Thoughts
Not one, but two Maki tapes dropped today courtesy of the good folks at Endemik Music! There are 25 of each cassette available and you will want to act fast if you want to get your hands on these. Don’t be an idiot like me and not order them together. I did’t realize two tapes dropped until after I ordered American Road Films. As they say going to have to charge it to the game. The homie Scott Da Ros sent me an email and said there is going to be a 2-tape bundle and they jumped the gun on Bandcamp Friday.
There is a Bandcamp Friday tomorrow and my rap senses are tingling and it may be a wild one so don’t go online tomorrow if you want to save some loot.
This may or may not be available tomorrow. My gut says it will but we will see. Check Audio Recon tomorrow.
Community Halls played and instrumental role in the development of the Sasakatton Hip Hop Scene. They were both a blessing and a curse and generally came with their fare share of headaches. However, they played an important role in building community amongst all ages of hip hop fiends which was especially vital with a young scene with the mojority of fans u under the legal age of consumption or bar age witch was and still is 19 years of age in the Province of Saskatchewan. Our neighbours to the West and East, Alberta and Manitoba respectively enjoyed a lower legal drinking age of 18.
Not only were Community Halls and alternative DIY venues able to circumvent the age issue, they also provided an avenue to throw shows when traditional bar venues and clubs would not. Believe it or not there was time when you couldn’t book one of these venues as they wanted nothing to do with hip hop in general. They knew their clientele and the mass of hip hop fans that would turn this tide and make many a bar owner very happy with alcohol profits, was not quite there yet. So, the scene and those throwing shows looked for other avenues to make it happen.
There are lots of headaches in throwing these types of shows and at my age now I am not too interested in promoting shows like this. The reasons are as follows. You have to rent sound and do it yourself which means going and picking it up, hooking it up and then unhooking and packing it up that night, storing it somewhere until you can then load it back up and return it. Anyone who has done this will feel their back ache as they are reading this right now. There are always a lot of issues it seems when you go this route with technical sound issues. The other alternative is to hire the sound out and have a sound tech that takes care of everything. This comes with a lot less work and headache but adds significantly to your production costs so in this era was often and unfortunately coast prohibitive.
Other challenges that come with a Hall or DIY spot is you need someone to work the door and some sort of security. Usually you asked one of the homies or family to help out with the door and “security”. Security for the most part was really non existant in this era for the most part and led to pretty much the worst part of throwing a show in one of these venues and that was damages. Damages meant the bathroom getting tagged up or holes in the walls. These types of occurrences really ate what profit there was after expenses and usually meant coming out of pocket for them. It seemed no matter what you did in that era things got tagged up and I get the why’s but it sucked in the sense that it reaffirmed why bars and clubs didn’t want to mess around with hip hop events. It was part of the experience though and helped spawn a really sick graffiti scene in Saskatoon so I am not mad at it at all, it was just the cost of doing business for the most part. There always seemed to be fights but those were for the most part outside the venue so not really an issue except for a show at the German Concordia Club but that is a story for another day.
These Halls and DIY spots did have their upside as you could play underground rap that paired with the acts. One of my biggest pet peaves is when you go see a rap artist and the opening DJ plays rap music in a different lane. I really hate it to be honest and it has always bugged me. I am at an undergpround rap show so I would expect to hear underground rap. I don’t want to hear top 40 or club rap. This was not really ever an issue in Saskatoon as me and the homies were pretty much always playing records at these shows.
I want to give a shout out to the Saskatoon H?alls and diy spots that held it down in this era The Sutherland Memorial Hall, The Times, The Airliner Hall, The Cosmopolitan Seniors Centre, and The Union Centre. There are others but these were the main ones that really help build Saskatoon’s scene and reputation on an international level.
Missed Third Verse last night? Ugsmag has you covered once again to stream or download NOW! Catch Third Verse on CFCR 90.5 fm in Saskatoon, SK every Wednesday 9-10:30pm CST. Stream online via CFCR.ca or Radio Garden.
As always the last 10 episodes of my other weekly radio show You Know Know the Rules on UMFM in Winnipeg airing every Sunday night 10:00pm -11pm CST. Episodes availible NOW!
