Before I forget.....here's some rap!

I've been meaning to post these videos from my first ever hip-hop show in New York (can you believe that??) Anyway, it was at the knitting factory a few weekends ago and featured 4 of my favorite indie-alt-art-hop acts from back in the day...

Alias, Buck 65, Jel and Dose-one. Buck 65 is one of the greatest of all time, I swear. And he's Canadian to boot. These guys all represent a crew called Anticon that I used to think was the hottest shit around the bay area until they all got bored with plain old rapping and had to get all ultra avant-garde on me.

I still have love for them though. Dose-one is an old buddy of mine from back in the day when he was a hip-hop buyer at Amoeba records in Berkeley and I would sell him my janksy little mix-tapes. I was super pumped that they were coming to NY.

But anyway, some fella was kind enough to film Buck 65's performance that night and I would like to share some of it with you here. I highly reccomend you buy all his albums ever right now...

"Bandits"


"Enter Governor Bolts"
He hadn't played this song in so long that he had to read the lyrics off an airplane sick bag...


And as a super special bonus, here's a link to an album he just released for free along with his press release for it. Go listen to some real music folks. It'll make your heart smile and your brain cry...

From Buck:
"Lovers, I’ve been doing some woodshedding. I’ve been making beats and collecting them from some friends. I put together this thing called Dirtbike. Actually - at the risk of sounding nuts or esoteric or pretentious - the project is called Dirtbike (I figure it will be an on-going endeavor) and the first piece of it is called Lettersongs (Different Kinds of Dirt). I don’t really even understand it myself. Anyhow, it’s a new project. It’s kind of an album. It’s one very long piece and in many ways it’s a lot like the original versions of Vertex and Man Overboard. It’s an hour and ten minutes long and is very lo-fi (sounds like crap). This is just something I did on my own time for fun - like I said: woodshedding. But I didn’t work alone. My old friend and collaborator Jorun contributed an amazing beat that Moka Only raps on. Moka also contributed a beat for a part that was inspired by Vivienne Westwood’s Active Resistance Manifesto. There’s a “hook” in the song that goes “take action…”. I also had input and added production or instrumentation from: Buddy Peace, Emily Wells, Tom Inhaler, D-Styles, Skratch Bastid, Andrew Glencross and Serafina Steer. Oh yeah, and Doseone raps on a part - yes, raps. There’s a “song” about Fatty Arbuckle, one about St. Anthony the Great, one about La Golue who was featured in many Toulouse Lautrec paintings. There’s also a cover of a weird French song (in English) from the late ‘70’s (maybe 1980). Anyhow, it’s a very strange, experimental, un-commercial project. I made it for my own perverted pleasures and never considered for a second that it might be a proper release. I gave a few copies to friends and that’s all I ever planned for it. Well, I tell you about all this because it’s out there. If you’re interested in hearing it, I don’t think you’d have to search on the internet very long or hard to find it. The key word is Dirtbike1/3. Before I put it together I felt as though I was sitting on around four hours worth or material of the same sort that I now plan to complete before the end of October. So there may be more of this kind of thing to come - soon. I’m also working on the “proper” follow-up to “Situation” and the Bike For Three! album will be out in January. That’s all. Hope you’re good. Buck"

www.zshare.net/audio/17691744a94f4663

After the show, Casey, Leile, Mary and I wandered into a mystical little absinthe lounge in the middle of nowhere and drank for a thousand years. I managed to fall UP a flight of stairs...