“In 1995, the head-trauma wing at a nursing home in Bensonhurst began acquiring the lost memories of Def Jam’s first rapper. Terry Keaton, a new patient at Haym Salomon hospital, had emerged from a coma unaware that he was T La Rock. Or that T La Rock had a hit in 1984 called “It’s Yours.” What was known is that the history of T La Rock — and perhaps the time of his life — had been purged from Terry Keaton’s mind with a blunt instrument.
The assailant was never caught, and Keaton spent much of his rehab listening to “It’s Yours,” recollecting lines that the rest of the hip-hop world had been quoting for the past decade. Though “It’s Yours” wasn’t exactly targeting the Yiddish-speaking Russian-granny demographic, this Def Jam moment essentially became theirs: a new memory that required an additional memory for all that excess bass. Listening to an 808 drum machine certainly beat not recognizing your loved ones.”
- And speaking of ghosts and hip-hop: one of those albums I was referring to yesterday is the oft-delayed Ghostface & DOOM record “Swift & Changeable“. Since first getting into Wu-Tang, Ghostface quickly rose to the top of those 9 rappers for me personally. I’m a big fan.
And since we’re on the subject, if you do not already have WUGAZI on your computer I’d suggest getting it. It’s free, and awesome. Now here’s more links:
“Birger Rasmussen, paleontologist with Curtin University in Perth, and colleagues have found natural samples in several sites in Western Australia, and as they describe in their paper published in Geology, it appears likely the mineral is more common here on our home planet than anyone might have surmised.
The mineral has been found in six sites in all, in various remote spots in Western Australia, and occurs in very small amounts. The samples found were actually about the width of a human hair and just microns in length, and that’s part of the reason why it’s taken so long for those that study rocks to find such samples here on Earth. Another reason is that tranquillityite is comparatively delicate and tends to break down when exposed to normal surface climatic events such as heat, rain and wind.“
- Warren Ellis: Five Predictions About The Immediate Future Of Comics. Among them: indie creators being offered deals to do their own bidding via digital storefronts/apps, more self-publishing/direct to book publishers, several of the DC staff will begin exiting the company due to the constant shifting of… everything.
“Cyberculture legend RU Sirius, editor at the Acceler8or webzine, interviewed Joel Garreau and myself about the Prevail project. (Short summary for those who missed the earlier post: Prevail is an Arizona State University-sponsored non-profit organization looking to build collaborative knowledge about transformative technologies and culture.) In a series of back-and-forth email among the three of us, we discussed everything from the logic of transhumanism to the power of the Occupy movement. “
- Every time I listen to Wugazi — which, for a while there I was quite frequently — I’m reminded of how great both the moving pieces were. Still are. Especially Fugazi. They were indeed something special. The Fugazi Live Series: A to Z has just debuted on their website: a hodgepodge of live shows spanning around a decade, from Berlin to DC. When I see this band perform live, or hear them, I really can relate to the entire experience. And from the looks of this show, I’m not alone:
I’m not sure if there’s anything more punk — as a commenter points out at the YouTube page — than playing a show in the freezing winter outside the gates of the White House.
And speaking of the DIY business model, here’s this:
- Umm… yeah so that Wugazi record is available for free download now, I’d suggest copping it. Here’s the DIRECT LINK. Go and visit the Tumblr page for the cover art, track listing, instant streaming, and more. Free music, WOOOO!!
- Speaking of Tumblr, John from Super Punchnow has one. Which it seems is more for pictures than anything else.
- I posted a little snippet of a song that will be appearing on the next album I make on my Soundcloudyesterday. It features the infamous drone-guitar sound I created using a motorized female stimulation tool (trying to avoid using the “V” word…) directly onto the bridge of the guitar (it’s also metal so you get a nice ambient hum into the pickups, which are magnets if you didn’t know). Here it is:
- I got Warren Ellis’SVKcomic in the mail yesterday and I gotta say, this is the most Ellis-ian comic we’ve seen from him in quite some time. It’s too bad he’s falling further and further away from the artform (he’s signed a two-novel deal with a publisher) because I feel like there’s been a natural progression for him — via lectures and non-fiction and essays and the like — towards this type of storytelling and these concepts for years now. (I’m glad I got one, because it sold-out in like 2 or 3 days.)
- So the Doomtree crew, who may as well be called “Super Friends”, has a new project where they’re combining the music of one of my favorite punk bands of all-time with one of my favorite hip-hop collectives of all-time:
FUGAZI + WU-TANG = WUGAZI
They have a Tumblr-based website for the project already, and they’ve so far released two tracks on their Soundcloud. Here’s the newest, delicious track:
- Want to know what Google thinks you’re into? CLICK HERE. Apparently I’m into comics, meat and seafood recipes, radio, myths and folklore, astronomy, hip-hop, visual art and design, and movies. That isn’t 100% wrong…
- Iron Fist Clothingmakes some pretty cool stuff for the more punk-aestheticized amongst us.
BLACKROCis an awesome project. If you dunno, it’s Black Keys + some legends and/or relative unknowns of Hip-Hop. Mos Def, Rza, Raekwon, Jim Jones, ODB, Jim Jones, Pharaohe Monch, Q-Tip, fuckin’ NOE… Ludacris. The album’s real good. This is the cover:
Anyways, I’m really here because they’ve been hitting the late-night circuit a bit lately. First it was a pretty cool performance — albeit slow tempo-wise — of the song “Ain’t Nothing Like You” with Mos Def and Jim James on Letterman. But I had to post this one (as much as I hate Jimmy Fallon), only because… hey, it’s RZA. Fuck’s sake. So badass, Push play:
