The Wax Poetics podcast is out of control this week with the quiet storm jams. The songs near the end of the 2nd hour are directly vibing off of various slowjam mixes I made for friends a little while back.

Get it while it's hot.

Show for the week of September 18th, 2008.

Check the playlist:

Playlist for The Wax Poetics Record Rundown on 09.18.08
Artist	Track	Album	Label
Kool & the Gang	Summer Madness	45	DeLite
George Duke	Feel	Feel	MPS
Mellow Madness	Mellow Madness	A&M
The Whatnauts	I Can't Stand to See You Cry	45	GSF
Brief Encounter	I'm So Satisfied	45	Seventy Seven
Love Love Love	Anne Sexton	45	Seventy Seven
JR Bailey	Too Far Gone to Turn Around	45	Toy
Little Royal	Jealous	45	Trius
Sweet and Innocent	Express Your Love	45	Active
Edwynn Page	Are You Somebody's Girl	45	2 Hot Records
Conquest	Never Alone	45	Music Store
Frank E. Jeffrys Jr.	Plain and Simple	Plain and Simple	Shag
Venum	Heart to Heart	12"	Budweiser Showdown
The Isley Brothers	Don't Say Goodnight	Go All The Way	T Neck
Kevin McCord	Forever	12"	Presents
Errol Stubbs	Spaced Out On Your Love	45	EOR
Rick A. Webb and Raw Band	Til The End	12"	U.C.I. Records
Johnny Guitar Watson	Love Jones	Love Jones	DJM
Communicators and Black Experience Band	Has Time Really Changed	45	Tri Oak
Communicators and Black Experience Band	One Chance	45	Duplex
The Moments	Pray For Me	45	Wax Poetics
Aretha Franklin	Do Right Woman, Do Right Man	Aretha's Gold	Atlantic
D'Angelo	One Mo Gin	Voodoo	Virgin
Aaliyah	One in a Million	One in a Million	Atlantic
Ready For the World	Love You Down	12"	MCA
Art of Noise	Moments in Love	12"	Island
The System	Don't Disturb This Groove		Atlantic
Prince	If I Was Your Girlfriend	12"	Paisley Park
Sylvia Striplin	You Can't Turn Me Away	12"	Melodic
Delegation	The Promise of Love	12"	Shadybrook
Kaiya	Scandalous	12"	Sue International
Jimmy Dockett	Honey, That Strange and Funny Feeling	12"	Star Vision
Mad Lads	I Think I am Falling	Music For Lovers Only	Express
Don Blackman	Holding You Loving You	Blackman	GRP

Finally made it twelve songs. So just two new tracks, but really, really good ones:

track 3: Jesse & Crabbe - F9 Riot Squad
track 11: Demon vs Heartbreaker - You Are My High (white label remix)



(click the cassette)

Lazy sunday means redoing house playlists. Mmmmm.

For your listening pleasure, my current house music jam mix:



(click on the tape, dogg)

French house music will always, always be my savior. It's like a never-fail thing. How many three hour long nonstop French house mixes can I lose my mind to? Who knows!! Anyway, I am feeling good cause I am about to wrap up some epically troublesome scholarships essays, and am going to hang out with good peoples tonight and get my dance on. Because I am in such a good mood, and because someone recently uploaded a bunch of the Vanity 9 jawns, I will present to you some very fine ladies go-go/house dancing to my favorite jams:





( Two more for interested parties. )

Yesterday afternoon I caught the bus up to NYC with my girl Jenny. It was insufferably hot and humid in Philly, freezing on the bus, and cool, borderline chilly in Manhattan when we arrived. We met up with Pearce and eventually split up to later meet at Coney Island.

French fries and burgers at the most crowded Nathan's ever. Something like hipsters everywhere. So much American Apparel... which is not so bizarre, I said to myself, because there are 16 stores in NYC. Still, having something AA is like having a pair of skinny jeans, it felt. On the flip, a good deal of people were tweaking it out. New York kids tweak it, there is enough of a game there that makes you step your fashion up, which is good for people watching.

So we got there around 8 and the Rapture was already playing. Dizzy daaamn! Got in. Bought a t-shirt, which is in the dirty laundry already from smoke smell and stink. After the Rapture finished their set, I planted in the middle of the field. Quickly surrounded by tall dudes, I decided it'd be better to just post as far back so I could see Daft Punk in their pyramid, as well as get a good view of the two giant screens.

Daft Punk...

Must have had some sort of similar movie-watching childhood as me. During the set-up before they went on, some pretty good techno ish was playing. It stops, though, and this song comes on:

This song! Is played near the end of Short Circuit 2 when Johnny 5 is falling apart, wearing a mohawk and bandana and bleeding oil. Ugggh shameless nerd hearts...

I Need a Hero finishes and what comes next but the melody from Close Encounters of the Third Kind!?!?!?!?!?!?! What the FUCK! Does anyone remember that scene where the human camp is playing their higher pitched melody to the UFOs?? That was playing. I was praying that shit would explode and the heavy bass response would come on and our bodies would be moving to some really intense shit from the duo, but the melody concluded without that very epic bass response. The duo stepped up into their pyramid and the show began.

I will not bother summarize the set they did or how heavy shit got, but the set followed very closely to their performance at Coachella from 2006. Here's a zip file of that performance for ya'll (126 mb).

Their pyramid setup was out of control. Look, this is how things started, more or less.



So the bulk of the show was intense. I am a great fan of Around the World and Harder Better Faster Stronger, but when they played Da Funk, I think...that is the main reason why my back and neck hurt so much today.



Fuck.

The set ended with the smoothest slow-down version of Nightvision. Beautiful. And then after a good five minute wait, like a good, you almost walked out of the stadium cause you thought it was over wait... they came back on in these fucking suits that were just glowing bronzy outlines of themselves. Like a fiber optic line drawing. Here:



Ugh.

So I lost my mind. My two tightest homegirls were there. I ran into some new friends after the show, saw some internet familiar faces.

Friday afternoon, I catch a three-hour bus home after spending too much money in ユニクロ.

Phew.

Something like a religious experience. It is your favorite when it never gets old.

For years I've just been blindly in love with Daft Punk, without ever bothering to look up any information about who they really are. Of course, the Interstella 5555 movie (a compilation of videos made for the Discovery album, four of which aired on Adult Swim years ago), and the Alive I mean Human After All album brought to the foreground something about the duo that I felt ...connected with.

Lo and behold, here they go talking about making that album and what their personal desires are, and it's like ...some intensely resonant "killing me softly" shit. I CAN'T WAIT TO SEE THEM IN AUGUST.

Watch this interview.


This half is the most interesting, I think.

February is over starting today. It was a fun month, I guess. I mean, by way of my photographic chronicle.
But this post is about Valentine's Day, and the boot-knockin mix I made for the occasion.

1. 112 - Anywhere
2. H-Town - Knockin' Da Boots
3. Jodeci - Come And Talk To Me
4. Ginuwine - So Anxious
5. Jodeci - Freek N' You
6. Boyz II Men ft. LL Cool J - Hey Lover
7. R. Kelly - Your Body's Callin'
8. Silk - Freak Me
9. Changing Faces ft. Keith Sweat - Stroke U Up
10. Tevin Campbell - Shhh
11. R. Kelly - It Seems Like You're Ready
12. Art Of Noise - Moments In Love (Beaten mix)

As with the sleepysexy mix, I've included an iTunes xml playlist that you can load. Now get freaky. It's not too late.

Download at your leisure. 75mb.

Something about this song, this video, really grabs something in me. Natsukashii... Feels nice. Words strike true. And then also, Nas is really classy. Really New York. Spot on American looking. Take it in.

"That's why the gangster rhymers ain't inspired."

