[SONG OF THE DAY] Mayer Hawthorne - "The Game"

photo credit: Yana Yatsuk

Cali-based crooner cutie Mayer Hawthorne is really on a creative spree at the moment and I am ALL FOR IT.

He’s been making the rounds in recent months with new bops from Tuxedo, his project with producer extraordinaire Jake One, but Hawthorne has decided to release some solo music as well. I can’t believe it’s been a little over 3 years since he dropped Man About Town. Time certainly flies! At any rate, his first offering in too many moons, “The Game”, is a slow jam that feels a lot like a more mature version of his Strange Arrangement days. As he’s spent time exploring the depths of his solo sound, it’s simply showcased his vocal prowess all the more. He’s really one of those dudes who can literally sing the phonebook. I’d be like, “ok and how much did you say it was gonna be to have him sing 3 pages of people with K last names? $500? cool I’ll Venmo you now”.

The song is the first of what is supposedly more to come. It’s wild that we’ll likely be getting Tuxedo and solo Hawthorne stuff simultaneously. What a time to be alive! The next Tuxedo album, titled Tuxedo III, will be dropping on July 19th just in time for their upcoming 21-day North American tour. Dude certainly likes to keep himself busy!

[SONG OF THE DAY] Tuxedo - "The Tuxedo Way"

TUXEDO ARE BACK!

I’ll toast to that.

The dopest dapper dudes are back to make sure you know that the funk is here to stay with their brand new track, “The Tuxedo Way”. It’s the perfect return for the duo, full of retro funk and boogie vibes. I’m a little obsessed with the glass clinking at the opening of the song as their little heads up that we’ll soon be toasting to the Tuxedo way of life.

“Tuxedo is music for celebrating,” the duo shared about the new song. “Yet, as we were working on new music, we realized, much to our surprise, that we didn’t actually have a quintessential celebration song in our catalog. ‘The Tuxedo Way’ is the answer to that problem.”

I love that Mayer Hawthorne and Jake One have this project to escape to when they need a breather from their respective solo efforts. Speaking of solo efforts, Hawthorne hinted in an update to fans that we can expect some new solo music from him as well.

I’ll toast to that.

If you’re looking to “dust your shoulders off and let your hair down” anytime soon, the Tuxedo fellas will be hitting the road for a North American tour starting in late July. Pre-sale tickets go on sale for the tour today (5/15) for those who subscribe to the Mayer Hawthorne or Tuxedo mailing lists, while tickets go on sale to the casuals/ general public on Friday the 17th. You can grab tickets over on their website.

7/20       Santa Ana, CA    The Observatory
7/26       Las Vegas, NV    NoMad Pool (DJ SET)
7/28       Denver, CO    The UMS
7/30       Austin, TX    Empire
7/31       Dallas, TX    Trees
8/2         Atlanta, GA    Masquerade
8/4         Washington, DC    9:30 Club
8/5         Philadelphia, PA    The Foundry
8/6         New York, NY    Webster Hall
8/7         Boston, MA    Brighton Music Hall
8/9         Toronto, ON    Danforth Music Hall
8/11       Detroit, MI    El Club
8/13       Chicago, IL    Thalia Hall
8/14       Minneapolis, MN    Cedar Cultural Center
8/17       Seattle, WA    The Showbox
8/18       Vancouver, BC    Fortune Sound Club
8/19       Portland, OR    Wonder Ballroom
8/21       San Francisco, CA    Regency Ballroom
8/22       Santa Cruz, CA    The Catalyst
8/23       Los Angeles, CA    The Globe Theater
8/24       San Diego, CA    The Observatory

Some Kind of Awesome Radio - 07/11/2015

Typing up all the show notes this week for once because I love you, fam. 

YES! I'M ACTUALLY DOING SHOW NOTES FOR THIS WEEK! #sorrynotsorry but like I said in this week's episode I've been dealing with a bit of blogger burnout and even though doing the show is very therapeutic for me when you see how thorough I intend to be moving forward you will understand why I put this off for as long as I could. Again, I really appreciate those of you who listen and never get the promised show notes. NO MORE BROKEN PROMISES! Just quality #content in addition to a bunch of other new things in the works right now. 

Hope you enjoyed this weeks show! Feel free to drop a comment here or hit me up on Twitter. I'd love to hear what you thought of this week's picks!

Until next week!

<3

@kibbe!

