I'ma Let You Starve

This is the first female response record in some time. Kudos to MC.

"OBSESSED" - mariah carey f/gucci mane

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hpiwPXkbVc

Too Legit

The Wake's S&V Blog is now official: http://www.wakemag.org/category/blogs/s-v-blog/



All posting will be done there from now on. Peep the website, and take it easy.

[edit: The above link is the home to my writings for The Wake Magazine. This blog has, since this post, continued from its initial purpose to become the personal MC Harv blog]

City On The Make - 9/12 at 400 Bar

Local band City on the Make has put out the following press release (I love when someone else does my work for me):

"City on the Make will be headlining a show on Friday, September 12th at the 400 Bar. This night will be the culmination of a long summer full of fun and mischief, packed shows, not so packed shows, sweat soaked parties, a new EP, a first tour, new joints that rip off the Jefferson's theme song, hard working days, long nights, and the literal and figurative bumps and scrapes of another hot summer done passed in our lives.

This will be the last City on the Make show in the Twin Cities for a couple months, as Mischa Kegan, our guitarist, is moving to Chicago to pursue a master's in the art of lovin'. The band is by no means on hiatus, but will not be playing too many local shows in months to come.

This past year has been incredible for us, as we have received so much support here at home, and despite the stress and setbacks of a year in the life, we feel really lucky to have so many friends in Minneapolis. Every person who has come out to our shows, copped a CD or an E.P., requested us on the radio, or brought their friends out to see us has made this more than worthwhile. I feel confident in saying that we as a band, have as much as anybody in this town, and that we strive to provide the same to our friends and fans. We hope you can make it out to this one to get down with us before the winter comes.

Expect a LONG rock and roll set from City on the Make (we believe in long sets), high energy funk and soul from the Capitol City Soul Tones, and tight fit together indie rock from local new jacks Modern Fonts. An utterly danceable evening, bound to move the heart and soul.

For more information:

cityonthemake.net
myspace.com/cityonthemake
cityonthemake@gmail.com

Thank you for your support.

Love and Sincerity,

Michael Massey and the Boys"

Their new EP entitled $1,000,000, which is not nearly as expensive as you'd expect it to be, can be heard in its entirety on their website, cityonthemake.net. If their infectious song stylings are not enough to tempt you to attend their show on Friday, you can watch a taping of an earlier performance over at Empty's Tapes, the excellent local blog which showcases a variety of torrents of live shows. If you're still not convinced to go, what the hell is wrong with you? You don't like rock and roll or something? For fans of local rock, this show is a must-see, and their last performance for a while, so make sure to get your ass out there and prepare it for some serious old-fashioned whiskey-tinged shaking.

City on the Make
with the Capitol City Soul Tones and Modern Fonts

400 Bar, 400 S. Cedar Avenue
Doors 8pm/Music 9pm

$7 advance/$10 door
18+

Big Quarters + Mux Mool - 9/3 at the Turf Club

Local hip-hop duo Big Quarters have just released a new 5 song EP with fellow beat architect Mux Mool entitled Fall In Love EP, which they have so generously made available for free on their website, bigquarters.com. Tonight, Big Quarters and Mux Mool will perform together at the Turf Club in St. Paul to celebrate the release. The collaboration stems from a long-standing friendship between BQ and Mux: Medium Zach worked together at a video store in high school and wiled away days sampling the thousands of available movies for use in beats. "We wanted to sample videos and make a project using nothing but videos," says Zach of their early work together. Mux Mool did a remix of the song "Test" off Cost of Living, as well as provided a beat for the song "Ladies Know", and eventually they began collaborating on beats, which became Fall In Love. The trio will perform the songs together for the first and only time at the Turf tonight.

Medium Zach (left) and Brandon Allday (right) have been hard at work lately; in conjunction with the new EP comes Big Quarters Direct, where a measly $5 a month gets you 5 brand new, unreleased songs sent to your inbox - essentially a new album every month. Zach talks about the advantage of using the internet to distribute music: "The reason we're doing this subscription service is because we can do everything ourselves," Already out on the service is the construction kit (instrumentals and acapellas) from their last full-length, Cost of Living, and coming on the 5th is the next installment, featuring "Barter System", for which Zach recently shot a video, his second after storyboarding/directing the video for "August".



