The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart

Annie Powers

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The Pains of Being Pure at Heart are here and indie pop matters again

By Bryan Reed
Published: January 30th, 2009 | 7:50am

The very notion of indie pop in 2009 seems almost quaint. It’s often so feigned and precious and best handled in small doses like that guy at the party who’s a little too nice, and probably wearing a cardigan. People aren’t that happy all of the time, and the best bands get it. Beat Happening sure as hell got it. Belle and Sebastian get it. And as anybody who hears their Slumberland Records debut will soon find out, the Pains of Being Pure at Heart get it.

Behind their sonic mass — a balance of twee-pop melodies and shoegaze density, something like Talulah Gosh backed by Neil Halstead — the Pains of Being Pure at Heart write songs about conflicted, damaged characters. Pop hooks get mangled by guitar noise as the songs’ narratives go deeper and darker. “The best music hopefully spurs thought and spurs you to reconsider things and not just take it at face value,” says frontman Kip Berman. It’s all about juxtaposition, pairing a pretty pop song with a not-so-attractive subject, jangle and squall, pain and purity. “It’s nice when there’s multiple layers to music,” Berman adds. “It gives songs a little more heft or impact.”

So does honesty, another trait laced through the Pains’ songs. “It’s all very rooted in who we are as people,” Berman says. “For better or worse, it’s who we are.” Even as the songs delve into heady and potentially painful subject matter — including broken hearts and drug addiction, alienation, teenage death, and sexual confusion — Berman insists there’s a basis in reality. “You can’t really be unmasked if you’re unmasking yourself.”

The directness in Berman's lyrics makes the songs immediate and almost tangible in their emotional quality. It’d be pretty difficult to confuse the meaning of a line like, “A teenager in love with Christ and heroin.” And even when he’s not so blunt, the lyrical bent in a Pains song is narrative and expository. So, excluding the sonic qualities, it’s songwriting qualities that make the Pains’ indie pop not just palatable, but vital. The band’s haze of suspended keyboard chords and chiming guitar fuzz doesn’t hurt; nor does the sweet, calm tone of Berman’s vocals. But that’s all for naught without songs worth getting acquainted with and empathetic characters who reveal more of themselves in each successive verse.

“The term ‘literate’ is not really one I’d want to use because I feel like most bands know how to read and write,” Berman says. Maybe thoughtful is more adept? He’s not a storyteller in the same photorealistic manner as a John Darnielle, or in the verbose style of a Colin Meloy, but Berman’s words are chosen with similar care, revealing details at the right moment or hiding them just long enough to make the big reveal feel urgent.

Berman cites the confessional songwriting bent of hardcore as an influence, but mostly it’s just about being honest with yourself. “We feel very comfortable being the uncomfortable people we are,” he says. And there’s a freedom in not hiding. Berman suggests that maybe being up-front isn’t as safe as relying on vague images to evoke emotion, but, he asserts, “our ambition isn’t simply to non-offend our way to people’s hearts.”

Certainly all the ingredients for a promising debut are to be found in the Pains’ self-titled long-player. And the response has been duly positive. Early press has been favorable, but perhaps the biggest votes of confidence came during the band’s recent U.K. tour, which found the Pains touring the stomping grounds of their idols. “If music is our religion, it was our pilgrimage, or like our hajj to go to England where all these pop bands are from,” Berman says. “It was almost like teenagers meeting the Jonas Brothers or something.”

And not only did Berman and his bandmates meet their idols, but those influential musicians were among the audiences on the tour. Modestly, Berman opines, “If all these people in bands we like are coming to our shows and liking it, it must mean we don’t suck that much.”

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For more information about the Pains of Being at Heart, check out their MySpace.

