This whole next month of
SCOUT shows is gonna be sw-eet.

First of all, due to popular demand, Variable Unit will be jamming a lot more on its own.

Another change: We're having a different DJ every week now for the opener.

This week, DJ Quest. Next week, DJ Marz (another of the Space Travelers). The week after that, we don't know yet...

Here's the line up for tomorrow night's show. (Wed June 1, 2005)

DJ Quest - Opening from 9-10pm

Guest MCs:

MC Link-Letterz
(Ctrl Z)

Paulie Rhyme
(Finless Brown)

JBo
(Nightcrawlers)

Zealous

Special Guests TBA

Update 2:22pm: Okay, I figured out on my own (doh!) that I just had to check a box in the weblog config- and then rebuild my category archives so they existed. Simple enough.

Now I'm trying to have more than two entries on my home page. Any ideas? -- thanks!

Hi guys,

I'm just trying to implement a CategoryList module (see code below) in the Wide Hive Blog, and I'm getting this error. Is there an MT tag that has changed names or something?

An error occurred:
Build error in template 'Main Index': Error in tag: Build error in template 'CategoryList': Error in tag: The archive type specified in MTArchiveList ('Category') is not one of the chosen archive types in your blog configuration.

code in the CategoryList module:

<div class="sidetitle">
All Categories
</div>

<div class="side">
<MTArchiveList archive_type="Category">
<a href="<$MTArchiveLink$>"><$MTArchiveTitle encode_html="1"$></a> (<$MTArchiveCount$>)<br />
</MTArchiveList>
</div>

Or it may not. But it kinda seems like it.

(I love this stuff. The sooner we figure out how the brain works, the sooner we can go about creating a computer to house our consciousness, the sooner we can get on with the singularity already.)
(Never mind that it'll never work :-)

BRAIN PIC: CENTER FOR BRAIN AND COGNITION, UCSD

Brain Region Linked to Metaphor Comprehension

Vilayanur S. Ramachandran of the University of California at San Diego and his colleagues tested four patients who had experienced damage to the left angular gyrus region of their brains...

The angular gyrus is more developed in humans than in other primates and is located in the brain at the junction of areas specialized for processing touch, hearing and vision. "While it would be premature to conclude that the angular gyrus is the 'metaphor center' of the human brain," Ramachandran says, "we suggest that the evolution of the dominant angular gyrus contributed enormously to the evolution of many quintessentially human abilities, including metaphorical--and other abstract--thinking." He will present the results on Friday at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Society in Los Angeles.

Here is the full text of the entire article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa003&articleID=000BE01D-E7E3-1294-A7E383414B7F0000

SCIENCE NEWS
May 26, 2005

Brain Region Linked to Metaphor Comprehension
Science Image: brain scan
Image: CENTER FOR BRAIN AND COGNITION, UCSD

Metaphors make for colorful sayings, but can be confusing when taken literally. A study of people who are unable to make sense of figures of speech has helped scientists identify a brain region they believe plays a key role in grasping metaphors.

Vilayanur S. Ramachandran of the University of California at San Diego and his colleagues tested four patients who had experienced damage to the left angular gyrus region of their brains. All of the volunteers were fluent in English and otherwise intelligent, mentally lucid and able to engage in normal conversations. But when the researchers presented them with common proverbs and metaphors such as "the grass is always greener on the other side" and "reaching for the stars," the subjects interpreted the sayings literally almost all of the time. After being pressed by the interviewers to provide deeper meaning, "the patients often came up with elaborate, even ingenious interpretations, that were completely off the mark," Ramachandran remarks. For example, patient SJ expounded on "all that glitters is not gold" by noting that you should be careful when buying jewelry because the sellers could rob you of your money.

The angular gyrus is more developed in humans than in other primates and is located in the brain at the junction of areas specialized for processing touch, hearing and vision. "While it would be premature to conclude that the angular gyrus is the 'metaphor center' of the human brain," Ramachandran says, "we suggest that the evolution of the dominant angular gyrus contributed enormously to the evolution of many quintessentially human abilities, including metaphorical--and other abstract--thinking." He will present the results on Friday at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Society in Los Angeles. --Sarah Graham

CommonBits has a number of recent politically-oriented Daily Show clip
up as torrents.

http://www.commonbits.org/tag/daily-show

Including:

GayWatch: Spokane Mayor Jim West

D.C. Evacuation and Korean Nuclear Threat

Avian Ressurection of the Arkansas Woodpecker

Great Moments in Punditry as read by Children: Scarborough Country on
Religion

Bush's Attack on the Clinton Roadless Rule

Great Moments in Punditry as read by Children: Rev. Jerry Falwell &
Chris Matthews

An Interview with Tom Ridge

Coverage of the recent U.K. Election of Tony Blair

This is from the March 6, 2005 program of
60 Minutes.

