Fuck a Record Company

The problem with living and working in Brooklyn is the difficulty of making it to weeknight shows in the DC area without, like, getting fired. But it’s not every week that you get to open for someone like Kid Koala, so I’d have been a fool to miss that one.

The turnout was very solid considering it was a Wednesday, and DJ Meistro warmed them up nicely. I have to say that the sound at Rock & Roll Hotel was on point. And when someone broke a cable during sound check, producing a displeasing hum, Kid Koala was right there with a soldering iron and fucking welding goggles to fix it within a few seconds. That is what I call dedication to your craft and tools, people.

Koala’s set was straight dangerous. I’d never seen him live, and he exceeded my expectations. Some DJs have impressive ability, and some can use 3 or 4 decks with ease. But Koala elevates the turntable to the level of a finely crafted instrument. It’s like watching a concert violinist at work when he extracts a rich vibrato from his mixer, working up a plentiful sweat in the process. I don’t really know jack shit about DJing, so I’m not going to dwell on it. But it was dope.

And on to the shameless (self) promotion… Back in October we Crashed that Brooklyn Mansion (on McKibben) with Lumens, Caverns et al., but we did a very quick set and the two-40 bus ride up from DC preemptively erased most of it from my memory. Next week, we’re hitting Brooklyn off properly with a blowout show at Galapagos in Williamsburg (N. 6th b/w Kent & Wythe; L train to Bedford). The lineup is:

X:144 & SPS (finally!)
Rosetta Stoned
mathpanda
Lu…Rreals (their album, Track Team, is now finished, and from what I hear it’s dope as hell)
Double Plus

It’s a Wednesday again but at least this time I won’t be sacrificing 2 days’ wages to Amtrak for the pleasure. Tell your hipster friends, and I’ll grant them immunity from (ironic) decapitation at the show!

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