hahaha fantastic
"'I was less the keeper of a goal than the keeper of a secret,' wrote Nabokov, who was to bring the notion of the dodgy guardian into still higher relief with his most famous book."
― zvookster, Friday, 12 February 2010 03:25 (fourteen years ago) link
so wait has it not been like decades since this dude put out an album?
― by another name (amateurist), Friday, 12 February 2010 03:28 (fourteen years ago) link
16 years, bub
― GRIZZLY! GRRR! GRRR! So Indie Entertaaaaiiiinmeeent! (The Reverend), Friday, 12 February 2010 03:35 (fourteen years ago) link
"new york is killing me" is my jam, but otherwise i'm not crazy about this album just yet. i thought about deleting it but who knows when i'll be in the mood for old man spoken word over weird loopy beats, and i haven't got any other albums that satisfy that fix i don't think.
― united arab amirites (samosa gibreel), Friday, 12 February 2010 03:42 (fourteen years ago) link
does every song sound on this album sound like the "the wire" theme or just 'me and the devil'?
― united arab amirites (samosa gibreel), Thursday, February 11, 2010 10:22 PM (1 hour ago)
dude right?
― vag gangsta (k3vin k.), Friday, 12 February 2010 04:27 (fourteen years ago) link
me and the devil is a robert johnson cover, isn't it?
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Friday, 12 February 2010 04:39 (fourteen years ago) link
yes
― zvookster, Friday, 12 February 2010 04:42 (fourteen years ago) link
― vag gangsta (k3vin k.), Thursday, February 11, 2010 11:27 PM (13 minutes ago)
Yeah I pretty much immediately told my Wire-fanatic-friend about this album as soon as I heard it. It just seemed so appropriate...
― Evan, Friday, 12 February 2010 04:42 (fourteen years ago) link
funny new york is killing me reminded me of the sopranos theme. kind of treated gospel vox and all
― Norman Mail (schlump), Friday, 12 February 2010 11:42 (fourteen years ago) link
Jeez this is great, almost unbelievably so. This is what the Massive Attack album should have sounded like.
― The Man With the Magic Eardrums (Billy Dods), Friday, 12 February 2010 15:42 (fourteen years ago) link
the backing gospel vocals on ny is killing me are a bit pastichey.
― titchy (titchyschneiderMk2), Friday, 12 February 2010 18:01 (fourteen years ago) link
but then this whole album is a bit calculated production wise isnt it? good though.
― titchy (titchyschneiderMk2), Friday, 12 February 2010 18:02 (fourteen years ago) link
wasn't sure about the production at first but now think it's fairly understated and gil really comes through like gil of old but sounding like his dentures don't really fit
been listening to it for the past three days solid and love it
― conrad, Monday, 15 February 2010 02:39 (fourteen years ago) link
to me, this sounds too plainly like a producer's project that was sort of built around scott-heron. it seems to have more of an "agenda" than a comfortable sonic identity.
― by another name (amateurist), Tuesday, 16 February 2010 04:48 (fourteen years ago) link
"Me and the Devil" is a good song. I'd lay a bet it will end up the title tune to some gritty crime drama.
― earlnash, Thursday, 18 February 2010 00:24 (fourteen years ago) link
Really got into this around halfway thru - pretty sure that IS a sneaky Portishead 'Machine Gun' sample on 'Where Did The Night Go'. hard not to think of 'New York Is Killing Me' as the highlight.
― mdskltr (blueski), Tuesday, 23 February 2010 16:24 (fourteen years ago) link
i find the ad for this on spotify (gs-h reading a piece about how to interact with a new record, in isolation, taking it home, listening to it while doing nothing else) interesting / infuriating
― thomp, Tuesday, 23 February 2010 17:08 (fourteen years ago) link
it's propaganda with a grain of truth
― by another name (amateurist), Tuesday, 23 February 2010 20:25 (fourteen years ago) link
Beautiful and sad profile in the NYer which is unfortunately not available online.
― Theodore "Thee Diddy" Roosevelt (Hurting 2), Wednesday, 4 August 2010 02:25 (thirteen years ago) link
Alec Wilkinson's profile on Los Tigres del Norte in NYer is hands-down one of the best music pieces of the year. looking forward to this profile (and the day when he supplants SFJ over there).
― beta blog, Wednesday, 4 August 2010 19:54 (thirteen years ago) link
man that New Yorker piece depressed the hell out of me. beautifully done yeah but I am really bummed to hear that GSH is still on the pipe. cosign on the Los Tigres piece, though, that was completely awesome.
― gross rainbow of haerosmith (underrated aerosmith albums I have loved), Saturday, 14 August 2010 20:59 (thirteen years ago) link
Which issue was that in? Just looked for it on the newsstand and doesn't look like it's in there?
― Sean Carruthers, Sunday, 15 August 2010 20:38 (thirteen years ago) link
it's from two weeks back with a woman dropping her iphone into a pool cover. can't recommend that piece enough.
― beta blog, Sunday, 15 August 2010 20:41 (thirteen years ago) link
this album is astonishing. right now i'm thinking this is the best full-length disc i've heard all year.
― Daniel, Esq., Friday, 3 September 2010 02:55 (thirteen years ago) link
Just read the New Yorker piece a few days ago. It's so carefully structured, with that hint of the propane torch at the beginning leading to the heart of the piece.
My favorite GS-H song:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDC_ZM48S0Y
― A Chart Hit of Some Sort (Eazy), Friday, 3 September 2010 02:59 (thirteen years ago) link
is the new yorker piece online at all?
― Chaki doesn't have beef with unicorn (stevie), Friday, 3 September 2010 07:21 (thirteen years ago) link
it's not. there's an abstract of it at the site but the whole piece is subscription-only. eazy way otm about the development of it - the first line about the propane torch and you go "no...not full-on like that, please no" and then he leads you into how the whole story panned out for him. hard stuff.
― gross rainbow of haerosmith (underrated aerosmith albums I have loved), Friday, 3 September 2010 08:22 (thirteen years ago) link
i don't know if this is maybe kinda a quagmire to wade into, but while i dug the piece and like any vehicle for GSH's theorising and rambling, i found the whole thing a bit problematic, in permanently juxtaposing GSH against this mythical, potential-fulfilling alterno-GSH that would exist if he were clean. this isn't a full-on he needs those drugs to create! thing, but it's awkward to me to set a benchmark of where the guy should be at, considering that in some senses, the guy is doing well - he's out, he released a record, he's an expressive guy etc. i don't think i'm just romanticising & compartmentalising how grim it is that he's got a problem, but it felt like the article went full-on towards painting his life as tragic and wasted, when he's still an autonomous guy.
― FORTIFIED STEAMED VEGETABLE BOWL (schlump), Friday, 3 September 2010 10:06 (thirteen years ago) link
I didn't read it that way. Before I read it a lot of people commented "oh, it's very sad" etc. but it's not totally sad. I thought it was quite fair. Gil Scott-Heron occasionally makes superb music, often smokes crack. And it's still very sad but it didn't feel like a "wasted potential" theme hitting you over the head.
― FRESH MEAT (MFB), Friday, 3 September 2010 13:28 (thirteen years ago) link
Well, I mean, yeah, I fretted about that some as I read it - but, like, it's one thing to be strung out to the point where you leave your torch laying around. By the end of the interview, though, Heron is openly smoking rock in front of the interviewer. I thought, actually, given the reality of an interview subject openly smoking a crack pipe, the interviewer did a good job of sketching as complex a picture as he could. Autonomous or not, openly smoking crack in front of an interviewer from the New Yorker is way out there on the margins, imo. I mean yeah - he's doing better than he was a while back - but, you know, it's crack. It's just an incredibly destructive, suicidal drug - anybody who's addicted to it is living a pretty tragic life, imo, the more so when it's a titan of American music.
― gross rainbow of haerosmith (underrated aerosmith albums I have loved), Friday, 3 September 2010 13:39 (thirteen years ago) link
Wish I had a way to read this... hmmm, anyone have a newyorker.com login I can use? O_O
― ilxor has truly been got at and become an ILXor (ilxor), Friday, 3 September 2010 18:04 (thirteen years ago) link
yeah, it's not sanctimonious, it's only a small thing. it'd be pretty difficult to be open ended enough to keep everything in perspective and not quantify over a few pages.
― FORTIFIED STEAMED VEGETABLE BOWL (schlump), Friday, 3 September 2010 23:26 (thirteen years ago) link
sick chris cunningham "audio/video remix" of new york is killing me
http://pitchfork.com/news/40202-video-gil-scott-heron-new-york-is-killing-me-directed-by-chris-cunningham/
― bike chain dust? (lukas), Wednesday, 29 September 2010 06:01 (thirteen years ago) link
I'm gonna see his show in three weeks. What's he like live?
― Shin Oliva Suzuki, Saturday, 30 October 2010 19:46 (thirteen years ago) link
9547670227 months ago 16 im white and im not gonna let the illuminati separate me from black culture and the truth peace yall
― smangs of new york (deej), Saturday, 20 November 2010 22:36 (thirteen years ago) link
this and the grinderman album are the most interesting discs in reaction to -- or bristling against the idea of -- getting older that i've heard in a long time.
two of the best discs of the year imo.
