narrowcast: November 2020

TV Diary

Monday, November 30, 2020

a) "The Flight Attendant"

Between "The Flight Attendant," the acquisition of DC Universe and "Harley Quinn," and streaming rights for "The Big Bang Theory," it feels like HBO Max has made a surprisingly aggressive push to corner the Kaley Cuoco market. The first 3 episodes of this miniseries are pretty strong, though -- feels appropriate to share a platform with "Search Party," similarly plunging frivolous characters into life-and-death situations way out of their depth and mining it for both comedy and some suspenseful drama.

b) "Wayne"

One of the interesting things about Hollywood's 2020 production shutdowns is that we're now seeing shows produced for streaming services nobody watches migrating over to platforms that people do use. YouTube Premium's experiment in scripted series seems to have already run aground, and "Cobra Kai" became a hit when Netflix picked it up, so I'm guessing we'll see more of their shows picked up elsewhere, like "Wayne," which is so entertaining that I'm really glad it's now on Amazon. Mark McKenna plays the title character, a Boston teenager who burns down his house after his father dies and goes on the run to Florida with a girl and a dirt bike. It's all very violent and over-the-top but also kind of sweet and clever, sort of feels like an American "The End of the F****** World." Amazon, please rescue"Ryan Hansen Solves Crimes On Television" from YouTube Premium next.

c) "Truth Seekers"

A new show created by Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, starring Frost with Pegg showing up for roughly one minute per episode in a bad wig. They've always done their own comedic twists on genres that were more loving homages that happened to features jokes than satires, and "Truth Seekers" very much follows that tradition -- large stretches of the show are pretty straightforward paranormal investigation drama with interesting premises and cool special effects, and even the comic relief tends to be kind of small conversational quirks. So it could be funnier, but I'm not complaining.

d) "I Hate Suzie"

In this British series on HBO Max, Billie Piper plays a celebrity whose sex tape has been hacked. And it's interesting to see something that happens so often these days told as a fictional story from the victim's point of view but still be kind of irreverent and funny, and allow the protagonist to be both flawed and sympathetic.

e) "Small Axe"

"Small Axe" is kind of an anthology series but it's also 5 new feature-length films directed by Steve McQueen, each of them about Caribbean immigrants in London in the '60s and '70s. Widows is one of my favorite movies of the last five years, so I'm excited to see all of these, the first one Mangrove was pretty good, I knew nothing of the Mangrove Nine trial.

f) "Black Narcissus"

This FX miniseries about British nuns in the Himalayas is pretty good, lots of cool-looking moody abstract cinematography setting the tone of the dark psychological story. Also notable in that the director, the writer, and the novelist who wrote the source material are all women, and it features one of Diana Rigg's final performances.

g) "No Man's Land"

On paper this Hulu series about a guy looking for his sister in Syria and joining an all-woman anti-ISIS force sounds really exciting, but I found the first episode a little slow, might take a while to get my interest.

h) "The South Westerlies"

In this show, a woman goes back to her hometown in Ireland, secretly working to advance a company's agenda to quell protests against the wind turbines they're building. And I don't know, since I don't see anything wrong with wind farms and think people who have a problem with them are generally climate change denying idiots, I'm anxious about where they're going with this story and what the point is going to be. That said, it's mostly a charming, character-driven dramedy with great scenery.

i) "The Astronauts"

This Nickelodeon show about 5 kids that sneak onto a spaceship and end up in space is obviously made for kids and is not entirely realistic, but it's pretty well made and presented like a big budget cable drama with good acting and production values, surprisingly my 5-year-old and I both found it pretty engaging.

j) "Big Sky"

I had been kind of impressed by David E. Kelley's midcareer transition from frothy network legal dramas to moody prestige TV murder mysteries like "Big Little Lies" and "The Undoing." "Big Sky" splits the difference by having a dark, creepy story about a trucker kidnapping women, but it's on ABC and feels weirdly cheap-looking and sanitized in that way the old broadcast networks feel now when they take on material that seems more suited to cable. In any case, I'm always happy to see Kylie Bunbury on TV, I'm still mad that "Pitch" only lasted one season and this suits her better than "Brave New World."

k) "The Undoing"

I'm kind of surprised at what a phenomenon this miniseries became by the time the finale aired last night, because I felt myself rapidly losing interest in the story over the course of the 6 episodes. The first episode was moderately exciting because of the simple tension of introducing a fairly charming character with no apparent connection to a grisly murder and a vague sense that they might have done it. And then the next 5 episodes right up to the end just piled up evidence that yes, they did it, with the final confirmation saved until the last moments with no real suspense to speak of.

l) "The Mandalorian"

Baby Yoda mania reached my 11-year-old son's school and he'd been lobbying me for the past year to get Disney Plus so that we could watch "The Mandalorian" -- he had a Baby Yoda shirt and Baby Yoda socks before he'd even seen an episode. I was skeptical about whether he'd actually like the show, he's only seen some Star Wars movies and his interest in non-animation hasn't gone far beyond Transformers movies yet. But he's really loving it, it's obviously not a super serialized show, a lot of the episodes are kind of standalone adventures, and it's grown on me more than I expected. There's just so many great turns by familiar character actors, and they've made good use of the Star Wars universe as a canvas to tell stories in without really touching the big epic story arcs of the movies too much.

m) "L ove & Anarchy"

Extremely weird Swedish comedy on Netflix where a woman at a publishing house and the IT guy get into this gross competition of daring each other to do crazy things at work, after he catches her masturbating in the office and tries to blackmail her. I guess they're trying to make a quirky dark comedy here but the whole thing is just kind of mortifying.

n) "The Minions Of Midas"

The Spanish series "The Minions Of Midas" on Netflix is based on a short story written over a hundred years ago but the story of a media magnate getting political threats over a sensitive story feels pretty easy to update to something relevant now. It's pretty gloomy, though, not too suspenseful or gripping.

o) "Ethos"

This Turkish show on Netflix is another one that kind of feels like it's telling pretty universal stories that could take place anywhere, including America, kind of a drama of the intersecting lives of people from different economic and religious backgrounds.

p) "Marvel's 616"

This Disney Plus docuseries tells different obscure behind-the-scenes stories from the history of Marvel comics and adaptations, which is a pretty great idea. I've only watched the first episode, about a Japanese "Spider-Man" series in the '70s, which was full of robots and flying cars and all sorts of non-canonical stuff, which apparently some Marvel execs hated but Stan Lee really appreciated and defended. The interviews with everyone involved were great, just hearing about how this happened and how they were proud of this thing that became kind of a campy curio, it's cool.

q) "The Reagans"

In 2003, Showtime aired a biopic called The Reagans, which landed there after conservatives put pressure on CBS not to air it because it was 'too political.' In 2020, Showtime is once again airing something under the same title, but the docuseries "The Reagans" is very much a deliberate and unvarnished look at Reagan's political legacy, and I'm really glad they're putting all his racist dog whistles and bullshit out in the open with no right wing hagiography.

r) "Murder On Middle Beach"

This is one of the most interesting true crime shows I've seen in recent years, directed by Madison Hamburg, investigating his own mother's unsolved murder when he was a teenager 10 years ago. In the first episode, his father seems incredibly guilty when they present the initial facts and he has an incredibly uncomfortable encounter asking his dad these tough questions he refuses to answer. But apparently in subsequent episodes some other pretty compelling suspects emerge, so I'm interested to see if he winds up really solving the mystery by the end.

s) "The Pack"

I don't watch "The Amazing Race," so I'm really not into this Amazon show where a bunch of airheads basically do 'The Amazing Race" with their dogs on their team helping them complete tasks. Listening to 'dog moms' and 'dog dads' talk about their pets is my idea of hell, frankly.

t) "The FBI Declassified"

