tim and eric really nailed my life post-spring break

GOATs

officially hyped on new N.E.R.D. music

N.E.R.D. Live At The Levi's/Fader Fort from The FADER on Vimeo.

Fader dudes give you a sufficient breakdown of the N.E.R.D. stage antics, but I'd like to add that their band sounds real next level, all spazzed out and shit. I love it. Wasn't feeling "Everyone Nose" at first but it's grown on me and now I actually think it's kinda awesome. I love that Pharrell is really into just rocking out but at the same time getting real weird...makes Gnarls Barkley look like a couple of pussies.

Side note: the third guy, Shay, does he just go into hibernation and come out for new N.E.R.D. albums?? what's his deal?

check out my Muxtape yo

here is my Muxtape. listen to it and be blown away, or maybe have it on really quiet while you do something else, or maybe gather round the computer with your family like it's an old fireside chat with Fdr.

and here is a Maxell XLII, the greatest cassette tape on which I ever recorded countless hours of Grateful Dead live shows:

barack obama X baltimore club

boomp3.com

probably the most amazing thing I've ever heard. Apparently chopped up samples of some nut job preacher from Harlem named Pastor Manning who's got a big thing for hating on Barry, Bmore-ified by DJ Excel... So Dope! If I can find I a link I'll drop this every night until November (or the convention...)!!

apparently this guy RONDO is pretty good...

COLD

poured over the head of a male model

I haven't been that into the Colbert Report lately (and by lately I mean probably the last year or so). When the show first came out I was convinced it was the greatest thing to happen to television since the "info" bar first showed up on my cable channels. and if you don't remember that moment then you're like 13 years old. I remember I called my friend Gustavo (GOOSE THIS IS WHERE THE LINK TO YOUR BLOG WILL GO) for the first episode because I was so excited for this show to premiere. The first year was amazing, and his address to the White House Press Correspondents was one of the funniest moments of the decade. Anyway, it's been a while since I've really LOVED something on the show, but I'm glad I got to see this sketch because it's fucking hilarious and exactly the type of comedy I want to see more of from everybody. This reminds me of classic SNL fake ads from the 90s, and Colbert is definitely a Phil Hartman-worthy successor to the fake-serious throne.

5 years, 4,000 bodies, more bullshit

This mosaic of 4,000 fallen faces by Nico Pitney of the Huffington Post is one of the most sobering, depressing and visceral images I've seen in a while. I think a lot of people like John McCain but are not realizing exactly what he stands for (including myself). Sure, he seems like less of a nut than Cheney and smarter than Bush, but this guy may be a complete warmonger. It's fucking scary to think that because of complete apathy, the competitive dissolution of the once-formidable Democratic force in '08 and the seemingly harmlessness of McCain we could be looking at four more years of Iraq.

Hillary, I love you, but give it up or get the fuck out of the way.

mission of burma gets their shine

Mission of Burma is one of my favorite bands of all time and not just because they're probably THE greatest Boston band ever. When looking back on the progression of my musical tastes over the past few years, something I think I do a little too often, I can trace a pretty significant split to the moment I heard MoB. When I was in high school, my boss and all the dudes that worked at Ace Ticket with me would talk about this band that I had never heard of like they were the lost key to Boston's coolness. I remember thinking from the name that they were some cheesy 80s new wave. Then one day my freshman year in Madison I was in the late great The Den on State St. browsing the CDs and stumbled upon the best of collection A Gun To The Head. My whole listening world basically exploded. They still hold a special place for me even if I don't listen to their Ace of Hearts years that much any more (The Obliterati is the only one I still play), but that's gonna change today when I buy the complete set of reissues.

I honestly don't think I've been this excited to buy a new record in a long time, and it's partly because I'm in LA right now and am going to get my hands on these at my favorite record store in the world, Amoeba. But really, I'm excited because Matador just did this right for so many reasons, and it's great to see a label do something like this for a band that I really love. It feels like an event. Idolator shared a similar enthusiasm for these reissues, but this is more like an event to me. The discs were even remastered by Rick Harte, a pioneer of indie music and one of Boston's most important underground figures, the dude who signed Burma to his label and put out their legendary singles in the early 80s. Even though the band has had one of the most remarkable comebacks ever, it feels good to know that their original material is going to be appreciated all at once like this.

thugged out orthopedic

just a friendly reminder that everyone involved in "Banned From T.V." is the shit...including Swizzy!

the world before "Lollipop"

As I type this, we are dangerously close to finally hearing the first single from The Carter III, Lil Wayne's long-awaited, frequently leaked and delayed sixth album. The first single is a curiously auto-tuned club joint called "Lollipop," the video for which is supposed to premiere on Wednesday on BET. A one-minute snippet has leaked and the track is even more intriguing and off-putting than I had previously thought.

Obviously an attempt to capitalize on the current vocoder and synth craze in hip-pop that has taken over the charts and the clubs, the song is also an effort to reposition Wayne as a solo pop star rather than a sensational mixtape rapper and charismatic guest on other artists' singles. He stands right now on the verge of absolute pop superstardom, a sort of perfect storm of months of hype, hit songs, popular appeal and critical acclaim from the right (white) places: The New Yorker, the New York Times, Pitchfork. Wayne has been notorious for never having really secured a hit single as a solo artist (his biggest hit to date is "Go DJ"), despite declaring himself and willing himself into becoming the "Greatest Rapper Alive." So, in other words, the first single from the new album could make or break it, either sending it to the upper reaches of the pop charts or condemning it to internet acclaim with real world obscurity.

