Crib Notes

This week’s issue of Creative Loafing features my story on Cheech & Chong’s Light Up America reunion tour.

I spoke with the comedians/marijuana icons separately last month, and you can hear my interviews in their entirety below.

Tommy Chong, who called me about 20 minutes late (”stoner time” of course), talks in greater detail about his prison sentence, while Cheech Marin discusses a wide variety of subjects, including Chicano art, how politics drove his partner to prison, and why it made sense (and dollars) for Cheech & Chong to bury the hatchet.

Click here to listen to Tommy Chong’s full interview.

Click here to listen to Cheech Marin’s full interview.

To read the feature story, click here.

Photo by Dan Dion

Bookmark to:

R.E.M. bassist Mike Mills gave his honest assessment on Michael Stipe’s lyrics, and also talked about the band’s well-reviewed recent tour during a conversation with CL contributor, Ben Westhoff.

You’ve said before that you generally don’t ask Stipe about his lyrics. Do you sometimes feel like you don’t know exactly what he’s talking about?

There are occasions what I’m not exactly sure what he was thinking when he wrote the lyrics, but that doesn’t matter. The only important thing is that the songs give you a sense of passion, or some sort of image within your own mind. What Michael’s thinking is not always that important. And that’s not to diminish what his intent is with the lyrics in any way, I’m just saying that it’s the listener’s perception that’s most important.

THREE-HEADED MONSTER: Peter Buck (left to right), Michael Stipe and Mike Mills. R.E.M. performs w/Modest Mouse and the National this Sat., June 21. $35-$75. 6:30 p.m. Lakewood Amphitheatre, 2002 Lakewood Way. 404-443-5000. www.livenation.com.

Many songs on Accelerate seem fairly political. Does that make them easier to understand?

You know, I generally know what he’s talking about on almost every song. There may be one song per record where I don’t know where he’s coming from. But again it doesn’t matter, because as long as I get some sort of mental picture, it doesn’t have to be the same one he has. And, really, there’s only been one or two songs in the history of R.E.M. where I’ve ever actually felt like I needed to ask him what he was thinking. Usually I just take my own interpretation of it and I’m happy with that.

(more…)

Bookmark to:

(all photos by Ben Westhoff, see more below jump.)

Though South By Southwest wisdom says that if you can get into a show, it’s not worth going to, Saturday’s Rob’s House Records/Die Slaughterhaus/Douchemaster Records showcase featured both elbow room and raucous local punk.

Perhaps that’s because it wasn’t an official event show; a sign near the front door read, “No wristband? No problem! This is Beerland, not SXSW.”

The Red River St. bar featured exactly what you’d expect from its name — cheap PBR and nudie pics in the men’s bathroom. Though it also featured acclaimed garage punkster Jay Reatard and Wax Museum, the concert focused on Atlanta acts, led off by Beat Beat Beat and followed by buzzworthy girl groups the Coathangers and Baby Shakes. (more…)

Bookmark to:

JUICE CREW ALL-STARS: One of hip-hop’s earliest posse cuts, “The Symphony,” was produced by Marley Marl, who constructed the beat around a poignant piano loop sampled from Otis Redding’s “Hard to Handle.” Click here to listen to the original.

Ever since the organizers behind the highly anticipated A3C Festival announced that members of the legendary Juice Crew – including producer Marley Marl, Big Daddy Kane, Biz Markie, MC Shan and Craig G — would reunite for a performance on March 21, heads have been wondering why at least one name (in addition to Kool G. Rap) was conspicuously absent from the bill.

Turns out Masta Ace is not missing in action, but he will miss the reunion.

Though a veteran of New York’s legendary Juice Crew, Ace never became a household name like many of them. But he has still enjoyed a remarkable solo career, releasing five well-received solo albums, including 2004’s largely slept-on A Long Hot Summer.

Later this month, his new group eMC will release its first album, The Show. eMC also features Lyricist Lounge staples Wordsworth and Punchline, not to mention longtime Ace collaborator Sticklin.

We talked to Ace about the new group, the surprising story behind his inclusion on the classic Juice Crew posse cut “The Symphony,” and the reason he won’t be participating in the Juice Crew reunion concert at the A3C Festival this year.

So why aren’t you coming to Atlanta for the reunion?

It’s the exact same weekend that we’re promoting eMC in New York. We have a whole bunch of interviews set up, and release parties in Philly, New York and in Boston, all right around that weekend.

I had my stuff planned out already; when it’s a group effort, you have to sacrifice for the sake of the group. Cool V, who is Biz’s DJ, called me about a month ago, and mentioned [the reunion] to me, but we had already had this stuff planned. Our album comes out March 25, which is the Tuesday after [the A3C Festival], but that whole weekend building up to the 25th we’re going to be doing promo and shooting videos.

Are you disappointed?

A little bit. If I didn’t have anything to do I’d like to go down there and see everybody. It would be cool to see dudes, and to see dudes perform. I haven’t seen all these people perform in a long, long time. I feel like I’d be more a fan than a part of the show.

When’s the last time you guys got together? (more…)

Bookmark to:

In case you still haven’t read our story on the MF Doom concert at MJQ, here’s a quick recap and some new info about Doom’s alleged Doombots plot.

Atlanta promoter Randy Castello had heard all the accusations that rapper MF Doom sometimes lip-synchs at his concerts, and has even sent impersonators in his place. But when Castello, a huge Doom fan, got the opportunity to put together a concert featuring the masked MC, he was undeterred.

“I was going into the show thinking that I’m going to be that guy who pulls off a successful MF Doom show,” he says.

But it was not to be. As we reported in this week’s paper, fans are again angrily accusing Doom of sending someone else to rap in his place at his mid-December show at MJQ Concourse. “There’s no way it was MF Doom,” concert-goer Jeff Hoffman says.

Castello even accuses Doom’s entourage of stealing his percentage of the door receipts. In the angry missive he sent out via MySpace, he listed a phone number and address that he says belong to Doom, and encouraged show attendees to pursue a refund directly from him.

Doom himself could not be reached for comment, and we don’t know what really happened that night, although videos of the show posted to a blog called the Kaos Effect (by Senor Kaos) make a pretty convincing case for irregularities. There’s no doubt, however, that something smells funky in Doomland.

The Atlanta-area rapper, who got his start alongside his younger brother in KMD and went on to Billboard success with an Adult Swim-sponsored collaboration with DJ Danger Mouse, has long been accused of reneging on business deals and forsaking former friends and collaborators such as MF Grimm. (Read more in this Village Voice story.)

But things got especially hairy in 2007. After the San Francisco show in August where he was accused of not showing up, he missed a New York concert in September and it was announced that he was in the hospital. His label Stones Throw quickly issued a statement claiming that was not the case.

It gets better. According to a rumor posted on the blog Fake Shore Drive, this may be part of an elaborate marketing scheme designed to promote Doom’s next album:

“…this past weekend C-Rayz Walz, a frequent Doom collaborator and old friend, was here in Chicago and we were discussing Doom and his antics. C-Rayz claims that Doom is an absolute genius and is sending out these fake Doom’s to gear up for the release of his next album ‘Doompostor.’ Apparently, on the next album Doom will discuss this in-depth (but when have you heard Doom discuss anything in-depth?)”

Who knows what the future holds for this guy. But whatever it is, it should be pretty damn interesting.

Bookmark to: