Some of you know David Middleton as the author of our Forty-Five Revolutions per Minute series. Each week, David picks out a (usually reasonably obscure) 45RPM record from his collection and talks about it. What some of you might not know is that David is a musician himself, and spent a chunk of the late Eighties and early Nineties fronting the band Waxing Poetics. The Virginia based-group got some face time on MTV, toured the country, and their first album, 1987’s Hermitage, was co-produced by R.E.M.’s Mike Mills.
I’m proud to inform you guys that the Waxing Poetics’ complete three-album discography is now available on iTunes and Amazon mp3! These albums have been unavailable for some time, so those of you who were fans back in the day -or want to check the band out for the first time- can do so!
At the risk of embarrassing one of my best friends (sorry, buddy), here’s some live footage of the Poetics from 1990. Thanks, YouTube! The sound quality isn’t fantastic, but you get the idea of how rockin’ these guys were. Ah, I just realized embedding has been disabled, so I’ve included the link here.
You know, in a sense, it is quite a surprise Soulja Boy is still around, a year after he scored one of the biggest digital singles of all time: the triple-platinum juggernaut, “Crank Dat (Soulja Boy).” At a time when every other ringtone rapper who emerged in 2007—the same year as he—has gone the way of the Beta tape, Soulja Boy lingers on like a turd in a latrine that has just been flushed. When was the last time you heard from Rich Boy, MIMS, the Shop Boyz, Huey and Baby Boy? What, you’re still thinking about it?
Blame it all on the 700,000-plus people who purchased Soulja Boy’s full-length debut (which I believe was one of the worst rap albums of 2007); the fact that he scored two follow-up Billboard Hot 100 singles in “Soulja Girl” (#32) and “Yahhh!” (#48); and the dubious assistance he provided V.I.C. in being a ringtone hit-maker like himself (He appears as a co-producer and in the video for “Get Silly”). Soulja Boy just wasn’t going away.
But by the end of this year, however, it has become apparent that Soulja Boy has become more famous (or more accurately, infamous), for his exploits outside the studio than in it. With no inane, simplistic singles to pester the public with, the wiry teenager has become hip-hop’s favorite punching bag for everything that fans perceive is wrong with the genre these days. (Only Lil’ Wayne rivals him in this regard. And is 50 Cent still alive?) If Ice-T is not telling him that he needs to feast on a certain delicate part of the male anatomy, he is proving why he should consider upgrading his intellectual faculties by thanking slavemasters—if for nothing else apart from donning metaphorical, glimmering equivalents of the devices that bound his ancestors in captivity.
And don’t get me started on the e-thugs who litter the comment boards of hip-hop sites everywhere, verbally pummeling him with some of the coarsest words known to Man.
I don’t see that changing with the release of Soulja Boy’s sophomore album, iSouljaBoyTellEm. There’s the album title: What’s with the self-obsession? Remove the “i” and add the “dot com” to it, and it is the exact titular replica of his debut. Is this guy so bereft of imagination that he cannot even come up a remarkably different title? Yeah, you’re Soulja Boy! We got it, like, a gazillion times already!
Maybe that is indicative of what to expect from the album, which I fear—and I shudder greatly when I think of this—is even worse than the one that preceded it. And maybe, just maybe, the high level of derision for Soulja Boy will be commensurate with his work’s commercial reception from this point onward. It’s already happening. How many people know that Soulja Boy has dropped four singles already for his latest project? Heck, it only took a browsing of BET—which, in my humble estimation, is one of the most abominable TV channels currently in existence—for me to realize that “Bird Walk” was out. And was I surprised that it attempts to be a pathetic copy of “Crank Dat” (down to the “Youuuuuuu” refrain and dance-oriented vibe), let alone stalled at #40 and #19 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs and Hop Rap Tracks charts respectively?
If you bet 20 bucks that I was, better hand over the dough to your buddy right now.
Word of advice to Soulja Boy: You might want to hold on to your money a little more preciously. At least you have an idea of the fact that lightning will not strike twice.
Back in 45 RPM #6, I wrote about the magical impact of the 7-inch on ’80’s indie rock. Well here’s another great artifact from that time period. Even though I was lucky enough to witness their live set a few times, Athens, GA’s Kilkenny Cats have always held great mystery for me. Even to this day not much is widely known about them, which makes this single all the more fun and entertaining. So I won’t bore you with silly details about my underage beer-soaked nights at the 40-Watt Club, I’ll just let these Cats’ sexy vibe speak for itself.
A VU-influenced ode to the joys of taking speed, side-A’s “Attractive Figure” introduces us early to the KC’s ratatat drumming and steel-rake guitars, then propels us head-first into its stop-start verse and soaring chorus. Great music for shaking off a hard day’s work, or more likely a long week’s finals. And when the band stops and singer Tom Cheek does that little thing where he breathes in? Pure sex.
The disc’s longer B-side, “Of Talk,” sounds like it could be an outtake from the Steve Wynn/Dream Syndicate 1982 classic Days Of Wine & Roses LP. Walls of distorted guitars bury Cheek’s low Lou Reed-like mumble, creating a dreamy atmosphere perfect to smoke pot (or shoot heroin) to. Or just kick back & let the music be your drug, which I think is the idea here.
Unfortunately my little lo-fi YouTube uploads failed this week. Probably too many grandmas at once trying to upload shots of cats chasing string. Anyway, there’s virtually no extensive footage of Kilkenny Cats anywhere on the internet.  A travesty if you ask me, but you can catch a quick blink-and-you’ll-miss-it glimpse of the band in this trailer for the film ATHENS, GA INSIDE-OUT from 1986. A great film if you can find a copy, AGIO serves not only as a stellar indie-rock time-capsule, but also as a snapshot of how and why so much unusual and influential music could emerge from such a quiet little Southern college town.
NEXT WEEK: A double A-side from what I imagine would be Marvin Nash’s least favorite band.
Some of you know David Middleton as the author of our Forty-Five Revolutions per Minute series. Each week, David picks out a (usually reasonably obscure) 45RPM record from his collection and talks about it. What some of you might not know is that David is a musician himself, and spent a chunk of the late Eighties and early Nineties fronting the band Waxing Poetics. The Virginia based-group got some face time on MTV, toured the country, and their first album, 1987’s Hermitage, was co-produced by R.E.M.’s Mike Mills.
