Twos
- Thread starter james
- Start date
bsuwolf said:I totally ride for "God's Cop"....Shaun Ryder used to really wild out with his lyrics
Dude is great, for sure. And I'm picky.
Alas, it has been brought to my attention by soulstrut's Liverpool/Berlin Bureau that the lyrics I quoted are in fact from "Kinky Afro," and not "God's Cop." Thus, in place of ???Son, I???m thirty / I only went with your mother ???cause she???s dirty???, please substitute "Man, did you fook it? / Baby brother, I took it!", and in place of "extra gully," please substitute "extra extra gully."
Thank you.
Dude is great, for sure. And I'm picky.
Alas, it has been brought to my attention by soulstrut's Liverpool/Berlin Bureau that the lyrics I quoted are in fact from "Kinky Afro," and not "God's Cop." Thus, in place of ???Son, I???m thirty / I only went with your mother ???cause she???s dirty???, please substitute "Man, did you fook it? / Baby brother, I took it!", and in place of "extra gully," please substitute "extra extra gully."
Thank you.
Two monumental Punky Brewster episodes:
Cherry plays hide and seek in the abandoned refrigerator. (a major life lesson for me. Seriously informative. I'll never forget that).
Punky is jealous that Margot got tits. (Soleil later in life needs a breast reduction).
Cherry plays hide and seek in the abandoned refrigerator. (a major life lesson for me. Seriously informative. I'll never forget that).
Punky is jealous that Margot got tits. (Soleil later in life needs a breast reduction).
Lemme start by saying that James has set a very high bar here. [As as aside: you know that I will forever ride for that first Jackson Browne record--so much so that I've never even heard of the Rock Me On the Water cover you mentioned.] I find myself wishing that the Strut had a Like button for all of his posts, which makes me realize that the advent of social media has, in some ways, lowered the level of online discourse. Why reply with, ya know, a bunch of words when you could just click Like? I'm as guilty as anyone.
With that...
Two Ungoogleable Clips that Would Make Great Mixtape Soundbites:
- At some point in the '80s, Dana Carvey and Phil Hartman were doing their Johnny Carson and Ed McMahon impersonations. I wanna say it was for some MTV awards show, but I can't be sure. Anyway, at one point, they cut to Phil playing a very drunk fake Ed. He's sitting on the beach, holding a tumbler, and he slurs, "Tonight's show is brought to you by Pepsi." Then he looks at his drink and says, "Not a bad mixer."
- There was a commercial in the '70s for a piano dealer. It was very of-the-era, complete with moody music and stop-motion animation, and told the story of a boy to whom no one would listen. His friends wouldn't listen. His parents wouldn't listen. Even his cat wouldn't listen. (Cue animation of giant lion as his cat.) Then, the boy learns to play the piano and, don'tcha know, everybody's all on his nutsacc. "An amazing thing happened. Everyone listened. Even his cat."
Two Divisive Strutteurs Whose Presence I Sorely Miss:
- Faux_Rillz
- Bambouche
Two Smells That Make Me Angry:
- Patchouli. Shit smells like spicy dirt--and you applied it on purpose?
- Actually, there's the only one, but I hate it enough to list it twice, so I hope you'll allow "Lingering Stench of the Patchouli-Wearer Who Just Walked By."
Two Looks I Can't Abide:
- Dudes with the purposely loosened neck ties. Stop it. You are trying too hard.
- Properly tied-necktie WORN WITH SHORTS. I had never seen this before today, but now I have seen it twice. In different ZIP codes. And know that these critiques come from someone who rocked a suit vest with a bolo back in the (Chess King) day. (In my defense, I was in high school; I throw myself on the mercy of the jury.)
Two Disparate Albums that Band of Horses Makes Me Think of at Times:
- Neil Young Harvest
- My Bloody Valentine Loveless
With that...
Two Ungoogleable Clips that Would Make Great Mixtape Soundbites:
- At some point in the '80s, Dana Carvey and Phil Hartman were doing their Johnny Carson and Ed McMahon impersonations. I wanna say it was for some MTV awards show, but I can't be sure. Anyway, at one point, they cut to Phil playing a very drunk fake Ed. He's sitting on the beach, holding a tumbler, and he slurs, "Tonight's show is brought to you by Pepsi." Then he looks at his drink and says, "Not a bad mixer."
- There was a commercial in the '70s for a piano dealer. It was very of-the-era, complete with moody music and stop-motion animation, and told the story of a boy to whom no one would listen. His friends wouldn't listen. His parents wouldn't listen. Even his cat wouldn't listen. (Cue animation of giant lion as his cat.) Then, the boy learns to play the piano and, don'tcha know, everybody's all on his nutsacc. "An amazing thing happened. Everyone listened. Even his cat."
Two Divisive Strutteurs Whose Presence I Sorely Miss:
- Faux_Rillz
- Bambouche
Two Smells That Make Me Angry:
- Patchouli. Shit smells like spicy dirt--and you applied it on purpose?
- Actually, there's the only one, but I hate it enough to list it twice, so I hope you'll allow "Lingering Stench of the Patchouli-Wearer Who Just Walked By."
Two Looks I Can't Abide:
- Dudes with the purposely loosened neck ties. Stop it. You are trying too hard.
- Properly tied-necktie WORN WITH SHORTS. I had never seen this before today, but now I have seen it twice. In different ZIP codes. And know that these critiques come from someone who rocked a suit vest with a bolo back in the (Chess King) day. (In my defense, I was in high school; I throw myself on the mercy of the jury.)
Two Disparate Albums that Band of Horses Makes Me Think of at Times:
- Neil Young Harvest
- My Bloody Valentine Loveless
hogginthefogg said:
- Properly tied-necktie WORN WITH SHORTS. I had never seen this before today
Really? This was a regular look for me back in high school. Real mental as my then-idol Michael Bivins would say.
Also, Bam was divisive? I got the impression everybody loved him, save for a knucklehead or two.
- Properly tied-necktie WORN WITH SHORTS. I had never seen this before today
Really? This was a regular look for me back in high school. Real mental as my then-idol Michael Bivins would say.
Also, Bam was divisive? I got the impression everybody loved him, save for a knucklehead or two.
james said:
Two youtube videos whose Comments sections will usher you into harrowing demimondes of middle-aged desire that you did not know existed:
- Ladies: ???Steve Perry sending you a kiss???
- Gentlemen: ???Dr. Hook-Baby Makes Her Blue Jeans Talk???
1. On that note: www.sadyoutube.com
2. Bravo
Two youtube videos whose Comments sections will usher you into harrowing demimondes of middle-aged desire that you did not know existed:
- Ladies: ???Steve Perry sending you a kiss???
- Gentlemen: ???Dr. Hook-Baby Makes Her Blue Jeans Talk???
1. On that note: www.sadyoutube.com
2. Bravo
It's funny, back in college I had a professor whose husband wanted to get rid of all his records (it was like two or three crates' worth), and they invited me over for lunch so I could haul 'em away. I did, gladly, and though there was some real good stuff, the bulk of it was typical post-hippie stuff that was not really up my alley at the time. Nonetheless, I felt like cherrypicking would be a dick move, and that the polite thing to do would be to take everything, so a day that had started with me listening to some Foetus or whatever on dubbed cassette ended with me having on vinyl minty and comprehensive runs of Jackson Browne, David Bromberg, and the like. I eventually passed a lot of it to my man Pruitt, but in the meantime I had to stash a lot of that shit so that people wouldn't get the wrong idea when they came over. I think at one point I actually draped some canvas over them.
Anyway:
My two favorite verses ever (in order):
- The second verse of Ghostface Killah???s ???One???
- Big Daddy Kane???s verse in the demo version of ???Raw???
The two basslines I first hear in my head whenever I see or hear the word ???bassline???:
- Tyrone Thomas And The Whole Damn Family ??? ???Seven Minutes Of Funk???
- Fab 5 Freddy ??? ???Down By Law???
Two instrumental intros made remarkable by the fact that there is almost no voice???Willie Nelson, Keith Murray, Lou Reed, Carly Rae Jepsen, whoever???that I cannot imagine coming in after them:
- Prince ??? ???I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man???
- Big Star ??? ???O My Soul???
Two songs that I???ve been listening to for a long time but that still make my head spin:
- Black Merda/Mer-Da - ???Lying???
I know songs that are more desolate and more don???t-give-a-fuck than this one, but man, something about the particular nihilism of ???truth don???t mean a thing to me / and lying, it don???t mean a thing to me??? hits me as just terminal. Total black-hole, bottom-of-the-universe shit. Life so often gets to a point where we want things to be simple, to be absolute, but then you hear something like this and realize that you probably don???t want it as simple as you think. This song is a lazy free-fall into something terrifying.
- Outkast ??? ???B.O.B.???
