White Man’s Burden
Did you hear the one about Noel Gallagher blaming Jay-Z for Glasto’s slower-than usual ticket sales? “
I’m not having Hip Hop at Glastobury,” he said. “It’s wrong”
Me, I laughed quite a bit. Swells? He too. Dude also wrote a very funny and very correct article about the whole fiasco for the Quietus.
Sample text:
There is no racism - casual, institutional or overt - in indie music. If indie musicians state that English identity is threatened by immigration, that is not racist. And if indie fans talk about hip-hop in language reminiscent of that used by Adolf Hitler to describe Jews in Mein Kampf (”contamination”, “filth”, “disease”) that too isn’t racist. In fact to even suggest that it might be racist, is racist - racist against white males who just happen to despise black music and only like music made my white males for white males.
Lolocaust!
Read the whole thing here. It is mad good to have ole Swells back. My favourite thing about editing PlayLouder back in the day was commissioning, then getting to read Swellls’ stuff. It was always brilliant.
In other journalistic happenings, I did a small email interview with Moby recently. Sample text:
Me: Do you regret rubbing your dick on Winona Ryder, or do you look back on those days fondly?
Moby: I never rubbed my dick on Winona Ryder. But hey, I’m still relatively young. Operative word: ‘relatively’.
Moby is a funny guy! Read the rest here…
Speaking of funny white people, you ever hear of Barry Seal? I’m going to be writing a bit over the coming months about dude, and his connections with the cocaine epedemic of the 80s, Bill Clinton, Pappa Bush, and the CIA. So this might be a good place to start.
- Gonzales - Soft Power album review
- Digi Snax Review At The Quietus
- Beat$ 4 Buck$
- Charles Hamilton Is The Truth!
- Wade VS Moby.
- The Man Who Didn’t Believe In Reparations
Tags: Adolf Hitler, Barry Seal, Bill Clinton, black music, cocaine, contamination, Dude, editing, English, favourite thing, fiasco, funny guy, glastobury, Glastonbury, indie musicians, Jay, jay z, Lolocaust, Moby, Noel Gallagher, operative word, Playlouder, racism, steven wells, swells, the quietus, ticket sales, white man, Winona Ryder
Thanks for introducing me to Swells- that’s some funny mother fucker.
THIS could be on of the funniest things I’ve read in minute:
“And - of course - any similarity with the language employed by white suburbanites horrified by the arrival of a non-white family in their festering little in-bred monocultural cul-de-sac is entirely coincidental.
“This is the start of American music taking over,” argued a reader from an alternate dimension not entirely dissimilar too our own, but where rock’n’roll was invented in Croydon in 1995.”
April 16th, 2008 at 9:18 am
Wow, you never read Swells before?
Dude! A whole world of truth, hilarity and awesomeness awaits!
April 16th, 2008 at 9:30 am
I can see the error of my ways…
April 16th, 2008 at 9:40 am
Where can I find more of his writing? Apart from The Quietus, I mean
April 16th, 2008 at 9:44 am
I went to one of the bestest, most punk rock gigs I’ve been too in aaaaaagggeessss last night…. and it was a hip hop gig. Method man and Redman. Meth and Red killed it, they were so up for it as soon as they came on, that the whole crowd responded to that, and needless to say it went off. I was so inspired that a came home and completed my ‘thieving’ remix
April 16th, 2008 at 10:00 am
Dig around the Playlouder.com archives, he wrote a column there. He used to write for NME back in the day when it wasn’t toilet paper. He lives in America now, writes a column for the Philladelphia Weekly and occasionally the Village Voice. Wrote the best thing I ever read about Cancer - http://www.philadelphiaweekly.com/view.php?id=12446
April 16th, 2008 at 10:00 am
He makes some funny and good points but is it not ignorant stereotyping to automatically assume that Hip Hop is black.
You are the proof that that shit aint true. Swells may be showing slightly more ignorance to assume that Hip Hop = black.
Apart from that..good stuff
April 16th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
To be fair though… hip-hop is black.
April 16th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
I’m totally black. Ask my Mum.
Rah tho, Mef is a total rock star, is Reggie comparable or do they got some Cannon and Ball shit going on?
April 16th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
It’s funny because you know Method Man never goes to after parties or clubs? He’s a proper stay at home dad.
Why do you say though? Do you have guestlist for their Empire show? Or was that yesterday? I would imagine that Redman can keep pace with Meth though for sure.
April 16th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
It was regarding what the excellently named Joey2tits was saying earlier (scroll up a bit).
Makes sense. I never go out either and I fucking rule the live arena.
April 16th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
Lolocaust. Fucking ace. I WILL find a way to work that into a conversation someday.
I used to read this alot, but haven’t been on here in about four months. Scary changes. Not bad, though. I guess I’m just easily confused.
April 16th, 2008 at 4:26 pm
Dunno if its racist. What if The Scissor Sisters headlined Summer Jam? NY would be pissed!
April 17th, 2008 at 5:03 am
On a total change of subject, I’ve been listening to Gonzo’s myspace. “Let’s Ride megamix” and “Slow Down remix” are supa def. That Boyz Noise mix aint bad neither.
April 17th, 2008 at 5:56 am
Jack, that would be a case of GAYISM!
Ooh, I aint checked the let’s ride megamix yet. That’s got Jarvis Cocker on it right?
April 17th, 2008 at 6:29 am
Reg from that Brick City is just as good as meth, and they got a whole double act thing going on, they just know how to really rock a spot… meth’s voice as soon as he starts rapping though, damn, it’s too good…
in regards to professionalism, both of them are complete dudes, and the promoter told me that red is the most laid back rapper he’s ever met, none of this ‘i need a new pair of airforce one’s before i step on stage’ etc… and compared to the show he did with mos def, the promoter said it was a complete joy (a.k.a. mos is a massive demanding prima)
strange you think it would be the other way round huh?
April 17th, 2008 at 6:53 am
Hardly! You saw that Cribs! Reggie is as real as Akon is fake!
April 17th, 2008 at 6:54 am
Redman on Cribs! The best!
April 17th, 2008 at 12:09 pm