“Dope Boy” is a southern-flavored banger in line with some of the other tracks OOH has released outside of Brown F.I.S.H., such as “Let the Light…” and “Pink Money.” And though the song’s title and the name YoSlick may indicate that OOH is adopting some kind of character to make more overtly “ignorant” rap, the song’s verses still contain some of the MC’s undeniable intelligence and way with words. OOH is launching the YoSlick project alongside the announcement that he’s the new host of a regular event/weekly showcase at NowChild Soundstage in Mount Vernon, called Judah’s Juke Joint Thursdays.

As noted in an update about his condition on the Telesma web site, Hesford is, like many other musicians, woefully uninsured and unprepared for his recent health issues. So the remaining band members will continue performing without him to help raise money to benefit their bandmate, and in the meantime has set up a Paypal link for anyone who’d like to donate to a trust that’s been set up to help Hesford with his medical bills.

I first heard Valium Eel last year, when I sat down with Baltimore musician Jon Ehrens of White Life for a lengthy rundown of the many bands and recording projects he’s had over the years. He mentioned one of his earliest band experiences, playing drums for one of his classmates at Walt Whitman High School.

Muralidhar and Ehrens met when both attended Walt Whitman; Muralidhar later attended the Unversity of Maryland, College Park, before moving to Minnesota, where he died. From 2000 to 2005, Muralidhar recorded a number of Valium Eel songs, sometimes playing all the instruments, sometimes with Ehrens or Justin Shapiro on drums. In light of the sad news, Ehrens decided to memorialize his friend by uploading a collection of those songs to Band Camp as a free download.

The nine Valium Eel songs featured on the Band Camp page feature a variety of sounds and moods within the spectrum of lo-fi indie rock, from minimal acoustic tracks to full-band rockers. The aptly titled “Tangled” is a peppy, tightly coiled array of jangly riffs and caffeinated drum fills, while the stark opener “Call Me Around” is a direct voice-and-guitar recording.

Telling me about Muralidhar last year, Ehrens gushed, “Man, I didn’t really understand how to write a song until he gave me a tape of his songs. And it was just insane to me. He was really young, like a year or two older than me, and he was just so fucking good, it really upped the ante.” And if the rest of us didn’t know this young man, we can at least mourn the sadly unrealized potential of the songwriter heard on these recordings.

Music Monthly was an outgrowth of Susan Elizabeth Mudd’s own passion for music, and she was a tireless lifelong supporter of the Maryland music scene covered by the magazine, which had a circulation of 90,000. “Susie was absolutely dedicated to the music and musicians of the mid-Atlantic. Seeing ‘local bands,’ although she loathed the term ‘local,’ go on to bigger successes was a huge thrill for her,” says journalist and photographer Kelly Connelly, who is Mudd’s niece and worked for many years as a Music Monthly staffer. “She forged her own path and was never afraid to voice her opinion.”

In recent years, local bands and venues threw “Susiefest” benefit concerts in support of Mudd, including one in December 2011, as she continued to promise to revive and revamp Music Monthly in the final months of her life. Mudd’s Facebook profile has played host to an outpouring of grief and remembrances from her many friends in the Baltimore music community over the past week. A memorial service will be held 3 p.m. on Sunday, April 22, at the family owned Peaceful Alternatives Funeral and Cremation Center at 2325 York Road in Timonium.

The mixtape is, of course, a nod to its namesake, the blockbuster joint album released by Jay-Z and Kanye West last summer. But the Watch The Throne Mixtape is decidedly more of a tribute to the former, featuring Travis Davon freestyles over songs from throughout Jay’s solo career and only a couple from the West collaboration. And since Jigga’s influence has always loomed large over Bossman’s music, it is a refreshing way for the Baltimore MC to reconnect with his roots and just rap his ass off on some beats he loves, the way he used to in his early days of making mixtapes with the group NEK. In one especially entertaining moment, Davon raps over the terrible “Haters” from The Blueprint 3 and finishes a hate-filled verse with “I don’t even know why I rapped to this wack-ass track, I hate that.” It’s a deliberately minor project, and Davon tries a little too hard to sell “swavor” as his new catchphrase, but it’s a largely enjoyable listen. Tracks like the relaxed, confident “Can I Live 2K12″ might not compete with the Jay originals but bring to mind Bossman in his prime more than some of the songs on The Re-Up that tried to be everything to everyone. And the sole original song that closes the mixtape, “Illuminati” produced by CLAWS, gives evidence that Travis Davon isn’t just playing around with rap for the hell of it.

A few years ago, it was pretty commonplace for a handful of Baltimore’s better-known MCs to hop on an overstuffed posse-cut remix whenever one of them caught some success with a single. That practice has been a bit neglected lately, though, which makes the show of unity on the “Trashbags” remix feel like more of an event. DBoi acquits himself well, laying down a better verse than he had on the original song, and Caddy sounds at home on the beat, but the last verse is reserved for almost inarguably the most famous and talented MC on the track. It’s one of Los’ first guest appearances since re-signing to Bad Boy Records, and it doesn’t disappoint. But the fact that this remix marks the first time I’ve ever heard Los on 92Q, years after he’d proven himself to a rapidly growing mixtape fan base as well as the major-label world, gives a little credence to the perennial question of exactly how and why the station’s gatekeepers choose which local artists get airplay.

The news of Los returning to Bad Boy, then, is both exciting and surprising, and perhaps should be greeted with some healthy skepticism. After all, Los leaving Bad Boy four years ago was arguably the best thing that ever happened to his career; it was only after he went independent that he began giving away tons of mixtapes and freestyles online and building the estimable fan base he has today. And though Bad Boy has been one of the most famous brand names in urban music for nearly two decades, it’s had a shaky history with rappers since the late ’90s, after it experienced the tragic death of its marquee star, Notorious B.I.G. Soon after, Craig Mack disappeared, the LOX defected, Ma$e retired, the then Puff Daddy became more of a professional celebrity than a rap star, Shyne went to jail, and the label was kept afloat mainly by R&B acts like 112, Faith Evans, Carl Thomas, and Cassie.

Around the time of Los’ initial 2005 signing, Bad Boy’s hip-hop roster was enjoying a resurgence with the success of southern acts like Yung Joc, Boyz N Da Hood, and 8Ball and MJG. Since then, however, things have been relatively quiet; Bad Boy released two critically acclaimed R&B albums, by Janelle Monae and Diddy-Dirty Money, in 2010, but last year marked the first in the label’s history that it didn’t drop a single full-length. Last year was a rebuilding year, as Diddy started signing buzzed-about new rappers like French Montana and Machine Gun Kelly who, along with the label’s longtime also-ran Red Café, are set to drop debuts in 2012. So Los is not only returning to Bad Boy with the leverage of an actual following, but is now part of a roster that he fits in with a little better, one that’s set to actually make some noise this year. In hip-hop, getting “signed” is often looked at as a goal in and of itself, the reward for a rapper’s hard work rather than the opportunity to work even harder for a more concrete type of success. But we know better than that, and more importantly, so does Los.

Sword Swallow’s self-titled cassette was painstakingly assembled by Ehrens a few years ago as an experiment in collage, pulling together various demos and ideas into a deliberately patchwork whole–seriously, one of the tape’s best songs is called “A Veritable Hodgepodge.” The other tape, 21st Century Disasters: Random Repelican, is a career-spanning compilation of a couple dozen songs from Ehrens’s most prolific project, including tracks from each of Repelican’s three previous self-released albums as well as songs that have at times been credited to other bands like the Anywhere and the Failed Ygriega. Check out “Badmood Baboon,” which originally appeared on Repelican’s 2005 album Anyone? Anyone?, and the Sword Swallow tape’s opening track, “The Terrifying Prospect,” below:

“Badmood Baboon,” Repelican by EverydayElk

“Terrifying Prospect,” the Sword Swallow by EverydayElk

“Cookamonga,” featuring Money on the song’s outlandishly silly hook, debuted on Powder Meth Blow last year, and has been racking up spins on 92Q and elsewhere. Now Future, who broke through last year on YC’s smash “Racks” and has since been scoring solo hits like “Tony Montana” and “Magic,” has hopped on the song’s second verse as Caddy hopes to break the track nationally. Caddy recorded all new lyrics for the track himself, taking the first verse before Future shows up with his odd, gruff voice, dropping memorable lines like “I’m still walking on the moon, I feel like a thousand goons.”

Caddy Da Don ft. Future, “Cookamonga” by EverydayElk

“We Stay Winning,” DJ Class by EverydayElk

The only person sampled without their knowledge on Class’s other new song, the single “Orangutan,” is the titular primate, who makes a squealing cameo on the song’s ingratiatingly silly hook. Like “We Stay Winning,” the song rides the kind of burbling synth horn that’s typical of a lot of Baltimore club tracks (particularly from the late ’90s and the early 2000s) but is kind of a change of pace for Class, particularly from the AutoTune hooks and screaming rave synths that have dominated many of his tracks since “I’m the Ish” revitalized his career.

“Orangutan,” DJ Class by EverydayElk

The Crown Ain't Safe

Earlier this week, I logged onto the popular mixtape hub DatPiff.com to listen to some of hip-hop’s latest underground releases, and was pleasantly surprised to see that the banner at the top of the site counting down the day’s big new release was from Baltimore’s own Los. The eagerly anticipated The Crown Ain’t Safe is the Maryland freestyle master’s highest profile release to date, co-hosted by DJ Ill Will and mixtape legend DJ Drama (who first featured Baltimore rappers in his prestigious Gangsta Grillz series with 100 Grandman’s 2009 Welcome To Baltimore and Tony Austin’s 2010 The Influence). I often think back to the afternoon five years ago that the young rapper sat in my living room for an interview in this very paper and marvel at how far he’s come since then. So I decided to listen to the mixtape as soon as it became available this afternoon and offer some reactions in real time to what could very well be a breakout moment for Baltimore hip-hop’s most realistic hope for the mainstream right now:

1. “Make You Fly” featuring Jazze Pha

After a brief monologue by DJ Drama, Los comes out swinging with a hilarious gag about one of hip-hop’s biggest current stars: “I ain’t never change like Drake’s singing key.”

2. “Living My Dreams”

A cracking snare drum from producer Mike Cash backs this early highlight, in which Los recounts how his greatest successes have come well after an abortive stint on Bad Boy Records: “Six years ago I signed a record deal with Puffy Combs/ I told my city pop them bottles off, I’m comin’ home/ They see me fail so I hope everybody watchin’ this/ A champion’s only as good as the ones he missed.”

3. “King Los” featuring Lola Monroe

One of Los’s most frequent collaborators these days is LoLa Monroe, the female rapper from Washington, D.C. who first found fame in the hip-hop world as the eye candy model Angel Luv in countless popular rap videos. Her bars are nothing to write home about, but you can’t fault Los for hanging around with her, I suppose.

4. “Money Loud”

The producer of one of the biggest bangers of 2011, Meek Mill’s “Ima Boss,” contributes a track here, but it’s unfortunately a little closer to a generic Lex Luger track.

5. “Stroke Of Genius”

A short, aggressive song that ends with a dick joke.

6. “2 Vs 1″

The Young Boyz produce the first track of the mixtape that sounds like it has radio potential, with Los darting around a bleeping, thumping club beat with a playful flow reminiscent of the Trey Songz hit “Say Aah.”

7. “Wait For It”

Jazze Pha returns to produce a catchy, skeletal track that retains some of his signature claps and booming bass but little else to great effect, letting Los sprint around the track with a double-time flow.

8. “Biggest Fan” featuring Sean Hayz and Kid Ink

The mixtape’s first whiny R&B hook, courtesy of South Africa-by-way-of-Atlanta crooner Sean Hayz.

9. “What’s Good”

Things get back on track with one of the mixtape’s most relentlessly punchline-heavy tracks. So many quotable one-liners that I didn’t manage to catch one to quote.

10. “Shine” featuring Phil Ade

Regardless of whether the so-called “DMV movement” is actually uniting D.C., Maryland and Virginia or just expanding the territory of Washington artists, it’s always fun to hear rising Baltimore and Washington rappers band together, especially Phil Ade, who also collaborated with Mullyman earlier this year.

11. “Finally Here” featuring Twista

Los occasionally raps fast, but it’s more like another skill in his toolbox than his defining trait. Still, it’s fun to hear him paired up with the Chicago star widely regarded as the fastest rapper in the world (seriously, he’s in the Guinness Book). But instead of a speed rapping competition, “Finally Here” is a more serious track, with both MCs keeping it solemn and lyrical and mostly holding back on the pyrotechnics.

12. “All The Way To Church” featuring Jazze Pha

Once again Jazze Pha rears his head, shoehorning some of his circa 2005 obnoxious ad libs in between Los’s verses over the organ-heavy Battleroy production.

13. “Get It” featuring XV

This bombastic anthem feels like perhaps the best point of entry for Los offered on The Crown Ain’t Safe so far, showcasing both Los’s rapping and his underrated hook-writing abilities, while Lifted’s impressive production moves in peaks and valleys, mellowing out for a few bars just before the chorus explodes.

