Errr
May 18, 2009
OK, umm, so looks like I’m shutting this place after all. Got other projects to work on. Peace!
Save the Swag, Save the World
April 24, 2009
Twilight Zone: Driving home after work on a road lined with day care centers, I see a 20-something cross the street wearing a sunflowery polo with a colorful, cartoonish bookbag riding uncomfortably high on his shoulder blades. I really want to believe it was his little girl’s, but I’ve found it’s silly to put anything past people these days. My heart aches, though. Save the swag, save the world.
- The Honorable Harum-Scarum Haze
P.S.
Bring Numchucks is back, bitches.
Alice Smith: Calling Lovers and Loved Ones
January 27, 2009
It was early Sunday evening. Still recovering from brunch at Sabrina’s Café, an experience that definitely warrants a write-up of its own, I laid my coat over a barstool near the back of the Tin Angel in Old City and braced myself for The Voice of Alice Smith. Though seated well outside ideal camera-phone range, I had a clear view of the trim siren on stage dressed in a tight all-black outfit, backed by a three-piece band. For a little under an hour the trio played flip that genre, moving from jazz to dub to disco and back again, as Smith giddily went about leveling Second Avenue with the might of her vocals. The funny thing is, I got the feeling she was actually holding back. Read the rest of this entry »
Spacek: Future-Sounding, Yet Immediately Bedroom
January 18, 2009
During the early 2000s I took a heavy dose of downtempo to the head: Massive Attack, Tricky, Portishead, Najwa Nimri, Esthero, Morcheeba, plus a bunch of Björk and Radiohead b-sides and remixes. But one of the best albums of that era is Curvatia (2001) by Spacek, a band that fuses oddball R&B with broken beat and trip hop to create music that’s future-sounding, yet immediately bedroom. A slow surge of colorful bass tones, crispy drums, and atmospheric keys, strings, and blips, Curvatia is like some kind of aural fertility drug–one listen and a dark-skinned Athena is guaranteed to fly out your dome. (The warning sticker on the CD case says so.)
The band is the brainchild of Steve White, who plays bass, writes the songs, and graces the warm electro-soul tracks with his awkward falsetto. White is limited as a singer, and he knows it, but his subtle crooning fits right in–sort of like how Aaliyah possessed the perfect understated vocal style for Timbaland’s herky-jerky beats. Spacek followed up Curvatia with Vintage Hi-Tech (2003), a soild record that is more spare and out-there than its predecessor, and then White released an unfortunate solo album, Space Shift, in 2005.
Until I stumbled upon Waajeed’s remix of “Without You” over at Fresh Selects, I hadn’t heard peep from White or the band since that woeful dolo effort. Athough the track’s an out-of-house production, it sounds like the Spacek that I fell in love with eight years ago: slow, simmering, infectious.
The Goodies
- Listen: Troubleman featuring Steve Spacek – “Without You” (Waajeed’s Flash Gordon Remix) via freshselects.com
- Listen: Spacek featuring J. Dilla and Frank and Dank – “Eve” (J. Dilla Remix)
- Listen: Spacek – “Motion Control”
- Watch: Goodie Mob featuring Esthero – “The World I Know”
- Watch: Najwa Nimri on Youtube
- Watch: Massive Attack – “Teardrop”
Back to Books
January 5, 2009
Near the top of my to-do list for the new year, a note to get back to books: “Become well acquainted with five pieces of writing that you are unfamiliar with.” With a quick scan of my bedroom bookshelf, I can point to the titles that contributed to my evolving worldview and aesthetic sensibilities. They’re like bread crumbs or old benchmarks from my college years; whatever the metaphor, they allow me to trace where my mind’s been. But I can’t do the same kind of accounting for my post-college life.
My reading habits have deteriorated since then. Blame lack of time, shifting writing demands. I worked at a magazine for two years and change, so I read lots of glossies and papers to ape styles and editorial ideas. Whatever the cause, I’m trying to make amends. Exhibit A: upon the recommendation of several individuals in a grad course, I’ve begun exploring the work of Margaret Atwood. I figured I’d start from the top with her debut novel The Edible Woman (1969). A few friends have hipped me to other must-reads that I’ll wading through leisurely this winter and spring. Look out for book discussion posts and the like.
