WITH CUBIC ZIRCONIA & MACHINE DRUM

PHILLY 2/8

HARFORD, CT.  2/10

NY???

Last week I went to the west coast (SF & LA) with a very special someone for what we would essentially call a LIFETOUR. It was my first time in years without being on tour playing shows, or recording while out west. We ate good food, visited friends, saw some cool shit, and did a lot of shopping. All of which facilitates the ideal headspace to be in as an artist. Went out there with some great reccomendations from Chris Palko, who I owe a thank you to, for some fine dining in Napa Valley and got to have a dope mexican dinner with my WM brother Aesop Rock and his wife Allyson in San Francisco. Aes hooked it up with a piece of hardware with pads that I will be getting busy on very soon. After a short but active stint in SF, we took it to LA where we visited my extended family out west: Barmak Badei , his wife Sukari, and their baby girl, Shahla; who I am crazy about. Barmak is the founder of SCIFEN, the clothing company I was sponsored by and worked extremely closely with during the Scifentology I & II releases. As much as this was a time to enjoy life, it was also a time for creative inspiration and some further meetings/discussions of some very exciting things that will be taking place this year. Stay tuned.

Check out some of the pictures of the trip in the Flickr set HERE

video by Damien Neva

COMING TO YOUR TOWN BIATCH!

10/08/09 in Portland, ME at Asylum
10/09/09 in Providence, RI at Jerky’s Live Music Hall
10/10/09 in Allston, MA at Harpers Ferry

photo by Damien Neva

photo by Todd Westphal

I’ve finally got my laptop back from apple so I can update.

I will be playing three dates with my good friend and WM brother EL-P in October.

Here they are…

10/08/2009 Portland, Maine @ Asylum
10/09/2009 Providence, Rhode Island @ Jerky’s Live Music Hall
10/10/2009 Allston, Massachusetts @ Harper’s Ferry View

also located in the TOUR DATES section.

Gas Galaxy live at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco, CA on the DFM tour. Great show and crowd. Thanks SF! Peep Chauncey doing backups! This is the first new video from YakBallzTV featured on YakBallz.net. Click HERE to visit YakBallzTV on YouTube, the official channel for yours truly and SUBSCRIBE now.

Don’t forget to pre-order your copy of DJXP4 at http://www.djxp4.com

I realize how much of a pain in the ass it is to download Gas Galaxy for free from Definitivejux.net so here is a zSHARE link for it…go get it and share it with a lover or a FRIEND.
http://www.zshare.net/audio/639454541694cb54/

Speaking of FRIENDS, my freng Timmy Wiggins captured this right outside before the SF show. This is the first I’m seeing or hearing of this happening and I love it. Priceless/Wasted Talent. Listen to what he’s saying. Truly amazing and it’s about “friends.”

ENJOY!

We stayed outside Boston somewhere. I woke up a little hung over. Cage woke up feeling sick. We jump in the rickety van and head out to Providence, RI. Meet in the lobby sans Sean but now we have Deefy, who jumped in the van in Boston, while Sean jumped out to ride with his girl for the remainder of the trip. Good thing because shit was getting really REL and we were seeing signs of the infamous Meltdown Martin in the last couple days. Timmy pulls over because he see’s a sign for a Picadilly’s Pub and Todd is like what the fuck is that? Timmy goes “Goot Fout Tot.” And we just kept saying that the whole time after. “Goot Fout Tot” We circle around to find it and when we do we do, it’s on because we are fucking starrvinggg. We all order. The food comes out and when Cage’s steak is placed in front of him, it’s covered in mushrooms actually looks gross, but everyone elses food looked good. He was furious and sent it back because the menu never said it came in a bowl of soupy mushrooms. It was actually funny but he didn’t find it funny in the least. Eat and dip. So we head to Rhode Island and get there a few hours before we had to and check in the hotel. While we are in the lobby waiting Chauncey and I are cracking jokes. Chauncey likes to make up fake names for places to eat like “Chachki’s, Rippers, Zippers, Flingers, Nate’s, and Jims Sandwhich Emporium.” One time we were starving and driving he told Todd to look for Jims Sandwhich Emporium and Todd actually started looking it up on his phone. The joke is so great and one of my favorite stupid jokes of his that I told him we should just start making up fake venues that we are playing at on the “Gas Galaxy Tour,” which is another joke we have because the Gas Galaxy tour obviously doesn’t exist, except in our minds, and who knows if it ever will? Nevertheless the joke is that we are on the Gas Galaxy tour at the same we are on the DFM tour. So we start coming up with fake venues and we agree that addition to playing Jerky’s tonight, we will also be playing Legends, Corner Pocket, The Furnace, and The Lilly Pad. We know that there has to be venues with these names or some of them, somewhere, but it doesn’t matter. We made them up. We’re all pretty relieved to be able to check into a hotel before the show because we’ve been running around like headless chickens for a while now and this may be one of the few times where we’ve actually made it with time to spare. We get to our rooms and I take a nap until Todd wakes me to get ready to go to the venue to check sound etc. We begin unloading and B. Dolan of Strange Famous Records comes strolling up and we kick it with him. He’s opening tonight and I know him from Paid Dues shows with Sage so it’s cool that someone I actually know is playing the show with us.

