The Witzard

Honestly, it doesn't even feel like there's a proper way to elegize an eccentric and extremely talented artist such as MF DOOM, who meant so much to so many of us for so many years for so many different reasons as truly unique as DOOM himself. So, what better way to pay tribute to The Man, The Myth, THE MASK himself than by speaking to those closest to him? With a heavy heart, I proudly present Shadows of Tomorrow; a new recurring column in tribute to DOOM in an effort to re-tell the tall tales, strange stories, and lesser-known tidbits of The Metal Face Villain himself. R.I.P. Daniel "MF DOOM" Dumile Thompson. "MF DOOM is easily the most inspirational act in Indie Hip-Hop. His voice, flow, production, character development, story-telling, and his ability to piece a cohesive album together were all extraordinary. Even in the early 90's in his KMD days, he was way ahead of his time. Going from a bright-eyed youth in his high school/KMD days—who wouldn...

Last we heard from Massachusetts' own 80HRTZ, he was producing "The Ghost of Route 44" as part of BRZOWSKI's 2019 odds-and-ends-style comp. BLooddrive, Vol. 4. Prior to that, 80 had produced a full-length album alongside fellow Bay Stater and emcee Purge dubbed WHERE THERE'S SMOKE... However, The Witzard regulars might remember 80HRTZ from his inexplicitly infectious genre-fusing remixes of The Misfits' "Astro Zombies" & Dead Kennedys' "California Über Alles" both premiered right here at The Witzard, respectively, featuring DJ Halo & Shortrock. Now, 80HRTZ has returned with his next similarly-minded remix concocted exclusively for The Witzard: Iron Maiden's fourteenth single, "Wasted Years." Maiden originally released "Wasted Years" in 1986 as the lead-off single from their then-upcoming synth-laden album, Somewhere In Time. 80HRTZ's "Wasted Years" fuses together Iron Maiden's beloved ...

dubldragon. is a Bay Area, California-based Hip-Hop group consisting of emcee Chad "Skeptik" Porras and producer Dan "Danny G." Gensel . They have affiliations with The Lobetrotters Collective , Full Moon Freakz, and Deep Thinka Records and are currently signed to BRZOWSKI 's imprint, Milled Pavement Records . dubldragon. 's latest album, Macroforms , was released in November 2019 on Milled Pavement . Macroforms has been described as "an examination of man's place (or lack thereof) in the universe. In a digital space, what meaning does physicality have? When man has depleted The Earth entirely, will we have anywhere to ruin next in its place? Where do the divisions lie between, wants, needs, and desires? As unanswerable as it may be, it sure is fun to think about, isn't it?" Skeptik & Danny G. have already released two music videos for "Case" and "The Aleph" from the album. Supposedly, there are, at least, TW...

BRZOWSKI , a self-described "touring Post-Rap artist hailing from the icy wastes of New England" hasn't released a proper full-length since 2017 critically-acclaimed ENMITYVILLE . Although, with that said, BRZO has stayed nothing short of inactive over the last nearly three years: 2018 saw the release of his I Had An Accident (IHAA) DIG 2 GRAVES split EP with MC Homeless , as well as 80HRTZ -produced single, "Cemetery Rose" Featuring Renée Coolbrith . So far, this year, in 2019, BRZOWSKI has released a cover of Woody Guthrie 's iconic "This Land Is Your Land" from The Multiverse: Season 1, Episode 2 , a 5-song score entitled Abduction Themes for a documentary called Otherworldly Amor , appeared on Zak G 's "Propaganda" from his Milled Pavement Records -released album, Mutant, and appeared alongside D-FAZ for five tracks from their new album, OneNationUnderDog . Blooddrive Vol. 4 by BRZOWSKI On top of all that, BRZOWSKI has...

