All photos by Evan Daniels for A Thousand Grams.
As the week wore on, we started to get our proverbial groove back. We had the daily routine down (shower, show schedules and RSVPs, NYU panels, food, show 1, show 2, show 3...) and could get anywhere in the city with relative ease. Hip-hop was beginning to make more of a showing as well, with showcases from Nah-Right/On-Smash, Fools Gold, Plug Research and more. Outside the Nah Right show was a madhouse, with an inteminable line and several marquis names being rejected from the door. After chatting up Plain Pat and Maestro out front for a bit, we decided to chuck the deuces and leave the show to every other hip-hop blog you read. This was a good move, because we ended up meeting up with Exile across town.
By Friday, we had seen some good shows, caught up with old friends, balled on a budget, eaten dinner on the subway and were ready for something new. Enter Theophilus London.
If you follow this site at all, you probably know I'm a fan of the man's work. Theo isn't yet popular enough to command a lot of attention or controversy, but when he gets to that point soon, a lot of people will hate him. (XXL got wind of his breakthrough Internet release This Charming Mixtape and tore it up). But for my money, what Theophilus, and his frequent collaborator Machine Drum, do, represents an inevitable, yet astonishing link between between worlds. TCM was like a eureka moment, wherein the walls between hip-hop, electronica and pop were deleted with a keystroke, forging a new language that post-Kanye, post-Fluxblog music consumers could share in. Like any new utility, it takes a little while to get used to, but repeated spins are rewarded.
Theophilus is a taalll, skinny dude. He marched into the venue towering over his entourage in dark sunglasses and a grey blazer, a '90s basketball cap with a stiff brim fixed at a proper right angle over his dark face. He was the only hip-hop act on the bill for the unofficial Green Label Sound showcase at Brooklyn Bowl, a bowling alley turned concert hall that's become the hottest venue in the borough over the past few months. But as I've already touched on, that kind of booking makes sense. You can put Theophilus on a bill with Chromeo and some buzzy synth pop bands (as Green Label did) and he'll stand out and fit in in all the ways you want him to.
On stage the vocals weren't great. It didn't seem like his mic had been guaged properly and even from our front-row position he sounded pretty washed out. But he was charismatic, dancing and loose. The whole time he performed, the image he invoked wasn't that of a rapper at all, but a front man. Theophilus often says that The Smiths and Morrisey are his biggest influences, but, whereas with other rappers a reference like that might come off as bogus, watching him on stage, you actually kind of believe it.
The show felt short, and you got the sense that the performance part of the picture hadn't yet caught up with the perfect storm achieved on his last music release. But there was something undeniably compelling about the vision. You could see it reflected in the faces of the audience members, dancing to sounds they'd never heard but long anticipated.
If you follow this site at all, you probably know I'm a fan of the man's work. Theo isn't yet popular enough to command a lot of attention or controversy, but when he gets to that point soon, a lot of people will hate him. (XXL got wind of his breakthrough Internet release This Charming Mixtape and tore it up). But for my money, what Theophilus, and his frequent collaborator Machine Drum, do, represents an inevitable, yet astonishing link between between worlds. TCM was like a eureka moment, wherein the walls between hip-hop, electronica and pop were deleted with a keystroke, forging a new language that post-Kanye, post-Fluxblog music consumers could share in. Like any new utility, it takes a little while to get used to, but repeated spins are rewarded.
Theophilus is a taalll, skinny dude. He marched into the venue towering over his entourage in dark sunglasses and a grey blazer, a '90s basketball cap with a stiff brim fixed at a proper right angle over his dark face. He was the only hip-hop act on the bill for the unofficial Green Label Sound showcase at Brooklyn Bowl, a bowling alley turned concert hall that's become the hottest venue in the borough over the past few months. But as I've already touched on, that kind of booking makes sense. You can put Theophilus on a bill with Chromeo and some buzzy synth pop bands (as Green Label did) and he'll stand out and fit in in all the ways you want him to.
On stage the vocals weren't great. It didn't seem like his mic had been guaged properly and even from our front-row position he sounded pretty washed out. But he was charismatic, dancing and loose. The whole time he performed, the image he invoked wasn't that of a rapper at all, but a front man. Theophilus often says that The Smiths and Morrisey are his biggest influences, but, whereas with other rappers a reference like that might come off as bogus, watching him on stage, you actually kind of believe it.
The show felt short, and you got the sense that the performance part of the picture hadn't yet caught up with the perfect storm achieved on his last music release. But there was something undeniably compelling about the vision. You could see it reflected in the faces of the audience members, dancing to sounds they'd never heard but long anticipated.
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