I???m gonna tell you two things so that I can tell you a third thing:
First: A few years back I spent a long time in front of a late-model mixed-media Frank Stella wall piece???it was probably about four feet by six feet, maybe bigger, overloaded and pullulating undeniably with color and texture. What really snared me was the realization???after looking at for a good while already???that peeking out from somewhere deep in the abundantly stacked strata were a number of low-relief carvings in sheets of thick plastic or rubber, which after a minute I recognized as the plates that had been used to print all the other pieces of the construction. I just kept going around and around, taking in this glorious thing that had buried within itself the tools of its own creation, and marveling at how it was so generous but still so closed.
Second: There???s a story by Terrence Holt called ???In The Valley Of The Kings??? that???s about an archeologist who, having noticed a gap in the otherwise meticulously annotated ancient history of Egypt???s pharaohs, goes searching for the pariah who occupied that gap, this outcast ruler who???d seen every mention of his life and reign so thoroughly expunged???his name cut out of every papyrus, chiseled off of every stone, sliced off of every tongue, for centuries???and removed entirely from the words of a people for whom words meant everything. What had been his crime? What could he possibly have done to have his existence obliterated so completely? The archeologist gradually loses his sanity to this monomania, but eventually locates, of course, the tomb, where he staggers for hours or days through a vast subterranean warehouse seemingly without ceiling, wall, or end, stacked beyond counting with artifacts, riches, and corpses. Just before the end of his rope, the archeologist realizes with a mixture of reverence and horror that the king was not erased from his own world, but in fact brought that world with him into death. All of it. Every cent, every word, every splinter, every citizen, he had them all buried with him.
So, I tell you all that just to tell you this: As Andre and Big Boi each continue to make their separate steps toward complicated individual visions and away from any real level of commercial or cultural relevance, there seems to be this growing insistence among those left behind that Outkast peaked with those first two or three albums anyway. And with no disrespect to all my down-home diehards, I am saying here today that that is bullshit, and that if Outkast really is over, the tragedy will not be the loss of whatever easy and muscular and eccentric swagger you first fell in love with, but will be the loss of the kind of maximalist and possible apocalypse represented by motherfucking ???B.O.B.??? That song comes on like septuplets, and brings within itself everything it needs; it???s got bass, it???s got scratching, it???s got MPC abuse, it???s got a gospel choir, it???s got Eddie Van Hazel guitar immolation, it???s got that thing in the first chorus where the first part(???Don???t pull that thang out / unless you came to bang!???) kinda swings against the beat a little but then when the second part (???Bombs over Baghdad!???) comes in it???s right on top of the beat and this already amazingly breakneck song seems to get pushed a half step faster, it???s open, it???s closed, it is the alarm and the fire, it is the pill and the headache, it is the book and the revelation, and I like fish and grits and all that pimp shit just as much as the next guy but god damn it, soulstrut, sometimes more is more.
Two interesting bits of pre-9/11 prophecy:
- Outkast, talmbout ???bombs over Baghdad??? in like 1999
- Herman Melville in Moby-Dick, talmbout ???Grand Contested Election For Presidency Of The United States??? and ???BLOODY BATTLE IN AFFGHANISTAN??? in like 1850.
Two groups that each essentially only have one song, but cot-dam, what a song:
- Q Lazzarus ??? ???Goodbye Horses???
- Juicy Bananas ??? ???Bad Man???
Two hooks I???m really feeling but am having trouble sneaking into conversation:
- ???So many nooses around my neck / as I stare at the sea waiting for the new ships???
- ???I am Damo Suzuki!???
Two somewhat revolting occurrences of music in the real world:
- I heard ???Calabria 2007??? playing out of the rolled-down windows of a black hearse.
- The last time I donated blood, I was attended by a nice Hispanic lady whose radio was playing David Lee Roth???s ???Just A Gigolo???
Two Alices:
- ??? ~ In My Fantasies??? - Funkadelic
- ??? ~ I Want You Just For Me??? ??? Full Force
The weekend starts here.
DJ_Enki said:Two places I wanted to go to as a kid because of incessant local TV ads:
1) Twitty City
2) Maggie Valley ("Ghost Town In The Sky")
Yes! There was some NY-based station that somehow reached South Carolina and on which I used to watch old--and, notably, complete--episodes of Saturday Night Live, and those Mt. Airy Lodge ads had much allure. The Florida jernts, too ("When yoooo need it baaad / weeee've got it good! / Come to Flo-ruh-duh!').
