trill.i.am

the first (fake) issue of MAD NOISE

that there is part of my final project for my Multimedia Graphic Design class. As I stated before, I discovered that I really don't have a gift for this sort of thing, and luckily I'm relying on other skills to break into the industry (pffffff)...I don't think this is so bad though. I like it, so I'm posting it on my blog. My idea was a magazine for Madison's music scene, but one from my perspective that reflects my taste in music, cuz why not? No one's gonna make the thing anyway, so I might as well put Ian St. Pé's grill on the cover and pretend like Ladyhawk and the Cool Kids are a big deal. Thank god there are other, better mags out there, with designers who know what they're doing. The spread I made for the inside of the pretend magazine is pretty dope, too. Featuring the Greatest Band in America, BLACK LIPS:











these are probably the last time I will ever have to make visual art so don't worry eyeballs everywhere will be safe from now on. click on the spread if you really want to see it. disclosure: I ripped the quote above the photo (which is also stolen) from the badger herald. ALSO: the photo of Ian on the cover is from this guy's flickr account.

the Cool Kids show at MU

just passing on the good word from my boy Mikey that the Cool Kids will be doing an in-store this Friday at Flow (bka Cook)...WAS CANCELLED

if you don't know you better axe somebody






















been following these guys for a while and find it crazy how they blew up so big without releasing a single proper record. Seems like they're really riding a nice little hype wave as the only hipster-rap collective to really get that buzz, but they're dope and even held they're own on this Kidz in the Hall remix with two of THE BEST RAPPERS ALIVE (maybe THE two best rappers alive?)...

I remember when I heard they were gonna be a big deal after last year's SXSW and how they were supposed to come out on Fool's Gold, which would have been a very good look for both parties. SOmething must have gone down cuz that never happened and they have since switched over to Chocolate Industries and I guess coming out on their own imprint, C.A.K.E. Recordings. I tried to interview them last September but had a hard time getting in touch. Seems like they got new management...

Originally, the blogger talking points on these guys were their throwback aesthetic and general good-guy attitudes. "They wear gold ropes! They sound like 1988! They're from Chicago?!" All I know is the white girls of Madison's headband and scarves-in-springtime scene have endorsed this group for some reason and will be out in full at their show on Friday night, at the Union. "Gold and a Pager" went off big time to my surprise last Friday night at Montmartre at about 1:30 am so they are being felt by non-rap fans around here. I don't know if it's they're look - which is like Pharrell mixed with Flight of the Conchordes - or their non-threatening rhymes about bmx bikes, dressing well, being good on the mic, rap's golden years and now, apparently, baked goods. Also, they're mad photogenic:

On "Put On"

the latest addition to the autotune revolution in popular music, Young Jeezy ft. Kanye West "Put On"

an excerpt from a facebook message conversation:

but yeah I like "put on" but if kanye and jeezy are gonna do a big event single where kanye experiments with vocal effects it totally should have been about somehting other than repping your city...I mean just a normal street song or maybe if ye had jsut rapped it would be cool but if theyre gonna do this it should be about somethin else...especially since jeezy is like the new ll cool j

really Ross? really?????

google in mad town

Madison, get ready for Google. (Fuck Microsoft)

albums from 2008 that I love: Black Mountain

Ahhhhhhhhh. This record is like jumping into a big comfy time machine. It feels very nostalgic to me, but nostalgic for a time that was more than a decade before my own birth. I grew up on real nerdy, guitar-dork classic rock like Zeppelin and Floyd and Sabbath, stuff that is decidedly uncool as checkpoints for new indie rock. Sometimes this sound comes back in, and in recent memory bands like Wolfmother, Mars Volta, Muse, have mined the riffs and pomp of the Gods of dinosaur rock, to pretty uncool results. I normally try not to revisit this era of my musical taste, it being second only to my extensive foray into jam band fandom on the embarrassment scale. Black Mountain totally love Blue Cheer and Deep Purple (I'm guessing) and kind of sound like "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida." But this is really good! And everyone loves it. Strange how they managed to keep some of the lame stuff from 70s stadium/prog/psych rock and still keep it a cool indie rock album form 2008 - a pretty hard thing to do no matter what type of influences you're using. I mean, their web site is called BlackMountainArmy.com!!!

