With kids being questioned by the Secret Service over Bob Dylan songs, probably better enjoy this one while’ it’s still legal. It’s a version of Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth” by Oui 3, the only good British hip-hop band ever[1], a track that I’ve been looking for for about five years and finally found on the Splendid website. “A Break From the Old Routine” is actually their best track, but I haven’t found that.
Footnote:
[1]That is, unless someone on the Lazyweb can point me in the direction of a copy of “Wear Your Love Like Heaven” by Definition of Sound
{ 18 comments }
Factory 11.16.04 at 6:37 am
A little bird whispered in my ear:
ed2k://|file|Definition%20of%20Sound%20-%20Wear%20Your%20Love%20Like%20Heaven.mp3|3599334|F404B80ADA2E02B10DDF34C25BD193E7|/
Birds are evil.
vernaculo 11.16.04 at 8:10 am
No, birds are not evil.
Unless they’re metaphorical maybe.
What happened was not some kids in a high school rock band played a Bob Dylan song in which the narrator says he wishes the death of the eponymous “Masters of War”.
What happened was those kids sang that song and an anonymous person snitched them off to the Secret Service.
Now everybody in Wonderland’s all peeved because of the authoritarian intimidation. Which is paternal, though negative.
The snitch went to Daddy, and Daddy got mad. Which is paternal, and positive.
Daddy either way.
It’s the snitch, that energy is what’s wrong. That much power in the hands of weak men and women is a disintegrating force.
It’s the same weird vibe coming off the omniscient surveillance cameras. Not that there’s some android super-brain watching everyone, but that it’s a bunch of candy-ass wimps so afraid of everything that moves they’re in a state of constant panic; who can call down the government on anything they don’t like.
The elevation of the coward.
The warrior’s place has always been in between danger and what most needs protection, it’s a necessary part of human life in a dangerous world.
What we deem most needs protection will judge us.
Shame on those warriors who do the bidding of inferior minds and hearts. Shame and dishonor.
nic 11.16.04 at 8:43 am
Compare with the story of the Livejournal user who apparently got reported to the Secret Service by another LJ user for writing a post wishing bad things on the President… Words, the latest weapons of mass destruction…
Indeed, it’s not the fact the FBI comes that’s shocking, it’s the fact someone calls them for stuff like this. How much of a sorry excuse for a human being do you have to be to get someone in trouble for something so clearly stupid and harmless?
(Although, I wonder, don’t the FBI have some screening method to avoid wasting time? do they just respond to any sort of call no matter how ridiculous?)
Martin Wisse 11.16.04 at 9:06 am
Daniel, could you define “British hip-hop” please, as IMO, there are quite some good british hiphop acts?
yabonn 11.16.04 at 9:35 am
Yup. Shouldn’t “the streets” be somewhere on that list?
Jake 11.16.04 at 10:26 am
If ever there was a public service that is asking to have prank callsmade to it, it’s the SS.
What is their number? I mean, it’s pretty suspicious how suspicious some of these rethuglicans think, they often loudly accuse their opponents of doing what they are going to do after all.
Here’s hoping for a republican backed bomb plot sometime soon.
Or maybe not, if it means cheney gets in charge.
foo 11.16.04 at 11:47 am
(*cough*)Dizzee Rascal(*cough*)
Isn’t it the case that some of these organizations (the Sec. Service, at least) are required to investigate anything that even remotely looks like a threat?
I guess there’s a judgement call somewhere in there, though, as well…
Jimmy Doyle 11.16.04 at 2:34 pm
The Steets, Dizzee Rascal…and also, perhaps, the Stereo MCs?
dsquared 11.16.04 at 3:27 pm
MCs – no, Streets – good God no, Rascal – maybe.
I am profoundly glad that nobody has tested my patience by suggested Goldie Looking Chain. Or Derek B. Or MC Tunes.
st 11.16.04 at 3:49 pm
The streets? You have got to be kidding. That muttering, irrhythmic yob’s current status at critical darling is just f**king mystifying. His beats are flat and his rhymes are painfully clumsy. I think people just get caught up in the “lone auteur” backstory, and ignore the fact that the tracks just, well, suck.
Oh, and Stereo MC’s needs to be consigned to a small locked room in hell, where they will be subjected to a neverending loop of “Connected.” That’ll learn ’em.
Dizzee Racal is pretty good though. Good cover, at least.
st 11.16.04 at 3:51 pm
Arg…so many typos…
pat 11.16.04 at 4:25 pm
‘ The students covered the song “Masters of War,” a Vietnam-era protest song by Bob Dylan, he said.’
People always just assume that “Masters of War” and most of Dylan’s other early protest work was directed at the Vietnam war, but this is not the case. “Masters of War” was released in 1962. Most of the important anti-war songs came out in the early 60s, and were actually directed at those escalating the Cold War, not the then small conflict in Vietnam. Many of the lyrics are concerned with the folly of mutually assured destruction, and nuclear proliferation. For instance, from “With God on Our Side” (’63) is the lyric “I’ve learned to hate the Russians / All through my whole life / If another war comes / It’s them we must fight.” Dylan’s early protest songs were just easily applied to the anti-war movement of the later 60s.
Andy 11.16.04 at 4:41 pm
I bought the Oui 3 CD single in question at the time, it has about 5 mixes of the song. Much played in this household; you remind me to dig it out for another listen, for it’s no less relevant now as when it was written.
Martin 11.16.04 at 4:44 pm
What about Black Twang? Roots Manuva?
dsquared 11.16.04 at 5:13 pm
Twang; never heard of.
Manuva; I see him more as a reggae act.
todd. 11.16.04 at 10:27 pm
I’m so glad that there are people here who hate The Streets.
Gillian Russell 11.16.04 at 10:57 pm
Senser.
Really, if you never heard Senser you should get hold of a copy of “Age of Panic.”
Also there’s an awesome Rae and Christian album called “Northern Sulphuric Soul”
(We’re very sorry about Mr C. though, and we promise it won’t happen again.)
Matt McGrattan 11.17.04 at 12:27 pm
I quite like the Streets but you couldn’t really describe what he does as hip-hop.
Dizzee Rascal is far superior as an MC – in terms of lyrical flow, etc. Never been massively into him but I did see him perform live on TV recently and he was impressively edgy and sharp.
What about Tricky? At his best…
There was a number of bands on Talking Loud and similar labels in the early 90s that were OK. Marxman, for example.
None of them were really a patch on the best US stuff.
I’m having a mental block but there was one London based ‘crew’ from that period who had fantastic production and beats (Caveman, maybe?) – really ahead of their time. Will need to dig out old tapes.
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