Earl Sweatshirt - EARL / Tyler's VMA

By now it's definitely no secret that Tyler, the Creator snatched a VMA award for best new artist and was even nominated for video of the year. I'd just like to say congrats your massive win Tyler, your hard work definitely paid off. Not bad for someone who was just signed mere months ago.

During his acceptance speech, Tyler did mention his little brother, Earl, couldn't be there at the awards show. If you've been following Tyler or OFWGKTA for any length of time, you've no doubt seen the "Free Earl" campaign. Earl is also an artist in the hip-hop community, but he's under 18 and his mother isn't exactly approving of his vicious and violent lyrics. So, she made it clear that Earl wasn't to be featured or create any tracks, so long as she has custody of him. So now the world waits for April, 2012 when Earl finally hits 18. But, wait! He's already put out an album. Yep, when Earl was 16 he released "EARL" on OFWGKTA, and even better, it was a free release.

Let me go ahead and say something controversial: I think Earl is better than his older brother Tyler. Shocking right? Well, let me follow it up by saying I haven't listened to Tyler's new album "Goblin" yet. I have a lot of respect for Tyler and his work ethic, so I want to actually pay for his music and not just rip it. I have heard the track Yonkers though, so I at least have some frame of reference, but mostly i will be comparing Tyler's first album "Bastard to Earl's "EARL".

"EARL" is much less of a concept album when compared to "Bastard", meaning that the album is intending to tell a story throughout. In "EARL" Earl vaguely describes the events of one day. As opposed to "Bastard" which has nearly every track referring to the same counseling session between Tyler and a shrink. That being said "EARL" has a better sense of direction and continuity over "Bastard". The tracks on the latter tend to all be in the same vein of mind, while sounding distinctly unique. On "Bastard" the tracks bounce all over the place, sometimes sounding like they were written by different artists, or in the case of the song French! the song is split into two vastly different parts, both of which are strong enough to stand on their own. One can make the quite reasonable argument that "Bastard" is meant to be like that to show the schizophrenic mind of the main character in the lyrics, but I'm a bit hesitant to buy into that. Earl generates tracks that sound like they were ripped from a deranged schizophrenic teenage, without having to jump from style to style. In the end though I suppose that's up to your personally preference. Do you want an album to have vastly different tracks on it, like it was made by several artists, or do you want one strong continuous style throughout? Earl also has more traditional beats than Tyler. Earl's beats are much more drum and bass centered as opposed to Tyler's which span in every direction he damn well pleases.

With the overview out of the way, let's focus on some individual tracks. "EARL" starts off with a track that has no music and is just a conversation someone is having with Tyler in the studio, insulting Earl's physical appearance and his ability to rap constantly throughout, hence the title: Thisniggaugly. And that basically puts Earl's rage in the ensuing tracks into context. The title track is the first real bit of rapping brilliance on the record, and it showcases one hell of a dirty beat that will make you wear out your speakers and subs in a heartbeat. Not to mention, the music video is just brilliant. Couch features Tyler as "Ace Creator" and another amazing beat and Earl's trademark every-line-is-quotable lyrics that never let up throughout the entire album. Oh, yeah and Tyler kills Earl at the end of the song. The third track, Kill, begins with Earl remarking "Nigga thought he killed me, huh?"

I could just do every track from here on out, but it just be cascade of me spooging over every single track saying how great Earl is and that he is the second coming of Christ Almighty. I'll spare you, and just command you to listen to it yourself. IT'S FREE!

Golf wang, fuck Steve Harvey, free Earl, burgundy carpet, etc.

Post-Grunge

Anyone that knows me, knows that I am a hardcore grunge fan. I was born just before the hype-storm touched down in late 1991, so I was 4 when Cobain called it "quits", which is what some people (Nirvana-tards) say is the official end of the grunge movement, and I was 7 when Soundgarden broke up in 1997, what others (reasonable people) say is when the scene died. But, there is a third way (my way) to mark the death of this short little Seattle storm: When did people really start trying to make a dollar off of it? Before you point out that pretty much every Seattle band was signed to a decent label by the end of '92, let me reemphasize the "really" in my previous sentence. When a major label really tries to make a buck off of a scene, they start from the ground up. They don't pick a band that happens to be from the same city and plays a vaguely similar style of music, oh no. They take bands from the other side of country, or even the other side of the world and build them up into radio friendly unit shifters (if I may borrow a line from Kurt himself). The original idea behind grunge, the rebellion against the glitzy manufactured hair bands of the 80's, is ignored, the general sound is re-engineered to be as pleasing as possible to the masses, and the message of any of the songs is dropped down to meaningless hallmark card material. What you get is post-grunge, the inevitable result of the scene gaining too much popularity and money.

