Merry Christmas, bitches!

Dad tries to sell Christmas gifts on eBay. Awesome.

De La Christmas

I finished my Christmas shopping today when I bought a few CDs at Battery Records in Roscoe Village. This store reminds me a bit of CD Alley back in Chapel Hill, except their music selection is much smaller and a little bit more expensive. Their DVD selection, however, is much better. And their owner is very friendly like Sean at CD Alley.

The other day I did a little shopping at Dusty Groove and shopping next to me were Maseo and Posdnuos of De La Soul. I think they might have had a show at the House of Blues this week.

I heard Common came into the store last year and bought thousands of dollars worth of stuff. My friend Jamie, who works there, also told me that he serviced Caetono Veloso a couple of years ago. By that I don't mean serviced sexually, you perverts.

This ain't no White Chrismas, bitch!

Maria's friend threw a Christmas party at her apartment in Evanston this past Saturday. What intially started as a joke became reality as I took my DJ equipment and spun Christmas music for the good Christians at the party. After about 90 minutes of Christmas music, I got sick of it and decided to play some funk and hip hop. I don't own Run DMC's "Christmas in Hollis" or Kurtis Blow's "Christmas Rappin'", but I did play songs from James Brown's Santa's Got a Brand New Bag. I also played two tracks from Rudy Ray Moore's This Ain't No White Christmas (which contains material from Dolemite's 1971 Christmas album), and I also played songs from Christmas in the Stars: Star Wars Christmas Album. The album covers are below.

Welcome to Chicago, bitch!

It's the first official day of winter, and this past week has been some of the coldest days and nights I ever remember experiencing. Forget my earlier post where I stated that it's not that bad. When the wind chill is minus-20 degrees, it feels as if the skin on your face is going to fall off. No matter how cold and nasty it might get at times in North Carolina (like that really bad ice storm a couple of years ago), there ain't nothing like Chicago cold down there. However, even though I'm bitching about the weather right now, it's not like it makes me want to move. In fact, I'm getting used to it; but I admit this past week has been quite a shock. For some weird reason, though, because of where this city is located, we get the wind but not the heavy snowfall that parts of Indiana has been getting near the Illinois border.

Nas vs. Jay-Z

With the new Nas double album out, which I've had for almost two weeks and have had time to digest (lots of filler; could've been a 4-star single album but I give it 3 stars; I still enjoy it, though), I'm almost ready to make that Nas vs. Jay-Z CD I've been thinking about making since the whole "Takeover" and "Ether" battle raps from a few years back.

It will go from Nasty Nas' "Half Time" single to tracks from Illmatic to Reasonable Doubt to present-day Jay-Z and Nas songs. Partly because of time constraints and (lack of) quality of some material (e.g., Nastradamus), I won't include tracks from some albums.

I'd like to make this before X-mas, which means I'd have to make it within a week since I'll be going home before X-mas. But one song I'd like to include but don't own is Jay-Z's "Super Ugly," another Nas-dis track. I have it on mp3, but unfortunately, I don't have a CD burner on my computer. But I'm about to order a Jay-Z CD that includes that song plus some other unreleased tracks. I may not get it in time, so I may have to wait until I get back from St. Louis to make this comp. If any of you have any suggestions on what to include or whatever, lemme know.

(By the way, I realize that there are some more comprehensive Nas vs. Jay-Z bootleg comps out there, but I want to make my own, even though I know it won't be as good.)

Pictures of Mahjongg in Concert

Since I've sort of become an unofficial cheerleader for Mahjongg, below are links to some pics of them performing last week at the Trans Musicales Festival in France.

Here and here.

Cold

Chicago is officially cold. It really isn't any colder than what I've experienced in St. Louis or even North Carolina, but people tell me that this cold just lasts a lot longer than in most places. I still love it here, though.

The new Nas double album is pretty good upon initial listening and beats the shit out of the new one from Mos Def.