After much build up, “Bloodrave” the first video from Deathface’s newest EP, Fall of Man has hit the web. The video was directed by T&B’s own Patrick Rood AKA The Captain and features not only our warehouse (which they have to get through to get to the actual Bloodrave) but our own Reed as the poor Bloodrave neophyte who has no clue what he’s gotten himself into all to follow some sweet, sweet ‘tang.
It’s a great hard hitting track and how can you not love the homage to Blade? As an added Deathface bonus why not also download his latest mix for Scion Radio below.
Toy Tokyo & The TT-Underground Gallery are proud to present a benefit art auction for the Japan earthquake and Pacific tsunami relief. TT pulled out the stops on this one, accumulating an impressive list of artists for this benefit show. The art will be on display from April 2nd-3rd with the opening reception being held on Saturday, April 2nd from 7-11. After the 3rd, the art will go on sale on eBay for 10 days with all proceeds going to support Global Giving.
Opening night suggested donation of $5 goes to the Japan Red Cross. You will receive a raffle ticket and a chance to win some fabulous prizes for your donation. Attendance at the exhibition is not required to bid in the auction.
Last week we featured the time warping raps of Oakland’s Main Attrakionz, because they’re on some hood Dr. Manhattan, meditative, other shit, that more people need to fuck with (eg. “I am my own culture, I made my own Earth/ It’s generations of funk, I bang on old turf”). The problems with super prolific rap groups like Main Attrakionz, is where to start. They release a ton of music and trying to jump in midstream can be an intimidating task — they’ve put out about five mixtapes this month alone.
Enter, Two Man Horror Film a compilation of some choice Main Attrakionz tracks by Space Age Hustle and Dream Collabo. Get this now before Squadda B and MondreM.A.N. release ninety trillion more songs that are awesome kinda like this brand spanking new EP. If you sleep on this, you’re going to look like an ass when all of your friends are talking about The Legion of Doom and you chime in about how great Hawk & Animal’s face paint game was.
Mike Hyde: picture of a tortured artist? Who knows what really happens in the Medication man’s brain, but if his songs signify any one thing, it’s a whole mess of internal struggle. The moody garage of the Judgment Day EP—a sorta-kinda follow-up to 2009’s Hozac full-length—weaves around texture and theme, this psychedelic web of smoky noise and religious imagery, but always circles back to its agonized center. This is music for misery and hysterics. You know, real Syd Barrett in a closet, channeling the demons stuff.
And actually, the Syd Barrett thing runs a little deeper than psychedelic madness. Hyde’s voice, a warm but nasal whine, shares the same perpetual ache as Barrett’s, the music a ghostly reference to his bluesy confusion. But then there’s also the Stooges thing and the Nick Drake thing and even the Blank Dogs thing, if you feel like nitpicking the atmosphere; Hyde recorded these six songs—themselves two-year labors of love—to tape only, cloaking the EP in a druggy, rain-soaked haze. It’s lo-fi not for style’s sake, necessarily, but for reality’s.
Because that element of reality, however slippery, is at the core of Judgment Day. It permeates the record and runs concurrent to the ache, this sense of internal debate, of Hyde being the same voice as anyone you’ve ever known with a lot of puzzling life questions. The songs definitely carry a style—he writes with a lot of melodic flourish—but style isn’t only what drives them. It’s the reality of the thing. Of Hyde’s tortured artist, however real that picture may be.
Walk into the Rock And Roll hall of fame, and their is a cadre of objects you would expect to see. Clapton’s guitar, Entwhistle’s Skeleton Suit, that dumb shit Steven Tyler wraps around his mic stand, and a selection of Elvis’ clothing. These symbols are valued things, things that we not only associate with the artists but also recognize are important and somehow “expensive.” This is in part due to the fact that the artists themselves also valued these items, imbuing them with meaning. But what about grunge artists?
With it’s aesthetic so informed by anti-materialism, general disregard for possessions and the imposed cultural value of them, Grunge’s history has instead been propagated orally, or through diaries, piercings, boxes of old ripped clothes and scuzzy tape recordings. But what about the objects? No matter how scuffed and dinged they may be, it’s still thrilling to see a chunk of Cobain’s smashed guitar, or the pedals Mark Arm used while recording Superfuzz Bigmuff.
And that’s where Taking Punk To The Masses: From Nowhere To Nevermindcomes in. The book, which will be released on Fantagraphics in early May, is a visual history of the genre built around the various things donated to The Experience Music Project, a curatorial collective in Seattle. Each lovingly photographed flier, sweatshirt, zine, or microphone is accompanied not only by a crib-notes on it’s importance, but also quotes from the people closest to it.
Some of the things they have are hilarious (handwritten Hüsker Dü tour expense sheet from 1984 that includes “muff”) others inspiring (early handwritten lyric shirts for a few acts) and some just plain awesome (Charles Burns art!). The latter half of the book sort of turns into the Nirvana show, but I suppose that’s sort of how it went down in real life. It’s a good read, especially for people who lived by the Sub Pop 200.
Those of you itching crazily for some 90s Grunge nostalgia right fuckin’ now and can’t wait ’til May may we recommend getting Greg Prato’s Grunge Is Dead in the meantime to tide you over. It’s a fantastic oral history of the Seattle scene from the late 70′s ’till the 00′s as given by such lumenaries as Mark Arm, Eddie Vedder, Jeff Ament, Layne Staley, Kim Thayil, Dale Crover and many many more.
Sadly there’s no Dave Grohl, Krist Novaselic or Courtney Love to give their version of Nirvana and Hole’s history but between everyone else’s take you get the picture of what was going. There’s also heart wrenching chapters on everyone speaking on the deaths of Andrew Wood, Kurt Cobain and Layne Staley. Seriously like everyone was on Heroin in those days. This, like Taking Punk to the Masses are great companion reads if you took our previous advice and picked up Girls to the Front. And if you really wanna take it way, there’s always Loser by Clark Humphrey. Long live the 90s!
Yep! It’s that time again. Fixed Fight returns for its fifth and final year. Todd has done a great job in cultivating this event and it’s sad to see that it’s the last year Todd will be throwing it. Мишка is proud to sponsor this weekend of bike-related radness with a bunch of gear. Who’s gonna win it this year?
I just want a shirt with that logo on it!
Saturday April 23rd, 1pm Registration Cafe Bohemia
937 Central Ave
St. Petersburg, FL
$5 Registration Fee
This Friday, for one night only, 350 Broadway is getting an overhaul. Bigger. Better. Synth-ier. Burgeoning Chillwave, retro electronic legend Com Truise will be leading his icy assault right into Brooklyn with an In-Store performance that promises to be the best yet. Seth Haley, better known by the superlative pseudonym Com Truise, is a one-man nostalgia factory who has been at the top of his game (and his scene) since its inception.
The great chillwave explosion of 2010 claimed its fair share of artists, hordes of laptop bearing bedroom poppers lost in a (sun bleached) sea of similarity. The ensuing backlash separated the wheat from the chaff. The innovators from the imitators. Com Truise worked his way to the front of the pack with ease. With an accomplished and unique sound, Truise first made waves with his brawny remixes, which he continues to put out with impressive regularity.
It quickly became overwhelmingly evident that Com Truise was not a one-blog wonder. His debut EP Cyanide Sister originally release via AMDISCS has since been reissued to wider release by the venerable Ghostly International earlier this year. The EP was fantastic and made it to our best of 2010 list with ease, simultaneously reaffirming his place in the upper echelons of Chillwave, while also further exploring his work beyond that genre. More than anything, it was a big fun record, one that we’re very excited to hear performed live.
The store isn’t exactly giant, so I suggest you arrive early. But the more people we get in there, the more massive this should be. And lemme tell you, the store could be dead empty and I’m sure Com Truise could still find a way to set it off. If you haven’t been to an In-Store before, this is a great place to start. So come ring in April by getting your face rocked, fools. ‘Cause this ain’t no joke.
Friday April 1st, 7pm-8pm Мишка
350 Broadway
Brooklyn, NY
718-388-1725
Church. Speak on it. Tell em. Gospel. Cook. Get it. Pick your adjective of praise and apply it, but K.R.I.T. is speaking that truth, and I don’t see how you could not be affected. I approached this release with caution. After “K.R.I.T. Wuz Here” I wasn’t particularly taken by any of the singles that dropped, and this release is a little on the lengthy side, but those are really the only downsides. And further, my opinion on American Rapstar (one of the singles) has definitely changed. ReturnOf4Eva goes from chill to mash, from flex to refrain, from hesitant to brash, and transcends more than moods as it goes. K.R.I.T. has put out the record that we’ve been waiting for.
I’m loose with the hyperbole, I know that, but rap has been needing K.R.I.T. for a while. I think this record shows that you can make music that meets people’s expectations, is not offputting or preachy, but simultanesouly challenges listeners to re-understand hip hop. And it isn’t about making crazy hits, just music that is the product of a rich life. K.R.I.T. has had that air about him since he hit the scene, but I think this record really gives something tangible to that sentiment. I mean, look at “Another Naïve Individual Glorifying Greed and Encouraging Racism.” That track is as heavy as anything Lil Wayne ever spoke, but it turns all the force from dropping that heavy shit right back on hip hop itself. Yeah K.R.I.T. is here in the mix, and he’s talking a lot of the shit that rappers talk, but he’s being responsible about it. He’s like the weed-smoking dad that passes you a couple doobies and tells you to smoke em at home. We all want money and the fine things in life, but there are responsible and irresponsible ways to go about it. You can buy another chain or you can feed folks, and it takes a lot for a dude in K.R.I.T.’s shoes to say the things he’s saying. They just let him into the party, he’s crossed into the exclusive club, and he’s immediately set to work criticizing the things that are awry. He’s like Obama, but more bout the change than the ride. You can’t tell me that K.R.I.T. is not the man right now.
To say K.R.I.T. is doing it all would be an understatement. He does the beats and the raps, but it’s more than that. For instance, “My Sub” is that banger, but it’s also a quiet indication of something deeper. The track seems to start out with a scratch recording, a sketch for the idea of the song. At first it seems just an aesthetic implication, but let’s look a little closer. Where did this recording come from? By the sound of it, it probably came from a Zoom, or other similar handheld recorder. Not the kind of gear you typically find in a studio. It’s usually the kind of thing a musician engulfed in the flames of passionate art-making keeps on hand at all times in an effort to capture the slightest vapors of creativity that may try to escape. I’m gonna make a leap hear and assume that I’m guessing right on the source of the recording. So that means K.R.I.T. isn’t headed to the lab to fulfill the obligation that his money is contingent upon. Nah, if K.R.I.T.’s working like this he’s gotta be on something that overflows what has come to be status quo in hip hop. A studio can’t capture all K.R.I.T. has to give because he isn’t a simplified reduction of what a rapper can be. This dude is real as fuck, and this record proves it. Hold it high dude, because you’re a fucking hero right now.
The newest signees to Psychopathic Records should be no stranger to anyone who follows Detroit hip hop, The Dayton Family. They came onto the scene in 1993 and have released a slew of great singles and albums. This is the video for the newest single off the new Psycho EP released on Psychopathic’s sub label Hatchet House entitled “Cocaine.”
This video is ridiculous and I love it. The video features cameos by our two favorite clowns Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope, not to mention a few other familiar faces from within the Juggalo realm indulging in that white girl. It’s good to see Psychopathic branching out, lets just hope it lasts.
