Friday, September 26, 2008

Fuck it.


But no, I'm not late for work, nor was I late this morning. But I digress. I need to blog. I let this blog die. I still want to RVG all over the place, but without writing much, that's kinda hard (might rupture my internals with too many Grachan Moncur III anecdotes coursing through my veins). So I'm back. Like cooked crack. My only promise is to not write about not writing. To quote Nick Swardson's criminally overlooked 2007 masterpiece, Party, "Shit's weak!!! Shiiiiitt's Weeeeaaakk!!!" And I ain't about no weak shit. Play with your playstation or something.

Anyway, last night's show at ye newe Summit, you know, the bigger Cafe Bourbon Street next to Cafe Bourbon Street, was pretty goddamn baller (EDITOR'S NOTE: SPELL CHECK DOESN'T LIKE BALLER?!?!? SEE SWARDSON QUOTE ABOVE!) if I do say so myself. First up was The Lindsay, who were celebrating the birthdays of members Gretchen and John. Man, this was my favorite Lindsay set in a boxful of grips. I have had my doubts about their new material in the past, but I think last night erased them. They're definitely louder and more rugged than the past, but their sound has been sharpened to a point, even when they slop around a bit. Which will happen on a birthday show. Watching Crow and "Dancing Suited Dude" shake and shimmy next to each other was funny.

Next up was the Guinea Worms. I really haven't focused on many Guinea Worms shows in my days, but this was another strong set for the evening. Will Foster has an intense stare and goofy/weird dance moves, which lead to some sweet, alternate universe stage presence. He also referenced the HOBOKEN CHICKEN EMERGENCY! I can never convince anyone of its existence, so Mr. Foster's efforts were greatly appreciated. (EDITOR'S NOTE: It turns out my childhood memories stem from a TV movie based on a children's book of some cult popularity, which is probably what Will was actually talking about. But the movie featured Dick Van Patten, Gabe Kaplan, and Peter FUCKING Billingsley, so that'll do JUST FINE!) Anyhoo, the rest of the band joined him in some surprisingly tight heavy rock jams. By the end of the set, the bass/drum sound was reminding me of "Bulls on Parade," which was really weird. Overall great stuff, though they threw out their "Free Pass To Sell $5-$6 of Merch To Andrew Patton Because We Mentioned the Hoboken Chicken Emergency" by not bringing any merch. Next time, fells!

Finally, headliners and pleasant Detroiters Tyvek came on to close the evening, and not a moment too soon, as they started at 1 AM and finished their sprawling, "no dudes, let's play some more songs" set around 1:50. It was a workmanlike effort, but it would have been better a bit earlier, which was not their fault. Anyway, I've recently been thinking about whether Tyvek works as the interracial "shitgaze" version of Cheap Trick. There's two nerdy-looking white guys, a cool-looking white guy, and two cool-looking black guys. OK, that sentence was kind of a joke, but kind of serious. The jams were plenty ramshackle, but still rocked pretty hard. I guess three guitars will help with that. The audience highlight of this set and the night (well, other than the running theme of Crow sticking his head in the woofer on the rockinest parts, ROFL) was "the human rock 'n roll spasm." This young lady apparently really liked Tyvek, and showed it by freaking the fuck out. Flailing arms, kicking/two-stepping legs, really weird one-shoulder dance (one shoulder moved forward and backward very haphazardly while the other one stayed relatively still), big hair head-roll (metal headbangin' style), and just general convulsions. Shit was ridiculous. I think I overheard her friends talking about escaping outside for a smoke because they couldn't stand to watch the carnage. I hope she controls herself to keep her friends, ROFL.

All said, a fine evening and hopefully a foretaste of the Rocktober to come. More writing ensuing!

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Whatevz

Yeah, I've lost the inspiration to write here, so I think this blog is about done. Maybe a new blog soon, about one particular topic so completely nerdy that no one will care about it (oh, I have one in mind) (EDIT: IT ALREADY HAPPENED!!!). That way I won't worry about how dead the blog is. I know, my severe gaps in content killed it, not you. My problem.

You know the drill. If this little sliver of cyberspace is somehow important to you, holler back in the comments, or tell me in real life, or something. Of course, a few people did that in '06, and that didn't have much lasting effect on me, so this time probably doesn't matter either. Sorry. I won't ever delete this blog, so long as I have control over that, so that's not a worry. Dinner time, so I'll weep my way to Grandma's. Later on.

