26 December 2020

Interlude: Best of 2020

Hey Anyone Who Cares, I stopped commuting early this year, so I stopped listening to all my music chronologically and blogging about it. I hope to resume soon: I've put in a bunch of time for Al Green (and Hirt) already. I still sat home in front of the computer all day every day, often listening to new music. My "Best of 2020" list started with 210 songs on it. I'm pretty comfortable with the representative top 25 or so. As always, please let me know what I missed!

1. ringtone (Remix) (feat. Charli XCX, Kero Kero Bonito & Rico Nasty) - 100 gecs

2. Ice Cream (feat. Selena Gomez) - BLACKPINK

3. Levitating - Dua Lipa

4. Boss Bitch - Doja Cat

5. JU$T (feat. Zack de la Rocha & Pharrell Williams) - Run the Jewels

6. I Like Him - Princess Nokia

7. Concrete - Poppy

8. Fortune - Wye Oak

9. Video Games - Sufjan Stevens

10. Circle The Drain - Soccer Mommy

11. Captain (feat. Britt Daniel) - Nicole Atkins

12. The Fool - Overcoats

13. You've Had Me Everywhere - of Montreal

14. Feel the Way I want - Caroline Rose

15. Comme Des Carcons (Like the Boys) - Rina Sawayama

16. 4 American Dollars - U.S. Girls

17. Weird Fishes - Lianne La Havas

18. Fire - Waxahatchee

19. Time (You and I) - Kruangbin

20. Ordinary Talk - Half Waif

21. Conspiracy - The Rentals

22. You Can't Rule Me - Lucinda Williams

23. Ghost Limb Gambler - Emily Wolfe

24. Where to Start - Bully

25. King of the Ashes - Gallower

26. Tide of Hyacinth - Ambrose Akinmusire

I liked a lot more than 26 songs this year. New music from these people also made me happy and deserves your attention:

(as a matter of fact Eze + Revvnant)

Kitty

And, slightly different is 2020's Most-Played Songs (I wasn't the only 1 playing!):

1. ringtone (Remix) (feat. Charli XCX, Kero Kero Bonito & Rico Nasty) - 100 gecs

2. Pressure Drop - Toots & the Maytals

3. Boss Bitch - Doja Cat

4. the 1 - Taylor Swift

5. The Saga Begins - Weird Al Yankovic

6. It's Bugsnackz! - Kero Kero Bonito

7. Yoda - Weird Al Yankovic

8. august - Taylor Swift

9. Miracle - CHVRCHES

10. Video Game- Sufjan Stevens

Artist of the Year: I'm going to say Wye Oak; they are local. Not only did they have a great single that rivals "Civilian," but their EP with the children's choir is really incredible. For most of the year "Fortune" was sitting at number #1 for me; now I imagine it proudly regrouping the music to boldly start side-B of my imaginary Best of 2020 mixtape. Plus, they helped save the Ottobar. Their reward is getting to be the thumbnail pic for this blog entry. Congratulations, guys. #Baltimore

Kruangbin is a close second for sorta breaking through everywhere, and having their own great album in addition to that fantastically smooth EP with Leon Bridges. This marks my second year of "Kruangbin" fandom, and while I've read plenty of articles about them at this point, I have still never heard another human pronounce their name. Very 2020.

Third best band? Overcoats. They are so scrappy and good. We saw them live and online for WTMD. The album has several grear songs, and inadvertently or not they really captured the zeitgeist.

Best Album of the Year: Does "Doom-Scrolling" count as an album? Honestly, there was practically no full album I listened to more than once or twice in its entirety. It has come to this. (Sorry?)

Best Concert of the Year: I took my wife to see Cold War Kids at the 9:30 Club in February. Overcoats opened and they were awesome fun. It was a weeknight and we both had colds; we left about halfway through the main set... and haven't seen live music in person since. Except!...briefly, my daughter and I did go see Emily Wolfe at a WTMD live lunch (for free!); she played Motorhead. Yep, that was the highlight. Congratulations Emily Wolfe. She and Princes Nokia also win special commendations for making the top 25 two years in a row, fitting as Nokia issued twin albums over a span of months.

Emily Wolfe

Ultimately, here's my favorite indie rock DIY gig of the year:

Best Notes:

* Did not love the new Taylor Swift. Sorry, fam.

* Despite her not cracking my top 25, Sierra Hull's new album was better than her last one, and if it takes a Sturgill Simpson bluegrass album to get her network-TV famous then I am all for it. Fingers-crossed for DelFest 2021: both that it actually happens, and that it gets headlined by Simpson and his band.

* I really don't want Best Quarantine Album to ever be a category, but if it is then Charli XCX would win - and that would make two years in a row for her albums. And, at least we got stuff like this.

* Metalheads, don't sleep on this Gallower album! And RIP Riley Gale.

* This was the year I really listened to "Louie Louie" by The Kingsman (that and "Wholly Bully"). Have you ever really listened to it? I mean, really? It is perfect in all its imperfections. How did I not know the sloppy-ass drummer, who executes a successful coup of the band after their instant stardom, drops his sticks and clearly shouts "FUCK" at the 0:54 mark of the song?! Later there are actual mistakes in the song (the singer comes in early so they just go around again), but fuck it- release that thing anyway. Brilliant.

* Also, despite loving John Lennon, I only just learned that his first THREE solo albums were entirely experimental stuff with Yoko Ono, where they basically just hit record and sometimes made music. Brilliant.

* Shout-out to Treme's Lucia Micarelli starring in Hallmark's The Christmas Bow.

* Better luck next year, everybody....

For the 2020-theme end-credits, Overcoats:
"There’s a fire // There’s a fury // Sky is falling but we’ll get through it..."

15 June 2020

Akron/Family

You know that weird song at the end of some modern rock albums? It kinda goes off the rails, is a bit different from all the other tracks on the album, and maybe last a bit longer. Sometime it is the last song on the album, or it might even be a hidden track. You know, that song, right? Well, what if that was, like, every song on the album? Meet Akron/Family.

Sure, the band name alone is already crazy, but it is perfectly apt for their confusing, eclectic sounds. (They are not from Akron, nor are the band members related.) I truly came to appreciate never knowing what was going to happen next, which is a valuable characteristic in any performer. A touchstone might be Of Montreal, in the sense that one song could be a disco party and the next a tender acoustic ballad, and also the vocals occasionally occupy similar registers. One might also recall Architecture in Helsinki, wherein sometimes it is folksy whispering and other times it sounds like EMF was reborn, then later tossed in a shredder. A more obscure comparison might be made to Gorch Fock or other large, collective bands, maybe even The Polyphonic Spree. There's a slight cult-like feeling to the whole thing, like it's a rag-tag collective where no idea is ever rejected, and most of the absurdist works are imbued with a sort of cosmic positivity. Listening to it all without knowing a single thing about the band, I couldn't tell if the cult had a leader or not. It did sometimes seem like someone different was singing. As it turns out, it is a collective (albeit a small one), described as the center of a social scene in their original home of Brooklyn, but the members are (at least) three different people who all play different roles, and different instruments, and all sing.

Things start off simply enough with songs that appear to be sparse, acoustic, folk ballads. Delicate noises and bleeps in the first album's first song give hints of the madness to come. Some songs proceed in reverse, beginning in a wash of noise that deteriorates to a simple little song. This self-titled debut in 2005 is a bit more subdued than later work, but there are moments of brilliant sheer noise and poly-rhythmic banging. Only the multi-part "Italy" tops eight minutes, but the other songs are relatively concise, although there are plenty of them (fourteen very different songs on the album). Somebody probably called it neo-folk at the time. It's good, but it's going to be great when these guys get into a proper studio, instead of just offering a somewhat random collection of various home recordings. However, instead of recording a proper album of their own, next they decide to be the opening/backing band for another band called, Angels of Light. In 2005, they record an album together. Akron/Family and Angels of Light is occasionally just as spacey as their debut, but with an appreciably fuller sound. The genre schizophrenia that will develop into their hallmark is becoming more prominent without peaking yet, as they continue to swing from gentle ballads to aggressive funk, with newer forays into glitzy rock and electronica soundscapes. These shifts happen across the album or even within a single song, and the experience is refreshingly jarring. It takes awhile to get to know a track, so it can remain surprising even after multiple listenings. The Angels of Light singer's deep voice and lyrical approach evokes Lou Reed, and the slightly more traditional full-band backing makes the album among their most song-oriented. The 70s fuzz guitar and California-country all work together nicely, sometimes calling to mind The Byrds (perhaps even deliberately on "I Pity the Poor Immigrant"), but also reminding me deeply of another treasured band like this, Beachwood Sparks.

There's a brief, semi-official live album available that aptly begins with random screaming. It's pretty much all just one big noise jam. The spoken-word bit manages to includes my favorite line from William Blake, who they call "the most psychedelic man of the 18th century": 'Those who restrain desire do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained.' They emerge from the chaos to play a loose two-minute version of "Moment" from the previous album and then the show is all over.

Things really start taking off on the Meek Warrior album from 2006. It begins hard with that 70s rock influence again but then devolves into their best noise rock yet. The album ping-pongs between that racket and gentle folk. While they manage to reel it in (relatively) on most of the brief tracks, only the opening "Blessing Force" and penultimate song "The Rider (Dolphin Song)" approach ten-minutes--and those are the best two songs by far. The later is a fantastic freak-out that approaches Spiritualized-levels of overwhelming noise. It's amazing how much the other songs achieve in their briefness. Climactic group screaming is something of an hallmark, emphasizing the cult-like aspect of the band. In same way, this album, while good, is a staging ground for the full-on assault that takes place during their golden era next.

Love is Simple from 2007 is an incredible, expansive album with some real stunning moments. Even at the time, it was very well received for its effective experimentation and exuberance. The band is widely quoted as calling this "the completion of the first cycle...both a love letter to the past and launching a pad into the future. And in a way not before captured, this record has the unmistakable field holler of friendship and brotherhood." Yes! Absolutely. Especially the part about the field hollering. One of their new instruments on this album seems to be some sort of tribe or chorus of (mostly?) women that the band employs to great effect throughout the album, no more so than on the epic second track, "Ed is a Portal." It emerges from chaotic clapping and shouting then builds to a tribal fury, yet makes space for a a placid folksy moment before slamming back again, and then making a final, brief twist into electronica. "Ed is a Portal" could be the quintessential Akron/Family song. If you listen to only one song from them make it this one. Give it your time now; it's worth it.

I am unsure what the relations is between this song and an independent sci-fi movie of the same name that comes out years later in 2013. The subject of the maddening lyrics was already confusing enough. "There's So Many Colors" again uses the wild chorus, and all it's crazy-weird harmonies, to disturbing great effect. Is this their best album? In some ways it is the best produced and hardest rocking so far, but it also the most daring they ever get. The next album continues with more greatness though.

I suspect normal people might select 2009's Set'em Wild, Set'em Free as "the best" Akron/Family, but then again normal people would not be listening to any of this. "River" is on this album, and it seems to be a song with some crossover (to normalcy?) success. It's no norm-core song, but it has a regular structure and regular-song, non-insane lyrics. It's not my favorite song of theirs, and it's weird that it has a bit of reggae vibe- why not?! At 4:45 it's not exactly a tight pop gem, but it ends simply well before getting a chance to go completely off the rails. It even gets released as its own single, as does "Everyone is Guilty," and I prefer the frenetic energy of that album-opening track, or the lengthy space-out of "Gravelly Mountains on the Moon." Apparently "The Alps and their Orange Evergreen" is also a frequently downloaded/streamed song of theirs, and I don't get why: it's a little folk number that never gets nuts. Overall, the album is another great one, and it was the one that first introduced me to the band. I might not be the only one.

The absurdly titled next album of theirs is S/T III: The Cosmic Birth and Journey of Shinu TNT. There's a lot going on there, but I'm concerned that this is neither their third album nor is it self-titled! There are plenty of expansive tracks on here, but most clock-in at less than 5-minutes; even the spacey closing track "Creator" ends well before wearing out its welcome. "So It Goes," in a throwback to the previous album, is a tight indie-rock song that is as normal as these guys get, yet still delightful and weird despite its impressive conciseness. There's even an official video, but in typical Akron/Family antics, it is crazily amateurish and meta-textual (and actually begins with the song that precedes it on the album). If we give these artist our money it's definitely not being blown on big-budget videos. The influence of The White Album has become impossible to ignore on this album and the last one, but we have one last diversion into even deeper madness before their final studio album.

There's a truly madcap remix album. Let me ask you a non-rhetorical question: if you just held down the fast-forward button while playing a song on CD, is that a remix? These songs go way off the deep end with some truly challenging listening, but I occasionally wanted to hear even these sheets of fuzz and noise.

Their last album is truly great. While I might not adore it directly as much as Love is Simple, I can picture this album on the pile of jazz and classical CDs I plan to never get rid of because I can't imagine a future without them. I mean if I had a hard copy of the album. Sub Verses, their sixth and final album, was released in 2003. It doesn't sound like it came out over 15 years ago. AllMusic called it "disciplined," and I must agree. I thought of it as more mature, myself, but not in a bad way. See, for example, the soul-searching lyrics of "Until the Morning":
"How you carried all that grief
I know it wasn't right to saddle you with mine
My life, my identity I lay them at your feet
And stand here broken in the mirror of your eyes
'Til the morning..."
There seems to be a world of difference between working stuff out in deep lyrics here versus the cosmic madness of the early lyrics. They really have evolved on this final culmination of an album, sonically and lyrically. The irony is that the evolution is accomplished with a slightly more traditional instrumentation, but they manage to achieve the same expansiveness with mostly guitar, bass, and drums. It has a deeper, fuller sound that recalls more-developed Krautrock. The songs may not be as quirky and attention-getting, but they are rewarding after repeated listens, and perhaps less gimmicky than prior albums. It's a great album I thoroughly enjoyed, but I am somewhat uncomfortable recommending it at a starting point to those who haven't taken the full Akron/Family journey. Those folks should start at Set'em Wild, then go back to Love is Simple, and end up here.

How did I come across this band to begin with? For years, the only song in my regular rotation was "Sun Will Shine (Warmth of the Sunship Version)" from Set E'm Wild. And the only reason that song got listened to was because the free-form jazz-horn freak-out at the end distills into a lovely version of "Auld Lang Syne," so it ended up on my New Years Eve playlist. That album, I got from my neighbor. He worked in radio, and in the early-2000s we had an ambitious plan to regularly exchange great albums with one another, with them randomly showing up in our mailboxes. The project didn't last long, but it had some real winners. Like everybody else I come in contact with, my neighbor probably knew I was obsessed with Spiritualized; I think an album I gave him was Super Fury Animals' Rings Around the World. The Spiritualized connection is clearly and enormously appreciated: how come nobody else who knew I liked Spiritualized ever told me about Akron/Family!? It seems like a grave oversight that I'm not sure I've ever seen them mentioned together, and they should be. Both bands are adept at moving in and out of beautiful chaos; both have gorgeous melodies and a spiritual vein. Also like Spiritualized, this band makes a lot more sense when listened to an album at a time. It is far less frenetic and nonsensical than when a single song shows up isolated on random. Context is important, and Akron/Family have multiple great full albums of context.

The less said about their minor disputes with hardcore bands the better.

Finally, here's a no-explanation-offered bonus video of them doing "Ed is a Portal" live. Pretty incredible. Are they playing in the crowd or are those people part of the act?! I wish I had caught their live show when I had the chance. Although the band no longer seems to be active, their social media feeds feature tons of solo shows and collaborations from Akron/Family's hyper-productive members.

This picture of them at SXSW in 2009 seems apt to close on.

01 January 2020

Akinyele

I might be in over my head here when I start trying to blog about seemingly legit hip-hop. I was thoroughly unfamiliar with this artist...or even how he got in my music library for that matter. Holy hot damn, how do you even pronounce this guy's name?! I swear that over the course of various songs he refers to himself alternately as
1.) Auk - nell: a likely pronunciation as hinted at by the album title Aktapuss
2.) Auk- in - el: a three-syllable pronunciation that he uses himself nearly as often as the first
3.) Auk - i - nelly: my first guess before I heard anything, and I was thrilled to hear him and his associates use this pronunciation on more than one occasion, despite adding to the confusion.
4.) Auk-ni-zel: an entirely expected deviation, but one that only served to muddy the waters further.

Turns out Akinyele (ækɪnˈɛli/) is his real name and he was born in 1970 in New York to Costa Rican
and Panamanian parents in Queens(,which doesn't matter except: did we assume
he was black? Is that a problem? He looked African American to me.) He does have a song that repeats his name over and over again, but that song is an obscure B-side I heard well after listening to this three main albums. More prominently, a few times he mentions getting mad when people say his name wrong, which hardly seems fair. This doesn't sound like a guy you want to upset either. He makes it clear that his mind is clear and focused because he does not drink or smoke anything. Violence is all he's got. Violence and fucking, but, in his case, I repeat myself. I cannot really condone this endlessly stream of violent misogyny, but...if I'm being brutally honest with myself then I'd actually much rather listen to this than say, Will Smith's milquetoast rhymes. I'm slightly embarrassed by how much I appreciated this stuff upon repeated listening. Especially in today's trap-, glitch-, and novelty-filled rap world, the sounds and styles of classic hip-hop were refreshing. I listened loudly, and eventually came to really like a few key tracks, including what turned out to be most of the only five singles he released between 1993 and his swan songs in 2001.

I think Rob Swift appears on an early Akinyele album, but this guy is not good at listing personnel on the tracks. Granted, I'm listening streaming, as opposed to holding the thing in my hand, but I looked at some scans of those CD backs and there are precious few "(feat.)"s listed for any of the tracks, despite plenty having other people featured prominently. I actually didn't even get to listen to the hilariously titled and commercially unsuccessful Vagina Diner. Instead , I started right off with his most well-known hit "Put it in Your Mouth" from an EP of the same name that came out in 1996. I hope I don't have to be too defensive about my appreciation for a relatively decent song with a sweet, singsongy chorus of a lady saying, "put it in my mouth, my motherfucking mouth." Lovely. The music on this particular track is a relatively sparse beat over a slightly out-of-place acoustic guitar strum, but Kia Jeffries does get listed credit for singing the chorus and rapping a fine verse too. (It's pretty unfortunate though, that in 2019 Jeffries would go on to straight-up kill her wanted, ex-boxer husband after the bastard repeatedly pistol whipped her; she did NOT face charges and, after failed attempts to make a new band, is currently pursuing a solo career as Kia "Babydoll" Jeffries, which, you know, might be worth checking out. Maybe.) From the same EP "The Robbery Song" contains an interlude of intolerable violence, but is another of his most popular tracks. And "Fuck Me for Free" follows "Put it In Your Mouth" as his second most successful song, but not my second favorite. If you need some 90s visuals, here it is:

