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Live Review: Black Moon, featuring Killawatt Crew, Wednesday, May 18, 2011, Bar None, Vancouver, B.C.

May 19th, 2011 Filed under: Reviews - Live by Editor in Chief

Live Review – Black Moon, featuring Killawatt Crew
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Bar None, Vancouver, B.C.

Old School VanCity heads are still scratching their temples as to the reason why so many Golden Era artists are being booked in Yaletown (which for those not from Raincity represents the worst manifestation of nouveau riche condoland), when in previous years the same acts would have filled the Commodore Ballroom to capacity.

While Fortune Sound Lounge represents the best of what Vancouver nightlife has to offer the Hip Hop culture, it’s a mystery why the legendary Black Moon weren’t booked there. A pretentiously dark and awkward venue at the best of times, with decent sound combined with downtown attitude, Bar None is not exactly the kind of joint that attracts the devoted Hip Hop head. That being said, a near capacity crowd showed up to give respect to Buckshot and Evil Dee, who came a long way from Bucktown to deliver the goods.

VanCity’s finest, Red 1, accompanied by Killawatt soldiers Heatwave and Joose had the pleasure of rocking a receptive crowd on a trip through memory lane with classic tracks like “Northern Touch” and “Dreaded Fist ” as well as newer joints from Red 1′s very solid Beg For Nothing album. Plenty of new tracks, some never before performed and one featuring a cameo by Method Man, had the audience in a Caribbean-flavored Boom Bap groove, and Red’s onstage showmanship shone through, his stadium status, charisma and awesome mic skills impressing all. Heatwave’s high-octane flow kept the party jumping, while Joose’s everyman storytelling flow clearly caught the ears of the lyrical heads, as well as his laid back stage persona. Combined together, the three are a rap Voltron, the sum becoming greater than the parts, when even individually all are awesome. Once again, the Killawatt soldiers are an act that VanCity can proudly call its own, and one of the best units in the country.

It wasn’t long before Evil D’s tremendous form took the stage, spinning a fine selection of Golden Era classics, from Gang Starr to BDP, and without much further ado, Buckshot was on the mic frantically spitting the opening bars of “Who Got Da Props?”. The BDI Thug is, in fact, so diminutive in stature that on Bar None’s low stage he could barely be seen except at stage front. His energy however, is that of a giant, and his renowned breath control and adrenalized delivery are undiminished, a bright reflection of an era recently passed when MC’s were held to a higher lyrical standard. The requisite hits “Buck Em Down”, “I Got Cha Opin” and “How Many MC’s” elicited wild crowd response, as well as newer tracks from Buckshot’s more recent 9th Wonder produced project “The Formula”. A raspy and blunted voice that has become a staple of Golden Era raps, Buckshot has aged well into a graceful and charismatic performer.

All things aside this was a great show, but it begs the question as to what is going on in the musical landscape of Vancouver. Is Hip Hop just another semi-exotic import in this town, brought in for the delectation of the young, rich and shallow? Or is it still a thriving culture whose representatives continue to live a life guided by the core elements. As for Hip Hop, it don’t stop, and the only people who say it’s dead are the people trying to kill it.

www.flickr.com

ABORT MAGAZINE’s BLACK MOON w/Killawatt Crew photoset

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Copyright © 2004-2011 ABORT Magazine. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction of this publication, in whole or in part, in any form or medium without express written permission from Abort Media Publishing Corporation (AMP Corp.) is prohibited. All use is subject to our Terms of Use.

myspace.com/buckshot
duckdown.com
killawattrecords.ca

By Dave “Corvid” McCallum

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Live Review: Gift of Gab w/ Run with the Heard – May 4th 2011, Bar None, Vancouver B.C.

May 7th, 2011 Filed under: Reviews - Live by Editor in Chief

CLICK TO ENLARGE | Photos – Jamie Sands)
(Top: Gift of Gab, Bottom: Run with the Heard)

Live Review: Gift of Gab with Run with the Heard
Wednesday, May 4th, 2011
Bar None, Vancouver, B.C.

Vancouver is a very interesting city due to the fact that each of its very specific neighbourhoods has a particular flare that is present throughout the entire schematic. Whether its hipsters in Mount Pleasant, activists on The Drive, artists in Gastown or urban professionals in Yaletown, every area of the city is different. With this small amount of knowledge it was extremely surprising to slip in-between the overpriced boutique shops in Yaletown to check out the Run With The Heard/Gift of Gab hip hop show at Bar None this past week. Trying desperately to be a quaint hole in the wall, Bar None had only two things going for it on the night of the show – live hip hop and drunk patrons.

If you are not aware of the seven-piece Vancouver band Run With The Heard then you are missing out on one of Vancouver’s best kept secrets. Never identifying as a super group but literally being a group of super people, RWTH challenge everything there is to know about live stage production, musicals genres and the potential possibility of lyricist. Each of the members brings something interesting and perfect to their live show, which is always a good time dance party. Lasting just under an hour, their set ran the gambit of dance possibilities from dark and heavy, to ‘glitchy’, to straight up booty moving music. Playing songs like “Smash the Clock”, ”The Women I Want’ and their newest song ‘Ctrl+Atl+Delete’, their stage presence picked up the audience and murdered them outright with their submissive-sporadic dance movements. These kids know how to command a room and hopefully a full length album will follow shortly this year.

After a quick stage cleanup, Bar None’s stage played host to the visitor from the bay-area, one Timothy Parker; Perhaps much better known as the Legendary MC Gift of Gab. His lyrical resume sets a precedence to his stylings on stage where he is known for tongue-twisting rhymes that border from beautifully insane to almost unintelligible. It was hard to tell if the crowd was more excited about his solo work or just Blackicious classics but for this set his played both. Unfortunately his stage presence left something to be desired but he made up for in his eagerness to please vocally with a solid call and response from an engaged crowd. It is sometimes easy for rappers to become trapped within the live CD playing mode with just a DJ which unfortunately happened in moments during Gift of Gab’s set. As respite he played a bunch of new songs from his upcoming album (due out this summer) including a track called ‘El Gifto Magnificento’.

As a show closer Gift of Gab ended his word-bending set with the Blackalicious classic ‘Chemistry Calisthentics’ which showcases Gab’s wordsmith skills around chemistry vocabulary. With what he lacked in stage presence that evening, Gift of Gab makes up in his tenacious tongue and carefully crafted spoken lyricism.

With a beginning that got the body moving and an end that got the mind thinking, the RWTH/Gift of Gab show was a great spot to spend a few hours cashing in on some crucial rapping and stylings of some musical heros. Some local and some from a ‘far away land. This tiny hole in the wall bar in yuppie land really didn’t know what hit them.

Official Gift of Gab

By Fierce Kitty

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Live Review: DJ Premier w/ Flipout and J-Swing, Oct. 28th, Vancouver, B.C.

October 30th, 2010 Filed under: Reviews - Live, Shooting Gallery by Editor in Chief

(Photo) – Jamie Sands

Live Review – DJ Premier featuring Flipout and J-Swing
Thursday, Oct 28th, 2010
Bar None, Vancouver, BC

Given the still recent passing of the legendary Guru, and Premier’s comments in the latest issue of the Georgia Straight, expectations were definitely high as a capacity crowd filled Bar None early in the night. An overabundance of males (and Ed Hardy gear…) combined with Bar None’s somewhat inefficient use of space established a machismo heavy vibe early in the night – appropriate perhaps for the Boom Bap to come, but ironic in that this was a new generation of mostly white suburban twenty-somethings more accustomed to the neo-pop stylings of the Beat 94.5 than the Golden Era blueprints laid down by the one and only DJ Premier.

Perhaps this is just a mirror of the late 90′s reality, where Hardcore Hip Hop crossed over into the mainstream, thanks largely to just such a demographic, and while privileged kids may not identify with the origins of the music, they are just as dedicated to the experience of vicarious danger and to mimicking fashions already out of date in the ‘hood.

As the hosts of the evening, resident DJ’s Flipout and J-Swing dropped a reasonable assortment of current top 40 hits mixed with Golden Era beats, specializing in clever mashups to elicit that knowing wink, J-Swing’s skills in beat juggling and cross-fader scratching pushed the envelope and lifted the crowd to higher levels.

As for the man of the hour, Premo took residence at the ones and twos, the audience knew they were in the presence of a foundational keystone in the edifice of Hip Hop, for beyond his timeless work with Guru in Gangstarr, Premier has also provided soundscapes for popstars such as Christina Aguilera, and beats for everyone from Jay-Z to DMX in his career. As one of the foremost exponents of the art of sample-based music, Premier has literally paved the way for all other beatmakers to come – both those who have followed the cut-and-paste path of the sampler, and those who have moved beyond it due to the legal repurcussions that have followed in the wake of the 90′s.

Exhibiting skills worthy of the name, Premier dropped a selection of Gang Starr classics, as well as some tasty samples of his forthcoming Year Round Records project and the soon to be released “Get Used To Us” collection, featuring the finest MC’s from the New and Old School. DJ Premier is definitely a rarity in the post-millennial Hip Hop landscape – a tried and true proponent of Old School techniques who has managed to remain both current and cutting edge. The fact that such a young crowd not only respected, but literally paid reverence to the man and his legacy is testament to his guaranteed immortality in the canon of Hip Hop.

