SLEEP!! Oldomiinion Represent. Pdx to Van city!! And of course Skrizzatch Bastid DO WORK!! 

Ten years later, still the best. Co-lab with Pip again for an anniversary jam!

Just landed in Winnipeg! Verrrrry excited to play a 45 set tonight at The Goodwill, and judge the Red Bull Thre3Style Canadian national finals this weekend with Z-Trip, Thugli, Hedspin, and Ali Shaheed Muhammad (how about that for a line-up!?). Seriously. 

Accordingly, today's #TBT SoundCloud post is dedicated to my Winnipeg homies Pip Skid and John Smith, who worked on this song from an incredibly fun project. 10 years ago this month (!), we released a CD & 12" on my own label, First Things First. "Taking Care Of Business" was the product of a 2-and-a-half week recording session in Halifax, based around a few shows in Eastern Canada. At the time, I had been DJing for Pip after he moved out to Halifax and I was a big fan of not only his music but his work ethic and focus. I was also a big fan of the label that he was a part of (Peanuts & Corn, shoutout to mcenroe - I still owe you something for that Bob James record you sent me), and in particular rapper John Smith, who I thought was a great balance of tough and witty, and that I had recently had rap on one of my mixtapes. They had already done an album together as Hip-Hop Wieners and I liked their chemistry, so I set out to make a DJ-centric rap album from the ground up - from beginning to end.

Featured here is the 'DJ Theme' song "Murphy's Law" (featuring Sleep) to my Soundcloud as an audio accompaniment to this post. It's kinda like my version of 'Ugly People Be Quiet' or 'Alladin's On A Rampage' - just not as classic. 

In retrospect, the whole project was an amazing experience. I learned so much about how the business works: physical production, distribution, promo, radio, video, licensing, budgeting, touring -- many lessons which influenced how I approach my career to this day. I'm still very proud of the music that we made together, and it was an experience that I am very happy I went through when I did. It was a good primer for handling things to come. This is turning into a bit of an 'acceptance speech', which I normally detest and dismiss as self-indulgent, but I'm on a roll here and reminiscing while 20,000 feet above Thunder Bay, so bear with me.

Thank you to: Greymatter (who helped engineer the album), Sleep (who recorded vocals and toured with us during the making of this project), Gordski & Jorun Bombay (who contributed 3 beats each to the project), mcenroe (who added a remix on the 12"), Kunga219 & Tachichi (both featured on 'Get Nice'), Jason Lapeyre (who made the 'I Ain't Lazy' & 'Collecting Empties' videos for next to nothing -- we made the latter for the cost of the returned beer bottles in the video), Yosuke (who released the album in Japan), my manager Mike D, Troy Neilson (who helped it chart with radio promo), and ______ (who I am surely forgetting... like I said, 10 years). I asked a lot of favours and patience in making something like this happen, and for your help I am grateful. And of course to Pip & Smitty: if an internet post is a remotely relevant 'thank you', well, thank you. Too many stories to commit to this touch screen right now, and I'm thankful for all of them. Even that awful place I made us stay in Saint John, and running out of gas halfway between Fredericton and Moncton. I'll stop. 

I recently saw this album pop up for download on one of those blogspots with every-album-your-HD-can-handle on it. I'm not sure if it's still up there... those things disappear faster than politicians' promises after election, but give it a Google. The positive, well thought out review encouraging people to check it out made me happy, in all of it's friendly pirating intent. Maybe it will convince you to check it out, and if so, by all means grab it. And if you want physical copies of either the CD or 12" for yourself, I've got a few left over at my online store which you can reach via skratchbastid.com. 

And that's about it. I mean, there's more, but we can rap about it when I see you in The Peg this weekend. Beers on me. 

Murphy's Law (f/ Pip Skid, John Smith & Sleep)(2005)

[CA: himmelfarb@feldman-agency.com]
[MGMT: management@skratchbastid.com]

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