The Ron Blog: Read It. Stop Weeping.

Review: Young Adult Starring Charlize TheRonBlog

2011-12-23T19:05:00.000-08:00

It’s hard not to bring up Juno with this review because Young Adult is the same creative team essentially. With Juno, Diablo Cody wrote and Jason Reitman directed and they have teamed up again for Young Adult. Juno is best described as “Cute,” (actually it’s overly cute) and it really isn’t much more than that. Young Adult, however, is a much deeper story and a much more interesting one, too.

Charlize Theron’s character Mavis is a complete sociopath in this film. A delusional, irredeemable, vain bitch who, yes, is an alcoholic and is depressed, but it is VERY hard to feel bad for her. Mavis does not care or ever stop to think twice about her mission to steal back her high school boyfriend Buddy (played by Patrick Wilson) from his wife and child. There is nothing cute about the way she acts. And yet, even though we don’t feel bad for her, I think she’s a main character people can actually connect with in a strange way. Mavis wants her old life back and will basically stop at nothing to have that. I think we all cling to nostalgia when we feel we’re stuck in a bad spot. I remember talking to Rex once about how people fantasize about getting back together with an ex sometimes totally irrationally. While most of us recognize we can’t go back to that, Mavis just tries to take back her past happiness back by force.

The movie’s called “Young Adult” because Mavis is a writer of a pretty successful YA series that has now over with and maybe as a writer she feels like she can write her own life. She tells Buddy she based a character on him and really I think Young Adult’s scenes of where Mavis gets inspiration for her writing are some of the best. She is constantly quoting other people (especially teenage girls she overhears in fast food restaurants and in Staples which further shows how stuck in the past she is) and making up things that aren’t true. Interestingly though, She lies to herself and not to others. She is very forward when talking to other characters always. It’s most apparent when she tells her parents “I’m an alcoholic” or when she tells Buddy “I came here for you. I can stay as long as I need”

Moving on from Charlize TheRonBlog’s performance, Patton Oswalt is definitely this movie’s best character. The dude has always been a hero of mine and he never disappoints in his writing his acting, his standup or anything else. In Young Adult, Oswalt plays Matt who, like Mavis, is equally stuck in his High School past. After suffering a beating that crippled him he is physically marked by his high school time while Mavis is emotionally marked by the loss of her “love of her life” Buddy.

Patton Oswalt plays a kind of nerdy voice of wisdom (which really isn’t that far off from the actor’s real self) who really is Mavis’ only friend in the film. Someone who’s had to accept unhappiness and move past it whereas Mavis can’t do that. When Matt asks Mavis near the end of the movie “why are you after Buddy?” she replies “He knew me when I was at my best” and Matt says “No. YOU knew ME when I was at MY best” meaning she knew him before the assholes beat him and ruined his life forever.

The only slightly weak part of the movie is that near the end of the film things get talky where Jason Reitman had previously been excellent at “show don’t tell.” The frequent scenes of Mavis getting manicures/pedicures and the montages of her putting on makeup and clothes are great character-building and storytelling moments. The most talking is at Buddy’s daughter’s “naming party” where Mavis has a breakdown and screams a lot of exposition about how she miscarried Buddy’s child which is probably why she’s so fucked up. I’m not sure if we need that information actually. We might, but even if it is necessary to our understanding of Mavis, we didn’t need this massive speech to get that.

Also, Mavis’ talk with Matt’s sister at the end is pretty drawn out and wordy, but I like the message it leaves us with. I love that this movie doesn’t have a neat, bow ending. Matt’s sister hates the small town she lives in and Mavis agrees. That’s Mavis’ biggest epiphany in the whole movie besides her reaction to the party freak out. Besides “I fucked up,” Mavis realizes she hates the town she grew up in and doesn’t belong there. And that’s it. She doesn’t do this 180 and become a new person. Mavis just gets over Buddy and her High School days and that’s it. And she does it in a way very true to her character by saying “This place fucking sucks” basically.

While a lot of movies are about “returning home” this movie is about getting the fuck out of home. For good. And that’s pretty fresh and great.

Grade: B+

Nicholas Vogt's Top 40 Album's Of 2011 ! ! !

2011-12-10T09:45:00.000-08:00

I write pretty damn sporadically for this blog now, but I want to give y’all my favorite albums of this past year. Mostly because it’s fun to make lists. Plus, I listen to a lot of music so this is a good way to look back on a year where some seriously dope shit came out.

This is my top 40 albums. I wrote a mini review for each one, but if you want the straight list no chaser you can check that out on my Tumblr.

1. G-Side - THE ONE…COHESIVE

This album is amazing. Powerful music. G-Side raps truly inspiring raps about struggle and grind and triumph over production by Block Beattaz and other like-minded producers is EPIC production and moving as hell. G-Side actually put out two albums this year, The One…Cohesive and November’s iSLAND. I like both, but Cohesive is definetly the better of the two. If you want more of my thoughts on G-Side, and on iSLAND check out my post on Mishka’s Bloglin.

Something odd about THE ONE…COHESIVE is that there are a number of songs with these almost “top 40” or “bubblegum” style hooks but they DON'T SUCK. These tracks are concentrated near the end of the album Nat Geo, Moneyintheskyii and How Far have guest-sung hooks that could be on the radio. I usually totally hate shit that sounds like the hooks on those tracks. But, G-Side makes it work I think by truly pouring their heart into those songs. What makes bubblegum/top 40 shit not work is that it isn’t creative and has no heart. But G-Side has creativity and heart in abundance.

Also, it’s important to note that the ONE…COHESIVE track Pictures uses a slightly remixed version of Clams Casino’s Numb beat which A$AP Rocky recently used for his song Demons.

G-Side’s “Pictures” is a song about a girl sending naked pictures “she got no panties on…” while Rocky’s version is about overcoming obstacles. That’s just kind of funny. Rocky did the typical G-Side subject matter on that beat, while G-Side did the unexpected and made the pensive, meditative Clams beat into a sex song.

Speaking of that….

2. Clams Casino – Beat Tape/ Rainforest EP

Clams Casino does not make typical hip hop beats. At all. Like many the first Clams-produced track I heard was Lil B’s “I’m God.” That is a beautiful fucking song. Clams can effortlessly create this deep, beautiful soundscapes that, interestingly, you can rap over.

His “Beat Tape” isn’t exactly an original album since it is all instrumentals he gave to rappers, but with or without lyrics, the beats are intense. Not intense in a Lex Luger intense way, but kind of the opposite. Luger beats are equally deep and complex, but they’re angry. Clams makes music that’s sad but not depressed. Just check out "Natural" off Rainforest and you'll see what I mean:

Also, to keep comparing dude to Lex Luger, many people can imitate Lex’s sound (but none can do beats EXACTLY like he can…) but I have seen ZERO Clams imitators. I’m sure producers would love to copy that sound especially since it showed up all over A$AP Rocky’s super successful "Live.Love.ASAP" mixtape, but I don’t think anyone can even COME CLOSE to making a Clams beat.

3. Frank Ocean – Nostalgia/Ultra

For a while, The-Dream was the only guy doing something “different” with R&B. R&B is probably the most commercial and bland music around. Dream reinvigorated it by daring to be vulgar and ridiculous and creative. Frank Ocean definitely would not exist without Dream, but also not without Odd Future.

Frank was supposed to have a Def Jam deal, but after that fell through, he linked with Tyler and OF and took the DIY route. My friend Spencer first told me about Nostalgia/Ultra, calling Frank “Odd Future’s The-Dream” my thought was “What? How can they have an R&B singer in the group?” But, Frank’s unorthodox songwriting “I’ve been wating to fuck you in the forest,” his unique swag and his totally original personality make him VERY Odd Future.

Frank is a great storyteller “I went to see Jigga she went to see Z-Trip” and also a great singer in the sense that he can put so much emotion into songs it’s really powerful. “Swim Good” and “We All Try” are moving and there’s real emotion on there. And, rework Coldplay with “Strawberry Swing” and his Eagles rework “American Wedding” take pretty crappy songs and inject them with life and color. His voice is also pretty damn beautiful no homo.

It’s ironic that Frank got two guest spots on Watch The Throne since Jay and Kanye are very “Def Jam.” Those guest spots are almost a return to Def Jam, a return that he got to through the Odd Future, Do It Yourself path. Music is changing. Labels are getting less and less necessary and that really shows it.

4. Shabazz Palaces - Black Up

The funkiness of Digible Planets brought into 2011, Shabazz Palaces make futuristic soul music a.k.a "experimental hip hop" with driving beats and sometimes weird singing. Ishmael Butler who used to be Digible Planets' Butterfly spits abstract lyrics with the same oldschool energy he had when he first started rapping. Despite hard to follow lyrics there is always and easy hook to follow on these songs which keeps them funky. For example, check out "Swerve...The Reaping Of All That Is Worthwhile (Noir Notwithstanding)"

"Swerve" is super catchy but also pretty damn strange. It's stuttering beat is great but definetly unlike anything else. And, Butler says these weird, stream-of-consciousness idiosyncratic things that can be even more out there than Doom. T

The song titles are all that absurd, too. "Swerve" isn't even the longest song title on this album. Most are longer for example: "Endeavors For The Never (The Last Time We Spoke You Said You Weren't Here. I Saw You Though)" his album has some of the best hip hop beats in a while but it's too bad a lot of people slept on it. WAKE UP.

5. Fucked Up - David Comes To Life

I am not this huge fan of hardcore, but Fucked Up do it in this unique way where it's really beautiful music.

Damian Abraham is less of a hardcore screamer vocalist and almost more of a spoken word artist. On David Comes To Life he tells stories and gives this like inspirational advice almost in his screaming. This is not just "I hate my life!!! Fuck you!!!" screaming.

Plus, the music is so damn epic. David Comes To Life isn't just a concept album, it's a rock opera. Now, I don't understand the story they're telling at all. But, that doesn't make this album suck.

They pull off their Rock Opera so well that it works as just plain awesome music regardless of whether you're invested in the story or not. I've heard from people who did figure out the story that it's complicated and really great, I just haven't been able to understand it myself. And That's not Fucked Up's fault. It's mine.

6. WU LYF - Go Tell Fire To The Mountain

WU LYF's singer Ellery James Roberts sings with the voice of a goblin who barely learned english. You cannot understand what he grunts. And, with song titles like Cave Song and We Bros these dudes sound like they emerged from the underground out into the fields of England and wanted to make punk music or something.

However, despite the "primal" nature of this band, their music is incredibly beautiful. Check out the album's single Heavy Pop very orc/goblin title right? It's misleading. This shit is neither pop nor is it heavy. It's this slow-building triumphant song. Pretty damn amazing. If they are goblin people perhaps when they first came out the cave the sun blinded them and when they recovered their vision the world was incredible...Or something.

WU LYF's name stands for "World United Lucifer Youth Foundation" but for devil worshippers this is lovely shit.

7. James Blake

Prior to his self titled album, James Blake put out a bunch of experimental dubstep stuff that was great, but very different from the stuff on James Blake. Blake's self-titled album is R&B to me. It's definitely in the same realm of spacey, dark R&B like How To Dress well or Active Child.

Blake's use of silence on this album is impressive. This is the best use of "negative space" in music I've ever heard. For example, check out "I Never Learnt To Share":

This song is both a dark and meditative track AND it's funky. That's true for the whole album. Blake's Feist cover Limit To Your Love is incredibly soulful and the album's last track Measurements too. "Measurements" is almost like a gospel song. Well, it's got the soul of gospel. It's not religious, of course.

8. Tune-Yards - W H O K I L L

Smith College Alum Merrill Garbus makes crazy music. The drums bang with these carribean rythms and her voice is this wild chanting no other human but she can make. If you haven’t heard Tune-Yards, that makes it sound like her music is like tribal “go to war” shit (and she actually wears war paint at her live shows. I’ve seen it) But it’s not war music. W H O K I L L is actually really playful and over the drums and the booming voice she has playful saxophone and bass lines bop around.

W H O K I L L is truly a one of a kind album. This is experimental music you can dance to. Check out the "experimental dancing" in the "Bizness" video:

9. Kanye West & Jay-Z – Watch The Throne

When “H.A.M” came out I thought: “Okay, Watch The Throne is gonna suck.” “H.A.M” isn’t awful, but it tries kind of too hard. I can see why they tried so hard with that track. Kanye and Hov over a Lex Luger beat has a ton of expectations. And, while “H.A.M” is kinda fun, it also isn’t really good.

I expected a whole album of “H.A.M” like stupidity from Watch The Throne, but that turned out not to be the direction they went. In fact, “H.A.M” is a bonus track and not even on the main album. Last year, Kanye’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was my #1 album. And, I’m glad they took a Dark Twisted Fantasy approach to Watch The Throne rather than the “H.A.M” approach.

Watch The Throne is definitely epic, but not in an overdone way. These are two of hip hop’s biggest dudes, and they show us why. When they brag on Watch The Throne (“Otis,” “Who Gon Stop Me,” “That’s My Bitch” “Gotta Have It”) they swag it out completely. When they’re introspective (“New Day,” “Murder To Excellence” “No Church In The Wild” “Welcome To The Jungle”) they both actually have something to say that we care about. And, of course, when they’re triumphant (“Lift Off,” “Made In America,” “Why I Love You”) It’s like the biggest fucking celebration ever.

Why I Love You may be my favorite track actually. Ron once pointed out to me how Jay-Z frequently talks about how he’s supported people only for them to fuck him over and “Why I Love You” is another of those songs. But, it doesn’t feel like “Just another Hov complaining song.” He isn’t whiny on this (and Jay-Z never “Whines” but complain can get old…) he’s got this super righteous presence on the track and paints himself as a warrior as a superhero who’s rising above the bullshit and who now forgives his enemies. Plus, Mr. Hudson’s hook is amazing. I have not liked ANYTHING Hudson did previous to this. And that goes back to what I said earlier about pop/bubblegum singing on songs.

Hudson was always tryna reach for a club hit or something and it sucked. But, the “Why I Love You” hook is so purely joyous and powerful you can’t help but like it. I find Hudson’s voice annoying, but on “Why I Love you” Kanye wisely threw this intense echo/vocal transformation on Hudson to make it work. I love Kanye and Jay-Z, I always have. And I am so glad they’re team-up album is good. And not only good, it’s great.

10. AraabMuzik - Electronic Dream

Horror movie anthem maker a.k.a MPC Genius a.k.a Dipset producer Araabmuzik surprised us in the Spring with an album of all House music remixes. But, it is DOPE. This man's drums alone are something all the young Dubstep makers could learn something from.

11. The Weeknd - House Of Balloons and Thursday

Drake's homie the complex R&B singer Abel a.k.a The Weeknd put out two mixtapes of incredible, game-chaning R&B this year. I like his first tape "House Of Balloons" better than "Thursday," but they are both this depressing party music that is really quite beautiful shit.

12. A Band Called Roots - Undun

I actually wrote a shitload about this album. It's in another post on Ronblog, though.

13. DJ Quik - The Book Of David

Veteran west coast beatmaker/rapper DJ quik put out his best album yet this spring. Quik branched out from the G-funk sound he made his name producing and got more experimental with his beats.He branched out into the electronic and he used unusual samples, too. Songs like Babylon and Hydromatic are very far from Quik's original sound but are excellent.

14. Lykke Li - Wounded Rhymes

Lykke Li improved MUCHO on her first album Youth Novels. This album brings darker beats and more interesting lyrics to the table. With a title like "Wounded Rhymes" you'd expect the album to be super emo, but Lykke keeps a sense of humor "sadness is my boyfriend" and made a really great pop album here. For years "Pop" was a negative word to me. But, with this album (and with Cults' album which I'll get to later...) there may be this "underground pop" emerging. Like, shit that's not on the top 40. But, maybe should be?

15. Kendrick Lamar - Section 80

The massively talented Kendrick Lamar is easy to sleep on. Section 80 is an incredible album and almost is like the good version of CAMP I think. If you want a rapper who's witty and observant and can entertain AND have something to say you need to wake up to Lamar. And to his whole Black Hippy crew (Kendrick, Ab-Soul, Jay Rock and Schoolboy Q)

Just check out "Riggamortis" and you'll see what I mean:

This dude is like the reincarnation of Gift Of Gab. Well, only if it's possible to have a reincarnation when you're still alive...

16. Drake - Take Care

I expected "Take Care" to suck. There was just so much hype. And, it took a while for Headlines to grow on me, too.

Drake stepped shit UP after Thank Me Later. His first album was good, but not great. It had some jams. Drake is beyond just making "jams" now though. Every song on Take Care is well thought-out and he pours his fucking heart and soul out on this album. Even the clubby track with Minaj Make Me Proud is more than just a club song.

I also love that, by naming this "Take Care" and sampling Gil Scott-Heron on the album's title track, Drake has also made this a kind of tribute to Gil Scott-Heron who died this year.

Drake also covers Back That Azz Up near Take Care's end which is just amazing.

17. Main Attrakionz - 808s And Dark Grapes II, Chandelier and Blackberry Ku$H

Main Attrakionz Squadda B and Mondre M.A.N definetly work hard to stay relevent. These dudes are PROLIFIC almost to Based God levels. These three releases I've got on this list aren't even the only shit they put out this year. But, they're my favorite.

Both Attrakionz have these near whiny flows that they really make work. They have so much to say "If I don't don't cry cuz I ain't live that wrong" and have this wild production behind them. When they linked with Julian Wass and L.W.H for the Chandelier EP they basically rap over these oldschool videogame music soundscapes for example.

Main Attrakionz are refreshingly creative and honest dudes and are making some of the most interesting music around right now let alone the most interesting hip hop.

18. Big K.R.I.T - Return Of 4Eva

I'm not sure if I like last year's K.R.I.T Wuz Here or this year's Return Of 4Eva better. Both K.R.I.T mixtapes are high quality Southern hip hop.

David Banner's appearance on the Return Of 4Eva track Sookie Now is an excellent team-up for K.R.I.T not only because both guys are from Mississippi but both rappers can move effortlessly from conscious talk to ignorant bragging. I'm not saying K.R.I.T and Banner are exactly the same, but they are both much more than they seem at first. If you just heard Banner's hilariously explicit sex jam Play or K.R.I.T's triumphant southern rap anthem "Country Shit" you'd think both of them didn't have a conscious bone in their body.

However, more of K.R.I.T's Return Of 4Eva is actually introspective and conscious rather than the oposite. On songs like My Sub or Rotatin My Tires K.R.I.T's car talk actually shifts into more meditative thoughts on his life "leave my worries behind. Pretend that I'm paid"

K.R.I.T is a conscious rapper, but he's unafraid to admit he likes nice cars and girls and drugs as much as the next man. He's also unafraid to be conscious and talk about deep things like how he calls out the music industry on American Rapstar or how he (in one of the album's most bold moments) sings vulerably about a dead friend on the powerful Vent. Last time I watched the Vent video the top comment was "this dude raps like a person" meaning he's real. He's down to earth. That's such a great way to put how K.R.I.T is I had to quote it.

On K.R.I.T Wuz Here, Big K.R.I.T said "yeah I'm country as a motherfucker but my lyrical content is crazy! And I make my own beats!" as a dismissal to haters. I think that statement really puts K.R.I.T in a nutshell. That's exactly why he's so damn awesome.

I mentioned "Country Shit" earlier and that song returns at the end of Return of 4EVa in remixed form featured two of the biggest southern rappers ever: Bun B and Ludacris. As a real student of the southern rap scene, K.R.I.T must've been honored those guys jumped on his song.

I saw Bun B tweet recently (on the anniversary of Pimp C's death) "Pimp C would've killed Otis and Country Shit." That's because Big K.R.I.T can create that southern sound incredibly well. Big K.R.I.T is bringing back the classic southern hip hop, but he's also moving hip hop forward.

19. Bon Iver

This is Bon Iver's second album, but odly their first self titled one. The first album is called For Emma, Forever Ago and Bon Iver definetly changed their sound up from that.

While the first album (and the Bloodbank EP) were pretty routed in folk, the self titled second album is more like ambient music. The album is like a bunch of beautiful sounds floating around that's sometimes hard to take because it's pretty damn powerful shit.

You can't even understand the lyrics. Justin Vernon's voice really becomes just another instrument in the weird, but amazing heavenly atmospheres the band created with this album.

