Tuesday, April 21, 2009

008: A shameless plug

Most of the time, the bands my friends are in are really shitty. And unfortunately, I have to let that be known.

Shotgun Highway, on the other hand, is definitely not one of those instances. FACT: Tony (the guitarist also known as Tony Midas) has been a friend of mine for years, and guitarist J.D. Steel (known in 3D as Jarret) has been an acquaintance for quite a few moons. The friendship in-between Tony and I usually means that when I see his live band (which I actually have) I'll have to tell him how bad it sucked by choosing my words carefully. After seeing the Shotgun Highway recently, though, all of my ideas changed and my mind quickly scrambled to come up with enough words to praise the 35-minute set I witnessed.

SH manages to mix the exciting musical and vocal gymnastics of Judas Priest while simultaneously channeling the sleazy attitude of an early '80s band trolling the Sunset Strip. Their live show is something to behold, one of the rare instances where a band recorded is way better live.

They have a bunch of shows coming up (you should look on their Myspace), and if you can overcome the unfortunate photos at the top of the profile you can find a band with the whole package and who have it, whatever it may be. What is it? It's it. Was it? Or was it not?

Things to ponder.

Friday, April 17, 2009

007: "u mad?": The 5 Best Rap Beefs Of All-Time (#5)

So I've been accused of being too-long winded in my blog entries, and that's all fine and dandy. So, in stark contrast to some philosophical bullshit I may spew out, I'm just going to simply let the music do the talking.

#5: G-Unit Vs. The Game

Any rap beef that escalates to the point where it forces a reputable wordsmith to put out a 15-minute diss track that lives up to its hype definitely constitutes a decent feud.

The Game gets brought into the G-Unit fold at the urging of Aftermath's Dr. Dre. Being the first prominent signee (barring Dre, who was kind of the architect of this entire empire) from the West Coast, The Game had a bit of trouble fitting in. Tempers flared during the recording of The Game's first album, The Documentary. The Game wasn't playing nice (disrespecting 50 by appearing on a track recorded by Joe Budden, a perrenial 50 target as well as showing up in a Jim Jones video, too) and the plot to have the stable of artists work together quickly fell apart.

Game kept yelling out 'G-Unot' wherever he could (even in 50's backyard), angering the G-Unit clique. 50 then claimed to have written the rhymes on one-third of The Documentary and that The Game's second album would surely flop. The many-on-one attack (the G-Unit roster vs. The Game, all on his own) showed the fact that The Game could take on a multitude of attackers all at once and still hold his own, becoming a formidable, wordy opponent.

The feud died down after the release of '300 Bars', but the mantle was picked up by G-Unit member Young Buck and G-Unit affiliate Spider Loc, who released a bunch of tracks on mixtapes aimed at The Game. He, in turn, bided his time and the last move made in the feud (semi-officially, or as officially as people consider mixtapes to be) was a song released in May 2008 called 'Our Turn', from one of the Black Wall Street mixtapes. This feud still lies dormant, though it may rear its amusing head some day soon. Until then, 50 will continue to wear a wig and act stupid.

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

006: TGHC And Me

The Context
I was never a tough kid. In high school, I was often the kind, nice kid who sat in the corner/side of the class, made idle smalltalk when it was time and who didn't have too many friends and was an easy target for the bigger hallway predators. To say that my teenagers years were drama-free would be a blantant falsehood, but I didn't have it as bad as many people do, relatively. Even while living through my angsty trials and tribulations I recognized this fact and was grateful for what I had, but once in a while I'd enter a phase of downward emotional feeling, a period of intense self-loathing as I learned to cope with my feelings of being pushed into adulthood, into a world I was (and still am, to a degree) unsure of, and of being forced to make decisions that impacted my future.

Unable to outwardly deal with those emotions, I often listened to music that would allow me to vent without saying a word, to release anger from my body, a form of abstract meditation that found me nodding in time to kick drum blasts and the chugga-chugga of the primal guitar riffs as they slowed down long enough for a breakdown. It allowed me some degree of inner peace, an odd sense of calmness that washed over me much like the rain you can imagine hearing in Enya songs. (Disclosure: Yes, I've heard multipke Enya songs and I don't really care what you make of that. I do believe that there's no such thing as a guilty pleasure if you truly love it.)

The First Contact


The opening salvo from Hatebreed's 2002 tough-guy hardcore pseudo opus Perseverance immediately drew me in as I heard it that summer. The track was entitled 'Proven' and Jamey Jasta spat relentless. "You wanna see me fail? You'll never get your chance," Jasta posited. I was lovestruck from the onset. I had previously heard the album's first single 'I Will Be Heard' and found it highly enjoyable, but it wasn't until I heard 'Proven' that I truly understood the power of the music, its direct approach and the muscular instrumentation that had been lacking from first-wave hardcore records. The better production made the listening experience more palatable, though for the record I still count Black Flag's Damaged in my top 5 records ever, despite its technical shortgivings.

The music's direct approach attached to it a certain amount of danger to the music; there was no room to speak about unicorns and old towns, no need to mention the joys of cocaine dealing and acquiring carnal knowledge. These were tunes armed with a sense of immediate purpose, they were songs meant for a survivalist's ear, one who aspired to thrive and continue to live another day. Such lofty ideals like sex and money were pushed under the rug and the basics (social justice, fairness, anti-racist sentiments) were expounded upon, rehearsed and then recorded in quick succession. These sorts of qualities appealed to someone with a sense of danger like me, who enjoyed the sense of purpose in listening to the music created and who (somewhat) understood its messages and bought into them more easily then I would other forms of music, whose intentions and motives I often questionned more. What did fuck is Cedrix Bixler singing about on 'Pattern Against User'? was a far more recurring statement in my pubescent mind than I wonder who Scott Vogel is discussing on 'Don't Need Your Help'.

Feeding The Urge

I soon scoured the internet on my shitty dial-up connection, hoping to find more of this music. This was the age before the prominence of Google and Wikipedia, where search engines were hit and miss. I relied upon a variety of websites to keep me informed and educated about bands that I might like and that's how I fell in with bands like Madball, Agnostic Front, Integrity and Terror.

Madball's brand of New York hardcore definitely appealed to me. A precursor to the proper tough guy hardcore movement, it represented simplistic lyrics that first branched out of the Black Flag/Minor Threat school of using as little metaphors as possible in their lyrics. 'Police Story'? 'Screaming At A Wall'? 'Rise Above'? These all sound like straight-ahead anthems and their lyrics were rather self-explanatory. Madball had songs like 'Set It Off' and 'Pride' (which included lines like 'All grown up I gotta do for myself/I refuse to depend on anyone else") and most songs lasted less than 2 minutes, a collection of orally-charged shotgun blasts of buzzsaw guitar and breakdowns which expounded upon the ills that singer Freddy Cricien saw.

These bands, in a live setting, are formidable creatures, able to whip up a small hall into a strange sort of cult-like frenzy. I once attended a Hatebreed show where a circle pit broke out, while a series of hardcore dancers spinkicked their way to glory in the middle. The scene looked like a strange Broadway musical narrated by a deranged, sandpaper-voiced protagonist who needed to spit out some venom at an unknown target, courteously summed up by the 'you' pronoun.

The Giant Pink Elephant In The Tough Guy Hardcore Room


The one true constant in the subset of tough guy hardcore music is the ever-present second-person pronoun. "You" becomes a catch-all for the vocalist to aim all of his/her venom at, to place blame upon. In a genre where metaphors are usually kept to a minimum, the apparition of the "you" becomes near-metaphorical when one considers the fact that "you" could mean anyone: the singer's mother, the singer's ex-girlfriend, the singer's old valet who fucked up his pimped-out '67 Oldsmobile. It becomes a catch-all that could be interpreted any number of ways, even when the context of the song's analyzed. This is the great contradiction in hardcore music, the one great deceit: in a simplistic musical genre, the very foundation upon which it is based (the hatred of the other) is in actuality a much more complex arrangement when one considers the fact that the pronoun used is vague enough to imply multiple meanings, based upon different readings by the listener. This makes exploring the genre that much more harder sometimes.

The Pulpit

But it's not at all about wordplay. Much like most punk rock, tough guy hardcore music is about having an ample amount of heart. To display this on one's sleeve and have fans love you for it is the hallmark of a truly great tough guy hardcore band. The bands involved in this subgenre keep it simple for a reason: it appeals to listeners, the meaning of its lyrics are easily discerned and chantable. Putting out records is just an excuse to tour and to connect with other fans and the band in a direct manner, to share in an event. There's a reason why tough guy hardcore frontment love to go off on rants in-between songs (looking at you in particular, Mr. Vogel): the message implied in the songs is made clear in these long-winded speeches, meant to wind up the crowd much in the same way preachers might preach about hellstone and damnation. These messages, though, are a lot more basic: believe in yourself and all obstacles can be surmounted. The belief in the self is paramount in all songs by tough guy hardcore songs. To give into others blindly is tantamount to treason – you have to be able to find it in yourself to move forward and beyond your problems.

