Super duper busy today, so no time for a real post... BUT I will give you a short assignment. Go familiarize yourself with the immensely talented Reggie Watts. Beat-boxing, live looping and comedy all wrapped up in one. This dude is my new hero, for real...
There's lots more where that came from on the YouTubes, so go crazy. Back to a full post tomorrow.
A quick programming note... This week at Tonegents, House Music Friday will fall on Friday. Adjust your calendars accordingly...
First off, awful cover on this 12", Ben Watt. Just horrible. A combination of extreme gayness and maddening illegibility. Makes me wanna punch you right in the cock. BUT, and no surprise here, it's a helluva nice song co-written by the vocalist, Julia Biel. Never heard of the gal but apparently she's more of a Jazz singer except when she teams up with Mr. Watt or his Buzzin' Fly mates. So my guess is... he's schtuppin' her. Good on ya, mate. A perfect track for 5 A.M....
Now, you might take a look at that singer's name and think that I'd use it as some sort of an excuse to segue into some kinda sexy picture of Jessica Biel... and you'd be exactly right...
As a matter of fact I'm going to apologize for this post and recommend you don't read it right off the top... just grab the music and skip to the bottom. Seriously, it's probably for the best...
Oh well, if you insist. So it turns out that Micko Westmoreland, who recorded as The Bowling Green did soundtracks for gay porn before he put this record out... which naturally led me to come up with gay porn names for current bands. Why, with just a glance at last year's Coachella poster, I was able to come up with such gems as Man-anal Collective, Tilly & My Balls and I'm From Barcelona And I Love Big Black Cock In The Ass... aaaaaaand I'll just stop there. You're welcome. Anyhoo, this one came out on Trent Reznor's Nothing label (Nine Inch (insert word of choice for "penis" here)), and kinda sounds like the Drum & Bass stylings of Squarepusher (never mind, I'll get in too much trouble) on this one...
There are a lot of good bands popping up these days in what they're calling the Deep Funk scene (or as I like to call it in a ridiculous accent, Gutbucket Fonk), and the latest of these to get my attention are Brighton, UK's The Grits. They are brought to you by Freestyle Records, a label that is becoming a strong buy-on-sight candidate for those who like it funky. And yes, I said Brighton, UK, because I don't know about you, but when I think Gutbucket Fonk, I think of guys in cardigans who drink tea and watch footie. But nonetheless, The Grits certainly live up to their name in that their sound is, well... very gritty. Simple arrangements anchored by HUGE drums and some weird-ass Moog work for some extra originality... and lots of cowbell! Raw like sushi...
... because when I think of funk, I also think of raw fish artfully arranged with a lovely garnish of ginger. Don't question it, that's just how I roll...
Why do I have a man-crush on Gilles Peterson? It's not his sexy legs, it's because he keeps turning me on to music like this...
Although I have already proclaimed Jazzanova's new record to be the undisputed album of the year, a guy who contributed some vocals to that effort has his own record that I would put up there as one of the serious challengers... and that guy is Brooklyn's Jose James. This guy is smoove, man. Smoove like butta... smoove like my bald dome... smoove like some other really smoove thing. He's a rare bird in this day and age, a bona fide Jazz singer. Sure, his sound has some modern trappings... today's tune dabbles with a Drum & Bass beat, sorta, but this guy is an old-school Jazz man trapped in a young dude's hoodie...
After a weekend of non-stop face stuffing... I'm talking epic amounts of food, folks... it's a wonder I'm able to roll my ass to the computer to get this post up. Seriously, I'm good for like a month...
Classic Jazz is always a good way to start the week, and you don't get much more classic than pianist Red Garland. With John Coltrane. And Donald Byrd. On a standard written by Dizzy. So yeah, this is the good shit. But I think that's what you expect when you click your way to my little page here...
I think you know where this is going... just a nice little in-the -pocket track by Onionz & Master D. on Bristol's NRK Records. Now, just to get this off my chest... "Master D", dude? That's the best you can do? Master Freakin' D? Man, it musta taken you months to come up with that one. But here's the fucked up part... dudes name doesn't even begin with "D". WTF?!? Just awful all around... the name, not the song. The song is fine... chunky and funky, you would definitely hear this jam in Frisco. Just don't call it Frisco when you're up there. They hate that...
