Regardless of how you feel about Odd Future, New York Times has an excellent article on the return of Thebe Kgositsile, aka, Earl Sweatshirt, who was sent by his mother to Coral Reef Academy, a therapeutic retreat for at-risk boys in Vaitele, outside of the Samoan capital of Apia shortly before the group's rapid rise to fame and controversy. Earl, considered by many to be the most talented rapper of the lot, has recently returned from what is tantamount to exile in the age of the internet, and it seems he underwent some changes:

As part of the Coral Reef curriculum he also performed community service, spending time working at Samoa Victim Support Group, a center for survivors of sexual abuse, including children.

“That was a pivotal moment,” he said one afternoon at Bristol Farms, a supermarket near his manager’s office. One of the things Earl Sweatshirt had been prized for as a rapper was his extreme imagery, bordering on vile. “You can detach imagery from words,” he said, adding that he “never actually pictured” the things he rapped about. (“Lyrics About Rape, Coke, And Couches Will Be Blaring In Your Ears,” was how “Earl,” the album, was advertised on Odd Future’s Tumblr when it was released in March 2010.)

The article goes on to vaguely illustrate the conflicts between Odd Future and Earl's mother, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, and how Earl is now negotiating his newfound perspective and his newfound fame and wealth, most of which he's been absent from until now.

[Earl] arrived in Samoa resentful. “That’s why I was gone for so long,” he said, discussing the stages of acceptance most of the participants in the program go through: resistance, false commitment, then finally, actual growth. “When the kids that got there at the same time as me were all leaving, it was like, damn,” he said. “There’s such a clear difference between someone who’s faking it and someone who’s like, ‘O.K., maybe I don’t hate my mom.’ ”

Read the whole thing here.

• Megadeath Photo via Shutterstock
• I guess we should have seen this coming.

I’ve known that Dave Mustaine was my biological father ever since last year when I found my mother’s trunk full of Metallica/Megadeth paraphernalia hidden deep within a closet. It took one look at that ridiculous mane of poofy ginger-blonde hair and smirking face to realize that this smug hesher posing with a flying V guitar, this male doppelganger, was undoubtedly my father. I was born in LA in 1983, the year that he was kicked out of the #1 metal band in the world, Metallica, and before he started the #2 metal band, Megadeth. My independent single mother sighed when I confronted her with the truth; she was ashamed of the groupie cling-on status of her past, particularly with this famed hesher fuckup. She confessed the truth and conceded to set up a meeting just a few weeks ago before Megadeth left for their next tour.

Read about their awkward encounter here.

*This is DEFINITELY NOT a joke. Bree would never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, make something like this up. If you know Bree, you know that she has NEVER TOLD A SINGLE FIB IN HER ENTIRE LIFE.

...allow me to recommend Montreal producer CFCF's upcoming Exercises EP. These sonic explorations are understated and meditative, yet contain an uplifting element that is just enough to save you from the OMG-I-just-saw-my-favorite-band-in-the-world-now-what? blues.

(h/t Fader)

So, according to ConAgra, March 6 is National Frozen Food Day. That's right, March 6 is the day you can now spend remember all those frozen dinners that threw themselves into a microwave for you. Sure, they're portion controlled, but you just eat two at a time. Frozen food is big business these days:

This is one of the reasons why frozen food is up 22% or $10 billion annually (Packaged Facts, 2006-2010) and is projected to be a $70 billion category by 2015.

That's hella chicken nuggets people! Anyway, as Owl City says in the offending song (placed after the jump), "Here's your one chance/To make a difference." The only way you can help the hungry now is to buy frozen dinners from your ConAgra Frozen Food Overlords™ and then punch the 8-digit purchase code into their widget. According to the Daily Swarm, Owl City's song "Here's Hope" is the theme song for the whole thing. All of which reminds me, I haven't had my daily intake of refined foods yet. I'm off to QFC for a Marie Calendar® Turkey Pot Pie! See you on the toilet.

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The poet/writer/actor/musician was born on February 29 in 1972, which means he gets one birthday for every four we non-Leap Year birthday folks get. Saul Williams: Enjoy it! Everyone else: Enjoy Saul Williams (as produced by Rick Rubin).

