Mike's Magic

Mike and I were longing to perform with our rap group 3 n' Pass, as was our third member Mike Myer, the only problem was we had no idea how to pull it off. Finally Mike came up with a magical idea to mix our instrumental set onto a hi fi stereo VHS casette. From there we could hook up a hi if stereo VCR to a clubs soundboard and play our music off of the VHS tape. 

The three of us gathered at Mike's place, hooked the four track up to his mixer and turntables, and proceeded to get the ball rolling. Mike picked out some choice vinyls to beat mix our songs into one another. This way our set would be one continuous flow, never giving the audience a chance to respond until the set was compete. We figured it would be a good way to captivate people attention for the entirety of our live performances.

We booked our first gig at Tremors in Brampton late 1992, while we were still apart of Grasshopper. I don't remember who set it up, but amazingly we managed to secure Mal Havoc as our headliner. I eagerly got a flyer together and started spamming my hometown. When the night of the gig arrived, the place was packed and the show went great. Myers managed to hook up a video camera at the top of the club to film the show. Our set worked out as planned. We had everyone's undivided attention, and by the end of it all we got a great ovation. It was truly a magical night, and a huge honour to share the bill with Mal Havoc. 

Original flyer artwork for our first show

After the whole Grasshoper fiasco, we were itching to do more 3 n' Pass shows. Thankfully we still had contacts in the city, so we ended up getting a few shows downtown as to expose ourselves to the Toronto scene. The couple of shows we did land went pretty well, but they didn't have the same vibe as the Brampton gig. We decided it was time once again to perform at Tremors. 

We managed to get Yet Another Posse to make the commute from Pickering, and we got local metal brothers Demon Barf on the bill as well. It was a great mix of styles, and once again the house was packed. My work was cut out for me this evening, as I ended up doing a song with Y.AP. which was an added bonus, then during Demon Barf's performance I got into my "Satan" costume to face Jesus in a BWF title match. It was totally wild partaking in a wrestling match for the second time while the band belted out tunes behind us. Once again another magical evening had unfolded, and I couldn't of been happier.

I was extremely satisfied to be back on stages again doing what I truly loved, and the reception we were getting made it all worthwhile. Not very many rap groups were performing live during this time period, so I think most people just enjoyed seeing something different than the usual live bands they were accustomed to. 

3 n' Pass was like my baby, and it was amazing to finally see it all grown up and out in the real world. I wouldn't of changed a thing about it, but I soon learned my band mates had some changes in mind...

Sunday Night Experience

Not long after the disbanding of Grasshopper, Mike Chapman got a call he and myself had been waiting for. After our experience on "The Seminal Load" at 105.5 CHRY, Mike decided to apply for his own radio show, and now it was going to become a reality. The station must of appreciated the fact he worked at CIAO Radio, so they offered him his own time slot at CHRY. They offered him Sunday nights from 10pm to 6am if I remember correctly....or perhaps it was 11pm-7am... Or 11pm-6am... I can't quite remember.

Nevertheless Mike was totally stoked, as were myself and Mike Myre. It was a pretty big time slot to fill, so Mike enlisted us as co-disc jockeys to take part in this new venture. Our show would go on to be known as "The Sunday Night Experience" and we vowed to make it a listening experience for our audience, offering them a wide range and variety of music.

As we headed there for our first broadcast, we tuned into "The Seminal Load" as they held the time slot before us. Low and behold, Derek was their guest, trying to push his new brand of "Grasshopper" unbeknownst to myself, Mike had created a loop of Derek singing the line "I'm so alone" from the Grasshopper song "Born Loser" The recording he chose however was a terribly unusable acapella take. Derek was totally out of key and his voice was screeching and cracking.

Mike assumed Derek would tune into our show on his commute home, so he ran that loop in continuation for about 10 minutes. Once the cheap shot was out of his system, we proceeded to unleash our first episode on the college radio underground circuit. The hosts of Seminal, once friendly people, were clearing out as we took over the airwaves, but they  now seemed almost snobby towards us or uncomfortable, due to the whole a grasshopper issue I imagine. "Fuck em', I thought to myself.

Mike kicked things off with some old funk & jazz such as Miles Davis, James Brown, and Parliament, just to name a few. After an hour or so he transitioned into some break beats and instrumental hip hop and electronica, which eventually led to rap and hip hop songs. 

This took us right to 3:33 am, where myself and Myers stepped in with "The Power 333" our salute to thrash metal and hardcore. We selected this time slot to do such as it was half of 666, the number of the devil. We went by the aliases "Cronos Jr." & "The Aggressive Perfecter" both of us speaking in terrible broken English reminiscent to Max Cavalera from Sepultura. We spun heavy tunes for 60 minutes, then Mike C stepped back in at 4:33am to continue the action with a variety of strange and wacky music. 

We also had a call in segment where friends would phone us and we'd have on air discussions about randomness, we'd also get into busting live freestyle cyphers as well. This was definitely the highlight for me. For the last hour of the show Mike C. slowed things down a bit with some mellow reggae jams, in ode to all the early birds getting ready to start the day. We figured it would be a nice way for folks to go about their morning rituals with some chilled easy listening. 

Our first show went pretty well, and we were even able to record it live in the studio. It was a total trip for me, having access to a radio station with absolutely no supervision. We could smoke in there and pretty well do exactly whatever we pleased, even if it involved stealing a few choice records from time to time. 

