Archive for July, 2009

I Hopped my Hip Off

Friday, July 24th, 2009

Okay, now everyone look to your right. See where it says “Disclaim This!” Okay, read that. Do you see my email address now? Good. And I don’t have an “@” and “.com” by it because if I did I’d get even more spam than I already do.

Now let us get with the busy with some alternative and instrumental hip-hop. No more posts until next Wednesday, so enjoy the rare grooves.

Saul Williams
Purple Pigeons (feat. Wood Harris)
Purple Pigeons (Instrumental)
Saul Williams isn’t from this planet. He’s from a magical alien world with slam poetry and dope beats. If all you know from Saul is the Nike commercial then you need to get educated. Buy The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust and prepare to have your mind blown with fucking knowledge. His first two albums are fucking great too. As are his books, and his acting turn in Slam. Dude’s a Renaissance Man with facepaint. These tracks are the b-sides to “Penny For A Thought.”

The Dirty Birds
Old To The New Ones
The Skateland Killa
Pryor Convictions (Deeds Plus Thoughts Mix)
Pryor Convictions (Raw Beats And Lyrics Mix)
Pryor Convictions (Los Chicarrons Remix)
The Dirty Birds area duo, made up of RJD2 and Poppa Hop. These are good tunes. The quality is a little scratchy on a few, but it adds to their old school ambiance, so don’t complain. Download them, listen to them, like them. I have nothing to say about them, however I do have a story about RJD2.

I have a friend who had a Yamaha CS-80 sitting in his basement for a long time. He bought it for next to nothing. More information on the CS-80 here, but for those of you who want the cliff notes, the CS-80 is an INSANELY rare old-school synthesizer that has several features that appeal to hardcore old-school instrumentalists. it goes for a lot of money. I’d tell you to go to eBay and look it up, but you can’t because no one is selling them. It is mind-numbingly rare. Not only are they rare, but they are finicky bastards and break with extreme prejudice. My friend’s worked, not only that, it had barely been used ever. So when he decided that he wanted to sell it online he got a lot of responses. One of many people interested in the machine was RJD2 himself. My friend dealt with RJ for a while, but got a better offer from someone else and had to inform Mr. D2 that the synth was not going to him. If you check out the Wikipedia page on the CS-80 you will see that RJD2 is still not a “notable user” of the CS-80. He probably still doesn’t have one.

So, long story short, RJD2 probably wants to kill my best friend.

High Priest
0000
Ghost In The Drummachine
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Stimulus Stimulator
Industrial glitch dub drum and bass electro mindfuck. I got nothing else to say.

Posted in High Priest, instrumentals, Pryor Convictions, RJD2, Saul Williams | No Comments »

Sucka MCs Should Call Me Sometime

Thursday, July 23rd, 2009

First of all, shout outs to everyone who hooked me up with those Janet Jackson remixes. I will be hosting them myself in a few days, so if you can’t get the files from the comment section just hold tight.

Now, without further ado here is my promised totally amazing old-school(ish) hip-hop post. Next up will be some ultra-bizarre/obscure/alternative hip-hop, which I hope to get up tomorrow. Until then, peace out my homies.

2 Live Crew
We Want Some Pussy (89′ House Mix)
We Want Some Pussy (The Classic “Dance”)
We Want Some Pussy (Liberty City Long Hard Mix)
We Want Some Pussy (Live In Concert)
So many things to talk about with this one. There’s the label art (classy), this AMAZING brochure I found in the sleeve, and ever-present 2 Live Crew disclaimer, “Unauthorized duplication wil get you messed up by the The Ghetto Style DJs.” Then there’s the song itself, a classic if there ever was one. Actually, no sarcasm aside this is a pretty damn good old-school rap song and you can’t deny that it’s catchy as hell. The house remix is full of recognizable samples, it has the James Brown “Oh! Yeah!” that you probably know from “It Takes Two” as well as a synth note from “Trans-Europe Express”/”Planet Rock.” The Liberty City mix also has a kickin’ guitar riff, but I can’t place it. If anyone knows where that sample came from please let me know. Be warned, this is 20 plus minutes of “We Want Some Pussy.” After listening to all 20 minutes multiple times it’s fairly obvious to me that these motherfuckers wanted their fucking pussy. I hope they got it.

Run D.M.C.
King Of Rock (Cut-Up Mix)
Call up a friend when you’re listening to this one and when they ask you what you’re doing say, “Listing to the best track of all time motherfucker, what are YOU doing?” Taken from a 12” single.

Beastie Boys
Intergalactic (Instrumental)
Intergalactic (The Strawberry Bath and Jelly Soles Instrumental Version)
Super-bummed about MCA’s cancer diagnosis. Was stoked to see these guys kick it old school (really old school, dudes are over 40) at Lollapalooza this year. But I guess that will have to wait. Word just came out that The Yeah Yeah Yeahs are replacing them as headliners that day. That’s cool, but they better do a cover of “Sabotage” in tribute. These instrumentals are from a 12”.

Mix Master Mike
Can of Ass Kicks (2 min Itchy Flea Bonus)
Bangzilla (Instrumental)
The i Micronaut
Can’t mention The Beasties without mentioning The Mix Master. These are B-sides from a couple of 12” singles. For more Mix Master goodness check out the live video for “Three MCs and One DJ.”

Posted in 2 Live Crew, Beastie Boys, instrumentals, Mix Master Mike, remixes, Run DMC | 3 Comments »

What Have I Done For Me Lately?

Monday, July 20th, 2009

To the person who shared the Aphrodite remixes, thank you so much! I only had them in mix form, not as separate tracks. I’m stoked.

Since that worked out so well for me I’m going to request some music for a change! That’s right, I’m a hypocrite! So I’m looking for a few rare tracks. Anyone who shares them will have their wildest wishes come true. Or I’ll hook them up with some rare tracks of their choice, whichever. They are:

David Bowie – Cat People (Putting Out Fire): I’m looking for the super-long 8:20 version that was only on the Australian single.

Janet Jackson – Any official remixes of “If” and “Son Of a Gun.”

Like I said, any help in finding these would be rewarded.

I’m planning a series of incredibly awesome hip-hop posts, so tonight’s post is kind of sparse. I’ll make up for it soon.

Janet Jackson
Nasty (Cool Summer Mix Part I)
Nasty (Cool Summer Mix Part II)
I said I was done posting Michael Jackson songs, I never said anything about Janet. Stop me though if I start posting La Toya remixes. Part II is more of a megamix, incorporating “What Have You Done For Me Lately” and some other Control tunes, still good though. However, this is 18 minutes of “Nasty” when combined, which is far more of Janet Jackson’s Nasty than you could ever want. And yes, I realize how gross the term “Janet Jackson’s Nasty” sounds when using “nasty” as a noun. About three and half minutes in there’s a slight jump in the recording that I just couldn’t fix. It’s barely noticeable though.

Arcadia
Election Day (Consensus Mix)
Election Day (Cryptic Cut [No Voice] Mix)
Election Day (Fact & Story Mix)
Goodbye Is Forever [Extended Mix)
Goodbye Is Forever [Dub Mix)
I was actually accumulating a solid collection of Arcadia singles when someone sent me a link to a torrent that had all of them. I’m still working on completing my collection, but these files sound a hell of a lot better than my vinyl rips, so I’m going to post them instead. After I do my mega-awesome-hip-hop posts I’ll put up the rest of these tracks.

Posted in Arcadia, Duran Duran, Janet Jackson, remixes | 16 Comments »

Did anyone ever find out if Annie was okay?

Tuesday, July 14th, 2009

Fuckers from Hair are on Conan right now dancing in the audience. Hey guys, 1967 called, the 60s are over, take your hippie dippie bullshit and cram it.

God I hate that damned musical…

Anyways, here are the remaining Michael Jackson remixes I promised. This Is It. No more…unless I somehow find more 12” singles.

Billie Jean (Dirty Funker’s “This Is Not It” Remix)
Billie Jean (This Dirty Dub Remix)
These were from a bootleg 12” single, by a guy calling himself the Dirty Funker. It’s a red record and the artwork on the label cribs art from the planned This Is It series of concerts (the beginning of this mix even samples the press conference announcing the This Is It shows). They’re kind of pointless, but the techno bass-heavy beats aren’t too bad.

Smooth Criminal (Extended Dance Mix)
Smooth Criminal (Extended Dance Mix Radio Edit)
Smooth Criminal (Annie Mix)
Smooth Criminal (Dub Mix)
Smooth Criminal (A Capella)
I think I mentioned before that “Smooth Criminal” is one of my favorite Michael Jackson songs. I was going to declare it my favorite of all time, but it’ll have to tie with Beat It, Billie Jean, PYT, Dirty Diana, Leave me Alone, Give In To Me, Jam, Scream, Morphine (check it out, it’s a pretty rad tune that you probably haven’t heard), Earth Song, and They Don’t Really Care About Us (you try to pick a favorite Michael Jackson song, it’s not easy!)

