Fader

The frenzy over Suge Knight's Debo moment on TMZ somehow managed to get us on a home listening Cali kick. Starting with Death Row perennials, moving on to soundtracks for gangsta flicks we shouldn't have been watching were too young to appreciate at the time...but when it was time to dig into deep cuts and slept-on jams, the task proved easier said than done. For such a fertile period in music, there's nowhere near the amount of DJ tributes or blog-strospectives you see all the time for comparatively obscure Bay Area 12" records or NYC cassette mixes. We want our secret history of g-funk, dammit, and we're not about to start buying yellowed copies of Rap Pages on eBay! PHUKK! Fortunately, Dubcnn came through with the final half of their two part interview with Kokane, sideman on Westside rap records for almost three decades (not to mention his own psych-y releases on Ruthless). The Q&A is packed with anecdotes about everything from the real roots of the Dre vs Eazy feud, how Outkast and the Dungeon Family were huge Above The Law fans, and even a cameo from Lil Half Dead (who also pops up in F26!). Suffice it to say, it's a perfect Friday afternoon geek-out, even if you weren't looking at NWA YouTubes all week.

It's going to take us long time and many foot massages to forgive Kanye for making us wait nearly three hours last night for his performance at G-Shock's 25th anniversary party. By the time he'd parked the helicopter (for real), taken his seat in the pod-chair and surrounded himself with a troop of bare-chested fembots, the whole thing had drifted into one long and extremely weird Dionysian hallucination. Between the boobs, the lazer show and the armchair raps it's even difficult to tell whether the man on stage was actually Kanye West and not some weird anti-ye hologram or maybe a mis-programmed android here to destroy the planet. Thankfully by the second verse of "Flashing Lights" all was forgiven, the universe was saved, we were on planet Kanye drinking kryptonite cocktails and everything was going to be OK. more...

FADER 54 is an Aaliyahxtravaganza, as the world's beloved Baby Girl graced the cover of our fourth annual ICON issue. We made this issue with as much care and tenderness as we ever have and, accordingly, soon we will post an exclusive mix by DJ Caps to celebrate the very special Ms. Haughton. But! As ever, we also delved into the sparkling waters of newness: we explored Britain's burgeoning bassline scene, trampled Swedish snowcaps with soon-to-be-superstar Lykke Li, and linked up with woozy Tropicalian El Guincho on Barcelona time. We also went deep with dervishy princess Sahra Motalebi, clowned everyone with Chip tha Ripper, ate crepes with Jeremy Jay, and lost our minds just the way we like to with The War on Drugs. Get the essence of all these folks—and approximately 42,000 other heater-makers--on our Issue 54 download, which is totally totally freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee (that was a symbol of how free: totally free).

Get Issue 54 now on iTunes,
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or download the individual F54 full-issue PDF here.

It was hailing in Olympia when we rang Jeremy Jay at K Records, where he is mixing his new album, a fitting atmosphere for his moody French new wave songs about Chinese dragons and dreaming. An avid Francoise Hardy fan, we chatted with Jeremy about his personal style, dancing and his amazing mirror/prism belt in Texas. Read the interview after the jump. more...

We don't often make overtures like this, but we have been on Lacoste creative director Christophe Lemaire's website for the last three hours obsessing over his new S/S 2008 collection, reading his bio, Google image searching, pasting ourselves into photos of him, wishing we could live on a website, thinking about him a lot, and we want to put it out there that we are fortunately in search of a new friend. Lemaire, hit us up. And don't worry dudes, if anyone comes up behind you and wonders why you've been looking at a French fashion site half the day, just tell them that you are listening to Lemaire's flawless audio player which includes wisely chosen jams from Ariel Pink, Arthur Russell, Bo Diddley, J Dilla, The Flamingos and more.

The Pharcyde’s debut Bizarre Ride II The Pharcyde is a classic album, arguably one of the best to ever come out of hip-hop. But a whole gang of problems prevented the group from achieving legendary status. After their follow-up Labcabincalifornia, the group splintered. Drug problems, creative differences and emotional disconnects have been a constant theme for the four members of the group. Recent years have seen Imani and Bootie Brown continuing to perform under the Pharcyde name as a duo, while Slimkid3 and Fatlip have had solo releases and done shows together. Now more than ten years after the original nucleus split, the Pharcyde are finally set to perform together on this summer’s Rock the Bells tour. We caught up with all four founding members just a couple hours after their reunion announcement for their first extended group interview in over a decade. Read it after the jump. more...

THAT'S RIGHT!!! JUNE 1ST!! SUMMER JAM!!! NEW YORK CITY!!! Sorry, that's how they announced it on the radio just now. We are going to be at this in our ding slings NO DOUBT. Here it is:

T-Pain (plus special guests), Ray-J & Yung Berg (holler Shep), Rihanna, D-Block (holler Nick), Public Enemy, Lil Wayne (holler Gym Class Heroes), Kanye.

Get everything else you need right here.

Guerilla Union’s Rock the Bells festival is something of a live wire. After nearly starting a riot with the Wu-Tang Clan’s final united performance before ODB's death in 2004 (as you should see for yourself in the excellent Rock the Bells documentary), and then nearly burning down the Inland Empire in 2007 with a reunited Rage Against the Machine, the show has quickly become the most storied hip-hop festival in the world. As one Fader editor said of last year’s LA-area show, “It was the first time I’ve actually felt the effects of tear gas for myself.”

And so it was with such memories in mind that we got in our car and fought some tear-inducing traffic to get out to Claremont, CA for a press conference at Guerilla Union HQ to announce Rock the Bells’ 2008 squadron, as the formerly one day festival becomes a touring revue for the second year. Perhaps most notably, this year will feature the first performance by all four members of The Pharcyde since 1997 (yes, it has been that long), and appearances by A Tribe Called Quest, Nas, Ghostface and Raekwon (as Cuban Linx), Rakim, Mos Def, De La Soul, Method Man and Redman, Immortal Technique, Dead Prez, Murs, Kidz In The Hall, Spank Rock, Santogold, Kid Sister, The Cool Kids, Jay Electronica, B.O.B., Amanda Blank, Flosstradamus and Wale.

To celebrate the announcement, GU threw a secret show at a little spot called Hip Kitty—normally known for its live jazz and creamy fondue. Wale was first to grab the mic, followed by performances by Jay Electronica, Murs, Raekwon, Supernatural, and De La—who were joined by Tribe at the very end of the night. Raekwon’s customary existential ponderings (“I been to like seventy countries y’all! I been to Ireland, and y’all can’t fuck with that, y’all can’t fight an island!”) were followed by the promise of the Cuban Linx sequel with Ghostface this year (which sounds similar to something we heard in 2004), and Supernatural freestyled about somebody’s Blackberry. But the night’s best moment came when Murs introduced The Pharcyde onstage together for the first time in over ten years. They didn’t perform, but there were big smiles and thug hugs all around. A real golden hip-hop moment. more...

Have you ever been in the shower and had the soap you’re using make this weird gelatinous sheet between your arm and the side of your torso? It never lasts for more than three seconds, but for a minute you kind of feel like you have webbed arms. Never happened to you? Well, It’s a good analogy for the Death Set’s sound—a bizarre, colorful, and exhilarating thing that’s over before you have time to marvel. The Baltimore-via-Austrailia dudes released their first proper full-length, Worldwide, this week through Counter/Ninja Tune, so we called up singer/guitarist Johnny Siera to talk about things like moving from an Australian surf town to an East Coast metropolis and writing songs to make the kids go crazy. more...

The New Museum's Get Weird series just tipped us off to May's extra special guest, and while we have intentionally not puked from partying in a long while, that shit is going to happen on May 15th. Details straight from the typewriter of former AW(silent K) bka Alex Wagner:

Experimental party starter Andrew WK makes a special appearance for May’s Get Weird. On the heels of his explosive post-frat live shows across the globe, WK has been, of late, handling production duties for Lee “Scratch” Perry, lecturing at Yale, vibing with Will Oldham, spoofing the McLaughin Group, and performing with avant folkie Baby Dee and teen supergroup Hanson. We really have no idea what this performance will be like, but we know it will be awesome. And probably weird.

We have also heard rumors of another dude performing at Get Weird that night that will make nerds get juiced, so stay tuned.

Look at that photo for a minute. Let its stillness sink into your brain and calm you. Take that calm to the 6th Street Warehouse tomorrow night and place it somewhere where the sun doesn't shine because Abe Vigoda is going to blast heatwaves of radness all over you. Actually they're just going to jam like crazy for our Issue 53 party, but their shows can get pretty crazy so that photo is sort of misleading. White Dog bka Cali Dewitt and Mika Miko's Jenna Thornhill will also be DJing, and they are really cool. And, if it's where you bread is buttered, Bass Ale will be freely flowing. All you have to do RSVP here and find a car to share or bike to ride because it's Earth Day, the one day when we have to think about stuff like that.