At first, existing b-list bands from all over were picked because they already sounded like, or were willing to sound like, existing grunge bands within the big four. Days of the New from Kentucky sounded like Alice in Chains, Stone Temple Pilots from San Diego (hometown of Eddie Vedder no less, coincidence?) sounded like Pearl Jam, and Bush from the UK undeniably sounded like Nirvana. Several other bands from all over picked big four bands to imitate too. Oddly enough though, no one (that I can think of) decided to imitate Soundgarden. Probably because Chris Cornell's vocals were too hard to nail down (he was all over the place) and Kim Thyall's guitar work was just bit over everyone's collective heads. The first wave of post-grunge bands, that I mentioned above, all picked a band to copy for their first albums. All of these albums dropped at roughly the same time, between 1994-95, but I don't consider that the end of real grunge. After these first albums though, bands shifted more and more towards the bland basic mid 90's alt rock sound that we all remember taking up the airwaves when we were kids. By 1997 all of these bands could no longer be called copycats, because they all sounded like each other. But I don't consider that the end either.

Enter Silverchair (which incidentally found out while doing research broke up earlier this year). The launch of Silverchair's first album Frogstomp in 1995 is what I view as the end of the Seattle scene. Why? Well, Silverchair hail all the way from New South Wales, Australia. Their main claim to fame was winning a national competition called “Pick Me” with what would become their most popular song "Tomorrow" at the average band age of 15. So basically, the band was one of those American Idol/America's got Talent "bands". You know those groups, the ones who are just a little too peppy, a little too comfortable in front of a camera, and just too professional looking to have made it to where they are by themselves. It's like earlier this week when I took a rare glance at primetime television and watched an episode of America's got Talent and saw a trio of TV-friendly 8 year old girls who had formed a pop group and were now performing on national fucking television. Your bullshit-o-meter goes off at that point. These kids formed a perfectly functioning and shovel-ready band with a radio-made single already in pocket by themselves!? Bullshit. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. Silverchair were the epitome of post-grunge. They were made to cash-in. Not to stand for something. Not to rebel against something. Just to cash in. Notice I said they were "made" for this, not formed. The band may have been formed by the kids by their own accord, but they made it not by virtue of hard work, but by a label's greed. They were snatched up before the band could make a vision and given lots o' label money to manufacture a vision that the masses might like.

This may all sound like a scathing hate-filled rant against a genre I don't like (and it is for the most part), but I actually like quite a lot of post-grunge songs, mostly for nostalgia reasons, because there's not a whole lot else to find good in it. I think Bush's Sixteen Stone was the best album to come out of this mess, but that's like being the best looking guy at a Dick Cheney look-alike convention. But, that album had a lot of really catchy tunes that hold my interest even to this day. However, you could say all those albums had catchy tunes, because that's what they were made to do. I would retort by making you listen to Stone Temple Pilot's Purple, an album made of mostly filler in which the singles are the only good thing to come out of it. And, as much as it sounded like I despise Silverchair, I find myself re-listening to Tomorrow and Madman from time to time. Yeah, it's all manufactured bullshit, but it's at least fun bullshit. Even if it makes me queasy thinking about it too much.

Tyler, the Creator - Yonkers

I'm by no means the biggest hip-hop fan. In fact, I could count the number of artists that I listen to who fit the genre on one hand and still probably have a finger or two left over. Last.fm has been a huge force in my life when it comes to finding new music, and actually sparked my interest in the few hip-hop artists that I actually do listen to. Come to think of it, about 90% of the bands I listen to I found through some channel of last.fm, be it the excellent similar artists system utilized by the site, forum posts, or just browsing my friends' playlists. So, what I happened across last week while browsing an English speaking Russian friend's page while looking for more groups like Moscow death Brigade, is probably the most interesting and just plain jaw-dropping hip-hop artist I've ever listened to.

Tyler, the Creator is a 19 year old from LA who leads a small but dedicated crew of artists known as OFWGKTA (Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All). Tyler has produced and appeared in every OFWGKTA release to date, which is the sort of punk rock DIY attitude that will pull me towards any new music. Apparently, I happened across the page around the time of his new single Yonkers which is a four minute twelve second dive into the mind of a complete psychotic. Now, one of the main reasons I love the Geto Boys so much is their insane and extremely violent lyrics that hold nothing back. Tyler delves right into his lyrical assault head first in the same sort of way while still retaining a certain sense of originality, and the whole thing takes place over one of the weirdest/awesome beats I've ever heard. The subject matter of the song is Tyler talking to his conscience, the angel (or devil) on his shoulder, which eventually takes a swan dive off of his perch and ends up dead upon impact. Visualize that for a moment, put it into words, and then you may start to have some idea of how badass this song is. Not to mention, his numerous pop culture references throughout his works, including Yonker, which allude to Pitchfork Media and the cartoon show Adventure Time!.

"They say success is the best revenge
So I beat DeShay up with the stack of magazines I'm in
Oh, not again, another critic writin' report
I'm stabbin' any bloggin' faggot hipster with a Pitchfork"

Fuckin' awesome.

Tyler has one full-length that I can find called Bastard and it seems like he's set to release a new album Goblin in April, so let's just sit back, let the man do his thing, and reap the rewards.

Powerviolence

Ignoring the stupid name, powerviolence was one of the most vicious and aggressive musical movements ever on this side of the world. It was basically hardcore sped up to the point of retardation with heavily barked vocals, and it's calling card: absurd stop-on-a-dime tempo shifts with heavy sludgy guitars. Not to mention, it was a fucking short little movement. From the time that the word "powerviolence" started popping up on posters to the time most of the west-coast originators started calling it quits is a time frame of maybe three years. Nevertheless, in the digital age many kids, including myself, have begun rediscovering these bands and downloading the old vinyl.

Despite its distinct name, powerviolence bands often get thrown into the same trifecta of fast hardcore that grindcore and thrashcore both occupy and rightly so at times. The line between the three can be extraordinarily thin and bands like Despise You and Spazz didn't help things by pretty much crossing into all three territories during a single 7" spin. But who gives a fuck right? If it makes me wanna headbang, mosh, and just generally go crazy who cares what others call it. It's really just the OCD bookkeeper in me that demands that bands fit into neat little slots and folders on my computer.

So what's the point of this post? Well besides giving myself a nice writing exercise, I decided to make a top 5 list of my favorite PV records and must listens, because people should know about this shit. It was pretty much pure hate and angst put in audio form and it's fun as hell to listen to.

5. Charles Bronson - Youth Attack!


Let's kick things off with one of my all time favorites. Not a whole lot of politics or anger here, just straight up fun, and hilarious sample intros. Not much in the way of sludge or odd timing breakdowns here either, but what they lack in technicality they more than make up for in sheer fun. Sure the emoviolence kids would take their discography CD up to the northeast and lead to a whole lot of wimpy shit in the late nineties, but one could hardly pin that on CB. Youth Attack! is the obvious standout record as Bronson started off as a fairly bland straight up hardcore band and later morphed into one of the best powerviolence bands ever with this one single hilarious release.

4. Despise You - Westside Horizons


On the complete opposite end of the PV spectrum would be the so-unbearably-depressive-that-listening-to-their-albums-pretty-much-counts-as-a-suicide-attempt, Despise You and their compilation album Westside Horizons. Being the poser blasphemer that I am, I got into Despise You way too fucking late. I first started listening to PV last year and took up Despise just a few months ago, but that alone should let you know that these guys (and gal) were damned good at what they did to turn me around in such a short time. Through putting pure hate onto bloodstained vinyl, these guys perfected the sludgy breakdown and did a number of other songs that bounced back and forth between sludge and grindcore, two genres that are so impossibly different from each other it boggles the mind to think that Despise actually mixed the two. That alone makes Despised You one of the most interesting hardcore bands to listen to, period.

3. Lack of Interest - Take Another Step


Okay, so let's drop the technicality and the gimmicks. Let's do some straight up powerviolence that doesn't go all over the place. Either of Lack of Interest's albums (the other being Trapped Inside) fit the bill quite nicely, and the kicker? They're still doing shows, so if you happen to live in Cali check these guys out. But to the actual review, not a whole lot to report here. Like I said, it's straightforward powerviolence, but there are some stand out tracks like Glutton, Another Step, and Two Parts Put Together that really get my blood pumping.

2. Infest - No Man's Salve


And now to the granddaddy's of powerviolence. Being one of the originators of powerviolence in general, Infest have an extremely solid catalog, but the honeyhole of tracks would have to be No Man's Slave. Cold Inside, Sick Machine, and Punchline are three of my all time favorite tracks in all of hardcore and the rest of setlist is solid as a fucking rock too. To be fair, it's almost all fast-as-fuck hardcore with little sludge or metal influence to be found. It's like these guys just wanted to drop the fancy tricks from California hardcore, crank up the fuzz, and see how fast they could play, which is pretty much what hardcore bands were doing before they called it hardcore back in '79. But Infest made their name in 1990 by helping to remake hardcore which, for all intents and purposes, was dead at the time. You can't go wrong with some real innovators and Infest were just that.

1. No Comment - 87-93


I was just going to put No Comment's Downsided here for the top slot, but it's way too short to put in the top slot on good conscience. The whole thing (not counting the two minute long final song Curtains) clocks in at four and a half minutes. That's ten songs in under five minutes. That should pretty much tell you that these guys are going for broke and damn did it pay off. Hacked Into Chunks, Lament, and Soiled by Hate are some of the finest songs the genre has to offer, but the compilation has tons of other great songs. Farmer Hitler John and Modern Moses take a step down the artsy path but still retain their powerviolence sound and aggression. Many of the songs on the compilation execute the tale tale signs of PV flawlessly and Andrew Beattie's vocals bark out the lyrics with as much precision as the music will allow. Not to mention, the live tracks also included in the album which are of pretty decent quality. No Comment will, no doubt, keep popping up in your most played section if you are a true fan of powerviolence.

American Hardcore

Documentaries are some of my favorite films to watch. I don't know why exactly, probably because the public school system has pounded it into my head for so long that I should view myself as a "career student" that my only real passion in life is to learn and be taught. Which has it's uses, none of which have any real merit or draw from free thought, but let's put aside my quasi social meta-commentary and talk about what I promised to talk about.

American Hardcore is a documentary on. . . you guessed it: American Hardcore punk. The doc dives straight into how it started, where, why, by whom, and let's the real people behind it all do the talking. Not a narrator in sight and I like it that way. I view narrators in films the same way I view lyrics in songs. When they're good, they're good, but when they're bad, oh my God they're bad. They can hurt you a whole lot more than they can help you. A prime example of this would be the documentary on the real Avon Barksdale from the HBO series The Wire. The narrator is so loud and obnoxious you just keep wishing Mr. Barksdale would become aware of his presence and cap his ass Baltimore style.

Ian MacKaye, Henry Rollins, and a whole slew of other artists from some of the biggest and most influential hardcore bands of the day tell how they got started, what kept them going, what the music meant to them, and why it all came to a crashing halt. So, great interviews, great line-up, hilarious dialogue, and extremely informative. So what's not to like? Well, the execution of these flawless parts seems a bit schizophrenic at times, jumping back and forth between a variety of subjects in a short amount of time near the latter half of the film, but it hardly bothered me. Overall the documentary is great and full of memorable moments that will have you talking about it for a long time after its viewing.

The Long Hiatus

Since journalism is one of the few things in this world that doesn't bore me to tears or make me want to take up drinking, I have been persuaded by outside forces that blogging (I still hate that word, just the way it sounds) is one of the few things I can do to get my feet wet and make this journalism thing work. Expect weekly posts on a broad range of topics that interest me, not just music anymore. I have the documentary American Hardcore firmly in my sights for my next exposition. It'll be wrapped up before the week's out if the seven fucking inches of snow and ice don't kill the power. Oddly, I get my itches to write about shit in the winter when the weather is God-awful.

Zombie Holocaust - Strike Force

If there's one scene I wish I could be in right now, it would have to be the LA thrash metal scene. It's honestly one of the most over crowded and hotly contested scenes metal music has ever seen. Every time one of the local big boys rolls back into town after a tour or two (and by big boys I mean Warbringer, Bonded by Blood, Merciless Death, etc.) they'll throw together a local gig and co headline with another one of the bigger LA thrashers. Of course, they get some bands to open and there are literally tons of them lying in wait. Go to the myspace page of BBB or Witchaven, check out the "flyers" photo album, and you'll see what I mean. Bands like Tormenter, Hatchet, Nihilist, Fog of War, Devastator, Scythe, Armored Assassin, Premunition, Horrid, and on and on are all eager to get together for a hoedown.

Zombie Holocaust is one of those bands. So far their only significant effort has been the self released Strike Force full length, and it's got all the good stuff you'd expect from a new wave thrash band. Tons of 80's references, impressive shredding guitars, a fun DIY attitude, a genuine love of the music, and solid overall musicianship. The only problem? This has all been done before. Yeah, yeah, a song about a Star Wars character? It's been done. Party song? Municipal Waste did a whole album on the subject 2 years ago. LA Punk vocal style? Please, it's been done to death for decades.

While there's nothing inherently wrong with this release, there's nothing right about it either. There's a reason why this band hasn't been signed and that's because they haven't made any splash in the scene yet. They're just along for the ride and picking up where everyone's been for quite sometime now. Hell, they're probably don't even care about getting signed and are just doing it for shit's a giggles. Who am I to judge? If they're genuinely having fun with it, and deciding to self release some material every now and again, by all means go for it. If they ever stop by close (they've done just one US tour and it only hit 14 cities)I'll gladly pay my five dollars to see 'em jam. However if I lived in LA, I'd shit bricks to see these guys open with half a dozen of their contemporaries and be stoked every time.