T.P.O. Records To VH1's Ego Trip's The White Rapper Show's John Brown: We'll Put Your Record Out

John Brown on that dime shit!

This Just In: White Rapper John Brown Robbed of VH1 Show's Top Prize

Needless to say that most of this show was unfunny, over-scripted, and banal, but it did have some bright spots. Most of these moments were authored by a wide-eyed youth calling himself John Brown. I'll face facts: right now I could give two shits about rappers that get their philosophical/social-consciousness asses up, which were half of the show's contestants. The rest were either haters (Persia) or bitches (Sullee). On the other hand, Brown crafted a unique and original persona, "The King of the Burbs", accompanied by his "Hallelujah Hollaback" catch phrase, which gave his songs freshness. On the song that he performed for the finale, ingeniously titled "Car Wars", Brown raps about a necessity for rich suburban kids to have the dopest rides. Initially, it seems a light topic, but the wordplay captivates the listeners, and reveals the song as having underlying meaning, informing us that black rappers/hustlers aren't the only people that want to stunt, that the priviliged white suburban youth also feels compelled to do it. Brown lost to Shamrock, whose song was about hating on people that hated on him. Eghck! Ultimately, Shamrock won because throughout the show he displayed the greatest work ethic and also the most obsequiousness to host MC Serch and the guest judges. Republican bullshit! JB, you deserved to win.

And In Other News: VH1 Show Reveals Hip-Hop Producer/Mixtape Mogul Clinton Sparks Is White

With that name, who would have thought to Google Image it? Unless, of course, you knew about this mixtape.

Attack of the Paranoidpornsword Killer (Part III)

Yeah. It was sort of an atypical day. Anyway. The time was just after 5pm. I had just gotten home from a long day of eating pretzels and looking at the Liberty Bell in contemplation (as I often do on Wednesdays). I took off my soggy shoes as soon as I walked in the house. The snow was melting quickly now that the sun had returned from its extended weekend. Suddenly, I remembered that I had a DVD I'd been meaning to watch. "Aw, Dennis," I said to myself. The due date was fast approaching so there was no better time to watch it. Changed my attire, grabbed a blanket, and basked I did! Boy, was I relaxing! And the movie wasn't half bad to be honest! ...Until my neighbor... well... just check this out. Anyway.


*Note: names and locations have been changed to protect the identities of those involved.

Hey, Apples In Stereo, Shame On You

The Fonz successfully jumping over the Apples In Stereo @ The North Star:



Me, not so much:



The Apples In Stereo
The North Star
2/16/07- 2/17/07

John Vanderslice's live show sucks because he takes way too long to set up, demurely talks to the crowd way too much, and doesn't do anything.



The Applies In Stereo put on a worse live show than John Vanderslice. The Apples In Stereo put on the worst live show I've ever gone to.

They also did a terrible job of pulling a "The North Star": devising an imaginary obstacle that the headlining band needs to overcome before they can start their set, thereby holding the audience hostage at the North Star for an entire Friday night and forcing them to drink overpriced beer. Apples' excuse, the lead singer all the sudden got a sore throat, but assuredly after a few cups of hot tea with lemon, which took an hour and a half to drink, he was just fine, and they pressed on, and as they promised during the wait, they "rocked us out." If, by "rocking us out", they meant doing this



to us, then they succeded.

Pulp Diction

That easy, huh...


I think it pretty safe to say that a majority of people under 40 would admit to at least liking Pulp Fiction. The movie epitomizes our generation's notion of cool. The characters talk fast and dirty and sharp, and they all live extraordinary lives, killing, doping, dancing-- no nine-to-fivers. When we watch this movie, we satisfy a repressed curiosity and yearning for the distasteful. Decorum (and i think rightly so) demands nearly all of our time, but eventually you feel the urge to tell decorum to go fuck itself, and that is when you pop Pulp Fiction in your DVD player. Well, I think that listening to certain coke-hop can also satiate that appetite.

Take this mixtape by Juelz Santana and Lil Wayne, Blow: The I Can't Feel My Face Prequel. I got my hands on it about a week ago, and since then it has completely seized me. It's not what Elz and Weezy are saying, it's how they're saying it. This is poetry at its finest, new and elegant. It's just like listening to Tarantino's Vincent and Jules for the first time. I could quote the record ad infinitum to hammer the point, but a few examples from Santana should do the trick:

"I cook good, make it look good, damn straight. / Put coke in the pot, take out pancakes. / Double stacks, triple stacks, why not? / I got that syrup too, jus call me IHOP."

