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Showing posts with the label music

True Story©… Ear Wormin’

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       Last time I looked, the music on my big desktop could play for 68 days nonstop without playing the same song twice.   That was a couple of months ago, before I noticed some files – basically any artist whose name starts with the letter ‘G’ – had copied wrong and had to RE-add them from my backups. I still have a gamut I run every other Saturday or so where new music is acquired as well.   It’s on the big computer so I get something good going in the home gym without having to use my headphones.   Music frames a large portion of my day-to-day.      I say that to say that whenever someone sees me out, there is probably a (not exactly-) random song bouncing around in my head. …   or a dog, but never mind that.      Never mind that though.   Well, consider it but don’t focus too much on it. My world remains tied to the things I enjoy, that I am responsible for, that are good to me and that there remains some mutual love for.   Most other shit, I am usually trying to actively

Still Not Listening to "They"

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     “They” said this shit would be dead in no time flat.  NO one wanted to hear that shit. That was in the mid to late 1970s.  I would be born only a couple of short years later in 1979.  That said, the argument can be made that we literally grew up with you.      “That ain’t real music, anybody can write some damn nursery rhymes,” they said while continuing to NOT write anything – ANYTHING – themselves.  The irony of the repetition of their own parents’ detraction from what they did in their own youth, and their parents before them.  Bearing that similarity, it stands to reason that they would know how this story would continue, if not how it would (or not) end . Hip Hop…      At 40 years old, I have become accustomed to being told for 30something years that I was wasting my time liking – nay, loving – it.  In the 80s, to me it was people who looked like me, spoke like me and dressed like I wished I could afford to.  It spoke to interests that I had and evolved with me as

Fortress of Solitude

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     Don’t let the titling fool you…  My fortress of solitude is a LOUD place.  It is an isolation from everything I need a few minutes away from.  The hour I spend in the car every day with enough entertainment to DJ a block party.  A lunch break with the above-pictured devices.  It is never enough to simply see earbuds as a deterrent of extraneous conversation.  The car makes it obvious; announcing that I won’t hear you three blocks before I ever even alive.      But on the ground, out in the world?  That will require some closed-back cans.  It needs to be obvious that I am not ignoring you (or am I?).  It needs to be apparent why I just can’t be bothered right now.      It creates a space where I am around people who speak my language.  People who talk about shit I want to talk about.  People who enjoy things that I enjoy.  When I am with my music, I am in a space without the disappointment of general human interaction.  I get to choose my spots, I get to explore things

True Story© Professional Band Namer

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(I. need. this. board. game.)      If nothing, I fancy myself a bit of a hustler, I ain’t EVER gonna starve, dammit.  Sometimes in the course of normal daily life, I come up with plots I might one day use to sustain myself.  I have noticed that conversations with my friends often turn to topics on things that should probably never be joked about and sometimes end with me saying some fucked up shit that would probably fit the name of a punk band.  As a service, I am going to begin writing these down and offering them up to people looking for names for their bands.  As an value-added service, I will even offer to title the songs of said punk bands’ albums.      Below, I have recorded some of these instances as employed and will offer some freebies as far as how this service will work. Round 1 : Background: I was speaking to someone who likes to prattle on about how wonderful babies are and that she would love to have another one or two, but shouldn’t at her age becau

True Story©... Lyrical Misappropriation

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( photo credit )      Sometimes when I am all alone, I make up new lyrics to existing songs and repeat them until I remember them.  When the REAL song is on, I will sing  my  lyrics (loudly) and watch for people’s reaction. Misappropriation is not the same thing as misquoting, which is a different (but actually innocent) fun.      I cannot imagine either of you reading the above three sentences without wanting examples, so there is really no reason for me to continue pussyfooting with any lead-in here. One time I’m in my car with my nephews.  I have a radio that is effectively a 6” android computer of sorts, so I have a SanDisk Cruzer in it with all my preferred music on it.  As I picked them up, I was listening to UGK. Album:  Too Hard To Swallow , track 3…   Pocket Full of Stones . I let Bun B’s verse ride right through without issue, but when verse two started… “Back in the days they used to run up saying Pimp C what ya know? I tell 'em get your scones

Some Words on Sean Price's Imperius Rex

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Duck Down Records In the mid-90s, I was a high schooler. I feel a certain way about the hip hop I allow myself to consume. Summer 1996, Heltah Skeltah released Nocturnal, an album unlike anything I had heard to that time and I was a fan. At the time, I thought Rockness was the better lyricist of the two but they were both entertaining enough as a collective to hold my attention. I HAD to have listened to that album every day senior year. Things happened, the duo split for a while and Sean Price started making solo albums... Great. Fucking. Solo. Albums. He was new to many, but simply getting better at his craft to the ones who remembered. Unfortunately, on August 8, 2015 Sean passed in his sleep. On the second anniversary of his passing, we get his second posthumous release, titled Imperius Rex. The conventional album release day used to be Tuesdays but that was abandoned by most a couple of years ago. I am going to go with the coincidence of the release da

True Story© Conflict/Resolution

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     Being mad and angry will sap the energy out of a person.  I don’t have a lot of that to spare, and none laying around just to be giving out and shit, so I tend to no let things get to me a lot of the time.  The beauty of staying cool under the heat is how that in itself is enough of a response to send whomever is acting out deeper into their rage.  Try it when you get bored.      Another thing I do is apply silly humor to an otherwise serious conversation if I feel it might head in a direction that might soon turn too ugly.  Mainly, this is done to make someone who did not want to be amused laugh at you anyway to diffuse a situation. Scene 1: Mimi: “Phillip…” Me: “Yes, dear?” Mimi: “I appreciate you cooking, but how, I mean how is there food on the CEILING?” Me: “My creativity is not the type to be easily contained.” Mimi: “Well can it be cleaned up after?  How come when I cook, I wash dishes but when you cook, I wash dishes?” Me: “…” Mimi: “Hello?”

True Story© The Soundtrack to my Life

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Music frames a great lot of what I do… Back when I first separated/divorced, I was (naturally) back on the dating scene and of course it was vastly different from what I remembered it as from five years prior. Long story short, these new girls were onto the bullshit that the generation ahead of them just had no clue of how to prepare for. As the world in the life of a hunter goes, though, one adapts to catch what you know how to hunt. “Phlip, what in the mad steamy assfuck does this have to do with music?” is what I hear the three (yep, new subscribers!) of you saying right now. Chill, I will get to that in a few minutes. I did the rounds… POF, OKC, and a couple of other sites that aren’t FOR dating but are reduced to about that much. I managed maybe two or three “out” dates, like where I drove and paid for a dinner, and SEVERAL “in” dates, which is “Netflix and chill” before stopping at Cookout for a tray and milkshake on the way back to the crib. Naturally, this s

Quiz Time... Marmoset Knock You Out

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     Okay...  New website, new series… On Mondays, I will post the results from my Friday riddle/quiz. I speak fluently in metaphor, sarcasm, humor and symbolism.  That said, I FULLY expect that people might miss some of these. Down to it…  This week’s riddle was this: Look, I am not even gonna keep y’all here long. While I was driving to Atlanta (well…  Conyers) on Memorial Day weekend with my mom and niece, I chuckled.  When she asked what was funny, I could only say “nothing.” I mean, it’s not like the 3 hours left in the trip was enough to explain the joke.  More importantly, it is not like a joke that needs to be explained in detail is as funny on the recipient as it is on the deliverer. So in detail… The compromise for me to have the music I need to drive to and music that she can live with in her Kia for the trip was Sirius XM Fly – formerly known as BackSpin. Naturally, in the 90s/00s throwback hip hop, we heard “Mama Said Knock You Out” and in my hea

Short Shelf Lives for Short Attention Spans

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The year is 1989, I am ten… It’s September, and school has been back in for roughly 4-5 weeks.  It is still technically summer, so my brother and I are making good on having learned to cut grass and my granny soliciting our services.  In late-80s money, this is still only $10 a yard to split between us and cover supplies, but it is money.  To 5 th graders, a few yards on a Saturday is AMAZING money, plenty enough for candy and soda until the following weekend.      Established here is that we were kind of getting our own money and as word spread about the neighborhood, we had plenty of clientele.  More than candy and sodas from the store without being beholden to my mom’s “we’ll see” (<-- 2="" a="" about="" and="" be="" before="" could="" i="" it="" later="" learn="" left="" ll="" maybe="" more="" nbsp="" nice=&

Maybe Hip Hop ISN'T dead... 2016 was actually pretty damned good

Truth told, 2016 was not a bad year for the kind of hip hop that I listen to. Jan 15 – Lecrae: Church Clothes 3                 You know what?  I tried to sleep or let this dude be what he is outside of my view because he was a Christian rapper, but I gave this one a few objective listens later in the spring in the car and really enjoyed it. Jan 15 – Torae: Entitled                 I was worried about this album because he launched it off of a Kickstarter campaign… What that allowed him to do, though, was whatever in the fuck ever he wanted to do.  If that means Praise does several beats, we get introduced to the album artist’s cousin on the album, we have to listen to a spoken liner notes/outro or see Phonte show up with one of the best verses of 2016, then the independence of the album leaves us free to experience all of that.  And we were better for it. Apr 15 – Royce Da 5’9”: Layers                 Almost 8 months have now passed and I am STILL forcing people to ta