may 2nd bitforce koopa kids and mc chris! goto do617.com/mcchris to win tickets! all dates and links at mcchris.com/shows
mc chris ticket contest! 5/2 at Middle East Downstairs
Kickstarter Korner - MEGA RAN Documentary & CYBERINES #1 - AT FORCES OF GEEK
Two talented artists have some campaigning ending really soon so I grabbed them to tell us about their projects.
One is more familiar to this column — a comic book project from Joe Martino (Shadowflame, The Mighty Titan).
The other is only a household name to those hyped on the nerdcore rap scene.
Random aka Mega Ran aka Raheem is a former teacher who tours the world rapping about life, but also he is the only rapper to be officially endorsed by Capcom.
Following the footsteps of his friend Damien Hess also known as MC Frontalot’s Nerdcore Rising, Random is Kickstarting a documentary Mega Lo Mania - Director’s Cut for full distribution.
Joe even has some Kickstarter tips as well, so keep your eyes peeled, creative types.
If you have a few dollars or a dollar to spare, consider backing these hard working gentlemen! If you can’t spare anything but you like what you see, spread the word. They will be grateful!
Mega Lo Mania - A Nerd Rap Documentary
FOG!: Ran, we’re excited about your Kickstarter. What can fans expect from Mega Lo Mania - A Nerd Rap Documentary?
Mega Ran: The doc got such great reviews that all we needed was more, quite frankly.. I went and found old footage, interviewed some of my heroes in the scene and I think it ties up the Mega Ran story, that’s so hard to explain to people most times, perfectly!
Maybe we should back up. What is it you do for those unfamiliar out there? You rap about video games, right?
I rap about life, mostly, but from a few unique perspectives, most notably, the eyes of video game characters.
A lot of what I do is video game related for sure, It’s probably where I feel most comfortable.
…
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To support the Kickstarter, Click HERE!
For more details visit MegaRan.com and on Twitter @MegaRan
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Cyberines #1
FOG!: Tell us about Cyberines #1!
Joe Martino: Well, I created Cyberine before Shadowflame. I always liked patriotic characters like Captain America so I wanted to create one like that. But I didn’t want him to look like a flag.
I figured what’s better than Marines Red and Gold? Originally he was in Vietnam and he got blown up on his way home. But, as time went on Desert Storm made more sense and then Afghanistan. In Shadowflame I actually call it the Second Gulf War meaning the 2004 Afghanistan war.
In issue 4 I added a few characters to the team. Crimson, Caress and Barrel. Along with Cyberine and Agent Napalm, they make the core of the group. There are others that we will see later and some that really aren’t very nice.
To me it is a bit like The Avengers if they were formed by the government and run by Professor Xavier. The Marine part of the group is very boot camp/Danger Room and we will see the group go through some serious issues.
To support the Kickstarter, Click HERE!
For more details visit Red Anvil Comics and on Twitter @jgmcomics and@RedAnvilComics
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SUNDAY, AUGUST 4 - HOMEBOY SANDMAN, OPEN MIKE EAGLE, MEGA RAN at CHURCH (of Boston)
SUNDAY, AUGUST 4 - HOMEBOY SANDMAN, OPEN MIKE EAGLE, MEGA RAN at CHURCH (of Boston)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Stones Throw Records’ Homeboy Sandman embarks on the Dear Hunter Tour
On the heels of the release of his critically acclaimed LP First of a Living Breed (Stones Throw) and in support of two new projects (Kool Herc Fertile Crescent EP and All that I Hold Dear LP, Stones Throw 2013), his national tour with Brother Ali (Rhymesayers Entertainment), and a headlining tour of Europe, Homeboy Sandman will headline a tour of the US this summer. Open Mike Eagle (Hellfyre Club, Fake Four Inc, Mush Records) and Random aka Mega Ran (officially licensed by Capcom) will support.
Sandman says of the tour “The Dear Hunter Tour is in promotion of my latest Stones Throw release, ‘All That I Hold Dear.’ I’m blessed to join forces with two musicians also searching for substance, magic, brilliance, love, and truth. We’re going to find them too. When we do, we’re going to share them.”
Kool Herc Fertile Crescent EP (Stones Throw) vinyl/digital relase available now. 8-track release produced entirely by El RTNC (aka Rthentic). The record is an unapologetic homage to old school hip-hop in its bare-bones production, lyrical themes, cover art and even the title. With the blessing of DJ Kool Herc, one of the originators of hip-hop, Sandman pays respect to the pioneering DJ by proudly naming the release in his honor.
Homeboy Sandman
Homeboy Sandman is a musician. His genre is hip-hop. An emcee that prides himself on musical growth and evolution, he has adopted as his motto and creative mission statement, “Boy Sand like you’ve never seen him before. As usual.”
Before signing to Stones Throw he’d already been chosen as a coach on MTV’s MADE, featured in preeminent print hip-hop rags XXL and The Source, and perpetually championed on foremost online hubs. And since the signing, his accolades have extended beyond the realm of the hip hop specific. Rolling Stone has noted his “skill for wordplay that keeps you hooked.” NPR has highlighted his “artful, hysterical, disobedient hip-hop that you can dance to.” Pitchfork has straightforwardly dubbed him “one of the best pure lyricists around.
Open Mike Eagle
“One of LA’s smartest young voices” says the LA Times…which the artist suspects, may just be a covert way of saying LA is dumb. “Open” Mike Eagle wouldn’t terribly mind, being born and raised in Chicago where the painful winters and his uppity grandparents kept him inside as a youth. He spent his formative years watching alternative music happen on MTV and hoping to one day be able to audition for the Native Tongues. As a young adult after graduating with a degree in Psychology, he did the next best thing and moved to Los Angeles,
joining the Project Blowed collective where he made music and toured with Busdriver, Aceyalone, Abstract Rude, Nocando and more. He’s also gained notoriety in the world of comedy by being invited by professional funny people (Paul F. Tompkins, Hannibal Buress, Matt Besser/UCB) to rap at their shows. He’d like to be rap’s Kurt Vonnegut
but recognizes that he’d first have to create something as iconic as the four-stroke illustration of an anus. He practices by releasing rap albums that delight, entertain, and confuse.
Random aka Mega Ran
If you put video games, the 80’s, hip-hop, soul music, jazz and standup comedy into a blender and hit “puree,” you’d have something close to The Random Experience.
The self-proclaimed “TeacherRapperHero” made waves by going way left of his backpack roots by combining 8-bit video game sounds and hard hitting hip-hop tracks, and has become a trailblazer in the budding genres of chiptune and nerd-rap. A Capcom cosign and admiration from the genre’s toughest critics has led to placements in TV, movies, university coursework, and of course, games.
Today, Random is no longer a teacher by title, but travels the world to entertain and educate through the gift of facemelting raps.
H.W.
Boston rapper H.W. dumps his demons - By Martín Caballero | BOSTON GLOBE
Last July, H.W. (short for “Hazardous Wastes”) released one of Boston hip-hop’s most literate, emotionally complex albums of the year in “Wall Papered Exit Wounds.” Delivered in the lyrically dense and raw personal style that has become his signature, the record quietly distinguished itself from the crowded local marketplace by vividly exposing its author’s titular emotional wounds for all to see, allowing listeners to eavesdrop on his internal struggle for peace of mind. It’s occasionally jarring and hardly uplifting stuff, but his gift for articulating pain is a rare one.
Yet there’s an important piece of context to note with “Exit Wounds”: The material was recorded six years ago, and the H.W. whose emotional turmoil fueled that record is not the same one who’ll be performing on June 5 at The Sinclair in Harvard Square.
“I hated that record,” H.W., born Josh DeCosta, says bluntly over a midday beer at a bar in Central Square. “The only reason I released it is because people told me it was good and I should put it out.”
Naturally, an intensely introspective album in which he struggles to find scraps of optimism within darkness would understandably be difficult to embrace in the same way that a detached listener might. But this isn’t his first release in that vein: “Exit Wounds” built on the foundation of 2009’s “A Year’s Worth of Worry,” where songs like “The End of the Line” established his reputation as a sensitive, emotional lyricist fueled by tumultuous romantic relationships that often ended in heartbreak. In 2013, that’s the reputation he’s working to change.
“It’s unbearable in a way,” says the Fall River native. “I was the guy who did songs about ex-girlfriends, and that’s all it was. And it got sickening being that person. It bothers me in the sense that there are so many more aspects of my personal life. If people talk to me they know that I’m not that person, I’m not that guy who goes home and cries every night and hates myself. I needed something to write about other than that.
‘In the studio I’m hyperly critical and constantly tweaking stuff, while on stage I don’t have enough time to think about it like that.
For someone whose creative output was so closely linked to his state of mind, shifting directions musically first necessitated a change in mentality.
