No drums, no hook, just new shit

I find myself worrying about the state of hip hop pretty frequently. Hip hop isn't dead. And any obituaries written about it are factually incorrect. Hip hop lives and breathes like any other music form. But there's no question that it's facing a midlife crisis. The most public faces of hip hop have divorced their wives, blown their annual bonus on a sportscar, and lost touch with their kids in the process. Hip hop is frequently embarrassing. Hip hop has bought and used more Grecian Formula in the past couple years than it's willing to admit.

Hip hop isn't dead. There are signs of life. He's still got his sense of humor (Lil Wayne), he can still be tough as nails (Raekwon). He's still more verbally dextrous than rock'n'roll (Ghostface). And when he puts on a suit with a crispy knotted necktie and a pair of freshly shined shoes, no one can stop him (you tell me . . .). Hip hop still has plenty of cool friends, but very few of them challenge him in the way they once did. They can be just as soft and lazy as he is. Hip hop, if he's serious about hanging around for a while longer, needs some new friends. He needs smarter friends. More disciplined friends. He needs weirder friends.

He needs to lose Gucci Mane's number. He needs to be careful about getting too close to Drake.

He needs to get closer to Jay Electronica. He needs to court him. He needs to hope that Jay Electronica is even interested in hanging out with him.



There's a lot here that could be gimmicky: the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind score sampling, the snippets of dialogue from Willy Wonka, the MGM lion's roar. But none of it is. None of it is played for laughs. Jay's seriousness isn't a downer; it's actually kind of exhilarating. What's so goddam great about the samples is that they never take center stage. They're a radically new underpinning to his voice. And, my God, his voice. His flow is classically smooth and effortless. He's very careful about not descending into that verbal abstraction that characterizes so many avant-garde emcees. In fact, he uses an impressionistic verbal paintbrush to create scenes that are almost always internal. Listen to the second movement of the song that begins around 3:08. Jay describes a genuinely poignant moment of romantic loss that moves effortless back and forth in time, shading both the physicality and sentimentality of the scene. Even his critiques of hip hop (all the rage among dudes without a contract) feel fresh and interesting. Instead attacking the authenticity of his competitors, Jay invents Voodooman, a sort of hip hop effigee that can take all the attacks as a symbol. He's pretty clear, I think, about the role of this Voodooman: "Same old rugged cross/Different crucified messiah."

It's been quite a while since I've been laid out by a killer line like that. Cleverness is never in short supply in hip hop. Jay Electronica isn't clever because a fully formed emcee is beyond mere cleverness.

Download the full 15 minute version (with the 6 minute interview (?) before the actual song) here.

Ridiculous... ly Good?

HYPNTZ

T.I.A. 2 (ep), Dan Black, 2009.

This is a great example of why we started this blog. I heard this version of "Hypnotize" over New Year's. The first time, I thought to myself, "This sucks. What a fucking insult." Then the second time, my stance softened. By the third time, I was walking upstairs singing Dan Black's operatic version of the chorus (which, by the way, works better because of his accent "cahn't you see" etc). By the time I got home, I was practically running upstairs to find it.

The fact that "Hypnotize" isn't even a top-10 Biggie song for me* works in Black's favor, but really, he just does an amazing job here. I think my initial problem was that it seemed like a total gimmick. Then as I heard it a couple of times, I realized that this was impossible. You can't make a song as heartfelt and carefully plotted as this without truly loving it.

I was told/read briefly Biggie's mom didn't allow this version to be released, so Black snuck it out on an EP. I don't have much real interest in figuring out how true this is, but the fact that he released the same song with different lyrics (decent ones, but not good ones) show how Black understood he'd really captured lightning in a bottle on this one. He couldn't simply let the fact that it was a cover that he had no rights to get in his way.

Symphonies

Black is a master of the swelling emotional moment, and I haven't listened to Un or his other albums enough to know if I find it annoying or appealing quite yet. Stay tuned, I guess.

*(too much Simmons footnote) Favorite Biggie (in no particular order): Juicy, What's Beef?, Kick in the Door, Gimme the Loot, Somebody's Got to Die, Things Done Changed, I Got a Story to Tell, Machine Gun Funk, Warning, Ready to Die. As you can see, the poppy songs don't really work for me, but Juicy is just undeniable.

The Empty Page - Sonic Youth

The Empty Page - Sonic Youth



Monday morning on the bus. My face feels really dry despite the after shave. Mouth kind of tastes like cold coffee. The newsprint smell coming off my newspaper is already giving me a headache. Something or another ends and my iPod rings up "Total Trash" by Sonic Youth.

Needless to say, I had a very productive day on Monday.

I graded lots of paper while listening to the strange assortment of SY on my iPod (Daydream Nation, Rather Ripped, Goo, and Murray Street). I listened to "Total Trash" a few more times, astonished as always that such a thing was actually composed by human beings. I mean, Thurston Moore is a man with a memory like mine. But whereas I forget my own fucking birthday, he can remember who has to claim the feedback squeal in "Candle." The simple factness of SY astonishes me.

Also, I had/have/will have a huge crush on Kim Gordon.

Anyway, I listened to Murray Street for the first time in years. I was astonished (again) at the first song, "The Empty Page." I didn't remember this song at all. I guess I only think of Murray Street as the one with "Sympathy for the Strawberry" and "Rain on Tin" on it. But "The Empty Page" defies normal SY distinctions. Think about those opening chords. They're clean, distinguishable. They seem to bear some resemblance to standard tuning. There's even an irristable hook embedded in there.

Look, the thing that makes Sonic Youth the force that they have become is their ability to both melt and solidify silly things like melody, chord progressions, and time signatures. They belong to one of the most elite clubs around: Bands Who Don't Produce Derivative Copycats. No one else sounds like SY because it's impossible to sound like them without actually, you know, having Kim Gordon, Thurston Moore, and Lee Renaldo in your band. There are very few bands who can claim this status. But "The Empty Page" is surprising only because of its utter lack of surprises. Sure there is that awesome guitar battle between Moore and Renaldo in the middle of the song. But it's more gorgeous and uplifting than actually abrasive. For fuck's sake, they played the song on Carson Daley's show! The rest of the song foregrounds a kind of nostalgia that bubbles up sometimes in their work. Those opening lines are pretty telling: "These are the words/But not the truth/God bless them all when they speak to you." The song is a weird homage to attempts, to effort, to potential. After all, isn't that white a blank page symbolizes more than anything else?

Andrew Bird and the Triumphant Trio

Anonanimal

Noble Beast, 2009.

My favorite music argument in college was bands with three straight great albums. Let me save you some time by saying it's not a very long list. Recent entrants to my mind include Radiohead (duh), Death Cab (maybe?-- Photo Album, Transatlanticism, Plans, Narrow Stairs are all pretty awesome), Cat Power... anyway, I am as sure about Andrew Bird as I am about Radiohead. Andrew Bird and the Mysterious Production of Eggs, Armchair Apocrypha, and Noble Beast are all drop-dead records.

As I said in my review of Noble Beast when it came out, it's weird hearing some other influences creep into Bird's records, because no one else sounds like him. At all, really. He's something unto himself, and that shit doesn't happen at all these days.

He has an enviable vocabulary, and writes lyrics that couldn't work for anyone else, like the opening lines of "Effigy," "If you come to find me affable/ Build an replica for me/ Would the idea to you be laughable/ Of a pale facsimile/ If you come to burn an effigy/ It should keep the flies away."

How he smooshes all these sounds together and mixes them with weird lyrics is beyond me. It just works.

"Anonanimal" has just been making the rounds in my head lately, and so I present it here. As is often the case with Bird, he's in no hurry to get to the meat of the song. The opening lasts a good couple of minutes, but they don't feel boring, with the plucking of strings, the electric guitar jumping in, and then some gentle strings. Bird himself begins muttering some things that I don't understand, about viciousness and transformations.

But when the song begins in earnest, with handclaps and stomps and Bird imploring, "Hold on just a second/ hold on just a second/ I know this one/ I know this song," and then explodes into a more regulated guitar line, drums, and, uh, more handclaps, the world feels like it opens wide, a panoramic view.

Bird's facility with tunes and melodies gives him the power to often use two or three in one song, and his songs often feel more like movements because of it. I often hear the opening of a song and can't remember which one it is right away because it so thoroughly becomes something else as it goes on. He's one of the best artists of the decade for certain, one of the most consistent, and one of the most adventurous.

Rough Gem

Rough Gem - Islands

I'm too sick to bother spending much time on my post this week. Apologies all around.

So, here's a song about being a diamond. Islands formed from the ashes of the Unicorns, a band almost too brilliant for words. Their only album is one of my favorites of the decade. And Islands' first album, too, is amazing. You should get it if you've never listened to it. Anyway, "Rough Gem" is told from the point of view of a diamond. That's cool. I could use more songs in my life from inanimate objects.

I'm tempted to write about the Damien Hirst piece right there, but I won't. I will only tell you that George Michael was interested in buying it for, reportedly, £50 million (something on the order of $82 million). George Michael has that kind of money!? Since when did a former member of Wham! become a Saudi prince?

Wait, Drugs CAN'T Fix Everything?

No Dope

Whispertown 2000
Swim
2008

This is one of my favorite songs of the decade. I think, having listened to that list in order on the way to and from upstate New York, "No Dope" may be the biggest leaper. In fact, it's one of my favorite songs ever. It's so, so simple and so, so crushing.

Who hasn't been so heartbroken/ destroyed/ depressed that nothing works? That's all this song is about. But what happens so wonderfully is the way Morgan Nagler's voice embodies the song and the guitar strumming sounds so forlorn. When the glimmering guitar comes in, that, too, seems too depressed to give us much more than a few notes before heading back to bed.

Maybe no set of lines does more so succinctly: "No dope/ No pill/ No drink/ can fill/ can tow/ this ton/ of tears." And it does seem like Nagler chops the line breaks there. Two syllables is all she can force out of her mouth. She's gathering energy. Later, she sings a gorgeous (simple again) line, "No medicine/ or heroin/ can make me go/ sweet blind." Sweet blind, if that is indeed what she says, is just an absolutely amazing phrase. I actually titled a story I've been working on "Sweet Blind" from this. I will swipe it ten times a day. It's that awesome to me.

This is perhaps the most depressing song on earth. EXCEPT, there are those magnificent moments where Nagler's voice lilts upwards, "I'll tell you what" that give just the slightest impression of hope, where that gathered energy has been hiding. She seems to say, Those fucking clouds aren't parting, but well, they've got to some time, right? I mean, for a goddamn second?

--Some notes on Whispertown 2000. Nagler is friends with Blake Sennett of Rilo Kiley, and became friends with Jenny Lewis. Then she started performing under the name-- wait for it-- the whole reason I am writing this small section-- Vagtown 2000.

Outlaw Questions

Country music, like punk rock, usually only attempts to answer a couple of questions: why don't you love me? what am I going to do now that you're gone? how do I really feel about my truck/case of beer/Southern heritage? But the best country asks better questions: how am I going to haul all this pig iron? how long will I love him? what the hell is a rhinestone cowboy?



Tom Ames' Prayer - Steve Earle


Steve Earle, a trader in great subjects (moonshiners, oxycontin, American Taliban fighter John Walker Lynn, among many others) asks a helluva question in "Tom Ames' Prayer": what does an atheist outlaw say when his luck runs out and he's forced to talk to God?

The answer is surprising. Tom Ames' monologue to God is not touching. It eschews sentiment in favor of nihilism and irony. There's no salvation here for our arrogant outlaw. The song requires no explication because the writing is so concise and clear. But just in case: Tom Ames, chicken stealer, horse thief, bank robber, general badass, finds himself cornered by Johnny Law in an alley in Abeline. With limited options he turns to the good Lord for some assistance. He recounts the Lord's previous intervention in his life: after Judge Parker throws the book at him, Tom Ames sits in jail talking to a preacher who is, presumably, giving some kind of end-of-life counseling. The preacher turns his back, Ames puts a shiv to his throat and demands the key from the deputy. As soon as he recounts his last escape, Tom Ames remembers that there is no God, cocks his pistols, spits in the dirt, and puts his faith in his last 4 shells. The ending is more complex than it initially suggests. Does Tom Ames only dismiss God because he recognizes his own prowess as a criminal? Or, does Tom Ames thank Him for sending the preacher who ultimately becomes the vehicle for his escape? The latter seems more interesting to me.



Las Cruces Jail - Two Gallants


Two Gallants, a pair of tremendous noisemakers from San Francisco, pose another great question: what do you say to your horse when you're facing the business end of a noose? Our nameless narrator seems like the first-person narrator from a lost Cormac McCarthy novel: a man for whom murder is as necessary as clothing. He's a poetic about his given trade: "quickest wrist of the chaparral and sage." Whereas Earle's sense of nihilism was touched with irony, 2G's nihilism is down right exhilarating: this is a character who has honestly made peace with his impending death. He wants to recount his own story because that's what criminals do; they're more invested in their crimes than the survivors of the victims. But the most humbling and surprising and moving parts of the song are addressed to his Andalusian horse. He bids the mare goodnight from his lonely jail cell in Las Cruces. He advises her not to believe in her captor's words. They are going to try to reclaim her, but she needs to remember the freedom that she enjoyed with the narrator. He can't respect what will happen to his horse, but he's not sorry that they had their time together. They were a pair, a couple, after all. The song, then, becomes this lovely (if simultaneously horrifying) ode to his freedom that came with his horse. And it's ultimately a tragic story: the narrator is going to die (he doesn't have Tom Ames' arrogance in this regard) and the horse now belongs to those who are putting its rightful owner to death.

Life, Liberty, and what Kanye Hath Wrought

Pursuit of Happiness


Kid Cudi f. MGMT & Ratatat, Man on the Moon: The End of the Day, 2009.


"Tell me what you know about dreamin? Dreamin?"

Ah, the existential questions of hip-hop. There was a day when the biggest question rap could pose was "Has your girlfriend got the butt?" Obviously, lyrics have been political since day one, but actual discussion of feelings? That's a pretty recent trend, one that Kanye has been at the forefront of in terms of making it acceptable (acceptable being a double stand-in for profitable and manly enough). Just like grunge knocked the lid off of the simmering feelings of teenagers in the mid-90s, sweeping away the excess and party/pussy anthems of hair metal (which had already lost their edge when the ballads took over), Kanye (and Eminem) has done the same for hip-hop, making it okay to discuss actual emotional issues.

Which brings us, at last to KiD CuDi, a Kanye protege. His "Pursuit of Happiness" is nothing but feelings.

KiD CuDi stops short of turning the whole thing into a therapist's couch by making it all seem like a condemnation of the listener, an aggressiveness that pays off as he veers from rolling joints to lines like "You don't really care about the trials of tomorrow/ Rather lay awake in a path full of sorrow" (which wouldn't feel out of place in a Metallica song).

It's not poetry; the lyrics aren't amazing. But what is amazing is that he feels comfortable doing it. There's a universality to statements like "I'll be fine once I get it" that keeps it going.

Of course, Ratatat's El-P-influenced beat carries things along more than anything else. It doesn't sound completely like a Ratatat effort until that guitar solo around the three minute mark. MGMT adds their own flavor, singing backup better than a collection of ratty hos would.

Hooked On The Classics

Hooked On The Classics

Sorry for missing out last week--I've been kind of busy. I'm making it up to you with this one.

Hey Jim--Remember the other day, when you were all, "Wouldn't it be awesome to take the best of disco, and combine it with the melodic hooks from the best of classical music?" No worries--I've got you covered. "Hooked on the Classics" were a series of albums conceived and produced by Louis Clark, who also conducted the British Philharmonic Orchestra in their execution. Prior to this little brainchild of his, Clark arranged songs for ELO and conducted their strings backing. The results are pretty shocking.

He made a preposterous amount of tracks based around this one idea--Hooked on Mozart, Hooked on Beethoven, Hooked on Baroque--these are all real titles. But this, the original Hooked on The Classics, remains his magnum opus.

God knows why, but I absolutely loved this shit when I was like ten. Took me hours of searching a couple years back before I was able to figure out the name of whatever the hell I remembered listening to as a kid...but when the 1812 Overture kicks in straight out of the March of the Toreadors, and that beat just keeps on grooving--it was all worth it.

My Body's a Zombie For You

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My Body's a Zombie For You - Dead Man's Bones

High Jug Band Standards

Nashville Cats



Like most everyone alive, I thought my parents' music sucked when I was a kid. There was a point, maybe it was when I first got into Dylan, where I realized my mother had cool taste. She liked folk music, and while I never got into Judy Collins (sorry, mom, still haven't) or Joan Baez (ditto), there was an obvious overlap with some of the musicians she liked and the ones I got into.

My father, on the other hand, like Motown and groups like The Lovin' Spoonful. These took a while longer for to come around on (outside of "Summer in the City" which is one of the best songs ever written), but The Lovin' Spoonful is an amazing band. John Sebastian wrote beautiful pop songs, "Nashville Cats" being one of the best.

The guitars are really swell in this song. They layer guitar track on top of guitar track, give enough room for a sweet solo, and bring the whole thing in at a minuscule 2:37. That's fine, fine work, boys.

I like Sebastian's precision with the lyrics, "Well, there's 1352 guitar pickers in Nashville." The humility, as well, is pretty awesome: "And any one that unpacks his guitar can play twice as better than I will." The phrasing throughout is playful and cool, bending and twisting around in this Dr. Seussian way, that makes those precise numbers even funnier, "Playin' since they's babies."

Sebastian didn't have the greatest voice, but it was wonderfully emotive. The way he hopefully says, "But I will," or the way he trails off and slurs his words into the next line make this song's slow chug work.

The best line is the one that in a way reduces the song to some sort of Nashville PSA, "And I sure am glad I got to say a word about the music and the mothers from Nashville."

But, really, I can't say anything better about The Lovin' Spoonful than this:
"Arguably the most successful pop/rock group to have jug band roots, nearly half the songs on their first album were modernized versions of jug band standards."
That's right. Jug band music.

Vitamin C!

Vitamin C - Can
That's Vitamin C! It's also called L-asorbic acid. Vitamin C is essential for human life. Some animals, strangely, make their own vitamin C internally, most notably all bats and tarsiers and monkeys and apes. I'm glad that we do not make our own vitamin C internally because I enjoy having an excuse to eat lots of kiwis and grapefruits and tangerines.

Here is a picture of some citrus fruits:

They look delicious, don't they?

I am assured that vitamin C has biological significance. Here is a quote from a fairly reliable source: "SVCT2 is involved in vitamin C transport in almost every tissue, the notable exception being red blood cells which lose SVCT during maturation. Knockout animals for SVCT2 die shortly after birth, suggesting that SVCT2-mediated vitamin C transport is necessary for life." The complicated and unfamiliar language assures me that vitamin C is, indeed, biologically significant. While I do not understand the quote I provided, I am curious about some of its claims. I feel a certain pathos for red blood cells who lose their SVCT after they graduate from, presumably, adolescence. I guess life (with all its dependence on vitamin C) is tough for everyone. I am also curious about what a "knockout animal" is. I am also saddened to learn that they die quickly after they are born. God is cruel.

