F. Stokes @ Shadow Lounge and OneUp 'Spring Training' @ Mckinley 4-22

   F dot Stokes, I've been calling this dude F. Strokes by accident for like 6 months now. Maybe it's because my true yinzer accent is coming out and I'm starting to mispronounce everyone's name claiming ignorance, and disregard the fact I might be offending them. Or maybe it's because I was hoping F. Strokes was short for Fuck The Strokes. Either way, I know I'm wrong and I don't plan on changing.

   People in the Red Balloon are playing this. I played with them once before but I don't really remember them. It's alright though because I'm positive they don't remember me, and if they do it's for all the wrong reasons. They're a full band I think.

     Fortified PhonetX. Them is my dogs. Pumped to see their on this, they booked Fuck The Strokes last time he came through at Z Lounge. Glad to see F. Stokes brought them on the bill at a bigger venue when he came through again.
     I have no clue who Folkland is. I kind of doubt I'm going to find out at this show either. One Up is holding a game of skate the the McKinley skate park and I'm going to that for sure. Probably going to have some beers and be irresponsible to the point where I should ride my bike to the show so I don't get a DUI. Although you can get a BUI for riding drunk, but it's still called a DUI. So not only do you still get busted, you don't even get the novelty of framing a citation that says BUI. Bummer

     Maybe I'll "cover" the game of skate and make an edit, and maybe I'll do a show review at Shadow Lounge, but I'll probably just stand around awkwardly with my camera in one hand, and lukewarm Pabst Blue Ribbon in the other at the skate park, then after that I'll probably smuggle some beers inside Shadow Lounge because I can't afford a $4 beer, stay there until I run out of beer and loose interest before the final act, and then the next day I'll just copy the F. Stokes "review" out of the new Ghetto Blaster and pass it off as my own. Man run on sentences are cool.

Dezmatic and Mr. Dibbs - Bigfoots Dick

In 2009 Dezmatic released this an album with Mr. Dibbs. At the time I had no idea who Dez was, I however was pretty into Mr. Dibbs(mostly because his brother was in the band Suffocate Faster). But Dez was about to go on tour with Seez Mics of the Educated Consumers, so I took it upon myself to get familiar with him and downloaded this for free off his myspace.

The show was poorly attended so I decided to pick up a hard copy of this cd to support touring artists. Ironically enough the cd didn't play. Whatever though, Dez gave me a skate video(Hood Rules Apply)from Albany featuring Curtis Rap, so I took it with a grain of salt that the cd didn't play. Dibbs had some rad samples from The Black Keys, and Sleep and there were killer sound bites from some awesome movies so I was immediately hyped on that.  And I quickly found out that Dez is a pretty rad rapper too. Although I think he has some better work both before and after this, but either way this release is good and it's the only one I've bought.

 More interesting than my boring opinion on Bigfoots Dick is the credits song in the video he gave me. Apparently in Albany there is a house called B-Block, where all the local skaters live on one floor, and on the other floor is where all the rappers live. Sounds like a dream come true to me. Dezmatic and Rick Whispers made the song for the end credits in Hood Rules Apply. I'm into it.

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Sula - Blinding Embarrassment with Justification

I listen to this way more than I should. I'll admit I'm a bit of a lo-fi snob, but still that's no excuse for listening to this cd as much as I do.

Sula, is Justin Huock's brain child of a band. He is the founding, and only original member. I'm pretty certain Sula has had more band members than it has had shows, and there is no chance of that statistic changing around now that Justin is a 20 year old dad and productive working member of society. As a full time adult I hope Justin can still free space in his schedule to keep creating and sharing music after having such promising start and unique style. Especially considering that he was just some young buck that should have been worried about getting boozed up instead of orchestrating every instrument of a full band when this cd came out in 2010.

I was introduced to this band when I use to work with Justin at a shitty dead end restaurant. I honestly gave his first demo next no listen. It wasn't until he moved in with me and started working on this release that I started to take his band seriously. I did my best to corrupt Justin during the short year we lived together. I would sneak him into bars and tell him to hide in the bathroom while I order him a beer, and then vouch for him when the bartender came over demanding i.d. from the wide eyed, speechless barely legal teen. We talked about planning tours, and collaborating on songs that would never happen. On more than one occasion I would try and trick Justin into staying up all night listening to shitty East coast rap on my iPod, telling him to let "future Justin" worry about getting up early for work. All my efforts hardly worked though, considering Justin moved out and got a job as a welding apprentice while I was stuck at the shitty dead end restaurant we met at several years after, and hundreds of dissatisfied customers later.

I know this cd has it's flaws, but I think that's what adds authenticity to it. From the conviction in Justin's thick Pittsburgh accent voice piercing through the shitty computer monitors they recorded on by themselves, to being heavily influenced by Modest Mouse, to the overly busy bass lines(especially in Greg the Drunk), to winy teeny backing vocals, and more. Yet I still can't stop listening to one of the most honest attempts of making original music by a couple of bored teenagers I've ever heard.

Justin's unique vocals patterns are what reel me in, and on top of that his topic ranges beyond the standard realm of sad emo songs that most kids his age would be writing.

Sula - Blinding Embarrassment with Justification