The recently released 26-track hip-hop compilation NoiseLab Vol 1, features  a lot of familiar San Jose faces like Kung Fu Vampire, Rey Resurreccion, Sean Blak, Language Arts Crew and Luck Loosh and lesser known locals like newcomer YDMC and rap veteran Joe Cutter.

The compilation, assembled by Blak, is divided between veterans of the South Bay scene on the first half, and newcomers on the latter portion. The second volume is expected out in May.
In addition to San Jose rapper, the mixtape features artists from Santa Cruz (Playz), Half Moon Bay (Araknophobix), San Francisco (San Quinn, Pariah), Oakland (Kafani, Deuce Eclipse) and Watsonville (Xplisit).

Check it out here:

It was on Halloween one year ago that Chip DeVille (A.K.A. DJ CaSp3R) held his last RetoXx show at the Cardiff Lounge in downtown Campbell. Since then, the party has set up shop at Johnny V’s, where a Halloween party tonight features a packed lineup.

For this year’s Halloween show, DeVille booked the most performers he’s ever had on one night—Three rap acts and four DJs. Portland rappers Landon Wordswell and Garin Reese will be biking down the coast to play this show on their West Coast bicycle tour). Other rappers include local YDMC and Santa Cruz-based Grim Bzns. DJ CaSp3R will be spinning some tunes, as well as RetoXx favorites, DJ MARCade, SMiZZle and B-Boy Drift.

RetoXx Monday begins at 9pm at Johnny V’s. It is a free event.

It’s hard to tell just how serious local punk rockers, Trashkannon, are being, especially on their new album Crappy Days. Their breed of loud, middle-finger-waving, three-chord skate punk is so perfectly composed and so flawlessly offensive, it makes one wonder, “Is it a joke?”

The answer, I wager, is yes and no. Trashkannon are a tongue-in-cheek characterization of purposely offensive, over-the-top punk rock—their crazy live shows and comically ridiculous videos attest to that. Yet, it really is gritty, raw punk rock.

It’s just that the core members have so many other highly varied bands—Language Arts Crew (hip hop), Whiskey Avengers (ska), Insolence (nu-metal)—that they need to create whole new identities for every possible musical genre they play.

A major part of the Trashkannon identity is that off-the-wall madness, which is meant to be funny more than actually offensive. Crappy Days soars through nine songs in 21 minutes, cramming in references to zombies, cops, sex and finger-pulling. The title track—one of the funniest on the record—starts out sounding like a depressive “woe is me” pop-punk song, which quickly degrades into a series of sing-along “fuck you’s” and then ultimately shifts into an upbeat parody of the Happy Days theme song—only instead of “happy days” it’s “crappy days.”

What distinguishes Trashkannon from the standard, run-of-the-mill outrageous punk band, is how good the musicianship is, which shines through in subtle complexities, even if they intended to sound simple and unsophisticated. Songs “Rampage” and “Zombies” have breakdowns and accents that are perfectly syncopated and flawlessly executed.

Truly no die-in-the-wool punk rockers would be capable of such perfection. It would take the work of the truly diverse, well-studied musicians—even if they like to pretend they’re just a bunch of goons.

Trashkannon play Johnny V’s on Friday October 5th at 9pm. Tickets are $5.

Johnny V’s hosts an evening of some of the club’s best regular DJs to help raise money for bartender Ben Bremer (from Language Arts Crew) and local DJ Spencer Balona (aka $penmoney) who were stabbed by a man outside of the club—who they had removed for causing problems with their patrons.

Both men are fine now, but they were taken to the hospital where they received immediate medical attention. All money raised from the fundraiser will offset their medical expenses.

“We’re all family at the bar,” says says DJ Marc Smith (aka Marcade), who is organizing the fundraiser for Bremer and Balona. “Ben and Spencer are two of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet and all they did was defend the bar and the people inside of it. We’re suggesting $5 to $10 per person.”

The assailant entered Johnny V’s and first began harassing Bremer and the security guard. After they removed him, he re-entered and tried to start fights with other people in the bar. Bremer and Balona took him outside and attempted to calm him down. He suddenly lunged at them with a knife. The police were called and the man was arrested.

“He was some insane guy,” Smith says. “Everyone was having a good time. No one was starting anything with him. He just came in looking for trouble. This is the first time that has ever happened at that bar. It’s been there for 10 years. He wasn’t a regular or anything. He was just a random guy from who-knows-where just looking for a fight.”

