Mesa Creepin'

It's been a while since I've posted anything on the cloud so I thought I'd upload a little banger before FL and I bring out this "Mister Freedom" album. This is strictly for lyricists, this is not for the club. It doesn't make you want to get turnt up, but it makes you feel like a cold body just turnt up in the river and now you're in silver bracelets.

Click the image below to here the sweet sounds of Mesa Creepin'

Scratch 510

Over the spring and summer I had the opportunity to help develop a DJ camp with my friends who to say the least, are some of the East Bays finest DJ's. The camp "Scratch 510" was led by DJ's, DJ Lady Fingaz and Max Kane (who have deep roots in the East Bay music scene and have helped mold the sound of Oakland and San Francisco). The camp was a one week intensive focussed on turntablism, music production and the history of the DJ. Scratch 510 was held at Studio Grand which is dear to my heart and is my favorite nonprofit space for music showcases and art in Oakland.

Scratch 510 was developed through Chapter 510, here is some information about them via their website:

Chapter 510 was founded by a group of Oakland residents who, inspired by 826 Valencia, wanted to create Oakland's own literacy project focused on supporting teachers and developing creative and expository writing skills for students. We share a vision for Oakland as a place where our youth and their perspectives are visible and our teachers are honored and supported. 

I want to give a big shout and thank you to Janet Heller (Chapter 510) for having me on the team, Max Gibson (Wine & Bowties) for getting me involved, Jamie Keller (Studio Grand) for sharing Studio Grand's space with us, and Marc Stretch (Foreign Legion) for his insightful input and help. 

Click on the image below to check out a video of the camp which hosts music produced by the campers. If you're in the Oakland area and are looking to connect with the community Chapter 510 and Studio Grand are the places to be and if you're looking for some good shows to go to check out Max Kane every first friday at Lukas Tap Room (Oakland), DJ Lady Fingaz at Funlab (Sebastopol) 08/16 at 9pm, and Foreign Legion at the Elbo Room (San Francisco) 08/13 at 9pm.

Made In U.S.A. Review

The day was a fierce bright grey which seemed to envelop everything in its sight, blinding the common man of the beauty that lay in the land. The type of Brooklyn winter day that could change the attitudes of every native New Yorker from a happy “Hey fuck you” to a GhostBuster Two, ancient sorcerer baby thief. I stepped out of my six hundred square foot steam heated box for my weekly hunt at the 5th Ave Record Shop in hopes of finding what we record fiends refer to as a “Jewel.” This record shop is hit or miss. I usually spent my day rummaging through the entire shop until I found something I could go home with. I had been strictly looking for 45’s at the time since the LP’s were not in the greatest condition (and overpriced), but for those past couple months the store had been completely dry. 

The shop is operated and owned by an older fellow by the name of Tony who seems to have perfected time travel for he is a seem-less product of 1962. He is a small, brute, Italian man with white hair, thin wire glasses, and a seemingly infinite amount of short-sleeved button-up shirts tucked into pastel colored slacks. His musical taste is a narrow range spanning from 60’s rock to doo wop, which is good to know if you’re looking for something he doesn’t hold dear to his heart like The Sylvers 45’s on Pride, you will more than likely get it for a low price. Upon inspection the shop is so cramped it appears to be falling in on itself and gives off an odd smell of wet cardboard and stale farts. On any given day you can go in and find a couple of semi- homeless looking characters from the neighborhood loitering about the shop, chatting up inside jokes. 

This day I came in on a disco kick. I entered and said hello to Tony. In his thick bristly Brooklyn accent he acknowledged my presence with a stuttering, “Ah hey hey hello!” completing the phrase in song form moving up in frequency and note on the end hello. As I went through the first bin of LP's, the album Made In U.S.A. caught my eye. The cover is on that classic coke induced disco look. It has the seven members posing on a drawing of the United States, wearing red polyester suits with the lead Madam Jann Harrison holding the floor. I noticed that this LP was on the De-Lite label (Kool & The Gang's label). I placed the record on the dilapidated Numark portable turntable, which balanced on a stack of records in such an precarious way that one could only take it as artistic. I dropped the needle in the first groove, giving myself to the hypnotic sounds of science. Within a few seconds I knew I had found a keeper. Without listening to the rest of the album I paid Tony and went on my way through a sea of screaming teenagers doused in bright colored clothing, chanting and waiving their hands toward a blanket of grey sky, as if the soft amorphous being had them under some sort of spell. As I passed Fifteenth Street, a homeless man sprawled on the ground keeping warm under an afghan rug yelled out in a drunken slur, “spare some change young blood!” “awright, awright, a vinyl man!, awww-right. Made in U.S. Of A, ohhh! Hey you wanna see some-in crazy?” He stumbled onto his feet swaying back and forth resembling some sort of distorted youth christian rock concert goer entranced by the sweet pop melodies of God. He pulled four teeth out of his frayed front jacket pocket, “These are the teeth of Daryl Gibbs. I won them in a poker game, I won these motherfuckers! Awright.” He then popped the four canines into his mouth like baby aspirin and swallowed. This was my cue to leave. 

