music
Burn it Up,
Break it Down
If hip hop is to remain
alive, or even in the strange
zombie-Frankenstein form
it seems to have taken, the
genre’s roots will have to be
passed on to the youth — the
real roots, meaning the fi ve
elements of hip hop: MCing,
DJing, Graffi ti, B-boying and
Beat Boxing. Exposure to all
of the above in legitimate
form is what’s needed.
Friday, July 15, Eugene’s
younger crowd can receive
just such exposure to a few
of the elements at WOW Hall
when local b-boy crew the
High Voltage Boys comes to
wreck it at the “Burn This
City Down” event.
Burn This City Down is a
showcase geared toward the
teenage crowd that aims to
bring break dancers and DJs
together in true form, with Mis-
sissippi’s own DJ Sipp compli-
menting the b-boys of Eugene.
A sketchbook competition will
also be happening on site. All
of this is intentionally set in the
middle of the summer, a time
when high school students
begin to get antsy as a result
of having a little too much free
time on their hands.
“I wanted to create an
event that would send kids back
to school still talking about it,”
says event organizer Librado
Biasco, who hopes that a show
like this will help to restructure
the younger party scene as
if it were “burned down” and
needed to be rebuilt.
Though that is an
ambitious desire, it is not far
from the original function
of hip hop’s early years,
when New York DJs like
Afrika Bambaataa organized
huge block parties with the
intention of keeping young
people out of trouble and
in the art form. Artists,
particularly break dancers,
would perform in competitive
battles along with their DJ
and MC counterparts.
Whether Biasco’s Burn
This City Down event can
accomplish the goal of
changing the teenage party
scene remains to be seen. But
the intention is well placed,
and hip hop is no stranger to
such feats.
Librado Biasca, DJ Sipp,
and High Voltage Boys play 9
pm Friday, June 15, at WOW
Hall; $8 adv., $10 door.
— Dante Zuñiga-West
PHOTO BY LIZ DEVINE • LIZDEVINE.COM
Slim’s Pickin’
He’s a guy you can imagine grabbing a beer with, the boy down the block you know will make it big. And he has. In the seven years
since the Rolling Stone-acclaimed Electric Love Letter was released, Langhorne Slim has played at Lollapalooza, the Newport Folk
Festival and the Bristol Rhythm and Roots Festival, and opened for acts like the Avett Brothers and Cake.
Slim’s music is energetic folk, plain and simple. His uncomplicated lyrics and straightforward style demand the label “troubadour,” and
it fi ts like his fedora. Even his name, borrowed from his hometown in Pennsylvania, would suit a thriving minstrel from the Middle Ages.
His latest album, 2009’s Be Set Free, slows down and dresses up compared to earlier releases. “Say Yes,” a pop-infused exhortation to
love, lurches between verse and chorus with the precise, rickety uncertainty of a new love. “Cinderella” shouts and stomps with Slim and
the band and should be a riot live.
“Leaving My Love” fi nds Slim in a sweet duet with Heartless Bastards’ Erika Wennerstrom, which is a shame not to be able to see live
in Eugene, but maybe next time?
Sometimes Be Set Free can sag under the weight of its simplicity, as in “Land of Dreams,” but that’s just more reason to check out
Slim and company live and tap into their energy. The album brims with infi nite live-music potential — Slim’s style is best served onstage.
Langhorne Slim plays 9 pm Wednesday, July 20, at Sam Bond’s Garage; $8. — Shannon Finnell
Refugees of Heavy Metal
Acrassicauda — the Iraqi metal band, whose name is Latin for a dangerous black
scorpion that inhabits Middle Eastern deserts — is a must-see live show for anyone who
likes metal and/or has any interest in what the “War on Terror” has done to Iraq. The
title of the band’s fi rst offi cial release on Vice Records, Only the Dead See the End of the
War, says it all.
The story of Acrassicauda is like a Horatio Alger novel set in war-torn Iraq, where the
musicians came together and met resistance from every quarter. Now living in the United
States after years in Syria and Turkey as heavy metal refugees, Tony Aziz Yaquoo (guitar),
Firas Al-Lateef (bass), Faisal Talal Mustafa (lead vocal) and Marwan Hussein Riyadh (drums)
are free to grow their hair long, go on tour and connect with the community of metalheads
to which they belong. Backstage after a Metallica show in New Jersey, James Hetfi eld
himself presented the band with a guitar, signing it “Welcome to America.”
So how does a metal band form in Iraq? Under Saddam Hussein’s regime they
were able to get bootlegs of Slayer, Metallica and Slipknot, and began rehearsing in a
commercial space in Baghdad. At one point, they performed live under the enforced
condition that they compose a song in honor of Saddam.
As Acrassicauda matured as a band, it developed a unique version of thrash metal:
Lead guitarist Yaquoo effortlessly incorporates Middle Eastern modes into crunching
riffs and dazzling solos, while singer Mustafa’s vocals bear “thrash” trademarks without
venturing into the full-guttural timbre that garbles lyrics and sends everyone over 30
to the exits. As war erupted around them, the band’s lyrics began to refl ect frustrations
with life in a combat zone. In the song “Massacre” we hear a very succinct message,
“Years ago they created a new way to kill more innocents / Children. Elders. Women. /
Bombs fall like rain from the sky fi lling the rivers with innocent blood.”
The band members reside somewhat between a love of American metal and their obvious feelings about the war. Their precious
practice space was torn apart by a rocket, and they lost all their equipment in the explosion.
Drummer Riyadh grows dour after watching rough footage in his temporary home, and begins talking about the friends he’s lost and
what the war has done to his country. “These are things that you (Americans) lay your back on…that you turn off the TV whenever…or,
like, change the channel when it’s on, so for you fuckers down there, this is daily life in Iraq.”
Fortunately, the band’s love of metal is winning out. Granted refugee status, the band members are planting roots in Michigan, New
Jersey and Virginia. Acrassicauda completed a run of dates, and in May added a second leg that will bring them to Eugene.
Acrassicauda plays 9 pm Sunday, July 17, at The Black Forest; $5. — Jason Moss
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EUGENE WEEKLY JULY 14, 2011 21