Brian Winters Strickland Memorial Wallpaper

To commemorate the birthday of my late cousin, Brian Winters Strickland (B.W.S.) R.I.P., I have made this wallpaper. We still miss you and love you. Your memory will never fade away.

I Love You My Weng Weng

There are times on YouTube that you find something that just has to be seen to believe and this is definitely one of those times. Prepare yourself for Weng Weng. You will never be the same again.

Bavu Blakes Gives Free Music Every Week

Bavu Blakes Presents…08 So Great (A New Flow Every Week) a new series where he will deliver a new song every week in 2008. That is 52 songs for free in 2008. This has to be one of the most refreshing ideas from an up and coming artist. It will allow him to gain a wider audience as well as showing his diverse styles. Every song so far has been infectiously good that it will continue to make me go back for more. The songs are all free to download and some have videos of Mr. Blakes spitting in the booth. If Bavu can pull this off and not lose steam, it will push other artists to step up to the challenge.

Soul Assassinative Downloads

Soul Assassins are secretly trying to infiltrate your computer with free music. Starting now and continuing every month DJ Muggs and family will be delivering their mixtapes and exclusives to download from their site. If you float around the rest of their site you will read about Soul Assassins, their affiliate projects or buy Soul Assassin’s t-shirts in their shop. So go for the free downloads but stay for the content.

Ecliptic Sight Podcast: Random Edition

Ecliptic Sight Podcast: Random Edition is for those days when you can lose it all in a blink of an eye. What happens next is what defines us. Do we accept defeat or keep it moving?

1. Hasan Salaam - Affair To Remember
2. MHz - Kryptonite
3. Masta Ace - Da Grind
4. MF GRIMM - Words
5. C-Rayz Walz - The Branding Iron
6. Parallel Thought & C-Rayz Walz - Chorus V Feat. Vast Aire
7. Madmen - Kanstructivist
8. Megalon - No Pain
9. dub-L - “87 Monkeys (feat. BASHTON The InvizabulMan, GM Grimm And Lor”
10. Oh No - I Can’t Help Myself (Feat. Stacy Epps)
11. Percee P - Mastered Craftsman
12. Akir - Ride 2 It
13. Cryptic One - Time Piece / Peace Of Time
14. DJ Ese - K.A.R.N.I. (Karniege)

Disclaimer: Saibot and Ecliptic Sight Podcast are not associated with any artists or music played unless noted. All rights are reserved to the individual artist or artists. Support any songs or artists that you hear by picking up their album. Tracklisting at EclipticSight.com.

ESPace (New ESP Myspace)

With the update of the main sight(site) I thought it was time to breathe new life into my myspace page. I am using the template constructed by 5THirtyOne. A simple and clean design that covers up all of the other nonsense that myspace inflicts on you.

Ecliptic Sight Interview: Werner Von Wallenrod

Werner Von Wallenrod aka John W. McKelvey aka Mr. Hip-Hop Encyclopedia has helped many fill holes in their record collection since 1997 with his “Humble Little Hip-Hop Site”. Now continuing that tradition with his “Humble Little Hip-Hop Blog”, he is set to educate the masses with his video post and overall knowledge of hip-hop. Come now as pick the brain of Werner Von Wallenrod.

ESP: Thank you for taking your time to answer my questions.

WVW: Thanks for your interest!

ESP: Who is Werner Von Wallenrod and where did the name come from?

WVW: It’s an obscure reference from a very bad video game. Despite how much it sucked, my friend and I decided we were determined to beat it, and we then spent way too much time playing it.
I think I chose it for the same reason Flavor Flav picked his rap name - he wanted a name where he wasn’t going to find out six months later that another guy in another city had the same name (i.e. all the MCs and DJs named Dre). And so far, it hasn’t happened.

ESP: When did you start Werner Von Wallenrod’s Humble, Little Hip Hop Site?

