Let’s play a little game, shall we? It’s called word association, and certain coked-out psychoanalysts have assumed that it reveals something about our subconscious. I’ll start:

Canadian Rappers.

…

I’m guessing that your knee-jerk reaction was to blurt out the name Drake, k-os, Classified, Kardinal, or hang your head and admit that nothing much comes to mind.

Don’t get me wrong, I think there’s some very strong hip hop coming out of Canada. I mean, we are responsible – like it or not – for Dreezy. Furthermore, I devoured Joyful Rebellion when it came out. I am the proud owner of Classified’s discography… and I listen to it, too. But I, for one, have always acknowledged that, while I was enjoying the aforementioned artist’s albums, I was constantly reaffirming their identity; ie “this is really good, for a Canadian rapper…”

That’s not cool, man. As a patriot, I hate it when anyone demarcates between “good” and “good by my lowered Canadian standards”. Unless the subject is Hockey, rarely is Canada regarded as a high water mark of anything. Generally – and stop me if I’m being too disparaging here – we’re compared, like the weaker twin, to our big, loud, southern neighbours. (The spell check on my computer telling me that ‘neighbours’ is spelled incorrectly provides an apropos case-in-point.)

But enough of that. You know why? Because there’s Shad.

Shadrach Kabango was born in Kenya to Rwandan parents, but raised in London, Ontario. Like Classified, and most rappers, he uses his upbringing as fodder for his lyrics, but whereas Classified’s anthem “The Maritimes” uses the  misconceptions about Canada to fill out the vacant garments of his thoughts, Shad’s reflection on his identity declines this tongue-in-cheek approach. It’s less “we’re only known for Anne of Green Gables” and more “where Brooklyn at?”, if that makes sense. The lines “the Missis-saga continues” and “they never hit College like the Danforth” are puns in their most useful appropriation.

He’s got a killer sense of humour (“Glenn Beck better duck like foie gras” is one of my favorite lyrics ever) but one that is only used in the service of the song, not despite it. His lyrical consciousness, it must be said, is incredibly virtuosic. I suppose it makes sense, since he’s bilingual, holds an undergraduate degree in Business (working towards his Masters) and has an obviously focused attention on his own past, and the past of his forebears. There’s little to no bullshit in Shad’s artistry (and I don’t use that term lightly) but he’s not preachy, either. “Keep Shining”, a meditation on the continually underestimated potential of women in society from here to Africa, perfectly walks the line between effective didacticism and affecting lyricism. “A Good Name” is autobiography at it’s most lyrically poignant. He goes from the Old Testament to the Rwandan genocide remarkably seamlessly… no mean feat, I think.

Finally, he’s only getting better. His debut album “When This is Over” (recorded with the winnings from a radio contest) is a really strong look; sparse production, but effective, and his words fill out the musical landscape. His most recent album, TSOL (which won best rap recording of the year this past Juno’s) showed the maturation of someone who, given a little bit of room to breathe, has only thrived.

Give him a listen. Been dumped recently? This song will help.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-mAMH5S6VA

When “The Smoking Section” interviewed Strong Arm Steady in February, the first question asked had to do with the title of their new album “Arms & Hammers”. Krondon answered the question by stating the importance of understanding the West Coast rap scene through their action within it: arms and hammers are metaphors, says Krondon, for action and tools – whatever they might be. It’s a very strong response. It reminded me of when “Deep Hearted” (their sampler mixtape from 2008) came out. Krondon made it clear that you could hear either “Departed” or “Deep Hearted”… perspective is everything. I was nodding alongside Krondon’s response, admiring the intellect behind it, when Phil Da Agony piped up and said:

“Yeah, yeah exactly, we named our album after baking soda. That means our shit is crack. They used to say shit is dope, this is the new dope. Our shit is crack.”

And this hilarious response is precisely what defines SAS for me.

That said, “Arms & Hammers” is a really strong sophomore effort from the Gang. The fanfare of “In Search of Stoney Jackson” quieted after a few listens, and there wasn’t much to keep me coming back (certainly nothing as good as “Gimme that Paper”, “Sunny C.A.” or “Go With Us”). SAS has struggled finding their niche, I think, precisely because they’re so used to hustling the prospect of working alongside a label (they are, of course, the original group signed to Talib’s burgeoning Blacksmith label) catches them at a strange angle. For example, there are two songs on “Arms…” that I’ve had in my rotation for over a year. The problem with mixtape culture is that if you blow a really strong track on a smaller tape then you probably shouldn’t throw it on your big release. Well, that’s at least the prevailing wisdom. Apparently the Gang doesn’t care if we’ve heard it before. And hey, “Can’t Let it Go” and “Trunk Music” are big tracks – both featuring big artists (Blaqthoven and the Game, respectively) – so why not?

