Doomtree's false hopes ring true

I don't know why I hadn't heard of Doomtree before, but I am glad they joined T61. One listen and I was hooked. A few repeat listens and I was a believer. Now, two days later, I have been telling everyone I know about them, and am anticipating getting a handful of their discs in the mail.

Released just over a month ago, Doomtree's crew album is rife with tracks that will have your head nodding and your finger reaching to hit repeat. The writeup on T61 and their own site is comprehensive enough, but to summarize, Doomtree is a hip hop collective based out of Minneapolis, and they are all very good, and even better together.

There is currently one track from the crew album available to listen to on T61, while the samples on their official website are all selections from previous releases. Savvy and with a sense of humour, Doomtree also has a YouTube channel which includes clips of the crew "working hard", which is mainly them goofing around. The track for the following music video is also on the crew album. It gives props to fixie bike culture while featuring emcees Cecil Otter, Mictlan, Dessa, P.O.S. and Sims over a sick beat by producer Lazerbeak.



The collective's members got to know each other as teenagers, and most were involved in music already: some were in punk bands, others were rapping. Producer MK Larada said that "we [Doomtree crew] just started putting on shitty little shows and putting out shitty little CDs and then it just got less and less shitty." Now, half of the crew lives together in one house, constantly pushing each other on their separate work, but also collaborating in the true sense of a hip hop crew.

Doomtree members are always performing shows, but every year they get together for the annual Blowout, where the entire crew is together on one stage. In "MPLS", "DTR" has a large enough following that they also held a Blowout Jr. ONLY for people under 20, as the larger show is generally 18+.

Reinforcing their ethos of striving to better their music, Doomtree Records have four CDs all entitled "False Hopes". These EPs feature songs they felt were good, but not the best that they could offer. They claim to have saved the truly great ones for the self-titled crew album released July 29th. Emcees P.O.S., Sims, and Cecil Otter all have full albums available at the Doomtree store, while you can expect a Mictlan disc to drop at the end of this month and Dessa's solo album to be out in late October.

In any case, it's not my place to decide what you think about Doomtree. Take a listen to Dots & Dashes, check the Drumsticks video, and finally the samples on their official site. You might just agree with me that this is some of the most infectious, smart and well produced hip hop you've heard in ages.

As DTR say of their crew album:

"Hate on it. Love on it. We certainly do both, and couldn't be more excited for you to feel feelings with and all over us. Yikes."



Some impressive numbers from their news page:

3 weeks at #1 on the CMJ hip hop charts.
#23 peak on the iTunes rap charts
#7 on Billboard's regional Heatseekers chart
Top 100 peak on Youtube music
Top 100 peak on CMJ, all genres
Top 100 peak Mediaguide's AAA Album charts

Official site: http://www.doomtree.net
DTR YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/DoomtreeRecords

Top O' The Morning To Ya: St. Patrick's Day Playlist

Happy St. Paddy's Day to everyone! Here's playlist for today, which will most definitely put you in the spirit for green beer and corned beef and cabbage.

Christy Moore is a well-known Irish folk singer/songwriter, and guitarist, "known for his political and social commentary, which reflects a left wing Irish Republican perspective."

The Pogues, performing the same song, are also use a lot of political commentary in their music (politically themed songs are very common with Irish musicians, it seems.) The Pogues have a punk rock sound but used traditional Irish instruments such as the mandolin and tin whistle.

"This song is not a rebel song, this song is Sunday Bloody Sunday." Another example of politically themed Irish music, a terrific cover of the classic U2 song which describes "the horror felt by an observer of The Troubles in Northern Ireland".

Now for something a little less serious... House of Pain, an Irish-American hip-hop group that was very popular in the mid-90s, just as I was finishing college. Oh, those were the days.

What St. Paddy's Day would be complete with out a song about drinking pints?

Ro Tierney is an extremely talented singer/songwriter from Ireland. We have something in common too.
His favorite book is The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho and so is mine.

Conan Brophy is from the West of Ireland. I instantly liked Conan's sound when I heard it at The Sixty One. His voice reminds me of Ian Brown's. Conan's music runs the gamut from happy pop to more folky stuff and even electronic and he pulls it all off with finesse.

Analogue Mindfield blends elements of Trip-Hop, Reggae, Drum and Bass and Ambient sounds and they're from Dublin. Check out their MySpace for more music, since they only have one song on The Sixty One at this time.

West of Eden are the charming folksy pop duo, Kenn Davis and Cindy O'Keeffe from County Wicklow, Ireland and Dublin.

Fern Knight is a Philadephia based singer songwriter. This song seemed fitting enough to include for today's festivities.

SNYtunes: Where’s the Beef?

There may be a lull of new music on the site, but there is an even bigger lull in a particular genre that has existed ever since thesixtyone was first conceived. That genre is hip-hop. I am in the minority as both a hip-hop artist and as a hip-hop fan. I came to this site on January 3rd along with some thousand or so digg.com users looking for great unsigned music. While my heart has its roots in many genres, including Alternative, Pop and Rock, it is rap that has always demanded and received my full attention thanks to the brilliant word play, in-your-face subject matter and addicting rhythms.

As a former Digg.com fanatic I found myself constantly voicing my defense of rap against the biased and misinformed community. I figured on a music site like this, things would be different. While I have seen no vocal hate against rap on thesixtyone, it is all too apparent that this is not a community that respects it much as an art form. On my first day here the only rap song in sight was an average track by an artist named WALE. You’ve no doubt heard his song W.A.L.E.D.A.N.C.E.. The only thought that came to mind was “is this really the best the site has to offer?”.

While I have come across a handful of talented rap artists since my first day, I still have the same question lingering in my mind. Is this the best we have to offer as a music community? I find myself in disbelief when these talented rap artists remain under-bumped in comparison to even the dregs of other genres. Are we so trapped in our favorite genres that we can’t see beyond their familiar borders? Why are the hip-hop uploads so rare? Why is the most popular genre in the world the least popular on our site? Where’s the beef?