1) Gangrene Vodka and Ayahuasca (Decon)

2) Lushlife Plateau Vision LP (Western Vinyl)

3) Homeboy Sandman Subject Matter (Stones Throw)

4) Eligh & Amp Live Therapy At 3 ( Legendary Music/Live Up/Traffic)

5) Wiley Evolve Or Be Extinct (Big Dada)

For a change from the usual sales-based Amoeba weekly hip-hop chart this week's Hip-Hop Top Five Chart is my own personal favorite brand new and soon to drop hip-hop releases. Topping the chart is the amazing Oh No and The Alchemist group Gangrene's third and latest collaboration Vodka and Ayahuasca on Decon. Also here is the recent Eligh & Amp Live Therapy At 3 ( which gets better and better with repeated listens and the brand new Wiley
album Evolve Or Be Extinct - a double CD on Big Dada which will appeal equally to grime and hip-hop heads. Not out yet but worthy of mention It is the forthcoming Lushlife album Plateau  Vision LP, which will be released in mid April on Western Vinyl, and is sure to propel to mainstream visibility the South Philly producer/emcee/musician who made waves last year with the much buzzed about mixtape No More Golden Days. As with that mixtape, which was an actual cassette tape, this new CD album blends mid 90's underground NY hip-hop flavor with Dilla/Madlib type production values. This is the sort of well produced album that will make you want to also track down the instrumental version. It's pure pleasure to listen to and Lushlife's flow is a treat to listen to. He is also joined by several well chosen guests throughout the 11 track album including Styles P, Canadian rapper Shad, Heems of Das Racist, and ex-Titus Andronicus garage rocker Andrew Cedermark who joins him on the album track "The Romance of the Telescope." My personal favorite tracks are the throwback eigthies/nineties sounding "Anthem" and the opening "Magnolia" which, over a dreamy hypnotic backdrop and a series of well chosen samples, finds Lushlife rapping about such things as graffiti and Coney Island. This is already making its way to becoming one of my year end top albums.

There has been a flurry of activity this week with three heavy hitters releasing new songs - Jack White, M.I.A. and Madonna.

Jack White is releasing his first solo album, Blunderbuss, on April 24 and the first single, "Love Interruption," premiered this week.  (Also new this week, I learned what a Blunderbuss was -- a gun.)  Third Man Records is releasing a 7" for "Love Interruption" on Tuesday, February 7, which features a non-album B-Side, "Machine Gun Silhouette." Mr. White will be doing some solo shows, but so far only two have been announced - Sasquatch! in WA and Radio 1's Hackney Weekend in London. 



M.I.A. released a new single, "Bad Girls," which is a reworking of a track originally featured on a 2011 mixtape, Vicki Leekx. The "Bad Girls" video was directed by Romain Gavras (who also shot her controversial, banned-from-YouTube video for "Born Free"). So far she hasn't announced a release date or title for her next album, but hopefully that will come soon. 



Madonna has been all over the interwebs, radio, and television this week in a furious media campaign for her new single "Give Me All Your Luvin'" (featuring M.I.A. and Nicki Minaj) and her Super Bowl performance on Sunday, all of which are leading up to the release of her next album, MDNA, out March 26.

As you might have noticed in the latest Out This Week Amoeblog, published here yesterday by Brad Schelden, among the list of new music releases for this week is Leonard Cohen's new album Old Ideas.  Available at Amoeba Music in both CD and LP formats it is the legendary Canadian singer-songwriter's twelfth studio album and his first album of new material in almost a decade. Amoeba.com reviewers accurately wrote of the new release that, "Cohen returns to form in a manner that is musically reminiscent of his early classics, full of somber details sung in his trademark nearly spoken-word style over deep, atmospheric blues."

As fans of Cohen's already well know Old Ideas is Cohen's first album with new material since his well publicized 2005 declaration of bankruptcy following his ex-manager's embezzlement in which he allegedly cleared out all of the musician's bank accounts - essentially leaving him broke. Consequently some cynics, before even hearing the new album, dismissed it - along with his recent era active touring schedule - as just another stab by the financially strapped star to get his accounts back in the black. But the reality is that Old Ideas is anything but halfhearted. Rather it's an amazing album; one that finds Cohen, who is now in his late 70's, in top form delivering songs such as "Going Home" and "The Darkness" in that trademark baritone flow of his that fans love so well. Already Old Ideas has won extremely positive feedback from longtime Cohen fans and critics alike - many comparing it to his last highly acclaimed album: 1988's I'm Your Man.

These next couple of months are crazy full of new albums. My top 50 for this year is seriously getting full already. Out last week we got fantastic new albums from Chairlift, Cloud Nothings and First Aid Kit. And we also had debut albums from Porcelain Raft, Big Deal and The Holiday Crowd. Did you know First Aid Kit is from Sweden!  I had no idea. I didn't even know they were sisters. Their first album from 2010 just passed me by. But I am now an official fan. Even if you think you hate folk and country music. You will become a fan of First Aid Kit. I really hope this album gets as big as the Civil Wars album from last year. It really is that good. And they are from Sweden! This album from Big Deal is also one of my recent obsessions. I just can't get enough of it even though it is a heartbreaking album. Big Deal reminds me of Carissa's Weird. They write some amazing little songs. All of them heartbreaking ballads. And I love that Mute put out this album. It really is not like anything you have ever heard on Mute. But I feel like Mute does best when they put out stuff you would not expect from them. They did release the amazing folky albums by Jose Gonzalez. And those albums were great. You have to do me a favor and check out Big Deal. A perfect album for falling in love or breaking up to.

Listen to "Homework" from the album Lights Out by Big Deal...




The Holiday Crowd just put out their debut album out last week called Over the Bluffs. This band will obviously get compared to The Smiths. But I really have no problem with that. I actually love it. I wish more bands sounded like The Smiths! They are doing the same sort of thing that The Drums did with their first album. But more jangly and without the electronics. I think people will either hate this album or fall in love with it. I have already fallen in love. But it will probably not get heard by most people unfortunately. So give it a listen. I can't stop.

We recently posted a new What's In My Bag? video with director Ti West and actress Sara Paxton from the new indie horror film The Innkeepers and we're excited to announce that our video will be shown in the theater before screenings of The Innkeepers at LA's Downtown Independent!

The Innkeepers, the latest film from The House of the Devil director, is about employees from a soon-to-be-closed inn who set out to prove that the inn is actually haunted. The film was inspired by West's real life experience staying at The Yankee Pedlar Inn in Connecticut (the same one featured in The Innkeepers) where he and the crew stayed during the shooting on The House of the Devil. In fact, the cast and crew of The Innkeepers - staying and shooting at The Yankee Pedlar Inn - had unusual dreams and paranormal sensations during their time at the Inn, just as the cast and crew of The House of the Devil had a few years earlier. Spooky...


The film opens on Friday, February 3 and is screening in Los Angeles at the Downtown Independent through Thursday February 9. Ti West will be at the Monday 2/6 7pm screening for a Q&A about the film. Go check it out and see our What's In My Bag? video on the big screen! 

In more tragic news following this morning's announcement of the passing of Soul Train creator Don Cornelius, renowned artist and musician Mike Kelley has died at age 58 from an apparent suicide. (Update: Kelley was 57 when he died.)

Originally from Detroit, Kelley had been living in Los Angeles for many years. Kelley was a diverse artist known for his textiles, doll objects, performance videos, drawings, and multimedia installations. He has had one-artist exhibitions all over the world including the Gagosian Galleries in New York City and London, the musée du Louvre in Paris, and galleries in Japan, Germany, Italy, and Austria. He had public collections featured in the Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim in New York City, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, among many others. His work is scheduled to appear in the upcoming Whitney biennial.

Kelley was also a musician. Though those two audiences didn't often co-mingle, music fans will recognize his art from the album cover for Sonic Youth's 1992 album, Dirty. Kelley was a founder of Destroy All Monsters, a noise/punk/experimental band from Detroit which began in 1973 and broke up in 1985. Although they never found mainstream success, they garnered new attention in 1977 with the addition of former members of The Stooges (Ron Asheton) and MC5 (Michael Davis). In 1994, Kelley and Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore compiled a 3-CD box set called Destroy All Monsters: 1974-1976 on Moore's record label, Ecstatic Peace!. The band reunited in 1995 and re-released past editions of the Destroy All Monsters magazine, recorded 5 new albums, exhibited their art, and performed at festivals around the world.

