general, vinyl

The Long Winters: Clouds (home demo)

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Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting Indie labels are making it so that buying vinyl is more enticing than ever. Whether it’s a download coupon for mp3s of an album or adding bonus tracks, they seem to be hedging their bets that maybe, just maybe, fans will be lured by owning a tangible piece of music.

The fine folks at Barsuk drew me in when I saw the Long Winters catalog available on vinyl at Stinkweeds in Phoenix. Not only is John Roderick’s 2005 Ultimatum EP released on beautiful 140-gram vinyl, it also includes five bonus tracks. The record also comes covered in a thick paper cover with lyrics printed on it.

The four bonus tracks: Fire Island, AK (susitna demo); (It’s a) Departure (version 1.0); Clouds (home demo); Seven (litho demo).

One day, if I move and have to pack and lug records around, I may regret my growing vinyl collection, if only for a short while (or when I throw out my back lifting it all). But music as rich as Roderick’s deserves the 33 1/3 treatment. And I’m telling you, this 140-gram vinyl is so sturdy you could eat a steak off it.

And these demos are especially fulfilling because I’ve been still wholly absorbed in Putting the Days to Bed, so it’s neat to hear more skeleton versions of the polished tracks.

Buy Ultimatum EP on vinyl for $15. Check out the entire catalog for the Long Winters.

  • The Long Winters | Clouds (home demo)
arizona, general

Tonight: sourceVictoria and Rob Dickinson

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(Look out, two posts in one day!)

I’m excited for tonight, when we’ll see ex-Catherine Wheel frontman Rob Dickinson, exactly a year to the day we saw him last, at Anderson’s in Scottsdale. I’ve gone on at length about Dickinson before, so I won’t do it here again.

Also, local favorite sourceVictoria is opening with an acoustic/piano set. The band recently was featured in the weekly paper Get Out. You might have read about them on this very site, too.

If you’re in town, come on out.

  • sourceVictoria | Heartless Boy
  • sourceVictoria | Opportunistic
hip-hop

New Brother Ali: Truth Is

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Oh Word‘s Sacha Orenstein didn’t mince words in heaping praise on Brother Ali’s new album The Undisputed Truth (due out April 10 on Rhymesayers).

” … Ali has filled every single requirement that I’d laid down for a good rap album this year and he’s done it in a way that seems so natural and effortless that it’s hard not to stand in awe and wonder how the hell it happened.”

Pretty convincing stuff. I’d been sitting on the first single, Truth Is, for a few days, so now seemed as good a time as any to share. After all, I have been watching The White Rapper Show, too. (Read Tom Breihan’s breakdown for more on “The Best Thing on TV.”)

While you’re listening, you may wanna check The Passion of the Weiss’ post on The 10 Best White Rappers of All Time, of which Brother Ali (the whitest of them all; he’s an albino, for crying out loud) is omitted. (EDIT: Read the comments.) But I have a hard time arguing with the No. 1 selection of El-P.

  • Brother Ali | Truth Is
hip-hop

The RZA Presents: Afro Samurai the Soundtrack

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Photobucket - Video and Image HostingI have yet to watch Afro Samurai, a new animated series on Spike (television for men! … boobs, blood, bullets, hundreds of CSI reruns a day!), but I can’t imagine a more perfect musician to oversee/produce a soundtrack for it than RZA, he of Wu-Tang Clan fame.

Afro Samurai, per the Anime News Network (yeah, I know), is “the tale of a black samurai futuristic, yet feudal Japan who is on a mission to avenge the wrongful death of his father.” Naturally, Samuel L. Jackson – executive producer/Jedi – voices Afro, the title character. His samurai sword is the one that says bad motherfucker on it.

Enough of the show; I’m more interested in this soundtrack, which features Q-Tip (you all know I’m a fan of his), Talib Kweli, GZA and Big Daddy Kane (on the same track!) and more. As the de facto head of Wu-Tang, which always has played with loose analogies of its crew to kung-fu warriors, RZA was made for this project, just as he was the Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai soundtrack.

The Afro Samurai soundtrack is a combination of vocal and instrumental cuts. RZA’s theatrical leanings always make for intriguing choices, and this is no different. It’s cohesive, and like many Wu-Tang projects, it incorporates dialogue from the show for a little dramatic effect.

The soundtrack comes out Tuesday on Koch Records.

