ON THAT JUNK PART 2

Once again our man in the field, Hardcore Jerry a.k.a. Heathkilla, breaks you off something proper, and Eons and I put in our two cents. This post is true to the lifestyle. In this junkin' life we must cherish the adventures as well as the treasures they bring, because a digger spends 99% of his time looking and about 1% finding, and how depressed would we be if we viewed that 99% as wasted, unnecessary-to-mention, time. Sometimes the true treasure is found in simply looking; seckle, it's just fuckin' junk. And sorry about the formatting issues here; it was a lot of cut and paste from emails & message boards as well as that fucked up Mac-to-PC cross-mojo shit. Take it away, Jerry:

this weekend was pretty bad. i was on call at work and since i don't have any type of cell phone or morse code or cb radio device, i figured i shouldn't venture too far in case there was a emergency i had to tend to. chico junking sucks. sometimes yard sales are good, but the thrifts are pretty dismal. also all the decent "tweeker warehouses" seem to have gone under or turned into antique malls. i hit most of the spots by my house on friday (because everything was closed saturday) and went of a couple of yard sales. i found a pretty cool looking surfer record with a stock cover and some good liner notes and i got a really cheap tape deck which enabled me to bump public enemy and licensed to ill on the 4th. how come cassettes sound better then my ipod? i must be nuts.

also i picked up this promising looking tape which didn't end up doing much for me.
here is the songs from this tape. Another rare demo from a forgotten Bay Area hip hop pioneer! The first song on side B wins for Smooth Triumph here, because it has traces of a Paris, the Black Panther of Hip Hop, influence, and I can never be mad at that. But be warned, Jerry has this to say about it:

Jerry: the lines "like a salad menu you'll get tossed" and "it's time to bring back the track and act like a bozack" in the first song [on side 1]... it's really not a good look.

Eons: damn is jayswift rocking pajama pants ala mc stinkweed? shout out to wee wee.

Hardcore Jerry responds: damn, you've got good eyes. i'd like to think he picked the pj pants for the photo cause they are good for crouching and would blend nice with the brick backdrop. this tape is signed (again!) by jayswift and money mike on the other side of the j-card. there is no contact info whatsoever. i can't figure out if that is a sign of lack of hustle or some sort of superhustle where dudes could just be "found."

smooth triumph's two cents:
I have a Jayswift 12" from '93 put out by Nu Deal Records. It's the second of the two that Jay and Nu Deal put out. Jay probably got signed to Nu Deal on the strength of that demo tape that Jerry found. Oh shit! I guess the label pressured him into dropping DJ Pep from the moniker, 'cause it didn't fit in with their LL Cool J marketing scheme. Ha! But that's pure conjecture. This 12" is called "What'cha Gonna Do" but the b-side, "Street Life," wins every time, so that's the only one I had Eons rip for y'all. Jayswift's from San Mateo right here on the West Bay Peninsula! And this is actually some pretty rare shit. The guy definitely gets props for getting two 12"s released out of San Mateo way back in the early nines; I'm sure shit was a bitch to pull off. I think this is the first rap 12" to come out of San Mateo ever, KegsOne at San Mateo Zoo could probably clear that up for me. Also makes me wonder if Jayswift and DJ Pep were at that contest at San Mateo City College I first saw Troop 187 (aka Cult of Isis) at. To reiterate Jerry's point though, one has to wonder about "Matty-Oh!'s" understanding of the slang term "bozack" back then. At the start of "Street Life" Jayswift says, "Pay attention while Jayswift drops the bozack," and then at the end of the track he says again, "pay attention when the niggas drop the bozack and I'm out, uh!" Which wouldn't be that necessarily off if it was a sex rhyme, but this rap is about "drug money and ridin' on gold ones." He shouts out DJ Pep at the end too to show that he's still down, and he also shouts out: "MJ behind the set, gettin' busy on the motherfuckin' tracks." MJ is none other than Mark Jarvis, the producer of these beats. If you are a serious Bay Area demo freak you know of Mark Jarvis' sound from when he co-produced the song "Triple Orgasm" with Ajent Orange and Kiilani for the Nitrous Ox demo recorded at the B-Street Recordings studio in San Mateo, I think. I am currently looking for that demo, if anybody has that shit, please upload it right here. That would be dope! Soon as I find that shit in the shed, y'all gotta hear it! Those dudes were from Pacifica, I think; I used to rock that tape a lot; "Tekillya Sunrize" was my gettin' fucked up soundtrack for many months during one of those years I can't remember. There was an emcee on there named Messy Flesh who Z-Man mentions as being "nice as hell" to this day. Ajent Orange, a dope emcee in his own right, is also an old friend of Z and me. His real name is Matt Chang, but he later morphed into the moniker Matth and did some of Anticon's iller shit, beatwise. I'mma call Z and find out what Matt's up to these days, haven't talked to him (Matt) in ages, but I bet he's still concocting dusted shit. And Jerry you're right, being able to just be "found" does = superhustle.

Jayswift "Street Life" (Street Mix) Nu Deal Records, 1993

So see: going junking and buying what you think is bullshit, reminds your friend of some similar bullshit which he re-examines and re-labels "rare" bullshit, and then he connects that rare bullshit to some nostalgia that inspires him to track down a long lost acquaintance to reveal yet another lost-in-obscurity dope as fuck Bay Area demo tape whose local roots trace back to the rare bullshit and original bullshit aforementioned. Kinda makes you rethink what you originally thought was bullshit, huh? And you're not the only one that thinks so...

Look what Jayswift's debut 12" from '92 is going for in euros at the record inspector. (Is that euros? What monetary symbol is that? What's that in dollars? I'm unworldly, help.)

And look at the this weird fucking place that'll sell you the record and a burned cdr of it for quite a pretty penny.

I think Matt Chang would agree with me on this one: Respect out to Jayswift a Bay Area trailblazer for the in the independent rap 12" frontier. We have to respect our predecessors no matter their EPMD-vernacular shortcomings, because we don't exist without guys like this. And big up to San Mateo for producing an intrepid soul such as his. The risk was his to take and he faced it like a G. Part of the forgotten impetus, our forefather.

But kids don't be fooled by those added expenses for easy access. Go junking and see what 50 cents gets you. It's hardly a risk; 50 cents isn't exactly putting your neck on the line. You can do it!

Eons says: Getting home and playing a record and finding out it's dope is the shit I live for, but sometimes you can find an almost equal exhilaration in staring stoned at the sleeves and labels of your finds on the car ride home, trying to find some hint of their dopeness or wackness, because the mystery is still there at that point and that's when my hopes are at their highest.

And our story today proves that even if you are disappointed at first: Disappointments can easily become gems, simply by what they lead you to. Well, sheeeeee-it! If junking isn't the only religion that continually pays off directly and increases your appreciation for the stuff you already have at the same time, I don't know what is. Like my sister always says, "What you appreciate appreciates." She's right y'all. You gotta believe.