Hi, Atus

Words? No. What matters is the music.


Right now, this is my favorite song in the entire world.
At this exact moment this is the single greatest song I have heard in 2009 , and I didn't know it existed until tonight. And I wasn't supposed to even have it until March 2010.
Because that's how things work.

Jason and the Argyle Knit Socks

It's weird coming home for the holidays. When I am around people I haven't seen in years, I behave the way I was back then. And so do they. I'm not sure why I do it. Maybe it's easier to just fall into old habits then take the risk that you might not like the new versions of each other? Or maybe it's just easier to not make the effort. I've grown and changed a lot in the past few years, but when I'm back in Halifax, it's hard not to act like the old me, and it's unnerving as fuck. So I come home less and less often. I like the new Joey more. I look better naked now, for instance. I don't know how that happened. Maybe nobody looks good naked until they leave their home town. Or anyway maybe it's hard to believe you look good naked until you get away. Maybe it gets easier to believe once you go somewhere new and you get to be who you are, instead of who you had to be in order to get by where you were.

HEY FUCK YOU JOEY COMEAU
FUCK YOU FOR SUMMING UP MY ENTIRE WEEK OF WRITING IN A PARAGRAPH
ONE DAY I WILL EAT YOUR HEART AND GAIN YOUR POWERS

I think everyone feels this, at least a little, and I think that that is important and we should maybe sit up and pay attention to it.
It is that kind of thing that people can get behind when somebody writes about it, and it's the only reason dumb groups like "I TURN MY PILLOW OVER TO GET TO THE COLD SIDE WHEN I SLEEP" exist on Le Facebook.
People want to hear about how everybody in the world does the quirky unique thing that they thought only they did, because it vindicates them from feeling bad about who they are.
Because if they share so many weird little quirks, they surely must share at least a few of the big flaws.

Basically what I'm trying to say is I'm not the only one who pretends to be throwing fireballs when I sneeze.

TS Elliot Writes Books For Me

I could not be wearier
Life could not be drearier
If I lived in Siberia....r.

It's Christmas, Damn It

It's been a while, and I ain't got shit to say, so here's Stevie Wonder doing the Temptations on the talk box.

Oh and he's an amazing harmonica player too.
If that little yuletide log doesn't make you do a doodoo face, you're no true son of mine.

And if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to the Butterwebs. It doesn't download itself, you know.

In Which Our Hero Replaces Banter With Youtube Links

British Comedy was a staple of my childhood diet (thanks Dad), and it's definitely influenced my humor to this day.
They've got such a wonderful platform to work off, the Brits, such a proper suit-and-tie image that amplifies silliness and sarcasm alike.
I don't mean Monty Python stuff, I mean Fawlty Towers stuff, original Pink Panther stuff. They've just got a greater capacity on both sides than American comedy.

It's fucking depressing and it makes me sad at America that our entertainment industry, our film business, the one last thing we had over those dirty Reds, is plummeting.

Actually, well, it isn't plummeting entirely. We sure are fucking good at explosions.
But we sure do suck at comedy. We might have jokes, sure, but we lack....acerbic wit, satire, the finesse of those darn brits.
Also, accents.
An example:
Death and a Funeral is a 2007 film. Dark humor. British cast, British setting, the whole damn thing works on a premise that only functions in a British environment. Observe.


Right? Looks good! Well, looks fine. And Alan Tudyk!

Lets look at what America has made whilst we were away-


OH LOOK. Chris Rock has decided that what we really need in the year 2009 is a fucking dumbed down black comedy remake with the same dialogue and ten times the amount of fat women falling over, fart jokes, and young males dressing up as fat women, who then fall over while the remaining cast goes "Daaaayyyyyyoooommmmmmn" and makes funny faces.

Um.

Are you fucking serious, America? Really?
Same dialogue? Same scenes? Same fucking midget?!
You literally Blacked it up.

Now, I don't expect this movie to do well. I have faith that people can at least recognize a shit movie, regardless, but I don't expect it to bomb either.

What the FUCK guys. Chris Rock you used to be funny, or at least innovative.
Jesus christ.

At least I got a good song out of it, so it wasn't a complete waste.

And, of course, my rage refused to go away until I snooped around at what awaited me in 2010. Surely we, as a country - nay, as an industry- could dredge up something to redeem us.

Queue Shrek 4. "The Final Chapter". Unless it's "Forever After". It was unclear.

Okay. Okay, fine. We can still recover.

It's in 3D.

GOD FUCKING DAMMIT.

Edit: Actually, I may have gotten a little carried away there.

2010 is still on average going to be a good year. I thinkhope. Besides the aforementioned Iron Man 2 and The Last Airbender etc.

Because Russell Crowe is going to Gladiator up Robin Hood


Disney is for some reason making an entire movie of the Sorcerer's Apprentice that has absolutely nothing to do with the Fantasia short but might...actually turn out alright (read: has Nicholas Cage being weird + insane visual effects)


And Prince of Persia looks to be beautiful and true to the games. I remain hopeful. They are still among my favorite games of all time.


DAT LADY IS HOT

I could, if I wanted. If I followed aseptic procedure.

Edit:
OH HA HA IT IS FINALS HA
GOOD JOKE ME
GOOD JOKE NOT STUDYING
YOU ARE SUCH A PRANKSTER

YOU ARE SUCH A MERRY TRICKSTER FOR PLAYING THIS PRANK
LETS JUST KEEP LISTENING TO THIS SONG OVER AND OVER UNTIL FINALS ARE OVER

I forget so easily.

Luckily for everyone.

I remember just as easily.

Oh My Godddddd

Edit: I'm morally against two WoW posts back to back, so I'm integrating this into an edit. I'll make it quick.
Okay. Now, I know that the actual stat value in WoW is probably meaningless to you, and I accept that. However.
Look at that chestpiece and tell me it isn't the most bad ass piece of armorsmithing this side of the Ozark mountain range. (It is.)
It's probably the most expensive thing I've bought, like, ever. Outside of an epic flyer. But serilolsly.

Gaze upon my works (of smithing), ye mighty, and despair.
It's RAZORPLATE. I literally had to make knives and smith them on to a breastplate. It is bladed armor.
With it, I am unstoppable.

I'm too afraid to even equip it and bind it to me yet, I haven't even put it on.
It's like being given a Ferrari, I just want to look at it and have it shine in direct sunlight.

I-I-I-I-I do what I want (and I want you)

Real people are the most terrifying thing in the world.

I'm starting to lower my standards.
By this I mean "grow up".

There are...tropes; there are ideas that we have pulled out of stories until they are no longer connected to the stories themselves and have petulant lives of their own.

This is unrelated yet relevant to the point I am trying to make.

There are tropes on every level of Humans As A People.
Use your own life as a reference or it doesn't make any sense.
There are archetypes you know because you're a Hyoo-Man, and archetypes you know because you're an American,
because you're a Male
because you're 20
because you're in College
because you're DO YOU SEE WHAT I'M GETTING AT. yes you've done this bit before

I know, I'm just setting the stage for setting the stage I have become dangerously reclusive recursive lately.


I'm losing my attention span, I think. I write these only I force myself to write these because I would rather just sink into my chair and let my eyes glaze over Wikipedia articles, following links blindly, tricking my brain into thinking I'm learning something but letting it all leak out the ears the instant I switch subjects.

I get distracted. I have too many tabs open at once, but it's the only way I know how to write - with reference, with planning and care.


