In the months prior to SXSW 2008, Jona Bechtolt and Claire L. Evans (bka the Portland-based YACHT) lived in Marfa, where they recorded their forthcoming See Mystery Lights and tinkered away on a witty sleeve for the AirMac. With the group coming back to Austin this weekend, we had a good excuse to bug them about their time out West (and have a great excuse to get our heads blown Saturday by the deftest drum programming this side of Welcome To Our World). Here’s what Jona emailed us early this morning... [continue]

Angry, insular, and propelled by a stripped down Neptunes beat, “Virginia” is the only song on Clipse’s 2002 debut that approached the ferocity and grit of their hit “Grindin’.” Like pretty much all of their songs, “Virginia” is about drugs and posturing on the surface, but between the lines (no pun intended), Clipse depict struggles of class, race, and lifestyle. “Virginia” never topped any charts, but has long been the foundation of Clipse’s live show. This might hold true for the group’s Sunday set, or it very well could not. Rarely is a rap show as potentially telling.... [continue]

When Z-Trip released Uneasy Listening along with DJ P in 1999, a “blend” was still very much Stephanie Mills over “Impeach The President” - that is to say: DJs mixed acapellas and beats from rap, r+b, soul, and funk records at will. It was, and still is, a defining trait of a great hip-hop DJ. What Z-Trip brought to the table, though, was Pharcyde’s “Passin’ Me By” over Pat Benatar's “Love is a Battlefield.” ... [continue]

Ryan Adams has been opening shows lately with “Cobwebs” off the forthcoming Cardinology. At the Paramount on Monday night it did the trick. The drums were big, fat, main-stage, festival-closer drums, all tom-toms and bass. The only thing that ever really topped them was the song’s coda, when Adams and guitarist Neal Casal took the chorus out drinking. Opening with "Cobwebs" is pretty slick way of saying: The Cardinals are dead, long live the Cardinals. Particularly in this town, the name of Adams’s band for the last 4 years might always mean J.P. Bowersock and Cindy Cashdollar and the robust alt-country they introduced on 2005’s Cold Roses. Adams had flirted with a rich, full-band sound since leaving Whiskeytown, but the ’05 Cardinals were far and away the most genuine, novel, and complimentary he found.... [continue]

The AT&T Saturday line-up started as a MiniDisc playlist back in 1998. Back then, one artist was “weird” and one was weird, and one was cool and one was “cool”. And the Drive-By Truckers were big in Athens. They still are, but every year sees their thoroughbred country-rock oats get more and more tender and palatable (and popular) – 2008’s Brighter Than Creation’s Dark is their quietest album to date. But it’s like when a Clint Eastwood character goes to the barbershop – the cleaner sheen doesn’t change a band’s heart. ... [continue]

Back in 1994, when Common was Common Sense, a soulful underground Chicago rapper with a sinewy flow, he recorded “I Used To Love H.E.R.”, which remains perhaps his most widely cherished song. In four minutes, Common told the story of hip-hop’s trends and pratfalls to that point, glossing it over as a love story with a young woman. In turn, he added an undercard bout with Ice Cube to the day’s bi-coastal rap conflict, which should give some perspective to exactly how long ago ’94 was in hip hop. Since then, the story progressively enveloped the storyteller. Common hit the national scene in 2000, viewed as a tempering, traditionalist force in the face of the ascending Dirty South. He ran with the Roots when they were the emerging face of East Coast hip hop, and joined up with Kanye when he took those reins with College Dropout. ... [continue]

Z-Ro and Trae’s It Is What It Is contains none of the signifiers – marquee collaborations, cross-overs, shouted intros by popular DJs - that we come to expect from modern rap albums of a certain stature. Save one Nitti beat, the album’s producers would be tough to place for those who don’t obsess over Mr. Lee’s drum sounds. Imagine watching Monday Night Football next week without Joe Theisman, Suzy Kolber, the intro clips, the crowd noise, the dozens of camera angles, the replays, and the in-game graphics. You’d see a purer, though potentially less enthralling spectacle that depended on a matchup strong enough to carry you along without ESPN’s glossy signposts. Here recording as ABN (Assholes By Nature), Houston’s Z-Ro and Trae have always been outlaws of sorts, even while occasionally finding success within the rap mainstream.... [continue]

