The Sound Of What You Don't Know: El-P In Concert

So, I was at Definitive Jux's website, looking for a good picture to pilfer of El-P, and I noticed the full schedule of his "I'll Sleep When You're Dead Tour", and I discovered that he's playing in New York tonight, and I don't get to New York until Monday night. The fact that I'm slightly irritated about not being able to see the show again tells me something about the show that we thought was the climax of a string of truly stellar hip-hop to come to the Cat's Cradle. (We thought it was the end, but last night the Cradle added a free show by Little Brother- click here to RSVP and get in.)

The opening act was Slow Suicide Stimulus. I had heard one track of theirs because of an alleged guest appearance by Aesop Rock, but if Aesop is on it, it isn't for long enough that I've been able to nail it down (either that, or he's rapping the brief hook. Or maybe I'm just insane.) Their live show was pretty much what I expected, only a little longer.

Next was Yak Ballz, who is inexplicably part of the underground supergroup The Weathermen. If the Weathermen were the Traveling Wilburys, Yak would be Jeff Lynne. Only less accomplished. His performance wasn't actually bad, more just sort of... bland. He's not actually a bad rapper, but he's indistinuishable from a whole other set of indy rappers.

Third was Hangar 18, who I was actually looking forward to. Both their album, Multiplatinum Debut Album (as they said at the show, "We took care of the "Debut Album" part, it's up to y'all to take care of the "Multiplatinum part. We did our half.") and the Donkey Show EP are fun, slightly off-beat pieces of underground hip-hop. In concert, this was hip hop made for the pure joy of the music, for the fun of moving a crowd and doing what you want to do. They played some of the key cuts off of MPDA, including "Beatslope", which was my introduction to the group on the Def Jux Presents 3 album. And, I'm happy to report, I got both members to sign my copy of their album. The streak continues.

Finally was El-Producto, the genius at the heart of Company Flow, the founder of the Def Jux record label, one of the most important figures in undeground Hip Hop, and, most importantly, one hell of an MC and producer. For his show, El-P went all out- projectors and screens, fog effects on stage, a live bassist and keyboardist (both dressed in fatigues, as was his DJ, Mr. Dibbs and his hype man, the Mighty Quinn). El-P came out with his face painted with wounds, and launched into "Tazmanian Pain Coaster". He played a series of cuts off of his instant-classic solo debut, "Fantastic Damage" and his recent follow-up, "I'll Sleep When You're Dead", including Deep Space Nine Millimeter (during which a stage diver, an unusal phenomenon at a hip hop show, landed on my surgically repaired right shoulder and knocked off my cap. Luckily a good soul behind me picked up my cap, and my shoulder seems to be fine.) "Smithereens" and "Flyentology" (during which the animatics for the music video were projected). Before "Up All Night", El-P gave the required anti-war rant at any and all hip hop shows, but managed to hit the heart of the matter- he was pissed off, first and foremost, not about Bush or oil or Halliburton, but about the fact that "good motherfuckers" were dying at such a steady and tragic clip over lies. The show seemed a litttle shorter than a lot of headliners' performances recently, and the encore consisted of only one song ("Stepfather Factory"), but I couldn't complain. And after the show, he signed my copy of "Fantastic Damage" at the merch table, (which is the most important thing, really).

So, even though the first two acts were mediocre and dull, respectively, I nearly had my shoulder torn apart and lost my cap, the encore was only one song, and yet, I was still a little irritated not to get to do it all again. Call it just another working example of faith vs. physics.

ADDENDUM: I finally pinned down the music that played as El-P's band took the stage. It was "Mad World", but not the Tears for Fears version. Rather, it was the version done by Michael Andrews and Gary Jules" did for Donnie Darko (which is one of those movies I've never seen, but people assume I have seen, and I usaually don't correct them.) All things considered, Sage's entrance music is my favorite (American Pie- the real version) but El-P's fit the overall millieu and ambience more neatly. You can all resume not caring now.