Tom Delay vs. the Austin, TX District Attorney
Mirror of these clips

It's really interesting to me to watch the Repubs strategy in action: break the law however you need to, challenge the laws themselves, and wait a couple years until a good judge has a chance to set things straight.

Oh yeah, don't forget to call them an "activist judge" when they use their skill and conscience to interpret the law accordingly.

By that time, you've already won the election, or passed the faulty legislation, or redistricted precincts or completed whatever short term goal you were after. The courts will never, ever be able to keep up the pace after you.

In this case, DeLay is challenging what is meant by "Administrative" costs. He is being investigated for allegedly using funds for other purposes than they were legally allowed to be used.

"Administrative" uses have always meant rent, power, phone bills, etc.
According to his own brochures, he was clearly using the money for other purposes.

Note that this particular "scandal" is different from the numerous other misallocations of funds that DeLay has alredy been admonished for by a congressional ethics committee, or the other recent stuff that just surfaced about taking a vacation on a lobbyist's wallet.

For those of you who are interested in such things...

Here's a link to a prototype of a
Wide Hive Media Player
(Thanks Nacho!)

So far, I was just planning on making all of our samples available via the media player, so that cover art and purchase info could be displayed while the songs played. We're also going to make it so you can just start at one song and have the player keep going through our entire sample library.

Love to hear your other suggestions for this.

thanks,

lisa

Here's a very funny and accurate review of the evening's events of May 18, 2005.


Rocky Types with Rocky Flows
By Rob Harvilla for the East Bay Express.

Here's a quote from the article:

But who wants absolute confidence and total success at a hip-hop jam session anyway? Embrace this experiment's danger and uncertainty, which can only magnify its high points. Beatboxers are Scout's secret weapon -- Howe raves that the prior week featured the talented crew Felonious, which valiantly challenged McCree to a Live Drums vs. Beatboxing battle. This time out, Each of the highly talented Vowel Movement crew took on both McCree and VU turntable expert DJ Quest, and though he lost on both counts, he tackled the job with admirable enthusiasm. As did Tha Archivez, a robust pirate radio dude who launched into a spastic, hilariously unhinged freestyle that seemed to last a half-hour, to the point where he was forced to rhyme Frisco with Crisco.

Will any of these performances make the Scout CD? Perhaps not, but quiet excellence gets old fast -- Scout's awkward humanity and human drama make it both fascinating and slightly more authentic than your typical polished MC flow.

Here's some feedback from us at Wide Hive on the Rob's constructive criticism.

We were generally very pleased with the article.
(And it's pretty funny too!)

Here is the full text of the article, in case the link goes bad:

http://music.eastbayexpress.com/Issues/2005-05-25/music/downinfront.html

Rocky Types with Rocky Flows
The open-mic jam session Scout provides a Portrait of Rappers as Young, Nervous Men.
By Rob Harvilla

http://music.eastbayexpress.com/Issues/2005-05-25/music/downinfront.html

Published: Wednesday, May 25, 2005

As any municipal rock star will tell you, other than maybe "heroin," there are really only four words that local musicians should avoid like the clap, the plague, and the fretless bass combined: "Battle of the Bands." For permanently scarred survivors, even invoking the phrase conjures images of apathetic crowds slogging through eighteen-band-bill monstrosities. Okay, "Open-Mic Night" is a similarly toxic phrase -- lousy Dylan-aping amateurs trapped on a two-song conveyor belt of fear and self-loathing.

This is no way to make a living, or no way to become a rock star in the hope of avoiding having to actually make a living.

To Wide Hive's credit, the Bay Area label's new Scout experiment contains elements of both entities, while managing to not entirely invoke either. The weekly series is part-A&R audition project and part live-action MC jam session: A steady stream of rappers and beatboxers -- some recruited, some completely unknown and untested -- will flow into the Red Devil Lounge in San Francisco every Wednesday night in May and June for fifteen-minute slots. Everything is recorded, and the best moments will be compiled onto an official Wide Hive Scout CD. One track also will appear on the label's upcoming solo album from D.U.S.T. -- the Zion-I rapper also serves as the series' official host MC.

