Sammy Younan

Girth Radio Presents…

Smoother than Voltron coming together Nikki Ashworth (The Jilted Lovers Club) and multi-instrumentalist Neil Gray (A Quiet End) have joined forces to become Fools.

Run is the startlingly Portishead like first song from this dynamic project: this song lingers like an unacknowledged ghost. I’m so in..I wanna see what other sounds they sculpt.

A few listens inspired the following stream of consciousnesses…

Half of Seal 6 Radio Jaren Hayman stepped out of the Girth Radio booth to write and produce a clever Walking Dead spoof. Only this time instead of zombies it’s…alpacas.

The Horror!!

As inspired by listening to Look Vibrant’s Music

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Sammy Younan

Girth Radio Presents…

Beloved Word Nerd and G.I. Joe aficionado Wordburglar has returned like the Dark Knight with a new album and a bold new track celebrating Halifax:

I never know how I find stuff online or where I mentally wander about…often online it seems like I’m just window shopping.

Anyways I stumbled onto this cool Alan Moore interview which ofters this outstanding insight…100% YES!

When you play the following ballads in this order I Want To Know What Love Is, Waiting for a Girl Like You, Hello, Lady In Red, Careless Whisper, Keep On Lovin’ You they actually form 1 connected 80s love story like the Marvel movies.

I finally finished the X-Files…last year.

Back in the show’s original run (which wrapped in 2002 a delightfully stone age era with dial up internet, black and white Game Boys) I left when the show moved to LA aka Season 6. In 2014 my restless heart desired to finish the series…watch all 202 episodes and the 2 movies. What a marvelous and flawed run.

I dunno who programed Panamania but this week the acts are beyond astonishing.

If you’ve never seen The Flaming Lips, please go. Just to see it, let your thirsty eyes drink it all in…even if you don’t know their music. Go! It’s FREE and fun music.

And The Stars! Also free. What? Yo…

Charles Bradley…if you’ve never seen James Brown live this will do: phenomenal.

All live and in colour at Nathan Phillips Square.

There’s a great irony in rap music. The lyrics in rap are supposed to spring forth as a kind of rough street poetry. Poetry by any standard demands proficient articulation, profound thought and pleasurable connection.

Yet despite the surge of rappers and rap music many of these specific elements are missing, either in action or just RSVPed but didn’t bother to show up.

You can clearly understand what I mean when you hear a rapper being interviewed, often times, he’s not articulate. The cohesion of thought just isn’t there. And it’s understandable, rap is driven by the beat, the sample is destiny.

A solid infectious 808 beat can instantly triumph where lyrics falter. (And to be fair this happens in rock music, though not on the same level, a rock song can unfold many different ways, if a rap song has found a fresh beat it sticks with it, all the way to the top of the charts).

That irony of making a living off poetry and not being articulate ends with Rakim. He remains a lyrical grandmaster, deftly wielding words with the reverence a samurai saves for his sword. Like Chuck D, he needs no introduction, the work is that quality, only sometimes, we foolishly forget.

Director Matt Bieler offers this short yet insightful documentary on Rakim.

Appropriately and succinctly entitled Words:

I dunno if it’s gonna be sublime but it’s gonna be engaging. Just like a Neon Bible.