the cult of dilla, c/d?

Getting down on the D by Ugly Ed

Pipecock/[Name Suppressed]

Disclaimer: This is a work of non-profit amateur fan fiction written just for fun. No infringement is meant on the rights of RF, Tom Cox, FXHE records, The Belleville Three or anybody else. No profit is being made by this story.

([Name Suppressed])

I was lying on the bed in my room next to Pipecock. After our moments of passion he had fallen asleep. I felt somehow strange. I had had so many bad times with him that the fact that we became lovers was almost unbelievable. Remembering some our arguments and flamewars made me think about the oddness of my relationship with Pipecock. I’ve spent years convincing trying to make myself believe that I hate him to hide my admiration for him. His neckbeard now wet with love- sweat and man juice, his sapphire eyes, now closed in his sleep… All the past years I had tried to hate him in vain when all I had really wanted was to touch him, feel him close to me, love him.

*Flashback:*

Pipecock was on a high. All week the props had been pouring in to Infinitestatemachine from real cats all over the globe who shared his passion for the true, soulful shit from the soul/disco continuum. He could feel that his time was coming – any day now he would finally have crushed the evil forces of rave and the world would acknowledge that he and he alone was the saviour of Detroit and his name would be enshrined above even that of Juan Atkins. Sweetest of all was the fact that his arch-rival and nemesis [Name Suppressed] ‘Minimal’ Fitzgerald had retired from blogging. His famous cock, virtually brandished wherever dance music was discussed, thickened in his shapeless brown pants at the thought of this final victory. And tonight he would savour his triumph in the sweetest possible way – Omar-S was playing Pittsburgh, and he was playing at Realshitforrealcats, Pipecock’s own club night.

That night, after several hours of the choicest cuts, the dancefloor was packed, many new faces were there, evidence that Pipecock’s crusade rolled on, gathering more and more momentum with every passing day. Evidence that all those years spent relentlessly pursuing retards on messageboards were paying off. The music surged in his veins and he bobbed his head even more fiercely than before. Suddenly the music changed – a thin, reedy and impossibly sweet riff clanged out over the crowded dancefloor. Pipecock felt a strange feeling come over him – he wanted to put his hands in the air and jump up and down really fast. Then an overdriven organ surged in over a pounding electro bassline. Pipecock’s body twitched with a fierce passion that seemed to come from outside him. He was a slave to the rave!

The last bars of Booka Shade faded out and, drenched in sweat and utterly overcome by a mixture of elation and disgust, Pipecock’s legs gave way and he clutched at the nearest body for support. Dimly, he heard a soft Irish brogue say “I never expected to see you like this”. Realisation slowly dawning on him, he looked up: “Fitzgerald!” he gasped.

But before the two rivals could begin ransacking their stores of epithets they were distracted – Omar was playing “The art of stalking”!

“Our troubles can wait, [Name Suppressed]” said Pipecock, “Let’s dance!” The next five hours were a whirl of limbs, grins and vintage synths. Time after time Omar dropped something that satisfied both Pipecock’s need for authenticity and [Name Suppressed]’s convoluted contrarianism. They wanted to scowl at each other but just couldn’t. Gradually [Name Suppressed] began to notice the powerful masculine contractions Pipecock’s stocky body went into when the snares hit, and Pipecock couldn’t help but be charmed by the young Irishman’s slender frame swaying, eyes closed in rapture, during the breakdowns. In the churning confusion of the floor the brush of body against body gradually became something more lingering. As Omar closed out the set with the Ugly Edit of Jill Scott’s “Slowly, surely” the two suddenly stopped, frozen and face to face on the floor, neither quite daring to say what needed to be said.

***TO BE CONTINUED***

haha. part 2 plz.

Getting down on the D by Ugly Ed - PART 2

Pipecock/[Name Suppressed]

Disclaimer: This is a work of non-profit amateur fan fiction written just for fun. No infringement is meant on the rights of [Name Suppressed] Fitzqerald, Tom Cox, FXHE records, The Belleville Three or anybody else. No profit is being made by this story.

The music faded away and still the two stood there like two samurai locked in a battle of wills, except theirs was a battle of the love that dare not speak it’s name – the love of Europe for America and vice versa. Suddenly a voice echoed through the club.

“Is that? Is that? THE GHOST OF LARRY LEVAN????”

“Yes [Name Suppressed], it is I” said the ghost. “As you can see I have stopped the vinyl of time and everyone else in this club is frozen. Only the two of you can see me, and when I’ve finished talking and restarted the music of life, all will be as before and no-one will know of this save the two of you.”

“But, but…”

“QUIET PIPECOCK!” bellowed the ghost, “I am not some n00b that you can shout down with all caps. I am Larry Levan and I shall be heard. [Name Suppressed]! Smirk not! You are as guilty as he. Both of you have been gathered here for your sins against disco. You, Pipecock have strayed from the truth of your love for music by the desire for recognition and you seek to claim other people’s music for your own. This is not your place! Not only that but your love for Detroit has blinded you to the glories of other forms of music. Seek not to impose outside criteria on the groove, for the groove is just the groove and needs no other justification.”

Pipecock shuffled his feet and looked at the ground, chastened. This was Larry Levan! How could he argue?

“You, [Name Suppressed], have also strayed. You are too caught up in the creation of an ‘interesting’ viewpoint on music. You say things you don’t really mean and twist yourself up with thoughts of what your tastes say about you, instead of just feeling.”

“But most of all, both of you, you have not just sinned against music, you have sinned against love. Yes, L-O-V-E. You love each other, and want each other, but all the hate has blinded you to this. Let the scales drop from your eyes, and embrace one another. Then go home and make pumping man-love to the sounds of Donato Dozzy. This I command!”

***TO BE CONTINUED***

i actually properly LOLd while reading that.

titchy, did you know that one of the sa ra guys was dre's ghost producer for a long time? probably why dre's beats had dilla inspiration

i dunno, was he really dres ghostproducer? i think i read he had some other job, almost more admin-level at the label.

so what? i guess dilla's beats weren't touched by the wang of jesus himself?

the man wasn't a god?

fans are gay?

nothing makes people feel cool like clowning backpacker shit?

it's pretty stupid that dilla is getting shit on on ILM considering some of the corny shit that gets hyped on this board.

pretty much any beat with non-quantized hi-hats that slop around between straight and swung, or samples that veer out of time, reads as j dilla-influenced to me these days.

so what? i guess dilla's beats weren't touched by the wang of jesus himself?

the man wasn't a god?

fans are gay?

nothing makes people feel cool like clowning backpacker shit?

it's pretty stupid that dilla is getting shit on on ILM considering some of the corny shit that gets hyped on this board.

― brother marquis (M@tt He1ges0n), Tuesday, 17 March 2009 16:17 (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

^^^^^ACTUAL best post on this thread

somebody link to the narcissism of small differences post from way back and lock thread already

i know what you mean and you're right for the most part, but there have been plenty of mainstream producers (Megahertz, later Neptunes) doing swinging unquantized drums that have nothing to do with Dilla.

the way people are overreacting to a the very mildly negative things being said about Dilla and/or his fans on this thread kinda makes a case for the fact that there is a cult of Dilla and it's not an entirely good thing.

i mean as far as i can tell noone has dared to suggest that the guy wasn't a unique talent or that he didn't make a lot of music worth enjoying and remembering him by.

right, a neptunes beat has never made me think of dilla (can you name any specific tunes btw?)

most of their stuff from like Justified onward has tended to be unquantized loops of Pharrell's live drumming instead of drum machines like before, it's more obvious on some tracks than others.

i'm not even a huge megafan, but he's good. listening to donuts now. this is a nice one to zone out to.

basically my post was directed at stuff like this:

why people are on his dick for the shitty Tribe albums, Labcabincalifornia, and the post-Paul De La albums is beyond me. Common? ugh fuck that guy

― One of the Most High Profile Comedy Directors of the 90s (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, March 16, 2009 10:30 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

you forget that being mad at dead people is shakey's "thing"

haha waht

I'm mad at LIVING people, once their dead the gloating begins

they're

So can I ask an informed fan for a Rough Guide? (Haven't checked the RG threads, but I don't think any of them had one.)

