And they win!
Here's the video for Omnikrom's "Prends une photo avec moi."
Showing posts with label hipsters. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hipsters. Show all posts
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Monday, December 29, 2008
Maybe I am a hipster, just a poorly dressed, uncool one: Cool Kids v. Omnikrom and TTC
What's up, all?
I hope everyone had a nice Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa etc.
So, a few months ago, back when the weather was nice, I was at an event DJed by my good friends Matt Blair and Nemo Burbank.
Nemo started talking about the hipster rap phenomenon, and said something to the effect that, while he hated the whole thing, he couldn't help but like The Cool Kids 'cause they were just so damn catchy. I attempted to mount a defense of Spank Rock, to which Nemo responded with a concise "Spank Rock can go get AIDS." (Or something like that. I definitely know he wanted them to get some sort of horrible, fatal disease. The specifics may be hazy due to time and alcohol.)
Let's back up, here. What is hipster rap? That's a really good question. As far as I can tell, it's hip-hop made by hipsters -- either the garden vareity white ones like Ghislain Poirier and half of Spank Rock or blipsters ("black hipsters") like The Cool Kids and the other half of Spank Rock -- for hipsters. They lyrics are pointedly ungangsta. It usually, although not always, incorporates a lot of late '80s/early '90s throwbacks as far as aethetics, and the beats are often pretty heavy on techno influences.
Again, the key component here seems to be the hipstertude of the performers. More "street credible" acts that have accidentally attracted a large hipster audience -- a la The Clipse and Lil' Wayne -- are not considered hipster rap, even if they have electro beats and rope gold.'
I maintain that I'm not a hipster based on the fact that I'm slightly overweight, poorly dressed, broke and about six-to-eight months behind on every trend. On the other hand, I like Labatt 50, have a blog, and fervently deny my hipsterdom.
Whatever, enough about me.
The Main Event
In the red corner, from Chicago, Illinois and Detroit, Michigan, a group that's nostalgic for the '80s, even though they were both born after 1985, THE COOL KIDS!
The Cool Kids (known individually as Mikey Rocks and Chuck Inglish) may be the poster children for Internet-era music. They met via MySpace, and spent most of two years using that same website to get their music to the public, creating a huge media buzz. They then released a hit EP that was available on iTunes weeks before you could buy a physical copy, and made a load of money licensing songs to ads and video games. Oh, and most of their songs are shorter than three minutes.
They're also pretty divisive. I'm not speaking as a journalist here, I haven't done any studies, but anecdotally speaking, you either really like this group or you don't.
People in the pro-Cool Kids camp say they make likable, danceable old school-flavoured party records that appeal to people who are turned off by both thuggin' crack rap and heavy-handed, message-driven conscious music.
The anti-Cool Kids crowd say they're the Seinfeld of hip-hop, and not in a good way. They're about nothing. At their core, they're two guys waxing nostalgic for a mythical version of the year of their birth. They represent everything that's wrong with modern hipster culture, they're a meaningless collage of pop-culture signposts.
Personally, I like them. Here's the video for "Black Mags."
The Competition
In the blue corner, from Montreal, Quebec and Paris, France, the Francophone hipster rap power team of OMNIKROM AND TTC!
I openly don't know nearly as much about either of these artists as I do about The Cool Kids, and my iffy French makes research a bit of an uphill struggle.
Here's what I know. They have three members (MCs Jeanbart and Linso Gabbo and producer Figure8).
They roll with Montreal-based DJ-and-superproducer Ghislain Poirier.
They have a lot of songs that are either about food or use food as a metaphor -- again, my French is sketchy, I understand the words but can't read them for secondary meaning and I don't get idioms -- and finally, a writer for La Presse dubbed them horrible misogynists when they played the '06 Francofolies de Montreal, and the ensuing controversy got them on Radio-Canada and helped make them minor celebrities among the French-speaking third of the population.
TTC are from France and were making what's now called hipster rap way before the term hipster was resurrected in about 2002. They consist of Tido Berman, Teki Latex, Cuizinier and DJ Orgasmic.
They're also signed to Big Dada, which has got to be one of my favourite record labels of all time.
Most importantly, their first full length album was call Ceci n'est pas une disque. Put that in your non-existant pipe and smoke it.
Here's the video for "Danse la Poutine."
Now, this could just be my sketchy French again, but why are they looking for the poutine place on Rachel St. if they're hanging out with a giant carton of poutine? Couldn't they just eat him?
Comment to vote, votes due by Friday at midnight.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
That Was DJ Madness! Also, The Faint Wins
For those of you who made it out last night, I'd like to say thank you.
My partner Jon Blair and I were absolute fire and I think all of you can verify that. For the rest of you, you suck, but you can make it up to me by coming out next time.
In other news, The Faint beat Cassidy 4 -1.
Here's the video for "I Disappear" of 2004's Wet from Birth.
My partner Jon Blair and I were absolute fire and I think all of you can verify that. For the rest of you, you suck, but you can make it up to me by coming out next time.
In other news, The Faint beat Cassidy 4 -1.
Here's the video for "I Disappear" of 2004's Wet from Birth.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Hey Everybody! Come See Me DJ Next Weekend! Cassidy vs. The Faint
OK, this is where I use this blog to mercilessly promote my other shit.
Be warned, these two acts have very little in common with one another other than they both tend to work their way into my set.
In the blue corner, from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with one manslaughter conviction and one near-death experience with a box van, CASSIDY!
Some rappers have real names that are so awesome, they have to work them into their stage name. Marshall Mathers III took his intials and became Eminem. Talib Kweli Greene just pulled a Madonna and dropped his surname. Obie Trice's name was so awesome he skipped picking a rap name altogether.
Cassidy, on the other hand, was born Barry Adrian Reese, which may be the weakest name ever. Barry Reese is not the name of a street-hardened soldier. It's the name of a mid-level insurance salesman. The most Barry Reese can hope for is to be a big wheel down at the cracker factory.
On the other hand, Cassidy makes me think of a washed-up '70s pop star, so it's not that much of an improvement.
Cassidy starting rapping at age 13. He first got noticed as a battle rapper, winning contests on local radio and eventually beating Roc-A-Fella artist and fellow Philadelphian Freeway in a head-to-head battle.
In 2003 he released his first full-length album Split Personality. The idea was to showcase the "two sides" of Cassidy. Half the songs showed off his battle rapping skills, while the other half were poppier and more accessible to 14-year-old girls. The album was a commercial success but put a major dent in Cassidy's street cred. The mega-hit "Hotel," with a hook featuring R. Kelly, was the perfect summer pop song, but so soft it totally prevented people from taking Cassidy's battle styles seriously.
In '05 he released I'm a Hustla. The album featured minimal pop shit and had a title track/first single that came very close to being part of the burgeoning "crack rap" subgenre. Sadly, the album was a commercial flop thanks to Cassidy being "unavailable" to help promote it.
On June 8, 2005, three weeks before the release of I'm a Hustla, Philadelphia police put out an arrest warrant for Cassidy in connection with a murder in April of that year. He spent the rest of 2005 in jail awaiting trial. As a result, touring and promotional appearances were off the menu for Cassidy, causing the label to leave I'm a Hustla to rot. (Cassidy was later found guilty of involuntary manslaughter and released after serving eight months of an 11 month sentence.)
Cassidy's third album, BARS: The Barry Adrian Reese Story, came out in October 2007 and produced the slightly annoying club hit "My Drank and My 2 Step."
This is the video for "I'm a Hustla." Although the album fell flat, the single was the first song to go platinum as a cell phone ringtone, so that has to count for something. Also, if you look carefully you can see those fucking goons from Growing Up Gotti pretending to be hard in a couple frames.
This is a song that I usually play fairly early in my set, when I'm trying to weed out the weak by playing offensive shit that I happen to like.
Monday, June 2, 2008
Reigning Death From Above, DFA's Legacy Lives On
Once again, the votes came down in a decisive manner, with those good Canadian boys DFA totally, totally crushing the pretentious Texan junkies At the Drive-In. This is the video for "Blood on Our Hands." It filmed in a Toronto performance space/booze can. This is probably the most balls-to-the-wall song on an album of balls-to-the-wall songs.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Bands That Were Destroyed by Mainstream Popularity: Death From Above 1979 vs. At the Drive-In
Before we even get started here, I want to make it perfectly clear that this is not an obnoxious "fuck commercial radio" type of post. I have listened to commercial radio in the past, will probably do so in the future, and if I was in a band, I would want Flow or Jack or 102.1 to play my song with every fibre of my being.