VenusZine online feature, 1/30/08

Notorious

NOTORIOUS—The Biggie Smalls portrayed in George Tillman, Jr.'s picture is at turns charming, brilliant and utterly loathsome. Smalls, aka Notorious B.I.G., aka Christopher Wallace (played by newcomer Jamal Woolard), is a womanizing former crack-dealer who spends the film's 100 minutes trying to come of age, even as he becomes hip-hop's biggest star. It's a realistic-enough sounding portrayal of an obese rapper who rose from street corner drug peddling to superstardom to an early martyrdom at the hands of still-unknown shooters. Elsewhere, musical biopic traps abound—the turbulent loves, the friends who always come through, and the tormented mother who never lost hope. Even so, Woolard so deftly shows us all sides of B.I.G. that we appreciate Biggie Smalls not as a hero or a villain, but as a man. Rated R. —BR

Independent Weekly

8 Days A Week

Wednesday 1.28

22 JAN 2009

The Naked Hearts

Chapel Hill
The Naked Hearts, Pinche Gringo, The Pneurotics
The Cave—It's pushing toward dawn when the caffeine shakes kick in, eerily synchronous with Josh Johnson's own rattling garage rock as it pushes the limits of my tiny computer speakers. His one-man (sometimes with one woman, too) band Pinche Gringo is soundtracking the swells of the bags under my eyes. Short of actually seeing the punk-blues barrage in person, it couldn't sound better. Lucky, then, are the souls who venture below the Cave's low-ceiling for Pinche Gringo's presence, this time flanked by The Pneurotics' eased-in rock and out-of-town headliners Naked Hearts, whose indie pop manages to recall everything from C86 pop to Jawbreaker. Things heat up around 10 p.m., cost is $5. —Bryan Reed

Independent Weekly, 1/22/09

Hearing Aid

YES, PLEASE

01.22 THE WADING GIRL/ JOKES&JOKES&JOKES @ RESERVOIR

This is what small rooms were made for—rocking folk/folksy rock as well suited for a bonfire as a bar by bands borrowing folk's rustic simplicity, punk's something-to-say impetus and the DIY traditions of both. Roanoke, Va.'s Wading Girl lounges in Southern tropes—religion, small-town America and the freedoms/confinements of both. Wading Girl's got three records out, all of which are offered for free on the band's MySpace for your pre-show pleasure. Local duo Jokes&Jokes&Jokes relies on similar themes for its own parables driven by frontdude Owen FitzGerald's observational tomes. Donations/ 10 p.m. —Bryan Reed

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RE-INTRODUCING...

01.24 LUEGO @ BROAD STREET CAFE

Haste almost got the better of Luego, the band of Durham songwriter Patrick Phelan. "I rushed the last [tour] and went out for about eight or nine months, and lost money pretty much every night," admits Phelan. "That's the quickest way to break up a band."

Sure enough, it did, and Phelan almost threw in the towel. Then Peter Holsapple, sometime player in The dB's, R.E.M. and Hootie and the Blowfish, talked him out of it. "Peter keeps telling me he wants to take a back seat, but he's been a real mentor and friend to me," says Phelan. "He came at the right time."

Since adding multi-instrumentalist Holsapple last fall, Luego has also earned some extra power with drummer Rob DiMauro and Roman Candle/ Max Indian members Nick Jaeger and Jeff Crawford. Phelan says there's a revival of rock classicism in Chapel Hill, citing Max Indian and The Old Ceremony as peers. In turn, this new Luego has traded its orchestral dabbling for a rock solid foundation in Neil Young-type roots rock, Comboland pop and even a touch of T. Rex swagger. "I feel like we're on to something pretty big," Phelan offers. He'll be giving out free two-song CD samplers of the bigness found on Luego's forthcoming LP tonight. Free/ 8 p.m. —Bryan Reed

Independent Weekly, 1/22/09

Arrington de Dionyso - I See Beyond The Black Sun

01/22/2009

Arrington de Dionyso

I See Beyond The Black Sun

(K)

www.krecs.com

On his last record with longtime band, Old Time Relijun, Arrington de Dionyso asked, amid clattering tribal percussion and brash sax skronk, "What does it mean to be human?" Here, he's searching for those same metaphysical truths-albeit without lyrics. De Dionyso's predilections for out-jazz and global sounds take the fore. Tuvan throat singing techniques that split de Dionyso's voice into low, gurgling drones and ethereal, fluid melodies mingle with bass clarinet squawks and moans from the first moments of "All Is On!" and throughout the album proper's 40-minute running time.

The extremely out-there CD-only bonus track "Les Grenouilles De Cherbourg" adds an extra 19 minutes, and feels unnecessary given the album's steady build-up to "Pluto In Capricorn (I See Beyond The Black Sun)," a 16-minute journey that eventually adds a steady rock drumbeat and unites the foreign, even alien, sounds of de Dionyso's throat-singing with Western convention. The throat-singing, a trick he's employed with Old Time Relijun, but rarely as a focal point, becomes a vehicle for de Dionyso's explorations of humanity. In effect, he's once again shown us something uniquely human-and regionally specific, to boot-by confounding our American ears' expectations with otherworldly sounds that, in fact, are easily traceable to this world.

Granted, that doesn't necessarily make for an easy-or even a pleasant-listening experience. De Dionyso's gurgles and groans and squawks and squeals offer plenty to reward the mind and body-he's a master of milking a groove from out-minded sounds-but inevitably, at least at times, come off as harsh and abrasive, as avant-garde music often does. It's hard to call that a compliment, but it's just as difficult to brand it a criticism. Suffice it to say, though, buyer beware: The sounds contained herein-deliberate though it might be-are far from accessible.

Standout Tracks: "Pluto In Capricorn (I See Beyond The Black Sun)," "All Is On!" BRYAN REED

Blurt Online, 1/22/09

Sound Bites

Thursday

Part Bear — I’ve always hated the word “cigs” for no reason I can rightly discern, and there it is, 33 seconds into Part Bear’s “Velvet,” glaring at me, taunting, teasing, smiling crookedly. It’s distracting. For a moment I forget what’s happening. I feel like an old man hearing rock music for the first time and being agitated out of a Benny Goodman coma. What the hell is this?! I’ll tell you what it is: It’s Athens-bred garage rock, some potent brew of sweat, libido and cheap beer — and, yeah, cigs. It spits the word defiantly. I’m all riled up. Gimme a cig. B. Reed
Wet Willie’s: 8 p.m., free; 779-5650.

Shallow Palace — When Shallow Palace sneers, there’s no room for nonsense. Hell, there’s no room for anything other than the band’s take on guitar-driven hard rock. Citations? Stooges and Stones. Petty and Pink Floyd. Costello and The Clash. Add a touch of Cursive here and there and that sounds about right. The quintet headlines a local showcase that also features The Reverie, Cats and Cobras and The Fossil Record — all of whom reach just far enough outside the alt-rock mainstream to be interesting without losing any accessibility. It’s a rock show, not an art museum. B. Reed
New Brookland Tavern: 7 p.m., $4 ($8 under 21); 791-4413, newbrooklandtavern.com.

Friday

Marry a Thief — Auto-Tune adversaries beware: It might be time to give up on indie-pop. Imogen Heap used it to gussy up “Hide And Seek” and Bon Iver’s newest EP features an a capella track that runs Auto-Tune all over Justin Vernon’s lonely croon. So it seems as if Columbia’s own Marry a Thief is ahead of the curve, then, adopting the warbly, distant and computer-generated timbre for itself. And to great effect: See “Honestly Bored” and its despondent coldness as compared to the band’s warmer, guitar-driven cuts. Different songs call for different sounds, and Marry a Thief, recognizing that, pushes its own sonic boundaries to evolve instead of just playing it safe. The Fire Tonight and This Machine is Me also play. B. Reed
Wet Willie’s: 8 p.m., free; 779-5650.

Saturday

The Vinyl Strangers — Athens’ Vinyl Strangers love guitar pop and aren’t afraid to show it. Clearly, the quartet is well-schooled in the genre. A proto-R.E.M. jangle ‘n’ sway rides the Byrds/Big Star sonic template by the book: chiming chords and buoyant rhythms meeting smooth melodies and Beach Boys harmony. And frontman Joe Guerzo’s voice sometimes carries a vaguely Stipe-ish timbre, giving credence to the Strangers’ hometown — and, by proxy, the Comboland pop that inspired R.E.M. Too often reverence trumps originality, but The Vinyl Strangers keep it fresh by turning their unabashed love of pop into sincerity and injecting top-notch lyric construction, resurrecting standard structures with clever twists of phrase, casual rhymes and developed narratives. B. Reed
Wet Willie’s: 8 p.m., free; 779-5650.

