Project Pat - Raised In The Projects

Xgau disses Greil Marcus with 128 bars

Are they drinking pounders?

Just when you thought a band couldn’t possible eclipse the royal ball-washing that was the critical reception to TV on the Radio’s Return to Cookie Mountain, there came a bunch of dudes from Minneapolis who like beer, AC/DC, and apparently make music as good as Bob Dylan. Yes, folks, The Hold Steady, already big with critics [1] because their music seems to be about words and America rather than notes and outerspace, recently dropped their third album, Boys and Girls in America, and as a result, the Times gave them a exciting interactive feature: a map of the US, dotted with free (!) snippets (better than nothing) of Hold Steady songs about the corresponding place on the map. The profile that spawned said cool interactive feature was written by inveterate anti-rockist Kelefa Sanneh and was considered to be so good that it costs $4.95 to read online (on TimesSelect, which has a orange icon that tells you it’s special).

Luckily, I know people who know people who hacked into LexisNexis, so I got that shit sans ads about “Classic Paul Krugman” columns (that guy does have a solid mustache, though). Anyway, Sanneh loves The Hold Steady, probably because they aren’t from New York (even though they live in Brooklyn now), really skinny, in their mid-twenties, clad in patent-leather white belts, recycling angular post-punk chugging art rock, and featuring gypsy instrumentation, nautical narratives or singers who sound constipated and really sad. This is true for other critics too. The Hold Steady are a refreshing respite from bands whose music and lyrics are just trying so hard either to be important art like Sonic Youth, or to seem like they really aren’t trying, like Pavement.

The Hold Steady are “compiling a guide to the country's wasted wayward youth” Sanneh writes. So in turn, Sanneh compiled a guide to the Hold Steady’s “states of America,” which runs though all the places Finn writes about, such as Minneaolis, MN, Modesto, CA, and Hostile, MA, which doesn’t exist. I suppose the way Finn writes specifically, rather than metaphorically or allegorically, about all the places where kids get drunk, listen to punk rock and kiss each other, is grounding and unpretentious; instead of telling us, for instance, that he’s an “American aquarium drinker” (come on, that would be gross). Sanneh’s article is a bit bizarre, as he doesn’t explicitly evaluate the Hold Steady’s music, let alone call them the best band in the world; although he is basically implying as much by writing a 2000-word profile about them in the Times. I mean, Frank Rich only gets like 1000, and he writes about how art can change the world, or something.

The internet loves the Hold Steady too. Pitchforkmedia.com, the taste-making website that has convinced all the aspiring hipsters in the world that indie rock and coke rap are the only really cool musics, gave it up to Finn and his merry men by slapping a 9.4 on Boys and Girls in America. Like a rogue gymnastics judge, ‘Fork may have irresponsibly commended a stunted, prepubescent Chinese girl. Or sold a shitload of Hold Steady albums to kids wearing Chuck Taylors that were made 39 years after the great salesman/basketball player died [2]. Pitchfork is a site that made its name with overblown, name-dropping, pedantic 1000 word reviews that come conveniently labeled with visible ratings. So if a band gets a 9.3, that means that 93% of their album is NOT derived from Pere Ubu or 93% or their choruses will make semi-attractive girls take off their clothes. More than anything, though, Pitchfork is a buyers guide, or downloaders guide, or shoplifters guide [3] for indie kids. As much as mp3 blogs generate conspiratorial instahype, it takes a good rating from Pitchfork to get your indie album cyberjumpin off the cybershelves of iTunes. In the case of the Hold Steady, the indie kids coppin Boys and Girls aren’t gonna find ominous melodies that sound like they were recorded in caves, or accordions, or “literate lyrics”—the stuff they have been taught is music that will make the girl with bangs like you. They’re gonna find Thin Lizzy and a guy mumbling about something.

So enter Chris Ott, former Pitchfork writer, to diagnose the critical success of The Hold Steady in one installment in a series for the Village Voice called “Blogwash: Deciphering Internet Praise” [4] Ott is positioning himself as a Dale Peck of music criticism, pulling hatchet jobs on heavily lauded bands of late: “the death-dirge apocalypso fusion of Bowie/Byrne protégés TV on the Radio and the Arcade Fire, and the ill- defined nihilism of Deerhoof.” [5]. Or more precisely, it is the critical hordes responsible for the consensus that deserve the blade. For Ott, recent pop music criticism is an “anxious universe of early adoption” which has “celebrated the dourest, most difficult or deranged music [it] can find.” Calling TVOTR and The Arcade Fire the most difficult and deranged music around is certainly a strange position. Both bands write structured songs, use simple rock progressions, sing in a language that is not made up, don’t wear assless pants, etc. I would agree that the dressing is conceptual and pretentious, and in both cases impedes what is basically some kind of relatively exciting rock music. But difficult and deranged these two bands aren’t. Deerhoof is the farthest of the Ott’s triumvirate away from typical rock song structures, and their singer is a little Japanese woman, but its not like they’re playing Ascension-era Coltrane or writing rap songs about Centaurs. Ott makes another inexplicable claim when he writes that all three of said bands “descended” from Pere Ubu (who I’ve already referenced here once so Ott knows I’m down). It would be one thing to say that all three bands were influenced by Pere Ubu, or that Pere Ubu was such a revolutionary post-punk band that almost all of the bands still playing off-kilter smart punk rock are cribbing them, or at least paying homage (although you could site another more successful post-punk band from Ohio as having the same influence). It’s another thing to say that Pere Ubu is the one and only father of all three bands. Ott puts a quarter in his ass with that one.

In the Hold Steady piece, Ott hangs out with the band and shows them the Pitchfork review, which they laugh at. The review compares the band to Pulp, which Ott says is ridiculous because Jarvis Cocker is skinny and does a lot of coke, whereas Finn is fat and drinks beer. Ott also talks to the band about critics’ insistence on comparing Boys and Girls to Springsteen. “Because there’s piano?” the guitarist asks before he says that he’s more likely pay royalties to Jimmy Page. Personally I think he should pay the guy who invented music. Naturally, though, Finn is most indebted to Paul Westerberg. Hailing from the same Midwestern coldplace as the Replacements, The Hold Steady aspire to play the kind of everypunk beer music Westerberg and co. did so thrillingly.

The problem with this comparison though, is that Westerberg was a great songwriter, and one of the best rock singers of all time. Finn on the other hand, is not a singer at all. It’s not that he “has a bad voice,” like Dylan or “has no range” like Strummer or that “he doesn’t bother to sing in tune” like Malkmus. All three of those guys are tremendous singers because they end up conquering and using to their advantage what at first seems to be limitation. As Dave Berman, a great singer who can’t sing, says, “all my favorite singers couldn’t sing;” indeed, besides Paul McCartney, who is probably Kaiser Soze, and Jeff Buckley, who should’ve taken drunken swimming lessens, the history of rock is all frontmen who can’t really sing. The best of them find such a commanding way to try that they fool us into thinking they’re actually musically accomplished in a technical way.

Finn is more aptly compared the incorrigible post-punk bleaters Mark E. Smith and John Lydon (formerly Rotton), both of whom have little interest in or capacity for making sounds with their voices that have much to do with what the people playing instruments behind them are doing. For the fan-critics, Finn’s mumbling is a virtue, because it puts his lyrics upfront, even if they’re unintelligible. His nuanced yet commonplace tales of kids getting messed up are supposed to tell us something “specifically universal” or “universally specific” about America. Or something like that. But, come on, its not like he’s Ice Cube! Some of his lines would have even Papoose on his heals, and some of the stories are worthy of Kerouac’s methed-up, pit-stained beat scroll [6]—all are very difficult to hear.

I should say that Finn does try to sing more on Boys and Girls, and when he parleys with the guitars, the songs take off: “Chips Ahoy!” and “Massive Nights”. The melodies come out and bring the lyrics with them, not vice versa. I never heard the words on the first two Hold Steady albums, because, save the “Hoodrat Friend” song, Finn and the guitars were in different places entirely. They couldv’t slapped some Tupac verse on there and the effect wouldn’t have been much different. The pianos and keyboards, played by a guy named Franz Nicolay who has a Poirot mustache, help reconcile Finn and the power chords/four on the floor AC/DC rock. About half the record is very good in this way. As far as the other half goes, the songs don’t make you want to bust out 140 pound dumbbell sets with each arm, so you don’t end up caring about what Finn is blathering about.

Ott seems to like the album more than me, but this might be because he got to hang out with the band. He’s more concerned with the blogwash, though, which he thinks might be “more damaging than any dances or dates Finn was coldly ejected from.” According to Ott, “boundless praise” has dug a “dank hole” [7] for the Hold Steady to climb out of. I’m not sure what he means by this. Is this metaphorical moist cavern making Finn sad because he won’t have the thrill of eating mustard for lunch, or is it that critics, even though they like him and his band, don’t really understand them.

Call me crazy, but if you’re in a band, and some modicum of people buy your records, rather than say, throw a handful of thimbles at you when you play, aren’t you one of the luckiest people above the poverty line? Aren’t you supposed to be happy people are letting you play guitars and yell into microphones for a living? I hope Finn and co. aren’t in the frame of mind Ott implies, because that would make them raging fuckbaskets. Bands have only one responsibility, and that’s to be a band and make records. Any band that lets themselves be killed by critics is not worthy of their own hair.

More likely, what’s going on here is that Ott wants to play a game of critical one-upsmanship, which has nothing to do with music, or anything besides criticism. He implies that the Hold Steady are in on his game, but I have a feeling they’re not looking checking the equine orthodontia like he implies. Ott drinks beers with the Hold Steady and they totally know what he means and they laughed with him about the Pitchfork guy, so they’re bros. But The Hold Steady do stuff that people can get drunk to. Ott writes words.

Ultimately, all this hubbub about the Hold Steady is about delivering indie-rock from its own annoying rubric. It still loves itself and insists that indie-rock isn’t really a genre, thus unwittingly perpetuating itself. But for writers, indie-rock has been decidedly uncool for about 10 years, when Pavement broke up and Sonic Youth bought a minivan. Yet since the post-2000 renaissance of cool indie-rock brought about by well dressed New York bands who knew exactly who to bite and how, indie-rock became an annoying pop-cultural [8] infrastructure. And the critical opinion about faux-critics, which moves infinitely faster than the culture which aligns the faux-critics, is instantly allergic to consensuses that come about when an cultural infrastructure like indie-rock’s solidifies. So critics like Ott and Sanneh, who position themselves outside of the indie consensus, have been floundering to find an antidote to the problem. They’ve been grasping all over the extrarock horizon, from MIA to the Clipse to Tom Ze and fucking Cam’ron of all people, to gain respite from Conor Oberst, Sufjan Stevens, and other little indie guys who are very annoying. But the problem is that most pop music critics are rock fans who want a fucking rock band to rock out to that also unwittingly making the greatest art ever. (Basically, this non-existant band is Radiohead if they were an unassuming American band that didn’t have anxieties about technological progress.) They are dying for a rock band to somehow reinvent a genre that’s been unreinventable since 1978. Not just a reason to throw modestly priced beer at people, but a reason to throw expensive beer at people and then send a time-capsule into outer space because aliens need to feel this science.


Notes:


[1] Which every critic makes sure he or she mentions, to make sure that he or she is not coming across like “hey I’ve got the scoop on this band”; rather, he or she is letting the reader know that he or she is outside any buzz machine and even though he or she is writing a “review” or a “profile,” he or she wants to comment on the perceived critical acclaim as much as the band or record in question. This way, he or she is above the pedestrian “review” or “profile” form, and on his or her way to becoming the next Hunter S. Thompson. What if the grammatical construction “he or she” was changed to “pat”? Would anyone be opposed to that?

[2] Chuck Taylor died in 1969 of a heart attack, but, according to Wikipedia, not before he making excellent use of the Converse Corporation’s expense account while on the road hocking shoes. I can’t tell you how glad that some Wikipedia scholar made sure to research Chuck Taylor’s spending habits. I mean, I’m about to eat a sandwich.

[3] “Yo, I totally just jacked Destroyer’s Rubies.” “Why?...Because I only have enough bones for Hell Hath No Fury and I wanna make sure the counter girl knows I’m hard and I like wordplay.” “It got pushed back again? Well fuck, Pitchfork reviewed it, I read the review this morning, they said there was a lot of wordplay!” “Pitchfork only reviewed it because a guerrilla/pirate label released it in Djbouti? Oh well shit can I mail order the import?” “What?...There are no planes in Djbouti? Well how’d ‘fork get it?” “It was smuggled in by the guy in the Decemberists who stowed away on a Morrocan merchant clipper?” “Fuck maybe I’ll just pay for this then.” “Wait what did the Decemberists get…an 8.4?” “Nah its gotta be above 9.0 for me to utilize my bones and cop it when it drops.” “Fuck it, I’m buyin Futurefuck/Assclown, girls love that guy and when I buy it, the counter girl, I think her name’s “Summer” or “Autumn,” mos def one of the seasons, I forget which one—anyway, she’s gonna respect me so much for admitting I like JT that she’s gonna ask me if I wanna share a California roll later!”

[4] “Blogwash” is a good blog pun, although “blogorhea” is still my favorite. But man, besides puns, there is so much blogslang (not in the lexical archives of urbandicionary.com) its all so hard to keep track of. Even “blog” is slang for “weblog” which is short for “world wide web log.” I love the luddites who use the term “weblog,” but not as much as I love people who say “the web” instead of “the internet.” Anyway, here’s an entry at urbandicitonary that is by far the best thing I’ve seen on that site. I mean, this was clearly written by a genius:

blogosphereatronisaurausrex

a blogosphereatronisaurausr ex is the latest hot shit, its whats so much cooler then top 8 on myspace. its when you paste a picture of aunt jemima maple syrup on your page, with a picture of your number one friend on the bottle instead of aunt jemima. yeah its pretty awesome

insert picture of a bottle of syrup with your best friends picture on it, and not aunt jemimas, unless aunt jemimas your best friend in which case i love you.
" my friend lil suzy took me off her top 8 an replaced me with some girl named muffinhips, but its ok, cause iam on here blogosphereatronisaurausr ex so i knw iam still her #1 boo. "

tags: batcave blog pogs ice skateing latin porn
by Jeph` roseville Aug 29, 2006

I like that whoever wrote it (not me by the way) made sure to put the appropriate tags on there.

[5] Now even though I’m not as up on my death-dirge apocalypso as I used to be, I would agree that critics [insert fellatio reference] TVOTR and the Arcade Fire like their [insert male genitalia (plural) reference] are made of [insert something that is sweet yet savory, like grilled shrimp]. TVOTR’s latest, mentioned at the head (NPI), is the most egregious example of plainly inaccurate critical consensus since Late Registration, which is for everyone to poop on all the time (besides "Diamonds are Forever"). The Arcade Fire played one of the best live shows I’ve ever seen, so I have more love for them, even if everyone does too and their record has the old “doesn’t capture the live show” thing going on. Ott is way off the mark with Deerhoof, however. Not only is the ‘Hoof the unimpeachable kind of shit, they’re too off-kilter and they have a singer who sounds too much like a Pokemon to get the same kind of mainstream critical attention as TVOTR and the Arcade Fire.

[6] Another thing reviewers of Boys and Girls in America make sure you know is that the title is from On the Road, which Finn invokes in the first lyric: “there are nights when I think that Sal Paradise was right. / Boys and girls in America have such a sad time together.” If I interviewed Finn, I would ask him if his wife engineered a clothesline rotisserie of T-shirts like ‘Ouac’s did as he hammered furiously at the scroll that would make him the voice of people who hated culture and were mad, mad, and delirious to write parodies of him as soon as his style became stale.

[7] Why is this metaphorical hole “dank”? Music critics should not be allowed to use adjectives anymore.

[8] The Indie-rock/hipster culture must be thought of as a decidedly Pop-cultural phenomenon. Whereas OG, actual independent rock (ie The Minutemen, Pavement, SY, Mission of Burma) actually stood against pop culture, the new alliance of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, the internet (Pitchfork and the blogosphere) with artistically ambitious rock music has created a startlingly homogenous culture that anyone in the world can not only instantly access but also opt into wholehog without any connection to a social or musical movement against some conception of the mainstream or pop sensibility. So although indie-rock is identified with literature, critics, and art, it is in effect no different from any other permutation of pop cultural music, such as hip-hop, emo or TRL pop.

Zion I & The Grouch - Hit 'Em ft. Mistah FAB

Merry Christmas

Featuring "The Most Dangerous Man In the World," Ken Shamrock

Time for FoodManTooth's first annual Halloween feast:

B-Real & Dr. Dre - Puppet Master, originally released on DJ Muggs's Soul Assassins Volume 1. Peep B-Real of Cypress Hill done up all Goldfinger-like (no Anderson Cooper).

In the "Stay Fly" video, Juicy J pioneered a new trend, bitten first by Sordid Puppy and then by everyone else in the universe. This will remain one of my favorite songs ever.

It's too bad Rap is only interested in embracing regional genres like hyphy and crunk and whatever else. Horrorcore has yielded more quality tunes over the years than all of those put together. "Tell me your deepest fear. TELL ME YOUR DEEPEST FEAR!"

Don't get Horrorcore confused with this tripe. This shit is really popular where I grew up, which I'm fairly certain is not a good thing.

This might scare you, if you're afeared of Dipset or the idea of covering a song from Reasonable Doubt and then groping for publicity by dissing Jay-Z makes you queasy. "Imitate Jim Jones/End up like Cory Lidle" - Joe Budden

When I was in, say, 7th grade, I saw this video and thought it the best thing I'd ever seen. It's still a good song. This is the first and last time I post about Tool.

Gravediggaz. I guess this video's a little heavier with the imagery, but "Nowhere to Run, Nowhere to Hide" is an absolute classic.

This is just terrifying.

Più Pesce

This album wipes its ass with Paul McCartney

So, if we believe the Wu-Tang website, and some excerpted interview with Jay-Z on the XXL website, which FMT obviously found out about from Nahright, Ghostface has an another album coming out right after Xmas, called More Fish. Since releasing rap albums is, like naming your kid Adolf, somthing you just don't do these days, I'm thinkin' about this like I do about owning an elephant that I can ride around town on. But since Pretty Ton' is basically the only living person as smart as Shakespeare and Einstein COMBINED, I'm excited anyway.

Ghost's been on the scene these days:



Ghost - Yo boom God, Jigga, I got More Fish at the stash house in Hackensack, shizzam bangles, powder blue wallies is wicked.
Jay - ...uh...
Ghost - yo you know I hit mics like Ted Koppel, rifle expert. Yo we gotta go at this one harder than Fishscale, ninja street teams, hoodied up, blood in in their eyes, you know. Instead of Ne-Yo, maybe get Luther Vandross. You know his people?
Jay - He's dead.
Ghost - Yo, aight, Weekend at Bernie's whatever, we gotta get Luther.
Jay - Who are you again?

And then at some the mtvU Woodie Awards (yeah I don't know what that is either) with Lady Sovereign.



Ghost - Yo boom God, they got wallies in size 3 too.
Sov - Geezers need excitement.
Ghost - Queen Elizabeth rub on my leg, had ketchup on her dress from a whopper. Fuckin with Diana. Two rows across, Dirty giving hickeys to Vanna White, fingering Pamela Lee
Sov - Where's Hova, Jim Jones just told me Def Jam's gettin sued by Rick Rubin's beard.
Ghost - Capo? Starks and Cappadon' used a throw skelly wit Jimmy.
Sov - I don't know what that means.



Jim Jones - BALLIN!!....yo Ghost where's Cappadonna, I owe him a tip for the cab ride.

Twist Starts from the Heart

So both of them are gay?

Top Ten Things I, Slothra Could Post About Right Now (not including top ten lists--fuck a charlie kaufman)

10. My recent discovery of Everything Bagels. I once feared the populist cacophony of bits stuck to the holy staple. Now I welcome it. The onion plays well off cream cheese, yet is tempered by the sesame and poppy seeds. There is a metaphor in here about the 80s celtics.

9. Dane Cook. Not about how he's not funny or that lame people like him (i think lame people hate him now too) but about how people, such as Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone have an insatiable need to tell everyone that he sucks. Ok, he sucks, stand-up sucks in general, yadda yadda yadda. The guy is just a business machine. Is there a need to announce every once and awhile that Piff Duddy can't rap? No, that would be like me announcing to people I pass that my appendix is not the most ambitious organ in my body. Who cares, move on.

8. Beach House. A dude and a chick from Baltimore, the city that must end up in every other FMT post. New band, blog hype, but a good band just the same, listen when there are amateur fireworks around.

7. The Knife. Puppy downloaded some shit a while ago, and I didn't really pay enough attention to it to tell that they're the fucking shit. Swedish siblings, synths, lyrics about how "you make me like charity." This is music to listen to with 6 foot tall models wearing patent leather body suits while eating 151 soaked maraschino cherries.

6. Scorcese. Saw The Departed twice. Upset "Theif's Theme" didn't make it on to the soundtrack, even though it's in the movie for seven seconds, when Leo and the greasy cousin are talking about selling drugs near Worchester. Don't know why I care what's on the soundtrack since there's no way I buy that shit.

5. Galoshes. Chicks love these shits these days.
- "Is it raining?"
- "No, sprinkling a little maybe....uh....you put on your galoshes before I said maybe"
- "What are galoshes?"
- "those rubber lime green shits on your feet"
- "oh I just call em boots or rubber boots"
- "either way, it's not raining"
- "it's spitting, I need my boots"
- "..."

4. Kenny Rodgers Dirtgate. Love when people add -gate to shit. Esp. when it's inappropriate.
- "you wanna go get lunchgate"
- "excuse me?"
- "lunchgate!"
- "take your hand off my face please."

3. Robert Chirstgau writing for RS. Like John Coltrane's cadaver joining a Linkin Park cover band cover band.

2. My desire for the FMT logo to be in old english font against a raised background of a manatee picture; and my inability to make this happen. Puppy?

1. The 3000 words posts that I write for no reason and then don't post because it takes too long to proofread them.

S.P. News

Get your kicks pimped by Johnny Jaywalker

Nahright's got a great new mixtape from the other S.P. Cop it here (download WinRAR to decompress).

I'm really feeling the few tracks I've heard from Philly native Oddisee, particularly "Once Again" featuring Freddie Foxxx.

Okayplayer's got an artist spotlight for Nicolay, as well; he deserved at least half the credit for one of my favorite albums of 2004, and "I Am the Man," which you can download here, satisfies.

Juicy J and DJ Paul lend Juicy's older brother Project Pat some phlogiston for his new single.

Salad Fingers, Burnt Face Man, etc.

Quite possibly the illest tee I've ever laid eyes upon.

Rich Boy feat Polow - Throw Some D's

You're a Neat Girl

"Heineken?!?! Fuck that shit!! Pabst Blue Ribbon!!!"

Here's the link for the second video off Chrome Children.

Jay-Z's video for "Show Me What You Got" debuted today. If you don't feel like watching it on YouTube, just turn on your telly and tune into BET at any time; I think they're playing it continuously all day. The track itself leaked a week or two ago, and it's a good song, but it functions best as the theme music to Danica Patrick and Dale Earnhardt Jr. driving Ferraris around Monaco. F. Gary Gray directed this, Jay's most decadent video to date, and it's fun to watch and everything, particularly because of the, um, cars and boats and girls and stuff. Danica Patrick is hot? Jay-Z disses Cristal and suavely presents some scorcher with a briefcase containing a bottle of champagne (Veuve Clicquot? Who cares?). Now THERE is an important statement made.

There's a few really nice Hi-Tek tracks on this Big Mike mixtape: "Music Is Life," "Go Back," and "Josephine." Apparently, these joints and others (including "Where It Started At") are making it onto Hi-Teknology 2: The Chip, which is dropping...drum roll, please...tomorrow. Wait -- an album gets great publicity off a mixtape and a video and then actually comes out on time, so as to capitalize on the exposure? This can't be happening. Babygrande will pull it -- oh wait, shit, Babygrande?!?!?!?! The independent label that houses (and consistently puts out albums from) artists from the Gza to Immortal Technique to Purple City? No WONDER Hi-Tek had a chance, unlike some of his less fortunate peers.

It seems like huge labels are about the worst places to be right now if you're ever interested in putting material out in a timely fashion (or, in some cases, at all). IF your album IS released, don't expect to get a video or any other kind of promotion that you don't do on your own. Def Jam handed The Roots and Method Man a couple of poop sandwiches and told them to eat. The Clipse seem doomed to catch cases instead of the platinum plaques that they unquestionably deserve. Hell Hath No Fury has a November 28th release date; if it never drops, it's us, the public, that should go all Frank Booth on Jive. Something's gotta give.

My Heritage

Looks 55% percent like Sordid Puppy; narrowly beat out by Claudia Schiffer

The gentleman pictured above is Aswami bin Ani, known to his countless adoring fans as Mawi. He's the premier male singer of the moment in Malaysia, and he's the former champion of Akademi Fantasia 3, which I think is like Malaysian Idol or something. Described by wikipedia as a "raw talent," an "ambassador of seven commercial products," and likened to "famous Malaysian singer and icon, Siti Nurhaliza," I'm not unhappy to declare that Mawi is the celebrity that looks 5th most like your boy SP, according to http://www.myheritage.com.

Who, you ask, beats out the above international superstar for the coveted positions of fourth, third, second, and first most similar in appearance to your favorite hound? The numbers are in, and TIED for third and fourth place, with a 57% Sordid Puppy similarity rating, are none other than Claudia Schiffer and Eva Herzigova. Apt comparisons, to be sure.

Schiffer and Herzigaga weep, for not even their near-immaculate beauty quite matches that of Eliza Dushku, who pulls in a staggering 60% on the SP likeness meter. However, in staggering departure from this enviable lineup, this geezer scores a 66% and takes home first prize. I'm left wondering why I shouldn't have his fortune with the fairer sex.

S.P. News

I'm looking forward to Blue Carpet Treatment

New Lids Fresh Goods Fridays October release...I'm pretty sure this is the cap Cameron sports in the One Eyed Willy video...BALLLIN!!!

VH1 Hip-Hop Honors airs next Tuesday at 9 PM; New York heads rejoice.

This is fucking atrocious.

Rap City continues to be the biggest piece of shit on earth. Last week, when it came on after "The Center," (yes, I flip through "The Center," and you know goddamn well why), I thought maybe it was going back to its two-hour playlength. I was wrong. It got downgraded to the slot BEFORE reruns of "The Wayans Bros." It's now back to the hour before 106 & Park, but it's still AWFUL. J-Nicks, Mad Linx, Q45 and whatever other STUPID NAMED idiot personality that is NOT Big Tigger should get dummysmacked for the rest of his pathetic life. The studio looks like it was designed by Queer Eye, half the time the guests don't spit, and when they do, the hosts LOOK LIKE IDIOTS BECAUSE THEY DON'T FREESTYLE. This is a travesty. Tigger should be knocking people out. Rap City is obviously not a priority for BET anymore, and that sucks. Now I have to watch "Direct Effect" and "Sucker Free", neither of which are cool, and I'm pissed.

Hey Fuckface, This Is My Nude Beach, at London's Frieze Art Fair.

A cool label, still going strong. Can't wait to pick up Kid Koala's novel about a clarinet-playing mosquito.

Common feat Sadat X - 1999

Hi-Tek's got a new album coming out soon. His debut, "Hi-Teknology" was weak. This is from "Soundbombing II", back in the day (remember Rawkus Records??).

Music for Likkle Tykes

He's the Juggernaut, bitch!

First off, Raffi, last name Cavoukian, really is the juggernaut, bitch. That gangster of children's entertainment got more spins (does a cassette tape spin? I guess the little wheely things do) in my youth than Planxty, "Illy-itch", and Peedi Peedi put together. "Everything Grows" was an absolute MONSTER and "Baby Beluga" was one of the flyest subliminal dis tracks ever.

Sordid Puppy grows and grows, and so does his appetite for wax-dispatching titans of Raffi's ilk. You, discerning reader, check Foodmantooth because you respect our steez -- we got taste for days, we blaze and amaze, we eat leek soup, et cetera, et cetera.

Lupe got a B from Slothra. Several posts ago, I was clintin' about how Food & Liquor had become this hyped-up enormity that could never live up to the press it was getting. After copping F & L the day it dropped, I was disappointed to find my fears realized. It's a good album, certainly, but it's not the classic that I had hoped it would be. Lupe had ages to put this thing out, especially since the first version was leaked and he was forced to go back to the drawing board. Back at said drawing board, I imagine Lupe, in all his sober intensity and focus, drafting the "perfect album": one that would flow impeccably from track to track, covering all the bases and leaving nothing unsaid, no "concept track" undone. F & L is painstakingly choreographed from start to finish, and let me tell you, it's effing boring. Instead of hitting the studio and knocking out a bunch of bangers, Lupe's tried to make his debut album his magnum opus, and that's something that's never going to work. Don't get me wrong -- plenty of rappers have dropped stellar debuts (most of them, regrettably, never achieve this level of quality ever again), but they're great because they don't feel forced. I predict that Lupe has one or several great records in his future, but in order to make them he's going to have to let himself make art and forget about being better than Nas or whatever.

Chrome Children is out, and people, you need to recognize. Stones Throw Records + Adult Swim = Sordid Puppy's wet dream, and you should feel the same. Here's streaming audio, and here are the music videos (as of this post, only one had been released online, but it's fucking J Dilla and it's got jellyfish-sorta lookin things and a fish with a mustache and a giant ice cream cone that wrecks shit so wake the fuck up).

Killer Mike is supposed to have an album coming out sometime in the future, and I'm excited about it. I guess if it never actually comes out, I can keep listening to "My Chrome," which must have dropped a couple years ago, and "Get Em Shawty," which is even older, as far as I can remember. Yes, he's been putting out mixtapes, and hey -- maybe King Kong will just do that forever and never actually make any money.

I'll close this by running down some of the iller ish that SP's been into lately:

• J-Hood & Styles P. - Fuck the Police
• Lupe Fiasco - Real; Sunshine; He Say She Say; Pressure
• The Game - Let's Ride
• Frank n Dank - The Hustle
• Brother Ali - Original King
• Raekwon - Roof Top
• Saigon - Don't Do That
• Purple City - Grind Slow
• DJ Khaled feat Freeway & The Clipse - Where You At
• Obie Trice - Wanna Know
• Luda - He Man; Shakedown
• Lloyd Banks - Whip Pussy
• Nicolay feat Black Spade - I Am the Man
• Rhymefest - All Girls Cheat
• Hi-Tek feat Ghostface - Josephine

Slum Village - Ez Up Motor City Remix

Foodmantooth MV re-up

Frank N Dank - What Up

Roc C feat Aloe Blacc - My Life

Mayday feat Cee-Lo & DJ Craze - Groundhog Day

Sway - This Is My Demo

Now we sip champagne when we thirs-tay

Word of advice: never beat this guy in four-square

I'm not sure if people born on days other than October 3rd do this, but today all of us famous people born on this great day got together and partied like trapperkeeper stars. Here's who showed up:

1. Black Thought and Talib Kweli came wearing shirts that said "cognizant rappers are morally bankrupt too." India Arie was with them, but left after Gore Vidal kept asking her if she was Erykah Badu.

2. Dave Winfield and Dennis Eckersley reminisced about the old days when Barry Bonds didn't have custom-made helmets. Then they organized a game of four-square with Fred, the Brazilian footballer, and Fred Couples. The Freds conspired to rule the court, which angered the competitor in Eck, who threw many baseballs at the Freds' faces. He apologized afterwards.

3. Tommy Lee showed up with Gwen Stefani on one arm and Ashlee Simpson on the other. He's 44 today.

4. Al Sharpton and Stifler became good friends, mostly because both of them were hitting on Neve Cambell, and bonded over the futility of their pursuit (she was with me [1]).

5. Steve Reich DJd, although his experimental minimalism didn't give Chubby Checker a chance to do the twist, which made Stifler try to beat up Reich. Luckily, the oldest guy there, 82 year old Russian bodybuilder Arkady Vorobyov, was on Reich's side, and he proceeded to throw Stifler onto a roof, where Wil Cordero was beating up his wife.

[1] Denise Richards was with me too, but it wasn't her birthday.