20. Tyler, The Creator - Goblin

It's funny Odd Future is so popular not only beacuse they're so awesomely abrasive with their music and rowdiness, but also because their music (especially Tyler's) is fucking WEIRD.

Goblin is even stranger than Tyler's debut Bastard and actually more angry/emotionally intense. I love this album, but I think some people had a hard time with it because it is sort of experimental and VERY aggressive. I love that, even when Tyler makes a song about shooting his friends, it doesn't get contrived or stupid. Tyler is this interesting guy who, in person, is fun-loving and goofy, but who makes such intense and gruesome music. Maybe that's why it works. Somehow.

21. Danny Brown - XXX

Danny Brown's XXX is pretty insane shit. The beats sound like robot's post-apocalypse hearing Lex Luger beats they dug up and trying to re-create them. Danny attacks those beats spitting crazy ass statements about excessive drug use and giving girls head. Among other things.

The album is completely ridiculous and entertaining, but also has a seriousness under that. Danny Brown has a sense of humor, but he is opening up to us in his own strange way. And that's VERY apparent on the album opener "Scrap Or Die" where he uses his normal voice (instead of the high pitched, nasal voice he normally raps with) and tells a very honest story about robbing abandoned houses with his uncle.

22. Lil B - I'm Gay

Earlier I called Main Attrakionz "prolific," but Lil B invented prolific internet rapping. I have no idea the number of mixtapes dude released in 2011. I could count but I won't. My favorite Based God release is his actual album I'm Gay which I love for it's awesome title as well as it's songs which are some of Lil B's best shit.

This is not Lil B's "swag music" (he only says swag once on the album) but rather his weirdo introspective stuff. It's great and the production is top notch most notably on the Clams-produced Unchain Me, The Keyboard Kid-Produced I Hate Myself and the BigBoyTraks-produced I Seen That Light

Thank You, Based God.

23. Cities Aviv - Digital Lows

There's been a lot of great spacey hip hop this year maybe because as the world gets more and more fucked up we get more trippy. Some of us get Juicy J trippy and fuck strippers and ride on our enemies. Some of us get Cities Aviv and Main Attrakionz trippy and we contemplate our lives.

I originally thought Aviv was from L.A since he reminds me a lot of Living Legends era stuff. But, he's from Memphis. While much of the south is very similar in their hip hop sound, Cities Aviv has taken a non-regional approach. His music is unique and his voice echoes over jazzy, bright beats. You can hear the fun Aviv is having over every beat, but despite being an overall playful album, Cities Aviv isn't just having fun.

On the album opener Black Box he says "Babies Killing babies with their finger on the trigger" and he has another song where the hook is Come On Let's All Die Young (which has a great 80s beat) and another where the hook is Fuck Everybody Here. and another is "SixSixSixes" where he spits "I see the devil in the details / I see the devil in these females" over a beat that sounds like an orchestral Mobb Deep track. So, it's not all fun and games here.

Hands down, the best track on Digital Lows is Meet Me On Montrose (For Ex-Lovers Only) The beat flips an excellent sample and Cities Aviv meditates on an old relationship in a very real way, something we don't hear in modern hip hop at all. Recently, Aviv released a new song (that's not on Digital Lows) called W E T D R E A M that uses the same sample, but slows it down which is definetly worth checking out, too.

Cities Aviv sounds like he doesnt' listen to any other hip hop and just listens to Jazz. Or maybe just Gangstarr or something. He doesn't care what other people are making he's just being himself. And that's refreshing.

I also have to note that the last track on Digital Lows is a hip hop version of Modest Mouse's Float On . But, it is not the gigantic, top 40 crap anthem Lupe Fiasco made. This is a simple, foggy version of Float On, something I think Modest Mouse would be much happier with. Something the corporate radio would never play.

24. Terius Nash - 1977

Terius Nash a.k.a The-Dream got pissed at his label and gave us this straight up GEM of an album FOR FREE at the end of August. 1977 is more creative R&B from the guy who made the genre creative for the first time in a while.

This album has a "man scorned" feel for the most part since Nash obviously had a rough break up. But, rather than whine and bitch about the break up (something no one wants to hear) he keeps a sense of humor "I hate to have to crash your wedding with this shit." But, even when Nash jokes around he still is putting real emotion into these songs.

Also, Pharrell spits a ridiculous double time verse on This Shit Real which is a technically great rap as well as a lyrically hilarious thing too. So, I had to note that.

25. A$AP Rocky - Live.Love.ASAP

Rocky kind of came out of nowhere and got a 3 million dollar record deal. He has a lot of hype, but he is a very talented rapper and works with a lot of great producers. Rocky's lyrics aren't really what makes him that interesting, but rather his presence on songs which is super cool and charismatic.

Rocky also has a knack for coming up with unique and different ways to flow on beats. I guarantee dudes are gonna try to copy the "Bone Thugs" sound now that Rocky has done it on two tracks on Live.Love.ASAP. Rocky also completely MURDERS the experimental beat for Brand New Guy which features the always turnt-up Schoolboy Q and both of them rap in these very strange rhythms on that beat which are worth checking out.

I guess I can't not mention the south's influence on this young Harlem dude's music. I've always been a fan of southern hip hop and Rocky really pays homage to a lot of the classic southern shit on Live.Love.ASAP especially UGK and DJ Screw. He's not biting that stuff, but rather re-introducing it to the swag generation I think.

26. Curren$y - Coverte Coupe, Weekend At Bernie's and Verde Terrace

Curren$y and the Jets continue to put out quality, jazzy weed rap. He linked with veteran producer Alchemist for the 4/20 release Covert Coupe and changed up the typical Curren$y style a bit over some dark, East Coast Winter style production.

Curren$y collaborating with Freddie Gibbs and Prodigy is not something I expected, but it happens on Covert Coupe. Both Gibbs and Prodigy have this intense, gangster sound while Curren$y is laid back and tells stories on those beats. However, both the Gibbs-featuring Scottie Pippens and the Prodigy-featuring The Type work VERY well.

The "Verde Terrace" mixtape and the Weekend At Bernie's album are both also solid Curren$y releases. The standout track on "Terrace" is definitely the chill Dom Kennedy collaboration Hennessy Beach and the standout on Bernies is She Don't Want A Man which is one of the few songs where Curren$y sticks to one theme the whole time and also it has an almost Block Beattaz type beat (a.k.a it sounds like they sampled Enya).

27. Action Bronson - Dr. Lecter and Well Done

Action Bronson has so much fun rapping it's really hard not to have fun listening to him.

The fact that he's "a chef rapper who's a white guy who sounds like Ghostface" could be a real gimmick he could run with, but really that was never Bronson's mission. That was just what us Bloggers kept labeling him as.

Action Bronson does indeed rap about food a lot, but he has a very different vocabulary and presence on songs than many other rappers even than Ghostface whom we compare him to all the damn time.

I like Dr. Lecter more than the Statik Selektah collaboartion Well Done, mostly because Dr. Lecter has different production. Party Supplies' near big band beats suit Bronson perfectly. Bronson is good over over the Statik Selektah jazzy beats, but I think the more up tempo stuff on Dr. Lecter brings out the best from him.

28. Juicy J - Rubbaband Business (1 & 2) and Blue Dream And Lean

Juicy J put out three excellent mixtapes about (to quote J) "popping pills and fucking strippers" this is amazingly produced ignorant rap and Juicy working with Lex Luger on the first two Rubbaband Business makes total sense since I feel like Lex's whole style was influenced by Three Six's Most Known Unknown album.

I love both Rubbaband Business tapes (although I like 2 more than the first), and Blue Dream is actually Juicy's best release this year in my opinion. You can check out my Blue Dream & Lean review over at Mishka.

29. Balam Acab - Wander / Wonder

This is some beautiful electronic music. I originally thought Balam Acab was another of these generic "witch house" producers who popped up all over the damn internet last year. But, he doesn't make witch house. He makes experimental music that is floaty yet beat driven at the same time.

I could see Balam producing for guys like Rocky or Main Attrakioz or Lil B actually. But, Wander/Wonder isn't hip hoppy really. It's hard to pin this stuff to a genre, but it's amazing and even more amazing when you're on one.

Balam Acab is also an incredibly awkward person in interviews.

30. Cults

Doo-Wop influced pop group Cults created an album that's really just fun but genuinely fun. Like unadulterated fun. I guess that's another way to describe this idea I have about "pop that doesn't suck" Or maybe "pop not poop"

Their singer Madeline has a perfect voice for duplicating that old Doo-Wop sound and a perfect swag for it, too (she's also really hot). Cults remind me of the Ramones songs or the Misfits songs those guys did that were randomly Doo-Wop. Every Cults song is like that. Every Cults song is also kinda like the random She & Him tracks that are Doo-Wop (the only good She & Him tracks...)

They also add this weird edge to their "pop" sound by throwing in samples from Cult leaders occasionally. Yes, that is a gimmick, but having samples helps keep them a notch away from totally innocuous which I like.

31. Wolves In The Throne Room - Celestial Lineage

I am not a metal fan. But, this album is beautiful music. My homie Spencer told me to check this album out since he's FAR more into metal than I am. Wolves In The Throne Room create intense music spaces that definitely gets at something more than metal.

This album is ambient, orchestral and weird in a pretty powerful way. I think the song title Astral Blood really sums up this album. The music is kind of colorful and...well, celestial, but also has a real nasty earthy darkness to it at the same time. I am trying to like metal more since I do recognize metal musicians are some of music's most technical and talented players.

If you're like Nick Vogt and you want to give metal a chance when you haven't' in the past this album is a great start especially if you like weird and interesting shit.

32. Freddie Gibbs - Cold Day In Hell

Freddie Gibbs is one of the few up and coming rappers I actually would classify as "gangster." He is like a thug Kendrick Lamar in how funky and inventive he can flow on a beat.

The "Cold Day In Hell" mixtape is Gibbs' first release after linking up with Young Jeezy's label CTE. The best thing that could've happened to Jeezy was the corporate industry NOT supporting him. Jeezy's music got much more creative the more he had to struggle to get it heard. Gibbs has always been hungry on the mic and while I think Jeezy isn't as talented as Gibbs, there is something similar about their music. On Twos And Fews they make a pretty great rap team.

Speaking of Team-ups, This mixtape has a lot of high profile guest spots (Juicy J, Freeway, Dom Kennedy) but the guests never overshadow Gibbs. They just work VERY well together.

33. Oneohtrix Point Never - Replica and Ford & Lopatin - Channel Pressure

Oneohtrix Point never has been making trill ambient music for a while now, but Replica is his best work by far. Many of the songs on the album are made from samples from 80s commercials and it really is crazy what Oneohtrix was able to do with that. The single Sleep Dealer is a very good example of the kind of strange, immersing music on this album.

This dude is definitely a music genius and he put out not only one album this year, but two. The second is a team-up with Joel Ford from Tigercity. Channel Pressure is a very different sound than Replica. With Ford, Lopatin created an album of 80s style dance music that's bright and really just fun shit . Channel Pressure is what I wish chill wave sounded like.

34. Gang Gang Dance - Eye Contact

This album (and this band) is weird as hell. In the best way. Eye Contact is a series of creepy yet danceable music that sounds like it was made by some cult who worship a giant, psychedelic snake. And, maybe they do.

Mindkilla is definitely the album's best track although the bizarre, 11 minute intro Glass Jar is a runner up for that.

35. Spaceghost Purp - Blackland Radio 66.6

Speaking of cults and worshiping weird shit, Spaceghost Purp introduced himself to the internet with this strange ass mixtape. Spaceghost comes off as this demon man. Like if the devil wanted to make a mainstream trap album (but he played a lot of Mortal Kombat and liked Godzilla a lot, too) his album would be "Blackland Radio."

Spaceghost's voice changes throughout the mixtape in these weird ways, too. The mixtape's first two tracks really show how he can go from intense and devilish with Possessed to more playful (though not too playful) with the ridiculous Suck A Dick For 2011 . The mixtape's incredibly low quality production adds to how satanic it is. It feels like listening to some kind of haunted mixtape you never were supposed to hear and now it'll unleash H.P Lovecraft monsters onto the world...or something. But, it's also fun, too. Which is weird. But, That's probably why I love the mixtape so much.

Main Attrakionz and Sortahuman show up at the mixtape's end for the 8 MINUTE Lex Luger beat (except Spaceghost made the beat) posse cut Stoner Gang which is incredibly entertaining and goofy "Listening To Underground Shit Playing Mario / Call Of Duty Black Ops!", but also a legitimate fight song, too.

36. m83 - Hurry Up, We're Dreaming

This album will probably be most peoples' number 1. I like M83 a lot and I think this is definitely his best release. Also, if I were to make a "best songs" list (which I won't attempt since this list was enough work...) Midnight City would be number 1. But, the reason it's not higher on my list is because I like the album but I wish more tracks stood out.

A lot of the songs blend together into this beautiful, epic soundscape but only really the Zola-Jesus featuring Intro the aforementioned Midnight City and the awesomely strange Raconte Me Une Histoire - where a little girl tells a story about psychedelic frogs over a video game beat--truly stand out for me. "Histoire" is definetly the most successful M83 spoken word song since in the past they've all been pretty lackluster (Car Chase Terror for example)

This is the most solid M83 album as one unit, but I want more huge tracks since EPIC is what M83 does best. The last M83 albums have all had some pretty damn lame songs (Kim and Jessie) and some truly excellent ones (Coleurs , Skin Of The Night , Lower Your Eyelids To Die With The Sun). And that makes me have to compare the two albums.

As a whole, consistent album Hurry Up, We're Dreaming is M83s best, but only really "Midnight City" can compete with some of the best songs from M83's past. I guess I wanted a whole album of "Coleurs" level songs. That's too much to ask probably. This is not a negative mini review at all. This is the best M83 album by a landslide.

37. Com Truise - Galactic Melt

Despite a kind of stupidly goofy name, Com Truise makes great music. His stuff is groovy and futuristic in a really playful way. Galactic Melt is not a post apocalpytic future, but a bright one. All of Com Truise's music reminds me of the future they thought of back in the 80s. Maybe that's because of this video I'm not sure.

His music also really reminds me of Kratfwerk, their sound just updated for the 2011 world where saying "Computer Love" means a far less sci fi thing than it did for Kraftwerk. Galactic Melt's song Flightwave especially reminds me of that.

A couple albums that came out this year did chillwave "right." Well, maybe a better way to put that is they used chillwave elements right. Chillwave's playful synthiness is definetly present on Com Truise's stuff, but his drums bang in a very different way than the lackluster crap of Washed Out or Toro Y Moi. Com Truise almost has AraabMuzik drums on his songs. They're just a bit less intense.

I've seen Com Truise live, and for as futuristic and lazery his music is, you'd expect him to be a nerdy guy. But, it's sort of funny because he's this huge bald guy.

38. Zola Jesus - Conatus

Two years ago if I made a list of "Best Album Covers" (which I've never done and probably never will do, but bear with me...) Zola Jesus' Stiridulum EP would've won. Her face dripping with black goop is incredibly strange and kinda disturbing and it fit that EP's music perfectly.

Zola Jesus makes these sort of electronic music dirges. Slow-moving dark shit that kinda flows along just like that goop (turns out the "goop" on the Stiridulum cover is chocolate syrup). Conatus isn't a new sound from Zola, but it is kind of a slightly evolved sound from her previous stuff. She definetly experimented more with different synth noises and different drum beats and many of these tracks are more triumphant than her past songs. If it's possible for dark, gothy music to get triumphant it does on Conatus.

As a singer, Zola Jesus is truly one of those people I'd say "her voice is an instrument" because she chants almost monk-style on songs. I usually can't figure out what she's saying. And that's alright. She is this tiny person with this booming, gregorian monk voice which is pretty funny. And cool. For a great example of the "monk voice" check out Seekir where the beat litterally has a loop of Zola chanting on it.

39. Mr. Muthafukin eXquire - Lost In Translation

Mr. Muthafukin eXquire sort of came out of nowhere with his "Lost In Translation" mixtape. It had a little buzz online and then suddenly he had a remix of Huzzah (the tape's best track) featuring HUGE people. Das Racist, El-P, DANNY BROWN and the RETURN of Despot?

With "Lost In Translatio"n (and the Huzzah Remix especially) eXquire may have singlehandedly brought back Def Jux and the years that label was prevalent in hip hop. Or, ushered in a new era of Def Jux. Or something. Lost In Translation uses a lot of classic El-P beats and Huzzah is produced by Necro, a dude I haven't heard from in some time.

Lyrically eXquire is totally grimy. He has a ton in common with Danny Brown since he talks a lot about drugs and drinking (he drinks more than Brown) and the shitty condition of his neighborhood. But, also like Mr. Brown, eXquire is more than just a drug-listing rapper.

On songs like Maltese Falcon part 1 and 2, eXquire tells a ridiculous (and awesome!) story that reminds me of Blackalicious' classic Cliff Hanger (that's the second time I've mentioned Blackalicious in this post which is interesting). On "Nuthin Even Matters", eXquire describes depression not in a whiny way but in a unique and detail-focused way "Jimmy Neutron's on / This is my favorite episode / the one where he goes through a time warp to meet himself when he is old / and he ain't shit / I guess that I relate"

Unfortunatly, eXquire does have some lame tracks on the mixtape where he does get whiney. On "Lovesponge" and "Build A Bitch" he loses his sense of humor and complains about girls not in a totally annoying way, but in a way that's unlike the other songs on "Lost In Translation." But, those two tracks are really the only low point.

40. Phonte - Charity Starts At Home

Rap wiseman Phonte finally put out a propper solo album post-Little Brother this year. After three R&B style albums with Nicolay as Foreign Exchange (two which were all singing albums) Phonte's Charity Starts At Home is a pretty serious rap album.

Phonte has always been very witty and definitely hasn't lost that. Hearing him trade bars and talk shit with Median on the Charity Starts At Home track Eternally is awesome, but he's not just a punchline rapper or a battle rapper. Much of this album has a message and while the Foreign Exchange albums were largely about celebrating love and were positive, Charity Starts At Home has many tracks about struggling against the difficulties of life and struggling against unhappiness.

The Good Fight, for example, has a hook that goes "Pushing me all to the brink / A stagger in my footsteps and I don't even drink" and Ball And Chain is (as the name suggests) about feeling trapped in a relationship. On Sending My Love Phonte has to talk himself out of chasing girls and cheating on his wife.

Big K.R.I.T and Evidence appear on the album's most triumphant and hater-dismissing song Life Of Kings But it isn't this huge, epic song. It's chill and understated in the way the best K.R.I.T and the best Little Brother songs are. The whole album is laid back and soulful, but that doesn't mean it lacks substance. At all.

I also need to note that Phonte shouts out Lil B not once, but TWICE on Charity. The first time is on the album intro Dance In The Reign where he says "Let that boy saute'!" and the second time is on the aforementioned Eternally where Based God is the last dude he mentions during the song's outro shoutouts "Lil B that's my mans and them"

* * *

Honourable Mentions:

(in no particular order)

CunninLynguists - Oneirology

Dom Kennedy - Original Dom Kennedy and From The Westside With Love II

9th Wonder - The Wonder Years

Actual Proof - Still Hotter Than July

Neon Indian - Era Extrana

Rapsody - Return of The B Girl and Thank H.E.R Now

Ski Beatz - 24 Hour Karate School 2

Tabbi Bonney - The Summer Years

Murs - Love And Rockets

Mckenzie Eddy - Young Platinum

The U.N (Cam’Ron & Vado) - Gunz n Butta

Sepelcure

Smith Westerns - Dye It Blonde

Speak! - Inside Out Boy

Zomby - Dedication and Nothing EP

Casey Veggies - Sleeping In Class

Jamie xx and Gil Scott Heron - We’re New Here

Evidence - Cats & Dogs

Das Racist - Relax

Lakutis - I’m In The Forest

SBTRKT

Youth Lagoon - The Year Of Hibernation

Cut Copy - Zonoscope

Katy B - On A Mission

Burial - Street Halo

The Field - Looping State Of Mind

Tim Hecker - Ravedeath, 1972

Dopehead - Plaid Palm Trees

Chip$ - Couch Potato

Blu - Jesus, Open and God Is Good

Fatima Al Qadiri - Genre Specific Xperience

Grimes - Geidi Primes

Ice Age- New Brigade

Ab-Soul - Longterm Mentality

The Black Keys - El Camino

Young Bleed - Preserved

Waka Flocka Flame - DuFlocka Rant, Lebron Flocka James 3 and Twin Towerz 2 (with Slim Dunkin) and

Gucci Mane - Writings On The Wall II and Ferrari Boyz (with Waka Flocka)

Llyod Banks - Cold Corner 2

PJ Harvey - Let England Shake

EMA - Past Life Martyred Saints

Fabolous - The S.O.U.L Tape

Active Child - You Are All I See

John Maus - We Must Become The Pitiless Censors Of Ourselves

Nicolas Jaar - Space Is Only Noise

Panda Bear - Tomboy

Review - "Undun" by A Band Called Roots

2011-12-10T09:25:00.000-08:00

Grade: A

What I like best about Undun is it's a concept album that pretty much works. The concept is similar to Lupe's The Cool (a gangster guy dies), but The Roots don't hit us over the head with the story or the concept at all. Instead, they let the energy of the music tell the story above plot and characters. I like The Cool (it was the last good Lupe album maybe we'll ever get), but I think that Undun works much better as a concept album. And, I think it works better than most concept albums (especially the recent Childish Gambino failure CAMP).

Undun's story is vague, but that's on purpose. Going into the album, it's kinda like The Brief And Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao. We know Redford is gonna die. In fact, The Roots Tarantino the story and have him die in the very beginning. We also know Redford got killed because he was caught up in...something. Crime of somekind, but The Roots never straight up tell us what Redford was doing or who killed him or how he got killed. Those details aren't important. The Roots tell Redford's story by painting a picture with a bunch of songs and leave the rest up to our imagination. Which makes this album really powerful I think. In other words, this is "show don't tell" applied to the concept album. If that makes sense.

The album begins with death and ends with (what I assume) is birth. "Dun," "Sleep" and Make My (which has a great Big K.R.I.T guest spot) focus on Redford's death. "Dun" is like post-death, "Sleep" is the moment of death, and "Make My" is Redford dying and accepting it.

The Sufjan Stevens-featuring classical music at the end of the album I think is Redford's birth since there are no lyrics and it's just this beautiful music. Redford can't speak, but he's coming into the world and things are beautiful since he's just being born. The album's start (while being about death) is equally beautiful. I like that a lot.

In between the birth and death we get a lot of songs about anger and desperation and few beautiful moments. The only thing close to a beautiful moment between Redford's birth and death is Stomp which is kind of the album's Hustler's Ambition I think. It's maybe the voice in "Redford's" head telling him to grind or something. Plus, "Stomp" is later on the album so it's when Redford's young and hasn't gotten jaded yet.

Since all the raps are first person it makes this kind of an everyman story, Prufrock-style. It's not just Black Thought playing Redford, but all the rappers on the album play him. He's all of us. On The Otherside Bilal belts out "We're all on a journey."

This album isn't just about Redford's struggle through life, but maybe everybody's. We're all born, we all work hard, we all die. But, rather than get cynical about that last sentence, The Roots have, Buddha-like, found the beauty in all of those things and they show us that beauty with Undun.

I feel like Undun, How I Got Over and Rising Down are almost a trilogy. Rising Down is about facing adversity and getting angry. So many songs are militant and ready for war on that album. There's not much introspection.

How I Got Over opens with "A Peace Of Light" following the very fucking dark Rising Down album (although Rising Down does end on a positive note with Rising Up, so maybe that's the transition to How I Got Over?). Undun is like an alternate ending to Rising Down. It's about facing adversity and losing. Redford dies. But, his story is just as moving as the triumphant How I Got Over.

Finally, I think Dice Raw and Porn have come A LONG WAY in their vocals and Dice's singing is fucking top notch. Porn is almost a new Malik B on Undun since he's on a ton of songs and his flow and delivery compliment Black Thought really well. This is as much Dice and Porn's album as it is The Roots'.

Review - Arkham City

2011-11-17T15:10:00.000-08:00

Batman: Arkham City is, of course, the sequel to Arkham Asylum and they have made another incredible Batman game. Arkham City is somehow a MAJOR improvement on what was already the best Batman game to ever come out.

I'M THE GODDAMN BATMAN" is the feeling you get most when playing Rocksteady's latest addition to their Batman next gen game franchise. From the stealth to the combat to the gadgets, to the detective/investigation elements to the characters to how Gotham looks/feels you truly get to be your favorite superhero in this game and that makes it a complete success in my book.

Rocksteady did not break any new ground with Arkham City nor did they break ground with their first Batman game. Both Arkhams are exercise in collage. They take elements from other games most of which I noted in the pargraph above.

Rocksteady's Batman games have the stealth of the best stealth games (Spliter Cell, for example) the badass feel of the best action games (God Of War for example), the city exploration of your favorite urban parkour game (Infamous, Mirror's Edge, Assassin's Creed, and even Uncharted ), the gadgets of Ratchet and Clank, the world exploration/scanning of Metroid Prime and, epic (yet simple) Beat-em-up throwback combat AND they do the ubiquitous "RPG Elements" that every game has now VERY well.

The story in this game is nothing special but I think it is a very "Batman" story. The best comic book superhero stories DO NOT focus on origins (even though everyone seems obsessed with that, right?). They just tell a story in the character's universe. Everyone knows Batman's origin by now. Batman Begins was successful in re-invigorating the series, but that was mostly due to Nolan's genius as a storyteller.

What makes Rocksteady's Batman games work is how they are just another "day in the life" of Batman. Both the first and second Arkham game have not focused on backstory but on the moment at hand and let our knowledge of Gotham guide us Batman fans through the game.

The Arkham games do re-invent characters to make them more "realistic" (kind of), but not in a way that makes them unfamiliar. Every character in the Rocksteady games (and I consider Gotham City a character) is familiar to those of us who grew up watching Batman: The Animated Series or reading Batman Comics.

Speaking of TAS, the voice actors doing Batman and The Joker ARE, of course, the people you and I grew up with. It's Kevin Conroy as Batman and Mark Hamil as The Joker. While these games are not based on The 90s Animated Series (that COMPLETELY changed the game for superheroes, by the way...) the creators did tastefully harken back to the Batman we grew up with. That is all, I think, part of their mission to make this game get at the "essence" of Batman while being its own, standalone, Batman universe.

Arkham City is a massive achievement and is the first game I have bought brand new (aka for 60 dollars) in some time. I bought it the day I found out a had a sinus infection. So, when I boarded the red line T for home on the afternoon I purchased Arkham City I had the game, antibiotics and nasal decongestant in my backpack.

Finally, yes I did quote Frank Miller in saying "I'M THE GODDAMN BATMAN" (from his All Star Batman & Robin series). I say this all the time, but I need to say it again: Miller is a biggot and a conservative crazyman (to say the least...) and his thoughts on Occupy Wall Street just make it more clear he is NOT a good person. But, "I'M THE GODDAMN BATMAN" is a good quote, so I had to use it.

Carter 4

2011-09-01T06:10:00.000-07:00

What's up, Blogfans? Do we have any more blogfans? No. Maybe my review of the new Lil' Wayne will revive this blog. Maybe not. But regardless of whether or not this post will save the blog, I decided to post something after a LONG hiatus. So, here we go...

There is no question Wayne made "weird" cool in mainstream rap. He is best when his witty lyrics are barely intelligible and all over a beat. Carter 2 and Dedication 2 and No Ceilings are the best examples of that. Carter 3 had some GREAT moments, too. But, it's been clear thatsince No Ceilings, Wayne has been slowing down. I Am Not A Human Being was...alright. Oh, and he made that Rebirth shit that I like to think never happened....The dude used to record songs at a Lil B rate. Carter 4 took FOREVER to come out and Wayne actually said that was due to him working to perfect it.

Perfect it? What I used to love about the "old Wayne" is that he spit verses and didn't look back. He would attack a beat and throw it at the world and it would be entertaining as hell. This "old Wayne" was more like Lil B or Danny Brown (and I'm glad these new cats are around keeping spontaneous, weird rap alive). The "New Wayne" is almost at Wiz Khalifa levels of commercial, way too polished, uninteresting rap.

The only Wayne release that felt like his older stuff post No Celilings is the pre-Carter 4 mixtape Sorry 4 The Wait which, while nowhere near No Ceilings level, did have a lot of very entertaining songs with him over other peoples' beats (including a great version of Adele's extremely played out "Rolling In The Deep). But, I think it's telling of Wayne's loss of momentum that the high point of Sorry 4 The Wait actually isn't Wayne. It's Lil B who spits a ridiculous verse over the Flocka "Grove Street Party" beat and I think kind of outdoes Wayne on that track.

Lil B's lyrics aren't good really on that (but they are basically covering Waka Flocka who is arguably the least lyrical rapper ever), but his energy is more interesting than Wayne's is which I think is what does it.
Carter 4 is not a "bad" album exactly. It's an ok album. But, like a teacher might say, I'm dissapointed in Mr. Carter. Most of the album's beats are solid (except for the atrocious "How To Love" and the mistake that is "President Carter") and most of the rhymes are fine. Just fine. His lyrics are basically just passable for the most part. Like I keep saying, this is not the Wayne I used to know.

I don't think jail changed him. I think the money changed him. Wayne's got bubblegum dumbass Bruno Marz on Carter 4 for Optimus Prime's sake? Really? Maybe Dwayne's been hanging out with his bro Eminem too long (Em, by the way is not on the album which I find odd) who is a similar guy who lost a crazy energy he once had and now makes just "ok" music.

Nicki Minaj had a similar path to her boy Wayne, her loss of "crazy" just happened much quicker. When we first heard stuff from Nicki, it was manic and insane and inspired. Now, she is a pop star and a godawful R&B singer. Her album is straight bubblegum garbage. Wayne has not fallen that far, but I make that comparison because I think it's easy in music (on these major labels...) to change. Pitchfork said that this probably should be Wayne's last album and I agree. He kind of just cashed in with this and if dude's thinking of retiring he should before his music gets any worse.

All that said, there are a couple great tracks on Carter 4 that do evoke old Lil Wayne for me. "John" with Rick Ross is a sort of redux of the intro to Ross' excellent Teflon Don album and is an angry, crazy song which I think Wayne kills.

"6'7" is, of course, extremely epic and may even eclipse "A Mili" as Wayne's biggest "anthem" track.

And I actually like "She Will." Maybe it's just the beat on "She Will" which is slow and weird and ominous and evokes oldschool depressed Timbaland for me. Or maybe it's Drake who's charisma and attitude on it is pretty fun.

Perhaps the most clever thing about Carter 4 is the "Intro", "Interlude" and the "Outro." Many albums have these bookend things. On Carter 4 these three tracks all use the same beat. What's clever is that the "Intro" is Wayne and then the "Interlude" is the incredibly talented Tech N9ne and Andre 3000 (what an amazing collabo. They need to work together more).

The "Outro" is a collection of hip hop legends paying homage to Wayne. Busta Rhymes, Nas (who's verse is superb), Bun B and Shyne (!). Shyne? Ok, getting Shyne out the woodwork is probably Wayne's biggest accomplishment on Carter 4.

Wayne deserves all the love he gets on the album's Outro. He has done a lot for hip hop. But, he has lost so much steam over the years. It never used to bother me that dude always talked about the same things (pussy, weed, drinking lean, shooting people, selling drugs, money) but his energy feels different now. He raps slower than ever, he raps with less passion and his rhymes now feel played out. I think that's telling of rap. It's really all about energy. You can spit any lyrics and be entertaining if you do it with passion and swag it out. Wayne's swag is tired now and he seems to be reaching to be strange (jeggings at the VMAS, bro? Really?)

So, Pitchfork, I agree. Wayne should retire. There are so many new kids to pass the torch to. I already mentioned Detroit's crazy ass Danny Brown (Who's XXX mixtape is amazing and came out a week before Carter 4). There's Based God, of course. There's Odd Future of course. There's SpaceGhostPurpp. There's ASAP Rocky. There's Main Attrakionz...

Wayne, all these guys owe you. They obviously came up listening to you and that's why they don't dare to be weird and crazy on songs. Lil Wanye did what The-Dream did for R&B. He is a mainstream artist who's unique style inspired people to think out of the box. But now Wayne is inside the box. And that makes Carter 4 perhaps his worst release yet. Except the fucking shitshow that was Rebirth. But, again, I like to ignore that album's existence...

-Vogt

It Went South

2011-06-12T17:55:00.000-07:00

I'm from the East Coast, but my favorite hip hop might actually be Southern. I have just recently come to this realization.

Outkast is the first hip hop I ever liked. No, it wasn't "Sorry Ms. Jackson" even though that is an excellent track.

When I was in middleschool all the non-hip hop fans liked that jawn because it was on the radio. I wasn't feeling it at the time. Hip hop was inaccessible still to Middle School Nick. I liked The Clash and Black Flag and The Ramones and the punk of my Mom's generation. It took me a while to realize hip hop and punk have a lot in common.

So, I wasn't feeling "Ms. Jackson", but I did finally get into Outkast becase of "I Like The Way You Move" and "Tomb Of Boom." Big Boi's half of the Speakerboxx/Love Below combo Outkast did on their last actual album as a duo (unless you count the Idlewild soundtrack which I kinda do...) insantly moved me. I loved it. That double album won a grammy, of course. And it deserved to.

So, my roots as a hip hop fan started in the south. I have always connected to Southern Hip Hop for some reason even though I'm not from there. UGK, T.I, the super slept-on Back Wudz, Scarface, Goodie Mob...Hell, I even liked some of Lil Jon's shit. The south had and still has an approach to hip hop that is totally different than the rest of the county's. Actually (and this is something that I've been intrigued by about the genre for some time) hip hop is, for some reason, the most regional music of all. The South, The West Coast, The East Coast and the Midwest have unique ways of making hip hop still to this day.

Where I'm going with all this is that there's been some great Southern hip hop that's come out in the past few months. Killer Mike's 3rd entry in his Pledge series Pl3dge is great as an ignorant party album, an intellectual political "wake the fuck up" album and an "I'm gonna kill you!" album. Mike started out as an Outkast affiliate, but has really come into his own. Which is good because he's very talented.

Space Ghost Purp's Black Land Radio is a Do It Yourself Hip Hop classic. All the sound is distorted and the volume levels are fucked up. No pro tools, no big shot producers. Purp did most of the (ill) beats himself and throws in crazy, surreal samples of Mortal Kombat and Godzilla.

Juicy J and the incredibly talented beatmaker Lex Luger (yes, he's good even though the beats are all the same) have made not one, but two sick mixtapes in the Rubba Band Business series. What's great about both Rubba Band Business tapes is that Lex Luger's sound (especially on the classic Waka Flocka album Flockaveli) owes mucho to Three Six Mafia.

Have you heard Flockaveli? Okay, first of all don't hate on it. Keep an open mind. Listen, then compare it to the Three Six Most Known Unkown album. You'll see the similarities I'm talking about. And that's why it's a beautiful thing for Lex to work with the best Three Six member: Juicy J.

Speaking of Waka Flocka Flame, dude is a transplant to the south (he lives in ATL, but is from Queens) but his sound is definitely southern. His new mixtape Duflocka Rant is great and totally aggressive. It's great highway-driving music. Or working-out music. Or just angry music in general.

Mississippi's Big K.R.I.T has had two incredibly moving mixtapes with K.R.I.T Wuz Here and Return Of 4Eva. The dude can make beautiful beats and rap over them skillfully. He's very talented. I've seen K.R.I.T live twice and both times were great shows.

Soulja Boy's 1Up mixtape is pure weirdo rap. I know what you're thinking "Soulja Boy?" Yes, the "Crank Dat" man himself. Before you pass your judgement give 1Up a chance. Soulja uses the strangest possible beats on this tape and while he raps about the same old same old (swag, weed, drinking lean, shoes, killing mofos) his flows are never ever normal. Consider his shit on the Odd Future member Super 3's beat for "Retro Gamer"

On "Retro Gamer," Soulja Raps in a close to spoken word way. If a drunk hobo was doing spoken word at you. In a good way.

Oh, and then there's this from the same mixtape:

Finally, some stuff that's on HEAVY rotation for me right now is G-Side's AMAZING album The One...Cohesive. They capture the hard and the introspective and the weird of the South all on one album. "Never" is a track screaming at haters in a very David Banner way and then there's the freaky sex/lust on "Pictures" and the honest, down-to-earth track "Came Up" (which is my favorite on the album).

There's probably more recent Southern stuff that I'm forgetting. Yelawolf definitely deserves a mention. So does Jackie Chain...Hmmm. Perhaps I'll do a second installment of this "It Went South" post and give y'all everything I forgot to talk about.

Until Next Time,

-Vogt

Nick on First Class

2011-06-07T07:47:00.000-07:00

Before we get into this post, y'all should know that Ronald wrote a really great post (and made his return to this blog!) on X-Men: First Class a few days back. Check that out.

This post here is is my follow up/my thoughts the movie.

I guess I should start by saying that I have been a fan of X-men for many moons. Like most of my generation, I grew up on the classic '90s X-Men Saturday Morning Cartoon and the classic (although actually quite terrible) X-Men Arcade Game. I was playing that in the mall and watching X-men on my TV every weekend. Actually, all my interest in superheroes comes from Saturday mornings. That was sorta the gateway drug or something. When I hit High School and Batman Begins came out, I got back into superheroes pretty heavy.

The X-men movies have been largely hit or miss. Mostly miss. Bryan Singer's original 2000 X-men movie is ok. It's not great, but it does a lot of things right. His sequel to that is gold, though. X-2 is is by far the best X-men movie for how it portrayed its characters and how well the heart of the story was undoubtedly X-men (Evil zealot guy is tryna exterminate the mutants, X-men and Magneto have to team up to fight for their race). X-2 is up there as one of my favorite comic movies with Christopher Nolan's Batmans and Blade 1 and 2 (not the third Blade though...).

Do I need to even talk about how much the franchise fell off after X2? The third X-men film (Last Stand) was straight garbage. So much bad acting, so many stupid storytelling decisions (killing Cyclops? I mean yes everyone hates the dude, but you don't Kill him...) so many lame special effects...Ugh. What a bad movie. And, it got worse after that.

The Wolverine Origins movie may be one of the worst I have ever seen. There is so much action in that movie, and yet it is boring from start to finish. The only redeeming thing about the Wolverine movie is Liev Schriber as Sabretooth (Schriber's Sabretooth might be more interesting than Sabertooth is in the comics actually).

All that said, my expectations for First Class were pretty low. The franchise has sucked more than it's been good. First Class does a number of things right, but I think it gets far too caught up and is far too focused on being a Blockbuster summer film.

What I like best about First Class is what it seems most people like best: Magneto and Professor X.

James McAvoy as the swagged out young Xavier is excellent. Not only does he make a great player, but McAvoy is also able to really show Professor X's nurturing side, too. The scenes where he's training Magneto and the young mutants to control their powers are great. The older (and bald) Xavier we're used to seeing is an accomplished teacher who can train anyone to be their best. In First Class, we see X starting to become this and James McAvoy is masterfully able to show us both Xavier's struggles as a teacher and how much he loves training the other mutants.

And Michael Fassbender is perfect for Magneto. He captures Magneto's righteous anger, intensity and dedication impresivly. He also is able to make us like Magneto despite all the violent and destructive things he does.

Magneto is perhaps comics' strongest character. I'm gonna go ahead and say that. He is the perfect character walking the line between hero and villain. Magneto does "villain" things, acts of "terrorism," but he always has a motivation (at least in the good storylines). Magneto's life has been one hardship after another, one hateful motherfucker hurting him and his family after another.

Magneto is the opposite of Professor X. He's reactionary and pissed off. X can take time to evaluate a situation and be calm. Magneto just lashes out. In First Class, when Magneto gets revenge on Nazis we know what he's doing is perhaps the "wrong" thing to do, but we also want those guys dead for what they did. The acting is really what carries that, not the film's writing.

That's something I really want to stress about First Class. McAvoy and Fassbender act much better than the movie's script. The script is nothing special. It is a basic Blockbuster summer action movie superhero jawn. Nothing that happens is surprising or really that interesting.

Speaking of acting, Kevin Bacon is a pretty awesome villain. His Sebastian Shaw is not a multifaceted villain character like Magneto. He goes for the flamboyant, boastful, very "Saturday Morning" villain. And plays it well. I can appreciate that kind of performance even though the character is flat. Bacon really owns the role. Of course, Kevin Bacon is not known for the villains he's played in films. He was in Footloose. He's kind of a "nice guy" actor. So it was great to see him in the role of the villain. He was a surprising casting choice and I think it worked well.

Sebastian Shaw's "right hand woman" Emma Frost is NOT well-acted though. Mad Men's January Jones does a godawful job and it is CLEAR she was just in this movie for the paycheck and did not want to do it. Ron mentioned her fucking terrible acting in his post, too.

Really, just about every other actor in the film is mediocre at best. Perhaps Edi Gathedi's Darwin would've been good if they hadn't killed the guy very early in the movie. Darwin's death is actually something I have to talk about because this was NOT a good choice for First Class.

They kill the one black X-Man first and acted out what Pharoahe Monch called the "Crispus Attacus" clause on twitter. I don't think First Class was being intentionally racist about killing Darwin. However, I think it was lazy and stupid of them not to consider what killing Darwin meant. X-men is always a story about difference and strength in difference. Killing one of the two black members of the all-white team and having the other (Zoe Kravitz's Angel) turn evil is a bit problematic. Come on, son. X-men which was created to make us examine the way we treat/portray others.

I said earlier that most of the writing in this movie was unimpressive, and most of the what's said just rehashes old themes we've seen in X-men over and over. Lines like "Mutant and Proud" or "You're beatuful just the way you are" are good messages for the kids, but are kind of cliche at this point. When Marvel first created X-men in the 60s, those messages were new and very necessary. Now, we need go get new meaning from an X-men story I think.

There is one interesting line that Zoe Kravitz says, though. When when some dumbass C.I.A agents are gawking at and making fun of her and her fellow mutants in the First Class, she says something to the effect of "I'd rather have men look at me naked than the way those guys are looking at us." While that isn't great writing, it does bring up interesting ideas about gaze.

Angel is an ex-stripper and is used to being looked at when naked and performing. She is desired when stripping (even though it is that predatory, "male gaze" kind of desire). When normal humans look at mutants, they have a very different gaze. Humans look at mutants with fear and hate. The gaze those C.I.A guys give the First Class is one that makes them other. Looking at a stripper does not "other" her because you accept her as human. You're attracted and not revolted.

If First Class had focused just on Xavier and Magneto and not on the huge cast of poorly developed young mutant characters, it would've been really great. The flashy action and all the young and whiny mutants really bloat the movie and really take away from some great performances and what could've been great storytelling. That said, I liked this movie much more than 90% of its fellow X-movies. First Class is my 2nd favorite X-men movie to X2.

-Vogt

Small Homework on First Class

2011-06-05T19:42:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, or today (whatever you'd call 12:35 AM), I saw X-Men: First Class. Surprisingly, it reminded me quite a bit of Inception in that the movie centers around two large ego's going back-and-forth, James McAvoy's Professor X as the DiCaprio/Dom Cobb character and Eric Fassenbender's Magneto as the Marion Cotillard/Mal Cobb, and a women who looks like Ellen Page plays the hapless, but essential foil between these egos and audience surrogate--in Inception it was, in fact, Page as an architect and in First Class, its Rose Byrne (pictured above) as a CIA Agent. I say "surprisingly," because its first act is as close to a Bond film one can get without Daniel Craig. Magneto is on a world-spanning mission to find and kill Sebastian Shaw, played by Kevin Bacon, who even has an evil mistress--Emma Frost, played poorly by January Jones--and is pretty much your typical Bond villain, right down to his foreign language and Cold War-involvement. Magneto even has a very specific, Bond-like score (the music, written Henry Jackman is pretty amazing). What changes in its second and third act is the movie's accommodation of new, recruited mutants that gives it an ensemble feel that was there in Inception and obviously absent in Casino Royale. Then, of course, things float. Submarines float and missile are suspended in air and it's dream-like in its lack of consequence (the missiles *spoilers*.................. never hit their target and when they do, all parties are contented). What's more, like Incepetion, I really liked First Class.

What's A Goon To A GOBLIN?

2011-05-11T16:04:00.000-07:00

Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All have EXPLODED in pop culture recently. Back when I read Sean Fenessey's excellent Pitchfork article "The Swag Generation" in the fall, I had no idea they would get this big. I wonder if Sean and the other early music bloggers thought that either?

This past Sunday My fellow DJ on WAMH (Amherst College Radio), and Spencer and I had a conversation about Tyler, The Creator's new album Goblin (which just dropped this past Tuesday) and he kept using a really great word to describe the Wolf Gang: "Subversive."

Odd Future and especially Tyler subvert all kinds of established ideas with their music and with their statements, their image and their swag. Tyler raps about raping and murdering people,crossdressing, heavy-ass drug use funny considering he is, in reality, straight edge). Tyler is homophobic and mysoginist. And he hates just about everything but the clothing brand supreme, his brothers in Odd Future and Pharrell. His lyrics make it clear that he might hate himself more than anything.

It is not just lyrics that make Tyler and his fellow Wolves subversive, though. In their live shows and their blogging and their album art the Wolf Gang uses all kinds of images that typically "upset" the mainstream. 666, Swastikas, Charles Manson Crosses. They take pictures of happy families and photoshop the people into drooling zombies. They work to come at the throat of our largely square and conservative culture.

This is "punk" to me. Odd Future is the closest thing to the Sex Pistols screaming "Anarchy In The U.K" since maybe the sex pistols screamed that. Their music is not really political or intellectual. It's angry. They want to shake up the system, not really rationally, but out of angst and frustration in a very refreshing way.

Like I said earlier, the Wolf Gang is popular. They have played at Coachella, they were on Jimmy Fallon, their touring Europe already...they exist in the mainstream space, but they have no songs that would be traditionally considered "hits." Hits now are like the Black Eyed Peas. Music that is manufactured to be popular is neutered music. Empty calories. It is the same people saying basically "party party party we made it we're the best!" over synths. Listen to your local hits station. That's every song.

I don't think Wolf Gang will ever be top 40 like Flo-Rida or whatever, but their popularity is impressive considering how they work to not be radio friendly, to not be likable at all. Perhaps Tyler's best song is "Yonkers" and in it he talks about brutally murdering "hit" rapper B.O.B and the pop singing Bruno Marz.

But, here's the rub: both Bruno Marz and Tyler the Creator are on MTV.

Goblin is one of the best Wolf Gang releases if not the best. It's a very long album made up of many 6 to 8 minute experimental beats and extremely confrontational lyrics. It is not your typical hit rapper's album. Tyler did not make Goblin to pander to anyone. It is not entertainment. It's expression.

Tyler and company never censors themselves at all. On Goblin Tyler doesn't care if we don't get his references. He doesn't care if we don't like his weirdo beats. He doesn't care if he scares or offends us or if we scream along to his chants about killing and raping girls and and burning schools.

Tyler has a song called "Radical" on Goblin and that is, like "Subversive," a great word to describe OFWGKTA. It is also the name of their powerful group mixtape.

The use of the word "Radical" is a threat to those in power. However, to those who are truly going against the grain it is empowering. It is empowering to say "I'm a radical" but it's condemning to say "You're radical..."

Again, Goblin is not an intellectual album. On the album's opening track "Goblin," Tyler even says he is nothing like super political and intellectual rapper Immortal Technique: "I don't listen to immortal tech of the nique/all this underground bullshit that's never gon' peak/ On the billboard top 20 jam of the week/ I'd rather listen to Badu and the Pusha the T/ and some Waka Flocka Flame than some real hip hop/"

Even though Goblin is not a political album in the Immortal Technique sense, I really do think it challenges power. It challenges close-mindedness whether that close-mindedness is "politically correct" attitudes or conservative attitudes or the idea of what is good music even.

Spencer told me of another DJ at WAMH who is (like me) a Hampshire student. Apparently the guy did his final project in a Hampshire class on Odd Future and played a song (I'm not sure which) for the class. Hampshire is a school focused so much on political correctness that just playing this "radical" song caused a real mess in that class apparently. People were freaked out and angered by whatever subversive Wolf Gang track this guy played for the class. I think Tyler and his crew would be proud to hear that. And this is funny, of course, because Hampshire prides itself on being a very liberal school.

Odd Future fear nothing and Goblin shows that. They feel truly free to say whatever they want and talk shit about or explicitly fantasize about murdering whoever they want. Odd Future's subversive attitude (and amazing music) gives me hope that we can wake up and be Radical again. I think that for the majority of the 2000s when I've been alive and thinking about shit, we the youngins have been seriously lacking radical voices. And those in power have been perhaps more conservative, more criminal and more square than ever.

I'll end this with a quotation from the always eccentric and always wise Lil B. As The Based God said to Tyler recently:

"All Love For The Rebels"

2011-05-10T07:27:00.000-07:00

Hello, you readers few and far between. I'm writing to you because three of the four members of this blog are now college alumni and are twice the strong thinkers they've been in the past. There's going to be some new developments. I know we've been reticent to promote ourselves and have preferred to show our readers ideas and unique persons, but there's a few good things happening for us this time.

RICH TALES IN CHEAP PRINT:THREE PULP FICTION FINDS Written on NPR.org, and featuring, as the title suggests, well-written stories published on pulpy paper. On the website, Robert E. Howard nets a spot on the short list, the famed writer of Conan the Barbarian (a great example of proper comma usage). Robert Howard is a man I believe should be considered seriously by literature. He wrote determinedly for a living, he had a tragic death, and was prolific in his career. When I've thought of his life, I've though of David Foster Wallace as well, as a comparable figure.
MORTAL KOMBAT: LEGACY The gritty, underworld version of the videogame series everyone hoped for. It's like when Twisted Metal released Black. Produced as a marketing tool, then picked up by Warner Brothers and released on the YouTube channel, Machinima. There are about five episodes online, and an avid watcher won't be able to take a moment's break between short fifteen minute episodes.

The next developments are a print edition of key essayistic posts from this blog, and other writing by emerging men and women writers. It will be a follow-up issue to a two years past one-time meditative literary journal. If you're interested in what our influences are, read Tinhouse, browse McSweeney's, and look in the mirror at the warped plaster on the wall back behind your face. Selected pieces, as of yet, are "Otherness in Ocarina," an expanded version of Nick Vogt's essay on psychology, society, and the Legend of Zelda videogame series, and poetry or comment from Ronald Metellus. Find Ron's writing and the original published version of "Otherness in Ocarina" in this blog's archive.

"Let Me Love You" Expensive Looks Remix

2011-03-24T22:01:00.000-07:00

Y'all already know this, but Expensive Looks is a good friend of mine and great musician. He always goes hard weather it's an original track or a remix.

This track I'm posting is indeed a REMIX and I think it's the sickest Expensive Looks remix yet. This is Mario's classic R&B jam "Let Me Love You" Remixed by my friend Expensive Looks. It is majorly swagged out. Enjoy:

Mario - Let Me Love You (Expensive Looks Remix) by Expensive Looks

R.I.P Nate Dogg

2011-03-16T08:25:00.000-07:00

One of the first things I discovered when I got online today is that Nate Dogg, the sonorous-voiced, swag/soul master cousin of Snoop, has died.

In the past few years I've found myself wondering "what happened to Nate Dogg?" and I even asked, in a conversation with a coworker the other day, something to the effect of "Nate Dogg needs to do a song again? Where has he been?"

Today, the sad news of Nate Dogg's death kind of answered those questions. Turns out he had been quietly suffering from strokes and complications from that ill health led to his death today. He was 41 years old which really is not that old.

Nate Dogg is perhaps one of the most unique "sing the hook" guys in all of rap. No one has or will ever have a voice like he did (except in imitations I suppose) and no "hook singer" will ever have as much of a presence, as much swag, as he had.

Yes, Nate Dogg's job on songs was to sing the hook, but he did it in a way that did not make him obsolete. There are many artists who just sing hooks in hip hop and most of them are people we could care less about (I won't name names). These people provide a needed popiness/catchiness to a rap song, but they are forgettable. Nate Dogg was never forgettable on any track that featured his striking vocals.

You will be missed, bro. Many sites are reporting on Nate Dogg's death today, and they've all posted their favorite songs featuring him. That is definitely the propper way to remember and celebrate the life of a musician, so I've gone ahead and posted my favorites by Nate Dogg here on the Vogt Blog. Enjoy.

R.I.P Nate Dogg:

Rap Is Not Artful

2011-03-09T07:18:00.000-08:00

Contemporary rap is a much contested cultural expression. Beginning with the Parental Advisory message put on records by the Recording Industry Association of America, including Barack Obama who has casually mentioned Lil' Wayne in speeches and conversation, and not forgetting millions of detractors posting on internet discussion boards, slandering rap in conversation, or disagreeing with it ideologically.

Hip hop music heard on the radio--popular by default--is ninety percent gangsta rap. It is braggadocio, violent, misogynistic. Gangsta rap is a sub-genre of hip hop. The ranks of conscious rappers are a counter example, like The Legendary Roots Crew, who actively engage racial, social, and psychological discourse.

In the Comment section of national literary journal Poetry (February 2011), essayist Adam Kirsch writes "How Ya Like Me Now," an examination of poetry and rap that is honest on both sides. The essay is a response to the publication of The Anthology of Rap, a scholarly Yale book that transcribes Public Enemy, Ice-T, and many more in the pursuit of a literary ideals. In literary academia, close reading is a prized skill, and Adam Kirsch finds where close reading seems comical in its approach to rap lyrics and where it is truthful.

This write-up is the author writing about an author writing about authors writing about lyricists. Pretty far down in the pecking order.

An example of The Anthology of Rap's success and shortcoming is in this quote by Kirsch: "The gangsta culture in rap bears some similarities to the warrior culture we can see in the Illiad: both value physical courage, encourage bragging, indulge masculine self-pity, and make it easy to dehumanize women." Then Kirsch continues that the Illiad's narrative structure makes us aware of these values whereas rappers, more often than not, simply brag. Earlier, Kirsch highlights Shakespeare, the troublesome subject matter of misogyny and obscenity in what should be a truthful, heartfelt autobiography that contemporary rap and poetry share.

Read the Kirsch's commentary for the complete story, and consider this statement about literary writing in the last few decades.

"Rap is considerably more artful than most American poetry written in the same period covered by the anthology, 1978 - 2010. Technique has declined in importance in poetry over these years, while a premium has been placed on conceptual innovation--on the idea behind a work rather than its execution. Whether it is a result or a cause of this focus, or both, people who become poets today are less interested in verse, and less naturally gifted at it, than poets in previous eras." ADAM KIRSCH

Based God on Selector

2011-03-01T06:13:00.000-08:00

Lil B on Pitchfork TV's freestyle series "Selector."

Here's part 1:

Here's Part 2:

I wish he rapped over the Sufjan beat, but he goes in on the Mimosa track. I love how they set up a kitchen for Lil B. So based.

In his freestyle, Based God mentions an incident with some dude throwing a bottle at him at a show. Ron and I were at that show at the Highline Ballroom in NYC. It's was definitely a moment of drama that night.

It's interesting that Lil B is still hurt that one of his fans would do that. Seems like it was a big moment for him. We all have them.

Cornel West x Craig Ferguson

2011-02-03T11:31:00.001-08:00

Dr. Cornel West was on Craig Ferguson's Late Late Show a few days ago to commemorate the start of Black History Month. They had an amazing conversation.

I embedded their extensive and incredibly deep conversation in three parts below. I love in part 2 when Cornel West says "we're all blues people."

Cornel West has been one of my heroes ever since I read Race Matters for an American Politics class Rex and I took our Freshmen year in college.

I never knew Craig Ferguson was this intelligent and thoughtful. He really comes off as an incredible listener and thinker in this video. He's refreshingly honest and real, but still funny. Which is great.

I've always liked Ferguson even though I never followed his show. Maybe this sort of hidden (well, "hidden" for me since I really have seen very little of his show) wisdom Ferguson shows in when talking with Dr. West is what I saw in Ferguson that I always connected to?

Also, a great moment is when Cornel West calls Lil' Wayne "a great Bluesman with all his tattoos."

Part One:

Part Two:

Part Three:

If I Only Had One More Minute

2011-02-02T05:53:00.000-08:00

At the end of a year, at least in the United States, the populace is caught in the grips of imagination. The multitudes are imagining losing weight, dropping dirty habits, paying back love, building muscle, caring more, writing two pages of their memoirs for three hundred and sixty-five days, climbing Everest, fighting forest fires, joining the ranks of Hollywood, tuning in, dropping out, playing with fast fingers, speaking slow words of love, watching less pornography, having more sex, writing letters to newspaper editors, knocking the Loch Ness plesiosaur on the head with a depth gauge, going to bed earlier, staying up later, reading philosophy, because they are, yes, creatures of imagination.

How many days a year does the average American get to let their imagination run wild?

1. A wishbone when cleaning out a chicken.
2. The bobbing candles on their birthday cake.
3. 11:11PM
4. Ouija boards
5. New Year's Eve

Imagination, for what it's worth, is an economical hobby. It takes place on a parent's glowering desktop computer where the child cranes his neck and pecks out a writing assignment. It takes place in a notebook, where a girl plots out her family's epic set in outer space. It takes place riding a trolley car, staring out the passenger-side window, looking down on the gridded fields of Oklahoma when flying Southwest Air, when a ten year-old is home alone and drags the flannel sheets off his bed and wields a mixing spoon like trident.

Happy wishing.

Ironically, it was due to a complication with the internet and this blog's server that this post was delayed for a month after New Year's Eve. It's original intention was to be posted with only a minute remaining in 2010.

Black Swan Thoughts

2011-01-25T08:35:00.000-08:00

This post on the excellent film Black Swan has been re-purposed from a comment I wrote on my friend Jericho's blog The Corona Jumper. You can read Jericho's post on Black Swan (and lot's of other great writing) over at that blog. And you should.

Before you read this , I have some SPOILERS in this post. Just as a disclaimer...

I saw Black Swan last night finally.

What I like best about the movie is that there are really no "nice" characters in it. There really is no one Nina (Played incredibly by Natalie Portman) can turn to for support. Her mother (played by Barbara Hershey) is by no means a loving mother and her "friend" Lilly (the lovely and fierce Mila Kunis) is either out to get her or Nina is just way too paranoid about that.

The fact that Nina has to dance as BOTH the Black Swan and the White Swan is an important theme in this movie. It gets at the point you make at the beginning of this post. There is certainly a darkness lurking in humanity which this movie addresses. Now, plenty of stories address that so it's nothing new exactly. But, newness isn't everything.

The Black Swan character obviously is that "darkness" and in the story of Swan Lake (which I don't know, but pieced together from watching this movie) the Black Swan fucks up the White Swan's life, driving the White Swan to kill herself when all is lost.

Nina doesn't just play the White Swan, the good swan. She plays both dark and light. The Black Swan and the white swan are both Nina. Nina's hallucinations frequently result in her either being attacked by or attacking herself.

In the beginning of the film, the ballet's director (Vincent Cassel) says to Nina "I look at you and all I see is the White Swan." But, he forces her to be both. We all have a black swan in us. The super-competition and stress and anxiety and sexual intensity of being the star of this huge ballet as well as the director's influence on Nina brings out her Black Swan.

Lilly, the ballet director and Nina's mother are, in fact, NOT her enemies in this movie. While the film has the climate of paranoia of a spy thriller with the "they're all out to get me!" thing going on, really only Nina is out to get Nina. Her mind and her body are out to get her. Other people, while they seem dangerous, are not nearly as much of a problem for Nina as the Black Swan lurking inside her.

In the end, whether Nina actually died or not is unimportant. If she did not actually kill herself, it is still symbolic of the death of "Nina" and the birth of a new identity. At the end, when everyone crowds around Nina and congratulates her on how well she danced the role, that is because she has given EVERYTHING SHE HAS to the role. She has transformed. There is no more "Nina". Just the Black and White Swan. Nina is dead. Perhaps actually dead, perhaps it's just another hallucination.

Regarding Hallucinations: We follow Nina so closely that her hallucinations might as well be real.

The one moment where I found a hallucination too flashy and where it took me a bit out of Nina's head is when her mom's paintings talk to her. That was a little much. But, that was the ONE MOMENT. For the most part, Black Swan's film making is spot-on with how it brings Nina's mindstate into reality so that there is, in effect, no reality at all. It is all in her mind and it is also all real.

New Murs: "Varsity Blues 2"

2011-01-11T06:18:00.000-08:00

It's been a minute since we heard new stuff by L.A MC Murs. It's been since last year's Felt 3 which had Murs and his partner in crime Slug rhyming over beats by Aesop Rock.

Murs' new track "Varsity Blues 2" continues the Murs/Aesop collaboration as it's produced by Mr. Rock. Aesop's beat is dark and futuristic. As a producer, Aesop Rock is VERY influenced by El-P (the head of his record label/hip hop family Def Jux) and that is no more apparent than this track. Actually, Aesop's style is something of a combination of El-P's and longtime Aesop beatmaker Blockhead. Aseop's production blends the manic layers of sound and sci fi theme music influence of El-P with the playfulness Blockhead puts into his music.

Murs spits some paranoid, unstable and downright nasty rhymes over this beat which is not something he always does and it works pretty nicely.

Murs' flow on "Varsity Blues 2" kind of recalls one of Murs' albums (Out of the shitload he's done) which was released on Def Jux many years ago: The End Of The Beginning.

Murs has a new album called Varsity Blues 2 (same name as this song!) on the way. I don't know any of the other details about it, though. If it means more work with Aesop Rock like this track, that would be excellent.

I'd really like to hear Aesop Rock rap again, too. It's been a very long time since he spit and he's one of my favorite MCs. He's been heavy into producing lately, but I'd love to hear dude back on the mic. I'm hoping for a new Aesop album in the near future...

[Via 900 Bats]

Two New Madvillain Songs

2011-01-10T18:53:00.000-08:00

Recently, two new Madvillain (MF Doom and Madlib) tracks surfaced online. You can check them both out in the video embedded below:

There's no word yet on if Madvillain are doing another album. But I certainly hope they are.

Madvillainy is a bonified classic. And is one of the first hip hop albums I liked. Real talk.

[Via Okayplayer]

"Vicki Leaxx" & Why Mixtapes Can Be Better Than Albums

2011-01-07T09:54:00.000-08:00

"Vicki Leakxx" really should have been the /\/\ /\ Y /\ album. It's pretty great and gets back to Maya's earlier swag and sound that was actually good and not lackluster and uninterestingly (just made up a word there...) "experimental."

You can download "Vicki Leakx" (it's one, 36 minute track) here.

If you haven't heard M.I.A's other mixtape (made with producer Diplo) Piracy Funds Terrorism (it's 7 years old but still fucking awesome) check that out, too.

Mixtapes are frequently better than albums because artists are free to be creative without the pressure of "I HAVE TO MAKE AN ALBUM!"

There's something Ironic about this: Album's are supposed to be polished and complete and yet mixtapes which are by definition rough and unorganized can be so much better. Take most of Lil Wayne's stuff for instance. Take Wale. Take really any "internet" rapper as an example.

This is why I'm wary about this upcoming "official" studio album by Lil B. It could suck a lot. The man is a mixtape genius, but can he do an album? Apparently he's working on one.

Speaking of Lil B and M.I.A: The Based God's recent song "Bonified Hustler" samples M.I.A.

Gil Scott-Heron & Jamie xx

2011-01-07T08:55:00.000-08:00

Jamie xx of the British dark R&B/Electronic group The xx (who's album xx never gets old by the way) is releasing an entire album remixing Gil Scott Heron's I'm New Here.

Jamie's remix album is going to be called "We're New Here" (that's to account for both Mr. xx and Mr. Heron. That's the "we" there). And is out in February.

Here's a taste from the album, Jamie's remix of Heron's "I'll Take Care Of U"

[Via Pitchfork]

Re: Dead Birds

2011-01-04T16:54:00.000-08:00

If you haven't heard there have been not one, but TWO incidents of mass bird deaths in the South Lately. Lots (like thousands) of birds have dropped dead out of the sky.

Birds are omens for many cultures. Ancient Romans, for instance, thought if you saw a bird fly off to your right side that was good luck. If the same bird flew off to your left...not good. They didn't like that left side in Rome. The latin word for "left" is "Sinister."

Okay, so what are these mass bird deaths an omen of? Is this a sign that in 2011, "fly" is dead? Can no one be "fly" anymore? Will we all be bland and square? Has the new year killed flyness? Or, has it just been replaced with "swag." I'd like to think this is the year of the swag.

Or, is this a sign of something else? Cannibal Ox is a poorly-named, but incredible hip hop group. They only put out one album, the album that kicked off Def Jux's indie rap reign of awesomeness: The Cold Vein.

On the opening track of Cold Vein, Can Ox member Vast Aire spits: "A pidgeon can't drop shit if it never flew."

I have decided to interpret the "omen" of these recent mass bird deaths through that lyric.

If all the dead birds never flew, they couldn't fall from the sky. At least they got to fly. Some people die and stay on the ground. We are all going to end up like those birds lying on Arkansas or Louisiana pavement. Dead. But they fell from the sky. They were flying when they died. And that means something.

A bird can't drop from the sky if it never flew. Whatever that means for you.

Also:

Lil B on Vice Guide To Everything

2011-01-04T16:49:00.000-08:00

The Vice Guide to Everything - MTV Shows

"I'm Pretty Sure Based Music Is Just An Excuse To Be Professionally Weird."

[Via SF Weekly]

Video: Kanye & Friends: "Monster"

2010-12-30T01:56:00.000-08:00

Here's the video for (what I'm pretty sure was) the first single off Mr. West's incredible new album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.

"Monster", of course, features Justin Vernon (of Bon Iver), Rick Ross, Jay-Z and Nicki Minaj. This video is fucking crazy. Horror Movie swag.

[Via Rap-Up]

On Boardwalk Empire and High Stakes

2010-12-24T11:21:00.000-08:00

   I was glad to see Nick mentioning that Steve Buscemi, the supposed lead character on Boardwalk Empire, isn't actually the focus of the show. Buscemi's "Nucky" is certainly an interesting character--and played well by Buscemi--but he's the most exhaustive character on the show. Partially because the stakes for his character are so low. When his foil, Federal agent Nelson, is introduced in the second episode, he seems more like a pest than a worthy opponent. I apologize if the point seems redundant, because of course the lead character will win and overcome, but, as we learned in "The Dark Knight" it doesn't matter if the protagonist is fated to win, so long as he has to give something up at the end. Nucky is so entrenched in his Prohibition racket that he doesn't have to lose a night of sleep worrying about the Feds.

   Michael Pitt's "James" is an interesting character, with higher stakes than Nucky since he's new to the game, but his father (Nucky's mentor and a figurehead in the crime world) keeps him well protected.

The most interesting character, in my estimation, is Kelly Macdonald's "Margaret" because she has everything lose. A poor mother of two and, by the second episode, a widower, she's in an absolutely trying and difficult place. Her delivery is often trembly and her provincial Irish accent grounds the show in a way that set design, and Buscemi's modern neurosis, don't. She's also the moral center of the show. James assures Nucky that he's "seen some things" at war and proceeds to take part in the murder of four gangsters by episode two, while Margaret's eyes remain averted to most. When one of Nucky's one-night-stands walks out while he and Margaret are holding conversation in the morning, he nervously apologizes. It also doesn't hurt that we first see Margaret at a woman's suffrage meeting, and the camera keeps (overtly!) focusing on her. By episode two she has to avert eyes from the fact that her abusive husband was murdered, though not before defending her husband's honor while laying in a hospital room with a black eye. It's really brutal, heart-wrenching stuff watching her character and it's her weightiness that has me looking forward to the next season.

Vogtblog Top 5 TV Shows 2010

2010-12-21T14:32:00.000-08:00

I love TV. Y'all read this blog (maybe) so you probably know that. Here are my 5 favorite shows that were on TV this year.

#1: Breaking Bad

The domestic drama and the gangster drama are one in the brilliant Breaking Bad. It is the first show (in a long line of attempts) to successfully work with family and crime post The Sopranos. And that's no small feat.

Bryan Cranston's acting as the desperate, genius, manic, unrelenting Walter White is really something. The man faces adversity in all arenas of his life (teaching, drug-dealing, family) and that has never been more clear than this season.

It may be the best acting I've seen on TV. Many series have tried, but Breaking Bad may be the first successful show to follow in the footsteps of The Sopranos. New Mexico's almost alien landscape and Albuqurque's strangeness as a city also feature into this show's aesthetic and work in really the best way.

Breaking Bad had the best, most successful season finale I have ever seen. I cannot recommend this series enough.

#2: Mad Men

AMC is an amazing network and their standard for TV is pretty goddamn commendable. AMC DOES NOT put out shit television and has worked its niche as non-nework channel but also a non-premium channel.

Mad Men, like my #1 show of 2010 Breaking Bad, is also on AMC of course. Mad Men is one of the most multitasking shows around when it comes to themes. Mad Men deals with more "big questions" in a single episode than any other TV I've seen. That has never been truer than this season and Don Draper is older than he ever was and as his life is becoming something he questions and looks back on.

#3: Boardwalk Empire

If Breaking Bad is the #1 best follower in the footsteps of The Sopranos, then Boardwalk Empire is the #2 for sure. Some of The Sopranos creators worked on this show--along with the legendary gangster movie man Martin Scorsese--which, unlike The Sopranos is far more about politics and public image. But, Steve Bushemi's Nucky Thompson isn't even the main focus of the series.

Nucky's protege' Jimmy (played by Michael Pitt) a World War I veteran and college dropout turned thug is an extremely interesting character as is Michael Shannon's character Nelson, a super-religious FBI agent who struggles with his convictions in a very intense way.

#4: Rubicon

One of the slowest-moving, most focused spy/conspiracy shows of all time, Rubicon forces viewers to be with its characters and to move at its purposeful pace through the story. It is not afflicted by the hyperactivity of most conspiracy stories. The show presents a truly complex and fascinating look at a kind of Illuminati problem, one that is far more palpable than the airport shit of Dan Brown and his ilk.

Rubicon's Zack Whedon-penned episode "A Good Day's Work" is one of the best episodes of a TV show I saw this year.

Unfortunately, Rubicon's growth as a series has been stunted by what is basically AMC's first cancellation of one of their shows. So, all we'll ever get (well, probably) is the one season of Rubicon that aired this year. But, it's damn good.

#5: Treme

HBO's spiritual sequel to The Wire, Treme is a multi-character look a post Katrina New Orleans. Now, when I say "character" I really mean that. Treme is more about character than plot and that makes it a rarity on TV.

The show's relationship to music and just how much it highlights New Orleans culture and New Orleans rebuilding after the disaster that was Katrina (which, freakily, occurred on my birthday back in 2005) is really fascinating.

This show is fun and melancholy at the same time. It is about parties and what happens after the party. It is about triumph and struggles and oppression and rising up.

Yes, this is my "#5" TV show of the year, but that doesn't mean it's "bad" by any means. It is for true, one of the better shows I've seen.

Play for that money, boys.

Thor Trailer

2010-12-15T09:49:00.000-08:00

Movie Trailers - Movies Blog

This movie looks great. It looks MUCH better than I expected it would. Then again, most trailers look epic. I hope the Thor movie will live up to this hype though.

Kenneth Branagh & co. filmed much of Thor in the Albuquerque/Santa Fe area of New Mexico. Cave Bear territory.

Talib Kweli Is Working Hard

2010-12-14T17:05:00.000-08:00

Talib Kweli has been putting out tons of music lately. Within the last year (and some change) he's released the mixtape "Party Robot" with Res and Graph Nobel as the group Idle Warship, his second album with Hi-Tek as Reflection Eternal called Revolutions Per Minute and his Year Of The Blacksmith Community Mixtape. "The Community Mixtape" is really a great project since Kweli put out a call for submissions for songs and literally anyone could submit. He and Mick Boogie chose their favorites to include on the mixtape along with songs from Kweli and the Year Of The Blacksmith crew. That sort of "community outreach" doesn't happen often in hip hop.

But wait, there's more. Today the news dropped that Kweli is working on a mixtape with DJ Smallz featuring all southern MCs (yelawolf, Three 6 Mafia, Roscoe Dash, Gucci Mane and others presumably) called Southern Smoke, Northern Lights. Kweli is also working on a new album called Gutter Rainbows. So, that's a lot of music. Of course it's not at Lil B and Lil' Wayne crazo amounts of music stauts, but Kweli has put out a lot. He's working hard. And all his stuff has been pretty damn good.

Batman: Arkham City Trailer

2010-12-12T11:08:00.000-08:00

The new, Hugo Strange-featuring trailer for Rocksteady's upcoming game Batman: Arkham City premiered at yesterday's Spike Video Game Awards.

The visuals in this trailer are really impressive. It looks live action. I'm serious about that. It looks incredibly (and perhaps freakily) real.

The end of this trailer has the evil Dr. Strange tell us something that is pretty huge, something that will definitely affect Arkham City's story. Can you tell I'm tryna talk around the moment at the end of the trailer? Well, I am. I don't want to be a spoiler here.

Of course, the first Batman game Rocksteady developed (which has a very similar title to its sequel) Batman: Arkham Asylum, was definitely the best Batman game I've ever seen and was perhaps the best superhero game, too. I have pretty high hopes for Arkham City.

Video Games | Batman: Arkham City | VGA 10: Exclusive Hugo Strange Reveal Trailer HD

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

[Via Robot 6]

Vogtblog Top 5 Albums 2010

2010-12-10T19:24:00.000-08:00

I decided to keep all the Vogtblog best of 2010 lists limited to 5 for ease of blogging and ease of reading. Here are my Vogt's...

TOP 5 ALBUMS:

#1: Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

Kanye West returns from the doldrums and mediocre pop of 808s And Heartbreak and the fallout from the infamous "Taylor Swift Situation" with what is his second best album to his College Dropout debut that changed hip hop for the better.

Dark Fantasy is triumphant, deep, soulful and charmingly arrogant. This is the Kanye West that made me a hip hop fan.

#2: LCD Soundsystem - This Is Happening

Ron and I agree that "aging" is a ridiculous term because, of course, we are all aging. LCD Soundsystem's James Murphy is frequently refered to as an "aging hipster" and, in a way, he is. James Murphy was there for the genesis of hipster dance music (and makes sure we all know) and he is a member of the old guard.

This Is Happening is apparently the last LCD album, and it's a great "goodbye" album. This is Murphy's

Black Album. While "aging" is indeed the wrong word, Murphy is a lot like Hov was when he dropped The Black Album. James Murphy is passing the torch to a younger generation of electronic/punk/dance music while, at the same time, looking back on his own career and life and making a fucking lovely album, too.

#3: Big Boi - Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son Of Chico Dusty

Outkast is, and has always been making some of the downright funkiest, most swagged out music ever. Yes, I called them "Outkast." You best believe Big Boi and Andre 3000 are still a group even though they've been going solo for a bit now.

Big Boi's solo album not only carries on the tradition of Outkast's southern, powerfully funky hip hop, but also moves it into 2010. Not just hip hop, but all music is at a strange point right now and Big Boi fully embraces music's electronic/disco/hip hop weridness and pushes it in the right direction. "Shine Blockas" is my favorite song of the year.

#4: Sleigh Bells - Treats

Sleigh Bells is like Run-DMC as a girl punk group. It's like Cheerleaders covering Lil' Wayne and doing it well. This album is at once endearing and badas. It is pop and metal and hip hop and dance music fused in the best way with an assertively cute girl screaming over it.

Sleigh Bells released this album on M.I.A's label N.E.E.T and it is SO MUCH better than her album that came out this year. I find that funny.

#5: Curren$y - Pilot Talk I and II

Just a few years ago New Orleans' Curren$y was little more than a skilled, but unfortunately forgettable MC who'd show up featured on a Lil' Wayne song here and there. But, all that changed when Curren$y joined forces with the producer Ski Beatz.

Ski, who is a veteran beatmaker who's worked with much of the Dame Dash camp and started his career producing for weirdo New York rappers Camp Lo, is a perfect match for Curren$y. Curren$y's odd somewhat spacey, somewhat grounded, very swagged out flow and wit go perfectly with Ski's jazzy, insanely well-crafted beats.

Curren$y put out not one, but TWO excellent albums this year and I hear he's got more in the works, too. He's a good man and I'm glad he escaped Lil' Wayne's shadow and came into his own. Now, don't get me wrong: I hope Curren$y and Wayne remain friends and I hope they'll collaborate in the future. I just think that Wayne's shadow is difficult to escape since Wayne is such a massive person.

The Return Of Dr. Dre

2010-12-10T19:09:00.000-08:00

A little over a week ago, Dr. Dre's first single off his highly anticipated ("highly anticipated" is an understatement) return album Detox surfaced online.

When I first heard "Kush"--which features Akon and Dre's old partner-in-crime Snoop Dogg--I wasn't very impressed. The song is a bit lackluster, but video is fucking awesome.

Seeing the video for Dre's "Kush" tonight has changed my opinion of the song. That's how crazy this video is. If you've heard "Kush" and haven't seen the video, maybe you'll have that experience, too?

The basic premise of the "Kush" video is that Dre, Snoop and Akon move through various "freeze-frame" scenes. Everyone else isn't moving but them. If that makes no sense, or if it sounds dumb. Just watch the video and you'll (I think) see what I mean about how impressive this is.

[Via Pitchfork]

Mickey Factz on Hot 93.7

2010-12-07T17:53:00.000-08:00

Hot 93.7 out of Hartford, CT is my local hip hop station and I've been listening to them since I first got into hip hop.

Bronx MC Mickey Factz stopped by 93.7 tonight and freestyled, something he is quite good at. I saw dude freestyle his entire set at the UMASS Wiz Khalifa show I went to a few weeks back (due to a technical difficulty where his beat CD was damaged) and it was pretty amazing.

Not many cats can freestyle anymore. Mickey definitely can, though. When I spotted this video on Nah Right (a great hip hop info site I've been re-bloggging a lot from as of late) it warmed my heart kind of. Why? because it's Mickey Factz, yes. But also because he's on Hot 93.7 which is a site I've known and loved forever ever.

Factz always references Street Fighter in his rhymes which is awesome. So, Be on the lookout for his "M. Bison" line in this freestyle...

Welcome To The World Of The Plastic Beach

2010-12-06T20:59:00.000-08:00

Here's the video for the intro track to the latest album by Gorillaz. Snoop is featured on this song, of course.

I've frequently described Plastic Beach as "the only album ever to both feature Snoop Dogg and Lou Reed." That's why Gorillaz are awesome. Also, Damon Albarn apparently has a lot more Gorillaz shit in the works, so that should be interesting...

[Via Nah Right]

Big K.R.I.T and Hip Hop's "New Generation"

2010-12-05T07:45:00.000-08:00

Here's the video for Big K.R.I.T's "This Can't Be All," a track that will be on his upcoming mixtape with Johnny Shipes "Good Talk Vol. 9."

This "Good Talk" mixtape will (I think) be the first release K.R.I.T will put out since his incredible debut album K.R.I.T Wuz Here.

I saw K.R.I.T at "The Feastival" at UMASS a few weeks back, a show featuring K.R.I.T, Wiz Khalifa, Yelawolf and Mickey Factz and Big K.R.I.T was great. I keep saying this, but that "Feastival" show was, in some sense, a showcase of hip hop's new generation.

I have to say, the "new generation" of hip hop is excellent. I don't think we've had this many "rising" MCs who are all this good in some time. Not just Wiz Khalifa, Yelawolf, Mickey Factz and Big K.R.I.T, but also the whole Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All crew, Lil B (yes, I said it. I think The Based God Lil B is good), Curren$y, J. Cole, Big Sean, Jay Electronica, Das Racist...Am I missing anyone? Probably.

And when I say "new generation" I don't mean they're all young or they're all just starting out in music. I just mean they're all relatively new to get fame and recognition in the music world.

But, my point is I'm excited for hip hop. We certainly didn't have this solid of a new generation of hip hop when Nas infamously proclaimed "Hip Hop Is Dead" back in 2007. Hip Hop has changed since Nas' generation, but it is very much alive.

Beats, Rhymes And Fights

2010-12-01T18:35:00.001-08:00

The trailer for Michael Rapport's upcoming documentary on A Tribe Called Quest which, if you ask me, is one of the greatest hip hop acts of all time.

