hyssop

If you don’t read him, Glenn Greenwald is doing excellent political blogging over at Salon.com. In my opinion his voice is just right - extremely informed and educated on the issues, more reasonably skeptical than shrill, but also intellectually outraged by what’s happened to government in this country. He’s liberal, but he isn’t afraid to criticize Democratic “compromises,” and actually stands for core American principles, like, you know, habeas corpus, transparency of government, separation of powers, rule of law, just war… really radical, out there “anti-american” sentiments (these days). All his posts are worth checking out, but here’s a little piece of reportorial transgression from the DNC that made me smile: AT&T thanks the Blue Dog Democrats with a lavish party.

Speaking of the DNC, Hyssop operatives are now moving into position to deliver free cd’s to protesters outside the convention, featuring the tax-resistor provocation”Trixie Knows the Score” (which is track 7 here) and a new collaborative mashup about Iraq and oil. More news as it breaks…

Jay-Z - What More Can I Say

The Beatles - While My Guitar Gently Weeps

The Grey Album - What More Can I Say

Let’s run through some more of The Grey Album. I’ve listened to it so many more times than The Black Album that the originals sound almost foreign to me.

Jay-Z - Public Service Announcement (Interlude)

The Beatles - Long, Long, Long

The Grey Album - Public Service Announcement

Thanks to everyone who came out for the Channel Cafe gig and who listened online. The streaming had some bumps in the beginning but once I got those sorted out it went very smoothly (extra thanks to Sage for mentioning the audio problems - it turned out to be a faulty cable). If you listen to the archive (here) or download the podcast (here), skip the first 27:30 and enjoy the other 2 hours!

Also thanks to Paul for the awesome flyer. Check out his work here

(click to enlarge)

And of course many thanks to Manny and Cristo and the rest of the Channel gang… glad you guys are in the neighborhood!

Here’s the link to listen live to the set on Friday, August 15th from 7-10pm EST/11pm-2am GMT. Jump on and give a listen! I’ll post the podcast link once I’ve got that as well.

http://www.youcastr.com/casts/listen/667

Isaac Hayes tribute #3: Jay-Z hits this one out of the park.

Isaac Hayes - The Look Of Love

Jay-Z - Can I Live

Isaac Hayes tribute #2: speaking of Bristol trip hop, Massive Attack sampled Isaac Hayes too. “Our Day Will Come” is a cover of a Peggy Lee tune (well, I think it was her’s originally, great version regardless…)

Isaac Hayes - Our Day Will Come

Massive Attack - Exchange

Isaac Hayes tribute #1: MF Doom and Wu-Tang among others sampled this one, but the Tupac tune is unique, I think, for the indisputably old-school kick drum sound. By the way, if you ever wondered where Portishead got the inspiration for the sounds in Portishead, listen to “Walk On By” at 0:43 - with Beth Gibbons over the top it could be straight off the album.

Isaac Hayes - Walk On By

Tupac - Me Against The World

No really, this time it’s happening. Hyssop live and direct at The Channel Cafe , 300 Summer St. Boston this Friday from 7-10pm. It’s a funky little downstairs restaurant with attached art gallery, and they do a $10 burger and beer special from 5-7pm if you get there in time. Not sure the sound system is sufficiently robust to break out the dubstep, so I’ll be focusing on some newly discovered world music mixed in with beats and pieces.

Also, I think I’m going to try an experiment with this one, and stream the whole damn thing live over the internet. There’s a streaming site called youcastr.com that I will misappropriate (it’s built for sports), but it’s nice because anybody that actually listens can sign up for a free account and chat while listening, plus there’s an automatic archive of the set that’s also downloadable as a podcast. I will try to jump on and chat a bit, but I’ve got to keep the tunes flowing too, so maybe I’ll recruit a guest chatter or something. SO… you can also listen LIVE anywhere in the world at 7pm EST/11pm GMT.

There will eventually be video on youcastr as well, so if this goes ok, in the future you might see grainy, poorly-lit, live footage of my back hunched over various devices!

 I found this piece fairly interesting for its folk music take on the sampling/originality/creativity/thievery question. Full article here. Excerpt:

What is an original song, when it comes to folk music (or any genre)? All aspects of creativity are basically reconstituted bits and pieces of things we’ve seen, heard and experienced, finely or not-so-finely chopped and served in a form that hopefully blends the ingredients into something “new.” The ancient Greeks seemed to know this, expressed in their belief that the Muses of creativity were the daughters of Mnemosyne, Titan goddess of memory. Perhaps we would like to think that the thoughts that go into creating a new song are purely impressions from “real life,” but a melody does not suggest itself as much from the impression of the 6 train ride you took this morning as it does from a melody from another song. The same for chord progressions, song concepts, lyric sounds and patterns, song structures and everything else.

We are all thieves, you and I and everyone else.

…I was sad to read about the passing of Isaac Hayes over the weekend. I think I’ll scrap the Grey Album series for now and focus on him for a bit. We’ve already touched on a sample Public Enemy used here, but there’s a lot more.