WE DON'T NEED NO SIP-CUPS!

Yesterday, Nodin taught himself how to use a cup equipped with a straw-spout in a short period of time. Which is awesome, and means that we can do away with all of those old, worn, battered sip-cups. Want 'em?

Coming soon: abandoning pacifiers!

Another Week, Another Fistful of Dollars, Soon to Be Scattered to the Four Winds

Doesn't this beat a real post? :)

Have yourself a great weekend (this weekend and every weekend)!

GETTING PUBLISHED IS AWESOME, PT. 42,341

Furthermore, Malkmus' level of vocal engagement reaches its lowest ebb yet. Often, he sounds as though he's sleepwalking through the emotional motions here, pacing cadences in time with central melodic motifs, allowing them to hoist him aloft like a crowd surfer until the inevitable Jam Moment arrives.

On a deeper level, though, the book registers as an indictment of modern North American life, as the hopes, dreams, and delusions of a test-tube dude ultimately sound no less ludicrous than those of real people living real lives in a country that's going to pieces at an ever-accelerating speed.

So, go ahead, lob your darts: it’s international minstelry, it’s theft, it’s plainly synthetic. But in the musical sphere writ-large, what isn’t?

More importantly, who cares? Hit play again.

Your average rock outfit peppers its catchy rapture with gnarly rupture.

This is the region where Kunstler resides; much of The Long Emergency was spent recounting his forlorn drives through all-but-withered towns where industry was on the wane and farms were selling out to developers dead-set on building McMansions the locals probably couldn’t afford.

“I’m sorry that I wrecked that tour for us/The drugs left me wigging out on the bus,” Bemis apologizes to his bandmates on the herky-jerky mea culpa “Sorry, Dudes. My Bad.”

All is not uplifting though: Black teams playing in white regions, according to the book, require police escorts to and from games.

All but invisible before, their bitter voices are heard here.

"I wore leather pants and suede cowboy boots — to high school — had hair down to my ass, knew grown men with names like Trashy and Freak, sold out nights at Hollywood's storied venues, such as the Roxy, Gazzarri's, and the Troubadour," Williams brags. "I wrote songs that made dozens of people sing."

Every race on Earth — and a few, like Merpeople, that aren't legit — comes in for a psychopathic revisionist-historical drubbing here.

Swapping files between Michigan and California, this Wire-worthy, Never-Never-Land Hanson cobbled together a freak-folk mystery blissfully impervious to patience, logic, and sobriety.

"A" IS FOR APRIL, "A" IS FOR AWESOME!

NODIN IS AWESOME! NODIN LEARNING TO REPEAT WORDS AND TAKING A FAIRLY INTENSE INTEREST IN HAVING PEOPLE READ TO HIM IS AWESOME

BUILDING A HOUSE? AWESOME

5INGLES SEEING SYNDICATION? TRIPLE-FUDGE AWESOME! (ALTHOUGH I DON'T GO FOR TRIPLE-FUDGE ANYTHING AS A RULE)

NEW THURSTON MOORE X-TREME NOISE ALBUM (SENSITIVE/LETHAL)? AWESOME INNA EYES-GLAZED-OVER STYLE

THAT NEW GEICO AD WITH MRS. BUTTERWORTH, YOU KNOW, WHERE SHE'S ON A COUCH WITH SOME SUPPOSED GEICO CUSTOMER AND SHE'S ALL "OH MY GOODNESS, SOMEONE HAS PLACED A LOGO OVER MY FACE"? YEAH, THAT ONE? AWESOME AWESOME AWESOME AND ALSO A SIGN OF HOW OUR AGE IS SINKING EVER-DEEPER INTO A PARADIGM WHERE TWO OR MORE BRANDS ADVERTISING TOGETHER ISN'T WEIRD, JUST UTTERLY NORMAL, BECAUSE THE TERRORISTS AREN'T WINNING AND UNITED WE STAND AND DIVIDED WE FALL, ETC.

