THE ILL SEERIES

May 4th, 2007 - Wow! Almost a full year since my last Ill Seeries ... apologies, I really did have to get some of my life in order ... not that I could give up totally on rocking shows ever of course. The last gig on Good Friday backing up The Runaway really rekindled my taste for the stage and the music. With a full live band and Runaway's cousin singing her heart out, it was the livest show I've rocked in forever ... especially since about 800 youth and leaders were really feeling the vibes. This is great news because the 2nd release on Prophetic Poetic Records is The Runaway's debut album "A Brief Word". Trust me this album rocks straight out and I even got to jam out on the last track trading verses with my main man for "See Rap Run". You can check it on my Myspace page. That is a little taste of the style we'll be hitting you with when we get to work on our collabo album. Check out the freshness of A Brief Word for yourselves on The Runaway's myspace page and Sphereofhiphopmp3.com for album previews and free downloads. Make sure you check us out at the CD Release concert on May 26th, at The Gig Theatre in Kitchener, ON.

Well I'll get back to waiting for our first child to be born ... I promise to update more often than last year (as if that's tough!). I'll also try and reflect back on some of the shows in the last year as things were a lot more busy than I've made it appear. One last word, there is a vert old Skeletal Decibels track "Aces" (prod. Savilion) that was released last year by SuperiorBelly.com on their SuperiorBelly Compilation alongside other indy names like Noah23, Glue, Passage (of Anticon), and many others. With some good distribution, It's helping spread the words of the Seer as far as Japan. We believe 2007 is gonna be a good year, so look for more to come.

May 22, 2006 - For four months ILL SEER has been allowing Cyril Guerette to get his non-hiphop careers in gear, whilst stealing time to rock a show or two. The future months hold more of slowdown actually, until this thesis is finished and thereby a proper philosophical foundation is laid for the construction of his next solo album. AKA I'm just too busy these days. On top of this I've been hobbling everywhere (or nowhere if I could help it) due to a kneecap fracture incurred running away from ancient demons. CGI demons at that. I was visiting my lovely Maegan working on the set of the film The Storm which is written, directed, and produced by the main man, Todd Cantelon. After being an extra in a bus I caught the acting bug and a few of my homies, Karl, Daryll, and Anton, wisked me away to do shoot a bunch of us running down the street from non-existant demons who were to be computer-added later. I tripped at one point, smashed my knee on the ground, rolled out of it, and kept running for the next half-hour. Two days later I finally check into the hospital to find I fractured my knee. Who knew being a movie action extra star was so hard on the body?

Musically, I've had the chance to rap this past while on stages with Lightheaded member Braille, ShadK, Relic, Runaway, Soul Natural, SelfHelp. To top it off I also got to rock out with Monica Schroeder, Uneven Ground, Jelly-Filled, Ben Sures, and Dan Fournier, and even got to host host a Battle of the Bands as well, in Cambridge, at Heritage Rawks. One of the most memorable moments has to be EmpireRemixed thrown by my boy Andrew Rennie, which actually featured famous theologian and Anglican Bishop of Durham, NT Wright in intimate conversation with Brian Walsh at Revival Bar. It felt like a bit of Toronto theology history, especially seeing him later grace the stage himself and sing and play some Bob Dylan with the band. It was great to be a part of it with DJ TeknoStep, Julia Churchill and Alison Hari Singh. See Pictures.

The HipHopHelps 2: Raise Concert was also off the hook, and a big success for Prophetic Poetic in Waterloo. Rogers Community Televesion even came along and ended up putting out a segment on the event that aired a few times, including interviews with Runaway and ILL SEER. Look for more mixtape projects and shows aimed to help charities outta the PP camp in the future, and an album out of the Runaway.

To be honest though, probably the thing which gives me most hope for my music in the future has been finally putting the vision I had always dreamed of into practice with the PsalmBombing events. After delivering my paper "Aleatoric Rhetoric" to the American Academy of Religion a few years ago I had always wanted to actually implement my thoughts on doxological freestyle with others in a concerted musical effort. With Cliff Meyers helping to organize several events at Heritage College, we started the first one with a small group of 15 people or so, many of whom were musicians. No one really knew what to expect, but Tom Labonte started hitting them drums, and the bass and guitar followed in an improvised jam session, and I started freestyling my heart to God and I was like "yeah." It just felt right immediately. Musicians started trading instruments and I finally convinced my man Ben Martin to hit the mic and try something he hasn't done before - rockstar that he is - pray to God in freestyle. He sputtered, stuttered, and uttered shuddering thunderous words from his soul to his God, and I thought, "Ah Yeah." When a few more got up and followed suit and the music got tighter and tighter I got the mic back to thank God for what was happening and would happen. Each event got better, and better-attended. Freestyling skills grew too, and our hearts, and new musicians and rhymers added new blood. A highlight was when Scott Kipfer hit the keys and the Spirit breathed our life to leaf. We will start up the official events again in September every month till April hopefully. I am excited to see how this experiment develops. In the meantime I can hit some future events with some psalmbombing over beats and there is always the upcoming Nidus Festival this August 4-6. I want something special for that show, its gonna be a fresh weekend.