Needs a New Chapter - "Short Notice" for 11/11/11

Erno said wait.





Brent and Bryan were running around, frantic, like there was mafia men pressing guns to their heads to get this thing out...

It was the first day of fall and Passalacqua (the hip/hop collaborative in its three-piece form) had just performed a "thrilling" set at the Dally in the Alley. "I wasn't so insistent on getting it out so quickly," Ernie (Erno the Inferno) Guerra said, cooly, pointing back to when the trio first met after a Trumbullplex show last February, the MCs sampling some of the producer's beats in his home studio, up in an attic down in Woodbridge.

Their latest album was forged up in that studio, during the cruel, air-conditioner-detonating, sweat-splashed days of July's triple-digit heatwave. The tracks exuded sunburst vibes of backyard barbecue grooves, sunset chill outs and t-shirt weather patio dance parties - ideally not the best record to release the first week of a chilly Michigan November.

But... "This crowd," said Guerra to Passalacqua's originators Brent (Blacksmith) Smith and Bryan Lackner (Mister), "at the Dally, are only just now finding out about the first EP...by the time they find out about Zebehazey Summer, it's probably gonna be almost summer time again..."

Why worry, anyway, about how, what, when... any band releases any kind of album... There's less stress about that sort of pagaentry in the Internet-music-age... Put it up on bandcamp and let the people find you. By the time the Dally-esque shows come around, they'll show you how much they've been digging it (...as Lackner noted, taken aback, people were already lip-synching to some of their tunes after just a few months of streaming...so maybe the internet does work? sometimes?)

The multifaceted Inferno is also the bassist of folk/punk-tinged rock quartet Noman, while also an established live DJ, with his Monday night series Slow Jams having recently celebrated its third year-running - (not bad for an admittedly ill-advised venture from the get-go, as he launched it during what was probably one of the busiest years, 21-credit college semester + full time job, -of his life...but hey, he survived, and so does the night!) "I'm not really a turntablist," he admits, "but I got tables..."

Blacksmith, meanwhile, continues to write, record and perform with MC-quartet Cold Men Young (who are looking to release a full length next season) while Mister keeps stirring the pots of multiple collaborative projects steadily simmering on his four or five different rap burners... be it work with Eddie Logix or Que-C...

As Blaksmith and Erno meet me at a coffee shop in the suburbs, Dale Earnhardt Jr Jr's playing, softly, from the house speakers -backgroung music provided by satellite radio. "'We Almost Lost Detroit''s already up on satellite radio rotation?" I ask aloud, to whoever answers.

That's a good sign, Smith says, for Detroit musicians.

Indeed, Erno says, "there's just a high output of music right now, around here, especially in the last few months. It's good; a lot of different sounds and styles."

"I just saw Power for the first time last week," Smith says, "I haven't seen a stage performance that actually shook the ground..."

That has a certain influence, he says; in fact "I've been influenced a lot by just being around Ernie and Bryan. I grew up the radio kid, knowing all the contemporary R&B songs and new rap...wasn't as vast as Ernie's or Bryan's, they were listening more to the classics..."

But being around town, seeing all the other acts pushing it on stages, whether it's "story rap," or "prop rap," "bounce-rap" or some ambient trip, it inspires them, Smith says, "to project our live set into a whole other level... feels like the concepts Bryan and I are coming up with...we're not the average hip/hop group, not the average rappers, we're not gonna make the average rap song..."

The pair met back in Hart Middle School up in Rochester. Their current track was started back during the Metro Times Blowout 2010 - when they reconnected at Paycheck's lounge, during a Mister's set alongside Zoos of Berlin and Carjack.

One EP and one year later, they meet Erno in an attic - (congealed further by a set at the Russell where he DJ'ed around a Cold Men Young performance earlier in the year).

Erno's too close to the record, having listened to it a hundred times during the composition of beats, samples and mixing...still assuring though that it's some of his best work - a chance to flex his penchant for dance music.

Smith agrees... "It's one of those records where it kinda fills a void, right now, especially with hip/hop - locally... Rap feels burned out, hip/hop-wise, it just feels like it might be on its last leg..."

"It needs a new chapter..."

SHORT NOTICE SHIT SHOW - 11/11/11 - at Northern Lights Loung: "The intent is to bring out all of our luny friends and congeal as one crazy event," Smith said. "Northern Lights, in the New Center area, is one of the forgotten gems in Detroit which makes it perfect..."
 Self Says, Of Mice And Musicians, POWER and Passalacqua + surprise live drummer


Doors at 9.  Hosted by "growing" comedian and friend: Matt Gulley