HERE PICK ONE
Improvisational jazz, on-the-spot poetry, free flow sparring will, if done well -
-be deceptive in its difficulty.
-garner respect from those with equal mastery.
-never look quite as good as a planned execution.

Trick Question! I never intended to go in depth on this segment of the post anyway! Double Trick Answer Psyche Out Subject Change!


I have no idea what flirting is.
Or rather, I know of it, but I couldn't give you a proper description and I damn certainly couldn't identify examples of it in the field.

I heard a group of girls just throw the word around over and over while recounting their adventures and I realized that for the life of me I can't recall an instance in which I observed, engaged in, or was subjected to flirting.

Now I'll be the first among us to admit that I'm fucking oblivious on matters such as these.

Which is odd, because typically I'm not only hyper self aware, but ruthlessly argus-eyed in my analysis of other people's behavior.

I guess because I can't imagine it at all. I can't, right now, envision a scenario in which flirting is a legitimate option.

This is not some teenage excuse to "be different" and "look down on people" and uhrrg de bluuurg the problem with discussing things of this matter is that it inevitably descends to Hot Topic Level "justifying my homogeneity difference from everyone else". There just isn't a big enough vocabulary, especially in a textual format, to avoid sounding like a douchebag.

There. That's my caveat. On with the show.

I like the Vulcans.
How is that connected.

I have the highest standards of anyone I know, "girl-wise".
That's code for "I'm a picky bitch", so I have to explain very carefully.

I think it's you mean, one aspect out of the legion because I never stop.

********

Here's the catch.

This has devolved to notes, loose sheaves of paper with frayed bits of my consciousness scribbled on them. Posts take multiple days and I lose my train of thought faster than I can type.

This is a broken mirror now.

I stepped in wet cement today accidentally. I overheard a girl say "I left you a message on myspace" to her friend, in regards to something or other, and I was so distracted I walked past three orange cones and dug my toe into a smooth disc of cement on the sidewalk.
I didn't even notice until I was four steps past, when I froze and debated what to do. I assumed that nobody saw me, because I wasn't currently being A. yelled at or B. chased down.

I kept walking and now I have a little cement on my shoe but other than that it was just a dumb experience.

I like the Vulcans. I think I said that already, but I've convinced myself not to look back. This is a frame by frame basis.

I tend to look down on anyone who shows too much emotion, on principle.
At the same time, I'm absolutely uninterested in anyone who doesn't have a deep passion for something.

And it can't be the environment.

Let me finish.

I don't like...blatant and obvious expressions of emotion. If you're mad and you slam a door, I'll count it against you. It's a matter of self control, it's a matter of self-image. That may explain why I don't see that's "see", not "comprehend" flirting so much. More on that later. And by that I mean moving on.

Yet, at the same time, I require any potential mate to be enthusiastic, perhaps fervent, in her well, we'll stick with "it" at this point emotions and opinions.

This is where I have to stick with Vulcans, otherwise I could give a lengthy and ignorant dissertation on the merits of Stoicism. What a waste.

The Vulcans are cold and calculating, they eschew emotion in favor of logic, they meditate and have strict self control.

Because they HAVE to! Because they're secretly a volatile and capriciously emotional people! A violent, passionate brain boils away under each Vulcan you encounter in the series, hidden away under an iron will.

They're constantly at war with themselves. How fantastic is that.

That's what I mean. You need both to be a real human being in my eyes, you need to be conflicted. Because otherwise you aren't living like a normal human being. The natural state of the human brain is tension.

And tension is so sexy.

Don't even get me started on Pon Farr. Oh dang. Pon Farr.

I have no idea what the top of this post says.

And now, funk music.


(That organ at 1:12 is so good I want the sheet music tattooed on my brain.)

WRITING THE SAME ESSAY WRITING THE SAME ESSAY

I believe I mentioned a previous incarnation of the Face in an older post, referencing Pretty Lights' ability to blow your ass off your own goddamn skull.

It is.
the.
Doodoo Face.

More on this guy later, by the way.

Hell, more on this guy now.
Wallpaper. Don't really know what to tell you. Think.....think LMFAO with an East Bay irony level of eleven.


What's not to love. I mean, I sure as hell can't stop laughing when the drug hallucination gangster muppet tells him "You better go find that motherf***er".
(Further mindblowing can be found here)

Edit: Oh! That's how I know him. He's the one responsible for turning this shitty ironic rap song into a hilarious ironic rap song. Referenced in this Overcompensating.
God I love wrapping everything up neatly.

Double Edit: I CAN'T STOP.

WRITING AN ESSAY WRITING AN ESSAY

I haven't listened to a Death Cab album since sophomore year of high school.

......This is really good.

I've decided to use pre-post notes to help remember. Don't read this.

old times payed for music had stake felt feelings
nowdays don't pay don't care
does this count as cheapening?
discourages audience/creator discourse what of concerts.

reinforces itself.
them what burned revert.
them what do know how to do it right.

Second listen change things
optimism or boredom or glass ears
one turns to two turns to maybe three

relent.
because natural state isn't ungood.
want to be happy so make happy
even when not so.

I will always tell you the truth.

Edit: So Griffin, I hear you coyly say, How would you build a Twilight soundtrack?

I'm glad you asked that question, shadow-audience. Surely, like purposefully singing off-key, scoring an awful movie requires no small amount of skill. Let's begin.

But how will you manage to dredge up a haunting yet romantic, cloudy-moody-skies love theme? THIS IS HOW


Well played. But how will you convey the stifling ennui that is being in love with a vampire at age 17? Why, that's easy I'll just give you some OH GOD DAMMIT SOMEONE HAS THOUGHT OF THIS BEFORE ME AND MADE A COMPILATION VIDEO curses. It still works though. Just don't....don't watch it. Tab out.


I'm impressed so far. What about that luring sound to capture the essence of dreamy bein'in'love what will capture them young girls hearts and minds, BUT YET REMAIN TINGED WITH SADNESS? Ah, easy one there, I'd just sling some Bon Iver at them Oh dear, I'm afraid the real Twilight folks did that, they're disqualified CURSES! Very well.


You're really cooking now, chum. But these are all sad bastard songs! We need something that makes the ladies rip their bodices and wish desperately to be ravished by the dread vampire Flammablehair McGrimacey Lipcurl!
Allow me to drop one of the most sex-laden songs in the goddamn world. Cut some slow motion entrances in this and you'll have to mop up theatergoers after each viewing.


We're nearly there. But what about something we can peddle at Hot Topic, something from an indie-rock-pop group with an attractive female lead singer that appeals to the girlish masses and their dragged boyfriends alike?
Easy Peasy Paramo- No. FINE. SPIN ON THIS. LOOK AT HOW APPROPRIATE.


You're fucking welcome. God, I'm great. Yeah, you might as well just put on a frilly tutu and start making Team Edward-themed AMV's on youtube. That's how gay this whole farce was. It was a musical exercise shut up shut up.


I've dissected Twilight before, and nothing I say will be as witty or insightful as the hordes of more verbose and professional comedians who are going to leap (indeed, have probably already leaped leapt?) on this film.

Which I saw, by the way.

I bought a commemorative cup so that I may remember my New Moon experience forever.
Thankfully it depicts both oh-so-sinfully-hunky male leads flanking Whatsherface so I'm not forced to choose between Team Edward Broody Moodswing McFathead or Team Jacob Big McLargeHuge da Vincfucking seriously did you see that guys muscles.

