GO COUGS! BEAT THE HUSKIES! APPLE CUP 2009!
We hate the Huskies, and here are two very creepy reasons why:
I’m all for “honoring thy father and mother” (Ten Commandments reference because Locker is Jesus), but this is ridiculous!
On this, the day of food and football, KZUU would like to list all of the things that it, as a station, is thankful for.
And here are some things that KZUU is not thankful for.
Have a great holiday, everyone.
(via)
Dem jeans is awfully skinny. Neon Indian is #1 this week, and it has everything to do with the show he played in Moscow on the 14th. Last week’s #1, Julian Casablancas, drops to #6. Devendra Banhart, the #1 from two weeks ago, falls of the face of the planet as (I assume) people realize how bad his new album is. Enjoy.
-Evan
Thursday morning, KZUU DJs Davis and Curt interviewed Eirik Glambek Bøe, from the Norwegian duo Kings of Convenience. The three talked about inspiration, Bossa Nova, and various other topics of interest. Our DJs did an outstanding job handling the interview with professionalism and a clear passion for KoC’s music. Give Davis and Curt a pat on the back the next time you see them.
CLICK HERE to visit KZUU’s new podcast where you can hear the 9-minute interview in its entirety.
KZUU is proud to announce that we’ve received a very special opportunity. Thursday, November 19th, at 10:20 AM, DJs Davis and Curt will be conducting a live phone interview with Eirik Glambek Bøe, one half of the soft-spoken Norwegian duo Kings of Convenience (the cat in brown, pictured above). Turn on your radio in the morning, or check back here in the afternoon, when we’ll be posting an exclusive MP3 recording of the interview. This is such a cool event for the station–KZUU is growing up before our very eyes!
This album came out awhile ago (July 14), but we’ve only gotten it into the preview rack recently. If you’re into the hippie vibe that Devendra Banhart gives off, then definitely give Edward Sharpe a spin. Except, while Devendra’s sort of a hipster-hippie, Edward Sharpe is a collective of serious neo-hippies who just love everyone and everything for reals. There’s really nothing to hate about their debut, Up from Below, which is full of happy, sunny music to get you through the apocalyptic winters of Pullman. They whistle. Come on.
But feel free to make your own judgments. Below is the video for their song “Home.”
Additionally–if you haven’t heard by now, there’s this organization called Stereopathic, which brings indie music to Pullman and Moscow. If you feel like seeing Edward Sharpe, the place to be is the Bell Tower in Pullman on December 4th. Tickets can be found at stereopathicmusic.com.
Stereopathic (as well as Edward Sharpe) deserves our support, and what’s not to like about an all-ages venue in Pullman? So give them all a big fat hippie hug at the Bell Tower on December 4th.
xo
Rachel
This is the man the KZUU DJs have spun enough to help reach the top spot. It’s Julian Casablancas, frontman of The Strokes. His album, Phrazes for the Young, vaulted to the top spot with an impressive 16 plays in its debut week. Last week’s #1, Devendra Banhart, nosedives all the way down to #17. Rock on.
-Evan
i’m going to ask for a late pass for playboy tre. a really late pass. this dude has been at it for 10 years in the atlanta underground and as a fairly big southern rap fan, i’m losing head points quickly. in the early century tre ran with youngbloodz and did a brief stint with lil’ john before going independent. the atlanta/decatur rapper put out a mixtape* over the summer called liquor store mascot and it’s shaping up to be one of the best releases of the year.
the album begins as many great southern rap albums do: with a narrative of street life. tre wakes up, looks out into the streets, thinks about the poverty and violence, and feels sad. i can’t help but think of similar intros on outkast’s atliens, goodie mob’s soul food, and ugk’s ridin’ dirty. on the next track tre sets up the major theme of the album by asserting himself as a man of the people, “i do it for the have-nots/and keep an ice-cold bill like i’m the liquor store mascot”. over the beat’s triumphant horns tre travels through atlanta. he sees dope slangin’, gun totin’, project dwellin’ hopelessness and then reflects, “i see the struggle and i paint it, man.” on the next track, “living in the bottle”, tre confronts alcholism–his family’s, his community’s, and his own. tre tags himself a “bloodline sippa'” in a tone that is regretful and honest. “we are the robots” is an evaluation of present-day racism and classism with lines like “they feed us like hampsters, prisoned and enslaved”. a-town comrade and major label signee B.O.B. comes in to drop a powerful verse about black youth over a somber post-crunk beat. tre explores these themes of struggle, racism, and addiction on every track.
but don’t get it twisted, liquor store mascot isn’t all serious, tre has a sense of humor. like the southern greats before him, he toes the line of serious life reflection and learning to live with the life you have. this music is fun to listen to. i mean, you got all those classic southern backing vocals like, “YEEAAHHH”, “NAAHHHH’, and my personal favorite, “MAANNNEE”. in true southern style, the beats are big, lavish productions that fall somewhere inbetween mid-90s atlanta production team organized noize and lil’ john’s computer crunk. still, at the end of the album it is playboy tre’s voice that resonates. this man is a writer, pure and simple.
gotty of rap blog the smoking section gave his advice to playboy tre’s career in a recent review: “What the man needs to do is take up pen & pad to scribe his autobiography or a few Donald Goines-eque paperbacks. Sure, his words sound melodic when done over music. But there’s a wisdom to his ghetto scriptures, reading like tomes for manhood. Words that should be shared on a wider level. There’s nothing cryptic or “deep.” It’s the starkness and the way he develops round, dynamic characters in his rhymes that attract. They aren’t heroes, just average cats working their way through the world”.
amen.
as the direct descendent of blues, gospel, funk, and soul, southern rap is pure emotion. it is unfiltered african-american culture full of pain and struggle, family and tradition. it is sincere and honest, and the great southern rappers are natural storytellers. not to take anything away from the boom-bap birthplace of the NYC, the laid-back, non-concerning west coast stylings, or the working class hustle of the midwest, but if you want to hear rap that most reflects american culture and history, go south, and listen to playboy tre’s liquor store mascot. this shit is free people!
*liquor store mascot, like most ‘mixtapes’ released nowadays, is an album. its all original, written material. a true mixtape is a dj mixing popular tracks for a mc to rap/freestyle over.
-curt
download:
Well, KZUU, you’ve gone and done it now. The androgynous being you see above is your #1 artist for the week. Devendra Banhart’s new album What Will We Be has impacted the station in a big way, wasting no time in claiming the top spot. Last week’s #1, Dead Man’s Bones, only falls off one spot this week. Once again, I didn’t include Yarn Owl on here, but they were most definitely Top 5 this week.
-Evan
KZUU 90.7fm 