Rx Bandits, k-oS

Rappin' and skankin' until the cows come home

Comments (0) By Ed Masley and Matthew Neff Thursday, Mar 29 2007

When you think about it, skanking is one of the most ridiculous things you can do with a human body. You pump your elbows back and forth like a pregnant gorilla running the mile and you hurl your legs out from under you like a drunken cabaret girl on her last fifth of liquor. How does it all look? Like one big dreadful abortion of the hokey-pokey. But skank you must. And skank you will. The Rx Bandits are playing the Marquee Theatre this Friday and they request, nay, require your presence for maximum ska-punk-reggae-funk pleasure fulfillment. These SoCal horn fiends have been tearing up the nation's mosh (skank?) pits since 1997, and take it from a bona fide eyewitness: Their live shows really take the cake. So put on your favorite wooden clogs, chug that fifth, and skank their brazen attacks into submission. -- Matthew Neff

What a skank: Rx Bandits

Thats a rap: k-os

Details

Scheduled to perform on Friday, March 30

Marquee Theatre in Tempe

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Canadian rapper k-os works the alternative hip-hop angle like a true believer on his latest and greatest effort, Atlantis: Hymns For Disco. Check the way he brings in Canadian indie icon Kevin Drew of Broken Social Scene to add some ethereal vocals to the very Broken Social Scene-esque textures of "Valhalla." And that's BSS' Justin Peroff bashing away at the block-rocking beat. Justin Grainger of Death From Above 1979 also guests on drums, underscoring the soul of "Sunday Morning" with a beat that's all forward momentum. Elsewhere, k-os kicks it old school on "Electrik Heat — The Seekwill," rocks the beat to "Jailhouse Rock" on "Equalizer," and recalls those classic early James Brown ballads on the gospel-flavored soul that is "The Rain." The lyrics finds him weighing in — with righteous indignation and spiritual fervor — on race relations, materialism, alienation and, in the soulfully Cee-Lo-esque "The Rain," the girl who says she loves him but then turns and walks away. Who knows? With any luck, he could be this year's Gnarls Barkley. -- Ed Masley