Metal Lungies

Saosin, the band whose name everyone thinks they know how to pronounce, has finally settled down to record a full-length LP whose anticipation rivals that for Brand New’s The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me. Three years in the making, most of which was spent on the road rather than in the studio, Saosin’s self-titled debut full-length is a compelling, cohesive album that does not disappoint.

An epic rock band deserves an epic rock album. We’re not talking mascara, big hair and pyrotechnics; rather, this quintet (mostly, originally) from California has been thriving off 2½ EPs, touring incessantly, reaching out to fans, and never failing to kick out their and everyone else’s jams. Thus they grew an incredible fanbase, who took care of each other way before the MySpace era, swapping bootlegs of live shows, flooding messageboards with announcements of acoustic specials, and even leaking unreleased tracks.

Instrumentally superb and vocally satisifying, Saosin and Cove Reber – the band’s answer to original lead singer Anthony Green’s sudden departure in 2003 – solidify and secure their place in rock with this well thought-out album. They shy away from the screaming found on earlier material, and channel their technical skills into a more accessible, less aneurysm-inducing sound. (This is not to say some prefer the latter.) The band also has produced a relative rarity of an album, as attention to detail reveals subtle transitions between tracks, a nice gesture for the listener who sits down to listen to the album from track 1 to 12.

However, indies beware! The brilliant production by Howard Benson (Hoobastank, My Chemical Romance, All American Rejects) is a double-edged sword which cuts both as “masterfully produced” and “overly produced.” This skepticism of talent would probably be met with any other band starting off on Capitol Records with a talent like Benson in the recording studio, but vaporizes in the presence of a band such as Saosin who has, to say the least, “street cred.”

-JP

http://www.saosin.com/

Recent and Upcoming:

September 26, 2006 – Saosin
Summer 2005 – Saosin [EP]

Starting today I’m going to have a new feature, inspired by weekly NFL injury reports, I present you The Rapper Infirmary.

As of recently there are two east-cost MCs on the sideline;

Cassidy has well manicured nails *nh*.

Cassidy who, as I’m sure 99.9% of you know, was in a pretty bad car crash a few weeks ago. One minute he was freestylin, next minute he was flying out of his Chevy truck. He suffered a boatload of serious injuries, but now he is showing signs of improvement. (Sidenote on that link: did you HAVE to use his mugshot?)

*Rapper Cassidy recently regained consciousness after being hospitalized for injuries suffered in a car crash.      

The Philadelphia-based artist, whose real name is Barry Reese, suffered a fractured skull and multiple broken bones in his face. According to Allhiphop.com, doctors have performed CAT scans and so far, have found no abnormalities with his brain activity.     

Outlook: Doing radio interviews in 2 weeks.

Matching ice grill? check.

After spending an evening at Justin’s (Diddy’s restaurant), F-a-b-o-l-o-u-s, somehow ended up in a brawl. This resulted in him getting shot in his thigh (Link Sidenote #2: Now MySpace is reliable news source??), and being whisked away by his weed carriers in a truck to the hospital. To add insult to injury, the police later pulled over the truck and found some unlicensed guns, and placed everyone under arrest.

Outlook: Album and/or single potentially pushed up to consign with the shooting. After getting patched up under some police supervision/arrest, no time on the sideline.

out.

Dmx with a dog?? WHAT???

DMX just doesn’t seem able to stop in providing us with entertaining shit. When he is not acting completely cracked out for the camera, he is either going bat crazy during a concert, proudly earning some traffic violations, or claiming he was raped.

The first part of this story I came across over at nahright where X attacked the soundman because.. well he wasn’t happy with the sound. It was one of those radio sponsored smorgasbord lineups with like 232432 artists. I’m sure its easy being a soundman for those nights, have those types of shows EVER sounded good? MTV had some more on this incident, including one of X’s weed carriers injuring a concertgoer, with a chair throw..

“A member of the audience picked up a steel folding chair and threw it onstage,” Daub explained. “It was thrown back off by a member of DMX’s entourage and it struck the victim in the head.”

Yet Jim Jones, Foxy Brown, and Funkmaster Flex who were scheduled to appear, were not allowed in by security.

About a week later X was pulled over for driving an uninspected 2001 Chevy Suburban. Of course once they ran his name they saw he didn’t have a license in NY and had a suspended registration. But I might have to side with X on this one, do you really believe he was randomly pulled over? I highly doubt they had a high alert on the 5-0 radio to be on the lookout for a Chevy Suburban with an out of date inspection.. fucking racist cops. But still, a 2001 Suburban? Shit, that’s something you can’t see on cribs.

To wrap up this X news brief comes defiantly my favorite DMX story right now (maybe ever?). It comes from my personally favorite magazine, Sister 2 Sister. In it X’s wife talks about how he had a child with another woman, but she isn’t mad cause the woman raped him. Read from WWTDD via AOL Music:

Tashera Simmons — wife to rapper DMX — stands by her man as he talks openly about recently fathering a child with a Washington, D.C., woman. “She raped me,” (DMX says). “I mean, you know, that might sound like some bullshit. No man has ever been… you know what I mean, like never? Is that the only thing nahin the world that’s not possible?” Mrs. Simmons recalled an earlier encounter with the woman. “Before the stuff hit the fan, she came up to us while we were in court and said ‘I work for kids that are sickly,’ said Tashera. “So he said ‘Give her my number.’ That’s how it goes all the time. At first, I said OK. But, then I thought she looked deranged and obsessed with him.” While his wife “blocks out” the experience to cope, DMX gained a more valuable lesson: “Turn on the light before I go to sleep,” he said

In the article, the wife claims the rape was able to occur because X passed out drunk with his “package” out after filming a video, that sounds like a typical end of work day routine to me. Well they should totally make a public service announcement to prevent from a male getting rapped by a woman is to simply turn on a light before going to bed. Some people might be curious, would this work in jail? Anyway right after this issue came out, the woman rapist didn’t like that title so now she is suing for $6 mil, god I hope this shit lands on CourtTV.

Oh the woman in question is reppin’ MD just like yours truly. Sweet.

Please don’t change DMX, please.

———————-

As you know on here were are REAL big on The Clipse *nh*. They seemed to back-peddle on their anger with their label here, but then I read this over at AAH Rumors:

CLIPSE GO HARD AT JIVE!
The Clipse have been getting rave reviews for the longest time and we haven’t even heard their album Hell Hath No Fury. Not even so much as a leak! Now, it looks like the VA boys have taken their issues with Jive Records to a new level. If you recall, Malice and Pusha said on record that they wanted to lynch the entire staff at their label. WOW. Now, they have pressed up t-shirts that say ‘F**k Jive’ on the front. The back of the shirt hurt me to my heart. “Sorry to the fans, but those crackers weren’t playing fair at Jive”. Great day in the morning! They might not know Hell Hath No Fury greater than a angry White man. (LOL) Does this mean that the album will never come out? Does this mean; they aren’t dropping ever? Say it ain’t so.

uggghhhhh.

out.

Who heard that new Jay-Z track?

Shit won’t stop playing on my local hip-hop station and I don’t mean that in a good way. Now, I am a huge Jay-Z fan. I personally believe that the man has not had a bad album yet. Shit, I even liked Volume 1. But this new track is pretty weak. Honestly, this shit sounds like some third grade nursery rhymes. “the Mike Jordan of recordin”? I remember a time when weak shit like that couldn’t even make it onto a Blueprint 2 B-side. Seriously, If this is any indication of the quality of songs on the new album I may not cop it. And that would be a first.

Hear it for Yourself 

Here’s praying that shit is just for the mixtapes……………

Over the past two weeks I have spent an increasing amount of time in the magical land of Baltimore. The first of my recent outings occurred when I went to some loud hookah bar with a couple of old friends. Besides the waitress being mentally disabled this was a fairly uneventful night. The real shit popped off at Virgin Fest.

I would have to say one of the stand-out performances of the entire festival was RJD2. We arrived early to see him and it was more than worth it. Watching this dude mix 20+ minute dance songs using constantly changing records, and without headphones, was like watching a miracle. I highly recommend anyone who ever has the chance to see him should run to get tickets.

Before the Festival I never had previously seen a major rock band live. But by the time the Raconteurs came on I had already had at least one person fall on me as a result of crowd surfing. While I am not a huge fan of modern rock I would have to say that the Raconteurs put on a great show. My favorite part was when they did their rendition of Nancy Sinatra’s “Bang Bang” with Jack White using a specially tuned mic that was placed so while he sang his back was to the crowd.

When Gnarls Barkley came on the crowd seemed subdued for just about every song besides Crazy. But Cee-Lo and Danger Mouse definitely put down an incredible show dressed as Romans for this venue. They put a lot of time into Jokes and story telling too. I wonder if I was the only one yelling for Khujo and Gipp in the crowd?

I have nothing to say about the Who. They were everything I expected and more. They laid shit down. Classic to Classic. Laid Down. Cop that DVD. Life changing.

When the Chilli Peppers came on I had already been hit by a total of 9 people crowd surfing. During their show I was hit by about 10 more. Fucking bananas. I have never seen a performer get so energetic. They ran shit. They played through all the classics and then when they left people were stomping and chanting so loud that they came out and did damn near a whole other show as an encore.

But that wasn’t the end of B-more fun. Last night I went to a another better hookah bar with a friend and after watching Belly Dancing, eating some good food, and smokin’ some great tabaccy we let to see that my car had been towed. Now don’t get it twisted, I fly high, but I just didn’t have that amount needed to free my vehicle (89 Maxima BALLIN!!) in cash on me at the time. So we took a cab back to UMBC and I got that money and left to get my car the next day. Suprisingly, I was so happy with the the whole experience that I wasn’t at all angry about my car getting towed.

But my god do I need sleep.

Maybe a shower first……..

The 45-year old man in me came out this morning, I woke up and started to read the Washington Post. There was an article regarding George Mason University cracking down on underage drinking, it was a pretty interesting article about the topic. But, nearing the last part of the article something jumped out at me;

“There was a trash can with beer bottles stuck in the middle of the trash, a laundry bag with beer hidden under the clothes, and a beer bong table folded up and placed in the closet to look like a dart board,” Barnes says.

Now either GMU Students have come up with some sort of new contraption, or the Post has the complete scoop on the next phenomenon to hit basement parties across the US. I think its the latter.