While vitamin C is essential for life, "Vitamin C" (please note the helpful quotation marks) is also a song by a German band called Can. Like the scientific language above, they are complicated and unfamiliar. When they were a band in West Germany (the democratic sovereign state on the right side of the Iron Curtain, which is a metaphor for the divide between communist states and democratic states), Can recorded a few strange albums with strange names like and Tago Mago and Monster Movie and Ege Bamyasi. The album from which "Vitamin C" is taken is Ege Bamyasi, which means "Aegean okra" in the Turkish language. Okra is also good. However, it is not a citrus fruit, so do not expect it to deliver any vitamin C (please note the lack of quotation marks) to you. I also like the song "Father Cannot Yell" by this band, but I am not writing about that song. I am writing about "Vitamin C."

The song "Vitamin C" is a very good song. I would say that it is the best song on the album. I make that claim because the song that should be the best song (the next song on the album, "Soup") is over 10 minutes long and only 5 of those minute are really good. I sometimes lose my patience with the last 5 minutes of "Soup." I do not lose my patience with "Vitamin C" because it is an important song. I think the song is a PSA (or public service announcement) for the importance of receiving vitamin C. The singer of Can reminds the listener of the song that he or she is losing his or her vitamin C. Since vitamin C is important for life, the singer's message about the importance of vitamin C is an important message.

Losing your vitamin C is a scary proposition. Think about this when you are thinking about not getting your vitamin C by eating a citrus fruit: vitamin C deficiency is the cause of a disease called scurvy. To illustrate the danger of scurvy, please look at the helpful picture below:


When you have scurvy you have loss of teeth, pale skin, and sunken eyes. Since you probably like to not lose your teeth or have your skin be pale or have your eyes sunken, then you would be wise to heed the warning of the lead singer of Can to get your vitamin C by eating citrus fruits.

On a historical note, many pirates had scurvy because they did not have access to the vitamin C-rich citrus fruits that we decadent Americans take for granted every morning at breakfast while we read USA Today and sip hot beverages like tea or coffee. Also, many sailors (who were people who ferried commercial goods over vast oceans) had scurvy too. If you will excuse the pun, they were in the same boat as pirates with regard to their vitamin C consumption. Sometimes, pirates wanted to steal the commercial goods that sailors were transporting. The pirate captain would order his ship to ride beside the commercial freighter while his men stormed aboard. The pirates would take the commercial goods because they could use those commercial goods or they could sell the commercial goods on the black market. Think about this fact: men with scurvy (pirates) often fought other men with scurvy (sailors). God is cruel.

I want to say one last thing about the song "Vitamin C." My favorite part of the song is the noises made at the end. At first it sounds like someone breathing with a deviated septum. But then you think it sounds like the moment right before a tea kettle begins its full whistle. Then you think it sounds like seagulls, which just backs up the scurvy/pirate theme I mentioned earlier. At the very end of the song, though, it is clear that it is some kind of digital sound, perhaps made by a keyboard or a computer. Keyboards/computers are remarkable like that. They make our lives sustainable, which is what vitamin C does.

Fuck The Security Guards

Fuck the Security Guards



Sorry I didn't get one up yesterday—got a little busy. As recompense, I give you “Fuck The Security Guards”, by Niggaz With Hats, the fictional rap group from the sadly forgotten mockumentary, Fear of a Black Hat. Made in the early 90's, the genre hadn't really been played out yet—this was way after Spinal Tap (to which it is clearly homage--the go through a series of white managers, each one of who gets murdered), but still before Guffman and the recent spate of Office clones. The premise, basically, is to follow around a send-up of NWA as they get famous, break-up, and eventually reunite. Why NWH? Because it was a lack of hats that kept the slaves down, of course, they were too tired to escape at night because they had the son beating down on their heads all day. The music, while all parodies, is actually not that bad—in this case, the security guard riff seemed a lot fresher back then because it was long before the Mall Cop meme entered our national lexicon. Highlight of the movie, perhaps, is Ice Cold trying to explain the deep social importance of their misunderstood mega-hit, Booty Juice, or Pet That Pussy:

Ice Cold: "P", Political, "U", Unrest, "S", Stabilize, another "S", Society, "Y", Yeah.

"I Say Fever" Ramona Falls, "I'm That Type of Guy" LL Cool J

"You're the type of guy to call me a punk, not knowin your main girl is bitin my chunk."


I Say Fever
by Ramona Falls, Intuit, 2009.
I'm That Type of Guy
by LL Cool J, Walking With a Panther, 1989.

I am completely addicted to "I Say Fever" right now.

It's amazing to me how loaded those opening hard guitar strums and piano tinkles are. The opening lyrics all about waiting five years make no sense whatsoever to me, nor does the response, "I say fever," but Brent Knopf seems pretty fucking thrilled to be saying it. The heights that he stretches that moment to are astounding. It's nonsensical catharsis.

Brent Knopf is a member of Menomena, a band I don't particularly care for (even though I love their name), but I love Intuit and it will end up on my year-end lists (if you like this song but aren't completely sold, listen to "Clover" as well).

As far as I can tell, the song is about a guy who's trying to figure out when to either marry or have sex with a lady. His contention is, there's no time like the present. You know, drop it like it's hot, or as he sings at some point, "Hold my heart like a hot potato."

About three and a half minutes in it goes into that very weird Wizard of Oz Emerald City Guard chanting, which is different from the militaristic chanting of R.E.M's "Orange Crush" or Kayne's "Jesus Walks" (which I think is a sample of the R.E.M. maybe?) but it did remind me an awful lot of a song I loved twenty years ago, Mr. James Smith's "I'm That Type of Guy," which couldn't be any more clear what it's about: LL Cool J will do your girlfriend, love her pudding (I'm not sure if that's a metaphor or not, I hope not because pudding IS delicious), go down on her (seems like if that's what he meant by pudding he wouldn't repeat himself, right?), takes her to breakfast, lunch, dinner, and breakfast (okay, maybe he would repeat himself).


Delicious sexual metaphor, Cool James!





Later LL Cool J seems to run out of metaphors, and this is where the song gets hilarious. "I'm the type of guy/ That lets you keep believin it/ Go ahead and work/ While I defrost it and season it." Uh, yep. Unless her boyfriend is Jeffrey Dahmer, this seems like it's stretching a bit. Why is he putting on a pamper? (yes, I understand he might be talking about pampering in the other sense, but it doesn't sound like it, "put on a pamper"? It sounds more like fetishistic acts, which, hey, cool, I guess.) Why is leaving his drawers in their hamper a good thing? So the dude's girlfriend has to do the laundry? How does that appeal to the ladies? Get ready to wash my filthy underpants! I don't know if we find the type of guy he is appealing any longer. Also, he threatens an excellent ring and run or whatever you called it when you were six. When you start threatening to ring someone's doorbell and leave, you've truly run out of gas. Of course, I shouldn't question the workings of one LL Cool J.

But "I'm That Type of Guy" separates itself from some of what was going on in hip-hop at the time with this slinky production (courtesy of L.A. Posse, which included DJ Pooh and Muffla). That opening machine-gun beat sets the tone. Reversing notes, flipping bass lines, dropping in heavy pianos, and then, of course, bringing in a chorus to chant the piece from Wizard of Oz is the coup de grace. I would give my life savings (admittedly a negative number) to be in the studio while they were explaining to a bunch of dudes what they were there to do.

The absolute best part of this song, and maybe any rap track by an established artist, comes around 3 minutes in, when LL just sits out for half a bar for no reason. He kind of matches it on the other half of the verse, but not really. Just awkward silence and the track runs on without him. So, uh

The Dark End of the Street - Percy Sledge

The Dark End of the Street


If Dave brought us two (very different) versions of the same street story, then I would like to present a third telling in this little romantic Rashomon: Percy Sledge's "The Dark End of the Street."

Bill Withers has just stomped by with Percy's girl. Percy has tried to give Withers the stare down, but he doesn't have it in him. Percy's a lover, not a fighter. Look at that man over there. A man with curls like that isn't worried about posturing because while you're flexing down at the corner bar, tapping your feet to Arthur Conley, he's busy whispering sweet nothings in your girl's ear. This is a man who has only ever curled his fist around a microphone.

But Withers' return look, a dead-eyed look of unnamable recriminations, stops Percy cold in the street. He watches Withers walk away with his girl, listening to him ask her pointed questions. Who is he to her!? Only her truest love! Then, the strings begin to tighten around the girl in question and Withers' massive arm pulls her closer. That tambourine sounds ominously like a fist being punched into the palm of his hand. Someone's seeing the business end of that fist tonight, dadgumit.

Percy's paralyzed. He feels his heart breaking as their history together on this very street comes back in the wavy notes of a guitar. Here, on this street, at the dark end down there, he used to meet her. They didn't belong there, but then again they didn't belong anywhere. Now here come the waves of guilt. Percy might be a ladies man, but he's right with Jesus. Everything he has done in the name of love is framed as erotic iniquity. His paranoia threatens to get the best of this lover man: Withers knows, his wife knows, everyone down at Muscle Shoals First Baptist Church knows. And they're going to find Percy and his girl. And it's going to end. With some of the unbrassiest horn backing in all of soul, Percy almost loses it.

But a voice rises up from the graveyard organ haunting Percy's song. A voice so sonorous and pure that it can only be the lonely call of his girl. She's still in if he is! He won't give up. He won't be a martyr for love. Percy ain't going to let Bill 'The Cuckold' Withers stand in his way. This man has a plan. Should this happen again, she is to be cool. She is to be much cooler than she was today ("Clearing your throat? Are you kidding me!?"). Just walk on by. Don't give anything away. Don't cry because we'll meet later. We'll work on your excuse. We'll meet down at the dark end of the street, and then we've got the world open before us.

Bode

Julianna Barwick "Bode"


Every six to eight months I wake up totally uninterested in guitars. I don't want to hear them strummed; I don't want to hear them belt out impressive solos. Shit, I don't really even want to hear someone even accompany a guitar. This lasts, at most, for a week or two or three. I woke up 4 days ago with this feeling. I have no interest in listening to guitar-based music. Which is unfortunate because I was planning on writing about VU's "Oh Sweet Nuthin'."

