You Need To Check Out

Regina Spektor.

I first heard of Regina Spektor when she appeared on the Bridge School Benefit line up a few years ago. I did attend, and was in love with her after the first song. Her voice is just beautiful, and her song writing is just astounding. She did all her songs with just her and her piano, and it was one of my favorite performances of the whole night. She gets a lot of love from college students, and young adults from what I've heard. So here are my two favorite songs from her, one of which (fidelity) I had the immense pleasure of seeing in concert. I say you buy everything she ever has done, and ever will done. She has great vocal range, and is morbidly peppy (oxymoron much?). You can feel everything she is singing about through the strain in her voice, and she has a very mature view on life, its not all daisy's in the world, but it sometimes is, so she writes about it all.

Fidelity - Regina Spektor


Laughing With- Regina Spektor

Decidedly Dope

Saul Williams.

He is a blend of rock music, spoken word poetry, and hip hop. He has written 4 books, co written a movie script, and released 4 albums. He has heavy social and politically driven lyrics, and is a wonderful author. His movie 'Slam' is one of the best independent movies I've ever seen, even winning an award. His poetry is super dope, he has been featured on Def Poetry Jam, and many other well known poetry shows. He is rock enough to tour with Nine Inch Nails, and Hip Hop enough to be commented on by Nas. His poetry is dope enough to be featured in schools and made into books. He is as Nas said, "every kind of great artist combined into one".

CD's:
Amethyst Rock Star (2001)
Not In My Name (2002)
Saul Williams (2004)
The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust (2008)

You can listen to the majority of all of his work on this youtube playlist
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfXiLYcP4SU&feature=PlayList&p=20DED818CB625109&index=0&playnext=1

Books:
The Seventh Octave (1998)
She (1999)
,Said The Shotgun To The Head (2003)
The Dead Emcee Scrolls (2006)

These can be purchased off amazon, or at your local bookstore.

Bridge School Benefit Concert

So last night, I went to the Bridge School Benefit Concert. For those of you who don't know, Bridge School is a school started by Neil Young to help severely handicapped children. It is a non-profit organization, and for 23 years they have been hosting benefit concerts, all of the proceeds going to the School. It was amazing, and just a beautiful, acoustic experience.

Neil Young, opened with some words, and one song, which was nice and then

Gavin Rossdale took the stage, every song he sang was beautifully done, he did a Prince cover which was just spectacular.

The next band to take the stage was Wolfmother, they had the fans dancing, and did quite the Neil Young cover as well. I did have to leave during their set to meet a friend of my parents, who has a child enrolled at the bridge school. I met them all at the parents booth and we talked about random things, all the while the child smiled and ate. It was moving hearing all her stories of how they can tell what music he does and doesn't like, and hearing all the gossip on what artists actually got themselves involved with the kids, which is a nice thing. I said my farewells and returned to the concert during the Fleet Foxes performance.

I hadn't heard of the Fleet Foxes before, and they preformed very well with beautiful harmonies, and a nice soft sound.

Monsters of Folk were the next to take the stage, and I was ready to be rocked with all the love they have been getting from Rolling Stone recently, and they did not dissapoint. They weren't as soft as I would have guessed, but they all have very different voices all of them nice, and they harmonize together PERFECTLY. They have amazing lyricism, and great story telling in their songs, with great band chemistry.

Sheryl Crow then took the stage, I loved how she turned on stage and played facing the kids for a little bit, after meeting one of these kids, my attention became more attuned to the acknowledgment they got from artists. But I stand strong behind the fact that Mrs. Crow may be better live than on her Cd, I was blown away (or it could have been the huge wave of marijuana that overcame me as she played her set, which she commented on.) She covered the Beatles song, Say Hey, and the whole crowd was screaming. She is very energetic on stage! And the crowd went wild when she played Soak Up the Sun.

Adam Sandler was probably lucky to go after Sheryl, because everyone in the crowd was either blunted or contact high, and we found his musical humor substantially more funny that it normally would be. He sang a lot, doing some classic rock covers, going on to his own original pieces all humor oriented like the 7 foot man, and the Hanukkah song. He did call Neil Young out to do a duet of 'Powder Finger' which was suprisingly good. Probably because Neil took lead, but Adam acknoledged the kids, made references on how people should donate more, and let quite the average set. I respected his performance which is a whole lot more than I expected to do.

Chris Martin opend with his own little poem about the bridge school, sung beautifully. His vocals were amazing, as was his piano playing, just astounding. He messed up, but played it off and the crowd loved it, he gave off a very relaxed feel. His violinist who he referred to as 'Daf' was amazing, even doing a very strange (yet superbly accurate) horse impression on the violin. He covered a Bruce Springsteen song, and sang many of his own hits, all great. He sang Earth Angle, and had the crowd harmonizing in parts for a good while, very live and nice performance.

