Fall From Paradise

[Non-Sports Content Alert!!! This one is extra credit. I know we've gone pretty heavy on the music lately, but I hope that I'm introducing you to new stuff once in a while and that you enjoy a little audial field trip.] 

Every once in a while, you come across a song at just the right time. A couple of the lines resonate perfectly with what you are going through, and you want to listen to it over and over again. Great songs can bond with parts of your life irreversably. I can still remember listening to Feel The Real on a trip to Ireland junior year in high school in my shitty old Discman that skipped every 8 seconds. It wasn't enough to keep me from playing it repeatedly. 

Only a few of the Fack Youk faithful would remember this, but a while ago I wrote a post on a white rapper from Halifax named Classified. I found him via a pretty random connection through a BitTorrent site and have been a fan ever since. He produces all of his own stuff and used to have to keep a full-time job to be able to afford to rent studio time. 

It would be a rags to riches story, but he's still relatively underground, especially in the U.S.  His rhymes are honest and unpretentious, and his tracks are tightly put together. There are parts of this song that would have worked for tomorrow's game post ("I know that everything that goes up, must come down, That everybody with luck, must run out") but I didn't want to give it short shrift. This appears to be the official music video and in the spirit of his music, it forgoes any bullshit and is straight to the point. 

Now a couple years after this drop, I'll probably flop,
But thats the way it goes when you get on the top,
I'm talkin bout Canada, yo this industry's a joke,
I'm a canadian rap star, and kid I'm still broke.

But I ain't work in years, and some think I'm famous,
While other people ask when the hell I'm gonna make it,
I'm good where I'm at, keep the glamour and the glitz,
I don't run from my fans, cause my stamina is shit.

Loan Me A Dime [Music] [Non-Sports]

[Before I started wasting all my free time writing for this site, I spent a considerable chunk of it downloading music. I have an amazing BitTorrent site (which I will not name for fear of the wrath of their fascist rules) that organizes pretty much every album by anyone ever (and a ton of live shows) by artist, by release date, and usually has them available in multiple sound qualities. It's the greatest thing ever. As result I've got a lot of pretty obscure stuff.

So, occasionally I'm going to include a YouTube of a song I really like and write a little bit about the tune and the artist. If this annoys you, please tell me I'm a tool in the comments or something. Rest assured that this is because we are in a relatively slow period for my rooting interests and this isn't going to turn into a Phish message board. We are all for expanding our minds here at Fack Youk, but if you folks think it's stupid, I won't do it.]


Today's Selection: Duane Allman (& Boz Scaggs) - Loan Me A Dime

That is actually just an excerpt, because the actual version off of The Duane Allman Anthology [Vol. 1] is 13 minutes long. Pulling out just the best part of the solo kills the context a little bit, but I know most people can't tolerate songs with long jams and get lost without lyrics. I'm probably an exception only because I devote a healthy amount of time to messing around with my hollowbody Paul Reed Smith and trying to pretend I'm good enough to justify owning it (and failing).

Give me a song with long jam and dominant lead guitar part by a virtuoso like Duane, Derek Trucks*, Clapton or Trey Anastasio and I can listen to it 1,000 times. No matter how good your memory is, you're not going to remember thirteen minutes worth of notes, so you don't get sick of it like you do songs with words in them. I cue one of these tunes up on my walk to work and it's a different experience every time.

*Dickey Betts actually put down the Basil Hayden's long enough to answer the "Duane vs. Derek" question incredibly diplomatically right here.

Why, Duane? I know it wasn't your fault, but why did you have to get on your motorcycle that day? You were only 24 years old and already Jesus Christ on the Les Paul. That version of "Hey, Jude" you did with Wilson Pickett was incredible. The tribute to King Curtis you gave two weeks before you died, at the Filmore East, where you played "You Don't Love Me" into "Soul Serenade" and then flowed right into a blistering, free-form 10 minute slide guitar solo, is one of the greatest things ever to vibrate my eardrums. It was simultaneously soulful, angry and beautiful. I just want to know what you would have done with the last 37 1/2 years.