If you look hard enough, the full episodes of Bob Dylan’s celebrated XM radio show are available as MP3 downloads. However, it is nice to have some kind of a hard copy testament to the pioneering program, which finds Zimm and his cronies stitching together mosaics of music from all over the spectrum under the […]
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WORDS OF WISDOM FROM NIGGY TARDUST
I just got this email from Saul Williams, and thought I’d pass it along to you guys. Enjoy. Wise words from a wise man. -Ed.
Dear Friends,
Although I cannot boast a lifetime of keeping my views to myself, I have seldom taken on the responsibility of trying to change someone (alright, maybe a few girlfriends, but you’ll never hold me to that). However, this year for me has been one of aggressively shifting from a reluctant pursuit of change and growth to taking a proactive stance on what I believe in times that I see as clearly representative of a societal paradigm shift both necessary and urgent for our country and world.
I received a lot of questions from some about why I would allow my song ‘List of Demands’ to be used in a Nike campaign. Ironically, half of the people now reading this post never heard of me until that commercial aired. That, indeed, was one of my reasons for allowing it. A small circle of poets and conscious do-gooders are not enough to effect the change necessary to shift our planet in peril. We must enlist people from all walks of life, people not accustomed to questioning the norm, people who may simply want to dance uninterrupted without message or slogan. I see no glory in ‘preaching to the converted’. Furthermore, I believe fully in the power of music and have branded my work with it’s own conscientious stamp and stomp of attitude fueled to steal the show in the face of the nonsensical. Quite simply, it was clear to me that people would not be rushing to the store to buy Nikes after seeing that commercial, but rather rushing to youtube or itunes to hear or download the song. I even imagined those who would be rushing to blogs to question how I could allow this to happen and the subsequent discussion of the ethical treatment of factory workers and how new minds would be informed and enlisted in the struggle for ethical change.
As an artist that characterizes himself and his work as a hybrid synthesis of creativity and responsibility I am forced to make politicized choices, weigh evils, and work strategically to make a living and contribute to the change I wish to see in my lifetime. For instance, the groundbreaking digital release of The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust! wasn’t done simply because I wanted to give my album away for free and maintain my independence as an artist, but also because record companies left me little choice. As a musician I have been signed to both Columbia/Sony and Island/Def Jam rosters and have faced consistent naysayers who have basically insisted that I choose the type of music I am going to make and if the choice wasn’t according to their definition of hip hop showed little faith in it or in the possibility of a wide public supporting it, without realizing their role in determining what the public supports. Radio stations followed suit in determining my music not urban, alternative, or rock enough. Of course my music showed more rock influence than Eminem but the KROQ’s of the world seemed to be basing their definition of rock on something a little more surface than sound, at the time. Thus, I have always found myself with fans that have through their own hard work and diligence fought through the norm to find me, yet still voice surprise that more people haven’t.
The compliment “you’re ahead of your time”, often feels more like a curse than a gift from a well-wisher. I have never considered myself ahead of my time simply because a few executives may not have been visionary enough to determine where music or antiquated ideas of race are heading or to realize their role in continually underestimating the intelligence of the listener and our generation. Rather I have seen those ‘powers that be’ as behind the times and perpetuators of an old cycle. Likewise, I have seen their over-turn as inevitable. Thus, The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust! simply came at a point when I realized that we were, indeed, living at a crossroads and Victor Hugo’s saying, “There’s nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come”, came to life.
Without question, we are living in powerful times, a time where the powers of being will truly prevail over the powers that be. This is evident in the political sector where it has become clear, at least to me, that my support of Barack Obama is not because he’s black, but because he seems to represent both symbolically and ideologically many of those ideas and ideals whose time has come. Ideas of the divine need for change (”God’s just a baby and her diaper is wet.” Get it?) in how we look at the world, ourselves, and at our individual and communal powers. The idea that might is right, that we demonstrate our power with aggressive force is great for football teams, but hardly the best idea for a country whose running source of pride has historically been the evidence of our collective imagination: our music; our films; our amusement parks; and the technology we create to share it. These products of peace are the things that made the world initially fall in love with us. We have rooted ourselves in a growing sense of independence as evidenced through our historic social movements, always upgrading our beliefs and laws to reflect our broadening understanding and vision. Of course, many, if not most, would label this a very optimistic perspective of the ongoing struggle for justice and equal opportunity for all people in this land. There is still a fight to have our voices heard and many of us when given the opportunity to speak seem to have very little to say. Then are those who have consistently fought against growth and change, who would rather fight for their right to maintain their antiquated, sometimes ignorant points of view, as if the age of the perspectives themselves is what validates them. Yet, the first technology is of the mind. It is the shift in perspective that allows us to streamline possibilities of understanding as reflected through invention. And quite simply, we are coming of age.
In this age it is our responsibility to challenge ourselves beyond cultural traditions and delineate between what we have perpetuated through ignorance rather than wisdom. We face an opportunity to broaden our worldview through the exchange of technology and information. We need not rely on what teachings of the past could not anticipate. It is an opportunity to forge ahead and beyond the wavering shortsightedness of our religious leaders, elected officials, teachers, principals, and sometimes parents and live in simple accordance with what we can feel deep within ourselves. We should no longer be surprised to sometimes find ourselves seemingly more intelligent, informed, or insightful than our leaders and bosses, rather we should feel encouraged to inspire and share our most informed selves in our every encounter. And that, my friends, is what has led me to write you today.
While sitting on a plane, on my way back from Lollapalooza, reading Thanking The Monkey by Karen Dawn, it struck me that this was the second awesomely inspiring and informative book I was reading this summer without sharing my thanks by spreading the word. I am sometimes hesitant about making a big deal about my vegan diet, as I have considered it a personal choice worth little discussion. Yet more and more, I have found myself attempting to encourage people who ask me where I find my inspiration, or what issues do I find important, or how can we curb warfare and violence to consider what we ingest. A story was recently recounted to me of a popular TV chef who chose to raise little piglets on his show to insure that they were fed organic food and not injected with chemicals (as is the practice on most factory farms), all for the sake of fattening them up for their slaughter and another primetime recipe. Yet, the time that this chef spent with these pigs taught him a valuable lesson (more valuable for the pigs, no doubt). What he learned was how intelligent pigs are. In fact, in recent times, it is common knowledge for most that pigs are arguably more intelligent than “mans best friend” and companion, the dog. For our chef, this meant switching gears and realizing that he could not consciously kill this intelligent animal, that it would constitute a murder as brutal as slicing your fluffy pets neck and watching it writhe and bleed to death, or sticking an electric prod up its ass and electrocuting it, if the fur or skin is of value…
It may seem like I have just taken a turn to the graphically extreme, I wouldn’t want to make you “lose your lunch”, but these are the common practices perpetuated by the factory farm industry on millions of animals a day, in the name of your breakfast lunch and dinner. And, no, I’m not simply talking about pigs, but also cows, chickens, turkey, horses (that’s right horses. Everyday), and fish. Everyday, our species participates in the mass genocide of other species without care or concern or even questioning whether the violence that we ingest and condone plays any role in our apathetic support of the war machine we have become. How is it that we as human beings can represent both the highest and most developed and lowest and least concerned forms of intelligence of any living species? Are we simply glued to age-old barbaric traditions that cloud our senses and render us inhumane in our dependence on comfort foods and practices? Is our dependence on foreign oil the only thing we need to curb? What about not so foreign species?