Smith had no problem finding DJs willing to participate in the fundraiser tonight. The lineup includes Villan, Colburn, Smizzle, Marcade, Casper and Ra Noize. The event starts at 9pm.

The DMC Championships, which has has helped launch the careers some of the most famous DJs in world over the past 20 years, is offering DJs around the world a chance to attend the DMC World Finals in London through an online voting process. San Jose’s own DJ Ichy the Killer is currently in the top five of the second round and has one more round to go before making the finals.

Anyone with a two-minute video showcasing their skills can enter, and then it’s up to the public to to vote on who should move up in each round. Here’s Ichy’s submission:

Ichy the Killer, also known as Chris Larsen, got his start almost a decade ago with the hip hop crew Counter Productive. He continues to spin for Dirtbag Dan, also from Counter Productive, and Insolence, Language Arts Crew and various other San Jose groups. But as his online video submission demonstrates, Ichy can hold his own without anybody rapping over his beats. He’s got a strong sense of structure and a slick artistic style.

Voting for round 2 is open until May 14th. Vote for DJ Ichy the Killer HERE.

Anyone who has spent time navigating San Jose’s music scene has likely crossed paths with Clint Westwood, if for no other reason than he’s in so many bands.

He’s a member of hip-hop foursome Language Arts Crew and also the popular local ska band Whiskey Avengers. When he’s not busy with those two groups, he’s gigging with Trashkannon and Insolence or he can be found at Terrible Tuesdays, his weekly club night at Johnny V’s.

Clint recently shared his thoughts on the San Jose scene and some of his favorite local haunts with us.

What part of San Jose are you from?

I grew up in Cupertino during the early 90s. It had a small town vibe tucked in the Foothills where we were free to roam the wilderness and still pursue the mischief of city life. There was a lot of great bands and musicians that came out of the west side, and a good amount of off-the-wall places to play. I have a lot of friends and colleagues from way back when who are still in touch today. Those were the good old days, it’s been downhill ever since. Haha.

What’s the best show you’ve seen in San Jose?

The Most memorable one might have been when Flogging Molly played music in the park a few years back. It was great to see such a rad band play for so many people downtown. There were also many memorable (or forgotten, depending on drunkenness) national acts that played the late Voodoo Lounge in its heyday. Local music hasn’t been the same since.

What’s your favorite local band?

Right now, I’m really into the local roots blues band Tip of the Top. They have a really authentic sound and keep it dirty. I’m a sucker for old-timey music, like a grumpy old man griping about those damn dumb kids and their lousy techno pop.

What’s your favorite place to get a drink in San Jose?

I’d have to say The Place (Kevin’s Place) on 1st St. Great dive bar, lots of shady characters and great shwag decor. Drunks need a lot of stimuli so they don’t get too many bad ideas. Other than that, I go wherever my friends are pourin’, cuz it be hard times for us musical drifters.

Where’s a cool spot to get clothes?

Savers on Bascom. Where else are you supposed to get a “These Colors don’t Run” T-shirt and the Florescent Gecko hammer pants to match? Spend less time at the mall and go buy merchandise from a touring band.

What’s your favorite spot for a cheap bite in San Jose?

Two Super Tacos from the back of the liquor store on the corner of 10th and Reed, or the roommate’s leftovers in the fridge at 2am.

Sometimes Tuesdays are downright terrible. That’s how DJ Clint Westwood remembers them being in downtown San Jose last spring.

“The Sharks were losing the playoffs,” he says. “All of downtown was in a lull.”

He and his friend Ben Bremer were feeling a bit down themselves. The VooDoo Lounge, which they’d both been involved with, had closed in February.

“We kind of needed something to do after Voodoo closed. We were bored out of our minds, and wanted to do something cool,” says Westwood.

What they ended up doing is currently the hottest thing going on Tuesday nights in the South Bay. But it started inauspiciously enough, when Johnny V’s owner Johnny Van Wyk offered them Tuesday nights to build a weekly event around.

“It was an off night, so he said ‘do whatever you want,’” recalls Westwood.

They could have chosen any one theme, but instead they did what no one else dares to do: they chose every theme. More specifically, they decided to change the theme every week, which for reasons that are probably obvious, is the exact opposite of the strategy that dance nights normally take. A hardcore dubstep following can be counted on to show up at a regular dubstep event. Clubgoers quickly learn where to go for top 40, house or hip-hop nights. But who’s going to show up every week to a dance night that could be old-school funk one week, reggae-ska the next, then mod-rock, then punk rock?

