NOLA Jazzfest 2nd Weekend Starts Today!

The best festival in America kicks off's it's second weekend today and hopefully you are attending. If you can not get to the Big Easy for The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, WWOZ has the answer.

You can stream the festival through their website. This is one of the best radio channels in the country, so you should pop in and stream them regularly, but this weekend is a must if you can't be there.

You can stream the festival through their website. This is one of the best radio channels in the country, so you should pop in and stream them regularly, but these next two weekends are a must if you can't be there.

Also Leslie Michelle Derrough put together a great rundown of both weekends over on Glide which is totally worth checking out as she highlighted artists for each day and captured some quotes from people playing the fest:

RtBE will be partying down at the fairgrounds, and we can not wait, even without The Rolling Stones it is going to be a blast. Here are a few videos of non headlining acts playing this weekend worth checking out:

Dwight James & The Royals "Missandei" (Inspired by Game of Thrones!) Play Thursday.


Nathan & The Zydeco Cha-Cha's Play Friday:


Orange Kellin’s New Orleans Deluxe Orchestra Play Saturday:


Little Freddie King Blues Band Play Sunday:

What Is Dead May Never Die

While we know that Winter Is Coming, this post isn't actually about Game of Thrones but the quote fits one of the longest touring acts and our pick of best American Band ever, The Grateful Dead.

What Is Dead May Never Die

When the remaining members of the Dead announced "their last ever shows" to coincided with their 50th anniversary, I didn't care one bit, and this is from someone who spent a whole year of Monday's focusing on their shows on this here site. The main reason was because any/all incarnations of the band will never stop touring until all members are literally dead an even then I know, side projects, family members and fans will keep the vibe alive. 

Turns out those weren't the last shows after all and a variation of the Dead, (without Phil Lesh) will be touring again, as Dead & Company adding John Mayer to the fold and hitting Albany NY, the sight of one the bands (with Garcia) last great stands.

Glide has their list of dates up and if people are willing they can check them out. Us? We don't need to see any variation of their touring act when we can still revisit the real thing through the tapes err..digital audio/video. In fact lets listen to a tune now to start the day off proper:

Oh and it turns out George RR Martin is a Dead fan after all...

huh, that gives Damphair a whole new perspective...Hippy!

Album Review: Various Artists- Catch The Throne: The Mixtape Vol 2

Various Artists 

Catch The Throne: The Mixtape Vol 2

*** out of *****

Last year HBO brought in hip hop artists to rhyme over beats and music taken from their supremely successful series Game of Thrones which is based on George R.R. Martin's fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire. Now it is back in expanded fashion.

Method Man opens things with only a verse based on the Watcher on the Wall oath. It acts as an intro with more samples from the show then actual lyrics from Method Man himself, but the combo puts us back nicely into Westeros. MDNR moves things intro electro-pop with skittering beats in one of the more flushed out complete songs that doesn't owe much to GoT proper. 

Modern day R&B is highlighted with Melanie Fiona's "Fight To Do It" while Ty Dolla $ign  twists in samples from the best character of season 4, Oberyn Martell. Kap G gives a better effort on "Surrender Now" tying in the story and swinging back up North to the wall with the samples. Yandel gets the Reggaeton flowing while Raquel Sofia stands out going bilingual pop, expertly crooning "Legends"

Snoop Dog puts fourth a valiant effort with "Lannister's Anthem" a powerful take the Golden Lions could be proud of. Another hip hop veteran Talib Kweli drops in and puts out extra work for Davos Seaworth and Stannis Baratheon rhyming about "Lord Of The Light" in the most complete hip hop track here.  

Like each book and each season of the show, the mixtape expands as well, up to 15 songs this time adding metal to the mix instead of just hip hop. The Red Viper's pursuit of justice continues with the pounding drums of Killswitch Engage's "Loyalty". This injection makes perfect sense as swords and sorcery as well as literature (both fantasy and otherwise) are common place in metal lyrics.

Anthrax expertly gives a mix of punk and old school metal in "Soror Irrumator" while Mushroomhead tries to mix the hip hop and metal on disk closer "Among The Crows" but combining those two styles has always been tricky. Mastodon on the other hand does a slow build with acoustic guitars and huge drums on "White Walker" and using that delicate touch makes the track standout. 

HBO wants to expand viewer base for the series even more hence the wide range of artists/styles and the metal vibe is such a natural fit it makes sense not to overload things in that vein. As a complete listen though that upbeat injection gives this version of the mixtape more life then the previous, growing the anticipation even more for season 5 next month. 
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Listen for yourself below, but never forget Winter Is Coming:

Game of Thrones Music Update: Catch the Throne II

We are fans of pretty much all things Game of Thrones, but for this site the music takes the lead.

We shared some amazing NOLA inspired playing from the books/show, talked about it at the day job and reviewed the first Mixtape: Catch The Throne. With the HBO Series coming back in a month it makes sense for volume 2 of the mixtape to come out and it will next week.

Some previews have come out such as Talib Kwalei's track, "Lord of the Light" which you can peep here with a bad ass intro from none other then Davos Seaworth:


Expanding beyond hip-hop this time around, some metal acts have been asked to contribute and one of our favorite current ones, Mastodon, leaked a short preview of their contribution to the mixtape yesterday:

Hide away your children, then hide away yourselves. New Mastodon track soon. @GameofThrones @hbo #whitewalkers #CatchTheThrone #Mastodon

A video posted by Mastodon (@mastodonrocks) on Mar 9, 2015 at 10:54am PDT

Once it is out we will get a full review up, and we can not wait for season 5.

Game of Thrones Meets NOLA Jazz + World Cup

We have expressed our love for both NOLA and Game of Thrones here before but this is a pretty god damn cool combo of the two:


The Swamp Donkeys just jumped onto our radar big time. This is a geeky funky way to get after it. When we were in Toronto last year catching some baseball, we were pumped to hear RA Dickey use the original GoT Theme as his entrance music as we have written about that before as well.  


Pretty sweet all around. On a sporting note, today starts the World Cup...hope everyone stockpiled sick days....Let's get it started: We Bring The Noise, We Bring The Ruckus....USA AIN'T NUTIN' TA FUCK WIT!!!

NYPL Blog Post: Game Of Thrones is Back!

Hey all, got a new blog post over at the New York Public Library, Give it a Gander below:

Game Of Thrones Is Back! Now Where Is It Going?

We dig on the world of Westeros, having read all the books, watched the series and conversed with friends about it. We have mixed feelings about George R.R. Martin's writing, his storytelling is fantastic however. I won't say much more here (now on the topic). you can go over to the post and comment converse there. Will end with a few gifs:

and how about we end with  "Arya's Prayer" by Dominik Omega from Catch The Throne

Album Review: Various Artists- Catch The Throne: The Mixtape

Various Artists

Catch The Throne: The Mixtape

*** out of *****

I bet George RR Martin never envisioned a world where Magazeen would drop a pronunciation of "Iron Thrannnne" like he does on his Reggaeton bumper "Iron Throne" but these are the days we live in...winter is coming.

The immense popularity of the excellent HBO series has given rise to tons of spin offs, events and promo work, this free mix-tape being one of the most inventive and will possibly open up the series to a new generation of fans. Catch The Throne mixes established and up and coming hip hop/reggaeton/experimental artists performing Game of Throne inspired songs.      

While the lyrics are the neat twist, the music all come straight from the show as well, weaving the score behind beats and intro clips that let us hear Tyrion Lannister quotes as well as a fire commands from Daenerys Targaryen. It is the combining of hip-hop boasting and the mythical struggle for power that meshes well. 

Big Boi's flow opens things up on "Mother Of Dragons" and it instantly brings a smile when he combines the world of Westeros with his own knee rehab; like most tunes here it is quick, clocking in and out before the idea becomes stale. As with any mix-tape some experiments (Snow Tha Product's "Fire", Bodega Bamz "Win Or Die") work better then others (Dee Goodz "The Parallel", Kilo Kish "Magical Reality"). Wale gets bonus points for incorporating the bad ass musical theme to the show into his "King Slayer" closeing a fun mix of styles.

Extra time and notes need to be given to one track in particular though, easily for fans of hip hop and the novels Dominik Omega gets the all-star nod with "Arya's Prayer". While the other artists combine snippets of the fantasy world into their tracks Omega seems to be a mega fan as he stays strictly with Arya dealing with her insane journey. His complete insertion into the realm is exhilarating and ending the chorus with "Valar Morghulis: All Men Must Die" makes it is impossible not to get juiced up a highlight of this pretty whacky/great idea.
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A neat combo. We just finished up  A Dance With Dragons and while we are invested heavily, we actually think HBO is doing a better job with the shows then Martin is doing with the books...but that is for a nerdy conversation at a bar over drinks. Today we got some cool hip hop with a fantasy mix.

You can hear the whole thing here:


and a bonus track from Dominik Omega who did a song before this came came out and it makes sense. He is great at this:
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