Y'all Don't Even Know: The GZA at Cat's Cradle

This was an interesting deal. You get to see the Wu-Tang Clan's GZA for free, but you have to arrive early to make sure you get into the show. So, Keith and I get show up at the Cradle at 8:00, an hour and a half before the doors are set to open. We're pretty close to being the first ones who finally get in- early enough to claim our own Scion bags, which are pretty nice for free swag, and come stuffed with a magazine devoted to the sponsoring vehicle, the most horrible t-shirt you ever saw, and a cd sampler that even has a few hip-hop acts I've actually heard of. But that's secondary- we're there to see the Genius of one of the more influential hip hop acts of the last fifteen years.

The first couple of hours feature no live music, just an Atlanta based DJ (disturbingly wearing a LA Dodgers cap) playing the same basic list of classic hip hop cuts that you hear at pretty much every show between sets. Which was fine. I was part of the group crowded around the television near the bar, watching the Cavs/Pistons game.

The first act was a live band called either "The Fyre Department" (the name that appeared in the promotional material) or "The Fire Department", (the name that appears on their myspace page, but the "y" spelling also is on the page). Wikipeida's entry for the Fyre Department is a spin-off of some sort from D12. So, I don't know. The myspace page informs me that they played on the Talib Kwali/MF Doom cut "Fly That Knot" (actually, Talib mentions them in the begining of the track, so it turns out that I had unwittingly heard of them). For what is apparently a studio group, they are a pretty good live act. Unsurprisingly for a studio band, they don't have a front man. They played some hip hop/rock jams, at one point breaking into a pretty good instrumental version of In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida. Their presence made more sense when it turned out the they were the GZA's backing group.

The GZA as a solo act is an interesting proposition. Clearly, most of the crowd at most of his shows is primarily interested and familiar with the work he did with the Wu-Tang Clan, but only one Wu-Tang track features him by himself (that I'm aware of anyway). So, he couldn't really stick to his solo material and still please the crowd, which forced him to take on other rappers' parts in songs. Which he was more than up to.

He opened with "Reunited", off of the Wu-Tang forever disc, probably to get the crowd to scream "It's Wu, Motherfucka. Wu-Tang Motherfucka". The next track was "Bring Da Ruckus" off of the Enter the 36 Chambers disc. He came out with his bottle of Champagne (Or, as he described it for the literary motherfuckers, "Sham-Pag-Nee") and with Dready Kruger (who I had heard on the Wu-Tange Meets Indie Culture album) as his hype man. I was pleased when, bantering with the crowd, he echoed a conversation Keith and I had on the way to the show, saying "This is the most undergroudn shit you gonna hear. This is Wu-Tang".

Mixed in with some presumably solo stuff I was unfamiliar with, he rocked some classics tracks like "Liquid Swords", "Triumph" (which just might be my favorite Wu-Tang track), "C.R.E.A.M." and then, as "Shimmy Shimmy Ya" (an ODB track) he brought out his special guest and made the show unforgettable. "Y'all don't even know" he said, as he introduced the legend himself, Big Daddy Kane". Kane, who lives in Durham, came out, and if you don't understand how cool that is, you never will.

The show ended on a markedly strange note, with a series of wagers that the GZA offered the crowd, betting that no one could produce a copy of the "Grandmasters" album he did with Cypress Hill's DJ Muggs, and then offering cash to anyone who could produce a picture of the ODB (someone did, but I didn't see GZA make good on his offer). He announced a new Wu-Tang album, 8 Diagrams and began shaking hands with the front row. I managed to make it to the front and offered up my pen and my trusty notebook for the Genius to sign. He did, and wonder of wonders, I got my pen back (despite the asshoel who tried to grab it from GZA's hand).

Was it the best show I saw this past moth? Probably not. GZA didn't connect with the crowd like Brother Ali did, and he's simply in a different league than KRS-One, but the moments he was sharing the stage with the Big Daddy was undeniably special, and he worked harder than probably was strictly neccessary for a crowd that didn't pay a dime to get in.