ScHoolboy Q – Break the Bank

Ladies and gentlemen, Ron Johhnson has fallen very ill with a rare sickness. I am Don Johhnson, brother and tan supervisor to Ron, and I am here to assure you that he is more than okay and is on a quick road to recovery and wishes you all a merry Plurmpus. Unfortunately he has contracted octopus pox and is unable to type on a keyboard as a result of his hands being human-sized tentacles, but he is sitting right next to me, whispering into my ear exactly what he wants to say. The doctor says with a little bit of rest, a sizeable glass of apple orchard whiskey and a well-orchestrated smack in the face, Ron should be back to full health in no time. In the meantime he has been working on his February mix, using a tentacle-friendly DJ controller, which is sure to be a delight, and an interview with a very special guest. And after the slump that was February, it seems that all the hard-working artists and producers are back in the studios and cranking out the goods once again. But not to worry, Ron has been on it and today he brings you one of the most talked-about artists of the past month.

ScHoolboy Q  just released his second album Oxymoron, to high praise and critical acclaim. He is part of the collective known as “black hippies” and a member of record label TDE (Top Dog Entertainment) alongside Kendrick Lamar, Jay Rock and Ab-Soul, all artists who have really been revolutionizing the face of hip hop. It’s fair to say that hip-hop entered a bit of a dark age over the past few years, with the only music of any value coming from underground artists like MF Doom and Mos Def. It got to a point where it seemed like Whiz Khalifa and Trinidad James might be the new face of hip hop and we all thought, “oh boy, this is how it ends.” If I had to listen to one more song about “smoking kush, and making paper” I though I might fall into a coma. Luckily, the light at the end of the tunnel is here and real hip-hop is back in the forefront. Guys like Danny Brown, Kendrick, ScHoolboy Q, Action Bronson and Earl Sweatshirt are creating music that is reminiscent of golden era 90’s hip hop, but with a modern feel. ScHoolboy Q’s latest video for his song, Break the Bank, looks like it could have come out of the set of Boyz n the Hood, and the song has that grit of old school gangster rap. Check out the album when you get a chance and rest assured that the future of hip-hop is in good hands. And no matter how sick I get, always remember that Don Johhnson is here for you. No! you’re supposed to write Ron Johhnson, you knucklehead, you can’t steal my line. Stop writing everything I say! Give me that keyboard… Ah crap.

TOKiMONSTA – The World is Ours

Remixing Marvin Gaye has become somewhat of a trend over the past few weeks, but this latest one from TOKiMONSTA brought me out of six day fast from all technology. Yes friends, I decided to take a little break from anything that beeps or dings or flashes, but upon hearing this remix (without the use of computer… don’t ask how) I thought I might do a quick little post. Shhhhh, don’t tell anyone. Enjoy the free download for now, and rape the replay button, I shall return very soon with some very special treats for ya’ll. Ron Johhnson out.

Real Estate – Talking Backwards

 

Here is a short poem I wrote, of which 70% is based on true facts.

I found a pumpkin, under my shed
I found a pumpkin, and I named him Ned

Using a marker, I drew him a face
and dressed him in lipstick, earrings and lace

Ned became my new best friend
he was the prettiest pumpkin in all the West end

We walked on the beach, late at night
rolled in the sand, and held each other tight

Every moment was spent with Ned
he was my one and only, you could have said

I left my wife and all three of my kids
I even lost my job of fishing for squid

But I had my Ned, so all was okay
Until I came home one frightful day

and found him in bed with a butternut squash
I cried out “oh my jebus joly gosh”

So I carved them both up and made me a soup
it resembled some kind of watery goop

I ate the whole thing with a loaf of bread
then went off to the market to find a new Ned

And here’s a new song and video by the band Real Estate. This is one those fun and very likeable bands that is definitely worth getting into. Their new album comes out on March 4th and it’s sure to be a hoot!

Bonnaroo 2014

Elton John, Jack White, Kanye, The Glitch Mob, Damon Albarn, Arctic Monkeys, Skrillex, Cage the Elephant, Skrillex, James Blake. In spectacular fashion, Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival released their lineup for 2014 last night. While most other big festivals like Coachella and Lollapalooza simply put out a poster on a given date, Bonnaroo did something called BLAM (Bonnaroo lineup announcement megathon) and god-dang was it entertaining. Hosted by comedian Hannibal Burress and SNL actor Tarran Killiam, and with performances by the Flaming Lips, and Ben Folds, they really outdid themselves. Personally, I viewed it with a bottle of gin, a bucket of fried shrimp and my three best friends Alejandro, Toilet Tony and Chon Lee. Alejandro is the young Puerto-Rican gentleman who saved me when I was lost in the Puerto-Rican rain forest, having been chased up a tree by a pack of angry wolverines and who I then adopted as my third son and who now lives with us. Then there’s Toilet Tony, my plumber/financial adviser turned best friend. Yes, this is the same Toilet Tony that invented the Panasonic Inverter Prestige microwave oven, and started what is known as “twerking”. Finally there’s Chon Lee, or Charlie, as we like to call him, the last piece of the pie. I found Charlie back in 2006, when I was spending the summer at a ranch. On my last day there, a walked into the barn and found him curled up under a pile of hay, stark naked. I brought him home and cleaned him up and he became my new best friend. I love these three guys and I do just about everything with them. So this brings me to why I’m so excited about the Bonnaroo lineup. It’s because I road-tripped down to Tennesse with the above mentioned crew for Bonnaroo 2013 and it was probably the best weekend of my life, if you’re not counting the time I found a whole ham sandwich in the backseat of my Pontiac.

The lineup this year is not to the level of what it was last year (Paul McCartney, Tom Petty, Animal Collective, Pretty Lights, Tame Impala to name a few) but it is still spectacular. I am more than excited to see names up there like Vampire Weekend, Disclosure, Danny Brown, A Tribe Called Red, James Blake, and of course Jack White, one my favourite musicians of all time. What’s also fun about festival lineups is to look up the names that you don’t know and to get excited about them. One of the defining features about Bonnaroo are the superjams, where a bunch of musicians from different bands unite on one stage and jam well into the night. One of this year’s jams is featuring Skrillex so it will be interested to see how that turns out. If you’re considering venturing out to an American music festival this year, I seriously suggest Bonnaroo, even if the lineup isn’t to your liking. It is unlike any other festival (and I’m going to sound like a hippy here… but maybe I am one) because of the strong positive energy. Before going, I heard a lot about the radiate positivity mantra which is reinforced at the festival, but it was only after experiencing it first hand that I realized how powerful it really is. There is this atmosphere at Bonnaroo where everyone is at peace, and happy to be there, and helpful, and friendly. It is basically a utopia, where everyone is your best friend for four days, soundtracked with some of the best music out there. Plus the fact that almost everyone camps there makes it so much more like a big family. It’s tough to put this feeling into words, but check out the video below by Almost Alive, which pretty much strikes it at it’s core.

Sweet Valley

‘Sweet valley dude. Thanks dude. You’re welcome dude.’ That’s what comes to mind immediately when I read the name Sweet Valley, and I’m almost 100% sure that was their intention. One half of Sweet Valley is Nathan Williams of surfer rock band Wavves and the other half is his brother Kynan. To give you a short background on the group, here is a description of the band from their Bandcamp page: “Sweet Valley is a Bermuda Triangle-like place, where cannabis crumbs, spilt beer, record dust and that mysterious shit you had to blow out of game cartridges all collect as if pulled by some gigantic junkyard magnet. ” And now you know just about everything you need to know about the duo. In fact, I can’t say I even know what the band members look like because I found the above picture from one of their album covers and thought it defined their music perfectly.

