Aesop Rock to Against Me!

Some Stray Thoughts
I posted my Aerosmith memories without mentioning the Steven-Tyler-to-American Idol news that we all knew several weeks ago and was just confirmed this week. J.Lo's along for the ride too. Even though AI's been a toxic asset for some time now, this is especially mystifying. After losing the TV's best villain since Newman, you don't replace him with two celebrities desperate to remain in the limelight after some high-profile setbacks. On the bright side, we may never have to hear another karaoke version of Armageddon'twannamissathing on national TV. Silver lining, folks.

Aesop Rock - None Shall Pass
The video for "None Shall Pass" popped up on MTV2 during the only time I would remember that channel existed - whilst exercising in the USC gym (yes, I went to the gym...for 5 months). You know, the MTV that still plays videos!? Yuk yuk yuk.

Except they don't, really, between all the reruns of Jackass and Pimp My Ride and that show with the pro skateboarder with the hat. I just happened to be there in the right 60-minute window - a happy coincidence.



Aesop is an idiosyncratic MC with the kind of charisma seen in soapbox preachers. The aforementioned title track and "Keep Off the Lawn" are suitably nutty delights. The nauticisms of "The Harbor is Yours" also reveal a gift for wordplay.

Buuuuut...well, let me put it this way. Though None Shall Pass was allegedly released in 2007, Aesop still thinks building tracks around samples from old high school science filmstrips ("Fumes") is cool and includes a "secret" track in the post-boombox era. There are lots of ideas on this record and Aesop is unfortunately in love with every one of them and reluctant to do any editing.

At least the zombieriffic "Coffee" ends everything on a high note.




Afrika Bambaata
For a while all you needed was a cool nickname and a clever way of describing whatever party you were currently at to be a rap star (and you could argue that things haven't changed much). And, really, that's all Afrika Bambaata and the Soul Sonic Force/the Zulu Nation was. It was the way he did it, with the mystical trappings and the science fiction influences, that set him apart.

The tracks are long, almost like mini radio dramas. "Don't Stop...Planet Rock" is a robot rocking head trip featuring perhaps the only orchestra hits in music history that aren't cheesy. "Looking for the Perfect Beat" is the intersection between Herbie Hancock and Harold Faltermeyer; it could very well be mislabeled "Rockit vs. Axel F" on file-sharing sites if Bambaata's influence wasn't so palpable and respected in the birth of electro.

The lesson here is not to reinvent the wheel. These tracks feel like the invention of carousal cliché, the forefathers of leaning back and getting low and other vague physical imperatives, where "rocking" the party sounds like a novel idea and not like a punishment from the Old Testament.




After the Fire - "Der Kommisar"
I wasn't lying in the Adam and the Ants post - off-key rhyming was a trend that swept the globe (or at least the UK and downtown New York City) for a few years and, if anything, culminated in this top 5(!) English remake of a song originally by German electro-pop star Falco.

Though I can imagine the song being a wee bit more serious when coming out of Berlin, it's nonetheless a very tongue-in-cheek romp at the expense of Cold Warriors and bureaucrats. But even that assumes too much depth in "Der Kommisar" - its enduring value is now a giant audio banner that screams "Hey look, it's the '80s!"

Against Me! - "Here Comes a Regular"
Warner Bros. celebrated the 50th anniversary of their record label by releasing a surprisingly adventurous and obscure covers album. This cover of the Replacements is pleasant, straightforward, and pretty unnecessary and mainly reminds me that there's better stuff ahead (I organize alphabetically by artist, never by album).

Also, who really wants to hear Against Me! instead of the Replacements? I thought so.