Who said gangsta rap was dead? Introducing School Boy Q. The LA rapper off Top Dawg Entertainment is also a member of the Black Hippy group featuring Jay Rock, Kendrick Lamar, and Ab-Soul. His latest album, Habits & Contradictions, was released earlier this month. What you got to say about “Hands On The Wheel?” Uh uh fuck that…what? Recognize that sample? It comes from Lissie’s cover of Cudi’s “Pursuit of Happiness.”

Download Mp3 Schoolboy Q ft. A$AP Rocky: ”Hand On The Wheel”

Photograph by Victoria Smith

A lot has changed in the four years since the release of Geographer’s debut album, Innocent Ghosts. To start, the band was praised by Spin, highly reviewed for their EP Animal Shapes, sold-out The Independent for Noise Pop Festival, and named by Live 105 as one the “Bay Area’s Top 20 Bands in 2011.” More importantly, the personal tragedies that fed lead singer Michael Deni with cathartic inspiration are now just a memory. On Myths, Deni’s focus shifts to the societal myths we uphold as truth, as he searches for his own understanding to life. “I felt like this was the first time I wrote lyrics,” Deni explained about the concept album, “when it’s said and done, we did what we tried to do and that’s the first time we’ve ever done that.”

SF Critic (SFC): And what would you say you sought out to do?

Michael Deni (MD): I wanted to write more songs that were not balls-to-the-wall, dance-extreme songs. We were really adamant with each other about wanting to have an album that was a complete experience, where every song was trying to do something different, so that no song was like, the failed dance song–or the second-awesomest dance song.

We really wanted to make something dirtier, and I know it’s not a punk record or anything, but we wanted to make something that was rough around the edges.

SFC: It’s interesting how you describe it, I definitely get the impression that this album is grittier than the last one. “The Myth of Youth” seems like a track that wouldn’t have existed either on the EP or the first LP – it’s very removed from what you’ve been doing in the past.

MD: [For] that one I was listening to a lot of Bruce Springsteen. I know there’s a lot of guitar on the record, but when it started out it was all synthesizers and I was like, “there’s no guitar song on this.” I had been listening a lot to (Arcade Fire’s) The Suburbs, which is really guitar heavy and obviously very impressive, and Bruce Springsteen’s The River. I mean, I liked Bruce Springsteen before, but I went through an intense Bruce Springsteen experience for a couple months there.

SFC: So what does it mean you went through an intense Bruce Springsteen experience? Does that mean like, having breakfast with Bruce Springsteen, going to bed listening to Bruce Springsteen?

MD: Well, unfortunately we’re not in close physical contact (laughs). I do have his album The River on my bedside table, and during this phase I was consistently saying goodnight to him. I’d come home from practice and be like, “I think I did a good job tonight, Bruce. I think we’re getting close.” I had him in my mind a lot – very much lyrically, the content of his songs and the particular way he pulls the heartstrings. He just has that amazing gift to be able to tap into something people feel they all understand, even though I’ve never worked in a construction crew on the highway, and I don’t think he has either.

SFC: I have read some lauded reviews about how Geographer has stayed true to their sound, and now it sounds like you’re venturing else where before really establishing a huge presence.

MD: With this album, we really wanted to set ourselves up for the future. We want to be the kind of band that could put any song on an album, and it makes sense to people.

“I felt like this was the first time I wrote lyrics. Before, I just had to sit around and wait with my mouth open to catch something inside it and turn that into a lyrical kernel.”

SFC: It sounds like you were worried about being typecast as a band.

MD: I hesitate to say we were worried about it, because I don’t feel like we pushed any of the music in any direction. I hope we sort of guided it gently…like an elderly lady (laughs). Cause you know, if you push stuff, it’s gonna sound bad. So for us it was more the music we want to be able to play in the future – by that I mean, people will be able to come to our concert and…at least steal our record.

SFC: When we spoke almost two years ago you said to me that the lyrics just “poured out” for Innocent Ghost. Given the negative circumstances surrounding your father and sister’s death at that time, now removed from the incident, I imagine you’re at a different place.

MD: Yeah I’m still fundamentally a bit of a sad bastard, so it’s not like “I’m rock and roll!” and writing songs about hanging out with people. I do have some distance from those things, not as much as I’d like, but it’s definitely not as creatively relevant really to me right now. This record is about the things people to do cope with the profound nature of their lives. It’s not really a great place to be feeling really disconnected from the fiber of your own life or the world around you.

SFC: I brought this up because originally the group’s storyline was about transforming this tragedy into a positive creative expression. Now that you’re removed from the event, it seems that your core, at least creatively, might have changed and I wondered where your inspiration – aside from Bruce Springsteen – comes from. Were the lyrics pouring out on the page this time around?

MD: I felt like this was the first time I wrote lyrics. Before, I just had to sit around and wait with my mouth open to catch something inside it and turn that into a lyrical kernel. I was trying to be impressionistic before and create lyrical landscape as we did musical landscapes. This time I actually had a notion and it spans the whole album.

SFC: Where did this idea come from?

MD: The idea was to explore myths in our modern society. Myths were created when society was really young. A lot of the earlier myths were like “Don’t eat shellfish or animals with a hoof, because you’ll get sick” because they didn’t have sinks or toilets. I don’t mean to trivialize traditions because I’m envious of people that can relate to them.

Apparently in life we think we dispelled all those myths, and we live based on science, which actually answers the questions and is all encompassing. We take these myths very seriously and it’s almost as though they’re made real. We get a lot of them from commercials or even music. You know, like the “rock star,” he gets the babes all the time. The myth is that your pursuit will make you happy.

SFC: Is there a particular myth that we might close this with that might have an influential parallel on this album?

MD: One of my favorite ones is, when you get older you’ll understand things. That was something that I really lived with when I was young looking out the window thinking, “God I don’t understand everything, but isn’t this beautiful because one day I’m going to understand it.” That never happened. I grew up and I don’t understand.

—–

Check out Geographer for their home opener and album release party at The Independent on March 3rd.

Well you like it, just admit it.

While Ten$sions is not yet out, the single “I Fink U Freeky,” is circulating the web. At first listen it is just a crappy club purge, but then comes the fucked-up accent that we are told is South African but is more reminiscent of that dead girl who lived (?) at the bottom of the well in The Ring.

Its freaky but I like it a lot.

Download Mp3 – Die Antwoord – “I Fink U Freeky”

Check out “Evil Boy” Video from $O$

Gary Bartz is a Grammy Award winning alto saxophonist that has been playing for years. To see him, accompanied by two of the most talented contemporary male soul singers isn’t a treat–it’s special. Introducing Aloe Blacc to any of my readers might be futile, but for those that haven’t heard the growingly popular soul singer’s hit “I Need A Dollar”–you need to get on that.  Blacc has found success in the same spotlight as Mayer Hawthorne and Sharon Jones. Bilal’s more psychedelic soul and funk should provide an interesting compliment to Blacc, with a style more comparable to Erykah Badu or Dweli.

We’re excited to give away a pair of tickets to the Red Bull Music Academy presentation of The Gary Bartz Project with Bilal and Aloe Blacc. That’s a purposeful plug, because while at times I question the commercial endorsement of hip hop, and accordingly shy away from opportunities like this, I’ve always respected Red Bull’s effort to preserve quality music culture.

To enter the contest simply follow this link to our Facebook page. Like our page and submit your email so that we can follow up with you if you win. The winner will receive an email by Monday night no later than 9pm PST.

Download Mp3 - Bila: “Levels”

Santigold, aka Santi White, released last night the video for her new single “Big Mouth” off her sophmore album, Master of My Make-Believe. Ever since her debut, L.E.S. Articles, we’ve been huge followers. The Afro-beat of “Big Mouth” draws further comparison to M.I.A., but (in our opinion) Santi is in a league of her own. Even the video is reminiscent of M.I.A. “Boyz” (or Major Lazer). The album will include appearances from Major Lazer’s Switch, TV on the Radio’s Dave Sitek, Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Nick Zinner, and songwriter/producer Greg Kurstin.

Download Mp3 – Santigold – “Big Mouth”

Unfortunately, I spent the bulk of my time over the holidays secretly indulging in gluttonous amounts of TV watching. I procrastinated on all the real work I’m now scrambling to get done for the sake of Teen Mom, Jersey Shore, The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and The Real Housewives of Atlanta. I watched all four Netflix seasons of Breaking Bad and then, when I just had to know if Walter White was really actually going to die, I was able to skip straight to the season airing now. Then I watched every episode in existence of the British E4 hit Misfits and Showtime’s Californication.

I don’t own a TV.

I illegally streamed most of these shows through TV Blinkx, an aggregator site that links to other piracy sites for free programming. The picture quality is low but there are no commercials, they load fast even on slow connections, and most importantly you can watch the current season of whatever is on air now for free without having to pay a cable bill.

Time well spent.

Next week Congress will vote on the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). The bill will force websites large and small to stop advertising with or taking paid advertisements from sites like TV Blinkx in addition to having a regulatory committee to seek out internet piracy and remove violators from the web.

I get it, no one likes to work for free, but I work for free all the time. Hell–I am working for free right now. Almost everyone I know is working multiple jobs, many of them unpaid because they believe either in their talent or working towards a shared goal worthy of volunteer time, effort, and creativity. That is the nature of creative work, you have to really work hard for little reward to “make it” because you are selling an intangible good.

“Intellectual property is intangible, but the most important part of making a profit off of artistic creativity is to remember that the biggest asset in art is that it isn’t property, it is culture meant to be shared and enjoyed and there are other ways of monetizing its production other than gouging consumers. “

In a time of fast-paced technological advances, it is more efficient for these companies to invest their time and money into evolving with new technology to get ahead of the potential loss in revenue caused by foolishly clinging to their old and comfortable business models. Rather than throwing money into unpopular campaigns that are demonized by freedom-loving internet purists they should instead invest that time and those resources to go the route of Hulu, Spotify and Pandora– which offer free-high quality content rife with advertisements tailored to target the individual watching them. They both also offer premium packages that become increasingly essential as the average user becomes more dependent on it.

Proponents of SOPA include the villainous megacorporations Wal-Mart, Dow Chemicals, Rupert Murdoch, News Corp, Comcast, Nike, Monster Cable, Sony, and a couple of old tech-unsavvy Republican congressman just dying to regulate the hell out of the only purely free market that really exists in America today (besides banking).

Opponents of the bill not only have a much hipper forward-thinking reputation than this old band of confuddled cronies. They include Google, Craigslist, Reddit, Wikipedia, Facebook, Linkedin, Etsy, Zynga and Republican candidate Ron Paul. Many of these sites will go or already are “dark,” today in protest, notably Wikipedia and Craigslist. 5,000 sites in total will be protesting in some way or another tomorrow.

The difference between these groups: the proponents make their millions making shiesty backdoor deals with congressman and each other. The opponents make their millions by inventing new technological mediums that are not only reasonably priced but cool.

Intellectual property is intangible, but the most important part of making a profit off of artistic creativity is to remember that the biggest asset in art is that it isn’t property, it is culture meant to be shared and enjoyed and there are other ways of monetizing its production other than gouging consumers.

When was the last time you paid $16 for a CD? Have you gone to the movies lately and paid more than you would pay for the DVD to get in?

Take the band Radiohead, who have one of the largest and most dedicated international fan bases that literally spans generations. Their last few albums (composed and produced without a record deal) have been released free of charge online with an option to donate what you think its worth or pay for bonus tracks and box sets. With the release of In Rainbows, Radiohead averaged $5 a digital album in donations, more than they would have made with a record deal.

Immortal Technique, an underground hip-hop artist, released his most recent album The Martyr for free online using Twitter as his main avenue of promotion. The album was downloaded 300,000 times in just the first weekend, crashing the site. He now has more fans than ever and has been selling out show after show every in city he hits.

Taking down these sites is equivalent to censoring free speech. You can buy Congress but you can’t just sue your way out of your outdated business models. As long as you behave like you are irrelevantly uncool you will be.

Please support the forward-thinking innovators who are opposing the bill, propelling us into the future and occupying the internet today. Click here to join the strike.

by Angela Bacca

Theophilus London, the fast rapping indie styled artist who just recently opened for Erykah Badu in SF, released “Last Night” today. The track is the first preview off his new album Lover Holiday II: Rose Island. The beat is originally off Rustie’s “After Light,” which is dope in itself. Another track with A$AP Rocky is supposedly on its way.

Last Night (LVRS ANTHEM) by Theophilus London (LVRS)

Here’s the video for MΔRRI$’ “Affair” by the Kansas born DJ/producer born Phil Canty. “Affair” is a confidant production that juggles styles that can only be described as downtempo-Miami-bass-house music. There isn’t too much music from him public at this point, but take a look at his Soundcloud page.

MΔRRI$: “Affairs”

If you’re digging “Affair,” take a listen to “The Warning,” which adds some juice to your two-step.

MΔRRI$: “The Warning”

The 2012 lineup for Coachella was just announced. Dr. Dre & Snoop Dogg? Damn–no one said anything about that in the rumors. The festival, for the first time, will be over two weekends so that those fans that missed one band one week can catch them the next. Thanks Coachella. What are you thoughts on this lineup?

There has always been tension between Dinosaur Jr’s Lou Barlow and J Mascis. At the peak of their success with the release of Bug, their relationship hit a tumultuous low when Mascis attacked Barlow on stage. The group broke up. In 2005, the original group reunited for a tour, but did not perform many of the songs from Bug. “We always had a stigma attached to it as a not so great artifact of a not so great part of time,” explained Lou Barlow. Now twenty years later Dinosaur Jr. just finished playing the entire album along a West Coast tour with Henry Rollins interviewing the band before each show.

SF Critic (SFC): How did you meet Henry Rollins?

Lou Barlow (LB): I met him initially when Dinosaur Jr. played his TV show. I think it was on Sundance (it was on IFC), “The Henry Rollins Show.” He’s been a really big fan of Dinosaur Jr and J. Mascis for a really, really long time.

SFC: When was that show? How long ago?

Lou Barlow: That might have been four or five years ago.

SFC: That’s much more recent than I thought.

Lou Barlow:I didn’t know him, but maybe J met him before that. I’ve known of Henry Rollins since he was in the band SOA. Of course as a young music fan I knew about him, but I was never actually introduced to him until five years ago.

SFC: What brought on the idea to have Rollins interview the group before the shows?

Lou Barlow: I think it was on the part of the Dinosaur Jr. management as a hook to make it more interesting for people. Maybe because of how much of a die hard fan Henry Rollins is of J, they thought it would make the shows special.

SFC: I am sure you have such a die hard fan base that any show would be special.

Lou Barlow: Yeah but we’ve been touring the reunion thing already, and we did some new records. We were thinking more like, how can we get people to pay more money to see us play kind of thing. To be perfectly frank that’s what I think the management thought. We haven’t done a lot of touring this year. Also, we’re playing the whole Bug record, which is one way to make it special and to up the ante they added Rollins.

“J hated me and I hated him. I hated him because he hated me. Generally, the only reason I really hate anyone is that they hate me first.”

SFC: By touring the Bug record that’s special. Was the reason to do this album an effort to make some extra cash?

Lou Barlow: [Laughs] No it’s a record that is sort of a lost record of the original lineup. Although it was our most popular record when I was in the band of the first three records, it was a record that I don’t think either J, or I, or even Murph remembered that fondly. There were quite a few songs off of Bug that we didn’t play. We always favored the You’re Living All Over Me record.

SFC: What was the reason for that?

