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Concert Fri Feb 02 2007
Hipster Girls, Hot Topic, and A Retelling of Moby Dick, Or The Life and Times of MC Lars
Yes, it was embarrassing. And yes, it was silly. By it was damn catchy. Deadeye Dick's early '90s ode to hippy chick resurgence entitled "New Age Girl" is now forever relegated to "Best of the '90s" comps, but for a time in '94 it served its purpose. Hoping to not end up relegated to the same fate is Brooklyn cultural commentator/rapper MC Lars, whose recent single "Hipster Girl" does for Williamsburg fashionistas what Deadeye Dick did for Sierra Club hotties. A recent Stanford grad, Lars has churned out a couple EPs and last year's The Graduate LP for a surprising large fan base (dude has over 500,000 Myspace friends and his first EP sold over 10,000 copies). Unabashedly self-compared to Weird Al, the Bloodhound Gang, and collaborators Bowling for Soup, who add vocals to The Gaduate's "Download This Song," Lars wears his critical heart on his sleeve via ProTools approved samples and late '80s whiteboy rap delivery. Constructing clever tales of corporate label stooges searching for the next big thing ("Signing Emo") to setting the facts straight about consumer capitalism's absorption of punk style ("Hot Topic is Not Punk Rock") to relating the ins and outs of the ever-changing hipster aesthetic ("Hipster Girl"), the message is clear: examine your culture critically because it might just be playing you. Perhaps Lars falls into some of these corporate traps himself, however, by labeling his DIY genre as "post-punk laptop rap" for easy identification as well as pining for fame and riches on his Myspace page, but these errors are almost excusable in light of the fact that Lars can also retell Melville by way of a Supergrass sample. Check out the below video to see what I mean:
Whether he'll end up identified as "guilty pleasure" or "blogosphere stud," Chicagoans will have a chance to judge the self-proclaimed MC for themselves at the beginning of next month. On March 3rd at Champs Rock Room MC Lars brings his game to the Windy City. Holla.
