Mac Dre

Mac Dre was a legend. In his 34 years on earth he recorded 20 albums, appeared on over 20 more, did five years in prison for conspiracy to commit bank robbery, and spearheaded a Bay Area rap movement now known as Hyphy.

Mac Dre hailed from the extremely rough "Country Club Crest" neighborhood in Vallejo, Ca. He began releasing albums in the early 90's, and quickly gained attention as one of the Bay Area's rising stars. Unfortunately that attention was not only being given to him by fans of his music, but also by the local police, who suspected that Mac Dre's Romper Room Gang (named after the popular children's TV show) was involved in the robberies of several area pizza restaurants.

Bored of robbing pizza joints for small amounts of money, the Romper Room Gang moved on to banks, robbing over 35 banks in the Bay Area. The estimated loss of said robberies was over 1.4 million dollars. Word on the street was that the money was being used to fund Mac Dre's recording career, and when the police caught word, they began actively investigating and harassing the young rapper, causing him to record his taunt to the Vallejo Police Department, "Punk Police" on his debut album, "What's Really Going On."

Unlike NWA's "Fuck the Police," "Punk Police" could be played on the radio, and was being played constantly on Bay Area radio stations, much to the aggravation of VPD.

In the song Mac Dre claims he is not the culprit, but also taunts the police for being unable to solve the robberies, calling out the chief of police by name.

Needless to say this did not sit well with the authorities, and as the robberies got bigger, the FBI was called in, and eventually Mac Dre, and fellow rappers J. Diggs, and Kilo were arrested. Mac Dre was not present at that, or as many members of his crew claim, any other robbery. He was instead indicted on conspiracy charges based both on conversations recorded by a police informant, and sentenced to five years in prison with J. Diggs serving 10 years, and Kilo serving eight respectively.

An hour long special on the Romper Room gang and the robberies aired on B.E.T., and here it is in it's entirety, just because I love y'all. (It's actually only about 40 min without the commercials. Also when you click it an ad will open up in annother tab or window, click it again and it will play)

When Mac Dre got out of prison, instead of trying to cash in on his gangster image and acting hard, he wanted to fucking party. And party is exactly what he did.

His music reflected the change, creating a feel good atmosphere more with having fun ("going dumb") than being tough or "gangsta." He began popping ecstasy, calling it "thizz," or "thizzin'," (as opposed to the term "rolling") and invented many of his own dances, referred to as "giggin'." (See the video below for the individual dances and their names)

All of this became part of the Bay Area movement know as Hyphy (a term derived from the word hyper) a movment centered around "feel good" hip-hop music, ecstasy, wild erratic dancing known as "Turf Dancing," or "Thizz Dancing," and wild driving techniques such as "yolking and dipping" (essentially doing doughnuts in the middle of the freeway and driving off) and the infamous "ghostriding the whip." (putting your car in cruise and getting out of the drivers seat, often times doing a dance next to the car as it is moving, or getting on top of the car and "going dumb") check out the two videos below. The first one provides a brief, to the point history of and visual represntation of the Hyphy movement, and the second one is an inspiring video of Mac Dre co-defendant, J. Diggs ghostriding the Bay Bridge late at night.

Unfortunately, every party has to come to an end, and Mac Dre's party was tragically cut short when he was shot after a show in Kansas City, Mo in 2004, at the age of 34. Rumors quickly spread that Kansas City rapper, Fat Tone was responsible. Fat Tone was murdered shortly after by Bay Area rapper Mac Minister, who was the subject of an episode of America's Most Wanted, and later sentenced to life in prison.

While Mac Dre died, his legend continues to grow. With a not too shabby run of 20 albums, his fans have a lot to choose from, and as is the case with many fallen rappers now, his music continues to be release posthumously.

Now as is the case with any artist with that much material, it is hard to find a starting point to get into their music. So, just because I love all of y'all so much, I decided to post a Mac Dre cd (put together by Diego Perez) for y'all to download and get dumb to.