We soundcheck and I have a feeling it’s going to be a lowkey night compared to last night in Boston. After soundcheck, Chauncey and Deef hang around the venue and I take a ride with Todd to drop off Cage at the hotel. We drop him off and Todd and I hit this spot down the block from the venue called Roadhouse BBQ. It was really good. We head back to the venue and there is time to kill. Sean is hanging out with Jessica as well as Deef, Chauncey, and Andy from CT. I don’t mind if I do have a couple spritzers with Chauncey before the show. Just to kill time. I had a couple spritzers too many and now it’s showtime. Walk upstairs to a lot more people than I thought and I’m actually a little concerned because I got carried away. It was the last night of tour and we were celebrating. I get up there and basically go really hard because there are no more shows and I figure I might as well kill myself. It turned out to be a surprisingly great set. We were cracking jokes and laughing with the crowd. It is big enough for a show vibe and small enough to connect with the audience. There is a bittersweet feeling amongst us as it is the last show and it seemed like a fitting atmosphere for it to end. When I made it downstairs to the backroom, Cage had a cup of tea in his hand and was obviously under the weather. He said he threw up a few times before he got there. However, if you saw his set it wouldn’t be easy to tell. I was sick on this tour for a few shows and playing a show is one of the most difficult things to do under those conditions. When I’m sick, it is written all over my face. Cage came on and actually delivered maybe the most sincere set I’ve seen on this tour and I think most people felt the same about it. We greeted the fans for one last time and I had some Blue Moons to cap off the night. This tour was one of the most fun, self fulfilling, and challenging tours I’ve been on. It put all of our abilities to the test and I think everyone met the challenge and proved themselves. I learn a lot about others and myself on the road. LIFE TOUR. This one will go down in history as a great one. Congratulations to Cage for a successful kickoff tour and I want to thank all the fans for supporting and following us on our adventure through America. You make it all possible. Tomorrow will be spent traveling home. When I get there, I will be doing a lot of laundry.

Yours,

Yak Ballz CCWM

It took us forever to get to Boston. The traffic in Connecticut was horrible. I slept for most of the ride. What’s new? Tour has been great. Every person on this tour has their respective wild sides and it can get extremely crazy when they all come out at the same time, like on the verge of having an anxiety attack for a dude like me. I can always hear Sean yelling at the top of his lungs and Cage and Chauncey cackling behind me when I’m “SLEEP.” Todd plays backseat driver with Timmy, who’s ready to rip his head off. At this stage of the tour, all of this just means everything is normal. Never really a dull moment. When we get to Harpers Ferry in Allston, MA I’m reminded of the last time Chauncey and I played the Paper Dance Party here months back. We were late because of the traffic so there wasn’t much time to soundcheck. They start bringing the alcohol but I’m starving so I sneak out the backdoor, inconspicuously walk with my head down past the line wrapped around the corner, and get two slices of Pizza from the place next door, to go. As I walk back, Todd, who was standing waiting for me, thinks it’s funny to blow up my spot to some people on line and all of a sudden the whole line is chanting Yak Ballz while I’m waiting for Todd to open the door with a box of pizza in my hand. It is funny and equally embarrassing, but all in good fun of course. Todd is smiling from ear to ear. He gets a kick out of shit like that. He lets me in, along with my dude Frank “The Butcher” Rivera of Concepts clothing in Boston.

We kicked it backstage before showtime and swapped information on the type of camera we coincidentally both have. It was a really nerdy convo about lighting, settings, and shutter speed but if you’re into that kind of stuff it’s actually awesome. Before I go on, I hear the host of the show trying to be funny, at our expense. Cage looks at me in disbelief as he is listening to what this dude is saying. It got to the point where it was so bad and offensive that Cage went down there and physically roughed the dude up on stage, threw him down, etc. Not too long after that, and a little bit more liquor in us, Chauncey and I got on and pretty much destroyed any pre-conceived notions of anyone thinking they were coming to a regular rap show. We are not them. I actually was wasted and everything was in place for Cage to bring the house down. After he got off we all celebrated the successful, packed show, backstage. An epic night.

Went to a diner in Wilmington right by the hotel in Wilmington, PA. Surprisingly I don’t feel hung over. I’m definitely worn out even though I actually slept. Last night was insane and I don’t think I can repeat my behavior tonight. I ate eggs and french toast at the diner for breakfast. We discussed auto-tune at breakfast and how it was never meant to be used and abused the way it is now in mainstream music. There is actually a real reason why auto-tune exists other than to make you sound like a robot. Cher used it years before the fad. Auto-tune automatically brings your vocal in tune if the notes are flat. It sounds robotic when it’s bringing the vocal into the correct range. When used correctly, one would never even know it was even applied to a vocal. Since we are not far from Philly, we arrive to the venue early. As we were driving we were reciting Peedi Crack lines. CC loves Peedi. We pull up to the First Unitarian Church where we are playing tonight. I step out and walk down the black to a coffee shop called Caffeination, where I use the internet, and reflect on yesterday. On the road, days in my memory become like a roll of film that I would never fully remember if I don’t hold them up to the light. These blogs are me literally doing just that, for myself, as much as they might bring others enjoyment. This coffee shop is too hot and the employees here insist on making smalltalk with me, which is fine, but I don’t feel like carrying it on past the weather. Normally I don’t even like to get that far but it’s human nature to talk about nothing of importance with strangers most of the time if you are to ever exchange words. In this case they are asking me if I am on tour and I answer “Yes” and of course the next question is “what is your band name?” You can imagine this is usually where it gets awkward. All I want to do is relax, drink my iced green tea, and use the net.

I manage to dodge their inquiries, finish up, and walk back down the block to see everyone greeting our friends and CC brothers, Wesley Eishold (of XO Skeletons/Coldcave) and Max. We all decide to walk a few blocks to Goodburger and shred some eats. Get back to the venue and hang out until showtime. This venue is a fully functioning church. It is sweltering everywhere except for our backstage room, which is some just a huge room with nothing in it but a piano and chairs. It is not comfortable really. I have a conversation with Max about NYC in the late 90′s and different places that we used to go to that don’t exist anymore like Tramps and Wetlands. That was an era in NY that I came up in and was very much a part of so it’s always a pleasure to talk about it with someone else who I didn’t know at the time but witnessed and went to the same places I did. So it’s time to go on and Todd walks me down. Chauncey is already out there setting up. When I walk on, the humidity feels like I can cut through it with a knife. I’m actually a little taken back by how many people are in this basement of a church, transformed into a venue. I’ve played here twice before and have never seen it this crowded. It has never been this hot in here either. The walls are sweating and this crowd is fired up, yelling at me. It’s great. Chauncey is cracking jokes with me and the two of us are taking this set to the limit. Timmy came up and ripped his verse and then we all left the stage. The crowd is amped and loud by the time Cage goes on. So much so that I could hear the crowd cheer for him from upstairs when he walks out. Philly loves to party and the people here appreciate live music so much. It’s how it’s always been since I first started playing here and always look forward to playing this city. It’s not far from home. After Cage’s set we went down to the merch table to do our usual meet and greet. Head back up and hung out with our friends, Hate Your Guts, and Chauncey told them tour stories and we took group pictures like it was middle school.

we meet in the lobby, valet brings the van and we roll out. I’m ready to leave ATL. We hit up Denny’s and I finally get the Superbird I’ve been craving. Sick of Denny’s now, just as much as Subway. Denny’s Boycott ’09 is official. We drive and I sleep except to wake up at truck stops and use the bathroom, maybe cop a green tea every once in a while. When we arrive in Carrboro, I don’t remember if I’ve been here before. Stop at Chipotle and grab some taco’s and head to the venue, called the Local 506. There is an Atmosphere show happening down the block at Cats Cradle tonight, which raises some concern, because two shows on the same night in such a small city most likely is going to effect turnout. We get lead to an apartment next to the venue upstairs, which is our backstage “area.” It is so gross and hot up here that it’s hard to breathe. Sweating. The bathroom is gnarly as fuck. All of a sudden the soundman comes upstairs and enters a locked door and we realize this dude lives here. It’s almost showtime so I go downstairs to the venue and it doesn’t look like anything is happening. I got a spritzer and starting playing the old school X-Men arcade game and some fans want to play against me. They get their asses kicked because I’ve been awesome at this game with Wolverine since back in the day. As I’m waiting to go on I notice my friend Slug walk in and I greet him. He stopped through to say what up along with Ant before their set down the block. I went on shortly after. I watched Cage for a few songs and walked down the block to check out their show. As soon as i walked up i realized that i have been here before, on an EL-P tour. Check out Atmosphere for a few songs walk outside and see Eyedea, say whatup and head back. Cage just finished and by now I got some nice drinks in me and I get some more from the bar while hanging around with fans. Eyedea came through and we shared some spritzers with as well. We hit the hotel and the ride back got a little crazy. Sean jumped out of the van like a frantic maniac while it was moving, to pee. We got lost looking for the hotel. Everyone is drunk and losing their minds or at least that’s how it seems to me because I’m definitely losing mine. When we find the hotel, Chauncey and I decide to crack the bottle of Jack we were looking for and take a swig or a couple two tree. Chauncey takes one and hands me the bottle. I took one, swallowed some and spit sprayed the rest out. Definitely was not ready for that. We checked in and continued drinking and acting like drunken idiots, taking pictures, and running back and forth from our rooms.