The Tao of Scooter
What I Learned From Scooter’s 1995 hit “Move Your Ass!”
- “Get up your shirts and wait for further instructions!”
- “Starting the microphone business I’ve got one message for the next decade: Move! Your! Ass!“
- “Maximum respect to the whole European posse!”
- “Ravers of the universe! You keep the spirit alive!”
- “Come on posse! You’ve gotta keep it up!”
- “Come on party! You’ve gotta move!”
- “It’s nice to be important but it’s more important to be nice!”
- “Rave nation!”
Here We Go Again!
I was hard at work, minding my own business, when suddenly iTunes belched up this sample:
Chuck D: “Here we go again!”
What the hell? What year is this? Everyone‘s used that Public Enemy sample! Even Everclear!
The offending song is indeed from the 21st Century: “Hardcore Vibes (Club Mix)” by the so-called Rave Allstars.
I relaxed. This version of “Hardcore Vibes” is a remake of a much older Happy Hardcore-esque song by Dune, known for the impenetrable chorus of “Hardcore Vibes, that I run things, yeah!” and the benediction of “This one is dedicated to all the ravers in the nation,” along with, I suppose, that Chuck D quote. It may drive me up the wall, but reusing an original song’s samples is fair game.
But for a closer inspection, I pulled my copy of “Hardcore Vibes” from the URGH vaults. My copy is credited to Brunee instead of Dune; I don’t know if this is the same band or if it’s a cover.
What did I discover? The original song does not sample Chuck D! So guess what, Rave Allstars? You have no right to go back to that wheezy, played out sample of a wheezy, played out MC! No Chuck D for you!
This rant is dedicated to all the ravers in the nation.
“I’m Ice MC, and I’m Plopping In My Pants!”
Today URGH! looks back on the mid-nineties Eurodance “horror” song “Scream”, by Ice MC. It’s a “Monster Mash” for a new generation!
I have other Ice MC songs, but somehow I missed this one the first time around. I never thought of Ice as ambitious, but I suppose in this moment he wanted to record his “Thriller”, his “Somebody’s Watching Me”. But even Rockwell would be embarrassed to record this track.
And Ice doesn’t help himself by repeatedly announcing, “I’m Ice MC, and I’m plopping in my pants!”
So as a service to you, I have transcribed a portion of “Scream.” In this verse, Ice namechecks all the scary movies that inspired his plopping. It’s kind of like the song “Rocket” by Def Leppard!
Do you remember The Omen?
The film with Damian?
Or Sergeant Weaver from the film called Alien?
Jason—BRRR!—from Friday 13?
And the pumpkin in the telly from the film Halloween?I’m sure you’re sweating.
The beat is alive.
I’ll make you jump, shiver, quiver
Make you jump and jive.
If you ever get scared, yo, take it from me:
Close your eyes and think about Ice MC!
Tits Are Not For Listening
I started downloading this…because she’s got nice tits. Then I thought, “this isn’t a video…wtf am I doing.”
So…bring on the video plz.
A Bittorrent user downloading the single for Lindsay Lohan‘s “Confessions Of A Broken Heart”.
Super Disco Friends!
Man, did I ever tell you how sooo jealous I am of Dimitri from Paris? The guy is amazing!
M: “Hey, Dimitri, where did you get this song?”
Dimitri: “Oh, that old thing? It was a Spain-only promotional 12″ single of a band that never really existed on a label that went bust straight away. I probably have three other copies if you want one.”
M: “Damn you!”
Dimitri’s made a career out of single-handedly resurrecting old disco tracks and putting them onto hot compilations. I loved Disco Forever, a smooth mix of neglected tracks that I have made part of my permanent rotation. I purchased the CD because of Charanga 76‘s take on “Ain’t No Stopping Us Now”. After listening, I’m also entranced by Pat Lundy‘s powerhouse take on “Work Song”. And the Universal Robot Band‘s “Barely Breaking Even” has become my personal theme song. Plus the album art has genuine early eighties pubic hair!