BARACK AND MICHELLE OBAMA HAVE A DAUGHTER NAMED MALIA; AWESOME! BECAUSE IF NODIN HAD BEEN A GIRL THAT'S WHAT WE WOULD'VE NAMED HIM

TYPING IN ALL CAPS SO IT SEEMS LIKE I'M YELLING AT YOU OVER THE INTERNETS: DISTRESSED METAL-FONT AWESOME

SKIMPING ON PUNCTUATION AND IN SO DOING LEAVING THINGS SORTA OPEN-ENDED IN TERMS OF MOOD EMPHASIS: AWESOME AWESOME AWESOME

THAT TINA FEY/RACHEL DRATCH FLICK ABOUT MOTHERHOOD LOOKS LIKE IT'LL BE AWESOME, SO STOKED, I'M SO THERE

RIC FLAIR GETTING BEAT BY SEAN MICHAELS AT WRESTLEMANIA 24 AND FORCED INTO RETIREMENT: AWESOME, DUDE WAS HELLA OLD AND I WAS ALWAYS SCARED HE WAS GONNA DIE IN THE RING

THE EVER-LENGTHENING WAIT FOR LIL WAYNE'S THE CARTER III? NOT ESPECIALLY AWESOME, BUT WHAT CAN YOU DO RIGHT PLAYA

MARLEE MATLIN ON DANCING WITH THE STARS AND GENERALLY? AWESOME

AWESOME AWESOME AWESOME AWESOME AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWESOME

1 OUT OF 10 MUSIC EDITORS HATE VOGUING TO DANZIG

I won't say where these were supposed to run, but I will say that assigning reviews and then acting like you never got 'em when they're submitted is bullshit. Needless to say, my days of scribing for NAME REDACTED are pretty much over. Not even a frickin' killfee! Or an email wondering where the reviews are or anything. Come on.

Beach House
Devotion
(Carpark)
Two years removed from its captivatingly cozy epymonous debut, there's something slightly different about Baltimore's Beach House. To be sure, the duo hasn't altered its core tactics: those lobotomized organs and guitars coast along on stoned cruise-control, those rattles and tambourines jangle blithely on occasion, and sombulant vocalist Victoria Legrand eks out dreamy relationship complaints and concerns as though she's on the verge of passing out on some opium-den couch. Yet Devotion feels slightly less passive, less drift-like in execution, more assertive: Legrand means it now, pushing up on figurative elbows to set her voice above the langourous fray, while the slo-mo drums hit harder and the woozy-snoozy melodies pop in the mix. For all its Sergio Morrocine overtones, "Gila" lives and dies on a sweet, loop-de-loop keyboard hook - not to mention Legrand's stretched, unsexualized "oh-oh-oh-oh" refrain. On "Wedding Bell," Alex Scally's ax figures register as dull buzz-saw roars as Legrand uncoils kalediscopic organ spools, drops. light-gobule keybs, and comes across as, well, happy. Creamy, reverb-soaked organ-balm "D.A.R.L.I.N.G." even deigns to ramp the Beach House pace up to a weak trot and indulge in a multi-tracked chorus that spells out the song's title; who'd have thought these two would ever have anything in common with Fergie?--Ray Cummings

The Whitsundays
The Whitsundays
(Friendly Fire)
You wouldn't believe it to listen to them, but the Whitsundays hail from Edmonton, Alberta - not the United Kingdom. That's somewhat surprising considering the influences this group's self-titled debut brings to bear: Clinic's sterile-yet-gritty garage revival chic and the Zombies' gloomy British-invasiveness. Whitsundays frontman Paul Arnusch - on leave from his drumming gig with post-rockers Faunts - clearly digs on the Walkmen and the Strokes, too: guitars jab gamely or stagger like a hungover sailor on Sunday morning, romantic quandries are drolly dissected and reassembled, warm vintage organs abound, and Arnusch maintains a practiced, above-it-all disinterest throughout. "Falling Over" is the sort of protracted, please-don't-dump-me appeal to some lovely young thing that inspires restraining orders in real life; as a pair of pealing guitars tease out a lightly grooving, retro melody, he wonders "If your feelings of love have truly gone, gone/and you can't find the strength to carry on, on/Or what to do, or what to say, say/Just tell me where to go/I gotta know." "The Ways of the Sweet Talking Boys" fairly bubbles over with gleaming strands of Fender Rhodes as multitracked gangs of Arnusch surf a darkly jealous wave. Given the mood here, "Antisocial" makes for a leftfield shock - tasteful, three-chord punk ala early Blur. As bygone, earnest pastiche goes these days, the Whitsundays are moderately enjoyable, at best; maybe, given the myriad options available, that's enough for now. Originality can wait. --Ray Cummings

NODIN'S TOP TEN ACTIVITIES, MARCH 2008

1. Pulling packing boxes, pillows, and Mr. Blankie off of Dad's head when Dad has hidden beneath them in a silly attempt to, in the process, amuse or startle Nodin.

