a convergence of history, gold grills, and plaid: you trust me don'tcha?

A month ago today, Astronautalis dropped his new album, Pomegranate. I was supposed to write a review of it, and I fully intended to until I got distracted by a shiny object.

The truth is, there is nothing new I can add to the praise this album is garnering. For those fans of Andy’s, the album is a clear leap to the next level...in it he recedes ever further from his overt/classic hip hop roots, and creates a sound that is at once new and familiar. It is both the sound that a dying steel town makes, and that of a reinvented southern beach town: it is story telling and lies, the grandiosity of the old alcoholic at the bar, or the one sitting on the front porch (to borrow two region-specific stereotypes) recalling lost opportunities and imagined slights. Sprinkled with a little west-coat ethos (or so I imagine it).

For this fan (and I can call myself no other such thing), the album is clearly the next step in his career. The one low point, is the eleventh track on the album, titled “The Most Important Track on the Album,” it is a span of disconcerting silence that comes off as arty and pretentious. Perhaps that is the point: at this juncture the listener is invited to fill the silence with their own stories and reflections...instead though, I just find myself pressing “forward” on the ’ol iPod.

Overall, I am only bummed that personal obligations kept me from checking out his set last night at Jackrabbits. And so, in lieu of a review, I sent Andy 10 Questions, and he was free to respond as he saw fit. They are brief, and really serve no purpose. Here’s hoping you enjoy them:

1. Last great book you read:
"winter's tale" by mark helprin

2. A nickname you have (not the one we all know):
dirt reynolds

3. Song with the highest play count in your iTunes:
"the story of my life"

4. Your browser's homepage is:
google.com

5. Two very trivial things you're very good at:
scrabble and cooking breakfast

6. Favorite site to waste time on:
partyends. com

7. First concert:
stone temple pilots, meat puppets, and jawbox @ george mason university

8. Worst job you've ever had:
working at the eckerd's at atlantic and 3rd

9. Complete this sentence:
the movie "crank" is the best thing since sliced bread.

10. Last YouTube video you watched twice:
the animated music video about George Washington

p.s. pictured: on the left: Andy Bothwell, on the right: Filip G. (taken from Andy’s myspace).

p.p.s. Pomegranate is available on iTunes.

*sigh* the 90s

the economy might be a smoking ruin, but at least we still have small pleasures...

...yes yes y'all

Summer in the city is always a weird time. The city (in this case Jacksonville) slows down to a snail's pace. Those who can, make a kind of mass exodus for cooler parts, or hotter beaches. Of course there are sidetrips and day trips taken by those of us not summering in Maine. The result is a scene with a kind of catch-me-if you-can fluidity, lubricated with beer and fish tacos.

Well, at least that has been my experience.

This year, 9th and Main played host to the annual Summertime in the City jam. An all-day event, there were b-boy battles, free hot dogs and soda the kids, and at some point a free keg (though I arrived long after it was gone).

I arrived at the venue at about 11:00 p.m., well into the show. As I slipped into the theatre, Peyton Locke, formerly Therapy (please call him Peyton from now on), of the AB's and Perceptionists, and currently of the Smile Rays, was doing his thing.

Locke is one of the most multi-talented individuals in Jacksonville's hip hop scene. I've interviewed him before, and then he told me one thing: "I dream of crates and crates of my own records."

These days though, he's got his own DJ. And although Locke brings the same passion and sense of fun to the stage, it seemed as if, as with his name change (back), he's trying to work things out, to figure out his next step.

In fact, several of Jacksonville's regulars seemed to be trying to do the same thing: trying to figure out how to interlace the capabilities of production that seem to be as close as the next Mac, with the balance of a well-crafted show.

Willie Evans Jr., who is another favorite put together a quick performance, "I want people to stay long enough to see me," he said of the notoriously behind-scheduleness of the scene, "before they look around and realize there are no girls here." But his performance too had a sort of thinking-out-loud quality to it.

Neither performer was a strong as I have seen them be, but I am pleased to say that neither of them sampled twice from the (correct me if I am wrong) same record as did Dillon from Atlanta. With many props thrown out to Isaac Hayes, Dillon, rapped quickly and funnily over Hayes samples that are so good as to almost insure the success of the performer working "with" Mr. Hayes.

As I left, Dope Sandwich had taken the stage, and if I'd had a little more stamina, I would've have stayed to see them perform. From the glance I got, their rhymes were tight, and their beats dope.

And really, one can't ask for anything more than that, to step out the door into sweltering humidity, with a neck-bobbin' beat for you to exit the scene on. Whether or not everyone brings an "A" game then becomes a moot point...it is the summertime after all.

string, kitten whiskers, raindrops

A couple of years ago, I wrote a small piece for the Times Union on hip hop in Jacksonville. In it, I covered three “acts,” the smallest and possibly the most atypical of the hip hop genre was Astronautalis, nee Andy Bothwell.

I wanted to write the article not just because I love hip hop, but because at the time, I was regularly checking out Hip Hop Hell (thanks Ian) and I was blown away by a few of the local and national acts that got booked (Louis Logic). It was there, one tipsy summer night, that I saw this skinny white kid in a blazer and tight jeans get up on stage and craft a pretty flawless freestyle of topics suggested by the crowd.

It was then that I knew the kid--and hopefully by extension the scene--had something viable and unquantifable. Since then, I learned that Astronautalis’s feat is not without precedent, but still, his music, his ability to transform and transcend the specifics of his chosen genre, are dazzling slight-of-hand tricks.

So, it’s with all that gushy loviness that I am super-stoked to say that he’s about to drop another album, Pomegranate, and for those that are curious as to the new sound, here’s his myspace link.

“Then there was me,
I was born a charming man with silver tongue and pearl teeth, this was never how it was supposed to end, we were promised all we dreamed. The envy of the everyman our family seemed complete, our father was a charming man, our mother a Siren. But, now I'm on the run again, this hotel's home to me, after they found the eldest's skeleton floating face down in the stream. The youngest was still tucked away in bed, they thought he was a sleep, till they moved the mirror from his mouth, and the fog that should remain was not to be seen.”

Optimism Shines

I love hip hop music, one of the things I love most about it though, is that like jazz, it can be stretched in so many directions.

This summer, I met and had the good fortune to hear the band Zullo. Recently, the collective (and that they truly are, there's like ten people up on stage), released their first EP, (appropriately) entitled Bricolage.

Though clearly a fledgling band, Zullo has wed their talent to funk, jazz, soul and blues with a little post-Tribe-esque hip hop thrown in to round it all out. The result? A sound whose roots are clearly traceable, yet unique: a little deconstructed jam band, mixed with a little Wu Tang that makes heads bob and bottoms shake (and hippies do whatever it is they do).

Perhaps the best part though, is their youthful unjaded approach to the material, clearly, the band loves the music just as much as the audience does. That in and of itself is a nice break from the “uber cool” techno/pop/electronica crowding out airspace and clubs in recent years.

Check them out at: http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=98494912