Buy link is for a lovely CD compilation that has this song, along with many others. Well, of course it would have others, or else it would just be a single. Can you tell I got nothin' today? I'll just go...
No really, that's the literal translation of the name for this style...
If you're like me, the first thing that pops into your mind when you hear the word Angola is that time when a member of their Olympic Basketball team met the business end of Charles Barkley's elbow. But I'm here to tell you there's more to this proud African country than that... I mean, there's gotta be, right? It's a whole big country and stuff. Wait, I know one! They have music! Bet ya didn't see that one coming! Angolans have an interesting form of Hip-Hop called Kuduro, which is very similar to Brazilian Baile Funk or South African Kwaito or even Reggaeton. And as often happens with this kind of thing, it took a dirty furriner to introduce it to the rest of the world... in this case, that furriner was Frenchy Frederic Galliano. The record is called Kuduro Sound System and the system sounds kinda like this...
Diggin' the beats a lot, but I have to say the shouty rapping (in Portuguese!) wears on you after you get a few songs into it. But here at Tonegents we are committed to presenting the worldwide music um... thing... in all it's many... things... or something...
If you actually read this blog and just don't immediately grab the daily tune without paying heed to my pointless ramblings (and I'm guessing there may be two to three of you who do... nah, who am I kidding? I don't even read this shit), you know that I love me a good band name. That'll get ya in the door with me every time. But todays' act, Herrmann & Kleine... that sounds like a fine jeweler or perhaps an accounting firm. Seriously, if you're looking at two CDs and you don't know what they sound like, one by (let's make up a cool name) someone called Monkey Thunder and one by Herrmann & Kleine, which one are you gonna listen to first? Monkey Thunder every time. But it is my duty here to look past such superficialities and see that Our Noise is not in fact a Rock'n'Polka album, but rather was put out by Morr Music, a label with quite a nice track record in leftfield electronic goodness, and is in fact some very groovy chilled-out stuff... you're welcome...
Here's a track from a compilation so old it's on Moonshine Music, the L.A. label that put out pretty much every electronic music compilation ever produced in the late '90s, but isn't around any more for reasons I cannot be arsed to research for you. Maybe the rise of Astralwerks killed 'em, maybe when the European labels finally got domestic distribution so you could get the good stuff without having to shell out 30 bones for an import killed 'em, maybe the fact that seemingly every artist they tried to culivate ended up in Bad Record Contract Hell killed 'em, but whatevs. Anyhoo, this little bad boy here may actually be one of the best things they put out... at least it's one of the few that I would still bother to listen to. A fine collection of early Jungle biznezz, and although most of it is the Ragga-style stuff that was so popular in the beginning, heres a much more atmospheric track by T-Power (most recently seen heading Digital Soundboy records) that you could say pre-sages the chilled out sound soon to be made huge by people like LTJ Bukem. Yes, you could say that... I have no idea if that's actually the case, but you could say it all you like... I won't stop ya...
And along comes House Music Friday to put an end to a momentous week...
... with a track by Manchester's Mettle Music, two guys who more than fit the description. British? Check. Pasty? Check. That's it. That's the description. Anyhoo, this is one of those tracks that I can't figure out if it's Housey Breaks or Breaky House. Seriously. I lose sleep over this kind of stuff. Either way, a relaxing kinda track because you probably need that after all the excitement...
I get to be a name-dropper today, which you know I love...
Belgian group Hooverphonic rode an Isaac Hayes sample to Trip-Hop success back in the day when they came out with "2Wicky", which I'll remember from the movie Stealing Beauty, which I'll remember for getting to see Liv Tyler's boobies. And, um... I think it took place in Italy or something. Now you know what I look for in a movie. Anyhoo, they are still at it and unlike some of their former contemporaries who are still having a go, they still do not suck. (I'm looking in your direction, Morcheeba). Their sound has changed, of course... from the sample-heavy stuff to dreamy guitar pop, but the atmosphere and some electronics remain and the songwriting is still solid... like so...
I have a personal Hooverphonic story... way back when I went and saw these guys with a couple co-workers of mine who happened to be pretty young ladies. After the show we stepped to the bar, only to find that they had closed up. D'oh! It was then that one of the guys from Hooverphonic walked up next to us... he was pretty easy to recognize as he was wearing pink teddy bear footie pajamas (those wacky Belgians). Anyhoo, when we told him the bar was closed he invited us up to chill with the band and drink from their stash. So we did. It was pretty fun hanging out with them... or at least I think it was. I honestly couldn't understand one word any of them said. And we hung out for two hours. I had no idea what we were talking about at any point in that time. Of course, I was totally shit-faced, but that's neither here nor there. Moral of the story: Bring girls to the club, and you might just get to hang out with Belgian guys in pink teddy bear footy pajamas who barely speak English. I didn't say it was a good story...
Well how 'bout them apples? President Obama! Now, I could go on in on with my thoughts about last night's events but so many have already said it better. I'll just say this. It's awesome. It's awesome on about a million different levels. And if you don't think it's awesome, to be as eloquent as I can about it... you can eat a bag of dicks. It's that simple. There's no need for me to try to convince you of the error of your ways anymore. Just pick up that bag of dicks and start eatin'. Finally America has elected a President that's a true example of exactly who we are. We certainly are not the people who've been in charge of this country for the last 8 years. Nope, we're not that stupid, that greedy, that prejudiced, that callous. We are black & white and shades in between. We are hard working, fair playing, forward thinking and concerned for those less fortunate than ourselves. We finally got our guy in there... and I think he's gonna do a heck of a job. But what do I know? I'm just a potty-mouthed music blogger... so...
I first thought I'd do some sort of special selection for Obama, but I kinda already did that yesterday and I'm pretty sure every other blogger on the Interwebs has that covered, so back to the random selection and a track from Everything But The Girl's volume of the excellent Back To Mine series of compilations... the conceit being that these would be the songs the compilers played for you back at the house after a night of clubbing and right before they slipped you some roofies and had their way with you. Okay, maybe not the second part. But either way, they're all worth checking out because they contain tons of Downtempo gems like this one from Nottingham's Deadbeats...
That's a staple in the ol' rotation right there, as this video is going to be a staple... in history classes, yo!
PS - I'd also like to say a big "fuck you" to the people of California for passing Prop. 8... way to take a dump on innocent folks' happiness, douchebags. I'm pissed and I'm not even gay! No, really, I'm not. I hate musicals, I have unkempt facial hair and I've never even set foot in a Z Gallerie... I swear :P
Okay... readers in America, if you haven't gotten out yet to vote (for Obama), then stop reading right now, back away from the computer and go do it... it's cool... I'll wait...
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See, don't you feel better now? You should...
... and I'm not going to burden you with my mindless prattling today, I'm just gonna serve up a tune by NYC-based Afrobeat/Funk mavens Kokolo, and I think it'll be pretty easy to see why I picked this one for this day...
Some music stars claim to be from rough backgrounds... did you know that 50 Cent got shot or something?... but few stories can compare to that of the Sierra Leone's Refugee All-Stars. These guys were victims of a decade long civil war that cast a massive number of people into a life of moving back and forth between refugee camps in Guinea, which was, to be inappropriately glib, not a whole lot of fun. But the guys got together in the camps to play music to keep people's spirits up, got discovered by a group of furriners (thank goodness not Ry Cooder and his stupid douche-y slide guitar) and got the chance to make an album and documentary that won them some worldwide acclaim. But unlike the Buena Vista Social Club, they were not all 120+ years old, so these guys make music very much for modern times, as the rapping portion of this Reggae-styled song would suggest...
Not freakin' bad, eh? Here's a clip from the documentary as well...
Inspirational stuff, and I think fitting for what could be a very inspirational time here in the next 24 hours. Not that there's a real connection, I guess, but it was a decent line, so I just threw it out there hoping you wouldn't notice... :P
The music posted on this blog is for evaluation purposes only and will be removed after a short time... so if you like it... support the artists, dammit! Buy the records, go to the shows, give them a ride to the airport if they need it! Don't be a schmuck! If you are an artist or scary lawyer type and want something removed from here, just holla and it's gone! I'm easy like that!
