Third Wave Post-Femiladyism
I realize that I've become old, and not in the fun ways like home ownership and being well vested in retirement funds. No, old in a back pain and not understanding the kids these days kinda way. The new site header graphic says it all, having been stripped of any pretension to being "young." Shit, I can't even pretend to be a Manhattanite (and no, the "Manhattanization of San Francisco" doesn't count).
So let me take you back, way back to the 1990s. Neo-soul was the hottness, and hip-hop fundamentals were making a resurgence. Street art, b-boys and b-girls, MCs rhyming in harmony and funk 45s were the coin of the new hipster realm. Portishead was ripping off Sylvia Robinson's production techniques and the Invsibl Skratch Picklz were making DJ Spooky look like a hack with an LCD BPM tap-counter.
Now anyone with a laptop, Limewire and Ableton Live or Traktor can play DJ-producer in public without having to cart hundreds of pounds of records (or have much in the way of eye-hand coordination). Me, I relied on inexpensive represses and compilations from labels like Ubiquity, all the while telling myself that re-learning the skills Grandmaster Flash pioneered a generation before was somehow valuable.
Quixotic? Sure. But as anybody with a copy of Dylan's white album bootleg will tell you, preserving history is its own reward. "California Soul" is the kind of compilation that should remind everyone the Bloc Party of today is the Rokk of tomorrow. If it weren't for old folks, and young folks with a taste for all-female uber-soul acts from the East Bay, this kind of infectious shit would become the purview of the CDC's cryo-vaults.
Freedom Time by Linda Tillery
Dare I say, the joke is on both of us, since if you're still reading this blog then that's time you're not squeezing yourself into skinny blacks, doing blow in an LES club bathroom or picking up jailbait on Facebook.
So let me take you back, way back to the 1990s. Neo-soul was the hottness, and hip-hop fundamentals were making a resurgence. Street art, b-boys and b-girls, MCs rhyming in harmony and funk 45s were the coin of the new hipster realm. Portishead was ripping off Sylvia Robinson's production techniques and the Invsibl Skratch Picklz were making DJ Spooky look like a hack with an LCD BPM tap-counter.
Now anyone with a laptop, Limewire and Ableton Live or Traktor can play DJ-producer in public without having to cart hundreds of pounds of records (or have much in the way of eye-hand coordination). Me, I relied on inexpensive represses and compilations from labels like Ubiquity, all the while telling myself that re-learning the skills Grandmaster Flash pioneered a generation before was somehow valuable.
Quixotic? Sure. But as anybody with a copy of Dylan's white album bootleg will tell you, preserving history is its own reward. "California Soul" is the kind of compilation that should remind everyone the Bloc Party of today is the Rokk of tomorrow. If it weren't for old folks, and young folks with a taste for all-female uber-soul acts from the East Bay, this kind of infectious shit would become the purview of the CDC's cryo-vaults.
Freedom Time by Linda Tillery
Dare I say, the joke is on both of us, since if you're still reading this blog then that's time you're not squeezing yourself into skinny blacks, doing blow in an LES club bathroom or picking up jailbait on Facebook.