“I based my worth on who I dated, and because of that every relationship was the end-all, be-all. So when those ended, it was devastating to the point that it destroyed by self-esteem. I eventually slowly realized that life doesn’t revolve around relationships. These girls, or these moments in time, as important as they may feel at the moment, are just that. It took a long time for me to understand what I cared about and how to write about what I cared about.”
“I’ve seen him grow and mature as a rapper and a performer drastically,” says longtime friend and DJ Emoh Bettah. “Most, if not all, of his earlier songs were about relationships gone sour or about friendships with ex-girlfriends, and I’d often joke with him about it but since then he’s been writing songs about other topics. His music may be too personal for some, but he does what he does well. All of his songs tell a story and he is just being himself, which is what I think people love about him.”
Yet for a rapper with a highly technical lyrical style and no shortage of things to say (“I think I’m way too personal in general, I’m just an over-sharer,” he admits), it’s surprising H.W.’s output isn’t more prodigious: case in point being the long gap between the recording and release of “Exit Wounds.” Rather than adhering to the modern rap marketing scheme of flooding the Internet with new material via social media in search of approval, he takes his work direct to live audiences.
“On stage, there’s something that clicks within me and I am the person who I am with my closest friends,” he says of his shows, which often find him performing unreleased or incomplete songs and interacting with the audience. “I love that feeling, maybe because it’s the sense of self-gratification that I’ve always sought from everything in life. In the studio I’m hyperly critical and constantly tweaking stuff, while on stage I don’t have enough time to think about it like that.”
That said, you’re more likely to hear H.W.’s musical evolution at an upcoming show before you can get it on iTunes. His next release will be the conceptual album “I Only Exist on the Internet,” targeted for late June release, which should show glimpses of the broader material he’s seeking to explore: topics like politics, environmental issues, and yes, maybe even a party jam. It’s not so much a rejection of the melancholic raps of the past, but an appreciation for their role in getting him to this new, more optimistic place in life and music.
“I’m not the best rapper ever,” he says. “I just would like to be able to display all aspects of myself. There are way more important things to talk about than my feelings on this one person I care about. The world is crumbling around me; there should be something else I’m able to share. A lot of this new album is about liking life, because I actually like life right now. ”
http://longlivehw.bandcamp.com
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Tue. April 23, 2013 - League Podcast presents: GAGE, THE UNION BOYS
What a week.
Thanks for coming out to the Party, we raised over $100 for The One Fund!
Want to party with some nerdy rappers and punks?
Come out Tuesday (4/23) to O’Briens Pub in Allston for this!
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| 04.23.13 Tue |
LeaguePodcast Presents Gage (Baltimore) Union Boys 8PM Doors 21+ |
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As we ramp up for our 150th episode, we will also have some big announcements this week.
Check out all of our concerts, events, signings and parties here:
facebook.com/leaguepodcast/events
Thanks to you!
4/9 The Protomen + MC Frontalot @MidEastClub with The World is Square
Mon 4/9/12 - Middle East Downstairs
Rock On! Concerts & LeaguePodcast Present:
The Protomen + MC Frontalot
The World is Square (Square-Enix Tribute Band)
18+ $15
TIX - Facebook Event
#NERDCORE
DigBoston and LeaguePodcast Comic Book Picks of the Week for November 16, 2011
COMICS
An old enemy of the Waynes in Gotham City resurfaces as crime spikes, busying the Dark Knight with bat-famliy domestic disturbances in Batman #3. … British creator Paul Grist delights audiences with his adept cartooning and clever callbacks to comic book history. Welcome Grist’s teenage Mudman #1 from Image Comics into your home, but insist on leaving those boots at the door! … Superior and Kick Ass fans, get the Kapow Guinness World Record Special penned by over 50 creators in just 12 hours to benefit sick kids. … LeaguePodcast.com have reached a comic book milestone today - download or stream episode #100 today! Special shout-out from our nerd MC Frontalot here!
Pass the Daily Dig along! Your friends can sign up here!
11/9 MC FRONTALOT, Math The Band, Brandon Patton, Nabo Rawk, Weird Die Young #NERDCORE
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Middle East Upstairs
LeaguePodcast.com, Rock On! and Leedz Edutainment Present:
MC Frontalot
Math The Band
Brandon Patton
Nabo Rawk
Weird Die Young
Hosted By Sly Young
18+ $10 Advance / $12 Day Of Show
TIX - Facebook Event
Math The Band
Brandon Patton
Nabo Rawk
Weird Die Young
Hosted By Sly Young
18+ $10 Advance / $12 Day Of Show
TIX - Facebook Event
8pm Doors
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MC FRONTALOT
CREDIT: Deborah Lopez
Bio
The original mastermind of Nerdcore Hip-Hop and still its Final Boss, MC Frontalot (nee Damian Hess) takes great pleasure in identifying himself as a professional rapper in polite conversation.
