Height With Friends

The new Height With Friends full length is on the horizon. (This is a still from one of the first videos)

Fun Youngs, the sophomore Shark Tank album, has been out for a few weeks now. I didn’t get to do much internet yelling about it, but I thought I would write a little bit about the group and the record.



When we did the first album, I had no hopes for it, other than for it to someday exist. I remember some of the guys having high hopes about finding a label to help us, thinking that debuting this new combo of MC’s could maybe attract support that our previous efforts had not. 



We were encouraged by playing some tight shows, but nothing panned out spectacularly on the business end. After a few small tours of familiar territory, Mickey Free decided to quit. I still don’t know exactly why, but I don’t think he would mind me saying that he wasn’t equipped for an uphill battle.

Over the years, I’ve been part of many projects that have been cut short by one person losing heart. In this case, we decided that it doesn’t really matter that one guy left, and furthermore it doesn’t really matter that we’re stuck in the same old trenches, business-wise. I came to that conclusion long ago with my own work, but to find that same determination in a group setting meant a lot.

Even with our problems, (losing a member, not having any kind of label support, band name is the name of a network TV show) the plan is to just keep going, and bang out an album every year. Even if we’re all living under a bridge in ten years, there will be ten more Shark Tank albums under the bridge with us.

This time, we got together in Pittsburgh, in December and January. Grunge was about to be evicted, and was living in a three story house with no roommates. He invited us to turn his house into a rap camp. He recorded and mixed everything, and handled the majority of the production as well. You can tell Grunge is at the helm for this one, in a great way. I’m really glad it all came together the way it did.



Here’s a breakdown of each song….

We Just Stepped Off The Plane
This comes from a freestyle session we had, while driving back from an Atlanta show. We started each verse with, “I just stepped off the plane.” Just like in the freestyle, it’s unclear where this plane is going or why we’re all on it.

We all introduce ourselves as John Height, John Grunge and John B. Rich. I first started introducing myself as John Height during a string of solo shows last year. I told Grunge about it, and he suggested we all become Johns.

Do Your Thing Thing
I like to think of this as Grunge’s libertarian rap anthem. We’re eating these fries, making our doctors cry and sharking it out. This was my first time using the word jawn in a rap.

Fun Youngs
Ironically, this title track is the only song from the new album that we aren’t going to add to the live set. Sometimes the more epic a song is on record, the more it can fall flat onstage. We decided to keep it on wax.

Dirt
I liked this hook ever since I heard B. Rich kick it years ago, but he never really found the right beat for it. Grunge hooked this tight beat up and we were in like flynn.

Interview
I thought this was a slick way of addressing the lyrical absence of Mickey Free.

No Shit


Yes.

Ladies Is Chilling
I’ve loved this beat for years, and I was happy we got to use it. Grunge struggled with this rhyme for a long time, not wanting to come off too serious or self-involved. I think he knocked it out of the park.

Gas Up
This is B Rich’s second Shark Tank song paying some form of respect to his Pops. In this case, it’s a picture of his Dad as a young working man. Jim Richmond… Stand Up!

Victory Fishes
Grunge was moving the week after our last session, and he was sorting through literally thousands of CD’s and CDR’s he had accumulated in twelve years of touring. This led to a discussion of how 99 percent of these bands no longer exist. Everyone is fired up about their project for a second, but they almost all disappear after a few years of struggle, leaving a bunch of shitty-looking CDR’s behind.

I had some other line about CDR’s, but Grunge suggested I change it to ‘fuck you and your CDR’s.” It’s harsh, but I stand by it.

No Years To Burn
It was an honor to work with Mike Jeans on this track. Some of his fans were shocked to hear such a high caliber artist appear on this grimey rap album, but it is what it is.

Oh Canada… Pt. 2


B Rich killed this Canadian rhyme and we added something real tight to the realm of Accent Rap. I think it even gives this a run for it’s money. Someday I want to break out the Baltimore / Pittsburgh remix.

Thanks for reading!

This is a benefit album, for these cats. A lot of tight people are on it. Height With Friends contributed an exclusive track called ‘Ghostface and Cappadonna.’ Frank Yaker mixed it, and Gavin Riley and Jenn Wasner provided the fire back-up vocals. Thanks to Headhat Records and Starving Raptors for having us on the album. All Felines… Stand Up!

The new Shark Tank album is here. A year and change in the making. Check it out.

We’ve have these Height With Friends shows on the horizon…

3/17 - Baltimore, MD - Power Plant Live (With Girl Talk)
3/22 - Baltimore, MD - Creative Alliance (Part of The Lit Show)
3/24 - Greenville, NC - Spazz Fest
4/7 - Philadelphia, PA - Magic Pictures Gallery (With Kate Ferencz)

And then these Shark Tank shows…

4/11 - Baltimore, MD - Windup Space (SHARK TANK RELEASE PARTY w/ 1000 FATHOMS!!!)
4/13 - Youngstown, OH - Lemon Grove
4/14 - Toledo, OH - Frankie’s
5/17 - Erie, PA - The Crooked I
5/19 - Pittsburgh, PA - 31st Street Pub

It’s about to go down, Baltimore!

2011 was a strange, trying, year. At times, I felt like my music career was at a complete standstill. We didn’t drop a new Height With Friends album and it didn’t seem like many people had much to say about us. However, as I reflect on this past 365, I realize that a lot has happened, both good and bad. Here are some of the highs and lows of my year, in the order they happened.

Shark Tank

Shark Tank, my group with Lord Grunge, Brendan Richmond and Mickey Free, released our debut album last February. I’m very proud of it, and it didn’t come easy. For a multi-state, multi-country side project with no plan to tour, we managed to make a few moves. We played twice in Baltimore, twice in Pittsburgh, and once each in Atlanta, Philadelphia and Providence. People’s support and excitement at some of these shows was unreal. We put something together that people really like, and laid the groundwork for something we plan on doing for a long time. We’ve also been hard at work on a follow-up.

Height With Friends Mega-Tour

This winter, I did my ninth tour that went to the west coast and back, the sixth of which I booked on my own. What made this one notable to me was that I attempted a more ambitious routing. Unlike my usual 30 day coast-to-coast marathons, we were out for 51 days. For a DIY operation, the ratio of shows vs. off days was good. We covered some ground in places we often have to skip, due to time. Flags were planted.

Rap Ambassadors Tour

My man Colin, aka PT Burnem, invited me to join him for his second tour of Europe. I’ve dreamed of touring other countries since I started, but I was never able to make it happen. Bringing the whole line-up was out of the question, so Colin volunteered to perform all the duties of every other member of Height With Friends. Our friends Sasha and Xena booked most of the tour and drove us from town to town. We played in Russia, Ukraine, Romania, Hungary, Croatia, Poland and France. Touring the US is like touring Candy Land compared to Eastern Europe, and they sacrificed a lot to make this happen for us. They braved potholes, corrupt cops, troublesome border crossings, parking tickets, twelve hour drives and sleepless nights, all while being pleasant company. I had never seen people go through so much to make a tour a reality, and I truly appreciate all they did for us.

We got to play for some of the best audiences of our careers, especially in Eastern Europe. Having some level of respect and excitement granted to you before you perform is awesome. People seemed to assume you were going to be good until you proved otherwise, instead of the other way around. I usually left the shows impressed with the work the promoters had done, and with the energy the audience had given to us. They were aware that they were not passively watching youtube on their I-phones, but seeing human beings give their all right in front of them. The first world could learn a thing or two about how to act from these places.

Rap Round Robin Five

Soon after getting back to the US, we set off the fifth annual rap round robin. We packed Floristree (Baltimore warehouse venue) to capacity, with 300-plus people. I remember seeing Floristree that packed in the past and feeling like I could never accomplish something like that, but we made it happen.

Every year the round robin got slightly bigger, but I knew we could push it to the max this time. This was the most work I had ever put into one show, and it was really stressful. Orchestrating things between 38 musicians, soundmen and lighting people, going all out on promotion, fielding endless emails and phone calls from people on the bill or people coming out of the woodwork and trying to get on the bill… I felt more like the director of some insane musical than a musician. A show like this isn’t something I want to do again for a long time. I wanted to do my absolute best to take the round robin to the highest heights that my humble powers could reach. I did it, and I don’t want to do it again.

Every new group, Mania Music Group, Ooh / Seeweed and Soul Cannon, brought a ton of people out, killed it, and didn’t miss their cues. Every act in the room was in rare form. When it started, I could tell some of the people who had never seen a round robin before were confused. Once things got going, it was a magical night.

Tour Blues

In October, we did our first self-booked US/Canada tour where we made a real profit. After gas, tolls, oil changes, and one night in a hotel, we were able to walk home with a decent chunk of change for each member who did the entire month. We didn’t make half of what we would have made at home working day jobs, but we clocked enough to make our landing back in Baltimore less stressful than usual. We finally made a big step toward booking sustainable tours. The problem is that touring itself had never felt like such a fruitless effort.

DIY touring is both wonderful and terrible. It sounds promising enough when you’re eighteen. “It doesn’t matter if you play for twenty people, because those twenty people will all tell five more people, and next time you’ll have 100 people and then…” That sounds great, but 99.9 percent of the time, it doesn’t work that way. Sometimes things don’t take off not matter how hard you push. We gain fans, but we lose fans too. It takes work for fans to stay up on underground music, and not everyone can do it for very long. The first Height album came out twelve years ago, and not everyone can be expected to stick around and follow my career for all those years. Supporters come and go, and it’s an uphill battle to maintain any audience at all. That’s just the reality of being a truly DIY band with no man behind the curtain keeping you in the public eye.

