All posts by Kevin

Incoming: Girl Talk, Oct. 23 (Tucson)

I’d be more excited about this one if I didn’t have to drive two hours to Tucson to see it. We had a blast the last time we saw Mr. Gregg Gillis, at the SoCo Music Experience in Tempe in the fall.

Anyway, Girl Talk is playing Rialto Theatre on Oct. 23 with Heart of Darkness and Grand Buffet. Tickets are $15. More info.

Did anyone pick up Feed the Animals? If so, how much did you pay?

  • Girl Talk | Here’s the Thing

A list of samples used in the song.

Stinkweeds’ Top 10: June 22-28

I’m going to try to keep up with the folks over at Stinkweeds – and hopefully a couple other local retailers – on a regular basis to see what their top-selling albums each week are.

I’d like to point out I was partially responsible for Nos. 2 and 3, both of which I purchased on vinyl last week. In a sign that my consumer habits are changing, I actually had the Wolf Parade CD in hand until I realized I’d get free mp3 downloads with the vinyl and the awesome artwork in a bigger size, to boot. (For more on that topic, visit Bows + Arrows.)

Otherwise, I own only one other record from this list (Evil Urges), though I do have the Silver Jews record on my to-buy list.

Stinkweeds’ Top 10 sellers for the week of June 22-28:

1. Sigur Ros – Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaust (XL)
2. Fleet Foxes – s/t (Sup Pop) // MP3: White Winter Hymnal
3. Wolf Parade – At Mount Zoomer (Sub Pop)
4. My Morning Jacket – Evil Urges (ATO)
5. Notwist – The Devil, You and Me (Domino)
6. Hercules and Love Affair – s/t (DFA)
7. King Khan & the Shrines – Supreme Genius (Vice) // MP3: Torture
8. Silver Jews – Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea (Drag City) // MP3: Strange Victory, Strange Defeat
9. Love as Laughter – Holy (Epic)
10. Plants and Animals – Parc Avenue (Secret City)

Sundays with A Tribe Called Quest: Vol. 1

I’ve been meaning to start some arbitrary weekly feature for some time now, and I came to the decision that every Sunday I will now post something related to A Tribe Called Quest, if only because the group is one of my all-time favorites (Midnight Marauders is desert-island disc material) and, really, do I need another reason? Anyway, we gotta educate the young’ens, right? So check back every Sunday for songs, videos, remixes, whatever. We’ll see how deep my Tribe catalog is. And if anyone has some Tribe goodies to share, holler at me.

If there was some sort of sign that I should begin this feature, it came to me on Saturday night. Earlier in the day I was browsing The Meaning of Dope (a must for you hip-hop fans) when I came across a video of A Tribe Called Quest performing Check the Rhime on In Living Color.

Well, on Saturday night, I was working the Mariners-Padres game for work. While listening to the San Diego feed on MLB.tv, Check the Rhime was played on a fade into a commercial break. Coincidence? I think not.

Without question, Check the Rhime probably is one of the best examples of interplay between Q-Tip and Phife in its sort of call-and-response format – “You on point, Phife?” / “All the time, Tip.”

More important is one of the most well-known and cited lines in Tribe lore. Even 17 years later, no truer words have been spoken: “Industry rule No. 4080, record company people are shady.”

Peep the video. And check out Q-Tip: Could he be any more of a front-runner with the Yankees jersey and Braves hat? Damn.

(B-sides from promo CD single.)

Here’s a list, via the Breaks, of samples used in Check the Rhime. And the lyrics via OHHLA.com (Original Hip-Hop Lyrics Archive).

A-Trak feat. Lupe Fiasco: Mastered

Wunderkind deejay A-Trak is the latest to contribute to the Nike+ Original Run mix, a 45-minute composition “specifically for runners, gradually building from a warm-up period, incorporating an extended middle section that finds a pavement-pounding groove, and ending with a downtempo closure for cooling down.” Well, that sounds like exercise and stuff. I’m exhausted just reading it.

Anyway, part of the mix is a song called Mastered that features Kid Cudi. But A-Trak tells us over at Kanye’s blog that it originally featured Lupe Fiasco. “We couldn’t get clearance for Lu so i had to take him off. But now that the record’s out, you can have his version.”

I haven’t even heard Kid Cudi’s version, but I’m gonna guess that it might not be better than this. I might even take up running! … Ehhhhhh, or not. But you can add it to a long list of great hip-hop songs about shoes (which is a post I’ve been thinking of doing for a long time now). If you just said that Run-DMC’s My Adidas is the best hip-hop song about shoes, then pass go and collect $200.

  • A-Trak feat. Lupe Fiasco | Mastered

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I Used to Love H.E.R.: A-Trak (Pharcyde, Labcabincalifornia)

Frightened Rabbit: Keep Yourself Warm (live in Phx)

Scott Hutchison, singer of Frightened Rabbit, had to feel eerily vindicated when, on Tuesday night at the Rhythm Room in Phoenix — miles and miles and at least one major ocean from his Scotland home — a venue full of fans sang back to him the chorus of the biting break-up song Keep Yourself Warm.

“You won’t find love in a, won’t find love in a hole / it takes more than fucking someone to keep yourself warm.”

Depression never sounded so cheerful. I imagine for Hutchison that moment – both corny and cathartic – being a tipping point in his career as a musician – here, a group of strangers banded together, telling ex-boyfriends and girlfriends near and far to, well, fuck off. And just like that, words he wrote out of desperation and loneliness became a rallying cry. Even if people weren’t singing it for their own well-being, surely they were doing it for Hutchison, whose ex’s ears probably were ringing somewhere. But, hey, without her we wouldn’t have this masterful album, The Midnight Organ Fight.

Below is a video clip of Keep Yourself Warm that I shot with my digital camera. It’s just the second half of the song, but it captures the mood and energy, I think. (Mike Pace of Oxford Collapse guests on guitar.)