The last time this happened, I ended up stumbling upon Julianna Barwick's Florine EP, which contains this stunner. My most recent discovery is something entirely different, but it's going to require a thesis-level analysis before I'm ready to present it. Honestly. This post, which I'll throw up some time this weekend (maybe even tomorrow night), is probably going to be epic.

Aside from the one moment of textual interpretation needed (I think the lone lyric is "I'm going to take you on," a uniquely beautiful sentiment in its own right), there's basically nothing that needs to be said about this song. You should know, I guess, that all the sounds are generated by recording and/or processing Barwick's voice (the song works best on headphones, by the way). That's nice to know because it makes this epically beautiful song more humble. I'm actually afraid to talk about this song too much because it's like dissecting a joke or describing a flower: the more attention paid to it only ruins it. Just let it be said, then, that these are the prettiest (and I mean every syllable of that word) 5 minutes of music I've heard all year.

Who Was That?

apologies for missing my last post. we're in the midst of an apartment renovation, and truth be told, i ought be patching plaster. however, there is no electricity in the apartment right now, and the lack of the light would make mixing ratios a gamble. i can't even continue research for components, as i'm really tired of looking at ceiling fans--the final frontier for modern design...

i've been cursing my music library of late, with everything feeling tired and me being shy the time to find new stuff (this blog has been a nice gift, with clinic entering the mix). i also noted that i initiated my contributions with the white stripes and the misfits, which while thoroughly enjoyable, don't exactly provide a wide glimpse at what i'm listening to. so, having cursed at my ipod's selections, i was hit with some bill withers, and he suggested a paired offering that will provide us with many opportunities to say "pips" in an earnest fashion. breath 'bated, we carry on.

on to bill withers. i love bill withers. this guy repeated the words "i know" 26 times in a row, and we ate it up. you ask people "how many times does bill withers say "i know" in "ain't no sunshine"?" people often offer in the low teens. twelve, thirteen times, maybe fifteen...that's what we assume to be the longest repetition endurable before terming it "droning" or "grating." bill withers can double you up on that. (footnote: thom yorke and his 46 "the raindrops" are sitting smugly, stage right.) bill withers was making toilet seats for 747's when he consumed a jack lemon movie and crapped a grammy. and he refused to resign his job at the toilet factory. that's bill withers. al green and d'angelo covered his song and it's still his.
so we got bill withers.

and we got gladys knight and the pips. a girl, her brother, and two of their cousins. an institution in cleveland assures us that they could craft a pop song. "midnight train to georgia" is in the grammy hall of fame. the wu-tang catalog would be thinner minus the pips. if you ask gladys knight, she'll tell you that diana ross herself removed the pips as the supremes opening act on tour in '68 because they were too good.
so we got gladys knight and the pips.

this may not have the headlines of otis vs. aretha, but we're in for good times with gender roles.

bill gets right to it. the driving bass sets him off like a shark. a guy on the street gives bill the stinkeye, and he checks his girl. he looks at her and the strings come in to send a shiver up MY spine. she's sunk. it's bad enough that his woman is sneakin around on him, but damn, life at the toilet seat factory is tough enough without having dudes in the neighborhood flexin on him due to no fault of his own. this is gonna stop right now. bill withers will not be played.
the assured sing song in his "(i don't know who he is) but i think that YOU DOOOO" makes me laugh, but not her. no, she is gonna share her information. now. do not play the coincidence card. the throat thing? that was cute. do you think bill doesn't know that game? still, dadgummit, he's a respectful man. you will have an opportunity to explain.

break for the bass. he is cirlcing tighter, nosing closer.

he comes in with a mathematic puzzler to show how calculating he can be. he stretches out the "i get confuuuused" because her math is so much more advanced than his and to rhyme it off the aforementioned playground "you DOOOOO". bill's subtle. he gets crafty with homonyms, using exasperation to set up his own punchline--she's "too much...for one man but not enough for two." he throws her snides back at her. he may be a dumb ol' baloo of a man, but he's got enough intuition to know what she's up to. this girl knows he isn't dumb, and convincing herself otherwise hasn't worked to convince him of it. so it's in the room now, or on the street as it were, which leads to a big finish: "Before you leave your old home / be certain of the new." dadgummit, bill will maintain his dignity. do you have any? who was he, and what is he to you?


given the origins of the song, gladys will henceforth face comparison with bill. such is the nature of the cover song. where bill withers is smooth, gladys and the pips are sassy. bill's in the song at 8 seconds. there are 36 pips before gladys makes an appearsnce. here, the drum and high hat set it off like a pair of heels on sidewalk and the bass throws some hips on it. they build something funky while gladys tries to compose herself. the organ whines an "aw HELL no" just before she starts hyperventilating words. there is potential for hunt-like explosion here, but she is in control. (at least until vocal pips at 55 seconds make me giggle.) the something in her heart seems a little bigger than bill's, a little closer to the clutch in her neck, so she clears her throat at his cue.

she plays it pitch perfect around 1:50, letting go of a yell that releases into a sob and an exhalation.