Some might argue that artists are a race or species apart from the common person. Yet we all identify with the teachings of Gandhi, the genius of Einstein, the art of Leonardo Da Vinci, Picasso, Rembrandt and the talent and compassion of living artists like Alice Walker, Will Smith, The Mars Volta, Dead Prez, Prince and countless others. Some of us choose to emulate their styles, their fashion, their career choices, but why not their diets? If our brightest most celebrated stars all have this one thing in common why are we so slow in connecting the dots for ourselves? Perhaps the biggest issue at hand is not what our cars run on, but essentially what do we run on? The fact is that factory farms are the number one users of crude oil, not cars. That’s basically what it takes to kill approximately one million chickens per hour (just in the US). More than half of our water supply goes to feed animals being fattened for slaughter. The methane gases that contribute to global warming are produced majorly by cow farts in factory farms, not to mention the amount of fossil fuels needed to create just one pound of beef.
Yep. You doing the math? Basically if we shifted our compassion towards animals, the domino effect would heal the planet. We’d no longer be cutting down rain forests to create more space for cows to graze, we’d stop depleting the ocean of the necessary (keyword: necessary) food chains that our eco system depends on, diseases including many cancers, heart disease, obesity, and others which find their root in the food/toxins we ingest would slowly disappear as would our taste for violence.
Which brings me to the other book I read this summer that inspired me to reevaluate every aspect of what I’ve been taught through the news and media, especially concerning the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. That book is The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein.
So what are you reading?
I know what you should be listening to,
Niggy.
YO LA TENGO TO RELEASE SOUNDTRACK COMPILATION
Stolen from Tinymixtapes.com. Thanks fuckers!
Yo La Tengo To Release Film Soundtrack Compilation, Play Final McCarren Pool Party
Yo La Tengo are finally making all of their film score work available on a compilation CD, released through their own label, Egon. Cleverly titled They Shoot, We Score, the compilation will not only include the original soundtracks to Game 6, Junebug, Old Joy, and Shortbus, but it will also include a handful of outtakes.
The CD contains 27 instrumental tracks (26 of which are unreleased) and comes with a booklet of international posters. It’ll also feature four different covers, one for each movie, and here’s an animated GIF to prove it:
CDs ship September 5, at which time a digital download option will become available. You can pre-order the CD now.
In other news, Yo La Tengo will be playing the final free McCarren Park Pool Party along with Titus Andronicus and Ebony Bones on August 24. The gig is a week before Sonic Youth plays the venue’s final show August 30.
Tracklisting:
1. Leaving Home 2. Getting Lost 3. Path to Springs 4. Driving Home 5. Leaving Home (alternate version) 6. Old Joy: End Credits 7. Ashley 8. Meerkats 9. Madeline 10. A Roomful of Ladies (outtake) 11. David Wark 12. Aftermath (outtake) 13. George 14. This Could Be It 15. The Phantom Who Haunts Broadway 16. Game Time 17. Pharaoh Blues 18. Zoo Chant 19. Love Chant 20. Asbestos 21. Return of the Pharaoh 22. Spec Bebop 23. Buckner’s Boner 24. Isolation Tank 25. Panic in Central Park (outtake) 26. Panic in Central Park 27. Wizard’s Sleeve
tracks 1-6 are from OLD JOY tracks 7-13 are from JUNEBUG tracks 14-23 are from GAME 6 tracks 24-27 are from SHORTBUS
ROOTS MANUVA REVEALS DETAILS ON FORTHCOMING ALBUM, SLIME AND REASON, DUE THIS FALL
ROOTS MANUVA - SLIME & REASON - HITS STREETS THIS FALL
“He’s hailed in the UK as the savior of the British rap scene… Roots’ is a peerless artist who defies being ‘pigeon–holed’ by the media” allhiphop.com
“His post reggae toasting made him an oddball U.K. rap star long before Dizzee or Kano could text message.” - SPIN
“South London’s lyrical genius… goes way beyond UK hip-hop and into other realms that no one else is coming close to exploring.” FADER
Rodney Smith a.k.a. Roots Manuva returns from the edge with Slime & Reason, his fourth full-length album, with a voice and musical vision sounding as fresh as ever on this marvelous, freewheeling summation of his career thus far.