2. Losing his pacifiers while sleeping, causing him to half-awaken in a whiny huff.

3. Being chased around the house by Dad, who is grunting "DUR! DUR! DUR!" is a comic-threatening manner. (Mom's variation on this theme: "Gonna GETCHA! Gonna GETCHA!")

4. Eating breakfast sausage! This kid loves him some breakfast sausage. Like, if there's sausage on the scene, those bits of pancake or biscuit or whatever aren't gettin' eaten, no sirree.

5. Having books read to him, sometimes the same books several times per day. Nodin's especially partial to On The Day You Were Born, The Very Hungry Catepillar, and one about the Wiggles that's supposed to teach kids about reading and setting clocks. It's rewarding beyond words to watch his face light up when he's handed you a book and you've opened it and started reading; he doesn't totally understand what's being read yet, of course, but something about the combination of familiar sound constructions and familiar voices just seems to invigorate and temporarily fascinate this eternally curious/mobile little boy.

6. Trying so, so very hard to talk and sing. He's almost there, and none of us can wait for him to arrive and start shouting out statements at the least opportune moments possible.

7. Climbing stairs! (with adult supervision, of course)

8. Grabbing, toying with, and breaking everything he can.

9. Opening and closing doors. Cabinet doors, oven doors, and closet doors - but not front doors or refrigerator doors (yet). He isn't supposed to open any doors, of course, but it's fun to pretend that no-one's telling him not to do this stuff.

10. Absconding with Mom and Dad's waterbottles and dropping them into the living room waste basket, because he can.

COLOR VOGUING TO DANZIG WORRIED SICK ABOUT PAULA ABDUL BECAUSE PAULA ABDUL IS ON THE LOCOMOTIVE EXPRESS TO LOCOSVILLE

BECAUSE, on American Idol:

1. She no longer seems to have any idea where she is while appearing on national television.
(On this show, the expectant tension is supposed to center on the performers, but more likely it's centered on the camera operators and control room staff who have to decide how much attention should be directed towards the judges' table where Paula Abdul's getting her loon on and Randy Jackson and Simon Cowell are pretending conditions aren't being created for a complete Courtney Love-esque trainwreck.)

2. Following contestant performances, she rambles on longwindedly, incoherently, and disjointedly, as though the sounds coming out of her mouth bear little or no relation to whatever positive den-mother kudos she's thought up; thus, dear Paula comes across as deranged or mentally disabled at best, totally smacked-out at worst.

3. She keeps threatening to fall, sideways, out of her chair; only arrogant Simon Cowell stands between Miss Opposites Attract and certain concussive disaster.

4. She dances to songs - both sitting and standing - really, really badly. Now, I understand that this world is full of bad dancers; I'm one of them, admittedly. But Paula Abdul doesn't even come close to matching the beat of whatever Danny or David or Carly or whoever's belting out; it's like she's hearing a totally different song and swaying or bopping to that. Again: on national television.

5. That glassy, out-to-lunch grin. It's ever-present and totally fucking scary. You know the one.

6. Sort of a corrolary to #2, I guess, but the woman can't seem to finish saying words most of the time, managing, like, a first syllable before skipping to the first syllable of a different word. It's like she's having a perpetual heart attack that never becomes fatal or requires a trip to the ER.

7. Paula, you know we all love you, right?

8. Those hats. Those outfits. That hair! Viva fashion, and all that, but expensive and questionable couture and heavy, heavy makeup only serves to make crazy folks seem crazier.

9. Tears! Tears, tears, tears. Nothing wrong with a good cry, but so many tears when no-one's died or anything. Paula, they're just going home, and home's a good place!

10. Or maybe all of this is tied into promotion for her comeback record later this year and I'm just a big ole all-day sucker.

Andrew W.K., Talking At Considerable Length About Stuff

Seriously, if this "Party Hard" dude ever writes an autobiography, I'm so there, mang. Here he's talking to Wire's Marc Masters about producing my favorite 00s noise/no-wave band as part of a lengthy "Invisible Jukebox" interview transcript you can find on the magazine's website (I highly recommend that you check it out):

Sightings
"White Keys"
FROM LIVE AT BULB CLUBHOUSE (BULB) 2001

ANDREW W.K.: Mr. Velocity Hopkins?

MARC MASTERS: No. [Vocals come in]

ANDREW W.K.: Sightings! This is "White Keys," right?

Yes.

ANDREW W.K.: This is one of my favorite songs by them. At this time they were making these songs that were bouncy and upbeat, with really strong vocal hooks. I really like the vocal hook on this one (sings along). And that drumbeat with the syncopation - this is a really exciting era of the band.

MARC MASTERS: How did the idea of producing them come up?

ANDREW W.K.: I had helped out on a couple of their albums. I was always around and involved, but I'm not sure how it came up. It just seemed very obvious to all of us, I guess. The feeling was in the air that it made sense to do that now. And what I proposed was what they wanted to do. To record in a really good studio, to be able to hear everything, and to be able to work on it as long as they wanted. That's what I felt I could offer them. It wouldn't be rushed and it wouldn't be frustrating, and I felt confident I could provide that for them. I know they had always made the records they wanted to make, but I don't know that they had the opportunity to work on them as long as they could. So I wanted to give them the best of both worlds.

MARC MASTERS: How was working with them, given that you know them so well?

ANDREW W.K.: It was an amazing experience. There were times when it was an ordeal, and then there were times when we were just on this huge high, and so excited about the work that we were doing. It got better at every step along the way. As far as the personal interactions, I learned a whole new understanding of myself, and how it is to work with people, friends or not. I learned that it's not always so important to say your ideas, to say what you think. Sometimes you have to have faith that the other people are thinking the same thing, and will arrive at the same place. A lot of times at the beginning, I would have an idea and I would say it, and sometimes they would agree, and sometimes they would say no. Sometimes it would just not be the right time to say something. But I noticed later I could still have an idea and not even say it, I would just keep it in my mind or even just let it go. And then, sure enough, it could be minutes later or days later, but somehow or another that idea would come to pass. Either just happening on its own, or someone else would suggest it, or it would just evolve out of circumstance. But that approach I was then able to use a lot when recording with Lee Perry. I don't think I would've been able to work with him had I not just come off of making the Sightings record. I've talked to other people about it, and I've been told it's a process called "Silence", where you silence your own impulse to blurt something out, and you put it inwards into your subconscious. The more you keep it on the inside, the more power it has from working inside out. That all started with Sightings.

You just knew this would happen, didn't you?

From Yahoo News:

NORRISTOWN, Pa. - Montgomery County authorities say a man stabbed his brother-in-law during an argument over who should get the Democratic nomination for president.

What's more, Jose Ortiz, 28, who's charged with felony assault, is a registered Republican.

District Attorney Risa Ferman said Ortiz supports Hillary Clinton and Sean Shurelds supports Barack Obama. She told reporters Monday that the two got into an argument in a Collegeville home Thursday night and Shurelds tried to choke Ortiz. She says Ortiz then stabbed Shurelds in the abdomen.

Shurelds was taken to a hospital in critical condition, but is expected to recover.

Jigsaw Linkz

Hate the game, not the player, right? Saying that this grimy threesome's third outing is boilerplate generic NYC gangsta rap is as tiresome as the tropes on display here; the femme-R&B chorus of "Music 4 the User" succinctly lays it all out over a banging, red-eyed Chinky Evidence synth beat that almost glows: "Crack, coke, piff/Motherfucking wet, guns, sex." Talk about the middleman cutting out the middleman. Beck's more endearing, chaotic side, it turns out, was shunted off to international singles or left on the studio floor--and these castoffs smoke their better-known cousins. Way back when, the Raveonettes—along with the Strokes, the White Stripes, the Hives, and dozens of other would-be contenders history has since forgotten—were supposed to save rock, right?

#995 LL Cool J feat. Jennifer Lopez "Control Myself" (Def Jam, 2003)

Whenever killer African-American he-biceps and the most prominent Latina-American posterior of our day convene in artistic-commercial congress, we - as thoroughly impartial and thoughtful cultural commentators - have a grave responsibility to ask ourselves a few questions, like "What does this collabo mean, really? Is it overreaching or overthinking things to consider this single a sort of battle of the sexes? If not, who won?" Anthopology, as a field of study, has taught us since its inception that ZUH ZUH ZUH ZUH ZUH-ZUH-ZUH! ZUH ZUH ZUH ZUH ZUH-ZUH-ZUH! ZUH ZUH ZUH ZUH ZUH-ZUH-ZUH! ZUH ZUH ZUH ZUH ZUH-ZUH-ZUH! ZUH ZUH ZUH ZUH ZUH-ZUH-ZUH! ZUH ZUH ZUH ZUH ZUH-ZUH-ZUH! ZUH ZUH ZUH ZUH ZUH-ZUH-ZUH! ZUH ZUH ZUH ZUH ZUH-ZUH-ZUH! ZUH ZUH ZUH ZUH ZUH-ZUH-ZUH!ZUH ZUH ZUH ZUH ZUH-ZUH-ZUH! ZUH ZUH ZUH ZUH ZUH-ZUH-ZUH! ZUH ZUH ZUH ZUH ZUH-ZUH-ZUH! ZUH ZUH ZUH ZUH ZUH-ZUH-ZUH! ZUH ZUH ZUH ZUH ZUH-ZUH-ZUH!

