not to be confused with the RNC

...but buy my record first, ha, ha, ha...

I know “name-dropping” is frowned upon in journalism but the great thing about this blog shiznit is that it’s whatever the hell I want it to be…so here’s the boldface entry…

I hung out with my old boy, Dan Nakamura… that’s right… the dude behind “The Automator” curtain. We went to Lowell High School in San Francisco. I think he might have known Oscar Jackson since they were upper classmen but I was still the nerdy kid talking about comic-books with Dan’s younger brother, Rob … I mean, I wouldn’t even try to hang out with edgy kids that were there, like Margaret Cho… and I probably wasn’t as well read as Daniel Handler and his crew. I used to cross paths with Dan at the Nakamura household and occasionally we would buzz about the latest rap records. Although I was already up on PE in a big way (Dave and I did the first ‘rap performance’ using the “MPE” beat at Lowell’s annual ‘Kermesse Festival’!) Dan had the first copy of the “Rebel without a Pause” 12”. Dan and I were also big fans of the Ultramagnetic MCs… “Ego Trippin’”, “Travelling at the Speed of Thought”… so it was no surprise that his first BIG success as a producer would be in a partnership with Kool Keith. Yadda-yadda-yadda…Years later he teamed up with Prince Paul to put together the great ‘in-joke’ musical project called Handsome Boy Modeling School. Even after Paul crushed my hand in his car’s power windows I was kind enough to loan one of my 1200s to them for the first ‘session’ of HBMS. And of course I’ll never forgive Dan for the missing liner notes ‘shout-out’!!!!

Nowadays our musical tastes differ more than overlap but I figured I could still play ‘Name That Artist’ when Dan played me the new Handsome Boy Modeling School album. I recognized De La Soul immediately. I heard A.G. and the Rza on a track but couldn’t identify Linkin Park’s vocalists. It was nice to hear Pharrell with the lower singing pitch at least relative to Julee Cruise (sounded familiar but couldn’t place it). Tim Meadows as the Ladies Man was killing it on the Dating Game skits along with Rza and someone sounding a whole lot like Jay-Z. I knew Franz Ferdinand would be on there somewhere (Dan was swinging through NYC from a recording session with them) but I couldn’t spot them between Del and Barrington Levy. The epic history of hip-hop-rock, on the track ‘Four Seasons,’ should have tipped me off that it was Linkin Park again on vocals but I could only identify Lord Finesse. I figured the cuts were by Q-Bert or Koala or Shadow. It was Q. The others get shine on a different track. I heard Cat Power mumbling some ‘la-la-las’ or something behind Franz on one track but she gets real nice holding it down on another laid back beat. Two of my old favorites Casual and Dres (that’s right D-R-E-Sssssss!) catch solos (or was someone from Mars Volta hitting a chorus? Or was it Mike Patton?). The most soulful joint on the album has Jamie Cullum intertwining harmonies with the one and only John Oates. Father Guido Sarducci gets the skit to end all skits… an agonizing rambling 5 minute album closer. It’s a joke that only a few people will get and is impossible to explain (just like the album’s title, ‘White People’) but that’s definitely the point. Shortlisters will love it and hip-hop heads will find their gems and everyone can admire the aural equivalent of namedropping.