Yea Big & Kid Static
Drinking To The Dysfunction
Feb 13, 2010
Words by Sean Moeller
Illustration by Johnnie Cluney
Sound engineering by Mike Gentry
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Welcome to Daytrotter
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Run To The Facts
unreleased
Run To The Facts was sort of the "single" from an EP we did in collaboration with The Mae-Shi. When we toured with them a couple of years back (prior to their release of HLLLYH), we sold limited edition, hand-painted EPs (only 100 were made) that featured beats I made entirely out of samples from HLLLYH combined with Kid Static vocals from previous YB+KS releases. The EP was titled, HLLLYEA (punny, huh?). http://www.ilike.com/artist/Yea+Big/album/HLLLYEA
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Middle America
original version appears on The Future's Looking Grim
Middle America is a track from our newest full-length CD/LP, The Future's Looking Grim, released in '09. This track is kind of an abstract, hyperbolic look at how Yea Big and Kid Static fit into the Midwest. The details are open to interpretation, and it is highly likely that Moses and I actually think different things about this song, so maybe he wants to weigh in on this? Moses?
I see the track Middle America as more of a statement. It's an introduction, in the middle of the record to who you're listening to. Yeah we're from the Midwest but we're not to be ignored and we fucking rock.
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Thank You For Being A F…
unreleased
Thank You For Being A Friend, which I like to refer to as, Thank You For Fucking A Friend, is a song we have performed at the end of our live performances all over the country. Our Daytrotter session is the only official recording of our version of this Golden Girls Theme classic. We have played this song at the end of our shows so many times because we actually mean it! We think it is fucking awesome that people come to see us perform and we genuinely feel a sense of solidarity and friendship with everyone there with us. So it is just a way to say "thanks" to everyone who has shared a small part of their lives with us. Plus, its just really fun to sing.
Chicago's Yea Big & Kid Static, is opinionated and out-spoken. The duo makes the kind of defiant and churlish hip-hop that comes from dissatisfied young men, idealistic and yearning for better results than the crap ones they're getting or seeing as most likely, for themselves and for others. They are the words of those who sense that we're not bettering anything and that we're just phoning it in, sticking with a routine that might need some rejiggering or a complete overhaul. Yea Big and Kid Static seem to contend that the bigger truths are hidden under layers of muck, and that we're being kept from the most sublime beauties of existence, the various things that along us an appreciation for the subtle and rich details. We're being lied to, but maybe we've still got some cool enough homies that we'll overlook these obstructions and these cover-ups. On "Run To The Facts," they give us the line, "Who we got to speak the facts when they don't speak for themselves," and the answer doesn't jump out and bite us. It could be that there is no answer and they aren't sure if there's an answer either. It will always be a struggle to get to any kind of setting where the information being disseminated is all of the information that we are entitled to. It's this brand of indie hip-hop that tends to pounce on these shortcomings and demand that they be fixed - and Yea Big and Kid Static, even when they're in short 1980s-era basketball shorts, headbands and performing with a bit of a wry, comedic style, do so with the passion of a collegiate protester, someone who's going to organize a picket or a sit-in. It will be an event that will be about the issue, but there will be a protest tee-shirt and plenty of hot chocolate and bagels to go around so that no one has to do it on an empty stomach. There is the element of disgust - perhaps focused on the media, perhaps on the government, or both - in the excited lyrics of the two and they slam against the walls with volume and conviction. They are issues that are believed in and argued. They maintain that the truth is often distorted and because it's such a regular occurrence, there is now an acceptance, or a recalculation to place the new "truths" into a greater focus or light. They are the replacement truths and most are settling for it. You can hear that Yea Big and Kid Static are fed up with this attitude, as it's a frequent subject on the group's two full-length albums - the latest called "The Future's Looking Grim," released last summer - but they aren't going to be stunted by it. There's a rage within their playful dealings with these subjects that suggests that there might always be something laughable in the denseness of the greater majority. It will continue to breed head-scratching and social fervor, awkwardness and, occasionally, very terrible people, but then there will be the lucky peanut gallery, full of observation-istas who find the insanity something that might just be fun to drink to. Not toast to, mind you, but drink to. There's a difference.
Yea Big Official Site
Kid Static Official Site
