Back For the Disflex.6

I said in my last post that I was compelled to write another one about Disflex 6 and, uh, welcome to it.  The first things to know about the Disflex 6 is that they're an underground San Francisco crew and there isn't six of 'em.  The name comes from a pun.  It's pronounced like "dyslexics" and they flex their skills... get it?  Don't worry; their music isn't as corny and irritating as that.  They're actually quite dope, especially if you appreciate west coast backpacker stuff.

So there's officially two members: Lazerus Jackson and Jason the Argonaut, but it's a little more complicated than that.  Like, discogs lists three members, also including Elon.Is, who's more of (exclusively?) a producer, who's worked on a bunch of their stuff.  You might recall me writing about his albums with Z-Man many moons ago.  Well, all three - Laz, Jason and Elon, that is, not Z - were part of a larger collective called The Sunset Leagues, and they all constantly worked together.  And by the logic of including sometimes producer Elon, their DJ Capsize could arguably be considered a member of D6, too.  Even the particular single we're going to look at today features different iterations of the group.

Yeah, I lamented not collecting their catalog over the years, but I do have something else by them: this nice little "double A side" 7" from 2003.  The first song, "Trunk," is credited to Disflex 6 on this, but technically it's from Jason the Argonaut's solo album, Keyboard To Life.  It's one of two songs on there that feature Lazerus Jackson, though, so you get the logic of calling it a Disflex track.  Then the second song is credited to PBS, because that group is the duo of Lazerus and Mercury, another Sunset Leaguer.  It wound up being included on their 2004 album, War of Art.

"Trunk" starts out by rubbing in a pitched down clip of Freestyle Fellowship's "Physical Form" ("terrorize the localized clockwise politics to unfix six") before kicking off proper.  Both MCs sound great on this, but as with "Electrolights," it's Lazerus's nasal voice and quick rhymes that really steals the show: "bumpin' up rickety blocks on empty locks with a recordable CD skippin' off low shocks."  It's got a herky jerky bassline that sounds like a chopped cello loop with and an Egyptian ney or something playing over it.  I dig it.

The PBS track's even better though.  It's called "Blackhawk Down," and what sets it apart is that its lyrics are really compelling, not just the vocal style and delivery.  The title's not just a tough sounding Ridley Scott reference, the song is literally about the battle of Mogadishu.  Mercury (who also produced this one) vividly sets the stage, "it's all bad, rangers on the ground dying, rounds flying; another puppet dictator stepped outta line and now it's time to take him out.  Call the special ops in.  Faulty facts stormin' through some medical offices.  No General Aidid, just shots of sniper fire, hostile personnel sparkin' live wire, creeping like a spider."  Then Lazerus makes it personal:

"I'm unskilled, untrained and fifteen,
But I'll put your dead body in a Time Magazine.
This is a war, not a police action,
Yet you're the ones thievin'.  What's the reason for the blastin'?
You took a thousand of mine,
I'm sending nineteen back in boxes.
These horsemen hunt foxes.
United Nations?  Nah, fuck 'em,
That's an old puppet construct.  My conduct will duck 'em.
You're not the first, you're not the last neither;
And best believe some of your special force men catch a neck breather."

I was not expecting things to get that real the first time I played this record.  The one down side is, as you may've noticed if you looked closely at my label scan above, this single gives us the Censored versions.  Makes sense if they were giving it out for radio play or something, but that's still always a bummer.  Still, there's only like one curse on each track, so it doesn't really spoil anything.

On the plus side, both the albums were CD-only, so this single is the only way to get these songs on vinyl.  And it has both Instrumental versions, which are exclusive.  This was a limited edition of 500 copies, but you can still find it cheap to this day.