However, “Smooth Criminal” is without a doubt my favorite Michael Jackson video. But make sure you watch the best version. The most complete version of the Smooth Criminal video is part of the movie Moonwalker, which is not available in America. Luckily there’s YouTube. The version that most people know is this one, which is just a hair shorter than the Moonwalker cut, taking out some of the crazy-ass moaning interpretive dance that’s in the middle. Above everything avoid this version, which is a poorly edited, sped-up version. I’m not the only person who thinks Smooth Criminal is Michael’s magnum video opus, check out this hysterical review of the Moonwalker movie by That Guy With Glasses, one of my favorite pop culture critics on the web.

I previously posted the extended mix, but this one is a direct rip from the vinyl single I picked up, as are the additional remixes.

Who Is It (Patience Mix)
Who Is It (The Most Patient Mix)
Who Is It (IHS Mix)
Who Is It (P-Man Dub)
Who Is It (Brothers In Rhythm House Mix)
Who Is It (Tribal Version)
Who Is It (Brothers Cool Dub)
Who Is It (Lakeside Dub)
This isn’t one of my favorite Michael Jackson tunes, and is probably my second-least favorite song off of Dangerous (the first is In The Closet – I actively hate that song). However, some of these remixes are quite good. My favorite is the Brothers In Rhythm House Mix, which transforms the song into an ultra-corny 90s house track. Moby would love it.

Beat It (Moby’s Sub Mix)
Well speak of the bald devil! This is an odd one. This originally appeared as the B-side to the American version of the Who Is It single, but it later popped up on the soundtrack to Zoolander for some strange reason. With many of the Dangerous singles it seemed that MJ was taking his back catalog and giving some prominent electronic artists of the time a go. Moby got “Beat It,” the Brothers in Rhythm got “Wanna Be Startin’ Something” and Masters at Work got to mix “Rock With You.” I haven’t heard any of these mixes aside from this Moby one, so if anyone wants to post a link to some in the comments section I would be most appreciative.

I think I’m the only person in the world who likes this remix of Beat It. It’s definitely odd and not for everyone, but give it a chance, Moby deconstructs the shit out it, shifting the guitar solo to the front, chopping up the synth opening of the original and making the verses very sparse, cutting out everything but a simple beat and Micheal’s voice.

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Posted in Uncategorized | 17 Comments »

DnB Hip Hop and stuff (too tired for title)

Thursday, July 9th, 2009

My god am I having a shit week. Anyone else out there watch the Michael Jackson Memorial? Anyone else out there sob uncontrollably when Paris Jackson took the mic at the end? I didn’t…nope…not at all…I just had…um…allergies. Yeah, that’s it.

I was happy to see the response to my post about eMusic. It’s nice to know that I’m not the only person who noticed their bullshit. If you’re like me and used eMusic to pick up electronic music I recommend checking out BeatPort, they’ll a little pricier than eMusic but their selection is amazing, great sound quality too.

Not a lot to say about the music tonight, I got some good shit coming up either later this week or early next week, including more Michael Jackson. I know I said I wouldn’t post anymore but I just picked up some sweet 12” singles that must share. Until then enjoy some alternative hip-hop and gay synth-pop.

A Tribe Called Quest vs. AK1200 – Buggin‘ Out (One Too Many Joints Mix)
Boogie Down Productions vs. Mark Pritchard – Necessary (Mark Pritchard Mix)
Fu–Schnickens vs. Pimp Juice – Ring The Alarm (Pimp Juice’s Magic Mix)
Whodini vs. DJ Swingsett & J. Warrin – One Love (High Bias Mix)
These are from a 12” called Old School vs. New School Vol. 2. I have Volume 1 somewhere but it’s all scratched to hell. Maybe I’ll dig it out of my crates one day and try to re-record it. These are pretty bitchin‘ remixes, they take these old school rap songs and transform them into crazy drum and bass tracks. I particularly dig the remix of “Ring The Alarm.” On a related note, I frequently get asked to recommend good new drum and bass so I thought I’d give a shout out to the new compilation by Hospital Records Sick Music. Very diverse collection of some of the best that amazing label has to offer. Pick it up.

Pet Shop Boys
“Brits” Medley
This isn’t the actual medley that the Pet Shop Boys performed at the Brits, it’s a studio version of it. It was a bonus track for anyone who pre-ordered the iTunes version of the album. That’s 2x the exclusive and 2x the BS for those who don’t use that shitty service.

