SOUNDS: On our to-do list this week

Alice Smith
Nokia Theater, November 29, New York, NY
Aside from the fact that she’s gotten stamps of approval from NPR, Rolling Stone and noted culture critic Greg Tate (one of her former musical collaborators), we love everything about this Brooklyn resident’s petulant, pouty sound. She performs live tonight.

-Muse
info@musemag.net

TRENDS: Marching Bands

We called this ages ago when Outkast released “Morris Brown” as the first single from their movie soundtrack, “Idlewild.” The marching band’s romping swing sounded like cumulonimbus clouds, a bouncy, fluffy backdrop to Big Boi’s equally buoyant rhymes. “These guys are on to something,” we thought as we reminisced about our childhood days tagging along with our parents’ to the homecoming games at their historically black alma maters. Our friends and fellow musicphiles were skeptical, though. Then we discovered the band Hot 8, a New Orleans band which takes the Afro-centric drum patterns of Washington D.C.’s go-go music and marries it to boisterous brass instrumentals, while listening to British soul music authority Gilles Peterson on BBC Radio One. Several months later, during a stroll through Manhattan's Union Square, we noticed a massive crowd surrounding a group of kids blowing on tubas, trumpets, and trombones. Weeks later we heard their music again on, yup, BBC Radio One and found out that the guys are actually a band from Chicago with a strong cult following called the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble. And, you know, three definitely makes a trend.

-Muse
info@musemag.net

WARDROBE: On our wish list

Overall, we think holiday gift guides are painfully formulaic and uninspired. Do you really need to be told what to buy for your mom? Hopefully not. We’d much rather spend time compiling lists of goods we’d like to receive. At the top would be these Christian Louboutin satin and leather platforms.

-Muse
info@musemag.net

LIFE: Have we lost the ability to mobilize?

It began with Snoop Dogg walking the red carpet with women on leashes and escalated with MTV 2's “Where My Dogs At” depicting black women as pets on all fours, defecating on the floor. Now, Essence magazine quotes Kanye West as referring to biracial women as “mutts,” saying that without them, there would be no video ‘hos. Um, when did it become okay to equate women to dogs (or black men to niggers for that matter)? Interestingly enough, West’s quote has not caused nearly as large an uproar within the media as Michael Richards’ recent comments have. Is the public that desensitized to men demeaning and respecting women in the world of hip hop that we can’t recognize a sign of offensive prejudice when we see one? A New York Times Op-Ed columnist complained that the media failed to address the fact that in both the mass killings in a Colorado high school and an Amish school in Pennsylvania, the killers singled out female students and if the attackers had chosen to pick out the black students or Jewish youth instead, the public's response would be much different. The same argument seems to apply here.

-Muse
info@musemag.net

WARDROBE: On the cheap

The marriage of high-end designers to mass market retail brands is the best thing to hit our wallets since our new Suze Orman-inspired budget. Not only are we psyched about Viktor & Rolf's recent partnership at H&M, we hear that Roland Mouret is teaming up with the Gap for a collection of affordable versions of his trademark frocks. But the question is, will Mouret's line sell out in minutes when it hits stores on December 1st the way H&M's special collection did last week? Prices range from $88 to $108.

LIFE: Random musing!!!

I have an odd addiction to exclamation points. I’ve always thought of them as the email-equivalent of the smile. But lately, my emails and instant messages have been a bit too smiley. Like, “Oh my god, hey! I haven’t heard from you in so long! How have you been? We should totally get together for lunch soon! Just let me know what works for you! Talk soon!” My girlfriends’ emails are equally as ebullient. But funnily enough, my male co-workers and guy friends, rarely use the happy form of punctuation in their emails. What does this mean? Does the excessive exclaim-ing represent a quiet desire to appear non-threatening, to please, or make nice? Or does it just mean that my lady friends and co-workers are friendlier than the boys? So I began an experiment sending emails and IM’s for one week using only periods. The results were intriguing. “Are you okay? You seem a bit stressed out” asked one female colleague in reply to a exclamation point-free email. With the exception of one business lunch, we’ve only ever professionally interacted in cyberspace. “What’s going on? You seem aggro today,”asked a male long-distance friend via AIM. “You don’t have to be so cold about it” typed another friend, this time a somewhat needy girlfriend, in response to a bit of relationship advice I sent her. What the hell? Talk about things getting lost in translation. I wonder what would happen if I started typing everything out in all caps.

-Muse
info@musemag.net

LIFE: And a happy election day to you too

10:08pm: Only three more pickups to go before the Dems take over the Senate.

SOUNDS: If our life had a soundtrack...

The opening credits (camera zooms in on a lone woman walking down a dark, deserted street in Harlem after midnight. The street lights are out for some reason. ):
“BarStarTruckBuck,” by Kudu (Click on song titles to listen)


The moment of suspense (sensing she’s being followed, the protagonist quickens her pace):
“Surf Boundaries” by Henrik Schwarz


The climax (she hears footsteps behind her and feels a hand grab her shoulder):
“GreedyBody,” by Wunmi

The resolution (turning around with a clinched fist gripping pepper spray, she breathes a sigh of relief as she realizes it’s just her man playing a trick on her):
“By Your Side” (Cottonbelly remix), by Stuart “Cottonbelly” Matthewman