Newports - HouseShoes

A week from today will be the third Bowling Shoes, a monthly put together by House Shoes at Garden Bowl in the Majestic complex.

It's almost impossible to go wrong with beer and bowling, toss in some of Detroit hip-hop's finest and House Shoes spinning live, great way to beat the Tuesday night blues.

For all you young people that preached loud about there needing to be unity on the Detroit front, Bowling Shoes is the perfect time to make the first step.

NOT pushing your mixtape or asking for favors, but simply saying hey.

I digress.

Look, it's an awesome event, good people, great music, a bar and bowling...the simplest form of happiness.

*Oh and if you don't know who House Shoes is you have lots of Google-ing and self-face punching to do.

Date: October 19, 2010
Time: 10 p.m. - 2 a.m.
Place: Garden Bowl
          4120 Woodward Ave.

Blue Mondays - Quelle

*Alex Note: This was originally written/posted 8.10.2010 as the test post*

"The Archie Whitewater Interlude"

Quelle and Denmark Vessey make up Crown Nation, maybe you've heard of them, maybe you haven't.

In case of the latter, they're a pretty dope Detroit duo (how's THAT for alliteration?) that has been causing quite a stir since 2006. I haven't placed exactly what it is about them that makes them so appealing. Maybe it's because they embody a classic hip-hop sound with a new school twist sprinkled with some dope lyrictry (my blog, my made-up word). It could also have to do with their production talents which is how I even stumbled across them in the first place (Denmark Vessey produced eLZhi's "Flyest" and well, you all can figure that one out).

"The Ghost Awards"

They've been supported and endorsed by some pretty hip-hop heavy people and recently they teamed up with House Shoes to release Slut Bag Edition/Blue Mondays Double EP (with hand drawn covers by Quelle himself). The vinyl is a limited edition and after seeing people say they've ordered 2 or 3 copies, the 500 records will be going ... fast.

My advice to you would be to order yours HERE before they all go bye-bye. Even if they have all sold out, You still might want to order a copy of Blue Mondays or Slut Bag Edition ... unless you like your iTunes to be depressing. Also, I remember watching this YouTube video they posted a few months ago (and after aimless Googling) I found it and thought you should check it out.

Last Donut of the Night - J Dilla

I don't know how I missed posting this. Can't tell you what I was doing or going through last month, but Stussy released a 3-part-documentary on J Dilla's life during his last few years—From Detroit to LA to Donuts. The documentary features the likes of DJ Houseshoes, Peanut Butter Wolf, J. Rocc, Frank Nitty and  quite a few others. Stussy and Stones Throw Records have also partnered on a J Dilla tribute t-shirt.

And I knew about everything I'm posting, for some reason I never posted it (Oops). Stones Throw Records, Serato Records, and the J Dilla Estate collaborated on the special edition vinyl release of Donut Shop. This is the description that is on Stones Throw's site:

Serato and Stones Throw have teamed with the J Dilla Estate for the official J Dilla Serato release, Donut Shop. This is 2 discs with six J Dilla tracks, 2 sides with Serato Control Tone (for use with Serato Scratch Live DJ software), and 2 donut slipmats in a package designed by Studio No.1. This will be released May 10th (the day after Mother's day--what's up Ma Dukes?). Pre-order is available now.

The J Dilla tracks consist of three previously unreleased instrumentals selected by J.Rocc from the Dilla archives – “Safety Dance”, “Sycamore”, “Bars & Twists” – and three unreleased instrumental versions of Dilla's production for Mos Def, Q-Tip and Busta Rhymes, each remastered by Elysian Masters who mixed and mastered J Dilla's Donuts, The Shining and Ruff Draft albums.

It's available for pre-order now and will be released on May 10. One of the tracks: "Safety Dance" has been released for free download already. Peep it:

Download "Safety Dance" Here

I think I've gotten everything else out of the way, now for your feature presentation, J Dilla Documentary presented by Stussy.

Don't Believe 'Em - Busta Rhymes

I do not think you all understand just how much I hate the fact that I am giving this waste of a record deal Charles Hamilton so much attention right now, but using Dilla's name is a such a hot issue. If you've been keeping up you know what's going on as far as CH v. The Motor City. Well one of the people Charles Hamilton really wants to talk to is House Shoes, Dilla's best friend and handles pretty much everything involving the J. Dilla name. House Shoes doesn't want to talk to CH because according to him it's too late to be apologizing. I was on Michiganhiphop.com and they just posted this video from Hip Hop Official of House Shoes discussing the situation. Check it out: