BEN WESTHOFF

Say what?!

BEN WESTHOFF — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 20:21:50 GMT

East Coast Avengers wrong the right with ‘Kill Bill O’Reilly’
Rapper Esoteric has been getting lots of death threats via e-mail recently. But he’s not too worried about them, if only because of their elementary character.

VIDEO: East Coast Avengers, "Dear Michelle Malkin"

Rapper Esoteric has been getting lots of death threats via e-mail recently. But he’s not too worried about them, if only because of their elementary character. “I would grade them all about a D-minus to a failure in terms of grammar, punctuation, spelling,” says this member of the new Boston-based hip-hop group East Coast Avengers. He forwards some of the messages. “I’m in bostown and u will die before ur cd out mutherfucker c u in hell,” reads one. Another: “It must suck to be a libral and have to wake up evry day of your pathetic lives. I will end that life.”

The animosity toward the underground MC is prompted by his group’s recently released Molotov cocktail of a track, “Kill Bill O’Reilly.” The song debuted on August 13 on Wired magazine’s music blog to a swirl of Internet outrage and has since been discussed on Countdown with Keith Olbermann. It’s about as subtle as a boot to the forehead. Over a soaring, cinematic beat from the group’s producer, DC the MIDI Alien, it advocates (metaphorically, Esoteric insists) the murder of The O’Reilly Factor’s host, as well as the shooting of right-wing political commentator Michelle Malkin. Their alleged crimes? Fact manipulation, racism, and sexism, for starters.

“Infrared to Bill O’Reilly’s head/That’s a key spot,” raps Esoteric. Adds the group’s other MC, Tha Trademarc: “Fuck make fun of you with punch lines/I’d rather kill your family in front of you by lunchtime/A one-line execution in sunshine.” The chorus? “We gotta dead ’em dead ’em. We gotta kill ’em kill ’em.”

That the right-wing blogosphere would go ballistic was the whole point. That Malkin herself would write about it was merely icing on the cake. “Well, I have a headache after listening to the new rap song ‘Kill Bill O’Reilly,’ ” she blogged shortly after its release, adding, “Don’t they have anything better to do? Rides to pimp? Ho’s to diss? Bling to steal?” (O’Reilly has not publicly discussed the song, and Fox News did not respond to the Phoenix’s request for comment.)

Perhaps East Coast Avengers’ greatest publicity coup was on Countdown, where Olbermann — himself a frequent over-the-top critic of O’Reilly — discussed the group in his “Worst Person in the World” segment. “Nobody’s life should be threatened, not even in the hyperbole of the moment,” he chastised. “Besides, you are rappers. You have better ethics than Bill O’Reilly does. Live up to them, don’t live down to him. Word to your mother.”

The call of the wild

BEN WESTHOFF — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 22:22:49 GMT

Wolf Parade get instinctual
It’s not easy being in a band whose two primary songwriters have quite different ideas about how to write an indie-rock song.

Wolf Parade, "Call it a Ritual" (mp3)

Variety pack: A compendium of Wolf Parade side projects. By Ben Westhoff.

It’s not easy being in a band whose two primary songwriters have quite different ideas about how to write an indie-rock song. And when the members have more side projects than one can keep track of, it’s amazing anything gets done at all.

At least Wolf Parade had the guiding hand of Isaac Brock on their debut, Apologies to the Queen Mary. The production talents of the Modest Mouse frontman, who signed them to Sub Pop, helped ensure its ecstatic critical reception. Brock also helped reconcile the more classic rock and pop tendencies of guitarist Dan Boeckner with the more esoteric leanings of keyboardist Spencer Krug. (Each of the two writes about half the tracks.)

