Gentle Jones Genuine Horsefeathers

The Incredible Gentle Jones Medicine Show Review

2025-08-18T07:30:00.002-04:00

By Sug Daniels

Delaware rapper Gentle Jones brings sharp wit and vintage flair on his latest single, The “Incredible Gentle Jones Medicine Show” with clever, humorous lyricism that feels both timeless and fresh. It’s a throwback and a standout, perfect for fans of golden-era hip-hop with a playful twist.

Gentle Jones Interview by Brink

2025-06-23T11:15:00.005-04:00

By Robert Brink for Delaware Today Magazine

Photos by Angie Gray

Brink: How long have you been skating?

GJ: I got my first skateboard in 1979 for Christmas. It was a solid oak Gordon and Smith Warptail. I fell in love immediately and I’ve been skating ever since. I am 52 years old this year. I still love skating just as much as when I started, the feeling of freedom and gliding across the landscape is magical. There is nothing else like it.

Brink: How long have you been in Delaware? What city do you currently live in?

GJ: My family lived in Mingo County, West Virginia since the 1600s, they moved to Delaware in 1964. Currently, I live in beautiful Prices Corner, Delaware, the finest place in the world.

Brink: What are the positive effects skateboarding had on you and your life?

GJ: Skateboarding changed everything about my life. As a kid it was a fun activity and it was easy to meet other skaters and make friends that way. After high school I got a job at our local skate shop, Henry’s, I was also sponsored on the shop team and got noticed by a few other east coast skate companies. I got on Soul Trip skateboards and Toxic wheels. Shortly thereafter I got on Dead End skateboards and went to New York to work for them in 1992. In 1995 I drove to California to skate in their CASL contest series (the only year long contest series in the country at the time) I was skating contests every weekend from 95 to 96 winning trophies at all of them. In 1996 I got first place for the entire year, the whole season, which is one of my proudest moments. Anyhow, all of those contests I would show up early and volunteer to help set up. I ended up on Tim Payne and Dave Duncan’s ramp crew and we built ramps all over for amateur and pro events, we built street courses all over California and vert ramps for huge pro contests. One vert ramp we built was on a mountain for a snowboard / skateboard festival called Board Aid that was an absolute blast, I am in the background of a 411 video that covered the event. Another memorable ramp I worked on in 1996 was for the Vans Triple Crown vert contest at the Hard Rock Casino in Las Vegas, I remember one day after work I had a few hours free time in Vegas so I went to skate this amazing drainage ditch I knew about which was long and smooth and had enough incline that you were cooking halfway down, it was fast as heck. Well, I got to the ditch and there was one guy already there, Tony Alva. Tony was the biggest skater in the world in the 1970s, a total legend. We skated this ditch together for hours and both of us were really on it that day, landing everything, it was amazing. As we were both leaving, he told me I was ripping and took the shoes off his feet and gave them to me. Turns out we have the exact same size feet because those shoes fit me like Cinderella. They were custom black shoes with silver stitching on the tongue that said “ALVA” and I wore them like magic slippers, I skated them to death. I should have kept them. That is one of my personal favorite memories, it was an awesome day. Tony is a big inspiration to me, back then in 1996 he was considered an old head, a relic from a bygone era, and he was only 39 years old. Nowadays its way more common to be skating after 30, but then it was rare. Tony inspired me to keep skating as long as I can, and just like him I get my own skateboards pressed exactly the way I like them. Over the past decade I’ve sold hundreds of boards I designed, it’s a great feeling getting good wood under the feet of people who love skating as much as I do. Its more than a hobby, its truly a lifestyle and a culture. I am proud to have made my own small contribution from Delaware.

The last contest I skated was in 2022, a freestyle contest in Ithaca, New York, where I got third place in the Masters Pro Division.

Brink: Have any pros come out of Delaware over the years?

GJ: Dave Hackett, who was a World Champion skater in the 1970s, was born in Wilmington, Delaware. Chuck Treece and Ned “Peanut” Brown were also born here in Wilmington and turned pro. Those are my OGs and I am proud to know them. They still skate and they are all rippers. I got to share the stage with Chuck Treece a few years back when we threw a concert to raise funds for the Wilmington Skatepark, it was a heck of a show and now the skatepark is here for anyone to enjoy so I am super proud of that, being able to contribute my time for the next crop of local skaters. And there are pros from the generation after me, Willy Akers, Brian Peacock, Mark DelNegro. As a teenager I also looked up to locals like John Conrad, Pete Lindell, Rob Cocco, those dudes were all absolute rulers back then and could hold their own with anyone. There have always been world class skaters in Delaware.

Brink: What changes in the local scene have you seen happen over the years?

GJ: In the 1970s there was a concrete skatepark in Wilmington called Easy Rider and in Smyrna they had one called High Roller. Both only lasted a few years and were demolished. There are very few photos of either place and I’ve never seen any video footage of them. But Ned Brown got his nickname “Peanut” from the Peanut Bowl at Easy Rider skatepark because he ruled it. In the 80s and 90s there were zero skateparks in Delaware but now they have nice skateparks all over the state. The Wilmington Skatepark off Maryland Avenue is a 10-minute drive from my house and its my favorite, if you are willing to get up early you can have it all to yourself.

From Prices Corner I can drive 15 minutes and be in Pennsylvania, Maryland, or New Jersey. Within an hour or so I can be in New York City, Baltimore, D.C. and every place in between. I’ve skated all those cities, in fact I’ve skated all over the country. I skated Philly heavy when Love Park was wide open. Its only 20 miles from my house. One time in 1991 skating at Love Park Ken Salerno took a photo of me ollieing into the fountain (one foot ollie) and that was published in Thrasher Magazine in their first Philly article, might be the first published photo of anyone skating in Love Park. That was such a rad spot. In the winter time late at night I’d go to Philly to skate in the subway under City Hall to get out of the weather, it was smooth and dry and its also a rad spot with stairs and gold handrails. One winter I went underground there with a couple of friends and while we were skating two cops rolled up on us in a golf cart and jumped on one of my friends and started beating him with billy clubs. Needless to say we made a quick exit. Soon after that skating at Love became a bust and I heard around that time you could get a ticket for skating Philly that was hundreds of dollars, which for a young person is a small fortune. I was born broker than a buzzard in a boneyard, so I am inclined to avoid large fines. So I’ve stayed closer to home since then and never had trouble like that around here. There was a time when skating was heavily discouraged and almost perceived as some type of outlaw activity (which it is not) but these days its perfectly acceptable and people are stoked on it. I haven’t been thrown out of anywhere in years, I think those days are long gone and I’m happy to see that skateboarding is accepted by everyone. Now that skateboarding is in the Olympics I’m willing to say its America’s greatest pastime.

Brink: As a long time skater yourself, what would you say to people who still don’t really understand skateboarding or still think it is “dangerous” or harmful or bad for kids, property, etc.?

GJ: Skateboarding as a form of transportation is totally safe. As a sporting activity its no riskier than anything else like mountain biking, horseback riding, or snow skiing. I would actually say that skating is safer than all of those because you can simply step off a skateboard, but if you fall off a bicycle you are going to get smoked. I’m in my fifties and I skate very mellow, its not dangerous at all if you know how to ride. I think people who don’t skate see video clips of professional skaters getting buck on handrails and huge gaps and yeah there is a risk to that, but keep in mind that is high-level showing off. Most skaters are just doing fun tricks for their own enjoyment, having good times with friends. When I skate with my friends none of them die, we leave the session with smiles. Most of my friends have old bodies delicate as Faberge eggs, we are very careful and we do just fine.

Skateboarding does not cause property damage. A person with a keen eye can point out where a curb or a ledge has been skated. Those are signs of human activity, and I think that’s a beautiful thing. An archeologist will dig up a mortar and pestle from thousands of years ago and show you the wear on the surface from use, that’s not damage, it shows value. It shows human activity, an artifact of the richness of a human experience.

Brink: Talk about the role skate shops in Delaware.

GJ: When I was a kid in Delaware skateboards were mainly sold in bicycle shops, it was that way all over the Mid-Atlantic area in the 1980s. Our local shops then were Henry’s bike shop, Dunbars, Wooden Wheels, Bike Line, they all mainly sold bikes but would have a small wall of skate decks and wheels, trucks, and hardware for sale too. That’s just the way it was back then. The selection was limited. These days we have dedicated skate shops who specialize in skateboarding and are full of skate gear. The two shops closest to me are Switch and Kinetic and they are both great shops run by awesome people who skate. But you can also go to the mall and get a board at Zumiez. Its amazing how accessible gear is now, you can get ahold of anything easily.

Brink: What is the skatepark scene like these days?

GJ: We get cold winters. We get snow. When I was in high school I’d drive hours into Pennsylvania to skate an indoor park like Cheapskates, Spunk, or Shimerville, and they charged a fee to skate. Those places are all long gone.

I remember one time skating Cheapskates back then, it was basically empty, only me on the street course and a little kid, like elementary school age, who just stayed on the vert ramp. He was so little he looked like a chicken nugget on this huge vert ramp. That kid was Bam Margera. I had no clue back then that he would grow up to be a TV star and a world famous party animal. Bam lives in West Chester which is right up the street from Prices Corner. Over the years I skated with him plenty.

We don’t have any indoor parks in Delaware currently. I don’t skate outside at all when its cold so every winter I basically pile out and gain like 10 pounds I have to work out after a cold winter. At the time I am writing this, its early spring and I am still working off 5 pounds of blubber from all that good holiday eating. We really need an indoor skatepark in Wilmington.

Gentle Jones "Wonders Beyond Belief" Album Review

2025-04-24T08:16:00.005-04:00

"Wonders Beyond Belief" Review

by Sug Daniels

Gentle Jones is more than meets the eye. Jones is an eccentric rapper, skateboarder, and entertainer based out of what he affectionately calls “Beautiful Prices Corner, the finest place in the world”. His talents and creativity have led him to being featured in iconic skateboard enthusiasts magazine Thrasher and gaining fans with his original and unique spin on one of the world's favorite music genres. After the release and viral success of the his single “The Day I Became A Robot”, and after the release of the full album “Wonders Beyond Belief", these songs are refreshing, clever, and worthy of repeat.

This masterful work is available on major streaming platforms and on vinyl.

Gentle Jones Peruvian Interview

2024-11-01T10:09:00.056-04:00

Interview by Diego Chumacero Espinel for SK8 COACH PERU

Gentle Jones, also known as The Dark Lord Of Prices Corner, is a musical artist and skateboarder from Delaware. His new album Wonders Beyond Belief is full of humor and amazing music, it might be one of the best releases of 2024. There is nobody in the world like this dude. Recently Gentle sat down to talk with SK8 COACH ZINE about his influences and experiences growing up in the United States.

SK8 COACH: Monstrous greetings from Perú, Gentle! How are things going out there?

GENTLE JONES: Howdy, Diego! Things are going great in beautiful Prices Corner, Delaware. Hello to everyone in Peru who is reading your magazine!

SC: Brother, tell us how you recorded this killer project called Wonders Beyond Belief and how did you get started as Gentle Jones?

GJ: I've been performing and recording as Gentle Jones for over 30 years, putting out new music every year since I began. I've done shows with Murphy's Law, The Wailers, Sadat X, Condemned 84, Cappadonna from the Wu-tang Clan, plus many others all over the country and overseas. The most insane show I ever did was with Bad Luck 13, when they hit the stage they threw fireworks into the crowd and then a dude jumped in the pit and started swinging a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire with nails in it! This shit was total mayhem! The whole building was so full of smoke from the firecrackers and roman candles you couldn't see the dude standing next you, you just hear explosions and see fire shooting everywhere! The club owners shut them down after like 2 songs and threw everybody out into the streets! Show over! It was an amazing gig, for sure the most dangerous concert I ever performed at, seemed like anybody could of got killed at any moment. I was a blast! Not too long ago I did a concert in North Carolina with MC Homeless and The Emotron, that was spectacular. The Emotron is great, his music is dark and heavy and kind of trippy. In between songs he does tricks you would not believe. At one point during the show Emotron strips all the way down to his underwear. Then he takes off the underwear and there's another underwear beneath, he wraps one of the underwear over his head and around his arm, then he takes off another underwear and there is a third underwear still there! He takes the second underwear and wraps it around his leg and his elbow, and he keeps taking off one underwear at a time and wraps it around his body and I swear he must have taken off like a hundred underwear to where his arms and his legs and his body are all tangled up in underwear and he is hopping on one foot. Then he lit his balls on fire! The audience went crazy!

My new album Wonders Beyond Belief is my finest moment, I am super proud of how it came out. I recorded it with some of my best and oldest friends, dudes I've known for decades. This is the record that really captures the range of songs I perform live. Because I sing and I rap and I don't stick to a particular genre. I love music of all types and I respect all sorts of songwriters so my perspective on music is very broad. So I got to experiment with some new styles and this record turned out to be my greatest artistic triumph. I had so much fun with this project. The first single is called The Day I Became A Robot and I did a music video that turned out funny as hell.

SC: Since Gentle Jones is a mixture of styles, tell me what are your influences?

GJ: When I was a little kid I sang in church and my grandparents played country music. My gramma played guitar and sang, my granddad played the fiddle and piano, and he called square dances too. I listened to the radio alot and I knew all the pop bands. But when I went into Middle School I was maybe 13 or 14 and I started to hear about punk rock bands and metal bands and rap music and I really got into underground music. As a teenager I was into thrash metal, New York hardcore, I loved hip-hop music too. At the same time I listened to alot of jazz music and big bands. Basically any record I could find I would check out because there was so much music that I discovered that would blow me away. I never would have guessed that one day Metallica would be the biggest band in the world and Ice Cube would be a movie star. That seemed so impossible to me back then because most people thought underground music was for maniacs. But now so many of those albums are considered classics, when back in the day they were not big records at all.

