Prince Harry Spotted At Arrested Development Show

Prince Harry waiting patiently for AD to take the stage.

After welcoming my son into the world on the same day that Prince William's son was born - true story - I was about "royal family-ed" out. But this is pretty cool, I guess - Prince Harry was spotted at an outdoor show in the UK that featured Arrested Development! Here's a link to the article here. Anyway, cool to see AD get some coverage out of this!

The Todd of Dracula

As the blog says, I like to cover everything and anything Arrested Development, so this definitely fits. Good friend of the blog Christian recently did a comic filled with in-jokes for his wife for a birthday present called Todd of Dracula. Due to popular demand, he recently posted the entire thing online.

Like I said, it's filled with in-jokes meant for his wife and for fans of the Dark Shadows TV show (and fans of hating the Dark Shadows movie starring Johnny Depp, which I think fits most of the world), but thanks to his annotations, it can be enjoyed by the rest of us. I know I had quite a few laugh out loud moments. To the left lies one pertinent series of panels from the book that will make it so that you never look at "Mr. Wendal" the same way again.

Anyway, take a look at it if you get a chance. Christian has a lot of talent and it'd be fun to see him work at something for wider audiences. In the meantime, we can enjoy what he has already done.

Also, the ten minutes I spent ordering a massage gift certificate on the internet for my wife's birthday this year looks doubly lame after seeing the effort he put into this! On the other hand, I did dedicate my book to her, so that counts for something, right?

AD Live at the Kennedy Center (Full Concert)

Pretty cool - here's a link to the full show that Arrested Development performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. Can't think of a better way to spend an hour of a summer afternoon than watching and listening to this. ;)

http://www.kennedy-center.org/explorer/artists/?entity_id=94552&source_type=B

Beats From Speechs Vault Request

I had a request for a repost of Beats From Speech's Vault, a very rare project from Speech. So here it is! And here are some details from a previous writeup of it:

For those not aware, this is a project that Speech talked about briefly on his debut album and is extremely hard to find- Mike from Vagabond Records was nice enough to send this my way for the site.

New AD Album "This Moment"

I was working on some other things when I clicked over to Facebook and saw that Speech had announced a new AD album only seconds earlier. Exciting news! Can't wait to hear it. Here is his post:

Speech Thomas

The title for the new Arrested Development album... "This Moment" featuring: Toya, @KhaoMusic, Nana Binghi + more! #HipHop

 

20th Anniversary Tour Diary

Somehow I missed this - a little video put together by AD as a diary for their shows in Australia from last year. Check it out!

People Everyday Sampled by J. Cole

Hasn't been too much to report in AD-land, but here's something: "People Everyday" was sampled by J. Cole for the opening of his new album Born Sinner on a song called "Villuminati" along with songs by the Notorious B.I.G. ("Juicy") and R. Kelly ("I Wish Remix"). That said, I don't hear the sample - what am I missing? I'm slipping.

Every now and again I like to give new rappers a shot even though I'm firmly in that "old music is better than today's music" stage of my life, where I will likely remain until I pass. I've heard this album is pretty good but I haven't had a good chance to listen, just happened to notice the sample in the liner notes, of which J. Cole was generous enough to provide unlike Kanye West....

Kings of the Mic Show Review

On Saturday, June 1^st, 2013 I found myself in a funk, and I couldn’t understand it.

I couldn’t understand it because the night before, at Stir Cove in Council Bluffs, Iowa, I had been lucky enough to witness the incredible Kings of the Mic tour featuring some of my favorite artists of all time: LL Cool J, Ice Cube, Public Enemy, and De La Soul.

In some ways, scratch that, in every way, it was a dream lineup. In fact, the night before this tour was announced, I was talking to my wife about the concerts we had seen, and I specifically mentioned that I would really like to see LL and Cube someday. But never in a million years did I think that the two of them would go on tour together, with the added bonus of Public Enemy, who I had seen last fall, and De La Soul, another classic group.

So when I thought it over, the reason for my depression became clear: it is doubtful that I will ever see a lineup or a show like that again. First world problems, I know. But I really was kind of bummed that it was all over.

So as to the show, and why I was so excited about it - let’s start from the beginning. With four acts like these, there is really not a moment to spare, and with that in mind, opening De La Soul came out five minutes early to open things up. I wasn’t complaining – we’ve all been kept waiting for upwards of two hours for an artist that we paid $20 in Ticketmaster fees plus an expensive ticket price to see. I can just imagine the artist waiting in their dressing room until all of the red M&Ms are removed from the candy dish and the bottled water chilled to exactly 37.3 degrees per their touring rider, while we suffer in silence, wondering how many drinks we’re going to have to buy before they bother to show up.

But not these guys. They get down to business. They got things started with a mix of new songs, rarer old ones, and some hits, including “Me, Myself, and I” to the delight of the crowd. They packed a lot in their thirty minutes.

My Book

It's been a long time... I shouldn't have left you....

Hello all. In the post below you will find a link to a recent interview with Speech if you are looking for AD stuff, but I wanted to take a second and point out one of the reasons why this blog has went to seed as of late. Basically, in December 2011 I began work on a novel and in the last four or five months, that work became overwhelming, leaving me little time to work on anything else during my free moments. To attempt to motivate myself, I decided to switch the scope of this site to all old-school rap. This was a stupid idea. If I didn't have time to write about AD and Speech during a down period, what made me think trying to churn out a post a day was a good idea? So yeah, that lasted about a week, and even that was a miracle.

So, with that in mind, while it is a long-shot that this would be something that would interest any stray readers that come across this site, I did want to share with you the efforts of my work: a novel title On the Backs of Dragons. As you can probably guess, it is a fantasy, though I would say it goes pretty light on many of the hallmarks of the genre. For example, there are no elves or wise wizards, and no prophecies about chosen ones nor are there any trinkets that need to be destroyed to save the world. At it's heart, it is an adventure story, and a very simple one. It is being published by me through CreateSpace. If you would be so kind to check into it, I would appreciate it. If not, thanks for reading Highway 85, and I promise it won't pop up again here!

Interview With Speech

Hello all, long time no see. There has been a dearth of Speech and AD stories as of late, but from what I understand, they are in the process of recording new stuff, which is always welcome. In the meantime, here is a little interview with Speech with Chuck D's website Hip Hop Gods, which is a great site to follow for us old-school fans.