THE REPORT: 2/2/2024
BLOGGING IN MILWAUKEE
Certified Trapper “Babytron Flow”
Here, Certified Trapper, who is from Milwaukee but I believe now lives in Houston, goes full Coney Island Hot Dog with the flow. I’m in Milwaukee right now, actually, where I was greeted with a Myaap billboard as I rode from the airport. I’m doing a show on Saturday with Graham Hunt at Cactus Club. I’m going to destroy my stomach and my life at Culver’s, then I’m going to watch Graham play “Emergency Contact.”
More geographic synchronicity: Monaleo is from Houston, but on “Don Who Leo,” she works in a Michigan mode. The hooks stay intact. One of the more consistent rappers on a single-by-single basis. “I get straight to business and I’m strict / Judge Judy, ho.” Order in the court!
Found via the always reliable feed of DJ George Costanza, this slice of easycore country is a quirked-up headbanger that puts HARDY to shame. Am I allowed to still describe things as being quirked up? It seems as if that phrase might be past any point of acceptability, if it was ever acceptable to begin with. But you listen to “Better Hell.” Is there a better way to describe it? It is a “quirked-up headbanger.” Fire up that lawnmower.
Piercing industrial rave made to be played in rooms where the lighting is minimal but also harsh. I want to be bathed in checkpoint stingers as the track’s distorto-pound smushes my skull into chia seed pudding that spills out all over my pristine MA-1 bomber jacket.
It’s only right that we finish this week’s blog with a few more new Milwaukee rap songs. Chicken P is a legend of the city, still doing strong work. His flow is a synthesis of some of the best contemporary Midwestern rhyme impulses. Production notes: I like the descending 808 fill; I like the chipmunk Usher floating in the background.
On another side of the contemporary MKE rap spectrum, where the songs are plentiful but the hits, as always, come harder, Superstar Sel caught something with a bounce and a bit of melodic clarity. The Windows screenshot video is a reminder that these kids are essentially making garage rock in their own native language—the native language of the internet.
MIX OF THE WEEK: “CCTV @ Live at Bricktown”
What I believe is a fairly recent (within the past year, maybe) set from Indiana basement new wave legends CCTV emerged on my YouTube page this week. The show was a benefit, so I doubt the band is back in action, and there are plenty of technical difficulties here—they don’t really get cooking until the last few minutes—but I guess I’m posting it as a reminder that I still think CCTV, along with guitarist Mark Winter’s other unit, The Coneheads, are going to continue to be influential for years to come. When egg punk bursts out of its cultural silo, Zoomer shoegaze style, don’t say I didn’t warn you. I’m aware that the last sentence, like many sentences on John’s Music Blog, might read like a foreign language, and is also pretty stupid. But if I can’t talk about this shit here, where can I talk about it?
Here to agree wholeheartedly re: CCTV and Coneheads and their inevitable rise to come. I noticed that CCTV part 2 from the same uploader is coming - he scheduled it for Wednesday, for some reason.
Certified Trapper has quickly become the barometer I use to figure out if I fuck with someone or not.