"The conversation has changed, lets yap about that" - What We Talkin About?

Following in the footsteps (a little too closely at times) of the great Hip Hop storytelling heavyweights and fellow NY natives Slick Rick and Notorious B.I.G., Jay-Z the Renegade has been obsessed with being the Ruler since before he could write. To the core, the streets of Brooklyn trained Jigga to be a hustler, meaning he’ll make it to the top, no matter the expense. This versatile hustle is crucial to Hov’s leadership because a leader is one who must continually change the path and form of the vehicle which they command. Since his debut, young Hov has had Reasonable Doubt about the direction of Hip Hop, but he knows all too well how to play the game. So, Jay set up The Blueprint for us to follow and now, Hip Hop plays according to the rules written (or rather dictated) by the “New King of New York.”

Since the new millennium, we’ve seen a major shortage of conscious and even creative lyricism, lost to the simplicity of R&B and Pop. But the Camel has survived this growing drought and now, in our time of need, Hov has returned to resurrect Hip Hop through verbal brutality and lyrical superiority. Preaching progression and reinvention, the third installment of The Blueprint is drawn up with the usual Jigga direction, motivation, and commitment that could spark a revolution and enough fire to spark an L. Although, some Hip Hop heads might not like the wrap Jay has this revolution dressed in, since at least half of the album suggests we’re rollin to the club.

The Roc Nation founder sparks this reconstructive blaze the same way any revolutionary would, by questioning the current order and standards; asking “What We Talkin About?” Denouncing fraudulence, gossip, and underestimation, Jay pleads for lyrical sophistication. ‘‘What We Talkin About?’ being the opening track on the album, it’s meant to introduce the themes throughout, showcasing brutal honesty and insistent growth. The epic futuristic production by Kanye West and NO ID sets the stage for a revolutionary masterpiece.

Jay-Z then mercilessly begins his wreckage with the single ‘D.O.A. (Death Of Auto-Tune)’, where he declares war upon everything from “ringtone raps” to catchy hooks. Jigga always believed that the battle, the “beef”, the competition was the heart of Hip Hop, which clearly explains why he takes such a bold stance against his peers, including a member of his own circle, Mr. West. Although, Kanye clearly had just as big of a hand in drawing up the third Blueprint as he did in the first, so no worries there, as long the money’s rollin in. What I love about this song, other than its production and its blatant stance against Auto-Tune, is that Jay calls for artists to return substance and re-establish Hip Hop’s place in mainstream music through words instead of melodies. But when you tear down so many concepts that superstars today have built their following upon, it’s difficult to find someone competent to rebuild, much less ‘Run This Town’ of Hip Hop

The Crew

The Blueprint

The Roc

Hov takes the flag and claims the land as property of Roc Nation. Along with fellow generals, Rihanna and Kanye West, Jay-Z marches in and announces the union’s platform. The production as a whole seems to suggest a Roc Nation call to arms. Taking a stand against the lies, the Roc intends to fight for true emotion in Hip Hop rather than buying into commercial manipulation. It’s time we get our hands dirty. “Get y’all black tees on, all black everything.” The production, along with the ‘California Love’-esque apocalyptic video gives the song a powerful presence.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Mr. Carter knows how vital an asset a loyal crew is in the music industry, which is why he usually works with artists that are in his inner circle at the time. As a result, The Blueprint 3 is filled with friends from Def Jam; giving Jeezy almost an entire song, ‘Real As It Gets’ and Rihanna a feature on the hit single, former Roc-a-fella teammate; Kanye West ,as well as new G.O.O.D. Music star Kid Cudi (making his debut this week), and introducing on the song ‘A Star Is Born’; NC native and newest artist signed to Jay-Z’s new 360° entertainment company Roc Nation, J. Cole.

The Dynasty

‘D.O.A.’ was used to bring in fans who were tired of the Pop-ish hooks and ‘Run This Town’ was used to show those new fans that Jay-Z knows how to handle the revolution. Then, we start to flip through the album and, before even half of the blunt is ash, realize that it’s not so much a revolution against the Dance/Club music as much as it is a compromise between the growing trend of Techno in Hip Hop and the “classic” sans-melody Hip Hop. By the time we get to songs like “Off That” and “On To The Next One”, we still get the feel of a progressive drive in the lyrics but all production turns Electronic and falls a little flat. Jay starts simply making club music, luckily without trying to sing any hooks himself. He makes the intelligent move instead and allows instead up-and-coming Dance/Techno/R&B artists like Mr.Hudson to sing them. This is an important lesson for anyone in music; stick to what you’re good at and leave the rest to the professionals. Although, it weakens the cause against the use of Auto-Tune and Dance/Club hooks as a crutch in future Pop Hip Hop. As the imposed Blueprint, I feel like it’s missing the direction for future generations away from the easy way out rather than descriptions of easy street. At least we get some decent work from decent new (Drake) and a couple of old (Pharrell) artists, but the second half of the album could’ve used a little bit more substance.

Speaking of substance, we hear a lot more marijuana references from Jay-Z this time around, which is interesting because normally he steers clear of the Blazin Path, at least when working, in order to focus. There’s a clear step towards the “high life”; the more successful that Hovie gets, the more he’s able to relax and roll up. I figure I might as well do the same. Usually, when listening to an album from high on Cloud 9, I can get into the head of the artist and feel the words as if they’re coming from my own soul. When I arrive in the sky at midnight on September 11, 2009, I feel like Jay-Z, without even hitting the blunt, is already chilling the re, ready and waiting to spit all 8 million stories. At this point, Hov’s persona has literally breached the atmosphere and I’m up here just visiting to hear him speak. Sometimes, Jay gets so descriptive and in-depth with his stories that I drift off and begin to see the world through the eyes of a rising Hip Hop mogul; looking down at the world, trying to give the people a game plan.

Overall, The Blueprint 3 seeks to disassemble the standards of success in music today and reconstruct the approach to Hip Hop tomorrow. Hov builds the structure for the future upon honor, gratitude, and forward movement, all in the name of Hip Hop. It’s a live fire of potential revolution that I think could catch on, depending how deep people have gotten into this Auto-Tune trend. What most need to realize if they speak out against this album for being too similar to the style The Blueprint 3 seems to be condemning, is that he’s not attempting to discredit the trend completely, but rather give it a new direction. This album should give hope to up-and-coming artists, because it shows the Hip Hop can still have a place in popular music. Until the next generation of Hip Hop grasps the new Blueprint, Hov will be kickin back with his queen, Beyonce, cigar in hand, watchin over his empire.

"This is Roc Nation, pledge your allegiance." - Run This Town

“High-end” tracks:

‘Thank You’ : A feel-good party song you can bob your head to with a blunt in your mouth.

‘Off That’ : A futuristic soar through Jay’s ambition.

‘Venus vs. Mars’ : The punch-lines alone make it worth the listen.

‘Already Home’ : A personal favorite about success and being a grateful member of “the high life”.

‘Young Forever’ : Young Hov paints a picture of a dream-like paradise through living in the moment.

Buy The Blueprint 3 on Amazon.com!

Peace
- Fully

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Lined up outside last week’s Tool show at an arena in Charlotte, I found myself  surrounded by the expected throng of metal afficionados. But though this was my third time seeing the band, it somehow took me this long to realize that this group came nowhere near comprising the largest core of fans. Not even close. No, it was only now that what had been under my nose the whole time made itself apparent, somehow, that there was one segment of the population Tool spoke to above all others: hippies.

On the surface this would seem to make no sense. Far from embracing shrieking guitars and relentlessly aggressive rhythms, your average peace loving pothead would be expected to flee the scene as quickly as his open toed sandals would allow. Provided we thought much about them at all back when they first flashed on the scene, we would have dismissed them and Sober as one hit wonder footnotes. Even when their second full lenght, Aenima, debut in 1996 and brought with it a stranglehold on radio, chances are there weren’t too many Deadheads or Phish Phans cross pollinating this field of worshippers.