1) Twitty City
2) Maggie Valley ("Ghost Town In The Sky")
Yes! There was some NY-based station that somehow reached South Carolina and on which I used to watch old--and, notably, complete--episodes of Saturday Night Live, and those Mt. Airy Lodge ads had much allure. The Florida jernts, too ("When yoooo need it baaad / weeee've got it good! / Come to Flo-ruh-duh!').
Two most oft-thought of PSAs from my youth:
1. Captain OG Readmore
2. "Don't be a dummy"
Two lines from The Simpsons that I use in regular conversations:
1. "Huh, it's raining again."
2. "Yeah, they'll do that."
Two movies I'm most likely to stop everything and watch when on television:
1. Goodfellas
2. Shaun of the Dead
Two Liz Phair songs I'll never tire of, current output be damned:
1. "Divorce Song"
2. "California"
Two artists my 1-year-old GOT DOWN to tonight:
1. D'Angelo
2. The Impressions
Two artists my 1-year-old does NOT enjoy:
1. Built to Spill
2. Thee Oh Sees
(Girl likes reggae the most; simple, steady beat.)
1. Captain OG Readmore
2. "Don't be a dummy"
Two lines from The Simpsons that I use in regular conversations:
1. "Huh, it's raining again."
2. "Yeah, they'll do that."
Two movies I'm most likely to stop everything and watch when on television:
1. Goodfellas
2. Shaun of the Dead
Two Liz Phair songs I'll never tire of, current output be damned:
1. "Divorce Song"
2. "California"
Two artists my 1-year-old GOT DOWN to tonight:
1. D'Angelo
2. The Impressions
Two artists my 1-year-old does NOT enjoy:
1. Built to Spill
2. Thee Oh Sees
(Girl likes reggae the most; simple, steady beat.)
gareth said:
Two Liz Phair songs I'll never tire of, current output be damned:
1. "Divorce Song"
2. "California"
Yes to "Divorce Song." Two choices for #2:
1. "Go West"
2. "6'1'"
"Supernova" came up on my iPod the other day, and you know what? I played it twice. Still a quality tune.
Two Liz Phair songs I'll never tire of, current output be damned:
1. "Divorce Song"
2. "California"
Yes to "Divorce Song." Two choices for #2:
1. "Go West"
2. "6'1'"
"Supernova" came up on my iPod the other day, and you know what? I played it twice. Still a quality tune.
Everything must go:
Two things I sometimes unwittingly say in conversation just like they say on the record:
- Whenever I???m leading someone across a street or something, I'll say ???heeerrrre we go??? just like Slick Rick.
- When I???m shutting down a friendly argument or negotiation, I'll say ???Nah, nah???court is closed!??? just like Del Jones.
Two pieces of total mall-rat drum production that I nonetheless fuck with:
- The breakdown in Ke$ha???s ???Die Young.??? From corner to block to suburb, from figurative White Girl to actual white girl: the ???Grindin?????? beat begat ???Lip Gloss??? which begat this. Straight bleacher-stomp shit right here. Undeniable.
- The first twenty seconds of Uffie???s ???MCs Can Kiss.??? NWA???s ???Dope Man??? times Claire???s Boutique and played on 45. I feel like I need an instrumental and/or some penicillin.
Bands I used to think were the same band (US Edition):
- Psychic TV and Sleep Chamber. See, it???s like, the negative space between Sleep Chamber???s facing double E???s kinda somewhat resembled a Psychic Cross. In my teenage mind, this proved everything.
- L???Trimm and JJ Fad. I know I???m not alone.
Bands I used to think were the same band (UK Edition):
- Wee Papa Girls and Mel & Kim.
- Kevin Ayers and Kevin Coyne.
Underrated (record-related):
- Sly Stone
- Bruce Springsteen interviews. Mostly can???t really fuck with the music, though.
- Bonus Beat: Detroit???s Dave Hamilton
Overrated (record-related):
- Everyone.
- Everything.
- Bonus Beat: That one band you like.
Overrated (non-record-related):
- Juice.
- Getting drunk before supper.
Underrated (non-record-related):
- Kissing in a lawn chair.
- Fresh avocado with Crystal hot sauce.
Two non-rap phenomena that were formative to my young impression of New York City:
- Those ???I Love New York??? commercials.
- Bobby Brown???s ???On Our Own??? video.
Two excellent LP sides concerning our nation???s capital:
- Side One of Parliament???s Chocolate City.
