#I actually stumbled upon the cd this song is from and added it to my arsenal earlier this year so that was fun

[1-mini-1]

Mafumafu- Under Sweet Umbrella (アンダースイートアンブレラ) English Lyrics

甘すぎてもう溶けそうな

妄想はもういらない

君の耳元で魔法をかけた

誰も知らない世界

It’s too sweetー I feel like I’m going to melt!

I don’t need my delusions anymore

I cast a spell on your ears

A world no one knows

おはようおやすみ　寝癖であと５分

マスカット　チョコレート味

Good morning, good night. Just 5 more minutes, you say with bedhead

Muscat grapes and chocolate flavored

背中を見めて　足音重ねた

そんな無言の時間　手を伸ばしかけてやめる

Gazing at your back, the sound of our footsteps overlapped

During these quiet moments, I stop myself from reaching out to you

右手から洗う癖　小さな二人の秘密

それとも僕のこと　知らないフリ？

Your habit of washing your right hand first, it’s our little secret

Or perhaps, are you just acting like you don’t know me?

愛し合うほど臆病な

僕を許してお願い

君の耳元で魔法をかけた

誰も知らない世界

The more we love, the shyer I get

Oh, please forgive me!

I cast a spell on your ears

A world no one knows

知らない匂いが君からこぼれる

なんでかって　なんでなんで ああ

An unfamiliar scent pours out of you

Why?? What is this what is thissss aaaaah

空から見てるよ　いつでも見てるよ

そんな君に近づく　危ない虫を掃除して

I’m watching you from the sky. I’m always watching you.

Erasing all the dangerous pests that draw close to you

近くにいるのに届かない　そんな距離

こんなんじゃ飛べないほうがマシさ

泣き顔隠して背伸びした夕焼けに

君の名前が頭から溢れ出すくらい

Our distance is so close, yet so far

It’d be better if I couldn’t fly at all

Hiding your tear-stained face in the growing twilight

Your name starts overflowing from my head, so much so that

甘すぎてもう溶けそうな

妄想はいらない

ふたりの世界に鍵をかけて

捕まえてもいいよね

It’s too sweetー I feel like I’m going to melt!

I don’t need my delusions anymore

It shouldn’t be a problem if I lock us into a world made just for us

And catch you now, right?

愛し合うほど臆病な

僕を許してお願い

君の耳元で魔法をかけた

誰も知らない世界

The more we love, the shyer I get

Oh, please forgive me!

I cast a spell on your ears

A world no one knows

[goboymusic]

I’m releasing vocal tracks of GoBoy songs over the next few weeks. Anyone can use the vocal tracks commercially in their own music without my permission as long as they add GoBoy as a featured artist.

The song title “Leave the Gun, Take the #Cannoli” is taken from one of the most famous lines from The #Godfather (1972 film), a film that everyone should have on their watch list. It’s also the only reason many of us know about cannoli.

This song was an attempt to sing again after dealing with the personal disaster that was "Throwback (Song 23),” which ultimately resulted in a seven-year musical hiatus (more on that in post 23). I was so insecure about my vocals that I added a plug-in that lowered the formant of the vocal tracks in this song, thus making them a little less recognizable.

The chorus was inspired by @Deadmau5, and the verses were inspired by #metalcore music (a genre that consumed my life in high school).

I remember my older sister stumbling upon this song on a burned CD that was left in a family car, and she left me a voicemail afterwards saying something like “is this song made by you? It’s surprisingly good, and you should probably try to sell it,” a compliment that’s uncharacteristic of her. It’s moments like that that confirm I’m not a complete lunatic for producing music, and that I’m actually pretty okay at it.

The chorus of “Leave the Gun, Take the Cannoli” is stellar, but the dubstep breakdown is kinda meh. Inversely, the dubstep breakdown in “Meet Spartacus” is stellar, but the rest of the song is kinda meh. I wish I had combined the dubstep breakdown in “Meet Spartacus” with the chorus in “Leave the Gun, Take the Cannoli” to create a superior song, but that idea wouldn’t arise until years after both songs were released, and after I had lost the Logic Pro files for both of them.

The chorus melodies were eventually reused for "Listen Closely (Song 46).” I always liked the back and forth between the synth melody and vocal melody in the chorus, but always felt they weren't utilized well enough. "Listen Closely" really focuses on those melodies in a way that "Leave the Gun, Take the Cannoli" doesn’t.

At the time of making ”Leave the Gun, Take the Cannoli,” the #metalcore genre was an enormous passion of mine. That said, the politics of forming and maintaining a metalcore band was something that I had experienced in the past, and I didn’t want to experience it again, especially after the fallout from the N3RD live band (explained in post 15). Rather than recruiting a drummer and guitarist for the metalcore inspired breakdowns in “Leave the Gun, Take the Cannoli,” the manipulation of an electronic beat and dubstep wobble bass seemed like a more optimal route, as it would only require computer / DJ equipment for live shows, thus allowing me to maintain independence and creative freedom. This idea of using wobble bass instead of guitars for metalcore-esque breakdowns would be utilized for ”Leave the Gun, Take the Cannoli,” along with other songs on GoBoy 1 and 2 (excerpts from post 18).

The wobble bass was created by automating rapid changes in the formant of a techno synth.

Regarding the change from pop music to mostly instrumental music in GoBoy 2: “Throwback (Song 23)” (and it’s music video) enraged my relatives, whom I grew up in a neighborhood with, and who had tremendous influence over my life at the time (explained in post 23). A frenzy of angry emails, metaphorical pitchforks, torches, hulk rage. Being a young, neurotic kid, the backlash from them was too much for me to handle at the time, and to exit their spotlight, I halted further production of pop songs and ultimately pulled the music video and songs 1-23 (GoBoy 1) from the internet (excerpts from post 23).

To the creative kids who find themselves surrounded by people who want to halt or control their creative endeavors, best of luck. I want to say “find a way out,” but that might result in further deterioration of your creative output. If you were born into an environment where you’re free to explore your creativity without constraints, you’ll never know how lucky you are (excerpts from post 23).

After the “Throwback” debacle, focus would be shifted towards creating instrumental songs that would fly under the radar (GoBoy 2, songs 24-35). Fly under the radar they did. Following GoBoy 2, I quit music for seven years. Songs 1-23 wouldn't be reuploaded until 2020. Why does this matter? It doesn't (excerpts from post 23).

[ellavaday]

sandra screams into the void about dres2 (and is too busy singing along to raffaella carrà to correct much this week tbh, again i love when these posts are not dissertations)

i'm going to start this one w a disclaimer: the farther away we stray from the 00s the more lapses there are in my pop culture knowledge so if any raffaella fan stumbles upon this and thinks something is missing and should be added lmk

I loved marina's diamantito diamantito a brillar a otro garito and the 'i'm like sailor moon but if she was 50yo and an alcoholic' of estrella 💀

when they enter into the work room (and marina and vene talk with that dumb fake french accent while the rest pretends to play football) marina says 'como me hago la macha?' and the subs say for some reason 'the butch queen is pissed' which i'm ??? still trying to understand how they got that ??? marina is just saying 'how do i pretend to be butch?' (then keeps talking in the confessionals about how they're very bad at it, y'all marina looks pissed very often in confessionals but that's just.. how they look lmao that's just their face)

why am i attempting to explain this in a post about a drag tv show is anyone's guess but when they're (attempting) to talk about football and they talk about a chilean and a cuban, una chilena is how you call in spanish a bicycle kick in football and the joke is that they're so bad at pretending to know about sports that they aren't sure if it's called a chilena or a cubana (a cubana is a sex position btw)

when they're joking about wanting to burn down their self made ball looks and estrella is talking about what she'd put in her museum, she does say she has a CD already but the subtitles say if she has one when she does very much talk in affirmative not conditional here (i have reservations about calling two collabs and two songs by herself a cd but that is what she said lol)

'wait but do we write it on our suit or in our faces?' 'there's everything in drag race spain... including paper and pens' 💀 me meo viva i love supremme

when they're getting ready for the mini challenge, sharonne says sethlas looks like cayetana álvarez de toledo, a right party member of the spanish congress (definitely not a compliment which is why sethlas tells her to go fuck herself)

estrella says she looks like la pringada (lit. 'the moron' like the subs say) but that is not her saying she looks like a moron, la pringada is the name of a well known youtuber character played by esty quesada (think colleen ballinger playing miranda sings but infinitely more polemic for saying in an interview all the far right political party members should die and a bomb should be set off at the wedding of some tv host and for making jokes about the eta terrorist group in a monologue at an award show)

dres really said let's go for chaos in the mini challenges

ruth lorenzo, the guest judge this week, was the 2014 spanish eurovision singer and when she says in her intro vid she was declared miss paparajotes, paparajotes are a dessert from murcia (made with lemon leaves coated with a dough made with flour and egg that are fried and sprinkled with powdered sugar and cinnamon)... she was basically called la reina del arroz con pollo 🤣 (miss nobody cares)

when vene and juriji are making their commercial there's yet another reference to sabrina salerno having a nip slip in spanish national tv in the 80s

fingers crossed blonde chin strap venedita is only for this episode UNLESS she plays around and uses different colors after this runway is done with (*chants pink beard pink beard pink beard*)

i am incredibly happy (and a little envious ngl) of marina's relationship with their parents

i keep thinking that this marina moment a week after spanish mother's day (which is the first sunday of may instead of the second like in the US and some -most?- countries in LatAm and the EU) and diamante's last week comment about casa batlló during sant jordi (also a week after actual sant jordi's day) are very very eerily well timed (and w this guest judge a week before eurovision, kudos for whoever timetabled this thing because they should be extremely proud of this scheduling)

redhead supremme my beloved

drit 🤝 dres 🤝 loving raffaella (as they should)

when supremme is presenting the judges and ambrossi says that when he was blond he looked like dolores vásquez (and that he'd let the judges decide if that's good or bad), dolores vásquez was the stranged lover of rocio wanninkhof's mother and she was wrongfully convicted in 2001 for wanninkhof's death in a case that is now widely considered nothing less than a bigoted witch trial because she was perceived as predatory for being a lesbian (there's a 2008 mini series about it and two 2021 documentary shows about the entire thing one in hbo and another one in netflix)

the saying 'rubia de bote' that calvo finishes with 'amanece más temprano' (blondes wake up earlier which the subs write down as blondes have more fun) is a purposeful misquoting the saying in spanish of 'rubia de bote chocho morenote' (bottle blonde brunette pussy) [señoras y señores, ésta es la lengua de cervantes sfgjfh]

all of the references supremme does around ruth lorenzo and different weathers are bc the song she sang at eurovision was called 'dancing in the rain'

ruth references en el amor todo es empezar by raffaella when she answers supremme (the og in italian is a far l'amore comincia tu and in english do it again) ((i didn't even know there was a version in english but you learn something new every day ig))

supremme introduces the raffaella runway referencing caliente caliente (italian here) ((this might be obvious but in case you were wondering yes i am enjoying immensely relistening to all of these lmao both in spanish and italian))

when estrella walks the runway, ambrossi references qué dolor (che dolore) [changing woman inside of the closet with inside an umbrella]; ruth references divine (which is v on point considering estrella is a big fan, the way she says it reminds me of grace maxwell in quoi etes vous polly magoo but that's probably just me i fear)

for the non europeans, when venedita walks in and ambrossi says 12 points is a reference to eurovision (12 is the maximum amount of points your country can give/get from/to another country participating in the voting); ana references this song (italian here); calvo says putone (slut w the laziest attempt at an italian accent in what ig is an attempt to make a rhyme with panettone?) i think this look and the look farida kant wore in the raffaella musical -not the runway, the actual musical- are inspired on the same look and i live for it

for juriji ciao raffaella is the name of one of her albums and the phone is a ref to a tv show she used to host (i liked her look the most of the ones for this episode)

sharonne quotes fiesta (italian here)

when sethlas walks in calvo makes a pun between once upon a time (érase una vez) and shoulder pads (hombreras) by saying hombrerase una vez; ana makes a pun with carrà and carracks (the sailing ship) and sethlas says 'hola raffaella' the name of the tv show raffaella hosted in spanish tv in 1976

when marina enters the runway and supremme says marina d'or it's a pun for marina looking golden (d'or) and the name of a well known holiday resort in valencia; calvo references the same song that he did with estrella (mentioning the closet) and caliente caliente again

about the 'vente a españa, coño!' slogan, coño is lit pussy but i think it should be noted we kinda use it more like in english you'd use fuck when swearing for emphasis

for estrella and sharonne's spot when they repeat localidades (little towns) it's a pun bc loca (crazy -fem-) is a derogatory way to call a gay person ((although all of our words to refer to lgbt ppl are reclaimed slurs so how derogatory depends on who says it and in what tone))

i died with that explanation they gave ruth about glory holes lmao

pollofres (polla + gofre = waffles shaped like dicks) are an actual thing you can eat in the gay neighborhood of madrid (there's also waffles shaped like pussies called coñofres) and i am only saying this bc i have had to take more than one friend visiting town to eat them bc it was all they could talk about (it's just a freaking waffle lmao)

that 'who should go home question' is always killer what the fuck is it with the raffaella wigs that make everyone want to fight, both in the drit raffaella epi and this one 💀

for me juriji & venedita won the runway and estrella & sharonne won the commercial spot challenge

when marina said they were going to take a week off social media i was afraid they were going to do badly specially w that moment talking about their family today but oh my god thank fuck they did so well in the lipsync and i'm so glad they're safe

also in retrospective: THE WAY ESTRELLA PUT SETHLAS IN DIAMANTE'S ANTENA HAT AT THE BEGINNING OF THIS EPISODE AND SETHLAS IS THE ONE THAT LEFT, PERO QUE BRUJERÍA ES ESTA DE VERDAD 💀 i shouldn't laugh but please c'mon

after name dropping her in every other episode they've conjured dovima nurmi and the rest of the dres1 top 5 for next week i can't wait to go back to my dres1 bs <3

[lunawings]

My history with King of Prism and worries for the future

Poor Nikkanen. They made us wait TWO YEARS for the release of the full version of his ONLY song. I don’t think Prism Rush was supposed to end when it did, and the unreleased songs are more or less proof of that. (I mean what were they saving them for? I doubt the “Best Of” collection was what they originally had in mind.) I had always assumed that some time after SSS ended we’d start getting new songs on Prism Rush again and get another Prism Rush compilation CD. But that did not happen. 