Some of the shows on this tour were among our best ever, and some were beyond garbage. At eighteen, the garbage shows were considered part of paying dues. At thirty, these wack shows are making me question my life. Every night I spend on stage is paid for by many nights on the computer booking tours. If the time on stage itself is garbage, what’s the point? If we’re not really broadening our fan base, what are we doing out here? We don’t seem to spreading much word-of-mouth buzz. We aren’t meeting managers or booking agents interested in working with us. What’s the point of gunning so hard in this one direction that doesn’t seem to be paying off? 

These are problems I’ve pondered ever since I first started touring. For the first time though, putting my head down and Heisman-handing my way through the bullshit didn’t seem like the answer. A couple months later, I can’t say that I have it any more figured out, but I’m working on it.

New Line-Up

After that tour, one of my goals was to keep playing regional shows as often as possible and keep experimenting with the set. I invited my friend Joe to join in on live drums, and asked Jen to start playing guitar in addition to singing. The line-up is now Jen on guitar and vocals, Gavin on vocals, Joe on drums and Justin on trombone, vocal delays, beats, and lights. We did shows in Baltimore, Philadelphia, DC and NYC. I thought all four performances were excellent, and that we’ve reached a new plateau as a live act. I don’t expect these guys to stay in my band for the next twenty years, but I feel like I’ve found a system that works, and a way of playing that makes the songs come to life onstage.

New Album

As it stands now, the new Height With Friends record will be out two years after our last release. All the touring of the last two years is partly what made it tough to stay on schedule. The main problem however, was something that happened at home. Mickey Free bowed out of the recording and mixing process, halfway through the album. We’ve always been close collaborators, and he’s recorded and mixed almost everything I’ve worked on since 2005. We came to the conclusion that it would be better to part ways than to finish the album together. This really threw a wrench in the works, but it had to happen. Our working relationship had been falling apart for a while, and it was better to totally pull the plug, for now. I think going our separate ways will ultimately lead to better Mickey Free music and better Height With Friends albums. We’re still main mans and I’m sure we will have some level of collaboration further down the road.

Frank Yaker took over the recording and mixing process and the ball is rolling again. The record will be mixed and mastered in the very near future, though the details of the release are still up in the air, I see this album as a triumphant new start. I don’t know what’s going to happen with it, but I have the strong feeling it won’t be downplayed like some of our other releases. 2012… Let’s go. Thanks for reading.

DC, Philly and NYC were all fire. We ended our 2011 touring on a high note. Happy holidays to all.

December 2 - Philadelphia - Magic Pictures Gallery
December 10 - Washington DC - Velvet Lounge
December 21 - New York - Lit Lounge

Enjoy this free download of the Friends Records compilation. This contains an alternate mix of a song off our forthcoming album, and many more bangers.

Baltimore… Once again, it’s on.

We’re hitting the road next week with Gavin Riley! Let’s go.

9/24 The Wind-Up Space, Baltimore, MD
9/28 Darkhorse Tavern, State College, PA
9/29 House Show, New Hope, PA
9/30 Danger Danger, Philadelphia, PA
10/1 Death By Audio, Brooklyn, NY
10/4 Cafe 9, New Haven, CT
10/5 The Big Easy, Portland, ME
10/6 No. 9 Ale House, Malden, MA
10/7 Brick House, Dover, NH
10/10 Bar-Coop L’AgiteE, Quebec, QC
11/11 The Mansion, Kingston, ON
10/15 The Vault, Buffalo, NY
10/16 Scrummage, Detroit, MI
10/17 Ottawa Tavern, Toledo, OH
10/19 Euclid Tavern, Cleveland, OH
10/20 Royal Oaks, Youngstown, OH
10/21 31st Street Pub, Pittsburgh, PA
10/22 Blue Moon, Shepherdstown, WV
10/24 Cafe Nola, Frederick, MD

We are setting off on a month long tour very soon. We’re kicking things off on 9/24 with this tight, free show in Baltimore.

The biggest and best All Rap Round Robin is going down. This is the line-up. Height With Friends is taking a break from shows for the summer, but this will be our return to the stage. Mania Music Group, Soul Cannon, Disturbed Individuals and Ooh of Brown Fish are making their Round Robin debut. More info coming soon.

Our first ever European tour with PT Burnem was an awesome success. You can check out these tour journals for each show in the archived shows section of the site. Peace.

We’re back from our 51 day tour. I’m finally up to date with our tour blogs. You can read about every show of the tour in the archives section of our site.

In early May, we’re leaving for our first ever European tour, with PT Burnem. Let’s go.

You can order physical copies of the Shark Tank album here. (Click the pic)