Sonic Slab Review Revue (Part Deux)

Alright friends the next batch of random cd's came from the Seattle Public Library, Greenwood Branch.

 Tennis-Young & Ol One time this dude I used to work with asked me if I liked Tennis. I did, actually. I had sort of forgotten how to keep score but I told him that my-girlfriend-at-the-time-and-I enjoyed a friendly volley not infrequently. He told me that he was talking about Tennis, the band, not the leisure activity/sport. I told him I had no idea and went back to cutting lemons or whatever. I had forgotten about all of this when I picked up this disc at the library the other day. It's on Fat Possum Records which was at one time an imprint of Epitaph. Growing up your typical Warped-Tour attending suburban skatepunk type, and also considering myself an open-minded audiophile I always had a vague interest in Fat Possum's grit and blues roster. Man, have I been out of the loop! This record bares no sonic resemblance to either the blues or the punk rock. I don't know why I want to say this, but this is the sad boring music that hipsters claim make them happy. No Aaron, I don't like Tennis.

House Of Pain When I was about eleven years old the "Jump Around" video came out. I remember being on the third floor TV room of my parents' house with a few friends watching MTV. "Jump Around" came on. White dudes rapping in Celtics gear and chain wallets. I was down! About half way through the video, me and the homies started slam dancing, stage-diving off my mother's couch and shit. House of Pain made us wanna get fuckin' rad! It's a trip to check out this album in 2013. I listen to it fondly, and cringe.

Mike Watt-Hyphenated-Man This is a sprawling, balls-to-the-wall,Minutemenesque Watt voyage. This is art. While not necessarily the most sonically pleasing specimen to me personally from front to back, this is a fucking interesting release. Without getting all college lit here, Watt's lyrical theme (various forms of man-conceivably Watt himself and/or Universal Man and/or the listener) rips the listener through a thirty track mind fuck exploring all kinds of ideas briefly and intensely before moving on to the next blast. This avant-garde punk Watt album is a bittersweet listen knowing the history of the Minutemen. If I had to surmise,--which as a bloggist, I in fact do--I'd say that not only would D. Boon have been proud, but that he would've wanted in.

Sonic Slab Review Revue (Part 1)

Went to the Seattle Public Library (main branch) the other day.

The SPL is amazing and the main branch itself is an architectural marvel. One of the rad things about the library system is the music that is available for cardholders to take out and one of the rad things about the main branch (apart from the unique aesthetic and architecture) is the treasure trove of compact discs that are housed there, with nearly an entire floor dedicated to music alone. While there the other day I hit that treasure trove hard. Thought I'd review some of these discs on the Warlock. Don't think any of these are exactly brand new or cutting edge by any means, but either way here's a batch of some CD reviews....

Method Of Defiance-Jahbulon So there's this dude called Bill Laswell who's a pretty prolific musician. He got started in Detroit back in the day and was hip to the Stooges and the MC5 as well as Parliament/Funkadelic and the dude's pretty much been running and gunning since then. He's worked with Motorhead, Tori Amos and Herbie Hancock, to name a few. Method of Defiance is Laswell's reggae project out on his record label of the same name (method of defiance technologies). The album features Laswell on bass, Dr. Israel and Hawk collaborating on vocal duties, P-Funk's Bernie Worrell on keyboards and a guy I'd never heard of (Guy Licata)on the drums. Honestly I wasn't too hot and bothered by this album. I was a big Dr. Israel fan when I was first getting into dancehall but maybe I've outgrown some of his Brooklyn-Swag for a more authentic Trenchtown sound. Don't really know what to make of Hawk, and Worrell's trademark thick minimoog sound is nowhere near this recording. They keys sound dim and flimsy to me. Sorry, dudes.

Lee Scratch Perry/Bill Laswell-Rise Again I like this one better. Alot of the same collaborations as on the Jahbulon record, this one plays like a more focused project, which is strange because it is essentially the same crew (Laswell, Worrell, the dude Licata--and many other guests including Sly Dunbar) backing Lee Perry rather than doing their own stuff. Maybe I just prefer LSP to Dr. Israel and Hawk, although both dancehall vocalists are featured on Rise Again as well. The Perry/Laswell record came out a year or so later and you can hear the group's more-polished sound on Rise Again. Perry himself checks in with his standard genius-meets-nonsense vocal delivery. He's been doing it a long time and is not necessarily breaking new ground, but his collaboration with Laswell and company provides Perry with a fresh platform, and his presence is always fiercely individualist, although not necessarily with a straightforward delivery. The music hits harder than on Jahbulon with Worrell's keys sitting brightly out front, as they should be.

