The Question of the Moment

Yes, let's get to business.
Will he do any? Your guess is his guess,
and to the bitches I beg forgiveness, but if I
wanted a bitch-fest, I would've asked for a bitch-fest.

If I get the right bedlam,
my girl lets me bend it like Beckham,
we're paid in Spaides like Steve Stedham,
they don't know what's in the cards, I already read 'em.

The question of the moment?
Will he have to rent, or shall he own it?
Should he give her his heart, or just loan it?
Can he solicit his art, and still stay a poet?

Where there's a will, there's a way, right Pops?
Why not whip it like Devo 'til it's white rock?
When they quit making pop, I'll try pop,
otherwise, get some other guy to keep your mic hot.

That's his position there, if need
be, he'll repeat condition-air...
you see me sitting here? Scrape away your
tooth decay, you'll see, gold fits in there,

or platinum, but catch lead like a
bad one, and get Michael Jacksoned,
man, life's a bitch, so jam one
down the throats of those foes like AndOne.

LOOK MA! No "D".
big rise, bigger fall like Moby,
KA-POW! like Pau Gasol and Koby,
I don't want your cheese, it's too moldy,

besides, I'd rather not taste your cream,
it comes from a cow, it's not made for me.
If you bring the matches, I'll blaze your team,
cause I'm Mr. Incredible, you're Gazerbeam.




************************
FROM THE UPCOMING ALBUM: "Book of Toth" by Jonathan Toth from Hoth
************************

"You Can Be Pretty Too" by Kama and Toth

You're not a whore, you're not a slut,

sometimes you just...love too much.

You want love, you want passion,

keys to a cherry Mazeratti and white brick mansion.

Who wouldn't want Lasik or Pamela's ass-kit?

It's not materialistic, it's serious fashion!

Your type of girl is into that kind of satisfaction,

your type of world is lights, camera, action.

But is it really, or is it just an act

that you're good at feeling, like blind handicaps?

It's easy to talk sweet and show your candy-ass,

but tricks and treats rot your teeth, fairly fast,

and once you got meth-mouth, that smile rarely lasts,

and you don't test out of school, you barely pass,

all for a role you never learned in acting class.

You sold your soul, but that doesn't mean you can't

have it back...

you can be pretty too...

if you want to...

LISTEN FOR FREE:
www.myspace.com/jonathantothfromhoth
http://bit.ly/phJZJ

Helias is BACK!

His email is drummachineking@gmail.com.



His first messageboard entry:
http://thefrozenfoodsection.com/message.asp

St. Louis Steps Up in Soccer Culture at Barristers of Clayton

I'm in the middle of a watershed moment in St. Louis history:

I'm watching four Champions League games at once (out of the eight playing) LIVE at Barristers of Clayton, a "soccer bar" done in classic English pub fashion (including the Barclays Premiership Table and the current standings of the teams).

The day is Wednesday, November 25, 2009.

I'm pinching myself to make sure this is really happening. For the first time in St. Louis, an establishment has EIGHT live channels of live Champions League soccer playing at once. Since I've begun typing, Milan and Marseille have traded goals and Besiktas of Turkey have gone up one on Manchester United...right in front me...at the same time.

Not impressed?

If you've ever lived in the Midwest during the last century, there is one sport everyone knows is NOT on tv, and that is soccer. To be settled in amongst a restaurant full of Champions League fans watching any eight games at once was inconceivable before today.

Now, it's magical.

A middle-aged woman with an Eastern European accent excitedly dials her phone, telling some male friends, "They're got Besiktas on at Barristers, get over here now!". Jason, the owner, lets me hold the remote control, making it so that all games are at my beck and call. The downside is I can only see the four flat screens at the bar, so even though we have the "eight-games-at-once-with-tvs-at-full-capacity" available in the rest of the establishment, I can only indulge in what's in front of me, without looking like some freakshow, running back and forth, up and down the aisles like a star-struck kid waiting for Ronaldinho to remember how great he is...but I do have the remote, and that makes it good enough to be able to check in on the other guys once in awhile...you know...just to make sure they're ok.

St. Louis stepped it up for soccer fans.

Miracles do happen.

Barristers
15 N Meramec
Clayton MO 63105
314.726.5007

Chocolate Tale #3: Home, home on the Park Rangers

Yesterday afternoon (after Lyon tied Liverpool 1-1 in the Champions League) I cruised into Tillis Park to sit in my minivan and write songs. Earlier in the day, I'd connected with a friend who produced some of the best homemade chocolate I'd ever eaten. He called it Trainwreck...I guess it being so good it caused engineers to crash trains...or something like that. Anywho, I wrote for about an hour while eating pinches of my chocolate and headed out around dark. I arrived at the exit of the park to find two park rangers flagging me down.
"Why are you in the park so late?" asked the white, male ranger.
"I come here every other day to write and listen to music. I thought the park was open 'a half-hour after dark'. Is it not?"
"The sign says the park closes 'a half-hour after sunset'," his darker, female partner informed me, "but why did you go around the other sign saying ONLY AUTHORIZED VEHICLES BEYOND THIS POINT?" She was referring to the park closing the main road to traffic, so they could install their famous Christmas lights.
"I didn't read it that carefully cause I followed another car in, so I assumed since it wasn't blocked off, it wasn't a big deal."
"We're still gonna need to check you're ID."
As I sat waiting for my license to clear, I considered tossing the last, little, less than a gram of chocolate out the window, just in case, you know, they decided to be assholes and bust me. I considered it...but I was a bit curious to see if they would try to bust me, since contraband chocolate is finally becoming accepted as our American right...at least by the intelligent folk.
Five minutes later a police car shows up. A cop gets out and makes a beeline for me...oh well.
"Alright sir, we know this vehicle contains contraband chocolate, so it's in your best interest for to tell us exactly where it is right now before you get into further trouble." Wow, I guess I had forgotten how pungent this particular chocolate is. I told him where I kept it, and the male ranger went looking for it (and through the rest of my van), while the female ranger ran my license.
"Are you carrying any other drugs, like heroin, meth, cocaine or crack?"
"No Sir...just chocolate."
"If you're hiding anything, we will find out, and you will be prosecuted more severely for withholding information."
"I said, just chocolate Sir." He had me stand back from the van, then he reprimanded me for standing too far from the van. He was very intense and aggressive. I knew I had done nothing wrong, so I waited. Finally he opened up my chocolate carry case: a prescription bottle made specifically for medicinal chocolate.
"Do you know it's a felony to use a prescription bottle with no sticker on it?"
"No Sir."
"Well that can change your offense from a misdemeanor to a crime real quick. Next thing you know, whatever else you got in your van will make it worse. There better not be anything else in that vehicle."
"It's just chocolate Sir, check it out for yourself." He opened the bottle and sniffed.
"Damn, that is nice. This was grown in Missouri. I can tell. I used to run this shit."
"...okay..." I was gonna let him tell it. The male ranger deemed my van clean and came back over.
"Look at this," the cop showed the ranger my chocolate and asked him if he wanted any. There was some nervous laughter and the cop continued to explain how it must have been packaged and how old it was.
"It's called Trainwreck," I couldn't help myself. I mentioned I got the bottle from California, where it was legal, and that I was frustrated Missouri laws had not progressed to that point...yet. They conversed about how crazy it was that now you could just walk into shops on the beach and buy chocolate legally.
"Do you have any kids?" the cop asked.
"Yes, three." They collectively paused for five seconds.
"Do we need to call your wife or anyone to explain why you're going to be late?" asked the male ranger.
"No."
"He's clear," said the female ranger, coming back from the dispatch. There was another collective silence.
"We think you would be better off at home with your kids than going to Clayton Jail," said the male ranger. "but you can't eat chocolate in our park. We're going to give you a warning, and one warning only. Don't be coming back here with your chocolate, or next time we're taking you in."
"Thanks guys," I said. "Can I have my chocolate back?"
"No...thank you," said the cop. The rangers chuckled and followed him back to their cars.

That's life in Brentwood...MO that is.

Jonathan Toth From Hoth: Interview with a Prin alum turned fulltime rapper

by Kenji Yoshinobu Music Columnist Published October 30th, 2009

For a decade, Prin alum and Saint Louis hip-hop artist Jonathan Getzschman has been making music under a variety of monikers – particularly one Jonathan Toth From Hoth. After founding his record label, the Frozen Food Section, in 1999, the Omaha, Nebraska native gathered local hip-hop acts and began steadily producing and releasing records. His most recent work, Sick Boys, is an album dedicated to skateboarding culture, which he collaborated on with St. Louis’ DJ Crucial, another fixture of the area’s flourishing music scene. Over the phone, Getzschman and I discussed his influences, his latest album, and why making music makes him cry with delight.

Principia Pilot: When did you first start making music?

Jon Getzschman: I started singing in fourth grade, doing opera. I also did Shakespeare with my mom in local Omaha productions. From there it evolved to musicals – The Sound of Music, Oliver – as a fifth grader. Then we went on a Christmas Carol musical tour of the West Coast through the Nebraska Theater Arts program. My mom took me, Dave and Rob – my younger brothers – and we were on the road for, like, two or three months.

PP: What got you into making rap music?

JG: It was 1987 and I started listening to the Beastie Boys. I ended up transcribing “Paul Revere” because I was so impressed by the lyrics – how they flowed together and the storytelling aspect. That was the first rap I ever memorized. Through 1990-91, I started hearing Cypress Hill. When I heard “Insane In The Membrane,” I decided I was interested in writing raps. I’d done poetry and I’d done music, but rap was really undiscovered country in terms of what I could create. I didn’t feel comfortable enough as a white kid to be rapping. Cypress Hill were Latino and Italian and could pull it off. I still felt uncomfortable, but I thought, what if I ghostwrite raps? So I started writing down raps.

During my sophomore year at Prin I met some St. Louis rappers. They taught me how to freestyle, or rap off the top of your head without prepared lines. Once I realized I could do it, I was amazed that I had the capability of rhyming impromptu like they were doing it – albeit not as hip as them. From then on it was all about developing my own styles. All I really did was freestyle, but I didn’t do much recording. It was unfortunate because when you’re free-styling and you have great lines, only the people you’re with are going to hear it. I eventually got a beat machine in ’98 and got tutored by DJ Crucial, but for about two years I just stared at it.

It was really the year 2000 when things started to get moving. For me, it was my choice to be led by divine inspiration. What resulted was a year of intense creativity and conceptualism of my first album, Brainwashing. That was really my opus of what I thought music was – how it should be listened to and created. It was when I realized I wanted to do this for the rest of my life.

I don’t consider myself an emotional person, but the times when I was making beats and they were coming together, I remember being so astonished at how amazing it would sound that I would cry at the beauty of it and that God was giving this amazing happening all under my fingers. Whether you want to call it ego, pride, or being swept up in the moment – I woke up for months just making music and crying, like, “This is so amazing!” [Music] for me has become a lifelong adventure of seeking critical moments in sound, taking those moments with so much gratitude, and combining them with my own sense being and awareness.

PP: When did you decide to found your record label, the Frozen Food Section?

JG: In 1999, I discovered that any spending of money on music was a tax write-off, so long as I was making music a business instead of a hobby. So that year was the turning-point of taking my music from a hobby toward the direction of a legitimate business. I remember a conversation I had with my dad at the time: I was sitting on the fence in regards to rapping. I wanted to do this for the rest of my life, but was aware of the facts that musicians don’t make much money and so far, white rappers don’t garner much attention. I asked Dad if I should follow my dream or stay practical and focus on making money.

“Will staying practical make you happy?” he asked.

“Not at all, Dad,” I said, “but what if I fail at being a musician?”

“It’s impossible to fail,” he said, “because no matter what path you choose, regardless if it’s wrong for you, it will inevitably lead you to your perfect place, and that is God’s law, so there’s no need to worry – ever.”

Thanks, Dad. The rest is history.

PP: What are the challenges to marketing yourself as an artist?

JG: Like most artists, translating music into money is a whole different universe. Some artists are very business-like. I have the hardest time trying to jump out of the creative mode and get to the business mode. For me, life is a lot more fun when you’re always in the creative side of things. On the performance side of things, famous people who have focused on their work and become masters at their craft inspire me. For the master artist, every day of his life is his best show. I love that idea of, whether you have a happy day or a depressing day, you made something. You took that day and something with that emotion. I really work with that idea in prayer with my work and performances. It helps me figure out the other stuff in terms of marketing.

