Listener Tour of Homes

[radar]

all right, so i went to the Listener Tour of Homes on Wednesday ( www.listenertourofhomes.com/ ) and it was awesome.

if you don't know who listener is, he's a guy who does a genre he likes to call "loud talking" (kinda like a strange type of indie hip-hop). he just wrote a somewhat concept album called "Ozark Empire" about a traveling knife salesman. throughout the show, he kept pulling out knives and sticking them in a block of wood while telling us we could by them after a show (kidding, of course). He also put on a shirt and tie (which he told us he got for $1) to go with the whole knife salesman/music salesman parallel he was trying to make. It may not sound that cool when you read this, but it was.

If he comes around, I would recommend going. You won’t be disappointed.

There are different songs on both of these sites:
www.myspace.com/listener
www.purevolume.com/listener

this was a video on the news I found. His beard is thicker now and the show was a whole lot better than it looks:
www.kxly.com/index.php?sect_rank=11§ion_id=569&story_id=836

[amoyensis]

Listen to the live rendition of Train Song ( www.listenertourofhomes.com/ ), it's awesome.

I wish he would come by my neck of the woods, I'd be glad to host.

[radar]

yep, they played that too (the version you posted)
they're going to re-release Ozark Empire like that (with a drummer and a guitarist instead of samples).

he's on tour with the drummer and a guitarist (the ones in that version). unfortunately, the guitarist fell down and tore some ligament in his hand and has a cast on so couldn't come, so they did it just with drums. for the rest of the songs the drummer just played over the samples, which gave it more of a "live" feeling.

[amoyensis]

radar said:

yep, they played that too (the version you posted)
they're going to re-release Ozark Empire like that (with a drummer and a guitarist instead of samples).

Sweet! That may be my first Listener purchase. I really like his lyrics, but his sampling is hit-and-miss.

[radar]

really? all of them on Ozark Empire were done by EQ. on Whispermoon, many of the songs were done by Dust (from Mars Ill) including Train Song.

[phillip]

I don't really like rap/hip-hop... so I stopped listening after about 12 seconds on the first song on their purevolume.

[ezekiel]

huh?

[radar]

i found some tight videos on his site i hadn't seen before:
www.forthelistener.com/media_video.php

[phillip]

ezekiel said:

huh?

was that directed towards me? If so, I can't listen to rap, it's annoying (imo)

[amoyensis]

I think it's pretty closeminded to assume that you dislike all rap, considering how diverse it is.

[phillip]

okay, I didn't mean all rap. I like Lincoln Park, if that counts, but that's pretty much it. So I say that I don't like rap, because generally I don't.

[radar]

from a post on his forum

Maybe I should explain Loud Talking. It came about as kind of a joke on the road. We've had so many hosts and fans ask us what exactly they would categorize the music as...."certainly not just rap", and that got me thinking........and that is Rap music has no subgenres really. You have hiphop, but that refers more to a culture mindset or type (if you subscribe to such notions). For instance the genre of Rock has a muiltitude of subgenres to aid in describing and categorizing the sound and types of music that are made by a ton of different bands, some of which sound as different as night and day.....and so I look at the wounded little genre I am lumped in to with all the crunk rap, pop rap, frat rap, underg rap, self agrandizing rap, raps about raps rap, mcing raps, flipping it raps, jazz raps, etc etc etc (every person likes what they like I'm not making a judgement on what is best)...but the point I'm trying to make is that there are a ton of groups that are making a sound that is as different as night and day, and for that (and for the future of the genre...which is laughable currently) I say divide and conquer.

So because there are so many sounds I say we have to call it what it is. If it's crunk rap, call it that...because everyone can't be lumped together. It's not fair to the listeners and not fair to the artists. I personally don't feel like the best way to make music is to mimmic and remake what is already being made....etc, follow the "rules"....whomever made those. It's weird to me that a whole genre applauds and gets behind the albums and artists who are doing the best "mimmic job" and making the records that sound just like last years topics and records and structures but with differently mixed beats or louder vocals. Mostly worshipping and recycling the mid-90s method of making rap music. That time is over. So, I'm starting a subgenre, and am trying that route. As a writer, performer, poet, artist...I'm actually tired of having to tell people that I do "rap music" and then half-hang my head in shame because of the state that rap music has gone in to. So, I'm starting a new subgenre. It's still rap or hiphop or whatever you want to call it, but I'm trying to set my vision apart and explain it better, make it better.

As far as "loud talking" and my voice. We can call it "talk music", or spoken word set to music, or whatever words you want to put it to. I'm not refering necessarily to the volume of my voice actually. I have gone through vocal style changes and I attribute that to growth as an artist, touring lots, and wanting to say the words I have the best way I can at the time. The labklik days saw me with the least amount of touring/shows, and experience as an artist vocally and with depth of writing. I can respect that somebody might like that over what I do now. That's great, but I'm moving on, those days are far far behind me. Hundreds and hundreds upon hundreds of shows, experiences, life, triumph and frustration, music, no music, time, thought and new plateaus to reach have pushed me to be the best listener I can be, and so I have to implore to you to be the best listener you can be. When I'm busy telling people it's OK to just be the best "themselves" they can be and be OK with change.......the other side is spinning webs of just the opposite, "come be a cookie cutter copy of me" they might say, or come sell drugs, it's amazing, or let me talk to you in every song on my entire album about how good I am and how amazing hiphop is, or how much I'm going to personify hiphop (rubbish, you can see through that). Is that what fans of this genre really holds dear, how hiphop someone can be, or how gangster? Don't put up with the smoke and mirrors just because it's there. It will go away if you ignore it. I won't.