Bronx Tales
December 10, 2011
My latest Complex Magazine 25 Essential Songs online feature is with none other than Bronx legend Fat Joe, one of my favorite rappers of all time. He spits hard, has plenty of charisma, and he knows how to make hits. And he had plenty of great stories to tell about working with guys like Big Pun, Nas, Kool G. Rap, Big L, and Eminem, and even had me cracking up on the phone a few times too! Plus, he got on speaker phone when the interview was over to say what’s up to a few of my middle school kids at the BGC and show them some love. Here’s the link to the feature. Enjoy…
Fat Joe Breaks Down his 25 Essential Songs
And here’s a clip of Fat Joe I dug up (that he referred to in the interview) backstage at The Fever on Video Music Box with Ralph McDaniels before his first album dropped. And everybody is in the building with him! KRS-One, Kool DJ Red Alert, Dres from Black Sheep, Showbiz and A.G., Lord Finesse, DJ Premier, Sadat X, etc. Pretty ill…
Thanks to Macho and the god Fat Joe for making the interview happen. And special shout to my boy Kam down in Miami for the connection. Cheah!
All The Way Live with Black Moon
August 29, 2011
My latest All The Way Live piece for Charged.FM features legendary Brooklyn rap group Black Moon, who recently performed their classic debut album Enta Da Stage in its entirety with a live band at Southpaw in Park Slope. The show itself was excellent, as were opening performances by their Duck Down brethren Smif N Wessun and Sean Price, and I had the pleasure of interviewing Black Moon’s lead MC, Buckshot, before their set backstage (see pic below). We talked about his past performance experiences, rocking with a live band, memories of a classic cipher with Nas and Kool G. Rap, and being in the studio with Biggie. Check the link under the pic for the full review of the show, and the interview with pics and video from the night too, courtesy of Charged.FM…
All The Way Live with Black Moon
And here’s the video for Black Moon “I Got Cha Opin (RMX),” a song that instantly brings me back to my high school years. I remember thumping this in our limo on the way to the prom!
Big thanks to Duck Down generals DruHa and his brother NoHa from White Plains for helping to hook up the interview (and their publicist Matt). I’ve known those dudes for years, and DruHa actually let me open up for Smif N Wessun at The Knitting Factory back in 2005, something I will never forget. Good people. And big props to Black Moon and the rest of the Duck Down crew for putting on a great show! Real hip hop lives!
All The Way Live with Jones Street Station
August 16, 2011
My latest All The Way Live feature for Charged.FM is with Jones Street Station, a very talented and cool folk rock band out of Brooklyn. I had the pleasure of interviewing them backstage before their show on August 4th at Bowery Ballroom, and the write up includes my sit down discussion with them about their past and present performance experiences, a review of their set, and pictures and video from the show. Check out the link below, and also a video clip from Bowery Ballroom of their wonderful cover of country singer John Hartford’s “Tall Buildings,” which was their closing number….
All The Way Live with Jones Street Station
For more on Jones Street Station, including a free download of a new song from their upcoming album, click HERE. Peace out.
Pearl Jam In Yonkers ’91
August 9, 2011
This is pretty fucking incredible. In 1991, Pearl Jam played an in-store acoustic set at the old Tower Records in Yonkers on Central Avenue during their promotional tour of Ten. I never knew about this until last week, when my boy Tommy Dee (PJ fanatic) told me about it, and said the video was on YouTube. Turns out there’s actually some decent footage of their whole set. This is as Westcheddar as it gets people. Enjoy these vintage 914 clips from one of the greatest bands of all time…
“Alive”
“Black”
“Wash”
I still have never seen PJ live. Definitely near the top of my bucket list. Later dudes.
Dear Amy
July 27, 2011
Dear Amy,
I first was introduced to your music by my wife around the time Back to Black came out. We just started dating, and she heard “You Know I’m No Good” on Hot 97, the version with Ghostface Killah rapping on it, and asked me to find it for her. From there, we copped the album, and fell in love, literally. My memories of falling in love with my wife coincide with listening to Back to Black, which is ironic because that album is made up mostly of songs that vividly describe the painful experiences you were having with your man. But it truly was a staple in our early times together. We listened to it constantly in the car and the crib. And as I do with all artists I’m into, I went searching for rarities and unreleased songs of yours, and found a couple gems to add to heavy rotation.
Pretty instantly, Back to Black made its way into my desert island Top Five Albums. I mean, the songwriting and production style is just amazing. And your voice, holy cow, it’s one of a kind. I became obsessed with watching these live videos of you performing your songs unplugged (like the one posted below), and I was in awe of your natural ability. You would just kill it to the point where I’d have to rewind certain moments in the song because I was so impressed with how effortlessly you were going in. And the fact that you were Jewish blew my mind! I felt a deep connection to you as a fellow Jew with soul. Pardon the corniness, but it’s true. I used to love to hear you in interviews say how you felt like a little black boy trapped in a white girl’s body.
On New Year’s Eve of 2009, about eight months after our wedding, my pregnant wife and I invited some friends over to celebrate the new decade. After the ball dropped, we all danced along to your live DVD, mimicking your background dancers and singing all your lyrics. It was the perfect way to start 2010. Five months later, our first son was born, and we would play your music around the house all the time, making memories to your songs.
Like many of your fans did, I’d constantly wonder when we were going to hear some new music from you. Eventually, it became more common to see you in the tabloids than to hear you on the radio, and that worried me. But I continued to root for you, because I believed in you and knew there was a beautiful person beneath all the rubbish, and hoped that you would be well enough one day to give us another batch of classic songs. Unfortunately, you passed away before you were able to.
I’m still uncertain about what happens when humans die, but I’d like to think that you are now an angel, free from stress, addiction, and heartache, spending your days singing and laughing and smiling with other angels who care about you. My hope is that somewhere there is a vault filled with songs of yours we have never heard, and that someone will be kind enough to open it up and share them with us one day. But regardless, you are immortalized by the timeless music you already gave us.
Thank you for everything you contributed to our world. You will never be forgotten. RIP.
ip
Best Of Westchester Top 5 Tables 2011
July 21, 2011
Westcheddar correspondent Billy Henderson was back on the scene last night at Westchester Magazine’s Best of Westchester 2011 party to scope out the restaurants with tables serving the tastiest free food. Check the resume…
It’s that time of the year again all. Thanks to Uncle Ralph for another great night. A little hot this year but that’s always better than rain. I stepped into this year’s party with a right hand that had a second degree burn and within an hour I had another issue. Upstairs I came across a French restaurant that was serving a little cup with shrimp and a pretentious coconut foam. As I got close to see what what was in the cup besides shrimp, some Frenchman attempted to “foam” my cup. A second or two into this “foaming”, the foam gun exploded into my left eye. After an emergency trip to the bathroom to clean my eye, I convinced myself that strangling some French guy is probably a bad idea. I returned to the same table to many apologies and I stood a few feet away as they “foamed” me a second time. Apparently coconut foam is more important than salt. Maybe next year Frenchie. So now I have one hand, one eye and a Bronx palate. Let’s get into it.
1. Crabtree Kittle House
11 Kittle Road
Chappaqua, NY 10514-1800
www.kittlehouse.com
914.666.8044
This place shows up with one chef, an attractive young lady to serve, and some suit to serve and bullshit. There is one dish. One great dish as opposed to three embarrassing ones. A slice of cherry wood smoked Duck breast, over a toasted fennel/cabbage slaw paired with a pickled cherry. Lights out. Amateur hour is now over. Put away your foam blasters and step your duck game up.
2. Mt. Kisco Seafood
477 Lexington Avenue
Mt. Kisco, NY 10549
www.mtkiscoseafood.com
914.241.3113
Not a restaurant but they do cater. The setup was a simple one; a table full of shaved ice that was covered with Connecticut Clams and Oysters from Virginia. Both were shucked in front of you and were described as “candy from Virginia and Connecticut.” Couldn’t have said it better.
3. F.A.B.
222 EAST MAIN STREET
MT KISCO, NY 10549
www.fabbistro.com
914.864.1661
These guys are in the running for me every year. The first dish was fresh Tuna salad on a homemade bun that was a size of a quarter. The second was a perfectly cooked scallop over a fresh corn relish with a roasted shallot aioli. Two strong dishes from a French place. No french foam or chefs involved at this table. Go figure.
