record show coming up.

1000's of records of all genres ( rock, independent bay area labels, soul, funk, sound library records, hip-hop, obscure, jazz and more) ... FREE Admission, bring cash to buy.

Upcoming sale dates:

Thursday, May 13th from 5:30p - 8:30p
Thursday, July 15th from 5:30p - 8:30p
Thursday, September 16th from 5:30p - 8:30p

No early birds please.

Regular sellers include: Geraldine of FMG, DJ Smokestack, DJ Riddm, Johnny Red and more to be announced...

Spice Monkey Loft
1628 Webster Street @ 17th
Oakland, CA 94612
(2 Blocks from 19th Street BART)

Interested in selling? Send an email to: spicemonkeycafe@gmail.com

i had to respond

in response
i am not targeting the author if this blog post... and i'm not talking about mainstream hip hop vs underground hip hop... im talking about mass media's ability to exploit specific aspects of hip hop, repeat specific images, and redefine the pop culture understanding of what is "real" and what is "hip hop".

this is my perspective...

in an attempt to maintain audience attention... i think mass media fixates way too much on interpersonal drama... pop gossip. if you were watching "MTV's The Real World" from it's start... right around real world SF... i think mass media realized it could capitalize on certain aspects of "reality tv" : the crazy dude who just starts shit, homosexual relationships, inter ethnicity drama, and generally drama created by people living together.

then... much later, Survivor adds a spin to "reality TV" by putting competition in "reality".

is anyone going to debate me when i say that competition brings out the worst in humanity?

*** i am not judging specific people at this point.... i am merely stating my observations of what pop culture is presenting to us as "reality" at this point

right after the first airing of Survivor, MTV added competition to it's other "reality tv" show Road Rules. and if you follow road rules and later, real world... those shows begin to focus on the drama between people... and keeps repeating images and scenes of people in competition and conflict with each other.

admittedly around this time i stopped actively watching mtv/bet/and vh1.

however i did keep tabs.

and my tabs on this growing genre of "reality" tv just show a growing interest in "alliances" and deceit, and how people arguing with other people are at the forefront of pop culture.

so now we have a pop culture stage where the limelight is a boxing arena...
and "music television" is no longer about music... they are about this diffused and obscured perspective of "reality". and music highlight shows like 106 and park and that show on mtv with carson dailey don't even play entire music videos.

so what happened to the music and it's audience... the pop culture audience is primed for drama... they seek it out... and they no longer have the attention span to digest a full music video.

additionally artists are under pressure... to meet certain sales goals, to sell x amt of albums, to generate hype and publicity to sell music. to compete for an audience's attention which has been inundated with the idea that "reality" is an ikea furnished home where people drink and get into fights and sleep around and party and do things that really happen in "real life"... just not to the extent as it is portrayed on television.

and i am not going to say that Rappers and people in "hip hop" are saints... i'm not trying to say that "real hip hop" is all wholesome and pure and non competitive and all inclusive... nothing is. but in my opinion... mass media has done nothing to help hip hop. mass media exploits drama between people and sells it to us. and now drama is a marketing tool to sell books and cds. and i believe that pop culture/mass media/reality tv has twisted artists minds so much... that they play into it and become the roles publicized on tv.

don't believe me? how about flava flav and ray j?

*** this is not a personal attack on flava flav or ray j... this is only my interpretation of how they are presented to us as artists and people. additionally, if i were in a position to get paid and be on tv in a reality show... i probably fucking would. because people gotta eat and light bills don't pay themselves.

but what did the reality tv shows of flava flav and ray j present us? did they represent flava flav and ray j as artists at all?
ray j has been making music since the late 90s. and really... from my perspective he has been a struggling artist until his sex tape came out. and how many people know flava flav in his musical capacity as opposed to his tv personality?

hip hop has always had this aspect of image. really. for anyone to participate in hip hop... you gotta have the image down. whether you were a b-boy in shell tops in the early 80s or rocking the 1st grant hill's and a helly hansen jacket in the 90s... from cybertek to stunna shades... "hip hop" has always had this notion of image and presentation attached to it. it is embodied in a graff writer's pieces and robots next to a djs turntables. you gotta look the part somewhat if you wanna play the game... that is a component of "real hip hop".

so in my opinion... when artists are presented with these images of what "reality" is on tv, it gets assimilated into their image.


and im sure that rappers would be having sex with "groupies" if they weren't pervasively portrayed on tv... but would some of those groupies be groupies if those people (im sure there are male groupies out there too) weren't bombarded with images of groupie behavior (via reality tv) on tv?

as a dj who considers himself a contributing member of this "hip hop culture" i have to admit that i am offended by " Kat Stacks’ Confessions. Don’t Be Mad, Hip-Hoppers, You Created This." because i didn't do that shit BET... you did.

the last ipad post

*this article is not based on any real research... it's just the product of observations, sweeping generalizations, and toilet seat pontificating.

What id like to see of the ipad.
I hope this is the last I speak of the ipad. I d hate to rant without purpose. But then again, the internet is my soap box; I have the talking stick; so someone has to listen.

Yeah… im a bit underwhelmed by it’s actual execution. No multitasking. No camera. Brushes? Eh. No flash. For people with a netbook or an e-reader, this probably won’t improve your life unless you really hate running windows os on a netbook (though the iphone os on the ipad doesn’t seem much better) or you really want a color ereader.

If you don’t have an ebook, an ereader, an ipod touch, or were looking to spend money on a top of the line ipod and find an ipad more useful, you will probably be happy buying an ipad. Personally, if steve jobs sent me one, I’d happily use it as my café internettin device and for reading gizmodo on the toilet. Plus the glass screen seems easier to keep clean than keys that trap… well, crap. (I’m talking about eating sandwiches and getting crumbs everywhere… not wiping up spooge. But that’s a reality as well.)

But for the creative community, and more specifically djs on a digital setup, I think the ipad has potential far larger than apple’s seemingly mundane intent.

What is an ipad? It’s a fairly large wireless touchscreen with a 1ghz processor and min 16gb sshd, I can’t remember if it has Bluetooth. But it also has some form of usb connection to sync with your computer. ( I can’t remember if it’s in the form of an actual usb port or a cable that is a dock terminal on one side and a usb port on the other… but you know,.. that white apple cable)

First off the bat, you may think im proposing some sort of serato app that allows you to have two virtual decks and spin right on the ipad. BAD IDEA. Sorry. But from the point of view of a working dj with real club and crowd experience, there is no way you could cram the necessary info into that screen size and come close to creating an environment that resembles mixing with decks or cdjs. You’d end up turning the thing into one of those stupid plastic toy turntables that have a “realistic scratch sample” play when you thumb a 2in plastic disc.

But what some fancypants and capable company (with experience in digital djing and has a successful solid digital dj program under their belt already) could do, is write an ipad app that allows you to control extra parameters on that digital dj rig. Liiiiiike: an x/y axis area for efx decay/sustain. A tap tempo area. You could have maybe an array of buttons/sliders/virtual pads to trigger loops (and adjust loop in and end), hotcues, and samples. Or how about a side screen that allows you to look through and select music in cover flow style and allows you to keep your music selection away from the eyes of prying other djs (djing in am(rip) mode feels kinda pretentious in some settings). Now this may be a stretch. But what if serato had a plug in that allowed you to display the full wavelength of a song on the ipad. Add loops by highlighting a section of the song (concurrent/multiple loops.), then add hot cues to that song and then trigger the loop/hotcues by tapping the screen. In real time. On the fly. In fact, the ipad has a headphone jack. Let me cue samples and hotcues off the ipad(in internal mode on the ipad) too.

Of course all this depends on apple’s ability/willingness to use their hardware in that fashion. If the hardware can’t handle it, then it can’t. but I’m convinced that if it can handle internet browsing, word processing, and music/movie playback, it working in conjuction with the laptop’s processor should be able to handle something as simple as file navigation and editing id3 tags right? Additionally I don’t know if the ipad touchscreen is intended for the extra milage a dj’s setup would incur. But why not try it.

I think however is it depends on how much “access” apple allows to the actual hardware. Multitasking? (multiple spaces for diff efx and serato controls? WINNING.) Is it not able to multitask because it’s not capable of running multiple programs? Im not sure. But I’d bet against that. Im guessing it has to do with the limitations of the iphone os. Now if for some reason apple’s fascination with control dictates that they won’t open the os up and allow for more desktop environment, (I can’t dl a zip, decompress and then put it in it’s right folder on an ipad? You can do that on a netbook) then that would be the Achilles heel for this product. In reality, I’d say scrap the app process and let people just make programs for the ipad. or keep it. But give people some room to do what we want with it.

Just don’t nerf the product because you have some sort of drm keystoned moral system. Because otherwise, the ipad is just kinda cool. But not as functional as it could be.

Realistically I should be asking serato to create a similar plugin/app for one of those windows based tablets cnet talked about during ces. But as someone who is working on a mac, I’d rather not. I like osx. And I can only imagine waves of complication in trying to input a windows/ubuntu/non osx governed peripheral into my current computer. But if I felt it would be successful I would. If buying a windows tablet would expand my dj setup that much. Hells to the yes. (and yes I know I could achieve what I am describing using traktor and a midi controller. But the format of a set controller isn’t as flexible as designing a GUI)

And serato. If any of this reached you, sounded like a good idea, and want to know more… hollerate at cho boy.

…now back to our scheduled programming…..
-brigidope

you know i had to post about it... the ipad

the internet has swelled in the past few months around the idea of a tablet/slate device coming from apple. and now. finally it's here.

well not there.. but that artist rendering was pretty bang on.... but here:


sooooo whooopdydo. what's it mean? apple now has a 499 computing price point into people's lives.
im not gonna talk about what the ipad does. all the blog recounts of the presentation say that ipod/iphone users already know how to use the ipad. so if that implies the current ipad experience... we all already know.

but here is what i want the ipad to be able to do.

kaosIPAD. hook this up to your laptop and get an efx controller w/ x/y axis control.

tenorIPAD music creator/controller with this "app".

actually any sort of music creator/controller would be ill. people already have those drum/guitar/keyboard apps on their iphones. but this would allow for us to take advantage of the larger screen and space for more functions. i dont know how powerful this 1ghz a4 processor is... but someone put it to the test.
-brigideezy

apple 2010 predictions...

(*this article isn't based on any real research it's just mental diarrhea sparked by an article and fueled by personal experiences, conversations, observations, alcohol, stunts, cocaine blunts, hip hop, and toad bunghole licking)

i read this interesting article on why apple WILL put out a tablet in 2010 and it got me thinking... apple's growing personal computing market share and domination of the mp3 player, and iphone success has little to do with their capacity as a company that makes computers. i'm not saying apple is not a capable computer manufacturer... because they are... but rather the fact that apple has succeeded since almost folding in the 90s is because apple has grown into a bit of a computing lifestyle company.

at the heart of this "computing lifestyle" is itunes.

itunes software and it's content really positioned apple to succeed in the mp3 market. with the popularity of the ipod, interest in apple notebooks and desktops followed. and really... the strongest force behind the iphone is itunes and the apps store. sure the UI and design of the phone is toad lickingly magical (at it's debut)... but without itunes to deliver content... the iphone would have been a pretty external harddrive with a screen on it that you could make calls on.

so where am i going with this? ah yes... company growth and direction...

so how does itunes and "computing lifestyle" fit into the development of a apple tablet?

well if we think about the popularity of the iphone, net books, and kindle readers, it implies the interest and usefullness of a non laptop(touchscreen) computing device that provides internet access and media access and control (itunes).

some people might indicate a pointlessness/frivolousness to a device that seems redundant to the iphone...

but if you place it within the context of an apple "computing lifestyle", you have a device that is a clean integration to your current itunes media, large enough to read ebooks comfortably, small enough to be considered "portable"; and allows for internet access sufficient for most web browsing and email needs.

lets expand this "apple computing lifestyle universe" and place the apple tablet in your living room as a media hub giving it control of your apple tv. now you have a fairly large apple touch display keyboard for navigating your itunes library streaming to your tv/audio center (apple tv/hulu/roku funtions navigated by a tablet? ...good bye cable box). download an ebook, and take this tablet/hub with you to read email web browse when you are out and about. set the tablet on a stand and the screensaver makes it a digital photo frame. bluetooth connect a headset and voip over your wifi network...

maybe im getting ahead of everything... but i think apple is going to take over your world.


the point of this article? im just setting up a pre 2010 prediction of what might happen this year.

happy new years yall and inspect all your toads before licking them.
-brigideezy/brigidope/brigibankai/beee jaaeeee if you're nasty

music post

i got hip to tokimonsta after she did a remix for shing02's big city lights. and after more digi digging i became a tokifan. toki's style is pretty random and diverse... however not styleless. she ranges from breakbeat sampley loop sounds to grimey syth glitch slap (i don't describe genres. i invent them) without sounding random or unfocused.
she has a mix up for takeflightclub. it's a free download so peep the linkage and cop some new music.
(via tokimonsta's blog)

brigidope nu faves

so before the end of the year i just wanted to highlight some musics/artists that i have been listening to.

suzi analogue. she keeps it pumpin. a lot of her music definitely has that grimey electronic dilla infused sound. but on the other side of the coin it's panty droppin music to F* to.

ive been listening to a lot of devonwho instrumentals and remixes. he did nice little remix of the suzi analogue track i posted. you can peep the remix here

a fellow dj from the LA put me up to MeLo-x's album Mustafa's Renaissance. Then after Maxwell but out Blacksummer's night, i heard about MeLo-X's remix treatment to that album. i keep it in one itunes playlist with Blacksummer's night. MeLo managed to flip songs off the album and make em different while keeping the original vibe and/or emphasizing certain emotions off the song he flipped. in anycase, ive been knocking his maxwell remix project for a minute