Mixed NTZ

What, me worry?

2011-05-15T06:21:00.005-04:00

So, yeah. There comes a time for most people who consider themselves creative when they have to face the fact that they haven't done any meaningful work for a long time. If I was younger I would probably try to push through it. I did that with fiction and it blew up in my face.

I have some bad habits, sure. I don't chew on my fingernails, but I worry enough that maybe I should start. Not that I worry about anything in particular. Do I seem worried? Most people seem to not be able to tell when I am highly anxious or nervous - Most people can't tell when I'm drunk either. In either situation, nobody knows until I do something incredibly stupid and embarrassing.

That was the worry, for a long time... "Don't do anything stupid." Now, I don't worry about anything so sensible. I spend most of my time gradually oscillating between mania and a permanent half-awake state, so I guess that is the worry. Not "Am I going to wake up tomorrow?" - whatever, it'll be what it'll be - it's "Am I going to sleep tonight and if I do, will I sleep for twenty hours?"

Not really an option. I have too much shit going on, and it's never my shit. My shit can always wait. It's everyone else's shit that has to be on time. Well, not counting dentist appointments. But sometimes I just sleep through it. Or I don't sleep for three days.

What am I trying to say here?

I guess I'm making excuses. I'm not doing much in the way of work. Haven't kicked a beat for months, haven't made a mix tape for many weeks, I didn't even listen to music really at all for about two months this winter. I tell myself I'm recharging my batteries, but I don't know. Batteries fail after awhile.

Like I said: I aint really worried about it. I'm just kind of worried in general.

Implied?

2011-05-15T06:09:00.001-04:00

Can someone please explain to me
Why I have
Eleven Million Hits?

edit: Ah, I see...
My counter is totally
Broken.

The Lathe Of Heaven

2011-05-09T19:17:00.001-04:00

<a href="http://dntz.bandcamp.com/track/the-lathe-of-heaven">The Lathe Of Heaven by DNTZ</a>

Kraft

2011-05-08T22:10:00.002-04:00

&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://dntz.bandcamp.com/track/kraft"&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Kraft by DNTZ&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

Mixed NTZ Volume 2

2011-05-08T20:20:00.000-04:00

<a href="http://wildkindness.bandcamp.com/album/mixed-ntz-v-2">Mixed NTZ V.2 by The Wild Kindness</a>

2010-09-30T12:24:00.001-04:00

eulogy to a hell of a dame -

"some dogs who sleep at night
must dream of bones
and I remember your bones
in flesh
and best
in that dark green dress
and those high-heeled bright
black shoes,
you always cursed when you
drank,
your hair coming down you
wanted to explode out of
what was holding you:
rotten memories of a
rotten
past, and
you finally got
out
by dying,
leaving me with the
rotten
present;
you've been dead
28 years
yet I remember you
better than any of
the rest;
you were the only one
who understood
the futility of the
arrangement of
life; all the others were only
displeased with
trivial segments,
carped
nonsensically about
nonsense;
Jane, you were
killed by
knowing too much.
here's a drink
to your bones
that
this dog
still
dreams about."

-Charles Bukowski

We Are The Pist

2010-02-10T13:16:00.007-05:00

The Pist - Input Equals Output

Seminal Conneticut punk band. You could hear these tracks blasting out of any given house on Chesterfield in Pittsburgh in the 90's, or out of my boombox while tooling around my crumbling NE Ohio suburban neighborhood on an old Nash skateboard when I was 16.

This collection of comp and 7" tracks (they seemed to have done a split with every mid 90's punk band you never heard of... Half Empty, anyone?[Believe it or not, Against All Authority blows them away on their side of that particular split]) came out fairly recently on Havoc Records. Felix is a vinyl buff, if you don't already know, so you should be able to get a real copy of this through them. Far superior to the "Ideas Are Bulletproof" LP, I don't care what you fucking say. If you've ever listened to that LP and wondered why people like this band so much, the answers are in this collection...

From Wikipedia:

"The Pist was an American hardcore punk band that was formed in Connecticut in the winter of 1992 by Al Ouimet on vocals & bass, Bill Chamberlain on guitar, and Greg Bennick on drums. They were a popular band in the DIY punk scene of the 1990s. After a few lineup changes, the band eventually solidified as Al on vocals, Bill on guitar, Brian Marshall on drums and Rick Abbott on bass. The band toured the U.S. four times in the ensuing years and broke up in 1996.

While they were around they played shows with the likes of Aus-Rotten, Blanks 77, The Bouncing Souls, Capitalist Casualties, Los Crudos, and the Voodoo Glow Skulls.

In 2002, The Pist reformed to play two reunion shows with The Unseen when the New Haven, Connecticut club the Tune Inn closed. Members remain active in the punk scene in bands like Caustic Christ and Behind Enemy Lines (Bill) and God's Left Hand and The Deacons (Al). A reissue of their LP and a compilation of all of their non-LP releases was released on Havoc Records, and the band will marked the release of their discography by reuniting to play a series of reunion shows in summer 2007."

My dude James Downing found this for me after I lamented not being able to find the tracks from the "Pogo Attack" comp, which is my fav shit of theirs. Again, James, YOU RULE.

"I hate music, I hate what it's become..."

CRUCIAL.
well... for me, anyway.

A Deep Meditation

2010-01-27T23:38:00.008-05:00

Mulatu Astatke - Ethiopiques, Vol. 4- Ethio Jazz & Musique Instrumentale, 1969-1974

Seriously chill, eastern flavor psych jazz. Grape Juice Jess B hipped me to this cd, Gotsta gives props. Diggers and Portishead fans take note.

Loving this right now. Gully Jazz. Couchsurfing in another dimension, etc. I'm feeling this, and seeing as how I splurged on some more zip disks for the MPC...

But I can't hype this enough.

A Little Background From allmusic.com

To some, the term "Ethiopian jazz" might seem impossible; after all, it's a very American form. But what's truly surprising isn't the fact that these musicians play jazz so well, but the range of jazz they manage, from the George Benson-ish guitar workout of "Munaye" to the twisting sax of "Tezeta." Really, though, it's more Jimmy Smith than Duke Ellington in its aim (although Ellington is on the cover, on stage with Mulatu Astatke, the bandleader behind all these selections). The grooves often smoke rather than swing, with some fiery drumming, most notably on "Yekermo Sew," and throughout the guitar is very much to the fore as a rhythm instrument. Perhaps the most interesting cut, however, is "Yekatit," from 1974, which is Astatke's tribute to the burgeoning revolution which would oust Emperor Haile Sellassie. Some of these pieces, certainly "Dewel," has seen U.S. release before; the track appeared in 1972 on Mulatu of Ethiopia, which was Astatke's third American LP, showing that jazz aficionados, at least, had an appreciation for what he was achieving in the horn of Africa. Given that many of his musicians had graduated from police and military bands, they knew their instruments well, and had plenty of practice time, which shows in the often inventive solos that dot the tracks. Varied, occasionally lyrical, but interesting throughout, this shines a fabulous spotlight on a hidden corner of jazz.

A Little Background From Wikipedia:

Mulatu Astatke (surname also spelled Astatqé) is an Ethiopian musician and arranger. He is known as the father of Ethio-jazz. Born in 1943 in the western Ethiopian city of Jimma, Mulatu was musically trained in London, New York City, and Boston, where he was the first African student at Berklee College of Music. He would later combine his jazz and Latin music influences with traditional Ethiopian music.

He has worked with many influential jazz artists such as Duke Ellington during the 1970s. After meeting the Massachusetts-based Either/Orchestra in Addis Ababa in 2004, Mulatu began a collaboration with the band which continues today, with the most recent performances in Scandinavia in summer 2006 & London, New York, Germany, Holland, Glastonbury (UK), Dublin and Toronto in summer 2008. In the autumn of 2008, he collaborated with London-based Psyche-Jazz collective, The Heliocentrics on an album 'Inspiration Information Vol. 3' which included re-workings of his earlier Ethio-Jazz classics with new material by The Heliocentrics and himself. Mulatu's signature instrument is the vibraphone.

In 2005, his music appeared on the soundtrack to the Jim Jarmusch film Broken Flowers. In addition, Volume 4 of the Ethiopiques series is devoted entirely to Mulatu's music. Mulatu has also produced songs for many artists from East Africa, including Mahmoud Ahmed.

Mulatu released a two-disc set to be sold exclusively to passengers of Ethiopian Airlines, with the first disc being a compilation of the different styles from different regions of Ethiopia and the second being studio originals.

In 2007 and 2008, Mulatu completed a Radcliffe Institute Fellowship at Harvard University opera, "The Yared Opera."¹ Mulatu also recently served as an Abramowitz Artist-in-Residence at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, MA. In addition to a lecture and workshops, Mulatu served as an advisor to the MIT Media Lab on creating a modern version of the krar, a traditional Ethiopian instrument, for which he will return to MIT briefly in spring 2009 to check on its progress.² where he worked on modernizations of traditional Ethiopian instruments and premiered a portion of a new

On February 1, 2009, Mulatu Astatke performed at the Luckman Auditorium in Los Angeles with a band including such notable jazz musicians as Bennie Maupin, Azar Lawrence, and Phil Ranelin.

A Scientific Exercise In Fucking Up

2009-05-14T20:02:00.008-04:00

A Scientific Exercise In Fucking Up

My set from Cedar's on 3-20-09.

I hope you are either as irritated as the half of the crowd who left in the first seven minutes or as happy as the other half, who stayed and danced for the whole set.

It's good. There's only a couple of songs that play straight up, so even if you think you know what to expect, unless you Really know me, you don't know what you are in for. If things sound fucked up and harsh, it's because they're supposed to. Yes, it does get gradually louder for the first minute or so. Deal with it.