WHEW!*

*I should stress that I didn't take this photo; found it on some Russian photo site devoted to reflected images.

"Until I Started Clicking, I Thought Crackpot Done Lost His Mind": Adventures in Link Presentation

"'This store is closed forever!’" Close your eyes, strip off your winterwear, and leap in there: You won't wanna emerge. David Michaelis' incisive, masterful work outlines the profile of a pathologically contradictory figure as likely to overstate his own lack of significance as he was to neglect his children or air his personal problems in code scant inches from Cathy and Prince Valiant. Wu-affiliated bros over Theodore Unit hos. We've got a fever, and the only thing that can cure our fever is more wickety-wack wegro Blake Lewis beatboxing. It's all bullshit; Freeway knows we know it's bullshit, and he can't even be bothered to make the contradiction ironic or meta. Woelv carves a sonic space you may not be able to handle more than a few times, but you're unlikely to forget what you find there. He's that guy who can always be counted on to say the wrong thing to the wrong person at the wrong time, who can't accept that things and people change, who's about to have the rug yanked out from under him. Expensive. Ubiquitous. Frightfully cheerful. Soothingly tony. Onstage, Pritchard alternates between guitars and synthesizers in the blearily, chaotically intense jams the foursome scares up. Offstage, he works as the project manager for a Web design firm, fielding phone calls "so the designers don't have to." These are free spirits whose concept of decor has nothing to do with Trading Spaces and everything to do with the purest possible forms of personal expression. But Myers’ deserves credit for compiling all these separate strands and interview pieces into a compelling narrative—and this is important—really exploring the nuts, bolts, emotions, influences, and impacts of System recordings and related side-project output, something super-fan’s biogs like this one usually can’t be bothered with. Ah, Peanuts: those crafty, balloon-headed kids with existential dilemmas. When Dean Wells sings, “Somewhere in the distance/Is a good idea, for instance,” this Lyndonville, Vermont, songwriter sure as hell isn’t referring to his own creative flow. "I’ve been let down by everyone, including myself, because my expectations are too high."

NIN remixed, again

This party never stops!

Ya know, I'll never get used to the unspoken "Sorry, we cut your work for space this issue," no matter how many times I don't hear it

From the MAGNET web site:

NO AGE Weirdo Rippers
On Melvins’ Hostile Ambient Takeover, metal tunes occasionally coalesced within the dense, gnashing whirl; on Guided By Voices’ Alien Lanes, proto-rock nuggets blasted through a lo-fi lens. Los Angeles duo No Age (a.k.a. ex-Wives members Dean Spunt and Randy Randall) operates in a gnarly middle ground between those two extremes, where chaos and craft enable and embolden one another. First impressions say otherwise: An initial hit of Weirdo Rippers suggests a 10th-generation Misfits or Ramones cassette inadvertently run through the wash then roasted on a clothesline. Further listening reveals an apparent seamlessness. While straight-up, three-chord thrasher "Boy Void" is the exception that proves the No Age rule, the static-soaked, shoegaze turbulence that opens "Semi-Sorted" builds to a storming, kick-drums vs. blitzkrieg-riffing plateau. "Loosen This Job" solidifies almost accidentally from scattered, distorted guitar loops that mimic raw DJ scratches into a messy, disorienting tune where Spunt and Randall muse with an equal measure of rhetorical uncertainty: "Why are there so many records of my life?/Why can’t I just curl up until the night?" A combination of boisterous experimentalism, pop songwriting and bargain-basement production, Rippers makes for one of the year’s most thrilling rides. [Fat Cat, www.fatcat-usa.com]
—Raymond Cummings

LITTLE WINGS Soft Pow’r
Even affable folkies sometimes find themselves brooding in the doldrums. A winning string of sunny albums and guest spots on projects by K Records-affiliated pals established Portland, Ore., musician Kyle Field’s optimistic, surfer-dude persona. Comparatively speaking, Soft Pow’r is a nocturnal break-up bummer, the sort of album you’d want to keep away from a freshly dumped friend battling suicidal depression. As guitars mumble in whispers, drums tap quietly and piano keys plink with an aching melancholy, Field transcribes emptiness into whimpering, feathered-mullet songs, alternating as usual between his normal register and a tune-challenging falsetto so strained it salts old wounds listeners were sure had healed. “Free Bird” (which has nothing whatsoever to do with Lynyrd Skynyrd) might be Soft Pow’r’s most heartrending moment and the most fragile, pretty tune Field has ever written, the lyrics comparing and contrasting gingerly between the comforts of domestic bliss and the uncertainty of solitude. The rueful chorus of “Scooby” (“Scooby’s gone again”) cuts to the heart of Field’s misery through the intermingling of downer ivories, light-touch strums and expository verses such as, “Tall trees overhead are swaying and all the daylight started leaving.” Field’s anguish acts as our commiserative, voyeuristic nourishment—even if we wish he’d just cheer up and move on. [RAD, www.marriagerecs.com]
—Raymond Cummings

Voguing to Danzig's Top 31 Albums of 2007

ALBUMS

1. Sightings Through the Panama (Load)


2. The Dead C. Future Artists (Ba Da Bing!)


3. PJ Harvey White Chalk (Island)


4. Carlos Giffoni Arrogance (No Fun)


5. Kieran Hebden & Steve Reid Tongues (Domino)


6. Needlegun The End of August at Hotel Ozone (MT6)


7. Air Conditioning Dead Rails (Load)


8. Odd Girl Out Hurry Up and Wait (self-released)


9. Nine Inch Nails Year Zero (Interscope)


10. Jay-Z American Gangster (Def Jam)


11. Ghostface Killah The Big Doe Rehab (Def Jam)


12. Khate Field Report (self-released)


13. Incapacitants/Pain Jerk Live at No Fun Fest 2007 (No Fun)


14. Prodigy Return of the Mac (Koch)


15. WZT Hearts Threads Rope Spell Making Your Bones (Carpark)


16. Kites Hallucination Guillotine/Final Worship (Load)


17. Animal Collective Strawberry Jam (Domino)


18. Deerhoof Friend Opportunity (Kill Rock Stars/5 Rue Christie)


19. The Fiery Furnaces Widow City (Thrill Jockey)


20. Fall Out Boy Infinity On High (Island/Def Jam)


21. Heavy Winged Enough Rope (Cut Hands)


22. Arbouretum Rites of Uncovering (Thrill Jockey)


23. The Twilight Sad Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters (Domino)


24. El-P I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead (Def Jux)


25. Blitzen Trapper Wild Mountain Nation (self-released)


26. Dinosaur Jr. Beyond (Fat Possum)


27. Bring Back The Guns Dry Futures (Feow!)


28. Borbetomagus & Hijokaidan Both Noises End Burning (Victo)


29. John Weise Soft Punk (Troubleman)


30. Various Artists Benefit CD for Olivia Zofia Strama (MT6)
31. Lil Wayne Da Drought 3 (no label)
    

SINGLES

1. M.I.A. "Bamboo Banga" (Interscope)
2. Radiohead "15 Step" (self-released)
3. Robin Thicke "Lost Without U" (Interscope)
4. Blitzen Trapper "Wild Mountain Nation" (Lidkercow Ltd.)
5. Fall Out Boy "Thriller" (Island/Def Jam)
6. Khate "Riesling" (self-released)
7. Deerhunter "Cryptograms" (Kranky)
8. Magik Markers "Axis Mundi" (Ecstatic Peace!)
9. Amy Winehouse "Rehab" (Universal)
10. The Smashing Pumpkins "Tarantula" (Reprise/Martha’s Music)

"Won't you join my electronic bongo circle?"

#996 50 Cent "Poor Lil Rich (Shady/Aftermath/Interscope, 2003)

