[HOT]
Sniffing Off the Shoulder of Giants
When it comes to snortable human residue stories (boy, we’ve all got a few, don’t we?), nothing will ever top Keith Richards’ disclosure that he inhaled some of the ashes of his dead father. But former Oasis/current Beady Eye frontman Liam Gallagher recently told a tale to Q Magazine that comes close to Richards’ revelation. Gallagher said that an “off his tits” (British for “totally fucking wasted”) fan once approached him backstage after a concert, turned to his friend and said, “He’s even got cocaine in his hair,” then proceeded to grab a flake of dandruff from the singer’s head and inhale it. The fan either thought Gallagher had so much blow he was using it as a hair styling product or he cleverly deduced that if the legend of the rocker’s massive cocaine use was remotely true, anything extracted from his body must at least produce a contact buzz. This might also explain why British medical officials have been hounding Amy Winehouse for a few gallons of pee to use as anesthetic on patients going in for major surgery.
[WARM]
Damn It Feels Good to Be a Cracka
Did you know that Cracker Barrel has a record label? The omnipresent “shack chic” family restaurants have actually put music out since 2003, and it’s not only about providing more options to entertainment-starved truckers previously stuck with whatever Classic Rock, Country or racist comedy CDs were in stock at the truck stop. With a successful back catalog that includes “exclusive” and repurposed releases by Amy Grant, Kenny Rogers and Alison Kraus, Cracker Barrel Music has become a legit music industry playa, as evidenced by the recent No. 1 position on Billboard’s Bluegrass charts for the CB release Country Classics with a Bluegrass Spin by The Grascals. The label was also just rewarded for breaking down color barriers (last year) when it put out Smokey Robinson’s “album” Now and Then (a mix of recent live performances of his hits and songs from his last album), Cracker Barrel’s first “R&B” release. The cobbled-together recording recently earned an NAACP Image Awards nomination in the “Outstanding Album” category (remember that next time you make fun of Grammy and Golden Globe nominations). Soon musical acts looking to get signed might just find themselves choosing between Dunkin’ Donuts and White Castle (ironically, the same employer options that made many future musical stars quit high school).
[COLD]
Know What They’re Sayin’?
Pop music history is littered with songs widely misunderstood thanks either to a garbled vocal delivery (like the legendary Hendrix misinterpretation, “’Scuse me while I kiss this guy”; he actually sang, “Scooby, did you eat this pie?”) or just the usual difficulty involved in trying to “get” the meaning (“TiK ToK,” for example, was actually taken from Ke$ha’s Harvard master’s thesis about the space-time continuum). But now, Hip Hop fans attempting to decipher what an MC means by “Laffy Taffy” or “tip drill” have a one-stop resource with rapgenius.com, a site that uses fan input to get to the bottom of Rap poetry. The fan input aspect means it’s like Wikipedia (i.e. never trust it as an iron-clad source); for example, 50 Cent’s use of the word “Yeah” to begin “Candy Shop” is revealed by one user to be the “normal ghetto way of starting a song.” But the site is useful when it comes to deeper-thinking MCs like Chuck D or Nas, providing proper backgrounds about the people, places and things referred to on classic tracks. Sadly, the site did not have an explanation of the Fresh Prince’s “Parents Just Don’t Understand.” We’re sticking with our theory that it’s about Erik and Lyle Menendez’s crazy adventures in patricide.