For a week this year, Nas had the number one album in the country, and of the thirty-or-so artists to hold that honor, he’s the only one who can’t perform his album in concert. At least not in its entirety, or anything approaching that – grown men would cry, tickets would be refunded, riots could ensue. Such is the curse of rapping your best rhyme in your teens and releasing your best (and, very arguably, rap’s greatest) album two weeks after Kurt Cobain killed himself. A quick one-over of most any Nas review will tell you that everything since 1994’s Illmatic has been too bombastic or hackneyed or deliberate to ever approach that album’s enigmatic greatness. This is true. If Illmatic was essentially Greatest Hits Vol. 1, even the songs on the hypothetical second volume – “Rewind,” “The Message,” the best of the rest of his still impressive career – would pale to those ten tracks.... [continue]

We’ve always thought of Houston’s Devin The Dude in the same mode as DJ Quik, probably because we first heard him back in high school in California and the specific register of his nasally drawl, set against a Dre beat, reminded us a lot of Quik, who was killing it on local radio at the time. Though they’re pretty drastically different figures, Devin, like Quik, keys off of whatever-party-is-happening-at-that-exact-moment, and fleshes it out from there. ... [continue]

AustinSurreal’s Matt Sonzala continues his '08 rolling rap show with two big gigs over the next seven days. Despite the bevy of contacts he brings with him from Houston, Sonzala balances between the gimme shows (Bun-B a day after II Trill dropped) and freewheeling, throwing his clout behind acts that wouldn’t normally come to or draw a crowd in Austin, like the Palestinian rappers who played here in May. The first show – Saturday night at the Whiskey bar – is more the latter. Ice Mike is far from a household name in rap, but the New Orleans bounce sound that he helped to cement some 15 years ago has resonated in the mainstream since, from that platinum late 90’s Cash Money sound to the Baton Rouge scene that is just now hitting nationally. Largely, though, N.O. bounce remains a strictly regional sound, as no big names ever resurrected it to the same degree as Baltimore club.... [continue]

Sit at the bar with a Lucero fan and you’ll hear a lot about Ben Nichols, and rightly so. In the quiet war of big personalities under the alt-country big-tent, Nichols holds his own; as the Memphis band’s creative hub and lead singer, he’s more brash and less deliberately poetic than Tweedy, and he’s held closer to his punk rock roots than Ryan Adams. If any other big name comes close to Nichols, it’s Patterson Hood careening off the edge. Regardless, he plays in that league. But for a guy to garner such constant comparisons to The Boss, The Replacements, and all of the above – and to stick out from every other singer who mythologizes Darkness On The Edge of Town – he needs a band. Nichols’s crew pulls all sorts of weight, but their sound isn’t gussied up or overly technical or bursting with embellishments. Even more than Nichols’s grating growl, this is where the punk starts to show – the band just puts in work, shoulder-to-wheel, fast and loose, and the songs (and Nichols) benefit as a result. ... [continue]

Trae’s impeccable (and free!) Diary of the Truth mixtape opens with an Avril Lavigne sample, layered over some simple kick-cymbal action without any hint of irony: “I wake up in the morning, put on my face / The one that's gonna get me through another day / Doesn't really matter how I feel inside / 'Cause life is like a game sometimes.” Over the top, singer L-Boogie lilts in and out with chants like “Wake-up shorty.” Those who already know Trae will find the sample both amusing and extremely fitting. Improve the cadence a bit and you could easily slide those lyrics into one of the Houston rapper’s raspy verses. Effectively, this already happened countless times, because Avril’s lyrics approximate Trae’s own mantra. ... [continue]

I pulled into the Valero on North Lamar this weekend and the other two cars filling up were both playing Tha Carter III. One driver – a guy in his forties wearing Dockers and a button-down – waited by the pump to “Mrs. Officer”, while the other - my age in a raised black truck - blasted “A Milli.” I was listening to “La La.” It’s one thing to know that an album sold a million copies in its first week – it’s something else to hear it. And that one instance was icing on a long week of “A Milli” in West Campus and “Mr. Carter” on 6th, not to mention the long spring of “Lollipop” everywhere. There are songs you hear with this sort of inescapability – “Hustlin’”, “We Takin’ Over”, “Ridin’ Dirty.” But for an album to do it is rare, unless you’re Jay-Z or Kanye West. Or, now, Lil’ Wayne. ... [continue]

“I Can’t Go To Sleep,” off Wu-Tang Clan’s The W, is one of RZA’s least-produced songs, technically speaking. He simply loops the intro to Issac Hayes’s “Walk On By” a few times, making no attempt to mask the sample with a snare or keyboard stab of his own. Yet it is one of his best, the sort of production that they’ll play at his Kennedy Center Honors someday. The song works because of the success of the whole formula – the yearning sample, Ghostface’s extended opening verse, Hayes’s own guest-spot on the bridge, and then RZA’s closing remarks. The bare sample plays perfectly against Ghost and RZA’s choked-up pleas – another layer would be too heavy, and RZA no doubt knew this. Always more of a collagist than a pure creator of sound (like Dr. Dre or Timbaland), RZA’s understanding that A + the snare from B + Inspectah Deck = classic is what carried the Wu to prominence in the 90’s. His grasp of tone and sequence and balance is also why he is slowly and successfully transitioning out of beats 24/7 and into movie scores and acting and directing.... [continue]

I tried my best to avoid the leaks of II Trill, mostly because I knew I would buy it. If there's one rapper that deserves my 18 bucks at Cheap-O, it's Bun-B; and not just because he's been through hard times no man should have to know or because I feel like my cash in his pocket doesn't just = weed. No, I say that because I feel compelled to not steal his shit. I like and respect all sorts of rappers, but would I care if Jeezy came over to watch some Gossip Girl and a burned copy of The Inspiration was on my dresser? No. But if Bun came over for some C-Span and found "3_damn_im_cold_ft_lilweezy.mp3", I would be WAY embarrassed.... [continue]

In January, Mohammed Al-Farra traveled from Gaza to Park City, Utah, to help promote Slingshot Hip-Hop, a film about him and a number of other artists in the young but strong Palestinian rap scene. The other members of his group, called the Palestinian Rapperz or PR for short, were unable to leave Gaza to join him, and after Sundance, Al-Farra was - and still is - unable to return to Gaza because of the closed borders. Instead, he currently resides in the Dallas area. If Al-Farra’s story is any indication, his show tonight with fellow Palestinian group DAM has the sort of context, history, and implications that you won’t see for quite some time, rap show or otherwise. But you shouldn’t go to Scoot Inn tonight just because of the world these artists live in or Israel’s fast-approaching 60-year anniversary or Al-Farra’s forced status as an ex-pat. You should go because DAM and PR choose to respond to all of this through rap. ... [continue]

Last summer, T-Pain made it very profitable/cool to sing like a robot. Ever since, everybody seems to be trying their hand at it, or rather, using some sort of vocal modulation/autotune to emulate a sound that is both infectious and patently insincere. Lil’ Wayne’s hit single “Lollipop” is the most recent and notable instance of T-Pain’s influence, and it’s also the most dramatic deconstruction of that sound to date. T-Pain makes Windex’d, pristine pop music, songs you can check your hair in or snort drugs off of or, most importantly, cut into little squares and stick on a Styrofoam sphere to be hung in the middle of a dance floor. The vocal fx, the pedestrian lyrics, the chintzy beats - it’s all low-to-no risk, simple, easy, breezy, beautiful, Christie Brinkley.... [continue]

The Roots are playing at a college campus on Saturday, as hell freezes over, sarcastically. A bit rarer is a DJ set that night at Whiskey Bar by group leader Questlove, who typically plays for hours and shows more skill than most pros. Coloring far outside The Roots’ already modest boundaries, Quest grounds his sets in ebullience, humor, and wit. Though heavy debate seems to follow everything he touches, his occasional DJ gigs are roundly lauded; whether or not Questlove knows what’s best for [some rapper], he knows how to hold a room, dynamically, without turning the whole thing over to T-Pain et al. At two hours in, you’ll hear something like The Meters b/w DJ Quik and you’ll think “there is no song other than 'Pitch In On A Party’ that I wanted to hear right now.” Even if it’s not true, it will feel like it. ... [continue]

So my original guarantee - that every big rapper in the state would come to SXSW again - kind of didn’t pan out, though our city’s finest will be out in force (more on that later). Still, sans Lil’ Keke, Matt Sonzala’s rap line-up for the official events is particularly strong, bolstered by a handful of legends and all sorts of regional stars. Here are my picks from the official showcases in no particular order (except that Bun is first): Bun B (Houston) Mike Jones will be telling his great grandkids about Bun’s first Houston show after Pimp C’s death. Bun will pay tribute again tonight at Fuze (or, to be more exact, early morning on Thursday). You’re probably already planning on going.... [continue]

By absolutely no account besides my own, the best rap song to come out of Texas in the last year– and maybe more – is J-Dawg’s “Ride On 4’s.” It does not feature T-Pain nor is there an accompanying dance, where one would hypothetically use their appendages to mimic the act of driving around on large tires with almost equally large rims. It was the second of two singles on last year’s debut from Slim Thug’s group, the Boss Hogg Outlawz, a project that didn’t ever figure out how to market itself nationally and was eventually overshadowed by the marketing push for Slim Thug’s second solo album. For all of these reasons, you very well may have heard this song in the last six months, but it’s also not surprising if you did not.... [continue]