The FADER does not endorse any particular candidate for the presidency of the United States in 2008. But this is awesome. (via Nah Right. Original here).

Last night we hung on the Maritime Hotel roof and ate lamb right off the bone and shrimp right off the stick. We were the first people to try Bud Light Lime, and we totally tried it (responsibly) while we jammed it out with Holy Ghost!, Drop The Lime, and YACHT. Dudes, we were on a roof in New York in the spring eating food and drinking a new beer and hanging with some awesome music guys. How could we go wrong? YACHT went on to Studio B afterward but we did not. Feel free to tell us how it went because normally we would do something like that. more...

Everyone. Duck. Right now. We are serious. Kanye West has decided that making a supergroup with Pharrell and Fiasco and doing an entire tour in glow in the dark and wearing slat glasses that you cannot even see out of, is not next enough. He wants not only next, he wants the next after that. Kanye West is so on some next, he has procured the CERN Large Hadron Collider, and when he turns it on tonight, the entire earth will be eaten up in a gigantic black hole, with Kanye at the vortex. He will go out rapping "Can't Tell Me Nothing" and wearing a Vuitton Hazmat / particle deflector suit, which we know because we saw him at our hair removalist yesterday getting every single hair on his body waxed (necessary to put on the suit). But we can't be mad at him, even though he will essentially obliterate everything we have and will ever know, because he also exfoliated, and if there is one thing we love, it is a rapper who exfoliates. Word life, see you at the throne of Zeus, sons and daughters.

TONIGHT! Portland party-poppers Yacht, who used to be one dude but binary-fissioned into one dude and one girl, is playing TONIGHT at Studio B with Parts + Labor. But earlier, we were talking to our Beer, and it told us the conjoined duo was actually playing a secret show RIGHT NOW on the west side, and that if you wanted to go see them (and DJs Holy Ghost and Drop the Lime), you could email contests@thefader.com ASAP, because it is happening RIGHT NOW, and Yacht don't take no shorts.

What's up NWers! We're pretty sure it's not uncommon to see Seattle bands play shows in Seattle, even for free. But because we're into Whalebones and because it is FREE in a BAR we recommend that if you are around you should go check them out. They will be playing new jams at The Cha Cha (1013 E. Pike St.) at 8pm on Sunday April 13th. Free Whalebones!

There were so many different rooms at the Levi's®/FADER Fort this year that we almost went to the bathroom on Mick Jones in a dark closet by accident. He didn't know where he was. We didn't know where we were. Mistakes were made. Crises were averted. One room where no mistakes were made was the Rock The Vote room where artists rolled through to have their pictures and videos taken in support of voter registration. Kelly Fogel took snaps of FADER friends David Banner, Bun B, N.E.R.D., Spank Rock, Santogold, Wale, Saul Williams and many more including THE HANSONS. This is how we do it. Check the pics after the jump and watch PSAs from Naeem and Santi here, representing Philly, and Pittsburgh's Wiz Khalifa here, urging their fellow Pennsylvanians to make a CHANGE. more...

We know it's only been three weeks, but it feels like ages since we were in Austin. All we seem to recall about it is something about a new band called Werewolf Holiday and a party thrown by a blogger who now has a record label, we think it was the one who writes about stuff white people like. Luckily there are some short movies on Videothing (a rad-tatat website featured in the brand new Issue #53) to get our brains oscillating at the right frequency. In the "Still SXSW" clip, the infamous Levi's®/FADER Fort makes an appearance along with These New Puritans, Kai, the Radisson, Mick Jones, our online editor (for about half a second) and a cast of a thousand haircuts. It's like this internet is a frickin time machine!

If you were to make a list of all the Ultimate Jams included in Issue 53 of the FADER (the real Issue 53), you'd have enough great songs to hold you over forever, or until the next issue of The FADER. We talked to Italians Do It Better flagship group Glass Candy in Portland, went to Baton Rouge to hang with Lil Boosie, drank beers in Vancouver with Ladyhawk, and hung in Brooklyn with the new guard of DFA, trancehall genius Ricky Blaze, and the dream poppers known as Telepathe. We also hit up star-in-the-making Estelle and next big thing Demarco to find out what they were up to. If that wasn't enough, we also talked to a billion more dudes and dudettes who are making some of the most exciting music around. Check out all that stuff and a bunch more now for zero dollars (free!) below.

Get Issue 53 now on iTunes,
subscribe via your favorite RSS reader here,
or download the individual F53 full-issue PDF here.