Be the 2000th viewer

With all of this talk about how the hip hop scene has "Sucked a Fat one" since the early 2000's and every year or so a new Eminem album dropping with another slow beat for some white guy to think it s clever...The "real" heads keep working hard to find something meaningful of good.

This guy Big Ooh! is unsigned, unknown, and has TONS of videos on youtube!
I think the problem with most of the crap coming out today isn't just the integrity of the rapper. But it's the production quality. Most music is watered down we know, but the newer post 2000 rap music "mainstream" beat is outright annoying. Im a less is more kinda person, so if jacking 90's R&B songs is what it takes, then let it happen.

I'm not going to give any examples of this shitty music here, that's for you to listen to on your way to the beach this weekend, but I will give a fresh taste of a chillwave(ish) rapper!






and in the meantime....is there a new Avalanches album coming out?

I was rickrolled the other day

I'm kinda tired of dissing or even thinking about Odd Future at this point, but I think this video disses itself. When I first saw it, I watched the first 10 seconds, pressed pause and complained to my gf, "I'm sick of all these goddamn ads in front of Youtube videos!". But then it slowly dawned on me - 'this isn't a brief commercial for the new Acura Integra playing in front of an Odd Future video... it's actually an Odd Future song called Acura Integurl! I'll admit, my mind was blown a little. But not in a good way. The only good thing about this song is that it's over very quickly.

The most mind-blowing thing, though, is that this video has 63,000+ views, and only 2 'dislikes'!! TWO. Despite having some of the worst lyrics of any R&B song I've heard in quite some time (the only good lyrics are quotes from Lil Wayne songs). If this isn't a sterling example of 'groupthink' I don't know what is. Advertisers: we haven't seen this much popular support for a potential pitchman since the 'Be Like Mike' Gatorade campaign.

Stayin Alive...

Wow, it sure has been a weak year for movies when I'm practically praying for The Hangover 2 to come out. What the fuck is going on, are there really no good movies out this year, or do I just not read the papers anymore? Finally there's one: a Mudhoney documentary coming out late summer, which, lacking a decent trailer, I'll just post some old live footage instead. Here's them in their prime (1988):

Remind you of anyone? Kinda seems exactly like Nirvana three years later. Mudhoney have always been one of the most overrated bands in my opinion (although they certainly get gold medals for style), but that's probably because they were so 'influential'. Without Mudhoney there would be no Nirvana as we knew it. Without Nirvana.... what would there be? I feel like Nirvana was more anti-influential than anything else, though. They effectively killed the grunge aesthetic by being so good at it, and really have prevented (and will prevent) grunge-y vibes from being relevant again for 20-__ years after the fact. It's still so uncool that the current Dali Lama of hipness, Ariel Pink has predicted that it (along with all cultural artifacts from the 90's) will never come back, that we'll oscillate back and forth imitating the 70's and 80's for e t e r n i t y. Has anyone made such a ludicrous claim before, or could it indeed be true?

ANYway, all this rambling about Mudhoney got me thinking about another overrated but highly influential group: The MC5. Here's an excerpt from a documentary about them from 2002 that never was released. What a bummer it is that the fuckin 'suits' couldn't free their minds & wallets to put this movie out (not even straight to DVD?!):

I've never explored garage rock as thoroughly as I probably should, mostly because of the quasi-conservative old white guy vibe surrounding that subculture. Very aggravating how those types refuse to admit any new musical innovation since 'Some young workin' class kids got together and just started makin noise in the garage man! Wooh!' [tune to Sirius XM channel 25 for a non-stop, commercial-free example of this phenomenon] Me and Drew were at the pool yesterday, choppin it up about how similarly annoying hip hop 'headz' are (our boy J. Strader naturally excluded of course) Which got me thinking: what's the most annoying musical subculture?

[rate the following from 'Extremely Disagree - Love that Shizz' to 'Extremely Agree - Nuke those F***s]

- Jazz purists

- Beatlemania!

- 60's Garage Rock revivalists

- Soul boys (esp. 'Southern Soul' boys)

- Anglophiles

- Ravers (i.e. ppl who can name more than 1 artist that exemplifies the 'breaks' genre)

- Hip Hop headz (includes 'backpackers', Southern Rap apologists, Wu Tang disciples, and anyone who listens to pre-1985 rap regularly)

- White Blues Rock connoisseurs (have u evr been cornered by one these types in the living room of an affluent American suburb?)

- Classical 'lovers'

- Effing Hipsters (musical emphasis changes every 18 months)

- The Proletariat (considered as a single genre by intelligent ppl, includes: Juggalos, adults who listen to Mall punk/emo, purveyors of Christian acoustic music, ardent fans of Kid Rock or Eminem, rap/techno metal hybrids, Mainstream Rock Radio rockers.... and every possible combination therein)

- Moms with large Celtic music cd collections

- Metalheads (ppl who, every time you have a conversation with them, hit you with a genre of metal you never knew existed - e.g. 'Finnish satanic metal')

- Goths

- XXX ers (includes 'Abercrombie' hardcore, gas-station attendant hardcore, and 'classic' hardcore)

- IDM nerds

- '____ Is God'

- Psych/Krautrock/Beefheart/Zappa scholars

- Aged Hipsters (like a wine you've had for too long and are now scared to drink, these ppl are visibly stuck in the past, at the exact moment of last relevance. see Molly Ringwald. at the time of this writing, they are mostly 80's Jangle Poppers)

- Rednecks

- Funk fascists

- Library Science majors (used as an excuse to 'learn about' a lot more shit than you ever will. love 'archival recordings', field recordings, 78s, wax cylinders, the Dust-to-Digital and Sublime Frequencies labels)

- Elvis crazies (an older subset of The Proletariat)

- Cassette exclusivists (ppl in the 21st century who collect music only released on cassette as a way to escape the Tyranny Of Blogspots - anyone who is familiar with the words 'Belgian Minimal House' is likely one of these)

- Asshole bloggers (...)

I think that about covers it. I'm sure you've chanced an encounter with many of these archetypes - did they enrich your life? Did they teach you to appreciate many musical genres to the point where you sit on your computer 24 hrs a day engaged in cultural arbitrage limited only by the speed of your broadband, like myself? Or did they make you say, 'nope, I'm good. I'll just listen to Pandora and take up a physical hobby, like rock-climbing'?

Please, share your thoughts. Drew insists we have a lot of readers...

Reflection

I used to hate Dave Matthews. I still hate the idea of Dave Matthews... but I gotta admit, when it reaches that certain point in the year, and the weather starts changing.... I become very amenable to a little vintage 'Dave'. Maybe it's the recording quality of those early albums (which is flawless, of course), maybe it's the Not Rock N' Roll concept of musicianship, which turns fairly complicated music into the most ordinary-sounding shit you've ever heard, I don't know. But sometimes, when the weather's just right, I find myself 'lost in the jam'. One of my biggest regrets from highest school is turning my back on the $35/ticket Dave Matthews Summer Amphitheatre Experience, when he was so obviously at his peak (even I knew it at the time). Would it have spawned an unforgettable teen romance with a girl who played field hockey? Or would it have been a 'gateway' experience that led to episodes of hard drug use, following 'Widespread' around on tour, and eventually dropping out of school? Guess I'll never know... What I would give, though, to turn back the clock to 1997/8 and sit on the lawn at Walnut Creek at sunset, with a d00b, some beer in a red cup, just vibin' to this song.

Sometimes it pays to not be such a bloggin' snob, so critical of everything. As REM once said, 'these things they go away' [via Nightswimming]. So True. Have a chill Cinco de Mayo ya'll... and don't be afraid to listen to some jam bands.