Killer Mike
At $50 plus HST for as many shows as you can wriggle into, the standard NXNE wristband is a reasonable deal. How about 20 bands for free, though? They’ll be playing 10-minute sets at this Brock Ave. party from noon until dusk, and the performers include Charlotte Cornfield, Luke Lalonde of Born Ruffians, Doldrums and Sean Nicholas Savage. The Facebook event promises hot food and “free micheladas, the summer drink of your wildest & naughtiest dreams.”
of Montreal (7 pm, Yonge-Dundas Square)
One assumes that Kevin Barnes won’t be riding out on a white horse amidst the dull blare of video billboards, and forget about seeing his other spectacular friend Solange too. But you can still trust his flamboyantly emotional of Montreal to stage an “Obscurist Freudian Phantasmagoria.”
Ceremony (11 pm, Wrongbar)
Wikipedia, surprisingly accurate for once, says: ‘The band’s early sound has been…described as a ‘non-stop bludgeoning of sonic fury’ and ‘fast, brutal hardcore.'” Shout along with lyrics like “I’ve got problems, I’m a fucked up kid.”
Killer Mike (1 am, Wrongbar)
The Atlanta MC is also supposed to be opening for Raekwon and Ghostface Killah at Yonge-Dundas Square tomorrow night – an appropriate tripling given that the story track “Jojo’s Chillin,” off his latest album R.A.P. Music, unfolds from a narrator “talking to a fake Ghostface, a Ghostface projected out of his mind.” Better to hear his booming voice bounce around a packed club, though. Mike has been politically outspoken for some years now (and really fucking funny for even longer), but R.A.P. Music righteously seethes, from its El-P beats on up. The stark “Reagan” is less an indictment of the man himself (“Ronald Reagan was an actor / Not at all a factor”) than Reaganism everywhere, even in hip-hop. His conclusion only sounds triumphant in the pyrrhic sense: “I’m glad Reagan dead.”
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Chris Randle is the culture editor at Toronto Standard. Follow him on Twitter at @randlechris.
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