You can’t write about rap music without writing about race. Every aspect of the music and its progression over the years from community center dance parties in the Bronx to a billion-dollar, global phenomenon is somehow tied into the African-American experience. As a white guy, writing about hip-hop necessarily presents its own challenges, because nobody likes a white guy writing
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As far back as I can remember, I’ve always wanted to have a water feature. Or at least as far back as an afternoon spent playing at my grade school buddy Adam Carpenter’s house, which was adorned with a small pond and waterfall in the back left corner. The very term “water feature” is wholly inadequate to describe the sense
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“Wet Hot American Summer” is my “Rocky Horror Picture Show.” Well, it is, but see if you can follow me here. It … isn’t. Unlike acolytes of the “Rocky Horror Picture Show,” I would never pay good money to sit in a theater at midnight and listen to the loudest, tooliest “Wet Hot American Summer” fans in the room drown
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“People wonder why jazz is dying.” Terence Fletcher, “Whiplash” To paraphrase the title of a recent Mogwai album, jazz will never die, but you will. Jazz is forever, and we’re just lucky enough to live during its lifetime. But good old abusive, homophobic Terence has a point. Jazz isn’t dying, but its relation to the popular consciousness is very, very
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“Dark Shadows” looms over the house near the bluffs in CollinsPortland, and only one man perceives the significance of this Gothic soap opera as it pertains to a strange and momentous period in his life. Recently released from a secret prison inside the CollinsPortland Cannery Association, this media assassin for hire now contemplates his new-found freedom and potential next steps.
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Tear down the wall! Tear down the wall! That’s not just good advice for Roger Waters, Bob Geldof, and Germany circa 1989, but for organizers of music festivals, as well. There are many reasons why SXSW is one of the greatest in the world, but the one that stands above all others for me is simple: Choice. Yes, there are walls. Any
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As I busted left off The 5, making for the wilderness of now-dried-up Detroit Lake, Compton’s Most Wanted’s “Straight Checkn ‘Em” came rolling out of my speakers. The “Scarface” samples, low-end thud, and nasal tales of drivebys and ducksicks that are MC Eiht’s forte propelled me forward through Mill City, onward toward the annual camping trip that has come to
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This is it. No more bullshit. Time to stop talking about it and write again. Freelancing the odd music article is cool and all, but there’s more to this alchemical pursuit than what an editor decides deserves readers’ attention. I’ve got stories to tell, perspectives to give, and shit to talk. More importantly, there are stories that need telling, other
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