Did SSS not do well? I mean... having been in a sold-out theater many a time I had assumed that it did quite well. But maybe the TV ratings and/or DVD sales weren’t what they should have been. (Then again, if we’re just talking about Prism Rush, it wouldn’t matter how well SSS did or didn’t do if people didn’t spend enough money on the app to warrant releasing new songs for it.) 

But that aside... it is a bit concerning to not only have Prism Rush ending, but over a year after SSS, to have nothing on the horizon in the future except for some “Best Of” discs... Maybe they’ll announce something at the Zoom show? Maybe they won’t. 

It may be too early to start mourning the King of Prism series as a whole, but...

But I can’t help but feel myself starting to mourn at least my own future with it.  With no new Prism Rush content and without ability to go to in-person cheering shows, I... I just I... I feel like I may find it hard to keep as passionate as I have been in the past. And to make matters worse, I’m not going to be able to work on my translations as much as before either. When I was translating 2-3 events a month on my Prism Rush translation blog, I had no job and then like... half a job. To make a long story short recently that first job not only got upgraded to full time, but I got another job as well. So now I have a job and a half and... a lot less free time. 

For a long time my main fandom has been split something like 49%/51% Love Live/King of Prism, but with the constant stream of accessible new Love Live content and lack of much of anything King of Prism I think that percentage will soon change...

And so, while feeling emotional about all this, I started mentally revisiting my favorite moments from my time in the King of Prism fandom. (It’s all stuff I’ve talked about before, but if you’d like me to dig up the post or explain the details, do let me know...)

(In somewhat chronological order-ish)

*Stepping out of Toho Cinemas and into the Bay City Nagoya Mall in early January 2016 not knowing how to process what had just happened. I’d heard people talk about how exiting to the parking lot after seeing Star Wars the first time in the 1970s was a bizarre experience. They didn’t know how to tell people the world was different now. I thought to myself that this was probably the same feeling. How could I tell people the world was sparkling now?

*Three weeks and three showings later, realizing I did not want to trade after I opened up my Shin filmstrip bonus. “I think I like him.” 

*Hanging up said filmstrip and my other original theater bonuses on the wall of my apartment. “King of Prism won’t be in theaters much longer”, I thought to myself. “It was fun while it lasted.”

*The radiance exploding from me as I talked to OTHER PEOPLE who had seen King of Prism for the fIRsT tIME (a thing that did not happen for several months). 

*Tokyo cheering shows back in the heyday. Looking around a giant, screaming, sold-out theater in Ikebukuro after many months had passed and realizing I was a part of something much bigger than I had realized. 

*The first Animate Cafe in Kyoto. Everyone gleefully answering “Naaaani” while listening to the explanation of how the cafe worked. The miracle of getting my first, and still favorite, cafe Shin badge.

*Screaming at the Over the Rainbow event live viewing when they announced Pride the Hero. We did it. We really did it. We were actually getting the sequel I once thought was impossible.

*The midnight showing of Pride the Hero. People crying before it even started and the thunderous applause after it finished that I thought would never end. (People in Japan usually never clap after movies.) 

*Music Ready Sparking. (The first concert.) The feeling of seeing SePTENTRION (long before they were called that) rising up to the stage to perform live for the first time. 

*The realization that I knew all the words to Dramatic Love, despite having never sang it before. (The instrumental began during the credits at the concert and we all... just... started singing. Japanese fandoms usually never sing at concerts unless directed to.) This is probably still my favorite moment of all time in the King of Prism fandom.

*The announcement of the Prism Rush app and the golden age of the game. Biting my nails with anticipation over what would happen next in the White Day event.

*Screaming in the theater during the Rose Party 2018 event live viewing when they announced SSS. We did it. We REALLY did it this time. We got an actual anime. We reached the mainstream.

*The adventure that was reading Road to SSS for the first time on Prism Rush and trying to predict what all the duos would be only to be blindsided by completely new characters. Going from “the heck are these guys” to “MY SONS” regarding the Amamoto twins over the course of about an hour.  

*Listening to everyone (not so) silently laughing, screaming, crying, and otherwise sUfFeRiNg during the non-cheering midnight premiere of SSS Part 1 and realizing I had never felt so emotionally connected to any such other large group of complete strangers before. 

*Going from the Nagoya premiere straight to the SSS greeting show in Tokyo where Junta Terashima looked at me... maybe. (I’d like to think he did.)

*When the OP played for the first time during our very first SSS livestream on Rabbit and seeing y’all just typing “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA” into the chat.

*In Tokyo, walking out of KFC in the POURING rain and stumbling upon SePTENTRION’s shopping street despite having completely missed it the first time. IT WAS REAL. 

*Glancing over at my TV screen during our very last SSS livestream on Rabbit and having the color drain from my face when I saw Shin in his Daisuki Refrain outfit (which was not shown in theaters) for the very first time two minutes before you guys in the chat would see it, and having no idea how to contain this emotion. 

*Clicking to another tab after our last SSS livestream to type my commentary post and then clicking back to see you guys collectively making the Wiki page for SePTENTRION on Rabbit.

*Prism dolphin show.

*The CLOUD of real (fake) money flying through the air during Kakeru’s prism show on the during all-night Prism Shower showing of SSS. (Also people offering to pay for young Alexander to go to the Prism King Cup.)

*The miracle moment when I finally got the livestream for the Rose Party 2019 on Stage to work on Kast despite a typhoon and an earthquake. THE PRISM SPARKLE PREVAILED. Dangerously walking back to my hostel in said typhoon and sleeping for about an hour and not even caring because I was convinced more than ever that the prism sparkle is real.  

*Seeing Shota Aoi live for the first time, realizing I was looking at a literal angel, and not knowing how to contain this emotion. 

*The chills during an orchestral Dramatic Love.

*A very overdue performance by my favorite boy during the Best Ten movie. It was worth the wait. Feeling I may actually be able to leave Japan with no regrets thanks to Daisuki Refrain.

*The Best Ten greeting show in Nagoya where Masashi Igarashi jumped an original Nagoya-themed prism jump. 

*Finally telling Junta Terashima and Masashi Igarashi my feelings in the letters I spent days writing to put in their present boxes at the SSS live. 

*Dropping all my luggage when I stumbled upon the very place, the very scaffolding under which Minato met Kouji for the first time in Shizuoka. IT WAS REAL.

*Masashi Igarashi waved to me at the end of the 2nd performance of the SSS live... maybe. (I’d like to think he did.) 

*Hearing the “Naaaani” response to anything ringing through the Makuhari Messe hall before the SSS live and just thinking about how far we’ve come as a fandom and yet how much has stayed the same. 

