I was MF Doom and Toasty was Jessica Rabbit on Saturday, though we couldn't make First Avenue last night due to health issues (not code for a hangover). We'll be babysitting tonight as our younger siblings hit the First Avenue costume ball, which I recommend. New comments below (and at Culture to Go) on "Do They Know It's Halloween?", the New Times merger (and at the Rake), and the Suicide Girls. One of my co-workers dressed up as a VVM board member today, laying off everybody... hee hee...

Photos from Saturday's Samba Mapangala show at the Blue Nile in Minneapolis (one appeared in today's City Pages). The show, previewed below, starred Mapangala (in the ball cap three photos down), singer of Orchestra Virunga (listen to "Vunja Mifupa," "Virunga," and "Malako," or buy these CDs). DJ Top Donn was downstairs, though I missed him. It was all part of the Minneapolis celebration of Kenyatta Day, Kenya's independence celebration. Hip-Hop Colony, the documentary about Kenyan hip hop that screened earlier, was great, if talky (cool factoid: rap music made Swahili hep again in Kenya). Looking forward to talking more to Samora and Simbo, whom I met after the screening.

Bruce Odhiambo of Johari Cleff Studios in Nairobi, one of Kenya's premiere hip-hop producers, has written hundreds of songs for countless rap acts.

From my DangerDoom review in today's Seattle Weekly: "Is MF Doom reading me? Addled by the brain-spam of an age that sells everything, including the words in this sentence, I wrote last year in Minneapolis's City Pages, 'Fans love Doom precisely because, like the Cartoon Network's Aqua Teen Hunger Force, he represents the only Dada that makes any sense in the communications age--the kind that makes no sense at all, and communicates nothing.' I added, rhetorically, 'No, he will not be right back after these important messages.' Doom's answer comes here, amid an album-length collaboration with Aqua Teen's creators at Adult Swim and producer Danger Mouse, the guy who combined the Beatles' White Album and Jay-Z's The Black Album into 2004's The Grey Album: 'Now we'll be right back after these messages,' rasps the masked rapper. 'Fellas grab your nut sack, chicks squeeze your breastesses.'" The rest of the review is here.

Background: Check out all my MF Doom articles and cartoons, the DangerDoom Myspace page, MF Doom Myspace page, and Scholtes Myspace page. Oh, and here's Michaelangelo Matos's review in City Pages (we traded places for a week!). And my Halloween costume (take a wild guess).

As reported here via here, and discussed here, Zak Sally has once again left the great Duluth band Low. My kindest wishes to all of the musicians and their families, and I let's hope Sally doesn't go too Hollywood on us.

Walsh, Bream, Ross, MNSpeak, and TCPunk review last night's Soul Asylum show (more photos here). Dan Corrigan, who took the above photo, says Twin Tone co-founder Paul Stark ended up doing lights when the show had to be moved next door to the Mainroom due to PA problems in the 7th St. Entry. (Did I forget to mention Walsh has a blog?)

Before Soul Asylum rehearsals, bassist Tommy Stinson had been busy this year, collaborating with his old 'Mats mate Paul Westerberg on the soundtrack to next year's animated feature, Open Season (more here); writing songs for another 2006 film, Catch and Release; and producing the debut album by L.A.'s Bobot Adrenaline, who sound to me a little like Soul Asylum when they were Loud Fast Rules (click there for the Ramones poster, and here for another one)--a good thing! Of filling in for Karl Mueller, the late Soul Asylum bass player, Tommy says on his web site, "I'm told he would have wanted it this way so this is for him as well as Danny, Dave and Mary Beth."

Backround: Read the Karl Mueller thread on TCPunk.com.

This is rapper Unknown at Freestyle Fridays, Oct. 21, 2005, at Digital City Music (905 West Broadway, 612.588.2000). Read the whole article here and/or here...

This guy, I don't know, but he was fierce. Or is that furce?..

Battle referee Tyson at work...

Young Sota battling Matic...

Matic...

A-Ztek...

A-Ztek with a friend outside the store...

See also: "MCs Come to Battle" (with pictures by a real photographer, not me), more MN hip-hop links at Complicatedfun.com/hiphop, and more Scholtes articles about local hip hop at Complicatedfun.com/hiphoparticles.