"... fiends go to work, after the work you sell 'em. / They know they got to buy more, they head hurt, they eyes sore. / You sellin' that cheap rock, sheetrock, drywall /... I be chef, the chef / you never have to rechef what I chef. Comprende?"

"Now let me introduce the world to my girl. / She white, she bright, she shine like a pearl. / And I ain't talkin' 'bout Lindsey Lohan / I'm talkin' 'bout that sniff, that blow man."

I know that this kind of Rap can be misunderstood, and that it should in no way fall upon the youth. But it would be a great mistake to eradicate such creativeness and polish of language. It does serve a purpose. It does create a fanciful world for adults, just like the world of Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, in which we can safely transgress the restraints of ordered society and briefly don the costume of a bad ass. I think that listening to Blow or watching Pulp Fiction can be healthy activities if we use them to cathartically purge our frustrations and fulfill our fantasies, not establish them.

Freestyle Blogging

I guess it's possible

Exclusive: Adam Sparkles - T.P.O. Mix

First, many thanks to Adam Sparkles, one of the city's best djs, for a stellar mix. We know it'll liven up your weekend as much as it did our week. Check out the track list here.

I didn't get into some of the previous year's best music until it was too late, but here are some things that should have been included in my best of '06:

Birdman & Lil' Wayne - Stuntin' Like My Daddy
Bell X1 - Flame (Chicken Lips Rmx)
Depeche Mode - Sinner In Me (Ricardo Villalobos Rmx)
Ricardo Villalobos - Fizheuer Ziheuer
My My - Got It
2020 Soundsystem (Feat. The Glass) - No Order (2020 Soundsystem Rmx)
Goldfrapp - Fly Me Away (C2 Rmx 4)
X-Press 2 (Feat. Rob Harvey) - Kill 100 (Carl Craig Rmx)
Sunset Rubdown - Sunset Rubdown EP
Wolf Eyes - Human Animal

After finally caving in and subscribing to Bloglines, I've reentered the world thanks to Yahoo! News. Apparently some pretty terrible shit has been happening, especially this. I am anxious about the precedent this would set-- only a matter of time before it hits Philly. Do they really expect me to be walking along, a minute or so into "Get Innocuous", right before the drums kick in, and pause that just to cross the street? How about all cars yielding to pedestrians in crosswalks no matter what, or Back to the Future cars?

Speaking about iPods, I wonder when the touch-screen iPod will debut. I hope it's soon. I've been advising everyone I know that buying an iPod now would be just about the dumbest thing you could do. After watching the Macworld keynote and seeing the iPod capabilities of iPhone-- well that's just it, the touch-screen iPod already exists. I know that the phone isn't slated to hit until June or July, and that mass production takes a long time, but Apple has always been so on point with the iPod, that I can't imagine them hoarding this technology for that long. And it's so next level, the ability to "touch your music." I'd imagine a camera being thrown in the mix as well, maybe digital voice recording capabilities and the email suite too, everything today's youth could ever need in a 2x3x.2 inch box. I know I'd regret not waiting the extra however long for such a radically better product.

Everybody's probably sick of my recent obsession with the HBO series Extras. Its over-the-top way of dealing with touchy subjects makes you cringe instead of laugh sometimes, but it seems to be confronting important social issues every bit as head-on as let's say Mind of Mencia, and in actually funny and much more realistic ways. I mean that last episode detailed a no homo gone wrong. What could be more relevant than that?

Packing on New York Moving Eve

I feel grossly unconfident. I pretty much failed at New York: Round 1. September 1, 2006 I moved on a whim, maybe wanting to be a bigshot Japanese-corporate power suit. (Pennsylvania State University Main Campus' ubiquitous Business School assholes probably had an influence there) It also must be said that New York was home to a crushed-upon boy but- er, well, in reality I truly forget my rationale back then. However, tonight I am back in Fihdehfiya and in the process of packing for the second attempt. To move up for good this time and be an actress and- Why did I leave? T.P.O's inquiring readers might ask. The bottom line is Lyme disease (undiagnosed in the very etymological sense of the word) masquerading as as infestation of bed bugs no es bueno para el cuerpo. End scene.

Anyway, tonight I was sorting through all my goddamned SHIT when I had a black hole, What am I doing moment. True, I'd been dreading this, battling against it by sleeping at either of my brothers' houses for days on end as to be away from my room. My room crammed with all my SHIT, some of which must be sorted for New York- bound rolling suitcases. Last night, at said brother's, I was enlisted to clean his room and do his laundry- for a fair price. I was caffeinated, so the request was agreeable. Now, brother is not one for organisation of his room. So much so that a fairly prim friend of mine, after visiting the space noted and commented days later. Yeah, guy floor was home to many, many CVS receipts and pennies and coffee cups. However, my brother was perfectly okay with with me "messing with" everything in his space. Everything! This made me spazz. My brother's room was a perfectly utilitarian space for him and not a den of old superfluous emotionally-tied crap. This I blame for my frenzy now. I cannot get it together and pack. Just what things do I need to hack it in Gotham City so I can have a room free of bullshit?!

I know this is no novel dilemma- I've even heard that ancient people believed it necessary to raze and burn their town every couple of years- to keep life simple. Just yesterday some magazine was staring me in the face with its "Ponder the type of life you want to have in your new home. Ask yourself which of your belongings will help you create that life and which will not." Well, I don't flipping know!! My tentative plan is a huge suitcase of hygeine acoutremonts and non-splashy clothing and my guitar, easily stowable in the belly of the illustrious Fung Wah. But not a stick of furniture, Biss? Not a bed? How will you find comfort in your new room? Will crash with friends while feung shui-ing my room. Will get any and all furniture from local garage sales. Maybe I'll even paint my room- who knows? Tomorrow is the deadline, resistant as I am to separate myself SO MUCH STUFF!!

Okay, okay I did say feung shui back there. I've been in people's houses who have studied this; I usually depart envious. (And full of Community Sustainable Game Meat) Yesterday I told my brother feung shui is supposed to bring prosperity- and that I planned to be a slave it in my new environ. Brother doesn't believe in 'prosperity', he says. Frankly, he had a point. And I was back-a to square one. My brother had nothing to hide in his room- and wouldn't it be nice to live somewhere like that?

Ahem.

An Inability to Plan for a Content. New York. Lifestyle: Redux

and

Shame for Failing the First Time and for Having Too Many Belongings

are the same damned thing. This bites.

The Sinner In Me

I was a philosophy major, so I ask you to indulge me...

Why did Tony Dungy win the Super Bowl? According to him, it was because of his faith. I think that's ridiculous. If it were up to his faith there would be no winner, because there would be no competition, every one would deeply feel an unconditional urge to help their neighbor-- there are no winners and losers in Christianity, just winners. Dungy did partake in the competition, his team left full of pride and accomplishment, Luvie Smith's full of disappointment and loss, therefore Tony has a desire to conquer, but no faith. And the reason, ultimately, why his team won the Super Bowl was not master strategy. Listen, football is a set science with set actions and reactions, and assuming that both sides have equally complete knowledge of the science, over the course of the game, the measures and countermeasures should cancel out. No, Dungy won because his bloodthirsty pack of savages were a little more thirsty and a whole lot more savage than the other guy's. So Tony Dungy is America's role model, the faithful sheep, the good Christian, a GOOD person. But it looks to me like he's nothing more than a hypocrite and an idiot. Though Dungy is stupid, it would appear he's still a good person. I disagree-- a stupid person can in no way be a good person.

America, if you're reading (and judging from my hit counter you are), we need to chastise stupidity. It goes against our nature. Aristotle, Metaphysics, line 1: "All men, by nature, desire to know." How proud Aristotle would be at our progress, that in 2,000 years, the world's dominant nation has completely suppressed that urge! Stupid people, sheep, are inhuman. They are irrational and overly emotional. They can not understand the causes of things, they have no ability to formulate solutions. They are impetuous, they often start wars for no good reason. They don't see the larger picture, they are too egotistical, even those like Dungy, a guy that is probably so solipsistically wrapped up in his own faith, he doesn't make time for hearing other prospectives, specifically atheistic ones. (Which, by the way, I'm not championing.) Irrationality breeds greed and the desire to crush. It does not make the world a better place.

Is it just me, or is this really depressing? I guess that we could content ourselves with the fact that improvements have been occurring throughout history. We are no longer neanderthals, we cooked meat, we built cities, crushed fascism. But I think we have regressed somewhat, that present-day America has eradicated some earlier progress. It's as though Karl Marx had never penned "religion is the opiate of the masses." It as though Latin has been entirely forgotten, that the Latin word religio meant bind back, enslave. In a country with so many great technological advantages, specifically, the availability of computers and the educational abilities of the internet, why has this happened? I can think of only two reasons. First, the majority of the human race doesn't have the intellectual capacity to realize what's going on, at which point you need to ask why our punditry, why our political leaders, the intellectually fit, are not taking counter measures. Second, the majority doesn't want to use their intellectual capacity, they are fine with being sheep, fine with being animals, don't care about being human, and that the intellectually fit, succumbing to their own irrational greed, are fine with them remaining that way. Alas, there is nobody to drag us from the cave. We are forever doomed to darkness. Jesus Christ it's time for another French Revolution!

