Living Legends alum Murs put out one of my favorite records last year with his Murray’s Revenge. He’s since signed with Warner Bros. (weird, right?) and is preparing to release, just in time for the election season, Murs for President.
His management company has posted the first single, Dreadlocks, a track about, uh, yeah, dreadlocks. Like Noz over at Cocaine Blunts, I’m not sure what to make of this Rick Rock-produced track, which also shows up on the Madden ‘08 soundtrack.
On the one hand, it swipes a De La Soul line (from Bitties in the BK Lounge) for the chorus’ hook. And I’ve got nothing against the beat or the hyphy/Bay Area-influenced feel of the track. It just seems Murs’ tongue-in-cheek delivery doesn’t exactly suit the style. I’m wondering if this is the exception on Murs for President or a sign of what’s to come.
Either way, Murs is playing the Paid Dues Festival on Aug. 10 at Mesa Amphitheatre. Get tickets here.
The 15th installment of I Used to Love H.E.R., a series in which artists/bloggers/writers discuss their most essential or favorite hip-hop albums (read intro), comes from King Krash, a record producer/remixer/beat creator who was kind enough to e-mail me to thank me for a previous post. Krash raps succinctly about one of his favorite hip-hop tracks.
UTFO “Roxanne, Roxanne”
(off 1985 self-titled album on Select Records)
“I think my older brother bought the single when I was 5 or 6 and I quickly made it mine. At that age I would just put on a song 100 times in a row. I had one of those kids suitcase style record players, the needle did wonders for the records, and at that age you’re up at like 6am everyday. So 6am till breakfast and again till lunch. Killin’ my 6 year old dance moves and memorizing all the words. I think they were the first to use the “Big Beat” break plus those cuts are branded in my brain. Anyway to this day both my brothers know the whole song by heart I played it so much and they laugh now but they hated it when it was happening. I still have the 12″. If you can put up a pic of the cover peep the outfits. Swords!? I fucking love it.”
Recent posts by Gorilla vs. Bear and Passion of the Weiss on the return of Camp Lo got me sorta amped about the good ol’ days, which always means digging through a little vinyl.
I have two Camp Lo 12-inches from the great Uptown Saturday Night – one for Black Nostaljack (Come On) and the other for Luchini aka (This is It). I’ve yet to listen to In Black Hollywood – Weiss calls it a contender for hip-hop album of the year – but damn if Uptown wasn’t just one of the dopest, if not criminally underrated, hip-hop albums of the 90s.
Here’s the flip side on the Black Nostaljack 12-inch, a Kid Capri remix that features Run and cops Run-DMC’s Beats to the Rhyme.
Camp Lo | Black Nostaljack (Kid Capri Mix Tape Remix)
Kanye West has posted an alternate version of the video for Can’t Tell Me Nothing.
For reasons I can’t explain, Will Oldham and Zach Galifianakis are in it. According to a Billboard story I read on the wires, it was filmed at Galifianakis’ North Carolina farm.
From same story:
“He saw me do stand up a few weeks ago here in Los Angeles, and we chatted after the show,” Galifianakis recently told Impose Magazine.
I’m still not sure why k-os’Sunday Morning isn’t huge. It seems like the perfect summer jam, with its catchy beat and singable chorus.
I had a chance to chat with k-os for a story for my day job to help preview the Warped Tour, of which he was a part. He seems eager to break into the States having already cashed in his popularity in his hometown Toronto.
In any event, a collection of his selected singles and some unreleased work, cleverly titled Collected, has been released to help his transition into the U.S.
Here’s one of the tracks, a more slowed-down, deliberate reworking of Sunday Morning. The remix loses a bit of its dance appeal but gains a more leisurely appreciation k-os’ verses.
I know I just posted about Z-Trip and his All-Pro Soundtrackearlier this month, but now Z has made a track off the album available for download on his own site.
Like most of the album, Doin’ It Like This leans heavy on rock, taking a Clutch song, Profits of Doom, as its main sample. I’ve never been a huge Clutch fan, but I love this track and the way Z spins the repeating chorus, a not-so-subtle message to the wannabes and bedroom DJs: “I’ve been doin’ it like this since way, way back.”
The guest list on this album is deep – Chali 2na, Slug, Gift of Gab, Aceyalone, Rakim (whaaat!), among others – and Z revives his remix of Rush’s Tom Sawyer, which first appeared on the Small Soldiers soundtrack.
I read a Billboard story yesterday about Al Green teaming up with Ahmir “?uestlove” Thompson and the Roots on a new duets album, which in and of itself is incredible news. (”The Roots have already laid down 15 songs … ” … delicious!)
But then Green decides to really set the whole thing off with what is possibly the funniest thing I have read in some time:
“It’s turning out to be like fresh cream, man, like fresh milk from the cow’s titty, baby,” Green gushes.
I repeat: Like fresh milk from the cow’s titty, baby. How cool is Al Green?