Best of all, there's the house band Variable Unit, a fabulous live hip-hop ensemble (drums, bass, keys, turntables, etc.) with a bit more of a loungy soul-jazz edge than Oakland's own similarly arranged Crown City Rockers. Furthermore, VU possesses the uncanny ability to instantly match its tempo and temperament to fit any aspiring rapper's vibe, no matter how confident or clunky that vibe may be.

You see, some of these rappers are profoundly lousy.

"In those cases, those people are just gettin' their feet wet, kinda rookies, and occasionally you run into one who's got no flow," admits Wide Hive founder and VU producer Gregory Howe. "But I think you have to accept that. There's gonna be an occasional unqualified rapper, but I don't necessarily think we're gonna discriminate on that level. I want to see what anybody can do."

So it's a murky Wednesday night, and the Red Devil is overrun with Nervous Amateur Rapper Types. They pace around aimlessly. They scribble furiously in their notebooks, aided only by red-tinted candlelight (a very Ruby Room vibe in this joint). And they bob and weave Rocky-style on the stairs as the instrumental hip-hop duo Cubik and Origami inaugurates this hoedown with an hour of Enthusiastic Knob Twiddling and synchronized, hypnotic head-bobbing. Both these dudes will need chiropractors within five years.

And then, the Nervous Amateur Rapper Types stare intently at Variable Unit as the dudes take the stage, attempting some sort of lock-in telepathy. The live hip-hop band racket might look easy to you people, but excellence is most assuredly not a foregone conclusion -- the following night, the heavily hyped Prefuse 73 played the Great American and sounded like a guy trapped in an enormous bong violently pounding a drum kit. By contrast, VU, to steal a phrase from an associate of mine, is like listening to champagne. Most remarkable is defensive-tackle-sized drummer Thomas McCree, who rattles off absurdly nimble Here Comes the Cavalry fills with the ease and nonchalance of a man picking his teeth.

He'll pick his teeth with these rappers, if they're not careful. First up: San Leandro's own Enzyme, who starts rockin' the somewhat sparse crowd like a champ as he regales us with tales of old high school classmates who became strippers and meth addicts. He inquires as to how we motherfuckers are doing tonight, and we motherfuckers feel just fine. He trades verses with two slightly less dominant associates: One has a laid-back, reggae-fied flow that does the trick (VU keyboard guru Jacob Elijah Aginsky rises to the challenge with some breezy G-funk melody lines), but the other literally spits a rapid-fire, largely impenetrable block of verbiage. (Memo to aspiring rappers: slow down.)

Enzyme entreats us to wave our ass, flop our tits and, most important, smile. He then hops offstage and starts talking up his MySpace page. Next up is poet N8tive Sun, who instructs VU bassist Matt Montgomery to launch into the "For the Love of Money" bassline as he verbally denounces the IRS; Sun's next tune is explicitly "for the ladies," but as he moves from ex-girlfriend to next girlfriend you get the sense that's definitely "ladies," plural.

Goodword, an amicable-looking dude with a benevolent frathouse air to him, takes over and verbally berates his haters as his lady friend stands nearby and giggles appreciably. Not particularly compelling, but hardly catastrophic, either. The same can be said for the Retainer, a particularly nervous white kid carrying around a Scout T-shirt who flips his hoodie up 8 Mile style as he grabs the mic and commences discussing his inner-city past and prospective future (college doesn't seem right for him). This is not like listening to champagne -- the phrase vibrant community doesn't exactly roll off his tongue. He fires off one good line (kill Dick Cheney, and the Retainer'll give you props like a stagehand) and bails out pretty early, nearly forgetting his T-shirt as he makes a beeline for the door.

But who wants absolute confidence and total success at a hip-hop jam session anyway? Embrace this experiment's danger and uncertainty, which can only magnify its high points. Beatboxers are Scout's secret weapon -- Howe raves that the prior week featured the talented crew Felonious, which valiantly challenged McCree to a Live Drums vs. Beatboxing battle. This time out, Each of the highly talented Vowel Movement crew took on both McCree and VU turntable expert DJ Quest, and though he lost on both counts, he tackled the job with admirable enthusiasm. As did Tha Archivez, a robust pirate radio dude who launched into a spastic, hilariously unhinged freestyle that seemed to last a half-hour, to the point where he was forced to rhyme Frisco with Crisco.

