March 2009
22 posts
“J. beez comin’ thru”- Jungle...
Musical Directions and the paths we must take
That really stings Zeus. Like I said before aka’s been talking about this album/collaboration for months, and I had no idea what it woutld sound like, and to be honest I don’t exactly know what to say about Chris Cornell. I thought he was going more towards the path he seemed to be headed in with the Casino Royale theme which is awesome. They wouldn’t let me embed a the actual...
Check the Rhime - Tribe Called Quest
From St. James to Linden
Yes, it’s true that I live across the street from Biggie’s home. But I don’t live in his neighborhood. As you surely know, B.I.G. was Bed-Sty do or die, but so much has changed since he was the Mayor of St. James, like the name of the neighborhood. It’s now the much safer Clinton Hill (don’t worry, I still go to the Bed-Sty YMCA where I keep it GANGsta three days a...
Remembering BIG
Blue Eyes Meets Bed-Stuy
Can’t believe I almost forgot that it was 12 years ago that The Greatest Rapper Alive died on March 9. If you told me 12 years ago that those words would outlive the emcee who spoke them, I would’ve said, Yeah, sounds about right.
Whenever this day rolls around, I tend to go heavy on the Notorious and put this classic mashup album through the paces. (H/T...
Building on a Single Note
The good Doctor hits on an interesting phenomenon, this idea of music as a furnace. But I wonder if it works both ways? Often as the subject comes up between the people I know who grew up as we did—that is to say with seasons, or a winter more specifically—I have yet to meet someone borne of a comparatively more tropical clime wax on about listening to Björk in year’s early...
Ali Baba - John Holt
It Doesn't Make Sense Which Makes Sense
You had to go talking about Spring jams. Now I’m digging myself out of heaps of snow, cursing nor’easters and wondering when it will all end.
Oh well, in like a lion and out like a lamb. That’s how I live, son.
I’m a seasonal music listener. There are certain songs that will only be played on certain seasons. Certain tunes will only be played under certain weather...
February 2009
32 posts
The Road to El Dorado aka Spring Break Jams
Jaime Foxx - Blame It
I go where the party takes me indeed. And with Spring almost upon us it only makes since that I begin my annual cataloging of ‘Jams’. These set the tone for the party scene. The progression typically starts this month with the declaration of Spring Break Jam which then gives way to the Jam of the summer. There are no rules to who earns this title and it...
I Go Where the Party Takes Me
And now we’ve officially reached the point in this thread where I find myself at a momentary loss for words. (I mean, I suppose I could type some; they just wouldn’t be particularly well organized, is all. Example: Murray, curry. Can you do anything with that? Does that make any sense to anyone?)
Thankfully, in such times I’ve always been able to rely on my sense of humor...
You want to get Weird? Then let's get Weird.
This is where I lived, son. My early musical escapades were quests for the most insane and just plain NUTS forms of music I could find. It yielded few friends and drug concerns from my ‘rents, but you gain new respect for all musical genres when you take a trip out to the hinterlands.
A label out of Chicago was one of my earliest devotions. Skin Graft was a comic book publisher that also...
Melt Banana - Ketchup Mess
FUD aka UNicorns LA
My Barbarian - UNicorns LA
Loud, Fast, & Weird meet FUD; Fear, Uncertainty, & Doubt. It’s what stops us from becoming space cowboys, CPAs and avid fans of acid jazz. Normal people possess FUD when approached by something new. Artist, while still possesing these feelings, have subdued them. Artist collectives like My Barbarian can throw FUD out the window and create sometime...
Sparks - This Town Ain't Big Enough For the Both...
If we’re going loud and fast and quick and weird, I’ll throw this out.
All I’ve listened to, for the last three weeks, is Sparks. Non-stop, in the car, at home, in my head … Sparks, Sparks, Sparks. And I’d give you a line about how I would have become obsessed with them on a level like I’ve been obsessed before (as a kid, the Beatles; pre-teen, Queen;...
Keebler Soft Batch Cookies AKA Cottonelle Puppy...
Excuse me fellow chinese whisperers buy I believe we have gone soft. Triple-Ply with a dab of lotion soft. Curly’s vaseline gloved-hand soft (shout out to the homie Steinbeck). Smooth jazz soft. Now you would think that thoughts of Spring should turn one to such softness.
So what does spring mean to ya boy? It used to mean Bier de Mars before New Belgium went soft. It used to mean Freaknik...
Grazin for the Grown and Sexy
The Kid speaks the truth. As soon as I read the words “Friends of Distinction,” Grazin started playing in my mind before my eyes reached his tagline and my cursor the play button. Make no mistake—it is *the* definitive springtime anthem, the kinda jawn that’ll have me goin’ straight Disney a mutha: skipping through meadows, picking sunflowers, harmonizing with...
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