But something strange started to transpire around the turn of the century, both to and because of the band and its fans. Disinterested for the most part in short, catchy singles, Tool began branching out into extended instrumentals that were as trippy as they were bizarre. Their CDs also began featuring artwork straight out of a head shop. And with Radiohead fast slipping into the “My First Keyboard” simplicity of their past few regrettable releases, most of the other legitimate jam bands on hiatus and the decidedly non-head-friendly vibe of the Bush years polluting our air space, Tool somehow stood tall as the last vestige of the 70s vinyl experience, the let’s throw the record on and separate our seeds on the album cover while we stare at the artwork years.

Seeing them in concert takes this experience one step further. Drummer Danny Carey sets the table with some amazing rhythms that are clearly inspired by tribal music, down to and including his use of non-Western instruments such as the tabla. Green and orange lasers shoot across the arena to a chorus of stoned cheers - the air is nothing if not thick with pot smoke here, leaving the question of contact high no question at all, whether you’re packing or not - and if it seems at times that the band, shockingly for a metal group perhaps, is stealing some pages from the Pink Floyd handbook, then so be it. Considering Floyd have played just one show in the past fourteen years, it’s high time (ahem) someone took up the slack.

At one point two spaceships descend from the ceiling, fanning the crowd with purple and white spotlights. A pack of men in lab coats rushes onto the stage, where they hastily assemble a second drum kit in the middle. This kit is then lit up with an eerie light that can only be described as making it glow with a color I’d term Alien Spaceship Green. Singer Maynard Keenan, who, mind you, spends the entirety of the show behind the band, engulfed in shadow that renders him essentially unseeable, mutters something about the lasers, then says, “let the transformation begin.” Then the two percussionists launch into a long narration of interlocking rhythms and back and forth soloing.

Far out, man, far out.

Running continually throughout the show, too, are the mind bending visuals on a pair of video screens. Heavy on “eye” imagery, for whatever reason, one clip has a camera slowly closing in on one man’s pupil, which upon further inspection has another face inside it, the pupil of which has another, and so on.

Far more interesting, however, is the artwork of Alex Gray, who designed the packaging for both Lateralus and 10,000 Days and whose craft is broadcast extensively here. With the latter, most recent release, fans were given stereoscopic glasses to view these psychedelic faces spiraling into infinity -and if that’s not an excuse to sit around baked, then I don’t know what is.

Lost in all this, occasionally, is the music. Rest assured, however, there are enough fist pumping singalongs from the early days to keep the metal maniacs satisfied, though upon closer inspection the lyrics in these are more warped than you might suppose, from an ambiguous ode to heroin (H.), to my personal favorite, Aenima, which has Maynard spewing “fret for your latte...fret for your hairpiece,”and wishing a bomb would fall on California so that everyone would learn how to swim. Still, like the music, his lyrics took a decidedly stoner-friendly turn somewhere around the third album, and this is likely the primary reason the cannabis contingent came aboard in droves. With each effort he becomes all the more enigmatic, and that allows the listener, particularly when under the influence of mood-enhancing substances, to interpret them any way he likes. If there’s one theme uniting 10,000 Days it is constant references to being in a “better place” mentally and to seeing us all “on the other side.” Today’s modern hippie needs a fresher, more topical message than the old peace-n-love jam bands can deliver, and Tool, for all intents and purposes, are the new messiahs of bringing it.

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I don’t consider my self a child of the 80’s, but I was a child in the 80’s. One of the biggest distinctions is my experience with John Hughes movies. Reading through his numerous tributes and obituaries I realized I never saw one of his films in a theater, but I had seen all of them on video. Those plastic boxes stacked behind an empty box. Ensemble cast photo on the front. Carry them up to the counter. Have them back by Friday.

The visceral essence of these films was of watching the big kids play. Snooping on their business. And one thing that stuck was the music. Sitting by the boom box, calling in a request to the DJ waiting to tape that song off the radio. The goal, a mix tape.