Will any of these performances make the Scout CD? Perhaps not, but quiet excellence gets old fast -- Scout's awkward humanity and human drama make it both fascinating and slightly more authentic than your typical polished MC flow. Why watch neophyte musicians battle each other when you can watch them battle themselves?

Ctrl Z's MC Link-Letterz is performing at this week's SCOUT.

Ctrl Z = MC Link-Letterz + Moped (Beats)

Here's a nice track from the Ctrl Z music page:

Hone Your Craft (MP3)

I'm starting to post video and mp3 clips of my interviews with the SCOUT performers over on the Wide Hive Blog.

The first is of Each the Beatboxer. He's really incredible. I've got a clip of his performance around here somewhere...

Each will be performing with Cubik and Origami from 9-10 pm at this week's SCOUT, and he might even jump in a bit with Variable Unit during the night's main set.

EACH

Ed note: I'm really having a blast documenting hip hop subculture. I mean, I'm a part of it, I suppose, running a record label and all, but there's a part of me, perhaps the media researcher part of me, that will always feel more like an observer, and an archivist of, this very unique time in our history.

We could use some more people at these shows! Please come by.

Mention the blog and get free CDs :-)

This Wednesday At Wide Hive's SCOUT

WIDE HIVE RECORDS PRESENTS SCOUT

A LIVE PERFORMANCE SERIES FEATURING VARIABLE UNIT + SPECIAL GUEST MCs

This Wednesday, May 25th, 10 pm
The Red Devil Lounge
1695 Polk Street, San Francisco

Cubik and Origami Opening from 9-10pm Special guest
Each the Beatboxer:

Video and MP3 of Variable Unit and Felonius from May 11 Show
Variable Unit
w/Guest MCs:

reMo'Conscious
“Brace yourself” – URB Magazine (May 2005)

bace135

Dan Millar

Jesse Seaver

Sam Haves (w/emcee nicky P)

Randy White

Special Guests TBA

S C O U T

W h e n: Every Wednesday in May and June, 2005

W h e r e: Red Devil Lounge, 1695 Polk Street, San Francisco

T i m e: 9-10 pm Cubik and Origami -- Catch them for their last week opening! This week Each the Beatboxer will be performing on and off with them during their set.

10-12 pm SCOUT - Variable Unit w/ D.U.S.T. and this week's guest MCs.

The SCOUT May 18, 2005 Show featured: Enzyme, Goodword, n8tivesun, tha archivez, Retainer, The Astral Force, and Each the Beatboxer. See photos from the show at: http://www.widehive.com/scout-may18.html

The SCOUt May 11, 2005 Show featured: Celcius 7, Mic Blake, HoFlow, D. Wolf, Soulati, A kid named Keith, Infinite, Julian Martinez, Cold Showda, Oposit, The Genie - scratch guitar, and Proficy.
See photos from the show at http://www.widehive.com/scout-may11.html

The SCOUT May 4, 2005 Show Featured: D.U.S.T., Kiwi, Baba Israel, Each, The Nucc, Jaw Prophetic, Shania D., and Phoenix Normand. See photos from the show at http://www.widehive.com/scout-may4.html

See you there!

Come by and say hi -- tell 'em you saw the show on my blog and I'll give you a free
Mayhemystics OutBreaks CD.

Enzyme

n8tive Sun
Goodword

Goodword's MySpace Page

Retainer

tha archivez (formely kene-j)

Each

Adam Schraft (The Astral Force)

Soulati (Felonius), Oposit and Cold Showda (The Greans)

I've uploaded photos and a video/mp3 of Variable Unit w/Felonius from the May 11 SCOUT show.

If you're in San Francisco this week, come by and say hi.

Felonius: D. Wolf, A Kid Called Keith, Soulati, Infinite.

These clips are from the May 10 and 11, 2005 programs.

Well, I knew this would happen at some point, I can't tell you much more about these clips than the filenames will tell you, because I haven't really watched them very closely. I was just trying to pump them out so I could make them available for you.

Thanks for all the great PDF advice! PDF995 ended up working great.

You guys are the best. Here's your thank you present:

Daily Show Clips From May 10, 2005

Mirror of May 10 clips
This has a very frank Wanda Sykes interview. Impressively frank. It won't translate well if I quote it, so I'll let it speak for itself...but right on Wanda for being honest about Hollywood!

Daily Show Clips From May 11, 2005

Mirror of May 11 clips

(Thanks for the mirrors Guan!)

Here's another mirror of these. (Thanks Matt!)

More on the way guys.

Here's the line-up for Wednesday night.

Here are some pictures from the May 11 show.

MCs Announced for next SCOUT
This Wednesday, May 18th, 10 pm

The Red Devil Lounge, San Francisco

Enzyme

n8tive Sun
Goodword

Goodword's MySpace Page

Retainer

tha archivez (formely kene-j)

Each

Adam Schraft

Special Guests TBA

These clips are from the May 9, 2005 program.

Actually, the blogging clip might be from the 10th. (Sorry.)

Daily Show Clips From May 9, 2005

Mirror of these clips (Please use it! :-) (thanks Guan!)

another mirror of these clips. (Thanks Matt!)

Metadata that goes with these clips (you can tell which is which from the filenames):

CNN's stupid blogging segments - where people actually just read from blogs verbatim, as if it's news.

A movie about Texas' freaked-out cheerleading censorship law.

Bush's visit to Russia - Putin on 60 minutes. (daily1.mov)

Samantha Bee covers the online gambling craze.

How Arnie's Screwing Over California Educators (and therefore California Education)

The Roadless Area conservation rule that Clinton signed into law before he left, and how the repubs are going about overturning it.

Okay, so, like I said, I'm trying to be constructive about the fact that I'm going to be homebound for a few days, so I'm going to try to bang out this and last week's Daily Show clips for starters.

Can those with available mirror space please email me at lisa@lisarein.com so we can proceed?

I'm really sorry for being so swamped these last few months and flaking out on my Daily Show responsibilities. I'm trying to re-org my schedule so I have at least a few hours a week to get those suckers up.

Thanks for being patient. (Only a few of you have been politely nudging...which I don't mind at all :)

thanks!!

lisa

P.S. Will those of you that kindly donated mirror space in the past that I never linked to please re-connect with me so I can get that stuff up too? It amazes me how, what should be a quick thing to link to (once I've done the hard part - generating all the clips and uploading to the various servers) can get back burnered when things start picking up at the record label. I appreciate it so much that you would mirror clips for me, and I don't mean to be careless with your time and energy. Many apoly-logies for that.

Hi guys. I'm trying to help my dad out with a technical problem, and we just need to save jpg scans as pdf files, and I'm having horrible luck with the shareware I've tried to download so far. Any suggestions?

thanks!

What a show! I've got the photographic evidence and will be posting soon here.

I've got clips from last week too.

I think I've caught a cold, so I'll be home bound the next couple days and can hopefully get a lot of stuff up.

It would be great if you headed down to the Red Devil Lounge this Wednesday, May 11, for SCOUT. (And do please stop by and say "hi," if you do come by. I'm easy to find :-)

We've just announced the
line up of MCs for May 11th, and it's a goodin:

Celsius 7 and Spidey of Psychokinetics

Mic Blake and HoFlow

(Bopcity/Alphabet Soup)

All four MCs from
Felonius: One Love Hip Hop
D.Wolf, Soulati, A kid named Keith, and Infinite

All three MCs from The Greans (Oposit, Cold Showda, and King Solomon)

The Genie-scratch guitar
(thegeniemusic.com)

Proficy

Special Guests TBA

The
May 4 show was incredible. here are some photos.

I'll be putting up videos and mp3s right here in a bit...

I finally got a blog going for Wide Hive.

I'm going to use it to track developments and help spread the word about all the cool stuff going on over there.

Our blog lives at widehive.net.

Thanks in advance for spreading the word. You can subscribe to our
RSS Feed too.

So I hope that some of you will come down to the SCOUT show at the Red Devil Lounge this Wednesday night.

We have a nice batch of MCs and vocalists coming through that will be performing with
Variable Unit:

KIWI (nativeguns), groundworkmusic, Kiwi's MySpace Page)

Baba Israel (
Open Thought)

HoFlow
(bop city/alphabet soup)

Shania D. (http://www.shaniad.xbuild.com/)

Mic Blake (
bop city/alphabet soup)

Infinity (infinitythemc.com)

Each (eachbox.com)

Jaw Prophetic (Joshua Walters)

Phoenix Normand

Hope to see you there!