12.28.2014

Tapes & Wires Mixtape Series | repshowhost


Tapes & Wires
The Mixtape Series

I've been reppin' The Wire since episode 1 when it premiered on HBO.  I was in the formative years of my undergrad life living in the dorms resident halls at NMSU... I recall being the only one in the lobby with my bag of McDonald's during my summer & winter employment as a resident advisor anticipating the next episode off the TV attached to the upper corner wall.  

It's a brilliant show and something I found out about watching The Corner series, which involved Charles S. Dutton (who I was big on during the years of the TV show Roc and several films like First Time Felon & Convicted starring Omar Epps)... The Corner was pre-Wire with writing from David Simon and Ed Burns and my introduction to several cast members I was able to identify later on in The Wire.  Before that my interest in The Corner was locked in when I found out Sean Nelson was one of the leads.  I knew of Nelson through his debut in the classic film Fresh.

After finishing the final season of The Wire, I decided to return to the beginning and just lock in on each episode, chop up the dialogue and re-articulate the mood & tone through mixtape form, blending in & out of dialogue from the film and dialogue that connected with my own community, the drug war, and of course the messages & tones of Hip Hop, Jazz, Soul, Blues, spoken word, and any genre that was included in the film's soundscape.  My goal at the time as I arranged episode.1 was to create a Tapes & Wires series for each episode (one mixtape per episode).  And as the world binges on the HD Wire marathon currently being televised on HBO, I wanted to document this mixtape and share the tracklist on the web.

Until episode.2 through 60, stay tuned and follow updates at the HHA twitter.com/hiphopalumni and of course the Tape Decks blog here.

Tapes & Wires episode.2 in progress...



Keywords + Tag = The Wire | David Simon | Ed Burns | The Corner | Charles S. Dutton | HBO | Fresh | Sean Nelson | First Time Felon | Convicted | Tapes & Wires | episode | Stringer | McNulty | Avon Barksdale | D'Angelo Barksdale | Kima | Herc | Carver | Special Agent Fitzhugh | Wee-bey | Lieutenant Daniels | Deputy Ops | Operation Diesel | Bodie | Wallace | Bubbles | Johnny | Baltimore | El Paso | It's All in the Game

12.21.2014

#kruxlife KRUX 91.5 FM Archive / New Mexico State University



#kruxlife
KRUX 91.5 FM
New Mexico State University

With more than a hundred cassette tape recordings of the KRUX 91.5 FM years 2000-2008, I've decided to make the Hip Hop Alumni (HHA) Soundcloud page home for recordings and clips from the show to include interviews, freestyles, rotations of specific songs, microphone time, shout outs, playlist run downs, jokes, debuts, drops, and anything else I can find going through tapes.  We will archive the recordings on Soundcloud.  I may also create a backup online to avoid the audios being removed or blocked for any reason.  We start with the Carlos Andres Gomez recording of 'Wordsworth'... a poem that was laid down over a lanline phone conversation after poet Monte Smith connected us to the opportunity.  You can hear the 'Wordsworth' piece at the link below and above.  With each update we'll also load up the MP3 download.  You can peep updates at Hip Hop Alumni's twitter.com/hiphopalumni page by searching #kruxlife. 

We weren't the first Hip Hop show there nor the last.  If you have recordings, especially sessions from days past (as I know there was a Hip Hop radio slot in the early 90s) shoot me a note at repshowhost@gmail.com.  Would love to listen and work on adding other recordings to the archive.

For anybody familiar and those that aren't... KRUX is a special place.  The only radio station around, other than Street Beat in ABQ, New Mexico where the rules of rotation are determined by the disc jockey themselves.  Our antenna's reach wasn't very strong but once the web stream opened up a lot of folks got the chance to be heard from all around.  The station has a lot of life because of the opportunity it presents to the student body and with that it has a really cool history too, though we don't know much about it.  Perhaps that'll be something I can use this blog to document if I get the chance to dig into past archives, articles, or anything that might be on record of KRUX's beginnings. 

#kruxlife

KRUX 91.5 FM Archive / Soundcloud: click here

Carlos Andres Gomez Rotation 'Wordsworth': Download / MP3

The Representation Show October 29, 2004 Playlist: click here

12.01.2014

Waxpoetics Issue No. 1 & 2, The Hunt for the Quarterly Journal


Waxpoetics Issue No. 1 & 2, The Hunt for the Quarterly Journal

During a Friday Rep$hop radio show on KRUX 91.5 fm that I hosted with Stephon aka Moleman, he had a magazine.  He mentioned there were copies of the Waxpoetics issue over at the local Hastings that I should check out.  By this time (2004 or 05') I had grown exhausted of magazines like the Source and XXL.  Also lost touch with other subscriptions including Slam Magazine.  I could never figure out which issue they were on since the dates were always ahead of when I got them.  In one of their issues they explained why, but as a student with a changing address every four months, I got disinterested trying to keep up on my Slam reads, monthly, bi-monthly or whatever schedule they were on. 

Enter Stephon's recommendation of Waxpoetics.  

When he first told me about the magazine, I let time pass considering I'd already given up on magazines unless there was something unique about the cover story that related to stuff I collected.  I accumulated tons of Slam issues since 92', and sliced up my Source magazines to decorate dorm rooms and ceiling tile with Rawkus and Infamous promos when  ((Quiet Storm/White Lines)) dropped, followed by Prodigy's solo H.N.I.C... I also scissored and taped up anything else that I could detach from magazines like the Source that had already become publications thickened by paper commercials.  Music television had experienced a few deaths by this time and the digitization of music as we knew it started to takeover like track two from the Blueprint

I don't remember which issue it was from Waxpoetics that stopped me in my tracks.  I just know the rotation Steph and I traded live on air between our .45, vinyl, CD, digital collections reminded me of what I was reading in Waxpoetics.  It was a crate digger's publication, and an opportunity as a reader to anticipate and collect something again...  the stories in the publication were a perfect blend... each with its own music playing in the background of the reader's imagination.  

So I subscribed. 

About a dozen issues had already passed when I finally got on.  So in addition to getting on track, I started to dig into back issues of what I missed during those Rep$hop semesters... With each publication that came in, I'd reach back and purchase an issue until I got to no. 2.  I remember a time noticing no. 1 & 2 available on the Waxpoetics website and thinking there was no way I was going to pay a $100 for a magazine... I thought maybe someday I'd find the issue on another site like Dusty Groove or somewhere else... something had to come up to avoid digging too deep into my pockets.  

That day never came.     

So over the years I've kept up with my collection of Waxpoetics since issue no. 3.  I'm way behind on reading... some issues are still in the protective plastic they arrived when I pulled them from the post office box.  It took a resolution last year that I'd organize my reading routine and give myself more time to flip through pages of my books and magazines and listen to each track of my CDs, records, and downloads.  Otherwise, I'd miss out on what simply started to accumulate faster than I could keep up.   

So with a more patient and organized approach I'm finally reading my books & magazines, listening to my music and on occasion finding time to follow up with writers, artist, musicians, etc. to develop my own interviews, stories and write ups like the radio dayz.

Reading through issue No. 58 in its entirety, it made me think about those lost issues again... fast forward to this past month and I was able to locate issue no. 1 & 2 on EBay.  I've never used EBay to bid.  Never been interested in bidding as I don't trust the process it takes to try to outbid on a max amount you don't know.  Especially as the clock starts ticking.  But with issue no. 1 staring back at me through the laptop display, I decided to give the online bidding war a shot and won within the last minute.  I lost what became a ceiling-less dollar value for issue no. 2.  

When the smoke cleared, I did a quick search and found hope for issue no. 2 on Amazon.  By the next day my search for the lost Waxpoetics quarterly journals ended and I had both magazines ordered & on their way to a shelf that's been waiting for over a decade.  

This completes a Waxpoetics story I look forward to reading starting with issue no. 1.
      
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