On top of all this, Big Quarters joins DJ Nikoless every third Thursday of the month for Last of the Record Buyers, an evening for local producers and beatmakers to showcase their beats and get in touch with others in the hip-hop community. "Our angle was, it's like a beat exhibition, like an open mike for producers," says Brandon. "We're just trying to do entertaining things production-wise, something that hasn't really been done in the Twin Cities as far as emphasizing on production." Since November of '07, the monthly event held at the Dinkytowner has been a place for unknown producers to spin some tracks and get their name out there. The event builds off events like Run Ya Jewelz and Scribble Jam: "Last year was the first production battle at Scribble Jam... We got some crates of records and we had everybody bring their drum machines and their samplers and they had to make a beat on the spot. There's a round where they just play a beat, if they get past that, there's a round where they do a Brother Ali remix, and if they get past that, there's a round where they make a beat live. When we got back from Scribble last year, we [figured] we should do something... We started doing the Last of the Record Buyers night. We got a lot of people that were interested in production to come out."



Those who have beats simply come down, put your name on the sign-up sheet, and then spin your joints for 2-3 minutes in front of a crowd of beat enthusiasts. DJ Nikoless spins each night, and every month a different guest performer does a set answers questions regarding their production process. "We added having a featured guest because I can't think of any other venue or avenue in the Twin Cities where veterans are helping out and giving tips to people that're coming up," says Brandon. "Producers across the board, a lot of 'em are antisocial, you know, homebodies, stay at home working on music; even the veterans don't get the recognition they deserve. People might know the album and know the rapper, but not necessarily know who produced it." Though Big Quarters both rap and produce beats, their love of producing came first, and they wanted to help support up and coming producers by devoting a night to the production side of hip-hop. Every night, local producers live up to that by playing solid tracks and living up to the potential of the night. The night is for anyone interested in the producer side of things: If you're a rapper looking for beats, or simply want to hear some fresh shit from untapped talent, this is the place to be.

If you're a lazy punk who isn't willing to hoof it to St. Paul to go see these guys (it's a measly 4 bucks, you cheapskate), you can always catch them on campus at Coffman Union when they play with Brother Ali, Usual Suspects, Illuminous 3 and the Green Sketch Crew on October 2nd.



Big Quarters + Mux Mool
Wednesday, Sept 3, doors at 10 pm, $4
Turf Club, 1601 University Ave St. Paul

-----------------------------------------

UPDATE: Check the recently added "Barter System" at bigquarters.com or on the YouTube.

Concert Highlights - 9/2-3

With the RNC is bringing a whole slew of terrible, terrible people to our fair cities, at least we get visits from some pretty great artists here to protest. During the second day of the convention, September 2nd, Anti-Flag, Dead Prez, Matisyahu, I Self Devine, Michael Franti and Spearhead, Wookie Foot, B Dolan and Prolyphic will be at the capital making their voices heard. The music is free from 12 to 7 on the state capital lawn and includes speeches from Code Pink founder Medea Benjamin and global warming activist Will Steger.

Later that night starting at 7 PM, even more politically-conscious music at the Fitzgerald Theatre with the Provention Concert, featuring Nellie McKay, Dan Wilson, The Honeydogs, The New Standards, Haley Bonar, The Twilight Hours, Jeremy Messersmith and Maria Isa, and hints at the potential of "super-secret guests".

The show costs $20 and promises to leave you feeling more hopeful for the future than watching protesters get beat on television.

Oh, and as long as we're talking politics, Rage Against The Machine plays at the Target Center on the 3rd. This is, of course, just a coincidence, and the band will certainly keep silent about the concurrent convention. The ticket will cost you $60, but it'll be worth it to be surrounded by like minds rather than riot police and cigar-chomping suits.


While it is not particularly nice having the Republicans storm our cities, it's clear that the artistic community is in full swing and willing to stand up against the onslaught. There's a lot to take in this week; be sure to catch something positive.

Interview With Cecil Otter

Cecil Otter, one of the MCs from the local powerhouse Doomtree, has recently released his first full-length album, Rebel Yellow. I sat down with Cecil and asked him some questions about his new album, the recently released Doomtree crew record, and other pertinent points of business.








Jack Spencer: So, first of all, are you excited about the album's release?

Cecil Otter: Of course. I've been waiting on it for a long time.

JS: How long has Rebel Yellow been in the making?

CO: Probably about 4 years or so. It got destroyed about 2 years ago. All the beats that I had were made in Pro Tools, ... One day I came to my computer and the folder was just gone, and so I lost everything. I remade everything over the past few years, and making new material too, just trying not to lose my mind.

JS: Did you then start from scratch, or did you try to rebuild what you had worked on?

CO: I went and found the same samples, I wanted the same sound because I liked the beats so much. There's a lot of stuff I took out, a lot of brand new stuff I added, and a lot of new instrumentals and stuff like that. It was worth it, though; I'm glad [the album's] coming out when it is. I feel like I've progressed enough in my head. I went through [mixer and engineer] Joe Mabbot doing recording, that dude's a genius. It's still gritty, but it's a lot more polished.

JS: This album is right on the heels of the Doomtree crew record, it's good to see you guys trying to keep up that momentum.

CO: It's stuff we'd been working on for a long time, just waiting, and we were like, "Let's just put this album out,". We've been working on it for so many years, we gotta really push that one. Everyone gets represented really well on that, then after that settles we can push ourselves as solo artists. Every month we have a new album coming out. Mike [Mictlan]'s album is coming out next month [Hand Over Fist with Lazerbeak, set for release on Sept 23], and then Dessa's. Dessa has a couple of different plans she might be doing, it's not set in stone what she's doing, but there's definitely something coming out [from her] this fall. Me and Paper Tiger are trying to do an instrumental album, just going back and forth, giving each other Pro Tools sessions. I'm big on making huge elaborate instrumentals and I haven't really had a chance to do that. That's gonna come out in November, right before the Blowout [Doomtree's annual concert in December].

JS: The Doomtree album was such a collaboration between all members, but Rebel Yellow really feels like your project. It's basically your first solo record, you produced every beat and there's not many other MCs on it.

CO: I threw on "Traveling Dunk Tank" with P.O.S., which is the first song we've done together. We started this thing years ago and just never wrote songs together, so I'm just kind of paying homage to that beginning. That's the only reason I felt it had to be on there; it was hard for me to put that on because, in my mind, I want it just to be me, nobody else. Not in a selfish way, I just wanted to see if I could do it. It kind of went through the theme of Rebel Yellow, and I didn't want to stray from that. I wanted it to be a struggle, I wanted to get through it. I wanted to just get some kind of story out and make it cohesive. It meant a lot to me to do it like that, otherwise it might start to lose it's meaning. It's somewhat conceptual, not necessarily stream-of consciousness or anything... There's characters built throughout it, and there's some songs where I'm writing about a group of people that I turn into one person, just kind of completing a story. But nothings full finished on it in a way; it's completely developed to me but they're unfinished thoughts... It's like, when people say "You're a better man than your music", and I think I am, but there's shit that I want to live up to, theories and ideas and ways I feel about things that I haven't fully drawn out myself.

JS: What was the collaboration process like when working on the Doomtree record?

CO: There were so many different ways... The False Hopes was just all these songs we had, we had built up so many songs. There were lots of times where three dudes would just get together on a beat, like "I got this" or "Let's write to this", and you can tell they're in the same vibe. It's harder for me, it's more of a struggle to write with other people. As soon as I hear a beat, I get an idea of sort of what I want to do, and I wanna make it mine, like I want to do the whole song.
JS: Yeah, if you have a particular vision, it's hard to put another person on it because their ideas might not conform to that necessarily.

CO: It slows me down, and I don't wanna slow them down. The song me and Dessa did together, "Last Call", took us probably 5 months of hanging out a few times a week over some drinks or in 9 hour sessions with MK Larada pushing us, because it was his beat. I had had this idea for it like 2 years before, and Dessa had something for it. [The producers would] burn a bunch of beats to a CD and hand them out to people, and we'd come back and say "I'm really into this one" or "I'm really into this one"... It just so happened that, a lot of the beats, Mictlan and P.O.S. and Sims would be into the same ones, and just go into a corner and start rapping, and me and Dessa would be like "I'm thinking about this bittersweet song..." [laughs]. ["Last Call"] took us a really long time to write, and we probably wrote it 80 different ways. Some shit came really quick, and some was drawn out. I'm definitely really happy with [the album] and how it came out.



JS: When did you first start rapping?

CO: I fell in love with hip-hop at a really young age, by watching breakdancers and stuff; I'd always try to headspin in my neighbors yards. When I was about 8 years old, my sister, who was 14 at the time, ran away from home. I looked up to her like crazy, and she left me this box of tapes, with Eazy-E, you know, other stuff from that era, and I just listened to that with my friend all the time. I'd just write stories all the time, adult stories, like I was married and someone came and kidnapped my wife and I was hunting them down, stuff like that, I don't even think it rhymed. I started sampling and making beats when I was about 18... The song "1999" is about spinning 78s, 45s, 33s since '99... My friend Paul started sampling and making beats on a Dr. Sample, we started sampling then by hand and live and on 4-track, then writing raps that had no bar structure, trying to make like 3 a day. Do that, then go do graffiti and not talk to anyone, just be hermits. I just fell in love with perfecting it and hearing other beatmakers, like Ant and Sixtoo and all those dudes, just being like, I wanna be like that. They're always working, not changing themselves drastically but pushing themselves in other directions.

JS: TuPac or Biggie?

CO: I am a huge fan of what TuPac stood for and what he tried to do with his music, especially being so vocal about communities and bringing them together. [He wasn't] trying to turn stuff PG-13, just to really fight for it. You can't just sit back in an armchair and expect things to happen. Biggie was an amazing lyricist and an amazing songwriter, and I just might not know much about him, but I feel like he hadn't affected me as much as TuPac did. TuPac was a really old soul for his age, just such a strong person. I would have to say TuPac gets a few more points than Biggie does in my book, but I still really respect Biggie Smalls.

JS: How went your tour with the Flobots?

CO: It was really fun. It was a learning experience. Everyone was great in the band. I think we all had our doubts that maybe there'd be some tension in the band, because it's like 7 people sitting next to each other in the van 18 hours a day, you know... But there were no bad vibes at all. The crowds were really big and really accepting. We did basically the West Coast from North to South, for about three and a half weeks.

JS: Doing shows like that, do you feel like you've got a growing fan base on a national level?

CO: Yeah, definitely. One way to judge it is just sales and MySpace. Like, all of a sudden I go from having 3 people wanting to be your friend it's like, 5 pages. People from all different age groups are into it, the Flobots had all-ages shows, so we saw people from age 8 to 48. It was pretty great.

JS: So your CD release show is this Friday?

CO: Yeah, at the Triple Rock. I'm gonna be playing with The Millionth Word and Attracted To Gods. We're doing an all-ages show at 6 at a 21+ at 9. It's gonna be awesome.

------------------------------------------

You heard the man: Awesome. Be there and pick up an album, it's certain to be one hell of an event.



Cecil Otter: Rebel Yellow CD Release
with The Millionth Word and Attracted To Gods
Triple Rock Social Club, 629 Cedar Ave
All Ages at 6 PM - $7, 21+ at 9 PM - $9

Rebel Yellow: Available in stores now or online at Doomtree.net

Overlong Observations #1

This section is not intended to be about anything particularly topical or relevant. It is just a space for me to put the things I've been pointlessly mulling over lately. You don't have to enjoy it if you don't want.

Kanye West f/Lil' Wayne - Barry Bonds (from Graduation)

Kanye West has always been difficult. I call it the Kanye Konundrum: He embodies the classic case of great beats vs. so-so lyrics. West has proven himself a skilled producer, and his beats rarely fail to deliver. Credited (or blamed, depending on where you stand) with popularizing an 80's synth-dance style of rap with his hits "Stronger" and "Flashing Lights", Kanye showcases a range of different kinds of beats, sampling a variety of sources from U-Roy to Can. With "Barry Bonds", West hits us with a gritty and grandiose beat containing elements from Mountain's "Long Red", providing a deep and sweeping backtrack to his subpar rhymes. West has hit us with rhymes all over the map, sometimes excellent ("Diamonds from Sierra Leone"), sometimes cringe-inducing ("I'm the fly Malcom X / buy any jeans necessary" from "Goodnight"), but mostly just mediocre. His production is pretty consistently on point, though, and often that can carry mediocrity to a tolerable level. It's an age-old question, which West seems determined to continue testing: If the production is tight enough, is it necessary to have quality rhymes? I'd always been under the belief that a bumpin' enough beat cancels out any poor vocals, but was proven wrong by Kanye on "Drunk and Hot Girls", my personal favorite beat of the whole album, rendered entirely unlistenable by the terrible, terrible lyrics. Kanye's flow is blunt and obtrusive enough to get in the way of the beat, unlike 50 Cent, whose laid-back, generally innocuous style, though typically as bad as Kanye's, can be pleasantly ignored. In general, I find Kanye West to be an uneven listen, always unsure of whether I like it or whether it's worth it to continue on.

That said, "Barry Bonds" finds West right in the middle, staying the course without getting too good or too bothersome. It's an excellent song, as the beat sweeps in and lifts mediocre vocals to epic-sounding status at all the right points. Kanye plods along, not hitting any high points but staying consistent. Lil' Wayne turns in a verse that sounds like West ran into him on an elevator and asked him to bust a 16 real quick before he left. His usual brand of oddball simile-laden tributes to himself is evident, and his sound fits well with the beat. Weezy is not going to save hip-hop, but he's at least making it more interesting. Hearing him alongside West leads me to note the similarities between the two: Both say some kind of dumb things and enjoy both having and talking about money. Wayne is the better rapper here, but necessarily lyrically; he simply delivers lines with more punch, more eccentricity, and more fun. "I don't practice / and I don't lack shit" seems to fit the picture: Wayne claims he doesn't write his stuff anymore, he just kicks it form his head, you know, and this verse is bizarrely stream-of-consciousness enough to confirm that. West plods through lines with similar unpolished panache, but simply does not have the charisma on the mic he says does. The chemistry between the two is interesting, both being the two things in mainstream hip-hop that make it seem deserving of attention. This song is probably my favorite on an album that has stymied me for some time.

(this mp3 is meant for listening purposes, so you know what the hell i'm talking about. it'll be gone in a week, i don't need any of kanye's crazy paranoia lawyers throwing me to the lions or nothin')