DOWNLOAD THIS WEEK'S EPISODE OF AWESOME SOUND - PART 1
and...
DOWNLOAD THIS WEEK'S EPISODE OF AWESOME SOUND - PART 2
and...
DOWNLOAD THIS WEEK'S EPISODE OF AWESOME SOUND - PART 2
Monday, August 31, 2009
the AWESOME SOUND program - August 30, 2009...
(the AWESOME SOUND program broadcasts live on WXOU.ORG sunday nights 9:30pm - midnight.)
Monday, August 17, 2009
the AWESOME SOUND program - August 16, 2009...
(the AWESOME SOUND program broadcasts live on WXOU.ORG sunday nights 9:30pm - midnight.)
Austrian keyboard wizard Joe Zawinul profile...
DOWNLOAD THIS WEEK'S EPISODE OF AWESOME SOUND - PART 1
and...
DOWNLOAD THIS WEEK'S EPISODE OF AWESOME SOUND - PART 2
and...
DOWNLOAD THIS WEEK'S EPISODE OF AWESOME SOUND - PART 2
Austrian keyboard wizard Joe Zawinul profile...
Re-Discovery!!! (record digging report for 08/16/09)
(click pic to enlarge)
top to bottom, left to right:
Michael Stanley "Friends & Legends", Evelyn "Champagne" King "Smooth Talk", R.B. Greaves "s/t", the Doobie Brothers "What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits", Booker T. & the MG's "Doin' Our Thing", Steven Halpern "Spectrum Suite", Charles Earland "Black Talk!", the Stooges "s/t", Kat Mandu "s/t", Pharoah Sanders "Black Unity", Pharoah Sanders "Thembi", Donavon "Open Road"...
(all of these came from the dollar bin...boo yah!)
top to bottom, left to right:
Michael Stanley "Friends & Legends", Evelyn "Champagne" King "Smooth Talk", R.B. Greaves "s/t", the Doobie Brothers "What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits", Booker T. & the MG's "Doin' Our Thing", Steven Halpern "Spectrum Suite", Charles Earland "Black Talk!", the Stooges "s/t", Kat Mandu "s/t", Pharoah Sanders "Black Unity", Pharoah Sanders "Thembi", Donavon "Open Road"...
(all of these came from the dollar bin...boo yah!)
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Monday, August 10, 2009
the AWESOME SOUND program - August 09, 2009...
(the AWESOME SOUND program broadcasts live on WXOU.ORG sunday nights 9:30pm - midnight.)
DOWNLOAD THIS WEEK'S EPISODE OF AWESOME SOUND - PART 1
and...
DOWNLOAD THIS WEEK'S EPISODE OF AWESOME SOUND - PART 2
and...
DOWNLOAD THIS WEEK'S EPISODE OF AWESOME SOUND - PART 2
Audio Delight...
Friday, August 7, 2009
RIP Westside Connection...
Looks like it's Ice Cube Day here at I've Got A Sound...The fore-mentioned Ice Cube post by Grievous sent me on an adolescent trip down memory lane when scary high-pitched synthesizers clashed with the now-classic grooves of G-funk SoCal, the sounds of which were followed closely by legions of suburban kids.
Westside Connection was Ice Cube, Mack 10, and WC. Like most good supergroups, they didn't last too long due to various feuds. Their first record "Bow Down" was (and still is) an amazing debut and definitive entry in the pantheon of California gangsta rap from the 90's. Every beat is on point, the lyrics are classically profane, great hooks, squeaky-clean production. I can remember rolling in this kid's Buick LeSabre at the age of fifteen, Friday night in Lake Orion, shouting the chorus to these tracks as we drove around (doing absolutely nothing). Still have my old copy of that cd sitting right next to my desk just waiting to be dusted off.
Yeah, and don't hold your breath on Cube making a worthwhile comeback.
Ice Cube: What Happened?
So...perhaps you've already heard about Ice Cube's set at the 2009 Gathering Of The Juggalos. But, if you haven't, wrap that around your mind for a second. Ice Cube playing a set to a large mass of trashy individuals in face paint, who will constantly dog him to play either "Wicked", or "It Was a Good Day". Many of my friends are really surprised by this...but I'm not, shockingly.
I'd consider myself a pretty moderate fan of Ice Cube's work...I've got most of his records, minus the last couple, and I was a really big fan of his roles in films such as Boyz-'N-Tha-Hood, and of course the classic Friday.
However, I can definitely draw a line as to where it all went wrong in his work, especially in the hip-hop realm. Between 1993-1998, he took a break from solo work, to focus on film and such, only recording a duet with fellow former member of N.W.A. Dr. Dre(1994's Natural Born Killaz), and the first Westside Connection album, Bow Down, in 1996. Otherwise, Cube pretty much just sat tight for the most part, acting in films, until 1998's War and Peace rolled around, in all of its mediocrity.
Even his last album before the hiatus, 1993's Lethal Injection, was largely considered as a derivative "sell-out" work, when compared to his previous three albums, riding off the coattails of a single featuring George Clinton(Bop Gun).
While I'm not a big fan of the term "sell-out", when you make records as angry and abrasive as Amerikkka's Most Wanted and Death Certificate were, only to jump to a more mainstream direction is a bit funny to watch. It seemed rather sudden, Ice Cube stopped rhyming about Pimps, sell-outs, and the 'hood in every track. At the same time, he erased a large amount of the racism and anti-semitism that existed in his first two recordings.
Some would think that the big change that occurred between Lethal Injection and War and Peace, had to happen. After all, Amerikkka's Most Wanted and Death Certificate were written and dropped in the early '90s, prior to the Rodney King incident, and the riots that followed. Cube was furious over the racial relations at this time, and used these records to let everyone know, "shit's fucked up, it needs to change. NOW." After the riots occurred, he was quoted as saying, "my records were warnings to the world that this was going to happen."
