Yes ya'll. 'Tis the season and all that. We've been posting our limited arsenal of holiday material on SoundCloud over the past couple of weeks, and just wanted to make sure you knew. Cause we're sure you're not sick of holiday music yet. So please to enjoy! We offered our dub version of 'Winter Wonderland' as a free download last year and we so no reason to not offer it as a bite sized stocking stuffer this year. It's better than coal!

And in non-holiday related news ... 1.5 shows to announce ... !

Friday January 6, 2012

Resident Drastic selectors Chris & Anthony (aka PalmDown Sound) will be back on the 1s & 2s doing it at The Charleston in Bucktown, Chicago.  All vinyl, no cover.  9:30 to close.  Reggae & International Soul.

Friday January 13, 2012

The Drastics w/ MC Zulu will be at Martyrs headlining with Environmental Encroachment and BS Brass Brand.  Ruff inna second line!

OH SNAP!

Almost forgot, we're also gonna be part of this year's WXRT 'Best of 20' Holiday Spectacular .. where you can hear the tunes below paired with our impeccable wit and ability to write 45 seconds skits featuring drunken Santas, bar-fighting holiday characters and what to tell your cabbie on the way home from NYE. This year will be highlights of the past 20 years and we're honored to be part of it. Tune In!

Need more holiday tunes and/or reggae?? Well we got you covered on both ...

Our friends at Musical Occupation just put up a new Podcast/Mixtape ... not exactly holiday themed, but they start out with our hip-hop/rocksteady/dancehall opus "Fraudulent Parts 1 & 2" ... Nice selection pon di mix.

Then our enemies friends at The Impala Sound put up an impressive Christmas-Gone-Reggae Mix ... featuring some real rarities. However, no matter how many times they say it, Impala does NOT rule, nor have a "big big sound". Impala di Imposta!! 

Musical Occupation

Impala Sound

Boss! Richard Milne of WXRT's Local Anesthetic put our submission for this years "Local Anesthetic Holiday Spectacular" as a featured play on the WXRT website! The background track to the shenanigans is the "Rudolph The Dub Nosed Nosed Engineer" track you can listen to in our player (right above this) ... Rudolph and Frosty get into an adventure after getting kicked out of a bar ... definitely worth the 45 seconds it will take to listen!

WHAT'S IT LIKE TO SEE THE SPRINGTIME?

Also be sure to peep the other brand new holiday tune up above .. Frosty The Dubman! We also put our rendition of Winter Wonderland back up from last year! Happy Holidays Ya'lls.

This is the only footage of Larry Young I could find online ... he's playing with Tony Williams and is the guy dressed like he just got a camel caravan. But seriously, if ya'll don't know bout Larry Young you better get hip. I've heard alot of critics call him the "John Coltrane" of the Hammond .. wait for that beat to drop at the 4 minute mark!

I think because of Jimmy Smiths omnipresence in the world of the Hammond Organ, it's easy to not give him the attention he warrants .. and sure, he put out a ton of cheesy and/or boring albums in the late 70s and 80s (I know, I have most of them) .. but back in '64 he was still working it, hard. Check out at 4:07 (when he starts holding that F key down) how much he does with 4 fingers .... all the while still copping the bassline ... unreal.

An amazing singer/songwriter residing in Chicago going by the name of Algebro. Yeah, it's a nepotistic love affair with lots of Drastics friends and family participating in the album but this guy is too gifted to be this unknown. Currently digging the full-length that just dropped ... get a taste of the man's music .. dig station or myspace ... personal favorite tracks are "9 Or 10" and "Miracle Lipstick" ..

We're more than pysched to announce this month's new single: Lightning Train featuring Drastics long-time collaborator and semi-permanent frontman MC Zulu. A bouncy rocksteady/gospel joint with slave-spiritual inspired lyrics. The B-side features the original instrumental version of the track; UV Rockers.

BIG TUNE!

TAKE THIS TRAIN TO FREEDOM

NEXT WEEK!
We'll be dubbin' it on up at The Whistler in Chicago ... 2 Sets .. No Cover. Enjoy fancy cocktails and this. Instrumental set, MC Zulu set. Nice!
 

Good evening all you bonzai buckaroos out there on the vast parched mesa that is the world wide web. Just here to give a little update. Though there was no notification, we did make our First Tuesday New Music deadline and uploaded a brand new instrumental to the ol' myspace listenin' box! We took McCoy Tyner's ballad "Search For Peace" and put the rocksteady treatment on it.

Originally recorded on Tyner's "The Real McCoy" in 1967, the track featured legends Joe Henderson, Ron Carter and Elvin Jones. The album was his first release on Blue Note Records as well as the first record appearing as a leader after leaving John Coltrane's group. Basically, it's an amazing disc. This our little homage to it's greatness featuring Andrew Zelm on trombone.

You'll also notice we added some tracks to our lil' ol' mp3 player up top. Moved some songs from the myspace player there and added a couple new ones ... so press play already!!!

VAN GELDER DUBS

Live Dub
We also got some cool shows palindromey shows coming up in Chicago on 1.13 and 3.11.  First off; next Wednesday we're doing 2 sets as part of the Q4 Wednesday Music Party and then March we'll be throwing down at new-ish Chicago spot; The Whistler (which I'm pretty sure will be their inaugural reggae event). We're also planning a week out to the East Coast in April so keep your eyes on the big board!

2 Big Announcements!

Our 2009 Digital 7" Series (Volume 1) is finally available for download with the iTunes! ... Featuring many tracks with Fada Dougou, MC Zulu, dubs, instrumentals ... If you're curious about what's happening on the cover, it's the 9 most prominent colors of each of the individual album covers and their ratio used shown in 3D and 2D formats. Science! Download the whole album for less than 9 bux!

And we finally got booked in the face! Come join our legion of minions on Teh Facebook! It's like Myspace circa 2006 when everyone still believed in the dream of social networking!!

Phillip R. Daphne
1234 E. Hyde Park Blvd
Chicago, IL 60666

RE: What if the space-time continuum is a moderately sized lasso that can only lasso fossilized portraits of Jeff Parker?

Dear Mr. M. Griffin,

It has come to my attention that, as of late, you have been neglecting to dry your bath towels. Have you noticed the earth is warming? I didn't think so.

Now that we have a socialist President we all must do our part. Unfortunately, your part is to count the number of times Rush Limbaugh fantasizes about tying up his Mexican maid to force feed her white chocolate bunnies and burn the Koran while retelling his favorite Plessy v. Ferguson jokes backwards. Socialism is not easy; nor is it the same as the time you sabotaged your daughter's field trip in order to mock the expanding universe. Brooklyn is not expanding.

I await your detailed analysis.

Cordially opposed to all forms of interposition involving post-empty bottle-Tortoise-bootlegs and videos containing the prefixes "octo," "meta," "post," or "why-are-my-religious-leaders-so-patronizing?,"

Phillip