E-40-My Ghetto Report Card I wasn't really feeling this one. I had heard that E-40 was the shit and I always liked him when he cameo'd on Too $hort records but I wasn't into this 2006-released nearly pre-hyphy bay area sound. The beats were soft and the hooks were corny, what can I say. There is one song (featuring Too $hort)that's pretty awesome. It's called "Yee." It's got a booty-clapping 808 beat and some evil sounding minor chord piano shit going on. This is the trashy rap I like and I wish that the rest of the album sounded like this. For E-40's ghetto report card I give him a C-.

Laundry Can Wait

Lately when I'm driving around if I see something cool I'm making an effort to take a picture of it. Not take a picture of everything, just training myself to not ignore inspiration. I wonder how many awesome ideas I've had that I let slip away when all I had to do was take a note. And I guess that's what the Warlock is all abut these days--taking time out of my day to create or be inspired. Realizing that pulling over and taking a picture of a sunset is actually way more pressing than doing laundry or whatever. Laundry can wait. This Beacon Hill sunset seems alot more important...

Judkins On The Rise

This last skatepark construction video (SPCV) is a little wonky but I figure'd I'd include it to round out this little trilogy of posts. Here in Seattle, WA we are super lucky to have nine skateparks in the city proper. Nine. SF don't come close. Things aren't always what they seem and Seattle is hands down Mecca for top notch concrete skatepark riding. Well, not hands down. Portland is obviously a heavy hitter and Colorado is insane as well, but Seattle currently boasts the most skateparks (all of them being grade A) per capita of anywhere else in the world. The latest edition is (will be) Judkins Park. With South Park, Jefferson and Delridge all opening within the past year or two South Seattle is really killin it in the skatepark game. Here's a video of the Judkins construction going on down there. They are very closed to being done. I heard a rumor about a park in Northgate?...

Happy Hampton

Keeping up with skatepark construction, here's a few more videos. The first is from the beginning of this past summer. It features construction layout from the Hampton NH skatepark. The next one has some skating there a month or two later...

The City Of David (Bader)

I took a really weird route to Pennsylvania from Massachusetts fairly recently. I was driving out to Seattle by myself but I wanted to see some friends and hit whatever skateparks I could along the way. Every time I take a trip I ask myself, when will I be able to do this again?. And the answer is maybe never. So I try to do what I want. So I drove to Kennett Square via Bethlehem PA to avoid NYC traffic altogether. It was kinda rainy. It was a few days before Hurricane Sandy touched down on the East Coast. Anyway I stopped in Bethlehem for a skate at this plaza type thing they have there. What also drew me to Bethlehem was that Grindline was working on a phase II of the park there. Like I said it was kinda rainy and I was on my way to another part of the state so I hardly skated but I did film this little video of the next phase's progress. I'm sure that local and traveling skaters are making mince meat of this shit by now...

 

 if you're wondering

MINIRAMPTHROWUP

ewww gross

Four-Wheeled Friends

One of the better things one can get out of skateboarding is friendship. I have made so many friends through skating! Not everyone still skates but friendship is forever. Today I thought I'd put up some photos of friendships forged through skating. Not skate photos, but photos of skateboarders, which are sometimes even cooler...

Newburyport, 2012

Big Sky, 2012

Brooklyn, 2008

Gloucester, 2010

Newbury, 2012

Plum Island, 2008

La Conner, 2012

Kennett Square, 2012

Newbury, 2012

Ballard, 2012

Dedication To The Stoke

The first time I went to Hingham was trippy. I got there relatively early in the morning and found all these (what I thought were) rocks in the bowl. But the unidentified debris were little actually little tiny bullfrogs. I tried not to run them over but as I got warmed up and skated different sections of the bowl, but I couldn't help but take a few out. When it was me or the frogs, a few of 'em got popped.
The next time I think I went there Stan came with me. I had just rolled my ankle and I filmed Stan doing some skating:

Later on that day these two dudes showed up with an old school Radio Raheem style boombox and a few joints. There names were Andrew and Casey. Casey was a gutterpunk from New Orleans who kept the beats blastin' out the box. I ended up meeting up with Andrew and Casey for a bunch more sessions all around New England that summer and fall.

Always good to meet new friends that are down to skate and travel around and make it happen. Dedication to the stoke from youth, all through the twenties, into the thirties and beyond. Word. Here's a video I filmed of Andrew at Skater's Edge in Taunton later on that fall:

Greenlake 50/50

Skate shit Skate shit Skate shit. I got a bunch of it so I'm just gonna start pumping it out as blog fodder or warlock wonderment, or whatever you may want to call it. Some are photos, some are videos, most aren't incredible tricks by any means but trust me, the goodtimes had filming them on my trusty little phone certainly were, and not to kick the cliche, but having fun is pretty much what skateboarding is still all about.
First up is a quick video of a 50/50 I did at greenlake. "Whoopee!" you say? It's not the cleanest but I'm kinda proud of it because I usually cruise around bowls and miniramps. Nowadays this is pretty much getting buck for me. Court Hoffman filmed it on my iphone.