Front was born in San Francisco and grew up in Berkeley. He was tall and gangling, scrawny, had trouble breathing, and could not see well. A special teacher was called in to help him attain basic competence on the monkey bars, another to privately administer standardized tests (his were three grade levels advanced from his classmates). Thusly, he was the most popular kid in his elementary school. Just kidding! He got pushed down a lot and called “nerd.” Did he maybe even deserve it? I mean, really – who strikes out at kickball?
He spent the next twenty years or so trying to get over it. And kind of succeeded! Flash forward to 1999: the dotcom bubble is maximally inflated; nerds everywhere imagine themselves to be popular and/or hip. Damian is getting overpaid to code web pages, which leaves him free in the evenings to play with audio software. A longtime idolizer of rappers, he has been committing his own esoteric hip-hop compositions to four-track tape since high school, revealing them to nobody. Suddenly! Multi-track desktop studios, cheap pro-grade recording hardware, skyrocketing bandwidth, semi-anonymous web publishing – these factors converge on Damian’s rap hobby like a flock of winged monkeys. He posts an MC Frontalot web page, dubbing his output “Nerdcore Hip-Hop” since his audience is composed of several Star Wars figurines who live on his desk (and also random internet people who click on his MP3s by mistake).
Now it is 2010. Nerdcore has metastasized into an internet phenomenon and underground touring powerhouse, with dozens of live acts and more than a hundred home-studio rhymers self-identifying within the subgenre. MC Frontalot, called alternately the movement’s godfather or grandfather (thanks, kids), leads the charge, performing for thousands around the country and at prominent geek gatherings such as the Penny Arcade Expo and BlizzCon. He’s been featured in Newsweek, CNN, The New York Times, Spin, Wired, Blender, XXL, XLR8R, The London Daily Telegraph, NPR, G4TV, Esquire, The Guardian (UK), The Wall Street Journal, and scores of city papers nationally and internationally. He has released four studio albums, Nerdcore Rising (Sept 2005), Secrets From The Future (Apr 2007), Final Boss (Nov 2008), and Zero Day (Apr 2010). The documentary feature, Nerdcore Rising: The Movie, which focuses on Front’s live band and the Nerdcore phenomenon general, debuted at the South By Southwest Film Festival, March 2008, and is currently distributed by Virgil films / B-Side.
Artist Website: http://frontalot.com/
FREE MUSIC: http://frontalot.com/index.php/?page=mp3
NERDCORE RISING Documentary:
*Nerdcore Rising* follows MC Frontalot — the “Godfather of Nerdcore” — on his first national tour to reveal both the roots of Nerdcore Hip Hop and the dorky complexities of its artists.
Official Nerdcore Rising website:
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BRANDON PATTON
About the album
Brandon Patton’s newest album, “How I Allegedly Bit a Man in Gloucestershire,” features 13 mostly comical songs that capture hilarity of his live shows opening for MC Frontalot. On the album, he exposes dark family secrets (Mixed-Up Modern Family,) sings anthems about sex acts (Munching the Coch and Kethcup and Mayo,) recalls his time temping and looking for love on an alien planet (My Girlfriend Was Kidnapped by Aliens,) contemplates the limits of friendship (Would You Take a Bullet For Me?) and relates stories about traveling the world and getting into mischief (Big in Japan, Private Jet, How I Allegedly Bit a Man in Gloucestershire.)
Patton posts stories once a month on his webpage, along with a free download of each accompanying song.
About the artist
Brandon Patton, songwriter and instrumentalist, currently resides in New Haven, CT.
Patton also plays bass under the pseudonym BL4k Lotus for MC Frontalot, progenitor of “nerdcore hiphop.” MC Frontalot’s band and its first national tour was the subject of the documentary Nerdcore Rising. The Wikipedia entry on MC Frontalot can be found here.
Patton also performs with playwright Prince Gomolvilas in the underground theater duo Jukebox Stories, called one of the 10 best plays of 2008 by the East Bay Express.
He composed the songs for Love Sucks: the Musical, a Shakespearean take on the punk rock of the 1970s, which won honorable mention at the 2007 New York Musical Theatre Festival.
Patton’s previous album, “Should Confusion,” was nominated for Album of the Year by the 2004 Independent Music Awards.
He also sometimes plays bass for Futureboy and Jonathan Coulton.
About his past
He was born in Grand Forks, N.D., grew up in St. Paul, Minn., and also lived in Trinidad and Tobago for two years when he was young.
Patton has been writing music since he was pre-pubescent. When he was 11 years old, the composer/ethnomusicologist Miriam Gerberg rented a spare room in his mother’s house in St. Paul, MN, and Patton enlisted her help to write his first song, entitled “I’m Not Your Slave,” a protest about household chores. In junior high, when he started listening to punk rock, he and his friends set out to be offensive and brash, penning the songs “Fuck the Nun,” and “Fetus Burger.” With slim pickings in the record collections of his parents (Neil Diamond, Judy Collins) Patton found inspiration in a vibrant DIY counter-culture of zine writers and indie bands who would brandish the word “sellout” and discuss politics in independent coffeehouses and alternative art galleries. Minneapolis was exporting some incredible music at the time, not just the ultra famous Prince, but acts such as the Replacements, Hüsker Dü, the Jayhawks, and Walt Mink.
He attended Wesleyan University in Connecticut, where the music department was ruled by experimental composers and ethnomusicologists. “It was incredible what I was exposed to there,” says Patton, “but there was also this Midwestern voice in my head whispering ‘College is not the real world.’ I didn’t want to become a disciple. And I couldn’t play any of this amazing world music I loved and still have any authenticity.” So in his own writing, he ended up turning toward the rock and pop of his youth. “I got obsessed with trying to figure out who I was in the midst of all of these new influences,” says Patton. “I was searching for an authentic expression of myself.”
After college, his first experience playing music professionally rammed this point home. He spent a summer playing Caribbean music (which he loves) for drunken tourists (not so much) next to a beach volleyball court inside a giant country western bar on Cape Cod (hated it).
His first solo album, “Nocturnal,” was recorded after hours (because there was no soundproofing) in the basement of an office building in Easthampton, Mass. Patton frequently let a homeless friend sleep in the studio, and one night said friend locked himself out of the room wearing nothing but underwear and had to hide under the staircase for an entire work day until Patton happened by.
Patton used to play in the band three against four with Jay Skowronek (Maxeen) and fellow schoolmate Anand Nayak (Rani Arbo and Daisy Mayhem). Nayak and Patton were wandering down a dirt road one day and stumbled upon a decrepit slaughterhouse that turned out to be a recording studio. Inside was audio engineer Mark Alan Miller, who had worked with nearly every rock group in Western Massachusetts, including area royalty J.Mascis. Miller would later mix many of the tracks for their albums, as well as many of the tracks on Patton’s later solo work.
Patton signed a deal with music publisher ACMRecords which has lead to music getting placed onto the soundtracks of several TV shows, including Monster Garage, That 70s Show, and The Real World.
Patton was one of five songwriters to win an internet contest earning an invitation to perform at the Newport Folk Festival in 2004.
The Temecula Film and Music Festival named Brandon Patton Top Music Artist in 2005, but failed to make good on a promise of a free hot air balloon ride.
Artist Website: http://brandonpatton.com/about.html
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MATH THE BAND
Math the Band is a electro-punk spazz duo from Providence, RI. They use a combination of old video game systems, analog synthesizers and energy drinks to make the fastest, loudest, most party-est music they can imagine. They’ve only cracked their head open on stage ONCE
Artist Website: http://www.facebook.com/maththeband
VIDEO: Why Didn’t You Get A Haircut?
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NABO RAWK (of Wasted Talent / Porn Theater Ushers)
International Heavyweight Champion Movie Star MC drops knowledge from the top rope.
RICKY STEAMBOAT:
BIZARRO WORLD promo:
APE- SWIPE THE FUNK with MR. LIF and NABO RAWK:
Artist Website: http://www.facebook.com/pages/NABO-RAWK/60439959310
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WEIRD DIE YOUNG
Dr. Dank and 50 Dead.
UNCOMFORTABLE AND AWKWARD:
Artist Website: http://www.facebook.com/weirddieyoung
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HOSTED BY SLY YOUNG
Artist Website: http://leedzedutainment.com/?tag=sly-young
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11/9 MC FRONTALOT, Brandon Patton @MidEastClub Upstairs! #Nerdcore
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Wed 11/9 - Middle East Upstairs
Just Announced show at Middle East Upstairs!
MC Frontalot - Bizarro Genius BabyHappy Wednesday! Enjoy!
MP3s here. Video here. ********************
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