Monday Mixtape, Vol. 186

All sorts of sounds for your ears today! Starting with one of the most original guitarists I grew up listening to constantly, a man whose signature riffs, tones, and creativity led album after album of brilliance by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Of course: John Frusciante. I just started digging into his solo stuff, and I can’t wait to dig more. “The Past Recedes” is a Dylan-esque song with Spanish guitar, harmonica, acoustic guitar, Frusciante’s vocals, harmonies, and no drums! It’s beautiful.

By the way, how awesome is Mdou Moctar? I haven’t even wanted to know one thing about these guys, I’ve just wanted to listen to what my (bad) linguistic ears think is a Middle Eastern language and sound mixed with rock, chants, up tempo and funky rhythms. What a song.

The Black Keys released a new album, and I’ve been digging it. The lead track on the album, “Crawling Kingsnake,” is full of low-key swagger, a rockin’ bluesy bluster.

J. Cole released a much awaited new album. I love J. Cole although I don’t love any one specific album of his, but there are many tracks from each album that I love, if that makes sense. This album might be one of my favorites, the only track I don’t like is the first, but the rest is Cole spewing fire in rapid clips.

Speaking of good rappers, I’ve been exploring Lute’s discography, and this guy is talented. He’s only got one album from 2017 amidst his come up, but he’s due for something awesome. Or not. You never really know with artists, sometimes they can put it all together into a cohesive piece of art, other times they can’t. Time will tell.

Finally, Porches (and yes, I know, my write-up is all out of order to the mixtape order, but WHATEVER MAN) is a band that I think sounds strange. Maybe catchy. But strange. Something about “I Miss That” sings to me, whether it’s a strange beckoning in the vocals or something else, I like that.

Monday Mixtape, Vol. 144

I got to see John Mayer last Monday at the Chase Center, the third concert ever there (Metallica was the first obviously), and despite the terrible seats - they were second to last row in the whole building and in the complete corner of the arena, we could barely see anything - the sound was phenomenal, and John Mayer straight shredded the guitar, AND his voice sounded the best I’ve ever heard it live

I’ve seen Mayer three times since he released one of my favorite live albums ever, Where the Light Is, and this performance was far away the best of the three and had some very cool similarities to his live album. (It didn’t hurt that he played for three hours either! There was no opener, Mayer played form 7:45 - 10:45, pretty awesome.)

If you notice on Where the Light Is, Mayer changes his vocal cadences (he sings in different rhythms than his cadences on the songs on his studio albums) on a number of lines in different songs, and he did that with a lot of his new material from his latest album, The Search for Everything. It’s those subtle changes I find interesting, ways to tweak things here and there VERY FEW artists do to their vocals when performing.

He also had these awesome segways into songs. For example, take “I Don’t Trust Myself” on the live album:

This intro up until 1:57 is a segway into what then becomes the album version of “I Don’t Trust Myself.” He did this with a ton of his new songs, and as a listener (or as a guitar player myself), you’re trying to find the key or the chord that this “intro” is in so you can identify the song he’s going to go into - sometimes Mayer (and his amazing band) completely surprised me as I had no idea where they were going, and then they smoothly segued into “Slow Dancing in a Burning Room” or a handful of other songs. I would just sit back and go, “Wow.” Mind blown.

I was trying to provide some context to friends at this show with how amazing his guitar playing was, and one way I tried to explain his ability and the level of difficulty was in explaining all the ways he bends his strings to hit a perfect sound EVERY TIME. When you bend a guitar string, it makes the note either higher (bend string up) or lower (bend string down), and I said that imagine each string can be bent 1 inch, and there are 10 different notes you can hit as you bend (one each 0.1 of an inch bent up or down), he’s able to hit the same note, at say 0.6 inch of a bend up, OVER and OVER again, always knowing PRECISELY how much to bend the string. And in his solos in one show, he’s bending the strings hundred and hundreds of times, hitting the right notes every single time. No joke, I’ve listened to Where the Light Is hundreds of times, and I CANNOT hear him hit one wrong note on his guitar or his vocals.

It’s truly amazing, I think he’s the best guitarist alive (not including all the 1960s dudes still alive but not exactly in their prime, like Eric Clapton), I just don’t know who compares to him right now.

ANYWAYS, I put John Mayer’s newest song to start this week’s playlist, a song that has no room for solos, and is just a very mellow track that really grew on me. Can’t get enough of it now.

As for other great artists on the mix, check out Jay Som’s new album, it’s very good and definitely making my Top 25. I still need to give the solo album of Alabama Shakes’ lead singer, Brittany Howard, more time to marinate, but I like this track. And some more Ghostface Killah for you cuz the dude knows jazz.

Have a great week!

Monday Mixtape, Vol. 132

I haven’t exactly been reliable with these Monday Mixtapes every week, so apologies. But this week’s mixtape is quite an eclectic mix. We got rap, rock, indie, grime, a country-ish ballad, and electronic instrumental.

I’m really digging the new Logic album, another great one by a very under appreciated rapper. On the other side, there’s another track on here with an over appreciated, a well appreciated, and a much appreciated rapper, Young Thug, J. Cole, and Travis Scott, respectively. Then there’s Skepta, the gunslinger from the UK, with a new track, the spacey “Bullet From A Gun.”