It seems as though Talib’s not over-participating with the Gang on this one, and I think he’s probably letting them do their thing. You can spot a Kweli track from a mile away because it’s not only less hard, they’re generally the one’s that feature bigger guest spots (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjoChO3EN6c has Kweli’s fingerprints all over it…). However, what I’ve come to expect from SAS is that there will always be a track or two that take a concrete spot in my rotation and the rest will fade from memory pretty quickly. Their greatest hits album would be incredible, but that’s only because you’d be rifling through a lot (and I mean A LOT – I have 196 tracks from Strong Arm and I listen to about ten of them regularly). The hope is, and has been, that soon there will be a total album where every single song is as big a banger as this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zErQuZ0N1wY

I remember watching Derrick Comedy on YouTube about three years ago. I laughed hard enough, but didn’t think much of it. Then the girl from that blowjob sketch (still really hilarious by the way, check it out here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZItsbLzc73s) was on the Office all of a sudden.

This was an important moment because I realized, probably for the first time, that this sort of thing actually happens. You make a couple of videos, keep hustling, and then something happens; a phone call, or whatever.

And then there’s Donald Glover.

It all seemed to happen so quickly. First someone told me about Community, and I realized that “oh, there’s the dude from the spelling bee sketch” and then I became horribly, horribly addicted to the show. Whatever. Fine. Good. But then I was in a bar bopping my head to what I thought was an actually half-decent Drake track (surprise of surprises) and I mentioned as such to a friend, who informed me – in a totally self-righteous hipster asshole way – that it was, in fact, Childish Gambino.

Glover (sorry, Gambino – by the way, his pseudonym was landed upon by using a Wu-Tang Clan ‘name generator’) has actually been releasing EP’s since 2008 (well… 2002, but he disowned that album and we’ll respect his wishes). With the massive success of Community bolstering everything Troy Barnes, suddenly he was getting play.

The thing is; he’s good. He’s not great, but he’s got a natural flow and, obviously, a penchant for words and humor, which make him a lot more bearable than 90 percent of the rappers out there. He’s obviously also got an ear for music, because his production values are exceptionally good.

But I have to think he’s an asshole because he’s on the hottest comedy on television, he’s got a burgeoning music career and he used to write for 30 Rock. I want all of those things, but I don’t have them.

I hate you Donald Glover.

That said, give a listen by popping over to http://www.bullyjam.com/2011/04/hip-hop-childish-gambino-ep/ 

“Freaks and Geeks” is epic shit.

You remember 1979? I don’t. I wasn’t even remotely born, not even slightly. But casting my mind back I can think of a few things that this particular year held. The BeeGee’s were popular and Michael Jackson released “Off the Wall”. No Bush had seen the inside of the oval office, but those damned limeys had just voted in Margaret Thatcher. The Sony Walkman was invented. Oh, and a couple nice Jewish boys from Brooklyn started a hardcore punk band.

This last event seems kind of small in comparison, I mean “Off the Wall” went platinum seven times; and Walkmans? Those things were fucking awesome! However, here we are – 32 years later – MJ rests in peace (we hope) and not only have tape cassettes become antiquated, CD’s are a thing of the past too. Those nice Jewish boys? They’re still here – and not even remotely dated.

They are, of course, the infamous, the incomparable, the outrageous Beastie Boys.

The reason the date is important is not to illustrate how long they’ve been around (which is pretty awesome) but to remind everyone that they not only emerged the year that Sid Vicious died, but also the year that “Rapper’s Delight” was released. Not to put too fine a point on it, but the musical world was in a period of incredible flux and creativity. Rock had given way to punk and punk was giving way to Hip-Hop (I’m not, of course, suggesting that the progression is that linear, but that is the chronological order…). The Beastie Boys were born into a world of Mohawks and spiked collars and came into their musical maturity at the same time that N.W.A. released “Straight Outta Compton”.

