Words Noah DeWitt
Photos Mike Pearson
The stories are legendary. For example: “One time he came on stage in a space suit with a bucket of KFC and started throwing chicken at the crowd.” Another fable went, “He’s a pimp. No, literally he’s a pimp.” Last Tuesday in the Wow Hall basement between openers I heard a new myth, a first person account of a Kool Keith sighting at a Costco in LA, where he, Xzibit, and several hookers purchased some bulk goods. So no one really knew what to expect of Keith’s Eugene appearance, the first stop of his brief Cascadia tour with Foreign Objects.
For those unacquainted with him, Kool Keith is a man of many aliases. His better-known titles include Kool Keith, Dr. Octagon, Dr. Doom, and Black Elvis; his website lists more than fifty in all, though most were used only once or twice on isolated singles throughout his thirty year career.
He began in ’88 as a member of the New York old school crew Ultramagnetic MCs. He gradually established himself as a solo act, and in 1996 he released Dr. Octagonecologist, a psychedelic, futuristic collaboration with Dan the Automator; it was an instant hip-hop classic. A clever lyricist, Keith stands out starkly from the banal background of mainstream unoriginality. But don’t be mistaken; Kool Keith is not another politically poignant underground rapper who parades a vocabulary of multisyllabic words. His message is more often disturbingly raunchy than profound. He is difficult to pin down, a schizophrenic entertainer with as many personalities as monikers.
He mounted the Wow Hall’s modest stage wearing a sequins headscarf and wielding his microphone. His DJ cued a record from the Ultramagnetic MCs years, and Keith began to rattle off rhymes in a funky old-school pentameter.
In essence, the show was a chronological recap of the many chapters of Kool Keith’s career. After a five-minute spree of uninterrupted free styles (which bested the average written rap), Keith and his hype-men moved on to songs from the Dr. Octagon era. The crowd erupted with excitement for “Blue Flowers” and “Earth People,” two better-known singles off of Dr. Octagonecologist.
With his albums, the listener is able to turn a blind eye to Kool Keith’s less wholesome (i.e., degrading) lyrics. But when confronted with his living presence, one is forced to see the sheer crudity of his words. Aside from a few outliers, Kool Keith’s raps are only about sex. It is sometimes suggested that he means to satirize the misogyny of the mainstream. If so, then he’s doing a great job. Between songs, he asked, “How many ladies here like hotels?” The audience laughed nervously, unsure whether it was creepy or hilarious. He went on: “Who here is a freak? Are there any secret freaks? Ok, who here is a conservative freak? We’re looking for secret conservative confined freaks.” He eventually dropped the issue to play more raunchy songs released under his Dr. Doom alias.
After a satisfying survey of Kool Keith’s contributions to hip-hop, the show took a turn for the worse. For the last twenty minutes or so, Keith and his posse performed half-minute song segments, abruptly ending one and moving on to the next. They were attempting to cram the show’s tail end with as many songs as possible: it was quantity not quality. And it was annoying. Just when you settled into the groove of a beat, the record flipped, the tempo changed, and you had to readjust.
Despite ending on such an irritating note, the overall concert experience was a fascinating and enjoyable glimpse at who Kool Keith really is: a very strange man.
After birthing legendary indie shredders Monotonix, Israel offers the world yet another musical gift: Soulico, a crew of four Tel-Aviv DJs with an impressive library of rare Middle Eastern folk and disco vinyl. Last October they put forth their debut album, Exotic on the Speaker, an energetic amalgam of hip-hop, dancehall, and traditional Mid East music.
Twelve of thirteen tracks feature MCs and singers from all over the world including scores of Israeli hip-hop artists; Panamanian dancehall maestro MC Zulu; Ghostface Killah; underground rappers Lyrics Born, Pigeon John, and Del the Funky Homosapien; and Rye Rye, M.I.A.’s streetwise teenaged protégé from Baltimore. Although almost half of the lyrics are in Hebrew, the language barrier isn’t much of a problem; “Pitom Banu 2020” hasn’t one word of English, yet it is easily one of the album’s most appealing songs.
The first song, “El Nur,” commences with a shout of “Salaam alaikum” (peace unto you in Arabic), and then Ghostface Killah delivers a verse in his classic Wu Tang cadence. The overall thesis of his rap: I’m super tight, I’m hard, don’t fuck with me. It’s hubristic and unoriginal, yet charming as always. The beat that backs him consists of standard electronic drums, rapid pluckings of some foreign-sounding string instrument, and a loud, buzzy synth line. The rest of the song features Hebrew rapping and singing (no idea what they’re saying…but it sounds neat?). Each collaborator pulls his or her own weight, making the song fantastic as a whole.
Unfortunately, some of Soulico’s musical guests are not so worthy. For example, on the eighth track titled “Come Back,” Onili, an Israeli pop diva, sings in a breathy, overly sexy voice. But it’s not sexy. It’s just frightening. She and a couple other featured artists whose performances add no value to the album ought not to have been included in the otherwise awesome debut project.
But the most incredible song of all, and the most Israeli in sound, is the title track, “Exotic on the Speaker,” featuring Rye Rye. A cheap-sounding synthetic orchestra pounds thrice, a Klezmer fiddle sings a folky phrase, and a drum machine creates an intricately detailed beat. Rye Rye fills her two minutes and forty-three seconds with rhymes about nightclubs and parties in her sincere and youthful voice. Inclusion of Rye Rye on the album was surely a good call.
But for their part, the DJs of Soulico (Sabbo, Rob, Shimmy Sonic, and Wido by name) mix and produce a superb album. Perhaps their greatest virtue is their transcendence of the confines of genre. “Queen of Hearts” is an ultra-catchy dancehall reggae song, “Politrix” could easily be a song off of Beck’s Midnight Vultures, and “DaraboukaTron” sounds like a bunch of robots on acid partaking in a tribal drum circle. They’re a dynamic team, Soulico, a talent that is exciting to hear regardless of your culture, homeland, or language.
Exotic On The Speaker (Feat. Rye Rye) MP3
On Friday the 9th through Sunday the 11th Eugene will be host to an international film festival (who knew?) showcasing over eighty films: features, shorts, and documentaries made by independent up-and-comings and Hollywood hotshots. The festival will be held at the Valley River Center Regal Cinemas. A detailed schedule of the festival and information on the films can be found here.
Admission:
$8 for an hour and a half
$75 for a weekend pass.
Or, for aspiring filmmakers, $100 gets you a pass to the festival and enrollment in a three-day screenplay-writing retreat taught by Tom Sawyer (sadly not Huck’s companion, but writer for Murder, She Wrote) and Ken Sherman (Hollywood literary agent). More info at the EIFF site.
Yesterday I attended a sneak peak showing of All’s Faire in Love, a romantic comedy advertised as a centerpiece of the festival. Owen Benjamin plays Will, a star college quarterback, who is forced by his grudging professor (Cedric the Entertainer) to work at a Renaissance Fair in exchange for a passing grade. Will, who has the sensibilities of a bro, is troubled to find himself surrounded by intensely passionate theater people in Elizabethan garb. (Subtext: Renaissance Fairs and the people who attend them are completely absurd.) Within the hierarchy of the fair, Will is cast as a lowly “fetch boy,” and is required to obey the commands of the nobility. Chris Wylde comically portrays one of these nobles, Prince Rank, a despicable and overzealous Renaissance player. Will’s luck improves when he befriends Crocket (Matthew Lillard), and wins the admiration of a young actress named Kate (Christina Ricci). Every scene is pervaded by bouts of slapstick and punch lines, some of it witty though most of it uninspired. The soundtrack is the film’s great weakness. Made up of tacky selections such as “Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)”, the soundtrack gives the film a distastefully cliché air. Despite some corny jokes and poor song choices, All’s Faire in Love is worth seeing for its moments of well-written and brilliantly performed humor, if not simply to support Eugene’s own film fest.
Rated: A slightly mealy Red Delicious out of a juicy Honey Crisp.
Mayer Hawthorne, signee to the infallible hip-hop label Stones Throw Records, tours in promotion of his freshly pressed debut album, A Strange Arrangement. It is a collection of eleven songs written and recorded in the old-soul fashion of Motown. Hawthorne’s cries and croons throughout are backed by nostalgic doo-wop harmonies. The instruments, most of which Hawthorne plays personally, capture the vintage soul aesthetic: the distinct snappiness of snares, twang of Stratocasters, and funkiness of trumpet and bass parts. It is a nearly uncanny impression of classic Motown styles.
The album is introduced by a thirty-second prelude of impeccable harmonies a cappella; three or four overlapping tracks of Hawthorne’s vocals chime in unison, “We made a strange arrangement.” Hawthorne’s voice is untrained and inexperienced; his singing is basic, free of adlib and flourish. But he has an undeniable knack for composing harmonies, a musical intuition that is completely incomprehensible to those of us who lack the gift.
“Honestly,” he explains, “the first couple songs that I did were a total experiment on the side and I never planned on those songs ever being released to the public or people even hearing them.” Until rather recently he had no desire to record or release this soulful side-project. His primary vocation had been as DJ Haircut, a hip-hop artist. Hawthorne tells, “I grew up listening to soul music with my dad, and then as I got older I kind of found my own musical identity—I got really into hip-hop music. And then I got back into soul music from hip-hop, from digging for all the samples from all my favorite hip-hop tracks.” He experiences soul through the lens of a hip-hop-head, which is apparent at a few moments in the album. For example, the percussion underlying “Maybe So, Maybe No,” the funkiest and catchiest track on the record, calls to mind the fat and speedy high-hat commonly heard in contemporary rap.
The album’s first single, “Just Ain’t Gonna Work Out,” pre-released on a red heart-shaped 45, is supremely cool. Atop a groove of sparse keyboard, drum, and guitar parts Hawthorne apologetically breaks up with an unnamed lady friend in a falsetto that recalls Curtis Mayfield. The B-side, “When I Said Goodbye,” is a sort of antithesis to side A. Seeking to reconcile with his ex (presumably, the same one from side A) Hawthorne begs forgiveness: “I’m half the man that I was with you by my side/I didn’t mean it when I said goodbye.”
Mayer Hawthorne and his band, The County, performed last Saturday at Eugene’s WOW Hall. The crowd that met them was dinky (not more than fifty people) but most of the fans were already quite familiar, even infatuated, with Hawthorne’s material. He was preceded by three opening acts. The first was a Eugene rap group, Animal Farm, which performed an insufferably low-energy set of generic rap to the ten or so beings scattered about the floor (most of the crowd didn’t show up until later). The second act was an MC named Buff 1, who comes from Mayer Hawthorne’s hometown, Ann Arbor, Michigan. Buff 1 was animated and charismatic, his rhymes, strong. But there was nothing special, interesting, or edgy about his music.
The third opener, and the last before the anticipated headliner, was a member of the Stones Throw posse: an electro boogie DJ named James Pants. He wore narrow black jeans, a white tee, a leather jacket and dark shades. After leading the audience in a quick session of preparatory stretches set to echoey transient music, he mixed Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit” with an electronic drum sample, and then suddenly shut it off. “That was just a taste of what I might be able to do. But now I’m going to do some karaoke.” “Touch Me” by The Doors came on and he sang along in a booming voice, theatrically waving his hands. At this point, any expectation of a normal DJ set was dispelled. James Pants’ set was more of a joke than a concert. He spent only about twenty percent of his stage time actually DJing records. Ten percent was karaoke, and seventy percent he spent ranting (in his voice that sounds strikingly like Ron Burgundy’s), pacing the stage in a constant struggle with his microphone chord. He rambled at length describing his music, informed the audience of opportunities to join his fan club, and complained sarcastically about being eclipsed by Mayer Hawthorne’s increasing popularity. “I may not be a boy soul-singing sensation,” he yelled. “I may not wear sweater vests and designer glasses, but my name is James Pants and I don’t fuck around!” The music he did play was movingly funky. He blended obscure golden era funk records with contemporary electro and his own drumming on an electronic kit. He closed with the following words, “Just a quick note to the promoter, and I do believe my lawyers have contacted you about this several times and heard no response, but I had requested specifically wireless microphones so that I do not get tangled. Thank you for basically ruining the show and embarrassing me. Normally this doesn’t happen.”
Mayer Hawthorne and his four-man band took the stage and launched immediately into their hit, “Maybe So, Maybe No.” The live rendition lacked one key element of the recorded version—the buzzy trumpet line that induces spine shivers—but it was danceable and pleasing just the same. They followed with “Just Ain’t Gonna Work Out,” another popular favorite, which everyone seemed to know the words to. And so they began: a one-two punch of soul power. The audience was engrossed and remained so for the duration of the show. The band played through their short repertoire of love songs, and in between songs Mayer spoke to the audience about romance as if he were some aged veteran lover. He prefaced one song by saying, “Here’s a song about the fucked up things we do for love.” And he repeatedly asked, “Do you feel the love, Eugene?” One number that stood out among the others was “I Wish It Would Rain.” The guitarist played a descending intro melody, which wavered beautifully with the reserved movements of his wah-wah pedal. Mayer sang softly, the keyboard player pounded his keys, and the patrons swayed with eyes glued on the musicians.
Rated: Jasmine out of Disney princesses.
