Mickey Avalon

Mickey Avalon (real name Yeshe Perl) is a rap artist from Hollywood, California. His debut self-titled solo album was released Nov. 7, 2006 on Interscope/Shoot to Kill Records in association with MySpace Records. Avalon blends dark, lewd, and crizzled lyrical hooks with hip-hop beats.

Frequent topics of Avalon's songs are his experiences with substance abuse and prostitution. His family upbringing was tumultuous and both he and his parents were involved with drugs. Avalon's paternal grandparents are Holocaust survivors; both endured lasting injuries from their imprisonment at Auschwitz.

Avalon is friends with Antonio, who encouraged Avalon to write lyrics and perform when Mickey was broke and living on Anton's sofa. Avalon soon gained a following in the Los Angeles nightclub scene. He has since enjoyed a surge in popularity partly due to promotion of his music on the MySpace website.

In the media

Avalon appeared on the Jimmy Kimmel Live show on Friday the February 23, 2007.

He appeared in an episode of The Simple Life where he auditioned to perform the song "Friends and Lovers" at a lesbian wedding.

Avalon's sexually-themed song "Jane Fonda" was featured in HBO's Entourage.

Avalon appeared on Steven's Untitled Rock Show on Wednesday the April 3, 2007

Avalon replaced Gnarls Barkley as the opening act for the Red Hot Chili Peppers on March 12, 2007 in Oklahoma City. At that show John Frusciante joined Avalon onstage and criticized the audience for their poor reception and "booing" of Avalon. Avalon repeatedly told the audience he wasn't wanting to get in the way of the Chili Peppers performing, he was just there to "pay the rent". Frusciante also sent a very long and heated letter to the fans of www.redhotchilipeppers.com explaining how upset he was at the audiences' disrespect of Avalon.

June 24, 2007, Avalon was booed again at a Red Hot Chili Peppers concert in Nijmegen, The Netherlands. The audience threw sandwiches, apples, lollipops and wood mulch at him, chanted "Loser!", gave him the finger, and turned their backs on him. Mickey replied by throwing things back and he again stated "I don't care, I got paid to be here...". Mickey refused to stop playing however at first, but after half an hour he left while he should've performed an hour.

Inspite of Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist John Frusciante's opinion, stating that Mickey Avalon is a really talented artist, his performance in The Netherlands was probably not one of his best. Shortly after getting on stage he grabbed a bottle of liquer, and he deliberately pulled down his pants showing off his butt. The Dutch crowd couldn't appreciate this behaviour and started "booing" him and throwing things at him. Mickey actually started provoking the crowd be stating: "The Dutch are clearly not good at baseball, cause 60.000 people can't hit me". He went on displaying some weird stage behaviour. He left the stage early, but not before he kicked his microphone in the direction of the audience. Even the soundcheckers from the band that performed after him got a bigger applause than Mickey Avalon.

July 3, 3007 Avalon gave show in Chorzow, Poland, again before Red Hot Chili Peppers and after 30 minutes audience gave him finger, "booing" started. Avalon said that he love them and left stage. No items were thrown.

Avalon appeared onstage with Shaun Ryder and the rest of the Happy Mondays at the 2007 Coachella Music Festival in Indio, Calif.

Avalon opened for T.I. at the University of California, Santa Barbara's "Extravaganza" event in May 2007.

Collaborations

On Unwritten Law's 2007 greatest hits/remix album, The Hit List, Avalon performs "Shoulda Known Better".

Avalon is a member of the trio Dyslexic Speedreaders with Simon Rex (AKA Dirt Nasty) and Andre Legacy. The group tours occasionally with Avalon's solo act.