(The obvious only acceptable answer is Team Alice/Jasper. Unfortunately, there wasn't a commemorative cup with them on it. Phooey.)

In all honesty, New Moon wasn't as bad as the first one.

Note the phrasing of this sentence. This is a wonderful logical strategy.
Observe: The bombing of Nagasaki wasn't as bad as the bombing of Hiroshima.

See? New Moon was relatively great.

My opinion might be tainted, however, by my personal viewing experience - id est, hearty chortling and cheerful shots of homemade skittle vodka paired with slackjawed facepalms and outraged song recognitions.

That last bit is the important bit.

I'm sure you all remember hearing 15 Step at the end of the first Twilight and groaning in the anticipation of a million Hot Topic-feeders suddenly claiming to love The Radioheads. And that Muse "theme song" was pretty alright too.

This second one had me raging a little harder - better songs, more diverse songs, from a larger pool of marketable artists.

That's the worst bit. In amongst the two -

Actually, let's reverse for a moment.

The Twilight Soundtrack's are a source of great fascination for me, because they just must be the end result of one of the most calculating and targeted marketing campaigns of the past few years.

The first one had a pretty predictable mix, all things considered.
It's divided into two categories: Vampire Romance, and Hot-Topic Teenage Movie.

In the Teenage Movie side we had a Linkin Park song, a Paramore song, and a song by the guy from Jane's Addiction. It's all pretty basic stuff, lala we're yooooung we're seeeexy lets frolick BUT I AM ALSO MOODY.

In the Vampire Romance side we have an Iron and Wine track, a second Paramore song, and some fiddly piano shit. Chicks dig that. and like any sweeping haunting professionally scored music set against flowing backdrops of the Pacific Northwest, it serves to set the scene perfectly. Suck on that.

New Moon added a third category: Sad Bastard Music.
Oh, there were still Teenage Movie songs and Vampire Romance songs intermixed but the general theme here was one of
HOPELESS
SOUL-DEVOURING
MISERY.

Here is the kicker: The franchise is, by now, such a goddamn money pinata that they were able to throw enough hustle-bucks at respectable artists that they recorded and released original and exclusive new tracks for the New Moon soundtrack.
This presents me with an odd dilemma. Do I on principle hate this music for being tainted not only with Twilight-venom, but blatant oily commercialism as well?
Or do I rejoice that some new songs have come out of left field by artists I enjoy and leave it at that?


There was a time when I would have been so fixed in Shun-Mode that I would've happily and ignorantly lambasted this music.
It is with great pride, then, that I can instead say that I'm able to be a grown-up about this business and just pick and choose the songs that are good, regardless of what teenage-girl emotional-pornography film it was produced for.

But back to the interesting point I was making: All of the good songs on this album blaze past the Teenage Movie section (which, if you were taking notes, contains new tracks by Death Cab for Cutie and The Killers. awful)
and the Vampire/Werewolf Romance section (new songs from Black Rebel Motorcycle Club whoever the fuck they are and Grizzly Bear you know who I don't think is great? Grizzly Bear. Fuck you, Everyone Indie. They Don't Sound Good. Neither does the Arcade Fire. Blow me.

Every good song is straight up distilled Sad Bastard Music.

Case in point: Thom Fucking Yorke put a song in.


Fucking OK Go, the most jubilant and sunny indiepoprock fuckers this side of Jupiter managed to make a sad bastard song.

Anya Marina and Lykke Li, two black-whirlpool level sad-girls-with-guitars each mailed in their contributions in sable envelopes.

And to cap it all off you can tell I've written this entire fucking travesty of a post just to get to this point, can't you Bon Iver - Motherfucking Bon No-Song-I've-Written-Hasn't-Resulted-In-Someone's-Suicide Iver - decided to team up with quindiessential (See what I did there? I thought that was really clever) St. Vincent lady to deliver this most hollow-hearted, life-is-over emotion bomb of a song.




Bon Iver has just become an accepted musical trope.
You play that stupid "hope you had the time of your lives" Green Day song Pomp & Circumstance at graduations, "Play That Funky Music White Boy" Wagner's Bridal Chorus at weddings, Rapper's Delight semi-unironically at high-school reunions....

And you play Bon Iver when you want to curl up into a ball and die of sadness.

Do you know the story? Do you know how Justin Vernon broke up with his girlfriend and band simultaneously, contracted mono, and locked himself in a cabin in Wisconsin for a winter? Decided to make an album with what he had with him? He just overlapped him playing his guitar and singing wordless melodies and added whatever words worked later.
In his own words: "I...went up there because I didn’t know where else to go and I knew that I wanted to be alone and I knew that I wanted to be where it was cold."
And he emerged three months later with an album - the saddest album that has ever been made.
Yeah. Episode of House where Amber died? That was Bon Iver.
I mean it's musically good, skilled, but if you can get that far past listening to it you're doing something wrong.
When you hear Bon Iver the correct reaction is to become ashen-faced and broken hearted.
Listen to this song. Listen and if, after that little loop halfway in, you aren't thinking about every regret you'll ever have, you aren't making enough regrets.

I suppose it was appropriate, that's what the characters in the film were doing when this song was played. So, in all musical respects, it's a fine song.

Am I okay with people hearing it and going "Bon Iver? I LOVE this guy! I love ALL his music!"?

Am I okay with reading this (verbatim) youtube comment posted only an hour ago: "i agree completely. Though im a twilight fan I havent heard of Thom Yorke before , and this song had me sold!"?


Yes. I'm fine with it. How great is that. They're learning about good bands through shit movies and maybe, just maybe, some of them will go and download some other songs by these artists and get into them and wouldn't that just be a triumph for music.
Think of how much worse it could have been. Think of how much Miley Cirus and Green Day there could have been.

You know what's going to happen now? The Twilight fanbase is going to glue to the indie-subculture and start liking bullshit bands like Grizzly Bear and parroting Pitchfork mag's bullshit reviews about their album being "compositionally and sonically airtight" (actual quote). Musicians will pander and everything will be ruined forever. Again. Due to vampires.

It's that time of the month

Edit: Day one of reuniting with the Alliance. Terrified the entire time. Surrounded by people I used to hunt down/hunted me down. No idea where anything is anymore. Spent entire day riding/flying in to Horde towns and getting chased out by guards.
Grouping is fine, the 5-man's I've been in are equal to previous experiences but I have yet to shake off the overall "Flameo, Hotman!" vibe I'm beaming to all these goddamn dwarves.


I'm gearing up for a change. And it's WoW related. You know what that means.


Strap in.

You know, I like the Blood Elves. They have a fabulous story. There was such an outcry when they first got released. The Horde, previously the ugly toughguy badass-exclusive race of beast-men, greenskins and lepers, revolted at the thought of accepting these vain, selfish, reclusive megalomaniac misanthropes. Because they were pretty, we feared that all the morons who would roll Night Elves and dance naked on mailboxes would migrate over.

Well, I say "we" as a greater reference. I personally was going "Fuck yeah, Blood Elves!". I hadn't played a spellcasting class yet, and I figured what better race to pick as a hurler of the arcane than a hateful, revenge-betrayal based sub-faction of polar-Night Elf opposites who were literally addicted to magic.
Not only this, they had actually managed to capture a Naaru and harness it's powers for itself - making them capable of wielding the Light by force.
Read: HORDE-SIDE PALADINS ZOMGGGGGG

Which is what I am now.
Okay, so, I mean, later on at the end of TBC, the Blood Knights actually banded together with the Naaru (and everyone else) and released the captured entity to combat Kiljaeden. They were then granted the gifts of the Light in a more traditional manner by A'dal, in light of our valiance. Pretty slick, guys.

