Fan of the Month

Well, if you've ever wanted to see my ugly mug (and my beautiful daughter, said in all humbleness but as a proud father), here's your chance- I was recently named the AD Fan of the Month!  Probably won't help my resume at all, but pretty cool that they thought enough of me to do that.  Thanks to Mike Mullis from Vagabond Records for hooking it up. 

My Interview With Speech

 It’s not often that you get to ask one of your favorite artists a bunch of questions that you’ve always wanted to, so I was honored to recently have a chance to ask Speech a bunch of questions and have him respond back. Since I am an amateur at this, in lieu of a phone interview or something like that, we corresponded through e-mail and needless to say I am beyond thrilled with the results.  I hope you all enjoy reading the answers as much as I did, and hopefully I covered enough material to satisfy the AD fans out there who are tired of hearing interviews that start with “where have you guys been.”  We of course know the answer is that they’ve been making great music while many slept.  Now on to the interview….

Highway 85:  First off, thanks so much for agreeing to do this! I really appreciate it, and I also want to thank you for twenty years of “Life Music.” I guess I’ll get right into it, and anything that you don’t feel like answering, please just skip. Some of these questions came from a couple of contributors to Highway 85 as well. I tried to ask some oddball questions that you might not hear in your standard interview, so please accept my apologies in advance if you find any of them too off the wall….. We’ll start off with an old stand-by question: What are your plans for your next project?  

The Yoshida Brothers!

SPEECH: Well, we have a couple of plans in the works. #1.) I'm working on a Japanese collaborative project with a duo called the Yoshida Brothers, who by playing the traditional instrument, shamisen have quite a large following. I'm mixing a hip hop sensibility with their lush eastern sound, bringing a very unique style to the table all its own. 2.) The group has begun recording a new album to celebrate our 20 years in the business. With this record we're taking more time than ever before, since our debut and making sure we have the quality we're looking for, It's been REAL exciting! Lastly, we're striving to make bigger moves into the world of charities and lining our audience with them. We've done two things already (Yo Gabba Gabba and the Childrens Hospital in Atlanta). We're going to do much more of that!

 
Highway 85:  Are you still going with the mixtape idea or something else?  
SPEECH: We probably will, because we did about 10 songs recently, of which "Living" was one. And they're great tunes, that deserve a listen. We felt they weren't the best representation of a 20th year celebration album, so we put them on the back burner. However, like "Living" we'll plan to leak them out there, one by one.

Highway 85:  How has the feedback been to the new single “Living”?  
SPEECH: The feedback has been really great! One of the biggest obstacles we have now is getting it out there in a bigger way! We're not financially in the situation to do it right now, so we have to be patient. But the song itself has gotten much love, especially in the States! Seems like it’s been getting some love out there on twitter and so forth.

Highway 85:  Any thoughts of calling the album Twenty Years, Five Months and 2 Days in the Life Of….? SPEECH: ;-) Nah, that album has been such a blessing to us, that we don't want to draw anymore reference to it for future stuff, and lessen it's impact. It's also quite tuff to outshine that albums successes, so we're chipping away at peoples perception of that being our best work.
(Click the link for more)

Acoustic AD Charity Performances

I am a huge sucker for acoustic performances by Arrested Development, and if you are to, make sure you check these performances AD did for a benefit for Children's Health Care of Atlanta. There is also an interview included. Awesome stuff! And if you are a fan of acoustic performances, make sure you check out this previous post with a full Speech solo performance. Probably my favorite post I've done on this site.

Tennessee:

 

People Everyday:


 Interview:

Living Single

Speaking of old Fox shows, did you see what I did with the title there? Well, at least I amused myself..... Anyway, if/when you pick up the new AD single "Living" make sure you buy it on their website as it includes an instrumental and acapella track as well as the song. I didn't realize that and simply bought it off itunes, so now I'll go back and double dip on the "special edition." Just a heads up! FYI the "I'ma Fight Back Right Now" single has an instrumental version as well on the AD site.

AD on In Living Color

Talk about some old memories- here's a video of AD performing "Mr. Wendal" on In Living Color.  This show as well as Arsenio Hall and even New York Undercover were great at exposing different rap acts to mainstream America.  For those of you not aware that she got her start as a "Fly Girl" on this show, yes, that is J-Lo at the beginning. 



Speaking of memories, here's another Atlanta-based group on the same show. Not going to lie, in 1992 this as my other favorite group back then!

The Healing Kadi Foundation

Disclaimer:  This is not a post directly related to Arrested Development or Speech, so feel free to move on.

Highway 85 has now been up for about 13 months.  I didn't make a big deal about the one-year anniversary of the site, because frankly it wasn't a big deal.  Pretty simple!  I've really enjoyed it and it's been a great experience, and will continue to be- I have a couple of hopefully fun things coming up planned.  But I think the best part of the blog is finding out, from my admittedly limited interactions, that everyone in the group and associated with the group is as nice as you would hope they would be.  There are certain artists that I think I would have a hard time listening to if they weren't (Chuck D is one that comes to mind, and thankfully he's just an awesome down-to-earth guy.  Meanwhile, would anyone care or be surprised if say Lil Wayne was awful to his fans?).  No such problem with this crew!

