Tuesday, November 30, 2010

AOTW: Blackbird Blackbird and Star Slinger

So I'm a little late with this weeks AOTW, but there is good reason for that. As I mentioned in my previous post I had an interview in Seattle, The good news is that I got the job. The bad news is that I've had almost no time to write anything because I've had a pretty hectic week due to Thanksgiving and moving. But I've finally gotten myself settled in and now I present to you not one, but two artists for my AOTW to make up for it! I'm also because neither of these artists have released any substantial amount of work that warrants them a full post, so I’ve combined them because I think that they're work is worth checking out.

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Monday, November 29, 2010

Curren$y-Airborne Aquarium


I want to just start out by saying Kanye's new album came out last week and I could give two shits.  I am much more interested in Curren$y's latest ganja-jet-fueled project Pilot Talk II.  Pilot Talk I was a pretty solid album, and I feel like Ski and Curren$y's ability to play off of one another is quickly rising to a, dare I say it, Primo-GURU level.
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Thursday, November 25, 2010

Happy Thanksgiving.

Happy Thanksgiving from the still.grimey family.


Now go watch sports, be American, and commit random acts of gluttony.

Bonus: Young Jeezy gives back to his community on Thanksgiving. Snowman can I get an adlib?

Young Jeezy Gives Back for Thanksgiving from Decatur Dan on Vimeo.

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Monday, November 22, 2010

The Jam: In My Hood. The Artist: Freddie Gibbs.


Freddie Gibbs’s music and persona provide an intriguing perspective on the drab wastelands of the post-industrial Midwestern United States.  He comes from Gary, Indiana.  A city which is perhaps most famous for being a particularly disagreeable dump of a city and being the setting of The Music Man, an abysmal musical to which my mother subjected me as a youth during a time when, I suspect at least, she was trying in vain to raise the daughter she never had. 
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Thursday, November 18, 2010

AOTW: Mixtape Masterpieces

I'm heading to Seattle for a job interview and I haven't had anytime to write something up, so here is some sweet artwork for you all to peruse.
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Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Forget About Dre.

With all due respect to Marshal Mathers, mother fuckers don't act like, they have forgot about Dre. And for those of you already haven't, you should scrap the idea that if Detox is going to come out (which it shouldn't), that it's going to be good. It won't; or won't be nearly as good as it needs to be.
You can't keep building up an album for eleven years (yes, eleven years and one day to be exact; 2001 came out November 16, 1999) and expect it to even begin to touch expectations it's set for itself. That is, unless Detox truly proves to be methodone in audio form. I'm not saying it couldn't be, I'm just saying that it was January of 2005 when the good Doctor said "Look out for Detox" on The Game's hit "Higher". The odds appear to be against this one.

Dr. Dre: Not the young man he once was.
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Monday, November 15, 2010

Jamz of The Week: Afrocubism


This past week I was wise enough to check out Afrocubism at the Madrid Jazz Festival.  The group is composed of musicians from Cuba, several of whom were involved in the Buena Vista Social Club, and Mali.  Malian music is, in my opinion, the most accessible of modern African music, and the mixture of instruments creates an incredible portrait of the way that rock, blues, jazz and latin music have been reflected and reassembled in Africa, the land from whence they all came.
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Sunday, November 14, 2010

AOTW: Pinkerton


This is my favorite cd, ever.

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Friday, November 12, 2010

RIP Dave Niehaus, 1935-2010.


Seattle's voice of summer: Dave Neihaus, 1935-2010. RIP old friend.

I've never had more bittersweet homecoming than I had last Thursday:
After I had walked into my parents' and said my hellos/gave my hugs, my mom causally said "We saved these for you," and handed me the front page and sports section from that day's Seattle Times.
Because of my mid-term schedule, I hadn't had time to do very much of anything outside the school spectrum, so the front page of the Times reading "Dave Niehaus, 1935-2010 Our Voice of Summer" was devastating. And he truly was, among a multitude of other things, the voice of puget sound summers.
It's a surreal notion to try to grapple with; that the man who was a Mariner before any player even donned an M's uni, who was an embodiment of the franchise itself, died suddenly from a heart attack in his Bellevue home Wednesday night.
On Friday, I stopped by Safeco Field and signed my thanks and name on a poster for Mr. Neihaus outside of home plate, but I still can't fully grasp the idea that I won't hear him on 710am as I drive around the streets of Seattle.
Thank you for everything Mr. Neihaus, you will be missed; into the crisp autumn night goes the voice of summer.
Fly Fly Away.


A Mariner's fan says good bye to Dave Niehaus at his home plate memorial

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Sunday, November 7, 2010

AOTW: OFWGKTA


For this week's AOTW I’ll be taking a look at some cats from OFWGKTA, which stands for Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All, who are some kids coming straight out of the LA area. This crew of skateboarding ruffians are probably one of the rawest collective of rappers that I've heard of in a long while. These guys have lots of talent and can sound like Three 6 Mafia (because of the topics they cover) on one track or have a crazy DOOM like flow (albeit WAY more coherent) on another track. Thee are of 5-6 guys talented guys in the group that do everything: rapping, producing, skateboarding, art, and general mayhem, but the two stand out members of the crew have to be Earl Sweatshirt and Tyler the Creator. Tyler the Creator sounds like he smokes 30 packs a day while staying up all night producing chopped and screwed dystopian beats and Earl is just smooth when he spits bars and is a great counter to Tyler's gritty delivery. These dudes are just straight up gully. Don't believe me? Just take a look at this video of Earl Sweatshirt's video for the single “Earl”.


See what I'm saying, GULLY.
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JOTW

Tracy Chapman, a jacked, black lesbian with a voice much more masculine than my own, holds a special place in my musical library.  I have fond memories of car trips with my parents when I was a youngster, and of many a drunken sing-along in my more recent past, in which T-Chap's tunes played an essential part.  "Smoke and Ashes" is one of her forgotten classics.  Soulful as shit, slow, primed with a chorus as apt for clamorous drunken accompaniment as "Talkin' Bout a Revolution" and "Gimme One Reason,"  and a finale nearly as repetitive and powerful as "Kissed by a Rose," (which will forever reign supreme in my personal pantheon of drinkin' cutz) this week's jam may emerge as a serious contender for the latter quarter of your party playlist.   I have no idea why the person who uploaded this song to Youtube chose a slideshow of baby donkeys, but I dig it.


"I said there's fire down below, I said it's only smoke and ashes baby"

P.S.- A cordial welcome aboard to Ndo, that picture of New Edition rocking Pony's is one of the hardest I have seen in some time.

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Friday, November 5, 2010

Intro to the Ndo

(I'm The Guy on the Right)


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Thursday, November 4, 2010

AOTW: T-Pain

Tallahassee Pain aka Teddy Bender aka Nappy Boy aka T-Pain, born Faheem Najim is an artist that everybody loves to hate on. T-Pain's has released three studio albums that have all enjoyed success, all of this while his music is the main target for material for the current state of the music scene, which can be collectively summed up as watered down shitty ass music.
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Nappy Headed Do.

No Don Imus.
I'm talking about my boy Napoleon Do, a.k.a. NDo b.k.a. Nappy s.k.a. Nappy Didn't.
Anyways, enough with the __k.a.'s, already. Nap is a good friend of mine; one of my best friends, you could say. We went to college together at the University of Oregon (where your boy is still currently attending, and yes, where the number one college football team in the nation is from. Get at us!), and well, you could say that he is my asian brother, or, I am his white brother; but Nap would then proceed to ask me "GDBric, why's it always gotta be about race?" (and I'd answer: "because, mother fucker, we live in America. And like it or not, our country is always going to be about race, barring something mindblowingly progressive happening," but that's another rant for another time).
I digress.
The reason I'm writing this is because Nap just got signed in free agency and put on the still.grimey roster. Last night, dude hit me with this idea for a blog series he has, so I naturally decided to capitalize on it and have him start running a (fingers crossed) weekly segment on this space of internets. The series will be, as far as I understand, of an "Artist of the Week" variety. I'm not going to go too much into it because a) it's pretty fucking straight forward, and b) it's Nap's thing, so he's gotta do the leg work and break it down to you cats.
And don't for a second doubt this man, his knowledge of music would put most of us to shame. Dude knows what's hot before it even hits the stove, if you smell what I'm saying.

Napoleon Do has arrived; and he's finna drop knowledge on that ass.

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Shoe Porn: I Love You, Too.

It's no secret that I love sneakers. So today, when I saw a new Nike ad titled "The Love", I naturally had to watch it. I think the ad is dope, especially since it captures a variety of Nike demographics, in particular the sneaker giant acknowledging the dead stock/sneaker head culture (see: Air Yeezy's in both colorways; with that being said [shouts to Larry David!] I think i still hate the Kanye Tudda X Nike collabs).

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