Enter: Depression

Ever since I changed my major from Art to Wildlife Fish and Conservation Biology I knew I was gonna regret it. Thus I have gone back to Sac City Community College in order to save oh I don't know $1100 dollas on edumacation. I went on Sac City campus today and it is the reason why people drop out of college. For reals it's like high school with more cigarettes and all those people you thought you avoided when high school ended. Thankfully most of these people are so lazy in two weeks half of them will give up on school and the delicious cafeteria pizza will once again be mine. Anyway, this place wants me to go all Owen Wilson and it drove me to listen to some more depressing stuff as of late. Lot's of dirty dark scratching and blues stuff, you all thought I was gonna put up The Cure or Tool or some shit huh? As fucking awesome as The Cure is, you want some nasty, all cut your wrists to remind you that not only does your life suck, but so do alot of other peoples.
As bad as it sounds scratching is kinda how I got into dj'ing. Dude, the Piklz were on their way to destroying everyone else around, turntables were out selling guitars in japan, and for some reason in my sophmore year of high school that sound just caught me. It still does. But I for reals thought scratching was like, the future of music (whoops). It's obvious free-form and pattern heavy similarities to jazz and the connection to hip-hop blew my mind. And some artists who really do elevate the simple sounds to something more through ridiculous technique and gifted artistry could still make some noise in the musical arena today but I see nothing. I don't even know if people scratch for more than a bar or two anymore. D-styles is probably my utmost favorite, so technical and so perfect yet his style also sounds very funk based, sometimes he just makes me totally speechless and geeked out with some of his phrases. Scratching is the only music that will give me that feeling (some of you might not know this, most probably don't) when you're high or a few whiskeys deep and you're listening to, like Hendrix or something and he pulls off some lick that makes you laugh and geek out like a TOTAL stoner. You know that feeling, no? Anyway, a good phrase turned by a talented dj can do that to me, except I'm not the pot head I used to be. Later not only advanced scratching would tug at me but well mixed sets(J-rocc tapes), Radar drumming(and that shit he used to do with the pedal loops), and expensive weekends of record shopping in frisco(why do I need 18 different break records and doubles? because thats why), all pulled me into the hole of dj'ing. I still think scratching can be recognized and can save the world and all that shit but D-styles, Q, X-Ecutioners, and Beatjunkies or someone needs to come back something serious that shocks the world.


(I love how Kentaro can barely keep up, didn't you win a dmc homeboy and you thought you could sesh alongside D with baby skills? maybe this guy and others like him are the reason scratching is flacid right now)
Honestly is this a dead genre? Does it solely consist of live shows in like southern california record stores that go out of business a year later? Is there a reason I can't find any new shit on limewire? And new singles or albums? Don't bother. D came out with Phantazmagorea and it seriously blew my freaking mind (that and Rob Swift's Sound Event). Everything done off a record or scratching, every fucking sound. It scarred me. And when he does that stuff with the wah wah it's ridiculous, no one ever did that (Q did it first on Invasion of the Octopus People but not with such deftness or style). His beats are always like blood and dirt under fingernails yet still funky as hell.

John Wayne On Acid

Murder Faktory is based on D scratching sounds of people dying (fake I hope CREEPY!). I told you scratching is nasty son!

Murder Faktory

Oh and here's a Mr. Arrogant remix for any of you heads out there that might have the first two.

Mr. Arrogant remix

My dad listened to blues, he gave me a bunch of Lightning Hopkins and Robert Johnson records. Blues has a reputation for being a music of the broken heart, which is true but its more than just 'my woman left me and I had to eat my shoe' etc., it's full of death, mysticism, and bitter anger. John Lee Hooker has such a wide breadth of work it's ridiculous. When blues was rejuvenated by rock in the late 60's, John worked with everyone. He's got a great album with Canned Heat that's just him stompin' all day long. Bad Like Jesse James is the Hook at his most frightening, DO NOT sleep or come near this man's lady.
His voice scares the crap out of me.

I'm Bad Like Jesse James

Willow Tree is another performance at Cafe Au Go Go, this is a great song but John plays and acts like he could care less. Apparently he despised playing for hipster crowds in these settings, it's pretty easy to tell the way he thanks the crowd at the end. But still the song is dope.

