I just got hooked up with the new 12″ from Seattle-based producer Jake One, the first single from his forthcoming album White Van Music, out Oct. 7 on Rhymesayers.

The A-side features “The Truth” with Freeway and Brother Ali, a soulful, organic little ditty built on the foundation of a straight ahead drum beat and a minimal but funky bass line, finished by horn section stabs, lilting string layers, and a subtle soprano vocal loop. And though it’s a chill track, Freeway and Brother Ali spit raps with enough strength and intention that the whole song comes off as a powerful partnership between Rhymesayers and Roc-A-Fella. Peep game…

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The single’s B-side is called “Trap Doors” and sports M.F. Doom on the mic. The tune is sufficiently Doom-y — sorta sinister and cartoonish, purposely lo-fi…which doesn’t mean it sounds like shit. In fact, the drums sound fresh and snappy, and the mix is pro without being overly slick. It’s a slow-roller with a little swagger and an eccentric vibe, and Doom’s raps are expectantly laid back and left-of center. Check it…

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If you like the songs, someone posted ‘em for download HERE and HERE, and be sure cop the album when it drops in October. In the meantime, I’ll be bumping these on future editions of The 40 Oz Show…

I hate reading about shit like this:

FOUNDERS OF F-YEAH FEST AND VIDEOTHING.COM ALLEGEDLY BEATEN BY SECURITY GUARDS AFTER RADIOHEAD SHOW

I was a bouncer all through college — I’m a pretty big dude, quick enough, and I know a thing or two about pugilism; and though I’ve certainly had my ass handed to me on a few occasions, I generally have a pretty good track record of taking care of that kind of business when the need has arisen. I’ve also been on both sides of bar and music venue security scuffles, so I’ve seen plenty of shit like this through the eyes of both bouncer and patron: ‘roid-raging bouncers using their matching yellow “SECURITY” emblazoned polo shirts and wind breakers as an excuse to work out their small penis complexes on people who obviously didn’t stand a chance; and bar patrons and show-goers acting so extremely out of control that whatever beatings they took for their indiscretions where at the very least necessary, and at most totally deserved.

No matter how it starts or how it ends, situations like these always suck.

But this story, as told by the victims, is totally out of pocket, and after reading that account in the LA Weekly’s music blog, I have hard time believing that neither security at the Hollywood Bowl nor the LAPD can provide any justification or explanation whatsoever for the events that allegedly transpired. I only use the word “allegedly” as a legal cushion; the tale is so extreme, and the police and security company’s response so half assed, that there’s obviously something wonky going on.

Moral of the story, no mater who’s right or wrong: If you decide to shoot photos or video of security guards or police stepping over the line, just make sure they don’t see you with the camera in hand.

I’ve been beating out Harvey Milk’s Life…The Best Game In Town like mad lately. Seriously dope record.

My homie Murph hipped me to this video review of Harvey Milk via the Chunklet blog, and it’s just too good to not repost here. Seriously, funniest thing I’ve seen in a while…

James Duane is on the faculty at Regent Law School — Pat Robertson’s right-wing Christian asshole factory — but given the nature and content of the lecture, I can forgive his affiliation with moral stormtroopers this one time. Both Professor Duane and Officer George Bruch, a local police detective who delivers the second half of the lecture, make a very clear case about the importance of the Fifth Amendment, and explain exactly why no one should speak to the police without consulting a lawyer first. Under any circumstances. Never. Ever. About anything. Ever.

I e-mailed it to my baby mama’s older brother, a private investigator who works with several prominent defense attorneys in Oakland and San Francisco, and he responded that it’s something everyone should see. So here ya go, everyone…

Part 1:

Part 2:

A few weeks after tracking 12 new songs for the next Ovipositor record, Colin and I went back to New Improved Recordings in Oakland the other day to mix the album with engineer and studio owner Eli Crews.

[Geek Alert] Compared to recording, mixing is a long, focused and sometimes tedious process, essentially taking the rough tracks and going after each element, every bit of sound that was recorded. In our case, that was 12 different drum tracks, two bass and two guitar tracks, scratch vocals, and a couple of tracks fed by stereo room mics. That was all captured during the recording session a few weeks ago, and Colin had since added some new layers of guitar and vocals, which he recorded at home and added to the session tracks for mixing. Earlier this week, we went through each track adding effects and stereo positioning, and mixing everything into clean, cohesive sounding songs fit for public consumption. Well…as fit for public consumption as Ovipositor can be.

Because we mixed as much of the record as possible in one day (as opposed to a well-funded mixing process in which entire days are spend working on a single track at a time), Eli opted against using all the really dope outboard gear he’s got at NIR, and we went with effects plug-ins to achieve the sounds we wanted. I love the sound of analog effects, and there’s something really studio-romantic about spending hours twiddling knobs to dial reverb, compression, etc., and I would have loved to use that stuff. But Eli’s got a full complement of Universal Audio effects in the studio computer, and that stuff sounds great, plus, unlike analog effects, the digital stuff is so easy to use quickly so we got through most of the record in about 10 hours.

There are still three songs that need to be mixed, but Colin’s doing those himself at his home studio in the next week or two, then we’ll send the record off to be mastered and replicated to CD. It’ll still be a while before we’ll have it “ready for market” (Colin’s an old-school screen printer and designer, and has a scheme to do up 100 limited edition custom packages), but come October, we should have something to offer. In the meantime, I’ve got a baby and a nursing mother to attend to, I could use some time in front of the drum machine, and Colin’s got some other stuff going on, so Ovipositor will be taking a couple of months off. Look for us to break out again at the Li Po Lounge in Chinatown, SF (or similar dive-y venue) as the winter holidays approach.

Paul Mawhinney is a record collector in Pittsburgh, PA. He closed his store, Record-Rama, earlier this year, and due to illness, he’s selling off his personal collection, certified by the Library of Congress as the largest record collection in the world. Anyone got $3 million I can borrow real quick?

This past Thursday was technically my first day back on the job after the birth of my daughter a couple weeks ago, but instead of going back to my office, I, along with my esteemed colleague Matt Harper of EQ magazine, attended the Bandwidth Conference, held this year at the University Club in SF. The conference’s motto is “Music – Technology – Cocktails” and it’s billed as a somewhat exclusive and friendly coming together of people at the apex of technology and music and everything that goes along with that intersection of hipster media — talent and A&R, media, revenue generation and general business, marketing, technological advances, etc.

Networking, brain-trusting…you get the picture.

The two-day conference started at noon on Thursday with a round table discussion open to all attendees, a chance for people to tell their “rock ‘n’ roll stories.” The discussion was moderated by David Katznelson, a music biz / A&R vet from the Birdman Recording Group, who told a good one about working with guitarist John Frusciante while in between stints with the Red Hot Chili Peppers (you know, while he was all wacked out on drugs). I was considering telling a story I’ve got about hanging out and drinking with Lemmy from Motorhead, but instead, I used the receipt of a text message as an excuse to take my leave of the conversation, head to the bar and begin fulfilling the third element of the conference motto.

The first official panel was called “Bellwethers,” moderated by Larry Weintraub, CEO of Fanscape. He interviewed four teenagers about how they acquire, listen to, and share music. It was all pretty unenlightening — kids get new music tips from sites like Pitchfork, iMeem and MySpace, as well as from their friends; some buy music (mostly from iTunes), a few still buy CDs, and some just don’t ever pay for it; and they share it via mix CD / playlist, peer-to-peer networks, via e-mail/FTP, or by word-of-mouth; so tell me something I don’t know — so I headed back to bar.

Thursday’s most interesting panel was called “Year Zero.” Featuring Susan Bonds, CEO, and Alex Lieu, Chief Creative Officer, of 42 Entertainment, the hour was all about their company’s campaign for the Nine In Nails album Year Zero, and their presentation detailed a pretty ingenious strategy of targeted story-telling that tied the band and their fans, through a series of clues, to a futuristic tale of near-apocalyptic Big Brother-type conspiracy. They called it an “alternate reality,” I call it a very smart, fiction-meets-reality promotional campaign. Either way, I was impressed by the whole thing, and I learned a lot from it.

Other panels I attended had titles like “Crystal Ball Panel” (telling the future of the digital music industry…as if), “Word Of Mouse” (all about social media marketing; moderated by Scott Perry of the New Music Tip Sheet), “Free, or Not To Free” (with IODA’s Kevin Arnold — no, not that Kevin Arnold, this Kevin Arnold — and MOG’s David Hyman; all about the delicate business and finance side of streaming and downloading music), and “360 Degrees of Speculation” (all about the fabled 360 Deal, with a couple of lawyers, a bigtime touring exec, and a guy from Pollstar). Some of ‘em were interesting, some informative, and some just killed time.

The “Conversation with Sub-Pop’s Jonathan Poneman” was among the most enjoyable elements of the conference. Interviewed by Wired’s Nancy Miller, Poneman is articulate and affable, intelligent, funny and humble; and Miller’s line of questioning was well-informed and conversational.

The panel titled “The Truth, The Whole Truth, and Nothing But the Truth” was all about the ugly realities of running an independent record label. Not too useful to me on a professional level (running a record label is not my business, nor do I want it to be), but it confirmed some things that I already knew about the music business in general, clued me into some cool, nonstandard business models (Ipecac), and reminded me that some of the indie label guys are still in it for the love of the music (Absolutely Kosher).

The best panel on Friday, and possibly the best of the whole event (and not just because I opted for sobriety on Friday), was titled “Master of Their Domain.” It was moderated by Jay Gilbert, formerly of Starbucks Entertainment and Universal Music, and featured panelists Ian Rogers, CEO of Topspin Media (and former head of Yahoo Music); Sharkey Laguana, owner of Bandago (and former member of Creeper Lagoon); Lucy Kozak, Marketing Exec. at CAA; and Philip Antoniades, President of Nimbit. The essence of the conversation: Record labels — essentially middle-men between artists and fans — are becoming increasingly irrelevant. Advancement in internet and other technologies, as well as increased accessibility to those technologies, are enabling artists to stay directly connected to their fan bases and their business. Large endorsement deals, commercial licensing, fanbase development — these important brand-building paths are no longer gated by record labels, and freedom of access to those once closed channels is resulting in a growing middle class of musicians, with the fasted growing sector of the music business now being marketing, and business and artist management. Or so they say. And I believe ‘em.

Ultimately, it was an okay way to spend two days in the city under the guise of work.

My homie Gus Cutty from the Fist Family (Ashville NC to The Bay) just posted a video for his track “SF State of Mind” to YouTube. It’s damn fresh. Check it out:

I snapped this pic at the Bandwidth Conference (I’m still working on a post about that event), which was held at the University Club in SF late last week. This is actually four photos stitched together to create the panorama. Click the photo above to see it in all it’s full-sized glory.

YouOverdidItHolmes.com. Too funny. Tell your friends, upload photos.