It seemed like right after the riots, he was less eager to let everyone have it. The Predator, while being a fantastic album in its own right, featured less bashing than Death Certificate, but still had its fair share of hateful jams. Lethal Injection also, despite how weak it is, features "Cave Bitch", a jam revolving around interracial gold-digging relationships.
Some might also say another factor was the breakup of N.W.A. Most already know the details when Ice Cube left N.W.A., but to those who haven't, he wasn't getting paid rightfully for his featuring work on Straight Outta Compton, as well as Eazy-E's solo debut, Eazy-Duz-It. He wanted more money for his work, and he couldn't hammer out a deal with the group's then-manager, Jerry Heller, so he went off on his own. By the time Death Certificate dropped, with its firey slam on N.W.A. in "No Vaseline", tensions were at an all time high between Eazy-E and Dr. Dre, leading to Dre leaving, subsequently disbanding N.W.A. in 1992. The breakup, as well as Eazy-E's death in 1995, left Ice Cube without another leg to stand on, in terms of content.
I just want Ice Cube to go back to his old hateful self. No gangsta rap records in my mind were as angry and reactionary as the duo of Amerikkka's Most Wanted and Death Certificate, and while they were probably incredibly tough to follow up, it's a bummer that we never really got anything as crazy as those two records out of Cube.
Hopefully when he's playing his single-laden set at The Gathering, he'll remember when he was "True to the Game".
And thus ends my angry rant. Enjoy some classic Ice Cube, because if you've read through this, you've surely earned it:
"Givin' Up the Nappy Dugout"
"Who's the Mack"
"True to the Game"
(Cube's steez...before & after.)
I'd consider myself a pretty moderate fan of Ice Cube's work...I've got most of his records, minus the last couple, and I was a really big fan of his roles in films such as Boyz-'N-Tha-Hood, and of course the classic Friday.
However, I can definitely draw a line as to where it all went wrong in his work, especially in the hip-hop realm. Between 1993-1998, he took a break from solo work, to focus on film and such, only recording a duet with fellow former member of N.W.A. Dr. Dre(1994's Natural Born Killaz), and the first Westside Connection album, Bow Down, in 1996. Otherwise, Cube pretty much just sat tight for the most part, acting in films, until 1998's War and Peace rolled around, in all of its mediocrity.
Even his last album before the hiatus, 1993's Lethal Injection, was largely considered as a derivative "sell-out" work, when compared to his previous three albums, riding off the coattails of a single featuring George Clinton(Bop Gun).
While I'm not a big fan of the term "sell-out", when you make records as angry and abrasive as Amerikkka's Most Wanted and Death Certificate were, only to jump to a more mainstream direction is a bit funny to watch. It seemed rather sudden, Ice Cube stopped rhyming about Pimps, sell-outs, and the 'hood in every track. At the same time, he erased a large amount of the racism and anti-semitism that existed in his first two recordings.
Some would think that the big change that occurred between Lethal Injection and War and Peace, had to happen. After all, Amerikkka's Most Wanted and Death Certificate were written and dropped in the early '90s, prior to the Rodney King incident, and the riots that followed. Cube was furious over the racial relations at this time, and used these records to let everyone know, "shit's fucked up, it needs to change. NOW." After the riots occurred, he was quoted as saying, "my records were warnings to the world that this was going to happen."
It seemed like right after the riots, he was less eager to let everyone have it. The Predator, while being a fantastic album in its own right, featured less bashing than Death Certificate, but still had its fair share of hateful jams. Lethal Injection also, despite how weak it is, features "Cave Bitch", a jam revolving around interracial gold-digging relationships.
Some might also say another factor was the breakup of N.W.A. Most already know the details when Ice Cube left N.W.A., but to those who haven't, he wasn't getting paid rightfully for his featuring work on Straight Outta Compton, as well as Eazy-E's solo debut, Eazy-Duz-It. He wanted more money for his work, and he couldn't hammer out a deal with the group's then-manager, Jerry Heller, so he went off on his own. By the time Death Certificate dropped, with its firey slam on N.W.A. in "No Vaseline", tensions were at an all time high between Eazy-E and Dr. Dre, leading to Dre leaving, subsequently disbanding N.W.A. in 1992. The breakup, as well as Eazy-E's death in 1995, left Ice Cube without another leg to stand on, in terms of content.
I just want Ice Cube to go back to his old hateful self. No gangsta rap records in my mind were as angry and reactionary as the duo of Amerikkka's Most Wanted and Death Certificate, and while they were probably incredibly tough to follow up, it's a bummer that we never really got anything as crazy as those two records out of Cube.
Hopefully when he's playing his single-laden set at The Gathering, he'll remember when he was "True to the Game".
And thus ends my angry rant. Enjoy some classic Ice Cube, because if you've read through this, you've surely earned it:
"Givin' Up the Nappy Dugout"
"Who's the Mack"
"True to the Game"
(Cube's steez...before & after.)
Monday, August 3, 2009
the AWESOME SOUND program - August 02, 2009...
(the AWESOME SOUND program broadcasts live on WXOU.ORG sunday nights 9:30pm - midnight.)
DOWNLOAD THIS WEEK'S EPISODE OF AWESOME SOUND - PART 1
and...
DOWNLOAD THIS WEEK'S EPISODE OF AWESOME SOUND - PART 2
and...
DOWNLOAD THIS WEEK'S EPISODE OF AWESOME SOUND - PART 2
rio de Awesome...all Brazilian!
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