Sweet Valley’s sound is primarily electronic but you can find nuances in there from an array of different styles. First and foremost is the psychedelic surfer sounds that are a clear product of Wavves music, but they also have a lot of bass and trap inspired tunes with bright synths and complex drum patterns. Their work is extremely eclectic, making it impossible to even try and pin them down as one singular genre. In some songs they venture into hip hop territory, before moving into sample heavy electro-soul in the next. Why these guys have so few followers on Soundcloud, no idea. Their latest release, So Serene, could easily have been an album or an EP, but is instead a 28 minute song. It is spectacular in it’s constantly evolving form that begins with an atmospheric buildup, before moving into a whirlwind of different beats and then coming down into a sample from some sort of paranoid news broadcast where a guy talks about UFO’s. The whole thing can be listened to and downloaded here at no charge. In honour of all the music they’ve put out in the past two years, I’ve chosen to share five of my favourite Sweet Valley tunes, and trust me, it certainly wasn’t easy choosing only five.

Parquet Courts – Borrowed Time

I decided to go mud digging today. That’s when I’m at a loss for recent music so I pull up a festival lineup, scroll to the bottom of the page, to where I don’t recognize any names and start firing them into YouTube. Then I’ll go on a frenzy of related videos and usually pull something cool out of the mud. There is really a lot of great music out there, sometimes you just need to take the time to find it. However, there is also an over-abundance of artists that  just completely lack in individuality. Maybe this is too subjective, but even when mud digging within the indie bands, you’ll find a lot of stuff that sounds the same. Then again, I guess the ones that really standout get recognized pretty quickly and find themselves on the side of the mud pile, blossoming into beautiful flowers of noise. But of course sometimes you’ll pull out a shiny nickel that everyone else seems have thrown back into the sludge. Then you can really be proud.

Today I went digging in the hopes of finding something new, but instead I came across Parquet Courts, a band I discovered last year. So if you’ve never heard of Parquet Courts before, I’m doing you a big favour right now. If I could have one band be the soundtrack to Ron Johhnson, it would be these guys. In fact, if I could go back in time and bring Parquet Courts with me, I would have them play my wedding instead of that George Michael/Slayer cover band. Their sound reminds me of Velvet Underground, Talking Heads, and Devo’s first album, Q: Are we not Men? A: We are Devo!, all music that has seriously shaped me into the music-loving man I am today. It’s got that raw garage sound but holding on the screaming and the trashing, keeping it more composed than other modern punk bands. The singer sounds like he just walked out of the bathroom and was handed a guitar and a cigarette and told to sing a song. There is something nostalgic and inspiring about their music, which I can’t really explain. It almost feels like home in a way, but makes me want to do bad things at the same time. Check out their album, Light Up Gold, it’s a great listen and has an album cover which I very much approve of.

Remix Report #2

Apparently it’s Valentines day folks. I became aware of this very important (or not so important) fact a few hours ago when I found a single rose placed on my pillow. My wife, being away on a business trip in Seattle, placed it there, expecting me to find it in the morning. Unfortunately, her being gone meant that I fell asleep on a lawn chair on the roof, gazing up at the stars. I love my wife, and I am so happy that she thinks of me on such a day, but her absence meant that I could spend all of February 14 with my second love… pulled pork. Making it, smelling it, tasting it, I love all of it, and any time I get the house to myself, pulling the pork is what I do. I threw the pork shoulder on the charcoal early this morning and it’s been going strong all day. The sweet smoky smell has been filling my backyard, and the neighbours have begun lining up since noon. Of course I share it, it’s what any good pork puller would do. I have already had to change my drool-soaked shirt three times today. Unfortunately, I know myself well enough at this point to predict a food coma over the next two days, so I’m leaving you with a healthy piece of pork to chew on. But not the pulled kind, that’s for me and my neighbours only. There are some real gems in Remix Report #2, so have yourself a solid listen and fantasize about a genuine Johhnson house pulled pork sandwich.

According to 17 year-old producer, Tennyson, from Edmonton Canada, you can’t spell ‘mellow’ without ‘meow.’ I agree with you, young Tenny, whatever that means. This is one of the more beautiful remixes I have heard of late, and that is why I am featuring it first. Such a young man, already with such an individual sound, completely (and I mean completely) reworks Angus and Julia Stone’s For You into a smooth jazzy piece. Still at the bud of his career, this young sound maestro is sure to blow up very soon. 

The difference between a flip, a rework, a remix, an edit, and whatever other terms they use, is beyond me. All I know is that when a producer takes a track and really gives it his own flavour, then it really doesn’t matter what you call it. Ganz’s (now get ready for this) flip of Flume’s remix of Hermitude’s song Hyperparadise (nailed it) is one of the most talked about remixes/flips/whatever of the past week. Ganz really puts an interesting spin on a song that was already one of the best remixes of the past year. I hope your brain is still sharp enough after all those synonyms to listen to the song now.

Are you a fan of squeaky bed springs? If you’ve ever lived in a house with other people past the age of 18 then probably not. Luckily, Trippy Turtle is about to turn that around for you. The squeak is a pivotal sound of the Jersey Club style that has become so popular over the past year. Here, Bell Biv DeVoe’s 1990 jam Poison gets a jersey club twist from the mysterious squeak master himself. Who is Trippy Turtle? It’s almost certainly the incredibly versatile Norwegian producer Magnus August Høiberg, better known as Cashmere Cat. Or maybe it isn’t, maybe it’s your brother. Or maybe it’s no one at all. Is this even real life?

Oh Danny Brown. You can’t not love him. Hailing from Detroit, he is one of the most talented and interesting rappers to emerge in the past decade. His flow is impeccable and his songs are reminiscent of early 90’s underground rap. They call this one an edit and if you’re familiar with the original of Grown Up then you can certainly hear why. Instead of re-mixing the song, producer Fitzroy, added his own unique beat, with a piano touch, that complements the exquisite lyricism just as well as the original.

Finally, I’m sure you were asking yourself who the hell Cashmere Cat was a few minutes ago. Well here you go. This is a Twinzrack remix of his song Rice Rain, and it’s got some very noteworthy parts. That’s about all I have to say about it. I want my pulled pork. I want it right now. Have a good weekend friends, even though I’ll be busy stuffing my mildy-attractive-yet-very-experienced face, just know that I’ll still be here for you… eating… a lot.

Little Dragon – Klapp Klapp

“Woooaaaaah, crazy trippy dude!” were the first words that my youngest son Kennedy ever spoke. It was in late 2009, and we riding down the golden coast in my 1973 Tans Am (I miss you baby), dogs in the back, wife in the passenger seat with the toddler in her lap. I threw on my cassette recording of Little Dragon’s spectacular album Machine Dreams, and Kennedy suddenly had this big smile on his face. I guess the little bugger had never heard trip hop before.

Amongst the cloud of indie fuzz, Little Dragon has always stood out. Curators of a dreamy synth pop sound, they have release three spectacular albums over the past seven years. The beautiful Yushimi Nagano’s unique vocals are really the driving force behind the Little Dragon sound, and they have inspired a number of collaborations between the band and similar acts like Gorillaz and SBTRKT. In anticipation for the May 3rd release of their next album Nabuma Rubberband, they have just released their first single Klapp Klapp, along with a really cool interactive video, where the band actually calls you and tells you about their new album. I swear it’s real, check it out below. Well, It’s a recorded message but I still blushed like a japanese schoolgirl when Yushimi said “hi.” This video is a great reminder of the incredible ways that bands can interact with their fans through the power of the internet. Cue: “I remember in my day…”

Interactive Video: http://klappklapp.nabumarubberband.com/

Avey Tare’s Slasher Flicks – Little Fang

As you can imagine, perusing the internet in search of new music is one of my favourite pastimes. However, one of my main hubs for new music, Facebook, has been completely infiltrated as of late by something called neknominations. This stunt involves teenagers filming themselves chugging a beer and then passing the ritual on to a close friend or acquaintance. What started as the harmless sharing of the act of beer drinking has escalated to kids attempting to showcase their bravado by chugging large quantities of hard alcohol on camera and instead proving themselves very sick or in the hospital. I have been known to drink a few beers myself, but never as a way to prove myself to others or in such excess that I wind up getting my stomach pumped. The neknominations were a great idea to start but in this day of binge drinking being so publisized, it’s easy to see how one could get carried away. Keep it in moderation kids, you don’t want to end up all over the news in a puke-covered Lebron James jersey, and much less injure your precious little body. What’s especially worrisome is that the nominations are still going strong even though the deaths of four teenagers have been linked to this ridiculous stunt, which begs the question, when will it end? Hopefully soon, because I much prefered when my news feed was filled with new music rather than silly post-pubescant boys drinking their unshaven faces stupid. You don’t need to prove yourselves kids, we will love you anyway -Cheers, Ron Johhnson

Thank you for reading this short message; luckily I have still managed to rustle up some interesting music to share with you on this Tuesday afternoon. This one comes from Dave Portner (aka Avey Tare), one quarter of psychedelic whatever band Animal Collective. If you have ever listened to the wildly trippy music of Animal Collective, you will notice a shrieking, turbulent aspect that brings to mind a carnival on acid. That is Avey Tare for you. The more spaced out, Beach Boys-y side comes from our other friend Panda Bear, which can be noted on his own solo releases. It’s interesting to listen to the solo acts of Animal Collective members and see where each piece of the collective fits in. Avey Tare’s Slasher Flicks is Dave Portner’s newest solo endeavour, which he has described as “a group of three hippies on a road trip through the backwaters of 2013s rural music scene fall prey to a murderous cannibalistic band making…” Little Fang is perhaps not as strong as an Animal Collective tune, but still holds true to that carnival-esque sound that Avey Tare is known for. Avey Tare’s Slasher Flicks will release their debut album Enter the Slasher House on April 7, 2014 for Domino Records.

ODESZA – Sun Models ft. Madelyn Grant

I haven’t posted anything in a few days, but don’t worry, I have a perfectly good explanation. I was wandering the back alleys of my hometown, when a beautiful woman in a sun dress caught my gaze. Her mysterious blue eyes lured me into her candle-lit apartment where she asked me to stay and told me to sit anywhere. So I looked around and I noticed there wasn’t a chair. I sat on a rug, biding my time, drinking her wine. We talked until two and then she said, “It’s time for bed.” Or maybe I was sitting at home listening to one of my favourite Beatles records. I lose track of time once I start digging into my old vinyls, and sometimes even enter some sort of parallel universe. Regardless, today proved to be quite an easy return to reality, when I discovered the release of a new track by ODESZA, one of my favourite electronic artists of the past year.

The duo, comprised of BeachesBeaches and Catacombkid, makes music that could best be described as a cold glass of ice tea on the last day of summer as the sun sets and you and a good friend reminisce about all the good times you had. Or falling in love for the first time, while on vacation at the beach. Or eating crackers and cheez whiz at your neighbours backyard BBQ. Ok, I think I missed that last one. But in terms of electronic music, ODESZA is to me, as beautiful as it gets. They released an album in 2012, Summer’s Gone (a perfect title) and a breathtaking EP My Friends Never Die, in 2013, who’s title track has been on repeat in my house since it came out. Their use of samples is surreal, and their dreamy, sun trickled melodies are lush, yet hard-hitting. And lucky for you (and me… and your cousins) all their music is up for free, just check the download links below. This newest release is off the Rat Pack compilation album, courtesy of record label Pilerats. Besides ODESZA, it contains previously unreleased material by Ryan Hemsworth, Electric Mantis, Sable, Trippy Turtle and a variety of other producers. I have yet to listen to the full piece, but with a lineup like that, I certainly look forward to it. For now, enjoy this beautiful ODESZA track and see if it carries you back to your last summer vacation, or to the last time your car staled and you had to get it towed to the garage. And I ruined it again, sorry folks, enjoy.

FREE DOWNLOAD of My Friend Never Die and Summer’s Gone:   http://odesza.com/releases 

FREE DOWNLOAD of Pilerats Rat Pack:   http://pileratsrecords.bandcamp.com/