The Witzard

"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...

A C U R A (back in my bag) by ialive "I was feeling a little overwhelmed and burnt out with doing shows and being a wack promoter, so I decided to sit down at my funk machine and do a jam; this is the result. I did all of this in a few hours—beat, rhymes, record, and mix. It's all about the music and it always has been about the music. THANK YOU! kidDEAD and I leave for a short run of shows this Thursday," Philly beat-maker, emcee, Rap-singer /song-writer ialive wrote within a recent Facebook post. ialive is of course, one half of The Hell Hole Store with fellow rapper-producer buddy Darko The Super and his latest single, "A C U R A (back in my bag)" is his first since April 2016's The Jelly EP . ialive further details that he doesn't tour as much a some of his road dog friends, but steadily maintaining a 40-hour a week schedule at his day job, booking shows for his rapper friends throughout Philly , and upkeeping a somewhat regular existence,...

"I used to watch Run-D.M.C. videos on my grandmother's TV in South Philly; then, I had to hide Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg CD's from my parents when I was 10-years-old. I used to make Rap tapes on my dad's stereo system. I would record every episode of BET's Rap City in high school on VHS. In college, I started my first Rap group. After college, I started my own Indie Rap label. Today, my first album released on a record label is out. And I can't believe it!" Zilla Rocca ecstatically wrote within a Friday afternoon Facebook post. Friday, May 19th was the release day for the seasoned South Philly rapper-producer and remixer's major label "debut," Good Luck with That on Toronto-based Indie Hip-Hop label URBNET. Zilla recently formed Career Crooks with his long-time friend and partner-in-crime Small Professor (Small Pro) and ahead of Good Luck with That, they released two hard-as-nails pre-album collections: last year's Sin Will Find You: The C...

It appears as though BRAINFEEDER founder, Los Angeles multi-instrumentalist, Experimental Hip-Hop producer, DJ, villainous rapper, and film-maker Steven Ellison AKA Flying Lotus AKA Captain Murphy AKA Kuso director steve. has been doing an Ideas+drafts+loops -style purge of his old hard drives recently; Ellison has upload a staggering seven previously unreleased tracks to his Flyinglotus Soundcloud page just this past week! FlyLo first uploaded a remix of Angelo Badalamentii 's iconic "Twin Peaks Theme" and Queen -sampling "Night Grows Pale" this past Tuesday, May 16th. Then, came a whopping five tracks just one day later: Captain Murphy -helmed "Crowned," Miguel Atwood-Ferguson -assisted "LoveTrue Opening" and "LoveTrue Opening Alt1" from Alma Har'el 's 2016 Netflix film of the same name, and two mysterious left-overs from You're Dead! (2014) credited to THUNDERDETH LOTUS ... DETHKLOK -hashtagged ...

" Six Rocks is the first full-length from long-time collaborators GB and Yeofi (Gifted & Blessed // A Race of Angels,) known collectively as The Steoples ; with solo careers working across genres, this album stands as a statement and homecoming for the duo," read a brief, yet rather telling description attached to a recent TICKETFLY page for The Stoples' Saturday, May 13th show at Zebulon in LA . Stones Throw 's latest signee, The Steoples —consisting of singer-producer Gabriel Reyes-Whittaker and assumed multi-instrumentalist Yeofi Andoh —played their premier show along with label head and DJ Peanut Butter Wolf , DJ Rani de Leon, and DJ Sonny Abegaze . The Steoples' musical stylings have been previously described as " Electronic , Deep House, Downtempo , and Electro" by Discogs and tagged as " electronic , experimental & post-avant garde, healing & meditation , techno-indigenous studies, and los angeles " on GIFTED ...

"'Upwards Spiral" is a mind-power motivational song to encourage people to believe more in themselves using thought vibrations to raise emotions into a state of bliss; [while] "Lavender Lighting Lady" is a female goddess super-hero fantasy song about a woman with the super-powered ability to shoot lavender-colored lighting bolts from her fingertips! In the video, I wear a "LAVENDER MENACE" T-shirt as a shout-out to Women's [Liberation] and female empowerment, in general," Hammered Satin frontman Noah Wallace explained within a recent email. Hammered Satin make a genuinely unique brand of 1960-70's-evoking Rock "N" Roll they like fittingly to describe as, "GLITTER-ROCK" (Glammy, Crunchy, Punchy, Hooky Glitter Rock "N" Roll ) that I would personally, go as far to liken to a stylistic mix between 80's Hair Metal forefathers Mötley Crüe and Cinderella , Iggy & The Stooges, Rob Reiner -formed...

In the Pines by Dan Auerbach and Robert Finley / MURDER BALLADS " THE BALLAD OF FRANKLIN BONISTEEL acts as a prequel, of sorts, to MURDER BALLADS , the highly-anticipated Rock "N" Roll noir graphic novel about the music industry and redemption. The highly-anticipated graphic novel from Z2 Comics ... will be distributed at comic book stores and bookstores nation-wide and will be available digitally, via ComiXology . It is available now for pre-order," reads a recent press release for Murder Ballads and its accompanying prequel, The Ballad of Franklin Bonisteel ; the latter was available for FREE on a first-come-first-serve basis from participating comic book shops and bookstores nation-wide this past Saturday, May 6th, 16th annual Free Comic Book Day (FCBD). The Ballad of Franklin Bonisteel was made available by Z2 Comics and Easy Eye Sound on FCBD along with an exclusive download link to a new rendition of Lead Belly -popularized 1870's Folk song ...