Lou Barlow: I just remember it not being a particularly good time. J wasn’t in a particularly good spot. He was kind of a monster and wasn’t really into the band. It seems like making the record was a total chore for him. It was just a very negative time period as I remember. Actually, going back and listen to the record I am like “Wow, what a really good record. We did a great job!”

SFC: Can you explain about what was happening during that time?

Lou Barlow: J hated me and I hated him. I hated him because he hated me. Generally, the only reason I really hate anyone is that they hate me first. We had kind of reached our peak already. We had put out You’re Living All Over Me. We were on SST Records, so there was nowhere else to go for as far as we were concerned. We had filled every possible career goal we could have. It sort of left us with this empty feeling like, “Now what do we do, just tour until we all hate each other for the rest of our lives?” It was strange. We didn’t have any aspiration beyond what we had reached.

SFC: Sonic Youth was one of your first tours right?

Lou Barlow: Yeah we left home for a few weeks we opened for Sonic Youth.

SFC: Can you remember that? What was it like?

Lou Barlow: Yeah! It was amazing. [laughs] They were my favorite band. We really looked up to them. They were the coolest, back then [laughs]. We looked up to them so much, and they loved J, the band. It was incredible to be embraced by our heroes by these people we loved so much. And that too, touring with Sidekicks for two weeks, what else were do you do? Where do you go from there? It just seemed like there was no where else to go.

SFC: What was that relationship like? Beyond that tour did they provide any guidance or help?

Lou Barlow: Oh yeah. After that tour, J would stay at their apartment when he was in New York. J knows them to this day. He’s very close to them. They welcomed J into their pool like he was a member of the family.

SFC: One thing I keep hearing in this interview, when you referenced Henry Rollins or Thurston, you refer to J as “the band.” Do not feel like it’s your band at all?

Lou Barlow: I think I’m just the bass player. It’s pretty clear to me. I play in the band, when I interact with bands, I think most people don’t even know that the bass makes a sound. Especially with Dinosaur Jr because there is so much volume involved that is mostly coming from J. Of course it’s J’s band. I love being a part of it, it’s awesome, there’s a music light that goes on between Murph, J, and I. I’m also very into music, the way bands operate, and I don’t think most people are like that, “Oh there’s a guy playing lead guitar that’s awesome!”

SFC: Was there ever a point where you wanted more control with Dinosaur Jr?

Lou Barlow: From the first time I played with him, I was in a hardcore band with him, within the first month of the band we had pretty much discarded the songs I had written and J was writing all the songs and that was that. At a very early age it was just that J was the dominant personality figure in the band and that was the way I understood it. I have in my opinion a rich musical history of my own that I can draw confidence and ego from. I know what I do in the band. I know how it works. I don’t expect anyone else to know that.

SFC: I understand. Everyone plays a certain role. I was listening to Dinosaur Jr’s interview with Rollins in New York, and you were asked about your experience after releasing Bug and the group’s following was growing, what it was like. You responded you were scared, anxious, and pretty much everything behind the success was a “blur,” can you elaborate on what was happening?

Lou Barlow: Elaborate? We were getting a lot of attention. We were playing sold-out shows. It’s just that thing of being younger and not knowing how to process everything.

SFC: Looking back could you process it better now?

Lou Barlow: Oh yeah of course.

SFC: What would have you done differently?

Lou Barlow: I would have enjoyed myself. I would have punched J in the face [laughs]. I would have stood up for myself. I would have forced my songs on the band. I would have figured things out. You know what I mean. I wouldn’t punch him, that’s going a little too far. I would have been able to stand up for myself–that’s all. It would have made the band better. It would have been great.

SFC: Was J a bully?

Lou Barlow: Absolutely. J was a total bully.

SFC: Is he still a bully now?

Lou Barlow: Kind of. It’s amazing the way he does it. He has a pretty amazing way of non-aggressive, aggressive way of controlling situations that is totally breathtaking. People fear him. It’s amazing.

———–

Download Mp3 – Dinosaur Jr.: “I Want You To Know”

Watch Henry Rollins interview with Dinosaur Jr.