Why Don’t American Cities Burn? is a book written by a Penn history prof who addresses the question, Why don’t American cities burn? The author talks at Grindcore House TONIGHT, and I wrote about it for PW’s calendar.

Also, for the calendar, I wrote about LP Stiles’ J Dilla tribute this Friday at World Cafe. Along with a host of MCs, the band will play tunes by the LEGENDARY hip-hop producer.

ROTATING HEAVILY: Curtis Mayfield’s solo discography.

My lawyer, Steve Bambi, and I started a Tumblr. Go look at it and you’ll get it.
Tumblr: PRESUPPOSING SWAYZE
Twitter: @presupposwayze

Last week I talked to Ryan Kattner, aka Honus Honus, the frontman of Philly band Man Man. They play Union Transfer Saturday night. We talked about how their latest album, Life Fantastic, didn’t get the praise it deserved. I wrote about the chat for Metro.

Also, check out the review I wrote of Life Fantastic for Philadelphia Weekly back in May, 2011. I got the inspiration for it while sitting on the toilet at a friend’s house reading Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search For Meaning.

Oh, so Soul Asylum swapped Jefferson Airplane's L for an Sh as an angsty, 90s modification. I get it now.—
Elliott Sharp (@elliottsharp) January 18, 2012

In case that’s too vague, I’ll explain.

First recorded by folk outfit The Great Society, “Somebody To Love” is a song made popular by Jefferson Airplane on 1967′s Surrealistic Pillow. If you’ve ever listened to the radio, you’ve heard it.

In 1992, an alternative rock back from Minnesota released a song called “Somebody To Shove” on their hit album, Grave Dancers Reunion. If you’re as old as I am, you owned this CD.

Both songs are cynical, and dark, but different. “Somebody To Love” articulates a miserable social/political scene/world and posits that loving somebody is a solution to it. Finding somebody to love is how you overcome such horror.

In “Somebody To Shove,” there’s really no escape from the (mostly inarticulate) horror. Alienation, despair, nihilism, etc. A phone call that would prove the narrator’s existence/worth never comes, and so the solution is both to shove somebody and to be shoved by somebody. Enter what is now known as “The Mosh Pit.”

I’m sure someone has already written at length about this profound connection I came upon yesterday.

However, if it was 1992, and I was writing a review of Grave Dancers Reunion, I’d be sure to articulate the death of ’60s love-hippie-optimism found in “Somebody To Love” and contrast it with the hate-grunge-pessimism exemplified by the alt-rock generation via “Somebody To Shove.” I’d write about Reagan, Bush, etc. I’d write, “Those fucking assholes ruined the country!” I’d write about how terrible everything in the world was between 1967 and 1992, and how the hope of the hippies inevitably led to the hate running through the veins of their disgruntled children.

But I’d also note this: In “Somebody To Shove,” the narrator requests, not just to shove, but to be shoved. In this, perhaps, there is something to celebrate. It’s a call for war, yes. But not just a call to shove somebody who cannot, in turn, defend themselves by shoving back. It’s a call for a just war, and not just a victim. “Seeking a worthy opponent is what heroes do,” I’d write.

But, it would be 1992, and I wouldn’t know what I know now. I wouldn’t know that the war was really just a mosh pit. I wouldn’t know that, just like the hippies, the alt-rockers failed.

That’s what happened when I wrote the PW cover on dubstep/electronic music back in November. Everyone knew a DJ, and every DJ other than the ones I mentioned deserved to be mentioned more than the ones I mentioned. Anyway, such is the game.

But, I think it’s an overall solid issue, for which I wrote four profiles. It seems obvious to me why these artists should be included.

1. Cee-Knowledge. He’s the local veteran, and you probably know him as Doodlebug of Digable Planets. Following the 2010/11 return of DP’s Butterfly as Shabazz Palaces, there’s been some buzz about a proper DP reunion, including a new album. Whether than happens or not, Cee-Knowledge is out there making music, and I think it was important to spotlight him because very few people seem to know that he’s from Philly. In fact, a few opening paragraphs that I put in to further illustrate Cee’s Philly roots were unfortunately cut from the article. Thus, I’m including them here.

“Central High would bring DJ Jazzy Jeff and Will Smith into the gym for these wild dance parties,” Craig Irving remembers about coming up in Philadelphia as a teenager in the 1980s. “Everyone was wearing Adidas shell toes with fat laces. You’d have to look over your shoulder cause a thug element was always clocking to see who had the illest new shit. Philly was the truth!”

He taped Lady B’s rap radio shows and studied the rhymes. “I could get the channel, but I had to really twist the antennae. If it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t know rap music. From Schoolly D to Meek Mill, B taught us all.”

“They don’t have block parties like they used to,” Irving says about summer afternoons spent barbecuing and digging tunes spun by DJs Cosmic Kev, Spinbad and Cash Money near his grandmother’s house on Forrest Avenue. “They’d have these gigantic speakers and everyone’d be cuttin’ it up. Young cats like me would stand by the booth and try to figure out what records were spinning, but DJs blacked-out the labels so nobody could find out. Good times!”

2. Jahlil Beats & The Beat Bully. Two young brothers, 23 and 20 respectively, from Chester, Pa. They blew up this year, with Jahlil signing to Roc Nation, and the Bully currently entertaining a Maybach deal. They also produced two of the best, and most popular, rap songs by a Philadelphia artist this year, namely Meek Mill. Jahlil’s responsible for “Ima Boss,” the Bully’s responsible for “House Party,” both on Meek’s Dreamchasers mixtape.

3. Gun$ Garcia. Gun$ exists somewhere between hip-hop and club musics. She hasn’t done any production work, and she’s not an MC. She’s a DJ. However, her Bad Bitches Bomb First mixtape–featuring all female MCs–was the only album by a woman to be featured on any significant hip-hop year-end lists for 2011. Her tape popped up on Spin’s top rap list.

4. Young Chris. IMO, Chris is the second best rapper in Philadelphia (with Meek Mill at #1). 1/2 of Young Gunz, and a member of State Property, Chris got fucked after Jay-Z’s Roc-A-Fella records abandoned its Philly roster. Yet, Chris has continued to grind on the mixtape circuit, and his output is consistently good. His Revival (2011) mixtape was dope.

Oh, strange. I also wrote about the Pissed Jeans show for Philadelphia Weekly. It was this week’s Critics Pick. This is what they call double-dipping. But when you always live on the edge of financial collapse, such things no longer matter. I would write about this show 100 times if there were 98 more papers in Philly.

Also wrote a few masterpiece 120 worders for PW’s calendar thing. One on on some Early Animation screenings at International House, another on London pop-kid King Krule, and another on this punk-rock photo exhibit called “Taking Notes On The Underground” up now at the always lovely Grindcore House.

Rotating Heavily: Everything by Young Chris, especially The Revival, especially “Bring Em Out.”

When we approached Cornel, he was hollering at about six people getting into a van. The encounter was interesting–like that scene from Astra Taylor’s Examined Life doc where he hops outta the car and immediately starts talking to someone. He was moving and talking, moving and talking.

Moving on…. Made it to Vox, but really only to go to my friend’s record store. Hiding Place is on the 2nd floor. For the first time in a long time, I bought some albums. Here’s something I snagged.

Tony Tee – Time To Get Physical (RoofTop, 1988)

Wrote about Honest Tom’s Taco Shop for Metro. A new addition to the neighborhood menu. Could have more flavor, but there’s still time. I add mad hot sauce to my tacos/burritos, so that makes it work.

That “I Will Never Listen Aloud To My Favorite Song Of 2011″ thing I wrote for Thought Catalog was republished over at Impose Magazine.

My GF made a new cartoon short called “Moby Dick by Moby Dick” and used one of my old recordings.