Fuck a Record Company

This weekend RynBurnsMC Metaphysical and I headed up to Roger Williams University to play WQRI’s hip hop inaugural quadrennial along with Bad Rabbits, and Louis Logic.

Ryn made new buttons in the car.

The designs are based on fractals generated by code written by David Wallace for Context Free. And their stereoisomers of course.

We met some nice folks. The show was on campus and “dry.” So -claro que si- we went to a dorm room (complete with dude in his underwear playing Xbox) and shotgunned some keystone lights Raphael Style i.e. using the badass lusterous sai that happened to be hanging on the wall next to a totally pro rig for holding beerpong balls made out of a paper towel tube. God I wish I had a picture; it was glorious engineering.

First up was Boston-based Bad Rabbits

Then we played

or rather Ryn got kicked in the balls and I had a seizure.

Louis started off on piano and covered Biz Markie’s “Just a Friend.” It’s quite a rendition — preserves all the innocence and playfulness of the song while adding a degree of musicianship not present in the original. It helps that Louis does it by hand so to speak. Like made by hands on a real instrument. Crafted as opposed to sampled.

But you can’t rap sitting down forever.

I am constantly amazed by how little I know about good music, and somehow Louis Logic was mostly below my radar until the show. No longer. His new surf-rap band Spork Kills has finally achieved that holy grail of indie hip-hop: The tryptych live energy, pop sensibility, and autodisconsideration. I’ve had the rare pleasure of seeing him do a few of the new songs twice now and I can’t wait for the full album to drop.

After the show we waxed philosophic for a while in the palatial apartment the U rented for us.

We discussed professionalism. For serious.

I think it’s safe to say that the co-eds had a good time.

Biggups to WQRI, The Harvard Divinity School contingent, and the crew from RWU

This morning at 4:22 am Weastrn Standard Time, the city of Beijing was sacked by the recently released “Food Chain Collective MixtApe”. The monstrosity was designed and constructed by madscientists associated with the thinktank/ragtag group of miscreants and serial loiterers known as the “Food Chain Collective.” Infamous the world over for their devious musical exploits, the group has earned a reputation for its jamming and jarring compositions that often leave listeners lifeless or lactating. It is a movement that continues to build steam. Chinese officials report that the city seems to have crumbled easily under formidable sonic undulations caused by the simultaneous playing of the mixtApe across the vast urban center. Resulting tremors leveled 10,013 city blocks. The magnitude of the destruction was attributed to the weak foundation on which the city sits, as much of the ancient metropolis was in fact built on rock and roll. Miraculously, there were no deaths or injuries, as the entire catastrophe turned out to be a work or fiction perpetrated by an unruly young man who’s name was not disclosed by the Chinese authorities for reasons of national security. However they did report that the mixtApe could be found on the intertubes at thefoodchaincollective.com

Added Chief Commissioner of Soundstuffs, Da Foo Chang, “play this music at your own risk… or die!”
The Food Chain – You are already a part of it.

- – – – – – -

BLADAT! and I’m blogging. thought it high time i made my debut and adress the good peoples of Dudesburg.

plus, this story needed telling

-RynBurnsMC

So There were like 25 awesome things to do today and I think I did 28 of ‘em.

Ryn Burns MC is taking the camera to Costa Rica, so I had to take some pics off and I suppose I might as well actually write something about Cali since it might have be the best I ever was

first stop was a rad graffitti shop where we met AC the program coordinator
and played a show for germans via internet radio AND some folks from the block

then we played for some kiddies with percee P Mestizo

driving in LA

Flex

so we made it to California, got off the plane with an ungodly amount of luggage, and played at airgrafx. Those guys are holding it down bigtime. Check out AC the program director on hip hop philosophy radio. Later Friday night we drove up to LA and got into some trouble barhopping and promoting. Flex and Mental Stamina started a cipher which devolved into a battle and almost a fight. It was awesome. There was also beach chilling, and an automotive miracle. Then we spent Saturday morning promoting the show at fat beats which went pretty well despite some initial confusion. Shout out to Spicoli. We’ll have some video soon. That night we got to record in Disney’s animation voice studio — yeah like where the record all the dialog for Alladin and whatnot — Which was 1) totally awesome and 2) highly surreal. Best equipped studio I’ve ever been in though, without question. Today we’re gonna head down to Venice beach and chill and try to do some rhyming on the street since our gig at 33 1/3 fell through…

I haven’t seen any celebrities yet, but Melrose is everything I imagined; I must’ve seen like 314 fake boobs yesterday while handing out fliers.

Yeah, I said it.

they did a piece on my man Flex Matthews, who is one of the best freestylers on the planet, and certainly one of the most humble and talented cats I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. Around the lab we’re always joking: “what would Flex Matthews do?” Flex is all the role model I need (Psychic — I love you too Jesus).

You know him man. There’s like forty hours of him freestyling here. And an interview. And some pictures. Anyway lookout for this kid, he’s blazing hot.

Dis has been a crazy week. Friday night we hosted a really late freestyle friday for most of the squadron was performing at the reds + the blacks. I had come back to da studio after visiting ben in the hospital (whutup homie?) and decided to give Mark a.k.a 00000000000000 a call to work on this digital punk project, Pink Noise, which you may or may not have heard of. We were geeking out on synths for a couple of hours till everyone started showing up. It mustave been around 1 when Flex inquired on whether or not he could use a microphone. With Mic in hand, unknown playing beats, and 00000000000000 switching between scratching and playing bass, we had another combination of awesome raps in equal part to awesome music. While we were fortunate to have the presence of Skip and Blacklung from Nonsense records they both pretty much stayed silent the entire night. Maybe it was because freestyle friday over here is too intimidating for those who don’t rhyme with these cats (and i literally mean cats) on a daily basis. Or maybe they were just way too tired from touring. I think freestyle friday ended on saturday morning around 5:30 or 6 or so. All I know is when Mark, Lady Maroo and I got back from the Internation House of Racism it was like 7:30.

Anywho, Ryn and Ty have been settling dates for our California tour. We will have those posted once they all come together. Also also, Ardamus’ album is near completion, we just gotta finish up a few things. We’re trying to put this mix tape out relatively soon too, it will be the first mixtape were everything was done at the studio, it’ll be fresh, like lettuce, or Earnest Borgnine. Well thats it for me, I gotta record Black Jesus in a couple of hours, this shits so fresh boi.

also,

this is why rap sucks, this is why rap sucks, this is why, this is why, this is why rap sucks.
rap sucks cause rap sucks, rap sucks cause rap sucks
you know that rap sucks, i know that rap sucks
this is why, this is why, this is why rap sucks

I no longer have any doubt that the nonsense crew is derek-fucking-forreal. Madd Illz is a buck raw monster, like a tyrannosaurus unleashed in a small shop full of delicate things that don’t rhyme. He was here in DC with SPS and X:144 and you missed it. Your bad. My favorite thing about the whole nonsense movement is that they really are true about being good folks, love, and health. Who knew positivity could be so dope?
first we had a cipher

you can listen to it here
then SPS (who might very well be the best DJ on earth in case you didn’t know) did some scratching. you can also listen to it here

then mental stamina interviewed the performers
(yes – you can listen to it here)
and then they got back on the road. I had to work early as shit the next morning which was tough since we stayed up building until 5 o’clock.

then plus tainted my door. thanks for coming out, guy.

fresh new shit: the dirty projectors who are touring with Hella. they are coming to the rock’n'roll funeral home on march 28th. don’t say i didn’t tell you.

also hybrid has made me remember why I love electronic music. genres are obsolete in 2077 bitches.

and don’t forget: caverns at Dremo’s on saturday with the no name band.

Luxembourg!