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We arrived to a packed VU multipurpose room just after the opener had finished their set. The room smelled equally one part sweat, mixed with one part marijuana smoke, which quickly reminded me that I hadn't been to a hip hop show in quite a while. Shortly after we got there, RA Scion came out and spit some Common Market lyrics, with Sabzi laying down the beat on the turn tables.
Overall, I was pretty impressed with his abilities on the mic, and he turned out a solid performance.
Almost right after RA Scion had vacated the stage, Sabzi segwayed right into a Blue Scholars beat, and Geo ran onto the stage. The sneak attack caught the crowd by surprise, and it was a good tactic for keeping the momentum of the show moving forward. The Scholars turned out an awesome performance, keeping the sold out crowd into it for the entire set. Highlights of the show included a sample of 'Float On' tracked onto the the Inkwell, and 'The Long March' was also awesome (with everyone swinging their arms to the words, 'left, right, left, right'). As I had expected, the Scholars managed to outdo their performance at the main stage of Sasquatch! (the last time I saw them live), feeding off the sold out crowd in the confined VU multipurpose room. Awesome show.
As for some other news, it appears like HOV is back in the game (surprise, right?), and his first single has leaked. The beat by just blaze is sick, and uses a lot of horns (and a jazz intro). I've linked the mp3, cause I really don't want to get sued by the Roc for posting a leaked mp3 on a site that has maybe 5 readers tops. enjoy.
Jay Z - 'Show Me What You Got'
I'm heading out to the Common Market/Blue Scholars concert tonight at the Viking Union, the show sold out on Thursday, and it seems like everyone on campus is either; A) Bummed out that the show is sold out, or B) Really stoked that they are going. It seems like a whole different vibe than the Ben Kweller show last weekend, where it seemed like most people were luke warm about the whole thing and just ended up going because their friends were.
The show is billed as a CD release party for Common Market, who have founded a new record company with the Blue Scholars called Mass Line Records. Although I haven't heard much of Common Market at all, the duo consitst of DJ Sabzi from the Blue Scholars and MC RA Scion. RA Scion came out during Sasquatch! for a remix of the Blue Scholars track 'Every Last One', it went off pretty well and it seems like he's a pretty good lyricist. (Stream the 'Every Last One' remix and other Common Market at their myspace)
As for the Blue Scholars, I've been following them since well before I moved up to the northwest. I first discovered their blend of progressive beats coupled with meaningful lyrics back in high school (in the days when I used to stream KEXP over itunes). It seems like the entire musical community in Seattle is familiar with the DJ/MC combo, who are now being hyped as perhaps the next big thing to come out of Seattle since grunge. I'm not sure I'm willing to go that far quite yet, but their self-titled LP and EP (the Long March) are a good start (I'm sure everyone around here is holding their collective breath in anticipation of their next LP, which will most likely determine if they are the next Sir Mix a Lot or the next Nirvana).
I've included a few mp3s from their self titled LP as well as their most recent EP, the progressive (socialist) lyrics are what really seperate the Scholars from the rest of hip-hop right now.
Blue Scholars - 'No Rest for the Weary'*
Blue Scholars - 'Solstice (Reintroduction)'*
Blue Scholars - 'Evening Chai'
Blue Scholars - 'The Long March'*
[*Sorry most of these are mp4s, but everyone on the planet has itunes anyway, right?]
If you don't believe me, trust the Scholars who just posted this on their website: "...we're rolling with the entire ML fam this Saturday (10/7) to Bellingham - Western Washington University, to be exact. It's been all love every time we've been up there, but this time its with the whole fam - the first show featuring Blue Scholars, Common Market and Gabriel Teodros since the launch party. Should be a heater." Should be a heater, I'm stoked.
As you can already tell by the title of this post, we ended up going to the Cold War Kids show at Neumo's. As it turns out, the TV on the Radio/Grizzly Bear show sold out sometime in between the time we left Bellingham and got to Seattle. Our initial disappointment was short-lived, however, and we ended up having an awesome night. As you may or may not already know, the Cold War Kids were supposed to be touring the U.S. in support of The Futureheads. As fate would have it, they canceled at the last minute leaving the CWK as headliners of a national tour (their first one). This proved to work in our favor for 3 reasons: 1) I don't really like the Futureheads all that much, 2) the ticket price was lower ($10 instead of $15), and 3) the audience was actually there to see CWK play a headlining set.
We arrived at the venue about an hour early since we had nothing to do in Seattle after we discovered the TVOTR show was sold out, and we were literally the second group to walk into Neumo's. After about an hour of walking around the empty room watching the first band soundcheck, it was 9:00 and time for the show to start. At this point it looked like my hypothesis from the last post was holding up, everyone that may have been interested in seeing CWK was probably at TVOTR. When the opener 'S' came on there were literally 25 people in the building. After their lackluster performance, about 50-75 more people filed into Neumo's and were mostly just sitting in circles talking to one another or leaning up against the walls on the sides of the room. At about 10:00 the band Delta Spirit, ambushed the stage and came out firing on all cylinders. For about half the song it seemed like everyone was in shock (they had expected to wait through another shitty band), at which point I joked to my friend that the band sounded like 'Clap Your Hands Say Yeah' on speed. Needless to say, within about 2 songs the band had the crowd's full attention, and played a really nice set, whose pianos and overall sound would work to compliment that of Cold War Kids. The highlight of the set for me was the song, 'French Quarter' about a man who had lost everything, but was too stubborn to leave desperately calling out, "The south is in my blood!" (stream it on their myspace)
After the surprising performance by Delta Spirit the crowd was warmed up for the Cold War Kids to finally take the stage, by this time even more people had filed in and the crowd size was pretty decent. They came out with the song 'We Used to Vacation', and absolutely killed it. It seemed like the entire band was on the same page, they were all equally emotional, and the sound ended up coming out beautifully. One of the trademarks of CWK is their tendency to integrate a lot of different obtuse noise combinations into their music, this translated into their live performance, with the guitarist taking turns shaking a maraca, then pounding a cymbal set on top of a crate with it (near the end of the song he was so into it that he pounded the cymbal so many times in a row that it fell of the crate, at which point he threw the maraca down at it on the ground). In all, their set was perfectly executed, and very emotional, mixing up noise combinations from every direction. Highlights included an awesome mid-set rendition of 'St. John' (complete with hand motions from the lead singer Nathan Willett to illustrate the story), and the climatic closing song 'Hang me Out to Dry'. Awesome show, by the end of the night we were all asking ourselves TV on the who?
I highly recommend seeing this tour, for $10 it's a steal (check out dates on their myspace). Oh yeah, and get the debut full length from CWK, 'Robbers and Cowards' when it releases on 10-10 everywhere (you might notice a lot of the songs are the same on the LP as the EP, but they've all been re-recorded, so check it out.). As I mentioned earlier, I'm seeing Blue Scholars at the Viking Union on Saturday, look out for a post prepping you for that show tomorrow.
