Shoulda been major, Part 1

Some weeks/months ago (who can remember) I accidentally read a book when I was supposed to be grading exams or something. I'd stopped over at some friends' place to sit down with whatever I was supposed to be working on (had to be grading exams; nothing drives me to distraction like grading) and discovered the book, Lost in the Grooves, a nice little collection that unearths some overlooked musical gems from genuine and relative obscurity. I'd heard of many, had some, but was inspired to write down and check out some of those I hadn't heard before due to the frequency with which I'd say "Yeah, that shoulda been major!" upon seeing the next entry. How can you not love a book that champions Terence Trent D'Arby's Symphony or Damn, Mr. Natural by the Bee Gees, the Jackson's Triumph, Meeting in the Ladies Room from Klymaxx, Roky Erickson's The Evil One, Penicillin on Wax from Tim Dog, and The Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus by Spirit?

Anyway, I soon discovered the book has a webpage and a blog, although the latter isn't updated too often it seems. I thought to myself "you know, there are a bunch of releases I think are underappreciated or forgotten, I should write about them on the CR, if only to increase the number of posts and amuse myself." So, here goes.

To commemorate the release of his long awaited new album, Smash Rockwell, the first entry in this new series is Casual's debut album from 1994, Fear Itself. Casual is another of the West Coast Hieroglyphics crew, but got decidedly less attention than fellows Del tha Funkee Homosapien (whose debut was produced by cousin Ice Cube) and Souls of Mischief (whose 93 'til Infinity got more attention but still easily qualifies as a buried classic).

Fear Itself has many of the hallmarks of early 90s "alternative rap", especially the Hiero west coast variety. Lots of horn samples and jazzy breaks with a little more emphasis on propulsive funk than some of the other stuff out there at the time. The contemporary mainstream in '94 was Cali g-funk; Snoop Doggy Dogg seemed to be everywhere along with coattail-riders and hangers-on like Warren G, the Dogg Pound, and Domino (oddly enough, one of the Hiero crew producers was called also called Domino) so every release from the Hieroglyphics was a breath of fresh air. Since these albums represented (to me) a continuation of the Native Tongues sound going on back east, it was heartening to see that the whole of California wasn't going to be wannabe Crips yelling "Compton" or "LBC."

Casual's first album was a bit harder hitting than some of the other Hiero releases and it still holds up really well. Stand out tracks include "You Flunked," "I Didn't Mean To," "A Little Something" (with a guest appearance by Del), "Lose in the End," and "We Got it Like That." Several of these songs appeared on mixtapes I made around that time, serving to remind me of this neglected release. One of the things I like about this stuff in retrospect was the lack of earnestness that makes so many "alternative" rap figures nowadays so hard to listen to. Hiero were more about dissing wack MCs and spreading a mellow, light-hearted mood than lecturing you about the irresponsibility of the mainstream. Not that I'm against political rap, but I'd prefer for "alternative rap" to offer a palatable alternative, something to recommend itself beyond its unimpeachable "responsibility."

I could stick a bunch of early-mid 90s releases in this series, but for now look out for the new Casual album. Speaking of the Native Tongues posse, Casual's new on-record persona apparently has some connection to Prince Paul's Handsome Boy Modeling School character Chest Rockwell. That alone should make it worth checking out.

Life changed, more to come

My wife and I installed Tivo last night. I've been a Tivo resister for awhile, but we're giving it a try now. I buy lots of DVDs and have a Netflix account, so I don't see a lot of use in watching programming that you have to plan for, shown according to someone else's schedule, so you'd think that Tivo would be perfect for me. However, when I do watch TV, I tend to enjoy the search as much as the consumption. This is probably a male thing. I don't watch television because every Wednesday Scrubs is on (I don't actually know when Scrubs is on, so "Wednesday" is just a placeholder for "whatever day Scrubs is on") I watch it because I have no idea what's on and if I look around long enough I might find something intriguing.

In truth I often don't, which means I can grab a DVD and put it in without concern. This is a perfectly happy state of affairs: I get to watch Big Trouble in Little China or The Office entire series (British please) once a week, comfortable in the knowledge that there's nothing else I should be watching right now. With Tivo, I'll be stuck. "Should I really watch The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh again, when Tivo has been recording everything about WWII on the History Channel for the last week for me?"

Of course, that's a totally unrealistic example, since the storage space on our Tivo would be full after a couple of days if I set it to record everything on the History Channel about WWII. The point's still valid, however. Having a Tivo is like having someone to remind you of things your past self resolved that your future self would like to do, but you might not necessarily want to do anymore. I already get enough of that with my Netflix account, which has movies on it that I put on the queue six months ago showing up in my mailbox.

Everybody I've talked to who has Tivo says it totally changed the way they watch television, though, so I'm expecting some kind of dramatic change. I'll try to keep you posted.

Currently on the CR Wishlist...

The Complete Mr. Arkadin. I'll definitely pick this up really soon, so it won't stay wishlisted for very long. Three discs, three different versions of one of my favorite movies. I'm thinking that I'll write a comparison of the three versions (two of which I've seen before, albeit in poor transfers) here after I've acquired the set.

I don't have a lot of Criterion discs, owing mainly to the fact that I tend to buy things that I can find used/cheap. For that reason, my DVD collection is pretty extensive, but not especially coherent. Looking at the Criterion Collection website, however, I notice these other recent or upcoming releases that I'd like to get:

- Elevator to the Gallows
- Young Mr. Lincoln
- Equinox
- Yi Yi (where the hell is A Brighter Summer Day?)
- A Canterbury Tale
- Viridiana

On top of that, it only takes a moment of browsing to pick several times that many films in the collection I want. And that's why I hardly ever browse the retail price section of stores and websites.

Progress, Regress, Egress

I've been preparing for a conference and trying to get some other things done recently, so I've had little time or attention for the CR. However, I will get a few things down here just to keep track of what I'm up to.

I started a post last week about the release of Ghostface Killah's new album Fishscale and the show he performed at the Roxy on the 6th. The album is fantastic, "best since Supreme Clientele," as the chorus of praise has been saying. If this isn't the best album of the year, it'll be a great year. Cop it, if you haven't already.

I'm reading about 50 books right now. I keep starting new ones without finishing the last one, although I haven't resolved to give up on most of them. I started The Da Vinci Code awhile ago, but haven't returned to it after about 100 pages read before going to sleep. So far, it's pretty boring. Dan Brown's recent legal troubles have been more interesting. I'm also in the middle of several other novels and a typically long list of work-related books. I had to write a textbook review the other day, so that meant putting some other things aside for a moment.

I got the latest dispatch from the Shatner DVD Club the other day, Stuart Gordon's overlooked (at least by me) King of the Ants. I'd spotted the movie on the new release wall at the video store, but never picked it up despite Stuart Gordon's name on the box. It's not really horror, and from its description looked to be another of the endless movies about drifters and punks on the margins of the underworld who have some kind of ill-advised brush with organized crime. I'm not often in the mood for those things. To my surprise, KotA wasn't that bad. It has an obvious "based on the novel" feel to it due to the voice-over narrative and other sequences that provide perfect opportunities for interior reflection by the main character, so it should surprise no one that it's based on a novel (also written by the screenwriter.) It's no great prize, but not terrible. Certainly much better than Venom, a Netflix rental I watched earlier this week for some reason. I recall this movie getting some kind of modest theatrical release, which is pretty sad.

I saw early this week that Stanley Fish opened his new blog on the NYT website with a defense of Antonin Scalia's recent comments that I already dismissed in an earlier post. Only someone as sophistic as Fish could possibly come up with a position as knuckleheaded as this one. Today I notice that he doubles back sort of to take issue with Scalia's larger position with regard to constitutional interpretation. This post is no more coherent, but at least it has the virtue of being serious. By that I mean "not frivolous," rather than "worthy of deep consideration." As someone who has taught constitutional law and theory, I find it astonishing that he has somehow acquired a posting as a law prof, since he demonstrates no familiarity with many of the issues of legal exegesis. He also attributes a defnition to originalism that's idiosyncratic, to say the least. The idiosyncracy is an especially curious one since after defining originalism, he treats textualism (correctly) as an approach to interpretation that would also fit his definition of originalism.