Song of the Day: Study Sunday Edition

I'll Be Brief

Finals suck big fat donkey dick. Some days (like today) are spent not doing anything fun, but just studying, studying, and studying some more. Occasionally you can break up the monotony with an awesome activity like laundry - RAD! On days like these it just feels wrong to listen to bangers - just makes you regret your situation even more, plus it's distracting. Instead, you need some nice relaxing tunes to soothe your brain and calm your nerves (especially if you're pounding coffee/using stronger stuff). Classical is theoretically the best thing for studying, but honestly it's just not my bag. I used to use jazz (just put Coltrane's discography on repeat in itunes...) but eventually that got distracting. Fortunately I've got Bonobo's album 'dial m for monkey' which is a real nice chunk of instrumental chill-ness (I wish there was a less horrible word I could think of to describe their style, but I'm failing), grounded in the pairing of downtempo, hip-hop inflected drumbeats and subtle-but-effective basslines, with multiple haunting melodies layered on top, with flute riffs coming in and out to pique your interest. Basically it makes me feels like an educated philosopher in my study, which is what I need during finals week. Hopefully it does the same for you.

SOtD - 3/15 - BONOBO - WAYWARD BOB - DOWNLOAD

BONUS - One more from the same album, so you can get a little work done. - BONOBO - NOCTUARY - DOWNLOAD

"Always Anytime 24/7"- JT$ Hard Recap

Download this first: Dance Area- AA 24/7 (Diplo Remix) (Direct Link- DL quickly)

(I originally thought they said "Always Anti 24/7", which sounds dope to me, but looking back was a pretty weird chorus for a dance song.)

First of all, let me congratulate Dan on yesterday's post. Without mentioning that the post was one of the best we've put up, the fact that anything was written is an accomplishment in itself. I needed an extra day to get my head clear enough to write a post with anything resembling coherency. I'd like to thank Dan for spreading his feelings of peace and love. We like to give different perspectives here at TUWP, so I'm going to share some thoughts about the expericne. Here is my quick thoughts of the Hard 13 rave/ show/whatever the hell that was:

- Fuck all ages shows. You don't want to know how many kids had braces and headgear at this thing. 

D.I.M.- Played this house jam classic.  Reminded me of Italy. I was completely sober.

- I fully support hip-hop DJs like A-Trak(Kanye's former DJ and brother of Dave 1 of Chromeo, real name Alain Macklovitch, btw), , jumping into the electro scene by bringing some hip-hop influence to their remixes. Get money mi amigos. 

A-Trak brings the funk party on this track: Bounce. Illy. 

-For every white girl looking like a hooker from the 5th Element, there was a huge hombre rocking a baseball hat with a bandana over his mouth. In conclusion: LA is an interesting, ethnically diverse place.)

-My words to Dan during Erol Alkan: "You know why electro sucks? Because everybody is trying to be Erol Alkan, but nobody can touch him." Enough said. 

Grade: A

Diplo: This is the main reason I came to Hard 13 and the main reason for this long-ass blog post. I will admit to wasting your time until now, because this was where everything went beserk for me. Diplo singlehandedly destroyed the place, and I don't mean that in a good "dude killed it, he was so great!" kinda way, but in a "warplane dropping a bomb on suspected terrorist house and leaving the bodies of innocent civilians in its wake." That's what the dancefloor looked like after he left. 

Diplo came out a little after 1 am. With Lil fucking Jon. At this point many in the crowd were coming down from whatever drugs they had taken and just wanted to touch something and look at light shows. That is not the state you want an audience to be in when you have Diplo playing baltimore club music and fidget house with Lil Jon shouting his head off over it. The people could not keep up at all and I think dude just gave up and stuck to dubstep and threw in some hip-hop for fun. But fuck it, I love that he had the balls to be the only act on the bill that wasn't purely electro and fucked all the candy ravers up. "You wanna come to a rave and believe in PLUR(peace love unity respect, apparently), well, here's Lil Jon telling you to put your middle finger in the air and yelll "fuck them mothfuckas," with the video flashing "GET CRUNK". Beautiful. Extra points for baile funk and dancehall mixing it up:

Best part of the night: BMORE!!!! CROOKERS!

You might say, "Why would Lil Jon be at a rave?" Answer: Lil Jon is sampled in almost every single baltimore club song, and Diplo is a club DJ, not a rave DJ. Big ups to both of them. 

-Conclusion: Make sure your pills are not mellow for Diplo. 

Song of the Day: Hard 13 Edition

LA is a HARD Place

So! Brand new feature here on the blog that I decided to make happen about 34 seconds ago, because I was just sitting in my room, headbanging violently to Jack Got Jacked (Jack Beats Remix) by AC Slater, having flashbacks to 2 am last night when Erol Alkan (or was it Diplo? it's all kinda hazy now...) dropped this banger, and the bass just annihilated my fucking life, and when I pried my lids open and looked around I could see that everyone else was rocking out just as fucking hard, and not much beats that feeling.. .and I decided that I wanted to share a little slice of the tunes that get me through the day with all of you (that's right, ALL of you - all 5000. or 6. It's one of those two numbers). Anyways, from now on I'm gonna upload a song to mediafire for you to download and get funky to. It's not gonna be all bangers - just whatever song happens to seem appropriate for that day, and maybe a little explanation of WHY that song. They'll mostly be .mp3s, some .m4a's - if for whatever reason you're not using itunes and you want an .mp3 version, if you take the effort to post in the comments i'll take the time to convert the file and repost it. Sweet!

SONGS OF THE DAY

FRIDAY THE 13th RETROACTIVE SOtD - AC SLATER - JACK GOT JACKED (JACK BEATS REMIX) - DOWNLOAD
-Q: Why is this song different from other SOtD's? (the fifth passover question..)
A: Last night Dan and JT Pesos went to the HARD 13 rave/electro concert/whatever at the Shrine Expo Center for a night of drugs, dancing, old friends, new friends, insane light shows and $4 bottles of water. While Lil' Jon showing up for Diplo's set was pretty funny, by far the lastingest impression from the night was hearing the absolutely insane dubstep-inspired house banging bassline from this song drop. Broke it down so hard, and then after retiring to a friend's pad up in the valley and posting up on the couch for two of the fattest j's ever seen (seriously, it was like the joint that grew up in the blunt neighborhood, always got made fun of for being a skinny little j, and so grew up overcompensating by being more blunt-y than a blunt. Bob Marley woulda smoked something like this joint) - and proceeded to fall into a sleep-like state of deep relaxation in which this song just kept replaying in my head. Woke up, it was still there - walking around all sounding like a crazy person (from the perspective of people who don't break it down) making "bwwwaaaaoow buppa bwwaoooowwww" sounds. SO SICK. Play this when the party's raging, everyone's drunk and the shit's about to get real.

SOTD - 3/14 - THE TOUGH ALLIANCE - NEO VIOLENCE (SHAZAM REMIX) - DOWNLOAD
-Q:Why is this song different from other SOtD's?
A: Because it's dedicated to something we can all relate to, even if we didn't go to HARD 13 - that day after you raged it too hard, till 5 in the morning. The day when you crawl out of bed/off the couch at 1 pm, pull your face together, pound some water, smoke a little weed and cruise to a fat breakfast. Those mornings-that-are-actually-afternoons full of dazed looks, fucked up hair, hangovers, sunshine, constant retelling of all the awesome shit that happened (that you can remember), and a rich and deep appreciation for how amazng your life is and how much you love your friends. For these days bangers are a little too much - everyone just wants to chill out, and this track is soaked in australian sunshine-groove. A bassline borne out of some weird coupling of 70's funk and 80's synth, haunting vocals, and a beat that bounces but doesn't bash you over the head. Pile into the car, roll down the windows, put this on, and everybody bob their head and think about how awesome last night was, and no matter how much you wish you could back but can't, you'll always the friends and the memories.

- Dan

Like Your Parents

Not Angry - Just Disappointed

The Education of Trevor Ariza

Is there a more badass song than "One" to play after that? NO.

A brief little basketball related post here. So, espn.com, a website I frequent much more than I would like, has a stable of basketball writers. These guys get paid to write about ball all day (awesome!), and millions of people read their shit. In other words, while me and toobi are playing pick up games, they are playing in the NBA. They are the big time. One of my favorite writers is David B. Thorpe - he's a pro trainer who works with actual NBA players, so unlike most espn hacks he's not just making shit up - he's got real insight based on thousands of hours of working with, and watching tape of, nba players. He posts in-depth articles every week, and also has these weekly chats where people can ask questions and he answers them - stuff like this:

Steiny (NYC): If you had worked with Shaq on his free-throw shooting, how much do you think he could have improved? 5%? 10%?

David Thorpe: (12:24 PM ET ) I'm as confident in my ability as he is in his. 75% would have been the goal to start.

