Two Dog Farm: Wishtank’s Summer Headquarters
photos by Garrett Heaney
Four Free Tracks courtesy of Danny Swain!
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My compadre Hump Jones put me on to Danny Swain a couple months ago. He actually tweeted something about Danny being his favorite rapper, and my curiosity got the best of me. It’s not everyday your favorite rapper names his favorite rapper, so I started listening to some stuff on his site and bought his last album Where is Danny! the same day.
Then I stumbled onto this hilariously frank hand written and illustrated letter that yourstru.ly had published and it seemed like he had a lot to say about making it as an artist in this life. In the letter he mentions the depth of his catalogue, writing -
“A lot of you know who I am, a lot of you don’t. At this point, I don’t give a shit. There’s no one else making hip hop that’s dropped three instrumental records, five studio albums, an EP AND a greatest hits compilation… INDEPENDENTLY.”
So I then had to seek out the five studio albums and familiarized myself with them. They are all on my regular rotation of tunes here at the new Wishtank HQ in Vermont.
Danny! does something not too many cats in the world of hip hop are doing – makes a living from record sales, so I wanted to talk to him about his career as an artist.
Here’s how it went…
by ALBERT EINSTEIN
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the Mysterious — the knowledge of the existence of something unfathomable to us, the manifestation of the most profound reason coupled with the most brilliant beauty. I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, or who has a will of the kind we experience in ourselves. I am satisfied with the mystery of life’s eternity and with the awareness of — and glimpse into — the marvelous construction of the existing world together with the steadfast determination to comprehend a portion, be it ever so tiny, of the reason that manifests itself in nature. This is the basics of cosmic religiosity, and it appears to me that the most important function of art and science is to awaken this feeling among the receptive and keep it alive.
I sense that it is not the State that has intrinsic value in the machinery of humankind, but rather the creative, feeling individual, the personality alone that creates the noble and sublime.
Man’s ethical behavior should be effectively grounded on compassion, nurture and social bonds. What is moral is not the divine, but rather a purely human matter, albeit the most important of all human matters…
Cover Illustration by the very famous Christopher Darling
This Mixtape is our response to World Around Records’ recent release of No Humans Allowed – a tag team effort by emcees Thirtyseven (aka DJ Multiple Sex Partners) and Louis Mackey. We figured if we could convince them to put the lyrics aside for a minute and focus on making beats, that we could allow at least some humans in… YOU ARE THOSE HUMANS!
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by GARRETT HEANEY
I’ve been a lazy, lazy writer for the past 5 months – with the exception of my microblogging over at the WTwitter. The last time I wrote anything of value for Wishtank, it was New Year’s, and that Open Letter was inspired by a track released that day from my brothers at World Around.
This is that track.
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Tonight I wanted to write because I am equally charged from a short story that I read from Kurt Vonnegut’s “uncollected” volume Bagombo Snuff Box. This book has been interesting to read because it’s made up of all the stories he was writing in the 50s and 60s, making a name for himself in different magazines and literary journals. Not all of it is “mind fuck” material, but it’s worth reading because you can see, story by story, how Vonnegut developed his style.
2BR02B aka, “To Be Or Not To Be,” is the story that prompted me to write tonight, and if I had to guess, it is the story that made him recognize his own genius. It shows up late in the book (it’s number 21 of 23 total), and it’s the first story you could read blindly and say “This has a Vonnegut smell to it.”
That is, it’s the first story in the book that has that signature Vonnegut style – that use of metaphor, that weirdness, that underlying tone of humanism… that irreverent and confrontational quality that makes you re-read sentences. It just reads like Vonnegut… and no other author could pass it off as their own.
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Last year I picked up a copy of Robert McKee’s Story and was impressed with it. It’s pretty much the “industry standard” for screenwriting (if such a thing matters), and covers, in 419 pages, the technical elements of a good script.
Until recently though, I’d never really read an actual script, and figured I could learn just as much from Wes Anderson, the Cohen Brothers and Sofia Cappola as I could from McKee.
I was able to find quite a few scripts online (via imsdb.com and other sites) and pulled together a bunch of links below.
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art by Ëlodie for La Marelle
Brian Warden is the arranger behind the St. Petersburg-based Woven Tales. He’s been a steady music feed for WT for nearly three years and is a good friend of our Editor. We recently hit him up for a mixtape and as fortune would have it, he sent us 14 tracks from 14 artists we’d never heard. It’s refreshing to realize that no matter how much music we expose ourselves to, there will always be someone out there listening to something different. The infinite nature of art makes it very much like the universe itself – or at least our most communicable representation of it. If there’s one lesson we can learn from this, it’s to appreciate that there’s a lot more space than there is matter. Remain humble – enjoy the tunes.
Sample tracks
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As 2010 wraps up, I wanted to highlight one artist and exhibit that truly astounds. The Young British Artist is Fiona Banner and her exhibit – on display since June at the Tate Britain – is the Duveens Commission 2010, AKA Harrier and Jaguar. Both pieces are huge, on account that they are the completely assembled bodies of two decommissioned fighter planes – a British Aerospace Sea Harrier hung upside down, and a SEPECAT Jaguar laying belly up, with an elegant chrome finish.
I like the way the installation transforms vehicles meant for dropping bombs into something beautiful and thought provoking… it’s a juxtaposition that leads viewers down a remarkable train of thought.
1. The startling massiveness of a plane dangling in front of you in a building.
2. An appreciation of each plane’s beauty & design, matched with the admission that “we’ve come a long way in technology.”
3. A very sad realization that these vehicles were designed to destroy human life and architecture.
4. The necessity of making peace with yourself for recognizing beauty first and human suffering second, which leads to a personal connection with the art and artist.
Distil. Simplify. Refine. Manicure.
There are several words in the English language that carry the message I’d like to get across in 2011. Most people look to improve by growing certain skill sets or talents, always adding more to the mind. This is an effective practice for growing up, as we expose ourselves to a wide and diverse set of knowledge, but with each of us, there are opportunities to improve in the inverse manner – through letting go and refining our interests and focus.
Take your music collection for example. You can keep buying or downloading album after album and watch it grow 20 tracks at a time until you have a monstrous library. But hit shuffle on it, and listen through. How many tracks do you truly love? 3 out of 10? 5 out of 10? How much better would your collection be if you trashed all the tunes you didn’t really like and replaced them with new ones.
I had to do this for about 4 years when I was still working with my old iBook. It only had a 10 GB hard drive, so I was forced to manicure my collection every time I wanted something new. It was like a trade, always trading up. If I shuffled it, my “thumbs up” rate was always right around 9 out of 10.
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Morihei Ueshiba (1883-1969) was history’s greatest martial artist. He was the founder of Aikido, which can be translated as “The Art of Peace.” Morihei Ueshiba is referred to by the practitioners of Aikido as O-Sensei, “The Great Teacher”. The following quotations have been compiled from O-Sensei’s collected talks, poems, and calligraphy, and from oral tradition.
One
The Art of Peace begins with you. Work on yourself and your appointed task in the Art of Peace. Everyone has a spirit that can be refined, a body that can be trained in some manner, a suitable path to follow. You are here for no other purpose than to realize your inner divinity and manifest your innate enlightenment. Foster peace in your own life and then apply the Art to all that you encounter.
Two
One does not need buildings, money, power, or status to practice the Art of Peace. Heaven is right where you are standing, and that is the place to train.
Three
All things, material and spiritual, originate from one source and are related as if they were one family. The past, present, and future are all contained in the life force. The universe emerged and developed from one source, and we evolved through the optimal process of unification and harmonization.
I didn’t realize until I had finished compiling that most of these tracks are collaborations, or tracks featuring guest artists. It was an interesting discovery – the best works are often done in synergy.
To make sure all artists got credit, I went through and linked to each individually. So here you go – 19 Tracks, 39 links and a mixtape you can pass on to friends for the holidays.
The opening track by Brother Ali is actually the last one I added, and I think it speaks beautifully about the power of unification through diversity. It sums up the tape well I think.
One love.
Garrett from Wishtank
1. Us | Brother Ali
2. Here I Am (ft. Phonte, Brother Ali, The Grouch) | BK-One with Benzilla
3. Anti-Matter (ft. MF Doom & Mr. Fantastik) | King Geedora
4. Barakaran (ft. Elucid) | Rob Victum ft. Donwill & Friends
5. Just Begun (ft. Jay Electronica, J Cole & Mos Def) | Reflection Eternal
6. Auditorium (ft. Slick Rick) | Mos Def
7. Save Me Dear | Wu Tang Vs. The Beatles (Ghostface & Tom Curuana)
8. Shadow Boxin (ft. Method Man) | GZA
9. Flashback (ft. Tame One) | Del The Funky Homosapien
10. Knicknack (ft. Percee P & Medaphoar) | Wildchild
11. Time is Just a Glare (ft. Thirtyseven) | The Aztext
12. Hades Isn’t Real (ft. Adam Kadmon) | Louis Mackey
13. Big Day for the Little People | Attack of the Mobile Rotting Machines
14. Answers (ft. Quasimoto) | Lootpack
15. Can’t Leave Rap Alone (ft. Celph Titled & Ryu) | Apathy
16. Filthier AKA “Place” | Tanya Morgan
17. What’s Up Fatlip? | Fatlip
18. The Stroke | Signifire
19. Anthem Banger | Humpasaur Jones
* Special thanks to our friend Teresa Esparza for naming this tape. We hope you like it.
