03 - Rjd2: The Third Hand

03
RJD2: THE THIRD HAND (2007)

I have written about this one here. It is still hard to believe I read about this record in a hiphop magazine first. But yeah, Rdj2 used to be a hiphop sampling dj once. With this record, he has created something more atmospheric, more dreamy, more melodic. This has been the soundtrack for my autumn this year. I used to listen to this one all of september when I was riding my bike. It is a bit of a twisted record, I find it very hard to add "labels" to it. But unlike last time I wrote about this record, there is now something I can give you to hear. Please have a look and listen at Work It Out, which represents the feel of the album very well, I think. It may sound repetitive when you've only listened to it once, but If you give it a few more tries you will realise there is a lot going on in the song.



Rjd2, by the way, is not the guy with the crutches, but, among others, the guy in the blue/white checked shirt following him at the beginning.

10 - Danger Doom: The Mouse And The Mask

10
DANGER DOOM: THE MOUSE AND THE MASK (2005)

This one is so fresh (for me) it could be a regular blog entry. I Listened to it very few times so far. Already it is bringing back lots of the good feelings hiphop used to give me some years ago. Danger Dooms voice is very charismatic, a bit mysterious and it gives me so much pleasure listening to what he has got to say. And he has got something to say. And finally, someone in the rap scene who has got the nerve to have some humour. When I had my hiphop phase, 6 or 7 years ago, I admired the mcs for being able to articulate so many many interesting thoughts in one song, and sometimes telling great stories. Then I felt new school had nothing important to say anymore, apart from a few valuable artists like The Roots or Common. The best hiphop, for me, is what groups like The Pharcyde or A Tribe Called Quest used to do in the early nineties. And The Mouse and The Mask very much sounds like that.
Hello rap music, In casef there's more we're-ina-a-good-mood-and-can-also-have-aluagh-about-ourselves like that, I wanna be friends again!

RJD2 - The Third Hand

It was about time for me to like a record so much I feel it is worth being recommend. My new favourite album is RJD2's The Third Hand.

Well, as far as I know RJD2 has released quite few records so far, and I know him has a hip hop sampling dj. However, the new record quite blew me away because it combines a number of styles. What drove me to listen to it was a review I read that stated something like "RJD2 seems to be more relying on psychedelic and the beatles here than on hip hop beats." And damn right this is! The first song and, as far as I know, new single you never had it so good is based on piano chords. The second one, have mercy, is extremly funky. I find the lyrics quite amusing, as they remind me of German train workers being on strike recently:

Oh my goodness
I've been waiting for a train all morning
Lord Allmighty
I got a downtown shot to get to
Oh please
I got no car to bring me
...
Lord have mercy
have mercy have mercy
on these old fools
Lord have mercy
have mercy have mercy
'cos I won't do

Probbaly not what RJD2 wanted to say, but nevermind. Same goes for laws of the gods, which sounds like a angry girl's revenge on her ex-boyfriend:

Oh lazy man
you broke the laws of the gods
...
don't come home for a week

Enough interpretations...I discovered this record just three days ago, and already came up with some weird conclusions. One suddenly hit me this morning when I listened to the record in the queue at the post office: The thing is, one of my favorite songs so far is sweet piece. The chorus just appeals to me very much, and now I think I know why: May I be so presumptuous to claim it's like the electro hymn George Michael has not been writing recently? "Not him again again" I hear you scream, but listen for yourself. It's electronic, a soft electronica, it's about unaknowledged love or misconceptions on love, and his voice sounds so, well, like George Michael.

Likewise noteworthy: rules has perfect bonds to good old triphop and someday is played with an acoustic guitar. Not quite your average hiphop dj, ey?

We are now coming to the sadder part of this blog. What ever happened to radioblogclub? Is it just me or is it gone, making room for a page full of advertisement? What happened to all the radioblogclub links I put on this blog?

Not all the songs I mentioned are available there, but do try and listen to RJD2 on his myspace.

More Timbaland

Whoops, so this blog got alot of attention from different websites. Thanx for that.

A few more things about this whole timbaland vs. tempest thing from me.

First of all, I am quite qualified to talk about this. I entered the scene some 15 years ago, first did some musics and graphics on the C64, later bought a PC and made music there.
So when I talk about C64-Arpeggios, I know what I am talking about.

Also I had an email discussion with Ronnie from rekkerd.org today which made me think about a few more aspects of this.

I am meanwhile absolutely convinced that timbaland ripped this track from tempest and/or GRG. Thats that. Those videos prove it for me. I mean, you never hear C64-Style arpeggios somewhere in Chart-Music and all of a sudden timbaland comes around with a beat which sounds so much like this track, this aint chance or coincidence. And even if it's not a perfect fit, doesnt matter, I guess the least that timbaland can do is chop stuff up a little bit.

Now, I spent the better part of the day reading around the net about this thing and it seems that on one hand alot of sceners or close-to-the-scene people are outraged while some non-sceners don't see the point.
You can read comments everywhere like "it was on the net for free, so whats the fuzz", "sounds like some crap-midi-file anyway" and so on and so forth.

The point is simply : It doesnt matter. Tempest made the track, and in the second he started the track he gained the copyright for it. This is the same thing all over the world. Do something of artistic value and it's yours. And just because he put it out as freeware doesn't mean anyone can rip it up or sample it. The only thing he gave up by releasing this as freeware is the right to charge people for listening to it.

Secondly, those stupid claims "hiphop is always about sampling". Yes I know. My music is samplebased too. I do know quite alot about sampling and how to do it and all. I keep a list of artists/tracks I sampled from, should the day come that I can make money with my tracks, I will pay for clearance.
And if you sample from artists from the industry, you normally have to pay alot. Which makes sense, really. Black Eyed Peas surely paid alot to Sergio Mendes to make this track they recently did. Because the track is nothing without that Sergio Mendes Sample.
You pay less if you sample some half second and put it back in the background, so the sample is not that important and all.
But all in all, the way should be like "hey, I love this sound of yours, used it in a track of mine
and now I will give you some of the money I earn with this track because without your sound my track would not have been possible this way." Every artist in the biz is very uptight about this and their copyrights and will go after you if you violate that.

And what do we have in this case ? Some frigging 8-bar loops which make up the whole song. If Tempest was in the biz he would get about 95% of the money this track generates, for sure.
But, and here is the point, he is only a "geek" who put up his "music for free on the net anyway".
All that timbaland did was adding some drums. Anyone with abit of musical knowledge and a cracked Fruity Loops can do this.
And that is the frigging point. The major portion of that track is done by Tempest/GRG. It's nice that Timbaland likes the sound and uses the samples, but pay for it and name your source, for christs sake. And share the better part of the money with those artists, because this track would not have been without those two people. Show some respect. (Thats the word all those HipHops are mumbling about all the time).

I would love to know what would have happened if tempest made a track using a (however small) sample from timbaland and got some attention for that.

In the scene rippers are considered people with low morale and respect, in the real world they make millions and get interviews for being such kick-ass producers. This sucks.

I seriously hope that tempest gets the money and backup he needs to sue Timbaland and/or Geffen Records, because I am afraid otherwise they will just sit this one out.

Timbaland rips

There is currently alot of buzz on the net about Timbaland having ripped portions of a freeware C64 song without giving credits, let alone any money.

If it's true (and it seems to be) then this is a real shock, a successful producer like timbaland stealing from other people... Those people tend to rip your head off if you sample more than three milliseconds of their work, seems they take it much easier the other way around.

The facts about this read like this :

In 2000 Tempest does a MOD called "acid jazzed evening". A MOD is an Amiga-Music file, Amiga being the old computer (you probably played around with one of those if you are close to 30).
A while later someone called GRG converted this track into a SID-File (having asked tempest for permission beforehand), SID being the soundchip of the old C64-Computer (yet again, if you are close to 30, you probably had some fun with this one).

In 2006 the new Nelly Furtado album produced by Timbaland contains a song called "do it", which is apparently built around the SID-Conversion of "acid jazzed evening". In the liner-notes he claims full credit for this song. No hint of any other artist involved.

