Dirty Nails, Dirty Wheels

Oh, yes!

Artist Jay Shells says “Who it’s for is… for me. And for people like me: just other hip hop heads that would dig this project,” but I don’t think that gives the project enough credit. It’s for the emcees, as a public declaration of respect and their work’s importance. And it’s for everyone they’ve spoken for, whose lives and history have been ignored and shit on by most of the people who would have the authority to put up more “official” placards drawing attention to sites of cultural significance.

Jay Shells, “Rap Quotes.”

Good song—with some totally amazing parts—and a very skillfully executed video, too. It combines narrative with scenes of the band playing in a way that feels not just natural, but inventive.

I think I’m going to cover this song.

Semisonic, Closing Time.

I friggin’ love this song!

I don’t really know what it’s about. But it’s really good!

One OK Rock, 完全感覚 Dreamer. (Kanzen Kankaku Dreamer, which means “Full Sense” Dreamer according to an online translator.)

WHOA.

I don’t speak anywhere near enough Japanese to begin to understand the lyrics, but this song just totally blew me away. It’s fucking great.

Also, here’s a thing: I am generally ultra-stoked on women* kicking traditional gender norms in the teeth, particularly when it’s in one of the often male-dominated things that I do/make/like, like skateboarding, hip hop, or metal. It blitzes my mind with happiness. But in watching this video, I tripped over the edge of my successful internal work against socialization. When the first verse kicked in, the first vocalist’s delivery was so brutal that I was actually uncomfortable. Not simply because of the sonic brutality—that’s something I’m well accustomed to—but because I was watching a woman, someone I’ve been pressured to conceptualize as delicate, as not strong or ferocious, as supposed-to-be-“pretty,” deliver something so rough and heavy. I’m generally pretty successful at resisting that pressure—like I said, I get actively hyped when I see people defying it—but the song’s distance from the patriarchal party line was so great that it reached a place in me where cultural norms had done their nasty fucking work. It was a troubling moment, and I tried to intentionally open up my mind and heart as I watched the rest, knowing that some powerful and important shit was going down. Interestingly (and uncomfortably), I found there was less discomfort when I listened to the song while it played in another tab—that is, when I couldn’t see who was performing it, and my brain could be like “Could be a dude.” Ugh. I’ve been listening to and watching it over and over, and the cultural bullshit is getting pulverized, listen by listen. Hopefully with some more times through, some more thinking about all this, and a few good nights’ sleeps, the utter stoke that I get off this track—and this band generally, ‘cause their other stuff is awesome too, and I’ve liked it for years—will be unpolluted by sexism.

ROCK ON.

Missile Girl Scoot, Big Mouth.

*And anybody else, too, but this post is specifically about women.

Fuckin’ happy rap metal with good use of turntables?! Don’t mind if I do!

Radigalhen, Dream Train.

Rad dynamics in this song. The hard-driving parts and the mellow parts contrast and fit together beautifully. I don’t speak Hungarian (which I think the song is in), so I can’t really speak to the lyrical content, but I’m pretty sure the title is German for “wondershit.”

Sickratman, Wundersheise II.

Rrraaaaaaddd tunage!

Blending styles—one of my favorite pastimes—done deliciously. And rapping while playing drums? Shit! It’s hard enough to rap while playing guitar! Jeeeeez…

Curumin and Emi Meyer, Kyoto.

BEST BEATS!

Kickin’ off a new month and a new year with a fine-wrought track by one of my longtime best-beloved bands, Japan’s hip hop-rock crew Dragon Ash; may their late bassist Ikuzone, who died this past April, rest in peace.

Spare-minimum drums, a simply-strummed guitar, and a subtly-mixed but very active bass fill out the space around this beat’s centerpiece, a lush, glimmering sample of what I think is a harp, rippling out gorgeous cascades of notes into a bright, rolling loop, clipped in that deliciously artificial way that their likewise-stellar song My Friends’ Anthem takes to a further extreme. The whole thing makes me feel like I’m walking by the beach on a hot summer day with a cool breeze keeping the sweat down, which seems appropriate, since the title means vacation. Some filtered vocal samples scratched in the chorus, and the very lovely deed is done.

I’m not sure how the band creates its beats-driven songs; they have a dj (DJ BOTS) but also two guitarists, a bassist, and a drummer. Perhaps BOTS programs everything from samples he digs up, maybe they record their own samples for him to work with, or tal vez other members make beats too. Whatever their process is, its fruits are utterly glorious.

Dragon Ash, 休日 (Kyuujitsu). Happy 2013, headnodders! Work hard. Keep it vacationy.

juicykarkass:

Droppin’ science.

…like Galileo dropped the orange.

I got to see Kid Koala last night!

He’s a fuckin’ fantastic dj, and he put on a great show (with collaborators Adira Amram and The Experience). Technical turntablism, puppets, dancing, audience-participatory kazoo solos—that shit was fine! A really well-executed blend of good music, enjoyable on its own, with theatricality that didn’t distract too much from the tunes, and often made them better. And it even gave me some focusing thoughts about my own music. Nice!