Eastbound and Found

It’s an overwhelming honor to be co-presenting another party at SXSW this year, alongside our homies from Sweet Leaf Tea, My Old Kentucky Blog, Chromewaves, Dos Lunas, Knuckle Rumbler, Ultra8201, You Ain’t No Picasso, and Ziegenbock.

This party is free and all-ages, all you have to do is RSVP and in no time you’ll be sucking down sounds with this incredibly random/awesome lineup with the sun on your face and a buzz in your belly.

WHERE: 1001 E. 6th Street, Austin, TX 78702 (corner of E. 6th St. & San Marcos St.)

WHEN: Thursday, March 18th, 2010 12-9PM

THE LINEUP:

Stage One

12:15-12:50 Grillade
1:10-1:45 Freelance Whales
2:05-2:40 Ume
3:00-3:35 Warpaint
3:55-4:30 Morning Benders
4:50-5:25 Here We Go Magic
5:45-6:20 Maluca
7:00- 8:00 GZA

Stage Two

12:30-1:05 Burnt Ones
1:25 – 2:00 Diamond Rings
2:20-2:55 Kid Sister
3:15-3:50 Slow Club
4:10-4:45 Danielson
5:05-5:40 Delorean
6:00 – 7:00 [TBA]*

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Set that Big Boi Free!


Dear The Music Industry,
What the fuck is wrong with you?! Big Boi’s album is done, it’s collecting dust on the shelf, everything we’ve heard from it has been hellfire and yet you can’t give the guy a fucking release date?! I’m about to quit this shit business and go be an accountant so I can make some fancy flow charts that prove why Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty is ready for public consumption TODAY! If that doesn’t work I’m going on a hunger strike, that’s right no more twinkies and grits until Big Boi’s album sees the light of day, I’m serious this time, you will rue the day you ever crossed Yours Truly.

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Got techniques drippin’ out my buttcheeks

13 years ago today, Biggie Smalls passed away. At age 12, Christopher Wallace started selling crack, working the area on Fulton Street between St. James Place and Washington Avenue. By 22, “Ready to Die” was on its way to becoming the single greatest display of lyrical ability in hip-hop history.

This isn’t my favorite song of Big’s but it shows how lethal he was with the lyrics, and that above all the party and the bullshit, should be his legacy.


“Smoking mad Newports cause I’m due in court for an assault, that I caught, in Bridgeport, New York”

More Big on this Best of B.I.G. mixtape and a bunch of demos, unreleased cuts and original sample versions of songs on this Ready to Die (O.G. Version) thanks to Weiss for that one.
Photo via

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Soul With A Hole

Another stellar Stones Throw Podcast, this time courtesy of label honcho Peanut Butter Wolf. Dig into almost an hour of all soul 45’s. Listen and Subscribe here

Grooving through this only made me hungry for more so I dug up a few more soul reviews for your aural pleasure. This first one comes from Dusty Fingers alum, Mayer Hawthorne.


And here’s a couple sides from the life-changing Mississippi Records cassette-only release, A Little Bit of Hurt.

Mississippi Records – A Little Bit of Hurt Side B

Mississippi Records – A Little Bit of Hurt Side A

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Free Shit Friday: The Love Letters Edition

Today’s free shit friday follows a failed attempt at love in the information age

Dear anonymous free shit loving girl, I’ve been working up the courage to write you all week, and the truth is, I know this might seem sudden, but I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life, I love you. I love you like I love free pizza, free shows, and free pizza at good shows. If you could grow to love me too, meet me at the flagpole after school, I’ll be the one wearing your t-shirt and the look of unrequited love, because Baby I’m Yours, truly.

she never showed, so I tried tried again

Every second without your kisses, feels like a lifetime, and as I’ve grown to love you these past few days, I can’t shake the feeling of the first time I saw you, I tell my friends, “she was a vision,” but they don’t understand, they tell me, “Jesus dude, get over it, you’ve never even seen her face,” but I don’t care about that kinda stuff, some things are more important than looks; like loyalty, respect, companionship. Basically, I want somebody who understand what it means to be just  Me and My *itch.

Again, she never showed. Then, just this morning, she wrote me this letter…

Dear Yours Truly,

This song explains why I cannot and will not meet you at the flagpole. Please stop writing me.

Full info on this week’s picks when you Read More »

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R Kelly Is My Homie

I’m still baffled that Yours Truly was given the opportunity to interview R. Kelly a few months ago. Still diggin’ his new single, “Echo,” and, like I said before, homie’s crazy. And I dig that about him! But, what’s really crazy is that he’s become my boy. He gave me a ring a few days after that interview and told me to give him a call if I was ever in LA, Chicago, The People’s Republic of China, or any Waffle House east of the Mississippi. I met up with him before in Chicago and we went to IKEA, ate some meatballs that were off the hook, got bored, called up his girls, kicked the help out, pulled all of the IKEA beds together, put on Jock Jams Volume 2 and danced to Coolio until noon the next day. He called it his very own “IKEA idea.” He wants to do them every year now. Then, when I was in LA, he gave me the address of a restaurant and told me to meet him there, 12am sharp, for the pre-party and a hot biscuit.

As I stood in front of the building, questioning the address he gave me, I pulled out my phone and dialed his number while double-checking the crumpled piece of paper I wrote the address on.

He picked up and started sing-yelling, “Tell me who this is! I said, I said, tell me who this is right now, girl!” I let him continue as he stretched his words into notes. “Cuz I just wanna know, yes I said I, I, I wanna know, I wanna know, who this is right now, girl.”

I pulled the phone back from my ear and snarled at it. “Dude, it’s me. Just chill, R.” I secretly thought it was funny to call him R.

“Oh what’s up girl!” He replied, as if he didn’t just write a song to me over the phone. “How you been?”

“I think you gave me the wrong address. I’m standing in front of a strip club right now.”

“Yeah, come on in, girl. We in the back. The big booooooooth!”

“I thought we were going to a restaurant?”

“Nah, dawg. We goin’ bowlin’!” he said, as if it all made sense now.

Dryly, I replied, “What, there’s a bowling alley in this strip club?”

“This is bowling night, girl! Get in here, man!”

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The Morning Benders – Big Echo

Stoned, struggling against the harsh halogens in studio B, Chris Chu is hunched in a thick leather chair facing the computer. From my vantage point on the couch that’s now Nic Pope’s bed, all I can see is the top of his mop and from here he looks a lot like Doctor Claw-the villain from Inspector Gadget, except not as evil, with no sidekick cat in sight. The chair swivels round and Chris asks if I’d like to hear his new album, Big Echo. I bumble something stupid like, “How big is it?” With a humble chuckle he replies, “I don’t know, pretty big dude.”

This is one of my favorite albums of the year; it’s everything I could ask for: ten little gems, strung side-by-side like a necklace you hate to take off. Ten morning sun sing-alongs that read like pop-out picture books and cling to your insides like a home cooked meal.

Chris, thank you for this album, and for being a part of what has become a defining piece of yours truly’s history.

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I got a filín

It’s one thing to discover some burgeoning indie band with 2 songs and <150 fans on their myspace, and it’s another to stumble upon
a band dating 50 years back and entering a gateway to a whole genre of music you never knew existed. Today, I’ve fallen in love and had my heart broken, all due to one 1960s Cuban close-harmony vocal group called Los Zafiros.

Thanks to Said the Gramophone for turning me on to
La Luna en Tur Mirada, a beautiful tune that sent me feverishly digging through YouTube for more. In those digital stacks I found the following gem of a video for “Y Sabes Bien,”
a song indicative of the Cuban filín (feeling) movement that weaves bolero and bossa nova with doo-wop and R&B.

Thanks to Andrea for the inspiration.

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All The Dead Girls Dance

It’s guys like Brad Oberhofer that James Murphy was singing about in I’m Losing My Edge. “The kids are coming up from behind,” says Murphy. At just 22, Oberhofer’s creating at a level far beyond his years, but he’s no prodigy,  he doesn’t have to be. It’s his effortless blend of  scream-sung lyrics, skip-along whistling, erratic percussion, and unexpected song dynamics that many bands attempt to pull off but can’t because, simply put, they sound forced. Oberhofer’s music feels effortless, his approach genuine, and that’s precisely what draws you in.

Oberhofer – I Could Go
Oberhofer – Dead Girls Dance

Much respect to my boy Phil for the tip.

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Do it, Do it Roger, Do it!

1999- 5 days after the Columbine horror left the nation licking an open wound, 5 shots from a .357 Smith & Wesson echoed in the alley behind Roger Tee Enterprises, and funk machine Roger Troutman was dead at the hands of his older brother Larry, who saved the 5th and final bullet for himself.

1996- Tupac needs a hit to launch his first album since Suge bailed him out of jail. Dre cooks up “California Love” which features Roger freestyling the now iconic hook.

1980- More Bounce to the Ounce gives a generation of khaki creasing, house shoe slidin’ ridahs something to bump out the back of the lac, as they scrape through the streets of Compton and Long Beach.

1970-1977- After learning to play the guitar from a local bum in exchange for food, Roger soaked up the funk from his fellow Ohio natives: Slave and The Ohio Players. Roger first saw the talkbox (or as he called it the ghetto robot) between Stevie Wonder’s gums on a 1973 episode of Sesame Street, and started using the technique to sing hits originally recorded by women.

2010- Dudes like Dam-Funk and DJ B. Cause are keeping the Troutman legacy alive with muthafunkin mixes like this here
DJ B. Cause – Playin’ Kinda Ruff

Tracklist, videos, and a super dope 90’s slow jam mix from Hudson Mohawke awaits when you Read More »

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