Gizmodo actually crawled out of our basements last night to venture into the harsh lights of the Lower East Side (or that’s where we think we were—the signs declared it the ‘Bargain District’) to The Slipper Room, where nerdcore progenitor MC Frontalot—the only MC we know to rap about both Nigerian email scammers and why he’s wanted by the FBI for peer-to-peer—took the stage in his Manhattan debut. There were nerds galore, Penny-Arcade t-shirts contrasting with the clothes of painfully bedecked fashion “models” who looks like they were wearing clothes crafted from cast-off emergency room rugs. And to everyone’s surprise, except God’s, a handful of Hassidim.
Response to Frontalot’s debut ranged from geographically questionable (“He’s like New York’s National Treasure; our Eiffel Tower,”) to the dispassionate (“Our friend told us that a man was here to rap the songs,”) but it seemed that a good time was had by most—at least those who were there for Frontalot, and not to watch skinny white dudes with dirty hair play air guitar in a hemp smock.
Mr. Alot sat down after the show to talk to us about his new home in Brooklyn, his plans for a tour, and why he thinks he’s such a break out star in the Orthodox Jewish community.
Gizmodo: So you’re in Brooklyn now?
Frontalot: I am in Brooklyn.
Gizmodo: Why?
Frontalot: Well, I moved out last summer, to produce a rock musical—Young Zombies In Love for the New York Fringe Festival. I came out to work on that, and also to be closer to my girlfriend, who goes to school in DC. Also, I’ve always wanted to live in New York, because New York is awesome.
Gizmodo: Do you feel any responsibility for luring all these nerds out into public?
Frontalot: I feel terribly about this. All these people have to stop checking their email for an hour and a half, take the train, buy drinks. Nerds hate buying drinks. Nerds buy the coolest videogames so people coming over to their houses with drinks.
Gizmodo: So what’s the deal with the live show? Are you going on tour?
Frontalot: I’m feeling it out. At this point I’m doing what i can do. I was sort of embarrased last year at PAX [the Penny Arcade Expo]. It was the biggest audience I’d ever performed for. My rapping was bad and I was forgetting lyrics. So I’m working hard to get in shape.
Gizmodo: How much do you give this [your fans] to Penny-Arcade?
Frontalot: 90% of my fans met me from PA.
Gizmodo: So that was the first wave, but have you been building up from there?
Frontalot: I have no idea. I should have databases to keep track of this, but I don’t. I am ashamed.
Gizmodo: Do you have a big hasidic fan base?
Frontalot: I was really wondering about that, and then they left early.
Gizmodo: Not all of them. There were a couple that stayed all the way through.
Frontalot: I was worried. I think they maybe thought I was the hasidic reggae superstar. He was on Kimmel a couple nights ago.
We have a few videos of songs from the show we’d like to share, but since Ourmedia seems to not ever want to give us a login, we’ll have to find another way (Gawker servers can’t support video, since the tiny arms of the hamsters can’t crank the film spindles). If you have a better idea (wasn’t there a free video torrent service?) let us know.
