WHAM CITY ROUND ROBIN – SUMMER 2006

Raw Bear was invited to play the first ever Wham City Round Robin. Wham City had a run of excellent shows in their warehouse space, and this was to be the grand finale. The idea is that ten bands would set up around the perimeter of their warehouse space, each with their own PA and lights. They would do one song per round, before passing the torch to another act, who would suddenly be lit and performing in a totally different part of the space.

Part of the genius of the idea is that every act plays when the crowd is at it’s best and every act plays when the crowd is at it’s worst. This was a great experience which would lead to many more shows and tours.

Here’s a video of the big night…

UTILITY FOG – SUMMER 2006

After the Raw Bear tours, Jones continued traveling with me as a DJ. I felt good about the set we put together. Our first move was to go on a two week tour with Werewolf Unit.

My forthcoming album still wasn’t ready to drop, and to keep things moving, I put out a CDR EP called Utility Fog. It was good to put out music without the pressure of having to earn back a big chunk of money, and without the hassle of getting copies in stores and trying to get the record reviewed on blogs and in magazines.

Here’s a video for the opening track on Utility Fog…

WHAM CITY ROUND ROBIN TOUR – OCTOBER 2006

We went on the Wham City Round Robin Tour with Cex, Video Hippos, Dan Deacon, Lizz King, OCDJ, Cache Cache, Ecstatic Sunshine and many more. It was a 30 person tour. We did two nights in each city. If you played on the first night, you ran sound or did other chores on the next, and vice versa.

The round robin style tour allowed all of us to play for each other’s fans in a way we couldn’t have done on a regular four-act bill. We were all the opener and we were all the headliner.

WINTERIZE THE GAME – WINTER 2007

I released Winterize The Game on Lord Grunge’s Grand Man Records. Everything I did from 1997 to 2007 was basically me rapping about how I’m rapping. Some people think that’s like a lower form of rap, but I disagree completely. I’m very proud of this album, and I think we took Height rapping about rap to a new plateau.

Shields, Mickey Free, Mrs. Paintbrush and Jones were in top form on the beats. Mickey Free mixed and engineered the record, and he made it sound way better than any of my previous efforts. I’ve always done short songs, but these songs were designed to be even more short and more sweet.

Jones and I did a nationwide winter tour to the west and back, then another tour up the east coast and into Canada.

BAD WEATHER – WINTER 2007

The day after the Winterize The Game tour, I road-tripped with Grand Buffet to their show in Carborro, NC. During their set, I performed Bad Weather, our collaborative song from Winterize The Game. It seemed to go well, and I ended up getting back in the van and doing seven more shows with them, performing that song, or “These Dreams Are Fucked” during their set.

This became a way to continue promoting the new album between my own tours. Throughout the next two years, I tagged along with GB in this manner for three more of their tours with Of Montreal, MGMT and Streetlight Manifesto.

Getting onstage in the middle of someone’s set and trying to impress a crowd with one verse is no easy feat. Trying to appear that I was raising the bar on a high-energy Grand Buffet show did not come naturally to me. Doing this every night taught me a lot about performing. I also got to see what bigger tours were like, and I got to see some great bands that really influenced me.

ALL RAP ROUND ROBIN – JULY 2007

I wanted to try the round robin format for a rap show. I put together the All Rap Round Robin with Mickey Free, Jones, AK Slaughter, PT Burnem, The Plural MC, Rasul The Nobody and me. It went off like a dream. I think the concept works better for rap than for any other style.

We did a show like this every summer for the next five years. These shows made our branch of the Baltimore scene feel a little more like a community. It became an institution within our world,  where people want to make sure they have their new songs ready to go by the time the next rap round robin rolls around.

NOW NOT WATERPROOF – FALL 2007

In the fall, Jones and I left for yet another coast to coast tour. Everything about the tour was exactly the same as the national tour we had done six months earlier… the routing, the venues, and the crowds were all pretty much identical. It didn’t feel like we we’re making much progress in terms of becoming known, but it was just time to grind.

I released the second part of my Utility Fog series… Utility Fog Two: Now Not Waterproof.

CDR CITY – WINTER 2008

In 2006, I started working with Frank Yaker, aka King Rhythm. He helped me add layers to the songs that would end up on Baltimore Highlands. Ever since, I had wanted him to join our live set. We worked out a set where Jones would run the beats and tweak the vocal delays, while Frank would trigger samples on his keyboard and double my vocals.

This line-up worked really well, and Jones and King Rhythm came out with me on my next tour. We went to the west coast and back, in the winter of 2008.

For that tour, I dropped Utility Fog Three: CDR City. This is the shortest Utility Fog. (9 minutes long)  It contained our first-ever attempt at a cover song. It’s a song I called ‘Roy,’ and it’s a very loose rendition of “Fly Guys Rap” by the Fly Guys, which itself borrows lyrics from a Shel Silverstein poem.