RIFF MARKET

Thanks Zach Baron

SOHH confirmed yesterday that yes, the rapper Lloyd Banks did in fact lose his new album while engaged in a threesome:

"It's truth to that rumor. That comes from me doing too much. I was just lost in my ways, fucked two women at one time. It's the little things you don't pay attention to," Banks revealed. "I had the CD in an actual [DJ] Whoo Kid mixtape cover. It was just a blank CD with just tracks. I got over 70, 80 tracks, so you can't get them all on one CD. So I might have had 14 tracks of the last two weeks or something like that."

"Next thing I know, [I] can't find the CD," Banks continued. "I'm assuming it had to be from one of those situations when you got too much going on around you. Maybe I'mma just stick to one girl from now on. That's the only explanation that makes sense. Sticky fingers."

After some digging around on some of the second-tier search engines, I found what looks like a transcript of the threesome in question. Exclusive to Riff Market, here is Banks having sex with two women while simultaneously losing his new album.

Woman 1: Oh yeah
Banks : Ooh
Woman 2: Give it to me
Woman 1: Ooh
Banks : Yeah
Woman 1: Give it, Banks
Woman 2: Ah
Banks : OK here's my new album baby
Woman 1: Ahh
Banks : In stores this Winter but Ima give you the exclusive
Woman 1: Ahh
Woman 2: Oooh
Banks : What the



Banks : OH SHIT WHERE'D MY NEW ALBUM GO

Stylofone
Mercury Lounge
June 3

Download: "Hotstepper"

You know I hate hate hate your hit em up knock em down mp3 bloggers out there, throwing up garbage for concert tix, slowly eroding away this grassroots' e-green. Thing is I don't know what else to do with Stylofone. Maybe a riddle? I saw them play the Merc on Saturday under the pretense that they were some sort of Television revivalists, purveyors of marquee punk, kids who can play Mozart on guitars but like John Lydon more. Actually they're closer to arena rock revivalists, doubling up the main guitar riffs, lots of guitar/vocal call/response action, big hair solos, "monster" drum fills, etc. I don't see the glam or the masquerade others might--they're much more American, for lack of a better, that same Bruce Springsteen hardworking band sincerity, unembarrassed of their private lessons or the physicality of playing rock music. Really jarring to see a band where all four guys have chops; maybe I need to like better bands.

Then I'd say same old same old, arky darkness diamond nights the sword, but these guys really are young too, so I'm confused re: the Canon of Cool to which they subscribe. It might be a Canon of Technical Prowess, and to be honest, after the supposed refreshingness that is postpunk diy I've been flirting with the CTP more--getting palpable excitement from seeing a guy just slay the shit out of 16 open bars or another guy pound more beats into his toms than any of his friends can. The opposite is overly glorified, and the naivete actually doubles back on itself, borders on fascist-like restraint. Look, if you don't read the manual for the car radio, you'll never learn how to program the presets. The scan button only scans so quick.

My boss and I were talking about that on the way down to that festival two days ago. He doesn't know how to play any instruments but (from what I can assume) can sense when somebody has their shit right and tight. For some reason that's important to him, call it whatever you want. He calls it Probot.

Not to get too assholish about songs here but even after the whole je ne sais quoi stuff you clowns talk about, maybe a song really only is the sum of its parts. The awesomer the individual parts are, and the more of them there are, can have something to do with how awesome the final product is, if not everything to do with it. Case in point: All classical music is better than all rock music.

Just saying that I can see people being hesitant about throwing weight behind Stylofone because they value virtuosity, period. And virtuosity is mistaken anymore to be undemocratic. Maybe hooks are a fickle ruse, and maybe the money's on actual quantifiable talent again--talent that people who don't know a thing about music respond to just as much as Little Man Tate or the kid with six fingers from GATTACA. It'd certainly make the reviewing gig a lot easier, the buzz thing a non-entity.

Actually Swings

Download: "Smells Like Teen Spirit (Cover)"

Shocker, I couldn't find any of these Paul Anka mp3s in the usual, illicit spots [thanks WSB], but somebody did, and he played the above album front to back at a wine tasting festival I ended up at yesterday in New Jersey. Pardon all straight parallels. These festivals are both way less and way more pretentious than you think. On one hand everybody's pretty honest about the fact that wine is business. It comes from a vine that grows in dirt, and all kinds of crazy bugs are hanging out on the grapes, there are spiders everywhere, and it's all pretty disgusting if you think about it.

But then there's the other hand. It belongs to an extremely handsome man in a business suit. He asks you to pour some of your wine into a glass he brought from his expensive summer house. You don't know this guy but you pour the wine anyway--the wine your family's been trying to perfect for several centuries. He sticks his nose into the glass, says something about it smelling like passion fruit, then he sips it and says it tastes like burnt tire, mixed with blackberries. Then he violently spits it out on the grass, right in front of you, and he's shaking his head a lot--it's like he actually doesn't give a fuck. "This is absolutely delicious," he tells you. "I'd like three bottles."

I googled Rock Swings and found the obvious swipes--it's been around for a year now, the album--but more than trying to make some bread I think Anka and Verve Records are just being honest with themselves about the whole jazz thing. Marsalis put it in Lincoln Center and now it costs like $10,000 a ticket to see, like, Sonny Rollins play "St. Thomas," a song that used to be about how jazz is a really affordable entertainment option. Used to be fun for me too. Before I asked the DJ who or what stroke of genius had turned "Eye of the Tiger" into this glorious mess that was "Eye of the Tiger (Swing Remix)," my boss guessed that it was Anka, though he couldn't remember Anka's name. "It's the guy who's pretty much exactly like Sinatra," he said,"Except Sinatra's dead and had too much self-respect." When Anka gets to "Smells Like Teen Spirit," he really loves that "here we are now, entertainers!" line--he's telling you where he is, now, then what he is. It's like you can hear him wink at you.

Best part is that Anka transcends irony here. He's totally immune. Obviously Rock Swings is what I'd put on for this sort of silly event, Tarantino-style, at once demystifying and remystifying and altogether forced and spitballed. But I also think it's the album people in the thick might think is the perfect wine tasting soundtrack--something to bring in younger blood, allay their fears with the familiarity that is getting drunk, rocking out, listening to the Cure, etc., but also to jazz all that up, let the kids know this wine shit is so sinsurr. Hence the swing. Past that everybody I've told about this New Jersey wine thing asked if they played Paul Anka Rock Swings on the soundsystem, since (you know) it's that faux-sophisticated bullshit New Jersey always gets slammed for per the stereotype but really it's just as bad in New York if not worse. Most of all, I bet if Anka was there yesterday, he'd want to hear Rock Swings. He'd be wearing all black, drinking the new Moet rose champagne straight out the bottle, talking up all the blonde-haired women representing the bigger wine companies, and everybody there would be 99% sure he was that famous jazz guy, Tom Jones.