That's why so many people buy into this kind of music, I think: the message of salvation in the self is more fulfilling in 2 minutes worth of TGxHCx than it is by sitting in a pew on a Sunday. It's like attending the coolest church on earth, but its tenets are simple: rock and ye shall be rocked. Push and ye shall be pushed. Believe and ye shall be filled with pride in the self. And that's all anyone can ever ask for.

Friday, April 10, 2009

005: A Fleet of Fleet-of-Foot Foxwood Foxes

Following from my insuccess at getting into Arcade Fire after repeated tries, the song Ragged Wood is doing a number on my brain on my third attempt to get into Fleet Foxes.

I guess what this says is that: I am a sucker for critical acclaim and alliteration. Which is true, I admit. But is it such a bad thing?

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

004.5: Sabbath > You (Counterpoint)

Being a life-long fan of most of Sabbath's catalogue (yes little Billy, Hastie even likes late '80s Sabbath), I feel the need to clear up some points Manley may have not thought of while composing his last entry.

Firstly, check out the title track of their self-titled debut. Sabbath guitarist-cum-god Tony Iommi makes effective use of the Devil's Third. Also known as the diabolus in musica, the thing just reeks of scary. The three notes employed by Iommi handily do the trick over a drawn-out, nightmarish backbeat. The story the Ozzman telleth is one of seeing a spirit (possibly even Satan!) that actually happened to bassist Geezer Butler before Sabbath's formation. Close your eyes and listen to the 6-minute opus and then then wonder if there's a sense of danger in there. I do belive there is.

No one at this time was making music that was inherently evil at the time. Their peers, like Pentagram, didn't start up until 4 or 5 years after Sabbath's apparition. Sabbath was, as Manley noted, singular and so didn't have a preset path to follow. Some of their riffs were based around blues-rock, sure, but Iommi also recognized the need to amp it up and so in a live setting he plays loud as fuck (employing multiple Laney stacks) and tunes down to C. He played beyond those blues riffs and created his own brand of riffing that incites instant recognition. How's that for powerful-sounding?

Secondly, Electric Funeral. The song itself, a testament to apocalyptic war, is aided by another nasty riff and Ozzy's lower register. Shit just sounds EVIL (even live). Ozzy's "crooning" works effectively here once more.

Watching Ozzy cover 'In My Life' isn't considering the fact that he makes/made up one-fourth of the members of Sabbath. One latter-day piece of work by one member of the band doesn't necessarily taint the whole band, I feel. Also, Tony Iommi's Iommi album features a host of screamers and screechers on there anyways.

Similarly, I could argue that watching HORSE The Band cover the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles song lowers them down by sounding like a second-rate punk band throughout most of the song. They don't sound evil, they sound snotty and and whiny, like prepubescent teeangers extolling their love of cartoons, but that would be taking the entirety of their music out of context too.

Manley's problem is that he equates fast music with evil. All of the bands he listed as contemporaries love to play fast. Sabbath's idea of being a lumbering giant in the night, destroying the shit out of stuff with giant prodding footsteps is in stark contrast to Manley's quest for speed, and therefore evil. Staying at a certain BPM (usually under 100) automatically takes a band out of the running for "evil".

Manley's assertion that Sabbath are just "a heavier, gloomier version of the Beatles parading around like they're the most evil and Satanic thing on the planet" is plainly false. When's the last time the Beatles wrote a song about the perils of cocaine? Or about the horrors of the war in Vietnam? Or about hell? No other band dealt with these aspects head-on, preferring to drape their musings in heavy metaphors for fear of being labelled 'Satanic'. The Beatles were all about having a good time and keeping their songs at the 3 minute mark, something that the Sabs blatantly disregarded. The Beatles embraced radio play while Black Sabbath never went looking for it, preferring the tried-and-true live route as the big way to gaining more fans.

The differences listed above are integral to each band's make-up. The Beatles were a pop band because their songs were cheery and radio-friendly, their albums packaged in a message of peace and love. Black Sabbath were angry and confused, their songs overtly long and only finding a pseudo-home once FM radio came to prominence in the '70s and even then played sparingly. Pop music's main objective is to reach as many people as possible (hence the popular moniker). Sabbath understood that they were a niche, an acquired taste, a real alternative to the Led Zeppelins, Deep Purples and Yes' of the day. Zeppelin, who definitely copped a few (dozen) riffs from the blues-rock domain sang about love and hot summer days. Yes crafted intricate concept albums that emphasized the use of synthesizers and a distinctive sonic space. Deep Purple similarly looked towards synth use as a primary vehicle for their music, as well as the need to jam things out in a live setting, like their 'Stairway to Heaven' brethren. Sabbath stood in defiance, offering up songs in a live setting that had a little bit of tweaking but largely remained the same, offering up a selection of evil-sounding songs and a message of danger.