Wednesday, July 09, 2008

B(l)ogging Down



TFD FTW!!! Anyhoo, what up? I hope you, my .435 of a reader, are having a great summer, or at least 43.5% of one. I'm doing pretty damn well, and definitely better than the home PC (little lunch break here). As previously chronicled, the amount of music stored on ol' Compy reached dangerously high levels in early June. The backup drive seems to be pretty solid so far, but the memory backup sync software (or my skills in using such software?) leaves something to be desired. So, it had previously backed up decent-sized files that I had since deleted. When it did not find those files on the computer, it decided to restore them! So, I came home one day to the message (to paraphrase), "You have 0 MB of memory left. Delete files now." @*$%&!!!!! So, I managed to get the computer back from that cliff and am now working on getting all the shitty or unlistened-to music off the computer and onto the hard drive (or recycle bin) EXCLUSIVELY. Compy is gradually getting less grumpy, so hopefully a large-scale purge will give me a sleek computing machine once again.

I am starting to have some ideas for new content, so begin holding your breath...now. You can stop holding it for those MP3 mixes I shiftily referred to last time.

Monday, June 09, 2008

We Are The Champions


40069 items, 107:09:20:19 total time, 200.59 GB. Mission(s) accomplished (see below for help understanding). I think this is the current e-Mount Everest for my digital music collection (Though you know, if I got this computer a terabyte, I could add a fifth number to that time total...). For the sake of Compy's speed and general well-being, it's time to retreat from the peak. Also, for the record, the iTunes "Show Duplicates" function brings up 3069 tracks, so there's likely 1500+ songs that could be trimmed right there, random blogger's mixes be damned! But look out for some treats as I try to spread the wealth (well, mostly to Jason, but I'm sure you commoners will get some love too). Have a good week.

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

100 Days, 100 Nights


What does this post title mean? Is it drawing your attention to more praise and adoration being poured upon Miss Sharon Jones (especially in light of the video above)? No. Is it a reference to the extremely long period in between posts here at Funky Daggers? No. I've been meaning to write a post with this title for a month or so now because I passed 100 days worth of music on the ol' iTunes. It's actually close to 105 now. Pretty disgusting, huh? I scooped a 500 GB backup drive for $90 a couple weeks ago, so I guess I should start moving the lesser music off the PC (or delete it????), but there's something mysteriously appealing about the gluttony of piling as many hours of music as possible into this thing. At least its backed-up now, in preparation for the pending explosion, so when I'm wiping the molten MP3 bits off my face, I can laugh, somewhat. I do have some other music library milestones coming up (200 gigs, 40K songs) soon, so maybe I'll steer the other direction after those. Ha!

Life Is Expensive (or just plain weird)

Saturday May 3rd was a big day for underground hip-hop shows in Columbus. Bottom Brick had a successful (from all first-person accounts I've heard) release party for The Groundbreaking (as reviewed by yours truly here), complete with appearances by Illogic and Blueprint. At Skully's, the My Best Friend's Party hipster dance party crew provided a show headlined by Time Machine (and it was free due to a cancellation from actual hipster rappers Plastic Little). (Andy and) I have wanted to see Time Machine for a long time, mostly because of the magic of "Night Lights." We were supposed to see them on tour with People Under The Stairs at the Grog Shop in 2006, but another bill shuffling (this time caused by a cancellation by the soon-to-be-more-famous Gym Class Heroes) put the boys on stage before we got to town. Here in 2008, the first weekend of May was a reunion of my old frat buddies here in town, so I was not there to welcome the boys in support of their new long-player, Life Is Expensive. Of course, Abele and I dipped from the bro gathering semi-early, so we talked of hitting the Bottom Brick show, but Abele passed out on the couch as soon as he finished his Big Buford. So I went to bed, and slept in pretty late. Throughout the next day, I found out two things:

1. My roommates saw Time Machine perform and said that it was great. Damn.
2. Abele thought he met my roommate's boyfriend as he met a fellow leaving our place Sunday morning. But Katie does not have a boyfriend! It was Jaysonic (white rapper from Time Machine and video above)! He spent the night at my house and I didn't even manage to meet him. Hilarious.

Well, pray for more blogging. And, as always, tell your friends and loved ones that you love and appreciate them while they're still here. RIP Camu Tao.

Wednesday, April 09, 2008

Classic shit


Takin' it back! Dave, you won't miss the audio too much on this one. What's new, caribou? Spring has sprung, which is pretty dope. Warmth is always appreciated. Oh, and my home computer has no internet, ROFL. Guess I gotta make another 578-hour phone call to Bangalore (or is it Bucharest now?), whooppeeeee!

Claws of Paradise

Out-of-the-blue rock awakenings don't happen enough for me anymore, but I did receive one Saturday night at El Bobo. Brooklyn's Claws of Paradise, on tour with Guitar Bomb (they must have played first), stopped through to unleash a varied rock 'n roll onslaught. A fair portion of the tunes sounded like 1971-era Grand Funk Railroad with a kickin' horn section (tenor sax player, alto/bari sax (!!!) player, one of the singers also player trumpet)! As noted by doorguy extraordinaire Booziak, however, the music was also inflected with probably too many other reference points, like metal and punk, that were a bit much at points. However, overall it was a horny wonder and a good cap to a serious rock 'n roll weekend (Evil Queens and Detroit's Hard Lessons killed Ravari on Friday)!!!

Forthcoming

These Weightless trailers of late are pretty tight, and this album should be dope. Bleep bloop blop.

Friday, March 28, 2008

One Long Rick Roll


I was hoping for Masheter to make more funny at my lack-of-bloggins' expense, but I couldn't stay away forever. And when I have great graphics (like the above) waiting to be GRASP'D, how could I? Let's see, other fun stuff we could talk about...

BEWARE OF THE CRYPTKEEPER

Yeah, Andy Samberg's funny or something, I too love the Beastie Boys, blah blah blah SWEET JESUS LOOK AT THAT OLD MAN!!! I'm sorry, I love me some Mike D (NO HOMO), but damn, I think Doris (Jay Sherman's makeup artist) set him up for the fall or something. Probably just outrageous because of how old he's making ME feel.

RECORD-BREAKING FEBROCKUARY (Febrock fer short)
Not nearly enough talk of FEATS OF ROCK these days. Let it be knownst that in February 2008, yours truly saw three different shows featuring musical artists that took place OUT OF STATE! For the record, that was:

Friday, Feb 1st: Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings at Headliners, Louisville, KY, with Chops
Saturday, Feb 16th: The Dirtbombs & Tyvek at the Magic Stick, Detroit, MI, with Adam, Lucas, Rolo, Brett, and Dann
Friday, Feb 29th: The Diplomats of Solid Sound w/JC Brooks & The Uptown Sound at Reggie's, Chicago, IL with Katie (my sister) and her peeps

Ha! Take that, Leap Year! It was a good month. Best of the 3? Hard to say, but probably the Sharon Jones jumpoff. This is primarily due to Cochemea Gastellum's mind-blowing bari sax performance of "It's A Shame," which was phantasmagorical.

Alright chumly, hope for a good April and have a good weekend! Maybe I'll write again before March leaves us!

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Will Wonders Never Cease?



New Hussein Fatal, "Pop Like Me," from a supposedly upcoming album, Born Legendary!!! Dave?

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Such is my life...


You know, ups, downs, some laughs. Funniest laugh recently being the COLOSSAL FAIL (rofl, it's that very derivative new new, peep game) that last week's "Grand Relaunch" has been so far. Staying in line with this blog's trends over the last 2-3 years (well, the parts where I was sorta trying), a proclamation was followed by...nothing. And of course, I don't have much for you now either. Want some empty promises? I meeean, I do have a...

JAM OF THE DAY

Kashal-Tee: "Blood, Sweat & Beers"

Ten year-old Swedish raps? Got 'em! This guy was an old HHI (RIP) superstar that seems to be slowly getting some more material out there. I enjoyed this tune back in college, and thought of it the other day. Of course, it was only on a couple compilation 12-inches, one of which is trying to fetch 80 euros (currently about $118 US) on discogs right now! Since I can't think of any song that I have $118 (plus shipping from Germany) -worth of love for, I turned the hunt in a different direction. After using last.fm to find the three people they know that have EVER listened to the song, the kind Australian I contacted pointed me to Down To Erf, where the track was on a comp for Christmas. Hallelujah! Download and enjoy!

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Rallying cry

From the god himself:

"Andrew's blog is a mystery. It's like it's too academic for people to muck up with comments or something. ANDREW PATTON IS A REGULAR JOE, PEOPLE. His blog feels real desolation and cries real tears as a result. And no, they are not the easy tears of love, but the fiery, bitter tears of neglect! We live in a country where Matthew McConaughey can star in one hit movie after another despite never displaying any kind of competence at his craft. A country where Chyna is still on television on a weekly basis. A country where Kanye West is winning Grammys and not Ghostface. So does it shock me that this same country would heap comments on less deserving blogs? No. But it does sadden me. Andrew Patton has something to say about music, and the way he appreciates it. In fact, for those who know him well, I'd be positively gobsmacked if one of you could say that he hasn't affected your appreciation of music in some way. I owe much to this man, including thirty-three dollars, but most of all, my ever-expanding understanding of, and love for, music."

