Too Much Beer For TURBONEGRO !!!

This rock’n’roll and beverages-related story is true:

Daughter of a lady who works in the same office as me has a summer job cleaning rooms in a President Hotel in the centre of Helsinki.

Last weekend there was the annual Ankka Rock Festival in Helsinki and on sunday the hardest rocking and most decadent and homo-erotic rock band that ever came out of Norway (excluding Burzum, of course), the mighty TURBONEGRO played at the festival.

Like many artists coming to Helsinki the band stayed at the President Hotel. In the afternoon of the next day, hours after the regular hotel check-out time, the aforementioned daughter was knocking on the door of TURBONEGRO’s room in order to clean it. The band, of course, was still in there. However, they were very polite, apologized and asked her to come around again after an hour. When she did, they were finally leaving and in order to thank the girl, they tipped her by giving her 1 and ½ big cases of Heineken beer that they still had. Nice!

But what does that mean? TURBONEGRO cannot finish all beer they had hoarded? Or, there were not enough party people helping them out with all their beer or what?

After hearing this story I suggested that they should sell the beer in Ebay as “Special TURBONEGRO Heineken Party Beer – undrunk, unopened can!” one can at the time and make good money but apparently they were just going to drink it with her friends.

Kill Your Coke!!! And Pepsi Too!

After my Peace in the Middle-East blog entry I want to bring in more social consciousness and awareness and to “infotain” you with some news from India.

The state of Kerala in South-western India banned completely selling Cola Cola and Pepsi after Indian research team claimed last week that they had found alarming amounts of high pesticide levels in the cola drinks. Four other Indian states have already banned selling cola-drinks in public schools and state offices for the same reason. Kerala is the first state that completely bans cola-drinks. It also happens to be politically one of India’s few leftist run-states.

Everybody knows that drinking cola drinks and especially all those low-sugar light cola drinks like Coke Light, Pepsi Max etc. cannot be very healthy since all they contain is water and a lot mysterious and scary chemicals. But when you think about all the environmental problems and disasters (one of the worst example being the Union Carbide Disaster in Bhopal in 1984, claimed by many as the worst industrial disaster in history) in developing countries, this all makes sense.

Mobile Ringtones to save the music industry?

The music industry and especially the big corporations have been worrying sick about not selling as many cd's as in the past. P-2-P -sharing is a lot bigger problem for them that old skool pirate cd's sold on the streets.

Here is where the rappers come to the resque. In the US this summer has been a succes for companies selling mobile ringtones and in the forefront have been rappers like Chamillionaire and Rick Ross. Below is the article from Digitalmusic.com:

Rapper Chamillionaire has just raised the bar on master ringtone sales by shifting three million tones. The accomplishment is for the smash hit "Ridin," which has enjoyed heavy spins and incredible momentum. Fans have a number of ways to grab the tone, including on- and off-deck options, and the artist has positioned the ringer aggressively on his website. The nosebleed result is part of an overnight mobile treasure chest for artists, particularly rappers. Chamillionaire, inked to Universal Motown Records, previously reached the two-million mark faster than any other artist. Several others have crossed the million mark, and fresh records keep pouring in. Earlier, rapper Rick Ross, signed to Slip-N-Slide/Def Jam, surpassed sales of one million master ringtones late last month. The Ross accomplishment represents the first time an artist has reached that level ahead of an album release.

That's a funny business, aye? With the new phones models everybody with a computer & internet connection could easily make those ringtones for free for themselves, but they still chose to downloadit for money...

Peace In The Middle-East, please.

I think that now is the time to say at least something about what is going on in the Middle-East.

The thing that came into my mind recently while reading about the current crisis in the newspaper was how during my Metalhead-period, one of the coolest bands used to be the notorious and legendarily politically UNcorrent S.O.D (Stormtroopers Of Death) and they had a song called ‘Fuck The Middle-East’, which went something like “FUCK THE MIDDLE-EAST, THERE’S TOO MANY PROBLEMS!!!”. That used to sound quite appropriate back then in the 1980s.

However, when I checked out the rest of the lyrics now, I don’t want to quote them more than that first line because now it seems to me like Billy Milano, Scott Ian and co. were like deranged little brothers of George W. Bush (if that concept is even possible to imagine) . But they, they must have been ironic, yeah? Another S.O.D. favorite was always ‘Ballad of Jimi Hendrix’, which consisted of about 2 seconds of guitar noise and the lyrics ‘HE’S DEAD!”.

Anyhow, about the current crisis; I have really nothing to say about those soldiers - from either side - who have died but the latest ‘collateral damage’ ie. civilian victim count is that 27 Israeli civilians have died, against over 900 Lebanese civilians, about 1/3 of whom were CHILDREN of under 12-years. Add to that the fact that about one million Lebanese people have had to leave their homes in order to escape Israeli army’s extremely randomly spread bombs.

Then there's the whole environmental disaster of millions of gallons of spilt heavy raw oil that has apparently already destroyed the whole eco-system of the Lebanon's coast etc.

Fuck all that. You know whose I am on. But all this makes sad.
Stop it already, alright?!

It's convict music!

Yeah, that's Akon's catch phrase, that's how he seems to begin every new song he features in. That habbit itself is nothing new, it's a common jamaican deejay thing: Vybz Kartel's got "up to di time", Beenie Man has "Zigga Zow" and Elephant Man's got "Chu know..." and so on and so on. It's a good way to make yourself known, that's like "sonic branding" or whateva.

I just heard the new Rick Ross album "Port Of Miami" (which is a banger!) and I just have to say that Akon is the man. The ever pompous song "Cross that line" with Rick is a sure hit, at least at casa de Hennessy. I mean, the guy's done "Soul Survivor" w/ the Snowman, "Locked up", "Ghetto", "Trouble Nobody" and he pretty much produces the stuff he does himself. Ok, Akon (born Aliaune Damala Bouga Time Puru Nacka Lu Lu Lu Badara Akon Thiam if you trust wikipedia) did that annoying "Lonely" tune, but that probably made him a lot of money too. An some enemies as well.

Akon should be releasing his nnext album soon, it should be called "In your eyes". So It's convict time y'all!

Why does Crunk Sauna beat Hyphy Sauna?

Introduction:

Summer vacation is a good time to do things you normally couldn’t find time for. Like homemade scientific tests. A few weeks ago we (Henny & Alppiboy) headed for a summer cottage for some R&R. One common theme in our late night discussions was the musical differences between hyphy and crunk. We analyzed the drum patterns, sounds, lyrics etc. in great detail but came to no clear conclusion that night.

However, the next morning we discovered a hidden soundsystem in the sauna. There, under the wooden benches was a nice 70’s style speaker connected to the 80’s era stereo rack in the other room. And we could easily plug our IRiver H320 MP3 player to the system. It was all mono, but bwoy it was loud! And there we had it: a place to empirically test hyphy and crunk material in the most unexpected environment – finnish lakeside sauna soundsystem. We were soooo hyped.

Thesis:

Our thesis was that the sauna bathing experience should be the same whether Hyphy or Crunk music was played during the bathing session.

The method:

The first test night was for crunk and second for hyphy. Both nights we used dry birch logs (approx. 30-40 cm in length and 15 cm in diameter) to warm up the “lab” to somewhere around 70-80 degrees Celsius (accurate measurements are not available, it could’ve been hotter at times, we were too stoked to write any details down during the tests). On crunk nite we played artists like Ludacris, Mike Jones, Trillville, Lil Jon, T.I., Bone Crusher and Three 6 Mafia and on hyphy nite it was strictly artists like E-40, The Federation, Keak The Sneak to name a few. Some amounts of refreshing beverages were also consumed during the test to prevent hydration.

Results:

Here are the results for the Crunk nite:

* the session took a lot longer than usually. Normally a 30 minute session turned into a 2 hour spectacle
* the sounds were clear and fat during the whole session
* we especially loved the overall kick sounds, they resonated quite nicely
* all artists suited the sauna environment well, highlights were T.I. and Paul Wall
* the louder the music was, better the sauna felt
* crunk seemed to fit the moist and hot environment better than expected
* 94 points out of 99 points on the SSE-scale (Subjective Sauna Experience)

And for the Hyphy nite:

* the session took no longer than usually (app. 30 minutes only)
* we had to take a break during the first 5 minutes, because the sauna got too dry
* found some hyphy songs not at all suitable for sauna (e.g. Tell Me When To Go by E-40 is a banger outside the sauna, inside it can really hurt you)
* we also felt anxiety and stress when the volume was set too high, probably because on some songs the 808 cowbells were mixed too loud
* there was a big difference between this and the previous night
* the overall experience was still slightly positive
65 points on the SSE-scale

Conclusion:

We proved out thesis to be incorrect. Crunk is a far better choice for Sauna Soundtracks than Hyphy – reasons for this are however still a bit unclear. Our test were however not identical, our state of mind was a bit better on the first night, which might have had an effect on the results.

Therefore we strongly encourage you to do your own tests and report your results here. And put your Sauna shades on!

Happy Birthday MTV!

As of today MTV is 25 years old! The concept of MTV has changed a lot since the heyday of music videos and the heavy localization has already killed the MTV I fell in love with. And I won’t even start dissing the actual programming (yuh know, just Pimp My Ride and Newdlyweds, no music at prime time, not much hip hop…).

But I still think that the semilocal MTV2 and MTV Base are pretty cool. The content of both MTVBase and MTV2 at least in Finland comes from UK. And UK is the homeland of Sky Channel, which was my first contact with music vids! Y´all know the deal – Mick Wall and Monsters Of Roooooock….

Happy Bithday to MTV still. You’ve grown to be a big media player now, so beware of Youtube.com and other rivals of the digital age.

BIG NEWS JUST OUT: This is for La Raza!

Don’t you just hate the spam? All spam is bad, yeah, but I have been receiving lately a LOT of emails about some stupid supposed stock market insider information. Super-bo-oo-oring, I don’t have any money to put into American stock market anyway. Besides we have all seen what’s the deal with those, in The Sopranos. It’s all about da Mob fooling stupid people, seen?

Anyhow, this caught my eye today. Apparently I should buy a lot of Goldmark Industries, ‘a rising Urban Entertainment force’, stocks today because they are about to up – right now! Yeah right. But why, you may ask? Because of Kid Frost, homie! Remember ‘This is for La Raza…’ and the video with all those lowriders etc.

As it turns out the company has, and I quote,

“…enhanced its Executive Leadership with the addition of accomplished artist, Kid Frost, as Vice President of the Music Division. Frost is very well respected by already established act and is looked at as a role model by up and coming talent. He was the pioneer of Latin Hip Hop, which has exploded, with the extremely popular, Reggaeton over the past 4 years. Frost will serve as an ideal Vice President of Music Operations within Goldmark, due to his extensive musical knowledge, skills, history and experience.

Frost -- originally known as Kid Frost -- was a pioneer in the field of Latin hip-hop, cutting some of its very first records and helping to bring exposure to other bilingual MCs. Pioneering Latino rapper Frost only gets better with age. The veteran East Los Angeles rapper, who became a hip-hop icon in 1990 with his groundbreaking single "La Raza" has stepped up his game in the last decade, sharpening his lyrical skills and becoming an authority figure in the rap world. His success allowed such Latino rappers as Cypress Hill, Fat Joe, Big Pun to make substantial hip-hop inroads.

His music features a hard-hitting mix of hard-core hip-hop, smoothed out cuts for the ladies and laid-back songs for cruising.

Frost is an original and knows about originality. Rapping since 1980 Frost scored his first record deal with Electrobeat Records thanks to the help of his long time mentor and friend Ice-T. When deciding on his name, Frost decided to model his moniker after that of the man who helped start his career, choosing Frost since Frost comes before ice. Then known as Kid Frost, Frost became a regular on the car show circuit in the mid 1980's. When he released "La Raza" and his debut album, "Hispanic Causing Panic" a few years later, his visibility exploded and helped the Lowrider culture thrive in Southern California and eventually Worldwide.

Frost says, "As I see the KRS-Ones and the LL Cool J's still in it, I won't budge. A lot of people might say that I'm too old. But I don't think it's your age or how you rap. It's your rap skills that keep you in the game. As long as we make that knocking Chevy music, we're going to stay in this rap game."”

And to those of you who bothered to read/scroll all the way down here, here is a special bonus gift to yo'all: The extremely cool video of La Kid Frost's classic La Raza, with the latin ladies in crazyass bikinis, the lowriders, the homies, the mad sax line, nods to the Aztec-ancestors, the East L.A., los murales, the TR-808, the mad tattoos, the bandanas, dickies pants, Nike Cortez sneakers, homiee-ee-ez!.

How Indie am I?

As I mentioned before, I have been into good ol' Alternative Rock lately, (and I do recognize that indie and alt.rock are of course not same thing) as I am a white male in my early 30ies with an apparent and strong tendency of nostalgizing everything. Then I found this link (below) in Giac's blog. Doing the test and the results I got just proves what I wrote a while a go, even if I am a tad bit dissappointed in scoring only 60%, 6% less than Mr. Interflug, but I guess that this is my punishment from loving some good bloody beef every once in a while.

You Are 60% Indie

You're pretty indie, but you don't make a fuss letting everyone know. You just do what you like. You enjoy many types of things - from trendy to bizarre.

How Indie Are You?

Drummer wanted! Now wait a minute…

Today I just happened to notice this ad on the Finnish musicians’ www-discussion board http://muusikoiden.net/ and I just can’t stop wondering what these guys really sound like and what do they need a drummer for anyway? And they seem to be based in the suburban heaven/hell of Espoo, of all the places.

We are a Rock Band looking for a drummer who wants to join and play with us........

We are between 20 to 24 years of age.You dont have to be an expert as long as you can play along.If anyone is intrested please contact us. Mani: anarmie*@*hotmail.com

I am not an expert, in fact I cannot play drums for shit, but I am thinking of volunteering to help them out. What kind of a drummer are they looking for anyway? Like a death metal/grind core-guy to jam with the guitar player in the back or a someone who’s more into traditional Indian music or maybe into some vintage ‘70s Bollywood funk? Or maybe someone interested in programming some nice teutonic Euro-disco dancebeats on a laptop with the singer? Note also that the guy who posted the ad uses a rather fitting nickname "Confusion1".

This must be an awesome band in any case!

No, but in all seriousness, someone please help these guys out!

Stiggity on air!

NUFF SAID! You will now go and watch this video

Stiggy's getting cribby wit it.

Neat flick even with such a low budget.

Sell All That Guitar Shit And Buy A Sequencer!

I have recently discovered my old electric guitar and all my guitar pedals (as well as some new old ones from the ’Bay) after many years and started playing guitar again. Incidentally I have started listening good old guitar-stuff like Dinosaur Jr., Pixies, Pavement, Sonic Youth and all those ‘alternative rock’ bands from early 90s again. My girlfriend thinks I am regressing back the me of fifteen years ago and she might have a point there.

However, today Giac sent me an email with the title “sell all that guitar shit and buy a sequencer!” with a link to Youtube.com – and to the video of Prodigy’s ‘Out of Space” . A totally great track that I used to love and I still do. But now I am all confused. I have been there before, what I am supposed to do? I already have a sampler and a sequencer (come on, who doesn’t?) both of which I have used to make my (mostly electronic) music for more that several years now.

But am I really going backwards or not? If I am in a self-repeating loop - and many people seem to believe that pop-culture trends move around in circles at increasing speed - logically and chronologically the next thing for me would be to start listening to techno again, preferably Detroit techno, and what would be better than Underground Resistance.

But hey, in August there will be Flow 2006 festival in Kallio, Helsinki, basically in my ‘hood, and performing there will be ‘Underground Resistance [U.R.] presents Galaxy 2 Galaxy & Los Hermanos (USA)’. Is this destiny or what?

But maybe even better that that is that there is also going to be "Happy Mondays DJ Set featuring Bez (UK)", if I decide to move even further backwards in time.

Countless conveniences of owning a Mac laptop.

I guess it is already quite obvious that all of us Kriton boys love our Macs and iPods. Well, as any Apple-gear whore I have been considering upgrading my old Powerbook to a lovely new Macbook since the day they came out. However, one thing holding me back has been the alarming reports about some new Macbooks being bit too hot for themselves sometimes. So, here is a blog/report telling you everything you need to know about the issue:
“Cooking Breakfast On A Macbook”.

1. Get a Macbook and turn it over so the screens over the edge of your desk/counter
2. Run your favorite process intensive program to get it to heat up
3 Some tinfoil on uper left part of the laptops underside (the hottest part of the macbook
4. Put your cup of coffee on the power supply to keep it warm
5. Cook your egg on the tinfoil, it will take longer than normal
6. Enjoy your breakfast.”

Yeah, there is even a video there.

“2005 Was The Year In Which Hip-Hop Moved Even More Squarely Into The Mainstream“

Continuing on where we left last time on the theme of hip-hop and consumer brands; American Brandstand has again published the TOP20 list of the brands that have been receiving most mentions in r&b and hip-hop tracks appearing on the Billboard charts in 2005.

The top ten brands mentioned in r&b and hip-hop tracks in 2005 were: Mercedes, Nike, Cadillac, Bentley, Rolls Royce, Hennessy, Chevrolet, Louis Vuitton, Crystal and AK-47.

Look here (scroll down a bit) for the whole chart with last years’ places and number of times different brands actually were hyped. Nothing surprising there, but American Brandstand also supplies some interesting analysis on the subject:

“2005 was the year in which hip-hop moved even more squarely into the mainstream - Kanye West made the cover of Time in August, and Snoop Dogg played croquet in the pages of Vanity Fair… Hip-hop is rapidly becoming synonymous with youth culture – in a rapidly growing number of global markets. And hip-hop is now influencing the whole of luxury culture in ways that was unimaginable only a few years ago. Mercedes emerged as the top brand of the year, and 50 Cent out-branded the rest to become the top brand-dropping artist. Overall the brands associated with lyrics this year have moved away from the ostentatious bling of 2004 towards brands with a more understated appeal.”

· Mercedes takes back the top position that it enjoyed in 2003 before being eclipsed by Cadillac in 2004. It wins by a huge margin - 37% more mentions, than runner-up Nike at #2.

· In the post-bling environment of hip-hop 2005, the total brand count falls 6%.

· Runner up brands: Nike, Cadillac, Bentley and Rolls Royce

· Runner up artists: Ludacris and The Game

· Fashion brands fell 9%, automotive brands dropped 5%, while the fastest drop is in beverage brands sliding 36%.

· The fastest growing category in 2005 was weaponry. The weapon count jumped 19%. The hottest new entry brand this year is pistol-brand Beretta mentioned by Dem Franchise Boys and The Game, which jumped into the Brandstand chart in 13th place.

· Some heavy-hitters from previous years dropped out this year, including Gucci (5th in 2004), and Lexus (11th in 2004) neither of which were mentioned at all.

Interesting, yes, less bling, guns are on the up, designer fashion and alcohol brands are going down. But wait, there are some problems here, when rappers are talking for example about AK-47, are they really talking about the rifle or…? There is also some pretty strange stuff on the chart, Japanese car brand Datsun for example, as well as certain fashion designers I would not easily associate with hip-hop, such as John Galliano and Vivienne Westwood.

One thing, which does makes me wonder is who actually listens to all the songs and counts these things?

Justin Timberlake is back, Sexy Back.

Since we have only been blogging about dead people here recently, we need to get on with a bit more uplifting vibe. So, let's concentrate on Justin Timberlake. What can you say about him? Even if he started out in Mickey Mouse Club and N*Sync, he also went out with Britney when she was still, well - decide for yourself, as well all those other girls. Then he worked with Timbaland and Snoop and so on and so on. Oh, wait, then there was of course the Janet & the nipple incident...

Anyhow, the dude is about ready to drop a new album and here is a special gift for yo’all and yo’iPods, a new track and the first single from the boy wonder, ‘Sexy Back’. Just grab it quickly while it is still up there.

I have no idea who produced it or any of that but I am happy that he didn’t try to go Baile Funk or Hyphy or whatever. But the track is “kinda dancefloor-friendly” and "European-sounding" and "electronic", no doubt about that. Besides that I will leave it up to you to decide whether it is any good really.

Edit: apparently the track is produced by Timbaland again, he even sings there if you actually bother to listen to the track.

Syd Barrett RIP. Shine On You Crazy Diamond

One more great guy is gone as legendary Syd Barrett died last friday at the age of 60. Although there’s been rumors about Barrett’s death (as well as he being in jail or turned into a vegetable due to excessive LSD intake) since late 1960s when he left Pink Floyd, this time it seems that he is gone for real. The psychedelic weirdness of his persona and complete disappearance from the media over 35 years ago only fed the rumors. Click this for a fascinating article about him from the Rolling Stone Magazine in December 1971.

I was in Amsterdam last friday and I am already starting to regret that I didn’t visit the Pink Floyd themed Umma Gumma Coffeeshop while there. Anyhow, IMO he was the only real cool guy of Pink Floyd and they only went downhill after he left them.

Here’s some essential info on the man:
Barrett co-founded Pink Floyd in 1965 and wrote many of the band's early songs. The group's jazz-infused rock and drug-laced, multimedia "happenings" made them darlings of the London psychedelic scene. The classic "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn" album (1967) was largely written by Barrett. He played lead guitar in the band. However, Barrett suffered from mental instability, exacerbated by his use of LSD. He left the group in 1968 to be replaced by boring David Gilmour.

Barrett released two solo albums "The Madcap Laughs" and "Barrett" but he soon withdrew from the music business altogether. An album of previously unreleased material, "Opel," was issued in 1988.

He reverted to his real name, Roger Barrett, and spent much of the rest of his life living quietly in his hometown of Cambridge, England. Moving into his mother's suburban house, he passed the time painting and tending the garden. He was a familiar figure to neighbors, often seen cycling or walking to the corner store, but rarely spoke to the fans and journalists who sought him out over the years.

The most influential work by Spelling

Here it goes, you are now able to vote for the most influential work by Aaron Spelling. We'll focus on tv here and the aim is to find out, which of Spellings tv-series have had the most impact on the youth of the world. And by youth I mean all postwar kids with tv-access. The voting starts now, yer all entitled to vote, all votes count, vote for Pedro, uncle Sam needs you, don't ask what your country can do for you... and so on. Vote, now!

Which of these Spelling-series has had the strongest impact on you as a kid?
	Love Boat
	Starsky & Hutch
	Dynasty
	Charlie’s Angels
	Hart to Hart
	Beverly Hills 90210
	T. J. Hooker
	Melrose Place
	Twin Peaks
Free polls from Pollhost.com

Thank you, Aaron Spelling!

Mid-Summer weekend, or ‘Juhannus’ in Finnish, is big party in Finland with some very particular things about it. A large part of population retreat to their summer cottages to barbeque some sausages, sit in a hot sauna and to swim in a lake, build and burn a huge bonfire and of course to drink more or less heavily. Consequently many people always lose their lives during the festivities, which is a truly sad thing. This year seven people drowned and at least four others died for different reasons.

However, let’s forget about those people for a moment and pay our respects one very special guy who passed away during the weekend. A man, who has given all of us so much mind-numbing entertainment and fun during last thirty years or so; The Über-TV-Producer, King of Soap Operas, Mr. Aaron Spelling.

Aaron Spelling passed away at the ripe age of 83 years in his home in Beverly Hills (90210, where else?) on Friday 23rd of June. Mr. Spelling has produced all the TV-series we have watched and loved: Love Boat, Starsky & Hutch, Dynasty, Charlie’s Angels, Hart to Hart, T. J. Hooker, Beverly Hills 90210, Melrose Place, Twin Peaks, Charmed, Summerland and countless others during his long career. And of course he gave us his lovely, albeit rather surgically enchanced, daughter Tori Spelling too.

Watching those series, like I did watch BH 90210, Melrose Place and Twin Peaks (The Best TV-series of all time!), really must have had some kind of an effect on me when I was teenager, or at least on the image of American society that was forming in my mind. You just can't forget that classic episode where Brandon goes to Alcoholics Anonymoys after crashing his car while drunk driving, ...after drinking 2 beers.

Anyway, according to Guinness Book of World Records he is the most ‘productive’ TV-producer of all times as he has created more than 5000 hours of top quality soap operas for TV as well 300 hours of TV-films and about a dozen of movies for silver screen. Of course he made a lot money too, Forbes Magazine estimates that Spelling’s fortune is worth more than 300 million dollars.

And finally, Aaron Spelling’s life was also a real American Dream come true. He was born in a poor Jewish immigrant family in Texas in 1923 with Russian father and polish mother. First he tried to make it as an actor, without much success, but turned quickly into a producing - and the rest is history.

R.I.P Aaron Spelling

No more Cristal for Jay-Z

We all know how since mid-1990s all rappers all over the world loved to (or would have loved to if only they were rich enough) buy cases and cases of Louis Roederer Cristal Brut Champagne, drink it straight out of the bottle, pour it all over their hoes and peeps in da club and all that. We saw it in all the videos and hear about it in all the songs.

For those of you unfamiliar with this lovely drink, it is a really prestigious and rather expensive (at about 200 US dollars a bottle) brand of Champagne with long tradition. The company, Louis Roederer was founded in 1776 and is still family-owned etc.

Now, the new Managing Director of Louis Roederer Monsieur Frédéric Rouzaud has recently declared, in the best/worst manner only the real French bourgeois people are capable of, that they would have been much happier without all the free-commercial-time their product has been receiving during last few years. Apparently rappers pouring Cristal down their throats and all over all the booty in the vicinity was not the kind of advertisement Mr. Rouzaud has been planning to include on their subtle marketing.

When Rouzaud was asked if the association between Cristal and the "bling lifestyle" could be detrimental, he said: "That's a good question, but what can we do? We can't forbid people from buying it. I'm sure Dom Perignon or Krug would be delighted to have their business."

Jay-Z, one of the biggest endorsers the mentioned golden drink, has been really upset about this and as a consequence he has called everybody to boycott the-drink-that-shall-now-remain-nameless and he has also called Rouzaud’s comments as racist.

Jay-Z’s boycott means that his night clubs are not selling Cristal anymore, there will be no more mentions of it on the records his label produces and so on. It remains to be seen whether the nasty C-word will be beeped out from all re-released rap-records from here on out?

Apple and 50 Cent producing Ghetto Apple AKA G-Apple!

Here’s more Apple-related facinating news stolen off the AppleInsider.com:

According to Forbes Magazine, Fitty Cent is negotiating a branding deal with Steve Jobs and Apple. Well, so what?
Here’s what: Fiddy wants to endorse a Apple-produced a line of affordable home computers for inner-city residents (ie. the ghetto, da hood). Apparently he wants to help in getting affordable computers in the hands of the less wealthy and so on. That’s great, of course.

But to think about it, 50 Cent plus Apple Computers equals to what? Lots of blingbling, lots of (many would argue 100% fake) street credibility and nicely designed computers produced very cheaply and sometimes maybe even in rather questionable working conditions somewhere in China. So, basically what they are working on would be perfect ‘Ghetto Laptop’, or even better, ‘Ghetto Apple’.

If I was better with Photoshop, I could try to produce a vision of what it could look like so here’s an assingnment to all yo’all budding graphic designers out there reading this.

Here’s what Fitty himself is saying: "I'm creating a foundation that will be around for a long time, because fame can come and go or get lost in the lifestyle and the splurging, I never got into it for the music. I got into it for the business."

I won’t say anything about his last sentence above. Yo, everybody knows that Major League Hip hop is not about the music, it’s always about da biznezz, like on the way paved by Puffy and Jay-Z and everyone after them. Whatever.

Also we all should know that ‘50 Cent ranks amongst the world's richest celebrities, raking in over $67 million in 2005 from record sales and branding deals that include a line of sneakers, a video game and his G-Unit clothing line.’

iPod City. The Dark Side of Apple?

Since us Kriton boys (myself included) have our iPods and Apple laptops, I though I need to bring this news to everybody’s attention:

The British newspaper Mail On Sunday claimed in their recent report that Foxxconn Electronics, a huge Taiwanese industrial electronics contract manufacturing corporation based in Longhua in Shenzhen Special Economic Zone in southern China, which manufactures, among many other gadgets and cool things, iPods for Apple, pays their workers as little as $50 dollars per month for working 15 hours a day. The workers, and the company employs over 160 000 of them, working in what Mail on Sunday calls ‘iPod City’, and in sweatshop –type environment.

Here are some quotes from the article:
“When they're not on the assembly lines, they live in secluded dormitories that each house 100 people and prohibit visitors from the outside world. The workers are allowed "a few possessions" and a "bucket to wash their clothes." "We have to work too hard and I am always tired. It's like being in the army," Zang Lan, one of the workers at Longhua, told the Mail. "They make us stand still for hours. If we move we are punished by being made to stand still for longer. The boys are made to do pushups."

“According to the report, iPod Nano is made in a five-story factory called "E3" that is secured by armed police officers. Another factory in near Shanghai manufacturers iPod shuffles and is completely surrounded by barbed wire. At this facility, 50,000 workers are housed outside the plant and earn about $99 per month. However, they must pay out of pocket for their accommodations and food, "which takes up half their salaries." One security guard told the Mail that the iPod shuffle production lines are staffed by women workers because ‘they are more honest than male workers.’"

Foxxconn Electronics of course “sternly denies” these claims as false and calls them a "vicious attack". Foxxxonn also claims that its "employment practices are completely in accordance with the requirements of Shenzhen labor supervision departments." And apparently they have been actively making improvements to workers' living conditions, providing safe and well-equipped dormitories complete with free laundry service, sports facilities, libraries, and other facilities.

Apple Corp. of course has responded to this by issuing a statement saying it is looking into the report. "Apple is committed to ensuring that working conditions in our supply chain are safe, workers are treated with respect and dignity, and manufacturing processes are environmentally responsible," the statement said, according to Macworld UK. Apple also claim that "it does not tolerate any violations of its supplier code of conduct."

K-Biz officially down!

K-Biz officially down!
Originally uploaded by fiilinc.

That's right. Already for a couple of days, www.kriton.biz has been down, and will be until we purchase sum mo' bandwidth. Or whatever we decide to to...

For this, I blame you America, though.. The server people gave us some statistics of our recent traffic, and the results were thoroughly confusing. It shows that on june 9th and 10th, we've had over 1500 visitors mostly from the US of A who used over 2 gb of our not-so limited bandwidth. Thank you, b****s. Without you bastards we would have bee just okay for the rest of the year really. Or then again, our server company can also be screwing us. Who knows.

But, because of that, for now the official Kriton information centres remain our hot little MySpace site (www.myspace.com/kritonhigh) and this blog that you are reading.

At the moment Kriton Music stays active with a couple of new tracks. KHSB has a new grimy rocker called "Scared Money" all ready for mastering, and Spazz Out has been finishing their first release, the baile-tastic anthem named "Coca Cola". People have also been hearin a brand new balearic-style hiphop-rock-gospel sound around the Alppitech studio. Just Blaze meets Primal Scream? Happy Mondays goes Baltimore? You will hear from this!!

Keep on loving!
Big Alppila n da K-boys

ps. Oooooooh, Diplo & A-Trak tonight at Nosturi, Helsinki. That's where it's at kids!!

Mosquitos are-a-cumming

When people get older they lose their ability to hear high pitch tones. This is a fact that some evil minds have now turned into an innovation called "The Mosquito". The Mosquito is marketed as "an ultrasonic teenager repellent, an ear-splitting 17-kilohertz buzzer designed to help shopkeepers disperse young people loitering in front of their stores while leaving adults unaffected." Huh.. quite orwellian and 1984-ish, aint't that?

However some kids have found a way to use this innovation for the kids not against them - as ring tones that can't be heard by older people. Check the article.

I tested the tone, and I must say it is pretty painful. Although I am well over 21, so maybe this one ain't working as well as the actual Mosquito? However I tested this (of course!) at the office and the results were quite clear: peep over 35 and sumthing reacted slightly on didn't react at all. And peeps in their 20's could hear this tone from another room and reported the noise to be "extemely painful" and "really annoying" ... I guess I'll be making many friends here...

Is this a new phase of the "control state"? I could think of many possible uses for such a tone. Think of mass concerts / demonstrations gone wild - a few speakers on top of the gestapo-policecar could send all kids home crying. This is evil. Truely, madly and deeply.

New School vs. Old School

A few posts ago jzZi aka "Mr Singapore Sling" showed us a pic of his famous Blueberry-Jopo. And surprisingly a combination of keywords "Jopo" and "Helsinki" brought some new visitors to our blog from Google, so thank you Sergey Brin and Larry Page for generating that traffic for us :-)

In his post Jzzi argued strongly that the old school Jopo is the only preferable choice, but I there have to disagree. The new Jopos might lack some of the style of the old ones (I specially like the main part of the old frame that has this box-like form and sharp edges, unlike the new round tube) but I think the new ones are pretty cool still. Like Tyler Brule had to say:

"Just as BMW has done much with the Mini, Helkama is sitting on a 1960s design icon called the Jopo that could become the urban runabout of choice everywhere from Nice to Nagoya."

Actually I think they're so cool that I had to get one for myself for urban commuting (mainly for that 5 min. ride to the office). I could have bought a classic Jopo just as well, but after a few months of serious e-baying (or huuto.netting here in Finland) I realized that it is a seller's market now for second hand Jopos here, they prices they were asking were insane. And they had this new down-to-earth-army-green color to match my needs, and I was sold.

I now dare you readers of this blog to vote: new school or old school, which is better? Your comments don't have to regard Jopos, we could widen this debate to ather areas of interest: cars, music, underwear, comic books, arts or what eva. I'd go for new school when it comes to bikes, consumer electronics, cars and such and to old school when it comes to skateboards, tv-series or music formats.

Smash My iPod Up!

This link should keep you laughing for a minute or two. These guys have found a way to finance their strange hobby of smashing stuff, in this case ipods. This is what they have to say and they've got videos to prove it:

"After we collect $400 in donations, we will take that money to a local Apple Store. We will purchase the iPod, open it right inside the store, and destroy it right on the spot. The whole thing will be shot on film, and displayed on this site. This is only a social experiment, for the entertainment of the donors, and visitors of this site. "

Ipods are probably really over hyped, they've obviously lost their "glamour" as they've become so popular, but I think they're still pretty darn cool devices. I luv technology that is designed for the end user, not the engineer. And they're proven to be a true goldmine for Apple. Ipods have helped to create a Halo Effect to boost the sales of the whole Apple product line. Or have you seen an Apple computer ad in mass media lately? Nope, but ipod's are well represented all over.

Well I don't have an ipod myself, I have the other one. Which one is it? I could give you a hint: it's the second best selling mobile media player, with a market share of approximately 5 %. (I guess mobile phones are not counted in these statistics). Ok, try this link to find out what gagdet I'm carrying.

Desmond Dekker R.I.P

Ok, let's make it short; Desmond Dekker died of a heart attack yesterday. You can get the details e.g. from here. Most kids maybe think of him as the dude with the song from that film" (which still is a banging flick) , but to me he was one of the best "pop" icons onf reggae. He goes right up there with Jimmy Cliff, Dennis Brown, Toots Hibberts, Greogory Isaacs, and wel.. yuh know ... that Marley-character.

Respect for the man from shanty town!

LBLA - Soft Rock fa Life!

LBLA - Life Beyond Los Angeles mix selection by Alppila
Originally uploaded by fiilinc.

Alright, the summer is coming. And when it's summer you don't wanna bum yourself out with gloomy goth music. That's just so teen-angsty. You will need good ADULT rock/pop/soul music. And what better way to hear that music than Kriton Radio?

This week i present to you a selection called "L.B.L.A." (short for Life Beyond Los Angeles, which is actually an album by Ambrosia...). The perfect, drivin, kissing, chilling-out, magazine-reading, getting-drunk-to- music there is. Here are a couple of originals i had to take off the CD version, because of the selection's massive length. So basically this is LBLA - the director's cut. The friggin radio blog just messed with the track order and i can't be bothered to mess it back. So now you have the tracks running from 18 to 1. Hope that's okay with you, dudes & dudettes?

The original track list of LBLA goes like this:

-------------

Banda Black Rio: Maria Fumaca (1977)
Jorge Santana: I Love The Way (1978)
Ambrosia: Living On My Own (1980)
Toto: Takin' It Back (1978)
Kenny Loggins: This Is It (1979)
Fleetwood Mac: Dreams (1977)
Eddie Money: Two Tickets To Paradise (1977)
Jackson Browne: Somebody's Baby (1982)
The Babys: Everytime I Think Of You (1978)
Player: Baby Come Back (1978)
Michael McDonald: Yah Mo B There (1983)
Bobby Caldwell: Whay You Won't Do For Love (1977)
JP Rodgers Jr: I Enjoy Your LOve (1982)
Steely Dan: FM (1978)
Todd Rundgren: Can We Still Be Friends (1978)
-------
and the bonus tracks are:

Christopher Cross: Sailing (1980)
Pablo Cruise: Cool Love (1980)
Isley Brothers: Summer Breeze (1973)
Chicago: Saturday In The Park (1972)
---------

Be cool my babies!

Bedroom Heroes

This hilarious DIY video proves that people should stop playing with themselves and get a social life. Fiddlin' alone with your instrument used to be a common trend in the 80's. Then all teenager-wannabe-guitarhero-metalheads had to practise hour after hour to master tricky and fast guitar licks in their bedrooms to achieve a certain level on professionalism, that was needed in the demanding genre of metal. From that evolved bedroom DJ's and other lonesome instrumentalists of other genres.

That's was ok way back, because that was the 80's when people also drove big speed boats and got introduced to bunch of new things such as crack, dancehall reggae and Nintendos. Some of these new things were cool, some of these were not so cool.

But after this video I realized that, OH MY GOD, it is 2006 and there must be heards of metal keyboardist who also "jam" and "get wild & wacky" and "improvise" alone at home. This is a very sad world. Didn't we learn anything the 80's, or 90's grunge ? Why didn't metal go away like puffy hairdo's and reaganism like it should have?

(ok, after writing this, I did sum detective work and found out that this dude in the video is a member of "Runeland:A Power Metal Saga". This means that he's ok, he's got a life. Let this be a warning to all those stars-to-be: get in touch with real people and start a band. That's it.)

Free Kukkapuro chairs and other things

People giving away nice Kukkapuro chairs
Originally uploaded by fiilinc.

Big corporate companies are very funny. For example this big-arse publishing corporation that my dad works for (let's just call 'em Talent-bum) is moving from its former premises next door to where i live. So they decided to get rid of bunch of old crap they wont be needing in their new fancy office. I happened to check in the room they filled with throwaway stuff in the basement and copped these two Yrjö Kukkapuro chairs (Skaala 427, in the pic above). And my peeps got like 12 Artek chairs (611 and 45 that i'm gonna steal from 'em someday).

On other things, a huge load of nu crap on the Kriton Radio! Today i just uploaded the upcoming DJ Shadow banger Seeing Thangs featuring the almighty David Banner, and bay area hyphy-masters Nump and Gold. Shit is so tight, shadow-athmospherics and staight out bangin crunk beats. DJ Shadow nerds be crying and whinin bout this though.. Poor geeks!

Then we got the super good new Sleepy Brown party anthem Margaritas with Pharrell Williams and Big Boi from OutKast. And the new single Chevy Ridin' by Dre (not Dr. Dre, you fool, Dre from Miami's hottest producer duo Cool & Dre) and hustlemaniac Rick Ross. Plus "Sewn" by The Feeling, my favorite pop band right now, who is also almost my namesake!

That's for today. Still so much stuff posted a couple of weeks ago: like new hot Christina Milian, Who's Gonna Ride feat. Three 6 Mafia (my fave r&b-track right now) and Rihanna's contagious We Ride (we seem to have a real ridin' theme here). Plus a new hot joint from Obie Trice & Akon "Snitch", Sweden's Petter doin' "Det går bra nu" remix with Fabolous, Bitch Ass Darius' Ride (back to the ridin' theme; but also the guy's got fuckin coolest artist name i've heard in a while!), new Killa Cam & Lil Weezy, Touch It Or Not, the remix of T.I.'s Why You Wanna featuring our favorite backpacker turned ladies man Q-Tip, new Mobb Deep that doesn't suck even though it's G-Unit, new reggae-influenced Lil Flip (call him Fliperachi now!), hipster-fave Justice from Paris France, Jamie Foxx & Twista on a slow jam tip again, new surprisingly good Dudley Perkins, AND the usual down-south ish from D4L, Pimp C, Da Muzicianz, Dem Franchize Boyz and Da Backwudz.
Enjoy that stuff baby, until we go'n take it away for good! Kriton Radio fa life!

Power To The Book

Heeeeeeeeeee're it iiiiiizzzzzzzzz folks! The Kriton Posse is now finally PC-free when it comes to music making hardware. I used to be the missing link, but as of last nite I am so totally powerbookin' til doomsday, that it hertz. Ok, the new Macbooks are cool looking, but this is a tried&tested true solid warrior in its' shiny silver armour.

Here's the funniest vid I've seen in a long time. In the video you can see a taxidriver on BBC commenting on the Apple vs. Apple case. That itself is not funny, but the man is there by mistake - the reporter thinks that she's talking to Guy Kewney, the founder of Newswireless.net. Even the big media makes mistakes! This shait is really hilarious...

Makasiinit One More Time: Flickr

Just like Google, Flickr is always your friend. If you wanna see lots (currently 790) pics of the now-burned-and-demolished Makasiinit that we have been blogging about recently, click: HERE.

Kriton High in My Space!

Yo! Kriton High School Bangers have now entered My Space. Just like everybody else. Even K-Fed is there, I just can't be bothered to find his page right now.

"Kriton High School Bangers - always underappreciated, unnoticed, unadvertised, unnecessary, unpredictble, unlikely and confusing.The musical collective from southern parts of Helsinki, KHSB consists of Alppila, JzZi & Hennessy.

KHSB is fueled by 70's FM-rock, dirty south rap, roots reggae, 80's electronic disco and funk, motown soul, detroit techno, afrobeat and east coast gangsta.

"Fascinating, muddy, cloudy, dopey, hi-tech, lo-tech. No tech, can't say - I recognize some of the loops from my childhood Top 40 radio days. These kids sound like they could be from Brooklyn's Bushwick section, amazing the sound of Helsinki meets New York sweaty factory club with a strict door policy and a couple of brothers working the door policy. Who are these kids? For fucks sake, this is the balls to the wall tripped out, I just don't have the words."

-H-P Valdeolivas / Le Cool Barcelona"

Helsinki was Burning. R.I.P. Makasiinit.

Continuing on the fate of the Makasiinit and Alppila’s last posting:

Burning of the Makasiinit was the best thing that could possibly happen in this situation. The place was ordered to be demolished anyway but only two days before that it was destroyed by a massive fire. And now all politicians who ordered the place to be torn down in the first place are playing Jesus and pretending to be sorry that "the story of Makasiinit had to end like that". Apparently the prime minister even said he expected there to be a human chain trying to stop the beginning of the demolishing on morning when the work was going to start. Just f**k off. Best political protest is always the one that leaves the police in full riot gear standing on an empty street, looking stupid and wondering where the demonstrators are.

The rumour going around has it that “some crazy anarchist” torched the place with couple of Molotow cocktails and also the police with their C.S.I. and everything seems to believe in the planned arson theory. However, anyone who fails to see the message of the act, must be just stupid. Sure, too bad the building was destroyed and not conserved but let’s face it, Makasiinit were not meant to be conserved in any meaningful form anyway. The building was just going to be torn down quietly, as if everyone would forget it, just like that. But then, maybe the place was really just located a little bit too good for it self, facing the Parliament.

Makasiinit was a cool place, it was the only real spot left for any counter, street and youth culture in central Helsinki, which was not 100% commercial and controlled by the Man. During last ten years there were a lot of different parties and festivals, the flea market, skateboarding hall and other nice activities in the absolute centre of Helsinki.

Some pics here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

We salute the place, the spirit, the memory and everyone who ever went there or organized anything there.

R.I.P. Makasiinit.

Makasiinit - ihan liekeissä!

Makasiinit - ihan liekeissä!
Originally uploaded by fiilinc.

Here we go... this is the last breath of what was known as VR:n Makasiinit in Helsinki (an alternative cultural center or summ like dat). I took this photo like 20 minutes ago from my living room window after having been wondering what f is going on for about ten minutes and then logging on to some news services... VR makasiinit ilmiliekeissä - Rest In Peace!

Crunkstrumentals vol 1.

Crunkstrumentals vol 1.
Originally uploaded by fiilinc.

We're keeping it busy... New stuff on Kriton Radio - again! For mayday 2006 we're bringing you the goods: to let you know what we diggin on while crafting the Kriton sound we'll give you a bunch of hot instrumentals - the CRUNKSTRUMENTALS vol 1. All modern style production, no dusty backpacker drums up in this mofo.

1st - The madness that is Rick Ross' Hustlin' (also known as Hustler's Anthem). All cinematic organs and big southern drums. You gotta love this one.

2nd Trick Daddy, Twista & Lil Jon teaming up for Let's Go. Doing the Crazy Train on crunk juice thing with the Ozzy screams as a cherry on top. Note how sloppy that dude plays the guitar riff! Obviously a big influence on our guys Wheelspinnas and their Suicyde Doorz.

3rd Da Muzicianz and Mr. Collipark doing their Miami Bass 2006 thing on Camera Phone. At the same time very pompous and melodic but still kinda summer-club-anthemic. I'd have no problem hearing this on the score of the new Miami Vice flick or something.

4th Bone Crusher's Never Scared OF-FRIGGIN-COURSE! This is a monster-fest of a beat, and if you don't recognize that you might as well stop reading now and log on here.

5th Lil Jon, Ciara and Petey Pablo's nouveau classic Goodies is as good instumental as it is with vocals. Especially we are diggin the garage rock style guitar, that fades in every now and then. Minimalist avant garde crunk ruled the charts in 2004 dude!

6th the first big hit for both David Banner and Lil Flip continues our voyage into minimalist crunk beats. This is a truly hypnotic instrumental from da Banner-man. In fact you could probably loop it for two hours and not get bored with it. But still, don't try that. That would just be too nerdy.

7th The Trackboyz beat for J-Kwon's Tipsy is maybe the most unfuckwithable beat in a couple years (along with some others...). It's just friggin INSANE. How some people manage to not go crazy with this thing playin in the club amazes me. The bass line alone is more interesting than Eminem's whole career. The "We Will Rock You" of teen hiphop.

8th Okay, this is not really crunk whatsoever, but I didn't promise all of it to be either. And anyway, UGK (not UGK) is on the original version so, why the hell not then. "Big Pimpin" is a crazy-ass Timbaland beat, and you'll recognize it in your sleep. It's old as hell, too (1999). Jay-Z laces the beat with some usual Hova hotness and Bun B & Pimp C do their thing first time nationwide. Yeah, and forget the fuckin Linkin Park version already, you make me ewwwwwwww.....

9th Video game madness!!! Lil Flip's HUUUGE "Game Over" blend hot-as-fuck south beats, video game sounds plus a monter-ass bassline into a hella crunk anthemic track. Say no more, hope the new Flipperachi album has anything even half this hot.

10th Welllll, you need some Neptunes beats every now and then don't ya. Many people already forgot about them, but they're still hot. And if you forgot about the first N.E.R.D. album, let me remind you - SHIT IS HOTT! Especially the stuff without the boring live band. This version of Lapdance is all Pharrell & Chad making stuff with the usual farting clavs, smooth keys and punchy drums. It's old (2001), it's a classic, and you gotta love it still.


So log on to that RADIO now people!

Weeded wednesday

jamaican style
Originally uploaded by fiilinc.

Aye Rasta! This week's weird wednesday became weeded wednesday, since spring came suddenly Helsinki (see Hennessy's post below). So this time it's only 5 tunes, nut i promise to give ya'll some new stuff (with a different theme) in a day or two.

So eeritiiz, two brand new Vybz tracks (selected by Hennessy, ya'll should know "Gun session" by now from the blend with Jeezy & Akon's Soul Survivor), two new Beenie tracks (that are pure MUURRRDAHH) and a very anthemic bad man-tune by Ding Dong. IRIE?!

Spring Breaks

Spring Break is not a tradition where I'm from, but I sure hope it someday will be. With or without the brake, spring has finally come here, yippee. To celebrate the summer to come, I usually start listening to even more reggae than I usually do (which is quite lot to begin with). To find out what's new, hot and popular, I recommend these sites below:

Reggae Source charts, from Kingston to NYC

Reggae Vibes TOP-50 albums

Richie B's Jamtop 20

And always check out the Kriton Radio, we also put the best reggae there from times to times. And for Spring Break holidays, you should check out Margaretaville J.A.

Oscar Peterson on Acid.

This is such a nice picture that I don't really care if it's done with Photohop or not. In the picture there is the legendary jazz pianist and composer Oscar Peterson rockin' with some classic Roland products; 'the sound of acid' TB-303, TR-606 drum machine and the maybe-not-quite-so-legendary HS-60 organ. This is how it should be done. I would so much like to hear what it would sound like if the pic was for real. And he looks so happy with the modern wonders of Japanese engineership.

The pic is stolen from the great Music Thing blog, which has a whole discussion going on about Peterson, analog synths and the classic electro of Shannon's "Let The Music Play". Much respect to them.

J’aime Radio Nova Paris

My Stereo
Originally uploaded by Kriton Visuals.

Lists are good. Everyone loves (making) lists. Here is a list of 18 + 1 really-really-really good classic tracks (in no particular order) that I have collected during the last month while listening to Radio Nova Paris in my office. It is simply a trés excellent radio channel with a very special Paris vibe, not least because of the imbécile french radio commercials running there. I love all the songs on the list, and if I wasn’t so lazy/busy I could probably try to collect them and set them up somewhere for you to download. Or fix them up as a play list in Kriton Radio. Maybe.

Baby Huey: Hard Times
Context: If I had a Band
Otis Redding: Security
Sugar Ray: Hold Your Eyes
Cymande: Genevieve
Spanky Wilson: Sunshine People
Greenhornes: There Is An End
Rebirth: Evil Vibrations (Full Length Version)
Fingers Inc.: Can You Feel It?
Gwen McCrae - All This Love I'm Giving
Wendy René: After Laughter (Comes Tears)
The Zombies: Time of the Season
Max Romeo & The Upsetters: Chase the Devil
Gloria Jones: Tainted Love
Ini Kamoze: World-a-Music
Tom Browne: Funkin’ For Jamaica
Willie Hutch: Brothers’ Gonna Work It Out
Smith & Mighty: Same (Edit)
Galt MacDermot: Coffee Cold

Weird s**t wednesday

Weird s**t wednesday
Originally uploaded by fiilinc.

That Huxtable post by Hennessy was way cool. I don't wanna shadow that so I'll keep this one Too $hort and Too Funky.

I came up with this incredible idea for Kriton radio. It's called weird s**t wednesdays. And it means that i uploaded a lot of stuff (11 tracks, actually) to the Kriton radio, that are kind of out of what we usually have. Not they're not friggin free jazz or uruguayan mouth-pipe-music, but they're not your club bangahs either. This time they're actually 80's pop, electro, funk and soul. And The Duplo (impossible to describe it in an easy way). But next time it could be something different. And we're taking these out sooner than other stuff on the radio, too.

So now i challenge Hennessy and Jzzi to come up with some new shit next week and the week after that. Bite that, suckers!

Whoa dude, this is like making proper radio shows, fi godssake!

Cute in a Theo Huxtable kinda way

Arribody knows the Cosby Show, and most of kids today know Curtis Jackson, aka 50 cent. But what suprised me, was the indisputable resemblance between the Cosby actor Malcolm-Jamal Warner and Fifty. Last night I watched 50's film "Get Rich Or Die Trying" and couldn't just stop wondering if these two could actually be the same person. Could they? Why not? Let's think about it: the meek and shy smile, the quiet voice, those bedroom eyes, way they pose to the camera... There is no doubt, mon!

Ok, Malcolm-Jamal (cool name there btw) must be a bit older than Curtis, but you know what they can do with make-up and modern computer technology. What you see in the cinema is a representation of life, not life itself. Don't be fooled and misled by the mass media, children!

This is a cool career move for Theo/Jamal, who was commonly considerer as the nice guy, not a gangsta. For those who still have doubts: have you actually seen Jamal in like 15 years? Maybe he's nowadays really covered in ink, pumped up and been shot and stabbed few times. I mean not to diss 50, he's proved that he has made it, but we must recognize the true talent of Jamal!

Creative parking

In all major cities it is often challenging to find a parking space, when you need one. The best places to dump your vehicle are usually plain illegal or then too tight for your comfy SUV. At least in Helsinki most parking spaces were designed for these smaller rides , very popular from 50's post war -era to 70's oil crisis. So life is not always easy for the urban middle class, yuh know.

Yesterday I bumbed into this interesting and creative solution. This innovative driver had finally found a place where no one else would park. I am still curious to know whether the driver was:

a) a coke snorting, motorhead car thief in need, who thought he was driving a hovercraft

b) a local wino / drunk driver , who could not just see that humongous gap in the road

c) just a lousy sunday driver, with severe difficulties reading common symbols (such as red poles surrounding the hole or the metal fence designed to stop people from falling into places like this)

It would be great the faces of the workers coming to work on those gas pipes on monday morning.

Domestic Drama: SH101 VS. Vacuum Cleaner

Friday evening. I was cleaning the house when something happened. A domestic drama of some sorts. You know, if you were born in the 1970s, like all of us associated with Kriton Music, and if you are not living in a squatted house or otherwise in a 100% rock'n'roll lifestyle, you gotta clean the house every once in a while to keep everything nice and tidy.

Ok. I was vacuuming the house, and I noticed that my most beloved monophonic analog synth, my Roland SH-101, was a bit dusty. I dediced to give it a quick once over with vacuum cleaner and then it happened: WHUP! Before I could do anything, the vacuum cleaner had sucked the Volume knob in. Just like that! First I freaked out but then I adjusted myself into a total McGyver-mode, took out the dust container bag and dug the knob out. Everything was good again. What did I learn about this? I dunno...

The Spirit Of Kriton Radio!

The Spirit Of Kriton Radio!
Originally uploaded by fiilinc.

Finally. A LOT of new ish uploaded to Kriton Radio as well as old tunes taken off. This is how we do it at Kriton HQ's, we keep it movin, dude! New stuff new stuff new stuff.

a) The new new T.I. is just unfuckwithable. There just ain't no frontin on the KING. Number one album in the US, 500 000 sold on first week, number three movie with "ATL". That's why, we got "Front Back", T.I.'s hot new version of the UGK classic. Which leads us to...

b) Pimp C. Yeah, the mayne's been out for a couple months now and new UGK material is on the way. But now we're looking back to his solo album "The Sweet James Jones Stories" from 2004. Good album, even if it's made with spare rhymes from UGK sessions. The beats still sound hot as heck! And when Z-Ro does his Vandross thing in the chorus, it's just too friggin' cool.

c) That new Bubba Sparxxx album sounds also damn good. Now under Big Boi's supervision and only one Timbo beat (as far as i hear, no beat credits on the advance cd). Plus: new dude Scar sounds almost exactly like Raphael Saadiq on this one, which is always good...

d) That new Ghostface shit is already a classic. This time we got Tony Sparks messing with an old Stylistics track.

e) You can never go wrong with Misfits. NEVER!

f) That new Luda/Field Mob blend from the latest Kriton promo cd. You already know what it iiiiiis.

g) And finally, Ambrosia. Anyone got a cold one and a burrito to spare?

ps. those new reggae joints are uploaded by Hennessy-mayne. So i'll let him do the explaining. Just enjoy!

Back to the Best Gay Sauna in Finland

A while I ago I wrote about the gay Vogue Sauna here in my hood, Vallila. Then a bit later it turned out that a friend, who shall remain nameless, who lives in London but spent some time here in Helsinki last autumn, had in fact already sampled the flavors available there. This is what he wrote to me today:

"PS: being the kind of “Helsinki insider wannabe” that I am, I took the liberty of checking Vogue/ Con hombres before I left. It was all pretty harmless during my visit(s)- looking at the interior design, making sure if they complied with the health standards and fire safety regulations, that kind of thing."

And another thing; our man Alppila has been updating the playlist on the Kriton Radio Blog with some hot new 'ish. Anyhow, even if Rick Ross "Hustlin'" is super hot, my favorite track there is still the very excellent T.O.K. "Top Shotta".

One more thing; our Super Secret Interweb Intelligence Department has found out that we had people from Italy, Portugal, Israel, Germany, USA and Canada among other countries reading the Kriton Blog yesterday. Nice, the Kriton Boys salute you, strangers!

Sigue Sigue Sputnik Mania!

This message has reached me from the infinite cyberspace that is the interweb:



A Helsinki CD-R label 267 lattajjaa
( http://www.saunalahti.fi/~hhaahti/267lattajjaa/ )
is seeking for contributors to a Sigue Sigue Sputnik
tribute album, to create a cover version of their legendary
1986 hit 'Love Missile F1-11'. Any musical style OK.

If interested, contact: hhaahti(AT)dlc.fi

More info about Sigue Sigue Sputnik:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigue_Sigue_Sputnik
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigue_Sigue_Sputnik

"Sigue Sigue released their first single, the classic 'Love Missile F1-11' in 1986. It climbed to number two in the British charts. 'Love Missile F1-11' was number one in 15 countries for at least one week. The single, as well as the album that followed, was produced by Giorgio Moroder. The band auctioned advertising spaces between the tracks on their first album 'Flaunt It' (released in 1986)."

Now, how cool is that?! that Sigue Sigue Sputnik were like the coolest band in a world for a moment and I still have their second 7" single "21st Century Digital Boy" which I bought from the music department of the Stockman department store in Tapiola, Espoo, when it came out in -86, obviously I was quite young at the time... But I loved it and I am not ashamed to admit that. Sure, they looked weird, even weirder, but at the same time also super dope, just look at that synth guitar!!! The music is kinda crap but still, if you are ready to go all out like they did, you just gotta respect that.

Anyway, some of us Kriton Boys and our friends are going to do our very best and to contribute a version of F1-11 for the tribute album. Watch this space!

UPDATE!!! UPDATE!!! UPDATE!!! UPDATE!!! UPDATE!!! UPDATE!!!

If yo'all wanna hear some peek previews of what's gonna be on the comp, go to our friend Mr. Sandal Flamenberg's MySpace and listen to his 'stoner-pop' rendition of the F1-11 Love Missile in his MySpace-player thingy. It like totally rRRRocks, dude!

K-FED the future of (baile) funk

K-FED the future of (baile) funk
Originally uploaded by fiilinc.

Here's the thing. That brazilian baile funk madness has been circultaing around the dj / connoisseur / hipster / nerdy fool -set for almost two years now, yet there has been no signs of mainstream acceptance for this musical mayhem. Hell, even the Kriton peoples have alreay signed the baile-friendly Spazz Out (although they refuse to call it that - instead they call it Bailu Funk - the finnish way), waiting for the big baile bucks to roll into their swizz bank accounts.

But things are about to change. The dude who got the second (or fourth) hottest chick in the game wearing his chain, the leader of the weededed, the king of the trailers, K-FED, otherwise known as Britney's hubby Kevin Federline is now doing some carioca funk influenced booty music. The track is produced by the formerly known as mr. ghetto tech (now also known for discovering Nina Sky and producing for Fiddy Cent), the one and only Disco D. And his brazilian fiancee sings the chorus.

And if that isn't shocking enough, the weedmeister (k-fed, that is) is repping bay area rap (and other good music) in the latest issue of XXL. He claims to have listened to Dru Down, Mac Dre, Mac Mall, e-40, NWA, 2 Live Crew, Digital Underground, Kool Moe Dee etc throughout his youth. His next single is gonna be "strictly for people in the south". Now how you gonna take that, all you backpackers, hipsters and fellow rap nerds?

Anyway, why am i ranting here? Go to the Kriton radio and check out K-Fed's PopoZao. BTW PopoZao means "Big Ass" in portugese. Huge surprise there!

Fat Cap Fever

I went through my old stuff yesterday and found an old stack of papers from my highschool days. It was actually nothing more than some old report cards and such, but the folder I found them in was more interesting. Supposedly I had spent those boring math classes practising my tags to near perfection (!)

Yes, I guess was a writer, not a painter in the 80's. It was a very a short period in my life, but I have felt the rush and excitement of the empty train yard at night, and the howling cop sirens... It all obviously started with a certain Twisted Sister -album art, made by Vulcan (http://www.vulcandesigns.net/). However I never got caught and I was wise enough to stop before I did. But I still strongly support graffiti art in its all forms. Reclaim the walls!

And do notice the cool Florida sticker as well. I guess Miami Vice was also a big thing in 1988.