High-res In the course of preparing for my move up to NYC next week, I stumbled upon a box of old ephemera from back when I lived in Japan. This is the funniest picture of myself I found.

In the course of preparing for my move up to NYC next week, I stumbled upon a box of old ephemera from back when I lived in Japan. This is the funniest picture of myself I found.

“I was at a mighty fine BBQ joint in Chantilly, Va., with brothers Mike (guitar) and Chris Taylor (vocals) when Mike dropped a huge what-if on me about 30 minutes into some pre-interview chit-chat: Right before pg. 99 broke up in 2003, the band was booked to record with Shellac’s Steve Albini. For five years, pg. 99 (also spelled as “pageninetynine”) spewed some of the most chaotic, creative and rebellious punk rock from its base in Sterling, Va. For a moment, it was hard not to dream up how Albini would have captured pg. 99’s textured fury, especially after the band’s defining 2001 album, Document #8.”

What a bombshell—pg. 99 aren’t vegan? Jokes. Do be sure to read the rest of my buddy Lars’ interview with the band, which, in addition to containing the above shocker, also features both the interviewer and interviewees reflecting on what early ’00s skramz hath wrought, ten years after the fact.
  • NPR

Phil Rich: Why Glastonbury Works

philrich:

Part of Glastonbury’s charm therefore exists in a collective simplification of this work/reward binary. The physical effort of dragging a heavy trolley means that you can create your temporary home. The greater effort you put in, the greater environment you are able to create for yourself. The greater this environment, the more pleasurable it is going to be. This explicit, simple cause and effect is inherently satisfying. Glastonbury is just as much about creation as it is about passive enjoyment.

I’ve never been to Glastonbury but in his postmortem on this year’s festival, I feel like my buddy Phil Rich arrives at something of a universal conclusion with regard to big music festivals. There’s always some amount of discomfort involved in the festival experience (temperature, weather, distance, fatigue, etc.) and yet, so many of us patronize festivals year after year knowing full well that we’re going to be baking in the hot sun for days on end. I think Phil is right to point out that festivals allow us to feel like we’ve “earned” the right to see a performance, thereby making the payoff that much more satisfying. No pain, no gain, right?

“Thus my disappointment with my own enjoyment of I’m Gay (I’m Happy). I feel as if I’m being pandered to, or placated. Lil B is coming down to my level, and I’m all too wiling to pull up a chair for him. In other words, if this sorta-weird package of wide-eyed boombap turns out to be Lil B’s coming-out party, what was the point of the ambient album? Like the cop-out of its parenthetic subtitle, which implies Lil B as a harmless joker instead of a committed envelope-pusher, I’m Gay (I’m Happy) is altogether too willing to throw jerks like me a bone.”

In his review of I’m Gay (I’m Happy) for Prefix, my former PopMatters colleague, the vastly underrated hip-hop scribe Wilson McBee, ably outlines the duality that lies at the heart of Lil B’s latest. I’m Gay is a weird record by Lil B standards, which means that it’s a fairly conventional, even accessible, record by mainstream hip-hop standards. And as happy as I am that I’m Gay, an album that essentially began life as a publicity stunt, turned out to be a consistently enjoyable album of real substance, like Wilson, I can’t help but feel like this marks the beginning of B’s retreat from his own #based philosophy, the fundamental principle of which is a wholly sincere “just be yourself”. Here’s hoping that if one of hip-hop’s most endearing oddballs chooses to engage with the mainstream, he can manage to emerge with his personality intact.
andrewkells: Hey dudes, my friends in Monument just released their new EP Sweatpants Fever! Hop over to their bandcamp and have a listen. Monument will be kicking out the jams at Velvet Lounge on July 8th. With each new release, these guys continue to refine their delightfully self-aware take on second-wave, midwestern emo. If you grew up on Braid, Promise Ring and Rainer Maria 7”s, get ready to party like it’s 1996! What’s more, they even manage to turn in a totally solid cover of “Precision Auto,” which, as we all know, is the best Superchunk song. Can’t wait to cop this tape!

andrewkells:

Hey dudes, my friends in Monument just released their new EP Sweatpants Fever! Hop over to their bandcamp and have a listen. Monument will be kicking out the jams at Velvet Lounge on July 8th.

