R Funksmith

the audiologist's lobby? Can you explain more about that?

let's cure that shit!

yeah the tune is alright, but I do find it a bit lame... it seems like ALL the rules are unwritten when it comes to sampling, but this track seems to violate some unwritten rule to me. I'm not some huge Pete Rock & CL fanboy but T.R.O.Y. strikes me as kind of a sacred hip hop track, plus it's so well-known that why re-do it? Unless you were gonna do some super-clever parody of it, or update it or some shit. Lazy?

... uh,

Asbestos is banned in Canada, but Canada still produces it and sells it to 3rd-world countries. Which is pretty awesome.

it was the New Orleans Jazz Festival, so there was music there from 11 - 7, but then the city keeps going til about 6 am with shows and debauchery. And most of the venues are in walking distance from where we were staying, in the French Quarter. AND! In New Orleans you can get a drink in a bar, and then take it out of the bar and walk around. Everyone's walking around with drinks on the street. a couple of the records I got down there are Sly & the Family albums. They are really great. Does it seem to anyone else that Sly doesn't get quite the recognition he deserves? He's like a proto-Prince.

Mr Lif - I Phantom is an excellent concept album in my opinion. And also a good album.

Oh man you guys, I was on a 6-week Canadian tour and directly after that went to New Orleans for 10 days, and returned from all that with about 98 records. I straight murderlized this one shop in New Orleans with the 3-dollar bins. Records and alcohol are cheap in the states! Not that I've listened to them all yet but my favorite so far is the Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings one. I saw them at the New Orleans Jazz Fest too! Also saw the original Meters, their first club gig in over 30 years and their last club gig ever. Also saw Budos Band, the New Mastersounds, Herbie Hancock, Mystikal (haha, but actually he was awesome), and a bunch of crazy bayou swamp funk with accordions and shit. I win for this week I think.

I bet Bob Seger hits the casinos HARD. I mean touring, not gambling. Adele got some backlash because she famed up so suddenly but I think she's awesome and talented. She sounds the same live as in the studio. No Autotune for her thanks. I can happily never hear another remix of that one song of hers though.

I don't have the vocab to understand what you were trying to do and what mistake you made, can you explain?

touring, touring, touring. On Monday I'm starting my longest-ever tour, I'll be gone 6 weeks, and making the most $$ per show, and week, of my illustrious career so far.

rip

oooh yeah I've seen that. Or where they type "choooon", same thing right? Wacky little guys aren't you?

thanks for taking a look fellas. I'm just chuffed to have been nominated. PS I also play bass in Bessie & the Back Eddies, the 4th choice. Cuz I'm badass like that. Dopp, what does it mean when someone from the UK says "that is a tune" or "they were all tunes" or "boy-howdy, that right there is certainly a tune without question"?

About a year ago I started a 4-piece funk band, for which I write the tunes and play the bass. Because everyone in the group is in like 6 other projects, it's hard to find time to rehearse or learn new stuff, but we've been slowly but steadily amassing a bunch of badass material. Recently we were nominated for Best New Band in the Kootenay Music Awards, which encompasses a fairly large chunk of southern British Columbia. If any of you gents were even slightly intrigued, you could go here and check out the contenders (there's 4, but only 3 have soundcloud stuff to listen to for now) and place a vote. My band is called Lint, and our audio is the crappiest of all, from a live show in November. But you should listen to all of them and vote for your favorite, of course. Thanks for your time and interest in everything I do.

that is extremely clever.

Mine says LEON, and I missed the genesis of the whole LEON thing so I dunno where it's from, but it's an easy joke to just jump onto it seems. So don't be scurred. But yeah, any insight into the LEON phenomenon would be appreciated.

Cambian you're just being used to pad their roster with someone from the fabled land of UK. I hope you get an awesome gig out of it though. What's all this about an interview?

depends on the agency. Have had a couple experiences with shady agents in the past, and now we're back to doing it ourselves (a band I'm in). But I guess some venues won't book a performer who isn't in the agency? I haven't encountered that before

what a hilarious situation. I do hope the journalist gets a stern talking-to from his employers though.

same with here, the only spot that has decks has shitty decks.

just get rid of the huge ones. I like a little bit of vinyl sound, personally, even though I actually agree that "vinyl isn't supposed to have clicks/pops on it"

who's being precious now? Of course we don't think he means an actual 'ban' when he says 'ban'. No one thinks that he thinks his call for a ban was to be taken seriously. (When you say something rules, you don't actually think it literally 'rules' correct?) And yes, he's clearly trolling with the article and has succeeded in winding people up. ....in fact, yes you're completely right. Dickhead opinions should matter to none of us, especially considering how we're all enlightened beings of pure energy, unconcerned with earthly distractions. But it is a shoddy piece of journalism, whether or not he's 100% serious or joking or anywhere in between. I don't care how much of the piss he's taking, and I also don't care what specific genre he's attacking. I just think it's irresponsible to have that platform (the SF weekly), which appears to be somewhat respected or whatever, and use it to skeet un-thought-out opinions onto the tits of the masses. Also, from the tone of the article, using my acute powers of deduction I have concluded that, far from enjoying instrumental hip hop or even merely being ambivalent about it, the author does actually strongly dislike it... I guess probably based on downloading the instrumentals to his favorite rap record of 2010 and discovering that the beats were shitty. The only way to exonerate the author is if this whole thing were a false-flag operation, the author actually does like instrumental hip hop, and he's wound everyone up in order to make people think about the issue and cement their opinions in the liking-it camp. You don't seem to understand how SERIOUS this is man. Disappoint.

from the article: "the world's foremost hip-hop hipster tastemaker, Diplo" wait, what?

I can dig it. Still the article seems pretty ignorant and self-important. Also I would draw an important distinction between 'instrumental hip hop' and 'hip hop instrumentals', and I would say that the latter can easily suffer from boringness, but not the former. For example, Endtroducing (Shadow), or The Audience's Listening (Cut Chemist). It's also funny how the author complains about hip hop producers trying to be deep and atmospheric, but then lets DJ Shadow off the hook for some reason, even though Endtroducing is utterly deep and atmospheric (to the point of being a bit long-winded, in my opinion). It just seems like the style nowadays is to write articles that lash out at subjects that are held dear by lots of people. The way he attacked J Dilla, I mean say what you will about Dilla but lots and lots and LOTS of people, including 'influential' producers of hip hop, think he's the GOAT... so rudely and clumsily attacking him like that is obviously gonna draw some flack. It seems like the article was written in a trolling fashion. I myself got trolled, as you can see. EDIT: oh yeah, I was gonna say that as far as instrumentals go, it's a sign of how excellent the beat is if you can take the vocals out and be left with a track that's still highly listenable. One that comes to mind is Straight Off The D.I.C. by Cannibal Ox. Also the author forgets that when you buy a single on wax for instance, you get the instrumental because it's a TOOL for DJs, not because it's some offering to the greater musical canon created by humans on earth. Nahmean?