THE MC LARS BLOG

Moved

2009-08-16T10:57:00.001-07:00

The mc lars blog can now be found at www.mclars.com so go there

SECOND PODCAST WITH K.FLAY

2009-08-13T01:56:00.001-07:00

"Single and Famous".... available Tuesday!

MY TEENAGE COUSIN REVIEWS THE WARPED TOUR

2009-08-09T13:36:00.001-07:00

MC LARS & FRONTALOT DISCUSS WEB-COMICS ON G4

2009-08-05T22:26:00.000-07:00

Our homie Frank Meyer caught up with Front and me at Comic-Con a few weeks ago and put together this fun clip.

"SINGLE AND FAMOUS" ON LIVE 105

2009-08-02T18:33:00.001-07:00

The first single from my upcoming EP with K.Flay, "Single and Famous", will be debuting tonight on Aaron Axelsen's show on Live 105. For those of you in the San Francisco Bay Area, you can listen at 105.3 FM, or online here to check out "Soundcheck", from 7 - 10 pm PST tonight.

Rock!!!!

NEW MYSPACE TRACK WITH K.FLAY PREVIEW + PODCAST

2009-07-31T02:58:00.000-07:00

Every Friday leading up to the August 18th release of our "Single and Famous" EP (on Horris Records / Flayzer Beam), K.Flay and I will be posting a preview of a new song and another podcast in our "Inside the Rappers' Studio" series.

We will go deep into the creative process to uncover the joy and magic of two post-modern geniuses working with beautiful creative synergy. Or just straight clowin', you know what I'm saying? HAHAHAHA.

This week, we are previewing "We Fresh" (beat produced by the Dust Collector) and our first behind-the-scenes podcast, live from a writing session in a cabin deep in the woods somewhere near Lake Tahoe.

WE FRESH Y'ALL!!!

- MC Lars and K.Flay

"THE LAPTOP EP" FIFTH YEAR ANNIVERSARY EDITION

2009-07-29T16:57:00.000-07:00

So it's hard to believe, but "The Laptop EP" came out five summers ago.

To commemorate this exciting event, Horris Records has remastered it and put it back on iTunes, with a bonus track. Check it out!

COMIC-CON 2009 (VIDEO PODCAST #32)

2009-07-28T02:11:00.000-07:00

Kicking it with YTCracker and our homies in San Diego during Comic-Con.

NERDAPALOOZA 2009 PODCAST

2009-07-22T23:17:00.000-07:00

NEW BFS VIDEO FEATURING AN MC LARS SHIRT

2009-07-22T01:51:00.001-07:00

Erik Chandler rocks a fresh MC Lars shirt in the new Bowling for Soup video, "My Wena":

Check out their new record, "Sorry for Partyin'", coming soon.

MONDAY 27TH STREET

2009-07-20T23:47:00.000-07:00

Click to enlarge.

More hilarious ish at comic.mclars.com.

NEW "THIS GIGANTIC ROBOT KILLS SHIRT"

2009-07-20T11:35:00.001-07:00

Fresh new "This Gigantic Robot Kills" shirt available now!!

"THE TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANGIN'"

2009-07-19T16:00:00.000-07:00

It's a beautiful Sunday afternoon. I just tracked a Hannukah song with Jim from the Rondo Brothers at their Potrero Hill studio a few blocks down from the coffee shop where I am checking in. San Francisco is summery as August approaches. Last night K.Flay and I did an interview on Live 105 to promote our upcoming EP and then I went to Ocean Beach later that night with some friends. We had a bonfire in a non-designated place and the cops came and made us leave. We then went to a bar called Zeitgeist where I ran into my college friend Josh who saw I was there because I posted on Twitter. He's starting a company to help promote bands and living in the Mission. It seems like everyone who's surviving in the music industry nowadays is doing so with independent funding through their own companies and channels.

I saw that Terry McBride of Nettwerk fame is starting a new company called "Polyphonic" to help fund artists' independent releases. Props to them, that is very much the future of music. Labels now function as banks that are, hopefully, invested in artists' careers as brands. The labels' primary goal is to help to further the bands as touring entities that license songs to commercials and movies. So when that relationship becomes more direct financially, as with Polyphonic, then it optimizes this new economic model. It's the artists' responsibility to the investor to recoup that money, and then both are free to do their own thing, and money is not wasted, like it was in the 1980s. I like it.

I had a good run with Nettwerk. Tom Gates, who managed other bands like Brand New, the Format, Men, Women & Children, and Anathallo, got wind of my act when I was playing underground punk clubs in England in 2003 after my term there studying Shakespeare. Our partnership was totally random and probably wouldn't have happened nowadays. I had 0 Myspace followers, since Myspace didn't exist. I had 0 Twitter followers because "status updates" to thousands of people through cell phones were unheard of. I was just a kid with a laptop and website and a love for punk and hip-hop. I had a dream.

He had read some press on my first UK tour with my Dad tour managing in 2003, we met when he was in San Francisco with Brand New while I was a Junior at Stanford, and he started working with me after seeing me play a coffee shop on campus. He convinced a lot of people in the industry to invest time and money into my career, and it paid off for everyone. We never sold a million records, but he and Nettwerk really helped to establish the "MC Lars brand" internationally through radio and video connections they'd established with artists like Avril Lavigne and Coldplay. When a 15-year-old girl in Houston was sued by the RIAA for downloading Avril Lavigne mp3s, she contacted me because she had heard "Download This Song". I told Tom, who told Terry, and Nettwerk invested a ridiculously huge sum to help her defend her case in court. Those were some of the benefits of being with a big company like Nettwerk - the good things they could do with their power.

When the industry started imploding in on itself in 2007, Tom bailed for a life of international travel and teaching, something he essentially did with developing young acts, but without the industry politics. I'll be honest, it hurt to have a partnership I had so much faith in crumble, but it was eventually liberating for everyone. I got a new lawyer. I got an new accountant. I went through a few different agents before finding the right one. Oglio came along with the gift of Crappy Records, an ironically titled label I was brought on board for through my Bowling for Soup and Hollywood connections. All things considered, they did a kick-ass job with pushing "This Gigantic Robot Kills" here in America. Yes, mad kids have downloaded the record for free, which wasn't necessarily surprising due to my statements in the press over the years. Nowadays this is something I officially discourage because Oglio is a small label and their existence is contingent upon their projects recouping if they want to survive. "Download This Song" was a call for the destruction of the major label system. These guys are more than just a bank, they are friends who have a brand that I'm pushing to give exposure to too. It's a new-era music partnership.

We're going to put the K.Flay EP out like we did the Digital Gangster LP - via donations from our website and then press physical copies. She, YTCracker and I are going out on tour in the US from mid-August to mid-September. My new manager, Mark Saffian (whose company Content House is an up-and-coming entertainment giant), has been opening lots of doors for me in other aspects of the entertainment world. I enjoy working with him because he's so energetic and focused and always on top of his game. He set up this showcase for us at Comic-Con next weekend, which anyone in the Southern California area should attend. YTCracker and MC Frontalot will be there, along with some other music and web-comics friends. I'll be at the convention signing CDs at one of the booths too.

So that's it from my front. I've been doing a lot of business thinking as you can see, because this helps me organize my creative world. Nowadays, independent artists really need to be on top of both hemispheres of the "grind" to make things happen. I've heen reading a book about script writing that is giving me good ideas for formalizing our hip-hop musical we're putting together. I've been writing for my next solo record. I've been talking to Dual Core and Jesse Dangerously about getting going on these EPs we've been talking about doing (Jesse's for a long time, Dual Core we thought up at Nerdapalooza). I've been traveling and swimming and plotting my next moves on this nice time off of the road.

Play on players, stay up!!

MC Lars
Atlas Cafe, San Francisco, 7-19-09

MC LARS & K.FLAY ON LIVE 105

2009-07-18T15:54:00.000-07:00

Tonight on Live 105 in San Francisco K.Flay and I talk with Menace about our upcoming EP. Listen live at 9 pm PDT by clicking on this link to their streaming ish.

The EP is called "Single and Famous" and will be available in August on Horris Records to coincide with the upcoming "This Gigantic Robot Kills" US promo tour with Flay and YTCracker.

MC Lars

"DO THE BRUCE CAMPBELL" LIVE

2009-07-16T17:16:00.000-07:00

Featuring YTCracker, ZeaLous1 and Schaffer the Darklord in Orlando:

"INTERNET RELATIONSHIPS" FAN VIDEO

2009-07-15T13:37:00.000-07:00

For some reason, this is the song that teenage girls always make fan videos for... this is one of the best:

"GAMERS" INTERVIEW FROM MAY

2009-07-14T14:06:00.001-07:00

NERDAPALOOZA = EPIC WIN

2009-07-13T03:57:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting by myself at the airport in Orlando. Nerdapalooza was such an epic win for everyone. There was so much love in the room the whole weekend, the fans were all very forgiving and loving during the technical problems, and the performances were excellent. It's a team, an army of artists who all support eachother and are more of a family than anything else.

Props to Hex Carter for organizing, and for everyone who helped.

I'll write more of my thoughts later, since it's 7 am and I haven't slept much at all in the past few days, but check out these photos I posted to Twitter earlier.

Big thanks to John and Judy for taking us to Universal Studios!! That was awesome too.

Lars

THE MATCHES GO ON HIATUS

2009-07-10T00:03:00.001-07:00

I just learned that my Oakland homies the Matches are going on indefinite hiatus for creative reasons. Come see their last shows in California for a while. They will always be a legendary Bay Area band, we've had some great tours together, here and internationally.

Lars

RIP NERDCORE (1998-2009)

2009-07-06T16:20:00.000-07:00

Let me preface this piece with an important truth: I have love for ANYONE trying to make a career for him or herself as a professional musician. The odds are stacked against you incredibly. No one buys CDs, so you're going to have to make your living off of touring and selling t-shirts out of a suitcase. GarageBand is in the hands of any and everyone, so unless you have more than a remedial understanding of home recording, the competition is ridiculous when it comes to the need for your product to be presented professionally. Plus, on top of all of that, nowadays everyone knows how to market themselves with Myspace and Facebook and Twitter and blah blah blah, so unless you get extremely lucky with the best song ever written played for the exactly right people at the exactly right time with the most dope YouTube video ever filmed, you're dead in the water.

That being said, it's time to get something off of my chest that I've been feeling for years. Unless you are MC Frontalot, it's time to stop trying to make "nerdcore hip-hop". Damian Hess, a.k.a. Frontalot a.k.a. the inventor of the genre made a name for himself when the Penny Arcade guys saw what a hilarious job he was doing on Song Fight! years and years ago. He is legitimately talented and I respect and love what he does. I've been friends with the man since 2006, toured with him twice, and done quite a few one offs with him at places like the San Diego Comic-Con and SXSW, and will see him again this coming weekend in Orlando. When comedian Negin Farsad made a documentary about Front's first tour, it got some exposure, and when coupled with the "Nerdcore for Life" movie by Dan Lamoureux, the genre's name gained some more press briefly in 2007. It was made increasingly popular for a moment when one of the rappers in the Lameroux film used his YouTube connections to get a preview of the documentary featured on the site. The rest was history. I was lumped into the genre even though my management, my publicist and I had always seen what I do as entirely different. I never self-identified as a "nerdcore rapper" and always cringed when people said I was. Because I knew the end was in sight.

At this time everyone thought, for a second, that nerdcore was going to blow up. "We finally had a voice," a cadre of mediocre rappers exclaimed. But people forgot to notice one thing: the genre was ultimately limited. It traded on the notion that home-produced beats and an awkward flow were something people would want to pay to hear, instead of just laugh at for a minute while you were looking to put on some "real hip-hop," like Jay-Z or Kanye West. And now we are seeing the brunt of this fallacy in thinking.

As with any genre, if you want to last, you have to write songs that affect people in an emotional way and have an interesting live show and be very savvy with your business. What came up were hundreds of Myspace sites with kids rapping over Nintendo samples about Star Wars and how they couldn't get laid. Nerdcore has been declining in popularity and notoriety because, to be quiet honest, its appeal as a genre outside of a select few people is ultimately finite. The Ramones and the Sex Pistols had an aesthetic that changed music forever, Kool Herc and Grandmaster Flash perfected the art of the breakbeat and changed the party vibe by creating a context for funky beats to be played for hours with no gaps. It wasn't until punk evolved into the post-punk of bands like Joy Division and Public Image Limited that it became interesting again and it wasn't until the production of the breakbeat was reinvented by guys like Dre that hip-hop began to evolve musically. Not to oversimplify things, but music evolves when people realize that it's time for something new, and that time for nerdcore hip-hop is now.

I get demos all the time by kids who self-identify as "nerdcore hip-hop artists". And I tell them all that before you try to artificially incorporate yourself into a subgenre, that they need to UNDERSTAND its genesis and BE PREPARED TO PUSH IT FORWARD. Sounding exactly like the dopest people in the scene is not enough.

Let me illustrate by describing some people who have pushed things forward within this Internet-based hip-hop community who have the potential of having a career in the years to come by respecting but transcending Frontalot's movement:

YTCracker is my boy. We've been working together for over a year, he's helped me with my hustle and I've hooked him up with shows, and our "Digital Gangster LP" recouped all of its costs within a few days of its release. That is unheard of, as 90% of records that come out never make back the money invested in them. Yes, he has "Nerd Life" tatted on his torso, and yes he put out an EP with Nintendo beats, but this dude is also a DJ and musician who truly understands music and runs one of the biggest forums for hackers on the Internet. He uses the "nerd" concept as a branding device, but he's really a hip-hop gangster with a lot of talent who, when he pushes himself and expands his subject matter, I tell everyone still has the ability and flow to reach a mainstream audience. He also hosts my website and the Horris Records site.

Schaffer the Darklord is one hilarious and very talented MC. He's a great writer and performer and he's one of the nicest people I know. He gets his rhythmic skills from his earlier career as a metal drummer - which is why his flow is so precise and his stage movements are so engaging and energetic. I've found that many great rappers are also great drummers.... case in point: Josh Eppard, Coheed's old drummer, whose Weerd Science project is pretty untouchable. Schaffer will go far because his YouTube presence is so huge and he will keep building on the underground notoriety he's made for himself. It's not "nerdcore hip-hop", it's very entertaining and clever rap that tells stories in the tradition of Slick Rick or Snoop, with a flow that resembles "Weird Al" at his best. Say what you will about his "hip-hop cred", Schaffer is an artist who I will always be excited to hear live or on my iPod any day of the week.

Jesse Dangerously is someone I've admired from afar and finally got to work with last year and meet at SXSW. We became buddies because he, like me, has never wanted to be part of the nerdcore genre and intentionally approaches the mic with a knowledge and flow of some of the best old-school rappers. When we were rehearsing in the alley behind the venue in Austin for SXSW, some kids walked by and heard Jesse's flow and were blown away and all started freestyling with us. He's a true talent that I know will go far. We once spoke about working on EP together, and it looks like that probably won't happen anymore due to our conflicting schedules, but I know Jesse will be in the game for years to come and I will proudly say that I knew him back in the day.

Beefy is an amazing talent and has taken the "nerdcore" identify and had fun with it and made some great records and pushed the aesthetic criteria. He's a great storyteller and performer, and has a great ear for dope beats. In five years, he could be on the forefront of his own movement. Go see his live show - and you'll agree that homeboy's a powerhouse performer. I've had the pleasure of sharing the stage with him a few times and he always rips it up.

Dual Core is an international crew with an American emcee who calls himself int80 who works with a British producer called c64. David (int80) came out of the Scribble Jam Midwest hip-hop scene, birthplace of people like Eminem, Slug from Atmosphere, and Sage Francis, and is a rapper who HAPPENS to be a computer programmer by day, which makes him more than a "nerdcore rapper". He's an amazing freestyler and one of the nicest people I know (next to Schaffer), and I'll never forget the fun afternoon we spent in Chicago one day before our show there with Front and YT. He's an amazing rapper and friend.

Look at these artists and then look at some of the lesser known peeps in the scene and you'll see why some transcend and some are doomed to obscurity. My point is this: if you want to make music, make amazing music and don't try to be in a scene. Don't limit yourself. Don't just be a rapper. Master all of the programs for beat making. Study hip-hop, but not just hip-hop, study all music and learn to sing and play guitar or piano. Push yourself and THEN send me your demos. In Negin Farsad's documentary about Front, Jello Biafra warns us, "be careful of your own stereotype, it could become a prison." That's what's happened in the past year with nerdcore but no longer needs to be the case. We're on the verge of the second decade of the twenty-first century. Kids who are doing dope things with hip-hop sonically (3OH!3, Hyper Crush etc.) are the ones reaching fans and changing things. Kids who are ONLY listening to MC Frontalot and mc chris sound like lo-fi versions the Lonely Island guys.... and if that's what you're going for, more power to you... but true music fans would rather listen to artists who make great albums and move us emotionally than listen to a novelty act looking for their fifteen minutes in a genre that has come and gone.

Let's push ourselves outside of our comfort zones and flip the script by surprising each other with what we can do.

It's time for something new and I'm typing this as a call for action to all of the kids out there who want to make careers in music. If you want to make a mark, keep impressing those of us who have been in the game for a decade plus, don't simply try to emulate what we've done. Say something original, say it well, and make my car shake when I listen to your demo mp3 or keep my attention rapt with the dope YouTube video you make to go with the song. You are all mad talented and I know you can create amazing stuff.

RIP Nerdcore.... what's next?? It's honestly a really an exciting time to be on the mic or producing beats.

MC Lars

P.S. A lot of people ask me what my favorite hip-hop records are when I point to originators that can inspire us to move forward. These are some good ones by true artists that I think everyone should study and keep handy in their iTunes:

FRIDAY 27TH STREET

2009-07-03T01:53:00.000-07:00

Click to enlarge.

More hilarious ish at comic.mclars.com.

MY "JON & KATE SHOULD NOT MATE" PODCAST

2009-07-02T04:19:00.000-07:00

An analysis of the new reality show "Jon & Kate Plus 8," examining how relationships like Jon and Kate's backfire as well as the male and female dynamics of an eight baby media circus:

27TH STREET RETROSPECTIVE

2009-07-01T20:10:00.000-07:00

The past eight years of my webcomics are all here sequentially.... big thanks to Chris for helping set this up!

Lars

MC LARS COMIC-CON SHOW

2009-06-26T13:29:00.000-07:00

Tickets for our San Diego Comic-Con show are now for sale. Frontalot and YTCracker will be there with me, as will the guys from Cyanide & Happiness, SMBC, and Doomtree.

BE THERE!

Lars

MY YOUTUBE TRIBUTE TO MICHAEL JACKSON

2009-06-26T09:58:00.000-07:00

RIP MICHAEL JACKSON

2009-06-25T15:32:00.001-07:00

The LA Times confirms Michael Jackson's death.

Thanks for the awesome music and for the pop revolution of the 1980s. Homeboy was an icon.

MC Lars

THURSDAY 27TH STREET

2009-06-25T00:20:00.001-07:00

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HOLLERING AT THE INTERNET AT 4 AM

2009-06-24T03:39:00.000-07:00

Summer is upon us. I've been working like crazy with K.Flay and DJ on some hot jams for our EP. We've been writing for weeks and are tracking with our favorite Bay Area production team the Rondo Brothers Thursday and Friday. We had like nine plus songs and have narrowed it down to our six favorites. I'm currently at my parents' house in Carmel Valley because I had to come back for an appointment with my optometrist tomorrow morning. Fuuunnnnn. I'm living a double life.

Tomorrow we're working on one more song for the EP. Tonight I rapped with my friend Chris Peck's band the Crymuscles at their show in San Francisco. I've been taking BART a lot because traffic and parking in San Francisco is terrible. I love my summer sublet in the Oakland hills. I'm learning my way around the East Bay again.

My sleep schedule has been so weird. I'm usually up until four or five a.m. then I get up a few hours later and start work. I don't understand it. It may have something to do with all of the time changes and different time zones we've been touring through so my body gets confused. Maybe I need to stop drinking coffee. Or stop smoking meth. Just kidding about the meth!!!!!!!! I like my teeth and face being intact.

I did a collab with int eight of Dual Core and 17,000 nerdcore rappers. Basically, it's a Twitter song where we all rap back and forth like we're on Twitter. Cool concept, but when I sent him my vocals, he wrote me back like, "Lars, you sent me silent tracks." I don't know how it happened - maybe ProTools is haunted or something. So I sent him my ProTools session for him and his British producer to have fun with. It's going to be cool. I really love Dual Core because David (int) is a really talented rapper and their production is always catchy and fun to listen to. He transcends nerdcore because he came up in the Scribble Jam / indie hip-hop seen of the mid-west late 90s community. He's a rapper who just happens to be a computer guy, not the other way around.

Been hanging out with cool people, doing awesome things like going to the Ansel Adams / Georgia O'Keefe show at the SF MoMa with my Orinda friend Samantha. I've been swimming every day at the UC Berkeley pool to get back in shape. Touring sometimes makes my body rusty, with McDonalds and the stress of hours and hours of driving and the weird sleep schedule and lack of aerobic exercise off of the stage, so I'm returning to the lean, mean muscle machine that I was when I first started this touring life. It feels so good to be getting back in shape.

The other day K.Flay and I went shopping. She has become my unofficial stylist. We were learning how to update what I wear so I'm less 1998 and more 2009. I used to always wear giant jeans that were way too big, because I forgot that MC Hammer didn't have the comeback we'd all hoped. Now I'm chilling and whenever I've been going out women keep starting up conversations with me because my pants are no longer three sizes too big. It's nice to have female friend advice on what to wear and not be sloppy all of the time.

Oh man it's almost 4 a.m. Got to get up in a few hours to see Dr. Flicker and talk about my contact lens prescription. To all of you in Internet Land - sweet dreams. Your boy MC Lars loves you. Unless you're doing meth and robbing people. Then you should be executed.

MC Lars
Carmel Valley, CA

P.S. Look for K.Flay's new mixtape. I did a guest verse, as did Eligh from Living Legends. Hot.

P.P.S. We're starting work in the "This Gigantic Robot Kills" video. WATCH OUT FOR IT!!!

27TH STREET 6-22-09

2009-06-22T23:55:00.001-07:00

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ALL NEW MC LARS FORUM

2009-06-20T16:55:00.000-07:00

The all new MC Lars Forum is up and running.

Come say hi and talk about cool stuff.

MC Lars
horrisrecords.com

MC LARS AT THE MONTEREY PUBLIC LIBRARY

2009-06-20T15:09:00.000-07:00

Doing my "History of Hip-Hop" lecture tomorrow in Monterey, CA at the library my mom works at:

2 pm at 625 Pacific Street! Come on down.

More info here!

MC Lars
horrisrecords.com

FRI 27TH STREET

2009-06-12T09:32:00.000-07:00

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METAPHYSICS OF NOTATION

2009-06-11T17:39:00.000-07:00

I'm performing an improvised art piece tomorrow at noon at the Stanford Cantor Art Center. My old professor Mark Applebaum invented a new type of score and different musicians have been interpreting it (mainly classical musicians).

I'm rolling up with K.Flay, MNP, and Thomas Tissot on percussion to interpret his piece with video, freestyled raps, and poetry. It's going to be a one of a kind performance, unlike any other MC Lars show ever before.

More info here.

Time: noon - 1 pm
Where: 328 Lomita Dr, Stanford - (650) 723-4177
Price: FREE

BE THERE!!!

MC Lars

THU 27TH STREET

2009-06-11T12:06:00.001-07:00

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SURVEY RESULTS

2009-06-10T17:28:00.000-07:00

The results for what the next single/video from "This Gigantic Robot Kills" should be are in!! We had 1242 votes and these were our results:

This Gigantic Robot Kills - 307 - 25%
Hey There Ophelia - 201 - 16%
True Player for Real - 148 - 12%
It's Not Easy (Being Green) - 136 - 11%
O.G. Original Gamer - 135 - 11%
Twenty-Three - 84 - 7%
We Have Arrived - 58 - 5%
No Logo - 57 - 5%
(Lord It's Hard to be Happy When You're Not) Using the Metric System - 46 - 4%
Where Ya Been Lars? - 40 - 3%
35 Laurel Drive - 30 - 2%

Congratulations to Zach Migler of St. John, Indiana for being the randomly selected winner of the robot USB drive!

Look for the "This Gigantic Robot Kills" video this summer!

MC Lars

27TH STREET 6-10-09

2009-06-10T16:06:00.001-07:00

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27TH STREET 6-8-09

2009-06-08T11:56:00.001-07:00

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AUSTRALIA BLOG #3

2009-06-01T23:53:00.000-07:00

I've finally come home. You guys have seen this right?

Most of that was filmed when I was a little kid growing up in the Oakland Hills. I'd borrow my parents' old school Sony Super 8 camcorder and make insane videos for hours, then play them for my friends (for their amusement and consternation).

Well, get this - this summer, I'm subletting an apartment under a house in the Oakland Hills that I found on Craigslist. Coincidentally (ironically?) the place is TWO HOUSES down from where I grew up as a kid. My parents moved us to the Monterey Peninsula between fourth and fifth grade, and I'd always missed the Bay Area. So I'm back to my genesis point before I go on tour again late next month.

I went for a walk today around the neighborhood, and it's so strange to be in a place I haven't lived in for sixteen years. Everything seems so small, but the feeling I get being back here - the air, the weather, the beautiful view of the San Francisco Bay from the hills - is unlike anything else. I feel a peacefulness I haven't felt since the mid-90's. So yay for synchronicity and sporadic connections to the past.

I'm also single again. I was dating an awesome Northwest girl for almost two years - we were even cohabitating - but we broke when I was on tour with the Aquabats in the UK a few months ago. Completely mutual and good. But on the freedom tip - it's really liberating to be in an apartment where I can do my own thing. Not that I didn't love my ex - I'm just saying it's awesome being on my own again. I once again have that the freedom and creativity that comes with being able to work on a track until 5 am.... which is hard when you're in a studio apartment with a girl who has a nine-to-five retail job... when my nine-to-five is nine p.m. to five a.m. It's also given me more time to hang out with my other friends and dedicate more time to my comics. The next girl I date - we're not moving in for a long time, and if we do, best believe it will be in a two-bedroom apartment, son.

So - moving on from my existentialist glee (which you all have in your grasp, by the way, mix some Jean Paul Sartre and Tibetan Buddhist teachings and you'll find that even though the world doesn't exist, we're free to be happy in its impermanence and satisfy our human needs) - the point of this blog is to sum up the rest of the Australian tour.

When we last left you, we were in Melbourne. I was just about to see my family that still lives in Victoria. There are four brothers by one of the daughters on my Grandfather's brother (i.e. my Great Aunt and Great Uncle's side), and they all play instruments. I was trying to convince them that they should start a band - like the Aussie Jonas Brothers - and I'd sign them to Horris Records. Here's a picture of the young MC Lars second cousins in Sydney, being joyful and looking related (the four brothers on one side and two sisters on the other):

The next day we went back to the monastery and drove with the Wherewolves guys to Sydney. Once we arrived in Sydney, we stayed with our friend Andrew from Taperjean. He lives with his parents in a big house in the Sydney suburbs. It was his Dad's birthday so the house was festively scented. The next morning Andrew made us an amazing Indian breakfast and then the Wherewolves guys picked us up for our show at Blush in Gosford on the Central Coast.

Between soundcheck and dinner, DJ and I went for a walk and made a flow chart of the next four projects we're working on in the next year or so. We started brainstorming guests and collaborations and beats. Not to give stuff away, but the list contains (but is not exclusive to):

an EP with K.Flay
an EP with Jesse Dangerously
my children's / Christmas record
my next full-length

(Side note - tomorrow I'm meeting with DJ and Flay to start talking about the EP... beats... concepts... schedules. All of that fun pre-production stuff.)

Anyways, after our dinner at the Poker Hall across the street from the Gosford club (these are huge in Australia and I've heard from Bill Bryson that gambling accounts for 20% of their GNP - WTF?), I went to meet up with my homie Dave, the drummer for a band that's very famous in Australia, Something with Numbers. I toured with them in 2005 in Australia then brought them out to America in 2006 with the Matches. If you don't know Something with Numbers, check out "Apple of the Eye" on YouTube.

At the show I got to hang out with some of the other members of the band and catch up with them - Tim and Scott - and saw their old guitarist Lachlan. The touring life is a strange one because you'll go out on a month long journey where you spend every second of your life with another band and then you won't see them except for about five minutes three years later. But those five minutes make it feel like no time has passed between encounters. I loved seeing my old Aussie rocker friends - they are kicking butt in Australia and deserve everything they're getting because they've worked like hell for it.

There were piranhas in a fish tank at the show and Dave joked that they were a barometer of a band's performance. It was funny - every time an opening band sounded good, it seemed like the piranhas were motionless and staring at the stage in rapt attention. When the opening bands messed up or weren't sounding right, the piranhas were swimming around like they were bored and ignored the stage. It was pretty hilarious. Here's a picture of the piranha enjoying one of the opening bands:

The next morning DJ and I had a meeting with our Australian label rep Andrew about the upcoming projects and next singles for Australia and got really excited. Let me tell you about Taperjean - it's a label run by our friend Andrew Perumalla, and he has put out stuff by bands like Cartel (LOL), Limbeck and their new hit Closure in Moscow. They are distributed in Australia by Shock, one of the best distributors down there, and have done super well by putting out a diverse roster of music.

"I only put stuff out by bands I believe in," Andrew told us as we ate Thai food and dreamed of our exciting futures. "I mean, if you don't believe in the long term sustainability of the bands you work with, who will?"

Amen brother.

I've licensed EPs and LPs to lots of different labels through the years. Truck Records, Sidecho, Big Mouth, Below Par, Nettwerk... but I'm really happy with the current situation. Jaret Reddick from Bowling for Soup started a label with a producer named Linus Dotson, and they teamed up with our friend Carl Caprioglio to start a label called Crappy Records under Oglio. They have been growing the label and invested a lot of time and energy and financial resources into my new album. They then sublicensed the record to Taperjean and exported copies to the UK and Japan. They let me put my Horris Records logo on the back of the CD, but really, the album is a Crappy Records release, which I try to clarify in the interest of helping the label grow and reciprocate their support.

They are putting out other cool stuff like the Leftovers (from southern Maine) and Skyfox (from Denver). One day Crappy Records will be blinging like Epitaph, but for now it's a few hardworking dudes helping young bands get their stuff heard in an industry that makes it harder and harder to make a dime off of well-recorded music. So if you've downloaded my music illegally, I know I've rapped about "new media economics" and stuff, but please also make sure to buy the CD or get it off of iTunes - my label guys have been nothing but awesome and together we are going to kick ass with "This Gigantic Robot Kills" and their young rock bands and make Crappy Records happen worldwide (the joke is that the albums aren't actually crappy, get it? LOL BFS).

Anyway, let me finish up describing the rest of the tour. We took a ride on a ferry around the Sydney Harbour, looking at the Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge - two sites that when you see them all you can say is, "Yeah, I'm in Australia". It's an unmistakable moment I always have every time I get to Circular Quay where it hits me that I'm on the other side of the world. Bill Bryson describes this in his book about Australia, "In a Sunburned Country".

We went to Campbelltown for our second New South Wales show. When we were being told about this place, everyone kept saying, "Ooh! Campbelltown is rough mate! Watch out!" and "You'll get mugged!", so DJ and I were slightly apprehensive.

But if you've ever met me in real life, you'll know that I'm a big guy, and DJ is straight-up gangster, so you might wonder why we'd be nervous.

Well, we got there and the city felt extremely safe. People were friendly - it was well lit, clean, and felt like an upscale Bay Area suburb. I'm not going to make any jokes about the relative dangers of boomerangs to AK-47s (sorry, I did the opposite of what I said I would) but I guess the scale of "dangerous" in Australia is a little different than we had anticipated. We went for a walk and got some food and DJ went to a barber shop to get his hair cut.

When we walked in, and because DJ is a pro in telling people how to shave his head, he was very specific about what gauge clippers he needed etc. Since we walked in the room, the mood was very silent, like the barbers were wondering, "What are these weird Americans doing here in this random Sydney suburb?" It was very very quiet and awkward.

DJ paid the guys and as we were leaving one of the guys asked, "Where are you from?" We told him California.

"You know we're Iraqi right?"

Silence.

DJ and I then went on to explain our embarrassment with our former leader's international policy decisions and how we were sorry our country had messed up their relatives' lives so badly. They laughed and we all shook hands. The mood became lighter. Everyone was smiling and laughing about the awkwardness.

"Well, if you need anything while you're here, come back, let us know," they told us. What a nice thing to say.

It was a cool cultural exchange. For the record, Australian dudes living in the Sydney suburbs are super cool and friendly. It made me so happy that we'd just said peace to our redneck Former President No-Talent-Ass-Clown.

The show in Campbelltown was really fun and afterward we went back to Andrew's house. The next morning DJ and I woke up early to meet up with his friend Nicole and her boyfriend and they took us on a fun trip around Sydney. We went to Bondi Beach, Watsons Bay, saw an awesome view of the skyline, and went to my personal highlight of the trip, the Featherdale Wildlife Park.

Now, for those of you who don't know (which I'm sure you all do), Australia has some of the freshest fauna on the face of this planet. That's because all of the animals evolved unique on this giant, organically heterogenous island. That's why you see animals that you only see on Australia - some of the coolest and most resilient in the world. And because the ecosystems are so diverse due to the many different biomes in Australia, the animals have to evolve uniquely. It's like Darwin's Galapagos Island studies extrapolated onto a continental level. That's why (I've heard) the animals on New Zealand are so different - unique evolution due to a varied climate and geological separation.

At the zoo, we hung out with wallabies, koalas, emus, Tasmanian Devils, dingos, and all sorts of awesome animals. Check out our photos from the experience that reflect the enjoyment of meeting our new friends as North American cultural ambassadors:

While we were feeding the wallabies, the freaking emus kept coming over and knocking the food out of our hands. Here you will see a picture of the spilled cone of such a tragic interaction. Look how sad the wallaby looks. I put the "FAIL" logo on for comedy to emulate Failblog.org. I know, I'm hilarious with this Photoshop ish.

I posted a link to some of these on Flickr earlier today, and someone wrote on Twitter "You shouldn't feed wallabies ice cream." For the record it wasn't ice cream!! They put wallaby food in a cone so you can feed them better.

We went back into town to meet up with Wherewolves and rocked one of the most fun shows of the tour. It was in downtown Sydney at a club called Spectrum, a place I'd played at twice before. I saw a lot of my old friends, including Denley Healy who was at Shock when the Graduate dropped, and Stephen Wade, our friend at Select Music who helped us book the tour. It was awesome. The club owner let me help DJ and we danced until really late. As a finale I put on Men at Work's "Down Under" and we all sang along. It was like something out of a movie. A weird, fun, international movie - involving lots of alcohol. As they say, when in Rome...

