Pauleywood

It's been a long time coming but finally I have a cool blog that I can call my own. Most people reading will already know who I am. Discussions of hip hop and life will usually take place here when I have things to talk about.

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Movies Post

When your broke it isn't the end of the world, as I have found out. Stuck pinching pennies for the last few months means whatever you can get for free, go for it. Well the Library has provided some source of comfort in my broke days offering me a whole library of music, movies, and books to borrow for the low low price of zilch. It's great too because they have some movies that I may have skipped over in past, but now I am interested. This week I borrowed some movies to see them, and some I haven't seen in years.

The Rookie
It's your classic feel good sports, based on a true, story that has been done several time before in Hoosiers and Remember the Titans. The story revolves around a teacher/baseball coach who had aspirations to play in the majors but through a chain of events never did. When his team goes on a winning streak he is encouraged to give his dream one last try. This being a feel good story, you kind of already know what happens in the end. I enjoyed it for that, and it's a good family movie that your kids can enjoy too.

Cloverfield
This movie was hyped out at the time for doing something a little different. A monster movie from the perspective of an amateur camcorder perspective. It's scary as heck in some bits, and in others almost nausea inducing due to the camera bobbing up in down. Blair Witch part 10, when Godzilla strikes I guess. I didn't like the whole premise of the movie. We have no idea where it came from or who the monster is and why it is tormenting the city. Also the ending is quite abrupt, almost like a Hitchcock ending, but with any resolution of anything. It's ok and it's short which is good.

The Last King of Scotland
From one Monster to another. This partly fictional documentation of Idi Amin's rule in Uganda is quite compelling and I believe Forrest Whitakker won the Oscar for this role. He is quite amazing, and looks the part almost too well when the footage of him is interspersed with the real Amin at the end. In the end the movie paints an even more disturbing view of Amin as a classic sociopath. A real charmer to his people and media, but also as an animal who murdered his ex-wife and killed 300,000 of his own people.

Days that Shook the World (Season 1)
A TV series by the BBC that looks into specific events in modern history that changed the way we view it, from advances in communication and transport, to shocking horror like the assassination of Kennedy and Hiroshima. Season 1 has 13 hour long episodes that usually deal with two related subplots. For instance one episode documents Kristalnacht as the powder keg that starts off the Holocaust then moves into the birth of the State of Israel. Another deals with the Wright Brother's flight, and then the Moon landing. I haven't watch all the episodes so far, but the ones I've seen are very good. The filmmakers are very good at mixing archival footage next to recreations of specific events to create an overall picture of the event. Another interesting aspect of the series is the use of perspective, usually tailing 3 or 4 people who were caught up in the events of the time and their recollections of the event.

Sesame Street presents Follow That Bird
I saw this when I was a child and out of curiosity borrowed it to see if it was as funny or as good as I remember. It feels kind of funny watching a movie that was clearly intended for a preschool audience but the nostalgia trip was a blast. You have Oscar doing a cute rendition of the Grouch National Anthem and Cookie Monster eating everything in sight before he went on a diet. This is a movie that I can't wait to share with my niece, when she is old enough.

The Three Caballeros
Another nostalgia trip as well. An early, and often overlooked, Disney animated feature starring Donald Duck. The premise of the film is that it is Donald's Birthday and he receives a number of presents from his bird friends in south and Latin America. That is used to propel various segments of the story forward that could easily be chopped up into shorts. Donald learns about penguins, gauchos, and take a trip to Brazil and Mexico. Another interesting thing about the film is that it is one of the first cartoons to mix live action in with the animation (a neat feat from 1945). Obviously the movie is dated too particularly in the use of the word "gay" which is something totally different now.

Anyways, I have also borrowed Pineapple Express which I hope to watch today. I heard it's quite stupid, or funny, or both. I guess we will see.

Monday, May 17, 2010

The Learning Express



As someone who enjoys Hip Hop as an artform and is yet frustrated by the abundance of ignorance and the lack of originality, this is a nice reminder that Hip Hop can still be used to enact positive change in kids. It was put together by a few jazz musicians in the Detroit area and the idea is to use music and simple rhymes to help children learn. The emcee, Othello, has worked with different groups such as lightheaded, lojique, as well as his own solo stuff and happens to be a friend of mine. Knowing him and just the fire that he has to use hip hop to invoke positive change is great. We need more people out here doing what he is doing. Anyway, watch the mini-doc.



Here is a link to some music, and some more information on The Learning Express.

http://www.krisjohnsonmusic.com/learningexpress/demo.html

For the Attention Deficit



Apparently the worlds shortest song. Just so you know, the world's longest song is open to some debate so I will list a few of them that are long. For those with a lot of time and patience.

The Mars Volta have a song known as Cassandra Gemini that runs over 33 minutes long, which is a fair chunk of seconds. Pink Floyd and Genesis have had songs run into the 20 minute range. Jethro Tull had Thick as a Brick which is over 40 minutes. Goldie has a song called Mother that runs over 60 minutes. Chris Butler has a song called the Devil Glitch that runs over 68 minutes that was recognised by the Guiness Book of World Records as the longest POP song. Several classical movements have gone over multiple hours. I've heard of improvised Jam's going on for days and sometimes weeks, but I haven't come across any physical evidence. Which leads us to......

http://longplayer.org
Longplayer is a one thousand year long musical composition. It began playing at midnight on the 31st of December 1999, and will continue to play without repetition until the last moment of 2999, at which point it will complete its cycle and begin again. Conceived and composed by Jem Finer, it was originally produced as an Artangel commission, and is now in the care of the Longplayer Trust.