With the unseen presence of Guru dwelling omnipresent in the crowd as his recorded voice filled the room, a new generation gave tribute to one of the pillars of what is now a global culture.

myspace.com/djpremier

By Dave “Corvid” McCallum

VIEW OUR SHOOTING GALLERY OF DJ PREMIER

All Photos By Jamie Sands | jsandsphotography.com

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ABORT MAGAZINE’s DJ Premier: Live In Vancouver! photoset

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Copyright © 2004-2010 ABORT Magazine. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction of this publication, in whole or in part, in any form or medium without express written permission from Abort Media Publishing Corporation (AMP Corp.) is prohibited. All use is subject to our Terms of Use.

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Live Review: Smif N Wessun w/ guests – August 12th, 2010, Vancouver

August 13th, 2010 Filed under: Reviews - Live by Editor in Chief

(Photo - Chris McKibbin)

Live Review – Smif N Wessun, featuring Sketch Bros, w/DJ’s Jay Swing & Flipout
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Bar None, Vancouver, B.C.

Since the demise of Richards on Richards, Vancouver’s nascent Hip Hop scene has been seriously struggling with the available live venues. One solution to this problem has been to attempt to graft performances from returning 90′s Golden Era artists onto the typical VanCity club night, often in upscale nightspots better suited to the local predilection for outdated House music and syrupy Top 40 tracks. Located in the “heart” of Yaletown, one of VanCity’s yuppiest ‘hoods, Bar None aims for a “New York style” club environment, and that may be, but this is no Brooklyn boozecan or even Manhattan tastemaker. What we are seeing here is the manifestation of all the Rap videos of the last five years come to life, where impossibly hot (and bitchy) waitresses bring table service to the Ed Hardy crowd behind crushed velvet ropes, and fashion casualties who could care less about Hip Hop wander in looking for underage girls to roofie. Sound quality, of course, being the last thing on the agenda, was atrocious, a muddy wash of indistinct bass and screeching treble swirling around a room clearly not designed for live performance.

Limitations aside, resident DJ’s Flipout and Jay Swing were solid on the decks, dropping a selection of club oriented Top 40 and Hip Hop mashups that gradually transformed into the Boom Bap sounds of 90′s NYC. With a wicked beat juggle of Dizzee Rascal’s “Pussyole” thrown in for good measure, Jay Swing proved that he can rock the decks with flair and skill. Opening duo Sketch Bros. took the stage with infectious energy and obvious hunger for the mic, but became rather underwhelming after a few tracks of synth heavy, simplistic Rap – good enough, just not mind-blowing.

As for the main event, despite a mix that could only be described as painful and hearing loss inducing, everyone’s favourite Brooklyn gun Rap duo repped Bucktown like it was still ’94, with a calm clarity and forcefulness belying the many years they’ve spent on the mic. Tearing into classic tracks like “My Timbz Do Work” and “Gunn Rap” from 2005′s “Reloaded” and sounding like they haven’t aged a day, Tek and Steele worked an awkward crowd into a frenzy of pumping fists and shout-out choruses. Old School classic “Sound Bwoy Bureill” elicited wilder reactions, and the requisite hit “Bucktown” had half of the crowd mouthing most of the words along. Treated to a workshop in Old School crowd control, VanCity heads could not help but respond to the liquid flows spilling from the mics of Brooklyn’s Finest, a never-ending barrage of gun talk, braggadocio, and swagger based not on “stuntin’”, but on staying strapped.

Tek and Steele, as well as the entire Boot Camp Clik of which they are a part, have remained decidedly faithful to the Hardcore aesthetic that defines them, with very few tracks in their sixteen plus year career diverging from the darker side of life and it’s expression. In a Hip Hop landscape awash in Pop Rap, Club Rap and every other form of diluted hybrid, it seems incredibly important that a vital current of Hardcore still remains beating in the concrete heart of Brooklyn. Even in the tepid environment of a Vancouver nightclub, Smif N Wessun’s music has the power to bring out the Hardcore element in the crowd – not to promote violence, but self-awareness and a refusal to conform. Resonant with Jamaican patois and Five Percent terminology, their lyrics penetrate the membrane on a deeper level, and express the perceptions of the enlightened warrior poet in a world of Philistines.

Smif N Wessun’s upcoming Pete Rock collaboration “Monumental” drops September, and one can expect nothing but the real Hip Hop from one of the rare groups still keeping it true in 2010. Big ups to Duck Down records on their 15th anniversary, still one of the freshest and most diverse Hip Hop labels around and repping a lineup of true living legends from Boot Camp to KRS-ONE to Pharoahe Monch.

myspace.com/smifnwessun

duckdown.com

By Dave “Corvid” McCallum

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