Jungle Brothers
Jungle Brother (Stereo MC’s Mix)
What “U” Waitin‘ “4”? (Jungle Fever Mix)
I’ll admit my ignorance and confess to my complete lack of knowledge when it comes to The Jungle Brothers, aside from the fact that they are totally awesome and that I need to buy Done By The Forces Of Nature sometime very soon. These are from a couple of 12”.

Posted in Drun and bass, Jungle Brothers, Pet Shop Boys, remixes | 8 Comments »

Furries, eMusic and Def Leppard (in that order)

Tuesday, July 7th, 2009

Okay, tonight I have a very schizophrenic post for you all.

First things first, I went to AnthroCon this weekend, the largest furry convention in the world. Now, I am not a furry, but the con was literally 10 minutes from my house and since one of my best friends from college (who is a furry) was coming in for it I thought I’d go with to see what all the furry fuss was about.

It was…weird. I don’t get it and I don’t think I ever will. However, they night they had a rave, and I love me some techno. I also figured this would be a great chance to get some amazingly bizarre video and I was right, so check out my YouTube channel for furry insanity on the dance floor.

On the completely other end of the spectrum, I’m pissed off about something. Shocker I know.

I don’t buy a lot of music online, I prefer to own a physical copy of my tunes, primarily because I don’t trust my hard drive but also because I think not having a physical copy devalues the music experience (it’s complicated and not the point of tonight’s rant). When I do buy music online I generally buy it from eMusic. I’ve been a subscriber to eMusic for years now and have always found their monthly subscription plan options to be a great deal. For years I on a $19.99 monthly plan that gave me 75 tracks. That’s a partly 26 cents a track. Bitchin’.

I love eMusic not only because of how cheap the music is, but because of the music they have available. It’s a great place to pick up electronic music, I found a ton of excellent and hard to find drum ‘n’ bass, experimental electronica and other odd shit that sure as hell wouldn’t be on iTunes.

But things on eMusic are changing. This month they added Sony’s back catalog to their service. So now in addition to downloading the latest tracks by Venetian Snares, Ed Rush and Dan Deacon, I can get vintage Bruce Springsteen, The Clash and even Pearl Jam. Sounds awesome right? Oh hell no.

First of all in order to do this they had to change their pricing. My $19.99 a month plan no longer exists, it was replaced by a $20.79 plan. That doesn’t sound to bad right? Well, they also cut 25 tracks out of that deal. Now I only get 50. Although it’s not 50 tracks, it’s 50 “credits.”

Before this every track cost the same, and everything was priced per track. So if you bought a 5-track EP it took five download off your limit, if you bought an album that had 30 tracks, it cost you 30 downloads. There were problems with that system to be sure (you wouldn’t buy classical music or a mix CD with that set up) but it allowed me to score a shitload of EPs dirt-cheap, and you would occasionally find an epic one-track CD, netting you an hour or so of music for the cost of a single download.

Now its by credits, individual songs still cost one credit, but if you elect to buy by the album your pricing will vary. Sometimes its good, most regular length albums cost 12 credits, even if they have upwards of 18 songs. That’s like getting six songs for free. However, there are some massive fuckups with this system. Want this 3 Song Sampler by Foo Fighters, that’ll be 12 credits. Why? Who knows . What about the two track Springsteen single for “My Hometown“? That’ll set you back 12 credits as well. Ditto goes for the Franz Ferdinand remix EP, four tracks – 12 credits.

You may be thinking “well, I’ll just download the one song I like off the album then.” Well…fuck you that’s not going to happen. Many (so very many) of the albums feature “album only” tracks. So if you want “Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town” off of My Hometown, you have to spend 12 credits. On my plan that’s about $4.92. On iTunes you can buy that song for 99 cents.

Then there’s the labeling of the songs themselves, check out that Franz Ferdinand EPs again, notice anything odd about them? There’s no remix information! So if I want to know who did the remix of “Do You Want To” I have to go to iTunes. And not only does iTunes have that information, you can also buy each track individually there! And don’t even get me started on the problems with the Michael Jackson singles, holy shit what a mess.

The reasoning behind the “album only” downloads is complete bullshit as well. As expected many long tracks are unavailable without buying the whole album. This is not unique to eMusic, iTunes does the same thing. In both cases it’s total bullshit but whatever. But check this out. “Sweet Dreams” is an album only download. Why? Because they know that everyone wants that track the most, so they make it impossible to download separately.

Then there’s the mess all these additions has made to the category system. I mentioned before that I go to eMusic to pick up new electronic music, now when I browse that section I have to wade through new “electronic” acts like Mariah Carey, C&C Music Factory and Bette fucking Midler. Who the fuck goes to eMusic to buy Mariah Carey?

