Here is the J.J. Krupert Countdown for the month of this month in the year of this year, right now. I switched up my parameters a little, because I figured if I just do the shit that's simply played the most over the course of my little silver gaypod machine, then things that's been there forever and gets accidentally played even though I'm burned out on it would just rule the countdown, whereas new shit that I've been bumping like mad gets overlooked, at least the first couple months. So I will from here on out be employing a plus/minus hockey style deal, where I subtract how many times I skip that bitch from the played part to get a better recognition of shit in my brain the past month or two. New shit would still probably have to go go for a month or two to crack the Top 13, but whatever. This is for me anyways and it's not like anybody gives a fuck. It's really amusing because basically this blogospheric nonsense is the equivalent of a crazy dude standing on a downtown street corner, talking to hisself and waving at buses going past. Except "bloggers" is a media buzzword, so people think it actually means something. But it don't. Just like twitter. Anyways, here be this month's list...
#1: "Minimum Payments" by Solaris Earth Pipeline - Sigh... I guess the S.E.P. spaceship was destroyed during a crash landing trying to avoid a meteor shower of internal faggotry. We made some good music during our short run though. I've been wrestling with this bullshit, because I get all pissed like, "Goddammit, why was I wasting my time. I should've been doing this instead or that instead," but you know, you get where you're going by following the path you took. You can't switch that shit up. So I moved beyond that. Now I've been wondering if it's kosher or wack ass to go back and re-record anything in the camper with my new screwed up Ancient Hobo style or not. I mean, this song is basically a long ass loop from "Asleep in the Desert" by ZZ Top that it took me some convincing of PSY/OPS that he could actually loop it. And that's basically the entire beat. He did some ambient vocal effects on the hook and here and there, but the song's a pretty simple song. And it's actually one of my favorites off the 45s on 33 CD. (You can google search "solaris earth pipeline" and the sharebee link to dl that shit is near the top. You should check it out; it's some other shit.) Obviously, because I be playing it still. The lyrics are clusterfuck brain frame hating on internet haters, who run rampant from time to time. They are out there, packs of pasty, socially retarded wolves, waiting to turn on you when you have even a sliver of notoriety. Thankfully, I am far more aware of this than I was like 7 years ago, so I don't catch feelings over the internet at all. I mean, the internet's fake anyways; that'd be like me getting sad somebody died in a Friday the 13th movie.
#2: "Georgia (remix)" by The Cunninglynguists featuring Khujo Goodie & Killer Mike - I will readily admit I'm not the biggest Cunninglynguists fan. First off, their name pisses me off, because pretty much any more-than-competent white rapper in college in the early '90s was amazed at what a clever twist of phrase "cunning linguist" was, and for one group to just jack that as their name, I don't know, it just reminds of me someone who buys all the Chuck Taylors at the Goodwill to sell on ebay even though there might be bonafide loungers out there hoping to buy bonafide Chuck Taylors at the Goodwill for themselves or their children or their sick mother who did a lot of acid in the '70s or something. Fuck cultural cherry pickers. That being said, I stole their last CD from inside the internet's guts, and it was okay. I liked that song with Inverse (which I actually had been pumping that Inverse EP a lot, so I knew that song already), and the "Broken Van" song or whatever impressed me because it not only was a song about a piece of shit vehicle, which I always mark out for, but it had a Leon Russell sample from the Carney LP. I've listened to that LP a lot in my life, and made a few samples from it, including using the beginning of "Out in the Woods" on two copies to juggle the little bit of time I was DJing and learning myself out routines. I never would've thought to sample what they sampled for that song though. So props to you The Cunninglynguists, in case you fuckers are google searching yourselves all afternoon long, waiting to blow up like you know you should. But this "Georgia" song is some shit. First, if I was to have to pick like my five favorite rappers right now, Khujo and Killer Mike would be on that list. Khujo comes across as more for-real country than any of the shiny bullshit you hear on so-called country radio stations. And this song proves it. And then Killer Mike does what he does best - swab a very visual and very real and pretty street yet pretty intelligent picture while riding the beat like a motherfucker. I know this shit was on sharebee not too long ago, so google it up and vibe. My mental mix threesome of late has been "In the Red" by Willie Isz, then this, then "Comin' Home Atlanta" by Killer Mike; I try to work that little triple nipple of conscious babble into mixes I make for people, except I never make the mixes and just be like, "Oh shit man, I'm gonna hook up a mix of some killer shit you should check out," because we talked about rap music and the other dude was like he was down with Pete Rock & CL Smooth and shit but got out of following music and has two kids including one baby and blah blah blah.
#3: "If You Want Me To Stay" by Sly & The Family Stone - I have this on a 7-inch single and it's a wonderful single. Sly Stone was on some nonsense next level shit. They did a feature on him doing There's a Riot Goin' On in Waxpoetics magazine a few months back, and it was pretty much like I expected - a lot of great music, great musicians, plenty of drugs and whores, and Sly Stone on some warped by the rain mindframe leadership agenda. I bet there's some seriously good left field shit on tape somewhere that he's made on his own since going on sabbatical from the stupid record industry. We used to know this interracial couple, an older black dude who was like 50 but had little baby dreads and carried himself much younger, and a white girl like 30 or so, and I put this on one night, and I remember the black dude being all like shaking his head and going quietly, since he was a quiet dude, "Oh shit, Sly..." and then started singing along, sitting at the kitchen table. That was a feel-good moment. They split up and shit, and I'm fairly certain the older black dude wanted to hook up with my wife, since she had dreadlocks and a big ass and older black dudes who like white chicks see that as a pair of green lights for their approach, but he didn't really try too hard, I think because he thought I was crazy. Which I am. I've got as much anger about how shitty white people are as anybody, and I'm more than willing to channel that anger into completely different areas of my life. Like fucking up dudes being too friendly with my wife when they think I ain't looking.
#4: "Wagon Wheel (live)" by The Porch Loungers - Ha, the song makes the list again. I actually had three versions of it on my gaypod at one time and my oldest kid was like, "God, why do you have this song on here so much?" The Porch Loungers are my man Boogie Brown's bluegrass band and they'll be putting on acoustic performance around a fire in my back yard next Saturday night. This live version was from Newportfest held by fellow lounger Eric every Labor Day weekend. Hopefully, I will be there this year, DJing between bands, and maybe even pulling off a little surprise performance of some shit, but I don't know. I have a wedding to go to for a marriage that I'll be shocked if it lasts three years. Fucking obligations man, they suck.
#5: "Simple Man" by Lynyrd Skynyrd - I still love this song. Even though this is part of the played-out-by-classic-rock-radio portion of the Skynyrd catalog, it's a great song, and probably the best example lyrically of how Ronnie Van Zant was the redneck buddha.
#6: "Until the Lion Learns to Speak" by K'naan - When The Trouabdour came out earlier this year, I went through a pretty heavy K'naan period, playing the new shit plus the older Dusty Foot Philosopher LP. This came off that one, and is one of my fave K'naan tracks. He actually triggered in me a search for good African rap, which didn't really net that much, since most African rap tends to have the philosophy of "Fuck Africa, let's sound like American rappers, but say African cities instead of American ones." When K'naan brings his African influence, like on this song, it's a good thing. When he gets all rapid-fire more American sounding, he sounds way too much like Eminem.
#7: "New Year's Day" by Robison Charlie - This dude Big Stoner Creek who used to be in The Secret Clubhouse shared for me some songs at some point, and this one was one of them. BSC don't seem to be around anymore, so he won't even know how much I've enjoyed this song. I'm pretty afraid of alt.country type stuff because it's usually crazy stupid and made by and for Brooklyn kids who drink PBRs ironically, so I've never even contemplated searching out a single other Robison Charlie song. I'm not even sure if his name is the right way. Seems like it should go the other way around, but I vaguely remember seeing him on the satellite radio one time and it was wrongways like that there too.
#8: "Stuntastic" by Blaqstarr - I was late to the party for the Fear & Loathing in Hunts Vegas mixtape, but I still got there and stood by the keg until it floated. It's amazing how much better Blaqstarr got once they started not spelling their name right and rapping about nonsense.
#9: "Dying Breed" by Prolo - Another fucking song by me... man I'm an egotistical dude all up on inside the internetz sugarwalls, ain't I? This was one of the first hooks I ever wrote for Boogie Brown to sing once he got all into bluegrass harmonies and I got into writing hooks instead of just verses that were 84 lines long every time. Here, I'll type out the hook, because it'll look way stupider in type on inside the internetz that it really comes across: "We from the northern end of the dirty southside/heart wrapped up in the honeysuckle vine/from southside to southwest, back roads in effect/land of the longhaired, laid back redneck/raven mack boogie brown part of a dying breed/drinking beer at night, in the morning smoking weed/ain't got a whole lot, but it feels about right/let our souls cut loose while our pockets stay tight". Now that's what I'm talking about. Literally.
#10: "Bluegrass Boy" by Woodstock Mountains - I meant to look up who actually did this, like Happy or Artie Traum or some post-Woodstock hippie who stayed in upstate New York with a bluegrass fetish. This is off of More Music from Wood Acres or something like that, which is a great assed record, even though I am playa hating upon bluegrass fetish half-rich fuckers lately, as I just was painting a space where a dude was building a wall who plays in a prominent newgrass band and looked like a Lynyrd Skynyrd roadie who wore clothes he got from a Mr. Green Jeans estate sale. (Note to regular blog readers, all four of you: I will probably co-opt that line again at some point, over some shit I be plotting out, just so you're prepared beforehand, so when you read that again, you won't be like, "Man, Raven's retarded and repeats himself without knowing" and you can go like, "Man, Raven's retarded and repeats himself, but at lest he know that shit."
#11: "Asleep in the Desert" by ZZ Top - When I die, just play this, over and over and over and over.
#12: "Small Town" by Nappy Roots - Ever since David Banner never made another song even half as good as "Cadillac on 22s" and I gave up on him, Nappy Roots became my southern rap dudes not everybody knows about who have the largest potential. This was the best song off their Humdinger CD last year (unless you count "Good Day" as a song off that even though that came off an internet CD from before and they put it on the Humdinger too because it was so good). And really, with "Aw Naw", "Po' Folks", this song and "Good Day", they've already got a fatter catalogue of completely perfect southern rap anthems outside of everybody except maybe Outkast or Goodie Mobb, but probably not even them, unless you let me split it up in my brain to only Andre 3000 or Khujo.
#13: "The Mountain" by Steve Earle & Del McCoury - I heard a country ass lady inside the radios talking about the slurry slush and floods from mountaintop removal, destroying her house or some shit, and she stood up and protested it all and had rednecks trying to run her off the road and people trying to burn her house down. I have some friends who are into the whole Mountain Action Network Wondertivism Gang, and all that's great, but I sometimes mistrust the integrity of folks very obviously patch-on-their-sleeve on the helping the downtrodden tip. I have a problem with people who have had explaining to me how I shouldn't want to have because having is wrong. But when you slum it up and don't have with the safety net of your grown folks having your back, I don't know man, I just don't know. If you're gonna be a have and not a have-not, just go ahead and embrace it. Don't do this blank-eyed activist urban hippie pretend construction worker bullshit.
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