Sure, the occasional love song would slip into Sabbath's repertoire ('Sabbath Cadabra' comes to mind), but they were mostly a bunch of evil-sounding Negative Nancys. Sabbath understood their place in the world and continued onwards, undettered. I do believe they sound evil and threatening, and are far removed from the pop moniker Manley wishes to attach to them.

NOTE: I've decided to stick with the "classic" '70s line-up due to the fact that they managed to stay together for most of the decade and have a lasting legacy. Dio's involvement in Black Sabbath/Heaven and Hell was all start-stop-start-stop and the various incarnation of the band in the '80s and '90s make it hard to judge because of lack of consistency.

004: Sabbath Bloody Sabbath

I got into a bunch of hot water with Hastie a week or so ago. He was extolling the virtues of Black Sabbath (much as he extolled the virtues of DMX yesterday) and I was having none of it. He was all "Sabbath bla bla bla" and "Ozzy bla bla bla" and I was like "Nuh-uhh."

My thinking was, Black Sabbath is a band built around a concept. That concept is that they are evil. It's pretty basic. Their name is Black Sabbath, and literally everything they do is draped and shrouded in gloom, murk, doom, and terror. It's the essential conceit of metal music. Just like rap: we are harder than you. Now just as rap has its Will Smiths, metal has its Mike Pattons as well. But the majority of metal bands are hell-bent for leather on seeming tough and evil and mysterious. It's why they use Latin words as song titles, it's why Scandinavia has produced so many seminal metal bands, and so on. In many cases, the posturing works.

Why does it work? Because the music backs it up by actually sounding evil. This is where my problem with Sabbath comes in: they don't. They don't fucking sound evil. They don't sound scary. I remember watching a video of Ozzy doing an acoustic cover of the Beatles' "In My Life" a few years ago and there was nothing incongruous about it. For one, Ozzy doesn't have a particularly intimidating voice. For two, he doesn't really push it to its limits. He doesn't scream, he doesn't growl. He sings. He practically fucking croons. And for three, the music he sings over is... blues-based rock. It's not very heavy, it's not very fast. It doesn't sound like it's going to tear the shit out of your house. It... it's just not powerful-sounding.

Now, the main thing to keep in mind here is that it's not Sabbath's fault. They are old as hell. When they were getting started, there were no pre-existing metal bands for them to evolve from. They represent a logical step in the progression of music from black American blues to white British rock and so on through the NWOBHM and then to the present. Without them, none of the heavy music I respect—Cancer Bats, Protest the Hero, Propagandhi, Genghis Tron, HORSE the Band, etc.—would probably ever have come to be. But when it comes to that short path between my ears and my brain, they leave me dissatisfied. I like Chuck Berry and I like the Rolling Stones. Sabbath? Not so much. They're a heavier, gloomier version of the Beatles parading around like they're the most evil and Satanic thing on the planet. Please.

So. I will stick to listening to Trap Them—who sound like the sort of horrific, shit-tearing-up music that I mentally associate with Sabbath's posturing—and Hastie can have his old-school metal.

Coming Later: Part 2: Why this doesn't apply to The Clash, but does apply to the Sex Pistols.

Monday, April 6, 2009

003: Irony in musical tastes

We live in an age where liking things ironically is considered the norm. The neo-hipster set has ruined any chance at letting things be, as the self-policing corps of tight jeans-wearing, filterless cigarette-smoking mob dictate what's cool and what's not. And like sheep, we let them, through websites, blogs and social networking sites. Our relative coolness is gauged and then mentally ranked. "Oh," one hipster would say to another, "I hear that Mark enjoys Iron Maiden." The other hipster would pause, and sigh. "Maybe it's just a joke. Maybe he just ironically enjoys the triple-guitar attacks of the band's current line-up." The first hipster would throw the spent cigarette to the ground and then squish it with his Chuck Taylors. "Nah," he'd say. "He knows all the words to 'The Trooper'. He can't be kidding." And then the two hipsters would mentally knock Mark down a notch in their totem pole of coolness, for actively enjoying a band as passé as (the almighty) Iron Maiden.

