Upcoming Shows

May

I have loved the Roots since I was a wee lad in high school.  They always have a great live show with more than competent musicianship and delivery.  If you have never seen them live then you need to correct that situation.  The Roots have a show at the Regency Ballroom on Monday, May 28th.  Tickets range from $63-91 including service charges.  Grab them here


June

Have you guys heard of Mayer Hawthorne?  Mayer has a headlining show at the Fillmore on, Saturday, June 16th.  Tickets will be $35 after service charges and will be available to purchase right here. (That show is now sold out)  He will also have a show with Foster The People as the headliners on Friday, June 29th at the Greek Theater in Berkeley. Tickets for that will be $37.50 and they are available here.

Action Bronson, who is all over my hip hop mixes and sounds like a long lost member of Wu-Tang is coming to the Bay for a show at the Independent on Wednesday, June 13th.  Tickets are at college level prices, clocking in at $15.  It should be a good show...too bad it's on a Wednesday, and I am old.  Seriously worth checking out though if you aren't lame. Get tickets here.

Lyrics Born and the whole Quannum crew got a lot of playing time in our college rotation.  Though I think he could use some major label influence to rein in his weirdness I am not mad at him for doing his thing.  One time I went to a Lyrics Born concert by myself when I was in Tahoe with my family and randomly saw his name on the marquee.  I was also there at one of his first solo concerts where he was out of breath, kept stalling and after the encore said, "That's it" and quickly left the stage.  So we have history and I will always root for him to succeed.  It's nice to see a local, still on his grind and doing what he loves to do.  The show is at the Independent on Saturday, June 16th and you can get tickets for $25 here.


July

Blind Pilot is back if you missed them the last time they were in town...like me.  I totally didn't go to that last  show...I even had tickets that I didn't end up using because it was raining, the show was in the city and there was a UFC fight available with the click of a button in the comfort of my living room.  The show is on Friday, July 6th.  So, maybe I'll make it to this one, no promises though.  Tickets are $32.50 including service charges and you can get them here.


Al Green will be performing at the Nob Hill Masonic Auditorium in San Francisco on Saturday, July 14th.  Tickets range from $58-$117, that's including the service charges though.  I feel like if you haven't seen Al you should probably get on that.  Admittedly the last time I saw him, it was not good.  The crowd got a bit rowdy, yelling at him, some people even walked out.  It was his last tour stop though so he could have been just coasting through his final show after a long stretch of time on the road.  He barely sang, allowing his back up singers and the crowd to do the heavy lifting, eliciting comments from peeved audience members like, "We paid to hear you sing!!!"  Despite all this...it's Al Green!!! He is so smiley and his stage banter is terrific.  Go see him, he is old, don't live with the regret of not seeing him.  I am still mad I didn't make the drive to Reno to see James Brown in person.  Grab tickets here.

The day after Al Green's show, that would be Sunday July 15th, Aesop Rock will be playing at the Fillmore.  Tickets are $32.50 including service charges.  Aesop is weird.  I have no idea what he raps about, he is the prototypical backpack rapper.  Lofty lyrics that could be genius or complete bullshit.  His studio production lacks structure, try and head nod and your neck will stutter and you may pull a muscle.  With that being said, he puts on a nice live show, the beats are sped up, the rhythm comes through and surprisingly you don't just stand there leafing through your thesaurus trying to figure out what the fuck he is saying.  Support the real!!  Brap Brap!!  Get tickets here.

Waters is the former front man of Oakland band, Port O'brien.  I love me some Port O'brien, I was sad to hear that they had broken up, but they gave us at least two solid albums that I still listen to today.  Now Waters is on his own and will be playing the Brick and Mortar in San Francisco.  The show is on Wednesday, July 18th and the tickets range from $10-12.  I haven't heard a ton from this new project but I am a staunch supporter of his previous endeavors.  Also with tickets priced like that it is probably worth checking out.  Grab tickets here.

Eye Candy

The All Hip Hop edition of Eye Candy.

Dumbfoundead's video for his song, "Love Is A Song." Download the track here.


ACTION BRONSON - BEAUTIFUL MUSIC from dallas penn on Vimeo.
Big Action Bronson fan right here. Check out this awesome video of him as the dude from, Frosty? Rudolph? One of those old school animated joints we used to watch back in the day. He looks much less likely to murder you in animated form.


STS sure gets posted a lot around here. What can I say? I think he's got skill.


Are there other people putting in work, I should be checking on? I swear I just post videos from the same three dudes over and over. If only I had a new Sean Price video.


Here is someone we haven't posted in awhile. Still not new though, I have been listening to him since college. *waves goodbye to staying on top of new music*


This is mostly being posted because of the image. The Schroder of hip hop...genius.

Eye Candy

New video, "Fou Lee," from Blue Scholars. About the video from Geo:

"We had house parties during recording sessions for The Long March and Bayani during that time, made a lot of coffee runs, had a lot of meetings, and the meals we shared were usually cooked with ingredients bought at our favorite Vietnamese-owned Philippine grocery store, where the staff greets you in Tagalog spoken with thick Vietnamese accents. This song uses food as an analogy for who we are – a mash-up of ingredients, chopped up and thrown onto a fire made from memory instead of recipe."

Check out their site here.

Less music in this one but you say El Mac and I'll post it. Part of "I Am Los Angeles". A little about them:

"I Am Los Angeles is an online collection of documentary portraits that feature the first-hand experiences and stories of unique and intriguing personalities in Los Angeles."

Let The Arts Roam from I Am Los Angeles on Vimeo.

An Esna original.



My Little Pony mashups featuring Wu-Tang and the Beastie Boys.

My Little Beastie Boys - So Whatcha Want from Bill Brewer on Vimeo.


Splitscreen: A Love Story from JW Griffiths on Vimeo.
Nice little video. It's a short film by JW Griffiths titled, "Splitscreen: A Love Story." It was was shot entirely on a Nokia N8 cell phone and won the 2011 Nokia Shorts Competition.


Way old by now but still terrifying. I have been in the same room while "Toddlers in Tiaras" has been on and it's some pretty scary shit. Add the slowed down drunken dwarf style and it just pushes it over the edge of sanity. *shudders*


The Cool Kids remixed by Cookin Soul.  I am a fan of both of them.  

Action Bronson is pretty scary.  Love his music though.

Hip Hop Mix 9

This has nothing to do with the mix, but Yumiko Kayukawa does some awesome Japanese pop art stuff.  Incredibly clean paint lines.  It almost looks digitally rendered...she rules.

I have had this thing done since before I left for LA, which was months ago. I kept messing with it, adding and subtracting, re-ordering, it's a real problem. So I have to just say enough is enough and get this thing posted. So here it is Hip Hop mix 9.

Action Bronson

Action Bronson is a beast.  He has flow, lyrics, dude is the complete package and this beat is filthy.  The horns!!  The horns!!


There is also a song he did with Statik Selectah which is equally awesome on the mix.  But you can start by sampling this one first.


Action Bronson- Consensual Rape (beat by Tommy Mas)


I didn't include any of Azure's music from his new mixtape on this mix but at least one of these songs would have made the cut if I had, had it in my hands before I compiled this. Azure' aka Justin Park was previously featured in this eye candy with his song, "As The Globe Spins." I have only heard two tracks from him but I appreciate the beat selection on both of the cuts that I have heard. His rhyme pattern seems a little forced/off kilter on some parts of, "Embedded Love" but overall he makes nice joints. You can grab his, "Illusions of Oasis" mixtape for free here.

More samples of songs that are actually on the mix, tracklist and download link, behind the Jump.