Wasted, Andrew and I took a taxi back to his house. Andrew was rapping my lyrics back to me the whole way back - interpreting them with his own spin - and, much to our cab driver's amusement and consternation, we made it back to his house. You don't tip in Australia, but because our cab driver Babu was so patient with our intoxicated boisterous antics, best believed I tipped him nicely.

Andrew's half-awake Dad let us in at 4 a.m. and Andrew and I stayed up late talking about girls and how to know if they like you or not - and how to know when to call them v. text them. It's funny how little changes when you're in your mid-twenties - you still stay up late talking about what you talked about in fifth grade.

I took a plane early the next morning and flew to Brisbane. I met up with my friend Chanel, a CSUMB student who's spending a year studying in Queensland, and she took me on a tour of the city. We saw the Aboriginal art the museum, the man-made lake by the river, and went to hear a semi-funny street comic get shut down by the police. I bought a bunch of postcards to mail to friends but forgot to mail them. Is it still fresh if they're postmarked from San Francisco? LOL I don't know.

The Brisbane show was really really great. It was full of incredibly hot tattooed barely dressed Australian punk rock girls who kept coming up to me and hugging me and asking me to sign their CDs/their shirts/them. I'm not saying that this doesn't happen in America. Wait, it doesn't. I guess it helps having a top 30 hit song in a country where the women are all beautiful and have mad style.

I even got a few kisses on the cheek by a few of them - true player. But seriously- thank you to the bangin' punk rock girls of Brisbane for buying me drinks making my last night there so fun and hilarious. See you next time. I promise.

Before the show, we learned that one of my favorite extreme metal bands from the UK was there hanging out and had come to see the show. They are called Cradle of Filth, I found out about them in high school when they did a sick-ass cover of Iron Maiden's "Hallowed be thy Name." Do yourself a favor and check them out - if you're not a metal fan, you will be after hearing this. This a video a fan synced of that song to footage form the third Prince of Persia game... it works pretty well:

So I knew I had to give them a shout out. What song though? I don't really have any metal jams, and "Guitar Hero Hero", while it has a rocking solo, is not really metal. Then I thought, did I have any dark songs? And it hit me - I'd dedicate my song about one of the darkest poems by one of America's darkest poets, "Mr. Raven."

It worked, after the show their manager came up and thanked me for giving them props and invited me to come see them the next night. I said I'd go if I could reschedule my flight (it didn't happen unfortunately) but I got to meet the guys, and they were really cool and friendly. I don't know if they were big hip-hop fans, but I'd love to work with them one day. We could tear it up on a rap metal tip that will make Fred Durst have to change his drawers. You feel me?

After the show we hung out at the club and I said peace to Chanel and her cool friend from Chicago and headed back to Sam from Wherewolves' house get a few hours sleep. He and his kind girlfriend drove me to the airport early the next morning. I flew to Sydney, hung out there for an hour or so, and took the long long flight back to San Francisco. Because of the partying we'd done on the last few shows, and the lack of sleep, I slept most of the way back across the Pacfic. I'm still on Australia time but the jet lag could have been a lotttttt worse had I not adjusted en route home.

So that's it. Thanks to the fans who came out, thanks to the DJs who have been playing the single on the radio in Australia, thanks to Taperjean and Crappy for putting the album into stores, and thanks to Wherewolves for rocking our music so hard every night. We'll be back to Australia soon, we promise. In the meantime - we've got BFD this weekend and our big-ass US summer tour (more info to follow). We'll probably be back in the UK later this year too - I've been hollering at Ed who runs the Good to Go Tour, so that's looking good.

Love to all! Good night.

From his summer residence in the Oakland Hills, I'm outtsie like Bukowksi. (Feel free to steal that - I know it's not the last time I'll be using it.)

MC Lars

MC LARS TRIVIA HOTLINE

2009-05-27T00:01:00.001-07:00

Call the MC Lars Australia Trivia Hotline and answer these three questions for free entry for you and a friend to any of the upcoming Aussie shows! (Subject to availability.)

1) What was Lars's 1999 debut called?
2) Who is Lars on tour with?
3) What is the REAL NAME of Lars's backup rapper / co-executive producer of "This Gigantic Robot Kills?"

Call 0405 903 674 to win!!

- MC Lars

PODCAST 28: MELBOURNE STARING CONTEST

2009-05-25T17:53:00.001-07:00

REQUEST MC LARS IN AUS

2009-05-25T06:44:00.001-07:00

We need the Australian MC Lars legion to come together and request some post-punk laptop rap. There's 2 sites, just click on the logos.

Go to "Make a Request" and fill out the form, be sure to request MC Lars.

You have to register for this one, but that's super easy and only takes a few seconds.

So go ahead and help us get the word out, and don't forget to go to http://www.mclars.com/australia for more about the Aussie tour.

AUSTRALIA BLOG #2

2009-05-23T21:27:00.000-07:00

I'm writing this from a Thai restaurant in a Southeast Asian mall in the middle of downtown Melbourne off of Burke St. DJ and I found three things we were looking for, he called it the "Shangri-La of tour rest stops." We found:

1) a peaceful comfortable place
2) with cheap Thai food
3) and free wireless that we're stealing LOL

So we're in Melbourne right now. For the past few days we've been staying at a monastery in Box Hill. These monks have a great life. They eat delicious food, study, teach, and live in a comfortable, beautiful place. We've been getting to know them and they're really really cool.

Why are we staying in a monastery? Because we're giving up hip-hop and joining the order. JK!!! But we have loved it here.

We met a monk named Christopher who's 90 years old and really has a good perspective on things. DJ said, "Do you have any advice on life?" He quoted Shakespeare to us, "This above all, to thine ownselves be true." Apparently alcohol isn't forbidden amongst Franciscan Friars, so they have fun. True players for real.

We went into the city that night and met up with our friend Carly from the US. She took us to some rowdy bars and we had a good time. We then went back to her house and listened to the Beatles and DJ fell asleep in her friend's room. Then when I came to get DJ, Carly's New Zealand roommate was furious because we were whispering too loud. It was probably one of the most terrifying international experiences ever - to be in a random girl's house in Australia, and be yelled at by a strange New Zealander at 4 am for whispering. We left the next morning and came back to the monastery to sleep for a few hours before our Wheelers Hill show.

The first show was fun but the sound was really really crazy. Their input board was really old school, so there was no room for my guitar amp to have a mic on it... so that meant no guitar in the monitor mix. It was a blistering mix of treble, reverberations, and synths. We rocked it though, and the two-hundred people who had come out to see our show in the middle of the Melbourne suburbs loved it.

Guess what Melbourne has a lot of? Beautiful people. It's like they all come here to enjoy the prosperity and walk around and catch everyone's attention. Melbourne = New York + Barcelona. Yay.

We played an in-store yesterday at a cool punk rock record store called Fist to Face. It was a tiny room but it was packed with excited kids - it was our only under 18 show on the tour, so young kids came from hours away. It felt like a Stanford dorm show. Wherewolves backed us up with their acoustic guitars. My Aunt Dale and Uncle Ted came to the show and we made plans to meet up and see the rest of my cousins Sunday.

DJ and I then took the train into town, and since trains leave so rarely, we were on a car with a bunch of cool fans from Northern Victoria. We talked about everything, and our new friend Kotty introduced us to a vegan burger placed called "Lord of the Fries".

We went to the hotel, got some rest, and went looking for a Guitar Hero controller for the show that night at the Bang Club at the Royal Melbourne Hotel. Apparently this is a popular spot here - when we finally went on stage, 600 people were crammed into the beautiful room. The sound was awesome, Wherewolves were tight, and it was fantastic.

We packed up the gear and went out to another bar with our friend Claire and her friends to another bar where Australians were doing drunken back-flips. Into people sitting with drinks. And people were laughing. It felt like a scene from Crocodile Dundee. And they were playing AC/DC loudly - it's almost like they're proud of that hard rock export.

We came back to the hotel, fell asleep, and woke up. Today we had some work today, I'm seeing my old friend Bonnie who I met on the Matches / Something with Numbers 2005 tour, and then I'm meeting up with my family. I'm thousands and thousands of miles away from home but it feels like home.

Melbourne rating: beautiful city full of beautiful girls who want to talk to you and beautiful things, plus awesome music and awesome food. We think we'll stay.

Lars and DJ
mclars.com/australia

AUSTRALIA BLOG #1

2009-05-20T22:16:00.000-07:00

Hello from Melbourne. I left for Australia Saturday and arrived on Monday. It's a looooonnnnggg flight but I stayed up late to get onto Australia time.. Sam from the opening band / our Aussie backup band Wherewolves (formerly a Year to Remember) picked me up at the Brisbane airport. We crammed my stuff into his car and dropped it off at his house. Then we got into a train full of commuters and went into town to explore downtown Brisbane. We went to the park and rented two bikes and went on a beautiful ride along the river. My time zone acclimation's pretty discombobulated but we still had fun. We got back and I took a nap and he went to get DJ at the airport.

DJ arrived and we went to rehearse for the afternoon and night. The Wherewolves guys are very talented and write catchy songs, but it took a while to work out some of the more complicated songs (i.e. "This Gigantic Robot Kills", our ska slammer). By the end of the first night, we felt almost prepared. We came back, went to sleep, and got up early the next day to pick up our rented screen and projector and rehearse for nine more hours. What a day. Having DJ in tow is very helpful because he's been taking on the duty of the music director. I have a good ear for beats and hooks, but he has a much better ear for specific notes, chords and harmonies. He was our music director for Failsafe in England, the New York band for the last East Coast tour and now with Wherewolves in Australia. By the end of the day I felt extremely confident. We went out to a bar in Brisbane to celebrate our first "night on tour".

DJ is very good at hollering at ladies because he is so friendly and gregarious. We met some girls from Cairns who had come to Brisbane to see some emo band on tour because apparently not a lot of bands tour up to Northern Queensland. We then went to another bar across the street. By this time, it was pouring rain. Buckets of rain. Sheets. See, it doesn't rain a lot in Australia, but when it does it's torrential. So we crossed the street and got soaked and it was hilarious. We met some people who were apparently big Australia hip-hop fans and apparently knew my music. That's why it's fun to return to a country after you've had a top thirty hit to see how the seeds have germinated - you make friends more easily.

We caught a taxi back to Sam's house. Coincidentally, the cab was number 666 and the driver was blasting heavy metal on the radio station Triple J (government run, which means no Clear Channel fodder). DJ and the cab driver started talking about when you know it's good to buy girls drinks at bars - when it's a good idea and when it's a waste of money.

"Well, make sure they're showing interest in you as a person, not just treating you as a cash machine", the cab drive explicitly said. "Otherwise you will spend all of this money and feel taken advantage of."

The next morning DJ explained how this would apply to his life philosophy. Not to let people take advantage of you and be honest with them. I love DJ because he is a fountain at wisdom. He says next time before he buys a girl a drink he'll say, "I think you're really cute and I want to buy you a drink, but I don't know if you're the type of girl who wants to use me for free drinks all night or if you really want to talk. So A), tell me if you're interested or not really interested, and I'll but you a drink anyway for being honest, or B), if you are interested I'd love to buy you a drink and get to know you better. It's your call, either way if fine with me." That can work in many situations.

The next morning, Sam and the gang picked up the van and trailer and then drove me to the airport. I was going to fly to Melbourne a day earlier to do some press, but because the rain was so incredibly tropically immense, Virgin Airlines suddenly cancelled all of their flights.

"Please get your bag from carousel three and go to windows sixteen through eighteen to get on a later flight."

Just what I wanted. I grabbed my suitcase from the baggage claim and went to wait in line. It was insane. Lines and lines of families and children and suitcases all around the airport and out the door. It was going to be hours to see anyone who worked there, and even longer to get on a flight. I was going to have to stay in Brisbane for the night and leave the next morning.

Luckily, the Wherewolves guys hadn't left, so they picked me up at the airport and we made the twenty plus hour drive down the coast to Melbourne. It's about two thousand kilometers from Brisbane to Melbourne, which is about 1,250 miles. Australian bands are road dogs - they don't stop, they just drive and drive because nothing is close, so you have to be prepared to make the ridiculously long journey. I saw it as a good opportunity to see the beautiful expansive countryside and listen to some good music and get caught up on DVDs and reading. That's my road warrior armor - media. I am also learning how to meditate even in noisy, crowded, loud vans with my Alan Watts book-on-tape. The van has no windows so it got really hot when then sun came up in the morning but we survived.

For those of you in America: Imagine driving from Seattle to San Diego in a day. Distances like these are normal for Australians. Most of the people live in the southeast corner of the country / continent. A few people live in Perth, and even less in the north. I'm reading Bill Bryson's book "In a Sunburned Country", in which he depicts his adventures across the nation, especially in the small country towns. He also talks about the social history and wildlife in an easy to understand way.

Here are some interesting unique aspects about Australia: people don't wear shoes when they go to rest stops. People are incredibly gregarious and welcoming. The people who work in the service industry are generally cheerful and friendly, and when they say "Have a nice day", it feels like they usually mean it. The music scene is so tiny, but if you're good, you can really get ahead with label support. Some of my friends (Something with Numbers and Kisschasey) have had incredible success by being incredible bands who have made name for themselves and succeeded within the old-school label model. Imagine that - a music industry based on local pride and merit that supports a local scene. The Wherewolves guys are going to do well - it seems like every band that opens for us at some point gets hugely famous (Gym Class Heroes, Say Anything etc.). We're happy when that happens because it's good karma.

My Dad's Australian, so I have a lot of cousins in Melbourne. We're here until Monday, so I'm going to try to meet up with them. We are incredibly excited for the first show of the tour tomorrow. It's going to be great. We haven't even started the tour and it's been a really fun time.

Signing out from Down Under,

MC Lars

INTERNET SAFETY ANNOUNCEMENT

2009-05-15T17:37:00.001-07:00

LP33.TV INTERVIEW

2009-05-15T16:54:00.001-07:00

HELP PICK NEXT SINGLE/VIDEO

2009-05-14T15:07:00.001-07:00

Help pick the next single from "This Gigantic Robot Kills", win a free USB MC Lars robot!!

You can vote here.

MC Lars

MC LARS MERCH

2009-05-12T14:15:00.000-07:00

Check out this hot merch from MerchDirect:

More merch here!

UK TOUR PODCAST

2009-05-11T11:56:00.000-07:00

Just got back from another awesome tour with my East Coast band. We played a few club shows, headlined a festival in Rochester and opened for Nas in Connecticut. The band has been killing it... now if we can only get Rob to quit his job at the bank, we'll be locked in for the summer tour. JK Rob. Props to Mike Russo for his tour management skills. I enjoyed rocking out with Worm Quartet in New York too (great shot Lanni!):

I'm back at my parents' house for this week before I go to Australia. I'm headed up to San Francisco tomorrow to record some guest parts and a song from the new record with the Rondo Brothers. The new album is called "Lars Attacks!" and it's going to be amazing. I finally edited the podcast from the April UK tour... see above.

HORRIS RECORDS FTW!!!!

Watch out Australia, because DJ and I are headed down under this weekend. Can't wait to return to the country with spiders the size of studio apartments in Pacifica.

Much love to the fans who came out to show their support. See you on the summer US tour!

MC Lars
www.twitter.com/mc_lars

LAST.FM INTERVIEW

2009-05-02T19:14:00.001-07:00

MC LARS GEEK MONTHLY FEATURE

2009-05-02T12:38:00.000-07:00

Check out the new issue of Geek Monthly for the cool interview they did with me recently.

SHOCKHOUND VIDEO INTERVIEW

2009-05-02T11:42:00.001-07:00

Check out the full interview here!

JOIN THE AUSTRALIAN STREET TEAM

2009-05-02T10:10:00.001-07:00

Yo Australia! Want free merch? Join the street team from Australia to spread the word about the new record and you'll get some awesome free stuff.

Love you!!

MC Lars

TGRK IN AUSTRALIA!

2009-04-30T07:27:00.001-07:00

"This Gigantic Robot Kills" - available in stores in Australia tomorrow through Taperjean!!

MC LARS RADIO FESTIVAL HEADLINE SHOWS

2009-04-28T21:10:00.001-07:00

I'm headlining two super cool festivals this spring/summer.

The first is the WBER stage at the Lilac Festival in Rochester, New York a week from Friday (May 8th). More info on the site. I'm headlining the first night, kicking off the festival with a 90 minute set with my band. I know, awesome. Other acts playing this festival include Joan Osborne and Dr. John.

The second is Live 105's BFD Festival at the Shoreline Amplitheater in Mountain View, California. I'm headlining the local stage. Other acts playing the BFD are the Offspring and 311.

YAY FOR FESTIVALS!!!!

photo copyright 2009 Martin Cogley

Also, be sure to check out my upcoming club shows next week too. And, oh yeah, I'm also opening for NAS at a college show in Conneticut.

MAY US DATES

May 3 - The Ottobar
Baltimore, Maryland

May 5 - Silk City
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

May 6 - Mercury Lounge (21+)
New York, New York

May 7 - Garfield Artworks
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

May 8 - Lilac Festival
Rochester, New York

May 9 - Eastern Connecticut State University (with NAS)
Willimantic, Connecticut

LOVE YOU GUYS!!!! See you up at the shows. Holler at me. I have fresh new merch.

MC Lars

EAST COAST TOUR DATES ANNOUNCED

2009-04-24T16:35:00.000-07:00

I'm doing a week of shows in May to promote "This Gigantic Robot Kills", including a festival in upstate New York and a show with NAS. Be there!!

May 3 2009 8:00P
The Ottobar Baltimore, Maryland

May 5 2009 8:00P
Silk City Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

May 6 2009 9:30P
Mercury Lounge (21+) New York, New York

May 7 2009 7:00P
Garfield Artworks Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

May 8 2009 6:00P
Lilac Festival Rochester, New York

May 9 2009 8:00P
Eastern Connecticut State University (with NAS) Willimantic, Connecticut

PALESTRA.NET INTERVIEW

2009-04-24T00:31:00.001-07:00

NPR SONG OF THE DAY

2009-04-22T11:21:00.001-07:00

"True Player for Real" (with "Weird Al" and Wheatus) was NPR's song of the day today! Check it out:

NPR.org, April 22, 2009 - Northern California rapper MC Lars tells bits of his life story in "True Player for Real." He boasts of graduating from Stanford University, though he laments that his English degree hasn't gotten him far professionally. He claims skills with women, although some probably aren't impressed that he still lives with his parents. He speculates that his music is as hot as anything on the radio, but admits that without his laptop, he'd be in trouble.

Though he probably wouldn't say it himself, in reality MC Lars -- whose real name is Andrew Nielsen -- is one of the brightest lights in a hip-hop subgenre called "nerdcore," populated mainly by Caucasian emcees rapping about science fiction and computer software. Lars is one of the most likable, well-rounded members of the bunch, and he displays why on "True Player for Real," which references everyone from Charles Bukowski to John Peel to Descartes to tasered University of Florida student Andrew Meyer.

"True Player for Real" gets a bit heavy on the self-awareness -- particularly when Lars alerts the listener to an upcoming key change before the final chorus -- but for the most part, its meta qualities add to the fun. The vocal and guitar backing of Brendan B. Brown (of the Long Island pop-punk group Wheatus) helps, as does the infectious accordion hook played by Lars' childhood hero, "Weird Al" Yankovic. Yankovic is still making compellingly hilarious music, of course. But should he ever fall off, Lars would make a worthy successor.

AUSTRALIAN TOUR / RELEASE

2009-04-22T04:37:00.001-07:00

"This Gigantic Robot Kills" will be available in stores in Australia May 1st! Check out nerdcoretour.com for Aussie dates.

"GUITAR HERO HERO" LIVE IN LONDON

2009-04-18T20:17:00.001-07:00

Filmed by Vex Magazine.

MC LARS UK TOUR STARTS SATURDAY!

2009-04-14T12:47:00.000-07:00

Come catch me on my "This Gigantic Robot Kills" UK spring tour!

Apr 4 - Roadmenders 3 (with Failsafe) Northampton ENGLAND
Apr 5 - Queen Charlotte Weekender (with Failsafe) Norwich ENGLAND
Apr 6 - O2 Academy Oxford 2 (with Failsafe) Oxford ENGLAND
Apr 7 - Cavern (with Failsafe) Exeter ENGLAND
Apr 8 - Joiners (with Failsafe) Southampton ENGLAND
Apr 9 - Basement at Rock City (with Failsafe) Nottingham ENGLAND
Apr 10 - Arts Center (with Failsafe) Colchester ENGLAND
Apr 11 - Met. Lounge (with Failsafe) Peterborough ENGLAND
Apr 14 - The Cockpit (with the Aquabats) Leeds ENGLAND
Apr 15 - The Cathouse (with the Aquabats) Glasgow SCOTLAND
Apr 16 - O2 Academy Islington (with the Aquabats) London ENGLAND
Apr 18 - Hobbits (with Failsafe) Weston Super Mare ENGLAND
Apr 19 - Barfly (with Failsafe) Cardiff WALES
Apr 20 - The 12 Bar (with Failsafe) Swindon ENGLAND
Apr 21 - Little Civic (with Failsafe) Wolverhampton ENGLAND
Apr 22 - Barfly (with Failsafe) Liverpool ENGLAND

Videos and rapping and rocking - oh my!!

MC Lars

MC LARS GOES PUNTING

2009-04-13T04:48:00.001-07:00

Glad I write songs for a living now that professional Oxford punter is officially out of the question:

MC LARS GOES BACK TO HIGH SCHOOL

2009-04-07T00:11:00.001-07:00

Our friend Marc Cabrera interviewed us for his video podcast when we were in Monterey doing a lecture and show at my old high school.

Check out his blogs here and here.

Thanks Marc!!

Lars

MC LARS GUITAR TABS

2009-03-30T22:09:00.001-07:00

These songs were all transcribed by my NY guitarist Mike Russo.

To view and listen to the .TG files, you need to download TuxGuitar.

To view the .pdf files, you need a computer that can communicate with others via the interweb. If you don't know how to read .pdf files, you should put down your guitar and read this book (JK but seriously .pdfs are explained here and if you did not know what they were I apologize for treating you like a n00b even though we should all know how to rock .pdfs already - punk).

Do the Bruce Campbell - .TG - .PDF GUITAR 1 - .PDF GUITAR 2 - .PDF GUITAR 3

Hey There Ophelia - .TG - .PDF GUITAR 1 - .PDF GUITAR 2 - .PDF GUITAR 3 -

(It's Not Easy) Being Green - .TG - .PDF

True Player for Real - .TG - .PDF

Props to all of the people who did these ones I found:

The Dialogue

Download This Song

Hipster Girl

Hot Topic Is Not Punk Rock - bass tab - guitar solo

Hurricane Fresh

iGeneration - bass tab

MORE TABS HERE (KEEP CHECKING BACK)

UK TOUR TICKETS SELLING OUT FAST

2009-03-27T10:51:00.000-07:00

Attention British friends:

I can't wait to come rock your PA's next month with Failsafe and my boy DJ. It's going to be ill!!

We still have tickets available, so be sure to pick yours up before it's too late:

Apr 4 2009 - Roadmenders 3 (with Failsafe) Northampton ENGLAND
TICKET PRESALES

Apr 5 2009 - Queen Charlotte Weekender (with Failsafe) Norwich ENGLAND
TICKET PREALES

Apr 6 2009 - O2 Academy Oxford 2 (with Failsafe) Oxford ENGLAND
TICKET PRESALES

Apr 7 2009 - Cavern (with Failsafe) Exeter ENGLAND
TICKET PRESALES

Apr 8 2009 - Joiners (with Failsafe) Southampton ENGLAND
TICKET PRESALES

Apr 9 2009 - Basement at Rock City (with Failsafe) Nottingham ENGLAND
TICKET PRESALES

Apr 10 2009 - Arts Center (with Failsafe) Colchester ENGLAND
TICKET PRESALES

Apr 11 2009 - Met. Lounge (with Failsafe) Peterborough ENGLAND
TICKET PRESALES

Apr 14 2009 - The Cockpit (with the Aquabats) Leeds ENGLAND
TICKET PRESALES

Apr 15 2009 - The Cathouse (with the Aquabats) Glasgow SCOTLAND
TICKET PRESALES

Apr 16 2009 - O2 Academy Islington (with the Aquabats) London ENGLAND
TICKET PRESALES

Apr 18 2009 - Hobbits (with Failsafe) Weston Super Mare ENGLAND
TICKET PRESALES

Apr 19 2009 - Barfly (with Failsafe) Cardiff WALES
TICKET PRESALES

Apr 20 2009 - The 12 Bar (with Failsafe) Swindon ENGLAND
TICKET PRESALES

Apr 21 2009 - Little Civic (with Failsafe) Wolverhampton ENGLAND
TICKET PRESALES

Apr 22 2009 - Barfly (with Failsafe) Liverpool ENGLAND
TICKET PRESALES

HIGH FIVE
- MC Lars

P.S. SHOUT OUTS TO OUR TOP THREE UK STREET TEAMERS WHO HAVE BEEN KICKING BUTT PROMOTING THIS TOUR!!

Scuzzy89 in Treforrest UK
Ashy99 in Wallingtong UK
Geezabird in Surrey UK

Want to join the street team and get awesome stuff? Sign up here.

THIS AUSTRALIAN ROBOT TOURS

2009-03-24T18:09:00.000-07:00

G'day y'all!!

My friends at Taperjean Records are putting out "This Gigantic Robot Kills" in Australia which means I'm going to be back on tour there in late May.

Check the press release below for tour dates.

Can't wait!! See you soon Australian homies.

MC Lars

TAPERJEAN PRESS RELEASE:

Tuesday 24 March, 2009
For immediate release

MC Lars is a Gigantic Robot That Kills

The self-proclaimed originator of 'post-punk laptop rap,' MC Lars, will release his highly anticipated second album, This Gigantic Robot Kills, on Saturday 25 April through Taperjean Records/Shock. The release will feature three exclusive bonus tracks, and see MC Lars return to Australia for an East Coast tour in May.

Catch MC Lars on Friday 22 May at the Wheelers Heel Hotel in Wheelers Hill (Victoria), Saturday 23 May at Bang in Melbourne, Wednesday 27 May at Blush Nightclub on the Central Coast, Thursday 28 May at the Campbelltown City Hotel in Campbelltown, Friday 29 May at Spectrum in Sydney, and Saturday 30 May at Thriller in Brisbane.

This Gigantic Robot Kills includes the first single 'Guitar Hero Hero (Beating Guitar Hero Doesn't Make You Slash)' - a collaboration with Paul Gilbert (Mr Big) - as well as MC Lars teaming up with childhood hero "Weird Al" Yankovic, who plays accordion on 'True Player for Real'. Lars also joins forces with Pierre Bouviere (Simple Plan) on the "hottest" track about global warming ever recorded, 'It's Not Easy (Being Green)'. And to top it off, the entire album was mixed by Mike Patterson, who made waves with Notorious B.I.G.'s Life After Death (1997) and Beck's Midnite Vultures (1999).

In true MC Lars style, the collaborations don't end there. This Gigantic Robot Kills also features contributions from the Rondo Brothers, Mike Kennedy of Vision of Disorder, MC Bat Commander of The Aquabats, Suburban Legends, Gabriel Saporta of Cobra Starship, Brett Anderson of The Donnas, MC Frontalot, Jesse Dangerously, Linus Dotson of Size 14, Parry Gripp of Nerf Herder, Jonathan Coulton, and Sebastian Reynolds.

The title for the album was inspired by MC Lars' late mentor, Wesley Willis, who battling mental health issues used a DIY and punk rock approach to spread his energetic songs across the world. Before passing away in 2003, Willis told Lars, "Lars Horris! I like your songs, I'll write a song about you. I'll probably write it on my next rock 'n' roll record, which is called 'This Gigantic Robot Kills'." Unfortunately Willis passed away before he had a chance to release the album, and so in memory of his hero, MC Lars decided to use the title for his new album.

MC Lars has been combining his love of hip hop and punk music on his laptop computer for over ten years. Since he began in 1998, he has released three albums under the name Lars Horris, two full-length studio albums as MC Lars, and two EPs (including The Green Chistmas EP). He has performed with artists including Bowling for Soup, Say Anything, Gym Class Heroes, Simple Plan, The Matches and Test Icicles, toured across the US, UK, Europe, Australia, and Japan, and has emerged as one of the pioneering artists at the forefront of the new musical genre dubbed "nerdcore".

MC Lars 'This Gigantic Robot Kills' Australian Tour

Victoria

Friday 22 May
Wheelers Hill Hotel, Wheelers Hill, Vic 18+
Tickets from www.oztix.com.au
Doors open 8.00pm

Saturday 23 May
Bang,
Tickets available at the door
Doors open 8.00pm

New South Wales

Wednesday 27 May
Blush Nightclub, Central Coast, NSW 18+
Tickets from www.oztix.com.au
Doors open 8.00pm

Thursday 28 May
Campbelltown City Hotel, Campbelltown, NSW 18+
Tickets from www.oztix.com.au
Doors open 7pm

Friday 29 May
Spectrum, Sydney, 18+
Tickets from www.moshtix.com.au
Doors open 8.00pm

Queensland

Saturday 30 May
Thriller, Brisbane, 18+
Tickets available at the door
Doors open 8.00pm

Visit MC Lars online:
www.mclars.com
www.myspace.com/mclars

This Gigantic Robot Kills will be available nationally Saturday 25 April via Taperjean Records/Shock and features three bonus tracks exclusive to Australian fans.

MC LARS RINGTONES

2009-03-24T17:49:00.000-07:00

Want to hear my music every time your friends call you?

You can get them from the Oglio site here or from Verizon directly.

Welcome to the future.

Lars

TRASH PIT UK INTERVIEW

2009-03-23T19:27:00.000-07:00

I've always been deep in the UK punk scene, and proud of it. Check out this interview I recently did with my friends at Trash Pit.

Lars

MC LAR "PAPER PLANES" FREESTYLE

2009-03-17T13:36:00.000-07:00

Just posted my "Paper Planes" freestyle on YouTube for CP's:

MC LARS'S FACEBOOK FRIEND COUNT > YOUR FACEBOOK FRIEND COUNT

2009-03-13T11:53:00.000-07:00

This month, Lars drop knowledge on all of his homies inside and outside of the music industry. Featuring special musical guest Dr. Popular of Drown Radio. Video directed by Tim Thompson and Odin Wadleigh.

ANOTHER WEB SPOT ABOUT THE AMSTERDAM SHOW

2009-03-12T00:19:00.001-07:00

AMOEBA INSTORE TOMORROW

2009-03-11T19:43:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow at 6 pm I'm doing a free show at Amoeba in San Francisco, followed by a signing. See you all there!

Amoeba Music
1855 Haight St
San Francisco, CA 94117

MARSCON 2009 PODCAST

2009-03-10T19:34:00.001-07:00

MC LARS IN THE SF CHRONICLE

2009-03-09T18:43:00.001-07:00

For those of you in the Bay Area, check out the interview I did with the San Francisco Chronicle today.

Amoeba in-store Thursday!!

Lars

MC LARS AT SXSW

2009-03-08T08:54:00.001-07:00

I'm playing two dope shows this year as part of SXSW! The official showcase is Friday night with Frontalot, Jesse Dangerously, and Terp 2 it at Prague.

Then we're all playing again Sunday night at the Spiderhouse Cafe. See you guys there!

- Lars

MY TRIP TO EUROPE BLOG

2009-03-07T10:26:00.000-08:00

I wrote this during the last few weeks while I was in Europe:

PART I - 3/1/09

A Dutch software company called 4worx saw Dan Lameroux's indie documentary "Nerdcore for Life" and decided to have a showing for it in Amsterdam. Thus began this wonderful odyssey.

They flew Dan, Beefy, YTCracker, MC Router and me out for the event and I used my mileage plus miles to fly my girlfriend and manager too. We explored Amsterdam before the show, seeing Van Gogh's famous "Starry Night" and Rembrandt's "Syndics of the Clothmaker's Guild" as well as the Ann Frank Museum and some museums you would not take your kids to. The show was at an old theater called Club Panama that many famous people like Madonna have performed at.

During the movie and before the performance, a throng of bloggers interviewed us all upstairs. In their parlance, a "nerd" is someone who is not cool who has no friends and basically sucks at life. So if you watch the video blogs, you'll see the question, "How can nerds rap? Aren't nerds bad people? Aren't you a virgin?" They desperately needed some "Revenge of the Nerds" type ish up in Amsterdam. Our hosts at 4worx were extremely generous and took us on a canal cruise around the city. Amsterdam is beautiful and peaceful. Every other street has about ten "coffee" shops, but good luck finding coffee, they are all selling marijuana. No wonder the Kottonmouth Kings have about 15 songs where they give props to this city.

We were going to take a train or rent a car and drive to Elsinore, Denmark, to film some of the "Hey There Ophelia" video, but realized we would not have enough time and had done no preparation. Awesome. Then we decided to shoot at a castle near Amsterdam, but they only gave tours to groups of 100 or more, and would not allow people dancing around in Shakespearean outfits behind a general "European" background. I wonder why? I already have my Hamlet costume though, so we'll figure out a green screen approach when we're back home. After the show and our last day in the Netherlands, my girlfriend and I took a taxi to the airport. I flew to Madrid to explore Spain for a week, and she flew back home to California to spend time with her mother and injured Chihuahua Frankie.

I am now in Madrid. I'm staying in a hostel near the Gran Via metro stop and have spent the last two days exploring the city in depth. Spain has always had this strange allure for me since I was a little kid. I studied Spanish in fourth grade, did not in fifth, and studied it again for the next six consecutive school years. Sophomore year in high school, I had a very very strict Peruvian Spanish teacher named Senora Vargas who made us all stand when she walked into the room. Every night we had reading assignments, and if there were vocabulary words in the reading we didn't know, we had to make flashcards and memorize them. She would always ask us various words from the reading the next day, and if we did not know them, she'd make us come in for study hall on Saturday mornings.

I came to Spain for the first time in 2006 for my 24th birthday and stayed with a friend in a small Spanish beach town near Alicante. But we hung out with British people the whole time and I barely use my Spanish. Now I'm finally getting to. People here are extremely stylish, everyone is dressed very fancily, and try as I might, I'm sure I stand out like an animal rights activist at a bullfight. I landed, went through customs, and took the metro into town. My hostel was easy to find, right next to the "California America Sex Shop" in a classy back alley. Why does California have such a bad reputation in Spain?? Shouldn't it be the "New Orleans America Sex Shop" or something??

