The Spree, Jay-Z and Internet Freedom

1. Death of Auto-Tune

Jay-Z's new Blueprint 3 is rocking my world. My world, and that of most Americans I'm sure. Along with friends like Rihanna, Kanye, Drake and Kid Cudi, Z hates on auto-tune, a method of real-time pitch correction in audio recording, and reminds everyone that he is the Frank Sinatra of hip hop, in case we've forgotten in the 2 years since American Gangster came out and Jay-Z announced his retiremnt.

I find it very interesting that Kanye is on the record, given that his last album 808s and Heartbreak included no rapping and all singing, exclusively through an auto-tune device. Apparently T-Pain helped him out with that decision. I thought it sucked but it still went platiunum and debuted at number one on Billboard. Whatevs America. You love on your auto-tune. I'm with Jay-Z on this one.

In "Death of Auto-Tune", Jay Z says straight up, "Y'all niggas singing too much. Get back to rap, you T-Painin' too much." Ooooh shit Kanye! And you were cool with that?

You can stream Blueprint 3 here and imagine you're in the club with Shorty while you process income or move shit around in Excel spreadsheets.

2. Man Hunt '09 Gets a Rocky Start

My late summer dude hiatus has morphed into Man Hunt 2009 with rockin' roommate Veronica as my partner in crime. We launched the operation last Thursday at a Southern Comfort sponsored *free* Polyphonic Spree show at Paradise. I've been listening to the Spree half-heartedly since high school but I really understand now that listening to them is just dumb. You have to see them. Watching 22 people play and sing Nirvana's "Lithium" fulfilled my awesome-show-moment-quota for at least a coule months, even if they didn't have confetti cannons, a prop the Dallas-based band has been known to bust out in particularly jubilant singalongs. Maybe it didn't fit with the SoCo image. We managed to get up front and center for the "Have a Day", "Soldier Girl" encore, and lip synching the words with the fabulous faux-hawked gay man in front of me really put the icing on the cake. Still, while V-Ron ran into a couple dudes she knew, no real potential mates were identified.

The next night we were a little more agro. We busted out some dresses and trekked to Davis Square for the Macrotones and Love in Stockholm at Johnny D's. The Macrotones were great. A ten piece Afrofunk band, they've got great presence. Budos is one of their biggest influences so naturally I loved them. Allston-based headliner Love in Stockholm really surprised me. I hadn't been that impressed with their songs on My Space but they really tear it up on stage, in suits, ties and fedoras, no less. If you can imagine a grittier Adam Levine (lead singer of Maroon 5), with tight pants, no ass, a skinny tie, fedora and lots of jumping up and down, you'll have Love in Stockholm front man Charlie Rockwell.

3. Net Neutrality
If you're like me and you aren't really confident enough in your understanding of net neutrality to blab about it at a cocktail party, watch this helpful video. Thank you Melanie for bringing that to my attention with this e-mail note, "Did you hear about the FCC and Net Neutrality!?!? Fuck yea. Open Access to Information on the net prevails, bitches!"

And I'll leave you with this wheat pasting from Jamaica Plain: