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MC Homeless Returns to RVA to Battle Swerve 36
Over the past decade, MC Homeless has been carving out his path through indie hip-hop with a relentless touring schedule and countless collaborations. He is on the verge of releasing his sophomore LP ‘27’ on Milled Pavement records and he is kicking as hard as ever. Perhaps it is the confidence of a blooming career in rap music, but this man will certainly be arriving in Richmond with true cojones and gusto, prepared to battle local mainstay Swerve 36 on stage. Here is what MC Homeless had to say about life as a rap artist and the impending cage match.
The PEELANDER-Z show was stupid fun.
If you were here or not - either way - you have to check out the videos from the other night shot by Bryan Woodland. Ever seen anything like this? Its like the Ramones meets drunken Power Rangers.
BTW, does anyone out there have any pics from the show? We can add them to this post.
DAILY RECORD: Klaus Schulze
Klaus Schulze - La Vie Electronique, Vols. 3 and 4 (SPV)
A couple of years ago, I read a book called Krautrocksampler, by psychedelic postpunk genius and mercurial wunderkind Julian Cope. It's out of print and goes for multiple hundreds of dollars on the collector market, but pdf files of its text circulate on the internet, so I was able to read it without dropping the necessary cash for a hard copy. I knew about the most famous Krautrock groups--Can, Faust, Neu, early Kraftwerk--before ever checking out the book, but what I learned from Krautrocksampler was enough to teach me how little I'd previously known. Krautrock was a German genre that evolved at the dawn of the 70s, out of simultaneous interest in primitive, unrestrained rock n' roll; and in the endless, droning grooves of late 60s psychedelia. From these twin fascinations, a variety of figures in the German music scene all worked together to create a genre based around rhythmic repetition, mind-numbingly simple riffs, atonal freakouts, and huge ambient spaces. The music those pioneering artists created was viewed as extreme and had only a tiny cult audience at the time of its creation, but has become far more influential in the ensuing decades, as the cutting edge of musical creativity has caught up with the ideas of the most visionary Krautrock pioneers. Klaus Schulze was one of those pioneers, and it was from the pages of Krautrocksampler that I first learned his name.
Klaus Schulze was an influential and important figure on the Krautrock scene of the early 70s. An easy way to explain the music collected on La Vie Electronique to people who've never heard of Schulze is to mention that he was a founding member of the synthesizer-dominated prog-rock group Tangerine Dream. And this is true--he played drums on their first album. But it is also misleading, as Tangerine Dream, at the time of Schulze's membership, had not found the sound that is most readily identified with them. That sound can be most famously heard on the soundtracks to a variety of 80s-era horror and fantasy films, such as Near Dark, Legend, and Firestarter. However, when Schulze played with Tangerine Dream, they were still closely associated with Krautrock, mixing tape collage and found sound with the more standard repetitive drone grooves of that genre. Schulze's next group, Ash Ra Tempel, was even more of a standard Krautrock group, generally writing primitive, repetitive rock n' roll songs that took up entire sides of albums. Eventually, though, Schulze came to a similar point in his musical evolution as that which Tangerine Dream reached, and he moved away from playing drums in favor of focusing on the synthesizer. It is this period of his career, the first few years after he became a solo artist, that the third and fourth volumes in the La Vie Electronique series are concentrated on.
SHOW REVIEW: The Gaslight Anthem
The Gaslight Anthem, with Fake Problems and Bridge And Tunnel
Monday, September 27 at The National
I got to this show late because I had class, so I missed Bridge and Tunnel. This was a huge disappointment for me, even though I'd seen them many times before. They are a hard working, remarkably talented band and it's good to see that it is paying off for them in terms of getting to do some bigger tours--in addition to this tour with Gaslight Anthem, they recently did some dates with Propagandhi.
Dub Nation Tonight! Datsik & Vaski with Smash Gordon
Steez Promo and Euphoric Productions Presents:
DUB NATION RICHMOND VOLUME 2.0...YES I GOT MY SWAGGA BACK!
ART FEED: The Fantastic Ladies of MILK
Trapped within vectors, the ladies that occupy the world of MILK are either bored, tortured or in dealing with something fantastical. A blend of modern day graphic design and an updated inspiration from Art Nouveau (see Mucha), MILK takes a traditional fantasy feel and gives it a futuristic edge.
More work from MILK can be found HERE.
Good interview with her HERE.
DAILY FIX: Prabir and The Substitutes- 'Everybody's Got Somebody'
Great video by Joey Tran for the now defunct Prabir and The Substitutes. A song that I am sure everyone at one time or another can relate to.
DAILY RECORDS: Mutant Supremacy, Led To Sea, Infernaeon
Mutant Supremacy - Infinite Suffering (Self-released)
Any band named after an X-Men reference is OK by me. This is classic death metal in the vein of early Morbid Angel. Drums and lead guitars stand out as particularly excellent, as do the unusually dynamic vocals. Eight tracks of unrestrained blazing fury in 30 minutes. A must-have.
Led To Sea - Into The Darkening Sky (Eleven)
Clanking-bicycle production, pizzicato string plucking, and an extremely talented string section are the disparate elements forming this surprisingly cohesive record, which incorporates Eastern European and psychedelic strains of folk music into an off-kilter but pleasant whole. The songs contain few vocal parts, but what singing appears is excellent.
Infernaeon - Genesis To Nemesis (Prosthetic)
The keyboards and neo-classical black metal riffing on this record make me think of Cradle Of Filth, but Infernaeon are a lot tougher than COF, with deep, growling vocals, chugging rhythm guitars, and a thick-sounding rhythm section that keeps the keyboards from making things too wimpy. Original, enjoyable brutality.
SHOW REVIEW: Eels
Eels, with Jesca Hoop and Trish Dunn
When it comes to Eels, I figure we all experienced similar introductions--it was the mid-nineties, and they had an exceptionally memorable music video for their tune “Novocaine (For The Soul).” As I would soon discover, this single was incredibly misleading. The musical potential and phases of Eels were barely represented. I realized this while helping a friend move--Eels with Strings: Live at Town Hall served as our soundtrack. Throughout this release, songs spanning their entire catalog were given a new life in terms of presentation. Eels mastermind Mark Oliver Everett gracefully engaged and challenged audiences by demolishing any preconceived notions they may have had regarding his creative output. I entered the Eels show at the National this past Thursday with these ideas in mind.
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