I spent my first day getting to know the city. I started by walking to the Plaza de la Puerta del Sol, where they celebrate New Year's Eve, and wandered down the old streets to the Plaza Mayor. This place is incredible - the buildings around it are all old and beautiful and instantly gives you a feeling of space. There are people dressed in cartoon costumes trying to get money to have kids take photographs with them. There was one guy dressed as Mickey Mouse dressed as Uncle Sam. Strange. I explored the old Palacio Real, which was built by Felipe V in the eighteenth century. What was so weird to me was how all of the rooms have lots of Roman statues. Make up your mind Madrid. Between that and the power struggles of WWII, I get the impression that Spain is an old-fashioned country with a strange identity crisis. Hemmingway came here to write and fight himself after WWI, but lost himself in the alcohol and the machisimo bullfights. It's interesting because everyone on the streets is happy and laughing, much more than in New York and in Los Angeles. The city has a cautious and nervous aire to it, in part because of the terrorist attacks on the metro in 2004. There are metal detectors and cameras everywhere.

After the palace exploration, I went to see the Francis Bacon exhibit at the Museo del Prado. This museum is well-known, in part because of the famous Hernonymous Bosh and Goya paintings, but also because of its rotating visiting exhibits. The Bacon paintings were extremely grotesque in the best ways. Basically, his approach is that, because he's an atheist and sees the concept of God as a silly superstition, in his eyes we are all monkeys / vain slabs of meat waiting to rot. His favorite thing to do was paint pictures of the former popes in chairs, and then scratch out their faces and makes their mouths look like they're screaming and then painting bars around them to signify their subscription to an antiquated religion. I'm pretty sure his Vatican fan club still has t-shirts available.

I walked around the rest of the paintings, and looked at the hundreds of religious pieces commissioned by the church. You mean the nativity was an important event for Christianity? Fascinating! Perhaps pre-Renaissance Europe could use a thousand more oil paintings depicting this? Maybe we can throw in some more angels talking to Mary to change things up and keep the content fresh?

I tried to find a famous coffee shop I'd read about in my Lonely Planet guide book where the intellectuals of Madrid of the mid-twentieth century got together. I had a lot of trouble when I went to the subway stop of the street it was apparently on and a lady there informed me that la Calle de Bilboa was not a real street. How did she know I was a tourist? Was it my bright Rebooks, my A's cap, or the fact that I was holding a guide book and looking up at the buildings while walking in circles? I found an Internet cafe and came back and went to bed around eleven, just as the hoards of college kids staying here were loudly waiting in the hall to go out. College kids in other countries like to do things as a group I've noticed.

"Let's go see the Plaza Mayor! I heard it's famous."

"Okay, hold on, let me get my whole Intro to Anthropology class and the second floor of my sophomore dorm. Then we can go."

"Okay, I'll wait in the hall and talk really loudly to Charles, right next to this American guy's door who's staying by himself."

I heard one kid asking his friend what he was reading. His friend informed him that he had just finished the Benjamin Franklin biography, and the first kid explained that he was deep into the second Winston Churchill history (of a six volume series) of WWII. The party never stops for them.

This morning I woke up early and went to see El Rasto, a famous weekly flea market that is apparently one of the biggest in Europe. I walked through, amidst the hoards of people buying used coats and books, and walked past the guys selling used video games. It was pretty weird to see booths for used Xbox 360 games next to booths for old Spanish lamps, next to booths selling Iron Maiden and Metallica shirts. I kept selling a shirt for a band called El Mägo de Oz. I decided that that was a pretty good name for a Spanish metal band. Or maybe they're prog rock? Placebo are huge in Europe too, because you'll see their shirts right next to the Marilyn Manson shirts. Weeirrd.

It started raining so I walked to the Centro de Arte Reina Sofia. This museum has mostly modern art, and I enjoyed a lot of cool Dali paintings. On the audio guide, Dali explained that he is a mad man, but he is able to stay sane through painting. On the second floor, they had a giant exhibition for art about the Spanish Civil War in the thirties. On the wall is Picasso's famous work the "Guernica". I stood and stared at it for fifteen minutes. It's "ginormous" as you might say. In the same room are all of his sketches and test paintings, which shows how long he worked on designing and redesigning it. I wondered how on Earth they transported it?? Did they take it apart? It's like the old Spanish proverb, "If you can move the Guernica across town, then you lead a European city to victory." Just kidding, I made that up.

I went back to my hostel but stopped at the Internet place again and learned that my girlfriend made it home safely. WIN!! I went back to my room and then got my iPod to go wander around the Parque Del Gran Retiro. I got nervous when the African guys standing on the hills dressed in Gucci whispered and click their tongues at me, and when I looked at them, they motioned for me to come over. They were either selling drugs or trying to make American friends, so in the interest of getting to Barcelona tomorrow alive, I assumed it's the former.

I came back into town and saw "Slumdog Millionaire" at the local movie theater dubbed in Spanish. Here it's called "Que Qiuere Ser Millonario?" Thanks to Senora Vargas and her ruthless Saturday study hall system, I understood most of the dialogue. Tomorrow I'm taking the train to Barcelona. I can't wait to see Spain from the train, because as they taught us in "My Fair Lady", the train in Spain stays mainly on the planes.

The only person who laughed at my Spanish today was the lady selling tickets at the movies. Movies obviously don't start at 4:30 in the morning, but she didn't have to be rude when I had trouble saying 16:30 in Spanish. I think she had bad morals because she tried to keep ten Euros of the change she owed me until I informed her that I had in fact given her a twenty, not a ten.

!To Madrid! The famous Spanish city with Roman sculptures in their eighteenth century palaces, old lamps and Xbox 360 games for sale in their Sunday morning flea markets, and ill-moraled ticket vendors! If suicide had gotten Hemingway in the end, perhaps the African drug dealers would have.

- MC Lars, Madrid, Espana

PART II - 3/4/09

I left Madrid early on the morning of the second and caught my train to Barcelona. I was in a carriage with about fifty elderly couples on a group trip. They were extremely loquacious amongst themselves, but the gentleman who sat next to me was uninterested in telling me his name after I shook his hand and politely told him mine. The train passed hills and rivers and valleys and it was indeed a beautiful glimpse at the Spanish countryside.

When I got to Barcelona, I took a trip to visit the modernist architecture Gaudi's famous building "Casa Battlo." It's a huge house designed in the style of Jules Vern's 1900-era futurist perspective. You walk in it and it feels like being in a submarine from the past. The roof is designed to look like a dragon. I'd never seen anything like it and I decided that I wanted to see more of Gaudi's work - and it's all over this city. Museu d'Historia Once it got dark, I grabbed dinner (Paella - muy declisioso) and took the metro down to the beach, but since it was really dark, I decided that walking alone on the beach at night with a wallet full of Euros was not the smartest thing to do, so I came back to the hostel and watched Akira on my laptop.

The next morning I explored two of the three famous cathedrals here - La Catedral and the Eglesia de Santa Maria del Mar. La Catedral is ginormous, but I'm sorry Barcelona, the Catedral de Nuestra Senora de la Almudena in Madrid kind of wins on the freshness points. I did like the pond in the courtyard - it had some of the fattest and friendliest geese I had ever seen. I took a lot of pictures of them up close because their faces had so much personality. The Iglesia de Santa Maria del Mar is smaller and quieter, but anarchists in the first four decades of the 20th century apparently ransacked all of the ornate decorations. !Down with government! !And stain-glass pictures of lambs with halos!

I visited a museum that showed the history of Barcelona called the Museu d'Historia de la Ciutat, with an elevator that took you down into the foundation of the old area of Barcelona back when it was a Roman providence. There was a wine cellar, and a bathroom, and bedrooms, and it was interesting to see how the Romans and perfected the water system. There are the remnants of an old Roman wall around the old-city center of Barcelona. While ambulating around the Museu d'Historia, a group of first graders were also taking the tour. They kept staring and me and pointing. When they were walking by, one of the kids said, "Hallo!" in a thick Spanish accent, and I responded "Hello" back to him. "How are you today?" he asked. Everyone laughed. I guess I stand out as an American even amidst the 7 year olds.

I then went to the Museu Picasso. Although it doesn't have a lot of his more famous works, the museum provides a good retrospective of Picasso's beginning as a realist, his foray into impressionism, his Parisian years as an admirer of Touluse la Trec, and his cubist evolution. There was a room with his later, more child-like paintings, and a series of tables under glass with the pottery he painted that his wife donated. It was a fun museum. Picasso is a pretty likable guy. Ask Jonathan Richman - no one ever talked trash about him. There was a funny picture there with bread set up to look like gigantic fingers. I went to a modern art museum and saw an awesome exhibition on how tourism is a post-modern phenomenon and how the Dubai Entertainment Center that's being build right now is about to become a monolithic Las Vegas of the future. In ten years this place will be the world's top tourist attraction, trust me. The exhibit showed how our desires are synthesized by the media and that places like this Dubai Center and to an extent Disney World are designed to feed that synthesized hunger. We enter a script as consumers in a post-modern world. Nothing is real. I left with a strange feeling in my stomach - how much of my Spanish experience was authentic, and how much of it was synthesized to meet my expectations of what my Platonic idealization of Spain was? I took a trip up to explore the University of Barcelona campus, didn't find any answers, then walked down by the site of the 1996 Olympics and went for a long walk on the beach. I tried to touch the water, to say I touched the Mediterranean Sea this trip, but got my shoes soaking wet when an unexpected wave washed up. The hostel now has a sandy bathroom - sorry guys.

On my final day, I woke up early to explore Barcelona one last time. I took the metro and climbed the hill to see Gaudi's "Park Guell", originally designed to be an area for super-wealthy people to build houses, but now a public park. This place was straight out of Dr. Seuss - crazy columns everywhere, landscapes designed like a futuristic Hansel and Gretyl maze, and dinosaurs guarding the entrance. I asked one of the Japanese tourists to take my picture with the dinosaur. There was also a house here where Guadi worked, and I took the tour. It was the highlight of my trip so far.
I then walked back down the hill and took the metro to see Gaudi's unfished church, La Sagrada Familia. It was extremely crowded, but I went to the underground museum and saw all of the models that Gaudi had worked on. The sculptures around the front are particularly intriguing - they form a three-part sculpture to express Guadi's favorite things: Hope, Charity and Faith. The guy had good morals and a playful design sense. No wonder Spanish people love him. They also have good morals and a playful design sense. What?

The music videos on TV here are really bad. When I was on the communal computer in the hostel, someone had the music video channel on. There was a girl rapping in a terrible voice to a corny beat, with people around her dancing. Not very impressive. There is a pop-punk band here called "Doctor" something, with choruses with watered down pop-punk, Green Day's "didn't quite make the B-sides 1994 era boxed set" melodies. But what's so crazy is that the videos have such a high production value. It's crazy. You hear these uninspiring songs, turn around, and see these amazingly expensive videos. I guess it's because people here still buy CD's - the download revolution has not really hit the cities yet. I can't find WiFi anywhere - if you want to use computers here, you have to pay by the minute to use the terminals. In five years, I'm willing to bet that the music videos on Spanish TV will have the production value. Either way, I'm over it.

I took a walk to the Parc de Montjuic and took a rickety gondola up to the top of a mountain where the main defense fort use to be - complete with cannons and everything. I then went to the Miro museum, which was a small, out-of-the-way museum in the park, with a lot of interesting sculptures and paintings. Miro is pretty likeable too. If he and Picasso had a baby, and gave it to Rembrandt to raise, that baby would become Salvador Dali. I know that is biologically and chronologically impossible, but the metaphor is relevant to the earlier part of my travel notes.

