People on the Border Have Beef, Should Chill.

In a fitting room at GhettoWorld fashions..

It's a touchy subject down there.

Because I'm in Thesis-Induced Hibernation...

small smiles make my day.

Eli From The Class Of 2005. Recognize & Realize.

I Know You Seen Me in the Videos...

I'm famous. Look, they keep putting me in XLR8R. Seriously, because I have written for this publication for like 6 or 7 years, I have been a featured contributor like three times already. But they keep coming back for more!! Last time this little punk ass local nightlife photographer whose-name-I-will-not-mention got his hands on a copy and lectured me on how the picture was not flattering, and how I don't know how to hold my face for a camera. So this time around I used a more professional pic that another, less-punk-ass nightlife photographer friend of mine took. Just when you're feeling good about yrself, along comes Jarrett Spiegel to kick yr self esteem in the nuts. He e-mailed this to me today. Obvies, he has too much time on his hands.

Got Body if You Want it...

Though I haven't been following (or covering) much rock these past two years, I started hanging around some of my indie rock friends again recently and they took me to see The Prairie Cartel a couple weeks ago. If you are looking for the next local band-to-watch, I'd wager this is it, unless you count my friend Bill's awesome noise rock band, These Are Powers, who split their time between here and brooklyn.

At any rate, The Prairie Cartel will play tonight at Outdanced! (Funky Buddha Lounge), which is $5 cover ($3 if you RSVP), and will be worth every penny when you hear them play "Homicyde," a funk-rock track that derails at the end to an absurd chant, "homo / homo / homo / homo." If you can't make it tonight, they also spin a DJ set Thurs. night at The Burlington.

Since I'm making this post all about plugs, I'll also mention here that my friend Damon of another local band you should know, The Eternals, is also spinning a DJ set Thurs. night at Danny's. If I am lucky, he will bring the "No Diggity" record, b/c he knows that is my jam.

If I Could Show You, You Would Never Leave It

I flew to Minnesota in Feb. to drive around town with Slug for 8 hours, see all the places he grew up, the coffee shops he wrote in and listen to the new album in his basement. Read all about it in this XLR8R, which you can download here.


And in tribute to one of my favorite rappers of all time (no homo), a lil throwback:

The Abusing Of The Rib

I wanna follow the footprints across my lovers stomach
I wanna call out her name before i plummet
I wish i had a map of the terrain so i could step around the landmines
avoid the beasts under the bed that read they bedtimes
I wanna find these here so-called treasures
the pleasures, the trinkets, the never ending weekends
acknowledging that I'm still just a piece of the sequense
but seeing this different footprints got me needin to show my weakness
time lies the time zones
I cross them with my eyes closed
memorise the landmarks and learn the cycles
the weather patterns how the seasons effect
the east and the west of each region learning cylces
forget about the fact that
many trails have been tracked
maybe it's a plus that theres a path
if this was some uncharted land i'd have to be a smarter man
willing to travel the farthest to unravel the harvest
and natural resources are unlimited
exploration only requires some desire and initiative
take your time and find the right way to climb
it ain't safe to play games with natures mind

if i could show you, you would never leave it
and if i could show you, you would never leave it

i wanna ride a train up my lovers arm
stop of at the brain
then hop out and find out what's going on
cut through trees and ride through rocks
and synchronise the universal sun down to my watch
i've seen a lot
but not quite as much as her
the top went off the memory and the imagination blurred
but i know she's been put through hell
i can feel it
and i know she's touched heaven as well
trying to steal it
it came on and it taught her a song
it's strung her along and it caught her when the god was gone
now to the break-o-dawn she's tryin to feel that fix
and all the family and friends is tryin to seal them lips
but i ain't dumb
i can hear that train come from miles away
setting obstacles to stop the arrival
i'm gonna blow up that iron in wood rogue
from what i understood those be the aura fits of his survival
my recital another tantrum
because she's highly excitable swinging wings of red nova
happy endings always off to a bad start
addictive voyeuristic to the trackmarks

and if i could show you, you would never leave it

He's a Gemini, So Stay on the Friendly Side...

About the only thing I'm listening to this week is the work of a DJ duo composed of Hadji Bakara, who also plays in the band Wolf Parade, and Rob Squire, a producer I came to know as a teenager as Sixtoo, then making plodding, petulant production that fit peripherally into the backpacker hip-hop genre, but even then was industrially influenced in a way that made it a sort of class of its own. Squire has recently recast himself as Speakerbruiser. He and Bakara are based in Montreal, a city where French electro, British drum and bass, and Caribbean soca and reggae clash as a result of the city's immigrant strongholds and unique cultural history. Squire relocated to the city (he is originally from its rural Canadian outskirts), which is home now more than ever to a burgeoning club rap and hipster party scene that's given birth to senior and freshman acts like Chromeo, A-Trak, Thunderheist and Wolf Parade. His DJ sets -- far from the isolationist (maybe even nihilist) production of his younger years -- are suddenly reflective of that relevance, with playlists akin to those of taste making, party-pleasing DJs, albeit with a unique twist. He and Bakara haven't abandoned the weird industrial palate of sounds: Their sets are composed of mostly original remixes of popular mainstream rap, reggae or indie rap acapellas, but laden with heavy synthetic overlays. Even their version of Justin Timberlake's "My Love" is infused with a dark, futuristic Caribbean flavor, replete with low, elastic, synthetic bass and metal drums. Here's an original remix of a Ghislain Poirier and Face-T track; and here's an extended mixtape.