Going backwards once again.ACL - Pop Montreal - WCMA'sYeah it went down

Yeah, it really went down... OK So these last couple of weeks have been a bit of a whirlwind for me. Besides having a fool time job, and attempting to be a family man, I have been in and out of Canada twice AND attended the Austin City Limits Festival.

I have been thinking a lot about how I haven't written shit in a long time, and I need to get back at it. I know I know, this blog hath become the step child I only sort of ever wanted. But still love.

Anywhoooo, Trae hitting Helsinki and Oslo this weekend. That info is coming in the next post.


So yeah, we are gonna work backwards. This past weekend was the ACL Festival here in Austin, and man, what an event. Not even a monsoon could stop it! But Friday was totally beautiful, as evidenced by this photo.


Got out of work on Friday, after leaving my hotel in Montreal at 4 am (CST), getting on a plane at 6 am, getting on another plane at 9 am and landing in Austin at 12:15 pm, and then went straight to Zilker Park in hopes of catching Daniel Johnston.


And we did, on the Austin Ventures stage. Said stage gets my personal award for best back stage food, drink and acoutrements. OK I can't spell that word, but I know you feel me. The glow in the dark color changing beer cups were the bomb and I was feeling them cranberry raisin oatmeal cookies. Real talk.


This is me. (In same shirt I wore to first day of ACL last year for some reason)


This is my wife.


This is our little Elena.


Again, Elena.


And this is our Eva.

The reason we went straight to ACL as opposed to maybe taking a nap, was because my children love the Yeah Yeah Yeah's. Especially Eva. I done splained that in the post below, with the EXCLUSIVE YEAH YEAH YEAH'S VIDEO FOOTAGE PON DI YOUTUBE!


Anyway man they were off the chain.


Is Karen O human? I am not sure.

Anyway, before ACL, last week and such, I headed out to Montreal for the Pop Montreal Festival, one of my favorite music festivals hands down! Seriously, I wish I could have stayed for the whole thing, but only caught the first couple of days. What makes Pop Montreal so dope, is they get big bands, and they get a lot of newer up and comers, and they play all over the city, at all times of the day, similar to SXSW. But what I like the best is the art that seems to permeate all the parties. The Notman House, their central point, is this classic building from I guess the 1800s if not older where everyone starts their Pop Montreal experience.


This is Quinn's hand holding the Art Pop program. Quinn works with Pop Montreal and deals with people such as myself.

Anyway yeah check it out, I don't know what any of it is or who did it, cuz new daddy (and big daddy of the fest) Dan Seligman had me all fucked up.


That's a joke of course. Come on y'all!








Yeah so, I love this festival, and all these people.




Ran into the bro Cadence Weapon at the opening party and snapped a pic of him playing the theramin!


Also her.


Also them.


Ghislain Poirer was in the house!!!


As was my man Guillaime!


I am honestly not sure why I took this pic of the bathroom. I remember sticking my arm up in the air, hoping to capture something, but I am not sure what. Thanks DAN!


This band was pretty amazing, but I need someone from the organization to hit me up and remind me what their name is. Wow.






Talm bout?


Yeah and then I read the back of my cigarette pack and got scared and then said fuck it, for I really don't care.


Bicodin.


I could have, and have done, way better at documenting all the graf I saw out there, but alas, Dan, yeah, thanks man.




This a real meal right here. Funny story, well not so funny, but my Eva had the flu last week, so I have been trying to stay halfway healthy and do what I can to eat right and battle them lil biggers right out of my life. So when I got to Montreal I ate all this healthy food, lots of veggies, and still felt kinda bad. Then I got me some poutine and a chicken pita and ALL WAS WELL.

So yeah don't believe the hype. A lil gravy and cheese will fix anything. Stay with me here.

So the first night of showcases I went to see some Francophoen rap. See, they speak French and English in Quebec, but French first. So these dudes rapped in French. Not sure what they were saying but it was fun to watch. I am always interested in things like this.

Even though no one else would hang out with me and go to this! I sat stoned and alone and watched people rap things I could not understand, at all.

This is Chub-E Pelletier.




And friend.


This is MC Lasauce and friends.


Didn't know what she was saying but...


She gave out like 20 shots of Jameson tot he audience. I did not drink said Jameson.

There was one more group but I didn't take pics as I was in and out a bit checking out other bands along St. Laurent, namely HOLGER from Brazil.

Who I also did not photograph.

Then I walked home down St. Laurent and shot all these "from the hip."














I dunno man.


This was my workstation while in Montreal. Where I did the podcast you can DL below.

Thursday night I saw one of my favorite bands of all time!


Yeah man, they ripped it.



Rolled wiht the one EMpire Isis to see them and then to see ROXANNE SHANTE and MOTHER GANG.

Empire Isis and one of the MC's from Mother Gang.


Anyway Mother Gang is a collective, or maybe a gathering of some of the top female MC's in Montreal. As put together by Giselle Numba One.


It was really dope to see because to me, it seemed like everyone on stage represented another aspect of hip-hop. Like, they all had their own things going on completely, but when they came together it worked well!








Which is always nice to see. 1. Females representing in hip-hop. 2. People working together to make something new and exciting in hip-hop. Much respect!


Roxanne Shante came out IN AN INVINCIBLE T-SHIRT and rocked it!


The legend of course!


Here's Giselle Numba One and a friend.


Here is Giselle hugging Dan Seligman.

After this, I went back to the hotel, packed my shit, finished off the shit I could not bring back, and went to sleep for 2 hours.

So before leaving for Montreal, I was in Austin, daughter was sick, work was long, heat was gone, rain was coming, I was there.

BUT BEFORE THAT! I went to Brandon, Manitoba, also in Canada, for the Western Canadian Music Awards. My camera was dying out there so I didn't get a lot of photos (that's also why the photos above were done on a much lesser camera than usual), but here's a few.


This was the view from my hotel. Word to Wheat City! Seriously, this small town is really cool. And it was 90 degrees the whole time we were there.


We did some one on one mentoring sessions with some young artists, out in the sunshine.


Ritch Esra interviews Nic Harcourt.


Bands played all over town each night. And I wished my camera was working better.


We went to two events at a nature center!


And at this particular one, Amish, maybe Mennonite, women roasted a pig.

And the rest is a blur. Back to work.

Yeah Yeah Yeah's Live at ACL 2009!Eva and Elena on the side stage!

This YouTube might not win any awards for cinematic excellence, but it is hands down, definitely, the cutest ever YYY's live video ever posted to YouTube. Think you got me beat? Post a link in the comments.

And the video's actually not so bad for being recorded on a lil Kodak digital camera. Check it. (I suggest clicking the video below twice and watching it on the YouTube site in full screen)



So here's the story though. I always liked the Yeah Yeah Yeah's. To me, "Maps" is one of the most beautiful songs ever written. If you can listen to that and not at least fall partially in love with Karen O (and well yeah the other dudes too, cuz they shred that song apart so perfectly from start to finish), you hath no heart. But I never really went full on with them. I thought they were good, but never went nuts for them.

Then someone sent me a promo of Show Your Bones. My Eva was 4 years old and Elena was just turning 1. I put the CD in and Eva immediately reacted to the opening track, "Gold Lion." I am serious. You know how sometimes kids can be a little annoying with wanting to watch certain TV shows or hear certain childrens songs a million times in a row? Well, that's what it was like for me and this CD. First of all, anytime we were in the car, if I put on another CD, or the radio, within two seconds I would hear "PLAY GOLD LION DADDY!" or "PLAY KAREN O I ONLY WANT TO HEAR KAREN O WHAT IS THIS DADDY?"

Like seriously, that's all she wanted to hear.

She knows every word to that entire album (and so do I) and really really loves It's Blitz. She hasn't dug too thoroughly into the older stuff, but likes it.

Anyway suffice it to say the Yeah Yeah Yeah's are my kids favorite band and we got to see them last night. The passes we scored actually allowed us to go onto the side of most of the stages to see the bands, and well, nothing could have been more perfect than sitting where we were sitting to see the YYYs, as evidenced by the video above.

It was crazy though because, there was really not too many other people in the area we were in when we slid backstage. We were told at one entrance that we couldn't come in, so we walked (across the photo pit, probably not supposed to do that either) to the other side of the stage and didn't see anyone watching the small break in the fence.

So we walked backstage, no one really around us, and kind of sat off to the side. When their van pulled up we jumped up and walked over to see them walk on stage. We then went to the side stage steps and were told we could not watch the show from the side of the stage, and while I argued with the woman a bit, another dude came up and just let us walk up to the balcony.

So yeah, it worked out. And man that show was amazing. One of the best bands in action today, live and on record. Yeah, I said it. They are so far up there.

As I was watching them I was thinking to myself, how many rappers have I seen come out and put absolutely no effort into their show, and often lip synch at least half their sets? I wondered to myself, why have I stood for this for so many years? Why? Why would I or anyone else ever support anyone who raps over their vocals while standing in place?

