radio rips

The Black Keys: NPR live concert series, part II

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UPDATE (11/22): Duke at the Late Greats was hit with a letter from NPR asking him to remove all NPR-associated mp3s. As a precaution, I’m delinking similar files on my site. Sorry ’bout that.

Here’s part II of the Black Keys at the 9:30 Club in Washington, D.C., webcast by NPR. This half starts a little slow with You’re the One, a new track I could live without. But they pretty much blister through a couple of my favorites, Your Touch and 10 A.M. Automatic.

Once again, procure the original download via NPR; the Black Angels’ set also is available there for download.

The Black Keys, NPR Live Concert Series, 11/5/06:


8. You’re the One
9. Set You Free
10. Your Touch
11. Everywhere I Go
12. 10 A.M. Automatic
13. Elevator
14. No Trust
15. Have Love Will Travel
Encore
16. Grown So Ugly
17. Till I Get My Way

radio rips

The Black Keys: NPR live concert series, part I

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No doubt, one of (or, two of, actually) the best highlights of our trip to Austin last year for the ACL Festival was seeing the Black Keys – twice. They opened for the Arcade Fire at Stubb’s and then were the penultimate set of the festival on Sunday night. They were scorching on that Sunday night and, really, who wants to watch Coldplay after that? Not us. We left.

So I was a little disappointed I missed ’em come through Tempe in September. But once again, NPR saves me by webcasting a show from Washington, D.C.’s 9:30 club on Nov. 5 with the Black Angels. It doesn’t quite match the intensity of seeing Patrick Carney whale away on his drum kit or Dan Auerbach play a furious guitar. But I’ll take it.

NPR offers two downloads for each group’s set, at good-quality 128 kpbs. As I’ve done in the past, I’ve separated the one long file into more digestible parts. (For you nerds out there, the individual mp3s are still at 128 kbps.) Get the original downloads from NPR here.

The Black Keys, NPR Live Concert Series, 11/5/06:

1. Thickfreakness
2. Girl Is On My Mind
3. Just Got to Be
4. Modern Times
5. The Breaks
6. Stack Shot Billy
7. Busted

ADMINISTRATIVE: I’m part of the mass mp3 blogger exodus from the formerly great file host EZarchive, which provided pretty much unlimited bandwidth before recently “upgrading.” I’m hosting files with Dreamhost, which means I’ll be a lot more diligent about cleaning out mp3s after two weeks to keep potential overages at a minimum.

IN SPORTS: Have to mention that Arizona State opens its college hoops season tonight vs. our neighbors up the hill, Northern Arizona. I’m not expecting much from the Sun Devils until first-year coach Herb Sendek (formerly of N.C. State) really gets his recruits in here. Judging by the first batch, which includes Jamelle McMillan (son of Nate), it could be promising. Sendek isn’t the boisterous type, but I think he’ll be good in the long run.While I’m on the topic, what a joy this was. Thank you, Virginia.

vinyl

Kaiser Chiefs: “The Letter Song” (B-side)

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If The Letter Song, the B-side to the Kaiser Chiefs’ Everyday I Love You Less and Less 7″, was a cutting-room throwaway (it checks in only at about one-and-a-half minutes), the group spared no expense or detail on the packaging of the record.

The back of the 45 sleeve is fashioned like a spin-a-wheel game: “The Mystic Wheel of Nowledge.” On the front, the sleeve advertises a “special ltd edition rotate-a-song picture disc. … Sing-a-long whilst spelling corectly” (ha … get it?). Both sides of the 45 come in picture-disc format, probably more suitable for hanging as art than playing on the turntable.

Needless to say, Kaiser Chiefs make a compelling case with packaging for the benefits of owning tangible copies of music as opposed to the digital format.

Kaiser Chiefs | The Letter Song

general, vinyl

John Vanderslice: “The Kingdom” (vinyl-only track)

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Leave it to John Vanderslice, one of the most accessible musicians to his fans, to take a vinyl-only track and make it available as a digital download – encoded at 256 kbps (VBR), no less. The Kingdom is (er, was) a vinyl-only addition to the Pixel Revolt LP, available on lovely 180-gram vinyl. (Seriously, 180-gram is beautiful; those records are as thick as dinner plates and probably more durable.)

