Obviously Insane

Hell With The Lid Off. The first album by Dallas native Mark Griffin, aka MC 900 Ft Jesus. When I got got my vinyl (and my CD) signed by both Griffin and his talented partner DJ Zero it was the second time I had seen them live at the Nsect Club right around when the big "hit" album One Step Away From The Spider came out 1994, and when I told Griffin how often I had visited my aunt in Dallas but never had the chance to do any decent record scrounging he wrote me out a monster list of indie stores to check out, and dang if I haven't lost that list over the passing years. But really the most memorable of the two gigs for me was the first one, when this debut album had just been released and my friends and I had that record on continuous play during the soundtrack of our lives together in the early 90's. An acidic bubbling cauldron of house, techno, jazz, rap, and industrial similar to the likes of fellow early 90's compatriots Consolidated and Meat Beat Manifesto, "I'm Going Straight To Heaven" was a dancefloor raver for the whole cluster of us, while "Spaceman" and its soft bed of easy jazzy groove under a desultory beat poem reminds me of Ron Dodson's old Deux X Machina club on Granby Street (where AJ Gator's is now) where we'd lie down on the dancefloor and stare up into the light fixtures and laugh our asses off (meanwhile everyone else stood around pissed that they couldn't dance with us lying there like that). We used to take that line "I scan the crowds until I see someone who is obviously insane..." to virtual performance art in such places. And of course "Truth Is Out Of Style", a favorite rap of ours to chant along to on long car trips to D.C., looking for those tell-tale balls on the telephone lines (locals note: you can always tell you're near Washington D.C. when you start seeing those balls on the telephone wires on the interstate heading into the city).

Anyway, let me know if you have any trouble with the samples.

"I'm Going Straight To Heaven" (m4a file)
"Spaceman" (m4a file)
"Truth Is Out Of Style" (m4a file)

Files available for 7 days.

Purchase CD here.