First things first, t-shirts are back on sale for a little while. Supplies are limited and I apologize in advance if I don’t have the size you want by the time you order. The shirts are sexy. Peep game at these totally awesome dudes to see why you down right need my image on your body. Your hot, hot body.

BLUE!

Small $15.00 USD Medium $15.00 USD Large $15.00 USD XL $15.00 USD 2XL $16.00 USD 3XL $17.00 USD

GREEN!

Small (SOLD OUT) $0.00 USD Medium $15.00 USD Large $15.00 USD XL $15.00 USD 2XL $16.00 USD 3XL $17.00 USD

PINK!

Small $15.00 USD

I was in a music video! A long while back while I was in Chicago I met up with Ben of the Former Fat Boys and we shot some footage for the track we’d done with YT and Lars. Cut ahead what feels like a million years and Revenge of the Nerds is out and it looks incredible. You see that spaceship? That’s next level stuff right there.

Also, I asked my beautiful girlfriend Chandra to marry me. Yeah, that’s right. Lil’ ol’ can’t get a girlfriend Beefy is going to have a wife. Ain’t that some shit? It is. So what better way to congradulate the two of us then by buying a new shirt for your body? My thoughts exactly!

I put a ring on it. Like that songs says. ORIGINAL!

Good! Because neither did I. It has been announced today that I’ll be traveling to Baltimore on March 16th to perform at the latest thrilling installment of Super Art Fight! I will mostly be there to root on my friend and With Sprinkles cover artist Brandon J. Carr as he defends his title Super Art Fight World Title against Jamie “Brawlin’” Baldwin! Did I mention that PAX Headliners, Da Vinci’s Notebook members, Jonathan Coulton cruisers, morning show radio regulars Paul & Storm will also be performing? Because that is also happening. It is happening in a very big way. As you are well aware, it is a rare occasion when I leave the comforts of my beloved Northwest, so if you can make it out to The Ottobar this March I suggest you attempt to do so. My hugs await you, traveler.

This news should in no way overshadow the fact that I am also performing next month, Feb 17-19, at Radcon in my hometown of Pasco, WA. I should let you know now that I am not in fact performing all three days, but rather I’m just unaware of when exactly I am performing. I am sure that there is efforting to get that information as we speak. I know I’m excited to go home and perform for you again Tri-Cities. I hope you can make it out!

Twitter has made me grow lazy as a writer. I wasn’t exactly Shakespeare to begin with, but there was at least a time in my life when I could keep a regular blog. Now if it’s more than 140 characters I can’t be bothered. There were days when we held iron man blogging competitions, which of course is the laziest form of competition, but a competition nonetheless. It seems like I can hear myself thinking, “Sure, you could open up Word and attempt to express very complex thoughts with your limited vocabulary… OR you could surf Reddit for a few hours then watch Doctor Who and take a nap on the couch!” And I always always always choose the nap. Napping means you’re better than other people because while other people are at work or at school or are otherwise being responsible, you’ve decided that you are entitled to some midday sleep on top of what you slept the night before and will sleep in the coming hours. And in the mind of one Beef Thompson, those options, regardless of how self-fulfilling and nonproductive they are, far outweigh the “joy” I get out of blogging. Not the opening paragraph of course. The opening paragraph is the milk chocolate bottom of my ice cream drum stick. It’s the parts below with their information and opinion that always get me down. Because I’m forced to remember those times I said, “Oh man, I have to add that to the blog.” Fat chase of that, buddy. So we’ll deal with the bigger fish and see what eventually follows.

The other day I joined the boys of Nerdcore Meow for their eleventh episode and subsequent After Hours podcasts. We discuss music new and old as well as topics you should not discuss with your grandparents. Unless you have some down ass grandparents. I like Nerdcore Meow because it reminds me of hanging out and recording with Jones McFly when we were doing regular updates of Just Another Lazy Podcast. Like JALP, podcasting about the nerdcore scene kind of pushes you right to the forefront of the community. I like it because it keeps me up to date on the goings-on on the nerdcore forums as well as letting me hear from MCs I enjoy like Billy The Fridge and Klopfenpop. Also on this podcast, I debuted a brand new song that will be on my eventual solo album. How could you not want to listen to it now?

The chances that you have heard of, let alone regularly listen to, The Dan Patrick Show is pretty slim to none. However, with my graveyard shift, the DP Show has become part of my Monday thru Friday routine. And because I write songs about things I really really enjoy, I wrote a track about Dan and the Danettes. You can catch the show on the Audience Network on Directv as well as various Root Sports stations, or hear the radio broadcast on various Fox Sports radio affiliates from 6-9am PST. Again, being as how you are reading the blog post of a nerdcore rapper, you probably aren’t huge into sports talk radio and thus will not really enjoy the track, but maybe you just like my voice and flow and also enjoy the wonderful beat making of the wonderful c64 of Dual Core.

The other day I was thinking to myself, “Self, how can I mercilessly destroy a terrible rapper while simultaneously teaching others about how to be a better rapper?” Thankfully my good friend Swagberg completed that very task with this informative and hilarious video aimed at a wayward Bronie. Swagberg, who performs under several different monikers, is in my top 5 of people who I envy in regards to their considerable talent. As the video implies, homedude knows his shit. He’s not a shit-talker like I was a shit-talker because he can actually back it up. When I was ripping into Ham-Star and MC Wreckshin I wasn’t exactly being confused with Big Pun due to my abilities. Unrelated: You should go download Kabuto’s The Kvetch Sessions.

In Beefy music news, the Grammar Club just scored a huge get in regards to featured artists. I would tell you, but then you might not buy the album. Granted, the album will be released for free on the Creative Commons license, but I still demand your surprise! At first Shael and I had discussed doing maybe a 6 song EP, but we have since moved on to an album length feature. The biggest hold up, like every other project I’m on, is me and my lack of recording. That will hopefully take care of itself. I assume through some kind of voodoo magic. I will be featured on upcoming albums from Adam Warrock, Ultraklystron, Stevie D of the Illbotz, and the Emerald Empire collaboration. Mustin and I have made no progress one our joint effort, but I have completed two new tracks for my solo album made from beats I stole years ago from Doctor Popular. I don’t have permission to use said beats, but I’m planning on doing some major Doc Pop seducing. My hip don’t lie, either.

In the background while I type this at 3:30am is the film Road Trip, wherein the main character films a lovely message to his out of town girlfriend… on VHS. Road Trip is already so old that middle school kids wouldn’t understand why Breken Meyer didn’t just Skype her. Kids who were born in 1990 can drink now. You feel old as shit now, don’t you? Have a great day!

Art by Thor Thorvaldson

Hey all! My new album, The Adventures of Beef Thompson: Vampire Hunter, is now available free for download at beefy.bandcamp.com! All it costs is your e-mail address so that I can later tell you when my next album comes up. Also exclusive info, tracks, and show announcements. No spam. I don’t have anything to sell. Also, I’ll probably lose the list of e-mails in a month or two. So you really have nothing to lose! If you feel that my music is worth a couple bucks, I set up the name your price feature so you can throw in however much you think the album is worth. All proceeds will go towards making my next album, Too Big To Fail, as good as it can be. Mastering, physical CDs, maybe traveling funds for a show or two. The options or near limitless. I’m not doing a kickstarter or going on tour to drum up funds, so you can think of this as my hip-hop bake sale. But fear not if you love the album but don’t have the funds to spare. We’ve all been there. And if you haven’t, what’s it like to be the 1%? I bet it’s super nice. Big thanks to Adam Warrock and Hairetsu for featuring on tracks and thanks to Shael Riley, Klopfenpop, tanner4105, Snake Eyes, and Doc Pop for throwing it down on the musical side. Also a giant thanks to Thor Thorvaldson for providing the amazing album art! (Check out his DA link to find out what other awesome nerdcore rapper he’s working with). If you dig the album please tell your friends, tweet, facebook, blog about it, vidcast, all that stuff. Get the word out, because nothing is better than free music! If you hate the album… I don’t know. I guess make posts about how I suck and that you hate me and that MC __________ is better. That’ll show me!

The Adventures of Beef Thompson: Vampire Hunter
This project is all but complete. It’s mostly just a collection of all the tracks I’ve put online in one form or another since With Sprinkles. Stuff like PAXXX, God Hates Fangs, Outlaw, and others. There are a couple new tracks as well, but production on one has been slow due to the swamped schedule of my friend and the other new track will require me to not suck as I attempt to finalize the track myself. As much as I like the title of “artist”, I hardly am one and have to finally, ya know, learn stuff. This project will be free for all and I keep hoping I’ll have it within the month. I’ve been saying it for months.

