The Legendary Roots Crew

Now this is why I moved to NYC. Ok ok, I moved to NYC for another reason but things like this are icing on the cake.

Last night, I saw the Roots with Gym Class Heroes and Estelle. I have been to a few concerts since I moved to New York, and all were good, but this is what I expected from a concert in New York.

When I got there, Estelle was already on. Now I hadn't heard much of her stuff, aside from her "American Boy" song, but I had heard a lot of good things about her, mostly from the folks over at okayplayer. She put on a good performance and served her purpose as an opening act: get the crowd warmed up. I'll definitely have to check out more of her stuff. Gym Class Heroes came on and got the crowd more hyped for the Roots to come on. I was a little more familiar with their stuff, like "Cupid's Chokehold" and "The Queen and I", than I was with Estelle's. They came out with a buncha energy, got the crowd growing, and were active on stage.

Finally the Roots came on and rocked a LIVE show. They did a good mix of old and new. Of course, ?uestlove worked his magic on the drums. At some point, they brought out Q-tip to spit a few verses (and hype his album set to drop next week). Kamal on the keys, Tuba Gooding Jr, and the bassist all did some sweet solo stuff. I don't know who the new bassist is, but as good as he was, I miss Hub on the bass. That guy was ridiculous. Then they started up with probably my favorite Roots track, "You Got Me". They started with Captain Kirk singing the hook, but to no surprise, Estelle came back out and took over. As the song was ending, she headed back stage and Captain Kirk proceeded to do his solo thing on the guitar. He started off with some usual guitar riffs, but then he went into a sick rendition of "Sweet Child O’ Mine". From there, he somehow smoothly transitioned into "Bad to the Bone". Eventually it all melted back into "You Got Me" with Captain Kirk singing again once again. They kept playing some more songs and soon got going with the title track off their latest album Rising Down. To the crowds delight, the mighty Mos Def came out and spit his verse on the song. He helped out with a couple other songs, including the "Next Movement", before heading back off stage. This exactly the type of stuff I expected/hoped for from a concert in NY: random people showing up and performing.

Another great Roots show. I wonder when they'll be back in NY.

Head over here for some live footage (not mine) of the show.

UPDATE: Read a review of the concert by the NY Times here.

it's still the economy stupid

most people who know me know that i enjoy gambling in the stock market. i may even be slightly obsessed. of course, it helps that i've been doing well lately ... well at least relatively.

i have two goals while investing: 1) make money and 2) do better than the s&p 500 index. the first goal is obvious. the second is in place because even if i make money while investing in stocks, if i do not do better than the s&p, i would have been better off investing in an index fund (i don't believe in mutual funds). it would have been easier and a lot less time consuming. up until three weeks ago, i was succeeding with both those goals; unfortunately, the market tanked, and now i'm only succeeding at one of those. it makes me feel better though that "according to Morningstar (MORN), the average U.S. stock mutual fund is down 28.5%." that article is now two days old, and i would guess that those losses has increased since.

for the most part, i primarily invest in small cap companies. with that territory comes a lot of risk. you have to have the stomach for large swings up and down, and boy has my resolve been tested in the past few weeks. i've seen the price in some of my stocks be cut in half in the matter of weeks ... sometimes cut more than that. fortunately, i think my selection process is at least doing a bit right. i currently own stock in 3 of the top 10 small businesses, according to forbes.

saying the economy sucks right now is both pointing out the obvious and a huge understatement.

a week or so ago, when the market dropped a record-breaking 777 points, i thought maybe we had seen the worst. i took some cash, which i had set aside for non-investment purposes, and poured into a few stocks that i felt were greatly undervalued. i never intended to invest with that money, but i couldn't pass up the bargains (or at least what i thought were bargains). of course, the market has fallen a lot more since. there are some people that think now may be a good time to cautiously put some more money back into the market.

was it a bad decision? maybe. i definitely could have been more patient. if i had wait a few days, i would have been much better off. do i regret it? no. i'd probably make the same decision today. only time will tell whether it was the right thing to do or not. i'm hoping large gains with that money in the future . when? who knows. maybe a two years? a year? 6 months? sooner? i guess that's part of the reason for this post. sometime in the future, i'll be able to look back at this and decide whether or not i made the right choice.

all i know is that i'm glad i wasn't planning on retiring anytime in the near future.

hey nas

nas has always been one of my favorite mcs. at this point, he may be my favorite mc that i have not yet seen live. i tried seeing him perform a year or so ago, but that did not turn out too well. a couple days ago, a friend of mine told me about a free concert coming up with nas headlining. i signed up on the guestlist and thought i'd finally get my chance to see nas perform.

we got there relatively early and had a decent spot in line (it went around the block behind us). unfortunately the line did not remain a line for much longer. there was only one security guard managing the line, and even then he wasn't doing much. the line in front of us just started getting wider and wider. doors were supposed to open at 9 (website said 8), but you could sense the unrest when 9 rolled around and nothing happened. things got worse when two large luxury buses rolled up, filled with people who did not look like they belonged at a nas concert. the buses just sat there for awhile, but eventually they rolled up to the front, and all the passengers got off and walked straight into to venue. people started chanting, "tip - the - bus." eventually the line turned into a mob surrounding the club, spilling over into the street blocking a lane of traffic. around 10, they started letting people in, but even then, they were selectively picking people from the crowd. at that point we gave up and went to a nearby bar.

0 for 2 for nas concerts. third times a charm?

what's the word

i came across the website wordle recently. wordle let's you create cool illustrations of word usage in just about anything. you can give it some words or point it to an rss feed, like i did. it's pretty easy to use and shoots out some cool looking word clouds.