I've been down with the Pharcyde since day one. Back in 1993 I was just starting off as a DJ when I walked into Fish Records (run by my Sir Henry's colleagues Greg and Shane) and bought the only 12" copy of a fresh new U.S. Import of a tune called "Passin' Me By". They say don't judge a book by it's cover but with records you often know staright away if you've hit gold! This was one such record.
The Pharcyde proceeded to be an integral part of my music career and I proceeded to play the ass of my rare double coloured vinyl of "Bizarre Ride" that summer. Kudo's to Lulu from Primetime for bringing me back the album from a trip to London! Tracks like "Return of the B-Boy", "SoulFlower" and "Ya Mama" became huge in Cork. Myself and my mentor (and good friend Donkeyman) used play it off the turntables in both the Donkey's Ears and Sweat in Henry's. He was working a day job at the time and had the whole factory singing "shot em in the ass on the down stroke" all day at work. Even 60 year old men who he worked with got in on the act! I used an animated poster of the Pharcyde for a poster for my night in the Donkey's; the manager Michelle was understandably worried about the fat doobie hanging from one of the hands of the rappers!
Two years later "Runnin" became arguably the biggest Back Bar (of Sir Henry's) tune of all time and it's safe to say it was one of the reasons why our Saturday residency became even more legendary around Ireland and beyond. By this time JayDee (Dilla) was on board producing some of their stuff and his sound developed further with other huge personal favs like A Tribe Called Quest and Busta Rhymes. Having only passed away weeks ago It was an emotional time for the Pharcyde to be coming to Cork and I was slightly worried in case they might damage their already mighty legacy for me! They have lost a few members but added an incredible live band-I've kept buying their music through the years but hip-hop has changed and gimmick free crews like this simply don't get played on MTV anymore. But did they dissapoint in Cork? Hell no! This was one of the gigs of the year!
Local rapper Chance warmed up with Doobious and Mr Barton and got the crowd hyped up nicely. These guys have been around for years and I was delighted to see them getting such exposure! They rose to the occassion too and the crowd of a couple of hundred were amped by the time Imani and Bootie Brown came on. The live band were unreal and the guy on keys was doing all sorts of vocoding and just ripping it up! The drummer and DJ were class too while the two hip-hop legends out front killed it with everything from classic early stuff to some of the lesser known (but equally effective) later flavours!
I hooked up with their main man Schmooche after (Thanks Eoin!) and he was really really cool-hooking me up with some wax and introducing me to the band. They signed that very same rare original copy of "Passin Me By" and Bootie Brown (pictured above) hooked me up with some sweet radio jingles, including a repeat of their Dilla tribute which I'm gonna play out live and on air. I was walking on air when I made my way home and stayed up till about 6 in the morning writing my Echo column and updating some emails. I was back on RedFm today and played one of Bootie Brown's jingles before his rap on the Gorillaz "Dirty Harry"! Tonight I'm looking forward to a rare night off tomorrow-myself and my Jam partner Colm Kenefick are gonna meet up and listen to some tunes and hook up a myspace account for Jam before I chill for the rest of the evening. Needless to say, I won't be blogging till Wednesday, so have a good one!
No comments:
Post a Comment