With El-P and Dizzee Rascal about to head out on tour together and Def Jux releasing Maths + English in the U.S. (April 29), we get our first taste of this transatlantic collaboration.
El-P’s remix of Where Da G’s – which strips out some the looped synths in favor of El’s drums of death – will be featured on the American CD release of Maths, which you’ll probably be able to snag at the Def Jux store.
This isn’t one of my favorite tracks from Sky Blue Sky, but I am growing to at least appreciate the dear diary-like honesty of the lyrics. (Thanks, Brooklyn Vegan.)
SUNDAY NIGHT: We headed to Modified to check out the Hands on Fire/Fleet Foxes/Blitzen Trapper show. All three are excellent, and I am already a couple spins through the Fleet Foxes’ Sun Giant EP (8.7 at Pitchfork.)
As it turns out, keyboardist Casey Wescott is a hip-hop head, so you’ll be seeing an I Used to Love H.E.R. entry from him in the near future. He told me about his dad throwing out hip-hop CDs when he was young – Midnight Marauders, Quik is the Name. Trashed. Man, that’s like tossin’ a Mickey Mantle baseball card. He also spoke of his fondness for The-Breaks.com, a massive repository of sample usage in hip-hop, and how he taught himself sampled material on Wu-Tang Clan records on the piano. All in all, it was a fantastic conversation, one that made me miss the first few songs by Blitzen Trapper.
Check out the new video for the Roots’ 75 Bars (Black’s Reconstruction), the lead single from their forthcoming record Rising Down, due out April 29. The video was directed by Rik Cordero of Three/21 Media.
And here’s some behind-the-scenes footage for the shoot of the next Roots video for the song Get Busy.
Related:
?uestlove meets Travis Barker.
According to Billboard, Elbow has hooked up with Geffen for a U.S. release of The Seldom Seen Kid, due out April 22. A single for One Day Like This will be available digitally on March 18.
The band will follow with some tour dates, with a May 9 date in Los Angeles the closest they will get to Phoenix:
April 26: New York (Webster Hall).
April 27: Washington, D.C. (Sixth & I Historic Synagogue).
April 29: Chicago (Park West).
April 30: Minneapolis (Fine Line).
May 8: San Francisco (Bimbo’s 365).
May 9: Los Angeles (Avalon).
Twisted Ear has singer Guy Garvey’s track-by-track breakdown of the record.
You can also go to theseldomseenkid.com to hear a new song (Audience With the Pope) by clicking the cubes to, as Elbow puts it, “build the tune track-by-track until the full glory of the song is revealed.” Or you can just furiously press your mouse button all over the screen like I did.
In case you missed it, here’s a radio rip I recorded of Grounds for Divorce.
And here’s a video of Elbow performing said song on Jonathan Ross’ show:
Rogue Wave owed one to Stateside Presents after backing out of a show scheduled for Jan. 22 and hooking up with a local radio station’s corporate-backed Tempe Third Thursdays night.
I went to the show, and it was about as horrible as you’d expect. Not Rogue Wave, mind you, but the commercial culture surrounding the show. My guess is Rogue Wave realized it, too. In that regard, they’re coming back April 24 to the Rhythm Room, where the Jan. 22 show was supposed to happen. Grand Ole Party opens. Tickets are $12.
Thanks to the new Anti blog, you can download a label sampler, which includes a new Cadence Weapon track from his forthcoming LP Afterparty Babies (due out March 4, which, wow, yeah, is Tuesday).
Now that I’ve heard Real Estate, I’m sure Cadence Weapon performed it when he last came through Phoenix in October with DJ Weez-l, who handles all the cuts on the new record. CW also has made another new track, House Music, available for download on his MySpace even though it was just released for sale digitally at iTunes. So that’s three tracks you can download/preview off the new record (get In Search of the Youth Crew here).
Remember: Cadence Weapon and Born Ruffians, brought to you by Faux Show, at Rhythm Room on March 17, the same night as Nada Surf/Sea Wolf at the Clubhouse and Living Legends at the Brickhouse. Tickets for CW/Born Ruffians are $10.
Related:
Everything Flows (Cadence Weapon remix).
My interview with/story on Cadence Weapon.
UPDATE: Saturday’s Diplo show has been moved to the Clubhouse in Tempe. Buy your tickets ($15) at the Faux Show site.
I’ve always thought that if I were to introduce hip-hop to my three nieces, that it would probably consist of a supergroup of Prince Paul, Chali 2na, Ladybug Mecca, Scratch and Wordsworth, and they would probably take on the personas of animated dinosaurs, and … oh, what? This already exists?
Yes, yes it does. They’re called the Dino-5. And, honestly, I don’t know what to make of it, either. It’s part of the Baby Loves Music series that is geared toward, yeah, babies. But with a lineup like that, how can adults resist?
So these five have gotten together to “tell the story of prehistoric hip-hop.” Prince Paul is DJ Steogosaurus; Chali 2na is MC T-Rex; Ladybug is Tracy Triceratops; Scratch (from the Roots) is TEO Pterodactyl and Wordsworth is Billy Brontosaurus. Sounds cheesy, I know. But, come on … how else are you gonna break your kids into this? And at this point, I’ll take anything from Ladybug (what’s with that Digable Planets reunion already?).
Look for an album from the Dino-5 this spring. In the meantime, their theme song is below.
Just a couple days after talking about Atmosphere’s May 5 date in Tempe, I’ve got a handle on a new track from his forthcoming album, When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold (April 22, Rhymesayers).
According to a one-sheet, the album is based on fictional narratives that deal with societal issues, including parenthood (as heard on Shoulda Known). The album includes a 40-page hard-cover book that includes a children’s story by Slug. (Probably different than this children’s story.)
Remember to submit questions to Atmosphere for Slug and Ant’s weekly Paint it Gold video series.
It’s so great to hear more new music from Alejandro Escovedo, who, in 2003, became ill after a show in Tempe and was diagnosed with hepatitis C, which caused advanced cirrhosis of his liver.
He’s apparently in recovery mode after releasing 2006’s The Boxing Mirror, which included the song Arizona. On June 10, he’ll release his ninth album, Real Animal on Back Porch Records. Not sure if this new track, Fall Apart, on his MySpace page will be on the album, but a bulletin says it’s a “solo acoustic performance recorded at Alejandro’s home studio on a sunny Sunday afternoon in the Texas Hill Country.”
Not surprisingly, Escovedo reflects on his health and the indiscretions of his younger days (he also references Phoenix in the song):
“Everything’s so strange / my body doesn’t feel the same.” And then: “I had a few, a few hundred drinks too many / I’m at the point of no return.”
STREAM: Alejandro Escovedo | Fall Apart
Here’s a video with Escovedo and producer Tony Visconti in the studio:
The National, creators of my favorite album of 2007 (and 2005 for that matter), stopped in for an interview/session on PRI’s Fair Game with Faith Salie, which kindly made mp3s of the performance available for download.
My good friend from high school texted me Friday night after seeing the National in Brooklyn, a show we damn near flew out to New York for. “Just got out of the national show. Brilliant.” Sigh. Although I spent my evening with a nice seat for the Celtics-Suns game, I’d much rather have been in Brooklyn.
Maybe they’ll come to Arizona soon. Maybe? Please?
The National on Fair Game from PRI, 2/19/08: