Where to begin where to begin. I have been to Chicago. I have been there many times and again and again, and it puts something on the end of my tongue that will never be spit out. No wonder there is this laughable irony when I say that I’m from Indy, Indy offers anything you’d ever want, I’m happy in Indy, Indianapolis is cool, etc. etc. etc.

Besides the obvious fact that there are more 3+ story buildings in the West Loop than all of Indianapolis and surrounding areas combined, besides the obvious fact that people actually are out there walking around and don’t seem suspicious, besides the obvious fact that buses and trains actually are functionally moving people around in an orderly fashion, and besides the obvious fact that there is more to discover in a few moments (about yourself…smarmily), Chicago is where some music is.

Now, precious Indianapolis, hear me clearly on this one. I love you. I really do. And all the people who I’ve told I love in the past will verify, this is a serious, obsessive, unforgiving love, that is more harrowing for me than for you. But you do not have a few things that have become necessary.

Yes, this is spontaneous. Yes, this is ridiculous. Yes, I have a dinosaur tattoo on my arm…I don’t really fucking care at the moment. Spinning about wildly has become the normal thing to be happening. Ungrounded, uprooted. I think I’ll make my way a little farther north and see what happens.

See you soon, again, Chicagoans.

Amidst the sounds of bongs gurgling, horns blaring, and rhyme words, snares, and shakers ridiculously reverberating, that catchy, funny accent that can only be deemed “Rasta” heralds the long-awaited Beatles tribute album from Easy Star All Stars: Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Dub Band.

The third album of its kind, Dub Band follows up tributes Radiodread (Radiohead, OK Computer) and Dub Side of the Moon (Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon), and features the likes of Matisyahu, Luciano, The Mighty Diamonds, Ranking, and more.Dubbing out this album aka making it distinctly Reggae are the rolling, persistent Reggae bass lines, incredibly distinct horn sounds, fills and drills and accents of all sorts of percussion instruments. And of course, the slight vocal rearrangements, as in the dubbed Lovely Rita when the Easy Star All Stars belt out, “When are you free to smoke some tea with me?!”

How different is this than the original Sgt. Peppers? Well, just different enough to be called a creative reimagining of the work that won’t offend the Beatles purists out there, but just similar enough to have your little old heart beating with all the nostalgia of the first time you listened to this legendary album, which is rumored to have made Brian Wilson go into full mental collapse (although, I have heard that the sight of Bill Brasky nude is what pushed Mr. Wilson over the edge).

Yes, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds is on there. Yes, Day in the Life. Yes, Good Morning, Good Morning. Yes, Benefit of Mr. Kite. Only this time, your head is going to nod enough to give you whiplash. Your arms will rise of their own volition in front of your body and begin waving to the rhythms as well. Hell, by then end of it you’re going to be wearing a Jamaica flag tanktop, have dreadlocks tucked up in one of those woven basket hats, and walk around with a natural bouncy beat in your step. The slight twist is that you’ll be singing to yourself, “We shall (we shall) scrimp and save! Granchildren on your knee, Vera, Chuck, and Dave.” (You know you sing the front parts and backup parts. We all do.)

The Easy Star All Stars are on a massive, mostly European tour for the summer. All the Easy Star All Stars albums are available on their record label, Easy Star Recordings (www.easystar.com).

]]> http://www.chapstickweekly.com/2009/08/03/easy-star-all-stars-sgt-dub/feed/ http://www.chapstickweekly.com/2009/05/15/the-competitors/ http://www.chapstickweekly.com/2009/05/15/the-competitors/#comments Fri, 15 May 2009 20:08:39 +0000 admin http://www.chapstickweekly.com/?p=190  

“I want to write something of my own, and for it to seem like I have quoted one of the greats. I want to turn the heads of all the casual readers and those that I can no longer just assume will love me.  I want to turn your understanding upside down, to tilt your head to the side in a distracted thought that tumbles into an avalanche.”

the competitors

this is not a race
to see whose collection is bigger
more prescient     more relevant
more refined

although we rush
to gather our choice of memories
or inspirations   recollections
like burning rubber hoses and bubbling fluids

or like the cozy lazy tears at body temperature
that saturate the skin then cool as they evaporate
 

or like the cold that rushes into the spaces between two bodies
as they separate from a long embrace    the smell of skin mostly
permanent   the smell of hair that fades

or even like the redness of a thousand rooftops that fades as seen from a picture window at the peak of a high hill only to be replaced by a few thousand white lights from distant windows and porches and headlights and red lights of brakes and traffic signals and orange lights of do not walk do not cross wait and streams of colors that surround the edges of sight against the milky blueblack sky of dark silent clouds

this is more of a downhill tumble
one whose swath is more defined
by the piles of trash
that run like horrible giant walls

fading in and out of recognition
of attention   or of even being noticed at all

i think we are the collectors
and then the guardians of all of that
our giant piles plowed through
with the feeble bandwidth
of our revelations

Two thoughts, simple yet profound, on what people are not meant to withstand extended periods of.

The first: people are not meant to be unemployed. It’s terrible meeting people, as the prime thing on everyone’s mind when you are meeting someone is, “I wonder what he or she does?” Well, I don’t do anything. So get over it!

The second: people are not meant to be alone. There are all kinds of strange thoughts that I have. I need people to hear me say these thoughts outloud, then to immediately tell me of their absolute incongruous nature to reality. Also, for reasons unexplained, I start believing anything I read or hear. I become incapable of editing anything.

