Three tales of interest from the front page of Pitchfork

I read a lot of websites every morning, and Pitchfork is invariably one of them. It's great to have a place where I can see the names and some brief descriptions of a few bands I've never heard of every day, and a place where I can learn that someone I already like (like Denison Witmer a few days ago) already has a new record I knew nothing about.

Today, though, there were three really interesting things on the page that kept me tied up for, like 10 minutes altogether, which is impressive. The first one was this news story:

Babygrande Records has formed a joint venture with Dreddy Kruger's Think Differently Music Group. No one knows exactly what this means, what with that shadowy Wu-Tang Clan involved, but we do know that it means a whole bunch of Clan activity coming our way-- and that can't be bad news.

So far, three projects are lined up, the first of which will be Think Differently Music: Wu-Tang Meets the Indie Culture. Babygrande's official site describes this as "an unprecedented pairing of Wu-Tang artists, producers, and affiliates with some of independent hip-hop's East and West Coast elite. RZA, MF Doom, GZA, Rass Kass, Aesop Rock, Masta Killa, Del the Funky Homosapien, Sean Price, J Live, Tragedy Khadafi, C-Rayz Walz, RA the Rugged Man, Littles, Cannibal Ox, Sunz of Man, Royal Fam, and many more artists, producers, and even award winning filmmaker Jim Jarmusch have come together for what will be a historic moment in hip-hop."

This'll be in stores on October 18, and the first single, "Biochemical Equation" featuring the RZA and MF Doom, will make its premiere on iTunes in August. Further projects will include solo albums from Wu-Tang affiliates Bronze Nazazreth and La the Darkman/Embassy Entertainment.

Of these pairings Dreddy Kruger says, "I learned how to make albums...the whole process of putting a record together from the RZA and Schott Free. It feels good to finally have my own situation to bring my conceptual thinking to hip-hop and I look forward to working with Babygrande to make it happen."

There are a few things to point out here:

There's a rapper named Dreddy Kruger? This only supports my theory from earlier this week that rappers are running out of names. See "Webbie" for further proof. (note: not that I wouldn't make fun of Snoop Doggy Dogg if he was a new guy. I'm not saying I wouldn't. But I bet you dollars to donuts that Snoop makes Dreddy look like Mike Pape. No offense, Mike. You're just, y'know...clearly a non-rapping white guy.)

"Wu-Tang Meets the Indie Culture" sounds like a cartoon special I'd love to see.

Jim Jarmusch doesn't have anything to do with this record. Seriously. What's he going to do with the actual record? In fact, I'm willing to bet that Jarmusch's mic skillz make Mike Pape look like Webbie. Or something like that.

Did you also hope for a minute, as I did, that this was an O.C. Fueled idea that was going to mean Ben Gibbard singing over a RZA-led ODB tribute? Or, like, those guys from Pavement reforming to have Method and Red rap over "Shady Lane?" I'm not gonna lie to you, I'd be really maliciously happy if that was the case.

The second thing I learned was that Iggy Pop could easily, and I mean easily, simultaneously be my grandpa and give me the beating of a lifetime. Look at the guy. Plus, I gotta say "millions in prizes" is a fantastic title for an anthology of badass music spanning several decades.

Finally, I learned that the Travolta-esque revitalization of Bill Murray's carreer that Wes Anderson started will now continue in another movie where he plays an older guy looking disgruntled and getting punched. I guess he didn't get punched in most of the other ones, but he's certainly disgruntled and older in all of them. Although, this movie seems to take his Peter Venkman as Lothario persona and shoot it into a Jim Jarmusch movie. Which means it's probably a little wierd, but over all enjoyable. How the heck was Venkman a ladies man, anyway? I never got that. Anyway, the movie looks pretty good. And that's all I got. See you all in another month, right?