Minnie Ripperton - Perfect Angel (1974)

Guys, it's a lot harder to regularly update my blog when I have tons of work to do and when I've been trying to spend way less time fucking off on the internet and way more time becoming good at guitar again. Metronomes, flash cards, forearm stretches...

One of the main points of this Minnie Ripperton album is that Stevie Wonder played a lot of instruments and also wrote a few of the songs. I'm not going to tell you which ones though, because this isn't allmusic.com. One of the main points is not Minnie Ripperton's Mariah Carey style party-trick vocal abilities, although those do kind of rock.

As always, the important thing here is song-writing ideas that fuel my thirst for unadulterated life. Relevant motion in phrases means a lot to me. Everyone knows how to cut out for a beat before the chorus and then everything comes in super-strong, but one of my favorite things is when there is significant motion and resolution within a verse or chorus. Not only does Take a Little Trip have a really great jazz chord progression, but the verse has a catchy little "take a little trip through your mind" which leads into the next line "and explore it" which leaves things unresolved and floating around. Then "take a little trip on a magic carpet ride" is a slight variation on the first part of the verse, but it resolves the whole section nicely into a pit of pink pillows and melting breastmilk ice cream. This sort of internal motion and relevance in parts is what is missing from the majority of pop songs that bore my ears.

Also, you know Lovin' You, whether you realize it or not. Every time we oooooh!

Download

Smif-N-Wessun - Dah Shinin' (1995)

How upsetting to parents is a rap group that misspells their gun-manufacturer referencing moniker? Shit I was hiding my Wu-Tang and Busta Rhymes cds, and my poor mother had a hard enough time with punk that sounded like "being electrocuted." Although I was allowed to own classic violent video game Doom after writing an impassioned fifth grade (?) letter detailing my maturity and desire to overstimulate my understimulated suburban senses.

Anyway, this is a record that, although heavy on the jazz samples favored by A Tribe Called Quest, et al, is fucking hard. Also, there's some great patois for all of the Erik and Dans of the world.

The minimalism of Da Beatminerz production on this record feels like being carbonized in a street while dust and debris starts to cake up on your lips. And the crackle of Hellucination evokes weed dreams of swimming in New York sewers discovering new forms of life. Dick ridahs endure a relentless tongue-lashing while I dive into manholes.

Download

The Four Tops - Reach Out (1967)

This is what I think about when I write songs. If you ever hear one of my songs and think "man this is totally a Funk Brothers idea," that's because it is. Joaquin posted a cool video the other day of Ne-Yo, Smokey Robinson & Jamie Foxx doing a Four Tops medley at the Grammys, which gave me goosebumps and inspired me to make this post.

Please pay special attention to Reach Out, which should be very easy to do since it is a fucking behemoth of a song. Laying waste to urban centers, enslaving the strong and massacring the weak. Resolving the end of the chorus with one of my favorite runs from the major third to the fourth to the fifth of the chord.

Build up huge for the chorus, then drop the beat for a subtle bassline, HAH! Right when the verse kicks in, HAH! Now if only Tom G Warrior was in the Motown studio the day they tracked this song...

Download

Ash Ra Tempel - Inventions for Electric Guitar (1974)

Hey, Manuel Göttsching has good taste in scarves bad taste in facial expressions. He also put together some hypnotic minimalism for us. This is where the Krebs cycle, traffic patterns in London, orbiting galaxies, and the schooling behavior of fish all become one. Speed up or slow down any of these behaviors appropriately, assign a musical note to a specific pattern, and this is the music that you will get.

Echo Waves at 12:30 melts into a nightmare of free radicals, attacking every chemical bond within reach. But, if you're not paying super close attention, you don't even notice until the cancer has spread to your bones. It's the development of a ring species condensed into a few moments of music.

Bathe in stars as your mitochondria hum these tunes.

Download

Dmitri Shostakovich - Symphony No. 5 (1937)

I usually do a nice write-up highlighting specific parts and some more technical explanations of why I like parts and why they work for me and what your dad ate for dinner last night.

However, people who are smarter than me at music do this all of the time for European Art Music. Check out this wiki article on Shostakovich's fifth symphony. Well what am I supposed to say after that?

The opening motif in this waltz-like scherzo is a variation of the second theme of the first movement; other variations can be detected throughout the movement. The music remains a witty, biting satire—gay, raucous while also nervous, its energies playfully discharged in an episode of comic relief with its roots in Prokofiev and especially Mahler.

Doesn't that seem exactly like something that I would write or what? What fun is it blogging about music when wikipedia is better at it than you? I'll just say that:

The end of the first movement is fucking creepy and tells tales of ghost trains cruising through the woods. The main theme of the second movement rules. Right at fifty seconds. Court jesters battling to the death.

Download

Varukers - Another Religion, Another War (1984)

I'm in a band where my main song-writing inspiration is Celtic Frost. This works out pretty well for me since I think about Celtic Frost most of the time.

Now, back in the early & mid 80's, Tom G Warrior was probably spending a lot of time thinking about Motörhead and Discharge and Amebix and the fucking Varukers. So, according to logic and the transitive property, I am spending a lot of time thinking about the Varukers, which, all things considered, is a pretty rad thing to think about.

Most of the things that I said about Deep Wound also apply to the Varukers, a blur of d-beat aggression into the rhythmic emphasis of the chorus. What's the deal with the d-beat though? It's like once you reach a certain bpm, what is ostensibly just a basic backbeat with syncopation leading up to the fourth beat flips into this weird intuition defying monster that lends itself nicely to an ambient syncopation hum over which chords can fly in any which way they please. Super cool, wish I understood it.

Download

Jacula - Tardo Pede in Magiam Versus (1972)

There are a lot of ghosts whispering right now. Many ghosts tell me their tales, ghosts of gorillas, ghosts of Cicciolina, ghosts of Bach and his son Carl Phillipp Emanuel. These ghosts are singing me a song, and one is singing Jacula Valzer in my right ear while the other is singing Long Black Magic Night in my left.

Much creepier than movies about ghosts taking over the internet, much creepier than blog posts about ghosts.

Download

The Shangri-Las - Myrmidons of Melodrama

Hey chances are that I've probably made fun of some band that you like for having teen angst. Man teen angst can actually be pretty cool when it's not all done up in false poetry. Also it helps when you have a genius song-writing and mad scientist style production.

That's one of the coolest things, when you have some ostensibly silly teenage love songs coupled with Lolita style sexuality, but also fucking godhead songs. The classic example is Phil Spector with The Ronettes and The Crystals, but George Morton was operating on a similar level here. See also: France Gall & Serge Gainsbourg, Britney Spears & whoever produced Toxic.

The Beatles stole a lot of ideas from this era of girl group pop, and you can hear it in the way that the verses of a lot of those songs have a beginning, middle and end then adjust to lead smoothly into the chorus, rather than just repeating the same vocal idea four times. We've got layers and layers here in these songs, but, as is expected of great writing, it's never distracting. You don't have to hear all of the syncopated percussion if you don't want to, but if you do you might just stuff your bra and keep a diary. God I hope I don't get my period in gym class.

Download

Note: I deleted the final tracks of this collection, which was a make-up advertisement and other things, so the ish would fit on mediafire. If you are offended, I am not sorry. Find something better to care about.

Sidney Bechet - Original Recordings (1932-1952)

As requested by a punk who I know, here is one of the main psychos of New Orleans jazz. Let me give you an example: Sidney Bechet was jailed in Paris when a passerby was wounded by a bullet he fired during a duel. A fucking duel in the middle of Paris.

These aren't Bechet's earliest recordings of the 20s, which are also really rad, but dude basically kept the same agenda throughout his career. Blues is extremely prevalent here, as many of these compositions are based on the 12-bar form and feature extensive pentatonic improvisation.

What's important, though, is Bechet's ability to think ahead in his solos. It's one thing to be able to string chords together throughout your improvisation. It's another to have clear statements that all have something to do with each other and make sense together any which way you want to connect them. It's like looking at, I don't know, a fucking Nautilus or something, which, on its own, is a creature that looks just completely wild as fuck. And then you sort of think about coral reefs as a whole and what other insane beasts dwell there, and the whole thing really just makes your brain seem so goddamn pathetic. But then you realize what a magnificent flesh computer you have bouncing around in your skull, and everything falls into place. What I'm saying is that Sidney Bechet's playing is like evolution.

Bechet mostly follows chords around with his huge vibrato, and throws in tons of diminished runs which I'm just a big giant sucker for. Maple Leaf Rag ~2:20 for a nice break Yngwie Malmsteen would be jealous of.

Also check out this version of Summertime. Fucking heavy. Put it on: yr moshing.

Download

Excuses

Hey, I've been in the process of moving over the past few weeks, and I haven't had much time with my music and the internet in the same place. Updates will resume at their previous clip sometime v. soon. Great!