Free Times, 1/14/09

8 Days A Week

Sunday 1.18

14 JAN 2009

Chapel Hill
Mute
The Cave—The relative newcomers of Mute stretch atmospheric shoegaze into lengthy meditations built around repeated phrases that build glacially. Swapping unyielding density for scope and space, the songs either bury you until you forget they're building or they entrance you like rain on the roof at night. Reprising a Friday night set at Sadlack's in Raleigh, the Capital City quartet takes to the subterranean Franklin Street tavern with likeminded neighbors Goodbye, Titan, whose own post-whatever brew feels more direct than Mute's. Chapel Hill folky Natasha El-Sergany opens at 9 p.m. Cover is $5. —Bryan Reed

Editor's Note: Mute recently changed its name to The White Cascade.

Independent Weekly, 1/14/09

Kreator - Hordes of Chaos

Kreator
Hordes of Chaos

[Steamhammer; 2009]

Styles: thrash metal
Others: Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer
Links: Kreator - Steamhammer

In the more than 20 years since Germany’s Kreator debuted with 1985’s Endless Pain, not a whole lot has changed for Kreator, or for thrash as a whole. Being so minutely subdivided, metal’s subgenres tend to rest heavily on their sonic trademarks, evolving minutely — if at all — lest they enter a nominally different genre. And sure enough, Kreator’s thrash is undeniably thrash — not power metal, not death metal, not even melodic death metal. Thrash. Just like the band’s older cousins in Metallica did with last year’s Death Magnetic, Kreator is sticking to its guns. Except, Kreator, instead of rehashing its own glory days and sounding like a tribute band covering its own songs, has aged gracefully. The veteran band’s latest, Hordes of Chaos, might not have the same explosive power vintage thrash once seemed to carry in spades, but it trades spontaneity for finesse and deliberation. Indeed, Hordes of Chaos is put together, mature, even.

The sloppy, drunken speed-freak tendencies of thrash’s adolescence (think D.R.I.) is eschewed completely here, traded for Mille Petrozza’s sobering views of humanity and global politics, and a fierce yet fine-tuned machine of a band churning out tight and heavy thrash, polished with age and wisdom, but just as agitated as ever. The title track builds itself into a barely-contained frenzy with a whirlwind Petrozza chanting “everyone against everyone” as his band builds his mantra into a furious froth before dissolving into a sustained squeal of feedback that launches into the charged gallop that opens “Warcurse.” Only “Amok Run” softens the blow, and only momentarily as it opens with a sparse, deliberate, and melancholy melodic passage before erupting into lightning-fast riffs and Petrozza, snarling and rabid, leading his band with the confidence of a seasoned general ushering his troops to battle. Searing guitars, a thundering low-end, and a vicious frontman all coalesce here to make Hordes of Chaos a solid, pitch-perfect slab of by-the-book metal, front-to-back. Kreator might not have changed much, but if after decades of this kind of masterful consistency, who am I to complain?

1. Hordes of Chaos (A Necrologue For The Exile)
2. Warcurse
3. Escalation
4. Amok Run
5. Destroy What Destroys You
6. Radical Resistance
7. Absolute Misanthropy
8. To The Afterborn
9. Corpses of Liberty
10. Demon Prince

by Bryan Reed

The Final Analysis: Best Albums of 2008

Free Times' Top 10 Albums of 2008, blurb for WHY?'s Alopecia (repeated in individual list)

4. Why?, Alopecia (Anticon)(Two votes, 30 points)
I’ve long thought a successful synthesis of rock and hip-hop impossible. In 2008, Yoni Wolf proved me wrong. Pop’s way with a hook, indie rock’s confessional propensity and hip-hop wordplay come together allowing Wolf to propel his neurotic narratives into universal empathy and sing-along grandeur. You’re not likely to hear anything like this until the next Why? platter drops. - B. Reed

Free Times, 01/07/09

Individual List:
Bryan Reed

7. Harvey Milk, Life…The Best Game In Town (Hydra Head)(10 points)
Gus Van Sant and Sean Penn gave Harvey Milk, the slain San Francisco city supervisor and gay rights activist, a second life in the public conscious this year. Life …The Best Game In Town gave a similar resurrection to Harvey Milk the band. The titanic metal act from Athens delivered one of the year's heaviest albums the right way — digging into riffs so deep they become mudslides, churning deliberately, swallowing everything in its way. The bass rattles the floor, the vocals growl and gurgle, and the guitars alternate lunging ahead in classic-rock worthy solos and squeezing back into the maw of Harvey Milk's slow-rolling melee building power through repeated riffs.

6. Fuck Buttons, Street Horrrsing (ATP)(15 points)
Structured and subtly melodious, English duo Fuck Buttons' debut LP left little else to be desired from accessible noise. Hypnotic washes of static bake the repeated phrases and ideas that tie the album together as a cohesive unit, even as it veers at times into tribal percussion and distorted yelps, or insistent house-like bass thumps. Mostly, though, Street Horrrsing is both engaging and enveloping. It draws the listener in to it time and again, each time revealing a bit more of itself. Experimental, sure, but its attraction is as natural as any 12-bar blues.

5. Mamiffer, Hirror Enniffer (Hydra Head)(15 points)
Perhaps this year's most stirring debut, the solo project of multi-instrumentalist Faith Coloccia, solders post-rock, chamber pop and doom together with her tundra of piano phrases buttressed by abysmally deep bass grooves and martial percussion. She can drop the bottom out and give a song a blackened low-end groove, or hoist a song aloft on gentle piano and atmospheric noise — or, as is her custom, she can pull off both extremes within the course of one track. This dynamic lends the album a multifaceted character, at some times dark and ominous, at others serene and calming. At all times, though, Hirror Enniffer is nothing short of gorgeous.

4. Nomo, Ghost Rock (Ubiquity)(15 points)
Seamlessly blending jazz, Afro-beat and experimental electronics into delirious, danceable fun is Nomo's M.O. on Ghost Rock, and proves the Michigan band is at the top of its funky multi-culti pop potpourri. The band's musical brew is an effortless chemistry, and its product is as singular on today's market as the album is an absolute joy to listen to.

3. Earth, The Bees Made Honey in the Lion's Skull (Southern Lord)(15 points)
The 13th full-length release from Dylan Carlson's legendary Earth sounds like no other. His pacing remains slow and deliberate, but this is not the heavy, sludgy Earth of old; rather, this a post-millennial hodgepodge of soulful American music. Strains of gospel, country-western and jazz meet amid the hum of the towering amps Carlson and company have made trademark. Here, the drone isn't an end in itself, but returns to its universal role as the foundation from which music is birthed. The Bees Made Honey in the Lion's Skull feels timeless, its elements forming together into something near iconic. Indeed, this might well be a career-defining masterwork for Earth.

2. Why?, Alopecia (Anticon) (15 points)
I've long thought a successful synthesis of rock and hip-hop impossible. In 2008, Yoni Wolf proved me wrong. Under his Why? moniker, Wolf doesn't take the easy way out (rapping over a hard rock riff), but adopts the central elements of his source genres to create something new entirely. It's not a surprise that something this unconventional would be slept on, but it is a damn shame. Here, Wolf has produced a startlingly catchy and ear-friendly sonic blend. But most notable is the songwriting, which ranks easily among the year's best and finds the center of Wolf's successful genre synthesis. Pop's way with a hook, indie rock's confessional propensity and hip-hop wordplay come together allowing Wolf to propel his neurotic narratives into universal empathy and sing-along grandeur. You're not likely to hear anything like this until the next Why? platter drops.

1. Mount Eerie with Julie Doiron and Fred Squire, Lost Wisdom (P.W. Elverum & Sun)(15 points)
As bare as wintertime trees in Phil Elverum's native Pacific Northwest, Lost Wisdom is a glowing ember of an album. It creaks and moans and aches; it glows and dims and soon ends. Sparse arrangements and gentle harmonies move as one, fragile wisps of Elverum's creaking tenor and Julie Doiron's velvet croon embracing and separating. Recorded quickly with few takes, we hear the missed notes, the creaking of chair legs on wooden floors, the imperfect nature of the human voice, and the all-too-brief album turns those flaws into assets, and turns a fleeting moment of aural beauty into a quietly profound statement. The music itself is soon over, but the feeling it imparts lasts much, much longer.