I … I … I don’t even know what to say. Plastic Little cracks me up and proves that some of the best hip-hop is the stuff we don’t take so damn seriously.
Note: He’s too modest to say it, so please welcome Casey to the fold. Casey is a long-time podcaster, first-time blogger. He’s a co-worker, but I met Casey at a Shins concert, so I knew I could coax him into this tangled mp3 Web. His tastes are matched by his quality writing. So I’m hoping this is just the first of many posts from him.
As venues go, the northeast corner of Stinkweeds poses certain challenges to the modern indie rock band. For starters, the amplification is iffy. The audience, while vaguely appreciative, will spend a significant portion of your set browsing used CDs. And then there’s the space issue: Any band bigger than the White Stripes will find itself spilling into the aisles, competing for attention with displays for new albums by Bright Eyes and Spoon.
Fortunately, Portland sextet Blitzen Trapper made the most of things this weekend during an in-store performance at Stinkweeds. With 25 or so skinny white dudes looking on, the band dived into a series of crowd pleasers off their new record, Wild Mountain Nation. Frontman Eric Earley warmed the crowd up with a VH1 Storytellers take on JJ Cale’s “Cocaine,” after which the band began distributing a handful of maracas into the crowd. (Web 2.0 meets the rhythm section!) I would have grabbed one but found myself too far back in the crowd, so I settled for stomping my foot.
It’s worth mentioning what a weird record this Wild Mountain Nation is – the erratic, rambunctious opener, “Devil’s A Go-Go,” transitions into the polished country-rock of the title track, and then into the Shins-like indie pop of “Futures and Folly.” This continues throughout the record: Lengthy, raucous bursts of noise give way to sparkling AM country radio ballads. It’s easy to name-check the band’s influences – Neil Young, Johnny Cash, Sonic Youth, Pavement – but harder to describe the way those disparate forces come together on Wild Mountain Nation. The record manages to feel familiar and disorienting all at once.
But back to Stinkweeds. The six Blitzen Trappers are refreshingly uncool in person, looking uniformly like extras on some great lost season of That 70s Show. They apologized that they would only be able to play a handful of songs, on account of being down a keyboard or two, and that they wouldn’t be as loud as they were a few weeks back opening for the Hold Steady at the Brickhouse. But by the time Earley launched into the gorgeous Americana of “Country Caravan,” no one much seemed to mind.
Eventually, word came down that the evening’s headliner, David Vandervelde, had broken down in the desert and would not be appearing. This was fantastic news, I thought: Blitzen Trapper could play some more songs! The band looked actually looked a bit worried upon learning of the Vandervelde breakdown – minus those extra keyboards, they said, their repertoire was rather limited. So I politely suggested “Futures and Folly,” and the band quickly agreed and began playing it. It was great.
After 45 minutes or so, the band played its last song. I wondered about the economics of sending six guys from Portland to Phoenix to play nine or 10 songs for 25 people who had paid $5 apiece. But Blitzen Trapper seemed to be enjoying themselves – Pitchfork had just anointed Wild Mountain Nation with its Best New Music crown, and last week Sub Pop announced they had just signed the band.
Look for them soon at a tiny record store near you. (Tour dates from Pitchfork.)
07-19 Hattiesburg, MS - Thirsty Hippo $
07-20 Atlanta, GA - Drunken Unicorn $
07-21 Wilmington, NC - Bella Festa $
07-22 Washington, DC - Rock and Roll Hotel $
07-23 Philadelphia, PA - Johnny Brenda’s $
07-24 Allston, MA - Great Scott $
07-25 New York, NY - Mercury Lounge $
07-26 Buffalo, NY - The Icon $
07-27 Ann Arbor, MI - Blind Pig $
07-28 Chicago, IL - Empty Bottle
07-29 Minneapolis, MN - Triple Rock
07-30 Omaha, NE - The Slowdown !
07-31 Denver, CO - Hi-Dive %
08-01 Salt Lake City, UT - Kilby Court
08-03 Seattle, WA - Crocodile Cafe ^
$ with David Vandervelde
! with Coyote Bones
% with Smoosh, Aqueduct
^ with Jennifer Gentle
Mark your calendars: October 13, Aesop Rock is hitting the Clubhouse in Tempe, the same spot fellow Definitive Jux labelmate El-P just played in May.
Aesop’s forthcoming LP, None Shall Pass, drops Aug. 28. A guest spot from John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats should be worth the price of admission alone, but you know Aesop is coming with so much more. I’ve only seen him at last year’s Pitchfork Festival, and I was about two football fields away, so this is rising on my list of concert priorities. October. Damn, that’s like still three months away.
Get a taste of the first single, None Shall Pass, if you haven’t already. Instrumental also because, well, I love you.
UTFO
I’m still not sure why 
I know I just posted about Z-Trip and his All-Pro Soundtrack 