I think what keeps the album fresh and easy to embrace is that the band doesn't simply rely on the Sabbath riffs for 80 minutes straight. There are plenty, but they're balanced out by beautifully restrained organs or passages of soft acoustic guitars and flutes or something like that. There's an equal emphasis on psychedelia as there is on brute force riffage. Songs like "Tyrants" switch from stompy prog to atmospheric psych at the drop of a hat, which helps to keep the band from sounding too stuck in one mode or the other. Even when they are getting pretty or trippy the Rick Wakeman synths and monster guitars aren't too far behind. A perfect example is "Wucan," maybe my favorite track. The shared vocals really save some of the songs from their stupid lyrics. "You've got to change your evil ways"!?!? Amber Webber's voice is incredible and so is the dude's. This album is totally badass in ways that albums really haven't been in a while; unabashedly rocking out in some parts but keeping it psychedelic and kind of druggy at the same time, not caring about "hip" influences, silly lyrics, alternating scary/beautiful parts, long epic tracks. It seems kind of anachronistic, but there is a weird thing going on in Vancouver with a bunch of dudes with beards who are in awesome rock bands. Big synths, kraut-ish grooves, Sabbath riffs aren't exactly ground-breaking, but I can't think of many indie rock records that are as unpretentious and listenable.

made up the word that's why I'm so....

new GTA looks crazy

I wouldn't think that I'd be excited about a video game ever again, but this looks really awesome. The only way I could really care enough to sit down for more than 20 minutes and do something like that would be if the game is so ridiculous and offensive that it's actually like a subversive act just playing it. This looks interesting. Some nutbar conservative attorney in Florida (obv.) is demanding that Take Two be indicted and claims that the game is as big of threat to our children as Polio. Yeah. Sign me up (for the game, not Polio).

According to the article, the video above "strips the game of all context and merely shows scenes of sexual content and violence, one after the other...and since the acts are shown one after the other, the game can be portrayed as a nonstop sexual experience." it's nsfw obviously

I also thought this was funny: via wikipedia
"Grand Theft Auto IV takes place in a redesigned Liberty City consisting of four boroughs, based on four of the boroughs of New York City. Broker is the equivalent of Brooklyn, Queens is Dukes, the Bronx is Bohan and Manhattan is Algonquin. Adjacent to the city is the independent state of Alderney based on New Jersey and named after the Channel Island of the same name. A Staten Island-esque area is not featured in the game as Rockstar Games believes that game play in such an area would not be amusing."

so who's apartment am I hitting up tomorrow for some gangster sex and violence gaming???

new no age

I've been anticipating the new album from this band since I heard the news that they signed to Sub Pop. Their first LP, Weirdo Rippers, is one of my absolute favorite albums of the decade. I've listened to it a million times and they've become one of my favorite bands. I kinda wish every band sounded more like them: incredible melodies, NOISE, thrashing guitar and drums, honest and simple lyrics that are either sort of hummed and barely audible or shouted/barked.

Needless to say, I was kinda nervous about Nouns. A band like this is a fragile thing, and while they clearly had a ton of potential and room to grow there was also the enormous possibility of a let-down. Everything about the band was so perfect; a series of great EP's released on tiny indies, a small following, a scene. I was equally scared that they would come out with a clunker and hesitant to even think about the album's hype. Well, it leaked and I downloaded it.

After my first few listens I was prepared to be officially disappointed. Nothing on it was as immediate as "Everybody's Down" or "Every Artist Needs A Tragedy." They also seemed to have changed their sound a little bit to a cleaner, more straight-ahead punk band sound. There weren't as many blissful, static-y moments like "Neck Escaper." But after a few more listens I've realized that this album is GENIUS. The new sound isn't as drastic as I thought. It's subtle, yes, but it's just as powerful as before, it's just more focused. Here, when they do noise, they do it for a full two minutes. When they write a song, they play it. When they thrash, they thrash and then move on to the next one. But when these sounds come together the band is at their most brilliant and sublime. On their early songs they would sometimes juxtapose two of these sounds together on one track, but there are moments on Nouns that get closer to that perfect fusion of noise and volume and power and melody. I'm really relieved and just happy that I have a new album to dissect and listen to over and over for the next few months. Thank you dean and randy

you should pre-order it

and also check out their blog
and go see them

albums from 2008 that I love: Cut Copy

This one definitely took me by surprise. Back in 2004 Cut Copy's debut seemed like an 80s pastiche album from some fruity Australian guys who loved neon and synthesizers. While it may have been slightly ahead of the curve, it feels very much part of the whole new-rave thing that is still pretty much dominating indie and dance music. So it has been easy to lump them in with a bunch of other bands, many of whom are from Australia or even on their label Modular. Maybe I wasn't paying attention or maybe it's a new development, but at some point this band became really creative and ambitious, incorporating sounds and approaching territory that is pretty foreign to all those other bands in the hypem/remix/bloghouse continuum. They also got way, WAY better.

This inventiveness is apparent right off the bat with the opening "Feel The Love," starting with oddly hummed vocals and synth flourishes over strummed acoustic guitars. Right away it sounds slightly more psychedelic, more unabashedly joyful than what is expected of a band like this, and it's clear that it belongs to some other sphere of influence, with a melody too perfect and so many bubbling elements that it sounds like it has nothing to do with everything that's going on right now. "Feel the Love" is pretty enough to make me wonder if the band had suddenly gone hippie until the end finally brings in the beat. That's what everyone is waiting for anyway these days. But what makes this album stand out is the sticky sound that surrounds each element of the songs, not to mention the incredible melodies. Songs like "Out There On The Ice" and "Lights and Music" sound so genuinely New Wave that it's easy to ignore the fact that these guys made an album full of danceable, four-on-the-floor house-rock tracks that work much more strongly as an LP, that is as a great album.

One of the most engaging features of the album is the feeling of an ebb and flow that occurs throughout it. Songs like "Lights and Music," which is the new single and is a pretty direct dancefloor track, have these incredibly sublime breakdowns in them where the band lets the ever-present synths soar or bounce or just wash over you. The whole album is padded with a distorted wash of noise that comes and goes, sometimes giving way to powerful beats or serene breakdowns or odd samples. There are even several short, ambient instrumental tracks that act in a similar way, bridging moments of bliss with fuzzy atmospherics or pounding drums. They really don't shy away from the noise, either. "So Haunted," which was the first track to leak, alternates between pretty, lilting choruses and clanging post-punk guitar before giving way to a breakdown that sounds like it was taken straight off a German or French electro-house record. Seriously. And then there's "Far Away," which has got to be one of thee best songs this year. I don't really feel like saying much about it because it speaks for itself, but I would like to add that the breakdown on this one is one of my favorite moments on any recent album. That sample thrown in the middle of the song blows my mind, too.

In a million years I never would have expected this album. Somehow, Cut Copy became a truly original art rock band. Instead of straight ripping from their influences they built an homage to many of them. Everything comes down to influences these days, because it's so hard to sound new in an environment in which New Order and Daft Punk have as much influence as Prince and Brian Wilson. In Ghost Colours uses its influences perfectly, letting them in but allowing them to pass by freely without weighing the music down. This will hold up as a great album and will be hard to beat for my album of the year.

mixtape monster

YES!















I love mixtapes like these that collect all of a rapper's recent guest spots and whatnot when they're in between albums. One of my favorite mixtapes from the past year was very similar to this, Young Dro's Purp By The Pound. Jeezy is having something of a renaissance right now, all of a sudden turning into an R&B love machine. His verse on "Love In This Club" is great because everyone can rap along to those first few lines ("Seshully, emoshunlly!") but it's a laughably simple and kind of stupid verse. Although I think he may have topped that one with his verse on this new Mariah track "Side Effects" which will probably be on her new album (EDIT: I'm retarded, it's already out). The verse is notable if only for its opening line, in which Mr. 17.5 exclaims that either he or the subject of his sexually seductive verse is "magnifical or should I say magnificent?" Amazing. There's also a track with The-Dream that I had never heard that is pretty awesome, but that's expected since it is The-Dream. I strangely haven't heard anything about a new Jeezy album but he's put out a bunch of good guest spots and remixes in the past year or so, and the remix of "Superstar" with T.I. has added to my slowly reversing opinion on Lupe (used to hate him, coming around...) Also, this mix has me checking for Slick Pulla, which is cool I guess. There's a track on here called "Fuck The Other Side" that I'm definitely feeling.

