WitnessThinks…It’s Time To Move.

I just dropped off the The Everafter LP at Magneto Mastering today in sunny Minneapolis.
I’ve been getting a lot of messages asking about it lately and I figured it would probably be best to just make a post that explains where everything is at.

The Everafter LP is not the same album as the full length record I’ve talked about from time to time.

It’s a collection of some new, some unreleased and some rerecorded material to mark the end of the “Ever” series of mixtapes I’ve been putting out since 2005. It was originally intended to be an EP of the new stuff going on my Japanese release, but I decided to flesh it out a bit more and eventually it became a bit too lengthy to call an EP.

The rerecordings of older material are not my attempt at becoming George Lucas. Japan wanted some stuff from the The Ever Since EP, but the sound quality of the originals didn’t really mesh very well with my newer recordings. I decided to release a handful of those rerecordings stateside as well, since I still play them live and Ever Since has been out of print for a while. Ever been to a show, heard a song you liked, bought the CD and found it wasn’t on there? Yeah. I hate that too. That’s why I did it. It serves as a nice primer for people unfamiliar with my music.

The whole thing took way longer than expected to finish. Mostly because I wanted to gain experience making a professional studio album before I began work on the full length. Unfortunately, making a record in a studio is not as easy as doing it in your bedroom. There was a learning curve.

As for a release date? The record will be back in my hands from mastering next week. I’ll be able to make an announcement then.

The album has been mixed down by Joe Mabbott, a very talented sound engineer responsible for pretty much all the Rhymesayers stuff you’ve heard since Atmosphere’s God Loves Ugly. Since the source material varies from year to year, the quality isn’t going to be as flawless as it will for the full length, but this is by far the best sounding record I’ve released thus far.

So what’s next?

I’ll be shifting all of my focus towards my first official full length effort. You can expect that sometime next year. I won’t be wasting time. I’ve also recently finished up an instrumental mixtape that will be available for free download this fall. More on that very, very soon.

There’s a brand new Witness site ready to launch. New merch. New everything. Stay tuned.

-w

Ever see the movie Cocoon?

Did you ever think that if they never rediscovered their youthful vigor, the entire film would be over 90 minutes of a camera focused on senior citizens living the remainder of their lives at the speed of cough syrup? You probably wouldn’t want to watch that, right?

That’s exactly what it’s like at my grocery store here in Minneapolis.

Obtaining food for me is largely centered around guessing a time that I think the elderly are least likely to be out of their coffins beds. Unfortunately, this hour does not seem to exist on any clock known to man. If hunger has overwhelmed me to the point that going to bed means I might not wake up, I’ll occasionally venture out around 2 AM to join the leagues of hospital workers, the blissfully unemployed and people I can only assume are circus folk at the sub par 24 hour supermarket. This is the only way I’ve managed to get food without feeling like I’ve been dragged blindfolded through a nauseating fog of poor dye jobs and a smell that reminds me of a public holy water basin and Werther’s caramel candies stuck to a couch cushion.

This isn’t a deep seated hatred for senior citizens that I’ve been letting simmer over the years. This is the desire of a (fairly) healthy young man to get ingredients for dinner without losing two hours of his day  because Betty and Ruth both decided to turn their carts horizontally while they observe prices in an aisle that’s only big enough for two people standing side to side. I guess pasta will have to wait till next week. Thanks a lot, guys.

My grandmother was a queen. (Not literally, because if she was I wouldn’t have to wait in line for the length of time it would take to watch Forest Gump twice every time I want to get some fucking french bread.) She instilled within me a very deep respect for my elders. And all it took was one grocery store in Minneapolis, Minnesota to deconstruct 10 years of her handiwork. I turned my cart briskly around a corner yesterday to see an man of an age range usually reserved for forests, standing frozen in time in the soda aisle. (It’s not called pop, jerk.) He had a solitary drop of clear mucus hanging from that piece of flesh between your nostrils. He was also blocking the aisle. I considered killing myself.

People bitch about how senior citizens drive. Or that they get sweet parking spots. Or that they get into movies at a lower price. I’m fine with all of that. Maybe it’s just that I’m an East coaster who hasn’t yet adapted to the speed of the Midwest, but buying groceries should not take me two hours. And I’ll point my finger regardless of whether I need to direct it at the lovable folk who give out apples on Halloween.

Well, I did it.

I picked up and moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota.
And to be honest, I couldn’t be happier.

