Crib Notes

When Creative Loafing gave Supreeme the Critics Pick for best hip-hop act last year in our annual Best of Atlanta issue (which drops again on Sept. 24), it threw a lot of cats for a loop.

Not merely because of the convoluted title we bestowed upon the trio — “Best Local Hip-hop Act That’s Not OutKast” — but because they weren’t one of the many snappers, trappers or OutKast clones that uphold the city’s well-deserved rep as hip-hop capital of the world.

In other words, they’re original.

Too original, in fact, to be called a rap group, which has almost become a cliché in itself. I mean, starting a rap group is like a rite of passage nowadays. I actually quit my last one to take this day job. Ah, but I digress progress.

Anyway, back to Supreeme — the poster group for post-adolescent (fill in the blank, hell it’s Friday). The video above is for the song “I’m Crazy” from their new mixtape Silver Medallion, which predates their upcoming sophomore label release, Gold Medallion.

They shot it in one day using VHS, which gives it a real grainy, vintage look — like a bootleg horror flick made by a couple of film school dropouts. You’ll recognize such classic Atlanta stomping grounds as Little Five Points and the club, Drunken Unicorn. Tom Cruz, King Self and Negashi are supposed to resemble criminal-minded zombies of some sort (per the setup, which you can pause the video at the beginning to read), but mostly they just look like themselves.

Rappers without anti-perspirant. Now take that and fill in the blank up above.

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Jandek, Glasgow Sunday 2005

This week I caught up with Michael Goldman, who booked the Jandek show at The Acedemy of Medicine in Atlanta back in February of 2007. Much like most of Jandek’s sporadic live performances, the show is being prepped for release on Corwood Records, but no release date has been set.

In the meantime Corwood recently released a live Jandek show fromGlasgow Scotland in October of 2005, titled Glasgow Sunday 2005.

I asked Michael to weigh in on the CD and this is what he had to say:

“The great thing about Jandek is that you never know what to expect from the guy. His new and 53rd disc was recorded live in Glasgow in 2005 and titled Glasgow Sunday 2005, is likely to puzzle long-time fans as well as casual listeners. The record is comprised of two 25 minute-long cuts. The first, titled “The Grassy Knoll” works in two parts; a sci-fi narrative intoned over Loren Connors ’s Hendrix-meets-Fahey howling guitar and a paean to lost love that may be the closest to a traditional folk song as Jandek is ever going to get.

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Treasure Fingers, DJ Lord and several others are lending their talents to the annual K9 Rescue League fundraiser this Saturday (August 30th). This year fundraisers are being held at Coan Park (1520 Woodbine Ave., SE ATL) from 11 a.m. – 9 p.m. and later on at The Masquerade at 695 North Ave. from 9 p.m. – 3 a.m.

Please leave your pets at home. There will only be adoptables from various local shelters allowed at the park.

The events at Coan Park are free and open for all ages to attend. There will be $5 pre-sale tickets available for the show that’s happening later in the eve. at The Masquerade. Tickets are $10 at the door. The show at the Masquerade is 18+

All proceeds from the events go to K9 Rescue League.

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I recently flew to New York City to catch the Black Lips, Deerhunter, and King Khan & the Shrines play a free show August 3, at McCarren Pool in Brooklyn.

It was worth the trip. The bands played to an insanely packed crowd of thousands of kids, young and old. It was so surreal standing onstage looking out at the wave of people covering the pool so thick you could barely see the cement floor.

The show was sweaty, loud, unpredictable, and a little bit chaotic — sounds like an Atlanta show to me.

I spent ten days in the city. This is what I saw:

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Brad Hurst and Sam Garner of Hungry Bodies photo by Chad Radford

Thursday night (Aug. 28th) wasn’t quite business usual at Kirkwood Ballers Club. The regular cast and crew of local yokels twiddled knobs, bowed cymbals and plugged away to the sounds of vintage videogame consoles on stage.

Headlining act Hungry Bodies from Baltimore ended with a show of hypnotically amorphous beats and textures that melted-down the bass elements of hip-hop, drone and maximized minimalism into pools of liquid noise.

Sam Garner from Baltimore’s Lexie Mountain Boys wailed a muffled banshee howl into the microphone, adding a haunted, human layer to the mix of sloshing sounds and resonance. The group also featured members of Washington D.C.’s hip-hop experimentalists Food For Animals, alongside ATL expat. and Hoss Records owner Brad Hurst. It was a happy homecoming for Hurst who was a KBC fixture when the weekly open mic Ballers Club nights were held at the old Lenny’s. Hungry Bodies’ set was surreal, short and sweet, which is one of the greatest things about the Ballers Club. Be it a weird indie rock dude beating violin strings with a turkey baster, a lonely young gal strumming on an acoustic guitar or a spontaneously formed ensemble of noise rockers lost in a moment of teeth-gnashing Sonic youth-style feedback, you take the good with the bad. After all, KBC is ground zero for the most adventurous and unorthodox music in the city. So if one particular performer is absolutely unbearable, you can take solace in the fact that it won’t last for much longer. If a band puts on a fantastic performance you’ll be left wanting more and you can talk them up when they’re finished and maybe walk away with a CDR of some stuff they’ve been working on.