But....I tire of Horde. I've had Horde allegiance for the past two years, but before that I always forget I was Alliance. And of course before that I was Horde again. Shhh.

I mean, the entire theme of The Burning Crusade was that of banding together to defeat a foe that would otherwise destroy us. All sorts of uniting, uplifting speeches by external third parties with phrases like "Put aside your petty squabbles! Or we are going to fucking die!

And we did. There was a single city, Shattrath, that was diplomatic - we had an armistice in place over the whole city. Alliance and Horde relations were pretty damned neutral.
I mean, we were still on Tichondrius, so we never sunk below a certain threshold of "Hey, an Ally. Want to kill him?". But what I'm saying is that sometimes the answer was "....Eh" instead of "CAMP HIM FOREVER".

Wrath of the Lich King has a totally different story. There's an even more ominous, massive, close-to-home level threat looming (read: The. Fucking. Lich. King.), but this time it's all about those petty squabbles.
Like, there's outright hostilities established between the Allies and Horde right now, and there's also significant infighting between different parties within each faction.

.....And it's fairly legitimate, I mean, the Lost King of Stormwind has returned - Varian Wrynn, who legitimately got his life wrecked by Horde slavers.
Er, and a section of the Forsaken betrayed everyone and killed heroes of both factions.
And all sorts of mishaps and toe-steppings continue to go on as both sides fight for the advantage against the Lich King.

The last raid instance, in fact, is a tournament grounds area set up by the Argent Crusade to prepare us for real combat in Icecrown - but even it has been tainted by this new hostility. All the gear is faction-themed, so the opposite faction's weaponry and armor look totally different than yours.


What I'm trying to say is, WotLK made WoW have two separate sides again, and I've only seen one of them. I haven't done Northrend as an Alliance, I don't know about the discovery that Muradin Bronzebeard was still alive (well I mean I do because I read up on it, I devoured that shit), I haven't seen the new Harbor in Stormwind (well, I mean, I have, but only as a trifling blur as we stormed past it to kill the King), etc.
You know what I mean.

So.....(suspecting and expecting this, I believe) the Dev team came out with the Faction Change. Like a name or server change, you can alter a preexisting character. In this case, from faction....to faction.
Which means changing everything - including race.

Well, I think you know who I'd be if I had to suddenly be an Alliance paladin again.

The Draenei have one of the most convoluted backstories in the game - due in part to the fact that there was a preexisting unit called the Draenei that turned out to be a corrupted, mutated version of these "pure" Draenei lookit'sreallyfuckingcomplicatedjustrunwithit.

So. Why not. Why not get ready for the inevitable switch to Alliance for Cataclysm, when we'll really have to pick sides.
And the Horde get a new leader since Thrall has to go become the next Tirisfal Guardian OHMYGODDDD THE LORE WHAT THE LORE ARE YOU, WAIT, GARROSH BECOMES WARCHIEF WHAT OH MY GODDDD
We're going Alliance for Worgen anyway, so why not have an 80 there to help the leveling process.

Plus, I mean, the Blood Elves were pussies anyway.

some like sinewy back arching cirque du soleil looking motherfucker

Look, okay, I'll put something up here later but right now you all have to listen to me very carefully.

I need you all to look around your rooms.
Do you have any laser pointers?
Do you have any strobe lights? Black lights? Oil lights?
I'll settle for a fog machine, a string of colored christmas lights,your iTunes visualizer, you flicking your overhead light on and off with a sheet of construction paper in front of your face.

Anything, really, anything at all that you can do while you listen to this


Edit: Right.So this guy, Derek Vincent Smith.
Mastermind behind "Pretty Lights", which is him as producer/beatmaker/DJ and, when doing live shows, one other guy on a drum kit.

I had never heard of this guy until I stumbled upon it a few days ago while (hey hey surprise) reading K-Murdock's blog.

These are some of the fattest beats I've ever heard.
Now, in the beat community, the predicate of "fatness" has a specific meaning when operating on "beats".

The only abiding definition of a fat beat is one that makes you make The Face the first time you hear it.

(The Face also comes in different variations. The Dance or The Move or The Sound are all just different versions. It's the body's natural response to fat beats - a sort of primordial "god damn".
Example of The Face is perfectly demonstrated by a Mister Shawn Carter upon first hearing of the fat beat that would eventually become Dirt Off Your Shoulder.
If you've done your homework clicking my links before, you've seen this look - exactly two minutes in.


Anyway.

Aimin' At Your Head (see top) by Pretty Lights came out of fucking nowhere, blew me away, and prompted me to do my regular research.
Turns out this guy is popping up in a lot of music reviews lately.
Turns out this guy has been on tour lately, with his live drummer and giant wall of LEDs.

Turns out he's releasing all his tracks out in free downloadable EP's on his website.
That alone is pretty god damned amazing, when you think about it.

What blows me away about Pretty Lights is that it's a culmination of exactly what I've been talking about for the past months.
Each track has a solid foundation in the obscure and funky soul tracks that are a staple of good beatmaking, but you only manage to hear them if you deliberately dig.
Because on top of them, he's layered the skullpounding drive of great house music, and chopped it all up with quintessential electro brainfuzz.

It's like they took all my favorite music styles and made a little super dream baby for me to have all for myself.
Here is a remarkable example:
Pretty Lights - Finally Moving

Good song. Soul samples and grooviness abound, right? But it's a little focused, a little too lazily drifting along.

So he remixed it. Did an electrohouse remix of his own song.


OH MY GODDDDDDDD THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT IT NEEDED

It's like if Deadmau5 and Justice were put in a supercollider with RJD2 and Girl Talk.

It's exactly like that. It's so fucking good. Expect this man to blow up shortly. Expect new Texts From Last Night to show up namedropping the Pretty Lights show (at which they, I dunno, gave a handjob to a guy who looked like the Pope.)

And it's pretty diverse, within it's greater Subphylum!
There are fast songs and slow songs and more conventional popular music songs and more outlandish funk samples and holy shit this horn section sample is so fresh and so clean-clean.


SO. Number 5. To finish my list. Pretty Lights.

THIS IS WHAT I DO ALL DAY

Hahahaha I don't give ten shits about nine shits if you manage to choke this down, it's 2:05 in the goddamn morning and I'm amazing

PS EDIT: THIS IS WHAT I FEEL LIKE RIGHT NOW. JUST DRUMS AND DISTORTED BASS PLAYED LIKE A GUITAR AND MAYBE SOME SCREAMING AND MAYBE SOME LIQUOR UGH UGH UGH JACK WHITE STICK THIS IN YOUR FACE AND LIKE IT


Although the Cold War was –by traditional military standards- relatively bloodless, the decades of conflict and tension had as much socio-economic,industrial, and scientific influence as any previous war. Indeed there is an arguable case, due to the mass media coverage and level of widespread consensus ideology present during the Cold War, that it helped to shape American society on a far broader level than the World Wars. Stephen Whitfield, in his essay The Culture of the Cold War, follows this massive impact of the Cold War and associated anti-communist sentiments in America – specifically,the drastic influence they had on popular culture and the people who wrote, filmed, and viewed it.

