Lazerbeak “Legend Recognize Legend” Album Promo from Doomtree Records on Vimeo.

Blamo!  It brings me great joy to post the above album promo video, created by none other than our intern extraordinaire Ander Other.  I picked up the official Legend Recognize Legend CD/DVDs yesterday from Copycats, and I almost cried a little bit (in a super manly way) when I saw how awesome they turned out.  Can’t believe how close we’re getting to this thing actually being out, and holding the real deal in my hands really drove everything home.  SO pumped.

Speaking of driving, I’ve said it for years and it rings true now more than ever: the Toyota Camry is hands down the greatest family sedan of all family sedans ever.  Over the last three years I have picked up thousands and thousands of Doomtree albums from the manufacturing plant in my ‘99 Camry, and it has never failed me once.  In one trip I can comfortably fit 3,000 discs, still have leg room, and not have to worry about my back bumper scraping the pavement and falling off on the highway.  Truly a powerful yet comforting beast.  In fact, I would love to somehow work out an endorsement deal with Toyota (might help them restore their fragile image as of late), so if anyone has any ins there just holler at me.  Certainly would appreciate it.

I know that promo video shows you pretty much what the album packaging and artwork look like , but below are some shots I took last night while I was starting to sign the initial preorders, just to give you an idea of how much figurative bang you’ll be getting for your buck.  As always, you can preorder these jump offs HERE.  I can promise that you will never in your long legged life regret the decision.

So sweet.  I can’t thank the ultimate dun Matt Scharenbroich enough for creating the beautiful and life affirming artwork.  It looks better than I could have ever imagined.  You can check out more of his stuff HERE.

Since I’m on a roll with all these pictures already, I figured I’d just post a bunch more random shots I took over the last week.  Enjoy.

On Thursday a bunch of us hit up the Minnesota State Fair to celebrate our friend Cindy’s birthday.  I forgot how completely insane this place is.  Not sure if every state has a yearly state fair or if that’s just a Midwest thing, but people do not mess around at these things.  We went on opening day, and there must have been some sort of record set for attendance.  I ate a million things in a few short hours and immediately regretted it.  So many foods on sticks.  We ended up venturing into the farm animal zone at some point, where they have tons of pigs, cows, and sheep (a la Charlotte’s Web) hanging out.  As we were walking I must have turned around for a split second to point something out and ended up running straight into a huge cow on the sidewalk!  How embarrassing.  To be fair, they really should have a separate walking lane for the farm animals to avoid this happening more often.

The biggest surprise highlight of the night happened to be that Boyz II Men were playing on the free stage.  At the fair they have the Grandstand where the huge artists play for big bucks, and then a bunch of smaller stages scattered throughout the grounds where smaller acts play for free.  Ten years ago if you would have told me that Big Head Todd & The Monsters would be playing the Grandstand while Boyz II Men rocked the free Leinie’s Lodge, I would have called you crazy.  Poor guys.  Somehow it all worked out in our favor though, because we were treated to over an hour of straight up classics.  I’m talking opening with Motownphilly and closing with End of the Road classics!  They definitely brought it, even if they were just singing over a live band recording off of a CD player.  The only misstep came during the encore when they decided to show off their artistic versatility by performing a Goo Goo Dolls cover.  You read that correctly, the Goo Goo Dolls.  Yikes doesn’t even begin to describe it.  Oh well, can’t knock em for trying.  It was still a blast, and a perfect way to end the night.  Below is the one picture I was able to grab during their Tribute to Motown medley.

Switching gears a bit, yesterday marked the first practice for this CD release show at the Fine Line on Oct. 1st (get tickets HERE).  I got together with the homie deVon (also known as dVRG, keyboardist/songwriter for the mighty Heiruspecs) to go over parts and figure out how to turn these songs that were made in my basement into full on epic live bangers.  It went great, and I really think this show is gonna be something special when it’s all said and done.  That man is a beast on the keys.  Here he is plotting out parts like a champ.

Super excited, I’m meeting with the drummers for another practice this afternoon.  The Ensemble of Legendz has grown to about eight deep as of right now.  We’re like the Arcade Fire minus the trillions of dollars and weird Canadian vibes.

Now for the special guest photograph of the week.  My friends Brandon and Zach (of Big Quarters) and the homie DJ Todda got the opportunity to go to Berlin last week and open up for Freeway & Jake One.  They stopped in Paris on the way back and took this incredible picture by the Eiffel Tower, paying homage to the classic old RunDMC picture taken at the same location.  Brought an instant smile to my face.  Doing it real big out there my dudes!

