When I first started writing my music column for the SUNY New Paltz school paper, The Oracle, I was lucky to get any publicist on the telephone. All I got was voicemail and hang-ups after my futile requests for product to review in “I Hate Music” (1995-1998). Spencer Gates, who I believe was […]
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BACDAFUCUP, SUCKAZ! ONYX RELEASES A RARITIES LP!
ONYX TO RELEASE NEW ALBUM, COLD CASE FILES: UNSOLVED MURDERS,
AUGUST 19TH ON ONYX RECORDS/ICELAND MUSIC GROUP.
DISTRIBUTED BY KOCH ENTERTAINMENT THE 16 TRACK OPUS FEATURES UNRELEASED SOON TO BE CLASSICS FROM THE ONYX MUSIC VAULT.
After conquering Hollywood, hip-hop’s original rebels, ONYX - Fredro Starr, Sonny Seeza, Sticky Fingaz - return on the scene, emerging from their musical vaults with a new album, Cold Case Files: Unsolved Murders, a 16-track collection of previously unreleased songs executive produced by the members of Onyx and Omar “Iceman” Sharif for Ice Man Music Group (IMMG). “It’s a culmination of all the years,” explains Fredro. A cold case is a murder that gets cold and people forget about it. Years later, with new evidence they bring it out. This is us coming back after all the years with murderous tracks. This is a throwback for hard-core Onyx fans across the world!”
The collection features underground singles, lost studio recordings sessions from the group’s first three albums and features appearances from Method Man, deceased Onyx member X1 (Sticky Fingaz’s brother), and Gang Green.
According to the group, revisiting these sessions also serves as a tribute to fallen soldiers Jam Master Jay, X1 and Big DS, all Onyx affiliates who have passed on in the last five years some of which are still unsolved murders. “I remember when we shot the video with those guys in the Isuzu Rodeo jeep,” recalls Fredro of one of the songs, “I’ll Murda U.” “Listening puts me right back there.” Sticky Fingaz adds, “I listen to Cold Case File and say, ‘Damn, why didn’t we put that out before?’”
Sonee’s young brother and frequent guest Hussein was the one who archived much of this lost material. Sonee, who served as Album Supervisor, states, “Some of these songs are so raw that you’ll hearing the original mix. We kept it authentic to the period when they were recorded. Hussein was our biggest fan when we were in the studio recording and kept all our classics that never made it into albums in the Onyx vault; so when it came to making the album, he had tracks we didn’t even know existed on everything from cassettes, DATS, CDs and 2 inch studio reels.” Fredro adds, “It’s kinda bugged out to deal with this new technology too, ’cause back in the days, we was puttin’ shit on DATs, cassettes, and it still sounds good. This is classic vintage Onyx. When you listen to this album you gonna feel like you in the ’90’s.”
Despite going back as much as 15 years, the songs from Cold Case Files are still very resonant today. “Mad World” for instance, features socio-political verses in the classic uncontainable Onyx delivery, with a chorus stating that the “streets are worse than jail.” Although recorded in 1997, the lyrics remain relevant to our times. Fredro deduces, “War has not stopped. America has been in war for 20 years. When we did our first album, my friends were just coming from Desert Storm. Today we’re still at war so the lyrics are still current. Sean Bell getting shot in the streets is the same injustice as Yusef Hawkins. Ain’t nothing changed.”
Touching upon issues like these might seem controversial to the Hollywood careers of Fredro Starr (Clockers, Sunset Park, The Wire) and Sticky Fingaz (In Too Deep, Next Friday, Blade: The Series), but both MCs feel bound to fulfill their duties to listeners and fans. “We always got flack for what we said on records, for being too thugged out. I went to one network meeting that was playing my music, it was crazy. It’s just self-expression,” defends Fredro, whose career has thrived in both music and film. With songs like “Wilin’, Wilin’,” “I’ll Murder U” and “See U In Hell Pt. 2,” Onyx remain loyal to the themes and energy that made them stars in the first place. “You can’t stop the voice of the ghetto,” stamps Fredro.
The voice of Onyx has no plans of stopping. Cold Case Files sets the stage for the group’s next studio album, Black Rock, planned for 2009 and a series called 100 Men featuring new members of the Onyx Music family. “Black Rock is a hybrid album - Rock influenced with Hip Hop underneath it. It’s us repping for the rebels of the world, the rebels of the street who Onyx represents. It’s a where hip-hop meets the mosh pit,” denotes Fredro Starr. “Slam was the song that crossed us over, it was like a rock n’ roll record and we never really went down the rock & roll/hip-hop lane. We always kinda steered away from it and now we’re gonna do a whole album inspired by that sound.” explains Sticky Fingaz.
Mentored by Jam Master Jay, championed by a cult of hardcore Hip Hop fans, and embraced by Hollywood with acting careers, Sticky Fingaz, Fredro Starr and Sonnee Seeza remain true to their original mantra of hard beats, hard rhymes and a pioneering street demeanor fused together in classic music. After five charting albums: Bacdafucup (Def Jam 1993), All We Got Iz Us (Def Jam, 1995), Shut ‘Em Down (Def Jam, 1998), Bacdafucup Pt. II (Onyx Records/Koch International), Triggernometry (Onyx Records - D3/Rivera 2003) and classic singles “Slam,” “Bacdafucup,” “Last Dayz” between 1993 and 2003, amidst solo careers, Onyx unveils Cold Case Files: Unsolved Murders on August 19, 2008 on Iceman Music Group/Koch Records.
Omar “Ice Man” Sharif, founder and CEO of Ice Man Music Group (IMMG) who has executive produced five Onyx albums and three of their solo albums adds, “Onyx like Ice Man Media Group is a multi-media. We have our hands in everything from music, to film, television, and even fashion. Fredro, Sticky, and Sonee, have over 5 million fans world-wide who are waiting for their return. We just got back from Bulgaria, Russia, South America, and China and no matter where we go across the world, it’s a mosh pit once Onyx hits the mic. I have never seen hip-hop group rock arenas with the raw energy and magnetism of Onyx. They’re more than just a hip-hop group, they’re stars, icons!” He adds, “IMMG is about capturing the rawness of the early 90’s by doing deals with such artists like AZ and ONYX who aren’t gimmicky. Pure, uncut, raw hip-hop and that’s what you should expect to hear from Ice Man Music Group and you can’t get any rawer than Onyx.”
About Ice Man Music Group, Inc. (IMMG)
Founded by Omar “Ice Man” Sharif, Ice Man Music Group (IMMG) distributed by Koch Entertainment (parent distributor for Koch Records) dedicates itself to raw original hip-hop and includes Spider Loc, AZ, ONYX (Fredro Starr, Sticky Fingaz, Sonee Seeza), DJ Absolut and new artists Young Hustel and Bad Luck. Under IMMG is a coalition of labels: Onyx Records Presents 100 Mad Niggaz With Gunz. Baymacc, Onyx Records,Quiet Money, Addicted 4 Life, and many more to come.
R.I.P. GEORGE CARLIN 1937-2008
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The IRT mourns the loss of a true giant of comedy this morning. News item courtesy of the New York Times.
Legendary standup comedian George Carlin dead
New York Times
George Carlin, the Grammy-Award winning standup comedian and actor who was hailed for his irreverent social commentary, poignant observations of the absurdities of everyday life and language, and groundbreaking routines like Seven Words You Can Never Use on Television, died in Los Angeles on Sunday, according to his publicist, Jeff Abraham. He was 71.Abraham said Carlin went into St. John’s Hospital on Sunday afternoon, complaining of chest pain. Carlin died at 5:55 p.m. PDT.The cause of death was heart failure, according to Abraham.
“He was a genius and I will miss him dearly,'’ Jack Burns, who was the other half of a comedy duo with Carlin in the early 1960s, told The Associated Press.
Carlin began his standup comedy act in the late 1950s and made his first television solo guest appearance on The Merv Griffin Show in 1965. At that time, he was primarily known for his clever wordplay and reminiscences of his Irish working-class upbringing in New York.
But from the outset there were indications of an anti-establishment edge to his comedy. Initially, it surfaced in the witty patter of a host of offbeat characters like the wacky sportscaster Biff Barf and the hippy-dippy weatherman Al Sleet. “The weather was dominated by a large Canadian low, which is not to be confused with a Mexican high. Tonight’s forecast . . . dark, continued mostly dark tonight turning to widely scattered light in the morning.”
Carlin released his first comedy album, Take-Offs and Put-Ons, to rave reviews in 1967. He also dabbled in acting, winning a recurring part as Marlo Thomas’ theatrical agent in the sitcom That Girl (1966-67) and a supporting role in the movie With Six You Get Egg-Roll, released in 1968.
By the end of the decade, he was one of America’s best known comedians. He made more than 80 major TV appearances during that time, including the Ed Sullivan Show and Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show; he was also regularly featured at major nightclubs in New York and Las Vegas.