The Culture of the Cold War presents, from the very beginning, an uncompromisingly negative view of the results of the Cold War entering popular culture. The mass mentality and fear produced led to, according to Whitfield, “the suffocation of liberty and the debasement of culture itself”. Although his language is strong, the primary sources that follow this claim excuse Whitfield of hyperbole (for the most part). The examples he gives range from the subtle to the blatant, from the merely pro-capitalist tothe outspoken hatred of Communism, from literature to gameshow television – and throughout all ofthem he emphasizes the fact that these were the sentiments of the majority of America. Anti-communist action was met “with popular approval and acquiescense”. (Whitfield, 218)

While Whitfield expresses intense disappointment at the homogenization of Cold War sentiment, his true contempt is saved for the culture that came of it. At the height of the Red Scare,Communist hatred and fervent Americanism had turned the greater entertainment industry into little more than a pandering propaganda and agitation machine. Not only was the media being produced pitifully single minded, Whitfield laments, it was also just plain bad. The same themes of fearmongering and anti-communist hysteria were played out over and over again with minor changes. Posters for films carried buzzwords in bold, warning/titillating/selling the RED MENACE taking over colleges (Red Salute,225), trying to convert ordinary citizens (The Red Menace, 222), and spying on American secrets (Walk East On Beacon, 226).

Communists who made actual appearances in mass media were portrayed as scheming,devious, and inherently evil criminals with an almost comical one-sidedness, while conversely Americanism (and, by extension, capitalism) had its virtues extolled to equally comic excess. While Communists burned flags and rubbed their hands together on screen, Capitalist heroes helped viewers affirm their Americanism. To this defensive and willing embrace of capitalism, Whitfield attributes the rise of iconic symbols like the Barbie doll. “The capitalist ‘fetishism of commodities’ that Marx found so repellent had advanced to the first line of defense”. (Whitman, 221)

Whitfield brings up film after B-list film produced in the 1950’s as examples of the lengths to which anti-communism narrowed media culture. The “Red” label was applied to anything and everything possible by the HUAC and Motion Picture Alliance. Ominous lists floated from ear to ear, naming actors and writers who, for the most part, were not politically active. This concept of finger pointing and fear, even directed at the “innocent”, is expanded upon in by Mark Goodson: “The watchword in the business is ‘Don’t make waves.”(A Producer Remembers the Red Scare, 226).

Here the root of the longevity and power of anti-communist hysteria is fully exposed. If viewers thought an actor, writer, or producer was a communist, they wouldn’t watch the show – indeed, often a more forceful group (The Catholic War Veterans or the American Legion) would protest and make a lot of noise and someone would end up losing money. While the initial impetus behind the Red Scare can be traced back to a relatively small group of highly vocal instigators, this (ironically Capitalist-driven) link allowed the Red Scare’s influence to trickle down as deeply as it did. Your bosses fears became your own, until by the early 1950’s “it was safer to produce…without any political or economic themes or implications at all.” Whitman’s relentless stark portrayal of the bending of mass culture ends with as strong a condemnation as it began: “…the development of a more vital and various national culture was unrealized.” (Whitman 221, 224)


Such emphatic language can serve as a useful literary aid – it often carries a more memorable message, and can help make an essay a “better read”. However, using this technique inappropriately can make a paper substantially more opinionated and subsequently off-topic. Such is the case with Whitman’s diatribe on The Culture of the Cold War: A blisteringly disappointed narrative tone throws off an otherwise commendable historical investigation. Though entirely supported by his extensive example sources (and echoing the sentiments of all those unfairly [or, for that matter, fairly] blacklisted as Communists), Whitman’s downright derisive voice detracts from the professional level of research put in to his paper. Again, it is for the most part entirely justified – but righteous anger, even at a truly infuriating level of injustice, pandering, and idiot hysteria, is not the tool of the historian.

As well, Whitman does a fair amount of pandering himself. One must take in to account the fact that the essay as it appears in Thinking Through The Past is highly abridged, and so there are several unintended jumps from topic to topic, but even so there are multiple passages that serve no purpose other than to preach a more indignant story to the choir. The (albeit sad) story of Woody Guthrie’s affliction with Huntington’s chorea does indeed symbolize “the fragility of the left-wing popular culture that faced extinction during the Cold War”(Whitman, 223), but that’s exactly it. It’s a symbol, and a damn good metaphor, but neither of those help form a greater understanding of the history of the time.


PS Be honest you can totally tell the place in my essay where I came back after reading THIS for two hours and I was all "oh shit dang yo I gots to finish this up like real fast okay

Hydrogenated Palm Kernel Oil

ditE: From the other side! Let's just STUFF this blog with youtubes!
You know who sounds like a cross between Soul Position and Nujabes?
Fuckin....these guys. Their beats are real simple but I like it. Like, a lot. The Sound Providers. Let me show you them.



Everything in my entire life is better.

Because of this girl.



She's a truly deadly mix of cutettractive and skilled and musical and witty.
The fact that she's basically playing in a closet and has good editing skills also helps.


(If that weren't enough, it's her)


MIDDLE EDIT: Hey lets also watch this.

I like Chris Thile. Lots.
ONLY NOW SHE'S ALL GROWED UP THAT WAS TWO YEARS AGO



Seriously I just happily watched 13 minutes of this girl talking at the camera. She's both well spoken and properly quirky butnottoomuch. I pretty much love her.

Edit: Sparking my interest to look at the youtube circles, I remembered this guy. Turns out he finally got to go to Ireland, and he came back, and now he's like four times as good as he was because the dragons gave him power oh no wait that's Eragon this is a Spanish guy.



Man dang yo I wish I had learned a single song on my whistle

unbeingdead isn't beingalive

Don't listen to this song. I mean, unless it's the kind of thing you're in to.
But I didn't put it up there to be listened in it's 6 minute entirety.

You need to listen from 3:15 to 3:38.

Hear it?

Good



Do listen to this song.

.....Hear it?

Good.

Now we can move on to the more serious and important.

Every poet I read is my favorite poet.
Out of thewaythatis, not out of desire or trickery.
I don't have the memory or the chops to keep a revolving list of favorite poetsauthorsbands in my head at any given time.

I can barely remember who wrote what when.
I haven't read enough (read: all) poetry to hold my own in a choices-competition, a Top 5 provesyourightproveshimwrong.

When someone asked me how my first "real" winter had gone, I automatically responded that I didn't know - I didn't have any other one to compare it to.

That's rational.
My brother got real mad.
I'm still figuring out how he can be a poet.

I bet he's read more poets than I have.

So for this week, and forever since I've read him.

E.E. Cummings is my favorite poet.
I suppose it's too mainstream to build any beatstreetcred off of, but by adding this sentence pointing that out I've managed to circumvent that nicely.

People tend to call him "e. e. cummings" because he signed a poem that way and people are people.
Me calling him by his regular name is just symbolic enough to be understood by everybody, but only if they know the previous fact.
So I also have to introduce that caveat whenever I talk about E.E. Cummings.

Those two necessary injections are why I don't talk about poetry a lot, I guess.

I think if I had to make a wish I'd want my life to, in the end, have the same flavor as his poetry.

Unfortunately apparently he says, "nothing is quite as easy as using words like somebody else. We all of us do exactly this nearly all of the time —and whenever we do it, we are not poets."

Which sort of cancels out my traditional strategy of greatnessthroughmimicry.

But anyway, Dang, man, E.E. Cummings.

wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,
and kisses are a better fate
than wisdom

So I Was Thinking About Playing WoW Again...

Fine. Fine, you fuckers don't have anything to say?
I can be prolific by my own self.
It's cool. I can entertain myself.

You know what happens when you stay silent?

Griffin Weston talks about WoW.

I don't even play WoW anymore.
Look at what you've done.

Have I spouted about Cataclysm yet? Cataclysm is the next expansion pack that's on the horizon. It'll probably be another year before it's implemented, but it (again) promises to breath life into an an already 6 year old game.

Aion? Don't talk to me about Aion. Warhammer didn't work out. Eve is still going, I guess, if you're some weird Swede who has nothing better to play.
WoW has claimed me as it's devoted follower, and no MMO is coming along to woo me.
Star Wars: The Old Republic doesn't count. Shhhh. We'll see.

The point is, eventually, we're going to run out of content. Oh, they've strung out as long as they POSSIBLY could so far - in fact, if you look at it, original WoW (pre-TBC) didn't actually deal with much WCII or III lore. It was all Elemental Fire Lords and Dragonkin and Old Gods. And they spun out the Qiraji out of fuckin' nowhere. These guys weren't in the older games - but just about everyone is dead.

We've defeated everyone except A. The Lich King, who we WILL probably I guess vanquish at the end of WotLK, and B. The actual GODS THEMSELVES, or equivalent powers that be.

We're all out of people, really. So what, I hear you cry out, what could possibly await us in Cataclysm? What does such an ominous single-word name like that even signify? Who is left for us to fight?

Time for a history lesson
God, I love writing these. Give me a campfire and a big beard. I will tell these stories to my children.
Let's have some setting.



So Cataclysm. Let me run you through the basics.

Have I told you about the dragons? There were 5 Dragonflights, ruled each by an Aspect dragon. Chosen - in fact, created by the Titans, benevolent and omnipotent world-makers from Beyond.
Alexstrasza, Nozdormu, Ysera, Malygos, and Neltharion.
Red, Bronze, Green, Blue, Black.
Life, Time, Nature, Magic, Earth.

These were the Guardians of Azeroth.

Neltharion, the Earth-Warder, charged by the titans to safeguard all the land and deep places of Azeroth, warden over the very earth itself.

Turns out Neltharion went crazy, guarding the earth for so long. I could go into the details, but the phrase "insidious incessant whispers of the Old Ones" really sums it up. There were things so corrupted they spread to even the most stalwart and powerful. Just look at Sargeras.

In fact, look at Sargeras! Pause Neltharion for a minute.

Because see, 10,000 years before the warlocks of the Orcs of Draenor opened up the first portals to Azeroth, before the petty squabble of Orcs and Humankind had even thought about existing, the Kaldorei (proto-Night Elves) lived in relative peace, artistry, and immortality along the shores of the massive Well of Eternity (the largest arcane remnant of the Titan's ontological touch upon Azeroth since they created the damn thing).
They were a curious and innocent race. They marveled and wondered at the reasons, the mechanisms, the how and why of their existence, and the "waking world" they inhabited.
The Queen of these people (like all true queens) was the most beautiful and clever among them: Queen Azshara. She became interested in the Well - and rightly, for it was the progenitor of all power. The Quel'dorei (priest-royalty-researcher-law entities of the Night Elves) began to investigate and explore and, eventually, channel and wield this arcane energy for themselves.

So the first magic was born.

Reckless and raw and dangerous, this incredible prolific use of magic had dire consequences. Not only were the Kaldorei slowly being influenced by the constant exposure to the Arcane, such wild usage of the energy that links all things does not go unnoticed.

There are other worlds besides Azeroth, other places created by the Titans or perhaps by other beings. The Orcs, the Eredar, the Naztherim, all (in a sense) "alien" to Azeroth. All found their way there by other means.

So the Kaldorei, in their infancy, unwittingly turned Azeroth into a blazing beacon for all magically attuned beings.

This was, as I think you can see, where things started to go downhill.

But nevermind.

We were looking at Sargeras.

You have go back a lot farther than 10,000 years for his story, so we'll leave that for another day.

Suffice it to say that he is known as The Great Enemy of All Life, The Lord of the Burning Legion, the Chaos God, who desires all of everything to return to a chaotic primordial pure state with the power to do it, too.

Suffice it to say that he and his hordes of nether demons (again, a different story) felt the recklessness of the Kaldorei's magic and thought "....delicious".

The Kaldorei weren't doing so hot themselves. A constant exposure to the lightning-surge level of ecstasy and power that raw magic creates had transformed the once innocent race into hedonistic and capricious demigods.
Queen Azshara and her Quel'dorei began to covet and keep the Wells energies for themselves, looking down at the common people as unenlightened.

This is how Sargeras works upon a planet.
Given a hairline crack, he works into the minds of those in places of power and exudes his influence upon them.
He appeared, radiant and beautiful, to Azshara and her Highborne. Their corruption hardly had to be worked upon further, they were so readily converted.

Long story short, the Quel'dorei all but withdrew from society and began work to use the power of the Well to bring Sargeras's true form from the Nether to Azeroth (under pretenses,I believe, of untold power and utopian cleansing of the unworthy Kaldorei).

This, as you have probably worked out, was a bad idea.

It worked.

The Burning Legion swarmed into Azeroth and basically set it all on fire, as the Quel'dorei mindlessly expanded the portal to strengthen it for Sargeras himself.

Now, some Kaldorei fought back. Three, specifically: Malfurion and Illidan (YES ILLIDAN) Stormrage and Tyrande Whisperwind. Aided by just about every sentient being left alive on Azeroth, as well as the Dragonflights, they started fighting back.

This is known now as the War of the Ancients.

But, you clamor, I thought you said we were talking about......Actually, I hear you clamor, you have no idea what we were talking about.

That's because we haven't gotten there yet.

This was all setting the stage for the War of the Ancients, a war of earthshattering proportions. Literally.

The Kaldorei Resistance and the Burning Crusade raged, while the Dragon Aspects sought to counteract the Quel'dorei's drawing power from the Well.

Ahh, you say. The Dragon Aspects. I know about those!
I know about Neltharion, the Eldest, the most powerful and resourceful, the permanently connected to the earth itself and all the other ones too
So you do! Well done.

Now imagine Neltharion, fighting for his planet, seeing it burn, against the ever present soul-corroding might of Sargeras while simultaneously being turned by dark voices from further below (again, Old Gods, different story).

He became bothered.

So, half-insane and all-desperate, he came up with the typical desperate plan.
After enough fighting, all leaders turn to a similar strategy.
It goes along these lines: "....What if....we build a _____...BIG ENOUGH....to WIN."

The ____ in this case would be a magical weapon, a concentration of all five dragonflight's power. Which was substantial.
The Dragon Soul.
So they made it. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

So Neltharion, armed with the very essence of the other dragons, led a massive charge to the palace of Azshara (while the Kaldorei Resistance kept the Legion at bay)

The dragons spread out and linked all their magic, and turned to Neltharion, awaiting his signal to unleash a focused charge.

This is, as you have probably figured out, where shit does not go as planned.

Neltharion, at the brink of his sanity, poised to deliver the biggest level of destruction ever seen on his own land, with the power of five dragonflights behind him

breaks.

