Rapper's deeelite

“Hip-Hop Won’t Stop: The Beat, The Rhymes, The Life,” a major collecting initiative by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History was announced today at the Hilton Hotel. The museum’s multi-year project will trace hip-hop from its origins in the 1970s, as an expression of urban black and Latino youth culture, to its status today.

I was there, with the Supervillana.

Pioneers from the hip-hop community donated a first bacth of objects: Russell Simmons, Grandmaster Flash, Afrika Bambaataa, Kool Herc, Ice T, Fab 5 Freddy and Crazy Legs were in the house and they brought their tongues.

And they put on a helluva show. I swear I've never seen so many white execs sweat so much and giggle so histerically to hide their panic - particularly after Bambaataa and Kool Herc dropped the rap on boycotting commercial hip-hop radio and IceT broke the prophanity record set by the Aristocrats.

There were also incredibly inspiring moments, for instance when Grandmaster Flash described how a little kid who wasn't allowed to touch his Dad's stereo learned to rewire it and lately to assemble pieces of rusty junk into finely-engineered turntables and pick-a-boo systems (hey djs from the 80s, how would you have known in advance the next track to mix if it hadn't been for him?)

Hate it or love it - we can discuss at length on the pros and cons of putting hip hop in a glass case (Russell Simmons, "When they told me i first thought 'Shit it's over! The party is over!') and we WILL - it is goddamn recognition, it was about time, hopefully something good will come out of it and people who actually uderstand something about hip hop will be in charge of curating the collection (chief curator was there, she actually seemed well versed in the uni-verse of verse spitting).

It will be knowledge, passed on to generations in bad need of a reason and a background and a motivation.
Hip-hop, just like jazz, defines what it means to be American: to know it, to understand it, is to know something about the house we live in.

This, notice, all said by an Italian.

Ice T: "Next time someone asks me about my music, I'ma say 'Take your fucking ass to the museum!"

Stay tuned for a podcast - it was a show, the finest asskicking bombdropping un-pc poetic raggedy shit. You can't miss it.
Until then, enjoy the pics (Russell Simmons and Grandmaster Flash courtesy of la Supervillana)

Sir Paul's badass blues

Last night on PBS' Great Performances: "Paul McCartney: Chaos and Creation at Abbey Road"

And you know I'm not a great Beatles fan. Check out my previous entries on music, for crying out loud, as much as I recognize their importance in setting the pillars of whatever we define today as "rock and roll" (and more indirectly showing us the path to stardom frenzy and celeb obsession), clearly the Liverpoolians and I ... u-uh. Not happening.

But then, last night happened. It's amazing how (some) good singers/performers improve with age and end up in greatness, like ... balsamic vinegar. Move it to increasingly smaller barrels and its texture and body and taste will skyrocket. Ageing vocalists may lose stamina, range and pitch but, oh, the SOUL they gain, in exchange for that. It's like Faust's pact, only reversed. They gain a soul (in their voice) instead of losing it.

So, Sir Paul has it. His voice, at times shaky, was cutting deep, incredibly moving, chromatic, versatile.

He showed how back in the day they used to overlap layers of recording to build a track, combining 3 tracks on a 4th.

He mesmerized the audience with a blues version of Lady Madonna, ***** !

And his guitar playing? Forget it. I never thought I'd write this, but Paul McCartney can play a mean-ass blues guitar (now, I don't know what James Blood Ulmer would say about it, I on my part was truly impressed)

I have a soft side for good lines

... you know, being a writer and such.
I already blogged about (and pretty much exhausted) McInerney's opening line for his New York Mag cover story on the Strokes "It's always 3am in Casablanca's voice". Time to move on.

"You, you and you: panic. The rest of you - come with me"
(Upcoming CBS series "The Unit", starring Dennis Haysbert)

Thank you Angel Heart

A public nod of gratitude to Angel Heart.

I knew the Detroit rapper/producer J Dilla aka Jay D, born James Yancey, by reputation and had occasionally heard some of the tracks, mostly strokes of genuine musical delite, he produced for the likes of Common, Tribe called quest etc. Like all of us I read the news of his passing, a few days ago at the age of 32, and noticed the unsurprisingly sudden rush to review his latest work, DONUTS. But until last night I hadn't checked out the album itself.

Then, at a particularly inspired LCJO concert Angel Heart starts raving about it. And I finally sit down and listen. And it is by far one of the best albums I've heard lately. So thank you Angel Heart. Thank you Jay D and may you rest in peace, may the music you loved turn into light and may you bask in it.



Time the donuts of the heart ***

The best goodbye present Coldplay could give

... assuming their announced hiatus is final (assumption, not fact)

From today's NYTimes, by Claudia H. Deutsch:

"It may well have been the best 99 cents Alex Ostrovsky ever spent.

Early yesterday, he paid that amount to download "Speed of Sound," a song on the Coldplay album "X&Y," from the iTunes Music Store...He did not know it, but it was the billionth song the site had sold, and Apple was not about to let that go unnoticed.

So at 12:45 a.m., Mr. Ostrovsky's phone rang. It was an Apple employee, telling him that in addition to the song, Apple was giving him a 20-inch iMac, 10 iPods and a $10,000 gift card for the iTunes store. It is even establishing a scholarship at the Juilliard School in his name".

Yes, yes, I know it's courtesy of Apple computers, not Coldplay. But let's be poetic and assume it all came from Gwyneth's daughter, shall we?

Ostrovsky is 16. Before you know it, he will be one of us, crazy bloggers, iPodders, iTuners, SteveJobbers. Maybe I should save him. Yes, I think I will administer his new properties until he's old enough to enjoy them safely, say, for a couple of years...?

like crack for ears

If there were a way to inject music in vein, to make it hit the bloodstream any faster than it does by travelling thru the acoustic nerve, I swear I'd do it. I am a junkie for music.

Oh my God.

Pat Metheny - The way up
Prince - Black sweat
David Axelrod - The Edge/David McCallum
Digitonals - Snowflake vectors
Bonobo - Dismantling Frank
J. Steinkoler Quartet - the 8ball is neutral
One Be Lo - Deceptacons
Kano, Ghetto, Big Seac, Demon & Doctor - Get set
Ayatollah - The devil is sweet

Jeff "Tain" Watts - everything played at last Saturday's Jazz at Lincoln center's "Pittsburgh: from the heart of Steeltown" tribute concert
Mary Lou Williams - Mary's idea, as played at Jazz at Lincoln center's "Pittsburgh: from the heart of Steeltown" tribute concert (though Zodiac's suite remains my all-time favourite)
Strayhorn's "Raincheck" - STRICTLY as played at Jazz at Lincoln center's "Pittsburgh: from the heart of Steeltown" tribute concert, complete of a very a propos dedication by Artistic Director Wynton Marsalis: "to Chertoff", and all the players who are facilitating the post-Katrina reconstruction...

C'mon y'all we can't miss this!

Yes it's Chapelle, and no it's not on Oprah. It's in theaters, March 3.

Kanye West is Playboy's March interview

Self-explainatory, no need to comment on my side. Sit back and enjoy the ride. Just got the magazine, here's a few highlights...

Kanye West is Playboy's March interview.
The Grammy nominated (sic) rapper discusses being self-conscious, hip-hop homofobia, and why Jay-Z owes Playboy 1,000$

Acclaimed rapper Jay-Z tapped West to produce his new album, the album that will bring him out of retirement..
"I'm like the rap version of Chappelle. He talks about serious things, but he makes you laugh to keep from crying..
I'm nowhere near as good as Jay-Z, Eminem or Nas. So I compensate... With star power, sheer energy, entertainment, videos, really good outfits and overwhelmingly, ridiculous dope tracks..
I have normal conversations all the time while looking at these sites (his fav. porn sites, "Ass man's paradise" and "Mexican lust"). If this were a phone interview I'd probably be looking at porn. It's an addiction. Whenever we go to the porn store, we call it the crack house. And I stash my porn just like someone would stash weed, in a baggie..
She was my girlfriend and she had great titties (talking about the girl he lost his virginity to) even by my standards today... the nipples were almost the same color as the skin. I used to love those f**king titties. I'd stare at them.."

Ok I WILL share a couple of comments then leave the floor to you.
First off: Jay-Z's new album? HOV-A PULLS A NEW ONE? Oh man, suddenly 2006 doesn't suck so much.
Second, well: Kanye's porn addiction (whether his, uh, rococo' taste in clothing and his speaking out against homofobia tells anything about his own sexual orientation is a trite issue...). His addiction will be the subject of future entries on these pages so stay tuned. I consider myself quite the libertine and yet I have to admit I was surprised at how common porn addiction, in various forms and degrees, is - in the States at least.
Coming soon: "tu quoque my unsuspectable friend?". "The case of the 'Blacks on Blonde' mov" (I still can't believe my eyes). And "Is there anything wrong with it anyway?"

As I said in one of my previous posts, sex and its role as a power tool in young generations will definitely be the subject of my next book.

Pink mist and last times detector

Great episode of Grey's anatomy tonight.

A man and his pal reenact WWII and build a piece of artillery. They fire it but it backlashes and one of the gunmen takes one in the chest. Christina Ricci - a paramedic on her second week on the job - gets to stick her hand in the man's chest to stop the beeding. But only at the hospital, with the patient already in OR and the surgeon ready to go in (and Christina to remove her hand) do they realize that the granade DIDN'T GO OFF upon firing. It's in the man's chest, a bomb ready to explode. So everybody freeze: we're calling a code black, bomb squad gets in, Christina keep your fucking hand where it is. Pull a Wednesday Addams and FREEZE.

Someone later on in the episode mentions the "pink mist". Apparently it's the bomb squad's code for a target that blows up.

Someone else in the episode talks about last moments, how they're important although you never realize when you're living one (last kiss with your soon-to-be ex-boyfriend, last words with your soon-to-pass grandma). And it reminded me of yet another idea for a book I had. What if someone invented a "last times detector", a decoy that actually detects such moments and beeps every time, advising you that you'd better live it to the max, cuz it's the last one you'll have. Wouldn't it be cool?

Yeah, I already know what you're gonna say. No, it wouldn't be cool at all. Some things it's better not to know you'll never have again.

I love music - part 1

And the Grammys, because they're just like Christmas with the family: you already know it's going to be one fucked up, tacky ride, but you also know you'll end up having a great time, and someone may actually surprise you with acts of incredible generosity and some pretty good jokes (in the case of Grammys, substitute "generosity" with "talent" - I don't see Sly of Sly and the Family Stone giving away his Christian Dior maxi-logoed shades anytime soon. Or Kanye give up his nightstalker black leather gloves for that matter. Wait though, Bruce Springsteen was there so I take it back: generosity, humanity and Grammys, compatible after all).

Anyway, in consideration of my love for music - and yes for the Grammys too (love/hate, it will be full-on love when they'll promote Jazz Grammys too to primetime) here are my favourite 2006 Grammy Awatds moments. And my playlist for the week.

Ducati's 2006 Grammy highlights:

Bruce Springsteen "Devils and Dust", acoustic, beautiful, final words, "Bring 'em home!"
Jay Z, Linkin Park, "Encore" and a GREAT piano transition to "Yesterday", with Sir Paul McCartney joining in
Alicia Keys and Steve Wonder, a cappella, "Higher ground"
Dave Chapelle, on how as a kid he promised his Mom to climb right to the top of the socio-economic ladder ("I was a smart kid!") and once there, to go right back to Africa...
Keith Urban. Yes, Keith Urban, Nicole, country and all. I love fine execution and musicianship, even I don't necessarily dig the genre.
U2, performance and acceptance speech(es): Bono, explaining how the "atomic bomb" that is dismantled as per title of their latest album is in fact his Dad, with whom he had never made peace.. until he passsed.. and until last night. Bono again, accepting their, 4th? 5th? statuette: "If you think all this will go to our head....Too late!"
Matt Dillon to Ludacris: "I'ma leave you read the nominations for Best rap act, cuz you're a far better rapper than I am". Luda: "Aw, thank you man! That means a lot to me"
Common. The most gorgeous man in the room. Please Common (what the hell is your real name again?), marry me.
Corporate, 3-pieces-of-tweed Jay Z: love him.
Kanye West, as a memento of how one should never dress (but always sing and produce).

Ducati's playlist for the current week:

All Is Full Of Love (Video Version) Björk
All Things Must Pass Harrison Joel George Harrison
Amazon Galaxy 2 Galaxy
Awakening Corey Christiansen
Busy Signal Prefuse 73
Crest Tortoise
Fix You Coldplay
Follow The Leader Eric B. & Rakim
Get By Remix (Remix) Talib Kweli Feat. Mos Def, Jay
Kanye West-I'm Good
Ghostwriter Rjd2
Glosoli Sigur Ros
God is a DJ Faithless
Gogol Bordello - Gypsy Part of Town
Gold Genius/GZA RZA Liquid Swords
Home Depeche Mode
hoppípolla Sigur Rós
Hyper-ballard Bjork
In the Back Seat The Arcade Fire
Inca roads Frank Zappa
Kill Switch DJ Krush Feat. Aesop Rock DJ Krush Jaku
Kiss Of Death Jadakiss Kiss Of Death
Labels Genius/GZA
Not about love Fiona Apple
Old School ft. Talib Kweli Danger Doom
Pelican Narrows Caribou
People Are People Depeche Mode
Perverted Undertone Prefuse 73
Poinciana Ahmad Jamal At The Pershing
Precious Depeche Mode
Propellerheads - On Her Majesty's Secret Service
Protect Me From What I Want Placebo
Raw Big Daddy Kane Colors
Shes Hearing Voices Bloc Party
Solid Ashford & Simpson
Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own U2
Song Seller Klute
Song X Pat Metheny, Ornette Coleman
Stormy Cloud DJ Krush Feat. Ken Shima DJ Krush Jaku
Straight Outta Compton N.W.A.
Tacky Klute
Take it easy The Fugees
Talk Cold Play
This Woman's Work Maxwell
You rock my world Michael Jackson - DjCam remix
Windowlicker Aphex Twin

And just like that the frown is gone

New Line Cinema has acquired The Jazz Ambassadors, a pitch for Antoine Fuqua to direct and Morgan Freeman to star in as jazz impresario Duke Ellington, says Variety. Fuqua is expected to next direct the Paramount drama By Any Means Necessary this spring.
"Jazz" covers the Ellington orchestra's tour of Iraq during a 1963 CIA-led coup that would eventually pave the way for Saddam Hussein's rise to power.
Part of the intrigue is the discovery, years later, that the CIA exploited the global zeal for Ellington's jazz by planting spies in the entourage as the orchestra toured hostile parts of the world. When and if Ellington knew of the program will be part of the drama.

(courtesy of eJazznews)

Denzel Washington in Fuqua's Training day? Oooooohhhh. Big O. B-I-G O.

I guess I needn't comment

But I will say I'm ashamed. And frustrated. I saw my first opera at 12, at La Scala theater, Milan, my hometown. It was Puccini's Madame Butterfly. Last act, how a butterfly dies: with an immaculate kimono, on an immaculate stage, the katana firmly pushed in her own belly, falling on her knees, bending over, opening a laquer-red fan underneath her body. From where I was sitting, it looked like a pool of blood growing and growing and growing...

"Three major Italian houses could face government takeovers because of growing financial problems, the London Times reports.

Venice's La Fenice has a deficit of 3 million euros; Genoa's Teatro Carlo Felice expects a loss of 4.6 million euros; Naples' Teatro San Carlo projects a shortfall of close to 7 million euros. Italian law says that any opera house with a deficit of over 5 million euros will be declared bankrupt and placed under the oversight of a government appointee.

The opera houses blame the government for their financial problems. Prime minister Silvio Berlusconi has slashed the country's arts budget, much of which is spent on subsidizing opera, by one third".

The again, the local scene is not turning my frown into a smile. What if I told you a Colorado music teacher tried to pique the curiosity of the first, second, and third graders in one of her classes about opera, chosing a video of Gounod's Faust, to teach the children about bass and tenor voices, the use of props, and "trouser roles" in opera, only to find herself facing the following accusations: being a lesbian (I guess in the Capital State of Evangelicals it's considered a crime), promoting homosexuality and devil worshipping? She was forced to take an administrative leave.

for Metaviz

... who enjoys posting visual stimulae, something along the line. Why? Because I sometimes feel just like this supernatural woman. And because it's beautiful.



EARPLUG ISSUE #61: Design Credit Decoylab

For the young at heart

Kenny has always been my favourite South Park character... See what happens when I get my hands on a "create your own character" online game?

Ladies and gentlemen, meet ... Lenny.



Dedicated to alpha, who dared say I'm not funny when I blog. I didn't ring his neck just because we where at the Guggenheim museum and I already had enough on my hands - fans to fend off and Art to take in (Art, what Art? I was so sick for all I know it could have been a Dubuffet show, not the very good David Smith show that it actually was).

IN-YOUR-FACE alpha ;)