Record One
Noblonski - Waveforms
Now I have enjoyed this album on cassette for a while now, but I always knew, like Noblonski knew, this would be incredible on Vinyl. After a little bit of a false start with a lathe type pressing, Noblonski jumped in head first and dropped this super limited to 50 vinyl copies. A 50 copy vinyl press of an album is wild and makes it so special. If you are not familiar with Nonblonski’s production style this is a really good one to cop and get familiar with. It is beautiful and once it hits your turntable it won’t leave anytime soon. Noblonski is coming to Saskatoon for most of July and he will be playing a couple shows and co-hosting Third Verse during his visit. He will have a handful of copies of this beautiful record with him. So if you will be around Saskatoon then you will be in in luck!
Record Two
Awol One- Scribbleface
Awol One is tied for my favorite rapper all time with Masta Ace. I have met Masta Ace but Awol One is the homie! I bet if I toured with Masta Ace over 20 years ago IO could say the same thing but unfortunately that didn’t occur. I wish it did, but the rap gawdz had other plans and that was for me and the Walrus to me homies. I really lucked out and got one of the five test pressing that he was selling for an insanely cheap price, considering they are test presses and he hand screen printed the covers for them. He even went the extra mile and signed it for me and even wrote my name on it even though I didn’t ask because he knew I would love that as he has signed a lot of records for me over the years. This album is super sick and has one of the best posse cut released in the past 10 years in Microchips. There are still a few copies left and tomorrow would be an amazing day to grab one from the homies at Audio Recon as it is Bandcamp Friday!
Rap Shirt
A classic from Factor and Awol One!
Classic Material
Clean Slate
Clean Slate was a one off zine put out by Shrmpy and Sassafras of the Isosceles in Sasaktoon. I believe this magazine came out in 1997. I am pretty sure as that would make sense based on the content of the magazine. There is a precursor on page 4 and it states the plan was for it to drop every two months. That is not overly ambitious and it is it's strange to me that there was no follow up. Generally these types of things get a handful of issues before the fizzle out. That was not the case as we only got the premier issue.
There is a really dope interview with Q-Bert and Mix Master Mike that Shrmpy conducted at the 1997 at a DMC qualifier in Calgary Alberta. The interview is pretty cool as Q-bert talks about a new mixer coming out that they were working with Vestax on. That Mixer was at the 06Pro. I have always wanted an 06Pro but have never copped one. I think I may try and change that this year and scoop one at some point. I was at this show as we went to see the Scratch Picklz showcase at the event. It was Q-Bert, Mix Master Mike, Shortkut and D-Styles. This was incredible and something that could not be missed. Skinz and Pump took the DMC that night qualifying for the Nationals. The homie Parab Poet then as Contac Cee and Kripsy, flick of the wrist turntablist, tried to enter the battle as there was not a qualifier in Saskatchewan. They were barred from entering due to geography but were given an opportunity to showcase as their crew Agent Twelve 00’s. I always loved that name. There were so many of us from Saskatoon at that event it was awesome.
There is a Graff section, some 12” record reviews and and a really dope interview with Graff legend Take 5 in the issue. There is also an interesting insert in the middle on blue paper which is an interview conducted by Innate and Epic with Sunil and Shazzam of Frek Sho. I didn’t remember this was in there until I opened it up. It is really dope and gives a nice snap shot of things that were going on in Rap in 1997. One thing that stuck out to me rereading this interview is larger centres thinking they were better than the smaller centres in Canada. Especially on the Prairies. They didn’t think Hip Hop existed or that we knew about it and were really educated about it. This was especially true of Toronto’s outlook on the rest of Canada and was really prevelant when it came to DMC qualifying. People would drive to other cities they thought they could win in against inferior competition. There was mention of the DJ for the rap group UBAD coming to Winnipeg because he thought he could win and getting beat by the hometown hero DJ Grasshopper (RIP).
Flipping through and rereading this Zine instantly transports me back to this era, the shows an getting a copy of this from Shrmpy in the park downtown by the Vimy Memorial Bandstand and having him break down the cover in some abstract underground pseudo hip hop science speak vernacular that people used to drop on the regular in this error but thinking back was really dope but also super silly. On the back cover there is an advertisement for the first of four Ivry Tower shows. It is super dope and I will reflect back on the Ivry Tower shows at some point.
Closing Ramblings
As always, thank you for reading and for the feedback!
**legal disclaimer all records and songs were run through the RAP NEST 5000 SUPER ANALYTIC COMPTROLLER MACHINE that is certified by the I.A.A.R.R.A (International Association of Analytical Rap Recordings Analysis) in layman’s terms, it means the machine is never wrong.
Catch you next week with more thoughts from the rap nest.
Peace
-chaps