The Hellfyre Club represents pretty much the best in rap today. I always try to see them whenever they’re in town, so it was especially nice to have four of them in one show for efficiency!
My friends Cassie and Sandy were there before the show, and we all hung out with Open Mike Eagle and ate pizza and geeked out about Netflix shows. Sandy made home-cookies for the Club, even! Mike left to go get prepped, and we three wandered to the stage area where we found Jason “Three Ninjas” Brunet.
Then came my pal Open Mike Eagle, who had a very special guest guarding his equipment setup:
The Ice King watches over us all…
Since this is me, I managed to make an animated .GIF of Mike doing his thang:
Open Mike Eagle Animated.
It was a great set. After it he and I talked about his fandom of They Might Be Giants (I suggested he could do an entire set of just songs that reference/quote TMBG songs).
I’d never seen Milo before, and had only ever heard songs where he was one among many peformers, never his solo stuff. I was terrifically impressed! That was some good stuff.
And then once everybody had gone solo, all four of ’em got on stage together for another set of songs!
It was funtimes. Why weren’t you there? Oh, yeah, prolly ’cause it was on a Monday night, and I didn’t get home until almost 2:00 in the morning and had to get up at about 5:30 to get baby to her Grandparents and then get to work on time. Y’know. I’m feelin’ the sleeps today, but I tells ya, it was worth it.
The rest of the month of February is P.C. (that’s “Pretty Crazy” to you). There are a whole gob of pretty durned awexome music shows happening. This weekend are two of ’em!
All playing Le Voyeur in Olympia. Show starts at 10:00 PM… which just so happens to be when Fools Play Improv gets over. And Fools Play Improv just happens to be about three blocks away from Le Voyeur. So, y’know, if you wanted to go to Fools Play and then afterwards stroll on down to Le Voyeur to catch this show, well, then you’d be doing exactly what I’ll be doing!
Details:
The Old Salt/Terrapin/Frances Rose/Dreamy Weather (Facebook Event)
@ Le Voyeur
404 4th Ave E, Olympia
Tonight, 10:00 PM
FREE! 21+
As part of their “Dorner vs Tookie” tour to support the release of their collaboration album, these Hellfyre Club members are going to be stopping by The Crocodile in Seattle for what looks to be probably the best overall hip-hop show of the year. With a lineup like that I can’t really see how it’ll be topped.
Details:
HELLFYRE CLUB: Busdriver, Open Mike Eagle, Nocando & Milo [Seattle] (Facebook Event)
@ The Crocodile
2200 2nd Avenue, Seattle
Monday 2/17 8:00 PM
$15, All-Ages + Bar
Circumstances willing, I will be at both of these shows, and I’ll be back with photos and reports. I SHALL SEEST THOU THERE!
The Hellfyre Club is a Los-Angeles based rap collective that includes some of the very best in indie rap nowadays. It includes (but is not limited to):
Nocando
Open Mike Eagle
Busdriver
milo
And more!
A couple months ago they put out a compilation album of sorts, with the rather politically-charged title of Dorner vs. Tookie. And just last week they released the video for the title track “DvT,” featuring six different performers! It’s pretty epic:
And next month they’re going on a whirlwind tour all over the frikkin’ place. I’ve highlighted the relevant date/location:
2/11/14 – Fullerton, CA @ Slidebar (Free Show)
2/14/14 – San Francisco, CA @ Elbo Room
2/15/14 – Ashland, OR @ Lounge South 2/17/14 – Seattle, WA @ The Crocodile
2/18/14 – Portland, OR @ Star Theatre
2/21/14 – Denver, CO @ The Marquis
2/22/14 – Fort Collins, CO @ Road 34
2/24/14 – Kansas City, MO @ Riot Room
2/25/14 – Milwaukee, WI @ Mad Planet
2/26/14 – Minneapolis, MN @ 7th Street Tavern
2/27/14 – Chicago, IL @ Schubas Tavern
2/28/14 – Grand Rapids, MI @ The Pyramid Scheme
3/1/14 – Cincinnati, OH @ Northside Tavern
3/3/14 – Montreal, QC @ Il Motore
3/6/14 – New York, NY @ Mercury Lounge
3/9/14 – Washington, D.C. @ DC9
3/10/14 – Charlotte, NC @ Snug Harbor (Free Show)
3/11/14 – Atlanta, GA @ Purgatory Room
You’d best believe I will be there, even though February 17th is a Monday night and we have a wee beb. There’s little to no chance that Carrie will make it since it is a Monday night and we have a wee beb.
Still no baby! Everything’s ready for her (including us), but no birth over the weekend. Instead, I made a couple of Mix CDs. Yes, actual, physical CDs. Yes, I still do that sometimes, though it has actually been a couple of years since I’ve done so. So because it’s been so long, I decided to make a double-disc. I also threw out my rule about trying to have only one repeat from previous discs (there are a lot of repeats on these).
For this set I just arranged my collection alphabetically by artist and started at the top. I tried not to use more than 2 songs for any given artist chosen. I got down to the “P” artists before I filled up two discs! I fudged the order a couple of times (Julia Massey shouldn’t be on the first disc, for example), but whatever.