 Made In USA (Made In Unity, Strength, Ambition) formed in 1975 and had a very short run in the music industry. Freida Nerangis and Britt Britton, produced the album and picked the band line up with the help of Brooklyn native and alto sax player, Darryl Gibbs. The other members, also from Brooklyn, were Jann Harrison (vocalist), Willie Slaughter (bass), Herbert Aikens (tenor sax), Kevin Hood (keyboards), Charles Morais (guitar), Ruben Faison (alto sax), and Greg Henderson (trumpet). Harrison, a statuesque beauty had sung with The Exciters. The horn section consisted of the players from Crown Heights Affair. As stated on discogs.com, “Their first and only LP Melodies hit the public in 1977. It was a true indicator of the groups' skills, and contained no overdubs, or extra musicians because it was important to the band to be able to duplicate their recordings live.” Nerangis and Britton composed most of the songs including the title track Melodies. The single sold well in New York and Florida but had a stagnant period when De-Lite experienced distribution problems. Then their follow up Shake Your Body failed to move up the charts. It became harder for the band to get gigs in NYC and soon the members disbanded. 

This album is disco at its best. The compositions are seamless with electrifying horn riffs and bounce-tastic bass. A lot of the tunes have beautiful synth lines accompanied by a drummer that is consistently in the pocket. Side A is much better than Side B. However, on side B the song, Shake your Body is a banger. The song starts with the kick and hi-hat preparing you for the groove. Jann Harrison comes in with the help of the band singing “move your body, move your body, move it from side to side.” This song is synth driven with sexual moans and creamy horn lines. It is mind blowing to me that a band with this much talent had so much trouble getting their name out. If you happen to cross paths with this record you should pick it up, you won’t be disappointed, and if you’re in Brooklyn and happen to run into the proud owner of Daryl Gibbs teeth remember, poker is a card game involving strategy, homelessness is a title full of adventure and smelliness, teeth are for aardvarks and vinyl is forever in the hearts of audio wizards whom understand the world’s history through the use of sound waves.

Made in U.S.A - Shake Your Body

Sentimental Bathelopes

Please join me for a very special evening full of libations and music on Thursday May 29th from 6-10 pm at The Layover Music Bar & Lounge (1517 Franklin St Oakland) no cover. Wear your best dressings, I'll bring the salad.

Please join me for a very special evening full of libations and music on Thursday May 29th from 6-10 pm at The Layover Music Bar & Lounge (1517 Franklin St Oakland) no cover. Wear your best dressings, I'll bring the salad.

Sentimental Dilla - Lopes

East Bay, come on through to the Layover Music Bar & lounge (1517 Franklin street) this coming Thursday 02/20/2014 from 6-10pm. My buddy Jaws Flossin' and I will be celebrating the life and music of J Dilla. Like always this event is free. Come and enjoy one of the masters of production yah dorks.  

So This Is De La Heaven

 

DJ Platurn is a household name in the Bay Area. A 20 year veteren in the DJ game, founder of the Oakland Faders and organizer of The 45 Sessions, which is my favorite show in the Bay Area. Needless to say Platurn has a plethera of accomplishments through out his career. I sat down with him to discuss his second installment of "So This Is De La Heaven pt.2" and to also unravel why De La is one of the best rap groups to ever grace a 12" and what certain elements combine to make such a beautiful array of music. You can click on the link to listen/buy So This Is De La Heaven Pt. 2  here

N: I believe Tribe and De La are The Beatles of rap. They have similarities in their experimentation and humor. Do you believe thats key in making great albums?

P: I think humor and experimentation go hand and hand. Think about being a fly on the wall during some of these sessions where they're putting this shit together. Especially when you take the way they were rapping back then. They were non-sensical, young, making shit up and also being cryptic.

Humor and experimentation was key in their creation. The hip hop that I took notes on were the artist’s who were really adamant about redefining themselves. That was what was more interesting to me than anything. Dudes like Cube. Watching the evolution of that dude from project to project was really interesting and The Beastie Boys and Outkast did it as well. They had to keep themselves entertained. You have to be of a certain mindset to take that on. I mean, there are artist’s out there who have made thirty albums and all of them sound the same. 

 I don't know if there’s a group out there that did it as different as De La did. Every album was unique. Every time I listen to De La Soul I hear something different. That's how I do my own work as well, I have to keep myself interested. Tribe did it to. That’s why I love their shit more than anything. The Roots did a good job of holding up that ideology as well. That’s where it ties in with The Beatles reference because that’s exactly what The Beatles did. 

N: When was the first time you heard 3 Feet High and Rising?

P: I really like telling this story because it gives credit in a very interesting way. I didn't learn about De La until I took a trip back to Iceland for Christmas in 1987. This was before the full album came out. Plug Tunin had already come out as a promo single but you weren't hearing any De La on the West Coast in the U.S. yet. The reason I first heard them in Iceland was because their whole promo started trickling through Europe before it made its rounds through the U.S.. I was at a youth club that my cousin would DJ at. He showed me the artwork and I was like, man this is some different shit! It was nothing like the rap music that I knew and I was very intrigued by it. 

When I came back from Iceland, not too many people were on to De La. Dudes knew of the JB's and Tribe because they had made their mark, but not De La. After a while they started playing the Buddy remix at dances. It became a radio hit and that's when it really started getting big. I remember I had the Buddy cassingle but the cassingle didn't have the remix on it, so you had to get the vinyl to get the remix. 

N: The Buddy remix was a big radio hit. Do you feel that people looked at radio and mainstream music differently back then than now? 

P: The people who grew up on this music didn't think about the music in terms of mainstream or underground. We just knew it as what it was. I think that idea changed when the ideology of the rapper changed. Back then, you had dudes like KRS and Rakim really controlling the game. You had to represent when you brought your product to the table or you got shitted on and at some point that just stopped being a priority. I don't consider myself one of those dudes who only glorifies the golden age and shits on anything that’s not from that time, because thats so far from the truth. I like a good amount of my ignorant shit too, you know what I mean, I don't necessarily need to finely tune into what the MC is saying when I'm listening to the music. Sometimes I like it to be simple, sometimes you want party music, and sometimes you want heady music. Nowadays, I don't know if we were ever going to see that level of experimentation, especially with sampling. It went a great length and rapping went a good length as well. You had a lot of white boys in the 90's doing some weird rap and producers who took the art of sampling and completely flipped it on its head. Sorry if I'm going off on a tangent here but I think that when cats started getting so experimental with it, it stopped being fun party music.  I believe that's what that era of music captured. You could be different, weird and conscious and still make party music. 

N: I think it also has to do with what these dudes parents were listening to.

P: Exactly

N: They gained a sense of what makes a party jump off.

P: Absolutely. I think it’s also very interesting when the art of sampling started to dive a little bit deeper, before then they were messing with simple loops. It’s not like Heartbeat is a complex loop.  That was De La’s biggest hit at the time besides Me Myself and I, which was one of Parliament's biggest hits as well. When sampling started to become more complex and you listen to tracks like Award Tour, where there are seven different samples in there or Eye Know, where they use The Madlads joint with the Steely Dan joint and it works so well melodically. You had to have that kind of ear and understand music to be able to make that type of art function. That was early on and then you think about a track like  Award Tour or Oh My God where they took the Lee Morgan bass line and put the Kool & The Gang horns over it. Those are loops. That art of making incredible songs out of different records is amazing.

N: In a time where the DJ world is over saturated with “DJs” and the real art of the DJ is getting more lost in the mix of media, does it surprise you that So this is De La Heaven has received so much love?

P: I'm pleasantly surprised. I know that there are folk’s who are older and don't go out and are interested in this stuff, but there are also kids, like that duo Disclosure, who did an Ameba 'Whats in your Bag' interview and they shout out Gang Starr, Dilla, EW&Fand Tribe. They wanted to talk about why they loved all this stuff which gives real insight into where their heads are with music. Point being, it’s a welcomed thing that people still want to be challenged.

N: What’s the recipe to making a successful mix-tape?

P: I think the people who are attracted to this sort of thing are people who are attracted to timelessness. I'm not trying to sound ethereal or hippie about it either. I'm very attracted to music that withstands the test of time. I appreciate people who have the capability to make a piece of art that will transcend time. That’s why jazz plays such a big roll. It has soothing attributes to it and you're not always going to want this crazy shit. Basically, you're not going to be listening to Dubstep when you're 70. I'm not dissing any of that because it’s for the kids, but there are certain things that you hold onto as you mature. I think that’s why I made this second mix-tape. I don't look at music as a straight line of time, with a sense of urgency, it’s not really my style. 

N: That’s great. Making music myself I feel I have to get music out as quick as I can because of where the industry is and everyone's short attention span.

