My last few reviews for Word Is Bond

I joined the Word Is Bond crew in March, and since then, I've been enjoying writing about artists I'm familiar with (Bambu, Adrian Younge) and artists I'm not so familiar with (The Doppelgangaz). Here are links to--and passages from--my first five album reviews for WIB.

The Doppelgangaz, Hark (March 12, 2013)
"I don't think I've ever heard bursitis mentioned in a hip-hop track, let alone any kind of track, outside of Al Bundy and his elderly musician friends singing a 'We Are the World' parody about how 'We are the ones who wear bifocals and have bursitis.' That's an example of how unique and original The Doppelgangaz are as storytellers."



Bambu, The Lean Sessions (March 19, 2013)
"The new EP may be far from a last hurrah for a skilled emcee who'd rather devote more time to family and community activism, but if Bambu wants to completely quit the game, The Lean Sessions proves that he has a future as an astute TV critic ('Man, they keep killing black people on Walking Dead, so I switched/Breaking Bad been my shit, that 40-ounce got me blitzed')."

Adrian Younge

Ghostface Killah and Adrian Younge, Twelve Reasons to Die (April 14, 2013)
"Younge has taken elements of Morricone's sound--the fuzz guitar riffs that are highlights of Morricone's Danger: Diabolik and Once Upon a Time in the West scores, the chimes and the wordless melodies--as well as some touches from other film composers (like the sitar towards the end of 'The Sure Shot,' which is reminiscent of Manfred Hübler and Siegfried Schwab, or the piano licks that are all over the RZA's projects, like his Ghost Dog score), and he's brought his own stamp to them. Younge has provided Ghostface with the imaginary soundtrack for the superhero movie he must have always wanted to star in."

Trebles and Blues, From My Father (April 30, 2013)
"This kind of dramatic, trying-to-overcome-barriers material can turn kitschy or sappy. Think unintentional laugh riots like 'Accidental Racist' or any of the family photo slideshow videotapes that a lot of my Filipino parents' friends would subject their party guests to back in the '80s and were often soundtracked with ballads by Whitney Houston and Surface or, ugh, any non-Sid Vicious version of 'My Way' (let's face it, yo: Vicious recorded the only take on 'My Way' that's worth a damn). But fortunately, From My Father, an instrumental work as effective and beautifully crafted as The Blue Note, is neither of those things."

Eric Lau, One of Many (June 24, 2013)
"The best way I'd describe U.K. neo-soul producer Eric Lau's sound would be 'It brings to mind the minimalist production wizardry of Dilla, but without any recognizable samples and perhaps with a taste for crumpets instead of donuts.'"

10 existing songs I'd like to needle-drop as fight scene music in a film or TV show someday

I finally got around to checking out the 2011 silat flick The Raid after recently hearing Yo, Is This Racist? podcast host Andrew Ti's enthusiastic recommendation of it, in which he said it's a great stabbing movie, and it features "the most hilarious stabbing I've ever seen in my entire life." For the American market, director Gareth Evans retitled his stabfest The Raid: Redemption to avoid a rights dispute here in America over the film's original title, but let's face it, man, nobody calls it by that cumbersome American title in regular conversations, and neither do I.

I like the propulsive original score Linkin Park member/Fort Minor founder Mike Shinoda and Oblivion co-composer Joseph Trapanese wrote together for Sony's American release of The Raid, particularly because of its stripped-down sound. As Shinoda said in one of the Raid Blu-ray's featurettes, he and Trapanese wanted to keep the score stripped-down to mirror the film's claustrophobic feel, so that meant ditching electric guitars and Asian or Indonesian flourishes that he and Trapanese felt would have sounded too distracting to the audience's ears, as well as their own.



Oh, and by the way, uh, Hollywood, the fight choreography in The Raid makes your attempts at martial arts flicks (fight scenes in Banshee, Fast Five and Furious 6 aside) look like '80s and '90s Christian pop music videos. In other words, milque-goddamn-toast.

I'm adding to "AFOS Prime" and "Beat Box" rotation the "We Have Company" and "Drug Lab" cues from the Raid score, which Sony's Madison Gate label made available only as a digital download. The Shinoda/Trapanese score has got me thinking about non-"Eye of the Tiger" existing songs I'd like to needle-drop as fight scene music if I ever get to direct a short film, feature film or TV series episode someday, although I don't think I'll ever be put in charge of an undertaking as massive as Furious 6.

1. Ghostface Killah featuring Raekwon and Cappadonna, "Daytona 500"
After The Boondocks brilliantly needle-dropped Raekwon's "Guillotine (Swordz)" when Huey imagined himself as a samurai, the world needs more fight scenes soundtracked with RZA-produced joints. Maybe "Daytona 500" is better suited for a car chase. If I directed a Fast & Furious sequel--though I just said it'd be so unlikely to happen--one of the car chases would have to be soundtracked with a bunch of Wu-Tang MCs spitting fire to a classic break like Bob James' "Nautilus."

2. Method Man, "Release Yo' Delf (Prodigy Remix)"
I hadn't noticed until recently that Prodigy sampled the horns from "El Colpo," a cue from Ennio Morricone's For a Few Dollars More score, during this remix. Prodigy's take on Meth's "Release Yo' Delf" was born to accompany any fight scene, whether it's a jewel thief laying the smackdown on a cop or an old lady beefing with another grocery shopper over the last loaf of bread.

3. Jeru the Damaja, "Ya Playin' Yaself"
Because Jeru did it before in his own music video, and it looked fantastic.



4. The Roots, "75 Bars (Black's Reconstruction)"
Black Thought's lyrical tour de force, in which he, as David Brothers once said, "stacks threat on crack on snap like the world's fastest game of Jenga," is a perfect cue for that great post-MMA black action flick that hasn't been made yet.

5. The Heavy, "That Kind of Man"
So many Heavy tracks work well as action genre music (Cinemax's Strike Back opens its episodes with "Short Change Hero"), and Madison Avenue must agree because ad agencies have played the shit out of "Short Change Hero," "How You Like Me Now" and "What Makes a Good Man?" (every other Dwayne Johnson flick that comes out always seems to have TV spots that feature Heavy songs). The angry groove of "That Kind of Man" is sort of like the retro-soul equivalent of Gerald Fried's exhilarating Star Trek fight theme (a piece that, by the way, was recently quoted by Michael Giacchino during the "San Fran Hustle" cue in his Star Trek Into Darkness score). If you removed all the vocals about relationship woes, "That Kind of Man" would have been a dope cue during the climactic knife fight in The Man from Nowhere.

A track-by-track rundown of the current "New Cue Revue" playlist on AFOS

(Photo source: Darkmatters)

Every Wednesday and Friday at noon (with a bonus Wednesday airing at 4pm), AFOS streams the most recent additions to the station's playlists--"AFOS Prime," "Beat Box," "The Whitest Block Ever," "Brokedown Merry-Go-Round" and "Hall H"--for an hour-long block entitled "New Cue Revue." Here's the current "New Cue Revue" playlist.

(Photo source: The Geek Twins)

1. Brian Tyler, "Can You Dig It (Iron Man 3 Main Titles)"
"Can you count, suckas?"

2. Mychael Danna, "Set Your House in Order" (from Life of Pi)
"Tiger style."

3. Howard Shore, "Roast Mutton (Extended Version)" (from The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey)
"I wish I was a little bit taller."