― Daniel, Esq., Friday, 26 November 2010 14:39 (thirteen years ago) link
i cant decide how much i 'really like this' vs. 'sounds like a moby rmx album'
― challop and a muff (deej), Friday, 26 November 2010 18:44 (thirteen years ago) link
I like this, and yes the production sounds like a Moby remix.
― curmudgeon, Saturday, 27 November 2010 17:22 (thirteen years ago) link
But I'm not sure this is up to the standards of Gil Scott from way back (and Daniel, I'm not sure that Grinderman is up to the standards of the Birthday Party)
― curmudgeon, Saturday, 27 November 2010 17:25 (thirteen years ago) link
both albums connect to the middle-aged guy in me (tho I was never a fan of TBP).
― Daniel, Esq., Saturday, 27 November 2010 17:54 (thirteen years ago) link
So there's a Jamie xx remix record of this out in Feb.:
We're New Here:
01 I'm New Here02 Home03 I've Been Me (Interlude)04 Running05 My Cloud06 Certain Things (Interlude)07 The Crutch08 Ur Soul and Mine09 Parents (Interlude)10 Piano Player11 NY Is Killing Me12 Jazz (Interlude)13 I'll Take Care Of U
― Simon H., Monday, 29 November 2010 16:33 (thirteen years ago) link
I was gonna see him Thursday night in DC (he was scheduled to be in town through Sunday for 2 shows a night at small cozy Blues Alley) but he just cancelled due to "illness"
― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 15 December 2010 22:16 (thirteen years ago) link
pretty sure the guy has an "illness", but uh huh that sucks. a friend just saw him and got talking to a guy who'd gone to see him five times ... and had never seen him.
― dick roach (schlump), Wednesday, 15 December 2010 22:34 (thirteen years ago) link
he should do a tour with Sly
― from the lowly milligeir to the mighty gigahongro (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 15 December 2010 22:35 (thirteen years ago) link
they could both get paid and no one would have to show up!
at least sly's been doing that since the 70s
― Babylon and zing (stevie), Wednesday, 15 December 2010 23:48 (thirteen years ago) link
oh i heard this, it's ok then it gets really great at the end
― lex diamonds (lex pretend), Wednesday, 15 December 2010 23:59 (thirteen years ago) link
with a rui da silva sample, no less
― lex diamonds (lex pretend), Thursday, 16 December 2010 00:00 (thirteen years ago) link
Sad and pissed off that this album isn't on more year end lists.
― Stockhausen's Ekranoplan Quartet (Elvis Telecom), Thursday, 16 December 2010 01:31 (thirteen years ago) link
DJ Crudderz was saying something similar today!
― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 16 December 2010 02:12 (thirteen years ago) link
His choice and performance of covers seem to get past any problems with originals: covers are self-expressive w/o making it too real for him, maybe that's why so many brief originals---he stops when he feels that he has to, for whatever reason.What I said on What Are You Listening To:Still haven't heard the original album, or Jamie xx's reworking, but the unmistakable sound and sensibility of classic Gil come through: sharp, reflective glints in the dark, rough-edged a fluid, lyrical and realist, searching and on point, thematic and grooving---jazzwise, yet "blues is a feeling" the overall. Only thing is, some of the originals are really short, like down to 37 seconds: golden kernals of potential and realization---McCraven is def. not showboating, but I wish he extended these--maybe he was required to stick to the original track times? I'd like a bit more---more like---Laswell redoing Marley and Miles?? Anyway, it's all good, though faves are mostly because they have longer to make an impression: "New York is Killing Me," "I'll Take Care of You," "Me and the Devil"--yes, Scott-Heron and Robert Johnson and Mr. D. on the Greyhoud, seems natural. Speaking voice is worn but clear, singing voice not that different from 70s.
― dow, Saturday, August 15, 2020 4:11 PM
― dow, Tuesday, 13 October 2020 23:45 (three years ago) link
This album is a modern classic. Finally bought a copy on vinyl which is nice to look at (pink and green vinyl is weird for this album though) but it does seem to highlight the lo fi sonics more. Quite a bit of this sounds like it was recorded on low quality digital audio. Which is ofc a world away from his classic records. Now thinking it might be be best suited to mp3s.
― candyman, Friday, 12 March 2021 00:31 (three years ago) link
*screams in WMA*
― maf you one two (maffew12), Friday, 12 March 2021 00:34 (three years ago) link