  • RZA feat. Q-Tip, Free Murder | Just a Lil Dude (Who Dat Ovah There)
  • RZA | Ninjaman (instrumental)
hip-hop, i used to love h.e.r.

I Used to Love H.E.R.: Jonah Matranga

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The contributions have been coming fast and furious of late, and I’m more than pleased to offer up the ninth 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). Jonah Matranga (ex-Far, New End Original, Gratitude, aka Onelinedrawing) takes a stream-of-consciousness approach in discussing two seminal hip-hop groups, the type of entry I love about doing this series because of the freedom contributors have to shape their thoughts.

(Note: Jonah will appear March 18 at Modified in Phoenix with Joshua English and Frank Turner.)

Jonah Matranga
On Public Enemy and Boogie Down Productions

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PE, BDP, Youth Speaks — San Francisco, late-night, 15Jan2007

“I put this together to…”

Not sure what was holding, resistance is quiet sometimes, just digs in and somewhere you just stop wishing, but tonight at YouthSpeaks all different melanin counts surrounded resistance and took it down.

My favorite remains the girl in the ‘Philippines’ shirt, humility without affectation, the first person to speak before she spoke, and be more reforming than performance. There was, though, someone I missed half of, and an older guy that actually reminded me of KRS, which is as good a place to jump as any, though we’ll come back to this thing that got me coming back to this, this ode to PE and BDP, these people that keep reminding me of that great place between chaos and too slick, between boring practiced licks and bricks through windows for no better reason than cos you miss someone.

Chuck did really sound like Martin in the best way (Luther King, the reason for the thing tonight that got me thinking), and in the last poem by the host, she spoke so eloquently about King’s humanity and taking the shackles of archetype off — just like Johnny Appleseed in The Botany Of Desire, these wires running through our very nervous systems — but Martin Luther King was that huge and beyond and the duality is inevitable, the myth-making and immature disappointment when the people we drape our dreams on turn out to be people.

Continue reading I Used to Love H.E.R.: Jonah Matranga →

general

Satchel: EDC

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Photobucket - Video and Image HostingInspired a bit by Idolator’s Coulda-Shoulda-Woulda feature, in which they rummage into albums of yore, I’m going back to (gasp!) 1994 for today’s post. (Kudos to Idolator for the Rival Schools post yesterday.)

Satchel existed in a strange, and ultimately thankless, place: a couple degrees of separation from Pearl Jam, whose guitarist, Stone Gossard, formed the side band Brad with drummer Regan Hagar. With Gossard off on his Pearl Jam duties, Hagar and singer Shawn Smith formed Satchel.

The band’s debut, EDC, carries a loose concept around Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs; there are songs named after characters (Mr. Brown, Mr. Pink, Mr. Blue) and clips of the film are interspersed between tracks. “Take the satchel of diamonds and scram. I’m right about that, right? That’s correct? That’s your story?” (Ahhh, we have a band name!)

I remember wearing out the track Mr. Pink when the album originally came out. But it’s odd that maybe I don’t have a full appreciation of the album until 13 years later. Big guitars and piano-heavy ballads helped carry me out of the grunge years and into a sound more spacious and compelling, though my 16-year-old head – more into A Tribe Called Quest and Digable Planets at the time – struggled to wrap itself around it. Gotta say now that EDC never sounded better.

  • Satchel | Mr. Pink
  • Satchel | Suffering
general

Devastations: Coal

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Wading through the piles of CDs on my desk recently, I couldn’t believe I haven’t done a proper post on Devastations, other than singer Conrad Standish’s excellent contribution to the I Used to Love H.E.R. series.

Devastations (“Devs” to their close friends) released Coal on Brassland in the United States last year; I believe the LP had a European/Australia release in 2005, but don’t quote me on that (they are from Australia). (Also, you may recognize Brassland as the label run by writer Alec Hanley Bemis and the Dessner twins of the National.)

Anyway, if you’re feeling emotionally vulnerable, maybe you don’t want to listen to Coal. Or then, maybe you do. Standish’s baritone voice can be comforting, in the way the bottom of a bottle might be if you’re feeling lonely. It’s moody and intense, and Standish’s low-register range reminds me a great deal of Mark Sandman from Morphine.

  • Devastations | The Night I Couldn’t Stop Crying

(Coal available at eMusic.)

One more thing: Oh, hell yeah!

general

Six Parts Seven: Casually Smashed to Pieces

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From the don’t-judge-a-book-by-its-cover department: Knowing nothing about Six Parts Seven, I was sure when I received the band’s latest offering, Casually Smashed to Pieces, this had to be some metal band, and there was no way I’d even bother listening. I mean, just look at that cover what with the menacing viking and all.

Ahhh, irony. Imagine my surprise when I see Six Parts Seven listed as opener on tour for folk-country favorite Richard Buckner (April 3 at Rhythm Room in Phoenix, by the way). Not only is Six Parts Seven opening, it will be the backing band for Buckner during his set (via). In the many times I’ve seen Buckner, never have I seen him with a full band. So, naturally, I was curious (not to mention embarrassed by my shallow first impressions).

This is an instrumental album, which usually sets off warning alarms inside my head … ahem, Ratatat. But Casually Smashed (on Suicide Squeeze) is concise – eight songs, 31 minutes, to be exact. Anyone with a short-attention span can appreciate that. But anyone with a good ear can love the textures here, supplemented nicely by horns and lap-steel guitars. As a huge fan of Buckner, the pairing all makes perfect sense to me now.

general, vinyl

M. Ward + Jim James:
Magic Trick (Kansas City Remix)

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In the two-plus years of doing this blog, rare are the times I have received records (the vinyl ones) in the mail; I’d guess about three or four times at the max. (This was my favorite for sure.)

So you can imagine my surprise at the very flat package in the mailbox the other day that contained a 7″ record, the first in a series to be given away by The Fader in conjunction with Southern Comfort (kids, drink responsibly; ahem, I’ll take my free bottle now). Apparently, only 500 of each 7″ will be pressed, and they decided to send one to me. Oh, joy.

The first record has My Morning Jacket’s Jim James joining M. Ward for Magic Trick (Kansas City Remix) on the A-side; the original version is on M. Ward’s Post-War. The B-side is Ladyhawk’s Soap.

I had converted Magic Trick to mp3 for Heather, though I’m not sure if she’s posting or not. So I’ll take the opportunity to do it here. The link where you can find info to enter to win the 7″ was broken when I wrote this. So you may have to contact the Fader about that.

  • M. Ward feat. Jim James | Magic Trick (Kansas City Remix)
hip-hop

Tim Fite: Over the Counter Culture

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“All the best rappers get shot by guns,”
– Tim Fite, I’ve Been Shot

I received my promo copy yesterday of Tim Fite’s new album Over the Counter Culture, which isn’t all that much of an insider’s get considering Fite is making the entire album available for free on his Web site on Feb. 20.

Over the Counter Culture is many things: a statement, a concept, a satire. Mostly, it’s brilliant in its execution and follow through. Fite, an experimental-folk eccentric signed to Epitaph/Anti, is getting promotional backing from the label even after his insistence of making the album available for free. How many labels are going to support that? (Though, it is a swift PR move in that Epitaph/Anti no doubt will ingratiate itself to fans who rail against the major-label model.) Really, Fite probably had no other choice than to give it away, lest he be labeled a hypocrite. As Fite told Billboard, “You cannot address politics about consumerism and put it out in the same way that any record would come out. It would be wrong. It is not classy.”

Over the Counter Culture is a hammer over the head of consumerism, specifically the way it has influenced hip-hop. The mainstream vs. independent/underground tug of war is never going to die, and Fite certainly wasn’t the first to call out the glitz-and-glamour way of rap; De La Soul’s De La Soul is Dead (1991) is mandatory listening in this regard.

The highlight, for me, of Over the Counter Culture has to be I’ve Been Shot, a parody obviously inspired by 50 Cent, who we all know by now doesn’t go anywhere without his bulletproof vest. The song is preceded by a 14-second skit in which an interviewer is asking kids who their favorite rapper is; the answer, of course, is 50 Cent. Again, subtlety has no place here.

“Every now and then I ask somebody to graze me/
Just shoot me a little bit, man/
Make it look good/
Well, not every rapper does it/
But every rapper should”

The album is an admirable and important message – from both Fite and Epitaph/Anti. Here’s hoping all the fans who cry about label politics put some faith in this (free) record.

  • Tim Fite | I’ve Been Shot
  • Tim Fite | Place Your Bets

Get Fite’s great 2005 release Gone Ain’t Gone (unfortunately, not for free, but only $5.20 at Insound).

Related:
Tim Fite resuscitates Trunk Federation