14. “Make You Proud” featuring Sean Hayz and DMX

Of all the big name artists lending Los a hand on this mixtape, easily the most surprising is DMX, the late ’90s New York rap superstar (who, we’re eager to point out, was born in Baltimore) currently making his latest comeback attempt after years of personal struggles. X spits some vintage grimy introspection, but the track is sunk by another limp Sean Hayz hook.

15. “Fast Lane” featuring Ernie Gaines

Ladies and gentleman, I am not pleased to inform you that there is a singer worse than Sean Hayz on this mixtape. In recent years, rappers have begun treating mixtapes more like albums in terms of songwriting and production values, but the downside of that is that they feel compelled to fill up these so-called “underground” releases for diehard hip-hop fans with wimpy R&B crossover tracks.

16. “Masterpiece”

A lush, soulful track that puts the focus back on Los’s lyrics, as he fills up the first verse with a flurry of internal rhymes and alliteration. Like most mixtapes The Crown Ain’t Safe is undoubtedly frontloaded, so it’s good to hear a song this exciting this far in.

17. “Never Say Never” featuring Sean Hayz

One of the few Baltimore-based producers on the mixtape, J. Oliver (known for work with Greenspan and on Los’ Shooter mixtape) turns in a great track full of warm, brooding synths that almost make another Sean Hayz chorus bearable.

18. “Vintage Rolls Royce Interior”

It bears mentioning at this point that Los suffers from the same affliction as many of the new generation of mainstream rappers like Drake and J. Cole that he’s hoping to join in the mainstream: most of his lyrics are not just about his talent and riches but about how he’s destined for greatness, forever attempting to raise his commonplace music industry setbacks to some kind of epic drama. It’s not much more compelling coming from Los than from those guys, but he at least has a little more of a sense of humor about himself, which in addition to his raw lyrical talent may ultimately be his saving grace.

19. “Outro” featuring Sean Hayz

For the first time since the intro, we hear the mostly absent DJ Drama speak at length, although Los quickly takes the track over for one last self-aggrandizing rant about his up-and-down career. We got a fourth and final appearance by the annoyingly ubiqutious Sean Hayz, and then Los closes down the “album disguised as a mixtape” that is otherwise of a high enough quality that it just might be what takes his career to the next level in 2012.

At two and a half minutes, “Black Ring” is quite a big longer than “Black Messiah Freestyle,” but still pretty compact, and crammed full of quotables. One moment he’s brunchin’ at a luncheon with internal rhymes galore, the next he’s slurring “Maryland” in his Balmer accent until it turns into “Merlin,” while producer Dischoe lays down a crisp, jazzy beat. And then there’s that hook about Mike Tyson’s face tattoo, which is hard to make much sense of but sure sounds cool.

Rome Cee—“Black Rings” by EverydayElk

The X-Factor disappointingly did not choose to air Williams’ solo audition, but they did air the next round she proceeded to, as part of one of the “bootcamp” groups assigned a song to perform as an ensemble. The combination of rappers and singers were given the somewhat obscure Jay-Z single “Wishing On a Star,” and Williams got to show off her unique skill set as the only member of the group who sang lead on a chorus and rapped a verse. It may not have been the best possible display of her abilities, and the judges weren’t too impressed with the group effort overall, but it’s still exciting to watch this chapter unfold in a career that seems destined for bigger and better things.

Futureworld represents the apex of Trans Am’s obsessions with cheesy old-fashioned futurism, vocoders, and Kraftwerk-style emotionally detached machine music. So the band appeared onstage in goofy sleeveless shirts, headbands, and dookie rope gold chains, which would have been just embarrassing if they didn’t rock so hard. Trans Am  has a rep for campy, ironic affectations, but the fact is that these are three seriously creative, talented musicians who happen not to take themselves too seriously.

Futureworld‘s retrofuturistic soundscapes, vocoded hooks and occasional saxophone solos translated to the stage surprisingly well, with drummer Sebastian Thomson pumping up the power of every groove. But the album was always front-loaded with its most uptempo tunes, and perhaps the band sensed that the closing track, “Sad And Young,” while the record’s loveliest melodic moment, doesn’t make for a great ending to a set. So Trans Am stayed onstage for a couple of rocking songs from the same era: “I Want It All” and “Play In The Summer” from Futureworld‘s 2000 follow-up The Red Line.

The night’s opening act, New York trio Psychic Paramount, gave the headliners some competition for the most impressive noise of the night with an incredibly loud set of thunderous guitar/bass/drum instrumentals in off-kilter time signatures. At first, the smoke machine Psychic Paramount brought with them seemed like a silly arena rock affectation, but as the club filled with thick smoke, tinted an ominous red by the stage lights, the band’s overwhelming, sinister auditory assault found a perfect visual accompaniment.

The Beautiful Mind is billed as a “Block Work Bootleg,” as part of the DJ Jabril’s Block Work prestige series of solo mixtapes from many of Baltimore’s most high-profile MCs. No matter how it’s released, however, as with most Skarr Akbar releases it’s more album than mixtape, with 17 songs featuring original production primarily by the artist himself. So while it’s tempting to analyze The Beautiful Mind as the long-awaited masterpiece six years in the making, it’s more satisfying to appreciate it as another in a long line of solid Skarr Akbar releases like The Pursuit of Happyness and The Epidemic. One of the more immediate highlights, “Goodnight,” features some awesome snare drum fills panning from right to left, and a guest verse from Los, the one-time Skarr Akbar protégé who’s now a star in his own right. And on “T.O.M. (That’s On Me),” Akbar addresses the dimming prospects of him ever becoming a mainstream star with typically sly bravado: “The industry’s gettin’ worse and I’m just gettin’ better.”

“Holy Holy” was my favorite track on Civilian upon the album’s initial release, a woozily seductive summary of everything Wye Oak’s moody midtempo songs do best that takes its sweet time to hit you with the full force of its chorus. So it’s exciting to see the song soundtrack arguably the first video to prominently feature the band itself–Wasner and Stack had little more than cameos in the clip for If Children’s “Please Concrete,” while The Knot’s “Sight, Flight” and the first Civilian video “Fish” featured actors and animation, respectively.

Throughout the “Holy Holy” video, director Johnstone uses enough extreme camera angles and moody editing to make a summer day of riding the rides at Coney Island not seem quite so innocent and fun, especially given the ominous final shot. And while Wasner does a good job of keeping a poker face while singing the haunting tune to the camera, there are a few shots where she can’t help cracking a smile as they go up and down that roller coaster again.

The Baltimore hip-hop community has rallied to support Bolling in his time of need, encouraging donations of children’s clothing as well as cash to cover hospital and burial expenses. This Thursday, Tay-Land Promotions is holding a benefit concert for Yuk and Brandy at Sonar, with all proceeds from the door charge going toward the mourning family. Yuk himself will perform, as will local stars including Comp, KG, Bar Cardy, and Miss Cream.

Donations can be made in the name of Darrell Bolling, 153 S. Hilton Street, Baltimore, Marlaynd 21229. For more information, contact Tayland Promotions at 410-703-4049.

Cover art

Bopp acknowledges his influences both implicitly and overtly throughout Alto Verde’s debut album Paper Clips, due out August 30th with a release party at Frazier’s on the Avenue on the 27th. One of the album’s standouts, “Paul Westerberg,” is outright named after one of those influences, much the way Westerberg himself once wrote a song called “Alex Chilton.” But there may be an extra layer of meta in that the tumbling drums and smooth hooks of “Paul Westerberg” actually recall Big Star’s “Back Of A Car” more than any Replacements song. And it doesn’t seem like a coincidence that the next song on the album is titled “Minneapolis.”

“Paul Westerberg” by EverydayElk

The umpteen-piece band, with horns out the wazoo, an ace rhythm section, and a trio of backup singers, was on full display from the jump on Tuesday, showboating on an instrumental piece for a few minutes before Becker and Fagen even took the stage. And once the frontmen did arrive, the band went straight into a solo-heavy rendition of “Your Gold Teeth,” and then the title track from 1977’s Aja, the apex of Steely Dan’s jazz and art-rock ambitions. But the band know that that their catalog of hooky FM radio hits is too undeniable to ditch entirely in favor of saxophone solos, so they soon moved onto “Black Friday,” with a slightly slower shuffle than usual, and “Hey Nineteen.”

Donald Fagen was visited by the ghost of Ray Charles on his last solo album, 2006’s Morph The Cat, and on Tuesday night he seemed possessed by it, sitting behind his piano in sunglasses with posture and body language that frequently recalled Charles. His voice had sounded a bit weaker and lacking in some of its essential character on later studio recordings, but live the 63-year-old sounded great, having finally grown into the older man he often sounded like in his twenties. Walter Becker compensated for his lack of singing parts by delivering a couple of droll monologues that left little doubt of how much he contributes to the subversively funny lyrics Fagen sings. At one point, Becker had me in stitches simply by listing his bandmate’s many instruments and accomplishments and then emphatically adding “favorite color: unknown.”

Throughout the two hour set, Steely Dan continually moved between those two dominant modes: jazzy showcases of their incredibly talented sidemen, and straightforward renditions of their timeless singles. Of course, the band has more hits than they could fit into one night, so they invariably had to pick and choose from their catalog, and not always to the most crowd-pleasing result — the only two albums in the Steely Dan discography that went completely untouched were two of the most popular, 1974’s Pretzel Logic and 2000’s Two Against Nature. Some songs had dramatic or subtly effective changes in arrangement — a whole new tempo for “Show Biz Kids” or “Dirty Work” refashioned as a showcase for the female backup singers. And sometimes the drums were juiced up with a little extra funk or forward momentum to make “Time Out Of Mind” or “GodWhacker” really pop.

As the night wound to a close, Steely Dan started ramping up the size and frequency of hits they were rolling up, slamming from “Josie” to “Peg” to “My Old School” and then bringing the hyped audience to a new peak with “Reelin’ In The Years.” After returning briefly for another uptempo favorite, “Kid Charlemagne,” Becker and Fagen left the stage one last time, once again leaving their backing band alone to blow their horns extravagantly for a few minutes, and show off how great they can sound even without one of the greatest songbooks in popular music to lean on.

Local battle rap champ EJ included the song “Queen Swift” on his new mixtape Retire the Instrumental, and shot a video (below) for the track directed by fellow Baltimore rapper Ray Lugar. EJ dons a suit as if still at K-Swift’s funeral, and references the clubs she once ran with lyrics like “When I ride past Choices I swear to God it screams ‘Baby come back.’” The video ends with a K-Swift photo montage set to another MC’s tribute song, Comp remixing the current radio hit “Tupac Back” by Meek Mill and Rick Ross as “K-Swift Back.”

Another tribute, this time in K-Swift’s own genre of choice, Baltimore club music, surfaced on Tunecore this week, by heretofore unknown Baltimore native Isaac Stalk. “The Incredible,” which is being released via Island Def Jam Digital Distribution, features a dramatic synth horn riff over a “Think” breakbeat and a collage of vocal samples, including the title phrase as famously uttered by Chuck D and K-Swfit’s name as shouted out by club producer Blaqstarr.

This week I called up one of the main organizers behind Farm Fest V, Flying Eyes drummer Elias Shutzman, to get the story on the festival’s history and what to expect this year.

City Paper: So how did Farm Fest start?
Elias Shutzman: Five years ago, it basically just started as a big party. Our friend Hannah, who was dating our guitar player at the time, had the idea to throw this party on her farm; she has a huge property. It turned out pretty well, a hundred people came out. The next year we were like ‘All right, let’s do that again, and make it a little bigger.’ And it kind of evolved into something beyond our circle of friends, where by the third year or maybe the fourth year, word of mouth and stuff like that, a lot of people started showing up, and it was more of a happening than just an outdoor party.

CP: Are any of you guys from out in that area?
ES: The Flying Eyes, we’re all from Baltimore city. It was really our friend Hannah Carney; it’s her property.

CP: How far a drive is the farm from the city?
ES: It’s about 40 minutes.

CP: I guess that’s part of the appeal of a show like this, though, that it takes place at this out-of-the-way destination.
ES: Yeah, getting away from the city, being out on this nice farmland, you might as well be in a different state or something. It goes along with the whole festival kind of spirit, traveling a little distance, setting up camp, and enjoying the outdoors.

CP: Is it hard to set up a show logistically in an area like that?
ES: It definitely takes a good amount of work and organization, and every year we realize different things we should fix or improve. I think the most labor-intensive thing is the stage. Will Kelly, the singer of the Flying Eyes, had the idea of ‘Well, we should just build the stage.’ So two years ago, we actually–and mostly him, with the help of us–he actually built this really nice stage, and we’ve been taking that apart and putting it together for the past few years. So that definitely does take a good amount of work, but in the end it’s cheaper than renting a stage, and it’s also our own creation, so that’s cool.

CP: Were you more ambitious with the booking this year in terms of getting bands like Lower Dens and Arbouretum?
ES: Yeah, I handle most of the booking, and I just happened to have bigger names in mind to get the buzz going more, and in all aspects of the festival we’re trying to expand and reach a little farther. I’m glad that the headlining bands are also local bands, and I’m gonna continue to book bigger and better national bands.

