photos by Dana (distortion) Yavin, words by BBG

Lauryn / Erykah

Last year Rock the Bells, the touring hip-hop bonanza, picked up on the voguish festival concept in which an artist performs an old record from beginning to end. It went well, and this year's edition bought in twice as hard. On Saturday on Governors Island, amid other, more ordinary sets, 11 albums were performed in their entirety.

What a gorging! What an obligation! It seemed to weigh on the crowd. It meant that listeners weren't in the here and now, where they might be fratty or selfish or mean spirited. They were deep in the been and gone. They weren't just listening to hits, or to sustained works of art, but to their own pasts. The exercise cooled them out. Saturday's audience was truly racially mixed, with a heavy representation of the 30-to-45 age bracket, grown-up New Yorkers at their casual and courteous best. Many of them high, but still. -[New York Times]

Rock The Bells 2011 took Governors Island by storm on 9/3, and according to reports, ran smoothly and generally on time. There was a barrage of classic LPs (Nas's Illmatic, Mobb Deep's The Infamous, Lauryn Hill's Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, Erykah Badu's Baduizm, Black Moon's Enta Da Stage, GZA's Liquid Swords, Cypress Hill's Black Sunday, and others), and performances from some of independent hip hop's great up-and-comers. Though it was clearly elders day, younger crews like Slaughterhouse, Big K.R.I.T., Fashawn, Blu & Exile, Freddie Gibbs, Roc Marciano and others also had the ability to shine on the Paid Dues stage (DOOM, an elder statesman via his days in KMD, was scheduled to play the Paid Dues stage but cancelled his appearance).

In true hip hop fashion, guests abounded. Nas capped the day off with a performance of Illmatic, and he didn't hide the men/women behind the curtain of his first LP; MC Serch, DJ Premier, Pete Rock, Large Professor (of Main Source), Akinyele, Fatal, AZ and many others who either blessed the LP or were instrumental in his come-up all made appearances (yes, they performed the Main Source classic "Live at the BBQ" featuring Nas's first recorded appearance). Pras of The Fugees joined Lauryn Hill for "Ready of Not", Big Noyd joined Mobb Deep for "Give Up the Goods (Just Step)" and other tracks, and Black Moon brought a full band.

More pictures from the whole day, below...

Continue reading "pics from Rock the Bells 2011 @ Governors Island (Nas, Erykah Badu, Lauryn Hill, Raekwon, Ghostface, Mobb Deep, more)"

photos by Tim Griffin

"Just saw Fucked Up tear it up at Emo's, with a cameo from two of the Wu Tang Killa Bees. That's gonna be hard to top" - mehan jayasuriya

"FUCKED UP: Frontman Pink Eye says Emo's was first place he ever went shirtless. "Fat guys everywhere felt a little bit skinnier."" - Rolling Stone

""GZA? He just couldn't make it," Killah Priest told BrooklynTheBorough.com later. "He told us to come and help him out. He'll be here though - somewhere - he'll be here.""

"The first show I caught at South by Southwest was The Morning Benders at Emo's for the Brooklyn Vegan day party. I talked with Christopher Chu, the lead singer and while he was warming up near the stage, I snapped a few pictures. If you have not purchased Big Echo, their latest album it is worth the dinero." [Harmon Drive]

As previously mentioned, GZA didn't show up but Killah Priest and 9th Prince made a quick but special appearance on the main ("outside") stage at the BrooklynVegan day party at Emo's on Wednesday, March 17, 2010 in Austin, TX. The two stage party featured a Torche-headlined metal stage "inside", and great sets by YellowFever, The Morning Benders, The Rural Alberta Advantage, Japandroids, Titus Andronicus, The Black Angels and Fucked Up outside. Finger on the Pulse played tunes between sets.

The last few bands got slightly longer sets due to the gap in the schedule that GZA created. The capacity crowd enjoyed free Magic Hat beer, Firefly Sweet Tea Vodka, Vitamin Water, Mr. Natural breakfast tacos, Nadamoo coconut milk ice cream, Daily Juice catering, Raw Revolution bars and Hail Merry granola. It was an amazing first day at the festival that was quickly followed by our official showcase right down the street at Club DeVille. More pictures from this stage (metal coming later), and a video clip of the Killah Priest part, below...

Continue reading "BrooklynVegan Emo's day party pics (SXSW 2010 - Fucked Up, Titus Andronicus, Japandroids, Morning Benders, more) "

Nebula @ a BV CMJ show (more by Paul Birman)

Though we otherwise had an amazing day party at Emo's on Wednesday, I was hit with some unfortunate news around 2pm. GZA wasn't making it due to "issues at Newark Airport". Scheduled to go on at 4:30pm after The Black Angels and before Fucked Up, we scrambled to come up with a solution. Not sure we could pull off a hip hop replacement, BV-SXSW veterans Deer Tick seemed like they might rush in and fill the slot, but that ended up not being a reality so, partially due to the advice of the venue, we decided to just extend the sets of the other bands including Titus Andronicus. I then got a text that Wu-Tang affiliates Killah Priest and 9th Prince were in town to perform with Gza and could still make it over. Too late to really do their own full set, Damian from Fucked Up was more than happy to let the two rappers on stage a few minutes into Fucked Up's set (with Fucked Up as their backing band). Paying tribute to ODB, the mini surprise performance was great and quickly made me forget that we had to tell a packed house that one of the headliners wasn't playing after all. Check out a video clip from it below.

In other cancellation news, Human Eye still lists four Austin shows on his MySpace, but I'm told they are all cancelled including the one scheduled for the BrooklynVegan Anso Presents show happening at Spider House Cafe today (3/18). Turbo Fruits will take their place. See you there at noon!

When you have 91 bands playing shows at a festival as hectic as SXSW (and that doesn't count Monday's NYC gig where we had five four more), I guess cancellations are somewhat to be expected. And there's more. I found out this morning that Beast didn't make it out of Canada. The good news? Crystal Antlers, who we also hosted two CMJs in a row, will take their place on our BV/M For Montreal bill.

Not done yet. Tee Pee band Nebula broke up, thus changing their plan to head to Austin to play five shows. Naturally one of those shows was a BV (Attitude Adjustment at Red 7). Replacement still TBA, and assuming the break up sticks, full tour (March 27th at Pianos included) cancellation still TBA too

Get to BrooklynVegan.com/SXSW to see our entire schedule. Killah Priest video below...

Continue reading "Gza got stuck in the airport, Killah Priest played (video), Human Eye cancelled, Beast stuck at border, Nebula broke up "