NOOB SAIBOT 1-4 is an upcoming series of releases from Joshua Rogers at Illuminated Paths/Broken Machine Films Presents... (or BMFP...) which I've, personally, been hearing rumblings about for quite a while now. I believe, I've been hearing about NOOB SAIBOT 1-4 from Mr. Rogers just about as long as VIPER & Broken Machine Films Presents... BOUT THA MONEY , both of which were fairly recently re-mixed/mastered by Dan "Height" Keech at Cold Rhymes Records. Joshua Rogers/BMFP... has a very unique cut-and-paste style of creating Hip-Hop, Vaporwave, and largely genre-eschewing music culled from a nearly 20-year vault of original production work curated/created by Mr. Rogers himself; using "strictly cassette-to-cassette and VHS/record-to-cassette manipulation and layering, utilizing only vintage tape decks and medium," much like BOUT THA MONEY . NOOB SAIBOT 1 was quietly released by Illuminated Paths on Friday, August 30, 2019 with NOOB SAIBOT 2-4 , r...

First and foremost: I would like to take this opportunity to extend a very special "THANK YOU!" to Jesse Dangerously, John "Jumbled" Bachman, Pat "Pecue" Quinn, Dan LeRoy, Paolo Gilli, Nate LeBlanc, Height Keech, Joshua Rogers, Sahan Jayasuriya, Danny Cheap Date, Emceein' Eye, KID ACNE, Jeremy Shatan, clint. AKA salk. Myrrow's Outlet, Awkward, Jim Mahfood AKA FOODONE, Steve Baril, DJ Bacon, David "unheard78" Taylor, bigfatlove at Beastiemania.com, BRZOWSKI, Harvey Cliff MC, and Jay "Hawk" Myers at Beastie Family for their parts in helping create and put together this comprehensive track-by-track breakdown in honor of the recent 30th anniversary of the Beastie Boys' July 1989 sophomore album, Paul's Boutique. Make sure to Follow @JesseDangrsly, @NapalmDef, @Pecuedesign, @danleroy, @natejleblanc, @Heightkeech, @pathilluminated, @sahanicyouth, @dontpanicrecs, @emceeineye, @AnEarful, @myrrowsoutlet, @AwkwardUK, @JimMahfoo...

Where There's Smoke by Purge "My good friend and partner-in-art-crimes @80hrtz entirely produced this album from Massachusetts Rap animal @purge508 Where There's Smoke... Link in the bio to support this heavy Hip-Hop slab. Play it loud for best results," BRZOWSKI (@brzowskimusic) posted on Instagram Thursday afternoon. BRZO 's, of course, referring to 80HRTZ -produced Where There's Smoke... featuring New Bedford, Massachusetts emcee, Purge . I've, personally, been hearing about this album for at least six months or so now; while 80HRTZ & I worked together to orchestrate the release of his The Witzard-premiered remixes of both The Misfits' "ASTRO ZOMBIES" & Dead Kennedys' "California Über Alles," he was continually updating me on his then-in-the-works project with Purge . As you may well know by now, 80HRTZ had a sizable hand in the creation of BRZOWSKI 's critically-acclaimed ENMITYVILLE , as well as D...

Dead Kennedys were a controversial San Francisco, California -based Punk/Hardcore , who were originally active from 1978-86; within said 8-year span, Dead Kennedys self-released four albums and an EP on their own independent record label, Alternative Tentacles . Dead Kennedys critically-acclaimed and widely praised releases include Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables , In God We Trust, Inc. EP, Plastic Surgery Disasters , Frankenchrist, and finally, 1986's Bedtime for Democracy . Dead Kennedys abruptly disbanded—arguably, at the height of their "fame"—in December of 1986, prior to their career-spanning 1987 compilation , Give Me Convenience OR Give Me Death . However, following a 15-year period of inactivity, Dead Kennedys re-formed in 2001 following a number of legal disputes, royalties lawsuits, and disputes between members. Unlike the recently re-formed Original Misfits with Glenn Danzig , this is, unfortunately, not the original incarnation of Dead Kennedys . ...

Dennis "80HRTZ" Faria is a musician, beat-maker, producer, and multi-instrumentalist hailing from Fall River, Massachusetts . 80HRTZ has been playing with local Southeastern Mass area bands since about 1995; from '95 to around 2004, Faria played bass with a variety of bands including, a 7-piece Hip-Hop crew called Nyhilistx and female-fronted Rock band, Eryss . Since halting his career as a bassist around about 2004 due to severe carpal tunnel, 80HRTZ has largely focused on making music by himself from behind his computer. 80 has either produced or contributed to Portland, Maine emcee BRZOWSKI 's New England Gothic , General Surgery, Blooddrive Vol. 1 , 2017's ENMITYVILLE, and most recently, his DIG 2 GRAVES split with MC Homeless . Dennis Faria was part of The Witzard 's comprehensive Round Robin -style interview in support of BRZOWSKI & MC Homeless ' collaborative split, DIG 2 GRAVES on I Had An Accident/Milled Pavement Records . 80HRT...

"In the Punk-derived tradition of split releases, DIG 2 GRAVES pairs a trio of new songs from Portland, Maine purveyor of dour verbosity, BRZOWSKI with the first [newly-]recorded material from erstwhile Ohioan, MC Homeless. Old friends who have shared stages across The US & Europe, these two both share an affinity for Indie Rap, Punk Rock ethos, and a nostalgia for the schlocky Horror of the 1970's & 80's. BRZOWSKI sculpted the majority of the lyrics for this release immediately following the sessions for 2017’s acclaimed opus of personal ghosts and political realities, ENMITYVILLE . An Indie stalwart with many note-worthy credits under his belt, BRZOWSKI has not slowed his pace of peculiar catalog pieces in the space between solo offerings, to which DIG 2 GRAVES is the latest addition. The lush production provided by C$ Burns + BRZOWSKI (as Vinyl Cape) & 80HRTZ deploys samples evenly with live instruments, woven in layers thickly appropriate to the nature ...

" Keepin' grubby hands out my lane—I guess I'm McClane / Rap game's—my Nakotomi Plaza / I tip-toe through broken glass to rescue my oldest passion / bet it all against the house in the hopes it'd let me out," Baltimore emcee NotForgotten ferociously rhymes on "Against All Odds," the first single from his as-yet-untitled debut album. NotForgotten is the emcee alias of Ricky Robertson, Jr. a self-described rapper, comic book artist, and illustrator; Robertson's been writing raps for the past 15 years and has been a self-taught artist for just as long, plus, 10 years prior. As NotForgotten tells "Against All Odds'" origin story to The Witzard , he "reached out to Cryptic One in response to an offer he posted on Twitter announcing that he had beats available." I have to admit, however, I'm still mildly intrigued to hear what NotForgotten & Cryptic One 's Indie Hip-Hop -laden rendition of Phil Collins...

"BRZOWSKI is a touring Post-Rap artist hailing from the icy wastes of New England. This road-worn vocalist has been regarded as a standard-bearer for Avant-Hip-Hop since his first release in 2001. Always prescient, often verbose, never for the faint-of-heart," reads BRZOWSKI ("BRZO" for short)'s Bandcamp Bio. He's done over 1,000 live performances, released three critically-acclaimed albums, four mixtapes, five EP's, and two 7-inch singles, as well countless featured appearances with a who's-who of seasoned Indie Hip-Hop vets. BRZOWSKI has been steadily touring with a wide array of projects since 1993 and has logged road hours in support of Atmosphere, Astronautalis, billy woods, Brother Ali, Busdriver, Cage, Ceschi, Doug E. Fresh, El-P, The Gaslamp Killer, MURS, Open Mike Eagle, Sage Francis, solo, and Uncommon Nasa. BRZO initially emailed me back in July, praising my recent published works with Height Keech, E. Grizzly, and Lt Headtrip, with a p...