Anything On Your Mind?
The slow walk back through time reaches 2000, a year when I was very lucky. The small company that I worked for was purchased that year, and my share of it was enough to pay off the car and put a down payment on a house. While lots of other people got a lot more from the web 1.0 bubble in software, I certainly have no complaints about how it worked out for me. Being able to get into the housing market at 25 continues to help me to this day, and while the company that bought us didn’t turn out that well, I still think about how lucky I was. So 2000 was about learning to be a homeowner, I guess. I think we were very fortunate about the place that we bought - the previous owner was a real estate agent who had taken great care of it, so we didn’t have much in the way of big problems to take care of. Like any house, it certainly had things go wrong, but at a slow enough rate that we were able to handle them. We ended up staying in that house for more than 20 years.
Let’s see, beyond that big event, I started that car commute I complained about last time, so that started dragging me down a bit. The Mariners were good this year, and our half-season tickets led to one of the best moments I’ve had with them, being in the stands for the completion of a sweep of the White Sox in the ALDS. I still have the broom I brought to the stadium. Security looked at said broom (just a regular, full-sized broom) and said I couldn’t bring it in. They said I could break the shaft on it, though. So I transformed my stick into a spear and they waved me in.
On the music front, I have 14 albums from this chart in the collection, and I thought I had a few others. Like, I’m pretty sure I had Flood from Boris, but it doesn’t seem to be in the Plex. Same with White Pony. Oh well. I still think that’s a record number thus far.
What Do You Listen To From 2000, Josh?
A sampling of albums that I’m playing regularly, whether older ones or newer ones. Just the things that I think are worth highlighting, and maybe you’d enjoy.
Your Favorite Music, Clem Snide
This is not the first Clem Snide album (that would be You Were A Diamond), but it’s the first one where they were fully dialed in. There are plenty of lovely moments on the first record, but it’s rough in a lot of spots. That’s not true for this record. The songs are excellent, Eef Barzelay’s vocal performance is fantastic, Jason Glasser’s strings are all over the place and are lovely, and the album is just a wonderful. Would it be pretentious to call is “Americana”? It might be. But it’s not really a country record, even though there are certainly country elements. So, Americana it is. Whatever you call Lambchop. Anyway, I’m not sure they ever did better than this record.
The Inalienable Dreamless, Discordance Axis
This album is the opposite of Your Favorite Music on basically every measurement. Tempo? Completely flipped. Vocals? Yep. Energy level? Uh huh. Prettiness? For sure. Anyway, you wanted some grindcore to follow up that record, right? Here’s some grindcore. It’s excellent, bracing stuff. I’m keeping this short in order to respect the genre.
Push ’n Shove, Hepcat
The third wave of ska is primarily known for ska-punk, with the famous bands pretty much all coming from that side of things. But those weren’t the only people playing ska at the time, and there were some more traditionally-minded bands working. People more inspired by the first wave than the second. Hepcat for sure was one of those. Coming out of Los Angeles, the band was dedicated to sounding like a 60s band from Jamaica, and did a pretty good job of it. This is the last of their four records, and it’s one where they mixed a fair bit of 60s soul into their sound alongside the ska. Truthfully, the tempos they’re working with here are more rocksteady than ska, but that’s fine. I personally think that this sort of thing has aged better than a lot of the ska-punk of the third wave, but I’m also strongly inclined towards this sort of music in the first place.
Let’s Talk More 2000 Releases
We’ll do new releases again soon, but not today!
Quality Control, Jurassic 5
As long as we’re talking about throwbacks, let’s talk about Jurassic 5. I guess records from 2000 are already throwbacks, huh? Anyway, they’d built lots of buzz in the underground for years and had an EP under their belts, so there was a lot of anticipation for the full album. And the release lived up to the hype. It’s as good of a throwback to rap’s early years as anything anybody has ever turned out. The rhymes are agile and fun, the trading between the four MCs is impeccable, the beats from DJ Nu-Mark and Cut Chemist are excellent, every bit of this album hits the mark. The alchemy on display here wouldn’t quite ever get captured again. Their second record (Power in Numbers) is good but a step down, and the third album was a big disappointment. But for one shining moment, they perfectly captured the joy of early hip-hop and brought it forward, and I cannot recommend it highly enough.
Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, Kid Koala
Alongside the rap underground producing people like Jurassic 5, Blackalicious, People Under the Stairs, and others around this time, turntablism was also having a moment. Albums from the various DJs from crews like the X-Ecuutioners (like Roc Raida and Rob Swift) and Invisibl Skratch Piklz (such as DJ Q-Bert and Mix Master Mike) were impressive displays of skill, but sometimes the focus was more on those displays and less on songs. Enjoyable, but often in lower doses. Kid Koala’s debut record, by contrast, does show incredible ability on the turntable but evinces a playfulness and dedication to tunes that puts this album ahead of most other turntable records. It’s one I come back to again and again, and if you’ve never really loved a turntablist record, this is the one to try. It honestly reminds me more of something like Negativland’s more song-like records than anything else. As a side note, my poor dog Sampson could not deal with this album. If I put it on, he would absolutely lose his mind and just bark his tiny brain out until I stopped it. I wish I could know what about this melted his mind.
The Unseen, Quasimoto
Damn, this was a good year for hip-hop. There are a bunch of records I’m leaving out, from high-profile stuff like Stankonia and Supreme Clientele to other underground classics like Deltron 3030, Train of Thought, and Like Water For Chocolate. And others! But I wanted to mention this one, one of the more deranged albums that I’ve highlighted on the blog. And yes, there’s some rancid grindcore right up there. Quasimoto is Madlib, who combined a helium-voiced, perpetually high alter ego with cracked rhymes and the dustiest jazz loops around to make a truly odd album. Quasimoto lives in a world of drugs and cartoon violence, and listening to this whole thing just feels like you’ve watched an underground cartoon from the 60s that was only shown in arthouse theaters during animation festivals in the 90s. It’s really something else.
Five Random Songs
Yes, it’s the “classic” five random songs format. It’s been told before on this blog many times, but basically, on an old forum, people would post the last five songs their shuffle pulled up. I liked it, so I made it into a blog. And now, here we are.
“Why Do You Want Him?”, Green Day
Before Dookie, before the worldwide fame, before the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction (!), Green Day was a Lookout pop-punk band much like a bunch of other bands. Good, sure, but they were a long ways from what they would become. Even before their first album (39/Smooth), they put out two EPs, and this comes from the second of those, Slappy. And, you know, it’s recognizable as Green Day for sure (Billie Joe’s voice ensures that, if nothing else). It’s a perfectly reasonable pop-punk song.
“Chicago Falcon”, The Budos Band
The opener of the second Budos Band record, which never hit me quite the same as the first record. To this day, it’s probably the album of theirs that I listen to the least. That certainly doesn’t make it a bad record or anything, just the one that I mostly leave on the shelf. Looking at Rate Your Music, it seems as if this is their highest rated record there. As always, I’m just the rankest of idiots.
“Dom Perignon”, Your Old Droog
You know what? The more I look at the word “Perignon”, the more wrong it looks. EDITOR’S NOTE (I am also the editor): still looks weird.
“Mayor/Surveyor”, Shellac
This song is the odd song out on Dude Incredible, a sub-two minute trifle that is more a riff showcase than it is really a song. That’s OK, though, it’s a pretty good riff.
“Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa (Sad Song)”, Otis Redding
One of Otis’s best. What a tune. And, as always, love the parentheticals in soul song titles.
Josh, What Are You Doing Here?
I’m just writing about music. A structure like this blog helps me get my thoughts out, and it’s a way for me to explore my own music collection through various lenses. My sincere hope is that some folks out there find some new music they love. That’s all I’m up to. Sincere thanks to everybody who sends me feedback, with news that they’ve found a new favorite especially fun for me. There’s no monetization, no metrics, no ads, no promos, no nothing. Just some static web pages, some links, and my scribbling. If you want to support it, just shoot me a note! Thanks for reading.
Some Better Places To Learn About Music
Check these folks out, you’ll learn more for sure. In no particular order: To The Teeth, Wolf’s Week/Plague Rages, The Devil’s Mouth, Burning Ambulance, Lamniformes Cuneiform, Hex Records, See/Saw, Starkweather, Treble Magazine, The Quietus, Stereogum.