With each new release, these guys continue to refine their delightfully self-aware take on second-wave, midwestern emo. If you grew up on Braid, Promise Ring and Rainer Maria 7”s, get ready to party like it’s 1996! What’s more, they even manage to turn in a totally solid cover of “Precision Auto,” which, as we all know, is the best Superchunk song. Can’t wait to cop this tape!

The good folks at Akorn (not to be confused with ACORN) have spent the last few months hard at work on #killswitch, a documentary film that will tackle issues like net neutrality and media consolidation in an attempt to examine how increased control and centralization of communications networks could undermine the internet’s ability to serve as a platform for democracy. I’m set to appear in the film, alongside some of the brightest minds in the media reform movement (Susan Crawford, Robert McChesney, Jillian York, etc.). Peep the trailer above and if you like what you see, head over to Kickstarter to help support the film and reap some great rewards in the process. An additional excerpt from the filmmakers’ interview with me can be found here.

If you haven’t already, be sure to read Nitsuh Abebe’s latest piece for New York Magazine, “Why Miley Cyrus’s ‘Party in the U.S.A.’ Became the Osama Bin Laden Death Anthem”. As Abebe points out, there are a number of ways by which to measure the song’s zeitgeistiness, among them being the fact that one of the comments on the YouTube video (“LIKE THIS COMMENT IF WATCHING THIS VIDEO IS LITERALLY THE FIRST THING YOU DID AFTER YOU LEARNED OSAMA WAS DEAD.”) received 151 “likes”. Without taking anything away from Abebe’s analysis, I just wanted to point out that one comment on the above video, Three 6 Mafia’s “Bin Laden Weed,” currently has 172 likes. The comment in question? ”BIN LADEN IS DEAD, BUT WE CAN STILL SMOKE EM.” Just trying to ensure Three 6 get their due, especially after their offhand reference to a seldom-used bit of street terminology took on an unexpectedly literal bent yesterday.

High-res For whatever reason, the folks at STATUS Magazine decided to include me in their “Almost Famous” feature on up-and-coming music critics (click the above image to embiggen). Bear in mind that they interviewed me for this back in February, so most of my “predictions” now seem a little quaint. I’m glad they included my plug for Future Times, though—those dudes aren’t getting nearly enough love, if you ask me.

For whatever reason, the folks at STATUS Magazine decided to include me in their “Almost Famous” feature on up-and-coming music critics (click the above image to embiggen). Bear in mind that they interviewed me for this back in February, so most of my “predictions” now seem a little quaint. I’m glad they included my plug for Future Times, though—those dudes aren’t getting nearly enough love, if you ask me.

[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

Track:
600 Benz ft. Rick Ross & Jadakiss

Artist:
Wale

Album:
Self Made

641 plays

tumblinerb:

No shots intended at all, but I think this statement pretty accurately reflects a large portion of Wale’s local or formerly local fanbase. His (pre-Ross) music panders pretty specifically to an informed transient/outsider perspective of what DC is like by crafting simple, short term “hometown” recognition through brief and obvious flashes of DC-centricity. Oh shit! Ben’s Chili Bowl! I’ve been there! Nike Boots! I see the kids wearing those on the metro! For the most part he delivers these signifiers through a hip hop template that isn’t otherwise region specific, thereby creating an easily digestible pride for people who have no particular investment in the city. This makes a lot of sense too. Listening to Wale for the DC experience is like going to the Lincoln Memorial for the DC experience. Which is exactly how most people on earth experience DC. So in a weird, backwards way, his superficiality is as authentic a representation of the city as any actual, authentic DC rap would be. 

Noz is really on point here.

I’m very proud to have attended (and in a very small way, helped organize) yesterday’s 3D/DC event here in Washington. Hard to believe but this was indeed the first-ever conference on 3D printing/personal manufacturing. It’s mind-boggling to imagine where this technology will be in 10 years time and the number of industries it will revolutionize and obviate along the way. Someone made the comment that this was the equivalent of being at one of those storied personal computing hobbyist meetings in the late ’70s and I think that’s about right—we will probably look back one day and marvel at the fact that all of 3D printing’s early pioneers were once in the same room together. (Above: a short video I shot of the much-loved Makerbot in action.)