And there were rules.

You want it to all fit together. Pick something that had a cohesive vibe or arc. But never two songs from the same album.

Chic-a-chic-ahhh…

Raise your hand if you have ever tried to replicate that sound. Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

With so many films set in high school, or with high school age protagonists, John Hughes managed to polish a fractal fabrication. Each one encapsulating the entire ethic, but each one special an unique, just from a different face.

Recreationally, I’ve taken in a few of the Hughes films from on high. In most cases, I can’t say that the already superlative efforts become greater. The stories are so universal, the space already so empathic, no special sauce is needed. The one place the swell explodes into the great green geyser is the musical montages.

From Chic-a-chic-ahh we swoop through the theme song for Wierd Science. Imagine someone trying to pull that off today. A comedy with a theme song. ‘Knocked Up’?

But the real jewels are the class of songs that are inextricable from the Hughes universe. When you hear them, you know they are from one of the films. You might not be able to sort if it was in 16 Candles or Pretty in Pink, but you see the school dance.

The John Hughes High School Playlist.

The moniker ‘Voice of a Generation’ is often thrown around lightly. Kurt Cobain changed pop music when Smells Like Teen Spirit hit MTV. For a kid my age, Nirvana’s short span still scintillates through my adolescent memories, but he was not the voice of a generation. By the time I entered high school. Sweater wearing Beemer driving Preppies were extinct. I have to imagine, at least partially, we have John Hughes to thank for that,

So, Maybe I’m not a child of the 80’s, but I’m definitely a child of John Hughes.

And then the last song, you break all the rules.

Danke Shoen

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Rolling off the G thang, it went a bit stale. It started to feel like tracks some suburban kid rat holed off urban radio on his big brother’s boom box, hiding his obsession like a dirty secret. Reinforcing the image was a non-stop loop of 2 Live Crew music videos.

I would have dug more of a house party vibe, so here you go. This white boy starts in with same Snoop, just to set the mood. If you’ve heard this song too much, you aren’t smoking the right stuff.

This time, lets switch it up. Snoop bounces us out the club, moves the furniture against the wall, fills the fridge with beer and breaks out the biggest, baddest pipe we got. The party is on.

At the Southern tip of India there is a tradition. Not like the 7th inning stretch. More like a religious tradition. The religion has long since been lost, but the tradition continues. They build, from scratch, a village. The people come, and for days they have ceremonies. Priests recite liturgies thousands of years old. No one knows what they mean or what is being said. The sounds have been passed down, but not the meaning. Researchers have recorded and dissected every phoneme. It has no relation to any known language, The closest relation they can find is bird song. At the end of the ceremony, the village is burnt to the ground. Next year they will do the same, exactly the way they have for untold thousands of years.

Roughly 11,500 years ago in Southeast Turkey a temple was erected. Long before any pyramids or Stonehenge. At the tip of the fertile crescent, the temple marks the moment when hunter-gatherers first set root. The plant and animal remains found at the site are all wild. No domestic animals. No farmed plants. Yet, they built a stone temple.

3,500 years ago a group moved from modern day Turkey, not far from the ancient temple, through the Kush into Northern India. These immigrants became part of the great epics of India. They brought Sanskrit with them. They also carried Soma. A drink of poets and gods. A potent cocktail of ephedra and marijuana. It gave the words of the Rigveda.

Like their brothers 8,000 years earlier, they built temples. They praised gods. They came together, building a society. And it begs the question, to what do hunter-gatherers pray? They certainly have the forces of nature, cycles of life, and the stars above but, without farming, they stay on the move. Is it a coincidence that the first permanent temple rises in the land of Soma. The land of the legendary hashish fueled marauders.

Archaeologists believe the stone age temple in Turkey was a gathering point for feasts. That goes along with my own theory. Cannabis. Music. The only thing missing is a house… and it’s a party.  Ain’t Nuthin’ but a G’ Thang. Now let’s spark this joint and burn it to the mother-fuckin’ ground.

Nuthin’ But A ‘G’ Thang bt Dr. Dre (feat. Snoop Dogg) from The Chronic
The Mike & Chris Story by People Under The Stair from Fun DMC
ExtraHard by Little Brother from Getback
There’s A Party (Feat. George Clinton & Chali 2na) by N.A.S.A. from The Spirit of Apollo
Merrymaking At My Place by Calvin Harris from I Created Disco
99 Luft Problems by Jay-Z and Nene from A Mashup
Risky Business by Murs

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1. No Boy Singers
2. You Must Dance
3. No Magic

Following these rules, Seth Bingo and Silent Girl spin through their set. I mish-mash of British electro, Swedish Pop, American Indie, Motown, and Blondie. To try and make sense of it would repeatedly fail (unless it was in comic book form). A girly-whirl of colored lights. Mixed drinks in plastic cups out on the dance floor. As the songs thump against each other, the Feminine winks and gyrates through the crowd. You are getting lucky tonight.

Magic.

Welcome to The Singles Club.

Atomic.

• Ice Cream by New Young Pony Club from Fantastic Playroom
• Konichiwa Bitches by Robyn from Robyn
• Let’s Make Love And Listen To Death From Above by CSS from CSS
• Graffiti My Soul by Girls Aloud from What Will The Neighbors Say?
• I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone by Sleater-Kinney from Call The Doctor
• You Keep Me Hangin’ On by The Supremes from The Definitive Collection
• Pull Shapes by The Pipettes from We are The Pipettes
• Who’s That Girl? by Robyn from Robyn
• Atomic by Blondie from Eat to the Beat

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I look over at the passenger seat and there she is, my honky tonk partner in crime. Egging me on in this international killing spree. I pause a second… There are going to have to be some rules. Same as last time, right? My subconscious trips into the past.

The Dead Weather is the latest project from Jack White. I finally understood him when I saw the PBS documentary on The Blues. He is a simple southern blues man. Son House, just sweatier and paler and much louder. From a swampy beginning, White has kept moving upstream, but still has some of that brackish water in his lungs.

The album starts with a couplet of bluesy rockers, 60 Feet Tall and Hang You from The Heavens. The greatest, but not solitary, difference from Jack White’s previous band is the female singer. From the sounds of it, the kind you don’t take home to mother. Like much of the album, the parts are tried and true post grunge indie components craftily and nefariously assembled. By the third track, the album degenerates into prog-garage Dub reggae with coal black blues humor. They treat it like a joke, but you don’t know when they’re jokin’. Touche. By the end we are outroing some instrumental space cadet twinkles run through a Marshall Stack. Throughout the effort dark turns, club beats and outdated band jams coexist and sometimes harmonize. Like Schrodinger’s cat, the interference pattern taps out an even beat on the shadows of the mind.

This album is clearly the work of the field and flower. The herb and and the bees. T.H.C. and S.E.X. Alison Mosshart, part of the exceptional band The Kills, was opening for Jack White’s The Raconteurs. Strained vocal chords meant Jack had to take it easy on the mic. To ease the burden, Alison would spell him, front and center. Jack liked the view.

Along with a Queen of the Stone Age, that grimy fleshy energy pumps. Raven black to blood red. Alison steps up to the mic, dead center with Jack directly behind on drums. White doesn’t keep his vocals on the sidelines, however. We find him doing Prima donna duties, maybe more than he should. Overall, there are very few mistakes in style or substance across the eleven tracks. By the end I was wishing at least for an even thirteen.

Show's over folks

A sense of the darker side of voodoo permeates the vibrations from beginning to end. If your cruising altitude is sufficiently high it smells of danger and tastes like leather. Duller senses would say Rush meets Blues Explosion or some other bingo style number letter combination. Either way, it strikes the target. Maybe not a bulls eye or a triple twenty, but at least a solid triple six. The Dead Weather have it figured out. Left, right. Left, right.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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The British invasion took the Elvis’s hips and Chuck Berry’s Ding-a-Ling and shook it right back in our face. Jagger portending the shirtless leather pants of Led Zeppelin. Zeppelin brought the hair. Then, while LA hair bands were nailing actresses up and down The Sunset Strip, Britain pulled away from the coke fueled abyss. Well, many of them did. Sorry Ms. Winehouse, you didn’t make this week’s selection.

