Cookin With A Square Egg
Last night I was in the city to see The Square Egg at The Knitting Factory. The Square Egg is a dope ten piece Hip-Hop / Jazz band and since I’m going to be interviewing the lead singer, Lee, on Monday I thought it would be a good idea to see them live. A lot of artists you don’t have to see live, you can just listen to an album and get all you need to know, but as soon as you hear the words "ten piece band" it’s probably a pretty good idea to make whatever trip you have to to see them.
The performance was off the hook. Despite the crowd being a rock crowd everyone caught The Square Egg vibe almost instantaneously. Though they’re extremely hard to describe, my boy Dyalekt put it pretty nicely when he said he felt it was like if Common had, instead of going with Kanye West for his latest album, hooked up with an awesome band. I describe them in a way far less people understand by simply calling them Bluezeum the next generation (for those of you who forgot, or never knew, Bluezeum had a moderate hit about ten years ago with "Can I Get That Funk" off of their, in my opinion, classic album Portrait of a Groove).
While the show was great getting there and getting back was an adventure. First off, the new message that gets broadcast at the train station while you’re waiting for your train is just plain disturbing. I do not like hearing a recorded voice telling me that if I’m carrying a bag that it may be searched at any point in time. Hearing that message on what seemed to be a ten minute loop made me feel as though I was living in a country under martial law. It seriously didn’t make me feel comfortable, or welcome, at all.
Once in the city I managed to catch subways where the conductors were ignoring the ideas of Local and Express. I jumped on what was supposed to be a local 1 train, but as it zoomed by my stop I realized it was going the express route. That wasn’t so bad, I just had to walk an extra four blocks after getting off. On the way home when the express 2 train decided to be a local 1 train it really messed with me. Not only did I have to wait ten minutes for the train to arrive, it took forever to get to 42nd street. After jumping on the 7 I made it to Grand Central with a whole five minutes to run to my train and get a seat. Thankfully I caught it, and ended up getting home at around 3:30 AM, but it was an adventure.
I have no idea what the rest of the weekend holds for me but I’m hoping it will be fairly quiet. The mailman has been giving me plenty to do since the past few days the stack of CD’s on my desk has doubled. So far this weekend I’ve listened to four full length albums (Dip Set, Killer Mike, Kev Brown, Ruff Ryders) and two samplers (Killer Mike, Charlie Wilson). I still have a lot more to listen to, but at least it’s something I can do while watching the Mets or playing a video game.
Speaking of the Mets, it seems as though the proposed deal to make Manny a Met isn’t going to happen. I would have loved to see him driving in some runs for us, especially after last night’s zero run effort (Glavine you really deserve better), but I’m confident Omar Minaya still has something up his sleeve. What would really be nice would be seeing Carlos Beltran play like he did the past few years. The only reason he’s not getting killed in the papers is because of how well Reyes, Wright, Floyd and Pedro have been. If we don’t make the playoffs all fingers will be pointing at Beltran.
Final Thought: If you blog about your life and no one reads it is it anything more than an exercise in self-absorption?
The performance was off the hook. Despite the crowd being a rock crowd everyone caught The Square Egg vibe almost instantaneously. Though they’re extremely hard to describe, my boy Dyalekt put it pretty nicely when he said he felt it was like if Common had, instead of going with Kanye West for his latest album, hooked up with an awesome band. I describe them in a way far less people understand by simply calling them Bluezeum the next generation (for those of you who forgot, or never knew, Bluezeum had a moderate hit about ten years ago with "Can I Get That Funk" off of their, in my opinion, classic album Portrait of a Groove).
While the show was great getting there and getting back was an adventure. First off, the new message that gets broadcast at the train station while you’re waiting for your train is just plain disturbing. I do not like hearing a recorded voice telling me that if I’m carrying a bag that it may be searched at any point in time. Hearing that message on what seemed to be a ten minute loop made me feel as though I was living in a country under martial law. It seriously didn’t make me feel comfortable, or welcome, at all.
Once in the city I managed to catch subways where the conductors were ignoring the ideas of Local and Express. I jumped on what was supposed to be a local 1 train, but as it zoomed by my stop I realized it was going the express route. That wasn’t so bad, I just had to walk an extra four blocks after getting off. On the way home when the express 2 train decided to be a local 1 train it really messed with me. Not only did I have to wait ten minutes for the train to arrive, it took forever to get to 42nd street. After jumping on the 7 I made it to Grand Central with a whole five minutes to run to my train and get a seat. Thankfully I caught it, and ended up getting home at around 3:30 AM, but it was an adventure.
I have no idea what the rest of the weekend holds for me but I’m hoping it will be fairly quiet. The mailman has been giving me plenty to do since the past few days the stack of CD’s on my desk has doubled. So far this weekend I’ve listened to four full length albums (Dip Set, Killer Mike, Kev Brown, Ruff Ryders) and two samplers (Killer Mike, Charlie Wilson). I still have a lot more to listen to, but at least it’s something I can do while watching the Mets or playing a video game.
Speaking of the Mets, it seems as though the proposed deal to make Manny a Met isn’t going to happen. I would have loved to see him driving in some runs for us, especially after last night’s zero run effort (Glavine you really deserve better), but I’m confident Omar Minaya still has something up his sleeve. What would really be nice would be seeing Carlos Beltran play like he did the past few years. The only reason he’s not getting killed in the papers is because of how well Reyes, Wright, Floyd and Pedro have been. If we don’t make the playoffs all fingers will be pointing at Beltran.
Final Thought: If you blog about your life and no one reads it is it anything more than an exercise in self-absorption?
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