Shufflings #1

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah! - Details of War - Clap Your Hands Say Yeah (self-released 2005)


Errol Brown - Over Dub - Dub Over Dub: 27 Tracks Dub Extravaganza (Heartbeat 1996)


The Roots - Episodes - Illadelph Halflife (DGC 1996)


Every Sunday night I work the overnight shift at the glorious music-broadcasting mecca of WLUW-FM Chicago, usually going around 9 or 10p and finally pedaling back into my apartment at about 5a. I’m not complaining, I absolutely love it, but it only leaves me with about an hour and half of sleep before I have to get up and prepare for my 6-hour shift at my rent-paying job. So needless to say, I am usually pretty beat by the time I make the 30-minute traffic weaving bike trip north through the Loop, yuppie-town, Lincoln Park and Lakeview. The problem is that I want to update this audioblog about three times a week and I am left with very little energy on Monday afternoons to make clever and sometimes ridiculous connections between my music and everyday life. So I’ve devised this series called Shufflings teaming my love for randomness with my love for writing short music blurbs.

Every Monday I play on taking whatever the three songs next in queue on Itunes glorious Party Shuffle invention and write about them no matter what they may be (as long as they are in reasonable uploading length (i.e. probably not a track from Coltrane’s last concert at Olatunji). It will not only force me to write about tracks I may never get around to but also give you a sneak peak into the wonderful world of Michael-Radio aka my Party Shuffle (my Last.fm maybe a better actual Michael-Radio since it also takes into factor the amount I spin a particular artist but randomness is godliness dammit)… so enjoy.

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah! – Details of War – Clap Your Hands Say Yeah (self-released 2005)
I guess it’s fitting that a track from the band that audioblogs like this one literally brought from being a bedroom boredom project to one of the most talked about bands in 2005 be the first to grace this series. The success of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah could have never been predicted, at least not the speed nor the way of passage, as the Brooklyn quintet morphed from eager young nobodies embodying their 80s indie-rock heroes to infectious saviors of the indie side of indie-rock by self-releasing, self-promoting and self-distributing their way into the ears of every blogger with an interest in music in one short summer. ‘Details of War’ shows up half way through their self-titled debut following a 1-minute toy xylophone segue way and finding the boys at maybe their most melodic moment. The track slowly builds from yearning warble to an invigorating call-to-arms highlighted by a simple yet effective repeating harmonica gasps. Nothing overtly special here, but it brings to the table just enough to keep you coming back again and again, which of course is the CYHSY addiction.

Errol Brown – Over Dub – Dub Over Dub: 27 Track Dub Extravaganza (Heartbeat 1996)
This song is off probably the best dub compilation to be released in the 90s, two decades after dub and reggae found their zenith. The 27 track compilation pulls from reggae standards across the board as mixing board extraordinaire, Errol Brown, crafts a seamless, relaxing blend of everything that makes dub so intriguing. Nephew of the late Duke Reid, Brown was raised and educated in some of Kingston’s finest studios recording seminal reggae artists like Alton Ellis, Peter Tosh, U-Roy, Bob Marley & the Wailers, Gregory Isaacs, etc etc etc amen; the man recorded and mixed the cream of the crop. He also appeared in the amazing Rockers movie, which I suggest, to anyone interested in seeing the true reggae artists in their prime in their element. I’m not positive if this is the same Erroll (spelled with two ‘L’s on AMG) that fronted the interracial English funk and soul group Hot Chocolate. It could possibly be, but I don’t want to be feeding you the wrong information, so if you know drop a comment and educate me as well.

The Roots – Episodes – Illadelph Halflife (DGC 1996)
Goddamn do I love The Roots; to me they are everything that hip-hop should be, quick, witty, street-wise rhymes care of Black Thought, a steady, effective drum beat care of the multitalented ?uestlove, thick bass lines by Leon Hubbard and a swirling, unrelenting sound that is as ghetto as it is psychedelic. To me the greatest thing about The Roots was how they created albums instead of singles, a characteristic they’ve seen to be moving away from as of late. In my opinion all hip-hop should be backed by a live band, there is something that just completely takes a song to the next level when you strip away a stiff preprogrammed beat and let true musicians bring the song to life complete with raw energy and inevitable mistakes. Not to mention Black Thought is probably the most underrated emcee in the game.