P: Look at a DJ mix as an album. The first one took me a year to make, all wax, all OG. There was a couple of parts that I probably took fifty to sixty takes. Such a pain in the ass. For this last one I did the first 7-8 minutes of the mix well over a year ago and then sat on it for about 6-7 months while I went through in my head what this mix should be. Here's the vibe that you're trying to achieve, here’s the respect that you're trying to show, here are the mixes you didn't do on the first one that you still want to show case, here’s the music that you absolutely want to be played, and here’s the music that maybe make the grade. Take all of that shit and slap it together to make an hour's worth of music. It takesa lot of thought because have to show respect to the music and really allow it to breathe.

N: Do you ever believe that you’re a vessel for the muse?

P: I think anybody that comes from our school believes that. I remember fucking with a beat machine back in the day and putting on a record and all of a sudden there's a piece of music that just lays in perfectly. 

N: Familiarity is a big part to DJing, but taking them into that “ohh” factor you were talking about is also crucial. Can you elaborate on that a little bit?

P:  Basically what De La did with sampling and layering, I’m doing the same except that I'm opening it up a little bit more. Trip off the fact that you're going to hear an additional 8-16 bars of something you're already familiar with. The ideology is that it’s going to open up your mind and let you see that this music came from something else. Testing your familiarity is great. 

N: What are your top 5 De La tunes?

P: 1. In the woods off of Buhloone Mindstate. I remember listening to that track and how mellow the intro is and how heavy that beat is when it dropped. That album is impeccable through and through.

2.Talkin bout Hey Love. It was brilliant because they made it dark.

I can't pick anymore. I never listen to De La as tracks. It’s always an album for me. 

N: How many records do you have that are affiliated with De La albums and straight De La? 

P: I have sections in my collection that are strictly broken down for Native Tongues and De La records. Number wise, thats going to be a tough one. I know there are at least two crates for each. Two crates worth of Tribe and 80 records roughly in a crate. I also have a two boxes of Native Tongues 45's. It’s so nerdy. 

N: Haha, I wish I had that many De La 45’s. Do you have a favorite De La era?

P: I do. I think the De La soul is Dead era would have to be it. If I were really going to be put to the test than it would have to be DLSID for sure. It’s definitely the one. 1991-1993, that era of hip hop is dear to my heart.

N: Can you pick between emcees? Trugoy or Posdnuos?

P: Oohh! No ones ever asked me that! That’s a really tough one. Trugoy always seemed like the wise father. Pos was the braggadocio dude, fuck you up in a battle type shit. I think they all play their roll.  I think those guys came from an era where the group was bigger than the individual. It’s the same thing with Tribe. Maseo had ill rhymes; he was a character. They all played a roll. They both were trios. It’s a teepee. They're all supporting each other. 

N: I don't feel like anyone has ever tried to copy De La's style. 

P: That’s true and then you have to think about where they pulled their shit from, like Posdnuos’ on beat, off beat style. 

I hear GrandMaster Caz and Spoonie Gee in Pos, but I hear a way more intricate word play in there. I hear intonation and cadence, super old school rapper type shit.  The overall picture is bigger than the individual. There are so many people that look at De La's legacy and go “these guys made it so much more digestible for the mainstream.” You cannot forget where they came from.  I think it's really important to showcase multiple facets when it comes to music because that’s what people are. You know what I'm saying? People are complicated and fucked up. They're hard to read. Sometimes they're really basic and simple with the way that they talk and or approach life and sometimes they're intricate. 

Sometimes I'm stupid and sometimes I'm intuitive. Every person on this planet is like that and I think that’s an important aspect to this music. It’s Life. Sometimes it’s calm. Sometimes you see it for what it is and sometimes it's obscure and random and doesn't make a whole lot of sense. How awesome is it that rap music can do that?  

A lot of the times people take hip hop for its face value, its superficial value. Let’s think about the fact that there is such a huge portion of hip hop music fixated on requiring material things. Why is it like that? Lets dive a little bit deeper. 

There are reasons and hip hop opened me up to this. When hip hop stopped only fucking with James Brown loops and started fucking with jazz and psych rock, these became really important aspects of sample based and golden era music. 

N: Do you have a favorite De La Sample?

P: I can tell you about the one that took me the longest to find. When I found it I lost my shit! It took me ages. Again, this is hard to pick but when I found,  Al Hirt "Harlem Hendoo" from Ego Trippin', I didn't know what it was.There's a great break on the other side that’s super funky. That album’s crazy because it’s him trying to do his soul cover shit. All of Al Hirt’s albums are horrible except for this one. There might be another but I've never heard it. I think the album was a dollar. I listened to it and couldn't believe that they pulled this! 

De La 3 Feet High & Rising (Press Kit)

Check out DJ Platurns website for upcoming events and overall baddass sheeit here