When I had Batou, he used to sit on the table in my bedroom, connected to my speakers, playing songs from sleepysexy as I fell asleep at night. It's good for the kind of mood I like to be in often. Something for writing. Something for touching. This is one of my favorite playlists ever. Of course, as time passes, songs are added and taken away. Right now I present 18 tracks from it, along with the xml playlist for iTunes. The first 18 are to be played in order, but the after about 36 there is no organization, because sleepysexy can be listened to at random just as well.


1. Esthero - Superheroes
2. Bjork - So Broken
3. Doves - Firesuite
4. Chris Isaak - Blue Spanish Sky
5. Poe - Junkie (I just realized this was a bad file towards the end, please redownload.)
6. Portishead - It Could Be Sweet
7. Janet Jackson - Any Time, Any Place
8. Miles Davis - Autumn Leaves
9. Lovage - To Catch A Thief
10. Bjork - Charlene
11. Bill Withers - Who Is He (And What Is He To You?)
12. Fiona Apple - The Child Is Gone
13. Erykah Badu - Didn't Cha Know
14. The Cardigans - Deuce
15. Air - How Does It Make You Feel?
16. Massive Attack with Tracey Thorn - The Hunter Gets Captured By the Game
17. Minnie Ripperton - Inside My Love
18. Fiona Apple - Slow Like Honey

Download. 96.5 mb

http://youtube.com/watch?v=s66kkoJQMIg

Go there. Watch it.
I heard about the Rapture a long time ago, but this is the first time I bothered to listen to them. The video makes me swoon. I have wanted a roller disco birthday party for about three years straight now. Maybe for my 24th year I can make it happen.

Really, I didn't get excited at this video (like for real for real) until the girl came walking in. Fucking dreamy hot girl on skates. Her attitude and style and the way she moves and seems to just be having fun... let me be as amazing!

Also, let's all listen to Kano.

My plan of working at building up a futuristic wardrobe for fall and winter is slowly beginning.

Futurism.

Fun.

Let's do it.

STANCE PUNKS, my friends. For all my nerds, they did that one fucking awesome punk rock Naurto opening theme. They're a fucking awesome punk rock band in general, and they are on a US tour with other Japanese rock bands! YOWZA!

http://www.sxsw-asia.com/JapanNite2006/tourdate.html

Seriously. This shit is happening in the next few weeks. The tour is stopping in Philly next Wednesday (22nd at the Khyber for 8 bucks. If you like rock and roll, Japanese shit, music from other countries, or Naruto (weakest reason), GO!

PS, for my Mass peeps, the tour is hitting Cambridge on the 21st

This is why Busta Rhymes, no matter what path he travels down (though he seems to be returning to his awesome insanity), will always be the bomb dot com. The following is from the intro song to his album Extinction Level Event, and it is INTENSE. Listen here (right-click, save-as)

"Daddy, what's it gonna be like in the year 2000?"

"Well, sweetheart, for your sake, I hope it'll be all peaches and cream. But I'm afraid the end time is near; the cataclysmic apocalypse referred to in the scriptures of every holy book known to mankind. It will be an era fraught with boundless greed and corruption, where global monetary systems disintegrate, leaving brother to kill brother, for a grain of overcooked rice.

"The nations of the civilized world will collapse, under the oppressive weight of parasitic political conspiracies, which remove all hope and optimism from their once faithful citizens.

"Around the globe, generations of polluters will be punished for their sins, unshielded by the ozone layer they have successfully depleted, left to bake in the searing, naked rays of light.

"Wholesale assassinations serve to destabilize every remaining government, leaving the starving and wicked to fend for themselves.

"Bloodthirsty, renegade cyborgs, created by tax-dodging corporations wreak havoc. Pissed off androids , tired of being slaves to a godless and gutless system, where the rich get richer and the poor get fucked over and out, unleash total worldwide destruction by means of nuclear holocaust, annihilating the terrified masses, leaving in its torturous wake nothing but vicious, cannibalistic, mutated, radiated, and horribly disfigured hordes of satanic killers, bent on revenge. But against whom? There are so few left alive.

"Starvation reigns supreme, forcing unlucky survivors to eat anything and anyone in their path.

"Massive earthquakes crack the planet's crust like a hollow eggshell, causing unending volcanic eruptions.

"The creatures of the seven seas, unable to escape to a certain death upon land, boil in their liquid prison.

"Disease encircles the earth; plagues and viruses with no known cause or cure laying waste to whatever draws breath.

"And humankind, having proven itself to be nothing more than a race of ruthless scavengers, fall victim to merciless attack at the hands of interplanetary alien tribes, who seek to conquer our charred remains.

"This is extinction level event, the final world front. And there is only one year left."

"Wow, that's cool! I can't hardly wait!"

"You don't have to. Because here it is…"

Do you want holiday music to get in the mood?

Do you want good holiday music? Stuff you'd probably never hear on the radio in some places? Stuff you'll be happy to hear?

Go here:

http://www.somafm.com

"Xmas in Frisko"

I work at Old Navy. I've worked at two of them, one in Massachusetts and one in the heart of Philadelphia, and while the demographic is understandably different, the store music we get is, for the most part, the same.

When I moved from Mass to Philly, it was in the middle of May. I had heard plenty of my Mass store's CD for the month, and quite honestly, was very fond of it. May was mostly indie rock up at ole #6495. In April we had ultimate reggae CD (with quite a few songs I had loved in my ska heyday) with indie rock and "jungle house," as one of my buddies put it. Usually, the store CD will consist of some catchy indie rock, some sort of strange pop from outer space, one or two top 40 songs that are popular or on the rise, a few easy R&B tracks, and the aforementioned jungle house, which is mellow and groovy. But I digress.

When I got to my new Old Navy home in Philly, on my first day I noticed that one of my favorite songs from the CD that month was not there! In fact, several of my jams for the month weren't on this CD. I anticipated a different CD, since Philly has a large black population (nearly half..48 or 52 percent, I forget). And as anticipated, #6470's CD was dotted with considerably more hip-hop and R&B type songs. I guessed Massachusetts, which has about 10 black people, got the indie pop rock CDs and I'd just have to deal. Which was not a problem, because I usually enjoy the store CDs.

So, whereas I hear the GAP has more of a safe, mellow selection, and Abercrombie & Fitch (which doesn't even have a store IN Philadelphia) has crazy booming techno jams and remixes, Old Navy has this amazing eclectic mix, which undoubtedly pleases customers and employees alike. Even the holiday CDs we got last year (which spanned two months) were enjoyable, and they sold the CD itself. Remixes of old carols that weren't typical holiday songs. But again, I digress.

On every CD, there are a few songs I really love. I anticipate when it's coming up, and I make special time to rock out accordingly. The sad thing is that, having dropped out of perhaps all music scenes years ago, I never quite know who the artists are. I'm usually okay with not knowing, though, since I get to hear plenty of the song at work, and by the time the month is over, I'm ready for new music. Admittedly, sometimes I am sad that my song is no longer playing, but there is always a new song that will replace it.

But perhaps the most delightful, surprising thing that can occur, is hearing a work song outside of work, and discovering who the arist is. Countless times, I've found out an artist and been amazed. Other times, we'll get a new CD that has a song on that I already have. (When I first started working at Old Navy last Halloween, a Suede song I had on my iPod was on the CD, and I was elated to sing all the lyrics like a sappy jerk.) It's little stuff like finding a new artist that makes me laugh.

Inadvertantly, I've listened to and liked Interpol, the Kaiser Chiefs, the Killers, fucking CHROMEO (who I discovered further, rather serendipitously, two days ago), Amerie before she got big again... I mean, a lot of these bands are fairly mainstream or have had a hit on the radio by now, but this was all before it actually happened. Currently, we have the Gorillaz and a band that sounds remarkably like Puffy Ami-Yui, though I cannot decipher. The CD is poppin'. Old Navy is the fucking SCENE man!

Here, I chuckle. Old Navy just owns my soul. I'm sorry.