I came back and bought some souvenirs for my family and girlfriend and took the guided tour of Central Barcelona - courtesy of my Lonely Planet guidebook I saw Guadi's first building, the Palau Gueell. I saw a place where they put on a lot of classical music concernts - the Palau de la Musica Catalana, but got lost trying to find the Mercat de Santa Caterina when I took a left instead of a right. I ended up treading through the Korean district of Bareclona, as dozens of kids were getting home. I could see it all over their parents' faces: "Who the f--- is this guy and why did he take a left instead of a right at the Palau de la Musica Catalana?" Mad CP's y'all.

One thing I noticed about Spain is that dogs just walk around the cities, chilling. I must have seen ten dogs, just walking around, hanging out, without collars or anything. Maybe they survive off of the rats and garbage? Maybe tourists feed them? Maybe they actually run the city? Maybe America is silly to have leash laws, but I don't think these dogs are dogs that got away form their owners. I think they're just Spanish dogs who live in the cities. Their coats are nice and clean, so they're not the type of "stray dogs" you would imagine seeing behind dumpsters. Maybe health care for dogs is socialized here too. I have no idea.

After a day of culture and sightseeing, I came back and read more of the book my sister got me for Christmas - a study on hip-hop and politics by this guy M.K. Asante, Jr., a guy my age who teaches at Morgan State University and claims that the hip-hop generation is over. The book is called It's Bigger Than Hip-Hop: the Rise of the Post-Hip-Hop Generation, and I very much recommend it to anyone interested in postmodern or hip-hop academic works.

Another thing I take issue with Asante on (and I've never met the guy - he has written a really original study on this topic, but I can't help but express how I feel) is his arbitrary distinction between the "hip-hop" and post-hip-hop" generations. Asante posits the "conscious" rappers against the "materialistic" rappers ones, and sites the conscious rappers as the seeds for the post-hip-hop generation's key philosophy. At the beginning his book he laments how one knows who Mos Def, Common, Talib Kweli, and Dead Prez are, but know about 50 Cent. He talks about how the hip-hop generation is dead and played out, explaining that the post-hip-hop generation is one of activism and positive action, and that the conscious rappers will have their time in the sun. But what I find confusing is in what verses of decides to cite - he references many songs and quotes many rappers that I feel are very proud to be part of the "hip-hop generation" who are still telling their story.

Perhaps Asante is explaining that the post-hip-hop generation is the one of students and perfumers' who dissect the intelligent teachers of the hip-hop generation, but the book confuses me because there is a line between Lil Jon and KRS-One that seems arbitrarily drawn in defense of his argument. We are all speaking the same language. Let's let the hip-hop generation continue to tell its story, before the post-hip-hop generation accuses the previous one of all of its shortcomings. We're still sorting it all. We can learn just as much from Soulja Boy's story as we can from Common's. They both have something appealing to the hip-hop audience - and they are both permutations of the modern hip-hop artist. Common may have more intelligent lyrics, but we can learn from Soulja Boy too. See - this is the kind of stuff I think about when I'm by myself reading books in Spain. It's like having summer reading that I actually want to do.

Another recurring thesis is that racism still exists - which it does - but he fails to note that broke-ass white people are victim to the same problems as disadvantaged African-Americans: mainly lack of health care and minimum wage not being sufficient to life in 21st century America. Yes, racism is a deeply rooted problem in our society, but there is too much of an intellectual bias that ignores this crucial point. It makes me think about how the economical problems in America are really class problems, and we use the concept of "race" to ignore this. People can say "America is a racist country", but if you say it's a classist country, this belittles the whole imagined and functional good of capitalism in a less-than-perfect system. What I like about Asante is his idea that revolutionary thinkers need to "take two sets of notes" - one to answer the test questions right to get through school and universities, and one to discover our own personal truths. He quotes the Buddha, importuning people to question society, but when "after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it."

Traveling to Europe and practicing my Spanish in Spain has lived up to the good and benefit of one and all... especially to good of the street vendor who charged me twenty Euros for a shirt with the Spanish bull logo that I then saw at a store down the street for five Euros. Think globally and act... locally? Capitalism has its vices, especially for the capitalist American tourist. At least the street vendor will be able to buy more food for his children and that is good morals. I, however, will be enjoying old bread and cheese and tap water on my last night here.
Thanks again to the 4Worx guys for having us out!

!Viva Barcelona! !Viva Espana! !Viva Europa! !Viva M.K. Asante, Jr.!

- MC Lars, Barcelona, Espana

UK TOUR DATES ANNOUNCED

2009-03-01T05:09:00.000-08:00

Check out nerdcoretour.com for my April 2009 "This Gigantic Robot Kills" UK tour dates with Failsafe!!

Lars

MC LARS ALTERNATIVE PRESS FEATURE

2009-02-27T01:09:00.000-08:00

I talked with Brian Shultz at Alternative Press last week... check out the fresh feature they did on me here.

Lars

MC LARS ON SUICIDEGIRLS

2009-02-26T02:47:00.000-08:00

Check out my awesome interview with Jay Hathaway on SuicideGirls.com!

Lars

"GUITAR HERO HERO" VIDEO

2009-02-25T02:44:00.000-08:00

Check out my fresh video from the new album, directed by Sean Donnelly!

"THIS GIGANTIC ROBOT KILLS" IN STORES TODAY

2009-02-24T07:51:00.000-08:00

The new MC Lars album is finally here!! "This Gigantic Robot Kills" is in stores and on iTunes today. Be sure to check it out!

Love you guys
MC Lars

"NO LOGO" WITH JESSE DANGEROUSLY

2009-02-21T22:06:00.001-08:00

As promised, I've been adding a song to my Myspace page every week until the record drops. The final track I'm previewing is "No Logo" with my friend Jesse Dangerously, in which we drop knowledge on bumper sticker activism.

The title of this song comes from a great book by Naomi Klein. The interpolation is based on a Fugazi track from 1989 called "Waiting Room". Big thanks to Ian MacKaye and Dischord Records for personally clearing and letting us use his classic song for our beat.

THIS GIGANTIC ROBOT KILLS IN STORES TUESDAY!!!!

MC Lars

MC LARS CD RELEASE PARTY

2009-02-19T13:47:00.001-08:00

I'm playing at the Uptown in Oakland tomorrow night (Friday the 20th)! We'll be performing with the original line-up and playing most of the new album. K.Flay, the Rondo Brothers, and the Crymuscles are opening.

Show starts around 10 pm.

THE UPTOWN
1928 Telegraph Ave
Oakland, CA 94612
(510) 451-8100

See you guys there!!!

MC Lars

MC LARS SPIN FEATURE

2009-02-17T21:35:00.000-08:00

I sat down with Emily Zemler at Spin Magazine a few weeks ago and talked books. You can read this interview here

See you guys at Friday's CD release party! :-D

MC Lars
mclars.com

LARS POSTS ATOM & HIS PACKAGE COVER ON MYSPACE

2009-02-13T17:47:00.000-08:00

As I said last week, every Friday until "This Gigantic Robot Kills" officially hits stores, I'll be premiering a track form the record right on Myspace.

This week it's a cover of one of my favorite songs from high school by Atom & His Package "(Lord It's Hard to be Happy When You're Not) Using the Metric System", featuring Worm Quartet.

Have a good weekend everyone!!

MC Lars

JOIN THE MC LARS STREET TEAM

2009-02-13T14:15:00.000-08:00

Want access to exclusive tracks, videos, and free limited edition MC Lars merch?

Click here to join the MC Lars street team!! (Just go to the site and click "Join this team"!)

We'll send you cool stuff and if you help promote the new album, you get points and exclusive goodies.

Thanks players.

Your friend
MC Lars
horrisrecords.com

27TH STREET - VALENTINES IN NY

2009-02-13T11:41:00.001-08:00

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27TH STREET - MICHAEL PHELPS

2009-02-12T13:29:00.001-08:00

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MC LARS URB FEATURE

2009-02-11T14:54:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago, URB magazine came down to hang out on the video set of the first single from the next album, "Guitar Hero Hero".

Check out this feature by Dan Vidal.

MC LARS ON G4'S FREESTYLE 101

2009-02-10T11:14:00.000-08:00

MC Lars plays what he calls "post-punk laptop rap," a mix of alternative rock, old school hip hop and electronica. The Berkeley, California native released his first album in 1999 (Nothing to Fear) and has issued a steady stream of releases every year since, culminating with his latest, This Gigantic Robot Kills. Recent collaborations include The Digital Gangster LP with YTCracker and tracks with everyone from "Weird Al" Yankovic to The Donnas, Bowling for Soup and Ill Bill. Now that's a diverse lineup!

MC Lars is also part of the burgeoning Nerdcore Hip Hop movement that includes rappers such as MC Frontalot, MC Chris, and the aforementioned YTCracker. He samples from alt rockers like Supergrass and Iggy Pop. He raps about computers, tech, videogames, literature, pop culture and is often backed by a live band and various visual aids in concert. It's quite an experience. You've also seen him in G4's Nerdcore TV spots, alongside Del the Funky Homosapien, among others.

When Lars dropped by The Engine Room in Hollywood to spit over a Messiaz beat, Freestyle 101 made sure to get him to chat about Nerdcore, as well as the Bay Area hip hop scene and being a dope MC in a punk rock world.

Freestyle 101 goes up every Tuesday at 9 a.m. PST (noon on the east). Coming up is Thirstin Howell III, Rack and Bar Lo, Meyhem Lauren, and Charlie 2Na of Jurassic 5 and Ozomatli. Make sure to check out other nerd-tastic MCs on Freestyle 101, such as Murs, Del, Kool Keith, Busdriver, Pigeon John, and more. Find us on MySpace, Facebook, rant in the Forums, and peep our behind the scenes photo gallery.

27TH STREET - CHRIS BROWN

2009-02-10T00:30:00.001-08:00

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MarsCon Dementia Fundraiser CD

2009-02-09T21:01:00.000-08:00

Support MarsCon! Check out their fundraiser CD.

Lars

MC LARS VIDEO BLOG #22

2009-02-07T15:47:00.001-08:00

This month, Lars talks about the new record, the new music video, and his near-death experience on his bike.

New song featuring 'WEIRD AL' & WHEATUS

2009-02-06T19:23:00.000-08:00

Every Friday until "This Gigantic Robot Kills" officially hits stores, I'll be premiering a track form the record on Myspace. This week it's "True Player for Real", featuring "Weird Al" Yankovic on accordion and Wheatus on guitar, bass and backup vocals.

Have a good weekend everyone!!

MC Lars

NERDCORE RISING VIDEO BLOG

2009-02-03T15:17:00.001-08:00

If you haven't seen "Nerdcore Rising", check it out. The director Negin Farsad has been doing podcasts about her time on tour with us last year to promote the movie. Check out this one about our Minnesota accident... her movie about Frontalot is premiering Friday Feb 13th in New York.

27TH STREET - LUKE SKI GUEST COMIC

2009-02-03T15:17:00.000-08:00

MarsCon is just around the corner!!! My friend and event organizer Luke Ski did a tribute to my web comic to get us all amped:

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27TH STREET - GOP MONEY

2009-01-29T15:16:00.000-08:00

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PREORDER THIS GIGANTIC ROBOT KILLS

2009-01-27T15:15:00.000-08:00

Newbury Comics is offering a special promotion where if you pre-order the new record, they'll send you a signed CD on the day it drops!! Just click here.

Support independent retailers!! These guys rock.

MC Lars

27TH STREET - OBAMA

2009-01-19T15:14:00.000-08:00

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27TH STREET - JOHN CAGE

2009-01-18T15:14:00.000-08:00

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27TH STREET - WORLD ECONOMY

2009-01-16T15:13:00.000-08:00

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