All posts by G. Gordon Gritty

Entertainment, EP Review, Music

EP Review: You’re Welcome [2010]

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Band: Rot Shit
Release: 3/2010
Label: Columbus Discount

1. “Dead I” – A-
2. “Hipster Grandma” – B
3. “Local Band” – B

Comments: “Hardcore punk” that your average non-hardcore punk might like. Prerequisites: an admiration for punk, garage, noise, and lo-fi. I find the three chord verse in “Dead I” to be engaging and jamming. Good tune.  “Hipster Grandma” is sped up and pretty decent. What else is expected in 1 minute and 22 seconds? All of this shit has been done before by better bands, but it’s nice for a little flashback.

Grade: B (86)

business, Drugs, Entertainment, Food

LE WHIF

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WHDH
BOSTON — Who doesn’t love a delicious piece of chocolate and a cup of coffee?

Of course there is a price to pay: the calories. However, a new product allows users to taste them and not gain any weight.

“Le Whif is breathable coffee, chocolate and probably other things. It’s a new way of eating by breathing and it was invented at Harvard University,” said Le Whif inventor Harvard professor David Edwards.

One pack contains about 8 to ten puffs. It costs just $2.50 and is sold only at Cardullo’s in Cambridge.

“You open it up and place it in your mouth… and whif. It’s a really great taste, this one happens to be a whiffed coffee so it has caffeine in it about the amount of a small espresso. So you can whif again and close it up and whif later,” Edwards said.

CD Review, Entertainment, Music

CD Review: Swim [2010]

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Band: Caribou
Release: 4/2010
Label: Merge

1. “Odessa” – B+
2. “Sun” – C+
3. “Kaili” – B+
4. “Found Out” – B
5. “Bowls” – C
6. “Leave House” – B
7. “Hannibal” – B+
8. “Lalibela” – B
9. “Jamelia” – C+

Comments: Caribou is a pretty cool dude. He puts beats together nicely. From the get-go, this was a different kind of experience for me. I knew two Caribou songs and they were great background music…nothing really over the top. Chill, basically. It turns out, most of this record IS just great background music. Less chaotic and more dreamy, but still background music.  Anyway, Caribou’s got mathematical credibility (a Ph.D. from Imperial College in London)…take that “math rock” people. He’s got psychedelic credibility (stage name comes from something thought of while on an acid trip), too. Credibility doesn’t matter, though. We are talking music. Electronic music. I feel like Caribou needs some more pounding bass. That might not be his thing per se, but it’d make for a more exciting listen.

Grade: B- (82)

CD Review, Entertainment, humor, Music

CD Review: Plastic Beach [2010]

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Band: Gorillaz
Release: 3/2010
Label: Virgin

1. “Orchestral Intro” – C-
2. “Welcome…” – C-
3. “White Flag” – B-
4. “Rhinestone Eyes” – B
5. “Stylo” – C+
6. “Superfast Jellyfish” – B
7. “Empire Ants” – C+
8. “Glitter Freeze” – B-
9. “Some Kind of Nature” – C+
10. “On Melancholy Hill” – B
11. “Broken” – C+
12. “Sweepstakes” – C-
13. “Plastic Beach” – B-
14. “To Binge” – B+
15. “Cloud of Unknowing” – C-
16. “Pirate Jet” – C

Comments: Good beats/average rap. That’s approximately what this record amounts to. This isn’t a traditional rap record…obviously. Lou Reed singing over a hip-hop beat? Fail. So even if “Gorillaz are real,” they are still a pretty laughable band. Getting somewhat big names to feature on tracks doesn’t prove to positively affect the record. The theme of the record is pretty lame, something you would expect from a fictional cartoon band. Miracle Johan did “To Binge” better on his Hawaiian mix released a few years ago. At the end of the day, this is a pretty unspectacular record in the grand scheme of 2010 releases. It will be forgotten. It’s already been forgotten.

Grade: C+ (78)

CD Review, Entertainment, Music

CD Review: American Ghetto [2010]

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Band: Portugal. The Man
Release: 3/2010
Label: Equal Vision

1. “The Dead Dog” – B
2. “Break” – B-
3. “60 Years” – B+
4. “All My People” – A-
5. “1000 Years” – A
6. “Fantastic Pace” – A-
7. “The Pushers Party” – B+
8. “Do What We Do” – B
9. “Just A Fool” – B-
10. “Some Men” – B
11. “When The War Ends” – B+

Comments: This band was a fresh discovery for me last summer. I very favorably reviewed their 2009 LP The Satanic Satanist. That was a unique record for me… definitely plenty psychedelic, but plenty pop as well. The beauty of this band is that it’s really hard to say that they are this or they are that. Given the title alone, you’d probably think this was a hip-hop record. There is, without a doubt, influence coming from hip-hop and neo-soul on a lot of Portugal. The Man’s tunes. That’s why I don’t mind throwing out a band like Outkast for comparison purposes. I guess I’ll even name drop Cold War Kids for a track like “Fantastic Pace.” I don’t have many complaints about this album, but I’d probably say top to bottom I prefer Satanist.

Grade: B (86)