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Posts tagged Music
I’m taking ‘em back. Taking ‘em all back!
0984 days
Where has music gone? Recently I have been listening to hip hop from the mid 80′s to late 90′s, for whatever reason. This was obviously back when we were considered the real MTV generation. Of course this was also back when the “M” in MTV stood for something. That’s right kiddies, they used to play something called MUSIC back in the day on MTV. Shocking I know. The more I listen to it, the more I realize that 90% of hip hop that comes out now is complete and utter crap. Now I am not someone that starts an argument and have no knowledge of the subject matter. I have the chops to back it up. Let me show you a little more of the reason why I say this.
- LL back in the day
Back before I had a job, back before I really had any income at all, I relied on the radio (blech) to supply me with current music to listen to. I vividly remember taking cassette tapes and recording songs straight from the radio, so that I could listen to them later. Slick Rick, LL Cool J, Run DMC, even DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince were all on a tape I made at one point and time. It was actually fun to listen to the radio because the ratio of commercials to music was closer to 75/25 as apposed to the exact reverse that modern radio stations are now. But this isn’t a rant against radio in general (that may come later) it is however one against the “music” they claim to play on there now.
Once I started to get a little money, either through chores around the house or early jobs, I would occasionally go to the local music store (usually Peaches) and get a tape. In the late 80′s early 90′s the only thing I listened to was Hip Hop. I had a pile of tapes, good and bad, to reflect my choice of style. Like I said before I was totally into Run DMC, Slick Rick, EPMD, and the occasional Public Enemy. I’m sure it must have been pretty funny to see this little white kid come in and buy “Fear of a Black Planet” back in the day. Also you have to remember that this is before Parental Advisory stickers were really enforced… at ALL.
Anyway, the beats were tight, involved, and sometimes even technical. Sure they had a lot of sampling in them, but they at least seemed like someone put forth some effort to get something that sounded good out of them. Listen to the musical stylings of “Mike Jones” and tell me that he put effort and thought into one of those beats. Honestly, I can do about as much if not better on a casio keyboard from 86 and a recording of preschool nursery rhyme songs. It’s truly deplorable. Then there is the trend of Auto-Tuning your vocals. Ugh… It was funny when it was done in the “I’m On A Boat” song by Lonely Island, but not in every song on the radio. I realize that you have no true vocal talent and can’t hold a note, but using that effect is inexcusable. T-Pain I am now talking directly to YOU! Please just stop.
Wheels of Steele
Then you get into the songs by “rappers” that claim to be “Hip Hop” and all they do is talk about how many people they have shot, or how much drugs they used to sling in the hood. If you’re going to talk all kinds of yang like that at least put it into an amazingly fluid flow of lyrics. Other wise, don’t bother. Now admittedly I own a couple of albums by some of the aforementioned persons, but that is only because they fit into one of the required categories. They either have to lyrical content, or the beats have to be sick. Case in point, Big Punisher (RIP). His fat ass was absolutely AMAZING at putting together a line in a song.
I just wish that we could get back to songs like “Summer Time” by DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, or maybe even “You be Illin” from Run DMC. You know the music that you could listen to with your boys in the car or your grandma and it wouldn’t make a difference. Increase the Peace. That’s all I am trying to say. Give up all this aggression and go back to PROgression. Please don’t tell me that this IS progression, that’s bull shit. Just like people that can’t pronounce words so they slur everything, all you are doing is devolving into grunting moaning blobs of untalented flesh. Thanks for showing the rest of the world that you are boycotting language skills in the pursuit of money and fame.
I guess what I am trying to get at in this rant is that the Hip Hop that kids are growing up with today in the mainstream is NOTHING close to what it was when the movement started. Sugar Hill Gang would not be happy at the way things have gone since “Rappers Delight” started it all. This is a case where you SHOULD hate the “playa” not the game.
Whatcha been listening to?
0991 days
Over the past several months I have been doing my best to try and find new music to listen to. With the help of friends in real life and my new found Twitter friends, I have been able to find several new bands that are note worthy. Also there are several bands that I have been listening to for a while now that should be mentioned as well just so that I can spread the “New Music” love around.
Hayes Carll
First of all thanks to Bill (@DangerTom on Twitter) I was introduced to a man by the name of Hayes Carll. The interesting thing about him is, he is a country singer. Now for those of you that don’t know me very well, I would rather wipe my ass with a country cd than listen to it. That is to say, most country music that comes out now is complete and utter CRAP. Yes I am from “The South” but this is not the country music I was raised on, no sir. I was raised on the musical stylings of Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, Conway Twitty, Wayland Jennings, and of course Hank Williams. I guess they would fall into the category of “Outlaw Country” if you had to label them. Not this shitty “Alt-Country” or what ever you want to call about 80% of the new artists today.
