The Witzard

First Place = C.F. Meister While its single art runs with the same overall stylistic theme as The National 's High Violet (2010) Era, "Exile, Vilify" is in fact featured within Portal 2 's [video game] soundtrack. First released along with a Viral Trailer back in April, the track's popularity has been steadily growing/picking up steam ever since. To commemorate Portal 2's massive success, Valve Software [game developers] set up a contest to track down the best fan-made music video for "Exile, Vilify." As the "Portal 2 Music Video Contest" deadline quickly approached, Team Valve was having a hard time deciding on a winner; managing to whittle the 320+ fan entries down to 2 uniquely different music video submissions, the delicate task was passed off to The National band members. Both close winning teams will receive nearly identical prize packages... The only differentiation being custom guitar/messenger bags. The contest site ...

To paraphrase one Willard Christopher "Will" Smith , Jr: Mike Taylor hails from " West Philadelphia born and raised... [where he enjoyed] chillin' out, maxin', relaxing all cool, and all shooting some b-ball outside of the school." A Pop -tinged singer-rapper, Mike Taylor is currently signed to Epic/Sony Records and was FKA: "Tu Phace." Frequent collaborators and Philly Area friends include: Black Thought/Dice Raw (The Roots) , Ricky Radio , Gilbere Forte' , Ritz Reynolds, The Disco Biscuits , Peedi Peedi [Crakk] , and former crew - Subliminal Orphans . If you're ever in Philly, stop by Silk City @ 5th & Spring Garden and say "What's up, Mike!?" as Taylor host a weekly dance party dubbed, "Mo Money, No Problems" ...with DJ Sammy Slice & DJ Cool Hand Luke every Thurs. night. I was able to learn a little more about "Otis (Part 2)" and its video's creation, through a short email ...

Christopher Owens and Chet "JR" White really are a couple of Girls ; No, that's not a sly, back-handed dig... It's the name of their Indie Rock/Pop band. Owens and White are currently on a mini-promotional jaunt for their upcoming sophomore album, Father, Son, Holy Ghost ("Record 3") . Here, they're in fact joined for the first time by new add-on members, Darren Weiss (drums) and John Anderson (guitar). "Vomit" is the debut single from the collection, which will be released in Europe and US on Sept. 12-13th. After being released for free download last week @ the cost of $1 email, Girls liberated the accompanying "promo music video" yesterday to the Inter-web. Essentially, 3/4 of the nearly 7-minute long track pans across the inner and exterior elements of a 1966 [Ford] Mustang . The convertible cherry red gem is aimlessly driven around town by [ Christopher Owens ] with the Elvis Costello/The Cure -reminiscent "Vomi...

Das Racist - "Michael Jackson" "Below, is a track-by-track commentary on Kanye's [ My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy ]. I wrote it on my Blackberry on an airplane 32,000 feet in the air, while listening to the album in its entirety for the first time. Kanye West is the most important rapper of the last 10 years and the most important rapper/producer of all of Hip-Hop.... 1.) "Dark Fantasy" Nicki Minaj's English accent is pretty bad. This is the 2nd most anthemic song on an album of anthems. Subtle anthemic swag. Trumpets. Pianos. Beat is dripping 90's Rap. Songs from the "Runaway" video now can't escape its imagery - which I think is dope. 'bravery in bravado'. Headless horseman motif - here Kanye and oral sex, there convertibles and Pusha T. Celine Dion is ugly. "The plan was to drink until the pain over / But what's worse, the pain or the hangover" - the stuff 90's aol personal profile favorite quotes...

Mark Hoppus @ Google+ challenged tech-savvy fans to "Command the A" Thursday evening [August 4th]; The linked URL, heartsallgone.com, was then essentially shut down nearly 24 hours later. While live and active, the micro-site featured a simplistic black-and-white rendering of Blink-182 's Popular "smiley face" logo (2003) strewn across a stalk white background. Once highlighted under the command of Ctrl+A , a download link and accompanying "invisible lyrics" text for a new album track, "Heart's All Gone" were simultaneously revealed. To reiterate, Blink-182 's first commercial effort in 8 long years [ Neighborhoods ] will become available for purchase world-wide this coming Sept. 27th!

Liberated yesterday by way of @oddfuture Records' Twitter, "Chevron" is a BRAND NEW track from Mike G. Showcased within is Hodgy Beats' premiere attempt @ the delicate Art of Production Technique. Separately well-known for their respective [ Screwed & Chopped ] remixing and rapping abilities... Mike G. and Hodgy Beats shine here for noticeably FRESH, unique attributes. It's nice to see a selection of the other 11 Odd Future members getting some shine, as well; Those interested in further listening(s), are stronly advised to also check out the various releases from Frank Ocean, MellowHype , and Earl Sweatshirt . Eager fans should be on the look out for "Award Tour EP," the follow-up to Mike G.'s ALI ... which in essence, was in fact the follow-up to Mike Check . This most recent EP will seemingly be the precursor to GOLD, Fire Red , and other aptly-named colored mixtapes/albums. Fat Possum's slightly re-mixed/mastered, altered, and u...