To recap the story, I fell in love with a wonderful, inspiring girl who lives here. She’s the Lisa to my David. After making the decision that I needed some change of scenery, needed to scare the hell out of myself and needed to explore as many zoos, fields, parks, lakes, forests and city streets as possible with the aforementioned lady, I picked up and moved one thousand miles from home. Music took a temporary backseat, but I don’t think one could ask for a better distraction than happiness. Though, I’ll be damned if I become another statistical musician who loses steam when he stumbles over a little sunshine.

So what’s new?
I got one of these.

The lady and I captured this young mammoth when he was but a few weeks old. We call him Shark. Or Sharkey. Or Lemon Tiger Sand Shark. Or Zharque. Or pop.

Getting a dog when drunk may be worse than getting a tattoo after a few drinks–namely because tattoos aren’t alive–but I’m very happy with this decision. Even when that decision wakes me up at 4 AM because he wants to find and devour small pieces of corn on the cob hidden under miscellaneous shrubbery in the park.

Skyline.

I have a hard time imagining this place becoming Antarctica.

Weeping Willow Islands. You heard right, son.

I live in the south side of Minneapolis. Directly on Powderhorn Park, to be specific. The picture at the top of this post, in additions to the ones above are one of the many points visible from what is essentially my front yard. If Powderhorn Lake weren’t covered in pond scum and dead fish penises, you can bet your bottom dollar I’d be swimming in it all week.

Minneapolis–Southside in particular–has a ton of epic restaurants, groceries and peculiar shops, often consolidated into the same building. For example, a bar that girl and I go to on occasion is a bowling alley, restaurant,  bar, cabaret theater and spoken word poetry joint. There’s also a laundromat/arcade/ice cream parlor not too far from me. A true artifact of 90’s excess.

Summer is serious business in Minnesota. Which I guess makes sense, considering how abysmally cold the winters are. The park in front of my house is a daily circus, home to people juggling axes, riding unicycles, practicing tumbling and tai chi and one woman who seems to think side stepping across the park is an acceptable form of public exercise. There seem to be festivals, outdoor concerts, outdoor movies and some kind of insane bar special going on everyday. There’s so much going on in fact, that there are about 3 weekly papers, 4 websites dedicated to daily activities in the city and a bulletin board dressed in a thousand flyers in almost every local business. And there are a ton of local businesses. Quirkiness is everywhere.

Vans are made of grass here. What else do you want?

Cars are sold with dinosaur hood ornaments. What of it?

As far as Hip Hop goes, it’s pretty much everything you’d expect. There are some very dope local radio stations which play a ton of local artists, the scene is ripe and growing and knowledge of the indie scene seems to be far more widespread than back home. I was even at a local show about a month ago only to see Ant of Atmosphere smoking cigarettes on the outdoor patio. Shit is tight knit and beautiful here. I’m looking forward to getting involved.

I’ve got many more stories to share, so I’ll be blogging about my experiences in Minnesota from here on out, in addition to the usual nonsense. I just needed to find a way to break the news and explain the story up until this point. Musically, I’m back on the ball and have some interesting things underway. I’m going to avoid making announcements because, well, if you’re reading this you know how my announcements normally turn out. Let’s just say it involves a full length record for next year, a new mixtape for this year and a ton of shows in places I haven’t played in over 5 years. I hope to see you there.

Below are a few other photos that I couldn’t cleverly weave into my post.

From inside the skyline.

Fish have auras here.

Butterfly exhibit at Como Zoo. Thousands of these things.

I work part time at a law firm on Girard Avenue in Philadelphia. Girard is a bit notorious for being a strange cross section of society; hipsters, college students, heroin addicts, the homeless, business owners and those seeking their daily methadone fix are all forced to coexist. The demographic changes within a single city block and changes yet again with the next. And while that might sound like a fairly standard city scenario, I can assure you that Girard is not the proper backdrop for this mixture. As a result, I’m often treated to some pretty bizzare scenes that I’m fairly certain I wouldn’t experience in another section of the city.

For example:

* A week ago, a homeless man approached me in the parking lot and offered to sell me a fifty piece, stainless steel silverware set for 10 dollars. At 9am. Seriously. I didn’t even have my foot out of my car yet. Pretty sweet deal considering that it would have included the Radio Flyer wagon he was carrying it in, though. I respect his hustle.

* Today I watched another homeless man attempt to steal a wheelchair from the nearby hospital. While security was interrogating him (read: senselessly screaming in his face) he responded fervently and repeatedly that he needed it for transportation. I began to wonder what kind of advantage he would gain in terms of speed on the unpaved backroads of North Philadelphia until my train of thought was derailed by the sight of a man erecting a full scale tepee in his backyard. Again. Hustle. Respect.

I’m going to try to get some pictures for the next installment.