James
day
9,611 Posts
I know I'm stating the obvious, but somebody's gotta do it. This place would be a shell without my man. It's time we recognize and celebrate those that keep this place worth coming to. Soulstrut's own Dave Tomkins (without the acute self awareness). Dude is a fucking champion who needs his own column.
Speaking on behalf of Le Strut, we salute you.
Speaking on behalf of Le Strut, we salute you.
Comments
peace,xavier
his recent posting increase has made this a better place lately. DocMcoy too.
please to poast more
Hey, Dave's my man but for real, I consider James to be in a class by himself. Analogies unnecessary.
Ahhh, the warm-fuzzies continue.
Yes, 'James Gtst hits' or somesuch, was a blast from the past, and now he is posting again i find myself here a lot more.
James' posts are for want of a better word, multi-layerd. I find myself re-reading his wisdom drops and nodding my head in agreement. The man has a way with words that cuts to the chase and lays the core of the subject out for all to see.
An incredibly efficient economy of words, each carrying weight, this is a skill that i am jealous of, im a rambler if ever there was one.
I raise my glass good sir.
raising us from the ashes
i remember the first time i read his posts back in my lildudedayz
he needs to have his gems carved in marble and buried for future reference
I hope things are going better than the last time we spoke.
My personal favourite;
Point tooken. It's also ironic I would compare him to DT in an appreciation poast, seeing as I can't stand DT's style of writing. Chalk it up to Soulstrut at 3am.
and
Clack-clack, salute!
Suffice it to say that the man James is a one-of-a-kind Soulstrut personality and contributor. He's top-shelf.
Peace,
Big Stacks from Kakalak
Ha - I can see the comparison from a difference. Both are masters of the parenthetical but Dave's writing is like hypertext before the concept existed. A single sentence can have 3-4 different implied links to other ideas, other references. It's a hyper-dense, meta-textual approach to prose which, at its best, blow your fucking mind and, at its worst, be indecipherable.
In contrast, I find James' writing to always be super articulate; his meanings are never lost on you but his use of language is just brilliant. For real, he's one of my favorite music writers and he *writes on a message board*.
It's the whole "wink wink, I just referenced a Pelon lyric...did you get that?" style that, like you said, can be brilliant, but more times than not reeks of "look what I know". It can really detract from the overall piece and ends up being more about him than the subject.
And not to be melodramatic, but it's a crime James isn't published. It would be one of the rare times I would buy a magazine just for the writing. Someone make it happen.
Well written but too flowery for me:
...Can you post some more examples to direct me or where he's writing now so I can look?
PS he gives great and generous tip on music
Thanks, though, to everyone for the very kind words. Whatever you may think of what I do, please know that it would be not be close to what it is without the room and the community that soulstrut has afforded me.
And while I do appreciate that folks mean it as a compliment, I've got to say that while Dave Tompkins definitely isn't for everyone, when dude is hitting, there's absolutely no one better. I came to his work a little late, I think, to be too directly influenced by it, but it did help to open my eyes and renew my faith in the printed possible. And I can pretty much distill everything I love about his writing into one word, too:
"chickwich."
Somewhere in the course of his magisterial, still-astounding piece on Paul C that was in one of those Engerlish magazines several years back (Big Daddy? Grand Slam?), in the section where he's breaking down the mechanics of beat-chopping, he says something about Paul "chickwiching" a beat. Here's why that's so fucking great: It works for everyone on the first, purely visceral level, because using "chickwich" as a verb is pretty ballsy, I don't care who you are. And it also works for eveyone on the second, expository level, because even people who don't know the first thing about hip-hop production--or music at all, really--will still understand that Tompkins is talking about Paul's combining things very much in the manner of, you know, making a chicken sandwich. For a smaller group of people, it works on the third, abstract level, because word geeks will see the parallel between the mincing/reassembly that results in a chicken patty and the sampling/recombination that is beat-chopping. And for an even smaller group of people, it works on the fourth(!), total sample-nerd level, because wonks will know that the beat that's being chopped in the song that's being discussed in this passage is--wait for it--James Brown's "The Chicken." Reading and recognizing work like that, you realize you're in the hands of a master. That shit had me stomping my feet when I caught it.
And above and beyond the technical and structural, he brings a lot of heart that often gets overlooked amidst the verbal razzle-dazzle; the sections on Fantasy Three and on Cybotron in his new(ish) book are really poetic and evocative and emotional. Folks shouldn't sleep. I was fortunate enough to rub elbows with him for a minute when he came through Chicago on his reading tour, but I was initially a little preoccupied and eventually a lot faded, and I never got around to telling him how much I like his stuff. If anyone talks to him, please let him know I'm a fan.
On an unrelated note, you'll appreciate this, day (you too, zilla): I was going through some boxes the other day and found the following written on the white sleeve of a 45 that you may recognize:
Authentic Chiburbian handstyles from your man and mine.
Anyway, again, my sincere thanks to everyone.
Keep studying that sentence and one day you might be able to grasp "chickwiching" on the fifth, sixth, seventh, eight and ninth levels of the game. I can't promise you results but it eventually happened for me.
realness.
Interesting; I never thought of it from that perspective but for real, that's not Dave, remotely. His writing style isn't an attempt to floss. It's really about playing with language to stack layers of meaning atop one another. Like any writer, it's an attempt to show, "this is who I am and how I think" rather than "look at what I know." If you spent 15 minutes with him, you'd realize this (and of course, you only have his writing to go by and I can see how one might draw the conclusion you came to as a result).
All I know is that I'm suddenly grasped by the desire to make a Chik-Fil-A run.
"When you can take the chickwich from my hand, it will be time for you to leave."
It's been a long time since I've read anything from him (in fact, I think the last thing was that same Paul C story James mentioned), but it was years of reading his articles that gave me that opinion. I'm glad I brought it up, because now I can see it in a different context. I'm a pretty simple dude, so sifting through meta-data within a sentence while I'm trying to read about Ultramagnetic or whatever was more distracting than anything. It was just too much Dave injection (whoa!) for me. I can honestly say I probably wasn't ready for that style at the time, but I'll give it another go.
And James, I'm glad to say our man is doing well, despite his complete and utter abandonment of his duties here. Bigger and better thangs.