He freezes the other dragons in their place, lifts the Dragon Soul and releases all his agony and despair and hatred and molten anger and vaporizes every god-damned thing you can imagine being capable of vaporization.
Demons, dragons, night elves, plants.
A level of destruction, an unleashing of energy so powerful that Neltharion is changed instantly and forever, altered, a reflection of his corruption and disgust.

Neltharion ceased to exist, and in his place was born Deathwing the Destroyer, who fled to the hidden depths that were once his domain and became one of the greatest evils Azeroth has ever seen.


The War of the Ancients continued and was, yes, eventually won by the current Night Elves. But that's (again) a story for another day.

All you need to know is.

This is who we're fighting next, in Cataclysm.

This is who comes back.




Edit: Oh, and by the way, the reason my interest in WoW just got piqued is that they enabled Faction Transfer and lifted the PvP ban on double factions.
And you get a switch to whatever race your class can be on the opposite side.

So....since I'm going to switch to Alliance anyway for Cataclysm (read: WOOOOOORGENNNNN), I was thinking of making Harticus into a (female?) Dranei Paladin.

Can you imagine? It's one way of refreshing the amount of available content. Just play the OTHER SIDE.

I was an alliance paladin once....

WAT

WHAT
Guess what dropped today.

Allow me to explain.

I'm half disgusted. Offended, much more so than when Guitar Hero dropped and kids started caring about famous guitarists again.
This is far worse, this is....dangerous. It's much closer to home.

I'm half intrigued. I have no desire to play Guitar Hero, but if I squint my brain I can understand why it's such a popular game.
I have an extreme and pressing desire to try out DJ Hero.
There is more at stake than some Pat Benatar song here.

Remember that Konami game at Fun Factory? Beatmasters? The thing, basically, DDR with turntables, and it sucked because all there was were DDR-style tracks?
I hope it isn't that.

I hope it isn't Guitar Hero for the Turntable.

I don't actually like turntablism that much. Scratching, crabbing, transforming, all the intricate and quick movements blend together in my ears too much. I respect it but I don't enjoy it. I recognize DJ Qbert, but I don't listen him for fun. .

I hope it isn't mashups.
I like them but I don't respect them. I understand that they're easy to make and hard to master, but I don't think it takes the same amount of skill as sampling and beatmatching does. (Note: They still take a considerable amount of skill - at least the good ones do) I like this, but I still don't listen to it for fun.


What do I hope it is?
I hope it's an adequate simulation of playing multiple tracks simultaneously, of crossfading between them, of flipping them back and forth and making them intertwine, of laying down a massive beat, of creating something that makes you want to move.

That's why I want to play it. Maybe it's training wheels, maybe it's daydreams. Why do people want to play Guitar Hero? Same reasons.

But it isn't going to be what I want. It isn't what I think of when I see the iconic image of a turntable.

It'll be DJing. That's fine. It's called DJ Hero.
I don't want that.

I want Producer Hero.

This game has spun my brain about. Got me questioning, thinking of hip hop in general, of djing, of why I talk about this so goddamn much, of why I have so much and yet so little of this kind of music.

The answer is annoying.

I like it.

That's it.

I like some of it and I don't like some of it and I hate some of it, and I tend to focus on one side more than any other, and I have my favorites and my prejudices and my background but it boils down to, in the end, I like it.

I like Producers. I follow the behind-the-curtain information behind tracks, I research beats, I wonder how they made those goddamn noises and where they came up with these samples. I like them more than DJ's and Scratchers and Rappers because they above all manage to inject a bit of flavor into already flavored things.

It's very easy to make something taste strongly of a single thing.

Mixing is the hardest thing to do. Mixing well, that is, mixing two delicate or two strong and maintaining balance, making something new, making something delicious.
I guess I have my drink prejudices too. Sour, painful, alcoholic, sardonic, achingly sweet. In that order, maybe not.

If I made a list of "Top Hip-Hop Producers", it would differ greatly from my own personal choices. I'd have to speak for decades of artists, I'd have to obligatorily include pioneers who otherwise pale in comparison, I'd have to do research and bulk up my meager knowledge so I could sound more official.

It's something I might have done, not too long ago.

I think it's time for a different kind of list.

You have to understand that producers are, by nature, creating something to be used by another artist - out of something produced by a different artist.
Beatmakers just pump out clever tricks and rappers mosey on and search through them and go "this one, I can rhyme over this one. tune it up".
The technicalities, the specifics, these are fascinating and ornate aspects of the music business that can gum up an entire blog.
There are a lot of producers. There are substantially more than five, anyway.

This list ignores a lot in order to say a lot in not very many words.

The following links contain over an hour of music, so...take your time.

Griffin Weston's Top 5 Hip-Hop Producers

1. J Dilla - There are two things everyone knows about J Dilla. He was influential, and he was prolific. Neither of these reasons contribute to why I like him. I like him because his beats are the greatest I've ever heard, with or without somebody on top of them. They're complex, they're rich and voluminous, they rock back and forth. They're funky and slow and they're the absolute best for walking along the street and bobbing your head. It's impossible to not move listening to Dilla. It's simple as that. He's "your favorite producer's favorite producer".

2. K-Murdock - Having just gone on a bender about Panacea, it's no surprise I consider Murdock a damn fine producer of beats. He's half the group - literally, he provides 50% of all content. And what content it is. One of the most dedicated, intricate, and concentrated. There are melodies at work here, strung with strange twangs and thumps, woven around fat beats or no beats at all. One of the most diverse out there, Murdock also throws in samples from so far out there you never heard of them. Also, his first instrumental album was entirely anime-flavored. Amazing.

3. The Neptunes - I think even the dumbest among you know how hard I slaver over Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo - and why. Talk about original. Talk about creative. Talk about primordial thoomps mixed with spaceship whirps. Talk about stripped-down essence of music. Mixing ethereal with striking. Dont' even take into account their incredible range of production, from Britney Spears to Snoop. If you've danced to it in the last ten years, it's a 33% chance the Neptunes produced it. And it was good.

4. RJD2 - I have incredible respect for RJD2 because he, in turn, has incredible respect for the art. The man is a machine. A brilliant, fastidious, mindbreaking machine. SO funky. So cool. So ranged and clever, such an amazing library of rare funk samples, so many changeups, so many perfect matchings. He has the skill only years of diligent crate-digging and study awards, and it shows over and over again no matter what direction he takes it (and he's taken it in a lot of directions).

5. I spent a lot of time debating number five. It's low enough a slot to be available to a lot of different producers - all of which I like, but none enough to elevate among his peers. There are quite a lot. There are the influential, the legendary - Prince Paul (De La Soul, Handsome Boy Modeling School) and DJ Premier (every East Coast rapper for the past 20 years), the new and skilled yet immature popular champions - Kanye West (to quote Justin Timberlake, "It might sound cocky, but is it really cocky if you know that it's true?") and Timbaland (responsible, no matter how you cut it, for a shitload of gargantuan beats), to the underground and innovative - Danger Mouse (Grey Album, Gnarls Barkley), MF Doom (you've heard him and you didn't even know it), Q-Tip (ATCQ, The Renaissance)

And a million others.

Slot 5 goes to whoever I've ever linked to on this blog, whoever you've listened to and gone "god damn" and felt movement, to whoever I haven't ever mentioned and just have to hear, to whoever you keep secret, to whoever you think you could dance to if you really tried.

The Rhythm You Breathe In To My Footsteps

A week or two spent without making any progress, wasting all the free time I have on videogames, spending all the unfree time on academia, not getting any new music.

