photos by Chris La Putt

Governors Ball concluded big on Saturday (6/18) with sets by Outkast's Big Boi, Empire of the Sun, Girl Talk, and Pretty Lights. Pictures from earlier in the day are HERE and HERE. The final set of pictures continues below...

Continue reading "Governors Ball in photos (part 3)"

Big Boi @ NYU in September (more by Lauren Monaco)

Hip-hop heavyweight Big Boi brought the house down [the other night at Moogfest] with a set of Outkast hits and stand-out tunes from his hot new album, Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty. Highlights of the set included "Rosa Parks," "Ms. Jackson," "So Fresh, So Clean," "Shutterbug" and "General Patton." A powerful live rendition of "Follow Us" featured Kyle Lucas of Vonnegutt singing the hook. And during "The Way You Move," Big Boi invited a group of ladies on stage to dance as he rapped the refrain: "I like the way you move / I love way you move."

While his Outkast collaborator Andre 3000 was missed, Big Boi was backed by a ferocious posse of live musicians and singers that included a drummer, guitarist, horn section and super hot female bass player wearing knee high black leather boots. He was also armed with a gang of choreographed backup dancers and hype-men that added to the visual spectacle.

During the live rendition of "Daddy Fat Sax," the sound turned distressingly towards metal-rap for a moment, but mostly Big Boi rode a deeply funky and danceable Dirty South groove. [Mountain Xpress]

Big Boi will co-headline a pre-Christmas show with a Calvin Harris DJ set at NYC's Terminal 5 on December 22nd. Openers will be LA Riots and The Knocks (who just opened for Die Antwoord at Gramercy). Tickets ($45 advance general admission / $50 day of show general admission / $100 VIP admission includes 4 hour open bar) will go on sale Friday at noon.

Big Boi's last NYC shows were at Brooklyn Bowl and NYU.

Shout Out Out Out also played Moogfest in North Carolina over the weekend and will be in NYC this week.

photos by Lauren Monaco

Outkast is gone but not forgotten. Or maybe it's forgotten but not gone. That's more like it, actually. The group - perhaps the most important in Southern rap history, and certainly the most popular - doesn't cast the shadow it did 10 years ago, or even 5. ...Big Boi insisted from the stage on Monday night at Brooklyn Bowl: his partner is in the studio working on his album. And yes, there will be more Outkast to follow thereafter...

In the now, though, Big Boi is in a liminal place, somewhere between flamekeeper and nostalgia act.

Not that you notice during his performance, which is slick, reliable and impossibly fun... Hearing Big Boi perform only his half of Outkast's hits was a reminder of what modes he was responsible for in the group: pugnacity, salaciousness, street savvy. -[NYTimes]

The above review comes from Big Boi's appearance at Brooklyn Bowl on 9/6 (where Yelawolf made a surprise appearance). One day later, Big Boi teamed with Dr. Dog and The Knocks for an eclectic Tuesday night at NYU. It was their annual Mystery Concert, open only to NYU students, though as you can see in the pictures in this post, it was enjoyed buy at least one younger patron too (who is actually Big Boi's son Cross Patton. he was on stage at Brooklyn Bowl too). The other guy performing is Big Boi's hypeman Blackowned C-Bone.

Dr. Dog will hit the road in October to team up with Here We Go Magic for a string of dates that do NOT include NYC. Big Boi doesn't have any more NYC-area shows coming up, that we know about, at the moment either

Videos and pictures from from the NYU show, continue below...

Continue reading "Big Boi & Dr. Dog played NYU (pics & video) "

Big Boi's solo debut album, out July 6th via Def Jam/Purple Ribbon, is streaming now at MySpace (which means occasionally it will pause until you figure out which window/tab you have it open in and click the annoying ad). Full tracklist with list of guests below...

Continue reading "Big Boi's Sir Lucious Left Foot out soon, streaming in full "

He actually published this list in August, but in case you missed it...

