A little excited....

Explosions in the sky just announced a tour of Australia this December.

If you are regular reader here, no doubt you have probably heard them mentioned once.
or twice. or 427 times.

I don't think i have been this excited since the first time I saw Tool - about 1996.

Playing The Forum in Melbourne  - I could not think of a better venue.

So whose coming?

Explosions In The Sky 2011 Australian Tour Dates
Thursday December 8 – Forum Theatre, Melbourne
Tickets: Ticketmaster – 1300 111 011 or ticketmaster.com.au
Sunday December 11 – The Metro, Sydney
Tickets: handsometours.com; Metro Box Office or (02) 9550 3666; ticketek.com.au or 132 849
Tuesday December 13 – The Hi Fi, Brisbane
Tickets: handsometours.com; thehifi.com.au

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Open your mind and your ears

Not rage in me today.
Just blogging, listening, follow me......

Looking for new music, different music?
Just something?

A few ideas. This is where I started.

Loving this song more than anything else in the world right now.
Not new but none the less brilliant.



And old fave



and another

65daysofstatic


a classic that kicked off a genre



if thats not to your liking, looking to kick the weekend off with something more upbeat.

try



Why? I dont know?

That led me to this.
fuck i love this beat. You tube dont do it justice.



and i was talking about this during the week




which led me to this




then back to something with guitars



and iggy always leads to bowie....... but lets go via Lour Reed & the Velvet Underground



yeah! see what i did there?

and I might finish on this.




Any Ideas?
Hope so.
Open your mind.
Try something different.

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An Open Letter To David Bowie – Please Don’t Retire

Dear David / Dave / Bowie / Mr Jones / Ziggy / Most Noble Thin White Duke,

Please don’t retire. Not yet. It’s not your time. I know you’ve reached the pension period of your life, have been quiet of late, have a young daughter, have given us way more than pretty much any other artist since the mid sixties, and it’s your decision, but still. Don’t go just yet.

We need you more now than ever before. In the week Gaga unleashes her latest pop pastiche and the nation battens down the hatches and prepares for the four month twin onslaught of The X Factor and The X Factor US, having you around becomes even more pressingly important.

continued...

Plus also it’s just not fair. To paraphrase that great sage Lemar, if there’s any justice in the world you’d be still doing the rounds while other senior artists were calling it quits. We’d be jumping on to the Jubliee to see you at the O2 while some of your peers took a raincheck.

I first heard you when I got my hands on a generational hand-me-down of ‘The Man Who Sold The World’ and from that epic opening eight minutes onward I knew I'd need to go out and get a better stereo.

It blew a teenager’s tiny mind on impact and from then on, through the album’s ‘Black Country Rock’ and ‘The Man Who Sold The World’, to the previous year’s ‘Space Oddity’, the rest of your early 70s output, the plastic soul years, Berlin trilogy and the rest of your well-documented diverse and near-flawless career, I was all kinds of smitten.

It almost goes without saying how essential you’ve been over the last five decades, laughing at the notion of boundaries, turning your talents to glam, disco, soul, ambient, jazz and practically any other sound, showing us how pop can be truly transformational, giving us over 15 properly great albums, Labyrinth and Duncan Jones but most of all an escape from the humdrum. Even when you got it wrong you got it wrong for the right reasons – taking risks that usually paid off but could be forgiven when they didn’t.

One of your biographers reckons you'd only come back if you think you could deliver something that will be seismic. We have faith. Of all the performers operating near the twilight ends of their careers you’ve got the best form, right up to the last decade – as your work with Arcade Fire, Scarlett Johansson and TV On The Radio will attest.

And even if you came back with another ‘Reality’ or ‘Heathen’ – sturdy, reliable rock with a Bowie twist – that would be OK. As NME wrote of the latter back in 2002, “even at [your] most self-referential, you’re still a zillion times more inventive, brave and rocket-to-Mars brilliant than anyone who's been prodded by the ubiquitous genius stick, ever.”

As a man who missed the Led Zeppelin and Cream reunions but was lucky enough to see The Who while John Entwistle was still running through five minute bass solos halfway through the set, I know the value of the last chance saloon. And as someone who’s endured recent Pistols and Buzzcocks gigs, I know I should be careful what I wish for. Some nagging feeling tells me you’d pull it off though, avoiding the nostalgic pitfalls and tired rehashes others succumb to, coming across more Johnny Cash than Bob Dylan.

If nothing else, could we cheekily ask for one last greatest hits tour, for me and the likes of the guy who writes the awesome blog Down is The New up, who is yet to see you live, like innumerable other big Bowie fans.

Here’s hoping your retirement is as brief as this one, and we see you on a stage soon.

---

note - this was shamelessly stolen from NME and reproduced for my entertainment.

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Album Review - Watch the throne.

So Kanye and Jay-Z have released what the music media mega fawns say is the most anticipated album of the year. Originally it was going to be a 5 track EP, then they announce a full length album.

Released a few teasers.

Now I  have it.......

Watch the Throne.

Yeah that's the cover. Its a bit in your face over the top glitz and glamour bling kind of thing. Trying too hard. Like it was designed by a fucking fashion designer or something.  Oh wait. It was.
But I'm no fashion critic. I'm a music critic. Or am I?
This is the internet - I'm whatever I want to be. Today I wear two hats.
The album cover is shite. The name of the album. Shite.
Has not started well. Hope the music lives up to the hype

A bit of history.
So I'm a big Kanye fan. Or was. Well am again. Sort of.....

Once upon a time I apologised to Kanye for slagging off his My Beautiful Dark twisted Fantasy (apology / review - here) Anyway, crux is - I miss the young Kanye. The guy who produced his own songs, who broke new ground, who changed the game, fearless.  The guy who used samples - not synthesisers on his first 2 albums. Then he went all synth on Graduation, then even worse on 808s with autotune & synths.
Then sort of redeemed himself on MBDTF.
Fuck I hate synthesisers. and autotune.
Jay-Z I really think is over rated. Sure he has the Platinum Albums, street cred and approximately $650 million more dollars than me, owns an NBA team, record labels and has 11 US number 1 albums. But im just not the biggest fan.  Except some of the stuff that Kanye produced.
So......
with that in mind I' m thinking this could be good.

After a week of on and off listening, i locked myself away with the headphones for a few hours and this is what I got.

1. No Church in the Wild Featuring Frank Ocean
Cool riff opens, synth over the top (not too bad, i can handle it) Jay-Z does his thing, then the auto tune. Jeezus i hate autotune. Almost kills the song. Kanye comes in, tell us how a "line of coke on black skin is a stripe like a zebra", he "calls that jungle fever."
meh. Just a song.

2. Lift Off Featuring Beyonce.
Its a fucking Beyonce song! I hate Beyonce. I hate Autotune and I hate Synthesisers.  And I hate Beyonce.
Fuck me. I thought Jay-Z sang about the "Death of Autotune" last year. wish it was the death of Beyonce. So Beyonce sings, the other two some shit rapping in between.
So anyway....... dont like this song.

3. Niggas in Paris. 
Hmmm. Sounds like a Jay Z song. basic beats. Even the sample dialogue from Blades of Glory cant save this, except to explain the title -

"I dont even know what that means"
"No one knows what it means, but its provocative"

Abd that sums it up - a waste of time.

4. Otis  Featuring Otis Redding.
The first song on the Album produced by Kanye. And the first good song on the Album. Surprise? No!
Sampling a guy that died 45 years ago is NOT featuring. Its sampling.
Yeah but i like the beat, the sample, the lyric.
Good song. (finally!)

5. Gotta Have It. 
Produced by the Neptunes and Kanye. A song that almost gets there. Sounds like a Jay Z song featuring Kanye West produced by the Neptunes and Kanye. Oh wait it is.

6. New Day.
Opens with autotune of Nina Simone singing "its a new day" - not a great start. So Kanye and Jay rap about what they would do say teach their kids. oh heart warming.
But ultimately a shite song.


7. Thats' my Bitch.
Apart from the overtly mysoginistic overtones here, I like this song.  Not least because of the sample of Public Enemy's "Brothers gonna work it out." (well really its a James Brown sample but it sounds distinctly PE to me) Nice female vocal, good flow from both. Produced by Kanye.

8. Welcome to the Jungle.
God this is terrible. A bad Jay- Z song produced by Swizz Beatz Who? Mr Alicia Keys.Even name checks Axl Rose. Yeah just bad. Corny.

9. Whos Gon Stop me.
Christ it sounds like a Rick Astley remix with some distorted Jay Z shit over the top.
Now they are taking the piss.

10. Murder to Excellence.
Yeah - this starts good. real good. Good sample, good beats, good rapping from the two. Then it changes halfway. Oh thats 2 songs? Murder & excellence. How trite. But we get the 1st sample on a 45 speed. Hey wait! Thats Kanyes - he invented that shit and he is not even producing this song. Homage. I don't know.
A decent song.

11. Made in America featuring Frank Ocean.
What the fuck.

Sweet King Martin
Sweet Queen Coretta
Sweet Brother Malcolm
Sweet Queen Betty
Sweet Mother Mary
Sweet Father Joseph, Sweet Jesus
We made it in America
Sweet Baby Jesus, ooooh
oh sweet baby Jesus
We made it in America
Oh, Sweet Baby Jesus, We made it in America
Sweet Baby Jesus, ooooh
Oh, Sweet Baby Jesus, We made it in America

Yeah.
That is bad. real bad.
This album is now nothing more than a piss take designed to see which hangers on in the media will rate it.

12. Why I love You.
CLEARLY a Kanye West production. Sounds like a Jay Z song of course, but a reprieve. Maybe they thought if we put it last they will forget the other shit?

So then they decided to give us some bonus tracks.......

13. Illest Motherfucker Alive.
I does not start until 3 minutes in - thats annoying. And its just a song.

14. H.A.M
The single they released 6 months ago and it does not make it on the album. Says a lot! its fairly ordinary. Uptempo fast beat. oh who am i kidding. its bad.

15. Primetime
Starts well, like the beat and sample.but it ultimately does nothing........ just peters out...........

16. The Joy featuring Curtis Mayfield.
The last of the Bonus tracks. Bonus tracks on a shit album are you guessed it - shit.


In Summary.

Dont believe the hype.

I loved Kanye. He produces his own work. Jay Z - he doesn't I have no love for him.
So when you put the two together and hire a whole heap of producers and about 27 different writers?
You get a mish mash of shit. There are maybe 3 good songs on the album.
I genuinely like Curtis, Thats My Bitch and Why I love you.
Murder to Excellence & gotta Have it get a pass mark.

WAIT......

They were going to do a 5 track EP originally you say?
Shit - those 5 tracks I just said i liked - that would have been a killer EP.
But they got their egos involved and their wives and all of their friends and went and fucked it up for everyone.

A mark out of 10?

If we just take the 12 album tracks - And I like 3, dont mind 2 others, we get to 5 out of 12 which equates to  4.1 when scaled to 10. But that's simplistic.

Watch the Throne - 4.5 / 10

If you want to read more heaped on this - here is my favourite review - http://rapsandhustles.com/2011/08/11/ghostface-killah-watch-the-throne-album-review/

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Wake Up.

This beautiful song was the opening track from the only record by Mad Season, a collaboration between members of three big Seattle bands Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam and Screaming Trees.

Barrett Martin, Layne Staley, John Baker Saunders and Mike McCready produced a exemplary album in 1994 that is especially haunting given the subject matter and the subsequent deaths of Staley & Saunders.

I love this song.
enjoy.

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