Generic list post: September 2024

Obligatory wrap-up post of those songs I've played most during the month when J-S.A.N.D said "anybody can get it and anybody can give it to you, it's like secret santa."

Kurious - Fill 'Er Up (1991/2008)
Kurious - Untainted (2024)
LL Cool J - Illegal Search (Pre-Trial Hearing mix) (1990)
LL Cool J ft. Busta Rhymes - Huey In The Chair (2024)
LL Cool J - Basquiat Energy (2024)
Seiji Oda - Last Summer (video) (2024)
UrFavGrannie - Boy Bye (2024)
Nine & Dex - Jesus Piece (2024)
Ramones - M.P.S.C's TV studio performance (1976)
Ramones - S-L-U-G (Road To Ruin mix) (1978/2018)
Ramones - 7-11 (New York mix) (1981/2023)

Bonus bloggin: 1nce again I'm gonna use my monthly wrap-up post to keep track of the best movies and TV shows I've been watching. * indicates rewatches dunnit.

Movies I watched and liked:
The Stranger (1946)
Charade (1963)
48 Hours (1982) *
Miracle Mile (1988)
The Mask (1994) *
Hundreds of Beavers (2022)
The Substance (2024)

TV shows I watched and liked:
Prisoner: Cell Block H (episodes 147 to 153) (1980)
Neighbours (new episodes) (2024)
Colin From Accounts (series 2) (2024)
Jamali Maddix: Follow The Leader (all 4 episodes) (2024)
Only Connect (new episodes) (2024)
Match Of The Day 1 and 2 (new episodes) (2024)

One heLLuva guy

LL Cool J - Illegal Search (Pre-Trial Hearing mix)
(From one of the Jingling Baby (remix) 12" singles; 1990)


LL Cool J - No Airplay (Bad Boy remix)
(From Bad Boy's Gettin' Down In Da LB mixtape; 1995)


LL Cool J - Bring On The Mo's & Ho's
(From Double L Cools Down bootleg 12" EP; 1996)


Oil up your ankles and let your Timbs tap to three of my favourite LL Cool J deep cut gems. Firstly, we got the Illegal Search (Pre-Trial Hearing mix) which was done by Large Professor and is more flavour like praline than the LP version. Secondly, we got the blowticious No Airplay (Bad Boy remix) which features entirely new lyrics and a completely different beat. And third and finally, we got a track recorded for Mr. Smith which was relegated to a Def Jam bootleg EP due to it sharing the same sample as a certain 2Pac song, word to mama. If LL ever does a Lost Tapes album then I guess like the jeans that these three tracks would be no brainer inclusions alongside Mr Controversy, Year Of The Hip Hop, the uncensored version of the O.G No Airplay, and Set It Off New York.

Kangol bucket hat tips to EttelThun and Step Wun for the Audiomack uploads of the two remixes, and to Yohan for suggesting Year Of The Hip Hop which completely slipped my mind.

Hanging on the telephone

LL Cool J - 1-900 L.L Cool J
(From Walking With A Panther album; 1989)


What's an LL album track beloved by you and seemingly only you? I'm a 1-900 L.L Cool J type of guy, meself. Uncle L used the 1-900 number concept before The Convicts or Roc-A-Fella, and hit the same Watermelon Man loop as the Dolly My Baby remix before Super Cat, Biggie et al. And LL did it while sounding effortlessly smug in a flow which probably made MC Shan real mad. In a perfect world 1-900 L.L Cool J woulda been the 4th single from Walking With A Panther instead of the nauseating ballad One Shot At Love.

Shit's got me thinking about what the first Rap song to start with a phone call was. Earliest I can think of is Spoonie Gee's The Big Beat. If not, The Big Beat was definitely the first Rap song to feature a "freak this" breakdown with the sound of squeaking bed springs. Insert your own Puffy joke here ----> _________.

My Mind Spray 16

I copped the CD of that new LL Cool J album and he's only gone and printed all the song credits and shout outs in tiny red text on a black background which I can't even read properly with my magnifying glass. Rappers, if you learn anything from this blog then let it be the layout - white text on a dark background is unfadeable, baby.

Another problem with the new LL CD is that there's no tracklist on the back sleeve. An unforgivable rookie mistake from a rapper who dropped his first CD in 1985. Musicians should always have the tracklist on the back of their CDs and should always have the tracks numbered. If I crash my car searching for songs on the CD then I'm sending LL the bill for damages.

My m8 went to see Alchemist DJ on Saturday night and offered me his spare ticket. I declined because a modern day Chemical Alan DJ set would be fulla dreary-arse recent songs by Griselda, Action Bronson, Armand Hammer and Earl Sweatshirt & his boring m8s. If I go watch Alchemist spin choonz then I wanna hear his obvious old anthems plus his banger ne plus ultras like Agallah's Crookie Monster, Casual's I Gotta (Get Down), Saigon's Stocking Cap, Big Noyd's Shoot 'Em Up, Bang, Bang, Prodigy's Raining Guns & Shanks and Boldy James' Moochie.

Fave Rap videos of 2024: Move by Mello Buckzz; Fun by Ezale; Devils Contract by Coyote; Yeah Glo! by GloRilla; A Gentle Gigg by Seiji Oda; and Yankin' by LARussell & P-Lo ft. D-Lo & Malachi. It's nice to see rappers making an effort and coming up with visuals which enhance the songs and which make the songs best experienced in video-form.

Is Milo from The Mask the greatest dog companion in movie history? Loyal, smart, inventive, crafty, funny and cute (no Bodil Joensen), Milo was the perfect lil' homie. And, unlike Jim Carrey's other great dog companion in a movie Max from The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, Milo was played by a single dog and not six different near-identical dogs.

Whose gran is this?

"Can't trust you no mo', so I have to say goodbye
Too much drama even for a lil' guy
Haha, yeah, that's you - the lil' guy
Put me through a lot, boy bye!"

UrFavGrannie - Boy Bye
(From YouTube; 2024)


Vera Punt from Neighbours raps now? Cot-damn, "you was dead wrong, so back to the trap where you belong" is one of the coldest lines in a 2024 Rap song. Anyhoo, last time I posted a UrFavGrannie song it was for the bantz, this time it's for the bantz and because the song actually jams. Grannie looks like she ate Eazy-E, and maybe she did given how she's replicated his flow on this shit. That Nirvana shirt tho - name 3 non-album tracks, luv!

Late pass!

"Time is overdue, so I'm gonna spill
My guts on the theory 'cause things is gettin' ill
Dreams get traded and sold like gold ropes
And ya hopes get sunk like boats"

Kurious - Fill 'Er Up
(From unreleased; 1991/A Constipated Monkey Demo Sessions EP; 2008)


The recent renaissance by Kurious has finally inspired me to check out that EP of his unreleased pre-A Constipated Monkey recordings. I was already up on Trueness To The Blueness but unfamiliar with the rest. Fave song on there is Fill 'Er Up where Yung Jorge is already in fine self-deprecating form over some Pete Nice production; even though Jorge has already been bitten by cynicism, the song still retains that 1991 Rap innocence. In a perfect world Fill 'Er Up shoulda been Kurious' debut single before he followed it up with Walk Like A Duck.

(I asked him on Instagram when it was recorded and he reckoned late 1991.)

Even when Im bloggin' Im bein' sincere

LL Cool J - Basquiat Energy
(From The Force album; 2024)


Me when LL Cool J & Q-Tip's first collaboration The Force sounded like Cannibal Ox: WTF are they thinking with this weird Def Jux bollox LMAO? Where's Will High when I need him?

Me when Basquiat Energy from LL Cool J & Q-Tip's collaborative album sounds Camu Tao if he were produced by Edan: LL is the true G.O.A.T, baby! Def Jam does Def Jux is the steez I've been waiting on my entire life! MHz WHAT WHAT!!! Someone get Basquiat's old m8 Vincent Gallo to direct a video for this shit ASAP.

**EDIT** the LL & Busta track over big ole bits of Halleluwah is even better. L, Bus & Tip really Krautrocked the Bells.

LL Cool J ft. Busta Rhymes - Huey In The Chair
(From The Force album; 2024)

Today Your Lunch, Tomorrow The World

Ramones - M.P.S.C's TV studio performance
(From not in Arturo's Loft; 1976)


Sum shit I just found out: there's a video of the Ramones' infamous 1975 Arturo's Loft performance on YouTube where the audio doesn't take a nosedive in quality after Loudmouth. Sum other shit I just found out: the performance was #actually filmed in some New York TV studio in early 1976 a couple of weeks before the Ramones debut LP dropped. California Sun aside, this performance sounds exactly like the debut LP only rawer and louder - which is exactly what I'm looking for in a Ramones performance video. The problem with live Ramones performance videos after O.G drummer boi Tommy Ramone left is that replacement drummer bois Marky Ramone and Richie Ramone had Johnny Ramone and Dee Dee Ramone up their tempo which would leave Joey rushing his vocals to keep up with the music. The result: Da Brudders 2.0 and 3.0 had Joey out there sounding outta the pocket like Blueface.

But there aee always exceptions to the rule. Peep the time they cranked out Do You Remember Rock 'N' Radio? on British TV show Old Grey Whistle Test in 1980. I fuxwit the fancy saxophone & organ Phil Spector added to the studio version, but the song knocks different here without Spector's Wall Of Sound™ embellishments dunnit?

Ramones - Do You Remember Rock 'N' Roll Radio? (live)
(From Old Grey Whistle Test TV show; 1980)


And now for the real reason I made this post: who wants to indulge in a game of food & drink-based Ramones puns? One, two, three, flour...

Blitzkrieg Bap
Sushi Is A Headbanger
Beat On The Bratwurst
Creatine Hop
Carbonara Not Glue
Today Your Loaf, Tomorrow The Whirl
Rockaway Peach
End Of The Celery
Rocket Salad To Russia
Sheena Is A Pork Rocker
Cabbage Cabbage Hey!
The CaKe CaKe CaKe Took My Baby Away
53rd & Thirst
Um Bongo Goes To Bitburg

Don't worry, be Hyphy

So I'm reading a Seiji Oda interview and I'm curious who he's talking about in this second paragraph? Like Willie Joe, I wonder...

"I was doing that because I feel like I have other albums, like ORA [太陽], for example, where it’s a lot of R&B and softer stuff because I really enjoy making that music, too. Actually, there’s people who tell me they only listen to that part of my catalog. They’ll tell me they really love that kind of sound and wish I would make more stuff like that.

But then there’s this one guy who writes Bay Area rap blogs, and he would always write about my shit and whenever I was putting out my R&B stuff, he was like, oh man, this shit is wack. Like, we need more rap, Seiji. He would say he didn’t want to hear any auto-tune bullshit (laughs). The beauty of it though, as artists, is we can be multifaceted and we can make different kinds of music for different kinds of people."

Guilty as charged! But an accidental compromise is reached on Seiji's latest single This Summer. It starts off wishy-washy sangy, but it's good because he's paying homage to my favourite City Pop song ever, and then he goes into bopper-dropper mode with an insane beat-switch before he flips back to the sea-front sunset City Pop vybz to close the song out. A proper Best Of Both Worlds song to encapsulate the duality of man/his fanbase. The Yee & The Yang.

Seiji Oda - Last Summer
(From Last Summer single; 2024)


Previously: Twinkle Twinkle, little slap (part 2).