Album cover: Li(f)e

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Sage Francis Bio

"All great truths begin as blasphemies," proclaimed the fiery playwright George Bernard Shaw. It's a sentiment that can be applied exponentially to the works of rapper Sage Francis and his exhilarating new album Li(f)e. Francis has never been afraid to provoke. As a result he is a sometimes polarizing and increasingly important figure in modern music. Adored by many, reviled by a few but never ignored and always essential, Sage Francis has emerged as the reigning agent provocateur of hip hop. Read more



SAGE FRANCIS ON TOUR

Aug 19th — Czech Republic — Hip Hop Kemp Festival
Aug 20th — Moscow, Russia — 16 Tons
Aug 21st — St Petersburg, Russia — Tanci Club
Sept 15th — Bristol, UK — The Fleece (w/ B. Dolan)
Sept 16th — London, UK — Scala (w/ B. Dolan)
Sept 17th — Brighton, UK —SOLD OUT
Sept 18th — Manchester, UK — SOLD OUT
Sept 19th — Glasgow, UK — Stereo (w/ B. Dolan)
Sept 21st — Lyon, France — Ground Zero (w/ B. Dolan)
Sept 22nd — Poitiers, France — Confort Modern (w/ B. Dolan)
Sept 23rd — Nantes, France — Pole Etudiant (FREE SHOW!!! w/ B. Dolan)
Sept 24th — Marseille, France — Marsatac Festiva (w/ B. Dolan)
Sept 25th — Metz, France — ZIKAMETZ FESTIVAL METZ (w/ B. Dolan)
Sept 26th — Paris, France — La Machine (w/ B. Dolan)
Sept 28th — Copenhagen, Scandinavia — Lille Vega (w/ B. Dolan)
Sept 29th — Lund, Scandinavia — Mejeriet (w/ B. Dolan)
Sept 30th — Oslo, Scandinavia — Living Room (w/ B. Dolan)
Oct 1st — Upsalla, Scandinavia — Ordsprak Festival (POETRY SHOW w/ B. Dolan)
Oct 2nd — Stockholm, Scandinavia — Södra Teatern (w/ B. Dolan)
Oct 5th — Brussells, Belgium — Botanique (w/ B. Dolan)
Oct 6th — Hamburg, Germany — Uebel & Gefaehrlich (w/ B. Dolan)
Oct 7th — Berlin, Germany — Cassiopeia (w/ B. Dolan)
Oct 8th — Amsterdam, NL — Sugarfactory (w/ B. Dolan)
Oct 9th — St Gallen, Switzerland — Palace (w/ B. Dolan)
Oct 10th — Lasaunne, Switzerland — Le Romandie (w/ B. Dolan)

Sage Francis & B. Dolan tour Australia & New Zealand 2010

Oct 15, Friday, Melbourne Festival
Oct 16, Saturday, Step Inn, Brisbane
Oct 17, Sunday, Oxford Arts Factory, Sydney
Oct 20, Wednesday, Rosemount, Perth
Oct 22, Saturday, Galatos, Auckland
Oct 23, Friday, San Francisco Bath House, Wellington

LI(F)E BLOG

August 26th, 2010

“Love the Lie” video & Behing-The-Scenes info

“Love the Lie” is a song from my latest album, LI(F)E. The music is written by Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse. This wonderful stop-motion video was done by Jim Foltice. Many thanks to Jim for putting in the long hours to make this happen. PLEASE SPREAD THIS LINK. Further details on the making of this video and pictures of BEHIND-THE-SCENES tomfoolery are posted underneath the video.

Jim Foltice approached me years ago in regard to making a video for one of my songs. This kind of thing happens from time to time, but very rarely does an offer exceed idle status. This stop-motion animation was originally supposed to be a video short that Jim was doing to tell a tale of his own personal experience with a relationship gone awry. When he showed me what he was working on I asked if he could try to turn it into a music video. Asked=begged. At first we attempted to make this a “Best of Times” video but the imagery and storyline weren’t matching too well with the lyrics of that song. Once I saw the visual story hashed out I decided that it fit the lyrics to “Love the Lie” much better. In fact, after accompanying this song with his visual storyline I have an even deeper appreciation for my own song. It’s great when videos work out like that.

In the words of Jim’s good friend (and part-time assistant) Leif Kolt:

“The video took over 1000 total man hours to make. The overwhelming majority by Jim himself. All the puppets and sets were built by hand out of sheet metal, wire, rods, and dissembled cameras, watches, and radios. Most of the sets are built from Styrofoam on wooden frames, textured with found objects, and hand painted. Each puppet is in between 1 and 2 feet tall, built on fully poseable armatures and screwed down to the set for each scene.

The entire film was shot in HD on a Cannon camera using Dragon Stop Motion software and the individual shots (over 10,000) were laid end to end and edited using After Effects. After the few digital effects were added and the shots were all color corrected each scene was exported into Final Cut pro where the final cut of the film was edited together.

Over the course of filming Jim was gradually transformed from a ‘creamer in my coffee’ guy to a strictly all black coffee drinker. Averaging 2 pots a day, and at one point had to visit a doctor due to exhaustion and malnourishment.”


Also, in case you missed it when we first posted it, here is a stop-motion animation that Jim Foltice did as promo for my LI(F)E album:

August 19th, 2010

Sage Francis Vs. NARDWUAR!!!

If you’re not familiar with Nardwuar then prepare to lose many hours of your life being caught in his youtube trap. I’m honored to have been interviewed by this man.

Read more

August 17th, 2010

“Mainstream vs Underground Hip-Hop” – What say you?

Read more

August 8th, 2010

A Waterline remix video & 2 informative interviews

To start this blog off, I’d like to share two of my favorite interviews I’ve done over the past couple months. Read more

July 27th, 2010

“unplugged” performance on BBC radio & more…

I’ve been meaning to do a write-up of the US Tour ever since it finished. It’s taking me a very long time to finish, so in the meantime I’m going to skip ahead and give a quick review of my most recent trip to the UK.

My first day in London included an in-studio appearance with DJ Lauren Laverne on her BBC Radio show. I decided to perform my songs with 2 acoustic guitarists, Ally & Warren. We’ve never performed together so when we arrived at the studio we spent an hour rehearsing some ideas before taking them live to the air. I edited together the 3 songs we performed and you can listen to the audio of this performance below.

Sage Francis unplugged – live on BBC radio 2010 by Strange Famous Records
Read more

July 9th, 2010

My chat with Mark Isham about the remix contest

Check my video chat with Mark Isham about the Waterline remix contest Read more

July 7th, 2010

Sage Francis & B. Dolan TOUR Australia & NZ!

JOIN THE EVENTS PAGE IF YOU LIVE IN EU, UK, AU or NZ!

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=111607735554772

Read more

June 10th, 2010

VIDEO for “The Best of Times”

The video was directed by Kyle Harbaugh. It was filmed by Hanu Brown-Eagle. Animation and fancy post-editing was done by Scott Reece.

This is the same team that did B. Dolan’s “Earthmovers” video. All praise is due.

June 8th, 2010

EUROPEAN TOUR in Aug, Sept & Oct of 2010!

CHANGES HAVE BEEN MADE TO A COUPLE OF THE UK SHOWS & SOME OF THEM ARE SELLING OUT! GET YOUR TICKETS IN ADVANCE. The Facebook events page is here.

June 3rd, 2010

RIP Big Ray

Paulie and Ray

Raymond came into my life when I was 3 years old. He adopted me and raised me as his own, giving me Read more

May 7th, 2010

LONDON, ENGLAND July 14th!!!

THIS SHOW IS SOLD OUT. There will be more UK shows during the Sep/Oct tour which will be announced in more detail soon.
Sage Francis – Live in London Read more

May 7th, 2010

Album streaming & LI(F)E commentary.

LI(F)E is now streaming at www.myspace.com/SageFrancis

Below is my 46 minute interview with Steven Blaqart of punkcastradio.com.
We go through the entire LI(F)E album and provide commentary for each track. If your ear blinks it might miss a couple truly golden moments:

LI(F)E will be in stores on May 11th which is when our pre-sale package deal ENDS. Get yours now, ya big dummy!

April 29th, 2010

LI(F)E song descriptions & Zane Lowe interview!

“The Best Of Times” has currently reached the #28 spot on the UK iTunes Alternative song chart well in advance of the album’s release! Below is a snippet of my iCHAT interview with Zane Lowe. My current charting in the UK is due in large part to this man’s support so THANK YOU!

A great number of people have pre-ordered LI(F)E which we’re extremely happy about. In fact, a few thousand CD’s were placed on my driveway today. The UPS man curses me under his breath but deep down I know he loves me. I’m about to start signing these suckers and packaging them up with the help of the folks at Strange Famous.

As a bonus item for our fans and supporters, while they wait for their packages to ship, I have written notes on each of the 12 songs from my new album. Below are my descriptions, inspirations and personal Read more

April 28th, 2010

“Russia Today” TV interview

Here’s my interview with a television program called RT. It was an hour long interview which got chopped down to 9 minutes so you’ll notice some serious editing going on. According to the comments section of this youtube video it seems I’ve offended a lot of conspiracy theorist types. All apologies, comrades! In the future I will make sure to express how important it is to be dreadfully cynical at all times. ;-)

RT is an English speaking Russian network broadcasting in English to over 100 countries spread over five continents. That being said, enjoy the awkward editing and my awkwardness in general:

April 27th, 2010

LI(F)E trailer

Check this stop-motion animation piece that Jim Foltice did for my LI(F)E album. Feel free to share it on your own sites to help promote the album. There’s less than 2 weeks left to grab your pre-sale package deals!

Jim Foltice is also working on a video for Read more

April 24th, 2010

My “secret” show(s) in Long Beach

photo by Timothy Luke

I had my first full show with the incredibly talented Free Moral Agents as my backing band on 4/23/10!

Free Moral Agents

It took  place at a book store called Open Books in Long Beach, CA. I didn’t announce the venue until the day of the show. Without my knowledge, tickets went on sale the day before and  it completely sold out. I’d like to thank the people who managed to get inside! It was really nice seeing a lot of old friends in one place. Poetry friends, music friends, industry folk. The Ice Cream Man serving free ice cream outside!

We mainly performed all the new songs from my LI(F)E album but we Read more

April 21st, 2010

Urb Magazine interview (April 21, 2010)

“Sage Francis: On Li(f)e, Old Age, and Selling Indie Rap”
Click the picture below for the full interview with Urb Magazine

photo by Anthony St. James

April 20th, 2010

Sage talks industry, Brian Deck, Natalie Portman, the UK & more…

Interview with Sage Francis at www.AltSounds.com conducted by Chris Maguire. Posted on April 19th, 2010 To read the full interview click this —> Read more

April 19th, 2010

What do you call this thing that we do?

Hello Li(f)ers!

photo by Anthony St. James

I’m about to fly to California for a week-long rehearsal with the Free Moral Agents. They will be my backing band on the “Life On the Road” Tour which begins on May 12th. Get your tickets now if you haven’t already because these shows will definitely sell out. Free Moral Agents will be playing their own set as will B. DOLAN. There might be a secret surprise warm-up performance while I am in Cali but Read more

April 14th, 2010

“The Best of Times” LYRICS & behind-the-scenes wordage

We are now offering a free MP3 of my “The Best of Times” song! CHECK THE LEFT SIDE OF THIS PAGE AND CLICK THE LINK FOR YOUR FREE MP3 DOWNLOAD! To download the song, right click and save. If you’re interested in reading the lyrics or learning how this song came to be then check the text below the photo. There’s less than a month to scoop up the pre-order deals!

"The End of Times" - photo by Anthony St. James

Background info on the song:

Yann Tiersen is my favorite modern composer. Has been for years. In fact, Read more

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