This Week At The New Beverly

Our full November / December calendar is online!
http://www.newbevcinema.com/calendar.cfm

Friday & Saturday November 20 & 21

Two by Krzysztof Kieslowski

Three Colors: White
1994, France / Poland / Switzerland, 91 minutes
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0111507/
dir. Krzysztof Kieslowski, starring Julie Delpy, Zbigniew Zamachowski, Janusz Gajos, Jerzy Stuhr
Fri: 7:30; Sat: 3:40 & 7:30, Watch The Trailer!

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1) Wale Attention Deficit (Interscope Records/Allido Records)

2) FELT FELT 3: A Tribute to Rosie Perez (Rhymesayers)

3) Wu-Tang Meet the Indie Culture, Vol. 2: Enter The Dubstep... (Ihiphop Distribution)

4) Gift of Gab Escape 2 Mars (Cornerstone/RAS)

5) Wyclef Jean From The Hut, To The Projects To The Mansion  (R.E.D. Distribution)

It may seem like Washington DC rapper Wale has been around for quite a while already and that he should be up to his third or at least second album by now, but in actuality the justifiably hyped emcee is only just now releasing his debut, Attention Deficit on Allido via Interscope. The album has been much anticipated and has numerous big name collaborators (particularly production), including Mark Ronson, Cool & Dre, The Neptunes, 9th Wonder, and Green Lantern, and Lady Gaga, who lends her MIA inflected vocals to the single "Chillin" (already out many months and a big hit -- see video below), which seems to be everyone's favorite new hip-hop release. Since it dropped last week, Attention Deficit has been selling really well everywhere, including at the Berkeley Amoeba Music store, where it shot to number one with a bullet on the latest Weekly Hip-Hop chart. The album, which distinctly packs much crossover appeal, features Wale tackling many topics, including feelings of insecurity ("Contemplate"), the trials & tribulations of the everyday grind for a hard working rapper ("World Tour" featuring Jazmine Sullivan -- another already released single, one that revisits A Tribe Called Quest's song of the same name), and the reality of reality shows ("TV in the Radio").

Who am I, my mother?


Thirtysomething was just released on DVD and as a My So-Called Life fan (it has the same producers), as well as someone who has a passing interest in late 80s fashion, I decided to check out the show.

It's been more than 20 years since this show first aired, and watching at first I found the couples difficult to relate to and the emotions overwrought. As I watched more episodes, I kept waiting to like the show...and I just continued to try through 3 discs worth of episodes, until I finally straight up gave up! I really, really gave it a shot though. It is definitely dated, and I plainly did not like the male characters on the show at all, with their cheating thoughts and penchant for suspenders.

My other major issue with the show: it's so boomer it hurts. Really, it hurt me when they used and badly cropped Joni Mitchell songs not once but twice just in the first few episodes! Ouch.

I also feel, as someone who is currently technically thirtysomething and living in this ol' world of ours, that our lives now, at least in my scene anyway, are so completely different from these portrayed back in 1987 it's kind of a bit shocking. These people own their own businesses, homes, can afford children, have perfect hair and functional, stylish vintage cars...it's just not real to me, in my world, and that's a big part of why the show fell flat for me personally.

While the publicity blitz a couple of months back surrounding the remastered reissue of the Beatles' back catalog was certainly justified, it wasn't the only remastered reissue of classic music material to come out back in early September. In that same week Dr Dre's landmark debut solo 1992 album The Chronic was reissued in a new remastered and repackaged form.

Retitled The Chronic Re-Lit & From The Vaults and released by Wideawake/Death Row, the new reissue offers much more music -- over twice as much as the original! The new two disc set includes all of The Chronic’s original sixteen tracks remastered, plus liner notes from producer Quincy Jones III. More importantly, the new reissue includes a DVD entitled From The Vault, which features music videos for singles from The Chronic, a half hour Dr. Dre interview, plus various promotional pieces. The new package also includes seven unreleased songs featuring Snoop Dogg, CPO, Jewell, and Kurupt.

The Chronic, released in late '92, forever changed the direction of popular hip-hop and made Snoop Doggy Dogg (as he was then known) a star. It also propelled the careers of Daz Dillinger, Nate Dogg, Kurupt, and (Dre's step-brother) Warren G. And its singles, including "Nuthin' but a 'G' Thang" (see video below), "Fuck wit Dre Day (and Everybody's Celebratin'),” and "Let Me Ride," were hits and ruled the airwaves for quite some time.

It must be good being Yoshimi P-We. It seems to me that she's had a pretty great year, what with her Boredoms gig at All Tomorrow's Parties in New York, her ambitious sounding project aboard a Russian ferry, soundtracking this past summer's solar eclipse off the southern coast of Japan, two releases on the side: Bar-Cozmik (as Yoshimio) and Tingaruda (as OLAibi), not to mention the big fat recent new release from my favorite branch of the Yoshimi tree -- the all-girl, always exciting OOIOO. Amidst all this artistic activity, Yoshimi also gave birth to her second child this year. No wonder Wayne Coyne named a record after her. 

When OOIOO released Taiga a few years back I fancied that listening to it was a lot like journeying into an hour long, aural tour de la nature -- a sonogram for one of those excellent macrocosmic David Attenborough documentaries where frozen, aurora-enshrouded forests of the North exist minutes from warmer climes where glacier-fueled rivers rush chuckling over rock and mud towards temperate seas. What stellar programming like Planet Earth does for your eyes in the comfort of your home, extraordinary sounds like that of OOIOO do for your ears within the infinite expanse of your mind. This may come across as cheesy (only the easiest cheese, please), but it reminds me of something Obi-Wan Kenobi explained to Luke as he struggled to find his bearings with the Force: "your eyes can deceive you; don't trust them...stretch out with your feelings." Listening to OOIOO, for me, is like letting the Force flow through you, no blast shield required.

It seems that in the world of LP promotional stickers, the quote bubble has been quite a popular design choice. Below is a small gallery of some of the better examples that I've come across recently...

Austrian apocalyptic-industrial collective Der Blutharsch have just released their follow-up to last year’s The Philosopher’s Stone. The appropriately titled, Flying High!, reaches a peak in the bad-trip psychedelic heights the group began maneuvering towards on 2005’s When Did Wonderland End? (which remains the group’s most accessible album to-date). High’s CD slipcover uncharacteristically features a tongue-in-cheek photo of a presumably hallucinogenic, heart-shaped cake with the album’s title written in blue icing - preemptively answering the question one might ask upon first listen of this disc: “What kind of drugs are these people on?!?”

Der Blutharsch began as a one-man project featuring only Vienna-based Albin Julius just prior to leaving the medieval/ritual duo, The Moon Lay Hidden Beneath A Cloud, in 1999. Over the last decade, Der Blutharsch sojourned through phases of dark-ambient, post-Industrial, martial-industrial, and neo-folk collaborations with Death In June’s Douglas P. before settling into the gloomy apocalyptic-rock the now-expanded-to-a-4 member group plays. Julius has caught a lot of flack over the years for his various aesthetic and stylistic choices, from the Laibach-like controversy caused by critiques over military-related artwork and samples to angering fans over his apparent all-together abandonment of martial-industrial, a genre he is often credited with helping found. Julius, seemingly unfazed by any of this, has delivered one of the strongest albums in his discography. This means the band will end on a “high” note, now that Julius has announced that this will be the last Der Blutharsch album of new material as he plans to retire the name and move on to other projects.

HOUSE::TECHNO::HOUSE::TECHNO::HOUSE::TECHNO::HOUSE::TECHNO::

ROBAG WRUHME: Lampetee 12"
(MOVIDA 001EP)
Movida is Spanish and is the English word for 'moving.' With this first release we have moved something -- nobody else than Mr. Robag Wruhme (Wighnomy Brothers) has produced this first one. This track is really untypical for any production which Gabor ever did, but we liked that 'dubby' track so much that we really wanted to release it. Maybe the one or other will think back to good old Maurizio tracks. 'Lampetee' is a very old Greek 'song' with a pretty nice song-text which Gabor packed in that track with so many emotions. We were also happy as we get the 'o.k.' from nobody else than Nick Curly to do a remix for us. It has taken a long time, but finally the remix is so lovely, deep and groovy that we think it was good choice to wait so long. Support: Ricardo Villalobos, Onur Özer, Shinedoe, Thomas Melchior, Brendon Moeller, Matt Star, Daniel Mehlhart, Nick Curly, Frank Leicher.


BETKE: The Road/Loose And Blowsy Plumage 12”

DUSTY KID: Moto Perpetuo 12" (BOXER 075EP)

AGF/DELAY: Connection Remixes 12" (BPC 203EP)

DUB TRACTOR: Sorry LP (CCO 045LP)

KZA: Z 12" (EF 019EP)


Delano Smith
MIDNITE EP 12"
(3EEP107)
"A SPECIAL KIND" is classically constructed with filtered ASHFORD & SIMPSON samples ("STAY FREE") over a fat Detroit kick drum. "DEE'S GRUV" is on the atmospheric tip, "EXPLANATION" hits harder and faster, and deep house jam "TRUTH" wraps it all in one tight package. Don't sleep!

For this third installment in the ongoing Hip-Hop Behind Bars: A First Person Account Amoeblog series by longtime incarcerated Sacramento rap artist Anerae “X-Raided” Brown, the artist writes about his early days in hip-hip, joining the Crips, what got him sent to prison, the meaning behind the recurring "Unforgiven" theme, his new label and recent signees and his recent releases, which are available at Amoeba Music.

There is also a breakdown of his career timeline that includes the songs he wrote for C-Bo and his own extensive discography, which is all the more impressive considering that he has done most of it somehow from behind bars. 




I was born in Sacramento, California, on the Southside. When I'd get in trouble my mom would send me to Prichard, Alabama, with my father, out near Mobile. I've been all up in Happy Hill. Other times I'd be out in East Waco, TX, from Trendwood to the Sherman Mannors. I lived in the Village for a while too. I got back from one of those trips down south around the time I was 15. I joined the 24th Street Garden Blocc Crips that summer. The homies Big J-Dogg and Slim put me on. In hindsight, I coulda done something better with my life, but at the time I wasn't tryina hear that. All I cared about was the Blocc.

I started writing rhymes seriously when I was 15 or 16. I'd go to juvenile hall for getting caught with a sack of dope, or riding in a stolen car with a gun. It was always something. My mom would come pick me up. We never had to do more than a few months; sometimes we'd go home the next day. During those times in juvy I'd write rhymes to pass the time. I learned how to format my rhymes by listening to other rappers and feeling it out. My cousin Nicole knew Sicx, Sicx introduced me to (Brotha) Lynch and we got to work. I ended up signing with Black Market Records and the rest is history.

Bookstores can be magical places for the young and old alike, but pack one wall-to-wall with They Might Be Giants fans of all ages and you have yourself a full-fledged party! At 4:00pm on Thursday, November 12, 2009, John Flansburgh and John Linnell – better known for the past 25 years as They Might Be Giants – hit Amoeba San Francisco’s neighborhood bookstore The Booksmith for a free mini-show and signing in support of their latest children’s book/DVD, Kids Go! and CD/DVD Here Comes Science.


Back in 1986, the two Johns became the quirky accordion-slinging kings of college radio with the release of their self-titled debut album. However, their intergenerational appeal was cemented in 2002 with their first children’s album, No!, which presumably enjoyed the good timing of their original fan base’s own baby boom. No! was followed by 2005’s Here Come The ABCs and then 2008’s Here Come The 123s, which won the 2009 Grammy Award for Best Musical Album for Children. Here Comes Science is TMBG’s 14th studio album and fourth album for kids. Their first foray into children’s books began in 2003 with the book-and-CD combo Bed, Bed, Bed. Kids Go!, a sing-along story book illustrated by Pascal Campion, is just their second book, but given the Johns’ unstoppable energy, prolificacy, and apparent popularity, this is probably just the beginning of their publishing career.

Novelist, scenarist, actress, "objectivist" and basic propagandist for rapacious capitalism Ayn Rand is someone I've always tended to steer clear of. My aversion is due more to her muddy and hypocritical thinking, as well as a writing style that's about as accomplished as a cheap 1930s sci-fi magazine, than any sort of challenge one encounters reading Leo Strauss and other conservative thinkers. But the ironically named Reason Magazine tends to talk about her, and their chief cartoonist, Peter Bagge (of Hate fame) has a new strip about what the mention of her name elicits in the circles he frequents (over-caffeinated Seattleites, I guess). To any of my pals who might have an opinion on her, she's considered something like what American Idol winners are to music, namely for people who don't like philosophy. You know, Alan Greenspan. Since I can't speak for Bagge's choice of friends, I'm only going to take issue with his final (and I note hysterically rendered) panel:

This Week At The New Beverly

Our full November / December calendar is online!
http://www.newbevcinema.com/calendar.cfm

Sunday & Monday November 15 & 16

A Sidney Poitier double bill

In the Heat of the Night
1967, USA, 109 minutes
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0061811/
dir. Norman Jewison, starring Sidney Poitier, Rod Steiger, Warren Oates, Lee Grant, Larry Gates, James Patterson
Sun: 3:20 & 7:30; Mon: 7:30, Watch The Trailer!

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