She's Long, She's Tall (She Weeps Like A Willow Tree)

Maybe these songs will keep me from losing my shit and killing some dude playing hacky sac for a WHOLE SEMESTER! That is so freaking long...jesus.

oh sweet paycheck

I just got my first vacation paycheck and it lit the fires of shopping. So I left to The Beat to go spend some of my sweet kiddash on some imports and hard to find singles, I found little of both and settled for 4 albums that ended up being 75% trash. Honestly this was under Dj Muggs in the used hip hop section and if it is Dj Muggs then his career must have tanked something horrific cause this album is such crap I got physically angry.
It's worthless. If anyone knows who this guy is please do us all a favor and tell him to go back to school or something. I got another Beastie Boys single (Sure Shot), the Lifesavas newest album, and The Grey Boy Allstars new shit. Lifesavas last album Spirit in Stone was really good and so it this one, the only real fault is they decided to make this a 'concept album' in the form of a lost Blaxsploitation soundtrack complete with dialogue and narration. This kinda thing can be pulled off to where it could enhance an album, unfortunately it just gets in the way of some great hip hop. For reals they should just let their tracks speak for themselves. This is one of the least spoiled of the tracks (again not that any of them are at all poor the whole narrative of the 'movie' just gets annoying). They're beats are always sick and original and Vursatyl and Jumbo the Garbage man are good mc's.

The Warning

The Greyboy Allstars are awesome. I find it odd that amidst the whole New Soul thang that's going on with Amy, Sharon Jones, The Breakestra, and everyone else Greyboy Allstars are overlooked. They do tend to be more jazzy at times and this especially goes for their newest but still, they made a whole album with Fred Wesley for godsake where's the fuckin propers? What Happened to Television is their first album in 8 fuckin years and I think they lost some of their initial momentum in that alot of it sounds really like modern jazz, but there are some really strong funk tracks. V neck Sweater is very akin to their older stuff with Karl Denson doing a Bootsyish thing that sounds so right.

V Neck Sweater

Their first album West Coast Boogaloo was done with Fred Wesley the infamous trombone from the JB's and Parliament, this album is so dope I can't even tell you. Fred has always been known for making the most out of a limited instrument, he can be repetetive but you really don't care cause it sounds so buttery. Soul Dream is a sick one and Fried Grease lets everyone tear it up as they choose and listen to the guitar at the end, man so nice.

Soul Dream
Fried Grease

This song is a live recording, I forget if it's off their live album or it's done with some jack ass and a tape recorder, thankfully the sound isn't so shitty as most of the crowd recorded crap out there.

Ain't it Funky

Greyboy Allstars were originally from San Diego of all places (them and like what Blink 182?), they were signed by Dj Greyboy and apparently adopted his name for some reason. But before releasing West Coast they worked heavily in tandem with said Dj, with Karl Denson aiding with Maceo like deftness over spacious beats (Maceo's still more on it though), this one has that beat from Dr. Octagon...where's Kool Keith btw? Haven't heard any half assed albums from that guy in forever. Seriously, Kool Keith Dr. Dooom was fucking hilarious, but I expect to see you on 'to catch a predator' any day now. I'll have a Kool Keith post to make up for that off color joke that none of you laughed at.

Whirlwind

oh and Hawaii was off the chain:




Pseudorca crassidens, False Killer Whale pictured below, apparently some Dr. Moreau motherfucker made one of these things mate with a dolphin in captivity and produced the only cross species offspring that is fertile, it's called a 'Wolphin', what assholes.

B.E.A.S.T.I.E.

What happened to the love for the Beastie Boys?
I can remember a few personal injustices committed towards these fine, fine Jewish boys. For one, no one ever likes Ill Communication or Hello Nasty. Two, my Prof. in my old Hip-Hop class (living in sf we got to have crazy guests, and Ricky Vincent [aka Ohuru Maggot] pulls mad funk weight)touted the Boys as being 'thieves of African American style' (Ricky was cool, but not that cool). Three, Mtv a while back had a top ten of hip hop 'groups' discussion, now I would never accredit Mtv or it's employees with any firm concept or love for 'hip hop' but it's was kinda interesting at first and they had some decent points occasionally. But right off the bat, they had to have a fucking DISCUSSION over Beastie Boys or UGK. Now come on, for real? We're talking about this? And then Bridget Bland dismissively said 'Aren't they a punk band? Why are we talking about this?' BOOM shot to the face from yours truly. Ridiculous, anyone on that panel who believes they know what the fuck they're thinking about needed to be beat publicly. Anyhow the Beastie Boys ARE one of the best Hip Hop groups of all time, and they're talented and creative artists as well, WHO KNEW? Recently they've put out an instrumental album that is really, really good. The Beasties have always been outstanding musicians, usually laying down instrumentals on they're most eclectic albums (Check your Head, Ill Communication, Hello Nasty, Some Old Bullshit). And besides that this album is unique in that it is their first instrumental album that is not a collection tracks off previous albums, but all new material. It's dope, they've always reminded me of The Meters in a way. Oh and BEASTIE was originally an acronym for Boys Entering Anarchistic States To Internal Excellence or some shit like that, and BB was supposed to be connected with Bad Brains an older New York punk band (feel free to use this as conversation starters New Yorkers, bitches over 24 will love it).
They'll also love Transitions, the last track off Ill Communication, apparently while performing at live shows, the Beasties used to stop in the middle of a song and switch instruments, kinda cool. Also this is not off of Sound In From Way Out, that particular little album cut out and edited most of the songs, kinda butchering them at times so just in case I'd rather anyone had the original conception of the track. ESG, claims that this is just a rip off of UFO which is one of the most sampled songs in Hip Hop, I think they're stretching it a little, but whatever.

