“I got you stuck off the realness / we be the infamous”—Prodigy rapped in the opening verse of “Shook Ones, Part II,” Mobb Deep’s classic 1995 single—“you heard of us / official Queensbridge murderers / the Mobb comes equipped with warfare, beware.” Grimy, blood-soaked and unrelentingly bleak, Mobb Deep’s albums were filled with first-person tales delivered over menacing beats and minor key samples. Prodigy and his partner-in-musical-crime Havoc sounded like they had roamed the mean streets of New York since they were old enough to lift a banana clip. The reality, however, was a little more mundane.
Prairie Pop
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Prairie Pop: A guide to the Bob Mould oeuvre
On Thursday, Aug. 15, the Bob Mould Band will totally rock the roof off the Englert in support of the singer-guitarist’s superb 2012 release, Silver Age. This is reason enough to be super-psyched, but wait, there’s more! Mould has been mining his deep back catalog—performing songs by Hüsker Dü and Sugar, his two previous bands, […]
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El-P Interview: Lucy in the sky with dizzle
Last year, Killer Mike and El-P steamrolled their musical competition with their respective albums R.A.P. Music and Cancer 4 Cure. Both artists have garnered plenty of attention over the years—Killer Mike made his initial splash on Outkast’s 2000 album, Stankonia, and El-P began in the early 1990s with the late, great Company Flow. But in 2012, their profiles skyrocketed. The outstanding Cancer 4 Cure further developed the producer and MC’s singularly dark, claustrophobic musical vision, but El’s production work on R.A.P. Music was the knockout punch.
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Prairie Pop: The sound of money
Carey Mulligan has always wanted a killer line. In a 2009 interview with the New York Times, she wondered where all the good lines had gone, the ones she remembered from a youth spent watching family friendly action films like Indiana Jones. “Someone’s almost fallen off a cliff,” she said, “and then they don’t, and […]
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Prairie Pop: An interview with Yo La Tengo
Yo La Tengo’s brand of drone-rock is certainly hypnotic—narcotizing even—but their live shows are never boring. That has much to do with this threesome’s restless desire to switch up their act with each tour. I’ve seen them stage a variety show with comedians, perform straight-up rock shows in clubs, use a spinning wheel that lets […]
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Prairie Pop: Jump up and get down
Editor’s Note: Kembrew McLeod’s two-year-old son, Alasdair, is sitting in for our regular Prairie Pop columnist this issue. Like many adult music critics, he likes to coin genre names, and lately Alasdair has been obsessed with “Jump Music.”
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Prairie Pop: The story of Quirk
When Too Much Joy frontman Tim Quirk played Riverfest in the early-1990s, things didn’t go well. Mother Nature unleashed a shitstorm of epic proportions, so after a long delay, the gig was relocated to a club downtown. Adam Sandler, the opener, was the first to face the out-of-control audience…
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Prairie Pop: For those about to pop
Regular Prairie Pop columnist Kembrew McLeod has turned over this month’s edition to Umläut Nideldick—the famous German song doctor and rock and roll life coach. The following text is drawn from Nideldick’s keynote address at the 2012 conference of the Eurovision Academy of Musical Arts.
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Prairie Pop: Girls got game
In the classic Destiny’s Child song “Say My Name,” the protagonist suspects that her man is cheating on her because his voice has changed: “Every other word is ‘uh huh,’ ‘yeah,’ ‘okay.’ Could it be that you are at the crib with another lady?” The woman, voiced by Beyoncé, demands reassurance through spoken language. Fully rejecting the idea that “actions speak louder than words,” Beyoncé argues for the importance of words themselves and the voices that speak them. Who else is there? What is your voice hiding? And why can’t you just say my name?
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Prairie Pop: Jonathan Richman’s playground punk
Most proto-punk legends don’t write songs like “I’m a Little Dinosaur” or “Ice Cream Man,” but Jonathan Richman isn’t your typical rock ‘n’ roll dude. Since forming The Modern Lovers in 1970, he has made a career out of defying expectations.
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Prairie Pop: The World was a Song..Then it all Went Wrong – Review of Tom Hooper’s Les Misérables
In 1915, American opera singer Mary Case took to the stage and sang alongside phonograph recordings of her own voice. She was Thomas Edison’s favorite singer, so the story goes, and she was participating in a massive series of promotions for Edison’s phonograph and record company that became known as the Tone Tests. The purpose […]
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On The Beat: What shows are in store for the winter migration
Iowa City has been pretty quiet over the past few weeks. That tends to be the case when a big chunk of the population migrates to Chicagoland (or wherever), and another chunk goes into hibernation. We all must accept the fact that less people in town means fewer shows. That is not to say that […]