That being said, Hayes Carll falls more to the old style of country music than the current crop. He has a very mellow sound to most of his songs. I also like the fact that his material is the things that you always hear the jokes on country music are about. Losing the love of his life, losing his job, trying to make money, or hitchin’ across the country, and yes… jail time. One of my favorite songs that he does is called “Live Free or Die”, in which he talks about being in jail and having to press licence plates for New Hampshire corrections. The irony of course being that he is in JAIL pressing plates that have the motto live FREE or die on them. His songs are very well written and performed, and I can’t figure out if it’s a shame he isn’t more widely known or if that is the blessing here.
Metric Fantasies
Next up on the new music scene is a band that I heard about from Patrick Klepek (@exxy on Twitter) called Metric. Now after finding out more about them, I realize that they aren’t really a new band sure, but they are new to me. They are labeled as “Post-Punk” which honestly makes no sense to me. I hear the word punk and think of the sex pistols or black label or minor threat… they don’t sound anything at all like that. I don’t know what I would label them as, but the lead singer and sound of their songs is more akin to The Breeders or Luscious Jackson. Female singer with a great set of pipes backed up by a great band. Oddly enough Bill also randomly recommended them to me after I just heard about them, so I guess great minds do think alike.
Now on to the music that I have been listening to for a while now and either got back into it, or just got a new album. Starting first with cKy and their new release Carver City. One of the very few perks for living on the East Coast is that sometimes (not often) you get to hear about bands BEFORE the west coast does. I found out about cKy years ago back when they just started to get their stuff out there with Jackass (via Bam Margera). At that point they were still kind of the up and coming underground local kinda band that not a lot of people knew about. I loved the first cd I got of theirs (Vol. 1) and played it to death. They had the sound that fell somewhere between Metal and I guess what you would just call Rock (i dunno). If they wanted to they could get pretty loud and in your face but also had a more mellow melodic sound too.
cKy - Carver City
Over the years they have released several albums for several different labels. Most recently with their release of Carver City, they “hit the big time” I guess you could say. Carver City was released under RoadRunner Records. Any big metal fan should automatically recognize that name immediately. Probably one of the larger American record labels in the Metal genre. The extra money from the label is very apparent in this album. Given the fact that Chad is kind of a perfectionist and likes to mix all their own stuff, it’s little wonder that the album took a while to come out. That extra time in the oven was also well spent. Each track was worked on and finished separately from the rest, the true definition of slow and steady wins the race.
The Eagles of Death Metal
Another band that I kind of stumbled upon through another band (Queens of the Stone Age) is The Eagles of Deathmetal. This band headed up by Josh Homme and Jesse Hughes is definitely an acquired taste. Be that the eclectic sound of the music itself, or the falsetto signing style of vocals takes a while to get used to. But how could you not like a band that was formed as a mix of, according to Homme, “The Eagles and Death Metal.” Listening to the latest album “Heart-On” is just fun. You can just tell that the guys playing in the band currently (like QotSA they rotate supporting band mates around a lot) are just really into what they are doing and love to make music together.
Deadsy
Finally there is a band that I consider to be a bit of a guilty pleasure, Deadsy. They only have two albums out now “The Commencement” and “Phantasmagore”. With a sound that is straight out of the 80′s synth phase mixed with a heaping helping of DOT (Dark Ominous Tones) they create a sound that is pretty much all their own. It really isn’t for everyone, I am sure of that one, but it really does appeal to me. When ever I am just in a mood to relax and just kind of zone out, they are one of the first bands that I will put on. Check em out if you want, but it may not be your particular cup of tea.
So that is what I have been playing through my iPod recently. I don’t expect you all to go out there and purchase/download all these groups, however you could give them a listen, just to see if maybe it might be something you like as well. I am sure there will be more artists that I will list here as time goes on, in fact I already have a few in mind. Check back probably about once a week and I will throw out some more suggestions.
Incredibad – Lonely Island
01089 days
by WiFi Pirate
in Random
Saturday Night Live has long been on the downward slope of comedy mountain. Years have past since it was the thing to watch, and people were quoting it regularly in conversation. Over the past several years my wife and I have watched most of the episodes, hoping it would be funny again one day. For the most part, sadly it hasn’t.
There is however always been a bright spot during the show. That being Andy Samberg’s “Digital Shorts”. Through most episodes it was the only thing I was looking forward to. Andy always seemed to have that Ol’ Skool feel to his humor. This was never more apparent than when he started doing musical numbers on for his digital shorts. Probably the most memorable ones in the beginning was either “Lazy Sunday” or the “Natalie Portman Rap”. Then he hit full stride with “Dick in a box”.
Along with two best friends Jorma Taccone and Akiva Schaffer, they are a sort of comedic/musical group called The Lonely Island. The self professed “Best Fake Rappers in the World” recently released their debut album entitled “Incredibad”. With tracks called; “Jizz In My Pants” and “Who Said We’re Wack” they show both sides of their talents, but hilarious and actually well put together musically. Several tracks feature other artist that only add to the comedy and street cred, like T-Pain on the track “On A Boat” and Jack Black on “Sax Man”.
Taken at face value it’s just funny to listen to. However when you actually listen to some of the songs they are really well produced. I have listened to it several times over the past two days, and have been trying to come up with my favorite song, to no avail. Then I tried to come up with my favorite line and can’t nail one down either. Lines like “I like my friend, he’s a real guys guy, he’s not a loud mouth like that c*** hole Steve!” Or maybe even “I got my swim trunks, and my flippy floppies, I’m flipping burgers, you at Kinkos straight flipping copies.” I can’t say one is better than the other.
Also I didn’t know that sometime in 2005 the three filmed a Pilot for FOX called Awesometown. FOX turned it down but that wasn’t the only time it would be shown. You can still see it, and even more episodes through the Lonely Island Youtube Channel. Also most of the shorts from SNL are either on that channel or on youtube somewhere by now.
If you got a couple dollars that you want to spend on a new album that will make you laugh over and over again i can only suggest that you check out the Lonely Island album Incredibad. It was worth the money to me, and I can’t stop listening to it, even as I type this out.
Shadowgate (NES)
01110 days
by WiFi Pirate
in Reviews
Back in the day, I used to rent games from a place called “Phar-More”. Probably not as big a place as I thought it was when I was a kid, but it had a big selection of NES games. I used to have my mom take me there about once a wee. She would rent a couple of movies and I would get a game. It may not sound like it but it was kind of a bonding time for her and I. Anyway they would rent you a new NES game for a week for like three bucks. It was awesome for a kid like me.
So there on the shelves along side movie greats like “Police Academy III” and “My Science Project” sit a large chuck of my NES memories. One game that i would rent about once a month was “Shadowgate”. Aside from the original Final Fantasy, and Bionic Commando, Shadowgate still stands out as a truly great game experience on the NES.
Shadowgate is about as close as you can get to the old “text adventures” on early PC. The difference being that the graphics weren’t done in ASCII. The story was still told almost as a choose your own adventure book, except that if you “died” you couldn’t just go back a chapter and try again. You were in the role of “the last great hero king” and sent to Castle Shadowgate to destroy the evil Warlock. Pretty generic, I know, but really what were you looking for on a NES cart?
The screen was laid out in three sections. You had a large viewing window on the left, the right side was dedicated to your inventory and the bottom section of the screen was your “action” options. You are told to make your way through the castle avoiding endless amounts of traps, and overcoming an immense number of puzzles (which are often times booby-traps). You gather quite a few items that will help you along you way and aid in solving some of the puzzles, the best of which is the torch. The torch, such a simple unassuming item to have, but with out it the game would be pointless. When your torch burns out you are simply dead. Nothing adds to the anxiety of a game like the music picking up pace and pitch when each torch begins to slowly sputter and die out. Ugh… that sound is still stuck in my head.
This game was. for lack of a better term, hard. I never and have never finished the original version. I would always make it to what I would say is the halfway point and either have to take the game back, or just get completely stuck. I still own the game and still have not been able to finish it. Though not for a lack of trying and dedication to throwing down my (mom’s) hard earned money to rent it over and over again.
There were several games released after Shadowgate, like Deja-Vu, and the Uninvited. They attempted to capture the same audience as Shadowgate but I don’t think they had much of a following. There was a sequel that came out in the late 90′s for the Nintendo 64 called “Shadowgate 64: Trials of the four towers”. I rushed out to get it based on the simple fact that i loved the first one so much. To my disappointment the game was really bad, almost to the point of not even mentioning it at all.
The original however, will live on in my memory (and my old game library) as a great game that should not be missed if you have the means to play it still. The opening music at the front gate still comes up on my iPod from time to time and it never gets old. So if you have a chance and the ability to play it, do youself a favor and check it out.