01 Intro - Welcome. Now go the fuck home.

02 DNTZ - Midnite Sun ft. Viktor Vaughn

03 Paul Revere And The Raiders - There She Goes

04 Reagan Youth - No Class

05 Kanye West - Gold Digger ft. Redman

06 Black Sabbath - Symptom of The Universe - DNTZ says Hi.

07 Oh No - Heavy ft. MF DOOM

08 Talib Kweli & Madlib - What Can I Do

09 Billy Preston - Lost And A'Lookin'

10 Bronze Nazareth ft. DJ Noize - ODB Tribute

11 DNTZ - Pretty Things ft. ODB

12 Inspectah Deck - Elevation ft. Diana Ross

13 Marvin Gaye - I'll Be Doggone ft. Mos Def

14 Madlib - Another Batch (Play It Again) ft. Notorious BIG

15 Mos Def & Diverse - Wylin Out (Kut Masta Kurt Remix)

16 Mos Def - Hip Hop

17 RZA from Ghostface - After The Smoke Is Clear

18 Jimmy Ruffin - What Becomes of the Brokenhearted ft. Talib Kweli

19 Madvillainy Remixed - Running Around With Another

20 Beirut - Nantes ft. DNTZ

21 DNTZ - Nantes ft. The Fugees

22 Denoument

23 GZA and Most Def - Liquid Swords, Crime and Medicine

24 DNTZ - A Millicraft ft. Lil Wayne

25 MF DOOM - Cellz ft. Charles Bukowski

26 DNTZ - Ike A ft. Ghostface

27 Oh No and Friends

28 DNTZ and Mic Gracee - You Must Be Confused

29 DNTZ - Walk On ft. Martha And The Vandellas, Jay Z & Method Man

30 DNTZ - Scarface Zissou

So Silly...

2009-03-08T17:39:00.002-04:00

From the Strictly Beats C-Box

5 Mar 09, 22:48

marley marl: yo **** all these dilla wannabes, why not post some actual hip hop?

I would say wow, but it's not a surprising sentiment.

Obviously I have something to say about this.

First of all - No one wants to be J Dilla. Dilla's dead, homey. Me, I like it up here above ground. The sun comes out sometimes...

Second - To every fool out there who thinks they're from the south bronx because they started watching yo mtv raps in the early 90's but they grew up in a suburb in east cleveland, fifty blocks from the ghetto or something, and now think they know everything about hip hop, what is and isn't - Give it a fucking rest. I don't get paid to make beats, fine. Stop acting like you get paid to talk about them.

Third - and this is the thing that really galls me - people who make beats need to stop talking this kind of bullshit; If you know your craft, really know it, then you should know better. If I sample the same David Axlerod joint as someone else, that beat is gona have some similar quality. One of Dilla's things was taking a sample and not really fucking with it too hard, just treating it with some compression (Usually La-2a's [If you don't know what that is, like I said, you need to know yr fucking craft]) and adding either a brake loop or (more often) some raw drum samples. You can almost always hear the difference between individual drum samples played on an mpc 2000 and a loop - The mpc has a very particular groove to it.

So, to sum up? Shut the fuck up. All this "Dilla Shit" is really just people going back to that early-mid 90's Boom Bap and grit. Half the shit people are saying is "Dillaish" could just as easily have come off of KRS's Self Titled from 96, or from Cuban Linx for that matter. Beat making is Mind+Matter+Technique. What you get is what you get. If you make a hot beat do you erase it if it sounds too much like "Dilla Shit"?

And don't even get me started on how all these fools are talking sideways about Dilla with Kanye's cock in they mouth.

Fuck Facebook

2008-12-14T04:46:00.000-05:00

Facebook me!

the post about nothing

2008-12-13T15:27:00.005-05:00

...ha. Thought it was gonna be that wale tape, huh?

Nope.

Just wanted to say...

I'm off the wagon. Not that I was ever "sober" in the clinical sense. But with this...

you know, and then there's the whole divorce/single dad thing.

Then I guess there are girls that want to make me feel better about this piece of shit world but they're either far away or I'm too ogrish to be approached.

No music for you today. Fuck you, world. I'm pissed at you today.

To Be Fair... Sit Down, Have A Snack

2008-12-01T13:55:00.008-05:00

So far I have refrained from posting any of my own beats or music from bands that I was involved with here... Until now.

Not that it's a big deal. I came across this thing in the bowels of my hard drive today. It was the start of a beat tape that I lost interest in. There's four beats, or parts of them -

1. Subway W/ Vince and Jules - 00:00 -00:23 - It's funny how these names come about. I dubbed the beat from my friend Wilson - It was a Reason thing he had done with all these crazy rex samples of subway sounds. I really dug the chop and delay work he did with it, I added a riddim from a remix of another beat - and just HAD to add an 8 minute sample from Pulp Fiction... You know how these things are. This is kind of a "favorite moment".

2. Arriel's Lament - 00:24 - 01:05 - Like I said about the name thing - This is the coda of a beat that for years has just been called "ARR". This undulating bass loop is one of the first samples I ever cut with a sampler, in 2000. It has all kinds of heavy connotations for me - Like the fly in a Renaissance painting; Here is death, here is corruption in the physical sense, decay...
Like I said, it's heavy for me. I'm posting a series of these "Laments" on my myspace pretty soon - The first part of this beat has "anime opening theme" written all over it so bad that I want to find some middle aged japanese karaoke guy to sing over it... But you won't hear that on this mix. Instead...

3. Dub 06 - 01:06 - 01:31 - The dubs... I like toying with live instruments when I get in the right mood. Good mike, shitty amp. This one is mostly live, which is highly unusual for me. The sample is classic, and that's got nothing to do with me. All Pachino.