The audio for the trailer is a bit un-synched, but the movie still looks really interesting:

[Via AV Club]

As a bonus, here's Kanye West's "G.O.O.D Friday" track with Talib Kweli and Consequence called "Chain Heavy" which was produced by Q-Tip of The Tribe.

Also, Phife briefly mentions his kidney disease in this trailer, and here's an extremely honest and moving Okayplayer Interview where he goes into much more detail about his condition and how he has been dealing with it.

UPDATE: Q-Tip is apparently against this movie. So that's interesting.

Fuck The Money

2010-11-28T14:03:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving has come and gone and you know what that means...we're on the (war)path to Christmas.

In the spirit of Christmas (kind of), B.O.B--a guy who's huge talent is generally wasted on the kind of lame music he typically makes--and Wiz Khalifa (a charismatic weed rapper, fun, and down-to-earth guy who's extremely appreciative of his fans--have teamed up and made a song over a very clever sample of Joni Mitchell's depressing Christmas classic "I Wish I Had A River."

"Fuck The Money" is a good motto. Especially coming off Black Friday and entering into the hyper-materialism that is the "Holiday Season."

[Via Nah Right]

Big Sean x Travis Barker

2010-11-28T13:14:00.000-08:00

Detroit's Big Sean deserves as much hype as he can get right now. His verse on the G.O.O.D Music Cypher was my favorite of the whole G.O.O.D Music crew and his verses on the Kanye G.O.O.D Friday tracks "Don't Look Down," "Looking For Trouble" and the G.O.O.D music anthem "Good Friday" have all been really solid.

Sean is a perfect addition to the G.O.O.D Music team. He has the kind of charisma and wit, the kind of kind of playful, but skilled swag that is exactly what the G.O.O.D Music brand has exemplified since Mr. West started it up back in 2004.

His rap presence has been mostly in the G.O.O.D Friday world lately, but yesterday the ridiculous sex-rap, swagged out song "Big Nut Bust" appeared online, a collaboration between Big Sean and the dude who may be the best drummer in hip hop, Travis Barker.

Blink-182 is one of the worst, most obnoxious bands ever. But, that wasn't because of Barker's drumming. While the other members of 182 went on to do similar emo/pop-punk music (Angels And Airwaves...) Barker saw Blink 182's breakup as a chance to move into hip hop, which I assume is a genre he always was interested in.

Travis Barker has a hip hoppy album on the way called "Give The Drummer Some" and while I'm not sure if "Big Nut Bust" will be on that album, it will be on a mixtape of Barker's stuff DJ Whoo Kid (who is best known for his work with 50 and G-Unit) is putting together.

Also, here's Barker's awesome "Jump Down" featuring swagged out fun guys (who NEED to do more music of their own...like an album...) The Cool Kids. This video's in 3D, so if y'all have some 3D glasses lying around from when you saw Piranha then bust those out.

Finally, check out Big Sean's verse on a re-do of the G.O.O.D Friday song "See Me Now" that appears as a bonus track on Kanye's FUCKING AMAZING new album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. A lot of the time, when a rapper just adds a verse to a song, it adds very little. Sean on "See Me Now" is a huge improvement to the original, though. And I liked the original quite a bit.

Sean's best line on this new version of "See Me Now" is "Kanye's a jerk? How could you say that? He drove my whole family around in his Maybach!"

Keepaway x Das Racist

2010-11-19T19:30:00.000-08:00

Keepaway just released a free EP on their Bandcamp and this song featuring the mighty wit of Das Racist is on that EP (The EP's called Kompetior and y'all should download it since it's free).

Keepaway's Mike Burakoff is a Hampshire College alumni; so, you know, I'm representing for my school with this post.

Swag.

[Via Pitchfork]

William P Culbert on Corral Ron (Part 2)

2010-11-19T03:08:00.001-08:00

The Corral Ron Program part 2 from Will Culbert on Vimeo.

Corral Ron

2010-11-18T03:25:00.000-08:00

Corral Ron interviews William P. Culbert for NTV:

The Corral Ron Program part 1 from Will Culbert on Vimeo.

Don't Call It A Comeback

2010-11-16T20:51:00.000-08:00

Rakim, one of hip hop's godfathers returns to music after a long while with a feature on Swizz Beatz's "Monster Mondays" track "King Tut"

Swizz has been kind of playing Quentin Tarantino lately in how he's been giving out comebacks. Much like how Tarantino gave John Travolta a come back role in Pulp Fiction, Swizz has done the same for his old pal DMX with the Monster Monday track "Y'all Don't Really Know."

When I say DMX and Swizz are "old pals," I really mean it. They started out in hip hop together as partners so it's good to see Swizz (who has had considerably more success recently than X) reach out to DMX and feature him on one of these "Monster Mondays" jams. "Y'all Don't Really Know" also features a certain Busta Rhymes who also is in need of a bit of a comeback right now...

Speaking of the "Monster Mondays" series, it is definitely biting Kanye West's hugely successful and awesome "Good Fridays" series of weekly new music. There are a lot of other biters as well in hip hop right now. Most are not nearly as quality as Swizz and Kanye's stuff. There are so many of these in fact that I can't tell if this Complex article is a joke or not.

Going back to DMX, I once saw him in Chinatown in Manhattan. No, I didn't see X play a show. I saw him drive through China Town in a hummer. It was kind of awesome.

Dirt McGirt

2010-11-15T20:26:00.000-08:00

A few days back ago Raekwon released the video for "Ason Jones" off his masterpiece Only Built 4 Cuban Linx II. Both the song and the video are dedicated to the late Ol' Dirty Bastard who died 6 years ago as of November 13th.

I remember reading/hearing the news of Ol' Dirty Bastard's death at a time when I was just coming up as a Wu Tang Fan. Hip hop would definitely be different today with ODB around. He was a crazy ass guy, but a good one. Extremely talented in the most manic and delirious way.

I've posted two of my favorite Ol' Dirty Videos in honor of his life on this 6 year anniversary of his death. It really doesn't feel like it's been that long. Although, thinking back, I was a very different Nick Vogt 6 years ago. So maybe it does feel like a long time? I think I was in 11th grade... Damn, time flies.

R.I.P ODB.

Wu Tang!

And Here's ODB and Busta Rhymes:

...Annnnd, here's the Bastard and Kanye West:

Expensive Looks

2010-11-14T15:46:00.000-08:00

Expensive Looks (a.k.a Alec Feld) is a Hampshire student and a friend of mine and a dude who makes amazing music. His stuff is haunting, surreal and beautiful.

I didn't even know Alec made music until this past Thursday night when (while visiting my friends who live in a mod on campus with Alec and many other Hampshire students) I heard him mention he was working on remixing that TLC classic "Waterfalls."

My reaction to the unfinished "Waterfalls" remix (it's fucking awesome already and he's still working on it) sparked a conversation about his music and revealed to me that he's put out a lot of excellent stuff.

Alec has a bandcamp and a myspace where you can hear more of his music and get more info on his work as well.

Check Expensive Looks out. Alec is a good man and a great musician.

I'm really excited for the final version of his "Waterfalls" remix. I'll get it on Ronblog as soon as I can.

-Nick

William Shatner Says "Fuck You"

2010-11-09T05:15:00.000-08:00

George Lopez is awful. William Shatner is not.

William Shatner covering Cee-Lo is most definitely not awful.

[Via Pitchfork]

Dexter: What's In A Name?

2010-11-08T18:26:00.000-08:00

Okay, this post has a real shitty title. I know. But, trust me when I say it's the best of the ones I can think up at the moment...

Just about every season of Dexter so far features a character a lot like Dexter (The Ice Truck Killer in season 1, Miguel Prado in season 3, Trinity in season 4 and now Lumen in this season) all are murderers and Psychos, but are definitely far worse people than he is.

There is something Dexter has that these other murderers lack. What keeps the show great is that this "something," is much more complex than what could be a very contrived "Killer with a heart of gold!" idea or anything like that.

What has kept the show meaningful over these 5 seasons is its complex morals and complex portrayal of a murderer/sociopath main character. Can Dexter genuinely care about other people or care about "right" and "wrong" or is that all just a part of his giant performance in order to "fit in". Does Dexter even know the answer to that question?

Getting back to my main point, what makes the show the most interesting (for me) is in how it tries to play with labels like "Murderer" or "Psychopath" or even "Family Man" or "Good Cop" or "Bad Cop." What makes you any of these things? What does it mean to be labeled in any way?

Labels matter. Both in life and on TV they mean a lot. "I am a rapper" means a very different thing than "I am a writer" or "I am a college student" or "I work in the deli" or even "I like Street Fighter" or "I blog."

Maybe I'll expand on this idea more in the future when I have more time. And when we are all cats...

-Vogt

Requiem for a Mood

2010-11-04T23:47:00.000-07:00

Shall we subvert the title for just a second? Mood Muzik 2 is the raw, unfettered first half of Funny People and Mood Muzik 4 (released just a few weeks ago) is the sprawling ending of Funny People--with happy people in tow, exchanging smiles. Unlike Funny People, which is just one film; these mixtapes are separate entities. One planet. The same planet. Mood Muzik 2 is a few billion years old with a moon, and Mood Muzik 4 is several billion years old, yet still flourishing.

MM2's moon is Budden's never-released sophomore album, The Growth. Reservations aside, there is genuine wish for The Growth to be released and, knowing the outcome, it's haunting. It's orbiting. There's a yearning here that has been replaced by resignation on MM4. MM4 is a planet who's moon has been far flung into space. Faithfulness mixed with resignation left in its place. Resignation is awesome, but nonetheless, I can't help but to think that MM2 is a more resonate and poignant mixtape.

While MM2's "Dumb Out" is Budden's magnum opus as far as punchlines go, the song that is perhaps emblematic of the project is "The Future." "Dumb Out" is like playing catch from a very long distance, it's impressive in its display of strength and precision, but it is ultimately confined to itself. When Budden says "I could give a fuck what category you place me" it doesn't particularly mean anything, because he spends the entire song telling you where to rank him, how to categorize him. The baseball gets thrown, the baseball gets caught. "The Future" is unrelenting and expands outward like a universe. The middle of first stanza is an internal struggle--resignation vs. will--with a great baseball metaphor:

I put the pencil down, feeling unwanted, and go on strike

but then I'm struck by the light: that ain't how you properly strike

but the ball be over the plate and they still don't call it a strike

I mean I honestly try, I feel like I try in vain

start doin' a little different shit always just stay the same

there's a good in every bad when there's loss I know there's gain

I appreciate the love but I'm living with all the pain

Then, in following stanza, we're greeted with his struggle with drug use:

now he's a hip hopster, no more General Tso's

ordering shrimp and lobster, mommy, look at how I prospered

look at what I've become but still I feel like a bum

emotional strain can't be replaced by any sum

emotionally drained, insides prolly look like a slum

just give me a bag of weed, just give me a shot of rum;

no, better yet give me none, no mommy I won't succumb

This is the crawling into fetal position in Requiem for a Dream. This is precisely why I, despite MM4 being very good, prefer MM2. Budden's capability to deal with and facilitate his own emotions were lessened. For instance, the prospect of raising children was once frightening. Now, in MM4, whole songs are devoted to single-parenthood--Couple this with Kanye's "Mama Boyfriend" freestyle, and we see hip hop moving into it's first dad-rock stage. It's the creating new possibilities from the old boom-bap blues and mature hip hop founded by The Roots (post-Tipping Point)--

---

In a few days Kid Cudi, recently a new father, experiencing some problems with drugs and stardom, will release his second album Man on the Moon 2: The Legend of Mr. Rager. This is could get quite interesting.

Breakin' Dawn

2010-11-03T09:20:00.001-07:00

A new video by the incredible Rhymesayer's MC Brother Ali. His album Us is already a hip hop classic in my book, and it's only over a year old now.

[Via Okayplayer]

The Mark of Death: Awareness in Brokeback Mountain

2010-10-28T21:01:00.000-07:00

The opening prose of Annie Proulx’s Brokeback Mountain is distinct, first visually, because it is set in italics, and secondly, because it is a glyph for the next fifty-two pages. The character of Ennis del Mar is seen as a man barely alive. He has lost his color, when Proulx describes, “He gets up, scratching the grey wedge of his belly and pubic hair.” (p. 3) The interior of the trailer we find Ennis in is rotting, just like a coffin. There is leftover coffee, residue of urine in the sink, dirt from his boots on the floor. There is none of the spirit that asserts itself over Jack, when the cowboys have their mutual sexual encounter. The only spark of life is Ennis recalling his previous night’s dream of Jack Twist, an anonymous character to us at the time. We learn of “that old, cold time on the mountain when they owned the world and nothing seemed wrong.” (p. 4) The reader is infected with a sense of loss, apparent in Ennis’s living situation, about to be evicted.

As far as the narrative goes, Ennis is set-up as the central figure, partnered by Jack Twist, who we quickly learn lived both a twin and a separate life from Ennis’s. Their origins begin in “small, poor ranches.” (p. 4) Ennis, though, has one distinguishing feature, that is both his defining characteristic, and also a broader point being made in Brokeback Mountain. He bears the curse of life, which is death. Ennis has lost both his parents, but Jack’s outlive their son. Ennis has experienced his lover’s death, and also witnessed the grisly aftermath of another gay cowboy’s lynching.

We set out from the scene staged in the fictional present, never scenically returned to, though, infinitely, it is thematically returned to. It bears some similarities to jazz music, where an opening segment is deviated from, remembered, but never repeated, unlike mainstream music. Thinking about this correlation, jazz, like the setting and world Proulx writes, that she never imagined would be published because of its content, has a soul involved with prejudice and intolerance.

In regards to Ennis’s gayness, his seems more war-torn, fraught. A moment in the period of passionate reunions and separations of the cowboys shows this perfectly, with Ennis and Alma Beers in their apartment:

. . . fingers moving up her ribs to the jelly breast, over the round belly and knee and up into the wet gap all the way to the north pole or the equator depending on which way you were sailing, working at it until she shuddered and bucked against his hand and he rolled her over, did quickly what she hated. (p. 19)

In contrast, Jack’s sexual life without Ennis is more footloose. Ennis asks him if he has had sex with other men. “‘Shit no,’ said Jack, who had been riding more than bulls, not rolling his own.” (p. 26) Jack’s lie is harsher after Ennis’s openness in the dialogue leading up to it. Only once is sex poetic, when Ennis’s actions are described: “[he] laid the ministering angel out in the wild columbine, wings folded.” (p. 51) Even here, it takes the entire novella to come to this. This description of sex is coupled with Ennis finding the bloodied shirt Jack wore on Brokeback, an item that brings Ennis to his most emotive moment. Still this is only once and swearing doesn’t come easy, choking Ennis when it is attempted. Then in no way is Ennis pleasuring his wife an erotic scene, nor is it sour. Instead it is difficult.

Most important is the tire-iron, an image burned into Ennis mind. It has been the four summers since Brokeback, the cowboys are together again, and Jack proposes they make a life together. Ennis counters with an older story, before theirs. Two ranchers, one beaten to a death with a tire-iron. The description recalls the death of Achilles, an iconic example of human brutality. This murder that Ennis was brought to by his father entangles the boy’s future lifestyle with the curse, which becomes real. We learn Jack’s thoughts are optimistic, as told by his parents. They do not include death. Ironically, he is the one found out by the mob, when, again, he pursues other men besides Ennis. The lynchers realized Jack’s weakness wasn’t his gayness, it was death, and their only strength was dealing death and what strength is that? Ennis may be feeling guilt during the visit with Jack’s parents, he’s surely feeling something about being gay in general, feeling a universe about Jack, and he’s feeling the curse. After hearing some of Jack’s history since the cowboys last parted, particularly his plans to move home from Texas with a new ranch hand, Proulx writes to us, “So now he knew it had been the tire iron.” (p. 49) Ennis, he can name Brokeback Mountain, and so can Jack, but they can’t name their gayness. This is how the mountain resonates.

Brokeback Mountain has been compared to Romeo and Juliet, with the theme of lovers who can’t come together because of their society. Some things come on time for Ennis del Mar and Jack Twist—why tragedy isn’t unwatchable—but the most crucial moment comes too late. Telling, are Ennis’s final days to the reader. Jack is alive but bittersweet in dreams, where the tire iron intrudes. “The can of beans with the spoon handle jutting out and balanced on a log was there as well . . . The spoon handle was the kind that could be used as a tire iron.” (p. 54) Anything sexual is still difficult for Ennis, “the pillow sometimes wet, sometimes the sheets.” (p. 55) We are seeing the rest of Ennis’s life, not just a surge in the wake of Jack’s death. One of the final lines seems to say this, “There was some open space between what he knew and what he tried to believe, but nothing could be done about . . .” (p. 55) This line shows the inescapability of a curse, the use of Brokeback Mountain as a place to be named in absence of a more accurate description. Ennis realizes the full breadth of his feelings, as much as he can. Maybe you cannot live as a cowboy, only die as a cowboy. However, the openness between emotions reflected in the landscape of the western United States, is also a grace for Jack and Ennis, and is where they retreat to on hunting and fishing trips. The openness is lonely, it is vast, and Jack crosses it with fervor, saying, “Why I’m here. I fuckin knew it. Redlined all the way, couldn’t get here fast enough.” (p. 24) Not always is distance comforting. Rarely it is.

Perhaps we see Ennis thinking about escaping his curse, giving life all over again:

“I used a want a boy for kid,” said Ennis, undoing buttons, “but just got little girls.”

“I didn’t want none a either kind,” said Jack. “But fuck-all has worked the way I wanted. Nothing never come to my hand the right way.” (p. 39)

Jack resorts to a cowboy’s trick, blaming his life on the politics of a card game. Here is a clear difference between the cowboys; what they wish for, even if it cannot come. Other wishes Ennis has abandoned: “He had wanted to be a sophomore, felt the word carried a kind of distinction, but the truck broke down short of it, pitching him directly into ranch work.” (p. 5) Jack’s wishing is that he’ll fix up his father’s farm, fix up his life, “getting up off his pockets,” (p. 54), but he never has time to analyze these dreams. Wishes/dreams. According to the glyph—Ennis captured in his trailer—analyzing is what he tries his best to do.

How does Proulx either save or relinquish Ennis to his curse? Other things she does not save us from are the crudeness of the rural culture, its language. At the same time as Jack’s death being known to Ennis, Proulx, under the volition of Ennis, recalls a memory of Jack’s childhood. Seeing his father with his pants down, Jack discovers “extra material,” calls himself “dick-clipped.” (p. 49-50) Proulx could have used “circumcision,” a less affronting term, but that’s not what the cowboys would have said, had they learned the vocabulary. In the diegesis, Ennis’s old man doesn’t save his son from the murder scene. He wants Ennis to know. Joe Aguirre too, the man who sent the cowboys up on the mountain to begin with. He and his partner spare Jack no dignity: “. . . the foreman had leaned back in his squeaky wooden tilt chair, said, Twist, you guys wasn’t getting paid to leave the dogs baby-sit the sheep while you stemmed the rose . . .” (p. 27)

And Annie? She casts Ennis in a hall of stone, shows it to the reader without any hesitation. I remember a children’s book I read on Arthurian legend, colored beautifully in watercolor, lined in crow-tip pen. It ended with Merlin trapped by a sorceress in a cavern of ice, and still the wizard lived, but existence was partly a sorrow. Ennis’s cavern fills and empties with wind too, a bellows. The line that describes this could be called the final line of the story, chronologically. “The wind strikes the trailer like a load of dirt coming off a dump truck, eases, dies, leaves a temporary silence.” (p. 4) Of course the bellows are two things, like Wyoming terrain is, like being human is, like tragedy is (though tragedy says which it wants), they “stoke,” they “rewarm,” even the coffee heats, above all the mountain is described “boiling with demonic energy.” (p. 16) Bless the fire in the darkness; the tended flames that Ennis del Mar and Jack Twist sit around, one probably cursed, the other probably aroused, them both tingling with renewed life. Annie lets us see it all.

Lil' Jon vs. Diplo

2010-10-27T18:24:00.000-07:00

A lot of song collaborations claim to be "Artist A" Versus "Artist B," when really the word "versus" just signifies their collaboration and might as well be the word "and." Or maybe just an ampersand (&).

I mean, I like the versus (I'm also, I bet you've noticed, a fan of using the "x" to signify a collaboration), but all that said, this new Diplo/Lil' Jon track is definitely deserving of the word "Versus."

Musically, Lil' Jon screams over an assaulting Diplo beat. Both Lil' Jon's voice and the beat are almost literally attacking each other.

When you watch the video, those "attacks" get taken to the next level. The "U Don't Like Me" video is a battle of Diplo Vs. Lil' Jon. Well, their liknesses in various video game genres are battling anyway. As a huge fan of Street Fighter, the first bit is my personal favorite.

[Via Pitchfork TV]

Reservoir Dogs Cypher

2010-10-26T15:59:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I posted on Kanye West's "Runaway" movie. And, in more G.O.O.D Music news...

Common's verse is definitely the weakest here. Big Sean and Pusha T go really hard on theirs.

Also, check out another of these cyphers I put up on the blog about a week ago here. It's equally awesome.

A Toast For The Douchebags

2010-10-25T18:47:00.000-07:00

Kanye West's "Runaway," an experimental film showcasing his new music is a kind of a hip hop ODDSAC. And I think it is equally amazing.

The narrative of this short film leaves a lot to be desired--Kanye falls in love with a bird woman/phoenix/alien who will turn into a statue if she doesn't sacrifice herself in some way--but, the story is not the main focus of "Runaway." The film's extremely successful surrealism, its downright beautiful camerawork (the shots of nature and of the ballerinas especially) and the way Kanye's music meshes with the visuals is powerful. Mr. West has really created something great with this.

"Runaway" is obviously not the mere ad for his upcoming album it could've been. It is clear Kanye West gave making this movie his all and it is a geniune creative work, not simply propaganda. However, it does work well as propaganda, too. Honestly, this has got me super hype about My Dark Twisted Fantasy. I cannot wait for that album to drop because the songs featured in this film sound incredible (though I still think the album's title is awful).

I don't have a shitload of time for this post, so I'll have to cut my comments on "Runaway" short. I will say that the aforementioned "Ballet" scene set to the song "Runaway" the film is named after is one of the high points. I bet Pusha T never thought a rap of his would be the soundtrack to a ballet scene (although I bet Kanye did and now that dream has come true). Also, the Ballet scene, with its intense slow-mo shots of ballerinas comes off as a kind of improved, more "art" version of the Kanye West-directed video for Drake's Best I Ever Had.

I've embedded "Runaway" below. Check it out and definitely watch it in HD if your internet and monitor allow it.

[Via Pitchfork]

Small Tokens

2010-10-24T11:42:00.000-07:00

Exhibit A

Some things need to be idolized. Cholula Hot Sauce, for one, but also things we never expect we will need. When a friend called, almost four years ago, to ask about what he should bring to college with him, I told him about two essential items. A waste basket and a super-glue. Both were bought by my father as we wheeled a cart through the edenic aisles of Target. The wastebasket I have since pawned off when I left my first college, but the super glue I still keep in a Rubbermaid labeled "Office Supplies."

With it I have glued two pairs of sandals, over-ear headphones, wire-frame drawers, sentimental ceramic sculpture, my fingers (together), and most recently, a stove-top tile for setting your stirrer on. I think I was always very hesitant to loan out the tube, and would much rather walk someone to the hobby store to buy their own vessel of this potion that held together the inanimate body.

Exhibit B

Conventional Wisdom

2010-10-19T06:52:00.000-07:00

When it comes to Comic Cons there is the major Comic Con in San Diego (SDCC), and then there are many lesser, basically wannabe SDCCs scattered around the country. Atlanta, Baltimore, Charlotte, North Carolina...And, of course, New York.

New York (NYCC) is probably the biggest of these "Lesser Comic Cons," but still, I've always found it strange that NYCC is not THE Comic Con. New York is, after all, essentially the birthplace of American Comics.

Manhattan is where Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created and set most of their stories. Will Eisner, the legendary creator of The Spirit (if you've only seen Frank Miller's horrible film, I assure you the Spirit comics are MUCH better)

New York is where Bob Kane created Batman. New York is a sort of default setting for superhero stories, isn't it? Even if your hero lives in a false location (Gotham, Central City...) that place is still New York spiritually. The first time I visited Manhattan as a very young child I recall thinking "This is where the Ninja Turtles live! This is where Spider-Man lives!"

And yet, New York is not where the major comic con occurs. I have been intrigued by comic cons for a while now, and every year (I'll admit) I am up on the internet following the announcements at San Diego as best I can. For a few years now I've had half a mind to go to New York Comic Con, and just this past weekend, I found myself on Manhattan's west side, in the Jacob Javitz Convention Center. At Comic Con.

Thus, this blog post is my Comic Con report. Evan Bustria, my colleague here at the Ron Blog, made the train ride down from Bard College in upstate NY. My Comic Con team also included my good friends and apartment-mates Morgan Kent and Amanda Schmidt as well as the ever ridiculous and amazing Joe Delaney and his equally amazing sister Kati Delaney.

Comic Con is A LOT of people. Crowds. Crowds. Crowds. Much of "the floor" of Comic Con--where people sold merchandise and did signings and sold art and where video game companies had trial games to play--was an exercise in pushing through a sea of crazy people.

I remarked to Evan at one point "This is overstimulating. Every costume here is triggering my brain to make associations really fast." I guess what I meant by that is how so many people are dressed as various Comic, Sci Fi, Video Game and (ugh...) Anime stuff that my mind was racing to make the synapse connections and let me know: "Okay, so that girl is this character from this comic or this show or..." I felt a bit like a computer doing that.

Comic Con, in an effort to be financially wise, combined forces with the New York Anime Festival this year. Now, y'all know my thoughts on anime. I think Anime and Manga is, even more so than American comics, a bloated and utterly ridiculous and uncreative form of art. I was an avid fan of anime in middle school and early high school. I see myself sort of as a "recovering anime fan" in that way. I do not think all anime is awful (and I've said this before...), but I think only really 1% of anime is worth anyone's time. American comics aren't much better. Maybe 5% of American mainstream comics are good.

Anyway, we were surrounded by people dressed in the ridiculous costumes from all sorts of anime series I did not recognize nor care about. Some of the most disturbing costumes perhaps were the "furries," people dressed up as giant animals or like half-animal hybrids. This is kind of a disgusting thing to me. But, shit...I can't let this turn into a rant against anime fans. I will say that the massive presence of anime stuff at Comic Con was a bit off-putting for me. A bit.

Now that I have a rant off my chest, here is my Ronblog New York Comic Con Report (I even broke it into semi-official sections):

Marvel vs. Capcom 3

One of the greatest activities I participated in at Comic Con was playing the upcoming Marvel vs. Capcom 3 with Morgan. Yes, we battled in a game that isn't out yet, a game that may be getting the most hype of anything right now (well, the most hype in my mind anyhow; I am most excited about Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and Gears of War 3 right now).

I'll say this right now: The game is awesome. Capcom had it set up on very nice PCs with fancy monitors and with fight sticks for us to play. "Fight Sticks" are basically a speical controller that is modeled after an arcade set-up with a joystick and a number of buttons. You don't hold a fightstick, you stand over it and use two hands and all your fingers. This is a hugely different experience compared to holding a controller in your hands and trying to manuever your cramped fingers around its face buttons. Fight sticks are (according to some, and I'm inclined to agree) the way fighting games are MEANT to be played.

While Capcom slowed Marvel vs. Capcom 3 down, it is still the frantic, ridiculously-paced game you'd expect from a versus game. Marvel vs. Capcom 3 is quite similar in both art style and gameplay to Capcom's most recent versus game, the wii's Tatsunoko vs. Capcom.

If you haven't checked it out, Tatsunoko vs. is a great fighting game, and its been severely slept on. I think Marvel vs. Capcom 3 has greatly improved Tatsunoko's system. Marvel vs. Capcom 3 is fast enough to be fun and crazy and challenging, but not so fast that it is overwhelming (which happens frequently in the second Marvel vs. Capcom of ten years ago). The playable Marvel vs. Capcom at Comic Con only had a few characters even though Capcom has announced quite a few characters by now--and, Capcom announced four new characters at New York Comic Con, actually--but, still, we were able to get a feel for how a number of the new characters play.

Okami's hero Amateratsu is definitely a fun character to play as. Her supers are huge and magical and she is able to move quite strangely, zipping across the screen in ways other characters cannot. 2D fighting games are largely about controlling distance between you and your opponent, and Amateratsu seems to have a good way of moving to handle that. I also tried out Super Skrull, who, according to my friend Morgan, is perhaps "the most fun new character to play."

All of Super Skrull's moves are huge and showy, just what you'd expect from the entire Fantastic Four in one character. His supers are gigantic and difficult to defend against. No matter what buttons you push, Super Skrull will probably bust out some gigantic move. And that's a lot of fun.

Dormammu, the somewhat obscure Marvel villain in Marvel vs. Capcom (although maybe he's less obscure than the recently-announced M.O.D.O.K?) is a powerhouse similar to Super Skrull. His assist move is a gigantic fire ball which definitely does some damage. When he's not assisting, when he's the main guy fighting, Dormammu is an interesting character for this game. He is somewhat like Doctor Doom in that he's slow-moving and has a number of projectiles, but Dormammu is even slower and has even bigger projectiles. Almost all of his moves fill up the screen with blasts of magic. And those showy moves (as with Super Skrull) make him a lot of fun to play.

The only other new character I tried out was Devil May Cry's star Dante. Dante is somewhat like Wolverine or Spider-man. He is most effective up close and doing combos. Like Wolverine, his supers are not huge fireballs or lightning storms, but are up-close-and-personal sword slashes or pistol shots. He's fast, though and a good jumper.

There are a number of veteran characters returning to Marvel vs. Capcom 3 from 2, and they play pretty similarly to how they do in 2. Morgan played as The Hulk and said The Hulk feels quite different from how he played in Marvel vs. Capcom 2, so Hulk may be the most changed of the veterans. Also, Morgan played a couple more of the new characters than I did. Perhaps, if we get him on here as a guest writer, he can tell you about Resident Evil's meathead hero Chris Redfield or Marvel's ubiquitous Deadpool or the Mighty Thor (of those three guys, Thor is the character I'd like to try the most, but didn't get to).

Battlestar Galactica

Saturday at NYCC was a day heavily-focused on Battlestar Galactica. There were two panels for Battlestar, one that I didn't attend on "The Science Of Battlestar" and another I did, the very funny and interesting panel "The Women Of Battlestar Galactica."

The Women of Battlestar panel featured four (as the name suggests) of the actresses from the show: Tricia Helfer (who played all the Cylon # 6 models), Katee Sackhoff (who played Starbuck), Nicki Clyne (who played Cally) and Michele Forbes (Admiral Cain).

My dealings with Battlestar on Saturday began earlier than this panel, though. Walking around on the Comic Con floor, Evan, Morgan and I came across a booth where Tricia Helfer was signing autographs. It was a real moment of "Oh, damn. That's Caprica 6 right in front of us." I went up to shake her hand and say something (not sure what I planned to say now that I'm looking back; I think I wanted something in the way of "congradulations" or something). As I approched Tricia I realized she was standing up to leave and had turned away from me and I thought "oh, Bummer. She's going."

It was at that moment I heard a familar voice behind me say "Tricia, we gotta go." Why was this voice familiar? It was Starbuck's voice. I literally turned around before I realized why I recognized Katee Sackhoff's voice, though. My brain knew it before I did (Battlestar being one of my favorite TV shows if not my #1 favorite makes it a real part of my consciousness). I turned around kind of involuntarily and found myself literally face-to-face with Katee Sackhoff. There's my big comic con celebrity moment right there. My first thought was "oh. She has red hair now."

The "Women Of Battlestar" panel was great because all the speakers are very honest, funny and down-to-earth people. What I enjoyed most about it was how much they all stressed how progressive and how special Battlestar was as a show. They all couldn't say enough good things about the show's creator: Ronald Moore.

Michele Forbes called him "one of the greatest TV writers along with Alan Ball." Alan Ball, of course, is the creator of two excellent shows: Six Feet Under and the ridiculous (and ridiculously awesome) supernatural "vampires/werewolves/fairies(?) show True Blood. Forbes was a major character on True Blood during its second season as the big bad, the Maenad Maryanne.

I also learned that Nicki Clyne and Michele Forbes are vegans and that Katee Sackhoff's favorite kind of pie is strawberry rhubarb. And that Tricia Helfer is not a pie person, but a cake person. But, her favorite cake is carrot cake. How did I learn this? My friend Kati asked them their favorite kind of pie, of course.

Another great moment of this panel was Tricia Helfer describing what it was like to play the Caprica 6 who is Gaius Baltar's hallucination (or, if you ascribe to a different theory: the 6 who is an angel). She did a few great impressions of how she literally had to hide under a table during the filiming of a scene and then pop up to whisper in Baltar's ear (which she demonstrated, pretending that Katee Sackhoff was Baltar).

It was cool to see Helfer act as Caprica 6 even in that joke moment because Tricia is NOTHING like Caprica in person. Caprica 6 is this very purposeful, intense, seductive and dangerous woman. Tricia Helfer isn't at all, she's witty and ridiculous and funny. But, the moment she went into Caprica 6 mode at the panel, it was quite the transformation. I think that's a real testament to her ability as an actor.

Katee Sackhoff, unlike Tricia Helfer, is a lot like her character on Battlestar. Well, to a point. Sackhoff is definitely as outspoken and brazen as Starbuck (at one point in the panel she basically said: "If I were a man I'd have a huge dick). But, she is definitely less troubled. Which is, of course, a good thing.

Sackhoff also said (and this is not a direct quote as I wrote nothing down): "I'd never hit someone which is something Starbuck frequently does." What was really interesting to hear was how young Sackhoff was when they began filming Battlestar. She was 22, which is the age I am now. She stressed how before Battlestar, she had no formal acting training, but said that she really grew up on the show, stating that Battlestar really was her acting training.

I think its worth mentioning again how much they made clear that Battlestar was a special show. The Sci Fi (now Syfy...) channel really let Battlestar have a Carte Blache. Unlike many other shows, the network was not breathing down Battlestar's neck, and there is no doubt in my mind that Battlestar would have been a much lesser show if not for this freedom. The actresses at the Battlestar panel felt exactly the same way.

Walking Dead

On Sunday we attended the Walking Dead panel, which was arguable NYCC's biggest event. It was the last panel of comic con and probably the panel with the most "exclusive" footage/announcements to offer of all of them. This panel (as the name suggests) was focused on AMC's upcoming Walking Dead show and featured the comic's creator Robert Kirkman as well as the show's director Frank Darbont and its producer Gale Anne Hurd. The show's cast were there as well, but weren't all that vocal.

Actually, what was most interesting about the cast is that very few of them said they'd read much of the comic. They all admitted to not having read a whole lot. As a project in adaptation, The Walking Dead TV show is not exactly going to be a straight adaptation and Kirkman is happy about that. It seems the show will not totally veer off course from the comic, but (as Darbont put it) will branch off on a number of different "paths" from the original story.

Darbont has only adapted in his work as a director. Actually, The Walking Dead is his first project not adapting a Steven King story (he directed The Green Mile, The Shawshank Redemption and The Mist). Darbont stressed the importance of being faithful to the original materical when adapting. It seems that these "paths" he wants to take The Walking Dead TV show in will not totally change the comic's story, but will just expand it. Kirkman was happy about the TV show as a way to expand his story and seems genuinely proud of the TV Show they've created.

Really, the star of this panel was Mr. Darbont. The Walking Dead's director is hilarious and definitely outspoken. He swore profusely and talked shit about Twilight and made ridiculous braggadocios statements like: "we're going to make Breaking Bad look like a bunch of pussies" (funny seeing as most of the crew for Walking Dead also work on Breaking Bad). He also nonchallantly mentioned once having had a spaghetti dinner with Quentin Tarantino, George A. Romero and Steven King at his house.

Everyone speaking at the panel couldn't say enough how grateful they all are to AMC. It seems that (judging from the Battlestar panel I was at on Saturday as well as The Walking Dead panel) netwoks make or break a TV show. It seems that the more hands-off a network is and the more a network actively works to foster creativity instead of stifle it (as Sci Fi did for Battlestar and as AMC does for all its shows) the better a show will turn out. I guess that's common sense, though. However, there are not many networks like AMC and I think it's worth saying this even if it is "common sense" in order to, I hope, continue to progress TV as a medium for telling "real" stories.

Robert Kirkman doesn't look like I expected (you'd think that I'd have come across a picture of the comic writer on the internet before Comic Con, but I didn't), but he acts just like I expected. He's incredibly sarcastic and witty. He and Darbont definitely talked the most at this panel. What I got from Kirkman is how happy he is to see Walking Dead adapted for TV and how proud he is of AMC and of the team creating the show. It was actually moving to hear Kirkman speak to this. Walking Dead is one of my favorite comics series, and if its creator has this much genuine pride in its TV adaptation, I think that is a good indicator of how awesome the show will be.

What is also an indicator of the show's potential awesomeness are the exclusive clips they showed us at the panel. Walking Dead, of course, exists among a huge pantheon of zombie stories. But, just from the 8 minutes or so that they showed us, I can tell they are coming at zombies with a real freshness. Not only are Walkning Dead's zombies slightly different than most zombie stories' (they slow-moving and an homage to the early Romero zombies of films like the one that started it all: Night Of The Living Dead), but also the way the show is handling action is unlike how I've seen it in other zombie films before.

...And that's it for my Comic Con report. I'm about a week later with this than I wanted to be.

I'd like to give out a couple "Thank Yous!"

Thank You #1 is for my friend Joe Delaney for taking so many great pictures at Comic Con. I used many of his photos in this post.

Thank You #2 is for the woman who works at the Radioshack near Times Square. She charged my phone a bit for free when I REALLY needed my phone to contact Evan Bustria and I stupidly had let it die. You saved the day for real.

True Heads Cypher

2010-10-17T14:16:00.000-07:00

BET is a pretty awful network, but these Cyphers are always really solid . Here's my favorite of the cyphers from this years Hip-Hop Awards featuring Wiz Khalifa, Bones Brigante, Yelawolf and Raekwon The Chef.

Oh, and before you freak out about Raekwon seemingly saying: "Rest In Peace, Inspectah Deck..."

The Inspectah isn't dead. Raekwon's actually saying R.I.P to Inspectah Deck's mother. He says: "His old earth. His mother. Ms. Jason Hunter. Mrs. Hunter, we love you. Rest in peace"

"I Brought A Pizza Party!"

2010-10-14T16:18:00.000-07:00

Tommy Wiseau, we have waited years for a follow-up to your classically horrible film The Room. And now finally, in October 2010, we finally have it.

Tommy Wiseau's new short film The House That Dripped Blood On Alex had a trailer out earlier in the summer and now Wiseau has released the full movie (it's about 12 minutes) for our viewing pleasure online. It's a horror film (I'm sure y'all gathered that from the title) about a house that drips blood. On Alex (you probably also gathered that from the trailer).

October, with Halloween and other Fall weirdness, is a month for horror movies. So, kudos, Tommy, for being so apropos with releasing your horror movie this month.

The House That Dripped Blood On Alex is pretty hilarious, but it's definitely no Room. Tommy may never create anything better than his first film. The Room really is a masterpiece of bad film making.

The House That Drips Blood On Alex
Tags: Atom.com,Atom Originals,Atom Blog,Upload Videos

[Via AV Club]

Waiting For Your Attention

2010-10-11T08:04:00.000-07:00

Due to the strangeness of social networking, I don't know The Canon, but I also do. I follow the young rapper on Twitter, and we have had numerous conversations on there. I don't know The Canon outside of the internet, but he is a friend of a friend of a friend sort of.

The Canon is a friend of Ronald Metellus' friend Vlad. But, both Vlad and The Canon are not really so far removed from me as far as "Degrees Of Separation" go. In fact, one could consider them both just friends and not "friends of friends." Or, perhaps they are both at the same time? The strangeness of social networking indeed...

I apologize for that riff on Twitter and how it plays into the whole "degrees of separation" idea. The point of this post is to celebrate the release of The Canon's new album: Waiting For Your Attention.

I first heard The Canon when his friend Vlad sent me a Twitter link to their freestyle over Drake's song "Light Up." When I heard that track I wrote to Vlad about how I thought their verses are powerfully honest and laid back in the best way.

The Canon and Vlad (who also has an album out, by the way. It's called The Prelude) have similar styles and I think what is best about them both is this "laid back in the best way" quality. They do not try too hard, but try hard enough. Waiting For Your Attention is by no means a lackluster album. It is a thoughtful album.

