Crib Notes

SEE THE GOODIE MOB PHOTO GALLERY

In the last several years, the state of Georgia underwent a drought so severe it led Governor Sonny Perdue to pray for rain on the steps of the state Capitol in 2007.

Meanwhile, the city of Atlanta continued to suffer from a drought of another kind: It seemed the Dirty South was all wet.

So the torrential rains that fell almost nonstop upon Atlanta in the week leading up to Goodie Mob’s reunion concert seemed like a supernatural sign that the group’s return might wash away the bullshit and bring back the real South — if only for one night.

By the time Khujo, Big Gipp, T-Mo and Cee-Lo stepped to the front of the stage around 9:06 p.m. — after an old-school set by Atlanta DJ Kizzy Rock, performances from Pastor Troy and Youngbloodz, and an intro that spoke to the occasion (”We are Success-N-Effect, some A-Town Playas”) from former Def Jam poet Georgia M.E. — the rains had calmed to barely a drizzle.

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'HEY MAN, SMELL MY LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD': George Clinton (right) with BMI CEO Del Bryant

Broadcast Music Inc. (BMI) functions much like its competitor ASCAP, collecting royalties on behalf of songwriters and publishers from radio and other outlets. But unlike ASCAP, which is owned by its songwriters and publishers, BMI is owned by broadcasters, the same people they license for royalties.

Shady, right? Still, it’s been ahead of the curve when it comes to representing black musicians, and today its artists include the majority of top-selling hip hop artists. The weirdness of these dynamics were on full display at BMI’s Urban Awards show September 10 in New York. Held at Lincoln Center’s jazz hall, the evening’s co-host was BMI CEO Del Bryant, whose tightly-buttoned suit, weird tan and strained attempts at street banter routinely caused a huge room of cocktailed-up rappers, producers and music industry types (one of whom was rocking a Gumby haircut) to fall into awkward silences.

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ALL FOUR ONE: Cee-Lo (clockwise from front), Khujo, T-Mo and Big Gipp put the city on their backs.

By Maurice Garland

Once known as “the city too busy to hate,” Atlanta has seemingly turned into “the city too busy to remember.” In its desire to become a hybrid of New York’s grind and Los Angeles’ shine, many of the cultural landmarks that made the city what it once was have disappeared. Remember the Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium where Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s home run record? It’s now a parking lot. Such streets of infamy as Stewart Avenue and Bankhead Highway have been renamed. Earwax Records got squeezed out by the iPod. Even the sports memorabilia shop Distant Replays is a distant memory. Compound that with the Atlanta Housing Authority’s nearly completed plan to erase every last trace of housing projects from the landscape, and it seems the city’s becoming a soul-less shell of its former self.

But on a recent August afternoon so humid and hazy it would leave local TV weathermen Glenn Burns and Ken Cook speechless, four recognizable brothers donned in throwback red Adidas jumpsuits stand outside the West End soul food restaurant Chanterelle’s. They resemble a blast from the not-too-distant past.

Continue reading “A dirty job for Goodie Mob”

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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Funkadelic Parliamentarian George Clinton doesn’t have any substantial Atlanta ties that I know of, but he’s been enormously influential on local artists. At least according to Dallas Austin, whom I talked to recently about his new 8Dazeaweakend project. (Its DVD, which features Clinton, just became available on iTunes, by the way.)

“He’s been instrumental to all of our careers in Atlanta, me and Outkast and everybody,” Austin says, going on to describe his exhilaration at seeing Parliament’s spaceship stage show when he was younger.

Next Thursday Austin and other Atlanta musicians will have a chance to return the favor, as they are scheduled to appear at BMI’s Urban Music Awards show in New York City, during which Clinton will be presented with an “Icon” award.

Atl types scheduled to attend the event at Lincoln Center’s Frederick P. Rose Hall also include Keri Hilson, Soulja Boy, Polow da Don, Cee-Lo, Bobby Valentino and Big Boi. Others promised are DJ Khaled, Plies, Rick Ross and Ray J.

In fact, pretty much everybody will be there except you. There are no tickets available to the public. But your trusty correspondent has submitted a press request, so hopefully I will be able to apprise you of the goings on.

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Remember Atlanta — the Goodie Mob reunion concert. $35-$40. Sat., Sept. 19. Masquerade Music Park, 695 North Ave. 404-577-8178. www.masq.com. Tickets available at Ticketmaster.com.

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Cee-Lo and DangerMouse certainly proved to be The Odd Couple last night on Gnarls Barkley’s return home to Atlanta for a performance at the Variety Playhouse.

For most of the show, Cee-Lo resembled a fired-up storefront preacher mixed with a little bit of a Hell’s Angel as he quickly peeled out of his shiny turquoise tuxedo jacket and black shirt to reveal a black wife-beater, tattooed arms and chest, and a thick gold chain with a cross that dangled down to his pot belly — to which I overheard Jodine of Jodine’s Corner respond, “Big Sexy’s in the building!”

Though he didn’t dance (”This floor is slippery — I was going to show y’all some of my moves.”), he’d half do a little herky jerky thing with his arms every once in awhile then throw them up in the air in a way that reminded me of the little church lady who used to catch the Holy Ghost on the front pew every Sunday.

Meanwhile, Danger Mouse looked like some crazed but concentrated concert pianist as he hunched his back over the keyboard and played ever so slightly. The only thing missing was a candelabra and a black cat.

For the encore, Cee-Lo returned to the stage wearing black shades and smoking a cigarette. Paired with his bald head and gold chain, it immediately conjured up the image of Isaac Hayes, circa his Hot Buttered Soul era. And when DangerMouse sat down at the synthesizer, he began to play two notes in a fashion that almost mimicked Hayes’ classic eight-minute monologue on his remake of “By the Time I Get to Phoenix.”

Instead, Gnarls Barkley launched into “Who’s Gonna Save My Soul” — a song Cee-Lo told CL in last week’s feature that he originally wrote to mourn James Brown’s death. The lyrics were a perfect ode to the recently deceased Isaac Hayes last night.

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By Ben Westhoff

Ten years from now — or whenever it is we finally come up with a name for the decade we’re currently living in (my vote is for “the aughts”) — no musical act will better epitomize the sound of the times than Gnarls Barkley.

With the duo’s predilection for genre hopping (hip-hop, R&B, indie rock, gospel), ability to concoct a monster single (”Crazy”), and penchant for promoting itself with pop culture imagery (The Big Lebowski, Napoleon Dynamite), it’s surely the most zeitgeist-capturing act around.

Essentially composed of a rapper who sings (Atlanta native Cee-Lo Green) and a mashup specialist who makes breathtakingly original beats (Atlanta/Athens native Danger Mouse), the pair somehow creates touching, soulful music. Buried beneath their technology, gimmicks and nerdy references lie universal truths that seem to reach people in different ways.

Take “Who’s Gonna Save My Soul,” a weepy lament off the group’s sophomore album, The Odd Couple. Green says the song was written in memory of James Brown, but for the recently released video, he wanted something to convey the theme of heartache in general terms. So in the Chris Milk-directed video, a girl breaks up with her boyfriend at a diner. He then proceeds to cut open his chest with a butter knife, pull out his heart and place it on a saucer. The dripping organ then rises and begins to sing Cee-Lo’s woeful lyrics into a stalk of broccoli.

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(Photo courtesy Jeremy & Claire Weiss)

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It’s official. Danger Mouse and Cee-lo are a couple of geniuses. Or retards.

Check out the new Gnarls Barkley video for “Who’s Gonna Save My Soul,” the two co-directed with Chris Milk (Kanye West’s “Touch the Sky,” “Jesus Walks”). It’s pretty heartless.

After releasing two previous videos from The Odd Couple to little fanfare, “Who’s Gonna Save My Soul” has video-of-the-year written all over it. But maybe I’m just being a fan.

Is it just me, or is this the best video you’ve seen in several years?

Gnarls Barkley recently announced an Atlanta performance w/special guest Janelle Monae. $25/advance. $27.50/day of show. 8:30 p.m. Mon., Aug. 11. Variety Playhouse, 1099 Euclid Ave. www.variety-playhouse.com.

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Gnarls Barkley performed on SNL this weekend. Athens staple and Elephant 6 associate Heather McIntosh (of Athens group the Instruments) played bass. McIntosh also plays cello on the new Gnarls Barkley album, The Odd Couple.

To see a full video of Gnarls Barkley performing the song, “Run (I’m A Natural Disaster)” click here.

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Yesterday, Gnarls Barkley continued teasing the bloggerati with bits about its upcoming album. First, Cee-Lo and Danger Mouse leaked a new song, “Run,” that replicates the late ’60s soul-pop of St. Elsewhere’s “Smiley Faces.” It’s all over the Web, and I found it here.

The duo also revealed the name of the album: The Odd Couple. Billboard.com reports that the two are still in the studio finishing the album, but promise to have it ready for the audience’s inspection in April.

The new Gnarls Barkley album anchors a busy year for former Atlantan Danger Mouse, ending a relatively quiet 2007 in which he only produced Damon Albarn’s project The Good, the Bad & the Queen (which I initially found boring, but the album grew on me). He has finished producing retro-blues duo the Black Keys’ Attack & Release, which drops April 1; is completing a long-delayed album with former Tricky muse Martina Topley-Bird’s The Blue God for this summer; and has worked on British indie-pop band the Shortwave Set’s Replica Sun Machine. None of it is Gorillaz, of course, but it will do.

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Yesterday, Rolling Stone magazine’s Rock & Roll Daily blog posted an item about the upcoming Gnarls Barkley album. While I’m skeptical the album will be ready by April — Billboard magazine made a similar announcement last July — I’m heartened to read that someone outside of Cee-Lo and Danger Mouse’s camp has actually heard some completed songs.

The new Gnarls Barkley disc won’t be released until April, but we got the chance to hear a few new cuts early. The verdict: Cee-Lo and Danger Mouse have produced another album of super-catchy tunes that veer between retro-soul shakedowns, tricked-out psychedelic rock and trunk-rattling hip-hop.

So maybe the follow-up to St. Elsewhere will actually come out this year. Personally, I’m waiting to see if Cee-Lo will ever release any product on his Radiculture Records label.

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