no girlz a loud
March 5th, 2010This video about the new LCD Sundsystem record is kind of ho-hum unless you totally geek out on seeing large racks of modular synths. Which I do.
Raaaaaaaandy and Dave Sitek: “AAAAAAAANGRY”
February 25th, 2010
This has good vibe. You don't hear parody rap all that often, and when you do it's usually awful. This is pretty great. Aziz Ansari…
I also like the way the beats kind of shift a little for certain rappers…the MF Doom bit is golden…cameo from RZA at the very end…
[audio: http://downloads.pitchforkmedia.com/Raaaaaaaandy%20-%20AAAAAAAANGRY.mp3][got it from pitchfork, dig]
the tet offensive
February 23rd, 2010So last night tuesday I went to see Four Tet at Le Poisson Rouge and it was a pretty interesting show. For one thing, it started at 11pm and I'm slowly realizing that I'm not sure I want to do late night shows if I have to go into work in the morning. The crowd was geek-chic, which was cool. The opening guy was really good, I did an iphone film to kind of give you an idea…it's pretty loud on the vid, but you have to imagine it so loud it hurts your ears:
Then Four Tet was good. His stuff was more subtle, more in sync, better produced. Sometimes this had the unfortunate effect of kind of sounding exactly like he sounds on CD, which tends to bore me at live events. But people were dancing, it got hot, the sound system was killer. After a while, I'd had enough. I thought to myself "I've seen enough of this show now to know that no matter how amazing he gets, it's not going to blow me away." I started to head out, got to the stairs, and then he dropped this track:
[audio: As_Serious_as_Your_Life.mp3]
It stopped me. The bass sample was do deep and great. The sound system there is amazing, and this track came to life in a big way. Amazing.
It also reminded me of this conversation I had with Wall Matthews last June. Wall is one of the owners and the main music writer for Clean Cuts, this audio house we work with a bunch. Great people, and Wall is a totally nice guy, talented. (Plus his kids are these hip hop beat makers who've done beats for 2Pac, Bone Thugs, etc. Legit.)
Anyway, in the 70's, Wall was in this band called The Ensemble or something, with a bunch of other folks. One of the women he was in the band with is now a teacher, and for one of her classes, she did this music appreciation thing where she had her students come in and play a song they liked for the class. Then they'd discuss, etc.
So this one kid comes in and plays a Four Tet track, and she recognizes the guitar part as being sampled from this song that The Ensemble did! She's blown away! Can you imagine? It's so random. You hear this modern electronic track and it has a part from your old band from the 70's. Amazing.
(When Wall told me this story I was well on my way to being drunk (Promax) and I'm pretty sure I over-reacted to it in a completely over-the-top manner. But it is pretty wild.)
She tells Wall, they hunt down the album, and it's confirmed. Then the story takes a old school vs. new school flavor. They get a lawyer and contact Four Tet and basically make him pay some royalties to them for sampling the track. Boooo. When telling me the story Wall was old school adamant "C'mon Josh, he lifted like the entire part! He didn't play anything!" I did my best to make the argument that part of the talent of the sampler (the person who samples) is the ability to dig into a crate of old obscure records and find some great bit and then re-contextualize it. This didn't go down as well as I hoped, but we kind of left it with a "agree to disagree" kind of thing.
This is the track that has the sample, it's a pretty good one:
[audio: She_Moves_She.mp3]
And then I did a search for Wall and The Ensemble and came up with this gem. The part Four Tet sampled starts around 1:30ish I think. this clip has such a solid freak-out vibe…it's classic. If you know Wall, this is going to blow your mind…if you don't, well, I'm not sure what you'll think…
Anyway, it was a pretty good show, amazing sound, and too late. By the time I got out of there I was so beat…next time I'm gonna look at the show time before buying the tix…
oll raighth!!
February 19th, 2010Crank this up for Friday, it is amazing. AM played this for me a while back and it blew my tiny mind…when the beat kicks in, wow, play it as loud as you can…the beat is ferocious, the 1974 choreography is fierce, the dancers are rubber-limbed funky, and the lyrics are Italian gibberish that someone wrote to sound like English. It messes with your head…you keep thinking they're singing something real, and it sounds so cool, and that beat, and the mirrors and dancers, and that hobo guy…
wowza…the weekend starts now…
scratch tape dex
February 16th, 2010This is so tantalizing. Obviously this guy has some mad DIY skillz and there are some fantastic sounds being created, but I want them to coalesce into some great performance. Maybe I've gotta see him live.
sunshine Friday walk
February 12th, 2010the perfect vibe for a Friday…let's go for a Japanese style reggae walk while consuming lots of pickles cucumbers…satisfying the munchies, meeting hot chicks and making great friends like Steak Pretzel…
yeahhhhh…sunshine-y amongst the winter snow…
鎮座 Dopeness : Mogu Mogu from Shane Lester on Vimeo.
