I stumbled across this great collection of archived internet-radio shows while searching for a rare 12inch. There are a total of 37 archived shows, the first being recorded and broadcast October of 1998. Unfortunately they are only availabe in very compressed real audio but it’s still worth it just to hear some of these quality and rare joints! I posted track listings to the first two volumes so you’ll know what to expect. Make some noise and maybe we’ll be able to convince Alex to do a new one, after communicating with him briefly it seems like he wants to and he might just need a little push!

Link: http://web.telia.com/~u87601262/sidor/archives.html

Volume 1
October 24, 1998

01 - A Tribe Called Quest “Mr. Incognito” [1998 - White label]
02 - Funky Fresh Few (Feat Afu Ra) “Hip hop running through these veins” [1996 - Central Heating]
03 - Loop Troop “Flyers” [1997 - looptroop]
04 - Crash Crew “We are known as emcees” [1983 - Sugar Hill]
05 - Ultramagnetic MC’s “Poppa large (east coast mix)” [1992 - Mercury]
06 - Diamond D “Best kept secret (Mark the 45 King remix)” [1993 - Chemistry]
07 - D.I.T.C. (Feat. A.G.) “A different world” [1998 - Next Level]
08 - Lord Finesse “Praise the lord” [1992 - Giant]
09 - Boot Camp Clique “Practice session with Steel” [1998 - DuckDown]
10 - Buckshot “Follow my lead (remix)” [1997 - White label]
11 - Hieroglyphics “Burnt” [1991 - Elektra]

Volume 2
November 16th, 1998

01 - Common Sense “Resurection (Extra P. remix)” [1995 - Relativity]
02 - Kurious (Feat. Sadat X & Mike G) “Mansion and a yacht (Baja panties mix)” [1994 - Columbia]
03 - Casual (Feat. A-Plus) “That’s how it is - Part II” [1993 - Jive]
04 - Organized Konfusion “Stress (Extra P. remix)” [1994 - Hollywood Basic]
05 - Younger Generation (Feat. Grandmaster Flash & Furious 5)”We rap more mellow” [1979 - Brass Records]
06 - Ultramagnetic MC’s “Moe Luv’s theme” [1989 - Next Plateau]
07 - KMD (Feat. Busta Rhyme, Lord Jamar, Sadat X) “Nitty gritty (Dog spelled backwards mix” [1991 - Elektra]
08 - Lord Finesse “Return of the funky man” [1991 - Giant]
09 - Unity Committee &Rebels of Rhythm (AKA Jurassic 5) “Unified rebelution” [1994 -?]

Mr. Jones posted a transcription of his presentation from the discussion on “Blackface” at the 2005 Experience Music Project Pop Conference. His insights into the presentation of artists’ music before and after striking popularity-driven record deals is great. It’s a short read, well worth your time. s/fj post, .pdf file, pop conference

Excerpt:
Neither of the people I am talking about are rappers. Both are DJs and producers. Josh Davis is known professionally as DJ Shadow, and Wesley Pentz performs and records under the name Diplo. Shadow has been working for over ten years; Diplo just a few. But both began their careers as white DJs with an affinity for black music. One of Shadow’s first gigs in the early 1990s was providing a remix for a rap group called Lifers Group, black prisoners doing life sentences who had made an album for the Hollywood Basic label. His early songs and mixtapes showed a terrifying appreciation for the funk records that had been sampled to create hip-hop in the 1980s. Diplo first gained notice a few years ago as a member of the Hollertronix duo, a Philadelphia DJ duo who specialized in playing Southern and Eastern rap to club audiences and making skilled, funny mixtapes. Recently, Diplo has been one of the most visible European-American DJs playing the working class Brazilian dance music known as “baile funk,” “funk,” or “funk carioca.” But when both Shadow and Diplo got signed and had to make proper albums people could buy in stores—and Shadow confronted this moment almost a full decade before Diplo—a similar tendency crept into the work of both artists. Though their DJing is firmly rooted in black music, Shadow and Diplo recorded songs for their albums full of white signifiers: electric guitars, slow minor-key melodies, sluggish tempos, cinematic strings. The crunk was in the trunk, at least some of the time. Live, as DJs, Shadow and Diplo still play music that most people, if pressed, would call black. But, under contract and in the studio, they move closer to signifiers of whiteness. Shadow, several albums into the game, is moving further and further from the hip-hop he started with.
I am not pretending to be a mind reader: I have no evidence the music Shadow and Diplo make on record is any less dear to them than the music made by other people that they choose to play in clubs as DJs. I have no evidence that, like many artists, they simply want to keep themselves engaged and play with as many forms as they can master. But I also can’t pretend I don’t hear a significant difference between what got them in the door and what keeps them in the room, and that difference is a big one, out there in the world Blackface with no face SFJ 3 of consumers and producers. What makes this happen? Does political correctness, the condom of pop culture, prevent them from directly aping the music they love? Did they read “Love and Theft” and freak out? Do they make “whiter” records prophylactically, to forestall the wearying effects of being called cultural thieves in the pages of newspapers, on message boards and blogs? Do white DJs play black music out, but lean white in the studio because we’ve got hard evidence that your sales go up when you sound more like Depeche Mode and less like Ultramagnetic MCs? Or are they sick of having to justify their love? A hundred years ago, maybe Shadow and Diplo would have ignored the theft and made music only from love, showing their faces, perhaps with freaky social consequences. Maybe the language of cultural studies is impoverished now. Maybe there is no way to tell the love from the theft, except by looking at the difference between, say, Eminem’s and Devin the Dude’s royalty statements.

Go celebrate the release of issue #12 of your favorite quarterly journal and the release of Cocinando, a book featuring 50 years of Latin album cover art. waxpoetics, cocinando product page

From Waxpoetics newsletter:
Entire Evening of Latin Music from around the Globe with Special Guest DJs:

Bongohead (Cocinando!)
Monkone (Wax
Poetics)
Joe Claussell (Spiritual Life Music)
Knox Robinson (Fader)
Fredito Schmalz (Fader)
Andujar (WMUA UMass)
Jorge Irragori
(Tropical Music Collector’s Event)

June 10th @ Savalas 285 Bedford Ave Brooklyn, NY 11211. Between Grand Street and S 1st Street9pm – 4am. No Cover. Album Cover Slideshow and Books will be available for purchase at a discounted price.

I meant to put this up when I got the last issue of TapeOp. Luckily the last issue of earplug newsletter reminded me. TapeOpCon is a convention for audiophiles, engineers and all around music enthusiasts. They hold seminars and discussions on recording equipment and techniques. Check it out, this year it’s going to be in New Orleans, from June 10th to 12th. Link

First movie I’ve come across in a minute that focuses on graf-heads. It comes out officially tomorrow. Peep the trailer and other goodies on the site. All of the reviews I’ve read so far point out the unique style of cutting scenes the director employed, sounds interesting. Link (Thanks Mprove!)

Chicago / San Jose beat machine and all around cool cat- Dextah has some fantastic music that you might have overlooked during that last purchase from turntabletab/vinylkingz/rasputins/etc. I’ve had his split 45 record Another Day At The Job / Borrowed (split with this guy Age who I was told taught Dextah everything he knows about breaks) for a minute - and its one of the better 7inch instrumentals around, as worthy as anything that pops up on BoomKat’s fantastic audio/retail site. He produced 6 new tracks on a new CD from the Bash Brothers including a song with Persevere (Subcontents/Stones Throw). I also heard something about doing some stuff with the cat that did the banned in Libya dvd for diplo. Link (Turntablelab, VinylKingz, Sofarwest, all carry at least one of Dextah’s releases)

I think this article is an example of the shrinking divide between underground hiphop and mainstream hiphop. I would argue it is more acceptable nowadays to be a fan of indie artists and poppy artists at the same time without having to justify your tastes, although I know plenty of heads that never really understood the attempt to classify the two as different genres in the first place. Actually, I would probably argue it is more avantcore, especially if you’re in the music biz, to be able to relate to and pimp music from both fields. If you’re not familiar with the scene, there was a time when you could easily be made fun of for trying to buy the new Shadow or Sage Francis records instead of the new Nas (I remember those confused looks or loud “what?” I would get at Fatbeats). And I can just as easily imagine (and remember reading tons of posts) where the “other side” would look down at heads who never gave Company Flow or Anticon a chance. It seems part of the reason indie artists have gained acceptance in the industry is their success at becoming self-sufficient, I would have liked Davey D to address that issue a bit more. Also, the differences between the production values is another issue which I think is important when discussing underground vs. mainstream. Anyway, it seems indie artists are gradually losing their reputations as non-touring bedroom producers and the more high profile artists under contract aren’t just sell outs any more. You ready for that Ghostface and Doom album? Link to Davey D’s post

Excerpt
A couple of years ago I heard a song from Mystik Journeymen of Living Legends where Sunspot Jones was rapping about the underground and he referenced a conversation he had with MC Hammer. He noted that Hammer had said the ‘underground’ was the name people that hadn’t made it big used to describe their music. Needless to say Sunspot used the song, which unfortunately escapes me for the moment, to express his disagreement.However, I thought it’s worth looking at this concept of ‘underground’ and trying to figure out is there is a definitive definition and who within Hip Hop can claim it….

