Ah, the Halcyon Days Of Anticon

Man, remember the great days of Anticon Records? When they were hip-hop and ingenious and releasing great records and CDs as fast as you could collect them? It seemed like you never had to worry about them running out of material, and even if some of their hand-made, limited CDRs were sub-par, you could be confident it would still be full of compelling moments and great samples. But man, I just had to check anticon.com right now to make sure they were still in existence. I don't even know who's on the label anymore - just a bunch of folk singers and Alias making techno beats I guess. But all you guys who spent the early 2000s hating on them missed a Hell of little thunderstorm in Hip-Hop, at a time when the rest of the genre was going through a slow drought.

What about the time they all came together to do a track for DJ Krush's album called "Song for John Walker?" That was his 2002 album, The Message At the Depth; but you can just do what I did and get this sweet little 12" single of it. There are a couple other non-rap album tracks on the 12", too, but who cares? I sure don't. I only listen to "Song for John Walker."

In case you've forgotten, or just aren't a big news follower in the first place, John Walker Lindh is the white kid from California who got shot and captured while fighting against the United States during our invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. What was he doing there? Well, some kids join the school marching band and some kids lean towards something a little edgier, like the taliban. He shot some Red Cross workers while he was over there, plead guilty when he was brought back, and President Bush (the first one) got in trouble for calling him "some misguided Marin County hot-tubber."

The song surely shares inspiration with the piece Black Like Me that The Pedestrian had published in the East Bay Express a little while after the song was released. That article uncovers the surprising and under-reported fact that John Walker was, prior to leaving the country, a huge hip-hop fan who wrote battle raps on newsgroups and pretended to be a black man named Mr. Mujahid, calling out rappers who didn't live up to his ideals of blackness, i.e. calling Dr. Dre a "sellout house nigga living honkey dory," and "a disgrace selling out to the talcum. He'll be left dead and naked in the outcome; word to brother Malcolm." Yeah, you won't learn about all that in many other sources; you should totally go read the whole article.

Ironically, the song focuses less on Walker as a hip-hop figure, though; and more as a political icon. Like all of their best work, it's both directly sardonic and perplexing abstract at the same time. At one point, Dose One is chiding, "he wanted Hammer pants. He joined the tali-hey-ban. He sought an absolute truth, the alpha cliché; But he got the omega and fucked," at another you'll be struggling to decipher what he means as he repeatedly sings, "again we use the magnets poorly; again we use the magnets poorly." While Why? comes in, getting at least close to rap (longtime Why? listeners will know what I mean) to represent the non-voting, slacker generation:

"Well, I heard the two parties split platforms at the turn of the century;
But. I. Know. I'm. A. Mer. I. Can. By the coins I carry.
And that's fuckin' scary.
Bla-bla-bla-bla-blah blah blah.
And even the worn-wigged hard news anchors are un-affected;
And every psychic and small-time prophet is aloof.
We've been injected to the point of immunity;
It takes an F load of S to stimulate the desensitized taste buds of the sugar expecting community,
'Till we can barely detect... the weather man's insincerity."

Passage and Sole team up, reminiscent of their classic duet, "Isn't It Sad How Sad We Are?" ("Become a smart happy healthy pet rock if you can eat like us; you'll make great soup and hot new imports for domesticated devils. Don't worry, in thirty years we'll all be Johns and Sarahs"), while Alias provides a more omniscient perspective a la his great "Divine Inspiration." The Pedestrian only really chimes in for the song's opening lines, but I'm sure he was deeply involved with the writing of the whole thing, which has often been his role. The whole gang really pulls together, often with quite divergent styles, into a cohesive whole, thanks in no small part to DJ Krush. At the time, I know Krush's production for the Anticon collective received a lukewarm welcome by fans; but I actually think he does an excellent job capturing the dark, bitter joke; and subtly shifts the music to fit the different segments of the song, rapped or sung in styles you'd otherwise think could never be parts of the same song.

Krush remixed this song on an album called Stepping Stones years later, but it really doesn't retain the energy or effect of the original at all. It's kinda cool once or twice as a variant - he adds some slick scratching during one of the breakdowns. But the newer, earnest instrumentation takes things too seriously, losing the feeling that these are courtroom jesters singing a coded message of our extinction. Stick with the original, which is conveniently available on 12" already. The idea that Anticon has been moving on without Sole for years feels like some kind of a morbid joke. But that's the great thing about records, they last even as the times change. We can plop 'em on the turntable and go back whenever we want.

