MAX
You keep right on talking, honey. I like the way you run me down like that.

—Barrie Chase and Robert Mitchum in Cape Fear (1962)

(Via.)

Related reading: “The Failure of Post-Feminist Hip-Hop.”

—Charles Ives

—Lady Gaga

(Via.)

Prince at the drums back in the day

On what was an otherwise quiet Sunday evening for me a couple of weeks ago, Questlove – of The Roots and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon fame – tweeted this:

can i get your opinion on something? can you follow me? do you ever sleep? awkward edition of: #QuestionsIDONTLike—
Questo of The Roots (@questlove) January 31, 2011

Questlove has almost 1.5 million followers on Twitter, so I can only imagine all the dumb questions he gets on a regular basis. I had, however, what I thought was a good question for him, so I posed it to him in a tweet:

@questlove How about: What do you think of Prince as a drummer? Be honest.—
Matt Thomas ✓ (@mattthomas) January 31, 2011

Now, I’m not in the habit of asking questions of celebrities on Twitter, but it’s something I’ve done a few times, each time never expecting, though I suppose secretly hoping for, a reply.

My question didn’t come out of nowhere. I’ve been a fan of The Roots since buying their first full-length album Do You Want More?!!!??! on cassette when it came out in 1995, and a Prince fanatic since well before that. Namely, the sort of Prince fanatic who’s prone to idly wonder if Prince’s prodigious electric guitar playing has overshadowed his prodigious drumming and beat making, and what the racial implications of this might be. I’ve long known Questlove was a huge Prince fan, and his recent live-tweetings of multiple Prince “Welcome 2 America” concerts at Madison Square Garden, not to mention his recent choice Prince playlist in Rolling Stone, reminded me of this fact.

Lo and behold, a short while later, Questlove replied to me:

@mattthomas 2 of my biggest influences on my "drunken" style are 2 drummers not known for their (cont) http://tl.gd/8gddv2—
Questo of The Roots (@questlove) January 31, 2011

This tweet was more or less just a link to Questlove’s TwitLonger reply. TwitLonger isn’t a service I use, mainly because I feel like it’s antithetical to the spirit of Twitter, which is partly about limits, and I think constraints are important, but in this case I was willing to overlook it.

Here’s Questlove’s reply in full, edited slightly to make it easier to read and laced with links:

Two of my biggest influences on my “drunken” style are two drummers not known for their drumming: Stevie and Prince.

I know it’s uber-cliche and lazy when every artist in black music lists them as influences, but in this case their unorthodox styles kinda caught my ear early.

Stevie’s gift is his process of hi hat and cymbal hitting. Since he came from the School of Motown in which two drummers would share simultaneous duties, it’s only natural for him to utilize the same method on his own records.

Peep “Love Having You Around” on Music of My Mind – that trombone solo is hillllllllarious. He hits that hi hat so freely and sloppily. And the same with his zepplin-bonzo-style, ride-and-crash cymbal work on “I Wish,” “All Day Sucker,” and “Black Man.” And “That Girl” hits it so hard you wanna call child services.

Prince on the other hand … his fluctuating rhythm gives you the sense that an actual band is playing his stuff. Best demonstrated by his “careful or you’ll drop it” drunken pace on Dirty Mind’s title track. His overexcited virgin getting some Muppet Animal style of “Irresistible Bitch,” the maniac drumline snare solo of “Lady Cab Driver,” and the inventiveness of Parade’s first four song suite.

When I jam with him (actually with them – once at P’s crib) I don’t channel the WW?D page. I channel the WWSWD and WWPD page.

Last month when he grabbed the bass, I knew exactly where to go. I’ve learned when you jam with Prince, you get better results playing the drums as he would’ve played it. Which in my case worked like gangbusters (our “Cloreen” was about 25 minutes long and marked the first time that two-hour night he sang on the mic).

Of course, there are always “better” cats, but sometimes better ain’t “better.” In other words, Dylan is a poet’s poet. But if I put him in a cypher with five killer MCs, would he fare well? Same for ’81-era Steve Vai … would he fit in the J.B.’s circa ’69?

I look for more “color” and less “flash’ when I jam with other cats. It’s easy to juggle nine balls on a unicycle, but so much harder to make a mark keeping it simple. The latter is my route. If your simplicity speaks louder than “LOOKATMELOOKATME!!!!!!!!!!” then thumbs up.

Where to even begin.

I think Questlove’s reply largely speaks for itself; nevertheless, there are a few things I’d like to add.

One, Questlove clearly put some thought into his answer. He could have replied to my tweet with “I love Prince’s drumming!”  but didn’t. Instead, he basically wrote me a letter. I appreciate the effort he put into it. I felt like I learned something reading it. It was almost as if (as my brother later pointed out), itching to proclaim his love for Stevie’s and Prince’s drumming, Questlove had been waiting years for someone to ask him this question.

Two, I agree wholeheartedly with Questlove’s “more color and less flash” argument. Back when I used to work in a music store, I used to get in arguments about the merits of prog rock. (Funny how one never gets into such arguments in real life.) Though there’s music that might technically be considered prog rock that I like, I’d always argue that prog rock sucked, much to the chagrin of my Dream Theater-loving coworkers. For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain incredible technical virtuosity, and lose his own soul?

Three, our mini-exchange, which caught several hundred other people’s attention if all the re-tweets I saw were any indication, was abetted by Twitter. What other medium, or combination of media, would have as easily allowed me, someone who doesn’t know or have any business with Questlove, to ask him such a question, and made it so easy for him to respond? Twitter works differently than other social networks. Namely, Twitter’s asymmetry means I can follow Questlove even if he doesn’t follow me back, yet he still theoretically sees any tweet of mine that contains his username. Today all it takes is one tweet to capture the ear of your favorite celebrity. Or, to paraphrase Amanda Ann Klein, Facebook is for connecting with people you already know; Twitter is for connecting with people you’d like to know.

If I didn’t already love Twitter, Questlove’s reply to my question would have convinced me of its value. Thanks, Questlove.

Note: The title of this post is a reference to Stevie Wonder’s delightful second-season appearance on The Cosby Show. If you haven’t seen it, or haven’t see it recently, you should watch it.

—Sam Anderson

“Once we hit the studio, it was just all focus on the music. All focus was one hundred percent on the music. There were rules: no Twittering, no e-mailing, no blog-watching – no stupid questions. All of this stuff is posted all over the walls. A wall of questions, for inspirations. ‘What would Mobb Deep do?’ All types of stuff.”

—Pusha T (née Terrence Thornton) on working with Kanye West on My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

(Quote via Vulture; image via Complex.)

EveryGuyed:

“A series of posters featuring Iconic Outfits from 20 Male Musicians. Designed by Glenn Michael of Moxy Creative House, and illustrated by James Alexander the prints are available here.”

—Harlan Ellison, 1981

(Via.)

Wake up around 11AM. Have some coffee. Call my kids, and my wonderful mother. I then shower up. Read fan mail. Have lunch. Back on the phone. Read a book or write some thoughts down. Have dinner. Phone. Pushups. Then I listen to ESPN on the radio. Read the bible, then sleep. That’s my day.

Wayne (née Dwayne Michael Carter, Jr.) is currently serving a one-year prison sentence at Rikers Island for attempted possession of a weapon after a gun was found on his tour bus in 2007.

Last month, he literally phoned in a verse he wanted appended to Drake’s “Light Up.” Best lyric: “Behind bars, but the bars don’t stop / Recording over the phone / I hope the call don’t drop.” Indeed.

(Via.)

Related posts: “100-Year-Old Master,” “Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Daily Routine,” “Donald Trump’s Daily Routine,” and “John Waters’s Daily Routine.”

(Via.)