Karen O jumped around like a nut for an hour straight and sang every word.

And I was just thinking, man, what the fuck is wrong with me? I have paid to see, written about and fully supported motherfucking sacks of shit who think lip synching is perfectly acceptable. And why?

I have no idea.

Show ended, and we started the 30 minute trek back to the car (Yeah, Austin, no reason to have any reasonable parking in the vicinity of one of the most used parks in Texas that at times plays hosts to festivals that attract 20,000 - 70,000 people, naw, no need for parking), I had a wet fart, and thought more about the people who have lip synched in my face, while I held my buttcheeks together and reveled in the fact that I had just been blown away by some real music.

All the way holding my daughters little hands.

New Podcast Up Now!AustinSurreal.com Damage Control Online Edition!

Yeah man I think I finally have it in action. Word to my man Crite for getting me all up to snuff technically and such. This one sounds way better than the last ones.

And it's all real rap music, like how we used to do (and they still do) on Damage Control, yeah man it's really goin' down on this one!

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE LATEST AUSTINSURREAL.COM PODCAST!

It's a zshare link, I know I know, but they make it so easy. I wasn't gonna post the tracklist, cuz i want it to be like a real radio show and make everything a surprise, but fuck it, I'll just go ahead and do it. I'm in Montreal at the Pop Montreal Festival and don't know when I'll be able to update again.

So here you have it:

Hosted by me, Matt Sonzala aka MattSoReal aka Highouttamymindincanada...

Shafiq Hussein - Nirvana
Finale - Issues
Dizzee Rascal, Shy FX - Can't Tek No More
Mayer Hawthorne - Maybe So, Maybe No
Mojoe - Dirty Genes
Krystyle Dos Santos - Talk Show Host
BK One feat. Brother Ali & Scarface - American Nightmare
Mohammed Al Farar - Ja7eem Gaza
Nawfstar - For My People
Trilateral Committee - Ain'tcha
Ric Jilla - Richard S. Killings
Big Sid, Chalie Boy, Slim Thug - Streets Love Me
Bavu Blakes - On the Cool

REALITY RAP IS NOT DEAD.

And I am going to prove it here, hopefully weekly.

M1 of dead prez Report from Gaza!

If you have not read M1 of dead prez's report from his recent trip to Gaza, do yourself a favor and

CLICK HERE FOR PART 1

and

CLICK HERE FOR PART 2

It's touching, informative, and should speak directly to YOU.

I am trying to figure out whether I want my tax dollars spent on...

Health Care
Non-Stop War in the Middle East

or these dudes:



Can't figure out how to embed these but check this footage on Pittsburgh Post Gazettes website.

http://www.post-gazette.com/multimedia/?videoid=102354

http://www.post-gazette.com/multimedia/?videoID=102353

Though I'm not totally backing the dumpster pushers. I am feeling the dude on his front stoop with the lead pipe though.

Anyway, stop the madness. Who's the terrorist again?

OH SHIT! Prefuse 73 in Austin tonight!

Word them up! Ace's is straight killin' it right now. Could this be the new spot for hip-hop in all its colors? I mean ilks. I mean, whatever. I think it may be.

Various Artists - Excuse Me Miss Vol 1 Mixtape Hosted by Wes Sanders,Dj Knowledge @ DatPiff.com

Yo seriously, I say it a lot, but rarely about a damn mixtape, but um, yeah, right about now IT'S REALLY GOIN' DOWN! My sis Lolo has released her first mixtape with the help of the boy Wes Sanders. It's entitled Excuse Me Miss Vol. 1 and it features Female MC's from all over Texas. Believe me when I say it's fire! Check the preview below and go order you one.

Various Artists - Excuse Me Miss Vol 1 Mixtape Hosted by Wes Sanders,Dj Knowledge @ DatPiff.com

Download Mixtape | Provided by DatPiff.com

Shared via AddThis

Change is Coming to Texas!The Southern Shift!

And we down here, well, we need a shift.

TheSouthernShift.com

Firstly let me apologize for being away for so long. This past week I was in Brandon, Manitoba, Canada for the Western Canadian Music Awards, and should have a post about that tonight. But while out there, I had almost no internet service, and well, it costs so much to use a U.S. cell phone out there, I just kept mine off for the 4 days. I had pretty much everyone I needed to communicate with right there, so I took a little break from the ol' ball n chain.

Yeah man, going a few days without my cell phone glued to my ear was amazing, enlightening even. Why am I so addicted to this thing? Why have I almost developed a fear of my cell phone? Why have so many of us done this? Why do I have to be available to you 24/7? It's getting bad. I can barely stand to look at the thing sometimes.

