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.
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.
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.
Who Goes There? was rad, and if you didn't already know that you're fucking up because their last show was Saturday July 23rd 2011 with Step Dads, and Stillborn Identity(me).
I knew these guys through their drummer Eric, we grew up skating together and when he found out I "rapped" he was totally down to put me on house shows they had. I was horrible back then, waaaay worse than I am now. I would just get whiskey drunk, stop my songs halfway through because I was slurring so bad, then just tell embarrassing anecdotes for the remainder of my set. And yet for some reason these dudes kept asking me to come play.
Cooler Than Dinosaurs was their last release. One of the reasons this cd is so rad is because of the packaging, the insert was a comic book of dinosaurs who like to party by Ben Harkins. I didn't even get my hands on a copy until a few months after they broke up. After a show I played with one of Eric's new bands we went back to one of his band mates houses to eat free pizza and swap dumpster diving locations and stories. Eric went inside and found a back pack full of his Who Goes There? unsold cds and distributed a copies to those of us who didn't have one yet. Free food. Free cd. Full day.
All the members of this band were super hospitable to touring bands. Offering their couches, floors, stolen food from shitty restaurant jobs, and mason jars full of alcohol without hesitation. They're good dudes, I don't know where or how you could go about buying this cd anymore but you should support some of the new groups that have sprout from the demise of Who Goes There?.
In hind sight I probably should have scanned this in, but whatever.
Proseed played a show a few nights ago at The Shadow Lounge and I totally missed it because I'm a scrub and decided to stay home and play with my dog instead. Luckily a there is a footage of the show online so anything I missed in person I get to catch up with online and talk about the show like I was actually there. Right? Or is the internet only used for watching monkey piss on themselves and women masturbate... Either way here is some footage of Proseed killing it with DJ Blacklisted(of Fortified PhonetX)
It's awesome to see Proseed getting such a warm introduction by one of Pittsburgh's most reputable emcees, Real Deal. Proseed has been killing it for years and deserves every bit of respect he gets and much more. He's one of the few emcees I've seen in Pittsburgh whose draw transcends one genre of hip hop. He'll rip every show he's put on weather the audience be backpackers, thugs, punks, deaf dogs, hipster hop heads, drunk yinzers, nerd rappers, crabby pregnant women, or anything and anyone you put in front of his stage. It's inspiring to see great his great lyrical ability will go above and beyond his standard Solid Ground Entertainment(SGE) realm that he's been dominating ever since I saw him open for Louis Logic and Z Man in 2005/2006.
In spite of missing his show the other night I decided to listen to all I have of his discography today while miserably wrenching on withered old Mustangs at my dads auto body shop. And in doing so I came to find out(again) that his even his 2007 first full length, Quintessential, is so much better than what people are doing 5 years later, although he considers it to be "a little premature."
When this came out I use to go to shows on a straight solo mission, dead sober, sitting at the bar by myself, ordering water, nervously looking around and pretending to check my cell phone that didn't have texting... it was awkward. I had tried to work up the courage to ask Derek for a copy of his cd, with $10 in my hand to make the transaction as fast and painless as possible, but that water on the rocks I was sipping didn't give my any extra confidence. So needless to say when I saw the release a few weeks later at The Record Exchange for a mere $10.70 I did not hesitate to pay the extra 70 cents not to have to talk to an artist that I respected. It doesn't make sense I know, but what can I say, I have horrible social skills, which is probably why I blog.
Years later when I watching one of his sets at The Smiling Moose he grabbed a few long lasting copies of Quintessential and set them on the floor in front of the stage and said that anyone who wanted one could have one. After that he looked at me, knowing I had bought it years prior and apologized that I had to pay full price for it. Then he added some dry humored comment like, "no refunds," and went on with his set. I didn't mind paying money to support artists that I respect, talking to them(while sober) is the tough part.
Pretty much from 10th or 11th grade until a few months ago I had been working at Head Board Shop, a skate shop in Pittsburgh. I must admit it was a pretty perfect job for a full time slacker like myself. Watch skate videos during the day shifts, drink beer during the night shifts, and although I'm not much of a smoker, smoke in the basement after I closed just because I could.
During the last winter I worked there business had been pretty slow. To the point where I decided to take the initiative upon myself to sort through the clutter of former employee's left behind cds, and promotional cds people had dropped off over the years and sell them to The Record Exchange to make a little bit of extra revenue for the store. I was carefully sifting out the promo cds where the bar codes had been punched out, when I stumbled across this gem, The Deadly Scribes release The Situation.
The cd had come out long before I had started getting my feet wet in the Pittsburgh rap scene, but I knew of the legacy Dos Noun and any of his work had left behind. So needless to say this cd didn't go to the the pile to sell, nor did it stay in the store copy pile, instead I nonchalantly slid it into my back pack, and totally forgot about the project I started. As I always did at the skate shop while trying to do a good deed.
A few weeks later I saw Dos at a show and in a drunken state of excitement I was able to walk directly up to him, interrupting the conversation he was having with his girlfriend, and told him about my find. He casually congratulated me on my discovery and told me, "...that cd and 5 bucks might get you a beer..." I'm still not certain what this expression meant. Especially considering I won't but a beer if it costs over $2.50(unless it's a 24 ounce). After all how could I afford to while working at a skate shop since 2004.
Holy shit I'm slow at updating this, but considering no one checks it I guess it doesn't matter. This show happened and I have some footage of it. It was a pretty rough start, it was one of the first days it snowed bad. The show got cancelled because of weather, then out of no where like 15 people showed up despite the fact. It was a small crowed but everyone ripped it anyways.
I couldn't figure out how to post Plots video of him doing Bravado at the show because I'm apparently stupid
Plots (of The 1's and 2's) did a set with Ferg. He did a bunch of songs off So Social because it was my first time going to a show in Pittsburgh for a while and he knows I dig on that album. Indaglo (of The 1's and 2's) came up for a few tracks.
I feel like The 1's and 2's could be the next group to blow up out of Pittsburgh. They get all sorts of well deserved hype, and I'm way more into them than the last few clowns to blow up from this area. With that in mind it's weird that no one seems to notice Plot's solo stuff as much even though it's equally as good and he's been doing it for longer. But what the hell do I know.
GINO is by far the most talented rapper in Pittsburgh. He's totally slept on, but it's only a matter of time till everyone notices. He just got out of the army so he hasn't been playing shows for to long in the area. Once he puts out a mixtape every half-assed rapper is fucked.
30 Realm held it down. Totally solid dudes/dudets. I've only met them a few times but I'm into it.
I(Stillborn Identity) don't remember much about my set. Which usually means I was drunk, but with the roads being as bad as they were, and my car being uninsured and uninspected I didn't want to take anymore risks than I had to and stayed dead sober. My set probably still sucked though.