1. Uninvited

2. She Neva Seen

3. Black Buck Rogers

4. Northside

5. Where We Dwell

6. Feelin' Myself

7. Since '84

8. Let's All Get Down

9. Thizzle Dance

10. Cuddies Say Yee

11. Boss Tycoon

Time Killers, Bloodstorm, Micheal Jackson, and Atari porn

Mortal Kombat came out when I was in the fifth grade, and caused a huge stir for it's over the top violent imagery. Needless to say, I had to get my hands on a copy. When I finally got to play it at a neighbor's house, I was stoked. I came back to my fifth grade Catholic School class triumphant, "I played Mortal Kombat this weekend, it was awesome, the part where the guy rips..."

"That's nothing," interrupted my friend Matt Parson, who got to do everything before me due to a very fortunate lack of parental supervision, interrupted, "I just played Time Killers."

"What the heck is Time Killers?" I asked in my squeaky 11-year-old voice.

"They have it at Gator 'Cade, it's way bloodier than Mortal Kombat. You get to have swords and chainsaws, and cut each other's arms and legs off while you are fighting."

That's all I needed to hear.

I immediately planned a mission to Gator 'Cade for the weekend. This was not as easy as it sounds, due to the fact that all of the kids my age went to the Arcade in the mall, Aladin's Castle. Convincing your parents that you wanted to go downtown to the much seedier, Gator 'Cade, which featured less machines, (but more broken machines) and more homeless people was not as easy of a task as it sounds. So instead, I got Tim Hutchens (another classmate who also benefited from less overbearing parents) to convince his mom to take us.

Needless to say, it exceeded my expectations. There was blood, there was limb amputation, you could cut each other's head off. For an 11 year old pre-pubescent Catholic School virgin this was about as good as anything we could imagine.

So recently as an adult, I decided that a Time Killers arcade machine would be a perfect addition to our household. I searched Google in hopes of finding one for sale, and came across an old auction in Beverly Hills that not only contained that, but many other interesting items. It turns out the auction was for none other than the King of pop his damn self, Micheal Jackson.

Yes, Micheal Jackson owned a Time Killers machine. And not only that, it was actually affordably priced, being estimated to go for between $200-300. The only problem being that the auction was scheduled to happen in April (prior to MJ's death, there's no way that shit would be affordable now) and never actually took place. So unfortunately I can't say that I "almost" purchased Michael Jackson's Time Killers machine, but I am saying I "would have." (you should seriously check out the auction link too, there is a lot of cool shit)

Through my research, I found out there was an unofficial sequel to Time Killers called Bloodstorm.

Ever played it? Apparently, almost nobody has. It was one of the biggest flops in arcade history, due to it's ridiculously unnecessary over the top violence, which includes an old man ("the emperor of the world," no less) getting cut open with his intestines hanging out, in the opening sequence of the game. This happens BEFORE you put your quarter in! That coupled with stupid characters, poor graphics, and shitty gameplay made the game a complete flop. And due to that you can buy the boards for a Bloodstorm arcade machine on the internet for around $40, which is something that I just might do.

This is a video of all the "good parts" of Bloodstorm. Trust me you will be entertained.

Another interesting Bloodstorm fact is that the actor who played Johnny Cage in the first two Mortal Kombat games posed for a Bloodstorm ad with the tagline, "The fighting game for real fighters." Midway promptly fired him, and that is why Johnny Cage does not appear in any of the later Mortal Kombat games.

As badly recieved as Bloodstorm may have been, it definitely does not compare to the shitstorm stirred up by Custer's Revenge, a pornographic video game made for the Atari 2600 in 1982. The object of the game is for a cowboy with a very large pixelated erection to move across the screen whilst dodging arrows in order to have sex with a Native American woman, who is tied to a cactus on the other side of the screen. Women Against Pornography, Native American groups, and video game critics all protested the game heavily. Leading feminist Andrea Dworkin went as far as to say that the game "generated many gang rapes of Native American Women." As shitty morally (and as a game) as this game might be, I find this claim realitively hard to believe (not that this is a light-hearted subject), especially when viewing the actual gameplay below. (later versions of the game had the female giving a "come hither" motion with her hand to assure players that no sex crime was being committed)

In fact despite racism or other implications, I find Beat 'Em and Eat 'Em by the same video game company (Mystique, a division of Swedish Erotica) to be equally stomach churning. In this game a man with a large erection masturbates on top of a building, (his semen is yellow, which means someone needs to hit up the clinic) and you control two naked women who catch his emissions in your mouth. At the end of every round they lick their lips and rub their stomach. It's really pretty gross. CHECK IT OUT!!

To avoid claims of sexism every mystique game has a counterpart with the sex roles reversed. Custer's Revenge had General Retreat, with the Native American female trying to fuck the cowboy while dodging cannonballs. Beat 'Em and Eat 'Em had Philly Flasher, where an old witch squirts breast milk at men with exposed John Thomases, and at the end of every round they masturbate. It is equally as repulsive as Beat 'Em and Eat 'Em.

And that's all I have for you today, as i am now going to look in the couch for change to buy a quart. I hope that was somehow informative and that you don't get any weird bad idea's from that damn Custer's Revenge game. I also realized that I may need to change my settings to include adult content for all those pixelated Johnsons I posted this time.

Also I know some of you people like to think things, and say bad things about people, and point fingers and shit, but I want y'all to know I did not make these games. I am merely presenting information which i found to be interesting. So leave me the hell alone.

the KLF: terrible music, but a damn good story.

When i was about nine years old this song would come on the radio about once every 10 minutes. It was like the plague, you just could not escape it.

Anyway, the other day me and my esteemed coleagues Albert Love and Wax Atom were talking about how there were a string of hits in the 90's that all sounded exactly the same. They generally consisted of a techo-ish beat with some deep voiced rapper talking about dancing or having the power or some other complete gibberish. We named off the top of our heads the C & C Music Factory, Snap, and the KLF. Wax Atom said he had never heard of KLF, so we played him the above video in an attempt to jog his memory. He didn't remember, but we sure did laugh a whole lot.
we continued to watch every KLF video we could find. Wax particularly lost his shit on this video, laughing until he cried when Tammy Wynette (who sings the main vocal on this for some inexplicable reason) comes out of a cave singing, "They're justified and they're ancient, and they drive an ice cream van." (at 1:30)

We then found out there was a movie made by KLF called "The White Room". (also the title of the album these songs are off of)

What would happen in a KLF movie, might you ask? It starts out in a club with crappy techno music (big surprise) that they keep cutting out completely. Nothing Happens. they then drive a police car around the city at night, more crappy techno music. Nothing Happens. They then drive the car around for almost the entire remainder of the running time of the movie, even more crappy techno. Nothing Happens. Then they paint the car white. Then they climb a very high snowy mountain. They then enter a room with a lot of fog machines going at the same time (most likely the "white room" from the title) where there are two fake mustaches sitting on a stool. They put on the fake mustaches and leave the room. And that's it. That's the whole fucking movie, except it took them 50 minutes to do it.

Who the hell are these guys??

KLF is actually two producers who used to play in punk bands. KLF was the number one singles band in the world in 1991. But here is the good shit:

They knew exactly what they were doing. Before KLF they started a group called the Timelords, who's only goal was to have a #1 single. They released one song. The terrible "Doctorin' the Tardis," (they credited the writing to "Ford," the car featured in all of the KLF videos) a tribute to Dr. Who over the Gary Glitter track "Rock and Roll Part 2". It Reached # 1 on the UK singles chart.

they then wrote a book entitled, "The Manual (How To Have a #1 the Easy Way)." A guide to creating a hit single with no talent. (promotional video below)

As i said earlier, after this initial success with the Timelords, KLF went to be the biggest singles band worldwide in 1991, and then decided to self destruct in a very entertaining way.

When invited to perform their single "3am Eternal" (video at the top of the post) at a British award show called "The Brits," they accepted and hired British crust legends Extreme Noise Terror to perform with them. This is what ensued:

They later actually played a KLF song, with KLF producer Bill Drummond firing machine gun blanks into the crowd, and sating at the end of the performance, "KLF has left the music business." Unfortunately, the incident was not televised.

They then dumped the carcass of a dead sheep on the doorstep of the afterparty for the awards ceremony.

If all that was not enough, they deleted their entire back catalogue of music, and then took all the rest of the money they made on KLF and burned it. They also made a 50 mintue movie about burning the money.. This is a 3 minute music video put together with the footage.

And that is the story of the KLF. Who knew a band with such shitty music could be so interesting?

So I have a blog...

Get ready y'all I am about to take you on a journey. It's a lot like this video, but with hipsters instead of monsters.