FM INVADES CMJ

FM ADVENTURE: FM INVADES CMJ
(Includes 3 Eating FM Food Reviews inside)

We just got back from a crazy week in New York City for CMJ. During CMJ (College Music Journal) Week, fresh artists and bands from all over the world come to rock at different showcases around the city to show whats up-and-coming in music. Right when we landed we could feel the music energy from all the peeps in town for CMJ, it definitely wasn’t the everyday NYC. Started the week performing at our own showcase, explored NYC for a few days, ate the best pizza on earth, made sure to try any food ny is known for, and ended the week with 2 party rockin shows at Tenjune and SL Simyone Lounge in the Meat Packing District… our most action packed New York trip yet…

CMJ DAY 1 – FM Showcase
Landed at JFK in the early afternoon off a redeye flight and hit up a taxi to our hotel outside of the city. We procrastinate since we’re ‘rappers’ so we couldn’t find a cool hotel available with such short notice. Ended up finding a spot online the day before in Long Island City right under the Queensbridge which ended up being pretty cool.







Hotel equipped with wine dispensers… romantic.

DJ Virman is admiring the romantic view from his penthouse suite.

-Eating FM “Best Pizza in NY” (Food Review)
New York Pizza is all we ever hear about from the west coast, and if you ask almost any New Yorker where the best pizza is 9 out of 10 people will say Lombardi’s. We didn’t waste any time and made it the first place we eat at on our trip. Pizza in LA is just pizza so it was hard for me to understand what the big deal was about a pizza parlor, since on the west coast a lot of times the restaurants that just serve pizza are empty. Some people told us this place is great cuz of the toppings, or others say its cuz of the baked crispy crust and sauce, but everyone says we gotta try it.

Historical. Lombardi’s is recognized as the first Pizzeria in the United States.

When we rolled it the place was packed and we had to give our names cuz the wait was 45min.. for pizza? wow. Can’t believe how excited we are to eat pizza, our stomachs were growling since it was our first meal of the day and the anticipation is making it hurt.


I CAME 2 PARTY.

Linked up with our homie Grey (interviewed Game and 50cent) who knew just what to order.

We ordered 2 large Pizzas which equals 16 slices for 6 of us.. that’s 2 1/2 slices per person.. math seems about right. Toppings were italian sausage, mushrooms, cheese, meatballs, red onion, sauce. DELICIOUS.

If we didn’t have a show in a few hours we’d order another pizza. It was daym good.

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EATING FM Rating system:

***3 Fingers up – MUST EAT.. crave for it.. amazing food. If you dont try it your missing out on life…

**2 Fingers up – Great Taste, if you get a chance… try it… i recommend it.

* 1 Finger up – Kinda wish i didnt eat there or order what i ordered … but i ate it and now im full.

- Middle Finger up – i threw it away while eating it… if i had a brick i’d throw it through the window.. and if i had lighter fluid and a lighter.. i’d burn that mutha down…

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What WE Thought:

Restaurant: Lombardi’s Pizzeria

Location: New York City

Price Range: Average old school pizza price.. around $20 per pizza

We recommend: Italian Sausage, Mushroom and Meatball

Service: Good Service, but the wait to get in and the wait to bake the pizza killed us haha.

Rating: – ***3.0 Fingers – We agree with NY. its the best Pizza we’ve ever had.

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STUFFED and almost showtime.

Our first show of this trip was for a CMJ Showcase set up by Moodswing360 at a spot called FAT BABY. Its a small spot in Manhattan where i hear people come thru to after party and leave not being able to remember anything due to a crazy night. Opening up the night for us was Roxy Cottontail, Mann, Cisco Adler’s new artist named Chris Young, our homies from LBC called the Cold Flamez who got a hit called “Miss Me Kiss Me”, and Tabi Bonney who’s featured on MTV and MTV2.

THE FAR EAST MOVEMENT…

KEV NISH

PROHGRESS

J-SPLIF

DJ VIRMAN

ALMOST TIME FOR THE SHOW…..

Soundcheck.



Our manager Carl playing Texas Holdem when no ones looking lol

SHOWTIME. FAR EAST MOVEMENT CMJ SHOWCASE AT FAT BABY NYC.



*Pics from Danielle Wong

Nice lil cozy industry crowd was in the house. Thanks to the fam and fans for coming out to rep FM. Shouts to Samantha from MTV IGGY, Martin and the Cherrytree/Interscope Records fam, J Grand from Warner/Asylum, Marisa Pizarro, Grey, LS, Yung Mac, Cat Ahn from Motown, Amie, Heather Bright, Cliff Song, 10Deep, all the Moodswing360 fam and all the fam we gotta meet after the show.

CMJ DAY 2 – NYC ADVENTURE
No show scheduled for the day, so we set this day aside to explore NY and meet up with some fam. We’re shameless tourists and this city is way too big so we had to get old school and whip out the trusty old paper map…

DJ Virman had to walk NY in style so he brought out the Dave’s Quality Meats (DQM) Nike Blazers from NY.

We wanted to get the full experience so we decided to take the subway from Queensbridge to Manhattan. Could have swore we walked by a spot i saw in a Nas vid.

Walked around SOHO where the shopping is kinda crazy and hit up a shoe store called JUMP. We heard about this place a while back from our friend Sung Kang, an actor from Better Luck Tomorrow, Fast N Furious Tokyo Drift and Ninja Assasin, who did a cool ad for Jump (Check vid here). Chopped it up with Victor who heads the marketing for the store and they blessed us with some new kicks… FM = kids in a candy kick store.




hahaha found Sung on the wall.

Huge thanks to Victor and Jump Shoes for the fresh show kicks. Visit them a http://www.jumpcorp.com.

Worked up a crazy appetite walking around and right next door to Jump we found this mini cupcake stand, HAHA only in new york. Looked way too interesting to pass up. They are mini cupcakes just bigger than a silver dollar and they cost $1. Theres all kinds of flavors with different fillings… mini red velvet cupcakes looked pretty good.

Eating FM “The Whaley” (Food Review)
We all wanted a sitdown spot to eat, so while walking the streets we randomly found this small cafe/restaurant that was the size of a large bathroom. Size dont seem to matter out here, its all about whats inside. The restaurant was called Rubys , and after talking to the manager we found it its owned by the owner of Ksubi Clothing. The menu was Australian i think cuz of the names of the dishes and the assortment of Australian beer.




Grilled Chicken Breast with grilled asparagus and red peppers

What caught our attention was a burger called The Whaley (australian for hamburger.. jk) which was a Burger on panini bread, a slice of pineapple, a slice red beet, and a fried egg.

I think we’ve been getting pretty lucky with the food out here cuz this place was the ish, and the Whaley scored big with everyone. They told us they will be opening a restaurant in LA too.. CANT WAIT.

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EATING FM Rating system:

***3 Fingers up – MUST EAT.. crave for it.. amazing food. If you dont try it your missing out on life…

**2 Fingers up – Great Taste, if you get a chance… try it… i recommend it.

* 1 Finger up – Kinda wish i didnt eat there or order what i ordered … but i ate it and now im full.

- Middle Finger up – i threw it away while eating it… if i had a brick i’d throw it through the window.. and if i had lighter fluid and a lighter.. i’d burn that mutha down…

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What WE Thought:

Restaurant: RUBY’s

Location: New York City

Price Range: $12 for a burger.. pricey but good.

We recommend: THE WHALEY BURGER.

Service: Great Service, food came out fast.

Rating: – ***3.0 Fingers – Who’d a thought pineapple, red beets, and a fried egg would win on a burger?

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Whenever we’re in NY we always gotta visit our bro Blaze Wong over at the Cornerstone/ 1500 Squad/ Fader Mag Offices. This dude knows every dope Chinese food restaurant around haha and him and J at Cornerstone are promotion OG’s.





along with hooking us up with fly Reeboks, they hooked Virman up a lil extra

We signed this almost 2 years ago, thx for not covering it up haha

J aka the Goodreverenddr has all kinds of kool things hiding around the office. Found this limited OASIS Edition of a game the uk by Milton Bradley called ‘Frustration’, which goes by the name of ‘Trouble’ in the States. He said it runs for 300pounds in the UK which is $600 US. All yall collectors need to holler at him haha


When Proh needs to ‘Slow his roll’ he sips DRANK.

Walked around the streets and found some “Only in NY” moments…

Over to NYU to link up with Bernie Cho who distributes for Epik High. He was throwing a showcase for some electro DJ’s and live singer from Korea. Pretty sick performance. Got a chance to meet John Shim from MTV Iggy there also

Our friends from LA called The Cataracs (recently signed to Universal) were also in town to perform at a CMJ Showcase at a spot called The Eldridge. These dudes got a killer following in the bay and we just did a song together called “Like A G6″ featuring FM, Cataracs and their new female artist named Dev who sounds amazing on the hook. I put a little teaser of the song up on a video called ‘Getting ready for Powerhouse’ and the reaction was crazy so we finally got the song finished and it will be ready for release on Nov 5th on our new mixtape called “PARTY ANIMAL” to celebrate the Party Rock Tour we’ll be headed on with LMFAO.

Dev opening up the showcase

Niles and David – The Cataracs

FM, THE CATARACS and DEV Poppin bottles in the ice.. like blizzard.

After a long day we need to end the night with some late night grease… Rolling with Manny who we work with on Publishing and his friend Lena, a lawyer in the industy for 50 cent, D12 and many others, told us WO HOP in China town has just the right amount of grease to put that a$$ to sleep.

Everyones legs hurt from walking. G’Nite.

CMJ DAY 3 – 2 IS BETTER
Last day out in NY for CMJ and we wanted to leave with a bang. We had 2 shows later at night at some fresh clubs and made sure to pack our day with some crazy things to do…

STOP 1.
Saving the best for last, we hit up Times Square for a meeting with MTV…

The view from the 50-something-th floor was incredible.


