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Archive for the ‘Shad’ Category

Rachel Kushner–“Finding Yourself in Film” (New Yorker, June 4 & 11, 2018)

Posted in Babies, Essays, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Live at Massey Hall, Motorcycles, New Yorker, Parenting, Quadrophenia, Shad, The Leather Boys on June 9, 2018| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: SHAD-Live at Massey Hall (March 27, 2015).

Shad is a terrific Canadian rapper.  His beats rock, his lyrics are great and he has some really interesting samples.

As this episode starts, he talks about Massey Hall as having a value in tradition.  When people come here they are excited.  It’s fun for his fans to come to this place to see Shad like they’ve seen him before but its different–a bit more excitement.  It’s like being with your friends you usually hang out with but now you’re going to the semi-formal and it makes it more memorable

The show opens with a trumpet (Tom Moffett) and bass (Ian Koiter).  As Shad walks out on stage, the drummer (Matthew Johnston) plays the cymbals to loud fanfare and Shad hypes the crowd.  The violin (Andrew Forder) swells, the turntable scratches and the melody starts for “Compromise.”  There’s so many great lines in this song:

Your hearts warm, mine’s on fire and I’m antsy
I know it’s so cliche but I’m angry
That some can’t eat, meanwhile I’m letting a damn feast
Of pastas and canned meats, rot in my pantry
Like, Lord please, can we speak on this frankly?
Like, God why you letting this happen? Amen
He answered, “Son, I’m asking you the same thing
Cause you’re supposed to be my servants out there working
Like you’re my hands reaching out to those that’s hurting
You don’t have long on this Earth and
I hope you won’t compromise, I said I hope you won’t compromise”

It ends with some cool organ sounds and then a sample from “(I Never Promised You A) Rose Garden” (which Shad calls some “feel good music”).  “Rose Garden” has more great lyrics and the cycling sample of “(I Never Promised You A) Rose Garden.”

I love that so many rap songs (not just Shad’s) have pop culture references that make the songs incredibly dated.  But if you knew the song when it was relevant you don’t mind

“Stylin” has a great funky bass line and more terrific lyrics

Please, I’m ahead of my time, wait, [scratch] now I’m ahead of the times
Sped up ahead of the beat, speaking of time whenever I head to the meet
I’m always ahead of the heat, head of my class egg head with glasses
Leaving these heads with a classic, now let me just head to the back
With my head, I’m a nap for a bit

and then this ‘ with help from rapper Saukrates

See I got fans that say “Oh hey Shad, I hate rap but I like you, ”
Well I hate that, but I like you at least I like that you
Like me so I won’t spite you, it’s not your fault you’re a white dude
Likes white music I like too, just don’t be surprised by my IQ
Please, it’s like back in high school they said “highbrow”
I said, “hi who?” That Shakespeare, that’s a haiku
I like the high road so I was like dude that’s basic
That’s like crude but you’re old placed to my iTunes
Use your common sense, matter fact use Common Sense
For that matter use Ice Cube, don’t think that we nice too
Cus we don’t look like you, cus we don’t know how to tie ties
And our grandparents weren’t tycoons?

The next song (“Progress: Part 1”) starts like an improvised spoken word.  He says that he and his friends were listening to a song on the radio and he started riffing:

Bye-bye Miss American Pie
Drove a block to that shop with the liquor inside
Singing “Gin and Juice”, drinking whiskey and rye
Thinking “This’ll be the day that I…”

His says his full name is Shadrach Kabango and he wrote a song called “A Good Name” to celebrate it.  This was the first song I’d heard by him and I really liked it back then.  It sounds great live with the band behind him.

But my favorite song of the night is “We Myself and I” from the same album TSOL.  The guitar riff (Tom Ionescu) is simple but totally rocking and the drums are completely intense.  There’s some great turntabling “T Lo (Terence Lo) on the decks.”

The show ends with the less rocking “Remember to Remember,” a thoughtful song with synths from Max Zipursky.

This is a great show.  It’s amazing how much rappers come to life with a live band.

[READ: June 2, 2018] “Finding Yourself in Film”

This issue of the New Yorker had a section entitled “Parenting.”  Five authors tell a story about their own parents.  Since each author had a very different upbringing the comparisons and contrasts of the stories is really interesting.

In this story, Kushner says she relates her parents’ life (and her own) to the movie The Leather Boys.  It came out in 1964, her parents saw it in 1965, before she was born.

When she was a kid, her father rode a Vincent Black Shadow motorcycle like the Rockers in the movie.  Her dad was no Rocker, but he liked the bar featured in the film the Ace Cafe.  (where most people rode Triumpshs, BSAs and Nortons.

In the movie, two bikers meet at the Ace.  Pete is an eccentric lone wolf and Reg is in an unhappy teenage marriage to Dot.  Peter tells Reg to leave her.  Dot tries to keep him from leaving her by claiming she is pregnant. (more…)

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Douglas Coupland–Marshall McLuhan (2009) [Extraordinary Canadians Series]

Posted in Annie Hall, Biography, Books about writers, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, CBC Radio 3, Consumerism, Death, Depression, Douglas Coupland, Extraordinary Canadians, Marshall McLuhan, Shad, Short Books, Technology, The Future on February 7, 2011| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: SHAD-TSOL (2010).