That said, sometimes mainstream success is a little too much for some bands. They may not have the personalities to stay level headed when getting money thrown at them, or they may just get to the top and realize they liked it better at the bottom.
Death from Above 1979 and At the Drive-In were two of my favourite bands in university. When they started to get mainstream airplay, I made a conscious effort not to do the indie snob thing and abandon them because other people were listening to them. In retrospect, I probably should have, because both bands imploded within a year of getting popular.
The Main Event
In the red corner, from Toronto, with post break-up projects consisting of MSTRKRFT and Sebastien Grainger and Les Montagnes, DEATH FROM ABOVE 1979!
Jesse F. Keeler and Sebastien Grainger formed Death from Above in 2001. In 2003, they were sued by the DFA record label and were forced to change their name. They added the 1979 for Keeler and Granger's year of birth. In 2004, the release I'm a Woman, You're a Machine, their only full length album. After getting about six months of solid burn from Pitchfork et al. they started to solid play on MuchMusic and MTV. They spent 2005 touring almost non-stop. In August 2006, Keeler posted the following message on the band's website.
"I know its been forever since I wrote anything on here. I'm sure by now most of you assume the band isn't happening anymore since there are no shows, no work on a new album, etc. well. I wanted to let you know that your assumptions are correct. We decided to stop doing the band... Actually we decided that almost a year ago. We finished off our scheduled tour dates because there were good people working for us who relied on us to make a living and buy Christmas presents and pay rent etc. We couldn't just cancel everything and leave them out to dry... Plus I think we wanted to see if we would reconsider after being out on the road. Our label was really hoping that we would change our minds, so they asked us to keep quiet about the decision for at first. Well, it's been quite a while now and we are still very sure the band won't happen again, so I guess it's time to say something."
Shortly after the breakup, Status Ain't Hood's Tom Briehan, who I usually really enjoy, eulogized them as "a band based on being assholes."
I saw them live twice and met them once. They were two of the nicest, most down-to-Earth musicians I'd ever met. They were also one of the loudest, most active live acts I'd ever seen. That's including Rancid, Iron Maiden and Bad Brains. For two guys, they managed to produce an ungodly quantity of sound.
This is the video for "Pull Out." It's two minutes long, it makes me seasick and it's awesome.
The Opponent
In the blue corner, from El Paso, Texas, with post-break up projects consisting of Sparta and The Mars Volta, AT THE DRIIIIVE IN!
At the Drive-In were founded in 1993. They once lied and said they were a polka band to get on local TV. Much like Death from Above 1979, they built their reputation on an energetic live show and heavy touring.
After spending much of the 1990s toiling in the hardcore scene, the band achieved mainstream success in 2000 with the album Relationship of Command and the single "One Armed Scissor."
In 2001, the band started to fracture. Frontman Cedric Bixler-Zavala and guitarist Omar Rodriguez-Lopez wound up getting the bulk of the newfound fame due to their exciting haircuts. Bixler-Zavala and Rodriguez-Lopez wanted to move the band in a more prog-rock direction, while the other three guys, lead by guitarist and co-founder Jim Ward, wanted to keep making Fugazi-esque post hardcore. Finally, Bixler-Zavala and Rodriguez-Lopez had developed massive crack and heroin habits, causing them to fuck up constantly, both on and off stage.
At the 2001 Big Day Out festival, Cedric shouted at the crowd and walked off stage 15 minutes into the band's set. The next month, the band went on "indefinite hiatus." Bixler-Zavala and Rodriguez-Lopez started The Mars Volta and made the sort of obnoxious wank rock they'd always dreamed of making, while Ward, bassist Paul Hinojos and drummer Tony Hajjar started Sparta.
This is the video for "One Armed Scissor." It's just a bunch of live clips, but God damn it's exciting.
OK, post to comment, votes close Friday at Midnight.
That said, sometimes mainstream success is a little too much for some bands. They may not have the personalities to stay level headed when getting money thrown at them, or they may just get to the top and realize they liked it better at the bottom.
Death from Above 1979 and At the Drive-In were two of my favourite bands in university. When they started to get mainstream airplay, I made a conscious effort not to do the indie snob thing and abandon them because other people were listening to them. In retrospect, I probably should have, because both bands imploded within a year of getting popular.
The Main Event
In the red corner, from Toronto, with post break-up projects consisting of MSTRKRFT and Sebastien Grainger and Les Montagnes, DEATH FROM ABOVE 1979!
Jesse F. Keeler and Sebastien Grainger formed Death from Above in 2001. In 2003, they were sued by the DFA record label and were forced to change their name. They added the 1979 for Keeler and Granger's year of birth. In 2004, the release I'm a Woman, You're a Machine, their only full length album. After getting about six months of solid burn from Pitchfork et al. they started to solid play on MuchMusic and MTV. They spent 2005 touring almost non-stop. In August 2006, Keeler posted the following message on the band's website.
"I know its been forever since I wrote anything on here. I'm sure by now most of you assume the band isn't happening anymore since there are no shows, no work on a new album, etc. well. I wanted to let you know that your assumptions are correct. We decided to stop doing the band... Actually we decided that almost a year ago. We finished off our scheduled tour dates because there were good people working for us who relied on us to make a living and buy Christmas presents and pay rent etc. We couldn't just cancel everything and leave them out to dry... Plus I think we wanted to see if we would reconsider after being out on the road. Our label was really hoping that we would change our minds, so they asked us to keep quiet about the decision for at first. Well, it's been quite a while now and we are still very sure the band won't happen again, so I guess it's time to say something."
Shortly after the breakup, Status Ain't Hood's Tom Briehan, who I usually really enjoy, eulogized them as "a band based on being assholes."
I saw them live twice and met them once. They were two of the nicest, most down-to-Earth musicians I'd ever met. They were also one of the loudest, most active live acts I'd ever seen. That's including Rancid, Iron Maiden and Bad Brains. For two guys, they managed to produce an ungodly quantity of sound.
This is the video for "Pull Out." It's two minutes long, it makes me seasick and it's awesome.
The Opponent
In the blue corner, from El Paso, Texas, with post-break up projects consisting of Sparta and The Mars Volta, AT THE DRIIIIVE IN!
At the Drive-In were founded in 1993. They once lied and said they were a polka band to get on local TV. Much like Death from Above 1979, they built their reputation on an energetic live show and heavy touring.
After spending much of the 1990s toiling in the hardcore scene, the band achieved mainstream success in 2000 with the album Relationship of Command and the single "One Armed Scissor."
In 2001, the band started to fracture. Frontman Cedric Bixler-Zavala and guitarist Omar Rodriguez-Lopez wound up getting the bulk of the newfound fame due to their exciting haircuts. Bixler-Zavala and Rodriguez-Lopez wanted to move the band in a more prog-rock direction, while the other three guys, lead by guitarist and co-founder Jim Ward, wanted to keep making Fugazi-esque post hardcore. Finally, Bixler-Zavala and Rodriguez-Lopez had developed massive crack and heroin habits, causing them to fuck up constantly, both on and off stage.
At the 2001 Big Day Out festival, Cedric shouted at the crowd and walked off stage 15 minutes into the band's set. The next month, the band went on "indefinite hiatus." Bixler-Zavala and Rodriguez-Lopez started The Mars Volta and made the sort of obnoxious wank rock they'd always dreamed of making, while Ward, bassist Paul Hinojos and drummer Tony Hajjar started Sparta.
This is the video for "One Armed Scissor." It's just a bunch of live clips, but God damn it's exciting.
OK, post to comment, votes close Friday at Midnight.
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Ladytron are the Last Ones Standing
After several weeks of blowouts, we finally had a close contest. Ladytron edged out Felix 3 - 2 in one of our most competitive battles yet.
This is the video for "Destroy Everything You Touch," off the Witching Hour album. This video manages to make an innocent hobby like mountain climbing seem super creepy. In it, the members of Ladytron are both the mountaineers and the mountains. That's right folks, they're climbing mountains made out of their own faces. It makes the "Seventeen" video seem like a playful puppy in comparison.
This is the video for "Destroy Everything You Touch," off the Witching Hour album. This video manages to make an innocent hobby like mountain climbing seem super creepy. In it, the members of Ladytron are both the mountaineers and the mountains. That's right folks, they're climbing mountains made out of their own faces. It makes the "Seventeen" video seem like a playful puppy in comparison.