CHRY had what was known as a cart machine. "Carts" were similar to the old 8 track tapes, and most of them contained commercials or plugs for the station provided by well known musicians such as Cypress Hill. We chose our favourite carts as to actually have some cool commercials from time to time. As the weeks went on, we started making our own carts in the station, as they had all the means to do so. Now we could actually advertise our own show, as well as our "mini-shows" within the show. 

It was truly a highly fun experience and Sunday had now become my favourite day of the week. I looked forward to heading into the station every sabbath. Of course by morning time we were all exhausted, burned out, and ready for bed, but it was totally worth it despite being a volunteer gig. It also gave us a platform to expose our rap group "3 n' Pass" as we could play our music and promote any live gigs we had coming up.

It felt great to be apart of something with meaning and substance, which I was longing for after Grasshopper dismantled. Our listening base wasn't huge, but we had listeners and that's all that mattered to us, and we were gaining more of an audience every week. Those Sunday nights were creating some of the best memories one could ever hope for, and I never wanted it to end...

Quick Update 01/21/2015

Just a quick update today for my readers. I am currently in the process of figuring out timeline lineage before I proceed with the story. It can be quite difficult trying to remember occurrences from over 20 years ago, but thankfully I've got scrapbooks, art, flyers etc. to help me do so. The story will continue very soon, you have my word.

In non related musical news, myself and my cohort Jon will be returning this week with our podcast. It has been just over a year now since our last one, and I'm happy to say we will be reuniting to continue the fun. Feel free to catch up on our previous episodes at:

www.coinop.podomatic.com

In musical news, my newest collaborative project "Tribes of the Moon" is coming together nicely. I now have about 30 minutes worth of material and I am still receiving tracks from various producers. If you'd like to be a part of this project feel free to submit your songs to me at:

theofour20@hotmail.com

I've also decided to start a new venture into the world of art with my new brain child "Pernicious Prints" I won't go into detail on this at the moment, but you can be sure I'll keep you up to speed on this as things start to unfold in the weeks to come.

This Friday I will be getting together with my friends from Wrestling Abaddon to partake in some activities that are still a mystery to even myself at the moment. I'm quite excited for this get together as I haven't seen my pals in ages. Whatever the end result is, I will bring it to your attention via my blog in the very near future...

 Love, peace, and chicken grease

-K

Carry on wayward son

So what was I to do now? I had been betrayed by someone I considered my best friend, but I guess the feeling wasn't mutual. So I decided to seek solace in the people who truly were my best friends. I started spending a lot more time with my Brampton boys, who I had clearly been neglecting the past two years, and it was truly a pleasure to reconnect with them and get back to my roots.

Musically I still had 3 n' Pass, so I began focusing all of my energy and creativity towards the project. We continued working on new songs, making new homegrown videos, and we started contemplating the idea of actually performing live. We just had to figure out how we would do that considering we had no instruments. 

Being stationed in Brampton again, I also started spending a lot more time with the Demon Barf crew up in the J section. Their guitarist Paul's house had now become my new home away from home. We'd mostly watch wrestling videos or play wrestling video games when the band was at rest. I kept playing the role of "Jimmy the sheepwanker" for them whenever they had gigs, and I embraced my role as an honourary member of the DB Army.

One day while hanging with them, they realized at the last minute that they had a show to play in Brantford. They scrambled to get a convoy together and pack the gear, but as fate would have it they weren't able to get a second vehicle. This meant they only had a four seater car to try and transport all of the gear plus 7 band members. There was no way possible for everything and everyone to fit.

Then came the debate on which members would actually attend the festivities. Clearly they needed the drummer and guitarists, which left only one spot in the car for a singer. The big dilemma however was the band had two singers, Matt & Kev. I don't remember exactly who made the call, but somehow it was decided that I would be the singer for this particular gig.

I was pretty stoked, yet somewhat nervous, as I didn't even know all of the lyrics to their songs. For the entire commute there we listened to their demo tape repeatedly so I could try and get my shit together. I had most of it figured out by the time we got there, but I knew I was going to have to improv a few parts and make up my own ad-libs.

When we arrived at the venue, we were eagerly greeted by the promoter and other bands. Much to our surprise, the club we would be playing in was attached to a strip joint. There was literally a door in the club that brought you into the adjoined club where the exotic dancers performed. Whenever the chance presented itself, we'd pop in for a quick drink and check out some of the lovely ladies.

The show was an all ages afternoon event, so we played around 3:00 pm or so. Despite me having to improv half of the show, we surprisingly pulled off a pretty killer set. After we were finished, we packed the gear back up and headed into the strip club for awhile. The main feature was just about to hit the stage, so we decided to stick around and check her out before heading home. 

She was a very bubbly, busty blonde with a pearly white smile that never left her face. Her act was highly entertaining, as she encouraged crowd participation throughout her set. At one point she pulled me and one of the other guys on stage and handed us each a squeeze bottle full of fluorescent paint, then instructed us to cover her with it. We held the bottles by our crotches and simulated masturbation motions while spraying the bright paint all over her body. From there she took out some glossy white poster sized pieces of paper and began to make prints of her tits and ass on them. Genius idea I thought to myself. She then preceded to make more prints and handed them out to people in the audience. I was fortunate enough to get one.

After all the fun and games were over, we piled back in the car to begin the trek back to Brampton. It was an awesomely fun day. I was thrilled to be back on stage to a warm accepting audience, and I couldn't thank the DB boys enough. I also had a great souvenir compliments of the stripper, and I would cherish and admire her work of art with great pride and fond memories. I was very anxious and curious to see where the musical path would lead me to next...