WSHE Moving to Tumblr.

Loyal Reader(s):

We are moving. To Tumblr.

Sorry, Blogger.

http://wattledsmokyhoneyeater.tumblr.com

Fire!

TELL ME AGAIN

Volcano Choir - "Island, IS"

I'm going to be one of those old men who can't remember anything. I just know it. I already have some trouble. It's bound to get worse. It's that some moments just don't find their foothold, they never tether to another - so they drift out, away from me. The first hummingbird of summer (and mom in grassy shorts, watching expectantly) is still here, slower than I've ever seen it, and each feather, each bounce of light and shadow, each small gesture large enough to see, they're still here.

OOOOOOOOO

--------------------

(album out in September, on my birthday; thanks, Lindsey)

ooo-ooo-ooo

THE WATTLED SMOKY HONEY EATER PRESENTS: SUPER MASSIVE FUN TIME HOOTENANNY EXPLOSION WITH ROBOTS*!

(image via ffffound)

Summer is almost at an end, for most university students in and around New York City. For some of us, classes begin on the last day of August, an abrupt end to a summer that was, weather-wise, too short.

This is an invitation for YOU to come CELEBRATE the END OF SUMMER with US!

We will be on the roof of 100 S. 4th Street (The Rocket Factory) in Brooklyn, NY beginning at 4:00 PM.

So come and bring an instrument, your listening ears, some food or libations, and your friends!


If you'd like to perform, bring some songs/jokes/stories/&c with you, two at a time in a round-robin style hoot!

Check the event page on Facebook.

Performers so far include:

Yours truly

Lars Johnson-Ballard (of Alaska Alaska)

Oliver Ignatius

Flotzy

You!

AND MORE!



*Robots may or may not be a figure of speech

SO IMPROPER

Saint Seneca

Improper post. Real write-ups later. I'm beat, it's been a whirlwind week. But before I sleep, before you do anything else, listen to some Saint Seneca. I was fortunate enough to see these folks two nights back-to-back last week, and they were heart-warming and foot-stomping, audible "Wow"z and all, smiles everywhere. And honestly, that's what I want to see all the time. (They're also very nice, funny people. We went out to a diner and they had me covering my mouth way too much.)

Also: they have a 7" out now. BUY IT!

Clay's Top on the Top 10

I like what I'm hearing on the radio this summer. Keep us living fast, reminding us what season it is (thanks again too, Dream):

1. Drake - "You Da Best"

2. Mario ft. Gucci Mane - "Break Up"

3. Fabolous ft. Drake & The-Dream - "Throw it in The Bag (Remix)"

4. Jerimih - "Birthday Sex"

5. Lil Wayne ft. Young Money - "Every Girl"

Lazarus Post

I've been taking a bit of a hiatus from WSHE these summer months, shifting gears.

New pieces are in the works, and will be up soon. In the meantime:

"What You've Done to My World," by Mark Greif (N+1).

Grass Tape, July 2009

Young Heel - Grass Tape #1 - July 2009 Mixtape.

New Mixtape. Fresh off the digital presses. Chilled out, summer relaxin' jams. Enjoy.

Tracklist:

1. Al Green - "No No No (Previously Unreleased)"

2. Jackson 5 - "Never Can Say Goodbye"

3. Junior Byles - "(A) Fun and Games (B) Motion Dub"

4. R. Kelly - "Relief" - mashed w/ acapella of Alliyah - "Rock the Boat"

5. Michael Jackson - "I Can't Help It"

6. Michael Franks - "One Bad Habit"

Please, Enjoy.

WE GIVE YOU MUSIC

THE WATTLED SMOKY HONEYEATER PRESENTS:

BACKYARD SHOW!
POTLUCK!
HOOTENANNY!

POTLUCK begins at ONE O'CLOCK.
HOOTENANNY from ONE to FIVE.
PERFORMANCES beginning at 6 O'CLOCK!

PERFORMANCES by:

THE ACCIDENT THAT LED ME TO THE WORLD
BARNA HOWARD
FRANK HOIER
MUTINY AMONGST FRIENDS
OLD HANNAH*
VIKESH KAPOOR
WHISTLE JACKET


HOOTENANNY means ANYONE can perform -
whether it be a dance, a poem, a song, a joke -
whatever you want to do!
But the limit is TWO songs -
or poems, or jokes, or whatever -
at a time.
That way, everyone gets a chance.


So bring your instruments!
And sweet eats!
And smiling faces!
(And your friends ~ the more, the merrier!)


THE BACKYARD can be found at 11 HOLMES COURT
in DARIEN, CONNECTICUT.
The show is FREE,
but donations (for hard-travelin' musicians) encouraged. <3


*Full disclosure: this is Tyler's band.

RnB Demo Mix

(image via ffffound)

"Relief on the Boat (Demo)" - Young Heel

Rough Mash up demo of R.Kelly's "Relief" and an Acapella of Aliyah's "Rock the Boat."

Keep an eye out for the upcoming July 2009 Young Heel Premiere Mixtape.

Reboot

Its been a while since any one of us posted.

(Moving into a new apartment and just having internet installed after 3 weeks of bureaucratic miscommunication had something to do with it, but admittedly, it was mostly laziness)

So:

Its time to start fresh. This is the summer of music. 

In the vain of Grizzly Bear's Blog and El Guincho's Blog, two personal favorites,

we involved here at the WSHE are going to start posting our own music on the site in addition to our writings and other creative musings.

We hope you enjoy...

"Palm Reader" - Young Heel

To kick things off, here is a new minimal electro style song a la The Field or m83.

Grace runs up to me (this is the part of the story I don't see) and I jump a little bit in my chair when she touches me. Part of me wants to jump, hop, skip and run, most of me wants to lie down and fall asleep because I'm sick, drinking bottle after bottle after bottle of water, pilling every twelve hours and not sleeping too well at night. But Grace runs up to me and I jump a little bit in my chair when she touches me. The part after that, most of it doesn't matter, doesn't merit being put down, including these parts I'll put down now: the way she says "Do you want food?"; the bottle of Welch's I pick from her bag; the shyness she exudes when I point out how colorful she looks today. I used to write songs that froze my skin, a whisper inside my voice; I used to write songs that burned me alive, songs that need to be shouted more than sung, barefoot on tops of tables. Right now I want to write neither, I want to write something else, something that isn't about me but from me, to something that's in me: a plea, an appeal, a beg. Begging to be alive in the way I was that second where all my senses drop beneath the wonder of where and why that touch came.

--------------------

I'll write about songs I love soon, I've been busy with less important things.

World of Echoes

at 6:15, clears throat, continues humming, over drones

Mister Stage Presence

With a full orchestra

Loudon Wainwright III, "I Am The Way" Live in Amsterdam, 2000.

Tallest Man On Earth - "These Days" (Nico/ Jackson Brown Cover)

Tallest man on earth - These Days (Nico Cover) - A Take Away Show from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

Lemur Tickle

Watch Weird Animal Gets Tickled and more funny videos on CollegeHumor

Easy Riders 2: Apocalypto

Spring Mix 20000009

(World's Largest Pool- Beach Resort in Chile)

Ahh, sun in the sky, love in the air, leaves on the trees and also in your hair.

Its Spring. This mix is good for BBQs, outdoor hangouts, and other Spring-like activities.

Spring Mix 20000009

Enjoy!

----------------

Tracklisting:

1. Boat Club - "All the Time"

2. Arthur Russell - "Arm Around You"

3. Erykah Badu - "A.D. 2000"

4. Junior Byles - "Curley Locks"

5. El Guincho - Jugadores de Juegos"

6. The Clash - "Police & Thieves"

7. Allá - "No Duermas Mas"

8. The-Dream - "Mr. Yeah"

9. King Tubby - "King of the Arena"

10. QUIET VILLAGE - "Keep on Rolling"

David Byrne "This is the Place"

This is one of my favorite songs ever.

"This is the Place" performed by David Byrne on Jools Holland in 2004.

El Guincho KEXP

El Guincho Live @ KEXP

One of my favorite artists for the past couple years, the sun-drenched dub/tropicalia/calypso/trance/electronic/boogie-inducing El Guincho, one dude from the Canary Islands of Spain, recently paid a visit to Seatle's KEXP to do an in studio performance. Accompanied only by one friend on percussion, electronic and analog, El Guincho continues to create an infectious and warm experience that exudes positivity and creativity. I think the second song, "Bombay," which to my knowledge is not on either of his LP releases, is going to be played at only the best celebrations of the future.

I love this guy, I think you will too.

You can also check out this Pitchfork Live performance from this past winter that is just great.

"Bombay," on Pitchfork TV:

My 25 Favs Right Now, So Far

without too much thought, in no important order, as of 2009, some 25 (more or less) favorite records that had a big impact on my love for music (in a good way) in the past few years, as i can remember it:

my bloody valentine - loveless

panda bear -person pitch

el guincho - allegranza

broken social scene - feel good lost

animal collective - npr live series 9/27/07

david bowie - low

john cale - fear

compilation - johnny greenwood is the controller

bob dylan - blonde on blonde

brian eno - here come the warm jets

the field - from here we go sublime

m83 - before the dawn heals us

a tribe called quest - the low end theory

modest mouse - sad sappy sucker

radiohead - kid a

wilco - summerteeth

death from above 1979 -  you're a woman i'm a machine

wolf parade -apologies to the queen mary

devendra - niño rojo

don caballero - american don

the changes - today is tonight

no knife - fire in the city of automatons

animal collective - sung tongs

van morrison - astral weeks

jeff buckley - live at sin-e

what about YOU???

I'M ON A BOAT, AND IT'S 2009, AND...

I don't know that we've posted too many songs so far this year that have been released in 2009. For that I...WE apologize.

These days when I'm listening to music I'm at a friend's house listening to music I've heard before or scrolling through my iPod listening to music I've heard before. I haven't really been too much on the internet, scouring torrents and websites and things for the new jams. I've been at school, reading books.

I mean, yeah, Merriweather Post Pavilion came out and how do you follow that? Say what you will about Animal Collective, but that was a thoroughly epic album. I was a bit bothered by the absence of a guitar, but I read an interview recently in Cyclic Defrost that sort of put my frustrations to bed.

Merriweather will always be an album I love, but I still think Sung Tongs and Strawberry Jam are better records altogether, but maybe it's just because I've heard Merriweather so damn often since it came out earlier this year. (I mean, the Virgin Megastore in Union Square in New York has a big advertisement with the album cover.) It's certainly the album that will get them HUGE, but I know I'll probably turn into one of those fans who "only likes their earlier stuff".

Bon Iver's Bloodbank EP was also pretty great, but I will say it was kind of a letdown although I've been wildly obsessed with "Woods" for periods of time. (I mean, it's like my guilty pleasure music fusing with music I actually listen to...what more could you want?)

Maybe I just haven't listened to it enough, or devoted much time to actually listen to it, save this once when I was at my friend's apartment, and she'd just bought the record. I found it and demanded we listen to it. I've never listened to DeYarmouth Edison before, but I can imagine it's a lot more like what they might sound write rather than Justin on his extremely personal debut album.

Really, though, I've been drifting lately. Oliver Ignatius' album, Demos for Secund was just put on iTunes. If you haven't checked him out already, please do. I don't care if you've flipped the bird to pop music forever, but you might want to go back and listen to him. I've posted a few songs before, just click his tag.

Other than that, this has been more of a year of literature and comedy for me so far. I've been reading a hell of a lot, so I'd be more suited to suggest books rather than songs:

The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon
A Handf ul of Dust by Evelyn Waugh
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
Les Fleurs du Mal by Charles Baudelaire

But I don't really want to do that.

Anyways, if you have anything to suggest, let me know, I don't want to be reduced to posting nonsense like that last post...

