The Witzard

The Streets was a long-running musical project of English emcee and multi-instrumentalist Mike Skinner . Skinner was active as The Streets from 1994-2011 and released five full-length albums, one mixtape, an EP, and countless singles. However, following mass of amounts of critical and fan-acclaim, Mike Skinner suddenly decided to dissolve The Streets in 2011. It, then, fell to the wayside as one of his former projects, along with Grafiti and The Beats . Since the dissolution of The Streets , Skinner stayed relatively active, sporadically releasing music as The Darker The Shadow The Brighter The Light , The D.O.T. Tonga Balloon Gang , and, simply, as Mike Skinner. I can still remember diving around in my car, as a 16/17-year-old with my "little" sister (then, about 12-13) listening to The Streets' "Fit But You Know It," both of us expertly rhyming along every word is terrible faux-Cockney accents. A few years back, when I first created my Spotify account,...

London -based music producer Mark Ronson simply has NO BOUNDS; we're talking about the fearless genre-blending visionary who single-handedly spearheaded Amy Winehouse & The Dap-Kings' 21st century Doo-Wop revival, or revamped "New-Wop" sound, produced Lily Allen 's early Reggae/Dancehall -indebted hits, and has since worked with everyone from Duran Duran to Billy Joel -sampling Rap -singer Action Bronson . Ronson's own New-Wop -indebted Uptown Special is quite easily one of the year's greatest mainstream success stories and arguably, an "underground sleeper," due in part to the assistance of Tame Impala frontman Kevin Parker and Miike Snow multi-instrumentalist Andrew Wyatt . Mark Ronson recently decided to re-team with buddies Parker and Wyatt for the first time since recording Uptown Special , along with guitarist Kirin J. Callinan and Jay Bratten on Moog synthesizer, to record a live in-studio cover of Queens of The Stone Age ...

"With bluesy organs, descending basslines, and one of the slowest, hardest-swaggering beats we've heard in a good while, "Everyday" calls upon [Rod] Stewart 's classic number "In a Broken Dream," re-contextualizing it as a tale of modern ennui (read: boredom )," as okayplayer effectively describes A$AP Rocky 's latest At.Long.Last.A$AP (ALLA) single, "Everyday;" recorded with a very unlikely cast of magnificent characters... Rod Stewart , Miguel, "Uptown Funk" super-producer Mark Ronson , and co-producer Emile Haynie. When it comes to ridiculous left-field collaborations, "Everyday" falls somewhere in between The Fat Boys' utterly awesome Beach Boys -backed "Wipe Out" and Kid Cudi 's surprisingly smooth Michael Bolton & King Chip -assisted "Afterwards (Bring Yo' Friends)." Ronson ingeniously managed to convince R&B crooner Miguel to passionately sing: "Everyd...

"It's really druggy, ambient sh*t... I think people are gonna be intrigued by it because it's actually good," A$AP Rocky told MTV News about his debut instrumental Hip-Hop album, which was then rumored for a Summer 2013 FREE-release. "The name of it is Beauty [N] The Beast: Slowed Down Sessions, Chapter 1 . And it's because everything is like classical beautiful music and boom-bap Wu-Tang sh*t mixed together," he continued. Rocky unleashed the album's first track, "Riot Rave" late Monday night, nearly nine months after it's initial announcement. Internet meme-phenom Baauer helped co-produce the track alongside A$AP Rocky , who previously self-produced "Fashion Killa" from his own LONGLIVEA$AP album; directors Kostas Seremitis, Danilo Parra , and A$AP Rocky unveiled a 3-panel split-screen guerrilla-style "art video" that supposedly features "real life rioting" in accompaniment with "Riot Rave...

"It's taken five records to make one that sounds the way we do on-stage," lamented White Denim frontman James Petralli , who recorded a 6-track Portastudio -assisted covers album on-the-fly last April... "We wheeled-in a bunch of crazy 50's gear and played from noon until 2am every day until the album was done." Downtown Records plans to unleash Corsicana Lemonade , which was jointly produced by Jeff Tweedy, Tom Schick , and local Austin maestro Jim Vollentine , this upcoming October 29th. White Denim could more or less be likened to a slightly more Indie Rock -minded, Funk -infused version of The Black Keys or something along the lines of Squeeze , Big Star, and Rick Derringer . Aside from a nifty little Corsicana Lemonade album teaser clip, "Pretty Green" is a blistering Rock "N" Roll romper, despite it's semi-questionable title. This marks the first time during White Denim 's 7-year career that they've worked...

"It's one of our favourite songs ever, I think," Tame Impala frontman Kevin Parker lamented before launching into a pretty spot-on cover of OutKast 's "Prototype" from André 3000 's 1/2 of Speakerboxxx/The Love Below (2003). Guitar/keyboardist Nick "Paisley Adams" Allbrook effectively handles André 3000 's echoing double-tracked vocals, crooning: "Today must be my lucky day... Do something outta the ordinary, like catch a matinee, baby." Tame Impala's 5-piece touring band -- which also includes Jay "Gumby" Watson, Dominic Simper , and Julien Barbagallo -- really do one Hell of a job @ channeling OutKast 's psuedo-70's Soul-Funk vibe that's smoothly spread across the original. The band's spirited cover was essentially recorded, tracked, and broadcast on-the-fly during a recent stop by hometown [Australian] radio station, Triple J for their infamous Like a Version segment. Tame Impala EP ...