Wednesday, September 15, 2004
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glisten: Drunkard #8
15. Prince Buster - "Drunkard Psalm"
Jowey - "Thou shalt not drinketh the rum." I must've missed that one in the bible, but it's never been a problem for me. Rum isn't really my stuff. I'm more of a beer or nothing at all kind of guy.
Mark - So now I'm feeling a little slow, and sitting down for a second. Yeah. I think Prince Buster was reading my last comment. He knows what's about to happen. Also, that repetive guitar is giving me the spins. Ah, but I love the record crackles. That's the comforting type of thing I want to hear when the room won't sit still.
Illovich - I can dig this. Stoned wisdom coming from a drunk MC, ska style. It's easy to get lost in the shaky off tempo strum and the spear of the horn line. Music to sway to, sway to.
Brooks - This is a spoken word piece - a Psalm in the biblical sense - over a reggae beat with some trombone. I was into Prince Buster and other early ska at the end of my High School career - but I've never heard this song. It's a modified version of various Bible bits - including the 23rd Psalm.
If a man named Cecil can skank it up this filthy, there's hope for us all.
This track is on Prince Buster's '97 re-release "The Prophet", which I can't seem to find for sale anywhere. Any suggestions folks?
In any case, you could do worse than to go buy Fabulous, the first volume of Bustamente's greatest hits.
Really, "Al Capone" and "Orange Street" are songs that MUST be experienced afore you shuffle off this mortal coil.
Rude boy, if ya no have dis; ya no rude.
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Compare to the biblical Psalm 23 and then pick your poison.
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Listen to realaudio of another of Buster's indisputable bible classics, "Ten Commandments."
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Read this brief Buster bio.
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16. Kid Koala - "Drunk Trumpet"
Jowey - Interesting turntable work. I have trouble deciding what is scratching and not studio trickery. But apparently the Koala has skills. Wish it'd been fleshed out more, as I found this to be one of the more interesting tracks on the CD.
Mark - Here's me walking home. Can you see it? It's late. I mean, early. Sun's rising, only thing on the street is cabs and birds and me. It was real loud in the club, but now it's really quiet, except for when I walk past the occasional party that's still crackin'. It's a nice feeling, even though there's worms in my tummy. Crawl worms. Crawl.
Illovich - Now we're talking. Drunken-master style turntablism addressing and seemingly experiencing a drunken state. The lazy whirrs and stutters are moving, the samples a bit haphazard and yet right on. Kid Koala is described by his cd-pusher as basement/slacker. It seems oddly cruel, but I don't know why because it fits so well. If you check out said cd pushers website, they have some more mp3s that are worth a listen.
Brooks - This a pretty inventive track. Kid Koala essentially plays the trumpet player via some pretty amazing turntable skills. This isn't a song that's going to get a lot of repeat listens, but it's still cool.
To induce spins: press play.
Buy "Carpal Tunnel Syndrome" direct from NinjaTune.
It's a fun disc, not quite as nice as Scratchcratchratchatch but close.
I'm still not tired of novelty tracks like "Nerdball" or "Like Irregular Chickens".
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Visit either of K.Koala's official sites.
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DL another "Carpal Tunnel" track from Epitonic.
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Watch Koala video interviews via the Beeb.
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Read this '02 interview with everybody's favorite marsupial DJ.
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Meeting the Neighbors
For those of you new to the page, Meeting the Neighbors is the intermittently run interview section of the page. For the moment, we're checking in with several prominent faces in the musicblogging community. These sorta sloppy email interviews will likely see reprinting at Better Propaganda in a week or so (sending the files to you shortly, Dana!); you kids get an early lick of the spoon.
Teaching the Indie Kids to Dance Again makes almost EVERYBODY'S shortlist, mine included. Keith's Rockist tendencies are somewhat removed from mine but the zeal and excitement that peppers every post makes me WANT to try to step beyond my self-imposed interests. That's good musicbloggin'.
Recent diverse offerings include music from The Thrills, Brian Wilson, El-P and Kasabian.
Drop some science on 'em Keith!
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Hey folks, my name is Keith, I'm a 20 year old college student/part time political hack, presently unemployed and desperate to change that fact. I live on the very edge of New York City, and attend one of it's (not so) fine public universities. I grew up on ska, grew from that into a punk rock kid through high school, became something of an indie snob when I started college, and began to start ignoring genres and deciding to like what I like around the time I got thrown out of my old school upstate. My first post on the site went up in mid-February, '04.
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Where did the name of your blog originate from?
Back when I was going to a fancy expensive private little Liberal Arts school, it had a radio station. I was a DJ, and later, member of the board of the station, doing Niche shows, and then taking over the stations weekly countdown stuff. I got thrown out halfway through my sophomore year for having lousy grades. Teaching The Indie Kids to Dance Again would have been the name of my radio show second semester Sophomore year, which seems like forever ago, if I hadn't been thrown out.
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What are the criteria you judge a song by to decide if it's post-worthy?
There are a few. The most obvious one is Do I like this? Does it excite me, right now?
Item 2 is, Do I like this enough, and is it interesting enough, that i can write more than a sentence or two about it?
Item 3 is the ever important, Has this been posted before/is this artist overexposed/is this the sort of thing I'm going to get my ass sued for?
And of course, Item 4 is whether I have something that I can post with it that makes sense, whether I think it's something that fits the tone and the niche that TTIKTDA has managed to set out.
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What song would you like played at your funeral?
I tend not to think of stuff like this. Maybe it's an aversion to the fact that my mothers standard icebreaker question is "If you were on Death Row, what would your last meal be?" If you forced me to pick one now... Probably Tom Waits' "Time".
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What do you do for kicks when you're not posting?
Me, not posting? I try to go to a lot of concerts, but poverty isn't good for that. Mostly, I do a lot of political work and volunteering. I'm very active with NYPIRG on campus and around the state (I was working for them when I started my blog), doing voter registration and isssue work. I also do a ton of more partisan things at other times.
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Do you have a favorite music critic?
Can I say Neal Pollack? Yes, he's a fictional character in a book by Neal Pollack... but fucker introduced Lou Reed to Heroin, Dylan to Baez, Mike Watt to D. Boon, and Kurt Cobain to the guitar... Otherwise, I'll toss Greil Marcus at ya.
Yeah, I've got a thing for pretentious intellectual wankery sometimes.
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Five desert island discs?
1. The Clash - London Calling
2. The Flaming Lips - The Soft Bulletin
3. Talking Heads - The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads
4. Fugazi - The Argument
5. Refused - The Shape of Punk to Come.
Thats a decent balance of enough variety to survive on I should hope.
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Do you consider yourself a "music journalist"?
Nope. Critic perhaps, but not Journalist. I don't report news. Occasionally I'll operate in sync with the news, but I'm not a reporter, and I'm not doing interviews or anything like that. I'll occasionally prognosticate, but who doesn't. Personally, I'd much rather be working on the label side than on the magazine side of the whole music industry equation.
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Which critical darling do you find most overrated? Who's the most overlooked genius in the music industry?
There's the darling of the non-mp3 blog circuit, The Killers, who aren't neccesarily terrible, just ludicrously overhyped. Also, I just don't get all this critical love for the Cure's latest offering. It's terrible.
As for overlooked genius? Tom Kalnoky, formerly of Catch 22, now of the Bandits of the Acoustic Revolution and the Streetlight Manifesto
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That old chestnut dinner party is at your house and you can invite three musicians living or dead. Who are you inviting?
Ian Mackeye, Joe Strummer, and Chuck D.
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Is there any genre of music that you dismiss out of hand?
Jam bands. There's some good music there, but the scene just infuriates me, and I'm not one for 10 minutes of aimless noodling in return for that one killer riff. To me, the studio is for musicianship. A live show is about energy, and motion, and working a crowd. Leave the 10 minute solos at home.
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Are you much of a dancer?
I can Skank it with the best of 'em, but really no, I sadly am a lousy dancer. It doesn't stop me from attempting it however.
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What was the last track you heard that really changed your life?
Life changing huh? Well... Spoon's "The Way We Get By" got me through a really tough episode a while back, something about the bounce, the optimism, of that song is just so very life affirming. I had heard the song before it hit me the right way, and not thought much of it. But then, that day that it hit me... it hit HARD. The Flaming Lips "Race for the Prize" was pretty important around the same time.
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Recommend three other musicblogs.
1. Uncritical posts consistently amazing gems from out of nowhere. Chris is militantly underground about his blog, (contrary to the self promoting instincts of many of us), and sticks to some of the most obscure tracks out there. But with his knowledge of music, and obvious supply of back catalog, that's no limitation. Whether he's going for Rock, Pop, or the stuff he got pigeonholed early on, Dance music, just about anything at Uncritical is essential listening.
2. Coolfer is my source for just about anything regarding the "Industry". His weekly chart analysis, carefully selected links, and keen understanding of what the labels are and aren't doing right, RE: Digital music, and MP3 blogs especially is constantly worth a read. He doesn't post MP3's, but thats about all he doesn't have going for him.
3. Moebius Rex has been on a tear these past few weeks, posting consistently amazing stuff. Puts my poor blog to shame.
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Drop on by Better Propaganda and pick out a track to hype.
Gravenhurst - The Diver
I may have blogged gravenhurst at some point, but I don't think so. I've come very close on a number of occasions however. Nick Talbot creates dark, gorgeous slices of poetry with an acoustic guitar and a falsetto to die for. The album, titled Flashlight Sessions has that sort of light in the darkness feel to it, and this song in particular is full of that. When he croons "And I, am never frightened, no I am never afraid." the hope in his voice, the power of it, is all we have to fight off the opressive darkness of those low, sparse chords. But it's a powerful light to shine.
Tomorrow, tune your radio to K.R.U.D for a little one on two interview action.
Plenty more to come!
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spiffy
After years of being told how cool it was, I finally decided to give SoulSeek a whirl and guess what? I can't get the damn thing to work. Somebody want to help "Forkster" out? I'm such a net-nudnik.
So instead of finding anything of interest I ended up talking crap and being mocked by people online while I lusted after choice outofprint Giorgio Moroder and obscure Lil' Flip mix tapes. So sad. But what I found that surprised me mightily was that a random Torontonian college student knew from the Tofu Hut, going so far as to christen me a "minor celebrity" upon discovering my secret identity. We're international like French Toast, ya'll.
So here's a shoutout (as promised) to the Kanadian Krew: In Soviet Union, Tofu 0WNZ0RZ j0o!!!1!!one!
So where YOU from? Reprazent!
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The future of musicblogging could be subscription only.
I'm intrigued.
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Future interview subject Christopher Porter points the way to this interesting and well thought out dead prez article article at The New Republic, of all places.
Comments, hip hop heads?