When I learned about punk rock I saw there were cats making their own music, getting it recorded themselves, doing their own artwork, getting the money together to press the record up themselves and then going out doing shows with friends. That really made the lightbulb turn on for me, I realized I could do anything I want, write any kind of songs I want, and do it exactly the way I like. That was an inspiring time, it set me on the path I am still on today.

SC: Do you like horror movies? What are your Top 5?

GJ: Dude, I love horror movies. From all eras too, I mean I will watch anything with Vincent Price in it, I think the Evil Dead movies are hilarious, but also I enjoy more modern stuff too like Pan's Labyrinth, in fact I am a big fan of everything Guillermo Del Toro does. I also dig alot of Sword and Sorcery flicks like Conan the Barbarian and the Lord of the Rings movies which have some excellent dark moments.

It's hard to pick a Top 5 because I've seen hundreds, but these are 5 horror films I can watch over and over:

5: Evil Dead (1981) - Evil Dead 1 and 2 and Army of Darkness are a total blast, they never get old to me.

4: Dracula (1931) - Bela Lugosi as Dracula is just too good. I love all of the classic Universal monster movies too. But this one might be my favorite Universal horror picture, the tone is perfect. I do like the silent film Nosferatu and the Shadow of the Vampire movie with Willem Defoe from 2000 as well, Dracula is just a timeless character to me.

3: Bad Taste (1987) - This flick was made by Peter Jackson way before the Lord of the Rings movies. It's an absolutely ridiculous film full of jokes and gore. Back in High School me and my best friend would rent this movie every weekend and laugh our asses off.

2: Gremlins (1984) - This is my favorite Christmas movie of all time, we watch it every year. I think it's perfectly made.

1: Night of the Living Dead (1969) - I saw this movie at a drive-in theater when I was a little kid and it scared the shit out of me. The movie is so nuts on the big screen and it made me fall in love with crazy stories from the fringes of society. It's a stone cold classic.

SC: Tell me about where you live.

GJ: Where I live is Prices Corner in Delaware, just a few miles from U.S. President Joe Biden's house. We are on the East Coast of the United States just at the edge of the Appalachian mountains, where the mountains turn into rolling hills. It's a region called the Upper Piedmont. Basically right up the street from me is a forest and in the other direction is the City of Wilmington, which is right on a river. My house is just near what's called the Mason-Dixon line, which is basically the border of what is considered the North and the South in the United States. It's a beautiful place, you would love it. To me it's the finest place in the world.

I've never been to Peru but I've seen plenty of pictures and it looks amazing, I'd love to visit Peru someday.

SC: How long have you been skating?

GJ: I started skateboarding in 1979 when I was just a little kid and never quit skating. In 1992 I had my photo in Thrasher and then in 1995 I went to California and skated in contests for a couple of years, won trophies in most of them. In fact, 1996 I got first prize for the whole year that season as an amateur. Got my name in Thrasher and Transworld a handful of times for those contests. I still skate and we have a great scene in Delaware. We finally got a few good skateparks close to my house. Since I live right between New York City and Washington, DC there have always been tons and tons of street spots for 100 miles in any direction. Also, I've designed several skateboards over the years and I've got a new board out now, pressed up by Paul Schmitt. I think Paul's skateboard board factory is the greatest there ever was, so its a real honor to get to make decks with him.

Living in California for those couple of years I skated with so many of my old skate heroes while they were still ripping. I skated a bunch with Hosoi and he was such a powerful skater, truly amazing to watch. One time in 1996 I was skating at this perfect ditch out in Las Vegas when Tony Alva pulls up by himself and we just session the shit out of this amazing fast and super long ditch, just me and him. I don't think we even talked for an hour, we just were tearing this ditch apart and stoking each other out. At the end of the session Tony told me I was ripping and he gave me the shoes off his feet. What an honor! And guess what they fit me perfect! They were black suede custom sneakers that had ALVA embroidered in Silver on the tongue, I never saw a pair before or since. For me they were lucky shoes, I skated so good when I wore them. I tore those shoes to bits. I wish I had saved them because they are probably rare as hell, but to me they were like Cinderella's magic slippers. I skated the shit out of them. And Tony was in his 30s at the time and he was still ripping so I was totally inspired to keep skating until I can't skate anymore. Now that I am over 50 everything is so much different for me but skating is still just as fun as when I was a little kid. I wrote a song about it called Ballad Of A Fifty Year Old Skateboarder which you can find on my new album from any streaming service.

SC: Where can people find you online?

GJ: If you want to check out my videos you can see them on youtube.com/gentlejones and if anybody is looking for records or skateboards I have them up at gentlejones.bigcartel.com

SC: What are you working on in the future?

GJ: The past few months I've been recording with some amazing jazz musicians, Paul Woznicki and Ron Pecqueur, we've been getting together and laying down some wild stuff. We've pretty much got a whole new album finished but we might record a few more songs before it's all complete. It's going to be a bugged out record, I think you will dig it. For right now I am working on some new videos from Wonders Beyond Belief so if you stay tuned into my youtube channel you will see more of that soon.

SC: Thanks GJ for your time chatting with SK8 COACH ZINE!

GJ: Diego, thank you so much for chatting with me, it's a real pleasure! Glad to know Peru has a cool skate community of folks that love underground music just like my friends out here in Delaware!

Gentle Jones "It's My Lazy Day" Album Review

2022-03-06T17:14:00.005-05:00

By Ben Merlis

"Gentle Jones has been performing and recording for two decades now. Born in Georgia and raised in the great state of Delaware, his family roots can be traced back to the West Virginian Appalachians; Gentle Jones carries the old time tradition, but has also picked up quite a few influences along the way. American Vernacular is how he describes what he does, a combination of classic country, western, hip-hop, and punk rock. Gentle Jones is a true Renaissance person, and his album It’s My Lazy Day is his distinctly American version of the Sistine Chapel, only in audio form."

Gentle Jones "Homemade Music" Album Review

2021-01-04T11:39:00.011-05:00

Review by Peter Matekovits

Gentle Jones writes it down, and lets it loose. Cannonballing through the decades with always fresh flavors, GJ is a versatile poet. His latest outing, Homemade Music is a wild one. It "Feels Right" from the get-go.

A talented artist, for sure, Gentle Jones reels you in sooner and later, again, with a good punchline or an ingenious hook. But this type of Homemade Music is not for the faint of heart. GJ knows how to get nasty even at his most tender moments. There is heartfelt power throughout the album, like in the protest anthem “Welcome To The Jungle” which is not to be missed.

As a definite plus side, the album is “rooty” all the way, including speaker rattling Boom-Bap, sparkling Americana, even sneering Punk Rock. If it doesn't have roots, it cannot grow; Gentle may push it a bit far into the red for some, yet if you’re down and up for the ride, it can shimmer and shine like Emerald City come to life, with Gentle Jones crowned King of the Forest. This lion never sleeps.

The whole shebang features an army of amazing guests. From Grammy Award winning producer Joe “The Butcher” Nicolo to Vast Aire of Cannibal Ox fame. Vast, a distant cousin perhaps, puts it down on "Night Light", and gets it up for his verse.

At nine tracks, it's just the right length, Gentle Jones Homemade Music is a valuable resource in these economic times. To see how far the monkey can run is one thing, while totally something else is the long-haul flair Gentle Jones keeps manifesting. Here's to a better year, as we once again experience Gentle Jones: a pioneer poet with a wild ear for the full spectrum of sound.

Peter Mekeovits is a longtime Music Critic from Helsinki, Finland

Gentle Jones "Murderkill Hundred" Album Review

2013-07-02T09:28:00.000-04:00

Review by Jake Crates

Gentle Jones be on some other shit! Hailing from Delaware, Gentle Jones drops his new project Murderkill Hundred. There is nothing else like it on the market as Mr. Jones takes your though a tripped out tour of the first state of Delaware. "Crop Circles" is my joint. Ill sample on that...

Gentle Jones drops the track "God is Inside You" and shocks me... This organ-based track is absolutely crazy, the beat is intricate yet spaced out and his words are on some Pink Floyd meets Big Boi, meets Aesop Rock, meets Prince Paul ish. I am going to have to listen to this one several times over. I'm trying to figure out exactly what he's saying. Its talented artists like this that keep me going, for real.

Gentle Jones Record is Top 5 of 2012

2012-12-18T15:34:00.000-05:00

FREE DOWNLOAD: Gentle Jones - Let's Be Friends LP

Gentle Jones "Let's Be Friends"

Review by Jay Seagraves of Hip Hop Infinity

From 2012, I like Alchemist, Kendrick Lamar, and Killer Mike better than Gentle Jones "Let's Be Friends". That's it. I think this LP is better than several of my other favorites last year. Nas, Sean Price, Chino XL, Kid Koala, etc.

Let's Be Friends is #4 on my 2012 Hip-hop list. It might deserve better than that.

Gentle Jones has been toiling in the Delaware music underworld for more than a decade, developing his talents and honing his skills in the manner of musicians of a bygone era: by performing on every stage, in front of any crowd that would listen. Along the way, he has amassed a catalog of home-made dub tapes and CDR releases, and picked up a small following. It would have been easy to dismiss Gentle as the rapper-equivalent of your town's favorite garage band: a worthy addition to the music scene; an admirable practitioner of the art of rap; but an artist who was destined to live and die without making much of splash. That was until Little Mafia Records decided to take a chance on the not-so-young MC by putting out his Let's Be Friends LP on vinyl. Now Gentle has a testament to his tremendous talents that will stand the test of time. CDs, tapes, and especially mp3's are ephemeral. Vinyl lasts forever. And Gentle Jones's music deserves to last forever, too.

The Let's Be Friends LP comes packaged in a red jacket and plastic sleeve. There is a full-color fold-over that contains a picture of Gentle, the track listing, and a strange promotional message on the obverse. Printing full-color LP jackets is prohibitively expensive, especially in this day and age, when legends like Public Enemy fail to generate sales of even 2,000 units. Folks blame downloading for hip-hop's cultural decline, but really, it's artists' and labels' abandonment of vinyl -- the format most vital to the culture -- that should be held responsible. Oh, you can afford a $20k Jesus piece, but you can't afford to press up 100 LPs out of your own pocket? Get outta here! Gentle and Little Mafia serve as rare exceptions to this rule, and this vinyl-only release demonstrates their commitment to music as art; not just fleeting entertainment. The actual wax here is thick and colored -- it's something special. Vinyl pressings can go terribly wrong, especially when budgets are too low for professional mastering services, but Gentle and Little Mafia either did everything right or got awfully lucky, because this record sounds amazing.

Now, on to the music itself. The opening cut on Let's Be Friends is the most single-worthy; a posse cut dubbed "The Cleaners." Gentle spent a good part of his young-adult life as a janitor, and on this track, he's joined by fellow former "custodial technicians" Jon Conner and Jay Hollett, rocking over an incredibly dope beat provided by Dale Chase. The track sounds like its dominant samples originate from 1930's Vaudeville, and they pair nicely with chopped-up and replayed drums from the Honeydripper's classic "Impeach the President" break. I especially like the ragtimey horn section that periodically intrudes, first at the 0:50 mark, giving the track an even snappier Depression-era swing for the emcees to kick their snappy-but-slightly-depressed rhymes. The song is predominantly humorous, with the rappers assuming a light-hearted tone for their detailed descriptions of a janitor's thankless tasks, and we also get an inside look at how (some) custodians really spend their time: getting drunk and high, sleeping on the job, and pulling the wool over the dickhead-boss's eyes. All three emcees have quotables, but it's Gentle himself who has the best passage when, voice filled with exasperation, he huffs: "All ya'll quit pissing on the stall walls/ if I catch ya, I'm a spray Lysol on your balls!" The interplay between the rappers is great, the beat is world-class, and the rhymes are humorous... but there's also an underlying gravity to the lyrics, intended or not; as this song serves as a subtle meditation on how we view members of the working class in America. This is a blue-collar opus in the guise of backpacker hip-hop, but it's done well enough that it can be enjoyed as surface-level, humorous fluff; or as something more.

As good as "The Cleaners" is, the follow-up cut "Smarty Jones" actually exceeds it. Here, Gentle is allowed to "rock, shock, roll" on the solo tip, dropping bar after bar without taking a breath, rather than the in-and-out, four- and eight-bar verses he spits on "The Cleaners." Unfettered by pop-rap conventions, Gentle is not the type of emcee to drop his three 16's and call it a day -- he raps his ass off over the pulsing bassline, hard-hitting drums, and funky flute loop of "Smarty Jones." During the breakdown on verse 3, Gentle drops tongue-twisting bars: "Just a loud mouth, foul mouth, down to wild out/ You think that's what this rap game needs?/ Another coke smoker going broke off poker/ every rhyme that I wrote, I'm trying to yoke these jokers/ smoking-coat and some loafers on the sofa watching Oprah/ while I'm on the low, sewing the clothes of a soldier/ Motorola soul-controller, cold, like polar/ flare, like solar; only gold I rock is if I had holes in my molars/ from too much Coca-Cola/ my breakfast of champions: candy bars and soda/ maybe a bagel or a doughnut/ I hope I blow up, but if I don't, so what?" That final bar is Gentle Jones, Inc. in a nutshell.

"Faustus Diary" is Track 3, and it's a stylistic departure for Gentle. Over a haunting, violin-driven backdrop, Gentle narrates the story of a man "born on the wrong side of life," who indulges in bizarre, violent fantasies as a fry-cook by day, serial killer by night. The opening lines of "Faustus" cite a Jack the Ripper letter to Scotland Yard, but the song reminds me of a really far-out, early Geto Boys joint; a cautionary tale of extreme psychosis. Spoiler alert: the villain bites it in the end, just like in all classic gangsta rap. While this may be my least favorite track on Let's Be Friends (word is that Gentle's mom agrees with me), it is not a song without merit: like "The Cleaners" it works on multiple levels; as a straight-up horror-core song, as a battle-rap "for real," as a masterful Poe-like narrative, and as a deeper examination into the motivations of serial killers. "Faustus Diary" is a good song; it's just not as good as the rest -- and this is the one that actually got Gentle his deal with Little Mafia!

