Friday, February 25, 2005

Amateurs 
"I wouldn't even think about playing music if I was born in these times ... I'd probably turn to something like mathematics." Bob Dylan is unimpressed by today's pop fodder, labelling them amateurs.

?uestlove (from The Roots) gives a tour of his record room. (via Funkdigital) Serious vinyl.

The new issue of Mojo magazine came out locally last week, Great Bob Marley cover story, plus an excellent feature on Coxsone Dodd and his Studio One label by David Katz (author of the Lee Scratch Perry bio). The airfreighted copies I saw were $21, BUT didn't come with the free CD, which featured highlights from a number of the Soul Jazz reissues from the Studio One label. There's a tiny note on the cover that says 'for copyright reasons the CD is not available in some overseas territories". However, if you go to Megamags near the bottom of Queen St, you can find it with the CD - apparently there is more than one company airfreighting said magazine into Aotearoa. And the cost? $22.50. That's a CD for $1.50. Bargain!

"35th Anniversary celebrations for the Adidas Superstar continue with the addition to the website of the Music Series, seven smart interpretations of the timeless sneaker from the likes of Run DMC, Ian Brown, Missy Elliott, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Rocafella and Bad Boy. Accompanying the shoes' arrival are cool video interviews with Ian Brown, Missy and DMC, and there's one in the Expression Series section with legendary Wildstyle scribbler Lee Quinones too". (Via Spine mag) And they're only making 5000 of each of them, which means you sure as hell won't get em down here. Damn.

ADDED: Thievery Corp diss PCs in the latest Listener.
"I think we just wanted it to be a little trippier sounding, a little heavier and slightly rock at times," Garza says of the new album. "We wanted to experiment with our Mac – we switched over from PC to Mac. Our former engineer used PC, but it's horrible, like driving the Indy 500 in a VW Beetle. So, having the new technology has helped and also a fresh approach musically to some of the tracks, different to what we would have done in the past."

They also get into an argument with the interviewer (Stinky Jim) over the merits of modern dancehall and hiphop...
Hilton: "Like hip-hop's a joke to me now. It's probably the biggest joke. Chuck D wrote an article recently about how hip-hop has been changed by sampling laws and everybody making hip-hop songs on a little workstation with the stock sounds. You know, like the clap sound and the big kick drum – you can spend $200 and get all you need. There's no excitement in that music unless you're really going to cut up beats and do it the old-fashioned way."

So there's no excitement in Timbaland, Neptunes or Outkast or underground gear like Madlib or MF Doom?

Hilton: "Um, I'm not familiar with all of their music..." full article here.

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