For all you film enthusiasts out there, Chris Cunningham’s latest short film was officially released on May 23rd. Cunningham’s cutting edge work for Bjork, Aphex Twin and others has received much acclaim over the years and you would probably recognize it very quickly if you took a look (His work is featured alongside Spike Jonze’s Fatlip and Pharcyde videos in the Directors Series DVDs). His latest project seems to be getting a good amount of positive press after a few screenings and since it’s being deemed too offensive for printing plants in Italy, you know cats in the US can’t wait to see it. It will be released on dvd later this year by Warp Films. Check the official site for the eerie preview, it’s sure to spark your interest. official site, creepy still image #1, creepy still image #2. (jacked via boingboing!)

Johnny is a hyperactive, shape-shifting mutant child, kept locked away in a basement. With only his feverish imagination and his terrified dog for company, he finds ways to amuse himself in the dark. Rubber Johnny is the latest creation from the UK’s most imaginative filmmaker, Chris Cunningham. Featuring music by legendary electronic composer, Aphex Twin, this nightmarish and hallucinatory experimental short film is accompanied by 40 pages of drawings and photographs - Cunningham’s first published book of original artwork.

Mobb Deep and MOP with the financial backing and distribution network of G-Unit Records? Hope it works out. Link

Ian over at different kitchen points us to the release party for the movie Freestyle: The Art Of Rhyme. Peep the preview. .asx preview, freestylethemovie.com (via Notes From A Different Kitchen, thanks Ian)

Jacked from Jeff over at Galapagos4:

Known as one of the most talented and prolific producers to come out of the bubbling Chicago scene in the last few years, Maker has been given the chance to shine on his own with his first full length instrumental album “Shooting The Breeze” on Galapagos4.

Link, Remember The Name snippet, La Saluda snippet, Train Til Nowhere snippet

Here’s an interview with Ceschi Ramos of Anonymous Inc. It’s been translated from Japanese using Google so you’ll have to do some deciphering. Anyone well versed in Japanese, let us know. Also featured in their last update is an mp3 of Cash Yo Checks, from David Ramos’ album Jesus Taylor Thomas. Also, a link to a live recording of a set Ceschi did with Icon The Mic King at a Buck65 show at SinE in New York, of course the one night out of his three or four performances that we couldn’t make it. update, interview, live set, mp3

The Ceschi -
as for my name as for ” the Julio Francesco Ramos Tontora ” family and the friend from the place, ” FrancCesco ” ” The Ceschi ” my thing is called. As ‘ the chess key ‘ with said, you pronounce this… We like of course to do the chess. To to to… As for my father with the Puerto Rican Santurce graduate,The mother is the Italian person of new heaven graduate. I to be born in New Jersey, Atlanta It includes, you have lived to many places, but you were brought up mainly with California Berkeley.Now the new heaven where the mother lives (Connecticut state) you have lived. As for Connecticut, New York There is a place about of the empty 1 hour half.As for beginning music at the time of 6 years old… Having lived in the Decatur of Georgia, you learned the violin.Beginning the guitar with 13 years old… As for reaching the point where the lap is done… At the time of 8 years old or 9 years old. I almost There is an interest in all genres, but especially fusion jazz, psychedelic of the sixties,Hard core and flat tire, サルサ and Latin jazz, in D lock and pop and progressive * hip hop,The electro- music (electronic music), and it is the modern mini- Mali strike composer.Presently, Spanish teacher is done in elementary school there is a new heaven… then web designer

Undergr(s)ound released issue 10 of their online magazine. OMID and Joe Dub are interviewed alongside Cloudead and Kirby Dominant. Found this via the new Asitablog, check it out. Link (via Asitablog, thanks Anasarca!)

One of the grand dreams associated with the emergence of the internet involves the facilitation of media-distribution. Fantasies about the diminishing power of real-world distributors are experienced worldwide as online distribution models gain prominence. Nowhere is this effect more obvious than the music industry. Mega labels, indie labels and all kinds of artists have seen their worlds turned inside out. But one hurdle which remains in the path of individuals and smaller media organizations is the cost of bandwith. For example, if you want to host a radio show with a large viewership (think more than 3 people) or if you want to let people download your music you either pay for the bandwidth or get it hosted temporarily via sites like yousendit or myspace. That is, until now, I hope. BitTorrent, supposedly the most used file-sharing program in the world which accounts for somewhere upwards of 30% of all internet traffic, has released an updated beta version of their software which allows ANYONE with a computer and internet connection to create a .torrent file. What this means is that anyone can share media of significant size at practically no cost. As a test we decided to dig in our pathetic vaults and find something to share. After vetoing suggestions to release the bigfoot video we recorded in Washington last year we decided to share one of our favorite videos which we feel didn’t get enough play - MF Doom’s Dead Bent, directed by Piston Honda. This video is near-dvd quality (48MBs) and should be playable by the latest version of Windows Media Player, but if that doesn’t work try Videolan. Please bare with us as this is our first time trying to host a .torrent file. Please keep in mind, the more people downloading the file at once the more bandwidth available for everyone so help spread the word if you can. Hopefully it works, here goes. download bittorent, download .torrent file

BitTorrent Goes Trackerless: Publishing with BitTorrent gets
easier!

As part of our ongoing efforts to make publishing files on the Web painless and disruptively cheap, BitTorrent has released a ‘trackerless’ version of BitTorrent in a new release.

Suppose you bought a television station, you could broadcast your progamming to everyone in a 50 mile radius. Now suppose the population of your town tripled. How much more does it cost you to broadcast to 3 times as many people? Nothing. The same is not true of the Web. If you own a website and you publish your latest video on it, as popularity increases, so does your bandwidth bill! Sometimes by a lot! However, thanks to BitTorrent the website owner gets almost near-broadcast economics on the web by harnessing the unused upstream bandwidth of his/her users.

In prior versions of BitTorrent, publishing was a 3 step process. You would:
Create a “.torrent” file — a summary of your file which you can put on your blog or website
Create a “tracker” for that file on your webserver so that your downloaders can find each other
Create a “seed” copy of your download so that your first downloader has a place to download from

Many of you have blogs and websites, but dont have the resources to set up a tracker. In the new version, we’ve created an optional ‘trackerless’ method of publication. Anyone with a website and an Internet connection can host a BitTorrent download! While it is called trackerless, in practice it makes every client a lightweight tracker. A clever protocol, based on a Kademlia distributed hash table or “DHT”, allows clients to efficiently store and retrieve contact information for peers in a torrent.

When generating a torrent, you can choose to utilize the trackerless system or a traditional dedicated tracker. A dedicated tracker allows you to collect statistics about downloads and gives you a measure of control over the reliability of downloads. The trackerless system makes no guarantees to reliability but requires no resources of the publisher. The trackerless system is not consulted when downloading a traditionally tracked torrent.

Although still in Beta release, the trackerless version of BitTorrent, and the latest production version are available at http://www.bittorrent.com/

Interesting article by Chris Parker, excerpt of Prince Paul’s comments below. Link

“People just run the beat and let it go, and let the MC do all the changes - the changes for the chorus, the changes for the rhyme. People don’t sit down, have a rapport going, hang out and have fun, then make the record when it has a vibe to it,” Paul laments.

“[Now a rapper] says, ‘Send me the track. You don’t have to be there. My man Merlin here is going to record me at the studio and I’ll just send it back to you.’ The camaraderie of getting together and making a record has totally been lost. It shows in the lack of arrangements.”

If you haven’t noticed already, we like Sean Price’s new Monkey Barz album. That’s why we inluded two tracks off his new lp in our last audio post. Check this interview to see what he’s up to, why he wants to do a track with someone from Defjux and why he’s not recording as Heltah Skeltah anymore. Link (via Imageyenation, thanks El Keter)

Your first two albums came respectively, in 1996 and 1998. Why has it taken you so long to follow with your third LP ?
Because nobody was checking for me that’s why. Fuck you think ? It’s not like muthafuckas were knocking my door down for contracts and shit and have a bunch of offerings for me. I had nothing. I had to grind my way up to make y’all muthafuckas believers. Even you. You probably thought Rock was nicer than me.

Someone posted this giveaway on our board, being hosted by Vinyl Exchange. Answer the questions correctly and get a promo copy of Prince Paul’s new cd. Link

1. What is Prince Paul’s real full name?
2. List the times Vernon Reid and Prince Paul collaborated.
3. What do Black Rock & Ron and Prince Paul have in common?
4. Who were the other members of Stetsasonic?
5. Prince Paul did a remix for The Avalanches, what emcee did he throw on the track?
6. The Good, The Bad & The Ugly was rumored to be what?
7. What regular Prince Paul collaborator played keys on “Talking All That Jazz”?
Deadline for entries is May 31, 2005. The ten entries with the most correct answers will win.