One day, a chatter asked Thorpe for some more detailed info, so Thorpe told him to hit him up on facebook. Being the little opportunist I am, a facebook stalking of Thorpe appealed to me.. I so searched for "David Thorpe", scrolled through 10 pages till I found the one from Tampa Bay, Fl, then scrolled through 2 more to find the RIGHT one from Tampa. I probably weirded the hell out of two other David Thorpes by friend requesting them with a message about basketball, opera, and movie quotes. Thorpe, being a cool guy, accepted my friend request, and when I asked him if he would be willing to answer some questions for a blog post of mine, he seemed down. I was pleasantly surprised, to say the least - here is a busy guy, getting paid to write about ball, willing to take time and answer the little guy's questions. Not to mention the sheer badassery of having David Thorpe, Pro Trainer and ESPN Analyst conducting interviews on MY blog - we would definitely be the most awesome 6-reader blog ever. So I cobbled together some questions about Trevor Ariza [Is "One" his theme song!? Fucking rad!], the freak athlete who is rapidly becoming my favorite Laker, and sent them over... and Thorpe got right back to me! Unfortunately, it wasn't to answer the questions, but to stall.

Feb. 17th (tues.) - I send the questions, Thorpe responds: "My pleasure! But I'm away with my family until thursday. Is it ok if I wait until then?"

Feb. 21st (sat.) - Still no response, so I shoot over a follow up email. Thorpe: "I'll have time to look at them this week. Doing rookies tomorrow and monday."

March 7th - Well, it's obviously been more than a week, and I don't wanna bug the guy, but I want my damn blog post! So I facebook him the questions again, under the 'just in case they got caught in the spam blocker' rationale. I mean that's the rationale I used - I know it's not true. Again, same day, Thorpe responds: "Dan-I'll get this taken care of this week."

March 13th - Well, wtf? I don't wanna be hassling the guy, and I'm tired of using this shit as an excuse for not posting, especially since Trevor just got moved into the starting lineup. He coulda just told me he didn't have time... but then I realize, hey, I already HAVE enough Thorpe answers for my questions - I read his chats all the time! - and this way I can make him agree with whatever point I'm trying to make. AWESOME.
So with no further ado, I present the exclusive Barely Educated Q & A with espn.com analyst David B. Thorpe!!!!

Here we go...

BE: Trevor pretty clearly is a valuable contributing member of the Lake Show, and I remember him always playing well in his brief chances in NY (where he was held up as part of Isiah's drafting acumen.. and can't hate on that! [just everything else]), and Orlando... basically noone's every denied he's a talented kid... so why did it take this long for him to get some consistent minutes?

David Thorpe: The head coach makes all the difference.

BE: How many Brian Cooks is Trevor Ariza worth? 3? 5? Also, why does Brian Cook have the facial hair of a vagrant? Laker fans have only contempt for the Cookie Monster.

David Thorpe: I honestly do not know.

BE: Let's assume that Orlando traded him b/c they thought he couldn't shoot the 3 (so vital in SVG's system). Although Ariza is no Ray Ray/Peja/etc., he's making about 30% of his attempts this year, and from my perspective at least, his stroke looks decent - maybe he'll never be a 40% guy, but 35% doesn't seem improbable to me, with more reps. Was this more a case of him always having had the fundamental ability but not being given the chance, or does his form look actually improved since his days in Orlando? Trevor seems to be a hard worker, so I could see either one.

David Thorpe: It's no surprise players play better when being pushed.

BE: On that note, could you briefly assess his progress as a ball handler? When we traded for him the rep was that he was a jumper, that's all, but he's shown more than that in LA.

David Thorpe: Honestly, I'm so impressed with his resurgence. He looks terrific. Credit their coaches. And him, of course.

BE: Finally, given all of the above, what do you see as Trevor Ariza's ceiling? Very-good non-All Star (a la battier/bowen)? Couple time all-star? Essential key to title runs (Dennis Green/Michael Cooper)? Something else?

David Thorpe: He's impressed me a great deal. Can be an all-star. But he has a long way to go.


BE: It's been inspirational.

David Thorpe: Seriously, I'm in the inspiration business. That's step one for coaches. So I sincerely thank you.

ps.
Bonus Questions: what's your favorite food? favorite hip-hop song if any? favorite opera? favorite seinfeld episode? favorite character? Is Lamar still Elaine with the way he's been playing? Who wins in a fight, Ronny Turiaf or Josh Powell (a.k.a. ronny 2.0)? Would you mind if I e-mailed you at some later date with more questions/ideas/whatever? Thanks again!

David Thorpe: Enough-we don't know!!

Well, there you have it! Information straight from the experts! And yes, these are all direct quotes. Quite informative! Well this was a huge waste of time. Maybe me and Toobi will sit down and discuss these questions amongst ourselves next week... when we're not getting fucked in the ass by finals. And new starter Trevor Ariza is making high-flying plays on offense, using his plastic man arms on d, and never smiling. ever.

- Dan

BONUS: a really sloppy mix of the electro bangers i've been listening to recently... this time it is actually a mix and not a retarded .zip file (and I stopped using zshare b/c of the wait time), so fear not.. 25 megs! Fucking check it out! (or don't, it's pretty sloppy). This was pretty spur of the moment, once finals are over I'll have the time to actually sit down and get a more polished one out. Enjoy!

DOWNLOAD [MEDIAFIRE]

Tracklist:
Artist - Track (Remixer) - [My comments...]
Sticky K - The Weirdo [props to rod for getting his LP out! check it here- BANDARI FUNK]
Lykke Li - Little Bit (Death to the Throne Remix) [I love any and all remixes of this track]
Audio Bullys - Dope Fiend (Tommie Sunshine & Udachi Remix) [Not that I endorse drug use...]
Proxy - Tha Raven - (Kasey & MPC Remix) vs. (Polymorphic Remix)
TC - Where's My Money (Caspa Remix - JACK BEATS RE-EDIT) [remix of the remix... DUBBY]
Foreign Beggars - Hit That Gash (DJ PrimeCuts Remix) [Misogyny! beat is dirty though...]
Qemists - Dem Na Like Me (A1 Bassline Remix) [A1 Bassline is the SHIT. More on him soon...]
Blackfinger - UMF (Supra1 Remix) [DUB]
E-40 & Lil Jon - Turf Drop (Dj Doza Remix) - [SF Electro Stylezzz.. The cut out of this one sucks]
Reset! - Gasa [Italian steez]
U2 - Get On Your Boots (CROOKERS REMIX) - [FRESH Crookers shit... it's been a while!]
Rusko - Woo Boost - [From Crookers' "We Make it Good" mixtape - get the whole thing here]

I love you all! THANK YOU CLEVELAND!!! And now, off to the shrine expo center for some loud noises.

hard 13 is coming...

We're BACK (sorta)

Finals are not blog-conducive. Unless I really need to procrastinate, then I'll probably write up some kind of quick recap of HARD 13 this Friday. 

Eventually I'll put some recent mixes up, but this will do. 

so here's a mix I made a long time ago in one take...

JT Pesos- Fucking around with bmore club tracks

DOES ANY1 EVER READ THIS BLOG?

If not, I can use it to talk endless shit about people I know. Please leave a comment if you would like this site to change its format to "bringing back juicycampus for the 100 people Toobs knows and really dislikes." Otherwise, leave a comment that says you like our blog, or if there is anyway to improve it. I'd really like some feedback, and for Dan to start posting again. 

DETOX SOUNDS LIKE A SHITTY TI ALBUM! KID CUDI STILL AWESOME

So I think I know why Detox took so long to come out. I think it would have been dope in 2002, then Dre wanted to hype it up. But in that time period, music has just passed it by. This is not next level shit, it's absolutely basic, radio-friendly rap. Nothing special here. "Topless" is pretty tight, and I love the chill feel of "Shit Poppin Off", but none of these songs hold a candle to old Dre shit. And why the fuck is TI on every single song? Is this a trick, or is this just a Dre-produced T.I. album? And why can't I find any rap bloggers talking about this. THIS IS FUCKING DETOX, THE MOST HYPED ALBUM EVER! WE'RE ALL SUCKERS!

Maybe I overreacted right there, all I'm saying is that this new shit coming out from Dre and Aftermath, and that includes Eminem's "Crack a Bottle", is just not all that impressive. 

Listen for yourself, unless your a little bitch who is too lazy to go onto links, then just stop reading this blog altogether. 

"Topless" -Fader Link

"Shit Popped Off"

"This is Detox" -quesionable if Dre

Compare this to two of the brighter young gunner rappers who kill it (once again), with this new song "Look Up At Da Stars." Seriously, this song is the shit and I can't get enough of it, tags and all. 

Cudi and Wale- "Look Up at da stars"

BTW, in the top ten most annoying things you can do: go to a table where somebody has left there stuff in the library and sit across from them, then look at shit with your boyfriend while giggling and whispering to each other. EAT SHIT, DIE!