Nas & Damian Marley: Distant Relatives
June 30th, 2009 by Erin
There’s nothing I love more than a collaboration. Hrm, actually, let me rephrase that: a good collaboration.
In my opinion Nas and Damian Marley could not bring us their new album, Distant Relatives, any sooner. Although a release date has not been set, my anticipation is currently taking orbit ever since their collaboration on the song “Road to Zion” on Damian “Jr. Gong” Marley’s album Welcome to Jamrock.
In the Distant Relatives preview, Marley says:
This project is to come together and do some music on behalf of Africa. That is really what the whole thing’s about; to bring awareness.
This album will be heavily focused on the duo’s shared African roots and the hip-hop/reggae sound will be backed with samples from African music.
Review’s coming as soon as we get our anxious little hands on it.
Chong Waxes Poetically About Michael Jackson
June 29th, 2009 by Russ
In a short piece written for CelebStoner, stoner patriarch, Tommy Chong relives and rewrites a little Jackson 5 history, as well as offering up some mighty strange nuggets of advice for the now deceased pop-star.
The Chonger jovially reflects on a time when the Jackson 5 opened for Chong’s group, Bobby Taylor and The Vancouvers. As the tale goes, Bobby Taylor initiated the meeting between the Jackson family and Motown record label founder, Berry Gordy. Once offered a contract by Gordy, Joe Jackson brought it back to Chong for an unusually sober perusal. Chong recalls:
When Joe Jackson brought me the contract, there was a window of opportunity where I could have become their manager, but the thought didn’t cross my mind until decades later.
And so a pairing for the ages was missed by just that much. One can only imagine how far little Michael Jackson would have gone in a parallel universe where his raw music talents were guided by the subtle genius of the Up in Smoke star. We may have been blessed with such pop-mega hits as: You Wanna Be Starting Something (Because My Joint is Kicked), The Doob is Mine, and Black or White (Cookies are Groovy When You’ve Got the Munchies).
Leave the weird shit alone. Sing and dance, Michael – that’s all we wanted you to do… Have a safe and interesting journey, Michael. We will see you when you reappear in another body. We will know it’s you when you open your mouth and the “magic” comes out. We will know.
Don’t try to translate that last bit into English. Just blaze one up and absorb.
Atmosphere in Amsterdam Tonight!
June 25th, 2009 by Erin
Amsterdam peoples, Twin Cities’ very own Atmosphere is rocking a show tonight in your town! Catch the duo, Slug and Ant, as part of their When God Gives You Ugly Tour rolls forward.
Atmosphere – When God Gives You Ugly Tour
Melkweg
Lijnbaansgracht 234 A
1017 PH Amsterdam
Netherlands
Tele: (+31) 20 531 8181
Click here for more details on the show. Word.
Electric Daisy Carnival 2009 [Los Angeles]
June 25th, 2009 by Erin
Electric Daisy Carnival
Friday, June 26th (4pm-2am)
Saturday, June 27th (4pm-4am)
@ LA Memorial Coliseum & Exposition Park
3939 S. Figueroa Street
Los Angeles, CA 90037
This year’s event includes 5 stages of music! Check here for the full line up or click through to view it.
You can reserve an Ultimate VIP Cabana package and do it up right. EDC has teamed up with LA’s Giant to offer either the Giant Peristyle (21+), VIP Cabanas (21+) or Ultimate VIP Cabanas (21+), and additional sound is being installed to enhance the overall experience in the VIP areas. Click here to purchase tickets.
For more general information on this year’s EDC, check the official website here. And of course, this is a massive so you can be sure to expect long lines, pricey items, and random person shoulder sweat on you. Have fun and be safe!
tFS Music Review: Sleep – Christopher
June 24th, 2009 by Russ
Sleep of Oldominion is, by reputation, a quiet, unassuming, family man by day and a hellacious lyric carpet-bomber by night. After releasing the critically acclaimed Riot by Candlelight in 2002, Sleep showcased his versatility in his eclectic autobiographical 2005 album, Christopher.
In Christopher, Sleep dials up the RPMs right out of the gate with some intense micro-machines-man-like verse loosing. What follows is a full-spectrum of sound ranging from traditional “Chicarone” style tracks, to techno-fueled raps, to more subdued instrumental ballads.
In Sleep’s own words:
There are some big differences between Riot and Christopher. Riot was an experimental project for me… Christopher is a more structured record and is mostly about the last two years of my life and also my past.
