The Largesse’s First Concert Series Rolls on

A. Friend Recommends Midwestern Hip-Hop Sensibility

Somewhere in the industrial Midwest, there is an arena.  To see it today is to see a metaphor for everything that went wrong with that neck of the woods:  the tired paint job reflecting a lack of imagination, the weeds poking up through the empty acres of parking lot reflecting neglect, the once-lit LCD marquee now covered by a gun show advertisement reflecting the changing priorities of the community.  Its website brags of having been “bestowed the honor” of a visit from George W. Bush, making it quite possibly the last place outside of Texas that would make that claim.

The Irreplaceable Largesse Recommends Beyonce

“Hip-Hop is dead.”  That’s a popular argument these days.  Most argue the growing schism between the mainstream and the underground has left each group powerless in its own way: underground is inaccessible to most with its simplistic beats and overtly resistive themes while mainstream is devoid of all substance, aiming only to sell records in a The Producers model.  I argue something different.  The age of the mainstream lyricist may have ended, but Hip-Hop is most certainly not dead.  It just has different heroes, with Beyonce chief among them.  Twenty years ago, Rolling Stone would have scoffed at the idea of a female Hip-Hop culture icon.  So how did this happen?  Lets turn the clock back a few years.

The Fresh Largesse Remembers 1990s Hip-Hop Dance Procedurals

Part II, 1995-1999

We continue to explore the fractured, musical legacy of the 1990s through the lens of the dance procedural.  Uh-huh, we’re not afraid to go there, so pony up.  (See part one here.)

The Fresh Largesse Remembers 1990s Hip-Hop Dance Procedurals

Part I, 1990-1995

Walk with me.  We have a lot to talk about because frankly, I’m pretty split on the topic of 1990s hip-hop dance procedurals.  Many of them are just awful (The Macarena, 1995); this much is certain.  But some of them resonate positively with me for reasons that have very little to do with my actually dancing to them.  As such, I tend to remember some of the decade’s most over-produced, sometimes electronic, musical moments as times of great triumph (The Humpty Dance, 1990).  Let’s take a closer look at the ups and downs of this predominantly impotent musical decade.

The Notorious E.P.C. Recommends Buying Your First Album

Since I’ve already bragged around here about my first concert experience, I thought I’d reflect on the first tape I ever bought.  I’m just young enough to have missed my first purchase being vinyl (though I do recall having a Mousercize record) and just old enough to have missed the CD format (Remember that one?) for that all-important cherry-popping.  Nope – I’m a tape man in that sense and my first time involved two albums I still listen to on a regular basis: Run D.M.C.’s King of Rock and Led Zeppelin’s Led Zeppelin (IV).  And, frankly, both of them were rather edgy purchases around my house.

The Largesse’s First Concert Series Rolls On

Tripp Recommends Mohair Suits and Strangers

My first concert was not like that of my friends.  It was not Sugar Ray (those kids had dates in middle school), not Outkast (these kids that relaxed parents), not Lenny Kravitz (these kids “understood music”), and not Blink-182 (pretty much everyone else).  It was the Face-To-Face tour, and even though I sat in the nosebleeds, I felt face-to-face with two men that my date (um, my mother) referred to as Gods—Billy Joel and Elton John.  This triangulated viewing experience (me and the two guys on stage) created a bizarre three-way, eerily resembling the one that my teasing friends invented to torment me with.  But like most teasing, it stemmed from a lack of understanding—one which I shared at first.  Insecure?  Bitch, please.  I dominated at lax.  Back to the story.

The Power Pop Largesse Recommends Celebrity Friendships

It’s clear that Alistair and I are a pretty big deal, so it should come as a surprise to no one that we’ve had several brushes with celebrity.  In fact, I’d go so far as to say that Alistair and I played a formative role in the lives of several of today’s most beloved “bands.”  No stranger to the cover background of many one Rolling Stone photograph alongside Joe Strummer, Alistair earned his celebrity chops working for the Bosstones, shooting craps with the Dropkick Murphys, and wrestling animals.  My path toward superstardom was a bit more circuitous, spending some time in the minor league commercial game with the WWF, doing local radio spots with Alvin and the Chipmunks, and once running into Richard Dreyfus on an escalator in NYC.

Plax Denounces the Breathless Tour. Shut Up.

(Ed. Note: It’s not really summer until you hit your first outdoor show of the year.  After far too many coffees and afternoons spent ruminating about our own drunken escapades at such concerts we thought it might be cool to reflect on our first experiences at live shows – summer or not.  Feel free to join in.  Or don’t.  Whatever.)

So many things are hazy about my first concert experience, for reasons that have nothing to do with immature behavior.  My days were carefree and endless, and I had yet to be negatively impressed upon by the likes of hemp, “special” brownies, glow sticks, public displays of affection, youthful rebellion, and mudslides.  Sure I stole candy from time to time, even watched a few fights in grade school, and started swearing at a young age too (especially when I was hungry), but behind the petty theft and hunger-pain-induced reprehensible language was a boy interested in experiencing more.  I wanted to live like Patrick Dempsey in Loverboy; I wanted to ride like Kevin Bacon in Quicksilver; I wanted to be The Last Starfighter, or at the very least, Starman. I fantasized about the rock and roll life that evaded me, opting instead for National Honor Society lunches, walkie-talkies, and capture the flag.  I knew that high school would change everything: dances, danger, leather jackets, violent sporting events, alcohol, and perhaps most importantly, my first live concert.  My first show: an opportunity to see and to feel firsthand, the rock and roll lifestyle that would undoubtedly characterize my adolescence and young adulthood.  Erie Civic Center, Erie Pennsylvania, 1992: Peabo Bryson and Kenny G.

The Largesse Recommends a 7th Floor West Slow Jam

Fallon continues to challenge the “typical” late-night talk show host mold.  He actually does things with guests away from the confines of the cozy desk chair: beer pong (Betty White, Ivanka Trump, and others), shuffleboard (Ryan Reynolds), hockey (Sean Avery), Wii (Serena Williams), fencing (Jerry O’Connell), wine tasting (Gary Vaynerchuk), and comedy bits (Will Ferrell, Horatio Sanz, Dave Matthews, and others) just to name a few.  Conan and Fallon are taking the age of the over-active host to a new level, Conan (the writer) relying a bit more on pre-recorded crusades away from the new studio, Fallon (the comedian) relying on his frat-boy charm and Improv training to win over the audience.  Still, every show has its bread and butter and Fallon is no different.  Fallon’s 7^th Floor West is officially must-see TV, and if you’re not tuning in every Monday to follow along, you’re missing out.

The Largesse Mostly Recommends Michael Jackson (1958-2009)

The following pieces were written completely independently of each other – in fact, the writers didn’t know the others were tackling the subject at all.  [Ed. Note: We should probably communicate better around here.]  In the interest of full disclosure, we present them all here for your edification.

First up, A. Friend:

I’ve never known exactly what true students of the craft think about the music of Michael Jackson.  Folks like the Notorious E.P.C., who has friends in high places in the world of music criticism, surely have a view of his catalog, but whether they love it or hate it, I don’t know.

Nor do I care, because my enjoyment of music owes its very existence to Michael Jackson and, more precisely, Thriller.  Everyone has certain pop culture markers that define eras of their life, and Thriller was the first, and remains one of the biggest, of mine.  I remember being on the school bus at the tender age of 7, when a classmate brought the album (as in, actual vinyl) to school one day for show-and-tell.  He was unquestionably the coolest kid in school that day, basking as he was in the reflected coolness of the coolest album, made by the coolest guy, in the universe.  I remember wanting his red leather jacket and his sequined glove, and there is a picture, famous in my family, of young A. Friend asleep on the couch one Christmas evening with the glove on one hand and a 1984 Michael Jackson wall calendar in the other.