It's been a while since Extreme Championship Poetry reared its ugly combatitive head at Green, but it is BACK and with a vengeance. This ain't your mother's slam! There WILL BE LOSERS! This is cutthroat, hardcore verbal action as can only be contained within the confines of 3387 Motor Ave on the side of the building!
MATCHES CONFIRMED FOR MAY 28TH:
--It's Rio Rancho Estates vesus Shermer, Illinois when two of Green's biggest film geeks, SAM SKOW and PAUL MABON, go toe-to-toe in a "Glengarry Glen Ross" vs. "Breakfast Club" quote slam!!! Can Alec Baldwin's set of steak knives carve up Anthony Michael Hall's ceramic elephant? will Bender smoke a doob in detention with Ricky Roma? Find out when these two depositories of wisdom square off!
--What do you go by? What does that mean to you? What would happen if someone decided...to BATTLE YOU FOR YOUR NAME??? It goes like this: There are two hungry young cruiserweights on the slam scene, both with pennames. Both with deep pens. And both willing to GIVE UP THEIR STAGE NAME (for a month, we're not complete jerks) IF THEY LOSE. So in the First Annual Stage Name vs. Stage Name battle, we give to you: MR. POETIC VS. DEF SOUND!!! Three rounds, and every syllable counts!
--THE $50 DOLLAR OPEN SLAM GAUNTLET! It's a one-round, one-poem battle for that most noble of causes, CASH MONEY. Highest score gets fifty bones. Straight up. Who will ride the perfect poem to ECP victory and have taco money for after the show? It could be YOU!
--I think that's more than enough excitement for one night, so get there early. We will need judges, and judges do get a free drink, so get there on time! It is $5 at the door, with proceeds from the evening going to help the LA Slam Team get to the Nationals this summer!
THIS PAST WEEK: The house was packed with poets, passion, and..poems...and much love and respect to TAALAM ACEY who wrecked shop with a flawless performance that left us all yelling "too much truth" (well, okay, that was literally Jedi).
and THIS WEEK, all the way from Mesa, AZ...CHESKO!!!
"When Im not fighting pirates or performing poetry, I am probably drawing pictures of ninjas and unicorns. Im not much of a poet yet, but I really like telling stories and find the idea of microphones fascinating. So, until I become a better writer or stop being fascinated with the mundane, I will amuse myself by infusing numerous references in my poems to kittens, candy, shooting stars, fireworks, the word awesome, pirates, bears, choo-choo trains, butterflies, crayons, and ponies, especially ponies. In summation, I hope I never become a better writer because its a lot more fun to write about those things."
The 2007 Mesa/Phoenix Grand Slam Champion, Chesko was also the 2007 Mesa (Essenza) Indie Slam Champion, a member of the 2005 San Jose national poetry slam team (And published in the NPS anthology for that year), a first team all-american in collegiate speech and debate, once won 14 straight poetry slams (spanning 2 states and seven different venues), was voted the 2006 top collegiate performer in Northern California, graduated at the top of his class from San Francisco State University, receiving his bachelor of arts (summa cum laude) in Speech and Communication Studies with an emphasis in performance studies, gender and communication, and feminist rhetoric, and is currently continuing his studies in these areas by pursuing his master's degree in Communication Studies at Arizona State University.
He's a keeper, folks, and he's our feature this week at the Palmer! BE THERE!
THIS PAST MONDAY: The open mic list was full and full of life--big ups to all the performers who braved the first day of SUPERHEAT to chill at the Palmer with us...and our feature, DEF SOUND ripped the mic like it was his 222nd feature rather than his second. Congrats to him for also making the LA Slam Team this week! It's The Year of the Sound!
THIS WEEK: We are honored to bring you one of the premier performance poets in the country, and a man who's generating quite the buzz with his current YouTube video, "Market for Ni$$as":
Taalam Acey may be the hardest working spoken word artist of his generation. He's published a novel, a comprehensive collection of poems, an award winning memoir and 9 spoken word CDs. Taalam has been a full time traveling poet since 1999. Tens of thousands of people own his work and many, many more have seen his performances. Acey performs regularly in more than 50 cities in the US and abroad. On average, he is on a plane once every 3.5 days. That's 100 flights per year to promote spoken word.
Taalam's work has been featured on BET, TV One and in Essence Magazine. He has been a frequent guest at dozens of colleges and Universities and has lectured on contemporary spoken word at the prestigious Graduate School of Education at UC Berkeley. Acey has twice been featured at the Essence Music Festival. He's been quoted in several newspapers, including the Washington Post, the Philadelphia Weekly and the New Jersey Star Ledger. In addition, Acey's work has been associated with films that have garnered an Audience Award and a Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival.
Acey is also an accomplished slam poet who has won slams throughout the United States as well as in Germany and England. He was featured in an acclaimed Radio-One London documentary on slam and Marc Smith, the founder of slam poetry, used Acey's work as an example of slam poetry in his definitive book.
So last night the battle lines were drawn, the poems were real and fierce, and emerging from the rubble are the following poets who make up the five-headed verbal Voltron that is Gang Green 2007:
LARA KAAPUNI! CAYENNE! PAUL MABON! TAMARA BLUE! AND OUR GRAND SLAM CHAMPION, GILL!!!
Big ups to all who performed at our Big Finals Slam. Everyone came with fire and great material. Next stop: Big Sur!
AND THIS WEEK'S FEATURE (totally ganked from his MySpace bio): Give it up for DEF SOUND:
"Poet/MC/Journalist and Head of OverGround Music Group (Not that anyone is reading this) now currently working on MASSIVE amounts of collabs and music and poems of my own, and a weekly blog coming soon with my boy Three-1-Zero, and not to mention Stay Tuned 4 my Loose Change Blendtapes which I PLAN (Keyword "plan") on dropping 4 of those a year just 2 promote and expose the masses to new and unheard of hot music. Also keep your eyes and ears open 4 my Dilla Meets Def Mixtapes, and my first LP "Songs From Planet Earth" ehhh but if you ask me I'm just Abstract.Authentic.Talented.UnhealthyPerfectionist.Unique.Urban.Thinker.Honest.Versatile.Bi-Coastal.Lyricist.Spiritual.Student of Style.Skillionaire.Souful.True Hip Hop.Lover of Life.Creative.Fun.Real.Down 2 Earth.Close 2 Mars.Oxymoronic.Outlandish.Deep.Cool.Forward Thinking.Walking Talking Quotable.Fantastic @ Finding A Bunch Of Words That Mean The Same Thing.Accurate.Talkative.Reclusive.Conceptual.Visionary.Human."
Plus he has a brand new chapbook out, "Music 2 Your Eyes Vol Zero" which you need to cop. Come see Def in his second feature ever in the history of the world. We got him!
See you at the Palmer, Slim, Jedi, and Joshua.
P.S. Monday, May 15: Spoken Word Icon TALAAM ACEY! Monday, May 23: Bay Area vet currently rocking in Arizona, CHESKO! (and it's Slim's birthday!) Monday, May 30: The Return of the New Breed of Slam, EXTREME CHAMPIONSHIP POETRY!!!
