Lots of great new music coming out this Summer & Fall to look forward to, as well as looking back & celebrating some landmark moments.
We caught Saul Williams in Hollywood the night the fit hit the shan in Baltimore. We saw the Mothership land in Dallas and members of Wu-Tang revisit a classic.
One thing all these shows have in common is that I had to leave a different convention early each time to see them haha
Enjoy!
Saul Williams – April 27th – The Roxy – Hollywood, CA
Renaissance man Saul Williams. a talented New York artist got these going & stirring up the crowd with sounds from his forthcoming album MartyrLoserKing.
The Roxy was dimly lit & filled with political activists, fans and poetry lovers eager to hear his message & feel his power.
Believe it or not after all these years and the hundreds of times I’ve been to the Rainbow Bar & Grill next door, I’ve never been inside the Roxy, the famed nightclub that entered my vernacular the first time I heard Motley Crue say it when I was a kid.
I got there early, found parking and made my way in, but the place was about half empty and their were literally hours of openers before Saul was taking the stage.
I normally just on association alone would have stuck around to be turned on to something new. However I was starving and concerned about getting a parking tkt, so I got some change, fed the meter & then fed myself some sushi across the street and relaxed.
Once back inside, the place was packed, and activists were passing out long poster sheets of faces of people they felt have been either forgotten by the judicial system or simply justice hasn’t been served to raise awareness to their cause.
The air was thick with a sense of urgency & grief as earlier that morning Freddie Gray, the unarmed African-American man in his 20’s who was beaten to death by thug cops was buried. This place felt ready to erupt over that injustice and many came to the show to be around like-minded people to grieve.
Although his performance was shadowed by poor sound that did not allow to fully embrace his lyrics, his intoxicating stage presence and constant shuffling from the stage to the crowd had a contagious intensity of its own.
The rage towards the constant issues affecting communities across America was evident through Williams’ visuals. Political flyers and posters were flying across the audience as Saul Williams raised awareness through his performance.
Currently on tour with Sons of an Illustrious Father and Haleek Maul, the stage was constantly on fire, yet the lack of sound had the audience a little bit off trying to follow the message on site.
The show ended with a dramatic piece of performance art as the members of the band left the stage, only to reappear as police in uniform and violently dragged Saul from the stage as the crowd looked on dumbfounded & moved.
A few feet from me I spotted this girl that I thought I recognized – She’s hard to miss or forget as she’s stunningly gorgeous but also has a distinct look of being covered in tattoos & a GI Jane buzz cut. She was holding a bouquet of flowers appearing to be a gift to Saul.
We started talking when we both made the realization that we had met in Las Vegas earlier this year during my crazy adventure at the AVN Awards.
She’s a performer that goes by Sparky Sin Claire that shoots for the alt site Burning Angel & I tagged along in this insane limo with them to the after-party that night.
Good times –
George Clinton & Parliament-Funkadelic – May 29th – House of Blues – Dallas, TX
Had been at Dallas Comic-Con all day & after surviving a car accident and still made it to funky town to rawk with George Clinton & the current permutation of Parliament-Funkadelic
Place was packed with stoner college guys & gals, old soulmen & just dudes like me who came to pay respect to a genre’s elder statesman and to climb aboard a new spaceship.
Gone are the rainbow dreads and the stoned wizard beard. Gone also are the funk-shaman robes – so much so that one of the backing members could tell people were awaiting his arrival only to tell them that yes, that older gentlemen in the plaid leisure suit is indeed Clinton.
While the set was long on fun moments and trippy flashbacks to the late 70’s and early 80’s, it was noticeably short on technical funkiness. Bracing drums and off-genre guest vocal appearances from members of drowned out the muddy synth necessary to complete the funk and gave the show a rock n roll feel at times, a rap show feel at others, with Clinton himself often taking a back seat, pacing the stage, spitting three-word vocal bursts into the mic like a backup singer on his own tracks.
Fans would do well to remember that Clinton is 73 now, and the band definitely has to pick him up in places.
But he had his moments.
During an interlude midway through the set, he requested a joint from the crowd and was subsequently pelted with three or four, some of which fell harmlessly to the ground front stage. He caught one, lit up and sucked down half the thing before he had to chime back in.
You never want to let one show late in a performer’s career shape too much of your opinion on the artist, though. George Clinton will forever be the man who took James Brown’s funk genre into outer space. His jams have informed and inspired more than a generation of hiphop artists,
His songs will always provide listeners a sonic space in which to get down with their bad self. He’ll always be remembered as one of the most important men in the genre.
Setlist –
Funkadelic set –
Mommy, What’s a Funkadelic?
Pole Power
Get Low
Fucked Up
Ain’t That Funkin’ Kinda Hard on You?
Knee Deep
One Nation Under a Groove
Maggot Brain
Red Hot Mama
Parliament set –
Mothership Connection (Star Child) / Rumpofsteelskin
Meow Meow
Flashlight / Something Stank / Hard as Steel
Give Up the Funk (Tear the Roof off the Sucker) / solos / Night Of The Thumpasorus People
Presence of a Brain
Encore –
Atomic Dog
You and Your Folks, Me and My Folks
Raekwon & Ghostface Killah Celebrate 20 years of Only Built 4 Cuban Lynx – August 5th -House of Blues-Dallas, TX
This is a show that I’d been anticipating for awhile but if your a fan of Wu-Tang you certainly know the baffling dysfunction this group carries when it comes to live performances. I can no longer count the times GZA was late or just plain no-showed, or one of the other members show up to their own show 20 mins before curfew, do a few classics before they turn the lights on.
I’m very satisfied to say that none of that happened at this show. In fact, the two members of the group that have been the most outspoken about said dysfunction, Raekwon & Ghostface Killah have also been the most prolific since doing their own thing and they showed up, ready, on time and prepared to get down.
This was no regular tour stop, they were celebrating the 20th Anniversary of Raekwon’s Only Built 4 Cuban Lynx – whose legacy is perhaps the greatest solo achievement of any Wu-Tang member & one of the greatest Hip-Hop records ever recorded. It’s basically Scarface on wax with Ghostface Killah playing a major role in it’s presentation & together they were here to perform the landmark LP in it’s entirity.
We had just come from another convention, this time the Exxxotica Expo happening a few blocks over and ran in just as the lights went down.
The curtains were opened, revealing a larger-than-life sized backdrop of the album cover as the introductory track, Striving for Perfection dropped.
Fans eagerly began to put their hands together to form the Wu-Tang symbol and soon thereafter Raekwon would emerge. Wearing a two-piece black and neon green outfit, the emcee went into Criminology which paved the way for a New York Yankees jacket-sporting Ghostface Killah to take to the stage.
Taking a moment to recall some advice from his mother, Raekwon took the time to remind the audience about the importance of chasing dreams, while Ghostface implored them to pray to whatever deity they happen to believe in. The duo would go on to perform a short dedication to Ol Dirty Bastard that included
Shimmy Shimmy Ya.
Before walking off the stage, the two messages that Rae and Ghost wanted to get across were that even though they’ve been at it for over 20 years, they are by no means finished & a sincere message of solidarity in taking care of one’s own responsibilities.
The vibe in the building was electric from the beginning through the very end as Raekwon passed out cups of Hennessy to us in the front row haha.
Good times.
Photos –
Roy Turner
Fara Sosa
