News From The Front

Happy Turkey Day, o ye gluttons and family-havers! Front, for his part, is thankful for Art, Love, Hip-Hop, and your kindly continued attentions.

If you’re anywhere near Elizabeth, New Jersey, on December 7th, Front hopes you will make it to “The Power of Evocative Language - from Poetry to Rap,” a lecture presented by Northern New Jersey Mensa at which Front will be allowed, inexplicably, to bloviate for a spell. Amiri Baraka and Stephen Bard are also on the bill, so it won’t be a total waste of your time. Write to lectures@nnjmensa.org to get on the VIP list for $5 tickets.

Winter is headed in this direction! That’s a saying, right? Front is sorry that he has not prepared Album Number Six in time for your pagan gift-giving rituals, but he can suggest a few alternatives:

Jean Grae’s three-EP Gotham Down cycle is ready for you. It is beautiful and spontaneous and fresh. Bandcampis your best bet.

Schaffer the Darklord’s new one is Sick Passenger, and guess who raps on there? Lots of folks. But also MC Frontalot!

Front also guests on Adam WarRock’s The Middle of Nowhere, which is again on Bandcamp. What’s with all the Bandcamp? Must be one of those good web sites.

Busdriver and Open Mike Eagle are all over the new Hellfyre Club disc. A round and pleasing stocking stuffer!

Random (also known as MegaRan) presents River City Random, upon which your 16-bit dreams are sure to hinge.

Sole’s had three goddamn albums this year, each of them wonderful. Take a look.

Or perhaps your “spirit of givin’ people stuff” extends to crowdfunding largesse? Front endorses the following current efforts toward new albums by Math The Band, Paul & Storm, and TMBG’s Danny Weinkauf.

Nerdapalooza fast approaches. Will our MC perform on Saturday with the whole band, alongside Protomen and They Might Be Giants? Do MC Lars, Nerf Herder, Powerlifter, and a host of other geek music superstars adorn the stage throughout the weekend? To each question, a resounding yes! Perhaps you are already slated to attend. If not, find remedy here.

In a rare and wondrous turn of events, founding keyboardist Gm7 returns to the fold for a full concert with Front, Sturgenius, and Blak Lotus, at the KoL Con music night in Phoenix on Sept 21st. Details are on the gig calendar!

Ahoy, Seattle. It’s Penny Arcade Expo weekend! Front performs at the Saturday night concert at the Paramount, and perhaps you are already planning how to most effectively stand in line.

Should you be unable to access the official festivities, a gigantic post-PAX concert awaits you at El Corazon on Monday evening. Protomen! Frontalot and band! Plus lots more! Your tickets are available here.

Front is returned from Australia! Boy howdy, that’s one nasty ride back n’ forth. But such a lovely continent while one’s there. Our rapper hopes, feverishly, to someday repeat the endeavor.

Front reunites with the whole band in New York City on August 16th, for a concert at the Santos Party House.Tickets are available, and if you bought one before this show moved from the Gramercy Theater, fret not; such tickets are honored at the gates of Santos. Front performs alongside old friends MC Lars and Wheatus, and the latter uses this show to release their brand new Valentine LP. You may help yourself to a digital copy immediately, the better to hum along with each song’s on-stage debut.

Extremely surprising now non-secret San Francisco show takes place on Tues, July 30! And it’s free, too. Welcome Front and DJ CPU back to the states in style at club Temple, beginning at eight and extending into the wee hours.Your (free) ticket link is here.

MC Frontalot and drummer/superstar The Sturgenius are packing up DJ CPU and heading to Australia! Do not miss them, they may never be allowed back. Like how they’re not allowed in Wichita any more.

PAX! Then two club dates in Melbourne with an all-new set each night! Then two nights in Sydney, same deal! All with The Protomen!! There are not enough exclamation points to convey your potential excitement. Tell a friend. Details and tickets on the gig calendar.

Our nation’s birthday approaches! Front and the band will spend that weekend in Miami, since they would like to see it before it washes into the sea. Come see their concert at Florida Supercon if you inhabit or plan to visit that particular doomed peninsula!

July also brings you PAX Australia and attendant Australian East Coast Minitour with the Protomen! Front (with Sturgenius and DJ CPU) will rock plenty of nerdcore jams at their Friday night PAX blowout, two public shows in Melbourne on the 23rd & 24th, then two more shows in Sydney on the 27th and 28th. Those paired club gigs will have all-new sets from Protos & Front each night, so clear out your schedules and tell your friends.

But what about New York? August 16th, with Wheatus and MC Lars, you mean? Yes, indeed, MC Frontalot and the whole band are on that bill. Own a ticket already.

And! And! Front returns to Nerdapalooza this year in Orlando, FL, on Oct 19th, to round out a bill already swelling with They Might Be Giants, Nerf Herder, Powerglove, Protomen, MC Lars, Brentalfloss, The OneUps, and many more. Front’s on the Saturday roster. Passes remain available.

IN OTHER NEWS: The legendary Bill Sienkiewicz has signed on to do the new album cover. A fan-led animation project for a video for Colonel, Panic! from Solved is in the works, and every animator/illustrator who wants to pitch in is invited. Did you know that Front occasionally writes an article for the Stand By For Mind Control movie site? Now you do. You do know that. Now. Want to read about Front in Geek magazine? That’s online now. Hey! Gaby (AKA Gm7) has written all the music for an honest-to-goodness big-deal off-Broadway musical (see this review from its San Diego run), and it’s in previews right now, which means that you canget tickets on cheap.

The new single and video have arrived! I’ll Form The Head, from the album Solved. The flicker drama occurs at YouTube in full HD, or is available to download and treasure on our video page. Carly Monardo and her team did a bang-up job on it. Make sure to watch it over and over. The audio is ready for your various devices inMP3 or AAC format. The lyric is provided for your convenience.

What else is afoot? There are upcoming concerts in Charlotte and Miami and Melbourne; see the gig calendar. Front complained about another movie over at SBFMC. That nice young fellow wil.i.am tried really hard to make a nerdcore song, which actual nerd rappers will have to find kind of adorable. Front drew a couple ofsubmissions for jerkcity HD.

Oh! And Front loves his mom, which you already knew.