Collapse Board's Bianca Valentino has a great interview with Kathleen Hanna. It covers how she got her start in music*, and what she's up to both musically (the Julie Ruin) and in general, and fairly extensively discusses her politics and the state of being a woman in rock today. If you need something important to ruminate on this Friday morning (I did), this is a great place to start. Here's an excerpt:

I recently did an interview with Kate Nash, she does an After School Rock N’ Roll for Girls program kind of like Rock N’ Roll Camp for Girls in the US. She told me she had interviewed the girls in the program at the beginning of it and it broke her heart that a lot of them said they were reluctant to pursue music because they thought you had to be pretty and they felt they weren’t pretty enough.

KH: Wow! I mean it’s a whole different world now. We have American Idol and that new ‘the whole package’ idea where it’s like you have to be a model first and a singer second. I think there’s a whole other way to keep women from playing music, it’s to say that you have to look a certain way. The thing is there is always some kind of thing!

Getting back to the Babes In Toyland show, people were saying that they are “too pretty” and if Kat was someone that people considered by traditional standards to be unattractive people would have been saying they’re “too ugly”. It doesn’t matter what you do, if you’re not a straight white male you’re going to get more harshly criticised than other people so you might as well just do whatever the fuck you want. It really is true that they are always going to find fault but yes, it is totally depressing. It’s depressing to be an older lady, who is doing music and is feeling like, is anybody going to want to listen to my music because I’m not a model that has a contract with an agency, who also happens to make music.

Read the whole thing here, and see the Julia Ruin live in December 2010 at Knitting Factory NYC after the cut:

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I hate this question not because I don't want to be asked, but because I can never answer it. For some reason, my brain just locks up (this happens more than I care to admit), and I have to take a minute until I can think of something. This also happens when I walk into a record store. Nine times out of 10, I'll forget what I went in for unless it's written down. This is just the way my brain works, and yes, I've been diagnosed with major ADD, so fuck you! Anyway, this is what I can't stop listening to today:

Ceremony: "Hysteria"

The whole album is polling me out of a recent funk. Just listen to it! It keeps reminding me of the Buzzcocks.I do not know why. Ceremony's Zoo, drops March 6, and they play at the Vera Project Saturday, April 7.

Country music superstar Troyal Garth Brooks was born on this day in 1962. At last tally in October 2011, Brooks had sold 68,561,000 records. In the year 2000, Brooks attempted to donate his liver to country music singer Chris LeDoux, but the liver was incompatible and LeDoux tragically died.

• "The ingredients in Necco Wafers are sugar, corn syrup, gelatin (an animal by-product), gums, colorings, and flavorings."

Brooks released an LP in 1995 called Fresh Horses and another the year before entitled In Pieces.

Garth Brooks is married to Trisha Yearwood, who has been married three times. In August 2008, Yearwood was on a flight from Massachusetts to Oklahoma, during the flight one of the windows cracked at 30,000 feet. The plane made an emergency landing in Baltimore, Maryland. John Waters is a filmmaker from Baltimore, Maryland who released a film called Female Trouble in 1974.

In 1999, Garth Brooks created a musical alter ego named Chris Gaines, an outlet for Brooks' alternative rock music. A film called The Lamb based around the Gaines character was developed by Paramount Pictures but was shelved because of lack of interest. Garth Brooks married his college sweetheart named Sandy Mahl in 1986. They divorced on December 17, 2001.

An anagram for Garth Brooks is STARK BRO HOG. Happy birthday, Garth Brooks!

Set to "Outro," from M83's lovely and stratospheric Hurry Up, We're Dreaming, this is basically the best music video you could ask for:

More info here.

h/t: Ebaum's World

• Kelly O
• MUSICIANS Making regrettable decisions since the beginning of music.

Here's a favorite:

Shenandoah Davis (Shenandoah Davis): I regret agreeing to stay in a place called “Shit Mansion” in Buffalo, New York. It smelled like cat pee, human pee, cigarettes, and decomposed food. I also regret sitting through a performance in Provo, Utah, where a young singer-songwriter mourned the successes of Barack Obama. It was called “Black Butterfly” and was met with violent applause. Ick.

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