Sunday 19 July 2009

CGS MIXTAPE: VOL II



01. Asher Roth - A Milli (Remix)
02. Lil Wayne - Paper Planes (Remix)
03. Ol' Dirty Bastard - Operator feat. The Clipse and Pharrell
04. Confucious Mc - Track 4 demo
05. Fergie vs. Sonic - Glamorous
06. PoleJR - Chocolate Rain: An Original Remix by PoleJR
07. Alkaline Trio - Burn (65daysofstatic Remix)
08. Soulwax - Beatles vs. Kraftwerk
09. CGM - My Violent Heart (Remix)
10. The Locust - Wizards of War
11. Cutting Pink With Knives - Aylburton
12. The Dillinger Escape Plan - I Don't Want You Playing With My Phone
13. The Shitty Limits - We Had a Gang
14. Alexisonfire - Boiled Frogs (Radio 1 Sessions)
15. Death From Above 1979 - Dead Wombs
16. Run, Walk! - God I Hate Old Friends
17. Eyvind King - I Am The Dead feat. Mike Patton
18. Bon Iver - Skinny Love (Live on Later With Jools Hollands)

DOWNLOAD HERE

Here it is, mixtape 2 from CGS. I spent a whole 3 hours choosing tracks and arranging them in some kind of order. As with last time, I have tried to put together a bunch of tracks that not well known but are still good. Theres a range of different stuff on there and I hope that most people will find something they can enjoy on there. Again I have made sure all tracks are properly tagged and have embedded artwork created by yours truly.

01. Asher Roth - A Milli (Remix)
Asher Roth became well known with his song "I Love College" which I felt perfectly summed up the University experience that my friends and I have had. He is not a fantastic emcee or lyricist, but he is some what charming in his honest delivery and lack of pretention. This is his verse of the Lil Wayne track A Milli which became a bit of a going out anthem for the demons at Cortis road, as pooor Jamila at Fucking Dance could tell you. Joe doesn't like him, but I find him unoffensive and entertaining.

02. Lil Wayne - Paper Planes (Remix)
I hate MIA, I cannot fucking stand her. I think she makes terrible music with terrible lyrics of almost no substance and is only popular because people are told she's individual and artistic. SHE FUCKING SUCKS. That being said, when I heard Paper Planes I was really annoyed, because the track was great, but it had MIA's useless droney shit spewd all over it, I do though like Lil' Wayne's flow and voice, so when I stumbled across him over the Paper Planes track I was very happy. It is a ice cream and shit sandwich however, as this mix does also have and 50 Cent and Young Jeezy on it, who are both useless.

03. Ol' Dirty Bastard - Operator feat. The Clipse and Pharrell
This is one of the tracks from ODB's unreleased final solo album, which was recorded fairly close to his death. The album is hit and miss, with more hits than misses, with Operator being one of the hits. It is suitably mad, as with most of ODB's material and has really great production from Pharrell, who would later go on to be VERY successful. The full album is available through illegal means, and doesn't look like it's going to be released officially any time soon.

04. Confucius Mc - Track 4 demo
This is another demo from Confucius MC, a fantastic talent in the London rap scene and a good friend of mine. I put another one of his demos on the last CGS Mixtape, which along with this track, are my personally favourites in his material. I have had few people ask me about Confucius' stuff and have enjoyed it, so I thought "Why not pop another demo on here!". Soon I will do a write up of his two mixtapes which can be downloaded from DatPiff. He has a unique flow with complex lyrical content and socio-conscient content.

05. Fergie vs. Sonic - Glamorous
A mashup of the Fergie track and the music from Green Hill Zone in Sonic The Hedgehog. It's catchy as AIDs and works really well.

06. PoleJR - Chocolate Rain: An Original Remix by PoleJR
The classic and best Chocolate Rain DnB Remix which I went through a phase of playing lots and lots. It's hilarious.

07. Alkaline Trio - Burn (65daysofstatic Remix)
I first heard this on the Burn 7inch single, and I fucking loved it straight away. It is very emotive, has a fantastic build and is totally different, and better, than the original single from Alkaline Trio. It's very distinctively 65daysofstatic and will appeal to any fans of them, or interesting electronic music. It even has a little breakbeat flavouring at the end!

08. Soulwax - The Beatles vs. Kraftwerk
I don't know if this is actually from Soulwax but that is how it came tagged when I found it on p2p networks many years ago. I am a fan of both The Beatles and Kraftwerk so this mix caught my eye. It's a great little mashup that I used in my Snow Day video. The electronics work very well with the strings and have a fantastic effect.

09. CGM - My Violent Heart (Remix)
I went through a phase of remixing Nine Inch Nails songs as they released the multitrack files, then I became more and more frustrated with it, so I haven't done any in a while. I ended up doing about 4 or 5 different remixes. They are not all that great, but this one is one of the better ones. I never actually liked the original version of My Violent Heart so when I started on this mix I decided to try and make a version of it which I thought was better. I don't know if it is, but I still like it more.