Smith’s inspiration for the new record came from looking back to his roots, the music that moved him even before he heard hip hop. “With this record I was trying to tune into that old Channel One, Studio One aesthetic. Lord knows what they were drinking, smoking or eating or what they were doing or what was on their mind but to me that was a special period in music. Today, with the technology that’s available it’s pretty easy to make generic music, music that sounds like everything else. But to tap into a unique aesthetic, to make a long player that’s of its own world is a harder job. How do we make it have an individual sound?”
First, a little history…in 1998, Roots Manuva joined Big Dada after recording a slew of singles that hit hard in the British hip hop underground in the early 90s. The following year saw the release of his debut, Brand New Second Hand. From an initial 3000 records put into the shops, BNSH has now sold over 60,000 copies in the UK. It also made the first dents in the wall of complacency and indifference which has often greeted home-grown Black music in that country and beyond, with The London Times declaring that “his is the voice of urban Britain, encompassing dub, ragga, funk and hip hop as it sweeps from crumbling street corners to ganja-filled dancehalls, setting gritty narratives against all manner of warped beats.” Manuva was rewarded for his breakthrough with a MOBO as Best Hip Hop Act in 1999.
Big things were now expected of Smith and he delivered with 2001’s classic Run Come Save Me, the record which gained him a nomination for the Mercury Music Prize and which has sold well over 100,000 copies in the UK (certified gold). More importantly, it spawned the all-time classic “Witness (One Hope)” (voted the greatest UK hip hop tune of all time by the readers of Hip Hop Connection) on an album that ran from the broad, swaggering pop of “Dreamy Days” to the dark, odd meditation of “Evil Rabbit.” It is also the record which led the Guardian newspaper, in October 2003, to proclaim Manuva fifth in their “40 Best Bands In Britain” feature, proclaiming that “his influence is incalculable and he opened the doors for the Streets, Dizzee Rascal et al.” That influence also stretches to the Arctic Monkeys, who are on record as saying that Run Come Save Me was almost all they listened to whilst recording their debut album. “Witness” traveled to urban cities the world over to make indelible imprints on the global hip hop consciousness, and arguably setting the foundation for the rise in digitalized aesthetics in hip hop music years later.
Awfully Deep followed in 2005 a more focussed, more ornate and fully-produced piece of work, and once again garnered huge acclaim with its release. The album entered the UK national charts at 21 and, in “Colossal Insight” and “Too Cold,” was bookended by two Top Forty singles. Smith remains bemused by its reception, though, and in particular people’s tendency to take his lyrics a little too seriously. “A lot of the jokes and humour of “Awfully Deep” went over people’s heads,” he explains. “I’m less concerned with trying to be Mr Stand Up reflecting on life this time.”
And now, Slime & Reason. While it’s a record that commentators are already comparing to Run Come Save Me for its range, depth and impact, there’s no shortage of individuality on this project that sounds as unique, as utterly one-off, as the mind of the man who created it.
Manuva’s own productions range from the skanking carnival anthem “Again & Again,” through the melancholy funk of ‘C.R.U.F.F.’, the electro-Bach rhythms of ‘Kick Up Ya Foot’, the lo-fi Gospel of ‘A Man’s Talk’, the roots stylings of ‘The Show Must Go On’ and the analog-synth attack of ‘It’s Me Oh Lord’. As a vocalist, Roots’ storytelling gets taken into some interesting terrain through collaborations with young producers Toddla T and Metronomy. There are three Toddla tracks here (including ‘Buff Nuff’, the first single taken from the album) and they represent some of the funniest, most loose-limbed music Rodney has produced in years. In addition, Metronomy’s ‘Let The Spirit’ is one of the standouts of the record – a gorgeous piece of “blue-eyed” electro-funk which will be sound tracking our lives for a long time to come.
Slime & Reason is the perfect representation of the fearless, iconoclastic approach Manuva takes in his music, cementing his place as one of the most vital, exciting and straight-up honest artists working in hip hop today, no matter on whichever side of the pond you find yourself standing on.
BILLY JOEL’S LAST PLAY AT SHEA
From Popdose.com:
Billy Joel @ Shea Stadium, Wednesday, July 16th
Friday, July 18th, 2008 by Taylor Long
In New York, baseball is akin to religion. To many New Yorkers, Billy Joel is, too. So it was no surprise when it was announced that Joel would play the last concert at the New York Mets’ Shea Stadium.
And so, the themes of the night were, of course, New York and baseball, and Joel delivered a surprisingly long stream of hits that referenced those very things - “New York State of Mind,” “Zanzibar,” “Big Man on Mulberry Street,” “Miami 2017″ and “We Didn’t Start the Fire.” Many of the songs he played also seemed to contain indirect references, those to tradition, the past, or change, like “Allentown,” with its opening line, “Well we’re living here in Allentown / And they’re closing all the factories down.” To really drive the whole baseball theme home, he opened with the National Anthem, and played “Take Me Out To The Ballgame,” during his encore.
Billy Joel, “Zanzibar” (download)
Joel’s facial expressions were somewhere between distraction, awe and stoicism, but in big screen close-ups, his eyes looked occasionally watery. He didn’t choose to slather the audience in overwhelming sentiment, however, only mentioning how strange it was that he saw the stadium being built only to watch it come down soon, and apologizing to those who bought tickets for the evening assuming that it would be the very last show (the Mets could only offer up Friday as the additional date, he said).
The “Last Play at Shea” — or “Last Double-Play at Shea,” as he jokingly referred to it — makes Joel the first artist to have headlined all three major New York stadiums: Giants’, Yankees’ & Mets. He also brings to a close a trend started by the Beatles, when they opened their ‘65 North American tour at Shea on August 15th; which he nodded to with covers of “It’s A Hard Day’s Night” and “She Loves Me.” That show was the first concert at a major stadium and broke records for attendance and profit, proving that rock ‘n’ roll was a major force.
Speaking of major forces, it wouldn’t be a modern landmark concert event without special guests, and Joel has friends to go around. Crooner Tony Bennett came out for “New York State of Mind,” bluesy guitarist John Mayer for “This is the Time,” the Eagles’ Don Henley for the oh-so-appropriate “Boys of Summer,” and John Mellencamp for his “Pink Houses.” A white uniformed military chorus provided backup on “Goodnight Saigon.”
Joel bowed out with “Souvenir,” which almost seemed as though he had written it with this kind of event in mind:
A picture postcard, a folded stub
A program of the play
File away the photographs of your holiday
And your mementos will turn to dust
But that’s the price you pay
For ev’ry year is a souvenir
That slowly fades away
Ev’ry year’s a souvenir
That slowly fades away
Billy Joel, “Souvenir” (download)
SETLIST:
National Anthem
Miami 2017
Prelude -> Angry Young Man
Yankee Doodle -> My Life
Everybody Loves You Now
The Entertainer
Zanzibar
Allentown
Ballad of Billy the Kid
New York State of Mind (w/ Tony Bennett)
Big Man on Mulberry Street
Rootbeer Rag
Movin’ Out
Goodnight Saigon
Don’t Ask Me Why
This is the Time (w/ John Mayer)
Keeping the Faith
The Downeaster ‘Alexa’
Stand by Me -> An Innocent Man -> Stand by Me
Boys of Summer (w/ Don Henley)
Always a Woman
Captain Jack
Lullaby
River of Dreams -> Hard Day’s Night
Pink Houses (w/ John Mellencamp)
We Didn’t Start the Fire
It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me
You May Be Right
Please Please Me
Encore:
Scenes from an Italian Restaurant
Only the Good Die Young
She Loves You
Take Me Out to the Ballgame
Piano Man
Souvenir