There is a great Youtube-Video around comparing these two songs :

Another video about a ringtone he released in 2005 :

I am very convinced about this, basically because of one thing : You can clearly hear the arpeggios of the C64 Track in that Nelly Furtado Track. "Arpeggio" is a musical term describing the style of splitting up a chord and playing the individual notes in fast succession, in "real" music its done on guitars or harps, in electronic music this is something very popular in trance music. However, a very distinctive style of arpeggios can be hard in alot of MOD and SID Files where they are done in a very special technical way (you can't even determine a real notelength for each small note). I do not know alot of real hardware or software synth that can do those kind of arpeggios, you need a real or emulated C64/Amiga for this (and have to know how to work these, too). (Edit: As was revealed meanwhile Timbaland has a "SID-Station" in his Studio, a Synthesizer built upon the Soundchip of the C64. Which is capable of playing tunes like the one from GRG...)

The point of all this is simply that even a big-ass producer like timbaland does seem to confuse the term "freeware" with "free to do anything with". If I put out music for free on the net like the MOD and SID files mentioned above, I still hold the copyrights to it and no one is allowed to abuse that stuff. It's just my decision not to charge any money for listening to it. It's strange that someone who is surely very uptight about his own copyrights does not care about other artists copyrights.

And I know that HipHop has always been about sampling, but there has been a "culture" about paying royalties for sampled material for some decades now, and thats for a good reason. Seems those vultures now start to grab their melodies and stuff from people who can't defend themselves. (Neither tempest nor grg will go to court with this, because as someone stated "it's a suicide mission to trial geffen records, or any other major for that matter.")

To this date, neither Timbaland nor Geffen Records have issued an official statement nor tried to contact tempest or GRG.

Part2 of this post with some more thoughts.

Links :

There is a discussion going on on the somethingawful.com-forums with some more in-depth background information.

A page on pelulamu gathering links and information about the subject (thanx for linking us).

Some more info on ukscene.

The digg-page about this with comments from tempest himself.

Def Sounds (an american Hiphop-Mag) catched on to the whole story.

Finally, the official ringtone which sounds very, very much like the original SID-File.

My Record of the Year

This may sound utterly stupid to some people, but after going through some "official" 2006-top-album lists I realized that there is only one record that came out this year that I was spinning more than a few times, and that is "St. Elsewhere" by Gnarls Barkley. Oh, I love that one. Playful, sloppy beats mixed with lyrics that are great and sound like they have been written five minutes before the actual recording started. Since my sister already covered that one I won't write any more about it.

(I actually had some other records in mind but had to realize they all came out 2005).

I didn't like The Knife (actually had a small discussion with TBA about it, somehow I can't get into those cold electronics done by the people up north, just doesnt appeal to me), I am utterly bored with todays (Indy)-Rock music (I rather listen to some 60s/70s beat/rock/psych/prog, for me thats the real deal), I still can't get a finger on that (probably non-existing) phenomena called "Disco-Punk" and HipHop remained either the disgusting sexistic bullshit or the boring, uncreative intro-sampling "take a hit, make a hit"-shit it has been for a while now.

There have been some great tracks I loved in the dance scene this year (Robosonic - "Yasmin" (coconut wireless remix), Palermo Disko Machine - "Pump", Buscemi - Jazz Jumper, 1200 Beats - "Run it Dub" just fall into my mind), but sadly the clubs in my hometown keep up their love for minimal techno-stuff and those are tracks I listened to at home.

But basically in 2006 I just unplugged from modern music even more. I guess I did miss some great stuff because no-one told me about or I simply refused to listen (TBA is still trying all the time, hehe), but I was occupied with other music.
I spent my year listening to more of the 60s and 70s, jazz, soundtracks, disco, got alot of those old eastern-european records I love so much (jazz, funk, pop, you name it) and really started to get more into classic and contemporary classic music (like with synths and stuff, from the (you guessed it) 70s).

I really don't know if it's true what someone told me a few days ago in a bar, that art in general literally came to a standstill in the past years, lets see what the new 2007 brings.
But one of the reasons why I love 60s/70s music in general so much is simply the fact that back then all those musicians gathered together in a studio and started playing together whereas today with computers and stuff nearly all music, even the classic "band-on-stage" rock music gets recorded with each member of the band playing their parts alone in the studio, often recorded in "takes" and then cut and looped and modified to "fit". The magic of musicians interacting and playing together and with each other just isn't happening anymore. I don't know any recent tracks that made me listen closely to the way the bass-player in the background suddenly starts freaking out during the bridge (stiletto main theme), the way the drummer keeps varying his breaks all trough the song (warren schatz - "I need your smile") and I don't the goosebumps I get when in some 70s Bert Kaempfert song suddenly a string quartet starts playing some incredibly emotional chords. Maybe I am getting old. Sigh.

05 tom tom club - tom tom club (1981)

05 tom tom club - tom tom club (1981)

the inspiration record

unbelievable that this record was released in 1981. it sounds so fresh. hiphop beats, a female rapper, sing-along melodies. this is a good mood record, a well-made one. a friend and i honestly thought about forming a pop-group when we listened to this record. if we made music, it should sounds like this, we decided.
the record hits you already with the intro of the first song, wordy rappinghood, a rant about communication.
'ramta tamtam ramtamtam...'
ignore the video, the audience's clapping and the host's stupid words (!) and enjoy how the singer emphasises the lyrics:



genius of love conveys the impression of being really badly produced. the whole songs sounds low-fi and not well mixed. yet it is very inventive, there is so much going on in this song.



wordy rappinghood and genius of love may be the two catchiest songs, but the rest of the album is similar. tom tom club is the kind of stuff that you need before you go out or when you party at home. sounds like i had a lot of parties this year. ;)

11 gnarls barkley - st. elsewhere (2006)

11 gnarls barkley - st.elsewhere (2006)

the must-be-in record

why not start my top ten with a number 11? i made a list of records and ended up with st.elsewhere being the left-over. but hell, this record deserves a place in the hit list. let us start with the facts: crazy, the first single, was the summer song 2006. and righteously so, not only because it is damn catchy and puts everybody in a great mood, but also because it was the first song ever that reached the top of the charts in the uk without any distribution of physical copies of the track. in other words: it got number one only by downloads. make a note in your history books, people!



but what is even more important: gnarls barkley easily keep the standard of crazy throughout the whole record. the intro song go-go gadget gospel is a hymn that sets the pace for the rest of the songs.
gone daddy gone, i had to learn, is a violent femmes cover, one that is in fact quite close to the original version.





smiley faces is my favourite, just a thought the breakbeat ballade and transformer the song with the funny gimmicks. all in all, st. elsewhere is a record that lines up in a row with those of gorillaz or dj shadow. it combines hiphop with breakbeat with pop with soul with dance. we need more music like this. we need more summer songs like these - next year!

smiley faces, video version with a touch of the likes of spinal tap or a mighty wind:

die fantastischen vier @ o2 music flash

>> crappy picture mobiles present:

last night i went to see germany's very first successful hip hop group, die fantastischen vier. the event was promoted by a mobil network company called o2. i knew from previous o2 events that this would be a well-organised concert with the possibility to get guaranteed entrance, nice lanyards to keep as memorabilia, plus the whole thing was free.

die fantastischen vier released their first record, jetzt geht's ab in 1991 and their latest, viel, in 2004. that's why i expected the venue to be quite packed. fortunately the concert was at an outside area, which gave the whole thing a nice festival atmosphere and left enough room for people to stroll around.

i don't own any of the records so i am familiar with their 'hits' only. i ended up knowing about half of the songs they played.

when the concert started i immediately realised, once more, that german lyrics can be quite awkward:

was geht, was geht
ich sag's dir ganz konkret

(i'm not going to translate this... ;-) )

as the concert progressed i enjoyed it more and more and even ended up dancing and screaming. so yeah, i had a time.

in a few days, you'll surely be able to watch a recording of the concert on the o2 webpage, until then check their videos on youtube.com if you like. i recommend sie ist weg, tag am meer and mfg.

tonight will be roni size doing a dj-set, so check back here tomorrow on this!