4. Sushi Mike’s
146 Main Street.
Dobbs Ferry, NY 10522
www.sushimikes.com
914.591.0054
Sushi Mike’s is always great. I overheard Sushi Mike telling another chef that he made 5,000 pieces of Sushi this year. Apparently 5,000 pieces of Sushi is just enough to let you run around the place, get drunk and flirt with rich white women. We’re gonna need a few thousand more pieces next year playboy. Just sayin’.
5. X2O
71 Water Grant Street
Yonkers, NY 10701
www.xaviars.com
914.965.1111
Chef Peter Kelly was on hand to personally serve his tuna seviche in a plastic cone. Fresh Tuna, watermelon, pineapple, dicon, poblano pepper and some source of acid. Tasty, clean and refreshing. Had to use the handle of my plastic fork to loosen the pieces jammed at the bottom of my cone. A much smaller pain in the ass than digging coconut foam out of your eye.
Shout to Westcheddar for being the best blog in Westchester. You gotta year to get a babysitter Stanley. See ya next year. Get there early. That’s my list. If you don’t agree, I really don’t care. Gracias.
Nice work Billy! Always an entertaining breakdown, and I love to see Mt. Kisco taking home three of the top five tables, you know your boy is well rooted in that community. I’ll def try to make it out next year. Stay cool Westcheddar!
Record Breaker
May 11, 2011
A couple weeks ago, Chiddy (from the up and coming Philly based rap group Chiddy Bang) broke the Guiness Book world record for the longest freestyle ever, clocking in at 9 hours, 18 minutes, and 22 seconds, beating the previous record by 2 minutes. See the video of him surpassing the old record HERE. Unfortunately for him though, Boyder, one of Asher Roth’s rapping homies, already set a new record!!! Not really, but peep the video of him pretending to break Chiddy’s record above. It shows clips of him freestyling in the shower, with a chick on his lap watching TV, and even while poking holes in a yam as he microwaves it. Favorite Boyder line, “I just be jogging down the street, eating Greek yogurt”, which he spits while actually jogging down the street eating Greek yogurt. Stupid but funny. Sorry, but I love shit like this. Peace to Boyder, Asher, and the rest of their crew. Good dudes. Hollerrrrr.
Shins Shizz
April 16, 2011
I’m one of the biggest Shins fans on the planet. So when I heard James Mercer (lead singer) played a new song of theirs at a recent benefit concert in Portland, I got super open. Not to be confused with THESE. Check out the performance of the untitled song above, it’s verrry niiiiice. Video isn’t the best, but the audio quality is clean. And for good measure, I thought I’d post a classic live performance of “When I Goosestep” from 2004, which happens to be one of my favorite Shins songs (the stripped down version not the Wicker Park version, duh). I’m such a Shins nerd…
Hopefully that new Shins album will be coming out sometime this year. Actually, James Mercer and Danger Mouse’s group Broken Bells just dropped a little EP Meyrin Fields. Listen to the best song off it, “Windows”, HERE. And I’ve been waiting for a reason to post this James Mercer interview he did with himself a few years back (during the Chutes Too Narrow days). Weird but cool. Watch!
By the way, in somewhat related news, I got my hands on that new Fleet Foxes album, and it’s pretty fuckin’ dope. Cop that May 3rd. Uno.
*UPDATE*
Paste Magazine just put out a list of their Top Ten Shins Songs (So Far). Props to them for putting the stripped-down recording above of “When I Goosestep” at #1! Read/listen HERE.