Because Mark is a hipster and not a devoted metalhead, his interest in Bruce Dickinson and co. is confusing. He should be out enjoying My Bloody Valentine's Loveless, not pumping his fist in the air while listening to '2 Minutes To Midnight'. That's what rednecks do, the hipster alleges. Hipsters are (supposedly) smarter and more involved, and their music should reflect that is a party line I've often heard before. Liking something as "moronic" as Iron Maiden is to be put down to the taste level of a southern Texas gas station attendant circa 1986.

To concede to a modern-day hipster that you enjoy something based on its merits and not its supposed ironic factor is an interesting concept. It is tantamount to heresy, an act not seen since the 17th century in some circles. To show off your tastes and be judged upon them is to label you a heretic, one who cannot be trusted with The Next Big Thing. It colours you a scarlet red, forever tainted in the eyes of those in your holier-than-thou circle.

The notion of irony creates a security net that allows people to admit to liking things without actually outright spelling that out. It's an unspoken agreement; though you may admit to liking something because it "makes you laugh" (like this) or its sheer absurdity (The Beach Boys go disco!), deep down inside a part of you most wholly enjoy it in order for you to even consider enjoying it "ironically". The safety blanket imposed by inserting the i-word allows you safe passage through the land of MC Hammer, Motley Crue and Star Wars flicks.

I'm not trying to defend people who have outright terrible taste, but rather empower those who want to admit to liking things that are non-canon per the hipster dictums. Watered-down versions of superior bands are usually a no-brainer when it comes to most musical genres. Being able to articulate why you enjoy something based upon its merits is good reasoning. Being unable to do so may lump you together with the target audience you're desperately trying to avoid in the eyes of your peers.

Thanks to the technological advances we can be kept up-to-date on every scene around the globe. Even 20 years ago, with the emergence of MTV/MuchMusic/other national video music outlets, scenes and tastes were largely local and/or regional, depending on where you were. There were clear differences inbetween East and West Coast rap music; New York hardcore and Cali hardcore were markedly different. But as technology advances, so do the invisible lines in-between scenes get erased, and tastes become unified and dictated a lot more clearly. Those in possession of the biggest internet traffic dictate the terms. The reasons for the traffic are varied (access to people who may be The Next Big Thing, album exclusives, the most up-to-date news, etc.), but the fact remains that it is still there.

Tastemaker sites like Pitchfork are ardently followed by thousands (and perhaps tens or hundreds of thousands through osmosis) and dictate what is cool and uncool. Where before that was decided on a local level, it is now decided on a pseudo-international level, thanks to the equality of the internet. How else could a record like the Arctic Monkeys' first album sell so well in the UK right out of the box? Pitchfork and co. deemed it "cool", and in response fans ran out and picked it up. The band's subsequent fall from grace denotes the fact that the band had once again fallen out of the good graces of the majority of those who bought the first album and moved on, to perhaps one day be labelled ironic and uncool due to a myriad of reasons.

I think we live in an age where we're scared to admitting what we like. Our guilty pleasures turn out to be our only pleasures, in some instances. We're scared to stray away from the party line lest we be mocked for enjoying things that other people enjoy in the comfort of their own abode.

So in that vein, I'm going to list off 3 things that I enjoy un-ironically:

1 – Boy bands
Sure, mock away. I happen to be ale to understand that one cannot judge all music using the same criteria. Comparing a Cursive album to a Converge album is like comparing apples to oranges. Sure, there are instruments and vocals involved, but beyond that there is a sea of difference. And so, with that viewpoint in mind, I feel as though I cannot judge pop music the same way I would just metal music. Pop music must be judged by itself, stood up against its peers and then reviewed accordingly. It is music is something I find to be enjoyable in a non-ironic way, as long as your radio dial doesn't hover around your local FM station with your ears glued to it 24/7, then you might find something you like before it's beaten to death through rerererererepetition. And one of my favourite subgenres of pop music happens to be boybands (and girlbands too, natch). Part of it has to do with the fact that boybands came to prominence again through my formative years and its sound has always stuck with me. A lot of the bands I happen to enjoy have catchy hooks and great production. Pick up Nsync's 'Gone' and give it a listen, and you shall see that if you took the band name off you could actually see yourself listening to it. I make no bones about enjoying this brand of music based upon its merits.

