Bazooka Tooth WFNX Promo

When Aesop Rock's Bazooka Tooth album dropped, we teamed up with Boston alternative station WFNX to do the release party at the Paradise. It was a great show, El-P was there, Perceptionsits, SA Smash (RIP Camu) and a bunch of others. Sold out with a line of people waiting. As our media sponsor, WFNX ran a radio spot to promote the show (which I have included below). We took the guys to the station to do an interview and on the way back they heard the promo in the car and bugged out because they hadn't ever heard a commercial promo like that for their shit. I have a YouTube video of this show that now has messed up audio, so I'll import some video at some point and post here.

Download the promo.

Superbowl MC Battles

I have a ton of photos and video and such from the six battles we did here in Boston, and will post some of that stuff as and when I find it, or have the time to digitize some video. We loved doing the battle every year, it was always the best show we did I think. Running a battle is an intense experience; things move really quickly, and I'm proud that with few exceptions these shows went off without any real problems.

The last one we did at Avalon in Boston (and I promise some video in the near future on this) was a mixed bag for us. We had 2,000 people in the building and KRS-One as host and guest performer; it should have have been the crown jewel of all the battles, but we made some odd choices in terms of our sponsors, and how that would impact the kind of crowd we brought in. We partnered with JAM'N 94.5 on the event, the local commercial hip-hop/R&B station. They gave us massive media exposure for the event, and I really appreciate their partnership, but it brought in a more mainstream audience that didn't quite get into the indie battle MC's we brought in from around the country. These were dudes who were killing it at Skribble and other regional battles, but they didn't appeal to an audience that was just looking for punch-lines. I will say though, that KRS performing from the middle of the crowd was one of the better live performances I have ever seen, and that is saying something.

Also, it's worth noting that the original battle was a spin-off from an ongoing event series we were doing with Rocky LaMontagne called "All That! Hip-Hop, Poetry & Jazz." He was an important part of these events. We sort of fell out at the end, but this wouldn't have happened at all without the inspiration from his event in NY and his ability to bring fresh talent into Boston every month.

Here is the flyer I just found for the 2nd Annual Superbowl MC Battle in 2000 at The Middle East, I'll get some photos and video up here soon.

And here is a clip from the first one, which went down at the Western Front

And here is another clip from 2003. Dos Noun got Bomshot pretty good in this one, but the judges voted Bom to move ahead. Somehow Bom ended up getting into almost every battle we did ... he'd have dudes stuffing the ballot box, whatever. Lol.