Attackerman

Bushwick Bill

Spent much of my morning being interviewed by Josh Rushing of Al Jazeera for a forthcoming newsmagazine piece. I won't step on Josh's thunder, but it's very Danger Roomy. More information as we get closer to the piece coming out, presuming my yammering makes the final cut. I left very impressed with his curiosity, sophistication and interviewing style. Also we talked off-camera nerdily about e-readers and tablets. Anyway.

Also: so one of Lil Wayne's lines in the (very good so far on first listen) Carter IV record is a Bushwick Bill reference, which got me reminiscing. Anyone remember the BoxTalks interviews that The Box used to run during the mid-90s? You remember the Box, I trust:

Anyway, The Box ran a promo for a post-Geto Boys interview with Bill, which cold-bloodedly began (cue white-man-announcer voice), "Bushwick Bill is taking no shorts." If anyone has a copy of that out there in the internet world, say something in comments. 

Trouble on Jay-Z's Mind: The Mixtape Yeezy, Odd Future, And Bandwagoning

 

Marc Lynch comes through with another international affairs lesson taught through the prism of Shawn Carter's career. This time, he contends that Watch The Throne is an attempt to bolster Jay-Z's hegemonic position in an era of decline through yoking it to the power of Kanye, especially as Kanye himself becomes a network, establishing G.O.O.D. Music the way Jay created the Roc. Marc calls it a "savvy strategy of institutionalizing hegemony in the face of potential decline."

His bottom-line position isn't wrong. But his focus is askew. If the establishment of the network is the crucial factor here -- and I think we can agree that it's at the very least barometrically significant -- then looking at the central figure is a mistake. We need to look at the periphery, the actors invited to join the network, to test the value added by the coalition. As Marc will surely agree, given his contentions about the role of social media and al-Jazeera during the Arab Spring, international power is hardly evenly distributed -- but more of it resides at the bottom of the ladder than the top likes to admit; and if the top doesn't diversify, it's liable to get Hosni'd, Gadhafi'd, or Ben Ali'd. 

That's why he shouldn't be looking at Watch The Throne. He should be studying "Trouble On My Mind," Pusha's collaboration with Tyler, The Creator.

The shining gem in the G.O.O.D. franchise is Pusha T, Marc very correctly observes, the "lyrical monster" whose incorporation into the fold signaled that G.O.O.D. was a "strong new alliance." On the strength of three incredible (one classic) Clipse albums and four classic Re-Up Gang mixtapes (I include Road To Till The Casket Drops, which is slept-on and sick), Pusha is the most undervalued stock in rap music. Geopolitically, he's Brazil: all his fundamentals are strong and likely to get stronger. 

You Ain't Makin' Any Sense At All

Now this is how you cover the classics. 

 

If you're familiar with "Malfunction," chances are your face has melted off after hearing this, after your brain already froze and shattered. 

I remember a few years ago there was some New York Times story about how contemporary bands don't cover each others' material any more, opting back into the familiar classics rather than offering their own spin on their peers' work the way, say, Otis Redding took "Satisfaction" away from the Stones. That thesis has aged quite poorly; just see, for instance, Wayne freestyling over "Rolling In The Deep." But if you're going to cover something, whether it's contemporary or ancient: make it your own. Straight covers are boring as hell. You should be saying something with your choice of cover, so why simply say what another band already said?  

This song courtesy of Jesse Cannon, from whom you can learn a ton about both music and modern living. 

Wedding Song Rejects, Part V: ''Mo's Vacation & The Black Page #2"

Surreal: My father suggested this Zappa track for a Wedding Song Reject.

 

The No Age Kids Are Officially The Luckiest Ever

  Ten minutes of Black Flag covers, featuring Keith Morris and Chuck Dukowski. (Via Pitchfork.) Can you imagine what these No Age kids must be thinking? Also, this will be too real for some of you, but the Circle Jerks' version of "Wasted" is better than Black Flag's.

Love You Like A Sister Always Soul Sister Rebel Girl Come And Be My Best Friend

I'm not familiar with Network Awesome, but they're putting together a week-long exploration of women in punk that's a stop-everything-and-check-out. Jessica "Hit It Or Quit It" Hopper, one of my first writerly heroes, is part of it. That's all the vouching I need.

Promised are "rare interviews and concerts, videos, documentaries and feature films." That makes up for the curation tending to (in my opinion! No disrespect!) the more familiar women pioneers of punk. I'm seeing very little hardcore here, which is a shame, since women in hardcore fought way hard for what they achieved in a testosterone-fueled scene and it still goes underappreciated. 

For example, one of my favorite bands from high school, Berkeley's Spitboy, who've faded into obscurity despite recording a classic split LP with Los Crudos and another classic 1993 full-length, True Self Revealed. Pure fury, raw but complex musicianship, and a tighter political focus than nearly all their contemporaries. (Quick, what was Econochrist about?) My favorite song by them:

 

Goddamn, listen to Adrienne wail "it burns" on that. I used to love her MRR column, too.

It was hardcore, along with my mom, that got me -- however imperfectly -- attentive to gender politics, and that never, ever would have happened had not women in punk demanded the entire scene be attentive. 

Wedding Song Rejects, Part V: 'Victim In Pain'

With regrets to my best man, there will be no AF. "Why/ am I/ the one to fuckin' blame" can be something my wife and I shout at each other forty years from now or something.

 

 

The Half-Assed Guide to Spotify

You can surely read my WIRED colleagues (we CAPITALIZE it for some reason) giving you the real story about Spotify, the cloud-based free music service that launched in the U.S. today after years of setbacks and anticipation. For pro tips, I suggest starting here. But let's say you take a less rational approach to your new technological salvation. Let's say you want to play with Spotify while, oh, reporting and finalizing a long story about something else, blogging in the meanwhile, keeping track of Twitter important current events and otherwise multitasking. You need the half-assed guide to Spotify.

Basic facts: this will cost you nothing. Except an invite while they roll out the U.S. beta. Beg for one on Twitter or use Klout. It worked for me. If you want to sync your Spotify account with your phone, that's going to cost you $10 per month. And you know what? I happily paid for that. The ability to stream any music I can find in the cloud, that I search for and choose (ahem, Pandora)? Way worth it. Doing it on wi-fi worked like a dream. I'll be heading out soon and seeing how it performs over Verizon 3G. And then how it affects my bill...

The music library started out great. Not perfect, but great. Fucking Age of Quarrel by the Cro-Mags isn't on there, and I wanted to hear that today. But I settled for making a playlist called "Street Justice" based on songs about "Street Justice." Another thing I really wanted to hear today? Big L's classic Lifestyles Ov Da Poor And Dangerous. Spotify had that ready for me. Also a 2011 Shelter LP (???), which I listened to just because it was now an option for me. 

App interface is supereasy. Clearly modeled on iTunes, which is a comforting familiar thing. Creating a playlist is a matter of selecting and dragging a song into a folder all set up for you. I didn't have a single hiccup playing any streamed music.

Don't get the point of syncing your iTunes library with Spotify. You've already got that on your computer and, likely, phone and/or tablet. The joy of Spotify is to let you hear all this music you don't have, anyway. (And I'll probably move my music to iCloud when Apple rolls that out, anyway.) I started to sync out of habit, but then it took forever and I had calls to make, so I said fuck it. 

Haven't used any of the social functions of Spotify yet, but I'm excited for those. Imagine the possibilities for instantly judging your friends, neighbors and strangers! 

Wedding Song Rejects, Part IV: 'Superthug'

The twenty straight seconds in which N.O.R.E. says "what" to introduce the "Superthug" chorus amounts to emptying a banana clip into the corpse of lyricism. Noreaga was the subprime mortgage of New York rap, heralding inconceivably lean times ahead for a dominant region. The first time I heard the intro to "Superthug" I must have laughed through the entire song. And the video, my God -- if anyone respected Arabs in this country, the whole "desert" motif (that's not what Iraq looks like, N.O.R.E.!) would have been a career killer. Instead, it's Nore's biggest song ever.

And, inevitably, the song stays with you forever. Resisting its catchiness is an act of self-denial. Just accept it. 

   These days I'm an unapologetic Noreaga fan, thanks to his baller Twitter feed, in which he reveals himself to be a super-nice, dorky guy who thinks his kids are frustratingly adorable and tries hard to lose that last stubborn 20 lbs. Also, The War Report? Undisputed classic. That Nore'aster EP -- I can't say it's good, but I can certainly say that I listen to "Nore Shot Somebody" and "Bottles Go Bang" the way other men eat entire sleeves of Oreos at a time. I genuinely feel bad writing this -- N.O.R.E., I genuinely mean you no disrespect and pull for you at every opportunity. 

In fact, I might have to play this at the wedding. 

Kanye, Have You Heard About The New Dance That's Going Around?

It's called the eye roll:

During the hilarious, audacious "Italian Living," which features a sample of Andrea Bocelli's "Con Te Partirò" of all things, a journalist was booted from the hotel room for breaking the evening's one rule: No live-tweeting. Idiot. The tracks were unfinished and lyrics subject to change, but one memorable #hashtag rap couplet from Kanye on the same song: "I'm about to say something crazy / John Galliano."

Tee hee, a famous fashion designer is a vile anti-semite! There's a difference between saying something crazy and something bigoted. Pro tip: the latter isn't controversy for controversy's sake.