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On the up
By Meredith Goldstein | Globe Staff / March 26, 2009 | LINK
The local, experimental-hip-hop act Re-Up is having a productive spring. The Berklee College of Music-trained group recently announced that it will open for Gym Class Heroes in May and that it's now working with George Massenburg, a Grammy-winning engineer who has helped Billy Joel, Journey, and James Taylor. To top it all off, Re-Up is playing a show on Saturday to celebrate a new album. Productive indeed. Re-Up plays Bill's Bar as part of a lineup that includes the Phix and Gonna Get Got. 8:30 p.m. $10, $12 day-of. Bill's Bar, 5 Lansdowne St. 617-421-9678.
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Re-Up, Sex!, and DJ Tava Luv Host & Promote Halloween Bash
Posted on October 30, 2009 | By Owen Ross?Contributing Writer | LINK
Let me start out by saying that we have put together an awesome event for this Friday, October 30. Sex! will open up the show at 10PM, followed by Re-Up, and DJ Tava Luv will be spinning for the rest of the night. We are charging $5 and providing an OPEN BAR all night. It feels good to be able to offer people a good deal.
This is the first event for which we have circumvented booking agents and indeed any sort of middle men. We rented the space, we found the sponsors, and put the bill together. After a while, you wonder why your giving away 20-50% to a booking agent for every show you play. One must ask “What is it that separates him/her from me? What qualification do they have that entitles them to a portion of the money my band is earning?”.jpg)
The answer is simple: They have money.
They rent out the room for that night and afford you the opportunity to perform. (They are supposed to promote as well but how many of you have had a booking agent really promote for your show?) After realizing this I decided to avoid these people as much as possible. It is a financial risk but we will make a better percentage of our profit. (100%)
So keep that in mind as you book your band in Boston. I know that Berklee kids often just want to play and don’t care about money (I was one of those kids very recently) but give the future a thought. Booking agents know that Berklee kids will play for anything and that is a large part of why people like us are always faced with bad deals. They know that if you don’t play they can easily get another Berklee band to play for a terrible deal.
The show is at Lot F Gallery 145 Pearl street (near South Station.)
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Dorm Sessions 6 is the 2009 compilation released by Berklee's student-run label Heavy Rotation Records. The album—a mix of rock, pop, folk, r&b, hip-hop, and funk by Berklee students and alumni—features Nini&Ben, Shea Rose, Re-Up, Rebecca Muir, Nathan Reich, White Shoe Brown Shoe, Model Cars, SuperVolcano, and SEX! All of the artists performed live at the CD release concert in February 2009. Dorm Sessions Volume 6 is the 11th HRR release since the label formed in 1995, and the first also released on vinyl.
Find out more at the Heavy Rotation Records website and in the New York Times.
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Peter Levandoski '96 Penn State has moved to Boston to begin studies at the Goldman School of Dental Medicine at Boston University. His classmate Cliff Kuhn-Lloyd '96 is reported by sister Olivia to be doing very well as an emerging rock star in NYC. Check him out at http://www.myspace.com/reupband.
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Heavy Rotations Packs BPC
Posted on February 10, 2009 | Zac Taylor?Editor-in-Chief | LINK
Re-Up Closing the show with some funked-out hip-hop, Re-Up had a huge sound that featured turn tables and a horn section. The rhymes of MC Cliff “Spliff” Kuhn-Lloyd over the scratching of Keith “Keef D” Dickerhofe got everyone on their feet, moving and swaying to a powerful closing act.
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Live Review:
Love in Stockholm // The Phix // Re-Up // Joy Daniels
The Middle East Downstairs // Cambridge, MA // Jan. 21, 2010 -
Posted by PerformerMag | Review and photos by Candace McDuffie | LINK
Jazz and soul was alive and well this past Saturday as several bands took the stage to celebrate the release of Boston's own……. Re-Up hit the stage. Combining soul with their own eclectic view of hip-hop, the audience was completely consumed with their relaxed-but-passionate demeanor as they crooned songs like the bittersweet love ballad “Still” and the ultra-slick “Bad Motherfucker.”
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Re-Up’s Fridays @ 5 Performance
21 SEPTEMBER 2009 BY LISA KONG | LINK
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To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much when Re-Up first walked onto the Sadler Center Terrace stage set up for AMP’s free “Fridays @ 5” event on Sept. 18. Dressed in baggy t-shirts and baseball caps, they hardly looked like the “hip-hop/experimental” group advertised on the band’s myspace.
But then the music started. And I fell in love.
Cliff “Spliff” Kuhn-Lloyd’s vocals had me immediately hooked, with a magnificent whiskey voice that sent chills down my spine. The band presented a surprisingly sophisticated blend of hard-hitting rap and soulful jazz, with an unbeatable combination of great lyrics and a laid-back attitude onstage.
Each player of the eight-member band was highlighted at one point in the performance, from guitar solos to great riffs from the trumpet and saxophone duo.
Re-Up was booked for the event’s usual two-hour time slot, which was perhaps overambitious for just one band. The band even remarked that they’d have to “stretch” a few songs to fill the two-hours, and transitions between songs slowly became a matter of Kuhn-Lloyd asking the crowd how much time was left in their set.
The unsigned band from Boston, Massachusetts stopped to play at William & Mary before kicking off their Midwest tour. Check out their MySpace for songs and more info about the band.
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Review of our Oliver’s Fenway Show Sept. 10 2009 | Link
Boston got a little bit better tonight.
Seeing a not-so-old friend gave me an excuse to sneak out of the MIT Delt house, after a middling day of meetings and calls. The friend in question has changed a lot in four years (who hasn’t?) and I’m thrilled this job let me catch up with her after we both went through some changes.
Hallmark card prose will have to wait. I was also here to see the band she pumped up like so many fishpork reviews of yesteryear, and the impressive Myspace clips didn’t do it a shred of justice.
If the Hold Steady can complain “Chicago Seemed Tired Last Night,” than funk-hop outfit The Re-Up should write the polar opposite about the crowd at Cask and Flagon near Fenway Park. The guys know how to work a crowd, making us bounce like tennis balls in space.
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With a Dylan-circa-1968 beard and a rope holding up his sagging pants, singer Cliff “Spliff” Kuhn-Lloyd sung in a reggae-fied croak falling somewhere on the earthy common ground between Mos Def and Citizen Cope. Meanwhile, guitarist Owen Ross ripped stinging arpeggios out of the air to puncture the warm, loping bass-n-sax vibe. The guys love climaxes more than the adult film industry, consistently pumping up the drums every few bars and sending the vocals up in a blaze of record scratches (DJs in rock bands are back in style, folks) and shit-hot saxophone. It’s like Steely Dan fronted by Bob Marley. No, it’s like The Roots as a funk band in 1976. That’s probably not right either. Whatever you call it, it’s undeniably insidious to anyone afraid of letting their feet slip in a rhythmic fashion. Simply put, this is the best black music made by white people since The Black Keys became Ohio’s hottest export. Cool and genre-bending, the dudes make forward-thinking acts like TV On The Radio look like Pat Boone. I knew about two song titles, other than the closing “Easy Baby,” where anyone who heard the title knew the words. “Bad Mother Fucker” wasn’t so much a teeth-baring challenge as a revelatory celebration of confidence set to stun. One particularly groovy cut sounded like a mashup of Curtis Mayfield’s “Pusherman” and Mary J. Blige’s “Family Affair.” But as influences weaved their way in and out of the music, Cliff and crew held tight to their brand of bold let’s-get-fucked-up-and-ball music.
If this band isn’t big within a year, I’ll quit writing.
www.myspace.com/reupband
