Schneider, who played flutes, synthesizers, electro-violin, and programmed computers, first met Ralf Hütter in the late 1960's when the two were both students at the Düsseldorf Conservatory. Initially the group played more in the Krautrock vein before altering their style to more techno/synth pop/rock for which they became famous. Besides merely playing their instruments, they also created many of them. Kraftwerk is perhaps the most widely influential band of the past several decades, with their influence being felt in every genre from new-wave to hip-hop to techno and other strains of electronic music and beyond.

V.E.R.A. Clique's Fresh Out The Box CD is available at Amoeba Music and other stores but you can also buy it on BART if you're lucky to run into one of its members selling the CD on a random BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) train.

The Oakland based group, whose album track "The Movement" is featured on the recent BOMB Hip-Hop Compilation Vol. 2 (also avail at Amoeba), are a talented hard-working hip-hop crew whose pre- Oakland roots date back to 2002 to Bend, Oregon where the group's Anderson Ray and Mascen Apollo first crossed paths at a hip-hop event. Fast forward a few years and both hip-hoppers had moved south to the Bay Area where they formed the group V.E.R.A. Clique, with the name standing for Very Essence of Real Artists.

I first learned about V.E.R.A. Clique only recently and in a most unusual way -- while sitting on the Bay Point / Pittsburg to San Francisco BART, somewhere near the MacArthur stop, Mascen Apollo of the group walked by dirt hustlin his crew's CD to BART passengers, all the while keeping a watchful eye out for the BART police, who not only frown upon any business being conducted on BART, but will arrest perpetrators for doing so. Over the years I have seen Bay Area hip hop artists sell their CDs or cassettes at various public places. In bygone years, members of Hobo Junction or Mystik Journeymen and their extended Living Legends crew would often be found on Durant or Telegraph (outside Amoba) selling their cassettes. But selling on the BART train was a novel approach to hip-hop marketing or distribution that I had not witnessed before. Hence I was anxious to find out more about it so I recently caught up with the V.E.R.A. Clique member Mascen Apollo to ask him about slinging hip-hop on BART.

Los Pikadientes De Caborca-"La Cumbia Del Rio"
Probably the most fun Cumbia I've heard coming out of Mexico since Celso Piña's monster hit "Cumbia Sobre El Rio," Los Pikadientes created their own style of drunken pueblo Cumbia that is fun as anything you would hear at a Mardi Gras. The video for the song is excelient as well.

Jose James-"Park Bench People"
This song is a validation to all the L.A. underground Hip-Hop heads that felt Freestyle Fellowship were light years ahead of their time. Jose James adds more jazz but doesn't stop the flow. Such a visual and beautifully lonely song.

Hijos De La Cumbia-"La Mara Tomasa"
Maybe it was the Caifanes sample or that it borrowed heavily from Andres Landero's "Mi Machete." Either way, I couldn't stop playing this song in the clubs or at my house.

Erikah Badu-"Cleva" (Captain Planet Remix)
This was the B-Side to Greenwood Rhythm Coalition's remix of Erikah Badu's "Honey." It's a Samba version of her hit from her Mama's Gun album. Fits right in with the classic Brazilian music and never failed to make heads turn at the clubs.

Patato Y Totico-"Dilo Como Yo" (Antibalas Remix)
Antibalas took this Patato Y Totico classic and took it into outer space via Africa. Best track off the Verve Remix Vol.4.

Nortec Collective Present Bostich & Fussible-"The Clap"
Part Kraftwerk and part Los Tigres Del Norte, and they make it work!

Madonna falling in Rio back in December got me to thinking, naturally enough, about Mulholland Dr.'s use of "Llorando," Rebekah Del Rio's Spanish cover of "Crying." There's a lot of gravitas to gravity -- with one slip, the reality of artifice can be exposed. At the club Silencio, when the character of Del Rio (played by Del Rio) falls, but her singing continues, David Lynch is playing around with Bertolt Brecht's epic theater and his notion of estrangement. By having the work remind the audience of the layer of representation intervening between them and the emotions they're experiencing, Brecht hoped to create a more politico-rationally engaged experience -- that is, one of empathy, not sympathy (the former being of intellectual understanding, not the latter's identification).


However, Lynch turns estrangement on its ear by using lip-synching as the emotional crux of his film. If you'll remember, the scene occurs at the point where the fugue world of Betty is fracturing, and the reality of Diane is seeping in. Diane had killed her lover, Camilla, out of jealousy, replacing her in the dream with the amnesiac Rita. Of course Rita can't remember who she is, because she's a manifestation of Diane's oneiric state, a displacement of Camilla, with all the bad stuff repressed. As Rita, she's a ghost, pure desideratum, or Diane's objective (objectified) correlative of the real deal. (In fact, the same applies to Betty; she's Diane's idealized self.) Just as the illusion of the film's representational quality is most exposed (Lynch's "eye of the duck" scene), Betty and Rita begin sobbing -- and (provided the Silencio sequence works properly) the audience along with them.