Anyway, here's where I am going with this.  One thing that I have resisted is trying to make any money from this site.  If anything, I've lost money from buying a lot of the albums, songs, etc. that have popped up here, although I probably would have bought them anyway.  Highway 85 has basically been done purely out of my love and appreciation for the group, and my desire to get some of their harder-to-find material out there for other fans like me.  That's pretty much it.  So I didn't enable google ads or anything like that- not that there would be a ton of money out there, and frankly, by the time this site started to rack up solid hits I basically ran out of material to post on a consistent basis.  I'm just trying to say that I didn't think it was right to even try to make money off of someone else's art.  But, since I do have a small forum to reach a few folks thanks to this site, I thought I'd give this a shot.

Basically, if you happen to have a few extra bucks in your pocket (and who doesn't these days?) and you'd like to donate to an awesome cause, I would like to point you in the direction of a group called The Healing Kadi Foundation.  You can read more about it here (as well as donate), but in a nutshell, there is a doctor that my wife used to work with named Dr. Dumba who is from South Sudan.  He has made a series of missions there with other volunteers to provide medical care to people that do not have any access to medical care.  No exaggeration- they have NO access.  People walk from miles around to line up for days to meet with Dr. Dumba and his volunteers during their annual visit.

To help these people, the Healing Kadi Foundation has come up with a vision.  The first step of that vision is something called a "Clinic in a Can."  They have already purchased 3 of these units, units that will provide a sterile environment to perform surgeries as well as other services.  So the units have been purchased, but the problem is that they are sitting in a hospital parking lot in Omaha as they are still $15,000 short of the needed funds to ship these clinics (UPS isn't cheap.....).  Honestly, if you have you ever worried about making a donation to a chartiy with the fear that the funds wouldn't be allocated effectively, you don't have to worry here- the funds go to shipping these clinics so that they can be used to save lives.  Their eventual plan is to build a hospital in the newly independent South Sudan, but that's a long ways off.

For the record, I am not affiliated with this group.  My wife just happened to formerly work with Dr. Dumba and has been a witness to the good that he's been doing.  It's really an awesome story.

(I was going to post "Africa We Thank Ya" from Strong as part of this, but it's no longer on youtube!)

People Everyday on X-Factor

I don't really watch TV so I'm behind the curve on this, but Arrested Development's "People Everyday" was performed on the show "The X-Factor" by a guy named Chris Rene.  He adds his own lyrics and removes a lot of the AD content, but I have to say, I kind of like it.  He even flips the "you know, you know, you know, HIT IT!" part.  The track is kind of busy and it seems to me that this was recorded in a studio and not on some rich dude's back lawn, but anyway, check it out.  And Rihanna is hanging out, so it's got that going for it:

Update on New AD Album (And New Speech Album)

In case you missed this on the fantastic new Arrested Development website, there was an update posted on 20 as well as some info on Speech's new album.  I have to say that I agree with this approach.  A free project would be great (thinking out loud, maybe we could get a mixtape with unreleased 20 songs as well as the unused stuff from Strong?), but I would much rather have a fully realized AD album.  They also drop a note on a new Speech record, which is equally encouraging to me.  Here's some info:

AD is planning to record this fall. They were scheduled to release a free project called, “20″ in mid 2011, but Speech reconsidered. “I wanted us to really give our absolute best, not just what happens to come out of us creatively  within a certain time period. Our next album will be called “20″ (celebrating 20 years since the debut) it will be our most compelling & significant music project we’ve ever done! Our approach is to be musically dense, melodically simple and the subject matter easy to follow” adds Speech. Speech has also been drafting a new solo album which will be a totally melodic, live band experience that will feature many of the AD members. Eshe says, “This fall we’ll be gearing up for a big 2012. We have a number of big festivals scheduled for that year already so we hope to have finished this new project by then.” The group is focused. The music, activism, exposure and brand of AD is planned to be at another level for the coming year.

New AD Single

Just a reminder- the new Arrested Development single "Living" drops tomorrow on itunes.  I'll be checking it out for sure, so you do the same!

What Happened At Midnight.... (New Speech Song)

Tonight at midnight (eastern time?) there is scheduled to be a new Speech song posted here called "I'ma Fight Back Right Now" featuring an artists named Kamren.  So check it out.

Finally, Some News!

There's quite a few things going on right now with Arrested Development- for starters, they have a new website that is MUCH better than the old one- check it out here. 

And in bigger news, they've announced a new single called "Living."  Go here for the details on this one.  The single will be released digitally on September 27th and is being produced by Randy Walker, who is someone new to working with the group.  (Randy Walker was also the name of the late "Stretch" who worked with Tupac Shakur early in his career.)  I'm not sure what project this single will be attached to, but I will definitely be checking for it and I'll have more on it then. 

