UPDATE (Friday, 12:00pm): Tickets for the Sims and Astronautalis show at First Avenue are now officially on sale to the public! Cop them right HERE while you still can.
Welcome back to a regularly scheduled Tuesdays With Lazerbeak. Two back-to-back blogz, I told you this was gonna be a huge news week. Here’s the reason why: Sims and Astronautalis have just announced a ginormous co-headlining show at First Avenue on June 14th!!! Mixed Blood Majority and the homie Greg Grease are playing too! THIS IS GOING TO BE INSANE!!!!
As the flyer says above, both Sims and Astronautalis will be sharing the stage for a one-time only special collaborative joint set with a full live band. I’ll let Sims break down all the details for you in his own words though (in red, cuz I can). Check this out:
When Astronautalis’ house burned down in January he moved into my house for a couple of months. There was lots of rap. And whiskey. One night, we got to talking about our summer show plans. It’s been a while since he or I have played a headliner in Minneapolis and we were like, “We should do a show together…duh.” We talked about what that would look like and how to make it special. We were clear: this is a one-time only occasion so we should maximize the opportunity. We decided to combine our sets into one awesome collaborative set and find a band of some talented people to spruce up our songs. We’ve both been working on new material and a few collaborations. We will be debuting plenty of new stuff live at First Avenue on June 14th.
There will be a lot of firsts on June 14th. It will mark the first time we’ve performed a collaborative set, and our first time performing with this band. The first time either he or I have headlined at First Ave. And the first time we’ll be playing some new songs, including our new collaborative song “This Is The Place” (more on that soon).
– Sims
There you have it, directly from the man himself. Tickets are now officially on sale to the public! You’re gonna want to cop them right HERE while you still can. This lineup is too stacked to miss, and I’m not just saying that because I’m on it. We’ll make sure to keep you posted with further details on this one-of-a-kind show, like when that new “This Is The Place” collabo track is dropping and what the live band entails. This will definitely be one for the history books.
Segueing ever so smoothly into Mixed Blood Majority news, last Sunday we shot our first ever music video for “Story to Tell” (off the MBM self-titled debut album) featuring ultimate homie Toki Wright. Here’s a picture of the dudes hamming it up and soaking in the beautiful weekend weather over at Powderhorn Park.
And here’s a couple action shots of rappers in the wild, climbing trees.
Toki wins.
I’ll definitely keep you posted on the “Story to Tell” video as we get closer to dropping it. For now let me just say that Penny does make a cameo in her first ever on screen performance. Big things for an 11 month old baby.
Moving on to big Dessa news: The second episode of Direct Flight, Dessa’s very own fake show in which she interviews Parts of Speech musical collaborators over airplane bottles of booze, is all wrapped up and ready to air. It features yours truly as the (incredibly special) guest and covers such riveting topics as the best flavor of Mike’s Hard Lemonade, made up sports theme songs, and our thoughts on the new Taylor Swift album. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the world premiere of Direct Flight Episode 2: Lazerbeak. WATCH IT.
Haha, shouts to Young Baby Ander Other killing the filming, editing, and “putting me out there for not washing my jeans” game. I wash em every once in awhile, promise.
In other Dessa news, the Early Words Tour has officially kicked off! Dess and the full band are en route to Buffalo, NY as we speak for the first show of tour tonight. They’ll be spending the next three weeks out East going up and down the coast and rocking a three show NYC residency. All details and ticket info can be procured by clicking the flyer below. And don’t forget about that super mega deluxe Parts of Speech pre-order going on right HERE.
Our very own Mike Mictlan is wrapping up his own video in the coming weeks, but in the meantime you can check out this sweet SNAXXX promo deal we’ve entered into with Soundsupply, a new digital music servicing company. They do these promotions called Mini Drops, where you can get super cheap five album bundles for a limited time only. Mike is a part of their first ever Hip Hop Drop, and you can pick up SNAXXX, along with records from Astronautalis, Kid Static, Skewby, and Mike Schlitz, for only $10 total (this week only). Click the links and images below to check out the deal.
Click here to visit Soundsupply.
If you stopped by here yesterday you know the deal about all the exciting LIZZOBANGERS news. I’ll just give you a brief recap in case you missed it.
For the last six months I’ve been working on an album with rapper/singer/renaissance woman Lizzo. It’s called LIZZOBANGERS and will be dropping on Totally Gross National Product later this summer (shouts to Garrett Born on the press pic). We put out our first single from the record yesterday, and you can stream “T-Baby” below. BUMP THAT.
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You can also download the song on the brand new (and FREE.99) Totally Gross National Product 2013 Sampler. 10 sweet new trackz from a bunch of projects they’ll be putting out later this year. Click the cover below to grab that.
Lizzo, Cliff, and I will be playing our second show ever on May 8th at Icehouse in Minneapolis as part of Marijuana Deathsquads month long Music Rocks residency. Check out the details on the flyer below, and just know that our May 8th ‘SLAM DUNK’ night will feature video projection of thousands of real deal slam dunk timed up to MDS music. I cannot wait!
In closing, I’d just like to say a few words about the recent Roosevelt High School workshop and final performance that Doomtree was lucky enough to be a part of. For the last 10 weeks or so we’ve been putting on an after school creative writing/performance workshop over at RHS, working with kids on everything from similes and metaphors to mic handling and stage presence. This past Friday was the final performance in the school’s auditorium, where some of the students were brave enough to perform their final pieces on stage, followed by a Doomtree crew set. Reed Fischer and Erik Hess over at Gimme Noise did an amazing recap of the entire night that you can read about right HERE. Since I was up on stage most of the evening and unable to get my own pictures, I’m gonna sneak a few shots from their post to give the students that performed a little bit of shine time. All photos are courtesy of the very talented Erik Hess (please don’t sue me).
Zoey Friesen performing “A New Me”
Bernard Dixon (AKA Fat Man) performing “I’m Going Down The Hill”
Bri LeGarde (AKA Rany) performing “Thank You”
Bernard Riley (AKA Gee-Whiz) performing “Let It Go”
Farhia Jama performing “Shining Back”
Jayson “JT” Hosley (AKA Suave) performing “The Perfect Song”
Tyler Scaramuzzo and Damarez White (AKA Just Tyler & Apollo) performing “70’s Genre”
Also huge shouts to Raymond and Lavar (who were unable to make the performance), Tony, Shelby, Felipe, and all of the other students that attended the workshop throughout the last couple months (you too Julia). Could not be more proud of you guys. Thanks for putting in the work and absolutely crushing it. I haven’t stopped smiling since the show.
Alright, that about does it for this beyond mammoth edition of Tuesdays With Lazerbeak. Congratulations on making it through the whole thing. Hope you all have a wonderful week and I’ll see you next Tuesday for sure!
— Beak