VTHH NOTES: 4/14/22

Props to North Ave Jax team for hitting a major milestone: their show this Saturday is SOLD OUT. All tickets gone. Higher Ground's main room, packed to capacity at $25 a pop. That's heavy, but also very necessary for the narrative.

It's great timing, too. Sure, selling out the week tickets go on sale (we see you, Lil Tecca) is undeniable clout, but selling out the week of the show is pure drama and perfect promo. It's never a bad thing to reaching eyeballs and earholes who won't actually be at your show. You can always be more visible.

On that note, holy shit, the Love, Kelly College Contest was a runaway success story. Vermont's many college scenes are the engine of our entertainment nightlife — no offense to our hard-working drug dealers, but they sell little baggies, not tickets. I have seldom seen someone tap into the Vermont college markets as effectively as this contest did.

The setup is genius: make each campus scene compete to see who can bring the best material, then mobilize them to vote for their best nominees. And the turnout was insane. It came down to a "too close to call" tie between UVM's Blu Pak and Castleton's Tyler Serrani. So Kelly held a runoff tiebreaker on Instagram and ... after over four thousand votes, on a Monday, it was still a tie. So congrats to both winners.

In other news, Mac Lethal fans will be disappointed to learn his appearance at Higher Ground this Friday has been cancelled; no word on why, but at least it's not Los Covidos since his tour is still rolling on elsewhere.

Have you checked out the first GET FAMILIAR of 2022? Fix that. Had a great conversation with none other than Heady Betty, who will be at Zenbarn on Saturday, April 30th, opening up for Cappadonna of the Wu Tang Clan along with a host of top notch local talent.

About that: this week's VTHH Sample Challenge has a heavy duty bonus prize. The winner will get bumped over the Zenbarn sound system during the cypher segment of that Cappadonna show. That's a pretty sweet look. Learn more right here.

I also reviewed the debut Jade Relics joint Mandarine in Seven Days this week. No spoilers or anything, but it was extremely fucking impressive stuff.

Finally, we've got a brand new single from Konflik, this time rocking over a jazzy, upbeat Old Gold loop. "Stomp" is a layered tongue-twister workout from a veteran operator who makes it look easy.