(cue deej "zing" here)

yeah, that's a totally different thing to me. a) the fact that it's a loop means that it's going to line up every four or eight bars, as opposed to the dilla thing of doing a whole drum track "live", and anyway most of that neptunes drumming is pretty tight anyway, and b) however dilla did his beats (live on samplers or whatever), he created feels that are pretty hard to reproduce on a drum kit. i've never heard the neptunes do anything that sounds like that, and i feel like a lot of drummers are dealing with it now as a result of hearing dilla-style beats.

not sure how easily they would be to dig up, but i noticed a lot of music blogs did unofficial rough guides soon after he died.. can't be more specific than that tho

yeah loose unquantized drums done on a drum pad are a whole different thing i guess

xpost

man there was that one awesome free dilla mixtape that a website did...ethan linked to it, was great. can't recall where it was now.

was it the okayplayer thing w/m.o.p. and peedi crakk on top of beats from donuts?

didn't know he was ever locked up

yeah i heard that one, it was awesome

xpost

this: http://www.okayplayer.com/dilla/djsoul/

Bout to play basketball, will do a rough guide when I get back

xpost - i hear no similiarities between the neps and dilla. also, questlove does a pretty good simulation of dilla on his kit, tho i can do without hearing anyone else try and approximate the dilla 'swing' with programming or live drums. was listening to a brownswood sampler the other day and the number of tracks with neo soul vocals over dilla loops got pretty boring. tbh, the dilla style can get pretty dull and sleepytime in itself. its not quite quantized, no, but it can still be pretty rigid/stiff to the point of zzz. i think a lot of his stuff was right on that borderline between stiff/loose but not always in a good way.

i hear no similiarities between the neps and dilla

noone said there was one, that was kinda my point.

Matos, contact me or Rev, we'll come up with one for you. Rev would be best actually.

But if you want a rolling Rough Guide here: "Nothing Like This" from the Ruff Draft EP belongs on it.

(also, Labcabincalifornia is great. Haterz are insane.)

tho i can do without hearing anyone else try and approximate the dilla 'swing' with programming or live drums

i disagree, it still seems like a fertile area, but you're right that it's a fine line between doing it with funk and just sounding sloppy or weird for weird's sake.

my quick rough guide of his own (or slum village's tracks) with one or two from qtip/tribe just cos the stuff they did together was some of his best imo -

dilla - pause
slum village - fall in love
slum village - i dont know
common - Thelonius
jaylib - mcnasty filth
dilla - nothing like this
slum village - look of love
dilla - fuck the police
q-tip - move
q-tip - lets ride
tribe - find a way

yeah i've been pretty into "Move" lately

'Getting Down on the D' Vols 1 + 2 by Ugly Ed: A+++++ would read agin

this post has made me wanna go and all those detroit albums i ignored.

This is very belated, esp. since I know he meant them sarcastically, but Mackro's Nick Drake/Arthur Russell thing is pretty OTM!

i didn't really understand that at all, since Nick Drake released everything as a solo artist under the same name AFAIK and i was talking about how slippery J Dilla's legacy was before his death because he was known by different names and didn't get a lot of name recognition for his work with better known artists early on. maybe the joke was something else and it just went over my head, though.

haha I don't think he was being quite that literal. I just thought it was funny because I kind of agree with it! (Nick Drake much more than Russell--I don't mind hearing Drake but he's not someone I ever listen to of my own accord.)

Most of the songs I know that have been mentioned here I like fine, but the "genius" talk all seems to boil down to production stuff that as a lay listener I'd never pick up on.

It was just a commentary that people here still fascinate about talented artists who died in the same way like Russell and, from time to time, Drake -- but OMG, we can't have people fascinate about J Dilla, James Yancy, etc. because ALL THESE KIDS MADE HYPERBOLIC T-SHIRTS. THAT'S THE END, MAN

(remove "in the same way" from last sentence, forgot to remove first time)

you know ALL THOSE KIDS that nobody saw except someone here on ILX who was in Tibet once.

ok, well...my post that you parodied was about an issue completely aside from what you turned it into, so thanks for missing the point.

i wonder how dilla would feel if he knew people were still getting butthurt about him years after his death

ok, well...my post that you parodied was about an issue completely aside from what you turned it into, so thanks for missing the point.

to be honest, I just grabbed a post on this thread and made text substitutions that happened to be yours. I didn't miss or get any point of yours. my butt feels great, thanks.

ok, it's all good. also you should probably stop saying "fascinate about."