Longplayer can be heard in the lighthouse at Trinity Buoy Wharf, London, where it has been playing since it began. It can also be heard at several other listening posts around the world, and globally via a live stream on the Internet.

Longplayer is composed for singing bowls – an ancient type of standing bell – which can be played by both humans and machines, and whose resonances can be very accurately reproduced in recorded form. It is designed to be adaptable to unforeseeable changes in its technological and social environments, and to endure in the long-term as a self-sustaining institution.

Longplayer is composed in such a way that the character of its music changes from day to day and – though it is beyond the reach of any one person’s experience – from century to century. It works in a way somewhat akin to a system of planets, which are aligned only once every thousand years, and whose orbits meanwhile move in and out of phase with each other in constantly shifting configurations. In a similar way, Longplayer is predetermined from beginning to end – its movements are calculable, but are occurring on a scale so vast as to be all but unknowable.


So apparently this piece of music has been playing for over 10 years now, and it is simply not a loop as the pitch, timing, and strike impact all change slightly. I've heard bit's and pieces of it (obviously it's a little difficult to listen to it in it's entirity). If it stops now I think it's record is pretty safe, if it keeps going for 1000 years.....well.....hard to fathom. Apparently you can visit it in London, too bad I discovered this after I was there.

Friday, May 14, 2010

Time to learn your counting.

Fresh Remix and Vid of the Classic Pinball Number Count from Sesame Street.

Thursday, May 13, 2010

New Video

It's something I put together over the course of about 4-5 hours Tuesday night, using the A-Skillz mashup "Beat Don't Stop". The video quality is not the greatest, I compressed it for loading time and such, but it's ok for the small screen.

Monday, May 10, 2010

Quick notes

Well my beloved Canucks staved off elimination for another day. Unfortunately I missed the last bit of the game cuz my brother knocked himself unconscious and had to be rushed to emergency. It actually was a pretty scary moment, but he's doing a lot better now. He's gonna go get some more tests at the doctor's today just to be sure everything is ok.

It's looking like a good year more albums coming out. Just a few that I am looking forward to. Some of these are already out but I'm broke.

Shad - TSOL
Broken Social Scene - Forgiveness Rock Record
Fly Lotus - Cosmogramma
Roots - How I got Over
Keane - Night Train EP
Holy F*** - The Latin
Tracy Thorne (Everything but the Girl) - Love and It's Opposite
Kele Okereke (Bloc Party) - The Boxer
Stone Temple Pilots
Drake - Thank Me Later
Chemical Brothers

All these are coming out May and June so a good couple of months of listening going on right now.

Not to mention albums from these people coming sometime in 2010.

New Big Boi and Andre 3000 solo albums
Beastie Boys - Hot Sauce Committee
U2 - Songs of Ascent
Lupe Fiasco - We are Lasers
and a new Common and Coldplay record.

Save your pennies, remember to support good music and record shops around the world and buy your music instead of burn.

Thursday, May 06, 2010

Something just occured to me.....

A few days ago I announced that I had recently became an uncle, and now I realize that I didn't even post up a pic of my niece Abrielle. Well here are a few you can admire. Some of the pics were done professionally when she was a week old. The rest were the first few days in the Hospital. Oh yeah and she is now 23 days old, creeping fast up on a month.







The other thing I have to post up is the new single/video from Bloc Party singer/guitarist Kele Okereke. The song continues the progression into dance rhythms that Bloc Party were experimenting with on Intimacy. It's pretty dope so I thought i'd share it.

Tuesday, May 04, 2010

Shad TSOL

It's three weeks to the day when the latest album from Canadian Hip Hop sensation Shad drops, but today he blessed us with an full leak of the record to listen to along with his comments on each track. You can listen here.

http://www.spinner.ca/2010/05/04/shad-tsol-new-album/

Now if you watched or read my post about Greatest Hip Hop albums of the 00's, you know Shad made the list with his last record "The Old Prince". If it stand up this might make he list for the 10's. Easily it's the best thing to drop so far in 2010.

In the midst of thuggy, autotuned, materialistic Hip Hop its nice to hear an artist that is real and can out rap Lil Wayne 10 to 1.

Monday, May 03, 2010

Funny How Time Flies......

.....When Your Having Fun

So in Honour of it almost being a month since my last entry we have a nice remix of a lesser known Janet Jackson cut from Control, her breakthough album.



So in explanation of my absence I will just say that I have busy for a few reasons the biggest being that I became an Uncle for the first time on April 13th. My younger brother and his wife gave birth to a little girl and named her Abrielle Marjorie Chobaniuk. Abrielle is french for God's gift or blessing I think but i'm not sure, and Marjorie is because of my Grandmother who played a big role in my little bro's life. So there you go, lots of fun and changes your perspective on things a little. Maybe not the same as being a Dad, I have yet to cross that bridge, but amazing none-the-less.

The second thing I have been doing is helping with these weekly music events at the local pub here doing video work and Djing, Judgeing etc. Lot's of good bands, and lots of bands I never want to hear from again but that's the nature of local groups....the chosen are few. Lastly it's playoff time and Canuck fever is upon us.

Anyway, I hope in the next few days to post something up something of a little more substance but there you go.

P.S. RIP GURU and Nujabes, both left this planet way too soon. You will be missed.