Friday July 28 2006
Slept in because it looked like it was going to storm, and that’s the kind of weather we’re getting this time of year: Pop-up thunderstorms, which I love. Checked my messages and Emily West called, and she said to mention her in my blog, because it’s one of the blogs she reads. She said she was preoccupied because she was with the president of her record label yesterday. Leslie took a nap and I went out for a while and puttered around. Came home and watched that movie with Peter Sellers where he’s an Italian director and he’s so animated and hyper, and he’s sweating the whole time. Probably on amphetamines. Mollie Burnett called and she said things were going pretty good. I wanted to talk to someone about DJ-ing, and she happened to call so I kind of talked her ear off, but she was a good person to talk to. Took Posh to Sevier park, and listened to some more rap songs on my ipod. I looked up Ma$e on Wikipedia and fell into an interesting web “black whole” about hip hop. Then I downloaded “Hypnotize” by Notorious B.I.G. after I read that it played at his funeral in New York, and it made the song sound so eerie. I wrote down all the words to “Mo Money, Mo Problems” on notebook paper and it took about an hour. There were still some lines I couldn’t get. I think it’s good to write lyrics down sometimes. I was thinking about what Tom Petty said about sitting around with his friends by the radio, and listening to “Get Off Of My Cloud” by the Stones, and having to wait 3 or 4 hours for it to keep coming on to get all the words. They come really fast. And that’s the same thing in rap, it makes the song really have momentum.
So much of the violent lyrics in Hip Hop are meant to be metaphorical, I think. It’s sad when that trash-talking results in real violence. But that’s what happens when you deal with people who don’t understand the difference between reality and metaphors. They don’t like their pride wounded, so they kill you. But I learned a new term for record sales I never knew before: “Diamond” (Certified 10X Platinum). You don’t encounter that term very often in the idie-rock/folk circuit I travel in (laughs).
Went to Venus Hum’s in-store at Grimey’s and they sounded good. I talked to Annette for a little while, and she said she’d be up for writing some time. So now I have lots of people that want to write that I need to call. Leigh Nash, (who’s new record got 4 stars in Paste) and some others. People are going to start to not take me seriously if I never call them. Anyway, bought some records ($39) and Leslie called and wanted to get Korean food, so we went out to Tofu House and had a Korean feast! I asked the waitress (stupidly) if she was from North or South Korea. “I am from the South.” She said.
The food was excellent, but spicy, and I had nightmares and sweated all night.