Transitions

Son Of Neckbone is off the Sure Shot 12'' that I don't have, so maybe it's a little different but still. Neckbone refers to a Willie Bobo song that the Beasties always liked, and seeing as they played with Willies son Eric on percussion, they did this little diddy.

Son of Neckbone

Hello Nasty was received poorly by the die hards (get over Paul's Boutique already!) buuuut they won some Grammys (so it couldn't be all that bad right?), and Intergalactic did a little too well. But I liked it, very I guess...progressive, and just another evolution of theirs. This was after Dj Hurricane left, and Mix Master Mike forced his way into the group (from Sacramento no less) by leaving crazy scratch messages on their answering machine EVERY DAY! But MMM, commanding so much attention and awe with his truly amazing and unique turntable powers had a more aggressive role in song production, thus the scratching on Sneakin' Out Of The Hospital is more pronounced than it ever has been in any of their previous songs. I'll do more on the insanity and brilliance of MMM, he's nuts. And I believe Adam Horovitz (Ad Rock) did ALL the instruments on here.

Sneakin' Out Of The Hospital

AND this is a remix of So Whatcha Want by the Soul Assasins (Dj Muggs, Alchemist, and Dj Khalil), I'm assuming this is more Muggs than Alchemist. I have no fucking clue where this is from, there's also a little B Realness addition at the end. Cypress Hill is such pot head status it's ridiculous.

So Whatcha Want remix

Rhyme the Rhyme well over I got a Story to Tell, is so perfect it kinda weird, courtesy of Dj Green Lantern.

Rhyme the Rhyme Well

not representative

this by no means represents what I listen to on itunes cause it's all shit that I purchased, and can't share with anyone. except for those new drm free tracks they sell on there, too bad I'm broke as fuck and need to save up for Bioshock in a few days. VIDEOGAMES!

Hooray

First off, I'm currently in Kona, Hawaii lit off my fucking ass courtesy of the unforgiving/delightful social beverage known as Kava.

I'm pretty fucked up right now. And while I've had a great time here, I wish I was here to stay longer. Something about this island screams to me that I could establish myself here easily. I could dive everyday, probably smoke waaay too much of the mary jane, and make it easy as a dj (the local dj's suck huge balls), and everyone here is so cool (even the natives whom their island, culture, and peoples I have the utmost respect for), and the women here are retarded hot, too bad haoles are second class citizens (and me being a tourista is like, 5th class right after beach bums and burnouts). It's awesome, but more on these beautiful islands later. Anyhow, I was looking up the number of hits I get on this blog, and it's depressing. Look people, I got issues of disenfranchisement and social acceptance in the first place, so tell your mom, uncle, fucking ex boyfriend, or weird co-worker whatever. Oh yeah, post time, give the people something Neal COME ON get it TOGETHER! I was cruising the sweet sweet youtube and stumbled across some post of Daft Punk samples. Things I didn't know; Daft Punk are dirty French thieves in battlestar galactica helmets (albeit sweet ones), and I desperately wish to see them live. Apparently their show is way tits, if only I could stand the extc poppin, glowstickers that have intruded upon my hip hop lifestyle. I have a short temper, and I have years of gung fu training just boiling inside of me waiting to be jet li'd on some retard who thinks they can sweat all over me with their parachute pants and puffy vests. I WILL KILL YOU! But, despite their thievery, and harsh foreigness they are mad cool here's a delightful video that looks like something out of Michel Gondry's acid trip
and here's the video showing various samples used by the frog's
full tracks at this delightful blog that gets crazy more attention than mine; http://palmsout.blogspot.com/2007/02/sample-wednesday-27-daft-punk.html
REMEMBER! Hook me up with the site hits dun! It's easy, 'oh you like hip-hop and soul, you know my friend Neal has a blog...yeah he's real funny, and writes like he thinks we want to hear more (which I know you don't but deal with it).'