But hey, I am just a Communist and an atheistic asshole. The sheep and Tony Dungy have the right idea. Eventually, they'll be slaughtered and then they'll be in heaven.

This Is My LCD Soundsystem Post

Wait until they hear "Get Innocuous"


Probably my favorite band, um, recording moniker. You really do have to remind yourself that James Murphy crafts 99.993% of LCD's material. Listen to yourself say it: "James Murphy is LCD Soundsystem." It is how he expresses himself. The depth with which he expresses himself on his new record due out in March, Sound of Silver, devastates me.

So far, LCD Soundsystem has been about levity and play. Its most lauded song, "Losing My Edge", is about not taking oneself seriously. "Beat Connection", "Too Much Love", and "Never As Tired As When I'm Waking Up" are about The Game. There was the extremely unsubtle swipe at every artist that released a song in 2003, "Yeah." In 2005 Daft Punk played his house and fat guys were singing left and right. Now believe me, I know that "On Repeat" and "Disco Infiltrator" are about The System. But though the lyrics can at times be most relevant and weighty, the frivolity of the music and the "geek out" reactions that occur to it make LCD's catalogue prior to S.o.S., make James Murphy prior to sometime after the self-titled release, seem immature.

LCD Soundsystem had a pretty big impact on the indie dance music scene. It opened the flood gates, and now more than ever, truly immature music is overwhelming the market, e.g. The Klaxons, Kitsune. It is only fitting that LCD, (let's just say) the band, that arguably spawned this epidemic, cure it. Well, Sound of Silver is a very mature record. The "silver" is polish. Before you even listen to the record, Murphy is conveying through the title that what you're about to hear is not cheap and quick, but painstaking and rich.

Murphy has always proclaimed a deep love for disco, the genre of silver, and on Silver he immediately honors it with a new standard, opener "Get Innocuous." No dance punk here, thus, we are healed. "Time to Get Away" bluntly advises knowing when to call it quits, when to stop feeling guilty and when to move on, and the music falls in line as well, no house synths, no arpeggios, just simple Rock. "Daft Punk Is Playing At My House" is a poor man's "North American Scum," a song which wisely realizes that most people in Europe are snobby assholes, and that N. Americans that don't embrace their own culture are even bigger assholes (e.g. me, but I really am trying to change now-- I just downloaded all the records by The Doors. Strange Days is great). "Us V. Them" places rock before disco, flipping the "Beat Connection/On Repeat" formula, and reiterates the Caddyshack "slobs" (us) v. snobs" (them) theme. "Watch the Tapes" informs Upper-Middle class America that it sucks. "New York I Love You, But..." hypothesizes that New York reached its capacity in culture, in business, in population some time ago, maybe 5 or 10 years, and that any further development will actually suffocate the city to such a degree that, well, you better have an awesome girlfriend before you move there. ("Mother told you true... maybe there'll always be someone there for you and you'll never be alone... but maybe she's wrong, maybe I'm right... and so here's this song.") But I haven't even talked about the good songs yet.

The title track really breaks new ground in terms of LCD. Just when you think you're going to get a disco banger, when that beat and that bass get you going, the piano sounds, the drip efx kick in, and the cerebral smacks you in the face. You're paralyzed. Even when the bass returns, you don't move, you just stand there, jaws agape, "Ahing" along with Murphy at his ethereal creation.

"All My Friends"-- I know what every critic is going to say about this one: "Here, Murphy masterfully apes New Order"-- should not be so quickly classified. It is much more than a New Order pastiche. First, the piano is so sincere and almost overly symbolic: you touch it, converse with it, no third party (power) necessary, just you and an old friend. Second, the song's message. The song warns against forgetting your friends and the importance of shared human experience, warns against becoming an introvert and a workaholic. This is a song that each male prep school in the country's graduating class should play at its senior prom. Trust me.

Lastly, there's "Someone Great", James Murphy's song about loss. Whether he's talking about a parent or his first love or his best friend, shit maybe even his dog, it doesn't matter, the phrasing is that beautiful:

"To tell the truth I saw it coming / the way you were breathing. But nothing can prepare you for it / the voice on the other end... the coffee isn't even bitter / because what's the difference... and then it keeps coming / til the day it stops... there shouldn't be this reign of silence / but what are the options / when someone great has gone?"

James, clearly you decided to grow up. Thanks, bro. Before Sound of Silver you gave me music I could enjoy, now I have something to cherish.