The truth is, neither Westwood nor Bremer had any idea. They didn’t care. They even counted on shaking up the status quo a little bit, dubbing their night “Terrible Tuesdays.”

“It was a counterculture kind of thing,” admits Westwood.

He and Bremer have been friends as well as bandmates for a decade, in Language Arts Crew and its many offshoot bands—last year they even recorded as a duo—so grassroots promotion was nothing new to them.

“The first couple of nights we bombed everyone’s Facebook, to the point that we annoyed them,” says Bremer.

It worked, and Terrible Tuesdays took off quickly. They had some ups and downs, but unexpectedly people did start to respond to the utter disregard for continuity, and most weeks it seems to be packed now.

“We have our regulars, but we get different crowds in there,” says Westwood.

To a certain degree, their success is part of a bigger picture that has seen DJ nights keeping some clubs afloat at a time when the success of live music is hit or miss. But no one has gone about it like they have. Other quirks include their habit of waiting for inspiration to strike for their themes.

“Sometimes I don’t know what they’re doing until the day of,” says Van Wyk. “Sometimes I don’t think they know.”

Westwood laughs. “Sometimes. We try to do a little more planning now,” he says. “But I’m a go-on-the-fly kind of dude anyway.”

Part of the reason is that a couple of months into their experiment last year, Bremer—who bartends at both Johnny V’s and San Jose Bar and Grill—began booking live bands for some of their Tuesday events. He started with friends’ bands, and friends-of-friends’ bands, and now books out-of-town bands as well. He tries to make the bills cohesive, and they build the themes around the bands.

Bremer wants his bookings to get more and more out there. He just set a blues night—“we’ve never done blues before, so I don’t know what the hell’s going to happen—and is looking into doing a goth night and a bring-your-own-instruments theme.

“I want to think way out of the boundaries,” he says.

As a DJ, Westwood has to keep up with all of this, which is even more impressive when you realize he never DJed at all before Terrible Tuesdays started. But as a self-described music nerd, he simply dug into his collection, starting with vinyl and then saving up for a Serato turntable.

He admits it can be tricky trying to impose a different theme on every night.

“The whole concept of reading the room, you have to know your audience,” he says. “You can’t totally be in your own little world. You don’t want to clear the room out, which I can definitely do.”

In fact, he’s known for doing it at last call, when he’ll blast grindcore and death metal to get people out the door.

Bremer explains that if a theme isn’t working on a particular night, they won’t so much abandon it as enhance it.

“We’ll throw other themes into the mix,” he says.

In another unexpected twist, Terrible Tuesdays has become something of an industry night, helped by the fact that its an off night for the bars and clubs. That’s one of many reasons they never want to move what they’re doing to a marquee weekend night—Bremer and Westwood both say it just wouldn’t work. For now, they’ll continue making Tuesdays less terrible—but they’ll keep the name.

“Alliteration,” says Westwood. “That always helps.”

Language Arts Crew have been busy these days. Then again they are almost always busy, whether it’s live gigs, recording sessions or playing in one of their many other bands: Whiskey Avengers, Trashkannon and Insolence. To start off the new year, LAC are releasing Brand New Old Sh*t, Volume 1, a collection of songs they’ve recorded over the past four years but haven’t been able to release. And as the title suggests, there is a second volume of these unreleased songs coming, ’cause, well, they have a lot of songs.

Their “new” album will be available online for free beginning Saturday to coincide with their concert at the Blank Club on Saturday nigh, and those who go will receive a limited-edition physical copy of the album.

Volume 1 is full of a lot of lost Language Arts Crew gems. Like most of their work, they’re a mixture of laid-back stoner-party rap and crazy cerebral rhythmatic flows. The music is smooth, bouncy and heavily funky, with a slight jazz feel.

One of the reasons that Language Arts Crew have remained one of San Jose’s best-drawing rap groups through the years has been because they play so many other styles of music that they mix live instruments, hip-hop beats and DJ samples with such a fine balance that audiences get the rock and hip-hop experience in equal parts. The Language Arts Crew guys will occasionally hop on the instruments and play their own music, and they even sing their own hooks, a feat few rappers seem to be able to do.

Blank Club
Sat, Jan. 7
9pm; $8