With six rap songs, five of them solo, Gentle shows diversity and skill that put him head-and-shoulders above his home-made dub tape- and CDR-level peers. He's a real artist. He's a real emcee. But Let's Be Friends is not just a rap album. No, Gentle wants to be friends with punk, ska, and even bar-rock fans. Side A of the LP concludes with the raucous and authentically punk "Flash Mob," on which Gentle is joined by rock-band the Barons. Here, Mr. Jones details the origin of that term, which has since been co-opted by the suburban squares the song's protagonists pick on, and he invokes the raw power that music once inspired in America's youth.

My favorite cut on Let's Be Friends is probably "Simple" -- but it didn't start out that way. On first impression, the Jon Conner beat sounds a little like an early 2000's Dr. Dre/ Scott Storch imitation -- not bad, but a strange choice for someone as artistically progressive as Gentle Jones. As he opens verse 1, Gentle's rhymes aren't particularly attention-grabbing, but he builds momentum and interest as the verse progresses; ultimately entrapping you by the time the hook (familiar to long-time Gentle fans) comes in. Then, in verse 2, Gentle opens with some surprisingly fluent Spanish. After four bars, there's a pause, and you think he's going to go back into English, but no: he keeps flowing en Espanol, dropping quips like "dame la mota" and "orale guey" -- this isn't high-school Spanish, but real chilango slang. Finally, just when you think there've been enough surprises, the track concludes with an intense drum-n-bass outro, orchestrated by Gentle himself. By the end of the song, you feel foolish for ever questioning Gentle's songwriting.

I was similarly surprised by "Electronic Arts." At first, I thought the song would be the LP's weakest, as the "video-game beat" thing has sort of been done to death. Nevertheless, Gentle beats a dead horse back to life with the help of DJ E, who scratches video game samples, making them familiar but funky.

"Murder Mouth" is another solid song: it opens Side B and is said to be Gentle's favorite to perform live. Its beat has an Australian aboriginal feel, and Gentle spits some of his most impressive battle raps on this disappointingly brief Yanick Blancho track. This is another winner that's simply overshadowed by Let's Be Friends' more ambitious endeavors.

"Anthem of the Champion" is an amazing, but excruciatingly too-short ska song, where Gentle out-Sublimes Sublime with clever and well-sung bars over musical accompaniment by the Bullbuckers. Tremendous lyricist in a unique sense. Great vocals! Effortless.

And finally, "Kicked Out of This Bar Before," while the "least Hip-hop" of Let's Be Friends' ten offerings, is objectively its best song: pure perfection. You can't tell me there's a single bar in blue-collar America that this song could not tear down. No way. "I've been kicked out of this bar before... And it just might happen again!"

Let's Be Friends concludes with "Manslaughter," a solo track by Gentle's DJ, DJ E, which is one of the most interesting all-turntable compositions I've ever heard. The scratching is superb, if not Q-Bert level, but it's the songwriting here that draws you in. The average person can hear an Invisibl Skratch Piklz set and think of it as little more than well-done noise, but "Manslaughter" is a good song that can be appreciated by any open-minded music-lover -- not just hardcore hip-hop heads. By not even appearing on the album's closer, Gentle is sort of giving a middle finger to all his doubters and haters. It's like he's saying, "What more can I do? There's something for everybody on this LP, and if you don't like it, then fuck you. Maybe we can't be friends after all."

Gentle Jones is the real deal. He can rap. He can sing. He can even skateboard. The aesthetic of this album and his music in general is pure Hip-hop -- even when it's not Hip-hop. It's Hip-hop from the days when there were no rules; when Rap and Punk co-mingled in the New York City streets, fused, and created something totally fresh; revolutionary, even. This new cultural phenomenon reached young Gentle Jones in not-so-nearby Delaware and infected him to his core: it can't be exorcised. He's Hip-hop as thoroughly as the Cold Crush Brothers; as thoroughly as Fab Five Freddy; as Crazy Legs; as Basquiat. He's from an alternate future of a forgotten past, showing us what hip-hop could have become.

He's all of this, and he deserves better than he's gotten from the underground hip-hop world -- or for that matter, the indie music scene. He deserves an audience. Perhaps he'll get it. Perhaps his next LP will be heralded as a genre-bending masterpiece by Rolling Stone. Perhaps not. Perhaps thirty years from now, a kid will discover a beat-up copy of Gentle Jones "Let's Be Friends" at a used record store, take it home, and be blown away. Perhaps he'll look up Gentle Jones on whatever has replaced the Internet by then, contact him, and let him know how much he enjoyed the record. Let's hope that Gentle doesn't have to wait that long to feel the love he deserves.

Track Listing
1. The Cleaners (4.5/5)
2. Smarty Jones (4.5/5)
3. Faustus Diary (3.5/5)
4. Flash Mob (4.5/5)
5. Murder Mouth (4/5)
6. Anthem of the Champion (4/5)
7. Electronic Arts (4/5)
8. Kicked Out of This Bar Before (5/5)
9. Simple (4.5/5)
10. Manslaughter (4/5)

Weighted Average: 4.45 mics

Buy Gentle Jones - Let's Be Friends VINYL LP (Limited Edition)

Remembering the 'Godfather of Soul' James Brown

2012-12-01T09:01:00.000-05:00

By Gentle Jones

Our Yule traditions stretch back hundreds of years. Christmas 2006 the world lost a great man who will be remembered this season as a musical pioneer and an iconic champion of the people -- James Brown. Perhaps his mark will remain every holiday through the coming decades. 'Tis the season to be funky.

Brown had over 100 hit records during his career spanning half a century. In addition to being a chart topping success, Brown's affect on the lives of millions of people worldwide is incalculable. Break dancer Crazy Legs of the Rocksteady Crew recalls, "James Brown's music has had the biggest influence on my life." Rapper Nas says, "He was pure greatness."

In addition to touching the personal lives of numerous music lovers, Brown's polyrhythmic style profoundly changed American pop music. Chuck D of Public Enemy says, "James Brown was the funkiest! To this day, there has been no one near as funky. No one has even come close."

To enjoy December 25th as a day of remembrance for Brown is only fitting. "There is nobody who is more influential to hip-hop than James Brown," states KRS-One of Boogie Down Productions. "Kool Herc said that James Brown was the A-1 B-boy, the first MC, the first DJ -- 'cause he had two drummers. The drummer was what the turntable is today. When one finished playing, the other'd start, and sometimes they'd play together! Tell me this man is not hip-hop, straight up! James Brown is our artistic father. We all sample from him. This is a day where we exchange gifts. The gift exchanged with us from James was our culture. He freely gave his music to our culture. To me, that brings tears to my eyes! That's the lord and savior. On December 25, James Brown gives the gift of himself to his children."

James Brown started two of his own holiday traditions in his hometown of Augusta, Ga., that are carried on by the Brown family after his passing. A Thanksgiving turkey giveaway and an annual Christmas toy giveaway continue in his memory. The Rev. Al Sharpton was on hand to hand out the first turkey during the event.

"He made soul music a world music," Sharpton told the Associated Press. "What James Brown was to music in terms of soul and hip-hop, rap, all of that, is what Bach was to classical music. This is a guy who literally changed the music industry. He put everybody on a different beat, a different style of music. He pioneered it."

Interestingly, Sharpton vowed to grow his hair after Brown told him that his locks were a source of strength, as in the story of Sampson and Delilah.

Rachel Noerdlinger, Sharpton's publicist, recalled James Brown asking Rev. Sharpton to style his hair in the same manner as Brown’s, when Brown took a young Al Sharpton to the White House to meet George Bush Sr. in 1981.

James Brown introduced Reverend Al Sharpton to the Vice President of the United States as his “son.” Rev. Sharpton promised to wear the style so long as Mr. Brown was alive. When Mr. Brown passed Rev. Sharpton vowed to continue the tradition.

Rapper Snoop Dogg was similarly instructed by Brown and to this day also wears his hair long.

"That's my Godfather," Snoop Dogg said. "The hardest working man in show business of all time. He'll be missed, but his music and his legacy will live on through me in every way you can imagine."

Film star and rapper Ice Cube was also a lifelong fan. "James Brown was the first solo singer that I loved as a kid," Cube stated. "He was not only the Godfather of Soul, but the Godfather of Funk and Rap. Music will never be the same."

KRS-One relates a deeper message for the season. "James Brown is the Grandfather of Hip-Hop, of course recognizing Kool Herc as the father," he said. "This guy, James Brown, dying on Christmas, is very symbolic. Dying on Christmas, we know God is looking at us! We established right here and now. According to Christian tradition, James Brown dying on Jesus' birthday means that hip-hop starts today. If you ask me, I think we should start hip-hop over on every Christmas. James Brown dying on Christmas, Lord have mercy! Now, hip-hop has a chance to reestablish what Christmas really about. Christmas is about the birth of the Christ within yourself.

"You celebrate Christmas and you don't say, 'Jesus is born on this day,' -- the ancient reason is Christ is born in you! God is born in you for another year. James Brown passing on Christmas could mean the birth of soul in you. He is the Godfather of Soul -- not pop, not R &B, not rock, not blues, not jazz -- soul music!"

KRS enjoins us, "Let's celebrate James Brown! Hip-Hoppers celebrate the birth of their Soul, the birth of their Christ, the birth of their nature. Every Christmas, we gonna play James Brown records."

Bunk Talks Delaware

2012-11-30T09:35:00.000-05:00

By Gentle Jones

Ernie Talbert built a reputation in Delaware over several years writing and recording as Bunk, steadily gaining numerous fans and accolades. His battle cry of “All we got is us” resounded locally with his crew 68 Society and culminated in the website allwegotis.us which grows daily into a significant Delaware indy music portal. More than just a rapper, Ernie is a well-rounded individual: a skateboarder, a businessman, a graphic artist, and a social visionary.

Gentle Jones: What type of music was listened to in your home growing up?

Ernie Talbert: Growing up my household was filled with all types of music. I remember cruising in the back of my parent's station wagon with the sounds of funk, soul and R&B coming through the speakers. Other than that my parents were into Smooth Jazz and I also got a heavy dose of Gospel music via Mahalia Jackson when I was with my grandparents. While I consider the music I listened to as a youth part of a unique cultural experience, it wasn't the music of my generation.

See the 80s and 90s were a different time for kids growing up than the 60s or 70s. We needed a different music that spoke to the new set of frustrations and stress we felt. It wasn't until I heard my older sister playing Big Daddy Kane that I had an idea of what that music was. The energy I felt coming from groups like Public Enemy was like nothing I ever heard before and I instantly gravitated toward it's message. I memorized the words to "Burn Hollywood Burn" before I learned my multiplication tables.

Gentle Jones: What Delaware artists did you hear early on that made an impression on you?

Ernie Talbert: When it comes to rap I was only initially familiar with some of my sister's friends who tried to be rappers in high school. Remember I was still around 8-10 years old so that's not that big of a compliment. When I got to high school I became more involved in the local rap scene and was into Grace & Divine, The Outfit, Pooch/Cage One, and Serafino. Oh and Super Dave is still one of the best freestylers I've ever heard.

The first Delaware artists who made a real impression on me weren't rappers, but were groups of my friends who were in punk bands. I know this seems like a change in direction from my earlier praise for rap music, but in my mind it wasn't. Punk music has the same youthful energy and pent up aggression that rap music exerts. The first Delaware artists who I actively checked for and recognized were bands like Infection, later Hard Response and My Body My Blood. Also friend's bands like Walleye, Trailer Park Riot, Bureaubrats, and Short Round kept the local scene fun and full of life. There's really too many to name. The punk and hardcore scene of DE in the 90s in to the early 00's is still a period that made the biggest impression on me and no other time or music genre from DE has been able to compare.

Gentle Jones: When did you decide to make your own music?

Ernie Talbert: I was 7 years old the first time I decided to make my own music. My friends and I from the neighborhood got together and formed a rap group called Bad Boys Justice (BBJ) in the same vein as the other three letter initial groups of the time. You know, ABC, BBD…the East Coast Family? My sister's friend Harvey wrote lyrics for us and we got together in my basement a few times to scratch up my dad's precious vinyl. Imagine your 7 year old son and his little rugrat friends destroying records you've saved for 20 plus years because they want to learn how to DJ? Yeah, sorry about that, Pop.

Gentle Jones: How your group Counterparts come about?

Ernie Talbert: The Counterparts emerged as the brainchild of my friend Brian and myself. We initially started as a band with him on drums, myself on guitar, and another friend on bass trying to play a more hardcore punk sound in high school. After the Roots released “Things Fall Apart”, our whole outlook on sound changed. We started to record music using live instruments in his basement. We took those instrumental tapes and then recorded raps over our beats using a two tape deck karaoke machine. When Brian and I roomed together in college he began making beats using software to eliminate the need for purchasing beats or cramming our instruments into an already small dorm room. The group was local and although we did radio appearances, mixtapes, and numerous rap battles in the area it was ultimately hard to keep together because we were in the process of growing up.

Bunk came after that. That was a rebirth of what Brian and I were trying to do earlier. The majority of the production on the project came from Brian and I laid down the vocals. I did it to re-energize the scene and give allwegotis.us a launch pad and provide credibility to our movement. A lot of kids know me, but I also want them to know where I’m coming from in terms of my outlook and perspective in today’s society. I tried to keep the music engaging, but not preachy while intertwining social and political messages I believe both Brian and I hold dear.

Gentle Jones: What is the purpose behind the website allwegotis.us?

Ernie Talbert: In 2010 I started conceptualizing a way to bring the fun and energy that existed in the 90s punk scene and translate it in to hip-hop. So in 2011 I launched a site called www.allwegotis.us. I along with a few friends use the site as a platform to promote music, launch projects and brand events that we've pushed since then. Allwegotis.us was founded on the single principle that the best and most authentic facets of youth culture have been DIY. My friends and I work as a collective to spur a not for profit scene that reinvigorates and promotes the talent that exists hidden in Delaware. While an important piece of the allwegotis.us puzzle remains the accomplishments of my friends, it was not created to act as a promotion piece for us. We non-selfishly post what we want to, put on free all age events when we have the resources to, and try to give different groups exposure when we like their music. It wouldn't be without the contributions of my friends Allen, Colin, and Brian that I would have been able to establish the allwegotis.us brand as successfully as we have. The site is my way of staying involved with the scene that molded a great deal of my character especially considering I have not lived in Delaware for the past 7 years.

The difficulties Allwegotis.us has faced are dealing with a lot of self-entitled unknown rappers in the area. These types of superstar attitudes completely sour what we're trying to accomplish and I can't get down with kids like that. My suggestion to them is to stop fake thugging and go get a job.

I’m always down to support the younger generation in what they’re doing especially as I felt my friends and I received limited support from people with the access. However being constantly bombarded by rappers who demand that they be allowed to perform at our shows or demand we promote their music gets annoying. If they could see how many other thousands upon thousands of kids across the country claim to be the “hottest rapper” they might reevaluate their strategy.

For our Flavor Hour events we certainly drew inspiration from events like the Groove Lounge. We feel we pay homage to the movements that inspired us by not being afraid to admit we recognize and appreciate the contributions of those who came before us. It’s sad that level of respect is not a constant. Various groups have tried to bootleg our events numerous times without extending a cent of gratitude to what we’ve ignited. The scene belongs to everybody, but when you rip somebody off and get called out for it, man up. Kids who take shots at older guys for the sake of cheap fame and don’t know when to play their role weaken artistry. It’s weakened ever further when the kids doing the ripping off are watered down versions of the original with no style. And that goes past music.

Recently I am beginning to bring on a group of younger more involved bloggers to continue making updates and re-establish the movement in 2013.

Gentle Jones: What is your take on the modern music scene?

Ernie Talbert: My take on the modern music scene with regards to local rap music, is it's exploding. There are tons of kids in Delaware with a great deal of talent. As I put allwegotis.us together I began to meet more of these kids and see what they were about. In my mind a lot of these young rappers are the changing face of music and redefining what it means to be into hip-hop. They have a lot of talent and want ways in which to express themselves, however if we as society fail to give them a platform to do that positively then we see negative results. If areas like Wilmington and more so Newark gave their local youth as many options as they afford the college students, we would see a greater deal of positive productivity. However the local music and arts scene fails due to lack of venues and places for kids of all ages to safely get together and do their thing. My suggestion to Newark would be to redirect some of that imaginary crime money in to your town's youth and support their development in to dynamic people. An important piece of the allwegotis.us mission is to create safe and free events that allow kids with similar minds to bond and develop.

Gentle Jones: Where do you think music is headed and are any Delaware artists taking it there?

Ernie Talbert: In my opinion rap music has diverged into three different paths. The first being an even more dumbed down version of rap from the early 00’s. It’s more mainstream and utilizes drug and violence references in a catchy manner to appeal to a club crowd. The second is this dare to be different form of rapper who pushes the envelope of “normal”. They dress different and usually push the envelope of your everyday lyric content in their music. The third phenom I would say is the more conscious 90s boom bap era style of music that’s re-emerged. Generally these are kids who were born in the late 80s and 90s to parents who were listening to 90s era rap. They grew up hearing this type of music and now have their shot to reinvent it in their own way. There’s a lot of young guys who are directly and indirectly involved in the development of music in and from Delaware. I see guys like Joey Moon, Walt Fraze, Kae Hock and Mike Hurtt really out there pushing their music in attractive ways. There are tons more, but this interview will look bad if I’m just dropping names non-stop. Also guys like Troy and Hoxtah work behind the scenes with artists to develop different sounds and are pushing the envelope.

Gentle Jones: Do you sell drugs or have you ever been to jail?

Ernie Talbert: No, I made the decision long ago that I would never get involved with drugs due to my uncles' own substance battles. I saw how drugs not only ripped apart their lives, but damaged the lives of those around them. I've never seen an underserved community advance due to a flourishing drug trade. Lastly, I've lost friends to substance abuse and the violence that accompanies the drug game. Fortunately for me I've never been in a position that made me feel like selling drugs was my only way out. I say all that to say while I have personal reasons for not being interested in drugs, I'm not here to judge anybody.

Instead I took out loans, took myself all the way through grad school and now work for a billion dollar apparel brand that has 95% household penetration. Loans are kind of like jail, but paychecks are better than commissary.

Gentle Jones: Do you think there is a problem with sterotypes in rap music?

Ernie Talbert: Look I think people in this country will need to start taking another look at the stereotypes that revolve around rap music. Sure you have that aspect of rap music that feeds the stereotypes, but what you have to understand is there is a billion dollar push behind these artists to pump that garbage. That style of music isn’t just fueled by inner city kids hanging out on the corner, it’s fueled by millions of suburban kids who want to experience the thrill of the music. They’re not gangsters, they’re not thugs and they’re not underprivileged even though some would like to pretend they are. These kids are the ones receiving itunes gift cards on Christmas and putting money back into the pockets of the executives who reinvest into the image of thug rap. Most of the time these rappers are used as tools to line exec’s pockets who profit off the misery of inner city black people.

Proof that rap music appeals to a widespread demographic is everywhere. Now and in the future you will have men/women who grew up listening to rap music running million dollar companies and investment firms. Think about it, there are guys who listened to the drug influenced rock music of the 60s sitting in top offices. Are they walking in their offices with long hair and tye-dye shirts on while popping LSD in the hallways? There are people who grew up on the party fueled hair metal of the 80s that encouraged you to “rock n roll all night and party everyday”. They go in to their work places and function normally because they don’t have to deal with stereotypes surrounding their personality. Rap music and even Punk are music like any other. Ultimately it boils down to the character of the individual and not the music they enjoy listening to in their private lives.

Gentle Jones: How has skateboarding influenced you and how has it impacted pop culture?

Ernie Talbert: Skateboarding is my life. It’s where I met the majority of my friends and how it’s how I bonded with them. I consider it a major piece of my life because it’s where I found my identity. Being a little black kid skateboarding in the 90s wasn’t a popular thing with other little black kids. Haha. It’s exciting to see how that stigma has changed over the past decade. 15-20 years ago skateboarding was a considered a sport mainly participated in by outcasts. Today approximately 1 in 10 kid’s owns a skateboard. There are an estimated 10 million kids riding skateboards in the US and more kids participate in “action sports” than participate in traditional sports. That translates into consumerism.

Tons of consumer marketing and music companies have tapped into the image of skateboarding. A lot of people have differing opinions on the impact of this, however I see it as a positive thing. It pours tons of money in to the sport of skateboarding and helps fund skateparks. Mainstream culture involvement has certainly made aspects of skateboarders cheesier, but it doesn’t water down the kids who are into for the love of riding.

Gentle Jones: Care to highlight any differences between Wilmington and Newark? Seems most of your current crop of mentions are Newarkians.

Ernie Talbert: The music coming out of Wilmington and Newark has always been different. Wilmington obviously draws more influence from the street and the environments in which their music is created. Same goes for Newark. Going back into the 80s you had a vibrant rap scene from Wilmington that put out nationally recognized vinyl records. Today you have Radimez and OT Records keeping that tradition alive in town. Wilmington rap music has always been more rugged, however today there are pockets of kids from in town who don’t want to be involved in the ‘goon’ lifestyle and are lyrically more diverse than most. I make sure our reviews and events include kids from all around the area, but I will only deal with those who have good heads on their shoulders.

It’s weird to me that there is or was any beef between Newark and Wilmington rappers. You guys know you live in the second smallest state in the US right? I would think the competitive focus would be on Philly, Baltimore or NYC; cities that could actually get you noticed.

Thank you to Regular Size Monster for this opportunity. Look for more events and reviews on allwegotis.us in 2013. Embrace who you are and do what you love. One.

Gentle Jones Reunites Delaware Hip-Hop Legends

2012-02-02T09:02:00.000-05:00

Thousands Reflects on Hardcore's Changing Landscape

2011-11-25T09:14:00.001-05:00

by Gentle Jones

Mark Thousands is a Delaware singer songwriter who has toured extensively as a guitarist with well-known American Hardcore bands such as Leeway, 25 Ta Life, and My Body My Blood.

Despite his rough Rock pedigree, as a solo artist Mark is known for his intimate brand of soft, acoustic music. He's bringing his friend Richie Birkenhead, of Into Another, to perform locally for a one night only show together.

Years after his work with legendary Hardcore bands Youth of Today and Underdog, Richie and his influential Post-Hardcore band Into Another managed to crack the Top 40 of Billboard's Mainstream Rock charts with the song “T.A.I.L.” .

Mark and Richie are both in a growing movement of maturing musicians from the American Hardcore scene who are currently crafting thoughtful songs with Folk sensibilities for a broader audience.

Gentle Jones: What do you consider the Golden Age of American Hardcore?

Mark Thousands: For me, the Golden Age was when Hardcore bands started pushing the boundaries musically and lyrically. This sea change started to happen in the early 90's with bands like Quicksand, Burn, Leeway, and Into Another. Into Another really pushed the envelope. You either loved them or hated them and if you loved them you were a fanatic.

The Post-Hardcore movement was like the Renaissance period for Hardcore. I loved the abstract style guitar chords that Hardcore bands started doing, the abandonment of typical song structure, and more vocal melody was integrated. It was the best thing to ever happen to the scene.

Gentle Jones: Did you live in Delaware during this “Golden Age of Hardcore”?

Mark Thousands: I was living in Wilmington, Delaware but was always going to shows in NYC and New Jersey, and of course Philly. I remember being secretive about my trips to the city because my mother would've had a heart attack. I was in my late teens.

I remember being 21 and in a club in NYC and Chaka from Burn was the DJ for the night and outside on the corner was Mackie who played drums for Cro-Mags and Bad Brains. He was just hanging there wearing a pair of head phones. I knew I had to make more trips up there and make some friends.

Gentle Jones: How did you meet Richie?

Mark Thousands: I first met Richie in 1993. Into Another played a show at The Revival in Philly. I was young and nervous speaking with him, and he was such a prodigious influence on me as an artist, I was frightened I was going to say something dreck and it was going to end our conversation quickly. Luckily, I didn't. We talked through email after wards and then lost touch for some years.

About five years ago we reconnected and till this day talk regularly. He was kind enough to come into the studio with me and produce, as well as do guest vocals for my debut solo CD "With Love And Light Always" which is a far cry from Hardcore. Richie and I both were listening to the same artists at the same time, artists like Nick Drake, Bob Dylan, and Joni Mitchell.

When I first brought my solo material to Richie I was just scratching the surface on how to be a soloist. I didn't really know what I was doing yet. It's such a different animal than being part of a band. My first meeting with him was a schooling of sorts. I was nervous performing my songs in front of him in his living room.

That was a segue into a discussion we had about performing and how important it is to perform with your heart and convey the emotions outward accurately that led you to write the song to begin with. So he popped in a live DVD of Joni Mitchell. He put on the song "A Case Of You" and the performance that she delivered was heart wrenching. She bled in that performance, and her pain was displayed in every vocal part and guitar melody. I never thought of a performance that way. I was still learning what it meant to be a song writer and performer. I drove home from NYC realizing I had my work cut out for me, but it was beyond inspiring. He taught me a lot that day for sure.

Gentle Jones: Do you think the anti-drug Straight Edge hardcore movement had an impact on the Hardcore scene, or the Rock scene in general?

Mark Thousands: Straight Edge had a huge impact on Hardcore, without a doubt. The Straight Edge movement had this element to it that was tough, and went against the reckless antics of Punk that I didn't care for anyway like drugs and drinking. It had a serious message and a positive one. In the early 90s I got "Straight Edge" tattooed on me in kanjis (Japanese writing), I wore an "X" on my hands, the whole nine. It was a phenomenon at shows and it brought a sense of unity which was a main theme in the hardcore scene.

The problem with it ultimately was that it spawned militant disciples and it brought a lot of violence into Hardcore. Kids formed gangs with their friends and you would hear about senseless beatings like, a kid got hospitalized at a show simply because he was smoking a cigarette outside. It lost its positivity. I think Straight Edge is still an underground thing, I don't think it has a place in rock music per se, to me it's a Hardcore thing and most likely always will be. It's lost its steam that it once had in the mid 80s and early 90s but I believe it's making its way back around again with bands like Ghost Ship.

Gentle Jones: Have you toured recently?

Mark Thousands: .The last tour I did was exactly a year ago in Europe. I spent a month over there opening for Samiam. I was playing guitar for a Delaware band called The Casting Out. We did rock stuff with a punk feel. I sold my solo CD's while I was over there. The shows were great. Samiam were extremely fun to tour with. The tour was a month long and even though the shows were great, I was happy to get back home to my family. Something about being out of the country made it more intense. I communicated with my girlfriend Alicia online only. I had to borrow other peoples laptops because I didn't have one. She would let me know how our son was doing. If you're reading this and you tour out of the country, definitely get a laptop!

Gentle Jones: Is there a broad movement toward Folk music in the Hardcore scene?

Mark Thousands: It's interesting, I think a lot of the guys in the 90s that were doing "Post-Hardcore" are the ones today that are pursuing solo careers doing more intimate, quiet music. An acoustic guitar being the main instrument of choice and in the forefront. Guys like Richie, Walter Schreifels (Gorilla Biscuits, Quicksand, Rival Schools, Walking Concert), Ian Love (Rival Schools, Die 116, and Cardia), all have been doing a style that could be perceived as Folk. Certainly acoustic, quieter, and more intimate.

I'm not certain that it's a broad movement but there is definitely something that's going around with artists from the Hardcore scene doing more quieter folky type stuff. I think there are parallels as far as lyrical content goes between Folk and Hardcore, that “music with a message” type of thing.

I don't consider myself Folk in any way. I feel a lot of people like to use that label if you have an acoustic guitar on your lap and I also think a lot of artists throw on the proverbial garb and dub themselves as "Folk." I feel like that's a gimmick. I consider myself a singer songwriter because that term is very matter of fact, I sing the songs and I write them. They are very personal and cathartic to write and sometimes difficult to sing without becoming too emotional which I feel is paramount. It's certainly above being part of a genre.

I'm not politically sophisticated and have never been a fan of protest songs. I think Folk was originally built on more political style lyrics. However, I do listen to Folk artists and I'm a huge Bob Dylan fan. But even Dylan didn't wish to be type cast into being perceived as a Folk musician. My songs are about personal experiences. I find it interesting that the bands that were ahead of the curve in the Hardcore scene in the early to mid 90s seem to be the same ones pioneering this new quieter sound today. I love it. I'd like to see more of it.

Gentle Jones: What place does our local area hold in the history of American underground music?

Mark Thousands: I think Delaware is right around bigger cities here on the East Coast that used to have an amazing hardcore scene. NYC, New Jersey, Philadelphia, and Connecticut. I'm not sure hardcore exists anymore. I know there are bands playing that style still but I haven't seen any movement or scene like there was years ago. But in terms of underground history, I'm not sure.

We were blessed to have bands like My Body My Blood, Hard Response, Stormwatch, and Boy Sets Fire. All of the aforementioned made an impact in the underground scene and all came out of Delaware.

Gentle Jones: What are the details of the gig?

Mark Thousands: The show is on Sunday November 27th at Mojo Main in Newark, DE
the cover is $10 and it starts at 5:00pm with Richie Birkenhead (Into Another/ Underdog/ Youth of Today)

Marc Live Interview

2010-09-02T17:16:00.002-04:00

By Gentle Jones

Marc Live started his rap career in 1990 with his group Raw Breed, who landed their first record deal for $75,000 with the help of KRS One. Since then Marc has been the ultimate industry insider, touring constantly with his cousin, Kool Kieth, and his close friend Ice-T, supporting both legends on stage as a hype man, as well as on wax as a producer, heading projects such as Analog Brothers and Black Elvis. Seven records deep as a solo artist, Marc Live's newest album Episode III: The Revenge of Marc Rippin is currently available worldwide.

Allhiphop.com: Raw Breed was a big deal in the 1990's, how did the major labels view the group?

Marc Live: When got signed to Warner Brothers, we got $450,000 dollars. From '95 to '99 major labels were giving out big budgets. They loved us at Warner Brothers. We got signed the same day we played Howie T the demo at 11 o' clock in the morning and he loved it, but said he wanted Denise Brown, the president, to listen to it so we went to Popeye's Chicken on Hollywood Boulevard and by the time we got home on Arnez Drive and Sunset they called and said, “Who's your lawyer?” and they signed us that same day.

My group Raw Breed was the first rap group signed to SESAC publishing, in 1992. In '93 we got the SESAC award for the most radio plays that year. We were naive, we didn't know what the fuck that meant. I didn't know how to capitalize on it or anything. My producer went to Nashville to get the award and I hung the plaque up on my wall but I didn't know.

When I went to London with Keith on the public enemy tour in 1998 we would go to radio stations they would have all my records and I was shocked.

Allhiphop.com: How did the Analog Brothers record come about with you, Kool Keith, and Ice T?

Marc Live: Analog Brothers happened when I was in LA. When I moved out to LA adopting the LA lifestyle. I started smoking pot, I started drinking, going out, dating white girls that lived in Venice Beach who went barefoot and listened to the Doors. I met one of Ice's buddies Pimpin Rex, he was a musician and he helped produce the first Body Count album, and we became good friends. He had this garage all full of vintage keyboards, he a had Moog, 808 drum kit, SP-1200, and he would pick me up from Hollywood every morning at around 11 o' clock, we'd smoke our first blunt, go get some Mexican food. We go to his garage, he lived in the hood, and we'd make beats. There was a white boy named Dan who had an extensive record collection, a bunch of old breaks, and he would bring crates over and we would sample them.

Whenever I was working on a project everybody always wanted to know what I was doing. I just had that knack. So Keith was like “What are you working on with Rex?” Ice was like, “What are you guys working on?” I told them right now we were just working on beats, working on ideas, but I'll let you know when we finish. And then Keith was like, “Yo I want to come over with my keyboard,” so Keith came over with his Korg. We started using the keyboards and making this sound, and Keith was like “We should go over to Ice's house,” cause Ice had like the MTV Cribs house with the roof that opened up with a studio, and Keith said, “We should do a group together and call it Analog Brothers.” Keith came up with the name. So we got Ice involved, we got my homie Black Silver involved, and Rex Roland did all the singing, and I programed all the beats, all the drums, on the SP 1200, all the sampling and everything. We all went to Ice's house and recorded the album in 4 days.

Allhiphop.com: I've noticed Keith coming into his own with production over that past several years.

Marc Live: Keith was always working with tracks, doing his own private stuff. Keith was always into records. He was the one who brought the beat for Ego Trippin to Ced to sample. All the hit records that Ultramagnetic had, Keith brought the records to Ced to use.

Allhiphop.com: I have the KHM record with “Copy If You Want To” where you and Keith are dissing Andre 3000, what was that about?

Marc Live: Keith felt Andre kind of took his image and didn't give him props for it, and didn't like the fact that the world thought Andre came out with the wigs, and that was his thing. So he was kind of pissed off. He was mad that he wasn't getting the press that they were getting.

Allhiphop.com: So after Analog Brothers came to an end what did you do?

Marc Live: After that my next big project was Keith's album, Black Elvis. That's when I learned the mpc and keyboards, that's when I got nasty, that's when I was lethal. I became a prodigy, I made beats in 5 minutes, like overnight I was ill.

I did two tracks on Dr. Dooom, also before we would go on the road I would program all the beats for the freestyles. I did The Clayborne Family, Guerrilla Black was on that record.

Allhiphop.com: Wow, I didn't know you worked with Guerrilla Black.

Marc Live: I helped Guerrilla Black. I used to help him rap, help him with his technique and stuff. My best friend managed him and we would smoke weed together every day and I'd give him techniques. He used to be skinny. When I was hearing his demos I loved his lyrical content. I didn't think when he came out people would diss him, I loved him.

Allhiphop.com: So where were you doing all your writing when you lived out west?

Marc Live: We did it at Keith's house. Back then we lived music, we all lived in Hollywood, I lived down the street. I'd go to his house, his assistant would pick me up in a cab in the morning. I'd go to Keith's house, he would give me two big buds of weed, he'd go back in his room, close the door, I'd roll the weed, I'd start smoking, I'd start programming. About two hours later I'd have the place rocking and he would come out with his keyboard and we'd make the beats. Then we'd go in the studio that night and we'd lay it. Keith could write ten songs in one day. One-take Jake.

Allhiphop.com: What did you fellas do after a day of writing and recording?

Marc Live: Keith would go out to Hollywood Boulevard and buy porno magazines and hang out with pimps and shit. He was into the dark Hollywood at night. He would transform and be in his dark world. You'd go to his house and there'd be pimps, and hoes, and weird people around at night.

But I had a lot of Hollywood friends, I went to school with Terrence Howard, he was my best friend, I use to read lines with him, Donald Faison was my best friend, Dash Mihok, Tara Reid was my home girl. I'd hang out in mansions at night. After recording, when Keith would go into his eccentric world and do his weird shit at night, I would be in the Hollywood Hills with super stars.

Allhiphop.com: Were you touring with Keith as his hype man at this time?

Marc Live: We were constantly touring. We were the headliners on Warp Tour. We did day and night gigs. There'd be like 8 or 9 people with us. Tour was funny because the first two weeks of tour everyone loved each other. The last four weeks it was like fights, and conspiracy theories, and you stole my girl, you're hiding my girl in your bunk, someone stole my weed, I'm missing a t-shirt. Tour was crazy.

I would come home from tour with $45,000. we'd all stop in Philly on the way home and get jewelry and chains and diamonds and shit. I'd be flying chicks in to the tour bus from Europe. We had fun. We did it big.

Allhiphop.com: Do you have any tour stories with Ice?

Marc Live: I remember Eminem was getting booed and they were throwing soda cans at him every night on Warp Tour '99 and he was gonna leave the tour.

Allhiphop.com: Wasn't this after he was signed to Dre and famous already?

Marc Live: This was Slim Shady! He was platinum, he was big! He came on our bus, him and Proof. He said “Ice, I look up to you, you started me rapping. You inspired me to rap. I need help.” Ice took him off the bus, walked him between buses, and talked to him for two fucking hours. The next day Eminem was a different emcee, his stage show went to a whole nother level and he never looked back. Ice T changed Eminem's fucking life. If Ice didn't show Eminem how to perform, he would never have been as successful as he is today. Ice told him how to do a show. He was getting booed every day.

Em was going onstage and doing 30 minutes, wasn't addressing the crowd, had no stage persona. Him and Proof didn't look at the crowd, they looked at each other. They ran through their set, they never stopped. They never told the crowd to put their hands up, never told them to say “Ho” they never thanked the other bands, they just did their show. And Ice said to stop after every song. Say what's up to the crowd. Thank them for being there. Tell them to say “Ho” and do crowd response. He showed him how to be an emcee, how to do a real hip-hop emcee show.

And after that, the next day he played Miami, it was a wrap. That motherfucker, I was like “Oh shit!” He was destroying shit. Before that he was getting hit in the head with Pepsi cans everyday.

Allhiphop.com: Why did the group Analog Brothers fall apart?

Marc Live: Rex, that was his group, that was his baby. Rex was not getting credit for stuff he had done in the past, he helped on a lot of the Body Count stuff, Rex was on Pusher man on Ice-T's album, so he was a guy that felt jilted his whole life, musically. When the Analog Brothers record came out he lost his mind. He put the masters in a suitcase that he made us all sign. And he drove around with the album like it was a kid, in the front seat. He just lost his mind. We did a digital download for $50,000 and he didn't want to give Ice any money, he felt Ice is rich already. Then I went on tour, I was living with a girl in the Hills at the time, he told the girl I was cheating on her, and that I was doing all types of crazy shit, fucked the relationship up. He signed a deal and tried to take all the credit for the record. Tried to take all the money. And he was my best friend, I loved that motherfucker. And he stabbed me in the back, stabbed us in the back. We were getting offers for shows, Rick Rubin was interested. That was something we could have been touring on to this day. The way that record came together was magic. When the magic was over, we all walked away and said Rex handle the business side now, we trust you. And he spazzed. Its fucked up but it happens all the time. Welcome to the music business.

I did a record called Project X with Kool Keith and Tim Dog (of the Ultramagnetic MCs), we did the video, we did tours in Australia, and had 20 dates in the states, but Tim spazzed out, he lost it. He saw his career coming back, he saw it as an opportunity to exploit what we were doing. And he spazzed out. We were like, dude its here, we brought it, enjoy. We're your friends, don't fuck your friends. Don't go into my wallet while I'm sleeping and take $20 out and then the next morning be trying to look for the $20 with me when its in your back pocket. Don't play me.

Allhiphop.com: What's next for you?

Marc Live: Now I'm trying to do my own thing with my label Rap Legends. At the end of the day with Rap Legends all I want to do is put out good music and let the people find it. We are looking to do a record with Melle Mel, something with Grandmaster Caz. Looking to do something with Kurtis Blow. I got my group The Faculty. Billy Ray is being produced by Maceo of De La Soul, the kid is crazy. My latest album Episode III is out now everywhere. The theme of this record is basically the Revenge of Mark Rippin and a return to my old character from Raw Breed, raw lyrics, raw beats, more street level and less alternative. I wanted to bring it back to that time period.

Jack Kent's King Aroo

2010-09-02T16:30:00.004-04:00

One of the finest comic strips of all time has finally been reprinted after decades of unavailability.

Interview with Bruce Canwell
By Gentle Jones

The land of Myopia does not appear on most maps, as this tiny kingdom is only an acre in size. The supreme crown ruler, the delightful yet dotty King Aroo, is accompanied by his Prime Minister Yupyop. Together they sail through the days with a cast of quirky animals as wacky and well-spoken as those found in Walt Kelly's Pogo.

Though Jack Kent's King Aroo daily comic strip ran in as many as a hundred American newspapers and in many major cities from 1950 through 1965 it has remained obscure. Rarely reprinted and never before completely collected, only a select group of fans have continually sang praises of the enchanting dialogue and Kent's wonderful brushwork.

King Aroo is an entirely charming strip, at its best the work stands among the greatest of the dailies: Krazy Kat, Pogo, Li'l Abner, Bloom County. That it has become nearly forgotten is tragic, for each panel is playful and the adventures are timeless.

Jack Kent went on to gain much acclaim with his children's books after King Aroo's run, yet this daily strip is surely his magnum opus. Though Kent had no formal training, he was a voracious reader of comics and corresponded with the greatest illustrators of his time, such as George Herriman and Milton Caniff, and amassed an impressive collection of their original artwork, which he studied as he honed his craft independently. At the age of 30 his first strip, King Aroo, was picked up by the McClure syndicate, and now six decades later the Library of American Comic republished this classic strip from the beginning for the first time.

The Library of American Comics (LOAC) is published by IDW (who are best known for the graphic novel 30 Days of Night) and has already reprinted collections of daily strips from Little Orphan Annie, Dick Tracy, Terry and the Pirates, Bringing Up Father, and more.

Gentle Jones: Where do you think King Aroo ranks among the pantheon of the recognized newspaper strip classics?

Bruce Canwell: Up to now King Aroo has been a cult favorite, a shrinking-violet cousin to Krazy Kat and Pogo, much beloved by a small group lucky enough to have sampled the strip in places like Bill Blackbeard’s Smithsonian Book of Newspaper Comics. Jack Kent's fame as a children’s book author far eclipsed his notoriety as a cartoonist.

