Keith's Amusing Musings » Music

Brother Ali – Truth is Here

Keith — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 19:39:58 +0000

I have not written a music-related post since December and my last album review posted in April 2008. While it may seem I was once again musicless in Seattle, the truth is I have been so busy enjoying so many recent additions to my music collection I have not made time to write about it.

Truth is Here is Brother Ali’s first release to have a legitimate shot at gaining him mainstream recognition. While his previous four releases are underground par excellence, only “Truth Is” from The Undisputed Truth received any significant coverage by mainstream radio. The Undisputed Truth peaked at 69 on the Billboard 200.

Ali’s newest release is well produced, lyrically rich and refreshingly relevant in this age of disposable hip-hop. I believe he will finally break through. The only real criticism I have is the release is too short. It is officially an extended play (EP) which means it is longer than a single but shorter than a full, long-playing (LP) album. Truth is Here consists of nine tracks composed of three sought-after B-sides and six previously unreleased songs, totaling roughly 34 minutes in length.

As for the production, Ali reunites with Rhymesayers Entertainment cohort, Ant, who weaves intricate tapestries of lush soundscapes that mesh perfectly with Ali’s burgeoning content. The two fit together as emcee and producer like hip-hop Velcro®. Ali’s lyrics are the hook and Ant’s production the loop.

Truth is Here gets 4 out of 5 on the “Tyrone Biggums” scale. (reference)

When a release is this good, you add a few tracks and make it an LP. This EP created a lot of buzz and raises expectations for his forthcoming fourth LP, Us, due to hit the street September 22.

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Winner: A picture is worth 300 albums

Keith — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 04:19:05 +0000

The winner of the “A picture is worth 300 albums” contest is: No one.

Nichole is the only person who submitted an entry. Notably, all four of her answers were correct. However, she missed two of the four Anita Baker albums. As a consolation prize, she has won her choice of one of the six albums involved in the contest. Congrats, Nichole!

The answers are below for anyone who is curious. I hope to have a better showing in future contests.

Anita Baker

The Songstress (1983)
Rapture (1986)
Giving You the Best that I Got (1988)
My Everything (2004)

Coldplay

Parachutes (2000)
X&Y (2005)

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A picture is worth 300 albums

Keith — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 06:52:29 +0000

I have written about the Zune desktop software previously and one of my favorite features is the “Album Art Wall.” Basically, the software displays a random assortment of cover art from albums in your music collection to completely fill the screen. The example image below was captured at the full 1920×1200 resolution of my primary display at home. It’s a neat way to see about 300 thumbnails from the 1065 albums in my collection (ranging from Aaliyah to Zapp). The Zune desktop software is available as a free download even if you don’t own a Zune device. I highly recommend it over iTunes if you listen to music at your computer.

Here’s a challenge for you: Coldplay is one of my favorite groups and and TB loves Anita Baker. Can you name the Coldplay and Anita Baker albums visible in the “Album Art Wall” below? If so, leave a comment with your answer. The first person with the correct answer will win something fun.

(Click here for the full-size image)

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Control your Sonos system with the iPhone

Keith — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:41:31 +0000

If you are relatively new to my blog, you may have to dig through the archives to discover I like the Sonos music distribution system. Since I wrote that post lots has changed that makes me like it even more.

First, with the recent v2.7 software update, Sonos owners now have free access to Pandora and Last.fm music streaming services. I have subscribed to Pandora in the past and both services are excellent alternatives to normal FM radio broadcasts because they are commercial-free and play songs based on your musical tastes. Now that they are free to Sonos owners, users of XM/Sirius radio might also want to take notice.

Second, Sonos provides a first-party application through the Apple App Store for controlling Sonos Zone Players using an iPhone or iPod touch. All you need is a Wi-Fi connection and you can control all your zones and access your entire music library anywhere in your home using the intuitive iPhone touch interface. This is great because Sonos charges $399 for a CR100 controller that does the same thing using a smaller screen and more complicated series of buttons and a circa-iPod-Generation-2 jog dial.

Check out the pictures below that I grabbed from my iPhone while playing around with our Sonos setup.

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Blu & Exile: Below the Heavens

Keith — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 23:26:07 +0000

While in Chicago a few weeks back, my brother-in-law-in-law (TB’s sister’s husband) introduced me to Below the Heavens, an indie/underground hip-hop album released last summer. The critically acclaimed work combines DJ/producer, Exile, and new-comer rapper, Blu. I purchased the album for $6.99 in DRM-free MP3 form from the Amazon Store.

The duo’s chemistry is reminiscent of that last heard on the Gnarls Barkley freshman release, St. Elsewhere, one of my favorite albums of 2006. There is an interview with pictures on illRoots.com. Curiously, while Danger Mouse is skinny and Cee-Lo rotund, Exile is big-boned and Blu could play Pookie in New Jack City 2.

All jokes aside, Below the Heavens is hip-hop Bundt cake: dense with an amazing panoply of old school samples, glazed with lyrical dexterity. This album will lift your spirit and may expand your brain matter. Last night, the album lifted my spirit (and legs) so much, I ran my first 10K (6 miles). Not bad.

Below the Heavens gets 4.5 out of 5 on the “Tyrone Biggums” scale. (reference)

Exile’s production gets sloppy and Blu’s lyrics lose focus in a few lulls. Otherwise, it would be perfect.Similar Posts

Building a Home Theater PC to Replace our TiVo

Keith — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 03:29:03 +0000

I just published a write-up I have been working on for a few weeks about my experience building a top-of-the-line Vista Media Center (VMC) home theater PC (HTPC) to replace our TiVo Series3. Only true PC geeks and gadget nerds are allowed unless you are just curious to see a real-world example of how much premium retail electronics get marked up. Here is an actual shot of our Sony flat panel displaying the new machine in action.

TB is still on the fence so it’s not clear whether the HTPC meets the WAF. She loves TiVo so the VMC interface has to be demonstrably better and the HTPC hardware very reliable to meet her bar. I’ve already removed the safety net by disconnecting the TiVo from the main TV. We’ll put it in the bedroom at least until our one-year prepaid service expires in July. My mother-in-law will be here in a couple weeks which will be a good “guest test” as well. The only potential problem is she loves TiVo too.

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Eliot Spitzer Gets Caught in the Cookie Jar

Keith — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 02:46:18 +0000

Eliot Spitzer skyrocketed as the tenacious New York State Attorney General who brought the pain to Wall Street wrongdoers and NYC ne’er-do-wells alike. He was also one of the chief haters trying to split up Microsoft back in 2000.

Imagine my chagrin reading today’s headlines that Mr. Spitzer got caught up in an upscale prostitution ring. A federal wiretap caught Eliot “Client 9″ Spitzer, having a woman from Emperors Club VIP, fly from New York to D.C. to meet him in a hotel room registered under George Fox, the name of one of his close friends. This is a plot ripped from the Lifetime Movie Network…not that I watch Lifetime or anything.

I’m not one to kick a man when he is down so I will instead provide Mr. Spitzer—and others facing similar prospects—with a bit of advice, courtesy of NYC’s prodigal son, Jay-Z, the rapper. (Who better to give advice on ethics and morals than a rapper?)

The following is taken from the song “Trouble” on Jay-Z’s album Kingdom Come:

Smelling like Patron, singing dirty rap songs
Tiptoeing in the crib like six in the morn’
Everyday is the same, I said on Blueprint that I’d “Never Change”
It’s just a part of the game

Respect me I’m a thug, I might cool out for a sec
But expect me to bug, it’s in my blood
But if my chick leave me she gon’ leave me for somethin’
She gon’ leave me ’cause of Halle, she ain’t gon’ leave me for nothin’

Picture me gettin’ up with something sleazy
Something, something, so easy you could take out of speed like nothin’
Somethin’ soon as you finish cuttin, you like, “Leave me please!”
Not me, I need Angelina Joleezy comfort

So I ain’t gon’ make a move unless I got a Plan B
That’ll happen the day I have a baby by Free
Not to say that anything is wrong with Free
Just to say that ain’t nothing wrong with B

If my hand’s in the cookie jar, know one thing
I’ma take the cookie, not leave my ring
If my hand’s in the cookie jar, know one thing
I’ma take [laughs] y’all know what I mean

I wonder if Lifetime will option the Eliot Spitzer story.Similar Posts

Welcome to the Social, Part 2

Keith — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 18:15:32 +0000

Flexing its social networking muscle, the Zune experience now includes customizable Zune Cards that let you to share your music preferences and listening habits with the world (or a restricted group of your friends). Here is an example of an actual Zune Card in action (try navigating the list and clicking the links):

To create your own Zune Card, visit the Zune Card Generator created by Dan Grossman. It generates the code necessary to put either a small or large badge on your blog or site. All you have to do is copy & paste.

Those of you big into the social networking craze may find Zune Cards natural. I already share enough of my life on the Internets and haven’t enabled this feature in the Zune software just yet. We’ll see…

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Old Zune Gets New Life

Keith — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 18:01:48 +0000

It has been about a month since my last Zune post. My Zune 80 is alive and well but I have not traveled this last month and my primary music player for the gym is an iPod nano with its Nike+ support. The ironic thing is buying a new Zune 80 back in December actually has injected new life into my original Zune 30, which I now listen to almost daily.

After placing my Zune 80 order, I was not quite sure what to do with the bulkier and lower capacity Zune 30. Around the time of that quandary Woot ran a special on the Altec Lansing M604 Powered Audio System for Zune, selling the units for $45 brand new while supplies lasted. I decided I would buy one and use my Zune 30 with the M604 system at work.

It took about a month for the speaker system to arrive due to popularity of the offer and the holiday backlog, but everything has worked like a charm since. Now my old Zune 30 sits in the M604 dock on my bookshelf at the office piping out jazz, classical and easy listening background music throughout the workday.

The M604 has excellent sound quality and durable construction. I really like the included remote which makes it easy to adjust the volume and skip through playlists from a distance.Similar Posts

The Time I Met Quincy Jones

Keith — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 06:14:00 +0000

I was driving home from the office tonight listening to the shuffled playback of music on my in-car MP3 stereo. The deck has something like 10,000 songs on it which is like an infinite music supply for my 15-minute morning and evening commutes. Randomly, Quincy Jones’ cover of the song “Ai no Corrida” from his album, The Dude, came up in the queue.

Humming along, I momentarily drifted back to the summer of ’94 when I met Mr. Jones. I was a summer intern at Microsoft working in what was then known as the Consumer Division under Patti Stonesifer (currently CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation). I was piddling behind the keyboard as usual on a workday afternoon, at the desk closest to the doorway of the office I shared with a guy who’d just completed his senior year at college—he paid me no attention but having an older office mate seemed like a big deal because I was heading into my sophomore year and graduation seemed so far away.

With my eyes scanning the vast 13″ CRT display attached to a then state-of-the-art 486 computer running Windows for Workgroups 3.11, I caught a brief glimpse out of my right eye of a dark figure passing through the corridor. I thought to myself, “Was that Quincy Jones?” paused, then turned toward my office mate and asked him the same question. Without taking his eyes from his screen he shrugged and flatly replied, “Quincy who?” His routine wardrobe of Guns N’ Roses T-shirts should have told me better. (I can’t lie, I rocked out to “Sweet Child o’ Mine” too…don’t tell anyone from my ‘hood though.)

A few seconds passed, and the dark figure again appeared in my periphery to the right, but this time it was stationary, directly in front of the open doorway. I didn’t want to get caught sleeping like McLovin in the Superbad liquor store scene, so I quickly swiveled my chair to the right while, simultaneously, backing away from my workstation and glancing up, fists cocked and ready to rumble.

A mild-mannered, medium-framed, north-of-middle-aged Black dude glanced down at me warmly, almost paternalistically. His small entourage was at rest a few steps behind his left shoulder. The gears were spinning at this point, and the gentleman extended his hand toward me with a smile and said, “Hello, I’m Quincy Jones.” I was like, “Get the @%!* outta here. Yeah, right!” (in my head) but, while shaking his hand and telling him my name and how nice it was to meet him, I realized it really was The Dude.

He and his crew continued down the corridor. I turned to my office mate (all excited) and told him it was Quincy Jones. He was even more unimpressed and unconcerned. Whatever.

While I didn’t go on one of those crazy, “I’m never washing this hand again” trips, I was elated to meet one of my musical heroes. You see, I played the trumpet and so did Mr. Jones (before becoming a prolific composer, conductor and producer). I didn’t know until later that he is actually from Seattle (as you may recall from the film Ray) and he was probably visiting the Microsoft campus negotiating something-or-other and, as Ray Charles would say, making it do what it do.

One thing that really stayed with me since that day is how this world-renowned, accomplished man came back to my office to introduce himself to me. That says a lot about his character. To borrow from Rudyard Kipling’s “If”:

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much…

The other thing that stuck with me is his hands seemed massive for his size. Shaking his hand was like gripping a bunch of bananas. I’m so glad he didn’t catch me with that McLovin sucker punch.Similar Posts