Show Review: Chiddy Bang & Kingsfoil

On November 13, I got to see a blog-hyped artist that actually was everything they were cracked up to be. Philly's own Chiddy Bang-former Drexel students Chidera "Chiddy" Anamege and Noah "Xaphoon Jones" Beresin-have been pumping out tracks sampling MGMT, Passion Pit, Ellie Goulding, and a bunch of other names likely to be found on this blog and elsewhere, eventually getting signed by a major label after exposure on Pretty Much Amazing.

Live, Chiddy raps and Xaph plays a drum kit (which they ask the venue to provide, evidently). They did a set of old and new material, focusing heavily on the recently released EP The Preview, the only collection of Chiddy Bang material actually for sale. The others, mixtapes The Swelly Express and Air Swell, are available for free download [hint: click the titles]. "Pass Out", from the latter tape, was definitely a crowd favorite, probably because of the number of students who have spent time in England for study abroad and love Tinie Tempah. Lead single "Opposite of Adults", which samples MGMT's "Kids", got the biggest reaction, as expected. Interaction between songs was generally limited to the usual hip-hop hype-man antics, with the exception of an impressive freestyle method involving writing ideas from the crowd on paper plates and then handing them to Chiddy one after the other as he goes in.

Local stalwarts Kingsfoil opened after SAB agonized for weeks over the choice and ended up too late to do anything more in-genre (like my suggestions Brite Futures or B.Reith). They remind me for some reason of a cross between Bon Jovi and Switchfoot. The Swinging Bridge got an interview with them here (Chiddy said no interviews).

There was some controversy after the show, as memebers of Chiddy's entourage were racially profiled by local police and accused of smoking marijuana. No proof was found, but their car was impounded and the whole crew had to come back the next day to pick it up and pay a fine for smoking tobacco in a non-smoking area (i.e. Messiah campus). SAB's explanation (and lead-up article in the Bridge) can be found here.

Merry Christmas: The Best Dance Tracks of 2010

My criteria: I must have actually played this out at least once this year and it must have come out this year. Other than that it is purely subjective.

Originals:
1. Magic - B.O.B. featuring Rivers Cuomo
I've been following B.O.B. ever since I heard his dark, Beatles-sampling club anthem "Lonely People" a couple years ago, so when he not only blew up but dropped a single this addictive featuring Rivers Cuomo of Weezer, I lost my mind.

2. All I Do Is Win - DJ Khaled featuring Ludacris, Rick Ross, Snoop Dogg, and T-Pain
My love of T-Pain overcame my hatred of Khaled on this one, helped along by an insane Luda verse and a way-too-easy pause right before the hook to build dancefloor anticipation. Rick Ross keeps pace on his big year, and Snoop builds on his new strategy of dropping great albums no one listens to while keeping in the spotlight with throwaway guest verses.

3. F*** You - Cee-Lo Green
Watching the eccentric Cee-Lo come into his own over the years with Goodie Mob and Gnarls Barkley has been fun, and Motown-inspired production and a catchy Bruno Mars-penned hook provide the perfect counterpoint to his vocal. Post-breakup sendoffs should not sound this epic.

4. Blah Blah Blah - Ke$ha feat. 3oh!3
The two most-annoying-to-type artists in America convinced me with their domination of dancefloors in the UK. My Warped-Tour-kids-who-party friends put me up on 3oh!3 back in the day, and I've bumped every Benny Blanco beat since Bangers & Cash. Plus, it's interesting hearing hip-hop's overt gender roles flipped for once.

5. W.T.P. - Eminem
The concession to old Eminem on the recovered Eminem's album, this song is an anthem that will unfortunately never be a hit. Lines like "if your bellybutton's not an innie then I'm outtie" remind us why we liked Eminem in the first place while we warm up for what is sure to be an epic white trash party.

Remixes:

1. Forever [Nero Remix] - Drake featuring Eminem, Kanye West, and Lil' Wayne
One of the definitive posse cuts gets the dubstep-lite treatment, switching up the order to get Em's return to form in earlier. The only way this could have been better is the inclusion of Kardinal's verse from the original mixtape version. It does manage to squeeze in the ubiquitous Degrassi star, the most infamous tweeter, and everyone's favorite recently released convict.

2. Bottoms Up [Emynd Atlanta Bass Remix] - Trey Songz featuring Nicki Minaj
Gotta get Nicki in here somewhere, and where better than on a party anthem that needed a bump up in tempo. Trey has had a big year (notice him farther down) and I always love Emynd's work; I spent my 21st birthday at his monthly The Bounce putting a few too many bottoms up. Trey & Nicki "Bottoms Up (Emynd Atlanta Bass Remix)" by Emynd

3. Last Night [Kolstrom Remix] - Peter Bjorn and John
A kid I met in Paris who was also spending a semester abroad in England picked up more than just a taste of dubstep; he got the skills for it too. Whenever I want explain dubstep to someone, I play Caspa, Rusko, Flying Lotus, Skream, and this. It helps out that almost no one has heard it, so they're all shocked when the huge drop comes in on an otherwise mellow PB&J track.
Peter Bjorn and John - Last Night (Kolstrom Remix) by kolstrom
4. Dancing with the DJ [Chiddy Bang Remix] - The Knocks
I came across this prepping for the KNO Clothing launch party, and I love the indie disco feel of the O.G. Knocks track, Chiddy, and his take on it. Chiddy has been everywhere this year (including a show at Messiah), with spot on production and remixing by Xaphoon Jones. I'd love to include "Pass Out" but I haven't dropped it live yet so it doesn't fit the criteria.
Chiddy Bang - Dancing With The DJ (Remix) f/ The Knocks by Pretty Much Amazing
5. Say Ah [Emynd Edit featuring Reef the Lost Cauze] - Trey Songz
Trey again, this time with my favorite underground rapper, Reef the Lost Cauze, courtesy of Emynd (again). This song was just a bit too catchy, got overplayed, and then the opportunity to showcase some local Philly talent let me bring it back into sets. Emynd does a great job cleaning it up, at least compared to the version on Reef's recent Raiders of the Lost Art tape. Trey Songz "Say Ah" (Emynd Edit ft Reef The Lost Cauze" by Emynd

Show Review: SALT House #2/Fox and the Hound Live

My second time providing audio for a SALT House Concert was actually at the Reconciliation House. Phil had booked Jamie Kent & the Options and Chicken Little to play on a Tuesday night, and then found out he had to go on a required field trip to NYC for a class that day. Resulting lack of publicity and coordination led to Jared and I hanging out with Jamie Kent and his band at the Recon House until more people got there. When "more people" meant one girl, one guy who lived there, and Chicken Little, we decided it would be better to kick this punk rock style and have them play an unauthorized show onstage at the Union.

Jamie Kent & the Options captured the attention of those eating and studying around the room quickly with their breezy, upbeat blues-folk, good humor, and a singalong Beatles cover. Their set ran into the time for our radio show, so Jared went and kicked things off on-air while I watched their merch. Just after Chicken Little took the stage to play what I can only describe as polka punk, I took Jamie's trio into the V to set them up for a live performance. The duo had the Union clapping and stomping along in no time; I only wish I had gotten to see more of their set.

Having two bands on air was complicated by the fact that we already had two artists scheduled to come on the show to interview/perform to advertise an upcoming show at The Station: Stacey Dee and Suzi Brown. Somehow we managed to squeeze in a few songs from each artist, DJing occasionally in between. Stacey and Suzi collaborated on each other's singer-songwriter material and Suzi played some intense fingerstyle guitar (a la Kaki King), and we ended the night by recording all of them doing a liner for The Fox and the Hound Show that you should be hearing on air next semester.

Fratrap & Joey AX

DJ a couple of bangers for Alpha Gamma Rho at Penn State, beatbox at the Friday Freestyle cyphers at Temple, and drop some tapes from an up-and-coming white rapper and you just might end up an expert on fratrap. Fratrap is what happens when you put hip-hop music, beer, and a bunch of white guys in a house on a regular basis, like what happens in most frat houses all across America. Eventually somebody gets up and starts rhyming. Some of them are actually pretty good, usually the ones who emulate true-school hip-hop the most, and at the very least it's not just radio music playing at the parties anymore. On the spectrum of white rap, it's a lot closer to Asher Roth-who was himself part of the fratrap scene at West Chester before dropping out-than Eminem, Mike Shinoda, or Yelawolf.
Guide to this video: what is wrong with fratrap, Joey AX, his producer Michael Piffington
One such scion of the fratrap scene is Joey AX, who hates the radio, Jersey Shore, and the false American dream our parents bought into so much that he is denouncing it all on concept street album The Goodbye America Project. Lead singles "Swagger Thru the Speakers" and "She's Gone" feature sample-based production and what sounds like live drumming, two signs that this just might be true-school hip-hop instead of imitation "I Love College". Download the mixtape he and Mike Piff, Joey's producer and fellow MC, dropped for free here and judge for yourself.

Show Review: Go Tell It On The Mountain Tour

My friends at the Restoration House and in Earthkeepers arranged for the Go Tell It On The Mountain tour to drop by SouthSide Cafe one Tuesday night. The tour, sponsored by Christian environmentalist group Restoring Eden, featured a multimedia presentation on mountaintop removal coal mining, accompanied by soulful bluegrass and folk by singer-songwriter Aaron Lee Martin.

For those who aren't familiar, mountaintop removal involves blowing up the tops of mountains to access the coal beneath, destroying ecosystems and ruining air and water for the surrounding communities. This practice has been ruining Appalachia for years, so what better way to protest than with the folk music its people are famous for? Martin's plaintive melodies provided the perfect backdrop to the deeply sorrowful images and videos on the screen, though he lightened the mood with a follow-up set later on.

Since I provided the audio equipment for the show/presentation, we were able to have Aaron come perform live later that night on The Fox and the Hound. Since it was our first live on-air performance, we jury-rigged it, pointing one mic at him and the other at his guitar. Just as we expected, our listeners loved it, and we've been playing tunes from his album on the show ever since.

DJ News: KNO Clothing Launch Party

My friend Liz DeJesus, aka DJ DeJesus, was tapped to provide the music for the launch of KNO Clothing. KNO is the brainchild of two Messiah graduates who want to help the homeless. Basically, you buy a t-shirt or hoodie and 50% of the cost is either donated to homeless shelters or used to provide direct aid, like warm clothing, to local homeless people. They wanted some hipster music Liz didn't have, so she asked Jared (The Hound) and I to come along. Between presentations by the founders and a formerly homeless man, we pumped out jams by Phoenix, Passion Pit, Chiddy Bang, and LCD Soundsystem while the guests socialized, ate delicious food courtesy of venue Passage to India Restaurant, and watched as the KNO line was modeled by various friends of the company. We threw together this special "Foxy Jesus" edit of Matt & Kim's "Daylight" and the Ninjasonik rap version for the occasion that got a pretty good crowd response.

Matt & Kim - Daylight [Foxy Jesus Rap Mix][feat. Ninjasonik] by thefoxandthehound

Show Reviews: SALT House Concert

Now that I'm moving into the SALT House in Harrisburg, it may seem a little late to cover these as an outsider, but since I was supposed to run audio in both cases it doesn't make much difference. My friend Phil Wilmot, formerly of hardcore act Judges as well as folkies The Legacy of Joseph-Michel Montgolfier [reviewed here], used some contacts in the underground house-show scene to get touring bands to drop by on their way to more important places in exchange for a place to crash.

The first show I was involved in warmed up with acoustic sets by Kyle Rictor, Nathan Leigh, and local Trunks & Tales in an apartment before moving downstairs for the sonic assault of punks Run, Forever and post-rockers Deadhorse.

Rictor, a Messiah dropout based out of Nashville, performs with backing vocals by his wife Kelsey in an intimate style perfectly suited to the small room. Their intertwining voices mesmerized the small group that gathered with gentle guitar accompaniment that belied his imposing frame. His songs have since been regularly featured on The Fox and the Hound Show, and will soon make it onto a mixtape for my girlfriend.


Nathan Leigh is Brooklyn to the core, splitting time between indie-pop outfit Super Mirage and Latin post-punk band A Thousand Ships. With day jobs designing sound both for musical theater and Keroscene Records, his sheer output of work is incredible. Though on record much of his solo work is electronic-inflected, Leigh live is an engaging acoustic act, filled with anecdotes about his songs peppered with a biting wit. He has also received some airplay from my radio show, and "Letters, Postcards, Telegrams" will be on the aforementioned mixtape. Letters, Postcards, Telegrams by nathanleigh

Trunks & Tales, once a duo, is now the solo project of Daniel Anderson, whose negative songs about touring are only matched by willingness to play shows. His most recent effort is an album of covers of everything from Further Seems Forever to Counting Crows, which, like the rest of his music, is available at whatever price you choose to name on Bandcamp.

[insert reference to previous Monty Python reference and how much more appropriate it would be here if I hadn't already used it in the previous show review]

I actually did run sound for Run, Forever, putting my 1100 watts to use to make the vocal audible over their guitar and bass amps and drum kit in the tiny space of the SALT House lobby. After a brief but enthusiastic set, my task switched to making a keyboard audible over the wail of postrock guitars being put out by Deadhorse. Since their enormous amps and proclivity for walls of distortion made this virtually impossible, it did not surprise me when we were shut down after a song or two due to noise ordinances of some kind. I probably would have been more impressed with both acts in a larger room, but in such close quarters their emphasis on noise and disregard for my equipment began to make me feel like an old man.

