"Data Grave" by Sleepy Eyes of Death

So far, the only other place "Data Grave" exists is on Sleepy Eyes of Death's Myspace page. It's the lead single off "Toward a Damaged Horizon," the local group's album to be released 05/04/10.

The song builds subtly at first and then quickly and dramatically into a violent, controlled electrical storm. Orchestrated around a pinging, downward-moving synth arpeggio, the type that will always garner John Carpenter soundtrack comparisons, faux strings enter in waves, adding tension, ominousness, and an odd sense of calm. Then drums stampede in from a nearby prairie, establishing a new, muscular energy, and Sleepy Eyes of Death starts throwing bolts from above the clouds, each crescendo a satisfying crunch-crash of electric guitar, layered synths, and drums/cymbals.

I've been banging the Butts cassette, and am glad it came packaged with a download code. The Seattle duo recently released its debut self-titled EP via local GGNZLA Records.

The songs on "Butts" are short, fun, seemingly hastily recorded punk rock, all titled after their main lyric, which is one or two words out of about ten each. Taken together, "We're Butts," "Cigarettes," "Panty Exchange," "Alcohol," "Dollar Bills," "Public Transportation," and "Marijuana" paint a picture of Rachel Ratner (Seattle via San Luis Opisbo) and Shannon Perry (Seattle via the Eastside 'burbs) roving the city, looking for kicks, taking the piss. It's presented like a day in the life, with the songs' "messages" made literal to the point of sarcasm ("alcohol is pretty awesome," "cigarettes: we smoke 'em all night"), but that's kind of the listener's call.

I like the rap/R&B influence on "Butts." The main lyric on "Dollar Bills" perhaps comes from The Wu-Tang Clan's Ol' Dirty Bastard, and "Alcohol" jacks the "how's it hanging?" line from Salt-N-Pepa's 1994 classic "Shoop": "Shotgun, bang! What's up with that thang?"

Love the piano latticework on "The Morning Time" by Renton soul man Michael Dean, and the lyrical sentiment, too. The slow jam's words predict a better tomorrow while bemoaning the fact that America's kids are "in a foreign land, fighting for freedom, dying in the sand." The song builds from a hypnotic, layered piano/drums intro to include swinging horns and a wild, scuzzy guitar solo, both of which I'm guessing Dean made with a keyboard. Over the "band," his voice rings sincerely in a cool tenor, and it sounds like he's doing his own falsetto background vocals.

Sub Pop-signed California group Dum Dum Girls has a winner in "Jail La La," a singalong pop song about going to jail. It's overtly peppy without being cloying or shallowly contrary to the subject matter, delivered drolly in three-part female vocal harmony.

Photos by me

As far as I know, this upcoming performance still keeps the total number of Shabazz Palaces concerts in single digits. Remember, Shabazz made Seattle's best music of 2009.

Outside the Emerald City, not nearly enough people listened to sibling micro-albums "Shabazz Palaces" and "Of Light" last year, and most don't know they should be watching for 40-year-old Shabazz auteur Ishmael Butler Palaceer Lazaro in 2010 (he's in the studio, and making a DVD, and singlehandedly reinstating hiphop as the most compelling modern American music). Will his (free, daytime, outdoor, unofficially affiliated with SXSW) Austin, TX concert previewing the Seattle-started Red Bull Big Tune beat battle connect with the masses? No. Will it inspire a handful of people in the audience to scrap their current art projects and undertake something new and much more creative? Yes.

Also, notice Shabazz is playing the concert with local psychedelic space-rap/jazz girlfriend duo THEESatisfaction. I've seen them hanging out together around town, and am making the following call: If the two acts start making music together, which isn't so crazy a notion, black flames will burn a hole into the center of the Earth.

The Seattle Times puts me in Austin, TX for South by Southwest (SXSW) from Thursday, March 18, through Saturday, March 21. Embedded in the field, I'll report on this blog and make my media as multi- as I can muster, focusing on Seattle artists, looking for "the Dickensian aspect" but also something realer.

For those unfamiliar with the gigantic music festival/industry network-a-thon, and for a look at some of the over two dozen local acts playing SXSW, my lengthy preview is here (takes up two pages in the Sunday Times!).

Hit the jump for theorizing about music and journalism, words about writing my preview, and a guess at my personal schedule while on the ground.

Jerm (L) and Tay Sean (R) of Helladope

"Just So You Know" by Helladope

"Rainwater" by Helladope

Today, Beacon Hill Rap&B group Helladope puts out its debut album, "Helladope," and celebrates with a concert at Nectar in Fremont.

Before we go any further, a note on the name. In an accidental and PG-13 way, it expresses the kind of "if you don't get it, it's not for you" thing I love so much about hiphop (see: slang, graffiti, etc.). I've met several people who simply cannot say "Helladope" without making a face and pausing between "hella" and "dope" like they're embarrassed about what's coming out of their mouth. But I digress.

"Helladope" contains no fewer than three minor Seattle classics of fusion-y future-funk sing-rap ("Just So You Know," "Rainwater," "Shine On") and a range of other songs, many revolving around outer space in sound and lyrical content.

Throughout the album, the rapping and singing are excellent, with Tay Sean's nasally tenor perfectly foiled against man Jerm's sandy midrange. The former is in his early 20s, the latter in his late 20s, and they rap with different energy levels and precision requirements. Where Tay Sean's words pile up at the ends of rhymes, crashing in on each other, Jerm has more of a steady flow, and also a real gift for taking up space on a track, not rapping but not exactly singing, either. His refrain on "Just So You Know" is particularly memorable, but doesn't look like anything on paper: "Absolutely, positively Positively, absolutely out to get this party movin'."

Courtesy Tay Sean, the backing tracks on "Helladope" go several different synthesizer-y ways, showing the artist developing rapidly, trying new styles fearlessly. There is really no template for "Mind Shiftin," a song that would sound nothing like hiphop were it not for guest star Rajnii rapping on it. It's a quick-skipping, downward-moving beat with watery keys in the background.

There's a fizzy/aluminum can thing happening on "This Is My Planet" and "Cosmic Voyage," but "Gods On a Mission" is totally different, held down by smooth electric piano and fingersnaps. Sneak-attack strings and an agitated keys melody give "We Come In Peace" a paranoid feel. "The Soul Electric" could have been in a late '80s rapsploitation movie ("Breakin'," anyone?), its electro-synth composition made for popping and locking.

The songs are creative, all, but some have elements that could be done without: the shouty chorus on "We Come In Peace" (does it need to be so loud?), the incongruous Chrisette Michelle-style vocal hook by Isabella Du Graf on "Gods On a Mission" (not that it's bad, it just sounds like it was copied and pasted from another song).

Every time greatness is thwarted on "Helladope," I just go back and listen to "Just So You Know," "Rainwater," or "Shine On."

"Just So You Know" invents a new dance music (Swingstep? Grownstep?). "Rainwater" is sweeping, crushing, romantic synth-R&B/house; it sounds like "Thriller" at the roller rink. "Shine On" is rap that turns on a dime and erupts in joyous song. All three will kill at Nectar tonight.

Photo by Mike Clark

"1Day" by Michael Dean

Last week, I discovered 40-year-old Renton man Michael Dean, sort of like Christopher Columbus discovered America. Dean has history here, but I didn't know about it.

Hipped to his bandcamp page, I went on about "Kingdom," a chilled-out funk number with zen-like positivity in its pro-black/pro-humanity lyrics. Today, I can't stop listening to "1Day," a romance jam sung with local woman Yorusalem Zewolday over punchy, ping-ponging synths. Both are new tracks recorded in the past few months, and will be on Dean's upcoming EP "21st Century Sly of Paisley Park."

I knew Dean was a former hiphop guy, but didn't know how deeply. Today, he enlightened me further.

Around the turn of the millennium, he toured and rapped with the virtually forgotten-about Sub Pop-signed rap group The Evil Tambourines, a local band and strange footnote in the label's history, for sure. (Check The Seattle Times' Tom Scanlon on The Evil Tambourines here.)

Before that, Dean was a solo rapper by the name of GMD (Genius Michael Dean). The Seattle Times ran an article about him in 1993.

In 1992-'93, GMD made songs with a little help from Andy Poehlman (half of The Evil Tambourines) and longtime, still-active Seattle hiphop producer Funkdaddy, releasing them on cassette. Today, he was kind enough to slide me some mp3s of some of those tracks.

Photo by Mike Clark

"Don't Say No" by GMD, band rehearsal with Tommy Taylor singing and playing guitar

"Sandy" by GMD

"Derick Wildstar Funk" (instrumental) produced by GMD and Andy Poehlman

From what I'm hearing, these GMD songs are R&B/blues rap ("Don't Say No") and busy, sampledelic New Jack Swing/hiphop-house ("Sandy" and "Derick Wildstar Funk"). They're all more musical than most hiphop, and oriented toward dance floors instead of arms-crossed tough guys. If I wasn't in elementary school at the time, I might have come out to see GMD rock shows at The Funhouse.

Photo by Mike Clark

Dean said he's going to start playing concerts around town, but doesn't know if he'll get a band together or head out solo with a computer and a microphone. Either way, Seattle stages will see him soon.

Fun fact: Dean runs FreedomTrainOnline.com, which hosts days and days of audio podcasts, all of which he recorded and edited. Some are like DJ sets with lots of talking, and some lean heavier on music than words. There is a radio-style horror drama called "Holly Park," which features the Internet prominently in its plot and is described on the site as "street lit."

FreedomTrainOnline.com also has many podcasts dedicated to Prince, Dean's musical hero. One particular Princecast is a group Skype session where Dean leads a national panel of experts in supplying commentary while watching 1990 Prince movie "Graffiti Bridge." They all take a moment at the beginning and set their DVD players to 00:00:00. Let it be known: nobody is messing with Michael Dean's Prince fandom.

At one point, Dean quit music because "he wasn't ready." He got back into it in 2002 after seeing Prince at the Paramount. Being in Prince's fanclub, he was granted access to sound check, where he watched The Purple One cover Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean."

"Prince is three feet away from me, tearing up the guitar," he says. "I decide then, it's time."

Citation: I stole "self-facilitating media node" (in this post's title) from the British comedy "Nathan Barley"

The Crocodile and Sonic Boom present:

Photo via my phone

As in hiphop, so it was in other pop musics: the aughts devalued lyrics.

Rap became "all about the beats" and rock became obsessed with sonic grandeur. From Soulja Boy to Madlib, Nickelback to Arcade Fire, it was all about the size and shape of sound, and lyrics were allowed to be bad. This goes for pop and country, too, which were streamlined into two nearly identical strains of pumped-up soft rock.

And in studios everywhere, the loudness wars happened, a movement in mixing and mastering that said, "If it's loud enough, people will love it."

Repeat listenings became something one did to feel a song again. Music was newly tactilized, made more connected than ever to experiencing waves of energy or doing intense things like joining the army, snowboarding, or having sex in this club. Songs became situations to live in more than compositions to consider, and were given trancelike power to wash over and take control, like three-minute mini-raves. To the degree that music was thought of as finely wrought, the credit went to someone claiming the nebulous "producer" role, and that person's efforts were more valued for results than craftsmanship. The turn was toward vast, across-the-board subliminalism, requiring nothing more of a listener than a pulse and the willingness to succumb.

Now, rarely do songs bring one back for the audio equivalent of a poetry class's "close reading."

We're living in a time that's thirsty for artists like Californian singer/songwriter/harpist Joanna Newsom. She rides the borderline between mainstream and underground, and her engrossing new triple album "Have One On Me" has excellent lyrics.

Seattle man Robin Pecknold (Fleet Foxes) covered a Newsom song and made Internet waves with his YouTube recording of it the other day, so let's use that one for an example of Newsom's wordstyle. It's called "On A Good Day."

"On A Good Day"

Hey hey hey the end is near
On a good day you can see the end from here
But I won't turn back now though the way is clear
I will stay for the remainder

I saw a life and I called it mine
I saw it drawn so sweet and fine
And I had begun to fill in all the lines
Right down to what we'd name her

Our nature does not change by will
In the winter 'round the ruined mill
The creek is lying flat and still
It is water though it's frozen

So across the years and miles and through
On a good day you can feel my love for you
Will you leave me be so that we can stay true
To the path that you have chosen?

The song is about a breakup and a reconnection, with Newsom playing a character who's aware she has feelings for old lover but doesn't want them shaken up. Acknowledging her hurting heart but still thinking rationally, maintaining clear vision, and standing firm, she says "please go easy on me" even though she's no damsel in distress.

It's a story with an essence, an emotion residing in the character Newsom's playing that she teases out with poetry. The sound of the song makes one feel something, obviously — if one has no reaction to her whinny-ing voice medieval-Cali-pop song style, one's cord is unplugged — but the real feeling "On A Good Day" is meant to transmit, a particular blend of weakness and strength, is only fully understood with careful attention paid to its lyrics. Once that essential tincture is tasted, the character's long-distance gaze becomes a hard squint, and Newsom's frozen creek image more than a device to show nature being two things at once, but also significant in its relating of clarity and coldness.

And that's one of the shortest "Have One On Me" songs. For longer ones, like album centerpiece/standout "Good Intentions Paving Company," the process of listening, considering, soaking in, and listening again is much more involved.

Here's an attempted transcription:

"Good Intentions Paving Company."

Twenty miles left to the shore
Hello my old country hello
Stars are just beginning to appear
And I have never in my life before been here

And it's my heart, not me, who cannot ply
That base conclusion you may write
Watching me sit here bolt upright and cry
For no good reason at the Eastern sky

And the tilt of this strange nation
And the will to remain for the duration
Waving the flag, feeling it drag

Like a bump on a bump on a log, baby
Like I'm in a fistfight with a fog, baby
Step-ball-change and a pirouette
And I regret, I regret

How I said to you, honey, "Just open your heart"
When I've got trouble even opening a honey jar
And that right there is where we are

And I been 'fessing double fast
Addressing questions nobody asks
I'll get this joy off of my chest at last
And I will love you 'til the noise has long since passed

And I did not mean to shout, just drive
Just get us out, [??]
A road too long to mention, oh it's something to see
Laid down by the good intentions paving company

All the weight of the thing we've been playing at, darlin'
I can see that you're wearing your staying hat, darlin'
For the time being all is well
Won't you love me a spell?

This is blindness beyond all conceiving
Well, behind us the road is leaving, yeah, leaving
And falling back
Like a rope gone slack

And the sauce strayed away but the ladle will stay
But I fell for you, honey, as easy as falling asleep
And that right there is the course I keep

And no amount of talking
Is going to soften the fall
But, like after the rain, step out
Of the overhang, that's all

It had a nice a ring to it
When the old opera house rang
So with a song I'm all lame
"Signed, sealed, delivered" I sang

And there is hesitation
And it always remains
Concerning you, me,
And the rest of the gang

And in a quiet hour
I feel I see everything

And am in love with the hook
Upon which everyone hangs

And I know you meant to show the extent
To which you gave a god dang
It rings real hot and real cold but I'm sold
I am home on that range

And I do hate to fold
Right here at the top of my game
When I've been trying with my whole heart and soul
To stay right here in the right lane

But it can make you feel over and old
Lord, you know it's a shame
When I only want for you to pull over and hold me
'Til I can't remember my own name

The song is a monster, seven minutes long and compositionally interesting. The extended piano/voice/lonely trumpet breakdown toward the end is just lung-collapsingly beautiful.

But winning though the piano-bar melody might be, and heavy as the breakdown is, the words captivate more. As with "On A Good Day," the rest of "Have One On Me," and Newsom's entire repertoire, the lyrics on "Good Intentions Paving Company" are slavish to basic poetry principles (mad internal and end rhymes, maximized assonance/consonance play) but nonetheless communicate resonant images and feelings.

I'm not going to say what "Good Intentions Paving Company" is about, because I don't know. But I do know the lyrics will stay with me for a long time, and there are a lot of them. Every time I listen to the song, I have a new favorite line.

This post was made possible in part by Michael Jacobs, the fourth best lawyer in Portland

Spin might be merely aiight now, but back in the day, it was awesome. And the ads in some of the '80s issues are pure comedy. The magazine's archives are now freely peruse-able with Google Books.

Via Lar via Barfly

Foscil at Grey Gallery; image from my phone

The Foscil concert at Grey Gallery on Capitol Hill was a success yesterday. The local electro-acoustic post-rock/jazz group was walled-in, trapped in the art gallery portion of the cocktail/beer/wine/crepe lounge, viewable only through a doorway-sized glass pane against the far wall or looking down from the lofted balcony (if one stood on a chair).

To see the action through the glass, people fell over each other, leaned, crouched, and generally invaded each others' personal spaces. It was art bringing people together, literally. A glimpse through the glass revealed a room with white walls, wood floor, and Foscil set up in the middle, its unusual spread of keyboards, horns, and drums lit like a museum exhibit.

Tony Moore's horns weren't always clearly audible, but the rest of the instruments sounded distinct and full of life, especially Ryan Trudell's creeping synthesizer lines and Adam Swan's lightly fractured guitar playing. As usual whenever he plays live drums, Tyler Swan was crisp and musical with stutter-crack jazz/rap-isms.

The concert was free and attended by about 40 people in their 30s, all of whom fit the Grey millieu (vaguely arty and bohemian, sympathetic or at least not averse to the outer edges of hiphop and skateboarding culture). They talked loudly on leather sofas and drank martinis while Foscil unraveled its ornate, muscular space science.

It was delightful to see the band in such an unusual situation, swapping the traditional concert experience with something novel and stylized. It brought to mind the recent Head Like an Espresso Truck concert last month at Neumos, for which Truckasauras — which shares all of Foscil's members but Tony Moore — messed with typical rock-club concert structure and instead played a fluid, overlapping, concert-length musical blend with local groups Fresh Espresso (rap) and Head Like a Kite (electro-pop). As a friend said to me, it was something other Seattle groups can only emulate now, seeing as it's already been done successfully and publicly. Same with the sequestered Grey Gallery show, which I can imagine going over well with a variety of local acts. Word on the street is Truckasauras is planning another experimental show at Neumos, with a laundry list of Seattle rappers set to take turns over their inimitable bummer-beauty electro-hop.

All of which goes to say: The Foscil/Truckasauras guys are trying new things with the form we know as "pop music concert." It's not all paradigm-shifting or revolutionary, but so far, so good, and as they continue, they're putting down flags and claiming creative territory.

Props to Scratchmaster Joe for hosting the concert during his normally scheduled DJ night, and for, before Foscil played, executing the best Jay-Z beat juggling I've seen outside of my A-Trak DVD.

Toronto's Drake is the "it guy" for rap and R&B in 2010, with his debut album "Thank Me Later" pretty much guaranteed to go platinum after it comes out March 30.

On frilly coronation/drumline monstrosity "Over," he's already post-fame, surrounded by a bunch of fawning strangers, disoriented and hung over, talking about how 2009 was a crazy year — zillion mixtape downloads; smash single with Kanye-directed video full of breasts — and 2010 is going to be even crazier. He's irritatingly justified in his lofty estimation of himself, like the kid in high school whose parents buy him expensive clothes but who can also totally dunk.

Lyrically and spiritually, "Over" is generic enough to be performed at an NBA All-Star game, but also specific enough so that it feels like Drake's being authentic, analyzing his life while he's living it. He vows to focus more on enjoying the present.

The sentiment expresses a rich-guy problem, and also a typical divorce-generation 23-year-old's impulse to see oneself as prematurely old. Drake's "me time" is many an early-20s Seattleite's scruffy beard.

Produced by his Canadian brethren Boi-1da, the backing track is a Spielberg movie, a skipping/crushing drum pattern with John Williams-style insta-suspenseful string and horn trills. Despite having a somewhat generic persona, Drake gracefully rises to the challenge and appears significant in the starring role.

"Over" casts Drake as a legitimate, world-conquering sing-rap megastar like Kanye West and Lil Wayne. He's in their league but personality-deficient, working with an amalgam of their styles (Kanye's smart-ass/oh-no-he-didn't verses, Wayne's buzzing, Auto-Tuned, R&Bemo choruses) and yet a totally viable a male lead, something like an urban-identifying, more pathologically interesting Taylor Swift.

Los Angeles-via-Oxnard producer/DJ/multi-instrumentalist Madlib is back with two new jazz albums, "Slave Riot" and "Miles Away" (as Young Jazz Rebels and The Last Electro-Acoustic Space Jazz & Percussion Ensemble, respectively). Though known as a hiphop/neo-soul producer to stars like Mos Def, Erykah Badu, and DOOM, Madlib's long made extremely smoked-out jazz with a unique fusion of sampled/chopped vinyl and live instrumentation.

"Forces Unseen" rides a brief, repetitive, upward-moving bass line through a current of blips and squiggles that sound like people in the '70s imagining life inside computers of the '80s. It drifts off in a nighttime sax solo.

"Tones For Larry Young" toasts late soul-jazz organist Larry Young with all manner of organ washes and ringing bells. The song is busy, bass-y and zoned out, honking and purring in a swirl of muscular movement. In this excellent recent Guardian piece about the "Miles Away" album, writer Paul Morley calls it "a blast from a past [Madlib] makes seem like the future."

Photos by me

Seattle's premier psychedelic space-rap/jazz girlfriend duo THEESatisfaction is headed out on the "Black Weirdo" tour. But rather than "tour," perhaps it's more accurate to say Catherine Harris-White and Stasia Irons are setting off on a march. In March.