PP: How did your education at Principia influence your musical career?

JG: I double-majored in mass comm [mass communication] and history. I did radio with Rick Dearborn, and I recorded my first song at Principia using the programs they had. Also, my senior year I took historiography and I wrote a 55-page paper on the history of hip-hop for my capstone. It helped me gain a context of hip-hop music.

PP: Why have you decided to remain in St. Louis?

JG: Mainly because my family is here, but also because I can’t stand the fast-paced nature of some of the bigger cities. I love New York and Los Angeles. They are nice places to visit, but it is hard for me to cultivate ideas. It really is a place where you can borrow ideas and amalgamate them to make something different. On the coasts especially you have different music scenes and it can be very polarizing for creativity.

PP: Why write an album about skateboarding?

JG: [DJ] Crucial and I have been skating for 22 years each, and, when you become a skater, it’s usually because you’ve found something deeper than Day-Glo colors or a rebel lifestyle or hitching rides from cars like Michael J. Fox in Back to the Future. In our case, we really love skateboarding to the point that it made sense to create an album based on its history, culture, specific anecdotes, and how it makes us feel to be skaters. It also helps that skating is at its height of popularity … creating more opportunities for licensing, videos and/or distribution.

PP: How long did this album take to write and record?

JG: We began perusing our skate vids from the last 20 years to find samples of interest. Over the whole of 2007 we kept collecting pieces that sounded right for the album, and made beats out of them or used quotes to enhance the subject matter. By the beginning of 2008, after going back and forth from the Cooler [the Frozen Food Section’s former HQ and recording studio] to DJ Crucial’s house exchanging ideas, the album was basically what it is now, so it was about a full year in the making.

For samples of Sick Boys and Getzschman’s other music, visit:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRvdStu4usk
and

www.myspace.com/jonathanlivingstoncrucial

Copies of Sick Boys are available at the Bookstore for a limited time.

REPRINTED FROM:

The Principia Pilot

http://principiapilot.org/2009/10/30/jonathan-toth-from-hoth-interview-with-a-prin-alum-turned-fulltime-rapper/

My American Life by Abe tha Babe

Tha name's Abe, holla if you wanna play,
but if it's fer life or death...look the other way.
There ain't a figure more bigger than Thor, figure
your better off in a figure four. Futher-
more, I'll flip yer whore...sample her be-
twixt some brethren and call her a smore.
Baberaham Lincoln's gone score, with a
little more, like celebrity porn.

[hook]
Hooo! And God bless my American life,
Hooo! And God bless my American wife,
Hooo! And God bless my American right, to
do it big, and get rich or die tryin'
Hooo! And God bless my American life,
Hooo! And God bless my American wife,
Hooo! And God bless my American pie, it
ain't cherry, it's mary, like it's Christmas time...

I'm a capitalist, I ain't gone lie,
if Jay-Z can do it, shit, so can I,
and the Stabbin' Hobo gone live free or die,
so I don't tax him, like the IRS
might. Why? We're white, right? Dem
boys stick together like pieces of rice, I
heard white privilege is nice...so I
bring all my colorful friends into the light.
[hook]

[bridge]
Red...for the injuns, who grew this land,
and for the blood and the passion, that moved this land.
White...for the fathers who knew this land, was
right for the fightin' and the freedom, to choose this land.
Blue...for the backs of blacks, used for this land,
'til finally we're just fam. Stars and
stripes...for the heart 'o life, no more man a-
gainst man, now we harmonize like a big band,

and I'm a big fan, born and bred a
redneck, homegrown on grits, cornbread and ham.
Papa was a big man with a big hand,
that hurt, I led his ass into quicksand.

Mama was a flirt who used to cut her skirts for some
quick cash, but one little sperm slipped past,
I coulda hung my head, like whiplash,
bitchin' 'bout shit I never could get past...

...but then I'd be like them. Forget that.
I came from trash and made the shit rap
[hook]


http://abethababe.bandcamp.com/track/my-american-life