Song, by Toad

It’s late, I know, leave off. I just couldn’t face anything yesterday, after four consecutive nights of industrial drinking and four consecutive early rises. I was tired, horribly hungover and just wanted to stare into space for eight hours until I was allowed to go home. Even an hour of stomach-churning 5-a-side football wasn’t enough to make it all go away, so I went home, had a bath and collapsed in bed. I’m better now. Sweet sleep, I had missed it so.

So I hope you don’t begrudge me my day off. I wasn’t much use to anyone, never mind the internets. There’s just no time for anything at the moment – writing, film editing, attending gigs and meetings – never mind things like relaxing or, shock horror, reading books. Thank fuck we don’t have kids.

Wednesday 8th October 2008: Roots Manuva at the Liquid Room.
If ever I was going to get into hip hop I’ve often thought that it might be via Roots Manuva, quite possibly because of how Rodney Smith (snigger) mixes it up with all sorts of other things. I’m still on the first couple of listens of his latest album, but this show kind of intrigues me so I might just scoot along.
Roots Manuva – A Haunting

Thursday 9th October 2008: Lykke Li at Cabaret Voltaire.
This is an over-14s gig, so it might be just a little bit of a paedo show, full of young lads trying to hide the bulge in their shorts as the rather pretty Miss Li swoons and pouts on the stage. Personally, I’m more of a passive fan than an active one – I think she’s okay and I’ve heard a couple of decent songs – but she gives the impression of someone who might be quite good live, for some reason. Might be worth a punt, if you don’t mind being the oldest person in the room.
Lykke Li – Dance Dance Dance

Thursday 9th October 2008: James Pants, Found & Penpusher play Limbo at the Voodoo Rooms.
Firstly, Found are great and I haven’t seen them for ages and secondly, I am not entirely convinced that this is going to be my cup of tea otherwise. That doesn’t make sense, I know, but I am boring myself with my narrow taste at the moment and I think it’s about time I got off my arse and tried something a bit different.
James Pants – Theme From Paris

Saturday 11th October 2008: Mumford & Sons at the Voodoo Rooms.
Marcus Mumford’s voice would be enough, but in general these guys are one of my favourite finds of recent times. There is the scope for them to go all anodyne like Noah & the Whale if they have too many of the rough edges sanded off them by a label, but for the time being the warmth and scratch combines beautifully with the more soaring choruses, which can be almost like gospel music at times. One not to miss.
Mumford & Sons – Roll Away Your Stone

Me? Hip-hop?  A genre I know absolutely nothing about, and can barely tolerate most of the time?  Well yes, actually, this week on The Waiting Room I have a go at hip-hop.  I fucking hate hip-hop with a passion for the most part, but this is basically due to the fact that it is a genre I don’t understand and know very little about.

Imagine if all you knew of indie was Coldplay, Kasabian and dickheaded antics of Pete Doherty – you’d dismiss it as empty cock-waving by middle class white cunts, wouldn’t you?  Well all I really know of hip-hop is the exact equivalent – the awful, awful commercial side of the industry with bitches, hoes and that peculiar form of homophobia that is just a bit too passionate to be entirely above suspicion.  Anyone who looks at the modern commercial hip-hop industry and doesn’t find it to be pathetic, contemptible and utterly disgusting is a cunt, simple as that.  It’s grotesque, infantile and insulting to everyone involved.

That said, the original rap scene from which hip-hop evolved was a serious underground movement, full of intelligence and subversion.  And a movement can’t be that big without having a significant number of really thoughtful, artistically inclined bands in there somewhere, so I know it is just my ignorance of the scene that keeps me from finding them.  There are a couple of things in my library that are vaguely that way inclined and so I thought I’d throw them into The Waiting Room this week.  Change being as good as a rest and all that.

So have a listen to this week’s Waiting Room, and see how DC and that Fisk character react to my choices:

The Waiting Room, Wednesday 26th March 2008

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And here are a couple of songs I didn’t put into my selection this week, but could have:
Roots Manuva – Witness
Jazzy Jeff – For Da Love Of Da Game

Oh, and DC has discovered the wonderful Art Pedro.  Huzzah!  Listen to this and then go and buy his albums from Fence Records.
Art Pedro – You’re a Twat

I really can’t stand hip hop. Firstly, I really don’t like the music. But most importantly I cannot stand the ’scene’. The posturing, the egomania, the desperate money-grubbing, the sort of pathetic terror of women that gets distorted into the bitches and hos aggression. The kind of machismo that is so infantile you actually pity them. The vitriolic homophobia. It’s just a music scene I want nothing to do with whatsoever.

That said, the original rap movement that (I believe) gave birth to hip hop was pretty ground breaking at the time, and no matter how much any music scene might alienate me, even I can’t pretend that I think there’s nothing of musical merit in an entire genre. All the baby-oiled pecs and vainglorious celebrity onanism in the world can’t have driven all the genuine artists away from the scene entirely. Hip hop clearly can’t all be the shit you see on telly, but it really feels like it at times.

But, setting aside personal prejudice, how do you go about starting with a genre of which you have absolutely no understanding whatsoever? It’s like classical – such a massive umbrella, and all I know of it is the odd two-minute snippet I hear in car adverts. If I was to try and find some hip hop I liked I wouldn’t have the faintest idea where to start. How do you go about exploring a genre with no real handle on how to even approach the music?

I received an email a little while back about a new album by a Brooklyn duo called Iller Than Theirs. I listened and had another one of those moments – a slight chink in the clouds. I rather liked the first of the preview tracks, and had another of those slightly uncomfortable moments where ‘you know there’s something happening but you don’t know what it is. Do you, Mr. Jones.’

I liked the song, I don’t know if I’ll buy the album, but it was another reminder to me of whole music scenes out there I just don’t even begin to understand. The thing is, I have no intention whatsoever of wading through piles of 50 Cent or Puff Diddy Whatthefuckever CDs to find the gems in the morass of shit that is the commercial hip hop movement.

But when I hear songs like this I do get frustrated with myself for my inability to get any sort of a handle on a genre to the extent that it prevents me finding the good bits that are undeniably there. It’s less frantic than a lot of hip hop – more laid back and actually more confident sounding.  Imagine if all you knew of indie was Coldplay, Keane and the excruciating antics of Pete Doherty? Fuck me, you’d run a mile away.

Iller Than Theirs – To be Ill[audio http://www.matthewjamesyoung.com/sbt/IllerThanTheirs-ToBeIll.mp3]
Roots Manuva – Dreamy Days[audio http://www.matthewjamesyoung.com/sbt/RootsManuva-DreamyDays.mp3]
Classified – The Maritimes This is genuinely odd – a hip hop song from The Maritimes in Canada, with all their Scottish history and their pipes and ceilidhs. Oddly fascinating though, but don’t ask me why.[audio http://www.matthewjamesyoung.com/sbt/Classified-TheMaritimes.mp3]