Oregon Music News

This past Saturday Grayskul came down to Portland to kick off a tour for their new Graymaker album. They started the night visiting Someone Gallery where fellow Oldominion rapper Sleep was doing an in-store performance. The store was open late to showcase the handmade recycled jewelry designs of Marley Avritt.  A number of local rappers were there to perform, including Daps, Diction, Existance and Bad Habitat.

Sleep took the microphone and delivered passionate, rapid-fire songs for the small crowd. Leaving the gallery everyone packed into a few cars and headed over to Slabtown for the kickoff and Taxidermy Records launch party.

Gepetto opened the night with a quick set of his intelligent bangers and loosened up the crowd with his party track “Bring the Funk.” Diction took the stage along with Scotty from Raise the Bridges, who sang backup on a few of his tracks.

Next up was Eddie Valiant for their first real show since forming last year. They combine sequenced beats, live drums, two singers and one rapper. They weave rock, blues, soul and hip hop with carefully structured songs. One singer is bluesy and the other could be fronting an indie rock band, while MC Graves from Nightcrawlers rhymed powerfully in the space between them. The overall sound really appealed to the audience who danced and shouted for the performers.

The next artist up was Brahma Lagah, who will be opening up on the Graymaker Tour. He kicks psychedelic free-form poetry in a harder, east coast style. Raise the Bridges assembled their five piece band and their hip hop influenced Cali-rock sound got the crowd moving. Bastard Patriots got on stage and tore through their aggressive set of politically charged music, finishing with a great song “Peace” where MC Randolf Mctools says peace to everyone in as many ways as you could think of, while getting people to raise peace signs and chant along with him.

Grayskul opened their set with an extended music video premier on the projector.  The lights came up and Onry Ozzborn and JFK took the stage. They pointed to the DJ and said “You know who this is? This is Maker, and he came all the way from Chicago for this, so turn up the beats and make some noise!” The volume went up along with cheers from the audience, but the sound system was clearly not made for Hip Hop. Maker’s beats knocked hard regardless, and the emcees launched into a set of material off their new record, Grayskul classics, and a new song that is going to be in the next season of True Blood.

JFK bounced around the stage at the pace of his rapid multi-syllable rhyme schemes while Onry played the solid role delivering his more somber rap style and commanding the audience to throw their hands up and make noise. After their set, they stuck around till closing to kick it with friends and talk to fans until Slabtown closed the gates and sent us all home.