birthday girl

This is a song that was supposed to be part of The Roots’ last album, Rising Down. If I remember correctly, the story is that it was not included because they failed to clear a sample that was used in the track. Also, considering that this was one of The Roots’ grittier sounding albums, something has to be said about it not fitting within its continuity. (Although it was included in the European release.)

Tis a great song nonetheless.

mos definitely maybe

Tix are going from $32 to $60 via the Arsht Center. I’m still not exactly sure whether I’m gonna make it or not.

chasing a dream

In an effort to fill the void in between spurts of ideas for our tuk-tuk’s paint job, I came up on this video oldie but goodie. It’s the video for Mayday’s Quicksand, their first and I believe, what got them signed to Southbeat Records, where they would eventually produce Groundhog Day and blow up all over the innertubes. Before Plex got all ZZ Top with his beard. Back when it was just him & Bernbiz.

Shot in all over Miami and still one of my favorite Mayday! joints.

tribute to a king

When news that Michael Jackson had suffered a heart attack hit the airwaves, I was sitting at a bus station in northern Peru waiting for what would be one of the worse 18 hour bus rides of my life. A seemingly delicious burger made my life miserable for 20 hours (the bus arrived to the station two hours late) and it took me out of commission for another 10 beyond that. This left me wide awake and at about 85% around 11pm the following night at my aunt’s place, just to find out the innerwebz was down. It would be another 4 hours before I was able to connect and noticed an inordinate amount of MJ videos popping up on facebook. It wasn’t hard to figure out what was going on.

It was a rare sense of disbelief that I felt then, coupled with a ton of other worries going through my mind, not to mention that I was physically debilitated, caused me not to give the news much thought. It sorta kept the reality of it at a distance. I happened to be in Peru at the time, which helped, and when I got back to the States, I chose to disconnect from the constant barrage of all that was Michael Jackson. (Up until Stevie Wonder’s tribute during MJ’s memorial.)

All this time, I really wished I’d thrown up a little something on the blog in remembrance of someone who’s music I grew up with. Luckily, I ran into this video of Mos Def performing a dope rendition of Billie Jean. I figured it would be a fitting, belated tribute.

hmm… yeah

free (the late pass edition)

I was gonna make this about how the landscape of the music business is changing and how these big name bands (Radiohead, NIN, Coldplay, et al) are bucking the system by sidestepping labels and connecting with their fanbase directly online but I’d just rather post a list of albums available for free on the internetz (most of this stuff has been available online for a minute but I’ve just become privy to it):

• Coldplay – LeftRightLeftRightLeft
• Mayday! – Technology
• Mayday! – The Thinnest Line
• NIN|JA – EP
• NIN – The Slip

Naturally, I’m hoping someone actually reads this and maybe gives me a heads up on other groups getting in on the act. (Weren’t Oasis and Jamiroquai following up on NIN & Radiohead?)

live from somwhere

This is probably the nicest live video footage of Mayday! I’ve seen. It’s but a sample of type of energy you get outta one of their shows. Watch Gianni (percussion) & L.T. (drums) tear it up at the end.

breathe

I wanted to post the full video for the song Breathe by Telepopmusik (featuring Angela McCluskey). There’s actually two versions of it, the one that plays in the Mitsubishi commercial (which is the one I’m posting) and the original version, found on Telepopmusik’s 2001 album “Genetic World.” The video for the version of that song is pretty rad itself and you can check that out HERE.

more about “Breathe“, posted with vodpod

There was some sort of fullness to the voice in that song in the woman parts trimmer commercial that I couldn’t get outta my head, so I went on a pre-easter egg hunt on the internets. It turns out that the voice belongs to Scottish singer Angela McCluskey.

After listening to her for a bit, I’d say she’s somewhere right between Nikka Costa and Macy Gray as far as vocal stylings are concerned. A sultrier version of Nikka and a crisper Macy Gray and right along the same neigborhood, musically speaking – the place where rock, soul and r&b meet.

She dropped her first solo “The Things We Do” back in 2004 and from the snippets it strikes me as a soulish rock album. She definitely has a rocky edge about her but I see her more as a soul/r&b singer set to downtempo beats, something along the lines of the track in the commercial, which btw, it seems like something for which it was exclusively created.

She is also much better known for her collaborations with the French group Telepopmusik. So much so, that chances are that you’ve heard her voice before.

Now you can listen to Kutiman’s thru-you wherever you want, technically speaking. LINK.