Local rapper and spoken word poet Rota has recently released his new record, YOLO! ... an album about death, which he promises is funnier than it sounds. The album's theme deals with honest discussion about death, grief, and loss.
Rota's final show in Champaign-Urbana is this week, he's a member of Rogue Tendency, and they are performing at Memphis on Main.
Listen to the album below:
Poster Children have released their brand new album — their first since 2004's No More Songs About Sleep and Fire — Grand Bargain!. We debuted the title track back in January, and now, the full album is available for streaming/purchasing.
Rapper CJ Run has released two new tracks, "747" and "Indigo", which you can stream now on a variety of platforms. They've been on tour and recording recently, but here's a taste of some new material for the time being.
I stopped by the Give Back Garden (201 W. Kenyon Road, Champaign) this week and learned that they are in need of volunteers NOW for the following tasks:
All of the garden's harvest is free and given away to the community, but they need assistance with growing and maintaining the garden. All tools are supplied by the GBG.
So, if you individually are interested in gardening/community service or are affiliated with groups looking for summer projects, please reach out to Valerie at GiveBackGarden@c-uphd.org and commit your organization to support this effort this summer.
Check out SP's article on the Give Back Garden for more info on the work that they do.
Photo by Nicole Anderson Cobb
-800x400.jpg)
-300x300.jpg)
-350x136.jpg)
-600x300.jpg)
Experimental electronic project Snayl has a new album on the way — Without is out on Jun 9th. The album will feature CJ Run, Cii La'Cole, KVMPVIGN, and more. This is the follow up to Snayl's last record, Dreaming of Ghosts.
Earlier this week, Motes announced their new album Crash the Day would also be out June 9th.
Check out the track listing and album art below.
.jpg&fid=33&d=20487&)
Without:
Album art by Billi Jo Hart
Back in March, Motes announced their new record Crash The Day was on its way. Today they've detailed more information about the Keep it in the Dark follow up, which is out June 1st 8th via Heirship Records.
Check out the album art, track listing, and new single "Again Again" below.
Cover art by Paige Spangler
Crash The Day:
Psych outfit ZXO have released a couple of new tracks, "Silver Parade" and "Blinding Ray", their first new releases since LP1 came out at the end of 2017.
Stream the tracks below, and check out the album artwork:
Bones Jugs have dropped a brand new EP for you to check out called Rag Day II, and you can stream it below. This is the first release since their 2016 album Don't Waste a Drop, which finished in our top 10 that year.
Bones have a show this Thursday at Blackbird, check out the Overture for all the info there.
Without a doubt, one of the most influential and impactful records in the history of emo, Braid's Frame & Canvas was released 20 years ago to the day. Though I believe the official date was April 7th, 1998, April 6th is close, and Polyvinyl and the band are celebrating this. Consistently recognized as a staple of the genre, Frame & Canvas is celebrated far beyond our community.
You should read David Anthony's article on Noisey about the record.
Stream the record below, and check out some old videos I dug up from YouTube:
It has been roughly two years since Kyle Lang retired his project, Easter, which formed in Urbana in the late 2000s. Today I'm listening to DEMONSTRATION, one of the better albums to come out of Champaign-Urbana over the past decade. We voted it our favorite album of 2011.
It has been a minute since I listened to this, so that's what I'm doing this morning. Whether you celebrate Easter, or April Fool's Day, or something else, enjoy this 15 minutes.
Singer-songwriter Paul Kotheimer has been making music for quite some time in Champaign-Urbana. He recently released a new EP with a title too long for me to place in the title of this post: You don't have to be perfect to fulfill your dream.
Stream it below via his Bandcamp page:
I was pointed in the direction of this local release just a few minutes ago: Fake Friend's ∴∵ is some of the best local music I've heard in quite some time. Fake Friend is the project of Spencer Walters, and that's about all I know about the release right now, outside of it being very good.
Do yourself a favor and check out the release below, you will not be disappointed.
The SPlog is available to our community of readers and Editors to get the word out about upcoming shows, events, ideas, quick opinions, photos, videos, overheard quotes — anything really, provided that it doesn't break the law.
Smile Politely also allows businesses who advertise with the magazine to access the SPlog to promote most anything and everything that's going on with them in their world.
Ultimately, we monitor the SPlog closely, so if we don't post your submission, we'll get in touch with you and discuss why. If every submission got posted, well, things would get messy in a hurry. We hope you understand.
Editors' note: Smile Politely maintains the right to edit all SPlog entries for grammar, punctuation, and syntax, but will never change the meaning or content of any submissions.
Featured Articles
Submit to SPlog