In case you didn’t know, BILLY SUNDAY grinds for the Evil Empire.
I try not to subscribe to the simple minds that view music through the prism of color. It’s always coded racism which is ultimately coded supremacism. Avoiding this is proving as difficult as walking down the street and not seeing any signage for McDonald’s or Starbucks. I mean, what exactly is white music. What exactly is Black music and most importantly, who the fuck cares?!? They only people that need to make a distinction are the nazis and klansmen who can’t enjoy themselves in diverse settings. The best experiences I’ve had listening to live music were in crowds that looked like auditions for Benetton ads. I saw NaS and the Roots perform live inside a park in New York City (not on the same day), in both instances the crowd was a veritable we are the world of ethnicity and so called race. I’d also like to add that the so called white cats were the only ones that let me hit their blunt too. White dudes always be holding that piffy piff. Anyhoo…
Bol raised the issue the other day that many of you so called Black people have trouble identifying the paradigm of so called white music. It’s not your fault Black man, it’s a white thing, you wouldn’t understand it. I figured I should create a short list to help some of you cats that are stuck on stupid add some new shit to your iPods. Do yourself a favor and buy this shit too since I don’t want the RIAA kicking in the door to your momma’s basement because you are downloading some Elton John and the whatnot. Keep in mind that white don’t play when it comes to his paper. You see how they did Drama? And they LIKED Drama. Your ass will be going under the jailhouse.
The Police – Not the real police that shot Sean Bell you dumbasses, the group whose lead singer is a seventy yr. old sex addict. Back in the day The Police were like the best ska band evar. Their drummer is talented as fuck and Sting and the other dude on rhythm guitar weren’t too bad either. For all you hopeless Hip-Hop heads The Police have a few songs that have been sampled be some of your favorite rappers. Check out the song ‘Roxanne’. The guitar strums were used on what might be Cam’Ron’s greatest track.
Kraftwerk – This band of crazy Germans gave birth to the techno craze. Except when they did it the shit sounded cool and not so teh ghey. Afrika Bambaataa was a big fan of their music and he sampled them for some of his epic classic B-boy jams. Timbaland is also a huge fan of their sound and if knowing that makes you not want to listen to these dudes then you are really missing out on some hot shit.
Sonic Youth – This band is far from young but they are innovators of music that has been impossible to define from the outset. Their not official punk rockers although I saw them perform at CBGB’s alongside straight edge punk band Fugazi. They certainly aren’t new wave because they’re far too edgy and they aren’t grunge either since they don’t commit suicide. They’re just a bunch of indie rockers who fucked up by being indie rockers before there was an indie rock scene. Sonic Youth still did their thing as alternative rock goes but I thought these dudes should have been bigger news than Nirvana. I also wish Hip-Hop parties had real mosh pits so that some of the frustrations that rap fans have with their lives could be expressed during the thirty minutes that you bounce off people.
Red Hot Chili Peppers – Don’t get it twisted, despite all the glitter and constant rotation in the MTV networks these dudes can get down. They might even be more true to the O.G. Hip-Hop aesthetic than most of the people performing that shit right now, especially cats from the south. Hell yeah they spit fire about parties and bullshit, but they also make joints about drugs, love, the price of fame, the loss of family and yeah, drugs. Someone told me that my real problem with Hip-Hop is the lack of balance that the commercialized music eschews. Whoever said that was right. These niggas got balance, and they got game. I still fucks with ‘Californification’. Word to Rick Rubin.
The Clash – I put The Clash on my list for greatest musical band of all time along with the WU and P.E. The reason The Clash was so fucking dope to me is because they were in the forefront of spitting about class struggle and racism. These dudes were taking on the British government like it was nothing. They came to New York and they saw Hip-Hoppers in Harlem and the Bronx do their thing with all forces against them and it inspired their music. Rock critics call them a punk rock band, but I consider them to be Hip-Hop’s first band. They performed with a graffiti drenched curtain as their backdrop. The Clash represented the streets and their only desire was that everyone be given equal treatment and equal protection under the law. A theme like that is nothing new for the so called Black band Bad Brains. That’s heavy shit when it’s being posited by a so called white band.
the clash is truly one of the best bands ever ever..power trio to the max! That album London Calling may have actually changed my life.
I would add to that list David Bowie, I mean early David Bowie, I’m Talking Ziggy Stardust David Bowie all the way until My Little China Girl. Listen closely and you will hear the smooth sounds of the late great Luther Vandross.
^make that power quartet…
my bad power quartet!
I love The Clash, The Police and my boys, The Red Hot Chili Peppers.
Good music is good music.
i would augment this list with:
1. Radiohead
2. Steely Dan
3. The Cocteau Twins
4. Smashing Pumpkins
4. The Isley Brothers (circa ’72 – ’81)
Rage Against the Machine, Nuccas!
Let’s keep it real
Zepplin
Hall and Oates ( The most under rated great band of their time)
Journey
The Rolling Stones
^oh yeah, hall & oates!! (thanks miss ahmad)…
we can’t forget FUGAZI.
Pink Floyd
Jimi Hendrix Experience
Emerson Lake Palmer
Black Sabbath
Radiohead
Some of my faves. Especially when I rock out wit my cock out. Nullus.
Also, one of the BEST EFFIN LP’S ever cut = David Crosby “If Only I Could Feel My Face”. Please cop that or as Billy Dimanche would say, “GO KILL YERSELF!”
Kraftwek = one of the best effin ’80’s hip hop groups evar!
True story.
In June 1981, The Clash were set to play 8 nights at the Bonds International club in Times Square. They announced their stand with a dramatic unfurling of a banner painted by graffiti legend FUTURA. They booked Grand Master Flash and The Furious Five as their opening act. When Flash and his five jigs stepped onstage, the white punks in the audience were furious, especially since GMF and crew showed up dressed like the effin Village People. GMF plus crew were greeted with the punks flinging beer cups onstage. A good number of the punks started SPITTING at the crew, trying to land a glob in Melle Mel’s coif. Same shit happened the second night, even though someone tipped off Flash et al to stop dressing like fags (the crew dressed less fruity that nite). GMF and crew were so dissed/ pissed that they never showed up for the following 8 nites. The Clash were so pissed that they cussed out their white punk New York fans in interviews. This opened the door for rap act The Treacherous Three to open up for the last remaining days of The Clash’s tour of Times Square.
True story.
Moral: don’t be dressing all gay when opening for hard core white.
^ “I would add to that list David Bowie, I mean early David Bowie, I’m Talking Ziggy Stardust David Bowie all the way until My Little China Girl.”
Not to get all kissy telly, but when I just got a foothold in the music industry, one of David Bowie’s main (and famous) Black female background singers seduced my then young ass and let me hit that chocolate ass from wall to wall. My ass was like “Jiyeah!” Six Degrees of Seperation fer real though!
Co-sign this entire post. Even thug cats knew “Under the Bridge”.
Living Colour’s 1st LP totally underrated today but totally overrated back then.
I thought Queen was cool. No homo.
Queen effin rocked! Nullus.
sometimes it pays to be neither black nor white:
* el malo – for “suavecito” alone.
* cibo matto – they wrote an entire album about food. and love.
* sam the sham – “wooly bully” is the tex-mex “louie louie.” but better.
* pixies – pinoy guitar solos that will melt your face.
* towa tei – dilla hearted “technova.” and rightly so.
* and, man, there’s some ill korean psychedelic (like san ul rim) and japanese garage rock out thurr.
and, for a little ebony and ivory:
* caetano veloso (for being a brazilian leprechaun. i mean, chameleon)
^^^^The Pixies!
OMG how could I forget them. Best friggin reunion tour ever! Kim Dill on bass, doped out, damn near nodding off and still ripping the hardest damn bass lines!
this monkey’s going to heaven!
Everyone, everyone who doesn’t already listen to them has to get as much Parliament-Funkadelic and EWF as possible. Not only do you get to learn about the history of the samples that we might not think about, but no question that Earth, Wind & Fire is on the same level as Zeppelin, Floyd or the Beatles.
If you have the chance to see George Clinton perform (and that man never leaves the road), better do it while he’s still killing it. Last show I went to was at House of Blues Orlando and they went for close to three hours with jam sessions for the intermissions. His granddaughter is a gangster ass rapper, too.
Peep the Allman Brothers if you enjoy chilling the fuck out and letting the band take you on a trip.
And 311.
whoa whoa whoa …..weres Bad Brains!!!!!?!?!?!
I’m ashamed….I know of one of the five….RHCP..*writes down all the names bloggers are posting makes limewire list*.
also check out: Betty Davis “Nasty Gal”*
P.J. Harvey “Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea”
Marrianne Faithful “Broken English”**
New Order “Power, Corruption and Lies”***
Chromeo “She’s In Control”
!!! “Louden Up Now”
Colder “Again”
ESG “A South Bronx Story”
Konk “Tales Of The New York Underground 1981-’88”
All of these are album oriented, meaning you can listen to the entire disc from front to back…
*Rare, but worth the search…Miles Davis Ex combines an unheard mix of style and sounds…kinda like a hardbodied Black chick brew mixed up of parts Jimi, Janis and P-Funk, first released somewhere around ’79 or early ’80’s and is STILL timeless and totally original..give it a listen, if you dare… I promise you’ve never heard anything like it…)
**Includes the an incredible reworked cover of John Lennon’s “Working Class Hero” and a tune “Why Ya Do It?” a delicious slice of pissed off pycho-reggae that makes Courtney Love sound like Little Orphan Annie by comparison…
***Full lenth LP that spawned the gem “Blue Monday”
singing roxanne loudly thrice daily is the ONLY way i was able to through school. i don’t wanna sell my body toniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiite.
good shit. i too am taking notes.
the smiths (the greatest band in the history of england – excluding NOBODY!!)
I got all that on my Ipod AND some Bettye Davis!! WHO could forget her( screaming loudly, *say you will, say you will!*) Incomplete listing without Queen and Bowie, but you got that off!
^^ Clash > Smiths – incontestable….
No love for Radiohead?
if you dig the clash you should most def cop the album live at shea stadium, that shit is so hard body its redirk. Also if you wanna know who influenced the clash just listen to a band called the specials who influenced the clash, the gorillaz, and countless other bands.
No Love for U2 or Chicago?
RIP Freddie Mercury
Steely Dan
Hall&Oats
RHCP
Foo Fighters
Clash
The Kills [Not The Killers]
Oasis [First 2 albums]
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Esthero
The Cure
My favorite Clash song: “Police & Thieves”
ROCK THE CASBAH
ROCK THE CASBAH
In the book “Dondi White: Style Master General,” there’s a picture of DONDI hanging out with The Clash in the studio.
Massive Attack-blue lines still gets played atleast once a week going on 20yrs.
Portishead
Tragically Hip- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPj9vbdw-0E&feature=fvst
Alice In Chains.
Dallas on point as usual! David Bowie’s “Golden Years” also an underrated gem. I remember you and Dwayne were big on Big Audio Dynamite, they were the shit too. There’s too many bands to name. For the new guys though Jamiroquai has been the shit since their first album.
Yes to this.
Another great post, it’s always good to bring back a great post. It never gets old. I would like to add to the convo Billy Idol, The Cars, Talking Heads and even though they not white, Game Rebellion should be mentioned ass a kick ass band. Salute
@abstrizzle Jr. Murvin’s original version of Police and Thieves is >>>>>>>