Le Tigre [Heart] Grime



Now, it's not a big surprise that Le Tigre are into No Lay and Lady Sovereign (their tour diary, from which the above is taken, also raves about 'Ch-Ching'), but what's that peeking out under another CD on the right? Why, it's Wiley's Treddin' On Thin Ice!



Hold tight the international queer feminist leftist crew.

What was played at Unpop:

(An incomplete list as I didn't keep a record of everything David McNamee played - his choices that I did note are in italics, and we were alternating almost throughout.)

Bush Tetras - Too Many Creeps
El-P & Ghostface - Hideyaface
some song that goes "Hey boy, da da da da dada"
Shystie - One Wish (Remix)
Gene Serene - I Can Do Anything
The Slits - Love Und Romance
Heloise and the Savoir Faire Dancers - Odyle
The Knife - You Take My Breath Away
Mu - Paris Hilton
Fox - S-s-single Bed
Rock & Roll Robot by ?
Miss Kittin - Requiem For A Hit
Ghostface - Save Me Dear
some amazing electro mash-up/mix of Johnny Cash - I Won't Back Down
Kano - Ps & Qs
some remix of Justin Timberlake - Like I Love You
M.I.A. - URAQT
Morgan - Miss Parker
Gramme - Like You
Miss Pain - Heartbreaker
Felix Da Housecat - Everyone Is Some In LA
The Timelords - Doctorin' The Tardis
Peaches - Casanova
Monk & Princess Superstar
Mia - Heroes
Funkytown
Futon - Gay Boy
Alizee (spelling?)
Cristina - Don't Mutilate My Mink
Glass Candy
Le Tigre - I'm So Excited
Annie - Me Plus One
The Auteurs - The Rubettes

After that, on to Detournement and 'Robot Rock' and an appalled crowd gaping in horror at a bizarre inappropriate hired dancer... Then a tour of Brighton homes and houses and a late-night gathering at Ground Zero studios... It's a nice lifestyle to visit but I don't think I could ever sustain it full time.

bono: an apology

I am very very sorry that when I wrote about Bono earlier, I did not include a link to this website: Bono The Puppet (I had already heard about the book of the same name).

I still intend to write more on this issue, and more broadly on the issue of 'mainstream' activism, and the false dichotomy of "getting your hands dirty" v. "sitting back and doing nothing", as well as the question as to whether I myself comprehend the world in too binary a fashion. But for now, I give you this quotation without comment, taken from the section of the website entitled 'Why Bono?' (a section which I would point to in answer to Matthew's question "why not Jay-Z?"):

"I see an America that has rehabilitated in a way that was unimaginable to me 10 years ago. Back then the US was the neighborhood bully, inept in the foreign policy, beating up on the wrong guy everywhere. With the Joshua Tree, we were writing about Central America and the dark side of the US. Now, America looks smart and dare I say it, sexy again."

A date is not provided, but I don't think it needs to be (it might have been more understandable if it was said Clinton-era, but not much more accurate). Has there ever been a time since The Joshua Tree when to speak approvingly of US foreign policy, whilst being fully aware of what those policies entail, is not chilling? I would then ask, if we assume that Bono is not monumentally stupid or incredibly misinformed (and neither seem that likely), what does a statement like that imply about Bono's politics? Is it a mistake to assume that "left leaning lobbyists" are the people with whom a comparison ought to be drawn? The above quotation is pretty much textbook apologism. Specifically, it's from a Noam Chomsky textbook:

"Those who are still not satisfied can be offered the doctrine of "change of course," soberly invoked whenever the stance of noble intent becomes impossible to sustain. True, bad things have been done in the past for understandable reasons, but now all will be different. So our terrorist wars against the church and other deviants in Central America in the 1980s, leaving the region littered with hundreds of thousands of tortured and mutilated victims and ruining its countries perhaps beyond recovery, was really a war with the Russians. Now we will "change course" and lead the way to a bright future."

(Only marginally related, but meant for one person: I don't really understand how anyone who liked Achtung Baby / Zooropa era U2 could not like 'Thrills' off the LCD Soundsystem album. It even has an even-better-than-the-real-Adam-Clayton bassline!)

There really ought to be some kind of online service that notifies you when people who've announced their retirement from blogging get back in the game. I had no idea Sleeve Notes was back, and back with a whole heap of goodies, no less. Scroll down and scroll down some more.

If you're looking for an end-of-year round-up of singles, you could do a lot worse than Alex MacPherson's:

60-41: 'NY Excuse', LCD Soundsystem, Jay, Ghostface (who I am annoyed can no longer be referred to as Ghost without confusing Wire readers), Miss Kittin, The Knife and Felix all present and correct. Bonus points for showing the correct amount of penitence for the inclusion of Morrisey lyrics.

40-31: I am finally coming round to 'Tilt Ya Head Back' for exactly the reasons given here (plus, 'NELLY KNUCKLES BEATS ALL CHARGES'!).

30-21: Exclusion of 'Slow Jamz' from the overall list is almost made up for by its mention here, and I'm glad I'm not only person who's noticed that the best thing about 'Jesus Walks' and 'Never Let Me Down' might be the transition from one to the other. I'm still not feeling the Winehouse love, but maybe I'll try to keep an open mind (and stop imagining a portly piano player saying "...Amy Winehouse!" as he sweeps one arm to his side by way of introduction).

20-11: 'Mono' love and generally Love love, on the other hand, that's the kind of love I'll always support. Apart from that entry I wrote after the first time I heard it, but let's forget that ever happened.

10-9: What an amazing time. What a family.

8-4: Perfection. Every single one of these is a better work of art than [INSERT YR FAVOURITE CANONICAL GREAT WORK HERE]. Even if I can't listen to 'Goodies' without wanting to hear "hello, this is M-I-A..."

3: I've said it before and I'll say it again, fuck haterz.

2: Slowly, we have all come around to realising that 'Trick Me' edges out 'Milkshake', just.

1: I have no idea why I don't own the album yet. January Sales, here we come.

Obviously it's fantastic news that Blunkett has gone, but I hope I am not alone in feeling a degree of sadness, too: sadness that he has been replaced by another Blairite bully-boy who will push on with ID cards, evil asylum policies, etc; sadness that Clarke has in turn been replaced by a woman described as "one of the breed of younger politicians that takes a consciously strong moral line on issues such as parenting and antisocial behaviour" (ie, the inevitable slide of Labout under Blair into religiosity and 'family values' continues). Most of all I feel sadness that Blunkett will in all likelihood never be called to account for the suffering he has caused, or the contempt that he has shown for the victims of his own and his colleagues' policies.

In an otherwise insightful piece in the Guardian today, Roy Hattesley talks about "the sympathy which all decent people feel", or rather should feel, for Blunkett. Leaving aside the appeal to the concept of 'decent people' (which is always reactionary), I would say that it is vitally important that should we feel any sympathetic sentiment creeping in with regards to Blunkett's emotional distress and loss of career, we harden out hearts to that emotion, and remember instead the victims of his policies and their much more considerable suffering. He is a mentally unbalanced man, it's true, and he does need help: but at least he has now been removed from a position in which he could continue to harm others.

the best tracks from not the best albums of 2004

1. Mos Def feat. Minnesota - 'Grown Man Business (Fresh Vintage Bottles)'

Minnesota is a rapper and a producer - woah, that's mad, it's like being a player/manager or something! That kind of craziness is never going to catch on.

Anyway, this is refreshingly raw street shit, largely because it's someone other than Mos Def doing the talking for most of it and so you actually get a sense of menace. Don't get me wrong, I love Mos, but it's hard to accept him as a tough guy (maybe that's one of the reasons 'The Rape Over' falls flat) unless he has a lot of help. I fucking love the production on this one - I think Westwood's been playing it a lot this year as an instrumental, and it might be sampling some really well-known Isaac Hayes tune or something - point is, it's incredibly reminiscent of New York City, specifically Brooklyn... Mos acquits himself very well once it's time for his verse, actually: "son you know what it is, from the moment you come over the Bridge, and if you don't, ride with me: I'm-a show you some shit..." - okay, if I don't stop there I'll quote the whole verse and that would be kinda lame.

The point is, while there are moments on The New Danger where Mos' desire to experiment bear fruit ('Zimzallabim', 'Modern Marvel'), I can't help but feel that it would have been a better album had he included a little more proper hip hop, you know?

(Three other reasons why The New Danger is not in my favourite dozen albums of the year: 1. 'The Rape Over' - I can't decide whether this is a case of "I respect what he's trying to do here and although it doesn't stand up as a track, it's an interesting curio" or "Oh dear, what was he thinking?" - no, wait, I can decide. 2. 'Blue Black Jack' = unbelievably tedious blues shit. 3. How good could a smoochy r&b ballad called 'The Panties' sung by Mos Def possibly be? Yeah. Not very.)

(The following started out as post on Barbelith, but it got so long and I've been meaning to write it for so long that I thought I'd include it here, too.)

Notorious B.I.G.: A real rapper from the days of true hip hop, when it was about the five elements and dropping science, not just talking about sex, guns and money over repetitive samples and r&b hooks.

"Damn right I like the life I live
Cuz I went from negative to positive"

So it's pretty fascinating to me the position that Biggie now holds in relation to people's attitudes towards what's good hip hop and what's not (I mean, of the people who divide these things up on the basis of anything other than case-by-case judgments). Back around the time of his death and shortly afterwards, I remember that he was still seen as being part of bad, evil mainstream rap by a lot of kids who just listened to Wu-Tang and Jeru, etc, including me. Not surprising: his best mate/producer/record boss was Puff Daddy, a lot of his singles had r&b hooks, he rapped a lot about how he liked women and specifically having sex with them, he also told stories involving guns - lots of guns - and he was obsessed with designer-name clothes and other forms of materialism.

Brief anecdotal bit here: I then made a friend at university who was a hip hop DJ, and he couldn't believe that I didn't like B.I.G. He played me a lot of tracks, he leant me a tape, and slowly it dawned on me (starting with the more rugged tracks first, as was the way for me back then): this guy was a genius. In retrospect I think realising that paved the way for me realising that the whole underground = good, mainstream = bad dichotomy applied to rap was bullshit. Apart from anything else, for the first time I realised that being a lyrical genius wasn't just a matter of cramming in a lot of very long words and making references that were as obscure as possible - you can come up with smart, funny, insightful rhymes using relatively straightforward language.

But I've noticed that many of the people who still cling to that dichotomy solve the problem of Biggie by just putting him on the right side of that divide. Which is amazing to me because in some ways, for the reasons listed above, the Notorious one really was an example of the textbook 'bad' mainstream rapper. And I'm wondering how this works in those people's heads. Is it, as I suspect, simply just a question of there always being a statute of limitations on when mainstream rap is always seen as bad by the people who hold this mindset? Say 6-8 years, give or take? In other words, back in the mid-90s it was Biggie and Pac and Puffy who were bad, but NWA and Ice-T might just be okay. Now, Biggie might be okay, but 50 Cent or Fabulous are definitely bad... Does the fact that he's dead add to that, canonising him earlier than would otherwise be the case?

Ironically, I think the artist who holds the closest position to this today is Jay-Z - ie, ask someone who divides hip hop up into the good/real/true hip hop and the bad/mainstream/fake rap, and you won't be able to predict necessarily which side of the fence they'll put Jigga on. I'm not sure that's what Jay-Z meant when he went on and on about taking over from Biggie all those times. But is interesting - for me, it's interesting because I think examples like B.I.G. and Jay should up how unworkable that divide is.

Favourite B.I.G. tunes: for me obviously the whole of Ready To Die is a classic, especially (off the top of my head) 'Things Done Changed', 'Warning', 'Juicy', 'The What' and the title track. In fact 'Juicy' was a real epiphany-inducer for me. But I also love a lot of tracks from Life After Death: 'Somebody's Got To Die', 'I Love The Dough', 'I Got A Story To Tell' and of course 'Mo Money, Mo Problems'...

"B-I-G, P-O, P-P-A
No windfall for the DEA
Federal agents mad cuz I'm flagrant
Tap my cell, and the phone in my basement"