Some good stories in this CBS docuseries about Silk Road and a scammer lady who conned people with 15 different names in 16 states.

u) "Tell Me A Story"

Now The CW is airing the second season of this anthology series with kind of modernized fairy tales that was originally on CBS All Access, and I really don't like it as much as the first season, weaker cast and weaker storylines. I guess it's kind of interesting that they gender flip Beauty And The Beast with a singer whose face gets mutilated.

v) "Coroner"

Another previously produced show that The CW picked up that has quickly moved into its second season. Don't love the show but I feel like it's gotten better since the first season, and I'm enjoying the arc with Nicola Correia-Damude, she's fine as hell.

w) "Doom Patrol"

I have been catching up on the 2 seasons of this now that I have HBO Max, it's pretty damn good, really enjoy the cast, even if Brendan Fraser is just a disembodied voice in a robot body most of the time. Diana Guerrero's performance as Jane gets a lot of praise, and she is pretty great in the role, but much like the movie Split, I really just don't care for comic booky superhero depictions of characters with multiple personalities, it feels like a gross gimmick that's going to date really poorly. But I particularly love April Bowlby in this show -- I always suspected she was capable of more than the kind of stock ditzy character she played on "Two And A Half Men," and she does a great job in "Doom Patrol" of playing sort of a caricature of a '40s movie star but also rendering her as a really three dimensional character with a lot of pathos.

x) "Van Helsing"

I watched the first season of this for a few episodes when it started, but my wife and I have been catching up on all the seasons on Netflix this year. Sometimes it feels a little too much like "The Walking Dead" with zombie-like vampires instead of zombies, but generally it's pretty good. Sometimes I recognize little flashes of Neil LaBute's voice from his feature films but mostly he's kind of conforming more to the SyFy house style.

y) "Animaniacs"

I was surprised at just how much Hulu's new episodes of "Animaniacs" look and feel exactly like the old '90s series, but then it was always very much of its time in a way and not durable enough to do a hard reboot with a different style of animation or humor. So it's just "Animaniacs" with current references, including occasional Trump stuff that makes me cringe. It was probably wise for them to winnow the show down to just the Warners and Pinky & The Brain, I really have no desire to see Scorsese pigeons or Catskills squirrel again. My 5-year-old loves it, or at least he loves the "Animaniacs" and "Pinky & The Brain" theme songs.

z) "Kulipari: An Army Of Frogs"

My 5-year-old has a knack for finding all sorts of obscure cartoons on Netflix, and I kind of dig this weird show where frogs go to war with scorpions and spiders, it's very dramatic but still cute. Reminds me of, like, Legends of the Guardians: The Owls Of Ga'Hoole.

10:52 AM

Deep Album Cuts Vol. 215: Outkast

Wednesday, November 25, 2020

The 20th anniversary of Stankonia a few weeks ago brought a wave of Outkast nostalgia, and it looks like there'll be even more with the announcement that Outkast will be doing a Verzuz battle with A Tribe Called Quest soon.

Outkast deep album cuts (Spotify playlist):

1. Myintrotoletuknow

2. Ain't No Thang

3. Crumblin' Erb featuring Sleepy Brown and Brandon Bennett

4. Phobia featuring Big Rube

5. Two Dope Boyz (In A Cadillac) featuring Peaches

6. Ova Da Wudz featuring Witchdoctor

7. Wheelz Of Steel

8. SpottieOttieDopaliscious featuring Sleepy Brown

9. Y'All Scared featuring T-Mo, Big Gipp and Khujo

10. Sole Sunday with Goodie Mob

11. Humble Mumble featuring Erykah Badu

12. Cruisin' In The ATL (Interlude) featuring Southside Soul

13. Red Velvet

14. Slum Beautiful featuring Cee-Lo

15. Funkin' Around featuring Sleepy Brown

16. Bowtie featuring Sleepy Brown and Jazze Pha

17. A Life In The Day Of Benjamin Andre (Incomplete)

18. PJ & Rooster featuring Sleepy Brown

19. BuggFace

Tracks 1, 2 and 3 from Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik (1994)

Track 4 from Music From The Motion Picture Higher Learning (1995)

Tracks 5, 6 and 7 from ATLiens (1996)

Tracks 8 and 9 from Aquemini (1998)

Track 10 from Music From The Motion Picture Any Given Sunday (2000)

Tracks 11, 12, 13 and 14 from Stankonia (2000)

Track 15 from Big Boi And Dre Present... Outkast (2001)

Tracks 16 and 17 from Speakerboxxx/The Love Below (2003)

Tracks 18 and 19 from Idlewild (2006)

I'm really partial to early Outkast -- Southernplayalistic is probably my favorite now, although I didn't really start to hear them or hear about them until ATLiens at the time when I was a kid. Like most people, they were kind of the first southern rap group I took seriously, but now I kind of appreciate them as one of several innovators and have equal respect for UGK, Three 6 Mafia, The Geto Boys, 8Ball & MJG, and Goodie Mob. And the Outkast I like best is when they were still peers of those groups and not yet pop stars. Some of Stankonia and Speakerboxxx has aged well for me -- "Red Velvet" and "Bowtie" are two of my favorite Outkast songs -- but I really just don't have a lot of love for The Love Below or Idlewild. To me, Andre 3000 is at his best when he's rhyming with Big Boi, singer Andre and guest verse Andre are whole different things.

One of the funny moments of doing my piece about "Whores In This House" and Al "T" McLaran is that he didn't even know that Outkast quoted his song, on Big Boi's verse on "Ova Da Wudz." "Myintrotoletuknow" was sampled on Jay-Z's "Rap Game/Crack Game." "Wheelz Of Steel," "Y'All Scared" and "SpottieOttie" were some of the first times anyone heard a reference to "the trap" on a mainstream record, so in a way Outkast even paved the way for the Atlanta rap that's ostensibly the least influenced by Outkast.

I included some soundtrack cuts, although there are more not currently on Spotify that I'd love to include (like "Tough Guy" with UGK from Shaft and "High Schoolin'" with Slimm Calhoun from Light It Up). I also included one of the new songs from their only best-of compilation, , Big Boi And Dre Present... Outkast, which skipped over some singles in favor of album tracks including "Ain't No Thang," "Crumblin' Erb," and "SpottieOttieDopaliscious," which has emerged as their most streamed and most sampled songs over the years. And it really feels like a turning point in Outkast's career that a 7-minute live band vamp where the verses are more spoken word than rap became a fan favorite with no radio play.

11:01 AM

The 2020 Remix Report Card, Vol. 4

Tuesday, November 24, 2020

Here's Vol. 1, Vol. 2 and Vol. 3, and the Spotify playlist of all the remixes I've written about this year.

"Bang! (AhhHaa Remix)" by AJR featuring Hayley Kiyoko

AJR are a group that I once found curious and moderately charming, but I've liked every recent single less than the last, and was horrified to recently see that "Bang!" had ascended to the top 40 on the Hot 100, by far their biggest hit. This song is momentarily more tolerable with Hayley Kiyoko singing the second verse and chorus instead of Jack Metzger, though.

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: B

"Be Happy (Remix)" by Dixie D'Amelio featuring Blackbear and Lil Mosey

A dreary pop song, now with the dreariest possible rap features. Lil Mosey sounds a lot like Lil Yachty on this but it's still preferable to Blackbear quoting "Hot Girl Bummer."

Best Verse: Lil Mosey

Overall Grade: D

"Edge Of Midnight (Midnight Sky Remix)" by Miley Cyrus featuring Stevie Nicks

I love that every generation seems to go through this process of rediscovering and celebrating Stevie Nicks. But I wish Miley and her latest '80s homage single weren't capitalizing on it, even if this sort of mashup of her song and a Stevie classic works out well enough.

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: C+

"Franchise (Remix)" by Travis Scott featuring Future, Young Thug and M.I.A.