Nice but Itchy: Towards a Rugged, Outdoorsy Mystique
January 4, 2009
A picture of warmth and discomfort with my wooly hoodie and Negro demi-scowl
I wore my wooly mammoth shirt today. To make the warm but itchy hoodie bearable, I wear a long-sleeved t-shirt underneath it. Part of me wants to retire the thing altogether, but when I look at the shirt hanging on the rack, well-dressed lumberjacks, Siberia, Chevy trucks, Pleistocene-era big game hunts, and scrambled eggs and whiskey breakfasts come to mind–the Miller High Life distilled into a single article of clothing. Wearing the hoodie is like fulfilling a rite of passage precisely because of the garment’s dead-prehistoric animalness and tendency to shed. It’s a cloak of alpha male machismo. Put-on like Jeezy.
Little Dragon on the Loose
January 4, 2009
A little while back I caught the Sweden-based electro-soul outfit Little Dragon at The M-Room in Fishtown. There isn’t an ounce of fat on their enchanting self-titled debut, so I was a little worried that their subdued Sunday-evening aesthetic just wouldn’t translate well on stage. But they showed tons of energy in concert. The vocalist Yukimi Nagano of Koop fame is a dancing flame, and the band adds a few layers of funk to keep the crowd moving. The 80-minute set included most of Little Dragon and three or four new songs from the unreleased follow-up record.
The Goodies
The Roots @ House of Blues Atlantic City
December 31, 2008
Keepsakes
December 30, 2008
I inherited a number of traits from my adorable grandmother: low tolerance for fools, high cheek bones, and irrepressible charm and humor. I rarely called home in college, but during one bit of long-distance chit-chat my grandmother offered sound advice as well as a shipment of condoms. I declined the latter, making a few sly cracks about the scene she would cause at CVS and guestimating how long it would take for her care package to actually reach me via snail mail. Both of us fell out laughing. My grandmother also happens to be the queen of long and thoughtful but totally illegible letters and cards. This Christmas, for instance, she gave me a few keepsakes that once belonged to her father: a tobacco pipe, box cutter, pocket knife, and a few pence gathered from around the globe. She kept the items in a cardboard jewelry box, which I noticed was covered with her wild-looking arthritic script. The note, scrawled in parts across three of the box’s horizontal surfaces, includes detailed instructions on distributing the humble heirlooms to offspring—“if you [ever] have any.” My grandmother likes to joke that my little cousins have turned my sister and I off to the idea of childrearing. Well, she ain’t never lied.
Grand Wizzard
December 25, 2008
Toast the Technology
November 12, 2008
The libations menu at Clydz. After two drinks, the martini glass begins to look like something else altogether.
The last Hollywood hologram to grab my attention appears in Vanilla Sky. During the party scene at Tom Cruise’s flat, a device produces a ghostly 3-D projection of John Coltrane playing “My Favorite Things.” That sounds really cool–and it kind of is–until you see it in context. The jazz legend is reduced to virtual busker status, performing for a crowd of self-loathing yuppies. Still, I find the idea of household holographic technology sort of exhilarating. Which brings me to election night. Like most 20-something Megarotic enthusiasts (cough, cough), I was stunned not so much by the election result but that CNN deployed real-time holographic technology before Vivid Entertainment or Jacky Treehorn. Smut peddlers almost always embrace the new before the traditional media. Forget streaming video and HD DVD. Forget Skype and instant messaging, and forget those trips to the local shake club. Just imagine for a moment: multimedia systems that beam interactive 3-D home wreckers directly into the bedrooms and dens of those able to pay for virtual play. Read the rest of this entry »
Fear of Domesticity
November 10, 2008
First off, my allergies are trying really hard to ruin my life right now. Let me put it this way. While stalking Center City for parking this summer, I pulled up beside a hunter green Volvo. The driver, Anonymous Middle-Aged White Guy, was doing his best Mary J. Blige impression, bellowing along to “Just Fine” as if his windows were rolled up and tinted well beyond the legal limit. My allergies are going harder than that guy.
Not long ago I recovered from a quarter-life crisis of sorts: three weeks worth of sleepless nights, anxious ruminations, and self-flagellation. I am not about to give you an account of those days, though. Nope. Rather, I want to mention what happened in the wake of it all. The long in short: I experienced some disturbingly serene dreams once the brooding ended. But one image stands out from the others for its suffocating domesticity.
As some of you know, the window sills in my room are huge; adult midgets could bunk on them pretty comfortably. For the most part, though, I just use them to stack magazines, mementos, and empty wine glasses. But back in July I added a couple house plants into the mix: Slad and Veeder. In this wistful and vivid dream of mine, I was perched on my bed examining Veeder, a resilient little Schefflera plant, making sure it was properly watered and getting enough sunlight. The end. That was it.