gladys can figure sums, too. there's a bit more separation between her "i think you do" and her arithmetic confusion, so rather than bill's elongated smugness, she is going to play her 1+1=3 with a grinned "hm". this woman is acutely pissed. her "dadgummit," gets an "mmhmm" as a comma, indicating it is not an exclamation so much as an interjection, a breath before an eruption. then she lets loose with the question at hand, a "who the fuck is THAT bitch?!" that would make ice cube smile. there are times when i wish the pips had stopped squeaking in here and punctuated gladys with some horns.

she regroups. gets control. she reminds him of his cracks on her intuitive skills, and she slaps him with a brisk "ISTHATREALLYWHATYOUTHINK?" "HMM!?" to remind the dumb motherfucker that she is no exception to the commonly held regard for women's intuitive abilities. and when it comes to the send off, she lets loose with a dismissive "boy" to remind him to respect his home and his mama. coming from an atlanta-based group in the 70s...ouch. she will chase him away before she is walked over.

bill withers carries his song with a quiet strength, but gladys is full of head-shakin, wrist-wavin punch. i ended up listening to these songs all night, and i'm up beyond bedtime, so, to bring this back around to home renovation, i provide this pairing as eye candy.

a: the pips



b: a fan from the modern fan company's "ball hugger collection"

"Who Was That Man (And What Is He to You)"

"Who Was That Girl (And What Is She to You)"

A Sadies Sampler

Wolf Tones


The Land Between


The Trial


As far as I'm concerned, this is the most underrated band going today. As in, I think they kick a tremendous amount of ass, but no one seems to have heard of them. But, you've probably listened to them before—they're the backing band for Neko Case, or at least they used to be. They've got a legitimately unique sound. I guess you could say that they fit loosely into whatever is left of alt-country, but it's really more surf-country—or something like that. Like if Dick Dale had scored a Sergio Leone film. Still, it ranges a decent bit—from sweeping instrumentals to more desolate pieces where you can almost hear a tumbleweed passing through. Then there's a lot of CS&N or Byrds influence—of the legit and non-sucky sort, Blitzen Trapper, you self-important, hippie-chic, blowhards. Anyway, I'm a fan.

Dungeon Family- "Follow the Light"

Follow The Light

Even In Darkness, 2001

Less than a year after Stankonia, OutKast got back together with some of their formative friends, including Goodie Mob, to record this ridiculous gem of an album. I put it on any 2001 Best Of list, which is shocking considering how these types of 'here's where I came from records' (D12?) usually fare (they are awful- there's a reason some of them made it and some didn't).

The album is full of amazing songs, including this one, "Crooked Booty," "Trans DF Express," "Excalibur"... I chose "Follow the Light" almost entirely on Cee-Lo's ridiculous turn (in case you don't know his voice, he comes in around 2:30) by saying "Ever so eloquently..." The best line of the whole verse? "Jesus is my older brother evidently." The off-hand way he finishes by saying, "Follow the light," and then laughing is truly excellent.

Of course Big Boi delivers, and Big Gipp's turn is excellent... and I think those are the only three on this one. Which is kind of surprising given most of the other tracks feature half a dozen routinely. Is it the religious overtones of the track? I don't know, but that would be my guess. Then again, every time I think it's a call to religion it becomes so problematic (exhibit A: Big Gipp declaring, "I want to be remembered in infamy.") that I just ignore it. I mean, obviously it is. Big Boi asks us to "follow the Ten Commandments." This from a guy with a stripper's pole in his basement. Who cares?

Those shimmery notes behind what is a deceptively simple beat carry the song along. This is the era when every OutKast track could not be stopped- each one had such propulsive quality. It's amazing to me that they had so much good material at that time (and other people were releasing classic hip-hop left and right) that Even in Darkness got swept under the table. It should be a classic.

how will you meet your end- a.a. bondy

how will you meet your end


American Hearts (2007)

Sometimes I get into this kind of music. Murder folk music. A. A. Bondy does a lot of it, and he's pretty damn good at it. He sings sweet songs, too, but I much prefer the murder ballads and the pseudo-Biblical tunes.
"How Will You Meet Your End" is the first song off American Hearts (great album title), and I dig the sounds he forces out of the strings-- it's like he's sharpening his guitar. It's frightening. The rattling, too, sounds like a storm's a'comin'. But what I really love about this song is how patient it is. Bondy's in no hurry. It's all going to come. And what comes has great economy and evocative phrasing. "And Hell upon the breeze," is a great line.
Bondy writes excellent lyrics, but he's a master of tone. He creates these songs laden with meaning before you even start listening to the words. Besides the aforementioned geetar strop, there's the notes themselves, the hard repeat and then they almost drift off into dust. The percussion sounds mostly like knee slapping, guitar tapping, and hand clapping, but less corny than those rhymes make them sound on (virtual) paper.
Bondy has a new album, When the Devil's Loose, that's more of a full-band affair, which I haven't listened to a whole ton yet.