- Side One of Dr. Buzzard Goes To Washington.
Two Canadian ladies who get props over down here:
- Alice Munro. Fuck the haters.
- Lisa Robertson.
Two subtle/unsubtle but still-cool-by-me uses of sound effects in records:
- In Dionne Warwick???s ???Heartbreaker,??? the ascending synth swell that sounds like a rocket launching just as she sings ???my love is stronger than the universe??????
- In the Candyskins??? ???Wembley,??? the crowd-roar in the background the first time the titular word is sung.
Two things I???m almost never happy to hear from two artists I really love:
- Prince???s ???rap??? voice (see ???Alphabet Street???).
- Stevie???s ???tough??? voice (see ???Living For The City???).
Two vocal noises whose allure I may never get to the bottom of:
- The exclamatory ???oh!??? halfway through every chorus of The Bobette???s ???Mr. Lee.???
- Susan Cadogan???s lilting ???uh-wah, uh-wah??? in ???Nice And Easy.???
- Lifetime Achievement: Whatever that invisible and inaudible and inexplicable thing is that happens between the two syllables of ???wai-ting??? on the intro to Madonna???s ???Get Into The Groove.???
Two animation sequences that kinda fucked me up as a young youth:
- The ???Bunyip??? portion of Dot And The Kangaroo
- When Aslan gets ritually shorn and killed in The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe
- Honorable Mention: Lo Cole???s back-cover and interior illustrations for the Welcome To The Pleasuredome gatefold.
Two intense pieces of music:
- The acapella for Frankie Goes To Hollywood???s ???Relax.???
- The Numbers Band???s ???Narrow Road???
- Bonus Beat: DJ Shadow???s ???Give Me Back The Nights???
Two really great songs that effectively function as support systems for a single transcendent and final line:
- LCD Soundsystem???s ???All My Friends.??? While the lyrics of this song definitely evoke a widely communicable feeling, I think they only make any kind of literal sense if you???re James Murphy. The thing that keeps people trying, though???keeps people trying to take these really particular lyrics about a particular type of working dj of a particular age and particular prestige and reverse-engineer them into something/anything that is at all applicable to themselves???is the pure want, so raw and so universal, in the unfinished and possibly unfinishable sentiment of the last line: ???If I could see all my friends tonight??????
- Stevie Wonder???s ???Never Dreamed You???d Leave In Summer.??? Unlike the relative inscrutability of the above, it becomes clear pretty early on that this song is a stately march and slow build toward something. The vocals increase in volume and the track increases in complexity, setting you up for some big, baroque catharsis at the end. Nothing prepared me???and a thousand listens later there???s still nothing that can prepare me???for the gutting simplicity of ???Why didn???t you stay????, not exploded from his lungs or keened upward with all kinds of vocal fireworks, but sung strong and plain in a mid-range that feels like it could go on forever and ever, never finding a thing.
- Arguably: Van Morrison???s ???Cyprus Avenue.??? Seven inescapable and incredible minutes of grown-up obsession and image and longing, that takes a sharp turn to some other place just thirty seconds before it ends, with one of the only non-visual descriptions we are given of the object of his desire: ???fourteen years old.???
Two surprisingly affecting instrumental versions:
- The Lox???s ???Ryde Or Die B***h???.
- Pierre Perpall/Purple Flash???s ???We Can Make It.???
Two instances of weak hustle in my neighborhood:
- Evangelicals parked down the block whose efforts at ministry consist of cracking their driver-side power window like two inches whenever I walk past and trying to hand me a brochure through the slot, while they bump Keith Pringle or some shit at ear-bleed volume while talking on their cellphone with the rhinestone cross on it and not making eye contact. Fuck that--God don???t like lazy.
- This guy named Derric who runs a one-man car service, and has all these flyers up that show him posing by his all-black Navigator or whatever under the headline: ???Because Everybody Needs a Plan D.??? Like, if neither your first, second, nor third choice is available, holler at your dude, I guess. I briefly considered the possibility that maybe dude was, you know, talking in code or something???maybe talmbout drugs, or reaching out to the lonely ladies, or what have you???but I really get the feeling that he just didn???t think the shit through.
- Bonus Beat: Cross-dressers who just aren???t trying. The perennial issue.
Two beguiling sideways glances in music videos:
- Susanna Hoffs???s when she sings the title phrase in ???Walk Like An Egyptian.???
- Kim Deal???s when she sings ???I???ll be your whatever you want??? in The Breeders??? ???Cannonball.???
- Honorable Mention: Azealia Banks???s throughout ???212.???
:
- ???I am un CHIEN! (chaud!)???
- ???Slicing up hot dogs / I want you to know!
???Feel the wrath of my bombast!???:
- Patti Smith???s ???Because The Night.???
- Beginning Of The End???s ???Jump In The Water??? (not to be confused with the neutered Ray Munnings solo version).
Kindergartener dynamite, guaranteed like your man Joe Willie Namath:
- The Trashmen???s ???Surfin??? Bird???
- The Tree Stumps??? ???Jennie Lee??? played at +8
Two ways in which the ascent of Soul II Soul affected me and my circle of friends:
- We became less hostile to the idea of wearing proper trousers. My man Jones tried to perpetrate with a blazer and some houndstooth chef???s pants, but we gave him an "A" for effort.
- We kinda got off of some of our punk-rock ???Man, fuck a string arrangement!??? shit.
- Bonus beat: We were utterly entranced by the mysterious Soul II Soul Dancer Chick. On the album covers she was shown only in silhouette, and in the videos only in brief, shadowy glimpses. You never saw her in full light and all at once--she was like a sexier version of the creature from Alien.
Two fucked-up but nonetheless great bits of sentence construction:
- ???Whenever I feel like / not too great at all??? (Prince???s ???She???s Always In My Hair???)
- ???Let me tell you somethin??? / what I???m talkin??? about / I???ll bet my bottom dollar there ain???t a cherry in this house!??? (Jerry Lee Lewis???s ???Big Legged Woman???).
Two things I would totally rhyme if I were one of those smart-dumb super-scientifical rappers:
- ???Venus Hottentot???
- ???Ondes Martenot???
Two things I???m surprised that I can still listen to and enjoy in 2013:
- Foetus???s ???Butterfly Potion???
- Large portions of DJ Faust???s Man Or Myth
Two records I wanna hear doubled up:
- Ronnie Foster???s ???Midnight Plane???
- The horn break from ???Sussudio???
Two record-related trinities I am still trying to understand:
- 33, 45, and 78.
- White collectors, black genres, and Asian girlfriends.
Two girls??? names kinda buried in great songs:
- ???Kayla??? in Girls??? ???Lust For Life???
- ???Ruby??? in Billy Garner???s ???I Got Some???
- Bonus Beat: ???Donna??? in The Replacements??? ???Favorite Thing???
???You are forgiven!???:
- ???I was dreaming when I wrote this / Forgive me if it goes astray???
- ???I cried when I wrote this song / Sue me if I play too long???
Two Halloween costumes I???m considering:
- Putney Swope: I hide unseen in the bushes while my man Ernest to rings the bell and then lip-synchs while I rasp, ???Trick or treat, you sons of bitches!???
- Ninja Man: I wear a long wig and something with shoulder pads, high-step up to other people and diss them mercilessly until they are forced via crowd response to give me their candy. Mini-Zagnut pon tooth.
Two great cover versions:
- Sun City Girls??? ???Tell Me Something Good???
- Jai Paul???s ???Crush??? (I???d pay cash money to hear this dude do ???Perfect Way???)
- Dishonorable Mention: Me, deep into a thirsty evening this past summer, murdering Champaign???s ???Try Again.??? Hand gestures and everything, whoadie. Not a good scene.
Two things I sometimes unwittingly say in conversation just like they say on the record:
- Whenever I???m leading someone across a street or something, I'll say ???heeerrrre we go??? just like Slick Rick.
- When I???m shutting down a friendly argument or negotiation, I'll say ???Nah, nah???court is closed!??? just like Del Jones.
Two pieces of total mall-rat drum production that I nonetheless fuck with:
- The breakdown in Ke$ha???s ???Die Young.??? From corner to block to suburb, from figurative White Girl to actual white girl: the ???Grindin?????? beat begat ???Lip Gloss??? which begat this. Straight bleacher-stomp shit right here. Undeniable.
- The first twenty seconds of Uffie???s ???MCs Can Kiss.??? NWA???s ???Dope Man??? times Claire???s Boutique and played on 45. I feel like I need an instrumental and/or some penicillin.
Bands I used to think were the same band (US Edition):
- Psychic TV and Sleep Chamber. See, it???s like, the negative space between Sleep Chamber???s facing double E???s kinda somewhat resembled a Psychic Cross. In my teenage mind, this proved everything.
- L???Trimm and JJ Fad. I know I???m not alone.