As a point of order, I’d like to come back to the present for a minute in order to make a comparison. Fourteen months ago lil Wayne released “Rebirth” – a Rock album. Yeah, he was still rapping (if that’s what you choose to call it) but the influence was definitely drums and guitar-laden. Two years earlier than this, The Game released “Dope Boys”, which featured Blink 182 drummer Travis Barker. I can’t speak for the music community as a whole but I know that I was startled, to say the least, about this seemingly new relationship between the often diametrically opposed disciplines. But then, of course, the two have always had a relationship, haven’t they? The nature of this relationship is perhaps nowhere better found than within the Beastie Boys’ history.

In 1982, they released “Polly Wog Stew”, their first EP. It was, like everything they’d done before, Hardcore Punk. A year later they released “Cookie Puss”, a hip-hop track that seemed to come from nowhere. It hit big in the underground dance club scene. The Boys had a genre.

Due to the success of “Cookie Puss”, the Boys thought it would be a good idea to have a DJ play with them, so they approached an NYU student who was known to be a dab hand with turntables. His name was Rick Ruben.

Jesus. Can I just take a minute? RICK FUCKING RUBIN!

We’re back. Ruben, of course, was just about to form Def Jam, and when he did he made sure to sign the Beastie Boys. Under the new label, they released “Rock Hard”, a 12” EP, in 1985. The next year they recorded their first LP, and I don’t know what they were expecting, but I doubt they knew that it would become the best selling rap album of the 80′s (sorry N.W.A) and would be the first album of the genre to hit no.1 on the Billboard charts, where it stayed for five weeks.

This LP was, of course, “License to Ill”.

I’m not going to continue much further. If you’ve had your head in the sand your entire life you might have missed “Paul’s Boutique”, “Check your Head”, “Ill Communication” or “Hello Nasty” but that’s your problem, not mine. Anyone who’s been waiting with baited breath for their new album (hoping, as you drift off to sleep, “please don’t let it suck…”) can rest assured. With the release of “Make Some Noise”, the grimiest, chunk-filled, sketchy-twist of a track I’ve heard in a long time, we can safely assume that the Boys still, after all this time, have an unerring ear and a brilliant capacity to do the old stuff in a new way. Finally, and on a sobering note, MCA sounds great after the surgery.

Now back to the beat.

http://blog.beastieboys.com/post/4394591238/make-some-noise-this-wasnt-really-part-of-the

*BRAND NEW! FULL ALBUM PREVIEW

http://hotsaucecommittee.com/

About a year ago I found out that a particular female friend of mine considers Steely Dan to be her favorite band. Bar none. Desert Island. This was a shock because she’s in her mid-twenties and stunningly beautiful (prove me wrong, world, that this isn’t abnormal). She recently discovered this site, so as an homage to her I’m going to attempt, in whatever way I can, to spend the next little while extolling the virtues, and perhaps airing some of the dirty laundry, of one of her favorites, and Dan’s most accident-prone, saxophone heavy, decade ending (in some ways career ending… at least for a while) tour de force: 1980′s nostalgic, ephemeral “Gaucho”.

In 1977, Steely released “Aja”, their biggest, sleekest, jazziest, and most consummate production to date – with thirty-five session players gracing the liner notes (the likes of regulars Michael McDonald, Denny Dias, and Larry Carlton as always present, but also new faces to the Dan canon such as the legendary Wayne Shorter, who originally demurred when asked to play on a ‘pop’ record, but once sent the sheet music decided that he did, after all, want to be a part of the album) Steely Dan had come into it’s own; worked through the precociousness of “Can’t Buy a Thrill” (1972), got the influence monkey off their back and onto their sleeve (and in their soul…) with “Pretzel Logic” (1974) and melted the face off Middle-America, much aided by Larry Carlton, with “The Royal Scam” (1976). Making five completely different albums in as many years, “Aja” represents the summation of all the soul-searching Steely had done. It won a Grammy (albeit for engineering, which Don Breithaupt notes is “a bit like giving the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel a trophy for ‘best matte finish’”) and went multi-platinum. It made them a resounding commercial success – if one ignores their “Reelin’ in the Years”/”Ricky Don’t Lose That Number” fame – with Newsweek calling them “the best American rock group of the seventies”. Three hit singles lingered on the pop charts for more than a year. The stage seemed to be set for a new, Dan-rich, decade.

