Death Grips

le poisson rouge show on the 17th with flying lotus is gonna be streamed.
http://www.npr.org/event/music/162289032/npr-music-live-from-cmj

New video is sick:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iZZ16QUAjQ&feature=youtu.be

they go on soon
http://www.npr.org/event/music/162289032/npr-music-live-from-cmj

Tues, Nov 20 2012 - Bottom Lounge - Chicago, IL: http://www.ticketweb.com/t3/sale/SaleEventDetail?dispatch=loadSelectionData&eventId=3135404

twitter gone?

And apparently dropped by Epic too. Haha wtf Epic. :P

Love this.

how is that 'wtf epic' at all

unlimited supply
there is no reason why
etc

Is it lame of me to actually want to take the label's side in this? And I say this as a DG fan (albeit one who liked Money Store better)

you wish they'd honoured their contract to preserve harmony w/ the label & wait til next year to release?

if it's been 5 years since your last album and the label wants to push the new one back, it makes sense to get frustrated and think about leaking it. if it's been 5 months it's just kind of an empty gesture of rebellion.

what's at stake?

no clue--i really don't understand their angle

I meant, why does it matter either way what they do?

i don't think it matters, i just think it's confusing

Some dude OTM

"how is that 'wtf epic' at all"

This is at signing them in the first place. Obviously Death Grips doesn't really care about being on Epic.

And I'm not sure why Epic should care about them giving away their music for free either frankly.

yeah signing them in the first place is the only move on the label's part i don't get. everything else is pretty standard.

although majors release lots of niche stuff these days and they seemed to have realistic commercial expectations for them

And I'm not sure why Epic should care about them giving away their music for free either frankly.

Serious... oh wait, you're trollin' here.

Not really. Unless you think that unleashing it on the web has somehow devalued their next Epic album.

You don't see how a label that stands to make money (okay, probably not a lot, but still) by selling your album might be torqued off that you gave it away for free?

jon did you miss the bit where the label wasn't interested in releasing it for another year? Considering they've recorded three albums in the last twelve months, I suspect they'd be able to deliver another one by that point.

They would still be releasing it though. I mean, its not hard to figure out how labels work.

but by then everyone would be sick of death grips because they had released a bunch of similar-sounding music in a short timespan

Not really. Unless you think that unleashing it on the web has somehow devalued their next Epic album.

― One bad call from barely losing to (Alex in SF), Thursday, November 1, 2012 11:10 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

you say "unless you think" like this would be a really weird position to take

If I'm Epic I'm more pissed that they cancelled their tour which would be in theory promoting the album Epic actually released than that they released another record on the interwebs.

xp yeah I think it's a pretty weird position to take on a band that you signed on the basis of a free mixtape frankly.

"but by then everyone would be sick of death grips because they had released a bunch of similar-sounding music in a short timespan"

That would probably be a good time to drop then, right?

Drop them, ahem.

But, uh, tons of bands get signed on the basis of free demos. I'm not sure what your point is? They gave away music that Epic was supposed to be making money off of. I'm not trying to play captain save-a-major here, but it's not hard to understand why they're pissed off about it.

so basically you're confused by the fact that the label would want to throw its full marketing power behind each release, which it basically can't do if the releases are too close together. so then epic is stuck in this position of being like "no, ignore these free releases and pay attention to these official releases" which is absurd. you can't flood the market with a bunch of music and ask people to pay for half of it but not the other half.

lots of major label rap artists release mixtapes on the black market, sometimes even without the label's knowledge or explicit permission. but this was never called a mixtape, it was always called an album and was the album they'd promised to the label right up until they put it online. i mean it's a semantic thing but most legal issues are.

issue is probably much less that they put out some free music than the obnoxious (figurative and literal) dick-waving the group did about it

there's prob another point in there about death grips being marketed to a diff, more album-oriented audience than other rappers who put out mixtapes but i'm not the guy with the knowledge to make it.

There is a good argument to be made that this band's general obnoxiousness is one of their more marketable assets.

oh yeah absolutely. i'm just saying there IS a precedent for that kind of thing but they weren't following it musically or businesswise. (xpost)

sure, but for that to work the band needs to be obnoxious to everyone but the label

xp

"They gave away music that Epic was supposed to be making money off of. "

Sure, but this only matters if you believe that this was 1) replace another record that Epic could have made money off or 2) that this was going to so saturate the Death Grips that no one would want another Death Grips in which case you probably made a mistake signing them anyway.

"sure, but for that to work the band needs to be obnoxious to everyone but the label"

Not sure that's true in this day and age.

eh to me it's all good to fuck shit up on an indie level, but if you do the whole major label gamble you may as well jump through their hoops, because there's no real benefit to doing it for a few months in a self-sabotaging way other than impressing whatever anti-corporate tightasses are out there still thinking this is how you 'fight the power'

Yeah I don't know. I don't even know what Death Grips gets out of this whole thing. Except for some bonus money and a lawsuit.

what i'm saying! their motives are far more of a mystery to me than a big label acting the way big labels have always acted.

They are definitely a weird bunch of dudes.

"They gave away music that Epic was supposed to be making money off of. "

Sure, but this only matters if you believe that this was 1) replace another record that Epic could have made money off or 2) that this was going to so saturate the Death Grips that no one would want another Death Grips in which case you probably made a mistake signing them anyway.

― One bad call from barely losing to (Alex in SF), Thursday, November 1, 2012 11:35 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i'm not sure why you find the idea of spacing out releases so weird? my favorite band on the planet would probably tire me out if they released two records a year.

or to put it another way, epic's only goal is to sell as much death grips as possible; this is made considerably more challenging if they don't control the flow of death grips material.

Why do you find the idea of releasing a mess of stuff weird? Some of my favorites seem to have no problem releasing two or three records a year, etc.