Ask Ya Mom An Nem; DJ Quickie Mart Makes A Strong Statement

DJ Quickie Mart has laced up this mix in an effort to get himself a spot on the HBO series Treme. It is, and I speak with out hyperbole, nothing short of the best thing ever made. Seriously. I am a well known hater. I have been listening to it pretty much nonstop for about a week now. 

Those dudes that make Treme and the Wire make better television than anyone. The Wire seriously ruined me for TV. It makes everything else look like Judge Judy or Two & A Half Men in comparison, and it isn't just that the jokes are funnier or the characters are deeper. It tells the story and expects you, and by you, I guess I mean me, to keep up. It respects me enough not to spoon feed me or slow down for me. It put the story and the characters above what we the audience might want for them. My smart friend Brock pointed out was opera where The Wire is a fat, naturalistic novel. I certainly recognize that naturalistic writers are as manipulative of their audience as any artist worth his/her salt is, and that the men and women who make The Wire and Treme pack their show with events and dialog are calculated as precisely, if not more so, than anybody else. But there are few arias in The Wire, than, say, The Sopranos, which, sometimes several times an episode, gives us these scenes that leave us sobbing and applauding. The Wire rarely provides this kind of catharsis. When you cry for someone in The Wire, and again, by you, I mean me, it tends to be a few days after watching the episode. I'm thinking about Wallace. Or Dukie. 

Treme, fittingly for a show about musicians, takes a lot more solos, at least in the first three episodes that I've watched. 

My first reaction to the lobbying of NOLA musicians for parts in Treme is that those Treme/Wire dudes know what they are doing, leave them alone. My softening was not so much based on the strength of DJ QM statement (Seriously, if you aren't playing this/downloading as you read, it's your loss. It's only you who will not be singing and shaking your ass all afternoon.) as it was on thinking about it for more than a few seconds. Of course, everyone wants their story represented on Treme. More importantly, everyone wants to contribute to this thing. What else is a player supposed to do?Get an audition. If you can't get an audition, get them a reel.

Which is exactly what your boy did. And he stepped up. 

Another issue Quickie addresses with this thing is New Orleans traditionalism, which can be a great thing but can also be be a fence used to keep out the new and or different. I remember begging people to listen to Cypress Hill in the early '90s, and the character that Davis in the series is based on was indeed fired from WWOZ, not for hoodoo chicken slaughter in the booth, but for spinning hiphop.  Things have certainly changed, but still there is some resistance, despite sharing bills and filling dancefloors alongside NOLA greats like the Rebirth Brass Band and Galactic. He fires another salvo here, though, less specifically at the wall of NOLA traditionalism not erected by Wynton but named for him, but more generally arguing that the collector/deejay is not just dropping a needle and nodding his head.