Hearing Aid

YES, PLEASE

01.09 HELLRAZOR/ THUNDERLIP @ LOCAL 506

Hellrazor shoots from the hip: The Raleigh quartet's brand of vintage thrash lunges in straight lines, drawing from what the band refers to as the "strong roots from which heavy metal came." That, in Hellrazor's case, means gruff but melodic vocals, fast, chugging riffs and unrelenting surges of drums. Consider Iced Earth, Anthrax and Judas Priest the Unholy Trinity, and you'll be on the right track. Wilmington's Thunderlip brings Thin Lizzy's harmonic guitars and AC/DC's swagger. Raleigh's Armored Uprise opens. $5/ 10 p.m. —Bryan Reed

01.10 L IN JAPANESE @ NIGHTLIGHT

A longtime local beatmaker and dance party maestro, L In Japanese brings his boom-bap predilections and crowd-pleasing DJ set to the back alley bar as a means to benefit a West Franklin Street staple, Internationalist Books & Community Center. What a well-suited collaboration: With L's love of vintage and indie hip-hop, Nightlight's consistent commitment to adventurous music, and Internationalist's dedication to progressive politics and culture, respect for and participation in the underground gets its own boost tonight. $5/ 10 p.m. —Bryan Reed

Independent Weekly, 01/07/09

JANUARY 7, 2009

VISITING ACT | Wu-Tang Clan

Still Bringing Da Ruckus: Wu-Tang Clan's RZA leads the mellow jam

BY BRYAN REED

Veteran hip-hop act Wu-Tang Clan headlines in support of 8 Diagrams

Wu-Tang Clan
w/ The Movement
Sat. Jan. 10
8 p.m.
$45, $40/adv.
The Music Farm
32 Ann St.
(843) 853-3276
www.musicfarm.com
www.wutang-corp.com

Time has left its mark upon the Wu-Tang Clan. It's been 15 years since the earth-shattering (at least in retrospect) release of 1993's still astounding Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), and the Clan keeps on keepin' on. But this is a different Wu than the one that brought us immortal cuts like "C.R.E.A.M." and "Protect Ya Neck." The Wu-Tang of 2008 is a Clan short of founding member Ol' Dirty Bastard (née Russell Jones, who died in late 2004), and one that has struggled with infighting over the musical direction of last year's 8 Diagrams (their fifth studio album), which the group will be promoting at its Saturday night set at the Music Farm.

It's no real wonder that the initial reaction to 8 Diagrams was generally positive but mixed. Basically, if you're looking for another 36 Chambers, get ready for mild disappointment. The debut opens with the apt intro, "Bring Da Ruckus," and just as apt, the latest begins with the meditative "Campfire." Boom-bap with extra boom gets swapped for a hazy, Gospel tinged sample and a solemn backbeat. Diagrams finds RZA — Wu-Tang's long-standing producer extraordinaire — shifting his hazy atmospherics from tense, cinematic soundscapes to drifting guitar lines and paying more attention to R&B melodies. Note the album's hyped "The Heart Gently Weeps," on which Red Hot Chili Pepper John Frusciante and Beatle progeny Dhani Harrison give the Fab Four's "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" a gliding interpolation with Erykah Badu's smoky croon providing the hook. It's an easy standout as much for its unexpectedness as its effortless charm.

But the new direction wasn't well-received by all — including Wu Tang lifers Ghostface Killah and Raekwon (who called RZA a "hip-hop hippie" in an interview). The fact remains, 8 Diagrams is no 36 Chambers. But this isn't 1993, either. Expecting the Wu-Tang to act like a time-capsule would be unfair and detrimental to all involved.

In the world of hip-hop where catalog sales are all but nonexistent, 15 years can cover several lifetimes. And the mere fact that Wu-Tang still makes headlines so long after their introduction — and in light of the late-'90s oversaturation of all things Wu — should be testament enough to the act's continuing relevance. That they can pull in talent as far flung as Frusciante and George Clinton for an album six years in the making — to say nothing of actually getting legal clearance for a Beatles sample — demonstrates plenty of Clan's influence.

So even though the Staten Island crew obsessed with Kung-Fu movies and comic books never took over the music industry quite as they'd hoped, they maintained a venerable presence in it. And they evolved. They got older. They went in their own directions and came back to where it all started. They changed like an old hometown changes when you're gone.

What's on display with 8 Diagrams is a wizened Wu-Tang, eased into their trademarks, and casually pushing the boundaries of their sonic comfort zone — more guitars, more singing, less fury. There's even a bit of the sentimental in "Life Changes," the touching eulogy for ODB that closes the album.

And, it should be noted, not everything has changed. There's still the same easy charisma, innate chemistry, humor, wordplay, and consistency that made Wu-Tang a household name. And, sure enough, Wu-Tang still ain't nothin' ta F' wit.

Charleston City Paper 01/07/09