You know, hip-hop is punk.
Category: Music
Went out to deliberately bond over Ultimate Frisbee with the Project Improv Apprentices tonight, and after a few practice rounds, ended up on a team of two (there were only five of us there) with the other Old Guy, Greg. I’m twenty-two, Greg is twenty-seven, Nicole and Evan are eighteen, and Richard is nineteen.
And we beat them, ten points to one, despite the fact that they always knew exactly where the frisbee was going. Old Guys ROCK.
Also, as of tonight PIA (which was temporarily, and horribly, called Red Peanut) is officially named Street Legal. This is pretentious, but it’s like choosing a band name: when it fits, pretentiousness is no object.
Apparently only my boy friends have blogs.
Yo ho. I emerge from the shark-thick waters, knife in my teeth and a steely glint in my eye, having taken all three of my double-damned midterms in ONE DAY and lived to tell the scurvy tale. Yo ho.
And now, in lieu of booty, I go to Lexington. What reward holds Lexington, you ask? It holds Jon. It holds Monica. It will hold me and Ken and Maria, and most importantly, it will hold ANGIE APARO!
I took another bubble bath with my pants on
All the fighting stopped
Next time I’ll do it sooner
This is the ballad of Dorothy Parker
Maria is introducing me to Prince. Anybody who sings about bubble baths and pants in the same line is okay by me.
“Coleman said he remained worried about the ‘heavy-handedness’ of the lawsuits, which carried fines of up to $150,000 for each song shared from their hard drives. When asked whether the fines were excessive, Bainwol said they got consumers’ attention and established a deterrent. ‘Public floggings would get attention, too, but we don’t do that,’ Coleman responded.”
Well played, Senator Coleman. Well played.
Meanwhile, over at Music That Is Free And Also Fricking Rocks, Amanda informs me that Jon has put new songs up on his IUMA page. (I have to find this out from Amanda because someone else never updates his blog. But I digress.) And! They fricking rock! “Later” and particularly “Gun” remind me of the reformed-ELO-fan sound of 56 Kilobit Sentinel, and the lo-fi / high harmony contrast in “Letting Go” might be my favorite moment in a Jon song yet. Plus the outro rocks like Silverchair.
Fun With Iteration
Jon once proposed that Will Smith produce a franchise of songs in the same vein as “Miami,” ranking each city in order of preference:
“Miami, my second home!”
“Los Angeles, my third home!”
“Dublin, my… 467th home.”
More Fun With Iteration
This morning, TARCing in ten minutes late to my advisor appointment, I managed to correctly get his office extension by picking a known number down the hall and trying each subsequent number.
Fuck yeah.
Everybody, but particularly Jon, read Downhill Battle (found thanks to Fujichia). Basically what it comes down to is: it’s on.
Did I say six of seven? Because officially, it turns out to be twelve of twelve. I generated an entire point release myself! I am Bug Barbecue!
Abruptly and without transition, check out Ken’s two–part account of his trip to Lollapalooza. It’s extreme!
“I, Ken Moore, the person you all know as a calm and not easily excited person, was jumping around and loving every second of it. These guy are the saviors of rock and roll.”
It’s great stuff, and I wish I could have been there, and I’m very glad Ken’s writing regularly.
There are a number of lyrical, rhythmic and tonal cheap tricks employed in pop music for which I am an absolute sucker. I started a list of those earlier this year, and eventually I’ll write an entry on it too. One of the most specific and fun to talk about, though, is hip-hop songs that define their own terms. They’re great! They’re extremely helpful to geeky white people like myself–you’re given a new cool slang term, and immediately know its usage and basic etymology–and moreover, they’re completely happy and unself-conscious about it. I think Radiohead would have a lot more fun if they took a few pages from the same book.
I first noticed the phenomenon quite some time ago, but I was holding off on writing about it until I had three examples I could remember all at the same time. Last night, Maria inadvertently provided the third, and they are as follows:
- Nelly’s “Pimp Juice:” “She likes my pimp juice! Pimp juice is anything attract the opposite sex.”
- Alicia Keys’s “Girlfriend:” “I think I’m jealous of your girlfriend, although she’s just a girl that is your friend.”
- and the granddaddy, TLC’s “No Scrubs:” “I don’t want no scrubs. A scrub is a guy that can’t get no love from me–hanging out the passenger side of his best friend’s ride, trying to holler at me.”
When I told Jon about this, months ago, he immediately suggested that we start putting our own terms into general parlance via Rhythm Method songs, then created the first one on the spot: “She like mah mantelpiece! The mantelpiece is the bulge in the front of your pants.”
If anybody knows more of these, drop them off. With a little thought we could have our very own Rap Dictionary.
I did it. Two finals and a scene analysis paper, today, on two hours of sleep. Smart? No. But when you’re Neo, you don’t have to be smart.
So I’ve only got one more final left in college, and it’s not until Monday, and even though noIdon’thavethecomicup I am still going to splurge. That’s right. Tonight, Nashville, Amanda and Jon and me and one more Angie show.