yes really, that's my last song for the night. yes really, i will not play one more song. why?? because the state of colorado says we must have everyone out of the bar by 2, and if i play another song it makes it that much more difficult to kick your drunk ass out by 2. when choosing between keeping the bar from being shut down due to a liquor violation and keeping you happy with one more song, i'm going to choose the former. "but i've paid good money to be in this bar." did you just say you paid "good money" to be in here?? really?? did you pay a cover charge to get in here? i said, did you pay a cover charge to get in here??? no? oh, but you say you've paid a lot for your drink. you realize you are drinking coors lite don't you? you realize you paid 2 dollars for that beer don't you? so because you paid 2 dollars for your beer you want me to endanger the liquor license of this bar? no. no, i'm not going to play you one more song. go home.
ahhhh, the end of the night can be so fun some nights, but some nights it can be soooo annoying. some nights it ends with cheers, hand slaps and shoulder bumps, and some nights it ends with people being mad at me because they aren't ready to stop drinking. if the state's liquor laws are not conducive to your drinking habits at 1:45 on a thursday morning, please don't get mad a me, i just work here.
well wednesday night was 80s night, which means that all week i've had a random mix of 80s jams stuck on repeat in my head. good god, what a crazy decade!! full of crazy music, crazy denim, crazy colors, crazy hair, and crazy words. er, radical words. and how crazy to have lived through it as a hormonal youth!! how did i ever survive??
well here's a few pics from wednesday night. thanks to everyone who came out and thanks to akinz boardwear for the shades! the outfits were awesome!!
well shit. i think there are many ways to approach an autobieulogy, but i've personally noticed two dominant approaches. one is to talk about the life of the recently departed. the positive impact the person had on life in general. the good things the person did. basically, the happy times.
the other approach is to recognize and verbalize that the fact that the recently departed has in fact recently departed, in fact sucks. no nostalgia. no reflection on the happy times. just a simple recognition that it simply sucks to lose someone who was good people.
i guess i gravitate towards the later approach. i think it's a family trait. at my uncle's funeral (who also succumbed to cancer early in life) , one of his (5) brothers got up to the podium and the only thing he could say was, "well (long pause) this sucks".
well, this sucks.
if you know me well, you know I gravitate towards the jazzy side of hip-hop, to which Gang Starr pioneered. R.I.P. Guru.
I know Gang Starr has been defunct for a while now, but dag, these are a few of my favorite tracks...
what do over 40 different artists ranging from Tom Waits to Ol' Dirty Bastard have in common? specifically what do Kanye West, Ol’ Dirty Bastard, Karen O (Yeah Yeah Yeahs), David Byrne (Talking Heads), RZA, Lykke Li, George Clinton, Method Man, Tom Waits, M.I.A., Chuck D, E-40, KRS-One, Sizzla, Lovefoxxx (CSS), Del tha Funkee Homosapien, Fatlip (Pharcyde), Slim Kid Tre (Pharcyde), Chali 2na (Jurassic 5), John Frusciante, Nina Persson (Cardigans), Gift of Gab (Blackalicious), Spank Rock, DJ AM, The Cool Kids, Seu Jorge, Kool Keith, Ghostface Killah, Scarface, Z-Trip, DJ Swamp, Barbie Hatch, Amanda Blank, Santogold, Nick Zinner (Yeah Yeah Yeahs), Kool Kojak, DJ Babão, DJ Qbert, Ras Congo among a few others have in common?
A crazy musical collaboration project called N.A.S.A. that's what.
N.A.S.A.'s spirit of apollo album released a little over a year ago, so it's nothing super new. however, it's definitely worth bumping to the top of your playlist if you haven't listened to it recently, or acquiring it if you're a slacker.
I play at least one track off of it on any given friday night FUNK'd and happened to give the whole album another play through today while working away. dag. nearly every track is crazy good. i think spacious thoughts (with Tom Waits and Kook Keith) is the only track i don't like. i'm not a big Tom Waits fan, but it is interesting to hear him growl over Kool Keith.
in case you are in fact a slacker, N.A.S.A. stands for North America South America and is the creation of Sam "Squeak E. Clean" Spiegel of North America and Ze "DJ Zegon" Gonzales' of South America. as Sam Spiegel is the brother of this movie maker guy named Spike Jonze (born Adam Spiegel), you can imagine the videos were pretty creative. here's a few of my favs...
so it's not really new news that most artists do their best work early in their careers. why? success is a huge game changer. i guess in short, that's my theory and I'm not going to expand on it much tonight as i'm freakin fried. a 2 hour final exam and 7 hours spent on a final paper today leave me with little left in the left lobe.
anyway, i've heard a lot of new music lately by artists who've been around the block (a few times) and overall i'm pretty disappointed. the new rjd2 is pretty lame compared to his older stuff; the new gorillaz is just ok even though it has a really diverse mixture of artists guesting it; and even the new pretty lights is rather boring.
finally this week I heard something interesting. It's not mind blowing, but definitely worth the purchase. James Mercer and Danger Mouse have decided to combine their powers for awesome into a new band called Broken Bells. James Mercer is the lead singer of a pretty rad band called The Shins. and Danger Mouse is probably most well known for being one half of the duo Gnarles Barkley, but is also worth checking out in his collaboration with MF Doom (Danger Doom), and on his solo act perversion of Jay-Z's black album and the Beatles white album (the grey album). I think he even produced the Gorillaz demon days album (which didn't suck).
anyway, Broken Bells is pretty catchy. if you like the shins you'll probably think it's a rather experimental version of the shins. though nothing too crazy. it's not like going from rattle and hum to achtung baby. cause yea, that was crazy.
ahhh. what is it about a deliciously funky hip-hop beat that gets a b-boy to bop and wiggle as he crosses his feet? or her feet? with fuzzy white boots on. gettin her groove on. movin to a beat cuz i got the roots on.
dag. what a night.
big ups, palm slaps and nuckle bumps to all the b-boys and b-girls that came out last night. sometimes I get burnt out, fried out, and forget what it's all about, but watchin you all movin on the floor reminds me what i do this for. thanks. really. thanks yall.
here's a jam by one of the most real skool rap acts around that sums friday night up better than I can.
b-boy - crown city rockers
and as an encore, here's raashan battling max, words vs. drums.
i've been djing for about 12 years now, but have been manipulating the musical experience of those around me since I got a panasonic boom box and package of blank tapes somewhere in the mid-80s. I'm currently the resident friday night dj at luscious nectar where I play virtually every form of music (except country and polka). out of the blu is a weekly update of the music i've been diggin and why. enjoy!