Electronic Go-Go Non-Stop

Un-fucking-believable. Fuck yeah, it's a tireless repost but deservedly so. 7 years after I posted this little fucker I'm still break dancing to this shit in my kitchen. Still my most-est favorite lawn-mowing music ever. I won't bore you with a sad retread of the original post - needless to say I absolutely fucking LOVE this groove and would do anything to find out more about the geniuses behind it. Scatwerk?!?!? Fucking godlike. Enjoy.

Kill. Drive. Repeat.

Suicidal Ad-Rock

Digging deep into the mid-90's Grand Royal archives comes a vinyl-only oddity featuring Beastie Boy Adam "Adrock" Horovitz and original Suicidal Tendencies drummer Amery Smith. Between the many B-movie/TV show samples are a bunch of two-minute tracks of Horovitz tinkering with his vintage synthesizer while Smith gets some exercise with a slew of repetitive breakbeats. There are no real vocals per se, just a bunch of silly samples here and there - usually repeating the song title. BS 2000 is best described as a proto version of what Crystal Method and the electronic genre were priming to develop over the next few years. While a good number of the songs are instantly forgettable, there are some real diamonds in the rough. "Baby" is a cool-ass fucking track and deserves to be sampled somewhere by someone. "Copsucker" (which could have easily fit in on the Beastie's Mix-Up instrumental LP) and the weirdly dark "Thrift King" are personal faves. Smith proficiently showcases the jazzy versatility he brought to the best hardcore album of all time and Adrock seems to be having a blast figuring out what his Casio SA-35 keyboard can do. Of course the record has a tough time standing up to the current electronic stuff out there today and most of this could be mimicked today by a 10-year old on his iPad but what can ya do. Enjoy.

Nobody Beats BS 2000

If I Only Had A Brain

My junior year roommate fucking loved this CD-single (as well as all the other proto-techno/house bands  - al la Prodigy - that were blowing up at the time but that's another story) enough to curse me with a sort of Stockholm Syndrome opinion about it. By second semester I no longer wanted to kill myself as he blasted "Truth Is Out Of Style" through our miserable 600 square foot apartment - I actually dug it. Stumbling upon an mp3 of it the other day really uncorked a flood of memories from that great year. From Popov vodka bottle chugging marathons to gravity bongs in the fucking toilet - it was a fucking miracle I lived through it. Enjoy.

Lee Harvey

K-Tel Days...

While my 10-year old cracker ass may not have had this exact record, I know it was some variation of this 1983 German K-tel compilation - complete with a "how-to" poster of breakdance moves and a tiny piece of fold-out cardboard to practice on. Needless to say, I absolutely fucking sucked at breakdancing and was relegated to doing such special needs fodder as "The Worm" behind everyone else during our ridiculous cul-de-sac performances. 30 years later my dancing skills have not improved in even the slightest but it's still great to listen to the proto-rap of the era, back when everyone rapped about having a good time and before anyone outside of L.A. knew what the fuck Compton was. My favorite track (thanks in no party to a pathetically unhealthy appreciation of Breakin' 2: Electric Booglaloo) is George Kranz's "Din Daa Daa" - an epic of cheesy Kraut rock that is as addictive as it is annoying. And that's not all the German hip-hop you get on this one, a here-today-gone-tomorrow trio named Reflexx offers the silly "Let's Kratz (A-Ja-I-Jo)" - a great snapshot of the strange Teutonic new wave (championed by Falco) coming out at the time. But they're not the only Europeans on this international release, Italy's Righeira offer the strange "Dinero Scratch" which sounds somewhat out of place here, and there's a forgettable French band (Bandolero) as well. A couple of Grandmaster Flash songs (including his classic "Whitelines") legitimize the whole thing and Whodini makes an appearance with "Rap Machine" and "Nasty Lady". You'll probably recognize "Let The Music Play" by Shannon as well. As with any K-Tel release though, there is a ton of unknown placeholder fluff. Some are underdog hits (the weirdly cute "(Hey You) The Rock Steady Crew" and cheerful "Breakdancing" - a token "keep trying, you'll get it" anthem to close the LP) while some are rather unlistenable (especially the aforementioned Bandolero) - their inclusion on a record you were supposed to "pop" and "lock" to is a little odd.

