August 03, 2004
I AIN’T NO COWBOY, BUT THIS IS A ROUNDUP
I love big dance bands with percussionists you can't even hear. I love all night all night action action that makes you lose your lose your compass and float on waves of interpersonal radiation. But I cannot get with the afrobeat pattern. Tony Allen is a monster drummer. The math of afrobeat is pleasantly various. I simply do not funk to any of it. Afrobeat does not give me that frozen vein feeling and make me miss work because I am at home practicing The Butter Churn and The Ticket Taker. I find the new Antibalas record exactly as boring as I find Fela records. My cohort’s absorbed the consensus view that afrobeat is all holy and shit. I have a different take. Afrobeat is to James Brown as Speech is to Chuck D: Vague musical link, conceptual bump from affinity, and able to generate some weak heat if you ratchet up the consumer numbers, but an absolute flatline when I have to listen to it. I have 22 Fela CDs and I’ve never listened to one of them all the way through. I’ve listened to every stupid James Brown record I own, some of them hundreds of times. I hate Bush. I love multiracial bands. I love, you know, doing the right thing. But I will never ever listen to this Antibalas record again. I am sure I am a bad person.
Electrelane: I suppose if you miss the old Stereolab so much you want to hear a badly-played version of it, this will work. Or if you thought the first Elastica record needed to just cool out and slow down, then you’re in luck. You ain’t lucky, though.
LL Cool J and Timbaland—“Head Sprung”: LL is nice in the verses, finding new ways to lay on a track. (Don’t sleep on dude because he was in Rollerball.) The hook is totally corny. And we love corny. But not this corny.
Javine: Don’t sleep.
Young Heart Attack = The Darkness with less yucks and hooks. I like both bands equally. How much is that? If I am in a store and I hear a song playing over the PA, I will stay until it is over. Neither of these bands are as good, or as old, as The Wildhearts.
Absolutely not failing me: Anthony Hamilton’s Comin’ From Where I’m From. His voice makes me so high you could boxcutter a hole in by Bugle Boy jeans, slice my wallet in half, leave a scar on my left buttcheek, and I still wouldn't feel it.
Posted by Sasha at August 3, 2004 11:47 AM | TrackBack