I totally want this.
Too cool!!!!!
Tags: Picture of the day
I may not write about him much, but I’m a fan of hip hop beatmaster Oddisee. He’s got definite mixing skills and can build a solid groove. The Washington D.C. producer has worked with many of the greats of the hip hop smart set: Jazzy Jeff, Talib Kweli, Little Brother, etc., but solo his projects unfortunately are usually too uneven for me to really get behind them. Until now. Taking a page from Atmosphere’s playbook, Oddisee has released four albums, for free, one for each season. Each one has had a definite flavor and has featured more than a couple very strong tracks, but it wasn’t until this last one, Odd Spring, that I really felt like he nailed it.
Between some great uptempo instrumentals, he brings in Diamond District on the first lyrical track, “Birds & Bees,” matching DD’s smooth-and-even flow to a soulful beat that’s way better than anything Nas has used in the past five years. Juba May has a beat slightly similar to that track, but it adds 1970s rapid percussion that is so intricate you can’t help but stop and listen. It needs to be playing while Ice-T runs down Chris Rock in a New Jack sequel. And if sexier old school funk is your thing, you’ll dig “This Beat Is For Finale.” And Oddisee shows that his own skills are actually pretty damn strong, too, when he takes the mic on “I’m From PG.”
This is a great collection. And, as I said, the other three season are also pretty good (just not as great as this one). You’ll be able to buy all four soon, in a box set, if you want to support the artist. Which is always a good idea. In the meantime, get Odd Spring free from bandcamp.
Birds & Bees Feat. Diamond District
Get the whole album free here!
Tags: Free Album!, Hip Hop
I was reading a retrospective of Marv Wolfman and George Perez’s work on The New Teen Titans a little while ago, and the author’s thesis was basically that nobody should bother with this book anymore because it’s been done once, perfectly, and that was enough. It got me thinking about “definitive” versions of characters—not creations, but RE-creations. Obviously, Marvel did this to the (ahem) ultimate degree with Ultimate Spider-Man, but I’m not talking about new universes. I’m talking about this: You take existing characters, with all their baggage, and you repurpose the character. You put all that history in a new context, and allow the character to grow, change, and become new—while keeping the things that made the character great. This is the geekiest thing I’ve ever written, I daresay.
So, here are the rules:
1. We’re dealing with well-established characters here, which eliminates all indie books and all original characters. The creators can’t be involved. Breaks my heart, but that means Brian Michael Bendis’ take on Jessica Jones is disqualified.
2. No alternate universes, no What-Ifs, no “future universes.” This eliminates Ultimates and the DC “All Star” books.
3. Retconning or re-telling an origin is fine, but the new narrative must include the established legend so that it could be an origin of the character we all know. You could re-tell Spider-Man’s origin, but if you leave out Uncle Ben or the burglar, you’re out.
4. The run has to have changed the character, which means the character at the end of the run is not the same person we understood him/her to be at the beginning of the run. Some great examples would be Bendis’ run on Daredevil, or the afore-mentioned Wolfman/Perez’s metamorphosis of Robin to Nightwing over the course of their New Teen Titans series.
5. The run can have gone on for as long (or short) as necessary. Jeph Loeb’s Daredevil: Yellow is a candidate, e.g. It just has to be a re-defining take on the character.
6. To be clear, here’s a few examples: Garth Ennis on Punisher (Punisher Max); Bendis’ vision of Norman Osborn (New and Dark Avengers); Frank Miller’s Daredevil run; Grant Morrison’s Batman from Batman: R.I.P.; JMS’s Thor run; Matt Fraction’s Iron Man #s 1-present; Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing. You get the idea.
Send me your votes. You can send me one vote, or send me a list of up to ten. Every vote will count equally, so no need to rank them. You can write about why you picked them, or just send the list (if you write about why, I may quote you, so if you have a website you want linked to, let me know). I’ll tally the results in a few weeks, and publish them.
You can vote via the comments below or send me an e-mail. Entirely up to you. I’ll keep taking votes for a couple weeks, and see how the response is.
Thanks for reading!
Tags: Comic books
I know making a list like this is kind of ridiculous. I mean, the ten best of the past 20 years? And that’s the only criteria (other than the same TV show cannot be listed twice)? How can you possibly properly narrow it down? To these questions and any others I say, “Yes!” And if you disagree, you can drop a comment, but you’ll be wrong. Because I’m always right.
10. It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, “Sweet Dee’s Dating a Retarded Person” (2007). The one with Night Man and Day Man, and the apparently retarded rapper, that inspired a live musical performance. This is politically incorrect TV at its best-the only show that comes close to being this wonderfully offensive was Tim and Eric’s Awesome Show, Great Job.
9. Larry Sanders, “Off Camera” (1993). In this episode, Warren Zevon visits the set and pleads with Larry not to make him perform Werewolf. So he’s allowed to play (my absolute favorite Zevon song) The French Inhaler instead. When he’s done, Larry is so thrilled with the performance that he requests an encore. Werewolves, naturally.
8. Battlestar Galactica, “33″ (2004). The BSG miniseries was good, but not greatly good, but this, the first episode of the ongoing series, was edge-of-your seat excitement all through. The ship must “jump” every 33 minutes or be 
destroyed by the Cylons. Some of the greatest TV and Movie drama is based on chase-scenes, and this entire show was one long chase. This episode set the tone.
7. King Of The Hill, “Bobby Goes Nuts” (2001). “That’s my purse! I don’t know you!” ‘Nuff said!
6. The Office (UK), “Downsize” (2001). The one where Brent pretend-fires Dawn for stealing Post-its. To quote the master himself: “Brilliant!”
5. The Sopranos, “Pilot” (1999). The first episode of the Most Important TV Show Ever introduced each character indelibly. It also evoked the family side of the show while, in a single scene, exposed the horror and violence that would come. Of course, I’m talking about the scene where Tony beats the crap out of the poor slob who owes him money, after running him down with his car.
4. The Simpsons, “Bart the Daredevil” (1990). From season two, this episode is inexplicably censored on the DVD release. What made it so magnificently Simpsonic was the part where Homer tries to jump the gorge, fails, and is airlifted out. His head slams the sides of the gorge on the way up, he’s put into the ambulance, the ambulance crashes, his 
stretcher rolls out and, of course, he falls back down the gorge. Then the stretcher falls after him and hits him in the head. This scene is cut off of the DVD, and I can’t even find it on youtube. Fox are bitches. Anyone know why they did that?
3. Homicide: Life on the Street, “Subway” (1997). The team is called to a subway station where a guy is pinned between the platform and the train. If the train moves, he will instantly be cut in half and die. If it doesn’t move, he may die anyway. The thing that made this episode so brilliant is Vincent D’Onofrio’s portrayal of the victim as a compete and total a-hole. You want to sympathize for him, but his character is so mean to the detectives that one immediately stops asking why this happened to him. He kinda deserves it. But on the other hand, does anyone really deserve that? The ep won all kinds of Emmys and a Peabody, too.
2. The Shield, “Pilot” (2002). The Shield has the unique distinction, in my view, of being the only TV series to last a long time that never had a single bad episode. But the first was classic. Or, I should say, the last five minutes of the first episode. If you haven’t seen it, I won’t ruin it, but suffice to say it was the standard-bearer for the series: Unpredictable, brutal violence.
1. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, “Once More With Feeling” (2001). If you only watch two hours of TV in your life, watch this episode and “Hush.” The latter is a silent episode and the former, well, it is simply the greatest single hour of television ever created. Buffy and the gang are in the throes of a demon who forces them to sing and dance, until they die. The episode has everything that makes this show great: Brilliant one-liners, creative wordplay, humor, powerful moments that will break your heart, and acting that’s so good you believe that the devil will make you sing. I’ve seen this episode about a dozen times, and each time it’s better than before. Even the album is great.
Survivor: Borneo, “Season Finale” (2000). Because a naked, drug-dealing tax evader winning a million bucks epitomizes everything that is wrong (and right) with reality TV.
Lost, “Pilot” (2004). That opening plane crash and the horror that followed stayed with me for days. We had ever seen anything like it before on network T.V. The show gradually lost its footing and its way when it became clear that the writers knew how to start a story, but it had no middle or end.
Tags: Buffy, Television
This freeEP is starting to show up around the nets. Wild, man, wild. Here’s the explanation from bandcamp:
In 2006, during a stint out west to promote his then new movie, Sacha Cohen, (aka Borat) met Daniel Dumile, better known as Zev Love X, or MF DOOM. Their blazing freestyle ciphers and mutual love of Purple Kush led to an impromptu recording of Doom’s ‘My Favorite Ladies’ verses (see Herbalisers’ Something Wicked…album) over a beat Borat had made back in ’05 with Kulki Boolchek, a Khazak producer. Later that year Doom ventured east, and recorded three more gems with Cohen at the castle of Rudolf II in Prague, renowned for its stone acoustics. DigDug bought the master off a based-out gypsy in East Oakland and the rest is history! **Please FREELY DOWNLOAD THESE GEMS**, as they have been labeled ‘Degenerate Music’ by the Putin administration and the whole album is banned in the greater East. Censorship will never extinguish true heat!
Tracks:
1. Bing Bong Bing
2. Dedicated To Love (feat. Samantha Alexes)
3. Rescue Khazakstan (feat. Aretha Franklin)
4. So Good To Me
5. Tower of Ears (feat. Diana Ross)
link.
Tags: Free Album!, MF Doom
Cute, catchy, sexy. These are three words I’d use to describe the music of West Virginia’s Normandie Wilson, a painter/songrwiter/multi-instrumentalist with a particular penchant for piano and smart pop lyrics. They’re also three words I’d use to describe Petty Booka, but the difference is that where the Booka sisters rely heavily on charm, Wilson shows versatility. Her web site says little–and I only found it by poking around. All I know about her is that she submitted a home-burned CD, a handwritten note, and a picture of a stick dude on a surfboard. The album is terrific–a collection of pop songs washed between instrumental pieces that are interesting and perfect transitions between her fun songs and her more introspective ones. I’m offering one of each as a taste of this great album. It’s is a keeper that’s grown on me more and more with every listen.
Her album is out in July on The Whatever Project label.
Let This Space Live Free From What You Were About to Say
Singin’ In The Rain (Gene Kelly cover)
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Tags: Indie Pop
Y’all know Cee-Lo Green, right? A masterful rap/soul solo artist in his own right (if you haven’t heard “. . . And His Past Imperfections,” you’re missing out on a groundbreaking hip hop revelation), he’s also a member of Goodie Mobb and Gnarls Barkley, a performer with the Dungeon Family, a collective that hangs out in the studio with OutKast, and one of the songwriters behind The Pussycat Dolls. Well, this month has been a banner month for Cee-Lo fans. First, it was his new single “Georgia” released for under a buck on Amazon. Now, it’s his first mixtape since I don’t know when. It’s been a long, long time.
Oh, and it’s got the B-52s on it!
Track listing:
1. Goldschlager
2. You Don’t Shock Me Anymore
3. Cho Cha The Cat (w/ The B-52s)
4. Talking To Strangers
5. Little Black Book
6. I Like It
7. ChamPain
8. Night Train (w/ Goodie Mob)
9. The Secret
10. Sophisticated Bitch
11. I’ll Kill Her
12. Is It
13. Super Woman Theme Song
14. Night Cap Outro
1. THE WALKING DEAD. I’m leading with this story because (a) I love zombies; (b) I love comics; and (c) I’m starting to love AMC’s original productions. Oh, and (d) because “The Mist” is one of the best horror films of the past 10 years. And this story combines all of this, and more! AMC released still shots of what the zombies will look like in their Frank (Shawshank Redemption and The Mist) Darabont helmed adaptation of Robert Kirkman’s brilliant, ongoing epic, The Walking Dead. The bad news: Season one will be just 6 eps. No release date yet, either. The picture, above, does a very nice job at mirroring Adlard’s brilliant art from the comic. If they can do an equal job at paralleling Kirkman’s scripts, we’re in business!
Go here to see all the pictures.
2. GREEN LANTERN’S BIG AND SMALL, AND OTHER D.C. MOVING PICTURE NEWS. Here a Hal, there a Hal, everywhere a Hal Hal! Not only were plot points about the movie recently leaked to the internet, but Cartoon Network has announced a cartoon coming in 2012. The leaked details weren’t huge (or unexpected), but they confirm that the film will feature the entire Green Lantern Corps, the threat will be Parallax, and characters will include Sinestro, Abin Sur, and Amanda Waller. DC is also saying that their next live-action flick will be Batman in 2012, and then The Flash after that, but Wonder Woman and Aquaman are also in development. Vincent Chase is up for the lead in the latter film. Seriously, though, my question is, is Justice League dead in the water? I wonder whether the abysmal failure that will be called “Jonah Hex” will have any effect? And another thing: Why does it take so damn long to release all this stuff? At least DC isn’t making the 1-a-year mistake Marvel keeps making: Both Batman and Superman will come out in 2012, with Bats getting Independence Day and Supes taking Christmas. Still, it seems nobody has learned from Peter Jackson that it is easier and more economical to film three movies at once and then stagger the post-production and release dates.
