Songs to make you cool...

Ok, it's time for me to sprinkle this blog with some MAGIC that's been clogged up and tangled up due to some personal life drama. No more! Let the shit fest begin. Here's a quick preview and shout out to new music that's popping up on my radar:

Rich Boy - Bigger Than The Mayor mixtape
Rich Boy looked awfully awkward in his own video for Good Things standing next to a roided and oiled up Polow Da Don and Keri Hilson at the beach. Like, dude, aren’t you dying of heat in those jeans? At least wear some shorts man! But then maybe this is the sort of self imposed torture that Rich Boy puts himself through to keep spitting in that dead serious marble-mouthed growl we love so much. Urgency's the name of the game and Rich Boy delivers again with new mixtape Bigger Than The Mayor. Polow is noticeably absent from production duties but there are heaters a plenty. Check out thumpers Chevy a Monsta, PO’d Up, Wrist Out The Window. This is a pretty great follow up to dude’s debut from last year and it’s just a mixtape! It’s official: I'm penciling in Rich Boy’s next album as the most anticipated Hip Hop album to drop in 2008.

Fam Lay - The Dirtyway Mixtape
I was pretty iffy about hipster buzz bands (see Vampire Weekend) taking their sonic cues from African pop music. Frankly, I was secretly waiting for dude’s from the Hip Hop gutter to do the same. Enter Neptunes affiliate Fam Lay. The Norfolk rapper’s upcoming Dirtyway mixtape is an out-of-the-leftfield stab at Afrobeat-rap. So far, only cuts like Dirtyway(Intro) and War Music have surfaced but I'm totally up on these snippets and so should you!

Flight of the Conchords
Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros was one of those youtube clips that I sent around the office and subsequently heard random bursts of laughter bubble up from distant cubicles. Now that the Flight of the Conchords dropped an album featuring songs like the aforementioned track from their HBO show, I'm pretty relieved that I no longer need to send out a mass email with like 15 youtube links and can now just have the email read “Get this album!”. Thanks, dudes.

Be The He The Me It Is

Introduction: Enoch gave me a CD with 62 albums. To encourage the listening of each album fully and critically, I gave myself an assignment. I will post an entry about each artist I like in a set format:

1. A YouTube of my favorite song off the album (if available).
2. What I feel is the best activity while listening to this album.
3. Something else random.

First Entry!

The Annuals - Be He Me



Painting the inside of my walk-in closet including the ceiling while eating kettle corn.

And now a haiku:

North Carolina
Bore this band of indie-pop
Listen to them sing.

With a Jab at Bush for Good Measure

Radiohead performed "live" on Conan this past Earth Day, playing a terrific rendition of "House of Cards" from their London studio.

I've never seen Thom Yorke live up close, so to watch his lazy eye in (in)action like that is pretty freaky. Still, the guy's a genius.



Best random fact I ever read: 22% of the letters in Thom Yorke's name are superfluous.

Oh, But What a 2/3 It'll Be

Zully just keeps on lucking out with this fucking lineup. Check out Sunday:

Or, if you don't want to go blind and want to check out the other dates while you're at it, go here.

The set times show "Sean Penn" performing two very short sets, one of which is right before My Morning Jacket on the main stage. It is quite possible "Sean Penn" is just a "Penn-name" for Eddie Vedder, who did a whole set with My Morning Jacket at Lollapalooza last year and actually played with Sean Penn, the actor, earlier this year in LA. You see what I did there with that play on words? I know, it's not funny if I have to explain it.

Sidenote: 2.5 hours for Roger Waters??? Luckily, judging from past setlists, he's gonna play a best-of set before and after the album. So, if your anything like me, you can stick around for 80% of "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" and "Wish You Were Here" and still have enough time for the last couple of sets in the Sahara Tent or, the heavens permitting, in your car and out the desert by 10.

LollaPalooza Please

Since Enoch dropped the fucking ball on Lolla... or maybe he was waiting for me to write something about it...

Regardless, here it is.

Lolla is back on August 1 - 3, 2008, in the great Windy City. Needless to say, the weakass anal throbbing lineup for Coachella left my panties dry. Hence, I decided to wait it out and see if maybe... JUST maybe... Lolla would open a door of hope for me.

It did.

Headliners:
Rage Against the Machines
Raconteurs
Kanye West
Wilco
Nine Inch Nails
and... Radiohead

Last year, I learned a few tricks to stay sane through the 3-day overhaul of music lovage. One, it's okay to take a nap under some random tree in the park. Two, corn on the cob is ALWAYS a good idea. Three, dress in layers because sometimes it rains... and sometimes it's fucking hot.

Another thing to look forward to in Chi-town, a Midwest chain called Connie's Pizza. I was unable to score a t-shirt from them last time, but I will not fail again.

Net bill around $600. Worth every drug money penny.

Suh-weet... Like a Chariot

About two-thirds of the way through Weeds season three, this delightful little tune came on while *SPOILER* Mary-Louise Parker and Romany Malco were making babies. *END SPOILER*

Said tune would be Page France's "Chariot," the first track from their sophomore album, Hello, Dear Wind. A little background on the boys: They're from Maryland, and in spite of the insistence of others, band leader Michael Nau denies the intentional usage of Christian symbolism in some songs, claiming that "it just rolled out that way."

Page France - Chariot

Nancy Botwin is THE quintessential hi-def MILF.

To All Those Sippin' on Haterade

With the American festival season having already begun, the general one-two punch has been the following: 1. See Jack Johnson on the lineup as a headliner, and subsequently, 2. Bitch about seeing Jack Johnson headline.

Here's his US festival itinerary:

4/19 & 4/20 - Kokua Festival
4/25 - Coachella
6/15 - Bonnaroo
8/9 - Virgin Mobile Festival
8/10 - All Points West
8/24 - San Francisco's Outside Lands Music & Arts Festival

Most people are thinking, "what the fuck," right? Rather than go into a ten-point defense against people's anti-Jack diatribes, let me just say this: You can't deny the guy's drawing power, and the great thing about festivals is that one has many choices other than the headliner. In fact, if you think about it, Jack Johnson playing such a prime set makes it that much easier for one to choose seeing another big name at the same time. You'd probably miss out on the contact high, but that's the price one pays, right?

A more personal reason why it's all love with Jack Johnson: My last day in New York, Fat Kid alumnus Joyce and I went to Empenada Mama in Midtown, and the restaurant was playing In Between Dreams. "Never Know" came on, and to this day it still evokes memories of sitting somewhere warm in the dead cold of winter and having some bomb-ass Cuban food. That's just good stuff all around.

Jack Johnson - Never Know

So, anybody going to any of these shows?

Fuck.

You win again, old man.

BahJork - Wanderlust

Late pass but... dag, this just fucked my whole brain up... awesome: