Making your dreams come true through MS Paint

Folks,

I gotta lay it down, right here, right now. It is my belief that TOO many people involved in the art world (artists, musicians, actors, midget strippers) are taking themselves way too serious. Do I have to decode your hairdo to understand your deep running river? Do I have to look beyond your quirky choice of pant to see that there's a man with a plan? Does every artist have to BRAND themselves now? Like Chris Brown used to be the guy for DoubleMint Gum before he doubled his freshness and probation time by turning his fists into Umbrellas. Or like Ke$ha's brand is the "I don't care whose retainer it is and if I party too hard and poop my leggings that's too bad because it's obvious I went hardcore and there's glitter in my mouth" - that's her thing.

It's no doubt that I live in NYC and that a lot of fashionable people make it work out here on these pee and trash covered streets....

Work it!

But seriously people. Take a note from me, Jake Sanders; entrepreneur, self-made hero, musician, quick to pass judgment on people I've never met and all around tall guy...utilize clothes to cover your naked body and be comfortable, not as a chance to show everyone how witty or post-ironic you can be, and to forgo actual conversation. But more importantly, use MS paint to brand yourself! Set the bar low and then watch people's level of respect rise.

Check it!

What this says is "Hey, before we get off on the wrong foot let me introduce myself as someone who doesn't care for polish (that's polish like sheen, not polish like sausage) and I'm gonna hit the studio, do what it do, and then craft a banger. If we like said banger, great, and if not...at least I got a chance to create winning posters on Microsoft Paint."

That's it. Now a quick note - kids, be free. Do whatever you want to do and be whoever you want to be. Don't let my hasty generalizations stop you from buying all the expensive cheap looking clothes you can get your hands on. I can be thrown into these same categories as I always wear my lucky speedo underwear when I play a show, and I have at least 7 shirts with random sayings on them. Like "My other shirt is a broomstick" and "Honk if you like shinguards" or
"Kerry/Edwards 2004 - totally not gonna have sex with that camera girl"

Long story short, October 1 - get those hands on this album. The long and winding plug.

Good luck.

Knox, Knox....(review)

As the elder days of my life approach, I find myself asking questions once believed to be unaskable...

- while listening to the radio - "What are these youngsters listening to?"
- while watching tv - "Why does everything have to be so violent?"
- while sitting in a movie theater - "What happened to ambiguity?"

While the tender days of my youth seep out of the garbage bag of my life, I wonder if things have diminished in quality and craftsmanship, or have I outgrown the slobbery, hypnotic whirl of my teenage days where everything was new and all the experiences were mine to experience, and all the lessons mine to learn anew?

Let's take music for example. Back in the day when I started my love affair with hip-hop I started to realize that for me, the beauty of this genre was in the music. The rhymes were definitely a part of the picture, but the groups I listened to had a common thread; warm, wooden, vintage, funky sample driven production with a crisp finish that added a smokey note to the wine of my halcyon days.

Now with the advent of in-home music production that can actually compete with major artists, (yet only in competent hands, any yahoo can put loops together!) and the "I need it now and I can actually have it now" mentality, music and it's accompanying memory making ingredients have seemed to lose their luster.



All of these wonderings and wanderings were abated when I heard QKnox's "Meet Mr. Q" - a collection of no less than 30+ homemade beat blankets to warm this cold and lonely heart of a disinterested music snob.

With "Mr. Q" I see the progression of music stretching in both directions; historic and futuristic. With his latest offering, QKnox asks the listener to engage in a temporal freeze frame. A timeless landscape that is created from the limestone of some old and new soul and jazz records, shaped by the hands of the present to craft a gift to the future. In another way it seems QKnox takes ancient relics, crushes them into a powder and forges new metals and alloys with which he builds a new and fantastic world.

QKnox gives a tip of the hat to his musical heros while maintaining a stance that is completely his own. "Meet Mr. Q" takes me back to those smoked out cars of my younger days when the music made the magic happen. This is a treat to listen to and it's an album that can be delved into again and again, as new twists and turns are available from each successive listen. Keep your ears out for Captain Jean Luc Picard. He's all over this!!

As we continue to try to scrape what goodness we can from the crusty innards of life, it's nice to know that someone is walking behind us, picking up the scraps that we forgot, and giving them back to us in shiny new packages that make us remember when things were right in the world and we took time to appreciate.

Favorite Tracks -

Find a New Way - Something about this is yum.
Call Me Up - genius Chromeo reimagining

http://qknoxbeats.bandcamp.com/album/meet-mr-q