I don't think much of Travis Scott, but I suppose it's good of him to include artists without whom he wouldn't exist like Kid Cudi and Young Thug in his insane and seemingly unstoppable run of #1 singles, as well as Future on the remix to the most recent one. "Franchise" is kind of a turgid, crappy-sounding song, but Future is easily the closest any of the 4 artists on here comes to getting off a good verse.

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: C+

"Hallucinogenics (Remix)" by Matt Maeson featuring Lana Del Rey

Lana Del Rey is a strong flavor to add to a song, you put a pinch of her in there and it's pretty much an LDR song. I prefer the original "Hallucinogenics" but I guess this is an excellent look for Matt Maeson to get, good for him.

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: B-

"Hawai (Remix)" by Maluma featuring The Weeknd

The Weeknd starts out singing a verse in English, but later he shows off and sings in Spanish like Bieber on "Despacito," and he really sounds like a natural fit for the track.

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: C+

"Hole In The Bottle (Remix)" by Kelsea Ballerini featuring Shania Twain

A decent song that totally gets livened up by Shania kind of taking it over and doing little spoken ad libs like her old '90s hits.

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: B

"Lemonade (Remix)" by Internet Money featuring Roddy Ricch and Don Toliver

Still not a big fan of this song but Roddy replacing Gunna and NAV is a huge improvement, he kills his verse and kind of puts his own spin on Don Toliver's melody.

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: B

"Me Gusta (Remix)" by Anitta featuring 24kGoldn and Cardi B

24kGoldn sounds a little out of place here but his verse works as kind of a new intro to a song that was fine as it was.

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: B-

"Mood (Remix)" by 24kGoldn featuring Justin Bieber, J Balvin and Iann Dior

I actually just interviewed 24kGoldn and that'll be published sometime in December. It was cool to hear him talk about growing up listening to Bieber and being geeked to have him on a track, much like Billie Eilish when she got him on the "Bad Guy" remix, kind of crazy to see Justin Bieber as an elder statesman to a new generation of hitmakers. And you really hear that excitement in Goldn's verse.

Best Verse: Justin Bieber

Overall Grade: B

"Mood Swings (Remix)" by Pop Smoke featuring Summer Walker and Lil Tjay

I really don't like these smoothed out R&B records on the posthumous Pop Smoke album but the addition of Summer really makes this one sound better. That Lil Tjay verse is trash on both versions, though.

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: B-

"Nah Nah Nah (Remix)" by Kanye West featuring DaBaby and 2 Chainz

The original "Nah Nah Nah" is hot steaming garbage and I kind of resent DaBaby and 2 Chainz for coming in and doing a heroic job of making it listenable, especially since Kanye doesn't return the favor and damn near ruins the song with Brent Faiyaz on So Help Me God. It's terrifying to hear Kanye on just the chorus and realize that even the hook by itself is a complete mess.

Best Verse: DaBaby

Overall Grade: B

"Pussy Talk (Remix)" by City Girls featuring Lil Wayne, Quavo and Jack Harlow

People were not thrilled about the all-male guest lineup on this remix, but it strikes me as shrewd counterprogramming given how many hits feature women rapping/singing about pussy this year, much as I don't want to hear Jack Harlow say "convos with the coochie." Quavo almost never has the best verse on a song, so honestly, good for him.

Best Verse: Quavo

Overall Grade: C+

"Rags2Riches (Remix)" by Rod Wave featuring Lil Baby

Some of Lil Baby's best stuff is the super sad melodic songs that are Rod Wave's bread and butter. So this remix really hit the mark, even if I'm sure it sucks for ATR Son Son to be replaced on the biggest track of his career instead of simply leaving his verse on at the end.

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: B+

"Said Sum (Remix)" by Moneybagg Yo featuring City Girls and DaBaby

JT's verse already went viral and for good reason, she really bodied this beat, best rapper under 5 feet tall since Bushwick Bill or Shad Moss in his prime.

Best Verse: JT

Overall Grade: A-

"Savage Love (Laxed - Siren Beat) (Remix)" by Jason Derulo and Jawsh 685 featuring BTS

The version that went to #1 has kind of a saccharine boy band quality that I thought never quite fit Jason Derulo so it kinda makes more sense here with an actual boy band on it. Has Dan Savage weighed in on a wordwide pop hit being written about his sex column?

Best Verse: J-Hope

Overall Grade: B-

"Shameika Said" by Shameika and Fiona Apple

This was a pretty interesting story, Fiona Apple released the Fetch The Bolt Cutters single "Shameika" earlier this year in part inspired by what a girl named Shameika said to her in school as a kid (I also interviewed the other person mentioned in the song's lyrics, Sebastian Steinberg). Then, the real Shameika reconnected with Fiona, turned out to be a rapper, and they collaborated on a remix of the song.

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: B

"Special (Remix)" by EST Gee featuring Moneybagg Yo

EST Gee is from Kentucky, a state that just got one of its first really famous rappers in the form of Jack Harlow, and for the remix he goes to a neighboring state for Tennessee's Moneybagg Yo. I like EST Gee's on the original but he definitely gets outshined by a more seasoned rapper at the top of his game.

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: B

"Thick" by DJ Chose featuring Megan Thee Stallion

I like the original "Thick" with BeatKing, really silly entertaining song, and this remix is definitely better just by virtue of not featuring BeatKing's line "kill the pussy, COVID." But it's particularly fun to hear Meg on such a raw, minimal bass-driven beat at a moment when her production's getting increasingly slick.

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: B+

"Tommy Lee (Remix)" by Tyla Yaweh featuring SAINt JHN and Post Malone

The original "Tommy Lee" already had Post Malone on it so it doesn't really add any starpower to the remix to just put the "Roses" guy on it, but it's a good verse. Such a whiny and listless song to be named after a member of Motley Crue, though.

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: C

"U 2 Luv (Remix)" by Ne-Yo featuring Lil Durk, Queen Naija and Jeremih

Ne-Yo and Jeremih was a combination I was a little surprised by at first, but Ne-Yo and Lil Durk, that's really a weird one. And Durk kind of ruins the song's flip on the "Computer Love" chorus by warbling "computer love, computer loooove" all over the track. Queen Naija gives one of the better performances I've heard from her, though.

Best Verse: Queen Naija

Overall Grade: B-

"Wet (Remix)" by YFN Lucci featuring Mulatto

And here we have the reverse of the "Pussy Talk" remix, a woman added to a man's song about pussy. Didn't like the original but this at least improves on it. Like Quavo on "Pussy Talk," Big Latto likens pussy to mac and cheese here, which, I gotta be honest, I am not a fan of the whole mac and cheese pussy analogy, I find it gross.

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: C+

"Whole Lotta Choppas (Remix)" by Sada Baby featuring Nicki Minaj

Nicki's usually not ahead of the curve with embracing new artists but this combo doesn't really work for me, she doesn't even sound on this track, makes the whole song sound worse, her overenunciation clashing with Sada Baby's odd little mutter flow.

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: D

"Wow (Remix)" by Zara Larsson featuring Sabrina Carpenter

"Wow" went viral and eventually became a radio hit after Sabrina Carpenter danced to it in the 2019 Netflix film Work It, so I guess they decided to bring it full circle and make a version with Carpenter singing part of the song. But this was never one of my favorite Zara Larsson songs and their voices are kind of similar so the remix just sounds like the original.

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: C

"You're Mines Still (Remix)" by Yung Bleu featuring Drake

If I was a melodic rapper with a sort of ballad like Yung Bleu from Alabama, I don't think I'd like Drake jump on the track and turn it into a whole Drake thing, but I guess it's shrewd to let him boost the song. That verse is awful, though.

