We Review: Buck 65, Bernard Dolan, and Rudy & The Rhetoric @ The Crocodile Cafe

Seattlest ventured into Belltown last night to attend the Buck 65 show at the Crocodile, mostly because Buck 65 is a divisive name in hiphop. You either love him or you don't, and we couldn't make up our minds based on the tracks he's got online. Our plan was to skip the openers. The guy touring with Buck 65 is named Bernard Dolan -- and, in the phrasing of Flight of the Conchords, what kind of hip-hop name is "Bernard Dolan"? After we heard Dolan's "Joan of Arcadia" on his MySpace page, though, we figured it couldn't hurt to show up a little early to catch an act that promised religious jokes set to hiphop.

The local act opening for Dolan and Buck 65 was Rudy & the Rhetoric, now out on CD-R. They sound clean, rehearsed, and synthy; the MC (Rudy, we presume) looks freshly scrubbed and straight out of an Abercrombie & Fitch catalog, one of the outdoorsy pages, where the guys are fully clothed. We had no idea Ken dolls could rap, but he was pretty good, and the DJ (the Rhetoric?) did some cool scratching. Overall, they were surprisingly polished but we had a hard time taking them seriously, especially since the MC kept wincing at the crowd's lukewarm reception.

"We have been driving 30 out of the past 48 hours," Bernard Dolan explained to the crowd by way of apology for starting late. "My pants are all... I look like I got raped by a pistachio." We don't know what this means but it was hilarious. Dolan's set was mostly a capella spoken word, including performance of "Joan of Arcadia" (the first line: "Joan of Arc had a dildo named Jesus, made out of wood from the cross"), "Still Electric" (a spiritual, technological 9/11 piece), and "Bombzo for Baghdad" (involving face paint and city-specific disses). His call on Seattle? "A city about as radical as a poetry slam at a Starbucks." Cocaine, Evel Knievel, Vietnam: we got goosebumps five minutes into this set and they pretty much stayed until Dolan was finished with his creepy, bangin', challenging work.

DJ Skratch Bastid took the tables for awhile, spinning playful, funky, madly scratch-heavy material that had the crowd at the Croc undulating. Bastid is a three-time ScribbleJam champ and worked with Buck 65 on the latest 65 album, The Situation. We liked his solo beats much better than whatever was happening when Buck 65 got on stage. As it turns out, Seattlest falls in the not-so-fond-of-Buck camp. This is robotic rap for the college-educated white folks with expensive cellphones; this is self-conscious nerd rap in a Hicksian Goatboy squeal, quotable to the extent that it feels like a pre-fabricated inside joke. We got bored. We grew annoyed. It felt too safe to be interesting. The guys in parkas and jaunty hats next to us loved it though, and the crowd at large was into it. You, too, might be into it, and that's fine, but we won't be waiting with bated breath for Buck 65's next cd.

Bernard Dolan photo care of MySpace.