What we look like to the Staypuffed Marshmellow man

Great meeting at MTV, can’t wait to finish our album and build!

STOP 2.
Another ritual we have when in NY is visiting St. Patricks to get a quick prayer in… everyday we feel blessed to be alive and doing what we’re doing so we gotta take a little time out no matter how busy we are to thank god for everything.

STOP 3.
Had to pay a visit to our awesome booking agency called Moodswing 360 who have put us on some amazing tours with the likes of Shwayze and LMFAO and some sick club venues all around the US. Got to meet the whole team for the first time and chop it up with our dood Johnny Maroney who’s been keeping us extra swamped this year hahaha

STOP 4.
NBC/MTV International and Ally from MTV-N-AZN was throwing an industry mixer and auction at a rooftop bar and earlier in the month we had donated a few Far East Movement items to be auctioned off to help the cause so since we happened to be in town we thought we might as well support in person too.

We hadn’t eaten anything all day but Ally came to the rescue with hotwings, sliders and quesadillas… bar food saved FM.


MTV International Staff reppin the Far East Movement

STOP 5. EATING FM “CHICKEN N RICE” (Food Review)
Still starving and we had a little more time before soundcheck and our shows. People on our twitter were suggesting we eat at a spot called Shakeshack for the best burgers, but we passed by and the line was waaay too long. Next suggestion on our twitter (@fareastmovement) was a chicken and rice cart on 53rd and 6th st. Our legs hurt so bad but its worth the journey if everyone on twitter says so…

On the way to our Chicken and Rice, we randomly run into the woman that RUNS NYC… MISS INFO! She’s had our back from waaay back and even blessed us with a audio skit on our first album. She was hosting crazy CMJ Showcases all week and we didn’t get a chance to link up so this was a great surprise.

Miss Info just co-signed the chicken n rice. Now we gotta have it.

Walked up to the famous cart and saw a line like people were waiting for some limited nikes… this chicken and rice have gold flakes in it?

Finally got our plates and it smelled amazing. Asked for extra ‘white’ sauce that you pour all over everything and devoured it. Now there was nothing supremely special about the plate, but the simplicity of the chicken and the spiced rice with sauce all over everything made it classic, and something that i wouldn’t get tired of and be able to eat a few times a week… plus a big plate like this is like $5. For NY prices, thats a steal.

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EATING FM Rating system:

***3 Fingers up – MUST EAT.. crave for it.. amazing food. If you dont try it your missing out on life…

**2 Fingers up – Great Taste, if you get a chance… try it… i recommend it.

* 1 Finger up – Kinda wish i didnt eat there or order what i ordered … but i ate it and now im full.

- Middle Finger up – i threw it away while eating it… if i had a brick i’d throw it through the window.. and if i had lighter fluid and a lighter.. i’d burn that mutha down…

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What WE Thought:

Restaurant: Chicken and Rice Cart on 53rd and 6th

Location: New York City

Price Range: $5 a plate

We recommend: Plain ol chicken and rice with a grip of white sauce

Service: order to go, get your food fast depending on the lines.

Rating: – ***3.0 Fingers – We agree with NY. Best Chicken and Rice around.

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Ok, no more food for FM. New York has TOO MUCH to eat. Waddled over to Tenjune in the Meat Packing District for soundcheck and the venue for our first show for a CMJ Afterparty. We were pretty excited to rock here since we heard some awesome things about the club and Will who runs the spot just told us they recently had Kid Cudi and Wale.

Just down the street was where our second soundcheck and show for the night was.. SL Simyone Lounge which was a new hot spot just opened by DJ Chachi.

First show was at 1:30am at Tenjune. The club was super packed, people dancing on couches.. madness. The performance was off the hook and we were surprised people knew our song “Girls On The Dance Floor” out here, and thats a huge thanks to the DJ’s at the clubs that have been spinning it every week. I wish i got more pics from the clubs but we ended up getting too caught up in partyin lol.

Simyone Lounge was even more packed, wall to wall crazieness and the show was off the hook, we definitely love NY Clubs and it was a great way to end a long week. After we performed Girls On The Dance Floor we headed out to our car and went straight to the airport. Never been so tired in our lives, CMJ x NYC was insane. Our legs felt like jello and our bellies were full to the max. 1 thing i love most about early early morning flights is usually the plane isn’t all the way full and if we’re lucky we get a full row to ourselves to just lay out. TIME TO KNOCK OUT.

Thank you to everyone in NY that took care of us and showed us a great time. Also shouts to Mikey Fresh, Toshi, Phil Intrikit, Christian from Fresh Produce, Lem, Woody, Lika and Stan from MTV Iggy.. too many names to list, and we didn’t even get to see everyone we wanted. We’ll definitely be back to NY on Dec 4th at Irving Plaza for the Party Rock Tour so we hope to see yall then. Tickets are selling out faaaast!