I first heard Shad on CBC Radio 3 online.  The track was “Yaa I Get It” and I really enjoyed it.  I haven’t listened to a lot of rap in the last few years; I’ve more or less grown bored by the genre, especially all the violence.  So, I was happy to hear this track, which was boastful but funny.

I decided to get the whole disc, and I wasn’t disappointed.  “Rose Garden” features a sample of “I Never Promised You a Rose Garden” which sets some of the tone of the disc.  But it’s on the next song “Keep Shining” that Shad’s uniqueness shines through.  This song is about women.  But not in any way that I’ve heard in rap before: “I can’t speak for women.  We need more women for that.”  And the inspiring final verse:

My mom taught me where to keep my heart.
My aunt taught me how to sing two parts.
My sis taught me how to parallel park,
and tried to teach me math but she way to too smart.
My grandma in the 80’s is still sharp.
My girl’s cousin is in activism in art.
They taught there’s no curls to tight, no mind too bright, no skin too dark to keep shining.

Later on the disc is “We Are the Ones” an oddball jam that sounds like one of those bizarre Atlanta rap tracks (funky vocals and all) and an amusing line about being Lost like Matthew Fox.  But his name checks aren’t all pop culture (Moredcai Richler gets a mention as does Glenn Beck (he “better duck like foie gras”).

And of course, there’s the wonderful “Yaa I Get It.”  With great horn blast samples and all kinds of noise competing for our attention.  Yet, throughout the lyrics stand out: “Maybe I’m not big cus I don’t blog or twitter…Dawg, I’m bitter.”  And there’s this wonderful couplet: The precision of my flows in terms of tone and diction/Is akin to that of the old masters of prose and fiction.”  Or take this lyrics from “Call Waiting,” “But what they say is hard for a pimp is harder for a man of faith.”

“Listen” has some great scratching on a heavy rocking track.  It’s followed by “At the Same Time.”  This is a mellow, sad song, which I don’t really like, yet which I find very affecting.  And lyrically, it’s great: “I never laughed and cried at the same time… Until, I heard a church pray for the death of Obama.  And wondered if they knew they share that prayer with Osama.”

The disc ends with “We, Myself and I” another noisy rocker and the one minute “Outro” an acapella rant.

Shad is a great rapper, doing interesting things and trying to make a difference.  He’s worth checking out.

[READ: November 1, 2010] “Marshall McLuhan”

I learned about this book because I’m a fan of Douglas Coupland.  And, as it turns out I’ve always had a vague interest in Marshall McLuhan, so it seemed like a sure thing. The problem was that the book was not readily available in the U.S.  So, I had to order it from Amazon.ca.  And, since you can’t get free shipping to a U.S. address from amazon.ca, I thought it would make sense to order 6 titles in the series, all of which I’ll post about this week.

So, here’s a shameless plug to the folks at Penguin Canada–I will absolutely post about all of the books in this series if you want to send me the rest of them.  I don’t know how much attention these titles will get outside of Canada, but I am quite interested in a number of the subjects, and will happily read all of the books if you want to send them to me.  Just contact me here!

Each book in the series has an introduction by John Ralston Saul, in which he explains the purpose of the series and states globally why these individuals were selected (“they produce a grand sweep of the creation of modern Canada, from our first steps as a democracy in 1848 to our questioning of modernity late in the twentieth century”).  It also mentions that a documentary is being filmed about each subject.

Perhaps the most compelling sentence in the intro is: “each of these stories is a revelation of the tough choices unusual people must make to find their way.”  And that’s what got me to read thee books.

This volume was probably a bad place to start in the Extraordinary Canadians series if only because it appears that Coupland’s volume is markedly different from the others.  Coupland being Coupland, he has all manner of textual fun wit the book.  The other authors seem to write pretty straightforward books, but you know something is up right away when you open the book and the first six pages comprise a list of anagrams of “Marshall McLuhan.”

On to Marshall McLuhan.  The Medium is the Message.  That’s about all anyone who has heard of McLuhan knows about him (and that he has a hilarious cameo in Annie Hall).

When I was a freshman in college, I took a class in Communications which focused an awful lot on Marshall McLuhan.  I didn’t like the teacher very much, but the message stayed with me all these years.   And so even though I’m not a student of McLuhan or anything, I was happy to relearn what I should have known about the man and his ideas.

(more…)

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Frances Itani–“What We Are Capable Of” (The Walrus, April/May 2004)

Posted in Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Dallas Green, Frances Itani, Romance, Shad, Short Story, The Walrus on February 6, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: SHAD & DALLAS-“Listen (remix)” (2010).

The other track on the Shad and Dallas EP is a remix of “Listen” from Shad’s TSOL album.  I like the original song quite a bit.

The remix is marginally faster than the original.  And Dallas Green adds a few lines over the “chorus” (in the original, Shad just says “listen” over and over). It’s a nice addition to a good song.  In fact, I went back to the original and realized that I kind of missed Dallas’ section (and that was after only two listens).

