homemade ceampie

i was reintroduced to kool keith when riz and i were record shopping in london’s soho one day shortly after we met in the mid-‘90s. she picked up the “earth people” 12” dan the automator did with keith, aka dr. octagon. she had heard it on the gilles peterson show and was taken by keith’s eclectic flow and dan’s moody beats.

i’ve known about keith since his ultramagnetic mcs days. their 1988 “critical beatdown” album remains an essential piece of music for me. but i didn’t pay keith too much mind back then; my head was in ced gee’s new school production. still, like riz, i was impressed with “earth people” freaky sci-fi vibe and bought it the next day.

so when dr. octagon blew up soon thereafter and keith started popping up all over the place in his numerous personas (e.g. dr. dooom, black elvis), i was intriqued. i found his lasciviousness entertaining and laughed out loud when i saw the porn shot that was, umm, the focal point of his own funky ass records label artwork.

a few years later, my friend rob came across a demo from two chicago producers going by the family-friendly name of rectum rangers. their track lifted donna summer’s “toot-toot-hey-beep-beep,” and featured keith and porn star heather hunter doing nasty bits over a thin disco beat and an infectious horn tag. it is an inspired piece of weirdness. i especially love hearing keith, as super dj larry lopez, flexed his skills unfazed in this atypical musical setting, getting down with his smartass attitude like a disco chris rock.

i signed the record and juiced the groove by having it retooled by mantronik, albert 'one rascal' cabrera, and al, aka abombz, a beatjunkie from brooklyn. i also hooked up with heather’s manager, a scruffy middle-aged guy who claimed to be the purveyor of fine vintage porn in the us, working out of a storage-like office in hell’s kitchen with a soccer mom assistant.

we eventually licensed all but one version of “toot toot” to skint, fat boy slim’s label. they loved kurtis’ dancefloor-friendly take but flipped another mix by xpress2 anyway for the uk release. the one they didn’t touch was abombz's.

al was a hip-hop slacker. as much a paintbomber as a beatmaker, he shared a loft in brooklyn with several other bum/artist types and worked out of his room with a simple setup - a mpc60 and a few other pieces of gear. understandably, al can sound a bit raw; not necessarily bad - it does have its own twisted audio logic and al is a trained engineer - but like a soundtrack to his lo-fi life.

al took pride in his lo-fi cred. it fits with how he lives and works, what he wears (whatever), even his taste in porn (amateur, naturally). his preference for a tight, skeletal sound forces the lowest common denominator, which gives what he does a jarring intimacy, like a tightly-framed shot, that is further amplified by its reality tv-like accessibility.

i love the stuff. al's work with rio-via-brooklyn’s supla zoo, for instance, blends fratboy humor with polyrhythmic grooves like ketchup with kobe steak - irreverent and effective at the same time. his dirty beats for binger the voyager’s “st roland” similarly brings high-concept scandinavian eletronica back down to earth.

the abombz “toot toot” remix, however, is the most revealing. grimy like a old-skool time square titty bar, the muddy, bumpy bass, the latin percussion buried deep in the mix, and the mantra-like horns all feel just a bit cheap and sleazy. keith and heather, stripped of the disco trappings, now flex like neighborhood hustlers on a saturday night, working the tough local crowd. but their shit’s still tight, and funny, just now in a bernie mac kind of way.

Posted by cellpharmer at September 30, 2004 08:06 AM