Helium Robots
Jarza EP - Theo Parrish 12"
Running Back

EWAN WILMOTT, here as HELIUM ROBOTS, provides 2 brilliant tracks to the RUNNING BACK label - imaginative electro, balearic, disco music. On the flip, THEO PARRISH remixes "JARZA" and brings 2 different outcomes - both of which are magical trips through sound. Essential!

Purchase Jarza here:





Locked Groove
Rooted 12"
Hotflush

Hotflush presents the debut 12" from Belgian newcomer Locked Groove aka Tim Van de Meutter. The young producer delivers three hypnotizing and genre bending tracks that expertly weave the sounds of Berghain, soulful house and UK garage into a single crushing package. The Rooted EP draws you in with the title track, bouncing along to an acid baseline, then moves onto 'Drowning,' a moody techno track that was included on Scuba's DJ-Kicks mix compilation, filled with drum and ambient samples taken from field recordings. Lastly, 'Change,' a production that smartly melds classic house grooves with industrial techno, demonstrates Locked Groove's rhythmic finesse and long-term promise as an artist.

Purchase Rooted here:

        

As reported a little earlier this morning by the LA Times' website Don Cornelius - the host and creator of the legendary black music TV show Soul Train - was found dead this morning in his Sherman Oaks home; the result of a gunshot wound to the head - an apparent suicide according to LAPD. The recently divorced Cornelius was 75 years of age. Man, that is some really sad news and - even worse - coming on this first day of Black History Month! Through Soul Train's 35 years of national syndication (it stopped production in 2006 but Cornelius had ceased hosting the show in 1993), Cornelius helped shape and define an entire culture through his positive presentation of black music, dance, and fashion. Rest in peace in Don Cornelius!


        

Are you ready for a revved-up rockabilly Valentine's Day party?! So are we!

Catch The Chop Tops, Thee Merry Widows, and The Badmen at Oakland Metro on February 11th!

All ages are welcome and tickets are $10 - $13. Get your tickets HERE!

Sometimes nothing brings more pride and satisfaction to the Amoeba Music experience than browsing the selections in vinyl new arrivals and finding a classic, diamond-in-the-rough title like Now by Kim Jung Mi and songwriter/producer/arranger/guitar shaman Shin Joong Hyun properly reissued with loving care!

Anyone who wants to can make an LP record! Yes, anybody, and it’s always been like that. Why can’t the world hear your creativity? Break out of those bedroom studios and living rooms and lounges and let the people know of your greatness! Why work all your life on your axe and never be heard by the masses? Who needs to wait for a major label to sign you to a rip-off contact? Call ACME Records and they’ll make a short-run pressing for you if you have the dough.  

Vanity pressings and small labels have always floated just under the surface of the platters you’d see in Billboard. My friends made some back in those days. Faces filled of hope, fame and just plain good-old personal righteousness. Words like “Real People”, “Outsider”, “Loner Folk”, “Xain Psych”, and “Steakhouse pressing” are just some of the many tags tossed about now about this history. And they’re filled with samples galore if you dig that sort of thing. Who doesn’t need a 5-second turnaround out of a live version of “Raindrops Are Fallin’ On My Head”?

These are not the Holy-Grail garage records. These aren’t the $1000 regional soul records. Just “real people" doing hard work and craft, and they're all available on Amoeba’s site to the first-come! Just click the title and see if they’re still there.  
 
 

Steve Jolliffe
Journeys Out Of The Body
Nada Pulse Records U.K. 1983

"Hidden in the Open: A Photographic Essay of Afro American Male Couples from the Distant Past" is a most
unique slice of gay Black history engagingly told through a recently-presented collection of photos of black male couples over a century and a half.  The collection was carefully complied from the archives of historian Trent Kelly who researched and collected Hidden in the Open's 146 rare vintage photographs of gay Black couples and some that include their (loving) families. One of the photos featured is even included as the lead photo in Job O Brother's Black [gay] History Month Amoeblog recently posted.

These historic photographs, spanning a wide 150 year period in black (and gay) history, are especially significant from a black historical context because, "Historically, the Afro American gay male and couple has largely been defined by everyone but themselves," as historian Kelly says of his rare photo collection. "Afro American gay men are ignored into nonexistence in parts of black culture and are basically second class citizens in gay culture."

These photos also present fashions of the various time periods in black history. In his introduction to Hidden in the Open, Kelly notes how, "the black church, which has historically played a fundamental role in protesting against civil injustices toward its parishioners, has been want to deny its gay members their right to live a life free and open without prejudice. Despite public projections of a 'rainbow' community living together in harmonious co-habitation, openly active and passive prejudices exist in the larger gay community against gay Afro Americans."

Los Angeles' black population is relatively small compared to the city's other major racial and ethnic minorities. The LA metro area is only 8.7% black as compared to 47% Latino (of any race), 28.7% non-Latino white, and 14% Asian/Pacific Islander. However, since its inception, black Angelenos have always played a major role in LA's history and culture. Los Angeles is one of the only major US cities founded largely by people of black African ancestry. When it was still a Spanish colony, Los Angeles began life as El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles on September 4, 1781. Of the 44 pobladores who ventured over from nearby San Gabriel, a majority of 26 were identified as having African ancestry.

BLACKS IN MEXICAN AND EARLY AMERICAN LOS ANGELES


During the period that Los Angeles was part of Mexico (1821-1840), blacks were fairly integrated into society at all levels. Mexico abolished slavery much earlier than the US, in 1820. In 1831, Emanuel Victoria served as California's first black governor. Alta California's last governor, Pío de Jesus Pico, was also of mixed black ancestry. The US won the Mexican-American War and in 1850, California was admitted to the United States. Although one of America's so-called "free states," discriminatory legislation was quickly enacted to restrict and remove the civil rights of blacks, Chinese, and Native Americans. For example, blacks (and other minorities) couldn't testify in court against white people. 

Chilean MC Ana Tijoux is releasing her new album, La Bala (Nacional Records), on January 31. I've been eagerly waiting its arrival, curious to hear it and witness her evolution.

I first became familiar with Tijoux through her What's In My Bag? video and the infectious title track from her last album, "1977." One of the things that most interested me about her What's In My Bag? video came toward the end - a conversation about where to file her music in Amoeba, in Latin Pop or Hip-Hop. She views Hip-Hop as one language, regardless of whether the actual words are in English, French, Spanish or whatever. But she is also aware that she is representing Latin America (and Latin American Hip-Hop) to the world.

Tijoux, who was born in France to a French mother and Chilean father, raps and sings in Spanish and French. She released two albums in the late '90s with a Chilean Hip-Hop group Makiza and then collaborated with Mexican singer/songwriter Julieta Venegas. They had a hit with "Eres Para Mi" from Venegas' 2006 album, Limon y Sal. Tijoux's 2007 solo debut album, Kaos (Oveja Negra), earned her nominations for "Best New Artist" and "Best Urban Artist" by the MTV Latin America VMAs. She received further acclaim and success, particulary in the US, with her outstanding album, 1977 (Nacional, 2010). She toured like crazy, including performing at South by Southwest and Lollapallooza, and was nominated for a Grammy for Best Latin Rock, Alternative or Urban album.

These are films that I either suffered through, or whose trailers assaulted me while waiting to see something else.

These are two individuals who made careers out of dehumanizing others. Yet, we're supposed to sympathize with them because one was a repressed gay man and the other a woman who faced off against men and is now suffering from Alzheimer's. Fuck them both. There are many legitimate ways to approach biopics about interestingly evil people (e.g. Downfall), but a liberalized understanding is not one of them. 


I've previously expressed my horror at seeing simple 2D cartoonish figures rendered in photorealistic 3D detail. Who needs to count the black lines in Scooby's iris or see the snot dripping from his nose to get into the plot? But this grotesque disfiguration has really reached its aesthetic nadir with Spielberg's adaptation of the comic famous for its clear line style, Hergé's TinTin. Rather than believe Spielberg can't see how hideous these deformed monsters look, I suspect that this kind of adaptation is really a simulation of a live action adaptation. Ultimately, it's a portent of a later stage of the technological revolution in which actors and much of the old film crew will be out of a job. A perfectly realistic CG star can't join a union. Of course, that'll only happen if they can digitally create the voices, too, which brings me to why the Muppets are dead and should not be brought back as zombies. Maybe Gallagher and Sam Kinison can be safely simulated by a close relative, but there is no muppet without the original muppeteer. Kermit and Fozzie might look the same, but they're obviously defective clones, being revealed as recovering stroke victims upon opening their mouths. (Not that I've ever been much of a fan of the Muppet movies, which tend to identify more with the lame humans than the characters of interest.)