OC - Word...Life (1994)

I feel like New York hip-hop has been under-represented on my blog here, especially because, along with astonishingly primitive black metal, it is my favorite thing. O.C. is part of the Diggin' in the Crates crew and Buckwild did a lot of production on this album, so if you're expecting some sort of jazzy, lyrical hip-hop, then your head is in the right place. Congratulations.

This isn't quite Illmatic or Only Built 4 Cuban Linx, but what is other than The Infamous or Ready to Die? This is squarely on that second tier, though, which is really saying a lot. But hold on, who wants to read my writing about categories, especially when I was going to ridicule people who like "hip-hop" but not "rap." I'm over it though, smooth brains can do what they will. That shit just isn't my dad.

O.C. is unapologetically more intelligent than his peers, and he has quiver full of little poison arrows for fake thugs and sell-outs:

What's-her-face told me you shot this kid last week in the park/That's a lie, you was in church with your moms

I'd rather be broke and have a whole lot of respect/It's the principal of it, I get a rush when I bust some dope lines oral, that maybe somebody'll quote/That's what I consider real, in this field of music

He also gets all high school existential for a minute, wondering why life is so damn short and all. Hint: it prob has something to do with the values of some fundamental constants.

This whole album is rooted in reality, and O.C. steers well wide of melodrama and irritating polemicism. Instead, the universal themes of struggle to earn your own place, proving haters wrong, existential melancholy, and alpha male bravado shine through. That's right, even if you live in the hills of New Guinea, you will relate to this record. You already slept on it once in 94, don't fuck up again.

Download

Super Rail Band - New Dimensions in Rail Culture (1982)

Band names, like lyrics, are one of those things that are always kind of stupid. However, this is in the running for the best: Super Rail Band Of The Buffet Hotel Del La Gare De Bamako, Mali. Hell yeah, motherfucks. The fucking rail administration of Mali sponsored this shit. How cool is that, and how do I apply?

Attn: Rail Adminstration of Mali
I can play a lot of Megadeth songs on guitar and various arpeggios, so whenever you're ready, just leave me a comment and we'll see what's good.

So, the music. We've got some shredders: Foliba at 3:50. We've got cool syncopated rhythms. We've got two vocalists with really rad super-clear voices. Songs are based on a groove more than anything else, and, when I listen to this, I have a weird association with driving a van full of sleeping dudes through Nebraska.

Download

Think I Care - World Asylum (2006)

If you've looked at my blogger profile at all, you may have noticed how I feel about Celtic Frost. Think I Care felt the same way, or they at least felt the same way about Sheer Terror, who certainly groveled at the jeweled throne of Tom G. Warrior.

The agenda here is very, uh, primitive. We've got a plethora of chromatic, mid-paced riffs that just force the corners of your mouth down as far down as they can go. Riffs establish a pummeling stomp through down-picking on an open chord, then are offset with a syncopated flurry of fifths. This is done with the intuition of bands like Nuclear Assault or the Cro-Mags, making each deviation a spike in your endorphins. Song structures are typical of post 85 hardcore, with loose verse chorus arrangements leading up to "the big heavy." Depending on your mood and breeding, you may find this fun or you may find this tedious. My argument is that you should loosen up because not everyone wants to listen to Richard Strauss all of the time.

I saw this band many years ago, well before I was smart. As such, I watched respectfully from the side and probably thought about Dillinger Escape Plan riffs or something fucking stupid like that. This may be a false memory, but I think the drummer was playing without bending his wrists at all, delivering a true pre-agriculture beating to a world gone wrong.

Download

Note: My friend Dave kindly pointed out that the intro to this record is a straight up rip of Cro-Mags - Death Camps. Dave is the most knowledgeable mosher of them all.

DJ Deeon - Let Me Bang (2003)

Be careful because once you've heard this record, sometimes you just can't listen to anything else. Don't complain to me when it happens to you.

The title track here is a little more varied than usual for this mother-offending variation on Chicago house. We've got the usual four on the floor kick and the little hi-hats on the "and." But the verse drops into half-time which makes the "Bang it!" transition back into the beat all the more compelling. Wild-eyed thrusting is the only reasonable response. Also note the tastefulness of the sing-songy pre-chorus of "hit it from the back." That is how a children's song should be turned into an ode to debauchery.

Disclaimer: I know of a few big booty bitches and big titty bitches who read my blog, and I don't want you guys to get the wrong idea: I respect you as a person and a woman. However, let me bang.

Download