2 – "Emo" music
I think the music speaks for itself. Unfortunately labelled, unflinchingly emotive. Beyond the legion of black-wearing, bad-haircut-owning shmucks of today, there is great music if one just looks past the fans and access the music itself. Yes, sad bastard music, for those who understand it. Raw emotions abound, the need for metaphors is dropped. The wounded lyricist strikes back, and I think the primitive nature of a lot of the lyrics are attractive.

3 – Southern rock
Great musicmanship, catchy tunes and a laid-back attitude. These are three selling points in any music I happen to enjoy, and although those three are far from the only points I judge music upon, they play a large part. Bands like the Allman Brothers and Lynyrd Skynyrd received a bad rap due to their perceived public personas, in the case of Lynyrd Skynyrd people assumed they were loud rednecks and nothing else, due to their American southern roots. The truth is, though, that the original line-up that produced two untouchable albums of pristine material that's the perfect soundtrack to hot summer evenings. Leave your pretentions at the door and sit down and enjoy.

Unfortunately, the overplayed nature of 'Freebird' and 'Sweet Home Alabama' (and its use as a comedic punchline, in some case) knocks it down in the eyes of many, and the only thing a lot of people only see the words 'southern rock' and get turned off, assuming the word. Thankfully, there is much more beyond the descriptor words utilized.

002: Arcade Fire Musings

Listen, I love the shit out of Montreal. I've lived here all my damn life and I can hardly even imagine moving to Paris or New York once I inevitably hit it ridiculously big thanks to my infinite wellspring of talent and own more money than a person could comfortably fill a mattress with. And other people, if they share my love of this wonderful city, are cool in my book.

So it goes without saying that anyone who moves to Montreal despite our frigid winters, ridiculous potholes and underperforming Glorieux, reps Montreal, and, you know, makes it seem like Montreal is the place to be, is cool in my books.

So I have no beef outright with Arcade Fire.

But let's be honest, everyone: their music is pretty sucky. I know, I know! Pitchfork loves it. The Gazette loves it. Hipsters love the everloving shit out of it. Whatever. I have tried, I have tried so hard to get into them. I can't do it. Their music is boring. Face the facts, people. It's boring. Let's all go home now.

001: DMX Musings

Oh. says: (3:10:48 PM)
Man
Oh. says: (3:10:51 PM)
DMX IS SO HARD, SO THUG
pretty basic says: (3:13:01 PM)
...dmx is so dumb
Oh. says: (3:13:15 PM)
Man.
Oh. says: (3:13:17 PM)
Wrong.
pretty basic says: (3:13:21 PM)
man, right?
pretty basic says: (3:13:26 PM)
i think that's what you mean
Oh. says: (3:13:46 PM)
Ask me why
Oh. says: (3:13:49 PM)
Ask me why he rules.
pretty basic says: (3:14:13 PM)
he doesn't
pretty basic says: (3:14:15 PM)
point final
Oh. says: (3:14:17 PM)
http://www.tmz.com/2008/03/17/rapper-dmx-obama-who/
Oh. says: (3:14:18 PM)
That's why.
pretty basic says: (3:14:52 PM)
...
pretty basic says: (3:15:02 PM)
it's times like these when you truly sadden me brian
pretty basic says: (3:15:08 PM)
act like i didn't already know about this
pretty basic says: (3:15:15 PM)
from like eight months ago or something
pretty basic says: (3:15:18 PM)
c'mon now
Oh. says: (3:15:18 PM)
Man
Oh. says: (3:15:22 PM)
But I was illustrating a point
pretty basic says: (3:15:23 PM)
you think i'm some sort of idiot
pretty basic says: (3:15:35 PM)
like i don't know a damn thing about dmx
pretty basic says: (3:15:41 PM)
dmx circa today is like maybe
pretty basic says: (3:15:42 PM)
five things
pretty basic says: (3:16:06 PM)
1) rapper
2) dogs barking
3) getting arrested a lot
4) in a few shitty movies
5) you know your mother didn't name you obama

pretty basic says: (3:16:11 PM)
and that's it
Oh. says: (3:16:35 PM)
LOL
Oh. says: (3:16:36 PM)
Man
Oh. says: (3:16:37 PM)
What a list.
Oh. says: (3:16:45 PM)
Okay Manley, we need to start a musically-related blog
Oh. says: (3:16:50 PM)
Where we make observations like that
pretty basic says: (3:16:53 PM)
hm
pretty basic says: (3:17:23 PM)
brb, registering amusicallyrelatedblog.blogspot.com
Oh. says: (3:17:40 PM)
WHAT WHAT
Oh. says: (3:17:41 PM)
GReat idea