Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Patience!

Today's post might run a little long, so it may help you to watch this PSA about patience. Look out Triumph, there's a new puppet in town pissing off grown-ups, and his name is Clarence. I haven't laughed this hard in a long time.

Taken as a whole, Wonder Showzen is like some kind of Clockwork Orange nightmare, juxtaposing laughter of children to the fury of adulthood, with spliced in clips of slaughterhouse horrors stolen from PETA. A real mind-fuck, if you will. Cerebrally offeinsive, if you will. However, if you were to ignore these shock-pieces and simply watch the merely culturally offensive material of the show, you could laugh your ass off for days. Colm, for the love of your God, don't watch this clip.

Speaking of things that would piss of the religious, Matthew and I went to Tubby Dog yesterday, and you wouldn't believe what the Easter Special was. It was called "The Pilate", and the menu stated that it's sacrilicious flavour was the combination of a kosher all-beef wiener, topped with bacon bits, sliced ham, mustard, and "a stigmata of ketchup. Paying more attention to the hot girl working the cash register, I carelessly ordered. What the menu doesn't state is that your hotdog will be topped with a cross made of 6 eucharist wafers, ketchup dot marking the placement of hands and feet. You are then given a quick blessing by the fry cook, as you both laugh yourselves to tears over the absurdity of this hotdog. I believe now that if hell does exist, my place in it is reserved.

But hey, on a less depressing note, it was Tuesday yesterday, and I walked out of Megatunes (and the interwebs) with some really great albums. Let me tell ya about em!

The Dresden Dolls latest, Yes Virginia is exactly the kind of album that would result if caberet-era Hawksley Workman had been born a waifish goth girl, forced to study piano under the tutelage of Ben Folds, until she was kicked out for writing too many songs about masturbation. This album distances itself from the duo's previous two, in the sense that there is a much more power-pop-piano feel to it, creating what can be a rather creepy-yet-catchy sound. Easily my favorite pop album of the month.

I got Tokyo Police Club's A Lesson in Crime, but I really don't have much to say about it. It's fast, stupid ass-shaking rock for people who don't want to admit they listen to Steriogram. Think pre-Elevator Hot Hot Heat, without the clever lyrics.

The rap world saw the release of Ghostface's Fishscale, largely touted as one of the best rap albums this year. Frankly, I don't much care for it. I just can't relate to a rapper who spends an entire album dealing coke and wasting my time with way too many pointless skits. Go figure. I think that if you're a fan of Ghostface, you won't be dissapointed.

Rather, the bar for "best rap album of 2006" has been set by a duo who have dropped a rather pleasant surprise. Soul Position is back, and Things Go Better With RJ And AL literally speaks for itself. To quote Blueprint, this album is "just the best producer and the best MC. This is it: No limits, no gimmicks". The only thing I can add to that is it would seem as if perhaps RJD2's crates have run dry. He has shyed away from the pure lo-fi mixes that made him famous, and seems to be playing around more with the 808. Still, this is the best rap album I've heard in a long time. I would go so far as to say that this beats 8 Million Stories.

11 Comments:

At 11:15 PM, Blogger Ryan Alvin Tang said...

I love that you come away from each clip feeling ambibalent. The first was funny and annoying. The second was funny and offensive (and I'm not even particularly relgious).

 
At 11:57 AM, Blogger The Irishman said...

Dude... the hotdog... I know its not consecrated host, but...yikes,... not much I can say to that one.

 
At 3:47 PM, Blogger Cara-bellum said...

How does one even obtain eucharist if one runs a hot dog shop? The mind boggles.

 
At 4:56 PM, Blogger Tay said...

Me and Matthew were talking about that actually, and our best bet is that they got it from the Christian Supply Store downtown, across from the Safeway. Either that, or they just stole it from a church or something. I guess if you're going to hell over a hotdog, you might as well go all the way.

 
At 11:25 PM, Blogger Ryan Alvin Tang said...

I thought Fishscale was pretty good. I definately agree with you on the skits, if you take those out the CD is like 8 tracks shorter, but that seems to be pretty standard for the Wu-Tang Clan. I like how "Kilo", besides being a good track serves as an introduction to the metric system for Americans who seem not to like that system a whole lot even thought it is uncomplicated and tends to make a lot of sense.

Speaking of PSAs, you gotta check out "Brush P.S.A." by Cool Calm Pete because "plaque is wack."

 
At 1:11 AM, Blogger Tay said...

I just think that it's interesting to listen to Fishscale and Things Go Better and then compare the two. Ghostface relies on superfluous skits and a plethora of guest MC's to fill album space, even going so far as to litter the audible spectrum with yet another ODB tribute. Groan, roll eyes, repeat. Soul Position offers absolutely no filler of any kind, just an album packed with nothing but the good stuff. I can't think of a single throw-away track on the record. Fishscale doesn't even come close.

 
At 1:15 AM, Blogger Tay said...

Okay, what is the deal with Cool Calm Pete? That is seriously some of the corniest nerdcore rap I've ever heard. I mean, where did you hear of this guy?

 
At 10:07 AM, Blogger Ryan Alvin Tang said...

Mass Appeal.

 
At 9:51 AM, Blogger Ryan Alvin Tang said...

Oh yeah, about RJ's crates running dry: he's recently stated that he's becoming more proficient with "real" instruments and instead of trying to find stuff to sample, he'd rather just do it himself when it makes sense to do so. I haven't heard the album yet so I'm in no way defending the quality of his new work, but you can probably expect a move even further in that direction in the future.

 
At 7:01 PM, Blogger Tay said...

That pretty much explains everything. I mean, he's still got the same style you'd expect, but the sound is much crisper, much more alive. I think it's a good evolutionary move for RJ.

 
At 8:18 PM, Blogger Ryan Alvin Tang said...

That sounds pretty awesome actually.

 

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