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  • Kanye’s “Love Lockdown” Video: Mr. West Goes Tribal

    Kanye West. Photo by Tyler Curtis.
    Kanye West. Photo by Tyler Curtis.

    With attention building for his upcoming fourth album “808s and Heartbreak” (out November 25th), Kanye West has just premiered the video for his Top 5 single “Love Lockdown”. Typical of the artier-than-thou West’s previous works, this is a pretty arresting video visually. I can see this cleaning up at next year’s VMAs…and it’s so damn refreshing to see a hip-hop video where the ass-shaking is not coming from a sea of bikini-wearing chicks. I’m just glad ‘Ye didn’t decide to do any of the dancing or dress in any of the tribal gear himself. The other thing I realized while watching this is that the song’s kind of monotonous. Nevertheless, it’ll be interesting to see what the always entertaining Kanye has in store for us in just about six weeks.

    Check out the video here and let us know what you think.

  • FORTY-FIVE REVOLUTIONS PER MINUTE #6: Reaching Out To Capture A Marmoset

    OTHER BRIGHT COLORS  “Stands To Reason” b/w “Circle Square” (1985)

    Sporting no visible label name or serial number of any sort, Other Bright Colors’ first and only 7-inch appeared magically in stores around the fall of 1985.  This was, as you can guess, a fertile time period for young indie bands in the southeastern US.  Early ’80’s LA punk stalwarts Black Flag had forged a giant path, like a modern-day Lewis & Clark, through the Deep South and the Great Northwest and back again, paving the way for what would become the American Indie Revolution. 

    Soon, kids nationwide were turning burned-out churches and abandoned VFW halls into punk co-ops, creating fanzines and record labels from Xerox paper and glue, and galvanizing bored drop-outs everywhere to stand up and say, “Fuck, we can do this, too!”  Suddenly, it was as if there was a flood of little black plastic discs raining down from the sky.  The “45-as-art” concept that started when Television’s “Little Johnny Jewel” hit the stands in ’74 had now come full-circle.  This was our CNN.  Or maybe not, but whatever it was, it was glorious.  Anyway…

    Hailing from Chapel Hill, NC, Other Bright Colors quickly gained a foothold in the greater East Coast rock clubs with this sweet little teaser of a single.  I remember the thing that caught my eye about it was the way the artwork, a simple handwritten scrawl over orange-and-flesh backdrop with sepia-tone “band frolicking through nature” photo on back, seemed both very D.I.Y. and very professional at the same time.  And the rich music contained on the plastic held even more mystery.

    OTHER BRIGHT COLORS \”Stands To Reason\” on YouTube

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  • New Music In Stores and Online10/7/08: The Streets, Sarah McLachlan, Oasis & More!!!

    Obviously I can’t have a record buying bonanza every week, otherwise I’d go broke. Definitely not a good look in today’s economy. So, this week will mark something of a vacation for me, with only one release that I’m nutso about. Here’s this week’s lineup of releases.

    Mike Skinner AKA The Streets. Photo by "realname".

    The Streets “Everything is Borrowed”:
    Folks on these shores (most of ’em) don’t get Mike Skinner or his style of music. Considering I didn’t think Amy Winehouse would cross over, I think Skinner is long overdue for some American love. “Everything is Borrowed” is his fourth, and reportedly the last album he is releasing under the Streets moniker. Expect more personal raps spiced with enough British slang that you might have to IM your best friend from London to ask “what the hell is he talking about here?”

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