Anyway, on to the music…

Oh yes! ps. This wholly unclassified piece of work that has become Chapstick Weekly is great and I appreciate you for staying the course in this not-exactly-critical, not-nearly-weekly, not-really-a-magazine collection of musings. I like that I am not insistent on being the first to cover new or albums and it is still appreciated. I also like that there is absolutely no regularity to this, but people continue to ask me about it. So besa me, besa me mucho, which, I believe, means thank you in Italian.

Please Note, I could not get several of these tracks to work. So here’s the list!

The Chemical Brothers - The State We’re In
The Chemical Brothers – Denmark
Cut Copy – Lights & Music
Pacific! – Number One
Friendly Fires – Skeleton Boy
Kaiser Chiefs – Addicted to Drugs
Flying Lotus – Parisian Goldfish
Lost In Los Angeles – All Roads Lead to You
Hot Chip – Over and Over (Live: Berlin Music Festival)
The Duke Spirit – The Step and the Walk
TV On the Radio – Crying
Brendan Canning – Love Is New
Air – The Vagabond
Electric Owls – Magic Show
The End of the World – Someone Else’s Dollar
Stars – Your Ex-Lover Is Dead
Colin Meloy – Here I Dreamt I Was an Architect / Dreams
The Flaming Lips – Are You a Hypnotist??

ps. Where’s my chippie? pps. Everybody’s famous on YouTube. pps. This is me on a daily basis, really, it’s just funnier seeing someone else do it.

Blitzen Trapper: Remarkable in their excellent musicianship and steady tempo; fantastically executed and surprising in their complete wholeness on stage.

Horse Feather: Quiet, delicate, and truffled.

Megafaun: No one has tried to mix ambient electronic with some of the best bluegrass music I have ever heard with such alarming alacrity as these guys ps. they are really funny too.

VHS or Beta / Rapture DJ set: Something about celebrity DJ sets makes me wonder what they actually must be listening to.

Mad Rad: I don’t claim to know much about hiphop, but I think these guys were more rap, I did have fun after a few (6 or 9) shots amidst shirtless, upper-body, slam-dancing and a lyrical post-natal quest to return to the womb.

Elms: Another solid performance by this Indiana band whose talent never ceases to amaze me.

Wolf Parade: Good show, good performance, good music, good people, good times, good night.

The Duke Spirit: Despite being under the weather and thinking that they sounded not so good, this band had the voice of Brazilian Girls and the sound of well, Wolf Parade!

The Duke Spirit afterparty DJ: Really dug your mix, good sir i.e. in the words of Tim and Eric, Great Job!

30-year-old Private Bday Party I Crashed on Saturday DJ: Was this you too? Many good songs mixed in with what can only be compared to the better half of the wedding song catalogue.

VHS or Beta: A quiet night at James and Marple’s transformed into an engaging, danceable show; and yes, I sang along and yes, I saw you looking at me doing it.

Tom Morello: Sucked! Aka to be expected as the best moment of his concert was a brief 15-second Rage guitar part.

Tom Morello Encore: Dear Woody Guthrie, Please forgive Tom for making all the crowd sing along to his hard rock version of This Land Is Your Land. Love, paul.

Their new album, Out My Window, is a fantastical exploration of the softer sides of your imagination. The gentle yet persistent grooves will paddle boat your mind through the tantamount imperfections of being, relying as much on the drifting currents of ambient electronic sounds as on the smooth prodding of smoother jazz tones. I won’t pretend you can dance to this, but if you’re one of those people who get going rather gradually throughout your Saturday morning, this would be suitably appropriate, especially if you’re getting going rather slowly with a special lady/gentleman friend (I meant either/or here, but if you prefer both at the same time, then yes to that too).

Maybe somebody put a few quarters (or dollars or whatever it takes in a recession) in the vibrating bed machine while they were on tour or something. Or perhaps it’s like the Beatles when they discovered pot and/or acid. Either way, the fruits of their work have paid off with a collection of tracks ranging from some beautiful, peaceful rants/musings to dancey, fun tracks with hooks and reels.

One man and his laptop is how some people may describe this one after seeing the live performance, but the music speaks to a classic folk tradition that goes well into Appalachia. Acoustic guitars and self-made vocal harmonies decorate a vast landscape that spans genres from country to electronic, thumping alongside all of our river-ride of an American journey. Pensive, deliberate, thoughtful, and complex, this short EP has the ability to please a range of listeners. Here is another softy for this issue (see what I mean about thinking too much when you spend too much time by yourself?)…at least there are innumerable danceables that came before this. And maybe you’ll like this better, as it is currently venturing into winter.

Anyway, I can’t understand anything they’re saying.

What I mean is that the unpretentious coupling of shake-your-ass hypnotist Ronson and the straightforward lyrics, guitars, drums, and otherwise makes for an incredible listen, with bongo breakbeats and synth crescendos lurking around each bend. It’s as if they took their naturally bouncy, catchy rock sound into the music store for an upgrade and someone was like, Hey, here is the new Ronson module: plug this in for increased danceability and improved harmonic performance.

This is certainly not to say that the album is without a nondanceable hymnal or two, the thoughtful moments of this album reach into places where you may or may not be familiar. Itchy, clammy places. Places your loufa would balk at. And ps. you have to love the English-ness of the album. In particular their approaches to their foreign understanding of hiphop and rap lyricism.

But, seriously, all seriousness aside, go get this album, wait until you have guests that are impressed with new music (and maybe have consumed a bit of alcohol), place this record in your phonographic player and boogie.