Music is the key

Actually, music is the room. And I have found myself looking for a key to get in.

I started dancing about five years ago. Maybe closer to six. But I have only been listening to music, I mean really listening, for about one year. This past year. And I discovered something major about myself. I’m absolutely passionate about music — all kinds of music: hip hop, folk, classical, rock, house, soul, funk, and oh my god funk. I may love music, but i’m in love with funk. Especially rare grooves that no one but the true nostalgia kinds listen to. Girl Groups. Old Gems. Dusty as Hell 45s. In fact, you could argue that dancing is just an excuse I have to listen to more music. I sometimes go to practice and do nothing but toprock if the funk moves me. In a way, dancing is just a way for me to engage with the music. A way to be an active listener. Because in all seriousness, without music what the hell are you dancing to?

This passed sunday, I spent the whole day at Dick’s record shop on haight. I entered the store, looked around, said wasup to Dick and Matt and then picked up a record I saw lying on some big heap right in the middle of the shop. Put it on, the needle hit, and I knew I wasn’t going no where until the shop closed down. I picked up a stack of sleeveless 45s – stood by the turntable and went into dreamland. The headphones were on tight and I was searching through, literally, hundreds of scratchy records from all genres. My right hand, my needle hand, cramped up on me. I was tossing five, six records on the table at once, putting the needle down, searching for that funky break, and then making a split second decision about the record based on one thing.

Did it move me?

If not, I quickly picked it up with my left hand, my record hand, and placed it down into a neat rejection pile. I must have went through 2-3oo records in the first 1-2 hours. This woman came to listen at the table next to me and she said something like: “You know, I’m old fashioned, I like to listen to the whole record before making a decision”. Needless to say, I got a little embarrassed and started mumbling some defensive nonsense. She must have understood, because right away she said “but i know, you’re looking for breaks aren’t you?”

My ears pricked up. I had this shocked look on my face as I stared at this woman; later that night Gabe would say that she was probably the Oracle from the Matrix movies. I asked her how she knew? And she said it was obvious from the way I was listening to the records. She’d been watching me for a while and she guessed correctly. I was searching for breaks. She recommended I listen to Rodger Collins (got some on the Galaxy label!) and told me she ran her own radio show in Sanoma called “Miss Annie’s Old School”.

I kept digging and listening but then I burned out about 2 or 3 hours in. I took a break. Dick said I looked like I needed a cigar and a scotch. He wasn’t far off. He gave me a cold apple to snack on and I was back at the table within minutes. Ever so often he would give me a few records to check out. Dick’s always on point with his recommendations. One record he gave me I just kept playing over and over and over again. I told him I wanted to jump on the table and dance, lest I scare his customers away. He didn’t seem at all perturbed by the idea and asked me why I didn’t. Great guy.

It was dark out and the shop was closing. I laid my massive stack of 45s on the table, hoping to go through them once again. But I didn’t get a chance to. Dick went through the stack and gave me a huge discount. He charged me $5 for the $10 records and nothing for the sleeveless $3 finds. I was astonished! He said I worked hard all day and I deserved it. Needless to say, I’ll be there this weekend too.

Merry Christmas folks.

And for those who don’t know what motivated me to start the collection, here’s the official reason: If you love funk music then you have to go to the source. I have a massive digital collection of music (~150gb) but… it’s digital. It’s not organic. It’s missing something… some soul.

So one rainy day, instead of going to work, I bought a few records. And like a fish, I was hooked. I found some records google can’t even find. And it’s early in the hunt for these gems.

We dig, dig, dig, dig, dig, dig, dig. In a mine the whole day through.

We dig, dig, dig, dig, dig, dig, dig. It’s what we like to do.

 

 

Hot Damn n Butta

Phew. That was a well deserved, unannounced break from blogging. I’m still riding the NSF high and I’ve got more good news to announce. But I’m not going to dish it all out yet. Let me first tell you about last night, and more specifically about what went down between the hours of 10pm and 2am.

Skeme Richards and Supreme La Rock came to San Fran as part of their international tour of Hot Peas n Butta.

(1) Music: A raw mix of soul, funk and breaks. I was dancing even before I entered Som Bar. And I couldn’t stop once I got in. I tried to stop, but I couldn’t. It was just one amazing song after the next and I couldn’t stay out of the circle. I did get to take a break during the old school popping music, but even then I was tapping my feet and bobbing my head. Best part of all? All the music was played off of actual records. There was no laptop, which just added to the rawness of the event. There’s nothing like dancing to a song from a record that you know won’t last. With an mp3, you can play the song forever with no difference. But records get scratched and fade away. Essentially, they have a limited shelf life and that subconsciously makes you want to get down to them with all you’ve got.

(2) The atmosphere: Good music, good people, and good footage. “Footage?” you ask. One of my favorite aspects of the event. On a wall near the turntables, we watched clips of rare footage put together by Skeme. It stretched the gamut from kung fu flicks of Bruce Lee beating down an entire Japanese dojo (The Chinese Connection! My cousin bought me a copy a long time ago) to clips from old GI Joe action figure commercials. There were plenty of pieces from classic blacksploitation films of days long ago as well as (I thought lost) footage of Josephine Baker doing her thing. There was Soul Train, car crashes, and a bunch of cartoon clips from classics such as Kid n Play, MC Hammer, and Muhammed Ali. Things that can only be described as nostalgic.

I got home. My ears were ringing but it was more than worth it. I got to hear music I love, see footage that cracked me up all night, hang out with cool people, and let loose like it was my last day to rock.

Punch your eye out

Let’s get outrageous. My partner in crime and love of my life (goes by the name of Nelsa for those who don’t know) has inspired me to get outrageous with this blog post. She texted me a phone-picture while she was doing laundry. There was a discretionary note on the upper dryer at her laundromat. It said: “Make sure to check for small children and pets before loading dryer”.

Unfortunately I can’t find this text… So instead I’m going to continue on this outrageous train to nowhere and put up the “most ridiculously awesome fight scene ever”. Bobby sent this out to me in September of 2k9. Just.. amazing. I mean, it’s so badly done that it’s actually pretty good. With just the right level of gore, eye popping mannequins, ravens, and lack of proper medical care. Not to mention the puns and gut wrenching hilarity that can only be envisioned by the bravest of Hong Kong kung fu directors.

hahahah I just saw more clips from this movie. It is outrageous!

Now let’s cool it off with a random segue of me on the Muni – on a Saturday – on my way to work…

Find Waldosama

And I forgot to show off these new Adidas that I bought to play basketball in. $35 – that’s it.

I can dunk now

Peace out and good night folks. Check your biorhythms before going to sleep.

–Cover #28–

V For Vendetta

The original comic book – very little to do with the movie.

The Brazilian Pumas

So I’ve been spending a lot of time at work these days. I have to present my research efforts to my current lab next week and nothing fruitful has happened. That is, until a week ago. I started this experiment and it’s very much engineering based so I got to pull out my dusty college toolbox. It has grown rusty from neglect. But because things are actually working out for me, I decided to put in a hell of a lot more hours. Even working from home sometimes. In reality, I’ve only been home to eat and sleep lately…

So when Nelsa sent me a package via UPS, I knew I would not be able to receive it because it was shipped to my home address. In the last month or so, I’ve been using my work address as my home address. That’s how I got my camera and its memory card.

So I call UPS – wondering if they will forward the package. They can, but at a cost. So instead I tell them to just send it to the nearest Pick Up spot and I’ll get it myself. My original plan was to take a bus, which would have dropped me off about 10 blocks South of my destination. But today, as I rechecked the map, I realized that I was actually already 10 blocks East from the UPS Pick Up location. I would have wasted 40 minutes taking the Dr. Seuss route if I would have taken the bus. So, to spice up the cold frigid walk, I decided to take my camera.

And so it begins. I hope you enjoy some of these shots. It’s graffiti along 16th Street walking West from Mission Bay.

White trucks are always asking for it...

Someone forgot their cooler... It was probably full of spray cans

Fword in blue

A legal piece at this small plaza area

And what was the package from Nelsa? Well, nada else but these fly Ronaldhino Panthers.

The Brazilian Pumas

No comic book today. Don’t want you to overdose on too much eye candy.

Rhythmic Damage 4

Surprise! I flew down to Philly on Friday night in order to attend my breakin’ crew’s annual event – called Rhythmic Damage. Easily, one of the biggest East Coast bboy jams out there right now. This one was special to me though. It was the first one I didn’t spearhead. In my place, my good friend Abe Chen took the massive responsibility on his shoulders and really came through. It takes 6 months of prep to get an event like this right and I played a really hands off role this year. In the end, there were 38 crews signed up to showcase, 8 of which were chosen to move on to the quarter finals. We even had international competitors hailing all the way from Japan and Europe. I mean, this was a tight jam – as it always has been.

I even got to compete this year. I put in a one-man crew but after my first round (there are 4 rounds total) my friend Bobby stepped in to help me out. Here’s footage:

There’s plenty more footage uploaded already. Just youtube “Rhythmic Damage” and look for the most recent vids.

The cool part for me though was getting to see everyone again. I got to enjoy RD with Nelsa. My old gang aka JMOB was reunited (voltron style). My friend Liz. The Old Freaks and the New Freaks of course were there (way too many to name but you all know who you are since I sent out the post-RD email). It was so great to see Tom Canty, who I first worked with in a lab back when I was 14 years old. I got to see Kat and Jazz which was dope. And once again I got to watch Foxx struggle through the infamous Philly Diner scrapple (this one was by far the funniest highlight of the night). Shoutout to the whole GFM crew. Especially, my man Dante who presented me with a legit Get Free Movement t-shirt as a welcome back gift. Thanks D.

(high five followed by AHHHHHHH)