This seems like a good time to mention that I recently purchased a Dual Function Back Brush and Massager from Bed Bath & Beyond. Seriously.
Every Goodbye Ain’t Gone
September 23, 2008
Aldon Lynn Nielsen, Kelly Professor of American Literature at Penn State, maintains Heat String Theory. Recent posts include photos, recordings, and commentary from the Pan African Literary Forum in Accra, Ghana. The blog is ripe with good news, but a May 20 entry reports the untimely death of Winston Napier, who edited African American Literary Theory. I’ve lived with the anthology since the summer of 2004, after discovering it while writing a paper on the poetry of Harryette Mullen. Definitely check out AALT if you can–it really is a life-changing work. And while you’re at it, dig into Black Chant: Languages of African-American Postmodernism and Every Goodbye Ain’t Gone: An Anthology of Innovative Poetry by African Americans by Nielsen.
Blu & Mainframe Play Philly
September 20, 2008
Cali-boys Blu and Mainframe form Johnson&Jonson. The duo rocked Philly last Saturday, hustling through a soulful eight-song set at the Barbary in support of their self-titled album, which hits stores Sept. 23.
Blu, the rapping half of J&J, rang bells in 2007 with his first full-length LP, Below the Heavens. MPC wiz DJ Exile of Emanon laces the album with beats that warm the heart like Sunday brunch in a church basement. The dusty rhythms are perfect for Blu, who showcases a down-to-earth storytelling style and seemingly endless pool of flows, rhymes and witticisms.
For most listeners, BTW served as an introduction to Blu. But the first peep I heard from the L.A. native, he was spitting a freestyle over “Pearly Gates,” a Mobb Deep track produced by DJ Exile. In true bluesman fashion, he ruminates over his Baptist upbringing and unholy hip-hop lifestyle, while toasting the dead and gone. The track is a great preface to BTW, which explores this religious-secular tension in greater depth. Johnson&Johnson, which leaked months ago as the Powders&Oils bootleg, is the perfect follow-up to its moody predecessor. With its barrage of funky loops and some timely guest spots, the mixtape-style album has an unmistakable Friday night vibe. The fun on J&J is balanced by a few scattered introspective cuts (“The Only Way,” “Long Time Gone,” and a hidden track looping the opening bars of John Lennon’s “Hold On”). But overall it’s a much lighter listen than BTW.
As for the concert, before the house lights flickered on, Blu rapped and crooned his way through “Up All Night” and “The Only Way,” from J&J, and a host of cuts from BTH, including “My World Is,” “No Greater Love,” and “So(ul) Amazin.” He closed the show with “Glory Us,” an awesome non-album cut sampling an old doo-wop record.
The Goodies
- Listen: Blu – “Glory Us” (via gowherehiphop.com)
- Listen: Blu – “Pearly Gates”
- Watch: Johnson&Jonson – “J&J”
- Watch: Johnson&Jonson – “Bout It Bout It”
- Buy: Blu & Exile – Below the Heavens
- Buy: C.R.A.C. Knuckles – The Piece Talks
- Buy: Johnson&Jonson – Johnson&Johnson
Philly Has Characters
September 9, 2008
Hands of Doom: Cartoonist Jamar Nicholas and puppet master Alisa Sickora Kleckner
Philadelphians are a walking mishmash of urban orthodoxy and hard-earned eccentricity. And then there are characters roving the streets whose unselfconscious can only be attributed to derangement. While waiting at a stoplight a couple weeks ago, I noticed a pudgy middle-aged man shuffling around in a makeshift crime-fighting uniform: smedium Superman tee, equally snug blue athletic shorts, white tube socks with red hoops, and clunky once-white sneakers. A fanny pack, undoubtedly meant to evoke the versatile utility belts of superhero lore, anchored the aspirational look. Things managed to get weirder. In mid-stride, the fashion mutant sprung a jumping twist kick, rising a centimeter or so off the ground to fend off thin air. I really wanted to see him cartwheel into the Pepto-colored muscle car parked on the other side of the street or break into an earrings-off shadowboxing frenzy. But no dice. I guess he had other things to do.
Before Saturday night, the robo-animals at Chuck E. Cheese were the closest I had come to a live puppet show. That changed when I saw Little Bunny Voodoo stage a frisky production on the second floor of The Institute Bar during the Live Arts Festival and Philly Fringe. LBV is the brainchild of Alisa Sickora Kleckner, Adjunct Professor of Fine Arts at Arcadia University. Philly-based cartoonist Jamar Nicholas collaborated with the theatre company on its latest production, Live! Live! Live!. Read the rest of this entry »
The Negro Speaks of Spaceships
August 24, 2008
Between Die Hard movies Bruce Willis starred in a couple outrageously entertaining sci-fi flicks: The Fifth Element and 12 Monkeys. Highlights from The Fifth Element include hovercar chase scenes; a Debo sighting; Milla Jovovich wearing designer Ace bandages; the otherwise handsome Gary Oldman going 23rd-century emo; a gaggle of busty, paper bag-tested, Terrence Howard-approved stewardesses; and a techno-opera performed by a blue alien with wondrous lungs and a head like a Humbolt squid. Well, August URB cover girl Janelle Monae tops all that with her cinematic new-old EP, Metropolis: Chase Suite (on sale at Target for $6.99)–and she does it while sporting Chris Tucker’s Ruby Rhod haircut.
Kyp Malone foretells “the age of miracles” on TV On the Radio’s surprisingly jubilant single, “Golden Age,” from Dear Science (in stores Sept. 23). Dig the horns. Dig the strings. Dig that familiar bass line. The Brooklyn-based band plays Philly’s Electric Factory on Oct. 10.
In Robert Hayden’s poem “[American Journal],” a shape-shifting extraterrestrial recaps time spent living undercover in the United States. The Martian observer, presumably sent on a fact-finding mission by authoritarian higher-ups from its home planet, details everything admirable and incomprehensible about American life. Experimental in form with a little Horace Miner-style irony, “[American Journal]” is terribly insightful–definitely one of my favorites by the late Poet Laureate. Choice lines: “[Americans:] a divided / people seeking reassurance from a past few under / stand and many scorn.”
Album Review: Saul Williams – NiggyTardust!
March 17, 2008
For all its swag talk, the present hip-hop scene is woefully tame. Most raps are soft with no substance–idle threats from dudes who’d rather be designing jeans or accumulating overly dramatic body art. Instead of aiming to be ice cold in the booth, a lot of rhymers aim simply to be cool. And the cool they aspire to is calculated status quo. Thankfully finding more ambitious music is pretty easy in the Internet age. Enter: Saul Williams. A few months ago I nearly lost my mind listening to “Black History Month,” the rumbling, punk-infused burner that kicks off Williams’ latest album, The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust! .
You may already know the talented Mr. Williams from the spoken word circuit, his MTV-published books, movies (Slam! or K-PAX–yes, he acted opposite Kevin Spacey, playing the eccentric-black-dude role to a tee) or the recently defunct sitcom-you-wish-was-a-porno Girlfriends. He has a couple other albums, too: Amethyst Rock Star, produced by Def Jam legend Rick Rubin, and a self-titled joint I never got around to listening to. (Though I heard “Telegraph” and “Black Stacey” are heat rocks.) But back to NiggyTardust!–a hip-hop stew brimming with the gritty candor, intelligence and intensity lacking in most of today’s black music. To put it briefly: NiggyTardust! is the most elegant wrecking ball to swing between my ears in some time. Read the rest of this entry »
The Tree of Pwnage
January 31, 2008
When I asked for a slab of prime rib, the Uncle Ben look-alike commanding the buffet station complied–but not before blindsiding me with a searing query. Chef hat leaning ominously like a tower of Jenga blocks, he asked very coolly, the way you might inquire about weekend plans or the weather, what it felt like to be a young, educated black man in America. (Mind you: whenever I enter a public restroom, subway or all-you-can-eat setting, I wear a Do Not Disturb sign in the form of the familiar Negro demi-scowl. I might let go a few nods, but nothing about my bearing invites conversation. In spite of this, old dude went in, striking Hidden Blade style–without hesitation, without revealing his motive.) I froze, locking eyes with my inquisitor. I could easily imagine him as a Paul Mooney character–impeccably groomed and distinguished-looking, yet outrageously inappropriate. Awaiting my response, he dangled a slab of the savory beef over my plate, threatening not to surrender the hunk if I ignored him. After a few moments spent marveling at the old man and his complete disregard for my personal bubble, I regained my composure. Glancing at the suspended slab of beef and then back at my provocateur, I replied with a Clintonesque smirk: Fantastic.