Bands I used to think were the same band (UK Edition):
- Wee Papa Girls and Mel & Kim.
- Kevin Ayers and Kevin Coyne.
Underrated (record-related):
- Sly Stone
- Bruce Springsteen interviews. Mostly can???t really fuck with the music, though.
- Bonus Beat: Detroit???s Dave Hamilton
Overrated (record-related):
- Everyone.
- Everything.
- Bonus Beat: That one band you like.
Overrated (non-record-related):
- Juice.
- Getting drunk before supper.
Underrated (non-record-related):
- Kissing in a lawn chair.
- Fresh avocado with Crystal hot sauce.
Two non-rap phenomena that were formative to my young impression of New York City:
- Those ???I Love New York??? commercials.
- Bobby Brown???s ???On Our Own??? video.
Two excellent LP sides concerning our nation???s capital:
- Side One of Parliament???s Chocolate City.
- Side One of Dr. Buzzard Goes To Washington.
Two Canadian ladies who get props over down here:
- Alice Munro. Fuck the haters.
- Lisa Robertson.
Two subtle/unsubtle but still-cool-by-me uses of sound effects in records:
- In Dionne Warwick???s ???Heartbreaker,??? the ascending synth swell that sounds like a rocket launching just as she sings ???my love is stronger than the universe??????
- In the Candyskins??? ???Wembley,??? the crowd-roar in the background the first time the titular word is sung.
Two things I???m almost never happy to hear from two artists I really love:
- Prince???s ???rap??? voice (see ???Alphabet Street???).
- Stevie???s ???tough??? voice (see ???Living For The City???).
Two vocal noises whose allure I may never get to the bottom of:
- The exclamatory ???oh!??? halfway through every chorus of The Bobette???s ???Mr. Lee.???
- Susan Cadogan???s lilting ???uh-wah, uh-wah??? in ???Nice And Easy.???
- Lifetime Achievement: Whatever that invisible and inaudible and inexplicable thing is that happens between the two syllables of ???wai-ting??? on the intro to Madonna???s ???Get Into The Groove.???
Two animation sequences that kinda fucked me up as a young youth:
- The ???Bunyip??? portion of Dot And The Kangaroo
- When Aslan gets ritually shorn and killed in The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe
- Honorable Mention: Lo Cole???s back-cover and interior illustrations for the Welcome To The Pleasuredome gatefold.
Two intense pieces of music:
- The acapella for Frankie Goes To Hollywood???s ???Relax.???
- The Numbers Band???s ???Narrow Road???
- Bonus Beat: DJ Shadow???s ???Give Me Back The Nights???
Two really great songs that effectively function as support systems for a single transcendent and final line:
- LCD Soundsystem???s ???All My Friends.??? While the lyrics of this song definitely evoke a widely communicable feeling, I think they only make any kind of literal sense if you???re James Murphy. The thing that keeps people trying, though???keeps people trying to take these really particular lyrics about a particular type of working dj of a particular age and particular prestige and reverse-engineer them into something/anything that is at all applicable to themselves???is the pure want, so raw and so universal, in the unfinished and possibly unfinishable sentiment of the last line: ???If I could see all my friends tonight??????
- Stevie Wonder???s ???Never Dreamed You???d Leave In Summer.??? Unlike the relative inscrutability of the above, it becomes clear pretty early on that this song is a stately march and slow build toward something. The vocals increase in volume and the track increases in complexity, setting you up for some big, baroque catharsis at the end. Nothing prepared me???and a thousand listens later there???s still nothing that can prepare me???for the gutting simplicity of ???Why didn???t you stay????, not exploded from his lungs or keened upward with all kinds of vocal fireworks, but sung strong and plain in a mid-range that feels like it could go on forever and ever, never finding a thing.
- Arguably: Van Morrison???s ???Cyprus Avenue.??? Seven inescapable and incredible minutes of grown-up obsession and image and longing, that takes a sharp turn to some other place just thirty seconds before it ends, with one of the only non-visual descriptions we are given of the object of his desire: ???fourteen years old.???
Two surprisingly affecting instrumental versions:
- The Lox???s ???Ryde Or Die B***h???.
- Pierre Perpall/Purple Flash???s ???We Can Make It.???
Two instances of weak hustle in my neighborhood:
- Evangelicals parked down the block whose efforts at ministry consist of cracking their driver-side power window like two inches whenever I walk past and trying to hand me a brochure through the slot, while they bump Keith Pringle or some shit at ear-bleed volume while talking on their cellphone with the rhinestone cross on it and not making eye contact. Fuck that--God don???t like lazy.
- This guy named Derric who runs a one-man car service, and has all these flyers up that show him posing by his all-black Navigator or whatever under the headline: ???Because Everybody Needs a Plan D.??? Like, if neither your first, second, nor third choice is available, holler at your dude, I guess. I briefly considered the possibility that maybe dude was, you know, talking in code or something???maybe talmbout drugs, or reaching out to the lonely ladies, or what have you???but I really get the feeling that he just didn???t think the shit through.
- Bonus Beat: Cross-dressers who just aren???t trying. The perennial issue.
Two beguiling sideways glances in music videos:
- Susanna Hoffs???s when she sings the title phrase in ???Walk Like An Egyptian.???
- Kim Deal???s when she sings ???I???ll be your whatever you want??? in The Breeders??? ???Cannonball.???
- Honorable Mention: Azealia Banks???s throughout ???212.???
- ???I am un CHIEN! (chaud!)???
- ???Slicing up hot dogs / I want you to know!
???Feel the wrath of my bombast!???:
- Patti Smith???s ???Because The Night.???
- Beginning Of The End???s ???Jump In The Water??? (not to be confused with the neutered Ray Munnings solo version).
Kindergartener dynamite, guaranteed like your man Joe Willie Namath:
- The Trashmen???s ???Surfin??? Bird???
- The Tree Stumps??? ???Jennie Lee??? played at +8
Two ways in which the ascent of Soul II Soul affected me and my circle of friends:
- We became less hostile to the idea of wearing proper trousers. My man Jones tried to perpetrate with a blazer and some houndstooth chef???s pants, but we gave him an "A" for effort.
- We kinda got off of some of our punk-rock ???Man, fuck a string arrangement!??? shit.
- Bonus beat: We were utterly entranced by the mysterious Soul II Soul Dancer Chick. On the album covers she was shown only in silhouette, and in the videos only in brief, shadowy glimpses. You never saw her in full light and all at once--she was like a sexier version of the creature from Alien.
Two fucked-up but nonetheless great bits of sentence construction:
- ???Whenever I feel like / not too great at all??? (Prince???s ???She???s Always In My Hair???)
- ???Let me tell you somethin??? / what I???m talkin??? about / I???ll bet my bottom dollar there ain???t a cherry in this house!??? (Jerry Lee Lewis???s ???Big Legged Woman???).
Two things I would totally rhyme if I were one of those smart-dumb super-scientifical rappers:
- ???Venus Hottentot???
- ???Ondes Martenot???
Two things I???m surprised that I can still listen to and enjoy in 2013:
- Foetus???s ???Butterfly Potion???
- Large portions of DJ Faust???s Man Or Myth
Two records I wanna hear doubled up:
- Ronnie Foster???s ???Midnight Plane???
- The horn break from ???Sussudio???
Two record-related trinities I am still trying to understand:
- 33, 45, and 78.
- White collectors, black genres, and Asian girlfriends.
Two girls??? names kinda buried in great songs:
- ???Kayla??? in Girls??? ???Lust For Life???
- ???Ruby??? in Billy Garner???s ???I Got Some???
- Bonus Beat: ???Donna??? in The Replacements??? ???Favorite Thing???
???You are forgiven!???:
- ???I was dreaming when I wrote this / Forgive me if it goes astray???
- ???I cried when I wrote this song / Sue me if I play too long???
Two Halloween costumes I???m considering:
- Putney Swope: I hide unseen in the bushes while my man Ernest to rings the bell and then lip-synchs while I rasp, ???Trick or treat, you sons of bitches!???
- Ninja Man: I wear a long wig and something with shoulder pads, high-step up to other people and diss them mercilessly until they are forced via crowd response to give me their candy. Mini-Zagnut pon tooth.
Two great cover versions:
- Sun City Girls??? ???Tell Me Something Good???
- Jai Paul???s ???Crush??? (I???d pay cash money to hear this dude do ???Perfect Way???)
- Dishonorable Mention: Me, deep into a thirsty evening this past summer, murdering Champaign???s ???Try Again.??? Hand gestures and everything, whoadie. Not a good scene.
I'm always saying to my daughter "let's do it" in a Tone Loc voice and often follow it right up with the Alex Van Halen drums...dadada dun dun dun dun.
Can't not do it actually. Help. Me.
Can't not do it actually. Help. Me.
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