4. 8Eyes Warfare - 01:32 - 03:02 - The name thing... The synths are playing one of the level themes from an 8-bit video game called 8 Eyes. This beat is boobytrapped, I got stuck making this mix because I couldn't figure out where I should have the next beat drop, I love this track too much - The "Warfare" part of the title is a riddim I have that will fit under almost anything it's in time with - all the drums in this are jacked from a beat on my "Apology" project called "cubicle warfare" - It's a really versatile and sparse break with a good fill... I've dubbed it like this with maybe 6 other things... It gets kind of silly sometimes.

NTZ Master Mix

That's that. The sound quality is not the best - I did a very quick touch up job. I'd like some feedback - Oh, and if I hear somebody sucking ass over any of this stuff, I will hunt you down and dismember you, just so that's out there. Not that I'm that worried about anybody making street hits outta these beats anyway. So, yeah, have a listen and delete it if you want to. Burn it to a cd and rip it as an mp3 if you think it's ok but not great; It'll take up less room. Or use some fancy conversion program you kids use that us crotchety old buggers aren't hip to yet. Whatever. I think Media player has a great mp3 coding algorithim. I don't know the math, but I trust my ears.

Obviously I'm in a talkative mood.

NoSleep: Where'd you go mane?

This Is Why We Were The Drunks

2008-11-16T04:00:00.003-05:00

"This Is Why We Are The Drunks"
Filth - Submachine Split 7"

So this was a request. Submachine's 2nd release, Filth's last.

I'll probably offend some people I know when I say this, but this is probably my favorite Submachine stuff. Even though Greg wasn't playing in Submachine at the time - I was in a band with Greg for awhile (BGA) and he is arguably the best drummer I've ever played with... They certainly got more solid as time passed and recorded better songs, but there's a raw quality to this...

The Filth stuff seems to have stood the test of time better than the rest of their stuff. You tell me.

Dis Fckn Suxx

2008-11-10T13:24:00.009-05:00

DisSucks - A Room With A View Of A World Of Shit - 1st 7"

DisSucks - S/T - 2nd 7"

So. Philly. Mid 90's. Who remembers Lancaster ave? Who remembers Hoagie City? Who remembers Stalag 13? I do. There was some crazy hardcore coming out of that city at that time. Right here you have two of the best 7" records to come out of that scene. This band would have gone on to great things, but they had singer issues. Recently found out that both original singers are dead. Jay Warren was a friend of mine. He taught me some things about life and dealing with it that still hold true - To find out he went out due to complications after heart surgery is... Hard. Ray, on the other hand, never liked me. But I don't think he liked much of anything. You won't hear Jay on either of these records.

If anybody who knows these guys knows how to get a hold of Little Tony (As opposed to Big Tony, of Stalag/R.A.M.B.O. fame), I don't know if he would remember me or not, but i miss that dude. Funny as fuck, and one of the most amazing drummers I've ever watched play.

For those keeping score, Andrew Martini of XLimpwristX played guitar in this band - I have an interview with him where he refers to them as "some crust band I used to play in" - I was hurt - If the guitar riffs in Limpwrist were a tenths as good as they were in DisSucks, I might be posting that instead... but it's ok Andrew, the last time I saw you you were nursing a six pack of Bush talls and a big gang of us rolled down to the abandoned refinery near 1505, got inside the big oil tower and kids beat on the walls until the reverberation made me dizzy and I had to go puke. Tell me you remember that and all is forgiven, Ha Ha.

Ah, punk rock.

P.S. the song "Fuck You All" from the 2nd 7" is the theme song to my life right now. RIP Jay and Ray. And thanks for this shit. At least I remember how great it was when everything sucked so bad.

This came from Death Metal Dan's blog Severed Forever. He's posting some wild rare shit from the 90's crust heyday, before it was all revival shit, so go check him out. I got's to give ups to him here too, not just for popping my c-box's cherry, but for hooking it up with these two gems at a time when I desperately need this music to remind me that you can hate and hope and have no hope and still go on with this sordid business of living. Thank You Dan!

Side Batman/Side Jesus

2008-10-06T15:46:00.009-04:00

Some people believe that every mixtape must have a theme. Most of my favorite tapes are the ones where I just take whatever records I've been listening to and throw my favorite pieces of them together - I'm no great upholder of rules for mixtapes. Pretty much the only one I believe in is that a mixtape MUST be on a tape. If you can't put it in a tape deck and make musick come out, it ain't a tape, period, full stop.

So, yeah. Themes.

If I do make a mixtape with a theme, it's usually pretty specific, not like "DNTZ rainy day songs for post-partum depression" or anything. This tape is case in point. It's a 94 minute maxell, one of those tapes cut to funny lengths for making copies of cds.

This particular tape was made for me by an enemy. This was about five years ago. I didn't know he was an enemy at the time. In fact, alot of people were saying what a douchebag this kid is. I thought he was a friend. Anyway, long story short, this little prick gives me this tape and tells me that this is what he considers to be "Real Hardcore". Shitty metalcore shit. I filed the tape away - I never throw away gifts, no matter how worthless - and forgot about it until this kid did some calculated rotten shit.

These days I'm pretty chill on the whole subject. I don't see dude, and don't know what I might do if I did. Still a bad subject to get me started on. I made this tape to help me deal with wanting to find this motherfucker and kill him. Did the first side about three years ago. I recorded blank space over the second side, the "Forgive" side, because I knew that was the theme of the tape after I finished that first side, but wasn't ready to touch on that and I didn't what to leave any of the work dude had done. Had to erase it.

I think recording over a mixtape someone has made for you is one of the lower things you can do without actually stepping to them - better than burning pictures or whatever, more gratifying. To me it's like spitting in someone's face without giving them even the basic respect of facing them.

I'm still not ready to forgive, probably will never be. But I don't get in crazy moods and sit in the dark sharpening knives anymore (literally used to happen about twice a week). I'm working on it. But the tape is done, and it's one of my favorites. Here it is.

Side A - "Revenge"

Side B - "Forgiveness"

Silent Leeching

2008-08-15T18:43:00.002-04:00

So. Just a quick note - I changed my mind about a counter. Have become very curious about how many hits I've gotten... I'm averaging a ratio of about three posts per comment. Which is fine. I don't care if you comment, D/L, or what you do - It's just... Damn. 4 comments and 27 thousand views? Crazy. Like I said, I don't mind at all, but I must be doing something wrong if I have that many hits and so few comments. Some bloggers get mad irate over silent leeching. Me, I don't do it for recognition, but I do like to know that I'm connecting with people. So if you stop by, don't be shy. I don't bite (well, If I do, it's only in person.) so feel free to hit me with a comment. No annoying captchcas either.

Say hi sometime.

Peace.

NTZ

Mos Definitely One of My 5 Desert Island Records

2008-06-30T00:29:00.010-04:00

Mos Def - Black On Both Sides

Yuck. I just saw one of my favorite Clash songs on a Nissan ad.

It's funny, because it's not my favorite version of the song. "Pressure Drop", originally by Toots and the Maytals.

That's not really what this post is about.

This post is about one of my favorite pieces of music of all time, but not that one.

But you knew that.

I first heard the first track on this album, "Fear Not Of Man", on the radio driving up the I-5 from L.A. to San Francisco in 2000. "People be acting like Hip hop is some giant living in the hillside, coming down to visit the townspeople..." That shit caught my ear, but I never heard the DJ say who it was. So I slept on it for another year

I found the album in 2001. Didn't really know what I had found. I dug a few tracks on it, but never really gave it the proper beginning-to-end listen it deserves. I guess Abortatron hipped me to Mos - I would always see the Black Star CD in his books and want to hear it (This was 99-2000), and he would always say "Oh, that's not that good, you wouldn't like it". Which is still funny to me.

Anyway, so I had the album a year or so before I bought it on tape...

I remember that because I was staying in eastern Pennsylvania with my great grandmorther - The DC Sniper thing was going on, and Bethlehem is only three hours or so from DC so it was in the local news there every day. Myself, I was driving to Philly and back, which is about 90 miles, every day, every other day. Spending alot of time in my great grandmother's 94 tempo with the tape deck. SO I went to the mom and pops music place in Bethlehem (Play it Again I think, but I could be very wrong) and picked up cassettes of Ghostface's "Supreme Clientele" and "Black on Both Sides". It was a kind of impulse buy. I almost bought "1,039 Smoothed Out Slappy Hours" - Which could just as easily be the subject of this post.

Anyway, point is, I'd listen to both albums all the way through each way from Bethlehem to Philly and back. One time I stopped at a rest area on 476 in the middle of the night and the only two people there were two punk kids, a boy and a girl, making out. My head was full of "May-December" and "Child's Play" - I called Arriel from a payphone there to say hi for no reason except that these kids seemed to prove that love could exist and be found at three in the morning in a deserted rest area on an almost empty stretch of freeway in the mountains of eastern Pennsylvania.

I was a mess. Having this album with me then helped me make sense of things. One of the big messages of this record is that one right at the beginning - "So the next time you ask yourself where Hip Hop is going, ask yourself; Where am I going? How am I doing?" I never knew Hip Hop could be Inclusive. I always thought it was something Exclusive; I could observe and enjoy, but could never be a part of it, because of my complexion, because of my upbringing, because of my ignorance of everything but what I had heard and liked, because of whatever. Like I said, I had owned the record for awhile, but something about this particular trip, this particular time and place - It opened me up for the big message of this record which is that, to some degree, you make yr own world. Ha ha ha, punk rock as fuck.

You can't fuck with Mos Def, so don't even try.

Swedes Have Weapons Of Mass Destruction

2008-06-20T23:01:00.010-04:00

Fy Fan - S/T EP

So I asked my friend Alexis for a copy of the first Die Kreuzen stuff. A tape. It took her awhile to get it to me and in that time I found it online here. I did get the "Cows and Beer" ep at the start of side A, but that's not really here or there except to say props to Alexis for hipping me to this- the B side has a dub of the debut 7" of a totally ripping band from Malmo, Sweden called Fy Fan. Completely caught me off guard, like hearing the Total Fury 12" for the first time - Huh? I couldn't figure out when this thing might have come out. It could have been in the 80's for real.

It's very Dis influenced. The long, sordid history of D beat hardcore is not really the point here, but this record is to me significant on the subject. This band isn't doing the rote impression with a different tonal palette, e.g. more metal guitars (Framtid) and isn't doing the exact same thing but as noisily as possible (Disclose) (Just to name two bands I've been studying of late [remind me to post the split they did {Disclose up, Framtid down}]). Shit, I'm not so jaded that I don't hear the similarity between any of these bands and, say, the Freeze or Minor Threat, purely musically speaking.

So, I don't want to actually say that they sound like Discharge, because they don't. The less catchy tracks remind me of Poison Idea. There's something very State of Fear about a few of these songs. The guitar riffs probably. Hooks in the guitar lines and changing things up and keeping the songs short. That might be the most important thing in any style of music - The length of the songs. But especially rock of any kind. And MOST especially hardcore punk shit. Keep them songs short before I get bored.

Anyhow, I haven't been able to gush enough about this for the last week or so. It's got me wanting to start a hardcore band again, doing this style.
Did I mention that listening to this record when I'm pissed off is BETTER than punching myself in the face? If you know me at all you know how literally I mean that. C'mon, it's only 7 MB.

I got in contact with the band and the record is available from Feral Ward. The vinyl is there so click the link and pay up, chumps.

NTZ News

2008-04-17T23:27:00.005-04:00

So, this will probably be the only time this happens.

This post isn't really about music. I've been invited to be a contributor to The Backpack Enthusiast, which is (no dick yanking either) one of my fav blogs. So I'm pretty pumped about that. As a matter of fact, I can hold my head a little higher when I'm out doing my business among the drones because of this. Well, that and the fact that my wife plucked my eyebrows today and I just shaved off a two month beard - I keep getting carded for phillies. I feel ten years younger. Seriously.

But the point of all this is that now that I have two blogs to post to I plan on stepping my game up a bit in terms of what I post - So far, I've just been posting based on the pure "Shit, people need to hear this" factor. I still plan on doing that, but some of those things are going to go to the other spot - for example, I've been kicking around the idea of doing a series of posts of classic hip hop albums paired with it's instrumentals, any available acapellas, and original sampled recordings. That's the kind of completeness I expect from the Backpacker. Anybody that knows NTZ knows I'm not really about that on my own. I'll have the whole gig for posterity, but I'll throw one thing at you, take it off the platter two cuts in, then on to the next thing. NTZ is more about those connections. Juxtaposition.

So here at Mixed NTZ I'm going to focus more on the obvious fire stuff that you should already know, but maybe you missed or just slept on. The more obscure stuff is going to get saved - maybe if I have to sit on something for awhile to get all of the stuff to go with it for a Backpack post, I'll post it here. I gets impatient like that sometimes.

Anyone that's coming here looking for punk and hardcore needn't be worried. I don't think I'm about to be invited to Seeeing Red or anything, so all of that will still be posted here. If that is what you're here for, I'm about to go on a spree, starting with the Charles Bronson LP (Which I might have to rip myself - My 10" copy of the lp is grooved out, but it still sounds better than the Discocrappy cd ripped @ 128, which is all I can find floating around online), and moving on to maybe some REALLY obvious stuff that you should have but probably don't (Like the X album "Under The Big Black Sun" or the Germs LP, or, hell, even some Crimpshrine or something[I have alot of work to do]).

And while I'm on this subject of who's coming here and why; I have no idea who you are or that you have been here at all. I have a counter. That's it. I'm not gonna stop doing this for a lack of comments... But. I do enjoy reading and responding to comments. And it bums me out that I have to go to someone else's blog to engage in any kind of spirited conversation about this shit, and then you have a ton of people putting in their two cents, usually anonymously, usually because they don't know if they should be embarrassed about what they're saying or not.

Baller's Envy

2008-04-06T00:36:00.012-04:00

Raekwon - Only Built 4 Cuban Linx...

Ok. Here's one for the vaults. Everybody should know this album. The Rza has described this album as his gangsta record. WTF else can be said?

As cohesive as Liquid Swords. If you don't know that album, you maybe should step back a bit to that. I'm not speaking in terms of the chronological order of when the records dropped so much as what is the best introduction. Liquid Swords is like if Monet painted one of those huge multi paneled canvases of, bear with me, instead of water lilies he painted the physical and psychological lay of the urban landscape - Monet's paintings are amazing, but you have to see them in person to really understand why. You might see a print on a christmas card or something and say, oh that's nice, whatever, but you don't realize that the actual canvas is huge, like fifteen feet across, and if you see it in person you can see that the brush strokes are really broad - If you stand within five feet of the actual canvas you just see the wide swaths of paint. If you creep back an inch or two at a time, it slowly comes into focus. It's a crazy thing, as artistic achievements go, and the first round of Wu Tang solo records are like that. But Cuban Linx and Liquid Swords show one side of the coin and then the other. Genius shit.

I hear bones of alot of these beats in parts of the first Ol Dirt album. That's nothing but a good thing. I'd go and figure out what tracks I hear what in and tell yall but, honestly, I'm smooving down with Billy Xane at this moment so that's the best I can do.

PS - You might have noticed that this post is short on links. In all honesty, I feel dumb having to link to, say, the Wu Tang or RZA or GZA or Dirty wikipedia entries - If you don't Know about these records then you OWE me YOUR time. I just saved your soul - go look that shit up. You owe yourself, you just don't know it yet.

