Dunkin' Dilla's & more

I was taking another listen to "Donuts" by Dilla the other day. I did nothing but listen to it when it came out & then put it to rest for awhile. Taking it out of retirement, I remembered how tight it is. Dilla was an incredible sampler. He knew what fit. He also had that Dilla groove. Not mechanical at all. Just raw. I love things raw. It's what's real. Just thought I'd throw that thought in.

On The Wine Thieves tip, we're waiting to see it Saturday's gonna be the day for Session #1: the instrumental session. Gumshu's gonna let us know by Friday. If we get studio time, we're finalizing the instrumentals like I said in previous posts. All the live ish & what not. So we'll see what goes done.

On the vocal side, Hype's finishing up the lyrics to the final, final song for the EP. And he's ready to go for Session #2: the vocal session.

So everything is coming together very nicely. The album is still on schedule. Should definitely be out by July 31st. Speaking of which, we are working on setting up a spot for the release party. Keep you posted on all that jazz.

Eat a donut,

Peace, Party

Once the bomb drops...

In a private, yet animated meeting at my house in covington, party and i finalized some vocal layout ideas for the wine thieves debut ep. after a walk to the river and some heartfelt joking about death, i began to feel really good about our vox, which have yet to be recorded at bennett studios in jersey (as party previously mentioned).

Let me state for the record, party's musical canvas-- samples galore, from movies and recordings of friends, to videos, sounds of our past selves-- is amazing! i'm already listening to the album on repeat, and it doesn't have any vocals yet. the album would be an abbreviated masterpiece as a stand alone, but party was kind enough to let me spit and sputter some wine-woven tales over his immense and sprawling music and beats. from the dark and brooding to the uppity-slams, party's tracks will take you for a ride. promise.

Lyrically, i see this album as both a return to form and a transcendence to the new new for us both. for the few listeners familiar with our early albums (pre-get down dirty disco), you'll feel with us the urgency and dream the apocalyptic visions that littered records like "the end of the world." unlike some early records tho, i wouldn't call this record 'political' at all. this is a new beast. post-political, even. post-apocalyptic (that's why he's talkin bout lipstick. you'll get it.).

Once the bomb drops there will be only the wine thieves and the cockroaches.

hype.

Summertime

The EPs coming along great! I'm so excited to release it. As of now its self-titled, but that may change. Hype & I have been hard @ work. I took a trip up to Covington last Thursday & we recorded some demo vocals. Nothing we're going to keep. Actually, I sampled some of the material of our vocals to use for interludes between beats.

The thing that gets me the most excited about this record is the history embedded in it. Not only the time it took to make, but the collage of samples that make the music. To think that with every sample, you're capturing a moment. Whether its a moment of someone else's past; be it a snare hit, a guitar note, an organ line, etc. You're taking that moment & intertwining them with other people's sounds & history. Then there's your own history. I sampled old freestyles I've done with my friend Andrew year's ago in Newark. And lines from old JBTC accapellas of Emcee Hype. Plus, the good old movie samples. There's history in all of that. And it's awesome.

I'm really digging the flow of the record. I feel it tells a story & the vocals bring it all home. Hype is really pulling no punches with this record. He's got some great story-telling on this one. And he's got a real solid flow going.

I'm gonna be heading up to Bennett Studios within the next two weeks to meet with our sound engineer, Aaron Gagnon (DJ Gumshu). I'm gonna be giving him all the original beats & we're gonna load them into Pro Tools. I'm then gonna add all the keyboard, guitar, & turntable parts to the beats so they're fully complete. Aaron's then gonna mixed the beats as a whole. After that's done, we're going to get another session set up for Hype to lay down his vocals in the booth. This way we get clean studio vocals. I think we're gonna mix them ourselves in Cool Edit (that's right) afterwards.

That's about it for now. Keep coming back. The summer's gonna be hot & we'll give you something to listen to through the heat. Check our our myspace to: www.myspace.com/thewinethieves.

Tentative song titles:

Poor Man's Boogie

Ode to Milosz

Shitty Fox

Hippy Girl

Egomaniac

There's gonna be about seven tracks total. That's it.

Peace, Party

The Debut EP

We're putting together our debut EP. It looks like it'll have 5 to 6 tracks. The final mixes for the beats are being done by DJ Gumshu @ Bennett Studios as we speak. Hype's been working on some lyrics to the raw beats I sent him awhile ago.

This EP honestly doesn't represent the overall sound that The Wine Thieves are going for. It's us, but we're going to be experimenting a lot more with what hip hop is & what you can do with it in the later EPs coming this year. This EP is more or less showcasing some solid, raw beats & passionate rhymes. Kind of letting people know we exist & that our music can be heard.

After the EP is released, we plan on immediately cranking out the next five. In this stage of music, it doesn't seem necessary to create an album right off the bat. Might as well make some noise with a collection of songs ever few months. Keeps things fresh for us & for listeners.

That's it for now. Nothing huge to report. The EP is still untitled but is slated for a July 31st release off of Mighty Mezz Music. Not sure quite yet where the release party will be, but we'll keep you posted.

Until later, enjoy.

Party

Welcome

Emcee Hype & Party.picasso; The Wine Thieves.

The Wine Thieves do hip hop music with an extensive list of influences including old school hip hop, funk, jazz, rock, reggae, punk, psychedelic, trip hop, all things music & art.

We are a culmination of years of musicianship, producing, live performance, and the impoverished life of the artist. Armed with a microphone, an MPC drum machine, vinyl records, keyboards & a guitar; The Thieves create minimal, experimental & raw music with no regard to the limitations placed on today's modern hip hop.

Under the umbrella of the art collective known as Jersey Bound Trunk Crew & proud members of Jersey-based label, Mighty Mezz Music; The Wine Thieves will soon be releasing their debut EP, comprised of 5 tracks with Emcee Hype on rhymes & Party.picasso bumping the beats. DJ Gumshu of Two New Suits (project w/ Party) mixed the tracks @ Bennett Studios in Englewood, New Jersey.