Grayskul/Bloody Radio

Grayskul’s Deadlivers debut dragged heads lobe-first through the sort of psychotic trenches and latent boogeyman paranoia that only two gloomily sophisticated Seattle rap purists could possibly conjure.  Their follow-up, Bloody Radio, is equally dark and graphic, but decidedly less figurative.  JFK and Onry’s capes come off on the introductory “Virginia N.M.2,” leaving them to pillage on as civilians.  Familiar frantic mandolins and gypsy twinkles surface through the crack list, and the lexicon remains advanced (“Religion is gangbanging and fighting over which God to blame”), but most cuts here are more Frank White than Frank Zappa.  Likewise; drunken space motifs and demented chipmunk soul blips still linger, but lyrical sprints such as “Bloody Radio” bumrush “DJs with crates full of shit” instead of cruising over heads.  The winning moment is “The Office” with Aesop Rock and Slug, the latter of whom we can thank for greenlighting this triumphant sequel despite Grayskul’s not reaping half the stacks that Brother Ali, Atmosphere or even Eyedea pull in.  The fact that they’re continuing to allow JFK and Onry to pump murky blood beneath hip-hop’s skin is a testament to Rhymesayers label head Siddiq’s commitment to dropping kind products – even when teenage chicks and indie rock reporters don’t finger themselves silly over said products.

Greetings to the Amalgam Fam.  I am a new blogger here, and just to give a little background on who I am, I have been DJing for over 20 years, started the Truck Jewls mixtape series in 1998, and am currently the tour DJ for Dres of Black Sheep.

I have been collecting Hip-Hop records since the mid-80's starting with UTFO's Roxanne Roxanne, Just-Ice "Latoya" and Fearless Four "Rockin It" to name a few.
I grew up in the Bronx and really witnessed the birth of Hip-Hop in the early 80's and it is great to still be heavily involved in this culture that has been such a big part of my life.  I am not sure if I will have a set concept for the blog yet or just freestyle it for a little while, I have tons of rare music I could upload, but that's too predictable, maybe I could blog about my episodes on the road with Dres and give people some insight what it's like to back an MC of his stature, or  I could review Amalgam Digital releases like the new Tame One, which is in heavy ipod rotation right now.  I'm not sure, we'll see what happens between now and my next post, in the meantime you can catch my online radio show @ www.hiphopphilosophy.com every Thursday Night starting @ 9PM (EST).  I also blessed the good people at Amalgam with the Jay-Z/RJD2 remix album I did a few years back to post in the Free Download Section...enjoy.  You can also download my old Truck Jewls mixtapes and CD's directly from www.truckjewls.blogspot.com.

One last thing...for anyone in the Chicago area, I will be out there on Monday (Labor Day) for a Black Sheep show @ the African Arts Festival.  Brand Nubian and Rhymefest will also be performing, showtime is 5PM...come through!

D.I.R.T. is available at Amalgam Digital September 30.  In the meantime, check out our new interview with Ruck & rock here

Sorry Berg!!!!

Hello again my little chickadees,

I apologize for the long hiatus, you must be ravenous!  You see what happened is this.  My father, he is a fabulously wealthy investor.  As you can probably imagine, he has a number of issues to deal with that regular folk like you and I probably can’t even imagine.  To think!  Trying to figure out what to do with all that wealth!  Anyways, a few weeks ago, we were sitting in our money room (like the one Scrooge McDuck had in Duck Tales) and he said to me “Ohhhh Conor, I’m feeling sassy.  Let’s buy a cottage in Brussels and summer there.”  I had made many prior commitments that interfered with his impromptu European vacation, but, fearing a spanking, I came along.  It was absolutely marvelous.  We saw the sights, enjoyed the cuisine (did you know you have to pay for ketchup at McDonalds in Europe!?!?!) I even met a nice girl.  I call her my brussel-sprout.  Get it?  Anyways, she is a singer, and while we were there we shot this fantastic music video of her and all of her neat friends from Brussels.  Please, look at my little angel =)