Description
"October 1st" (Interlude)
Year created: 1999
Produced by: Dutchyyy (aka Dutchmassive)
Album: "Junk Planet" (Released July 13, 2004) CD & 2xLP (double vinyl)
Label: Atomik / Freshchest Records / Caroline Distribution
Original Concept Drawing by FILTER - Recreated by Skawty Shaw and SlopFunkDust
Graphic design and layout by Open Mic
"Junk Planet" was created 1997-2002, Released world wide 2004.
https://dutchmassive.bandcamp.com/album/junk-planet-1997-2002
------------------------
Backstory:
I began producing & writing & recording rhymes at the same time in 1995. I started making beats on a Casio Keyboard w/ a looping Recording Functionality built it, and began producing and chopping samples in 1997 on a MS-DOS tracker called Mod-Edit which was given to me by my friend and our (Equilibrium/Demigodz/AOTP) producer/emcee, Celph Titled. The software was limited to 4 tracks, enough for a kick, snare, hi-hat and sample, I still have the cassettes of Every beat I made on the Casio and Everything I made in Mod-Edit.
Fast Forward to December 1999, while living in my first apartment as teenage adult located in Town 'n' Country (Tampa Bay, FL) w/ friend / room mate, / fellow Equilibrium group member/emcee, Majik Most We had just returned home from visiting Celph Titled, who had recently moved from Tampa to Manhattan, NYC where he began working at Buds Distribution, while also gaining traction, expanding the Demigodz family after Apathy invited him to be the 3rd member to join the roster.
During our week long stay in NY, we met a lot of people, legends we grew up looking up to and got a lot of things done, including meeting up w/ Atoms Family / Cannibal Ox to record all our verses for our super collab "It Gets Worse" for my upcoming solo album, "Junk Planet" After the session, our homie NEV took us to his crib in Queens, and brought us down to the basement where his studio was and that day would forever impact my life, since it was the first time I got see and learn how to use the iconic Akai MPC2000, Nev Taught me how to sample in, chop, program, add FX, Sequence and together we worked on what would be my first beat on the MPC2000. (I still have this on Cassette as well & Probably should have saved this part of the backstory for if I ever decide to upload it to the forever library but it's so relevant to the backstory this particular track being uploaded now)
Majik knew how passionate I was about producing, as much as I loved to express myself through writing and recording vocals. There was an untapped, endless well of child-like wonder that was visibly noticeable when watching me talk about why I loved the production / beat side of music compared to emceeing. Majik was always and still is very attentive and thoughtful, so between him watching me light up like a kid in the candy store learning how to make beats on the MPC in NEV's basement combined with knowing how sad I was that my means of fostering this area of creativity I so badly wanted to keep exploring and mastering was miles away, since the PC I used up until that point to make beats using Mod-Edit was still at my mother's apartment. So as an Early Xmas gift, Majik rented me an MPC2000 for 31 days.....
I practically did a backflip, while screaming when I opened this surprise gift, weeks before xmas. This hardware was hella expensive at the time, and I could barely afford my half of the rent and bills at that age so I had zero hopes or expectations of getting the chance to play with one again anytime soon.
31 days.... Do you know how long 31 days is at the age of 18? Well maybe not in modern times, but this was the end of the century, pre-smartphone, pre-social media, pre-notifications, instant accessibility or distractions.... I had access to one thing I wanted most in the world at the time for an entire month. I wasted ZERO time!.
I immediately went out and bought a box of Floppy disks, but I didn't have a turntable to sample records into the mpc.... But I did have a High Quality Dual Cassette Deck and Receiver. So I called one of my other best friends, Brian (who did not create music, but collected it at a scale that matched all of us around him who did. For Years, we had been making Themed mixtapes, across multiple genres of music (Which I also still have most of them on cassette) and Brian and I had very very similar tastes in the music we loved. I knew he had a huge collection of records that wasn't hip-hop, and asked him to curate a full 90 minute tape, front to back, and fill it with songs he knew I would want to sample and told him I have only 30 days to get lost in wonder before this rented MPC2000 would turn back into a pumpkin and exit our lives.... 2 days Later.... He brings me the Cassette... (which again, I still have)....