—Gil Scott-Heron, “I’ve Been Me (Interlude)”

I came as Isis, my words they tried to ban it
I came as Moses, they couldn’t follow my commandments
I came as Solomon, to a people that was lost
I came as Jesus, but they nailed me to a cross
I came as Harriet Tubman, I put the truth to Sojourner
Other times, I had to come as Nat Turner
They tried to burn me, lynch me, and starve me
So I had to come back as Marcus Garvey, Bob Marley
They tried to harm me, I used to be Malcolm X
Now I’m on the planet as the one called KRS

—KRS-One, “Ah-Yeah”

(Via.)

Last week I was watching TCM in the middle of the afternoon when Get Yourself a College Girl (1964) came on. It’s a Beach Party clone, one of those mindless ’60s movies where girls wear bikinis almost exclusively and everyone dances the Watusi.

Though I’ve never felt any particular affection for the genre, I literally couldn’t stop watching Get Yourself a College Girl. I found myself feeling a bit like Giles De’Ath (John Hurt) in the criminally-underrated Love and Death on Long Island (1997) when he stumbles upon the work of Ronnie Bostock (Jason Priestley), star of such B-movies as Hotpants College 2 – i.e., inexplicably finding great depth and beauty in kitsch.

The film is easy to dismiss, and as dismissals go, Howard Thompson’s 1965 New York Times review is a classic: “Get Yourself a College Girl deserves – and gets here – a one-line verdict: idiocy strictly for the birds. Or maybe the Animals. They’re in it, if anybody cares.”

On one level, Thompson may have been right. The movie isn’t available on home video, which suggests maybe nobody does care. (If you want to watch it, you’ll have to wait until TCM airs it again.)

The film’s plot – such as it is – revolves around a demure college student named Terry (played by 24-year-old former Miss America Mary Ann Mobley) who is paying her way through college by writing provocative pop songs.

There’s some interesting stuff to be found here about academe, nascent second wave feminism, and race (e.g., the scene in which, in order to show the Senator Morrison character’s fuddy-duddy point of view, shots of white American teenagers dancing are intercut with stock footage of African “savages” jumping around).

Perhaps the most notable thing about the film, however, is its music. Indeed, after watching it, I felt compelled to buy a used copy of the soundtrack (which, as luck would have it, was released on compact disc in 1992).

Produced by Sam Katzman (who was also responsible for Rock Around the Clock [1956]), the movie features performances by The Dave Clark Five, The Animals, Stan Getz, the Jimmy Smith Trio, The Standells, and Freddie Bell and the Bell Boys with Roberta Linn. As perhaps the definitive overview of the film puts it,

Get Yourself A College Girl features not just a great list of starring musical acts, but an extensive one: in addition to a performance of the title number by Mobley, we’re treated almost every ten minutes [to] … a wonderfully broad array of acts, running the gamut from two variants of the British invasion, to Latin-flavored jazz, to early garage rock, and even Las Vegas-type lounge.

The Dave Clark Five’s appearance is noteworthy because it’s apparently the first time a British rock & roll group appeared in an American 1960s pop film, but it’s the Stan Getz Quartet featuring Astrud Gilbero’s performance of “The Girl from Ipanema” that’s the real show-stopper. It may even be “the single finest performance of the entire Beach Party genre.”

In true Giles De’Ath fashion, however, it’s the stupid, sexy title number by Mobley that captivates me the most. Have a listen.

(Via.)

“My favorite Michael Jackson era was the era after the Jackson Five and before Thriller — the era when it looked like he was going to make it, and become a man. We used to worry about that when he first started out. Post-pubescent but pre-adolescent, we were cynics even then, and I remember people saying, ‘Yeah, but what’s going to happen to him when his voice changes?’ Well, it never really did. But there was a time when the child star re-emerged as just another teenager on the make — when Michael Jackson was not an icon but simply a performer trying to keep up with the times and make his own adjustment to the death of soul music and the rise of disco. There was a time when Michael Jackson was just a really good-looking black guy, who could really dance and could really sing. And when you see him in that period, right before Off the Wall, there’s an ease that he never had before, and never recaptured. It’s startling to see him, not freakily precocious or precociously freaky, but simplyof his time, nothing more and nothing less. In the videos he made for Off the Wall, he looks princely, the way that JFK Jr. did, an American royal gliding through the obligations of his own royalty.”