My guiltiest pleasure in Latin music has to be the songs written by Marco Antonio Solis during the years he was fronting Los Bukis. There is not a time when a Bukis song comes blasting out of a car or jukebox in a Mexican restaurant/bar where I don’t smile inside. Solis was the master of the balada, or ballads. Although Los Bukis music will forever be dated by their matching suits and that stock 80’s Latin Pop sound, the core of his songs were brilliant.

I didn’t always feel that way. One of my first jobs out of high school in the late 80's was working at a warehouse that custom cut various pieces of foam for Aerospace companies. It was there I discovered a few things. The first thing I discovered is that manual labor sucks. The pay was bad and so were the early work hours for someone who was in the mist of his partying years. The upside is that I had no stress. I lived cheaply and the hours of mindless repetition of cutting and rolling foam around a tube left my mind free to be creative. I wrote songs and stories frequently in my head, sometimes writing my ideas quickly on any scratch piece of paper during my fifteen-minute break.

I discovered that this foam we had called Temper-Foam, was great to sleep on. It was used for the Space Shuttle for shock absorption. We used it to nap on during our half an hour lunch break. I would immediately knock out once I laid down on it. If I had a late gig the night before I wouldn’t have time to sleep. I’d go straight to work and that 30- minute nap made me feel like I slept all night. We now know it as Tempur-Pedic, the company that makes expensive beds and pillows.

For this special Black History Month Amoeblog we've invited author/journalist/broadcaster/activist JR Valrey (a.k.a. the People's Minister of Information) to be a guest contributor and to write the following insightful piece, accurately titled The Black Experience Study Guide: My Top 7 Books, Movies, and Albums for Black History Month. The Oakland-based Valrey, who was interviewed & profiled on the Amoeblog last month, is known for his work on KPFA radio, his contributions to the San Francisco Bay View Newspaper, and his recently published book Block Reportin'. The book, which will soon be available for sale in Amoeba Hollywood's ever-expanding book section, features interviews with such important black cultural figures as political prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal, hip-hop emcee/poet/actor Mos Def, former US Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, comedian/social satirist Paul Mooney, and the late, great, highly influential Gil Scott Heron. In the spring of this year Valrey plans to publish his second book, Unfinished Business: Block Reportin' 2. For more info and insights on JR Valrey, visit the blockreportradio website. Thanks for your contribution to the Amoeblog JR Valrey!

Ethel Merman’s voice makes my stomach acids sour and the very idea of shopping for clothes gives me a panic attack; despite these and other suspicious facts, I am a member of the LGBT community. For this reason, the issue of equal rights is ever-present in my mind.

There’s been a lot written and said about comparing the history of intolerance between racial minorities and the gay community, most especially in late 2008 when Prop. 8 was passed in the state of California amidst reports that large numbers of black people, urged by their church heads, voted to end the briefly instituted marriage equality of the state.

There were, of course, many exceptions to this and I don’t mean to angle this as a blacks-versus-gays situation – it's far more complicated than anything I'll do justice to here – but it did shine a light on an issue that often ruffles feathers. Knowing my place here on the Amoeblog as “light entertainment,” I will eschew any prolonged essays on the matter (for great, long-winded crap like that you should check out Charles Reece’s blog), but I will say that equal rights for all people is not only a victimless proposition, it’s one that benefits all people. Whether you think it’s appropriate to compare the struggle for gay equality with those of racial minorities, the fact is that everyone should have the same basic, human rights.

It would be one thing if a child was struck with bone marrow cancer every time two lesbians kissed, but kids, that’s just not the way it is and the sooner we let the gays get married, the sooner they can set up homes that will raise the property value of your block.