In an interview with The Red Alert, Vanderslice called The Kingdom, a pretty piano ballad, “a song about someone who finds a way to live in post-apocalyptic America.” Obviously, the war weighed heavily on his mind during the writing of Pixel Revolt:

“there’s no way to win a shadow war
when every radical you stab excites a hundred more
there’s a place, the rust belt, I’ve heard it’s free
it was hardest hit, we were busy fighting the wrong enemy”

(Also notice when you download the song, JV tagged the genre as “Hip Hop/Rap” … nice.)

John Vanderslice | The Kingdom (via www.johnvanderslice.com)

hip-hop, i used to love h.e.r.

I Used to Love H.E.R.: Devastations

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The sixth installment of I Used to Love H.E.R. is a perfect example of why I love doing this feature. Conrad Standish of Devastations comes out of nowhere and surprised the hell out of me with his selection: Funk Your Head Up by Ultramagnetic MC’s, who are best known for their classic debut Critical Beatdown. Kool Keith’s influence knows no bounds.

The Devastations’ new album, Coal, was released on Brassland on Oct. 24. Available from Amazon, eMusic and iTunes.

[mp3] Devastations | Sex & Mayhem

The band is wrapping up a US tour w/The Drones.
November 2006:
11/10: Vancouver, CANADA – Media Club; 11/11: Seattle, WA – Crocodile Club; 11/12: Portland, OR – Doug Fir; 11/14: San Francisco, CA – Bottom of the Hill; 11/15: Los Angeles, CA – Club NME @ Spaceland; 11/17: San Diego, CA – Casbah.

December 2006:
12/10: London, UNITED KINGDOM – Luminaire (w/ Damien Jurado); 12/12: Brussels, BELGIUM – Botanique; 12/13: Gronigen, NETHERLANDS – Vera; 12/14: Tilburg, NETHERLANDS – Cul De Sac; 12/15: Den Haag, NETHERLANDS – State X New Forms Festival; 12/17: Munich, GERMANY – Atomic Cafe; 12/18: Cologne, GERMANY – Prime Club; 12/19: Hamburg, GERMANY – Moltow; 12/20: Berlin, GERMANY – Magnet; 12/21: Dresden, GERMANY – Star Club.

Ultramagnetic MC’s
Funk Your Head Up (Polygram Records, 1992)

“Rappers know I’m cool, rappers know I’m Keith, like Charlie Brown – good grief” – Kool Keith, on Pluckin’ Cards

“Thus, I was hooked onto Ultramagnetic MC’s second, and completely overlooked, album, Funk Your Head Up.

“At the time I was a 15-year-old bonghead, avoiding high school as often as possible, taking acid a little too often for a growing mind and staring into MC Escher prints for far too long. No, MC Escher is not an MC.

“Kool Keith is like the MC Escher of rappers. The guys’ complexity and sci-fi-deranged stream-of-consciousness raps were something I hadn’t really encountered before. I had always been a big hip-hop follower (you know, being pubescent, white and middle class). BDP, Schooly D, EPMD, Public Enemy were mainstays, but upon hearing Keith start kickin’ it, they all seemed like rank amateurs. Songs like Pluckin’ Cards, Funk Radio, Message From The Boss and Bust The Facts blew my mind six ways to Sunday. The production was so fucking funky, the rapping was totally off the hook, and better yet, they seemed to eschew the whole guns’n’bitches mentality of many of the other rappers of the time, which even I was getting a little bored by at that point. I think this was around 1992 or so.

“I got into their first record, Critical Beatdown after this, which I still love, but for me the one is still Funk Your Head Up. It’s fucking impossible to get now. I only had it on a dubbed cassette. If I ever turn into one of those bored rock stars with a record label (fingers crossed!), this will be the first thing I re-issue.

“Good grief.

“Kool Conrad Standish/Devs x”

[mp3] Ultramagnetic MC’s | Pluckin’ Cards

Previously on I Used to Love H.E.R.:
The Gray Kid (Black Moon – Enta Da Stage) || Sarah Daly of Scanners (Run-DMC – Tougher Than Leather) || Pigeon John (De La Soul – De La Soul is Dead) || Joel Hatstat of Cinemechanica (Digital Underground – Sex Packets) || G. Love (Eric B. & Rakim – Paid In Full) || An introduction

hip-hop

New El-P: “Everything Must Go”

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El-Producto, proprietor of Definitive Jux records, former member of underground heroes Company Flow and producer of some of the illest, grittiest beats, has a new album (I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead) lined up for a potential March release.

Like everything El-P touches, the first single, Everything Must Go, boasts that hard-line, grim-faced production. We can be sure El-P never will make a soft beat.

Read his blog, which carries the same name as the album, and get all the deets on El-P’s life, including pictures of that mustache.

El-P | Everything Must Go

general, hip-hop, samples

Incredible Bongo Band: “Apache”

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I’ve been enthralled by the recent writing on the revival of the Incredible Bongo Band’s 1972 LP, Bongo Rock, which contains the cover track Apache, a heavily sampled song in hip-hop for its wicked bongo/percussion breakbeat.

The New York Times wrote a piece about the album, which is being properly reissued after decades of bootlegging. Soul Sides followed with a little more detail about Apache. (An aside: If you’re not reading Soul Sides, you’re really missing out.) As a fan of hip-hop, I’d probably heard Apache copped thousands of times with no idea about the rich, and somewhat sordid, history of the song.

The short version is that the legendary Kool Herc got his hands on a copy of Bongo Rock, which was all but forgotten, and introduced it to his weekly DJ night in New York. Extra copies of the same record “allowed him [Herc] to extend percussion-driven sections of songs indefinitely through hand manipulation of the turntables, creating hypnotic percussive loops” (Times story). That gave rise to the use of the breakbeat, an especially vital part of a track for the B-boys and B-girls (or breakdancers).

Another post by Soul Sides from last year gives you mp3s of the various versions of Apache and just a few of the hip-hop songs (The Roots’ Thought @ Work, Nas’ Made You Look) that sampled it. DJ Z-Trip blended the break in Apache with Madonna’s Like a Prayer on the never-cleared but popular Uneasy Listening Vol. I with DJ P. The-breaks.com gives a list of songs that use the sample, though I’m guessing it’s only partial.

Needless to say, I defer to Soul Sides, the New York Times article and music writer Michaelangelo Matos for historical context of Apache. It’s quite an amazing piece of hip-hop history. (Meanwhile, the reissue of Bongo Rock is available at eMusic, which includes the 7-plus-minute Grandmaster Flash remix.)

I’ll add to Oliver’s extensive post of mp3s with L.L. Cool J’s You Can’t Dance. From Matos: “I believe the first major rapper to utilize “Apache” is—and I’m happy to be proven wrong about this—L.L. Cool J, with “You Can’t Dance” from his 1985 debut, Radio.”

Listen for the bongo break right at the chorus after L.L. spits, “You can’t dance.” On the raw and beat-heavy Radio, it seems like a natural spot for Apache’s introduction to the sampling world.

L.L. Cool J | You Can’t Dance

IN A BIZARRE COINCIDENCE, I swung by Z-Trip’s Web site. He’s made Uneasy Listening available for download in four parts on a new downloads page. I strongly suggest you grab that; it was a mash-up before the term was ever popular.The album never got a proper release, likely because attempting to clear the hundreds of songs used would be a lawyer’s nightmare. I believe about 1,000 copies were pressed; I’ve seen numbered vinyl at Amoeba.(If you’re looking for the use of Apache/Like a Prayer, it comes early in the mix.)

live

Starlight Mints/Bishop Allen, Rhythm Room, 11/5/06

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Thursday’s show was the second time in the past year I’d seen Starlight Mints, and if there’s one thing I learned, it’s this: Starlight Mints make people dance. In weird, inspired ways. In that-person-has-no-rhythm sort of ways. We’re talking Elaine Dance material, with no regard to self-consciousness.

I suppose it stands to reason, all this dancing/contorting, given Starlight Mints’ big, even-tempoed numbers. Even the opener, the instrumental Rhino Stomp, has a name that seems to aptly describe the sound, like a menacing march of drums. The whole procession is complemented by visual mayhem: two standing light sticks on either side of the stage that glow and flash intermittently and a running projection show that mostly streams abstract images of lines and shapes, kind of like the album art on Drowaton. The entire stage set-up looks elaborate: keyboards, laptops, projector, megaphones, etc. In the live setting, you can really see how much the group relies on keyboard- and MIDI-produced sounds for horns and orchestral-type instruments.

It’s indicative of the band’s somewhat oddball leanings. But I appreciate that singer/guitarist Allan Vest keeps the weirdness somewhat reined in, making the music approachable and totally likable. A little too much quirkiness can be exhausting and off-putting. Starlight Mints make it work to their advantage.

[mp3] Starlight Mints | Inside of Me

I have a minor confession to make: I’ve been included on Bishop Allen’s monthly e-mails to bloggers but never had posted on the New York quartet. If you haven’t kept up, Bishop Allen is nearing the end of its EP-a-month project, in which the group is releasing 12 EPs this year and titling them by the month of their releases. My gut reaction was to write it off as a gimmick, albeit a damn creative one. Twelve EPs at $5 per; you do the math. My guess is, though, the publicity is worth far more. (For starters, you might find a post or 20 over at You Ain’t No Picasso.)

For all my cynicism (justified or not), Bishop Allen won me over on Thursday. (And, for the record, I purchased the July EP afterward.) A friend commented afterward that Bishop Allen stole the show. I don’t know if I’d agree totally, but the group certainly held sway, and I caught a few people in the crowd singing along, which suggests the buzz is out there – even in the desert.

Because of a narrow stage front to back, the group lined up nearly in a single-file line left to right. It was a very egalitarian arrangement – drummer in the front! – and added a different visual aesthetic. (The group’s singer, Justin Rice, told me afterward the set-up was out of necessity, but the guys all seemed to like it, which could lead to future experiments with it.) It certainly didn’t hurt. The band’s chemistry was readily apparent – lots of knowing nods and glances to each other as they played, all gestures that seemed to say they were locked in.

More important for me is I finally have some concrete notion of who/what Bishop Allen is. If you read enough blogs and see a band’s name out there so much, you tend to regard it as just some abstract idea or notion. A live show, especially one as good as this, gives me tangible evidence that this band is as talented as everyone said. And damn if closing with Things Are What You Make of Them is about the wisest move the group can make. That song will stick with you; hell, it will stick to you … oh, dear: I’m drinking the Bishop Allen Kool-Aid.

[mp3] Bishop Allen | Click Click Click Click
[mp3] Bishop Allen | Things Are What You Make of Them

hip-hop

2Mex and Life Rexall: “Are $martyr”

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I’m just gonna continue along this hip-hop singles flow. I really need to make a mixtape of the great tracks that have come out this year. So many good albums. Seriously, anyone want a homemade mixtape? I could be inspired to do this.

Today’s track is Green Grass, off 2Mex and Life Rexall’s album Are $martyr (available at eMusic), which came out earlier this year. I’d had it laying around and put off listening to it until recently. What was I thinking? 2Mex is from the Visionaries crew and Life Rexall is part of the Shape Shifters, all out of Los Angeles. I shoulda known it’d be good.

Apparently, Green Grass contains a sample of Green Grass-Shade Trees by the Stylistics, but I was unable to track down the original song (anyone?). Whatever the case, Life Rexall’s production holds onto the original soul of the sample, with the horns laying a prominent hook for the beat.

2Mex and Life Rexall | Green Grass

Related:
The Shape Shifters (8/2/2005)

hip-hop

Nicolay feat. Black Spade: “I Am the Man”

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I’m on a bit of a singles kick of late, and, thanks to HBO, my wife has been a bit of a Singles kick. Big difference. Anyway, in Arizona, when the weather cools down and you can drive with windows down without scorching your skin, I want to listen to hip-hop. Cool breeze, heavy beats. It’s the best.

This track, by Dutch producer Nicolay, is exactly the kind of song I want, with its mesmerizing keyboard loop that rides lovely on that steady beat. It comes off his full-length debut, Here, which you can stream, um, here. His production feels textured and far from exclusionary, as Here jumps between hip-hop and R&B without being offensive to either.

Nicolay feat. Black Spade | I Am the Man (via World’s Fair)

Thanks to Gorilla vs. Bear for stalking RJD2’s MySpace page and letting us know that RJ is streaming his new single, You Never Had it So Good, from his forthcoming album, The Third Hand (due out March 6 on XL).