Untitled Project with Mustin
This project does in fact have a title, but it’s still under wraps. I tend to be a busy guy. I try to make nerd rhymes, I go to school, I have a job, and we have a kid. That can be time consuming. Mustin is in the exact same boat as I am (sans the school part I believe) so it’s understandable at this point why there hasn’t been more done on this. I have written a majority of the tracks and have done demos of a few of them, but nothing is set in stone. We’ve also been working within a concept, which has become rather challenging for me. I won’t come up with anything for weeks and months, then all of a sudden come up with something stellar (as far as I’m concerned). So the creative process on this one has been more annoying than usual. I can confirm though that the album is set to feature Zealous1, Adam Warrock, Random, and others that are awesome and that I love. It’s just a matter of getting all the pieces in motion.

New Grammar Club Album
It’s that time of year again, wherein Shael comes up with crazy wonderful ideas for tracks and I attempt to write raps to them. I want to say we already have about 4 or 5 demos in the works, with my words having been written fully for two of them so far. Our focus this go-round is to find a nice middle ground between the styles of our first album and our second. Less esoteric with more substance. Also we wanna get laid. And paid. Not necessarily in that order. As always, this project will be free for the masses unless I forget what Shael and I had talked about, which is entirely possible. If we do charge it’ll be super cheap and totally affordable. By then Obama should have given everyone a job and healthcare.

Too Big To Fail
This album is all me. I’ve “made” the beats and when I say “made” I mean I found the samples and mixed em all together. No relying on tanner or c64 or Doc Pop or Mustin to make a hot track for me to ruin with dumb raps. It’s all on me. Four tracks are completely written with roughly three more tracks on their way. With completely new production it should have a different feel from Sprinkles or Rolling Doubles, but it will still be good fun. It will cost dollars, but no more than $5. The proceeds of which go towards my rent and to people I owe money to. This makes me seem less like a charity case and more like a business man. In the event that it does well the money will go to finally making up some decent merch and maybe even some gas money to do some more shows and be able to finance it. Wouldn’t you love to see me on the road with Warrock or Lars or something like that next summer? I know I would. If nothing else I can get some better shirts to cover your midsection with. This album will discuss many things, including America, V-Cards, sleep, and the struggles of being a nerdcore rapper while still wanting Kabuto to like you. This album will also not feature other people’s raps*. I might steal people for choruses (I’m looking your way Klop. I’ll hit you up) but otherwise it’s all me. Awwww yeah!

So that’s the long and short of it. In personal news I started a new job. Due to the nature of the gig I can’t give out a whole shit-ton of details, but I’m working a graveyard shift a few nights a week which is going to allow me to get a lot of writing time in that would normally be used for sleeping. The hard part remains recording time, but maybe I’ll launch some kind of kickstarter to gain funds for studio time. I don’t know. Either way now you know music is coming. Also a podcast will be coming shortly once I can spend more than 15 minutes in front of my desktop. I’ve been playing a lot of Hanging with Friends on my phone, so if you’re playing too, hit me up. Also my Tiny Tower is no longer tiny. That’s just how I roll. I was on the west side the other weekend for VanFest 2011. The show was awesome as hell and the dudes and ladies who were there were a fantastic group of pros. The sound people were my favorite. You guys were crazy awesome and I look forward to VanFest 2012! While there I met up with Ultraklystron and we’re finally going to collab together on a couple tracks that have sick beats. I want to wish safe travels to mc chris, MC Lars, Adam Warrock, and Random as they continue their tour (I hear they’re in LA now) and I hope you all do the same and to also go to their shows and buy hella t-shirts. Thanks for your time. It’s 5am and I literally had nothing better to do than to write about myself. It’s like 2006 all over again, but with less forum drama and drunk Texans.

Love Beefy

*Unless I get lazy towards the end and ask Warrock to drop 16. I freakin’ love that guy.

Internet gentleman and fellow Street Fighter rapper Jace Hall of The Jace Hall Show blogged about me. It made me feel tingly. It is Mr. Halls’s opinion that I need to come out with more stuff for lack of a better word. Unless someone else blogs on his site. Then that person thinks those things. I am happy to report that my new EP The Adventures of Beef Thompson: Vampire Hunter should be done within the next month or so. I’m just waiting on a mix or two. The following full length album produced by Mustin will be a bit more down the road. If you’re interested in what I’ve been doing instead of making hip-hops, you can check out these youtube links. ASL and Daddy-Beefyness is busy work my friends.

