Via Free Darko, the most bizarre YouTube video I've seen in quite a while: Ron Artest's "Afghan Woman"
As Shoals put it: "I never understood all those metaphors about faces melting and brains collapsing until now."
As Shoals put it: "I never understood all those metaphors about faces melting and brains collapsing until now."
- "You remind me of a haunted house I was once in...": Chairman Mao's Halloween-themed episode of "Spine Blowing Decisions."
- As Johnny from Good Records points out: "among all of the well-sorted funk, afrobeat, disco, and boogie mixes and compilations out there, nobody had really touched the most popular form of music in West Africa: Highlife." Problem solved.
- Funky16Corners has a placeholder funky Halloween mix from 2007 up, with promises of a new '09 edition on Friday.
- Via GvsB: Fever Ray's appropriately moody Halloween podcast. And GvsB's own Halloween mixtape.
- Not Halloween related but scary good: Matthew Africa's 12x12 rap mix for Southern Hospitality.
Last night marked the opening of a new NBA season. The perfect modern sports league, really, and I don't mean that in a good way.
If you have a couple hours to kill, this is a fairly moving, charmingly biased, labor-of-love documentary about the NBA's willful negligence during the much-protested move of the Seattle SuperSonics to Oklahoma City.
If you have a couple hours to kill, this is a fairly moving, charmingly biased, labor-of-love documentary about the NBA's willful negligence during the much-protested move of the Seattle SuperSonics to Oklahoma City.
Sonicsgate SD Full Version from sonicsgate on Vimeo.
The "Brave Thinkers" issue of the Atlantic finally came out. Haven't had a chance to read it yet, but for what it's worth, these were some of my nominees:- Kishore Mahbubani
- Jiang Jun
- Bloggers in China
- David Milch or Simon
- VBS.TV
- Burial
- Sublime Frequencies
- dj / rupture
- Gilberto Gil
- Pirate Bay
- Center for Land Use Interpretation
*Editor's Note: Nominate Your Own Brave Thinker
I was on the road last week giving some talks on new media, pop culture and ideas of the "postracial," a term I only ever use in jest, i.e. "Asher Roth dissing Barack Obama = postracial" or "Tracy Morgan = postracial" or in any situation wherein longstanding ideas of racial identity collide with the ironic, the absurd, or the previously impossible. I'm still not totally clear what sort of future people are describing when they use this term seriously, but these stories from UCLA's football team (via Oliver) surely fit this half-serious definition. First, read this LA Times article about UCLA wide receiver Randall Carroll's twitter-diss of offensive coordinator Norm Chow. And then read this.
* * *
(This mini-controversy, sure to be irrelevant by next week, also dovetails with my previous post about obscenity/language in a digital age. Truly bizarre for the LAT to censor the offending term, since it probably resulted in a lot of people assuming that Carroll had used a different racial epithet.)
*whatever that means
* * *
(This mini-controversy, sure to be irrelevant by next week, also dovetails with my previous post about obscenity/language in a digital age. Truly bizarre for the LAT to censor the offending term, since it probably resulted in a lot of people assuming that Carroll had used a different racial epithet.)
*whatever that means
Been on the road all week. Thanks to everyone who came out to the talk on Tuesday night in Santa Cruz. Also: Santa Cruz makes so much more sense to me after reading Thomas Pynchon's oft-maligned Vineland, which really captures the occasional darkness and dystopia of California. It also features one of my favorite Pynchon lines about the "California pizza concept at its most misguided."
+Over at Arthur, Dave Reeves' last (latest?) installment on the anatomy of Defend Brooklyn hipsterism.
+Absorbing segment of Fresh Air, wherein Terry Gross confirms most of the prevailing stereotypes about NPR during her interview of Tracy Morgan.
+Wayne Marshall with the decibel levels of various things we might hear out there in the real world, some because they are merely the sound of modern life (lightbulbs humming) and others because they are the sound of a cannon trying to disperse a crowd. Related: is it still music if it's used for torture? (All this and more is discussed in Steve Goodman's upcoming Sonic Warfare, btw...)
MIXES
+Splitting the difference between Animal Collective, Burial and Dilla, Phaseone offers the White Collar Crime mix
+I appreciate that Gucci Mane's latest mixtape series is named after and inspired by the Cold War
+New Balance-wearing purists rejoice: the latest Southern Hospitality mix is all A Tribe called Quest
+Ian recommends, Jeff Chang likely approves: a T.R.O.Y. hip-hop mix featuring only songs that have "can't stop" or "won't stop" in their title
+Oliver's guest post of Latin (Funk, Soul, covers) over at Super Sonido
+Will C unearths a facemelting 1990/91 (?) UK rap documentary
+Via Lamaraba: an Eddie Ruscha cosmic jazz, funk, disco mix over at the always mighty Lovefingers
+Over at Arthur, Dave Reeves' last (latest?) installment on the anatomy of Defend Brooklyn hipsterism.
+Absorbing segment of Fresh Air, wherein Terry Gross confirms most of the prevailing stereotypes about NPR during her interview of Tracy Morgan.
+Wayne Marshall with the decibel levels of various things we might hear out there in the real world, some because they are merely the sound of modern life (lightbulbs humming) and others because they are the sound of a cannon trying to disperse a crowd. Related: is it still music if it's used for torture? (All this and more is discussed in Steve Goodman's upcoming Sonic Warfare, btw...)
MIXES
+Splitting the difference between Animal Collective, Burial and Dilla, Phaseone offers the White Collar Crime mix
+I appreciate that Gucci Mane's latest mixtape series is named after and inspired by the Cold War
+New Balance-wearing purists rejoice: the latest Southern Hospitality mix is all A Tribe called Quest
+Ian recommends, Jeff Chang likely approves: a T.R.O.Y. hip-hop mix featuring only songs that have "can't stop" or "won't stop" in their title
+Oliver's guest post of Latin (Funk, Soul, covers) over at Super Sonido
+Will C unearths a facemelting 1990/91 (?) UK rap documentary
+Via Lamaraba: an Eddie Ruscha cosmic jazz, funk, disco mix over at the always mighty Lovefingers
Via reader J Brown: a "Tasty Afro Mix" up at Soul Strut. Speaking of "tasty," Wayne Marshall's "Masala Mix And another J: J. Rocc offers up Beat Junkie Radio Vol. 5. Debut installment of Stretch Armstrong and Eli Escobar's new E.V. radio show, Delancey Music Service, here. And two more from longtime favorites DJ Chorizo Funk and Recloose (an all-soundtracks special).
DFA and D*I*R*T*Y-approved "Southeast London's resident bird fanciers" Cage and Aviary with a new dance mixQuality mid-tempo, mid-afternoon funk workout by Larry of Funky 16 Corners, over at the Hook and Sling blog
Recloose's blog is amazing. Last two sets of his radio show are especially good (especially the YouTube links).
Rest in Peace, Mr. Magic, and Old School HipHop Tapes pays tribute the only way they know how: by sharing radio rips. Fantastic images over at Unkut and Will C's blog.
