I finally got my hands on our footage from NAMM. Enter a parade of ridiculous interviews beginning with saxophonist and super producer, Terrace Martin.
Stay tuned for more!
Category Archives: Hip-hop
This City is a Dag-nab Pack of Angels
Get used to it.
Hello from Los Angeles!
We are kicking up a fuss in Hollywood for Season Two of the podcast this week. We’re in town for NAMM, getting the skinny on all the gadgets you sexy music nerds and savvy broadcasters need. Our guests are out of control, running the foolish gamut of producers, comedians, broadcast legends, and an alarming roster of musicians. It’s Comic-Con for the road dogs and session cats, and I’ll be smack dab in the middle. You will be overwhelmed by the deluge of madness ahead, musical and otherwise.
Stay tuned!
It’s a Very Merry Crisman Show, Indeed
Ever wander right into a music video?
We are so proud to bring you the dopest podcast episode yet, with more guests and new music. This show is sick and hot all at the same time. Sarah gets her interview on with renowned producer/performer Deonis, the incomparable artist Chelsea West, and panels stylist Mattie Michelle and urban legend, Keite Young. Hear music from Pumah, Chelsea West, Snarky Puppy, and BRAND NEW Deonis. That’s not all, folks! We are honored to premier the Black and Blue’s first single LoveCrazy.
Now let’s get to the meaty part of this message: Premier Variety Showcase Presents: X-Mas Subscribonation, the Enfoodening of the Masses is on for 5 more days. We’ll donate $1 to the North Texas Food Bank for every new podcast subscriber between now and Christmas; so please tell ALL your friends to click subscribe. Tell your cool friends to actually listen. Each subscription feeds three people in North Texas.
Connect with us on Facebook, follow Sarah on Twitter, and share our site with others you think might be interested in what we’re doing. We just love you for listening and coming with us on this ride.
Happy Holidays from the Crisman Show team. We love you!
Power Minisode with Super Producer, Symbolyc One (S1)
You'd be surprised of the Power that flows from Dallas
Like to avoid things like Cyber Monday and “family”? Keep your sanity afloat with this very special Minisode featuring one of the most influential producers in the music industry today — Symbolyc One. He can teach you everything you need to know about the business during an online seminar TODAY; and you can catch him in your city this fall with the Cannabinoids featuring Erykah Badu. Not enough S1? Scope the documentary, Symbolyc Reflectionz by Dallas filmaker, Jeff Adair.
Have yourself a merry half hour with music byCarl Thomas, Betty Wright, and Strange Fruit Project. We’re talking the Premier Variety Showcase Presents: X-Mas Subscribonation, the Enfoodening of the Masses. We’ll donate $1 to the North Texas Food Bank for every new podcast subscriber between now and Christmas; hop on the food wagon and join us for a benefit variety show in Denton, December 7th! It’s full of summer sausages and Boy Scout Popcorn (if it looks anything like our studio). Also be sure to check out the story behind the spark and evolution of The Crisman Show as told by Womenetics (a savvy site for entrepreneurials of feminine persuasion).
Thank you for making us a success story — we just love you for listening!
The Crisman Show Podcast: Hall v. Oates
We're coming for you, Denton.
We’re getting the hang of this “conversation” racket in our second Crisman Show podcast. Now for the pertinent run-down on linkage and mad love — thanks to all our guests and featured musicians! If you like what you hear and want in on the action, please check out our FundRazr (powered by PayPal).
We’ll see you out tonight (Friday, September 30) at the South Dallas Cultural Center with the Gypsy Hideout, and on Monday, October 3 at Crisman’s Comedy Soundcheck at J+J’s on the Square in Denton, America.
Comic Guests:
John Tole, Carey Denise, Chris Corlae, and Tomcat Comedy.
Featuring the musical stylings of:
Bernard Wright, John Carruth, G Koop + O-Man, and Carolina Chocolate Drops.
Hosted by Sarah Crisman
Produced by Nathan Guerra
Theme Song by Graham Richards
Promotional Consideration by IK Multimedia (many, many thanks!)
Want to hear your music on our show? Throw us your tracks on Soundcloud:
Send me your sounds
Preach Blaq: The Fourth Dimension of Cool
This story is told as a part of Crisman AD. For more information on Artist Development, including biography and consultation services, please contact me at SarahCrisman@gmail.com.
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Preach Blaq knows the addictive hook of a powerful brass line. While hip-hop has trusted the rhyme across a canvas of funk since the dawn of Chic, few venture as far as to invite the horn section in as hypemen. Today an obscure lab in Houston is cooking a project that will marry the high energy of live instrumentation to intelligent lyricism and the ones and twos.
Born in Little Rock, Arkansas, Preach came up in and Austin, Texas where his family instilled a deep tradition of musicality.
“That was me before I even started school,” Preach said. From an early age, Preach was playing trumpet like his father and tagging along with his mother to choir rehearsal. More influenced by jazz than hip-hop, Preach eventually turned to the cypher to showcase his prowess as a writer and emcee.
“When I was in high school in Austin, there was a hip-hop spot where local cats could perform with a live band every Wednesday. That was the first place I ever grabbed a mic and really spit, and that was long before I ever stepped in a studio.”
Under the tutelage of Houston’s Devin the Dude, Preach developed and honed his songwriting skills. Not just the ability to write verses or hooks, but a complete song. Touring for years with the man the New York Times declared “a brilliant oddball with a spaced-out flow,” Devin has shown Preach by example how to be musically relevant, but not necessarily typical.
“He’s an artist in the truest sense of the word and being in his company was not only inspiring, but also a priceless education in the inner workings of the music business. I was able to learn about the industry and how important it is to be an educated business person. I saw this first hand through the experiences of successful and unsuccessful artist alike. That was the more important lesson. We will always collaborate, but now it’s also time for me grow myself and be my own artist.”
Preach, being a universally minded progressive thinker is now poised to be much more than a Hometown Legend.
“I had to step back record and build a catalog of original music. It was necessary for me to recognize that to solidify myself as an emcee I needed to create more material. Now I’m ready and well prepared.”
Legacy is Not a Choice: The Freddy Hall, Jr Story
From the Legacy of Seattle to the Pocket of Dallas
I first met Freddy Hall on the train. This has become one of my favorite ways to meet people, especially the more I’ve gotten to know this teddy bear of ambition. The ice was broken when he sat beside me and whipped out a Chris Dave shed video on his phone. Immediately I knew the Lord had brought me a new friend. What I couldn’t tell fully at the time, was the intelligent design behind my placement on the Red Line that day. I have discovered within Freddy a dear friend and truly gifted drummer. It is my honor today to tell you the story about this Seattle cat who migrated to the pocket of Dallas to find his identity as a drummer — a pilgrimage that began when he was born to Seattle legend, Fred Hall. You can hear Freddy’s work after the jump below. -Crisman
“I’m old school, right? I’m taking older songs, chopping them up like ?uestlove, and putting live drums in. That’s what I’m going for. As far as making a simple beat or loop, or sampling, I fall on my dude who samples a lot of tracks — a lot of old school songs that make for a sick beat. We progress from there to the drum kit. I started doing this in 2008, I got hooked with Aretha Franklin. I took the first 15 seconds of a song and chopped it up. When I first started, I couldn’t believe how simple it was. I got hooked!”
“My buddy had this program called Recycle and Reason — he had ProTools but I didn’t know how to use that at the time, so I would just making beats from scratch with Reason. Then I started playing with Recycle, I took a song, liked the 15-20 of it, and made a beat. I made a beat for a skit on Johnny Roullete’s She album in 2009 (the album didn’t drop until early 2010). We met at Collin College, started talking about music, and got hooked. Six months into it, he was putting out his album, Based on a True Story, and I put in the live drums on a track called ‘Money Maker’.”
“Back in Seattle, I was vibing a little with the musicians there, but it didn’t really happen until I moved to Dallas. I wasn’t studying music and drummers, I just knew how to play, it was something I was born with.”
In fact, Freddy’ father was Seattle drum legend, Fred Hall.
“When I moved to Dallas, I looked back at the old days who the successful drummers were; I realized they were all jazz drummers. I went back to the roots and listening to jazz, trying to get my chops up like Tony Williams, Buddy Rich, Dennis Chambers. That’s how it all started.”