WVW: In early 1997. I actually had an earlier taste of running a website (of a sort haha)… I don’t know if anybody remembers X-Band anymore? Pre-internet, it was a cartridge that plugged into your Sega Genesis with phone wire coming out of it. Essentially, it let X-Box players play a few 2-player games (primarily Mortal Kombat 2 and Madden) against each other over the phone lines. I used to write a page that had upcoming release dates and reviews of each week’s hip-hop releases, and I actually started to get readers and people e-mailing questions and stuff, if you can believe it.
Then, my family got on the internet with America Online (back when you used to pay by the minute - scary!), and I decided to teach myself a little HTML and make a members page building on that X-Band page.

ESP: Who was the first discography on your site?

WVW: Ultramagnetic MC’s and Natural Elements. Back in the early days, a friend had found a discography of Ultramagnetic on the internet. We printed it out and I carried it around everywhere. It was really incomplete, though - both in the sense that it didn’t include any of their guest spots or solo/ side projects, and that it was missing a lot of their key, classic 12″’s and stuff. So I decided to make my own, much more completist version, that even went on to include Tim Dog, Godfather Don and Raw Breed. And I did NE because I had all of their records, and their was no discography of them anywhere. I started adding more pretty, then, pretty much right away.

ESP: On your site it says, “…Or, maybe I just like them. I’ll tell ya one thing, though: they ain’t payin’ me for it. Except L’Trimm. They made me rich…”, what does that mean?

WVW: That was a silly joke. Wouldn’t it be nice to live in a world where L’Trimm paid somebody millions of dollars to make an AOL members’ page about their music?
In honor of this interview, I made today’s blog entry about a L’Trimm record.

ESP: Where did your love for hip-hop come from?

WVW: Ever since I was a young kid. I remember my first tape I ever owned and loved was a Weird Al tape. I was kind of searching for a musical genre, I guess… because all fellow first graders would’ve been listening to, like, early Bon Jovi, which I could never get into. I had a few rock and roll tapes as a kid (I remember Poison and Def Leopard), because that’s where I grew up; but as soon as I found hip-hop, that was it.
Back then, I used to have a hard time because in music stores, hip-hop and other genres (R&B, dance, rap etc) were all mixed into one big “Soul” or “Black Music” section. Can you believe, as late as the early 80’s, modern music stores in New Jersey still had a “black music” section? So anyway, (bear in mind, little kids aren’t all that smart yet), I used to often be looking at tapes trying to figure out, “is this rap?” Those were the days.

ESP: What is your current stance on the state of hip-hop in general?

WVW: The only new stuff I get into these days is pretty obscure, indie stuff… except for the recent revival of old school reissues which is pretty awesome, ey? I could accept that I’m just a crotchety old man (32!) who insists that the old ways were better, except I do enjoy new stuff by some innovative new artists (Buck 65 is a favorite), so that must just mean the new stuff sucks. In an industry driven by ringtones, though, I don’t think that’s so hard to accept.

ESP: Werner Von Wallenrod’s Humble, Little Hip-Hop Blog has you showing off extensive knowledge of everything hip-hop. How does this help promote your ideas?

WVW: At one point in my life, it got me a flashy job writing and editing at The Source. These days, though, my life and business (I run a bookstore in a neighborhood where people would say, “Yuck, why are you playing rap music? Please turn that off”) are pretty separated from the hip-hop scene. It would be nice if those two ends could meet again someday, but who knows?

Plus, I’ve never been that plugged into the scene, per se… just the music. As a kid, I remember seeing kids who listened to heavy metal and thinking, “just because you listen to the music, why do you have to have long hair and wear t-shirts with skulls on them?” Actually, I kinda liked the skull shirts; those were cool. I remember as a little kid wearing a Ted Nugent cap, and teenagers would be like, “whoa; 5 year-old into Nugent! Way cool!” But I didn’t know who he was; I just liked the logo with the skulls.

