Metal Lungies

Did you know that Dee Dee of the Ramones recorded a rap album as Dee Dee King in 1989? This single is not on the album but still terrible and entertaining in a kind of car-wreck way. Seek out the whole album if you hate your ears.

I like rap/I like hip-hop/I like hardcore and punk rock

To clean your ears out, here’s the video for “I Wanna Be Sedated” featuring Courtney Love in a cameo as a junkie (really!):

Shouts to Nate Patrin for reminding me about this.

(img source)

So, if you haven’t heard about Phish’s comeback tour after breaking up in 2004, then you must be living under a rock. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get tickets to their three night opening run at Hampton Coliseum in Virginia, but the band was kind enough to release free soundboards from each night that were quickly put on Livephish.com the next day. After listening to each show I can ecstatically say the boys are back and playing with a vengeance. Opening with “Fluffhead,” a fan-favorite that hasn’t been played since 2000, they set the tone for the next three nights. After witnessing the trainwreck that was Coventry, their “final” show/festival and my one and only time seeing them, hearing the band (especially guitarist Trey Anastasio, who dealt with drug addiction and was practically nodding off while playing at Coventry) absolutely nail complex compositions such as the aforementioned “Fluffhead” and “You Enjoy Myself,” and looking like they were having the time of their lives while doing it, has put a smile on a face that won’t be leaving for a while. Here’s a phan’s video of the opener that gives me chills every time i watch it:

Can’t wait to catch these guys at Bonnaroo and hook it up with another review!!!

Don’t you love that feeling when you hear a track so good from an artist that’s new to you that you seek out their whole catalog. That’s the feeling I had when I had this funky electronic track come across the ML e-mail box a few day ago. I went in search of more music, only to find out their debut isn’t even out, but they do have some samplings on their myspace. The group is from Portland, but their debut, Mind Chaos is coming out in the UK first on Virgin in June, shortly followed by their Stateside debut on Capitol. Plus, how can you hate on a band named after the best sport ever?

Hockey – 3am Spanish

ML was at LIV Night Club last night to check out BYT’s 19 hour party (sadly, we were there for only about a 4th of that..there was some obscure ceremony going on downtown that we decided to check out.)

This was our 4th time seeing Wale live, making it his best that we’ve seen yet (and it softened the agony of missing out on that epic NYC show he had last month). Wale ran through his most known cuts like Nike Boots to W.A.L.E.D.A.N.C.E. (favorite of the night?), in addition to performing 2 debut album cuts for the 1st time. Wale performed the Cool & Dre produced Chillin (the final version, which isn’t out, will feature Lady Gaga) and Pretty Girls. Wale’s stage presence should be in a textbook for all rappers performing live, the crowd was feeding off of it all night. The vibe of the whole club was so dope, that it seemed Wale didn’t want his time to end, scrambling last minute for a make-shift encore featuring a line over My President Is Black (“My President is Black, my credit card is too./ but my credit is fucked up thanks to that previous dude“) as well as inviting local-bred producer/rapper Oddisee to freestyle a quick 16.

Wale also had a few PSAs through out his set that stuck with us:

*UCB x Wale album coming soon (separate from the debut).

*If you hear someone mispronounce his name (ie Whale or Wall-E (Wale predictied that he’s gonna be bigger than the Pixar joint).. smack that person for Wale .

*Tre (of UCB) wrote a Lindsay Lohan (or say it like Wayne: Lo-hann) song.

*Wale is signed with Jay-Z’s Roc Nation.

The event in of itself was kick ass, there were 2 floors of live music, cheap Colt 45s, intermissions with Burlesque Dancers and Comedians (Tig Notaro). We even got some good new music on to our radar, Team Facelift (who might be the wildest partying pack, I’ve ever seen live?) & Team Robespierre.

Peace to Dan & Wale; Victor & the BYT crew for organizing such a dope event.

Check the whole set of our pictures at the Flickr page. Seeing as I used my dslr camera at a concert for the first time, I plan on getting better at it, to see dope(r) fisheyed photo’s check out BYT’s stash.

Lastly, check what Washington Post had to say about Wale’s performance.

I’ve gathered bits and pieces of these developments on twitter, now elitaste wraps it up in nice video form.

*Ben Baller grills coming soon (the impressions are done?).

*You can hear a minute & a half preview of the Wale Ft. TV On The Radio track in the background starting at 4:25, and it sounds fantastic.

But we love it.

I woke up this morning and got this in my inbox:

When you’re one of the greatest emcees of the modern generation readying your bow from hip-hop with three albums, what do you do meanwhile? In Lupe Fiasco’s case, you simply watch a film, get invigorated, start a band, begin making not so bad post-indie punk music in a faux British accent, think of a peculiar band name (cue “Japanese Cartoon”), create a MySpace page, & upload the music. Then act like it isn’t you but rather Percival Fats. Cool.

There are only two tracks so far, and I’m not sure whether I love it or hate it. Its like punk rock, but the lyrics are clearly Lupe. The British accent is pretty annoying, but you would have to know me to find out why.

Either way you should listen to it, and reflect in the comments. Maybe I’ll take your opinion because I can’t find my own.

Cause I’m a tool.

JAPANESE CARTOON – ARMY

JAPANESE CARTOON – HEIRPLANES

Props to ThatRealIsh for the link.

Fascinating story behind this beautiful animated interview with John Lennon, courtesy of Current.

In 1969, a 14-year-old Beatle fanatic named Jerry Levitan, armed with a reel-to-reel tape deck, snuck into John Lennon’s hotel room in Toronto and convinced John to do an interview. This was in the midst of Lennon’s “bed-in” phase, during which John and Yoko were staying in hotel beds in an effort to promote peace. 38 years later, Jerry has produced a film about it. Using the original interview recording as the soundtrack, director Josh Raskin has woven a visual narrative which tenderly romances Lennon’s every word in a cascading flood of multipronged animation. Raskin marries traditional pen sketches by James Braithwaite with digital illustration by Alex Kurina, resulting in a spell-binding vessel for Lennon’s boundless wit, and timeless message.

It’s incredible to me that Lennon spoke to this 14-year old kid without an ounce of condescension. John treats him like an interviewer on network TV.

As of yesterday, Lennon’s been gone for 28 years.

Tomorrow night MTV’s Total Request Live pulls the plug on its 10+ year existence with a reunion of sorts. Both artists that were a big part of TRL and former hosts are scheduled to appear. Honestly, I’ll be tuning in- I’ve always had a soft spot for the show, it was the thing to watch when I got home from Middle School in the late 90s. I had the 1-800 number programmed into the speed dial of our home phone…and damn it I was psyched when I got to request an Eve video (before you say anything the other option was 98 Degrees, ok?) with Carson, street cred be damned. I was also lame enough to record the moment of glory that was my call-in on VHS. Other than that some of my best personal memories were the EMtv special where Eminem took over the show, Noel Gallagher being high out of his mind during his appearance, and the Spankin New Music week which had 2 Rage Against the Machine performances around the release of The Battle of Los Angeles. Hopefully I’ll recall some more from the finale.

The finale airs on this Sunday on MTV at 8pm.

Read the full details of who is scheduled to appear, reminisce with a 60 second recap of TRL’s history (including Tyra calling Kanye “Kane”) and a clip of Outkast Andre 3000 performing Hey Ya live on TRL, all after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

Hey, I forgot to mention this happened:

I went to see Nardwuar’s band, the Evaporators, earlier this month and I got a chance to meet the man. Nardwuar is very friendly and a seriously cool guy.

It’s a bit late for a full review but I will tell you two things about the show.

1) The show was fucking awesome.

2) Nardwuar dressed as Canadian superhero Guardian on stage. (for people who don’t know who that is and are too lazy to click the link: he wore a skintight latex suit with the Canadian flag branded on it while on stage.

If you want to know what it looks like…

Bonus: Nardwuar interviews Flava Flav:

We posted their video for “Mirando” back in July. My friend Jesse recently interviewed Mike and Evan of Ratatat for his radio show and podcast, the Sound of Young America. I’ve featured the show a few times before on the site, and his interviews are always worth a listen.

Stream the interview here or download it at the TSOYA website.

Previously: Ratatat Presents Remixes Vol. 1/Vol.2