Join Us On the Radio Tonight, 5 Hour Special

Once again we hit the airwaves tonight at Midnight EST, with our radio show the Underground Railroad. You can hear us online here, or on WBAI 99.5 FM if you live in the tri-state area. And while you check out the sounds you also can talk to us live in the chat room.

Tonight we are following a special event on the radio station, an all day "Hip-Hop Takeover" organized by Ife Dancy, with many other young producers helping out.. much props to Ife and the crew for all their hard work, I hope this leads to bigger things in the future..

And since it is leading into our show tonight, we'll try to bring a little something special ourselves, as we fill in for Tony Ryan and keep the train rolling until 5AM. We'll be airing the interview and freestyle I recorded from our favorite British emcee Ty, and local underground stalwart Mazzi will be in the house live, possibly with some special guests.

Plus our DJs Monkone, Emskee, and 3D will all be throwing down special mixes for the occasion, and then the great DJ Tomkat will close things out as only he can, with some treats from his vast archive of breaks. You'll want to have some blank tapes for this one.

Bush's Pregnant Pause

What the heck was going on during that excruciating 5-second pause in this sentence? I have two theories:

A) After yet anoter failure to even approach pronouncing "Abu Ghraib " correctly, the President hoped everyone would just politely walk out of the room, and leave him alone with his shame.

B) Dick Cheney took a moment to scratch his nose, then stuck his hand back into the puppet.

Join Us the Radio Tonight

Once again we hit the airwaves tonight at Midnight EST, with our radio show the Underground Railroad. You can hear us online here, or on WBAI 99.5 FM if you live in the tri-state area. And while you check out the sounds you also can talk to us live in the chat room.

Turn Off Your Mind, Relax and Float Downstream

Today I tried to queue up all my Beatles MP3s into winamp, but instead my office computer decided to open about 25 separate instances of winamp and play all the songs at once. This turned out to be quite a fascinating aural experiment, my boss who also happens to be a classical composer took my headphones for a few minutes and was riveted, finally remarking "that's actually really cool, it's like a kaleidoscope!"

As I started closing all the winamps in the task manager, removing the layers one by one, it shifted the kaleidoscope a little bit each time.. it was pretty awesome, to us music geeks. I'm gonna try and reproduce it sometime, when I have the means to record it, but I suspect it's one of those moments Eric Dolphy told us about, that appears and then is gone in the air, never to be captured again.

Some other items that are also totally ri-geek-ulous very cool. Everybody probably posted these a month ago, but I am unable to be in the loop right now:

• Ebola Virus Beanie Baby
• Windows System Sound Megamix
• Teen Vin Diesel Electric Boogaloo
• New Morris Day Album - Seems to be concert stuff with The Time, plus new tracks including Morris rhyming with E40(!!)

click below for the songs that made up my Beatles Kaleidoscope:

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The Beatles - Dear Prudence (3:56)
Beatles - Strawberry Fields (4:10)
The Beatles - Here Comes The Sun (3:04)
Beatles - Eleanor Rigby (2:07)
Beatles - Lovely Rita (2:41)
Beatles CD - She's Leaving Home (3:34)
Beatles - Yesterday (2:05)
11 - Cry Baby Cry (3:01)
The Beatles - Julia (2:52)
The Beatles - I Want You (She's So Heavy) (7:46)
The Beatles - Blackbird (2:17)
The Beatles - Golden Slumbers (1:31)
The Beatles - A Day In The Life (5:33)
The Beatles - Fixing A Hole (2:36)
The Beatles - You Never Give Me Your Money (4:02)
The Beatles - Something (3:03)
The Beatles - Penny Lane (3:03)
Beatles - Hello Goodbye (3:30)
Beatles-We Can Work It Out.mp3
Crosby, Stills and Nash In my life - Beatles Cover.mp3
death cab for cutie - martha my dear.mp3
ella fitzgerald - savoy truffle.mp3
elvis presley - Hey Jude (Beatles cover, live Las Vegas August 3 1969).mp3
gabor szabo - Dear Prudence.mp3
graham central station - dear prudence.mp3
john lennon - Let it Be..mp3
leslie west - Dear Prudence.mp3
Rare Beatles - norwegian wood....take 4.mp3
ray charles - Let It Be.mp3
The Beatles - Abbey Road - 07 - Here Comes The Sun.mp3
The Beatles - Across The Universe.mp3
The Beatles - Help! - 03 - You've Got To Hide Your Love Away.mp3
the beatles - Here Comes the Sun (Bangla Desh - acoustic).mp3
The Beatles - Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds(2).mp3
The Beatles - One - 20 - Lady Madonna.mp3
the beatles - Strawberry Fields Forever (Take 7 and edit piece).mp3
The Beatles - Strawberry Fields Forever.mp3
the beatles - you know my name.mp3
The Beatles Anthologi 1 - GOT TO GET YOU INTO MY LIFE.mp3
the beatles d7 - revolver 7 she said she said.mp3
The Beatles Favourites - Let it be.mp3
The Beatles, 1967 - 1970 Disc 1, 08, I Am The Walrus.mp3
tori amos - let it be.mp3
weather report - Dear Prudence.mp3
white album disc two - mother nature's son.mp3
White Album pt2 - Savoy Truffle.mp3
Wilco (Jeff Tweedy) - I'm Only Sleeping (live).mp3
wilson pickett - hey jude.mp3

Hip-Hop Convention Coverage

• NY Newsday
• Democracy Now
• NPR
• SF Chronicle (by OKP vet Joshunda Sanders)

By the way all you hip-hop luminaries in town, you should come see us on Saturday night!

Morris Day Meets Mr. Mcfeeley

Hellooooo.. is anybody out therrrre???

New computer parts are being fed-exed as we speak, and I should be back online shortly. Did a nice little interview with Ty today, which will be one of the first things up when we return. If you're in the NY area you should make your way to the 5 Spot in Brooklyn this Saturday night, and catch the man live and in person..

And here's another event earlier that day, for folks in my neck of the woods who aren't attending the convention. I'm hyped to see the Time for free, whenever I've caught them in recent years their live show was as hot as ever, Minneapolis funk at its finest. But uhh, am I the only one who looks at this line-up and worries that Morris and the boys are one step away from playing Six Flags Great Adventure?

The Downtown NYC River to River Festival 2004 is exploding with activity this summer. On June 19, River to River presents Target Children's Day and Fireworks at the South Street Seaport. Gordon from "Sesame Street" will host this star-studded, nonstop event beginning at Noon. The fun-filled day will include performances from the cast of Cyberchase, ZOOM, characters from Between the Lions, Mr. McFeeley from Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood and The Russian American Kids Circus on Stage. Kids can meet and greet their favorite walk-around characters like Elmo, Cookie Monster, Bert and Ernie, the Berenstain Bears and more. Enjoy arts & crafts, face-painters, jugglers, clowns, puppets -- even a petting zoo!

Later in the day, don't miss special performances from Ralph's World, the Big Nazo Band and the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players. Morris Day and the Time will give a very special performance at 9 p.m. that will lead us into the Target Big Oooh Aaah Fireworks spectacular at 10 p.m.!

The third annual Downtown NYC River to River Festival, presented by American Express, produces and promotes roughly 500 cultural events, including world-class, music and dance performances in Lower Manhattan.

For a complete list of events, please visit www.RivertoRiverNYC.com.

The Filet Mignon is Cancelled. Here, Eat These Rice Cakes.

I woke up at 5AM today. Which is 5 hours earlier than usual. Stevie Wonder was doing a free concert in Bryant Park for Good Morning America, and somehow, after the news that Ray Charles had passed, getting myself down there for Stevie just seemed like the right thing to do.

But I had a funny feeling as I approached the park that something wasn't right. And sure enough, on the front steps I was met by a sign reading "Stevie Wonder concert Cancelled. Go f**k yourself." - with the latter part thinly veiled as "Come see Dido next week."

But that wasn't even the bad part. When I approached the hapless interns ABC sent over to hold these signs, and asked why their bosses had crushed my dreams, guess what answer I got...

The Stevie Wonder concert was cancelled because our nation is still in mourning for Ronald Reagan.

The Stevie Wonder concert was cancelled because our nation is still in mourning for Ronald Reagan.

Even in death, he screws us one more time.

Ray Charles, 1930 - 2004

In case you haven't heard, we just lost one of thegreatest of the greats.

Few artists have been so tragically underappreciated as Ray Charles.. he did so much amazing work and had such massive influence on American popular music, but so many of us in the hip-hop generation only know him for the somewhat softer stuff we've been exposed to in his later years (including the Diet Pepsi "Uh Huh" song that Prince wrote for him), and view him as someone might view Stevie if they only knew "I Just Called To Say I Love You," and had never borne witness to the Holy Grail he bestowed upon us from '72 to '77.

Apparently some people are taking tomorrow off to remember some other dude, but I for one will be setting the day aside to honor Ray Charles, one of the 20th century's foremost American heroes.

Here are some links with more about the man:

AP Obituary
AMG Biography - some good insight into his influence.

Please pass on other good links if you come by them, or your own thoughts of course.

Including Activists in Your Activism

The inexplicably still blogless Ta-Nehisi Coates (didn't you get the memo? all music writers must blog!) on the upcoming National Hip-Hop Political Convention. Damn is this next week already? The thoughts below mesh nicely with what I was saying here a while ago.

A Nation of Millions
Hip-Hop Convention seeks answer to what's holding young America back

James Bernard is determined that his latest foray into political activism not end like his first. In 1984, a young Bernard volunteered for Jesse Jackson's first presidential run. Though Jackson had little chance of winning, he created a tremendous buzz among the progressive youth. But after volunteering for Jackson again in '88, Bernard was disappointed by the unfulfilled potential. "The problem with both campaigns was a lack of follow-up," says Bernard. "In '84, we had a computer record of all the donors of the Jackson campaign on tape." After that election, "the only copy was sitting on a friend of mine's desk collecting dust."

In the interest of kicking up dust instead of collecting it, Bernard and dozens of activists from around the country are coming to Newark this month for the first National Hip-Hop Political Convention. Representatives of a variety of progressive groups, including the ACLU, the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, and the Center for Constitutional Rights, will participate in the four-day conference. The events, which begin June 16, include a concert, a film festival, and workshops like "Taking My Life to the Next Level..."

...The convention organizers appreciate any effort that strengthens the hand of young voters. But they are not sold on the idea of artists as the vanguard of a political movement. Bakari Kitwana, co-founder of the convention, says he was inspired to hold the gathering, in part, after Simmons invited him and several other activists to participate in an HSAN rally at Reverend Al Sharpton's headquarters. "I told him it doesn't make any sense to do anything if you aren't going to get activists involved," says Kitwana. "So he did, and we got together a good group of people who showed up at Sharpton's headquarters. What ended up happening is what HSAN does now. It ended up being a rally where the hip-hop artists were allowed to speak, and we were in the audience. A lot of people left angry."

What came out of that anger was the convention's own philosophy of the hip-hop generation—that its agenda should be shaped and driven not so much by big names but by ordinary people of the same age group with similar concerns. Kitwana says the two approaches should ultimately complement each other...

Even Tho Eye Know U Dont Believe In That Anymore

Happy Birthday 2 U

P.S.: If U do aftershows in LA, with special guests and all, U have 2 give NY some too. It's a law. (And please be aware that Doug E Fresh does not count as a special guest.)

Hello Darkness My Old Friend

My home computer is currently non-functional, which is severely hampering my bloggery.

Until I'm back amongst the living, let's all go join in O-Dub's Epic PC/No-Homo Debate.

As my contribution to the discourse I will point readers to these two vintage posts about Vice Magazine, from the Blogger Later Known As Wonkette, which give Vice's "ironic detachment makes bigotry cool" pose the skewering it so richly deserves: one two.

Dangermouse + 3 Unreleased Never Before Read Bonus Blogs!!!

Dangermouse gets crunky with the Railroad crew

DJ Dangermouse stopped by the show this weekend and chatted for a bit.

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I try to keep myself from picking out random strangers and haranguing them, I really do. But sometimes I just can't hold it back. (it's the may 5th entry)

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This is the best blog that gets the least comments ever. I'm thinking everybody's intimidated? (I wrote this before I got pinged, BTW)

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Speaking of getting pinged: when I posted Jay-Z's decade-old appearance on my show here a while ago, I pasted in a clip of my voice saying "hiphopmusic dot com!" right after I introduce him, just to make sure nobody could reproduce it without crediting me. That turned out to be a wise choice, as you'll hear on one of this year's biggest mixtapes, Sickamore's Marcy to Madison Square (it's track 25, if you have it).

(props to Lynne for pointing that track out)