"We love working with great directors, giving them the creative freedom to interpret our tracks as they wish. It leads to great collaborations, like this new video for "In Cold Blood" from Casper Balslev . As you are about to find out, a day in the life of a wood mouse can be unexpectedly dangerous... We hope you enjoy it," signed simply Gus, Joe & Thom . I'm of course, talking about Gus Unger-Hamilton , Joe Newman , and Thom Sonny Green of English Indie Rock buzz band alt-J , who were once a bit prematurely dubbed "the next Radiohead ," as the Indie Rock music-covering machine seems to do every 10 years or so. Since forming while attending Leeds University with since-departed fourth member Gwil Sainsbury , alt-J have released three EP's, two critically-acclaimed studio albums, and one live album recorded at Red Rocks ; on the heels of their wildly successful sophomore album, This Is All Yours (2014) alt-J are currently gearing up t...

Mannequin Eater by MANIK|NETER "Loud. Abrasive. Mental. Music; a four word preface into the sound of MANIK|NETER , the side-project of Carl Kavorkian . Bringing together the essence of various adrenaline-inducing genres, this Noise-Rap project is described as an evolving experiment in crushing drums, heavy sounds, manipulated vocals, and translucent streams of consciousness. Lyrically, putting less emphasis on "bars" and more concentration on stirring emotions and simply rocking the f*ck out. Live cats to the front, wall flowers to the back when MANIK|NETER hits the stage," reads a fragmented chunk of Philly -based emcee, producer, engineer, and DJ Carl Kavorkian 's recent email blast. MANIK|NETER (pronounced: "Mannequin-Eater" ) is the new Noise-Rap -leaning side-project from Kavorkian, who described his latest Mannequin Eater EP as sonically reminiscent of Sleep Beggar or Noise Lock ; "the intensity of all those artists and all the new m...

Here, ladies and germs, we have the next audio/visual chapter in the ever-evolving saga of Rhonda Garbanzo : Flo Rida, T-Pain & Motörhead -borrowing "Boots (with The Fur.)" Lest we forget, the last time we heard from our beloved strong female protagonist was within DJ Cummerbund 's Foo Fighters -approved "Freaktender;" an expertly-executed mash-up artfully blending Foo Fighters' "The Pretender," Rick James' 1981 Disco-Funk smash hit "Super Freak," The Beach Boys' "Help Me, Rhonda," and Led Zeppelin , for good measure. Since "Freaktender" and prior to the infectious Urban R&B and Heavy Metal -blending concoction that is "Boots (with The Fur,)" DJ Cummerbund has unleashed Evanescence & Celine Dion -juxtaposing "Bring Me My Heart," Nickelback , Sixpence None The Richer, Ying Yang Twins , Dragonforce, and Lil Jon -featuring "FreckleFeet" (the sequel to "P...

Damn Jackals frontman and guitarist Beau Croxton explained that Myspace-premiered "Freezing Blues" is about "the type of cold, loneliness that reduces the heart to burning carnage and leaves the subject so crippled with emptiness and anger that he is rendered utterly unrecognizable." Croxton formed Punk/Glam Rock -inspired Damn Jackals along with friend and producer Mike Goehler over the summer of 2014 and before long, the two aspiring musicians converted his upstate New York home into a no-frills DIY recording studio soon dubbed "The Crooked Castle;" by 2015, Beau Croxton & Mike Goehler had already recruited guitarist Willie Mosto , keyboard and guitar player Paul Truitt , bassist Forrest Hackenbrock , and drummer James Esposito —effectively transforming the 2-piece collaboration into a fully-formed 5-piece band, plus an in-house producer, based out of Brooklyn . Damn Jackals additionally includes a 3-piece horn section made up of touring ...

I recently heard about rapper-producer Drew Scott after fellow Baltimore beat-maker John "Jumbled" Bachman shared his latest single from then-unreleased ILL VESSEL, Hemlock Ernst, Eze Jackson & 83cutlass-featuring "Porcelain." I immediately reached out to Drew Scott, simply on the strength of "Porcelain," and we quickly began emailing back and forth. Before too long, he sent me a pre-release copy of said album, ILL VESSEL along with this fitting, extremely descriptive statement: "So, it's kind of a solo album/collaborative project I've been working on for about three years in-between the last BLACKSAGE album and Luvadocious with Al Rogers, Jr. Predominantly Baltimore artists, aside from PT Burnem (Richmond, VA,) Mike East (Rhode Island,) and Jaws That Bite (Detroit.) I did almost all of the beats, aside from contributions from Berlin-based producer Owen Ross , the Jumbled-produced track, the Mike East-produced track, and collaborating wi...