Now Dimitri is back with Super Disco Friends, another wildly successful trip to the treasure vault. The album is a two-disc mix which teams him with Japan’s DJ Muro, and both do an excellent job.
Super Disco Friends has a little more rap and electro-disco than did Disco Forever, but it’s still an authentic, luscious record. I don’t know if Dimitri is losing it, though. All the songs are new to me, but I’ve heard of at least four of these bands! Dimitri playing songs by Silver, Platinum, and Gold and War? That’s like Dylan going electric!
Snark aside, Super Disco Friends is a me-wantee must-have. It proves Dimitri’s standing as the Ken Burns of Disco. Hey PBS! How about giving Dimitri his own 47-hour miniseries? Time to cut Wynton Marsalis loose….
“It Stopped Being About The Music”
Number 17 in a continuing series of common phrases from VH1.
Please Wait Up For Me
Best Song I’ve Had On My Hard Drive Since August But Haven’t Listened To:
“Wait For Me”—Asle featuring Frost
Rumor has it this is a Max Graham remix. Other work I have of his is decent, but unremarkable. And that goes double for that Yes cover.
Bushwhacked!
All right, Kate: What’s with the birds?
I almost wasn’t going to continue this review of Kate Bush’s Aerial. Once I started Disc Two: A Sky of Honey, I realized something. Something bad.
“This is starting to sound a lot like The Wall.”
Oh, nasty! Pretentious double albums with needless studio meandering! But birds chirping? Listless synths? This is like Pink Floyd if The Wall was just “Mother” and “Goodbye Blue Skies”. BARF!
And those birds! Just so you know the disc you’re listening to, we get the chirping of birds, soon eerily looped to form the bird-words “A SKY. OF. HONEY!” Creepy!
Too much of this disc just happens. Five tracks go by with nothing to distinguish it. At least on Disc One we could get slishy-sloshy when Kate got splishy-sploshy. Only towards the end of “Sunset”, which previously featured some distasteful David Gilmour-esque male vocals, do things start to get interesting. Some cool jazz combo stuff floats to the surface toward the middle—and then it ends with castanets and acoustic guitar jamming? Ole!
Then ignore Kate scatting along with the birds on “Aerial Tal”. And her duet partner on “Somewhere In Between”. He sounds like Burl Ives!
And then a kid comes in to say “Goodnight, Mum” just before “Nocturn”! What the Hell?! Now I’m totally going to have to sync this up to The Wizard of Oz!
Kate Bush: “We tire of the city.”
Well, Kate, that’s only because there’s some funky kicks going down there.
But at least “Nocturn” gets groovy; the last two minutes of the song become a total jam session! If the guitars aren’t quite Phish and the harmonies aren’t quite CSNY, it at least becomes like Days of the New. “Look at the light!”
And luckily the last track of A Sky of Honey is the strongest: “Aerial” pulls out the electric guitars, crazy Kate laughter, and starts to rock! It almost makes you forget that there was no need for a second disc.
So bravo, Ms. Bush! But what’s with the birds?
Rosalita (Come Blog Tonight)
Congratulations to the bloggers who thought of the following phrase before I did:
The Wild, The Innocent, and the iPod Shuffle
- Mr. Hank Silvers—He coined the phrase a year ago just to get it onto the Internet. Bravo!
- Mr. Josh Turiel—Don’t be fooled! Turiel used this knockout title in an October entry, leading into a terribly uninteresting first paragraph about price discounts. Then it’s sentence on top of sentence about his toddler’s every bowel movement! Dude, I came here for The Boss! Now I can’t eat! Here’s a new rule: if you breed, you can’t blog. Period.
- Mr. Demet Hadgis—He used the phrase beautifully one month ago to describe a drive home and his descent into insanity. And BRUUUUUUCE!
BRUUUUUUUCE!
