back to home page
FULL ALBUMS
DOWN INSIDE - EMERGENCY BROADKAST (1999)
drums,
keyboards, samples/scratching and backing vocals by me
copyright ©1999. all rights reserved.
|
[engineered
by Rick Duncan] |
my thoughts and notes on the CD:
Jay
is an incredible rapper. He's still active, living in Arizona and
doing a lot of underground gangsta/dark rap. Fred's rapping in general
(not just this CD) always bothered me because he never enunciated
the words and/or articulated the lyrics. A lot of his rapping is
slurred and sloppy.
Musically, I think it's a great record. The weakest song is the
first track... musically, no. But lyrically, plus the title? "Two
Hits And Pass It." It's about smoking pot. Something I've never
been into my whole life, and never ever will be into. I remember
when they told me they had lyrics for this new song, and when they
said the title, I immediately said "Fuck that. No. I don't
want to be associated with that shit." Of course, as was common
in the band (especially after Jay joined as second rapper), no one
took me seriously and didn't give my opinions more than two seconds
of thought. I fucking hate those lyrics with everything that's in
me. And I hated being associated with a band whose song "Two
Hits And Pass It" was a regularly-spun radio favorite on local
station 99x.
Overall, I think when Jay got in the band and brought in his Detroit-influenced rap-style and pot-smoking references, it was the downfall of the band. None of the songs on this CD have any depth whatsoever except "Capitol Hill" (which is decent, I guess), "Pig" (always loved playing that one, live).... and the lyrics to "No Games", which I wrote. Everything else is just cheesy, stupid pot-smoking, fun-having nonsense. Some of it has a fun oldschool-rap vibe, but a lot of it is just stupid.
That kind of lyrical style has never appealed to me, unless it was something by the Beastie Boys or something. I constantly listened to artists like Juliana Hatfield, the Sundays, the Smiths, Heather Nova, Erasure, Sarah McLachlan, and Tori Amos, just to name a few.... I wasn't into a lot of harder music except for the really hard shit like Minor Threat, Black Flag, and various other oldschool hardcore. To me, a lot of the bands on the radio at the time (1996-2000) was disposable, macho metal... and it was just never my scene. I did, however, love 311... and still do. Besides, they were never macho. Just super-talented, heartfelt hip-hop/funk/jazz stuff. I had expressed my interest over and over to the band that I wanted to take that route instead of the Limp Bizkit/Phunk Junkeez route, but no one gave a shit.
I left Down Inside in June of 2000. Most of the band was ok with it except for Scott, who threw a chair at my head and also threw my mountain bike at my head. I'll never forget that... him screaming "fuck you!!!! FUCK YOU!!!!!" over and over from like 8 feet away, furious at the top of his lungs.... and screaming "YOU RUINED MY FUCKING LIFE!!! YOU RUINED MY LIFE! FUCK YOU!!!!!!!" After getting reamed like that, I remembered why I wanted to leave the band in the first place. Scott had become a real prick since we relocated to California... he had never been into alcohol but all of a sudden, he started drinking, and constantly. He became more and more of an asshole with every band practice.
A few weeks after getting screamed at by Scott, I moved back to Florida. I still talk to Sal on the phone and online, but Scott will not say a word to me to this day. Sometimes Jay writes me on myspace asking me for a favor, and I haven't talked with Fred since 2001 or so.
Good times, though... good times. In 1999, Arista Records was interested in signing us. Our management (Sal's parents) met with them in NYC, and there was talk of a $500,000 record deal. It never happened, though. Oh well. I guess everything happens for a reason.
One last thought -- looking at the photo above taken by a friend of ours in summer 1999 (California, where we had moved that summer).... I'm the only one not looking directly at the camera. There are many pictures of the band where I look completely out of place. Looking back, it makes total sense now.