white nøise

There’s no doubt that Thriller (the track and the video) encouraged my love of Halloween and zombies. Thriller was quite possibly the first cassette I ever owned. I remember making a copy from someone (ah, the days before RIAA suits) and listening to it constantly with my awesome new Walkman. I remember to listening to Mom’s records before that (Pink Floyd and Foreigner most of the time), but getting the walkman was really the start of building my own musical collection. I was in sixth grade then – young enough to enjoy pop music unabashedly. Adolescence would bring new preferences. But in ’82 if I wasn’t at the arcade dropping quarters into Pac-Man or Galaga, I probably had headphones on and more than likely Thriller was running over the play head.

I may not listen to that music a lot anymore, but it’s refreshing to hear Michael pop up from time to time. I’ll be damned is this wasn’t one of the best feel good scenes I’ve seen in years:

Yesterday brought the debut release from Street Sweeper Social Club – the new band featuring Boots Riley (The Coup) and Tom Morello (Rage Against the Machine).

The sound of SSSC is almost exactly what you’d expect from mashing up Boots and Morello – politically infused rap grooves with heavy guitar riffs and experimental solos all leading up to choruses meant to be sung loudly. Some criticize Morello for always sounding the same (from Rage, to The Nightwatchman, to SSSC), but that’s the nature of having a signature sound. There’s actually a lot of variety to what he does, but it’s always unmistakably him. As for Boots, he brings a great presence to the band – a little more chill than Zack de la Rocha, but also just as explosive. To put it simply, if you like Rage you will almost certainly love SSSC (or if not, don’t expect to be won over).

We saw SSSC open for NIN last month and even though we missed a few of their songs I was completely impressed. The band was crazy tight. Boots strutted and danced while he threw down. And Morello? That guy is a magician. He’s got blazing fret work. He DJ scratches over the pickups. But it was when he soloed with his face that we lost it. Here’s a video someone shot from the pit of the show we saw: