Beats, Zines and Demos

I’ve got an atypical post for you today about a label you’ve probably never heard of.  But if you stick with me all the way to the end, I think you’ll be looking them up.

We'll start off with Chemtrails, the loose collaboration of Australian producer Luke O'Farrell and his band/ housemates who recorded the beat tape Treason In the Sky back in 2013.  The band played psychedelic rock, but this is a strictly Hip-Hop endeavor: a mix of vinyl samples and live instrumentation made with an Akai MPC2500.  Only 25 copies of the original tape were released on an indie label called Skydreams, but now it's coming back via a newly remastered vinyl LP from his own label, Puff Down Records.

Now, regular readers may recall that I'm not traditionally predisposed to instrumental Hip-Hop, but I'm starting to come around to it.  After all, you can't calculate how much Raw Quartz you need to belt into your Manufacturer to maximize the Crystal Oscillator throughput of your Radio Control Unit line to make Pressure Conversion Tubes in Satisfactory with Kendrick Lamar ordering you to turn your TV off.  I've tried; you absolutely have to pause it.  But Treason In the Sky generates just the right amount of ambiance to get your pretend digital job done while still feeling engaged with what you're hearing.  Because this is definitely meant to be listened to, as opposed to a DJ battle tool or production kit LP.  These aren't just beats waiting for someone to rhyme over them and give them purpose.  Like, the titular horn loop of "Intergalactic War Horns" occupies the space for vocals; it would all sound too busy with an MC.

Puff Down also has its own print magazine, appropriately titled Puff Down.  They hooked me up with issues 2 and 3.  And then I actually got an email update from Hip Hop Enterprise as I was writing this telling me they were now carrying them.  It's a full 12" mag, 48 pages mostly in black and white with a few color inserts.  They feature record reviews, book reviews, and primarily interviews with underground artists like Has-Lo, DJ Rocksteady (of Trauma Center, whose material you might remember Dope Folks releasing early in their run) and DJ OG-S.  That last one makes sense, since they're working with him for their latest release...

OG-S is a name I recognize from doing mixes with labels like Heavy Jewelz, Lost Records (shame what happened there) and PQuest Revivals.  He and his partner Fatcap have been finding and releasing unreleased Hip-Hop demos for a little while now.  The main one that tripped my radar was the Joint Ventures CD a few years ago.  Well, their new release on Puff Down, Smoke Flavors, combines these ventures by mixing an impressive collection of never before (and probably never to be) released demos on both CD and cassette.  It's is a compilation of various artists, most very obscure (one is simply credited to "Unknown Artist Demo, 1992 California").  That's not to say that you shouldn't recognize any names on here, though.  We've got a tight untitled Powerule track from 1992 and a Delinquent Habits song dating years before they came out on LOUD Records.

But most of these names you're not gonna know.  I assume the reason these demos have been collected here and put out simply as a mix is because this is all the dope odds and ends they couldn't make official releases out of: groups you couldn't even track down to pay, who didn't put out enough music to fill a release on their own, and never managed to make the names for themselves to sell if they did.  But it's strong material that deserves to be heard, so this mix is a welcome catch-all of material, ranging from 1992-1996.  There's more New York stuff than anything else, but California, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Washington, Pennsylvania, Texas, Chicago, London and even The Bahamas are represented here.

Their bandcamp listing assures us that these were all preserved "to the best possible quality with the best equipment ... through professional distillation and extraction techniques."  In fact, OG-S goes into quite specific detail on his process and the exact equipment he uses in Puff Down issue 3.  The sound quality is still variant (a song by a crew called Homicide Division sounds particularly rough), but I think we can take it that this is as good as we could've ever hoped for.  Make no mistake though, this is a mix, not a compilation with separated songs and each song allowed to begin and end unsullied.  As one giant CD track, you can't skip to specific songs, and when you don't know who most of these artists are, and song titles aren't even listed, it takes a lot of patience if you want to suss out any one particular joint.  To isolate the Delinquent Habits, I had to work backwards from Cool Mike G song where he helpfully shouts his name in his hook (although, in retrospect, it should've been obvious from the production style which one was them).  At times I was questioning whether the scratching I was hearing was by the original artist or OG-S.  No, the way to enjoy this is like William Hurt said in The Big Chill, "sometimes you just have to let art flow over you:" one 60+ minute tidal wave of scrappy, raw 90s rap you've never heard before.

The Treason In the Sky record is pretty limited, too, to just 100 copies and comes in a picture cover.  It also includes a short 'zine about how the album was recorded, and a sticker of the original 2013 artwork.  The Smoke Flavors CD and tape are limited to 100 copies each, and come with a DJ OG-S sticker.  Treason is also available digitally, and has been since 2013, so you can check it out and see if you're taken with it.  But if you want to hear the demos, you've got to cop a physical copy.  And I strongly recommend it.

When the L Came Back

(The overlooked and underrated return of Larry Larr.  Plus a l'il update on Omniscence and Nick Wiz vinyl.  Youtube version is here.)

