Recently in New York City a 21 year old "subway surfer" was killed after getting bounced off a moving C line train. Subway surfing is the dare-devil stunt that involves riding either atop or clinging to the side of a moving train.  While popular in certain South American and European cities (including in Denmark where the documentary excerpt below is from) it has only been sporadically popular in New York City's MTA (Metropolitan Transportation Authority) subway system over recent years, and for good reason. The stunt has a very high probability of ending in fatal disaster due to the tight space between the train and the MTA tunnels.  Unlike in other foreign cities, where the trains are mostly outdoors, the MTA run mainly through underground tunnels.  Four years ago there were several subway-surfing fatalities on New York's subway system within a short time span - apparently inspired by some publicity about the practice at that time. Since then the MTA has initiated a campaign educating those foolish enough to try surfing a New York subway car.





In comparison the relatively tame, although still illegal and dangerous, annual "Broadway Bomb" - a race in which about a hundred daredevil skateboarders roll from uptown to downtown Manhattan along Broadway from 116th Street all the way down to Bowling Green, which is eight and half miles, dodging cars, buses, and taxis and ignoring traffic lights along the way - went without incident two Sundays ago in New York City.  And even though the motto for the event is "You could die" no one has so far.  But then the event is held on a Sunday when there is very little traffic in NYC compared to weekdays. There is also talk that the event, which already has sponsors, may soon become legit.

Imagine for a moment if Tony Soprano lived not in NJ but in da Bay. This is exactly what Bay Area resident , YouTube member, and  local hip-hop artist EmceeT visualized before he went out and shot and edited (directed by ZTY Media:) the inspired above video clip, spoofing the intro to the popular, and sadly defunct, HBO series The Sopranos. In the "Yay" version Emcee T (aka The Chinese King of the Bay)  winds his way through various parts of the Bay Area in his whip with cigar (or blunt?) in mouth, and capturing along the way shots of such familar sights as the Bay Bridge and its toll-booth,  the Caldecott tunnel, that big ole bow-and-arrow sculpture & the palm trees along the Embarcadero in San Francisco, the Martinez Oil refineries,  the Showgirls Strip Club, Casino San Pablo,  Oakland Port,   the infamous Mac Dre mural (off Harrison Street in SF), SFPD patrol cars, Lake Merritt mural, and at the end (in true Tony Soprano style) Emcee T's own house.  Click here for more of Emcee T's videos,  here for his MySpace, and for general  info on "the real emcee" Emcee T visit his website.

And in case you want to compare it with the original shot in New Jersey- it's below for your viewing pleasure. By the way the song used in the Sopranos intro is  by the group A3 and is titled (not too surprisingly) "Woke Up This Morning" and the full version, which is available on the Sopranos soundtrack (look for it at Amoeba Music) is a really great song with a nice slow build-up and towards the end goes into a rap - clocking in at about five plus minutes compared to the television show intro version which is a bit under two minutes.  

Damn!  It's already November 8th!  Where did the time go?  It seems like only yesterday when this AMOEBLOG corner of the Amoeba Music website started up. But actually it has been jumping off since March of this year - not that long ago, true,  but long enough for the accumulation of a bounty of ever-engaging AMOEBLOGS covering oodles of different topics (music and otherwise) from a stable of gifted and insightful AMOEBLOGGER's including (but not limited to) Mike Battaglia, Job O Brother, Brad Schelden, phil blankenship, Miss Ess, Gomez Comes Alive, Whitmore, and the Bay Area Crew. In all there are hundreds and hundreds (well in excess of a thousand) of AMOEBLOGS posted and available to read in the Archives right here. Just for me alone there are 170 AMOEBLOGS archived and I am only one of a dozen active AMOEBLOGGERs.


