From the hotly anticipated fall release Don’t You comes “Weak,” the new single from much-buzzed about Brooklyn trio Wet.

“Weak” hews closely to the band’s signature, ‘90s R&B-inflected song craft, wrapping Kelly Zutrau’s intimate vocals in washes of guitar chime and electronic snare. And if the title of “Weak” doesn’t already send you straight to an SWV playlist, Zutrau’s breathy harmonies certainly should.

Some of you may have already made the seasonal switch from white wine to red, but at the 3rd Annual NYC Autumn Wine Festival, you don’t have to discriminate. Located this year in the beautiful Broad Street Ballroom on Saturday, November 21, patrons can enjoy over 175 wines selected by Vintry Fine Wines from all over the world. New York’s own vineyards will be represented as well, including wines from Brotherhood Winery, Dr. Frank Wines, Standing Stone Vineyards, Lakeland Winery and Ashley Lynn Winery. Light artisan bites (Li-Lac Chocolates, Luscious Little Dessert Company, The Olive Table) and live jazz will accompany the wine.

Tickets are available for an afternoon and an evening session, and VIP tickets (with the chance to taste higher-end wine) are also available  – for more information, check out the event website.

Disclosure finally dropped their newest record Caracal last week. It’s a solid piece of work although it’s a bit more down tempo then I would have hoped; its more music to play in the background while doing your laundry as opposed to tearing up on the dance floor. One of the highlights on the album is “Magnets” which features the ice queen of pop Lorde. Here, Lorde plays the younger mistress to a married man. Expect lots of scenes of her making out and singing at the same time until she dresses up like a character in the Matrix to get her revenge. All hail evil Lorde. Watch above.

R. Kelly brought his ‘Black Panties’ tour to the Verizon Center in Washington, DC on Saturday, September 27th and teased and titillated the audience with a set featuring dozens of classic songs from his 23 year recording career. He performed without a band or back-up singers, relying solely on a DJ on the huge stage who was hidden in the shadows who played the music and the backing vocals for Kelly to sing along to. The stage was laid out like a  nightclub/lounge, complete with a fake bar, lamps, and black leather couches. About 15 ladies plucked from the crowd kept Kelly company on stage, sipping on cocktails and swaying to the music. The huge video screen played portions of his videos during each song.

With all the hits that he has, The “Pied Piper of R&B” performed unbelievably for just about an hour and 15 minutes, starting off with “Cookie,” from his latest album release “Black Panties” followed by the X-rated version of “I’m Loving You Tonight.” Kelly had the crowd rockin’ to “Ignition (Remix),” and then the “Fiesta” remix. Throughout the show, he sang mere snippets of many of his hits, frustrating fans who desired a full meal of their favorite song, not just an appetizer. Some songs were less than a minute long, and many times he moved on to the next hit before he even got to the main chorus of the current one. The show also dragged when he left the stage for costume changes, filling time with a bland “in studio” video interview projected on the big screen about how great all his songs are, how he is keeping it real for his fans, and how he has been in the game for 29 years (his debut album was released 23 years ago, not 29). During another break, there was an unsuccessful attempt to stimulate the crowd on the video screen by texting (with a loud vibration) his fans with questions about their favorite albums. This was met with a deafening silence throughout the arena, which incidentally was far from sold-out, with black curtains draped over the empty sections near the back of the arena.

After another break, Kelly appeared on a small stage in the middle of the arena for an a capella performance, displaying his powerful voice on “Slow Dance.” For his classic “I Believe I Can Fly,” the entire arena accompanied him word for word. Next he went ‘old school’ with “Your Body’s Callin’, “Bump n’ Grind,” “It Seems Likes You’re Ready,” followed by “When A Woman’s Fed Up,” and “I Wish.” Again, all very short versions of the songs. Kelly then went right into his two biggest party jams “Happy People” and “Step In The Name Of Love, ” and with a quick “That’s my time y’all” he was gone from the stage.

Originally built for the Neiman Marcus holiday gift guide in 2012, the tailgate trailer now travels around the country visiting events like the Superbowl and places like Lake Tahoe, the Golden Gate Bridge, and of course, New York educating people on whiskey and introducing fun cocktails using Bulleit.  You can check out the Instagram for more fun photos of where Woody has been!

My favorite cocktail of the day was the Bulleit Orange, created by Diageo Master of Whiskey Ryan Ross.

Bulleit Orange

1 oz. Bulleit Bourbon
1.5 oz. Tangerine juice
.5 oz. Cinnamon honey syrup
.04 oz. Angostura bitters
1.5 oz. Prosecco

Combine Bulleit Bourbon, tangerine juice and cinnamon honey syrup and bitters in a shaker with ice. Shake to incorporate and strain over fresh ice in a Collins glass. Top up with prosecco and garnish with an orange wheel.

This cocktail is perfect for this time of year if you ask me–whiskey just feels like fall to me but the orange is still holding on to summer.  Exactly describes the mood I’m currently in.

While the planet didn’t implode and aliens didn’t invade after the very gorgeous blood moon yesterday it’s not hard to shake the feelings that in these tumultuous times we are heading towards some kind of tipping point. You can see this reflected in the music; the biggest records of last year and this year dealt with these issues head on. Algiers is a rock band from Atlanta that’s seems to have channeled much of what’s happening in the world into their music (and in their interviews). They aren’t allying themselves with any specific causes or movements but something in the soulful vocals, the tension in the instrumentation, and the lyrics that deal with struggle and oppression just makes their music extremely poignant. We’ve got their newest video, “And When You Fall” above and it’s well worth a listen to help motivate you through your day today.

The Suffers are a soul band ten members strong. While there’s been a soul revival in popular music for a minute, something about the sound that The Suffers has that seems to hit harder than some of their contemporaries. Once we found out that they are from Houston it makes sense, there’s something so primal about the way they attack those licks and hit those notes that it had to come from the south. The Suffers are playing Mercury Lounge on Friday Sept 25th and Rough Trade the next day.

The bastard child of Smashing Pumpkins and Pixies, Silversun broke internationally in 2006 with their single “Lazy Eye” which remains a staple on modern and alternative Rock stations. Introduced by the station’s own Kat Corbett the band adorned the small stage in front of its backdrop wall of old boomboxes and stereo equipment. Fronted by Brian Aubert on vocals and guitar with Nikki Monninger on Bass and backing vocals (in true Pixies form) they kicked things off with the new tune “Cradle” before cranking out the latest single, “Night Light”, with it’s crowd ready refrain that had the audience screaming back, “we want it!” The set of 8 songs is longer than the typical Sound Space performance and allowed the quartet to touch on every album. Favorites like “Panic Switch” and “The Royal We” from their 2009 album Swoon and “The Pit” from 2012’s Neck Of The Woods all reached noise levels not meant for the intimate room, but nobody was complaining.  The climax came in the obvious form of Carnavas‘s “Lazy Eye”, fitting since it’s the single that launched their decade long career.

Post show, Kat brought the crew back for a Q&A which showcased Brian’s extroverted spontaneity peppered with Nikki’s occasional shy and quiet retorts.  The banter almost felt like a perfected comedic routine with the loud and the quiet one in the way their opposite personalities invoked timely laughs from everyone in attendance.  At times Kat was no match, standing speechless searching for a response to the antics. Considering the cold angst that is represented in most of the band’s repertoir this was a surprise bonus that brought a strong final connection between artist and fan.

You can Stream the performance along with many others in the KROQ Red Bull Sound Space archive at KROQ.com

Pick up the new album Better Nature September 25^th on Dangerbird Records.

– Dominic Painter

photos courtesy of the Red Bull photo pool

A few years ago (2012 to be exact) during a particular dormant (and unproductive, truth must be told) time of New York hip-hop a group of young acts started making wives. You already had artists like A$ap Rocky and Action Bronson getting bigger profiles, but a large amount of the buzz was based in Brooklyn. You had Pro-Era (with their breakout artist Joey Bada$$), Flatbush Zombies, and the Underachievers all making fantastic hip-hop, often together, and calling themselves the Beast Coast.

The members of the group, Issa gold and AK, definitely have their roots in traditional NYC boom bap hip-hop with a heavy focus on wordplay, vocal syncopation and delivery. But their topics, trippy beats and vibe was much larger than the world view that you get from the average tri-state MC. Topics like psychedelics and spirituality in different forms were covered along with the day to day reality of living in a tough metropolis. From their first mixtape Indigoism, to their individual releases, and now their latest album they’ve worked hard to refine and broaden their spectrum and it shows.

Their sophomore album “Evermore: The Art Of Duality” is out on September 25th and NPR has a preview listen right here. To celebrate their new record they will also be going out on tour with a stop at the Howard Theatre on Oct 22nd, you can get tickets here.