10. The Locust - Wizards of War
A cool electro remix of a track by The Locust from their rare remix EP. It's electro and cool.

11. Cutting Pink With Knives - Aylburton
One of my favourite CPWK tracks which never got properly released, which is a shame really. It's got a really catchy melody and is perfect pop for people like me. Sadly they broke up a while ago, but you can still get their last album Populuxxe, of which this track is a cut off, from the Holy Roar Records Bigcartel, for a measly £2. The album is much the same as this, but with more blast beats and electronic induced headaches. JUST BUY IT ALL READY!

12. The Dillinger Escape Plan - I Don't Want You Playing With My Phone
This is a weird little song that DEP made for Revolver magazine, when they used to get bands to make a song in a couple of hours on their 8 track recorder and mic. Well, needless to say, DEP came along and did a ridiculous track consisting of strange vocal noises and fiddly mathy drum machine lines and guitar strums. I have never ever seen it even talked about anyway where else, or included by anyone in any discographies, so I think this is a real rarity.

13. The Shitty Limits - We Had a Gang
A UK hardcore band in a similar vein to The Bronx. They really do stand alone in the UK scene at the moment, and are really fantastic energetic garage punk hardcore. Plus, they've got all their out of print releases to download for free on their MYSPACE page, what lovely fellas! And they hate hipsters.

14. Alexisonfire - Boiled Frogs (Radio 1 Sessions)
Pretty self explanitary really. This is from the 7inch single for Boiled Frogs. It's a good performance of a good song.

15. Death From Above 1979 - Dead Wombs
Most people will recognise the intro of this track from the heavily popularised remix by the dickheads in Crystal Castles, who for some reason called their remix of this track Untrust Us. It is TOTALLY different from the remix you've probably heard. Instead of being a hipster electro dance track, it's a hipster noise rock song. I don't especially like DFA1979, but this is a good song. Nice and noisy, just how all music should be.

16. Run, Walk! - God I Hate Old Friends
RW! are one of those bands to look out for. They're young and energetic, and not to mention lovely fellas, who are making some really interesting noisy indie tunes, in a similar-ish vein to DFA1979, but much much better and more creative. They only have two members, but with their later material pull off a layered and atmospheric sound. Check them on MYSPACE and try and catch them on tour. They also have a 4 way split record coming out on Holy Roar Records soon, with 3 other awesome bands.

17. Eyvind King - I Am The Dead feat. Mike Patton
It wouldn't be a CGS mixtape without a Mike Patton rarity being thrown in. This is a very atmospheric and beautiful track with Patton providing some vocals and electronics.

18. Bon Iver - Skinny Love (Live on Later With Jools Hollands)
A heart wrenching live version of the fantatic Bon Iver song which soo many people seem to have fallen in love with. This performance seems especially emotional and is a really great counterpiece to the original.


I hope you enjoy this mix. If you do like it, or hate it, then leave a comment or hit me up on Twitter


CGM

Wednesday 15 July 2009

Wu-Tang Clan's 1991 Demo



I really love finding original demos of well established bands. It is like being transported back to when they first started, and were vunerable recording artists, not huge untouchables that will always sell records. It is also interesting to hear where some of your favourite songs have come from and how they evolved before being re-recorded at a later date.

Ever since delving further and further into the 36 chambers of Wu-Tang's legacy I have been pining over their original 1991 demo, and now I have finally found it. It is super rough quality at a bad bitrate, but I finally fucking found it!

The demo has all the hall marks of Wu-Tang's early sound, with a heavy emphasis on sampling old soul records with big RZA beats underpinning the whole thing. Interestingly, the only three tracks on here that were re-recorded are "Bring Da Ruckus", "After the Laughter" which got re-recorded as "Tearz" and then "Cuttin Headz" which was recorded on ODB's first solo album "Return to the 36 Chambers". The rest of the tracks have not been re-recorded or reworked at all. One of the stand out tracks on here is "It's All About Me" which has a great groove and sampling, I would've really liked this song to be recorded for 36 Chambers as it's a great track.

It is an interesting listen, but be warned the quality is pretty poor.



01 - Bring Da Ruckus
02 - Wu-Tang Master
03 - After The Laughter
04 - Enter The Wu-Tang
05 - It's All About Me
06 - The Wu is Comin Thru
07 - Problems
08 - Cuttin Headz

http://www.mediafire.com/?mjdyyj21nnm

More Demos to come!

CGM

Thursday 9 July 2009

Summer Has Started


With the summer blockbusters being rolled out in blockbuster fashion, I decided to finally write up my feelings on the films out of this summers shitsandwich of cinema that interested me enough to leave my cave and pay big dorrah to sit in a dark room full of people who have no interest in movies or maners.

How to make nerds cream or...

Transformers: Rise of the Fallen



I am a huge Transformers fan. It was one of my favourite cartoons as a kid, as it was for many people, and I also really enjoyed the first Transformers film. In fact, I thought the first one soo good, that it reignited my love for the franchise and I ended up doing this:



Even though Michael Bay's pressence was evident in the film I felt it could be easily over looked, the subtle racism, the poor attempts at humour and the total ineptitude for human emotion and interraction were minimal enough to be ignored, just because THERE ARE FUCKING HUGE ROBOTS HITTING EACH OTHER! Transformers 1 is by no means a flawless film, but is a thoroughly enjoyable action film which has FUCKING HUGE ROBOTS HITTING EACH OTHER.

So I went into Revenge of the Fallen with very high expectations. I could see how the first film could be improved; less human interraction, more FUCKING HUGE ROBOTS HITTING EACH OTHER, more characterisation implemented for the Autobots and Decepticons and maybe delving further into the canon of the Transformers franchise. Many of the aspects I hoped they would utilize they did. The Transformers are bigger, they hit each other harder, the mechanical characters are given more personality and characterisation and some of the familiar aspects of the cartoon series were successfully worked into the film. But there was one huge problem with Revenge of the Fallen - MICHAEL FUCKING BAY.


cunt

This man should not be allowed near human beings. He cannot direct people. Every attempt at humour that you cringed at in Transformers was magnified 10 fold and scattered throughout the whole film. All human interraction, especially the "romance" between the two leads was cliched and unconvincing. All I can say regarding the stars of this film is; thank zombie jesus for Megan Fox. It would have been almost impossible to watch a good 50% of that film if she hadn't been making it easy.



Michael Bay is unrelenting with his Bay-isms. There are moments in the film where any sort of logic or plot consistency is thrown out the window in favour of cheap humour, ogling Megan Fox or BIG BANG WOOSH SMASH KAPOOW BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!




It also turns out that to audition Megan Fox for Transformers he filmed her washing his Ferrari, what a fucking dick.

Revenge of the Fallen
is the first film times 10, warts and all. In that the good bits are 10 times better, but the bad bits are 10 times worse.

With all that being said, I spent most of the film with a large grin plastered across my face and left the cinema with much the same expression. The key to enjoying this film is to forgive it for it's unrelenting Bay-isms. As I love the franchise sooo much, I was able to switch off my cynical and critical film geek brain and enjoy HUGE FUCKING ROBOTS SMASHING THE SHIT OUT OF EACH OTHER, as Action is what Michael "shit eater" Bay does best.

The faults of this film could've been easily avoided if an hour of Shia LaBouff and his family were cut out. Just 90 minutes of classic Autobots vs. Decepticons would've been more than enough to hook in the entire target audience that this film was made for, which ultimately, is people like me.


The Hangover



Being a big fan of Road Trip I was looking forward to seeing The Hangover, it looked fresh and funny, and had Phil Collins in the trailer. What could go wrong?

Well, as it turns out, almost nothing could go wrong....

That's right, there is pretty much nothing that I can bitch about with this film. It has good characterisation, it has a very satisfying narrative form, in which very little of the huge party type events are shown but are discovered, and has hilarious performances all around. It is really Zach Galifianakis who shines through with great comedic timing and presentation. The scripts is superbly written and executed, and the cinematography is stunning throughout.

The only critizism I really have of the film is the sound track, which wildly varies in quality through the film. It opens with the fantastic cover of the Johnny Cash song Thirteen covered by Danzig, which works as the perfect sonic accompaniment for the desert scenes unfolding behind the the titles, but then stock chart filling rap and RnB dominates large portions of the film, which for the most part feel out of place and forced. I suspect that the studio behind the film, Warner Bros, holds most of the rights to the pop music used throughout the film, an often employed marketing technique.

Interestingly, while reading into Todd Phillips, the director of this film, it turns out he directed one of the most shocking but compelling Music Documentaries of all time Hated: G.G. Allin and the Murder Junkies. as his first film, so I guess he must know something about good music. I have provided the trailer for Hated below, just to give everyone an idea of how fucked up this docu is, but trust me it is brilliant.



I would highly recommend watching both Hated if you have an interested in Punk Rock, RocknRoll or even shock cinema. But I would recommend The Hangover to anyone that wants a good laugh that is well written and well made.


Back to my wing


Recently I have also been watching a lot of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Planet Earth. When it comes to Planet Earth there isn't much more than can be said about it, which hasn't already been said, but it is an enlightening TV series to say the least. However, when it comes to It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia a hell of a lot can be said. It is probably the best new sitcom to arrive in a very very long time, but I will let Joe elaborate on it, as he has watched way more of it than me.

Also, thank you for all the hits, we're closing in on 4000 now, which means we're getting about 500 hits a month, which makes as very happy in deed. I'm thinking maybe a properly organised party at 5000 hits, anyone else agree?

Soon to come from me are a load of music reviews, and also maybe some demos of a certain world famous rap group and perhaps even another mixtape!

CGM