"Bad March" hit the internet yesterday, an a cappella THEESatisfaction song/video about "marching forward, marching toward..."

The ellipsis in the song's "marching toward..." lyric hangs significantly, unresolving the phrase and extending it forever. The group's tour fundraising webpage says THEESatisfaction hopes to spread "queer expression, black consciousness, and gender harmony within & outside United States."

Dates from the press release:

March 18th: Austin, TX @ TBA
March 20th: Austin, TX @ Beauty Bar
March 24th: Leimert Park, CA @ Kaos Network
March 25th: Claremont, CA @ Pomona
April 7th: Toronto, ON @ The Art Gallery of Ontario
April 8th: Toronto, ON @ The Rearview Mirror
April 9th: Toronto, ON @ The WrongBar

Class Project made the video.

"Bird Lives!" is the even better b-side to Seattle's current number one pro-black jam "Magnetic Blackness" (out now on 7-inch vinyl). The two songs form a micro-genre: Afrocentric hypno-hop.

Champagne Champagne's DJ Gajamagic recently told me his new philosophy for making rap tracks is to keep things minimal and prominently feature a "weird" sound, and in "Bird Lives!" gives us fingersnaps, bass, and a disembodied Arabian shimmer.

Stasia Irons' opening verse deserves (attempted) transcription. The (usually) rapping half of THEESatisfaction flies through misshapen metaphors about fried foods and particle physics on her way to a closing line that promotes black diversity. Other highlights include rhyming "croutons" with "pooped on" and a wicked "matter" entendre.

Seattle electro-rap group Fresh Espresso recently put the a cappellas from its 2009 "Glamour" album online for free download, the idea being that producers would remix individual songs.

Area dustologist OC Notes went ahead and remixed the whole album. Get his (also freely downloadable) version here.

Notes' take on "We Desire What's Real" is drums-less, made completely of space-y, swirling synths, the better to focus on Rik Rude's totally zen speak-rap about being married to music. The original was the smoothest song on "Glamour," and the remix accentuates the song's already formidable chill factor.

OC Notes' version of "Diamond Pistols" is a radical reworking, flipping the former "kick drum anthem" into a snare drum anthem, slapping away with a repetitive, uptempo beat that has nothing to do with the swinging, horn-blasting original.

An OC Notes/Rik Rude project called "Metal Chocolates" is forthcoming. Based on these remixes and the pair's past collaborations, heat is expected.

Here's some interesting freshness from State of the Artist. On the surface, "ExtraHellaDope" is flutter/sparkle synth rap with a West Coast edge, a great song, fresh and bright as Seattle's current spring weather.

Produced by Parker, who also raps in State of the Artist ("oh-so-cute" says Teen Vogue), "ExtraHellaDope" speaks to a deep appreciation of Beacon Hill rap&B group Helladope (MC/producer/singer Tay Sean and MC/singer Jerm).

Sonically, the track is a note-perfect homage to Tay Sean's space-funk production style, and has the word "Helladope" is in its chorus, which chants something very similar to SOTA's about-to-be-released album title, "SeattleCaliFragilisticExtraHelladopeness." Helladope itself guests on "ExtraHellaDope," and Tay Sean has the best verse on the song, a twisty, razor-sharp set of South End boasts and hater dismissals.

Photos by me

Here's a sobering story from the King of Ballard, Grynch, about growing up without a dad and using rap for a father figure. The rapper's sympathy and creativity are really on display here, because, thing is, Grynch has a dad. And I heard he's a nice guy.

The Stranger broke down "Biological Didn't Bother" yesterday on its blog, with writer Larry Mizell, Jr. bringing information to light about the song's backing track — originally from a Shaq song (remember: Shaq raps) — which was produced in 1994 by Warren G, who in 2010 is kinda, sorta, maybe taking Grynch under his wing.

Michael Dean is 40, lives in Renton, and just blew my mind with this slice of uplifting funk. I guess "Kingdom" began in 1998 but is just now seeing the light of day. It has a squeaky-bright violin line and lyrics that scan pro-black but everyone can rally around:

The "take yourself out the competition" line gets me. Dean emailed today to let me know about "Kingdom" and also that he used to be in the Evil Tambourines, apparently a rap group signed to Sub Pop back in the day. He said he used to be a rapper, but is now a singer/songwriter working on two EPs, "21 Century Sly of Paisley Park" and "Queen Sheba 2000 More." A brief stroll around his bandcamp page shows he is not messing around.