Blaqstarr & Pataponism

Artist of the Moment: Blaqstarr is one of the many talented artists on Mad Decent Records. I’m a little biased here because Diplo, the leader of the pack, is my favorite DJ. Thus anything he does is instant aural gold to me. I just think he has a real talent for fresh sounds, and finding fresh sounds, which leads me back to Blaqstarr. Blaqstarr was cited as sort of an unknown phenomenon in Baltimore. As many of you may already know from reading my previous posts, I’m a huge fan of Baltimore Club music. Which probably is a direct reflection of my love for Diplo’s music, since he, as well, is also heavily influenced/rooted in the Baltimore club style.

So how do I describe Blaqstarr? His sound is incredibly fresh to me, having listened to a fair share of Baltimore club beats. Bmore club is very repetative, which both lends to it’s unique charm and also it’s probable inability to hold the interest of people with short attention spans. Blaqstarr sort of takes this formula and cleans it out to it’s lowest common denominator. His beats are incredibly minimalistic, raw, and to the point. I find his stuff harsh, sharp, and hard-hitting and surprisingly enjoyable to listen to. I don’t know why, but his music really has a unique flair to it that is unlike any other Bmore club I’ve ever heard. This is probably the reason I love his music, it’s like a fresh gasp of air in a fairly uniform ocean of Bmore tracks.

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So today I’m gonna switch up the mix a little. Not because I worry my blog is getting too repetitive, more because I haven’t cooked anything since my succulent chicken fingers. So instead I’m going to talk about how I’ve recently gotten in touch with my inner consumer whore. I signed up for one of those marketing focus group things where they have you answer a survey and you test a product and all that jazz. It sounds pretty awesome to me. I basically sold my soul to satan (aka answered a few simple questions and gave my home address) and now they’re going to send me a “kit” with some accessories for my child (by child I mean my iTouch of course). Yes, I refer to all my technology as my children. Or sometimes as countries. Like my PSP, would be like Japan because it’s tiny but it’s super advanced and is beautiful to look at. My Xbox 360 would be my America, because it tends to favor media about shooting things, blood, and firepower. Also I’m pretty sure, judging by the power bar and loud hum of the fan, that it packs enough power to destroy my whole neighborhood if it ever overheats. Anyways I think I’ve thoroughly raped this analogy and should probably move on to better things. Like my new PSP game Patapon.

Yeah, so, Patapon is awesome for a lot of reasons. Mostly because it reminds me of Loco Roco, a game where you play in a super hypercoloured cartoon world of overly happy bouncing blobs in an overly happy world where everything has a face and smiles at you. It’s like one of those kids show cartoons where there is no such thing as “fuck” being “fucked” or “fucking”, only happy go lucky bouncing and fruit eating. Well actually, I guess I can’t really say there is no such thing as being “fucked” in this game, because the blobs are constantly being chased by evil flying black squid things that eat them, which is pretty fucked I guess. Also the blobs are able to explode into hundreds of tiny little mini-me blobs that can reform into one giant blob again, which is also pretty fucked. So while there is no “fuck” or “fucking”, there is plently of “fucked” or even “fucked up to be had”. But I wasn’t talking about Loco Roco, I was talking about Patapon, which seems almost like a distant cousin in the same vein.

In Patapon you continue the tradition of playing in a world that is proper “fucked” like its predecessor, mostly for the fact that you play as a war faring tribe of black eyeball people with little arms and legs. But what really makes this game awesome is it’s epic storyline. Get a load of this…

“The Patapon were a flourishing people until they were defeated by the evil Zigaton tribe. The player takes the role of their god and uses sacred war drums to direct the Patapon tribe to take back their land. As the story progresses, the Patapon also embark on a journey to Earthend to look upon “IT,” a sacred object whose appearance and purpose is unknown to the tribe.”

Now there are some definate things I find pretty awesome in this world, and a few of those things are 1) wardrums 2) commanding a legion of tiny tribal minions with axes and spears 3) commanding a a legion of tiny minions with axes and spears using wardrums. It’s also pretty awesome how hardcore these cute little eyeball men are. They constantly yell shit like “take no prisoners” and “to the ends of the earth” while they march which not only makes them a minion army, but a ruthless minion army; all my own. The army also has a war chant, which after about a half hour of playing, becomes imprinted in the very fabric of your brain. It goes something like this PATA PATA PATA PON. The little bastards also can go into fever mode if you beat the drum to their liking sending them into a berserker rage laying waste to everything in their path. So, the game sort of reminds me of Loco Roco meets 300.

The game is in a definite abstract Japanese style which further adds to it’s awesomeness. The creative rythem-game nature also lends to tried and true Japanese gaming conventions of past. I guess not everything is awesome about this game though. I mean most of it is a pretty magnificent, however the game’s biggest criticism comes with the fact that the gameplay can get mildly repetitive, which if that means you’re just constantly laying waste to an evil army and giant monsters with a legion of spear and axe wielding black eyeball men, then it isn’t an issue for me. The bigger, biggest criticism, though, comes with the fact that when your little mobile ocular army of carnage hits fever mode the tune they hum goes out of sync momentarily which can knock you off the prized fever mode. I personally didn’t find this that big of a design flaw because I think it may have even been intended. I mean, throwing the player off beat in a rythem game would make it more challenging, and isn’t that what video games are all about? Challenge? We can’t make the raping and pillaging of an evil eyeball empire an easy feat now can we?

Great game + cheap game + war drums and fucked up eyeball men + minor flaw = 9/10 final verdict. ^^

Girl Talk and Crispy Chicken Strips

Artist of the Moment: There really aren’t enough good things I can say about Pittsburgh native, Gregg Gillis, AKA Girl Talk. Although I’ve never seen the guy live (I hear he’s a bit of a nut at live shows), his mash-ups are by far some of the best I’ve ever heard. The guy has some profound talent, and is seemingly notorious for slapping together harshly cut 2 second samples one after another in somewhat of a frenzied pace. Personally I find it a bit irritating when his mix is soaring over a jagged topography of random 1-2 second sample cuts. It’s hard to focus on anything enjoyable, but once he settles into a more consistent flow the beats and sounds he drops are incredible! Pretty much every Girl Talk track I’ve heard I’ve instantly loved. The guy has a magnificent ear for sample matchmaking. He’s thrown together all kinds of wacky stuff, like I remember him mixing Coldplay with Joe Budden which sounds like it would be atrocious but I loved it! He’s also mixed Avril Lavigne with Ludacris, and it was incredibly fresh sounding. Anyways, he’s probably my all-time favorite Mashup DJ so check him out pronto!

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Now on to some more tasty matters. I finally cooked a proper chicken dish that didn’t get proper fucked. Behold, via the amazing image viewer that is your browser, my crispy chicken strips complete with maple horseradish Canadian mustard syrup which, despite sounding odd, tasted surprisingly delightful. I’m also including an image of my, previously mentioned and ill fated, honey garlic chicken dish before it went into the oven to meet it’s broiling doom. So I guess you could say I’m getting pretty good at cooking basic meals. I think I need to up the ante a bit because chicken is not really as difficult as many might imagine. Usually all you really need to do is cut it up, wash it, season it or marinate it and then just throw it in the oven, done. I’ll take a good look through my cook book to come up with yet another fantastic gastronomical marvel. That word sounds so nasty… Gastronomical.. Anyways..

This weekend I’ll be having a small get together at my place, so I guess I should probably clean my home. Since I started my new job and got a gym membership, AND started karate again I’ve had very little time to do anything these days. There are so many things I want to do and so little time to do them all. I suppose I’ll have to start being picky. For an example, I want to delve into the art of being a DJ/Electronica artist as well as write a novel, but not sure when I’d have the time to practice or write. Right now I should probably just stick to finding time to clean my house. My bedroom has been disgusting for the past month at least but I’ve been too exhausted/busy to give a damn. If I have people over I’ll definitely need to do SOMETHING about my living conditions. I guess it’s also the perfect time to up the ante with my cooking since my get together will be a potluck. Mmmm.. Excellent… *shifty eyes*

Thunderheist and Burnt Chickens

Artist of the Moment: So I just found a band called Thunderheist from Montreal/Toronto. I heard of them before and people have briefly mentioned their awesomeness to me, but I’ve never had a chance to really take a listen to their work. I’m not sure if there really is any official releases from them yet. Like Crystal Castles, they appear to be relative newcomers. Their music is amazing though, I have to say, I didn’t know there was so much electro-punk/crunk talent in Canada. I believe Thunderheist is a dynamic duo; Isis, the Torontonian chick, does the vocals and rapping, and Grahm the Montreal dude does the beats. The two work great together, even though they work long distance from each other from what I understand.. Their track Suenos Dulces threw me cuz that sample is really overplayed, yet they made excellent use of it and managed to make it sound fresh and most excellent. I can’t wait to hear some sort of official album release.

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So my cooking scheme is going alright. I started cooking meat for the first time, second time (if you count a healthy rendition of sloppy Joes). For my first meat-meal I cooked a honey garlic chicken. I grated some ginger, mashed some garlic, added some honey and some soy sauce to the mix; everything was going well until I somehow missed the word “bake” in the recipe and proceeded to an oven setting, what some cookologists refer to as, “broil”. As a result my chicken didn’t look so tasty when it came out of the oven. Luckily I caught on to this problem early in the broiling process and was able to salvage my chicken. It had a sort of charred outter shell of burnt honey, yet the inside was miraculously still juicy and succulent. So I was able to still eat dinner that night which was, suffice it to say, pretty awesome.

Tonight I’ve decided to attempt another chicken dish. It’ll be a little more simple. Last night I cut up some boneless chicken breasts into strips and am currently marinating it in buttermilk. Tonight I’ll proceed to roll it in some bread crumbs and cook me up a fine batch of breaded chicken strips also known as chicken fingers. Well they’re not really fried so they’re technically not chicken fingers, also I don’t think chickens have fingers. The modern chicken’s anatomy, to my knowledge, consists soley of wings, nippleless breasts, drum sticks, and of course the chicken’s nuggets which I can only assume are hidden somewhere under it’s feathers. Anyways, I’ve gone onto some sort of freaky tangent now; what was I talking about? Oh yes, my cooking skills. Well that’s really all that’s new with me other then the fact that I can’t get my basement neighbors to stop smoking in my house. Every night the damn place reeks of smoke, makes me feel nauseous, and probably increases my risk of contracting some sort of cancer. At least their dog stopped yapping every fucking minute of the day. My house is old, so it’s walls are like paper, any kind of scent, smoke, or sound travels with ease. I’ve talked to them countless times and they always say they’ll stop. Our house is supposed to be a non smoking environment, but I guess I can’t force them to stop, so my only options are to wait until they grow tired of the basement and leave, get evicted (please please please), yell at them a bunch until they inevitably roll their eyes at me, or maybe get hit by lightening/buried in snow? Well, I guess I’ll have to wait and see…

Crystal Castles & Cooking Progress

Artist of the week: I don’t know if I should call this header “Artist of the Week” because it’s not really updated at some sort of regular interval, but w/e. This time I wanna talk about Crystal Castles because they’re Canadian (Torontonian in fact), and totally awesome. Apparently they’re huge in the UK now, which is surprising since they have no official released albums or singles or anything. They were popularized mostly from their Myspace page from what I understand. The lead singer, Alice Glass, is supposed to be some sort of wild rebellious chick who does all the vocals and stage antics while the other dude just mixes on his laptop at shows. At any rate, they make mad use of old Atari 8-bit sounds, and remind me a lot of a more subtle Atari Teenage Riot. More power to them, they’re stuff is really fresh, creative, and a treat to listen to. They’re also look super crazy and indie which somehow adds to the appeal.

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Well I’m living alone now for a week and I figured it’s probably a good time to bust out my mad cooking skills. So far I’ve almost mastered breakfast meals. I’ve learned how to cook pretty much every form of prepared egg imaginable (omlettes, scrambled, sunny side up, hardboiled, etc.). I’ve also got the art of the pancake down pretty well. Today I decided to try something new and I fried up some store-bought blintzes and then made my own fresh strawberry and raspberry sauce. I decided that it would be too sour if I just fried up the strawberries and raspberry’s alone so I threw in some raw blue agave necter to sweeten things a bit. I think it turned out pretty well. It was pretty damn tasty.. I added some plain yogurt in there too but it was pretty sour and I think it counterbalanced the sweetness of my sauce. Furthermore, I’ve definately mastered the art of frying up home fries. They’re pretty simple but with added onions and smoked paprika they taste soooo f-n good.

So now that I’ve mastered the art of breakfast meals it only seems proper for me to move onto more involved meals. I think tonight I will try my first “meat” dish and fry up a stir fry. I already have some frozen chicken and I should have the rest of the ingredients lying around. It definately helps to have a gourmet, cooking enthusiast, mother. All our utensils are top quality and the house is always stocked with random top quality ingredients. Makes my learning easier since I don’t have to spend so much time trying to find things or shop for things. I also seem to get really paranoid about food saftey. Again my mother is also a food safety trainer so I’ve learned a few things, but for some reason I can’t shake the concern that food I’m cooking with may have gone bad. At any rate I’ll be posting more on the stir fry later once I give it a shot. Bye for now!