poison to the mind

You’d want the first single from the pop-shattering team-up of Betty Boo and Alex James to be an instant pop classic, announcing itself all bold and flashy and making you grin like a loon with sheer delight, wouldn’t you? And even more so if it was self-titled?

Well, “Wigwam� by Wigwam isn’t so much of a declaration of arrival as a second track on side 2, written by the drummer. It’s good, it’s silly, it’s certainly fun, and it grows on you very well, but is this all we can hope for from the triumphant returns of Betty (DOIN’ THE DO! WHERE ARE YOU BABY?!) Boo, Alex (PARKLIFE! HANGING AROUND!) James and The (ROK DA HOUSE! HEY DJ I CAN’T DANCE TO THAT MUSIC YOU’RE PLAYING!) Beatmasters? Let’s hope not.

Wigwam – Wigwam

Buy:
Well, nothing yet, the single doesn’t come out ‘til March. But if you like this, do go and buy it, yeah? I’m still going to. If it gets released here. Ha ha, sigh.

You know what? Fuck Seal, and fuck “Killer”. I never gave a shit about it at the time, and listening to the copy of Dr. Adamski’s Musical Pharmacy that I bought for a dollar the other week shows that time has done nothing to widen my appreciation. BUT I now have a digital copy of “Space Jungle” HURRAH (7″ long-lost in one of several boxes in storage) and can listen to it on the train every day next week!

Adamski - Space Jungle

Buy:
I dunno, I can’t even find any Adam Sky stuff in print out here. Send him a hat or something if you like the track, but I realise I’m probably the entire fanbase for this record.

Do people remember when rapsploitation films were actually good? The ’80s were a bit dire with yer endless breakdance whatnots (nb: I have not seen any of these) and Tougher Than Leather and so on, but there was a brief golden age in the early ’90s with the House Party series doing fine young-teen comedy, New Jack City being a fun Scarface rip-off, Boyz-N-The-Hood fooling us all that both Singleton and Gooding were promising young talents, and of course the one-two punch of CB4 and Fear Of A Black Hat both trying to be the Rap Spinal Tap. Both are atrociously patchy, with enough decent gags between them for one only slightly lame comedy, but with good will, they’ll entertain a bunch of stoned uni students.

The best bits in CB4 are probably the slight filkings of actual rap hits to make the fictional group’s tracks. “Sweat Of My Balls” actually fumbles some of the lines from Kool G Rap’s “Talk Like Sex” in its efforts to be slightly different (’give you more than pussy-tickle devices’ is hardly an improvement on ‘give you more than battery-operated devices’), but you have to admit that ‘I fucked your sister, I fucked your cat / I woulda fucked your mom but the bitch was too fat’ has a charming directness that even NWA didn’t resort to until the second album. The version of Rapper’s Delight is completely pointless, obv, but at least the movie’s all over at that point…

CB4 - Straight Outta Locash
CB4 - Sweat Of my Balls
CB4 - Rapper’s Delight

Buy:
The soundtrack is out of print, as far as I can tell, but you can probably pick up the movie on VHS from the $2 bin at your local Video Ezy that’s still trying to shift space for more copies of Cheaper By The Dozen 2 on DVD.

If you’re going to do a half-arsed NWA reunion in 1999, then I s’pose it’s not too awful to draft Snoop in. (Obviously a whole-arsed reunion with Yella standing to the side being useless, and the D.O.C. doing the lines he wrote would have been ideal, and possibly Eminem standing in for Eazy in the confrontational-whiny-voice stakes would have been a more interesting half-arse, but politics innit?)

The concept does fall apart, though, when your reunion only extends to one live appearance on a TV show, and then said TV show releases a compilation album featuring only a Snoop Doggy Dogg cover from your performance. I mean, it’s probably down to whose publishing was easier to clear or something but FUCKING COME ON!

N.W.A - Nuthin’ But A “G” Thang (live on Farmclub)

At least I knew to be disappointed going in. I haven’t even listened to half the horrid nu-metal nonsense, and most of the hip-hop is lame me-and-my-posse shouting unsubtly over boomy instrumental versions (okay, Eminem - The Real Slim Shady (live on Farmclub) is alright, if hardly essential), BUT!!! the five bucks or whatever I paid was totally worth it just for Mya’s “Case Of The Ex.” Yes, it’s just a PA, and it’s got a tedious “my album drops on the 23rd” plug at the start, but I had never heard the song before, so hurrah for Farmclub.com for introducing me accidentally.

Mya - Case Of The Ex (live on Farmclub)

Buy:
I’ll recommend you do try and find a copy in the 5-for-$20 bins at JB like I did, but if you’re a mad keen fan of Bionic Jive or something, then Live & Unreleased From Farmclub.com does appear to still be in print. Unlike the URL itself.

Happy new year, kids - it’s been a busy few weeks, but we should be sticking up tracks far more frequently for the rest of the summer.

Seeing Francis McDonald (in his capacity as a Teenage Fannie) programming Rage before Christmas prompted me to dig out this, perhaps the most relaxed cover version ever. From the B-side of BMX Bandits‘ “Serious Drugs,” this take on fellow Scots Primal Scream’s “Don’t Fight It, Feel It” is labelled as being live, but plainly has a ludicrously obvious loop of cheering sitting near the bottom of the mix (the recording could well be one take, though).

BMX Bandits - Don’t Fight It, Feel It

Buy:
There’s a newish BMX Bandits comp out, spookily enough titled after the above-mentioned single. Sanctuary don’t sell stuff online, cop it at Amazon, along with their latest.