JB's Live Picks, Vol. 2: The Melvins with David Yow - "Night Goat"

A match made in noise rock heaven. Listen to that thick low-end feedback before the drums kick in full force! Check out the bone-crunching chug after they do! By David Yow standards, this is a pretty restrained performance, physically at least - the relativity is key - but the classic deranged mumble is pristinely intact. And it's a great song.

JB's Listenings Of The Week, 6/18-25/10

Rah Digga - "Dirty Harriet"

Flipmode alumni Rah Digga's first disc, "Dirty Harriet", sounds right at home with Busta's output of the time - slick but tough beats, grimy flows and those trademark shouting choruses. Busta actually produced the awesomely-titled opener "Harriet Thugman".





Glide

Late great Aussie rockers Glide have once again slipped into my regular listening cycle. They're the kind of band where every time I go back to them I get angry at myself for being away so long. Absolutely fucking fantastic.





Magazine - "Shot By Both Sides"

Another band to check off my "one of these days" list. "Shot By Both Sides", an early example of post-punk, retains the energy of the first wave British punk from which it came, but fuses it with a rather angular melodicism. The original single version is better (simpler production), but I couldn't find it.

JB's Listenings Of The Week, 6/10-18/10

Organized Konfusion

Another of my "heard ofs" to check off the list. Organized Konfusion are generally reputed as one of the best and smartest hip hop acts of the 90s; 3 albums, two of them minor classics. Although admittedly I haven't given it full album time, I can't say they strike me as quite as brilliant as they get props for, but they're still top-shelf 90s hip hop. Pharoah Monch and Prince Poetry are both all-around great MCs - sharp lyrics and great flow - and the beats knock.






Veruca Salt

See last post for more details. Here's probably the best track from their debut LP, "American Thighs".



Jake One - "The Truth" (ft. Freeway & Brother Ali)

Following up from last week's pick, "The Stimulus Plan", I grabbed Jake's double-LP "White Van Music", which features a killer guestlist including DOOM, Elzhi, Casual and many more. This track is an undeniable highlight; the kind of slick, soul-based boom bap Jake excels at, and a perfect fit for both MCs. They're in great form here, Ali in particular - dropping plenty of those soulful melodic accents that characterize his flow.



Black Milk - "The Matrix" (ft. Pharoah Monch, Sean Price & DJ Premier)
Detroit producer/MC Black Milk is for my money one of the best producers working in hip hop today. His ridiculously hooky beats were half of what made Elzhi's knockout debut "The Preface", and his solo stuff holds up just as well. This track is from his 2006 album "Tronic", and features Organized Konfusion's Pharoah Monch, among others, spitting over a propulsive synth-driven beat. And if you doubted Milk's cred, that's Premo on the scratches.



Ghostface Killah - "Supreme Clientele"

Ghostface was one of the artists that got me into rap in the first place, and remains to this day one of my favorite MCs. He's got one of the most distinct styles in the game; a jumble of stream-of-consciousness ramble, vividly detailed storytelling, oddball humor, borderline absurd braggadocio, a million other things - all held together by a rough, idiosyncratic flow. On his second LP "Supreme Clientele", he's at his rawest, and it sounds great. His dense blocks of rhyme sound right at home over the grimy beats. And on a side note, fuck the haters, RZA can be a good MC when he's on.





Antipop Consortium - "Shopping Carts Crashing"

For a long time, I had heard of Antipop as sort of the furthest end of avant-garde hip hop, which I thought sounded great. "Shopping Carts Crashing" doesn't quite live up to that promise; it falls too often into the trap of "avant-garde hip hop" read as "choppy flows/noisy electronic beats". Nothing visionary. This aside, taken as Bomb-Squad-meets-Blade-Runner hip hop along the lines of El-P's work, it's solid stuff.

Veruca Salt - "Blow It Out Your Ass It's Veruca Salt" EP

Veruca Salt is one of those half-forgotten 90s relics - they're still together in some form or other, even - the name floats around various soundtracks and such, they had sort of a hit with "Seether". Their debut disc, "American Thighs", is solid alt-rock, but this disc, produced by Steve Albini, is actually damn good. Albini really leaves his mark on it; thick, grindy guitars, slamming drums. Even the songs are far more aggressive than any of the "American Thighs" material - "Shimmer Like A Girl"'s big riff, the frantic screaming on "I'm Taking Europe With Me". It may not be enough to drag Veruca Salt out of the "decent 90s alt-rock" ghetto, but it's a very fine example of its specimen and definitely worth a listen.

JB's Listenings Of The Week, 6/4-10/10

Del Tha Funkee Homosapien - "No Need For Alarm"

Del's one of those great MCs who just always flies a little under the radar. He's put out no shortage of great shit over the years; Deltron 3030, a great track with Dinosaur Jr. on the "Judgement Night" soundtrack [my introduction to him, actually], a couple of great spots on the first Gorillaz disc...not to mention his solo work. "No Need For Alarm" was his first album after breaking out on his own creatively (his first album, which he apparently wasn't happy with, was produced under the guidance of his cousin Ice Cube). It's also his first with the Hieroglyphics clique, a California rap collective also including top-tier talent such as Souls Of Mischief and Casual. It's got a great sound...murky, jazzy beats, Del's loopy flow...for those in the back, 92-94 hip hop represent.