Continue reading "Gorilla Vs Bear's favorite 'songs of the decade'"

Daft Punk's first album had helped refresh house music in the mid 1990s; the second went further, rewriting electronic pop's pleasure principles to such a degree that when it came out a lot of people thought Discovery must be a put-on. They took the joy in the record for irony. Rather, the band had simply plunged into the raw popstuff of their 70s childhoods, from AOR to disco, Buggles to Manilow, rock to robotics. They wanted their listeners to get the rush of context-free delight they had hearing music as kids, and on "Aerodynamic" and "Digital Love" they succeeded wildly, dissolving a decade-plus of dance music good taste. And not all of Discovery looked back. The middle of the album is house music as string theory, with the duo finding dimensions of pleasure coiled within the tiniest loops: "Crescendolls" releases an awesome, gleeful energy by repeatedly triggering one five-second sample.

Discovery was simply the decade's best good-times record, with Daft Punk as pyramid-toting party wizards and the chipmunk Kraftwerk of "Harder Better Faster Stronger" their anthem. But this most celebratory of records has a bittersweet streak, too: Daft Punk know that a rush always carries the risk of exhaustion. Perhaps the album's most underappreciated track is the sad but gorgeous "Short Circuit", a three-minute robot graveyard of crumbled transistors and dying LEDs. But from Romanthony's first blissful, vocoded shout of "one more time!" the dominant emotion on Discovery is joy. A joy that wasn't afraid to be sentimental and funny as well as hard and futuristic, and is all the better for that. When a generation looks back and tries to catch a fuzzy hold of the music that made them happy this decade, Daft Punk's will be top of the list. --Tom Ewing [Pitchfork]

Daft Punk grabbed the #3 spot on Pitchfork's list of the Top 200 albums of the 2000s (now fully announced) (yesterday they were only up to #21). The top 20 are also listed below...

Continue reading "Pitchfork announces the top 20 albums of the decade "

photos by Chris La Putt

Kevin Barnes & Janelle Monae

Of Montreal followed their Wednesday night fashion week show at Santos with a Friday night public show at Terminal 5 in NYC (9/18). Joining them, as opener and on stage, was the always-photogenic and robotic, Janelle Monáe.

"...what a lot of people are missing about Monáe is that she puts the art of performing above all else, politics be dammed. Even finishing her follow-up record--Metropolis Suites II and III, due out in January--is of less concern than getting onstage and acting it all out....

...Not surprisingly, the Kansas City prodigy grew up studying dance and theater, which led to a stint pursuing both disciplines at New York's American Academy of Dramatic Arts. She became bored quickly with life in New York, however, and eventually moved to Atlanta, where she's currently based.

There she began crafting the character Cindi Mayweather, the Alpha Platinum 9000 android who's the heroine of Metropolis Suite I...

...Her friend Kevin Barnes, lead singer of the indie band Of Montreal, guests on the new album, as does OutKast. And Monáe hints at the possibility that Gwen Stefani could be on the record as well. Monáe toured with No Doubt earlier this year and bonded with the polystylistic blonde superstar. "[Stefani] gave me great energy and I felt inspired around her," says Monáe." [Seattle Weekly]

Solange (Knowles) was also in the house at Terminal 5 last night (she's the one in the yellow dress). She joined the band and Janelle for a cover of Diana Ross's "Love Hangover" during the encore. More pictures from the show, and both setlists, below...

Continue reading "Of Montreal & Janelle Monáe played Terminal 5 (pics & setlist), Kevin Barnes & others guest on Janelle's new album "

1) DOWNLOAD: It's The Most Wonderful Time of The Year (MP3)
2) DOWNLOAD: Phofo - Light That Menorah (MP3)
3) DOWNLOAD: DJ BC vs. Adam Sandler - Chaukah Song (Goy Mix) (MP3)
4) DOWNLOAD: Doc Mo Shé - Hanukkah Homeboy (MP3)
5) DOWNLOAD: Chutzpah - Chanukkah's Da Bomb (MP3)
6) DOWNLOAD: Smooth-E - Hanukkah Hey Ya! (MP3)

Part 2 tomorrow. More holiday MP3s HERE. Night one events HERE.