Monthly Archives: September 2012

No collection of prime ‘90s hip-hop is complete without representation from The Beatnuts, who in their early three-man phase helped provide lyrical individuality and musical depth to what is very likely the genre’s finest top to bottom decade; ten years’ worth of worthy commercial successes, a thriving underground, and the upstart beginnings of the music’s experimental side, all giving notice to any lingering doubters that the form was here to stay. If outstanding hip-hop records were hitting the bins hot and heavy in those days, then The Beatnuts: Street Level has endured as one of the finest full-length rap debuts of the era.

By the middle of hip-hop’s second decade, the safety of the genre’s future as an art form was clear as a blue sky on a crisp and cloudless Fall day. Serious strides were being made with such nonchalant frequency that a recurrent topic of discussion flowered amongst listeners favorable to the scene, a discourse that concerned the idea of a ‘90s rap renaissance.

Folks who said no were generally under severe sway to the idea of “old school” supremacy, the hypothesis that those artful scientists who’d instigated the surely essential, early advances that helped shape the style were indeed the standard yet to be eclipsed. Those who said yes to the suggestion that hip-hop was climbing upward on an unprecedented creative arc weren’t necessarily opposed to the belief of ‘80s rap as the wellspring from which every worthy MC and DJ took a big dip. They just couldn’t shake the impression that the music was growing at an insanely rapid rate and branching out into all kinds of unexpected stylistic areas.

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“I don’t exactly remember the first record I ever bought, neither when or where, but I know the very first record that really mattered to me. I was about 16 years old and still on summer holiday and was watching MTV. Who the hell was that guy getting off the helicopter and singing “All my people right here, right now?”

“He was Liam Gallagher and Oasis were launching the new single from their third album, Be Here Now. It was the summer of 1997 and this is how I started with music. Today I definitely love Noel Gallagher and not Liam, but at that time I was really amazed by the way I found every Oasis song so interesting; the more I was listening to them, the more I felt the urge to get their previous records.

I’ve managed to collect every Oasis single or record since then—big stores, ebay, local sellers—I needed to have them all. I honestly had a crush on the Spice Girls one year before, but it was just because I was a teenager and my hormones were abuzz. (I bought their album too.) After growing my sideburns in 1997, I also bought OK Computer and Urban Hymns and started building a solid knowledge of Britpop.

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After almost exactly eight years without a studio album, The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion returns to the racks with Meat and Bone. It lacks the often outlandish stylistic extremes of their most celebrated work, instead striving to stir up the power trio punk blooze that’s always been the guts of their thing. But if the record holds enough gusto to surpass their previous two studio efforts, it’s ultimately hindered by possible inhibitions over just how to reenter the musical fray.

Throughout their impressive ‘90s run, The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion was an entity that consciously courted the ridiculous. If their early material, namely the bootleg debut A Reverse Willie Horton, the legit self-titled LP on Caroline, Tim Warren’s Crypt label-issued Crypt-Style! and the first Matador LP Extra Width were perhaps more direct (or maybe more appropriately less audacious) blasts of this hulking trio’s unsubtle specialty, then those establishing documents were still rather flagrant in how they flaunted the sheer nerve of their endeavor.

That is to say, just who was this antagonistic art-punk that was daring to engage with a musical history (the blues obviously, but also prime-grade ‘60s R&B and super-greasy ‘70s funk jams) predicated upon a palpable authenticity that this Brown University dropout definitely didn’t possess? It was a common refrain, though the statement was rarely that wordy. Indeed, early JSBX threw any gestures to purity out the window; in fact, it wouldn’t be inappropriate to describe Spencer, bassist Judah Bauer, and drummer Russell Simins as a racket-inducing underground rock update on that bane of early rock critics, Led Zeppelin.

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“Growing up, our first exposure to music was through the vinyl format: mostly old, warped and scratched 45s from our mom’s collection. It might just be nostalgia, but there’s something charming about the listening process when one has to be an active participant. Even the simple act of turning over the record requires a type of attentiveness and devotion to the expeirence that’s lost in the age of digital, 100-song playlists.”
—Gibb Cockrum

Red Clover Ghost is Gibb and Clint Cockrum, identical twin brothers from the mountains of Western Maryland, transplanted to Virginia Beach, VA. The duo is set to release their self titled debut LP on October 23rd via Good Soil Records.

We were instantly taken with RCG’s Posies meets Turin Breaks vocals and airy, ethereal songcraft, both heady and organic at once. We’re delighted to debut the first track from the LP, “Cowboy Killer (Days Fade Away).”