That Jeezy cover is just TOO ILL though! I woke up to great news (news? whatever) and this is just hitting the spot. I wish I could have done Rap Mixtape Cover Art as the subject of my Multimedia Graphic Design 15-page research paper because I think it's one of my favorite media for graphics in the world right now. Some of my favorites that are out right now:

ryan leslie "diamond girl"

I can't decide on this song. I guess I like it. Sometimes synths are just not that great, too much of a good thing maybe. I also think he's kinda forgettable, especially on the rap at the end...I'll still take The-Dream or even "Sexy Can I" over this.

a review of the Dipset (12)

It's been a while since the Dips have been relevant, and they've sort of become uncool. I have the feeling there are a lot of people out there who are pretending they weren't into this in 2004-05. But they were. And it's still great stuff, no matter how many internet rap cycles away we are. The height of the movement is long gone, but I'd like to just remind you of how dope it really was to see these crazy dudes giving NY rap some excitement and originality for the first time in so long. I mean, who's ever gonna touch the Dips on the swagger levels alone? Didn't they birth that whole thing anyway? I think it's almost a good thing that they imploded so they never got too crappy while they were still an official unified group. Although Killa Season flopped and the two More Than Music comps were pretty forgettable (too many shitty second tier dudes), they went out the same way they came in: quick and confusing. I think it's just important to remember that they created some of the weirdest music of the decade.

This post is to commemorate the greatest moments in Dipset audio/video history



Cam'ron "Hey Ma"
The first real Diplomats moment, the coming out party. Not much to say about this. They're like a bunch of comedians in this one. The dance is amazing, of course.

Diplomats "Bout It Bout It...Part III"
Crazy old video from the first Diplomats album. A relic of the throwback jersey era, incredible outfits with matching hats and bandanas all around. Looks like they got all of Harlem to come out for this. A remake of an old Master P and TRU track, with the Ice Cream Man in the video. Classic and grimey as hell.



Juelz Santana "Dipset (Santana's Town)
Juelz first real solo smash. Not a real hit but a Dipset classic nonetheless. Great pink moment in the beginning with Cam in the car, bandanas around the neck and wrist. This song is too ill, a perfect example of the Dipset sound: hammering Trackmasters beat, chanting chorus, stuttering verses with a lot of words that rhyme with themselves.

Diplomats "S.A.N.T.A.N.A."
God I love this one. IM BAAAAACK...The high pitched little kid sample is so recognizable and weird and just out there. The whole thing sounds like it was made by some aliens or something, especially the beat. The furs in the video, the whole NYC setting, the driving...This was Dipset 2.0 at its best. (sorry about the AOL videos, it's impossible to find this one on YouTube)



Jim Jones "Crunk Muzik"
This shit is just frightening. Amazing track, one of the hardest ones they ever made. The quintessential Juelz verse, a hillarious "Tuttie frutti" Cam verse and a sick hook. This should have been a bigger hit... The video is really dope, too, probably my favorite. Great Warriorz theme with Sizzurp bottles.

albums from 2008 that I love: Atlas Sound

OK, here's the first in a series of posts that I've been meaning to start. It shouldn't be that hard because there really aren't many albums coming out that I like enough to even bother with, but so far Atlas Sound has been my favorite album of the year. I never thought I would like Bradford's solo album as much as I love last year's incredible LP/EP output from his main band Deerhunter. I usually don't like sad-sack music that much and I'm really not into all the new indie that comes out every week and takes the campus by storm (although I'm thinking about going to see Blitzen Trapper and Fleet Foxes tonight and they're both pretty damn indie and the latter is pretty sad-sounding). But something about Bradford Cox has got me hooked on his music. He has a schtick, that's for sure: high-pitched, aching, overdubbed vocals over swelling, gauze-packed shoegaze drones. I always go for sound and style first and content/lyrics/whatever well after the fact, so maybe that's why I love the warm, fuzzy, electric pillow-ness of the music, because if I was paying attention to the lyrics more I would probably want to kill myself.

Bradford is known to have a thing for pills, and I know that the feeling of being on anti-depressants and/or anti-anxiety medication has influenced his sound a lot. Whether or not this has had some sort of druggie subconscious attraction for me is unimportant really, because even if I don't enjoy hearing a dude basically nail my own fucked up anxiety-ridden thoughts with every lyric, I KNOW I love to soak in the sonic equivalent of it. It's like if a violent, sociopathic necrophiliac sat around listening to Cannibal Corpse everyday for the lyrics, it probably wouldn't help him curb his problems. I prefer that I can't understand what he's saying sometimes because I'm afraid I'll go off the deep end if I paid attention too hard. It strikes a great balance between being about what I feel and sounding like how I feel, which is way more important to me. Sure, sometimes I feel like "Chokes me 'til I'm dead / There are places in my head / That I could never conquer"... But I'd rather just hear guitars and distant voices and gently tapped keyboards wash over me and try not to think about it while I focus on other stuff.

The sonic effect of the music is what grabs me. This album has served as a fuzzy counterpart to all the other stuff I've listened to this year, which has been all pounding bass, sharp drums and upfront vocals. Even though it's a complete emotional detachment, which is the theme of his writing and his sound, this is the only type of thing I can listen to for an emotional resonance without wanting to throw up. He never gets heavy-handed, always staying within the range of the repeating noises or echoing whispers that flow throughout the space of each song. Even when he says "I'm trying to make friends but I'm always on guard," you can barely tell it's there. If it weren't for the beautiful and comforting setting he creates for each song then the impact wouldn't be half as strong. Even the instrumentals, such as "Ready Set Glow," have as strong of a cathartic coziness as a song like "Quarantined," which, in addition to being one of my favorite songs on the album, has arguably the most apparent meaning of any of the songs here. I can't decide if I have found such a close resonance with his music because I often feel so much of what he sings about or if it is because the sounds he creates have filled some empty space in my listening with the warm, static-y goodness that it needed. Or could one not exist without the other?

BREADHEADS

a T. Howard filmette

dope Lupe art on a Moleskine

So I'm the intern for EtchStar, who get really good artists to do dope engravings on shit like this Lupe Moleskine honoring one of the only songs by dude that I actually like! Love the different fonts for each city. By Nathan Cabrera

Join our Facebook group!

long live

this gave me chills. Bun is like my favorite dude alive right now, second to maybe Ross. Can't wait for II Trill to come out and looking forward to the video for "That's Gangsta" (pictured)...R.I.P. Pimp C

know what's goin through your mind, boosie he retarded

Lil Boosie - Da Beginning mixtape

The above line from the hook on "Somebody Gonna be My Victim" is the type of thing that makes me love Boosie right now. While it clearly has a different meaning when used by the man himself, many people can't take Lil Boosie seriously and look at me like I'm crazy when I tell them I listen to his music, without irony. It's not just his shrill, cartoonish voice that makes people scoff at him. He's a raw, unapologizing version of the Southern rapper; materialistic, violent, loud and unconcerned with anything except money. But he's really one of the only honest and fresh voices in rap, unafraid to put what's on his mind onto the ridiculously critical hip hop stage. Coming from Baton Rouge and having such incredible talent surrounding him (beats and rappers) helps him stand out, of course. But Boosie is all personality, talent and execution.

The new mixtape is a classic waiting to be adopted by the nerd-rap blogosphere, especially since Trill Ent. has been crowned the next rap dynasty. On Da Beginning, the production is so refreshing that it makes Boosie's rhymes so clear and even a little bit humble. Every track has some toned down, homemade element, like flutes, organs, hand claps, bluesy guitars or horns. All sounds that are strikingly different from the current state of rap production. In fact, Trill Entertainment's in-house producers produce banging club tracks on the regular, which makes this even more intriguing. I'm not sure who did the beats here (I don't hear Mouse's "Mouse ont he track, it'll make ya bounce back" tag?), but whoever it is was clearly listening to a lot of Pimp C. As we all know, Chad Butler (RIP) put these dudes on, but I've never really felt the influence of Pimp C as much on any other Trill Ent release as on this one. The woozy organs, laid back beats, guitars all sound perfect for a styrofoam cup and a big ass Cadillac.

Whoever is on the hook on "They Hatin" has the greatest nasally drawl ever, and the track is a perfect little posse cut to show just how dope this camp is. What's so exciting to me is that they can make songs like "Zoom" or "Wipe Me Down" but also they can make MUSIC, stuff that truly carries on the tradition of Pimp and Bun. "They Hatin" sounds like it's from some old mixtape by a bunch of Houston dudes that I've never heard of from 2000. Noz already told you about the political one, "Dirty World," which is another perfect example of why people who scoff at Boosie are mistaken. But it's not just the overt political track that proves Boosie's got stuff to say, he does it all over this mixtape. "I Ain't Comin Home Tonight" is a great storytelling track, a break-up song, and a sober moment for the perpetually flossing rapper, all in one. "Take My Pain Away" is a drug ballad about how he prays instead of whooping his bitch when things get rough. "Doin This 4 U" is the 'giving back to my hood' track but holds a little more poignancy knowing just exactly how hugely important this guy is to a whole lot of people in Baton Rouge and the rest of the South right now. This guy just basically threw his personality all over this thing and I'm eating it up completely. It's the type of thing that really tips a rapper from a regional sensation to a star, and maybe his recent spot on the cover of Fader is a sign. Either way, he deserves to be appreciated much more than in just a cursory, ironic sort of way.

rave @ crave, thurs 4/3

you smell me?

facebook event page

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.