I miss that site like crazy, but with the advances in technology (meaning: mp3s), those days are over now. But Foolblown's legacy will far outlast its operational time on our internet thanks to an one terrific album: Inside Out, on Blown! Recordings.
Yes, Blown! Recordings was Foolblown's move into becoming a little label, and it featured pretty much all the major players that they carried as a store. I'm pretty sure all the artists did it for free (though, to be clear, the CD wasn't free)... it was essentially a sampler. But it featured a lot of their best work, and almost all of it remains exclusive to this day.
Who's represented here? Project Blowed, Afterlife, Anticon, Atoms' Family, Shape Shifters... Yeah, that means it's a lot of "experimental" and artsy stuff that many heads will balk at. But if you appreciate challenging, creative hip-hop of this style; Inside Out presents some of the best the scene ever had to offer. And this was just at the cusp of these guys taking off. This was Cannibal Ox and Aesop Rock, for example, before Def Jux existed. In fact, if you look at Aesop's debut on Def Jux, there's a song called "Tugboat Complex part 3." "Part Two" was on his rare, self-made indie CD, Appleseed. And where's the original from? Right here! And it's still one of his best songs in my opinion.
Anticon fans should consider "I Love Art!" a minor classic. It's essentially a cLOUDEAD song - though I guess technically you'd call it an Object Beings song, since it has a tiny cameo appearance by The Pedestrian mid-song. But it's Dose and Why? at their most avant-garde, over a terrific, constantly shifting, soundscape by Odd Nosdam that stands up as one of his best tracks.
Braille is here, again with one of his best songs, in the style of his first album. SixToo has a nice song about a twenty-something midlife crisis. Representing Project Blowed, you've songs from Ellay Khule and CVE. Really, like, everybody's on here: Illogic, RadioInactive & Subtitle, Greenhouse Effect, OddJobs, even the elusive Dragons of Edin.Vixin even has one of her only solo songs on here (Vixin's one of those femme MCs like Lioness or Penny, who had a lot of people fiending for their music based on a handful of nice guest verses, but for whatever reason, never capitalized on it by releasing a project of their own).
A couple of those songs have later turned up on mixtapes or "rarities"-type collections, but a lot of it is still unique to this album, and at the time, I think pretty much everything was except the Atmosphere song ("The Abusing of the Rib" was included on Seven the same year... it's still one of their best songs, too, though).
So, if you look at the spine of this CD, it doesn't just say Inside Out, but Inside Out Vol. 1. Yeah, Foolblown had big plans... not only a second volume of this series, but another series of compilations called Leaving Tracks, plus a Blockhead album, featuring Slug & Percee-P! A lot of songs were collected for those projects, but sadly, they never came to be. I don't know the exact behind-the-scenes story (though I bet the short version is "pirate mp3s killed the dream"), but apparently Foolblown stopped paying the artists, who I can still remember openly complaining about it on forums... Greenhouse and Atoms' Fam even rapped about it in a song called "Friction" (check it out... it's on their Life Sentences album). But, back in the days, I ordered many times from them and they always came correct. And, of course, I love their album.
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yeah i ordered from them a few times back in the day. i had an artist tell me once that he wasnt seeing money from albums sold and he heard the same thing from other artists who did business with them. so im guessing the guy behind foolblown eventually reached a point where he spent everyones money and just kinda vanished rather then making things right
ReplyDeleteYeah, jason was a motivated guy, we had some plans having dj nights, underground style of course but none of us could dj for shit, lol but jason always had the good records, anyway..he lived at a small 2 bd apt in san antonio , funny story: my mother me, and my brother lived in the same exact apt when I was like 5 or 6, talk about a headfuck when he first gave me directions, every turn I took to get there, was basically taking a ride back into my fucked up childhood. Anyways enough about me, so he ran the shit out of his bedroom it was always cool when new vinyl came in, it was usually pretty much homeboy discount, or, cost. He didnt have a second job then, so im sure he needed every cent he got on rent.. im sure the perfect storm of jared going to jail, no job but you have rent, utilities etc, mom no longer giving you bailout cash and mounting promises and commitments. Last time we hung out and we hung out a lot, he started to get irate with everything and thats whenni lastmsaw him, I talked to him on the phone once after that, small talk was the gist of it.. it was right at the cusp of us growing up and having to become responsible. It was right before s.a started to boom, so niche outfits were hard to do then, im sure it could work now but everything underground isnt the same anymore.
ReplyDeleteI always wondered what happened to Jason and Foolblown. I was a loyal customer and always running into him at local shows. He would basically deliver me my orders personally. I came across this article because I was listening to Inside Out last night and became curious.
ReplyDeleteJust came across this now even though I've been referencing back to this site for many years. I always wondered what the story was with Fool Blown. I still don't really know but the other three comments to this post give some insight.
ReplyDeleteI ordered from there once, it back in 1999. I remember it taking a while to get to me but I was happy to get my Cater to the DJ quadruple vinyl plus some other goodies