LA Weekly

Ryan Adams & The Cardinals,
Royce Hall UCLA, Jan. 30
By Timothy Norris

There’s something inspiring about visiting college campuses. The architecture, the formality and the certainty of purpose in almost everyone you pass as you walk towards your destination. Maybe it's that while you’re on a college campus, there is a destination. Whether you’re in a classroom or just outside of one, you must be on your way somewhere.

My destination tonight was Royce Hall, somewhere near the north side of UCLA's campus. I've been a handful of times, but not to Royce Hall before. It's also my first time seeing Ryan Adams in concert and with the academic grandeur of the place, I could think of no better venue to see him play. It reminded me of seeing the Black Crowes on their Southern Harmony and Musical Companion tour at the Beacon Theatre in New York. It felt a little like being a kid again. I was looking forward to this.

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You'd be hard-pressed to find two rappers more diametrically opposed than Zilla Rocca and the man known as Weezy F. (Scott Fitzgerald) Baby. The two practically exist in different galaxies. Wayne, an iced out, ecstasy popping maniac from the streets of New Orleans, practically extra-terrestrial in his weirdness. Zilla, an underground rapper (if such a thing still exists) from South Philly, a place where there's only so weird you can get before someone smacks you upside the head to tell youse to stop dressing like a freak. On paper, the only things the two have in common are that they both make rap music and no longer drink Cristal, instead only "pouring it on white bitch's heads" (maybe).

But despite this obvious polarity, Zilla and Wayne have a few mutual similarities. No, there aren't any pictures of Zilla making out with Beat Garden co-founder Big O, (let's hope), instead he and Wayne both possess a burning desire for greatness, the ability to harness the power of the Internet for self-promotion and the fact that they've both gotten much much better in a very short amount of time. When I first wrote about Zilla, a year and half ago, he was good, but hadn't yet transcended his influences. Obviously in thrall to the GZA, Aesop Rock, and a little Tom Waits, he could flow just fine, but hadn't yet crafted a style capable of taking him beyond being just another solid but unspectacular MC trying to gain a foothold in the ever tenuous industry. Still, the debut was good enough to rightfully garner a lot of praise in this weird corner of the Internet, as did his follow up, last year's Clean Gun's Living in Harmony mixtape.

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I haven't wanted to listen to anything but Fela Kuti for weeks. It's getting a little weird. In the car, Expensive Shit/He Miss Road has monopolized my stereo. and at home, rather than feebly attempt productivity, I've burnt countless hours scrounging around miscellaneous legally dubious corners of the web vainly attempting to acquire his entire discography. This isn't the first time I've been on a Fela kick either. When I bought Expensive Shit, a few years back, I had a nice few weeks driving around Los Angeles, letting the afro-beat horns shower my eardrums with a soft copper rain and occasionally doing my best white-boy afro chants along with Fela (it wasn't pretty, we'll leave it at that.).

But this obsession is different and I'm not quite sure what to ascribe it to. Maybe it's that after having pretty much ignored jazz for my first 26 years of living, I've been listening to a lot of it over the past few months, digging (I believe this is the only suitable verb) Miles, Coltrane, Andrew Hill, Mingus, Pharoah Sanders, and Tony Williams, among others. Or maybe it's the way in which Fela's hypnotic, afro-beat contains a protean quality that's mirrored Los Angeles' schizophrenic weather of late; with violent storms passing with almost tropical impatience, thundering for an hour or two and breaking into pale unbroken sky and bright, cold sun.

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Attention producers: I defy any of you to listen to this vocal track of David Lee Roth singing "Runnin' With the Devil" and not stumble across some sample-worthy snippet. Holy Toledo think of the remixes! The mashups! Those grunts are golden!
(courtesy Chunklet)

photo by Randall Roberts

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Hot on the heels of LA Weekly's map of Tom Petty's Los Angeles, and a few days prior to their appearance at the Super Bowl, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers today announced two summer shows in the L.A. area. The first will be on Wednesday, June 25 at the Hollywood Bowl; the second will be a month later at the Verizon Amphitheater on Friday, August 22. Tix on sale this Saturday.

In honor of the event, we offer you this great TP moment. Don't sit too close to your screen, lest you get a contact high.

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Yeasayer are a jam band, they just aren't aware of it yet. At one point during the Brooklyn four-piece's set Saturday night at the Echoplex, lead singer Chris Keating even paused to extemporaneously inform the crowd that "people call us hippies, but that's just not true. We're from Baltimore." This is arguably the worst ever defense of someone's lack of hippiness. C'mon, Yeasayer, you guys aren't fooling anyone. You went to the same private school as Animal Collective and granted, those guys might not be hippies in the classical sense, but they've clearly popped enough peyote to join several Native American tribes.

Moreover, take a look at the picture above and tell me that you disagree with Ian Cohen's assessment that Yeasayer look like they tried to dress as the Spin Doctors for Halloween but couldn't quite pull it off. Not to mention the fact that for the first fifteen minutes of their show, I was standing next to a greasy, dull-eyed, dead-ringer for Devendra Banhart. The guy smelled like he'd been guzzling rancid soy milk and rolling around in a patch of pachouli all afternoon. Fucking hippies.

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The analog pleasures of Radiohead's digital revolution
by Randall Roberts
(Photo by John Spinks)

There are a few different ways to get to Big Sur from Los Angeles, but in the big picture it doesn't matter which route you take, because regardless, you're leaving Los Angeles and going to Big Sur. You can take the I-5 superhighway, sure, but for a little Zen action, veer off to the Pacific Coast Highway. It's a slower cruise, less frantic, and it runs along the ocean through tiny, tony towns: the perfect route for when you need a reminder that, well, there are things in this world that you can actually feel, like a slap in the face or a sunburn, and the Web has yet to produce digital breeze or perfect seaside light. Follow PCH to the end of the earth, wend and wind by cliff and shore like the hero of an Audi commercial: sunroof open, beach and ocean on the left (replete with Frisbees and dogs and sparkling sunlight reflections), cliffs on the right, and smack-dab in the middle, a jumbo sound system in a late-model sedan and a 10-song burned CD, much ballyhooed but as yet virginal, awaiting its debut on the open road.

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White Williams, Magic Bullets
The Blakes, Tribal Tats
The Echo, Jan. 27

How do people in Seattle do it? It's downright cold tonight, and raining so much that a good sized river flows along Sunset Boulevard. The Echo hasn't opened its doors yet, despite it being more than half an hour from the posted start time. A few dozen people stand against a wall getting wetter and wetter, while looking across the street at the warm glow and promise of yellow breakfasts from inside Happy Tom's diner. Eventually they let us file in, and a Stella or two later, we're inclined to forgive and forget.

We're here to see the electronica / pop / fusion of Joe Williams, who is White Williams in the studio. Tonight though, he's got a band, which is a good sign. Williams plays between a bass player (Tyler - who has a birthday and is 26) and a guitar player whose name I missed or was never mentioned. Williams ducks back and forth from the front of the stage, turning between a laptop on his right and a synthesizer on his left. But the guitar player - he's ace.

I"m pretty sure it's Williams who plays guitar on the album. But the guy on stage tonight does an excellent job adding to the cacophony the drum machines and effects while never losing the tune in the din.

It's the guitar after all which ropes you in on Williams' new album Smoke, at least as much as the beats or Williams' own strong baritone singing voice. Tonight, both are in good form, but the guitar carries the show. There's that T. Rex-borrowed riff on "In the Club," several spindly melodies appropriated from Fela Kuti, and the nice 80s feel of "New Violence." A song early in the set with Williams on melodica sounded like a slow-burning The The instrumental, and the influences can be picked from the air like slow-moving moths; Brian Eno's "Baby's on Fire", Girl Talk, Roxy Music and so on.

Williams probably suffered a bit by trying to follow the crazily energetic Magic Bullets from San Francisco. No stranger to Part Time Punks night, Magic Bullets have a live album out from a show they played at the Echo in July. Like Williams, the two guitarists in Magic Bullets favor those joyful little riffs of East African dance bands that are turning up wherever you look. But the six-piece group is much more pop to Williams' art-pop.

Six people crowded onto the stage didn't stop them from dancing throughout their set, especially singer Philip Benson. A cover of Orange Juice's "Rip It Up" fit in seamlessly with the rest of their set, giving a good idea of what Magic Bullets aspire to: Joyful, catchy, well-played pop songs, of which you can never have to many.

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Great news from the L.A. Phil just arrived. Anyone who was at the recent Songs of the City series at Walt Disney Concert Hall and heard Daniel Rossen's voice echo through the room will understand: Don't miss this show.

LOS ANGELES PHILHARMONIC AND INDIE ROCK BAND GRIZZLY BEAR CO-HEADLINE FOR ONE-NIGHT-ONLY PROGRAM SPANNING CLASSICAL TO CONTEMPORARY REPERTOIRE

SATURDAY, MARCH 1, 2008, AT 9PM

Media support provided by 89.9 KCRW

Brooklyn-based indie rock band Grizzly Bear debuts at Walt Disney Concert Hall on Saturday, March 1, at 9 p.m. The Los Angeles Philharmonic and Grizzly Bear perform for this co-headlining concert that pairs orchestral and experimental-rock repertoire for a cohesive program that aims to break boundaries between genres and generations. The orchestra does not perform together with Grizzly Bear.

The first half of the program features the Los Angeles Philharmonic performing orchestral pieces specifically chosen to reflect the music that inspired Grizzly Bear to pursue their own musical endeavors. The second half of the program features Grizzly Bear performing a full set that includes songs from their most recent release Yellow Road, hailed as one of 2007’s best records by Pitchfork Media, calling it “an impeccably crafted psychedelic folk record…its delicate instrumentation is otherworldly…” The Guardian states “It's like wandering through Brian Wilson's mind on a clear day in 1967. . . [it’s not] to dip into; instead you dive in and sink to the bottom, at once drenched in emotion and uplifted.”

Grizzly Bear members Daniel Rossen (songwriting/guitar), Ed Droste (songwriting/guitar), Chris Taylor (clarinet/production) and Christopher Bear (drums), employ traditional and electronic instruments, including piano, bass, whistles, banjo and laptops. Their musical explorations traverse a landscape of lush instrumentation, haunting melodies, and lo-fi authenticity. Stereogum named Grizzly Bear’s Wordless Music Concert at the New York Society for Ethical Culture its favorite show of 2007.

GRIZZLY BEAR have approached song writing as a craft to master. Over the course of three releases, Horn of Plenty and Yellow House, and their recently released Friend EP, they’ve achieved mastery. Grizzly Bear is remarkable not just for their attention to detail but for their concern for how a song feels: flush with heart and melancholy, their music is seductive and intimate. This is experimental mood music with love for classics and standards. Its unique sound has resonated with critics and fans across the globe. Their sophomore effort, Yellow House received “Top 10 Album Of the Year” honors from respected media outlets such as the New York Times, New Yorker and Pitchforkmedia in 2006. From its original incarnation as a one man band of acoustic guitar, field tapes and drum machine; to it’s current state as a full band complete with drums, two guitars, bass, woodwinds, effects pedals, cradled by four part harmonies, Grizzly Bear’s music has made the leap from charming lo-fi folk rock to breathtaking, experimental cinematic pop. The talent between the four members of Grizzly Bear is evident from their deft playing, which also makes for a brilliant and engrossing live act.

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I remember watching The Show for the first and only time when I was a freshman in high school. I wasn't very impressed. This was 1995, Biggie was alive, Warren G was the biggest star in the world, Wu-Tang was in the middle of the greatest run in rap history and Snoop Dogg hadn't yet released Tha Doggfather, let alone Father Hood. The concept of watching a documentary about all my favorite rappers didn't seem particularly mind-blowing. Like most 14 year olds, I wasn't really aware of that concept that times and trends change and quite stupidly, I assumed that this was way things always would (and should) be. Sort of like a Republican presidential candidate. Re-watching it a dozen years later, the film is a revelation, at times hilarious, at times chilling (particularly the Biggie interviews), and at all times eye-opening. A time capsule of the hip-hop world circa 94-95, The Show comes highly recommended not just for rap fans but for anyone who likes music.

• The moments between an incarcerated Slick Rick and Russell Simmons' are among the film's most poignant. They open and close the film and are the closest thing the often-scattershot documentary has to a framing device. It's difficult to watch the Ruler behind bars, humbled, stripped of his gold chains and swagger (but not the patch), shuffling in standard Rikers prison garb to Russell, head bowed, eyes lowered. Simmons is visibly uncomfortable and admits he's only visiting Rick for the documentary. He then gives a weird laugh and starts babbling about how he's 37 now and all he wants to do is chase models around. "I don't want drama unless it's coming from Naomi Campbell." Rick seems broken, mumbling about how he's learned to appreciate freedom during his spell for attempted murder. He seems a little off, a fact that Russell confirms when he describes Ricky as being "crazier than a bag of angel dust."

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One of the most common complaints I hear from my female friends is that they always seem to fall for "assholes." Quite mistakenly, they ask for advice on how to remedy this situation and the ensuing conversation inevitably leads to elliptical arguments about how maybe they should stop liking guys that are assholes. However, had I re-watched the video for Paula Abdul's "Opposites Attract" at any point during the last two decades, I would've quickly been able to point out how Paula Abdul's dysfunctional relationship with MC Skat Kat, eerily mirrored their own romantic woes. Of course, I'm sure there are plenty of girls who like perfectly nice guys. Apparently, I'm just not friends with any of them.

1. He Parties All Night.

Poor Paula Abdul. So naive. There she she is, dashing up the stairs in high heels, wildly enamored with her animated furry love and all MC Skat Kat can do is try to lift up her skirt. But being the trusting Paula Abdul that she was, she erroneously believes MC Skat Kat's lies about his skirt-chasing, in spite of his avowed penchant for carousing (yes, carousing). Wake up woman. He's a world-famous rapping feline. Sure, opposites might attract. But on all those nights that "you go to bed early," believe you me he's out chasing tail. (Sorry, I couldn't resist.)

2. He Associates Himself With Riff-Raff

If the old cliche about judging a man by the company he keeps is true, Abdul shouldn't be surprised by Skat Kat's avowed preferences for the "fast-lane lifestyle." How can she have noticed the seedy hooligans that he surrounds himself with and not realized instantly that the relationship was doomed to failure? I don't like the looks of that mouse one bit and I've made my thoughts clear about guys in fedoras and ironic day-glo orange shirts a few times too many; to say nothing of the two-bit floozies that Skat Kat includes as the token female members of his posse. Suffice to say ladies, if your man rolls with vermin, pink-haired hussies and questionably gay beefcake leather types, don't be surprised it he turns out to be a cat cad.

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Crystal Antlers
Safari Sam's, Jan. 21, 2008

The sparkling reputation of Long Beach’s Crystal Antlers drew me out to the High Voltage Magazine party at Safari Sam’s last night, and despite the clear lameness of the event (see below for unfortunate High Voltage missteps), Crystal Antlers delivered an outstanding performance of weighty organ and bass flamboyance. They went on as the last of four bands, despite the magazine flyer billing them as second, and they only got to play for twenty three minutes. But in those twenty three minutes, their new percussionist Sexual Chocolate (aka Damian Edwards), formerly of Geisha Girls, had three costume changes, each more scant than the last, and performed pelvic thrusts that gave justice to his stage name and sustained his rep as pure showman. Jonny Bell led the five piece with his scratchy vocals and heavy bass, which he strums like a six string, a stylistic choice that lays the foundation for their overall sound to be on the side of other local heavies Entrance and Tweak Bird; they also take substantial cues from classic rock dramatics Page,Winter, Skynyrd, etc., but thankfully they've left the underage groupies and hotel room trashing for the boomer generation.

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Questions to ponder:

Will they give Tenaglia his own stage to do a ten hour set, and if that's the case why didn't they book Villalobos?

How the hell did Linton Kwesi Johnson get on the bill - and holy crap, Linton Kwesi Johnson's on the bill!

Will Modeselektor finally and once and for all kick Justice's ass? And Busy P's, too?

Isn't it a little early for a Fatboy Slim renaissance, or a few years too late to toss him on the bill and expect us to care?

Sasha & Digweed but no Carl Craig? Is it too late to swap out?

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This just in! (kudos to Joshua Glazer at Urb)

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Urb magazine's website is reporting that Portishead will be one of Coachella's 2008 headliners. Read the full story (reported by occasional LA Weekly freelancer Josh Glazer) here. Full schedule to be released on Monday.

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God knows what Del's been doing since the millennium. The guy practically retired around then, after dropping the rightfully canonized Deltron 3030 record and appearing on "Clint Eastwood." It was a weird move considering that with all that Gorillaz exposure, Del could've probably signed with a major (at a time when people actually bought rap albums) and made a real play for that Damon Albarn money. Instead, he faded into oblivion, popping up only on the occasional Hiero album and claiming that he spent the rest of his hiatus studying music theory.

I'm calling bullshit. It's damn near impossible to study music theory, all day, every day for eight years without getting a Dr. in front of your name. I'm not doubting that Del knows his stuff, I'm more disappointed that he couldn't come up with a better explanation than "musical theory." Couldn't he have said that he was fighting cyborgs on Deltron, or that he'd finally found his brother George or hell, that he'd been smoking sherm? I mean music theory? Is he trying to be a rapper or get a job at Pitchfork?

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Los Angeles always seems strange in the rain. Jim Morrison once may have said something to that effect. Then again, Jim Morrison once declared himself the lizard king and was known to drink blood at wiccan ceremonies, so maybe he wasn't the best best guy to take advice from. But he was right in this instance. On those rare moments when actual weather interrupts the city's 340 days of blue sky and white light, LA takes on an unnaturally sinister tone more commonly found in film noir than in actual everyday reality.

About a week ago, a howling gale shook the town, dumping buckets of sweaty, oily rain all over the city. Everyone panicked. Drivers either ignored the inclement weather to skid into jagged wrecks, or else they inched forward at five miles per--crawling timidly and fearfully like they'd never seen a drop of precipitation in their lives. It was the sort of storm that made you feel like you were trespassing on the earth. The blocks were flooded and each mile I drove, a deluge of hissing spit battered my windshield. On my stereo, the tweaked out, sugar rush of Los Campesinos giggled and I was struck with the epiphany that at that moment, there was nothing I wanted to hear less.

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Harry Nilsson Tribute
Bordello, Jan. 15

"Happy Birthday, Harry," one of the band's singers said into his mic before a bandmate whispers in his ear. "What? Oh. It's not his birthday." No, it was 14 years ago today that Harry Nilsson's heart gave out.

It's appropriate though that tonight's celebration of his music takes place on the anniversary of his death, not his birth. Nilsson had a wicked, dark sense of humor, and felt that fun should never take a backseat to hard work - a philosophy that meshed well with the casualness of the performances.

Fifteen different bands and singers played 2 to 3 songs each, ranging from Quazar & The Bamboozled's sprawling, joyful chaos to Frank Stallone's surprising appearance with an acoustic guitar and several anecdotes about his friendship with Nilsson.

No, really - Frank Stallone.

This is what I learned from Stallone between his songs: Nilsson and he were both on RCA and Harry produced his album Hearts and Souls. They were next door neighbors and friends, and Stallone once ran into George Harrison while walking the dog from Rocky, named Butkus. Stallone played three songs from Nilsson's early record, Aerial Pandemonium Ballet, including a rather fine "Don't Leave Me," but with a lot more macho swagger than in the original.

The rest of the night was an excellent overview of L.A.'s independent music scene in all its forms. Tara Busch started the show, playing "One" before most people had shown up, which is a shame.

Frankel played a lovely "Dayton, Ohio, 1903," a Randy Newman song, that Nilsson covered on Nilsson Sings Newman, as well as "1941," which you can watch above (sorry it's dark).

Sara Melson had a song taken out from under her by Stallone (how many people can say that?), but recovered with a couple of movie tracks, "Everybody's Talkin'" and "I Will Take you There," from the mostly forgettable Skidoo.

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From the New York Times:

"When news surfaced over the weekend that 50 Cent, Wyclef Jean, Timbaland and other rap stars had been implicated in a steroids investigation, some hip-hop fans were shocked, but to many in the industry the accusations seemed inevitable."

Oh, how our collective pride in these role models has been crushed! We expect such antics from baseball players and speed skaters, but rappers?! The shame...

Here then, for the guardians of culture amongst us, is a short list of musicians that we believe to be free from human-growth hormones. You can program your iPods accordingly.

10. Thom Yorke

Epilepsy medication seems a more likely drug of choice than steroids for the poor lad.

9. Amy Winehouse

Clean as a whistle. No problems here.

8. Ruben Suddard

If there was a 20 pound pork chop made out of steroids, then we might suspect the jolly Idol-beast. As it is, he's probably safe. Though I wouldn't leave any small children around him, particularly if they're covered in gravy.

7. Henry Rollins

Mr. Clean. Rollins doesn't drink, doesn't smoke, definitely isn't popping X or making a bong out of a Pepsi can. But he's not young anymore either, and it'll get tougher and tougher to keep those guns loaded. For now, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, but if he still looks like he could bend steel beams five years from now, then he'd better piss in the cup for lab boys.

6. Britney Spears

Yeah, yeah, it's all a horror show, and Dr. Drew says we're watching her die before our glazed-over eyes, but let's not think about that. The new Esquire cover - a tribute to an Angie Dickinson photo from the mag in '66 - is just the kind of thing to get the bad taste out of our mouths, and replace it with the ideal kind of virgin/whore paradox that's gone so dreadfully wrong in her life. Anyway, whatever the hell Britney's putting in her body - Ho-Ho's, bottles of gin, Popeye's 12 Piece Family Meals, it's not steroids. She may have packed on some pounds (praise the airbrushers), but she's not gonna lift K-Fed up over her head and body slam him on to the judge's bench.

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“You may all go to Hell...I will go to Texas”-Davy Crockett

Davy Crockett's tombstone reads: "Davy Crockett, Pioneer, Patriot, Soldier, Trapper, Explorer, State Legislator, Congressman, Martyred at The Alamo." It fails to mention that he killed a bear when he was but a wee lad of three, but hey, there's only so long you can go with an epitaph before you start to bore people. Crockett also wrote a book, the creatively titled, Narrative of the Life of Davy Crockett. Though it contains no mention of Silverlake, it does have an entire chapter on the proper way to wear buckskin. ("Snug, with just enough room to breath.")

Over the years, the legend of Crockett has manifested itself in various forms. There was the Disneyfied, coonskin-cap wearing, King of the Wild Frontier, popularized by Fess Parker in such films as Davy Crockett Goes to Congress and Davy Crockett and the River Pirates. There was Davy Crockett as gay cowboy (presumably) in Davy Crockett: Rainbow in the Thunder. There was Davy Crockett as drunk existentialist, as played by Billy Bob Thornton in 2004's maligned, The Alamo. And as 2008 dawns, with its nebulous promise of a shift of the winds, it is time to unveil the latest incarnation of Crockett folklore: the hipster Davy Crockett.

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Panic at the Disco at Studio 540 of the Honda Corporation's headquarters, Torrence, January 10.

By Julie Seabaugh

Around 250 VIPs, suits and press members -- and a few lucky teenagers -- gathered Thursday afternoon inside Studio 540 of the Honda Corporation's Torrence headquarters for a media event featuring an acoustic set by Panic at the Disco, who are headlining the 2008 Honda Civic Tour.

Currently sans the exclamation point that punctuated the band name since its 2005 inception, singer Brendon Urie, guitarist/lyricst Ryan Ross, drummer Spencer Smith and bassist Jon Walker were introduced by tour veteran Mark Hoppus (blink-182, +44). Sporting a black Atticus tee and sky-high hair, Hoppus described the Decaydance recording artists’ look as “kind of like Oliver Twist and kind of like pirates,” gleefully kicked over microphone stands, then poked fun at the “lime-green, fairy-painted” Civic that Panic designed and will give away to a contest winner upon the tour’s completion.

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1. Not being just any geek off the streets

How To Avoid Being A "Geek Off the Streets: Learn how to how be to handy with the steel and earn your keep.

Best Models to Emulate: Gay steel workers, Andrew Carnegie, Iron Man

2. Not Tweaking When You See a Car Full of Girls

How To Avoid Tweaking When You See a Car Full of Girls: Drink less coffee.

Best Models to Emulate: Nate Dogg, Warren G, Dylan McKay

3. The Wisdom to Avoid Dice Games on 21 and Lewis

How To Avoid Dice Games on 21 and Lewis: Consult AOL City Search for a more suitable and safe environment to find games of chance and miscellaneous sinning.

Worst Models to Emulate: Pete Rose, Nicky Arnstein. Dice Raw

4. The Ability To Glide And Swerve So Hard That You Make Hookers Hit the Curb

How To Glide and Swerve Properly: Malt liquor.

Best Models to Emulate: E-40, Too Short, Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman.

5. The Will To Pull Out Your Strap And Lay Busters Down (If Necessary)

How to Obtain This Will: Nihilist German Philosophy.

Best Models to Emulate: Nietzsche, Heidegger, Buster Keaton.

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1. If one were ever to try to lure a human woman back to one's spaceship for a late-night probe, it is highly advisable to try to find women dancing in their g-strings and proceed to wave large bills in front of them.

2. When the gangsters come in girls will invariably pause. However, it should be noted that they may just be playing freeze tag.

3. The only thing that girls love more than $100 bills and g-strings is making out with each other in front of Nate Dogg.

4. If you are a famous R&B singer like Nate Dogg, it is possible to get 10 girls to pay you just so they can lay you. This is an astonishing feat. Either that or Nate Dogg is just Mormon. (No Mitt.)

5. Even an alien with scant knowledge of West Coast G-Funk would be shocked by the astonishing increase in the hotness of the video ho, as evidenced by Nate Dogg's "Indo Smoking" excursion a mere seven years prior.

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In honor of Nate Dogg (who's currently recuperating in a rest home after somehow having a stroke at 38)) and because I really just want to watch old G-Funk videos for the rest of the week, the next couple days will be dedicated to excavating random Nate Dogg songs. Happy New Year.

1. Let it be said unequivocally. Warren G> Warren G. Harding > Mike Huckabee.

2. Was there really a four-month stretch in college where every time my friends and I got high, we would listen to this song and "Glock-O-Pop?" And if so, how was it possible that this corresponded with my highest-ever GPA?

3. This video's budget: $2,123 (including 15 roast beef sandwiches, 24 hot dogs and 12 gallons of Kool-Aid). The amount of weed smoked on the set of this video: 3 pounds or $15,000, whichever one came first.

4. How is it possible that Nate Dogg can make singing about changing his thread-bare socks sound this smooth? I blame Kirk Radomski.

5. Snoop Dogg's ghostwriter? Easy job or easiest job.

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1. Is it ever a bad idea for rappers to open their video with shots of them buying 40's at the liquor store?

2. Nate Dogg> a lump of aluminum foil> Akon?

3. Is the only thing better than a G-Funk classic from 1993, a video of said G-Funk classic interspersed with clips from the John Singleton opus, Poetic Justice?

4. When Singleton decided to cast Q-Tip as Janet Jackson's slain boyfriend,Markell, and 2Pac as her new boyfriend, Lucky, was he foreshadowing the eventual demise of the left-field Native Tongues movement in exchange for the hard-core posturing of gangster rap, or have I just succumbed to the oh-so-meta-temptation of smoking indo smoke while listening to indo smoke?

5 . Is the reason for Mista Grimm's complete and utter disappearance from rap post-93, simply the result of his adopting an east coast accent and changing his name to U-God?

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The first First Friday of 2008 at the Natural History Museum featured local faves Sea Wolf.

DJ's keep it rolling the lounge, with a captive audience in the background.

Afternoons open the music portion of the night with an already packed house. Be sure to get there early to take part in the open discussion with a real live scientist (which I missed due to the rain) before the bands start upstairs.

All photos by Timothy Norris. To see a full slideshow of the event, click here.

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5. Dungen-Tio Bitar [Kemado]

Dungen did not tour this record in America. This is because the band's mastermind, Gustav Estjes was rumored to be alone in the snowy Swedish hinterlands, ingesting enough hallucinogens to give Hunter S. Thompson pause, and trying to untangle the beautiful mess of sounds stampeding inside his head. On the band's website, Estjes readily admits that his entire sonic leitmotif descends from the memory of being eight years old, hearing his mother’s copy of Are You Experienced? for the first time.

But Jimi Hendrix is merely the jumping off point for Estjes' lysergic symphonies; aided by Swede postman by day/guitar god by night Reine Fiske, Dungen spit back an impossibly melodic synthesis of the ’60s and early ’70s, seamlessly blending orange sunshine-laced Hendrix solos, snaking Revolver sitars, and some weird willowy flutes a la Aqualung. This is dusty analog music, buzzing with a drugged red-eyed glow, all spray-paint and candy color. It's not the sort of artistic statement that promises to change anyone’s life (unless you're this fellow), but Tio Bitar is a great work of escapist art, the sort of essential record I’d pick for any hypothetical list of desert island necessities.

MP3: Dungen-"Gor Det Nu"

4. Ghostface Killah-The Big Dough Rehab [Def Jam]

The people who bitched about The Big Dough Rehab's lack of originality are the types who would've complained that Rembrandt painted too many pictures of Dutchmen with bushy mustaches and black felt hats. They're missing the point: like the famed 17th century portraitist, Ghost's brilliance lies in his innate ability to humanize even the most stiff figures and breath life into the most tired of tropes. "Yolanda's House" (explained at length here) should be merely another Wu heist, instead it thumps off the speakers with a novelist's eye for detail, from Ghost's meal of french fries and fish sticks, to Meth reprimanding Starks for laughing at his asthmatic girlfriend, to Raekwon's description of a drug connect as wearing a lot of "loud shit, you know that Steve Rifkind-style shit."

Superficially, this just another casually brilliant Ghostface album, but underneath its veneer a greater linearity and thematic consistency emerges (save for "White Linen Affair," which is plain retarded). If heads were chagrined that The Big Dough Rehab lacked "weird" songs about seeing Sponge Bob underwater, their absence came in exchange for a focus on deeper themes: mortality, a desire to repent, the proverbial Devil on Ghost's shoulder that that believes that life should be "Bentley's and big bills, bottles, biscuits, bitches, blunts, [and] bad boys bodying pit bulls" (as declared on "Paisley Darts.") Cinematically arranged, even seemingly head-scratching decisions like "The Prayer" have a warped logic to them, with Ox's supplications serving as a second act turning point of sorts, with Ghost navigating treacherous femme fatales and mob shootouts in the third act, before ultimately recognizing life's fragility and the need to "slow down" on the finale. Of course, it isn't as consistently thrilling as Supreme Clientele, but it's still a lot more fun than this guy.

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The new video for "When Cold Air Goes to Sleep," from the Radar Brothers' upcoming Auditorium, does exactly what a clip should: sent me racing to the CD to see if the whole thing, which I've just listened to a few times so far, is as great as this song. The video's directed by Bradley Beesley. Take a moment and watch it.

The Radar Brothers kick off their January residency at the Echo this Monday, and cap the month with Auditorium's release on January 29.