The Hipster, The Hipster, and That

"The Beat Generation, that was a vision that we had, John Clellon Holmes and I, and Allen Ginsberg in an even wilder way, in the late forties, of a generation of crazy, illuminated hipsters suddenly rising and roaming America, serious, bumming and hitchhiking everywhere, ragged, beatific, beautiful in an ugly graceful new way--a vision gleaned from the way we had heard the word 'beat' spoken on streetcorners on Times Square and in the Village, in other cities in the downtown city night of postwar America--beat, meaning down and out but full of intense conviction--We'd even heard old 1910 Daddy Hipsters of the streets speak the word that way, with a melancholy sneer--It never meant juvenile delinquents, it meant characters of a special spirituality who didn't gang up but were solitary Bartlebies staring out the dead wall window of our civilization--the subterraneans heroes who'd finally turned from the 'freedom' machine of the West and were taking drugs, digging bop, having flashes of insight, experiencing the 'derangement of the senses,' talking strange, being poor and glad, prophesying a new style for American culture, a new style (we thought), a new incantation--The same thing was almost going on in the postwar France of Sartre and Genet and more we knew about it--But as to the actual existence of a Beat Generation, chances are it was really just an idea in our minds--We'd stay up 24 hours drinking cup after cup of black coffee, playing record after record ofWardell Gray, Lester Young, Dexter Gordon, Willie Jackson,Lennie Tristano and all the rest, talking madly about that holy new feeling out there in the streets- -We'd write stories about some strange beatific Negro hepcat saint with goatee hitchhiking across Iowa with taped up horn bringing the secret message of blowing to other coasts, other cities, like a veritable Walter the Penniless leading an invisible First Crusade- -We had our mystic heroes and what's wrote, nay sung novels about them, erected long poems celebrating the new 'angels' of the American underground--In actuality there was only a handful of real hip swinging cats and what there was vanished mightily swiftly during the Korean War when (and after) a sinister new kind of efficiency appeared in America, maybe it was the result of the universalization of Television and nothing else (the Polite Total Police Control of Dragnet's 'peace' officers) but the beat characters after 1950 vanished into jails and madhouses, or were shamed into silent conformity, the generation itself was shortlived and small in number." -Kerouac

Now we wear expensive jeans, cheap t-shirts, dabble in music, drugs, life. no one takes things too seriously. we try to represent a culture- or the future of our culture, for that matter- it is too dangerous to dedicate oneself to anyone thing because nothing is perfect enough. our tastes and ideas have been gentrified. we pout when we play music. the things bought for us are the best because we don't have to analyze their value long enough to devaluate it as a worthwhile belonging or statement. spiritualism is a struggle for a minority of the hidden psuedo-free-spirited. 

hedonism has overcome mental expansion. we take drugs to relate to the finite not the infinite. the "hipster" thinks he's someone else. self-worth is no longer internalized (self-appreciation too, for that matter); self-worth is determined by how others judge you and you judge them. we judge others and ourselves, nothing is sacred except that intangible critique. 

this mentality is internalized in us when we are growing up in that cliché privileged and bigoted suburban coming-of-age. we get educated. by a system. we learn to think outside the system (as much as it allows us). 

to the bottom line. (a bonfire of the vanities? a bonfire of vain persons?)

what this generation lacks is sincerity, honesty, first-hand experience, internalized experience, a sense of gentle humor, compassion, introspection, calls for change...

The real hipsters were "jailed and sent to mad houses." But what is so wrong with searching? Have things really changed that much where we can be free to think and do what we want to do, not hurting anyone, just being kind as much as possible? I think things haven't changed that much, and thats why our generation is the way it is. because we know deep inside what is actually out there and we are up against the walls in the last fortress of what we know: ourselves and the culture we dip our feet into once and a while, and our impulses too. we are limited to those, how they shape us.

we need to look into crystals and forget what's not important. who cares? I want to create. Let the critics be who they will, those who are afraid to create. To the bottom line. Is it enough? Is that enough?

Impending Doom

If you aren't so angry your head is about to explode, you haven't been paying well enough attention.

If you aren't laughing so hard your head is about to explode, you don't have a very good sense of humor.




More words on different subjects later. Life is overwhelming and very exciting.

Consciousness/ Feelings

No matter what the words may say no matter what the day no matter what they say no matter what they compose or do no matter what the drugs will do or the songs may do what people may do or what machines may do to you... you still have...

Post-Post-Post-Modernist Folk Tales

Illustration by Amber Albrecht

I think the best folk tales we have in our generation are the lies our parents told us when we were children.

Every night before bed when I was younger, my father would come into our rooms and tuck us in, lie down and make up a story to tell us. I'm speculating, but, I'm pretty sure they were generally fabricated on the spot.

The ones he told me were usually incongruous and catered to my interests, which, as a pre-adolescent growing up in the nineties, dealt largely with cartoons and comic books, video games and violent television shows. I really can't say I remember any one of those stories in particular, but I do remember a brief series on The Ninja Turtles, as my mother forbade me from watching the cartoon for some reason.

The stories he told my younger sister, Maggie, were much more interesting to hear back then, But I find them even more interesting to think about now.

Usually, these stories centered around a young girl named Melissa-Ann and her various adventures, which were strangely similar to events in Maggie's daily life.

Melissa-Ann scores a goal in the soccer game, Melissa-Ann sings in the holiday concert, Melissa-Ann and the bullies on the playground, and so on...

Maggie ate those stories up, and every night begged to be told a new one before bed until she was much too old to be told bedtime stories. Even I sat in on a few and remember them fairly well.

Eventually, the life of Melissa-Ann turned into utterly fantastic legend, involving space travel, dinosaurs, pirates--even the tooth fairy and Santa Claus made cameos. There might have even been one where Melissa-Ann celebrated Passover and Elijah appeared at the dinner table, but I might be making it up.

Years later, after my father's funeral, my mother, sisters, and I were forced to stand in a line at a reception in an events room below the church sanctuary. After the painstaking hour of pre-rehearsed "sorry for your loss"es, and "if there's anything I can do..."s from people I barely knew, a twelve year-old Maggie turned to me and asked,

"Where was Melissa-Ann?"

The Hipster, The Hipster, and That

"The Beat Generation, that was a vision that we had, John Clellon Holmes and I, and Allen Ginsberg in an even wilder way, in the late forties, of a generation of crazy, illuminated hipsters suddenly rising and roaming America, serious, bumming and hitchhiking everywhere, ragged, beatific, beautiful in an ugly graceful new way--a vision gleaned from the way we had heard the word 'beat' spoken on streetcorners on Times Square and in the Village, in other cities in the downtown city night of postwar America--beat, meaning down and out but full of intense conviction--We'd even heard old 1910 Daddy Hipsters of the streets speak the word that way, with a melancholy sneer--It never meant juvenile delinquents, it meant characters of a special spirituality who didn't gang up but were solitary Bartlebies staring out the dead wall window of our civilization--the subterraneans heroes who'd finally turned from the 'freedom' machine of the West and were taking drugs, digging bop, having flashes of insight, experiencing the 'derangement of the senses,' talking strange, being poor and glad, prophesying a new style for American culture, a new style (we thought), a new incantation--The same thing was almost going on in the postwar France of Sartre and Genet and more we knew about it--But as to the actual existence of a Beat Generation, chances are it was really just an idea in our minds--We'd stay up 24 hours drinking cup after cup of black coffee, playing record after record ofWardell Gray, Lester Young, Dexter Gordon, Willie Jackson, Lennie Tristano and all the rest, talking madly about that holy new feeling out there in the streets- -We'd write stories about some strange beatific Negro hepcat saint with goatee hitchhiking across Iowa with taped up horn bringing the secret message of blowing to other coasts, other cities, like a veritable Walter the Penniless leading an invisible First Crusade- -We had our mystic heroes and what's wrote, nay sung novels about them, erected long poems celebrating the new 'angels' of the American underground--In actuality there was only a handful of real hip swinging cats and what there was vanished mightily swiftly during the Korean War when (and after) a sinister new kind of efficiency appeared in America, maybe it was the result of the universalization of Television and nothing else (the Polite Total Police Control of Dragnet's 'peace' officers) but the beat characters after 1950 vanished into jails and madhouses, or were shamed into silent conformity, the generation itself was shortlived and small in number." -Kerouac

Now we wear skinny expensive jeans, cheap t-shirts, dabble in music, drugs, life. no one takes things too seriously. we try represent our culture- or the future of our culture, for that matter- it is too dangerous to dedicate oneself to anyone thing because nothing is perfect enough. our tastes and ideas have been gentrified. the things bought for us are the best because we don't have to analyze their value long enough to devaluate it as a worthwhile belonging or statement. spiritualism is struggling in a minority of the hidden free spirited. 

hedonism has overcome mental expansion. we take drugs to relate to the finite not the infinite. the "hipster" thinks he's someone else. self-worth is no longer internalized (self-worth or self-appreciation for that matter); self-worth is determined by how others judge you and you judge them. we judge others and ourselves, nothing is sacred. 

this mentality is internalized in us when we are growing up in that cliché privileged and bigoted suburban coming-of-age. we get educated. by a system. we learn to think outside the system, as much as it allows us. 

to the bottom line. 

what this generation lacks, is sincerity, honesty, first-hand experience, internalized experience, a sense of gentle humor, compassion, introspection, calls for change...

we need to look into crystals and forget what's not important. who cares? I want no part of it. I want to create. Let the critics be who they will, those who are afraid to create. To the bottom line. Is that enough?

Reflections #2

(from The Big Picture)

When someone shouts/hollers/yells/whoops in public alone, people might think they're crazy.

While if someone does the same in a group, people might think they have a great story.

The problem is that everyone has some kind of good story.

AM I, DON?

This guy blows me away. I feel like a paperweight next to his boulder.

The G-O-D

"The Swordsman" - GZA

I'm running cutting down trees with fucking swords. I do this at night, not because I think I will get caught, but because I like being hidden. That's an important distinction. I have at least two swords at a time. And I sell drugs. I do it to prove a point. The point is people call me the antihero. 

I wear a black sweat suit and ski mask, black air forces. I hear black keys on the piano, whispering in the trees, rustling; the only sound outside of my speed, agility, my nasty racing through the woods. 

I steal from people. Sometimes they don't know it, sometimes I let them know it. I am like a human air force, a human strike team, guerilla, covert, a rambo-type motherfucker, except I'm fast. And I choose who hears me talk. 

The trees are only a byproduct of my one path: the swords are meant for people. They are vampires and all fang. Some may call me a cog in this system of dark survival- I AM the system. 

This nighttime-creeping that I live in, these acts that I do, this cutting that I rain down most heavily on the cityfolk, is hegemonic. I know that. I LIKE slashing. Most deserve it. They don't know anything about it. That's not an important distinction.

But I've already told you too much... The swords are vampires and all fang. The Swords are the P-R-O-P-H-E-T. The night is the G-O-D. 

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER. THIS IS LAST YEAR.

Matthew Herbert Big Band - "The Story"

How did I miss this in 2008? I kept scrolling through my iTunes ignoring things I have yet to hear until today, I found There's Me and There's You, done by the Matthew Herbert Big Band. The album's genre was the number eight, so I had to see for myself what this was.

I'd never heard of Matthew Herbert or his Big Band before, so I did some research. Apparently this album is about an abuse of power, and the British avant-garde, electronic musician, &c. recorded most of the Big Band's samples for the album in the British House of Parliament. Side question: Now that we got Obama, when is Girl Talk or Madlib going to do the same in The Capitol?

But, seeing as we are a blog that likes talking about our feelings, I'm going to get into how the first track made me feel, rather than talk about who Matthew Herbert is. (But I'd suggest checking him out, read the link.)

"The Story", the opening track, literally goes in with a bang. The following series of crescendos; electric spider beats, echo, drum, voices, bass, and fazed out guitar announce the beginning, which is the arrival of something potentially epic. I was a little disappointed when the final lift reached its climax and petered out,

until the horns chimed in, replacing heavenly layers of chaotic melody with smooth, funky soul. I felt suspended, for a brief moment in this transition, unaware of what would come next, wishing the introduction had been longer, or at least more thematic of the song itself, until the singer finally began.

Her voice so sexy and suave, she'd swoon as though she were moving her hips wherever she was when she sang it. I imagined her, hands gripping oversized headphones, pop-filter shielding her microphone from her face, eyes closed, mouth swaying and shimmying as she harmonized, moving and grooving.

But there was also a tinge of jagged lemon as her song vigorously tore away from the flow of the horn section. They say John Lennon was the lemon juice to Paul McCartney's olive oil, but the singer, whoever she is, seems to have both, moving between or somehow mixing the two.

After the opening track, the introduction, I find the album is incredibly diverse. Herbert mixes samples of many different types of these "nu-jazz" songs. Some are showtunes! SHOWTUNES! and I actually thought it was good?

Wow.

As Promised

Recently, we have had some new feedback. As promised, if the feedback could be expounded upon, shall we say, more precisely, I promised to post it. here it is. please give us more feedback. we love constructive criticism in all forms...

 

---

when i read this tyler dudes shit, it sounds like hes bringing more attention to how dope he can write and how big his vocab is rather than what hes actually writin about. ya feel me? that pisses me off

why write more and say less when u can write less and say more? tell me, what sounds more real

"i bulls-eyed the song's heart, i plotted each fanfare, each cry" 

or

"i truly FELT the pain in that song"

in my opinion, when u leave it at that (or whatever) its like ur inviting whoevas readin into feelin it too without giving away too much. u let them experience it fo themselves

i dunno man, r my ramblins gonna stop u fools from writing like a buncha intellectuals who look down at fools like me and go "oh he must listen to t-pain, he must be uncultured"? probably not. ye i listen to hip-hop, maybe u guys should too... and not just the hiphop that pitchfork recommends. yall ever heard smif-n-wessun? bump some of "dah shinin" its a straight classic

dont assume i listen to t-pain. that fools got dolla signz in his eyez. 

i try not to overanalyze what i read and what i hear. thats what bitches do, which is why they neva know what the fuck they want in life. don't be a bitch... keep it simple boyz

---

A quick response...

