The End of Drinking...

Goodbye sweet beer... I must leave your cool, refreshing and intoxicating goodness behind for now. But I know we will meet again someday in a dusky pub or an upbeat Korean nightclub. I will once again imbibe your inebriating toxicity in the future but for now we must part ways.

Hangovers, blacking out, wasting money, acting stupid, I won't really miss those things. Big laughs, one-shotting pints, getting wasted with my friends, these things I will miss. But to get to my goal I have to give this vice up for now. Once I hit Asia then it's all the beer, Soju and Sake I can drink! Nonde!

Wordz From Tha Underground in Review

It went down on Saturday June 16th at the Lamplighter and what a show it was. And I'm not just saying that because it was my show. No, seriously. Anyways, here's a recap of the night for those who couldn't make it:

XYL
I was the host of the evening as well as the first performer. This was my first time performing with the XYL dancers, Juile and Leanne. They dressed really hot in some dope black outfits and completely killed it. Their choreography is excellent and it feels amazing to have dancers who have actually taken the time to carefully choreograph dances for my songs! I feel that overall, this was my best performance yet. My crowd came out in full force, once again being 99% Asian students. They crowded the front of the stage and went nuts it was awesome!

Barrons S
This girl put on a hell of a show! With support from a guitar player and a local rapper from the Sketch Bros., Charz, she had the crowd totally into her set. Her voice is very skilled and she has some great songs. Definitely a talent to watch out for.

Euneverse
Stepping in for Violative Cause, who were unable to make it, was the always cheerful North Vancouver rapper Euneverse. He hit the stage next with his unique style that combines classical music with hip-hop. He says his music sounds like "Beetoven and Bach having beers with Biggie and Atmosphere". Cool. The always entertaining MC laid down a set of tunes from his CD 'Infinite Music' and at one point, had a random hot chick from the audience grinding with him on stage! Can't say anything bad about that!

A-Slam
Damn! A-Slam crushed! One of the members, E.V., is my co-producer and studio engineer for all of my recordings so I'd already heard his material and enjoyed it. However, these guys live is a whole different thing. They had a singer, E.V. rapping and also a really awesome drummer playing a unique East Indian instrument which I believe is called a 'Dhol'. Their energy level was sky-high and they impressed everyone with their unique fusion of sounds.

Keep 6ix
What can I say? Keep 6ix rules live each and every time. This is the third time I've booked them for a Wordz From Tha Underground show and their skill and energy live is unsurpassed. From the more emotional tracks like 'Nowhere 2 Hide'(my favorite) to more fun songs about getting hammered and high, these guys(and gal) rocked the set and then some. At this point the beers were flying about and we were getting completely inebriated. Dope.

The next Wordz From Tha Underground is a big one! It's the Erthtonez video shoot! More details to follow...

The Drinking...

The consumption of alcohol amongst friends, is there really anything better? These days I balance my extreme workload with a bit of good old fashioned social drunkeness. Canadians are known for their iron-clad drinking skills and seeing as I am always drinking with foreigners, I try my best to represent my country. However, the Koreans can definitely hold their own. Did you know that South Korea consumes the second largest amount of alcohol per capita, bested only by those wild and crazy Russians? Also, I have found that Korean women are especially strong drinkers compared to females of any other nationality and can often down entire beers in a single gulp effortlessly. Believe it.

So far, all the rappers I book at my shows and have performed with in general tend to drink pretty heavy. And let's not kid ourselves, this is Vancouver BC. Every rapper I know smokes the herb some to a level of extreme fanatasism. Performing drunk/high is another issue and as for myself I will not do it though I don't mind downing a couple of brews first. Just enough to loosen up but not so much that my speech is impaired.

XYL Official Website
XYL Myspace

Organizing the Tour

I am currently working with Sean McKay and SPM Music (SPM Website) to book a Canadian tour sometime this year. The tour booking process is very time consuming and consists of work which can only be described as pretty damn boring. Researching venue information for the different provinces and cities in Canada and figuring out who is in chanrge of booking each club, what their contact info is, ect. is all part of the process and can definitely get monotonous. To break up the boredom, I generally get completely drunk until I can no longer type properly and the screen becomes a blur. Then I know I've done enough work for the day.

In addition to figuring out all these details, I really have to work to raise awareness of myself and my music across the country, otherwise there is really no point to the whole thing. If no one knows who I am, who's going to come see my show? So, when I release my new promo CD in February I will be working hard to get it played on a multitude of radio stations across Canada as well as trying to get media coverage whenever possible. My marketing plan is not finalized yet but rest assured it will be a carefully thought out and will include the use of street teams who can spread my music around and let people know what's up with XYL.

At the same time, I will be launching a marketing campaign in Asia too. I got some very awesome people down in Japan and Korea who can help me out and I will be recruiting more and more people to join the XYL Street Team. I'm starting a movement y'all so get ready... I will be everywhere.

For the next couple of days I will be doing venue research and working on getting this blog listed on as many sites as possible which, once again, is monotonous office work that will be complemented by the liberal use of recreational drugs and that oh-so-legal liquid narcotic we know as alcohol. One of my new songs, 'Prolly Drunk', chronicles my alcoholism in a humorous way, you will hear it soon.

Thanks to all taking the time to read this, I will be updating it on the regular. Stay tuned, the more this is updated, the more things are happening and the closer I get to my goal of worldwide domination. Peace out!

XYL Official Website
XYL Myspace