However, when they returned to the lab, as it were, to concoct “Gaucho” things started to go belly-up. In the Danless decades the atypical three year hiatus between “Aja” and “Gaucho” has spawned a lot of talk, and rightfully so. There were legal disputes between MCA and Warner Bros as to who owned the album, Walter was run over (literally and emotionally: once by a car*, and again when his girlfriend fatally overdosed) and an entire finished track (the tantalizing, grail-like, “The Second Arrangement”) was supposedly erased by a sound engineer. There were budget and drug problems, band disputes, friction and disarray and yet – at the end of the day, which happened to be Nov 21st 1980 – the album was released, leaped to #10 on the US charts (#1 in Canada) went double platinum and won them their second Grammy.

* [no doubt what they're referring to when writing in 2000, "lets consider for a moment the musical and neurological ramifications of a middle-of-the-project compound segmental fracture of the tibia suffered by one or more of the principles."]

And even though a biography of the album might seem unnecessary – and even though talking about the making of it to this day results in a certain squeamishness on behalf of the Danamic duo (upon it’s reissue, Don and Walt acknowledge their reluctance to unearth the “turbulent aftermath” which plagued them for the rest of the 20th century) – like any great art “Gaucho” is the product of it’s surroundings – and the tension, the drugs, the broken tibia all inform the music. “Living hard will take it’s toll” indeed.

I mentioned briefly the reluctant – guarded, one might think – way in which Don and Walt regard their seventh album, but it bears repeating that the two perfectionists feel as though “never before or since in the sorry annals of pop music has so much been expended by so few for so long in the service of so little”. Their “monstrously swollen budget” and “draconian, near-feudal contractual relations” are regarded the way one might regard an ex-girlfriend who was good-looking, sure; but you have no idea what she was like when we were alone…

But lets take a minute to look at these complaints as creatively as possible. The budget was problematic for Dan because they admit that they use the money they’re given; they’d be miserable making another album on “Can’t Buy a Thrill”‘s allowance, sure, but they could do it. When faced with more and more cash, the swollen pockets of Steely began to tear at the seams. “Aja”s 35 session players is trumped by 43 on “Gaucho”, and with the money came the opportunity to not only seek out the best but also the ‘famous’ session players who brought their talent, but also their pretension and, in the case of Bernard Purdie, physical signs extolling their excellence. (There were two: one that said “You done it” placed next to the other, which read “You done hired the hitmaker, Bernard ‘Pretty’ Purdie”.) Instead of getting in on the ground floor with cats like McDonald, Randall, and Carlton, they were suddenly shopping around. Perhaps the most famous example of the problems this caused is heard through Mark Knopfler’s wholly unremarkable performance on “Time Out of Mind”. Don and Walt had heard the Sultan’s incendiary solos and sought him out only to encounter more dire straits and less Mark Knopfler. Although the exact number is subject to debate, as many as ten hours – it has been suggested – of Knopfler’s takes were left on the cutting room floor, none of them what Steely was looking for. What ends up on the album is still a great song, but by no means because of the guitar – it takes nearly the entire track (there are fourteen seconds left) before you hear a Knopfler-worthy lick, and by that point the fade out is almost complete. Both parties left the studio unimpressed and disillusioned.

This inability to get what they were looking for seems to have been a trend in the making of “Gaucho”, with some 320 reels of 2-inch master tape not used (an unheard of waste). All this lends itself to the sense that Don and Walt were sitting somewhere atop a precipice of production, with the raging tumult of creativity on one side and the sputtering concept of perfectibility on the other. Possibly because of this, the album reads as though it’s been over-edited. I’ve mentioned elsewhere how Steely has often managed to juggle their dueling impulses of improvisation and production, but “Gaucho” seems to lean heavily towards the camp of the meticulous and the exacting. “Rehearsed”, as Stephen Erlewine notes, “so many times that it no longer has any emotional resonance”.

Based solely on the emotional arc of the title track itself, I’m not sure if I fully agree with this last contention. “Gaucho” is, I believe, Steely Dan’s saddest song despite the seemingly cheery Sax and staggered yet forceful drumming. The faceless amigo impregnates our narrator with a self-conscious agony which slowly deteriorates his resolve. Ariel Swartley’s Rolling Stone review suggests that the melody of “Gaucho” mirrors the narrator’s angst (an old Steely trick). That it “throws the singer’s questions back at him, jumping down the scale as his intonation rises, swooping down as his voice trails off in bewilderment”. Our hero is livid in his confusion, and can only focus on the minute details of the cowboy: that he snaps his fingers, where he’s from, what he’s wearing… they offer us no character traits, just the perfunctory judgments made by a slighted lover.

These faceless protagonists permeate the Dan consciousness. People are indistinct, but surfaces are clear. Bear in mind, it wasn’t always that way. Think back to “Can’t Buy a Thrill”: which college did they spend their weekend at while “Reelin’ in the Years”? Which poison’s named? Which brand does he ask Sam to make a double of in “Turn That Heartbeat Over Again”? Somewhere in the middle of the seventies, perhaps aided by the tunnel-vision of amphetamines, Don and Walt became more focused on the minutia of the everyday. In “Gaucho” alone there’s a plethora of specifics, sometimes liquid (Brut, Cuervo Gold, kirschwasser – which by the way is a German cherry Brandy), sometimes place (TJ [Tijuana], Sunset [blvd], Scarsdale, Santa Ana [at least the wind...], Lhasa [capital city of Tibet], Mr. Chow’s restaurant)… and on and on.

It’s a virtual smorgasbord of sensual delights, all sumptuously offered to the masquerade of Babylonian sisters, nineteen year old ingenues, drug addicts and lecherous thirty-somethings who hide in the shadowy corners of “Gaucho”. Walking among them we can catch glimpses of Donald and Walter running around corners, tapping you on the shoulder and then disappearing into the heaving crowd, perfecting, as Swartley says, “the aesthetic of the tease”.

Steely Dan – Gaucho

I’ve devoted quite a few words to the glory of Steely Dan because they stand for everything I think is perfect in music. While so many musicians write songs, Steely makes songs: working tirelessly for that one little moment that we the audience often won’t immediately recognize without a PHD in musical theory. Donald and Walt purportedly spend hours, days, months in the studio by themselves, endlessly fiddling with levels, mixes and chord progressions – sometimes resulting in what they want, but also occasionally making them realize that they have to let the song go, either to be modified and put on a later album (Royal Scam’s “Caves of Altamira” was originally a much different song called “Android Warehouse”) or to end up truly trashed; only to rise again when someone unearths it, gives it a perfunctory spit-shine, and puts it on a compilation record (see their 1994 “Roaring of the Lamb” album).

Their musical craftsmanship, which borders on obsessive compulsiveness, is set into stark relief by their traditional jazz roots – which keeps them open to improvisation (Larry Carlton’s incendiary solos on “Kid Charlemagne” were apparently done on the first take… not to say that Don and Walt didn’t make him do them a few more times, for good measure, but what you hear is his first effort). Few artists are able to combine these combative rational and sensual impulses, but those who can are often some of the greatest out there.

Tom Waits (a fan of, and respected by, Steely themselves) has staggered his way to the front of these few.

For the uninitiated, Waits – like a mangy dog that could either rub himself amiably against your leg or bite you with a mouth full of god-only-knows what infectious diseases – must be approached with caution. Start out by listening to “Blood Money” or “Bone Machine” and chances are good that you’ll be scared away. Whenever anyone tells me that they’ve been meaning to get into Waits (and in a pretentious university setting this happens rather often) I’ll always point them towards his “Coffee Break Radio Show”, which was recorded in 1975 just prior to the release of “Small Change” (which had at the time a working title of “Pasties and a G-String, a Beer and a Cheap Shot, Cheaters, Slicks and Baby Moons”… this tentative title underwent a small change itself). The album shows Waits at his most exposed, it’s just him and a piano, and is therefore a rare insight into the notoriously twisted mind of the scotch-soaked sundry that typifies Tom.

If “Coffee Break” sets down some dry kindling, watching a few youtube interviews of Waits will have you reaching in your pocket for matches. With the necessary tools in hand, his 1974 “The Heart of Saturday Night” will set the mess ablaze. You’re hooked. The conflagration should now burn hot enough to consume “Mule Variations”, “Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers and Bastards” and any other, edgier, Waits you can get your hands on.

Being a sucker for sweet stuff, I’m partial to the well-contained blaze, and “Heart” lies comfortably in his sentimental chest. From the smoky barroom opening of “New Coat of Paint”, to the conflated juxtapositions of his nostalgic “San Diego Serenade”, the album walks down a rainy side street occasionally lit by the dim streetlights of “Diamonds on my Windshield” but is then left to turn up its collar against the elements in “Drunk on the Moon”

The poetry is at once self-reflective (“never heard the melody until I needed the song”) and impetuous (“I’m selfish and I’m cruel but you’re blind”) but is nonetheless omnipresent – like the mumblings of a drifter that, when you accidentally hear what he’s saying, turns out to be the transient poet-laureate of the metaphorical big city.

The traditional bluesy band structure (upright bass, drums, tenor sax and Waits on piano and guitar) is dissimilar to Steely – who used over two dozen session players on “Aja” (as a point of interest, the saxophone-toting antihero with the pseudonym “Deacon Blues” is played by Pete Christlieb, whose tenor is the same as the one you think you can hear while “Drunk on the Moon”) but gets the point across by this very intimacy. The ever-elusive autobiographical voice still hides in “Aja”, and the truly existential “Where’s Walt-o” (and Don-o, for that matter) temper is achieved by constantly shrouding their identity in the plethora of different styles, played by different people – the Odysseus coming “Home at Last” is not the same cat who’s enamored with the coquettish “Peg” – whereas Waits’ session players give the album a uniform feel (who sound, as Nate Cavalieri suggests in his Rhapsody review, like they were “plucked from a flyover state Holiday Inn”) – which underlines the sense you get that after their set is over, you can practically see them finishing their drinks, silently packing up their gear and getting into the now even older Ol’ 55 to move to the next city. After, of course, a bite to eat at Napoleone’s.

But truly transcendent is the oddly formulaic guy-lost-girl “Please Call me, Baby”. Thomas Lee’s 2005 review of the album lovingly refers to the song as “predictable as an Elvis flick”, but expressed so well that “the strings, the schmaltz, and the headache combine to make it otherworldly”. It’s a hell of a ballad, spoken honestly through the slow lilt up the major scale only to forget how it got there and once again descend the ladder and put its feel on solid, albeit unremarkable, ground. It’s apologetic, but at its wits end; excusing, but conflicted. It’s a love-song for the realistic, a testament for the scruffy prophet, a call-to-arms for the emotionally unequipped.

Waits’ genius has, throughout his multi-decade career, worked its way through the pragmatic, gone cubist and blue, and occasionally comes back to flirt with realism – but did, in my humble opinion, achieve a clarity and honesty in its early days, with the alcohol-fueled insouciance of albums like “The Heart of Saturday Night”, that will never be rivaled by the foolish lovers and angry artists who croon and cry over the airwaves.

Tom Waits – Please Call me, Baby

As a relatively patriotic guy, I’m ashamed at the paucity of Canadian content within the posts here – but, honestly, it’s because I’m rarely listening to Canadian music. Not to suggest that we are any less prolific on the music scene (although, per capita, we most definitively are…) and I will forever use Joni, Shakey, the Band and Cohen as ammunition against the parochial few who feel that the canadian music scene is lacking. But with the exception of the Weakerthans I haven’t been exposed to new canadian content in a while. Until my father excitedly told me about ‘Hey Rosetta!’, the six-piece east coast indie group that has transformed garage rock into sweet stringed thoughtful music.

Hey Rosetta! comes on the heels of The Arcade Fire, who paved the way for Canadian indie rock, and their most recent album, 2008′s ‘Into Your Lungs (and around in your heart and on through your blood)’, produced by Hawksley Workman, is wonderfully well textured. It’s an excellent sophomore production.

My favorite off the album is ‘Red Heart’ which, immediately injecting a Maj7th chord into the driving beat, is almost sickeningly sweet. Despite the soft guitar, the drum gives the song an inertia in a way that could be irreconcilable with the supple lyrical structure unless there wasn’t the sense of urgency and momentum the chorus provides. I love Tim Baker’s voice – it’s got the grit that makes you feel like you can hear the veins popping out of his throat. I love the way the acoustic and electric guitars working off of each other. But most impressive, and most startling, is Josh Ward’s bass – which practically knocks me over.

I’m not a bass person. I understand their necessity, and I certainly like the texture they give to any song. I like Sting. I like Paul McCartney. But I’ve never been able to pull the bass out of the song… find them amidst the often more forceful guitars, vocals and drums. Although I think I’ve got a decent ear, I often can’t tell you what the bass is doing. Hey Rosetta! changes all that. I can always pick out what Josh is up to, and he often injects little, wonderful, walks along the fretboard – not solos, mind you – but perfect little reminders of his presence, which in turn injects a deepness to the songs that harmonizes with Baker’s lower range but is also excellently discordant with the tenderness that characterizes most of their songs. For further proof listen closely at 4:13 of ‘Red Heart’.

