Monday, February 11, 2013

Considerable Delayin'

Didn't I just bring up Nice & Smooth? Now I get this e-mail from Amazon saying that I can play songs for free off that very album, because I bought it on cd fourteen years ago!*


I had heard that 'zon was doing something to try and top iTunes, but I didn't know it was retroactive to the beginning of the world. So that's cool, I guess. I wonder if I'll be getting these e-mails every day for a while, telling me I have access to all the songs I bought on cd from them over the years.

Also, I love references to the Internet from last millennium, especially ones involving myself. If that makes any sense. Like, one of the first online purchases I made was a South Park t-shirt, in 1997. Along with tickets to the Kilborn-hosted Daily Show around the same time. ("The Channel of Fun" must have been one of the first to realize this online purchasing thing was the way to go.) I guess it didn't feel that weird at the time, since we were already used to buying all kinds of crap over the phone. But at the same time, it was a totally new thing that we didn't even know would catch on. I remember Pat and I mocking a url on a Peter Pan bus because, you know, why would anyone have any reason to "check out Peter Pan on the web"? It never even occurred to us that buying bus/plane/train tickets would become something you'd do online without even considering any other way. Makes perfect sense now. (Although I'm sure a lot of the Peter Pan clientele are still dialing rotary phones to make their reservations.)

*By the way, this doesn't mean I discovered Nice & Smooth in 1999. I was late, but not that late. Pat and Steve O'Keefe (via Jim Vernocchi I believe) were playing that stuff on a mix tape in the car during senior year when we'd escape to the mall during lunch constantly. Along with EPMD and Brand Nubian and some other things. That was '92. I guess it wasn't until '99 that I decided to upgrade to a cd version. So please add 7 years of street cred to whatever you pictured in your head when you saw the picture above. Thank you.

Comments:
"Funky For You" is one of the best hip-hop tracks ever. Jim V. was indeed the creator of the "Straight Gangsta Mack" mix tape, and it did change my life. Also included traxx from MC Serch's classic "Return of the Product" solo record, Das EFX, Ice Cube, Grand Puba, Geto Boys--too many classics to name. I went out and bought the full records from most of the artists on that tape and they became a big part of the soundtrack of my youth, so props to Jim, and props to have been able to leave high school and drive to the mall during school hours, which I imagine is not an option today.
 
As I recall, the two sides of that mix tape were side "Mahhh" and side "Kus," an early nod to Markus, aka Chan, we we still know and love to this day.

I recently watched a Grand Puba video, and I was shocked, I always pictured him as a much larger man, almost like Chunky A.

Yes, leaving school grounds at lunch was great. It's funny how they eventually got a "guard," but the trick to get by the guard seemed to be the super-sly "use the other exit." Or the even sly-er "just drive out right past him and act like it's something you're supposed to be doing."
 
Oh, and I got my second e-mail from Amazon--not as cool this time because it didn't give the year of purchase. It was a Morphine cd I got for Kim one year, and that Bob Mould "dance" album which was from about 8 years ago I think.
 

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