That early success and celebrity, however, was as dinky and hollow as a gratuitous pratfall to Carlin. “I was entertaining the fathers and the mothers of the people I sympathized with, and in some cases associated with, and whose point of view I shared,” he recalled later, as quoted in the book Going Too Far by Tony Hendra, which was published in 1987. “I was a traitor, in so many words. I was living a lie.”
In 1970, Carlin discarded his suit, tie, and clean-cut image as well as the relatively conventional material that had catapulted him to the top. Carlin reinvented himself, emerging with a beard, long hair, jeans and a routine that, according to one critic, was steeped in “drugs and bawdy language.” There was an immediate backlash. The Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas terminated his three-year contract, and, months later, he was advised to leave town when an angry mob threatened him at the Lake Geneva Playboy Club. Afterward, he temporarily abandoned the nightclub circuit and began appearing at coffee houses, folk clubs and colleges where he found a younger, hipper audience that was more attuned to both his new image and his material.
By 1972, when he released his second album, FM & AM, his star was again on the rise. The album, which won a Grammy Award as best comedy recording, combined older material on the “AM” side with bolder, more acerbic routines on the “FM” side. Among the more controversial cuts was a routine euphemistically entitled “Shoot,” in which Carlin explored the etymology and common usage of the popular idiom for excrement. The bit was part of the comic’s longer routine “Seven Words That Can Never Be Said on Television,” which appeared on his third album Class Clown, also released in 1972.
“There are some words you can say part of the time. Most of the time ‘ass’ is all right on television,” Carlin noted in his introduction to the then controversial monologue. “You can say, well, ‘You’ve made a perfect ass of yourself tonight.’ You can use ass in a religious sense, if you happen to be the redeemer riding into town on one — perfectly all right.”
The material seems innocuous by today’s standards, but it caused an uproar when broadcast on the New York radio station WBAI in the early seventies. The station was censured and fined by the FCC. And in 1978, their ruling was supported by the Supreme Court, which Time magazine reported, “upheld an FCC ban on ‘offensive material’ during hours when children are in the audience.”
“So my name is a footnote in American legal history, which I’m perversely kind of proud of,'’ he told The Associated Press earlier this year.
Carlin released a half dozen comedy albums during the ’70s, including the million-record sellers Class Clown, Occupation: Foole (1973) and An Evening With Wally Lando (1975). He was chosen to host the first episode of the late-night comedy show Saturday Night Live in 1975. And two years later, he found the perfect platform for his brand of acerbic, cerebral, sometimes off-color standup humor in the fledgling, less restricted world of cable television.
By 1977, when his first HBO comedy special, George Carlin at USC was aired, he was recognized as one of the era’s most influential comedians. In the years following his 1977 cable debut, Carlin was nominated for a half dozen Grammy awards and received CableAces awards for best stand-up comedy special for George Carlin: Doin’ It Again (1990) and George Carlin: Jammin’ (1992). He also won his second Grammy for the album Jammin’ in 1994.
He produced 23 comedy albums, 14 HBO specials, three books, a couple of TV shows and appeared in several movies, from his own comedy specials to Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure in 1989 - a testament to his range from cerebral satire and cultural commentary to downright silliness (and sometimes hitting all points in one stroke).
“Why do they lock gas station bathrooms?'’ he once mused. “Are they afraid someone will clean them?'’
Carlin was born on May 12, 1937, and grew up in the Morningside Heights section of Manhattan, raised by a single mother. After dropping out of high school in the ninth grade, he joined the Air Force in 1954. He received three court-martials and numerous disciplinary punishments, according to his official Web site.
While in the Air Force he started working as an off-base disc jockey at a radio station in Shreveport, La., and after receiving a general discharge in 1957, took an announcing job at WEZE in Boston.
“Fired after three months for driving mobile news van to New York to buy pot,'’ his Web site says.
From there he went on to a job on the night shift as a deejay at a radio station in Fort Worth. Carlin also worked variety of temporary jobs including a carnival organist and a marketing director for a peanut brittle.
In 1960, he left with Burns, a Texas radio buddy, for Hollywood to pursue a nightclub career as comedy team Burns & Carlin. He left with $300, but his first break came just months later when the duo appeared on Jack Paar’s Tonight Show.
Carlin said he hoped to would emulate his childhood hero, Danny Kaye, the kindly, rubber-faced comedian who ruled over the decade that Carlin grew up in - the 1950s - with a clever but gentle humor reflective of its times.
Only problem was, it didn’t work for him, and they broke up by 1962.
Carlin lost the buttoned-up look, favoring the beard, ponytail and all-black attire for which he came to be known.
But even with his decidedly adult-comedy bent, Carlin never lost his childlike sense of mischief, even voicing kid-friendly projects like episodes of the TV show Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends and the spacey Volkswagen bus Fillmore in the 2006 Pixar hit Cars.
During the course of his career, Carlin overcame numerous personal trials. His early arrests for obscenity (all of which were dismissed) and struggle to overcome his self-described “heavy drug use” were the most publicized. But in the ’80s he also weathered serious tax problems, a heart attack and two open heart surgeries. His greatest setback was the loss of his wife, Brenda Hosbrook, who died in 1997. They had been married for 36 years. Carlin is survived by wife, Sally Wade; daughter Kelly Carlin McCall; son-in-law, Bob McCall; older brother, Patrick Carlin; sister-in-law, Marlene Carlin and long time manager, business partner and best friend Jerold Hamza.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
RADIOHEAD The Best of (Special Edition) (Capitol-EMI)
Sure, it may have been perceived to be a shady move on the part of Capitol to release this compilation not even a year after Radiohead jumped ship to revolutionize the way artists put out their new material to fans, but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t good. In fact, its an absolute perfect collection of the band’s finest moments on wax strung together to create the ultimate Radiohead double-album where “My Iron Lung” and “There There” segue together as if they were on the same track listing all along. Even the otherwise dreadful “Anyone Can Play Guitar” from their 1993 debut toss-off Pablo Honey is tolerable when sandwiched between “You” and “How To Disappear Completely”. And the DVD containing all of the videos Radiohead had filmed during their time on Capitol is a must-own and a most warranted expansion of 1998’s 7 Television Commercials DVD to include all of the videos from their 1992-2003 EMI-based arc. But as the arguments over the necessity of this best-of continue to be waged on blogs the world over, because Radiohead albums should be listened to as whole entities, thus not warranting any kind of anthologizing that would split up the precious children, those fans who do not treat their music like some kind of weird religion will find this set to be a satisfying mixtape with better packaging. –Ed.
Disc 1
1. Just
2. Paranoid Android
3. Karma Police
4. Creep
5. No Surprises
6. High and Dry
7. My Iron Lung
8. There There
9. Lucky
10. Optimistic
11. Fake Plastic Trees
12. Idioteque
13. 2+2 = 5
14. The Bends
15. Pyramid Song
16. Street Spirit (Fade Out)
17. Everything In Its Right Place
Disc 2
1. Airbag
2. I Might Be Wrong
3. Go To Sleep
4. Let Down
5. Planet Telex
6. Exit Music (For A Film)
7. The National Anthem
8. Knives Out
9. Talk Show Host
10. You
11. Anyone Can Play Guitar
12. How To Disappear Completely
13. True Love Waits [recorded live in Oslo, 2001; previously released on I Might Be Wrong: Live Recordings]
R.I.P. BO DIDDLEY 1928-2008
From Billboard.com:
Rock Legend Bo Diddley Dies At 79
Bo Diddley
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June 02, 2008, 12:50 PM ET
Rock legend Bo Diddley died this morning (June 2) of heart failure in Archer, Fla., according to his spokesperson. He was 79. Diddley suffered a stroke last spring and had a heart attack last August, from which he never fully recovered.
Since then, he was undergoing rehabilitation near his Florida home. Funeral services are being planned for this weekend, with details to be announced.
Born Ellas Otha Bates McDaniel on Dec. 30, 1928, in McComb, Miss., Diddley holds the distinction of being the only musician in history to have a specific musical beat, or rhythmic pattern, named after him. The “Bo Diddley beat” blends equal parts rock’n'roll rhythm and gospel shout in its “bomp, ba-bomp-bomp, bomp-bomp” pattern, which became an enduring staple of popular music. His songs, a tasteful blend of blues and R&B elements, were among the earliest true rock’n'roll recordings.
Diddley was an early advocate of fuzzy, distorted guitar sounds. They perfectly complimented his frenetic songs, which played on a homemade square guitar while decked out in dark sunglasses and a black hat. Similarly, his rhythmic, boastful vocal style predated rap by several decades.
Buddy Holly borrowed Diddley’s beat for his hit song “Not Fade Away,” and the Rolling Stones’ version of that song, with its unmistakable nod to Diddley, became the band’s first major British hit single.