To me this is a legendary example of not knowing your customer base. When eMusic started they were they only online music store that offered DRM-free MP3s. Because of this many major labels wouldn’t deal with them. They adapted, branding themselves as the online store for independent music. In doing so they built up quite a user base of discerning music fans, people who seek out hard-to-find or under-the-radar acts. The people who buy music at eMusic buy Dinosaur Jr., Spoon and Cat Power, they do not buy shit like The Fray, Chevelle, Ted Nugent or Mariah Fucking Carey.

And there’s more bullshit too, how about removing unlimited redownloading, not allowing some albums to be downloaded with free trial credits and not allowing most of the new expanded catalog to be available in countries other than the US (they still get the fucked up new pricing scheme though).

I understand that I’m still getting a deal most of the time when compared to the prices of other services like Amazon or iTunes, but for every dealI can find there’s usually at least one gigantic rip-off. eMusic used to be the place to find hard to find and niche music at a fair price. It is no longer that place and now there’s no need for eMusic.

Franz Ferdinand
Take Me Out (Morgan Geist Remix)
Take Me Out (Naum Gabo Remix)
These remixes aren’t on that previously mentioned EP that eMusic is gauging its users over. They were taken off of a strange white label promo I picked up last week. This promo was scratched to holy hell so the beginning of each is a little damaged, but after the first 30 seconds or so both sound fine.

Serart
Narnia (Bill Laswell Remix)
Facing The Plastic (Mindless Self Indulgence Remix)
Serart was a musical collaboration between Serj Tankian of System of a Down and folk musician Arto Tunçboyacıyan. They teamed up to explore experimental combinations of folk, rock, spoken word and world music to create an album that sounds unlike anything you’ve really heard before. It’s intelligent, unique and an altogether magical listening experience. So when it came time to release remix promos they called Mindless Self Indulgence’s Jimmy Urine. Makes sense to me.

Def Leppard
Nine Lives (Def Leppard Version)
Finally. After begging months ago I was able to track down the Tim McGraw-less version of this Def Leppard song, which was on the Japanese version of their latest album, Songs from The Sparkle Lounge. Still not a great song, but with 100% less country twang it sure is a fuckload better.

Posted in Def Leppard, Franz Ferdinand, furries, Mindless Self Indulgence, rant, remixes, Serart | 6 Comments »

Add on a Beat to the Standard Song

Thursday, July 2nd, 2009

Those Michael Jackson posts attracted all kinds of people to my dark little corner of the internet and I got far more hits over the past few days than I ever had before.That must account for some of the more….interesting comments I’ve been receiving over the past few days. Thanks for them guys, I love you all.

But enough of that popular shit, here’s a bunch of obscure hip-hop. I’m sure this will attract a whole other group of d-bags. Whatever, just keep it real.

Word.

Del Tha Funkee Homosapien
Made In America (Whoopi’s Mix)
Made In America (Del’s Mix)
I was trying to find the Del album that this song was originally on and I couldn’t. Turns out it originally appeared on the soundtrack to Made In America, the comedic opus about interracial artificial insemination starring Ted Danson, Whoopi Goldberg and Will Smith. Yeah, that’s the weirdest sentence I’ve typed in a while. That at least explains why one of these remixes is titled “Whoopi’s Mix.” I got these versions from a 12”.

De La Soul
Say No Go (Say No Dope Mix)
Say No Go (New Keys Vocal)
If I was a writer when De La Soul broke through I would have tried to dub their unique laid-back style of rap “Hippie-Hop.” Good thing I wasn’t a writer at the time. These are from a 12” single as well.

DJ Shadow
Dark Days (Main Theme)
Dark Days (Spoken For Mix)
High Noon
Devil’s Advocate (Heaven v. Hell – Bonus Beats)
The first two tracks are from an excellent documentary called Dark Days, which is about homeless people in NYC who elect to live underground. It’s a fascinating film and I highly recommend it. The soundtrack of the movie was comprised mostly of tracks from DJ Shadow’s groundbreaking Endtroducing, but he also contributed a few original tunes and remixes for the movie. Dark Days has no official soundtrack release, but the main theme has shown up on a couple compilations, including a 12” single that I got yesterday. The other two tracks are from an EP, also released around the same time as Endtroducing. Strangely they weren’t including on the Deluxe Edition of that album though.

Posted in B-sides, De La Soul, Del Tha Funkee Homosapien, DJ Shadow, remixes | 3 Comments »