Enjoy, folks.

Hey Rosetta – Red Heart

Sick of Miley Cyrus yet? I know I am, with Hannah Montana polluting the air/television waves incessantly and her constant idiocy… fuck, she’s annoying.

However, ‘Party in the USA’ is huge. It’s undeniable. It’s massive. According to iTunes I’ve listened to it 34 times. That’s close to 7,000 seconds of my life that I’ll never get back.

Miley purportedly told a reporter who asked her which Jay-Z song she was referring to that she “doesn’t listen to pop music”… although a doctoral thesis could be written on all the things wrong with her response, 3 things stand out distinctly

1) She didn’t write the song. Okay, maybe it was obvious – but don’t flaunt it

2) She’s unfamiliar with the most influential popular musician of the past couple decades… and completely mislabeled him.

3) She actually has no idea what she is: a bubblegum, glossy-eyed media shill who does nothing BUT pop music.

So here’s the Biggie remix.

Party and Bullshit (In the USA)

* the above picture is priceless by the way

a picture sings a thousand words... in a really high falsetto.

Alright. I’ve never really felt that my musical tastes needed to be excused in any way – the purpose of this site was to simply share what I was listening to; if you don’t like it, fine… not a big deal. I can deal with the fact that people hate Blink 182… I really can.

However, this post made me worry a little. Don’t get me wrong, I like the song – probably altogether too much – and a large percentage of what the artist has pressed… but I’m also aware that publicly acknowledging these facts opens me up for all kinds of criticism.

Well I say fuck that noise… if you can listen to this song without busting into an over-sized smile you are either too handcuffed by your musical tastes or don’t have a soul… nuff said.

Mika (born Michael Holbrook Penniman Jr. – don’t you love these kind of British names?) is the quintessential high-pitched frontman. Reaching back to The Darkness, Elton, Scissor Sisters, Prince and, in a very big way, Queen he inherits the tradition of flamboyancy wrapped in a bad-boy, a generous dash of dark humour, and – of course – a shitload of talent… all coming through a voice that can span four octaves.

Like Mercury (Freddie, not planet – pay attention), Mika is classically trained, attending the Royal College of Music in London and tutored by Russian opera professional Alla Ardakov, which provided him with the chops to do pretty much whatever he wanted. That done, he stepped away from conventionality and released his first single ‘Relax (take it easy)’ which you’ve almost certainly heard in the club. Next was ‘Grace Kelly’, in which he outlines his influences, both stylistically and musically, even giving a verbal nod to Queen’s infamous frontman (‘I try a little Freddie’).

His debut album ‘Life in Cartoon Motion’ (2007) has a few gems, but above all of them is the feel-good second track ‘Lollipop’. It’s infectious, and has a wonderfully slow build, bringing in the horns slowly but then kicking your ass with them once they’ve surfaced. I went through a phase of listening to this track at least once a day (and upwards of five times if I needed a pick-me-up), and I highly recommend it to anyone, ever, all the time.

enjoy.

Mika – Lollipop

Christopher Mercer (Rusko) is, according to the most viable source I know, currently the biggest dubstep producer in the world. Which is a good thing for those of us who have a penchant for the grimy bass-laden 2 stepping dark-as-shit shuffle.

I’ve posted electro stuff before, but generally it falls into a category that would be happily be listened to by first year university bitches as a means to pump them up before they went to the bar and ordered, like, a million jagerbombs. This is different. This is good.

The thing I like most about dubstep is that it generally runs at a low bpm (around 140) and has recently started using half-time bass and snare rhythms, which outline the melody thickly. It’s space, so you can actually hear what’s going on. Think of it this way: the human heart beats at about 70 bpm, so when the bass or snare in a dubstep mix halves the predominant beat it’s syncopating, roughly, with your pulse. This makes two things happen:

1) your body responds physically to what is happening aurally

2) your heart explodes in your chest because it can’t take it.

… this second part is mostly fiction, but give this a listen and tell me you don’t want to furrow your eyebrows, open your mouth like an idiot and nod your head (like yeah).

tons of youtube and myspace links – here’s something to get you started.

Also,

check this out – it’s kind of a long video, but the double drop at 4:51 is transcendent