I am not a music snob. I know this because my brother is a music snob and I can't hope to keep up against him.
But I've got a decent sized library and enough ear talent to hear what's important. I don't hardly ever listen to the radio, and I'm woefully deficient in what's hip. If a song comes on and people groan and go "oh man I'm so tired of this song" it's a good chance I haven't heard it before.
Most of the time it's advantageous.

Anyway. I'm not a music snob.
But it's fun to pretend, anyway. If it wasn't, so many people wouldn't be doing it.

What am I trying to say.

What I am trying to say is.

I found a record. Of my favorite band. That I hadn't heard yet. From two years earlier than the album I used to think was their first.
music snobs never say "cd". it's either a "record" or, if you must, an "album". individual songs are "tracks"
It's, I mean, when I say "favorite band" you have to understand that I don't have favorite anythings. I'm annoyingly well rounded. So when I say favorite, I mean "a group I like a lot. One of my favorites. If you held me down and forced me to claim them as my end all be all favorite, I wouldn't feel too bad to accept that." If you ask me to talk about hip-hop with you, I probably wont talk about them. They're probably not what you're looking for. They're mine.

Panacea. Have you heard them. I've talked about them before, provided samples of them before.
Two guys from D.C., an intellectual renaissance hip-hop group from Washington.

Here is what I mean. I don't possess the necessary vocabulary to express why I like them or why I think they're good. I like their brand of hip hop. I could listen to the voice or the music.
Their wikipedia page states "Panacea blends Native Tongues-inspired beats with warm major chords and soul samples and add smart, conscious rhymes about life, love, and of course, hip-hop."

I guess they do. I guess you're right, I do like the warm major chords layered over the soul samples. I like the smart rhymes about love. I can point them out on tracks now, now that I know how to look for those things I had already found.

It has to do with setting, really. My connection with this group is deeply personal and linked with my experiences for the past few years.

I found Panacea on the shared iTunes network of my UW dormitory halfway through my first miserable year.
The library belonged to some guy named Matt. Maybe Mike. I never found out, never contacted him, but he had a goldmine of a library that he chose to make available to the public.
He had the only two Panacea albums at the time - their debut, Ink Is My Drink(2005) and their follow up 2 years later - The Scenic Route.

These albums became my theme songs for the next half year of heavy shit. In their tracks is ingrained the entirety of my life at the time, and when I listen to them it's one of the most obvious examples of musical cues for memories.

The alternating slow-fast optimism and reflection of Ink Is My Drink, the really out there samples, the no-two-songs alike style, the brainlightning verses that you didn't notice until they had already happened and had to skip back and listen to again, these are the things that made me like them in the beginning.
Before I started liking them because I liked liking them.

By The Scenic Route I was a confidante. These guys knew music. They had "conscious rhymes about life and love" backed up by the truest of hip hop. The Scenic Route became music to live to, a soundtrack piped in through tinny wireless headphones I had bought in weak effort to cheer myself on.

Music to walk across busy Seattle streets to, through crowded hallways of academically superior Engineering and Business majors. Music to keep yourself busy, music to keep yourself sane.

Reflective, in their sophomore album. The Scenic Route is an actual story Every song had a "switch-up" moment when they yanked you out of the reverie they infallibly lulled you into and set you on a different path. You'd put the album on to stop yourself from thinking too much, and they'd oblige until they didn't. Until, tired of your blankness, they changed up the beat and you'd start listening because it made you think.

I still use Burning Bush as my test run song for any sound equipment I buy. If I can't make the speakers produce sheer brain fuzz, something is wrong.

I left Seattle, eventually. Took Panacea with me back to Maui, started riding the bus and walking through green fields and growing up. I didn't forget about Panacea, but they were absorbed fully into my rotation. They formed the basis for a whole pile of new stuff.

A Mind On A Ship Through Time came out late 2008, and I discovered it in January of the next year.

It never occurred to me that Panacea could continue, could make new music. I never actively searched out information about them. They just were. Until they were, new. It was strange and exciting and now, listening back, I realize I've formed new Maui memories of its tracks just as easily as before.

Mind on a Ship is mature, older, with some new humor and callbacks. Mind is more confident now, able to speak up about personal things and experiment a little with some esoteric musical techniques that might not all work out.

Mind on a Ship is music to do a routine to, music to have memories to, not make memories to.
It's still Panacea though, it's got the warmth and the consciousness and the undefinable perfect essence, it's just different than what I had already so deeply ingrained Panacea to be in my brain.


The reason I'm telling this story is that I came across, almost accidentally, their real debut album - an EP called, ironically, Thinking Back, Looking Forward (2003).

Listening to it is one of the strangest musical experiences I've had in a long time. It's....new memories. Of things that haven't happened yet.
It's definitely Panacea, but an adolescent incarnation.
They're self conscious, rough, not sure if they're taking themselves seriously yet. They have no idea they're two years away from mastery.

The beat is younger, less specific. You can see the proto-groups that influenced them, the masters they learned from. You can see the true Panacea though, in between less original pieces. Raw expression of self.

It's like time traveling to a year before you met your best friend and seeing who they used to be before they moved to your town.

So I've been listening to it a lot, burrowing down into my music snob bunker, feeding off the pride I generate awarding myself points for arbitrary auditory accomplishments.
It's sparked a burst of musically oriented actions. I've started grabbing records off the ether again, swinging my needle over to the Arts side. Science has dominated for too many months.

So imagine how I might feel discovering that they've just released Corkscrew Gaps, an EP containing unreleased or remixed or collaboration tracks ranging from 2003 to Present.

Imagine, and listen to this. They had this in 2007. I just never got it till now.

Show me some love, strip off your clothes, and take off your socks

Edit: I don't know if I like The Dead Weather or not yet.
I do know I'm blown away by this video.
Get it. Because they're shooting each other.
With bullets. Like, from a gun.


All you need to know is, it's 2 in the morning and I'm prying apart Girl Talk again.


You know what? I Like Missy Elliott! She's in the, the same group as Timbaland (Literally. They were the driving producing force behind just about every hit you heard at school dances when you were in 4th to 8th grade. Then the Neptunes stepped into the spotlight.) musically, with really massive bass beats and weird ass noises.
She never takes herself too seriously, and her videos constantly amuse - and for the most part, she's tweaked her style each single enough that they're different.
That's the only downside, actually. Within each song, there are so many changes that I always find myself focusing/liking one couple dozen second long refrain or break.
If you a fly girl, get your nails done. Get a pedicure. Get your herr did.

That's what Girl Talk is, or rather, why it's wormed it's way into the generic college scene. It's just every couple-dozen-second-break that sticks in your head, stacked on top of one another until you can't....feel...the...pea underneath? I have no idea where I was going there.

Now, so, Missy is the driving element there. The only other two things you need to know are the beat at the very beginning (go, go listen again)

(How cool is this video. God. I love slow motion dancing. I love 1998. I love rollerskate disco. I'm okay with Faith Evans she's east coast, under P Diddy's label)

and the backing 80's synths for the verse (from like :30 to :56, go, go listen again)

(I fucking love the 80's. I love pulling fishes out of pots that turn into vector graphics for a turbine or something. I love shoulder pads. I can't stand this music.)

That's all I got. Unless you want to talk about Lycopodiophyta.

....go watch that rollerdisco video again. How fucking sweet is the guy in gold and black. I want him to follow me around and just dance all the goddamn time.