedayeen, I’d bet even money they were there to see Diplo. Or maybe Spank Rock. The guy strutting to the right of our car wearing a scarf in 100 degree weather? Vampire Weekend. The shirtless frat brahs tossing around a football? Jack Johnson. The girls to the left of us who wrote “Licking Windows all the Way to Coachella,” on the exterior of their Toyota Carolla. Slightly Stoopid. No questions asked.
But the lines. Good lord the lines. Two hours trying to leave, one trying to enter. An interminable snarl of scalpers hawking tickets and t-shirts, hazy beat-up brown dust, beads of sweat slipping slowly down your spine, dull heat-stroke headache, Lawrence of Arabia thirst, and that gnashed teeth silence where you ruminate on the simple fact that after nearly a decade of doing this, no one has been able to figure out how to get cars in and out of the Empire Polo Grounds faster than than 250 feet per hour. And all this while the palm trees tauntingly sway in the breeze, laughing, calmly, coolly, reminding you of all the wonderful things waiting to be seen. That is if you ever get in–chump.
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April 25th, 2008
Scott Towler once received six weeks in jail for kicking Tucker Carlson in the groin. Politics as usual.
Hillary won Pennsylvania! Did you hear? Do you care? Yeah, me neither. But with all the recent hub-bub about who’ll be our next president, it’s getting harder and harder to ignore. What’s next for this great nation? Personally, I think it’s time to think outside the box. Get a new face in the political realm. Hire someone with half a brain, instead of just a quarter. But there’s a lot more to think about than just that: where the world will be in 10, 15, 25 years; what will become of America’s youth; who will win the space race; just how long will this steroid problem go on; and finally, just how old should our president be?
OK, granted, he isn’t American, which completely rules him out of ever being president. And you’re right, he’s older than the universe itself. Some even contend that it was his cosmic dust that made the planets. Richards will tell you otherwise. But as I started to think about who I wanted to run this mucky-muck of a crap factory, it became very obvious: someone who’s invincible. Kieth Richards can’t die. He’s tried. He’s also outlived his mother and his father at this point, who, rest their souls, never touched any needle drugs or peyote. Still not convinced, eh? How bout the fact that he was alive during the Revolutionary War? He practically begged the colonies to succeed. He’s the father of this country for Christ sakes!
OK, I flipped out back there. Perhaps someone that old isn’t competent enough to run the country. Perhaps adult sized diapers should never set foot into the oval office (I’ll spare you the incontinent Cheney-with-a-shotgun jokes). But there is something to be said for a person who can affect the minds of millions of Americans. And what better way to build better citizens of tomorrow than starting them off at an early age. That’s why The Wiggles seemed like a natural choice. I firmly believe that the two best forms of birth control are A) flying on a plane with a baby, and B) going to the grocery store. Have you ever seen how unhappy those parents are? And just how mad does it make you when the kid starts screaming and the parents do nothing about it? Well, somehow, The Wiggles have written songs that put children in a trance, causing them to shut the fuck up, do their homework, and eat their vegetables. If that’s not role model behavior, I don’t know what is.
Of course, the only issue with The Wiggles is that they could create a people’s army of children. Nobody wants that. Plus, there’s four Wiggles, but room for only one president. Socialism just isn’t ready for this country. Because of that, I think it’s important we elect someone both powerful and important. Kind of like Barry Bonds. Think about it…Bonds is guilty as sin, right? But he’s the only one who has yet to face charges for blatantly breaking the rules and ruining baseball. Call him the O.J. of non-violent crime, cause he’s got the system figured out. My only issue stems from the fact that he could one day go on a roid rage, killing everyone in his path. Our country needs someone more balanced than that. Or smaller! A miniture Barry Bonds would ensure that we were taken seriously while preventing us from ever going off the handle. Plus you could put him in your carry-on bag.
The only other potential issue that will arise in the coming decades is how we’ll conquer space. While the space race of the 60s left much to be desired, the race of tomorrow will end with the colonization of Mars, the continual search for alternative fuels and the eventual discovery of life beyond ours. Who better to pioneer this front than Meteor Man? In an effort to gain a legitimate nomination, most of his friends already call him the ‘Barack Obama of space.’ Personally, I think the ‘Lewis and Clark’ of space might be more appropriate, or perhaps the ‘black-manifest-destiny-2010,’ but either way, he’s hot on the heels of the competition (that being Richard Branson and Laika (the first dog in space)). With the growing importance of preserving our planet, and the fact that we all already know hope is lost, this issue will percolate to the top of the political scene before any of us stop voting.
So as the election draws nearer, take some time and really think about who you’d want running this country. Whether it be a white woman, a black man, or an old person, one thing is clear: it won’t be a robot. Scott Towler, live from Washington D.C. reporting.
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April 24th, 2008
The “gay rapper” is the rap version of the Bigfoot myth. Unsubstantiated rumors and innuendo have flown around the hip-hop community since the first time Kurtis Blow decided to pose half-naked on an album cover (well, that and the fact that his name was Kurtis Blow.) But the mill really started churning when the Source did their infamous Gay rapper expose in the 90s and has continued in full force ever since, with nary a single rapper ever actually coming out of the closet.
Now, according to this story in Gawker, they’ll be outed whether they like it or not, via a tell-all confessional from a former MTV executive named Terrance Dean, who allegedly will reveal that “homosexuality is a reality at nearly every level of Hip-Hop, [a genre with] a prominent gay sub-culture…a world that industry insiders are keenly aware of, but choose to ignore.” Like Ja Rule.
Whether the book is true or not, next month should prove very interesting. I’m willing to bet that at this very moment, there are a whole lot of rappers on the phone with their “Kosher” lawyers, preparing a mess of lawsuits and furious denunciations of Terrance Dean. Who they are, we’ll just have to wait and see. But based on rumors and speculation bandied about over the past decade, I’ve compiled a totally unscientific short-list to who might be named. I have absolutely no idea whether or not any of these rappers are gay, nor is there anything wrong with it if they are. If by chance you find something deeply offensive, may I recommend getting a sense of humor. Hopefully, one better than my own.
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