• Tuxedo - "Do It"
  • Hitting the road for a mini tour this month! You can check out tour dates over on their site.
• Studio Killers - "Eros & Apollo"
• Ain't No Love - "Cry In The Rain" 
• Dillon Francis - "Bruk Bruk (I Need Yo Lovin)" 
  • Hitting the road this month! Tour dates over on his site. 
  • This Mixtape Is Fire drops on August 14. You can pre-order it if you're into that. 
• Vowws - "The Great Sun" 
  • Shows in July and August.  More info over on Songkick. 
• Ratatat - "Club Amnesia" 
  • Magnifique is out July 14th. You can stream the album in full via NPR.
• The Kickdrums - "Breathe Again" 
• Monarchy (feat. Dita Von Teese) - "Girls & Boys (Blur cover)" 
  • Few shows lined up in the next month or so. 
  • ReVision out now. As is Abnocto. 
• Caribou - "Silver" 
  • On tour now so get on it! Tour dates here. 
• Interpol - "My Desire" 
  • On tour now! Sprout and I will be heading to the show in Broooklyn at the Prospect Park Bandshell. Will we see you there? 
• Tame Impala - "Cause I'm A Man" 
  • The video for this song is super fun and full of puppets. 
  • Currents drops on July 17 - CAN YOU EVEN HANDLE IT BECAUSE I CAN'T. #zerochill
  • Tour is in full swing and dates are selling out fast so GRAB THEM WHILE YOU CAN. 
• Hot Chip - "Love Is The Future" 
  • They just upped these really fun Peanuts shirts in their merch store. I think I want the Snoopy one? idk
  • Very much on tour right now. 
• The Streets - "Two Nations" 
  • Fairly quiet in the Mike Skinner camp other than that single he did as The D.O.T. last year. Sigh. 
• VHS or Beta - "Can't Believe A Single Word" 
• Weaves - "Tick" 
• Kenna - "Karma Is Coming" 
  • Things are in the works in Kenna camp! He just posted a series of videos on Facebook explaining his Land 2 Air Chronicles series. I know more because I'm awesome but can't say just yet. KEEP YOU'RE EYES PEELED FOLKS! 
• Maiday - "Wish You'd Met Me First" 
  • More on Maiday in the coming weeks as I get to the bottom of this woman and her bru-tiful jams. Also getting into one of the producers on this track. More on that next week. :) 
• Big Black Delta - "It's Ok" 
  • NEW ALBUM COMING SOON. Open your hearts and wallets and PLEDGE YOUR BRAINS OUT. (hey buddyyy!) Dude deserves this to get the crap funded out if it considering all his gear got stolen and his dad passed away. Rough year for Jonathan Bates but It's Ok. 
  • For now you can grab "It's Ok" over on Soundcloud. 
• Kate Boy - "Midnight Sun" 
  • Do not ask me why you cannot buy this yet in the United States of America. I don't get it either. Take it away, UK! 
  • Few random tour dates if you're in other parts of the world. 
• Don Diablo (feat. Emeni) - "Universe" 
  • I can't keep up with this dude. He's already gearing up to release another single called "On My Mind" which drops on July 27. This teaser for it has got me wanting to dance in space. 
  • Voting is open for Top 100 DJs so get to voting so my chocolate chip cookie recipe can have more street cred since they're Don Diablo (and Mama Diablo) approved. 
• Lily Allen - "Close Your Eyes" 
• Animal Kingdom - "The Art of Tuning Out" 
• ANAMAI - "Lucia" 
  • Few shows coming up. 
• Dangermouse & Sparklehorse / Dark Night Of The Soul (feat. Julian Casablancas) - "Little Girl"
• Until The Ribbon Breaks - "Taste of Silver" 
• Biffy Clyro - "Stingin' Belle" 

BONUS JUST FOR YOU FAM! I'm also making playlists on Spotify for every single show. NO SHUFFLE THO BECAUSE THAT'S CHEATING! Additionally, as the shows become available on iTunes I will update each post with a link to the show for your listening pleasure. Enjoy! 

[Listen] Brother Ali - "Mourning in America" x "Stop The Press"

If you are a huge hip hop fan, you should be tuning into all the great releases Rhymesayers has put out this year like I Self Devine's The Sound of Low Class Amerika, Aesop Rock's latest Skelethon or the recently announced P.O.S. album We Don't Even Live Here. And next month RSE is about to do it again with Brother Ali's forthcoming album Mourning in America and Dreaming in Colour dropping Sept. 18th and produced in it's entirety by Jake One, you may remember him from such tracks as Rick Ross' "3 Kings" featuring Dr. Dre and Jay-Z, producing half of Brother Ali's latest free EP The Bite Marked Heart and his collaborative album with Freeway, The Stimulus Package.

Peep out 2 tracks off Ali's upcoming album, the first being his latest single "Mourning in America" and the latter "Stop The Press" which we featured on June's SKoA blog mixtape. Anything from Ali is always promising and quite enjoyable and these new cuts are no exception. Make sure you pick up the new album when it drops next month which you can pre-order here.

[Download & Watch] Brother Ali - "Not A Day Goes By" (Prod By Jake One)

And as I was just speaking on Rhymesayers assault on hip hop fans/music lovers ears for the year, they drop some new Brother Ali. Peep the Ali and Jake Uno's latest track "Not A Day Goes By" (Video above, Dowload below) and get ready for Ali's forthcoming album Mourning In America and Dreaming In Color coming out late Summer. And if you missed out Ali's Free EP The Bite Marked Heart back in February, do your self a favor and don't make that mistake again and click on the link to go download yourself a copy.