SRSLY

Do not date this guy.

By the way, Alysia's shitty break up stories won her a bunch of cd's and 7 inches from the Suicide Squeeze / Spectre Entertainment / Metal Hearts Valentine's Day Contest. At least they were good for something.

When they guy that got on aim during sex found out about it, he said "you're welcome."

Bill Joyce's "Bumped" Cover for The New Yorker

Bill Joyce created a beautiful Mardi Gras-themed New Yorker cover, which I think does a moving job of showing the laughter and the tears that are both going to be a part of this year's celebration. The cover was "bumped" so they could run a cover about Shotgun Dick Cheney popping caps in his friends. Boo. I wanted to share it, anyway. The more of his work I see, the more I realize how much I like this guy as an artist. His illustrations for Michael Chabon's "Summerland," in particular. I don't know what it is - surrealism, fantasy, an ever-present dash of something grotesque. All of that is present in this image, that was created out of a need to keep Louisiana alive in the mids of New Yorker readers. I guess a clever jab at Dick Cheney was more important. I read somewhere that America forgets about major events - including tragedies - in 10 days.

Black Nasty: "How about nowish?"

It is an oft-discussed fact among my friends that independent culture can sometimes be as oppressive as popular culture. My friend Sammy likes Pearl Jam alot. I like Sammy. You know who else I like? Nine Inch Nails. That's right. When I was a teenager, I jammed "Pretty Hate Machine" strictly all of the time. "Something I Can Never Have"? "Down In It"? Come on now. You know those songs rocked your socks off, angsty-ass teenage poetry lyrics and all. My fondness for Mr. Reznor's cliche-ridden whiny musings has persisted, and on top of that I've developed an honest-to-God, non-ironic love for the craftsmanship that he brings to the recording process. As a producer, he's just plain the shit - the remastered Dolby Digital 5.1 surround-sound release of "The Downward Spiral" is unfuckwithable - if you want to hear exactly what can be done with modern recording technology, just find a friend with a nice 5.1 Dolby set-up (assuming you're not balling out of control) and check out that CD. The same is true of "The Fragile" - an album that has one beautiful instrumental for approximately every two annoying screamy songs with "Fucker" in the chorus.

I picked up "With Teeth" last night, to get hyped about the show he's doing here with Saul Williams (note to Jesus: Thank you for making this dude the opener.), and it is an overall so-so album with a few absolute rockers. So far "All of the Love in the World," "Sunspots," and "The Line Begins To Blur" stand out. Songs that I wish were not included are "Love Is Not Enough" and "You Know What You Are?". But I love those first three.

Go ahead. Make fun of me.

WELCOME TO PLYMOUTH ROCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKK!!!!!

On Friday night, I bought a large plastic hippo from Michael's Arts and Crafts supply. Sara and I were originally there looking for a small version of "Starry Night" that I could hang around my neck as a commentary on the comodification of art. Because I mean, Dipset has big chains, you have a Piet Modrian - what's the difference? Anyway, I did find the little starry night but then Sara pointed out this plastic hippo and I lost my mind. It looked PERFECT for a pendant. So I bought it, along with some little eyelets, and we picked up a gold chain from Clare's. I hooked the hippo onto the chain by screwing the eyelet into his back, breaking open some of the chain links and clamping them shut again. Then I took the whole think out behind the girl's dorm (you know my style, where else would I be on a Friday night?) and spraypainted with a paint called 24K. Let me just tell you something: This shit makes anything look like solid-ass gold. I want to spraypaint everything with it: the neighbor's cats, my rake, my hat, my hand...everything. My car! Anywho, that is the story of the pendant, also known as the coolest thing you have ever seen. I will be rocking it this Saturday night, February 25, at Java Junction, for the Great American Crossover 5. I have received commitment from P-Lew of the Pillage People, I think he'll be coming through to spit his bars from "Pirate Code," which is kind of nice on some old time's sakes shit. Be advised that this weekend might just melt your face: Great American Crossover, Big Positive and the Vidrines, Mardi Gras in Highland. Too much rock for one hand.

I would make sweet love to this plate of food, if only I could.

Back like a vertabrae

My performance at this "Great American Crossover" event will not only be my last performance for a while, but will also feature a workout session set to "Hoppin' High On Hip-Hop," a hip-hop themed exercise CD featuring all kinds of activities for a firmer, healthier badunkadunk. Don't try to resist. Just put it on the calendar.

like them g-string drawers that keep their buttcheeks bare

The weekend unrolls, and I have more conversations about Dilla's death, my own music, and the state of hip-hop. Lumenz and I reminisce over the time when MC's smiled in photographs. Why, I wonder aloud, is it that no one in hip-hop seems to be having a good time at it anymore? I get to thinking about what I used to love about underground hip-hop, when underground meant limited pressings, sold out of trunks and backpacks, and a philosophy of equal parts agression and good humor. Fuck you, hip hop said, and smiled.

Here's an underground group that I used to listen to every goddamn day, riding home from school with whichever one of my brother's friends was buying my beer that day:

The Sacred Hoop. A Beautiful name for a hip-hop group. This website has two of their best (scroll down one post) - I specifically love "Panhandle," which flirts with Divine Styler/El-P style abstraction, but stays on the broke gangster side of the playground.

I fucking love MP3 blogs.

while you were having fun

While we were playing drunk Scrabble (see left), and it seemed everyone in my life that I cared about was having a good time (for once), one of my favorite musicians died in his sleep. Chris was out with soemone he loves at Big D's, Christy was watching zombie movies with old friends, my best friend Bill was on my couch reading my copy of "Black Hole," in short, there was peace in the fucking valley.

R.I.P. James Yancey, aka Jay Dee of Slum Village/The Ummah/J Dilla, easily the greatest hip-hop producer of all goddamn time.


His new album, "Donuts," just dropped on Stone's Throw records. I will be reviewing it on this site as soon as I can. I have been listening to it almost constantly - if there is any justice in the universe, this album (which is absolutely mind-bending, a frenetic cut-and-paste assault of jazz, sould, and old school hip-hop) will get its due.

Fuck, I'm so pissed. To quote the most talented person I know:

"Why Jay Dee? Why not Slim Thug? Fucking Chingy will live to be a hundred and ten on some vampire shit." - Gamma Pro

For those interested, Yancey died in his sleep of kidney failure. He was 32. He had recently been performing live, against doctor's orders, in a wheelchair. The reason he cited for endangering his life for the sake of his music was just simple love of his art. Family and friends say he frequently would spend 48-hour periods in his basement, making music, without even coming up to eat.

Here's the Pitchfork review of "Donuts."

Listen to streaming audio from "Donuts" at Rolling Stone.

VD - the good kind

What's your favorite Valentine's Day song? However cheesy it may be, share it with us. My favorite is "When U Love Somebody" by the Fruit Bats from their album Mouthfuls. Check it out here.

Tell us your favorite anti-Love song too! My fav? Song for the Dumped by Ben Folds Five!

Please help King Hippo shoot the "ART SHOWS" video

Dear Pillage People/King Hippo friend,

I know this sounds crazy dumb, but I am making a video for my new song "Art Shows," and I need a bunch of indie rock girls to hang out during two different scenes, and I was wondering if you would consider it.

What the song attempts to do, and what I hope the video will do, is satirize the often stuffy world of art, commenting on the strange joylessness that seems to have permeated (at least the social aspect of) such a joyful thing. Also, I am trying to draw parallels between the world of art and the world of rap music. I feel that both have somehow been transormed into something commercial and...just not what they were meant to be.

On Monday, the 13th, we're shooting in the drawing classroom of Turner Art Center (corner of Rutherford and Centenary), at 6:30 P.M. Apparently, I will be wearing a sarong and (collaborator on "Art Shows") Lumenz will be wearing a fedora and eating grapes - I have no idea. My friend Sara Smith is directing, so she may have more of an idea about this madness.

Then Saturday, the 18th, from 10:00 AM-11:00 AM in the lobby of Marjorie Lyons Playhouse, we will be enacting the "art gallery scene," whereupon I will wear a painting reproduction around my neck like a pendant and rhyme nasty things with Basquiat.

If you could make it to either one of these events, that would be just swell. Please?

Chris Jay


Please visit www.guerrillagirls.com
"Less than 5% of the artists in the Metropolitan Museum are female. More than 85% of the nudes in the Met are female."

I'm Ok with my decay.

I woke up in the morning
And they were gone

Many of you know my favorite band in the world is U2. Well, it might be harder for some of you to guess my second favorite. It's a few boys who love nature, and technology probably just as much as me. This past week, I got news that they broke up. Yes that's right, Grandaddy's giving up. It sounds like the most positive thing for the group, as their calling the ending "a gradual erosion" in typical nature minded style.

I have a long history with Grandaddy that I won't go into, except to say that I've loved them since high school, and they were one of the first songs I played on my radio show at KNWD 93.7 in Natchitoches, LA. Since then they've done more than just introduce me to the awesomeness of indie rock, but also super influenced my academic studies in looking at the intersections between ecology and technology

Pitchfork has an article. I wanted to share an MP3 of one of my favorite songs "The Crystal Lake", and it just so happens to be a very legal download at Epitonic.com, where I got most of my favorite tunes from.

RIP.

Brokeback To The Future

The title of this post pretty much says it all.

Linky linky.

I had never, ever considered the relationship shared by Marty McFly and Dr. Brown as anything other than the perfectly normal plutonic love between any boy and his neighborhood mad scientist/time machine inventor. But now I see.