Tha Don Of Dub

2008-03-24T11:24:00.011-04:00

Augustus Pablo - East Of The River Nile

Ok, ok, ok. So this is more than appropriate for my first reggae post. It's a little late in terms of Jamaican music history (1977), but this is one of those cases (A la Disclose to D-Beat) where a genre and a scene takes a few decades to produce a single definitive work by a single definitive artist. What you have here is the quintessential dub record. The only vocal on the entire album is a small "Shoop Shoop Shoop Shadoobie" kind of thing that goes for 4 bars on "Unfinished Melody". You get a bunch of laid back, hypnotic one drop grooves mixed in with a few crushing dubs.

This is one of my favorite records to try and sample
- The sparseness of most of the arrangements makes it seem like a no-brainer, but then you dig, and you dig some more, and before you know it you've listened to the whole damn record without sampling a note. Hypnotic is the word. This is one of the first dub albums I ever got heavy into -A friend of mine who worked at borders at the time (2002 or so?) pulled it from their promo bin, brought it home and didn't like it. Well Lindsey, yr loss. I've been on this shizz ever since then.

Looking at the Wikipedia entry for this album revealed some things I didn't know - King Tubby produced all of this except for one track, which was produced by Lee Perry. Most of the Wailers played on this album too.

As an aside, when Perry burned down his studio he was working on an album for Pablo - Scratch claimed that the master tapes of the album were possessed by the devil, or some crazy Perry type shit. I can almost believe it - If you listen to the level of work put into this album (you have to actually LISTEN for it though - This is dub, not hip hop... The work is designed not to be heard - the mutes, drops and accents are mostly supposed to rest and hide in the mix rather than jump out of it - Hardly an easy task in the 70's when all these guys had to work with were acoustic intsruments, reel to reel multitrack machines and homemade FX) it's deep.

So anyway, go ahead, keep sleeping on this one. You've probably been sleeping since before you were born, so I'm sure you won't know the difference. For the heads out there, on the other hand... Stop being an embarrassment and get familiar.

The James Brown Project

2008-03-17T22:37:00.007-04:00

John Culpry Presents: Thinking About James Brown And A Few Nice Things

I can't say enough nice things about this cat. He's the only kid I know in Warren doing genuine boom bap. Rocking the MPC 2500, his sample choice is top notch, and you know he smashes the chops gently. He's been doing it awhile and it shows in the way his beats are put together - a sensibility if you will. I've seen this dude work - Most impressive. He posts stuff regularly on his myspace, so go over there and tell him how much you dig this.

Culpry is 1/4 of the beat making crew Soundation. That's another good place to hear some NE Ohio love. I stop by there every few days to peep the rotation and link to the other member's pages. I'll save you the trouble by linking them right here:

John Culpry!

Tre

CB

C-Tons

Enjoy or be an Ass.

P.S. I uploaded this to badongo just in case you don't feel like dealing with Rapidshare. Link is HERE.

Crushingest Band Ever.

2008-03-17T16:03:00.013-04:00

State Of Fear - Discography

Don't let the cheeziness of this cover fool you - This is the band that seeded the whole "Milennium Crust" (I can't believe I just typed that) thing here in the U.S. (If you disagree with that opinion, fine. Keep it to yrself - I don't care. I was there and you are wrong.) (Let me clarify here: I'm not saying that these guys were originators in any sense. They took the 80's (maybe late 70's too? I'm not an expert) scandi sound, which was a take on Discharge's sound - So what I'm saying here is that they took that idea, maybe stole some riffs too [I can't verify this], and repackaged it for the 90's and got I would say at least as much exposure as the bands they were style jacking. There's nothing wrong with copying someone else's sound if you can do it better...)

Rising from the ashes of Lynn, MA. (Which was news to me; I always thought they were from Conneticut.) band Disrupt, these guys took the Scandi style hooks of that band and dropped the tempo changes and guitar solos in favor of a straight forward, balls-out attack. Look somewhere else for blastbeats, witty scene commentary, or fun. If you've ever downed a bottle of cheap whiskey and still had the presence of mind to be pissed off about the government, the cops and the whole shitty system (or just yr miserable, scabies-ridden existence) afterwards, this record is gonna appeal to you on some level.

This was the first D-beat band I ever got really, really into. Now that I think about it, this was the ONLY band that played that style in a straight-up way that I've ever been real into (I always thought that His Hero Is Gone had a very similar sound in terms of the hooky riffs and the vocal attack. HHIG had much more intricate arrangements, more diverse sounds, but SOF's rhythm section was tighter - pretty much unbeatable if you ask me). I think some of the Japanese bands (Framtid, most notably) come close to the power and intensity of this band, but honestly, to my ear they are just lacking something. The Disclose stuff I've heard seem like they might come close, but the extra poor sound quality of the recordings eat away alot of the power - Something that SOF had in spades. There have been hundreds of bands that do this exact style, and I have never heard one better.

This band will destroy you.

State Of Fear Myspace

I jacked this link from It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Crustmas. More Crust and Grind and Peace Punk than you can shake a riot baton at.

Red Tape. Killing You. Killing Me.

2008-03-16T16:47:00.011-04:00

Evidence - Red Tape

Solid offering from Evidence, of Dilated.

To be honest, I don't know if this was released as an instrumental album (e.g. Donuts or Special Herbs), or if it's an instrumental version. The beats definitely seem to be arranged for vocals. Great textures and sonics. It reminds me of the Babu beat tape I got from Abortatron - Except the Babu stuff was mos def arranged exposition style for those like myself with short attention spans.