We appreciate comments. We don't appreciate insults. First off, This is a creative writing blog, not a file sharing blog, or a US weekly, etc... In defense of Tyler, he never claimed that you/ the reader liked T-Pain (although we hope you do), he claimed HE liked T-Pain. As do I- and NOT ironically. Sincerity is something truly lacking in today's pop culture. That is what we appreciate about your comments. Respect, though, that we are also being sincere, expressing ourselves to our friends and those interested. That is what art is. That is why this blog exists- the whole meaning IS feeling. So it seems kind of pointless to say, this song made me feel something. That would get repetitive and dull. 

So, just for you, Levelle (and of course myself, which is why I started this blog in the first place), look out for some posts on hip hop very soon. But don't expect me to post it and say "I like this." This is a creative writing blog. Keep that in mind. Don't like it, don't read it.

Thanks,

-Clay

YOU CAN FIND ME IN A CAVE

Bon Iver - "Woods" (this is for sampling purposes)

Last week I was invited to a friend's home for dinner. I was not the only guest, and then there was her family, there were maybe eight or nine of us altogether so we had to collect chairs. I took an office chair, spent most of the meal rolling back and forth between the dining table and a computer, playing DJ. I played the new Bon Iver EP in its entirety and I couldn't contain my excitement for "Woods", which meant I blabbed all about the song, what it is, what it's built out of. I played it loud and I smiled BIG, BIG, BIG. One of my friends laughed and kept laughing; vocoders crack her up, auto-tune cracks her up. Her husband (an incredible musician, a thoughtful man) was struggling not to. He told me that, to him, the use of vocoder and/or auto-tune auto-matically "makes the song so urban." I felt compelled to recite the lyrics to them --

I'm up in the woods, I'm down on my mind.
I'm building a still to slow down the time.

It was a coat-of-arms, a panoply, not like prayer but like worship -- ostentatious, but beautiful. I listened through the table sounds. I thought if I told everyone to keep going with me, to wait until the end, then they'd listen too and they'd get it. I told them it was like Prince and I was mostly kidding. I told them it was like T-Pain and I was flat-out lying. I couldn't imagine how anyone could hear this music, really hear it, and hear urban, which to me suggests at a minimum that people run rampant, that the heat you feel comes from living bodies. The landscape knows your secrets. "Woods" is the landscape. It's dead, celestial and full. It could never be alone, it's too free.

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[photograph by {the excellent} Derek Vincent]

Clay's Self-Reflections #1

Once and a while I will take some time to think about myself, my thoughts, my opinions, how things affect me and those around me and try to remember them or write them down.

I found a few in a notebook of mine recently...

Nirvana gives me a semi.

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Thirteen going on kickass.

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Do strippers have unions?

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Found this yesterday:

Knocked Up (Kings of Leon Cover/Mashup)- Lykke Li

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MY LIFESTYLE DETERMINES MY DEATHSTYLE

Hearts of Darknesses

Walked a few blocks too far.  They said it was 915, but somehow we'd managed to walk to 1080.  Fuck.  It was how many blocks past the subway? 

Found the place, seven bucks at the door.  Snuck in some 40s and drank them in the most clandestine way we could think:  in the bag.  put 'em at your feet when you're not.  

Some girl from NYU kept hitting on me.  

And somewhere between awkward conversations, Snakes Say Hiss, and some nonplussing hindie Brooklyn rock and roll, Hearts of Darknesses ripped apart the room, kniving through the audience: christ-like, subterranean group of twentysomethings and college students with the synth line in "Vibes".  

I was just standing there; paralyzed, St. Ides in hand, staring straight ahead, but inside I was dancing, repeating a phrase in my head over and over.  It was one that's been stuck in my head for months now.  

"Clementine, Everything is falling apart."  

A few weeks later, I'm sitting in the ruins, smiling out from where the walls once were.