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Last night I went to see a concert at S.O.B.'s here in the NYC. It was my first concert that was entirely hip-hop. I've seen a few rappers/hip-hoppers in my day, but always with some sort of rock and or roll to mix things up a bit. You know, like Public Enemy with Anthrax or Ice Cube mixing it up with all the "alternative" musicmakers at Lollapalooza back in 1992.

Anyway, this show was Swollen Members (insert genital-based joke here) along with openers Gym Class Heroes and Sweatshop Union (actually, just 4 out of the 7 Union members).

I photographed some of the stage antics. You can click on the photos for a larger view if you really care to.

First it's Sweatshop Union:
Sweatshop Union doing their thing. Left to right, you have Kyprios, Metty, DJ Itchy Ron (peaking over Metty's shoulder) and Mos Eisley.

This is Metty the Dert Merchant or Metty for short. He reminds me of Toole, if Toole was Canadian, rapped and owned a Orioles hat. Notice the middle finger. So like Toole. He even had some wacky facial hair, but not quite wacky enough to outdo Toole. His friend to the right is DJ Itchy Ron. As far as I can tell, you just can't go wrong with names like Metty the Dert Merchant and DJ Itchy Ron.

Next up ... Gym Class Heroes:
Gym Class Heroes. From Geneva, N.Y. of all places. Not exactly the center of the hip-hop world. Not even the center of anything. Who would've guessed?

Here is the guitarist and singer of Gym Class Heroes. The guitarist looks like a slightly less beefy and slightly less full of bullet holes 50 Cent. I even saw him dancing around a bit during Swollen Members and he even dances like 50 a bit. Awesome. By the way, the singer makes this face quite frequently.

Travis, singer of Gym Class Heroes. He was constantly fidgeting around and messing with his face. All that busyness reminded me off a combo of Brad Pitt in 12 Monkeys and Leonardo DiCaprio in What's Eating Gilbert Grape.

I was really looking forward to Swollen Members (insert joke with my name and genitals here), and to be honest they were a bit disappointing. I don't think the crowd, or lack there of, helped much. That said, it's Swollen Members:
This is Mad Child from Swollen Members. I always thought the "Mad" was as in "Crazy" but about 30 seconds into the show I started thinking it was just "Mad" as in "Pissed off." He was bitching about the monitors being to loud, then the sound being too low, then the lights being too bright, then the monitors being too low. He also wasn't too concerned with the smoking ban.

Prevail and Mad Child.

This is Rob the Viking, DJ for Swollen Members. Although he has Viking in his name, I didn't see any sign of a helmet with horns, nor was there any pillaging or plundering.

Swollen Members blurrin' it up.

So, in all it was a $12 well spent. Sweatshop Union was really impressive. Gym Class Heroes was a pleasant surprise. Swollen Members as I mentioned was a little bit of a let down, but I'd be willing to give them another shot.

Keep on rockin' hip-hoppin' in the free world.