The Underachievers:
10-01 San Francisco, CA – Sutter Room at Regency Theater *
10-02 Santa Cruz, CA – Catalyst *
10-03 Eugene, OR – WOW Hall *
10-04 Seattle, WA – Neumos *
10-05 Vancouver, British Columbia – Vogue *
10-06 Portland, OR – Roseland Theater *
10-09 Salt Lake City, UT – Complex *
10-10 Denver, CO – Cervantes *
10-11 Fort Collins, CO – Aggie *
10-13 Omaha, NE – Waiting Room *
10-14 Minneapolis, MN – First Ave *
10-15 Madison, WI – Majestic *
10-16 Chicago, IL – Metro *
10-17 Ann Arbor, MI – Blind Pig *
10-18 Toronto, Ontario – Phoenix 8
10-20 Montreal, Quebec – Club Soda *
10-21 Boston, MA – Boston *
10-22 Washington, DC – Washington DC *
10-23 Burlington, VT – Higher *
10-24 New York, NY – Webster Hall *
10-26 Philadelphia, PA – TLA *
10-27 Carrboro, NC – Cat’s Cradle *
10-28 Atlanta, GA – Masquerade *
10-29 Orlando, FL – 578 *
10-30 Miami, FL – TBD *
10-31 Tampa, FL – Orpheum *
11-01 Jacksonville, FL – Underbelly *
11-04 Austin, TX – Parish *
11-05 Dallas, TX – Trees *
11-06 San Antonio, TX – Alamo *
11-08 Albuquerque, NM – Sunshine *
11-09 Phoenix, AZ – Club Red *
11-10 Santa Ana, CA – Observatory *
11-11 San Diego, CA – Observatory *
11-12 Los Angeles, CA – El Rey *
11-19 Amsterdam, Netherlands – Bitterzoet
11-20 Antwerp, Belgium – Faded Weekender (Trix)
11-21 Dublin, Ireland – District 8
11-23 London, England – Scala
11-24 Glasgow, Scotland – The Garage
11-26 Oslo, Norway – Parkteatret
11-27 Helsinki, Finland – Tavastia
11-28 Stockholm, Sweden – Debaser Strand
11-29 Copenhagen, Denmark – Lille Vega
12-01 Warsaw, Poland – Proxima
12-02 Berlin, Germany – Popstbahnhof
12-03 Hamburg, Germany – Uebel & Gefahrlich
12-04 Cologne, Germany – Luxor
12-05 Frankfurt, Germany – Zoom
12-06 Stuttgart, Germany – Wizeman
12-07 Leipzig, Germany – Taubchenthal
12-09 Vienna, Austria – Grelle Forelle
12-10 Basel, Switzerland – Kaserne
12-11 Zurich, Switzerland – Dynamo
12-12 Paris, France – La Machine du Moulin Rouge
* with Pouya & The Buffet Boys, Kirk Knight, and Bodega Bamz

At 17 years old and freshman at Howard University, I remember racing to Willie’s Record and Tapes on Georgia Avenue and being told, sorry, The Vault 1.5 is sold out. Crushed and confused, I turned to go back to campus then thought wait, lets go get a book (my second love next to music). I took the trek from Howard University on an hour long metro ride to my favorite urban book store in Prince Georges Plaza mall , and staring at me as I checked out “The Vault 1.5” with the grey obscure cover. They also had some independent cd’s that they said Eric and his family brought in, and I brought them all. Those albums were Esoteric, The Appetizer, and The Vault Vol. 1.5 I ran home, ripped it open and fell in love from Track 1 all the way to the end. To date, my top five Erro songs are “Please Don’t Leave Me”, “The Moon”, “Obstacles”, “Find The Way” and “Def Ears”.

For the last twenty years, Eric aka Erro has released several albums: The Appetizer, Esoteric, Left, and Mr. Nice Guy and multiples live albums from shows all over the United States. Eric is a hard worker by trade driving through rain, sleet and snow and even bringing his parents to a show in DC in the middle of a snow storm to sell his Merchandise. I think his parents further realized that day that their son was a star because he performed to a packed house that was standing room only at the 9:30 club, snow boots and rain coats littering the place but no one cared, we were there for Erro. And although a lot of his albums did not get the same attention as some of his earlier works, it makes his music no less classic as he was Grammy nominated in 2010 for “A Tale of Two” and 2011 for his beautiful  ode “Still”.

Quiet as kept, Eric takes great pride in his music and has worked with some of the top producers in the game such as Jermaine Hardsoul, a Howard University alum, whose worked with Nas, Pink, Christina Aguilera and countless others, and Slimkat78, a native Washingtonian who has been featured on a plethora of “in the know” websites,  co-produced Picture Perfect (and they achieved some pretty decent VH1 Soul rotation) and even brought the instrument he used along with him in his video premiere. Erro is also known for doing some pretty dope collaborations with Jill Scott and Marsha Ambrosius. And never does he wait very long to release music, as I researched this article, I found a single release from 2014, called Mark on Me, which is really classic and modern Eric mix.