Sunday, May 4, 2008
Battle of the Electroclash Survivors: Felix Da Housecat vs. Ladytron
Does anyone out there remember electroclash? Is anyone, other than me, willing to admit to liking it?
If you're suffering from Selective Memory Disorder, electroclash was a musical genre that combined retro-'80s synths, house basslines, porn sleaze and musical theatre silliness. It was a big deal for about eighteen months six or so years ago. I won't front, I fell for the sound whole-heartedly. At the time, several of my friends mocked me for getting sucked in by what was clearly the millennial equivalent of novelty disco. They were right.
As with all strange musical fads, the acts with actual talent managed keep their careers going after their genre became a punchline. So while the all-style, no-substance Fischerspooner are currently unsigned and Tiga, best known for a high-irony Nelly cover, has been reduced to remixing The Killers, Ladytron and Felix Da Housecat are still producing.
The Main Event
In the red corner, from Chicago Illinois, with a tendency to get mistaken for King Britt, FELIX DA HOUSE-CAAAT!
Felix Da Housecat was never really part of the electroclash movement. He's not from New York or Montreal or Berlin, he wasn't a lame art hipster and he never really got into the silly performance art shit that Fischerspooner were all over.
While most electroclashers were making music that was nostalgic for the '80s, Felix actually made music in the '80s. He released his first single, "Phantasy Girl," in 1987. He was 15. Felix's parents were less than enthused with their son's fascination with club culture and his association with house pioneer DJ Pierre and basically forced him to give up music entirely. By 1992 he had dropped out of college, against their wishes, and returned to the Chicago club scene. He produced several club hits under multiple monikers (Aphrohead, Sharkimaxx, Thee Madkatt Courtship) and spent the back half of the '90s running Radikal Fear Records, one of house music's most productive labels.
In 2001 he released Kittenz and Thee Glitz, his most commercially successful album ever and the album that many critics blame for creating the whole electroclash sound. It's also one of my favourite albums ever. If anyone ever asked me that "five albums for a desert island" question, this would have to be included. (The other four albums would be Public Enemy's It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, The Descendants' Milo Goes to College, De La Soul's Stakes is High and Rancid's Let's Go.)
This is the video for "Madame Hollywood," off of Kittenz. It's a pretty strange video, which makes sense, because Felix seems like a pretty strange dude.
The Opposition
In the blue corner, from Liverpool, England, with a live show inspired by Power Point, LAY-DEE-TRON!
Ladytron was founded in 1999 by an English keyboardist, a Chinese-English industrial engineer, a Scottish ex-model and a Israeli-Bulgarian biochemist. They make fantastic albums and have one of the most underwhelming live shows I've ever seen.
In 2001 their single "Playgirl" got some solid burn in the music press, but they didn't really get noticed until they released "Seventeen" in 2002. In addition to being prominently featured in the movie Party Monster, "Seventeen" manages to deliver a scathing indictment of the modeling industry in less than 30 words. Their third album, Witching Hour, does not make my desert island all-time list, but is one of my favourite albums to come out in the last two or three years.
In defense of Ladytron's live show, I did see them directly after seeing CSS for the first time. After seeing Lovefoxx explode all over the stage, watching a bunch of nervous looking, androgynous pale people fiddle with laptops while an art movie was broadcast behind them just wasn't that impressive.
What Ladytron lacks in live dynamism, they make up for in video creepiness. Every time I watch a Ladytron video, I wind up feeling like I've been touched inappropriately. This is the video for "Seventeen." I like it because it both accurately illustrates the song's lyrics and gives you an idea of how much fun a live Ladytron set is. I dislike it because it makes me shiver a little.
As always, you should comment to vote and the polls close at midnight on Friday.
If you're suffering from Selective Memory Disorder, electroclash was a musical genre that combined retro-'80s synths, house basslines, porn sleaze and musical theatre silliness. It was a big deal for about eighteen months six or so years ago. I won't front, I fell for the sound whole-heartedly. At the time, several of my friends mocked me for getting sucked in by what was clearly the millennial equivalent of novelty disco. They were right.
As with all strange musical fads, the acts with actual talent managed keep their careers going after their genre became a punchline. So while the all-style, no-substance Fischerspooner are currently unsigned and Tiga, best known for a high-irony Nelly cover, has been reduced to remixing The Killers, Ladytron and Felix Da Housecat are still producing.
The Main Event
In the red corner, from Chicago Illinois, with a tendency to get mistaken for King Britt, FELIX DA HOUSE-CAAAT!
Felix Da Housecat was never really part of the electroclash movement. He's not from New York or Montreal or Berlin, he wasn't a lame art hipster and he never really got into the silly performance art shit that Fischerspooner were all over.
While most electroclashers were making music that was nostalgic for the '80s, Felix actually made music in the '80s. He released his first single, "Phantasy Girl," in 1987. He was 15. Felix's parents were less than enthused with their son's fascination with club culture and his association with house pioneer DJ Pierre and basically forced him to give up music entirely. By 1992 he had dropped out of college, against their wishes, and returned to the Chicago club scene. He produced several club hits under multiple monikers (Aphrohead, Sharkimaxx, Thee Madkatt Courtship) and spent the back half of the '90s running Radikal Fear Records, one of house music's most productive labels.
In 2001 he released Kittenz and Thee Glitz, his most commercially successful album ever and the album that many critics blame for creating the whole electroclash sound. It's also one of my favourite albums ever. If anyone ever asked me that "five albums for a desert island" question, this would have to be included. (The other four albums would be Public Enemy's It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, The Descendants' Milo Goes to College, De La Soul's Stakes is High and Rancid's Let's Go.)
This is the video for "Madame Hollywood," off of Kittenz. It's a pretty strange video, which makes sense, because Felix seems like a pretty strange dude.
The Opposition
In the blue corner, from Liverpool, England, with a live show inspired by Power Point, LAY-DEE-TRON!
Ladytron was founded in 1999 by an English keyboardist, a Chinese-English industrial engineer, a Scottish ex-model and a Israeli-Bulgarian biochemist. They make fantastic albums and have one of the most underwhelming live shows I've ever seen.
In 2001 their single "Playgirl" got some solid burn in the music press, but they didn't really get noticed until they released "Seventeen" in 2002. In addition to being prominently featured in the movie Party Monster, "Seventeen" manages to deliver a scathing indictment of the modeling industry in less than 30 words. Their third album, Witching Hour, does not make my desert island all-time list, but is one of my favourite albums to come out in the last two or three years.
In defense of Ladytron's live show, I did see them directly after seeing CSS for the first time. After seeing Lovefoxx explode all over the stage, watching a bunch of nervous looking, androgynous pale people fiddle with laptops while an art movie was broadcast behind them just wasn't that impressive.
What Ladytron lacks in live dynamism, they make up for in video creepiness. Every time I watch a Ladytron video, I wind up feeling like I've been touched inappropriately. This is the video for "Seventeen." I like it because it both accurately illustrates the song's lyrics and gives you an idea of how much fun a live Ladytron set is. I dislike it because it makes me shiver a little.
As always, you should comment to vote and the polls close at midnight on Friday.
Saturday, May 3, 2008
Wow, That Wasn't Even Close: Princess Superstar beats Kool Keith
I don't even know what to say here.
Even with people admitting that Kool Keith is a better rapper than Princess Superstar, and giving Keith props for having a cool sci-fi video, it was abundantly clear that the people like slutty Italo-Jewish babysitters more than they like schizophrenic African-American Elvis impersonators. Fair enough.
Here's the video for "Perfect" off 2005's My Machine. It's not quite on the same level as "Bad Babysitter," but hey, what is. Also, the male models in this video make me laugh.
Also, just so you know how dope they are in tandem, here's the "Keith and Me" joint where Keith and Princess combine forces.
Even with people admitting that Kool Keith is a better rapper than Princess Superstar, and giving Keith props for having a cool sci-fi video, it was abundantly clear that the people like slutty Italo-Jewish babysitters more than they like schizophrenic African-American Elvis impersonators. Fair enough.
Here's the video for "Perfect" off 2005's My Machine. It's not quite on the same level as "Bad Babysitter," but hey, what is. Also, the male models in this video make me laugh.
