David Shields (Simon & Schuster) As David Shields and I sit watching the Sonics’ third playoff game against the San Antonio Spurs, I’m not sure how to keep the conversation rolling for this article. I want to talk about writing, and thought a basketball game would be a great place to do this because all […]
Brian Goedde
Posted inBooks
Honky
Book Review
Honky by Dalton Conley (Vintage) The Ordinary White Boy by Brock Clarke (Harcourt) Inside the term “people of color” is the idea that white people are not so much “white” as they are “colorless.” Whites have a terrible anxiety about this: The only way something can exist without color is in complete and absolute darkness–a […]
Posted inMusic
I’M DREAMING OF A VIOLENT CHRISTMAS
Rap Music in the 2001 Holiday Season
This holiday season, with most people still trying to process current events, I recommend the gift of ultra-violent rap albums. Rap articulates a world that subsumes terror and murder–a world that much of America has been reconciling lately. Violence is part of rap’s basic formula, from Ice Cube’s Death Certificate, to Mobb Deep’s Murda Music, […]
Posted inMusic
Listen to Your Dad, Saul
The Unfortunate Plight of an Anxious Musician
Saul Williams Sat Dec 1 B Complex Saul Williams is an anxious musician. He is part slam poet, part rapper, and part rocker, but his much anticipated LP, Amethyst Rock Star, does not commit itself to any one of these three genres. There are elements of each form–big-sounding guitars, electronic drum beats, and Williams’ ambitious […]
Posted inMusic
A New Kind of Ugliness
MF Doom Kills the Stereotype
MF Doom, Black Bastards, KMD Operation Doomsday (SubVerse/Metal Face Records) Currently, rap is plenty concerned with “ugliness” and hardships. But it’s always transformed into “the realness,” a process that is strong and heroic, a kind of beauty. In his resilience against personal and professional tragedy, MF Doom has re-released an album that opens rap up […]
Posted inMusic
I Follow Their Patterns
DJ Spooky’s Personal Time and Space
The best DJs are historians and idealists. With their studious hands, they look across decades and genres to assemble a vision of utopia–“utopia,” because the entire night is filled with wonderful music. The last time I saw DJ Spooky in concert, he created one of these one-night-only utopias, in part by reconsidering a piece of […]
Posted inMusic
the fifth element
Disputing the Case for Beatboxing
The four elements of hiphop have something of a sibling rivalry. The first to thoroughly affect American culture was graffiti, when New York’s subways became graffiti art galleries and the likes of Fab Five Freddy were introducing graf artists into the art market. Meanwhile, at the hiphop concert, the DJ was the main attraction and […]
Posted inMusic
Music Bio
Jon Weisnewski
WHO: “I play bass and scream” in Seattle hardcore band Akimbo WHY: Akimbo plays at Meow Meow on Sunday Mar 25. Is rock dead? “No.” Do you have evidence? “I’d have to say the overwhelming amount of rock that I’ve experienced in my short 20 years of life.” If you could go back in time […]
Posted inMusic
Ad Absurdum
Rap and Rock Shows on the X-Y Axis
LAST SUMMER at a concert, I witnessed a collision of two worlds. Just before Death Cab for Cutie came onstage, a guy came out to hype up the crowd. “Y’all ready to see Death Cab for Cutie!?!? Wussup?! I said are y’all ready for Death Cab for Cutie?!?” He sounded like he was introducing a […]