rakim vs. franz ferdinand

nice remix.
err mashup.

whatever those wacky kids call these things these days...

videogames are the new film

and if you don't believe me - check this out:

and so it goes...

kurt vonnegut died last night. one of my teenage writer-heroes passed into the dark night after 84 years on the planet.

the link above has the nytimes obit notice which goes a long way towards explaining most of his novesl. which is sort of said - they should be experienced not explained away in one's obit notice.

i read 'player piano' and 'sirens of titan' back to back in grade eleven. i still think back to that time of scribbling down what came to be hundreds of poems and reading my head off of stuff that i thought would matter.

kurt vonnegut's work mattered.
you'll be missed kilgore trout.
at long last, rest in peace.

'year zero' preview

ok so i'm seriously late on this one but i have to tell you but cleveland, ohio's bad boys of industrial rock nin (nine inch nails) have released a preview of 'year zero' on their myspace page - presumably until the album comes out in five days.

i have to say that i've always had a mixed reaction to their work - trent is sort of all over the map and when nin first came on the scene i was a hardcore industrial musical fan. 'mind: the perpetual intercourse' by canadian rockers skinny puppy still ranks as one of the most amazing albums i've ever heard.

if you haven't heard it - and you like stuff that doesn't sound like it was compiled from recording screams from vivisected animals along with rusty scrapes along open wires then you should probably avoid them. and probably industrial music in general - it's always been a music that reminded me of dancing to the sounds of the apocalypse. truely at times, the electronic version of the music that nero must have played while rome was torn down to the very bits.

i will say that i'm listening while i type this and it's trent at his finest - going from soft mutterings to screams - from blips and burps to screeching guitar solos that echo out into nothing and then come back with distored banshee fury and it makes me remember what i liked about this music in the first place.

only this time, instead of being the pre-eminate proto 'emo', he's come up with a concept album and it's nicely done i have to say. full of voices talking about a post apocalyptic earth torn between war mongering and finally a higher power steps in to 'sort it out'.

this album will probably be the fodder of many secondary school essays on the symbolic meanings and subtext but hey - it's an industrial album full of context that you can dance too!

:D

oh yeah - trent also tweaks all the pre web 2.0 folks out there by releasing the tracks to 'survivalism' on the nin.com website so that anyone and everyone can remix them - any old way they want.

of course - tons of artists have been doing that for a while - public enemy's 'revolverlution' was comprised of remixes of selected songs that chuck d released on the publicenemy.com website so that the listeners/remixers could do their own mashups.

now trent has joined the crowd and i for one am happy. good show.

i wonder how far that particular meme will go? i mean letting the 'audience' in on the fun.

(e)nterview with kinnie starr!

first of all - i could blather about kinnie starr for forever and a day. she happens to be one of the most interesting artists i've seen in recent years, blessed with an incredible spirit of creativity and a flat out funny brain. listen to some of her spoken word some times at the shows and you'll realize just how funny the lady is.

i first saw her at the indigenUs people's festival in toronto in 2004 playing at the brigatine tent (for those that's been there it's this funky open tent bar type thing that they have late shows) and having caught the first set of the lucie idlout show i meandered down to see this artist listed as a first nation hip-hop artist.

i found that the listing was as accurate as it was understated. kinnie was noodling about with a guitar at first and i remember thinking "what in the world" and then she proceeded to have finished tuning it up and wipe the floor with my brains. never in my life have i seen an artist with the vibe of 'anything can happen while i'm onstage' as ms. starr has. one minute she's playing a song off 'tidy' and the next she's doing spoken word about her first horse riding lesson.

forever embedded in my brain was this show and i proceeded to make sure that she was first on my lips when i was talking to people about new artists they probably haven't heard of.

about 18 months later i saw her again at the imaginative film festival and this time, while other acts were performing she made her way through the crowd dancing and talking to friends and fans. no diva this woman. at least not on a perfomance night.

one of the first gifts my fiance ever gave me actually, was a copy of 'sun again' when we were first going out - a ways before things got serious with rings and the like. :D

not long ago i was talking to mi amorcita about the blog and she mentioned that since i had (e)nterviewed shad k, and baba brinkman - why not ask kinnie starr if she would be interested. i pushed the idea away because it seemed a bit far fetched i suppose but after a while i thought i would ask. well, i happen to know now that kinnie starr is about as real with it as you can expect and remains top flight in my experiences relating to musicians. within 48 hours of asking the question she has the answers and i present them to you now.

thanks kinnie starr and this (e)nterview is dedicated to mi amor because she started it all.


1. there has been a lot of lawsuits going around relating to mp3 downloads and especially now youtube videos. i notice that you have links to your videos via youtube and that you often have offered mp3 downloads on myspace in contrast - is this due to a philosophical or practical consideration?

i put up free shit on my site becasue people dowload and jack it anyways .....

there is a philosophical reason behind this as well, which is that i firmly believe ideas and art are public domain. for instance if ideas about medicine were shared freely instead of cures and knowledge being patented as intellectual property, there would be a whole hellofa lot more healthy people/babies/communities.

2. in a recent aesop rock blog posting, he mentions the hassles of the self promotional aspect of being an artist and baba brinkman has a funny song about that called 'stand buy me' - how do you balance this necessary element of getting your name out there vs. staying in the lab creating new work?

i just try to get good paying gigs and stay focused when i write. they are not the same thing. you can play shitty music at a great paying gig but you ultimately have to produce material from the heart to be able to sleep at night.

3. is there an instrument you feel most comfortable composing with? i notice you seem as at easy with an electric axe as you do with a sampler.

yes, my ensonic sampler is my friend, and i love electric and acoustic guitar. i have also been known to rock a fairly mean drum kit.

4. in 'super clever' you reference a record deal which seems to relate to the whole island/def jam experience. has this experience made you wary about large labels?

no. all labels are the same, large and small. it's the people who work there that distinguish the end result. there are assholes in both small and established companies.

5. what appeals to you the most about blogging? you seem to get a great deal of enjoyment and have a deft hand at touching controversial topics.

thanks. i discovered blogging when i discovered myspace, about a year or so ago. APTN had asked me to blog for them before but i didn't know it was so easy.

for years i tried to set my web site up interactively, so blogging is just plain common sense to me... it's like grafitti in a sense but it allows people to draw back. i love it.

6. is there anywhere that someone is selling the 'learning 2 cook' demo? or is that safely locked away in the starr vaults?

locked away. thank god.

7. your talent leads you to break down artificial boundaries such as those between hip-hop and spoken word and between hip-hop and electronica - is this intentional/philosophical or more of an intuitive process?

intuitive. i love sound and melody and it takes many shapes and form, including visual form at times. sometimes a song LOOKS like an image and i have to draw it first.....

8. do you have (or will you have) showings of your visual art?

hey!! that's funny that i just touched on that on the last question ...

ummm... yes i have wanted to do a show of my photos for a long time ... paintings and drawings too... some day ,.,,,

9. as a first nation hip-hop artist, what would you say the current state of the scene is and do you have hopes for where it might go?

i think natives are making the best hip-hop here in canada for sure. manik, 0512, mils, suga-d, eekwol, war party... the list goes on.

as to hip-hop itself ... i think we need some major fuel as far as creativity ... like nas says, hiphop is dead.

10. this is your question. if there's a question you always wanted asked - you can ask it of yourself and answer.

thanks a lot.

and now for something completely different

'tijuana bass' by nortec collective



oh yeah - in case you don't know what nortec means:
the invariable wikipedia link nortec defintion

i happened to see these guys last summer here at ill-dot's harbourfront centre and there were cowboots and big buckled dudes dancing along club kids who would have been just as happy waving glo-sticks to dj keoki so cross cultural relations were fostered all around.

and folks have the nerve to wonder why i love this city so much.
hmph.

mystic's 'the life (dj habit remix)'

well. i don't have much to say about this except that i'm very protective of songs that mean a lot to me and while mystic's entire album comes close to being a perfect piece of cd for me (especially 'ok alright' which has gotten me through more dark days than anyone should have to go through) this song was the first and the remis is very reverential.

ghetto lullaby

old/new song from mystic who reports on her blog that the 'ghetto lullaby' song she wanted on 'cuts for luck and scars for freedom' cd but it never made it.





apparently she's on a european tour so wishing her the best out there.





while you're over on her myspace page - check out 'current events' which remains probably my favourite b-girl braggadacio rap since mc lyte's 'i am the lyte'.