[courtesy the ever-reliable FreeWilliamsburg]
smoooth, Magnificat!
February 10th, 2010This vid has a fantastic soundtrack, and a story that feels like a Saturday morning cartoon gone all pcp demented. It moves from weird to weird with a beard, and this is a good thing. In another universe this would be a big hit.
It's basically about this vulture guy who has a dream that he builds an inter-dimensional car for this evil pilgrim snake, who is in turn thwarted by Magnificat who has a magical cane that can turn into things (clouds, saxophones). I think that was one of the plots Shakepeare was considering for Hamlet, but he went with the whole ghost/king/death/crazy instead.
I offer this to you to help you get through your Wednesday. Use it liberally.
the big hat
February 9th, 2010Wow you guys. So there's this whole South African rap thing going on around the internet tubes, and some of it is amazing. This particular vid is so fresh.
Sometimes I wish I could be with you when you see something, you know? To experience that fun, full blast awesomeness of something great. I wish I could be there to hang out with you while you watch this video, it's so freaking good. I wish I could see the look on your face when the big hat shows up. You'll know what I mean when you see it. Try to remember the look on your face when the big hat shows up.
Let it roll…
Skills
February 8th, 2010Wow, check the skills of my main man SKillebrew with the video he directed…song isn't bad either…good work from all involved…
Super Brooklyn Brovaz
February 4th, 2010YEAH!!!
[so fresh…hat tip to ADDTF]
creepshow
January 29th, 2010Here's a film called "Forest" by Alison Schulnik that's a music video for a Grizzly bear track…it's chilling, surreal…I'm not sure what's going on there, but it doesn't feel like anything good…you can handle it though, right? It's Friday!
It reminds me of that time when I stayed up real late on a Sunday night to watch 120 minutes, and right around 2am when the night starts to get weird, they showed that Tool video and it got under my skin so bad…even watching it now I can feel how creepy it was…(ignore the lame begining bit with the band superimposed on everything, it goes away pretty soon)…
it’s FriWuDay
January 22nd, 2010
Hey, it's Friday, and you know, if you think it's something you might dig, you might wanna check out the download page for this Wu vs Beatles album called Enter the Magical Mystery Chambers…most of it is so-so, it uses a lot of covers of Beatles instead of the actual tracks (weak), and sometimes the tracks sound a little like they're fighting each other…
but some are kind of good…
[audio:Clientele_Kidd.mp3]6 bacon cheeseburgers (from Wendy’s)
January 18th, 2010With Maxine gone all weekend I dove deep into the Classic Albums series which is amazing…they get into the master tapes of records and solo tracks and talk to the players and have them show how they did what they did and so on…
There's a great one on Jay Z's Reasonable Doubt, and for some reason when I saw this clip I thought I needed to post it…
There's something about how, even at this level, when Jay-Z's making his debut album, he still has such a creative sense of what it means to be legit that he respects the kid for being bold enough to order all the burgers, but teaches him a lesson, hey, if you order all those burgers, be damn sure I will make you eat them all. I just love it.
random 3
January 12th, 2010Here's an info-dump of things I've been surfing…
Damn, why is it Batman Jones has got to get there on a bike? Also he's going really fast…
Here's the video for the new Vampire Weekend single, which normally I wouldn't bother linking to, but it's pretty good. Simple and well executed…
This is pretty amazing. This is software I'm using, but this guy is doing a million things I've never heard of/thought of. Good inspiration, and also a bit daunting.
Dan Quayle?
January 11th, 2010I have no clue what this track is, only that I can't stop listening to it…the beat is so good, with the old strings and saxophones, the bass line is nice, and I love the guys rapping…at some point I'll look into to finding out who it is, but for now I like the not knowing…this is because I've recently learned how to record off of internet radio, which is pretty sweet…that's also why it has that classic old-mixtape thing at the end where you hear a little bit of the next song before it cuts out…
ahhh, mixtape memories…
lyrics I love in this track:
"her brother is an ex marine sleeping with a tek machine"
"when you check yes on the application to the felon question / got a better chance of finding work in nicaragua during a depression"
dig it…
[audio:Dan_Quayle.mp3]« Previous Entries Next Entries »