Ha!  So BAWSE.  Anyways, I’d like to wrap up this random photo post with a picture of an album I bought for a mere dollar while guest employing at the Fifth Element over the weekend during their big Sidewalk Sale.

Such a classic album for me.  Brought me straight back to high school with this one, and I’ve been bumping it all week.  So many hits, pretty much their tour de force if you ask me.  In fact to bring things full circle, Destiny’s Child came to the State Fair with Christina Aguilera back when I was a senior, and a few of us came super close to getting backstage press passes by almost convincing the higher ups at the Fair that we were writing a cover story on the group for our school newspaper.  Man that would have been awesome.  I’ll leave you with a few deep cut Bonus Jams off of the album, because I know you still hear “Bills,” “Say My Name,” and “Jumpin” on the radio from time to time.  ”If You Leave” even features a duet with Minneapolis’ own N.E.X.T. (truly nobody ever xpected this).  I hope you have an excellent week.  See you next Tuesday big duns!

www.twitter.com/_LAZERBEAK_

– Beak

Welcome back to the 2nd ever Wednesdays With Lazerbeak.  I just got back into town last night, hence the day late post.  So excited about this album release party we have set up for Legend Recognize Legend!!!  As you can see above, we are doing it real real big for this one….  Doomtree and a special one-off reunitiation of The Plastic Constellations!  All of my oldest and dearest friends under one roof.  Plus I’ll be playing the songs off the album for the first time ever, backed by my glorious ensemble of LEGENDZ.  It will truly be a night to remember.  Tickets are available online HERE, or you can pick them up for cheap at Fifth Element and Electric Fetus, as well as the Fine Line box office.  Do it.

Again, you can hear the first single and pre-order Legend Recognize Legend HERE.  I certainly would appreciate it if you did.  By doing so not only will you receive the autographed CD and DVD with 10 music videos, but you will also be granted access to a private webcast where I will be answering any and all questions/concerns, giving away inside trade secrets on how to craft Lava Bangers as well as how to drink Lava Bangers, and performing some unreleased material with some very special guests.  Not to beat a dead horse, but seriously, you can (and should) get all of that HERE.  Plus if you order in the next couple days you will get one of these sweet autographed posters, limited to the first 300 pre-orders.  Only a small stack remaining.

I should have some exciting video news and a new song to leak sometime next week.  In the meantime we’ve been hard at work gearing up for the September 28th release.  Below are a few pictures of my ultimate street team (Chi Town I see you) assembling the promo mailers that were sent out to various press outlets.  I am fully counting on a big time interview with Teen Vogue to come out of all this grunt work.

Switching gears a bit, this last week I was fortunate enough to go on my third annual glorious getaway to my good friend Matt’s awesome family cabin/mansion.  A big group of us have been doing this at the end of every summer to relax, rage, and repeat before the fall starts creeping in and everything gets insanely hectic.  It is generally the thing that I look forward to the most all year long, and I have to say we topped even my highest of expectations this time around.  They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and if that is true then that would be like a million words I would have to type to sum up the sweet slide show below.  This is just a sampling of what we got into.  I felt like an extra in Great Outdoors (minus the bear scenes, bat scenes, and Dan Akroyd’s annoying family).  It ruled so hard.

That is me  and my dog Della on a contraption called a Wave Storm.  I waded around in this thing for several hours every day.  Pretty extreme stuff.

A view from the pontoon.

A view from the fridge door.

Extreme Water Sportz.

Extreme Nature Shotz.

Extreme Pizza Party and Blind-Folded Tequila Taste Testing Challenge.  It was determined that Don Julio truly is the don of tequilas, even if you don’t really like tequila that much.  1800 not so much.

The entire crew, 15 deep.  Still gotta come up with a good name for us, but the term LEGENDZ comes to mind.  Easily some of the best times ever with some of the best friends ever, and I didn’t even see one TICK!  Bonus.

I’ll leave you with a couple of throwback Bonus Jams.  The first track is off a super early Los Lobos album that the homie Mike Mictlan put me onto a few years back.  It’s a bunch of traditional Tex-Mex songs that he grew up listening to in L.A., and the whole thing makes for some incredible road trip music.  We bumped this the whole way home from the cabin and it ruled.  The second track is from Dave Hollister’s underrated classic album Chicago ‘85: The Movie.  When I first met my wifepiece Brittany many moons ago, we immediately bonded over our love of modern R&B music.  This album had just come out at the time and it pretty much blew our minds wide open.  Dude got his start in Blackstreet and then went solo dolo, with this album being his masterpiece.  This was his big hit off Chicago ‘85, which we also rocked extremely hard on our way home from the cabin.  Enjoy.  I hope you all have a wonderful week.  See you next Tuesday!

www.twitter.com/_LAZERBEAK_

– Beak

A few weeks back I got the opportunity to participate in a legendary bar crawl of downtown Hopkins with my old band/oldest friends/original LEGENDZ, The Plastic Constellations (TPC!).  Hopkins is the small hard working suburb right outside of Minneapolis that I grew up in, and as I’ve been entering my late twenties I’ve started to feel pretty nostalgic about my younger days running around that town.  I moved to Minneapolis when I was 17 and have lived here ever since.  I still make it home quite often to visit my folks, but their house is right off of the highway exit, so I haven’t really explored the rest of the city in over a decade.  TPC! started as a band in junior high, and I’ve been best friends with these guys now for over half of my long legged life.  We played our first shows (”cut our teeth” as they say in the biz) in Hopkins at birthday parties and school dances, so we decided that the next time the four of us got together we should get back to our roots and meet up at our old stomping grounds down on Main Street.  Best idea ever.

Jordan (bass player) just recently bought a house with Erin (his wifepiece) not far from downtown Main Street, so we decided to start there with a big barbecue to get a solid base going for the rest of the night.  We drank the crazy new energy malt liquor beverage Four Loko for the first time and decided it tastes like a combination of Sunkist and white wine.  Pretty gross but not gross enough to not finish.  Then it was time to walk down to the edge of Main Street and begin our crawl.  There are actually only a couple bars on the strip, so we ended up just walking around for a long time and checking stuff out.  Here are a few things I noticed:

- Katherine Curren Elementary (my old grade school) is now a private medical academy.

- Bud’s Music (where I took my first saxophone lessons) is still standing, although it appears to have far less musical equipment on the walls than it used to (maybe VH1’s Save The Music is onto something).

- I couldn’t find Pito’s on 9th (the old barber shop where I’m pretty sure I got my hair cut by a man named Bob posing as an eccentric older Italian man named Pito) although a quick Google search says it’s still there.

- Karaoke at the bowling alley was pretty much off the chain, and I actually came very close to signing a young act that rapped an original song while incorporating several towels into the set.

Exciting stuff, I know.  Below are a few pictures I was able to grab of the festivities.  I really have to get better at capturing these moments.

The second run dollar theater that Jeff, Matt, and I all worked at throughout high school.  We basically lived off of popcorn and icees for 3 years.  I definitely saw Bullworth, Micky Blue Eyes, and Hope Floats here to name a few, and I’m pretty sure those are all certified classics at this point.

Some crazy gambling game at one of the bars that slowly bled what was left of the band fund dry.  Apparently the money went to a good cause though, so there’s that.

A view of Main Street after bar close on a Friday night.  For some reason I always imagined it would be a little more wild than this.

A view of TPC! completely man handling Main Street after bar close on a Friday night.  The song “Run This Town” comes to mind.  Legendz never die.

The night ended back at Jordan’s house with a strange milk chugging contest between the rhythm section.  Not quite sure why that happened, but I stand by my original statement: Legendz never die.

Anyways, having typed all of this up I’m starting to realize that publicly reminiscing about things that no one really knows about is probably super boring and never the best idea.  My apologies.  If you made it this far, thank you for indulging me.  While I would not make bar crawling in downtown Hopkins a weekly event, I really did have an awesome time with some awesome friends.  I think I got the whole reminiscing bug out of my system for quite some time too, so you won’t be subjected to many more posts like this in the near future at least.  Oh, and shout out to the Class of 2000 alumni we ran into down at Tavern on Main.  Good times.  As far as I’m concerned that was our ten year reunion right there.

I’ll leave you with a couple Bonus Jams.  The first is by Freddie Gibbs, who I must admit I had been sleeping on forever despite Paper Tiger’s co-sign.  The whistling on this “National Anthem” song rules, plus this guy’s interviews are hands down the most entertaining in the industry (almost on par with the infamous Noreaga/Life Sucks Die interview).  The other is by this band Beat Connection that MJ just put me on to recently.  You can download their whole new EP for free HERE.  It is perfect end of summer music for sure, and I’m curious to hear more from these guys.  I hope you have a great week, see you next Tuesday!

– Beak

www.twitter.com/_LAZERBEAK_

Bam!  Here we go: it’s finally time to announce the details of my first ever solo album, Legend Recognize Legend, and I don’t remember the last time in my long legged life that I was this excited.  That’s the album cover image above.  We’re putting it out on September 28th, but you can pre-order the album HERE right now and get a ton of crazy free stuff in return.  I’m talking autographed CD, bonus DVD with a different music video for each of the ten tracks, and access to a special live password-protected webcast (where I just very well may give out several secrets on how to craft the ultimate Lava Banger, as well as preview tracks off the album and show you how they were made in a non lame way).  Plus, everyone that pre-orders will get entered into our first ever Doomtree Blowout drawing where you can win backstage passes to the Blowout in December, a night in a swank downtown hotel, and some serious cash towards your travel fare or bar tab.  The first 300 pre-orders will also receive a signed poster as well.  What a simply outrageous and glorious deal!  You should probably get down with this.

I’m aware that by going under the name Lazerbeak for this album many people will be expecting either an instrumental hip hop record or a big huge collabo album with a ton of different rappers on every track.  While I certainly won’t be ruling either of those ideas out in the near future, I do need to mention that this one is a pretty different beast in comparison to all that stuff.  Prepare yourself: it’s poppy as hell and I sing on almost every track.  We’ve decided to leak a song off the album to give you an idea of what to expect with this thing and hopefully ease your mind from the fear that I have ventured into some sort of cringe inducing Sarah McLachlan singer/songwriter abyss (no disrespect, there was absolutely a brief moment in time that “Building A Mystery” was kind of my secret jam).  Anyways, this song below is called “Salt and Sea,” and it features my wonderful wifepiece Brittany singing back-ups with me throughout.  It takes place in the middle of the ocean, mainly because the middle of the ocean is a mesmerizing/mysterious/terrifying/awesome place that I pretty much never stop thinking about.  You can download the track for free below.  I really truly hope you are into it, because I am personally supremely pumped about the whole thing.

Lazerbeak – “Salt and Sea” <——– click here to download

If this isn’t quite your thing, not to worry, I haven’t completely lost my edge yet.  As soon as this Sims full length drops in early 2011 you will unequivocally know that the Lava Banger is still very much alive and well.  I feel strongly though that Legend Recognize Legend is a really important album, all jokes aside.  I may even be a little too close to it right now, seeing as the last year and a half of my life has been spent in the constant pursuit of making this thing a complete tour de force on all fronts: music, vocals, lyrics, videos, artwork, and on and on.  I have an insanely long list of incredible friends and family to thank for their dedication, support, and back breaking help in the effort of bringing this whole project to life.  I’ll spare you any more of the mushy stuff for the time being though.  Save all that for another post.  Suffice to say that it brings me great joy to introduce Legend Recognize Legend to you, from one legend to another, and I sincerely hope you like it (and buy it… HERE, haha).

On an equally glorious level, the entire Doomtree crew will be embarking on a full fledged mammoth national tour in November!  First time ever that all seven of us have done a whole tour like this together, and I am predicting incredible things.  Over three hours of music every night, including solo sets from each member and rowdy crew sets as well.  Man this is gonna rule so hard!  Check out the dates below and make sure to check back often for updates and ticket pre-sale information.

DOOMTREE  - WINGS AND TEETH TOUR – 2010

11/4  -  Colorado Springs, CO  -  Black Sheep

11/5  -  Denver, CO  -  Marquis Theatre

11/6  -  Salt Lake City, UT  -  Kilby Court (AA)

11/6  -  Salt Lake City, UT  -  Urban Lounge (21+)

11/7  -  Missoula, MT  -  The Palace  (* P.O.S not appearing)

11/8  -  Seattle, WA  -  Neumo’s

11/9  -  Vancouver, BC  -  Biltmore Cabaret

11/10  -  Portland, OR  -  Berbati’s Pan

11/12  -  San Francisco, CA  -  Slim’s

11/13  -  Los Angeles, CA  -  Roxy Theatre

11/16  -  Austin, TX  -  Red 7

11/17  -  Denton, TX  -  Hailey’s

11/19  -  New Orleans, LA  -  Tipitina’s

11/20  -  Atlanta, GA  -  The Masquerade

11/21  -  Chapel Hill, NC  -  Local 506

11/22  -  Virginia Beach, VA  -  The Jewish Mother

11/23  -  Washington, DC  -  DC9

11/24  -  Philadelphia, PA  -  Johnny Brenda’s

11/26  -  Brooklyn, NY  -  Knitting Factory

11/27  -  Cambridge, MA  -  Middle East

11/28  -  Portland, ME  -  Space

11/30  -  Montreal, QC  -  Il Motore

12/1  -  Toronto, ON  -  Sneaky Dee’s

12/2  -  Pontiac, MI  -  The Pike Room at Crofoot Ballroom

12/3  -  Chicago, IL  -  The Bottom Lounge

12/4  -  Grinnell, IA  -  Gardner Lounge (Grinnell College)

12/5  -  Madison, WI  -  High Noon Saloon

My apologies for the strictly Doomtree shop talky blog post this week.  All this news is simply too exciting to contain.  I’ll be back next week though with some cool new lists and thoughts on various things that rule.  In the meantime, if you haven’t already, make sure to check out the insane new Kanye West video/painting snippet for the song “Power.”  Say what you will about the guy, but what artist out there do you know on this level that still puts every ounce of creativity and passion into their craft like this man?  This video is my JAM.  I’ve also attached the Marco Brambilla directed “Civilization” piece underneath it, from which the “Power” video idea came from.  Pretty mind blowing stuff.

This is gonna be a great week.  I’ll see you next Tuesday.

– Beak

www.twitter.com/_LAZERBEAK_

Wednesday we shot the last of the ten videos for the Legend Recognize Legend DVD that will come packaged with the album in September.  Holy lord we are so close to wrapping this whole thing up.  This one involved simulated tubing, fake snow, a bonfire, and a ton of masks made out of paper plates and feathers.  Oh and I got about as close as I may ever get to crowd surfing (but in a crazy island beach party kind of way, not a super lame arena rock kind of way).  Below are a few pictures I grabbed at the shoot.  Really excited about this one.

Oh and our intern extraordinaire, Ander, debuted his new Wings and Teeth flat top at the shoot too.  So sweet.

Less than two months away from when the album drops!  We should have preorder info and a first leaked song up in the next week or two if everything goes as planned.  I can’t wait!

Over the weekend the wifepiece and I went on a super awesome mini vacation with our dear friends MJ and Liz.  Sort of a Couples Retreat thing minus the tropical landscape, box office failure, and sub par Vince Vaughn jokes.  Originally we were gonna go to Duluth, but because of some insane phenomenon known simply as Tall Ships, we decided on Eau Claire, Wisconsin.  It was legendary.  We arrived on Friday and ended up staying at a Holiday Inn that had a Green Mill restaurant connected to it.  Hilarious only because between the four of us we have all worked at the Minneapolis Green Mill at some point or another for a combined total of over 30 years.  Can’t stay away I guess.  Having a hotel bar ruled though, I never realized how convenient those things are.  Saturday we drove out to Chippewa Falls to go tubing down the Chippewa River.  I’ve had quite a fascination with tubing for the last four years now, but have only ever gone down the Cannon River in Minnesota, which is super tame and only like 3 feet tall.  This was a completely different beast.  Look at this thing, it’s enormous!

I had gotten into the hotel bar a little too hard the night before and was feeling pretty queasy from all the rocking of the river by the time we had made it halfway.  What happened next I may never be able to live down: I totally puked on my tube.  For that I must apologize to the people of Chippewa Falls as well as Cam, MJ, and Liz who had to endure the incident since all our tubes were tied together.  Yikes man, really not a good look.  I was truly humbled by the river.  If only they had cameras placed along the ride to document your trip like they do on rollercoasters, that could be a serious YouTube instant classic.  I did feel instantly better though and we eventually made our way back to shore without being swallowed whole by the water, despite being caught in what the locals referred to as a Swirling Eddie as we tried to steer ourselves to the beach.  It really is a crazy feeling trying to swim as hard as you possibly can while not actually moving an inch.

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We spent Sunday hitting up a ton of flea markets and thrift shops and then decided to reward ourselves by having a picnic in a nearby park.  Pretty uneventful stuff except for the fact that when we rolled up to said park we saw about 30 grown adults dressed up as knights, chasing each other around with foam battle axes and swords!!!  I had watched a fascinating documentary last year on this kind of activity, which is known simply as LARPing (live action role playing), but had never been lucky enough to see it in person.  SO INTENSE!  These people ran around for hours shouting out commands and strategically planning attacks, all while launching crazy home made foam arrows at one another.  This has to beat the hell out of playing Dungeons and Dragons in your mom’s basement!  We tried to get up close to take pictures but were met with a lot of resistance from the LARPers (they do not mess around).  MJ was able to grab a couple pics though as we were driving off: a few of the battlefield and one of a license plate that simply read WARHAMR.  Warhammer dude.  I love it.  Don’t forget to check MJ’s hilarious Total Waste Of Time tumblr page too: totalwastoftime.tumblr.com.  Always good for a laugh.

Anyways, it was a wonderful and relaxing trip and I gotta give it up to the good old Eau C.  We did it real big, and now it’s time to get back to work putting the final finishing touches on these music videos.  Below I’ve included a couple Bonus Jams.  The first is a very bizarre but amazing song/spoken word rant by Yelawolf that just leaked (pretty sure it’s older and was probably never supposed to be heard by the public).  It starts out pretty slow but if you hang in there you will be rewarded.  In one of the last lines of the song Yela poses the very rational yet thought provoking question “Ooooh have you ever in your long legged life seen an alien catfish?”  Now I do have long legs, so I’m not sure if that’s why that line sticks out to me so much, but I have to say that my answer as of right now is no.  I haven’t yet seen an alien catfish.  Sounds cool though, and this song is definitely my new jam.  Below that is a cool little video interview that YRB Magazine did with my guy F. Stokes.  It features a new beat of mine in the background that will appear on the upcoming full length of ours, and gives you a good idea of what this man is all about.  If you’re not too familiar with Stokes, check out the EP him and I put out last year called Death of a Handsome Bride (buy it HERE).  He literally is the truth.

OK, I hope you have a great week.  See you next Tuesday big duns.

– Beak

www.twitter.com/_LAZERBEAK_

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Yelawolf – “Looking For Alien Love”  <——- Click here to listen.

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F. Stokes YRB Magazine interview <——- Click here to watch.

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Last Saturday we threw the release party for the album at Sauce.  One of the funnest shows I’ve been a part of in quite some time.  It was great to see so many people come out and support instrumental music, and I couldn’t have been more pleased with how everything went down.  Here’s a picture of Papes and I running through the set.  You can check out a bunch more awesome pictures HERE courtesy of our good friend Benny from Burlesque.  A big thanks to Budo as well for flying out from Brooklyn to open up.  He killed it.

Another reason why that night was so special: some people totally got engaged at the show!  So awesome.  Here’s a terribly blurry picture I took of the happy couple after the dude popped the question.  Pretty ridiculous.  I was able to impart on him the age old motto “Happy wife, happy life,” so hopefully they should be good to go.

Last week was also my birthday and I wanted to say thanks again to everyone for all of the kind birthday wishes I received throughout the week.  Sims and Cam even threw me a surprise party last Wednesday with a ton of the homies, and I just can’t say enough how much my friends rule.  Below is a picture of probably the best birthday card ever that Matt (dude who did all the artwork for Legend Recognize Legend) gave me.  It’s a pic of Muggsy Bogues and the late great Manute Bol.  May he rest in peace.

Monday morning I took off on a camping trip with my brother-in-law JC and my old friend Adam.  We drove about three hours West to the Upper Sioux Agency State Park in Granite Falls to do some hiking, listen to country music with no shame, and sleep in a tipi.  I’m a pretty big city boy, and outdoors stuff has never really been my thing, but this trip was the best.  We made it out there by noon and decided to stop in at the one bar in town for a cold Bud.  The sign on the door does not lie, absolutely the coldest beer in town.

Here’s a picture of the sweet tipi we stayed in.

And here are some shots I took on our never ending hike through the prairies and down the Minnesota River.  It was absolutely beautiful, even though my legs may never stop burning.  Only downside: TICKS!!!!  I counted a total of seven that I had to fling off my shoes and jeans.  Truly my worst nightmare.

Spent the rest of the night with a couple bottles of Wild Turkey, some horse shoes, and a fire.  Definitely the most country I’ve ever felt and may ever feel again.  It was a blast, although anything more than one night out there and I think I might go a little crazy.  In honor of this trip out into the wilderness I’ve decided to end with a couple Bonus Videos.  I’m sure by now you’ve probably seen the hilarious Double Rainbow video, but just in case I’ve included it below as a starting point.  There were several times on this trip that I caught myself saying some truly high ass things while trying to comment on the beauty of nature, so I can relate to this dude’s sentiments about said rainbow(s).  What a lot of people haven’t seen though is this other video on his YouTube page of him capturing a pack of wild turkeys running all over the place.  Whoa that’s a lot of turkeys!  SO good.  Check it out.  Below that is the musical remix of the Double Rainbow video that the Auto-tune The News guys made to bring it all full circle again.

We’re putting the finishing touches on all the videos for Legend Recognize Legend this week and I should have a lot more news coming on that record in the coming weeks.  We’re getting so close!  Thanks for reading this unconventional Wednesdays With Lazerbeak.  I’ll see you next Tuesday at our regularly scheduled time.  Have a great week.

– Beak

www.twitter.com/_LAZERBEAK_

Last weekend our dear friend Joe Mabbott got married!  Mabbs has been recording and mixing all of the Doomtree albums for years now, and besides always making us sound like true professionals, he is also pretty much the best guy ever.  On Wednesday a bunch of us met up at the Yacht Club to do it real big for his bachelor party.  This is the same place I ended up on my bachelor party a few years back, and I’m starting to think that this may be the only place one should ever go for one of these types of occasions.  So much fun.  Here’s a picture of Joe surrounded by big time rap producers (Paper, Benzilla, Medium Zach) right after we got him drunk enough to agree to give us all free studio time for life.  Bonus! 

And as a special early Bonus Jam, I’ve also included the best song from the last Rick Ross album, entitled “Yacht Club,” as an ode to the wonderful establishment that housed these two legendary bachelor parties.  A true rite of passage.  Congrats to Joe and Nell!

In other news I just started working on a new project with the god Crescent Moon.  It’s still in the super early stages and neither of us know exactly what will come of it, but I can’t begin to tell you how excited I am.  If you grew up in the Twin Cities then you already know what a true legend this man is.  He’s consistently put out incredible records over the last decade with Oddjobs, Kill the Vultures, Roma Di Luna, and Big Trouble (he’s also guested on Ipecac Neat, Lights Out Paris, and the self-titled Doomtree album).  Easily one of my favorite rappers out there for years now, so working on this record is a true honor.  We started demoing a couple of the first joints yesterday over at Stef’s place and I grabbed this picture.  Legend Recognize Legend indeed.

I’m spending the rest of the week practicing for this epic Paper Tiger release show on Saturday.  We’re gonna be playing the beats out live for his set and then the whole crew will be performing some classics, so make sure to come down if you’re in the area.  Sauce (Lyndale and Lake) - Saturday July 24th - 10:00pm.  The venue only holds a couple hundred people, so get there early if you can.  It will be most glorious! 

I’ll leave you with a few Bonus Jams off two of the stongest rap albums to come out this year.  Constant rotation in the Camry, might even have to do a review of these two in next week’s post.  Rick Ross is killing them out there right now!  See you next Tuesday for sure.

– Beak

www.twitter.com/_LAZERBEAK_

Big Boi - ”Hustle Blood”

Rick Ross – “Maybach Music III”

Click here to view the embedded video.

– Beak

The rest of this post will be dedicated to four totally separate but equally awesome things that happened to me in the last week.  Here we go….

1.) We officially got our name on a star at First Ave!  I’ll try to spare you the nerdy music geek freak-out sentiment that goes along with such an honor like this, but suffice to say we are all pumped out of our minds and beyond overjoyed.  This is big time.

2.)  I got hooked up with a special bulk delivery of Mike’s Hard Raspberry Lemonade!!!  Anyone that knows me knows that I have gone pretty public lately with my whole hearted endorsement of this wonderful flavor of Mike’s Hard Lemonade.  It truly is wonderful.  Despite the fact that Raspberry is easily the best of their many varied products, Mike’s only releases it in a limited “seasonal” run throughout only a few short summer months.  Horrendous.  This year I devised a plan to buy up as much of it as I could in order to get a stockpile going for the brutal winter ahead of us.  The homie Steve Yasgar works at a liquor store and was able to talk his boss into approving a three case special order of it for me.  Total victory!!!

3.)  We got the promo copies of Legend Recognize Legend back.  SO excited.  It’s finally starting to feel like this album may eventually come out.  We’re gearing up to send these promo joints out to press and radio to get the hype ball rolling, but the real deal version (with tons of extra artwork and bonus DVD) will be released on September 28th.  More info coming sooner than later.

4.)  I watched the movie Twins for the first time since 1990 and it is just as good (if not better) than I remembered.  DeVito and Schwarzenegger are absolutely unstoppable!  I think we must have gotten our first VCR right after this came out, because I remember watching it over and over again as a kid and loving every second of it.  Quick plot summary: these guys are born out of some extensive scientific experiment to create the smartest, strongest baby ever (DeVito ends up kinda getting the shaft on that one).  They get separated at birth and don’t find each other til they are 35.  Then hilarity, action, and suspense ensue.  Promise me you will watch this sometime if you haven’t already seen it.  It is too important to overlook.  In fact, this week’s Bonus Jam is actually from the end credits of this movie.  It’s by the Spinners and it happens to be the greatest/funkiest (if not the only) song ever written about the joy of having a twin brother.  Powerful stuff.  Brother to Brother!!!

Man that song is too good.  There you have it, that concludes the list.  I hope you all have a wonderful week.  See you next Tuesday.

– Beak

www.twitter.com/_LAZERBEAK_

I love that my MPC was actually resting on a pedestal, encased in glass.  Dream come true.  If you weren’t able to make it down on Saturday, the show is still running all the way through next month at CO Exhibitions in NE Minneapolis (Stinson and Broadway).  I think it is open to the public every day from 12:00 – 5:00, so go check it out if you have a little time.  I definitely took a major trip down memory lane looking back at all the stuff we’ve had our hands in over the last eight years.  Pretty awesome stuff.  A huge thanks to everyone at CO and Burlesque for all the help and support in making sure this thing went down.  We should have a bunch of the exclusive limited merch that was for sale on Saturday up on the webstore by the end of the week for you out-of-towners.  Keep you posted on that.

In other news, I recently finally discovered the joys of going to a mall and shopping for gear with your ultimate homies.  I’ve always kind of hated clothes shopping and have mostly stuck to Target for my white tees, jeans, and hoodies (Hanes all day).  I’m gonna be turning 28 next month though and decided that it might finally be appropriate to stop wearing comped Doomtree tees all the time and up my grown man fashion status a bit.  So last week a bunch of us (known here on out as Mall Bros) descended upon the Mall of America in the pursuit of getting laced.  I had an awesome time!  Gone was the uncomfortableness of trying on jeans in the store or pondering over whether something looked awesome or stupid.  I had my Mall Bros there to offer advice and encouragement, and I was able to offer them the same.  It was a pivotal turning point for me in my attempts to overcome this fear of clothes shopping, and I am looking forward to all the future monthly Mall Bros (or Marlboros) mall excursions that await.  Plus we hit the food court.  Bonus!  Anyways, here is a picture of Isaac and Nate showing off their new Perry Ellis white summer sport coats.  LACED!!!  Mall Bros 4 Life.

Sunday I made a second trip back to the mall in order to catch Toy Story 3 in Real-D with my sister and a bunch of friends.  This was the first 3-D movie I have gone to since my horrendous eye gouging experience at Avatar, so I was a little nervous about a re-injury at first.  This time I was easily able to put on my glasses without scratching another cornea though, and from there on we all proceeded to be completely wowed by the final epic film in this Toy Story trilogy.  Can’t say enough about how great the movie was.  The wifepiece had never even seen the first two and she still had a blast.  Pixar (and Randy Newman) can truly do no wrong.

Afterwards we ended up having a few drinks and playing cards, and at some point in the night I attempted to try putting a bunch of different shades on my dog Della.  I know how annoying it can be when people excessively show you pictures of their animals, and I am very cautious to keep Della out of this blog as much as possible for that very reason.  Just bear with me for a moment though.  This is kind of hilarious.

Ha!  Those Kanye shades are the best.  This dog desperately needs an agent.  And here is a picture of me attempting to rock two pairs of shades and win Phase 10 all at the same time (yes that is a poster of Olivia Newton-John in the background, guilty).  Pretty sure I lost at both.

I’ll leave you with the Bonus Jam of the week.  I wanted to post some more Drake songs since that album is officially ruling my Camry these days, but decided to opt for more of a curveball route.  I discovered this song last week on the oldies station and it sounds like nothing I’ve ever heard before.  It’s called “Heaven On The 7th Floor” and has to be the most joyous and fun loving song about doing it in an elevator (or maybe just being stuck in an elevator) that I’ve ever had the pleasure of hearing.  Aerosmith you stay losing.  Plus there are some vicious flute riffs and handclaps going on here all over the place.  Hope you enjoy it.  See you next Tuesday.

– Beak

www.twitter.com/_LAZERBEAK_