So anyway, as I got older listening to hip-hop, it just wasn’t my nature to suddenly roll up one sweatpants leg and carve little niches into my eyebrow just to follow a trend. I don’t go to shows or hip-hop clubs… I just support the music. In fact, when I ran The Source website, I used to sneak the motto, “The website of the magazine of hip-hop music, culture and politics… without all that culture and politics crap” into the mix wherever I could. Because I used to buy the magazine to get the latest scoop about MC Shan, not to read some budding music journalist’s under-informed opinions on the latest presidential election.

ESP: What does the future hold for Werner Von Wallenrod?

WVW: I’m still working on indie, creative projects… and I always will as long as I can. If that ever will pay any bills, who knows, but I hope so. My other interest is film, which I’m into and take as seriously as hip-hop. Like I said in the last question… those interests now are pretty separate; but maybe they’ll all come together. Or not. I enjoy them both, I don’t need them combined.

ESP: In closing is there anything that you would like people to know about?

WVW: For those who used to check my site but haven’t heard yet, I started a blog about a year ago at: Werner von Wallenrod’s Humble, Little Hip-Hop Blog. It’s updated regularly, and I try my ass off to be fun and informative. I hope its good, but that’s for you guys to decide - it’s definitely not one of those blogs that has the same content as about fifty others, though.

And I’d also like you and your readers to know I appreciate your interest and I hope you like my work!

D3: Dilla Dependence Day

Click image to enlarge image.

Now it is time to tell my Dilla story in memory of him on February 10th. I discovered Jay Dee aka J Dilla as some others might have walking into Fat Beats in the late ’90s and hearing:
“Hey, hey, hey, h-hey, hey
What you say, get this money
If they say what you gon do today, just say
Hey I wanna get paid
Pay day, pay day, pay day”.
With this hypnotic hook and a beat that caughted your soul it was apparent I was hearing something new. So I asked the DJ/Store clerk who it was and he said that’s Slum Village. I nodded my head and headed over to the vinyl to find this Slum Village musical master piece. I found a 12″ vinyl named, “Slum Village - Get Dis Money (off of the Office Space soundtrack)” and wonder if this is the right one and take it to the counter. With a quick glance at the turntables I see I selected the right one. With the record in hand I take it home and play out the vinyl until I know every intricate loop.

So my mouth was now watering for a Slum Village full LP. In the summer of 2000 my prayer was answer with Fantastic Vol. 2 on GoodVibe Recordings. With people from Q-Tip to D’Angelo to the Roots saying they were the ones to watch I knew I was making a great purchase. I never knew I how much I would I would love this album. J-88 was “The Best Kept Secret” because I did even realize it was Slum Village until a couple of listens. With the next album not featuring Dilla I skipped it anticipating Dilla’s new solo career. It came from the most infectious song called, “B.B.E. (Big Booty Express)” off the album: “Welcome To Detroit”.

I thought to myself what could Dilla do now to continue his excellency? Well he would team up with one of my favorites emcee/producers Madlib to create one of the brilliant collaborations in the history with Jaylib - “Champion Sound”. It truly was a champion sound that every fan of either one could cross reference to find the perfect album. Three years later and now signed to Stones Throw, J Dilla would deliver his most illustrious musical adventure with an instrumental album simply called “Donuts“. Released on his birthday it would solidify his production values but it would be short lived with his death three days later. J Dilla will be called ahead of his time, one of the best on the boards but I will always remember his infectious beat that caught my ear on the summer day from a turntable and speakers.

For other Dilla inspired stories click here.

Dilla CD Plus Graffiti Wallpaper

Still the “Year of the Dilla” and to celebrate his birthday of February 7th, here is a quick wallpaper of J Dilla’s CDs and graffiti piece. Happy birthday and rest in peace James Yancey aka J Dilla.

Natalie Portman Rhyming For SNL.

Press play and get ready.