The Canon has a real easy-going, sincere and honest style and Waiting For Your Attention really is a well-crafted hip hop album. All too often hip hop is the oposite of this. It is rushed and uninspired. It is obvious to me that The Canon took his time to craft Waiting For Your Attention. In this way, I think the album's title is really appropriate. He is not screaming in our faces "Look At Me! Look At Me!" He knows he has made something great and is proud of it. He is waiting for us to realize that.

The best art waits. It does not slam us with what we should think and does not slam us with ridiculous self-promotion. I take the "Waiting" in The Canon's album title to not have a lazy connotation, but really the opposite meaning. The Canon is waiting in the sense of lying in wait. He has something awesome and he is patient enough to wait for us to understand that. Patience is an underrated quality in these ADD times. "Patient" is not an adjective writers typically use to describe music, but I definitely would describe The Canon as a patient rapper. That's commendable.

Waiting For Your Attention opens strong with the Little Dragon sampling "Feather." The Canon's style is clear from the very beginning and it continues into songs like "How We Do It, " which is Perhaps my favorite track on the album. "How We Do It" is another patient and laid back and soulful track that has a real (dare I say it?) swagger about it, though. His sincerity on this song is very inclusive. I can definitely relate to the hook of "All I wanna do is chill/ all I wanna do is drink..."

The Canon is confident as an MC, but not over-confident. Really, every track on Waiting For Your Attention is solid. With "Audio Dope" The Canon gives us his version of Curren$y's track "Audio Dope II" and spits a verse over that beat that is definitely comprable to Curren$y's flow on the original. Really, Curren$y is the closest to The Canon's style if we want to compare The Canon to a rapper who has "made it."

The Canon is best rapping over stumbling, electronic beats like he does on the glitchy "No Hook." On "No Hook," The Canon talks shit, but in a strange and funny and charismatic way. "Yea Right" is another shit-talking song (and I, by no means, intend for "shit-talking" to have a negative connotation. It is a big part of hip hop). The Canon's confidence in his ability to rap is clear on songs like "No Hook" and especially on "Yea Right." It would seem that being braggadocios on a track would be the opposite of The Canon's style. But, he is able to pull it off and it is clear he has no doubts in his ability to go hard on a song and we shouldn't doubt his skills either.

Confident, funny, charismatic, sincere, patient. These are the adjectives that keep coming up in this post. The Canon is all these things and he is, I think, the kind of guy hip hop needs. Those are the qualities hip hop needs in general, the quality music needs in general.

Finally (and this goes without saying, right?), I urge y'all to check out Waiting For Your Attention. It's free. You can download it for free. And you should.

-Nick

Joel Lashmore and I's American Dream

2010-10-10T21:36:00.000-07:00

Like most of the body of New England youth, Joel Lashmore retains the uncanny ability to become moody, almost on command. It's a skill we sharpen as infants, brought upon our parents in the form of crocodile tears or twisted baby blankets, as if we were wringing out an invisible liquid weight. Joel also, sparingly, proclaims what a beautiful part of the world we live in, meaning the borderlands of central Vermont, and the Ivy League landscape of New Hampshire, along the Conneticut River. This is where Dr. Seuss dreamed up a brand new primer and fifteen million delicate worlds filled with slides that twist like crazy straws, portals gushing steam, and unsteady ships rollicking in to dock. Fittingly, Seuss also created a short, hairy creature called the Lorax that watched his idyllic forest be cut down by other greedy species.

Once, Joel trotted out his poignant soliloquy as we were driving to meet a friend, him behind the Subaru's wheel, and I gazing at the low, marshy fields running alongside the interstate route. Us and others were converging to advise a mutual friend on his newest used car purchase. Adam's last had what was understood to be a rabbit's skull lodged in the engine gasket. Joel sighed heavily, and said it, his eyes wistfully flicking to the horizon of mountaintops. I agreed.

Our dream came a year after, when we were listening to Bruce Springsteen, and started many evenings collecting wood chips, fallen branches, for fires we would drink beer around. The dream, though, came in the car. It was about finding a dry acre in the east, having saved up enough to buy lumber, and borrowing our father's power tools. Dios mio! The warnings I was given about the Grizzly Tablesaw could sear the skin from a rhinoceros, they were so sharp. We would work from the moment the bubbling coffee hit the glass carafe to when our dinners grilled over a fire pit built up with rouged bricks and odd stones we dig out of the foundation. At least one of us would have a steel-string made from rich mahogany, the other a harmonica, a tambourine, or mandolin. Buzzed every night, red wine on the weekends, to bolster our hearts. Also to bolster our hearts, at least one girlfriend--who we both found sweet--or least the memory of a girlfriend, whose name was as common as the Lord's in our mouths. A recycling bin, a durable fridge plugged into a beefy outlet and sheltered in the hollow basement, stocked with frozen venison, or maybe we'd be vegetarians.

A hammer would be like an extension of our arms, making our forearms bristle with muscle, making me reconnect with older generations on my father's side, who laid down railroad track in the Southwest and Texas.

When summer started sending chills up our spines, we'd have to decide who the newly erected house would be for. It is an open space with a library room, a loft, and a hammock, mostly stained wood, little tile, and white walls. Very well neither of us could live there, because we couldn't figure the dream that way, it going against the grain, possibly from a wanderlust, or because someone is lonely elsewhere.

The dream isn't about discontent, and how it builds erstwhile fortresses. We have to leave the house, Joel and I, before it will ever become an old house. The girlfriend may want to marry us--us both, listen here's where my mother comes in--and we'd send her into the twilight down the gravel drive, but she'd end up staying that last night on the cot, hombre, it's always better with one last reunion.

Twista & Raekwon: The Heat

2010-10-06T07:02:00.000-07:00

Remember Twista? The dude who raps superhumanly fast on "Slow Jamz," the dude with that song "Overnight Celebrity" which features Miri Ben-Ari playing violin? The dude rapping on Trick Daddy's Black Sabbath-sampling "Let's Go?"

Twista most definitely has rap skills (and the Guiness Book Of World Records has actually recorded them), but the man was never very prolific. He was an MC you'd call up as a gimmicky feature back during the time I was in high school (2004 and '05). The Gimmick, of course, being that Twista can rap so uniquely fast that it's pretty damn amazing.

As of a few days ago, Twista has returned to "the public eye" with a new soulful and very Wu-Tang ish track "The Heat." On "Heat," Twista doesn't go with his usual style of lightspeed rapping. He is still going fast on his verses, but on "The Heat," Twista is taking more time than he did before and it shows. On "The HEat" he is definitely at his most thoughtful and purposeful.

I mentioned how this beat reminds me of a classic Wu Tang track, and probably what's helping with that reminder is that Raekwon The Chef comes on for one of his typical verses in which he is somehow both menacing and laid back, spitting a cryptic crime tale for us.

But, I really can't do this song as much justice with my description as Pitchfork did. In Pitchfork's Tom Breihan's excellent words: "It's just these two old guys putting on a straight-up rapping clinic"

Infinity Guitars

2010-10-05T07:37:00.001-07:00

Been posting a lot of music vidos lately. Probably because they're quick & easy and we Ronbloggers are all real busy these days.

Here's the video for "Infinity Guitars" by Sleigh Bells.

Sleigh Bells really feels like a hipster, girl rock version of RUN-DMC to me and this video definitely solidifies that image.

As Ron has said, Sleigh Bells' album Treats is what Lil' Wayne's "rock album" Rebirth SHOULD HAVE sounded like. Maybe Wayne's rock album would've been a tad less girly though.

[Via Complex]

P.S: I say this in every one of these weekly posts, but we will be getting our shit together on this blog soon. I know for a fact Ron has a real post on the way. And I've got some stuff in the works, too...

-Vogt

Local Natives Vs. Land Shark

2010-09-30T08:27:00.000-07:00

Here's the video for L.A band Local Natives' haunting and also, I think, very beautiful song: "Wide Eyes" off their recent album Gorilla Manor.

"Gorilla Manor" is kind of an interesting album title. It suggests the wilderness, the giant wild animal, the bestial and the refined the civilized, the "Manor" (a fancy house) combined somehow.

Speaking of Gorillas, this video features another similar creature to the Gorilla, another wild beast: the infamous and terrible Land Shark.

The plot of the "Wide Eyes" music video is, in short: a man pursued by a Land Shark who ends up in an epic battle with the beast at the end.

There is also a small appearance by another monster near the end of this video suggesting our hero will have to do battle yet again...

[Via Pitchfork]

True Grit Trailer

2010-09-28T08:05:00.000-07:00

Sorry, still haven't had much time for a proper post on this blog.

Here's another quick one. The (teaser?) trailer for the always great Coen Brothers' new film True Grit:

[Via AV Club]

Lil B x How To Dress Well

2010-09-19T05:10:00.000-07:00

Regrettably, I haven't had a lot of time lately to be on the Ronblog (and it seems all of us Ronbloggers are in that very same boat), but here's a quick post:

Oakland crazo MC and Based God Lil B recently did his thing rapping over How To Dress Well's freaky, ambient and haunting cover of Ready For The World's "Love You Down," a song How To Dress Well just calls "Ready For The World."

This song is two otherworldly and totally strange music acts coming together. That's really the only way I can describe it:

Lil B's debut album, Rain In England, is out this week.

Zion I & The Grouch Are Back At It

2010-09-08T19:51:00.000-07:00

The 2007 album Heroes In The City Of Dope, a collaboration between bay area conscious/hipster hip hop group Zion I and Living Legends member (who's a conscious/hipster MC himself) The Grouch was amazing.

Today I learned that The Grouch and Zion I are coming back together for another album which I'm hoping will be just as good. The first single is out today (though the album is unnamed right now), and there's already a video for it.

Here's "One" by Zion I & The Grouch. Their follow-up to City Of Dope will be out in March sometime.

[Via Okayplayer]

Cheaters

2010-09-08T07:22:00.001-07:00

Up-And-Coming Electro group Teengirl Fantasy has a video out now for their excellent single "Cheaters." The song sounds like the beautiful child M83 and LCD Soundsystem would have if musical styles could have a child (and perhaps, in the near future, they will). Oh, maybe there's a third parent in there, too: Hard Mix.

In Ian Macleod's Sci Fi story "Breathmoss," a child can have three parents. So, if I'm talking about "the future," I'll roll with that.

"Cheaters" has the '80s emotional synths of M83, the driving, danceable bass of LCD Soundsysem (especially Soundsystem's amazing "When Someone Great Is Gone") and a heartfelt, epic soul sample in the style of Hard Mix.

This song is beautiful and haunting and psychedelic. And so is its video:

[Via Pitchfork]

Summer Viewing

2010-09-07T17:04:00.000-07:00

In the spirit of the posts Rex worte and I wrote a few weeks back about the reading we did this summer, here's a breakdown of the best "summer movies" I saw. This is in no particular order:

Inception. Definitely the best movie I saw this 2010 summer. Inception is a smart, complex and daring sci fi movie. I really feel Christopher Nolan will go down in history as one of best filmmakers of all time.

Toy Story 3. Maybe this was the second best summer movie I saw. The good people of Pixar always take "children's" stories seriously. Toy Story 3 is no exception.

Most people I talk to about the film remark on how "freaky" the trash compactor scene is. I think that's because even though it's a film about living toys, there is a reality to Toy Story 3 that many other kids' movies, or really any movies in general, don't have. Pixar always relies on character and thoughtfulness to tell a story, not on the flashiness of CGI or goofy gags.

Winter's Bone. This is not typical summer movie fare way beyond the fact that "Winter" is in the title.

If the ideal "summer movie" is supposed to be fun escapism, Winter's Bone is probably the polar oposite of that. The film does "take you away," but it is not escapism.

Winter's Bone is largely an anthropological film. Though, it isn't a documentary. The movie is a look into the intense, isolated and near clan-mentality world that is Appalachia. The movie is, at times, like a horror film. What's horrible is the lengths people are willing to go to maintain a way of life and to keep up their sense of honor.

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World. I enjoyed this in the "summer movie escapism" way. But, really, it's not the greatest film of all time. What's maybe best about the movie is its strange use of video game nostalgia and video game effects. I said a whole shit load about the Scott Pilgrim film and comics about a month ago on this blog.

Salt. What's best about Salt is, surprisingly, Angelina Jolie. I think that as a showcase for her acting ability (or at least her ability to play badass, cold and inhuman) Salt is great.

Other than that, it's really nothing special. In the world of secret agents, Salt is definitely badass and is, I think, on the level of Jason Bourne or Jack Bauer. She's also one of the few girl secret agents and is probably the most interesting. Well, one girl secret agent I know she's cooler than is Scarlet Johansson as the Black Widow in Iron Man.

Iron Man 2. Despite disliking Johansson's performance at the Black Widow (her acting, not her looks. She's certainly easy on the eyes) I enjoyed this movie a ton.

The Iron Man movies are not the Batman movies, but they are still excellent superhero stories. Just in a very different way.

The Batman movies are Christopher Nolan's attempt to tell a very realistic, serious Batman story. The Iron Man movies are not serious. They are, a lot like another Robert Downey vehicle called Sherlock Holmes, cartoony and over-the-top and entertaining.

Iron Man is a superhero who has a robot suit and tons of money and swagger. He has friends who are superheroes and they adventure. And thus, as a Saturday morning cartoon story, Iron Man 2 is awesome. There was a lot of chatter online around the time of Iron Man 2's release about the fact that it (for lack of a better word) sucks. I think people dislike Iron Man 2 because they feel it's too ridiculous. But, I think that if we look at it as an over-the-top superhero movie, as a Saturday Morning cartoon with moviestars and a gigantic budget, than its a huge success.

Machete. Machete is little more than an expansion of the faux trailer Robert Rodriguez did for Grindhouse. But, it's a lot of fun. In many ways, Machete is a spiritual successor to Rodriguez's El Mariachi trilogy (El Mariachi, Desperado, Once Upon A Time In Mexico). I suppose the big difference is that Machete is intentionally overacted and overstimulating. Rodriguez has really embraced the "Grindhouse" type of filmmaking where you play up how ridiculous your film is. He started on this path this with Once Upon A Time In Mexico and continues it in a big way with Machete.

Now, Machete is not a great movie by any stretch of the imagination. As a fun action movie and as an outrage against the anti-immigrant xenophobia sweeping this country, it is awesome. Since Once Upon A Time In Mexico, I had been waiting for another entry in The El Mariachi series. And Machete is basically that.

Predators. Speaking of Rodriguez, he produced Predators. This movie is not really that good. Adrien Brody tries his best to be a gruff, Christian Bale as John Connor type of badass guy, and almost succeeds. Emphasis on the ALMOST.

The Predators look great, though. I've always been a fan of how cool the Predator monsters are, and this movie's biggest strength (a strength among many weaknesses) is that it lives up to its name. The Predators are the stars, and they are cooler than they're ever been.

I mentioned that Predators has weaknesses and I'll give you the biggest one: it has too many homages to the original Predator movie. Too much fanservice. Maybe one homage would have been fine. But really, the entire film is like a weird semi-remake of the first one. And we didn't need that.

Get Him To The Greek. I didn't see a whole lot of comedies this summer. I saw mostly movies on the other side of the summer movie coin: action movies. Maybe this was because every comedy that came out was terrible. However, Get Him To The Greek was not terrible in the slightest.

It has its fair share of stupid ass humor, but there is a way to make that kind of humor work. I'm not really sure what the formula for making stupid jokes work is, but movies like Get Him To The Greek and Superbad and even Joe Dirt pull it off somehow. If you know why that is, dear reader, please comment and tell me why.

Perhaps the best part of Get Him To The Greek is Diddy's performance. There was a time when Diddy was on such a high horse that he would never open up and make fun of himself in the way he does in this movie. I really like Diddy, and have liked him more and more as I've seen more and more of him. Diddy has definitely changed as a person. Back when he changed his name from "Puff Daddy" I thought "Why change that name? 'Puff Daddy' is awesome."

But, now I've realized that Puff Daddy is a very different Sean Combs from Diddy. And I like "Diddy" much more.

Piranha 3D. This movie is nothing more than a total spectacle of violence and sex.

There were two remakes of oldschool horror movies in the last few years (a Friday The 13th remake and a Nightmare On Elmstreet one I haven't seen but have heard is fucking terrible). Piranha 3D is a remake of an older generation's horror movie, too. But, it is definitely the best of them. Piranha 3D embraces how much crazy violence and gore and how much of a sex drive oldschool horror movies had. Newschool horror movies have all been about intensity, grittiness and being incredibly shocking generally without a sense of humor (cf., Saw, The Human Centipede, Hostel...). Unlike the so-called "Torture Porn" that makes up most newschool horror, Piranha 3D has a real sense of humor. And humor goes a long way.

While it is probably just as shocking as Hostel, it is far more self-aware and thus more entertaining. Some of the best moments I had watching Piranha 3D were when I was simultaneously laughing and being disgusted by the violence onscreen. That's what I mean when I say "it's a spectacle." It's sort of like God Of War in that way. Although, the jury is still out on God Of War's self-awareness...

Okay, so that's my list of some of the films I saw this summer. You'll notice that I started to write more and more about each movie as the list went on. That's interesting. And, I wrote more about movies I liked less (well, for the most part). And that's interesting, too.

As with the "Summer Reading" post, Ronbloggers, I encourage y'all to write up your own lists/thoughts on the movies you saw.

Over and out,

-Vogt

The Drug

2010-09-06T08:10:00.000-07:00

Röyksopp's new album Senior is going to be great. Fittingly, while their previous album Junior was poppy and loud and fun, Senior appears to have grown up.

Having just streamed the album online, I've found that Senior is full of Witch House-like dark and heavy electronic songs. Many of the beats are really driving and intense which is almost the polar oposite of Junior, where most of the music was bouncy and light.

Senior also lacks any guest vocalists, something Röyksopp hasn't done ever. I never had a problem with Röyksopp's past use of guest features; But, without vocals, the beats on Senior really have to hold their own. And, they definitely do.

While "The Drug" is one of the lighter songs on the album, their is still a heaviness to it. The video for "The Drug" really captures the album's tone. In "The Drug," we see three girls walk through a post-apocalyptic landscape.

Post Apocalyptic videos seems to be all the rage lately.

[Via Pitchfork TV]

Sit Down, Man

2010-09-03T15:06:00.000-07:00

Big things are popping for Das Racist right now. Yesterday I blogged about their video for "Who's That? Brooown!" And today I discovered the trailer for their upcoming mixtape Sit Down, Man. Sit Down is the sequel to their first mixtape: Shut Up, Dude.

The most interesting part of this trailer (besides Diplo's strange voice over accompanied by still shots of him standing in front of shrunken heads) is when the Das Racist guys list off the song titles for stuff off Sit Down, Man.

I'm really excited for "All Tan Everything." Oh, and I'm excited for their collaborations with producers El-P and Dame Grease.

And, I agree with "Young Hollywood." I'm more of a "Hahaha!" person on the internet. I don't like the abbreviation "LOL." Or any internet abbreviations for that matter.

[Via Okayplayer]

Who's That? Brooown!

2010-09-02T21:14:00.001-07:00

The hip hop group Das Racist, perhaps most famous for their hilarious song "Combination Pizza Hut And Taco Bell"(a song that some people find annoying and I can't understand why that is) released an oldschool videogame-inspired music video for their track "Who's That? Brooown!"( isn't that song title strangely similar to Animal Collective's "What Would I Want? Sky)"--"Who's That? Brooown!" is the first track off Das Racist's excellent mixtape they put out earlier this summer called "Shut Up Dude."

While "Combination Pizza Hut And Taco Bell" is an amazing song, Das Racist have many excellent tracks besides that. "Who's That? Brooown" is definitely one of them.

I always thought "Brooown's" beat sounded like an 8-bit videogame soundtrack, so this video is very fitting.

The whole "8-bit" style is really in vogue these days. Probably due to the recent bump in popularity the Scott Pilgrim franchise has recieved due to its film and videogame adaptation. Scott Pilgrim is, among other things, a celebration of all things 8-bit, of all old video games.

This video is more than just a tribute to old games, though. There is also a videogame you can play.

Without further ado, here's the "Who's That? Brooown!" video. Enjoy:

[Via Pitchfork]