Above is a photo taken on a recent early morning of the Staten Island Ferry Terminal Greenmarket - the twice weekly (Tuesdays and Fridays from 8am to 7pm) farmers market inside the Staten Island Ferry building. Located all the way downtown at 4 South Street ferry commuters on their way to work or tourists on their way to a free Staten Island Ferry ride past the Statue of Liberty etc. can pick up fresh fruit, live plants, veggies, and maple syrup from the local farms of Wilklow Orchards and Remsburger Maple Farm.

The farmers market also presents cooking demos, seasonal celebrations, and "family friendly activities" but this Saturday will be a very different vibe at this location as thousands of punk rock fans will throng through the open terminal space on their way over to (and from) the Punk Island festival on Staten Island's Pier 1 where over 90 punk bands will perform on several outdoor stages from 10am til 10pm - one of the many wonderful events happening in New York City in the week ahead and previewed here in the latest (#36) installment of the weekly New York State of Mind Amoeblog.

       

The rap-rooted act Die Antwoord never fail to continually impress with both their supercharged rap/techno music and accompanying other-worldly videos. Their latest single/video "Cookie Thumper," which was published to YouTube earlier today via noisey, is a production of pure brilliance by the trio comprised of Yo-Landi Vi$$er, Ninja, and DJ Hi-Tek. And I just love how this South African group can so effortlessly take all the various extremes of American hip-hop/rap - from nasty sexy to scary eerie - and somehow do a better job of serving it up it than their American pop/rap counterparts; and all the while rapping/singing in their own tongue with just some English words thrown in including some hip-hop references to Naughty By Nature and Ol' Dirty Bastard.

I love these guys, always have, and appreciate how they never attempt to sanitize or water down in any way their whole vibe for mainstream appeal. And this video and song just drive that point home for me. The song is a single from Die Antwoord forthcoming album Donker Mag (to be released by ZEF Recordz in February 2014) while the video, with cinematography by Alexis Zabe and Paul Gilpin with production by ZEF Filmz in association with VICE, is expertly directed by band member Ninja who picked up David Lynch's Eraserhead among his finds in the crates at Amoeba Hollywood - as seen Die Antwoord's entertaining What's In My Bag? below - filmed round same time (Oct 2010) they did an instore at Amoeba San Francisco - pictured left.

We have added Billie Holiday to Amoeba Music's ever expanding, much-lauded Vinyl Vaults. This Amoeba-exclusive, historic vault of American music icons, which specializes in preserving valued vinyl releases by carefully transferring them to digital files, already includes such icons as Louis Armstrong.

Our curated collection of digitized vinyl and 78s will also unveil Kenny Rogers this month, but more on his inclusion into the Vinyl Vaults in a later Amoeblog.

For now let's take a look at the jazz/blues legend that was Billie Holiday and whose Vinyl Vaults additions will include approximately 30 different tracks (most emastered and now available from Amoeba) "Lady Day's" short 44 years on this earth (1915 - 1959) was filled with the blues and her musical legacy is a part of American music history. Amoeba deserves major props for helping preserve. One of the folks responsible for the tedious task of digital transformation of Amoeba's Vinyl Vaults is Gregory Griffith. I talked with him over the past couple of days to find out more about these Billie Holiday additions to the Vinyl Vaults that are now available in three digital files: mp3, M4A (lossless), or WAV.

As previewed here on the Amoeblog over the weekend famed former Can vocalist Malcolm Mooney visited the Bay Area to team up with his band Tenth Planet,which features members of Negativland, MX80, The Mutants, Neung Phak, Crack:WAR, and Le Flange du Mal, to play two select NorCal shows: Friday, June 14th at The Lab in San Francisco and the following night at The Layover in Oakland. I was among the lucky ones to make it to the latter, Saturday, June 15th, intimate setting East Bay concert which by all accounts, including Mooney's himself, was the better of the two Bay Area exclusives. For the early show, which was scheduled to start at 8pm sharp and had to be over by 9pm (it ran til 9:15pm with an encore) to make room for the regularly scheduled Shockwave DJs night (Tim Diesel and Max Kane), Mooney was supported by the tight four piece The Tenth Planet - including Amoeba Music co-owner Marc Weinstein on drums.

"I've been playing with Malcolm in various forms for 20 years now and this current band is perhaps the tightest most inspired lineup. It was a fantastic show," said Weinstein of the tight, supercharged set that included both new tracks and reworkings of such Can classics as the crowd pleasing "Yoo Doo Right," "Outside My Door," and "She Brings The Rain." Immediately following the show and before he rushed off to get a few hours of  sleep before heading to SFO by 5am I had an opportunity to chat with Malcolm Mooney for a few minutes on Franklin Street right outside the downtown Oakland Layover club. That short dim street light lit video clip (below), that includes a few words from Marc Weinstein, has Mooney talking about the latest Tenth Planet lineup, the Lab versus the Layover shows, and comparisons between making music and painting - Mooney's other artistic passion.

1) The Alchemist & Prodigy Albert Einstein (Infamous Records)

2) Gajah & Mute Speaker On And Offspring (Acid Lab Records)

3) The White Mandingos The Ghetto Is Tryna Kill Me (Ingrooves/Fat Beats)

4) Gavlyn Habit That You Blame (Broken Complex)

5) French Montana Excuse My French (Geffen)

Big ups to E-Lit at Amoeba Berkeley for supplying the latest top five hip-hop chart (based on sales at the Telegraph Ave store for past week) and also doing the video interview below to discuss these and all the other new hip-hop releases coming out in both CD and vinyl formats at this time - of which there are a lot of really great new (mostly indie) hip-hop releases dropping right now. These include the hot-selling, guest heavy, official debut (after two dozen unofficial mixtape releases) by French Montana Excuse My French on Geffen, and the power duo teaming of The Alchemist & Prodigy for the album pictured above  Albert Einstein on Prodigy's Infamous Records label of which the Mobb Deep member told MTV News in an interview a few months ago that, "At Infamous, I'm looking for artists that, #1 have their own movement goin', they got their thing goin' already." And with The Alchemist he certainly got that! This is actually the second collaboration for these two since Return of the Mac and the fourteenth year that Alchemist has been working with Mobb Deep (he first collaborated - producing for 1999′s Murda Muzik on the tracks "Thug Muzik" and "The Realest"). Fans of Mobb Deep will dig this new collaboration since it recalls some of the old dark grimy Mobb Deep sound.

Among the other new hip-hop releases either included in the chart above or the video with E-Lit below include Homeboy Sandman's vinyl only release (with digital download code) Kool Herc: Fertile Crescent on Stones Throw, Gavlyn's Habit That You Blame on Broken Complex, Gajah & Mute Speaker's On And Offspring on Acid Lab Records, and The White Mandingos' not to be missed The Ghetto Is Tryna Kill Me on Ingrooves/Fat Beats for CD and vinyl versions respectively.  This interesting new collaborative project from the ever prolific Murs, which takes its name from the 1994 Master P release of the same title. The Amoeba online store review of this new album states: “I’m too black for the m*thafuckin’ underground/The white fans barely tolerate my black ass/If I embrace them, I catch a backlash from the black fans,” Murs states plainly on “Black N White Revisited,” from his collaboration with Bad Brains guitarist/singer Darryl Jennifer and editor/artist Sacha Jenkins. For artists caught between worlds, The White Mandingos is a brilliant foray into musical freedom, combining Murs’ cerebral underground hip-hop with the hardcore ferocity of Bad Brains. Jenkins’ guitars cut, shred and destroy on tracks like “Warn a Brotha,” with a great line from Murs — “f*ck the Rolling Stones, and f*ck you, too.”

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