So here are the track lists. Wherever possible I tried to link to somewhere where you could download the song, or at least to a place where you can listen to the song. I was actually able to find them all… except for the songs that I wrote myself…
Anyway, enjoy! There are some good stuffs on these: Disc 1
Link of the Month: TNG Season 8
My link of the month is a Twitter account? You best believe! TNG Season 8 posts hypothetical plot synopses from a never-produced season 8 of Star Trek: The Next Generation in 144 characters or less. And they’re absolutely hilarious. They make me bust a danged gut! The formula is (almost) always the same: a first sentence describes the “A” plot, and a second sentence describes the “B” plot of the episode.
Here are a couple of my favorite examples:
Dr Pulaski is back to evaluate Dr Crusher’s fitness to practice medicine. Meanwhile, Beverly swoons for a ghost trapped in a loaf of bread.
But there are more than 90 more where that came from! And best of all you don’t have to have a Twitter account to read them!
Album of the Month: Busdriver: Beaus$Eros
Pronounced “Bows and Arrows,” west-coast meistro Busdriver’s latest album is all over the place, pulling in insanely varied influences from a huge cross-section of music, yet somehow maintains a cohesive, haunting overall feel. Truly genre defying, Beaus$Eros is not easily classified as a “hip-hop” album. Known for his intense, rapid-fire delivery, Busdriver’s approach here is, well, I don’t wanna say “more relaxed” because the intensity is still there, but there is an ease and comfortability in his cartoon-villain voice, and a lot of straight-up singing. Beaus$Eros has some experimental stuff going on, but it is also highly polished and each song seems planned with utmost care and the voice and the music (brilliantly produced by Loden) meld like they were written for each other, which is often a problem with other experimental hip-hop. Busdriver is part of the same group that also produced Nocando, Open Mike Eagle, and Dumbfoundead. I don’t know what’s in the water down there, but I hope they all keep drinking. This is easily one of the best albums of the last five years.
TV Show of the Month: Jeeves & Wooster: The Complete Series
If you’ve ever been not quite sure what someone means by a “Comedy of Manners,” you need to watch this series. Starring Stephen Fry & Hugh Laurie as the titular characters, this is a series about a proper (and brilliant) English valet who quietly and subtly uses his manners and influence to protect his wealthy (and dimwitted) employer. It may sound dry, but the episodes tend to spin quickly into wacky, but straight-played farce and ridiculousness. A rich and light and fun series all the way through. I’ve heard bad things about the video transfer, though (I haven’t watched this particular collection myself).
Busdriver started his set with a very cool visual effect: all the lights were off, but he had a blacklight that also emitted lasers in such a way that they made a starfield on the background. Then he stood in front of the blacklight and starfield wearing all white. He made Tangentbot very happy by rapping over an Aphex Twin song for his encore.
Two of the opening acts were women hip-hop artists, Night Fox and Katie Kate. They were both very good, though I kinda liked Night Fox’s energy a little more. They were unlike many women hip-hop artists that I’m used to, in that they weren’t full of “even tougher than a man” bravado (even though there was a fair share of cussing). Night Fox’s voice periodically had an almost-Billie-Holliday warble in it, and at times sounded like an American Miho Hatori. Plus she was tiny and kinda adorable. Katie Kate was a much more polished performer and technical musician — I learned later that she’s a classically-trained pianist and graduated from Cornish with a music degree! Anyway, the point is they had a really fascinating style of hip-hop. I almost want to call it “Cutesy Hip-Hop” but that sound a little degrading. The point is, it was fun and inviting instead of angry and aggressive.
As for the Chop Suey show the next week, Threeni & T-Bo (as they will now be referred to in the rest of this post because it sounds awful) were the opening act for the Fake Four tour, which is the same tour that Open Mike Eagle opened for last year. Good company! And Carrie actually got to come with me because for once she didn’t have to teach on a night where there was an awesome music show!
They completely killed their set. The highlight of the whole night was when Threeni and T-Bo performed an absolutely epic cover of Jewel’s “Foolish Games.” For realsz! Ch-ch-check it out!
Like what you heard there? About to commit seppuku because you missed it? Stay your blade, I say! For Three Ninjas & Tangentbot will be performing a Mardi Gras party at the Skylark Café on Tuesday the 8th! THAT’S TOMORROW, HOMESLICE!
Carrie & I didn’t stay for the whole show because:
We live in Tacoma
I had to be at work at 8:00 the next morning
We’re old
But another excellent act that we got to see was Abadawn, a rapper with an extremely young countenance (he looked like he was 15) and a fascinating style. He had two vocalizations: a hip-hop voice that had inflections and flow that reminded me somewhat of Eminem, and a full-on death-metal screech/growl voice. He switched freely between them. Also, his songs were short, which I really appreciated (a couple were only like 45 seconds long, I swear). They were like a little nugget burst of energy, like a hip-hop haiku of rage.
I decided it was about damned time that I made myself a new mix CD. For your convenience, I’ve included (when I can) links to where you can get these songs for yourself, should you so desire!
TNG Season 8
Busdriver: Beaus$Eros
Jeeves & Wooster: The Complete Series
– Palmdale
– Anya Marina
– JP Inc.
– Daft Punk
– Bonobo & Andreya Triana
– JP Inc.
– Mtume
– Palmdale
– Bitter:Sweet
– She & Him
– JP Inc.
– Cocorosie
– White Town
– M.I.A.
– Pomplamoose
