A few years ago a couple writers from TLC caught a show in the basement of a small art space in Columbus, Ohio. I didn\'t go to the show, but when they got back they told me all about it. \"You should have seen this dude,\" they said, shocked at what they had taken in. \"He was this chubby little white dude that did Prince-like tunes, and he was dancing around in his underwear by the end of the night.\"

Laughing, I asked, \"Ah... what?\"

\"He was hilarious, man. His name is Har Mar.\"

The label known as LunaticWorks has never disappointed me. I dug Horse Noodles and Tha Fruitbat quite a bit, so I was excited to get two new CDs from them in the mail.

First, let me start off by saying that I’m not a big wrestling fan, so I wasn’t really sure what to expect when I started reading Neil O’Boyle Connelly’s first novel, Buddy Cooper Finds A Way. What I found, wrapped inside of a story of a professional wrestler, was a man who was a loser in so many ways.

I admit, I had always chalked up The Blood Brothers as whiney-as-fuck emo rock. Had I ever heard a song from them that would support or destroy that assumption? No. Did I ever care? Absolutely not. You see, I enjoy assuming shit about people and jumping to conclusions. I revel in it. It is in my nature.

But something else that is in my nature is admitting when I\'m wrong. And I was wrong about The Blood Brothers.

Look up “Alchemist” in the dictionary, and it becomes a relevant metaphor for what Alchemist, the producer, does: makes the extraordinary out of the ordinary. For the last decade-plus, he’s given hip-hop an East Coast injection as tough and funky as the sounds that made legends like Hank Shocklee and Dr. Dre famous.