GZA & KILLER MIKE

LIVE AT PARADISE ROCK CLUB

OCTOBER 19, 2012

by KERRY HERLIHY

Back in October, I had the very large treat of seeing Killer Mike and GZA live at the Paradise Rock Club. I had been pretty geeked about the show since I had noted the date a month before. I had also seen Killer Mike over the summer when he was touring his collabo album, R.A.P. Music, with producer/ rapper El-P. Beyond that, Killer Mike has been one of my favorite rappers for a few years, hooking me in with his riotous classic album, I Pledge Allegiance To The Grind 2, keeping it steady with the next installment of the series, PL3DGE, and nailing various mixtapes such as Bang x3 in between. I had been able to speak with him after his set the previous time, and I was excited to support him again, not to mention the headliner, GZA. GZA’s Liquid Swords is one of my favorite Wu-Tang albums and features some terrific RZA production, and he was set to perform it in its entirety with a live band.

I tried to leave for the show pretty early, as I couldn’t really miss any of it and I usually come tragically late to concerts. I arrived at 8:30 and saw a decent amount of people loitering outside due to the show selling out. As I was on the guest list, I got in no sweat, but I had to leave my ticketless companion behind. However, when I glanced at the lineup, I saw that the opener, Bear Hands, wouldn’t be on until 9:30, Killer Mike at 10:30, and GZA at 12. An hour and a half wait ensued for the dismayed crowd and myself.

By the first act, Bear Hands, the audience was pretty ready to get it going. Further vexing everyone, these openers were not very hyped to the audience. This indie rock band from Brooklyn was a definite contrast to the awaited performers; they were low-key, with some punchy, melodic tunes and grungy apparel. Seeming no different from Any Brooklyn Indie Group, Bear Hands was difficult to get into. They had a song about smoking weed and did a tepid take of The-Dream’s “She Rockin’ That Thing Like,” which garnered a similarly lukewarm reaction from the crowd. At that point the majority of the audience was making a fair amount of noise in search of Mike and GZA. This continued when Bear Hands exited the stage, leaving another long hour of pause. Luckily for a loner like me in the building, the communal miff led to a sense of camaraderie, and others around chatted with me for a while. Fellow attendees exchanged hopes for upcoming sets and nerd knowledge on the performers.

Finally, DJ Trackstar, Killer Mike’s man on the turntables, began to set up. Trackstar dropped the beat to “God In The Building,” an amazing track on my favorite album, Pledge 2. Unfortunately, Killa didn’t start in on rapping on this one. To further frustration, he ended up touching nothing from that album. However, after such previous anticipation, the undeniable boom of his presence jacked the audience when he jumped on stage. First up was “Big Beast” and its heavy hitting from the pavement. He then immediately dropped another joint from this most recent R.A.P. Music album, “Ghetto Gospel.” This serious jam kept the audience bumping, most notably when going into a cappella at the end, laying out his slick and heavy rhyme of pictorial lyrics. Killer Mike transitioned back and forth between works from the recent and the opening chapters of his career, and between his own pieces and his various guest features. The first of the old verses he went in on was the emphatic and hard “Ain’t Never Scared” by Bone Crusher -- my kind of raps. His verse was engaging and the chorus was yellable, a recipe for an active audience. Mike Bigga then steamed down to preach a little to the crowd. He dictated that he’s proud of young America, and in a wonderfully Killer Mike fashion drew a political connection to Ronald Reagan and transitioned into “Reagan.” In an even more personal tone than heard on record, Killer Mike spat his political views on the former president and his legacy. The crowd was hooked on his revolutionary stance and Killer Mike floated this spirit into his first buzzed-about opinionated song on PL3DGE, “Burn.” Then we’re brought back to the beginning of the millennium with Outkast’s “The Whole World,” one of a good few of their tracks featuring Mike, who is a member of the Dungeon Family. A truly engaging performer, Mike did a solid Temptations-reminiscent dance and maintained a real command of the audience to the very end. Last was his joint done with Purple Ribbon All-Stars “Kryptonite (I’m On It),” which also closed his set over the

summer. With this song, just like a few months before, Killer Mike hopped off the stage and rapped the entirety practically on top of me (somehow this actually occurred both times). I was sold on Killer Mike being the greatest performer I’ve seen to date. Established fans and new converts alike raved over his overwhelming presence.

