Grippin' & Sippin', mayne!

I like to get out. I love being places I've never been. It doesn't happen nearly as much as I'd like it to, but I like going to completely strange and alien places and just opening my eyes and observing. I like to see all the differences in the environments, and the way people act in different settings. I've learned to take a piece of that with me and become a different person by learning a little more about things I hadn't previously experienced.

When I go to those unfamiliar places to play music, I always worry about what to play. I worry that maybe I won't play what that city likes or is into at the time, and it will just go horribly astray. I try to think about their city…. history…. roots… and I start thinking of my own home… the places I stay… and I realize that I am there to do my own thing….. not adapt to accommodate any alien place, or to stray from how I'm feeling and what I'm feeling.

So I think about the things I see on a regular basis…. I routinely stay in a patch of rough neighborhoods in northern california, and I greet the morning sun by drowning out the sound of sirens or the freeway with my own smoker's cough. In the morning, you might have to kick a dope fiend shooting up off of your front tire, or catch people digging through your trash like raccoons. Right in between two freeways, there's this recycling center with a park across the street where people buy crack. Out front of the recycling center, a statue of c3p0 stands guard majestically while the jawas, dope fiends and tusken raiders line up to bring in their bountiful harvests of aluminum, copper wire, and various other shiny metallic items by the basketful for hours before the place even opens. Trains of shopping carts around the block and even sometimes people towing refrigerators from them have been known to frequent this area.

At night it becomes even more alive than the day, except there are no street lights. It's like a middle eastern bazaar in the middle of the night, lit up by the sporadic flash of bic lighters flaring up. Here you can buy anything; women, stolen goods, and compton caviar (rocks!). I steer clear. The posted speed limit is 25, with several stop signs that nobody obeys while they speed through in their fleetwood broughams at 60 miles per hour. It's almost like lawless pakistan. Sure there are cops…. in better areas… and they only come within 6 hours if you're in danger of dying or already dead.

When you go to the store, people ask you for money, and if you happen to feel soft and give them the money, they don't bother to thank you. Everywhere you go, someone needs a cigarette, and at night, under the freeway it looks like a burning man theme camp, with rv's stacked high with chairs, pipes, planks and everything one would need to build a tree fort, right on top, unconstructed. Sleeping bags line the sidewalk underpass, making it look like the keys of a giant piano from one of those old FAO schwarz stores. I bet this one could only play dirges, however, should tom hanks drop by sometime to play chopsticks.

It's grim sometimes, and at times strangely beautiful…. like it or not…it's part of my life.

I can't complain though, I spend my days out here in the wild west kicking up sand and burning it down with my best friends. There's always something fun to do, and it's not the type of place where you're gonna get sued if shit gets real and you have to act out of character. I wanted to make a quick mix that sounds like the places I see lately, and for the new blog I am working on for kicks, and this is what came of a long night of percolater smoke and wishing I'd have bought a gold chain instead of my first set of turntables.

I've seen my share of places, and slept on my share of floors in places I was unfamiliar with, and now I want you to step into my office and get a taste of where I'm coming from. Come see how I'm living and get a taste of the west coast while you relax in the comfort of wherever it is that you dwell. Welcome to paradise! I invite you to sit next to me in my '84 seville, and drink from my double styrofoam cup. Take a hit of this, see what I'm seein'. Come to my homie's backyard and eat carne asada with me til the cops come. Grab yourself a pitbull and make yourself comfortable.That's some real California love. That's just my observation of the situation when I'm out here grippin' and sippin'. Cheers, bud.

tracklist

Euthanizing a dream- NiT GriT
Fog- Sduk
The Bayou- Cyntel
sunburst- Minnesota
Lost in the blur- Flinch
Purple- NiT GriT
Lightning- Antiserum& illesha
true soul- matty g
two seven- preecha
funk soul- death star
something in your eyes (mistajam remix)- Stinkahbell
My trance girl- Joker
I will never change- Benga
Milky Way- Joker
Jail Break- 12th planet
Electrify- Jakwob
I see U(girl unit remix) Lunice (dials edit)
Jetstream- Minnesota