I'll probably burn this as a "Washing the Dishes" type CD. Aspiring emcees might want parts of it to spit over, inspiring textures. Aspiring beatsmifs might want to check it out too... Classic structure, ear catching sonics - Nothing tricky or hard to digest, which can get boring but is also kind of a relief. Not everyone is Madlib. I've seen this listed as Evidence/Alchemist and got dead ends looking for exact production credits. The hip hop sites all treat it like you should just know what's up. Beats me.

Definitely will be making it onto some of my mixes. Which, by the way, I will begin uploading just as soon as I get sick and tired of jacking links (Probably sometime wednesday).

(Maybe?) Their Last Classic LP.

2008-03-16T12:38:00.009-04:00

Ahh, 1997. The Souls. These guys were my favorite live band through much of the 90's. It was a toss up between them and Citizen Fish. So maybe I was a dumb kid, but yo, I'd have knocked you on yr ass at a Fish or Souls show, and f you too.

Anyway, this was the last good album they put out - Twice as fast as anything they had done previous, and ten times faster than anything they've done since, this was the last record they did with their original drummer, Shal, who totally had a unique style of playing that complemented them perfectly. I remember when this record was about to drop, being really upset that they had signed to Epitaph - Don't let the label on this LP fool you. Really. This record f ing rules.

Bouncing Souls - S/T

You know, now that I listen to this, I remember it being a lot better. It's still a quality listen, and has a few tracks, but I would still say that Maniacal Laughter is still their classic Lp.

Could be the difference between enjoying listening to a record and settling for a dl? Maybe the difference in me now and me in 97-98?

Whateva.

Still a couple real fast tracks (hard to use hyperbole e.g. "ragers" was the word I wanted to use, but then you compare this to something like Infest and it seems pretty wimpy...) that makes me wish they had done a whole album of that kind of stuff. It wouldn't have to be more than 16 minutes long or so...

This link was originally posted @ HC Pride. Pay them a visit. The site documentation is all in Portugese, but band and album names are in english, where appropriate. Very complete NOFX posts, if you are into that kind of thing (like I am)...

Watch. Learn. Blint It. Cry A Little.

2008-03-15T23:34:00.004-04:00

New New New

2008-03-15T23:04:00.018-04:00

Del The Funky Homosapien - Eleventh Hour

New Del. Haven't heard all of it yet. There's a video, peeped it on M2 a bit ago. Production courtesy of EL-P - Which for me can go either way... The production El has done for Lif and other Def Jukies ranges from stellar to trash. But the good stuff is straight mind blowing, so I'm sure there's some tight.

If you don't know about Del then you just don't know. Dig, mutha.

Jacked this link from The Backpack Enthusiast
Check it out. Tons of current hip hop, industry gossip, and pictures of Lil Wayne in drag. I can't think of a stronger endorsement than that. Also, all that Dilla you've probably been digging for can be found there - Don't sleep on that because those Dilla links never seem to last.

One That Got Away

2008-03-15T22:36:00.006-04:00

MK Ultra / Seein' Red - Split LP

This record I passed on time and again when it was readily available. And then I saw MK Ultra at a More Than Music fest in, like '98 (Remember Assuck played on a front lawn because the stage was too high at the Newport? Remember? This was the fest where I found out that HHIG was actually stuffed full of awesome. And Los Crudos cancelled. Boringest Dillinger 4 show EVER) and the singer ended the set by jumping into the crowd feet first, like he was doing the f ing luge or something. Did I mention that Ebro from Charles Bronson played drums in this band? Killer, killer, ripping shit. The Seein Red tracks are kind of muddy sounding, which might be the rip - I'm almost positive this is a Vinyl rip, so... Anyway, you get alot more than what you pay for in any event, so long as you get this now!

If anyone has a copy of this they want to get rid of let me know, or at least tip me to the ebay auction, ok?

Originally posted @ Buddah Khan. Check it out for more ripping thrash and hardcore.

Kick Ass!

You. Must. Listen.

2008-03-15T18:49:00.007-04:00

Damu The Fudgemunk - "Spare Time"

People love to opine and so forth, so let me just put this out there - I think this guy is the closest thing to an heir apparent to the Dilla crown as far as working the MPC, but he has his own style. He has that same sensibility for chops, even if the actual sonics are more traditional "Golden Era"

Pure MPC love.

Check An Interview

Check Damu's Myspace

He just produced an album for Mr. Lif's long time co-conspirator Insight. If you are at all familiar with either of these two names that should be at least enough for you to listen.

I was hipped to this in a post by nawledge @ Strictly Beats.
Pay them a visit for Instrumental Hip Hop. I've found alot of tight stuff there, so if you've been digging for something it might turn up. Just don't run yo mouth in the C-Box...

3 Tight 7" Records 1994-2001

2008-03-15T02:39:00.000-04:00

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=7DNNYNWE
You want this. Even if they're a buncha dicks.

http://www.mediafire.com/?6ydjiixxgmz
and this, even though I have a copy of this.

http://www.mediafire.com/?4czylmgwsnd
and probably this too.

all three are classic 7". these will all fit on a third of a cd or so, if that, so download, unzip and listen.