The Promise Ring - 30° Everywhere (CD, 1996)

And here's where we talk about my dark, dark secret: The Promise Ring.

Actually, I don't feel too embarrassed about liking this band. They remind me of a certain time (late 90's/early 00's), and during that time, I needed a wuss-rock band like this for drunken, lonely nights. The Promise Ring were great for that, and they were also great for hammering melodies into your head and writing lyrics that, when they didn't go over-corny and end up sucking super hard, were often unexpectedly good.

I started out with their third album (Very Emergency) after Spin wouldn't shut the hell up about it, so I sort of came in in the middle of things. I worked backwards to the one before it, and eventually made it back to this one, their debut, before their final record came out. I wish I would have heard them in order, but in reality, if I had heard this one first, I might not have gone much further.

As it stood, discovering the band's humble beginnings was somewhat charming after hearing their second and third records, but this one is a pretty steep step down (or I guess the other ones were a huge step up), that it was initially tough to process. The recording ain't great, the songs aren't especially interesting, and lead dude Davey von Bohlen hadn't quite found his voice yet. The guy's got a unique singing style, and he totally got it to work on their next record, but here: not so much.

So, this is easily the Promise Ring Record that I listen to the least. But, I've never gotten rid of it, and I played it through yesterday and remembered that I definitely don't dislike it. It just sounds like a young band finding their sound, because that's exactly what it is. Don't kill me, Promise Ring fanboys. I know you love this record. And that's cool. It just doesn't grip me as much as their later shit.

"Anne You Will Sing"

Princess Superstar - Is (CD, 2001)

The Princess gets a little poppier on this one, turning up the hooks and leaning noticeably harder on the sex kitten persona that she pulls off well. Thankfully, cutesy songs like "Bad Babysitter" and "Wet! Wet! Wet!" don't tarnish the overall feel of this record, and they don't even suck (somehow).

But she's still at her best when she's putting witty rhymes together over beats she makes herself, and that's why the second half of this record ends up, for my money, being better than the first. "You Get Mad at Napster" is one of the dopest tracks on the whole damn thing, and considering this came out a decade ago, a song about an MC blaming the internet for not selling any records must have been hyper-modern at the time. It's still extremely relevant today, probably even more so.

So, while I don't care for her sexy raps as much as I care for her I'm-a-better-MC-than-you raps, this record balances it out nicely. The production ends up sounding a little random, because some of the tracks (the ones she didn't produce) are ultra-clean and even a bit mainstream-y, and when pushed up against some of the more lo-fi-ish stuff, there's a clear divide. But whatever. This is a fun-ass album, and she flexes some solid lyrical skills here. And a duet with Kool Keith is always encouraged.

"Keith 'N Me"

Princess Superstar - Last of the Great 20th Century Composers (CD, 2000)

I've never fully embraced Princess Superstar, but I do enjoy listening to her from time to time. I guess that would explain why I only own two of her albums, and why they're the ones that fall pretty much smack-dab in the middle of her catalog.

This is her third, and though I haven't listened to this one a ton, I do like it. The beats are a little fractured, and the whole thing, while not being decidedly lo-fi, does have that recorded-at-home sound. Which I dig. She produced or co-produced most of the beats on this thing, and her beat style's not lazy. In fact, trying to pin down the direction of the music on this thing is tough.

"Do it Like a Robot" is appropriately blippy, while "Sex (I Like)" is way more punk rock than hip hop. The rest of the stuff falls somewhere in between, with vintage drum samples that pound and distort, and synth flurries that aren't ever predictable. She doesn't sound overly confident on the mic on this record, and sometimes her matter-of-factness is frustrating. When she duets with Baron Ricks (?) on "Come Up to My Room," dude comes out aggressive while she stays laid-back, and the end result feels a little uneven.

But whatever. This record has a lot of depth to it, and it might be her last one before she tried going for some mainstream-ish cred. Or at least that's the way it looks to me. But I don't really know her catalog well enough to say that. But I'm saying it anyway.

"Do it Like a Robot"

Prince Paul - Politics of the Business (CD, 2003)

After A Prince Among Thieves failed to hit as hard as it should have, Paul took some time to do his Handsome Boy Modeling School thing and eventually came back with this, a semi-vitriolic assessment of how fucked-up the record industry is.

I'm not going to act like I was down with this since day one. I didn't buy this until a few years ago, and hadn't really heard much about it before that. But when I found it in the five-dollar bin at one of my local record stores, I figured I'd give it a shot. And, while this record is definitely a little pissy in places (Dave Chappelle's record exec portrayal is not meant to be flattering, but it is his hilarious) - almost reaching the point of sour grapes - the beats are awesome, and the guest spots are well-chosen.

Again, Paul gathers some of the dudes in hip hop who "get it" (Chubb Rock, Guru, Chuck D, Ice-T, and a bunch more), and gets the most out of them. I don't know who Horror City is (though I plan to download this after I'm done writing this), but the dudes are rough-edged and a little bit dope. Prince Paul's beats also make anyone sound better than they usually are: I've always thought Tash was a pretty sweet rapper, but the guy kills it on "Original Chryme Pays."

Coming back with another concept/message album after his previous one was a bold move, and since this wasn't a huge hit, I guess you could argue that it didn't really work. But I enjoy this album just as much as A Prince Among Thieves, and might even say that it flows a little better because there's not as much narration.

And I can't believe I only own two Prince Paul albums. I guess there's only five real solo albums from him, but I should have them. Something to work on.

"Make Room"

Prince Paul - A Prince Among Thieves (2xLP, 1999)

Prince Paul might be too sharp for his own good.

This album should have been a monumental moment for hip hop, but instead, it performed poorly on the charts and only got Paul critical respect - no chart love. But fuck it: ask anyone who knows anything about this record, and they'll tell you how not-of-this-earth it is. Prince Paul is really the only person that could have pulled a "rap opera" off and not had it suck, and he did it, thanks not only to his stellar beats, but also to his gaggle of famous friends.

But I get it: there's a lot of talking on this record, and it's an hour and fifteen minutes long. It's a bit of a commitment. Well, make yourself a version without the skits, and roll with it. You'll find that even if you ignore the story - and I wouldn't blame you if you did; it's not like you need to hear the skits over and over - this record is filled with dope-ass tracks. Big Daddy Kane's "Macula's Theory" and Kool Keith's "Weapon World" are worth the price of admission alone. And "The Men in Blue" features Everlast's best post-House of Pain performance.

I get why this album wasn't popular (in that selling-lots-of-records way), and even I'll admit that I have to be in the right mood to want to take in the constantly-shifting sounds that this thing pumps out. But when I'm ready for it, I still marvel that this album exists. It's just so damn ambitious.

And its "failure" is probably one of the reasons Prince Paul tends to get pissy about the music biz sometimes. His next record is a prime example.

"A Prince Among Thieves"

Prince Markie Dee - Love Daddy (LP, 1995)

I can't remember how I found out that Prince Markie Dee from the Fat Boys had a solo record (actually, I think he has two), and I still can't remember why I gave a shit. Because I hate the Fat Boys. I like the idea of the Fat Boys, and they're funny in that I-can't-believe-society-let-that-happen sort of way, but their music is flat-out awful.

But maybe that's why I was so curious about the prospect of Prince Markie Dee reinventing himself for the 90's. Dude was still in his mid-to-late twenties when this record dropped (my crack research has his first solo record coming out in '92, btw), so it wasn't like he was washed-up by definition, but things had certainly shifted in the hip hop world, even in the years between this record and his previous one. Sadly, Markie took the route that almost certainly cancels the career of any rapper that dares walk the path: an album filled to the brim with slow jams.

If the title didn't tip you off, dude was out to rebirth himself as an irresistible ladies man, and while better rappers have made the same ill-fated move (I'm looking at you, Big Daddy Kane,) few were brash enough to do nothing but that. This album is straight sex-up songs, front to back. And one is indiscernible from the next. Some are more gentlemanly than pornographic, but for the most part it's a mix of both. He's charming, debonaire, but also wants to rub things on you until they release fluid (Yikes).) He also seems to have an unhealthy obsession with biting. It's all very troubling.

Yet, somehow, I'm still curious to hear his first solo record. Even though I can't get through this one. Huh.

"Crunchtime"

I Went to a Show: Busdriver and Dark Time Sunshine at Someday Lounge (Feb. 11, 2011)

Busdriver has turned into one of the only artists that will get me to drag my old-man ass out on a Friday night to see a show, and that's because I know I'm going to enjoy it. He's full of energy, doesn't chit-chat too much, and just plays the shit out of his music. I am a staunch proponent of all of those things.

This show was even more exciting for me because I was, against all odds, actually looking forward to seeing one of the opening groups. I got turned onto Dark Time Sunshine earlier this year, and found myself coming back to their album Vessel quite a bit. So, I was really looking forward to seeing how they would pull off that shadowy-ass sound live.

I got to the show at around 10:45 (there were two, maybe three other openers who I wasn't dying to see), and caught most of the guy-before-Darktime's set. It wasn't really my thing, but it gave me a chance to meet up with my friend who was there and say hi to some other people that I knew. There was a good crowd at the Someday, though it seemed to be biggest when I first got there. Weird.

Anyway, Dark Time Sunshine (Onry Ozzborn and producer Zavala) hit the stage around 11:30 and I was ready for it. The music actually translated really well to a live setting, with Zavala working a drum machine, doing some backing vocals, and also just some random tinkering and knob-twiddling, all while bobbing his head and clearly having a good time. Ozzborn looked stoned to the bone, but his laid-back don't-give-a-fuckness is part of what makes the music so eerily hypnotic, so I thought it worked.

Here's a vid my friend Mike took:

Good stuff. They played a solid set, tossing in some Onry songs off his new record, along with a lot of the cuts from Vessel. I made sure to buy their CD after the show, because I had been listening to a "free" copy for a long time. So, that's me patting myself on the back and telling you how much I support artists. I'm welcome.

Busdriver came out pretty quick after that, and unlike the last time I saw him solo, he was all by himself. He had a small table with a few samplers on it, two microphones (one of which was hooked up to foot pedal thingy), and a couple other little boxes that he didn't seem to fiddle with. He also set up a green light at his feet, so for the first four or five songs of the set, he looked like this:

Pretty cool. Anyway, he did a few tracks off his latest mixtape, Computer Cooties, but other than that, it was the "hits": "Sunshowers," "Avantcore," "Casting Agents & Cowgirls," etc. He fucked with tempos and hammered on beats with the samplers, and jacked up his vocals with the footpedals hooked to the one mic. Made his set frantic as shit when coupled with the fact that he barely stopped moving, rapping, or beating on his machines. It was great.

He didn't play for too long (which is fine by me), came out for one short encore, and then left us with a beat that he "made in his bedroom the other day" as he walked off stage. Dude's a weirdo. But he puts on a great show.

I picked up the Hoofdriver 7" on yellow vinyl while I was there, and I have listened to it six times in the past few days. It is sweet.

If you haven't downloaded Computer Cooties you should cop that shizz.