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: D

10:32 AM

Movie Diary

Monday, November 23, 2020

a) Paradise Hills

I really dug this, it was weird and original and pointed in its cultural commentary while kind of casually letting a lot of the wardrobe and set design kind of set the otherworldly tone without being too explicit about whether it took place in a slightly different vision of our world or just the near future or something. I felt like it was missing a little something to be a cult classic, but definitely a good debut feature for Alice Waddington, looking forward to whatever she does next.

b) Last Christmas

I was curious to see this because of the buzz, some of it positive and some of it negative, over the twist ending that made it not quite the standard holiday romance the trailers made it out to be. And while the twist wasn't as great as Paul Feig's last movie, A Simple Favor, I found it sweet and poignant. I especially how it kind of flipped the 'this girl is such a disorganized trainwreck!' rom com trope and made it into kind of a beautiful story of self-realization. The presence of George Michael songs throughout the movie really tied it together well, loved the selection of songs and where they were deployed, thought it was a great tribute to his body of work.

c) The Dead Don't Die

Jim Jarmusch has always marched to the beat of his own drum so much that it's a little weird to see him kind of join in on a trend like zombie comedies a decade past its prime, with the most high profile cast he could assemble (including someone who was in Zombieland). But it's really entertaining in how much it conforms more to Jarmusch movie rhythms than zombie movie rhythms, Tilda Swinton and Carol Kane and Tom Waits in particular were a lot of fun. But I didn't love the last 15 minutes when they really went "fuck it" and threw in a couple of ridiculous twists instead of trying to wrap it up coherently.

d) Stuber

It's funny to think that between this and The Lovebirds, Kumal Nanjiani did two movies as 'nervous nerdy guy who's been dropped into a crazy action movie scenario' right before he got incredibly jacked to star in a Marvel movie. Both are solid minor entertainment, though, Dave Bautista has such natural comedic timing and the strip club scene with Steve Howey was hilarious.

e) Jexi

I absolutely hated Spike Jonze's Her so I was up for a movie that seemed vaguely like a mean satire of it. But Jexi was written and directed by the guys responsible for all the Hangover screenplays and it just felt like they threw every obvious 'smartphone AI becomes powerfully sentient' joke at the wall and made everything as broad and extreme as possible until it just wasn't funny anymore. Adam Devine did his best to be the animated foil to everything happening to him, like Jim Carrey in something like Liar Liar, but it just didn't pop. Also, congratulations Adam Devine, you're now old and successful enough that you get a love interest in movies that seems way too young for you!

f) Pachamama

An animated feature on Netflix that takes place in the Andes Mountains, absolutely gorgeous visual style to this.

10:29 AM

Deep Album Cuts Vol. 214: Jeremih

Friday, November 20, 2020

Over the last few days there's been some news that Jeremih is on a ventilator in an ICU suffering from the coronavirus, and I'm pretty upset about it. I've been a fan of his from the very first album a decade ago, and he's only 33. His song with Ne-Yo, "U 2 Luv," is #3 on hip hop/R&B radio right now, and he just did a great feature on T.I.'s latest album, which makes me think about my interview with T.I. and how I felt like I was arguing with a brick wall trying to tell him what the mortality rates are for COVID, especially among black Americans, and how it's about reducing the spread and not just assuming you'll be fine if you catch it if you're relatively young and healthy. I hope Jeremih pulls through, but I also hope what he's going through is a wake up call to some people who aren't taking this as seriously as they should. I've been listening to a lot of Jeremih this week, so I put together a playlist of some of my favorites.

Jeremih deep album cuts (Spotify playlist):

1. Remember Me

2. 773 Love

3. Starting All Over

4. Take Off

5. Impatient (featuring Ty Dolla Sign)

6. These Days (with Ty Dolla Sign)

7. Jumpin

8. Stockholm

9. Love Don't Change

10. Paradise

11. Cards Right

12. Woosah (featuring Juicy J and Twista)

13. Sleepers

14. Copenhagen (featuring Sonyae)

15. Actin' Up

16. Buh Bye

17. Imitate (with Ty Dolla Sign)

18. Perfect Timing (with Ty Dolla Sign)

19. British Headboards

20. Love All Night

21. Break Up To Make Up

Tracks 3, 7, 16 and 21 from Jeremih (2009)

Tracks 4, 9, 13 and 20 from All About U (2010)

Track 2 from Late Nights With Jeremih (2012)

Tracks 1, 5, 10, 12 and 15 from Late Nights: The Album (2015)

Tracks 8, 14 and 19 from Late Nights: Europe (2016)

Track 11 from The Chocolate Box EP (2018)

Tracks 6, 17 and 18 from MihTy with Ty Dolla Sign (2018)

Wikipedia doesn't list "Break Up To Make Up," "Love Don't Change," and "773 Love" as singles, so I'm just gonna run with that and call them deep cuts, I don't think people who aren't Jeremih fans really remember those songs anyway. Plus "773 Love" is one of the only songs from the Late Nights With Jeremih mixtape that's on streaming services so I wanted to represent that release, which was the first time a lot of people really appreciated Jeremih outside of "Birthday Sex."

I still really like the first two albums produced by Mick Schultz and think they're kind of slept on, but some of those tracks do sound a little dated now, I tried to cherry pick the stuff that sounds good in context with the rest of his catalog. "Starting All Over" was the song that made me really appreciate the sweetness in Jeremih's voice, he can really hit that joyful Stevie Wonder or young MJ tone that few modern R&B singers have in their arsenal. And I love that nod to Soulja Boy's "Donk" on "Jumpin." But Late Nights: The Album is definitely his masterpiece, I can't believe they delayed that album for almost 2 years even when the advance singles were smashes.

It's a shame that Def Jam never seems to really believe in Jeremih, no matter how many hits he makes. Each of his albums had a huge top 10 crossover hit, and the last one was his first to go platinum, but he hasn't released a proper solo album in almost 5 years now. "Impatient" and "Love Don't Change" went platinum without radio play, and "Paradise" went viral for a minute in 2017 when Kim Kardashian posted a video with it as the background music. He's appeared on major hits by everyone from Wale to DJ Khaled to Natalie La Rose to Meek Mill, wrote songs for Chris Brown, Rihanna, and Ariana Grande, and guested on Kanye and Nicki Minaj albums. Practically every major label rapper from Chicago for the past 10 years has worked with Jeremih, often on singles. Somehow he never got the same rep as a hitmaking secret weapon like The-Dream or Ty Dolla Sign, who he did a whole album and some other great songs with, but he absolutely deserves to be in that conversation. I hope he gets well soon and can get back to constantly exceeding people's expectations.

11:48 AM

Deep Album Cuts Vol. 213: Kanye West

Wednesday, November 18, 2020

There was a time when I felt like Kanye West's #1 fan, following his rise as a producer, getting the Get Well Soon mixtape and rooting for his underdog rap ambitions, cheering on the success of The College Dropout and going to one of the relatively intimate college campus shows in support of that album, and talking to Consequence at the merch table.

That all feels like a million years ago now. I thought about posting this playlist earlier this year, around the time Kanye wasn't making many public statements but had joined Black Lives Matter protests and put millions of dollars into a fund for victims' families. That was the only time in the last few years that I really found myself hoping he'd turned a corner and would stop being such a constant embarrassment. Then he ran for president as a third party Republican, and after that shitshow I don't think he's ever gonna be anything less than a weird spectacle for the rest of his life. But the campaign is over, so I feel somewhat comfortable listening to and praising his catalog right now, until the next disaster.