Of course, King Aroo deserves a larger audience, with much more visibility than it's received down through the years, and Jack Kent's talents should be recognized alongside those of artists like George Herriman, Crockett Johnson, Sparky Schulz, or Bill Watterson. By adding King Aroo to The Library of American Comics, we hope to do our part to help find that larger audience for the strip and to help achieve that modern-day recognition for its creator.

In these days when there is so much discussion of "appropriate" material for children, King Aroo is an exceptional read for all ages. Not in a corporately-sanitized, squeaky-clean way, but as an example of a creator who knows how to entertain without being salacious or striking a sensationalist tone. Young kids enjoy Kent's charming artwork and the funny animals -- teenagers enjoy the sophistication of the story-lines -- and adults get pleasure from the cleverness of the wordplay. As much as King Aroo draws deserved comparisons to Krazy Kat and Pogo, I find it most closely related to Jay Ward's Bullwinkle and Rocky TV show. They both appeal to a wide range of age groups while never talking down to anyone in the audience. That's a tough trick to pull off, but Jay Ward and his people did it in Bullwinkle, while Jack Kent did it equally well in King Aroo.

Gentle Jones: How widely circulated was King Aroo at its peak?

Bruce Canwell: By Kent's own count King Aroo never ran in more than one hundred newspapers, though it appeared in many major metro areas: New York, Chicago, Houston, Kansas City. Jack Kent originally sold King Aroo to the McClure Syndicate, which was a giant in the first half of the 20th Century, but a shadow of itself by the early 1950s (in fact, McClure merged with the Bell Syndicate during King Aroo's initial run and couldn't even come out top dog in the new structure, which was named the Bell-McClure Syndicate). McClure didn't have a large enough sales staff to reach into the suburbs and rural areas of the country, focusing instead on the big cities. That's one of the reasons King Aroo hasn't been widely known -- it never achieved the widespread newspaper penetration achieved by strips such as Beetle Bailey or B.C.

But most important of all, McClure was able to place King Aroo in the San Francisco Chronicle. After Kent and McClure went their separate ways one of the Chronicle's editors, Stanleigh Arnold, single-handedly provided an outlet for Jack Kent to remain in Myopia, telling entertaining stories.

Gentle Jones: How did you first discover King Aroo?

Bruce Canwell: Remember that small group I mentioned awhile ago? I’m a member of a small group within that small group, because I didn’t come to King Aroo via The Smithsonian Book of Newspaper Comics; I took an alternate route.

In the 1980s, Fantagraphics published a magazine called Nemo, devoted to classic comic strips. I was a devoted reader of the title and its 21st issue, published in 1986, cover-featured King Aroo with a brief history of the strip plus a long reprint of a story sequence from the 1960s. I was immediately won over, and working on our own King Aroo series has only caused my admiration to grow, both for Jack Kent's talents and the cleverness of his creation.

Gentle Jones: How much demand are you finding for these collected newspaper dailies?

Bruce Canwell: Market research shows the core LOAC audience is composed of serious comics collectors and younger artists who are interested in seeing and learning from the work of master cartoonists from previous generations. Some strips, such as Bloom County, also have a number of readers who remember when the series was running in their daily newspaper; those folks want the nostalgic pleasure of re-reading those fondly-remembered strips in a collected edition. We set our print runs accordingly and when a book sells out, we're prepared to go back for a second printing, as we did with our first Terry and the Pirates release

Gentle Jones: Which term do you prefer: graphic novel or comic book?

Bruce Canwell: As I've grown older, I often find myself using a term from my Dad's boyhood: "funnybooks." (I can hear the gasps now!)

Seriously -- this is something I don't give a whole lot of thought. It's like when someone asks me, "What kind of music do you like?" My reply is, "I like good music." Which invariably spurs another question: "What's the difference between good music and bad music?" To which I say, "Good music is stuff you like, and bad music is stuff you don't." Rock, pop, jazz, r&b, fusion, country, folk, swing, hip-hop, soul -- it doesn't matter to me. Same with comics -- I like good comics, whether it's Eisner's To the Heart of the Storm (packaged from the outset as a "graphic novel") or Fantastic Four # 51 (which is clearly a "comic book," even when it's reprinted in a $99 Omnibus volume).

At the end of the day it's all comics, and the collateral terms we use just references the packaging. Seems to me life's too short to get hung up on packaging.

Gentle Jones: I've read some about your background, its an interesting story. How did you parlay writing comic reviews into writing Batman and publishing gorgeous collections of comics?

Bruce Canwell: Actually, I didn't parlay one gig to the other -- unfortunately! Every major assignment I've landed has its own genesis, largely unrelated to what has preceded it. The "Gauntlet" assignment did give me an "in" with the Batman editors that lead to my "Huntress" story in Batman Chronicles # 14 and a Batman-vs-Penguin fill-in issue of Batman penciled by the wonderful Jim Aparo (which still resides in the DC inventory, unpublished, alas), but that's about all the "parlaying" I've ever managed.

The story of how Dean Mullaney and I came to launch The Library of American Comics has never really been discussed in any detail, though, so this might be a good chance to tell that story . . .

In our younger days, back in the 1970s, Dean and I were both regulars in the letters pages of many Marvel Comics titles. Dean read my letters and I read his, yet we had no direct communication with one another. As the decade wound down, Dean decided to launch Eclipse Enterprises, using names and addresses from those Marvel letter columns as one way to build his mailing list as he solicited orders for his first book, Don McGregor and Paul Gulacy's Sabre. I was growing bored with comics at the time I received Eclipse's solicitation letter in the mail; I was geared up for something new and different. I admired McGregor and Gulacy's work, so despite the unheard-of price of $5.00 for a comic (*gasp!*), I said, "Why not?" Aside from Dean receiving an envelope with my money and him sending me a copy of Sabre after it was printed -- which I own to this day, by the way -- we still had no direct contact.

Flash forward to 2005. Dean had been away from comics since Eclipse folded, more than a decade before. I got shut out of more comics work around 1999, when the business went through one of its periodic nosedives (casualties of the Marvel bankruptcy and its aftermath during this period were two editors with whom I had been working, and very cool Nick Fury and Deathlok the Demolisher series I had been developing). I was writing a bi-weekly column for a now-defunct website, something fun to keep my hand in, and I devoted a column to how Sabre revived my flagging interest in comics at a time when I could have easily walked away from the medium. Still no contact between Dean and I -- but that would soon change . . .

For a variety of reasons, Dean was thinking of getting back into comics. He started by googling Eclipse, found my column on Sabre, and used the e-mail address in my by-line to drop me a note thanking me for the kind words. He also said, "Aren't you the guy who wrote almost as many letters to Marvel as I did, back in the day?" So we started off by just swapping "letterhacking" war stories and comparing notes as Dean went back to his roots and re-read things like the Ditko Doctor Strange for the first time in a looooong while.

It didn't take long to shift our gaze from the past to the future: we started talking about projects we might do together. We both love Terry and the Pirates and Dean suggested reprinting it in hardcover. He had the contacts to put together The Library of American Comics (LOAC) and set up the arrangement between LOAC and IDW, which has been a very welcoming and supportive partner. We had so much fun on Terry we also launched Little Orphan Annie, then Scorchy Smith & The Art of Noel Sickles.

The LOAC line has blossomed from there, and while it's a lot of work to produce these books, Dean and I have plenty of laughs, too. We've got together several times, both for business reasons (research at The Ohio State University Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum) and for pleasure (we're both baseball fans, so we went to Fenway Park to see the Red Sox retire Johnny Pesky's uniform number -- and to take in the ball game, too, of course!).

Gentle Jones: Is it true that you are reprinting Li'l Abner in its entirety? (!!)

Bruce Canwell: Get ready to bite off big chunks of the Dogpatch Ham, because that is 100% true! Li'l Abner Volume 1 is a spring release, with Volume 2 out in the very early autumn. I'm writing the text features for the series, Denis Kitchen -- who serves as agent for the Capp Estate -- has written a personal and insightful introduction to our first volume, and we'll be presenting the dailies as well as the never-before-reprinted Sunday pages in each book of the series. Throughout its existence, Al Capp ran separate plots in the dailies and Sundays, so there are whole story-lines many Abner fans have never been able to read -- until now.

It's very exciting to be able to bring Li'l Abner back into print and to put Al Capp's unique satirical voice in front of an audience once again. During my research I found the absolutely perfect quote, from John Updike, with which to launch our Abner series; it leads off my text feature. Look for it in Li'l Abner Volume 1 and see if you don't agree.

Gentle Jones: How do you feel newspaper comic strips impacted American entertainment and story telling over the past century?

Bruce Canwell: There are fewer than a dozen art forms that are native to America. Some quibble over the exact number -- Harlan Ellison has one number in mind, while noted critic Gilbert Seldes had another -- but no one doubts that comics is one of that small, select group. The combining of words and pictures in a sequential format to tell a story or make a point is a uniquely American tradition. Sharing that tradition with a modern audience is one of the absolute delights of working on LOAC books.

In the early years of the 20th Century comics were an incredible drawing card, because America was a society of readers. Television was scarcely a dream, movies were still silent, not every household had a radio set . . . but in big cities and rural towns, people read newspapers, whether they bought them at stores or newsstands or leafed through them at the public library. Comics were big, bold, colorful, and eye-catching -- how could a nation of readers ignore them?

Over time, radio became ubiquitous, sound came to the motion pictures, the phonograph brought music into the home, then along came television. Newspapers squeezed the dimensions of the comic strips and the nation increasingly turned away from one of its favorite art forms . . . but the love affair has never died. The strip names shift over time -- from Li'l Abner to Peanuts to Calvin & Hobbes -- but there has continually been at least one "beloved" strip that resonates within the national consciousness.

And strip characters still keep popping up in different media -- in recent years the Sci-Fi Channel (now "Syfy") tried a new spin on Flash Gordon even as a road show theatrical production of Annie has been touring the country. Hollywood is now full of actors, directors, and executives who grew up on comics, and who knows? Thanks to The Library of American Comics re-introducing some of these comic strips to 21st Century audiences, some day a big-budget Rip Kirby feature film or an animated King Aroo movie will be coming to a theater near you.

Bottom line: Comic strips have had a tremendous effect on pop culture and on American society in general. It’s a pleasure to help keep that wheel rolling on.

Crazy Legs Talks Rock Steady Crew's 33rd Aniniversary

2010-07-27T12:05:00.000-04:00

By Gentle Jones

B-Boy Pioneer Crazy Legs is prepping for the upcoming Rock Steady Crew 33rd Anniversary with a weekend full of star studded events.

“Friday (July 30th) we will kick off the anniversary at Libations, then Saturday (July 31st 3pm-9pm) we will have the annual battle,” Crazy Legs told AllHipHop.com. “The crew and soloist winners will be flown to London to represent North America at the Sony Ericsson UK B-Boy Championship World Finals.”

The battle, which takes place at the Altman Building in Manhattan, will be followed that evening by a Funk Styles party hosted by Crazy Legs and presentation of the SPY Award to this year's honoree, MOY.

Though B-Boy culture is now an international phenomenon, Crazy Legs feels that overseas, there is a broader public support for the art form.

“This year I am funding the Anniversary events out of my own pocket. But in Korea they have grants just for B-Boys, they even have training facilities set up for them.”

Sunday, August 1st from 12pm – 9pm will be the Rock Steady Anniversary concert which will feature performances by Big Daddy Kane, EPMD, Kurtis Blow, Artifacts, Lakim Shabazz, Black Sheep, 9th Wonder, and numerous surprise guests.

The free concert is taking place in Lincoln Park in Newark, New Jersey.

Crazy Legs plans to give back to the community by promoting the Rock Steady for Life concert as a charity event.

“I want every one to know that Sunday's event is also a food drive and I encourage everybody to bring canned foods which we can distribute to needy families.”

A B-Boy since 1977, Crazy Legs has gone on to be featured in major motion pictures over the years.

Currently, he is the DJ and host for his own cooking show called “Lunch Breaks,” which airs daily from 2pm to 4pm Monday through Friday, streamed live on www.crazylegsworkshop.com.

The show features guests like Grand Wizzard Theodore, Pop Master Fabel, Kenny Dope, and others who cook delightful dishes during the program.

“The best meal so far was with ATS (Rock Steady Crew member) who is a Japanese B-Boy but also a chef,” Crazy Legs told AllHipHop.com. “He made some traditional Japanese food that was amazing. It was so good we got all quiet for a minute just eating, it was delicious!”

The world famous Rock Steady Crew continues to be highly visible in film and television appearing in America's Got Talent, Step Up in 3D, and Bouncing Cats most recently.

Rammellzee (1960 – 2010)

2010-06-28T12:08:00.001-04:00

By Gentle Jones
(originally published on Allhiphop.com)

Legendary graffiti writer and emcee Rammellzee reportedly passed away last night. Rammellzee is a hip-hop icon who dropped avantgarde tracks on wax since the early 1980's with a steady output of graphic art, music, and sculpture throughout his life. He was featured in Charlie Ahearn's seminal hip hop movie Wild Style and collaborated with notable artists such as Jean Michael Basquiat, Jim Jarmusch, and numerous graff crews as a writer since the 1970's.

His 1983 single “Beat Bop” is featured in Style Wars and Rammellzee is credited as pioneering many vocal techniques which were later popularized by other emcees. In 1988 his band The Ghettovetts released their record titled “Missionaries Moving” and in 2004 he released his debut solo album “The Bi-Conicals of Rammellzee” which stands alone as a testament to his visionary approach to crafting unique hip-hop.

“Someone told me, I don’t know if it’s true, that Rammellzee is the originator of the use of the word “word”, in hip hop slang…” – Jim Jarmusch

Rammellzee's artistic style was unequaled as he took his art from train yards to one man art shows which received much critical acclaim. He was the first to let one letter stand on its own as a work of graffiti art with his Letter Racers and made the illest masks you have ever seen. His style he dubbed Gothic Futurism which explained in his treatise “Iconic Panzerisms” while his artwork has been shown in art galleries across the world.

In his own words Rammellzee describes his style, "Knowledge knowledges knowledge, the elevation of WILD STYLE-knowledge is concluded as a SYMBOL DESTROYER, ARMOURED, MEDIEVAL MECHANISM. This formation shall be known as IKONOKLAST PANZERISM: R.O.K.: GOTHIC FUTURISM, THIS IS WILD-STYLE CORRECTED.”

Rest in Power Rammellzee, a legend and pioneer of the highest caliber.

Def Jam Makes Hip-Hop History with Rapstar Video Game

2010-04-01T10:30:00.000-04:00

by Gentle Jones

Hip Hop finally gets a video game dedicated to the art form of the MC with their new Def Jam Rapstar, the latest installment in the Def Jam Interactive platinum selling series of titles which include Def Jam Icon and Def Jam Vendetta.

Rock music successfully crossed over to the video game business with mega-hits Rock Band and Guitar Hero, yet Hip-Hop has not had a presence. Rapstar fills a void in the 60 billion dollar video game industry up until now lacking titles specifically about Hip-Hop music. During the E3 2010 video game conference Def Jam Co-Founder Russell Simmons told reporters, “Cool kids like Hip Hop all over the world. And they needed this game.”

At its heart Rapstar is a Hip-Hop Karaoke game, distributed by Konami who found much success with their own Karaoke Revolution title. Def Jam Rapstar allows rappers and R&B singers to perform duets together, a first for Karaoke video games. Since its invention in Japan in the 1970's, Karaoke has become a worldwide smash with even local Delaware venues such as Mojo 13 in Claymont hosting live weekly Karaoke competitions which are larger than ever.

Hip-Hop hits like Notorious B.I.G.'s “Juicy” are featured in the game alongside a wide range of artists including Drake, Outkast, A Tribe Called Quest, and Kanye West. Distilling 30 years of Hip-Hop music was a challenge, a rep for 4mm Games told the News Journal, “The meetings about the songs were heated. Rapstar ends up going all the way back to 1988 with Salt and Pepa's 'Push It' up to today with modern artists like T.I.”

Def Jam raves about Rapstar and boasts about its impact, “Hip Hop is a global phenomenon that has permeated pop culture to become the most important youth movement of our generation. We are proud to deliver the first authentic Hip Hop music experience to gamers that will undoubtedly change the way music games are played,” stated Kevin Liles, President and CEO of Def Jam Enterprises. “It is an incredible opportunity to work with 4mm Games and Terminal Reality in developing Def Jam Rapstar. So show us what you got!”

4mm Games is a new developer created by two co-founders of Rockstar games, best known for its hit Grand Theft Auto series. Together with Terminal Reality (Developers of Atari's Ghostbusters and Majesco's BloodRayne) they created new voice recognition software which grades each player's performance on pitch, timing, and verbal accuracy. Many Karaoke video games can currently be mumbled through to trick the software into high scores, but Rapstar promises to recognize lyrical flow and wordplay even on Twista tracks, demanding a new level of accuracy for singing games.

Rapstar is available as disc only but will also offer a bundle which includes a microphone. Using the console's camera the game records a 30 second performance video which can be uploaded to the DefJamRapstar.com online community and shared with player's Facebook and Twitter profiles. The videos are viewable by other users and voted on in online battles. The game also includes a Freestyle mode which allows emcees to record their own hottest sixteen bars over exclusive beats by hit makers Just Blaze, DJ Premier and 9th Wonder, among others.

DMG Clearance of Hockessin, Delaware did the music and video publishing clearances for the game. Owner Deborah Mannis-Gardner got to see a Rapstar demo during her work on the title, “It was cool how Rapstar actually teaches different rap skills as you progress through the levels.” The game ships with 45 hit songs to perform and offers weekly downloadable content which includes additional tracks.

Hip-Hop icon Redman, who is featured in the game, was quoted as saying at E3, “I'm a big gamer, and all the work Def Jam been putting out as far as games, they been winning. The new DefJam Rapstar, I like it because it shows how much you know about Hip-Hop.”

Def Jam Rapstar will be available October 5th on the Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and Wii consoles.

How to Clear a Music Sample

2010-03-18T11:11:00.000-04:00

By Gentle Jones

A Hip-Hop powerhouse hides quietly, nestled in the picturesque hills of Hockessin, Delaware; DMG Clearance is run by owner Deborah Mannis-Gardner, Madeleine Smith, Jennefer K. Showalter, and Allison Wachowski. It is the largest company handling sample clearance for the Hip-Hop industry with over 2 decades of experience working with illustrious labels such as Island Def Jam, Bad Boy, and Interscope Records. In addition to samples, DMG provides music clearance for major movie soundtracks (O Brother Where Art Thou?, Fast & Furious), compilation albums, and video games (Rockstar). They’ve done clearance for hit makers like Cee-lo, Beyonce, Ghost Face Killah, Christina Aguilara, Prince Paul, Nas, and Public Enemy, just to name a few from their star studded A-list of clients. Chances are that if you have Hip-Hop music in your record collection you may have seen the names of someone from DMG in the liner notes.

DMG founder Deborah Mannis-Gardner says her job comes with perks, “I did some free work for Snoop Dogg and he sent a personal video for my son Curtis's Bar Mitzvah saying "Hey Curtis, I work for your Mom." She laughs as she recalls the film and Snoop’s cryptic message, "He said, 'Curtis, Let me give you some advice. When you walk under waterfalls don't get wet, you know what I'm saying?' and we were all like 'No?'” (Laughs)

Deborah grew up with alternative and punk rock music but has been involved with Hip-Hop sample clearance for years, “I have been doing sample clearances since 1992. I have had my own business since 1996 (in NY) and then moved back home to Delaware with company and family in tow. Jennefer Showalter has been with DMG since 2002. She and I recently acquired Madeleine's publishing administration company which is now called Diamond Song Services. As President of the company, Jen oversees the day-to-day operations with Madeleine still very actively involved in the publishing side of the business. We secure the rights of musical copyrights and master recordings for use in video games, TV, film, commercials and especially for clearance as samples.”

After graduating from Emerson college, Deborah started working on music videos in New York City and in 1989 she joined with a UK partner to open a company Diamond Time which intended to do strictly television clearances. But in 1990 Debra suggested that the business move into the evolving minefield of sample clearance. "There weren't really even any rules. We would barter for rights. If you sent a letter of request for permission with the music some would say 'This is copyright infringement, you've already infringed' and if you sent they letter without the music they would say 'So where is it? How can I agree to this without hearing it?'"

Even today, Deborah says that the standard is to sample first and then clear, “However, if artists work closely with their clearance agent from the beginning of the recording process, they can run certain samples by them before using them to see if they are generally clearable or not.” Deborah says that clearance can take anywhere from an hour to a year. “A portion is finding and confirming publishers. Another portion is finding and confirming labels and other types of master owners. Then there is the deal making, negotiation when the quotes are too high or otherwise not acceptable to our clients, and most importantly concluding the deals and making sure sampled copyright holders and master owners are paid any advances that they are due and that contracts are signed.”

The sample clearance industry at one time had over half a dozen major players, most of who have fallen to the wayside. "I don't really have competition anymore," Deborah laughs, "because Madeleine joined us. She was my competition."

Madeleine Smith started in the business on the West Coast in the 1980's with classic records such as the first Eazy E single "The Boyz-N-The Hood", N.W.A.'s "Straight Out of Compton", and D.O.C.'s "No One Can Do It Better". At the time her husband was Donovan "The Dirt Biker" Smith, a legendary engineer and pioneer of the West Coast sound. Madeleine remembers, "Donovan worked in the studio with N.W.A and Eazy, and I was working for the National Academy of Songwriters.” She began working with the fledgling Ruthless Records label by handling their fan club. “Later they asked me if I wanted to take over their publishing, so they could keep it in the family, Ruthless was like a big family back then. So I said sure and eventually I fell into clearing samples since they were everywhere." The necessity for clearance was due to industry changes around 1987, "It used to be that you didn't have to clear samples and then all of the sudden you did. So I was the first outside person who wasn't an attorney doing it."

Madeleine worked closely with the entire N.W.A. group even after Dr. Dre left for Death Row and Ice Cube went solo, "Each of them made albums with songs about each other and I was working all of those records. They knew that I was doing everyone's clearances and I had no problems with them. Then one day, all of the sudden, I received a dozen roses and a bottle of Cristal from Suge Knight with a note 'Thanks for all you've done for me.' and I was like 'What the heck is this for?' and then I watched the news and they were putting him in jail. So when he got out 5 years later I sent him a thank you note."

Deborah recalls the early days of clearing a sample, "The money people, the record companies and the publishers started to change things. At first they didn't think rap music was going to last. You used to be able to get a sample for a $5000 media buyout. And when I say buyout I mean a one time payment and nothing else. So when I worked for Me Phi Me they used a James Brown sample and later they also used it for a TV show called 'Tribeca' and didn't have to clear it again because they got it in a $5000 media buyout. That’s when the record companies started kicking themselves and changing the buyouts." Madeleine recalls one of the last buyouts of those days, a Van Halen sample, "It was after Tone Loc put out 'Wild Thing' and Warner cleared the sample for 'Jamie’s Crying' as a $2500 media buyout, and that song's still playing."

Eventually sample clearance grew into an established business where still wary publishers would take "income participation" meaning they would receive income, but they didn't want to own any part of the new song. Deborah explains, “They thought that they would be open to lawsuits.”

As the sample clearance business became more defined and DMG grew with the changing rap industry they also adapted to new industries, most recently working to clear music for video games. "We recently finished Grand Theft Auto 4 for Rockstar Games (which comes out April 29th)." DMG also did clearances for the forthcoming Biggie Smalls movie "Notorious".

Deborah says her decision years back to base the company in the First State was met with skepticism. "It was either sink or swim running this business in Delaware. People were like 'What are you doing?’ But I'm here because this is the best place to raise my son." Madeline adds, "For me it was getting so crazy in Los Angeles. It’s much cheaper to live here and the schools are so great."

There is no secret to DMG's continued presence in the industry. Deborah says, "Not only do we have the contacts to make the deals, we also have the people to wrap up the deals and that's what makes DMG as successful as we are. We love what we do."

The Wii Nunchuk: Nintendo's Secret Weapon in the Console Wars

2010-02-01T13:28:00.002-05:00

by Gentle Jones

Video game consoles have become ubiquitous in the modern home. In fact, these days it is not unheard of for a household have more than one console from the same generation. The "seventh-generation" of gaming consoles has offered three major stars: Microsoft's Xbox360, Sony's PlayStation 3, and the market leader, Nintendo's Wii. Cumulative shipments of Wii hardware now exceed 67 million, along with nearly 510 million software units.

Nintendo has out-sold the competition, plus they've brought console gaming to a larger audience than ever before. Nintendo's more affordably priced Wii has made it accessible to a larger market, but the real success with the console has been the revolutionary impact of the Wii's control interface on the player's in-game experience.

The immersive experience of a video game in 2010 provides is a multimedia extravaganza, with hi-resolution graphics, thundering surround sound, action, drama, plot-twists, and blockbuster budgets that rival Hollywood heavy-hitters. Nintendo has turned a profit at every step of its triumphant march to the head of the class, while its competitors are left scratching their heads as to why the Wii has captured the imaginations of millions of families.

Most experts in the gaming press have written at length about the pro's and con's of the Wii Remote's intuitive motion control, which provides a very natural interaction with games through the use of infrared sensors and accelerometers to track arm motion. Microsoft and Sony have invested millions of dollar developing motion controls for their own consoles in response to the Wii's success, with mixed initial results.

However, the competition seems to have missed the greatest revolutionary breakthrough the Wii has introduced into the homes of tens of millions of gamers, the unsung Wii Nunchuk.

In 2005 the Nunchuk was unveiled at the Tokyo Game Show as the first controller attachment for the Wii-mote. It has similar motion-sensing technology to the Wii-mote though the use of an accelerometer, in addition to an analog stick and two shoulder buttons. A large number of Nintendo's first and third party titles require the Nunchuk to control their biggest selling games.

Consumers have responded with their wallets, in the United States the Nunchuk was the best selling piece video game hardware in January 2008, when it sold 375,000 units in just one month.

The Nunchuk expands the Wii-mote to accommodate the larger number of inputs required for the more complex control schemes demanded by the modern designs of the video game industry. The earliest popular video games, usually found in arcades, were coin operated and often had one simple joystick and perhaps one action button. For example, Nintendo's flagship character Mario's first appearance was in the arcade hit Donkey Kong in 1981 and sported one joystick and one button for jumping.

Today's sophisticated gamepads can have up to three analog joysticks and 8 or more action buttons. With many modern titles, one playthrough demands a cumulative 10 to 40 hours to complete. The ergonomic innovation of the Nunchuk, coupled with the Wii-mote, eases the most common physical side effect of marathon gaming sessions, hand cramps.

By separating a gamer's hands and allowing them to move independently of each other a great amount is stress is alleviated. By contrast, two or more hours with the Xbox 360's controller can leave a player's hands in a cramped, claw-like condition which is a significant discomfort and can be quite a distraction from the game itself.

The innovation was a stroke of genius and happened quietly while Nintendo's GameCube was languishing in the market place, eclipsed by the shadow of the PlayStation 2, which was the generational market leader by an enormous margin. In 2001 Nintendo commissioned Gyration Inc, to develop a new controller with motion control built into the gamepad for home consoles. The company eventually designed a prototype "Gyropod" controller which resembled a traditional gamepad, but broke away into two pieces, with one half designed for motion control. A watershed break-through never before attempted.