In the last dozen years or so, that hasn’t stopped a symmetrical rise of girly singers on both sides of the pond. They have The Spice Girls, we get The Backstreet Boys.

While the Union Jack part of the British invasion in the 60′s ricocheted machismo, the mirror of today’s Union Jills have their own flavor.

In the news this week, there has been a lot of talk about the value of a persons point of view. The dialog has questioned if past experiences cloud or clear your judgment.

And what is that experience? I can’t tell exactly what Lily Allen and Adele have in common. I can tell, however, that whatever it is definitely adds clarity, (especially to the smokey mind) and I think, in this case, that’s a good thing.

Track List:

• Great DJ by The Ting Tings from We Started Nothing
• The Fear by Lily Allen from It’s Not Me, It’s You
• Seventeen by Ladytron from Light & Magic
• Hometown Glory by Adele from 19
• Warwick Avenue by Duffy from Rockferry
• Hairy Trees by Goldfrapp from Black Cherry
• Oh My God (feat. Lily Allen) by Mark Ronson from Version

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The following are true stories. Only the names, places and facts have been changed.

It starts here:

Can I Sleep In Your Arms by Willie Nelson from Red Headed Stranger

A desert canyon. A circling eagle. Willie Nelson spins up on the ipod. I look down and see a breaking news alert.

A murder suicide, the worst of all breakups.

We can’t know what drove them together. She had dropped out of high school and moved to Nashville, home of country music, four years earlier. She moved there to live with her boyfriend, Kieth. Those four years had come crashing down as their relationship fell apart. It wasn’t long before, working as a waitress at Dave and Buster’s, she was swept away by Steve McNair. Vacations, gifts, and even a car.

So why had she left him so cold and alone? Shooting him in his sleep.

At Least That’s What You Said by Wilco from A Ghost Is Born

That night, Steve McNair had spent out with friends. When he arrived at the condo, she was already there. She had left work early.

When I sat down on the bed next to you, you started to cry.
I said,”Maybe if I leave, you’ll want me to come back home.”
“Or maybe all you mean is,’Leave me alone.’”
At least that’s what you said.

You’re irresistible when you get mad.
Isn’t it sad, I’m immune?
I thought it was cute for you to kiss my purple black eye.
Even though I caught it from you, I still think we’re serious.
At least that’s what you said.

Wilco was having problems. There was another drummer, and rumors that Jeff Tweedy, the lead singer, was having clandestine relations. Effectively cheating on Jay Bennet. Things weren’t exactly all flowers and moonbeams between Jay and Jeff. The resulting fights and finally, the breakup were caught on film in the movie I’m Trying to Break Your Heart.

The opening track to the first album after the split is this plaintive song of a love frazzled and maybe already gone.

It was Las Vegas. Steve was going to meet her there. She had suspected he, 36, was already trading her, 20, in for a younger model. It turns out the Escalade, the one she told her friends Steve bought her for her birthday, she was responsible for the payments. She was still making payments on that KIA that no one wanted to buy off her. Her roommate was moving out, so she had to pick up that too. Now this. The Vegas Vacation never happened. She was stood up, alone in Las Vegas.

The guitars sound like a rusty chainsaw cutting through a wedding dress.

He is leaving his wife and four sons. He said they would get married.

At least that’s what he said.

A few days ago she listed her furniture on Craigslist. She bought a gun in the Dave & Buster’s parking lot. Her mind was falling apart. The swell of joy she felt in her chest turned to deep pain. The kind you try to exhale, but for every breath out, you draw one more back in.

Fucking Boyfriend by The Bird & The Bee from The Bird & The Bee

It wasn’t all grim. The pictures of the pair parasailing, creepy age difference aside, look like a smashing time. She told her friends they were in love. Captured and enraptured.

His house was up for sale.

But, he told no one. She was in the wings ready to step on stage with her man. Months had passed and she was still his side thing, and even that was slipping away. Maybe, if they just talked.

She’s Lost Control by Joy Division from Unknown Pleasures

Curtis’s last live performance was on 2 May 1980 at Birmingham University. He was staying at his parents’ house and attempted to talk his wife into staying with him, to no avail. She left him in her house overnight while she left to do some errands.

In the early hours of 18 May 1980, Curtis hanged himself in the kitchen. At the time of his death, he was attempting to balance his musical ambitions with his marriage, which was foundering in the aftermath of his affair with journalist Annik Honoré. His wife found his body the next morning.

Curtis’s memorial stone is inscribed with “Ian Curtis 18 – 5 – 80, Love Will Tear Us Apart”.

We don’t know what was said. Was it over? Was he leaving? However the talk ended, McNair was asleep on the sofa.

Stay Together by Suede from Stay Together[EP]

In February 1994, Suede released “Stay Together”, which became their highest charting single. Released only as an EP, it captures a crystalline moment for the band. The moment when they were at their peak, even though it was already over.

Following the EP, singer Brett Anderson isolated himself and wrote songs for Suede’s next album. During the making of the album, the songs were stretching longer and longer. The band thought it was the result of guitarist Bernard Butler trying to wind the band members up. The tension built until they were unable to record at the same time, each member recording their parts separately. Eyes turned more and more towards Butler. Staying together was an echo from the past.

She took the gun. Next to his sleeping body, she squeezed the trigger. He didn’t wake. He was dead with the first shot. Then a second. Then a third. Then a fourth.

Sitting by his side, she placed the barrel to her temple and pulled one last time. She had hoped to be framed together on the couch forever. As the bullet sealed the scene, her limp body fell from the couch, leaving her laying across her dead lover’s feet, lifeless.

They wouldn’t be discovered for hours.

Through all of the excess and drama, eventually the song swells. It keeps going. Brett starts rambling, Bernard drives madly forward. then a reconciliation happens. Something resembling peace. But it won’t, no, it can’t last.

While recording the follow-up album, Butler took a break to get married. Days after the wedding, he returned to the studio to find he was not being allowed in.

Months earlier, when they recorded Stay Together, they tried harder and harder, It sliped away. More, more, more. As hard as they try they can’t let go and they know they can’t hold on. Bring it back. Horns. Fanfare. Romance. In the end, just a twisted echo of passion escaping this world.

Stay Together would be the last full recording Anderson and Butler would produce as Suede.

Just two months after Steve McNair taped a youth suicide prevention public service announcement, his lover shot and killed him as he slept and then turned the gun on herself.

It was the last act of a life that was beginning to fall apart.

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MC5 is alive!

Rodriquez was raised in a working class Mexican home. Not belonging exactly to either of the parties in the racially charged environment, he appropriated everything. Himself, he was a singer-songwriter type. His subject, in contrast to singer-songwriter peers, was decidedly urban and gritty. By the time he recorded Cold Fact, a truly unique fusion of the swirling influences of MC5 style raw frustrations and Motown’s machined, sophisticated groove, all of these forces collided. The moral equivalent of today’s mashup, Cold Fact represents an unparalleled achievement in 1970, and something of which today’s artists are only beginning to scratch the surface.

Sixto Rodriguez

The full story culminating in the birth of the album, its obscurity and rediscovery are the stuff of music geek fantasy. It’s all in the very long liner notes. They provide an indispensable companion. Alone, couch-locked in your listening chair, with that pamphletized manifesto of historical biography you get transported. It is hard to explain, but let me try.

When new music hits the streets, there is an excitement. It is a magic moment when the world and art crystallize in an unexplainable alignment of planets. It stirs an excitement. OK Computer, Straight Outta Compton, Joy Division. There is an energy that embodies the music, the time, and the place. By the time the next generation hears those tracks, they are so woven into the fabric of today’s music that the sheer newness is unrecoverable.