Last, but surely not least, my track “Geek Out” from With Sprinkles was featured on the latest episode of The Guild! Astonishing! It clearly goes without saying (though I will say it anyway) that Mustin is a powerful man with powerful allies and somehow managed to make this happen. I am such a big fan of the series and to now be a part of it in some small way has made my e-penis the length of a midsize sedan. I’m honored is what I’m trying to say. And the manner which it is used can only be described as EPIC. It is available for download right this instant on X-Box Live and the Zune marketplace and will be online to view on Thursday. I will try hard to make sure you are all linked to that. Below is my video for “Join My Guild” with music again by Mustin and moving pictures by Joe Quigley inspired by Felicia Day’s creation. All joking aside, I’m beaming with pride!

Also, many of you will be headed to PAX Prime this weekend. I won’t be there for the first time in 5 years (if I remember correctly) and instead will be in the Tri-Cities helping to conduct a wedding. I’ll be dressed as a king. I made the right choice. I will however leave you with the track I made last year that will be on my free EP. It’s about that orgy that was advertised on craigslist last year and the track is called “PAXXX.” Tanner4105 on the beat (who also produced a BRAND NEW ALBUM you should check out as well!) so if you’re offended you should probably blame him. I would.

Beefy – PAXXX

Loooove Beefy

A couple weeks ago I felt the need to write rhymes over Gnarls Barkley’s “Smiley Faces” until I got to roughly the halfway point and decided I’d run out of rhymes. It was at this point that I took to the Twitters for a partner in crime: A role Adam Warrock was born to play. I first heard Senior Warrock back in October, and since then he’s become one of my very favorite rappers. So we rapped, and then sent it to Seattle’s very own Klopfenpop for mixing, which he did quite skillfully. And, just because we know way too many ultra-talented people who are kind on top of being awesome, Rusty Shackles was kind enough to do a bit of art for the track. Throw in all those ingredients, and you get this delicious music soup in the form of a YouTube video that sadly contains no soup.

Did I mention that Adam Warrock recently came out with his new album titled This Man… This Emcee!? I didn’t?!? You disappoint me, Beefy. His new album is 100% awesome and features the free-on-free-comic-book-day track Marvel vs. DC, a remix of Fantomex, and a track featuring myself and our good friend int80 of Dual Core. You should totally buy his album and check him out when he’s in a city near you (I don’t know his schedual at the moment, but I’m fairly certain it involves being in a city near you.) Adam worked hard on this album, but I don’t see the proof. Below is a video of exactly how hard I worked on this album. The proof is in the YouTube. (I don’t store anything inside my pudding. Not for anyone.)

Miss JALP? Well you’re going to continue to. However, Shael Riley and myself (collectively known as Fatty & Beadsley… as well as The Grammar Club) have started a limited series podcast titled Captain Podcast. You can check out the first episode, “Earth”, right now if you’re so inclined. We play music you may enjoy and discuss topics such as being fat and having beards… we’re still testing the waters. We record our next show tomorrow and it will include discussions regarding ways to improve economic growth in Latin America and the best poop we’ve ever had. It’s a mixed bag, but we try to have more cashews.

That’s it. I’m out. Buh-bye.

Download “Outlaw” Here

I haven’t posted a lot of new music lately, and I didn’t want you guys to think I didn’t love you all. I’ve been sitting on this track for a long time because me and my buddy and producer of this demo Al Craddock don’t have good work ethic. But I like the demo, so I wanted to share. If you haven’t played Red Dead Redemption, go play it right now, and then come back and listen to the track. Al plays guitar on the track and it’s gangsta. I think the final version will have a banjo on it, so stay tuned for that shit. It’ll be ill. I hope you guys dig it and I hope we get this polished and finished up soon.

A few years ago I made a track called Table Top. You might have heard it, since I’ve performed it live a million times and I’ve plastered it all over my social network sites. However, it wasn’t on YouTube. Now it is!

How good is the video above? If you answered anything other than some form of “epic” then you answered incorrectly. We already knew the song was dope, but the quality of this video is far higher than I had expected. Bravo to the MC Frontalot, int80 of Dual Core, and ytcracker for their involvement and performances and double-bravo to the director for all the work that obviously went into filming and editing. It is really really good.

That’s all for now. I’m off to take naps.

-beef

Anywho, back to my main point. The question I posed to myself was this: Is nerdcore more like Heavy Metal or Christian Rock? Metalheads and atheists, please relax. I’m not speaking in regards to style or content, but more in terms as how they relate to the overall field of rock music. Metal is a legit genre of music. I know this because iTunes has a whole metal section. Christian & Gospel show up on iTunes as well, but that banner collects all forms of Christian music including rap, rock, gospel, r&b, pop, ect. So is nerdcore like Metal? A form of music influenced but its predecessor, then taken in a different direction? Unified by not only content, but by themes, motifs, tone, mood, and other words that roughly mean, “what it sounds like”? Or is nerdcore like Christian rock? Questionably influenced by music, but more so by the need to connect with like minded listeners who appreciate references? Supported by a loyal fanbase prone to value lyrical content above song quality and originality? Forever to be considered a niche “genre”?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure there are a lot of Christian rock bands that put quality above all else. I’m sure there are bands that would fill my iPod if I wasn’t put off by the content of their lyrics. But then I remember P.O.D used to be a Christian band, but once they stopped rocking out about the Lord, they reached mainstream success. I’m also positive that there are Metal bands that suck ass. But my issue isn’t with the merits of two forms of rock, but rather with one weird version of hip-hop.

Nerdcore’s relevance has been on my mind a lot recently. Donald Glover aka Community’s Troy Barnes, aka the gay inner-city high school graduate from 30 Rock, aka the dude with a bag full of black dildos bathed in Axe body spray from this Derrick video, aka rapper Childish Gambino recently came out with a free EP elegantly titled The EP, wherein he makes the following rhyme:

“I’m rapping about everything I go through
Everything I’m sayin, I’m super sayin (Saiyan) like Goku”

Pretty nerdy rhyme right? It’s not like Jay-Z spouting out rhymes about Spider-Man or the Batcave. You’d be hard pressed to find a rapper outside of my genre that would ever think to reference Dragon Ball Z, let alone so creatively. Mr. Gambino then immediately follows up this line with two words that make me hurt a little inside.

“Fuck Nerdcore.”

He then goes onto say..

“Fuck backpack
Fuck rap cool
I make cool rap.”

What I hate most is how well he delivers these lines. They stand out in such a way that if you have no frame of reference as to what nerdcore or backpack are, you still pay attention and appreciate the breakdown. You feel what he feels. Nerdcore, backpack, and “rap cool” are all things that we the listeners should disapprove of.

If you couldn’t tell, I’m a fan of Donald Glover. As a fan, I’ve watched his career climb from the vids he (and the Derrick group) put up on YouTube before the days of partnerships and ads, to becoming a writer on the best comedy show made in the past ten years, to co-starring in one of my favorite TV shows ever. I understand why he doesn’t like the label associated with people like me, most likely because it is associated with people of like me. Personally, it’s getting harder and harder to defend nerdcore against people I’ve looked up to and admired for years. mc chris. MC Lars. Jesse Dangerously. And now Childish Gambino. CG even did a track with mc chris, which gave me hope for just a small while until I realized the only thing it means is that two talented people who might have bumped into each other at the UCB Theatre decided one night that they needed to hook up for a track. Maybe they talked about their thoughts on music. Maybe they discussed nerdcore’s merits against its faults. Or maybe they simply agreed that, “nerdcore is so dumb.” Then they probably laughed and high fived and moved on with their lives.

I’ve been having a musical identity crisis to say the least. I don’t know who’s wrong. I don’t know who’s right. There’s a reason you look up to certain people. When those people publicly disapprove of, and in some cases attack an idea or concept or even something tangible that you value, how do you not question your own beliefs? For as long as I’m writing songs about my feelings towards girls as they relate to pinball machines, I will rep the banner of nerdcore. But it’s hard right now to say I will represent proudly, when the artists you strive to emulate call what you do and the people you work with a joke. An embarrassment. A gimmick. Exploitive. Nothing more than a niche offering for people who know nothing about “true hip-hop”. If Frontalot rhymed less like an English professor and more like Nelly would we be closer to the mainstream? If I could rap circles around Talib Kweli, would nerdcore gain cred? If ytcracker rapped exactly the same but ditched all computer references would we as fans of nerdcore even embrace him? If Biggie had rapped a few more bars about his Nintendo and Sega Genesis, would we have more than just the Beastie Boys to point to as our geeky forefathers?

Or should we just say fuck it and just like what we like without worrying about labels?

I’ve been told that is impossible.

However, there are more important things happening in the world right now. The Middle East is somehow worse than when Bush was in office, Japan is in ruins, our country is run by the same corporations that run Nascar, Airport security needs to feel you up before you are allowed to fly, my country is actually making it more difficult for me and mine to get a higher education, and there are still tons and tons of oil just sitting in our water. So I guess we’ll just live with this whole nerdcore issue for now, but as soon as we fix all of those other problems, we’re going to get to the bottom of this whole nerdcore thing. That’s my campaign promise.

Beefy
Your Nerdcore Superhero
2012

-love beef