Like I mentioned earlier, I had a moment in early 2016 when I hung up all the King of Prism stuff I had on my wall and thought “It was fun while it lasted.” 

It looked like this:

Nowadays I have two FULL photo albums filled with concert tickets, theater bonuses, post cards, coasters, stickers... (Not to mention an entire drawer filled with my collection of Shin merch.)

Everything inside is a memory of some event I went to, something I ate at a cafe, some kind of experience I had such as the ones I talked about in this post... It’s always been pretty disorganized because I was constantly getting new things all the time.

But now that I have no idea when (...or if) it will be added to, I can finally take it all out and organize it by character or something. 

But I’ve been avoiding it. 

Because I know when I do, there will probably be a moment where I close the cover and think to myself “It was fun while it lasted.”

[metalshea]

Examining Death through A Perfect Circle's "Blue" lens

Trigger Warning - this post discusses death, drug abuse, and overdoses, and includes a couple graphic descriptions from my time working at a morgue.  We are all at different places in our life journeys and have each been impacted by our own unique circumstances and experiences.  If these topics could spark difficult emotions for you, please do not feel compelled to read further.  Instead go gently and know that “there will come a day when the memory of those you’ve lost will bring a smile to your face before a tear to your eye”.

-- 

So it’s been a little shy of three years since my last post.  My last rant discussing the spindly and cancerous fingers of the NSBM scene through case examinations of Alcest, Behemoth, and Agalloch was all the way back in January of 2020.  In that time a lot has happened: a global pandemic led to my being laid off from my job in big tech, I started a great new job at a startup that has been nothing short of a trip, and, oh yeah, I HAD A KID. So yeah - career advancement plus guiding a small human on the path towards not being a shit head adult leaves little time for outside interests compared to less demanding jobs and… uhhh… not being a parent, I guess?  So something had to give somewhere.  Sorry Tumblr.  It’s not like I was a super prolific poster or that this blog ever went viral, so it’s probably fine, right?  Sorry to anyone that did read my stuff–the good news is you now have more words on a page to pour over from a now early-middle aged (holy shit when did that happen?) white dude that would have loved to have been a metal journalist.  While we're at it, sorry for that last post I did on A Perfect Circle… kind of, I guess… I mean I’m writing another post about them, right?  Anyway, I got super excited about what I imagined to be the parallels between the song “The Doomed” and Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol and kind of maybe went down a rabbit hole that was at the time super cathartic but, rereading it now, was probably a bit convoluted.

But here’s the thing, though, I absolutely LOVE A Perfect Circle.  They're near the top of a short list of artists who siginificantly impacted my development as both a person and musician, along with the likes of Metallica, Jimi Hendrix, Devin Townsend, and Zakk Wylde. When I first came across APC my musical tastes hadn’t yet expanded to the point where I had even heard of Tool, let alone knew who Maynard James Keenan was.  I remember first seeing an ad on either MTV or VH1 (probably both if we’re being honest) for Mer de Noms that had song snippets from “Judith” and I knew I had to get my hands on it.  Maynard’s screaming, biting: “Talk to Jesus Christ as if he knows the reason why” lyric immediately resonated with me: the kid of hyper-religious, conservative Catholic parents.  I had yet to start learning guitar at that point in my life, but the octaves that made up the main guitar melody were like nothing I had ever heard before in any other song.  When I finally scavenged up enough money to buy the CD, the coded letters that were all over the packaging became a new hieroglyphic language that allowed me to write my own hidden notes, and I practiced writing that code near daily.  I would go see APC live a few months later in what would be the first ever concert I would attend without an adult (just me and my closest friend on our own making bad decisions that night).  The ticket stub to that show is actually still taped to the wall of my parent’s basement along with all sorts of other music posters, guitar ads, and other random mementos from my preteen and teenage misadventures.  With Mer de Noms, APC hit that absolute sweet spot of atmosphere, melody, heaviness, avant garde, and mystery to absolutely captivate a young and ostracized adolescent that craved something esoteric to give him a sense of having stumbled upon something special.  Hell, if we really want to get into it–-and why not at this point?–opening up a CD case only to find a picture of the lingerie-clad ass of a smoking hot woman on the inner lining was enough to inspire a bit of a sexual awakening, too… Now that everyone is uncomfortable, I should probably mention that the music on Mer de Noms is freaking great.  That helped a lot.  Probably more than the other stuff. When APC dropped Thirteenth Step in 2003 I was beyond excited but when I actually listened to it, I was actually a bit disappointed.  It felt darker, bleaker.  I still listened to it on near constant repeat for months, but it made me feel uncomfortable, on edge, and put me into a place that made me start to feel the first twinges of what would become a lifelong battle with major depression.  Mer de Noms wasn’t exactly every day listening either–it had its own sense of melancholy and angst–but Thirteenth Step was just darker.  And it makes sense that it would be darker: Thirteenth Step is a concept album about overcoming drug abuse and flips between the first person perspective of both the junky and the junky’s loved ones.  It’s ambitious, but its heavy shit, man.  And in retrospect I’m not sure I had the life experience when it was released to really appreciate what the album was trying to accomplish, and how scary the picture it paints really is at times.

Earlier today I listened to the song “Blue” off Thirteenth Step for the first time in a couple years and it took me on a journey, inspiring a couple of very powerful flashbacks.  When I got out of graduate school I worked for a Medical Examiner’s office.  I actually worked the overnight shift at the morgue–which was an experience!  Part of my job involved performing autopsies, but most nights I was working scene dispatch, performing intake on bodies, cataloging and storing a decedent's belongings, and doing some evidence collection.  Occasionally, I would go out into the field to do recovery which saw me traveling across the state and bearing witness to the rawest forms of human agony, grief, curiosity and depravity first hand. My job as a mortuary and forensic technician lasted about two years before I jumped ship to the private sector, but it doesn’t take long for an environment like that to leave a freaking mark.  My time also coincided with the start of what the CDC calls the Second Wave of Opioid Overdose Deaths in 2010.  Constantly being forced to confront literal death on a daily basis as part of my profession shaped me in ways I think I’m still processing on an unconscious level, and being a “last responder” on the front lines of the then burgeoning Opioid Crisis certainly gave me a new perspective on the world around me.

“Blue” is the fourth song on Thirteenth Step.  At this point in the album’s storyline, the protagonist has acquired drugs to temporarily sate their addiction (“The Package”), realized their need for help (“Weak and Powerless”), and are starting to confront the resulting guilt and shame that nags at them (“The Noose”).  “Blue” reveals the source of that guilt and describes a memory where the protagonist witnessed a female companion overdosing.  Rather than helping, the protagonist watches with fascination while at the same time mentally tries to distance themselves from what is happening.  The protagonist doesn’t intervene and the implication is that the woman dies.  The lyrics are haunting--“I just didn’t want to know… She’s turning blue”--and the dense and dissonant atmosphere of the song lends itself well to supporting the hazy but all too raw memory.