“Mark on Me” is yet another one those intricate tracks he is known for crooning over enveloped me. Eric is enchanting because he is a true vocalist and song writer who seems to speak what one’s heart can not put into words. It is clear that he understands ,as a musician, that you have to be one with your band and that he truly enjoys working with talented musicians which makes his word come to light and not a simple beat machine. A lot of singers do not get that chemistry and vibes are what make truly timeless music. On Friday, September 25, Eric Roberson will rock the Howard Theatre stage and make us all fall in love again or just touch our souls with fervent words and melodies that will satiate your musical souls. This is a show you do not want to miss! Grab your tickets here!

Baco Mercat

Baco is a flatbread sandwich created by Chef Josef Centeno.  While the original features pork and beef carnitas, I quickly locked in on The Amergaz which consists of lamb, tabbouleh, grape leaves, and a spicy kochkocha sauce.  Coming from the East Coast, it’s refreshing to go to a mainstream restaurant that is not afraid to bring the heat.  Superstar status.  I cannot wait to return so I can try a few more of their sandwiches.

BS Taqueria

After hearing about the revitalization of Downtown LA, I decided to set up shop at the Sheraton, which is undergoing over $45 million in renovations.  One day one, I decided to wander around and let my nose decide where I’d eat.  Coming from the east coast, it’s hard not to eat Mexican all day every day when in LA.  And especially when Chef Ray Garcia has provided modern interpretations of classic dishes.  As a result, I was a repeat offender at BS Taqueria.  Both nights, I started with the smokey, savory, spicy elixir, Barracho Gazpacho. A perfect blend of mezcal, cherry tomatoes, celery, cilantro, beet escabeche, and strawberry.  This drink was my soul on ice circa Ras Kass.  On the first night, I had the ever fresh Campechana Verde, a spicy seafood ceviche.  The next day, I had the beet torta which was too die for as well churros.  BS Taqueria is doing something outside of the box with Mexican which is something I wish more chefs would do.  When I go out, I love when a chef is willing to take a risk and knock it out of the park.

Eggslut

Egg sandwiches are the quintessential hangover food and the team at Eggslut is doing it in a gourmet way.  House made turkey sausage with cheddar and sriracha mayo accompanied with an over medium egg on a brioche bun.  It was a ooey gooey mess that was so perfect that there weren’t any leftovers or sloppy seconds.

Congregation Ale House

As a member of the elite beer club, Malts & Hops League, I take my brew serious and so does the team at Congregation Ale House.  Awesome selections with over 30 beers on tap.  I’ll say amen to that.

The Spare Room at The Hollywood Roosevelt

I flew all the way to LA to run into a mixologist who used to live in the City of Brotherly Love.  Funny how the universe conspires.  With that said, I typically let the bartender select based on my preferences but my eyes were fixated on the drink that bore the name that closely resembled one of my all-time favorite films.  ‘Menace To Sobriety’ was like a subtle introduction to the Old Fashioned world.  The use of basil honey and charred applewood added a layer of sweetness to the bourbon forward cocktail.  Good stuff for a newcomer but I prefer my drinks to be a little bit over the top so lesson learned.  My second drink more than made up for the first drink.  I sipped of a neat pour of the clean Japanese whisky, Nikka Coffey Grain.  Proper.

DK Donuts & Bakery

As someone who braved the cold elements to get his hands on an authentic cronut, many people who have had the impostors just do not realize what they are missing.  Nice try but it’s just not the same.

Back when Outkast was still up and running(aka the good old days), Andre 3000 was seen as the weird one, the one who brought in a bunch of outside influences outside of the usual rap tropes and gave the group their edge. On their split record his side was praised for its eclecticism (jazz! 60s’ pop!) and with its hit single of “Hey Ya” kind of stole the shine. The thing is Big Boi’s side was as out there. He’s brought in pure soul, funk, and live instrumentation…along with keeping his rhymes razor sharp and in pocket. Since the hiatus Big Boi’s only gotten even more eclectic and this Big Grams project, collaboration with the band Phantogram, is another example of how much Big Boi likes to play with genre and hip-hop. Here’s the latest single from the project, “Goldmine Junkie” which finds a way to bring classic ‘Kast (the happy piano line during the verses) and grand pop Phantogram does so well (the bridge) together into a great song.