Rock The Nation

Play More Music

Generally I try to keep politics on the sidelines with this blog. I personally do not give a fuck what people think or do as long as it doesn't get in the way of me or my life. But I especially don't care to have it shoved in my face with the token condescension of you typical activist know-it-all. With that being said, introducing the late-80's activist trio known as Consolidated. While their painfully persistent left-wing diatribes can grind the nerves after a while (I mean really, is there fucking anything they don't complain about?) the music is really fucking good. Mostly hip-hop with a slight industrial/electronic sound - the sampling and beats are absolutely off the hook. They vocals are reminiscent of Chuck D but are so pessimistic they make the Public Enemy frontman look positively pollyanna. It's no surprise the group recruited activist rapper Paris for guest vocals on "Guerillas In The Mist" - he fits perfectly with the group's "let me tell you how rich white men are fucking me over" vibe. Unfortunately that's my one gripe with the album - the vitriol is so interminable that it eventually just sounds like a bunch of pissed off teenagers bitching for the sake of bitching. Life ain't that fucking bad dudes, take a minute to smell the roses. Interestingly, the album is speckled with sound clips from their live shows in which audience members are encouraged to participate in praising or condemning the band (and all end up sounding like idiots). It's a pretty cool listen and was definitely ahead of its time. Enjoy.

White Boys Need Not Apply

I Gotta Escape!

Man, when this video came out in '89 I was fucking stoked. The sequel to Greg Stump's groundbreaking Blizzard Of Aahhh's, License To Thrill blew his previous effort away with more amazing quasi-psychotic footage of my then-personal heroes Glen Plake, Scot Schmidt and Mike Hattrup. Jesus, I must have watched the flick daily for nearly two years and still have the weathered clamshell VHS to this day. In addition to the skiing, the movie had a killer soundtrack - mostly electronic hip-hop proto-house stuff that I made many a fuzzy VHS-to-cassette copies of. Nasty Rox Inc. is the most prominent band on the soundtrack, a British dance/club/rock quintet featuring the profilic CJ Mackintosh (of M|A|R|R|S fame); their music is like fucking crack, you'll find yourself humming it for days on end. Also on the soundtrack is Hoodlum Priest, a one-man multi-instrumentalist and composer, and electronic music legends 808 State (with then-lead rapper MC Tunes). The soundtrack was never officially released (the only existing copies are promo-only UK cassettes) and the label ZTT shelved the tracks for years. Recently the Nasty Rox Inc. stuff has been officially released and most of the other songs can be found on the internet in one form or another (though the plethora of mixes and remixes makes a legitimate track listing somewhat tough). As a bonus, I included Nasty Rox's "Escape From New York 2" as a bonus track since I had it anyway (I did not include "Nobby's One" even though it is in the movie since it's not that great a tune and sounds pretty much like everything else they do). Unfortunately, I could not track down Kissing The Pink's "State Of Love," the trance-like background tune to the bungee-jump segment. I actually emailed the lead singer so if he hooks me up with it - I'll re-up the link...

11/13/14 update: Song has been acquired. Link re-uppage is done mangs. Enjoy.

Wooba Wubbaa

Ahhh, the memories...

Finishing up my 700th or so hour (seriously, the game says I'm 30 days in) of the painfully addictive GTA IV last week, I figured I outta pay some respect to where the whole "open world" idea in video games began: 2001's groundbreaking Grand Theft Auto III. I've been playing it for about 4 days now and man, it is HARD! All the expected nuances today's PS3 version has are gone - there's no autosave, no GPS (!), no cellphone (you're equipped with a fucking pager), you'll drown in 2 feet of water, you barely use the "R" and "L" buttons... it's a trip. And the suicidal cops are even worse assholes then I remember them being. Amazingly though, there is a sweetly primitive genius about the weirdly rendered visuals and gameplay - especially when it comes to the music. Video game soundtracks and crossover scores are huge business today, but ten years ago the entertainment world was still in its "video games are for nerds" mindset. Unlike GTA IV's twelve or so radio stations with over 200 licensed songs, poor GTA III has but seven stations with only a few songs to boot! And because music licensing for video games was such an unknown back then, Rockstar Games hired some studio help to create a few original tracks. One of these tunes was a nifty little techno blurb called "Electronic Go Go". Performed by the suspiciously named Scatwerk, it reminds me a lot of something Fatboy Slim would have come up with for a rushed B-side. Anyone today with an iMac and GarageBand's supplied loops could create the same in an afternoon but back then it probably took creators Craig Conner and Stuart Ross at least a weekend. And a lot of patience. I could only get a 2-or-so-minute sample of the song which I remixed/extended a little bit and added in a bit more bass (with GarageBand, 'natch). For the two people who read this and remember the tune, enjoy the cop-killin' drive down memory lane. 

R.I.P. Claude

 
Currently watching: The Hidden 
Currently listening to: M.C. Ren Shock Of The Hour