Dear Connecticut Shooter

Dear Shooter. You're on the receiving end for a lot of anger right now, but I hope you at the very least understand why. Regardless of the intent of your actions, I truly am sorry that we let a member of our own species be pushed to the breaking point that you were pushed to. I can't even begin to imagine the amount of mental and emotional torture you must have endured before carrying out the actions that unfolded yesterday. Politics aside, you've given us an opportunity to step back and look at how we treat the people around us. We weren't there to help you when you needed us most, we instead aided your confusion by handing you a weapon.... but YOU pulled the trigger. Please accept responsibility for that, and we'll try to understand how we could have better assisted you while you were still alive. Rest in thought, I hope you are able to find your peace eventually. My deepest condolences to the victims and their families... your suffering is unjust, but it will NOT be forgotten. May we all move forward from here with love and respect rather than frustration and anger. Take some responsibility for our fellow human beings. Gun laws aren't going to stop someone from being pushed to insanity. God isn't going to stop them either. We have to learn how to help them before it's too late.

Videogames: Part 1

The Mindless, Unedited Rant.
I'm on a quest to design a video game/series reminiscent of the classic Nintendo games: Zelda, Kirby, Metroid, Donkey Kong Country, Mario, Megaman, Earthbound, Chrono Trigger, Secret of Evermore, Etc. If you have any idea what I'm talking about and would like to join me, LET'S DO IT!!! Fuck these first person kill-all "RPG" games that are coming out. They SUCK. Skyrim, Fallout, Red Dead Redemption, Deadspace, Halo, COD, Battlefield, every zombie game ever, and even all of Nintendo's sequels to the aforementioned titles. Gaming has seriously declined in the past few years. We need more games like Braid and Limbo. Mario RPG anyone? THAT GAME WAS THE SHIT!!! Not to mention Mario 64.

I feel like we're at a time where the level of graphics in a game is only very minimally pleasing, and the actual story/gameplay has pretty much just become cut & paste. What happened to the plumber that could jump really high and smash his enemies? Wanna know what made that game cool? IT WAS NEVER TRYING TO SIMULATE REALITY. They weren't trying to make you feel like you were playing a simulated version of life... they were trying to give you a game that could manifest what you always wanted to do when you were a little kid: Be an imaginary character in an imaginary world where you had the obvious evolutionary advantage!! Now it's all about which games 'look' better... The last time I remember being seriously impressed by an increase in a game's graphics engine was the jump from SNES to Super Mario 64... remember that shit? That was so cool. I was only 4 years old and I still remember the feeling I got of finally seeing those overalls in 3 dimensions. And it wasn't even THAT cool because Mario RPG already existed for the SNES and it was in 3d and looked even better than Mario 64 did. And then EVERYTHING became 3d, and people lost sight of what made games fun in the first place: The capacity for UNLIMITED imagination. So here's to everyone who would still rather bust out their Nintendo, SNES, Gameboy Color, Sega, and N64. You want a fun first-person shooter game? Go play Wolfenstein 3d.

Jesus Talks

Oh boy. It's been a while since I've looked at this blog. Well... on that note, I HAVE been busy... Art seems to have consumed my life. Be it music, drawing, painting, making hats, tagging shit.

But, luckily for you I made a mashup to prove it.

Jesus Talks by Sourtrout

Cunninlynguists and the Local Scene

So, a few weeks ago me and a few buds had a chance to see Cunninlynguists with DL Incognito. We had been told that there would be a few local hip hop artists, but we didn't really think anything of it. Well, we also didn't know that when the ticket said "Doors open at 6:30" that Cunninlynguists wouldn't come on until about 10:30. The venue was empty, save about 20 people, which was not nearly what the sold out tickets had suggested. We walked up to the barren stage and noticed that the music from the speakers was being played by a live DJ, and he was damn good.

DJ Poetic C was what his turntable said. We later on learned that he is one of the DJ's fo 92.5 (ha) but if you've ever been stranded with the radio driving home late at night, you may have caught some of the mashups he makes for the station, and they're incredible. So the first shout out goes to him.

So then the first local opener came out. His name was Dumb Luck, and though his stage presence was a little annoying, I think he shocked everyone with his gift of gab. So, I looked him up, and gave his studio stuff a shot. It carried the same impressive/quick rapping and catchy original sounding beats as his live set, and even reminded me a little of the ever growing Seattle groups Knowmads and Common Market. Good to see some local Hip-Hop finally coming out of SLC. Props to Dopethought and Burnell Washburn as well. They definitely threw down, but I think they need to recognize that they're not gonna get the crowds singin along with their songs till their stuff gains a little more popularity. Do local shows, get your cd's out their. I wanna see the hip hop scene in SLC grow as bad as you do, and I think we've got a good start.

Oh, Cunninlynguists and DL Icognito were incredible too. Went straight home and grabbed the Cunninlynguists discography. I was familiar with a good amount of their stuff already, but after that show I wanted the whole package.

Somethin to keep your ears occupied

So, I've been building this playlist for the past few months that is a compilation of all the best new hip hop songs I've discovered lately. This is ironic, as most of the songs on the playlist were probably made several years ago, so don't think that this is going to be a list of all-new music that you've never heard. Mostly this list is just a combination of killer songs that you should probably go check out if you haven't (I'll try to link as many as I can). When I find a little more time I'll attempt to blog about some of these artists, because most of them have amazing music that I would encourage you to look into. But for now, here are some that I've been getting a kick out of:

1st Lesson - Language Arts Crew
Fu-Gee-La [Refugee Camp Remix} - The Fugees
DW (Feat. Cheef & JO) - KnowMads
Take the Fruit - People Under the Stairs
Lazy Daze in California - Language Arts Crew
Nothin' At All - Common Market
Wait A Minute (Feat Kreators) - Snowgoons
Hold On John - Johnson&Jonson
Swell - Common Market
Jam Packed - Abstract Rude, Prevail, & Moka Only
Cost of the Free (Never Gon' Change) - Knowmads
What You Say - Ini
The Tamburo 5 - People Under the Stairs
Town Business - Das Racist
I Am Blu - Blu & Exile
Epilogue - J-Live***
Mr. Brown - Styles of Beyond
Mach 10 - Dub Pistols
Queens Get The Money - All Natural
The Love Song - K-OS
Pay Homage - Windchill
Visions Of A Blur - Darc Mind

***This song is phenomenal. If you were only to check one of these songs out I would highly recommend checking out this one. Props to Marcel Gaztambide for throwin this one my way.

Well, that'll have to do for now, but expect to see future posts on a few artists from this list. Enjoy! If you're bored I would highly recommend trying to download as many of these artist's albums as you can.
Also, shout out to Madi Porter for reminding me how long it had been since I updated the blog, haha.

Louis Logic & J.J. Brown

 Louis Logic & J.J. Brown - Misery Loves Comedy (2006)

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Misery Loves Comedy is one of those albums that only continues to grow on you the more you listen to it.  Louis Logic is one of the most lyrically gifted rappers I've ever heard, and his style is cheeky and original, however offensive some of his lyrics might be.  He takes a fresh, comical, and somewhat bitter look at relationships, in a way that no other MC ever could. Combine that with the masterful production of sound engineer/music genius J.J. Brown, and you've got one hell of an album. My head keeps nodding the whole way through, I honestly couldn't pick a favorite track. Not every song is worth listening to more than once, but overall the consistency of choice tracks is pretty damn good.  It's not too often that an album comes along that changes the way you listen to hip-hop.

-Sam's Review-
Overall: 9.5
Choice Tracks: It would be legitimately impossible to choose just 2 or 3.
Similar Artists: People Under The Stairs, Sleep (Of Oldominion)

-Clayton's Review-
Overall: 9.0
Choice Tracks: Rule by a Fool, Up To No Good (hip hop song in 3/4 time signature!!). But really I agree with Sam, you just need to listen to the whole album.

Deda + InI

So, about a month ago Sam sat me down and told me to listen to a song, promising me that I would recognize the sample used in it. Sadly, this is a game we spring on one another all too often. I eagerly took a seat and began to listen to this song. Within the first 10 seconds I recognized the unmistakable sample that is used in the legendary People Under The Stairs song, Acid Raindrops. He told me the group was called InI, so I booked it home and got to searching. By the time I found it was about 2AM and I was getting ready to hit the sack, and there were two album options to download. Not knowing which one was the right one, I clicked both links and passed out. The next day I woke up to realize that only one of the albums had been InI, and the other was some artist called Deda. After listening to the first few tracks it was obvious that downloading this album was the best mistake I had ever made. The dude sounded like a young Biggie Smalls rapping over fresh jazz beats! Turns out that back in the early 90's our good friend Pete Rock decided to try out some producing and in the meantime help some rising hip hop artists get their names heard, and so: Deda, InI, Meccalicious, and YG'z (not to be confused with Young Gunz, who also go by YG'z) were born and, very shortly after, died. Unfortunately, the record companies didn't take, and all four groups were dropped from their record labels, never to be heard from again. My recommendation would be to go check all 4 out, because they're definitely worth listening to, and you can find most of their songs on youtube. Unfortunately I have yet to find the full ablums of YG'z and Meccalicious, and therefor can't give a review as of yet, but they will surely be posted here when discovered. So for now, here's Deda and InI:

Deda -The Original Baby Pa (1995)

Download Album

This album is interesting to me. Being a huge fan of Biggie's rapping style, as well as absolutely loving jazz samples in hip hop, you'd think this album would receive a higher score than I gave it, but such is not quite the case. While the album holds together quite nicely as a whole, I never found myself being blown away by any one particular track, which is something that I look for in an album. Deda has an incredible voice, well thought out rhymes, and smooth beats, however his songs all seem very similar to one another. Because of this, the beats start to sound unoriginal and straightforward, and the same can be said for Deda's rhymes. That aside, it is still a phenomenal album to put on as any sort of background music, or if you wanna just bump and don't have a particular song in mind.

Overall: 7.8

Choice Song(s): Press Rewind

Similar Artists: Notorious B.I.G., Surreal & The Sound Providers 

InI - Center of Attention (1995)

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Phenomenal hip hop album, through and through. Unlike The Original Baby Pa, this album has too many good, original sounding songs, which made it very difficult to pick out favorites. This is not an album I would put on as background music, because when I put this album on I completely tune into it. Hell, I'm having a difficult time focusing on this review at the moment. InI finds the careful balance between using primarily jazz samples in their beats and still having songs that stand out from one another. I would recommend this album to anyone who loves hip hop, as well as anyone who has yet to realize that they love hip hop.

Overall: 9.0 (first impression)

Choice Song(s): What You Say, KrossRoads, Props

Similar Artists: Surreal & The Sound Providers, Y Society