Oct 25

The song “Blueprint²” is featured on Jay-Z’s 2002 album “The Blueprint²: The Gift & The Curse.” The beat on this song initially caught my attention because it’s very epic sounding and very familiar, although I couldn’t figure out where I knew it from.

Later, after doing some reading on the Jay-Z vs. Nas feud I realized that this song was chock full of punches towards Nas. Then after some further reading on “The Blueprint²: The Gift & The Curse” I found that the sample came from “The Ecstasy of Gold” by Ennio Morricone, from the score to “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.”

The way I became familiar with “The Ecstasy of Gold” is not through “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” because I have never seen it sadly enough, but because it is one of the songs on Metallica’s “S&M” album which was recorded live with the San Francisco Symphony. Apparently Metallica has been using it as their intro music for their concerts since 1983. I had no idea. Apparently the Ramones also used the song for the same purpose.

Ennio Morricone as you may or may not know is a very well known Italian Academy Award-winning composer who has done film soundtracks and scores for tons and tons of movies.

The use of this classic and epic piece as a sample in a hip-hop song is simply brilliant. The producer on the Jay-Z track is Charlemagne, who I have never heard of before, unless he is the historical figure Charlemagne King of the Franks. And I don’t think he is. Below is a studio version of “The Ecstasy of Gold” in youtube video form, the song “Blueprint²” by Jay-Z, and the live Metallica S&M version of “The Ecstasy of Gold”.

Jay-Z - Blueprint²

Metallica - The Ecstasy of Gold

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Oct 11

Yes. It’s true. We are constantly breathing life back into the lungs of this blog. But hey, what are you gonna do. See Figure 1 below.

Figure 1: Story of My Life

Figure 1: Story of My Life

This week’s edition of Saturday Morning Samples is on “Buck 50″ by the great Ghostface Killah, which I have been listening to religiously for the past several weeks. I had a few Ghostface albums that I picked up back in the day, but I was missing the critically acclaimed “Supreme Clientele” album.  I decided I needed it, and the rest is history.

supremeclientele Saturday Morning Samples: Buck 50

Supreme Clientele Album Cover

Although there are a ton of standout tracks on the album, “Buck 50″ immediately caught my attention. Ghost is joined on the track by Method Man, Redman, and Cappadonna. They’re all stellar MC’s it’s a fact, but what really got my attention was the soul based beat that goes from a pretty hard hitting verse to a really nice soul hook for the chorus. Good shit.

I immediately went to look for the sample/samples that could be making up this beat. I was pretty convinced that the different parts of the song had been pulled from various sources, being that they were so different. Turns out I was wrong. It’s pretty amazing how you can chop up one song and scrap it for it’s different parts and come up with a nice full beat from one song.

The sample used in “Buck 50″ comes from “Hard Times,” a song by soul legend Baby Huey. After hearing “Hard Times” a few times via internet, I went and purchased Baby Huey’s one and only album “The Baby Huey Story: The Living Legend.”  Again, another great purchase by yours truly.

The Baby Huey Story: The Living Legend Album Cover

The Baby Huey Story: The Living Legend Album Cover

Baby Huey has a pretty interesting story, that’s worth reading about. The singer tragically died of a heart attack at the age of 26, but his influence on hip-hop music was an important and lasting one.

So that’s it from me. I still owe you guys another Saturday Morning Samples for skipping last weekend. I have an idea in mind for that one, so it should be coming up later in the week. Below you can find “Buck 50″ and “Hard Times.” Enjoy. And if you like them, I suggest getting both albums. They’re pretty great.

Ghostface Killah - Buck 50

Baby Huey - Hard Times

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Sep 27

I really should cut the “Morning” part out of the title. I mean really, what was I thinking. Me doing something productive before noon on a Saturday? Rookie mistake. It has a nice ring to it though, so I’m keeping it. How’s that for internal debate.

Anyways, this week’s featured song is “Hey Ma,” one track in a long line of corny rap songs about sex, or as Juelz Santana so eloquently puts it in the song, laying “the pipe.” To be completely honest, I really don’t get down with Cam’ron, Juelz Santana, Jim Jones, and all that DipSet stuff. If you do and you have some suggestions for me I’m more than happy to hear them, but I just haven’t been able to really get into it yet.

I’ll admit they do put out catchy stuff, some of it with some nice beats that really bump, and some that use some great samples from some great classic songs. “Hey Ma” belongs in the latter category, and the song has really grown on me over time, mostly because of the beat.

“Hey Ma” was released as the second single on Cam’ron’s “Come Home with Me” album, and features then up-and-coming rapper, Juelz Santana. Santana has since established a successful solo career of his own. The sample to “Hey Ma” comes from the 1977 hit single “Easy” by the Commodores.

