2016-11-21: I watch for the power to run out on the moon (And that'll be sometime soon)

It's old skool week. There was a brief spell in which I listened to quite a bit of ERM and actually helped make beats for a co-worker and his friend. It was a strange time. In a way, it seemed more open as electronic beat-driven music was really just emerging and no one had really laid claimed to anything. We all just sort of did our thing and shared our successes/failures with others so they could do it, too.

But I also remember having to duck down in the back seat on a few occasions as the only white guy in the car as we drove through neighborhoods having Friday night block parties on the way to the studio. And even then, there was an undercurrent of violence. I sort of checked out when one of the MCs we worked with brought a sawed-off shotgun into the studio because he didn't want the cops to somehow see it in his car. He never threatened anyone to any extent with it, but it was enough to know that wasn't my scene.

Anyway, I always loved how the East Coast pulled from their jazz roots. Jazz can be pretty great when you have the time to listen to it, but it doesn't always fit well within the 2:58 wax cylinder song structure to which we've become so accustomed. And no one could afford the licensing to cut up and sample similar source materials these days, so there more than one reason why you don't hear titles like the ones being posted this week. I don't think we're richer for it. Much of that source material is obscure and now it's going to stay that way.

Added Bonus video: