The Witzard

Honestly, it doesn't even feel like there's a proper way to elegize an eccentric and extremely talented artist such as MF DOOM, who meant so much to so many of us for so many years for so many different reasons as truly unique as DOOM himself. So, what better way to pay tribute to The Man, The Myth, THE MASK himself than by speaking to those closest to him? With a heavy heart, I proudly present Shadows of Tomorrow; a new recurring column in tribute to DOOM in an effort to re-tell the tall tales, strange stories, and lesser-known tidbits of The Metal Face Villain himself. R.I.P. Daniel "MF DOOM" Dumile Thompson. "This post is from DOOM's [wife], Jasmine. If Jas wrote it, it's legit. I'll tell some DOOM stories a bit later, for now, I need to process... Dude made me laugh and made me furious, almost got me fired and I STILL loved him. Rest In Power to one of the greatest to ever do it. Okay, here's a DOOM story or two: Daniel Dumile AKA MF DOOM...

CREDIT: Arturo Torres (@arturodraws) Honestly, it doesn't even feel like there's a proper way to elegize an eccentric and extremely talented artist such as MF DOOM, who meant so much to so many of us for so many years for so many different reasons as truly unique as DOOM himself. So, what better way to pay tribute to The Man, The Myth, THE MASK himself than by speaking to those closest to him? With a heavy heart, I proudly present Shadows of Tomorrow; a new recurring column in tribute to DOOM in an effort to re-tell the tall tales, strange stories, and lesser-known tidbits of The Metal Face Villain himself. R.I.P. Daniel "MF DOOM" Dumile Thompson. As tribute, Ron Gallo shares a remix of MF DOOM's "[GAZZILLION] EAR," along with this personal statement: "To date, I don't think an [artist's] death has hit me as much as MF DOOM and I did not expect that until it happened. That feels like the DOOM way—he's like a shadow lurking genius, a...

CREDIT: COSMO BAKER (@CosmoBaker) Honestly, it doesn't even feel like there's a proper way to elegize an eccentric and extremely talented artist such as MF DOOM, who meant so much to so many of us for so many years for so many different reasons as truly unique as DOOM himself. So, what better way to pay tribute to The Man, The Myth, THE MASK himself than by speaking to those closest to him? With a heavy heart, I proudly present Shadows of Tomorrow; a new recurring column in tribute to DOOM in an effort to re-tell the tall tales, strange stories, and lesser-known tidbits of The Metal Face Villain himself. R.I.P. Daniel "MF DOOM" Dumile Thompson. THE FIRST TIME I MET DOOM: It's weird telling this story about THE FIRST TIME I MET MF DOOM because I don't think I've ever spoken about it other than in-passing or word-of mouth, so sitting down to write about this, considering that he's gone, just has me all sorts of f**ked up. But just to get this G*ddamn...

Dan Ex Machina - "When to Shut Up" Music Video (CREDIT: Jackie Papanier) Dan Ex Machina (DXM) is the long-standing, ever-evolving Alternative/Indie Rock project of Cherry Hill, NJ-based musician Dan Weiss. DXM was active as a solo project since the early 2000's, but never officially released any music until early 2020 to properly release finished versions of albums conceived as far back as 16 years ago. For example, Dan Ex Machina's "2020" debut, the awesomely-titled Pity Party Animal, was originally written by Dan Weiss and a crew of musically-abled friends in 2004; years later, it was tracked, mixed, and mastered by Doug Gallo at AGL Sounds in New Brunswick, NJ between September and December 2017. DXM's "2020" follow-up Borat-referencing My Wife was originally written back in 2006 with additional recording, production, mixing, and mastering by Doug Gallo in 2017 at AGL Sounds. Bail Shag EP by Dan Ex Machina Last year, we spoke with DXM...

CREDIT: Hand-cut "EAST." Art By: John Bachman (@NapalmDef) Happy New Year to all of our trusty readers out there! Let's hope this year will be better than the last! Today, for our first post of 2021, we're back with new music from Vans_Westly & Jumbled. We've previously featured Vans' 2017 QUILLS EP produced by NelWayne & Drew Scott, which was followed up by Bubble Boy (2018) with beats from Scott & Height Keech and released on Cold Rhymes Records. Vans_Westly's latest release, an EP entitled Rapscallion, fully produced by friend of The Witzard, John Bachman AKA Jumbled. Rapscallion was, actually, released on November's bandcamp Friday last year with 50% of the profits raised going towards Bail Fund and 50% towards BARCS or as Vans himself put it, "100 percent goes to good sh*t!" Rapscallion by Vans_Westly Now, as 2021 has kick-started itself into gear, Vans_Westly has returned once more with a proper music video for Rapsc...

Earlier this month, we received a cold-sent email from Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Charles "Charlie" Iwuc. His latest musical outlet, Last Letters (truly a one-man band) bills themselves as "S A D P U N K S I N C E T H E N I N E T I E S" across their Bandcamp page. Following stints in a number of bands who played The Vans Warped Tour, as well as Beach Folk trio The Gulls, Iwuc first formed Last Letters during the spring of 2016. Charlie Iwuc shared Last Letters' debut EP, Nothing to Write Home About, via Old Sports Records, the following fall. He's since written, recorded, and self-released a variety of one-off singles and would-be festive favorites across Last Letters' ever-evolving Bandcamp page. Just this year, Iwuc has quiety released Last Letters singles "Westbound Sign," "Stuck On You," "No Action," an Alternate Version of "Stuck On You," and, most recently, "...

Aside from The Clash and despite what Spotify thought (Rockabye Baby! was my "TOP ARTIST") I think, it's pretty safe to say Liberty & Justice were amongst my Favorite Artists of 2020. They self-released a series of singles and charasmatic covers—which largely seem to now be absent—on their Bandcamp page, as well as a phenomenal EP entitled MY AMERICA. We very much enjoyed their pandemic cover of Robyn's "Dacing On My Own" and it's accompanying socially-distant remotely-recorded music video and were fortunate enough to host a premiere of Liberty & Justice's video for their Green Day cover of "Jason Andrew Relva (J.A.R.)" Frontman Ryan "Crowns" Taylor even curated an installment of our recurring column, With The Quickness entitled Telephone Road Street Essentials, Vol. 1 featuring Skinhead, Street Punk & Oi! stand-outs. All the while, we've been hearing rumblings about Liberty & Justice's For All follow-...