Kanye West deep album cuts (Spotify playlist):

1. Spaceship (featuring GLC and Consequence)

2. We Don't Care

3. Family Business

4. Gone (featuring Consequence and Cam'ron)

5. Roses

6. Crack Music (featuring The Game, Keyshia Cole and Charlie Wilson)

7. The Glory

8. Champion

9. Everything I Am (featuring DJ Premier)

10. Street Lights

11. Coldest Winter

12. Devil In A New Dress (featuring Rick Ross)

13. Blame Game (featuring John Legend and Chris Rock)

14. Lost In The World (featuring Bon Iver)

15. Send It Up (featuring King Louie)

16. On Sight

17. Feedback

18. Ultralight Beam (featuring Chance The Rapper, Kelly Price, The-Dream and Kirk Franklin)

19. No Mistakes (featuring Kid Cudi, Charlie Wilson and Caroline Shaw)

20. Everything We Need (featuring Ty Dolla Sign and Ant Clemons)

Tracks 1, 2 and 3 from The College Dropout (2004)

Tracks 4, 5 and 6 from Late Registration (2005)
Tracks 7, 8 and 9 from Graduation (2007)
Tracks 10 and 11 from 808s & Heartbreak (2008)
Tracks 12, 13 and 14 from My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (2010)
Tracks 15 and 16 from Yeezus (2013)
Tracks 17 and 18 from The Life Of Pablo (2016)
Track 19 from Ye (2018)
Track 20 from Jesus Is King (2019)

This week I angered lots of people on Twitter by suggesting that Kanye West doesn't have the single greatest discography in the whole huge incredibly rich genre of hip hop, which I didn't think was really a very harsh judgment, personally. And listen, I love some of these albums, but even my favorites have shortcomings. Two of my favorite Kanye albums have several minutes of skits -- and not good De La Soul-level skits, really stupid unfunny ones with zero replay value. It's the presence of things like those skits, and some overplayed singles I never really need to hear again, that made it fun to go back and pick out favorite songs and put them in a row here.

A lot of what I enjoy about these songs is the way Kanye pulls together disparate elements and makes them feel like the natural, inevitable fabric of his own albums. Some of the greatest verses Cam'ron, Rick Ross, and Chance The Rapper ever recorded. Killer backup vocals from Charlie Wilson and Tony Williams and Ty Dolla Sign. Co-production from Jon Brion and Daft Punk. Samples of rare Bill Withers, a favorite Tears For Fears deep cut, Iranian singer Googoosh, Steely Dan, Aphex Twin, and countless others. Obviously, some of these songs are pretty famous and some of them got videos or were performed on TV, but still, I tried to get to the songs that really defined the albums for me that weren't big chart hits.

10:32 AM

Deep Album Cuts Vol. 212: Cam'ron

Tuesday, November 17, 2020

I wanted to feature a New York rapper in this volume just to salute the 212 area code, so I was thinking of some guys that I hadn't covered yet in this series, and Cam came to mind.

Cam'ron deep album cuts (Spotify playlist):

1. That's Me (featuring Keisha "Honey" Cargill)

2. I Just Wanna (featuring Juelz Santana)

3. Killa Cam (featuring Opera Steve)
4. I'm Ready (with Jim Jones and Juelz Santana)

5. We Got It (featuring Ma$e)

6. Welcome To New York City (featuring Jay-Z and Juelz Santana)

7. Bubble Music

8. I.B.S.

9. Come Home With Me (featuring Juelz Santana and Jim Jones)

10. More Gangsta Music (featuring Juelz Santana)

11. Purple Haze

12. Losin' Weight (featuring Prodigy)

13. Losing Weight, Pt. 2 (featuring Juelz Santana)

14. Losin' Weight 3

15. Curve

16. Do It Again (featuring Destiny's Child and Jim Jones)

17. Confessions

18. Harlem Streets

Tracks 5 and 17 from Confessions Of Fire (1998)

Tracks 1, 12 and 16 from the S.D.E. (2000)

Tracks 2, 6, 9 and 13 from Come Home With Me (2002)

Tracks 4 and 11 from Diplomatic Immunity by The Diplomats (2003)

Tracks 3, 7, 10 and 18 from Purple Haze (2004)

Track 8 from Killa Season (2006)

Track 15 from Crime Pays (2009)

Track 14 from Purple Haze 2 (2019)

There was a point when liking Cam'ron and The Diplomats kind of felt like a meme to me and I kinda distanced myself from the whole thing and became partisan about preferring State Property or The LOX, etc. But now that some time has passed, those corny associations have fallen away a little bit and I still do enjoy a lot of music from Cam and Dipset's peak. And I wanted to include Diplomatic Immunity since it was credited to 'Cam'ron presents The Diplomats' and is really one of my favorite albums from the era, right up there with Cam's best solo albums.

Obviously, Cam growing up with Dame Dash and making the jump to Roc-A-Fella was a really serendipitous boost for his career, particularly because The Blueprint had just come out and Cam ended up having chemistry with Just Blaze and Kanye West and being able to run with their sound and put his own spin on it. But sometimes I think Cam deserves more credit for how much he and Juelz and Jimmy had most of their sound and attitude all figured out on the excellent and underrated S.D.E., pretty much everything except the sped up soul samples. And obviously they later brought up their own stable of producers like the Heatmakerz and AraabMuzik that helped make the Dipset sound something distinct from the Roc-A-Fella sound. Back in 2006 I interviewed Stay Gettin' Productions, the Baltimore production duo who did "Bubble Music" and a number of other memorable Cam'ron/Diplomats tracks (including "Dead Motherfuckers," "Shut The Fuck Up," and "Girls, Cash, Cars")

It might sound weird to say a rapper is obsessed with rhymes, but Cam'ron really has that palpable love of playing with the sound of words that sometimes leads him to say some silly outlandish things that no other MC would think to say, but that's definitely part of his charm. "Confessions" from his first album is almost like proto-Eminem the way he strings together all these shock raps about taboo subjects with the most absurd and cartoony internal rhyme schemes possible. And "I.B.S." is a really interesting song because Cam really opened up about his health issues and was surprisingly vulnerable but still managed to just go nuts rhyming about it.

10:27 AM

TV Diary

Monday, November 16, 2020

a) "Moonbase 8"

Between "Avenue 6," "Space Force," and now "Moonbase 8," there's really been a lot of comedy about buffoons in space or trying to go into space this year. On paper "Moonbase 8" looks really promising because Fred Armisen, John C. Reilly, and Tim Heidecker are three reliably funny guys who aren't really big stars per se, having them co-headline a show is kind of like a supergroup comprised of three famous bassists. And sometimes this show does feel like a bunch of bass solos, weird tangents about unlikable characters and no real protagonist -- the first episode is pretty funny and deploys two big, hilarious twists, but it's by far the best episode. Reilly is just a brilliant performer who I always enjoy watching, though, even when he's just reacting the other guys who are more focused on some broad conceptual bit.

b) "A Teacher"

I never saw the 2013 film A Teacher that this Hulu miniseries is based on, so I don't know if I would have the same issues with it. But I kind of feel like it's a well made, engrossing show that takes a problematic approach to exploring sensitive subject matter -- it's about a high school teacher becoming sexually involved with a student, but the 18-year-old is played by a 25-year-old actor (who, in a surreal moment, tells the 27-year-old actor playing another teenager "you look like you're 30"). So having 2 attractive actors who are much closer in age than their characters are supposed to be really distorts how this story feels in an irresponsible way, it's downright romantic at times and that's not cool at all, even if they're making an earnest attempt to tell a complex story with nuance and gray areas.

c) "Industry"

"Industry" is HBO's latest show about young people trying to make it in the big scary world, and I suppose it's a credit to Lena Dunham that I wouldn't have guessed she directed the first episode and it didn't really remind me of "Girls" at all. It kind of feels like a glimpse at the lives of the extras in "Billions," all the young professionals trying to get by in the high stakes high finance world while their bosses are making power moves. And it feels realistic in a depressing way, and then kind of piles it on with the most sympathetic character dying in the first episode. Not sure if this will become gripping or just kind of a bummer, hard to say this early. But it has my least favorite TV score in recent memory, just these dreary contemplative synth pop riffs pinging around loudly over scenes that would work better with less intrusive music or no music at all.

d) "B Positive"

I have a higher Chuck Lorre tolerance than most people I know, but I still find myself pretty resentful when actors I like get stuck in a CBS laugh track sitcom for a year or eight. And Thomas Middleditch coming off "Silicon Valley," Annaleigh Ashford coming off "Masters Of Sex," and Kether Donohue coming off "You're The Worst" all could and should be doing something better than "B Positive" right now -- especially Donohue, who seems to be in the show for maybe 90 seconds per episode. It's not terrible, and the opening credits are kind of nuts, but I find it frustrating to watch.

e) "The Right Stuff"

I finally gave in to my son's requests that I sign up for Disney Plus so that we can watch 'Baby Yoda' so I've been checking out some of the very very few other original shows they have rolled out over the past year. I never read Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff or saw the movie adaptation to know how to compare the series version, but it's interesting to the look at the competitive moments and in-fighting behind the history of the U.S. space program. Jake McDorman, who's kicked around countless shows as a generic handsome TV actor of no particular distinction, gives a really memorable, charismatic performance portraying Alan Shepard as kind of a dick.

f) "Two Weeks To Live"

This British dark comedy reminds me a lot of "The End Of The F***ing World," but its sense of humor is a little broader, I find myself rolling my eyes at a lot of the droll dialogue and kind of satirical moments of action movie violence. Maisie Williams from "Game of Thrones" is the star and it only took them two episodes to have a callback to Arya Stark's battle with the Night King in one of the fight scenes. Still, it's kind of a charming show with an unusual premise.

g) "Roadkill"

A miniseries where Hugh Laurie plays a British politician negotiating multiple scandals and potential scandals. Well made but I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be rooting for this jerk as an antihero or just watch him make a wreck of his life and/or find his way out of this jam, like what is the appeal to this story supposed to be?

h) "Des"

I suppose I actually haven't seen David Tennant play characters that are Scottish like him that often -- my main previous frame of reference for what he actually talks like is his Scrooge McDuck in the "DuckTales" reboot, which I awkwardly can't stop thinking of when watching him play Scottish serial killer Dennis Nilsen in this miniseries. It's interesting much in the same way as "Mindhunter," just the bizarre phenomenon of killers being caught and kind of genially conversing about their victims and the bodies in their house.

i) "Grand Army"

This Netflix show kind of reminds me of "Euphoria" in how it feels like it's just stuffed full of every possible gritty boundary-pushing storyline you could have in a show about high schoolers, even in just the first episode. A little less stylized, though, in a good way, more relatable and more reliant on realistic performances from the cast. But I'm amused that Pamela Adlon's daughter, who was credited as Odessa Adlon in a CBS sitcom last year, is credited as Odessa A'zion in this show -- I don't know if her stage name is just pretentious or if she's trying to seem more ethnically ambiguous or what.

j) "Aunty Donna's Big Ol' House Of Fun"

This is a Netflix sketch comedy show starring three Australians that is at times entertaining but also just kind of exhaustingly wacky, and I'm not sure if it has the capacity to grow on me or to completely turn me off.

k) "Paranormal"

This Egyptian series on Netflix is interesting, because it's like an anthology about supernatural stories but it revolves around this one gloomy professor character who I find entertainingly cantankerous.

l) "El Presidente"

This Amazon series created by one of the screenwriters of Birdman makes the very simple and very effective decision to basically tell the story of the FIFA scandals and corruption in South American soccer leagues in the style of Goodfellas or Casino. Generally being derivative of Scorsese is not something I'd necessarily praise, but it kinda surprised me here and they really nailed the tone and injected the right amount of humor into the story.

m) "Trial 4"

A Netflix true crime miniseries about a guy who was wrongfully convicted for killing a cop in Boston, really gets into just how insane an entire city can get about making sure to arrest and convict someone when a cop is killed even if there's not enough evidence. It's a weird choice for them to depict the murder in question with a little anime segment, though.

n) "How To With John Wilson"

"Nathan For You" is one of those shows that people are absolutely crazy about that I'm just kind of indifferent to, occasionally they pull off something hilarious but the super dry tone just bores me after a while. "How To With John Wilson," exec produced by Nathan Fielder, is a very similar show with an even nerdier and more shy, monotone host, narrating the entire show in this grating voice while having interviews with real people who aren't always 'in on the joke' carry the show. I kind of hate it.

o) "Eater's Guide To The World"

Maya Rudolph narrates this show, and she kind of cuts loose and unleashes the full force of her personality in the voiceovers just as much as if she was actually an on-camera host, which is kind of an odd unique choice, but it works.

p) "The Liberator"

This World War II miniseries was originally announced 7 years ago as a live action project to air on the History Channel, before the project's budget just became too expensive to make. So the version that finally arrived on Netflix recently is their cost-saving compromise, an animated miniseries done with rotocope-style animation with animation drawn over live action performances. It's got an interesting look and WWII is kind of novel subject matter for this style of animation, but I don't know, I don't find it very compelling, it feels like an experiment that doesn't quite gel.

q) "A Queen Is Born"

A Netflix show where aspiring drag queens get mentors and guidance, it's really very sweet and emotional at times watching these folks realize their dreams and become what they wanna be.

r) "Love Life"

Now that I've got HBO Max I've been going through some of their shows that came out earlier in the year, and I really like this one. It's an anthology series where each season follows a character through every major relationship in their life, with Anna Kendrick as the first protagonist. And even though it hits a lot of familiar rom com beats and isn't doing anything really groundbreaking, there's something about the format and the way you follow this person through years and multiple cycles of infatuation and disappointment, with well observed and relatable details, it's really affecting.

s) "Harley Quinn"

Also now getting into the second season of "Harley Quinn" now that I have HBO Max, and man, this show is just a gem, really treating the whole Batman universe as a playground for ridiculous jokes. My favorite bit in the 2nd season was having Jim Rash voice The Riddler and doing a little "Community" gag where he becomes the dean of 'Riddler University.'

t) "Superstore"

I get anxious about shows coming back with new episodes made after the pandemic began, I feel like a lot of people in the entertainment industry have just taken unnecessary risks in going back to work so soon. But "Superstore" has always been kind of a perceptive and realistic look at a huge piece of American life, retail work, that doesn't really get portrayed well on TV that often, so I'm kind of glad "Superstore" is back with some episodes that get into what it's like to work in a big box store during the pandemic. America Ferrera was in the first two episodes of the season as they kind of wrap up her storyline and send her off to California, so it doesn't feel like she's gone yet, but I feel more confident that the ensemble will carry the show just fine without her than I did when they first announced she'd be leaving the show.

u) "The Eric Andre Show"

I tried watching this when it came back but I was never a huge fan and it just feels like they've painted themselves in a corner, trying to do the most outrageous and strange thing and then top it, and now I just barely crack a smile watching the repetitive schtick.

v) "Saturday Night Live"

The Trump years were bad for everybody, but the entire saga has been especially unflattering for "SNL," so maybe they can kind of move on and not have Alec Baldwin on for a few years. That 'Trump addicts of America' sketch was really dumb, though, felt like they were accusing other people of what is clearly their problem. Most of the recent episodes have been pretty good, though, Adele was a fun host. I guess their COVID protocols to let them do a live show with an audience have actually worked, that's impressive.

w) "Trash Truck"

Netflix's new show about a talking truck who's friends with a little boy and a bear and a raccoon. It's really whimsical and sweet, with a neat-looking animation style, and the kid reminds me of my 5-year-old who watches it.

x) "Mighty Express"

Netflix's new talking train "Thomas The Tank Engine" knockoff from Canada, it's really annoying.

y) "Oggy And The Cockroaches"

Netflix has this cartoon produced in France that's kind of a "Tom and Jerry" throwback where the animal characters don't talk and I like that, it's really an underrated style of cartoon now.

z) "Gravity Falls"

This show aired for 2 seasons and got cancelled a few years ago, but it has a cult following that my 11-year-old is now part of, he's spent the last few months watching and rewatching every episode, looking on YouTube for explanations of all the show's mythology and inside jokes, using his Nintendo 3DS to record the scenes with backwards dialogue and reverse them. It's a really cute, funny show, but I just love seeing him nerd out on something like that for the first time, I already got him the follow-up graphic novel that was published after the show ended.

10:26 AM

Thursday, November 12, 2020

Cassowary Records · Broken Sticks: Al Shipley on drums 2000-2020

I really miss getting together with a few friends in a practice space or a club or a studio and making a lot of noise. So I made a Soundcloud mixtape compiling a bunch of different tracks I've played drums on over the past two decades, and it's out today, dedicated to my mom, Cynthia Heikel, who helped me buy my first drum set when I was 13 and let me loudly practice in her house.

Broken Sticks: Al Shipley on drums 2000-2020

1. Western Blot - "The Empty Space" (2020)
2. Snoozer - "Me More" (2001)

3. Woodfir - "Scent" (2016)

4. Tuner - "Lava" (2002)

5. Western Blot - "Freedom '20" (2020)

6. The True Human Motive - "The Circle Of Enforcement" (2000)

7. The True Human Motive - "Stiff Legs" (2000)

8. Western Blot - "Sore Winners" (2016)

9. Golden Beat - "Letter" (2018)

10. Zuul - "What Do You Want From Me?" (2004)

11. Zuul - "Demo 2" (2004)

12. Western Blot - "Cell Flow Thing" (2020)

13. Western Blot - "Button Masher" (2012)

14. Western Blot - "Zeros All The Way Down" (2018)

15. Western Blot - "Still Catch Myself" (2018)

16. Doc Heller - "Holding Out For The Miracle" (2018)

17. Woodfir - "Western Song" (2018)

18. Woodfir - "Fata Morgana" (2020)

19. Woodfir - "Salvia (new fast version)" (2019)

20. The True Human Motive - "Liberty From Personal Choice" (2000)

21. Western Blot - "The Power Let Me Down" (2013)

22. Western Blot - "Some Small Sense" (2019)

23. Western Blot - "Dull Dark Side (demo)" (2001)

24. Golden Beat - "Someone Start A Band With Me" (2015)

All tracks are noted by their original year of release (previously unreleased tracks are noted by the year of recording, and a lot of this stuff has really never been heard before). The oldest song is over 20 years old, and I finished recording the newest song, "Cell Flow Thing," yesterday afternoon. Here's a quick guide to the bands I've played in and musicians I've collaborated with that appear here:

Snoozer is a name that Susie Ghahremani wrote and recorded songs under, later recording as Boy Girl Party. In 1999, Susie and I mailed tapes to each other to collaborate on music when I lived in Delaware and she lived in Rhode Island. She picked a couple minutes of my drumming out of a tape I recorded in my house and wrote a wonderful song, "Me More," over it. In 2001, she included the song on Snoozer's self-titled album, and when she toured that year I finally got to meet Susie and hear her perform "Me More" in Baltimore, at the old Ottobar on Davis Street. "Me More" appeared on the 2005 compilation Homemade Hits, Vol. 1 alongside lo-fi luminaries like Ariel Pink and Katie The Pest, and and it has 4 thousand plays on Spotify alone, making it probably the most popular song here. Susie is also a prolific visual artist and I've read some of the children's books she's illustrated to my kids.

The True Human Motive was a Sussex County, Delaware-based emo band I played drums for in 1999 and 2000, really my first band that wrote songs and played shows (I started a couple bands with my brother Zac previous to that, but those bands mainly jammed in our house, learned some covers, and played Mario Kart when we got bored). Singer/guitarist Benn Roe, bassist Chris Howell, guitarist Andy Paller and I were all students at Cape Henlopen High School in Lewes, Delaware, and during my senior year we practiced wrote constantly and went upstate to record an album at Clay Creek Studios in Newark with Nick Rotundo (who passed away in 2017, RIP). We finished the album Hope but it wasn't really ever released, although it apparently circulated in the screamo underground enough that I used to see people list us among bands they liked on their MySpace pages. The album featured a few tracks with improvised music and spoken word vocals, and "Stiff Legs" featured some of the first music I composed on keyboard, although I didn't come up with any words to record to the music for the True Human Motive track -- a decade later I reworked it as the Western Blot song "Sore Winners." The band broke up when I moved to Maryland for college, but Benn and Chris continued working together in A Petal Fallen.

Tuner was a York, Pennsylvania-based band led by singer/guitarist Chris Monahan that I played drums for in 2002-2003 (no relation to the other TUNER featuring King Crimson's Pat Mastelotto that started releasing albums a few years later). Chris went to school at York College, just a quick drive over the border from where I was attending Towson University in Maryland, so I'd go up on weekends to practice and occasionally play shows with Tuner. I have probably an hour of demos I recorded of Chris's songs, beautiful weird haunting folky/shoegaze/soft-loud stuff. But I didn't keep in touch after I got tired of making the journey up to York and gradually left the band, and I haven't been able to find any of those folks on Facebook on anything. So if Chris or Patrice or anyone else who played in Tuner sees this, drop me a line, I'd love to hear from you and send you all those recordings.

Zuul was a Baltimore-based band started by guitarist Sean Krus, singer Nick Chester, and bassist Michael Bartolomeo that I joined after their first drummer left. We played together from 2003 to 2005, gigging around Baltimore, mostly at the Sidebar, and performed on the air on Third Rail Radio on WMUC once (no relation to another Zuul that played around Baltimore in the 2010s). It was a really fun, funny band, and we had a really bizarre repertoire of covers (Christina Aguilera, Billy Idol, Enrique Iglesias). Nick Chester is well known in the video game industry and works for Epic Games, Sean Krus went on to play in Balti Mare, and Mike Bartolomeo is a TV editor who directs short films (including one student film I starred in and a Western Blot music video).

Western Blot is the name I started releasing music under in 2012, although I had been writing and recording demos for those songs for over a decade, playing drums and keyboards and singing or writing lyrics for other vocalists. There's kind of a hole in this mixtape with no music from 2005 to 2011, because after Zuul broke up I just decided I wouldn't perform or release music again until I got my solo project off the ground, and that took a while as I became a father and focused on my writing career. Ishai Barnoy and John German play with me in the live band version of Western Blot and appear on some of the studio tracks. Over three albums and three EPs, I have collaborated with a wide variety of vocalists in the Baltimore scene: Koye Berry, Lizzy Greif (20ooo), Brooks Long (Brooks Long & The Mad Dog No Good), Shawna Potter (War On Women), Andy Shankman (Jumpcuts), Scott Siskind (Vinny Vegas), and Kathleen Wilson (Thee Lexington Arrows). I self-produced some Western Blot tracks and co-produced most of them with Mat Leffler-Schulman or Doug Bartholomew.

Golden Beat was a Baltimore-based band that formed in early 2015 and broke up in late 2016 with singer/guitarist Dan Doggett (Monument), guitarist Chris Merriam (Private Eleanor), and bassist K.B. Blankson (They Move On Threads), and myself. We recorded a total of 5 songs (3 in a studio session with Tim St. Clair of Soft Peaks and others in a demo in our practice space), but had more good ones that we performed live or practiced that never got recorded.

Woodfir is a Baltimore-based band I formed in 2016 with singer/guitarist Reda Lee and Tim King, both formerly of Blood Horses. Western Blot was on the bill for one of the last Blood Horses shows, and after they broke up Tim and I formed a band, the short-lived Maris Vera with April from Mental School (which wrote a few songs, played one show, and never made any recordings). Woodfir has released two EPs and over the past 4 years I've played more shows with them than probably any other band I've been in. Tim and Reda and I have continued sending each other tracks and working on new songs since we've been unable to practice during the COVID-19 lockdown. I also included two kind of rare songs on the mixtape that we used to play live a lot: "Western Song," which was briefly released in 2018, and a demo of "Salvia," a song we've yet to record in the studio that has gone through a few different iterations and different tempos. The cover of this mixtape is a picture of all the broken drumsticks I had on the floor when I moved out of the space where Woodfir, Golden Beat and Western Blot practiced from 2014 to 2017. The Woodfir tracks were produced by Mat Leffler-Schulman, Doug Bartholomew, and Steve Johnson.

Doc Heller is one of the aliases of Pennsylvania-based rapper/producer Darko The Super. When I was tracking the Western Blot album 5/4 with Doug Bartholomew, I recorded some drums that I sent to him, which he cut up and looped for two tracks on the 2018 album What Up Duderino?!! I really enjoy this mode of long distance collaboration that I started all those years ago with Snoozer, and I recently sent off 27 drum improvisations to 27 different people, so I may have enough tracks to do another Broken Sticks compilation at some point.

10:28 AM

Monthly Report: November 2020 Singles

Wednesday, November 11, 2020

1. Royal Blood - "Trouble's Coming"

The British duo Royal Blood have had a nice run of singles so far, but the lead single from their forthcoming album really just jumped out of the radio at me from the first time I heard it with the 'disco AC/DC' approach they're going for now. It's not their biggest hit yet but it feels inevitable that it will be. Here's the 2020 singles playlist I add 10 songs to every month.

2. Young Dolph f/ Megan Thee Stallion - "RNB"

Young Dolph has built a pretty impressive career without a really significant solo hit, and at this point I didn't think he'd ever have a song in the rap radio top 10 after O.T. Genasis's "Cut It," but I'm glad this was the song that got him there. Back when Juicy J had a run as a solo artist using mostly beats from other producers, I thought maybe he was not that into making beats anymore, so his resurgence as a producer has been fun to see, especially with him using that hilarious sample of Logic's voice as his producer tag.

3. Joel Corry f/ MNEK - "Head & Heart"

I liked MNEK's album, I'm glad this '90s house-sounding track with British DJ Joel Corry has him back on the American charts for the first time since "Never Forget You" with Zara Larsson.

4. The Backseat Lovers - "Kilby Girl"

This Utah band's first song on the alternative charts really blew me away, really feels like the kind of overstuffed ambitious song that you don't get much on rock radio these days. Can't believe they're American, though, they sound so British.

5. Of Monsters And Men - "Visitor"

I'm glad Of Monsters And Men are continuing in the loud electric sound of Fever Dream, I was hoping it wasn't a one-off, and "Visitor" has such a dark haunted vibe that it still feels like kind of a 180 from "Alligator."

6. Sada Baby - "Whole Lotta Choppas"

I'm not surprised that eventually a Sada Baby song went viral and got him on the charts, but I was kinda hoping it would be "Slide." The Nicki Minaj remix really doesn't add anything to the song, though, I hope eventually people just go back to playing the original.

7. Foo Fighters - "Shame Shame"

Concrete And Gold mostly didn't live up to the potential of a Foo Fighters album produced by Greg Kurstin, but I'm glad he did the new album too, I think there's still something interesting there to explore. I love the percussion sound on this track, I'm not sure if it's just a drum set and handclaps but the way it's put together with a lot of reverb and room sound is pretty cool.

8. Blu DeTiger - "Figure It Out"

Blu DeTiger sounds like an over-the-top stage name, but her drummer is her brother Rex DeTiger so I guess that is her name. This is really catchy, it's nice to see a singer/bassist putting their instrument front and center in the mix.

9. Doja Cat f/ Gucci Mane - "Like That"

As a follow-up to "Say So" this didn't feel quite like the right pick, didn't really extend her pop radio breakthrough. But it's slowly grown on me, good Gucci verse.

10. Trey Songz f/ Summer Walker - "Back Home"

This song is good but I find it funny that it's not even the best song where Trey Songz sings New Edition's "If It Isn't Love," shout out to Trick Daddy's "Ain't A Thug."

The Worst Single of the Month: Internet Money f/ Gunna, Don Toliver, and NAV - "Lemonade"

The whole Internet Money thing is interesting -- they're less a group or even a collective than a union and network of producers, members of which had over 30 singles on the Hot 100 last year. Still, based on the first big blockbuster song credited to Internet Money as the primary artist, I have to wonder if this is a business model built to construct the most generic songs that sound like a thousand other songs that already exist. This feels like the definition of Rap Caviar playlist filler and I'm not even sure why it blew up like it has.

10:26 AM

Deep Album Cuts Vol. 211: Sade

Tuesday, November 10, 2020

It always confuses people a little when a band is named after its lead singer, and often it leads to that singer shedding other members and essentially turning it into the solo project some mistook it for, like Alice Cooper or Marilyn Manson. But while people often conflate the British band Sade with their eponymous singer, Sade Adu, they're very much a band, with the same core quartet recording and performing together since 1982: Adu, bassist Paul S. Denman, keyboardist Andrew Hale, and guitarist/saxophonist Stuart Matthewman, who's also known for co-writing and co-producing a significant chunk of Maxwell's catalog. Still, the relative anonymity of the instrumentalist members of Sade is at least somewhat by design -- after all, Sade Adu's face, and her face alone, is on the cover of all 6 of their albums.

Last month, Sade released This Far, a vinyl box set of all the band's albums, and I feel like it's sort of a culminating moment of the critical reevaluation of Sade over the last decade or two. They've been a huge multiplatinum act for their entire existence, but I think their smooth sensual sound and quiet ubiquity have made it easy to underestimate their creativity or influence on R&B, or simply not give them much thought at all. And at this point, there's probably few mainstream acts whose stock has risen more in the last decade, especially without a new full-length album in that time.

Sade deep album cuts (Spotify playlist):

1. Cherry Pie

2. Frankie's First Affair

3. I Will Be Your Friend

4. Jezebel

5. Maureen

6. Fear

7. I Never Thought I'd See The Day

8. Give It Up

9. Clean Heart

10. Pearls

11. Like A Tattoo

12. Bullet Proof Soul

13. The Sweetest Gift

14. Lovers Rock

15. Immigrant

16. Bring Me Home

17. Morning Bird

18. Long Hard Road
19. I Would Never Have Guessed

Tracks 1, 2 and 3 from Diamond Life (1984)

Tracks 4, 5 and 6 from Promise (1985)

Tracks 7, 8 and 9 from Stronger Than Pride (1988)

Tracks 10, 11 and 12 from Love Deluxe (1992)

Tracks 13, 14 and 15 from Lovers Rock (2000)

Tracks 16, 17 and 18 from Soldier Of Love (2010)

Track 19 from The Ultimate Collection (2011)

Listening to their music chronologically like this, it's impressive how consistent Sade's sound has been. There are certainly some production touches on the early albums that feel pretty '80s, but not nearly as dated as most R&B and downtempo pop of the era. And the albums since the '90s introduce some slightly hip hop-influenced breakbeat-style rhythm tracks, but it also manages to stay within the sophisticated, placidly smoldering Sade aesthetic. Still, they do vary tempo and mood a bit more on these albums than I think they get credit for, and some songs "Maureen" are a bit livelier than all but a couple of their hits. "Jezebel" is probably the most famous Sade song that wasn't a single, a live staple that appeared on the band's highest selling compilation, 1994's The Best Of Sade, alongside other album tracks "Pearls" and "Like A Tattoo." And I included one of the newly recorded songs from a later compilation, 2011's The Ultimate Collection.