From the West To the East, It's Rappin' Mae

Last Halloween, I went on a bit of a tangent, giving a brief overview of the Rappin' Duke catalog in a video on some unrelated records.  Every Hip-Hop fan over a certain age remembers the crazy novelty record where Shawn Brown adopts the persona of John Wayne to bust some silly raps over a surprisingly funky beat.  As Biggie famously reminded us, "remember Rappin' Duke, 'da-ha, da-ha?' Never thought Hip-Hop would take it this far."  Not so many people know there was actually a whole series of Duke records, including a follow-up to his self-titled debut hit, a full-length album, a serious message rap, and an unofficial knock-off by Buzzy Bragg.  Brown also put out another record as Kato-B, as in the sidekick to the Green Hornet as played by Bruce Lee.  But there's one more related record I didn't mention.  And if I'm ever going to cover, today's the day.

"Rappin' Mae" by June East.  I guess you'd call it an answer record, released on Still Rising Records in 1985, shortly after the original "Rappin' Duke."  Yes, it's April Fool's Day, but like I say every year, this is a real record that exists and you can find for your own collections, if you're ever so possessed.  I don't do those April 1st posts where I pull your leg making up nonsense.

So I think the best way to categorize it as an answer record to "Rappin' Duke."  The concept, simply, is that this is a rap record by another former film star, Mae West.  She was known as one of Hollywood's earliest envelope-pushing sex symbols, a little before Wayne's time, in the 1930s (though she occasionally appeared in movies into the 1970s).  If you're thinking she's before you're time and you've no idea who she is, you've still probably seen caricatures and impressions done of her in classic cartoons like Bugs Bunny, Popeye, Donald Duck and the like.  If you've heard the demure purr, "come up and see me sometime," that's her.

So June East isn't a real person; the name's a play on Mae West, get it?  June, the month after May and East v West.  Ostensibly East is West's sister (sure, they're different last names, but that's already putting too much thought into this premise).  It was actually a trend for artists, mostly novelty/ joke acts, to call themselves "Rappin' ____:"  There was Rappin' Rodney, Rappin' Rabbit, Rappin' Reverend, Rappin' Granny, and so on.  And then real MCs started adopting it, like Rappin' Tate, Rappin' 4-Tay, and Rappin' Ron.  I even titled my short film Rappin' Reno in honor of that tradition.

As soon as you start to spin it, there's no question that this might just be a novelty record with a coincidentally similar gimmick to Rappin' Duke.  It's got a very slow, very similar beat and bassline, albeit with some new harmonica and other instrumental flourishes.  The hook, by a couple uncredited guys, is sung in the tune of the "Rappin' Duke"'s, "she's so-oh bad, so bad, just so-oh-oh-oh bad."  And then June gets on the mic, yes doing a full on Mae West impression, laying down the law for the Duke and another notable rappers of the day, "I'm the baddest rap in this town.  Sorry, Duke, don't mean to put ya down.  And as for rapper Kurtis Blow, sorry Sugar, you'll have to go."

It's not entirely a diss record; she spends more time just dropping gentle innuendos in the spirit of the real Mae West and telling us how to do the Mae West dance.  But she does come back for more at the end, "Sorry, Duke, but you see what I mean.  When it comes to rappin', I'm the real queen.  All those pilgrims you keep referring to?  The Mayflower must've been a real zoo.  You know the Duke's tough, and that's okay; he just better not get in this girl's way.  What the Duke does with muscle, I can do with a feather, because when I'm good I'm good, but when I'm bad, I'm better."  That last line coming from West's 1933 film I'm No Angel with Cary Grant.

There's just the one song on this 12", though there's a Short Version and an Instrumental on the B-side.  As you can see, it was released in a modest sticker cover.  There were never any follow-up June East records, but Still Rising was a legit label that put out some other funk and Hip-Hop stuff, including the early singles by Microphone Prince.  It was produced by Patrick Adams and Ron Mindseed, who did most of Still Rising's stuff.  Adams was also a member of the Golden Flamingo Orchestra, who did music for Lovebug Starski's earliest records, among plenty of other stuff.

So, who was June East really?  Happily, she's around and online to tell us.  June was the persona of stand-up comic Fran Capo, who's probably best known for holding the The Guinness Book of World’s Records' title of fastest talking woman (though she raps quite slow on "Rappin' Mae").  According to her website, she used to do the weather, traffic and movie reviews in the character of June East on the radio.  As she told EPN Spotlight, "I was working at WBLS Radio as a comedy writer and one day was kidding around and said that I could do a really cool Mae West Impression, but that I called the character June East. The DJ [Sergio Dean] flung the weather copy at me and the red tally light in the studio went on, and I did the weather as June East."  That became a regular morning thing and led to her getting signed to make the record and tour along the east coast with LL Cool J and The Fat Boys (man, do I wish I could've caught that!).  You can watch a clip of her on public access television from the time here.  Apparently, she'll still come to an event as "Mae" to this day.