Something about “Big Softy” just clicks. The song only gets better as it goes along, and I can listen to this one over and over. Albert Hammond Jr., the guitarist of The Strokes fame, has created a hell of a solo career. Nothing will top his top debut album, Yours to Keep, which I hold near and dear to my heart, but he continues to make great stuff, and he’s clean now! Yay!

Does this Justin Townes Earle song sound so much like Van Morrison? I get so many hints with his voice and the overall vibe of the track. His new album is a good listen, give it a whirl.

That’s all I got people. Enjoy your week. Think positive! Your thoughts are the only things that create action.

Monday Mixtape, Vol. 113

Lots of upbeat jams for ya this week from some tried and true winners.

If you can’t notice that the first track is live by Natalie Prass, that’s because her silky voice and great band behind her defy expectations. I’ve seen her play live to a group of about eight people, and she’s a talent, one I wish got a bit more recognition.

Speaking of great live acts, the cherubic lead singer of St. Paul & The Broken Bones, Paul Janeway, gives everything he has when you see him live, and these guys just released a new album, which I’m a bit disappointed in but still looking forward to seeing them live in October to perform a bunch of their great jams, including the catchy “LivWithoutU.”

“Moonlight” might be the best Disclosure song I’ve heard, this song in a very loud car just crushes.

All this upbeat music is recipe for a little downturn in vibes which AlunaGeorge and Bas provide. The Bas album is one of the better rap albums of the year, not amazing but solid. “Tribe” with J. Cole might be my favorite track on the album, I just love when the drums come in a 0:45.

Wale has gotten better with age. It’s somewhat surprising he’s still around, but his last three EPs have been great.

Finally, we end the mixtape with BRONCHO, a no frills rock band that bring a little bit more swagger and reverb to this track than their usual. Pump it!

Have a good week all.

The Silent Majority

As with all things, the Internet has helped to flatten hip-hop — more artists and styles are available to more people, obscurity is a relic, subcultural allegiance can quickly become pop fandom.

- Jon Caramanica, "Vince Staples and J. Cole, Outsiders in the Middle of Hip-Hop," New York Times, July 9, 2015.

Years ago, there were severe categorizations of rap that artists rarely overcame - Talib Kweli and Common preached conscious rap, Dilated Peoples' and People Under the Stairs worked the underground, Nas, Biggie, and Jay-Z as the kings of gangsta rap on the East Coast, and Tupac, Dr. Dre, and Snoop sat on their throne out West. No one really veered outside of their lane. But now, Caramanica interestingly argues, the highway of rap has no lanes, and artists take whichever route they want. Drake, for example, is "an omnivore and a chameleon who never met a target demographic he couldn’t appease, or an Instagram post for which a lyric of his wouldn’t make the perfect caption. He’s post-region, post-era, post-ideology, post-genre." It's the post-label era of rap.

In this post-label era, we have a mix of musicians, such as Kendrick Lamar, Vince Staples, and J. Cole, who despite selling a lot of albums "have been largely shut out of hip-hop's celebrity class" because they don't particularly cater to the ostentatious and moneyed. But by creating music their own way, these guys are being rewarded financially and critically for it. "Their staunch commitment to traditionally underground sentiment has turned out to be lucrative," Caramanica writes, "and also necessitates a rethinking of where hip-hop’s current center of power and influence actually resides."

Kendrick Lamar is one of the highest selling artists in rap, selling upwards of 2 million records from his last two albums, yet he has never had a single in the Billboard Top 10. He's come nowhere close to that with any track on his new album. This is a plus for those like me that devalue singles and hits and place more emphasis on the originality and genuineness of an album and artist. Listen to Vince Staples arresting and ominous debut album, Summetime '06, and you will not hear one hit single; instead, you'll hear an album delicately prepared and exquisitely rapped. You'll hear a story and picture life in the eyes of a man expressing himself for himself and not the money or fame.

Although Caramanica's article speaks only of rap, the Internet has helped to flatten all music to provide more artists and styles to more people. Obscurity is a relic across all genres and the underground can become pop within days. The ubiquitous presence of music in our lives is a fortunate byproduct of technology. I can listen to a teenager in Ireland writing somber melodies, an artist from Atlanta creating strange and incomparable rap, a singer/songwriter composing orchestral anomalies, and any other millions of songs, some terrible, some inspiring, all from my couch. If it wasn't for Spotify, I would never have started this blog and certainly could not have listened to 101,976 minutes of music in 2014.

This democratization of music, the ability to hear almost anything in the world with the stroke of a few buttons, has eliminated anonymity. Even more important, the ability to create music is easier than ever. If someone is truly an amazing talent, he or she won't die undiscovered. That's not possible anymore. It's refreshing to know that brilliance will be discovered but also odd that our unknown musical geniuses are fossils buried in plots around the world.

The majority of music is now out there for consumption, silent and undiscovered for hours, days or months, instead of years or lifetimes. Technology, for all its pro and cons, has brought music and artists to our doorstep.

Knock, knock.