Crate Diggin’: Cody Chesnutt, The Headphone Masterpiece
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Smoke And Love
The Seed (Rock N’ Roll)
Blackman vs. Batman Album: The Headphone Masterpiece (Promo, 2002) |
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Back in 2002, I had a standing DJ gig at the Hudson Hotel in NYC. It was probably the highlight of my short, professional DJ career. The hotel was hipster central, I could play whatever I wanted, and I met tons of beautiful people. I even got a hug from Ed Lover.
Every once in a while, some hustling musician would try to slip me a CD in the hopes I would play one of their songs. I am kind of a purist about vinyl, so even though the Hudson provided CD players along with turntables, I politely gave him or her a thanks but no thanks.
One memorable evening, some dude graciously gave me the LP you see above. He was cool and laid-back, suggesting I should listen to it at home, preferably with headphones. The record looked totally ghetto, with a partially hand-written label. The cover was a standard white cover sleeve with an ugly pink/aqua textured spoke pattern. (Click on the image above to see it in gruesome detail.)
But I liked the dude’s low-key style, and gave The Headphone Masterpiece a listen. What I think was intended as the single was eh, but there were a couple of tracks on the B-side that had woozy, appealing charisma and catchy melodies. The recording quality was lousy, but I think that was by design. Cody Chesnutt (though I’m amused by the spelling, I’m not buying into the alt punctuation… ChesnuTT?) wasn’t quite fully formed, but he was original.