Also, just so you know how dope they are in tandem, here's the "Keith and Me" joint where Keith and Princess combine forces.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
It is Both Sad and Entertaining When Friends Fight: Princess Superstar vs. Kool Keith
This post is brought to you by Big Love, the TTC strike and the Toronto Raptors, who broke my heart.
The title of this post may be a little inaccurate. I don't know if Kool Keith and Princess Superstar are actually friends. I don't know if Keith has ever helped Princess move, or if Princess has ever tried to set Keith up with a lady. I have no idea if they read each others blogs.
What I do know is that they're about as similar as a small white girl from suburban Philly and a tall black guy from the South Bronx can be. They're both degenerate sex perverts, they both have a tendency to jam either too many or too few words in a verse, the both like to use weird non-sequiturs, and they both don't get along well with major labels. Most importantly, when Princess and Keith do a track together, they kick wicked ass.
The question is, who would win if they went head to head?
The Main Event
In the blue corner, from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the woman who said "I won't beat around the bush, so you can eat around mine," PRINCE-ess SUUU-PERRR-STARR.
Princess Superstar was born to a Russian-Jewish father and a Sicilian mother, who named her Concetta Kirshner to honour both halves of her heritage. I firmly believe that this may be the best real name of any rapper in history, with the possible exception of Obie Trice, who realized his name was so awesome that taking a stage name would be pointless. Both Concetta's parent's were psychologists, which might explain why she's so filthy.
Concetta started rapping and playing guitar as Princess Superstar in the early-'90s while attending NYU. In 1994, she put out a cassette EP called Mitch Better Get My Bunny. She sent copies of Mitch to the Beastie Boys and the folks at College Music Journal. In 1995 she released her first full-length album, Strictly Platinum. Strictly Platinum also produced Princess Superstar's first college radio hit, "I'm White."
After releasing almost an album throughout the back half of the '90s, Princess' production has trailed off considerably in recent years. Her last studio album, My Machine, came out in 2005, and the last one before that, Is, came out in 2001. That's not to say she's been slacking. She still performs live and has been doing a lot of work as a DJ, making mixed albums, playing gigs, and working as part of a duo called DJs Are Not Rockstars.
This is the video for "Bad Babysitter" off of Is. I like it for a number of reasons. One, I dig young girls, or 30-year-old women pretending to be young girls. Two, I like Mr. Eon, who guests on the song. He has the worst case of white rapper disease (great lyrics, no flow) ever, but he makes me laugh. Three, the whole thing feels like a weird In Living Colour sketch.
The Opposition
In the red corner, from The Bronx, New York, the man with more than two dozen alter-egos, KOOOOL KEITH!
Kool Keith first started rapping in the mid-'80s as a member of the Ultramagnetic MCs. As a group, Ultramagnetic was known for weird lyrical imagery and polysyllabic rhymes, but Keith took that to a whole new level with his boasts of having spent time in New York's Bellevue mental hospital. He allegedly was the first MC to come up with multiple aliases, although that sort of thing is hard to prove. He also provided the key sample for The Prodigy's "Smack My Bitch Up." When Ultramagnetic broke up in 1994, Kool Keith headed out to California and signed a deal with Capitol records. Sadly, Keith never released anything on Capitol. In 1996, he re-appeared with a new alter-ego, Dr. Octagon, and released what may be his best-known album, Dr. Octagonacologyst.
If any of you are curious as to how many alter-egos Kool Keith has, here's a complete list, along with the origins of each name, from KoolKeith.co.uk.
KEITH THORNTON – His real name.
KOOL KEITH – His rapper name.
KEITH TURBO – He used this alias for the "Keith Turbo" track from the Black Elvis/Lost In Space LP.
KEITH TELEVASQUEZ – He used this alias on Clifton with Motion Man on the Black Elvis/Lost In Space LP.
KEITH KORG – His Analog Brothers alias.
MATTHEW – Keith’s middle name and alias for a full LP.
DR. SPERM – Known to be his first alias as a rapper.
DR. OCTAGON – C’mon, you know this one.
DR. ULTRA – He was Dr. Ultra in the “Five Deadly Venoms” Sprite commercials.
DR. DOOOM – He created this character with sick rhymes and a goal of killing Dr. Octagon.
BLACK ELVIS – Dr. Dooom’s twin. Created for the Columbia Records album.
POPPA LARGE – He’s Poppa Large, big shot on the East Coast.
MR. GREEN – He used this alias on the back cover of Ultra’s Big Time LP.
MR. GERBIK – The dangerous 208 year old uncle of Dr. Octagon. Half Shark Alligator Half Man.
MR. ORANGE – This was one of his characters in the "Livin’ Astro" video.
MC BALDYLOCKS – Unknown right now.
THE FOURTH HORSEMAN – He considered himself The Fourth Horseman on the Ultramagnetic MC’s Four Horsemen LP.
BLONDE MAN – He referred to himself as Blonde Man in the liner notes of the Black Elvis/Lost In Space LP.
CLEAN MAN – This was an alias he used back when HipHopSite.com ran KoolKeith.com.
SHARK MAN – Another name for Mr. Gerbik.
ELEPHANT MAN – From 1996 to 1998 he always said he planned on releasing an album under the alias Elephant Man.
ALIEN MAN – This was an alias he used back when HipHopSite.com ran KoolKeith.com.
JIMMY STEELE – He referred to himself as Jimmy Steele in the liner notes of the Black Elvis/Lost In Space LP.
WILLIE BIGGS – He used this alias in the track "Still The Best" from the Sex Style LP. He also used it on the back cover of Ultra’s Big Time LP.
BIG WILLIE SMITH – He released a limited EP with the Beat Terrorists under this alias.
WILLIE NATURAL – This was an alias he used back when HipHopSite.com ran KoolKeith.com.
REVEREND TOM – He first used this alias on the track "Fat Lady" from Ultra’s Big Time LP and later used it on Thee Undatakerz LP.
MIKE STANLEY – He uses this alias in DJ Sooky's Riddim Warfare LP.
LARRY LOPEZ – He used this name with Heather Hunter for “Toot Toot Hey Beep Beep”.
THE X – He used this name on the inside cover of the Ultramagnetic MC’s Four Horsemen LP.
RHYTHM X – He first used this alias in the track "Funk Radio" from Ultramagnetic MC’s Funk Your Head Up LP.
X-CALIBER – He first used this alias in the track "Funk Radio" from Ultramagnetic MC’s Funk Your Head Up LP.
X-74 – He used this alias in the song "Kick a Dope Verse" by the Cenobites.
FLY RICKY THE WINE TASTER – This was an alias he used back when HipHopSite.com ran KoolKeith.com.
RICO FROM PUERTO RICO – This was an alias he used back when HipHopSite.com ran KoolKeith.com.
FUNK IGNITER PLUS – He first used this alias in the track "Funk Radio" from Ultramagnetic MC’s Funk Your Head Up LP, and he still uses this alias.
ROBBIE ANALOG – He used this alias to make fun of the RZA on the inside cover of Dr. Dooom’s LP.
SINISTER 6000 – He used this alias on Automator’s A Better Tomorrow.
CRAZY LOU – He Used this name as the guns and ammo salesman in "Weapon World" from Prince Paul’s A Prince Among Thieves.
LONNIE HENDREX – This was one of his characters in the "Livin’ Astro" video.
LIGHT BLUE COP – This was one of his characters in the "Livin’ Astro" video.
THE KID IN THE COMMERCIAL – This was one of his characters in the Livin’ Astro video.
JOE KINGPIN – He used this alias in the track "Still The Best" from the Sex Style LP.
BLACK LINEN – He used this alias in the track "Silk Suit, Black Linen" from the Masters of Illusion LP. Motion Man was Silk Suit.
ELVIN PRESLEY – He gave away cards at concerts. The cards had a picture of him with the name Elvin Presley.
DELI BOY – He was called Deli Boy in the comedy/porn “Sex For Life Too”.
SK8 JOHNSON – He used this alias in the Bootleg Skater videos.
PLATNINUM RICH – One the Diesel Truckers, along with The Funky Redneck.
EXOTRON GEIGER COUNTER ONE PLUS MEGOTRON – He used this alias on Marley Marl In Control in 1989. He also used a longer version. He also used this alias in Ultramagnetic MC’s track "Traveling At The Speed Of Thought."
ACTIVITY – This was his name when he was with the NYC Breakers
EXXON – He gave away cards at concerts. The cards had a picture of him with the name Exxon.
CAPTAIN KOOL – This was an alias he was supposed to use according to Liveonerecords.com.
CAPTAIN BLACK – This was an alias he was supposed to use according to Liveonerecords.com.
EXOTRON GEIGER COUNTER ONE GAMA PLUS SEQUENCER – He used this alias on Marley Marl In Control in 1989. He also used a shorter version.
ROBERT PERRY – He used this alias for the track Robert Perry from his Lost Masters LP.
JOHN CLAYBORNE COUSIN OF JIMMY HICKS – He used this alias on the Clayborne Family LP with Marc Live and Jacky Jasper.
MR. NOGATCO – Released an album under this name with Izreal.
TASHAN DORRSETT – Supposed to release an album under this name with DJ Junkaz Lou.
NAQUAN aka UNDERWEAR PISSY - Alias on the NEW Ultramagnetic MC's album, The Best Kept Secret.
In fact, he has so many alter egos, he's actually had rapper beef with himself. Dr. Dooom killed off Dr. Octagon at the start of First Come, First Served. Black Elvis then called out Dr. Dooom when his album was released.
If you haven't noticed by now, this is a blog that appreciates prolificness in an artist. I realize I should care more about quality than quantity, but sometimes I don't. I respect people who know how to produce, and nobody produces more than Kool Keith. In addition to releasing 17 albums and mixtapes between 1996 and now, he's also collaborated on projects like The Diesel Tuckers and The Analog Brothers, working as part of 12 different collaborative projects since 1993. He also keeps popping up as a guest on other people's songs.
This is the video for "Livin' Astro" off the Black Elvis album. Black Elvis was my least favourite Kool Keith album for a long time, but it's managed to grow on me. This video kicks fairly major ass, and more to the point, it sort of embodies everything Kool Keith is about.
Comment to vote, you know the deal.
The title of this post may be a little inaccurate. I don't know if Kool Keith and Princess Superstar are actually friends. I don't know if Keith has ever helped Princess move, or if Princess has ever tried to set Keith up with a lady. I have no idea if they read each others blogs.
What I do know is that they're about as similar as a small white girl from suburban Philly and a tall black guy from the South Bronx can be. They're both degenerate sex perverts, they both have a tendency to jam either too many or too few words in a verse, the both like to use weird non-sequiturs, and they both don't get along well with major labels. Most importantly, when Princess and Keith do a track together, they kick wicked ass.
The question is, who would win if they went head to head?
The Main Event
In the blue corner, from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the woman who said "I won't beat around the bush, so you can eat around mine," PRINCE-ess SUUU-PERRR-STARR.
Princess Superstar was born to a Russian-Jewish father and a Sicilian mother, who named her Concetta Kirshner to honour both halves of her heritage. I firmly believe that this may be the best real name of any rapper in history, with the possible exception of Obie Trice, who realized his name was so awesome that taking a stage name would be pointless. Both Concetta's parent's were psychologists, which might explain why she's so filthy.
Concetta started rapping and playing guitar as Princess Superstar in the early-'90s while attending NYU. In 1994, she put out a cassette EP called Mitch Better Get My Bunny. She sent copies of Mitch to the Beastie Boys and the folks at College Music Journal. In 1995 she released her first full-length album, Strictly Platinum. Strictly Platinum also produced Princess Superstar's first college radio hit, "I'm White."
After releasing almost an album throughout the back half of the '90s, Princess' production has trailed off considerably in recent years. Her last studio album, My Machine, came out in 2005, and the last one before that, Is, came out in 2001. That's not to say she's been slacking. She still performs live and has been doing a lot of work as a DJ, making mixed albums, playing gigs, and working as part of a duo called DJs Are Not Rockstars.
This is the video for "Bad Babysitter" off of Is. I like it for a number of reasons. One, I dig young girls, or 30-year-old women pretending to be young girls. Two, I like Mr. Eon, who guests on the song. He has the worst case of white rapper disease (great lyrics, no flow) ever, but he makes me laugh. Three, the whole thing feels like a weird In Living Colour sketch.
The Opposition
In the red corner, from The Bronx, New York, the man with more than two dozen alter-egos, KOOOOL KEITH!
Kool Keith first started rapping in the mid-'80s as a member of the Ultramagnetic MCs. As a group, Ultramagnetic was known for weird lyrical imagery and polysyllabic rhymes, but Keith took that to a whole new level with his boasts of having spent time in New York's Bellevue mental hospital. He allegedly was the first MC to come up with multiple aliases, although that sort of thing is hard to prove. He also provided the key sample for The Prodigy's "Smack My Bitch Up." When Ultramagnetic broke up in 1994, Kool Keith headed out to California and signed a deal with Capitol records. Sadly, Keith never released anything on Capitol. In 1996, he re-appeared with a new alter-ego, Dr. Octagon, and released what may be his best-known album, Dr. Octagonacologyst.
If any of you are curious as to how many alter-egos Kool Keith has, here's a complete list, along with the origins of each name, from KoolKeith.co.uk.
KEITH THORNTON – His real name.
KOOL KEITH – His rapper name.
KEITH TURBO – He used this alias for the "Keith Turbo" track from the Black Elvis/Lost In Space LP.
KEITH TELEVASQUEZ – He used this alias on Clifton with Motion Man on the Black Elvis/Lost In Space LP.
KEITH KORG – His Analog Brothers alias.
MATTHEW – Keith’s middle name and alias for a full LP.
DR. SPERM – Known to be his first alias as a rapper.
DR. OCTAGON – C’mon, you know this one.
DR. ULTRA – He was Dr. Ultra in the “Five Deadly Venoms” Sprite commercials.
DR. DOOOM – He created this character with sick rhymes and a goal of killing Dr. Octagon.
BLACK ELVIS – Dr. Dooom’s twin. Created for the Columbia Records album.
POPPA LARGE – He’s Poppa Large, big shot on the East Coast.
MR. GREEN – He used this alias on the back cover of Ultra’s Big Time LP.
MR. GERBIK – The dangerous 208 year old uncle of Dr. Octagon. Half Shark Alligator Half Man.
MR. ORANGE – This was one of his characters in the "Livin’ Astro" video.
MC BALDYLOCKS – Unknown right now.
THE FOURTH HORSEMAN – He considered himself The Fourth Horseman on the Ultramagnetic MC’s Four Horsemen LP.
BLONDE MAN – He referred to himself as Blonde Man in the liner notes of the Black Elvis/Lost In Space LP.
CLEAN MAN – This was an alias he used back when HipHopSite.com ran KoolKeith.com.
SHARK MAN – Another name for Mr. Gerbik.
ELEPHANT MAN – From 1996 to 1998 he always said he planned on releasing an album under the alias Elephant Man.
ALIEN MAN – This was an alias he used back when HipHopSite.com ran KoolKeith.com.
JIMMY STEELE – He referred to himself as Jimmy Steele in the liner notes of the Black Elvis/Lost In Space LP.
WILLIE BIGGS – He used this alias in the track "Still The Best" from the Sex Style LP. He also used it on the back cover of Ultra’s Big Time LP.
BIG WILLIE SMITH – He released a limited EP with the Beat Terrorists under this alias.
WILLIE NATURAL – This was an alias he used back when HipHopSite.com ran KoolKeith.com.
REVEREND TOM – He first used this alias on the track "Fat Lady" from Ultra’s Big Time LP and later used it on Thee Undatakerz LP.
MIKE STANLEY – He uses this alias in DJ Sooky's Riddim Warfare LP.
LARRY LOPEZ – He used this name with Heather Hunter for “Toot Toot Hey Beep Beep”.
THE X – He used this name on the inside cover of the Ultramagnetic MC’s Four Horsemen LP.
RHYTHM X – He first used this alias in the track "Funk Radio" from Ultramagnetic MC’s Funk Your Head Up LP.
X-CALIBER – He first used this alias in the track "Funk Radio" from Ultramagnetic MC’s Funk Your Head Up LP.
X-74 – He used this alias in the song "Kick a Dope Verse" by the Cenobites.
FLY RICKY THE WINE TASTER – This was an alias he used back when HipHopSite.com ran KoolKeith.com.
RICO FROM PUERTO RICO – This was an alias he used back when HipHopSite.com ran KoolKeith.com.
FUNK IGNITER PLUS – He first used this alias in the track "Funk Radio" from Ultramagnetic MC’s Funk Your Head Up LP, and he still uses this alias.
ROBBIE ANALOG – He used this alias to make fun of the RZA on the inside cover of Dr. Dooom’s LP.
SINISTER 6000 – He used this alias on Automator’s A Better Tomorrow.
CRAZY LOU – He Used this name as the guns and ammo salesman in "Weapon World" from Prince Paul’s A Prince Among Thieves.
LONNIE HENDREX – This was one of his characters in the "Livin’ Astro" video.
LIGHT BLUE COP – This was one of his characters in the "Livin’ Astro" video.
THE KID IN THE COMMERCIAL – This was one of his characters in the Livin’ Astro video.
JOE KINGPIN – He used this alias in the track "Still The Best" from the Sex Style LP.
BLACK LINEN – He used this alias in the track "Silk Suit, Black Linen" from the Masters of Illusion LP. Motion Man was Silk Suit.
ELVIN PRESLEY – He gave away cards at concerts. The cards had a picture of him with the name Elvin Presley.
DELI BOY – He was called Deli Boy in the comedy/porn “Sex For Life Too”.
SK8 JOHNSON – He used this alias in the Bootleg Skater videos.
PLATNINUM RICH – One the Diesel Truckers, along with The Funky Redneck.
EXOTRON GEIGER COUNTER ONE PLUS MEGOTRON – He used this alias on Marley Marl In Control in 1989. He also used a longer version. He also used this alias in Ultramagnetic MC’s track "Traveling At The Speed Of Thought."
ACTIVITY – This was his name when he was with the NYC Breakers
EXXON – He gave away cards at concerts. The cards had a picture of him with the name Exxon.
CAPTAIN KOOL – This was an alias he was supposed to use according to Liveonerecords.com.
CAPTAIN BLACK – This was an alias he was supposed to use according to Liveonerecords.com.
EXOTRON GEIGER COUNTER ONE GAMA PLUS SEQUENCER – He used this alias on Marley Marl In Control in 1989. He also used a shorter version.
ROBERT PERRY – He used this alias for the track Robert Perry from his Lost Masters LP.
JOHN CLAYBORNE COUSIN OF JIMMY HICKS – He used this alias on the Clayborne Family LP with Marc Live and Jacky Jasper.
MR. NOGATCO – Released an album under this name with Izreal.
TASHAN DORRSETT – Supposed to release an album under this name with DJ Junkaz Lou.
NAQUAN aka UNDERWEAR PISSY - Alias on the NEW Ultramagnetic MC's album, The Best Kept Secret.
In fact, he has so many alter egos, he's actually had rapper beef with himself. Dr. Dooom killed off Dr. Octagon at the start of First Come, First Served. Black Elvis then called out Dr. Dooom when his album was released.
If you haven't noticed by now, this is a blog that appreciates prolificness in an artist. I realize I should care more about quality than quantity, but sometimes I don't. I respect people who know how to produce, and nobody produces more than Kool Keith. In addition to releasing 17 albums and mixtapes between 1996 and now, he's also collaborated on projects like The Diesel Tuckers and The Analog Brothers, working as part of 12 different collaborative projects since 1993. He also keeps popping up as a guest on other people's songs.
This is the video for "Livin' Astro" off the Black Elvis album. Black Elvis was my least favourite Kool Keith album for a long time, but it's managed to grow on me. This video kicks fairly major ass, and more to the point, it sort of embodies everything Kool Keith is about.
Comment to vote, you know the deal.
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Felicitações ao CSS, o Mais Buzziest das Faixas Brazilian do Zumbido
The people voted and, aside from Sqwd's pronounced love of pauses, the results were pretty clear, 3 - 1 for CSS. I don't know what did it; if it was the iPod ad, the ghost puppets in the video, the DFA reference or just how freakishly hot Lovefoxx is, but people had a clear preference here.
Their victory video is the clip for "Music is My Hot Hot Sex," aka "The iPod Touch Song."
Even before the ad, this was one of my favourite CSS songs, in part because Lovefoxx busts out her native tongue at the end of the song. I also love this video, because it encapsulates how hard it must be to make a video with a band who's whole shtick is making music for people with severe ADHD.
Their victory video is the clip for "Music is My Hot Hot Sex," aka "The iPod Touch Song."
Even before the ad, this was one of my favourite CSS songs, in part because Lovefoxx busts out her native tongue at the end of the song. I also love this video, because it encapsulates how hard it must be to make a video with a band who's whole shtick is making music for people with severe ADHD.
Friday, April 4, 2008
Female Fronted Brazilian Buzz Bands: Cansei de Ser Sexy vs. Bonde do Role
OK, so I know I promised Sqwd a special edition of Music Video Violence just for him, to make up for disappointing him so bitterly. That, and because he's a whiny little bitch. My whiny little bitch. I promise that The Sqwd Special Edition will be forthcoming, but first I wanted to do something a little less creepy and a little more tropical.
I'm not very well traveled. I know a lot of people who are, and I hate them. I particularly hate them because they keep telling me that I could be well traveled, too, all I need is a bunch of money and some time off. Unfortunately, I'm massively in debt, poor, lack financial discipline and refuse to take time off work for severe injury and illness, let alone a vacation, so I don't see a whole lot of travel in the near future.
In the medium term, I really want to go to Brazil.
Brazil's a country that's fascinated me for a while. On one hand, it has pretty much everything that's good in the world: fresh produce, incredible wildlife, good barbecue, the world's most exciting soccer, decent basketball, great music and really, really insanely attractive women. Oh, and they speak Portuguese, which is one of the coolest sounding languages in the world. It has almost no hard consonants.
On the other hand, it's also a pretty fucked up country by almost all accounts. It has some of the worst income disparity on Earth and you're more likely to get killed in Rio than any other city on the planet, save Johannesburg. (Strangely, South Africa is also really high on the list of country's that fascinate me. I don't know what this says about me.) Oh, and they're cutting down the rain forest at almost mind blowing speed, and they're also really odd about race.
Apparently I'm not the only one who's really into Brazil, because Brazilian bands are fucking huge right now. I think it may have something to do with both the rich musical heritage and the unreasonably attractive women. Just a thought. Anyway, this week, we're going to put the buzziest of the Brazilian buzz bands and put them head to head.
The Main Event
In the blue corner, with a buzz factor of an iPod ad, from São Paulo, CANSEI de Ser SEXY!
Sometimes a band just gets so cool you want to backlash and stop liking them. I had that urge when CSS became an iPod ad band, but I didn't because a) that's a really douchebag move, and b) they're just too good to not like.
If you believe the band, CSS was pretty much started as a joke. Legend has it a couple of them more or less learned to play their instruments in front of audiences. They got hugely blown up by Brazilian website Trama Virtual, and a writer from The Guardian said they could be the "biggest band ever to come out of South America" before they had even signed with a record label. That sort of talk is usually meaningless hype, particularly when it comes from the British music press, who are notorious for discovering the greatest band in human history every five or six days. While it's still hard to see them eclipsing Sepultura, let alone Spanish-language superstars like Soda Stereo, anyone who's seen CSS live can understand why someone would get so excited about them. They're one of the best live bands I've ever seen. I watched them open for Ladytron two years ago and they pretty much blew the dour Liverpudlians off the stage. In fact, CSS frontwoman Lovefoxx sort of scared the Ladytron crowd.
Lovefoxx is like a tiny, neon-clad, Japanese-Brazilian Tasmanian Devil. She stage dives without irony, she manages to make bad dancing look sexy, she jumps on the monitors and loses her balance and dry-humps her bandmates. She makes Torontonian hipsters dance, and that's no small feat. She also touched my friend Morgan's boob at the Ladytron show. Sadly, she's engaged to one of the guys from The Klaxons, totally breaking my heart.
This is the video for "Let's Make Love and Listen to Death From Above." There's a couple rad things here. One, there's not many bands that would put their ego aside and write a love song to another band. Two, I feel like the ladies (and gentleman) of CSS are giving me a little tour of their hometown in this video. This video takes my urge to visit Brazil and doubles it.
Now for their opponents.
In the red corner, from Curtiba, with a buzz factor of being discovered by Diplo, BONDE do ROLE!
In Brazil, the kids in the hood have developed a music they call funk. It sounds a like the bastard child of Miami Bass and violent hate. I started listening to it when I was in my first year of university after reading an article in Spin about, funk balls, parties that got the kids so wound up they would stab the fuck out of each other in the middle of the dance floor. Apparently Diplo got into it around the same time, but because he's much cooler and more important than me, he set about trying to break the genre in North America, where I just sat in my room, downloaded Furaçao 2000 mixtapes off the Internet and smoked pot.
Discovering Bonde do Role in Curtiba was sort of Diplo's equivalent to discovering Lucy at the Olduvai Gorge. They're kind of the giant ruby in his global dance music crown, right between MIA and Baltimore Club.
For the record, Bonde do Role have about as much hood cred as me. They're a bunch of middle-class art school kids playing hood music, but they know that and they're cool with it. It's just that comparing these guys to legitimately heavy dudes like Juca or Mr. Catra is kind of like comparing MC Paul Barman to M.O.P. Not that there's anything wrong with Paul Barman, in fact, I'm a big MC PB fan. Nor is there anything wrong with Bonde do Role, they are what they are and they own it by doing things like sampling Alice in Chains and the Grease soundtrack, and Bonde do Role DJ Rodrigo Gorky produces some of the best mixtapes I've ever heard.
Bonde do Role almost broke up late last year when MC Marina Ribatski quit the band. Gorky and MC Pedro D'Eyrot decided to replace her in an American Idol-style reality show on MTV Brazil. In the end they picked two new female vocalists. The incredibly un-Brazilian-named Laura Taylor was chosen by the audience, while Ana Bernardino was picked by the band after she took a piece of meat out of her vagina.
This is the video for "Solta o Frango" off their North American full-length debut With Lasers. The name of the song translates as "Release the Chickens," which I sort of knew from eating a lot of Portuguese barbecue. Or at least I knew "frango" meant "chicken."
This video features the now departed Marina Ribatski on the mic. I think she has the same stylist as Lovefoxx. That or all Brazilian girls are taking this retro '80s hipster thing and flying it to Absurdistan. This video is so good it almost makes me want to shit myself. I can't even tell you anything about it or I'll ruin the incredible surprise.
Go do it.
I'm not very well traveled. I know a lot of people who are, and I hate them. I particularly hate them because they keep telling me that I could be well traveled, too, all I need is a bunch of money and some time off. Unfortunately, I'm massively in debt, poor, lack financial discipline and refuse to take time off work for severe injury and illness, let alone a vacation, so I don't see a whole lot of travel in the near future.
In the medium term, I really want to go to Brazil.
Brazil's a country that's fascinated me for a while. On one hand, it has pretty much everything that's good in the world: fresh produce, incredible wildlife, good barbecue, the world's most exciting soccer, decent basketball, great music and really, really insanely attractive women. Oh, and they speak Portuguese, which is one of the coolest sounding languages in the world. It has almost no hard consonants.
On the other hand, it's also a pretty fucked up country by almost all accounts. It has some of the worst income disparity on Earth and you're more likely to get killed in Rio than any other city on the planet, save Johannesburg. (Strangely, South Africa is also really high on the list of country's that fascinate me. I don't know what this says about me.) Oh, and they're cutting down the rain forest at almost mind blowing speed, and they're also really odd about race.
Apparently I'm not the only one who's really into Brazil, because Brazilian bands are fucking huge right now. I think it may have something to do with both the rich musical heritage and the unreasonably attractive women. Just a thought. Anyway, this week, we're going to put the buzziest of the Brazilian buzz bands and put them head to head.
The Main Event
In the blue corner, with a buzz factor of an iPod ad, from São Paulo, CANSEI de Ser SEXY!
Sometimes a band just gets so cool you want to backlash and stop liking them. I had that urge when CSS became an iPod ad band, but I didn't because a) that's a really douchebag move, and b) they're just too good to not like.
If you believe the band, CSS was pretty much started as a joke. Legend has it a couple of them more or less learned to play their instruments in front of audiences. They got hugely blown up by Brazilian website Trama Virtual, and a writer from The Guardian said they could be the "biggest band ever to come out of South America" before they had even signed with a record label. That sort of talk is usually meaningless hype, particularly when it comes from the British music press, who are notorious for discovering the greatest band in human history every five or six days. While it's still hard to see them eclipsing Sepultura, let alone Spanish-language superstars like Soda Stereo, anyone who's seen CSS live can understand why someone would get so excited about them. They're one of the best live bands I've ever seen. I watched them open for Ladytron two years ago and they pretty much blew the dour Liverpudlians off the stage. In fact, CSS frontwoman Lovefoxx sort of scared the Ladytron crowd.
Lovefoxx is like a tiny, neon-clad, Japanese-Brazilian Tasmanian Devil. She stage dives without irony, she manages to make bad dancing look sexy, she jumps on the monitors and loses her balance and dry-humps her bandmates. She makes Torontonian hipsters dance, and that's no small feat. She also touched my friend Morgan's boob at the Ladytron show. Sadly, she's engaged to one of the guys from The Klaxons, totally breaking my heart.
This is the video for "Let's Make Love and Listen to Death From Above." There's a couple rad things here. One, there's not many bands that would put their ego aside and write a love song to another band. Two, I feel like the ladies (and gentleman) of CSS are giving me a little tour of their hometown in this video. This video takes my urge to visit Brazil and doubles it.
Now for their opponents.
In the red corner, from Curtiba, with a buzz factor of being discovered by Diplo, BONDE do ROLE!
In Brazil, the kids in the hood have developed a music they call funk. It sounds a like the bastard child of Miami Bass and violent hate. I started listening to it when I was in my first year of university after reading an article in Spin about, funk balls, parties that got the kids so wound up they would stab the fuck out of each other in the middle of the dance floor. Apparently Diplo got into it around the same time, but because he's much cooler and more important than me, he set about trying to break the genre in North America, where I just sat in my room, downloaded Furaçao 2000 mixtapes off the Internet and smoked pot.
Discovering Bonde do Role in Curtiba was sort of Diplo's equivalent to discovering Lucy at the Olduvai Gorge. They're kind of the giant ruby in his global dance music crown, right between MIA and Baltimore Club.
For the record, Bonde do Role have about as much hood cred as me. They're a bunch of middle-class art school kids playing hood music, but they know that and they're cool with it. It's just that comparing these guys to legitimately heavy dudes like Juca or Mr. Catra is kind of like comparing MC Paul Barman to M.O.P. Not that there's anything wrong with Paul Barman, in fact, I'm a big MC PB fan. Nor is there anything wrong with Bonde do Role, they are what they are and they own it by doing things like sampling Alice in Chains and the Grease soundtrack, and Bonde do Role DJ Rodrigo Gorky produces some of the best mixtapes I've ever heard.
Bonde do Role almost broke up late last year when MC Marina Ribatski quit the band. Gorky and MC Pedro D'Eyrot decided to replace her in an American Idol-style reality show on MTV Brazil. In the end they picked two new female vocalists. The incredibly un-Brazilian-named Laura Taylor was chosen by the audience, while Ana Bernardino was picked by the band after she took a piece of meat out of her vagina.
This is the video for "Solta o Frango" off their North American full-length debut With Lasers. The name of the song translates as "Release the Chickens," which I sort of knew from eating a lot of Portuguese barbecue. Or at least I knew "frango" meant "chicken."
This video features the now departed Marina Ribatski on the mic. I think she has the same stylist as Lovefoxx. That or all Brazilian girls are taking this retro '80s hipster thing and flying it to Absurdistan. This video is so good it almost makes me want to shit myself. I can't even tell you anything about it or I'll ruin the incredible surprise.
Go do it.
Monday, March 24, 2008
Dirty, Smutty Hipster Disco: MSTRKRFT vs. Simian Mobile Disco
What's really good?
OK, so it's no secret I spent more than two years wasting my talent slinging porn at a Wal-Mart sized sex store, the name of which rhymes with "induction."
In addition to the promised slightly-more-than minimum wage, this job offered me a few decent perks before it caused my soul to implode.
They included the following:
1) Discounted porn.
2) Free (read, stolen) porn.
3) Long, uninterrupted stretches of time to read, write, eat and stare at the walls.
4) An excuse to start reading Fleshbot on a regular basis. (By the way, it's not like I'm making news here, but Fleshbot may be the absolute best thing on the web. If you're not a regular reader you've been napping for like half a decade.)
5) An ability to differentiate high quality smut from middling smut.
It's the last two that are really important here.