CP: And these bands also fit the preexisting musical aesthetic of the festival pretty well.
ES: Yeah, that’s another thing, the style of music is pretty important to us. We don’t wanna be another kind of jam band festival, which there are so many. And nothing against jam music, but we want our festival to have a different sound, something a little darker, more psychedelic and rock’n'roll, something that’s different from your average DIY festival.

CP: How did you pick out of town bands?
ES: It’s hard to say. When I start the booking process, I just make a list of bands I like, and then contact them. Golden Animals are a really good out-of-town band. We actually played with them in New York, and they were really nice people, and I just kept in touch with them. I get so many requests from so many bands, both local and out of town, and I wish there was more room and more time to accommodate more bands, but that’s not possible.

CP: Yeah, I guess you can’t expand to more than one day without a lot of complications.
ES: I feel like the Carney family are more comfortable just having it be one day, which is completely understandable, because it is their home, and having all these people descend on their property is stressful. But we’re hoping in the future to obviously keep Farm Fest the way it is but also start a different festival that maybe is bigger and lasts more than one day, using Farm Fest as a jumping off point. That’s a plan for the future.

CP: What kind of farm is it?
ES: It’s a horse farm. There are a lot of horses that are kept there.

CP: Do they move the horses off the grounds for the festival?
ES: Oh yeah.

CP: That makes sense, they probably wouldn’t like that kind of noise.
ES: No, I don’t think they would.

Farm Fest V starts at 1pm this Saturday, July 2nd, at the Carney Family Farm in Manchester, Maryland. Advance tickets are available for $15 at Holy Frijoles in Hampden.

When the U2 360° Tour, already the highest-grossing tour of all time, launched in 2009, it was ostensibly in support of that year’s No Line on Horizon, perhaps the most unmemorable album of the band’s long career. Two years later, even the band’s all but forgotten the album, playing only three songs from it in its two-hour set, including “I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight” as a dance-mix medley with another under-performing single, 1997′s “Discotheque.” Instead, the emphasis in the 2011 leg of the tour was on the upcoming 20th anniversary of the band’s landmark album Achtung Baby: The set opened with four of the most uptempo radio hits from the album, including “Even Better Than the Real Thing” and “Mysterious Ways.”

The stage set of the 360° Tour is a bizarre, massive claw-shaped structure looming over a circular array of catwalks and bridges surrounding the stage. It’s very large and expensive, but in effect kind of a halfway point between the multimedia bells and whistles of the band’s ’90s tours and some of the band’s simpler later performing setups, built to keep the focus on the four men onstage during songs and mostly dazzling with visual effects in between. Archbishop Desmond Tutu popped up on the jumbo screen between “Walk On” and “One,” talking about aid to Africa. A recording of astronaut Mark Kelly aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour introduced “Beautiful Day,” dedicating the song to his wife, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, a spectacle that was just impossible not to be a little moved by.

That is what U2 ultimately excel at: a slightly off-putting but mostly irresistible mixture of bombast and sentimentality. Only the most hardened Bono hater wouldn’t feel anything when the familiar chiming intro of “Where the Streets Have No Name” rises up, or when the chorus of “Pride (In the Name of Love)” kicks in. Whether or not you think U2 is anywhere near the best band in the world, the scale of what it does, whether in terms of sound or emotion or technical ambition, makes itjustifiably the biggest band in the world.

Bono projected his usual blend of self-aggrandizing charisma and self-deprecating humor and still reached falsetto high notes admirably for a man now in his 50s, and the band’s rhythm section, though not the most versatile, has a knack for crisp, danceable grooves that in some ways fill a stadium better than a frantic hard rock band ever would. But the reason a U2 show is about sound as much as spectacle is the Edge, who still has one of the most inimitable guitar sounds in rock music. Throughout the night, it was always possible to close your eyes, ignore the special effects, and just drink in the echoing tones of his instrument as it kept taking on new textures and subtleties for each song.

By Jefferson Jackson Steele

After Bono gave one last long, almost purposefully awkward speech, racking his brain for every corporate sponsor or humanitarian cause he could fit in one last plug for, the band chose to close a night full of hits with a recent album track, “Moment of Surrender.” And the somber, midtempo song took on an added poignancy with its dedication to Clarence Clemons of Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, who’d passed away just four days beforehand. Earlier in the night, Bono had already paid tribute to Clemons once, singing a few lines of Springsteen’s “The Promised Land” at the end of “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.” Springsteen is one of the only other remaining live acts who tour on anywhere near the scale of U2, and it’s almost like the band was mourning a member of its family, the increasingly exclusive club of stadium rockers.

For the last four summers, the Rap Round Robin has been one of the most exciting events in Baltimore music, combining the city’s burgeoning, offbeat hip-hop underground with the surprisingly durable novelty of having several acts in one room taking turns playing one song at a time. And it just got a little more exciting with the announcement of the 2011 edition, which takes place at Floristree on Friday, Aug. 19. In the past, the Rap Round Robin didn’t venture far outside of the orbit of artists who started the event, with the lineup remaining identical from 2009 to 2010 . But this time around, mainstays Mickey Free, Height with Friends, AK Slaughter, Rapdragons, Jones, King Rhythm, PT Burnem, and the Plural MC will be joined by a few new faces.

Quite a few of the acts making their Round Robin debut next month are City Paper favorites, including last year’s Best of Baltimore live band pick Soul Cannon. Mania Music Group, the label/collective who just brought Soul Cannon frontman Eze Jackson into the fold as its newest artist, will also be appearing. OOH of Brown F.I.S.H. will be playing his solo material backed by the band seaWEED. Secret Weapon Dave, a longtime friend of the Rap Round Robin crew who produces tracks for Mickey Free, will be performing at the event for the first time. The one unfamiliar name on the bill is Disturbed Individuals with Ric Rab, but it will be good to add a little bit of unpredictability to a show that already features so many proven must-see acts.

This Monday eventing at 7 p.m., a “town hall meeting”  of sorts is being held for the Baltimore hip-hop community at the Guilford Avenue venue 5 Seasons, which might as well be the community’s hub. The unique event, which is open to any musician, fan, or participant in the scene with an interest and a $3 donation, is presented by the Baltimore Hip Hop Council, founded in 2007 by Courtney “C Love” Wheeler–though it looks like local online powerhouse AllBmoreHipHop has taken the reins for this installment.

The organization first presented a monthly town hall meeting in late 2007 and early 2008, and I related a less than flattering anecdote about my experience at one of those events in last year’s Big Music Issue. But having this kind of organized dialogue about how the city’s hip-hop community is doing and where it should go next is a solid concept with a great deal of potential, if the right people show up and share their ideas.

While he’s saving most of his original songs for this summer’s The Big 7 EP, OOH spends most of The King of Pops tackling beats from the late ’80s and early ’90s era that inspired him to rap, from “Brand New Funk” to “T.R.O.Y.” On “Bmore Scenario,” OOH lets younger hometown MCs like Al Great and Comp get in on the fun, while he reserves some of his slickest rhymes for “I Had It Made,” which of course utilizes the instrumental from Special Ed’s “I Got It Made”: “If I find out you a rat, fool/ I’m'a autograph Cal Ripken baseball bat you/ then really go nuts, almonds, pecans, cashews.”

Download here.

What the track may lack in famous names, it makes up for in passion and diversity, with a lineup that boasts five female rappers and an unlikely mix of backpackers, battle MCs, gritty mixtape rappers, and everything in between. And everyone involved gives it their all, whether it’s Rip the Ruler’s brief but perfect four bar cameo or the full-fledged 16 bar verses by standout Lord Baltimore or the closing words by Stevie Krizz of the Unstoppable Nuklehidz, one of the driving forces behind Stop the Violence Baltimore.

Self-Destruction by EverydayElk

Jon (left) and Emily Ehrens (photo by Jen Mizgata)

This week’s City Paper features a story on White Life, the latest and perhaps greatest project from the prolific young formerly Baltimore-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Jon Ehrens. But a lengthy April interview with Ehrens yielded a more comprehensive overview of his prodigious output of self-proclaimed “mixtape rock” than could fit in the print article, and so Noise offers this alphabetical rundown of more than 30 bands and aliases Ehrens has recorded under and/or performed with over the past decade.

While White Life’s self-titled debut and the Art Department’s Paperwork/Birdwork have been issued by labels (Ehse Records and Gen Pop Records, respectively), most of the music featured here has either never been released in any official capacity or has only circulated publicly via web sites set up by Ehrens. The Mobile Lounge Records web site was at one point a bustling marketplace of bands featuring Ehrens and his friends, and from 2007-’08 he attempted to document his increasingly sprawling catalog on a blog called Jonathonian Music, where a typical post might start with the sentence, “Last weekend I recorded a total of 14 songs.” Later, many projects existed as nothing more than a MySpace page with a few songs, while some songs from the various bands ended up on self-released albums by his long-running solo project Repelican.

Many of these projects originated under the banner Music From Shallow Months, which was not a band name but an umbrella under which dozens existed, if only in the songwriter’s mind. “I was in a lecture, I was really bored, I just started writing down band names and song titles, and I was like, ‘Alright this is called Music From Shallow Months,’” Ehrens says. “Then, basically, I would do two or three songs for each of them, and then I just realized, usually for most of them only one of them was good and one of them wasn’t.” In that spirit, I’ve compiled a mixtape (sounds at page bottom) of one of the best songs from each of 14 bands featured here to listen to as I break down his wild, lengthy discography:

The Anywhere

The Anywhere was one of the Music From Shallow Months bands with a handful of songs built around a particular sound and approach: uptempo songs named after girls’ names (like “Diana” or, hilariously, “Motherfucking Teresa”), sung with an exaggerated twang—something like a caricature of Elvis Presley. “I was really listening to a lot of power pop for many, many years,” Ehrens says. “All like ’70s and ’80s stuff, I was really obsessed, finding little MP3s of bands. You ever hear of the band the Scruffs? I was sort of thinking about them a lot. They’re from the ’70s, like a bluesy power-pop band. The guy has a nice howl.”

Standout song: “Cynthia”

The Art Department

The Art Department is paradoxically one of Ehrens’ strangest and most successful projects. It began in 2005 when he recorded an entire album of minute-long oddball tunes by an imaginary mid-’80s indie band from Carson City, Nev., playing each instrument in character like a method actor. Something about the high-pitched vocal style, snaking finger-picked guitar lines, and insistent oompah rhythms captivated the imaginations of some of Ehrens’ friends, including drummer Mike Meno and bassist Jason Howe, who became the rhythm section of the Art Department’s live lineup. Ehrens says some people wondered whether the singing was sped up or manipulated until he began performing the songs live. In 2010, the band released its brilliantly bizarre second album Paperwork/Birdwork, which preserved the original Art Department sound while subtly expanding it with a wider palette of instruments. After Howe left the band, Yukon drummer Nick Podgurski filled in on bass for tours last year, and Art Department is now on a hiatus, which Ehrens says is especially open-ended now that a Canadian dance act has become far better known under the same name. “I definitely wouldn’t have named Art Department the Art Department if I knew we were actually gonna play shows and be a band,” he says.

Standout song: “Get On”

Cool Sounds of the Continuous Revelation

In 2009, Ehrens was one of two drummers, along with Ben Turner (of the Food Network’s Baltimore-based reality show Ace of Cakes), in a short-lived ensemble called Cool Sounds of the Continuous Revelation. “It was quasi-improvised,” Ehrens says. “You know, we knew where we were going and what to be doing at different changes. It was pretty cool.”

Crazy Dreams Band

“They’ve been a band for a long time, and I joined them last year and toured with them as a member,” says Ehrens of his tenure with Crazy Dreams Band, led by Nate Nelson and Lexie Macchi. “When I played with Crazy Dreams Band, I called it Fleetwood Shellac, because it was really a chill vibe. This guy Jorge [Martins] plays guitar, and he would do these sparse Police kind of riffs, and I would do these funky basslines.”

DJ Dielsocherdadt

Named after a Craigslist ad about a “D.L. soccer dad,” DJ Dielsocherdadt is Ehrens’ alias on the rare occasion he DJs a party. He’s also thinking of using the name to assemble some kind of mixtape, combining a cappellas from hip-hop songs with beats and outtakes originally intended for other projects. “There was one song I have that I kinda wanted to be a White Life song but it was a super cheesy funk song,” he says. “I couldn’t figure out a way to actually sing on it to make it sound like a real song. And I downloaded this Lil Jon a cappella, ‘Throw It Up,’ and threw it over top of that.”

Dungeonesse

One of the most exciting projects Ehrens has on the horizon is a duo with Jenn Wasner of Wye Oak. “I’m producing tracks and she sings on them, and we wanna do a series of 7-inches on different labels,” Ehrens says, noting that it’s one of his first truly collaborative projects after years of working solo, playing backup for others, or, in the case of White Life, writing lyrics for his sister. “The Dungeonesse thing is gonna be as close to [collaboration] as I’ve had, because I have melodies for some of the things, but some tracks I just know a melody could be there, but I have no idea what it is. She’ll be writing the melody.”