Freddy’s not only a student of our percussive forefathers, he knows what time it with today’s cats.
“Chris Dave is a drum god. He’s ahead of his time. When I heard Allen Matthews — he’s a beast! –say that Texas is about the drummers, and I’d always heard that Dallas has the musicians. I kept that in the back of my mind. I moved to Dallas to get in on the scene and see who’s on the scene, started hitting the Prophet Bar right away. First person I saw was Candy West, then Erykah Badu, Musiq Soulchild, Dwele, Common, and Mos Def – and those were all on just regular nights that I was going to anyway!”
“The first drummer I liked was Robert “Sput” Searight. I asked him, how do you get on your level?”
“Just listen,” he said.
“The next drummer who caught my eye was Cleon Edwards. I like Cleon because he lays the pocket, and he’s kind of like Chris Dave that way. He holds the pocket, the groove is there. Once you’re around those cats enough, it just gets in you. It becomes a part of your identity. You’re taking all these characteristics from the drummers that can play the gigs and make the money. I look at them as the foundation. We got a lot of drummers out there doing it. Chris Coleman took drumming to a whole new level.”
“Right now it’s about getting the studio together and working on production. Building my own sound from my own studio, finding my identity as a drummer. I’m gonna focus on production, making tracks. People get it twisted — loops is just something you put on repeat, but a track is making a song for an artist. I want to get my bearings with loops and work my way up to tracks. That is the plan.”
“My father passed away in 2007, I had moved to Dallas in 2006. Legacy is not a choice, it’s in my blood. Now, I might not be at the level as everybody else around here at the moment, but I’m getting there.”
G Koop + O-Man: from Berklee to Beats
G Koop & O-man is an effort to capture the creative process of hip-hop collaboration in a simple, streamlined, and public way. This project, broadcast on YouTube from an unassuming studio in Oakland, provides a weekly push to produce new music and invite guest artists into the fray as they welcome the world to experience this process through the magic of technology. Graham Richards and Rob Mandell first connected at Berklee College of Music in ’98. The kindred wits began collaborating on several bands and hosted a regular jam session at a Boston tavern under names like Shivery Delicious , Teen Chat Room, The Pirates of Relaxation, and, of course Busty Nutsack.
The pair eventually found their way to the Bay Area where they quickly became a part of the artistic community, spending much of the time in a little jazz club bouncing between piano and bar. Graham and Rob were heavily influenced under the mentorship of legendary jazz drummer, Donald “Duck” Bailey.
“Duck taught us how to play, how to listen, how to treat ourselves and other musicians with respect.” Graham said. “He told first-hand stories of a by-gone era, gave us insight into how things really went down in the jazz clubs back in the day. He played music with us and never judged us by our technical facility; rather by our willingness to let go of ego and preconception and just play music with him. It was kind of a boot camp that Rob and I went through together.”
This history is important in understanding the evolution of G Koop & O-man. Graham returned to school to receive a Master’s Degree from the University of North Texas’ legendary Jazz program and wrote a groundbreaking piano method book, Piano, Yeah! Meanwhile, Rob spent ten years in an intense hip-hop tutelage working with great producers such as Jake One and Easki.
“We each have our own trip, and we have always been 100% supportive of each others’ creative endeavors.” Graham said.” Rob is one of the most prolific artists I have ever met; his discography is legendary and growing every day.”
“Working with a musician of Graham’s caliber is like holding a musically loaded weapon;” said Rob. “His skill knows no boundaries, and his openness to follow the creativity wherever it may go is unparalleled.”
“My job is to make the language we use more universal,” said Rob. “Less is more.”
Their unique collaborations are reminiscent of individual style augmented by trusted teamwork. The team takes impassioned ideas and filters them into a product palatable for a wider audience, often taking live gig inspiration and transforming it into a worthy beat. They work together, trading off on the driver’s seat based on the stronger musical vision at hand while the other offers guidance and suggestion. When strong ideas strike simultaneously, Graham and Rob explore both ideas, thus revealing the duality of G Koop and O-man
“Because of our history, we trust each others’ ears completely.” Graham said.
The trust is what makes our thing work so well; “Rob adds, “We’ve been doing this so long that we know neither would lead the other astray.”