3. SPEAKING OF GREEN . . . I was a big advocate of the Rulk series when it started: Big, muscular McGuiness artwork and Jeph Loeb at his Bruckheimer best, but the series floundered under its own weight. It started taking itself too seriously, created a whole conspiracy thing, and stretched out the central question: Who is Red Hulk? Turns out, it is General Thunderbolt Ross. Which we all pretty much knew anyway. This series had a promising, fun start but ended up being some of the worst work these two extremely talented individuals ever put out. Sad.
4. X-MEN FIRST CLASS. And speaking of movies, the “X-Men: First Class” movie appears to have begun casting, so it may actually be a “go.” James McAvoy has signed on to be the young(er) Professor X. They’ve also got a director (Matthew Vaughn) and a release date of June 2011.
5. TEEN TITANS . . . Hasn’t been good since Geoff Johns left it several years ago. In fact, it’s been awful. To try to save this once venerated franchise, D.C. is bringing in JT Krul. Krul wrote the Blackest Night Titans spin-off, which wasn’t horrible but was pretty much dispensable. He says he’s going to try to make the team stable and relevant again. That would be nice. During both the Marv Wolfman and Johns runs, it was one of my favorite reads.
6. THE RETURN OF THE LIZARD. If you don’t know that Amazing Spider-Man has been revamping and reintroducing Spider-Man’s rogues gallery, one crook at a time, then you haven’t been reading this blog enough. Spidey’s enemies are by far the most engaging group of baddies in comic history. Yeah, Batman has a bunch of foes, but they’re not nearly as distinctive as the ones created by Stan Lee so many years ago, which included a zoo crew (Lizard, Vulture, Rhino, Scorpion); hunters, thieves and killers (Kraven, Chameleon, Shocker, Mysterio); mob leaders (Hammerhead, Kingpin, Silvermane); forces of nature (Molten Man, Electro, Sandman, Hydro Man); and of course the evil geniuses (Green Goblin, Tinkerer, Doc Ock). The latest three-issue arc featured The Lizard, reimagined now as a Jeckyl/Hyde type who can control little lizards like Aquaman speaks to fish. The plot itself was fairly simple, and not nearly as interesting as the Rhino and Sandman arcs, but it was well-written. For example, the internal dialogue is on a par with Daniel Way’s work on Deadpool. The star here, though, is artist Chris Bachalo. Amazing work on a title that is surprisingly solid and consistent considering it publishes thrice monthly.
7. THE RETURN OF BRUCE WAYNE. Between this title and Batman and Robin, I’m actually turning into something I never thought I’d be: A fan of Grant Morrison. His narratives are still a little too random and insidery for me, a casual Batman reader, but they’ve gotten much better than they used to be. And the stories are constantly intriguing. I know where this miniseries has to end, but I have no idea how it is going to get there.
8. THE DEATH OF DRACULA/X-MEN #1. By now most of you probably know that Victor (Deadpool: Merc With A Mouth) Gischler and Paco (Deadpool) Medina has written the next big X-Event, “Curse of the Mutants,” which is about mutants and vampires. Basically, Lord Drac dies and the rest of the bloodsuckers scramble for a new leader. Wow! That sounds . . . Stupid. No, not stupid: Blatant and pathetic. We know all the teens are digging Twilight, and True Blood is the only popular show left on HBO, but come one. The one-off Claremont did, years ago, where Storm hooked up with Dracula in the Uncanny X-Men title was good. But no more ever needed to be said on the topic. I’d say I’ll keep an open mind, but that would be a lie. I won’t. X-Men books have been too convoluted, intermingled, intermixed and complicated for decades now, and just starting at an issue #1 simply is too little, too late. How did Claremont’s brilliant vision get so off track?
9. AVENGERS MOVIE. Last but not least, one of my favorite new actors, Jeremy Renner, may play Hawkeye in The Avengers. Combine that with Joss Whedon in line as director and you’ve got The Best Superhero Movie Ever Made.
Tags: Comic books, Filthy Muties, Green Lantern, Hulk, Spider-Man, Superheroes, The Caped Crusader, Zombies