A Few AD Updates

Here are a few of the developments going on in AD world since I last checked in here:

First off, vote for JJ Boogie to take part in this panel at this site- just click thumbs up to vote for him.

AD is also going to have a Remix Contest (they did this a while back as well).  Here are the details from their mailing list: 

Remix Competition 

AD is about to release some of the most POWERFUL songs ever!  WE WANT YOUR REMIXES!!  This is your chance to be discovered by the whole world!  Vocal-only tracks will be posted on ArrestedDevelopmentMusic.com on Sept. 1st!

And from what I understand, work is going to continue on the 20 project.  And that basically sums up what is going on with AD at the moment as far as I know!

Lost Month

Hello to everyone who still checks in here from time to time.  I apologize for the lack of updates, but first off, there hasn't been anything to post about as I think we've covered about every release AD and Speech have ever been involved in, and now we are just eagerly awaiting the 20 project.  And secondly, I haven't had much time to make up something either.  With that in mind, I'll be on vacation for a week or so, so I won't have anything up anytime soon.

That said, I did stumble on a very bizarre review of Since the Last Time that I will be covering down the road.  Check out this quote:

Furthermore, on 'Sunshine', he berates himself for getting together with a white female fan – who he "had to admit had a beautiful smile", claiming, "I was feeling like I just betrayed all of my kind". Surely this kind of statement is much more potentially harmful than any Comic Book 'blood n' guts' scenario that 50 Cent might come out with.

So I'll be analyzing this statement down the road.  In the meanwhile, if you've ever wanted to see AD involved in a video game, then I've got the video for you, with the allegedly racist "Sunshine."  Enjoy!

Freedom

I'm not really a flag waving patriot that goes around ringing bells, warning the British that the British are coming, and firing warning shots like Paul Revere (allegedly), but I do still believe in the ultimate ideal of America- that "all men (and women) are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness."  That's what the song 'Freedom" ultimately means to me- a tribute to the ongoing struggle that America can live up to that ideal.  So on the anniversary of America's independence, give that song a listen and get a little history lesson to boot.  This song is from the US version of Strong and is one of the better songs in my opinion.

Greatest and Best

For whatever reason, there is a veritable flood of Arrested Development Greatest Hits/Best Of releases out there.  For no particular reason, I thought it would be kind of fun to post up some of the various covers and variations that are floating around out there.  I personally only own one of these releases, which will be the first one that we'll post:  Classic Masters.

 

 

 

This one has a remix of "Like Marvin Gaye Said" that varies a bit from others, and it is also the first place I saw "Southern Fried Funk" despite it being a b-side elsewhere, so it was a must buy for me.  The tracks have all supposedly been remastered as well- maybe I should listen closer to see if I can tell the difference.  I'm really not much of an audiophile despite having a ridiculous collection of music.  I think that stuff just lost it's luster with me when my car stereo kept getting stolen and it just got to be burdensome to worry about.  Anyway, on to more covers:

My Deluxe 3 Years, 5 Months, & 2 Days in the Life... Album

I got to thinking the other day about how I apparently really like to buy the same album two or three times.  In these days where most people have a hard enough time buying one copy of a particular CD, I'll often have two or maybe even three copies of certain CDs.  Now I should stop and mention that what happens is I get suckered in for a "special edition" of the album I already bought, specifically a special edition of a classic hip hop album.

The epic deluxe version of Mecca and the Soul Brother.

The quality on these releases vary.  The Beastie Boys put out loaded two-disc sets of their second through fifth albums (with the exception of Paul's Boutique, which was left untouched due to laws surrounding the heavily sampling on that album from the epic "Wild West, anything goes" days of sampling), Run-DMC released single discs of their first four albums with outstanding bonus tracks and liner notes (you're not a hip hop fan if you didn't get excited to hear their original version of "Slow and Low" that was later covered by said Beasties), and we saw really great versions of Criminal Minded by KRS-One and Mecca and the Soul Brother by Pete Rock & CL Smooth last year.  I would be remiss in not mentioning the outstanding two-disc version of Paid in Full as well.

As good as these are, there are some other re-releases that have too many holes to really be worth the re-purchase.  For example, Priority created special editions of Ice Cube's first four albums that are great if you didn't have the records, but offer little to those of who had those albums as well as his already released b-sides collection.  The NWA special editions weren't any great shakes either.  Other artists like Public Enemy and LL Cool J are begging to have special editions done of some of their classic albums, but thanks to the ineptitude of Def Jam, these will never see the light of day.  (Speaking of ineptitude at Def Jam, I'm listening to Big Boi's album from last year and I'll never figure out how this wasn't a huge hit for that label.). 

Eyes As Hard- Part Two

Saw through the eyes of the inflicted people
Their eyes are hard as a million tombstones
marked with the names of the millions of kin thrown
to the dust that gave them their colored skin
Fade to black is the scene they're embalmed in

From "Raining Revolution" by Arrested Development

Moving on to part two of my review of Eyes as Hard as a Million Tombstones (part one here), I quickly learned that I probably could've just tacked this on to part one as there isn't a whole lot to comment on for the last 20 minutes or so of the video.  But the choice has been made, instead of getting with this I got with that, and here we are.

We now move on to the video for "People Everyday," which is the video I'm most familiar with.  I think this video played every night on Yo! MTV Raps during the summer of 1992 (as did the previously referenced "The Choice is Yours Revisited" by Black Sheep).  We go from there to a little segment on Speech talking about his "sing-song" rap style that he used on "Tennessee."  According to Speech, he recorded "Raining Revolution" first and then later decided to use it on "Tennessee," which was an excellent decision.  I'm not an expert on rap flows or technique, but it seems to me that Speech was the first to really use this style, a style that would go on to be used by just about everyone at some point, but the names that really come to mind right now are Bone thugs -n- harmony at times and Nelly.

We then move on to the video for "Revolution."  At some point there is more discussion from Speech where he expresses his desire for a family, but laments it's incompatibility with a "revolutionary" lifestyle.  Obviously it's not hard to tell which direction he went, and one can't blame him.  Of course, there are ways to rebel besides becoming Che Guevara.

From here on out, you can basically describe the rest as filler material- these are the last 10 minutes of the video.  A few more shots of the group, some clips from Unplugged on MTV, and footage of the group accepting an MTV Music Award.  Realistically, from here on out mainstream rap music quickly deteriorated into the gangster era, so I get a little sad when I hear the group talking about how their music with actual content proved that you can succeed with a mainstream audience while staying positive.  Not for long.  Very bittersweet ending really.


To close the video out, there's some wacky stuff played over the credits of fans talking about the group that probably could've been left on the cutting room floor, but no biggie.   I've also seen that some copies claim that the video for "Natural" is included, and it probably is, but not on my copy.  Again, no biggie in this youtube age as we can look it up in two seconds now, but I would've been ticked if I had bought it back then looking for the video!

Anyway, that sums up my review of Eyes as Hard as a Million Tombstones.  If you've got a working VHS player, it can still be found pretty cheaply on the used market, and if you're an AD fan I highly recommend checking out this video as I think you'll enjoy it greatly, as I have.  It loses a little steam at the end, but before that it's filled with Speechy goodness....  :)  

Chocolate Therapy

In case you missed it, Speech has posted the third entry in his "Musical Safari" series- "Chocolate Therapy."  I think Ben and Jerry's makes that in a pint and a quart.... anyway, here it is.

Deee-Lite

Well, my hope when I saw that Arrested Development had collaborated with the dance group Deee-Lite on a couple of tracks back in 1992 on their album Infinity Within was that they had heard 3 Years and decided that they wanted to have a couple of songs in that style on their album.  My fear- and suspicion- was that they did hear the album and basically decided they wanted AD on a couple of Deee-Lite sounding songs that could've basically been done with any other guest artists- pretty typical of how most rap guest spots are done today on seemingly every song on the radio.

And yeah, the second one is pretty much true.  Still, the stated mission of this site is to be everything and anything Arrested Development and Speech, so let's go ahead and share these songs, with a few thoughts by each.

IFO (Identified Flying Object):  Like the rest of the album, a very "dancey" type song, with Speech giving a guest rap and according to liner notes, Headliner and Speech are both on the turntables.


Come On In,  The Dreams Are Fine:   If you didn't like the first song, you'll hate this one.  AD appears at the very opening of this song with what is described in the liner notes as an "African chant."  They are there and gone.  Nonetheless, here it is, so do with it what you will.

Well, enjoy, it's too bad that they didn't let AD have more influence over the music, but it is what it is.

Eyes As Hard As a Million Tombstones (Part One)

I opened up my mailbox the other day and saw a package from Canada.  My first thought was "Canada?  Where the heck is that?"  Just kidding- my thought was "oh, that's right, Christian said he was going to send me a spare copy of the old Eyes as Hard a Million Tombstones video."  So naturally, I was excited as I've never seen it before, and I was even more excited to see that he had enclosed a DVD copy as well.  My poor, neglected, seldom-if-ever used VHS player was not so excited, but what are you going to do?

Moving on, the video is really interesting.  I'm going to just kind of throw out some random thoughts on it and hope it all pulls together into some kind of coherent narrative, but I'm not particularly hopeful on that.  The video opens up with about a 15-minute segment that kind of introduces the group one by one.  In a way, it almost felt like watching an old introductory episode of MTV's The Real World to me.  Just the style of introducing the various band members without staging it as just a series of sitdown interviews gave me that vibe and I thought it was a good touch.  In particular, there's some stuff with a conversation between some of the female group members lamenting the way woman are portrayed in rap videos that really just gave me that Real World vibe- I also recall that time period being a bit removed from the oncoming "video ho" era (for lack of a better phrase).  It's sad, but this time period was probably the peak of woman being portrayed positively in rap videos- it just shows that even then, there was work to be done and it's only gotten worse. 

Happy Monday

Yep, Mondays stink, although I really should just be happy I have a job.  But nonetheless, if you want to start your week out in a  good mood, I think this remix will do the trick for sure.  

Ease My Mind

Well, it's been awhile since I've posted any new audio content, so the other day I went through basically every Arrested Development single I could find to make sure I hadn't missed anything.  Turns out, I could only find one- the "Ease My Mind" single.  The single is made up of the album version, "Shell" which is also on Zingalamduni, the Another Perspective Remix of "Ease My Mind" which popped up on Extended Revolution and was shared elsewhere here already (link may be dead, so let me know if you need it and I'll get it up).  So the only missing was the Instrumental and what's called a Beat Version of the song (basically a drum instrumental)- so here you go!  If anyone knows of anything I'm missing, let me know and I'd be glad to try to track it down.  I did figure out I missed an old Deee-Lite album with not one but two songs featuring Arrested Development, so that should be coming shortly!  Until then, enjoy these two b-sides.

Ease My Mind (Instrumental)

Ease My Mind (Beat Version)

Speech on Gil-Scott Heron

Here's a brand new video of Speech talking about the recently passed Gil Scott-Heron, who was an innovator of hip hop- among many other things (check out that linked Wikipedia article, that site is great for stuff like this).  As with many Black icons, he wasn't given his just due while alive and likely won't get it in death either. Thanks to Kel for pointing this out to me!

AD's German Tour

If you're an AD fan, make sure you check out Tasha LaRae's blog for her updates on their tour from Germany.  Good stuff with some cool photos (one of which was stolen for this post). 

XXL's Top 250 Rap Songs of the 1990s

Best of lists are always fun to read, and XXL's recently published special edition magazine XXL 250 Greatest Hip-Hop Songs of 1990-1999 is no exception.  That said, I have no idea how "It's All About the Benjamins" could be listed as the number two song.  I mean, come on.  Sure, the beat knocks and it's a good cut, but is it really a better song than say "T.R.O.Y" in the number 10 slot? 

But I'll leave that debate for others and just mention where a couple of AD songs landed in their rankings.  And yes, they did a get a couple of songs in, not just a token appearance with one track, which I thought was pretty nice.  "People Everyday" fell in the number 179 slot and "Tennessee" followed in the number 196 slot.  Good to see AD getting some love, and here are a couple of quotes from their articles:

On "People Everyday":  "Speech put the rap game on notice that, despite wild hair and clothes, he was no sucka."

On "Tennessee":  "Pre-Black Eyed Peas, one of hip-hop's most prominent alternative bands was the hodgepodge collective Arrested Development." 

So pick it up and take a look, and maybe you can figure out why a Nas song didn't appear until slot number 88 or "Welcome to the Terrordome" popped up at 132.

AD Live in 2011

As I patiently await the announcement of an Arrested Development concert in Omaha this year (hey, you never know), I decided to look on youtube for some video of some recent performances from the group.  Here's a quick clip from a show in Sydney:


Here's a somewhat poor quality video of "We Rad We Doin It" a song that I love from Strong:


And from the same show, here's "Bloody":

AD on TMZ

I stumbled upon this little Arrested Development article on TMZ when looking for a picture of the group for the Summer Sensational article.  Pretty funny to see our group on that gossip page.  Nothing of note for us fans, but still, funny to check out I think.

New AD Project Summer Sensational

I don't have any details yet, but Arrested Development posted an interesting tweet the other day:

Yo, We'll be releasing a special album project for Japan ONLY called, "Summer Sensational" THIS SUMMER! Japan Fans spread the word!

Well, I'm not a fan from Japan, but nonetheless I will spread the word, and hopefully we will have more details soon.  I'm not sure if this will be new material, a compilation made up of "summery" songs, or somewhere in between, and I'm not sure how this relates to the upcoming 20 Mixtape project either.  I'm sure we will know more soon, but either way my curiosity has been piqued! 

Update on "20"

I was a little confused about the latest AD project "20," so I asked Speech on Twitter for a little clarification on the project, as at first it sounded like an album and than a mixtape.  And here's what he said:

"It's an album disguising as a mixtape probably cuz it's free. ;-) We're celebrating 20 years of noise, that sounds like melody" 

So there you have it- a free mixtape but most likely filled with album-quality songs.  Can't go wrong there, and I can't wait to hear what they have cooked up!  He also posted this today:  "Much cool stuff coming down the pipes. "20" released in a couple months!"

New Charity Song

I personally haven't pledged yet, but here is a link to check out a new song from Arrested Development called "Let It Go."   It's part of a project to benefit the David Lynch Foundation.  Here's how the song is described by the site:

“Let It Go” is a dub-inspired back porch anthem; an African sun-drenched shuffle within the hypnotic swing of the hammock. Grounded in a hip-hop sensibility, part singing, part speaking, part flying, the melodies enter you at the level of speech, the level of the heart. Intimate, haunting, with that feel good summertime vibe Speech says “I’m often torn between what I want and what I need but God is telling me let it go, let it go…” One comes away feeling refreshed, informed, inspired, and happy to be a divine citizen of the earth.

This track can also be found on Unreleased Jewels if you want to go direct to the AD source, but since AD is down with the charity, it's worth looking into at the David Lynch site as well to see if you're interested in helping out.

20 Is The Magic Number....

Take I-20 to Highway 85.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A couple of months ago, Arrested Development mentioned that they were in the studio and beginning to record some new music- presumably for a new album project that would be their seventh studio album.  Well, we now have a name for that project- 20!  I assume this is used to designate the number of years that Arrested Development has been a group (man, have I been listening to them for that long?).  A pretty appropriate name considering their first album was based on the length of time it took them to receive a record deal.  Maybe when the release date draws nearer, they could adjust the title to something like 20 years, 5 months, and 3 days in the life of...  Or would that be too cheesy and derivative?  :)

 

Not only do we have an album title, but we also have the titles of a few of the songs thanks to their Twitter account:  "The Pretty Woman", (possibly a tribute to Tasha LaRae's favorite Julia Roberts' film :) "U & Me = 3" (described by Speech as having an old school GangStarr vibe), and "My Reflection."  Apparently the project is already nearing completion, so hopefully the good news will come fast and furious now.  I think I speak for everyone checking this out that this is good news all around. 

 

To close, here are a few lyrics Speech posted from "My Reflection."

 My reflection against what I'm facing in this present day population,we all got placements, we can't control everywhere we were placed in, And really this is all about God's grace....and I know!  

Speech's New DJ Mix

In case you missed it, here's a link to Speech's new DJ Mix called "Genre Cocktail".  I enjoyed the last mix, in which he had a lot of eclectic stuff in it, so check this one out too!

Miracles Radio Edit

I forgot to post this, so for those who missed it, here is the Radio Edit of "Miracles" from the single.  When I think of radio edit, I usually think of a clean version of a song- obviously, that won't be the case with Arrested Development.  I'm going to have to look and see what is exactly different between this and the album version as I don't remember right now.

In other news, Arrested Development recently announced on twitter that they are in the studio and recording new material- so hopefully that means a new album will be out this year!  With all of the bad news that seems to be out there, I personally could really use some new AD music.

And here's the classic "Miracles" video, a nice feel-good video.   

Rest Assured...

Don't worry, I haven't went anywhere- I just blew my wad on the singles and so forth last month and haven't had anything new to post.  Stuff has been going on in "real life" too (it always does) and with that in mind, I'd like to dedicate this video of "Tennessee" to my grandmother, who passed away early this month after 80 wonderful years.  I've had the line "my grandma passed" in my head ever since- but thank God my brother's still here.  Such a deep song, and my two-year old daughter has actually learned quite a few of the words since it's one of the few songs I can actually sing....

Japan

Thoughts and prayers to everyone in Japan and anyone else effected by this horrible tragedy.  What an awful situation.   We've had a lot of AD fans check us out from there, so I can only hope and pray for the best for everyone there.

U Complete Me- The Heroes of the Harvest "Hidden Track"

It's hard to call something hidden when it's in the liner notes and stored on it's own track immediately following song 19- but since it's not on the back of the cover, we'll go with it.   So here is "U Complete Me" from the Japan release of The Heroes of the Harvest.  It's not my favorite AD song or anything, but it's nice to have.  It was posted here earlier in a bit of a rough form, but this is directly from the CD.  I blew quite a bit of my entertainment budget for a pay period for it, but hey, when you're a die hard, what are you going to do?  I've been looking for this version of the album for awhile, so I had to go with it.  Hope you like the song!

For the rest of the Heroes album, check out AD's store- it's well worth it!

Miracles Single Part Two- Down and Dirty Live

I've always been a big fan of this song, so it's kind of cool to run across a great live version of "Down and Dirty."  So check it out, and like the title says this is from the "Miracles" single.  Check it out, and while we're at it, here's the video, in case you've overlooked it. 

Great Live Performance

Check this out- AD can literally perform live anywhere and tear down the spot when they do so.  Here's a performance in a record store called Jodines Corner. 

Miracles Single Part One - Live Version

The "Miracles" single was manufactured in Germany and features a couple of live versions that I haven't seen anywhere else, along with a radio edit of the single.  I recently found it on amazon for a decent price, and since I'm not greedy, I will share them, starting with the live version of "Miracles".  It's a really good recording of it, so enjoy!

Hit the Road Jack Single- Part Three- Instrumental

Well, here's track 2 from the "Hit the Road Jack" single.  The first track is obviously the main song, which can be found on The Heroes of the Harvest available at http://speechmusic.com- so I won't post it here.  But here is the instrumental version of "Hit the Road Jack".  Well, it's almost the instrumental, but the chorus is still intact as well as some background vocals.  Personally, I'm not a huge instrumental guy, but if I do want to listen to one, I prefer that all of the vocals be removed, including the choruses.  It kind of bugs me when they're not.  But oh well.  If someone did want to use the track to rap over or something, the hook would kind of mess their plans up, but this is what was given to us so we'll have to make do!   

Expired Links

Hello to everyone.  I had a request come in asking me to repost some older songs that were deleted, but it didn't say which songs.  If you run across a dead link (likely an old zshare link), just let me know through a comment and I will be sure to get that song back up for you.  Anyway, here are some songs that were requested:

Movin' On (Instrumental)

Clocks in Sync With Mine (Urban Cricket Mix)

Real Love (Instrumental)

Hit the Road Jack Single- Part Two- The Steel Symphony

Here is part two of the "Hit the Road Jack" single- a DJ mix by Speech called "The Steel Symphony."  Tracks that were used here go all the way back to the days of Grandmaster Flash and this has a decidedly old school feel to it.  I like it, and it kind of works as a preview to Speech returning to the wheels of steel this year.

Hit the Road Jack Single- Part One- What We're About

My "Hit the Road Jack" single showed up today, so we'll start with the last and best track on the single- a B-side called "What We're About."  This one does not appear on any AD album and I'm happy I ran across it- it's from The Heroes of the Harvest era of course, and features Rasa, Eshe, and Speech.  Hope you like it!  I'll have the other tracks up later as well as a couple of things from the "Miracles" single.

Happy Valentine's Day

Today is the Hallmark Card Company's favorite day, so in honor of that, here is "So Authentic" from the Japanese version of Strong.  This isn't the best recording of it, but it's the only version on youtube.  Great song and I wish it made the US cut, but they didn't ask me :)

On a side note, as far as marketing initiatives go, how incredibly successful have they been at making Valentine's a holiday for school kids and everyone else to buy things for, and not just for those ostensibly in love?  Unbelievable!  And yep, I'm suckered in like everyone else.  So not authentic....  but here is "So Authentic."

My Recent Ebay Purchases...

After looking for the Japanese version of The Heroes of the Harvest for some time, I finally found it via a seller from France- so I am hoping to have a really good version of the bonus track "U Complete Me" up some time soon.  And I also came across this from the same era- the "Hit the Road Jack" single.  It features an instrumental version of the song as well as tracks titled "The Steel Symphony" and "What We're About."  Not sure what those tracks will be about, but I'm looking forward to hearing them and of course will share them as I get them.

New AD Shirts

Well, I literally have not had anything to post lately- so why not turn everyone's attention to the new AD T-shirts available at the store, featuring Speech and his wife as models.  If you're interested, you can purchase them here.  Hopefully things will pick up as the new album is being recorded!

New AD Material Being Recorded Now!

JJBoogie:  Recording new Arrested Development material today! #HipHop #Grammy #LifeMusic 

Thanks to some interesting updates from JJ Boogie's twitter page- including a video of Tasha laying down some vocals with Speech recording- we know that Arrested Development is in the studio and recording new material- presumably for a new album.  Awesome!  And sounds good so far.  I will definitely be keeping my eyes on this one!

JJBoogie:  Recording new Arrested Development material today! #HipHop #Grammy #LifeMusic

Tasha LaRae Radio Interview

Check out our girl Tasha live on a radio show called Queens of Radio.  Here's a link to a tape of the broadcast so give it a listen!  Hearing the opening song reminds me that I need to pick up a few albums to finish off my pre-1997 KRS-One collection.....

EDIT:  Oops, I thought it was replaying the show, but the KRS-One song was the beginning of a different show...  The link above does point to Tasha's appearance so check it out!

Heroes of the Harvest Hidden Track

Well,once again, just when you think you have Arrested Development's discography figured out, along comes another surprise.  Here is an apparently hidden bonus song from I presume the original, Japanese release of Heroes of the Harvest.  This album was later released in the US via Vagabond but unfortunately doesn't include this song.  So now you can complete you copy of the album with "U Complete Me".  This is primarily an R&B track, and I'm not quite sure who is singing- it doesn't sound like Eshe to me and was the only female vocalist at this time.  Speech checks in with a great verse as well.  It's not the best quality version but I can't find the Japanese release on sale anywhere, so we'll have to make do.

If you've been out of the loop on AD, I highly recommend picking this album up as it is a great bridge from the old crew to the new crew- plus, you get to hear a lot from Eshe and Rasa Don who are involved to a greater degree then any of their other releases, especially Rasa Don.  There's some great music on there.  Anyway, that's my spiel on that one!

Also, thanks to Kel for sending this to me!  This is how he works- he asks if I've heard of the song and if I have it- I don't- so next thing I know he sends it to me when I'm supposed to be sending it to him....

Concert Review From Malaysia

Here's a review of a recent AD show at the Hard Rock Cafe in Kuala Lumpur by MSN.  Great pictures included so check it out.

Recent Interview With Speech

Here's a link to a recent interview with Speech from On Wax Magazine.  Sounds like Speech has begun writing some new material, which is great news.  Here's a good section:

On Wax: Do you think you receive more love away from home or at home?
Speech: We’ve been doing this for about 20 years and over the years different places have showed us more love. But I think that that’s just been dependent on the culture at home or the culture over there at the time. When we first came out America was our biggest market. We got back together in the year 2000 America had went to more of a materialistic driven, CEO driven-style of Hip Hop – where the Hip Hop artist was bragging about being CEOs, bragging about being corporate, and they were bragging about flying private jets and drinking Crystal. The whole emphasis of Hip Hop became more about materialism than the music or the history or the culture. At the same time overseas wasn’t on that tip. They heard our records for what they were.

I thought this was cool too:

On Wax: Is he (Baba Oje, 78) planning to continue being on stage with you guys?
Speech: I don’t think he’ll be able to perform to be honest. He still gets paid. In our group we got a social security program. We still make sure he’s taken care of.

A Twitter Chat With Tasha and JJ Boogie- And An Update on the Site

Here's a link to a "twitter chat" with AD members Tasha LaRae and JJ Boogie from a site called Dryer Buzz.  I think I would've preferred just a straight interview with them, but there you go!  

As far as the site, no, I did not set a New Year's Resolution to shut it down.  I did set an arbitrary goal of having a post a day from the start of the blog to the end of the year- which I was able to accomplish, barely, and with the much-appreciated help of a few contributors as well.  But after that, frankly, I ran out of stuff to post.  I am still following Arrested Development and Speech religiously, and will still post things as I run across them, of course.  To be honest, from the patterns I saw I don't think this was ever a site that people checked out everyday, so I don't see it as an issue if a post just shows up every few days- or even longer.  Conversely, there might be days where I have five posts- if I run across five things of note- because I won't be saving anything just to maximize my arbitrary goal.  So that's that, and I will still be here- so you be here too!

Lastly, for no particular reason other then to take note of AD's worldwide appeal, I like to keep track of visitors from different countries that have popped up here.  So hello to everyone and anyone from Spain, Luxembourg, Ukraine, Mexico, Greece, Indonesia, South Africa, Pakistan, Croatia, Indonesia, South Africa, Belgium, Croatia, Czech Republic, Slovenia, France, Thailand, Paraguay, Kenya, Egypt, the Netherlands, Malaysia, Chile, Hungary, and Portugal that have checked this blog out.  As you can see, it's been awhile since I updated that list, so a lot of different countries have shown up!  And we've seen at least one visitor from every continent with the obvious exception of Antarctica show up, which is kind of cool.  

Speech's DJ Mix

Check out Speech's new mixtape series called "Musical Safari."  This is his first DJ mix, called Excursion, and he plans on touring for a part of this year as a DJ.  It features songs from artists worldwide and should be a very interesting listen. 

AD Live in Australia

Here is some live footage from Arrested Development's current tour in Australia- it's the crew performing "People Everyday".  Listen to the crowd- very loud!  Wish I was there.

Disciples

First off, hope everyone had a good New Year!  I've had a couple requests as of late for the skits from the Disciples of a Lyrical Rebellion project, so here you go.  If you missed it the first time, I also included the remixes and rare songs from that project as well.  Some of the skits are kind of goofy and show off Speech's sense of humor, so they may be of interest to some of you.  And for those not aware, Disciples of a Lyrical Rebellion was the original name of what would become Arrested Development.  Some day when you're on Jeopardy, you'll thank me for that!  

Great Speech and Eshe Interview

The title says it all!  Here's a link to an article from a blog called Brother Jesse Blog.  And here's a choice section in my opinion:

BJ: Now, I also read, in your bio, that you didn’t stop working, you really more so started to focus on your solo work. Please talk about some of things you were able to accomplish within that time period.

SP: In 1996, the group stopped recording albums and I still was creating music and I didn’t know what to do with it. So, in essence, I just played some music, some experimental music, for my record label and they liked it and they released it as a solo album called Speech. It was very experimental. I was starting to sing, a lot . Going though the various emotional roller coasters that I was explaining earlier, me singing started to feel more soothing to my conscious and to my spirit. At the same time, that type of style was, to some extent sort of the rebirth of neo soul. But, the label was sort of starting to self destruct. EMI was starting to go through a bunch of changes and, long story short, it didn’t do well in the United States. So, I was left basically with trying to determine what should I do with my newfound, in a sense, career and what should happen but God really blessed me in that the same album that didn’t do well in the States was doing extremely well in Japan. It was the number record for about seven weeks straight and I decided , of course, to go over there and start to tour, start to see what was going on. When I got there, it was just an amazing reception. That became ‘home” for me, musically, not physically for about five years that would follow and I would have Number 1 hit records or Top Ten hit records for the next four records that I produced.

Happy New Year's!

With another new year upon us, it seems like a great time to go back to last New Year's, when AD was live in Osaka, Japan.  Here's some footage of them doing a couple of songs from Strong- "The World is Changing" and "We Rad, We Doing It."  Unfortunately both performances are incomplete, but it's better than nothing.

And happy New Year's to everyone!