Here are a few more videos of stuff I used to listen to in the early days... these songs bring it way back! too bad many of these songs do not have actual videos but listen to these jams anyhow -
This is the World Class Wreckin Cru - with Dr Dre and DJ Yella with Michell'e on the vocals. word...
This is Egyptian Lover again rocking the dope beats with "My Beat Goes Boom"
And this here is another cut by "Uncle Jamm's Army" oh yeaaah - "Dial-A-Freak"
I tell yeah - I wish I was pulling out my KDAY cardboard or my vinyl floor sprayed with pledge and bust.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Early L.A. Hip-Hop
Woke up yesterday thinking about my early days again. Don't know, but for some reason, I have been thinking about my old days a lot more recently. It is either a sign that I am getting old or just simply wanting to go back to them days when music such as the ones I will talk about and are posted here were first been aired on the radio.
KDAY (1580 AM) was the station I would listen to most. It played all the jams. Jams by Uncle Jamm's Army, Egyptian Lover, Arabian Prince, World Class Wreckin Cru and the L.A. Dream Team just to name a few.
All these groups were somewhat tied in and they all had cuts* and also legendary rappers that would later embark on their own projects and have successful musical careers. Rappers such as: Dr Dre and DJ Yella who both were in World Class Wreckin Cru and of course all know went out to form N.W.A.. The first gangster rap group to also place Compton on the map. Another such was Ice-T who used to be part of Uncle Jamm's Army and is attributed to actually spawning off the gangster rap sub-genre. Of course there were/are more like: Kid Frost, as I mentioned in one of my previous posts, DJ Pooh, Chris "The Glove" Taylor and so on.
I remember Friday Night Jams when KDAY used to play about 2 hours straight of just jams. I would pull out my boom box* and throw in a cassette tape(s) that would have the little holes on the top stuffed with napkin pieces or tape them up so I can record over them. I would rummage through my mom's tapes and would ask her is she still wanted them and/or just snag my dad's tapes and scratch off the artist's name and info. And I, thinking I was slick, would hope my dad wouldn't find out but of course he would and he'd beat my ass. LOL
Anyhow, as I type I remember more and more about them days like Bobby Jimmy and the Critters which was a Los Angeles comedy rap group. They had songs such as "We Like Ugly Women" and "Roaches" which was a parody of the song by Timex Social Club, "Rumors".
Those were some fun days. And once again, as some of my previous posts, I will continue about this more on future posts. LOL (or not) But here is why I was motivated to blog. I had recently spoken to my boy Earn-One and we spoke a little of old school cats like: Minus-UCA (R.I.P) and Easie-UCA/STN/LATT (R.I.P) and how we used to chill in those days. And every time I think of them, I also think of Dorsey High School. Yeah boyee...Dorsey. They used to have pep rallies during lunch and I must say they had the best pep rallies ever. I always remember heading out there on the bus to just hang with Minus, Skil, and Easie during school. Chase-UCA would often be around too. The wild thing about this is that although I was not attending the school I would sit in their classrooms as a student just so I'd be there for the pep rallies. LOL. I never really knew how some teachers would not know while a couple would be cool about it.
Dorsey would often have the LADT perform and they were the shizzle* with jams like "The Dream Team is the House" and the electro jam "Rockberry Jam". It'd get wild with hot cheerleaders dancing wearing short skirts and everyone freaking in front of the stage getting down to the sounds of LADT.
Sadly, after their quick success, about 4 years later, I ended up working with Chris Wilson of the LADT at the Universal Cineplex Movie Theater. It was sorta surreal to be working with him and could never really comprehend how he was working as an usher for minimum wage after being on tour and all that. I guess it happens more than often as we have seen with many musicians and child stars. right?
So here are the videos: hope you listen to them. Some don't actually have videos per se but you can still listen to the jam.
L.A. Dream Team - "The Dream, Team is in The House"
L.A. Dream Teaam - "Rockberry Jam"
Bobby Jimmy and The Critters - "Roaches" - HAHAHAHAHA - can't help but laugh every time I hear this song.
Egyptian Lover - Freak-A-Holic"
That really takes me back. In a couple of days I will post a few more videos and maybe continue talking about the West Coast Hip-Hop days. i will also talk about the L.A. Street Scene and the Radio-Tron as well.
Alright ya'll peace
MAKE's GLOSSARY
cut - used to describe a song. More applied to a song that was either really good or greatly liked.
shizzle - a variation of the word sh**. Mainly used to describe something really good.
boom box - a term used for hnad-held radios or cassette players. The term is still used today.
KDAY (1580 AM) was the station I would listen to most. It played all the jams. Jams by Uncle Jamm's Army, Egyptian Lover, Arabian Prince, World Class Wreckin Cru and the L.A. Dream Team just to name a few.
All these groups were somewhat tied in and they all had cuts* and also legendary rappers that would later embark on their own projects and have successful musical careers. Rappers such as: Dr Dre and DJ Yella who both were in World Class Wreckin Cru and of course all know went out to form N.W.A.. The first gangster rap group to also place Compton on the map. Another such was Ice-T who used to be part of Uncle Jamm's Army and is attributed to actually spawning off the gangster rap sub-genre. Of course there were/are more like: Kid Frost, as I mentioned in one of my previous posts, DJ Pooh, Chris "The Glove" Taylor and so on.
I remember Friday Night Jams when KDAY used to play about 2 hours straight of just jams. I would pull out my boom box* and throw in a cassette tape(s) that would have the little holes on the top stuffed with napkin pieces or tape them up so I can record over them. I would rummage through my mom's tapes and would ask her is she still wanted them and/or just snag my dad's tapes and scratch off the artist's name and info. And I, thinking I was slick, would hope my dad wouldn't find out but of course he would and he'd beat my ass. LOL
Anyhow, as I type I remember more and more about them days like Bobby Jimmy and the Critters which was a Los Angeles comedy rap group. They had songs such as "We Like Ugly Women" and "Roaches" which was a parody of the song by Timex Social Club, "Rumors".
Those were some fun days. And once again, as some of my previous posts, I will continue about this more on future posts. LOL (or not) But here is why I was motivated to blog. I had recently spoken to my boy Earn-One and we spoke a little of old school cats like: Minus-UCA (R.I.P) and Easie-UCA/STN/LATT (R.I.P) and how we used to chill in those days. And every time I think of them, I also think of Dorsey High School. Yeah boyee...Dorsey. They used to have pep rallies during lunch and I must say they had the best pep rallies ever. I always remember heading out there on the bus to just hang with Minus, Skil, and Easie during school. Chase-UCA would often be around too. The wild thing about this is that although I was not attending the school I would sit in their classrooms as a student just so I'd be there for the pep rallies. LOL. I never really knew how some teachers would not know while a couple would be cool about it.
Dorsey would often have the LADT perform and they were the shizzle* with jams like "The Dream Team is the House" and the electro jam "Rockberry Jam". It'd get wild with hot cheerleaders dancing wearing short skirts and everyone freaking in front of the stage getting down to the sounds of LADT.
Sadly, after their quick success, about 4 years later, I ended up working with Chris Wilson of the LADT at the Universal Cineplex Movie Theater. It was sorta surreal to be working with him and could never really comprehend how he was working as an usher for minimum wage after being on tour and all that. I guess it happens more than often as we have seen with many musicians and child stars. right?
So here are the videos: hope you listen to them. Some don't actually have videos per se but you can still listen to the jam.
L.A. Dream Team - "The Dream, Team is in The House"
L.A. Dream Teaam - "Rockberry Jam"
Bobby Jimmy and The Critters - "Roaches" - HAHAHAHAHA - can't help but laugh every time I hear this song.
Egyptian Lover - Freak-A-Holic"
That really takes me back. In a couple of days I will post a few more videos and maybe continue talking about the West Coast Hip-Hop days. i will also talk about the L.A. Street Scene and the Radio-Tron as well.
Alright ya'll peace
MAKE's GLOSSARY
cut - used to describe a song. More applied to a song that was either really good or greatly liked.
shizzle - a variation of the word sh**. Mainly used to describe something really good.
boom box - a term used for hnad-held radios or cassette players. The term is still used today.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Old School Cans....
So my homie Earn UCA sent me a couple of pics today. Within those pics there was one of me holding a Jungle Green and a Plum Purple...ahhhhhhh - those colors!
I miss those colors by Krylon. Plum Purple, Clover Green, Hot Pink, Aqua Turquoise, Baby Blue, Coral, Avocado Green, Rasberry Pink, Icy Grape, Brick, School Bus Yellow....
How's that for a rack full of paint....nice right?
Man, those were some colors, specially Brick which was only around for a little bit. Other colors that were or are dope are: True Blue, Banner Red, the old Cherry Red...pssss...I can go on about the colors Krylon used to bust out with. I don't know what happened to Krylon too. Their paint got way watery and then recently converted their tips to this weak female fan tip which sucks.
I guess it is their way of "fighting and preventing" graffiti since they have, over years, claimed to be anti-graffiti even though I believe that writers have maintained them afloat and in business for years.
I can clearly remember the first time I used these colors. Any of them. And I have seen some colors that Belton and Montana put out that are similar but to me they seem to fall short of the actual shade of these colors. I get excited when I see a color by any of these brands that are similar to the colors listed above. I know you may be like, "Galo, calm down, It ain't that serious" but these colors were some of the first I used when I began rocking the walls back in 84.
Anyhow - here is the pic...what ya'll think? sitting like a king right?
PHOTO BY EARNONE-UCA
I miss those colors by Krylon. Plum Purple, Clover Green, Hot Pink, Aqua Turquoise, Baby Blue, Coral, Avocado Green, Rasberry Pink, Icy Grape, Brick, School Bus Yellow....
How's that for a rack full of paint....nice right?
Man, those were some colors, specially Brick which was only around for a little bit. Other colors that were or are dope are: True Blue, Banner Red, the old Cherry Red...pssss...I can go on about the colors Krylon used to bust out with. I don't know what happened to Krylon too. Their paint got way watery and then recently converted their tips to this weak female fan tip which sucks.
I guess it is their way of "fighting and preventing" graffiti since they have, over years, claimed to be anti-graffiti even though I believe that writers have maintained them afloat and in business for years.
I can clearly remember the first time I used these colors. Any of them. And I have seen some colors that Belton and Montana put out that are similar but to me they seem to fall short of the actual shade of these colors. I get excited when I see a color by any of these brands that are similar to the colors listed above. I know you may be like, "Galo, calm down, It ain't that serious" but these colors were some of the first I used when I began rocking the walls back in 84.
Anyhow - here is the pic...what ya'll think? sitting like a king right?
PHOTO BY EARNONE-UCA
Monday, May 4, 2009
Sunday Afternoon....
I must say my Sunday was good. I had some bomb food, the weather was great, hung out with some of the homies*...chilled, laughed, ate and maintained myself well hydrated throughout the day.
Such a good day had me reminiscing. The year was about 1990. I would go visit The Montebello Town Center a lot, with one main objective...to rack* and of course check out the ladies. My homie Besk and I would spend hours or days at the Town Center racking everything possible. Our normal times to hit the stores were during the weekdays around 10:30 AM when the stores were just opening, the crowd was almost zero, security guards were perhaps still in the employee lounge getting their coffee and complaining about their job to each other while the first-shift store employees were busy setting up the store for the day. So busy, that we'd get ignored. PERFECT. So with a little handheld demagnetizer that I had racked from a Bullocks we would casually remove the sensors and either place our stuff in large bags that we'd ask for from different stores or wear them under our clothes after trying them on in the dressing room. Mannnn, we'd walk out with jackets, shirts, pants, colognes, ties, high-end boxers...you name it. Not that I am proudly boasting about it - that just was the case.
Anyhow - well one of these days we walked in to a record shop. A little one located on the second floor near the end of the mall. It was in the east wing where the first Hot Topic (before it went to caca and turned rave) was at. It sat right above Hot Topic. As I schemed through tapes in the Hip-Hop section, I noticed this one tape. It had a fist pumping upwards and the name A Lighter Shade Of Brown with a pic of three Latin dudes wearing tight overalls and caps. A Lighter Shade of Brown? WTH was this? Wellllll, I racked it.
Immediately upon getting into Besk's Metallic Blue Buick Regal with Daytons, I popped the tape in. It initiates with the first verse of the Mexican Anthem and it cuts to it's first track. I was like, hmmmmm...ohkay..my head was kinda bobbing...next we heard "El Varrio" and I liked that song a little more. The third was "Spill The Wine", of course sampling Santana but then, towards the end, this song called "Latin Active", a song that had sampled one of my favorite songs, "Radio Activity (Lets Jam)" by pioneering freestyle rappers MC Frosty and MC Lovin C. It was a dope rap song that had a jammin* beat and I totally liked how this track had sampled it and how it was composed. The song also featured female rapper Teardrop, who threw in some dope lyrics too.
I became a big LSOB fan. I can claim that Besk and I were perhaps some of the first kats bumping them. Peeps* would get in our Buick (hahaha, I said our Buick but it was Besk's) and they would just rag and laugh at the music. I didn't care, I like them, they were Mexican as I am and they repped* for the browns* right?
These dudes really introduced the entire Latin Hip-Hop movement to me. Which of course, at that time, could have been counted by hand. This was also way before Kid Frost's "La Raza" was out. Even though Kid Frost was in the circuit doing stuff and being a breakdancer for L.A.'s first rap collective - Uncle Jamms Army
The guys of LSOB had some dope rap names. ODM which means One Dope Mexican and the other was DTTX, which means Don't Try To Xerox...meaning don't bite* or copy. Which by the way, XEROX doesn't mean copy, it is actually the brand name of a copy machine. It is just often used to refer to a copy of a document. It is much so like asking for a Kleenex as opposed to asking for a tissue.
Okay okay - back to why I am writing about this. Well these guys had another track on that album that was dope. It did not peak the charts until maybe a year later. The track was "Sunday Afternoon". The song has actually been played out. It has become the Sunday BBQ anthem. But often times I can think of it when I get home from a good BBQ with al the friends.
So here it is. "Sunday Afternoon" by A Lighter Shade Of Brown.
MAKE's GLOSSARY:
homies = word used to describe close friends or acquaintances or even those that we may kinda know
rack = to steal or borrow from a store w/o the intent to return. Commonly known shoplifting. It can also apply to borrowing from someone indefinitely
peeps = short for people. form of an abbreviation
bite = to copy (like I explained above)
jammin = to be good or like "it rocks dude"
repped = short for representing and abbreviated form indicating that it is coming correct
brown(s) = not any of the sport teams such as Cleveland or Chicago etc. It means Browns, as in referring mainly to those that are of or considered of Hispanic decent..oops, I mean descent
Such a good day had me reminiscing. The year was about 1990. I would go visit The Montebello Town Center a lot, with one main objective...to rack* and of course check out the ladies. My homie Besk and I would spend hours or days at the Town Center racking everything possible. Our normal times to hit the stores were during the weekdays around 10:30 AM when the stores were just opening, the crowd was almost zero, security guards were perhaps still in the employee lounge getting their coffee and complaining about their job to each other while the first-shift store employees were busy setting up the store for the day. So busy, that we'd get ignored. PERFECT. So with a little handheld demagnetizer that I had racked from a Bullocks we would casually remove the sensors and either place our stuff in large bags that we'd ask for from different stores or wear them under our clothes after trying them on in the dressing room. Mannnn, we'd walk out with jackets, shirts, pants, colognes, ties, high-end boxers...you name it. Not that I am proudly boasting about it - that just was the case.
Anyhow - well one of these days we walked in to a record shop. A little one located on the second floor near the end of the mall. It was in the east wing where the first Hot Topic (before it went to caca and turned rave) was at. It sat right above Hot Topic. As I schemed through tapes in the Hip-Hop section, I noticed this one tape. It had a fist pumping upwards and the name A Lighter Shade Of Brown with a pic of three Latin dudes wearing tight overalls and caps. A Lighter Shade of Brown? WTH was this? Wellllll, I racked it.
Immediately upon getting into Besk's Metallic Blue Buick Regal with Daytons, I popped the tape in. It initiates with the first verse of the Mexican Anthem and it cuts to it's first track. I was like, hmmmmm...ohkay..my head was kinda bobbing...next we heard "El Varrio" and I liked that song a little more. The third was "Spill The Wine", of course sampling Santana but then, towards the end, this song called "Latin Active", a song that had sampled one of my favorite songs, "Radio Activity (Lets Jam)" by pioneering freestyle rappers MC Frosty and MC Lovin C. It was a dope rap song that had a jammin* beat and I totally liked how this track had sampled it and how it was composed. The song also featured female rapper Teardrop, who threw in some dope lyrics too.
I became a big LSOB fan. I can claim that Besk and I were perhaps some of the first kats bumping them. Peeps* would get in our Buick (hahaha, I said our Buick but it was Besk's) and they would just rag and laugh at the music. I didn't care, I like them, they were Mexican as I am and they repped* for the browns* right?
These dudes really introduced the entire Latin Hip-Hop movement to me. Which of course, at that time, could have been counted by hand. This was also way before Kid Frost's "La Raza" was out. Even though Kid Frost was in the circuit doing stuff and being a breakdancer for L.A.'s first rap collective - Uncle Jamms Army
The guys of LSOB had some dope rap names. ODM which means One Dope Mexican and the other was DTTX, which means Don't Try To Xerox...meaning don't bite* or copy. Which by the way, XEROX doesn't mean copy, it is actually the brand name of a copy machine. It is just often used to refer to a copy of a document. It is much so like asking for a Kleenex as opposed to asking for a tissue.
Okay okay - back to why I am writing about this. Well these guys had another track on that album that was dope. It did not peak the charts until maybe a year later. The track was "Sunday Afternoon". The song has actually been played out. It has become the Sunday BBQ anthem. But often times I can think of it when I get home from a good BBQ with al the friends.
So here it is. "Sunday Afternoon" by A Lighter Shade Of Brown.
MAKE's GLOSSARY:
homies = word used to describe close friends or acquaintances or even those that we may kinda know
rack = to steal or borrow from a store w/o the intent to return. Commonly known shoplifting. It can also apply to borrowing from someone indefinitely
peeps = short for people. form of an abbreviation
bite = to copy (like I explained above)
jammin = to be good or like "it rocks dude"
repped = short for representing and abbreviated form indicating that it is coming correct
brown(s) = not any of the sport teams such as Cleveland or Chicago etc. It means Browns, as in referring mainly to those that are of or considered of Hispanic decent..oops, I mean descent
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