Whitey Morgan Plays #RealCountry bro, at the Vinyl in Las Vegas

whitey morgan

My father is big NASCAR fan. It’s weird because he’s from Argentina and has an accent and is not your typical NASCAR dude, on one level. On the other he’s a truck driver from family that raced motorcycles in Argentina and has lived in the US now for over 30 years.

Me, not a huge fan, but that didn’t stop me from accompanying him to a recent NASCAR weekend here in Vegas, and while there’s a lot to say about that weekend, this is about Whitey Morgan. During that NASCAR race I was drunk, sun sickened, covered up in 100 degree weather like a character from Arabian Nights. My memory of the day isn’t great, but I do remember being informed by a NASCAR nation memeber’s shirt, that this guy named Whitey Morgan was hashtag #realcountry.

I’ve tired of people letting me know that something is “Real X Genre of Music”. I don’t like hearing that Common is “real Hip Hop” or that Blink 182 isn’t “real punk”, it’s getting “real stupid” to hear that stuff everywhere. So obviously this wasn’t the best way for me to be introduced to Whitey. But because of Spotify I can see if I like something without having to buy it. (oh fuck you Spotify, you suck, rich people aren’t getting enough from your streams…shut the hell up). I listened and I enjoyed it and few months later there he was on Songkick, gonna play in Las Vegas.

Now, punk rock and hip-hop and what not, don’t have have too much trouble finding people to check that stuff out. Country music is different story. I went by my lonesome like a Hank Williams song. Wasn’t the first time at a show alone and won’t be the last. In fact being there solo allowed me to pay closer attention.

Whitey Morgan’s music translates better live than it does from the recordings. That says a lot because I enjoyed the albums I listened to enough to decide I wanted to see him live. The guitar riffs, the singing, the back and forth with the audience and the strangeness of a guy from a working class northern town in Michigan playing a very southern form of our American music, all came together to make a great entertaining show. It was whiskey shots and country hero covers and bunch of people in cowboy hats getting rowdy.

So #realcountry bro, that’s lame. But good country music, well that’s definitely Whitey Morgan and the 78s.

Earl Sweatshirt, Vince Staples Rock the Hard Rock in Las Vegas 05/15

earl not redy 2 leave

Earl Sweatshirt and Vince Staples stopped in Vegas on the Not Redy 2 Leave tour. The tour has already taken them through the east coast and after Vegas they finish off with some stops in Texas and Arizona. Remy Banks of World’s Fair is support on the tour and local indie opener Ekoh opened Friday night’s Vegas show at the Hard Rock Café on the Strip.

Earl Sweatshirt’s popularity continues to grow and his fans seem as passionate as ever, especially about his old music, something he let crowd know he was bored of playing. After rapping the entirety of his new album “I Don’t Like Shit, I Don’t Go Outside” (not in order the Vince Staples cut was played at the beginning) he told the audience they did their part and now he’ll play the songs he wrote when “he was 14” and the crowd went wild when he played songs like “Earl” off of his mixtape from 2010 and “Orange Juice” the one and only EarlWolf song.

My guess is that this is one of the nicer venue’s Earl has played during this tour. The Hard Rock Café like most things Hard Rock is filled with music memorabilia, records nailed to the wall and employs plenty of security. The Hard Rock is nice, but a little too upscale in general for it to ever become one of my favorite venues. Despite the corporate feel of the location the crowd was ready and his fans were in full force.

One of the best things about Earl’s performance was the zero set up time between his set and his opener’s set Vince Staples. Vince finished his music and Earl came right out and the duo performed all the songs on which they share features. Vince walked off stage sick but still victorious and Earl took over.

The new album has been out just long enough that the crowd was feeling many of the songs. On my first listen of IDLS,IDGO I tweeted:

Earl’s beats in a live setting still had a dark and personal feel, but the tweet showed me I either need better speakers or I should just listen to everything on my headphones. Earl’s style is like hip hop chamber music, made for medium sized venues and like most hip hop translate best when fans who love the music are around. The Odd Future attitude was strong present too:

“We’re gonna do some call and response, don’t be that motherfucker that don’t participate.”

The only real negative at the show was no vinyl. Bullshit.

The aforementioned Vince Staples also had many people familiar with his music. Vince Staples is the odd man out of Odd Future and a clear friend of Earl’s. There has been some press in the past about Earl’s other friend Tyler the Creator not liking Vince. So hip hop beefs with friends in middle, but the beef isn’t real. It’s one of the things that makes Vince interesting and something I was curious to see crowd reaction, because the people that love Tyler, really love Tyler. Odd Future has a weird fan base,so the unexpected is expected.

Vince came out like Michael Jordan or Dirk (not like James Harden who sat on the bench and watched his team come back), despite having a flu he got up and killed it. His new songs had audience participation and his old stuff including tracks from “Hell Can Wait” also killed. Vince has rapping ability, I want to see him grow and set himself apart from the pack. I want to see him find that special thing. Excited for his first official release “Summer Time ‘06” which comes out June 30th.

Remy Banks opened and he talked about New York a lot. He was good, I’m not familiar with a lot of his music. I do like World’s Fair and posted music from them in the past. I enjoyed his set enough to check out his mixtape “higher” when it drop on May 18th.

How to Listen to The Music

Earl Sweatshirt:
Earl mixtape
Doris On Spotify.
I Don’t Do Shit I Don’t Go Outside On Spotify.

Vince Staples:
Hell Can Wait On Spotify. Some of the tracks he played live from this album were “Hands Up” and “Blue Suede
Stolen Youth can be found on Datpiff, he played “Guns & Roses”.
Winter in Prague on Datpiff.
Shyne Coldchain Vol 2 on Datpiff.
Shyne Coldchain vol 1 on Datpiff.

Remy Banks
World’s Fair on Sound Cloud

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