There used to be a guy who fancied himself as a “street musician” who would set up across the street from my apartment every night and blare obnoxious guitar riffs through a pocket amp.  He had, what seemed like, no more than a rotating 3-song setlist.  He mostly just played Jimi Hendrix covers, using the muddled distortion and the fact that he was a black man with a guitar in Seattle to his favor.  The drunken frat boys and under-dressed skanks, clopping around like clydesdales ate that shit up.  Then again, they only caught about 12 seconds of it as they wandered by in a drunken stupor.  Try putting that 12 seconds on repeat for hours.  It was a smooth move for the “guitarist” and he marketed himself wisely.  Who’s gonna talk shit to this guy around here?  Nevermind the fact that the one thing that he produced was obnoxious and that he wasn’t actually Hendrix.  This Seattle; that would be sacrilege.

Today I witnessed a video of a man who I actually would have appreciated having perform in my neighborhood.  This footage isn’t devoid of gimmicks [he's a one-man-band playing a Wu-Tang song, for chrissakes] but something about it still holds genuine.  It’s actually pretty awesome and, although this particular footage is of the musician performing a cover, he is much more than a one-note.  In fact, through my research, I’ve discovered that he’s much more than a street performer, or even a musician, but that’s not important for now.  We’ll get back to that more after the video. (more…)

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I almost abandoned this review.  I’ve been swamped trying to do too much at once:  Building a website, transferring content, learning to read code, networking, editing, etc., but during that whole time I have been thinking about writing.  GZA/The Genius, from the infamous Wu-Tang Clan, is still on tour and his latest album, Pro Tools (Baby Grande), is still fairly new, but the particular performance that I saw took place on the the 26th of last month and I was seriously beginning to wonder if the topic was getting stale.  It’s true, I almost abandoned this review until I remembered this quote that I had read from GZA himself, “I’m not one to write a rhyme in 30 minutes“.  He continues by saying, “Once RZA came to me and was like, ‘Don’t take two fuckin’ weeks to write a verse man, don’t strain your brain.’ Then when I take two weeks to write something he’ll be like, ‘This is a masterpiece man!’ That’s how I have to do it, I like to work like that.”  These quotes hit me instantly and, not only encouraged me to continue but also epitomize the basis of the GZA’s appeal to me and the reason for his endurance and consistency in the unstable and oft-criticized realms of Hip-Hop and rap music. (more…)

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