Down in Oakland

So, over at MTV2‘s website and its “The Leak” section, you can stream all of the Transplants‘ new album, Haunted Cities. The Transplants are a side project featuring Rancid‘s Tim Armstrong (a man who has written more songs this afternoon than you will in your entire friggin’ life), as well as Blink 182‘s Travis Barker and… um… a guy name Skinhead Rob.

Now, before you listen to the stream, let me warn you about Skinhead Rob. See, the Transplants are a cool deal. It’s this thing that’s kinda hip-hop / punk rock / reggae / electronic music. It rocks. The last cd had AFI‘s Davey Havok, the Distillers‘ Brody Dalle, and the Slackers‘ Vic Ruggerio. Seriously, a very very fun album. EXCEPT for Skinhead Rob. His real name is Rob Aston, and the man is ostensibly the “rapper” of the group.

Unfortunately, he has no flow, and I can’t think of any other way he got this job than just being amazingly annoying and refusing to move equipment onto the stage until he got a chance at the mic (he used to be Rancid’s roadie). The trick is to rework all his raps as you’re listening to them, and make yourself think you’re listening to Method Man or something. It’ll make life easier. Still… go check out the stream. You’ll enjoy it.

From the Transplants’ first, self titled album on Epitaph Records:
Diamonds and Guns
Tall Cans In the Air