Fuck a Record Company

I love Arlington. I always say I’m from D.C. but that is not quite right. A-town. Retroceded in 1847. Arlington will surprise you with how awesome it is from time to time. My man Hendrick runs a fine arts collective called artoutlet based right here. They do these crazy events that take 1 crapton of work to set up and often only last one night. I keep returning the fairly hard-to-grasp analogy of vomiting pure light. Two years ago they did an event called flux at an abandoned garage behind our old studio. This year they did something similar at a sick studio on Columbia Pike. It belongs to Jazirock. He’s a graf writer and photographer and all around madman visual artist. They got some good press about the event. Flex Mathews (who was just voted DC’s number one rapper BTW…ehem and will be putting out future projects on F.A.R.C.) and I showed up and freestyled with DJ seven in from Japan.

The space itself is bonkers. Dripping visuals blend around corners and give a fluid vibe to the whole scene. We’re trying to set-up some all ages shows soon. I know it’s not that useful now, but there was a bunch of other good stuff going on yesterday…

Flex spent the day teaching kids how to freestyle. I spent the day returning from Philly after seeing my best friend’s MFA thesis show at Tyler. I didn’t really get his exhibit until we had a chance to talk about art and how it fits into our collective understanding about the arc of history. He did a whole collection of art inspired by VA luminaries. My favorite was his Arthur Ashe sculpture. 80’s sportswear is so wonderfully hideous.

Later, I happened upon an African music even at 1640 Columbia Rd. It was transcendental… the leader was playing a wooden tonal percussion instrument, and just putting it all on the line with undulating cyclical vocals… truly amazing – one of those moments wherein you can feel everybody’s attention collapse to a singular point. But it was at a church and all these aging lesbians were there to get in touch with their inner negro and, well world music isn’t really my scene, also I had to get over to a flavor tripping party held by DJ V-Roc, so I only stayed for one song. But it kept a smile on my face hour hours – the kind of experience you can revisit for a week or so before taint can besmirch the power of its memory. As I sipped Guinness that tasted like a blended coffee beverage I began giggling inconsolably.

more pics from jazirock

and check out a similar (but much larger spatially and temporally) art event in Crystal City calledInked Souls bigups to Art Whino for pulling that one off

Asheville holds a special spot in my heart. The first time I visited was for a wedding and I fell in love with the place. It’s about as close as I’ve ever come to the shire. In fact, our buddy Forrest actually lives in the shire:

Forrest made this from garbage. With his hands. All found materials and solar panels. True grit. In addition to being a constructve monster (he built a corral for a rescued blind horse while we were there) Forrest is a nasty fire spinner. He and his troupe had a party and invited a bunch of other talented performers. A veritable congress of anomalies, to borrow a phrase from DBL+.



We did some art

The DJ did his thing for the people.

I spun drop of the ol’ hard stuff too.

We spent a lot of time in trees.



Lookout for chach and P-I and a whole bunch of bohemians round Asheville.

Fresh as hell down der

We just got invited to go back down for a festival of sorts. Can’t wait.

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