The Witzard

Last time we featured graphic designer, self-described "crafty veteran Punk Rock curator," and producer Justin Mayer, otherwise known as Old City, he had constructed a mash-up EP fittingly titled BL_CK B_ST_RDS . Old City juxtaposed MF DOOM's villainous rhymes against the musical backbone of English Crust Punks, Doom for a double-dose of... Doom! We've been hearing rumblings about a similarly-minded Old City for the last few years, which would seamlessly meld together Punk/Hardcore & Hip-Hop. Said album has since been billed as "a Punk Rock Paul's Boutique," which, as The Witzard regulars will well know, is right up our alley! Old City has been gradually rolling out what, at the time, appeared to be stand-alone singles since October 1, 2019; it was, then, when Old City unleashed his debut single, "Get Sued" Feat. Tre Marsh & Olmec, which, somehow, managed to sample Green Day a whopping 32 times. Get it? "Get Sued," which, in...

Aside from our aptly-named ongoing The Witzard Interview(s) series, 3 Fee High & Rising new artist featurette, and producer-selected playlist Beat-maker Bedrock , we really don't have a lot of recurring columns here at The Witzard. Partly because my fiance and I just moved into our first home together within the last month or so and also because there's just an influx of solid independent releases before year's end, I thought it might be a good time to start up a new recurring weekly wrap-up column tentatively titled, The Witzard's Take 5: Five Independent/Self-released Albums & EP's Worth Checking Out This Week. So, without further ado, here's The Witzard's Top 5 albums/EP's for the "week of" 10/27-11/3—a slightly expanded "weekly" edition to include a couple releases from last week, as well—in no particular order or ranking. Now, a few of these artists should be quite familiar to The Witzard regulars, while some might be e...

"I think a lot about genre-blending, so the relative novelty of mixing (MF) DOOM & Doom made a lot of sense to me. I've been a fan of mash-ups like Jay-Z at Studio One, WUGAZI, Leftöver Kanye , and Yeezer, but nothing that really touched Hardcore/Punk Rock," Justin Mayer AKA Old City wrote within a series of Facebook Messages. Just a matter of days ago, I got a cold-sent email, which started off by saying, "Old City, stage name of Philly-based musician/producer Justin Mayer, announces Black Bastards, a mash-up EP between rapper MF DOOM and Birmingham Crust Punk band Doom ." Old City is currently prepping the release of his villainous Black Bastards EP—presumably named after KMD's 1993 pre-MF DOOM album, Bl_ck B_st_rds—to be unleashed this Halloween and has been preceded by "the first and only" DOOM & Doom-melding single, "Air Crimes;" a frenzied mash-up consisting of DOOM's oft-remixed verse from Dabrye's 2006 Ghostly In...