It's truly incredible how risky this move is that Wayne and his people have decided to take with "Lollipop." The song is seemingly contradictory to the persona Weezy created with his Dedication mixtapes and their predecessors, a series of seething, hallucinogenic, ravenously hungry runs of lyricism and lunacy. There is no denying that he could have created a lyrical masterpiece to leak to the streets, release as his first single or whatever (and I'm sure he made many), but this is a curious move, perhaps even a brilliant one.

What Wayne needs is a hit. Plain and simple. If he got too fancy his album would flop, but if he gets too "pop" his die-hard fans (and the rap community) would discredit him. While I haven't heard the whole thing, "Lollipop" seems like it may tread some bizarre line between chick-friendly club pop and weird sonic experimentation with enough RnB flavor to keep enough music heads on board. I mean, the thing is a smash hit, let's face it. Right now, Weezy can almost do no wrong, that is unless he released something like "Gossip" as his first single. "Lollipop" is perfectly timed, coming right off the heels of "Sensual Seduction" and "Low," occupying the same sonic template and popular territory. We'll see if he can keep his dignity after the full thing leaks, depending on how embarrassing a song called "Lollipop" actually gets. But knowing Wayne, it will have some sort of edge of competitiveness, irony, or self-consciousness.

It's also worth noting this summary of the song from Lil Wayne himself: "Dudes are gonna hate this one...Ugly dudes, that is."

I love Will Arnett...and am kinda down for some more Human Giant

This preview of Human Giant's second season is MAD funny. I remember some of the first season being pretty good, but I just don't like Aziz that much. He's not as funny as the other two and I think he may just be funnier as a stand-up. Makes me miss shows like Kids in the Hall...I'll be watching though, I'm sure, so we'll see about Season 2.

Anyway, Will Arnett is the shit and since he played the immortal character G.O.B. he's tried to bring his profile up a little bit, I'm just not so sure how well it's going...

Justice - "DVNO" video...So Me est Dieu.

I have a long, troubled history with Justice. After discovering their remixes (and a bunch more by Sebastian, MSTRKRFT) on a blog called To Here Knows When that I think is now defunct (if you're out there, holler) back in the fall of '05, I followed them pretty closely. I bought the "Waters of Nazareth 12" at MC Audio, then the "Never Be Alone" 12 at TTL in NYC. I had every single leaked track, loved em all. I knew the whole movement was popping off on the internet, but couldn't have guessed what would happen in '07. Then when D.A.N.C.E. came out, it blew up, and I had to backtrack and constantly remind the new jacks that I was up on that shit first! blah blah blah, didn't matter.

So Me never crossed that line, though. Even after directing a video for Kanye West and T-Pain, dude is still holding that spot of dope underground designer who gets crazy attention in magazines and online but hasn't fallen off a bit. Maybe that's because designers don't really blow up ever. Nonetheless, if I could pay him to design my whole life I would (walls, clothes, pills that make me see everything as So Me-animated, EVERYTHING). The videos for "D.A.N.C.E." and "Good Life" were whole new levels of dopeness, even after he dropped ill art for Ed Banger single after single. Now here's a new video for fav. album cut-turned new single(??) "DVNO."

I can't stress enough how incredible I think this shit is. I've spent the past six weeks in a design class realizing how lame my own vision is, trying to come up with logos for myself and site designs. If I could design ONE logo as fresh as any of the fake ones in this video I would be tremendously proud and consider myself a pretty competent designer. This dude killed the retro logo schtick here so hard!!! At first I was skeptical like "More of the same." Nope. Ed Banger and France aren't going anywhere.

Oh yeah. Add this to the list of great So Me sleeves:

hillary will steal the nomination

I'm calling it right now but have been thinking it since before last night's double victory in Ohio and Texas. According to the email that Obama campaign manager David Plouffe sent out today, Clinton only won "a net gain of 4 delegates out of more than 370 delegates available from all the states that voted." So, basically, last night meant nothing. Yet here we are, on March 5, and Clinton is curiously poised for a big comeback, even though we still have almost exactly the same race as we did on Monday.

It doesn't matter how many primaries Obama will win in the next three months(!), Hillary will take the nomination. Superdelegates, legal wrangling, second counts, Michigan and Florida re-primaries, whatever, she will somehow take this nomination away from Obama. I can feel it. This isn't some "too good to be true" shit either. McCain will be president because the Democrats will suck all the air out of this tremendously exciting and invigorating race.

the night I deejayed a music video

On Saturday afternoon, as I nursed my hangover and incredibly bruised left foot after a night with Black Lips, I got a call from someone from the KK. I don't even know who it was. I don't know most of their names. Anyway, the guy told me some rap group was going to film a video that night and I was supposed to play the song three times for them. I obliged and didn't really think much of it. As the night grew closer and I realized that I was actually going to have to DJ and play some song a bunch of times, I worried that this group was gonna suck and the whole night was gonna be even lamer than a normal Beckies-and-Bros Saturday night hoedown at Kollege Klub.

I was wrong. The dudes in Reigny Day Productions were mad cool and more importantly made a dope song. These guys really came off like musicians (especially the dude Reign) as opposed to "rappers" with some wack-ass demo. I was skeptical when I found out the name of the song was "Broadband Love" but shit went off like crazy in KK. I was stunned. And, frankly, I had a great time.

I told them they could do whatever they wanted as long as they put me in the video. I think I was half-joking and half-wasted but they did it anyway!! Look for your boy Mush Kid at around 1:27!!



Gotta give them respect for their hustle, as well. Got a text message from Reign himself alerting me of the video (three-day turnaround!) and telling me to post it on my facebook. That's grinding. Keep making moves!!