While the album’s final track, “Love it to Death” is nominally a cover of George Michael’s “Never Gonna Dance Again,” it unfolds as Sleep’s testimony to life as a hard-working, under the radar, working artist who can’t shake the bittersweet nature of his quest to be heard and appreciated. It actually seems to be more of an homage to Paul Simon’s “Have a Good Time” including a nearly identical closing saxophone solo.
One favored track is the penultimate “Dirt Interlude,” an old radio-serial style suspense bit in which some Sleep fans dupe Sleep and crew to the parking lot behind a performance to smoke some chronic. Amidst the puffing, the fans break out into an acapella cypher freestyle rap. Sleep knows he’s been duped again into listening to amateurs. That is something that listeners of Christopher should have no worries of. The old underground master has the tools and he has the talent.
Note: Sleep’s new album entitled Hesitation Wounds is scheduled to drop on June 30th under Sage Francis’ record label, Strange Famous.
After the jump, scope the official Hesitation Wounds intro trailer. It’s just enough to wet that salacious hip hop appetite of yours.
- Fuse
- , Music
- , Phish
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Phish on FuseTV this Weekend
June 12th, 2009 by RickIf you can’t make the THC Expo 2009, this weekend, then tune into the television network Fuse for some music entertainment.
For all you Phish fans, Fuse will be airing a special called Phish: Live from the Clifford Ball on Saturday, June 13th @ 4pm ET and then again on Monday, June 15th @ 7pm ET.
Fuse is also counting down to the Bonnaroo 2009 highlights show on June 20th, by launching Tweetaroo — “Mashing Twitter and Music since 2009!” This feature allows you to follow tweets from all of the artists playing Bonnaroo this year including Beastie Boys, Snoop Dogg and many more.
Fuse can be found on DirecTV channel 339 and DISH network channel 158.
Have a good weekend. Go Lakers. Peace!
[Thanks, Aaron!]
Phish Kicks Off Summer Tour in Boston
June 1st, 2009 by RickThe first concert to the summer tour of the the band Phish kicked off at Boston’s Fenway Park and was greatly enhanced thanks to a newly decriminalized Massachusetts law.
The law fines a person $100 if they are caught with less than an ounce of marijuana. If you happen to be a minor, you still have to pay the fine but you also have to do community service and attend a drug-awareness program.
Obviously people would have still brought weed with them to the concert even if the laws hadn’t have been decriminalized. Culture has dictated that this dangerous gateway drug is approved by the community at large to be used recreationally as well as medicinally. Studies upon studies have been released, debunking the neanderthal thinking of typical drug dinosaurs. Rawwwr!
Note: One of the most recent Phish concerts in Hampton, VA was in the news about how almost 200 people were arrested, mostly for narcotics related charges, and $1.2M worth of drugs were recovered. Mugshots of those arrested even made the internet, via the Smoking Gun.
Eminem Almost Died by Pharm Overdose
May 6th, 2009 by Rick
Relapse isn’t just a word Eminem used for the title of his new album, it’s something that he’s recently experienced. In an interview, Eminem confessed that while he was away from the scene, he became addicted to pills like: Vicodin, Ambien, and Valium. He first sought rehab in 2005.
It’s no secret I had a drug problem. [...] in a recent interview. “If I was to give you a number of Vicodin I would actually take in a day? Anywhere between 10 to 20. Valium, Ambien… the numbers got so high I don’t even know what I was taking.
After a stay in rehab, Eminem had a near fatal overdose of an unidentified (at the time) blue pill called methadone.
My doctor told me the amount of methadone I’d taken was equivalent to shooting up four bags of heroin. [...] I probably wouldn’t have taken it. But as bad as I was back then, I can’t even say 100 percent for sure.
After that, Eminem managed to detox but after a painful knee surgery he was on the edge of another relapse and because of his past drug abuse history doctors wouldn’t prescribe him anything.
I started looking around my house to see if I had a stash box of Vicodin. [...] I’m ransacking my house, finally find something in the basement, in a little napkin, seven and a half Vicodin — the big extra strength ones — and a few Valium.
These days he realizes he was an addict:
It never once hit me that drug addiction runs in my family. Now that I understand that I’m an addict, I definitely have compassion for my mother. I get it.
He’s been clean for over a year now. He feels he slipped away when he left the limelight, because the music wasn’t bringing him that same feeling he had back in the days when he was addicted to music.
Rap was my drug. It used to get me high and then it stopped getting me high. Then I had to resort to other things to make me feel that.
Em’s new album, Relapse, drops May 19th and another album is scheduled to be released later this year.
