I Just Read About That…

[DID NOT ATTEND: July 27,  2024] Previous Industries ft. Open Mike Eagle + Video Dave + STILL RIFT / Cavalier

I saw Open Mike Eagle at the end of last year and really enjoyed his set.  Previous Industries is a low key supergroup, I guess.  (Although, it’s arguable that many people don’t know them individually).

Open Mike Eagle, Video Dave and STILL RIFT have worked together in various ways over the years and here they are together–rapping with each other on the songs.

The songs are kind of slow–emphasizing the lyrics rather than the melodies.  The songs are also thoughtful and not lyrically interesting.  One of the songs, for instance, references The Giving Tree (even mentioning Shel Silverstein).

And  a fun lyrics from Open Mike

Got it made, got it made, like I was hot for the teacher
It’s a sound blaster car with the Altec Lansing speaker
I like David Lee Roth and not the other guy
It’s ’95 South, so I can learn to do the butterfly
It’s Triple F.A.T. Goose stocked even in the summer time
My sweatshirt counting sheep with both words underlined
Yeah, and Mrs. Fields to the cookie stop
As quick as Mr. Owl licked the center of a Tootsie Pop

This is exactly the kind of rap event I would really enjoy.  I couldn’t go mostly because it was a Saturday and our schedule was pretty busy that week. 

Pitchfork notes:

Eagle is a master of unpredictable, multisyllabic rhyme schemes, peppered with sly, offbeat humor; RIFT deconstructs concepts and rearranges them into a series of interconnected reference points (his four-bar riff about Wesley Snipes on “White Hen” is especially dazzling). Video Dave exudes a happy melancholy, his verses often digging through his memories to excavate personal truths. Most songs forgo hooks in favor of mic-passing, making the album feel like a loving homage to the nearly lost art of parking lot cyphers after the rap show.

I thought I had heard of Cavalier but I guess I hadn’t.  I looked up a review of his latest album and Pitchfork says a

sense of spirituality permeates Different Type Time, Cavalier’s sumptuous and sublime new album. It’s in the record’s hushed mysticism: Characters perform honey jar spells or clutch copies of the Circle 7 Koran to their chest; some form of God is always present in the margins of songs, appearing as a Black woman, a mother, or the buds of a cannabis plant. It’s in the warm, beatific production Cavalier chooses, every gossamer string, lilting guitar, or sparkling piano loosely orbiting around crisp, unobtrusive drums. On “Pears,” he raps, “It’s vibrational, ain’t it” four times, using repetition to tune in to higher frequencies. Throughout the album, Cavalier constantly harmonizes with the cosmos to ground himself within the chaos.

That sounds great.

This would have been a good show, it’s a shame I couldn’t go.  Maybe they’ll come back.