No question that the only drawback of GZA having a live band behind him was that the set up again took longer than I’m used to. I saw a keyboard, a bass, trumpets, and drums placed on the stage. Puppeteering the highest amount of excitement possible, the Shogun Assassin sample intro dropped, and I was suddenly reminded that I was in a room of full Wu-Tang disciples. GZA in no way disappointed. When he slid on the stage he hit his slick lines hard and sharp. The live band was an incredible choice. The playback of the original samples with unbridled instruments made the beats impelling to the highest degree, and gave me the sense I was in the direct center of each track. Going into “Gold,” GZA’s ruggedness charged the building. The crowd started to get the most involved with “Living In The World Today,” and again the live instruments gave GZA a stronger sense of funk than I could’ve imagined. “I Gotcha Back” received matched commotion. Another Shogun Assassin sample rang out, and the beat to “Cold World” played more eerily than ever. When the first Shogun Assassin intro kicked off again, GZA launched into “Liquid Swords,” and the reaction was wild. The thrill didn’t die when GZA got into the Wu-Tang classic “Method Man,” slyly delivering “I got, myself a shorty / I got, myself a forty / and I’m about to go and stick it / yes, I’m about to go and stick it.” GZA had no hesitation towards “Enter The Wu-Tang: 36 Chambers” -- he performed his verses from “36 Chambers” and “Protect Ya Neck” to an already devoted crowd. A bark of “Clan in da front, let your feet stomp / N***z on the left, brag shit to death / Now hoods on the right, wild for the night / Punks in the back, c’mon and attract to...” from “Clan in da Front” recurred throughout the set as a call to action to the crowd. Even better to keep the mob energized, GZA jumped right in himself, imploring those closest to him to form a circle around him by linking arms (not a common activity at a rap show). An unequivocal crowd pleaser, GZA gave shine to the late Ol’ Dirty Bastard by doing his “Shimmy Shimmy Ya.” Finally, he ended with what he declared to be the Wu-Tang ballad, “Triumph,” and the audience responded with an appropriate amount of frenzy.

At around 1:30, the show was finally over. The late hour would have bothered me had I not left feeling like I had just been to one of the trademark live shows of my youth. Topping it off, I was able to speak with Killer Mike again like the true man of the people he is. I lamented to him that he hadn’t done any of Pledge 2 for me, but he assured me that I could just hit him up on Twitter before his next show to let him know what I was looking to hear. There’s no doubt I will.<

KERRY HERLIHY

Oh, just write one for me.

EL TEN ELEVEN

LIVE AT TT THE BEAR’S PLACE

OCTOBER 24, 2012

by MAX BENNETT

AAs I walked into TT The Bear’s Place in Cambridge on a Wednesday night, I did not know what to expect from El Ten Eleven. From what I learned immediately before leaving, El Ten Eleven is a band comprised of two musicians, Kristian Dunn and Tim Fogarty, who are known for their ambient, experimental, post-rock. Having neither heard El Ten Eleven prior to the show, nor ever listened to experimental or post-rock before, I had no idea what I was in for.

As the stage began taking form, a stagehand set up fourteen pedals on the floor and brought out two double neck guitars, as well as a fretless bass. The crowd’s anticipation grew steadily until the duo took the stage and greeted the crowd of roughly 50 people. Kristian grabbed one of his double neck guitars, and Tim sat down at his drum set. The duo played practically nonstop for two hours.

The two musicians played a few of their hits, judging by the crowd’s response to the first few measures, but the majority of their performance was comprised of long, 15- or 20-minute pieces that featured build-ups, loops, and vamps. Fogarty played on both electric and acoustic drums, often simultaneously. Dunn, on the other hand, primarily played one of his two double neck guitars and was constantly adjusting the pedals on floor, synthesizing and looping both his guitar and Fogarty’s drums. At times, Dunn would swap his guitar for his fretless bass, creating a bass line that tied the whole piece together.

El Ten Eleven’s performance relied heavily on rhythmic layering and intricate time signatures flawlessly connected through bridges and transitions. One of their new songs in particular, an 11-minute piece aptly named “Transitions,” changes time signatures four times, as Dunn told the crowd, from an entrancing use of triplets in 9/8 to a familiar 4/4 rhythm from earlier in the song. Their music usually begins with a simple melody, sometimes major, sometimes minor, which gradually builds up with drums and loops to create an amalgam of rhythms and melodies, only to cut out to one melody or one loop, leaving the listener in anticipation for the next buildup.

The duo was incredibly skillful and obviously very comfortable in their roles as musicians. The captivated the crowd in a way unlike I had ever seen before. There was no aggressive dancing or anything of the like—it was a crowd that can be simply described as “intellectual.” Nearly every member of the audience followed the rhythm with their head, but everyone seemed to enjoy the hypnotizing loops and the energy the duo created on stage. There was no money spent on extravagant lighting or fog machines; it was simply a small group of music lovers enjoying musical layering that I had never known of prior to the concert.

The many, distinct pieces El Ten Eleven played, like “My Only Swerving” and “Thanks Bill,” melded together to create a great concert that did not set out to be a ridiculous, over-hyped pop or rap concert of the sort we see so often online and in popular music culture. Kristian Dunn and Tim Fogarty captivated the crowd in a way I had never experienced before, and the two of them opened me up to a new genre of music I have grown to love. <

One bad larry out to get the world.

MAX BENNETT