Truckasaurus isn’t your typical Seattle band so it makes sense that the group’s elctro-meets-hip-hop mashup at Neumos tonight won’t be your typical show.
The show, dubbed Kevin Collabo (named after this guy), will see the Truck create musical backdrops for more than 30 of Seattle’s finest rappers to use as their lyrical playgrounds. Merging Truck’s instrumental dance music with Seattle’s hip-hop elite is the local music equivalent of chocolate and peanut butter, which should make tonight’s show a memorable, and musically delicious, experience.
The list of participating rappers reads like a who’s who of everyone who has made a splash in the local hip-hop scene during the past few years. Champagne Champagne, Spaceman, Ra Scion, Geologic, Grynch, Tislon, Sol, Mash Hall and more will take the stage during what will likely be a series of one-off live collaborations. Since Truck’s job has been to create beats, which is something that can be done without interacting with a vocalist, many of the MCs will meet the band for the first time on stage tonight.
“Practice has been more like a situation of whoever can show up makes it as far as the MCs are concerned,” said Adam Swan, Truckasaurus’ keyboardist. “It’s been real nice to work with MCs. We want them to take the beats and run with them and I think that has been happening.
As a band Truckasaurus uses keyboards, synthesizers, drum machines and various electronic gadgets (including a first generation Game Boy) to create electronic music that is as unique as the car-eating mechanical monstrosity that is its namesake. Working with MCs will give Truck’s music the added element of a vocalist tonight.
“Creating beats and making music is something we are always messing around with. Since we’ll have MCs it means we won’t have to dive into the beats as much,” Swan said.
Live the group employs A/V guru Dan Bordon to create visually arresting scenes projected onto a screen behind the band. The scenes are filled with snippets of 1980s action movies, old WWF wrestling clips and various other pieces of pop culture cheese from the decade of DeLoreans and Max Headroom. Since Truckasaurus’ music is mostly filled with dense beats, electronic bleeps and bloops and is sans vocals the visuals often tend to take center stage.
“We’re really just a bunch of gearheads twisting knobs and doing stuff like that so it can be pretty boring to watch,” said Swan. “We consider Dan to be like our frontman since everyone is mostly paying attention to what he is doing.”
Bordon will be conceding his role as frontman for the night, which is something Swan said is okay with Truckasaurus.
“There are a lot of talented rappers in Seattle right now and it’s really great to be able to work with so many of them,” Swan said. “We expect it to be one huge party filled with lots of bass and lots of dancing. If nothing else people should come out to see the visuals.”