I was only at NEV's crib for a few hours during our NYC visit, and I've never been blessed with the gift of memory retention (something that not only still haunts me but has gotten exponentially worse since 1999 haha. So I had to relearn everything by scratch and by myself... There was no such thing as youtube or tutorials of any kind back then. So I did my best and learned on the fly through trial and error. Between life, work, girlfriend and studio time for both the Equilibrium and my solo album. I ended up with a Total of 9 beats and an outro (at least saved and recorded to Cassette) for that entire rental period.
The first beat I ever attempted to make on my own using the MPC2000 with no help or guidance is the track this entire long winded back story is attached to.
After returning the rental MPC, I was depressed like I lost my girlfriend or a family member. I obsessed over being able to own A beat machine. Between spending a year watching friends cook up on various samplers, SlopFunkDust aka T. The Beat Specialist rocking the ASR-10, Uncle Shredded Wheat rocking the MPC60, Classical Rook (of the Justice League rocking the MPC2000XL right as it came out and no one letting me touch their samplers haha. I was determined to save up and reunite with the MPC... and in April of 2001, Majiks good friend Joe Riga decided he wanted to sell his.... Majik told me, he had a MPC2000 with No FX Board or Memory expansion and was letting it go for $600... After some pleading and begging I finally was the owner of my very own MPC for $400 = )
Shortly after this, I was in a very severe car crash in which a Military Grade Hummer T-boned me Drivers side door going 60 mph while the driver was trying to evade the police. Needless to say... My spine got wrecked and music took a brief pause. I was at the chiropractor's office, on the phone w/ lawyer as he broke the news to me out of the 297k lawsuit coming to us I was only getting 12k of that (I went through my passengers mothers lawyer, and I barely knew the kid. He was a friend of my at the time roommate, who wanted to ride w/ me to moms house to pick up my super nintendo after everyone partying at my house had the sudden urge to play mario kart) While on the phone hearing this, I watched 2nd plane fly into the twin towers on the TV in the waiting room. Pretty unforgettable moment in time that distracted me from how badly my passengers' mom's lawyer finessed me and made me just appreciate being alive and honestly. 12k to me at the time was more money than I had ever seen.
I left the telemarketing company I was working at and started working at the Verizon Wireless Call Center. The increase in Salary, Plus the settlement allowed me to enter the next chapter of adulthood and go from living with roommates, to renting my 1st Studio Apartment....
Alone, No Distractions.... Japanese/Egyptian house decor w/ hella plants, An MPC2000, A New PC that my ex girlfriend's father sold me (which i still have) and finally, and Technique 1200 turntable, to sample from......
This is where I Began my first official (still unreleased) Instrumental album titled "Music2SleepTo..."
Fast Forward to late 2003, Aftering signing a record deal for first official solo emcee album "Junk Planet" while trying to sequence the album before turning it in. I decided, I really want my production to be included on my first album, even if I wasn't rapping on it. I didn't want to include any of my current production at the time because I was emotionally attached to releasing it as a full instrumental album in what I planned to be a double disk album, for my sophomore emcee album...
So I went back to that old tape of beats I made when Majik Rented me the MPC2000, and even though it sounded super dated it time (and sounds extremely dated in 2023 haha) I'm a sucker for symbolic moments etched in time, So I chose the very first beat I made from that first tape and put it as an interlude on Junk Planet.
The day I decided to do this, happened to be my favorite day of the year. The day when (up until the last decade) without fail, like clockwork, the first chilly breeze, free of any ounce of humidity would come.
"OCTOBER 1st"
I'm reluctant to add this super basic, super dated beat to the forever library, knowing that most people will never expand the description to read how old it is, let alone take the time to sit and read through a novel of context but........... It's already cementing on Vinyl, Already Cemented on CD, and everywhere else since July 13th, 2004. Tomorrow is never promised and today is OCTOBER 1st, 2023.
If this artifact ends up finding a home before the end of October, I'll immediately upload that first beat I ever made on an mpc2000 in NEV's basement in Queens...