My second favorite song is undoubtedly "Take A Lick," which, while somewhat inappropriate and problematic, I couldn't help finding hilarious with some sweet hooks. It is pretty much an anthem about NOT sucking dick, although it concludes with a shout out "to all my dick suckers in the house, what up? and all my clit lickers in the house, what up?" Again he shares the whole track with a female vocalist, this time a totally uncredited British lass with a thick accent, who is a basically a legendary champ for standing up to Akinyele when he tries to shove his dick in her mouth after she "took him around [London] and shit." In fact, she claims she "was gonna fuck him though, I was gonna give him some of this pussy, but he started talking some of this wild shit." Sample lines from her: "No, I'm not doin' it, get your hand off my head. Move it out of my face, I don't believe in that shit." I'm trying to decide if that's assault or not. It's a strong contender for attempted assault, but if that's the case then I played the song in its entirety far too many times. In the chorus, he threatens, "Oh yes you will be lickin' my dick tonight," to which she gingerly replies, "Oh no I motherfuckin' won't." Balanced, I suppose. At the very least, it hasn't aged very well in our more enlightened 21st century society. Yet he spits some undeniably clever rhymes. Frankly, the song is an excellent vehicle to show he's a power-house rapper with brutal delivery, and he's really good at it with a sharp-wit too. ("I'll be like Herbie and hand you a cock.") Without a huge hip-hop vocabulary to pull on, I want to say that he reminds of someone like DMX: super angry and aggressive on every single track. To some, there's an appeal in hearing that power captured on tape. But, he's pretty damn funny sometimes too.

"Take a Lick" is from his album Aktapuss, his main studio album from 1999. Merely skimming the song titles gives a good sense of the album. First up is, "Pussy Makes the World Go 'Round" (and who am I to argue). The song "Butt Naked" isn't his most clever, but it's fairly straightforward; the chorus is: "Let's get butt naked and fuck. Forget the party, let's have an orgie," so yes, he rhymes "party" with "orgie." There's also "Rather Fuck You" and "Sex in The City," but he'll straight up kill you if you are "Messin' with my Cru," which isn't about sex but has another memorable female-sung hook. The raunchiest song "Three," which yet again relies on an unnamed lady singer for the melody, is goddamn filthy and hilarious: he wonders aloud if various triads throughout the last several decades of popular culture every got it on. His whole long, impressive list is worth reading:

Did Ginger and Marianne ever hit The Skipper?
The Three's Company chicks ever fuck Jack Tripper?
Did Orca and Jaws ever run up in Flipper?
Did that Spud dog ever fuck them three frog Bud sippers?
Huh, that's outlandish shit
...
Was Wyclef and Praswell scorin on Lauryn?
Was Lil' Cease and Un hittin Lil' Kim?
Did Red Alert and Scale ever fuck Wendy well?
Did Ak and Flex ever fuck Jess and Stress?
Shit, we can take it down the alphabets
Did SWV get with TLC
And fuck them three fellas down with BBD?
Remember Mike Bivins, ABC
They had more than three
But if they cut a few
Would they fuck them three girls from 702?
Would Erykah Badu fuck them two righteous dudes
From the Brand Nubian crew and include Grand Pu?
Did Mary J. Blige ever fuck Case and Nas?
Was Arnold or Willis ever cummin on Kimberly Drummond?
Check it, remember this record:
And when I'm cool like that, I'm cool like that
I don't know they name, damn it
But I wonder did them niggas ever ram it
In that girl from Digable Planets?

Remember in the early '80s, did ---

Fuck them ladies from the Brady's?
Stanford & Son fuck Esther Grady
Or could it be
Ed Lover and Dr. Dre fucked Lisa G?
Is it that old school chick
Gladys Knight fucked them Pips?
And damsels, we goin back to old school jams
Did UTFO fuck The Real Roxanne?
Did Cagney and Lacey ever fuck Dick Tracy?
Did Jasmine Guy ever fuck Teddy Ri'
And them other two guys
Cause they was all part of Guy
Remember Aaron Hall, Damon Hall
Did the Gay Rapper ever fuck Ru Paul two balls?
Who you want to sex, where you want to sex
And when it comes to talkin bi-sex, I'm the muthafuckin best
Check the rhyme, did Changing Faces
Ever let R. Kelly bump and grind in they behind?
Did Laverne and Shirley ever fuck Carmine?
Was Gina and Pam humpin on Martin?
And all you freaks on that motorcycle shit
I wonder would you ever fuck them two police from Chips?
New York Undercover, what's that Puerto Rican's name?
Yeah, did him and Leeroy fuck Debbie Allen from Fame?
And if Miss Braxton said at first, then three times 'I'm feelin horny'
Does it mean she's fuckin Tony Toni Tonë?

Bravo, sir. I nearly lost it over the Flipper line. "Outlandish shit" indeed! That pun about the Fugees is freakin' brilliant, though I doubt Ms. Lauryn, or some of these other ladies, would appreciate the speculation. And, hold up, did he just say, "When it comes to bi-sex, I'm the motherfuckin' best"?! Sadly, he probably just hopes the two girls are gonna make out or whatever. The answer to most of these questions is decidedly, "No," but let's take a minute to answer two of Akinyele's legitimate and non-rhetorical questions: 1.) That girl from Digable Planets was Ladybug Mecca (she's from Silver Spring, MD and still kicking it); and 2.) The Puerto Rican from New York Undercover was Michael DeLorenzo playing Detective Eddie Torres.

The next album is more of the same, sex and violence, but it features an extraordinary standout track, the funky "Do You Wanna?" The tracks is downright progressive (or at least neo-liberal) in the way that he splits it up evenly with the lady he's trading verses with, both of them talking about everybody they fucked everywhere. It's a real shame, but despite being a massively talented rapper I utterly failed my attempt to identify her after lengthy searches. All I could turn up was this seemingly official video, which she's not it. It's porn. Yep, his video is actual porn, so probably don't click on that. But this ridicluous and awesome song is firmly in the tradition of other dirty raps, from the likes of 2 Live Crew and sometimes Afroman and likely other artist further down the alphabet.

A random song that somehow doesn't appear on any of those albums, but ranks high in download/streaming popularity, is "Loud Hangover," which was my introduction to a Funkmaster Flex mixtape it appeared on in 1995. It took me a minute to figure out this is actually a dirty old Funkmaster Flex song, and that plenty of people actually know Akinyele from that album (at first glance, it seems stellar) - and other stuff he appeared on around that time. Specifically, he is perhaps best known for his appearance on "Live at the Barbeque" from Main Source's 1991 album Breaking Atoms. It's their biggest track, and possibly bigger than anything he did himself. People know him for this, but I did not. Again, this is what happens when I try to write about hip hop, so give me a minute to catch up.

The only other thing to hear is a completely bonkers live album that certainly sounds like a fake live album, with canned crowd noises fading in and out as required. In some ways it is good classic hip hop from actual breaks and samples and what not, but it also seems like fake hype: yelling into an overblown mic pretending it's in front of a crowd. We didn't need that.

He hasn't done much in the last 15-years or so, musically, but he seems to be a revered veteran of the NYC scene, as indicated by his informative perspective on a semi-recent beef between Nas and Jay-Z (if we care about that). Perhaps unsurprisingly his current occupation is "owner and operator of multiple strip clubs," and my heart really goes out to those girls. A bit more shocking is the fact that he wanted to be the mayor of South Beach Miami, apparently because of an obsession with regulations on his clubs. I got all that from this article, which was the first time I learned that "Live at the BBQ" was not just Auk's debut but also Nas's, so maybe that's got a bit to do with why people know it. Even with a fairly limited repertoire, he stills seems to have made a significant impact on the world of hip-hop. "Fuck Me for Free" seems to be a memorable song for people other than me, especially consider a recent remake with DJ Khalid and Drake making waves. Considering just the relative excellence and staying power of "Put It In Your Mouth" and "Take a Lick," his shadow looms large over a certain type of rap.

akinyele.com is currently for sale.

26 December 2019

Interlude: Best of 2019

25 Best Songs of 2019

Beirut - Landslide
Andrew Bird- Manifest
Weyes Blood - Everyday
Sharon Von Etten - Seventeen
Ex Hex - Tough Enough OR Cosmic Cave
Bleached - Hard to Kill
Emily Wolfe- Holly Roller
Tank and the Bangas - Nice Things
Kehlani - Nights like this (feat. Ty Dolla $ign)
DJ Shadow - Rocket Fuel (feat. De La Soul)
Princess Nokia - Sugar Honey Ice Tea
Lower Dens - I Drive
Operators - I Feel Emotion
Ashley Tisdale - Love Me & Let Me Go
Ashley O - On a Roll
Dilllon Francis - Catchy Song (feat. T-Pain & That Girl Lay Lay)
The Dandy Warhols - Motor City Steel
Seratones - Gotta Get to Know Ya
Sunflower Bean - Come for Me
King Gizard and the Lizard Wizard - Self-Immolate OR Mars for the Rich
Power Trip - Hornet's Nest
Le Butcherettes - spider/WAVES (feat. Jello Biafra)
His Many Colored Fruit - Staring at Facebook Til It Makes Me Vomit
Purple Mountains - Snow is Falling in Manhattan
The Comet is Coming - Summon the Fire OR Unity

Best Album

1. Andrew Bird - My Finest Work Yet
2. Sharon Von Etten - Remind me Tomorrow
3. Charli XCX - Charli

Best Show

1. Kitty - Rose Gold: The Musical w/ vvervvolf (Rock and Roll Hotel, 8/14)
This show was by far the best thing I saw live this year, perhaps all the more so because it was too-sparsely attended and I never saw a word of press about it. Tragic! It blew my freaking mind by impressively turning a consistently great album into a sensory-overloading experience. It was totally an actual musical because there were spoken interludes, other people on stage, and a narrative. The officially stated story is this: a hot girl has problems, gets drunk, and plays music AND THAT IS LITERALLY WHAT HAPPENED. It was a very meta theatrical multimedia experience, and yea SUPER hot, but as a reminder, I'm here for the impressively independent DIY aesthetic, not the sex appeal. OK, fine- both. Both! After years of internet-based fandom bordering on obsession I finally got to see Kitty, and it was all I could have ever wanted and more: the incredible new album in its entirety, the very best songs from her band with her husband, The Poms-Poms, performed with gusto, and just one classic Kitty song was all that was needed to make everyone dance- even the old people. vvervvolf was a perfect opening act, and I expect great things from them in the future. It was not even a tour, so I felt so fortunate to be able to catch it in DC, as it was only every played there and in NYC and LA. It was the kind of event that makes one feel lucky to have gotten out of the house and witness something fantastic that has never happened before and will never happen again. And as a late entry at the tail end of 2019, the new stuff from The Pom-Poms is making me VERY happy! I feel like I've been trying to tell everyone about the greatness of Kitty since 2014 and while few cared as much as I did, this whole experience proved, at least to myself, that I was right a long about her.
2. Spiritualized (Lincoln Theater, 4/6)
I've seen Spiritualized every chance I've had since 1997, and this was easily the best. This version of the band has been together long enough, and it's not too big but not too small either. The addition of three gospel singers (neither just 2 nor a full choir) was perfect, and the soul-pop renditions of songs that melted into glorious chaos was something to experience live - from a padded seat for the first time. And that light show- Oh happy day!

