It’s summertime and Chicago is killing it left and right, enough so that every now and then Brooklyn comes to us for culture instead of the other way around. Let’s see what’s going down in our own manmade Midwest Coast…..

SHOW YOU SUCK

Show You Suck is everywhere right now, gearing up for the release of One Man Pizza Party 3, so let’s start with him, and where better to start than “Original Chon-Chon”. The track is a remix of a remix, with the partyjam of the year somewhere in the middle. Flosstradamus’ traprave is building them a reputation as an act that gets people too wilded-up for the party, and has had their sets shut down by the CPD and banned from subsequent fests in Chicago and DC. Their remix of Major Lazer’s “Original Don” is almost as ubiquitous as Major Lazer’s “Pon De Floor” was a couple years back so let’s check in with the track with added verses by Show, directed by our own Stefan Klapko….

Show You Suck – Original ChonChon (original don Flosstradamus remix) from Stefan Klapko on Vimeo.

In addition to Floss, the damn-near straightedger is collaborating with Netherfriends (here with a Harry Nilsson sample and a trippy video full of scenes from seventies educational cartoons) and Isaiah Toothtaker, from his mixtape #SEAPUNKFUNK, produced by Sixtoo and available free c/o Anticon.

“Talkin Bout” Isaiah Toothtaker FT. ShowYouSuck (Prod by Sixtoo) from Isaiah Toothtaker on Vimeo.

And here’s why a self-described “shitty rapper” is damn near omnipresesent these days: homies help homies. It’s a mantra, a hashtag, a decent way to live life and the subtitle of Show’s collaboration with Auggie the 9th, “Hunter Hearst Helmsley”, with a video featuring old media/new media line-straddler Ernest Wilkins, Hollywood Holt, and a gun that shoots cat heads…

AUGGIE THE 9TH

Frequent Show You Suck collaborator Auggie the 9th, just released his first mixtape People’s Court and its first video “Redemption”. It’s a chill track that gives me a fun nineties Souls of Michief/Pharcyde vibe and depicts duder getting his epic flat top and mangy beard all cleaned up.

BBU

BBU has a couple new videos for tracks off their Bell Hooks mixtape. In the first, they throw a patio/porch party in the hood with GLC; in the second they do that thing where they’re constantly approaching a backing-away cameraman without catching the bastard, filmed on the abandoned tracks of the Bloomingdale Trail, with a chorus that will probably be stuck in my head til I die. Actually both tracks have that. Chi don’t dance no more, they just drill holes into my fucking head with catchy earworms.

The O’My’s

We just got a chance to work with The O’My’s again after a while and they’ve gotten polished as fuck. They’re collaborating with everyone from Chance the Rapper to Twista right now and joining JC Brooks & the Uptown Sound as one of the live soul acts to check out in the city, with a little less emphasis on James Brown and a little more emphasis on Marvin Gaye and some tight ass babymaking music. In “Wonder Years”, they get sentimental with family and in “My House” they get raunchy with a backyard party gone awry. There’s fire! And boobs! And that part where you always have to cockblock someone in the band to actually start the show before the party gets busted!

Supreme Cuts / Haleek Maul

Supreme Cuts‘ collaboration with Haleek Maul is dropping in a couple weeks. Their first video, “The Dummy”, with Deniro Farrar is dark. The music is dark and the video is both literally and figuratively dark, full of tremors and shadows, barely-seen sleeping figures and bottles of pills swiped from the medicine cabinet. Sonically, this is some truly different shit and it’s been giving Chicago music writers boners for months in anticipation.

MIC TERROR

We know Mic Terror; we love Mic Terror. Let’s take a couple to enjoy this quickie video from last month. It’s based around a (I-can’t-tell-if-it’s-a-well-timed-or-poorly-timed) joke about Rodney King that reminds you that Mic Terror loves pussy, and has machinations on what he intends to do with it. Also there’s a cop with a mascot duck head getting the shit kicked out of him.

WHITE MYSTERY

The only straight-up rock’n’roll band of this round-up is Chicago’s most filmable brother-and-sister duo, White Mystery, shown here performing in the psychedelic Reggie’s bus and onstage at The Metro for last year’s GlitterGuts Dance Punk Circus!

Mishka plus (damn near) EVERYONE ELSE IN THE GODDAMN CITY

For their 2012 Fall Lookbook, NYC’s Mishka shot some of Chicago’s best-and-brightest, mostly musicians (many of whom have releases out or coming out soon on Mishka’s superbly-curated, quickly-becoming-a-behemoth music label), along with some tumblr fashion icons like Cult’s Teen Witch and #seapunks (and occasional backup dancers for Grimes) Molly Soda and Clairey Pear. Among the musicians were Show You Suck, Auggie the 9th, Supreme Cuts, BBU, Hollywood Holt, Hood Internet, The Drum, Sich Mang, My Gold Mask, Manny Muscles, Zombelle, Ultrademon, Tree G, and Lol Boys (who aren’t local but have a lot of couches to sleep on when they’re here). And also tattoo artist Jason Hoodrich, because he’s cool enough just to get free shit for being himself (just gonna pout here for a second that I’m not; always a bridesmaid, never a cutting edge next-level artist fashion icon. Sigh).

The lookbook was shot by Todd Dierich and the preview video was done by Fly Kite Media. And just to make everything full circle, it was set to Show You Suck’s “All Love Everything”

Мишка Fall 2012 Lookbook [Teaser Video] from Мишка Bloglin on Vimeo.