Wow. All I can say is this:



War is on for you biting fools...er, I mean...I'm ready for war. Andy's kind words have reminded me that I have a mission here. It's motherfuckin' music time. Certain folks have wanted more of the third aspect of Beats, Rhymes, and Life around these parts, but fuck it. I want this to be a music blog, by Jove! So a music blog it is! Prepare for me to pound my superior tastes into your weak skulls! Shit, I mean, it is time to refocus my aim on the jams. Suggestions are always welcome, but at this point I'm planning on putting EFFORT into some almost-regular music-writin', both here and at Donewaiting. Cuz I'm DONE WAITING!

Also, I was told that a certain DW review of mine has been read by Rick Rubin. That is all.

Andy's new favorite magazine



More at 11.

Wednesday, February 06, 2008

Another day, another Ghostface video


Pointed out to me by The Smoking Section, cuz you know, TSS IS MAJOR!!! His smile in the beginning is priceless, especially after seeing the Ghost video below.

Damn. Anybody got any new hot topics?

Friday, January 25, 2008

God bless the internet!



Hey Ghost, don't look at me. I copped both of those jawns (raprapraprap) in stores, so I'll be looking to pow-wow when you come through Bustown. ROFL at youtube.

So what's good? I dunno why the blog is struggling these days. It just seems to be difficult for me to focus on cranking shit out. Yeah, if I had a half hour (or even 15 mins) of every day reserved for blogging, it would probably help me to get all the random semi-blogworthy thoughts onto the digital page, but don't hold your breath on that plan. I'll just keep fighting the good fight to bring the jams to the blog.

That's What Friends Are For

A goodly portion of the readers here should know that I had my fourth (and final, as far as I'm concerned!) round of gum surgery on Tuesday. I've been sticking with soup, yogurt, and applesauce, but today at work Victor and I wanted to go out to lunch. So we went to "The Holler" (Chinese place with good lunch special; it was formerly $3.99, leading to the nickname "4 dollar holler;" it is now $4.29, leading to a lack of catchy new nickname options and causing us just to use the old one). Anyway, I usually get the General Tso's, but the chicken is crunchy and therefore bad for the healing mouth. Somehow I reasoned that the Sesame chicken would feature soft chicken so I ordered that. Unfortunately, I was wrong and the Sesame had the same chicken as the Tso's. So, I was about to brave it and hope for the best. But Victor, being the kind soul that he is, offered to trade me his "Lo Mein Medley" (a plate brimming with noodles and fried rice, nothing else) for my chicken! Huzzah! He is a nice guy, and it felt like we were back in the elementary school cafeteria. Thanks again, pal.

Stooping to the kind of personal stories like the one you just read is one of the billion factors keeping this blog from being the grand music information depository that I've always envisioned, but it probably keeps the most vocal reader of the blog happy, so WHY NOT?!? Have a good weekend!

Sunday, January 13, 2008

Some hip-hop reading for your week


Yo, I'm still working on some sweet new content for you, my beloved reader. I guess I've been pretty busy lately, or something. I apologize. In a weak attempt to keep your attention, here are some other folks writing about (and sharing some) hip-hop a great deal better than I can:

Fat Lace: "Underrated/Underhated #1." "Well, Meth, the astral plane doesn’t exist and the place where the bitches is at does, so Mannie wins that one." Pure hilarious genius. I think my life has improved greatly since these British dudes made their reappearance via the blogosphere.

From Da Bricks: "Pete Rock Dream Collaborations List." Dan Love of From Da Bricks and J. Ben Leonard of Floodwatch Music drop some serious knowledge on full-length album collaborations between 10 MCs and Pete Rock that never happened, and why they should have. Rap nerd wet dream-type shit.

Well, I will return soon with more, but these two articles have mystified me enough to believe that you will enjoy them too. Peaces.

Friday, January 04, 2008

Noooooo!!!

Bad news, sports fans. Nate Dogg supposedly had a stroke. On my birthday. I'm sorry Nate Dogg, what did I do?

(P.S. My computer's back on the innernutz. ROFL.)