By freeing the hands from each other and distributing the controls between two separate devices, Nintendo pioneered a new era of game control, and in late 2004 they had designed the Wii-mote wand and its accompanying Nunchuk to be prepared for mass production in 2005. Five years later, people are still buying them in droves.

As of January 2010, the Wii leads the generation over the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in worldwide sales, and in December 2009 the Wii broke the record for best-selling console in a single month in the United States.

The Nunchuk continues to be one of the hottest selling hardware items throughout the seasons, a clear hit with the consumers. Even the home-brew community has embraced the device; one YouTube video shows a proud hacker who has engineered a Nunchuk interface to cleverly control a sophisticated model train's full range of motorized features.

The original white Nunchuk was recently made available in black and this Valentines Day Nintendo plans to release a new Wii MotionPlus bundle which will include Nunchuks in pink and blue, so that gamers may continue their love affair with what might be the most popular piece of video game hardware ever designed, the wonderful Wii Nunchuk.

New Film Highlights Violence in Wilmington's Streets

2010-02-01T13:25:00.000-05:00

by Gentle Jones

Delaware is not known for its burgeoning film industry, but patrons of Theater N in Wilmington and the Rehoboth Film Festival know that Ryan Phillipe is not the only local talent on the big screen. Rennie Rox has released a new movie filmed entirely in Wilmington titled "The Game of Death", a fictional crime drama based on the director's real life experience in the city. The filmed debuted at Theater N located in the hotel DuPont and was officially released this month.

Rennie chose his story because he feels it is relevant, considering the current climate of the city, "The Wilmington homicide situation in the streets is out of control, the city is currently under like a terrorist siege. The majority of them go unsolved. This is where I live, I see the situation first hand. Within the last 2 years I can count 10 people that I had a personal friendships with that were murdered in the streets in the City of Wilmington," explains Rennie. "It had to be this film, it is my responsibility as a filmmaker to document this era of what's going on."

"The Game of Death" is a gritty tale which pits street level drug dealers against each other and the Wilmington Police Department. In this story the distinction between good guys and bad guys is blurred. There is a crooked cop Lieutenant Smitty, played by Jimmy Wardell, who forces street hustlers to move his product. There is a sympathetic drug dealer who seems caught up in a life which is doomed to be short and violent, played by Clark Bar (starring as himself). Detective Strickland, played by the director's brother Wize Dome, is prepared to go above the law to protect his home town. Though the violence is underplayed, the perils of the drug game and its accompanying street shootings are clear throughout the film.

The dialogue is what drives the story and is full of Wilmington-isms which faithfully capture our local dialect. Shadiq Granville provides an excellent performance as Dt. Brown, stealing scenes with well timed facial expressions. The funniest moments in the film are captured in the streets, with the playful banter of killers hanging on the corner while they await their next instructions. Delawareans will recognize local landmarks such as Kelley's Logan House, Brandywine Park, Little Italy, Untouchables Barbershop in Elsmere, as well as numerous locations scattered across Wilmington's Northside. Rennie wanted to showcase his home state in a manner that would have world-wide appeal, "Its an unknown landscape in the world, with its own unique feel. We have so much potential for greatness but nobody knows about it." With Delaware in the White House national attention has focused on the state and Rennie hopes this project can transcend to the world stage.

For the past two years Rennie has released a string of Delaware Hip-Hop dvd's which feature scorching performances by hometown favorites like Antbadant, Shizz Nitty, Pretty Thugger, Pops, and Bobby Dimes. He is currently shooting music videos for Delaware artists and writing his next script to film for "The Game of Death" series. Rennie says they took a brief hiatus for the sake of one of the film's stars, "Clark Bar was shot 10 times last year. Right now he is rehabilitating from an operation. He had a problem with his stomach, after the shooting it wasn't healing right so they had to operate and fix that." explains the director.

Rennie Rox has had his own setbacks growing up in Wilmington. "As a young teenager I fell into the fast money, the drug game. I ended up doing some crimes, robberies, I got sentenced 10 years on a home invasion, served 8 years on that. I came home and wasn't ready for me freedom, I got 3 more years on a drug trafficking charges." Since he was 19 years old the director, now 35, has served a total of 11 years in prison.

Subsequent to being released Rennie set about to turn his life around and immersed himself into creative projects. He recorded a rap album along with several dvd's which have been well received in the community. After reaching out to the mayor's office he was assisted by Bev Zimmerman who put him in contact with the Delaware Independent Filmmakers organization. DIF helped him set up a schedule to show the film on more screens this summer. He plans on taking his new release to the Rehoboth film festival as well as several other regional festivals, in association with Delaware based Film Brothers.

Unsure of how to get permission to shoot a crime drama, complete with fake police, fire arms, and shoot outs, Rennie and company went out and just shot the film without telling anyone what they were doing. "Our scenes were so realistic that bystanders thought they were seeing something real, even with them seeing the camera right there. We were filming in Brandywine Park, dumping a "dead" body, and people were driving by with eyes the size of 50 cent pieces saying 'Oh my God!'" recalls Rennie.

Jimmy "Jam" Wardell, who stars as the bad Lt. Smitty, recalls the filming the climax, the gunpoint murder of one of the film's main characters, "They shot 9 blanks and we filmed that, and every house up and down the streets turned their lights on, like dominoes! We still had to film him lying there from a few different angles so we were their for a while and thought for sure the police would be there any minute asking what we were doing."

Director Rennie Rox says the film is close to him because he is writing from his own experiences, "The movie has a purpose, it is addressing the Wilmington homicide situation in a cinematic way. It is fiction, but it is a creative story that is based on reality," he explains. "The movie is about Karma, because what goes on in these streets comes back at you."

Since releasing the film Rennie has partnered with Wilmington Community leader Tyerin Griffin to put together a Stop the Violence movement. They recently had their first community meeting at Official Cuts Barbershop on 24th and Market which was well attended. He also hosts a Hip-Hop open mic every Monday night from 8pm to10pm at Prices Lanes bowling alley on Kirkwood Highway with Shizz Nitty and D-Rock.

The dvd "The Game of Death" is available at the One Stop Hip-Hop Shop on 4th and Orange streets in Wilmington.

The Wilmington Police Department did not respond to requests for comment on the film.

Rapper Apache Dies

2010-01-22T16:57:00.001-05:00

By Gentle Jones

Flavor Unit emcee Apache, born Anthony Teaks, passed away today (January 22) after a protracted illness.

As an original member of Queen Latifah's Flavor Unit, Apache first appeared on 45 King Presents The Flavor Unit and his best known single “Gangsta B**ch” peaked at #11 on Billboard's Hot Rap Singles chart.

Shakim Compere, CEO and Co-Founder of Flavor Unit Records, remembered Apache.

“Without Apache there would have been no Queen Latifah, no Naughty By Nature, no Chill Rob G., no anything” Compere told AllHipHop.com. “Apache was the string that tied all of Flavor Unit together. Without Apache none of this would be.”

Apache was one of the three original rappers in Flavor Unit, which also counted Queen Latifah and Latee as early group members.

The rap crew consisted of groups or rappers like Lakim Shabazz, Lord Alibaski, Chill Rob G., Naughty By Nature, Freddie Foxxx, Nikki D and Queen Latifah.

Apache's appearances included collaborations with Naughty by Nature, Fat Joe, Tupac, and A Tribe Called Quest.

“That’s my g, r.i.p in peace big homie, you will be missed, shout out to his family naughty by nature, I just did a show with them, god bless,” DJ Kid Capri said via Twitter.

Pooch of Cage1 Prepares New Album

2010-01-10T13:22:00.000-05:00

by Gentle Jones

How many emcees in Delaware have been rapping since the 1980's, while steadily releasing relevant Hip-Hop music up to today? Some of the earliest releases came from folks who seemingly have fallen to the wayside, such as Doc D and Disco Beave. both emcees are rumored to have been waylaid by drugs and crime some years back. Those who prevailed comprise a short list: Grand G of Project X, Joey Juggaknotts of IOR, Grouchy Greg and Marchitect of the 49ers, and Pooch of Cage1.

Pooch, lead emcee from seminal Delaware Hip-Hop group Cage1, has nearly completed work for his forthcoming solo album “Will2Live”. The long awaited album will include production by some of the finest talents in the area including Big Mont, Roy Queenan, Cannon, and Gold selling production team Flex & Hated.

As a founding member of Cage1, Pooch has appeared with Gangstarr, Jesse Jackson, and his music airs on the hit television series “Run's House”. His first single “Straight From Cage” garnered worldwide acclaim since its vinyl release in 1991and has been featured on famous DJ mixtapes in the UK as well as Japan. A mint copy of this record fetches hundreds of dollars on ebay and is highly prized as one of the top independent Hip-Hop releases of its time.

Pooch recalls the record's reception in Delaware during the early 90's, “Everybody was liking the record around here. We had a big buzz before we even put out that record. Even in high school we were doing talent shows and different parties as Cage1.”

The name Cage1 is a reference to the Newark neighborhood Brookmont Farms where Pooch and DJ Cannon grew up and formed their first rap group, “The name came around because all the streets were named from birds, so we named it the birdcage, and we called it the Cage. We took the name and made a rap group and just blew it up from there.”

Despite the recognition, success has been elusive, with Pooch's releases becoming overshadowed by pressing concerns of the street life. Are we a product of our environment or do we choose our own path in this life? Pooch reflects on an experience steeped in the streets, “You keep being around it and eventually its going to become a part of you, or you're going to become a part of it. Its the company that you keep, people, places, and things.”

The “Park Legend” album was released in 2002 during a turbulent time for Pooch. “That album was kind of a rush job, because I knew I was going to jail, I just wanted to keep my name out there,” explains Pooch. Shortly after, Pooch was convicted and incarcerated for drug and weapons charges. He served his full 7 years sentence and was recently released.

A life in the streets is the harshest teacher. Pooch says his background set into motion a chain of events that made him who he is today. “My whole life I've always been around drugs, always been around guns, always been around violence. When I made the first record, my brother went to jail for cocaine charges, gun charges, all type of stuff. My other brother, he did 4 and a half years. Plus, I have two other brothers who did jail time. I have a brother who died of AIDS. I have a brother who was abducted and found dead in the Christiana River. My family, they inspire me to write my stories, to do what I do.”

Pooch is in the process of selecting the lead single from “Will2Live” and will release the track within the coming weeks on his new mixtape “Carbon Monoxide”.

Happy Birthday Eddie “Cornbread” Kendricks

2009-12-17T13:20:00.001-05:00

By Gentle Jones

Eddie Kendricks (Edward James Kendrick) was born on December 17, 1939 in Union Springs, Alabama to Johnny and Lee Bell Kendrick.

Kendricks moved to Detroit at 18 and started a singing group the Primes which performed Doo Wop and also capably covered Mills Brothers tunes. Eventually Eddie rose to fame singing first tenor for the Temptations, also often singing with a distinctive falsetto. An original member of the Temptations when they signed to Motown subsidiary Miracle, the group became a Motown staple and the most successful male vocal group of the 1960's. “Get Ready”, “Just My Imagination”, and “The Way You Do The Things You Do” are a few of the smash hits which feature Kendricks as the lead vocalist. In addition to vocal duties Kendricks was the group's primary vocal arranger and defacto wardrobe manager.

From 1960 until 1971 Kendricks sang as one of the Temptations lead singers. An icey relationship with Barry Gordy is cited as a reason Kendricks was originally unable to record solo material while signed to Motown with the Temptations, something Michael Jackson was allow to do while with the Jackson 5. Eventually, Kendricks was permitted to release solo material on Motown's Tamla imprint.

By the 1970's Eddie Kendricks was topping charts as a solo artists with hit singles “Keep On Truckin” and “Boogie Down” and in 1978 he signed away his rights to his Motown royalties to leave the label, moving to Arista and later Atlantic Records.

Eddie Kendricks was inducted into the Rock and Rock Hall of Fame with the Temptations in 1989.

Rakim Features His Aunt Ruth Brown on iTunes' Front Page

2009-12-16T13:13:00.000-05:00

by Gentle Jones

Ruth Brown's music is currently featured on the front page of iTunes music store, the #1 online music retailer. Her nephew, legendary New York Hip-Hop emcee Rakim, included “Mama He Treats Your Daughter Mean” on his Celebrity Playlist, a popular music feature on the site.

“There are a lot of songs in my Aunt Ruth's catalog that we put on when we feel a need for a little classic soul music. I don't have one all-time favorite, but this is one of the tracks she would close her show with, and – like everything else she did – it was always a big number with lots of excitement.” says Rakim about his late Aunt.

Ruth Brown performed on some of Atlantic Records' earliest hit singles; the label is often referred to as “The House That Ruth Built.”

Aretha Franklin to Headline 41st New Orleans Jazz Fest

2009-12-15T13:10:00.001-05:00

by Gentle Jones

The New Orleans Jazz Fest has announced the 2010 line up and the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin will be headlining the event. Aretha Franklin will share the stage with hundreds of acts over the course of 2 weekends, April 23rd through May 2nd, including the Neville Brothers, Anita Baker, rapper Juvenile, and actor Steve Martin, who plays banjo with his bluegrass outfit the Steep Canyon Riders. Also performing during the 41st Jazz Fest will be B.B. King, the Allman Brothers, and New Orleans' own Dr. John.

Aretha Franklin was the first female artist inducted into the Rock and Roll hall of fame. In 2008, Aretha Franklin was named by Rolling Stone magazine the Greatest Singer of All Time. She has 45 Billboard Top 40 hits as well as 20 #1 hit singles.

Franklin was supposed to perform at the 40th New Orleans Jazz Fest but cancelled when asked to participate in the inaugural ball for President Barack Obama, where she was the only featured singer.

The New Orleans Jazz Fest was created to have popular appeal as well as cultural significance. The first festival line up included Mahalia Jackson, the Meters, Duke Ellington, Fats Domino, as well as many others.

Tickets for the festival, which is held at the Fair Grounds Race Course in New Orleans, Louisiana, go on sale today.