No Doubt was maybe the best performance of the night. I can't even believe they have flown under my radar for this long. Gwen sounds JUST like she does on the radio, and every band member has INCREDIBLE musicality, many of them playing multiple instruments, all very well. The percussionist, background vocalist, and trumpet player were all the same guy! And the pianist got up and started playing the trombone! Gwen danced around with the kids, going right up to them, and they were just having an amazing time. Amazing group chemistry, and probably the best performance of the night.

Neil Young is so accustomed to performing now, you can only expect greatness, and it was delivered. He performed very well, Peggy on background, he even had a song with Sheryl Crow in the background, and they had some interesting instruments.

At the end all of the performers came out and were singing and dancing around, playing with the kids, grabbing instruments and playing, it was what a concert should be, fun spontaneous, nice. Adam Sandler even held some instruments for the kids to play, which I thought was very nice, I saw almost every artist go back there and play with the kids during this final song, and it was very moving. An amazing way to close the show.

So the Bridge School is an amazing cause, that you should support weather by going next year, or purchasing the collective CD of many exclusive performances from the past 23 years this has been going on. It is available on Itunes, just search Bridge School. All in all I really think you should help such a beautiful cause, with such beautiful music. All of the artists did very well, and I was very glad to be a part of this concert.

Decidedly Dope

Do you like hearing the newest hip hop from Lil Wayne to Lupe Fiasco tracks WAY before they hit the radio? Wanna get mixtape downloads the day the are released? Want to hear songs from new artists? Do you want to download all of the aforementioned tracks/mixtapes for free?

hotnewhiphop.com

Updated on the daily, view, listen, download, then show it off to your friends.

Songs of the Day

Songs about death are some of the most powerful songss we can find in our society. Here are some of my favorites. They may not all have the same message or tone, but they are all about the end.

Tears In Heaven- Eric Clapton


Wish You Were Here- Pink Floyd


Dance With My Father Again- Luther Vandross


Who'd You Be Today- Kenny Chesney


The Crossroads- Bone Thugs N Harmony

Samba Music

Last night I had the immense pleasure of seeing world renowned percussionist James Henry perform at the album release party at Yoshi's in Oakland for his new CD 'Dragonfly'. The night started of with me helping sell his CD's, not very successfully I may add, we sold about 5 before the show started. We broke down the stand and went inside to watch James Henry and Hands on Fire ROCK IT. The saxophonist was amazing, the drummers were amazing, the bassist and the guitarist were in James' words "The Baddest", but he wasn't lying. They were on stage, singing, they had dancers, vocalists, and the filled the stage and just about everyone had to dance. The rhythms they produce just make you want to get up and dance. One song that stood out to me, was 'Heaven Above' which is easily the greatest song I've ever heard played on the steel pan. The cat on keyboard was amazing, playing piano, and a bell program that I've never even heard on the keyboard perfectly. James himself, displayed his huge array of musical talents from singing, to playing just about every percussion instrument I have ever seen. The music is peaceful, happy, fun, and they even got some people from the crowd to come on stage. A little before the show ended I went back outside to help set up to sell Cd's again, and after the show was over, we got mobbed. I believe the total sales were at about 710 dollars, and if you have ever been to Yoshi's you know there isn't a lot of space in there. Everyone was totally moved and just amazed at how live they kept it, going late into Monday night. Samba music, is such a beautiful genre, and the sheer difficulty of keeping all these different instruments in rhythm and together was amazing enough. Everyone caught themselves subconsciously moving to the beat. He's on Itunes, under the World genre, and here is a video of a small ensemble of their music.



Here is a video of how he is at live shows:


Here is a video of some of his work with kids at schools:


Check Him Out

Eminem New Song

I'm one of many eminem fans who were not impressed with Relapse, in the least. Although I respect him thoroughly from his previous works. Here is a new track by him. Its just average in my opinion, but those fans who liked relapse would probably like this. Its typical sick humor, disturbing imagery, and his unidentifiable almost arab almost jamacian accent. Check it out

http://www.rapbasement.com/audio/eminem-taking-my-ball-radio.html

Lupe Fiasco's New Track:

Lupe Fiasco has a new song, that is apparently going to be on the twilight soundtrack... As much as I love and respect him, and am a fan of artistic expression, but I hope he doesn't compromise his sound to increase the payout. As of now I have heard some internet speculation that his new Cd titled 'We Are Lasers' is to be released on December 15. It should be amazing, if it is anything like his last two. So keep an eye out for that!

Any way heres the song
Solar Midnight - Lupe Fiasco

Decidedly Dope: Music Blogs

Anyone who knows their music, most likely follows a few blogs, and anybody who loves their music, can appreciate them. I'm a new blogger, but I enjoy working on things, doing research ect. But if you get at a legit blog, they bring you EVERYTHING you could ever want. Amazing way to spread their knowledge. So my hat is off to you Joe Blogger, working all day, and throwing up random posts for the betterment of others just because you love to do it! And if you follow a blog, donate to it, send a thank you email, do something to let them know they are appreciated.

Hip Hop Elitism:

http://www.wiretapmag.org/arts/43585/