Okay, I know what you’re all thinking: “When the hell is that lazy bum Jeremy Hunt actually going start posting something worthwhile on The House of Hunt? It’s been nothing but lameass videos and pictures for weeks now!”
Fear not good people. I have heard your cries…well, I heard the voice of my beloved last night saying “You haven’t written anything for a while. What’s going on?”And nothing prompts me to action faster than a little encouragement from April. For those of you who don’t already realize this, she’s the real brains of this operation.
So…here’s what’s coming up. More funny, more music, and more movies. I know, I know. You’re thinking, “What more could I want in life? Thank you, House of Hunt!” You’re welcome. You are welcome.
Now that the preamble/explanatory crap is out of the way, here’s what we’re looking at today: Music. And lots of it. Over the past few months I’ve gotten a hold of a buttload of new tunes. And you know what? It’s all killer stuff that I’ve got to share with people. That’s the true power of good music, shoot, good art period. If you listen to it and you can’t keep it in, you have to tell someone about it…that’s some solid music right there. Plus one of my good buddies is launching a new site soon and he’s asked me to contribute reviews, articles, and other goodness (more on that in a few day). So this will help me get the creative juices flowing again. I’ll try to provide links and info on all of these releases as I can…and I’ll also try to provide some semblance of organization, so enjoy the ride. Here we go!
OBEY GIANT
If you’ve known me for any period of time, you know of my love for Shepard Fairey’s Obey Giant campaign/phenomenon/art project. I first heard about Fairey and Obey Giant during my college days at Davidson. The art gallery coordinator brought in some of Fairey’s prints and I fell in love with his graffiti-meets-propaganda style. His views on phenomenology (how people interpret imagery/words and the various combinations thereof) also deeply fascinated me. I suppose it’s the anarchist in me, but I love seeing how people react to provocative art. We live such lives of comfort and ease in America and I think that shaking things up on a regular basis is a good thing. Comfort breeds apathy and apathy stunts growth…and ultimately kills. So I’ve followed Fairey’s work in the years since, buying Obey shirts, stickers, notebooks, basically anything I could find because I really dig what he’s doing with an artform that is usually disparaged by the artistic elite.
I’m sure at this point, you’re thinking, that’s great and all…but I thought this was going to be about music? Don’t you worry. It is. As I’ve started digging deeper into the Obey world, I realized that Fairey has collaborated with a number of different musicians, including doing poster art for “Walk The Line” and the cover art for the Smashing Pumpkins‘ latest album, “Zeitgeist.” But there other releases slightly under the radar that I found out about and I recently tracked four of them down. Here then are the unofficially-titled Obey Records:
Various Artists - The Giant Rock ‘n Roll Swindle
This tasty compilation is actually the most recent addition to my collection (despite being released a few years ago)…so I’m still mulling it over. But thus far, it’s a fun mix of various artists, including The Hives, Modest Mouse, Bouncing Souls, The (International) Noise Conspiracy, Big D and The Kids Table, and The Lawrence Arms. It’s loud, noisy, snotty punk rock and I love it. Swears abound on a couple of songs, so beware if your ears are tender.
DJ Shadow - Funky Skunk
Completely switching gears from Swindle, this album is one single hour-long track, featuring the mash-up/mix sick skills of DJ Shadow. I’ve recently started getting into more beat-heavy music, trip hop and such. This mix was put together as part of the Public Works: A DJ Shadow/Obey Reconstruction collaboration. Shadow and Fairey put together a box set featuring this CD, five new Obey t-shirts, a book, and some other goodies. While that run was limited to 450 boxes, Funky Skunk is still available for purchase, either alone or with one of four of those Obey shirts (a fifth design was limited only to the box sets). At any rate, this record is basically like finding the sweetest hip-hop radio station with no talk whatsoever and nothing but smooth flowing beats and rhythms. It’s an awesome mix…highly recommended.
Roam&Urth - From City To City
Now this is a sweetass package. Take a look at that picture. Looks like an LP, right? It’s an LP-sized sleeve, but with a CD centered on a piece of cardboard designed to look like a record. Cool, eh? I really dig it. And the music is awesome too. This is another mash-up mix, with three long tracks featuring all sorts of music. For example, within the first few minutes of the first track, Roam and Urth manage to mix in The Mars Volta and The Beastie Boys. Yeah, they’re that good. I got this bad boy off of Ebay, so it might be a little hard to track down. I believe all of the copies were signed by Fairey, but the run was limited to 1000 copies. So snag it if you can!
A-Trak - Dirty South Dance
And finally, there’s this kid named A-Trak who won massive DJing competitions whilst still in his tender teens…and he’s been Kanye West’s tour DJ for a few years now. Fun how that happens, isn’t it? A-Trak is one heck of a DJ and this mash-up mix features a ton of *surprise!* southern hip-hop and crunk tracks. It’s a blast and you can’t beat the bling-bling hotness of a pink bunny hopping around with a basketful of diamonds. It screams hardcore.
Whew! There you have it. The first of hopefully many new music reviews. If any of this piques your fancy, let me know. I’ll help you track it down…or if you ask nicely, I might let you take a listen.