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10. Spoon-Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga [Merge]

Sasha Frere-Jones is a joke and Spoon can prove it. I mean, if all I had to judge indie rock on was the Arcade Fire and the Decemberists and Sufjan Stevens (all acts I like), maybe I might come up with something as hackish as his risible blow-up, but the best R&B band in the world is comprised of four white dudes who split time between cities the white can't get enough of (Portland and Austin) and they record for Merge, who also claim such chocolate thunder as The Clientele, White Whale, Destroyer and…Arcade Fire. Because when you use the literal term "rhythm and blues," that's pretty much all Spoon songs consist of, and Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga could very well be the culmination of everything the band has done to date, from the frightening minimalism of "The Ghost Of You Lingers" to the rousing fist-pump of "Black Like Me" (ha!).

One thing I've noticed is how Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga is seemingly overperforming on year-ends considering that its release was met with a sort of golf-clappy, "yeah- it's good, but it's Spoon- the fuck you expect?" I mean, even Cokemachineglow named it #1, a funny result considering that from what I can cull from an occasional glance, they've made it an objective to bitch about everything Pitchfork does by writing in a mostly unreadable style reminiscent of someone trying to parody PFM in, say, 2001. Good luck with that, guys. But it got me thinking- what would a bad Spoon song even sound like? The fact that it hardly even seems plausible is the best sort of compliment I can give these guys.--Ian Cohen

9. Iron & Wine-The Shepherd's Dog [Sub Pop]

In hindsight, the title track of Iron & Wine's 2005 Women King EP, with its shaggy, moonshine mythology and twisted acoustics, should've tipped us off that Sam Beam was capable of something like this. Prior to that he'd fallen victim to "this sounds like Nick Drake but not as good" coffee-shop folk ghetto. But on Shepherd’s Dog, Sam Beam takes the proverbial great leap forward, flashing an astonishing compositional growth honed by stints on tour with Califone and Calexico.

Ragtime waltzes like “The Devil Never Sleeps” stomp with saloon piano keys and a locomotive rhythm section, split open by searing bursts of electric guitar. On “White Tooth Man,” Beam rifles off off a jangling, unsettling jam, full of slinking sitars and lyrics about white toothed men selling guns and plain clothed cops talking to Indian chiefs and other pulp, sepia-toned images. Ignore the Gauguin-were-he-into-bestiality album cover and those neutered Garden State-era caterwauls he used to be known for, Sam Beam is a great songwriter and The Shepherd's Dog is a gorgeous, haunting slice of Southern Gothic.

MP3: Iron & Wine-"Boy With A Coin"

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15. The White Stripes-Icky Thump [Warner Bros]

Icky Thump is the sound of Jack White remembering how to have fun again. Get Behind Me Satan was cool and all but let's get real, no one really wanted to hear melancholy piano ballads and acoustic love-lorn laments that may or may not have been about Renee Zellweger marrying the most closeted man in music not nicknamed Weezy Fitzgerald Baby. On Icky Thump White thankfully sheds the marimbas and mustaches of his last record, picks up his axe and rocks the fuck out. If this were hip-hop, you'd say that he's got his swag back.

Indeed, the heartbroken spite that lurked underneath Get Behind Me Satan is gone, replaced with a smirk, the occasional bag pipe (shades of Flintheart Glomgold) and a snarling hissing guitar that White can make squawk better than anyone in contemporary music. On "Rag and Bone," Meg and Jack escape cast themselves as junk-collecting scavengers. "Conquest" features White covering Patti Page like Robert Plant had he grown up a toreador. Icky Thump marks the longest the White Stripes have ever taken to make a record: three weeks. And it shows in its fully-fleshed out arrangements and White's best lyrics since White Blood Cells. Once more, Jack White has tunneled his way out of the traps he's set for himself, proving himself worthy of being called the last great rock star.

14. Dalek-Abandoned Language [Ipecac]

Free jazz, that's how I'm gonna write it, pure inspiration out of the blob in the brain. So, Dalek. One word: ether. The ether of sound, choirs filling cathedrals to the rafters with ghastly, pristine wails. Boom bap, for serious, better than even Jigga or Kanye, and more assured to, not needing to satisfy anybody but themselves. The ether of language, i.e., language BEING ethered, cultures being erased with time and shifts in tonality and idioms. Complex shit.

Then there's you being ethered. Incinerated by dense yet vulnerable wordplay that isn't preaching, really, not the way it did through the guitar pulpit of Absence. Erased like the language it describes. Entangled in ten-minute yarns of Boards of Canadian bliss. Stuck in a horror show that would give Scott Walker nightmares and cushion Stanley Kubrick's dreams. There's a song called "Lynch" where eagle claws cut cello strings. It's a double meaning, "lynchian" in two ways.

Some may say that rap albums this challenging are trying too hard. The real problem is that you're not trying hard enough --Tal Rosenberg

MP3: Dalek-"Bricks Crumble" (Left-Click)

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