I just realized I needed a link to my e-mail.
Tuesday, April 23, 2002 -- 11:20 p.m.

Crazy insane. Got no brain.
Monday, April 22, 2002 -- 05:02 p.m.

Nate's Top Five Songs and Albums for the week of 04.22.02

Songs:
5) Deep Heat, "Do It Again": From Keb Darge and DJ Shadow's "Funk Spectrum" compilation album. This one was picked by Shadow and it's basically a cover of the Steely Dan song with every lyric but the chorus eliminated and the tempo slowed to a languid but funky groove. Features a guitar solo to rival the original's sitar solo in the swankness department.
4) Bob James, "Nautilus": You know Ghostface Killah's "Daytona 500"? You know that KICKASS funk guitar riff? This is where it comes from. Actually, a LOT of hip-hop samples come from this one. A strange bit of jazz-funk fusion with great organ soloing and lots of strange '70s synth atmosphere. And strings. Yow.
3) Beastie Boys, "Car Thief (Demo #1)": From the Paul's Boutique demo sessions. There's two versions of the demo, and version #1 features an early version of the lyrics which are filthy as hell. Lots of references to dicks in mouths and ejaculation and autoerotic asphyxiation. Fun for all! If this was the version that made it to Paul's Boutique then The Beastie Boys would probably wind up replacing 2 Live Crew in the pop culture lexicon of Evil Rap Filth. Of course they kept most of the raunch out and wound up combining two completely different sets of lyrics from the two different takes (hence the lyrical boo-boo "I don't buy cheeba, I grow it" followed later by "buy my cheeba from the cop down the street").
2) Keith Mansfield, "Teenage Villain": This rocks like a Booker T & The MGs/Rolling Stones supersession, then goes all quiet and sneaky for the middle bit before getting back into fuzzed-out land. And the kicker is: it's "library music", created for the sole purpose of scoring some commercial or PSA or industrial film back in the '60s. Damn.
1) Clarence "Fuzzy" Haskins, "Gettin' It Off": As previously mentioned in my post about that ad music website. Probably the Great Lost Funk Instrumental as far as I'm concerned. (Yes, it was in that Gap ad, but I can't find it on CD anywhere.) Too funky for disco, too sleek for funk, this is a song that grabs you by the short hairs and DEMANDS you dance your ass off until you're hyperventilating and holding your ankle and moaning "Ow, I can't walk". Just awesome.

Albums: 5) Avalanches, Since I Left You: Only at such a low ranking because it's kind of old news, at least for me. But I listened to it again today and it's lost none of its inital appeal. Bit of a diatribe here: most of the sound-collage sample-fest stuff I've heard outside the turntablist/hip-hop arena mostly consists of snotty "art-pranksters" who hold themselves above the subjects they sample and only use their little exercises in tape-splicing and sampling as a means of didactic "COMMERCE! ART! MUSIC! POP! CAPITALISM!" bleating ("Deconstructing Beck", anyone?). Yeah, it's interesting to listen to, but the message is usually something tired like "THE MEDIA IS BRAINWASHING YOU" or "ALL MAJOR-LABEL MUSIC SUCKS" and I hate lectures. Since I Left You renders all that meaningless by being the idealist's answer to sound collage, extracting the latent potential for greatness from hundreds of songs ranging from dippy schmaltz to pop excellence. Title track and "Frontier Psychiatrist" aside, the big highlight for me is "Electricity"- go ahead and try to find a better piece of 2001 postmodern electro-disco-funk outside France and/or the Astralwerks label.
4) Various Artists, The Funky Sixteen Corners: Back to Keb Darge- some four years ago I got a double-LP copy of his "Legendary Deep Funk Vol. 2" series and I loved the hell out of it, and thus I was indoctrinated into the wonderful world of "rare groove". Just got this a couple days ago and this is every bit as exciting. Indie funk is interesting territory: tons of bands, many of which have some variation of the word "Soul" in their name, putting out songs that wouldn't sound out of place wedged between James Brown and the Meters- not merely stylistically, but in terms of sheer talent and a knack for hooks. Some of the tracks are kind of silly (Revolution Compared to What's "Go To Work" starts out with snoring, fercryinoutloud), but all of them are 100% superbad: Carleen and the Groovers' wah-wah-tastic "Can We Rap"; the Soul Vibrations' gorgeous horn-heavy "The Dump"; even Bad Medicine, the token white-guy band with the Moog synth riffs, sounds like they could obliterate even the strongest ass-chair connection and get you strutting around like a fiend. And then there's the title track. You know when James Brown yells "HIT ME" and the band plays a sharp blast of everything they've got? Imagine that blast SIXTEEN TIMES IN A ROW. It's a hell of a trick and if it's self-indulgent, it's also too fun to hate.
3) The Clash, Trick Or Treat (Live at Bond's NYC): A bootleg named such due to its being recorded on Halloween 1982, and it showcases the dual nature of the Clash live. The bad news is they stumble over the lyrics here and there, transposing some of the lines from "London Calling" and stumbling over a cue in "The Call Up", etcetera. The good news is these are not mere "studio version +50db" renditions- everything's pushed to the limit, sped up and rendered full-tilt supercharged, swirling around in a tumult of guitars and disco beeps at a pace that makes the already-energetic originals sound stately. The aforementioned "Call Up" sounds twice as urgent and features the added bonus of a prominent punk-to-funk-to-ska-to-wherever guitar riff; "The Street Parade" is given an oomph Cheap Trick would be jealous of; "The Magnificent Seven"'s "Whadda we got?" is answered "FUCK ALL!" by Mick and Joe even though they got more than anyone else in rock at that space in time.
2) The Beach Boys, Pet Sounds: Yep, this. Finally got it a couple months ago- "got it" meaning both to purchase and to understand. The era of studio experimentation either begins or is bolstered here, depending on who you ask, and a harmonic yet kinda dippy pop band winds up going for broke and making a masterpiece, etcetera and so forth. Not much I can add to this album's legend, except that "Don't Talk (Put Your Head On My Shoulder)" is the perfect companion piece to Pink Floyd's "Breathe". (Yes, I know it's hopelessly lame to like Dark Side of the Moon, but that's not stopping me.)
1) Clinic, Walking With Thee: To sum up in an LCA (Lazy Critical Analogy): Thom Yorke and the Mysterians. "Mr. Moonlight" is my leading candidate for Most Beautful Song of 2002, even if the lyrics confound and befuddle me. Elephants? Wha?
Stay tuned. Or go to I Wuv Music and watch me fumble around attempting to discuss The Rock And Roll with smartass Brits and various other much-needed hazards to society.