Freeway & Jake One - "The Stimulus Package"

Freeway, a Philly rapper I heard a while ago and sorta dug (used to be in the Roc-A-Fella crowd with Jay-Z, Beanie Sigel et al) and Jake One, a producer I know I've heard but can't remember where (but is good) have teamed up for this, a slick collection of traditionalist hip hop. Freeway is solid - nothing brilliant, but a nice gritty flow - and Jake's beats knock in old-school style.

Neil Young - "Revolution Blues"

From the album "On The Beach". Long out of print, the album became a cult favorite, and deservedly so. It's excellent, featuring some of Young's darkest work; the mournful 8-minute epic "Ambulance Blues" and this menacing pseudo-political screed. Over driving guitars and a marchlike stomp, Young spews paranoia, threats, calls to arms - a grand allusion to the Manson Family. Much like another SYAP-approved Manson Family song, Sonic Youth's "Death Valley '69", it manages to be unnerving and rocking at the same time. 

A Declaration Of Principles From SYHAP (no. 1)

People who don't like Borgir should be rounded up, driven out of town and promptly, unceremoniously shot.

And you can quote us on that.

JB's Listenings Of The Week, 5/28/ - 6/4/10

Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth - "The Main Ingredient"

I've had the duo's previous disc, "Mecca & The Soul Brother", for a while now, and dug it a fair bit. This, I just grabbed a couple of weeks ago, and man, I feel bad for having waited this long. "The Main Ingredient" is pretty much end-to-end brilliant. C.L. is a great MC, earning his name and then some; a near-flawless flow, rock-solid lyricism - never too showy, doesn't outreach his grasp. But it's Pete Rock's show here; his beats are rhythmically addictive, and melodic enough to be stuck in your head for days. They're at once hooky and immediate and surprisingly intricate, and an argument for sample-based hip hop if ever there was one. Also, for homework check out one of the album's other standouts, the ladies man classic "I Got A Love" (which I can't post because Youtube won't allow it).





The Dismemberment Plan - "Emergency & I"

The Dismemberment Plan were another one of those "have to check them out, someday" acts for me for a long time. The name got thrown around a bunch on best-of 90s lists, this album in particular. The other night I did a Youtube run and spun a few tracks (including "The Face Of The Earth", from a different album, but included here because it was one of the tracks that had me sold at first) and grabbed their discog. The previous album, "The Dismemberment Plan Is Terrified", is also very good - a lot jokier, rockier arrangements (relatively) - but this album is where they really hit their stride. Anchored by an excellent rhythm section, frontman Travis Morrison winds his way through track after track of technically complex, lyrical pop gems; sincere through the arch delivery and far catchier than you'd imagine such herky-jerky clusters could be.







Hole - various

I'll keep this one brief, as I'm going to be putting up a whole piece on Hole hopefully later in the week. For the last couple weeks, they've been on constant repeat - particularly a couple of the live boots I have and b-sides/rarities comp "My Body, The Hand Grenade". Excellent stuff.

Nirvana - various live

Nirvana are a vastly overrated band. No matter what millions of teenagers who don't know their historical context for shit may tell you, Nirvana did not invent a style, they were not true underground punk rock, and frankly, pretty much anything they could do someone else could do better. This aside, they were a pretty good band - a lot of great songs, almost one great album - and live they really shone. The noisier shit in particular (the stuff I generally prefer) is twice as heavy live. One of the better recordings I've heard is this one, from Japan in '92...good sound, and the band is in top form. "Negative Creep" is even more of a lurching beast than usual.

Sluncho's Metal 101: Death Metal

Good:

Fear Factory - Demanufacture

Fear Factory, for some sad fucking reason, are an incredibly polarizing band. A pretty sizable chunk of the "true" metal community do nothing but bitch about these guys, making a pile of nonspecific complaints about the vocals and never really doing much but yelling because they don't fit their exacting definition of what "real" metal is. I guess I can sort of understand the ire the band has attracted, as in all honesty some of their later efforts get into pretty shaky territory (U2 and Nirvana covers, really fucking atrocious rapping, etc.), but there is no denying that they once were one of the most exciting bands in the American death metal scene.