Ipcus Madness Recap
April 5, 2011
Well, Ipcus Madness is in the books, and the winner of the Greatest Stan Ipcus Song Of All Time is “The La Life”! We started with a field of 64 songs, worked it down to the Sticky Sixteen, then the Final Forties, and finally, after many votes tallied on Facebook, Twitter, Email, Text, and BBM, there was one winner. ”The La Life”, Produced by my good bud Max B, and written and recorded during my Senior year at College Park (’99/2000), is a song about life as a young weed smoker. It’s kind of the dark side of it all, truthfully. And although I could have never predicted that it would take home the crown as GSISOAT, I’m proud of it, and consider it probably the realest song I ever wrote and recorded. I guess the real always wins. Shouts to “I Does This”, who lost in the finals by about 5 votes. I was also surprised that song made it as far as it did, taking out “Real Ganja Talk” in the Sticky Sixteen. But even with a low quality recording, and only clocking in at 1:38, it’s swag was on a hundred thousand million and almost took the title home. Peep the Final Forties poster above (by Will Merchan), and the Sticky Sixteen below (by David Roy)…
I gotta say, when we got to the Sticky Sixteen, I was pretty happy with the songs that had gotten there. I was surprised “Wifey Material” got knocked out in the first round (by “Don’t Mind Me Miss”), and “Chilly Chill” took out the Asher Roth diss which was also surprising, but all the #1 seeds were still in, and I really thought the bigger songs would overpower the rest of the field. Then, “Real Ganja Talk” went down, “Hammer” went down, “Ippy Strut” went down, and “My Ferris Buellers” went down, all in the Sticky Sixteen, and I was stunned. Wow, all the songs that I thought might win it all were knocked out. The only one left that I thought had enough heat to take it all the way was “Pay U No Mind”, which ended up getting knocked out by one vote in the Final Forties by the champ. I’d say “Chilly Chill” was the biggest surprise sleeper of the tournament, definitely didn’t even think it would make it out of the first round, though I do really like that track. All in all, it was a fun last minute idea I had, that was executed well, and I loved the participation from not only old and new friends, but also just fans of Stan Ipcus music that I’ve never met personally. Some really passionate peeps got involved, and that was super cool to see. And props to Soundcloud, who’s embedding/link sharing and streaming game is so sick that it made the tournament run beautifully. Here’s how the bracket finished out (props to Bracket Maker too):
Also, here’s the second verse of “The La Life”, which instantly brings me back to a cloudy day in College Park. I actually wrote that verse as a poem for my History of Blues class, and read it for the entire lecture as part of a group presentation (Aaron McGruder, the creator of The Boondocks, was in my group). I got an A.
When I get the blues I keep my eyes red with la to head,
hold it down for the fam, that’s what my Mom and Pop said,
what they don’t know only hurts them much more,
my daily walk is down the hill to get a Dutch from the store,
I stroll dolo in the Polo but why even get dipped,
herbs that pass me by you better chill or else you’ll get gipped,
honeys used to get a smile, now they get an ice frown,
saw my old girl last night, I just gave her a pound,
no convo, instead I stayed on the low,
only concern for right now is “Yo, where’s the dro?”
I wanna stoop it, lay up and get stupid,
used to be about the ladies until I lost my faith in Cupid,
love at first sight sounds alright until she spends the night,
seeing her again depends on if she keeps it tight,
I sleep it off, wake up and walk it off,
gips talk my ear off while I’m sitting sipping beer at The Loft,
I watch the ballgame, all these birds know our name,
thinking White Plains cats will send them down the Walk of Shame,
sure I bagged a couple, shagged the double D’s with matching bubble,
puffed some trees and stayed out of trouble,
now I stay burnt like siena,
got my mans in VA, Portland, Philly, NY, and Siena,
school be blowing mines, half the time I got my mind on dimes,
the kind and wine it keeps me feeling fine,
at high noon I rise, missed a class to get some ass,
what a relief, before I brush my teeth I twist some grass,
these girls got my head, school got my bread,
I need to get on track, instead I take a sack to head,
and that’s The La Life….
Thanks to everyone who participated in Ipcus Madness! Mad love!!!!
STREAM/DOWNLOAD IP’S FAVORITES PLAYLIST
Ipcus Madness
March 17, 2011
Since my Terps didn’t make the NCAA Tournament this year, I decided to bring something new to March. IPCUS MADNESS. A tournament featuring a field of 64 Stan Ipcus songs, all fighting to be voted THE GREATEST STAN IPCUS SONG OF ALL TIME!!!! Peep the bracket below…
The first round starts today. To play, all you have to do is stay tuned to my Facebook, Twitter, or Soundcloud, listen to the two songs in each game that I post, and vote for your favorite! Posting your votes on Facebook underneath each game post is probably the preferred method, but if you aren’t on FB, use the other links below to follow along and vote by hitting me up with @ replys or DMs on Twitter or leaving your votes in the Westcheddar comments section…
STAN IPCUS FACEBOOK or STAN IPCUS TWITTER
(Souncloud is where all the battles are posted to scroll through)
I will update the bracket above with winners, and recap all the action on Westcheddar too. Thanks for participating. Enjoy the music, and most importantly, have fun!!!!!!!