Catching up with OnCue & CJ Luzi

You may remember producer CJ Luzi and OnCue, the rapper he most often works with, from my previous posts. Around Thanksgiving, OnCue dropped the cleverly-titled Leftovers, featuring tracks that didn't make the cut for Cuey Sings The Blues, including a few with beats by Luzi. You can find that tape for free download here.
[photo by Erika Ricchini of Troubador]
CJ and mutual friend and producer Bryan "Pianoboi" Porter, who was actually the entertainment during the dinner of my junior prom, were part of the iStandard producers showcase at Fluid just off of South Street, at which Luzi was dubbed the crowd favorite.
The biggest development is the launch of cjluzi.com, the front page of which links to the two OnCue tapes and my personal favorite track, "Lucifer and Friends", Luzi's contribution to Mick Boogie & Terry Urban's Viva La Hova re-release. For those who didn't cop it the first time out, Viva La Hova is a mixtape mashing Jay-Z vocals with Coldplay-sampling instrumentals. For those who did, make sure you grab the remastered version here, and especially the bonus tracks to get this jam from Luzi.

Show Reviews: December B-sides

Due to Christmas break, there were only two shows in Messiah's b-sides series this month, but lack of quantity was made up by quality. The first of these two trios was The Wiyos, a nostalgic-folk act that made me feel like I was seeing all the best bits of my grandparents' record collection performed live. Fresh off a national tour with Bob Dylan, who handpicked them to open, the tightly harmonizing multi-instrumentalists enthralled us with a ridiculously wide variety of original compositions ranging from bluegrass to polka, including a soon-to-be recorded suite based on The Wizard of Oz. Their impressive array of instrumentation included everything from upright bass to kazoo, the latter even managing not to come off kitschy; kitsch could hardly come from such impeccably dressed, consummate professionals.
As John Cleese was fond of saying, "And now for something completely different..." The Andreas Kapsalis Trio is an instrumental group centered on guitarist Andreas Kapsalis, who plays a percussive fingerstyle not far removed from that of Alex Brubaker, a friend of mine who has been covered here before and was influential in bringing him to Messiah. Not content to play solo, Kapsalis spices things up with a pair of percussionists, adding propulsive polyrhythms to his original film scores and interpretations of other improvisation-oriented musicians' work. A perfect close to the semester, the trio provided excellent background music for those studying for finals while captivating those who needed a break with an intense and technical performance.

My Remixes

Those of you who have heard me DJ may have been lucky enough to hear one or two of my exclusive edits of various tracks. I just got a Soundcloud, so here are my first and most recent remixing efforts for your listening/downloading enjoyment:
Lollipop [Foxy Remix] by thefoxandthehound Like A G6 [Foxy Remix] by thefoxandthehound

Show Reviews: November B-sides

The month of November was packed with goodness here at Messiah. First up was Chicago reggae outfit The Drastics with frequent collaborator Fada Dougou. They began the set with a short instrumental set before Dougou joined them onstage to add vocals to the guitars, horns, and electronics that got the party started. The diversity of reggae-based styles the band is able to play is amazing-from dub to ska and everything in between. Fada's lyrics, both written and improvised, kept a positive vibe going throughout as we danced late into the night. The track they are performing in this video has become a regular on The Fox and the Hound Show and in our live sets:
Reminding us that b-sides is not just a weekly dance party, singer-songwriter Griffin House brought his smoldering bluesy folk to us the following week. The ladies were enthralled and the gentlemen sufficiently entertained as well. Enough description from me-this tune is sure to find its way onto a mixtape for my girlfriend Ashley soon enough, and captures the atmosphere fairly well:


The party was not to be stopped, however, and Janka Nabay and the Bubu Gang were the next act to charm both eyes and ears in Larsen Student Union. Complex polyrhythms kept all but the hardcore few from the dancefloor, but rewarded those of us that persisted with a virtually unstoppably energetic interactive performance from the aging patriarch of Bubu music. Janka Nabay was a star in war-torn Sierra Leone before run-ins with both rebel and government forces forced him to emigrate to the United States, where he hooked up with Ohio-by-way-of-NYC Afrobeat collective Skeletons, lending them some African street cred and appropriating their instruments into his "Bubu Gang". Attempting to replicate the sounds of an ancient Ramadan processional with Western instrumentation cannot be easy, but the Gang seems to do fairly well judging by the exuberance of their semi-traditionalist frontman. Nabay's enthusiasm is infectious, and hopefully he will continue sharing his beloved Bubu instead of my beloved Crown fried chicken as he did in Philly before finding his way into the Brooklyn music scene.