In the early and mid-90s, Pharcyde (along with De La Soul and A Tribe Called Quest) were the kings of alternative hip-hop. Featuring socially concious rhymes, jazz-influenced beats and some extremely talented raps, The Pharcyde acheived moderate commercial success, culminating with their appearance at Lollapalooza 1994, before things started taking a turn for the worst, with several members leaving to form solo projects. “Drop” was one of the few songs Pharcyde had to chart with Billboard, hitting #5 in the rap charts and featuring this great video directed by Spike Jonze, who worked with several Pharcyde-related projects in his career. Spot the Mike D and AdRock (Beastie Boys) cameos!

Watch the video for “Drop” by The Pharcyde after the jump..

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Scottish knob-tweakers, Boards of Canada, have been creating their unique style (many people have tried to imitate over the years) of dreamy electronica for almost 20 years and just keep getting better and better. The secretive duo, consisting of brothers Michael Sandison and Marcus Eoin Sandison, have been quiet about their plans for upcoming new work, but, that’s par for the course for a group that hid the fact that they were related for years until an interview in Pitchfork revealed that they were keeping it a secret in order to avoid comparisons to similar sibling groups (Orbital for one). With dark themes and experiments with subliminal messages, Boards of Canada constantly reach out from their dark myst to provide fans with pure electronica gems every few years, content with sitting back and enjoying the relative quiet that living in suburban Scotland provides.

Watch the brilliant video for Board of Canada’s “Dayvan Cowboy” after the jump..

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It seems all my late night calls to Q-Tip finally paid off, with the announcement yesterday from Take Two Games (and our nerdy gamer cousins) that the Midnight Marauders themselves, A Tribe Called Quest, will be reuniting for a dozen date tour promoting 2K Sports’ newest basketball title, NBA 2K7. I have to admit, I’m impressed with how well Take Two coalesces with the music industry, not in that EA, we’ll support whatever the kids listen to when they’re applying their mascara crap either, but actual meaningful, interesting music artists who deserve all the support they get.

Watch the video for A Tribe Called Quest’s “Electric Relaxation” after the jump..

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Not happy with just posting the previous Broadcast video we’re back to our favorite British noise-makers, this time with their video for “Papercuts” off of the infamous Warp DVD from several years back. From 2000, the video for “Papercuts” was directed by Barback and definitely scores as one of our top Broadcast tracks. Broadcast records for Duophic Records, Warp, and Tommy Boy. Enjoy.

“Papercuts” by Brodcast after the jump..

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Wow. My friends, the future is here and this is possibly the greatest use of this here interent thing I’ve ever experienced. Yellow Arrow is a communal, social internet mobile mashup technology, allowing users to create mobile tours, viewable over the internet, but more precisely, mobile phone tours to be conducted in real-time whenever you find an “arrow” in presumably any country that Google Maps covers. To beautifully demonstrate the power of Yellow Arrow, an interactive mobile walking tour and online documentary about the Washington DC punk/hardcore scene was created, where physical and virtual users are able to take the walking tour of where everything happened in DC punk, watching 10 mini-documentaries, featuring interviews with Alec Mackaye, Brendan Canty, Cynthia Connolly, Ian Mackaye, Ian Svenonius, and many many many more who were there when it all began and who graciously share their fondest memories with us.

Read more: Capitol of Punk – A walking tour and online documentary about DC punk

I predict most of Reykjavík will come to a dead stop November 17th, when one of Iceland’s most famous exports, The Sugarcubes, will be performing a reunion show, their first time playing together in 14 years. Former group member and now superstar, Björk, announced a few days ago on her website that The Sugarcubes will reunite for a one-time show as part of a charity event for Smekkleysa SM, the label they released their first single (“Birthday”) 20 years ago. Tickets are available now and believe me, they won’t be easy to get as the concert draws closer.

Watch The Sugarcubes video for “Tidal Wave” after the jump..

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Weird Al is back and back hard with this great parody video of Chamillionaire’s “Ridin’ Dirty”, featuring everyone’s favorite vegan turning it into a guaranteed Digg, YouTube and MySpace favorite titled “White and Nerdy”. I have to admit, Al is impressing me with this new single, which not only bangs pretty hard, but his rhymes are extremely good. From Weird Al’s forthcoming album, we present to you “White and Nerdy” which just dropped today and features Al all spiffy and clean, looking like a mid-90’s emo rocker.

Blast that shit and watch the video after the jump..

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We wouldn’t really know where to start with Stereolab. A Bunch of Nerds favorite, over their long long career, Stereolab has produced many amazing tracks which we could have posted, but, we had to choose one (don’t worry, the rest will come in future posts). For our first Stereolab video, we’ve decided to go with an older track and shoot, somewhat hard to find actually, but naturally up on YouTube. The song is title “Ping Pong” from the lab’s 1994 album “Mars Audiac Quintet”, which funnily enough was connected through licensing to Sub Pop, rather than Stereolab’s seminal Duophonic label. After the sad passing of co-vocalist Mary Hansen and more recently, the band being dropped from Elektra, Stereolab took some much needed rest to refocus, working on small tours and the member’s various side-projects.

Watch the video after the jump..

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Starting out in Maine during the early 90s, Rex was a powerhouse trio of experimental post-rockers (featuring ex-Codeine member Doug Scharin, also of HiM fame), releasing several critically-acclaimed albums, followed by tours with bands such as June of ‘44, The Sea and Cake, Sebadoh and many others. Rex unfortunately hasn’t produced anything lately, but rumours are often present about a reunion being possible, we can only sit back and hope.

Watch the video for Rex’s “Jet” after the jump..

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In a smart move, MySpace has announced they will begin selling DRM-free MP3s from over 3 million bands through it’s new music service. The service will be powered by Snocap, a great new service which is the child of Napster founder, Shawn Fanning, and will no doubt launch a few more ‘indie’ band’s careers. Bands will be able to control which songs they sell, payment is done via PayPal with only a small distribution fee required by SnoCap.

Read more: MySpace to sell MP3s from over 3 million bands | Snocap