Sole Show Review

Posted by: Dave Berry | Mar 27, 09

    Bender’s Tavern (13th and Grant, Denver, AKA the place with the Johnny Cash mural on it) is quickly becoming one of my favorite places to check out shows and get blasted, sometimes in conjunction and sometimes not. On January 31st, 2009 it was one of those nights where I decided to hold off on getting blasted so I could soak in a great hip-hop show, and it was well worth it.

    The lineup for the evening might as well have been billed as a battle for hip-hop underground supremacy between Colorado and Saskatchewan, like one of the games during the NHL all star week. The card read like this; 1984, Calm., Ancient Mith, Def3 with Factor, Love Money (also with Factor), Sole, and Myka 9. I had no idea that I’d be introduced to a whole slew of underground Canadian hip-hop on this night but that is what is so great about going to shows where you only know one, maybe two of the groups on the flyer; most of the time you get pleasantly surprised by at least one of the groups. This night was no exception.

    First on the agenda was me getting my first beer of the evening. After I met that objective I decided to check out 1984. This group consists of two large men and two drum-pad rigs. While their technique was interesting and their live beats meshed tight, the style of their beats didn’t strike me as anything special and their rhymes, when they did bust out, came off as weak. In situations like this I just sit back and think “More power to them. They’re on tour and I’m not.” So there you have it.

    After 1984 Calm. was up. I love Calm. and I’ve seen them rock out many, many times. This time was a little different though. They killed it, as they always do with Nazi-like consistency (not that they are a Nazi hip-hop band), but Time kept giving shouts out to NyQuil in between songs and saying weird shit like “This tour is sponsored by NyQuil.” I caught up with Calm. after their set and I asked Time what was up with the NyQuil shouts and he told me that he was way doped up on cold medicine. Awareness confirmed that Time had downed a healthy dose of NyQuil to counteract the symptoms of the nasty cold that Time had contracted before the show. That is just how dope Time is as an emcee; he can down NyQuil and still rock a show while sick enough to call in. You do that. Right, I didn’t think so.

    Next on the card was Ancient Mith and another drink for myself. If you don’t know Ancient Mith then you’d better get to know Ancient Mith. That’s Ancient Mith. Don’t forget it. If you’ve ever seen Ancient Mith play then you already know how he rocks a show. For the majority of you who haven’t then I’ll fill you in. Ancient Mith is like the Ray Mysterio Jr. of the underground hip-hop scene. To say that this man gets into his shows is a bit of an understatement. I’ve seen him fall off of the “stage” at Steamworks in Durango, CO only to roll around in the disgarded peanut shells on the bar floor and not miss a syllable of his verse. I’ve seen him bail off a chair that he decided to rap on at the Old Curtis St.bar downtown and not miss a syllable of his verse. Now I can say that I’ve seen him climb the pole at the corner of the stage at Bender’s, 360-slide down it and hit a dude in the face with his ass, actually land on his feet and somehow not wrap the mic cord around said pole, and not miss a syllable of his verse, and that was the first verse of his first song of the night. The dude is an entertainer. I guess it’s fair to say that his style is somewhere between Sage Francis and a riot. His beats come from many different sources because he’s pretty connected so it’s impossible to nail that one down for comparison. His set went off like he was playing it like his last, which is how he must approach every show. I caught up with him at the bar and we chatted for about two minutes, but I did manage to get out of him that even though he’s currently living in Grand Junction, CO it’s only temporary because he “just had to get out for a while” and he said that he’d be back to Denver “soon.”

    Ancient Mith is a hard act to follow, but Def3 showed me a thing or two about how to follow Ancient Myth. Def3 led off the Canada assault and he and his DJ Factor blitzkrieged us with sick-ass beats, clean cuts, and thoughtful, fast rhymes that got me all hyped, or was that the Red Bull-vodka? No, it was Def3. This kid SHREDS! I don’t even know how to put how dope this cat is into words. He must be heard to believe it. He owns the stage, the crowd, and the sound, and I’m pretty sure he’s younger than me. Ain’t that a bitch? I was so impressed with Def3 that I picked up his only release that he had for sale (the rest got held up at US customs) Drumbo that he did with factor and it kicks some serious ass. Seriously.

     Continuing the Canada assault (I think) after that was Love Money. These dudes display two different faces on stage; one is a new-style RJD2-esque indy garage band that reeks of that neo-hippie jam-band/hip-hop crossover style that we all know is total crap, and the other is solid hip-hop with a live guitar and DJ backing up the vocals superbly. I don’t know if it’s because I don’t smoke pot anymore or if I just need a bit of consistency with the bands that I see, but it felt like I was on my heels with their show and it didn’t jive right with me. They kept switching between the indy rock and the straight-up hip-hop and it was fucking with me. I really liked their hip-hop songs, but the indy stuff was total Boulder CO shit, complete with their emcee ploping down on a stool with his acoustic guitar behind the mic to jam down for us. This left me with a split decision; the hip-hop gets my vote but the indy rock is garbage and should be lit on fire as such. I’m torn.

    Then it was time for a good old dose of Anticon radness. It was time for Sole. It had been a while since I’ve seen Sole live and that bums me out. Sole kills it every time and that night was no exception. If you need to know what it takes to be a true professional underground hip-hop artist, and I use the word artist in the truest sense of the word, then go see Sole when he storms through your town. This time around Sole’s stage act was just him and his beat-playing device. He announced that the laptop that held the past five years of his work had just been wrecked so he had to make due with what beats he had on his over glorified iPod, so we got to hear a lot of songs off his second solo album Selling Live Water, which was just fine with me because that’s the Sole album that I’m most familiar with. Sole is rad, bottom line.

    Myka 9 was up next but I had another social engagement to attend to so I bailed after Sole’s set.

   
    This show kicked ass. You owe it to yourself to look these hip-hoppers up online. Here’s the list:

    Calm. can be found at http://www.dirtylabratory.com and http://www.myspace.com/calmmusic

    Ancient Mith can be found at http://www.ponowaiflora.com and http://www.myspace.com/ancientmith

    Def3 can be found at http://www.shiprecords.ca and http://www.myspace.com/def3

    Factor can be found at http://www.myspace.com/factor3

    Sole can be found all over the goddamn internet, but his site is http://www.soleone.org

    As for 1984 and Love Money, there are too many other groups out there with the same names so I couldn’t nail one site or Myspace down without getting really pissed at looking at irrelevant horse shit. Search them on your own if you feel like it.

    Shred hard,
    Dave Berry