Before re-inventing himself as rap’s most powerful and loathed super-villian, a fanciful, mixtape-slinging 50 Cent liked to pretend his wealth was so ostentatious that the jewelry, clothes, firearms, and other possessions he allegedly owned were loud enough to actually save him the trouble of bothering to communicate with other people: “I let my watch talk for me, my whip talk for me/My gat talk for me, ‘BOW! What up, homie?’/My watch saying ‘Hi, shorty, we can be friends’/My whip saying ‘Quit playing bitch, get in’.” Sha Money XL’s insistently inquisitive beat – it’s the musical equivalent of so-called “alcoho-pops,” candy-catchy, not even remotely as extravagantly opulent as the laconic boasts dangling from it – carries us along on bobbing synths that burrow into memory right away. In this sense, though the title’s appropriation of Ritchie Rich’s subtitle is never more than symbolically alluded to (unless you wanna go subtextual and say something like “being rich is supposed to make a person happy, but how can someone be happy when the experience of and marketing of gun violence has made him rich and, really, threatens to take him out at any given moment?” but let’s not go there, okay?), “Poor Lil Rich” feels like a stealth missile aimed squarely at “the children”: it’s just too bright and shiny and wobbly. This song was a single, and despite the fact that the radio edit made complete swiss cheese out of the verses – seriously, there’s so much depravity in the lyricism that 50’s presence was reduced to stray prepositions and phrases and adjective, it was just weird – it remained thrilling nonetheless (and a bit mysterious, if you hadn’t heard the album version yet), casually neutered and galloping chromatically off into the night.

Just Add Water: Notes for an Unwritten Essay About Early-Adult Hip-Hop Fandom

1. Reference should be made to author’s literal-if-not-cultural blackness, to a delayed appreciation of what rap has to offer. Quote a former acquaintance of Caucasian descent who today works as an African-American literature professor at a California university: “You’re the whitest black man I know.”

2. Sly or derisive allusions to Bill Cosby, Don Imus, Bill O’Reilly, Richard Pryor, Jesse Jackson, and Al Sharpton – these are givens.

3. Extensive discussion about Kanye West, who author wishes more rappers would emulate conceptual (nonetheless, author concedes that if this happened hip-hop would be more boring and drab than it already is at the moment).

4. A drawing of paralells between rap and noise music, or rap and extreme metal. (Note to self: might not work because the public at large is less exposed to extreme metal and noise, though if it were, it would reject those genres with the same vociferousness it shuns rap, if for totally different reasons, many of them having to do with race and “otherness”.)

5. Rap enjoyment as largely private ritual; parents and wife generally not down with hip-hop. Youthful anecdote: mother insisted that author play rap at low volume, before 9 p.m., and not own more than a handful of genre albums

6. Author’s first hip-hop record: He’s the DJ, I’m the Rapper, by DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, a cassette copy.

7. Flashback: unpacking in a dorm room, autumn 1995, to the beat of Nine Inch Nails’ Closer ep. Hick roommate from Delaware remarks to author: “You know, black people don’t usually listen to Nine Inch Nails.”

8. Evenhanded look at gaping divide between gangsta rap’s values and author’s own, buttered in light sarcasm. Concession that author would feel very uncomfortable with his son growing up to a soundtrack of Clipse, Ghostface, and Lil Wayne records. Digression into awkward take on tired “blackness vs. whiteness” debate; should include admission from author that he never qued up for Cross Colors gear or other urban fashions because, well, because they simply didn’t seem to have anything to do with who he was.

9. Hosannas for the creative, inventive (cinematic? No, overused trope, avoid) nature of some rap lyricism, which helps author and his crit peers get beyond the narcissism, violence, sexism, and glorification of drug hustling that typifies much of its content.

10. Eminem; also, Elvis. Race.

11. Is 50 Cent serious, or is he camping? (Side note: it might be fun to scrap this project and pull off a parody of/homage to Susan Sontag’s “Notes on Camp” about rap, mostly parsing Dipset.)

12. Maybe hustling is just an overarching metaphor for success; everyone wants to be successful; hip-hop dominance circa late 99s/early 00s as achievement life accessory, i.e. coffee, No Doz, rims, etc.

13. Real talk on why progressive, posi-rap doesn’t move units or play into public perception of hip-hop as a whole. Author admits a grudging respect for the sub-genre but isn’t as stoked as he is by, say, Dr. Dre. (Native Tongues alums and Kanye pre-2007 excepted)

14. A corrolary: why can’t contented, sincerely top-of-the-heap rap swing, slam, and command respect? (i.e. Kingdom Come) The argument that hubris, threats, and degradation draw the masses is a familiar one and not without merit, but would Jay-Z’s last record have struck more of a chord if the Def Jam prez spent it rapping about the trials and tribulations of being filthy rich? Bad service at 5-star eateries, a coveted invite to a premiere that arrived a day too late, inept valets, management-office snitches, overly chatty tailors seeking autographs, LAX losing designer luggage full of Louis Vuitton outfits, A-list jewelers and their shoddy workmanship, the sheer indignity of being snubbed by Diddy or Robert De Niro at a Grammy party, and so on?

15. A defining flashback: sophomore year of high school, in sedan being driven around the McDonogh School’s parking lot by Tony Solomon after the author’s school played theirs in water polo. Tony – second or third generation Lebanese, I think – is showing off, because it’s an early fall evening and he is able to pilot the car using only his knees. Blasting from the stereo? Doggystyle.

16. Grumbling about the hoops and hassles associated with acquiring – or attempting to acquire, anyway – major-label rap promos for review, and some insights as to why doing so is considerably more arduous than securing indie-rock promos.

17. Author shouldn’t preach; nor should he cheerlead.

18. What does it mean that Vibe ran a Barack Obama cover story?

19. A detached yet concerned tone should be maintained throughout, if author wants to be taken seriously and not dismissed as a “hater,” “stan,” or “Uncle Tom.”

20. This essay will never be written.

Off-the-wall ideas unpalatable to V. Voice = kill fees + YOU (and only you) reading this nonsense first

Singles Going Steady: “Noise Dudes, Dudettes Love Kim Deal”

By Ray Cummings

Clockcleaner
"Divine Hammer"
From Clockcleaner/Deerhunter split 7-inch (Hoss)

Philly’s Clockcleaner so heart La Deal that their cover of “Divine Hammer” is twice as long as the Last Splash original. This trio’s gender-flipped take is more sexually charged. Singer John Sharkey could work as a voice double for Calvin Johnson; when he makes it known, all gravelly bass, that “I’m just looking, just looking for a way around/It disappears this year” amidst an avalanche of sputtering sonic M80s and rusted riffs, one is inclined to believe his frustrations are more obliquely carnal than innately religious (which may account for the relatively tantric length).

Health
"Perfect Skin"
From Health (Lovepump United)

In apparent homage to “Breaking the Split-Screen Barrier” – a starch-y vamp from Deal solo album Pacer, cut as The Amps in 1995 – L.A.’s Health scuzz up the works slightly as they ease into that discontinuous, forest of staunch, two-note guitar blasts. Following some quickie high-wire ax orgasming, the trees thin out somewhat and “Skin” ends more or less the way it began – in sharp contrast with “Barrier,” which coalesced into a real rock song at midpoint then ultimately “culminated” with a disconcertingly sustained, tape-skipping voice sample and came equipped with lyrical content one could actually, like, discern, use as senior-page yearbook quotes, etc.

The Magik Markers
"Circle"
From BOSS (Ecstatic Peace!)

Kim: What the fuck, Kurt? You want me to rap this cryptic poem – emotionlessly – over... that?

Kurt: Yeah! It’s, you know, it’s gonna be the obligatory hidden noise track. Krist, Dave, and I were smoking raw opium at the Laundry Room back in ’95, there was a tropical storm raging outside, and I guess some evil spirits took control of our bodies or something, because when we came to we were wearing cochineal facepaint and had this sinister session tape nobody can remember making, even to this day.

Kim: It’s totally swirling-vortex-of-ghouls creepy, The Ring creepy, drunk-on-absinthe creepy. I played it for Kelley when she was coming down yesterday, she freaked out! I dunno – might be too heavy to close an acoustic Nirvana reunion disc, man.

Kurt: Yeah, but –

Kim: “You chew and jaw and then you’re dead”? “Open your arms as you leave the shore”? The bloggersphere will be all “Cobain’s fixin’ to attempt suicide again” –

Kurt: See –

Kim: Irony can’t neutralize or re-contextualize everything, Kurt.

Kurt: Kim, Kim – Lil Wayne’s gonna rap about his conflict diamond-encrusted shotgun over the final mix for a Carter III bonus cut! So it’s cool.

Kim: Oh, word?

Because the previous (now deleted) “fake-not-funny-story-as-link-fest” post was an experiment and (in retrospect) a massive, transparent mistake

Standing on the corner with a pocket full ‘o’ 5ingles, Black Mountain/Cave Singers, Jodi Cave, Caribou, Devin the Dude, Robert Frank, PJ Harvey, Magik Markers (review and feature), James McGregor, Mouthus, Old Time Relijun, Robert Pollard, Radiohead, Saira Rao, Audacia Ray, The Red Chord, Sissy Spacek, a Yellow Swans/Fiery Furnaces/Sightings trifecta, and a second Kanye West takedown.

Also: another stupid critical “debate” that will wind up nowhere fast takes flight. Ah, tired "rockism/rockist/rocktastic" debacle - we hardly knew ye.

Why not download an album by a famous and usually awesome band, legally, for free, if you so wish?