There were two cases I worked while at the morgue that pull heavily on the threads of my own memories when listening to this song:  Myself and a colleague responded to an overdose in a public housing complex.  The apartment was far from what I’d call a home.  The furniture was spartan at best and was clearly either donated to the renter by well-meaning charities or purchased at thrift stores like Good Will or Salvation Army.  The renter was still in the house and was clearly still high–he sat on a couch in the living area off the small kitchen.  A police officer was talking with him when we arrived. The body of the victim was in the middle of the kitchen area.  Since the room was so intermittently furnished, the corpse might as well have been the centerpiece tying the two spaces together; a macabre coffee table of sorts that would certainly be a conversation piece.  When we searched the body e found heroin and a needle in his pocket.

The dead man’s companion–I hesitate to call him friend, I have no idea what their relationship really was–watched us from the corner of his eye as we worked to catalog everything on the body and hand over evidence to the officer on scene.  He never said a word.  He tried to feign disinterest.  He seemed somehow ashamed and tried to hide it.  “I just didn’t want to know….” Several months later, I was at the morgue performing my nightly duties when a body was dropped off by one of the funeral homes we contracted to do recoveries during off hours.  When I worked the overnight shift, I was alone - literally the only living person in the building--so the funeral homes would help out by picking up decedents from public scenes like car crashes.  Like I said, working that job was an experience, man, and trust me when I say I have lots of stories. On this night the funeral home dropped off an overdose victim.  This one was a woman; mid-twenties.  She had been missing for several weeks.  She was found in a building known to local police as a drug house.  It was clear that she had been dead for maybe 2-4 days and was in early stage decomposition by the point our paths crossed.  Her blood had coagulated, liver mortis was clearly evident, and rigor had released, but she wasn’t yet bloated and the smell was pretty tame.  When she was alive it would have been fair to call her pretty.  Lying there on the gurney there was no way I would ever call her pretty – there was too much pain: an addict that had gone too far, a desperate family putting in a missing persons report that would never again see her alive, parents who lost their daughter.  Whatever attractiveness she had in life was nullified by the symbol of wasted potential, selfishness, and grief laying on the gurney.  Her face was still blue.

Listening to Thirteenth Step resonates very differently to me these days.  It shouldn’t be surprising having had the proximity to addiction and death that I did.  But listening to the album today, especially “Blue”, shook me.  Music has a way of doing that–giving us a medium to contextualize our memories.  Mer de Noms is a positive walk down memory lane for me.  It is the nostalgic Member Berry that encourages me to reminisce about what was one of the most transformative points in my life: when I started playing guitar, dating girls, sneaking out at night, and going to concerts. I listened to that album right as I began laying the groundwork for what would become my adult personality, and it shaped me deeply.  Thirteenth Step encourages a different set of memories, ones that are equally valuable in their own way, I guess, even if they are certainly uncomfortable.  What was originally a somewhat disappointing album release from a band that I deified is now terrifying and existential to me–and I both adore and fear it.

Wrapping up this post I have to say, I’m not really sure why I wrote it.  I’m even less sure about why I’m choosing to put it up on a public forum for literally anyone to read.  I guess I can package this up as an exercise in contrasts, or a story about how music contextualizes our experiences and personal growth, or even how a piece of music can have different meaning to us at different points of our lives. But I think more than anything else this post is cathartic and allows me to give structure to what were two very significant and still raw personal experiences and start to come to terms with them?  Maybe? I guess if I could leave you with any parting thoughts they would be: Music is powerful.  Drugs are bad.  Hug those close to you often. Thank you for reading. Horns up, Shea \m/ 

[rilenerocks]

This is Pete Yorn in a screenshot I took of him yesterday at the end of a livestream concert he’d just performed. I bought a ticket for this show, paying more money than the minimum charge because a portion of the funds collected are being donated to Covid19 relief. I also bought a t-shirt designed especially for this event. I’ll probably get it in a couple of weeks. Pete performed an acoustic version of his breakthrough hit album, Musicforthemorningafter, which was released in 2001. During the pandemic lockdown, Pete has played seventeen live shows on social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook. I’ve watched all of them. On some days, they’ve been the only thing that got me through the murk. So how did I wind up with Pete? I’ll tell the story which is one of those serendipitous little deals that subtly shift the trajectory of a life.

In 2001, I’d never heard of Pete Yorn. He was a 27 year old musician trying to crack his way into the big time recording world. I was coming up on my 50th birthday. I’d been living with Michael since 1972. We were going to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary that May. The previous year we’d made a huge transition in our lives. Michael had decided to leave Record Service, the music business that had been the center of his daily life for 27 years. With the advent of free music downloads from the internet and big box stores selling CD’s for less than the cost of purchasing them from the record labels, the writing was on the wall. The day of the small independent music stores was coming to an end. Michael’s degree in political science wasn’t much use for a practical job. He was 51 years old. So he’d decided to return to college, pick up 30 undergraduate hours of education classes and acquire a teaching degree as a secondary school history teacher. Eventually that move turned into his also adding a master’s degree in US History.

We told our kids about the new plans on our annual holiday trip to Starved Rock State Park. Our daughter was a sophomore in college and our son was in eighth grade. They stared at us, stunned, across the dinner table. A parental job change is a big deal. They loved their cool rock and roll dad who knew everything about music and got great tickets to concerts and sports events through the major record labels.  Going back to college when you’re an old guy? That was a challenge for them. We laughed out loud when our son asked, ��are you sure you’re not going to become one of those dads who lays around on the couch all day, drinking beer and watching game shows?” We did our best to reassure them although we too were uncertain about how all this would work out. Michael got his substitute teacher’s certificate and took on as many jobs as he could, teaching everything from kindergarten, to special education to the occasional high school history class. He went to school a few nights a week, studying and writing during the days he wasn’t subbing. Student teaching would be coming up in the fall of 2001, followed by the daunting search for a real teaching position. I was the primary breadwinner, holding things together as we all made our adjustments  together.

Our daughter was a college athlete, playing volleyball for her university in an athletic conference that had other colleges within driving distance of our home. We spent time on the road going to watch her play. Our son was an athlete, too, so his games occupied us as well, Michael attending as many as he could given his demanding schedule.  Spring was a busy time for all of us. Our wedding anniversary was on May 1st. Given the fact that we were living on a modest single income, good sense dictated that we probably should minimize our celebration. But me being me, always with an eye toward the future, pointed out to Michael that we only got one 25th wedding anniversary. Ever convincing, I melted his resolve and off we went on a Caribbean cruise. We sailed on the Norway, a ship that looked romantically like the Titanic, although without the threat of icebergs. It was referred to as the last great ocean liner.

We sailed to the Bahamas where we swam with stingrays at Stingray City, to Roatan for snorkeling and diving off beaches covered with iguanas, and finally to Cozumel where we spent time in a magical water park alive with beautiful fish, birds and exotic sea creatures.

We wound up at the ruins in Tulum, Mexico, where we wandered about, marveling at the incredible turquoise water and the remnants of the fort walls, intended to be impregnable but easily violated by conquistadors whose horses easily vaulted the barriers. While there, we had our wedding date preserved like a Mayan calendar page.

We had a wonderful trip. On our actual anniversary we ate at a small intimate  bistro where Michael, proving himself as fiscally risque as me, slid a box across our table right before dessert with an amethyst ring inside. I remember my shock and my tears. So romantic.