There was a period of time in 2006 where Fleshbot was regularly posting music videos that would not make the rotation on MuchMusic or MTV. It turns out that YouTube is a veritable treasure trove of musical smutitude. Now, as it turns out, a lot of it is crappy re-hashings of old David Lee Roth videos. But some of it is pretty awesome.
I decided to take two of those videos and pit them against each other in a battle to see whose filth is hotter.
A couple things about these videos. They have more in common than just nakedness. Both bands produce a sort of music that straddles the gap between straight up house and retro-'80s electro, a sound I've dubbed Hipster Disco, in part because it's accurate and in part because I've always wanted to invent a genre.
The Main Event
In the red corner, from Toronto, Ontario, with a pretension factor of no vowels, MSTRKRFT!
Pretty much everyone already knows the MSTRKRFT story. The group was started by Jesse Keeler from Death From Above 1979 and Toronto producer Al-P as an outlet for Keeler's housey, DFA-inappropriate musical urges. A year later, DFA was no more and MSTRKRFT was all Keeler had.
(Two asides: One, Al-P is in no way related to El-P or Al B. Sure, which sucks. Two, I am still not 100% over the death of Death From Above 1979.)
This video was one of the '06 Fleshbot classics, and with good reason. Not only is this song a fucking banger, the crew at Fleshbot wasn't lying when they called this bad boy Jules Jordan-esque. (Be aware that there be a porn link, kiddies. For those of you who don't know, Jules Jordan isn't just a pornographer. In my mind, he's THE pornographer. Really and truly, this man has provided countless hours of enjoyment for me.)
That said, this video isn't just pervy. It really doesn't make any sense, either. I dig that. There's no reason for a milkshake to fall from the sky. It just does.
And now the opposition.
In the blue corner, from Manchester, England, with a pretension factor of a long, goofy name and releasing shit on a French label, SIMIAN MO-bile DISCOOOO!
Where MSTRKRFT came as the result of a side project, Simian Mobile Disco rose phoenix like from the ashes of electro-rock act Simian.
Here's what I know about Simian. When I was working for an excellent little campus paper at a less-than-excellent university, I got a review copy of Simian's We Are Your Friends. I don't remember if I ever got around to writing the review, but I remember really liking the album. I think I may still have it. I should probably go look at some point.
After the band's 2005 break-up, half the guys from Simian started remixing songs for acts like Muse, The Go! Team and Air. In 2006 Kitsuné records released "Hustler" and the rest, as they say, is history.
As far as I can tell, and I won't front like I put extensive research into this blog, their are two "official" videos for "Hustler." Both of them are righteously dirty, but I picked this one because I think it contrasts with the MSTRKRFT joint a little better.
A few things I like about this video:
1) Girls kissing girls. It's cheesy, it's clichéd and to be totally honest with you, I don't really like all-girl porn that much, but in music videos it works. Hell, just ask Pittsburgh Slim.
2) The slow build. There's no action until two-thirds of the way through. Again, not so cool in porn, but it works in the smutty music video context.
3) The cheese-bag, '80s art school film vibe. I'm going to assume this was like a "meta" type reference to art school film, rather than actually thinking that's cool.
If the MSTRKRFT video is lay it all out early, cumshots 'til you explode, Jules Jordan-style joint, the Simian Mobile Disco video is more like an Eon McKai video. It's art you can jack off to, if you really, really need to jack off.
(Again, two asides. One, Cadence Weapon did an absolutely insane mash-up of "Hustler" and Rick Ross' "Hustlin'" called, not surprisingly, "Hustlin' Hustler." I suggest you all go find it when you're done here. Two, my former co-worker Marty once made an excellent observation on the work of Eon McKai. "It's a gritty portrayal of urban life, it's fucking awful .... Do you jerk off to Scorsese films?")
OK, so once again voting closes midnight Friday. Sorry to take away a day of democracy, but my trip to the hinterland through me off schedule. Won't happen again.
OK, so it's no secret I spent more than two years wasting my talent slinging porn at a Wal-Mart sized sex store, the name of which rhymes with "induction."
In addition to the promised slightly-more-than minimum wage, this job offered me a few decent perks before it caused my soul to implode.
They included the following:
1) Discounted porn.
2) Free (read, stolen) porn.
3) Long, uninterrupted stretches of time to read, write, eat and stare at the walls.
4) An excuse to start reading Fleshbot on a regular basis. (By the way, it's not like I'm making news here, but Fleshbot may be the absolute best thing on the web. If you're not a regular reader you've been napping for like half a decade.)
5) An ability to differentiate high quality smut from middling smut.
It's the last two that are really important here.
There was a period of time in 2006 where Fleshbot was regularly posting music videos that would not make the rotation on MuchMusic or MTV. It turns out that YouTube is a veritable treasure trove of musical smutitude. Now, as it turns out, a lot of it is crappy re-hashings of old David Lee Roth videos. But some of it is pretty awesome.
I decided to take two of those videos and pit them against each other in a battle to see whose filth is hotter.
A couple things about these videos. They have more in common than just nakedness. Both bands produce a sort of music that straddles the gap between straight up house and retro-'80s electro, a sound I've dubbed Hipster Disco, in part because it's accurate and in part because I've always wanted to invent a genre.
The Main Event
In the red corner, from Toronto, Ontario, with a pretension factor of no vowels, MSTRKRFT!
Pretty much everyone already knows the MSTRKRFT story. The group was started by Jesse Keeler from Death From Above 1979 and Toronto producer Al-P as an outlet for Keeler's housey, DFA-inappropriate musical urges. A year later, DFA was no more and MSTRKRFT was all Keeler had.
(Two asides: One, Al-P is in no way related to El-P or Al B. Sure, which sucks. Two, I am still not 100% over the death of Death From Above 1979.)
This video was one of the '06 Fleshbot classics, and with good reason. Not only is this song a fucking banger, the crew at Fleshbot wasn't lying when they called this bad boy Jules Jordan-esque. (Be aware that there be a porn link, kiddies. For those of you who don't know, Jules Jordan isn't just a pornographer. In my mind, he's THE pornographer. Really and truly, this man has provided countless hours of enjoyment for me.)
That said, this video isn't just pervy. It really doesn't make any sense, either. I dig that. There's no reason for a milkshake to fall from the sky. It just does.
And now the opposition.
In the blue corner, from Manchester, England, with a pretension factor of a long, goofy name and releasing shit on a French label, SIMIAN MO-bile DISCOOOO!
Where MSTRKRFT came as the result of a side project, Simian Mobile Disco rose phoenix like from the ashes of electro-rock act Simian.
Here's what I know about Simian. When I was working for an excellent little campus paper at a less-than-excellent university, I got a review copy of Simian's We Are Your Friends. I don't remember if I ever got around to writing the review, but I remember really liking the album. I think I may still have it. I should probably go look at some point.
After the band's 2005 break-up, half the guys from Simian started remixing songs for acts like Muse, The Go! Team and Air. In 2006 Kitsuné records released "Hustler" and the rest, as they say, is history.
As far as I can tell, and I won't front like I put extensive research into this blog, their are two "official" videos for "Hustler." Both of them are righteously dirty, but I picked this one because I think it contrasts with the MSTRKRFT joint a little better.
A few things I like about this video:
1) Girls kissing girls. It's cheesy, it's clichéd and to be totally honest with you, I don't really like all-girl porn that much, but in music videos it works. Hell, just ask Pittsburgh Slim.
2) The slow build. There's no action until two-thirds of the way through. Again, not so cool in porn, but it works in the smutty music video context.
3) The cheese-bag, '80s art school film vibe. I'm going to assume this was like a "meta" type reference to art school film, rather than actually thinking that's cool.
If the MSTRKRFT video is lay it all out early, cumshots 'til you explode, Jules Jordan-style joint, the Simian Mobile Disco video is more like an Eon McKai video. It's art you can jack off to, if you really, really need to jack off.
(Again, two asides. One, Cadence Weapon did an absolutely insane mash-up of "Hustler" and Rick Ross' "Hustlin'" called, not surprisingly, "Hustlin' Hustler." I suggest you all go find it when you're done here. Two, my former co-worker Marty once made an excellent observation on the work of Eon McKai. "It's a gritty portrayal of urban life, it's fucking awful .... Do you jerk off to Scorsese films?")
OK, so once again voting closes midnight Friday. Sorry to take away a day of democracy, but my trip to the hinterland through me off schedule. Won't happen again.
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