(Photo source: TRON LIVES: Uprising Art)

4. Joseph Trapanese, "Compressed Space" (from Tron: Uprising, "The Stranger")
"Yeah, bitch! Magnets!"

5. Asha Bhosle, "Dum Maro Dum" (from Hare Rama Hare Krishna)
"Won't you pack the pipe and keep it moving down the line?"

"Rock Box" Track of the Day: Raekwon, "Guillotine (Swordz)"

Song: "Guillotine (Swordz)" by Raekwon feat. Inspectah Deck, Ghostface Killah and GZA
Released: 1995
Why's it part of the "Rock Box" playlist?: This kickass Only Built 4 Cuban Linx... track from the Wu-Tang member with the biggest Mafia genre fetish (he provides the third verse in the track, after Deck's opening verse and Ghostface's second verse) is featured in the 2005 Boondocks episode "Granddad's Fight," which introduced one of my favorite Boondocks running gags, the use of a chair as a weapon (I call it "chair fu").
Which moment in "Granddad's Fight" does it appear?: The Samurai Champloo-esque dream sequence in which Huey (Regina King) fights Granddad's blind nemesis Colonel H. Stinkmeaner (Cedric Yarbrough).

Five killer samples that most people didn't know originated from film score music

Cee-Lo recently dropped his new single "Fuck You" on the Internet, and the delightfully profane break-up anthem, which originated from a song idea that Bruno Mars and Philip Lawrence of "Nothin' on You" fame pitched to Cee-Lo, has become a viral sensation. Before "Fuck You" (which has spawned a lame radio edit called "Forget You"), the Gnarls Barkley singer and former Goodie Mob MC's most popular track was his 2006 Gnarls hit "Crazy." Even though I got sick of hearing "Crazy" all over the place back in '06, I loved how Danger Mouse, the beatmaker half of Gnarls, sampled an obscure spaghetti western score during "Crazy." Not many people knew that the catchy bass line and strings were copped from Gianfranco Reverberi's "Nel Cimitero di Tucson," a score cue from 1968's Preparati la bara!, a.k.a. Viva Django. Here are five other killer samples that many listeners--including myself in some instances--didn't know came from film score music.

1. Jay-Z and Alicia Keys' "Empire State of Mind" drum break, 2009 (from Isaac Hayes' "Breakthrough" from Truck Turner, 1974)
The opening drum solo in "Breakthrough" is the Betty White of drum breaks: old and ubiquitous but reliable and entertaining every time. H.O.V.A.'s biggest hit of his career is the latest of many joints to sample "Breakthrough," an instrumental you can now check out during the daily "Assorted Fistful" block on A Fistful of Soundtracks.

2. Sneaker Pimps' "6 Underground" harp melody, 1996 (from John Barry's "Golden Girl" from Goldfinger, 1964) [WhoSampled comparison page]
If you were in college in the late '90s, you probably made out to "6 Underground." Did you know you were actually making out to the music from the dead-naked-chick-covered-in-gold-paint scene from Goldfinger?

3. Cibo Matto's "Sugar Water" wordless melody, 1996 (from Ennio Morricone's "Sospesi Nel Cielo" from Malamondo, 1964) [WhoSampled comparison page]
One of my favorite videos from the '90s is the Michel Gondry-directed video for "Sugar Water" (a.k.a. the song that soundtracked Buffy's sexy dance with Xander during her "Joan Collins 'tude" phase). My recent discovery that the duo sampled Morricone's Malamondo score made me love "Sugar Water" even more.

4. Ghostface Killah's "Alex (Stolen Script)" bass line and strings, 2006 (from Henry Mancini's Thief Who Came to Dinner theme, 1973) [WhoSampled comparison page]
MF Doom's sense of humor really comes through in his choice of the theme from the Ryan O'Neal/Jacqueline Bisset caper movie The Thief Who Came to Dinner (when's Warner Archives going to release that flick?) for Ghostface's How to Make It in America-esque tale of a Hollywood thief who comes to dinner--or to be more exact, a P.F. Chang's pitch meeting with the song's title hustler, who's pitching to him the script for Jamie Foxx's Ray biopic--and proceeds to steal Alex's copy of the Ray script. As music critic Jeff Weiss once wrote about this Ghostface chune, "Aspiring MC's should study this like the Rosetta Stone."

5. Wu-Tang Clan's "Rushing Elephants" brass riffs, 2007 (from Morricone's "Marche en La" from Espion, lève-toi, 1982) [WhoSampled comparison page]
My favorite film composer and my favorite experts on martial arts cinema "unite."