Clay: It’s always easy to tell MCA on the record. He hangs back in the mix, an affable scratchiness to his voice; without him, it’s all the leering caterwaul of the other two, flying unhinged into the stratosphere. But MCA hung back, sorta preparing: an absolute calm amidst all the ruckus. When all three shout to punctuate a line, which they do a lot on records, he’s the bass-note that makes it work, the low end theory in practice. Onstage, Mike D and Ad-rock are up front, hyping the crowd, but MCA hangs back—hung back, I guess, not shirking eye contact with the crowd but approaching the entire effort with a bit more concentration. He’d do the dance moves, but only because everyone needed to for it to look cool. Then he’d go hang back. It was cool. It was important, given that there were three of them. Now there aren’t—there are two Beastie Boys, but that’s not enough. There had to be three. But there will still be the records, and you will still be able to pick out Adam Yauch on them, every bit as clear and cool as a morning in May.

⊙ Keyword Tags: Beastie Boys, Mca, Rip

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The news broke earlier this week that the CBC, Canada’s public broadcaster mandated to protect and disseminate national artifacts, has been ordered to dismantle its vast CD and vinyl archives as a new measure to reduce operating costs and overhead. They’re knee-deep in the process of digitizing their library, of course, but that’s not enough to assuage alarmists, who argue that this is a dick move by Harper that will essentially destroy our cultural heritage. The Globe and Mail reports that the CBC archives currently house about 650,000 CDs and many more vinyl LPs, and though the broadcaster’s Toronto library will be at least temporarily retained, albums stored elsewhere across the country will be sold off or otherwise given away by March. The Globe also estimates that because the majority of the records have duplicate copies available in the Toronto archive, only 140,000 of the records to be removed are unique to the libraries getting rid of them, and those are the ones archivists will be presumably scrambling to digitize before the deadline.

⊙ Keyword Tags: Cbc

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When I first began listening to Gucci Mane, I was living in a building with a mild cockroach problem. Living with insects is a minor affliction: a roach skitters across the kitchen floor from under the fridge; you grab a shoe, and smash the pest. It’s an eight second kind of problem—other than a little bug gunk on your loafers, nothing to fret over. But if you’re the nervous type, infestation is kind of a harrowing experience. While living in this dilapidated building, cooking was a nerve-racking activity. I felt an acute rush of dread every time something small moved in my peripheral vision.

⊙ Keyword Tags: Gucci Mane

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The whole idea behind a “listening party” is admittedly kind of futile. It’s certainly admirable for labels or record stores or those with stock in a specific artist to encourage a communal listening experience for a new album in the download era, but it’s almost equally ineffectual in regards to detailed appreciation. Not only are you hearing the album in question only once, but depending on the circumstances, the music may have to fight off everything from indifferent crowd noise to questionable equipment playback.

⊙ Keyword Tags: Panda Bear

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While the primary appeal of Pinch’s Underwater Dancehall (2007) was just that it was some incredible dubstep, a secondary achievement was the way it called into question the myth of a “definitive” version of any given track. On Underwater Dancehall Pinch offered two discs, one with vocals and one without, the instrumentals accordingly tweaked in each form to maximize their doubled potentials. Trying to compose a tracklist mixing the best of the two sets was nearly impossible as each version of each song had their own merits—each track as you were listening to it felt like the “right” version until you heard the flip side. “Brighter Day” with Juakali is an all-time great dub single, turning dancehall on its head, transforming Pinch’s own “Qawwali” into something of a brilliant party jam through the addition of those vocals. “Brighter Day” without Juakali is an atmospheric masterpiece, its sonic scraps billowing and whipping around the lovely bones of that beat programming.

⊙ Keyword Tags: 2562, Dubstep, Faltydl, Pinch

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Everyone always said that the mainstream media killed riot grrrl. It’s a familiar narrative arc in the history of underground music: a scene born out of a revolutionary aesthetic and an unconventional lifestyle acquires a name, and within the span of a few years, someone has used it in an article as an adjective describing an expensive pair of pants. Mainstream media is an easy scapegoat for this sort of thing, but it’s frustrating to accept how pervasive these descriptions become, even when you think you’re smart enough to resist them. I can say “indie,” a word that once meant a specific methodology of record distribution and a shared set of principles, and we are all right now visualizing the same pair of pants.

⊙ Keyword Tags: Riot Grrrl, Sara Marcus

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Kanye West has grown too immense for mere parody. Sure, he careens across the zeitgeist like a rapidly-deflating zeppelin, and the comedic potential of an incredibly famous 33 year old man who has been known, literally and metaphorically, to writhe on the floor like a toddler and whose coiffures are downright Ron Artestian is too rich a well not to tap. Satisfying as those exercises may be, they serve only to reify the whole Yeezy-as-asshole narrative that’s been gaining credence since at least 2006 and became a near-universally accepted fact when Kanye interrupted the first of Taylor Swift’s many “You Really Like Me!” moments at the VMAs in 2009. Satire of Kanye West often is not commentary so much as exaggerated mimicry. Many examples are as disposable as any internet meme; they highlight the dearth of intelligent voices in a conversation surrounding one of the more fascinating musicians to pass through American popular culture in the last twenty years.

⊙ Keyword Tags: Kanye West

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Obviously, CMG is not a movie review site. Sometimes I desperately wish it was. Not often, but sometimes. Sometimes I find ways of twisting my obsessed thoughts about a film I enjoyed into a (reaching) piece of music crit. I’m about to do that again:

⊙ Keyword Tags: Edith Piaf, Frog Eyes, Inception

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As is the case with most long-time independent-minded members of a particular culture, there are parts of one’s self that start to reject the more blatant or obvious tropes of that culture. As a long-time member of indie culture, I quite a while ago went through that stage where recognizable “indie” characteristics were a turn-off/embarrassment. This is my independent mind’s rejection of the socialized and commercialized image of independent art, a.k.a. indie, now used to sell shows on the CW and New Moon soundtracks and films with Paul Dano. Of course, I’m also past the point where I point and sneer at indie shit, mocking Death Cab as I clutch my Galaxie 500 LPs or shuddering at hipster rap while rocking Stress: The Extinction Agenda. I got to the point where I just no longer cared. People will like what they like and I can’t derive some sense of smug self-satisfaction from thinking that my tastes are more independent or more unsubsidized than theirs. Hell, I’m sure somewhere out there is a corporation already waiting to meet my deeper hipster needs. Hov and Kanye probably even own shares.

⊙ Keyword Tags: Karen O, Paul Dano, Spike Jonze, Where The Wild Things Are, Wolf Parade

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"Nigger music," he said. He paused and thought deeply for a moment. "Yeah, that's what we do: full on nigger music. It's fucking great."

I wasn't quite sure what to say so I leaned into the couch and mumbled something like, "That sounds fascinating. I've got to come see that sometime."

San Francisco hipsters filled the corners of the dark apartment. Conversations oscillat ...read more

⊙ Keyword Tags: Dr Dre, Elvis Costello, Mobb Deep, Mutilated Mannequins, Rolling Stones

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