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!