Thinkin' On Lincoln

Well I bet you though I was gonna leave you guys hangin, but fuck no, I'm back. My buddy Shane wanted to see the movie Lincoln starring Daniel Day Lewis as, well, Abraham Lincoln. In fact Shane recommended that I see it the day that I went to see Django Unchained. I told Shane that I predicted that Lincoln would be kinda boring--a bunch of honkies sitting around in rooms in three piece suits smoking cigars and drinking brandy talking for two and a half hours. I was kind of right. In fact there was a point where Shane was snoring.
But the movie was kind of dope, particularly because it stars DDL. The man is not an actor, he's an artist. Every movie that he's in he kills it. Last night watching Lincoln I couldn't believe that it was Day-Lewis. Not that I know what Abe was like, but it seemed like Daniel Day Lewis nailed his mannerisms right down to the pitch of his voice, performing without the familiar DDL vocal boom that I'm used to hearing. Talk about suspended belief. I was wondering to myself where they got all the footage of honest Abe before film was prevalent. That, or I wondered how long Louie Barletta had been involved with acting. I don't know Day Lewis' Lincoln just kind of reminded me of Louie at times.
So Day Lewis was excellent, as was to be expected. Spielberg? Meh. The film had what I would describe as Disneyesque undertones at times, pulling more at the viewers' heartstrings than our minds. I would have liked the movie to be a bit colder, darker. Obviously there's not a happy ending (Lincoln gets shot and if that's a spoiler I sort of feel sorry for you), but I just believe that there was alot more pain and gief along the way. Daniel Day Lewis would have been the perfect vehicle for Spielberg to illustrate some of that and I kind of feel like he fell short. The 16th president's rumorized ambiguous sexuality was only slightly barely not even really grazed upon for example, and that is only true for the most intuitive sub text-steeped viewers (which I may not even be one).
Overall Lincoln is indeed worth watching thanks to Daniel Day Lewis' excellent-as-always performance, but if I had to do it again I might have watched it on Netflix in the comfort of my living room. Just sayin'.

Django Unchained, Reviewed

Like I mentioned yesterday, I went to see the new Tarantino movie, Django Unchained, yesterday. Thought today I'd drop a review of the movie as opposed to yesterday's review of the moviegoing experience.
I thought the movie was rad. I can't really think of a Tarantino movie that I've seen that I haven't liked. I guess I wasn't that into Planet Terror, but I did like how some of the characters from Death Proof made it in. The two movies were kind of intertwined, like a Vonnegut novel.
Anyway Django Unchained is the new Western-style flick about a slave named Django (Jamie Foxx) who finds himself freed and employed by a German bounty hunter named Dr. Schultz (Christoph Waltz-the Nazi dude from Inglorious Basterds). The two of them cruise around the pre-Civil War South smokin' fools and makin' paper until they eventually find the plantation known as Candieland where Django's beloved wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington) has been sold to owner and proprietor Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio).
So that's the plot. Having never actually written a movie review before, let me just drop a few nuggets of note on ya:

-Django hardly talks which I think is cool to have a lead that doesn't say much, and the dude Christoph Waltz has a real gift of gab. He's funny as shit.
-Trademark Tarantino violence used at exactly the right moments. Remember how in Inglorious Basterds everyone was hyped to see Hitler get his face blown off? Yea, well, it felt pretty damn good to see a slave mow down a mansion full of crackers. Kudos, Quent. Can't help but wonder if some of your white guilt has played a part, though.
-I always like the music in Tarantino movies and 100 Black Coffins by Rick Ross was a rad juxtaposition in this spaghetti western. I found the music like the over ruling aesthetic of the movie to be just modern enough.    
     Despite its obvious longing to be a classic Eastwood-era western, "Unchained" isn't afraid to revel in its 2012-ness either. Hopelessly retro, yet poignantly modern.
Lastly, I feel this movie is worth commenting on because it is a bold release by Tarantino, especially when he has been accused of shall we say, artistic racism, in the past. I salute Q.T.'s stab at a risky premise and actually having the directorial and dialogue chops to make it a viable offering. It might not be pleasing to Spike Lee, but at least Tarantino had the balls to make it after he thought about it. What would have been really fucked up and racist was if he had the idea and then put it on the shelf because he decided that he didn't want to meet with the criticism, or that we the movie-going public weren't ready to think about these kinds of situations yet.

Suspicious Behavior

Today is Jan. 2, 2013. It's my brother's birthday. Happy birthday, Andrew.It's also what I think of as the "unofficial end of the holiday season." Sounds technical, no? January 2nd is also the real New Year's Day, because let's face it, most of us probably spend January 1st sitting around the house indulging in whatever vices we were into last year. From what I understand from my a.d.d.-riddled half-interested Catholic school education though, the Magi or 3 Kings of Orient-R didn't show up until around January 6, so I guess there is no succinct ending to the holiday season.