Best New Artist
Sigrid
It is kinda stretching here for the best new artist, but that was a really good debut pop album (she had an EP out last year). I liked both "Don't Kill my Vibe" and "Strangers" (the bigger hit), but the whole album is eminently listenable. She's young, so it will be interesting to see how it goes from here. I also can tell you (and the GRAMMYs) that the best new artist is NOT:
Tank and the Bangas,
'cause they are super-great but they've been around for too long to reasonably be considered new. Then again
Lindsay Lou
has been around for nearly that long, but this was the year I was so pleasantly surprised to "discover" her at Del Fest; new-to-me discoveries like that keep me going back to music festivals even if the announced artists seem either redundant or unknown. Let's have an honorable mention for the uniquely impressive
Seratones,
another "new" band that I was exposed to thanks to WTMD's First Thursday concert; just like
Emily Wolfe,
I didn't even make it to the show but was still blown away from seeing stuff online and listening to their full albums.

Artist of the Year
The Regrettes
Their newest wasn't even my favorite album of the year--even though it sounds like a pile of near-perfect singles--and the best songs from it ("Pumpkin," "I Dare You," and "Dress Up") didn't even make the short list, but this band was everywhere in my media feeds this year, and I am all for it. This might be the perfect band that everyone in America should be listening to right now- an absolutely ideal mix of timeless rock influences and modern punk-ish sensibilities. "Pumpkin" might be their song I liked best, but it's not exactly representative enough of their overall sound. "I Dare You" is the perfect run-away single. The thing that really blew my mind was this incredible cover of an underplayed Queen song; I'm comfortable declaring it superior to the original! (Not necessarily from this year, but they are killing these covers: previously "A Teenager in Love" and this impeccably spunky performance of another excellent, underplayed classic rock song, this one from Sweet.) I can only assume that their sold-out show in Baltimore (that I missed) was excellent because they immediately booked a larger venue in DC for their next pass through the area: my loss. They are all insanely adorable people, but more importantly they are so smart- making excellent musical choices paired with incisive, emo-esque lyrics. The way the brilliant lead singer (and lead songwriter) adds just the right amount of snarl to her sweetness is a 10/10. She and the band also released a Christmas duet with her actual rock-star/actor boyfriend. The whole band rocks, and those backing vocals are well-played too. Tell the young people!

Looking forward to new stuff NEXT Year from
Ruby Ibarra
Sierra Hull
Kesha

and Playing over the End Credits of 2019
Titus Andronicus "I Blame Society"
OR
The 1975

07 October 2019

Akimbo

And now for some good heavy music that defies simple classification. Is it metal? I guess. Heavy metal? (Am I the only one that calls it that anymore?) Punk? Nah- there are not really any theatrics. Hardcore? Not exactly (thanks for your opinion though, Wikipedia), but I bet someone calls this a post-punk band. Maybe even a post-punk hardcore band. Anything is possible.

Whatever it is, I am here for it. I was completely unfamiliar with this band at first. They leaked into my library via a bandmate's recommendation, and then just sat there waiting to be heard. However, after this listening I can say that it certainly passes the time ably, if not always impressively. Yes, I could definitely listen to this endlessly, even if it never turns out to be my favorite band, and no single song is really too distinguishable from any of the others.

The fact that they got signed to Jello Biafra's Alternative Tentacles, after opening for him and the Melvins, is a big hint that there's something a bit more going on
Whatever it is that makes this band more than just a hardcore band is probably not found in the lyrics though. Despite frequently clever song titles being a hallmark of the group, I understood almost not one word of their screaming. That's a little odd, but the almost-Cookie Monster-type vocals actually fit in quite well with the slamming guitars and brutal drums. The bass has to be called out a bit - it just plays the guitar riff nearly all the time. I was several albums deep before I was ever able to discern a distinct bass line. We will cut the guy some slack though since that's the vocalist and founding member playing bass. So he's busy screaming his head off, and writing stuff...probably booking shows and selling t-shirts too. The cute story is he met the founding drummer in a high school gym class after they noticed each other's homemade punk rock t-shirts in 1998. I saw that story repeated several times online and would love to hear what bands were on the shirts; it was some DC hardcore, apparently, which makes a lot of sense. Rites of Spring? Other than those two founding members on rhythm, there have been ELEVEN different guys playing guitar in this ongoing trio. One of the key guitarists quits to be a financial analyst, and many of the rest are key players from the Pacific Northwest scene. Since it is essentially a power trio, there are a lot of heavy, heavy guitars upfront, so it was surprising to lean it's basically a different guy every time. The riffs are consistently crunchy and delicious, huge. If Seattle Grunge had a baby with D.C. Post-Punk, but then that baby grew up and had another baby with like some violent, inebriated Metal, that baby would be this band.