—Tom Junod

Since he turned 90, Mr. Carter has poured out more than 40 published works, an extraordinary burst of creativity at a stage when most people would be making peace with mortality.

Carter’s daily routine:

He wakes every day at 7 a.m., composes for two and a half hours, goes out for a constitutional with an aide, rests after lunch, composes again or receives visitors in the afternoon, and watches French satellite television in the evening, if he does not have a concert to attend.

I find the ways in which “writers, artists, and other interesting people organize their days” endlessly fascinating.

Big Ideas (Don’t get any) from 1030 on Vimeo.

Related listening: Transformer di Roboter’s cover version of Michael Jackson’s “Stranger in Moscow.”

I think it’s fair to call Jay-Z’s 2006 effort Kingdom Come a disappointment. I also think it’s fair to call his 2007 effort American Gangster a pleasant surprise, if not quite the masterpiece some people hoped for or think it is. At the very least, Jay-Z sounds completely re-energized. “Blue Magic” is one of my favorite tracks, partly because it contains my favorite lyric of the year: “Blame Reagan for making me into a monster/Blame Oliver North and Iran Contra/I ran contraband that they sponsored/Before this rhyme stuff we was in concert.” I really dig the pun on “concert,” as well as the critique of the government, made more explicit by the “Fuck Bush” line (also a pun, btw) a few bars later. The Rakim-era beat is fresh too.

2. Rihanna ft. Jay-Z – “Umbrella (Remix)”

Don’t let all the talk of rain fool you, this was the song of the summer, just like “Hey Ya” and “Crazy” were in previous years. In addition to being a great pop song, it has an epic, anthem-quality to it that I like that I think is missing from many pop songs these days, certainly many pop songs in the R&B idiom.

3. Kanye West – “Stronger”

Perhaps the best “pump up” rap song since LL Cool J’s “Mama Said Knock You,” though when I first heard a leaked, early version of it, I didn’t like it, despite Renato Pagnani’s — who runs my favorite hip-hop blog — glowing review. Something about it just didn’t feel right to me. But then Kanye went back to the lab and reworked it a bit for the final release and I loved it as soon as I heard it. Funny how little, almost imperceptible changes can make a big difference. That’s production for you, I suppose. Kanye, of course, is easily one of the most interesting artists in music today. As Rex Sorgatz of fimoculous.com puts it, “Kanye is one of a dying breed of artist, like a Bob Dylan or a Woody Allen or a Bjork, who create art out of sheer force of will and ego. Art and life aren’t binaries for these people. How else to explain this album’s sui generis cocktail — a sampling of his mentors in dance (Daft Punk), street (Jay-Z), fashion (Louis Vuitton), and art (Murakami). And, I suppose, literature (Nietzsche), by pinching that particularly arch aphorism about surviving adversity. ‘That which does not kill me…’ might suggest that Kanye’s force emerges from some sort of Ayn Randian individualism, but it’s more clearly the power that comes from treating your life as collage.”

Additionally, “Stronger” contains my second favorite lyric of the year: “You know how long I’ve been on ya, since Prince was on Apollonia, since OJ had Isotoners, don’t act like I never told ya.” In my mind, the Prince reference aside, that’s a pretty clever line, the haters of Kayne’s rapping be damned.

4. Justice – “D.A.N.C.E”

Speaking of Daft Punk. For me, this was the jam of the summer after “Umbrella,” even if it was only hipsters who were listening to it in the summer. Listening to it again in preparation for this mix, I couldn’t help but think that Michael Jackson should team up with Justice for his comeback album.

5. M.I.A. – “Paper Planes”

Admittedly, I’m not the biggest M.I.A. fan in the world. Her first album didn’t grab me all that much. Something to do with the whole post-colonialism pastiche thing maybe. This song, however, mostly thanks to the gun shots and the cash register samples, grabbed me straight away. I also like that’s more reggae-pop/hip-hop than electronica/dance music.

6. Britney Spears ft. Lil’ Wayne – “Gimme More (Dirty Pop Remix)”

This song pairs two of the more interesting (but for vastly different reasons) figures in music: Britney Spears (aka a tragic symbol of how our culture chews up and spits out celebrities) and Lil’ Wayne (aka the “Greatest Rapper Alive”). And odd pairing perhaps, but somehow it also makes almost complete sense here. I like the original version of this song OK, but I think this remix is just sick, especially when you listen to it really, really loud, as if you were in a club. (Britney lovers and haters alike should check out Stephen Elliot’s “Why Britney Matters: Why ‘Blackout’ Is the Most Underappreciated Smash Album of 2007”.

7. R. Kelly ft. Snoop Dogg – “Double Up”

R. Kelly’s Double Up was one of the weirdest, most brilliant albums of 2007 in my mind, and I had to include something from it, even if Kelly’s “Trapped in the Closet” might be the more enduring Kelly work. Regardless of how you feel about his nasty freakiness, you gotta admit that Kelly has amazing phrasing. With his half-rapping, half-singing style, he can make even the stupidest lines sound good (see, for example, “The Zoo” and “Sex Planet”).

8. Amy Winehouse – “Back to Black”

Some might have chosen “Rehab,” but I like this song better, especially when the strings kick in, which I’m always a sucker for, provide they’re done well. I love the whole Back to Black album and sincerely hope Winehouse doesn’t O.D. before recording more songs. (I’m selfish like that.) The combination of Mark Ronson’s retro, horn-infused production and Winehouse’s unique voice brings a smile to my face every time I hear this song. The clichés are true: It sounds like it was recorded forty years ago but at the same time is incredibly fresh. A completely different sort of R&B from that purveyed by R. Kelly. I hope they let Winehouse record the theme song to the new Bond movie.

9. Feist – “1234”

Yes, this song is featured in an iPod commercial. No, that’s not why I like it. Rather, as Gang Starr’s Guru once put it, just like with Amy Winehouse, it’s the voice. The “twangy but not quite country” sound is nice too.

10. Interpol – “No I in Threesome”

Critics didn’t seem to like Interpol’s third album as much as they did their first two. I’m not exactly sure why. Certainly the cover art is cool. Currently, “No I in Threesome” is my favorite song from it. I don’t, however, condone threesomes. If years of listening to Tom Leykis have taught me anything, it’s that threesomes are almost always trouble.

11. The National – “Green Gloves”

I didn’t like The National’s album Boxer as much as some critics did. (Truth be told, I think it’s sort of boring.) But I really like this song, partly because I identify with the song’s narrator (who is separated from his friends who are all out getting wasted), and partly because I think it’s really beautiful. Sometimes that’s enough.

12. Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova – “If You Want Me” (From the Once Soundtrack)

I also didn’t like the movie Once as much as some people did, nor I did I like the soundtrack as much as some people did, but I appreciated both, and this song, with its haunting vocals, really grabbed me, perhaps because it’s unlike the other songs in the movie. It reminds me a bit of Portishead, whom I really like.

13. Radiohead – “Jigsaw Falling Into Place”

No other release in 2007 had me as excited as Radiohead’s In Rainbows did (well, maybe Kanye’s Graduation). I think the album lends itself to a straight-through, close listening; nevertheless, this track stood out for me. I love the way it builds to a fury, and then, just as quickly, ends.

14. The White Stripes – “A Martyr For My Love For You”

The White Stripes album got slept on a little bit. Sure, I didn’t like it as much as their last two, but come on, it’s the White Stripes. I dig their rock & roll, bluesy, riffy numbers less than their slower songs about weird relationships (e.g., “I Want to Be the Boy” off Elephant). This is one of those, and just as important, I think it nicely concludes the mix.

—Clive Thompson

Related reading: Rolling Stone’s “The Death of High Fidelity.”

—Benjamin Schwarz, “His Second Act,” The Atlantic

—James Hannaham