ldlewild’s Roddy Woomble adjusts to his new home of New York.
It you could take a little something from every city in the World and combine it sonreho'.'.'. you'd have something close to New York City. The ‘new Home. as one cab driver put it to me. I'm not sure about that. but l am sure that a city that thinks and moves in such a way shouldn't be represented globally by a man who can barely tie his shoelaces. To say there's an air of rlisappoiiitment and uncertainty blowing around these streets would be a understateiirent.
Election lever certainly sot.)ered me up both literally and metaphorically from Halloween. which is as frantic an evening here as Hogiiranay is in Scotland. Weaving my way past groups of girls in their naughty nurse and nun outfits behind Frankensteins drinking Bud Light out of brown paper bags. I bump into someone I know dressed as a mirror ball. And they look like a mirrorball. thankfully avoiding dressing up. | end my Halloween at a party in Harlem sitting behind the biggest pumpkin l have ever seen. surroundr-xl on all srde by rockers from Omaha talking politics in between shots of Absinthe. There's good reason why that stuff used to be outlawed. Walking home the next morning I mistook the postman for an eagle. Flying high above the Rocky Mountains.
There 's a band worth seeing almost every night here. Last week the Futureheads brought the sound of Sunderland to the Lower East Side. blowing the roof off the venue and disturbing a few angled haircuts along the way. The Walkmen also never disappoint. sounding like the band Holden Cautield would have formed, had he the inclination.
Running the gauntlet in a cab later that night. I'm reminded ol a quote by Mark Twain: 'l have a great many troubles. but most of the time they never happen'. which is sweet living in a City where you're a hotdog away from madness every corner you turn.
Incidentally. I see this as a good thing.
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KANYE WEST
Carling Academy, Glasgow, Wed 24 & Mon 29 Nov
This time last year, few had heard of Kanye West. Now, thanks to a truckload of awards, countless
bearded fella who was nailed to a cross a while back (‘Jesus Walks‘). Remarkably, Kanye West is perhaps the one artist who‘s been able to unite hip hop‘s rival underground and commercial fraternities. Both backpack-sporting underground heads and the club-
column inches and a critically acclaimed zillion-selling album, the Chicago-born producer/rapper and self- proclaimed ‘Luis Vuitton Don’ is, along with a certain bleach-blonde white emcee, the face of hip hop.
After stealing the show on Jay-2‘s 2001 The Blueprint, producing four tracks on that near-perfect album, Kanye raised more than a few eyebrows by signing to Roc-A-Fella Records, a label more often associated with rap of the platinum, pistols and pussy variety. Yet his resulting debut effort proved to be soulful, intelligent and funny all at once. Massive in scope, The College Dropout was a breathtaking behemoth of an album: Kanye recounted his near-fatal
hopping bling bling set have had The College Dropout on almost permanent rotation since its much- trumpeted release at the start of the year.
Since then, his startlingly fresh ‘chipmunk soul‘ sound — which consists of little more than speeded-up vocal snippets over old soul loops — has blessed songs by artists as diverse as Alicia Keys, Janet Jackson, 0-12 and Dilated Peoples. The acclaim heaped upon his music (he triumphed at this year‘s MOBO Awards, bagging the Best Hip Hop Act, Best Producer, and Best Album gongs) means he's now eclipsed even the Neptunes as urban music's producer de jour, and next year he’s set to launch his
2002 car crash (the stunning ‘Through the Wire’), debated the best tunes to play when between the sheets (‘Slow Jammz’), and even bigged up some
own clothing line, Mascot. Super producer, style icon, and hip hop hero - Kanye West owned rap in 2004. (Hugh Leask)
HORACE ANDY Liquid Room, Edinburgh, Fri 26 Nov; King Tut's. Glasgow, Sat 27 Nov
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