In 1983, he had a memorable cameo as a pawn shop clerk in the comedy “Trading Places,” and in 1989, he was introduced to a new generation of fans when he appeared with sports star Bo Jackson in a humorous TV ad campaign for Nike athletic shoes.
Although Diddley toured regularly into his late 70s, his recorded output for the past 30-plus years has been sparse, save for a late ’80s live album with Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood.
R.I.P. Tero “CAMU TAO” Smith June 26, 1977 - May 25, 2008
Sad news in the world of underground hip-hop. Words courtesy of a public statement by Camu Tao’s longtime friend and collaborator El-P courtesy of his publicity firm Biz3:
On Sunday, May 25th, at around 2pm, our dear friend, family member and musical collaborator Tero “CAMU TAO” Smith passed away in his home town of Columbus, Ohio. Tero had been quietly fighting for his life for the last year and a half after being diagnosed with lung cancer.
To those who knew Tero, he was an almost uncategorizable force of nature. Wild, hilarious, proud, loving, tough, outspoken, spontaneous and brilliant. He wore his heart on his sleeve and he dripped creativity, leaving inspiration and awe in the hearts and minds of anyone who was fortunate enough to see him work.
Camu was a brilliant rapper, singer and sought after producer. He got his start in the group MHZ which released records on Fondle Em Records. He was also a founding member of the artistic collectives known as “Weathermen” and “Cardboard City”. He was in a group called Nighthawks with Chris “Cage” Palko, whose album was released on Eastern Conference Records. He was also in S.A. SMASH with Keith “Metro” Lawson, who released their debut album “Smashy Trashy” on Definitive Jux records. More recently he was a part of Central Services with myself, Jaime “El-P” Meline, whose debut album “Forever Frozen in Television Time” never got released. At the time of his death he was working on what those who had the chance to hear it considered his break through solo record, called “King of Hearts”, that was scheduled to be released on Definitive Jux this year.
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We, his friends and family, have truly had our collective hearts broken by his passing. Not only because of the loss of our friend, but because of the loss of his contribution to those who never knew what we knew about his talent and his potential. He was the secret that no one wanted to keep and we always knew that one day his vision and his heart could change music forever the way he changed all of our lives.His departure from us all one month away from his 31st birthday is nothing less than a tragedy. Nothing less than a crime. He was a gift to us all and he is irreplaceable.
Rest in peace, Mu. We will love you forever. May god bless you and your family.
Sincerely,
Jaime “El-p” Meline
On behalf of Definitive Jux, Weathermen and many, many wonderful and broken hearted friends. Our hearts and prayers go out to his family and loved ones.
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“I wish I could come up with some profound statement of everything I feel about this amazing man who impacted my life in countless ways but I can not. It has already been so difficult to not have him at home with me. I am not sure how I will carry on my life without Tero but I know that he would kick my ass if I didn’t.
I feel peace knowing that he is no longer in pain and can continue on in his journey of greatness in the next life.
You are my partner, my best friend, and I am so in love with you. Not one day will pass that I do not think about the life I shared with you. I will carry you forever in my heart and in my spirit.” Love, Gayle
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“Summing up my feelings regarding Camu, who he was as a friend, what he did as a musician, and how devastating his death is to me will never be possible. I have never lost a best friend before. These types of emotions have no names. Mu had an infectious magnetism about him that was so far removed from the comfort of any convenient adjective or classification, it makes stomaching this with any hint of grace that much more unrealistic. So much of who I am today is directly related to Camu’s ability to unearth things in me that would have otherwise remained dormant forever. He had an unprecedented influence on me as a human being, and beyond that as an artist. I can only hope that when this current fog eventually lifts, I am strong enough to do justice to the things he has given me.” -Ian “Aesop Rock” Bavitz
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“Camu Tao was like my big brother; hard on me, caring, inspiring, and confident. I looked up to him. On the first day we met he took his jacket off his back and put it on me because he saw that I was cold. That is the type of person he was.” -Yashar “Yak” Zadeh
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“He was robbed of his life. I was robbed of my friend and brother. We created music together and he believed he could change hip hop and so did I. There are many wonderful things I could say about Tero in his passing.I am fortunate I got to tell him most of them while he was alive. I am angry. I am bitter. My life will NEVER be the same again. He said “you should pump this shit like they do in the future” and HE WAS RIGHT!!!!!
I wish he could have seen all this love while he was still here. Cherish every second you have with someone you love sick or healthy. Time is NOT on your side.”
CC/WM FOREVER
Chris “Cage” Palko