Muppetpastor 3.0

I did promise to take on the white urban gangtsa thugs from places like…erm…New Hampshire this week. So I will do this, sort of…..

Track one this week is the title track for this update, and comes from Adult Swim alumni mc chris. Chris Ward, otherwise known as mc chris (never capitalized), is a voice actor, rapper and improvisational comedian born September 2, 1975.

He has appeared on many of Williams Street Studios’ shows on Adult Swim, particularly Sealab 2021 and Aqua Teen Hunger Force, where he played Hesh, a high-voiced intern, and MC Pee Pants, an evil rapper, respectively. He also wrote for Sealab 2021 and The Brak Show. mc chris lent a track to the online music game Flash Flash Revolution.

mc chris has released four albums, the first of which is downloadable for free at his website. In October of 2004, he announced his resignation from Cartoon Network to the public on his blog to focus on his recording career (roughly halfway through the entry). He has since toured throughout the continental United States in an effort to expose all of America to his particular style of nerdcore hip hop. In 2004, ArmageddonMan of the Beef Storm Posse (BSP) released Disshead as a result of losing the mc chris remix competition held at mcchris.com. As of now, it is the only mc chris diss track in existence.

mc chris - White Kids Love Hip Hop

Track two this week comes to us from Nina Gordon, the co-founder of the band Veruca Salt with Louise Post until she left the band for a solo career. She released the album Tonight and the Rest of My Life in 2000, and promptly fell into obscurity until she delivered unto us all the most screamingly funny rap cover ever made. Several other mp3 blogs have dropped this track.

Nina Gordon - Straight Outta Compton (N.W.A. cover)

Track three hails from another person covering a rap song, this time Ben Folds. Benjamin Scott Folds (born September 12, 1966 in Winston-Salem, North Carolina) is an American singer-songwriter. Mainly known for his prowess as a pianist, he is also adept at guitar, bass, and drums. He originally gained fame as a member of the rock band, Ben Folds Five. Ben has released four solo albums: Fear of Pop: Volume 1, Rockin’ the Suburbs, Ben Folds Live, and Songs for Silverman. Fear of Pop was released while Ben Folds Five was still together; Suburbs, Live, and Songs for Silverman were released afterwards. Since Fear of Pop is highly experimental and Live is a collection of live solo recordings of mostly songs originally recorded with Ben Folds Five, Rockin’ the Suburbs is Ben’s first proper solo release, in which he recorded most of the instruments himself. In late 2003 two solo EPs: Speed Graphic and Sunny 16 were released, with a third entitled Super D released in mid-2004.

For some reason, he took it upon himself to revisit a seminal gangsta rap album, notable Dr. Dre’s “The Chronic”. I do not know why, but I do know playing this song at stoplights gets very funny reactions from people in other cars.

Ben Folds - Bitches Ain’t Shit (Dr. Dre cover)

Fourth track this week comes from Aussie imports, The Vines. The original version of the Vines met in suburban Sydney in the mid 1990s where Craig Nicholls, Patrick Matthews and David Oliffe met while working at their local McDonalds. They decided to form a band with Nicholls on guitar and vocals, Matthews on bass and vocals and Oliffe on drums. The band played Nirvana covers at parties while working on developing a sound of their own on Nicholls’ four-track recorder. The band was named the Vines because Nicholls’ father played in a Sydney band called the Vynes.

Their debut single “Factory” attracted little interest in their native land, but the Vines signed with Heavenly Records in the United Kingdom. They funded the recording of Highly Evolved with Rob Schnapf who had worked with the Foo Fighters, Beck and Elliott Smith. The single “Highly Evolved” earned them more critical hype as NME made it a single of the week in March 2002. That single also charted in the UK at #32 on the singles chart and also in Australia’s ARIAnet top 100 singles chart. The release of the album saw more critical success with the band appearing on the cover of Rolling Stone and the NME. The album debuted at #3 in the UK’s albums chart, #5 in Australia’s ARIAnet albums chart and #11 in the US Billboard Hot 100 albums chart. With the band playing high-profile slots on The Late Show with David Letterman and the MTV Video Music Awards. A few more singles were released from the album, including “Get Free” which charted in the UK at #24 and Australia at #44, while also being the #5 song in Australia’s Triple J Hot 100 of 2002. A third single, “Outtathaway” also charted in the UK, at #20, and also in Australia at #38. A fourth single was also released in Australia titled “Homesick”, reaching #50. Highly Evolved then went on to sell 1.5 million albums throughout the world with distribution through Capitol Records.

The instant success put great strain on the band. Oliffe did not like touring and the band added guitarist Ryan Griffiths and drummer Hamish Rosser. Nicholls and Matthews had a serious fight after a gig in Boston in late 2002.

In May 2003, the band went into a studio in Woodstock, New York with Rob Schnapf again on production. While Craig Nicholls had talked of having a highly produced album, he told the Australian edition of Rolling Stone in March 2004 that they decided to stick to a less-is-more philosophy. “I wanted it to be - in my head - something grand, with big ideas and that vision sort of thing. But at the same time, that doesn’t mean that something can’t be special if it’s just simple. Because I think that the songs are the main thing”.

I do not know where this song first appeared, but I have heard live versions of it.

The Vines - Ms. Jackson (OutKast cover)

Final track comes from vocalist Richard Cheese and his piano trio Lounge Against the Machine. They are best known for their Vegas-style lounge versions of today’s pop music hits. The name is a pun on that of rock band Rage Against The Machine.

Best known for their cover of Disturbed’s Down with the Sickness, which appeared in 2004’s Dawn of the Dead, the group has been giving the Vegas treatment to popular songs since 2000.

Other members of the group include:

* Bobby Ricotta - Keyboards
* Gordon Brie - Bassist
* Buddy Gouda - Drummer

All of the musicians use pseudonyms including a reference to cheese - Ricotta, Gouda, and Brie all being different types of cheese.

Richard Cheese has announced that he will retire from touring in December 2005, although he intends to work on other projects, which includes recording more CDs.

This track appears on Tuxicity,the second album from Richard Cheese and Lounge Against the Machine, released October 1, 2002. The album title is a take-off of System of a Down’s 2001 album, Toxicity.

Richard Cheese - Insane In The Membrane (Cypress Hill cover)

Alas, no Vanilla Ice nor Eminem. Oh, well. Keep it real, homies.