Few times in the history of music has that planetary alignment been stronger than at the dawning of the age of Aquarius. The late 60’s are a mythic period in music. Not living then, it is hard to imagine what it was like to hear the first MC5 recordings. With the reissue of Cold Fact, that is the exact gift we are given. Not only is it easy to imagine, it is nearly impossible to escape the sensation of smoking a joint in 1970. You drop the needle on the record and open a door on something so fresh and real. Fleshy and sweaty.

The very fact that Rodriguez was lost to Americans for so long, and because no one after him approached the same subjects with the same sensibilities, it is new again. Listening brings back all the colors to your dreams of the 70’s. Tie-dyed blaxploitation Andy Warhol tear gas riot songs. For better or worse you are into some good stuff.

The dated nature of the music and lyrics shakes you loose from the 21st century. You aren’t watching a faded rerun, but instead sharing the same experience as hearing The Velvet Underground when they were new. Cold Fact may never reach the acclaim of The Velvet Underground & Nico or Curtis Mayfield’s catalog. The quality of the production certainly trumps The Velvets and the intimate authenticity of his lyrics cut even deeper than Mayfield. The quality eliminates any chance of classifying the album as a curiosity and places it squarely in the treasure chest. For any self respecting stoner music geek, Cold Fact is a required staple. For those who simply want to blow your mind, drop in. An engrossing blast from a past that never was, and always will be.

But, don’t take my word for it. In the true spirit, the first one is free:

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Now that you have your stuff in front of you, hit play below at any time.

We start with Eagles of Death Metal. A crass crash. Rusty swagger. Take that ‘tude and feel the tiny bop as you take a hit.

Dissolve. Exhale. Again.

We will slide into the Dirty South with OutKast. Known for kitschy songs about shaking Polaroid pictures on VH1, but the depth and chops Andre and Big Boi have are real. The musicality is top notch. This is not slap dash. That VH1 frenzy is a lost leader. Dive deeper into OutKast and you find rewards of an unparalleled authenticity matched with a musical craft that bubbles up from a soul full of taste. Impeccable taste. Soul Food.

While the groove fills the gaps, lets talk about the rest of this aperitif. Dirty South. Often seen as less than sophisticated, from on high you see it has a secret message. Hear it? No? You will. OutKast stepped up from the low country. A backwater, even for the south. The stew that was heavily seasoned first by slavery, religion, racism, poverty. From this oppression was born self reliance and community. A fierce drive infected the music scene that became The Dirty South. OutKast set the stage for where this generation is going, and it is no mistake that weed is their talisman.

They are followed by Lil Wayne. Holding close to altered states, he is building. Not like a storm, but more like an academy. How do you tap into the alternate world of the spirits that meet at Robert Johnson‘s Crossroads? (hint: this space intentionally left blank) More importantly, what do you do with your enhanced understanding of the power of music? You party!

Today’s lesson: That’s how you let the beat build, bitch.

A powerful message. Hair standing on end. Chills down your spine. It goes boom… ba-boom, boom. The physical sensation alone is the lesson. And there are other disciples.

Lil Wayne stokes primal fires. Death Cab for Cutie and the Akron Family each plumb the same lesson from their smokey lairs. Death Cab with the iced precision of modern alt-pop, and the Akron Family with neo-Manson Family glee.

Liberation through music. That is the goal of this Pack and Play. At sea level, you can catch the hints, but feel that no point exists. Let your feet leave the ground and the true message will implant itself. And that is how you let the beat build.

Playlist –

1. (I Used to Couldn’t dance) Tight Pants by Eagles of Death Metal from Heart On
2. Liberation by OutKast from Aquemini
3. Let the Beat Build by Lil Wayne from Tha Carter III
4. I Will Posses Your Heart by Death Cab for Cutie from Narrow Stairs
5. There’s So Many Colors by Akron Family from Love is Simple

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