I’m writing from the Marriott in Salt Lake City, Utah. I’ve been on tour with Suburban Legends for the past few days. Today is our day off and tonight we drive to San Francisco. We’ve been debuting our collaboration, the title track from my upcoming solo album, “This Gigantic Robot Kills.” I love touring with Suburban Legends because they have that fun Orange County / Aquabats / happy-ska crossover audience. YTCracker came out and performed with me in Denver and it was great.
A few weeks ago, YTCracker flew out to San Francisco and we booked a week in the recording studio with the Rondo Brothers. The Rondo Brothers are two Bay Area producers, Jim Greer and Brandon Arnovick, who have done lots of things with Dan the Automator and Del the Funky Homosapien and all sorts of cool indie hip-hop artists. They also produced the biggest radio-play receiving single on “The Graduate,” “Hot Topic Is Not Punk Rock”. They gave us a great deal on studio time and YTCracker and I stayed at my good friends’ Matt and Calvin’s apartment in the Castro and spend our days on Potrero Hill writing and recording at the Rondo’s studio. We collaborated so well together that within a week we had 14 songs! We then sent the ProTools session to Long Island production genius Mike Sapone who took a break from his Brand New sessions and mixed the record for us. He sent me the final proofs and the tracks sound AMAZING! We have lots of guests, including K. Flay, the Former Fat Boys, Schaffer the Darklord, Zealous1, Beefy, MC Router, MC Frontalot, int80 of Dual Core and Doctor Popular. It’s a “who’s who” of nerdcore in 2008 and I’m very happy to have been a part of it.
These 14 songs are all going to be on our next CD, “The Digital Gangster LP,” available for online ordering November 1st. We’re copying Radiohead in that we are giving the album away, but if you donate a certain amount we’ll send you the CD, and if you donate a higher amount you’ll get the vinyl and a t-shirt. We’ll also be selling the tour on our upcoming tour with MC Frontalot next month.
YTCracker is exactly what I’ve been looking for in a rap partner for years. His rhymes are clever, he’s quick in the studio (does all his verses in one or two takes), and is very on top of his business stuff. Together we form a cool duo that has elements of some of my favorite MC pairings – Run-DMC, ICP, Slug and Murs, Twiztid, Chuck D and Flava Flav… not to put us at those guys’ level, but it’s been fun working with a super-talented rapper. We’re going to be performing songs from the “Digital Gangster LP” next month.
If that isn’t enough, I’m mastering my solo album with Stephen Marsh Thursday. Stephen is a great mastering engineer who mastered “The Graduate” as well as the Pharcyde, the Donnas, and Canibus. He’s amazing. The new album is called “The Gigantic Robot Kills” and, although it took me a long time due to problems with former management, it’s finally done. It’s coming out in conjunction with my label Horris Records and Jaret Reddick from Bowling for Soup’s new label “Crappy Records”, which is a new imprint under Oglio.
I’ve got three more shows with Suburban Legends, then a few college shows, then I fly to New York to rehearse with Frontalot’s band. That tour is going to be a six week odyssey across the whole United States. In February I’m headed back to Europe for the next Good to Go Tour that my friend Ed Sellers is booking. Then the plan is to go back to Australia and Japan because “TGRK” will be dropping over there.
Our friends Rich Couzzi at Rutgers and Jon Backstrom (the webmaster for the state of Iowa) have been helping me update mclars.com. My friend Scott Daniells has been helping us get our email lists together so we can keep you in the loop about everything.
See you guys on the road!!
Your friend
MC Lars
