Waking Ear

I played the first few tracks of Morrissey's You Are the Quarry for a friend unitiated in the ways of the Maudlin One today. He really enjoyed "America is Not the World" and "Irish Blood, English Heart," which made me think that maybe, if Morrissey had the exposure of, say, Norah Jones, he could gain that U.S. foothold he's been longing for. It's a nice thought, anyway.

Chelle and I are going to go see Fahrenheit 9/11 tonight. I feel like I already know what I'm going to see, so I'm really just looking forward to the Bush-looking-vacant footage. 

Cafe Tacuba pays a visit to Dallas next month, but I'll be in Austin on a business trip. But they're in Austin a couple days before my business trip. Which means I'm going to have to figure out a way to extend my business trip so I can see the show in Austin. This will not be the first time I have manipulated business travel to see a concert. It feels so dirty, and yet so... right.

A couple of things:
1) I saw a late-night video on MTV for Christina Milan. She seems to be a new r&b/hip-hop/pop singer, trying to have an Eve edge but more trashy. Besides wearing little clothing, there is an entire segment of her worming about in a vat of black oil paint. I didn't realize black paint was the new mud, but she seemed to have a blast as the homies twirled her around in a circle on it while she wore a black pleather outfit - very Halle/catwoman-esque. Strange.

2) Can someone tell me what's up with the group Scissor Sisters? The first song I heard was a remake of Comfortably Numb and I can't stand it. That is an amazing song from Pink Floyd and quite frankly, their version sucks the big one. It sounds like the Bee Gees in a dance blender. Blech.
But now I've heard another song, and forgive me for not knowing the name, but it's not half bad. So whether to like this group or not, I do not know. Any opinions out there who can help?

Big, '80s, Michael Douglas-in-Wall Street glasses are the new horn rims. You will soon see them on hipsters everywhere, if you haven't already. Mark my words. 

"See, I've already waited too long/ And now my hope is gone."

Lollapalooza canceled.

Schmubb, Bri-ness, Girlfriend, Chelle, Uus and I are in Seattle this weekend visiting some friends and drinking a lot. The weather is very lovely, so it's completely unlike Dallas. Wish all y'all were here.

So I came to music late-ish in my life. It was 9th grade before I started branching out from the unholy trinity of Blues Traveler, Dave Matthews Band, and Phish. For whatever reason, the Beastie Boys were the guiding force that drew me out of the HORDE Tour extended-solo mindset. In fact, they are probably the band most responsible for the rest of my musical development.

During the mid-'90s, it seemed to me that the Beastie Boys were *the* arbiters of "what's really good" in music, style, and politics. They had a unique aesthetic - slacker skaters that built their own studio, goofballs who wanted to free Tibet, equally adept with an 808 bass kick or hardcore guitar riffs...they were the smart dumb kids. They did experimental lo-fi hip-hop, played whatever the hell they wanted, and sold millions of records. They were cool, but didn't act like they were cooler than you.

The Beastie Boys used their mainstream acceptance to provide bridges to other forms of music using the various styles and sounds they incorporate into their own work. Sure, if I was cool in 9th grade I would have already been listening to Bad Brains or Lee 'Scratch' Perry or Jimmy Smith, or what have you. But I didn't have an older brother to hip me to this stuff. Instead, I had the Beastie Boys - and through them I discovered NYC hardcore, dub reggae, Biz Markie. I mean, I was that kid that heard "When the Levee Breaks" on the classic rock station and was like, "oh shit, Rhymin' and Stealin'!"

So on the day of the release of their sixth studio album in what I think is 20 years (damn slackers), I wonder if the B-Boys are still fulfilling that role for the kids today. From what I've heard of the new album, they seem to be returning to the minimalist, drum loops & stabs approach of their earliest work. Is this going to catch people's ears the way that the wall-of-samples in Paul's Boutique, or the live-instrument mixtape approach of Check Your Head and Ill Communication did? All I know for sure is that I'll be sneaking out of work today at lunch to buy it - after all this time, I'm still psyched to find out what they're going to do next.

Apparently when I said, "We'll all be posting again," I was just referring to myself. Ah well.

I can't tell you how happy this picture makes me. I like Matt Sorum's hair.  

Also: whenever Ben "?uestlove" Wallace gets a rebound, I feel a little shudder of happiness. I hope I'm not getting too personal. But go Pistons.

Best Ray Charles memory: the Cosby Show episode when the family lip-syncs to "Night Time is the Right Time." That song still kicks my ass, too.

Petey Pablo/"Freek-a-Leek" -- I hadn't really noticed the post-Janet-tit FCC crackdown -- I don't listen to shock DJs and don't have cable, so Howard Stern and MTV's changes have been lost on me. But today I noticed something strange and none too subtle.

The radio edit of "Freek-a-leek," which hip-hop stations are required to play every 10 minutes right now, used to include the following verse:
"Do want it missionary with your feet crammed to the head board
Do want it from the back with your face in
the pillow so you could yell as loud as you want girl
Do you want it on the floor,do want it in the chair do you want it over here do want it over there
Do you want it in your [pause] do u want it in your [pause]
I could give you anything you can handle."

The pauses were for the words "pussy" and "ass," proving Petey's accommodating flexibility, and it's not shocking that those words were deleted. But today I heard this in the same section of the song:

"[Pause]
... with your face in the pillow so you could yell as loud as you want girl
[Pause]
I could give you anything you can handle."

I would think the floor/chair line would more OK than the pillow-screaming line, but what do I know about decency?

Austin City Limits Festival lineup has been posted here. Wilco will apparently be sober by then, and the Pixies continue to bludgeon us with nostalgia.

So we're going to take some of those suggestions to heart and just post whenever we feel like it, which hopefully will result in more frequent posting and all that good stuff. And you'll probably start seeing a few other names pop up as regular posters, too. Bear with us, loyal Waking Ear readers.