And the first business decision of the long-rumored new company, which will soon own City Pages? Feed the scoop to the New York Times, not its own reporters. So much for our vaunted "online efforts," which are to be headed by outgoing VVM CEO David Schneiderman (here's his memo, dated yesterday). I'm hoping new CEO Jim Larkin recognizes a good product when he sees one, and doesn't sydicate film reviews (which have been kicking more ass than usual lately), tell Steve to shut up, or put the kibosh on national cover stories such as our "New Orleans: Survivor Stories" package, which I consider one of City Pages' finest moments. In the meantime, doesn't the SF Weekly owe the San Francisco Bay Guardian an apology? Updates: more in the Star Tribune and the Washington Post. More commentary at Jeff Chang's blog. The Village Voice non-report and more discussion at ILM. Here's AAN's Comprehensive Guide to Merger Coverage. Hans at the Rake's take (and my response). Much more at the Seattle Weekly. Nashville Scene on the new boss. NPR story on the merger. New Strib piece on City Pages. Opinion piece in the San Francisco Chronicle. Really interesting New York Magazine profile of Mike Lacey, with some paraphrasing of Christgau. Nov. 28 Blotter: Merger gets okay from Justice Department. Dec. 5: Voice Editor Quits

I found the above image while searching for pictures of Jomo Kenyatta (pictured), the first Prime Minister of Kenya. It's a 2003 mixed media work titled "Space," by Kenyatta, age 4. The picture somehow captures the themes of both Kenyatta Day and Afrofuturism, which happen to coincide Saturday in Minneapolis. While Kenyatta Day offers a glimpse of Africa's future in hip hop and cinema (see below), the local exhibit, discussion, and events surrounding Afrofuturism at the Soap Factory (near St. Anthony Main) peer forward into the future of the African Diaspora, and use the sci-fi imagination to satirize the past. (The whole thing winds up this weekend.) I wish there were more work up by co-curator Ernest Arthur Bryant III (scroll down), whose painting I've compared to defacto Afrofuturist MF Doom's rap music (more here), but there's great stuff here, and Saturday features an interactive day of art and activities for families, sponsored by KMOJ-FM (89.9) and Insight News, including "relevance trees" and "future wheels" (mapping out the sequence of events required to get from where you are to where you want to be) between noon and 5:00 p.m., as well as a public dialogue led by former Electric Skin editor and art blogger extraordinaire Cinque Hicks: "After Afrofuturism" (5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.).

Kenyatta Day in Minneapolis

The same evening, Kenyatta Day features the local premiere of Hip Hop Colony, a documentary about Kenyan hip hop, screening at 7:30 p.m. sharp at the Upfront Event Center in Brooklyn Center (5801 John Martin Drive Brooklyn Center, Minnesota 55430; 763.561.7100; directions here). San Francisco based Kenyan director Mike Wanguhu (pictured) will be on hand to discuss the film after. The event is preceded by a day of political discussion about Kenya and the legacy of Jomo Kenyatta, along with catered food, all at the Upfront Center beginning at 2:00 p.m. (Entire program at the Upfront is $20.00; advance tickets are encouraged so the caterers can cook enough food.) Then the film is followed by a night of music at the Blue Nile Bar and Restaurant, beginning at 10:00 p.m., with Samba Mapangala (check out these CDs) of Orchestra Virunga (famous for the songs "Vunja Mifupa," "Virunga," and "Malako") upstairs and DJ Top Donn (Donald Owino), a Kenyan deejay based in Chicago downstairs. ($15.00 advance/$20.00 at the door). For out-of-towners arriving early, the Blue Nile also presents a reception party Friday night featuring the Marimba Africa Band and Zilizopendwa upstairs, and DJ Top Donn downstairs ($10.00 at the door). Visit www.KilimanjaroEntertainment.com for updates and more information.

More on Kenyan hip hop

A City Pages article of local East African rapper Mo-Man, my 2004 review (scroll down) of The Rough Guide to African Rap, Africanhiphop.com, some music samples from the great Kenyan hip-hop group Gidi Gidi Maji Maji (more here, here, and here), who are featured on last year's essential The Rough Guide to the Music of Kenya (read Christgau's review). For more going on this weekend...

Complicated Fun at Culture to Go

Rap battle at Digital City Music (tonight), Juana Molina: When I go deaf (see her Saturday), Rob likes 'North Country'; Charlize Theron talks (opens today, discussion Saturday), The Last Block Party of 2005? (this Saturday, though the weather's sucking), "Do They Know It's Halloween?" (video), First Avenue Loosens Dress Code (ongoing), Minnesota Sur Seine (ends this weekend), "A four-hour documentary on Nazis" (continues this weekend), Go look at Mars (posted below), 3rd Annual Anti-Columbus Day Celebration (this sold out), 9:30 Club: The First Avenue of D.C (should screen again).

Both Gino Washington and Geno Washington are great rock and roll singers remembered for frenetic, legendary shows in the 1960s. Each was compared to James Brown in his day, each served in the military, and each still performs and records today. Since I inadvertently linked one to the other at Culture to Go (Gino appears on the new novelty song "Do They Know It's Halloween?"), I figured I owed it to these guys to compose biographies of each, using what I could glean from online sources. Good thing I did: Their music is wonderful (click their names above for links to sample tracks). Maybe somebody could get these two onstage together for a show sponsored by Gino's pizza, or Geno's pizza, or something.

Gino Washington

Gino with an "i" is the tough Detroit R&B singer born George Washington (in 1946, maybe), who appears on the new parody single "Do They Know It's Halloween?" (He recorded the cameo in his kitchen with producer Adam Gollner.) As "Jumpin' Gino" four decades ago, Washington recorded in the storied Golden World studio, cutting raw regional hits such as 1963's "Out of This World" and 1964's "Gino Is a Coward" (the Ric-Tic label's first single), a tune later reworked by Bruce Springsteen as "I'm a Coward For Your Love." These sides were big in some cities, but never cracked the national charts. Yet Washington was the only non-Hitsville act featured on the touring Motown Revue, and he ended up opening for the Beach Boys and the Rolling Stones in Detroit (though the singer was late enough to the Stones gig that the headliners had to go on first, amid shouts for "Gino!").

Washington's band, Gino and the Atlantics (led by killer guitarist Jeff Williams), made local history in other ways. They became a sort of a prototype for the Dirtbombs--a black singer fronting a white garage group--and were one of the first big interracial acts to gig across color lines in segregated-by-custom Detroit clubs, as well as teen dances. "My name is Gino, so a lot of people thought I was Italian," Washington told the Detroit News in 1999. "You'd go into an all-white nightclub and they'd think you're Italian, but you're black! Everybody would look at me. After we got on stage, though, they didn't care anymore."

Washington got drafted out of his teen band into the Army at the peak of his career, and was sent to Vietnam after a tour of duty in Japan. He returned home in '67 to find that a similar name was making a bigger name for himself: the UK's Geno Washington. (Left: recent photos of Gino and Geno performing today.) Gino with an "i" kept releasing records, many on his own label, ATAC. (Perhaps out of spite, and to the confusion of future collectors, he released at least one single under the name "Geno Washington.") And the singer hosted a variety show on local TV in the '70s. But in the end, his onetime backup singers from the early '60s became more famous: the Primettes went on to become the Supremes. And Joyce Vincent (of the Debonaires) and Telma Hopkins had hits as the fictional "Dawn" of Tony Orlando and Dawn. (Hopkins also enjoyed a long career in television.) Today, you're as likely to have heard Gino's nephew, Keith Washington, a quiet storm R&B crooner who got airplay in the '90s. But check out Gino's classic singles on the Norton Records' collection, Out of This World (reviewed here and here) and don't miss his occasional gig with his old friends Jeff and the Atlantics.

Geno Washington

Geno with an "e" is the equally tough soul singer who had two hit LPs in the United Kingdom in the swinging '60s (both live albums) while fronting the Ram Jam Band. But he's an American, born William Francis Washington in Evansville, Indiana, in 1943. Washington served in the U.S. Air Force, and was stationed in the UK in 1961, at RAF Bentwaters near Woodbridge. The singer made frequent trips to London, taking impromptu stand-in gigs, and upon his discharge in '64, decided to stay. Within a year, he'd been recruited as frontman for Geno Washington and the Ram Jam Band, named for the legendary Brixton hangout the RamJam Club, where older Jamaican immigrants mixed with young white mods, dancing to soul and ska records spun by DJs such as Duke Vin, Count Shelley, and Count Suckle. Touring the nation, the Ram Jam Band quickly became live legends on the '60s rock circuit, signing to Piccadilly by early '66, and breaking the UK Top 40 the same year with "Water." (Check it out on the 2000 Castle collection My Bombers My Dexy's My Highs: The Sixties Studio Sessions.) They headlined above the Small Faces (whom impatient crowds booed), Cream, and Jimi Hendrix before disbanding in 1970.

Washington returned to the States for the mellow decade, recording on occasion (a "comeback" album in '76, and some unreleased music with the Beach Boys) while otherwise studying hypnosis and meditation. But in 1981, Dexy's Midnight Runners released tribute single, "Geno," which became a number-one hit in the UK. The media attention brought Washington back to London for good, and he's been recording and performing ever since, though he touts his latest CD, 2003's Return of the G (produced by Ram Jam bass player Catfish Maitland), as the first to capture his live energy. Washington is currently booked around the UK through the summer of 2005 to promote the album, which is available through his web site and the Voiceprint label.

Washington has also published a fiction thriller, 2003's The Blood Brothers (Do-Not Press). Set in the late '60s, it follows the adventures of a black Vietnam vet named Robbie Jones, who travels from the jungles of South East Asia to the deserts of Mauritania fighting slavery and injustice. I wonder if he consulted Gino Washington for research.

Sick of hearing about Suicidegirls.com? Read today's City Pages for some serious second thoughts: "Subscribing to the site also means subscribing to a certain idea," write Jessica Hopper and Julianne Shepherd. "Its viewers get to lust after girls with shared cultural interests ('shaved pussy; loves Fugazi!'), and the models' 'feminism'... exonerates the guilt behind the gaze." One question: Exactly what are viewers guilty of? (Or what might they/should they be feeling guilty about?) My two colleagues never say, although their argument against Suicide Girls, who arrive Saturday in Minneapolis at the Fine Line with their burlesque, does outline a scandal that's news to me: The business is run by a guy, and a bunch of the iconic SGs (including Katie, pictured) have left, making accusations of misogyny, abuse, and ghostwritten journals, while joining a blog to air their grievances, Tales from the Dark Site. (See also: Gloomdolls.com.) One former model calls Suicide Girls "the Wal-Mart of alt-porn" in an article linked on the forum.

This is rich terrain for irony, obviously. But Jessica and Julianne come close to letting their entertaining anti-hypocrisy become anti-porn...

"Suicidegirls.com hinges itself on the idea that there is no male gaze, that pornography can exist outside the bounds of subject/object relations, that there is no soft-focus power imbalance inherent in paying to look at naked girls."

Which assumes your agreement with the opposite: There is a male gaze; pornography can't exist outside subject/object relations; there is a power imbalance in paying to look at naked girls. Well, yeah. But these statements are incomplete to the point of misleading: That "gaze" is a complex and changeable thing. Pin-ups, the WWII-era phenomenon to which Suicide Girls owe much, arrived just as women were being looked at through needier male eyes (as economic agents in factories, or sexual agents in soldier fantasies). There is a subject/object relationship every time one person looks at another person as a sex object--something every breathing animal wishes to become at one moment or another. (I've barely looked at Suicidegirls.com, but I imagine subscribers are also well aware that the autobiographical info, like most "reality" media from Playmate Q&As to Myspace confessions, is just fodder for more fantasy.)

And if we agree with non-fanatic economists that there are "inherent" power relations in all markets, why single out paying for the sight of nude women?

The real news story, for feminists and labor-activists in the sex-entertainment industry, is how conservative Suicidegirls.com is. As reported recently on Susie Bright's and Shannon Larratt's blogs, SG has been early to surrender to the government's latest anti-porn witch hunt, preemptively taking down bondage photos that might be prosecuted by U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Apparently, SG had called the FBI against a potential competitor (over alleged hacking), and, in an effort to make themselves credible witnesses for the prosecution, turned over "a list of every single photo set that contains bondage, blood play, urination, etc." (according to SG's Steve Simitzis). Only later did it occur to them that the list might be used to other ends.

Suicidegirls.com is also reportedly threatening lawsuits against ex-models who are launching their own site, Godsgirls.com (see photo above, and Myspace page here--though apparently Myspace has censored comments about Suicide Girls). There's no mention of that project in the City Pages piece, but then, that would involve supporting pornography.

Update Friday: More commentary at the Sacredwhore.org blog.