This single benefits Skate4Cancer, so it’s for a good cause and worth checking out.

[READ: January 24, 2011] “What We Are Capable Of”

This is the second story that The Walrus published.  And this author (who I’d never actually heard of) is also a bestseller (with at the time nine books out).

I found this story a little confusing at first (there are many different people introduced without context in the opening paragraph or two).  But once I sussed out who Em had broken up with, who her ex husband was and who her daughter’s ex-boyfriend was, the story came together quite nicely.

Basically this is the story of two breakups.  Em, a widow, has recently become involved with Michael.  (Who is married).  When her daughter, Sarah, calls to say that she wants to come back home, Em soon realizes that Sarah is in a similar heartbroken predicament (although at least Sarah’s boyfriend isn’t married).

(more…)

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David Bezmozgis–“Choynski” (The Walrus, November/December 2003)

Posted in Alexisonfire, Boxing, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, City and Colour, Dallas Green, David Bezmozgis, Death, Sergio De La Pava, Shad, Short Story, Skateboarding, The Walrus on February 5, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: SHAD & DALLAS-“Live Forever” (2010).

Shad and Dallas Green (from Alexisonfire) recorded an EP called Two Songs and the profits go to Skate4Cancer.  The A Side is the new song “Live Forever.”  Shad is a great rapper, and make no mistake, this is a Shad song.  Green sings the hook-filled chorus (and an intro line).

Shad’s rapping is great and his rhymes are clever and interesting (he even does a fast double-time section which I’d never heard him do before). But the music itself is kind of bland.  I listened to it three times and I never really got into the flow of it.

I rather hope that sales are good (for the charity’s sake) but I’m afraid I’m not that excited by the track.

[READ: January 23, 2011] “Choynski”

I recently noticed that I had reviewed a whole bunch of stories from The Walrus.  So I wondered just how many stories there were in previous issues of the maagzine that I hadn’t posted about.  The magazine only started in 2003, and I still have all the issues (yes, that’s right…  I bought Issue 1 on the newsstand), so it wasn’t that hard to figure out.  In the early days, not every issue had fiction in it.  I started calculating and discovered that there were only about 25 stories to go.  So I thought, why not go back and read them all, eh?

This story was in Issue #2, and I have to say, good for them for picking David Bezmozgis to be their first author.  His issue bio reads that his first short story collection Natasha will be published in June.  And if you check now, you’ll see that Natasha won a Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and was a New York Times Notable Book.  Not bad.

There are essentially two stories in this piece and they tie together quite nicely.  The first arc concerns the narrator’s dying grandmother.  She is an old Russian Jew whose English isn’t great so she tries to speak in Yiddish to make up for it.  Her family understands but few others (like her doctor) know what she’s talking about.  As the story progresses, her family tries to keep the truth of her condition from her, but she is no dummy.

The second story concerns the narrator’s attempt to learn more information about Joe Choynski.  Choynski was being inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame (Old Timers division) and the narrator was going to the ceremony.  In trying to learn more about Choynski (considered America’s frst great fighting Jew), he enlists the help of Charley Davis, an old man who knows more than just about anyone else about the Choynski.  (more…)

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ZZ Packer–“Dayward” (New Yorker, June 14 & 21, 2010)

Posted in 20 Under 40, Canadian Music, Death, New Yorker, Racism, Shad, Slavery, ZZ Packer on July 13, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: SHAD-“The Old Prince Still Lives at Home”(2007).

Canadian rapper.  Oxymoron?  Not at all.  I had heard about Shad from CBC Radio 3.  The single, “Yaa I Get It” is fantastic.  And I have ordered his new CD TSOL based on it.  (No idea what TSOL stands for).

CBC Radio 3 contains a whole bunch of tracks from his first two discs.  His music is kind of slow and loping, but it’s his lyrics that are really fantastic.  He’s clever, funny and very thoughtful.  “Yaa I Get It” has this opening couplet: “Maybe I’m not big, coz I don’t blog or twitter, heh, not that I’m bitter.”  Or this amusing couplet from “I Don’t Like to”  “I don’t really like to start verses with I you  know, but… iTunes eyepatch, I’m in the same boat where the pirates be”

This earlier album sounds a bit more R&B to me, but there’s a few really great tracks on it.  “The Old Prince Still Lives at Home” reminds me of the Fresh Prince’s style (a comical look at the waste of time that is the dentist).  But he takes it a step further when, midway through the song the music stops.  Shad explains that he couldn’t afford the whole beat.  And they just “have to vibe with it” until the end.

It’s a bit gimmicky, but he’s right, the track is really strong.

[READ: July 4, 2010] “Dayward”

The photo opposite this story is of a terrifying Rottweiler bearing its fangs.  I mention this because it is so striking (the other stories mostly had drawings to accompany them.  This photo is also scarily appropriate for the story, which is about two young slaves escaping from their master.  The kicker is that slavery has already been outlawed, but who says the masters have to let them go peacefully?

When Lazarus told his mistress that he and his sister were going to reunite with their family in New Orleans, she told them that they would have half a day’s start and then she’d release the dogs on them.  Evidently she wasn’t joking. (more…)

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