Ed Schrader

Ed Schrader often performs solo, but Ehrens and Art Department bassist Jason Howe were part of one ill-fated show in which he drafted backing musicians. “On guitar, I tried to do this really jagged, bluesy style for his stuff, and I don’t think he really liked it,” Ehrens says.

Factoid of the Dustbowl

“In my brain,” Ehrens says, Factoid of the Dustbowl’s aim was to “do to folk music what Captain Beefheart did to blues music. And I don’t necessarily think I succeeded, but at least something weird came out.”

Standout song: “Apples for Finch”

Flock of Dimes

Flock of Dimes is Jenn Wasner’s new project, which she debuted during White Life’s three-date East Coast tour earlier this month. Generally it looks to be a Wasner solo venture, singing and playing guitar over programmed laptop beats, but for those shows Ehrens accompanied her on bass on two songs to help flesh out the sound.

Flora and Fauna

A trio with Owen Gardner (later of Teeth Mountain) and Juliette Amoroso that played around town circa 2006, Flora and Fauna had a repertoire of traditional folk songs like “Shady Grove” and “I’m Longing for Home,” sung with heavily distorted harmonies.

Standout song: “Shady Grove”

Get Bent

“The bass cabinet that I have is a Genz Benz, and I just blacked it out so it looked like it said ‘get bent,’” Ehrens says of this short-lived noise duo with Andrew Burt. “That was the central joke of the band. I just wanted to play a noise show because I wanted to see if I could. You watch those things and you’re like, ‘I could do that shit.’ Turns out I could. [laughs] But yeah, that was weird, I don’t know if I’ll do that again.”

Hypnic Jerks, aka the Serfs

One of Ehrens’ best displays of multi-instrumentalist talent was this high-school-era surf-rock project, on which he plays guitar, bass, and drums on a few original instrumentals and a cover of the Jewish traditional song “O Se Shalom.” The band was originally called the Serfs, but upon learning that another surf-rock band had used the name already, Ehrens changed it to the Hypnic Jerks. An experiment with an 8-bit style synth sound on “Fruity Loops” resulted in a remix of one of the Hypnic Jerks songs as “Enslavement (NES Style).” “The idea I didn’t actually think would happen would be a 7-inch record of all one side of surf versions,” Ehrens says. “And the other side were gonna be Nintendo versions, but I really only made that one.”

Standout song: “Enslavement.”

Invisible Husbands, aka the Religious Tongues

A no-wave group with a couple of Ehrens’ friends in Washington, D.C. “We didn’t practice with them at all,” he says. “They would just insist that me and Jason [Howe] from Art Department would just come down and play a show with them without practicing. And sometimes it would go well, but, oh man, I almost quit music one time. They changed the name every time. There was Dead Husbands, Invisible Dead Husbands, Invisible Husbands, Ex Husbands, there was a lot of Husbands, and then one time it was Religious Tongues.”

Joe Pesci and the Spiders

“That was one of the first times I ever tried to do a fake band live, and it was just my regular high school band playing really ripoff garage-rock, basically taking the riffs from ‘Stepping Stone’ or any garage-rock classic and just changing it,” he says. “It was bullshit.”

Jonathonian W. Ehrenkranz, aka Thone

Under an alias based on his family’s surname before they came to America, Jonathonian W. Ehrenkranz is the songwriter in solo acoustic mode. “I have a lot of songs for that, because I just thought it’d be cool to be able to pick up an acoustic guitar and just be like, ‘Check out this sick-ass song,’” he says, although it’s not always a style he’s comfortable playing. “I tried doing shows live a bunch of times, and I hated it—I hated it so much. It was awful.”

Standout song: “Reaching Is Implied”

Kevin and Crops

Kevin and Crops was a “swarming distortion-y thing” for the Music From Shallow Months compilation, “where the distortion of the guitar would create melodies within the overtones of what was going on,” Ehrens says. “And I thought it’d be cool to do live, but I never did it, and I just forgot how to play all the songs right after I did them.”

Standout song: “Raga in B Movies”

Microwave Background

For a year, Ehrens played drums in Microwave Background, a band led by Will Ryerson, who founded the label Gen Pop to release Art Department’s second album.

Modern Augery

Another Ehrens/Ryerson collaboration, an abortive experimental project. “We played one show, and it was supposed to kind of be like a pop-noise fusion,” Ehrens says. “It was the first time I had tried to do something where it wasn’t a band with drums, and we had our little stations. I had this little recording device, it was basically like a six-track recorder that I tried to play live, and I had a guitar. We played the set, and I was like, ‘That ruled!’ We were both just like, ‘Oh my god, that was exactly how we wanted it to go!’ And no one liked it. It drove people out of the room, like, ‘I have no idea what the hell that was.’”

October Railroad

“I had this image of two male lead singers with megaphones,” Ehrens says of the inspiration behind October Railroad. “You know like the Louvin Brothers or any of these early country duos? I thought it’d be cool if they sang that style harmony, like sweet old harmony that sounded lo-fi over kinda like heavy stoner-y shit.”

Standout song: “Painwo”

Poof Sounds

Poof Sounds was a one-off jam session with Lexie Macchi, Jenn Wasner, and Nate Nelson that’s being planned for a cassette release. “That’s, like, super-weirdo improv that we did one night when we just smoked the best weed and we’d just, for some reason, wandered downstairs and started just making weird sounds and I started just scraping my foot on the floor,” he says. “Something was definitely happening, it was one of these things where we weren’t just fucking around, we were channeling something, you know? There was definitely something going on and we really ran with it all night.”

The Proverbial Deer

“That was Music From Shallow Months, that doesn’t really matter.”

Standout song: “Ask for You”

Repelican

“Repelican is just like, you know, songs,” Ehrens says humbly of his longest-running and most fruitful project, which has had at least 70-odd songs credited to its name on various releases, although many originated as one of the other bands on this list. Repelican first became the default outlet for these songs when the attempted Mobile Lounge compilation became 2004’s Mobile Lounge Presents: Repelican. Two more albums, 2005’s Anyone? Anyone? and 2009’s Don’t Mumble the Manifesto, followed, among other releases, tracing Ehrens’ humble beginnings and gradual development as a singer and songwriter, and spanning a dizzying array of sounds and songwriting styles.
Standout song: “From the Desk of God”

The Revoltn Developments, aka Spittn Images

The Revoltn Developments, also known as Spittn Images, is perhaps Ehrens’ best band that hasn’t officially released an album. The unreleased Fuck You! It’s the Revoltn Developments is a raucous nine-song blast of garage-rock with lengthy, slightly ridiculous song titles such as “I Don’t Know What She Wants [And I Don’t Wanna Care (But I Do)]” and “You Know Something (That I Need to Know),” along with sleazy, distorted covers of Gershwin’s “Summertime” and Gerry and the Pacemakers. Ehrens says the inspiration struck when he watched a documentary about the Who: “They were showing footage of them when they were the High Numbers at some party. It was just super, super loud and crazy.”

Standout song: “The Secret Is Out”

Roan and Calico

Although he only began to explore the world of drum machines and synths with White Life, Roan and Calico was Ehrens “trying to do electronic music in high school, my first time using computers, before I was discouraged from it from all my peers who did not like rap or electronic music or dance or anything.” He doesn’t look back on that project fondly. “It was awful, it wasn’t good. That was for that Mobile Lounge compilation, it sounded like video game music. But not even—that would’ve been good.”

Skin School

Another collaborative project that’s still just a band name without any gigs or completed tracks, set to feature improv with Lexie Macchi.

Stool

“Basically, I just saw some early Melvins video where the drummer didn’t open the hi-hat or even really hit the crash at all,” Ehrens says of his most overt foray into hard rock. “I was like, ‘Man, closed hi-hat can be so heavy.’ And I was just kind of into that. And the name was just supposed to be a ’90s type of thing, and I feel like everyone in the ’90s was Brick! Sponge! Chair! And then stool also means poop, which is always funny.”

The Sword Swallow

“I was like, ‘I’m givin’ up pop, you guys, fuck this shit! It’s all about collage,’” Ehrens recalls, laughing at himself. The result was the Sword Swallow, a strangely listenable patchwork of noise, beats, and occasional high-school-era rock recordings mixed together. “They were kind of assembled from pieces and little ideas trying to, I dunno, get sort of an extreme version of what Repelican was, where the styles would change, but in a much shorter period of time, like listening to radio or something.”

Standout song: “A Veritable Hodgepodge”

Twins

Another live improv outfit, with Nick Podgurski and Sam Garrett of Yukon and Owen Gardner of Teeth Mountain, that played at the underground venue the Bank.

Universal Prayer

Ehrens recorded an album with members of the Agrarians under the name Universal Prayer that’s currently in the mixing stage and awaiting release.

Valium Eel

Valium Eel was one of Ehrens’ first experiences in a supporting role in a band, playing drums in a project led by his high school friend Vivek. “Man, I didn’t really understand how to write a song until he gave me a tape of his songs,” Ehrens says. “And it was just insane to me. He was really young, like a year or two older than me, and he was just so fucking good, it really upped the ante.”

Standout song: “Burn Your House Down”

What to Do With the Children

“What to Do With the Children was my high school band,” Ehrens says. “I was playing guitar and singing, but I was, like, screaming. I was in D.C. so I liked Fugazi and my super-smart friends were all about changing up the time signatures. But I didn’t know how to sing really, so I emulated the slacker Pavement-style vocals. So it’s just this bad mix of uninspired vocals over overly ambitious math-rock. It sounds pretty weird.”

White Life

“Last year I was living with DJs and the dude from Future Islands and I was only hearing electronic music, and just wanted to make something that was relevant or something, I dunno, and I just got really into computers,” Ehrens says of White Life. “It’s fun, it’s a totally different process. It’s definitely easier to come by inspiration when things are just looping and you’re just listening to different tones, and you hit the right keyboard tone and you’re like alright, I have a song idea now.” As much of a departure as White Life is for Ehrens, the album is full of vestigial reminders of his previous bands, like the Art Department finger-picked guitar on “Second Look.”

Standout song: “Second Look”

Ygriega Project, aka the Failed Ygriega

The Ygriega Project began originally as an ambitious songwriting exercise under the Repelican banner. “I wanted to do a 10-song album every month, I thought I could really do it,” Ehrens says. “I brought it up to my friends who were like, ‘You couldn’t do that,’ and I was like, ‘Yeah I can.’ And then I totally couldn’t, or at least the music wasn’t very good.” The few usable songs from the ordeal ended up being credited to the Failed Ygriega, another example of how Ehrens embraces his failures and finds something to salvage from the experience.

Standout song: “Confusing Adhesives”

Mixtape Rock: The Many Bands of Jon Ehrens from A to Z by EverydayElk

A promising up-and-coming Baltimore rapper named Ellis, who released his first mixtape barely more than a year ago, has been getting some well-deserved buzz on bigger out-of-town hip-hop sites like Rap Radar and kevinnottingham.com with his video for the songs “Bmore Boys” and “Oh Lord,” both off of his recent album, Bluray E. LP. The Toni Branson-directed clip doesn’t do much more than let the straight-talking lyricist show off his hometown, rapping in a thick Baltimore accent while wearing an O’s cap and sitting on the front step of a brick rowhouse or standing next to the Inner Harbor. But the video is so beautifully shot, with notes of pathos like brief scenes of balloons being tied down next to a gravestone, that it matches the melancholy tone of producer the Legin’s soul-sampling beats and Ellis’s hard luck tales perfectly.

The feature isn’t a total shock, since one of the producers who’s been helping shape Hilton’s sound and oversaw last year’s The Package Mixtape is Salaam Remi, who produced a number of Nas’s later hits like “Made You Look” and “I Can.” But it’s still a good look that will get a number of the rapper’s fans checking out the track, especially since Nas has maintained a relatively low profile in the last year or two. While Hilton’s velvety voice interpolates the Four Tops’ “Ain’t No Woman (Like The One I’ve Got)” and Marvin Gaye’s “Sexual Healing,” Remi keeps the drums banging hard, while Nasty Nas manages to spin a yarn about new love so soon after his tumultuous split with ex-wife Kelis: “The wildest part of all is how we became friends/ I was walkin’ out divorce court, she was strollin’ in.”

CJ Hilton, “So Fresh” feat. Nas by EverydayElk

Not down with the DMV

In the chorus, the Black Sunn speaks for pretty much every Baltimore rapper’s misgivings about the regional tag, which is taken far more seriously in Washington and its surrounding suburbs than in the rest of Maryland: “DMV DMV, we preaching unity, but everyone knows you excludin’ Bmore.” The rappers’ verses don’t lean on the controversial topic nearly as much, which helps the hook feel more like a moment of brash honesty rather than an angry denouncement. And the song’s low-budget video has a certain homespun charm, as 810 raps with a slice of pizza in one hand, and takes a bite as soon as he finishes the last bar of his verse.