That Wolf Parade’s June follow-up, At Mount Zoomer, surpasses Queen Mary in the eyes of many critics is impressive given that Brock wasn’t around this time. Like their debut, it embraces a dense, almost cryptic existential lyricism, with ecstatic, riff-happy guitar and keyboards leading the way. But At Mount Zoomer — composed largely of songs that began as jam sessions at the church their associates Arcade Fire own on the outskirts of Montreal — sheds Brock’s oft-stifling influence in favor of a progressive ’70s flavor that recalls Jethro Tull more than Modest Mouse. Album closer “Kissing the Beehive” clocks in at 11 minutes, and epic guitar solos abound. Yet somehow the album coheres, most of its songs buoyed by simple, sing-along choruses. Wolf Parade’s lyrics are always a puzzle, but the album’s recurring themes are risk, adventure, and separation.

Risk in the creative process as well: before recording, Krug and Boeckner made no effort to see whether they were on the same page. “Dan and I don’t really confer when it comes to lyrics,” says Krug. “That’s sort of like an unspoken rule, where we leave each other alone. It doesn’t appeal to us to work that way. It would make it not fun. So I don’t really know what he’s singing about most of the time, and he doesn’t know what I’m singing about.”

To hear Krug tell it, the CD sort of jelled, as if under its own power. “It just came together naturally. There weren’t any overarching visions. It was more just making a record that we wanted to make and seeing if it was usable.”

The silent rapper

BEN WESTHOFF — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 22:26:51 GMT

What the hell has Rakim been up to?
One of the most influential hip-hop MCs of all time, Rakim brought rap from its sing-songy beginnings into its late-’80s golden era with his dense lyrics and virtuoso internal rhyme structures.

“I can’t watch a video, can’t hear a record, can’t do nothing without thinking about spitting 16.”

One of the most influential hip-hop MCs of all time, Rakim brought rap from its sing-songy beginnings into its late-’80s golden era with his dense lyrics and virtuoso internal rhyme structures. Together with DJ and producer partner Eric B., he fashioned classic albums like Paid in Full and Follow the Leader. But hasn’t released an album of new material since 1999. Although in the early part of this decade he worked extensively with Dr. Dre’s Aftermath label, the pair split over creative differences, and nothing has come of the collaboration aside from one-off guest appearances. We spoke about his work on his long-awaited third solo album, The Seventh Seal, his relationship with Eric B., and his fears of becoming a hip-hop nostalgia act.

How close are you to finishing The Seventh Seal?
A little more than halfway done. We got a couple collabs we want to get done, and there’s a couple producers who we’re trying to wait for their schedules to clear up.

Will it include any of the Dre beats?
No. The Aftermath material is mostly about six, seven years old, and a lot of that has already been leaked out on the Internet. So everything is from that point on. The Seventh Seal is all new material I’ve been working on. Everything is top secret.

What do you say to fans who’re upset about the long wait?
It got to a point where I had to get my business situated before anything else. Once everything pops off and they see how big my label [Raw Records] is, they’ll see why it took so long. Then I can put out the album that I know they want me to. Right now, the major focus is The Seventh Seal, but I don’t want anything I do that feels valuable to not get heard. So because I have my own label, if I want to put out a mixtape, I can do it and benefit from it.

You haven’t traditionally played a lot of shows. Have you begun to change your philosophy on that?
No doubt. Especially after we drop this album, I want to take it to the next level. Bigger buildings, a bigger stage production. But what can I say? I’m a modest cat, man, and I don’t like to wear out my welcome mat. I feel like me doing shows with new material is important. I don’t like the people to feel cheated, and at the same time I don’t really consider myself an old-school artist. So for me to go out continuously and perform without new material, I would fall into the old-school category.

Green initiative

BEN WESTHOFF — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 22:16:55 GMT

Hip-hop’s heads go on Wale watch
In an era when the major labels ignore just about everybody without a nickname that rhymes with “sleazy,” it was no small feat for Wale to land a deal with Interscope Records earlier this year.

TOPICAL SOLUTION Wale’s references are not exactly what 17-year-old snap music fans are hankering to hear.

In an era when the major labels ignore just about everybody without a nickname that rhymes with “sleazy,” it was no small feat for Wale to land a deal with Interscope Records earlier this year. The Washington DC rapper — yet another participant in this Saturday’s massive Rock the Bells concert — is blessed with an agile flow and a penchant for trendy subject matter, but he still had to rely on some influential friends. Namely, New York DJs Mark Ronson and Nick Barat, who recorded him and introduced his work to bloggers who went absolutely gaga over his stuff and helped produce the requisite hype for a deal. One should probably throw in Justice and Lily Allen, whom Wale rapped over on his 2007 mixtape 100 Miles & Running, cementing his status as an indie-rocker’s indie-rapper.

Oh, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who gives him this shout-out on his recent The Mixtape About Nothing: “I’m here on this mixtape to tell you that he’s awesome . . . and don’t you think my kids are going to think I’m so cool I’m on this mixtape, motherfucker!? Word up.” (Yes, it really is her.)

Wale’s star has ascended to the point where he now keeps the company of people like Jay-Z and the Roots’ Black Thought — both of whom regularly give the 23-year-old emcee advice — as well as UGK rapper Bun B, whom Wale says he talks to every day. “A lot of times I’ll be like, ‘Am I doing this right? Should I feel like this? ’” he says of their conversations. “There was a situation where something leaked on the Internet that was taken from the studio. I didn’t want it out, because I was going to change it. I called him, and he already knew why I was calling, and he knew what to say.”

Despite his greenhorn status in the industry (or perhaps because of it), Wale doesn’t seem concerned that the major-label system seems to be imploding. “I’m comfortable where I’m at. The label I’m on is synonymous with success. You put out good music and you become successful.”

Wolf Parade

BEN WESTHOFF — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 16:08:54 GMT

At Mount Zoomer | Sub Pop
At Mount Zoomer will give you those same goosebumps you felt when you heard the band’s debut.

Lil Wayne

BEN WESTHOFF — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 14:09:17 GMT

Tha Carter III | Young Money/Cash Money/Universal
All rappers ride on the claim that they’re the best, but on III Wayne makes his case.

Mates of State: Re-Arrange Us

BEN WESTHOFF — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 21:51:01 GMT

Barsuk
For their fifth album, Mates of State sought out and found the perfect pop tune. Ten of them, actually.

Ready to wear

BEN WESTHOFF — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 21:39:27 GMT

Enough respect — Jamie Lidell wants you to like him
It’s difficult to keep up when Jamie Lidell is talking.

NERD CAGE: Jim finds Lidell breaking away from geekery and focusing on blue-eyed soul.

It’s difficult to keep up when Jamie Lidell is talking. Perhaps it’s because he’s a fast and forward-thinking producer and singer who melds advanced electronics with blue-eyed soul. Perhaps it’s his British accent. Or the fact that he’s been drinking champagne cocktails for much of the morning. Take this explanation of what he was trying to avoid on the making of his new album, Jim (Warp): “In this day and age you record a bit, have a listen, re-record three bars, overdub this bit, take that out, put the synth in; it’s like jiggery-pokery how you get the whole thing pieced together like a Lego puzzle or something. But this time around, after a while the songs dictated what was going to happen, and I just allowed myself to listen to them.”

Lounging in the lobby of a chic SoHo hotel in New York, the geographically fluid Lidell (who plays the Paradise this Saturday) discourses on everything from his recent move to Paris (to be with his long-time girlfriend) to his travels to LA, where Jim was recorded. Although his previous CD, Multiply, was made in his former home of Berlin, this time he found the German capital too dour for the upbeat, sunshiny record he was planning. “I needed something like the vitamin kick LA provides to kind of see me over the hump. And I needed to inject the discipline of the American mind state to get this damn thing finished. The idea of having people in Berlin ‘kind of’ available, ‘kind of’ on Tuesday sort of gave me the fear as well.”

Although Lidell is known for his master electronic manipulations in his Super_Collider project with Chilean-born producer Cristian Vogel, for Jim he was less interested in geeking out. “After a while you feel like you’re kind of a nerdy showoff. And that was part of the phenomenon of electronic music for me, how quick you could do an edit, how many edits per second you could do. There was a boarding-school-hierarchy thing about it.”

Jim, on the other hand, is a breezy and endearing work. The message behind the piano-based, Motown-tinged “Wait for Me” is as simple as its title: “Without you by my side I just can’t sleep/That’s why I’m up all night counting sheep/Hoping and praying you wait for me.” Although the album takes to the dance floor midway via knob twisters like “Hurricane” and the retro-charming “Figured Me Out,” it might be most memorable for its dreamy, philosophical ballads: “All I Wanna Do,” “Rope of Sand.”

Identity crisis

BEN WESTHOFF — Tue, 06 May 2008 17:04:02 GMT

Black Kids know who they are, even if you don’t
Black Kids lead singer Reggie Youngblood is relaxed and focused, articulate and unpretentious, polite with a sharp sense of humor.

LITMUS TEST If you have a problem with their name, they probably don’t want you around anyway.

Black Kids lead singer Reggie Youngblood is relaxed and focused, articulate and unpretentious, polite with a sharp sense of humor. Forget Hillary — he’s the guy I want to have a shot of Crown Royal with. With his band recently signed to Columbia and their debut LP due this summer, the 27-year-old Youngblood is on the crest of fame, thanks to a terrific four-song EP released last year and a lot (a lot) of love from bloggers.

Most people respond at once to the band’s textured, accessible pop songs, which showcase a mélange of rock, goth, and Motown influences. Others in the ultra-PC indie-rock sociosphere can’t seem to get past the name, especially since of the five band members only Youngblood and his sister, Ali, are black.

“It is sort of a litmus test,” Youngblood explained over the phone from LA, where the band were staying in advance of Coachella. “It’s sort of a way to push people’s buttons. If you’ve got a serious problem with our moniker, if it really bothers you, then we probably don’t really want you around anyway. It’s helpful that way.”

Formed in 2006 in Jacksonville, the group got their break when a horde of bloggers swooned over their 2007 performance at Athens’s Popfest. Buoyed by the requisite Pitchfork rave, the group have become real-life popular very quickly — especially in the UK, where they receive significant BBC airplay and Youngblood sometimes gets recognized on the street.

Their Wizard of Ahhhs EP, available for free on their MySpace page, is noteworthy not just for its vigorous, catchy beats but also for lyrical experimentation, gender blending, and incestuous implications. On “Hurricane Jane,” Ali sings what seems to be the love interest’s response to her older brother’s call. Youngblood contends that his sibling’s voice is “not necessarily” that of the love interest. And even if it is, he adds that “there’s a tradition already in place in pop music for that sort of thing,” citing Prince’s “Sister” and Serge Gainsbourg’s duet with his daughter Charlotte, “Lemon Incest.”

“You are the girl that I’ve been dreaming of ever since I was a little girl” might be the album’s best-known line. Youngblood sings it in his Robert Smith–inspired faux falsetto on “I’m Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How To Dance with You”; he says he meant to pay homage to the experimentations of David Bowie and Morrissey with gender, and also to avoid cliché. “I like the idea of playing with very basic language. To me, to say ‘Ever since I was a little girl’ is infinitely more interesting than saying ‘Ever since I was a little boy.’ That would be the lamest line of all time.”

Solid gold

BEN WESTHOFF — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 17:00:16 GMT

Atmosphere’s Slug grows up. . . . sort of
One of the biggest names in indie rap for the better part of a decade, Minneapolis duo Atmosphere have just released their latest album, When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold.

“I look at the Republicans basically the same way I would look at a really horrible rapper.”

One of the biggest names in indie rap for the better part of a decade, Minneapolis duo Atmosphere have just released their latest album, When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold (Rhymesayers Entertainment). Comprising beat maker Ant (Anthony Davis) and rapper Slug (Sean Daley), Atmosphere have on their latest moved away from samples and diary-style stories and toward live instrumentation and imagined portraits of locals. The CD also offers beatboxing from Tom Waits, and it comes with a hardcover book that includes a children’s story. Slug spoke with me from his new house in a quiet Minneapolis neighborhood he prefers not to name for fear of being found.

What’s your new ’hood like?
It’s a very standard working-class South Minneapolis neighborhood. I just had to move somewhere where I couldn’t walk to a bar. I’m not the kind of guy who’s going to drive to a bar, because I’m scared shitless of drinking and driving. It’s kind of good to have to take a cab if I want to go drinking. Is it really worth the 60 bucks that I’m going to have to pay, back and forth, for the cab ride? No it’s not. I’m going to sit at home and smoke pot.

It’s you and your son in the house?
Actually, my son does not live with me, he lives with his mother. Me and my girlfriend in the house.

How did you imagine the characters on your album, which include a homeless guy, someone dating a junkie, and a struggling mother?
I would sit at a bus stop drinking my morning coffee. At first it was just because I wanted to walk around my neighborhood and get to know it a little better. But after a while I found out that how I was steering my new stories was through strangers. And I could have done that anywhere, but of course I didn’t. I used to sit at the bar and make my stories with strangers and then write about ’em. Whereas now these problems I’m writing about are not really my problems.

9th Wonder and Buckshot

BEN WESTHOFF — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 20:55:31 GMT

The Formula | Duckdown
Although the term is often bandied about, 9th Wonder has become a true super-producer in recent years.

Fat Joe

BEN WESTHOFF — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 14:58:06 GMT

The Elephant in the Room | Terror Squad
For a 15-year rap veteran who brought the world the late Big Pun and has penned a long string of hits, Fat Joe sure has an inferiority complex.

Rick Ross

BEN WESTHOFF — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 18:12:38 GMT

Trilla | Def Jam
It’s easy to hate on Rick Ross for his sub-standard flow and tired materialism.

Everyday MC

BEN WESTHOFF — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 15:46:40 GMT

Masta Ace and eMC fly without a Learjet
Since Masta Ace got his start with the legendary NYC Juice Crew (Big Daddy Kane, Kool G Rap, Biz Markie, etc.), he’s had only a few minor hits.

HONEST NICHE: Punchline, Stricklin, Wordsworth, and Ace rap about day jobs, fights with
girlfriends, and broken dreams.

Since Masta Ace got his start with the legendary NYC Juice Crew (Big Daddy Kane, Kool G Rap, Biz Markie, etc.), he’s had only a few minor hits. It’s not that he hasn’t released some of the more critically acclaimed hip-hop of the past 20 years, just that mainstream success has eluded him, as it has the rest of the underground group eMC — whose members include Lyricist Lounge veterans Wordsworth and Punchline, and Milwaukee rapper Stricklin. Lots of MCs claim to be your favorite rapper’s rapper, but in Ace’s case, it’s true — to the millions of Slim Shady Fans, in any case, since Eminem calls him a major influence. But Ace (who was scheduled to come to Great Scott with eMC on March 26 before the appearance was cancelled) seems okay with toiling in near-obscurity.

“I just kind of figured out where I fit into this big picture, and I’m just going to ride that out,” the 41-year-old reflects over appetizers in midtown Manhattan. So does eMC’s debut album, The Show (M3, due this Tuesday), focus on coming to terms with what might have been? His answer — like the lyrics he spits in a versatile, workmanlike flow — is considered and self-effacing. “That certainly applies to me in terms of my career path. I think the jury is still out as far as Stricklin, Punch, and Words. Those guys are all younger than me, and they still have opportunities to ascend to levels that I didn’t get to as an artist. But it definitely applies to me.”

Ace’s disarming ingenuousness carries over to The Show, an album already proclaimed by a handful of music bloggers as the best rap disc of 2008. Clocking in at about 75 minutes, it offers tracks dating back to 2004, around the time Ace invited Punchline and Wordsworth to put verses onto a song called “Four Brothers” that he and Stricklin had intended to place on Ace’s previous solo album, A Long Hot Summer. From the success of that track, eMC was born. The group’s debut CD arrives after the deaths of two members’ mothers (discussed on “U Let Me Grow”) and a hard-drive failure that destroyed some of the tracks they’d been working on. The album also addresses everyday topics like day jobs, fights with spouses and girlfriends, dreams departed, and frustrations with record labels. Perhaps its main selling point is its honesty.

The French are coming

BEN WESTHOFF — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 21:23:55 GMT

Justice and Busy P bring the Ed Banger sound to Boston
The launch of an extensive North American tour sponsored by MySpace that comes to the Paradise this Saturday.

VIDEO: Justice, "D.A.N.C.E."

With Grammy nominations, the launch of an extensive North American tour sponsored by MySpace that comes to the Paradise this Saturday, and a bona fide backlash, Ed Banger Records has entered the second phase of its great American takeover. Headed by long-time Daft Punk manager Pedro Winter, the Parisian label is best known for blending techno and rock into a kind of metalitronica, and for the success of the French duo Justice, who embody that sound. Justice’s profile even got an inadvertent boost from Kanye West at the 2006 MTV Europe Music Awards when West jumped on stage and threw a temper tantrum after their video with Simian, “We Are Your Friends,” bested his “Touch the Sky.” He complained that his vid “cost a million dollars, Pamela Anderson was in it. I was jumping across canyons.”

Since then, however, Justice have exploded worldwide, having released their debut Cross album (Downtown/Ed Banger/Vice) to tremendous critical and popular crossover success, and Winter’s acts have left their musical and æsthetic imprint on US culture. For his recent “Good Life” video, West himself tapped Ed Banger resident artist So Me, and he also used a Daft Punk track for his song “Stronger.” “I think Kanye did an amazing track by sampling Daft Punk,” says Winter over the phone from Paris, in his thick French accent. And West’s Grammy Awards performance with the group? “With all the glowsticks and neon, it really looked like a Daft Punk show.”

Even the French are on board. Winter notes that though the press and the public in his homeland were slower to appreciate his label than were much of the world, they’ve now hopped onto the bandwagon: “They didn’t start it, but they are following it for sure.” He adds that his acts even receive tabloid mentions nowadays for their “trendy parties. . . . Now we are the most famous French label exporting French music.”

Having gotten married last year, Winter — who will be performing under his DJ name Busy P on the leg of the MySpace tour that hits the Paradise this Saturday with Justice playing a DJ set — has barely been able to see his wife, jet-setting from Iceland to Mexico to Coachella and back. (The MySpace line-up at larger venues includes the likes of Parisian boy/girl glam band Fancy, baile funk DJ Diplo, the electro duo Chromeo, and French hip-hop DJ Mehdi.) Winter says his acts have been followed everywhere by rabid fans of the label’s melody-focused electronic music, which borrows liberally from rock’s song structures and hops genres fluidly.

Shiko Mawata

BEN WESTHOFF — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 14:42:28 GMT

Kimbanda Nzila | iMak
Featuring Congolese rumba tinged with Afro-Cuban rhythms, Shiko Mawatu’s debut CD is compelling enough to transcend the oft-dubious distinction of “world music.”

New day rising

BEN WESTHOFF — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 18:43:27 GMT

Mr. Mould goes to Washington
As a member of alternative punk band Hüsker Dü and crunch-pop outfit Sugar, Bob Mould became legendary for blissful guitar melodies and personal lyrics that explored his inner angst.

As a member of alternative punk band Hüsker Dü and crunch-pop outfit Sugar, Bob Mould became legendary for blissful guitar melodies and personal lyrics that explored his inner angst. (He also wrote “Dog on Fire,” the Daily Show theme.) Having come out of the closet in the ’90s, he moved to Washington, DC, co-founded an enormously popular dance party, and released a pair of electronic albums. Like his previous disc, Body of Song, however, his latest CD, District Line, is mostly the guitar-based rock his fans know and love. The most shocking thing about his lyrics nowadays? He sounds so comfortable in his own skin. Mould plays the Paradise on Wednesday.

Will you be playing Sugar and Hüsker Dü songs on this tour?
Yeah. When I was touring Body of Song, I opened up the songbook to a handful of Hüsker Dü and Sugar songs, and it went over pretty well. They sounded good. I think people can expect more of the same, as well as a fair amount of the new record.