But whatever, that's neither here nor there. We won't be going back to abacuses and telegraphs anytime soon. I mean, maybe after 2012 if any of us survive it, but I dunno.

Almost none of that has anything to do with what I am about to post.



There's a new website poppin' off here in Texas that I find to be extremely important:

TheSouthernShift.com

For so many years I/we have had to deal with the outsider perspective on Texas. So many people in this world think we here in Texas are nothing but a buncha horse drawn racists hell bent on oil money, running around bragging about how many executions we have every year.

When the reality is that, in the major cities at least, we are a very diverse community. We are progressive. We are smart enough to live in Texas (a vastly superior state in many ways). We are not all conservative haters of humanity.

Yes we have produced some of the sorriest excuses for politicians ever in the history of politics. Yes, from the outside looking in I can understand why YOU might think we are a buncha backwoods yokels. Yes, I can see all of that.

But it's simply not true.

There's more of "us" than you think.

Southern Shift aims to open the eyes of, and give a voice to, the folks in our state who were tricked long ago into thinking they have no voice. Southern Shift is about changing the political landscape out here. For example, did you know that Houston (Harris County) voted blue for the first time in decades this past presidential election?

Did you know that the people behind Southern Shift were active in the streets, in the hoods, in the underserved communities of Houston for months before the election? Did you know that they even made a DVD that featured everyone from Slim Thug and Bun B to young rappers from the community, all speaking on the importance of voting?

Well, they did that. They used their voices to help lift up the people of this state, and it is my opinion that this website, if properly spread to ALL of the people, can help institute even more change.

I am neither Democrat, nor Republican. I personally am an Open Border Anarchist at the end of his rope. But I tell you whut, I recognize a positive force when I see one, and I am down to help put in the work that needs to be put in to get some of these motherfuckers the fuck out of office.

The hood didn't vote for Rick Perry, but by not voting, they did just as much as those who did to put that fuck boy in office.

It's time to stand up. Even us Open Border Anarchists need to vote.

Anyway, there's tons of information on the site already. DAVEY D is behind it and is in Texas every other week working to make this thing pop. It's a site you need to have a look at if you are for change in Texas in any capacity. Here's a couple more videos if you haven't been sold on clicking the link yet. Leave a comment below and let me know what you think.

Brother Jesse of the SHAPE Community Center!



Kevin Powell on the Importance of Running for Office and more!



TheSouthernShift.com

New Crew 54 Reality Show!

With Crew 54, Bavu Blakes, Dubb Sicks, Cali Zack & N/A and MORE!



I planned to review the show from Saturday but alas, Crew 54 does a much better job. ENJOY!

This Weekend in Austin! Bavu Blakes, Cali Zack, Rapid Ric & MORE!

It's really goin' down Saturday night! Some of my favorite hip-hop artists in Texas at Flamingo Cantina! Meet me on the roof deck!



Word is, Bavu Blakes is moving to California soon. I don't blame him I guess, but I'm not all too stoked about it either. Come see him now while you can! One of the best performers in hip-hop! And I'm excited to finally see Cali Zack & N/A & Kid Slyce & I never get to see Rapid Ric anymore either so there you have it. It's really goin' down!

And of course the homies Crew 54!

Mayer Hawthorne Live in Austin! Oct. 10th!

Yeah, it's really goin' down. Hope you got the album today cuz it's amazing!



And CLICK HERE TO HEAR & SEE MAYER HAWTHORNE & THE COUNTY LIVE ON KCRW'S MORNING BECOMES ECLECTIC!

FREE MP3! Da Underdawgz - Gorillaz!(B-Do, Toe & Short Dawg feat. Pimp C!)

Yeah man, got a call the other day from Chinara Butler, the widow of the one Pimp C and she was telling me about this project, Da Underdawgs which features a couple of proteges of Pimp C (incredible voice/producer - B-Do & Toe) + Short Dawg.

I remember when Pimp C dissed Short Dawg. From what I hear, Too Short stepped in and squashed it and the two ended up being friends. Anyway, I miss Pimp C and I want to hear everything that man ever recorded.

These three together on a track sound real live.



This one just features Pimp C on the hook, but Chinara promises more, and with the impending release of his final solo album on Rap-A-Lot, hopefully before the year ends, we at least have some things to look forward to.



Anyway man, CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD "GORILLAZ" THE NEW SINGLE FROM DA UNDERDAWGZ.



And of course it'd be nice if you would leave some feedback in the comments section, but alas, you won't.

R.I.P. PIMP C!