Glancing back at some of these AMOEBLOGS I have posted since May I think it is time that I should follow up on a few of them.  First up was the AMOEBLOG  (one of several) posted about the historic Paul McCartney instore at the Amoeba Music Hollywood store on June 27th that generated a ton of COMMENTS from Amoeba shoppers who were lucky to make it inside to witness the former Beatle's memorable performance. Anyways the follow up, good news, is that next week (November 13th) one of the songs from Paul's performance that day ("I Saw Her Standing There") will be released on an extremely limited edition, 12" vinyl only release, titled Amoeba's Secret. This Paul McCartney maxi-single will feature the four songs: “Only Mama Knows” & "That Was Me" (both from his latest release) plus ”C Moon” (the classic Paul McCartney & Wings song), and of course the live-at-Amoeba track, .  The sure to be highly collectable, vinyl-only Amoeba's Secret will be available in all three Amoeba Music stores next  Tuesday (11/13) and also here at   amoeba.com - priced at $6.98. (Note: that this rare release will not be released digitally or as a CD and since it is limited is bound to sell out fast)

"Music kind of sucks.  Nobody's into being a musician. Everybody's getting their mogul on.  You've been so infiltrated by this corporate mentality that all the time you'd spend getting great songs together, you're busy doing nine other things that have nothing to do with art.  You know how shitty Stevie Wonder's songs would have been if he had to run a fuckin' clothing company and a cologne line?," says Chris Rock In a wonderful new interview in Rolling Stone  (Nov 15, 2007 issue 1039) in which the magazine accurately notes that in this age of hip-hop it is more than common for most rappers to utter those words that we have heard a zillion times already: "I'm not a rapper, I'm a businessman."   And Chris Rock responds, "That's why rap sucks, for the most part.  Not all rap, but as an art form it's just not at its best moment."

 The always articulate & observant, ever-funny comedian/social satirist Rock, whose career has consistently poked fun at rap music in particular - from his SNL impersonations (including one of MC Hammer) to his hilarious lead role in the 1993 comedy CB4 as the fictional emcee Gusto in the equally fictional but obviosuly NWA inspired, faux-gangsta rap group CB4  (go look for it  in the DVD section at Amoeba Music - it is sooo funny!), to such things as the cover art of his 1999 comedy album "Bigger and Blacker" which mocked the (at the time) predominant No Limit/Cash Money record labels' styled rap album cover art  - never misses a beat in taking shots at rap music and at the music scene, um business, in general.

   

As you likely already know, today (November 6th) was the release date of the anticipated Gram Parsons with the Flying Burrito Brothers'  Live at the Avalon Ballroom 1969 2CD set - the first volume in the long lost sessions from the late great artist who created "Cosmic American Music," and the second only release from the recently launched Amoeba Records  (the premiere release a couple of months back was Brandi Shearer's "Close To Dark").   Coincidentally there is also a new biography just out on the artist titled Twenty Thousand Roads: The Ballad of Gram Parsons and His Cosmic American Music written by David N. Meyer and published in hard copy by Villard Books.

Gram Parsons, who died of a drug overdose at the young age of 26 and who would have celebrated his 61st birthday yesterday - November 5th, is one of those great artists whose contributions to American music are realized increasingly more and more in every posthumous year since his 1973 tragic death. And as each year progresses the legions of fans and artists directly touched by this long deceased singer/songwriter/guitarist/pianist  just seem to continue to grow.

"Parsons was born in 1946 into a rich but dysfunctional Southern family; his father committed suicide when Gram was 12, and his mother died of alcoholism the day Gram graduated from high school. Although he grew up in Georgia and Florida, Parsons wasn't turned on to country until he went north to Harvard (where, obsessed with music, he flunked out freshman year), but once he discovered Buck and Merle, he was smitten," wrote the New York Times in its lukewarm review of the new 559-page biography on Parsons which it, and other reviewers agree, is by no means a perfect book - skipping some important details and over-emphasizing others - but it is a good book to have - especially for diehard fans and Parsons completists.  It is also by no means the the only book out there on the ever fascinating character that was Gram Parsons. Others include "Grievous Angel: An Intimate Biography of Gram Parsons" by Jessica Hundley with Polly Parsons (Gram's daughter) that was published by Thunder's Mouth Press a couple of years ago and is available in both hard-cover and on paperback and the recommended Hickory Wind: The Life and Times of Gram Parsons by Ben Fong Torres that is well worth reading to further understand the artist.  Other books in the long list under Gram Parsons' bibliography include  Pamela Des Barres' I'm With the Band: Confessions of A Groupie which was published by Jove Books in 1988.   DeBarres,  who counts Gram Parsons among her closest past friends, also wrote the liner notes for the new Amoeba Records' release.