Although they release a few things between 1999 and 2003 on other labels, for the streaming listener it begins with 2001's aptly-titled Harshing Your Mellow. There's little on the next five albums that isn't set out here already. Yet it is appreciably noisy and sounds great loud, and we all want that at one time or another in our listening lives. I don't know what he's howling about, but the song titles are all either harrowing or hilarious: from "Paul Reubens Theater" to "Steal Your First Born" or "Life in the Noose."

Next, City of Stars (2004), is an album I listened to a fair amount, and it grew on me eventually, yet it's still not a deep appreciation: even hearing the songs over and over, I liked them each time but never came to recognize them. The titles are again often silly, but the singing is not. "I Think I'm a Werewolf," "High and Fighting," and "Afraid of Mountains" all earn at least an appreciated slight pause, but the "Have A Good Time All The Time" gets a special nod from me; it's not just good advice, it's the last line from the Spinal Tap movie, as spoken by their keyboardist. Sure, they do slow down for the 8-minute closer, but it would be deeper into their existence before they really made the most of dynamics. The last song works well, even though it could be an entirely different band. One might recall the schizophrenia of Lard's repertoire, particularly given the Alternative Tentacles connection.

The production and drumming gets notably fancier on later albums. For better or worse? It's kinda a wash. I'm not going to complain about hearing things clearer; it's not like it turned into overproduced cock-rock. The guitarist is new again, but you'd be hard-pressed to notice. This is absolutely NOT punk/hardcore drumming, nor are the production values. The production is so bizarrely (deliberately?) muted, like listening to a really loud show with heavy ear plugs in, but it's a somewhat different sound and it works for this material. The next album, Forging Steel and Laying Stone (2006), has a notable reference to Conan, with "Tower of the Elephant" being one of Conan's first adventure stories--and a song that does a lot in five minutes. Otherwise it's more of the same decent heavy rock on this album and the next, Navigating the Bronze. My joke: it's NOT a concept album about trying to play a gig in the Sunnydale. But you know what is a concept album? Their next album.

After playing with Converge (fuck yea) and Neurosis (OK, I guess), they left Alternative Tentacles to be on the Neurot label, which is basically Neurosis. That's when they released the fairly incredible concept album Jersey Shores in 2008. The vinyl-exclusive version of the cover art is pretty sick

Maybe I just have a soft spot for concepts albums, but this one really seems to kick it up a notch for these guys. It's a bit like heavy metal prog rock at times, and that's to say nothing of the story they are telling. I don't want to spoil it for everyone, but the scariest bit is how far inland the killer shark gets by swimming up little streams. Yes, it's a true story, from New Jersey. I enjoyed this album the most and am grateful for having discovered it.

They announce their breakup and play a farewell show before releasing Live to Crush. They might have gone back to Alternative Tentacles. It does seem like they might be broken up for real this time. So when the most recent guitarist and writer mostly responsible for the Jersey Shore stuff leaves the other two decide not to continue. They formed a new band, called Sandrider. And people call it "grunge metal" - on purpose! In 2011- to present! I snuck a listen and I definitely dig it. Sounds like stoner-metal to me.

I hope I haven't damned this band with faint praise. While it's true that few if any individual tracks rise above the muck, I thoroughly and consistently enjoyed listening to the band. I find them refreshingly aggressive, and just abrasive enough. After an evening at home listening to the Avett Brothers with the fam, it was a nice palette cleanse to start the early morning commute with these bashers. It looks hella fun too. I wouldn't have to remember the name or tune of a single song to enjoy this show:

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BONUS INTERNET PLAGIARISM

According to Merriam-Webster.....

(hey, at least I didn't start the essay that way)

akimbo

adjective or adverb

akim·bo | \ ə-ˈkim-(ˌ)bō \

Definition of akimbo

1: having the hand on the hip and the elbow turned outward

2: set in a bent positiona tailor sitting with legs akimbo

Did You Know?

It's "akimbo" nowadays, but in Middle English, the spelling "in kenebowe" was used for the bent, hand-on-hip arm (or later, for any bent position). Originally, the term was fairly neutral, but now saying that a person is standing with "arms akimbo" implies a posture that communicates defiance, confidence, aggressiveness, or arrogance. In her novel Little Women, Louisa May Alcott took the word one step further, extending it into the figurative realm when she explained that tomboyish Jo had not been invited to participate in an elegant event with the other young ladies of the neighborhood because "her elbows were decidedly akimbo at this period of her life."

Listening to All My Music Chronologically

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