All night long the audience was buzzing with word that Geologist from Animal Collective was in the house and hanging out, if only for a brief while. Animal Collective is in town mastering their forthcoming album produced by Ben Allen (Gnarls Barkley, All the Saints, Constellations). Sadly there was no impromptu AC performances, but for the scene of anything-goes musicianship that KBC has cultivated, a visit from Animal Collective is like a nod from royalty, and a sign that experimental music is on the up swing in Atlanta.

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TROUBLESHOOTING WITH PALM TREES
Finding perspective with the Hiss on a road trip through Florida

By J. Winter

“Life moves pretty fast. And if you don’t stop to look around every once in a while, you just might miss something.”

Palm trees.

I don’t know how they do it, but they can have an amazing effect on you.

It’s not scientifically proven, but I’m pretty sure they release some sort of chemical endorphin in your brain that makes you feel better. Gives you a careless confidence. Coupled with the right light and a nice breeze on the fringe of an afternoon buzz, they can sometimes make all your problems go away.

With the summer months wearing thin and the sight of the same city faces wearing thinner, an impromptu road trip with the boys is welcome relief from the dog days of August. In a last minute decision, I joined the Hiss in a weekend romp through the Sunshine State. It’s the same trip we made last spring in which we appointed ourselves to a fictional state department — the Department of Nightlife.

After a quick pass through Gainesville to reminisce at the University of Florida, where Todd Galpin (drums) and Adrian Barrera (lead vocals) met, we roll into Tampa for a Thursday night show. Three of the four guys in the band hail from here, so it’s a homecoming gig of sorts.

Tampa Bay is a weird town. It’s not so much the heat; it’s the chlamydia.

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Title: Orange Green

Released on: Nov. 7, 1988

Favorite tracks: “Turn You Inside-Out,” “Orange Crush,” “You Are the Everything”

I really enjoy REM’s first album for Warner Bros., Orange Green. Given that it features the hit song “Orange Crush” and has that distinctive orange-colored album cover, Orange Green is just the perfect name for the album. I think that whenever I hear the songs, I think of the color orange, and when I see that shade of orange elsewhere, I think of that name, Orange Green.

Then again, a friend of mine passed along a rumor that they called it Green in honor of the payday they received from signing with Warner Brothers. I’m not sure I believe it, but it has a logic.

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Axl Rose photo by Kevin Mazur (WireImage / Getty)

According to an Associated Press report federal authorities say they have arrested a blogger suspected of streaming songs from Guns N’ Roses’ ridiculously long over due unreleased album, Chinese Democracy, on the website www.antiquiet.com.

FBI agents arrested 27-year-old Kevin Cogill (A.K.A. Skwerl) on Wednesday morning (Aug. 27th) on suspicion of violating federal copyright laws. Federal authorities say Cogill posted nine unreleased Guns N’ Roses songs on his website in June.

Sadly, the songs have been removed from the site. But after almost 14 years of Axl Roses’ antics nothing could possibly live up to the hype surrounding this record, which still has no formal release date.

Even way back in 2003 the Offspring made a joke that they were going to call their forthcoming album Chinese Democracy (You Snooze, You Lose), but it was just an April Fools day joke. Regardless, that was 2003 and the record’s continually delayed release was already a joke back then.

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Of Montreal photo courtesy of Polyvinyl

Today RollingStone.com’s Rock&Roll Daily Blog posted a new of Montreal MP3, titled “Nonpareil of Favor,” from the forthcoming full-length, titled Skeletal Lamping which is due for release in the US on Oct. 7 via Polyvinyl).

Follow the link to download Of Montreal’s “Nonpareil of Favor.“

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Slow Southern Steel

Slow Southern Steel, a documentary film about “the heaviest of underground bands hailing from South of the Mason-Dixon line is filming scenes at The Drunken Unicorn tonight. Bands scheduled to perform include Withered, Doomsayer, Music Hates You and Royal Thunder.

Director, CT posted a blog on the film’s Myspace page, which says, ” I have just started filming a documentary called Slow Southern Steel with a majority of the help coming from Dav Lip. Camera 2 is from Memphis George, and the sound is captured by my good buddy Dusty from Jackson TN. The film is about underground heavy bands south of the Mason Dixon. It will have intense live performances from some of the crustiest, doomiest, and most progressive of heavy bands from the south. I only wish I could capture the essance of them all. Included also are interviews from the dirtiest and smelliest of musicians, promoters, and fans from this genre about livin and growing up in the bible belt, and other beautiful shithole christian ran towns, as well as drugged out road stories, and other uncoothe happennings.

So if this sounds like your bag, the show at The Drunken Unicorn starts tonight at 9 p.m. and admission is $8.

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