Malibu Shark Attack - Better Off as Friends

Hey kids, I'm working on a super gigantic link post that's going to take like my whole lunch break so in the meantime here's the opening track to Malibu Shark Attack's self titled release. It's like one of my favorite albums from the last couple years. You should check it out.

Malibu Shark Attack: The Review

Generally speaking I'm a poor reviewer of things but here we go.

Way back in January I saw a few of my favorite rappers at the Lo-Fi in Seattle. One of them, Tribe One, mentioned during his set that he had a new Album coming out soon, Malibu Shark Attack. Well the album is here and it hasn't left the CD player of my car all week.

Malibu Shark attack is actually a group comprised of Dublin based producer Rocky O'Reilly and the aforementioned nerdcore super bad-ass Tribe One. On the opening track Tribe One describes O'Reilly's sound as post electronica indiecore-syth pop so let's go with that. It's certainly nothing like you hear on the radio today but the beats are still pretty accessible. No one's going to confuse this album with the latest J Cole album but I wouldn't say it's so far away from traditional hip-hop that it needs a special category. Of course your mileage may vary. If Macklemore was raised by Wu-Tang then I was raised by MF Doom and non-traditional beats are kinda my jam. My definition of hip hop might be broader than most.

This is why I don't review things, I'm so far away from the point.

The first couple tracks on the Album, Better off as Friends and Yo Into New York are upbeat tracks that are going to get your head nodding. Tribe One always delivers clever lyrics and these songs a no exception. Yo Into New York has a verse on it by Jesse Dangerously that's so rad it had me scrambling to look up more of his stuff. The third track, Doing it Wrong, hit me right in the feels when I first heard it. On it Tribe One gets pretty personal about his motivations behind quitting his day job to make raps. Right now I'm kind of struggling with my day job and I'm not spending enough time drawing so everything he says about the desire to make art and the feeling on wasting your life in a traditional 9-5 rang true. But enough about me, the song is super dope. It's smart, honest and heartfelt. It's everything music should be but rarely is.

The next few songs on the album have appearances from MC Lars and Adam WarRock. I'm 99.9% sure the song BDMTHRFCKR is all about Jules from Pulp Fiction's wallet. It didn't hit me in the feels like Doing it Wrong did but it's a killer track. Rocky O'Reilly really throws the kitchen sink at it. It's the most uptempo song on the album and has a chorus you really want to sing along with (swearing's fun kids!).

Dizzy Dustin from Ugly Duckling shows up on Plans for the Weekend which was an unexpected surprise. I still can't believe UD never made the leap to mainstream. The Album starts to close out with a self titled song that has one of my favorite opening verses ever. The last song Monsters Under Your Bed has pretty much the only chorus on the album that I don't really like but the verses are so solid that I let it slide on this one track. But just this one track, ok?

So there you go, Malibu Shark Attack. 10 stars. You should buy it here. Or don't buy it, take Tribe One's own advice: "save your money until you're sure I deserve it, until then download, torrent and burn it". Or at the very very least you should check out the video for Better Off as Friends below

Tribe One: I'm Kind of a Big Deal

Here's Tribe One performing I'm Kind of a Big Deal at a comic book shop in Chicago. The sound is pretty good considering it looks like it was just shot on a Go Pro or maybe an iPhone. True story, this is the song I most often sing/rap to my daughter when she's upset. It's got like a 75% success rate. I'm pretty sure that means I missed my calling in life.

The Group Therapy Tour: The Review

So with some prodding from my wife and the help of a buddy at work I actually went out and saw a rap show last night. It was the Group Therapy tour: Schaffer the Darklord, Adam WarRock and Tribe one plus local guests Beefy and Death*Star. Now for a bit of context I'm not really a "going out" kind of guy. My friend Mike laughed at me when I was amazed at how my drivers licence glowed under the blacklight when they took our money at the door. I'm pretty sure the last time I had been in a club that need to see ID was about 8 years ago and the last time I actually saw a concert was nearly 17 year ago.

editors note: the following is in no ways a review or analysis of the content of any of the performers songs. All of these guys are quote unquote nerdcore rappers and what they do best is take pop culture references (specifically geeky ones) and layer them over stories of fear, acceptance, love, regret, etc. Essentially sometimes a song about Magneto is more than just a song about Magneto. Either you love this kind of music or you don't.

The Show was at the Lo-Fi in kinda-downtown Seattle. It's a big club? small club? I don't know. Like I said, zero frame of reference. There were at least 100 people there, probably more, and while it was pretty packed in front of the stage I didn't have to wait in line for a beer or to go to the bathroom. For someone who literally had to take anxiety medication to go out it was a pretty ideal crowd to space ratio. It probably helped that we sat up in this balcony area overlooking the stage that was mostly empty all night. I'm pretty sure most people either didn't know about it or thought it was off limits.

Beefy opened the show. He sounded great, I'm guessing he hasn't performed in a while as he forgot some lines a couple of times. Whatever, he played like 3 of my favorite songs so I didn't care. Tribe One went on next, he killed it. He did the two songs I really wanted to hear (Devil Rhymeosaur and I'm kind of a big Deal) so I was thrilled. After a short break Death*Star played. I had never even heard of Death*Star but they were pretty entertaining. They were a bit looser than everyone else but they had great energy and a live DJ so they get bonus points from me. In a way they were sort of a perfect middle act.

After another short break Adam WarRock went on. Not to say anything negative about the guys that went on before him because I thought everyone sounded great, but man... it's hard to describe but the energy and skill he showed, he was just on another level. It was a really great set. My only nitpick is that I wish he had played more songs off his new album. I guess it's tough coming up with a set list that will please everyone when you recorded over 100 songs in a year.

Schaffer the Darklord closed the show. Earlier in the night Adam WarRock had mentioned that Schaffer is every nerdcore rappers favorite live act. I know why. Killed it doesn't even begin to describe how good he was. I've had to re-write these couple sentences about a dozen times trying to describe it. Some performers suck live, like you watch them on SNL and you're like "jeez this stinks". STD's songs didn't just sound like the albums they sounded better. The extra emotion and energy he brought to each song while still being able to actually rap everything coherently was ridiculous. Half way through his last song I just threw up my hands and had to look away. The way he was delivering every line was just filthy. It was really amazing.

TL/DR The opening night of the Group Therapy Tour was rad and if you live on the West Coast you should check it out.

Tribe One - The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe From A to Z

Here's my favorite rapper of this morning Tribe One and the video to his song The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe From A to Z. It's rad on several levels the first of which is that it's an Homage to an old Blackalicious song.