May was a busy time. We returned from our trip and celebrated my 50th birthday. A friend had my yard decorated with 50 flamingoes in honor of the event.

A couple of weeks later, we were off on another adventure. Our son had qualified for the National Spelling Bee for the second year in a row. The local newspaper sponsored the bees leading up to the national one, and paid for that trip. We were joined by our daughter who flew in to Washington, DC because this year was the last for which our son was eligible. We stayed in a beautiful hotel downtown where we were feted in style.

In addition to the spelling there were barbecues, trips to surrounding historic sites and general great fun. Our son wound up in third place, getting his first paycheck at age fourteen. What a glorious time.

Summer came and zoomed by. Michael was still in school and the kids were busy with their activities. Our daughter returned to college in the fall, our son was a high school freshman and Michael was doing his student teaching. In October, our aged dog Sydney, had to be euthanized. We were all heartbroken.

We celebrated Thanksgiving and then winter was upon us. We were going back to Starved Rock after a very full 2001. Pete who?

Fast forward. The year is now 2017. Michael died on May 28th after his five year cancer journey. My son, now a biology postdoc, transferred all Michael’s iTunes files to an external hard drive for safekeeping for me before he returned to his field work in Guam. I was alone in my house. Recovering from the massive fatigue of being Michael’s caregiver, I set myself to the task of planning the large exhibit of Michael’s life which would be held in December of that year. He’d become a well-loved teacher in his unfortunately shortened career and I felt that an event near Christmas would allow former students home from college to attend. This would be a big public gathering. While I worked, I decided I would listen to the 2507 songs on my external hard drive. Michael and I were music lovers our whole lives. When he left the Record Service, he was slightly out of touch with current music but after starting teaching, he quickly developed a class which combined modern American history with film and music. He encouraged his students to share their favorite songs with him and continually added new tunes to his personal library. Although we listened to that library a lot, the music was on shuffle which meant there could be hundreds of songs I’d never hear. I wanted to listen to every single song, our old favorites and the ones he’d picked up during his teaching career. Some were great and others I could’ve done without. One afternoon, I heard Pete Yorn’s Life on a Chain for the first time. I was instantly hooked. One of my habits is that when I like something, I have to consume it. That first day, I probably listened to that song 50 times. Then I listened to the album it came from, Musicforthemorningafter, the big breakthrough for Pete in 2001. I ordered a CD and kept it in my car where I played it every day. I also loaded it onto my phone. There was one track in particular, June, which made me cry the second I heard it. I know this sounds weird but the melody sounded like the inside of Michael’s soul to me. Hard to explain-it’s just how it was.

Eventually, I started listening to more of Pete’s music. I read his biographical information and learned about his family. I started to like him. He said great things about his parents and brothers. I found him attractive. He took awhile before marrying and having a baby. He is unabashedly adoring of his little girl. He talks freely about emotions. I was hooked. I started following him on Instagram so I could keep up with his career. Last year he was performing at the Pageant Theater in St. Louis. My son went to college in that city. He was back from Guam and graciously attended the concert with me. We had great seats and I was elated.

For me, Pete was a gift that Michael left me, like so many other things that I’ve stumbled on since his death. Michael always told me I was the most loyal person he knew. That loyalty extends to those people who I’ll never really know, but feel I do because I’m just strange, I guess. Pete is the musical version of my beloved Roger Federer.

  When the pandemic hit, Pete began showing up on Instagram to perform live shows from some house in the California desert where he was sheltering with his wife and daughter. He had one acoustic guitar and a piano from his childhood. I can’t tell you how I loved watching him sit right in front of my face for these concerts which he played because he needed to for himself and to help all the shut ins out in the ether. He’d wait for a few hundred people to show up on his feed and then play, tell stories and chat. When it became clear that the pandemic wasn’t going anywhere, he partnered with groups to raise money for Covid19 relief, food pantries and the like. As I noted earlier, he performed 17 times. I missed him when he disappeared for awhile. Then all of a sudden, he announced last Saturday’s concert, a live acoustic stream of the entire Musicforthemorningafter album. Tickets were $15 and up, with each level getting a different perk and again, funds being donated to Covid19 relief. Unique t-shirts and a face mask with the words “Strange Condition,” one of Pete’s song titles emblazoned across the front. I so looked forward to this show and it was everything I dreamed it would be. Personal, empathetic Pete and great music. Nothing fancy, just him. One of the best hour and a halves I’ve ever spent. And I’ve been to more concerts than you can possibly imagine.

When the show was over, Pete asked people to let him know how they felt about it. Lots of people sent him screenshots with decorative, appreciative emojis. I wrote him a note, which is more like me. He took a second to answer me.

  Yup. Me and Pete. Who’d have known. I’ll be his loyal fan until I disappear. Life is full of surprises. Look him up. Have a listen. I hope you like him too. 

Me and Pete This is Pete Yorn in a screenshot I took of him yesterday at the end of a livestream concert he’d just performed.

[spilled-ink-and-city-lights-blog]

Chapter One of my novel (and an extra plug for patreon)

I’ve been working on this beast, Wayward Soul, since my senior year of high school and I’m just now releasing it into the wild, forgoing traditional publishing because down with the man or something like that. I figure I’ll post the first chapter here for anyone so inclined and then a link to my patreon, in which a dollar a month will help with rent/catfood/human food/etc. 

I tossed the end of my cigarette from the open window of my truck, watched the resulting fireball skitter away before dying on the asphalt. My girlfriend wasn’t present to give me the usual spiel about my litter being eaten by squirrels or stray kittens who would then develop cancer because of my negligence. It was three in the morning and I had to be back to work in five hours. The regular night shift worker had called off with a mysterious illness that had conveniently struck on the first warm day of spring when everyone was crawling out of their houses and blinking as if they’d never seen such sun before. As for me, I was stuck in the cold damp of The Warehouse.

The Warehouse wasn’t a warehouse of anything specific, more of a hub of all things needing shipped. Every breeze that blew through the Civil War era structure set the building to sounding as if it were alive and displeased about it, with creaks and groans echoing down the oversized corridors. I didn’t believe in the rumors that The Warehouse was a hospital for soldiers in days gone by and I didn’t believe in ghosts, but there’s something about three in the morning that strips the skepticism from a man.The only good part about working graveyard was that everyone in their right mind was already home in bed, and I had the roads to myself. I was already half asleep and the fewer obstacles to crash into when I inevitably dozed, the better.

 I slipped into autopilot and my mind wandered to my bed. The radio did nothing to improve the situation; I had heard the same six songs on the local station so many times that they all blurred together into what may as well have been a lullaby. Something moved in the corner of my vision at the side of the road. I hoped that I wasn’t going to get bombarded by Bambi or his woodland friends. As soon as the thought crossed my sleep deprived brain the thing shot into the road in front of me and stopped still. and I slammed on the breaks at the same time as wrenching the steering wheel to the left, into the empty other lane. The truck skidded almost sideways across both lanes before it came to a stop with the thing standing close enough to reach out and touch the bumper. A person? I wondered what the hell a person was doing trying to play Frogger on a backroad at three in the morning. I didn’t think that there were any bars nearby to send too-drunk patrons stumbling home in the early hours. I jumped out into the darkness, the residual adrenaline telling me to beat the Hell out of the asshole that had nearly caused me to wreck. The slam of the door sounded like a gunshot in the darkness. And then I paused. 

Now that I was standing so close, I could see that it was actually he, and he was a child that came up just past my waist. He dropped to his knees and wrapped his arms around himself, watching me with huge, shockingly green eyes that seemed to reflect the beam of the headlights as an animal’s would. He shrunk away from me as I approached, adding to the illusion that it was some sort of strange animal that sat before me in the road. Good parenting, I thought, losing a six-year-old in the middle of hillbilly backwater country. I looked around for any sign of a parent: flashlights, headlights, panicked screams. A loon wailed from beyond the line of trees, and that was all. “Better get out of the road, kid. You’re gonna get yourself killed,” I called, and his eyes locked on mine, startled and hurt. I could hear the distant roar of a car, far away but fast approaching. “Seriously, move!”The kid started crying and covered his ears. “You’re going to be roadkill here in a second!” I said, and scooped him up under the arms, ignoring his protests. 

I opened the passenger side door and tossed him in the general direction of it, jumped in myself, and reversed to swing to the shoulder of the road. He was howling, and he had compressed himself as far away from me as he could manage. I locked the doors, half scared that the kid would make another break for it and head straight back into the road. It crossed my mind how this must look to an outsider: a shaggy, pale, probably wild-eyed man with a tiny child locked in his truck with no indication of a booster seat or anything else that might place the ownership of the child in his hands. Dammit. “What am I going to do with you?” I asked. The kid was making some impossibly high, keening noise directly into my right ear. I tried to turn on the radio, hoping for some potentially soothing music to diffuse the situation, but all I got was a harsh blast of static that caused me to jump and accidentally punch the horn as I tried to turn it back off. The only CD in the six cd changer was slipknot. Soothing. At least the screaming of the music deadened the kid’s screaming a bit.

 I flipped open my crappy dinosaur age cellphone and dialed 9-1-1.The dispatcher sounded irritated. I had always thought that they went through training to be able to talk about guts and severed heads while still sounding as close to Bob Ross as humanly possible, but this guy wasn’t having it. He promised to send the cops my way and I hung up to let him get back to whatever dispatchers in rural areas do in the middle of the night when nobody is doing anything stupid to send paramedics or cops to. I turned the heat up. The kid had warn himself out with his carrying on and his eyes had begun to droop. I closed mine as well. If I was going back into work at six in the morning, not even this was going to stop me from getting some sleep first. What else was I going to do, besides stare at trees or watch the kid sleep like some kind of actual creep?

When I woke up again, the seat behind me was empty. I assumed the kid had crawled into the back, but he wasn’t there either. I found myself awake with a solid jolt of adrenaline straight to the bloodstream. He didn’t look old enough to be competent at managing door locks, so where had he gone? Surely enough, upon examination the doors were still locked locked from the inside and the keys still in the ignition. My pulse throbbed behind my eyes. I had always figured that my brain was a tad bit fried from a decade of drug use, but hallucinating small children on abandoned roads was a new one. I decided the best course of action was to take off before the cops finished their snail-paced crawl to my location and pretend that this night had never happened. 

 https://www.patreon.com/dcayton

[wilheminaalonzo-blog]

The Top Five COMMANDER IN CHIEF

Despite having one of the most costly medical care body, testedsuplex16.info the United States ranks last overall reviewed to 6 other industrialized nations-- Australia, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and also the UK-- on steps of health and wellness device functionality in five areas: premium, performance, accessibility to look after, equity and also the potential to lead long, healthy, productive lifestyles, depending on to a brand new Republic Fund document. The band discharged the first new song from the cd, Honeywine" in August, which Wide Open Nation gotten in touch with bright and also bubbling with a puppy love peace of mind." Flatland Mounties at that point launched Obeying Moonlight" at the end of Oct. Four opportunities the variety of little ones birthed along with brain impairments connected to Zika virus were actually stated in Colombia this year complying with the episode of the mosquito-borne contamination, stated a United States federal government file Friday. The upcoming nation, China, added almost a full 2,000 thousand loads much less along with one billion additional people.

He was actually PGA Trip Player of the Year six times. So I circumnavigated the nation paying attention to professional traders refer to exactly how they are actually generating cash in the marketplace. There requires to be taken some incredibly major steps else the problem of the people residing in this nation will get worse and also things will definitely certainly not reside in palm of the government too to control the condition. Austen, an achieved country-dance gamer, also showed her acquaintance with popular types of songs and dance in a letter to her niece Fanny Knight: "Much obliged for the Quadrilles, which I am actually expanded to assume rather enough, though naturally they are inferior to the Cotillions of my very own time" (20-21 February 1817). I very much such as this post nevertheless, the tone of it, in my opinion although I may be fully wrong, stumbles upon confrontational and as has actually been actually said country music incorporates several influences Irish as well as Scottish as well as African American. There are referrals to the values and also way of life discovered in the small American city. The Valens song is vital because of Hispanic influence on American Rock-and-roll. The high percent of without insurance in this particular most extensive condition would certainly create a requirement for medical service providers in the future which can be a lot bigger matched up to any other condition in the nation. Brazil's federal government on Thursday declared a side to a nationwide emergency over the Zika virus which was recognized in the Classical United States nation late in 2015 prior to becoming a global issue. These places are actually not as beautiful as the national forests, yet they are actually in some cases located nearby.

I have actually been a Country Music fan for excessive years to consider, you can certainly not remember every Black Musician, you overlooked L.M.Stone that is actually a terrific musician, but your write-up was actually well written and also I for certain enjoyed reviewing it. Considering that all the nations in the listing obtained the very same credit rating coming from Liberty Property. The Globe Health Company specifies a perfect ratio of one physician to every 1,000 people in low-income nations: India has one for every 1,700. "While there are actually big differences in the efficiency of health and wellness costs around countries, males have actually experienced better life span increases than females per wellness buck devoted within nearly every country," claimed Douglas Barthold, the research study's 1st author as well as a doctoral prospect in the team of business economics at McGill Educational institution.

[airadam]

Episode 92 : Signals

"...make you feel as if the Bill of Rights was counterfeit."

- Cuban Link

This month has just been hitting us over the head with "WTF?" moments on a daily basis, but in between I managed to put the show together - as you can tell, the finishing touches only made it in close to the end-of-month buzzer! While this is an all-Hip-Hop episode, I feel fairly confident that there won't be many people who know every track, so there'll be at least one new gem here for everyone. Let's run down this month's crate excavations...

Twitter: @airadam13

Playlist/Notes

Fat Joe ft. The Terror Squad : The Hidden Hand

It's bleak, but it's life. The whole Terror Squad weigh in on this cinematic cut (produced by Spunk Bigga) from the "Don Cartagena" album. Packed with cautionary tales, observations on the state of society, and ending with a touch of advice, this very much has the air of the person that's been through a lot trying to stop someone else going down the same road. In my opinion, this is a very much underrated deep album cut.

Oddisee : No Rules For Kings (Inst)

From the "The Beauty In All" album we get this lovely instrumental, heavy on the cymbals and drum fills.

3rd Bass : Gladiator

I've just realised that I've only played 3rd Bass once before on the podcast, so there are some great tracks in their small catalogue still for me to share with you. Here's one I think you probably won't know - their contribution to the soundtrack of the 1992 boxing-themed film "Gladiator". DJ Daddy Rich makes the beat boom, and whoever it is on the hook is battling me in the low voice stakes :)

J-Live : Worlds Apart

"The white man's burden still the brown man's backache"? That's just fire. The amount of clever, insightful quotes on this track is just unbelievable. It's well worth sitting and listening carefully to this one a few times - nothing but facts right here from J-Live on this Oddisee-produced piece from his "Around The Sun" album. 

Melanin 9 ft. Roc Marciano : White Russian

Melanin 9 is a UK MC who had somehow escaped my notice up to now but I stumbled upon this track with Long Island's street rhyme specialist Roc Marciano and knew I had to include it! The production by Anatomy channels the feel of the SP1200/S950 90s golden age; I love it, apart from the awkward 5-bar intro ;) Melanin and Roc go stream-of-consciousness in fine style on this one, taken from the "Magna Carta" LP.

Apollo Brown & Skyzoo ft. Joell Ortiz : A Couple Dollars

"The Easy Truth" was one of the picks of 2016 and the combination of Skyzoo, a real lyric fan's choice, and Apollo Brown's soulful production is a match made in Hip-Hop heaven. Adding Joell Ortiz to this story of the lure of money when you start off broke just takes the track over the top. The album is definitely worth checking!

Kappah : Supafly

Kappah from the Beatfonics crew flips some Curtis Mayfield inside out right here and adds some solid bass underneath for a highlight from the "Beatxploitation" beat tape. Heavy business as usual coming out of Italy.

Nas : Thief's Theme

A dark favourite, and an appropriate one as we see the dawn of a new kleptocracy! This was a great single from the "Street's Disciple" album - there might have been a radio mix, but you couldn't call this a radio record. Salaam Remi harnesses the "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" sample (as played by the Incredible Bongo Band) while Nas goes full crime rhyme for three verses - and on the hook, re-using some of his own famous lines from "The World Is Yours". The video for this one is well worth a watch too!

Camp Lo : A Piece Of The Action

The recently released "On The Way Uptown" is the demo album Camp Lo recorded that got them their record deal and paved the way for the classic "Uptown Saturday Night". Well worth picking up if you're a fan, as you can hear early versions of some tracks that made the official album as well as others that were borrowed from or reworked. There's also a scattering of "lost tracks", and what later became B-sides. This tune, I believe, has been out on white label but is a tough one to get so I was very happy to find it included. Geechi and Sonny Cheeba showcase their back-and-forth skills on a great foreshadowing of killer records to come, while Ski gives us some boom-bap drums over a cleverly-chopped, sneaky sampling of a jazz classic. Heavyweight.

Talib Kweli : Gutter Rainbows

I think the world "lush" would fit this one when it comes to the production! M-Phazes brings a dramatic 70s flair to the title track to Talib's 2011 album, and Talib sounds thoroughly amped to be on it. You've all seen a gutter rainbow in the literal sense - the colours formed when oil spills onto the street, and while Kweli does point to that in the lyrics he also gives a more poetic alternative definition.

Pete Rock ft. Little Brother and Joe Scudda : Bring Y'all Back

"...catch a fist and a elbow"...Richard Spencer, come on down! Three very dope verses from LB and Joe Scudda over a Pete Rock beat; I think Phonte's is my favourite, but you can't go wrong with any of the three. Check this one on Pete Rock's third producer-driven compilation, "NY's Finest".

[Context] Maylay Sparks : Legacy (Inst)

One of those random independent 12"s that makes a DJs vinyl collection individual, rather than just an "essential hits" compilation! Context of the Danish crew "Nobody Beats The Beats" provides a quintessentially early-2000s instrumental.

WC & The MAAD Circle : Ghetto Serenade

RIP DJ Crazy Toones. This is a beat I've always loved since I heard it on MTV back in the day, and as Toones had his hands in the production (alongside Sir Jinx and Chilly Chill), I thought this was a good time to play the track. This is played from the 12" single which is itself taken from the 1991 "Ain't A Damn Thang Changed" album. You may not find the story as told by WC to your taste, but you can't deny that funk!

Main Source : Atom

Taking it back to '89, we have one of the first recordings from the Main Source crew. This is the B-side of the "Think" single and for me, a perfect case of "B Side Wins Again"! The mixing and engineering was done by the legendary Paul C, who sadly would be killed before Main Source released their debut "Breaking Atoms" album; his influence lived on, and not just in the name of Large Professor's publishing company. 

Mega Ran & Storyville ft. Wise Intelligent : I Know Who I Am

It's been great over the last couple of years to see Mega Ran's profile climbing. He's an extremely talented artist and on the "Soul Veggies" album he reunited with long-time friend Storyville, who both took the mic and produced on the project. For this knowledge-packed track, it was only right that both of them connected with Wise Intelligent of the Poor Righteous Teachers; in fact, it was actually him who got on the DJ Seedless track first and then brought them in! The production is funky, jazzy, African...the whole pot, a perfect home for some excellent rhymes.

DJ Quik ft. Mausberg and James DeBarge : Change Da Game

The "Balance & Options" album from the legendary Compton DJ/MC is a must-own for me, with some absolute killers on it - this one being the opening, a statement of intent from Quik and the late Mausberg. The timing and dynamics on the rhythm part of the track gives it a certain bounce that is harder to duplicate than your average beatmaker might think, and as always with Quik, the musicianship is right there for you to appreciate.

[DJ Premier] Gang Starr : Skills (Instrumental)

You could do a mix of just DJ Premier instrumentals and it'd be a satisfying hour! This is from the 12", one of the four singles from "The Ownerz", the final Gang Starr album. Check the full version if you don't already know it - personally, I'm really missing that trademark Guru monotone style.

Heltah Skeltah ft. Starang Wondah & Doc Holiday : I Ain't Havin' That

I decided to finish the episode on a seriously energetic note, with this banging track getting a well-deserved outing. The Boot Camp crew rip the beat from A Tribe Called Quest's "Hot Sex" and you can almost hear them falling all over each other to get their rhymes in - the session in D&D Studios must have been insane! Topping it off with the Redman sample from "Pick It Up" just seals the deal. This is a 12" well worth having but you can also find the track on the "Magnum Force" album.

Please remember to support the artists you like! The purpose of putting the podcast out and providing the full tracklist is to try and give some light, so do use the songs on each episode as a starting point to search out more material. If you have Spotify in your country it's a great way to explore, but otherwise there's always Youtube and the like. Seeing your favourite artists live is the best way to put money in their pockets, and buy the vinyl/CDs/downloads of the stuff you like the most!

Check out this episode!