Posts Tagged “nerdcore”

It’d been a while since I’d seen an mc chris show, I guess because he’s been on other people’s tours and warped (and I have nooooo desire to go to festivals) or just playing in non SF venues or whatever, so it was nice to finally see an mc chris show again. I was there at the start of his touring career in Nashville a few years ago and it’s really good to see at least some refinement in his performances. At the time I think he was trying for some sort of half rap, half comedy blend of things to fill the time. This time around, more of a show. Still a backing track and no band or anything like that, but an entertaining show nontheless. He’s trying for a lot of interaction with the fans I guess to make up for any lack of a show, but that’s okay. I don’t see a lot of other rap shows in general so I have no idea how they do it either. Anyway, I liked the set and I hear it’s what he did most of the Warped tour which is a good thing. Most of the songs in it are what I really liked when I first heard of mc chris in general so this is a great starting point to get into the whole nerd rap thing in general. Maybe it’ll work for you, maybe not I don’t know. Any time you try to mix candy, star wars, and other stupid shit into rap songs, it sure doesn’t necessarily work for everyone right? Whatever, enjoy.

setlist:

1. OMC
2. banter
3. DQ Blizzard
4. Tractor Beam
5. On* (intro)
6. On*
7. banter
8. White Kids Love Hip-Hop
9. Reese
10. Nerd Grrl
11. The Tussin
12. Wiid
13. Fett’s Vett

Links:

• mc chris.com
• MySpace: mc chris

Part two of the nerdcore show (which is really part one, since these guys were the second band up I guess).

Optimus Rhyme was completely unknown to me before I saw this show. They hadn’t toured outside of the Pacific Northwest until their tour with MC Lars and MC Frontalot, so I guess I hadn’t had much opportunity to find out about them. The world of nerdcore is still shrouded in mystery and unknown for the most part, even the really good artists don’t seem to get much publicity outside of the very small circle of obsessive nerds unless they happen to have been working at Adult Swim at some point right? (side note: I saw a guy at The Simpsons movie on Sunday wearing an MC Frontalot t-shirt, so that was pretty cool).

Anyway, after the first act being just a girl (kflay, as mentioned in the previous post) and a “DJ” playing a track on a laptop, Optimus Rhyme brought out the full band, real instruments and everything. I wasn’t expecting that (and I wasn’t expecting it from any of the acts on the bill for the entire night really), but they quickly showed they could absolutely rock the house. Most of the time I don’t really expect much from opening acts in general, much less stuff that’s going to appeal to the geek crowd, but this was the exact opposite of what I was expecting. They’re a real band, real talent and real nerdy. Winning combo in my book! Their music is really relateable, really fun, and they put on a good show. I can’t wait for them to come back around, hopefully the next time headlining and bringing along some other good stuff I’ve never heard of. I know that most of the time I’d rather just see the headlining act and usually just stand around bored during the openers, but this was a solid show top to bottom. I blame most of the problem of opening acts being terrible on promoters or record labels or whoever books an act that just doesn’t relate to the audience of whoever the most people actually paid to see, but magical things can happen when a show is all the same sort of idea, even if none of it sounds the same. We had laptop rap, nerd rock, nerd punk, and nerd rap to finish off the show. Pure awesome.

Setlist:

1. Ergonomic
2. Sick Day
3. Click-Click
4. Autobeat Airbus
5. LEDs
6. My Piroshky
7. Ping Pong Song
8. Who Me?
9. Super Shiny Metal
10. Obey the Moderator
11. Wormz

download the whole show as a .zip file

Links:

• Official Site
• MySpace: Optimus Rhyme

Long time no post (it’s been a dry month for shows) so I’m gonna start unloading my archive of stuff on everyone.

First up, is MC Lars. In a complete departure from what the rest of this blog has had to date, I’m putting up some Nerdcore rap. MC Lars is on the forefront, and happens to be from the Bay Area as well, so of course a show in the hometown has to be good right? Absolutely. If you don’t like the nerdcore rap, that’s understandable. It’s not for everyone, and you definitely won’t get the kids who see Fall Out Boy going to see any shows where a guy raps about Moby Dick, Edgar Allen Poe and the internet in general. But, MC Lars still makes an effort at appealing to everyone with a few songs, since everyone’s familiar with the internet, Hot Topic, downloading and all the other stuff kids do these days. He’s had some local airplay (maybe nationwide?) with Hot Topic if Not Punk Rock, and for nerdcore stuff, he’s probably the most mainstream-friendly.

The show was part of a total nerdcore night, starting with k.flay (who I suspect is the Suburban Rap Queen of one of MC Lars’ songs), Optimus Rhyme (more on them in another post), MC Lars, and MC Frontalot. I’m not real sure k.flay is nerdcore exactly, but she was entertaining, although the whole “one person with a mic, one person pushing buttons on a laptop” thing isn’t very interesting. The rest of the acts packed a full band, which was honestly really surprising. I knew nothing about Optimus Rhyme, but they were great. MC Lars surprisingly had a full band (something I read once said “post punk laptop rap”) and was way more punk rock than nerd rap. MC Frontalot also had a full band with him, and I was entirely blown away by the entire evening. The rest of nerdcore has much to learn from these guys. I’m a huge fan of MC Chris, but his show only involves him and a laptop. It’s not that it’s bad, but it’s kinda like the difference between a Hershey bar and real chocolate. Yeah, a Hershey bar is great stuff if that’s all you’re really familiar with, but it’s partially fake and has fillers and additives to make it taste good. A real band brings so much more to the shows. Yeah, you have to pay musicians and all that kinda stuff so the money isn’t as good… but the shows are so much better. This isn’t gonna stop me from going to any more nerdcore shows or anything in general, but the overall effect when I see a show with a full band instead of one where the tracks are all just backing tracks is so much better.

Here’s the proof.

1. Intro
2. Space Game
3. Hey That’s Me
4. Mr. Raven
5. Generic Crunk Rap3
6. 21 Concepts
7. Straight Outta Stockholm
8. White Kids Aren’t Hyphy
9. Ahab
10. Hipster Girl
11. Hot Topic is Not Punk Rock
12. Signing Emo
13. If I Had a Time Machine, That Would Be Fresh3
14. Download This Song
15. iGeneration

Download the show as a .zip file

P.S. I have the Optimus Rhyme set from the same show, it’ll show up later this week or so. I’d also post MC Frontalot’s but he wanted to use it for his own purposes and make an official live CD out of it, so you’ll have to send him some nickels for it. In fact, you should send a few bucks the way of all these guys if you like what you hear, same as for everything you download in general right?