Go Mad With Madtoons

Here's a fun, random little 45 from 2000, 2001. It involves the Anticon guys (back when the Anticon line-up was interesting), so there's a lot of about this record online. But most of the information out there is wrong, not least for the fact that a lot the info provided is a goof. So let's sort this out... Ostensibly, this is a split 7" by Madtoons Beat Orchestra on side A and Black Light District on side B.

The Madtoons Beat Orchestra is pretty much just one guy: a DJ named Madtoons; and his song, "So Long, Mike Part 1" features Odd Nosdam and Why?. Or you could say they comprise the "orchestra." It breaks down pretty straight-forwardly to beats by Nosdam, vocals by Why? and cuts by Madtoons. Like you'd expect from Odd, the track is an unusual mash-up of disparate samples, which somehow manage to blend into something chunky but coherent. Imagine if Steinski were commisioned to produce a B-side for Al Bowlly in the 1920's and you're close.

Why?, too, is at his pre-indie rock best, subverting hip-hop's formulaic imagery to the suburban mundane. He alternates between singing about having "two hundred and fifty channels, and I still watch the weather" in a pitched-down voice, and rapping in a crazy foreign accent about how he'll romance us, "you can bet our jet will be the best; and if Finland's on your mind, then to Finland we will fly. Breakfast in Helsinki, lunch in gay Paris; We'll bike the Bering Strait and rowboat the Galilee."

It's all more than a bit silly. They're playing characters, dropping in a bevy of vintage vocal soundbites and even pausing for an Egyptian Lover breakdown. But the music is robust enough to keep things from descending into the realm of a throwaway gag song.

The self-titled B-side by Black Light District is a far more down-to-Earth hip-hop track. It plays less like a showcase for Nosdam's massive sample collection, with a beat by producer Da Proof that stays pretty consistent. There are still a lot of compelling change-ups; it's just not as "all over the place" as the wacky A-side. And the MC, Crest, isn't presenting as a cast of eclectic people from different eras, he's just flowing over a pretty cool, jazzy beat. They're pretty much casual, "not saying much of anything" type of freestyle bars that feel more like an excuse to simply bide the time until their DJ, Quack, gets busy over Proof's smooth breaks.

Unless it's all just another gag... because Crest sounds suspiciously like Why?... And in fact, it's really the same three guys performing on both sides of the record! It's actually impressive how well they pull it off. I could really see people saying, "I can't stand those Anticon guys, but Black Light District on the B-side are real cool."

According to discogs (I'm not really sure, but I'll take their word for it), this was limited to 500 copies. But a dozen years later, this still isn't hard to find at all, at least online. It comes in a cool, picture cover as you see, and also includes three(!) inserts, replete with real and fake bios (I'm assuming the e-mail address for Richard Famous, Black Light District's supposed manager, is as fake as the wacky album covers they show as "also available"), lyrics and a whole, nonsensical back-story about how Madtoons Beat Orchestra formed in the 1940's. Both songs have vocals, but this is really one for the beat junkies... or those just looking for something off the wall.

As for whatever happened to DJ Madtoons? I'm pretty this is his myspace here, which has some newer music on it. But he seems to be more focused on the visual arts. For example, see what you can make of this site of his.

A Thousand Awkward Situations

Even rarer than that Object Beings 7", surprisingly, is the self-titled CD album it's off of. It came out shortly after the vinyl in 2001 and was limited to only 200 copies (mine's #147), and was mainly just available through Anticon-friendly online stores like Atak. #154 recently sold for $182.50 on EBay, and that was before shipping!

Fortunately for everybody who got the 7" but missed the CD, they didn't miss too too much. Both songs from the 7" are here, albeit slightly different. The CD version of "Attack Of the Postmodern Pat Boones" retains, but talks over, the atmospheric opening, that starts out by playing a very warped opening to Pat Boone's "Sugar Moon." But more importantly, they've removed the ominous coda at the end of the song - another spoken exchange between Brandon and Tobey (originally a character from Anticon's infamous, unreleased Stuffed Animals project):

"You mean, we shouldn't be afraid of the post-mortem baboons?"

"That's right, Tobey. There's nothing to be afraid of.

Unless, of course... you're a jazz musician."

And the version of "Cannibalism Of the Object Beings" on the CD, is apparently the "West Coast Phunk Remix," though both mixes sound pretty darn similar to me.

Another one of the main (and it's really quite good) tracks on this album is Pedestrian's solo number, "The Nature of Theater" (here titled, "Theatre of Nature"). But people who missed this song had likely already heard it in spades, as it had been on Anticon.com's shared mp3s for ages... originally scheduled to be released on the Makeshift Writers Workshop LP that never happened.

So, beyond those three songs an Object Beings fan would already have, they weren't missing a whole lot. There's a TON of skits/ poems between the tracks, a demented introduction and a brief, untitled instrumental ...which are cool... but, yaknow, they still ain't proper songs. It's almost more of a neat, "special edition" of the vinyl record rather than a proper album. Why? had this to say, "David [Odd Nosdam] and I were allotted the chore of blending the record. We got together at his place and listened to all the little pieces with no idea how to put them all together. Eventually, we divided the material into songs and unsongs. He put the songs into a logical order and left spaces in between into which we randomly placed unsongs by drawing them out of a hat."

There are still a couple nice exclusives, however. There's a new (albeit pretty short... it's 90 seconds long) Dose One song called, "Well Pail," that starts with him imaginatively describing the only things he's afraid of (they would scare me, too!) and then says,

"There sure are a lot of things we can make,

And make up;

And it's not just an Aegean space

They take up.
Those crazy objects would sure scare us

From far, far away,
If they - one day - had it their way.

Had it their way..."

And there's a second "Theatre of Nature," which uses the exact same instrumental and lyrics, but is this time performed by Dose.

The album came packaged in the plain white sleeve (pictured), with a tiny, folded Xeroxed sheet of paper with a scan of some Newspaper classified ads advertising "Object Beings" on one side, and the track listing on the other. Dose One added, "We rushed the mixing this down. That was two years ago. The summer of hard luck. And 100 students of pressure. The real Object Beings is blank. Thank you."

Tags: Object Beings, Dose One, Why?, Pedestrian

Attack Of the Post-Modern Pat Boones

"It's an art school text book, Tobey; it's nothing to be afraid of."

I'm not done with Weapon-Shaped yet. This is their second, weird, little collector's edition 7", "Attack of the Postmodern Pat Boones" by the Object Beings, a collaberative group of Anticon artists Pedestrian, Why?, Dose One along with producer Emynd. And it's great.

It's catchy, it's creative, it's funny... of course, to really "get" the song, you have to know who Pat Boone is, which might exclude a lot of their younger hip-hop demographic. Pat Boone was huge in the 50's... the non-threatening, non-rock & roll alternative to Elvis Presley, who didn't dress flashy, dance outrageously or have suggestive lyrics in his music. He continued to record through the 60's and 70's and basically made safe "white" versions of hit records so that middle America could have their bland version of "Tutti Frutti" without having to face any scary Little Richards. ...Towards the end of his career, he went into making strictly gospel music.

So bear this in mind, and think of the state of the hip-hop scene Anticon was in when this was released (2000), particularly with the college kids embracing all the DJ Shadows and what-not, and you'll start to see the sense and even the wit in the "nonsense lyrics," including the chorus that goes:

"It's the attack of the post-modern Pat Boones...
And they've got golf shoes for hands.
It's the attack of the post-modern Pat Boones...
And they never learned guitar.
It's the attack of the post-modern Pat Boones...
They're writing their thesis papers on acid.
It's the attack of the post-modern Pat Boones...
And they're taking your transgressive daughters."

The body of the song consists of Pedestrian and Why? trading lines back and forth, finishing each other's sentences over a mellow beat with a very catchy guitar sample and a single, drawn out keyboard note:

"Why?) Who's whoever accepts the primal challenge to play the role of
Pedestrian) Suburban fur-trapper, camoflauged in fake leather couches and plush carpet squares,
Why?) Searching for an embroidered 'Home Sweet Home' wall-hanging,
Superfluous signal of a potpouri sense of security.
Pedestrian) Watercolor class has taught him much...
Even the value of tupperware in a wine-cooler ravaged conscience:
Clear, but for the ominous tint of contentment.
Why?) He once spent a summer squatting in the food court cloaked in McChicken crumbs,
Lucky felt flower behind ear.
Pedestrian) And also having slept on the most expensive sand in all of orange county,
He inverted post-pubescent Keroucian fantasy with a rather non-threatening vengeance."

To be honest, this is still one of my all-time favorite Anticon songs (although, not strictly released on Anticon Records... though it was later included on their Giga Single compilation).

The B-side, "Cannibalism of the Object Beings" features a faster beat, faster flows and introduces Dose One into the mix. It's even more bugged out ("You never know what could show up in your mailbox") and a lot of fun, even if - unfortunately - some of the vocals are a little tough to make out in the mix. :(

It's a shame this 7" was so limited, because it's seriously one of the most important hip-hop records of its period. The Object Beings haven't really stayed together as a group, but today Why? has two albums recorded due to come out... one apparently featuring a lot of music by the band Fog, and other more hip-hop-oriented. Dose has a new Themselves (he and Jel) album in the works. And Pedestrian, as ever, is torturing all of his fans by going for increasingly long stretches without putting any new music out while Sole makes posts about him "working on a new album." Man, I feel like it's 2000 again right now.

Tags: Object Beings, Pedestrian, Why?, Dose One

Sole Bonus Disc

This is a bonus CD that came free when you ordered Sole's Selling Live Water album from Sandbox. I'm pretty sure this stopped being a part of the package even before they had their virtual collapse; but it was available for a while.

The first track is a joint from The Babylonianz' unreleased second album, Da Boom Baptism called "Keep It Raw." The Babylonianz were a gangsta rap send-up group consisting of Sole and Pedestrian (a.k.a. Blazefest & Whitefolk, respectively), following directly in the footsteps of Anticon's previous gangsta rap send-up group, Bludd 'N' Gutz. The album was never released because, well... I'll let Pedestrian explain it (from the SoleOne.org forums), "we never released the second album, Da Boom Baptizm, because it wasn't that good. The title track, 'Da Boom Baptizm,' actually came out on an Amoeba compilation. The problem was basically this: between the first and second albums, the Babylonianz were saved by evangelicals and became very conservative politically. For instance,Why Murder [Why?'s Bludd 'N' Gutz alias] joined Whitefolks and Blazefest on 'Attack Iraq,' which was prophetically finished a few months before the war began. The hook: 'You want jihad, come and get it, boy!' anyway, the problem... because every Babylonianz song is drunkenly freestyled, we found it really difficult to stay in character. freestyling in the character of a once thug turned militantly conservative Christian was fucking confusing." Here's a taste of "Keep It Raw:"

"The Palestinian poet,
The Israeli bomber,
Call yo' momma, or Osama,
You better pick someone for drama.
Rappers don't want it 'cause they flaunt it and they gonna (trick!)
Get bent. When I broke it,
Leave a mic and represent 'cause I spoke it (Ch-ch!).
I'm too dope it;
You can't diagnose it.
You better take some Novocaine,
Get over my name: Whitefolk.
I came to Blazefest like a rhyming death threat,
The best bet since death! (What's next?)"

Next you've got two "serious" songs: both unreleased Sole duets with Why? (though "Idiot's Guide," later appeared on Sole's Songs That Went Tin compilation as "Idiot's Guide To the Universe"). These songs came just around the time Why? was moving out of rap and into his more alternative/pop rock singing style, which makes for an interesting mesh of styles when put up against Sole's strictly hip-hop rapping (though he leans towards Why?'s direction on "I'd Rather Broil"), since neither goes for the obvious "I'll rap and he can sing the chorus" formula.

There are no production credits given for any of the tracks, but we know from the Songs That Went Tin notes that "Idiot's Guide" - a pretty cool, mellow track - was produced by DJ Mayonnaise w/ Why?. The lyrics are reasonably solid and straight-forward here, but take a turn to the kind of abstractions which seem to drive non-Anticon enthusiasts up the wall on "I'd Rather Broil," as Why? sings, "I'm going to the movies with a pair of parakeets in my pocket, one of whom has its mouth sewn shut, the other one a whistler; oohhh... Ohhhhh my god, I'm going." while Sole goes on about "the Hillary Clinton foundation posing as lesbian activists, selling tickets." The track's got a cool, heavily distorted bassline and some live guitar... Thanks are due to W_e_s on the SoleOne forums for finding an archived page from the old Anticon site (where the song is titled "I'd Rather Boil") that gives us the production credits: "recorded dec '99. produced by odd nosdam. mixed by an intoxicated why? 'I liked how the bass sounded and we ate brownies, dude.' - why?"

Finally, you get a 36 minute interview, with Sole answering questions that were submitted through the old Anticon.com forums in front of a "studio audience" consisting of some sampled laughter and applause tracks, Odd Nosdam, Baillie, Passage, Alias, Pedestrian and Colin. As the hand-written note that came with the CD explains, "people asked the internet questions as absurd as possible, and I answered as straight as I could. ...We left in between dialogue, and my frustration with the questions in, to give people a more in depth view of what went into the CD." It makes for a pretty weird listening experience... first a question is asked in a funny voice, then Sole stumbles for a while on his writing process or the war in Iraq, while a laugh track is cut into every pause, and his label-mates snicker and interject comments like, "you said Jose One!" Fake questions (like "is my television staring at me?") are thrown in, too, and there's some human beat-boxing and very half-hearted freestyles. After about the twenty-minute mark, your brain starts to warp... and you're only halfway through it.

And these are the kinds of treasures you people are missing out on if you don't buy your music off the internet. You've taken a good first step by reading this blog... now go get a Paypal account!