Technically their third LP, Demanufacture was the second full-length release by the band (after the shelved Concrete and interesting but messy Soul of a New Machine) and represents the group at the top of their game in every regard. The rhythm section of Raymond Herrera and Christian Olde Wolbers is mechanically precise, throbbing like pistons over the fat, grinding riffs of Dino Cazares. The heavy/clean vocal split on Soul felt kinda awkward, with vocalist Burton C. Bell being quite plainly a better singer than death grunter, but here he manages to strike a near perfect balance between the two. His growls are closer to the bark of a drill instructor than the usual Cookie Monster mumbling, and his clean vocals have a bit of extra bite to them as well. Yet more changes to the sound come in the form of a much larger presence of synthesizers and post-processing on the instruments, cultivating a good blend of thrash metal precision with the ugly, metallic noise of industrial (and a splish-splash of ambient electronica influence, mostly prominently on the incredibly long Aphex Twin-inspired outro to the dirge-y "A Therapy for Pain"). It's different from the usual death metal song and dance, but that's a damn good thing. The scene has so little imagination these days.

Bad:

Six Feet Under - Maximum Violence

The first few times I listened to Six Feet Under I was completely convinced I was listening to a joke band. Tragically, they're about as unironic as they come. The lovechild of wretched ex-Cannibal Corpse vocalist Chris Barnes (a fucking terrible growler who mucked up the band's most musically impressive albums with his incoherent gargling) and his juvenile obsession with cursing and murder (even for a death metal vocalist this guy is really hung up on the cheesiest of shock material), Six Feet Under play what can be generously described as "early CC minus the speed and technical prowess" and more accurately described as "complete fucking shit". When they're not spitting out atrocious covers of AC/DC songs (yeah, you read that right), they're recording numbers like this winner here. If you can sit through the whole thing without chuckling then you've earned yourself a no-prize, my friend.

Overlooked:

Opeth - My Arms, Your Hearse

Now I'm sure you're thinking "Sluncho, what the fuck, man? Since when were Opeth overlooked?", and trust me, I know, it seems like a pretty idiotic statement at first blush. But the thing is it's true, they are. Most metal fans know them for what, "Ghost of Perdition"? A song that's been in mainstream videogame soundtracks and thrown on every "good metal" comp ever? Ghost Reveries was a good album, yeah, but half the folks out there didn't give half a shit about this great band till it dropped and I'd bet a fair chunk of those folks never bothered to go back and try some of their other stuff. They probably sat through maybe five minutes of Damnation before turning it off in disgust because their new heroes were "some fucking hippie folk faggots".

Opeth were repping Sweden in a big way long before then, and this was the album that introduced them to me. Growing up one of the first real classic metal bands I got into was Celtic Frost. I dearly loved To Mega Therion, spun it pretty much every day. Like so many other kids, I searched around on crap old p2p clients (fuck yeah, Kazaa) for more similar stuff constantly, and one day I found a cover of "Circle of the Tyrants" (my favorite CF song) by these guys called Opeth. And by god, it was an eye-opener. It was like the same thing but a thousand times better, crushingly fucking heavy, the vocals were demonic and it even had atmospheric piano to add to the tense mood. I grabbed as much Opeth as I could find, and they kept delivering. "Demon of the Fall", "April Ethereal", it all felt so new. The songs were long, complex, dark in more ways than just being loud and having spooky vocals. I spent the next several years championing Opeth as the best thing to come out of Sweden in music history, eagerly snapping up everything they released. Even as they got progressively proggier I kept coming back for more. When they really broke into the mainstream, I was kinda falling away from metal, and by the time I got back into the game people kinda stopped caring about the classics. I really hope the next generation of headbangers will revisit masterworks like this.

SYHAP Update: Restructuring

I'm not quite sure why we're writing this as if we have an audience to write it for.

We here at SYHAP are massive music geeks. Hell, I spend the majority of my time doing things related to music - listening, reading about, getting, organizing, etc. - to the point where it fucks with my day-to-day life (e.g., massive sleep deprivation). We think and talk about it a lot; we've got the passion, really. But to be frank, we're just not that good at writing about it. I have a million bands I want to write about. Pretty much ever day I listen to something and think, "man, it'd be great do a piece on this". I'll get the idea, even kind of an outline in my head...a few stray phrases...then I sit down to write it and all that comes out is the few stray phrases. "[band] is like [crazy abstract description]" - stare at screen for 20 minutes, get bored, do something else. Every now and then we can choke out a decent piece, but not with any regularity and not at any kind of pace. A piece every two months simply isn't worthy of a blog. Then there's the problem of relevance. In the sea of music blogs out there, we don't really have a piece of land to claim - we're not current, we don't offer downloads, we don't focus on any specific genre or scene, we don't usually have anything really obscure, and we don't write well enough to get anywhere on that alone. Long story short, this music blog thing hasn't exactly been dynamite for us.

So we've decided to broaden our horizons. Film is another form near and dear to both of us, and really, our few writings on film for the site have been among our best, so fuck it, SYHAP is no longer a mere music blog - we're a culture blog. This mainly means tons of film writing. But hey, other stuff might creep in - TV (when it doesn't suck - so don't hold yr breath), comics, games, whatever really. And lest there be any confusion, we still plan on keeping up music writing. Essentially music writings will be as frequent as ever, but there'll be other stuff to fill the in-betweens. 

So if anybody actually does read this, keep us in mind - with any luck we'll make it worth your while.