The Witzard

Discogs simply describes JAY-Z, The Ultimate Warriors ‎– Split 12-inch as: "a JAY-Z 12-inch single glued to The Ultimate Warrior's Our Gimmick Is Wrestling LP. Limited to 30 copies for Record Store Day 2017 at Double Decker Records. Some copies have orange "IMPORT" sticker on the front. Some copies have the the A-side of Our Gimmick Is Wrestling LP playable and some have the B-side." The Ultimate Warriors were a Nazareth-based Wrestling-themed Hardcore/Powerviolence band active from about 1998-2003, which notoriously heralded as a pre-Pissed Jeans incarnation of Pissed Jeans; featuring Matt "Rageez" Kosloff (Korvette,) Brad "The Mothaf**ka" Real (Fry,) and Little Randy Youth (Huth,) as well as additional members who went on to form Pearls & Brass, The Gate Crashers, and Torchbearer. Throughout their short, yet sweet tenure, The Ultimate Warriors unleashed seven singles and split EP's with the likes of Abathakothie, Warrior Noise, Da...

Dan's House by Shark Tank " Shark Tank is my group with Lord Grunge and B.Rich . Lord Grunge represents the legendary Pittsburgh duo, Grand Buffet . B.Rich is an emcee with a side-career as a Canadian -centric YouTube star (see Out for a Rip. ) Mickey Free is the Jarobi White of the group," Height Keech wrote within a recent email concerning his Hip-Hop crew, Shark Tank . Their fourth studio album, Dan's House was recently announced and is scheduled to drop on Height 's own Cold Rhymes Records this upcoming July 17th. Dan's House was entirely produced by Height (Dan) Keech and is his first time producing a whole project, outside of his solo material. I was lucky enough to speak with Height and publish an interview breaking down his phenomenal solo album, MIND MOVES THE MOUNTAIN , released just a few months ago; he mentioned a new Shark Tank album within our conversation, but even I didn't realize it would be released so soon! " Dan...

"Bite It" b/w "Bocho's Groove" 7" Single by The Du-Rites "The inspiration was mostly the good reception that the first album [The Du-Rites] had and sonically, the reference plan for have something consistent with our sound, but further enough from it to not sound repetitive [compared to the first album]. As for the single for Greasy Listening , as a whole, the main inspiration was the four months we had to wait to get the single back from the [pressing] plant," The Du-Rites' guitar/bass guitar/synthesizer/ Fender Rhodes player Pablo Martin wrote within a recent emailed statement. "Sonically, it's dirtier and in general, it sounds like a smaller ensemble. Philosophically, it has to do with the transition of Jay moving on from the crap you have to deal [with being] an emcee and a Hip-Hop producer with the crap you have to deal with being a gigging drummer/musician and me having a good laugh, while witnessing that. The single is...

Make no mistake, party people—'round these parts, one-time Canadian Poet Laureate and former Pitchfork staff writer Roland (Rollie) "Cadence Weapon" Pemberton is often regarded as one of the finest, funnest, and most-talented emcees in all of the land; just think, an extremely more talented, painfully under-rated, waaaayyy less corny, lyrically verbose version of Canadian export Drake . Cadence Weapon recently re-emerged from a self-imposed nearly 5-year-long sabbatical from the music industry following his critically-acclaimed 2012 album. Hope In Dirt City , as well as a brief period wherein he appeared to be going by simply "Rollie." A re-weaponized and tactfully word-sharpened Cadence Weapon triumphantly returned to the spotlight not long after the top of the year with KAYTRANADA -produced "My Crew (Woooo)" and not long after, seemingly only Spotify Canada -released "Connor McDavid" (which soon pooped up on his Soundcloud. ) Whi...

Felipe Pupo by E. Grizzly " E. Grizzly is a progressive Hip-Hop artist from Philadelphia, PA specializing in a philosophical, poetic flow similar to Mos Def , Kendrick Lamar, Anderson.Paak , and Zach de la Rocha. The point of E. Grizzly 's brand of music is to share new perspectives and challenge social standards accepted by the majority of society," reads the intro to E. Grizzly 's press BIO fittingly titled, The Synth Calypso Punk Experiment . Now, many of you may recognize Erik "E." Grizzly 's name from a few recent posts published right here within the pages of The Witzard : he designed an impressive zombified Breakfast Club show flyer for The Punk Rap Show held on May 6th, which I used as artwork for a recent MANIK|NETER EP write-up (as well as my lock screen background!) E. Grizzly was also included within a photo of what's very recently been dubbed the "Philly Squad," which includes—in addition to Grizzly himself— Darko Th...

"#ItWas50YearsAgoToday This LP was always in my dad's collection (Dad was a vocalist who LOVED Pop . Yeah, he looked like a member of the #BlackPanthers. Ran the house like he was #JamesEvans . But his go-to zone was some of the best dentist office music ever—feed your kids equal [Barbra Streisand] #StoneyEnd & [Rufus] #Rufusized & see what happens? lol)—I ignored #SgtPeppers because I never liked the 60's @capitolrecords logo (see how everyone is going #FigitSpinner mad? My version of that was taking records out the sleeve, & spinning them on my finger watchin' the logo rotate. Seriously, I was obsessed with all spinning rotating objects—hence, my record obsession)—If the logo was dope? I'd give the record a chance. I'd love to revision a story of singing "Within You Without You" in my 2nd grade class—but the truth is, it didn't hit me 'til 22 years AFTER its release. Sgt. Pepper's was the 4th CD I ever purchased for my...

"I've always been big fan of Metric . Their lyrics are always so impactful and their music delivers so much genuine emotion, from sadness to elation and all the complications in between. What struck me the most about "Other Side" was the beauty of the lyrics and the vocal melody. Those were the two elements I tried to be faithful to in my cover; although, I ended up giving the melody a bit of my own flavor when I sang it," film and television composer, multi-instrumentalist, artist, and illustrator Silas Hite wrote within a recent email. He's of course, referring to his recent cover of Metric 's "Other Side" from their 2015 album, Pagans In Vegas —founding members Emily Haines and Jason Shaw recently re-joined forces with with their long-standing Toronto -based musical collective, Broken Social Scene , to prep their first proper album in some seven years, Hug of Thunder . Silas Hite did the vocals, guitar, bass, drums, and keys himself...