Hip Hop Gets Museum Recognition

Those longing for the rap's glory days of yesteryear need only look as far as our nation's capital. The Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C. is collecting vintage Hip Hop memorabilia to shore up its new mainstay exhibit. You'll just have to wait about five years to see it...

The museum, part of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, is announcing its plans to embark on a collecting initiative, "Hip-Hop Won't Stop: The Beat, The Rhymes, The Life." "It's here to stay, and it's part of American culture just like jazz is part of American history," said Valeska Hilbig, a National Museum spokeswoman. The project will collect objects that trace hip-hop's origins in the Bronx in the 1970s to its current global reach. It is expected to cost as much as $2 million and take up to five years to complete.

(via CNN)

Shower Curtains

Is this really necessary? I guess the NYC punk rock legacy has been reduced to nothing more than a simple bathroom necessity. Way to go Hilly..

CBGB Shower Curtain

AOP shower curtain available only in black and white measures 71" W x 71" L fits a standard curtain rod.
12 hanging rings are included.

Item #sc

Price: USD  $17.95

     
      

Bono

Is anyone else tired of hearing about Bono being such an important diplomat? It's driving me crazy (hoo hoo!). His determination to cure the world's problems has had a negative impact on U2's music. Their latest effort just sounded like a regurgitated version of All that You Can't Leave Behind.

And now he's up for a Nobel Peace Prize for the second time. Please don't win, please don't win. It would mean hearing "U2 and the Nobel Prize winning Bono" introduction on every talk show in America.

For the second year in a row, Bono is among the nominees for the Nobel Peace Prize. His partner in Live 8, Bob Geldof, is also nominated, as are 189 other people and organizations around the globe. It is the second-largest number of nominations in the 105-year history of the prize.

(via FMQB)

Quail Hunting Game

Here's a fun game to kill some time with. Don't say I never did anything for you.

Cartoon Outrage or Cartoon Fun

I am at a loss for words...

Floyd Fights

Last year's bittersweet reunion at Live 8 was not enough to bring the British all stars back to the music scene. You can't just throw away ego problems that have proliferated throughout the band's heyday. But it's almost better that way. Neil Young was right when he said that "it's better to burn out than to fade away." I think the Stones should heed his advice.

David Gilmour's first solo effort in more than 10 years is due on March 6.
"I do really think it is about as good a piece of work as I have ever done," Gilmour tells Billboard, adding, "It felt to me that this album should be me and not Pink Floyd this time. It's just a slightly different way of working. I worked from home on my own [without] having to be involved in the rather large machinery that is the Pink Floyd thing." And while Pink Floyd played stadiums on its final 1994 tour, Gilmour is constraining himself to theaters and mid-size venues this time. "I don't owe people anything," he says. "If people would like to come to my concerts I'd love them to come. And if they like the music that I make, I love that too. But I do not make music for other people. I make it to please myself." Gilmour confirms Pink Floyd "were offered a lot of money to go on tour" after Live 8, with or without founding member Roger Waters, with whom Gilmour has incessantly feuded since the mid 1980s.

(via Billboard)

So Long

It's been a rough few days for me. My Zayde (grandfather) passed away on Sunday. All I feel like saying is that I'm heartbroken.

Shorts In The Winter

There's always that one guy who feels the need to wear shorts when it's 40 degrees outside. Everyone knows this guy. He talks macho, is highly ignorant, has no neck, and guzzles more beer than a hobo in Penn Station. He bases his shorts-wearing on a relative incremental change in temperature that most human barely detect. And you just want to smack him upside the head for it every time. Luckily for our pleasure, he never changes his boneheaded ways.

Hammer is Back

MC Hammer has shed his parachute pants and taken a page from the Ying Yang Twins on the single from his comeback album. The song is called "Look" and it features all the ingredients of a Dirty South hip hop track - big bass, synth hooks, and stammering vocals. How can you take the Hammer seriously after his stint with "U Can't Touch This" and "2 Legit 2 Quit?"

If you're interested, below is the video for the new song. I personally think it's terrible, but who am I?

XXX Surprise

I find it comical that this could happen at a children's fundraiser. So fitting that it happened in New York.

A box of X-rated fortune cookies was mistakenly delivered to a fundraiser hosted by a Brooklyn politician.

The 350 cookies stuffed with "the most graphically lurid" fortunes got mixed up in a batch of 1,750 cookies ordered for the Chinese New Year event, Borough President Marty Markowitz said Friday. Some guests "were stunned, to say the least."

The annual event -- to raise money to send poor children to summer camp -- was attended by some 700 guests Tuesday evening, but only about 80 were still there when the dirty cookies were opened, Markowitz said.

Man, if I were a child that situation, those cookies would've been the coolest (second of course to Snack Pack).

What a Wookie

Chewbacca is featured on this amazing blog. It's pretty much his commentary on random shit, only in his native tongue.

Check it out.

Sly Stone

Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Sly Stone...

Emerged to perform onstage at last night's Grammy's for the first time in 19 years. He jammed with his one-time band mates, the Family Stone, on a superstar version of "I Want to Take You Higher." Sporting a giant blond Mohawk, dark shades and a silver, purple-lined robe, Stone took the stage after a five-song medley tribute that included John Legend, Joss Stone, Maroon 5, Will.i.am from The Black Eyed Peas and Steven Tyler of Aerosmith. Stone played "I Want to Take You Higher" behind a set of keyboards with his old band, the Family Stone, appearing uncertain and unaccustomed to the bright lights of the big event. He kept his head bowed, declining to address the audience or acknowledge the occasion. (via Washington Post)

Police Documentary

I saw this on Billboard this morning and got excited. Apparently a documentary on the Police will be released on DVD March 28. The film originally appeared in last month's Sundance Film Festival. A documentary on this band is well overdue. And because it's based on many of Stewart Copeland's home videos, I am curious to see band dynamic on camera.

"It's very cheerful," he said of the footage. In fact, when he looked for scenes to accompany his narration about the band's demise, he could not find shots "of us looking pissed off at each other." However, he admitted, "I put my camera down the last year or two. I felt like I should be living it instead of shooting it."

I need come clean. I am obsessed with the new Madonna single, "Hung Up." The hook in that song is just genius. It's been in my head for weeks, just like whenever I hear "I Want You to Want Me."

Then there's the video which shows a forty-something Madge jumping around in a leotard with macho men groping her in dance. Let's just say that that combination is a perfect one-two punch for a hit song. And that I might have some personal issues to confront.

In case you've been living under a rock, give it a listen.

Yeah, They Went There...

Bad in the I-can't-believe-someone-paid-to-have-a-video-for-this-music kind of way.

Thanks Dave.

Brokeback to the Future

As if you haven't heard enough about Brokeback Mountain, here is more...

The Big Bang

In what is an ever-growing trend among hip hop artists, a man was shot dead at a Busta Rhymes video shoot early this morning. The shooting occurred in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

Police said 14 shots were fired from an AK-47 assault rifle outside the studio. Rhymes was not injured and at deadline it is unclear whether the incident had any connection to the artist. Surveillance tapes are being analyzed for evidence.

This shit never ceases to amaze me. It's like you can take rappers out of the gang, but you can't ever take the gangster out of the rapper. Growing up gangster, all these guys want is money to get out. But once there is money and they are out, it's back to petty fighting and crime. It only gives hip hop a bad name. People will eventually become fed up with this shit.

Busta's new album, The Big Bang, hits stores April 2.

(via Billboard)

The Fifth Beatle

I don't always agree when Hollywood makes biopics. My preference would be seeing a documentary film about the person. Ray is a great flick, but I would rather just watch old footage and have people comment on his life. I don't need to see someone's life dramatized; just give me all the facts.

So being a complete Beatles junkie, I am unsure how to react to news of a Brian Epstein biopic in the works.

Brian Epstein, the man who shepherded the Beatles to stardom, will be the subject of the upcoming feature film The Fifth Beatle. The screenplay was written by Vivek Tiwary -- a producer on the Tony Award-winning Broadway revival of A Raisin in the Sun that starred Sean "Diddy" Combs -- and it conveys the rock & roll manager's life through historical scenes, dream sequences and hallucinations.

(via Rolling Stone)

Cartoon Violence

I saw this on Dark Stuff this morning and completely agree with his view. The recent uproar against these cartoons is not uproar. It should be seen as an excuse for further violence against the West. ----------------------------------------------------------

What Does It Take To Start a Cartoon Controversy?

You no do have read about the wave of violence that has erupted throughout the Muslim world over a cartoon published in a Danish newspaper. The violence has spread like a wildfire into Muslim communities throughout Europe as well. The editor of a French newspaper was fired for re-printing the "offensive" cartoon. I am showing two of the cartoons here on The Dark Stuff, not because I am anti-Muslim, or that I agree with the message of the cartoons (I'm not even 100% sure what the original context of the images is). I am showing it because of the enormous hypocrisy of the protesters. This cartoon has prompted calls from Muslim extremists to kidnap or attack all Europeans in Arab countries, and has prompted a boycott of Danish businesses. The protests are very violent and incendiary. They are full of threats of terrorism against anyone who prints the cartoons -- and calls for the "extermination" of those who "slander" Islam. Here is a collage of photos of the violence around the world.I wonder how many of these same folks sat back, smoked their pipes and laughed when the following cartoons were printed in the Arab media:Take a brief visit to the Anti-Defamation League's (ADL) website (www.adl.org) and you will find numerous anti-semitic cartoons that are published on an almost daily basis in the state-run Arab media. I think the word you are looking for is...hypocrisy. Yeah, that's it.

Day the Music Died

As immortalized in Don Maclean's opus "American Pie", 47 years ago today was the "day the music died." Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper all died when their plane crashed on the way to a gig in Fargo, North Dakota.
___________________________________
"The Winter Dance Party" was a tour that was set to cover 24 Midwest cities in three weeks. The problem was that the venues were not booked appropriately (i.e., according to the proximities of the venues to one another). For example, the tour would start at venue A, travel two hundred miles to venue B, and travel back one hundred seventy miles to venue C, which was only thirty miles from venue A. Adding to the disarray, the tour bus used to carry the musicians was ill-prepared for the weather; its heating system broke shortly after the tour began. One of the drummers may have developed frostbite while on the bus. The Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa was never intended to be a stop on the tour, but promoters, hoping to fill an open date, called the manager of the ballroom at the time and offered him the show. He accepted and the date of the show was set for February 2. When Buddy Holly arrived at the ballroom that evening, he had had enough of the tour bus, and asked his band-mates that, once the show was over, they try to charter a plane to get to the next stop on the tour, which was the Moorhead, Minnesota Armory. The destination of the flight was the airport in Moorhead, MN. Arrangements were made for the plane, and Dwyer Flying Service got the charter. A fee of $36 per person was charged for the single engine Beechcraft Bonanza that could hold three people, plus its pilot. The Big Bopper had developed a case of the flu during the tour (erroneously thought to have been caused by riding on the unheated bus) and asked one of Holly's bandmates, Waylon Jennings, for his seat on the plane; Jennings agreed to give up the seat. When Buddy heard about this, his reply to Waylon was "Well, I hope your old bus freezes up!", to which Waylon replied, "Well, I hope your plane crashes!" This trade of words, though made in jest at the time, haunted Jennings for many years afterward. Ritchie Valens had never flown in a small plane before, and asked Buddy's remaining bandmate on the plane, Tommy Allsup, for the seat. Tommy said "I'll flip ya for the remaining seat". Contrary to what is seen in biographical movies, that coin toss did not happen at the airport shortly before takeoff, nor was Buddy Holly the one that tossed it. The toss happened at the ballroom shortly before departure to the airport, and the coin itself was tossed by a deejay that was working the show that night. On the toss of that coin, Ritchie won a seat on the plane. Dion of Dion & The Belmonts, who was the fourth headliner on the tour, was approached to join the flight as well; however, the price of $36 was too much. Dion had heard his parents argue for years over the $36 rent for their apartment and could not bring himself to pay an entire month's rent for a short plane ride.

(via Wikipedia)

Indie Standouts to Tour

Indie standouts Franz Ferdinand and Death Cab for Cutie will be touring North America together, starting in March. Here is their itinerary (via Pitchfork):

03-22 Portland, OR - Memorial Coliseum
03-23 Sacramento, CA - Memorial Hall at Sacramento Convention Center
03-24 Reno, NV - Reno Hilton Pavillion
03-27 Tucson, AZ - Centennial Hall at University of Arizona
03-29 Austin, TX - The Backyard
03-30 Houston, TX - Verizon Wireless Theater
03-31 Grand Prairie, TX - Nokia Theatre
04-07 Durham, NC - Cameron Stadium at Duke University
04-08 Camden, NJ - Tweeter Center Indoors
04-09 Ithaca, NY - Barton Hall at Cornell University
04-11 Washington, DC - Constitution Hall
04-12 Boston, MA - Agannis Arena
04-13 New York, NY - Hammerstein Ballroom
04-14 New York, NY - Hammerstein Ballroom
04-15 Montreal, Quebec - Cepsum at University of Montreal
04-17 Toronto, Ontario - The Docks
04-18 Detroit, MI - State Theatre
04-19 Chicago, IL - Aragon Ballroom
04-20 St Paul, MN - Northrop Auditorum at University of Minnesota
04-23 Winnipeg, Manitoba - Burton Cummings Theatre
04-25 Edmonton, Alberta - Shaw Conference Centre
04-26 Calgary, Alberta - Stampede Corral