We should have found this over @ ubuweb.

These brovas so far out they're looking @ Sun Ra in their rearview. We will be all back on this, looking for the the next few days forward.

@ the Crossroads

Although we wonder whether Nicki is thinking Orpheus when she hollas: " Now look at what you just saw I think this is what you live for," we sure that Bon Iver is already asking forgiveness when he's on " I-I crossed the line-line/And I’ll-I’ll let God decide-cide."

:: p o u r s a l i t t l e l i q u o r o n t h e g r o u n d ::

Although we believe there is no moral to a story at the end, someone could say that in the blues life of Varnette Honeywood, the moral is that if you keep on pushing, you get to keep on pushing.

We are intrigued by this quote, from NYT:

“Like many black children in L.A., I was taken back to Mississippi in the summers,” she told the reference work Contemporary Black Biography. “I grew up in the Black Arts Movement; was exposed to black artists; and I see myself as part of that legacy.”

What We're Hearing

Two thoughts this morning:

1.) The present Fela chic is something w/ which we haven't come to grips. Our relationship is old, dating back to a Christgau referral in the early 80s. Though the groove has been unshakeable since, this revival is hard to decode. It may be part of the same Ali/Foreman nostalgia, but it is so out of synch w/ present political wishes that it just doesn't make sense. And it may just be vault cleaning, but it's more powerful than comps of strange psychedelia from Benin.

2.) We keep coming back to the desire to get at the source, and we keep coming back to people like Guy Warren, jazzers on the east side of the Atlantic. We want to book that tells this story. And we want the devilin' archeology that puts it down on a 250-500 song playlist.

Like We Said, "Always generous..."

We must admit surprise and amusement. Go here.

Fo sheezy

All about it.

A pure person does not know what defenses to use against the vampire!

"To sum up Miles, I like to call him right now an original Batman. He was a crusader for justice and for value. He'd be Miles Dewey Davis III by day, the son of Dr. Davis, and at night in the nightclubs he's in his lizard skin suits with the dark shades and he's doing his Batman-fighting for truth and justice. But Batman had to be a dual personality too, like he knew the criminal mind. So Miles, whatever he did that was not criminal but like short-tempered or he cursed everybody out, and when he was younger he'd hit somebody, or like they say Miles treated some woman really bad, or something like that... I would say that Bruce Wayne, the guy that played Batman, he was capable of doing that too, that's why he was such a good Batman. [laughs] That's what they say about the Judge of the Supreme Court Justice. If he did do something, sexual harassment or immoral acts or something like that or verbalize, or whatever. Like they say, it is best to have someone in the Supreme Court who knows what the devil is like and what the angels are like. [laughs] A pure person does not know what defenses to use against the vampire!"

-- Wayne Shorter, Interview w/ Kristian Brodacki, 1992

Love and Theft

Look past the contradictions and embrace this for what it is: the tripmaster monkey conjuring the conjure. The dialectic turns more here in homage than in straight imaging.

Nikki Minaj = ?

Now look. We been hearing her all summer, just like we heard all about the "Milkshake"* in 2003. We been thinking 'bout her, not just in re: brovah Noz' interesting post on "Monster," which gets right the fact that she's not just a novelty.

She's playing out the dancehall queen this summer, right down to the islander growling flow. And she's busy showing all the boys that she's in the yard. It's what you do in the summer. Bring on the milkshake.

There's much more going on than the usual dancehall riot, here. There's a big thread in the tradition that takes the sassy over the top to something from the Marvin Gaye fantasy comic book maufactured by Prince in 1982.† It reaches back past Miles muse,‡ and what we gonna do over @ the blue light is throw up something that conjures this tricky line back, even further back. Back. Forth. Side to side.

They say I'm different? Of course. But from what?

*

†

‡

What We're Hearing/Two Faced Prospect

We're swinging easy, back and forth, side to side, between two takes, asking ourselves questions about the versionology going on in this house. Answers soon on the bluelight?

What We're Hearing

Working this Sonny Sharrock thing, and turning to the composer's composer for more of him. We look up. We look down.

What We're Hearing

Hear the drummer get wicked...

Glimpses

We're grateful for Peter Doig and Hilton Als, who referred us to the work of the islander, Boscoe Holder.