Last week local rapper Julian Malone left rising hip-hop crew 2008ighties. He says he talked to them privately first, but on Mon 2/27, when Fake Shore Drive publicized the split in a post about Malone’s “Who’s Top Now,” lots of people mistook the song for a 2008ighties dis track. “We still friends,” he says. “I was just with them yesterday.” Early last month he released his debut mix tape, Enemy: The Time and Loves of Malone, via local hip-hop blog Ruby Hornet and national site 2dopeboyz, and decided to go his own way. His choice got a little easier when Ruby Hornet picked Calez and Legit from 2008ighties—but not him—for an Under 21 Edition of its Digital Freshness showcase Tue 3/27 at Reggie’s Rock Club.
Last time Gossip Wolf saw guitarist Sam Zurick (Cap’n Jazz, Make Believe, Joan of Arc), he was living out of a van and had just dropped a bizarro manifesto long enough to make David Foster Wallace blush. Now he’s back in town, crashing on Tim Kinsella‘s couch, and with his return comes the resurrection of another band from the JoA family: Owls, aka the four guys from Cap’n Jazz who aren’t Davey Von Bohlen. The Cap’n Jazz reunion in 2010 provided a spark, and Owls have started writing a follow-up to their 2001 debut.
Baby Teeth dropped their latest, White Tonight, with a Hideout release party last week. Main man Abraham Levitan says, “There’s always a pendulum swinging in this band between wanting to make a record with lots of bells and whistles and making something that replicates the live experience. I think this is closer to being a live-sounding record.” The band tracked in two days at Strobe with Nick Broste, then mixed with Baby Teeth drummer Peter Andreadis. Andreadis also worked on the as-yet-unreleased debut from MC Steinomite, aka Jon Steinmeier of Detholz! and Mucca Pazza, who recently bailed for (in true Chicago fashion) Los Angeles.
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