May 26, 2010 - G. Love on Jack Johnson’s new album, “To the Sea”

G. Love is featured on two tracks of Jack Johnson’s new album “To the Sea,” hitting stores June 1st! Rolling Stones is broadcasting five songs from the album where you can watch G. Love tear it up on the harmonica on the clip of “At Or With Me.” Watch it here.

Catch all of G. Love’s harmonica stylings by listening to the rest of “At Or With Me” and “Red Wine, Mistakes, Mythologies” on Rhapsody, which features the full album.
Check it out.

May 25, 2010 - 5/24/10 - Writing on the Walls Again

I wanted to reminisce about the days of my youth in Philly and the inner city youth culture which I grew up in. I was especially thinking of the days and times of the graffiti writers.   

I became a teenager in Philly in the 80’s and so that’s where my journey in life and manhood began. I truly think that young people come into themselves around the age of 15 and so those early teenage years I spent really had an impact on who I am, what I do and what I like today.  In my crew there was always something new every year. It went, Basketball, Skateboarding, Break Dancing back to Skateboarding, B-ball and Hip Hop, back again to skateboarding, graffiti writing, city biking, and then music, the interest of which was definitely fueled by marijuana and the spirit of teenage rejection of the “normal” path in life. I could definitely write a whole story on each phase and I guess I will but today I’ve been itching to write about my days as an aspiring and unfortunately, lousy graffiti writer.   

Kadism, LM, Spel, Braze, Espo, Sere, Mr. Blint, Credit, Daze, Soda, Mesk, Tok and Clad, Cub, Cem, Bose, NM, Dane, Meez, Baka, Chicago, Lover, ICY, i2i, WP, NP, SP the list goes on and on. These were the names of the hustling, Philly kids, crews and neighborhoods whose tags literally coated the poor walls of Philadelphia.   

A new kid whose name was Jeff came to my school in 8th grade.  Jeff, wrote Cub, and he was from the rough and tough streets across the Schukyll River, West Philly. From him we learned where to score 40s of Bartles & James wine coolers and Crazy Horse, buy spray paint as minors, get Trizzy’s (fake SEPTA transpasses to ride the subway for free), sneak into the underground and of course pick a graffiti name.  Jeff spent a whole math class demonstrating numerous styles to practice writing my tag over and over and over again.  During Math, English, History and any other class where we had a pen and a piece of paper, we were steady tagging loose leaf.   

I was never such a good artist, but the little hand that I do have was from practicing my tag. I wrote LOOK. I sucked! I wrote that word hundreds of times a day. Skateboarding had been cool but this was a whole new level of rebellion and expression, a purpose to sneaking around. It was catching too. There were probably 5-10 of us at school who wrote and we had a small school. Graffitti was such a huge, huge problem in Philly in the 80s. It was costing the city money, lots and lots of money to clean up.     

There were laws passed so minors couldn’t buy spray paint or fat paint pens and magic markers without an adult. We would have to go to the art supply store and get a stranger to buy paint for us like it was beer or just lift it. My boy Fed (who is now my manager!) and I, found a paint supplier, an old timer, Mr. Zinny, who would sell us paint.  Mr. Zinny was an old Italian shopkeeper who had a small, dusty, disorganized art supply store on the 1600 block of Pine St. We would go in, these 2 the innocent looking 15 year old boys, and convince Mr. Zinny that we needed spray paint for this and that. He would always say, “You kids are good kids right? Yous ain’t writing graffiti right?” and we would say, “Of course not Mr. Zinny, that’s just awful, we would never do that, this is for art class!”   

I will never forget the nervous pit in my stomach sitting in my room on a Friday night, listening to the Beastie Boys “No Sleep Till Brooklyn” blaring on my crappy stereo. My little sister having a sleepover, my parents getting ready to go out to dinner and me getting ready to meet my boys on South St. to stalk the streets, drink Jolt cola and write our names on the walls.   

There was this old abandoned building on 22nd St. right by the commuter rail line…its condos now but back then it was simply known as The Factory. We would skate, bike or bus it uptown and meet up there.  Climbing up the gutted stairways of the trash infested shell of a building, probably breathing asbestos and all kinds of shit, we would kick it on the rooftop. Hanging wide eyed by the water tower coughing on cigarettes and trying to fit in with the best writers in town. It was there I smoked weed for the first time. It was around those tracks we would run from the cops, paint cans and markers jangling like a hundred keys in our pockets, ditching and running. Writing for a while, a can of paint or two, then heading off to Rittenhouse Sq to drink 40’s in the park or our friend’s parent’s lux apartment.   

You could control the flow of the paint from a spray paint can by switching the cap. It was always the thing to do after school, go raid the hardware and grocery store for fat caps and thin caps. The caps would be on cans of cleaners. Just wait till no one was around pop the cap in your pocket and nonchalantly put the can of Marble Magic back on the shelf.  Back then you could hardly buy a can of aerosol based cleaner that had a cap left on it. My parents freaked out in utter confusion when they discovered an Altoids tin full of turpentine and paint caps in my desk. Oh shit. We had this big sit down. They were asking me how I used these caps.  They were certain I was doing drugs with them.  They though I was huffing gas or something crazy. I could barely keep a straight face. I just told them they were a collection of caps, “everyone collects them Dad!” If he only knew…  My Dad was not cool with breaking the law trust me.   

    One day on the train tracks we ran into Mesk, Tok and Clad. A 3 man crew that had a lot of rep, tags everywhere.  I swear it was like seeing a famous person. Another time, I was riding the 42 bus and scratching up the back window with a rock (this was called a scratch tag, a wonderful way to permanently ruin a pane of glass). On the bus jumps Kenny Meez and LM. LM was one of the most famous writers. He was a dirty little Puerto Rican kid with a mullet and a bad attitude. He probably had a knife but I felt I could kick his ass. I was probably wrong. Kenny Meez was a kid I knew from hanging around Spikes Skates back in the day. Kenny was a real nice guy, a freestyle skateboarder the last time I saw him, now he was just an asshole. He came right up to me and asked me did I write LOOK. He acted like he didn’t even know me from skating to impress LM. I said yeah, “I’m Look”, he went on to accuse me of crossing out a scratch tag of his on the D bus. This of course was total bullshit…trust me, I never have been and never will be the type of kid to start beef. I said I didn’t do it and they warned me not to do it again saying I was bullshit and all this and that. LM busted a scratch tag and they rolled off the bus.   

This was a kind of dangerous spit to be in for me because the kids from the real hood were tough and the kids from the city, nice and good skateboarding kids, were starting to try act real tough and here I was, a real nice kid that was all tall and lanky, the perfect target for someone who wanted to start shit just to prove they were tough. Luckily, I’ve always been quite adept at reasoning my way out of potentially violent confrontations.  Later that week I ran into Sere on the R8 commuter train in Germantown and told him my predicament. I told him I was pretty sure I could, if forced to, kick the shit out of Meez and that he should tell Meez I was innocent and that Meez and his mulleted sidekick should leave me the fuck alone. Sere was real cool and agreed that Meez was just starting shit for no reason. He said he would talk to him. Sere was a dope piecer a real art kid so he got respect. That was the end of that.   

Anyways, so many stories and crazy nights. Finally, my good friend Soda who is a gifted artist, got into writing and he put some huge pieces with all of our names up on the Wall of Fame on I76. It was like we made the big time man! The pieces were buffed a couple weeks later but our shit was up there with the best. And they looked damn good too. It was like we were famous for a second.   

When my interests mellowed towards marijuana, music and basketball I still never lost the habit of writing my tag and I still do it to this day. Later my tag became G. Love and Special Sauce and I made sure to write that shit everywhere.   

Some of the Philly writers we grew up with have become profound artists check out ESPO.  Just Google Steve Powers, his paintings sell for big money now and he is widely collected and shown around the world.  Also Sere aka Barnaby Furnas is huge and widely shown gallery and museum artist. My boy Soda did art at Lost surfboards and made a bunch of our early shirts (the famous Lemonade girl was a design of his). A lot of the writers went into music. Bose became a producer, Meez became a DJ; Cem, became a DJ as well, he actually did the cuts on our track “Dreamin”.

As I’ve grown up and started collecting art, my tastes still favor the street-smart art of the refined graffiti writers, people like Shepard Fairy, Banksy, Greg Haberny and Steve Powers.  I wrote a song about it on the G. Love “Oh Yeah” record called, “Writing on the Walls”.  My parents were utterly ashamed and disappointed when they realized I was de facing public property and now as a tax payer looking back I see their point…but, I wouldn’t give up those high anxiety times for a second. These days where ever I go I’m always scoping out the graffiti and the street art. True, some is just scribble but most of it is the colorful voice of the youth splashing our concrete jungles with vision and expression.

“Cap my can, my paint in hand, I’m writing on the walls again…” 

Peace!

May 20, 2010 - 5/20/2010 - Getting Ready

What up Pham.  Spring is here and summer is right around the bend and I’m loving it. So nice to be able to jam in the sunshine all day and grill it up at night and hoop on the weekends.
   
I’ve had some good times home with the fam and now I’m heading halfway around the world to Tokyo for the Green Room festival in Yokohama. 48 hours of travel for 50 mins on stage? Sure, why not…HELL YES! I’m pumped to get back to Japan and back on the stage. I think this will be something like my 29th trip to Japan. I’ve been making this trip for 15 years. Damn! I will never forget looking down at the main intersection in Shibuya during rush hour and all those people on the street…such a different culture than America.  Shibuya makes Times Square in NYC look like a suburb. Tokyo is the ultimate city. I have to say that I feel like Japanese cooking is the most elevated cooking in the world. It’s definitely up for debate… Anyways, its f*cking good that’s all I know. I always eat the craziest food there and I’m about to do it again so bring it on. If it grows, swims, walks, squirms, crawls, floats or climbs- I’m eating it.

   
So here’s a brief rundown on something’s brewing in Philadelphonic.  I’m just starting to work on a secret, summer, carbonated, alcoholic, and cold beverage due for a possible 2011 summer release. What is it?!?! Top secret but I will say that involves lemonade and beer and a classic brewery….

