So for part IV of heavy rotation, I thought i'd give you guys a treat. Not that the other tracks have been weak, but this is an extra special HR. DJ Jaguar Skills put together what may be the craziest thing i've heard in quite some time. 800 tracks, played over 48 minutes, in essentially chronological order charting the rise of Hip Hop from one-time fad to the worlds most dominating form of music, language, dress sense etc. Beginning with the Fatback Band, and their track King Tim III (unbeknownst to most laymen of Hip Hop, this is widely believed to be the first Hip Hop track ever pressed to wax, 2 years before Melle Mel came through with The Message, but that's really another story for another post) you only get 6 seconds of King Tim before we're onto the next one. And then the next one. And then the next one. And so on, through 797 banging tracks. Don't worry if you're not feeling the current selection, as you only have to wait 6 seconds for a new beat. But seriously, this is an awesome accomplishment, and well worth listening to, as it gives you a great feel for how the sound of hip hop has changed since those days way back when.
For those interested, track list can be found here Grab that Bad Boy right here Props to Jaguar Skills, obviously. Peace.
ec⋅lec⋅tic –adjective 1. Selecting or choosing from various sources. 2. Made up of what is selected from different sources. 3. Not following any one system, as of philosophy, medicine, etc., but selecting and using what are considered the best elements of all systems.
So we got the green light from the crew at SYN (mad props) to take the contents of our lives to the airwaves, so keep an ear to the radio over the next few weeks for myself and the Jacksonian Institute dissecting the weeks events, bumping only the freshest beats, and playing silly sound effects as well (Temple Block Riot here we come!). If 2pm on a Tuesday isn't the best time for you, because you're employed in a job that takes place at daytime during the week, fret not dear friends. I will be uploading all our shows, in all their shambolic glory, right here at acheaptrim for your downloading and listening pleasure. So, to quote The Hollowmen, "Watch This Space!"
Well after that little treatise on Slumdog it seems international opinion has turned and all on the voice of one Tapeshwar Vishwakarma! This top slum=representing beauraucrat is going after the films Music Director A H Rahman and its top India-based actor Anil Kapoor. He claims the films title and continuing reference to slum-dwellers and dogs is a violation of many of india's poorest.
Good on you Mr. Vishwakarma! But how about you go after the script-writer? What do the actors and music directors (??!!?!!?!) have to do with the textual content? There's more money in the Rule Britannia imperialists any way. I'm sure Mr Boyle is flush as a bejewelled loo these days. It is they who have rudly exploited the pain and suffering of literally millions of Indian's. It is they who have distilled years of hardship and toil into a 2.5 hour feel-good rag-to-riches story to paste a cathartic smile on the face of middle-class white folk half a world a way and recieve glowing accolations, gold-plated trinkets and buckets of money in doing so.
How much was that young boy paid to jump in that pile of shit???
So I went to see OSCAR BUZZ numero uno 'Slumdog Millionaire'. I have to go see a couple, already put down benji button and the other options? revolutionary road? Well, apart for my penchant for leo finding yet another excuse to get his hair wet while he kisses kate winslet, an oscar film about real estate? c'mon. c'mon!
To start with, y'all should check out slumdog. Why? 1. Becuase of the way the host of the Indian Who Wants to be a Millionaire says the word Millionaire. Something like a cross between those folk that make hats and the way the french cook their fillets. Hillarious. That's not racist, its comic. 2. For Danny Boyle's incredible direction and who ever was the DOP's success in capturing that vision. Some of the shots as the young slum kids dash through Mumbai's kilometres of slum are fucking amazing.
That said, I don't wanna talk it up to much, as I had one of those poor experiances of way too high expectations and inevitable dissapointment. Honestly it couldn't have panned out any other way. I was told it was 'The best film I've ever seen' by both a 19 year old bar-girl from brisbane with a killer tan and an interest in OK magazine, and an ageing, heavily tattooed, certifiably insane ex-crim who said 'It made me laugh, it made me angry and it made me want to cry'. If thats not a fair canvassing of the australian population, I'm nor sure what is. So I went in expecting fire-works.
OK, so i'm watching Gremlins with the crew a week ago, and enjoying reliving my childhood with a nice kids flick from the 80's (coincidentally released the year of my birth), and all is going well. I'm laughing at the 80's power suits, the special effects are sufficiently half-assed, and the haircuts are definately worth the price I paid for the disc ($14.95 for both Gremlins 1 & 2, it would have been a crime not to snatch it up). As a complete aside, I was IMDBing Gremlins, to get some charector names, and one of the ads has possibly the best lead-off line I have ever read... "Ready for some Piranha action, in 3D?" Hell yes I am! So back to Gremlins, around 30 minutes in, Billy and Kate (the romantic teenage leads) are strolling through the city, and it's clear to anyone with even a modicum of screenwriting knowledge that the ensuing scene will be laying some emotional pipe. It will be a fleshing out of the charectors, we will learn where they stand in the world from 3 or 4 lines of dialogue, which is usually all you need from someone anyway, most people are pretty vacuous. So it becomes clear by the end of this scene that Kate is not a fan of Christmas, in fact quite opposed to it, as highlighted by the line "while most people are opening up presents, some people are opening up a vein." Wow. Really? in a PG movie? we can say "opening up a vein" in a movie aimed at under 12s? Awesome. Now how about we have Paddington Bear on the cover of his next book sitting in a squat, on a dirty mattress, with one wellington off and his toe on the trigger of a shotgun. Back cover, brains and blood splattered on the filthy wall, with little bits of yellow plastic from his rain hat stuck throughout. But that isn't even the harshest part of gremlins. This is dead set, no doctoring, straight out of the movie, around 1 hour in.
That's right, Kate hates Christmas because she found her father dead in the chimney, dressed as Santa Claus. Now, let's just take that in, in all it's disgusting glory. First of all, you have to think of the heartache that was caused by her father not showing up for Christmas. Then there's the weeks of agonising waiting, wondering if he's OK, worndering what happened. And you have to think that there was some point when Kate and her mother must have considered the possiblilty he was having an affair, adding a real sense of abandonment (as well as male trust issues) to the whole thing. Then, in the middle of all of this, they get the cleaners in to sort out a problem with their chimney, AND FIND THEIR DEAD, DECOMPOSED, STINKY FATHER/HUSBAND DRESSED AS SANTA CLAUS STUCK IN THE CHIMNEY. Holy crap, that shit is fantastic! Tarantino couldn't have come up with something as gruesome as that. And to have the whole story delivered from a cute teenager playing with a destroyed Christmas tree makes it feel like something out of The Shining. And then, when it couldn't get any creepier, you have the whole thing rammed home with the capper of "and that's how I found out there was no Santa Claus". Like that is the major issue. Forget you found your father in the chimney, probably had to watch while they got a crane in from the nearest construction site to drag his rotting carcass out of your chimney, maybe it broke after they got it out and your fathers legs went smacking off the roof onto your trampline and bounced around for a while like that bear that gets tranquilised on Youtube, the major issue is definately that that night ruined your childhood illusion of Santa Claus. And as a last note, how did that ever pass muster with the suits at the studio? Did not one person say "yeah Steven, love the movie, gremlins are cute, actors are fine, but whats with the dead father in the chimney? That's a little dark there, bud. Is everything OK at home with Chris? No marriage troubles? Might want to think about a rewrite". Peace, Broke
So as you can see, my buddy PMM has joined the illustrious alumni here at acheaptrim, and as he has mentioned, i'll be providing the Sparkle and Shine, while he will be providing the hard hitting political opinions and discussions with intellectual heavyweights of the day. Probably not, but at least the topics of discussion will range further than how sweet the Watchmen movie will (hopefully) be. So welcome on board bud, and good luck staying afloat in this tangled web. Again, watch out for those Crack Spiders. Seriously.
I don't know much about this here web. Don't expect PMM to be dropping regular photos on the screen, or any of them there moving picture films you kids are so fond of.
However, having been described in the last week alone as 1. The Speaker of Truth; 2. A Vibrant Fillibuster; 3. Really Conceited and 4. Partially Unemployed my much esteemed webmaster DJ Broke has invited my to make the occational contribution to this project.
A Cheap Trim is more than a forum for discussion. Its a chance me to avoid the one constant in DJ Broke's life. Judging by the current content, and safe in the knowledge of Broke's promise of 2% of the first million and .5% there after, I reiterate my ad-space offer to Universal Music Group and Studio. We already give you cats mad press. Pay us.
Its also the sister-site to our soon to be on-air radio show Ecclectical Empire. Coming soon to SYN Fm Melburn City. The show's going to be a solid antidote to the sick naffness of commerical fuelled shit and the increasingly chipper voices of promotion-proud triple J. It's going to have a good blend of music, steeped in hip-hop, protest and lyricism. It's going to have sketch comedy, reviews, analysis and discussion. It will be devoted to Tunes, Taste and Truth. More details soon.
For me personally A Cheap Trim will be a place to share. As I said before, I'm not so good with putting anything right here on the page for you, but I will at the end of every post provide a few links to things of interest.
Issues like climate change, fossil fuels and consumerism have become such a common concern for anyone with any wits that much disillusionment can be found in people struggling to believe that we, as a society can deal with the problems they will ineivtably present. I for one find myself at a loss when I consider the reaction of myself and those around me to the sudden absence of amenitites we so regularly take for granted. This green angst has been helped in no small way the viewing of these films.