Would you say guitar rock remains your true love?
I’m guessing it [District Line’s guitar focus] is kind of a combination of two things — because Body of Song felt like a better fit to me, and because I got back out and played with a band in ’05. When I’m spending more time with the guitar, I typically write more with the guitar. It’s actually sort of that simple.

The stories on District Line feel, for lack of a better word, less angsty than those on your earlier albums.
I would agree with that. There’s a fair amount more resignation to the fact that life is exactly what it is, and there’s not a whole lot you can do to change it. You’ve just got to be in it. District Line is emotionally a bit broader than the other records, I think. There’s a fair amount of observation going on, about the simple stories of life, the simple stories of relationships. That’s what keeps all of us going, day after day. I don’t think it’s avarice, and I don’t think it’s lust — I think it’s wanting to belong in places with other people. I think these stories are observations on people that come and go, people that stay and then go, people that don’t show up. I think that’s really the core of what we do as people. We measure life by relationships and happiness and loss, and these are the stories in my head about those things.

Jeremy Lowell

BEN WESTHOFF — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 15:49:11 GMT

No Arms | Self-released
Jeremy Lowell is a 24-year-old Allston singer writing vulnerable lyrics in a folksy mode and delivering them with garage-rocking grit.

No advil, no booze

BEN WESTHOFF — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 20:39:23 GMT

Sampling the Frozen Food Section
...Musing on science fiction, existentialism, and stalker ex-husbands.

Hollyhood wills

BEN WESTHOFF — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 20:55:51 GMT

Three 6 Mafia’s adventures in acting
Memphis rappers Three 6 Mafia were trailblazers in the genre of crunk, a species of hip-hop characterized by big and ugly club beats and chanted semi-sensical choruses.

DJ PAUL & JUICY JAY: In Adventures in Hollyhood, Three 6 get to be themselves — what more could you ask for?

Memphis rappers Three 6 Mafia were trailblazers in the genre of crunk, a largely forgotten species of hip-hop characterized by big and ugly club beats and chanted (or yelled) semi-sensical choruses. Although the group have been around in various incarnations since 1991, their fortunes rose with crunk’s in the early part of this decade. They even scored a 2006 Oscar for best original song for “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp,” from Hustle and Flow. (You might remember host Jon Stewart’s commentary: “For those of you keeping score at home, Martin Scorsese, zero, Three 6 Mafia, one.”)

Three 6’s rise has also been tied to another trend in hip-hop: declining CD sales. But they were lucky enough to have MTV tap them for a reality series: Three 6 Mafia: Adventures in Hollyhood. And now the group, along with Sony, have cashed in again by releasing the entire eight-episode series on DVD.

The show chronicles the move by group members Juicy J and DJ Paul to LA and their largely unsuccessful attempts to break into the film industry. The guys are in way over their heads when it comes to acting auditions and pitching scripts, and the fish-out-of-water elements are played up, especially via Juicy J, the more naive of the pair. DJ Paul (who, like Juicy J, raps as well as produces) is the crew’s elder statesman, reminiscent of Bernie Mac in his deadpan delivery.

Also living in the bland rented house are Juicy J’s brother, rapper Project Pat (who barely speaks the entire season), and their assistants, Computer and Big Triece. Triece, we soon learn, didn’t finish high school until he was 21, and his sister is still a virgin at 34. Needless to say, we’re rooting for him from the start, and the most compelling episode sees him propose to his girlfriend. Nearly as large as Triece himself, she’s called Sugar Foot, and Paul and J buy her a Greyhound ticket from Memphis to surprise her lover.

“Can I touch your booty?” asks Triece when she arrives, glowing with happiness. “Maybe later,” she responds. Soon he gets down on bended knee and presents her with a ring (also paid for by the Three 6 guys). Later, we’re treated to night-vision shots of the pair in bed, and at one point Sugar Foot raids the refrigerator for love-potion ingredients. “That’s the first time in my life I’ve ever seen somebody mix sugar and ranch dressing together as a aphrodisiac,” comments Paul. Against all odds, it’s actually moving.