Wow, it’s been two months since my last post. And all I have to offer is some links.

I have a Chris Rock interview is in this week’s Time Out New York. We talked about funerals, Pootie Tang and the infamous James Brown alien abduction episode of Miami Vice.

Speaking of outerspace, I caught up with Erykah Badu last month for this Time Out story, just a few days before she stripped down in front of the grassy knoll. I got to have a nice, laid-back, extra-casual conversation with her—in a dressing room at Jimmy Fallon—the full text of which you can read here. Read to the end for the dramatic conclusion.

Bronx dancehall dude Skerrit Bwoy recently turned up as a talking point on the Jimmy Kimmel Show, during a visit from Aziz Ansari. (Apparently, the two made fast friends). I first heard about Skerrit five or six years ago, back when he was better known as “Sponge Bob.” Now the face of Major Lazer and the international ambassador for daggering (surely, not an easy job), he’s having a bit of a moment. Figured I’d document it in this TONY profile.

I’ve been talking about TV One’s excellent music biography series Unsung for a while now. It’s one of my favorite shows so I was geeked to catch up with recent show subjects Stacy Lattisaw and Lester Troutman from Zapp for their take on the series in this Washington Post story.

Be back with some original content again soon.

I woke up yesterday morning with a nagging urge to hear some Eddie Kendricks. You could say I had a scratch only Eddie’s smooth tenor could itch. After running through some of my favorites — “Date With the Rain,” “Girl You Need a Change of Mind,” “Keep on Truckin,” “My People Hold On” — I found myself on his Wikipedia page. Turns out it was the anniversary of the Temptations great’s death, one day removed: he succumbed to lung cancer 17 years earlier, on Oct. 5, 1992.

NBC’s Temptations miniseries from 1998 was pretty good considering it was made for primetime network TV, but I don’t like how Eddie’s character was left undeveloped. I know the film was based on Otis Williams’ autobiography and all, but Eddie had the most successful solo career of any Temptations member. Read the rest of this entry »

Listen, pal, I’m having a smartly soundtracked existential crisis here

While preparing this piece about Karin Dreijer Andersson of the Knife’s Fever Ray guise, I came across some interviews where Andersson cites Miami Vice as one of her primary influences for the project. I had what Oprah might call an “aha” moment. The perpetual tension, the melancholy, the sense of impending doom—the songs on the Fever Ray LP do create a feeling akin to Miami Vice’s music video-style sequences: those overly melodramatic moments where Sonny (and sometimes Tubbs) get to look cool while sulking over some mistake (usually someone they were trying to protect getting shot) to the sounds of an emotionally overwrought ’80s power ballad handpicked by music supervisor Jan Hammer. Among them are some of the coolest looking montage scenes ever committed to film, in my opinion. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve avoided writing a proper M.J. post (this notwithstanding) ’til now for one simple reason. I prefer to use my writing to illuminate what is not well known or present viewpoints that are not well represented. With the whole world simultaneously eulogizing Mike in every way imaginable, that just did not seem possible.

Yet it doesn’t seem appropriate to avoid the subject. I was born in 1979, the year of Off The Wall. My earliest, foggy memories come right in late ‘82, early ‘83—you know, Thriller times. My first concert, in July 1984, was the Jacksons’ Victory Tour. Now, these are by no means unique experiences. But, for someone who never tried to sing or dance, Mike’s influence on the direction of my life was profound. See, I was the original MTV kid. As one of the first families in my neighborhood with cable in the early ’80s, our house was regularly visited by our teenage neighbors, who would come over specifically to view the channel. Beginning at the age of four, watching hours of music videos became just as much a part of my daily routine as Sesame Street. As a result, I absorbed pop music more intensely and thoroughly then many other kids, beginning right around the time of Michael’s breakthrough onto MTV in ‘83 with “Billie Jean.” Read the rest of this entry »

Flaccid Ego Season One. “The World’s First VHS Quality DVD.”