CD REVIEWS
Outkast — Speakerboxxx /
The Love Below
The new Outkast sees Big Boi and Andre 3000 each releasing their own separate discs. While a lot of Outkast's chemistry is sacrificed, it is nice to see each artist's individual vision. Big Boi's Speakerboxxx is the straightforward hip-hop record and overall, is the stronger disc of the two. Andre 3000's The Love Below is more experimental but less consistent. At its best, however, Andre 3000 creates some oddly amazing moments — a quirky jungle cover of Rodgers & Hammerstein's "My Favorite Things", for example — and these become the highlights of the two-disc set. As a whole, this is one of the year's best hip-hop albums and Outkast's best release to date.
Chris Shively
Host of "Superdisco Galactica"
7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Fridays
Grade: B
Atmosphere - Seven's Travels
Everyone's favorite satirical, self-effacing emcee and his trusty beat wizard, Ant, are back with another album. While Slug seems to be riding the fence this time between diary diatribes and battle rhymes, there's room for a little political and social commentary in Slug's more mature world. Although fans of Ms. Ford might be disappointed — she shows only briefly here — Slug shows his versatility as a wordsmith more than ever.
Producer Ant is the real story here, though. Whether ripping a page from ElP's indie-hop bible on "Cats Van Bags" or gliding a subtle guitar loop through the final track, Ant shows maturation to
match Slug's. In short: Pick it up.
Phil Torpey
KJHK DJ
2 a.m. to 4 a.m. Sundays
Grade: B
Belle and Sebastian - Dear Catastrophe Waitress
Belle and Sebastian have been favored by dreamers since the group's first releases in the mid-1990s. Now on its sixth full-length not counting many e.p.'s and a soundtrack the Scottish septet has taken big steps in departing from its signature sound. DCW not only offers another great cover photograph, but is also brighter and snappier, at times reminiscent of '80s new-wave (gasp!). Perhaps this is due to its recent lineup change, new label or new producer. Or more likely all of the above. But fret not B&S devotees, lead singer Stuart Murdoch still offers his gentle voice and narrative lyrics to finish off the new sound with a familiar one. And whether you initially like it, it will somehow grow on you in classic B&S fashion.
Don't forget to see Belle and Sebastian live at Liberty Hall on November 4 - a rare experience, as I don't believe they have ever been to Lawrence!
—Natalie Yeh
KJHKDJ
3 p.m. to 5 p.m. Thursdays
Grade:
list of musicians, but this does nothing for his "new sound."
Dave Matthews — Some Devil
On his first solo album, he does little to justify breaking away from his band. The man undeniably has talent, which he has proven many times over, but what he chooses to do with that talent is the problem. At least when he was with Dave Matthews Band some of the songs were interesting, or at least catchy. Some Devil is dull and unoriginal. It is something that everyone has heard him do before, and it is boring. It is not that Matthews needs to rock out all the time, but this slow country/rock/gospel style does not do his talent justice.
The infamous Dave Matthews has replaced his traditional band with a long
20 jayplay
Also, "Gravedigger" seems too dark for Matthews, and it is annoying. The
redeeming song is "Stay or Leave", which is a nice, low-key guitar song with background percussion produced from mouth noises. If this had been the first single, people would have easily been tricked into buying this album under the false pretense that it was good.
-Collin LaJoie
KJHK DJ
4 a.m. to 6 a.m. Wednesdays
Grade: C-
MUSICAL RESISTANCE
The term afro-punk as employed to describe black punk is redundant. Punk was black before punk knew it was punk, and punk is still very much a black thing.
When attempting to assign a date to the moment when the punk movement actually became known as such, cultural theorists Andrew Edgar and Peter Sedgwick chose the summer of 1976 in England.
Attempting to locate the moment when blackness became a primary measure of personhood, or lack thereof is more complicated. There have always been brown people; however western commerce invented black when it needed a reason to justify the enslavement and continued oppression of millions of people.
In response to that oppression, black people invented ways to cope with and eventually change the conditions of their oppression. To those individuals, a song was not just entertainment. It was improvised joy when there was nothing to smile about. A song was rhythmic resistance when articulate resistance was silenced and often found dangling from a
What distinguishes black music from other American forms is that as it has changed over time from spirituals to hip hop, black music has always been about aesthetic resistance. Those who study it saw the emergence of punk as a return to expressive and musical basics. Though it took bizarre and sometimes racist forms, those British kids, responding largely to growing youth unemployment throughout the
1970s, spoke with a familiar anger anger rooted in Africa and given expressible form by black Americans. Indeed punk was a return to basies — the basics of turning 15 cents and a dream into a dollar and a reality based on equality
Why underscore the significance of the black tradition of resistance at the center and the soul of punk? The answer is simple. I wish to prevent our society one where everybody can and should appreciate other cultures, from becoming one where the dominant folks appropriate marginalized cultures. That's what punk has always been about.
INTRODUCTORY MATERIAL:
Book:
Amir Baraka (Loriz Jones) Bloops People The Negro Experience in White America and the Music That Developed From It
Audio:
Chunk Berry - Chuck Berry's Golden Decade.
Volumes 1 and 2 [1967, 1973]
Little Richard - Grooviest 17 Original Hits!
[1959]
Jana Simone High Priestess of Soul (1966)
Juni Hammux Are you Experienced? (1967)
Bad Brains I Against (1986)
Fishbone The Realty of my Surroundings
Film:
James Spooner (Director) After junk The "Rock-n-Roll Nigger" Experience (2003)
KJHK host of "Viger Activated
Every Tuesday 9 p.m to 10 p.m
thursday, october 9, 2003