My homie Will Conner at Adventure Hats and Cover Hats is gearing up to release a G. Love summer straw fedora 100 percent of the profits will continue to go to Malaria No More.

I’m gearing up for my long awaited solo acoustic tour in support of the good brother Jack Johnson. This tour will take me coast to coast and I can’t wait to kick it. I’m going to be drawing material from my street musician, Oh Yeah record days, delta blues like Robert Johnson and John Hurt, covers from Velvet underground, Eric B and Rakim and Leadbelly as well as my newest original material.

In the fall I will begin work on my acoustic roots record. A record I’ve been waiting 15 years to make. I apologize for taking so long between records this time but I finally feel like it’s the record I want to make. I promise!!

My record collaboration with the infamous Plutonics from Oz is in its final stages of production and I hope it will be released late 2010 and will bring me back to Oz for a collaboration tour. This project is so damn funky. I swear its gonna be your new favorite G. Love record.

I also hit the studio with Slightly Stoopid for a week and we continued work on our collaboration projects.  We made 4 dope tracks and it was great reconnecting with the fellas for some of everything you’d expecteverything you need.

Well, that’s about it right now. Thanks for tuning in. See you this summer!!!
Thanks! G

May 04, 2010 - 5/4/10 - Baja Living

What’s up Pham!!

It’s been awhile since I picked up the pen ya know so here we go. I’ve been runnin and I’ve been racin, so many different towns so many different places…Winter tour wrapped up a couple weeks ago and just in time for the ice to melt in Boston, I had spring break with my son on the gulf coast in FLA where I fished for Tarpon and enjoyed the naturals of Sanibel including many Alligators and Snakes.  After that I was off to Todos Santos, which is just north of Cabo, the southern tip off Baja, Mexico.  I was on a surf trip to make a short film with Keith Malloy, Tyler Warren and soon to be legendary shaper Chris Christenson.

For 5 days and nights we surfed, jammed music, fished, beached it and imbibed a sh#tload of Cereveza, Pacifico, of course its got to be Pacifico.

This was a unique project for me because, although I’ve had many tunes in movies of all kinds throughout the years, this will be the first project I’ve completely scored. After I surfed to exhaustion, I would sit on the beach and jam my guitar to the sights of Keith, Tyler and Chris surfing. I tapped into their fluid movements and emulated the sounds of their rides through my slide guitar and harp. All I can say is I can’t wait to see this shit.

Other highlights were, the hundred fish tacos I ate and definitely fishing for giant Humboldt Squid. Using a hand line, squid rig and the knowledge the kindly and cereveza loving Pescadores, we pulled up about 20 of these 30-40 lb giant squid. Of course I tried to cook one up but it was nasty! And you know I eat everything.

They sell thousands of pounds of these a day to market though, so somewhere, somehow, someone must be able to make them taste good. It was beyond me.

So, after a week in Baja, I was inspired and worn out from such a good time. I had a good night off and rested my bones in San Diego where I’m just waking up now and getting ready for a surf before I hit the lab with Slightly Stoopid to continue our work on our collaborative EP which has the working title of Stoopid Love.

Meanwhile, back in reality there’s a lot of crazy shit going on I’m worried worried worried about the Gulf Coast which I feel has become like a second home to me in the last couple years. This BP oil spill is going to devastate such pristine coastline and an economy, which is still reeling and struggling to rebuild from Hurricane Katrina.

Also, in hometown Boston, the sewer main burst into the main water supply so the whole city has to boil water to drink.

It just goes to show you how tight of a rope we walk on and everyday is an uncertainty so live it up as best you can. Stay positive and help, help, help. Try to be a solution not a problem!
Thanks, G

Apr 16, 2010 - G. Love Acoustic in Charleston, SC

Watch G. Love rock the local scene in Charleston, SC!

Listen to live acoustic versions of “Still Hangin’ Around” and “Baby’s Got Sauce” as G kicks it with the Charleston locals at the Bridge 105.5, and Halfmoon Outfitters.

Mar 19, 2010 - Southern Swang

What up what up what up Pham!!

Well, we are two weeks into the second leg of our winter tour and after a slamming week of shows we are gearing up to play Charleston, SC. C-Town has always been one of my favorite spots and today was just beautiful. Spring is finally in the air and it feels good to see the sun.

This tour has seen the band digging into a lot of old obscure catalogue tracks like “Town to Town” and “Walk to Slide” as well as new joints like “Party, Freakin’” and “Come Back to me”. It’s feeling real nice and the band is crackalacking

We had a real tough week last week when Frank C aka The Big Skrimp slipped on the loading ramp in Grand Rapids and busted his leg. He is going into surgery next Thursday and is going to be out of commission for a couple months. Get well Skrimp!!

The crew has been pulling together to get through with one man down and big shouts to The Golden Boy, Mikey Ledesma for helping with guitars while Skrimp heals up.

So, we hit the Carolinas this week and then head down to Florida. We are hoping to get some surf in Jacksonville and play some slamming shows so get on out.

As always, thanks for your support and letting us play our music for you. We sure couldn’t do it without you!

Thanks- G