“Easy” was written by Lionel Richie, singer and saxophonist in the Commodores. I had no idea he was in the band honestly. I thought he had always been a solo guy, but I guess not. The Commodores also wrote classics such as “Brick House” and “Three Times a Lady.” Believe me, I’m as surprised as you are. The Commodores wrote a lot of cool shit.

Back to the matter at hand, “Easy” is more of a ballad, in direct contrast with the Commodores funk influenced songs. It’s really a beautiful and chill song to listen to, and a classic in its own right. So as you can see, we went from “Hey Ma,” to some classic songs by the Commodores that I didn’t even know they sang. That’s pretty exciting.

Below are “Hey Ma” by Cam’ron and Juelz Santana, and “Easy” by the Commodores.

Cam’ron featuring Juelz Santana - Hey Ma

Commodores - Easy

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Sep 20

As you’ve seen throughout my feature, samples from existing musical compositions are often taken and reworked into a new song or beat. This is not always the case however, as any type of sound can be sampled, and serve as the basis for a song, or even an entire album.

Movies and music have an important relationship with each other, as music plays a crucial role in creating memorable scenes and providing ambiance in films, and movies influence music with themes and ideas, and often provide inspiration for songs.

It is no secret that the Wu-Tang Clan is heavily influenced by Kung fu, martial arts, and samurai films, even taking their name from the classic “Shaolin and Wu Tang.” The influence of these films on their style can be heard in numerous dialogue samples scattered throughout their group and solo albums, and has persisted throughout their careers.

"Liquid Swords"

"Liquid Swords"

GZA a.k.a. The Genius, one of the founding members of the Wu-Tang Clan, released his second solo album “Liquid Swords” in 1995. The album instantly became a hip-hop classic, and drew heavily on dialogue samples from the classic samurai film “Shogun Assassin.” The samples serve as a leitmotif for the album, with the dialogue playing an important role in creating a cohesive feel between songs. Truly a genius way to create and album, it helped solidify its place in hip-hop history.

“Shogun Assassin” is a classic in its own right, having influenced Tarantino’s “Kill Bill.” The movie is even featured in “Kill Bill Volume 2″ towards the end where the main character and her daughter watch part of it. I’ve watched “Shogun Assassin” several times now, and it’s definitely worth a watch.

The eerie synth soundtrack featured in “Shogun Assassin” also adds to the theme of “Liquid Swords,” allowing for very unique production work throughout the album. The following clip is one of the more memorable scenes in the movie, and also provides the opening to the legendary track “4th Chamber.”

The album opener to “Liquid Swords” which shares its name with the album title, features a sample from the opening monologue to the film, which contains the memorable line, “people said his brain was infected by devils.”

This line also made it’s way into Cage’s “Agent Orange,” which prominently features a sample from another classic movie. “Agent Orange” samples the title music from “A Clockwork Orange,” which is cleverly named “Title Music from A Clockwork Orange.” Cage also opens the song with his take on the opening monologue from “A Clockwork Orange” which can be seen below.

Below I have featured “4th Chamber” by the GZA featuring Ghostface, Killah Priest, and RZA, a remake of “4th Chamber” by Jin featuring Chan and LS, “Liquid Swords” by GZA, “Agent Orange” by Cage, and “Title Music from A Clockwork Orange” by Wendy Carlos. Also, check out the sweet fight scene from Shogun Assassin at the bottom. If you haven’t seen “Shogun Assassin” or “A Clockwork Orange” I highly recommended them. And all of these songs below are sick. Enjoy.

GZA - 4th Chamber

Jin - 4th Chamber

GZA - Liquid Swords

Cage - Agent Orange

Wendy Carlos - Title Music from A Clockwork Orange

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Sep 6

So here it is. The long awaited return of the greatest/only feature on this blog. I have at least one loyal fan, who has expressed his feelings about my posting (or lack thereof) through IMs demanding that I post, looks of displeasure with my lack of work, or pretty much directly saying “Come onnnnnn,” although I feel that’s more of a Dave-ism but I may be mistaken. Feel free to debate the origins of “Come onnnn” in the comments section. Anyways, this post goes out to Greg, and by his request, here is “Big Poppa,” his favorite song of all time.

“Big Poppa,” is clearly one of the standout tracks on Biggie’s 1994 debut album, “Ready to Die,” and has one of the nicest/smoothest sounding beats you’ll ever hear, with lyrics and flow to match. I remember first hearing the song in 6th grade or so, and trying to learn all the lyrics to the song back when “Say What?” was still being aired on MTV.

“Big Poppa” was Biggie’s first Top 10 hit, with production credited to Sean “Puffy” Combs. Although “Puffy” (Puff Daddy, P. Diddy, Diddy, etc.) leaves something to be desired in terms of complex production, he sure knows how to pick a nice sample. And once Biggie was done rapping over the track, nobody could fuck with it (for lack of better phrasing).

The sample to “Big Poppa” comes from The Isley Brothers track, “Between the Sheets,” which has been heavily sampled by other artists, most recently on the Jay-Z song “Ignorant Shit.” The song “Between the Sheets” was an important track for The Isley Brothers, as the track helped the group bounce back in popularity, reaching number three on the Billboard Top R&B Singles chart in 1983.

So here they are, “Big Poppa,” and ” Between the Sheets,” side by side so you can listen to where the sample used in the Biggie classic came from. And now I pose the eternal question to you, loyal fans of Don’t Get Sentimental, “How you livin’ Biggie Smalls?”

The Notorious B.I.G. - Big Poppa

The Isley Brothers - Between the Sheets

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Aug 19

This post is a little late in making the internets, but I spent a fair amount of time piecing it all together.

But first, just a few quick asides.

I have a lot of respect for the writers of Tailspin. How many practical uses for cloudsurfing can one team of writers come up with? That takes real skill to keep Kit Cloudkicker relevant in that day and age.

And this question has been making the rounds in the NEPA speakeasies. What’s the tougher sell: In the butt or on the face? Take that femenisim, eat 1950.

Now, for my tale of Wal-Mart and woe.

I woke up Sunday afternoon on an air mattress in my sun room. The sun room is really the link between the fire escape/back stairs and my kitchen. It’s airy and pretty open to the public. There’s no lock on the door that leads to the outside. Lots of windows.

My ironing board, which is usually set up in my living room, was upside-down in my regular bed. My TV was on, but tuned to some random input setting that you only use if you have an uplink to Soviet spy satellites. Ahh, Natasha. My desk chair was on my couch. And I was joined in bed by Haynes Johnson’s latest book “Age of Anxiety.” It’s a good read. Haynes is a ridiculous dude — Pulitzer winner at The Washington Post and journo prof at UMD. He used to look like the dude from Office Space. Now he’s old and has one insane eyebrow and one slightly less insane eyebrow.

Aaaaaaanyways, I was parched. As you have probably guessed by this point, I spent a fair amount of time drinking Saturday night, and cheering for Michael Phelps in a bar. And watching a chick get her ass hit with a stripper belt (no buckle for easy release) in a bar. It’s a weird bar. Swimming is cool though.

So I rolled off the air mattress and made my way to the kitchen to find means of hydration. There’s usually not anything in my fridge except for two half-filled egg cartons that have been floating around there for at least eight months, some apples and individually wrapped American cheese slices, but I checked anyways. Lo and behold, I scrounge up an orange Gatorade. 32 ouncer. Good find. A most pleasant surprise. Sports beverage transaction benefits me today.

‘Rade in hand, I stagger through the hallway to my living room, still not entirely sure how I ended up on an air mattress in my sun room, and I discover shopping bags full of 32 oz. Gatorades in assorted flavors. There were about 30 full ones and five or six half-full ones.

After searching the bags I found the receipt from a self-checkout line in Wal-Mart. I paid 98 cents for each Gatorade. And then I apparently bought a bunch of other shit. Toilet paper (found in my trunk). Paper towels (still missing). Headphones (somehow found their way into my work bag). A few frozen pizzas (in the fridge, of course). Two pounds of potatoes (missing until later in the story). Another ironing board (still missing, presumed captured).

Best I can figure, I went to the 24-hour Wal-Mart after boozing, which I’ve been known to do, in order to pick up some toilet paper, which my apartment had been sorely lacking. Along the way, I picked up some other essentials and was easily suckered in by the swell Gatorade pricing at my favorite bargain retailer. And then I bought other shit.

Determined to find the toilet paper (two-ply, for her pleasure), I wandered out to my car and searched for about 15 minutes before I remembered I had a trunk. That’s where I found the 36 rolls of toilet paper that I was sure were hiding somewhere else in the passenger cabin. TP in hand, I hit up the bathroom, where the final aftershocks of my night were in full view. The toilet seat was ripped from its hinges and sitting in the sink. Those potatoes I mentioned earlier were on the back of the toilet, just in case I should need a raw potato while on the commode.

So, what does this have to do with music? Nothing. But while I was trying to clean up from this madness I heard two songs that I knew I had to share.

The Two Gallants are on Saddle Creek. Two dudes. Not sure if it’s Gallants as in Goofus and Gallant, or Gallant like the car. This little ditty is called Nothing to You

I first heard the song while driving around during one of my work avoidance periods last week. It was pretty sweet.

And I followed you into the party/That no one invited me to

Alone I made I made to my 40/And played make believe it was you

It’s less depressing when they sing it.

And then The Redwalls. They have this sometimes odd combination of the Beatles and The Strokes or The Killers. Lots of The’s. Kono wa They Are Among Us

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